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Wolf Warriors 2 crosses 4bn yuan mark at Chinese box office
by GBTIMES Aug 10, 2017 15:00 ENTERTAINMENT MOVIES
The Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space. Read more
The record-breaking Chinese action movie Wolf Warriors 2 has now grossed over four billion yuan (US$599m), including online ticketing fees, since its release in mainland China on July 27, according to real-time figures on China’s largest online ticketing platform Maoyan.
Chinese martial artist Wu Jing’s sequel to his 2015 film became the highest-earning film ever at the mainland box office on Tuesday, surpassing the US$504.5m box office record set by The Mermaid.
It is already the fastest Chinese film to break the one billion yuan benchmark, doing so in 85 hours, and also set a new single-day box office record among domestic films by making US$53m on July 30.
"Lectures you, pummels you"
Released in the US on July 28, Wolf Warriors 2 has not enjoyed the same success overseas with just a domestic total of US$1.1m as of August 6, according to the long-running American website Box Office Mojo.
While reviews have been positive on popular Chinese film review site Douban, reaction in the West hasn’t been as kind.
On the movie review site RogerEbert.com, US critic Simon Abrams awarded the film one star and compared it to Rambo II, writing “[the film] lectures you, pummels you, and then expects you to cheer.”
State-run legal news website Fawan forecasts that the film’s final box office figure will be approximately 5.4 billion yuan (US$807.8m).
GBTIMES
Peppa Pig Chinese New Year movie promo goes viral in China
A short film promoting the new Peppa Pig movie set to be released across China for the Spring Festival has gone viral on Chinese social media.
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A Collaborative Project of the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio
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“All For the People, and All By the People”–Lajos Kossuth’s Fight for Hungarian Independence
Ohio Memory May 25, 2018 Digital Collections, Ohio History Connection Selections, State Library of Ohio Digital Collection, Toledo Lucas County Public Library Digital Collection
Section of Kossuth’s speech documented in Welcome of Ohio to Kossuth, via the State Library of Ohio on Ohio Memory.
In February 1852, Ohio Governor Reuben Wood’s message to the Senate and House of Representatives stated the following:
Another subject of universal interest to the American people is the arrival of the Hungarian patriot upon our shores. It has created an excitement, in the bosoms of freemen, only equaled by the landing of our own Lafayette…
Portrait of Reuben Wood (1792-1864), who served as governor of Ohio from 1850 to 1853. Via Ohio Memory.
The Hungarian patriot of whom Wood spoke was Lajos (also known as Louis) Kossuth, a 19th-century lawyer, journalist, and patriot. His quest for democracy and independence for Hungary had driven him from his country, sending him on an aid-seeking mission, first to Great Britain and then to the United States.
Kossuth’s journey towards this moment had begun several years prior. He entered into politics at a relatively early age when he became deputy to a member of the National Diet. His role as deputy included reporting on Diet activities, and the quality of his writing, which leaned towards liberalism, began drawing attention, not only from supporters with similar liberal views, but also from the government who sought to silence those views. As a result, Kossuth was arrested on charges of high treason in 1837 and spent two years in prison, where he learned English by reading the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare.
If the government sought to silence Kossuth, however, they were unsuccessful; after his release, he was more popular than ever. He became editor of a liberal newspaper, and advocated for political reform and an independent legislature for Hungary, which was then governed by Austria. Several years later, in 1847, he succeeded in winning a separate constitution for Hungary within the Austrian Empire, and was named Governor-President of the newly-declared Hungarian Republic in 1849.
Hungarian-American band, courtesy of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library Digital Collection via Ohio Memory. Toledo has a large population of Hungarian descent.
His tenure, however, was short-lived. Within two years, Kossuth was removed from office and found himself in exile. “Before I stepped across the frontier I lay down on the soil of my native land,” he recalled in his 1880 memoir, Memories of My Exile. “I took a handful of earth; one step, and I was like the hull of a wrecked ship, thrown up by the storm on a desert shore… Evil was victorious and I was driven from my home, my Eden.”
His fight did not end with his exile, however, and it was this fight that led him to stand in front of Ohio’s legislators on February 7, 1852, asking for financial assistance to support his cause. “The spirit of our age is Democracy. All for the people, and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people… My nation will rise, called to resurrection by the eternal principles of the law of nature and of nature’s God. It will not lie in the grave longer than the holy number three, and will require your magnanimity by becoming the corner-stone of national independence on the European Continent.” So rousing was his speech that the General Assembly immediately moved to obtain the original manuscript, to be deposited at the State Library of Ohio. Unfortunately, however, the financial assistance he sought was not granted by Ohio.
Cover of Welcome of Ohio to Kossuth, via the State Library of Ohio on Ohio Memory.
Kossuth spent the rest of his life in exile, never ending his fight for independence for Hungary. Throughout his lifetime, he remained an inspiration, highly admired by such notables as Daniel Webster, who wrote a biography on Kossuth in 1851, entitled Sketch of the Life of Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary; President Millard Fillmore, who had helped to negotiate his release from prison and who welcomed him to the United States during his exile; Harvard’s chief librarian, John Landgon Sibley, who said of him that “his talents place him among the giants of the world”; and Abraham Lincoln, whose phrase “of the people, by the people, and for the people” in the Gettysburg Address were influenced by the similar lines in Kossuth’s speech to the Ohio legislature, quoted above. Kossuth died in Turin, Italy, in 1894, and remains a hero to the Hungarian people to this day.
The speech he wrote, with accompanying comments from Ohio legislators, still remains in the collection of the State Library of Ohio. It has been digitized and can be viewed in Ohio Memory. It remains a rousing, inspirational, gorgeous piece, and is a fitting read this Memorial Day weekend, when we remember those who have fought for freedom in the name of the country they love.
Thank you to Shannon Kupfer, Digital Initiatives Librarian at the State Library of Ohio, for this week’s post!
For more information, visit the following links:
Daily Ohio State Journal, February 5, 1852 (via Ohio Memory)
Louis Kossuth: A Celebrated, Disillusioned Hungarian Revolutionary’s Visit to Pittsburgh in 1852 (via Penn State University Libraries)
The American Hungarian Federation
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Louis Kossuth’s Visit (via Case Western Reserve University)
Lajos Kossuth (via Wikipedia; includes images and a recording of Kossuth taken in 1890)
Hungary Louis Kossuth Politics State Library of Ohio
Written by Ohio Memory
Going Downhill
Egyptomania!
“An Absolute Cure”: The Golden Age of Patent Medicine
The Cold of Winter: Winter Solstice
“Where Do We Go From Here?”: World War I Veterans at Home
© 2019 Ohio Memory
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SUPREME COURT DECLINES TO SET STANDARD FOR GRANDPARENT VISITATION
Posted: March 1, 2012 | Author: Lois Lawrence | Filed under: Child Custody and Visitation, Grandparents' Rights | Tags: Connecticut child custody, Connecticut visitation, grandparent rights, grandparents rights, mystic lawyer, mystiic attorney, visiatation | Leave a comment
Last month, the United States Supreme Court made news by declining to review an Alabama case in which grandparents had sought visitation rights with their two teenaged grandchildren. After a lower court granted them specific visitation rights, the Alabama Surpreme Court overturned by the Alabama Supreme court which struck down Alabama’s Grandparent Visitation Act on grounds that it violated the parents’ right to due process. The U.S . Supreme Court’s refusal to review the case, makes the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling the final word in that state, at least for now.
All 50 states have some form of statute specifically allowing grandparents and other third parties to seek custody or visitation rights under various circumstances but the laws are not uniform among the states. The issues are of such interest nationwide that the Attorneys General of five states filed so-called amicus or friend-of-the court briefs.
In most states, grandparents may seek custody and other rights if the parents have first been declared unfit. Often, they are allowed to intervene in divorces as well. This happens when the party most likely to obtain primary custody is the one least likely to foster a relationship between the children and the intervening grandparents.
A more difficult question and one which remains unsettled as a result of the Supreme Court’s action, is what happens if an intact couple, who has not been found to be unfit, cuts off contact between their children and their own parents. That was the situation in the Alabama case.
In many states — Alabama among them –the answer is nothing much, at least not through the courts.
The debate over whether grandparents could be excluded in this way came to a head back in 2000 with the U.S. Supreme Court case of Troxel v. Granville in which the high court held that the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children was perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by the Court. The court went on to say that all courts must presume that fit parents act in the best interest of their children, but the court did not clarify the degree of proof that would be necessary to rebut that presumption.
The Connecticut Supreme Court has looked at various aspects of this issue several times since the Troxel case was handed down. As the law stands in this state now, in order to seek an order of visitation with children over the objection of the parents — at least when those parents remain an intact couple — grandparents must meet a very heavy burden of proof. First, they must allege specific facts that tend to prove that they already have a relationship with the child that is similar in nature to a parent-child relationship. Next, they must allege additional specific facts that would show, if proven, that denial of visitation would cause “real and significant” harm to the child. Without those allegations, the court will not even have jurisdiction to hear the case.
Assuming the petition contains the necessary claims, and the case does reach hearing stage, the grandparents must still prove their allegation by so-called “clear and convincing” evidence. This is a burden of proof substantially more rigorous than the usual standard in civil cases. In visitation disputes between natural parents, for example, the parent seeking visitation must only prove that the visitation sought would be in the best interest of the child.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling went even further by ruling that grandparents could not intervene to seek custody unless the parents had already been determined to be unfit.
Although, grandparents who are estranged from their children would like to see uniformity in the laws governing their rights to seek custody and visitation, it is clear that no solution favorable to that group is ever likely to come from the courts. Instead, rifts between grandparents and their own children will need to be addressed directly or with the assistance of mediators or family counselling professionals. All of those options are dependent on the voluntary cooperation of the adults — something not always easy to achieve.
While this truth may leave aggrieved grandparents feeling powerless, it is also true that any court battle over access to children is likely to do permanent damage to everyone concerned, including the children. One can only hope that grandparents , worried that their relationships with children and grandchildren might be disintegrating, and who understand from the outset that courts will not come to the rescue, will put their energies into reconciliation rather than confrontation before damage to the extended family becomes irreparable.
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Press Release ›
Oxfam launches trans-boundary water governance project in Nepal
Oxfam in Nepal has launched a five-year programme to promote improved policies and practices that protect the rights of riverine communities along four districts of Mahakali River Basin by working with governments, private sector and other actors as well as women’s networks to strengthen their voice in decision making on water management and building infrastructure.
Funded by the Government of Sweden through its Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) office in Bangkok, the project will be implemented by Oxfam and regional and national partners in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“The project looks at different dynamics of disaster from a river-basin lens,” said Dr. Swornim Wagle, Vice Chair of the National Planning Commission, adding, “We’re drafting a Resilience Book which could be a reference document for TROSA.” He further added, “INGOs could work together with the government to reap more benefits.”
The Nepal project will work in Darchula, Baitadi, Dadeldhura, and Kanchanpur districts for five years. Among others, the project will establish early warning system on Mahakali River Basin, collect challenges and good practices of riverine communities and present it to the government of Nepal (Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Water and Energy Commission Secretariat, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs) for further actions. Additionally, the project aims at empowering women on transboundary issues and also to support them in generating income. “If we could get enough support from government, private sector, partners, and INGOs, we could make this project a success,” said Cecelia Keizer, Country Director of Oxfam in Nepal.
Most of the population in the target areas are involved in agriculture—growing wheat, paddy rice, barley, maize, vegetables, potato and garlic in small scale. Men are involved as fishers; men and women also gather sand and stones from the river and crush them to produce construction materials. Most of the trade for the marginalized communities is from Nepal to neighboring country India, where they sell sand and gravel, fish and vegetables to the larger markets.
The TROSA projects aims to reach 224, 600 people among which 11% are people from Dalit community. It also aims at strengthening capacity of the river basin communities and civil society to have their voice heard in trans-boundary water resource management. By bringing together academic research with local knowledge, the project will build on evidence which will influence the trans-boundary water resource governance.
The TROSA project in Nepal is being implemented in partnership with ICIMOD (International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, WWF (World Wide Fund), IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), RUDES (Rural Development and Environment Management Society), RUWDUC (Rural Women Development and Unity Center), NEEDS (National Environment and Equity Development Society), and Sankalpa Darchula.
The riverine communities’ problem has been impacted by the increasing natural disaster and hazard combing with the human induced disaster. The example includes the 2013 flood in Darchula where it damaged the Khalaga market place including loss of Kalagadh Micro Hydro project's powerhouse and its transformer, damaged Resource Centre of the District Education Office and mortuary of the District Hospital.
Oxfam in Nepal worked in the Transboundary water issues in 2008 after the Koshi flood. Oxfam has worked to establish Early Warning System in Dadeldhura through Safer project funded by ECHO in 2013 and has also been supporting government officials to enhance their capacity in Early Warning system since 2008.
Oxfam also responded to the Mid-West flood in 2014, flood in the eastern Terai 2017
TROSA project in Nepal has four implementing partners—RUDES (Rural Development and Environment Management Society), RUWDUC (Rural Women Development and Unity Center), NEEDS (National Environment and Equity Development Society), and Sankalpa Darchula. The total budget of the project is USD 1.4 Million for five years.
If you have any questions, please write to Prerana Marasini (pmarasini@oxfam.org.uk), Media and Communications Coordinator
transboundary rivers of south asia
TROSA nepal
mahakali river basin
Permalink: https://oxf.am/2Hx7xCk
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About the Book, Book Chapters, Book Reviews, Buy the Book, Music Industry, The Future
The Future of Music Book and Podcast
The Future of Music – by Dave Kusek and Gerd Leonhard
The Future of Music book is available in various forms.
You can buy the book on Amazon.
You can purchase the audiobook from Audible.
You can listen to the book on iTunes as a podcast for free. Go to the iTunes store and search “Future of Music” podcasts and subscribe.
Here are a few of the reviews.
Two innovators in music technology take a fascinating look at the impact of the digital revolution on the music business and predict “a future in which music will be like water: ubiquitous and free-flowing.” Kusek and Leonhard foresee the disappearance of CDs and record stores as we know them in the next decade; consumers will have access to more products than ever, though, through a vast range of digital radio channels, person-to-person Internet file sharing and a host of subscription services. The authors are especially good at describing how the way current record companies operate – as both owners and distributors of music, with artists making less than executives – will also drastically change: individual CD sales, for example, will be replaced by “a very potent ‘liquid’ pricing system that incorporates subscriptions, bundles of various media types, multi-access deals, and added-value services.” While the authors often shift from analysts into cheerleaders for the über-wired future they predict – “Let’s replace inefficient content-protection schemes with effective means of sharing-control and superdistribution!” – their clearly written and groundbreaking book is the first major statement of what may be “the new digital reality” of the music business in the future.
5.0 out of 5 stars THE FUTURE OF MUSIC IS NOW
Gian Fiero (Hollywood, California)
This book is so brilliant that it makes the vast majority of music industry books that are being published seem irrelevant. It discusses in detail, the reasons why the future of the music industry is headed into the digital/mobile entertainment era. It also provides statistical information that professionals, marketers, entrepreneurs, and educators can use constructively. Both Dave and Gerd (the books co-author), have their fingers firmly planted on current music industry activities and trends. They also possess and display a clairvoyant eye toward the future that offers beneficial insight and foresight to those who may not be aware of what this whole digital (i.e. independent) revolution is about, and most importantly, what it will entail to prosper in it. The book is easy to read, easy to understand and simply brilliant. If you buy just one industry book this year, this should be THE one. Buy it now!
5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible
Stephen Hill “Producer, Hearts of Space” (San Rafael, CA USA)
A stunningly candid source of concentrated, up to date insight about the music business and its turbulent transition into the digital era. This book tells it straight and will make the dinosaurs of the music industry very unhappy.
Like Martin Luther’s ’95 Theses’ nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, Kusek and Leonard drive nail after nail into the sclerotic heart of the old-fashioned music business. Their rational vision of the future of music rests on the idea of unshackling music from the hardcopy product business in a yet-to-be-realized era of open content licensing, facilitating sharing and communication among users, and growing the business to its full potential.
It provides as clear a vision of the future of the music industry as you will find, from two writers with a rare combination: a solid grounding in the traditional practices of the music business, an up-to-the-minute knowledge of the new technologies that are changing it, and the ability to think through the consequences.
I’ve dreamed about a book like this, but thought it would be impossible in today’s hyperdynamic environment where every week seems to bring a breakthrough technology, device, or service. But by digging out the underlying trends and principles Kusek and Leonard get under the news and illuminate it. Along the way they provide a brilliantly concise history of the evolution of digital media.
I can’t think of any book more important for artists to get the full re-orientation they need to survive and prosper in the digital era. It’s no less critical for members of the music and broadcasting industries who need to consolidate their thinking into a coherent roadmap for the future. In a word: indispensible.
Other things to do from here:
We have a wide variety of blog posts and articles on the music business and the future of music. Please click on any of these links to read more.
How to Promote Your Music
How to License Your Music
How to get your Music on Spotify Playlists
How to book bigger and better Gigs.
Instagram for Musicians
January 20, 2018 /9 Comments/by newartistmodel
https://i0.wp.com/newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/book_the-future-of-music3.jpg?fit=196%2C299&ssl=1 299 196 newartistmodel http://newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo_transparent-copy.png newartistmodel2018-01-20 06:00:002019-02-05 22:53:00The Future of Music Book and Podcast
Music Copyright / Legal, Music Industry, The Future
Fighting for Future Table Scraps
The future of the profitability of the recorded music business is unquestionably in jeopardy. One might speculate that new “access based” services like Rdio and Spotify could re-start a failing record industry. I hope so.
But as sales have fallen to less that 1/2 their heights at the turn of the century, artists and their managers and attorney are looking to every means possible of generating revenue both now and in the future from their recorded works.
The New York Times published a great piece on the coming battles over song rights, excerpted here. This will be a very interesting fight to watch as it has the potential of forever driving the nail into the coffin of the traditional record labels, forcing a complete restart of the business if it is to survive at all.
“When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted “termination rights,” which allow them to regain control of their work after 35 years, so long as they apply at least two years in advance. Recordings from 1978 are the first to fall under the purview of the law, but in a matter of months, hits from 1979, like “The Long Run” by the Eagles and “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, will be in the same situation — and then, as the calendar advances, every other master recording once it reaches the 35-year mark.”
“The provision also permits songwriters to reclaim ownership of qualifying songs. Bob Dylan has already filed to regain some of his compositions, as have other rock, pop and country performers like Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and Charlie Daniels, according to records on file at the United States Copyright Office.”
“In terms of all those big acts you name, the recording industry has made a gazillion dollars on those masters, more than the artists have,” said Don Henley, a founder both of the Eagles and the Recording Artists Coalition, which seeks to protect performers’ legal rights. “So there’s an issue of parity here, of fairness. This is a bone of contention, and it’s going to get more contentious in the next couple of years.”
“My gut feeling is that the issue could even make it to the Supreme Court,” said Lita Rosario, an entertainment lawyer specializing in soul, funk and rap artists who has filed termination claims on behalf of clients, whom she declined to name. “Some lawyers and managers see this as an opportunity to go in and renegotiate a new and better deal. But I think there are going to be some artists who feel so strongly about this that they are not going to want to settle, and will insist on getting all their rights back.”
“Given the potentially huge amounts of money at stake and the delicacy of the issues, both record companies, and recording artists and their managers have been reticent in talking about termination rights. The four major record companies either declined to discuss the issue or did not respond to requests for comment, referring the matter to the industry association.”
“But a recording industry executive involved in the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the labels, said that significant differences of opinion exist not only between the majors and smaller independent companies, but also among the big four, which has prevented them from taking a unified position. Some of the major labels, he said, favor a court battle, no matter how long or costly it might be, while others worry that taking an unyielding position could backfire if the case is lost, since musicians and songwriters would be so deeply alienated that they would refuse to negotiate new deals and insist on total control of all their recordings.”
“Right now this is kind of like a game of chicken, but with a shot clock,” said Casey Rae-Hunter, deputy director of the Future of Music Coalition, which advocates for musicians and consumers. “Everyone is adopting a wait-and-see posture. But that can only be maintained for so long, because the clock is ticking.”
Read the entire NYTimes article here.
August 17, 2011 /2 Comments/by newartistmodel
https://i1.wp.com/newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/album-chart-2011.jpg?fit=407%2C675&ssl=1 675 407 newartistmodel http://newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo_transparent-copy.png newartistmodel2011-08-17 10:09:532013-11-13 20:15:22Fighting for Future Table Scraps
File Sharing / P2P, Music Copyright / Legal, Music Formats, Music Industry, Music Marketing, Music Publishing, The Future
iCloud – Amnesty for Music Pirates?
Well, we finally have it. Music like water raining down from the sky. iCloud.
For slightly more than $2/mo everybody will soon have access to all the music they can find, steal, share, rip, produce, morph or buy using iTunes Match. Is this amnesty for all the music pirates? I hope so.
As we predicted in The Future of Music, the future is about access to music rather than ownership. With Apple iCloud and iTunes Match, Apple has once again set the bar for all music distributors, while again lining up all the major record labels for yet another lunch. The twist to all of this is – does iCloud grant you immunity from prosecution for copyright infringement for sharing or downloading music however you wish to? We shall see.
Fantasize with me as we did in 2005…
It’s the year 2015 and you wake to a familiar tune playing softly. It gets you out of bed and makes you feel good. As you walk into the bathroom, your Personal Media Minder activates the video display in the mirror, and you watch a bit of personalized news while you get ready for the day. You step into the shower and your personalized music program is ready for you, cued up with a new live version of a track that you downloaded the other day. It is even better than the original recording, so while you dress, you tell your “TasteMate” program to include the new track in your playlist rotation.
You put on your new eyeglasses, which contain a networked audio headset, letting tiny earbuds slip into your ears. You switch on the power, and the mix that your friend made for you starts to play. Music pours into your consciousness. It becomes yours.
During the day, your headset and other wireless devices help you communicate across the network, with your friends, associates, network buddies, and “digital peers.” The headset also keeps you connected to that hard rock collection that you really love to listen to. Meanwhile, a variety of new songs, new versions, and remixes of tracks you truly dig, along with your old favorites, continues to come your way. Using TasteMate, you access and trade playlists, and recommend a couple of songs to your friend in Seattle, and they get added to his rotation. Music propels you throughout the day.
This is the future of music– a future in which music will be like water: ubiquitous and free flowing. In this future, music will be ubiquitous, mobile, shareable, and as pervasive and diverse as the human cultures that create it. Many of the already ill-fitting definitions of copyright and intellectual property and patent laws will be adapted to fit the “music like water” model that we propose–in a way that ensures the enjoyment and benefit of society as a whole, and that allows all involved parties to prosper.
David Bowie encapsulated the current state of affairs in a June 2002 New York Times article:
“The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within ten years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in ten years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing. Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. [ . . . ] So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left. It’s terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn’t matter if you think it’s exciting or not; it’s what’s going to happen . . .”
Let’s run the numbers. As I outlined in Forbes, with hundreds of millions of people connected to digital networks, the potential annual revenue stream for this is enormous. At $25 per person, if 200 million people opted in for iTunes Match, the service would gross $5 billion a year just for the ability to provide access to any song on any device, and let you pirate all the music you want to at will. Add to that the money from new songs you purchase, premium access, increased storage, exclusive concerts and the recording industry may see a bottom to its revenue decline, and could begin to rebuild from there. Seem counter intuitive? The record business will never be the same again, but maybe (just maybe) it will not go extinct.
And it remains to be seen if iTunes Match will grant you complete immunity from prosecution for copyright infringement. Kind of like AppleCare for pirates. There are lots of moving parts to this story.
This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post.
June 6, 2011 /26 Comments/by newartistmodel
http://newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo_transparent-copy.png 0 0 newartistmodel http://newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo_transparent-copy.png newartistmodel2011-06-06 23:56:202014-03-11 12:45:59iCloud - Amnesty for Music Pirates?
File Sharing / P2P, Music Creation, Music Industry, Music Publishing, The Future
How Will Musicians Earn Money in the Future?
Here is an excerpt from a great piece from Wyndham Wallace of The Quietus on how the music industry is killing music and blaming the fans. This rather dark opinion is spot on in so many ways and raises some very difficult questions about the future of the music business that most people do not want to talk about.
“All the time the industry talks of money: money it’s lost, money it’s owed. It rarely talks about the effects upon artists, and even less about how music itself might suffer. But no one cares about the suits and their bank accounts except shareholders and bankers. People care about their own money, and the industry not only wanted too much of it but also failed to take care of those who had earned it for them: the musicians. And it’s the latter that people care about. Because People Still Want Good Music.”
“In March this year, for instance, the RIAA – the Recording Industry Association of America – and a group of thirteen record labels went to court in New York in pursuit of a case filed against Limewire in 2006 for copyright infringement. The money owed to them – the labels involved included Sony, Warner Brothers and BMG Music – could be, they argued, as much as $75 trillion. With the world’s GDP in 2011 expected to be around $65 trillion – $10 trillion less – this absurd figure was, quite rightly, laughed out of court by the judge. The RIAA finally announced in mid May that an out of court settlement for the considerably lower sum of $105 million had been agreed with Limewire’s founder.”
What is questionable about all of this is exactly how much of the settlement of $105 million will flow to the musicians, songwriters and producers whose work was the subject of the infringement to begin with. In previous settlements including Napster ($270 million), Bolt ($30 million), Kazaa ($130 million) and MP3.com ($100 million) it is unclear how much, if any, of the money received by the labels ever reached the pockets of the artists. I have yet to see an accounting of this and many managers I have spoken with have simply laughed when I asked the question if they ever received any payment from these settlements. I suppose that proceeds from litigation may be considered recoupable costs.
“But if the industry wants to talk money, let’s talk money, albeit the ways that developing musicians are encouraged to make up the loss of sales income in order to ply their trade. Someone’s got to bring this up, because it’s not a pretty picture. Consider, first, direct-to-fan marketing and social networking, said to involve fans so that they’re more inclined to attend shows, invest in ‘product’, and help market it. In practise this is a time-consuming affair that reaps rewards for only the few. Even the simple act of posting updates on Facebook, tweeting and whatever else is hip this week requires time, effort and imagination, and while any sales margins subsequently provoked might initially seem higher, the ratio of exertion to remuneration remains low for most. It’s also an illusion that such sales cut out the middlemen, thereby increasing income, except at the very lowest rung of the ladder: the moment that sales start to pick up, middlemen start to encroach upon the artist’s territory, if in new disguises. People are needed to provide the structure through which such activities can function, and few will work for free – and nor should they – even though musicians are now expected to.”
“Still, if an act can find time to do these things, or has the necessary capital to allow others to take care of them on their behalf, then they can hit the road. Touring’s where the money is, the mantra goes, and that’s the best way to sell merchandise too. But this is a similarly hollow promise. For starters, the sheer volume of artists now touring has saturated the market. Ticket prices have gone through the roof for established acts, while those starting out are competing for shows, splitting audiences spoilt for choice, driving down fees paid by promoters nervous about attendance figures. There’s also a finite amount of money that can be spent by most music fans, so if they’re coughing up huge wads of cash for stadium acts then that’s less money available to spend on developing artists. And for every extra show that a reputable artist takes on in order to make up his losses, that’s one show less that a new name might have won.”
“Touring is also expensive. That’s why record labels offered new artists financial backing, albeit in the form of a glorified loan known as ‘tour support’. Transport needs to be paid for, as do fuel, accommodation, food, equipment, tour managers and sound engineers. These costs can mount up very fast, and if each night you’re being paid a small guarantee, or in fact only a cut of the door, then losses incurred can be vast, rarely compensated for by merchandising sales. Again, financial backing of some sort is vital, but these days labels are struggling to provide it. In the past, income from record sales could be offset against these debts, but with that increasingly impossible, new artists will soon find it very hard to tour. Everyone’s a loser, baby.”
From Beck’s ‘Loser’
Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare
Banned all the music with a phony gas chamber
‘Cause one’s got a weasel and the other’s got a flag
One’s got on the pole shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose job
The daytime crap of a folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
Soy un perdidor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?
(Know what I’m sayin?)
“Whether the industry likes it or not, music is now like water: it streams into homes, it pours forth in cafés, it trickles past in the street as it leaks from shops and restaurants. Unlike water, music isn’t a basic human right, but the public is now accustomed to its almost universal presence and accessibility. Yet the public is asked to pay for every track consumed, while the use of water tends to be charged at a fixed rate rather than drop by drop: exactly how much is consumed is less important than the fact that customers contribute to its provision. Telling people that profit margins are at stake doesn’t speak to the average music fan, but explaining how the quality of the music they enjoy is going to deteriorate, just as water would become muddy and undrinkable if no one invested in it, might encourage them to participate in the funding of its future. So since downloading music is now as easy as turning on a tap, charging for it in a similar fashion seems like a realistic, wide-reaching solution. And just as some people choose to invest in high-end water products, insisting on fancy packaging, better quality product and an enhanced experience, so some will continue to purchase a more enduring musical package. Others will settle for mp3s just as they settle for tap water. Calculating how rights holders should be accurately paid for such use of music is obviously complicated but far from impossible, and current accounting methods – which anyone who has been involved with record labels can tell you aren’t exactly failsafe – are clearly failing to bring in the cash.”
“The problem is, it’s not really the industry that is being cheated. It’s the artists and their fans. People get what they pay for, but – whatever the industry claims – most fans know that. They just don’t want to hear the businessmen fiddle while the musicians are being burnt. Revenues are unlikely ever again to reach the levels of the business’ formerly lucrative glory days, but in its stubborn refusal to recognise that both the playing field and the rules themselves have been irreversibly redefined without their permission, the industry is holding out for something that is no longer viable. Lower income is better than no income, and the industry has surely watched the money dwindling for long enough. Musicians, meanwhile, are being asked to make more and more compromises as they’re forced to put money ahead of their art on a previously unprecedented scale.”
Read the whole ugly story here at The Quietus.
The comments alone tell the sad story of the state of affairs in the music industry today.
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Future of music tag cloud
Another Wordle rendering.
This is how Wordle sees my blog
February 1, 2010 /1 Comment/by newartistmodel
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Book Reviews, Music Formats, Music Industry, Music Marketing
Appetite for Self-Destruction
Most of this is old news, but you got to love this line:
“You can’t roll a joint on an iPod,” the singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne told The New York Times Magazine early last year. And, O.K., I suppose that’s among the iPod’s drawbacks. But it’s hard to think of an electronic device released in recent decades that’s brought more pleasure to more people.
Should anyone care that in the process, the iPod has all but killed the music industry as we’ve known it? Maybe not, Steve Knopper writes in “Appetite for Self-Destruction – The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age,” his stark accounting of the mistakes major record labels have made since the end of the LP era and the arrival of digital music. These dinosaurs, he suggests, are largely responsible for their own demise.
Mr. Knopper, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, provides a wide-angled, morally complicated view of the current state of the music business. He doesn’t let those rippers and burners among us — that is, those who download digital songs without paying for them, and you know who you are — entirely off the hook. But he suggests that with even a little foresight, record companies could have adapted to the Internet’s brutish and quizzical new realities and thrived.
“The CD boom lasted from 1984 to 2000,” Mr. Knopper writes. Then the residue of old mistakes and a wave of new realities began hammering the music industry from all sides.
One of the first things the labels got wrong, Mr. Knopper says, was the elimination of the single. It got young people out of the habit of regularly visiting record stores and forced them to buy an entire CD to get the one song they craved. In the short term this was good business practice. In the long term it built up animosity. It was suicidal.
When Napster and other music-sharing Web sites showed up, the single came back with a vengeance. Before long MP3 — the commonly used term for digitally compressed and easily traded audio files — had replaced sex as the most searched-for term on sites like Yahoo! and AltaVista.
The record industry bungled the coming of Napster. Instead of striking a deal with a service that had more than 26 million users, labels sued, forcing it to close. A result, Mr. Knopper writes, was that users simply splintered, fleeing to many other file-sharing sites. “That was the last chance,” he declares, “for the record industry as we know it to stave off certain ruin.”
Read more of this book review from the New York Times.
January 29, 2009 /1 Comment/by newartistmodel
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File Sharing / P2P, Music Copyright / Legal, Music Creation, Music Formats, Music Industry, Music Marketing, Music Publishing, Radio, The Future
Cycles in Music – Video
From the Business Innovation Factory Summit, my presentation on the Past, Present and Future of Music.
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Here is the story they wrote about me for the Summit.
Back in the seventies, David Kusek walked from his freshman dorm at the University of Connecticut, down a long hill to the music department for classes several times a week. When the routine got a little stale, he began taking other routes. One detour took him past the computer science building where he quickly noted the “hot” cars in the parking lot. Naturally, he began taking computer science courses.
Great ideas are born in such serendipitous ways. When Kusek melded his deep-rooted love of music with his newfound affinity for computers, he opened up unchartered territory in the music world by inventing the electronic drum. His company, Synare, took a relatively unfamiliar technology (computers) and combined it with an indigenous musical tradition that tuned percussion to the key of the song. Kusek also knew how to start a business, develop products, and take them to market. Having the right price point added to the appeal of the electronic drum and attracted the attention of fledgling artist Donna Summers who took a chance on the new sound and propelled her career.
“For better or worse, we had our part in the disco age,” Kusek says. “We helped to define the sound of the era.”
Taking another detour for curiosity’s sake led Kusek to study animal communication in California with noted biologist John Lilly. They were trying to use sound to communicate with dolphins when the Apple II computer came to market.
Kusek was already synthesizing the sounds that dolphins make, so he devised a way to do the same with musical instruments, to “put the Apple II between the instruments.” He explains that his new company, Passport Designs, “broke music down into a language of expression, which we mapped to simple computer code and connected it to the instruments. We created a computer language for music.” Witness the birth of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), developed by a group of companies including Passport, which has left an indelible mark on the music industry by becoming the prototype for all music interface software.
If only they had patented it.
Kusek, along with Dave Smith and the other people responsible for creating MIDI could have made millions with MIDI, but he remains philosophical about this missed opportunity. “Maybe the reason why it took off was that it was absolutely free,” he says. “It was a compact way of representing music in a simple and cheap format.”
Kusek has learned to appreciate and even extol the benefits of free and open access to music. He helped create musical notation software and was instrumental in developing enhanced CDs for the commercial market. He supports the creation of a music utility to “monetize” the immense wave of file-sharing that has become standard operating procedure in the industry. He reasons that Internet users already pay for access to a network that supplies the music, so why not add a nominal fee to the ISP bill and allow for legal trading? With approximately 80 million households using the Internet, a monthly music utility fee of $3 would generate almost $3 billion in annual music sales from households alone.
“If you tracked what was downloaded,” Kusek says, “you could create a system where the money flows exactly to the people who are listening. It could be a 30 to 40 billion dollar business again, as it was in the nineties.”
Admittedly, this system would spread those billions among a larger base of artists, establishing an unfamiliar sense of parity in the music industry. But Kusek says that the megastar is gone, anyway: “In the last four to five years, new artists coming to market are not making anywhere near what artists like Madonna made. I think that happens because of file-sharing, but also because the music industry was taking its eye off what was important. In the mid-nineties, the record companies thought their customers were WalMart and Target. They had no connection to their audience at all.”
File-sharing may have killed the megastar, but not the art, Kusek insists. “I think it’s a great time to be an artist,” he says. New performers may have smaller audiences, but they also have a more efficient way of finding that audience and staying connected to it through online chats, newsletters, and blogs. And instead of the record industry’s marketing machine pushing music at fans with an $18 plastic CD case and the elaborate promotion attached to it, word of mouth is shaping the musical tastes of the rising generation.
As it should, according to Kusek. He has brought technological innovations to the music industry by accepting such change and using it to open up the possibilities of sound. He envisions music flowing in a clean stream wherever people communicate, allowing artists and fans to express themselves freely.
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File Sharing / P2P, Music Copyright / Legal, Music Creation, Music Formats, Music Industry, Music Marketing, Music Publishing, The Future
Paul McGuinness speaks out at Cannes.
The full script of the speech everyone is talking about in Cannes, as made by U2 manager Paul McGuinness at Midem.
McGuinness: “Good afternoon and thank you for giving me this opportunity. I don’t make many speeches and this is an important and imposing occasion for me. What I’m trying do here today is identify a course of action that will benefit all: artists, labels, writers and publishers.
I have been managing the best-known of my clients, U2, for exactly 30 years. Sure we’ve made mistakes along the way but the lineup hasn’t changed in 31 years. They are as ambitious and hardworking as ever, and each time they make a record and tour, it’s better than the last time. They are doing their best work now. During that time the music business has been through many changes.
At the beginning U2’s live appearances were loss-making and tour support from our record label was essential for us to tour and that paid off for the label as U2’s records went to No.1 in nearly every international territory starting in the mid ’80s and I’m happy to say that continues to the present day. They have sold about 150 million records to date and the last album went to No.1 in 27 territories.
U2 own all their masters but these are licensed long-term to Universal, with whom we enjoy an excellent relationship. With a couple of minor exceptions they also own all their copyrights, which are also licensed to Universal. U2 always understood that it would be pathetic to be good at the music and bad at the business, and have always been prepared to invest in their own future. We were never interested in joining that long, humiliating list of miserable artists who made lousy deals, got exploited and ended up broke and with no control over how their life’s work was used, and no say in how their names and likenesses were bought and sold.
What U2 and I also understood instinctively from the start was that they had 2 parallel careers first as recording and songwriting artists, and second as live performers. They’ve been phenomenally successful at both. The Vertigo Tour in 2005/2006 grossed $355m and played to 4.6m people in 26 countries.
But I’m not here to brag. I’m here to ask some serious questions and to point the finger at the forces at work that are destroying the recorded music industry.
People all over the world are going to more gigs than ever. The experience for the audience is better than ever. This is proved by the upward trend in ticket prices, generally un-resisted. The live business is, for the most part, healthy and profitable. Bands can gig without subsidy. Live Nation, previously a concert and venue company is moving into position with merchandising, ticketing, online, music distribution as one of the powerful new centres of the music industry.
So what has gone wrong with the recorded music business?
More people are listening to music than ever before through many more media than ever before. Part of the problem is that the record companies, through lack of foresight and poor planning, allowed an entire collection of digital industries to arise that enabled the consumer to steal with impunity the very recorded music that had previously been paid for. I think that’s been a cultural problem for the record industry — it has generally been inclined to rely for staff on poorly paid enthusiasts rather than developing the kind of enterprise culture of Silicon Valley where nearly every employee is a shareholder.
There are other reasons for the record business’s slow response to digital. The SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) of the ’90s pan-industry, was a grand but ill-fated plan to try and agree rules between the content and technology industries. It went nowhere. SDMI, and similar attempts at cooperation by record companies, have partly been thwarted by competition rules. The US government has sometimes been overzealous in protecting the public from cartel-like behaviour.
I love the record business, and though I may be critical of the ways in which the digital space has been faced by the industry I am also genuinely sympathetic and moved by the human fall-out, as the companies react to falling revenues by cutting staff and tightening belts. Many old friends and colleagues have been affected by this. They have families and it is terrible that a direct effect of piracy and thievery has been the destruction of so many careers.
Nonetheless there is one effective thing the majors could do together. I quote from Josh Tyrangiel in Time Magazine: – “The smartest thing would be for the majors to collaborate on the creation of the ultimate digital-distribution hub, a place where every band can sell its wares at the price point of its choosing”. Apple’s iTunes, despite its current dominance, is vulnerable. Consumers dislike its incompatibility with other music services, and the labels are rebelling against its insistence on controlling prices. Universal the largest label in the world has declined to sign a long term deal with iTunes. “There’s a real urgency for the labels to get together and figure this out,” says Rick Rubin of Columbia Records.
There is technology now, that the worldwide industry could adopt, which enables content owners to track every legitimate digital download transaction, wholesale and retail.
This system is already in use here in Cannes by the MIDEM organisation and is called SIMRAN. Throughout this conference you will see contact details and information. I recommend you look at it. I should disclose that I’m one of their investors.
Meanwhile in the revolution that has hit music distribution, quality seems to have been forgotten. Remarkably, these new digital forms of distribution deliver a far poorer standard of sound than previous formats. There are signs of a consumer backlash and an online audiophile P2P movement called “lossless” with expanded and better spectrum that is starting to make itself heard. This seems to be a missed opportunity for the record industry — shouldn’t we be catering to people who want to hear music through big speakers rather than ear buds?
Today, there is a frenetic search for new business models that will return the record business to growth. The record companies are exploring many new such models — some of them may work, some of them may not.
Sadly, the recent innovative Radiohead release of a download priced on the “honesty box” principle seems to have backfired to some extent. It seems that the majority of downloads were through illegal P2P download services like BitTorrent and LimeWire, even though the album was available for nothing through the official band site. Notwithstanding the promotional noise, even Radiohead’s honesty box principle showed that if not constrained, the customer will steal music.
There is some excitement about advertising-funded deals. But the record companies must gain our trust to share fairly the revenues they will gain from advertising. Historically they have not been good at transparency. Let’s never forget the great CD scam of the ’80s when the majors tried to halve the royalties of records released on CD claiming that they needed this extra margin to develop the new technology even as they were entering the great boom years that the CD delivered. It’s ironic that, at a time when the majors are asking the artists to trust them to share advertising revenue they are also pushing the dreadful “360 model.”
As Allen Grubman, the well-known New York attorney said to me recently… “God forbid that one of these acts in a 360 deal has success. The next thing that will happen is the manager gets fired and the lawyer gets sued for malpractice.”
Maybe it would help if they were to offer to cancel those deals when they repair their main revenue model and the industry recovers, as I believe it will.
But that’s an issue for the future, when we’re out of the crisis. Today, there’s a bigger issue and it’s about the whole relationship between the music and the technology business. Network operators, in particular, have for too long had a free ride on music — on our clients’ content. It’s time for a new approach — time for ISPs to start taking responsibility for the content they’ve profited from for years. And it’s time for some visionary new thinking about how the music and technology sectors can work as partners instead of adversaries, leading to a revival of recorded music instead of its destruction.
It’s interesting to look at the character of the individuals who built the industries that resulted from the arrival of the microprocessor. Most of them came out of the so-called counterculture on the west coast of America. Their values were hippy values. They thought the old computer industry as represented by IBM was neanderthal. They laughed at Bell Telephone and AT&T. They thought the TV networks were archaic. Most of them are music lovers. There are plenty of private equity fund managers who are “Deadheads.”
They were brilliantly innovative in finance and technology and though they would pay lip service to “Content is King” what many of them instinctively realized was that in the digital age there were no mechanisms to police the traffic over the internet in that content, and that legislation would take many years to catch up with what was now possible online.
And embedded deep down in the brilliance of those entrepreneurial, hippy values seems to be a disregard for the true value of music.
This goes back some decades. Does anyone remember Abbie Hoffman? He was one of the “Chicago 7,” the ‘Yippies” of the Youth International Party who tried to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and got beaten up and put on trial by Mayor Daley’s police. He put out a book with the title “Steal this Book”. I think he has a lot to answer for.
I’ve met a lot of today’s heroes of Silicon Valley. Most of them don’t really think of themselves as makers of burglary kits. They say: “you can use this stuff to email your friends and store and share your photos”. But we all know that there’s more to it than that, don’t we? Kids don’t pay $25 a month for broadband just to share their photos, do their homework and email their pals.
These tech guys think of themselves as political liberals and socially aware. They search constantly for the next “killer app.” They conveniently forget that the real “killer app” that many of their businesses are founded on is our clients’ recorded music.
I call on them today to start doing two things: first, taking responsibility for protecting the music they are distributing; and second, by commercial agreements, sharing their enormous revenues with the content makers and owners.
I want those technology entrepreneurs to share their ingenuity and skill as well. Our interests are, after all, steadily merging as lines get more and more blurred between the distributors of content, the makers of hardware and the creators of content. Steve Jobs is now in effective control of the Walt Disney Studio and ABC Television so his point of view may be changing now that he owns content as well as selling those beautiful machines that have changed our world. Personally I expect that Apple will before too long reveal a wireless iPod that connects to an iTunes “all of the music, wherever you are” subscription service. I would like it to succeed, if the content is fairly paid for. “Access” is what people will be paying for in the future, not the “ownership” of digital copies of pieces of music.
I have met Steve Jobs and even done a deal with him face to face in his kitchen in Palo Alto in 2004. No one there but Steve, Bono, Jimmy Iovine and me, and Lucian Grainge was on the phone. We made the deal for the U2 iPod and wrote it down in the back of my diary. We approved the use of the music in TV commercials for iTunes and the iPod and in return got a royalty on the hardware. Those were the days when iTunes was being talked about as penicillin for the recorded music industry.
I wish he would bring his remarkable set of skills to bear on the problems of recorded music. He’s a technologist, a financial genius, a marketer and a music lover. He probably doesn’t realize it but the collapse of the old financial model for recorded music will also mean the end of the songwriter. We’ve been used to bands who wrote their own material since the Beatles, but the mechanical royalties that sustain songwriters are drying up. Labels and artists, songwriters and publishers, producers and musicians, everyone’s a victim.
For ISPs in general, the days of prevaricating over their responsibilities for helping protect music must end. The ISP lobbyists who say they should not have to “police the internet” are living in the past — relying on outdated excuses from an earlier technological age. The internet has moved on since then, and the pace of change today means a year in the internet age is equivalent to a decade in the non-internet world.
Remember the 1990s, when the internet was being called the Information Superhighway? At that time, when the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the EU Electronic Commerce Directive were drawn up, legislators were concerned to offer safe harbours restricting the responsibilities of ISPs who acted as a “mere conduit”. This was a different era: only a few hundred thousand illegal files could be accessed from websites. There was no inkling
at that time of the enormous explosion of P2P piracy that was to follow. If legislators had foreseen that explosion, would they have ever offered immunity for so-called “mere conduits” and, in doing so, given ISPs a decade of excuses for refusing to protect our content?
And as it turned, the “Safe Harbour” concept was really a Thieves’ Charter. The legal precedent that device-makers and pipe and network owners should not be held accountable for any criminal activity enabled by their devices and services has been enormously damaging to content owners and developing artists. If you were publishing a magazine that was advertising stolen cars, processing payments for them and arranging delivery of them you’d expect to get a visit from the police wouldn’t you? What’s the difference? With a laptop, a broadband account, an MP3 player and a smartphone you can now steal all the content, music, video and literary in the world without any money going to the content owners. On the other hand if you get caught stealing a laptop in the computer store or don’t pay your broadband bill there are obvious consequences. You get nicked or you get your access cut off.
It is time for ISPs to be real partners. The safe harbours of the 1990s are no longer appropriate, and if ISPs do not cooperate voluntarily there will need to be legislation to require them to cooperate.
Why does all this matter so much? Because the truth is that whatever business model you are building, you cannot compete with billions of illegal files free on P2P networks. And the research does show that effective enforcement — such as a series of warnings from the ISP to illegal file-sharers that would culminate in disconnection of your service — can address the problem.
A simple “three strikes and you are out” enforcement process will see all serial illegal uploaders who resist the law face a stark choice: change or lose your ISP subscription.
Fortunately, there has recently been some tremendous momentum to get ISPs engaged — notably in France, the UK, Sweden, Norway and Belgium. President Sarkozy’s plan, the Olivennes initiative, by which ISPs will start disconnecting repeat infringers later this year, set a brilliant precedent which other governments should follow. In the U.K., the Gowers Report made it clear that legislation should be considered if voluntary talks with ISPs failed to produce a commitment to disconnect file-sharers. I’d like to see the U.K. government act promptly on this recommendation.
In Sweden, the Renfors Report commissioned by the Ministry of Justiceg ISP cooperation. And in the courts, the Sabam-Tiscali ruling spelt out, in language as plain as could be, that ISPs should take the steps required to remove copyright-infringing material from their networks. The European Union should now take up the mantle and legislate where voluntary intra-industry agreement is not forthcoming. This is the time to seize the day.
ISPs don’t just have a moral reason to step up to the plate — they have a commercial one too. IFPI estimates say illegal P2P distribution of music and films accounts for over half of all ISP traffic. Others put the figure as high as 80%. This is traffic that is not only destroying the market place for people who are trying to make a legitimate living out of music and films, it is hogging bandwidth that ISPs are increasingly going to need for other commerce, especially as a legitimate online market for movies develops.
I think the failure of ISPs to engage in the fight against piracy, to date, has been the single biggest failure in the digital music market. They are the gatekeepers with the technical means to make a far greater impact on mass copyright violation than the tens of thousands of lawsuits taken out against individual file-sharers by bodies like BPI, RIAA and IFPI. To me, prosecuting the customer is counter-intuitive, though I recognise that these prosecutions have an educational and propaganda effect, however small, in showing that stealing music is wrong.
ISPs could implement a policy of disconnection in very quick time. Filtering is also feasible. When last June the Belgian courts made a precedent-setting ruling obliging an ISP to remove illegal music from its network, they identified no fewer than 6 technologies which make it possible for this to be done. No more excuses please. ISPs can quickly enough to block pornography when that becomes a public concern.
When the volume of illegal movie and music P2P activity was slowing down their network for legitimate users recently in California, Comcast were able to isolate and close down BitTorrent temporarily without difficulty.
There are many other examples that prove the ability of ISPs to switch off selectively activity they have a problem with: Google excluded BMW from their search engine when BMW started to play games. This was a clear warning to others not to interfere. Another show of power was Google’s acceptance of the Chinese Governments censorship conditions. The BBC has spent a fortune on their iPlayer project and the ISPs are now threatening to throttle this traffic if the BBC doesn’t “share costs of iPlayer traffic.” All this shows what the ISPs could do if they wanted. We must shame them into wanting to help us. Their snouts have been at our trough feeding free for too long.
Let’s spare no effort to push the ISPs into taking responsibility. But that’s only one part of the story. There’s a huge commercial partnership opportunity there as well. For me, the business model of the future is one where music is bundled into an ISP or other subscription service and the revenues are shared between the distributor and the content owners.
I believe this is realistic; the last few years have shown clear proof of the power of ISPs and cable companies to bundle packages of content and get more money out of their subscribers. In the UK, most ISPs offer different tiers of services, with a higher monthly fee for heavy downloaders. Why are there “heavy” downloaders? Isn’t that our money? News Corporation offers free broadband to light users if they take at least a basic Sky Television package for £16 [$31.78] a month.
Looking at the events in the last year, this revenue-sharing model seems to be taking hold in the music business.
Universal — U2’s label — recently struck a deal with Microsoft that sees it receive a cut of the revenues generated by sales of the Zune MP3 player. It’s unfortunate that the Zune hasn’t attracted the sort of consumer support that the iPod did. We need more competition.
Under the agreement, Universal receives $1 for every Zune sold. When you consider Radio Shack sells Zune players for $150, you’ll see that Universal has asked for less than 1% of revenue — for a company that is supplying about a third of the U.S. market’s chart music at the moment. This isn’t really enough, but it’s a start, I suppose, and follows from the U2/Apple deal, the principle that the hardware makers should share with the content owners whose assets are exploited by the buyers of their machines. The record companies should never again allow industries to arise that make billions off their content without looking for a piece of that business. Remember MTV?
Nokia has announced it will launch “Comes With Music,” a service that effectively allows consumers to get unlimited free downloads of songs for 12 months after they buy certain premium Nokia phones. At the end of the 12 months consumers will be able to keep the songs they download. Nokia gets to supply premium content and Universal gets to boost competition in the digital marketplace, to make it more competitive and open new channels to customers. A proportion of the revenue generated by sales of the handsets will flow back to Universal. The question must be asked; will they distribute that revenue fairly? Do artists trust the labels? Will artists, songwriters and labels trust the telcos and handset companies?
These are obviously commercial deals driven by self-interest. But there is a moral aspect to this too. The partnership between music and technology needs to be fair and reasonable. ISPs, Telcos and tech companies have enjoyed a bonanza in the last few years off the back of recorded music content. It is time for them to share that with artists and content owners.
Some people do go further and favour a state-imposed blanket licence on music. Let me stress that I don’t believe in that. A government cannot set the price of music well any more than a rock band can run a government. The market has to decide. The problem with the global licence proposed in France two years ago was that it would not have worked in practice. But it is in France recently that legislators have been most innovative and have shown most willingness to act to support recorded music rights. France leads the world on this.
So far I’ve focused mainly on the role of ISPs. But there are similar issues in mobile too. The mobile business accounts for half the world’s digital music revenues and, crucially, is starting out from a much better position than the internet music market. You only have to look at a market such as Japan to see the amazing potential of mobile music for getting to the young demographic.
I believe that in mobile music we have the chance to avoid the problems that have bedevilled the recorded music industry’s relationship with ISPs: and I’m not talking just of their tolerance of copyright theft. Other problems, like the lack of interoperability between services and devices; the lack of convenient payment mechanisms except via credit cards — which of course are not available to all music users; the hacking and viruses that have undermined people’s trust in online payment. All these problems can be avoided in the mobile sector, this is a task that should command the support and cooperation of labels, artists, publishers and writers. We’re all in the same boat here.
That’s a lesson for the mobile industry internationally. Don’t go the way that many of the ISPs have gone. Mobile is still a relatively secure environment for legitimate content — let’s keep it that way.
So, to conclude — who’s got our money and what can we do?
I suggest we shift the focus of moral pressure away from the individual P2P file thief and on to the multi billion dollar industries that benefit from these countless tiny crimes — The ISPs, the telcos, the device makers. Let’s appeal to those fine minds at Stanford University and Silicon Valley, Apple, Google, Nokia, HP, China Mobile, Vodafone, Comcast, Intel, Ericsson, Facebook, iLike, Oracle, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Tiscali etc, and the bankers, engineers, private equity funds, and venture capitalists who service them and feed off them to apply their genius to cooperating with us to save the recorded music industry, not only on the basis of reluctantly sharing advertising revenue but collecting revenue for the use and sale of our content. They have built multi billion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it.
It’s probably too late for us to get paid for the past, though maybe that shouldn’t be completely ruled out. The U.S. Department of Justice and the EU have scored some notable victories on behalf of the consumer, usually against Microsoft. They have a moral obligation to be true, trustworthy partners of the music sector. To respect and take responsibility for protecting music. To work for the revaluation, not the devaluation of music. To share revenues with the community fairly and responsibly, and to share the skills, ingenuity and entrepreneurship from which our business has a lot to learn.
And the message to government is this: ISP responsibility is not a luxury for possible contemplation in the future. It is a necessity for implementation TODAY — by legislation if voluntary means fail.
There’s more exciting music being made and more listened to than at any time in history. Cheap technology has made it easy to start a band and make music. This is a gathering of managers; our talented clients deserve better than the shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way they have been treated in the digital age.”
(Paul McGuinness delivered the above speech January 28 at Midem, Cannes.)
January 29, 2008 /60 Comments/by newartistmodel
http://newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo_transparent-copy.png 0 0 newartistmodel http://newartistmodel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo_transparent-copy.png newartistmodel2008-01-29 14:03:442014-05-08 16:46:29Paul McGuinness speaks out at Cannes.
File Sharing / P2P, Music Formats, Music Industry, Music Marketing
Do you think Edgar Allan Poe could have made money if he sold The Raven separately from 30 other poems?
This is a question posed in the U.K. Register article examining the “value gap”, or the amount that sound recording revenue has fallen since 2004. The report suggests that Apple (and others) should take the blame for the woes of the music industry (British) for unbundling the song from the album format.
“The Value Recognition Strategy working group was created last summer – largely at the impetus of the indie labels and collection societies, but backed by all sectors of the industry – to examine alternative revenue opportunities for digital music. The growth of MP3 has seen large hardware manufacturers such as Apple and media companies such as News Corp’s MySpace prosper from music, but returning little or nothing to composers, songwriters, and sound recordings owners.
It’s what economist Will Page, of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, calls a “broken supply chain”. Revenues from telecoms companies and service providers dwarf the revenues from the beleaguered music business.
The conclusion that unbundling is the chief factor is richly ironic. When Apple launched the iTunes Music Store in 2003, it did so with the backing of all four major labels. The labels had failed to see digital music as an opportunity, and launched only small scale and piecemeal commercial offerings. At iTunes, consumers chose one or two songs from a performer’s repetoire for 99 cents a song, rather than pay $9.99 for the CD.”
Since that time Apple has reaped tens of billions in sales of iPods, while the labels have lost tens of billion in sales of CDs. It has almost been a complete one-to-one swap of revenue from the label’s, writer’s and artist’s pockets – into Apple’s. See an analysis I did of this a while back here.
Read the whole Register article here.
October 26, 2007 /8 Comments/by newartistmodel
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Shakira with a new perfume
The new perfume of the Colombian singer Shakira will be in a bottle that looks like a guitar.
People Magazine: World's Most Beautiful Women for 2015
People Magazine publishes a list of the most beautiful women in the world every year. Find out who famous show business women are part of 2015's list.
Women's fashion: Dolce&Gabbana Fall-Winter 2015/2016 collection
Maxi rose prints and naïf children's drawings mixed with 60s silhouettes, pastels and traditional black are the key elements of Dolce & Gabbana Fall-Winter 2015/2016 women's collection, dedicated to mothers and motherhood.
Lifestyle chronics
Pregnant Penelope Cruz does not give up the small joys in life
Penelope Cruz, who is eight months pregnant, don't even think to give up the small pleasures in life.
She's just a few weeks away from giving birth - but despite sporting a huge bump, the 36-year-old Spanish actress still managed to look incredibly stylish as she shopped for clothes in Los Angeles. Penelope kept her growing baby bump covered in a camel-colored coat, combined with black trousers and stylish trilby.
Models and photomodels
Miranda Kerr gets naked for W magazine
Former Victoria's Secret model Miranda Kerr is posing fully nude in the December issue of W magazine's family issue .
This is not the first time when the wife of the famous actor Orlando Bloom poses naked. This time, Miranda is showing in front of the camera her 6-months-pregnant baby bump. The 27-year-old Australian beauty announced in August that she and husband Orlando Bloom were expecting a little one.
The new collection of Heidi Klum is for the busy mothers
Heidi Klum’s new clothing collection is aimed at busy mothers.
The supermodel – who raises four children with husband Seal – says she decided to create the line, Heidi Klum for New Balance, because she wanted something comfortable and stylish to wear when she takes her kids to school.
She said: “Moms are doing so many things, we have so many hats on – go to Starbucks, meet a friend, go to a meeting – and you don’t really want to do that in nasty sweatpants...
Halle Berry is the Sexiest Mother in Hollywood
Actress Halle Berry was crowned as the sexiest mother in Hollywood. 44-years-old Halle is mother of two years old Nahla (baby with ex-partner Gabriel Aubry).
Meanwhile, Kate Beckinsale, 37, who was the mother of Ava was in the next sequence. In fourth place there are wives Cash Warren, Jessica Alba, 29, who welcomed the birth of her daughter, Honor, about two years ago. While the fifth position is occupied by a Hispanic-blooded actress, Salma HayekSalma Hayek, 40, who has a daughter named Valentina from her husband, Francois-Henri Pinault.
Lindsay Lohan's mother Dina is launching a shoe range.
Dina will collaborate with Long Island-based company I Love My Shoes for the line, which she has called Shoe-han.
I Love My Shoes founder and president, Robert Yeganeh, said: "She will do a radio and TV commercial and she will sit in on the casting call to find two or three hot girls we need for the commercial.
"Although she won't be the designer of the line, she'll definitely have a major influence in which direction it will go."
Pregnant Adriana Lima never thought she would become a mother
The Brazilian supermodel - who is expecting her first child with basketball star husband Marko Jaric this winter - can't believe how her life has turned out as she used to worry she would never settle down.
She said: "I never saw myself being married and having a child. Not because I did not want to. But it's tough to find somebody."
Adriana met the sportsman at a Los Angeles party in 2006 and says the event changed her life.
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Nabillera
Contemporary Korean Literature
Nabillera: Facebook
Fall 2017 Fiction
“The Radish” – Kim Um Ji
by Nabillera [나빌레라]
The Radish
By Kim Um Ji
Translated by Ji Won Park
“You’re a nobody. A nobody. What good are you, you chunk of radish? Actually, that’s an insult to radishes. At least you can chop up a radish and pickle it. Do you have any use at all? You give me the shivers,” his wife said as she hugged herself and shook in a display of utter disgust.
Yeong-cheol Kim, with his face fallen, barely squeaked, “Why would you have to use me anywhere?”
“What’s that, punk? What are you muttering on about? You, you…”
She stormed out in a fit of animal shrieks. Precisely three months after the exchange, Yeong-cheol was left stripped of everything except a desktop computer, which had been his only contribution to the household items. He shipped the computer to his younger brother’s, where he was moving in, and embarked on a trip. In a motel somewhere on Ganghwa Island, he dreamt that he had turned into a radish, and his wife cut up his appendages into bite-sized pieces.
“Do you think I’m incompetent, too?” he asked his younger brother.
“No, it’s not like that,” he replied.
“But it is like that, isn’t it?” Yeong-cheol persisted.
“Come on, brother. Let’s just have dinner.”
But Yeong-cheol was in no mood for food, and so he hooked up his computer while his brother, his wife, and their child ate.
He spent most of his time on his computer—behavior which remained constant throughout the days before and after the divorce. He didn’t work on anything in particular. He usually played baduk. The case could be made that it was all that he ever played. In fact, he played baduk with remarkable drive. With a cigarette in his mouth, he would focus on a match for five hours straight. Once it ended, he’d spare one bathroom trip. And then, hungry or not, he’d begin another five-hour match.
Come have dinner: His brother’s scripted line. Yeong-cheol knew that he only said it out of obligation because whenever they ate together the tension in the family was palpable. Yeong-cheol studied the face of his sister-in-law to read her emotions. His younger brother did the same for both his wife and Yeong-cheol.
“Why don’t you go home?” Yeong-cheol’s nephew, who had just turned five, asked during such a dinner. He had a talent for bringing up the elephant in the room. The three adults paused, chewing together in silence while thinking of something to say in response. But no one ended up speaking, so the kid turned to his sausage again as though he hadn’t been that curious in the first place. Why don’t I go home? Yeong-cheol asked himself. Because I don’t have a home. Simplicity was convenient. His simple way of thinking helped in life sometimes. It helped during the divorce, too.
Whatever question his wife asked, Yeong-cheol muttered the same response: Well, um…I’m not sure. He by no means disliked his wife’s company. Quite the contrary, he loved her. In his defense, monotony was simply his way of loving her, of communicating love. He was never irritated by his wife.
His wife felt otherwise.
“So what the hell do you wanna have for dinner?” she asked him every evening when he came home from work. Yeong-cheol lost his appetite whenever he was home, whereas the only thing his wife could ever think about was what to cook. Her top agenda each day was the business of eating. She hated eating alone after her husband left for work and hated eating with him even more. She called her mom for advice. “Mom, nothing tastes good these days. You know I always used to be able to make a feast out of any dish, but I must’ve lost all my taste buds since marrying Yeong-cheol. What do I do?” Her mom recommended pickles and marinated crab.
Her parents had never appreciated Yeong-cheol. He was older by eight years, yet not really that much better off financially. Though he hadn’t made any preparations for marriage, he guessed taking the leap wouldn’t be so bad since he was at that age already. His wife’s family provided the 600-square-foot apartment where Yeong-cheol and his wife stayed until their divorce.
Yeong-cheol’s wife was constantly eyeing him with an intense curiosity. Why is that man so meek? Doesn’t he hold any grudges? Why doesn’t he ever get angry—or is it that he doesn’t even know how? And what about pleasure? For that matter, why does he come home so punctually after he leaves the office? Does he dislike the dishes I make? Why does he leave so much untouched at every meal? I wonder if his servings were always so small… And why doesn’t he look me in the eyes? He must’ve forgotten entirely about sex. And what about kids? Doesn’t he want any? What does he even want out of this marriage? Some of these questions she felt enterprising enough to ask out loud and others she didn’t. Namely, the ones concerning eye contact, sex, and children. Eye contact, sex and children bothered her the most after their meals.
“Don’t worry about them. They’re not worth it. Kids are just a burden. A burden, I tell you. Think of them like STDs, a side-effect of sex,” her friend had told her.
“How can you say that when you have one?” she asked. Her friend had a baby daughter just a little more than three months old. Not only that, she had a warm, tender husband and a respectable job. Two jobs, actually. She carved wood and painted on people. Yeong-cheol’s wife had envied her sculpture-tattooist friend ever since high school.
“Can I work as your assistant? I feel so lonely at home by myself,” she pleaded to her friend.
Her friend flatly rejected, saying, “People don’t simply choose to start working out of their loneliness.”
“Then when do people choose to work?”
“When they need the money,” her friend replied. She was adamant and sounded absolutely certain of being right.
“You need money?” she asked, sealing the rejection. Yeong-cheol’s wife didn’t need any money because Yeong-cheol’s paychecks were deposited straight into her account. They didn’t really amount to much, but she wasn’t desperate to save or invest.
“Grow up a little before having a kid. If you keep a clean house and support Yeong-cheol, he’ll love you every night.” Her friend’s advice offended her immensely.
What is she, my mom? My older sister? My aunt? Who exactly does she think she is? Who is she to tell me to keep a clean house? she thought.
By the time Yeong-cheol returned from work, she was downright angry.
“Does she think she’s superior because I don’t work? Tell me.” Arrows now targeted Yeong-cheol.
“I’m not sure,” he muttered, eyes fixed to the rice bowl.
“What’s that? I can’t hear you. Talk louder. Louder. Your throat hurt when you talk or something? Got a problem with your vocal cords?” She grabbed Yeong-cheol by the chin, and as she did a few grains of rice fell from of his mouth. In her frustration, she picked up them up and shoved them back into his mouth, then burst into tears.
Judging that telling her not to cry wouldn’t have stopped her tears, Yeong-cheol resumed his meal without acknowledging them. The roasted mackerel smelled funny. The rice was undercooked. His wife was sad. The kimchi was bland. Among it all, Yeong-cheol drank water whenever he felt a lump in his throat. His wife, meanwhile, continued sobbing, having given up on eating altogether.
That night in the bedroom, his wife said, “I should adopt a dog.”
There was determination in her voice, as if she had given the matter thorough consideration. Yeong-cheol pictured having a dog, and his imagination failed him. He had never had a pet.
“What breed should I get?” she asked while lying on her side and facing the wall.
“I don’t know,” Yeong-cheol replied lying on his back. He had no strong preference.
“Want me to quiz you on something?” his wife suddenly offered, still staring at the wall.
This terrified Yeong-cheol beyond measure. He wasn’t ever known to have any answers.
“Do you know what the pattern of our wallpaper is?”
Yeong-cheol’s general lack of knowledge concerning the house was the most notable among all of his failures. And the trivia question was about the stupid wall, of all things in the house! Yeong-cheol struggled in vain to make out the pattern on the ceiling but the ceiling was too high and the room was too dark.
He felt cornered.
“Then I’ll make it a multiple-choice question,” she said. “(A) dots arranged diagonally, (B) dots arranged horizontally, (C) dots arranged vertically or (D) a plain silk wallpaper.”
Yeong-cheol tried to visualize each of the choices. A few dots gathered before his eyes, then dispersed. But since he didn’t have a favorite letter, he couldn’t make a guess.
“Wait,” he said. “Please. Wait just a minute.” He hadn’t made this plea to his wife in a while; he was often late to dates back in school.
“(B) horizontal dots. I think they were horizontal…” he said. His hands were sweating.
His wife turned around and rubbed her cheeks against his chest. Yeong-cheol was relieved that his wife still had a cute side. He felt that he could live with her for a long, long time. His wife, for her part, was pleasantly surprised that he had gotten the right answer.
Once the puppy made his appearance into their lives, more pleasant surprises were underway. He was a brown mutt and he couldn’t claim a fancy lineage, but his wife was happy that he was free. Even though he’s a mutt, he’s cute, they both thought. When he arrived he was just over three weeks old.
“What should we name him?” she asked him.
It was a difficult problem. His wife folded a yellow blanket twice and placed the puppy on top. The three-week-old puppy seemed closer to a fluff ball than to a living thing. It was winter and the pup snuggling in the blanket went well with the season. Yeong-cheol suddenly craved wine, though he wasn’t much of a drinker. It was so definite and intense that he suggested, “How about we decide on the name over a drink?”
Her eyes glowed. “I’d like that,” she said.
No sooner had he left than he returned with a $39 wine bottle and two $12 wine glasses. His speed impressed her once again. Has he always liked wine so much? she wondered.
“I’ll name him Yeong-cheol,” she said after four full glasses of wine. “You are Yeong-cheol Kim.” She pressed his nose with her index finger. “And the little guy is Yeong-cheol Dog.” She pointed at the puppy with the same finger.
“Ha, ha,” he laughed in short bursts. So short that he might as well have been coughing.
“Doggy Yeong-cheol, come on. There, there.” His wife called the puppy over with open arms. Yeong-cheol coughed out his laughter once again, and she actually thought he must have a cold. Does he have a throat problem? Yeah, it seems like a bad cough, but what kind of weakling has a cold all year? she thought. Yeong-cheol laughed his coughing laugh from one season to the next. The puppy often played cute tricks like extending a paw when asked for a shake and playing fetch. When Yeong-cheol came home from work, the puppy followed his feet around because he liked Yeong-cheol’s socks. There was a mutual feeling of respect between Yeong-cheol and the puppy.
His wife called the puppy “Yeong-cheol.” Yeong-cheol, however, didn’t give him any particular name. Instead he got his attention by clapping his hands or waving treats in the air. The couple ate, slept, and walked with the puppy. Sometimes they even showered with him. And on the rare occasions when they had sex, he could be spotted leisurely walking by. Life with the pet was great. For one, the frequency of his wife’s temper tantrums noticeably decreased. However, the happiness didn’t last long; it ended precisely when Yeong-cheol became unemployed.
Yeong-cheol himself wasn’t aware of the reason he was fired. He wanted explain to his wife that some terminations happen without warning. That not all terminations merit a legitimate cause. But he knew better than anyone else that such excuses weren’t the kind of explanations his wife wanted. Instead, she spoke about some administrative failure and potential employment opportunities.
“Well…I’m not sure about that,” he said.
She began to pull out her hair and stamped her feet. Telling her to stop pulling wouldn’t have stopped her, so he kept quiet and sprinkled bits of dog treats on the floor. Yeong-cheol the dog hurriedly licked the floor, which irritated his wife so much that she kicked him in the stomach.
“Give me a plan. Stop saying you don’t know and give me something!” she yelled.
The scared dog scurried under the table and hid, and Yeong-cheol wished he could do the same.
Yeong-cheol usually hid in the small room, where an LED monitor, a wireless keyboard, an empty PC tower, hangers, and an old wardrobe were kept. He played baduk in a corner of the room alongside clothes that were now off season. He played until dust collected on his shoulders and his wife no longer bothered him about food. She ate just as well by herself.
Before long, she became an assistant to her sculptor-tattooist friend, running trivial errands. Although the tasks were only small and menial, she found them rewarding. Not much changed between the couple, except for the source of their income. Yeong-cheol continued to talk minimally, never blew up, and still left his rice mostly untouched. His wife continued to worry about the diner menu, still continued calling up her friend and her mom, and still referred to the puppy by her husband’s name. “Hey, Yeong-cheol, you’re just a dog. Why are you so passionate about baduk?” she would vent to the puppy. “Hey, Yeong-cheol, what are you planning to do on Chuseok? Stay at home like a loser?” she kept asking.
Sometimes Yeong-cheol heard his wife from the small room while playing baduk, and sometimes he didn’t. Either way, he never responded and she became used to the silence over time. Soon, things were so familiar that she no longer cried. Many days passed without so much as a teardrop.
The first crying fit in a long while broke out when the dog disappeared. She asked Yeong-cheol if he’d seen him. He couldn’t remember when he had last seen the dog; it could’ve been the day before or two days before that he had fed him snacks and dog food. He walked him, cleaned up his poop, and gave him a bath since his sole job had become taking care of the other Yeong-cheol when his wife was away at work.
“Well…” he started, falling deep in thought. Hard as he tried to recall, the only things he knew with certainty was that for the past two days he had played baduk and his wife had gone to work. The dog was nowhere to be found.
“You’re the only one who could possibly know. Try to remember,” she implored. She at once felt sorry for the dog and resented her husband. All things considered, though, she herself couldn’t recall when she had last seen the dog, so she couldn’t place the blame entirely on Yeong-cheol.
“Did you take him outside?” she asked, worried that he might’ve slid out through the door crack.
“Well…” he replied, and got to thinking once again. He had gone out to buy cigarettes at one point, but wasn’t sure if that was one or two days ago. Again, he could only remember that for the past two days he had played baduk with a cigarette in his mouth and that his wife had gone to work.
“Did you or did you not go outside?” she asked, exasperated.
“I don’t know, he said. “I’m trying my best to remember, but it’s just not there.”
“Then do you remember what color clothes he was wearing?” she now asked, hoping for an answer that she herself didn’t have.
All Yeong-cheol could do was to reassert his ignorance. He truly didn’t know.
“What in the world do you know? How can you be so incompetent? You’re a nobody. A nobody. What good are you, you chunk of radish? Actually, that’s an insult to radishes. At least you can chop up a radish and pickle it. Do you have any use at all? You give me the creeps,” his wife said as she hugged herself and shook in a display of utter disgust.
Yeong-cheol Kim, with his face fallen, barely squeaked: “Why would you have to use me anywhere?”
God knows how he mustered the courage to argue.
She stormed out of the apartment in a fit of animal cries, and he immediately followed after her straight but not before locking the door. While locking it, he thought, I got a knack for security; God knows why she thinks I’m useless. Just as his wife’s elevator reached the first floor, he called for an elevator down from the 13th floor.
His wife rushed to the playground, calling out Yeong-cheol, Yeong-cheol. The apartment residents thought that she had lost a child by that name. Human Yeong-cheol found his wife calling for the dog as she ran along the road that connected the playground near building 103 to another one near building 107. He grabbed her arm, at which she jerked back to see it was only her husband and sank to the ground. She began crying and yelped, “Where’d he go? Where?” Since telling her not to cry wouldn’t have stopped, Yeong-cheol stood by her without saying a word. The sun was setting. There between 103 and 107, Yeong-cheol stood while his wife sat collapsed on the ground. She was no longer quite so young and neither was he. And the dog was still nowhere to be found.
“Where’d he go? Where?” she kept crying.
“Yeah, it’s strange,” he said softly, almost in a whisper. Meanwhile, the sun had set completely.
Where could the puppy have gone? Was he gone for good? It seemed like his wife had aged during the two hours of the search. Yeong-cheol told her to wait and brought two cans of Gatorade. His speed surprised her. She wondered if he had always liked Gatorade so much.
“You like Gatorade?” she asked.
“Well…” he said.
His reply made her want to splash Gatorade in his face, but she felt too drained. She told him that she was tired, to which he mechanically replied, “Yeah, this is tiring,” and downed the whole bottle.
“Are you really that tired?” she asked.
“Well…” he said. They were both tired.
“Let’s try a different town. You know, one where there are a lot of stray dogs,” he suggested at last.
His wife wanted to ask, “And just which town is that?” but experience had taught her that Yeong-cheol couldn’t possibly know. And even if he had known, there was no guarantee that he’d say so. At this point, vouching for his debt to her was a safer bet than expecting a clear solution from him.
“Once I followed the dog into this new town,” he said. He referred to his pet familiarly as the dog. She didn’t like the generic reference.
“Did you just call Yeong-cheol ‘the dog?’ He has a name,” she said.
He turned into a radish in his dreams the whole week. Yet, being a no-good radish of a nobody made him happy.
The couple walked twenty minutes and found themselves somewhere two towns away, where indeed many stray dogs could be found. There were also many streetlights, alleys, roofs, and stairs. The shabby town was ready for redevelopment.
“By the way, do you know the way back home from here?” she asked, giving him a once-over. In her opinion, her husband was a man whose crowning achievement was nothing more than solitary baduk. Rather than a man, he was merely a creature, an organism.
Yeong-cheol grinned. “Of course.”
Has this guy ever been so positive about anything? Surprised, his wife studied his face, and yet it still inspired no reaction. Why did I ever want to marry this guy, she thought. A good-for-nothing nobody who can only say ‘of course’ only when doggy Yeong-cheol has disappeared.
Yeong-cheol led the way into an alley which was as narrow as a person and very steep. Between brick walls, they started calling out for their puppy. Yeong-cheol, Yeong-cheol. Each time they called the name, another dog appeared by a street lamp.
“So many street lamps in this town,” she noted.
Yeong-cheol smiled. “Yeah, that’s why I like coming here.”
His smile lacked context and she found herself taken aback. She was so confused that she couldn’t reprimand him and just continued to scream for her dog Yeong-cheol.
“I don’t think screaming the name is helping,” she said. “Let’s take a look at them one by one. A lot of them resemble our Yeong-cheol, like this one right here.”
In the direction that she had pointed there was a dog of the missing Yeong-cheol’s size and color laying next to a street lamp. Keeping a distance of about two meters from the dog, the Yeong-cheol groped in his pockets and found a coin. He held it close to his mouth and made a slurping sound as if the coin were a cookie, then dropped the coin on the ground. He had thought the act would attract the dog. It had the opposite effect. Scared by the coin’s clinking sound, the dog ran away into the darkness between two houses.
His wife also reacted sensitively to the clinking. “What the hell did you just do?” she yelled. She felt certain that Yeong-cheol chased the dog away on purpose. But she didn’t give up, since there were as many street lamps as there were roof tiles on the packed houses and there were at least a few dogs next to each street lamp. It wasn’t even that the dogs preferred being next to lamp posts; it was just that only the dogs near light sources were easily seen. There was no time to mourn over the dog that was chased away by the coin. Each dog had to be studied up close. To her dismay, however, all the dogs looked to be the same as her Yeong-cheol both in size and color. She speculated that each of them must either be her missing pet or his distant relative.
Yeong-cheol and his wife became one with the town’s roofs, the stairs, the alleys, the lamp posts, and the dogs. With their shoulders hunched, they went about on tiptoes while holding their breaths. An hour and a half later, Yeong-cheol succeeded in finding a dog that looked remarkably like their missing pet.
The length and shape of the nose, ears, and eyes were very much like those of their own Yeong-cheol. So were the warmth of the tummy and the softness of the paw pads. Yet Yeong-cheol’s wife couldn’t be absolutely certain that he was the one.
“Our Yeong-cheol was raised indoors. It won’t be pretty if we take accidentally in a stray, so look closely,” she warned.
Nodding, Yeong-cheol drew his phone closer to the dog, illuminating its face. The more he studied its face, the more confused he grew. At last, he sat staring blankly at his wife and the dog. His wife didn’t fare any better and did the same between Yeong-cheol and the dog in his arms. Her heart sank as she realized that she couldn’t quite remember her pet’s face. She had prided herself in loving him; in fact, she loved him even more than she did her husband. There was a mutual feeling of respect between her and her dog. Whenever she came home from work, he used to follow her feet around because he liked her socks.
“Does he have any defining features?” she asked. She herself didn’t know. “You were the one who washed and fed him every day.”
Yeong-cheol tried to recall the dog’s face, stomach, paws, and back, but no unique traits came to mind. His face fell.
“You fed him and even walked him here once!” she yelled. “How can you be so dumb as to not recognize our dog? How?”
Yeong-cheol wanted to explain that not all dogs have a defining feature, that there are dogs that look like Yeong-cheol in every conceivable way. But he knew better than anyone else that such excuses weren’t the kind of explanations that his wife wanted.
They crossed paths with four more dogs that looked like a clone of their Yeong-cheol, but they didn’t have the conviction to bring any of them home.
“Do you think one of them was our Yeong-cheol?” she asked him in bed that night.
“Well…” he said, facing the wall.
“What if he was really there and we didn’t bring him back?”
What if… Yeong-cheol repeated to himself.
“If I get depressed, you know that you’re 70% responsible?”
She glared fiercely at his back. Yeong-cheol was curious about the other 30%, but knew the question of attribution didn’t have a pleasant answer, so kept quiet, eyes fixed on the wall. Dots were arranged horizontally, vertically, and diagonally depending on the perspective. If you drew mental horizontal lines across the wall, the dots were indeed horizontal. But drawing vertical lines yielded vertical dots. And diagonal lines, diagonal dots.
He was reminded of the trivia question his wife asked a few years back.
“Want me to give you a fun problem?” he said, still looking at the wall.
“A problem, you say?” she asked spitefully.
“Yeah, a problem related to the house. It’s not hard.”
“Do I hear a dog barking? You, you are the biggest problem in this house. You!”
She pushed him in the back four times and his forehead hit the wall twice due to the unexpected force. It hurt, but he successfully held back from groaning and was proud of himself.
“Speaking of problems, let’s talk about us.”
She propped herself up on an elbow while Yeong-cheol kept his position facing the wall.
“Huh? Let’s talk.”
She shook his shoulders, bumping his head against the wall. He swallowed his pain once again.
“Hey you! You should leave with that prized computer of yours,” she said.
The statement didn’t register right away. Leave for where, and when? “Why with the computer?” he asked.
“That’s all you brought to this marriage, remember? This is my house, so you should take the damn computer and leave.” She spoke with deference for the first time in seven years, but her tone wasn’t as endearing as before.
“How much time will you give me?” he asked.
“How much you need? I’ll be generous.”
He asked for three months.
Yeong-cheol’s younger brother was easygoing about taking Yeong-cheol in, and the latter thanked his new benefactor profusely for such a favor.
“No worries, brother. Have you eaten yet?” his brother asked.
Yeong-cheol didn’t have much of an appetite. “I’ll be there in a week. I promise I won’t be a burden to your family,” he assured him, then left for Ganghwa Island. He planned to go fishing to his heart’s content for a week. Granted, he had never fished before. He never had a real hobby. For him, baduk was more than a mere hobby. He poured his soul into it every moment of every day. Now Yeong-cheol was devoid of a special talent, as well as a job. And now that his wife left him, he wouldn’t be having children either. That left fishing, the epitome of an old man’s hobby. He went into a guest house that also rented out fishing equipment and prepaid a week’s rent in full. He noticed that the guard dog in front of the guest house was a brown dog of mixed breed that bore an uncanny resemblance to the missing Yeong-cheol.
He didn’t catch any fish the whole week.
“What does it mean to be happy?” his five-year-old nephew asked while watching TV. He had a habit of asking odd questions.
“You don’t know what happiness means?” he asked.
Yeong-cheol wanted to tell him that, chances were, he was never going to find out. But he asked instead, “How did you feel when your dad brought home that cake yesterday?”
“I wanted to light the candles right away, blow ’em out, and eat it all up!” his nephew replied, flinging his arms around as if the thought alone were enough to excite him.
Yeong-cheol wanted to tell him, “That’s happiness,” but caught himself. He felt guilty about lying to children. But it occurred to him that the cake was enough to make little kids happy, so he was about to say, “That’s happiness.” Then again, the cake was far from what happiness meant to Yeong-cheol. In the end, he gave his nephew a pat on the head and said, “You sure do like cake a lot, don’t you?”
Out of the blue, the boy placed both hands on his belly button and bowed. “Thank you,” he said respectfully.
Yeong-cheol kept patting his head. “Who taught you how to show respect?”
“No one,” he replied. “Who learns how to show respect?”
There were people who needed to learn to show respect: Yeong-cheol’s online baduk opponents. Their goodbyes were something along the lines of, Hey, you son of a bitch, is baduk all you do in life, poor bastard? Yeong-cheol couldn’t deny that the accusation because it was true. And it was only obvious that he should win every time, because baduk was really all he did in life. Those who repeatedly lost to him were thus prone to swearing before exiting the game.
“Hey, we have the same name,” a player wrote in the game chatroom. He proceeded to introduce himself using smiley emoticons. He was an eighteen-year-old who happened to be named Kim Yeong-cheol. The older Yeong-cheol, who only had baduk going for him, didn’t feel like going easy on his beginner opponent just because they shared his name. Though, it would’ve been fine to lose on purpose and boost the kid’s morale. Yeong-cheol seriously considered it at one point, but then concluded that doing so would be an insult to the younger Yeong-cheol and kept scoring win after win. After the first few matches, the younger Yeong-cheol hailed the older Yeong-cheol as a baduk master, still using smiley emoticons. After two hours of consecutive losses had gone by, however, young Yeong-cheol stopped typing in the chatroom. At the five-hour mark, he took to swearing.
“Are you satisfied now, asshole? Poor prick, playing baduk the whole day at your age. I’m fucking embarrassed that someone like you has my name,” he wrote.
Yeong-cheol was usually unaffected by the losers’ taunts. But that day, he wanted to say something in response.
“I also regret that we have the same name. I hope your future is different from my present,” he typed using two index fingers.
“Fucking bullshit,” the younger Yeong-cheol replied and quit the game.
Yeong-cheol cried that night, triggered by the following events.
He heard dogs barking at one another from outside. He thought one of them might be his missing pet, and so opened the window only to be greeted by sparse street lamps and not a single dog. The barks persisted, however. He stuck his head out the window and began imitating the barking. He could hear a dog barking in response from the distance. He wondered how his own barks translated in dog language. Then his heart sank as he realized that he didn’t remember the sound of his dog’s barking. It felt as though he had never heard the dog bark. Yet he had prided himself in loving that dog; in fact, he’d loved the pet more than he had his ex-wife. Thinking of all this made him feel bad for his ex-wife, so he called her up to apologize.
“Hello? What’s up?” she answered after three rings.
“Nothing much.”
Yeong-cheol panicked because she had picked up quicker than he’d anticipated. “Do you remember what Yeong-cheol’s barks sounded like?” he found himself asking.
“Why do you ask? Do random stray dogs remind you of Yeong-cheol?” she probed.
“Yeah, that too, and I couldn’t remember for the life of me how Yeong-cheol barked.”
“I felt that way too for a while. I know you’re sad, but make sure to get enough food and sleep,” she said. “Are you getting your daily calories?”
“Nothing tastes good these days. I don’t have much of an appetite when I eat alone, and I lose it even more when I eat with my brother’s family.”
She recommended pickles and marinated crab.
Originally published in Among Ways of Seeking the Future. November 2011
〈영철이〉 –《미래를 도모하는 방식 가운데》 中
Kim Um Ji was born in 1988 in Seoul. Her first short story “A Pigpen” was appeared in Munhakgwa Sahoe [Literature & Society] in 2010. She has published a short story collection Among Ways of Seeking the Future and a novel Weekend, Commute, and Stroll: Dark and Rain. She is a member of a literary coterie “Mugachi [No Value].”
Featured image DSK_4697 by Doo Ho Kim is licensed under CC BY 2.0
About Nabillera [나빌레라]
Nabillera: Contemporary Korean Literature [www.NabilleraKorea.com]
nabillerakorea.wordpress.com
Current Issue Interviews Editor's Notes Fiction Interviews Notifications Poetry Spring 2018 Winter 2018
Writers Nabillera Has Featured
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Where does ZADLO rank in the most common names in the U.S.?
ZADLO is identified by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as a surname with more than 100 occurrences in the United States for the year-2000 U.S. Census. In "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000", the Census Bureau tabulated the surnames of all people who had obtained Social Security Numbers by the year 2000.
ZADLO ranks # 100194 in terms of the most common surnames in America for 2000.
ZADLO had 167 occurrences in the 2000 Census, according the U.S. government records.
Out of a sample of 100,000 people in the United States, ZADLO would occur an average of 0.06 times.
For the last name of ZADLO the Census Bureau reports the following race / ethnic origin breakdown:
0 percent, or None reported total occurrences, were "Hispanic Origin"
Search the web for more on the name ZADLO :
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Where does ZOGLIO rank in the most common names in the U.S.?
ZOGLIO is identified by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as a surname with more than 100 occurrences in the United States for the year-2000 U.S. Census. In "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000", the Census Bureau tabulated the surnames of all people who had obtained Social Security Numbers by the year 2000.
ZOGLIO ranks # 94227 in terms of the most common surnames in America for 2000.
ZOGLIO had 180 occurrences in the 2000 Census, according the U.S. government records.
Out of a sample of 100,000 people in the United States, ZOGLIO would occur an average of 0.07 times.
For the last name of ZOGLIO the Census Bureau reports the following race / ethnic origin breakdown:
Search the web for more on the name ZOGLIO :
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Security Coordination Officer, Juba 192 views0 applications
Full Time South Sudan January 12, 2019 - January 23, 2019 Safety/Security Print
Posting Title: SECURITY COORDINATION OFFICER, P3
Job Code Title: SECURITY COORDINATION OFFICER
Department/Office: United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan
Duty Station: JUBA
Posting Period: 08 January 2019 – 22 January 2019
Job Opening Number: 19-Security-UNMISS-109500-F-Juba (M)
United Nations Core Values: Integrity, Professionalism, Respect for Diversity
Organizational Setting and Reporting
This position is located in the Security Section of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Under the overall direction and supervision of the Principal Security Adviser UNDSS South Sudan and the management of the DPSA/CSO, the Security Coordination Officer (P3) will be based in Juba and reports directly to the CSO/DPSA or any other Senior Security Officer that may be designated
Within limits of delegated authority, the Security Coordination Officer reports directly to the CSO/DPSA or any other Senior Security Officer that may be designated and may be responsible for performing the following duties:
Develops and implements Security Standard Operating (SSOP) Procedures applicable to his/her unit operation and participates in the development of the Country Security Plans to preserve the safety and security of all UN personnel, assets and operations;
Contributes to security risk assessments within the Unity State Field Office; Monitors accessible areas; Identifies gaps in existing capability and makes recommendations for amendment where necessary.
Develop necessary policies to facilitate security operations activities and coordinate crisis response the SOC/SICU in Juba
Assists the CSO or Chief of Operations in the management of the Field Security Office, prepares inputs for the work program of the unit, determines priorities and allocates resources, monitors performance, determines security resource requirements in other field offices.
Prepares, develops, updates, and implements functioning security and contingency plans;
Contributes to security risk assessments within the mission area;
Establishes productive lines of communication and meets regularly with Security Cell in the Field Office, security focal points, Host Government authorities, as well as Military and Civilian Police components to plan and review information and security related matters;
Provides training and advice to his/her unit’s personnel on security matters;
Maintains awareness of prevailing local security conditions, identifies potential threats and advises UN personnel to follow appropriate preventive steps;
When required, assists the Crisis Management Team, ensures crisis preparedness and coordinates emergency and crisis response in a timely manner;
Monitors air, land and sea evacuation capability to be used in emergencies; conducts evacuation exercises and recommends appropriate action; Assesses evacuation resources availability and submits requests to cover the needs;
Assist in the monitoring and plotting of accessible areas, maintain tracking systems, establishes and coordinates an efficient 24-hour Emergency Response System (ERS);
Identifies gaps in existing capability and makes recommendations for revisions where necessary.
Monitors and evaluates office physical security measures, and conducts security surveys of installations; Coordinates implementation of security arrangements in coordination with the Premises Security & guard force management unit, as recommended by the security risk assessments;
Contributes to the review of all Security Risk Assessments and ensures that the implementation of recommended mitigating measures are fully complied in coordination with the relevant Units.
When required, performs as Operations Officer in the Security Information and Operations Centre and deployed as surge officer to field offices when required.
Obtains, studies and implements all security policies promulgated by the Inter-Agency Security Management Network (IASMN), HLCM and CEB.
Drafts Statements of Requirements and provides technical specifications for the procurement of specific security equipment;
Oversee the active functioning of the UNSMS warden system in accordance with policy in coordination with the respective FSA of the UNSMS Organizations.
Oversee the development and review of all Area Security Risk Management measures, Area Security Plan, Area Emergency drills in coordination with the other FSCOs in the field.
Performs any other duties as directed by the CSO/DPSA or Chief of Operations or delegated authority.
RESULTS EXPECTED:Effective planning, implementation and coordination of a security system, capable to enable the conduct of United Nations activities while ensuring the safety, security and well-being of personnel and the security of United Nations premises and assets.
Professionalism: Excellent knowledge of security management, combined with solid background of military, police of security specialization; Knowledge, understanding and ability to manage security challenges in post-conflict environment; Capability to appropriately manage multiple and divers security units; Shows pride in work and in achievements; Demonstrates professional competence and mastery of subject matter; Is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results; Is motivated by professional rather than personal concerns; Shows persistence when faced with difficult problems or challenges; Remains calm in stressful situations; always acts ethically and with integrity.
Planning & OrganizingDevelops clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies; Identifies priority activities and assignments; adjusts priorities as required; Allocates appropriate amount of time and resources for completing work; Foresees risks and allows for contingencies when planning; Monitors and adjusts plans and actions as necessary; Uses time efficiently.
Teamwork:Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals; Solicits input by genuinely valuing others’ ideas and expertise; is willing to learn from others; Places team agenda before personal agenda; Builds consensus for task purpose and direction with team members; Supports and acts in accordance with final group decisions, even when such decisions ay not entirely reflect own position; Shares credit for team accomplishments and accepts joint responsibility for team shortcomings.
An advanced university degree (Masters degree or equivalent such as a senior command and staff qualification) in security management or business administration, political/social science or international relations with focus on security management;
A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience in military, police or security management may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree;
A first-level university degree may be substituted with a diploma and/or certification resulting in an appointment as commissioned officer from a national police or military academy, in combination with two years of qualifying experience in military or police at the rank of a commissioned officer (i.e. Lieutenant / Inspector or equivalent).
Completion of the UNDSS Security Certification Program (SCP) successfully is highly desirable.
A minimum of five years with advanced university degree (seven years with a first-level university degree) of progressively responsible experience in the military, police or security management is required; of which
At least three years of progressively experience in security operations centre (SOC); and/or close protection operations within a military, police or security organization is required; and
At least two years of experience in managing multiple and diverse military, police or security units operating in a conflict or post conflict environment is required; and
At least one-year experience and exposure at the international level is required;
Desirable experience:
Management of security units in a multi-cultural environment, security planning, security operations, security risk assessment, standard operating procedures, physical security, coordination with local authorities and law enforcement agencies, emergency communication system, crisis management, hostage incident management, security administration, logistics for security in a high risk, conflict or post-conflict environment and multicultural environment.
English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the post advertised, fluency in oral and written English is required. Knowledge of another official United Nations language is an advantage.
Previously rostered candidates are not subject to any further assessment and as such, will not be invited for such an assessment.
This ‘Recruit from Roster’ job opening is only open to roster applicants who are already placed on pre-approved rosters, following a review by a United Nations Central Review Body. Only roster applicants who were placed on rosters with similar functions at the same level are considered to be eligible candidates. Eligible applicants receive an email inviting them to apply. Rostered applicants are encouraged to apply only if they are interested and available to take up the position at the duty station/s specified in the Job Opening. Applying to this job opening carries an expectation to accept the offer, if selected.
United Nations Considerations
According to article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Candidates will not be considered for employment with the United Nations if they have committed violations of international human rights law, violations of international humanitarian law, sexual exploitation or sexual abuse, or crimes other than minor traffic offences, or if there are reasonable grounds to believe that they have been involved in the commission of any of these acts. The term ‘sexual exploitation’ means any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another. The term ‘sexual abuse’ means the actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature, whether by force or under unequal or coercive conditions.
Due regard will be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible. The United Nations places no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary organs. The United Nations Secretariat is a non-smoking environment.Applicants are urged to follow carefully all instructions available in the online recruitment platform, inspira. For more detailed guidance, applicants may refer to the Manual for the Applicant, which can be accessed by clicking on ‘Manuals’ hyper-link on the upper right side of the inspira account-holder homepage.The evaluation of applicants will be conducted on the basis of the information submitted in the application according to the evaluation criteria of the job opening and the applicable internal legislations of the United Nations including the Charter of the United Nations, resolutions of the General Assembly, the Staff Regulations and Rules, administrative issuances and guidelines. Applicants must provide complete and accurate information pertaining to their personal profile and qualifications according to the instructions provided in inspira to be considered for the current job opening. No amendment, addition, deletion, revision or modification shall be made to applications that have been submitted. Candidates under serious consideration for selection will be subject to reference checks to verify the information provided in the application.Job openings advertised on the Careers Portal will be removed at 11:59 p.m. (New York time) on the deadline date.
THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.
Job City Juba
This job has expired!
Juba Security Coordination Officer United Nations Mission in South Sudan
Food Security & Livelihood Manager
Joint Aid Management (JAM) Full Time South Sudan July 3, 2019 - July 20, 2019
The world looks to the United Nations for solutions to complex problems everywhere; from ending conflict and alleviating poverty, to combating climate change and defending human rights. The issues on our agenda are manifold and diverse as are the careers we offer. Among our ranks you will find staff members who monitor elections, disarm child soldiers, coordinate relief in humanitarian crises and provide administrative as well as logistical support to carry out our complex mandates. These are just a few examples amongst our many other equally critical and necessary functions.
The wide array of jobs means that you may change functions, departments, geographic locations, and even organizations or fields of work throughout your career in the Organization.
The diversity of our people, some 41,000 staff from our 193 Member States, means that you will find yourself working in multi-cultural teams with people from all backgrounds and cultures who have wide perspectives, experiences, expectations as well as approaches.
The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 and committed to maintaining international peace and security; developing friendly relations among nations; promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.
Due to its unique international character, and the powers vested in its founding Charter, the Organization takes action on a wide range of issues, and provides a forum for its 193 Member States to express their views, through the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and other bodies and committees.
The work of the United Nations touches every corner of the globe and focuses on a broad range of fundamental issues, like sustainable development, protection of the environment and refugees, disaster relief and mitigation, counter terrorism, as well as disarmament and non-proliferation.
In September 2015, world leaders gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and unanimously adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a new universal standard for development that will ensure no one is left behind.
17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent the cornerstone of the historic, transformational Agenda. Building on the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs aim to go further to end all forms of poverty. Universal and indivisible, the SDGs call for action by all countries—developed, developing and middle-income—to promote prosperity while protecting the planet over the next fifteen years.
The SDGs officially came into force on 1 January 2016. Governments, businesses and civil society have started mobilizing efforts to achieve the goals, by aligning their priorities with the SDGs and adopting plans to achieve them.
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Provides training and advice to his/her unit's personnel on security matters;
Teamwork:Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals; Solicits input by genuinely valuing others' ideas and expertise; is willing to learn from others; Places team agenda before personal agenda; Builds consensus for task purpose and direction with team members; Supports and acts in accordance with final group decisions, even when such decisions ay not entirely reflect own position; Shares credit for team accomplishments and accepts joint responsibility for team shortcomings.
This 'Recruit from Roster' job opening is only open to roster applicants who are already placed on pre-approved rosters, following a review by a United Nations Central Review Body. Only roster applicants who were placed on rosters with similar functions at the same level are considered to be eligible candidates. Eligible applicants receive an email inviting them to apply. Rostered applicants are encouraged to apply only if they are interested and available to take up the position at the duty station/s specified in the Job Opening. Applying to this job opening carries an expectation to accept the offer, if selected.
According to article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Candidates will not be considered for employment with the United Nations if they have committed violations of international human rights law, violations of international humanitarian law, sexual exploitation or sexual abuse, or crimes other than minor traffic offences, or if there are reasonable grounds to believe that they have been involved in the commission of any of these acts. The term 'sexual exploitation' means any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another. The term 'sexual abuse' means the actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature, whether by force or under unequal or coercive conditions.
Due regard will be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible. The United Nations places no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary organs. The United Nations Secretariat is a non-smoking environment.Applicants are urged to follow carefully all instructions available in the online recruitment platform, inspira. For more detailed guidance, applicants may refer to the Manual for the Applicant, which can be accessed by clicking on 'Manuals' hyper-link on the upper right side of the inspira account-holder homepage.The evaluation of applicants will be conducted on the basis of the information submitted in the application according to the evaluation criteria of the job opening and the applicable internal legislations of the United Nations including the Charter of the United Nations, resolutions of the General Assembly, the Staff Regulations and Rules, administrative issuances and guidelines. Applicants must provide complete and accurate information pertaining to their personal profile and qualifications according to the instructions provided in inspira to be considered for the current job opening. No amendment, addition, deletion, revision or modification shall be made to applications that have been submitted. Candidates under serious consideration for selection will be subject to reference checks to verify the information provided in the application.Job openings advertised on the Careers Portal will be removed at 11:59 p.m. (New York time) on the deadline date.
THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS' BANK ACCOUNTS.
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Three good things and a renewed sense of presence
June 3, 2010 in Music is the best thing | Tags: Arcade Fire, Crystal Castles, David Bowie, David Malouf, James Murphy, Jonsi, LCD Soundsystem, Lush, REM, Riceboy Sleeps, Sigur Ros, Talking Heads, The meaning of music, The National, The Strokes
Okay, stand well back, because I’m about to do something I’ve never done before, and, dare I say it, you’ve probably never seen done before. Am I about to turn myself inside out? Levitate while cross-legged? Speak in two languages at once? No. What I’m about to do is quote Australian literary legend David Malouf in what’s essentially a review of three pop-music records. In his article titled ‘Music, the most abstract of the arts, is mathematics on the move’, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 May 2010, Malouf asks, So what is music for? What does it do to us or for us? What happens when we give ourselves over to actually listening to it? Music vibrates in the air around us and involves us; it touches and moves us. Its rhythms take us back to primitive foot-tapping and finger-clicking or clapping; the regularity of its beat excites our heartbeats and pleases us with its natural order; it invites the body, even when the body remains still, to sway and dance. All music takes us back to the body; all instruments discover what they do in what the body does.
Three records that are currently doing exactly what Malouf is talking about, taking me back to my body, and getting me pretty bloody excited in the process, are ‘High Violet’ by The National, ‘Crystal Castles’ by Crystal Castles, and ‘This Is Happening’ by LCD Soundsystem, the latter band surely being the most genuinely enthralling bunch of contemporary musicians working today.
First up, The National’s ‘High Violet’. Frankly, these guys are so god-damn frustrating. They could be great, they could be huge. They could take REM’s indy-music crown, and part of me wants this to happen, because on ‘High Violet’ they get mighty, mighty close to making something truly significant. This is a big record, one that’s best played up loud so the richness and the rawness makes your rib-bones rattle. Melancholic, intimate, but still rocking, it’s an intriguing beast of a thing. In parts, especially on album-opener ‘Terrible Love’, it owes a little to Sigur Ros, in terms of the buzz-saw atmospherics, and Arcade Fire in terms of the naked ambition. ‘Afraid of Everyone’ (I put my hand up to say, yes, that’s me), ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’, and ‘Lemonworld’ is a stunning trifecta of songs and worth the price-tag alone. The frustration comes from Matt Berninger’s voice, which while deeply attractive and listenable does tend to mangle the lyrics into an unintelligible slop so that a song’s never given the opportunity to properly blossom into a classic. But this album grows and grows on you until you just can’t live without it, and perhaps that’s where The National’s true genius lies.
Crystal Castles has now given us their second album and it’s…um…totally friggin’…beautiful. Yes, beautiful. Though I should caution that at times it’s an ugly kind of beauty. As with the duo’s first – and also self-titled – album, there’s the mix of scratchy, screechy snippets of dancey noise (a bit like a jacked-up Sonic Youth trapped in a computer-game shop) and then great big slathers of almost-but-not-quite trance. This time around, however, it all comes together in a more cohesive whole. ‘Celestica’, ‘Year of Silence’ (which samples ‘Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur’ by Sigur Ros, revealing the dark soul of those Icelandic noise-niks, which, to my mind, is missing from Jonsi’s solo effort ‘Go’, though the darkness is all over his and his partner Alex Somers’ extraordinary Riceboy Sleeps album) and ‘Vietnam’ make for fantastic listening. For those of an age there’s a fair bit of inspiration from the 90s-era, Rickenbacker-strumming English band Lush in many of these beguiling songs, and that’s no bad thing. As long as the world has artists like Crystal Castles in it, dance music and electronica is in very…dangerous hands indeed. Bugger it, I might just pour myself a glass of champagne, turn out the lights, crank this album up very loud, and dance around the lounge-room like a dervish until the Old Lady of the House and Cat the Ripper give me the evil eye before darting under the bed.
And so we come to LCD Soundsystem, which is the first band in years that have spun my nipples so hard that I’m amazed that I still have a chest. Mixing brilliant, thoughtful beats and the wittiest of lyrics, a gorgeous though not unchallenging pop sensibility, and perfect production, ‘This Is Happening’ is already in my Top Ten Albums of 2010. Like the band’s previous record, ‘Sound of Silver’, the influences are many, though in almost every song I’m reminded of Talking Heads’ ‘Remain in Light’, which just so happens to be in my Top Ten Albums of All Time. Having said that, the stunning, feedback-drenched ‘All I Want’ sounds suspiciously like a mash-up of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ and any Strokes song you care to mention, just infinitely better. While it’s true that there aren’t as many highs as on ‘Sound of Silver’, this is a more minimal record, and it’s one that deserves – and rewards – close listening, because there’s more than one devil in the detail here. And it’s all so very, very New York that I almost feel like going out to graffiti something just for the heck of it. Apparently James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem’s key protagonist, has said that this is the last outing for this particular musical incarnation. If this is true, good on him for bowing out while completely on top of his game.
David Malouf in his Sydney Morning Herald article goes on to say the following: One of the opportunities art offers us is simply to stand still for a moment and look, or to sit still and listen; the pleasure of being firmly present while the ego goes absent and our consciousness is fired with something other than ourselves. For some reason, losing ourselves in this way is a form of self-discovery. Going passive and absent energises us, gives us a renewed sense of presence. Whether you want to sit still and be swept away or dance like a complete idiot without a care in the world (I can flit between the two with remarkable ease, I should admit), being fully present in the company of these three albums could make you very happy to be living on this planet in the year 2010.
If you’re interested in reading the full Malouf article, it can be found here.
June 3, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Jun
Nana Jo
I had never heard of any of these bands, but the mere names entice me to want more. Who couldn’t want to be immersed in the exquisitely named High Violet, Lemonworld and Sound of Silver!
‘Whether you want to sit still and be swept away or dance like a complete idiot’ … ahhh, now there you have the essence of it, Nigel. I usually want one or the other from my music.
Hi Nana Jo, yes sometimes it’s all in the title, isn’t it. Perhaps there’s a post in that: best song names, or book titles. ‘Remain in Light’, the fantastic Talking Head album I reference in the post, is such a great title for an album. Strangely, I’m obsessed with anything with ‘light’ in the title, like ‘There is a light that never goes out’ by The Smiths (one of the most perfect songs ever) and ‘Lighthouse Keeper’ by Australian band My Friend the Chocolate Cake. Talking of names of things, My Friend the Chocolate Cake has to be one great names for a band!
Anything with the name Chocolate Cake works for me!
screamish
I only know LCD Soundsystem and for about six months I was obsessed by “daft punk is playing in my house”. Delightful percussion…love the way they beat those little trianlges and stuff in a cool rocker way…
I’d like to know more about the physical reasons music gets to us. I know all the anthropological/sociological theories, social cohesiveness, sharing experience, ritual, it’s very useful for that but why does it even exist in the first place? Why don’t chimps make music? When your cat listens to your CDs along with you, does it hear something intelligible, or is just something like traffic noise is for us? Why is it possible for us to hear the music in something like Einsturzende neubaten, when the frontier between their music and meaningless clanking is so fine?
I have a feeling that music is such a magical thing, so mysterious and in a way so …biologically speaking…unnecessary…that even if we ever get to chat with extraterrestrials, the most fascinating thing they’d find here would be music, and art…I can imagine the universe peopled by immensely huge intelligences that get their kicks from maths or something, but could never in a billion years write a song like “Jumping Jack Flash”
Hi Screamish, perhaps the best place to go for more thoughts on the physicality of music is David Malouf’s full article. I’ve updated the post to include a link.
And I love your question about what the cat thinks of the music we play – does it ‘hear something intelligible or just something like traffic noise for us’?? It’s a great question you ask.
And I agree that music is magical. It really is quite extraordinary and should be seen as the miracle that it is. It’s a weighty – and potentially even disturbing – thought, but it may well be that music might only come from this little ball of dust we call earth.
I picked up “High Violet” a couple of weeks ago and haven’t been able to stop listening to it since. “Sorrow” is just about as close to a perfect song as I’ve heard in quite some time. I’ve never been a big LCD Soundsystem fan, but maybe it’s time for another listen.
Hi AFM, yes ‘Sorrow’ is a wonderful song.
Re. LCD Soundsystem – if you haven’t liked their previous work then you’re probably not going to like this stuff, but there’s something about these guys that I love. It could the wittiest of lyrics, or it might just be that it’s essentially dance music with intelligence. Either way, it gets played alot around my joint.
mjrc
i’ve been forgetting, yes, actually forgetting to purchase the lcd soundsystem. not any more!
Hi mjrc, ‘This is Happening’ is one heck of an album. It’s all I’ve been playing in my car for weeks now. At first it doesn’t grab as much as Sounds of Silver, but it grows and grows until it firmly takes hols. It really is music to fall in-love with. And music to shake your hips, too!
July 8, 2010 at 9:16+00:00Jul
larooblog
“And so we come to LCD Soundsystem, which is the first band in years that have spun my nipples so hard that I’m amazed that I still have a chest.”
since we seem to be on the topic of quotes this week, it’d like to than you for giving me one to make me smile.:)
Am so glad some words made someone smile!
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PGC Announces the Relaunch of the Bra d’Or Award
PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Distribution
Announcing the Launch of a Bold, New Bra d’Or Award!
Ontario, March 8th, 2018 – In honour of International Women’s Day, The Women’s Caucus (WC) of Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) and the Bra d’Or Award Revamp Committee are celebrating the re-opening of the Bra d’Or Award after a two-year hiatus.
Established in 2006 , The Bra d’Or (Golden Bra) Award is bestowed annually upon an individual who supports and promotes the work of Canadian women playwrights. Repeated studies indicate that women are under-represented both on our stages and in positions of power. Although women comprise 53% of PGC’s membership, on average, less than 30% of the plays produced on our nation’s stages are written by women, and for Indigenous women, women of colour, and trans creators, the numbers are significantly lower. The purpose of the Award then is to honour people who lead the way by example, working towards greater equity, diversity, and inclusion for women writers in theatre. Past recipients of the award include Brian Quirt, Hope McIntyre, Katrina Dunn, Eric Coates, Andy McKim, Philip Aikin, Rachel Ditor, Robert Metcalfe, Mary Vingoe, Rebecca Burton, and Diane Brown.
The Bra d’Or Revamp Committee is composed of Award winners Eric Coates, Rachel Ditor, Andy McKim, and Mary Vingoe (Committee Chair), as well as PGC representatives Rita Shelton Deverell and Rebecca Burton (PGC staff). The Committee was tasked with overhauling the Bra d’Or to refresh, renew, and reinvigorate the procedures for greater impact and visibility. And that’s just what they did!
To increase the award’s profile, it will be a part of PGC’s Tom Hendry Awards. The timing of the call for nominations and the announcement of the winner will be made in concert with PGC’s other awards. As before, nominations may only be put forward by PGC Women’s Caucus members, but a new voting procedure allows for the entirety of PGC’s membership to select the winner. Enhancing visibility and providing greater clout, now the Award winner will be saluted at three different community events. The first presentation will be made at the Tom Hendry Awards ceremony, held in October at Toronto’s Arts and Letters Club. The second celebration will occur sometime in the five months after that, partnered with an event in the recipient’s home community. The final engagement, in partnership with the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT), will take place in May at their annual conference.
With these changes, the Bra d’Or Award will better recognize and celebrate people who make positive contributions to our industry by supporting and promoting the work of Canadian women playwrights. May the award and its recipients inspire us all!
Click HERE for the Bra d’Or Award Nomination Form.
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Quantum geometry
Marianne Freiberger
Submitted by plusadmin on June 1, 2007
This article is part of the Researching the unknown project, a collaboration with researchers from Queen Mary University of London, bringing you the latest research on the forefront of physics. Click here to read more articles from the project.
During the last 100 years or so physics has been chipping away at our intuitive understanding of the space we live in. Physicists tell us that rather than consisting of the familiar three dimensions, space is in fact part of a curved spacetime of at least four dimensions, perhaps more. Cosmologists are still unsure of the precise geometry of our universe, proposing a variety of odd shapes and even considering that it might be finite.
What happens to space at the smallest scale?
Out of all these new ideas there is one that perhaps defies intuition more than all others: that space, when you zoom in on it, stops being a smooth and continuous whole and starts breaking up into little indivisible chunks of some kind. This idea is truly mind-boggling. When you think of little chunks you can't help but think of them as existing inside something else and this something is — well, continuous. Another visualisation is to imagine space becoming fuzzy at this fundamental scale. But what exactly does that mean? Fuzzy with respect to what? Our macroscopic intuition simply isn't equipped to deal with a non-continuous space. Maths is the only language in which to talk about this, but ordinary geometry won't do — we need a completely new model of space. Shahn Majid from Queen Mary University of London has developed such a model, based on something called non-commutative geometry. His work is a fascinating blend of abstract algebra, theoretical physics, philosophy and experiment. Plus went to see him to find out more.
Quantum leaps
Max Planck, 1858 - 1947.
Our story starts at the end of the nineteenth century, when the first serious blows were dealt to the assumption that the world around us is inherently continuous. Physicists had found that electromagnetic radiation, such as light, behaved in a way that could not be explained by classical physics, which imagined it to take the shape of waves. In an attempt to find a new mathematical explanation, the physicist Max Planck took a radical step: he assumed that the energy of electromagnetic radiation did not vary continuously, as the wave picture suggested, but came in little packages called quanta. Albert Einstein later picked up on this idea, and by 1905 the notion that light travelled in continuous waves had been replaced by Einstein's photons: little units of light that can behave both like isolated particles and like waves.
The seed that had been sown by Planck and nurtured by Einstein and physicists including Niels Bohr later grew into what is now known as quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics can be extremely counter-intuitive and to the uninitiated can seem downright crazy. At its heart lies the notion of wave-particle duality; the idea that, at a minuscule level, the world is not made up of point particles and continuous waves, but of some strange hybrid between the two, something that is neither but has characteristics of both. It suggests that concepts like "points" and "continuity" are not quite right when it comes to looking at the world at such a small scale.
Despite its apparent craziness, quantum mechanics does incredibly well at predicting physical processes at a sub-atomic level. It does have one huge problem though: it squarely contradicts Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes the macroscopic world so admirably well. So ever since the conception of quantum mechanics physicists have been hunting for the one big unifying theory that can accommodate both: a theory of quantum gravity.
A new idea of space
Various attempts of constructing an all-encompassing theory of quantum gravity have been made, string theory being one of them, but so far there is no consensus as to which, if any, are correct. Some people think that a particular failing of many current theories is that they make too many assumptions about the nature of spacetime in their formulation. Rather than explaining our intuitions of what space and time are, they take these intuitions as a starting point. "The fundamental issue is that if spacetime is to emerge from quantum gravity, then it makes no sense to use our macroscopic intuitions about continuous spacetime as a starting point," says Majid. He suggests that to have any hope of formulating quantum gravity, we must first learn the lessons taught us by quantum mechanics and give up on the idea that space is continuous.
And when we let go of the notion of continuity, the notion of a "point", so indispensable in ordinary geometry, goes with it. A point is a dimensionless object, something that has no length or breadth. But if space consists of indivisible chunks, then it's impossible to home in on a point: at some stage you simply cannot make things any smaller and so they can't achieve length and breadthlessness. "The idea of points is the root of many of the problems that plague quantum gravity," he says. "The point is a very abstract notion, it's something that is infinitessimally small. What is a point particle, for example? Isn't it really just an idealisation, a mathematical abstraction? More than likely there aren't any point particles in the world."
The idea of points that merge together to form a continuum lies at the very heart of ordinary geometry, so we need a completely different language to talk about the space that Majid is suggesting. As often when it comes to high level abstraction, it's algebra that comes to the rescue.
Algebra to the rescue
The fact that geometry and algebra are related is something you'll be familiar with from school. When you do the maths of, say, the two-dimensional plane, you start by defining two perpendicular axes that serve as a frame of reference. Every point in the plane now comes with two numbers, called co-ordinates, giving you the distance you have to travel along each axis to get to the point.
A circle of radius 1 and centered on the origin consists of those points whose co-ordinates satisfy x2 + y2 = 1.
Now think of a circle that is centered on the point with co-ordinates (0,0) and has radius one. Evoke Pythagoras's Theorem and you'll find that the circle consists of exactly those points whose co-ordinates (x, y) satisfy:
x2 + y2 = 1.
The circle is completely defined by the algebraic relationship between point co-ordinates.
Viewed in this way, algebra becomes a convenient language in which to talk about geometry. But let's look at this set-up in a slightly more abstract way. Co-ordinates describe a geometric object — in this case the plane — by associating each point of the object with numbers. Things that allocate a number to each of a collection of other things are what mathematicians call functions. So from now on we regard each of the two co-ordinates defined on the plane as a function.
The functions you can define on a geometrical space form a neat algebraic system of their own. You can, for example, multiply any two of them and the result will be a new function: the product xy of the two co-ordinate functions x and y, for instance, is the function that allocates to every point the product of its x-co-ordinate and its y-co-ordinate. Similarly, it makes sense to multiply a function by a number, or to add two functions. Just as for ordinary numbers, addition and multiplication of functions are subject to certain rules, for example you have that x+y is the same as y+x and that xy is the same as yx.
This may not seem very surprising: in the example above, we knew that the x and y were just place-holders for numbers, so it's obvious that you can multiply and add them and that the orders of addition and of multiplication do not matter. However, this abstract way of looking at things makes it possible to define the algebraic system generated by the co-ordinates of a geometric object without ever referring to the object itself. You simply say: "Here's a set of abstract objects called functions and here are some rules that tell you how to add and multiply them." In our example the plane can be replaced by an algebraic system involving the symbols x and y and the circle replaced by the same system with the additional constraint that x2 + y2 = 1.
Each geometric object — the plane, the circle, three-dimensional space or the surface of a doughnut — comes with its own stand-alone algebraic system, though, admittedly, constructing it is a little more technical than we're letting on here. The beautiful and amazing thing is that you can go the other way around. Start with an abstract algebraic system and, as long as it abides by certain rules, you can be sure that there's a geometric object attached to it. You can even re-construct this object by performing some clever algebraic tricks. There's a tight, two-way relationship between geometry and algebra. The main kind of essentially algebraic systems that satisfy these rules and hence correspond to geometric spaces are called commutative C*-algebras (pronounce: "C star algebras").
Order matters
We've now got two independent ways of describing objects like the plane or the circle: one is geometric and the other algebraic. This is exactly what we need in our quest for those strange point-less geometries. We may lack the geometric intuition needed to construct them, but we can get a grip on them using algebra. The idea is simple: start with an algebraic system that is similar to, but not quite the same as, a commutative C*-algebra and pretend that, just like a commutative C*-algebra, this also describes some kind of a space. It isn't going to be any of the spaces we know, but that's the whole point. This admittedly involves a leap of faith, since we've got absolutely no idea how to re-construct this "space", but we just ignore that and work with the algebra — this is the beauty of mathematical abstraction.
But what new kind of algebraic system should we choose? In which way should it differ from a commutative C*-algebra? It turns out that one particular feature of C*-algebras holds the key to all of this: it is called commutativity.
To say that two things commute means that the order in which you combine them doesn't matter. The co-ordinates in our example above commute under mulitplication because xy is the same as yx. Most things you can think of off the top of your head do commute: the whole numbers do and so do the real and complex numbers. But there are also mathematical objects that do not commute. An example is given by rotations in three-dimensional space: rotate something about one axis, then about another axis. You do not usually get the same if you compose the same rotations in reverse order.
Non-commutative geometry is about taking algebraic systems that are in some way similar to commutative C*-algebras, but dropping the assumption that the things that form them commute — in a non-commutative algebra you simply don't assume that xy is the same as yx. We then pretend that there is nevertheless some kind of "space" attached to our system, and this space, whatever it may be, is called a non-commutative space. What Majid and his colleagues hope is that such a non-commutative space might give a better description of the real world than the ordinary notion of space we're used to.
Quantum uncertainty
Werner Heisenberg, 1901-1976.
But why should the feature of commutativity be the one to drop? There are purely mathematical reasons for this, but also some that are motivated by physics. Non-commutativity first raised its head when Werner Heisenberg helped to lay down the foundations of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. Heisenberg formulated the famous uncertainty principle, which highlights the problem with the idea of a point particle. The principle states that when you consider such a particle moving through space, for example an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom, you can never ever measure both its position and its momentum as accurately as you like: the more you know about the one, the less precise you can be about the other. This isn't because your measuring instruments are too imprecise to pin down the value of, say, momentum once you've measured position. There simply isn't a "true" value of momentum, but a whole range of values that the momentum can take, each with a certain probability.
If it wasn't for the uncertainty principle, you could describe all the possible positions of the particle and its momentum by six numbers: three giving its spatial co-ordinates and three describing the momentum in each of the three directions. Thus, all the possible states the particle could be in would together form a six-dimensional space called the phase space. Phase space viewed in this way is nothing more mysterious than a higher-dimensional analogue of the ordinary space we're used to.
The uncertainty principle makes a nonsense of this idea of phase space, since it's impossible to ever determine the six co-ordinates accurately. Erwin Schrödinger, another protagonist in the development of quantum mechanics, had dealt with this by replacing the points in six-dimensional phase space by sophisticated mathematical objects called wave functions, which encode all the information there is about the possible states of the particle. As a consequence, the six co-ordinates describing position and momentum had to be replaced also. Their role is played by objects called operators. They behave just like matrices and in Heisbenberg's formulation of quantum mechanics it is they that play the fundamental role. Just like co-ordinates, the operators are part of an algebraic system and — you've guessed it — this system isn't commutative. The operators for position and momentum do not commute with each other, which means that if you measure where a particle is and then measure its momentum, you get a slightly different answer than if you first measure its momentum and then its position. This is at the root of why you cannot perfectly measure both at the same time.
A new model of space
A vision of non-commutative geometry. Image created by Shahn Majid, used with permission.
The mathematics of non-commutative geometry was pioneered by several great mathematicians, including the legendary Russian mathematician Israil Gelfand, who with his collaborators proved the first key theorems about C*-algebras, and in modern times the Fields medallist Alain Connes. Connes recognised that non-commutative geometry could be immensely useful for theoretical physics. One of his ideas here, loosely speaking, is to reformulate the basic pattern of elementary particle physics by appending non-commutative "extra dimensions" to the usual classical notion of spacetime. This model is not about quantum gravity in the first instance; the space-time coordinates x, y, z, t (three for space and one for time) form an ordinary commutative algebraic system for spacetime as usual, but Connes then "tacks on" non-commutative matrix coordinates that neatly encode all the different types of particles. His theory is not only exceedingly elegant, but makes a number of predictions that had previously eluded physicists, including predictions about the masses of fundamental particles like the mysterious Higgs boson.
Majid has taken non-commutative geometry down a slightly different road. In his work he forgets about the classical picture of spacetime altogether. He still has the four objects that take the place of the four co-ordinates — x, y and z for space and t for time — but now these co-ordinates do not commute: xt is not the same as tx. Together the co-ordinates form a non-commutative algebraic system and spacetime would then be the mysterious geometrical space that we're hoping comes attached to this system.
But simply saying that the co-ordinates don't commute is not quite enough. If xt is not the same as tx, then in order to construct a specific system we must say by how much they differ. Majid suggests that a number called the Planck scale measures this amount of non-commutativity.
The Planck scale is a length scale. In some sense it's the length scale at which space stops being "normal". If you take an object of a given mass and compress it into a smaller and smaller region of space, then it will eventually form a black hole: its gravitational field will become so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from its vicinity. If a black hole (or more correctly the vicinity controlled by it) is tiny — with a radius of 1.616 × 10-33cm or less — then quantum theory also enters any attempt to describe it. This length scale, 1.616 × 10-33cm, is the Planck scale.
Another point of view, this time coming from quantum theory, is that because of their wavelike nature photons, electrons or any other particles used to probe geometry can only ever achieve a certain resolution, inversely proportional to their mass-energy. To resolve the Planck scale you would need particles with mass-energy so high that gravity also enters any attempt to describe them. "What's happening here is that as you try to probe these smaller and smaller sizes," Majid explains "The particles you're considering form black holes. To understand them you need both a theory of quantum phenomena and of gravity and that's the theory we don't have. Close to the Planck scale is where physics as we know it breaks down. It's where the quantum gravity regime kicks in."
This diagram illustrates the mass-energy and size that objects in our universe can have. Certain combinations of mass-energy and size are prohibited by the laws of quantum theory (left-hand wedge) and others by gravity (right-hand wedge). The Planck scale corresponds to the point where the diagonals bounding the two forbidden regions intersect. It's where the physics we know breaks down. And in case you were wondering, Cygnus X-1 is a black hole. Image from the book Foundations of Quantum Group Theory by Shahn Majid, used with permission.
In Majid's model, if you measure x and then t, you get a different answer than if you measure first t and then x. In uncertainty terms, you can't measure both where and when an event takes place in the same experiment with perfect accuracy. There will be an uncertainty of magnitude set by the Planck scale.
To the test
It's fascinating to see physics and abstract algebra coming together in this way. But is Majid's theory more than just a toy model, an entertaining diversion for theorists? We may soon know the answer to this question: excitingly, Majid's model can be tested against reality. Although we're now dealing with a new mathematical description of spacetime, it is still possible to use established physical theories to predict how physical systems should behave if the model were correct. You do need to reformulate some of the maths and physics involved to get rid of the assumption that things commute, but this can be done using algebra.
With this new maths it is possible to look again at the wave equation, which describes the propagation of waves including light waves or, more accurately, photons, and see how it is modified. "What the theory predicts is that a photon's velocity depends on its energy: more energetic photons should travel more slowly than less energetic ones," says Majid, "and this is a prediction we can test." Guinnea pigs to perform the tests on come in the shape of gamma ray bursts, bright bursts of electromagnetic radiation that happen frequently all over the universe.
A simulated image of a gamma ray universe, as it will be seen by GLAST. Image courtesy NASA, credit Seth Digel, Stanford University.
"The gamma rays [a type of photon] from a burst come with a wide variety of energies and they travel cosmological distances. According to the theory, the Earth arrival times of less energetic rays should differ from more energetic ones by a few milliseconds. That's detectible." Looking at the rays from a single gamma ray burst is not enough, since we don't know what the original distribution of energies was. However, looking at a large number of bursts and analysing them statistically should give some clues as to whether the energetic photons really do arrive with a delay.
"NASA's GLAST (gamma ray large area telescope) satellite will be launched later this year and part of its mission protocol is to provide data that could detect such a variable speed of light. I'm not saying that it will definitely prove the theory correct — this is only the simplest model you could think of - but at least it has testable predictions, it's not just pie in the sky. We live in a very exciting era where mathematics, philosophy and experiment all come together."
Shahn Majid is Professor of Mathematics at Queen Mary University of London. Educated at Cambridge and Harvard, he was one of the pioneers of the theory of quantum groups in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is the author of numerous research articles and two textbooks on quantum algebra. He is currently on sabbatical at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge.
Marianne Freiberger is co-author of Plus.
Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on March 8, 2011
I have a pendig manuscript at Physics Essays publication. We use sphere eversion as a model. A half-way model of a Boy's Surface represents energy flow in any direction. The uncertainty principle allows for energy to flow through plus, zero, minus curvature. We propose the attribute of thermal energy crosses over to potential mass and gravitational potential. I am interested in communicating with other researchers about these ideas. Can you offer contact information? Sincerely Francis D Moore
Permalink Submitted by Rachel on March 9, 2011
Hi Francis,
You'll find a link to Shahn's homepage in the 'About the Author' section above.
Best wishes from the Plus Team
Uncertainty principle
Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on September 2, 2013
The way the uncertainty principle is discussed implies that not being able to measure position and momentum simultaneously is some kind of mystery. Isn't it due to the fact that the act of measuring one or the other interferes with the measurement of the other? That to measure anything about a subatomic particle requires another particle or a magnetic field to impinge on the particle and produce a detectable change in state? And since how the particle's other parameter is changed can't be known, it has to be described probabilistically?
Observer Effect vs Uncertainty Principle
Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on December 15, 2014
This is a common, though apocryphal idea, the Observer effect is a real and intuitive effect by which observing something changes it's state. However the Uncertainty principle is a fundamental part of the universe and is unrelated to the Observer effect despite the fact the Observer effect is usually toted as an intuitive explanation for the more esoteric Uncertainty Principle
Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on June 12, 2015
In short no ! The indeterminacy principle (to use an English word closer to Heisenberg's German word ) is a fundamental fact of nature and has norhing to do with interference by the measuring object (although that is also true).
I would love the answer to be yes as My respect for Einstein is greater than for nearly all quantum physicists. I admit that many textbooks written for laymen (the only kind I can understand ) do quote your point but this is a misunderstanding of the indeterminacy problem. Given a hypothetical apparatus that could measure without affecting the particle there indeterminacy principle would still apply.
mathematical reality
Frontiers of physics
non-commutative geometry
higgs boson
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Portugal´s News
Portuguese News in English
Madonna sings in Portuguese and the internet has already reacted with memes – Showbiz
American singer Madonna released the album "Madame X", influenced by Lisbon, where she has lived, for Latin and African sounds, and in which she sings in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
In addition to the "Faz Gostoso" version, the "queen of pop" sings verses in Portuguese on "Killers Who Are Partying", "Crazy" and "Extreme Occident". In social networks, Portuguese fans, and mainly Brazilians, reacted immediately with memes.
Here are some of the shared memes on social networks:
Previous Bruce Springsteen: "The Boss" is back with a new album – Showbiz
Next Pepe Rapazote: "The screen creates monsters. Incidentally, the monsters are already there, the television only shows them" – News
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Video: Jay Z & Justin Timberlake - "Holy Grail"
Almost two months after releasing it as a single, Jay Z has unveiled the visuals for his most recent collaboration with Justin Timberlake, "Holy Grail." The opulent piece is dark and dramatic, not at all spirited like Jigga'slast video. The arrangement used in the video is also a little different than the album version of "Holy Grail" - Jay's verse comes before JT's gut-wrenching solo. Check it out below:
Justin TimberlakeJay-Z
Jay-Z f. Justin Timberlake - "Holy Grail"
Justin Timberlake & JAY Z Announce Legends of the Summer Tour
New: Justin Timberlake - "Suit & Tie" f. Jay Z
Video: Justin Timberlake - "Suit & Tie"
Video: Justin Timberlake - "Tunnel Vision"
Preview: Justin Timberlake - "Take Back The Night"
Review: Jay-Z - 'Magna Carta... Holy Grail'
New Justin Timberlake Music On Its Way
Album Stream: Jay-Z – ‘Magna Carta… Holy Grail’
Album Bits: Jay-Z, Arcade Fire, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande, N.E.R.D.
Justin Timberlake Debuts Two New Songs
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House GOP Chairman Stops Keystone XL Push, Calls It 'Poison Pill'
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has decided to take the Keystone XL pipeline off the table as part of the committee’s energy bill.
“One of the things I’m actively working against is what I call poison pills by one side or the other -- so yes, of course I support Keystone. We’ve had a number of votes on that, but I know that’s not going to fly,” Upton said at an event sponsored by National Journal.
“We’re not going to get the president to sign that as part of any deal. He vetoed it as a separate deal – that’s not going to be part of this bill,” he added.
In March, the Senate failed to override President Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline.
“The president’s veto of the bipartisan Keystone bill represents a victory for partisanship and for powerful special interests,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said at the time. “The president’s veto of the bipartisan Keystone bill represents a defeat for jobs, infrastructure, and the middle class.”
Upton also expressed doubt that nuclear energy will be included in the bill.
“I don’t know if we’ll have a specific nuclear title as part of this and on the issue of nuclear waste, which is related for sure, we’re not going to be ready to include something like that as part of an energy bill we’re going to mark up next month,” he said. “For me, I’ll say I support nuclear. Again, I’ve got two facilities in my district – thousands of jobs.”
https://pjmedia.com/blog/house-gop-chairman-stops-keystone-xl-push-calls-it-poison-pill/
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by Jhumpa LahiriJhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America. In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail -- the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase -- that opens whole worlds of emotion.
The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. The New York Times has praised Lahiri as "a writer of uncommon elegance and poise." The Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity.
HMH Books
Lexile:
1140L (what's this?)
Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of four works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland; and a work of nonfiction, In Other Words. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize; the PEN/Hemingway Award; the PEN/Malamud Award; the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, for In altre parole.
B.A., Barnard College; M.A., Ph.D., Boston University
On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there were mustard oil to pour into the mix. Ashima has been consuming this concoction throughout her pregnancy, a humble approximation of the snack sold for pennies on Calcutta sidewalks and on railway platforms throughout India, spilling from newspaper cones. Even now that there is barely space inside her, it is the one thing she craves. Tasting from a cupped palm, she frowns; as usual, there's something missing. She stares blankly at the pegboard behind the countertop where her cooking utensils hang, all slightly coated with grease. She wipes sweat from her face with the free end of her sari. Her swollen feet ache against speckled gray linoleum. Her pelvis aches from the baby's weight. She opens a cupboard, the shelves lined with a grimy yellow-and-white-checkered paper she's been meaning to replace, and reaches for another onion, frowning again as she pulls at its crisp magenta skin. A curious warmth floods her abdomen, followed by a tightening so severe she doubles over, gasping without sound, dropping the onion with a thud on the floor.
The sensation passes, only to be followed by a more enduring spasm of discomfort. In the bathroom she discovers, on her underpants, a solid streak of brownish blood. She calls out to her husband, Ashoke, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering at MIT, who is studying in the bedroom. He leans over a card table; the edge of theirbed, two twin mattresses pushed together under a red and purple batik spread, serves as his chair. When she calls out to Ashoke, she doesn't say his name.
Ashima never thinks of her husband's name when she thinks of her husband, even though she knows perfectly well what it is. She has adopted his surname but refuses, for propriety's sake, to utter his first. It's not the type of thing Bengali wives do. Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband's name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over.
And so, instead of saying Ashoke's name, she utters the interrogative that has come to replace it, which translates roughly as "Are you listening to me?"
At dawn a taxi is called to ferry them through deserted Cambridge streets, up Massachusetts Avenue and past Harvard Yard, to Mount Auburn Hospital.
Ashima registers, answering questions about the frequency and duration of the contractions, as Ashoke fills out the forms. She is seated in a wheelchair and pushed through the shining, brightly lit corridors, whisked into an elevator more spacious than her kitchen. On the maternity floor she is assigned to a bed by a window, in a room at the end of the hall. She is asked to remove her Murshidabad silk sari in favor of a flowered cotton gown that, to her mild embarrassment, only reaches her knees. A nurse offers to fold up the sari but, exasperated by the six slippery yards, ends up stuffing the material into Ashima's slate blue suitcase. Her obstetrician, Dr. Ashley, gauntly handsome in a Lord Mountbatten sort of way, with fine sand-colored hair swept back from his temples, arrives to examine her progress. The baby's head is in the proper position, has already begun its descent. She is told that she is still in early labor, three centimeters dilated, beginning to efface. "What does it mean, dilated?" she asks, and Dr. Ashley holds up two fingers side by side, then draws them apart, explaining the unimaginable thing her body must do in order for the baby to pass. The process will take some time, Dr. Ashley tells her; given that this is her first pregnancy, labor can take twenty-four hours, sometimes more. She searches for Ashoke's face, but he has stepped behind the curtain the doctor has drawn. "I'll be back," Ashoke says to her in Bengali, and then a nurse adds: "Don't you worry, Mr. Ganguli. She's got a long ways to go. We can take over from here."
Now she is alone, cut off by curtains from the three other women in the room. One woman's name, she gathers from bits of conversation, is Beverly. Another is Lois. Carol lies to her left. "Goddamnit, goddamn you, this is hell," she hears one of them say. And then a man's voice: "I love you, sweetheart." Words Ashima has neither heard nor expects to hear from her own husband; this is not how they are. It is the first time in her life she has slept alone, surrounded by strangers; all her life she has slept either in a room with her parents, or with Ashoke at her side. She wishes the curtains were open, so that she could talk to the American women. Perhaps one of them has given birth before, can tell her what to expect. But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy. She spreads her fingers over the taut, enormous drum her middle has become, wondering where the baby's feet and hands are at this moment. The child is no longer restless; for the past few days, apart from the occasional flutter, she has not felt it punch or kick or press against her ribs.
She wonders if she is the only Indian person in the hospital, but a gentle twitch from the baby reminds her that she is, technically speaking, not alone. Ashima thinks it's strange that her child will be born in a place most people enter either to suffer or to die. There is nothing to comfort her in the off- white tiles of the floor, the off-white panels of the ceiling, the white sheets tucked tightly into the bed. In India, she thinks to herself, women go home to their parents to give birth, away from husbands and in-laws and household cares, retreating brie.y to childhood when the baby arrives.
Another contraction begins, more violent than the last. She cries out, pressing her head against the pillow. Her fingers grip the chilly rails of the bed. No one hears her, no nurse rushes to her side. She has been instructed to time the duration of the contractions and so she consults her watch, a bon voyage gift from her parents, slipped over her wrist the last time she saw them, amid airport confusion and tears. It wasn't until she was on the plane, flying for the first time in her life on a BOAC VC-10 whose deafening ascent twenty-six members of her family had watched from the balcony at Dum Dum Airport, as she was drifting over parts of India she'd never set foot in, and then even farther, outside India itself, that she'd noticed the watch among the cavalcade of matrimonial bracelets on both her arms: iron, gold, coral, conch. Now, in addition, she wears a plastic bracelet with a typed label identifying her as a patient of the hospital. She keeps the watch face turned to the inside of her wrist. On the back, surrounded by the words waterproof, antimagnetic, and shock-protected, her married initials, A.G., are inscribed.
American seconds tick on top of her pulse point. For half a minute, a band of pain wraps around her stomach, radiating toward her back and shooting down her legs. And then, again, relief. She calculates the Indian time on her hands. The tip of her thumb strikes each rung of the brown ladders etched onto the backs of her fingers, then stops at the middle of the third: it is nine and a half hours ahead in Calcutta, already evening, half past eight. In the kitchen of her parents' flat on Amherst Street, at this very moment, a servant is pouring after-dinner tea into steaming glasses, arranging Marie biscuits on a tray. Her mother, very soon to be a grandmother, is standing at the mirror of her dressing table, untangling waist-length hair, still more black than gray, with her fingers. Her father hunches over his slanted ink-stained table by the window, sketching, smoking, listening to the Voice of America. Her younger brother, Rana, studies for a physics exam on the bed. She pictures clearly the gray cement floor of her parents' sitting room, feels its solid chill underfoot even on the hottest days. An enormous black-and-white photograph of her deceased paternal grandfather looms at one end against the pink plaster wall; opposite, an alcove shielded by clouded panes of glass is stuffed with books and papers and her father's watercolor tins. For an instant the weight of the baby vanishes, replaced by the scene that passes before her eyes, only to be replaced once more by a blue strip of the Charles River, thick green treetops, cars gliding up and down Memorial Drive.
In Cambridge it is eleven in the morning, already lunchtime in the hospital's accelerated day. A tray holding warm apple juice, Jell-O, ice cream, and cold baked chicken is brought to her side. Patty, the friendly nurse with the diamond engagement ring and a fringe of reddish hair beneath her cap, tells Ashima to consume only the Jell-O and the apple juice. It's just as well. Ashima would not have touched the chicken, even if permitted; Americans eat their chicken in its skin, though Ashima has recently found a kind butcher on Prospect Street willing to pull it off for her.
Patty comes to fluff the pillows, tidy the bed. Dr. Ashley pokes in his head from time to time. "No need to worry," he chirps, putting a stethoscope to Ashima's belly, patting her hand, admiring her various bracelets. "Everything is looking perfectly normal. We are expecting a perfectly normal delivery, Mrs. Ganguli."
But nothing feels normal to Ashima. For the past eighteen months, ever since she's arrived in Cambridge, nothing has felt normal at all. It's not so much the pain, which she knows, somehow, she will survive.
It's the consequence: motherhood in a foreign land. For it was one thing to be pregnant, to suffer the queasy mornings in bed, the sleepless nights, the dull throbbing in her back, the countless visits to the bathroom.
Throughout the experience, in spite of her growing discomfort, she'd been astonished by her body's ability to make life, exactly as her mother and grandmother and all her great-grandmothers had done. That it was happening so far from home, unmonitored and unobserved by those she loved, had made it more miraculous still. But she is terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare.
"How about a little walk? It might do you good," Patty asks when she comes to clear the lunch tray.
Ashima looks up from a tattered copy of Desh magazine that she'd brought to read on her plane ride to Boston and still cannot bring herself to throw away. The printed pages of Bengali type, slightly rough to the touch, are a perpetual comfort to her. She's read each of the short stories and poems and articles a dozen times. There is a pen-and-ink drawing on page eleven by her father, an illustrator for the magazine: a view of the North Calcutta skyline sketched from the roof of their flat one foggy January morning. She had stood behind her father as he'd drawn it, watching as he crouched over his easel, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his shoulders wrapped in a black Kashmiri shawl.
"Yes, all right," Ashima says.
Patty helps Ashima out of bed, tucks her feet one by one into slippers, drapes a second nightgown around her shoulders. "Just think," Patty says as Ashima struggles to stand. "In a day or two you'll be half the size." She takes Ashima's arm as they step out of the room, into the hallway. After a few feet Ashima stops, her legs trembling as another wave of pain surges through her body. She shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears. "I cannot."
"You can. Squeeze my hand. Squeeze as tight as you like."
After a minute they continue on, toward the nurses' station. "Hoping for a boy or a girl?" Patty asks.
"As long as there are ten finger and ten toe," Ashima replies. For these anatomical details, these particular signs of life, are the ones she has the most difficulty picturing when she imagines the baby in her arms.
Patty smiles, a little too widely, and suddenly Ashima realizes her error, knows she should have said "fingers" and "toes." This error pains her almost as much as her last contraction. English had been her subject. In Calcutta, before she was married, she was working toward a college degree. She used to tutor neighborhood schoolchildren in their homes, on their verandas and beds, helping them to memorize Tennyson and Wordsworth, to pronounce words like sign and cough, to understand the difference between Aristotelian and Shakespearean tragedy. But in Bengali, a finger can also mean fingers, a toe toes.
It had been after tutoring one day that Ashima's mother had met her at the door, told her to go straight to the bedroom and prepare herself; a man was waiting to see her. He was the third in as many months. The first had been a widower with four children. The second, a newspaper cartoonist who knew her father, had been hit by a bus in Esplanade and lost his left arm. To her great relief they had both rejected her. She was nineteen, in the middle of her studies, in no rush to be a bride. And so, obediently but without expectation, she had untangled and rebraided her hair, wiped away the kohl that had smudged below her eyes, patted some Cuticura powder from a velvet puff onto her skin. The sheer parrot green sari she pleated and tucked into her petticoat had been laid out for her on the bed by her mother.
Before entering the sitting room, Ashima had paused in the corridor. She could hear her mother saying, "She is fond of cooking, and she can knit extremely well. Within a week she finished this cardigan I am wearing."
Ashima smiled, amused by her mother's salesmanship; it had taken her the better part of a year to finish the cardigan, and still her mother had had to do the sleeves. Glancing at the floor where visitors customarily removed their slippers, she noticed, beside two sets of chappals, a pair of men's shoes that were not like any she'd ever seen on the streets and trams and buses of Calcutta, or even in the windows of Bata. They were brown shoes with black heels and off-white laces and stitching. There was a band of lentil-sized holes embossed on either side of each shoe, and at the tips was a pretty pattern pricked into the leather as if with a needle. Looking more closely, she saw the shoemaker's name written on the insides, in gold lettering that had all but faded: something and sons, it said. She saw the size, eight and a half, and the initials U.S.A. And as her mother continued to sing her praises, Ashima, unable to resist a sudden and overwhelming urge, stepped into the shoes at her feet. Lingering sweat from the owner's feet mingled with hers, causing her heart to race; it was the closest thing she had ever experienced to the touch of a man. The leather was creased, heavy, and still warm. On the left shoe she had noticed that one of the crisscrossing laces had missed a hole, and this oversight set her at ease.
She extracted her feet, entered the room. The man was sitting in a rattan chair, his parents perched on the edge of the twin bed where her brother slept at night. He was slightly plump, scholarly-looking but still youthful, with black thick-framed glasses and a sharp, prominent nose. A neatly trimmed mustache connected to a beard that covered only his chin lent him an elegant, vaguely aristocratic air. He wore brown socks and brown trousers and a green-and-white-striped shirt and was staring glumly at his knees.
He did not look up when she appeared. Though she was aware of his gaze as she crossed the room, by the time she managed to steal another look at him he was once again indifferent, focused on his knees. He cleared his throat as if to speak but then said nothing. Instead it was his father who did the talking, saying that the man had gone to St. Xavier's, and then B.E. College, graduating first-class-first from both institutions. Ashima took her seat and smoothed the pleats of her sari. She sensed the mother eyeing her with approval. Ashima was five feet four inches, tall for a Bengali woman, ninety-nine pounds. Her complexion was on the dark side of fair, but she had been compared on more than one occasion to the actress Madhabi Mukherjee. Her nails were admirably long, her fingers, like her father's, artistically slim. They inquired after her studies and she was asked to recite a few stanzas from "The Daffodils." The man's family lived in Alipore. The father was a labor officer for the customs department of a shipping company. "My son has been living abroad for two years," the man's father said, "earning a Ph.D. in Boston, researching in the field of fiber optics." Ashima had never heard of Boston, or of fiber optics. She was asked whether she was willing to fly on a plane and then if she was capable of living in a city characterized by severe, snowy winters, alone.
"Won't he be there?" she'd asked, pointing to the man whose shoes she'd briefly occupied, but who had yet to say a word to her.
It was only after the betrothal that she'd learned his name. One week later the invitations were printed, and two weeks after that she was adorned and adjusted by countless aunts, countless cousins hovering around her. These were her last moments as Ashima Bhaduri, before becoming Ashima Ganguli. Her lips were darkened, her brow and cheeks dotted with sandalwood paste, her hair wound up, bound with flowers, held in place by a hundred wire pins that would take an hour to remove once the wedding was finally over. Her head was draped with scarlet netting. The air was damp, and in spite of the pins Ashima's hair, thickest of all the cousins', would not lie flat. She wore all the necklaces and chokers and bracelets that were destined to live most of their lives in an extra-large safety deposit box in a bank vault in New England. At the designated hour she was seated on a piri that her father had decorated, hoisted five feet off the ground, carried out to meet the groom. She had hidden her face with a heart-shaped betel leaf, kept her head bent low until she had circled him seven times.
Eight thousand miles away in Cambridge, she has come to know him. In the evenings she cooks for him, hoping to please, with the unrationed, remarkably unblemished sugar, flour, rice, and salt she had written about to her mother in her very first letter home. By now she has learned that her husband likes his food on the salty side, that his favorite thing about lamb curry is the potatoes, and that he likes to finish his dinner with a small final helping of rice and dal. At night, lying beside her in bed, he listens to her describe the events of her day: her walks along Massachusetts Avenue, the shops she visits, the Hare Krishnas who pester her with their leaflets, the pistachio ice cream cones she treats herself to in Harvard Square. In spite of his meager graduate student wages he sets aside money to send every few months to his father to help put an extension on his parents' house. He is fastidious about his clothing; their first argument had been over a sweater she'd shrunk in the washing machine. As soon as he comes home from the university the first thing he does is hang up his shirt and trousers, donning a pair of drawstring pajamas and a pullover if it's cold.
On Sundays he spends an hour occupied with his tins of shoe polishes and his three pairs of shoes, two black and one brown. The brown ones are the ones he'd been wearing when he'd first come to see her. The sight of him cross-legged on newspapers spread on the floor, intently whisking a brush over the leather, always reminds her of her indiscretion in her parents' corridor. It is a moment that shocks her still, and that she prefers, in spite of all she tells him at night about the life they now share, to keep to herself.
On another floor of the hospital, in a waiting room, Ashoke hunches over a Boston Globe from a month ago, abandoned on a neighboring chair. He reads about the riots that took place during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and about Dr. Benjamin Spock, the baby doctor, being sentenced to two years in jail for threatening to counsel draft evaders. The Favre Leuba strapped to his wrist is running six minutes ahead of the large gray-faced clock on the wall. It is four-thirty in the morning. An hour before, Ashoke had been fast asleep, at home, Ashima's side of the bed covered with exams he'd been grading late at night, when the telephone rang. Ashima was fully dilated and being taken to the delivery room, the person on the other end had said. Upon arrival at the hospital he was told that she was pushing, that it could be any minute now. Any minute. And yet it seemed only the other day, one steel-colored winter's morning when the windows of the house were being pelted with hail, that she had spit out her tea, accusing him of mistaking the salt for sugar. To prove himself right he had taken a sip of the sweet liquid from her cup, but she had insisted on its bitterness, and poured it down the sink. That was the first thing that had caused her to suspect, and then the doctor had confirmed it, and then he would wake to the sounds, every morning when she went to brush her teeth, of her retching.
Before he left for the university he would leave a cup of tea by the side of the bed, where she lay listless and silent. Often, returning in the evenings, he would find her still lying there, the tea untouched.
He now desperately needs a cup of tea for himself, not having managed to make one before leaving the house. But the machine in the corridor dispenses only coffee, tepid at best, in paper cups. He takes off his thick-rimmed glasses, fitted by a Calcutta optometrist, polishes the lenses with the cotton handkerchief he always keeps in his pocket, A for Ashoke embroidered by his mother in light blue thread. His black hair, normally combed back neatly from his forehead, is disheveled, sections of it on end.
He stands and begins pacing as the other expectant fathers do. So far, the door to the waiting room has opened twice, and a nurse has announced that one of them has a boy or a girl. There are handshakes all around, pats on the back, before the father is escorted away. The men wait with cigars, flowers, address books, bottles of champagne. They smoke cigarettes, ashing onto the floor. Ashoke is indifferent to such indulgences. He neither smokes nor drinks alcohol of any kind. Ashima is the one who keeps all their addresses, in a small notebook she carries in her purse. It has never occurred to him to buy his wife flowers.
He returns to the Globe, still pacing as he reads. A slight limp causes Ashoke's right foot to drag almost imperceptibly with each step.
Since childhood he has had the habit and the ability to read while walking, holding a book in one hand on his way to school, from room to room in his parents' three-story house in Alipore, and up and down the red clay stairs.
Nothing roused him. Nothing distracted him. Nothing caused him to stumble. As a teenager he had gone through all of Dickens. He read newer authors as well, Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham, all purchased from his favorite stall on College Street with pujo money. But most of all he loved the Russians. His paternal grandfather, a former professor of European literature at Calcutta University, had read from them aloud in English translations when Ashoke was a boy. Each day at tea time, as his brothers and sisters played kabadi and cricket outside, Ashoke would go to his grandfather's room, and for an hour his grandfather would read supine on the bed, his ankles crossed and the book propped open on his chest, Ashoke curled at his side. For that hour Ashoke was deaf and blind to the world around him. He did not hear his brothers and sisters laughing on the rooftop, or see the tiny, dusty, cluttered room in which his grandfather read. "Read all the Russians, and then reread them," his grandfather had said. "They will never fail you." When Ashoke's English was good enough, he began to read the books himself. It was while walking on some of the world's noisiest, busiest streets, on Chowringhee and Gariahat Road, that he had read pages of The Brothers Karamazov, and Anna Karenina, and Fathers and Sons.
Once, a younger cousin who had tried to imitate him had fallen down the red clay staircase in Ashoke's house and broken an arm. Ashoke's mother was always convinced that her eldest son would be hit by a bus or a tram, his nose deep into War and Peace. That he would be reading a book the moment he died.
One day, in the earliest hours of October 20, 1961, this nearly happened. Ashoke was twenty-two, a student at B.E. College. He was traveling on the 83 Up Howrah–Ranchi Express to visit his grandparents for the holidays; they had moved from Calcutta to Jamshedpur upon his grandfather's retirement from the university. Ashoke had never spent the holidays away from his family. But his grandfather had recently gone blind, and he had requested Ashoke's company specifically, to read him The Statesman in the morning, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy in the afternoon.
Ashoke accepted the invitation eagerly. He carried two suitcases, the first one containing clothes and gifts, the second empty. For it would be on this visit, his grandfather had said, that the books in his glass-fronted case, collected over a lifetime and preserved under lock and key, would be given to Ashoke. The books had been promised to Ashoke throughout his childhood, and for as long as he could remember he had coveted them more than anything else in the world. He had already received a few in recent years, given to him on birthdays and other special occasions. But now that the day had come to inherit the rest, a day his grandfather could no longer read the books himself, Ashoke was saddened, and as he placed the empty suitcase under his seat, he was disconcerted by its weightlessness, regretful of the circumstances that would cause it, upon his return, to be full.
He carried a single volume for the journey, a hardbound collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol, which his grandfather had given him when he'd graduated from class twelve. On the title page, beneath his grandfather's signature, Ashoke had written his own. Because of Ashoke's passion for this particular book, the spine had recently split, threatening to divide the pages into two sections. His favorite story in the book was the last, "The Overcoat," and that was the one Ashoke had begun to reread as the train pulled out of Howrah Station late in the evening with a prolonged and deafening shriek, away from his parents and his six younger brothers and sisters, all of whom had come to see him off and had huddled until the last moment by the window, waving to him from the long dusky platform. He had read "The Overcoat" too many times to count, certain sentences and phrases embedded in his memory. Each time he was captivated by the absurd, tragic, yet oddly inspiring story of Akaky Akakyevich, the impoverished main character who spends his life meekly copying documents written by others and suffering the ridicule of absolutely everyone. His heart went out to poor Akaky, a humble clerk just as Ashoke's father had been at the start of his career. Each time, reading the account of Akaky's christening, and the series of queer names his mother had rejected, Ashoke laughed aloud. He shuddered at the description of the tailor Petrovich's big toe, "with its deformed nail as thick and hard as the shell of a tortoise." His mouth watered at the cold veal and cream pastries and champagne Akaky consumed the night his precious coat was stolen, in spite of the fact that Ashoke had never tasted these things himself. Ashoke was always devastated when Akaky was robbed in "a square that looked to him like a dreadful desert," leaving him cold and vulnerable, and Akaky's death, some pages later, never failed to bring tears to his eyes. In some ways the story made less sense each time he read it, the scenes he pictured so vividly, and absorbed so fully, growing more elusive and profound. Just as Akaky's ghost haunted the final pages, so did it haunt a place deep in Ashoke's soul, shedding light on all that was irrational, all that was inevitable about the world.
Outside the view turned quickly black, the scattered lights of Howrah giving way to nothing at all. He had a second-class sleeper in the seventh bogie, behind the air-conditioned coach. Because of the season, the train was especially crowded, especially raucous, filled with families on holiday. Small children were wearing their best clothing, the girls with brightly colored ribbons in their hair. Though he had had his dinner before leaving for the station, a four-layer tiffin carrier packed by his mother sat at his feet, in the event that hunger should attack him in the night. He shared his compartment with three others. There was a middle-aged Bihari couple who, he gathered from overhearing their conversation, had just married off their eldest daughter, and a friendly, potbellied, middle-aged Bengali businessman wearing a suit and tie, by the name of Ghosh. Ghosh told Ashoke that he had recently returned to India after spending two years in England on a job voucher, but that he had come back home because his wife was inconsolably miserable abroad. Ghosh spoke reverently of England. The sparkling, empty streets, the polished black cars, the rows of gleaming white houses, he said, were like a dream. Trains departed and arrived according to schedule, Ghosh said. No one spat on the sidewalks. It was in a British hospital that his son had been born.
"Seen much of this world?" Ghosh asked Ashoke, untying his shoes and settling himself cross-legged on the berth. He pulled a packet of Dunhill cigarettes from his jacket pocket, offering them around the compartment before lighting one for himself.
"Once to Delhi," Ashoke replied. "And lately once a year to Jamshedpur."
Ghosh extended his arm out the window, flicking the glowing tip of his cigarette into the night. "Not this world," he said, glancing disappointedly about the interior of the train. He tilted his head toward the window.
"England. America," he said, as if the nameless villages they passed had been replaced by those countries. "Have you considered going there?"
"My professors mention it from time to time. But I have a family," Ashoke said.
Ghosh frowned. "Already married?"
"No. A mother and father and six siblings. I am the eldest."
"And in a few years you will be married and living in your parents' house," Ghosh speculated.
"I suppose."
Ghosh shook his head. "You are still young. Free," he said, spreading his hands apart for emphasis. "Do yourself a favor. Before it's too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late."
"My grandfather always says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. "To travel without moving an inch."
"To each his own," Ghosh said. He tipped his head politely to one side, letting the last of the cigarette drop from his fingertips. He reached into a bag by his feet and took out his diary, turning to the twentieth of October. The page was blank and on it, with a fountain pen whose cap he ceremoniously unscrewed, he wrote his name and address. He ripped out the page and handed it to Ashoke. "If you ever change your mind and need contacts, let me know. I live in Tollygunge, just behind the tram depot."
"Thank you," Ashoke said, folding up the information and putting it at the back of his book.
"How about a game of cards?" Ghosh suggested. He pulled out a well-worn deck from his suit pocket, with Big Ben's image on the back. But Ashoke politely declined, for he knew no card games, and besides which, he preferred to read. One by one the passengers brushed their teeth in the vestibule, changed into their pajamas, fastened the curtain around their compartments, and went to sleep. Ghosh offered to take the upper berth, climbing barefoot up the ladder, his suit carefully folded away, so that Ashoke had the window to himself. The Bihari couple shared some sweets from a box and drank water from the same cup without either of them putting their lips to the rim, then settled into their berths as well, switching off the lights and turning their heads to the wall.
Only Ashoke continued to read, still seated, still dressed. A single small bulb glowed dimly over his head. From time to time he looked through the open window at the inky Bengal night, at the vague shapes of palm trees and the simplest of homes. Carefully he turned the soft yellow pages of his book, a few delicately tunneled by worms. The steam engine puffed reassuringly, powerfully. Deep in his chest he felt the rough jostle of the wheels. Sparks from the smokestack passed by his window. A fine layer of sticky soot dotted one side of his face, his eyelid, his arm, his neck; his grandmother would insist that he scrub himself with a cake of Margo soap as soon as he arrived. Immersed in the sartorial plight of Akaky Akakyevich, lost in the wide, snow-white, windy avenues of St. Petersburg, unaware that one day he was to dwell in a snowy place himself, Ashoke was still reading at two-thirty in the morning, one of the few passengers on the train who was awake, when the locomotive engine and seven bogies derailed from the broad-gauge line. The sound was like a bomb exploding. The first four bogies capsized into a depression alongside the track. The fifth and sixth, containing the first-class and air-conditioned passengers, telescoped into each other, killing the passengers in their sleep. The seventh, where Ashoke was sitting, capsized as well, flung by the speed of the crash farther into the field. The accident occurred 209 kilometers from Calcutta, between the Ghatshila and Dhalbumgarh stations. The train guard's portable phone would not work; it was only after the guard ran nearly five kilometers from the site of the accident, to Ghatshila, that he was able to transmit the first message for help. Over an hour passed before the rescuers arrived, bearing lanterns and shovels and axes to pry bodies from the cars.
Ashoke can still remember their shouts, asking if anyone was alive. He remembers trying to shout back, unsuccessfully, his mouth emitting nothing but the faintest rasp. He remembers the sound of people half- dead around him, moaning and tapping on the walls of the train, whispering hoarsely for help, words that only those who were also trapped and injured could possibly hear. Blood drenched his chest and the right arm of his shirt.
He had been thrust partway out the window. He remembers being unable to see anything at all; for the first hours he thought that perhaps, like his grandfather whom he was on his way to visit, he'd gone blind. He remembers the acrid odor of flames, the buzzing of flies, children crying, the taste of dust and blood on his tongue. They were nowhere, somewhere in a field. Milling about them were villagers, police inspectors, a few doctors. He remembers believing that he was dying, that perhaps he was already dead.
He could not feel the lower half of his body, and so was unaware that the mangled limbs of Ghosh were draped over his legs. Eventually he saw the cold, unfriendly blue of earliest morning, the moon and a few stars still lingering in the sky. The pages of his book, which had been tossed from his hand, fluttered in two sections a few feet away from the train. The glare from a search lantern briefly caught the pages, momentarily distracting one of the rescuers. "Nothing here," Ashoke heard someone say. "Let's keep going."
But the lantern's light lingered, just long enough for Ashoke to raise his hand, a gesture that he believed would consume the small fragment of life left in him. He was still clutching a single page of "The Overcoat," crumpled tightly in his fist, and when he raised his hand the wad of paper dropped from his fingers. "Wait!" he heard a voice cry out. "The fellow by that book. I saw him move."
He was pulled from the wreckage, placed on a stretcher, transported on another train to a hospital in Tatanagar. He had broken his pelvis, his right femur, and three of his ribs on the right side. For the next year of his life he lay flat on his back, ordered to keep as still as possible as the bones of his body healed. There was a risk that his right leg might be permanently paralyzed. He was transferred to Calcutta Medical College, where two screws were put into his hips. By December he had returned to his parents' house in Alipore, carried through the courtyard and up the red clay stairs like a corpse, hoisted on the shoulders of his four brothers.
Three times a day he was spoon-fed. He urinated and defecated into a tin pan. Doctors and visitors came and went. Even his blind grandfather from Jamshedpur paid a visit. His family had saved the newspaper accounts. In a photograph, he observed the train smashed to shards, piled jaggedly against the sky, security guards sitting on the unclaimed belongings. He learned that fishplates and bolts had been found several feet from the main track, giving rise to the suspicion, never subsequently confirmed, of sabotage. That bodies had been mutilated beyond recognition. "Holiday- Makers' Tryst with Death," the Times of India had written.
In the beginning, for most of the day, he had stared at his bedroom ceiling, at the three beige blades of the fan churning at its center, their edges grimy. He could hear the top edge of a calendar scraping against the wall behind him when the fan was on. If he moved his neck to the right he had a view of a window with a dusty bottle of Dettol on its ledge and, if the shutters were open, the concrete of the wall that surrounded the house, the pale brown geckos that scampered there. He listened to the constant parade of sounds outside, footsteps, bicycle bells, the incessant squawking of crows and of the horns of cycle rickshaws in the lane so narrow that taxis could not fit. He heard the tube well at the corner being pumped into urns.
Every evening at dusk he heard a conch shell being blown in the house next door to signal the hour for prayer. He could smell but not see the shimmering green sludge that collected in the open sewer. Life within the house continued. His father came and went from work, his brothers and sisters from school. His mother worked in the kitchen, checking in on him periodically, her lap stained with turmeric. Twice daily the maid twisted rags into buckets of water and wiped the floors.
During the day he was groggy from painkillers. At night he dreamed either that he was still trapped inside the train or, worse, that the accident had never happened, that he was walking down a street, taking a bath, sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating a plate of food. And then he would wake up, coated in sweat, tears streaming down his face, convinced that he would never live to do such things again. Eventually, in an attempt to avoid his nightmares, he began to read, late at night, which was when his motionless body felt most restless, his mind agile and clear. Yet he refused to read the Russians his grandfather had brought to his bedside, or any novels, for that matter. Those books, set in countries he had never seen, reminded him only of his confinement. Instead he read his engineering books, trying his best to keep up with his courses, solving equations by flashlight. In those silent hours, he thought often of Ghosh. "Pack a pillow and a blanket," he heard Ghosh say. He remembered the address Ghosh had written on a page of his diary, somewhere behind the tram depot in Tollygunge. Now it was the home of a widow, a fatherless son. Each day, to bolster his spirits, his family reminded him of the future, the day he would stand unassisted, walk across the room. It was for this, each day, that his father and mother prayed. For this that his mother gave up meat on Wednesdays. But as the months passed, Ashoke began to envision another sort of future. He imagined not only walking, but walking away, as far as he could from the place in which he was born and in which he had nearly died.
The following year, with the aid of a cane, he returned to college and graduated, and without telling his parents he applied to continue his engineering studies abroad. Only after he'd been accepted with a full fellowship, a newly issued passport in hand, did he inform them of his plans. "But we already nearly lost you once," his bewildered father had protested. His siblings had pleaded and wept. His mother, speechless, had refused food for three days. In spite of all that, he'd gone.
Seven years later, there are still certain images that wipe him flat.
They lurk around a corner as he rushes through the engineering department at MIT, checks his campus mail. They hover by his shoulder as he leans over a plate of rice at dinnertime or nestles against Ashima's limbs at night.
At every turning point in his life—at his wedding when he stood behind Ashima, encircling her waist and peering over her shoulder as they poured puffed rice into a fire, or during his first hours in America, seeing a small gray city caked with snow—he has tried but failed to push these images away: the twisted, battered, capsized bogies of the train, his body twisted below it, the terrible crunching sound he had heard but not comprehended, his bones crushed as fine as flour. It is not the memory of pain that haunts him; he has no memory of that. It is the memory of waiting before he was rescued, and the persistent fear, rising up in his throat, that he might not have been rescued at all. To this day he is claustrophobic, holding his breath in elevators, feels pent-up in cars unless the windows are open on both sides.
On planes he requests the bulkhead seat. At times the wailing of children fills him with deepest dread. At times he still presses his ribs to make sure they are solid.
He presses them now, in the hospital, shaking his head in relief, disbelief. Although it is Ashima who carries the child, he, too, feels heavy, with the thought of life, of his life and the life about to come from it. He was raised without running water, nearly killed at twenty-two. Again he tastes the dust on his tongue, sees the twisted train, the giant overturned iron wheels. None of this was supposed to happen. But no, he had survived it. He was born twice in India, and then a third time, in America. Three lives by thirty. For this he thanks his parents, and their parents, and the parents of their parents. He does not thank God; he openly reveres Marx and quietly refuses religion. But there is one more dead soul he has to thank. He cannot thank the book; the book has perished, as he nearly did, in scattered pieces, in the earliest hours of an October day, in a field 209 kilometers from Calcutta. Instead of thanking God he thanks Gogol, the Russian writer who had saved his life, when Patty enters the waiting room.
Copyright © 2003 by Jhumpa Lahiri. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.
Immigrant Experience
What People are Saying About This
"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait." The New York Times
"Splendid." Time Magazine
"Hugely appealing." People Magazine
"What sets Lahiri apart is simple yet richly detailed writing that makes the heart ache as she meticulously unfolds the lives of her characters." USA Today
A Best Book of the Year: New York Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, San Jose Mercury News.
New York Magazine Book of the Year
"An exquisitely detailed family saga...More than fulfills the promise of Lahiri's Pulitzer-winning collection." Entertainment Weekly
1. The Namesake opens with Ashima Ganguli trying to make a spicy Indian snack from American ingredients Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts but "as usual, there's something missing." How does Ashima try and make over her home in Cambridge to remind her of what she's left behind in Calcutta? Throughout The Namesake, how does Jhumpa Lahiri use food and clothing to explore cultural transitions especially through rituals, like the annaprasan, the rice ceremony? Some readers have said that Lahiri's writing makes them crave the meals she evokes so beautifully. What memories or desires does Lahiri bring up for you? Does her writing ever make you "hunger"?
2. The title The Namesake reflects the struggles Gogol Ganguli goes through to identify with his unusual names. How does Gogol lose first his public name, his bhalonam, and then his private pet name, his daknam? How does he try to remake his identity, after choosing to rename himself, and what is the result? How do our names precede us in society, and how do they define us? Do you have a pet name, or a secret name and has that name ever become publicly known? Do you have different names with different people? Did you ever wish for a new name? How are names chosen in your family?
3. Newsweek said of Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, "Jhumpa Lahiri writes such direct, translucent prose you almost forget you're reading." The Namesake is also subtle in style, elegant, and paced realistically. How are the events of the novel simultaneously dramatic and commonplace? What details made the characters real to you? Did you ever lose yourself in the story?
4. When Gogol is born, the Gangulis meet other Bengali families with small children, and Ashima finds with the new baby that "perfect strangers, all Americans, suddenly take notice of her, smiling, congratulating her for what she's done." How, for all of us, do children change our place in the community, and what we expect from it? Have you ever connected with someone you may have otherwise never spoken with of a different ethnic background or economic class through their children or your own?
5. In his youth, Ashoke Ganguli is saved from a massive train wreck in India. When his son Gogol is born, Ashoke thinks, "Being rescued from that shattered train had been the first miracle of his life. But here, now, reposing in his arms, weighing next to nothing but changing everything, is the second." Is Ashoke's love for his family more poignant because of his brush with death? Why do you think he hides his past from Gogol? What moments define us more accidents or achievements, mourning or celebration?
6. Lahiri has said, "The question of identity is always a difficult one, but especially for those who are culturally displaced, as immigrants are . . . who grow up in two worlds simultaneously." What do you think Gogol wants most from his life? How is it different from what his family wants for him, and what they wanted when they first came to America to start a family? How have expectations changed between generations in your own family? Do you want something different for your own children from what your parents wanted for you?
7. Jhumpa Lahiri has said of The Namesake, "America is a real presence in the book; the characters must struggle and come to terms with what it means to live here, to be brought up here, to belong and not belong here." Did The Namesake allow you to think of America in a new way? Do you agree that "America is a real presence" in The Namesake? How is India also a "presence" in the book?
8. The marriage of Ashima and Ashoke is arranged by their families. The closest intimacy they share before their wedding is when Ashima steps briefly, secretly, into Ashoke's shoes. Gogol's romantic encounters are very different from what his parents experienced or expected for their son. What draws Gogol to his many lovers, especially to Ruth, Maxine, and eventually Moushumi? What draws them to him? From where do you think we take our notions of romantic love from our family and friends, or from society and the media? How much does your cultural heritage define your ideas and experience of love?
9. Lahiri explores in several ways the difficulty of reconciling cross-cultural rituals around death and dying. For instance, Ashima refuses to display the rubbings of gravestones young Gogol makes with his classmates. And when Gogol's father suddenly dies, Gogol's relationship with Maxine is strained and quickly ends. Why do you think their love affair can't survive Gogol's grief? How does the loss of Gogol's father turn him back toward his family? How does it also change Sonia and Ashima's relationship?
10. Did you find the ending of The Namesake surprising? What did you expect from Moushumi and Gogol's marriage? Do you think Moushumi is entirely to blame for her infidelity? Is Gogol a victim at the end of the book? In the last few pages of The Namesake, Gogol begins to read The Overcoat for the first time the book his father gave him, by his "namesake." Where do you imagine Gogol will go from here? (Houghton Mifflin)
Jhumpa Lahiri's quietly dazzling new novel, The Namesake, is that rare thing: an intimate, closely observed family portrait that effortlessly and discreetly unfolds to disclose a capacious social vision. … In chronicling more than three decades in the Gangulis' lives, Ms. Lahiri has not only given us a wonderfully intimate and knowing family portrait, she has also taken the haunting chamber music of her first collection of stories and reorchestrated its themes of exile and identity to create a symphonic work, a debut novel that is as assured and eloquent as the work of a longtime master of the craft. Michiku Kakutani
This is a fine novel from a superb writer … In the end, this quiet book makes a very large statement about courage, determination, and above all, the majestic ability of the human animal to endure and prosper. Christopher Tilghman
This first novel is an Indian American saga, covering several generations of the Ganguli family across three decades. Newlyweds Ashoke and Ashima leave India for the Boston area shortly after their traditional arranged marriage. The young husband, an engineering graduate student, is ready to be part of U.S. culture, but Ashima, disoriented and homesick, is less taken with late-Sixties America. She develops ties with other Bengali expatriates, forming lifelong friendships that help preserve the old ways in a new country. When the first Ganguli baby arrives, he is named Gogol in commemoration of a strange, life-saving encounter with the Russian writer's oeuvre. As Gogol matures, his unusual name proves to be a burden, though no more than the tensions and confusions of growing up as a first-generation American. This poignant treatment of the immigrant experience is a rich, stimulating fusion of authentic emotion, ironic observation, and revealing details. Readers who enjoyed the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, will not be disappointed. Recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/03.]-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Adult/High School-A novel about assimilation and generational differences. Gogol is so named because his father believes that sitting up in a sleeping car reading Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat" saved him when the train he was on derailed and most passengers perished. After his arranged marriage, the man and his wife leave India for America, where he eventually becomes a professor. They adopt American ways, yet all of their friends are Bengalis. But for young Gogol and his sister, Boston is home, and trips to Calcutta to visit relatives are voyages to a foreign land. He finds his strange name a constant irritant, and eventually he changes it to Nikhil. When he is a senior at Yale, his father finally tells him the story of his name. Moving to New York to work as an architect, he meets Maxine, his first real love, but they separate after his father dies. Later, his mother reintroduces him to a Bengali woman, and they fall in love and marry, but their union does not last. The tale comes full circle when the protagonist, home for a Bengali Christmas, rediscovers his father's gift of Gogol's short stories. This novel will attract not just teens of other cultures, but also readers struggling with the challenges of growing up and tugging at family ties.-Molly Connally, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Lahiri's short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and her deeply knowing, avidly descriptive, and luxuriously paced first novel is equally triumphant. Ashoke Ganguli, a doctoral candidate at MIT, chose Gogol as a pet name for his and his wife's first-born because a volume of the Russian writer's work literally saved his life, but, in one of many confusions endured by the immigrant Bengali couple, Gogol ends up on the boy's birth certificate. Unaware of the dramatic story behind his unusual and, eventually, much hated name, Gogol refuses to read his namesake's work, and just before he leaves for Yale, he goes to court to change his name to Nikhil. Immensely relieved to escape his parents' stubbornly all-Bengali world, he does his best to shed his Indianness, losing himself in the study of architecture and passionate if rocky love affairs. But of course he will always be Gogol, just as he will always be Bengali, forever influenced by his parents' extreme caution and restraint. No detail of Nikhil's intriguing life is too small for Lahiri's keen and zealous attention as she painstakingly considers the viability of transplanted traditions, the many shades of otherness, and the lifelong work of defining and accepting oneself. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.
A first novel from Pulitzer-winner Lahiri (stories: Interpreter of Maladies, 1999) focuses on the divide between Indian immigrants and their Americanized children. The action takes place in and around Boston and New York between 1968 and 2000. As it begins, Ashoke Ganguli and his pregnant young wife Ashima are living in Cambridge while he does research at MIT. Their marriage was arranged in Calcutta: no problem. What is a problem is naming their son. Years before in India, a book by Gogol had saved Ashoke’s life in a train wreck, so he wants to name the boy Gogol. The matter becomes contentious and is hashed out at tedious length. Gogol grows to hate his name, and at 18 the Beatles-loving Yale freshman changes it officially to Nikhil. His father is now a professor outside Boston; his parents socialize exclusively with other middle-class Bengalis. The outward-looking Gogol, however, mixes easily with non-Indian Americans like his first girlfriend Ruth, another Yalie. Though Lahiri writes with painstaking care, her dry synoptic style fails to capture the quirkiness of relationships. Many scenes cry out for dialogue that would enable her characters to cut loose from a buttoned-down world in which much is documented but little revealed. After an unspecified quarrel, Ruth exits. Gogol goes to work as an architect in New York and meets Maxine, a book editor who seems his perfect match. Then his father dies unexpectedlythe kind of death that fills in for lack of plotand he breaks up with Maxine, who like Ruth departs after a reported altercation (nothing verbatim). Girlfriend number three is an ultrasophisticated Indian academic with as little interest in Bengali culture as Gogol;these kindred spirits marry, but the restless Moushumi proves unfaithful. The ending finds the namesake alone, about to read the Russian Gogol for the first time. A disappointingly bland follow-up to a stellar story collection. Author tour
The Namesake 4.1 out of 5 based on 0 ratings. 406 reviews.
I began this book simply because my cousin said she loved it. I can now see why. It captivates the heart and soul. I was in tears by the end of the novel. Being an Indian raised in American, there was also a lot I could relate to and understand. An absolute must for your personal library!
My friends and i read this book as a book group. We didn't like it because it was boring, had no climax, and wasn't very exciting. This book reminded us more of a documentary than a novel. As we were reading, we were expecting a climactic action, but there was none. Although we didn't enjoy the book, it gave us a good insight on Indian culture.
Mymysterygirl More than 1 year ago
I started reading Jhumpa Lahiri in a college English course, starting with "Interpreter of Maladies." I enjoyed it so much that I couldn't wait till she wrote her next book which was this one, "The Namesake." It is an excellent book. It gives you a view into the world of another culture, and it also touches on some of the things that ethnic people deal with everyday in America; being different...having a different name, weird spelling to your name, having an accent, skin tone, dressing differently, trying to assimilate, etc. I totally recommend this book. She just came out with another book, also, so in total she has 3 published works.
barnsiefan More than 1 year ago
The story began well enough and I found myself emotionally invested in the lives of the young immigrant couple as they welcomed their first-born child, Gogol. However the story soon changed its focus from the parents to Gogol and that is where I lost interest in the story. It was difficult to feel emotionally invested in Gogol's life. This is because the book was at times too detailed (describing every last item visible in the room) and then at other not detailed enough (glossing over entire scenes such as when Gogol learns his wife has been cheating in the space of a paragraph). There were so many potential dramatic and moving moments in the book, but instead of creating gripping and climatic passages, these were delivered in a cold and factual way. I wanted to like the book, but I was so detatched from the main character that I could not. It was still an enjoyable read though, with a solid plot and good insight into the life of an immigrant family.
I had previously read a collection of short stories by this author and was lukewarm about it. But when I saw that she had written a novel I wanted to try it. I'm glad I did. It gave me insight into the trials and tribulations of a family which emigrated to the U.S., the parents being steeped in their Bengali traditions but giving birth to 2 children born here in the U.S. who are very "Americanized" and resent the ways of the old world. Very very good book.
I loved the writing style, the flow, the characters. Very well written, believable, and relatable. One of those couldn't-put-it-down books. Highly recommended.
Megan_Cruz More than 1 year ago
If you are looking for a way to better understand and help you connect to your family and cultural then The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is the book for you. Lahiri does a wonderful job of giving you a well thought out and organized story of a young boy named Gogol who grows up into a man while searching for his identity and dealing with family relationships. This novel is a great fictional depiction of very real circumstances and the trials of being a first generation child in America. It shows how hard it is to be a young kid in the United States and trying to keep cultural traditions and values. The novel clearly depicts how there is always a constant struggle no matter how long one has been living in this country. This is a book about life, and life can sometimes be boring and at parts the book is slow but if you keep reading in the end you will get a great message out of it. I would definitely recommend this book because it is a very well written novel. It is a very moving and inspiration story that becomes very memorable. The language she uses to express her thoughts is very well crafted. Lahiri really has a way of making the reader want to keep turning the page
How does a writer follow up a Pulitzer Prize-winning debut? Jhumpa Lahiri, who at the age of 32 was awarded the coveted literary prize for her masterful story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, once again marvels readers with smooth and elegant prose in her novel, The Namesake. Jhumpa Lahiri clearly illustrates what it is to live an entire life in America, but still feel a bit out of place at times. Her stunning images of the elaborate feasts, the traditional clothing, and the ceremonial rites of the Indian culture make The Namesake a very rewarding and worthwhile reading experience.
Beautiful story, beautifully written.
happytheclown37 on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
This book was incredible. I have already seen the movie but the book really helped to add the finer details of the also beautiful movie. Reading the last chapter of this book really make me cry - because it softly, indirectly encourages you to reflect back on your own life and to learn to appreciate every memory and how each past moment of your life stays with you and helps to shape who you are today.
carioca on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
I love family sagas, and foreign families fit the best with my own background (at this point, I am a professional foreigner and that includes in relation to my own homecountry!). I had read Interpreter of Maladies (definitely one of my favorite short stories books in the last couple of years) and it seemed only natural I should read Lahiri's next one as well. And I was not disappointed. The story is not new, but it never fails to strike a note. And her imagery is so alive I felt I could actually see those saris and smell those Indian spices. I felt Gogol's pain as he tried to cope not only with the inevitable generation gap between himself and his parents (which we all go through), but also the culture gap as well - I have never been through that and I can only imagine how difficult it must be. But when he comes to realize that his cultural heritage is indeed an inherent part of who he is and wants to be, the pain is all worth it. Beautiful.
laytonwoman3rd on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
Excellent writing, fascinating family tale, switching viewpoints periodically to give us glimpses of the "foreigner" experience from various perspectives. The protagonist, Gogol, is nearly always "The Other" as most of his social interactions seem to be related either to his parents' Bengali community contacts, or his current female companion's friends and family. He never really accepts his own name, and on the threshold of adulthood he changes it, thereby drawing a distinct line between two worlds...the one he grew up in, populated by people who know him as "Gogol", and the other by people who met him after he became "Nikhil". Only after several failed romances, and the departure of his parents does he begin to explore who Gogol really might be. Highly recommended.
melissiag on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did.
Exupere on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
I agree with Amy when she describes the narrative style as ¿dazzling¿: I was taken away smoothly throughout the pages and neither have I felt the harsh disconnection I usually feel when I look out from a book nor did I experience a moment of dullness.What struck me first about the story was the fact that it was told in the most impartial way it can be, in my opinion: I didn¿t feel the author struggling to make a point. I didn¿t see her either use the non-judgmental ¿Subject. Verb. Complement¿ form in order to avoid adjectives and granitic words such as ¿yes¿ or ¿no¿. People are having issues and they¿re trying to deal with them and then life goes on and so on. No need to go neurotic over a fact or two. In fact, Gogol doesn¿t go neurotic at all, it seems.I loved the way Jhumpa faithfully reported the gestures of Ashima while cooking, the details Gogol notices, the routines of the characters: she takes aspects of everyday¿s life and thanks to her sense of details or narration or whatever magic she uses, she puts them under a glowing golden light that intensifies their colors, their smells and tastes. I was practically dutifully eating damplings with Sonia and Gogol in Calcutta, I was sipping wine every once and a while with Moushoumi, I could smell the absence of heat in Gogol¿s apartment and easily picture the Ohio apartment of Ashoke. Details of conversations and impressions are vivid in my head. Lydia and Gerald with this sophisticated life that lacks depth, the Bengali friends at every party and occasion, their warmth, Donald and Astrid attitude¿s ¿ I wonder what they¿ll name their baby- and dear light Sonia and dear Ashima, dutiful and obedient yet with her own states of mind and decisions when it really matters or really doesn¿t matter.
ZaraAlexis on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
The narrative is so clear and written with ease that I easily became engrossed in the story of the Ganguli family as it spanned throughout the years, each page, a catalyst to further reading and emotional investment in the book¿s characters.The flow of the language is natural and rich in the truth it reveals about the immigrant experience, and though specifically about coming from India and making a life in America, Lahiri writes with authentic detail and wisdom about the described immigrant experience that it not only crosses borders, but speaks truthfully and universally.And though the main character, Gogol ¿Nikhil¿ Ganguli is the centre of the narrative, the specific perspectives and sufferings of the family that surround him in their own immigrant experience, found in his father, Ashoke, his mother, Ashima, and his sister, Sonali, speak the truth about the different trials and responses to transition.Lahiri speaks to the meaning of being ethnic, marginal, liminal, and the complexity of defining yourself and home. There is a tension and dichotomy between the previous country and the new, and the expectations one not only has of himself, but the expectations of those around him, and how these definitions stretch and become blurred to become something new entirely.The gut of the book is about the naming of things and people; how one identifies himself, namely, Gogol. How and why and what he was named, a central theme in the novel.It¿s a story about coming into one¿s own understanding of his relationship to his culture (old and new), his family, his home, himself, and his name.Surprisingly, the film is as beautiful and rich as the novel it is based on.
jcelrod on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
The struggles of a young man born in American to Indian parents. Deals with issues of identity, naming, and the clash of cultures in a very beautiful way.
neringros on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
Loved everything about this book, even the reference to Gogol - one of my favorite writers.
MarysGirl on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
This one's been on the shelf for a while. I got it from a FreeCycler two years ago and had just seen the movie. I probably would have passed it on without a read, except I heard the author read one of her short stories on an NPR radio show ("Selected Shorts" produced by WNYC). It was a beautiful story and reminded me of the book, so when I needed another commuter book, this one went into the back pack.And I'm glad it did. Although I was very familiar with the story (the movie followed the plot closely), I loved the language and description Lahiri uses. The actual story is not much different from any immigrant family's, but the small details illuminate this book and make for lyrical reading. I recommend this one
Venqat65 on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
Enjoyed this book. This is the first book I have read which tells the tale of Indian immigrants to the United States. Many of the customs described in the book reminded me of customs that my housekeeper Meena explained to me. I thought the book did a good job of showing the full spectrum of feelings that an immigrant or an expat family feels. While one person is longing for a way of life that they left behind, another person is pushing that way of life away and clinging to the ways of the adopted country. Very realistic. I love that understanding is achieved by all as they mature.
mathqueen on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
The Namesake chronicles the life of a boy whose parents are immigrants from India. They are a product of an arranged marriage and reside in the States while the husband, Ashoke, finishes his education. Ashima, the wife, struggles to find her identity in the American culture with a husband she barely knows. The book¿s main character is their son, Gogol. He is the epitome of an ABCD child, (American Born Confused Desis.) He spends the entire book fighting his past in order to become completely assimilated into the American culture. The sad part is that he never seems to fit into either cultural mold comfortably. Part of this struggle is the result of parents not letting go of traditions from their past. These immigrants could be describes as the DCBA generation, Desis Came to be American, (Sekiguchi, 1999). While they are in America, they never fully assimilate to American customs and traditions. This increases pressure on the next generation to essentially assimilate into two cultures simultaneously: the past culture of their parents and the American culture they are immersed in on a daily basis. This struggle creates in Gogol a strong resentment for his parents and their Indian culture he wants no part of. Library Implications: This book strongly demonstrates the struggle ABCD children encounter in America. Older readers in this situation could relate to these struggles on a personal level. That being said, the adult content and the overall depressed tone of the story¿s main character might make me hesitant to recommend this book to just anyone. Mature readers could use this book to launch a discussion of the ABCD culture and its struggle toward acculturation. The subject of parent/child interactions during the course of maturation could also be used as a discussion topic.References:Sekiguchi, Mari. (1999). Between ABCD and DCBA: Rise of the New Generation in Asian Indians in the United States. Japan: Osaka.
amandacb on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
Agreed that the stories and backgrounds of the immigrant family (mother and father) were infinitely more interesting and sympathetic than the arrogant little snit of a son. I wanted to, several times, reach through the book and slap him for his shocking rudeness and blame-shifting. Quite an unlikeable character, and thus, I could not fully commit to the book.
cestovatela on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
After so many accolades from reviewers and enthusiastic recommendations from friends, I was expected to really love this book but I found it surprisingly difficult to get through. Lahiri seems to focus more on the non-events of her characters' lives and gloss over the defining moments. Too often a chapter would open by telling me something really important had happened a few months ago and I would think "but wait...I wanted to hear how he first told his mother about his American girlfriend" or "how did you feel when that relationship ended." The effect is a book suffused with a gray, dreamlike quality but little emotional resonance. To be fair, the death of a main character was handled well and the last 50 pages were beautiful and poignant. It just wasn't enough to redeem the whole book for me.
shwetasbookjournal on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
I love Jhumpa Lahiri's writing . I have re read her Interpreter Of Maladies numerous times. I even re read the short stories of her's published in newspapers. I am saying all this because , even though I love her writing style, The Namesake didn't work for me.I am not saying it was bad . It definitely wasn't but it wasn't as good as I had expected her next book to be.This whole theme of trying to find your identity amongst the people who treat you like a foreigner even though you were born and brought there is approached with great sensitivity but it never becomes anything more than that. Gogol's identity crisis , his frustrations regarding his parents Indian values even after spending half their life time in US was really believable.Lahiri's narrative was very appealing , characters very well developed but I wish story had something more to it . A certain zing was missing which I thought was found in abundance in her short story collection .Recommended to fans of contemporary fiction.I haven't seen the movie version (not a fan of book to movie adaptations ) but might give it a try some time soon.
goldnyght on LibraryThing More than 1 year ago
This may well be the only book I have ever read that I could also watch the movie for without rolling my eyes. Both are fantastic, touching, involved tales of a first generation Indian-American man searching for his own identity.
indian american fiction paperbacks
book by roopa farooki
houghton mifflin harcourt book
book by kathryn forbes
book by amir d aczel
Bitter Sweets: A Novel
With this spellbinding first novel about the destructive lies three immigrant generations of a Pakistani/Bangladeshi ...
With this spellbinding first novel about the destructive lies three immigrant generations of a Pakistani/Bangladeshi family tell each other, Roopa Farooki adds a fresh new voice to the company of Zadie Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri and Arudhati Roy.Henna Rub is a ...
Buddha's Orphans
Called “a Buddhist Chekhov” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Samrat Upadhyay’s writing has been praised ...
Called “a Buddhist Chekhov” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Samrat Upadhyay’s writing has been praised by Amitav Ghosh and Suketu Mehta, and compared with the work of Akhil Sharma and Jhumpa Lahiri. Upadhyay’s novel, Buddha’s Orphans, uses Nepal’s political upheavals ...
Exiles in the Garden
“Ward Just is not merely America’s best political novelist. He is America’s greatest living novelist.”—Susan ...
“Ward Just is not merely America’s best political novelist. He is America’s greatest living novelist.”—Susan Zakin, Lithub "One of the most astute writers of American fiction" (New York Times Book Review) delivers the resonant story of Alec Malone, a ...
Since the release of Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri has won almost every award bestowed ...
Since the release of Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri has won almost every award bestowed on a first book of fiction. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the ...
Mama's Bank Account
The charming adventures of the Mama of an immigrant Norwegian family living in San Francisco. ...
The charming adventures of the Mama of an immigrant Norwegian family living in San Francisco. This bestselling book inspired the play, motion picture, and television series I Remember Mama.
Mr. Mani
Mr. Mani is a deeply affecting six-generation family saga, extending from nineteenth century Greece and ...
Mr. Mani is a deeply affecting six-generation family saga, extending from nineteenth century Greece and Poland to British-occupied Palestine to German-occupied Crete and ultimately to modern Israel. The narrative moves through time and is told in five conversations about the ...
For thousands of years, it was the visionaries and writers who argued that we cannot ...
For thousands of years, it was the visionaries and writers who argued that we cannot be alone-that there is intellegent life in the universe. Now, with the discoveries of the Hubble Telescope, data emerging from Mars, and knowledge about life ...
Raised from the Ground
Essential...A novel that resounds with relevance for our own time. —New York Times Book Review ...
Essential...A novel that resounds with relevance for our own time. —New York Times Book Review First published in 1980, the City of Lisbon Prize–winning Raised from the Ground follows the changing fortunes of the Mau Tempo family—poor landless peasants not ...
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Great Canadian Theatre Company
WEEKENDER: The Best Man, a Dallaire documentary, Megan D’Arcy, plus more things to do and see
BY Dayanti Karunaratne
POSTED May 8, 2013 1:55 pm
THE BEST MAN AT THE GCTC
This humorous Broadway favorite tackles morality and party politics in the race for a place on the ballot. The winner of the 15th annual Lawyer Play fundraiser, members of the city’s legal community volunteer to perform in the play. Plus, The Best Man features cameo appearances by real-life politicians Katherine Hobbs, Sheila Copps, Yasir Naqvi, and Mark Taylor. Since 1999, the Lawyer Play has raised money for GCCTC’s productions and, this year, for the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa. $100 (includes $50 tax receipt), preview May 8 $35. Wednesday, May 8 to Saturday, May 11. 7:30 p.m. Great Canadian Theatre Company. www.gctc.ca
FIGHT LIKE SOLDIERS, DIE LIKE CHILDREN AT THE MAYFAIR
The Ottawa premiere of a chilling documentary that follows General Roméo Dallaire as he returns to Africa on a mission to stop the use of child soldiers. Dallaire is widely known for his efforts during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and for his continued work to educate and mobilize people against mass atrocities. The documentary, which is based on Dallaire’s book, was an official selection at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival this year. $10, members $6, seniors $7. Friday, May 10 to Wednesday, May 15. See website for show times. Mayfair Theatre, 1074 Bank St. www.mayfairtheatre.ca
OTTAWA FARMERS’ MARKET (FREE!)
This favourite market officially opened its Brewer Park location earlier this month — but now that spring has really sprung it’s on the top of our list for things to do. Stock up on kale, arugula, rhubarb, asparagus, and herbs. While most people were likely complaining about the lingering snow, Andy Terauds of Acorn Creek (and the vice President of the Ottawa Farmers’ Market Association) says, “winter was excellent with a continuous blanket of snow to protect crops like strawberries, rhubarb, garlic, and asparagus from the colder temperatures above.” Now it’s time to reap the rewards! Brewer Park location: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Centrum Plaza location: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Westboro location to open May 18). www.ottawafarmersmarket.ca (more…)
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The Moral and Legal Consequences of Wife-Selling in The Mayor of Casterbridge
Subversion and Sympathy: Gender, Law, and the British Novel, Alison LaCroix, Martha Nussbaum, eds., Oxford University Press, 2013
Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 327
22 Pages Posted: 7 Mar 2011 Last revised: 1 May 2013
See all articles by Julie C. Suk
Julie C. Suk
Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law Study Group; CUNY - The Graduate Center
Date Written: March 4, 2011
What kind of man sells his wife? Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with a famous episode in which a poor hay trusser, Michael Henchard, sells his wife, Susan, by impulsively putting her up for auction in a public market. Susan is purchased by a sailor, with whom she departs and subsequently lives as husband and wife. Subtitled “The Life and Death of a Man of Character,” the novel presents itself as a study of the flawed, complex, and ultimately tragic moral character of the man who sold his wife. This essay interprets the novel’s account of the moral consequences of the wife-sale in The Mayor of Casterbridge, by examining the shifting legal and social meanings of the practice in nineteenth century Britain. The novel exploits uncertainty about the legal consequences of wife-selling to generate its moral tragedy.
Keywords: law & literature, gender, moral luck, divorce
Suk, Julie C., The Moral and Legal Consequences of Wife-Selling in The Mayor of Casterbridge (March 4, 2011). Subversion and Sympathy: Gender, Law, and the British Novel, Alison LaCroix, Martha Nussbaum, eds., Oxford University Press, 2013; Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 327. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1777555
Julie C. Suk (Contact Author)
Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law ( email )
55 Fifth Ave.
University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law Study Group
Boalt Hall
CUNY - The Graduate Center ( email )
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Dance, Pop/Rock, Singer/Songwriter
Contemporary Pop/Rock, Contemporary Singer/Songwriter, Teen Pop
Australian, Female Vocalists, Jazz, Pop, Singer-songwriter, Soul
Gabriella Cilmi is a jazz and pop singer who was born 10 October 1991 and grew up in Melbourne, Australia. She was first signed by the Warner Music Group when she was just 12 years old. She is now signed to Island Records and living in the UK. Gabriella's first studio album titled "Lessons to Be Learned" was released on February 18th 2008. "Lessons to be Learned" is produced by Xenomania (Girls Aloud, Sugababes, Saint Etienne, and others) and features the singles "Sweet About Me", "Save the Lies" and "Don't Wanna Go to Bed Now".
Gabriella's first studio album titled "Lessons to Be Learned" was released on February 18th 2008.
"Lessons to be Learned" is produced by Xenomania (Girls Aloud, Sugababes, Saint Etienne, and others) and features the singles "Sweet About Me", "Save the Lies" and "Don't Wanna Go to Bed Now".
Her second album "Ten" came out on the 22nd of March 2010. After the single "On A Mission". In this album she takes a eletro pop retro edge to her music.
On A Mission (CDM)
On A Mission (CDS)
Sweet About Me (CDS)
Lessons To Be Learned (AU Exclusive Special Edition) CD1
Lessons To Be Learned (Bonus CD)
Amy Winehouse 16
Duffy 8
Erin McCarley 2
Joss Stone 14
Katie Noonan 3
KT Tunstall 21
Vanessa Amorosi 11
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Beth Nielsen Chapman
Contemporary Country, Progressive Country
Contemporary Country, Country-Folk
Country, Female Artists, Female Vocalist, Female Vocalists, Singer-songwriter, Singer-songwriters
Beth Nielsen Chapman (born on 11 September 1958 in Harlingen, Texas, USA) is an American singer-songwriter. In 1976, Chapman played with a rock and pop group called "Harmony" in Montgomery, Alabama, effectively replacing Tommy Shaw who had just left to join Styx. She played acoustic guitar and piano as well as providing vocals for the group in a locally-popular bowling alley bar called Kegler's Kove and has returned to play in the area on an infrequent basis ever since.
In 1976, Chapman played with a rock and pop group called "Harmony" in Montgomery, Alabama, effectively replacing Tommy Shaw who had just left to join Styx. She played acoustic guitar and piano as well as providing vocals for the group in a locally-popular bowling alley bar called Kegler's Kove and has returned to play in the area on an infrequent basis ever since.
Chapman has had several popular songs on the Adult-Contemporary charts in the 1990's, such as "I Keep Coming Back to You", "Walk My Way", "The Moment You Were Mine" and "All I Have". In 1993, she sang a popular duet with Paul Carrack, "In the Time It Takes". In early 2010 Chapman's "Back To Love" album was #1 on the UK itunes country charts.
Co-songwriter of Faith Hill's hit song, "This Kiss", many other singers have interpreted her songs: Trisha Yearwood ("Down On My Knees"), Martina McBride ("Happy Girl"), Willie Nelson (?Nothing I Can Do About It Now?), Tanya Tucker (?Strong Enough To Bend?), Lorrie Morgan (?Five Minutes?), Mary Chapin Carpenter (?Almost Home?), Bette Midler ("The Color of Roses") and others.
Bonnie Raitt has sung background vocals on several songs, including "Shake My Soul".
Chapman's husband Ernest Chapman died of cancer in 1994. In 2000, Beth experienced her own battle with breast cancer. The song "Sand and Water" was written after Ernest's death; Elton John performed this song during his 1997 World Tour.
* Hearing It First (1980)
* Beth Nielsen Chapman (1990)
* You Hold the Key (1993)
* Sand and Water (1997)
* Greatest Hits (1999)
* Deeper Still (2002)
* Hymns (2004)
* Look (2005)
* Prism (2007)
Hearts Of Glass
The Mighty Sky
Back To Love
Prism CD2
Deeper Still
Deana Carter 11
Emmylou Harris 61
Lucinda Williams 24
Mary-Chapin Carpenter 1
Shawn Colvin 22
Eddi Reader 21
Kd Lang 1
Nanci Griffith 23
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Pediatric Surgery Lab » Lab History & Future
Foundation of the Pediatric Surgery Division at UCSF
The history of the Pediatric Surgery Lab revolves around the history of the formation of the Pediatric Surgery division by Dr. Alfred deLorimier. He founded the Division of Pediatric Surgery at UCSF and single handedly managed his prosperous practice (ably assisted by his wife, Sandy, in the office). He established the Division and managed to obtain funding for basic research in the physiology of diaphragmatic hernia in fetal lambs at a time when most surgeons did not even attempt research.
In January 1978, deLorimier recruited Dr. Michael Harrison who was just finishing his pediatric surgery fellowship at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. For the next 10 years, these two shared a growing practice, heavy on complex surgical reconstruction in children, particularly for babies with birth defects. The Division continued to thrive under deLorimier's leadership. This was a very busy time when the exciting work in a brand new field attracted talented young surgeons from all over the world to work in the Division and field research laboratory. Harrison devoted himself (and later many bright young surgical research fellows) to developing the new field of fetal diagnosis and therapy. They developed fetal animal models of fetal diseases and applied what they learned in the first fetal surgeries in the world.
For more visit the Pediatric Surgery Division History.
Pediatric & Fetal Surgery: The Past Five Years
Under the direction and leadership of Division Chief Diana Farmer, MD and Fetal Treatment Center Director Hanmin Lee, MD, the UCSF Division of Pediatric Surgery and Fetal Treatment Center has experienced tremendous growth over the past few years. Despite the recent economic recession, our clinical practices in Pediatric and Fetal Surgery have continued to be extremely successful. Our patient population has consistently increased each year, along with our profitability.
As a result of our strong financial position, we have been able to expand our academic, clinical, and research staff. Our once spacious-seeming Fetal Treatment Center space is now bustling at maximum capacity. Though our clinical and academic offices are busier than ever, there is a widespread feeling that things have never run this smoothly.
Pediatric Surgery and Fetal Treatment Laboratory Research
Our clinical and basic science research programs have grown remarkably in productivity and funding in the past five years. We currently have more than $4 million in grants and awards for our faculty and fellows-a tremendous achievement after having limited funding for several years.
Our center has been working on a multicenter NIH-funded Management of Myelomeningocele Study (MOMS) for the past seven years. FTC Director Hanmin Lee has established himself as a world-renowned expert on treating twin-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) and is leading efforts to develop a better strategy for treating congenital diaphragmatic hernia in utero. Former Division Chief/FTC Director Michael Harrison has developed the Magnetic Mini-Mover Procedure, a novel and highly creative method of correcting pectus excavatum that is now entering a phase III FDA-sponsored multicenter trial. After being awarded a half-million dollars from a new FDA grant program, Drs. Harrison and Hirose are leading the UCSF Pediatric Device Consortium, whose mission is to facilitate the development of novel pediatric medical devices. Finally, the hard work of Doug Miniati and Tippi MacKenzie, who each have 75% protected research time, is starting to pay off after two years setting up their respective laboratories. Dr. Miniati was recently awarded a prestigious K award from NIH-NHLBI to support his research on the underlying biology and pathophysiology of pulmonary development, and Dr. MacKenzie has been honored with numerous grants from surgical foundations to fund her exciting research into overcoming barriers to engraftment in in utero hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
The Future of our Research
As we look ahead to the future, we will continue to develop both our clinical and research presences. Specifically, we are looking to expand our clinical pediatric surgery services to a fourth site, San Francisco General Hospital, in addition to our coverage at California Pacific Medical Center, Kaiser San Francisco, and here at UCSF on Parnassus. Simultaneously, our fetal practice continues to seek out new collaborations with programs all over the country and world through our comprehensive online patient web portal, Inside.
Looking further ahead, we are extremely excited about moving both our pediatric and fetal surgery practices to the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay's brand-new Women's, Children's, and Cancer hospital complex when it opens in 2014. We are embarking on research collaborations on stem cell transplantation with our colleagues at CHO. Finally, the research arm of our division is poised to grow exponentially as the exciting early efforts of our junior faculty gain momentum.
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A Stakeholder View of Strategic Management in Chinese Firms
Essay Topic: Management, Chinese
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS STUDIES VOL 15, NO1, JUNE 2007: pages 1 of 13 A STAKEHOLDER VIEW OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN CHINESE FIRMS Dr Xueli Huang1 Dr Scott Gardner2 Despite the fact that China has emerged as a driving force of the world economy over the last decade, little research has been undertaken into how Chinese firms strategically manage their businesses.
This paper develops a theoretical framework of strategic management in the Chinese firms through reviewing and synthesising five strategic perspectives that are relevant to the Chinese context: the Industry Structure View (ISV), Resources-Based View (RBV), Institutional View (IV), Relational View (RV), and Stakeholder View (SHV). We elaborate the relevance of the SHV in the Chinese context and its relationships with other strategic perspectives. Finally, we offer several managerial and research implications based on the theoretical framework developed.
Key Words: strategic management, Chinese firms, stakeholder perspective I. INTRODUCTION One of the most significant developments in the global economy is the re-emergence of China as a major driving force of the world economy. Since the implementation of the open-door, market-oriented policies in 1979, China has quadrupled its GDP and sustained a significant average growth rate of over 9 per cent.
We will write a custom essay sample on A Stakeholder View of Strategic Management in Chinese Firms
The foreign direct investment (FDI) in China in 2004 amounted to US$ 60 billions, making China the biggest FDI destination country over three consecutive years from 2002.
Chinese organisations now compete fiercely in domestic markets, and the international trade arena, with the value of China’s international trade accounting for over 70 percent of its GDP in 2004. The Chinese have also expanded their business operations to other countries as illustrated by the recent examples such as the Levono, China’s largest Personal Computer (PC) manufacturing company, acquiring IBM’s PC division, and the unsuccessful bid of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), China’s third largest oil company, for Unocal, the ninth largest oil company in the USA.
Despite the important role played by the Chinese economy in general, and Chinese firms in particular, in the global economy, China has been considered as one of the most underresearched regions in the world (Tsui, Schoonhoven, Meyer, Lau, & Milkovich, 2004). Although interest from executives, academics and media on Chinese business matters has 1 Dr Xueli Huang is Senior Lecturer at the School of Management, Edith Cowan University. Email: x. [email protected] edu. au 2 Dr Scott Gardner is Associate Professor at Murdoch University. Email: s. [email protected] edu. au 1
A stakeholder view of strategic management in Chinese firms increased dramatically over the past several years, little research effort has been devoted to studying the strategic management of Chinese organisations. This paper investigates strategic management in Chinese organisations. In doing so, an attempt is made to integrate the current literature on strategic management, focusing on the two dominant perspectives of the past twenty years: the Industry Structure View (ISV) (Porter, 1979) and the Resource Based View (RBV) (Barney, 1997; Prahalad & Hamel, 1990; Wernerfelt, 1984).
It also examines Post, Preston and Sachs’ (2002) conceptual schema of complementary perspectives for strategic analysis of 21st century corporate environments – the Stakeholder View (SHV). In attempting to make sense of increased strategic complexity and the central role of networks of human relationships in shaping economic activity in Eastern (notably Chinese) and Western markets, our analysis will call upon the ISV, RBV and SHV with additional reference to other contemporary strategic perspectives including the Relational View (RV)(Dyer & Singh, 1998), and the Institution-Based View (IBV) (Peng, 2002).
By focusing these lenses on how business is conducted in the cultural context and commercial environment of China, this paper aims to: 1) enhance understanding of why and how the strategic behaviours of Chinese managers differ from those of Western managers? 2) explain why the SHV is relevant to Chinese management practice; and 3) develop an integrated theoretical framework that can be used for guiding future research into the unique characteristics of strategic management in Chinese organizations. II. LITERATURE REVIEW
The Industry-Structure and Resource Based Views How firms behave and what determines a firm’s performance in international competition are two of four fundamental issues in strategic management (Rumelt, Schendel, & Teece, 1994). Searching for sources of competitive advantage has been a key theme for strategy researchers and business managers over the past five decades. Consequently, a number of strategic management views or thoughts have emerged that explain either sources of competitive advantage or how firms form strategy (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 1998).
The ISV and RBV are two prominent views that have endured in the literature and in practice despite significant reconfiguration of global market boundaries and technologies over the decade to 2006. The fundamental assumption of ISV proposed by Porter (1979) is that a firm’s performance is primarily determined by the environment, including both macro environment and industry environment within which it operates. These two broad sets of environmental factors heavily influence the attractiveness of a position for a firm to occupy.
As such, a firm uses its market power, or in Williamson’s (1991) terms, ‘ strategizing’, as a primary means to generating supernormal returns or achieving competitive advantage. The second prominent perspective of strategic management is the RBV proposed by Wernerfelt (1984) and subsequently developed by strategic scholars, most notably by Barney (1986; 1997), Rumelt (1984) and Teece and his colleagues (1997). The RBV 2
International Journal of Business Studies argues that a firm’s competitive advantage is primarily based on the heterogeneity of the key resources and capabilities it owns or controls, particularly those that are difficult to mobilise. It is the heterogeneity and immobility of these unique resources and core competence that earn a firm’s supernormal rents. In Williamston’s term, firms adopting this approach are ‘economizing’ (Williamson, 1991).
Although the RBV has been widely used in strategic literature, its contribution to the theoretical development has been recently challenged (Priem & Butler, 2001). The Relational and Institution-Based Views Although these two schools of strategic management mentioned above have contributed significantly to understanding of the firms’ strategic management practices and behaviours, the quest continues.
Recent effort devoted to this area has resulted in several promising and interesting developments over the past decade which are relevant to the study of strategic management in Chinese organisations, including the Complex Response Process View (CRPV), (Stacey, 2003), Relational View (RV) (Dyer & Singh, 1998), Institution-Based View (IBV) (Peng, 2002) and, more recently, the Stakeholder View (SHV) by Post, Preston and Sachs (2002b).
There are considerable overlaps across these views that attempt to balance the long standing use of high level and rational industry analysis to explain firms’ strategic behaviours, within a defined marketplace, with a more dynamic, processual, and ultimately political view of strategy. This is focused on human motives and interactions within inter-connected, local, national and global networks or constituencies.
The Relational View (RV) (Dyer & Singh, 1998) proposes that firms can achieve abovenormal returns through profiling and actively managing their network of relationships with other business organisations, particularly with suppliers and users. Dyer and Singh (1998) also outline four mechanisms through which these inter-organizational relationships can generate competitive advantage.
They are: 1) investing in relationspecific assets to gain productivity in the value chain; 2) substantial knowledge exchange, or sharing between participating organisations to enhance inter–firm organisational learning; 3) leveraging the complementary resources and capability of alliance partners to develop new products and services; and 4) using effective governance to reduce transaction costs.
As Dyer and Singh (1998) argue, one of the major benefits of this view is that it extends the unit of analysis for sustainable competitive advantage from a single firm (RBV) or single industry (ISV) to a network of inter-organizational relationships. The RV can be regarded as a middle range theory as it only focuses on a limited number of concepts (Neuman, 2003). Another recently developed view that is relevant to the studies of strategic management in Chinese organizations is the institution-based view (IBV) (North 1990; Peng, 2002).
This view attempts to explain why the strategic decisions of apparently similar firms in different countries vary, and considers institutions as a new set of independent factors, besides a firm’s resources and its industry structure, that influence its strategic choices. According to North (1990), institutions are “the rules of the game in the society”. More specifically, Scott (1995) refers to institutions as “cognitive, normative, and regulative 3 A stakeholder view of strategic management in Chinese firms structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behaviour”.
Thus, institutions help identify what strategic choices are acceptable and supportable, reduce uncertainty, and provide consistency to firms. Based on this view, therefore, institutional factors constrain the choices a firm can make, and are often considered in the strategy literature as part of the environment under which organisations operate. Organisations in different countries behave differently because the political and legal systems, social norms and values vary from one country to another, and these are important elements which influence strategic decisions.
In other words, the institutional framework, as defined by Davis and North (1970) as “the set of fundamental political, social and legal ground rules”, in different countries influences firms’ strategy and consequently their performance. The IBV has shed much light on our understanding of strategic behaviour of firms in different countries, and could be good platform for developing new theoretical perspectives that are pertinent to the emerging business culture of China. (Peng, 2005).
The Stakeholder View A more recent development in strategic thinking is the stakeholder-based view (SHV) (Post, Preston, & Sachs, 2002b). In line with the institution-based view, the SHV recognizes the important role played by political and social arenas shaping organisational decision making and performance. Post, Preston and Sachs (2002) build on this broad position, arguing that organisations, and particularly powerful multinational corporations, need to actively develop, maintain and manage relationships with their key stakeholders, including governments and communities.
This proactive cultivation and long term management of strategic relationships contrast to the IBV, which suggests passive conformance to the rules. It is however quite consistent with management as understood and practiced in Chinese business networks. It therefore deserves more detailed discussion and elaboration in this paper. According to Post, Preston and Sachs (2002) the stakeholder view holds that “the capability of a business enterprise to generate sustainable wealth, and hence long-term value, is determined by its relationships with critical stakeholders” (p. 1). There are two primary, but implicit, assumptions on which the SHV is based. First, a firms’ sustainable and long-term value is determined by three broad types of factors: industry structure, resource base, and social and political setting. It combines the external and internal environments of the firm, and human relationships within its immediate sphere of operations and broader constituency as loci for analysis.
Second, within this broad constituency there are critical stakeholders whose relationships with the focal firm influence its performance either positively or negatively, (See Figure 1). Thus, the authors (Post, Preston, & Sachs, 2002a) argue that the SHV both integrates the industrystructure view and RBV into a broader analytical framework for understanding strategic decisions and actions, and complements them through a broader understanding of how the industry position, resources and firm performance are affected by social and political factors. International Journal of Business Studies Figure 1 The stakeholder view of the corporation (Post, Preston, & Sachs, 2002, p. 55) The theoretical foundation of the SHV can be traced back to the stakeholder theory popularised by Freeman’s seminal work on stakeholder management and its ethical implications (Freeman, 1984).
Since then, the stakeholder concept as a significant element in strategic management theory and practice has been widely used in varied settings, including the public sector and not-for-profit organizations in the USA and various European contexts. Following Freeman’s discussion of the purpose and ethical considerations of stakeholder management, Donaldson and Preston (1995) proposed three types of stakeholder theory: descriptive, instrumental and normative.
Descriptive stakeholder theory attempts to describe and explain specific characteristics and behaviours of business organisations, instrumental theory is used to identify the connections between stakeholder management and organizational performance often where profit motive or advantage over rivals are dominant considerations, whilst normative theory focuses on the interpretation of corporate functioning, including moral and philosophical guidelines for operations and management (Donaldson & Preston, 1995).
Based on this typology of stakeholder theory, instrumental motives and the quest for competitive advantage through stakeholder management appear to have dominated in the literature over the past fifteen years. However this has been offset to a certain extent in recent years by an increased focus in the literature on the role of stakeholders and stakeholder management in the practice and adoption of corporate social responsibility by US and European multinationals (Laszlo, 2003; Sirgy, 2002; Vogel, 2005).
In common with other major US based stakeholder theorists, Post, Preston and Sachs (2002) widely disseminated notion of the SHV has been developed primarily from observations of the characteristic management behaviours within a small number of large US and European based multinational corporations, which they refer to as “large, complex enterprises” (p. 9), citing examples such as Motorola, Shell, and Cummins Engine Co. The reasons for adopting this particular case-based research method is that it 5 A stakeholder view of strategic management in Chinese firms equires an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of the organisations under study, and that the development of the relationships with its critical stakeholders is often evolutionary and path-dependent. Summarising the strategy perspectives discussed above, an integrative framework can be proposed as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. An integrative model of strategic management in the Chinese organisation Is the SHV perspective appropriate for understanding and explaining strategic management in Chinese organisations? Whilst the SHV ocuses on the relationships with key stakeholders and its impact on the long-term organisational wealth, many have observed that unique business relationships, or Guanxi, have been based on characteristic behaviour of Chinese managers. Thus, there is a coincidence between the SHV theory and Guanxi practice in China. Using the distinction provided by Argyris and Schon (1978) between theory and practice, one could wonder if the SHV is a theory espoused and consciously enacted by Western managers in recent years, but imbued in Chinese business practices for many centuries.
As stated by Donaldson and Preston (1995), how stakeholder theory is understood varies from country to country, even in the highly developed market capitalist economies, of the USA, Europe, and Japan. The current Chinese context, in an economic, and more so, social and political sense, is vastly different from those of Western countries. Therefore, it is helpful at both a conceptual and practical level to examine how and why stakeholder management is practiced by Chinese firms.
In the following section, we attempt to explain strategic behaviours of Chinese business practitioners, particularly the relationships between stakeholder management and other 6 International Journal of Business Studies dominant strategic views through examining the Chinese business settings and making use of the theoretical insights offered by the SHV. III. THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT AND OTHER STRATEGIC VIEWS IN THE CHINESE CONTEXT Although the five strategic views mentioned above have been largely developed independently, a close examination of these views reveals that overlaps exist between some of them.
In the following subsections, we focus our discussion primarily on the relationship between the SHV and other views. Stakeholder management and resource-based view in the Chinese business setting Based on the RBV, an organisation can generate supernormal rents through the identification, acquisition, and use of its resources that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and non-substitutable (Barney, 1991). Although human resources have been considered as one of the four major categories of resources within the firm, RBV has not looked beyond the properties of these resources.
The focus of this view is primarily internal with little attention who, outside the firm, can influence the processes of resource access, acquisition and use. The relationship between organisational performance and external resources has been convincingly elaborated by the resource-dependence theory developed by Pfeffer (1978). According to the resource-dependence theory, the organisation relies heavily on its external stakeholders for key resource inputs to survive and prosper.
For Chinese organizations, there is considerable dependence on external stakeholders for resource acquisition and use. Typically these external bodies or parties would be partly those with authority for either allocating resources, such as governments and banks, or influencing resource acquisition and use, such as taxation departments, or Bureau’s of Industrial and Commercial Administration, which can exercise considerable discretion within the broader legal and regulatory framework impacting Chinese business contexts. One particular point in case is the role of the Chinese government.
Historically Chinese governments have controlled much of the national wealth and resources, and been heavily involved in making economic decisions. For example, most of major investment decisions in the state-owned enterprises have been directly influenced by the Chinese governments. Moreover, anecdotal evidence, either from public media or the word of mouth conventional wisdom in China, suggests that cultivation of relationships with Chinese banks, other business entities and their employees, are important to support financing, timely information sharing and sourcing critical materials for business enterprises.
Stakeholder management and the market-based view Establishing a strong market position in China is very difficult because Chinese markets, even market segments, are usually big due to its large regional population bases. The well-established, and usually large, state-owned enterprises also make it harder to operate competitively for new comers in the Chinese markets. Although many new business 7 A stakeholder view of strategic management in Chinese firms opportunities are continuously emerging, most of them are still heavily regulated by the Chinese governments.
The governments can help and/or deter market position building through licensing (e. g. , taxi industry, iron ore importing), investment approvals (e. g. , steel mills), and issuing permits for key capital intensive activities such a commercial building and large scale infrastructure projects, whilst similar practices of these can also be observed in Western countries, the licensing and approval processes in China are often opaque and leave much room for discretion by government officials.
Stakeholder management and institutional view As discussed above, the legal and political settings in China have profound influence on the strategies pursued by Chinese organisation. The legal systems in China have traditionally been loosely configured and left much room for interpretation. Chinese laws are usually not well codified and difficult to reinforce (Ahlstrorm & Bruton, 2001). Moreover jurisdictional boundaries between the governmental departments at the same level or governments at different levels often overlap.
Therefore, favourable relationships with Chinese regulatory authorities can have a positive impact on the organisation’s performance. With regards to the political setting in China, the long history of feudalism in China from 221BC to 1912 has consistently shown a close link between political power and economic wealth. With the prevailing feudal system, political power was centrally controlled by the emperor and his royal family with business enterprises in China relying heavily on their government (emperor and royal families) for survival or prosperity.
Coupled with the loose legal systems, favourable relationships with the Chinese government or royal family have traditionally been considered extremely important for business organisations to maintain their survival and growth. Modern Chinese history shows similar patterns of a close link between the government and business entities. Even after the Chinese communist party took over the power in 1949, the Chinese government controlled most of the country’s wealth. Many Chinese large enterprises are still state-owned.
Therefore Chinese governments have been heavily involved in economic activities at both industry and firm levels over the past five decades. Developing a favourable relationship with various government departments and doing business under their authority or with their help, is still considered one of the most profitable courses for Chinese businesses to adopt in today’s global economy. It is good relationships with the government that help business organisations to grow and occupy a strong position in specific industries with provincial, national and international market penetration.
This relational perspective on business and strategy has many historical and cultural precedents in China. Stakeholder management and relational view in the Chinese cultural setting Since the time of the Qin Dynasties Chinese culture has been dominated by Confucianism that stresses the importance of human relationships and harmony within a society. This requires that interpersonal relationships be appropriately arranged. The friendship (yi), which emphasized the mutually beneficial relationships between one and other, has been 8 International Journal of Business Studies egarded as one of the four characteristics of the fundamental tenet of Confucianism is humanity (ren). The central significance of these principles of friendship or egalitarianism has not waned in the Chinese recent history. In contrast, the Chinese Communist Party reinforced these ideas during the 1950s to 1960s, and more recently from the mid 1990’s to the present day, as a desirable social norm or virtue. At the business level, the Chinese governments have facilitated cooperation and collaboration among the state-owned enterprises in many business areas, such as new product development (Huang, Schroder, & Steffens, 1999).
Frequent gatherings amongst businesses either through political meetings or economic activity among managers in China has also served to facilitate this collaboration and cooperation processes. Such institutional and cultural settings in China manifest in different behaviours including information sharing and informal governance, two of the four mechanisms suggested by Dyer and Singh (1998) which can be used by organisations to enhance their competitive advantage.
It suggests that the strong cultural and institutional foundation that exists in Chinese business for developing reciprocal relationships. This can help improve organisation’s performance – a central principle for the Relational View. IV. THE STAKEHOLDER VIEW AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR CHINESE MANAGERS AND RESEARCHERS This paper explored the relational basis on which the Chinese organisations compete in their domestic markets drawing comparisons with recent Western views of strategic behaviour.
These were framed in a broader historical context of doing business in China. It is contended that the recent stakeholder view proposed by Post, Preston and Sachs (2002) provides much promise in terms of both theoretical and practical insights into how and why strategic management is practiced in Chinese organisations. However, clear differences in Chinese and Western social and political systems, and the stage of capitalist evolution need to be considered in applying the SHV to the Chinese settings.
As stated by Donaldson and Preston (2005), how stakeholder theory is understood varies even in the market capitalist economies. This is more evident in the contemporary Chinese context, where social and political settings are vastly different from those of Western countries. A number of managerial and research implications are proposed from this paper. First, we have presented an integrated framework of strategic management that indicates the mechanisms linking relationships with key stakeholders and organisational performance.
It is proposed that whilst developing and maintaining these relationships has been traditionally valued by Chinese as part of their culture, contemporary Western strategic management thinking would seek to equate effort spent on this area with measurable performance outcomes and long term competitive advantage. With this in view, the integrated framework presented could be used to provide Chinese managers with a more holistic and formalised view of strategic management to support the development clearly articulated objectives and productive long term interactions with key stakeholders. A stakeholder view of strategic management in Chinese firms Secondly, it is clear from the framework presented that the stakeholder view is only one of the approaches for creating organisational wealth. Several types of organisations are competing in the Chinese markets and each could be competing on different basis. Multinational corporations compete on their market position and resources, whilst stateowned enterprises compete on the basis of being institutionalised within political and cultural settings, providing strong market influence and ready access to resources.
Most local private firms may compete on the cultural settings, flexibility and speed of decisionmaking. As the Chinese governments gradually level the playing field for all business players, the political settings in China will be changed. Therefore, managers of Chinese organisations, particularly state-owned enterprises, need to develop relationships with other types of new era capitalist stakeholders who can help build strong market position and/or gain access to key resources.
Thirdly, relationships with the stakeholders need to be considered as strategic (intangible) assets for business organisations in Western markets and as a powerful means to compete in China. As in the West, these relationships are located within a broader social and transactional knowledge networks (Kaplan & Norton, 2004; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998), containing untapped strategic value for Chinese companies operating locally, regionally, and globally. Currently many Chinese managers spend much effort practicing a stakeholder theory in a fragmented way at a one – on – one, individual level.
Whilst the compounding effect of the aggregation of these individual relationships is not clear, there is an argument with respect to the SHV to support a more strategically aligned, and systematic integration of these routinised interactions at the organisational level. This is one of the most challenging issues in implementing stakeholder theory in the Chinese organisations, as most of the relationships with key stakeholders are based on the trust between individuals, rather than between organizations.
Looking to the future merging of Chinese and Western business practices organisational structure also needs to be redesigned to manage the relationships with key stakeholders. This is crucial. Although stakeholder orientation can be built into organisational culture, people need to be assigned to facilitate the ongoing integration and implementation of stakeholder management. There is no doubt that stakeholder management is both a science and an art. It requires intuition and human skills – more art than a science. However, it also requires systematic, rational, and analytical techniques.
A number of stakeholder management techniques have been developed over the past decade, which may support the integration of stakeholder management into mainstream in to the strategy processes of Chinese businesses- most notably stakeholder mapping (Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, 2005), and cognitive mapping (Eden & Ackermann, 1998) which help to tap into the social capital and relationships embedded in broader business networks. Finally, from a methodological point of view, the SHV points out the importance of a more holistic and integrated approach in understanding strategic management in Chinese organisations.
So far, most of studies on Chinese management have used existing Western management theories to explain the Chinese business phenomena. In other 10 International Journal of Business Studies words, they exploit the existing theories, rather than exploring the Chinese management practice or behaviours to develop new theories from a Chinese perspective. Veteran researchers have called for a better balance between exploration and exploitation in conducting business research in China (Tsui et al. , 2004).
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Nahapiet, J. , & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage. The Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 242-246. Neuman, W. L. (2003). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (5th ed. ). Sydney: Allyn and Bacon. North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Peng, M. W. (2002). Towards an institution-based view of business strategy. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 19(2,3), 251. Peng, M. W. (2005). Perspectives – From China to global strategy.
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Schendel & D. J. Teece (Eds. ), Fundamental issues in strategy: A research agenda (pp. 9-47). Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage publications. Sirgy, M. J. (2002). Measuring corporate performance by building on the stakeholders model of ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 35, 143-162. Stacey, R. D. (2003). Strategic management and organisational dynamics (4th ed. ). Sydney: Prentice Hall. Teece, D. J. , Pisano, G. , & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509-533.
Tsui, A. S. , Schoonhoven, C. B. , Meyer, M. W. , Lau, C. -M. , & Milkovich, G. T. (2004). Organization and Management in the midst of societal transformation: The People’ s Republic of China. Organization Science, 15(2), 133-144. Vogel, D. J. (2005). Is their a market for virtue? : A business case for social responsibility. California Management Review, 47(4), 19-35. Wernerfelt, B. (1984). A resource -based view of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 5, 171-180. Williamson, O. E. (1991). Strategizing, economizing, and economic organization. Strategic Management Journal, 12(Special issue), 75-94 13
A Stakeholder View of Strategic Management in Chinese Firms. (2018, Feb 23). Retrieved July 18, 2019, from https://phdessay.com/a-stakeholder-view-of-strategic-management-in-chinese-firms/.
Coca-Cola Mission Statement - Strategic Management
Ford Motor Company: Supply Chain Management and Strategic Fit
Four Key Attributes of Strategic Management
Group Project for Strategic Management
Ideo: the Organization and Management Innovation in a Design Firm and the Role of Alliances and Collaboration
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What is Grid Computing Platonic Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul The Essential Role of High School Counselors
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Medical tourism as the process of traveling from one country to another for the purpose of receiving medical care and treatment that is not available in homeland.
Medical Tourism, a Success Story in Turkey…!
Medical tourism as the process of traveling from one country to another for the purpose of receiving medical care and treatment that is not available in homeland. It has increased recently and captured the attention of policy-makers, researchers, and even the media. According to some accurate reports, it becomes a strategic tool and a great contributor to economic growth and flow of foreign currencies. In a short time, Turkey has become one of the top countries for medical tourism and a competitive destination worldwide. So, what’re the main factors that stand behind this success story in Turkey? To what extent, medical tourism can be considered as a winning card of Turkish 2023 economic vision?
1- The main factors of medical tourism as a success story:
There are many factors that make medical tourism one of the most growing sectors in turkey. Firstly, Turkey is easily accessed by all airlines coming from Europe. For example, a total of more than 300 flights come from various countries daily. Secondly, some hospitals are affiliated with top western hospitals and medical universities. Besides, they are well-equipped with the latest medical technologies and have board-certified staff, with over 35% of physicians trained in the Western countries.
Thirdly, years ago, Turkey has been known for its excellent spa resorts, amazing natural destinations, beaches, historical monuments, and a gateway between the East and the West. Recently, hospitals and healthcare facilities in Turkey offer a variety of procedures and services for medical travellers. Fourthly, competitive prices health care in Turkey is very competitive compared to western countries like the UK, France, and USA. The same quality but different prices, with a 20-75% lower cost for some medical treatments.
The last factor could be considered as one of the most important reasons of medical tourism success story in Turkey. The following chart shows cost comparisons of medical procedures in UK and Turkey, according to a study published on www.treatmentabroad.net website.
Medical Procedures In UK In Turkey Average savings
Hip Replacement 13,500 – 14,500 $ 6,500 – 7,500 $ 45-50 %
Prostrate Removal
( Prostatectomy)
7,000 – 8,000 $ 5,500 – 6,500 $ 15-20 %
Knee Replacement 16,000 – 17,000 $ 7,000 – 8,000 $ 50- 60 %
Face lift (Rhytidectomy) 11,000 – 12,000 $ 3,000 – 4,000 $ 65-75 %
( Mammoplasty)
Breast Reduction 8,000 – 9,000 $ 3,500 – 4,500 $ 50-60 %
Liposuction 5,000 – 6,000 $ 2,000 – 3,000 $ 55-65 %
Nose Surgery (Rhinoplasty) 5,500 – 6,500 $ 3,000 – 4,000 $ 40-45%
( Abdominoplasty)
LASIK Eye Surgery 1,500 – 2,500 $ 1,000 – 1,500 $ 20-25 %
Dental Implants 3,000 – 4,000 $ 900 – 1,500 $ 70-75 %
2- Medical tourism and 2023 vision:
It’s crystal clear that all success stories start with a vision, and successful visions are based on sound knowledge of factors that determine the main elements or ingredients of a successful vision. Turkey tends also to make her own success story through diversifying and strengthening its economy, in order to take place among the top 10 economies in the world. It has set a bunch of goals to be met by 2023, such as developing public services sectors, especially; health, education, and tourism.in this case, medical tourism is considered as one of the main economic pillars of 2023 vision. That’s why; it is supported by the Ministry of Economy within a framework of specific objectives and a solid work plan. Turkey is expecting to receive 2 million visitors in medical tourism sector by 2023. Many accurate studies and official reports show that medical tourism-treatment and hospitalization – has largely spread in recently in a remarkable manner and has become a competitive market for many leading countries in the region.
According to a report by TÜROFED, union of Hotels in Turkey, it is expected to receive about two million visitors for medical tourism by 2023, which will generate revenue of nearly $ 20 billion. This target is supported by planning to establish 22 medical cities by international standards by 2023.
Generally speaking, the main objective of medical tourism sector is to strengthen Turkey’s position to become the world’s first destination for medical tourism and healthcare by 2023. In this context, Council of medical tourism development and Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been involved in several awareness activities and exhibitions in several places either in Turkey, Europe, Asia, or even in Africa.
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Advance Review – Adventure Time: Card Wars
DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews, TV
A new collection of Adventure Time is always a thing to rejoice, and Card Wars, featuring 16 episodes going back to Season 4 is no exception. Especially since we get five episodes from Season 6 and seven from Season 7 while we wait for those complete seasons to be released.
Card Wars was first introduced all the way back in Season 4 in the appropriately titled, “Card Wars.” Since then, the game has been released as both an actual collectible card game (with a variety of starter packs) and in digital format for your Android device. The show returned to the world of competitive card games with Season 7’s sequel, “Daddy-Daughter Card Wars” where we finally get to see Jake overcome his hyper-competitiveness and bury his Twenties. It’s a touching episode about growing up, gaining wisdom, and being dignified.
After the back-to-back opening of “Card Wars” and “Daddy-Daughter Card Wars,” the rest of the collection is an entertaining grab-bag of episodes, with nary a misstep in the bunch. There’s the Season 3 introduction of a potential relationship between Princess Bubblegum and Marceline with “What was Missing,” and Season 5’s “Up a Tree” and the David O’Reilly showcase “A Glitch is a Glitch,” and then we’re off to the races with some of the strongest Season 6 episodes.
We’ve already talked about some of them here at Psycho Drive-In: “Nemesis” showcased the conflict between Peace Master (Rainn Wilson) and Peppermint Butler; “Everything’s Jake” which features a Futurama voice-acting reunion between John DiMaggio and Billy West; and “Dentist” was a fun distraction as Finn faced off against Tiffany and featured a guest appearance by Lucy Lawless! In addition to these, we also get “The Diary” which is an interesting exercise in both father-son relations and in the emotional impact of reading (while also providing insight into the history of a recurring minor character), and what is my second favorite episode in the collection, “Evergreen.”
Evergreen is the name of an ancient Ice Avatar/Wizard who eons earlier witnessed the impending arrival of a world-destroying comet (sound familiar?). When the other elemental avatars (Fire, Slime, and Candy) refuse to help him stop the oncoming doom, he sets out to do it himself by crafting a magical crown (also familiar?) that will allow its wearer to manifest their heart’s truest desire – which should be stopping the comet, of course.
But disaster strikes and Evergreen’s apprentice/slave Gunther (!!), a lizard Evergreen mutated into sentience (voiced by the incomparable Pamela Adlon) is forced into putting on the crown, but his obsession with being like Evergreen undermines the wizard’s plan and instead Gunther is transformed into an insane version of Evergreen, complete with blue robes, white beard, ice powers, and obsession with chastising Gunther. Which, of course, leads to the destruction of all pre-historic civilization.
When it comes to world-building, nobody’s got anything on Adventure Time.
From here on out it’s all Season 7, for better or worse. And by that, I mean that Season 7 has been a bit scattered. The good news is that the episodes collected here are some of the strongest.
“Varmints” is the second episode from the season and is another episode of bonding as Bubblegum and Marceline take on the nasty critters ruining P-Bubs pumpkin patch. Oh yeah, Bonnie (Princess Bubblegum’s first name!) isn’t in charge as the season began, and is instead hanging out in a tiny shack with just Peppermint Butler for company. It’s a solid episode with some nice character growth for the Princess. Then we move on to “Football” where BMO either switches places with his reflection, Football, or has had some sort of schizophrenic break with reality. Either way, it’s good stuff.
The final four episodes in the collection are a back-to-back run of episodes 23-26 and every single one is gold.
We’ve got episode 7.24 “The Hall of Egress,” which is a mind-fuck comparable to the most classic of classic sci-fi alternate reality stories, as Finn finds himself hallucinating an alternate life as he tries to find his way out of a diabolical maze. Then there’s 7.25 “Flute Spell” which introduces a potential new love interest for Finn as he helps Huntress Wizard (Jenny Slate from Parks and Recreation and Lady Dynamite) try to contact the Forest Spirit (Matthew Broderick from, well, you know who he is). The collection wraps with “The Thin Yellow Line” where Finn and Jake infiltrate the Banana Guards and discover that they’re not quite the simpletons we’ve been led to believe. We also get a nice example of the new, kinder, gentler Princess Bubblegum.
But the episode that I’d buy the whole collection to own is episode 7.23 “Crossover.”
Prismo (Kumail Nanjiani) contacts Finn and Jake with a super-secret mission to fix a multiversal problem that could undo all of reality! It seems that the alternate reality that Finn created in the classic “Jake the Human” and “Finn the Dog” episodes, didn’t disappear when Jake wished his own fix, and in that alternate timeline Farmworld Finn is now mad with power from the Ice Crown and being influenced by the Lich (Ron Perlman) to open up a gateway to the entire multiverse, providing the Lich with the opportunity to destroy all life everywhere!
As usual, any episode written or co-written by Jesse Moynihan is going to be one of the best, but this one is spectacular. It’s a perfect example of just what Adventure Time is capable of when the creators are given free rein to craft exemplary science fiction/fantasy. “Crossover” is at the same time horrifying, imaginative, and inspiring. Someday I’m going to sit down and just watch all the Lich episodes back-to-back-to-back and enjoy one of the greatest science fiction/fantasy epics ever put on screen.
And with that, dear reader, you should definitely go add Adventure Time: Card Wars to your collection. Although there are no extras, and the gaming conceit of the titular episode is only vaguely played out in the selection of episodes included on the disc, you do get an exclusive Card Wars card and it’s freaking Adventure Time. It’s well worth your time and money.
Adventure Time: Card Wars hits the shelves on Tuesday July 12, 2016!
Adventure TimeAdventure Time: Card WarsBilly WestFinnJakeJesse MoynihanJohn DiMaggioLucy LawlessPamela AdlonPaul Brian McCoyRainn WilsonRon Perlman
12 Monkeys 2.11 “Resurrection”
Yakuza Apocalypse (2015)
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Sean Reid
Orphan Black 2.08 “Variable and Full of Perturbation”
NOTE: There will be spoilers.
Following standard television rules, Orphan Black should be leading up to a big climactic season finale where they tie up loose ends and, possibly, introduce a new “big bad” for the next season to build towards. Most of what we’ve learned so far should be fairly set and there will only be a few reveals. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what we know, starting with the Clone Club.
We know that Clone Club consists of: (thanks to the Orphan Black Tumbr for help with this list)
Aryanna (Passport from Season 1)
Danielle (Passport from Season 1)
Katja (Deceased)
Jennifer (Deceased)
Beth (Deceased)
Cosima (Current Status Unknown)
TONY (!?!?!?!!?!)
“Holy Tilda Swinton.”
Certainty is a cruel mistress with regards to Clone Club. With only two episodes left this season “Variable and Full of Perturbation”introduces a BRAND.NEW.CLONE! Up to this point any new clones have been discovered post-mortem. Antoinette/Tony is the first living clone we’ve met in quite some time, possibly since Rachel made herself known at the end of the first season.
A few responses to the episode criticized it for feeling like “filler” with Tony only introduced for the shock value of a new, transgendered, clone. While I’ll grant that this episode seemed to have a few disparate items come in to play, it felt more like setting up pieces in a particular order. To date most of the information we’ve been given comes into play at some point. For instance, Victor, a character who seemed a disposable representative of Sarah’s past, became the first of many dominoes that led to Leekie’s death. Nothing on Orphan Black happens in a vacuum. I would agree with some of the criticism about the pacing of the show if I believed that the events would be contained to this episode. However, it’s much more likely that Tony’s appearance simply laid the groundwork for a much bigger piece of the puzzle. This won’t be the last we see of him.
“My mom always said they made a mistake down at the IVF clinic…”
The concept of “children” continues to be an undercurrent throughout this season. The last episode has quite a few parent/child reunions, this week the focus, although much more subtle, seemed to be on “mothers.” In particular, Tony mentions his mother claiming the IVF clinic made a mistake and Alison tells Donnie that everyone hates her mother. Both of these lines stood out as being more telling than they seem on the surface.
Tony’s comment is the first time I recall fertility clinics being mentioned. Amelia claimed that she agreed to be a surrogate in exchange for help with her move to London. But the particulars surrounding Amelia, her deal, and her decision to give up the girls, all seem to indicate that she dealt somewhat directly with Project LEDA, not a fertility clinic. Although, as Delphine has previously noted, “there are benefits to being a multinational.” Could one of those “benefits” be funding, or operating, fertility clinics from which you are able to seed clone eggs?? As pointed out on this Reddit thread new mothers also make fantastic monitors, even if unwittingly. Babies and young children usually need regular medical checkups, which makes it easy for a company with DYAD’s resources to keep track of their progeny for quite a while. This kind of arrangement would allow DYAD to operate in the shadows, and, learning from the mistakes with Project LEDA, also help prevent any more situations like Amelia’s.
Alison’s opinion of her mother, which seems flippant and quite normal for Alison, actually carries quite a bit of weight. It implies that Alison still has some sort of relationship, most likely unpleasant, with her mother. Aside from Siobhan and Amelia, there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about the other clones mothers. We know that Susan Duncan raised Rachel, but there hasn’t been any indication that she gave birth to her. Alison’s mother is the first time we hear about a clone mother who doesn’t appear to have a tragic history. It seems to be likely that Alison’s mother went through the in-vitro process, which lends credence to the idea that the clones mothers were their first monitors.
“No, I’m Harry friggin’ Potter.”
Tony’s character seemed designed to throw everyone off. The appearance of a new clone this late into the season seemed inconceivable, let alone the existence of a transgendered clone. While Tony’s transition was handled very deftly in the script, his differences were played to great effect. Even Felix, who usually manages to remain composed in his own snarky way, found himself without a retort up against the Tony’s sharp and street wise repartee. Tony didn’t necessarily enunciate so much as he spoke in short bursts punctuated with general irritation. The only time his walls came down, albeit only slightly, was when he met Sarah. Learning about the clones prompts him to “cut the shit.” He tells Sarah that Sammy’s message to Beth was to “keep the faith” and refers to Paul as a “ghost.” The message is as cryptic to Sarah, Art and Felix as it was to Tony, and is to the audience. Despite all that he has learned and the confusion regarding Beth and Sammy, Tony isn’t very interested joining the Clone Club. His primary concern is his own well-being, and he has no intention of ending up like Sammy.
Everything about Tony is deliberate, which I take to mean that his appearance wasn’t a one-off event. With Tony, like the recent detour with Donnie and Alison through rehab, I get the impression that we’re being set up for something much bigger that we simply don’t realize the scope of yet. In many ways it seems like he might be a bridge back around to Beth. His purpose at this point could be to create a link back to the very start of the first season. I almost wonder if things aren’t being set in motion for us to learn that it wasn’t Beth Childs who Sarah saw die that day. I like to think of Tony as the butterfly whose flapping wings kick off a tornado, or perhaps one of the “angels” on Kira’s mobile?
“Of all of us, how is it the unmonitored tramp was successful?”
Shifting the focus from mothers of clones to mothers who are clones, we learn that Sarah’s ability to have children makes her a mistake, not unique. Ethan Duncan informs Rachel that all the clones are barren by design. Learning this sends Rachel into a rage (and causes many fans jaws to drop). Duncan’s revelation is more interesting for what it doesn’t tell us than what it does. First, at this point we can’t be sure he’s even telling the truth. It’s in his best interest to tell Rachel whatever he thinks is most likely to insure his survival. We also know that, in spite of the floppy disks, a great deal of his research seems to be in his copy of The Island of Doctor Moreau, which is currently in Kira’ possession. Duncan also seems to take a very keen interest in Kira. This could be because Kira is about the same age Rachel was when he went into hiding. It could also be more clinical, and he’s curious about what mistake was made with Sarah.
Or, could it be that it’s all a massive misdirect and children like Kira were actually the goal all along? Based on Kira’s various abnormal abilities, possibly including the ability to understand the notes in Duncan’s book, it seems plausible that the clones were just one part of a much larger experiment. Last episode Leekie mentioned his “hobby” of studying synthetic wombs. What if the clones were being bred to act as incubation chambers, synthetic, highly controlled, wombs, that could be used to produce more children like Kira?
“Do you need me to beam you up, Scotty?”
There were three fairly distinct “bombs” that rocked the Clones this week. The first was appearance of Tony and the second was that the clones are designed to be barren. The final bomb, which was nearly ruined by last week’s previews, is the status of Cosima. This episode showed us a more “human,” and less scientific or sterile, side of Cosima. We saw her kick a LOT of ass playing a table-top RPG as well as finally making good on her promise to get Delphine “totally baked.” All of which was a not-so-subtle build up to the end of the episode, when she collapses and experiences uncontrollable seizures.
It appears that we have traded one clone for another, the arrival of Tony means an exit for Cosima. However, I have my doubts. Arguably, my reasons are about as flimsy as can be imagined, but I don’t believe Cosima has succumbed to the disease. I am of the opinion that if Cosima were actually dead then we would not have seen her collapse in last week’s previews. Also, I think the timing is extremely convenient. How better for Duncan to prove himself, and endear himself to the other clones, than to rescue Cosima from the brink of death. He’ll look like a genius to DYAD, proving he still has the skills with regards to the science, and he’ll come across like a savior to Clone Club. There might even be a case to be made that Cosima’s collapse has nothing to do with the illness and more to do with something nefarious on the part of Delphine. At this point, anything is possible. But, of all the things thrown at us this episode, the only one that I think might have been done for shock-value is Cosima’s collapse.
This was another Helena-free episode. There are only two episodes left in the season and things just got raised to another level. I anticipate that the next episode will focus on the fates of Cosima and Helena as the Clone Galaxy continues to constrict. At some point, hopefully the finale of the season, we should see the apparent loose ends all come together. I’m interested to see where the Proletheans fit into Project LEDA/DYAD mix, as well as where Donnie and Alison’s antics land them once the truth gets out.
With two episodes left, this is what we think we know:
Alison and Donnie are conspiring to dispose of Leekie’s corpse.
Tony had some connection to Beth.
Ethan Duncan is working with (for?) DYAD.
Rachel is angry. You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.
Cosima is ????
Is it me, or is the list of certainties getting smaller each week???
Orphan Black 2.08 "Variable and Full of Perturbation"
AlisonCosimaDonnieOrphan BlackrachelSarahSean ReidTatiana MaslanyTony
Dungeons & D-Listers: Fire and Ice – The Dragon Chronicles
Game of Thrones 4.09 “The Watchers on the Wall”
Sean Reid is a lifelong comic fan and survivor of the 90's comic boom. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English which he somehow turned into a job as a web developer. Follow him on Twitter @torchcodelab.
The Muppets 1.01 “Pig Girls Don’t Cry” by Jessica Sowards
Big Eyes Smart Mouth: Thunderbolt Fantasy by Serdar Yegulalp
The Leftovers 1.02 “Penguin One, Us Zero” by Shawn Hill
Popcorn Cinema: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) by John E. Meredith
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Quiz: How Much Do You Know About the Spanish Inquisition?
How Much Do You Know About the Spanish Inquisition?
By: Isadora Teich
Think you know Spanish history? Then get inquisitive with this quiz on one of the most controversial and bloody events in all of the Old World.
The Catholic monarchs of Spain sought to consolidate their power through religion by exposing, exiling, punishing and murdering those who did not fall perfectly in line with their ideals. It was truly a terrifying time in history, which is probably part of the reason why so many people are fascinated by it to this day. The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, according to some estimates, is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people around the world. Whether people were believed to be witchcraft practitioners or insincere converts, many suffered at the hands of inquisitors and their famously cruel torture devices.
The Spanish Inquisition, while at its height for a short time, was not actually abolished for centuries. Known for corruption, religious fervor and torture, there is more to this turbulent time than meets the eye. There were actually inquisitions in a few European countries and around the world. If you have what it takes to take on one of the darkest eras in Spanish history, see if you can pray your way through this Spanish Inquisition quiz.
What was the Spanish Inquisition supposed to uphold?
Catholic control
English rule
Their American colonies
The Salem Witch Trials
The Spanish Inquisition started in 1478 by Spanish Catholic monarchs. They wanted to retain religious control of their kingdom.
During which century did the Spanish Inquisition begin?
The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 by Catholic Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castille. The first-ever Inquisition occurred in 12th-century France.
Was witchcraft a large focus of the Spanish Inquisition?
While witch hunts raged in other European countries, in some cases significantly depopulating villages, they were not so popular in Spain. In general, the Inquisition was too skeptical of witchcraft to consider witches a genuine threat.
Why were many of those who came under fire in the Inquisition most likely innocent?
Accusations were anonymous
Ergot poisoning
Inquisitors were easily bribed
The Inquisition was used to rob people
When the Inquisition arrived in a city, people could anonymously accuse anyone they wanted of heresy, blasphemy or being an insincere convert. Denunciations were most likely often made due to rivalries, dislike, and other personal reasons.
Which of these were punishments for those found guilty by the Inquisition?
Years as an oarsman
While the Inquisition is famous for burning heretics at the stake, there were also a number of minor punishments for less serious crimes. For example, male bigamists could be sentenced to a number of years serving as an oarsman in royal galleys.
Why did the Spanish Inquisition occur around the world?
Catholic missionaries
It took Russia by storm.
Spain was a colonial empire.
The whole world was Catholic.
Spain had colonies and territories off the coast of Africa, within Europe and throughout the Americas. Many became a part of the Inquisition.
Who did the Spanish Inquisition never persecute?
Scientists were never arrested and tried for heresy in Spain. While The Inquisition was largely concerned with censoring heretical books, it didn't censor them effectively and none of the banned books were science-oriented.
What was the most common instrument of torture used during the Inquisition?
The iron maiden
The pear
The rack, known in Spain as el potro, was the most common torture device of the Inquisition. Victims would be chained to a wooden frame and stretched until they either confessed or their joints and muscles were permanently damaged.
Who were the original targets of the Spanish Inquisition?
Eastern Europeans
The Inquisition was meant to identify Muslims and Jews who had converted to Catholicism under pressure but maintained "heretical" practices. These people were called conversos.
What were new Jewish-born converts to Catholicism in Spain called?
Converranos
Neuva Catholie
Conversos
Allegraso
Jewish people were barred from many professions and at risk of violence in Spain, even before the Inquisition. As newly converted Catholics, or conversos, many were able to attain positions of influence.
Which of these were methods of Inquisition courts?
Physical torture
Opportunity for confession
Gathering evidence from the accused neighbors
Inquisitor General Tomas de Torquemada set up procedures for the Inquisition. An accused person would have a 30-day grace period to confess while evidence was gathered against them from neighbors.
Why did the Inquisition torture people?
To get confessions
To punish them
To kill them
They didn't.
Torture was commonly used throughout European tribunals at the time to get confessions. Compared to the courts of other European countries, the Inquisition actually tortured fewer people.
Which of these was the part of the Inquisition where condemned people underwent public acts of penance?
La Noche de Reyes
The Trials of Punishment
Auto-da-fe
Auto-da-fe was a penance ritual that was part of the Portuguese, Spanish and Mexican Inquisitions. Prisoners would be led on a massive procession to perform penitence. At the end, some would be freed and others would be burned at the stake.
Who was mostly killed in the Spanish Inquisition?
Witchcraft suspects
The Inquisition was highly active and influential in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. According to the documentation of executions, there were over 2,000 that took place and over 90% of them were of Jewish-born conversos.
During which century was the last Jewish-born person tried by the Spanish Inquisition for being a false convert?
The last converso tried for secretly continuing to practice Judaism was tried in Cordoba in the early 1800s. His name was Manuel Santiago Vivar.
Which group rebelled against the Inquisition?
Muslim Moriscos were often suspected of still practicing Islam despite conversion to Catholicism. They rebelled against Spanish Catholic rule and the Inquisition several times throughout the 15th and 16th centuries.
Jewish converts to Catholicism were called Conversos by Spanish authority, but Muslim converts to Catholicism were called ___________.
Moraninos
Spanish Muslims initially faced the same threats of expulsion and forced conversion as Jews, without being tortured by the Inquisition. This is because in certain areas of Spain, many Moriscos were under the dominion of nobility.
Were those accused of heresy acquitted often?
There were a few sentences an accused person could receive from the Inquisition, which had to be decided on in a unanimous vote by inquisitors and religious officials. People were rarely acquitted.
Which group was not actually actively persecuted in Spain in huge numbers?
While it is a popular myth that the Spanish Inquisition sought out Protestants in huge numbers, this is not true. Even before the Inquisition, there were very few Protestants in Spain.
Blasphemy could get a person in trouble with the Inquisition. What is blasphemy?
Disrespecting something considered sacred or holy
Sex out of wedlock
Forgetting to pray
Those committing blasphemy are actively disrespecting a deity, religious figure or ideal through speech. This was a punishable crime during the Inquisition.
After a denunciation, an accused person would often be:
Those accused of heresy would often be detained until their case could be examined by calificadores. Unfortunately, in some cases, it took years for the Inquisition courts to start investigating, and the accused would spend all of that time incarcerated.
What was unique about being accused of heresy during the Inquisition?
The accused were killed without trial.
Most of the accused were children.
The accused never knew what they had been accused of.
There were no real punishments.
The entire process occurred under complete secrecy. Accused people could go months or years in prison without knowing what they had been accused of, and might never learn who had accused them.
During Auto-da-fe, the condemned were publicly paraded and their sentences were read. How did Spanish citizens react?
With fear
By celebrating
By hiding
With solemnity
Auto-da-fe was largely held in public squares on holidays. Over time they became large events that crowds would gather to witness, with ceremonies that could last an entire night and day.
Who was mostly tortured by the Inquisition?
While the Inquisition made use of torture to get the accused to confess, they did not use torture on most of the accused. It was mostly used on those accused of practicing Judaism or Protestantism.
If an accused person's trial was suspended, what would happen to them?
They went free.
They were imprisoned until trial.
They were unofficially acquitted.
If an accused person's trial was suspended, it could mean a number of things. Some were set free with the understanding that their trial could continue at any time, but that they were unofficially acquitted, and others were imprisoned until their trial could continue.
Could those found guilty possibly be forgiven by the Church?
The condemned could be reconciled by taking part in a public ceremony and more severe punishments. These included whipping, jail time and having all of their property confiscated in the name of forgiveness.
Who was burned at the stake?
Heretics who would not repent
Adulterers
Those found guilty could repent and avoid being burned at the stake. However, those caught again after repenting would also be burned.
The last public Auto-da-fe was during which century?
Various inquisitions stretched across Europe and the globe, lasting for centuries in Spain. The last public Auto-da-fe in Spain was in 1691.
Why was the Spanish Inquisition eventually abolished?
It lost influence over decades.
It never was officially.
The oppressed fought back.
World War I ended it.
After being established in 1478, The Spanish Inquisition was not legally abolished until 1834. Over the centuries, its power dwindled to almost nothing, and it was horribly unpopular before being abolished.
What ultimately weakened the Inquisition in Spain?
Scientific progress
The collapse of the Roman Empire
The rise of communism in Spain
The Enlightenment swept Europe in the 18th century and threatened the Inquisition. This ideological movement championed personal freedom, progress, reason and the separation of church and state.
In its dying years, what was the Inquisition mostly concerned with?
False converts
Isolationism
Secular legal disputes
Without much power and increasingly unpopular, the Inquisition turned its attention to banning works which would be thought to inspire rebellion against the crown and church. The last person was executed by the Spanish Inquisition was a school teacher condemned to death in 1826.
The act of ___________, or entering a marriage while still legally married to someone else, was a punishable offense during the Inquisition.
Bigamy was common in Spain during this time, as it was a Catholic country which did not permit divorce under most circumstances. Men would receive harsh sentences, possibly even death, for this.
Which group was mostly extinguished within Spain?
In some areas of Spain, the expulsion of Muslims damaged local economies and led to significant depopulation. It is thought that by the end of the 1700s, there were almost no native Muslims left in Spain.
The 1492 Alhambra decree ordered the _________ of Spanish Jews.
Despite all the efforts of the Inquisition, the Spanish monarchy formally forced all Jews to leave Spain in 1492. They said it was because Christians and conversos allegedly suffered so much spiritual harm from interacting with Jewish people.
Who would the Inquisition not torture?
They would torture anyone.
There were no gender or age limits on who the Inquisition would torture to obtain confessions. All those accused were at risk of it.
Modern History Quiz: The '90s
History 7 Minute Quiz 7 Min
How Much Do You Know About the History of Europe?
Which Century Does Your Soul Truly Belong In?
95% of People Can't Identify the War from an Image. Can You?
America Since The 1950s Quiz
Art History Experts Know All of the Images in This Quiz — Do You?
What Year Was Your Soul Born?
Can You Pass This General Knowledge Quiz From 1953?
The Old-Timey Quiz
Do You Know Which Well-Known People Lived During the Same Time Period?
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Commentary, Op-Eds 20 Apr 2015 18 Nov 2017
A View from the Bench
by Christopher Liew (15S06E)
Benchwarming, to those unfamiliar to sports, is the act of sitting out on the sidelines and waiting for your turn to get called up onto the ‘battlefield’. Just as you might think, the phrase ‘benchwarming’ comes with its fair share of negative connotations, as it is a euphemistic term to describe someone who just isn’t good enough to make it onto the starting lineup. Sports CCAs in our schools are popular and successful; some are even good enough to have the title ‘National Champions’ emblazoned onto their long lists of achievements on an annual basis. However, this conscious coupling of success and popularity has created the problem of saturation in some sports CCAs.
Admittedly, the benchwarming present at our level of competitive sports is merely a shadow of what it’s like in countries such as the US, where a thick competitive climate is present. Even then, we cannot deny that it exists here as well. One thing is clear though: the more passionate an individual is about the sport, the harder it is for them to accede to benchwarming in the long term. This should not be happening, especially when they invest so much into their craft.
Passion establishes a dichotomy for those sitting on the bench: between those who are passionate but lack the skills to play, and those who are warming up their seats due to the dearth of passion in their play. I believe that the nature of sports is one that exemplifies meritocracy; we therefore cannot eradicate benchwarming from sports culture because it is an effect of the system. But as much as benchwarming will continue to occur, we as a school and a culture can and should help the former group of benchwarmers make the most of their time doing what they like. After all, passion should be a mandate on any sportsman’s curriculum vitae; without it, why even play the sport?
At this crucial stage in our scholastic journey, passion for anything aside from more paperwork may seem unwise, and the courage to pursue that passion, especially in sports, can border on foolishness. However, it is because of this passionate hunger that sportsmen have for their sports that we should be reciprocating by giving these sportsmen a simple chance. Yes, they may not be stellar in practice; yes, there may be more talent and potential in others; and yes, they may not have the experience of others, but why should we marginalise them for that? I am sure we are all au courant with the tales of underdogs in the sporting industry, such as Jeremy Lin, and the reason why so many underdogs emerge from playing sports. Therefore, instead of being worried about losing a game, or narrowing the team’s chances of winning a national title, saturated sports CCAs should give these passionate individuals who have become shadows a chance. From this, these individuals will have the opportunity to experience not only the sport but also the club itself, giving them an experience which will resonate with them for a lifetime.
The effects of benchwarming transcend that of players not getting an opportunity to prove themselves — they are also a deterrent to those who want to try out sports. Many who come into Junior College make major CCA transitions, with numerous students making the change from uniformed-groups to sports or even to the arts and aesthetics. However, in a school with an illustrious array of sportsmen joining these clubs through direct school admissions, the average ‘transitioner’ would find themselves disinclined to even try applying for a sports CCA. CCAs which are generous enough to give others a chance to try their hand at a sport they are interested in, such as floorball, are far too few. Most sports CCAs are still far too invested in the fallacy that winning is the most important goal.
Instead of lambasting the lack of opportunities for both the benchwarming camp and these ‘transitioners’, I feel that a new category of sports CCAs can be created. That does not mean increasing the variety of sports available — it means that we should expand our recreational sporting activities. The current recreational sports available are limited to only badminton and trampoline gym, but there is definitely room for expansion, especially for more popular sports such as soccer, basketball and frisbee. This would allow for a compromise between our fixation on winning and giving everyone a chance to play a sport that they really enjoy. Furthermore, those who ultimately get cut from the team can opt to join the recreational CCA temporarily. That way, they get to enjoy playing the sport by taking it at a slower pace, rather than engaging in intensive drills and scrimmages. I believe that this would improve the quality of everyone’s time spent at CCAs whilst also helping to mould a more active and inclusive sports culture at RI. The question therefore lies in whether the school can and will allocate resources towards the cultivation of recreational sports, especially when there is more to gain from competitive sports. This constraint on resources may be a stumbling block in the path of developing recreational sports, but I believe that the fewer sessions and shorter hours of recreational sports could allow for a sharing of pre-existing equipment, allowing for a compromise on resources.
Benchwarming matters, not because someone is being a crybaby about not making the team or not getting as many minutes as he would like. It’s because it is about creating an inclusive culture for our sports CCAs, instead of the exclusive shroud that surrounds sports CCAs, where winning has become the sport.
Gunning for Gold: National Schools Shooting Championships 2015
With Great Power Comes Greater Responsibility: Interview with Presidential Elects 2015
For the past 34 years, Rafflesians have been voting almost religiously for Student Councillors of their choice into a position of power. 34 years on, however, many of us seem to have lost sight of what voting represents. To many of us, voting seems to be a necessary duty that otherwise lacks any significance. This therefore begs the question: why is voting important?
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Indian Railways is one of the largest railway networks in the world, connecting every nook and corner of the country. There are more than 7500 railway stations in India, and each station has a station code. If you know the Railway Station codes, your ticket booking becomes faster. Otherwise a lot of time is spent searching for the station codes, because on the space provided for the source and destination stations you have to type the station codes instead of the name of the stations. The passenger station codes are always alphabetical in nature, but you can find the station codes other than alphabetical also in Indian Railways.
There are many prominent railway stations in India. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is one of theThere are many prominent railway stations in India. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is one of the oldest and the busiest railway stations in India and is included in the World Heritage site. The Howrah Railway Station in West Bengal is the oldest, second busiest and the largest railway station in India. It is the headquarters of the South Eastern Railways. The Kharagpur Junction has the longest railway station in the world.
The Delhi Railway station is one of the major stations in India where most of trains offer service from various parts of the country. The railway station is located about 2 km from Connaught Place, Central Delhi, 19 km from Ghaziabad and Uttar Pradesh, 31 km from Gurgaon and Haryana. The Indira Gandhi International Airport is the nearest airport to the railway station. By checking the Railway Station codes you get details on the stations they represent. oldest and the busiest railway stations in India and is included in the World Heritage site. The Howrah Railway Station in West Bengal is the oldest, second busiest and the largest railway station in India. It is the headquarters of the South Eastern Railways. The Kharagpur Junction has the longest railway station in the world.
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Statement on Monetary Policy – November 2009 International Economic Developments
In SMP November 2009
Box A: The Recovery in Asian Trade
Box B: The Effect of Policy Rate Changes on Household Debt Servicing
Box C: The Recovery in Confidence
Box D: Investment in the Resources Sector
Box E: Normalisation of Domestic Market Dealing Operations
Box F: Growth in the Factors of Production
Conditions in the world economy have continued to improve over recent months, with global output now growing again following very large falls in late 2008 and early 2009. Growth is strongest in the Asian region, and activity in a number of Latin American economies also appears to be bouncing back solidly. Conditions in most of the major advanced economies have begun to pick up after the earlier sharp declines (Graph 1).
The current strengthening in global activity in part reflects the gradual unwinding of the marked pessimism that took hold in late 2008 as well as the progression of the inventory cycle. In many economies, inventories were run down sharply in late 2008 and the first half of 2009 in response to the dramatic decline in demand, increase in uncertainty, and disruption to credit markets around that time (Graph 2). The period of acute inventory adjustment now seems to be over and a slowing in the pace of de-stocking has probably lifted production levels in many countries in the September quarter.
While this adjustment should continue to boost global growth in coming quarters, in the advanced economies a further pick-up in underlying final demand is required for a sustained recovery to take hold. In this regard, stimulatory monetary and fiscal policy around the world is helping to boost growth. Domestic final demand has stabilised or begun to rise in most economies, and there are signs of solid growth in some parts of the world, particularly in Asia, where demand picked up strongly in the June quarter and appears to have risen again in the September quarter (Graph 3). The economies of Asia have not experienced the severe disruptions to their financial systems witnessed in some advanced North Atlantic countries and typically face fewer medium-term fiscal challenges.
Official interest rates remain very low in all the major advanced economies. Notwithstanding these accommodative settings, and the fact that core inflation has generally fallen only modestly to date in many of these countries (Graph 4), further declines in core inflation appear likely given the considerable excess capacity built up over the past 12 to 18 months. The IMF estimates that the major advanced economies are currently operating at around 5 per cent below their potential level of output, with little reduction in this degree of slack expected in 2010. In China and elsewhere in east Asia, further near-term declines in core inflation appear less likely in view of the strong rebounds in activity under way in these economies. In headline terms, year-ended consumer price inflation is currently negative or very subdued in the bulk of both advanced and developing economies, although this largely reflects the sharp falls in oil and other commodity prices in late 2008.
The recent recovery in activity has been most pronounced in the Chinese economy, where GDP rose by around 2¼ per cent in the September quarter, after growing by 4 per cent in the June quarter, to be around 9 per cent higher over the year (Graph 5). While a quarterly breakdown of growth by expenditure components is not available, monthly indicators suggest growth has become more broad-based in the September quarter (Graph 6). Nominal urban fixed-asset investment rose by 3 per cent in the quarter, following two quarters of exceptional strength, with investment in the residential construction sector particularly strong, consistent with the earlier sharp recovery in sales of residential property. Retail sales continued to grow robustly, partly boosted by fiscal incentives, while Chinese external trade has also begun to grow strongly again after falling sharply in late 2008 and the early part of 2009. Export volumes are estimated to have risen by around 10 per cent in the September quarter, and imports to have grown by around 7 per cent. A more detailed discussion of the recent recovery in trade in east Asia is provided in ‘Box A: The Recovery in Asian Trade’.
Strong growth in credit continues to be an important factor supporting the recovery in the Chinese economy, although credit growth has slowed from the extraordinary pace seen earlier in the year. While much of this earlier expansion in credit flowed to businesses, growth in lending to this sector moderated in the September quarter, but household borrowing has picked up. Overall, the amount by which credit has expanded in the first nine months of this year exceeds the corresponding increase in 2008 by around 5 trillion renminbi, or more than 15 per cent of annual nominal GDP, far outstripping the scale of fiscal expansion.
A solid recovery also appears to be under way in the Indian economy after what was only a relatively mild slowdown. Industrial production increased by 8 per cent over the three months to August, following little growth over the first half of the year (Graph 7). The services sector continues to grow solidly, and it now appears that agricultural output – which still constitutes one-sixth of the economy – may be somewhat less adversely affected by deficient monsoon rainfall in key growing areas than feared some months ago.
Elsewhere in Asia, conditions also continue to improve. Industrial production fell modestly in August across the region after earlier significant rises, but looks to have increased strongly again in September. GDP rose by nearly 3 per cent in Korea in the September quarter, in large part driven by a turnaround in inventories, which contributed more than 2½ percentage points to growth after subtracting 7½ percentage points over the preceding three quarters (Graph 8). Domestic final demand also increased solidly in the September quarter, after rising strongly in the June quarter, and exports continued to recover.
In the advanced economies, output growth also generally appears to have resumed, although greater uncertainty remains about both the pace and durability of recovery once the effects of fiscal stimulus and the likely near-term boost to activity from the inventory cycle fade. In the United States, GDP expanded by 0.9 per cent in the September quarter, the first increase since the June quarter 2008, but is still down by 3 per cent from its peak (Graph 9). A slowing in the pace of de-stocking accounted for ¼ percentage point of this growth. Household consumption rose by 0.8 per cent in the quarter, although more than one-third of this reflected the 20 per cent increase in auto sales associated with the Federal Government's car scrappage program, which operated from late July to late August. Business investment fell again in the quarter, to be nearly 20 per cent lower over the year, and the ongoing contraction in credit to the private sector suggests that firms and consumers remain intent on reducing their debt levels.
While recent data have been mixed, a mild recovery in the US housing market, both in prices and activity, appears to be under way (Graph 10). Although the pick-up in housing starts remains very modest, dwelling investment increased solidly in the September quarter for the first time since late 2005. In addition, the recent small rise in house prices should, together with share price gains, have seen household wealth record a second solid increase in the September quarter, providing some support to household sentiment and consumption. Conditions in the labour market, however, remain very weak. Employment fell at an annualised rate of 3 per cent over the six months to September, with a larger decline in total hours worked, and the unemployment rate has risen to 9.8 per cent, the highest rate since 1983. While weekly initial jobless claims have fallen markedly from their peak in late March, they remain well above the level that has in the past been associated with a stabilisation in employment.
The advance estimate of UK GDP for the September quarter was weaker than expected and suggests that output contracted by a further 0.4 per cent, the sixth successive decline, to be down by nearly 6 per cent from its peak in March quarter 2008. In contrast, near-term growth prospects for the euro area and Japan appear to have improved somewhat. Both Germany and France recorded modest increases in activity in the June quarter, and seem likely to have grown again in the September quarter; industrial production (excluding construction) in the euro area was 1.7 per cent higher in July and August relative to the June quarter; and business and consumer sentiment continue to improve, although the volume of retail sales fell in the September quarter. The Japanese economy also appears to have recorded its second consecutive quarter of growth in the September quarter, driven by a continued revival in exports and a modest further pick-up in household consumption.
Notwithstanding these signs of improvement, there is considerable excess capacity in both Japan and the euro area that is likely to weigh on business investment for some time. In Japan, the unemployment rate reached a record high of 5.7 per cent in July, although it has since fallen back with employment increasing modestly in recent months. In the euro area, the unemployment rate has risen by around 2½ percentage points since its trough in March 2008, with a large part of this increase reflecting developments in Spain, where the unemployment rate has risen by around 10 percentage points to reach 19 per cent (Graph 11). Excluding Spain, the unemployment rate has increased by around 1¼ percentage points – a very different outcome from the United States, where the corresponding rise has been more than 5 percentage points even though the peak-to-trough GDP decline has been smaller. A substantial part of this difference is explained by government incentives in various European countries, including Germany and Italy, to encourage firms to retain workers on reduced hours rather than dismiss workers. Accordingly, the difference between the United States and euro area in terms of the decline in total hours worked during the current episode is much smaller.
In its latest forecasts, released in early October, the IMF again revised up its outlook for global growth in 2010. Following an expected contraction in output in 2009 of just over 1 per cent in year-average terms – which would be by far the worst annual outcome for at least the past 50 years – the IMF now forecasts world output to expand by a little more than 3 per cent in 2010 (Table 1). This is around 1¼ percentage points stronger than the IMF expected six months earlier, but would still represent relatively weak global growth by pre-crisis standards. The IMF then expects slightly above-trend world growth of a little more than 4 per cent in 2011. These forecasts are a little weaker than those of the RBA staff for 2009 and 2010, which are outlined in the ‘Economic Outlook’ chapter.
Notwithstanding the recovery now under way, the outlook for global growth in 2010 remains subject to considerable uncertainty. On the one hand, recoveries from previous recessions in the major advanced economies have often been quite strong. On the other hand, in many countries balance-sheet and financial-sector problems may constrain the pace of the rebound in activity in this episode more than in earlier ones. Abstracting from these considerations, one key influence on the sustainability and speed of medium-term recovery in many countries is likely to be the pace of fiscal consolidation. Among the major advanced economies, the IMF projects budget deficits to have increased by around 5½ percentage points of GDP in 2009 relative to 2008, to 10 per cent of GDP, and to remain elevated at around 9 per cent of GDP in 2010 (Graph 12). As a result, net debt levels in these countries are forecast to rise by around 20 percentage points of GDP between late 2008 and late 2010, to reach almost 80 per cent of GDP, with further significant increases in prospect in subsequent years. In some countries, concerns about fiscal sustainability may require governments to take additional steps to put their public finances on a sounder footing.
Commodity prices have risen substantially from their levels earlier in the year, but have been broadly flat over the past few months. Prices of exchange-traded commodities have mostly been steady or somewhat stronger since the August Statement. Spot prices for the bulk resource commodities have tended to soften somewhat, but expectations for upcoming contract negotiations have generally been revised upwards. Australia's terms of trade are estimated to have fallen somewhat in the September quarter, after large falls in the first half of the year.
Prices for iron ore on the spot market fell significantly in August but have recovered somewhat recently, to be around 18 per cent below the levels of mid August. This has occurred in the context of falls in Chinese spot market prices for steel (Graph 13). These price falls have reportedly reflected a run-up in steel inventories to relatively high levels, and production restarts by previously-idled Chinese iron ore mines. However, Chinese inventories of iron ore appear to have grown at a more modest pace and have not increased relative to steel production (Graph 14).
Despite the fall in spot prices, expectations of contract prices for Australian exports of bulk commodities have risen (Graph 15). Private-sector forecasters expect that Australian producers will negotiate higher contract prices in 2010/11 with major steel mills across Asia. Market analysts are forecasting around a 10 per cent rise in iron ore and thermal coal contract prices and a 20 per cent increase for coking coal, although it is possible that there will be a gradual shift away from the system of annual contracts. Negotiations for 2009/10 iron ore contracts between Australian producers and major Chinese steel mills remain unresolved, although ‘provisional’ contracts are reportedly in place, with prices in line with those settled with Japanese and Korean mills.
Base metals prices are broadly unchanged from early August, having fluctuated on news regarding the pace of growth in demand and inventory-building in China (Graph 16). Although inventories of both crude oil and refined products are currently at relatively high levels, crude oil prices have recently risen to around US$80 per barrel, boosted by an improved outlook for global demand and a weaker US dollar. Rural commodity prices have been more mixed; wheat prices have fallen due to favourable Northern Hemisphere harvests and a modest improvement in the outlook for the Australian crop, while sugar prices have risen, due to current and expected supply difficulties in Brazil and India.
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FlexFinishFlexible and affordable degrees.
Getting Startedwith FlexFinish
Current Student FAQ
Life As An Adult Student
FlexFinish Associate
FlexFinish Bachelor’s
DirectCompleteDegrees for critical occupations.
Getting Startedwith DirectComplete
Returning Student FAQ
Participating Campuses
Workforce Partners
Participating Partners
Critical Occupations
Reach Higher
Reach Higher is an adult degree completion initiative led by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.
It Can Be Your Time…RECONNECT Now!
Finish your degree! Free, family-friendly activities at colleges and universities across Oklahoma on Saturday, July 27 between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Staff and faculty at participating campuses will be standing by to assist adults who have some college credit but no degree in going back to school. A link with the locations and event details can be viewed at www.reconnectok.org . Attend an event in your local community and find out how you can finish your degree. Meet with a Reach Higher coordinator/navigator to get assistance with financial aid and learn how to access support services that are available while you are in school.
BRING ALL YOUR TRANSCRIPTS
so an enrollment specialist can assist you with finding the best degree program options
available for you.
Check out RECONNECTOK.org, to get more details on an event near you.
Campuses participating in RECONNECT on Saturday, July 27:
Cameron University, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Ross Hall
Carl Albert State College, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Hemphill Hall
Eastern Oklahoma State College, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the McAlester campus
Langston University, time TBA on the OKC campus
Murray State College, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at University Center of Southern Oklahoma
Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the Miami campus
Northeastern State University, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Broken Arrow campus, Administrative Services Building
Northwestern Oklahoma State University, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Woodward campus
Oklahoma City Community College, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the OKC campus
Oklahoma State University-OKC, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Student Center
Oklahoma State University-Tulsa, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Redlands Community College, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Rogers State University, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Dr. Carolyn Taylor Center
Rose State College, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in The Center, Midwest City, OK
Southwestern Oklahoma State University, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Weatherford campus
Tulsa Community College, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the OSU-Tulsa campus
University of Central Oklahoma, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the CHK/Central Boathouse, 732 Riversport Dr, OKC, OK
University of Oklahoma Extended Campus, time TBA at the OCCE Forum Building, 1704 Asp Ave, Norman, OK
Western Oklahoma State College, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Participating Tribal Higher Education Departments:
Comanche Nation, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the Cameron University campus
Kiowa Tribes, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the Cameron University campus
Register to attend an event by completing a Reconnect Form.
You can finish your degree! Get financial assistance and support services to assist you in going back to college. Talk to a dedicated Reach Higher coordinator/navigator.
Posted in News, Reach Higher Events, Reach Higher: DirectComplete, Reach Higher: FlexFinish and tagged adult degree completion, campus, college, financial aid, finish degree, Reach Higher, RECONNECT, university
Tulsa Talent Hub Team Meeting
July 19 | 9:00 am - 10:30 am
Reach Higher: FlexFinish Organizational Leadership Curriculum Review
July 19 | 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
RECONNECT WEEK
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Through the Reach Higher program, adult students can complete degrees in enterprise development, organizational leadership and other programs connected with Oklahoma's 100 Critical Occupations List.
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Reed Memorial Library maintains an extensive collection of genealogy and local history resources focusing on the Ravenna area, including:
Cemetery Transcriptions
Family Histories (Many are one-of-a-kind)
High School Yearbooks
Newspapers on Microfilm (Including all years of the Record Courier)
Obituary Indexes
Ravenna Arsenal Information
Ravenna Postcard Collection
Library staff and volunteers experienced in genealogy research are available to help you. Send questions to genealogy@reedlibrary.org Please make requests as specific as possible.
Subscription Databases
Billions of records including census data, vital records, directories, photos, family trees, and more. This database is only available inside the library.
Record-Courier newspaper archive. Covers 2012-Present.
Historical maps available to everyone in the state of Ohio. Sanborn maps for Ravenna exist for the years 1884, 1889, 1893, 1898, 1904, 1911, 1922, 1930, and 1939.
1857 Portage County Map
Akron Beacon Journal Newspaper Obituary Index Covers the years 1937-present.
Chronicling America U.S. Newpaper Index Find out where microfilmed newspapers are located.
Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System Facts about servicemen who served on both sides during the Civil War.
Cleveland Necrology File Cemetery records and newspaper death notices gathered by the staff of the Cleveland Public Library.
Ellis Island Records Information on immigrants passing through Ellis Island, New York, between 1892 and 1954.
Family Search Provides a fully searchable list of over 400 million names dating back to the 1500's.Free membership required.
Kent State University Yearbooks Covers all Chestnut Burr yearbooks published between 1914 and 1985.
Ohio Genealogical Society The largest state genealogical society in the United States.
Ohio Historical Society Includes a searchable death index for persons who died in Ohio from 1913-1937.
Ohio History Central A readily accessible, online resource that documents Ohio's natural history, prehistory, and history through encyclopedic-style entries.
Portage County Historical Society The Society exists "to collect, preserve and display things of historical value" relating to Portage County, and to "promote and disseminate historical information."
Portage County Records How to obtain records from Portage County.
Rootsweb Connects people to share genealogical research.
USGenWeb Project Volunteers working together to provide free access to genealogical research in every county of the United States.
Western Reserve Historical Society The largest privately supported regional historical society in the nation.
Yearbooks:
Reed Memorial Library is looking for Ravenna High School yearbooks to add to our collection. We are in need of the following years: 1932, 1933, 1936, 1937, 1966, 1975, 1982, 1998, and 2006. Please help if you can!
‹ Find Information up Lynda.com ›
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The Number One Song in the Country Samples Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor's amazing first trip to the top
By: Bryce
Believe it or not, Trent Reznor has never clocked a number one hit. He's had a number one album, when the band dropped their seminal double LP The Fragile in 2000, but break it apart and not even close. In fact, the highest charting Nine Inch Nails song ever stands as that record's first single, "The Day The World Went Away", which barely cracked the top 20, peaking at number 17. For the curious, the band's ubiquitous "Closer" only scraped it's way up to number 41. Can't imagine why.
Related: 'Captain Marvel' Inspires New Nine Inch Nails T-Shirt
But now, Trent can sleep soundly as he's finally credited on the sort of song he always expected to be a part of, a meme-turned-viral, trap-country smash, that now features Billy Ray Cyrus.
The song in question is "Old Town Road" by rapper Lil Nas X, which initially (read: illegally) sampled the group's least pretentiously titled instrumental cut, "34 Ghosts IV." As the song took off on music app Tik Tok, a bidding war ensued, which likely included paying a handsome sum for the now-hostage sample. NIN's former home, Columbia Records ultimately landing the deal. The rest, as they say, is history.
Despite the fact the song has already reached the top of the mountain, it's tough to say if the track will see any signs of slowing. Already in addition to it's remix featuring BRC, rapper Young Thug, and more are expected to hop on the tune. Hell, we still haven't even been blessed with the song's official video, which Major West himself (Will Smith) has already mentioned his desire to star in.
It's about the least likely trajectory for anything NIN related really, but it's a pretty fascinating testament to the power of the internet in 2019.
Check out both tracks for yourself below, and don't hate yourself for listening to it 400 times. What do you think we've been doing all week?
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Posted on December 19, 2017 by Rich Karfilis
New Jackson Browne Song And New Jackson Browne Cover From Gregg Allman, Both Superb
Where do the dreams go,
Born of faith and illusion,
Where there is no road or footprint,
Only desires that whisper to the heart
The verse above is a classic example of what we’ve come to know and love as a Jackson Browne lyric. No high-concept wankage, no too-clever wordplay, nothing intended to shock or provoke, just Browne’s gift for finding the most moving and disarmingly direct ways to express the most simple and basic of human emotions. Add to that his mastery of melody and song structure and you’ve got perhaps the finest songwriter of the entire California Folk-Rock scene of the 1970s.
These lyrics are from a single Browne just released this week called “The Dreamer” and it’s a beautiful piece of work. The song was written in collaboration with Mexican-American songwriter Eugene Rodriguez and performed with Mexican-American folk artists Los Cenzontles, and it is sung half in English and half in Spanish.
It wouldn’t be the first time Browne has recorded in a Mexican idiom. His fans will remember The Pretender, his breakthrough masterpiece from 40 years ago, included the mariachi-flavored track “Linda Paloma”. This time around, though, the Mexicali treatment isn’t just window dressing because “The Dreamer” takes on the story of a Mexican girl who has lived in the United States all her life and is suddenly being threatened with deportation.
The song is decidedly not political. There are no polemics or calls to action, just a simple story from the girl’s point of view. And simple stories told well are what Jackson Browne does best.
Here’s another Jackson Browne song that re-emerged this week and it’s also worth listening to. The late Gregg Allman had a bunch of material recorded before he passed away in May this year, and it’s all being put together for a posthumous release in the new year. One of the tracks on the album is a cover of Jackson Browne’s “Song For Adam”, a heartbreaking track about a friend’s death that appeared on Browne’s debut album. Allman said he recorded it with his brother Duane in mind, and when he gets to the line “Still he stopped his singing in the middle of his song”, he chokes up and can’t finish the verse. Powerful stuff, and a testament to the timeless qualities of Browne’s songwriting.
By: Rich Karfilis
Today, people say Rock is dead, but Rich says bullshit to that. “We’ve got people like Jack White, Beck and Jeff Tweedy who are worthy carriers of the torch that was lit so long ago. Taking the big tent perspective, I would argue that Rock is as vital today as it’s ever been.” You can reach him at rich@rocknuts.net.
Song Of The Day: Beck – “Devil’s Haircut” (1996)
Song Of The Day: Nilsson – “Jump Into The Fire” (1971)
Elvis Drummer D.J. Fontana Dead At 87
Hear The Impressive New Death Cab For Cutie Single “Gold Rush”
Tagged Eugene Rodriguez, Gregg Allman, Jackson Browne, Los Centzontles
One comment to “New Jackson Browne Song And New Jackson Browne Cover From Gregg Allman, Both Superb”
Ahhhh, Linda Paloma, she is so sad…..
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Adventures in Cosmology: Starting out Simply…
Why was entropy so low at the Big Bang? (source: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Back in 2010, SUNY-Buffalo physics professor Dejan Stojkovic and colleagues made a simple– a radically simple– suggestion: that the early universe — which exploded from a single point and was very, very small at first — was one-dimensional (like a straight line) before expanding to include two dimensions (like a plane) and then three (like the world in which we live today).
The core idea is that the dimensionality of space depends on the size of the space observed, with smaller spaces associated with fewer dimensions. That means that a fourth dimension will open up — if it hasn’t already — as the universe continues to expand. (Interesting corollary: space has fewer dimensions at very high energies of the kind associated with the early, post-big bang universe.)
Stojkovic’s notion is challenging; but at the same time, it would help address a number of fundamental problems with the standard model of particle physics, from the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity to the mystery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
But is it “true”? There’s no way to know as yet. But Stojkovic and his colleagues have devised a test using the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a planned international gravitational observatory, that could shed some definitive light on the question in just a few years.
Read the whole story in Science Daily, and read Stojkovic’s proposal for experimental proof in Physical Review Letters.
As we glance around for evidence of that fourth dimension, we might bid an indeterminate farewell to Ilya Prigogine, the Nobel Laureate whose work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility led to the identification of self-organizing systems, and is seen by many as a bridge between the natural and social sciences. He died at the Hospital Erasme in Brussels on this date in 2003.
Prigogine’s 1997 book, The End of Certainty, summarized his departure from the determinist thinking of Newton, Einstein, and Schrödinger in arguing for “the arrow of time”– and “complexity,” the ineluctable reality of irreversibility and instability. “Unstable systems” like weather and biological life, he suggested, cannot be explained with standard deterministic models. Rather, given their to sensitivity to initial conditions, unstable systems can only be explained statistically, probabilistically.
source: University of Texas
Tagged with arrow of time, astronomy, Big Bang, complex systems, complexity, Cosmology, Dejan Stojkovic, dimensionality, dissipative structures, early universe, Einstein, entropy, general relativity, Hospital Erasme, Ilya Prigogine, irreversibility, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, LISA, Newton, one dimension, particle physics, Prigogine, quantum mechanics, Schrödinger, self-organizing systems, standard model, standard model of particle physics, The End of Certainty, Universe, University of Texas, Unstable systems
« By the numbers…
Interior Decoration Notes: Sweet! »
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Opportunities for Reconciliation
Weekdays Saturday
Monday 7:30 to 8:30pm 4:00 to 4:40pm
Wednesday after 9am Mass
Additional days and times are scheduled during Advent and Lent.
"Examination of Conscience" and other Reconciliation Tools HERE
"Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God's mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labors for their conversion." (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1422)
For First Reconciliation:
Preparation is included in the 2nd grade curriculum. However, there is a prerequisite: your child must have attended faith formation classes during the previous school year. For interested students in 3rd grade or higher or those not meeting the prior year of faith formation requirement, contact Heidi Reale, Director of Faith Formation.
As to Penance. If the Church is to fulfill in its entirely her task of saving mankind she needs the power to forgive sins. It is a power essentially different from her mission to preach the Gospel and baptize. In baptism, indeed all sins and the punishment due to them are remitted. Baptism is the first justification. But the first justification is also the first entry into the realm of the supernatural which works entirely by God's grace and which asks of the person baptized no more than that he turn away from sin and turn in faith to Christ.Penance is something different. A baptized person who sins again, sins against God to whom, since his baptism in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, he belongs. He also betrays the Church of which he is now a member. Thus, the new atonement assumes the character of a legal trial, with accusation, sentence and satisfaction.
The practice of penance has varied considerably down the centuries. In very early days satisfaction, usually in the form of public penance, was very much to the fore. Re-acceptance into the Church community normally took place only after completion of the penance imposed. More and more, however, penance has withdrawn from the public domain and today only the private administration of the sacrament is still in use.
The development of the system of confession shows that misunderstanding easily arises above the nature of penance. In the face of all attacks - by Wycliffe, the Reformers, liberal dogmatic historians and modernists - the Church has always maintained the judicial character of the sacrament of penance and drawn the necessary conclusion.
THE CHURCH THUS TEACHES:
The Church has the power to forgive all sins. This forgiveness of sins is a true sacrament instituted by Christ, different from baptism, particularly on account of its judicial form. Sins are forgiven only by the sacrament of penance. Sins are forgiven by absolution which can only be given by an authorized priest. It is a real judicial pardon. The Church has the power to reserve certain cases.
On the part of the sinner contrition, confession and satisfaction are required. Contrition is aversion to the sins committed. Perfect contrition remits sin even before confession if it is joined with the intention to confess. Imperfect contrition (attrition) is sufficient if there is confession, and is a good and salutary thing.
Confession must cover all mortal sins committed since baptism and not previously confessed. Venial sins, and sins already confessed can validly be confessed. And satisfaction. The effect of the sacrament is recon- ciliation with God, that is, the remission of sins and the eternal punishment but not all the temporal punishment.
Source: Catholic Online
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by Scottie Westfall
Posts Tagged ‘Active Social Model of dog domestication’
Mark Derr on the Active Social Model of Dog Domestication
Posted in dog domestication, wolves, tagged Active Social Domestication Model, Active Social Model of dog domestication, dog domestication, Mark Derr on January 5, 2019|
Mark Derr has been writing critiques of the Coppinger model of dog domestication for decades. His best known work on the subject matter is How the Dog Became the Dog, but his ideas can be read in a more succinct place at this article at The Bark (but do buy the book!).
Derr recently posted about Jung and Pörtl’s “Active Social Domestication Model” on his blog at Psychology Today.
His analysis is worth your time to read. He largely agrees with this model, but he contends that it needs to be placed in a larger framework of Derr’s own work and that on Wolfgang Schleidt and Michael Shalter, which is linked on Jung’s website.
Derr contends that Jung and Pörtl’s ideas need to be placed in this line of scholarship to which I’d also add the work of Darcy Morey and Pat Shipman. They don’t agree with each other on some important particulars, and they may have quibbles with this new model. But both scholars have been publishing outside of the Coppinger model for quite some time.
What I find most interesting is how this scholarship is pretty well-known outside of the English-speaking countries, but in the US and the UK, the generally accepted model by virtually everyone is the Coppinger model. Part of it may be that North America is home to wolves that are not particularly admixed with dogs. Indeed, they are probably the most “pure” wild wolves anywhere in the range of Canis lupus. And Great Britain and Ireland have no wolves, and there is no chance of any wolves coming back to those islands, at least by their own volition.
However, in Germany and Russia, wolves are admixed with dogs, and in the case of Germany, it is not at all impossible to see wolves living near large urban centers.
So they have a much more practical understanding of what it is like to live near wolves that have quite a bit of gene flow from domestic dogs, and they are less likely to buy into models that see dog and wolf as fundamentally distinct entities.
North Americans are much more accepting of a dichotomy model, and we have a hard time with gene flow between Canis populations. Our laws want hard and fast species, but the thing about Canis is that none of them are hard and fast species.
So it is easy for North Americans to posit that wolves are unable to be domesticated, because modern North American wolves (for the most part) are reactive and timid predators that do kill both dogs and coyotes they find on the trail. They do, but they also do the same with other wolves. And sometimes they mate with those wolves, just as they will mate with dogs and coyotes.
The Coppinger model requires an assumption that all wolves living in history and in the present are these shy timid ones, but that’s not what the historical record shows. And it is certainly not what is seen on Ellesmere or Baffin Island, where the wolves have never been persecuted by man.
The Coppinger model requires us to create the gray wolf as a Neanderthal dog in which it is big in size, big-brained, and meant to hunt only large prey, and posit the dog as the modern human with a smaller brain and more flexible diet.
We need a model that can place the origin of dogs before the Mesolithic, and this Active Social Model goes along way in that direction.
Alpha did a lot of its homework
Posted in dog domestication, wolves, tagged Active Social Model of dog domestication, Alpha, Czechoslovakian vlcak, Czechoslovakian wolfdog, dog domestication on December 22, 2018| 5 Comments »
I finally got around to watching Alpha, a film that depicts a fictionalized account of dog domestication. It is set 20,000 years ago in Europe, which means that it posits a European origin for the domestic dog, and because of this early date, it sets domestication in the time of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.
The events in the film are backed in at least some of the literature on dog domestication. The oldest dog subfossil remains in existence that are not hotly debated as to belonging to a dog and not a wolf are the Bonn-Oberkassel dog, which dates to around 14,000 years ago. Yes, that’s about 6,000 years later than the events in Alpha, but we do have that paper positing European origins for the domestic dog that suggests an even older domestication event on that continent.
I should note right now that I remain agnostic whether dogs originated in Europe or Central Asia. Both are likely candidates based upon the best genetic data. I am open to there being two domestication “events,” but other than that one well-publicized paper, this hypothesis has not been well-received.
So it is potentially possible for the events in Alpha to be in keeping with some of the literature on dog domestication.
The film’s protagonist is Keda, who speaks a language that is called Solutrean, which is the name archaeologists have given to an industry culture in some parts of Paleolithic Europe. Because of the similarity between spearpoints from this Solutrean culture and some aboriginal North American peoples from roughly the same time period, some experts posited that European hunter-gatherers came across the North Atlantic following marine mammals along the ice flows, suggesting a European origin for some North American native people. Of course, this hypothesis has been dumped in light molecular data that show a Siberian origin for the indigenous people of the Americas.
Keda is the son of a Solutrean chief who wants his son to be a powerful and skilled hunter of big game, especially steppe bison, which are his people’s predominant prey species. Keda, though, is a bit soft with quarry. He refuses to finish off a wild boar that has been speared, and his father takes great umbrage with his temerity when it comes to the kill. But this is Keda’s first big hunting expedition, and his father really wants to teach his son the ways of his craft.
This world is not meant for those who cannot be crafty and tough. While sitting at a campfire, a cave lion absconds with one of the men. A memorial cairn is placed where the lion took the man, and they move on in search of meat in the hoof in a way that shows they accept their mortal fates in such a hostile environment. So Keda’s softness and excessive empathy might not be well-matched for such a lifestyle.
The hunting expedition reaches its climax when tribesmen and their close allies come across a herd of steppe bison. They stalk them in close, and they use their spear throws to drive them towards a cliff. Many fall off the cliff and die, and the Solutrean tribes can have their meat and hides and bones for another year. However, as they drive the bison off the cliff, one unusually recalcitrant one charges Keda and lifts him up with its horns and throws him off the cliff. He falls to a rock outcropping, where the tribe is forced to leave him for dead. A cairn is left in his memory on the cliff face, and his father and the hunters leave him to the ages.
It is at this point that film begins to play around with artistic license. Keda awakes when a griffon-type vulture tries to scavenge his carcass, and when Keda realizes that he is just resting on a ledge, he tries to climb down the steep cliff side with his badly injured leg. At that point, it starts to rain and the ravine below the cliff fills with water. He then jumps into the torrent below. Miraculously, he survives the fall and the rushing water, which I found a bit implausible. He then put his wounded leg back in order and begins looking around for a bit of food and shelter.
While he limps around, a pack of wolves shows up, but he manages to fight them off with the spearheads he’s carrying on his clothing and escape in a tree. He badly injures one of the wolves, which lies wounded beneath the tree.
I should note here that I am quite skeptical that Pleistocene wolves were particularly dangerous to people. As I’ve noted before, the wolves of Ellesmere and Baffin Island, which have never been intensely persecuted, are unusually curious and socially open with people. It seems to me that Eurasian wolves living 20,000 years ago would have had a similar curiosity about people, and thus, they would have been relatively easy for people to habituate them to our presence. I don’t think that an animal that was a much a threat to people as cave lions would have been trusted at all, and there would have been little of the empathy between people and wolves that could have led to any kind of partnership.
The empathy that Keda showed the boar, though, begins to cast upon the injured wolf. He muzzles the wolf and carries it to a cave, where he puts maggots on its wound to eat out any infection. He feeds the wolf a bit of the rabbit he manages to kill, and although the wolf is growling and surly through their initial interactions, the wolf eventually comes to trust Keda and within just a few scenes becomes as tame as any dog. Again, this is artistic license, but I think even those socially open wolves from the Pleistocene would still have had clearly-defined boundaries. They might have been friendly with people, but it is unlikely that they would have become that trusting at the first point of contact.
However, this part of the film does fit nicely with the recently posited Active Social Domestication Model in which human social interactions with wolves are the main catalyst behind creating the domestic dog. This model is relatively new, but it has a lot of explanatory power, especially when compared to the Coppinger Model, which just posits that scavenging wolves in at the middens Neolithic camps begat neotenic village dogs that were later selected for their working and hunting abilities and became the breeds of dog we have today.
Keda eventually realizes that the wolf is not going to leave his side, so he begins to show it even more empathy. He gets an idea that he could train this wolf to help him the hunt, and there are several scenes where he teaches the wolf to do commands. I doubt that this happened very much early on the domestication of the wolf, especially if we are to assume that humans and wolves developed a hunting symbiosis.
Indeed, the way Keda hunts with the wolf Is awfully unlikely. He uses the wolf to herd and flush wild boar, which he kills with a spear. Wolves can hunt wild boar that way, but it seems to me that the best way to use a wolf is as a “bay dog,” in which the wolf circles and distracts the quarry, holding it in one place so that a spear can be thrown.
Keda names the wolf “Alpha,” though he uses the Solutrean word for the term, and the two begin their journey to Keda’s home grounds. On their way, the man and wolf develop a tight bond. They play at the lake together, just the same way we would with our own dogs.
One night, a pack of wolves shows up at Keda’s campsite, a black wolf lures Alpha away from Keda. The black coloration is interesting, because it is quite rare in modern European wolves. It has only been introduced to wild wolves in modern times through crossing with dogs, including in North America where it was introduced to wolves from a dog living in either the Yukon or Northwest territories several thousand years ago. What we do know, though, is that this black coloration, which is conferred in wolves and is most dog breeds through a dominant allele, originated first in the population that led to domestic dogs.
As Keda makes his way back, the Pleistocene winter sets in. He now must travel without much food through the driving, blinding snow. Through a series of misadventures, he finds himself falling through the ice on a lake, and Alpha hears his distress and runs to rescue. The whole scene where the wolf comes to rescue Keda from the ice requires lots of artistic license, but it is visually spectacular.
Alpha and Keda are reunited and begin their long journey back to the home grounds. On their way, a pack of cave hyenas (a type of Pleistocene spotted hyena) chases them into a cave. Alpha and Keda await the hyenas in the cave. The snow piled up on the entrance of the cave quakes with their footsteps, but they do not enter. We soon learn the reason for their reluctance, a cave lion has been lurking deep with in the recesses of the cavern. It charges Keda and Alpha. Alpha fights the lion bravely, and Keda takes a deep breath and throws the spear, hoping it hits only the lion. It does, and Alpha survives, though pretty badly wounded. The lion provides some sustenance, and Keda and Alpha continue to make their way to the home grounds.
When Keda arrives home, he is quite ill, and he shows up with a very sick wolf on his mother and father’s doorstep. I can only imagine what it would have been like if such a scene had occurred in real life. If these people had no concept of partnering with a wolf, I bet their first compulsion would have been to club the wolf in the head for meat and fur. But Keda tells them they must care for Alpha too.
In the final scene, Keda is healed from his illness, and he sees a neonatal wolf puppy being held up by a priestess in an induction ceremony to the tribe. We then see Alpha nursing a litter of puppies. So, it turns out that after 90 minutes of film, we learn that Alpha is a female wolf. I wish there had been some mention the wolf’s sex earlier in the film, because I was honestly not prepared for the puppies.
The father of the puppies was apparently the black wolf, because one of the puppies is black, and thus, this detail would fit with the black coloration originating in the population that led to domestic dogs. The puppies grow up in the Solutrean tribe, and the final image of the film is the Solutrean hunting party going out on a hunting expedition with their wolves walking among them.
I will give this film props for doing quite a bit of research on some of the literature that puts dog domestication in the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies of Eurasia. It posits a possible origin for the domestic dog that came from the coming of age story of one of these Pleistocene hunters.
However, the actual domestication of the dog from wolves in these societies had to have been a bit more complex than the film states. In one flashback of the film, Keda’s father discusses wolves howling around their camp and how men must behave like wolves if they are to be good hunters. Of course, the father uses the toxic memes of alpha wolves in both the canid and human society. I honestly could have done without either.
But this flashback does hint that these hunter-gatherer people had some empathy with wolves, and it is this empathy that humans had with wolves that allowed us to form this partnership. I am reminded very much of Schleidt and Shalter’s hypothesis that wolves showed man how to hunt ungulates in Eurasia more effectively.
Humans and wolves have sort of convergently evolved as cooperative hunters, and it is very likely that humans would have seen much of themselves in wolves. Plus, if Pleistocene wolves behaved like the wolves of Ellesmere, humans would not have feared them in the way they would have feared cave lions or hyenas. This is a large social carnivoran that hunts big game but does not typically target us, and those features provided just enough space curiosity, empathy, and even reverence to develop.
I think that the hunting symbiosis hypothesis for dog domestication is essentially correct, but I don’t think it came about because someone managed to tame a wolf and hunt with it. I think it simply happened because humans, as opportunistic hunters and scavengers, figured out that following wolves was a great way to get good fatty meat. Wolves constantly test ungulates by harrying them. Those that are healthy stand and fight. Those that are weak run. The wolves usually kill the weak ones. The healthy ones that stood to fight would have been easier targets for the spear, and the healthy ones are full of fat that our big brains need.
So we would have figured out that if we followed wolves we could get the good meat we needed to survive, and the wolves likely would have figured out that we were the ticket to getting an easier meal. We probably drove the wolves off the carcasses at first, but we probably left enough meat for the wolves get a lot of reward for their effort.
Further, reliance upon human societies would have allowed one wolf reproduction strategy to operate quite well. In wolf packs, a single mated pair does all the approved breeding. If another female gets pregnant, the main breeding female (sometimes called the alpha female) kills the puppies of the other female or steals them to add to her litter. Usually, this main breeding female comes in heat first, and her older puppies easily outcompete the other female’s pups.
But these females do get pregnant. That’s because on the outside of the pack territory, there are unpaired males roaming about. These females are usually the daughters of the main breeding pair, and because wolves have some inbreeding avoidance behavior and because their mother will beat them down if they try to mate with her mate, they will often try to mate with these unpaired males that roam outside the pack
One notable male wolf in Yellowstone, the so-called “Casanova,” wound up living most his life as an unpaired male that mated with these unpaired females. In the early days of the Yellowstone reintroduction, the main breeding females of several packs allowed these unpaired females to raise their litters. Prey was abundant and naïve, so there was no need to kill the pups of these females.
Keeping a single litter is a lot of work for a wolf pack, so there is a very strong need for the litters tying them down each year to be reduced to one or none. When you have more prey, these pressures are released.
It is very possible that humans provided a space for that Casanova strategy to work more often. Some of the first wolves that may have hooked up with humans on a more intimate basis could have been females that wanted to have their litters away from their murderous mothers, and humans could have felt empathy towards these female wolves, tossing them food and protecting them from predators while they raised their litters. Humans could have provided a space for wolves that bred this way to reproduce efficiently, and if you’re just mating with a male and not engaging in all the social suppression of estrus and litter culling and purloining behavior, genes can spread much more rapidly. Perhaps the wolves that had lessoned genetic tendency toward pair bonding behavior became the basis for the domestic dog, and these genes wound up swamping the entire population of wolves that became domestic dogs, which is why pair-bonding behavior is uncommon in most domestic dogs
So basing the domestication story upon a female wolf is pretty wise.
My other quibbles with the film have more to do with the depth of characterization. I never really got to know Alpha as a wolf or a dog or anything. She was just a straight-up heroic figure, but I didn’t find the whole process of her transforming from a predator that would hunt humans to an extremely dog-like wolf particularly believable. I also wanted better CGI of the cave lions and hyenas. I am a bit of a Pleistocene mammal nerd, and I really wanted more of them. But they are like phantasmal entities that lurk in as agents of death and nothing more.
The writers did do quite a bit of homework on dog domestication, but I think they could have done more and pushed for an even more compelling narrative.
Finally, the “wolf” in the film is a Czechoslovakian vlcak, a breed of dog derived from Czechoslovakian working German shepherds and European wolves from the Carpathian Mountains. They were originally bred as an “improvement” to the working GSD of communist Czechoslovakia, but they never really got off the ground in that way. However, because they are mostly German shepherd and were selected hard for temperament, they are the most successful wolfdog breed ever produced. I do wonder, though, if people watching the film will realize that this breed is what was used to portray a wolf in the film. We are already going through a bit of a boomlet with Siberian huskies in North America, which is somewhat attributed to their wolfish features. If people do realize there is a breed of wolfdog that is recognized by many kennel clubs, then I can see this breed being mass-produced and sold to gullible people without much regard for temperament. This film gives the public this bit of information, then we could see lots of these dogs in shelters and pounds, which I’m sure no responsible breeders of vlcaks wants.
No, the performance of vlcaks in Alpha was not as compelling as Jed the wolfdog, but the public is now being exposed to this breed’s existence. It is something we need to think about very carefully.
I do give Alpha major props for trying to posit the origins of the dog within European hunter-gatherer societies and to give some credence to the Active Social Model for dog domestication, but in story-telling, I just couldn’t allow myself to follow that much artistic license with Keda’s miraculous escapes from danger.
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Search by tag •Avesta•
The future Saviour Astvat-Ereta – the Implementer of the Truth. Zoroastrianism
We kindly offer everyone to turn our eyes again to the East which from time immemorial has been considered the cradle of Wisdom and Knowledge. Let’s speak of Zoroastrianism and the predictions left by Zarathustra and reflected in the Avesta.
Zoroastrianism (Mazdayasna, Mazdaism) is a very old religion that was formed on the basis of the teaching of Prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster). The teaching is based on the concept of spiritual and moral freedom of every human being as embodied in good thoughts, good words and good deeds. This religion emerged in the territory of Greater Iran (Persia). The main sacred book of Zoroastrianism is the Avesta (Zend-Avesta) which supposedly consists of 21 texts that have not been preserved in full. Two of those were discovered and translated only in the 18th century. Researchers believe the information now contained in the Avesta was considerably distorted and modified in the Middle Ages. No wonder, for on the basis of the initial Knowledge the religion was established with its strict rules, ethical provisions, rituals, feasts, and other mandatory attributes. According to Zoroastrianism, the name of Messiah is Saoshyant, which in translation from the Avestan language means “the Future Saviour”.
Avesta. Haiti 28. “I will pray for the works of the Holy Spirit...”
In humble adoration, with hands outstretched I pray to You, O Mazda! First of all, through Your Holy Spirit vouchsafe to me all righteousness of action, all wisdom of the Good Mind, that I may thereby bring joy to the Soul of Creation!
COMMENTARY: The Denkard says, “The first Ahunavaiti Gatha (Yasna 28) is dedicated to grace and piety of Zoroaster (Zarathustra) that emerged owing to the righteousness of his thoughts, words and deeds.” (Denkard 9:28:1) The triad of good thoughts, words and deeds is the foundation of the ethical teaching of Good Faith. Good thoughts, good words and good deeds of Pious Zarathustra are portrayed in his Gathas (Hymns) dedicated to the Immortal Saints (Amesha Spentas).
This dedication opens the first Chapter (Haiti) of the Gathas, which reflects Zarathustra’s prayer and righteousness, as well as his petitions of grace as proclaimed in the Avesta. (Denkard 9:50:2-3)
Chinvat. The Bridge over the Abyss
In former times, Heaven and Earth, the two worlds symbolized by two riverbanks or seashores were integrated. Yet, once, as legends say, abysses and water appeared in between and separated them. Nonetheless, a single path remained, which connected the two sides, the mundane world and the heavenly world. The path is narrow and dangerous, but it’s the only one available, and it runs over a bridge.
The bridge image is similar to the image of an axial pillar or the world tree connecting heaven and earth and simultaneously maintaining their separation; thus it may also be regarded as a vertical or the axis mundi. A vertical bridge connects the earth not just with the higher world, but with the lower one, too. At the bridge leading to the lower world, a guard is often standing (e.g., a zoomorphic creature), who lets deceased (or living who have dared to visit the kingdom of death) pass, in exchange for a certain recompense, solution of a given riddle, or successful withstanding of a given test. At that, the downward bridge is one of rare images. There are more frequent images of the bridge along which souls of deceased get to paradise (the direction of such bridge is not always identified). In this respect, the bridge symbolism is identical to that of a ladder. Just like the world tree, ladder or axis mundi, the bridge connects different planes of existence. The side which the bridge runs from is our world, while the other side is the primordial world, the world of God, the world of genuine reality, the area of immortality.
Angkor Wat. Architecture, frescoes and sacral numbers 7 and 72
I’ve decided to carry out a deeper analysis of information relating to secrets and mysteries of the sacred city of Angkor Wat in Cambodia after reading the article The revealed secrets of Angkor and Giza plateau – the pendulum of Orion and Draco. Apocalypse now?, recently published on this website. While preparing this material I discovered plenty of interesting data that I intend to share herein. Thus, Angkor Wat is a giant temple complex and the largest religious monument in the world. The complex is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Angkor occupies the area of about 200 square kilometres, whereas recent studies indicate its area could be around 3,000 square kilometres with a population of some half a million people, making it the largest settlement of its time. The temple complex was constructed as three concentric right-angled buildings, the height of which increases towards the centre. The temple is surrounded by a wall of 1.5×1.3 km and an artificial moat filled with water, 3.6 km long and 190 m wide. The internal building consists of five towers and resembles a lotus flower. The central building rises 65 m above the ground.
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Stop Trump's latest assault on the ESA!
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is under unprecedented assault.
The Trump Administration recently proposed a catastrophic plan to cripple the ESA through new regulations. These proposed changes would dismantle this landmark law by gutting existing protections for threatened and endangered wildlife. We can't let this happen.
Most Americans favor a strong ESA. This is greed and big money politics at their absolute worst.
Please take action to tell the Trump Administration: Hands Off the ESA!
Dear Secretary Zinke,
RE: FWS Rulemaking Dockets: FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0006 FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0007 FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0009 As an American who cares deeply for our nation's wildlife, I strongly oppose the Trump Administration's proposed changes to key regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This proposal will weaken federal efforts to protect wildlife and will undermine America's most effective law for protecting species from extinction. The changes are contained in three major ESA rulemakings currently being conducted by the Department of the Interior and/or the Department of Commerce and announced in the Federal Register on July 25, 2018. They are: Revision of the Regulations for Prohibition to Threatened Wildlife and Plants. 83 Fed. Reg. 35174 (July 25, 2018) (Department of the Interior only); Revision of Regulations for Interagency Cooperation 83 Fed. Reg. 35178 (July 25, 2018) (Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce); and Revision of the Regulations for Listing Species and Designating Critical Habitat, 83 Fed. Reg. 35193 (July 25, 2018) (Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce). Our nation and our planet face an extinction crisis of epic proportion with species' extinction happening at a rate at least 100 times greater than what would be considered normal. Scientists warn we could lose half of all Earth's species in as little as 33 years. At this moment in history, we should be working to strengthen, not weaken, the ESA. However, the Department of Interior's rulemakings, along with over 100 anti-ESA bills and amendments proposed this Congress alone, have put the ESA under unprecedented attack. These regulations would weaken endangered species protections by: - Wrongly injecting economics into what should be purely science-based decisions about listing imperiled species; - Depriving threatened species from automatically receiving protections from killing, trapping, and other forms of harm and commercial exploitation; - Further imperiling endangered species by blinding federal agencies to the broad consequences of their actions and limit what wildlife expert can look at in their reviews of federal activities. The ESA works. Ninety-nine percent of listed species have survived, and many have been set on a path to recovery. I strongly urge the Trump Administration to withdraw this damaging plan.
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Living a Country Ye...
Living a Country Year: Wit and Wisdom from the Good Old Days
Our Products: Books & Magazines > Gardening & Agriculture
172 pages, 5 ½ x 8 ½
Published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Orders for Trade, Library or Wholesale
Old Farm: A History
Limping Through Life: A Farm Boy’s Polio Memoir
Old Farm Country Cookbook: Recipes, Menus, and Memories
By Jerry Apps
In this paperback edition of a beloved Jerry Apps classic, the rural historian tells stories from his childhood days on a small central Wisconsin dairy farm in the 1930s and 1950s. From a January morning memory of pancakes piled high after chores, to a June day spent learning to ride a pony named Ginger, Jerry moves through the turn of the seasons and teaches gentle lessons about life on the farm. With recipes associated with each month and a new introduction exclusive to this 2nd edition, Living a Country Year celebrates the rhythms of rural life with warmth and humor.
A professor emeritus of agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jerry Apps has written more than forty fiction, nonfiction, and children's books, many of them on rural history and country life. His work has won awards from the American Library Association, the Wisconsin Library Association, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the Council for Wisconsin Writers, and he has created four documentaries about farm life and country living with Wisconsin Public Television. Jerry and his wife, Ruth, divide their time between their home in Madison and their farm, Roshara, near Wild Rose, Wisconsin.
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← Do Teachers Have Regrets?
Choice Time →
by Bill Ivey, Stoneleigh-Burnham Middle School Dean | April 19, 2011 · 5:31 pm
Nail Polish, Barbies, and the Circle of Life
So I finally taught somebody something,
namely, how to change her mind.
And learned in the process that if I ever change the world
it’s going to be one eighth grader at a time.
– Taylor Mali, from “Like Lilly Like Wilson“
Recently, Susanna Thompson sent me an email asking if I had heard about the controversy being generated by a J. Crew ad, adding “Twitter is all a-flutter.” I responded that I had heard about it, and in fact had been a-flutterin’ myself. The ad is for nail polish, and it shows the company’s president playing with her five-year-old son, whose toenails have been painted pink. Amid the firestorm of comments admonishing the mother to set aside lots of money for the massive psychotherapy her son would no doubt need eventually, or analyzing the history of colour as a symbol for masculinity and femininity (did you know pink was once thought of as being masculine and blue feminine?), was one small voice asking if anyone else had noticed the happy and loving looks being shared by the two of them.
When my niece was five years old, she too loved pink. She took dance lessons and loved wearing her tutu around the house. She also loved Barbies and was already building up a good size collection. One day, I was talking to my father, and he observed, “It must be driving you crazy.” “Not really,” I said, “as long as that’s who she really is. I just don’t want her feeling she has to like Barbies because she’s a girl and people expect that of her.”
People’s expectations, of course, do inexorably shape who we are. Thus, when a new study comes out documenting learning style differences between boys and girls (thanks to 7Wonderlicious for this link!), or wiring differences in female and male brains, very often there are two competing reactions. One is essentially, “See? Boys and girls are different. It should have been obvious. Now that that’s settled, can we move on and figure out how best to help boys and/or girls?” Another is essentially, “Nooooooo! That reinforces stereotypes. Can we kind of keep this on the down low?”
Suppressing truth, of course, is not the answer. Neither, however, is using truth selectively to reinforce stereotypes, whether they are gender-based or not.
Several months ago, an alumna returned to share her autobiographical one-woman show with the school (see the YouTube version of that housemeeting here). She talked about how one week into her first year, the name “Janice” just wasn’t doing it for her, and so she decided to use the name “Obehi” to reflect and honor her African heritage. She launched into a rendition of “The Circle of Life,” and as the song built to its climax and her voice soared with power, you could sense how thoroughly she had energized the room. “Brace yourselves,” I thought, “because if I’m right about where this is leading, you are in for such a shock.” Shortly after the song ended to thunderous applause, Obehi suddenly crumbled. “That Africa, to me…” she shuddered. “God, what’s wrong with me?” she wailed.
Our school’s mission statement says that each student will graduate “secure in the knowledge that her voice will be heard” (italics mine). The implications of that part of our mission are profound. Secure in the knowledge that she has found her voice, secure in the knowledge that her voice deserves to be heard, sure. No problem. Hundreds and hundreds of SBS alumnae (and at least one alumnus that I know of) can attest to our success there. But our mission is also that her voice will be heard. That implies a world that will listen. It also implies a world that is willing to set aside stereotypes and fully engage with the person standing before it. To my mind, then, our mission is not just to educate our students, but also to help build that world.
Mr. Bogel also received the email about the J. Crew ad. He asked me what I thought about the male faculty getting together and wearing pink nail polish one day. I told him I’d been wondering the exact same thing, and brought it up with Mr. Deason and Pete at the middle school team meeting that afternoon. In one sense, of course, it would be a small gesture, all but meaningless in the flood of images and stereotypes and assumptions in which our students live every day. But on the other hand, if it carries meaning for just one student, or if it makes just one person stop and think about gender expectations, then why not?!
And I’m pretty sure Mr. Bogel and I were thinking about the same student, one who would probably appreciate the gesture.
Besides, little gestures add up, and you never know when the chance to make a big gesture might come along. I stopped through the “cosmetics” section of Target that very night. And I do believe that if some day our world really and truly can say we have put stereotypes behind us, I will have contributed to that moment. One toenail at a time.
Filed under Stoneleigh-Burnham Middle School, Uncategorized, Uniquely Stoneleigh-Burnham School
Tagged as diversity, Gay-Straight Alliance, Gender Diversity, It Gets Better, Teaching
4 responses to “Nail Polish, Barbies, and the Circle of Life”
Pingback: Valuing the Feminine | View from the Nest
Your post reminded me of a male colleague I worked with 3 years ago. He was the only male on our all female team, and all the kids adored him. Looking back I know now why he was so adored. He was kind, sensitive and most of all let the kids do crazy middle school things to him, without ever getting upset with them. The girls had purchased pink hair strands in honor of breast cancer that could be clipped into their hair. They asked Mr. A if he would mind if they clipped one to his hair. He accepted it graciously and wore it the entire day: in the hall, in the classroom, in the teachers’ lounge, the main office, etc. He never made a big deal about it; it was simply his way of showing his respect for kids who thought enough to show their love for him. He’s moved back to where he grew up (he and his wife missed their families in Michigan), but the kids who are now going into high school, tell me that they still e-mail him just to say hi. I realize he wasn’t just their math teacher, he was the teacher who taught them about kindness, caring and respect by his actions.
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Joseph Andrew Kisslo
Professor of Medicine
Dr. Kisslo's research has centered around the development and initial application of new ultrasound imaging devices. Focussed principally on morphologic diagnosis in the early years, the work has become progressively more physiologic in it's orientation.
After more than two decades there are now 300 original research papers, several textbooks and other materials. Dr. Kisslo has distinguished himself as the first to use phased array ultrasound imaging in the human body and, accordingly, was the first to describe most of the disease for which the technique is now commonplace. He was very early into the applications of Doppler color flow imaging and transesophageal imaging with ultrasound. He has served as an officer or on the Board of a variety of national and international bodies. He was one of the first President's of the American Society of Echocardiography. He reviews in all aspects of cardiac imaging, but principally echocardiography.
Over the past 15 years he has also had a keen interest in medical economics and has served on various professional and governmental boards in describing medical costs and dealing with medical economics. More recently, he has taken interest in adult re-education through remote learning means (telemedicine) and has become the Clinical Director of Telemedicine at Duke. He is Executive Producer of the world's largest telemedicine program (Echo in Context) which has run for the past 14 years. This was the first educational event to circumnavigate the globe live.
He is a frequent scientific and motivational lecturer to scientific organizations and industry. He serves as advisor to several governmental and industrial organizations.
Key words: Echocardiography, cardiac imaging, medical reimbursement, telemedicine, adult re-education.
Professor of Medicine, Medicine, Cardiology, Medicine 1987
3348A Hosp South, Durham, NC 27710
Duke Box 3818, Durham, NC 27710
joseph.kisslo@duke.edu (919) 684-6398
M.D., Drexel University 1967
Assistant Professor of Radiology, Radiology, Clinical Science Departments 1994 - 2010
Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Medicine, Clinical Science Departments 1978 - 1987
Associate in the Department of Medicine, Medicine, Clinical Science Departments 1974 - 1978
Philips ECS 2017 - 2019
High Speed Ultrasound in Cardiology 2017 - 2019
Activation delay induced heart failure in congenital heart disease 2014 - 2016
Emerek, Kasper, Daniel J. Friedman, Peter L. Sørensen, Steen M. Hansen, Jacob M. Larsen, Niels Risum, Anna Margrethe Thøgersen, et al. “The Association of a classical left bundle Branch Block Contraction Pattern by vendor-independent strain echocardiography and outcome after cardiac resynchronization therapy..” Cardiovasc Ultrasound 17, no. 1 (May 21, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12947-019-0160-4.
Andersen, Martin V., Cooper Moore, Peter Søgaard, Daniel Friedman, Brett D. Atwater, Kristine Arges, Melissa LeFevre, et al. “Quantitative Parameters of High-Frame-Rate Strain in Patients with Echocardiographically Normal Function..” Ultrasound Med Biol 45, no. 5 (May 2019): 1197–1207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2018.11.007.
Kakkad, Vaibhav, Melissa LeFevre, Peter Hollender, Joseph Kisslo, and Gregg E. Trahey. “Non-invasive Measurement of Dynamic Myocardial Stiffness Using Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging..” Ultrasound Med Biol 45, no. 5 (May 2019): 1112–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2018.12.011.
Alenezi, Fawaz, Marat Fudim, Jennifer Rymer, Allison Dunning, Karen Chiswell, Madhav Swaminathan, Brandi Bottiger, et al. “Predictors and Changes in Cardiac Hemodynamics and Geometry With Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation..” Am J Cardiol 123, no. 5 (March 1, 2019): 813–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2018.11.038.
Alenezi, Fawaz, Andrew P. Ambrosy, Matthew Phelan, Karen Chiswell, Loai Abudaqa, Hasan Alajmi, Joseph Kisslo, and Eric J. Velazquez. “Left Ventricular Global Longitudinal Strain Can Reliably Be Measured from a Single Apical Four-Chamber View in Patients with Heart Failure..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 32, no. 2 (February 2019): 317–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2018.10.009.
Emerek, Kasper, Daniel J. Friedman, Peter Lyngø Sørensen, Steen Møller Hansen, Jacob Moesgaard Larsen, Niels Risum, Anna Margrethe Thøgersen, et al. “Vectorcardiographic QRS area is associated with long-term outcome after cardiac resynchronization therapy..” Heart Rhythm 16, no. 2 (February 2019): 213–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrthm.2018.08.028.
Minter, Stephanie, Alicia Armour, Amanda Tinnemore, Karen Strub, Anna Lisa Crowley, Gerald S. Bloomfield, John H. Alexander, et al. “Crowdsourcing consensus: proposal of a novel method for assessing accuracy in echocardiography interpretation..” Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 34, no. 11 (November 2018): 1725–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10554-018-1389-y.
Friedman, Daniel J., Kasper Emerek, Peter Søgaard, Maryam Vejdani-Jahromi, Joseph Kisslo, and Brett D. Atwater. “The mechanical and hemodynamic effects of left ventricular pacing in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and left bundle branch block..” J Electrocardiol 51, no. 5 (September 2018): 859–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2018.07.004.
Samad, Zainab, Linda K. Shaw, Matthew Phelan, Donald D. Glower, Mads Ersboll, John H. Toptine, John H. Alexander, et al. “Long-term outcomes of mitral regurgitation by type and severity..” Am Heart J 203 (September 2018): 39–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahj.2018.05.001.
Siddiqui, Irfan, Sudarshan Rajagopal, Amanda Brucker, Karen Chiswell, Bridgette Christopher, Fawaz Alenezi, Aditya Mandawat, et al. “Clinical and Echocardiographic Predictors of Outcomes in Patients With Pulmonary Hypertension..” Am J Cardiol 122, no. 5 (September 1, 2018): 872–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2018.05.019.
Kakkad, Vaibhav, Melissa LeFevre, Kingshuk Roy Choudhury, Joseph Kisslo, and Gregg E. Trahey. “Effect of Transmit Beamforming on Clutter Levels in Transthoracic Echocardiography..” Ultrason Imaging 40, no. 4 (July 2018): 215–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0161734618770359.
Il’Giovine, Zachary J., Hillary Mulder, Karen Chiswell, Kristine Arges, Jennifer Tomfohr, Abraham Hashmi, Eric J. Velazquez, Joseph A. Kisslo, Zainab Samad, and Sudarshan Rajagopal. “Right Ventricular Longitudinal Strain Reproducibility Using Vendor-Dependent and Vendor-Independent Software..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 31, no. 6 (June 2018): 721-732.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2018.01.008.
Lauridsen, Trine Kiilerich, Christina Alhede, Anna Lisa Crowley, Joseph Kisslo, Lars L. Sørensen, Thomas Fritz Hansen, Niels Risum, et al. “Two-dimensional global longitudinal strain is superior to left ventricular ejection fraction in prediction of outcome in patients with left-sided infective endocarditis..” Int J Cardiol 260 (June 1, 2018): 118–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2018.01.031.
Sze, Edward, Zainab Samad, Allison Dunning, Kristen Bova Campbell, Zak Loring, Brett D. Atwater, Karen Chiswell, Joseph A. Kisslo, Eric J. Velazquez, and James P. Daubert. “Impaired Recovery of Left Ventricular Function in Patients With Cardiomyopathy and Left Bundle Branch Block..” J Am Coll Cardiol 71, no. 3 (January 23, 2018): 306–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.11.020.
Romano, Minna Moreira Dias, Marina Branco, Henrique Turin Moreira, André Schmidt, Joseph Kisslo, and Benedito Carlos Maciel. “Appropriate use of echocardiography and relation to clinical decision making in both inpatients and outpatients in a developing country..” Echocardiography 35, no. 1 (January 2018): 9–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/echo.13725.
Atwater, Brett D., Galen S. Wagner, Joseph Kisslo, and Niels Risum. “The electromechanical substrate for response to cardiac resynchronization therapy in patients with right bundle branch block..” Pacing Clin Electrophysiol 40, no. 12 (December 2017): 1358–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/pace.13231.
Sze, Edward, Allison Dunning, Zak Loring, Brett D. Atwater, Karen Chiswell, James P. Daubert, Joseph A. Kisslo, Daniel B. Mark, Eric J. Velazquez, and Zainab Samad. “Comparison of Incidence of Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction Among Patients With Left Bundle Branch Block Versus Those With Normal QRS Duration..” Am J Cardiol 120, no. 11 (December 1, 2017): 1990–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2017.08.003.
Andersen, Martin V., Cooper Moore, Kristine Arges, Peter Søgaard, Lasse R. Østergaard, Samuel E. Schmidt, Joseph Kisslo, and Olaf T. Von Ramm. “High-Frame-Rate Deformation Imaging in Two Dimensions Using Continuous Speckle-Feature Tracking..” Ultrasound Med Biol 42, no. 11 (November 2016): 2606–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2016.07.009.
Forsha, Daniel, Niels Risum, P Brian Smith, Ronald J. Kanter, Zainab Samad, Piers Barker, and Joseph Kisslo. “Frequent Activation Delay-Induced Mechanical Dyssynchrony and Dysfunction in the Systemic Right Ventricle..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 29, no. 11 (November 2016): 1074–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2016.08.002.
Samad, Zainab, Amit N. Vora, Allison Dunning, Phillip J. Schulte, Linda K. Shaw, Fawaz Al-Enezi, Mads Ersboll, et al. “Aortic valve surgery and survival in patients with moderate or severe aortic stenosis and left ventricular dysfunction..” Eur Heart J 37, no. 28 (July 21, 2016): 2276–86. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehv701.
Leeters, Irene P. M., Ashlee Davis, Robbert Zusterzeel, Brett Atwater, Niels Risum, Peter Søgaard, Igor Klem, et al. “Left ventricular regional contraction abnormalities by echocardiographic speckle tracking in combined right bundle branch with left anterior fascicular block compared to left bundle branch block..” J Electrocardiol 49, no. 3 (May 2016): 353–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2016.02.002.
Sivak, Joseph A., Amit N. Vora, Ann Marie Navar, Phillip J. Schulte, Anna Lisa Crowley, Joseph Kisslo, G Ralph Corey, et al. “An Approach to Improve the Negative Predictive Value and Clinical Utility of Transthoracic Echocardiography in Suspected Native Valve Infective Endocarditis..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 29, no. 4 (April 2016): 315–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2015.12.009.
Forsha, Daniel, Cameron Slorach, Ching Kit Chen, Ashley Sherman, Luc Mertens, Piers Barker, Joseph Kisslo, and Mark K. Friedberg. “Patterns of Mechanical Inefficiency in Pediatric Dilated Cardiomyopathy and Their Relation to Left Ventricular Function and Clinical Outcomes..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 29, no. 3 (March 2016): 226–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2015.11.011.
Samad, Zainab, Stephanie Minter, Alicia Armour, Amanda Tinnemore, Joseph A. Sivak, Brenda Sedberry, Karen Strub, et al. “Implementing a Continuous Quality Improvement Program in a High-Volume Clinical Echocardiography Laboratory: Improving Care for Patients With Aortic Stenosis..” Circ Cardiovasc Imaging 9, no. 3 (March 2016). https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCIMAGING.115.003708.
Risum, Niels, Joseph Kisslo, John Gorcsan, and Peter Sogaard. “Reply: Echocardiographic Substrate for Biventricular Pacing..” J Am Coll Cardiol 66, no. 25 (December 29, 2015): 2915–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2015.09.095.
Moore, Cooper, John Castellucci, Martin V. Andersen, Melissa LeFevre, Kristine Arges, Joseph Kisslo, and Olaf T. von Ramm. “Live high-frame-rate echocardiography..” Ieee Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 62, no. 10 (October 2015): 1779–87. https://doi.org/10.1109/TUFFC.2015.007203.
Ersboll, Mads, Zainab Samad, Fawaz Al Enezi, Joseph Kisslo, Phillip J. Schulte, Linda K. Shaw, Lars Køber, et al. “Temporal Trends in Disease Severity and Predicted Surgical Risk at the Time of Referral for Echocardiography in Patients Diagnosed with Aortic Stenosis..” Crit Pathw Cardiol 14, no. 3 (September 2015): 103–9. https://doi.org/10.1097/HPC.0000000000000048.
Risum, Niels, Joseph Kisslo, and Galen Wagner. “Cardiac resynchronization therapy: Identifying an activation delay by regional strain analysis..” J Electrocardiol 48, no. 5 (September 2015): 779–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2015.07.020.
Risum, Niels, Bhupendar Tayal, Thomas F. Hansen, Niels E. Bruun, Magnus T. Jensen, Trine K. Lauridsen, Samir Saba, Joseph Kisslo, John Gorcsan, and Peter Sogaard. “Identification of Typical Left Bundle Branch Block Contraction by Strain Echocardiography Is Additive to Electrocardiography in Prediction of Long-Term Outcome After Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy..” J Am Coll Cardiol 66, no. 6 (August 11, 2015): 631–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2015.06.020.
Hannink, Laura G. J., Galen S. Wagner, Joseph Kisslo, Fawaz Abdulaziz M. Alenezi, Linda K. Shaw, Paul Hofmann, Robbert Zusterzeel, Matthew Phelan, Eric J. Velazquez, and Anton P. M. Gorgels. “Influence of QRS infarct score and QRS duration prior to transcatheter aortic valve replacement on follow-up left ventricular end systolic volume in patients with new persistent left bundle branch block..” J Electrocardiol 48, no. 4 (July 2015): 637–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2015.04.010.
Klein, Michael R., Frida Sundh, Jacob Simlund, J Kevin Harrison, Kevin P. Jackson, G Chad Hughes, Galen S. Wagner, et al. “Immediate mechanical effects of acute left bundle branch block by speckle tracked strain..” J Electrocardiol 48, no. 4 (July 2015): 643–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2015.05.005.
Forsha, Daniel, Niels Risum, Sudarshan Rajagopal, Stephen Dolgner, Christoph Hornik, Huiman Barnhart, Joseph Kisslo, and Piers Barker. “The influence of angle of insonation and target depth on speckle-tracking strain..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 28, no. 5 (May 2015): 580–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2014.12.015.
Ersboll, Mads, Phillip J. Schulte, Fawaz Al Enezi, Linda Shaw, Lars Køber, Joseph Kisslo, Irfan Siddiqui, et al. “Predictors and progression of aortic stenosis in patients with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction..” Am J Cardiol 115, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 86–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2014.09.049.
Roelandt, J. R. T. C., and J. Kisslo. “Three-dimensional echocardiography: Lessons in overcoming time and space,” January 1, 2015, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36799-1_1.
Forsha, Daniel, Cameron Slorach, Ching Kit Chen, Elizabeth A. Stephenson, Niels Risum, Christoph Hornik, Galen Wagner, et al. “Classic-pattern dyssynchrony and electrical activation delays in pediatric dilated cardiomyopathy..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 27, no. 9 (September 2014): 956–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2014.06.014.
Rajagopal, Sudarshan, Daniel E. Forsha, Niels Risum, Christoph P. Hornik, Abby D. Poms, Terry A. Fortin, Victor F. Tapson, Eric J. Velazquez, Joseph Kisslo, and Zainab Samad. “Comprehensive assessment of right ventricular function in patients with pulmonary hypertension with global longitudinal peak systolic strain derived from multiple right ventricular views..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 27, no. 6 (June 2014): 657-665.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2014.02.001.
Forsha, Daniel, Niels Risum, P Andrea Kropf, Sudarshan Rajagopal, P Brian Smith, Ronald J. Kanter, Zainab Samad, Peter Sogaard, Piers Barker, and Joseph Kisslo. “Right ventricular mechanics using a novel comprehensive three-view echocardiographic strain analysis in a normal population..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 27, no. 4 (April 2014): 413–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2013.12.018.
Bartels, Karsten, Robert H. Thiele, Barbara Phillips-Bute, Donald D. Glower, Madhav Swaminathan, Joseph Kisslo, and G. Burkhard Mackensen. “Dynamic indices of mitral valve function using perioperative three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography..” J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth 28, no. 1 (February 2014): 18–24. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.jvca.2013.03.024.
Badescu, Gina C., Joseph Kisslo, Niels Risum, Donald D. Glower, and Madhav Swaminathan. “Dyssynchrony: a different kind of mitral regurgitation..” J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth 27, no. 6 (December 2013): 1421–23. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.jvca.2013.06.025.
Risum, Niels, Peter Sogaard, Thomas F. Hansen, Niels E. Bruun, Soren Hoffmann, Joseph Kisslo, Christian Jons, and Niels T. Olsen. “Comparison of dyssynchrony parameters for VV-optimization in CRT patients..” Pacing Clin Electrophysiol 36, no. 11 (November 2013): 1382–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/pace.12203.
Lediju Bell, Muyinatu A., Robi Goswami, Joseph A. Kisslo, Jeremy J. Dahl, and Gregg E. Trahey. “Short-lag spatial coherence imaging of cardiac ultrasound data: initial clinical results..” Ultrasound Med Biol 39, no. 10 (October 2013): 1861–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2013.03.029.
Ersbøll, Mads, Nana Valeur, Mads Jønsson Andersen, Ulrik M. Mogensen, Michael Vinther, Jesper Hastrup Svendsen, Jacob Eifer Møller, et al. “Early echocardiographic deformation analysis for the prediction of sudden cardiac death and life-threatening arrhythmias after myocardial infarction..” Jacc Cardiovasc Imaging 6, no. 8 (August 2013): 851–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcmg.2013.05.009.
Risum, Niels, David Strauss, Peter Sogaard, Zak Loring, Thomas Fritz Hansen, Niels Eske Bruun, Galen Wagner, and Joseph Kisslo. “Left bundle-branch block: the relationship between electrocardiogram electrical activation and echocardiography mechanical contraction..” Am Heart J 166, no. 2 (August 2013): 340–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahj.2013.04.005.
Risum, Niels, Eric S. Williams, Michel G. Khouri, Kevin P. Jackson, Niels Thue Olsen, Christian Jons, Katrine S. Storm, et al. “Mechanical dyssynchrony evaluated by tissue Doppler cross-correlation analysis is associated with long-term survival in patients after cardiac resynchronization therapy..” Eur Heart J 34, no. 1 (January 2013): 48–56. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehs035.
Risum, Niels, Sophia Ali, Niels T. Olsen, Christian Jons, Michel G. Khouri, Trine K. Lauridsen, Zainab Samad, Eric J. Velazquez, Peter Sogaard, and Joseph Kisslo. “Variability of global left ventricular deformation analysis using vendor dependent and independent two-dimensional speckle-tracking software in adults..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 25, no. 11 (November 2012): 1195–1203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2012.08.007.
Risum, Niels, Christian Jons, Niels T. Olsen, Thomas Fritz-Hansen, Niels E. Bruun, Michael V. Hojgaard, Nana Valeur, Mads B. Kronborg, Joseph Kisslo, and Peter Sogaard. “Simple regional strain pattern analysis to predict response to cardiac resynchronization therapy: rationale, initial results, and advantages..” Am Heart J 163, no. 4 (April 2012): 697–704. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahj.2012.01.025.
Turer, Aslan T., Zainab Samad, Anne Marie Valente, Michele A. Parker, Brenda Hayes, Raymond J. Kim, Joseph Kisslo, and Andrew Wang. “Anatomic and clinical correlates of septal morphology in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy..” European Journal of Echocardiography : The Journal of the Working Group on Echocardiography of the European Society of Cardiology 12, no. 2 (February 2011): 131–39. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejechocard/jeq163.
Nihoyannopoulos, P., and J. Kisslo. “Echocardiography.” Echocardiography, December 1, 2009, 1–667. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-293-1.
Smith, W., D. Adams, and J. Kisslo. “Intracardiac masses,” December 1, 2009, 465–71. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-293-1_23.
Reddy, Kalyan E., Edward D. Light, Danny J. Rivera, Joseph A. Kisslo, and Stephen W. Smith. “Color Doppler imaging of cardiac catheters using vibrating motors..” Ultrason Imaging 30, no. 4 (October 2008): 247–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/016173460803000408.
Mathew, Joseph P., Kathryn Glas, Christopher A. Troianos, Pamela Sears-Rogan, Robert Savage, Jack Shanewise, Joseph Kisslo, Solomon Aronson, Stanton Shernan, and Stanton Council for Intraoperative Echocardiography of the American Society of Echocardiography. “ASE/SCA recommendations and guidelines for continuous quality improvement in perioperative echocardiography..” Anesth Analg 103, no. 6 (December 2006): 1416–25. https://doi.org/10.1213/01.ane.0000246837.33639.6a.
Mathew, Joseph P., Kathryn Glas, Christopher A. Troianos, Pamela Sears-Rogan, Robert Savage, Jack Shanewise, Joseph Kisslo, et al. “American Society of Echocardiography/Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists recommendations and guidelines for continuous quality improvement in perioperative echocardiography..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 19, no. 11 (November 2006): 1303–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.echo.2006.08.039.
Nanda, Navin C., Joseph Kisslo, Roberto Lang, Natesa Pandian, Tom Marwick, Girish Shirali, and Gina Kelly. “Examination protocol for three-dimensional echocardiography..” Echocardiography 21, no. 8 (November 2004): 763–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0742-2822.2004.218001.x.
Liao, Lawrence, Christopher H. Cabell, James G. Jollis, Eric J. Velazquez, William T. Smith, Kevin J. Anstrom, Paul A. Pappas, Thomas Ryan, Joseph A. Kisslo, and Carolyn K. Landolfo. “Usefulness of myocardial viability or ischemia in predicting long-term survival for patients with severe left ventricular dysfunction undergoing revascularization..” Am J Cardiol 93, no. 10 (May 15, 2004): 1275–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2004.01.071.
Alexander, John H., Eric D. Peterson, Anita Y. Chen, Tina M. Harding, David B. Adams, and Joseph A. Kisslo. “Feasibility of point-of-care echocardiography by internal medicine house staff..” Am Heart J 147, no. 3 (March 2004): 476–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahj.2003.10.010.
Crawford, Thomas C., William T. Smith, Eric J. Velazquez, Steve M. Taylor, James G. Jollis, and Joseph Kisslo. “Prognostic usefulness of left ventricular thrombus by echocardiography in dilated cardiomyopathy in predicting stroke, transient ischemic attack, and death..” Am J Cardiol 93, no. 4 (February 15, 2004): 500–503. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2003.10.056.
Zhang, Lisheng, Per-Otto Hagen, Joseph Kisslo, Karsten Peppel, and Neil J. Freedman. “Neointimal hyperplasia rapidly reaches steady state in a novel murine vein graft model..” J Vasc Surg 36, no. 4 (October 2002): 824–32.
Ota, T., J. Kisslo, O. T. von Ramm, and J. Yoshikawa. “Real-time, volumetric echocardiography: usefulness of volumetric scanning for the assessment of cardiac volume and function..” J Cardiol 37 Suppl 1 (2001): 93–101.
Kisslo, J., B. Firek, T. Ota, D. H. Kang, C. E. Fleishman, G. Stetten, J. Li, et al. “Real-time volumetric echocardiography: the technology and the possibilities..” Echocardiography 17, no. 8 (November 2000): 773–79.
Roe, M. T., M. A. Abramson, J. Li, S. K. Heinle, J. Kisslo, G. R. Corey, and D. J. Sexton. “Clinical information determines the impact of transesophageal echocardiography on the diagnosis of infective endocarditis by the duke criteria..” Am Heart J 139, no. 6 (June 2000): 945–51. https://doi.org/10.1067/mhj.2000.104762.
Jollis, J. G., C. K. Landolfo, J. Kisslo, G. D. Constantine, K. D. Davis, and T. Ryan. “Fenfluramine and phentermine and cardiovascular findings: effect of treatment duration on prevalence of valve abnormalities..” Circulation 101, no. 17 (May 2, 2000): 2071–77. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.101.17.2071.
Balestrini, L., C. Fleishman, L. Lanzoni, J. Kisslo, A. Resai Bengur, S. P. Sanders, and J. S. Li. “Real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography evaluation of congenital heart disease..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 13, no. 3 (March 2000): 171–76.
Atkins, B. Z., S. C. Silvestry, J. W. Davis, J. A. Kisslo, and D. D. Glower. “Means for load variation during echocardiographic assessment of the Frank-Starling relationship..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 12, no. 10 (October 1999): 792–800.
Gruver, E. J., D. Fatkin, G. A. Dodds, J. Kisslo, B. J. Maron, J. G. Seidman, and C. E. Seidman. “Familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and atrial fibrillation caused by Arg663His beta-cardiac myosin heavy chain mutation..” Am J Cardiol 83, no. 12A (June 17, 1999): 13H-18H. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-9149(99)00251-9.
Ota, T., C. E. Fleishman, M. Strub, G. Stetten, C. J. Ohazama, O. T. von Ramm, and J. Kisslo. “Real-time, three-dimensional echocardiography: feasibility of dynamic right ventricular volume measurement with saline contrast..” Am Heart J 137, no. 5 (May 1999): 958–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-8703(99)70422-9.
Collins, M., A. Hsieh, C. J. Ohazama, T. Ota, G. Stetten, C. L. Donovan, J. Kisslo, and T. Ryan. “Assessment of regional wall motion abnormalities with real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 12, no. 1 (January 1999): 7–14.
Kisslo, J. “Reconsidering quality..” Heart 80 Suppl 1 (November 1998): S27–29. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.80.2008.27s.
Shiota, T., M. Jones, M. Chikada, C. E. Fleishman, J. B. Castellucci, B. Cotter, A. N. DeMaria, et al. “Real-time three-dimensional echocardiography for determining right ventricular stroke volume in an animal model of chronic right ventricular volume overload..” Circulation 97, no. 19 (May 19, 1998): 1897–1900. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.97.19.1897.
Stetten, G. D., T. Ota, C. J. Ohazama, C. Fleishman, J. Castellucci, J. Oxaal, T. Ryan, J. Kisslo, and O. T. Von Ramm. “Real-time 3D ultrasound: A new look at the heart.” Journal of Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Procedures 15, no. 2 (January 1, 1998): 73–84.
Wharton, W. W., C. L. Donovan, A. Hsieh, M. E. Collins, J. A. Kisslo, and T. Ryan. “Reproducibility and beat-to-beat variability of digital echocardiograms.” Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography 10, no. 4 (December 1, 1997).
Kisslo, J. “A letter from America..” Heart 78 Suppl 1 (August 1997): 29–30. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.78.suppl_1.29.
Ota, T., D. M. Craig, and J. Kisslo. “Influences of ultrasonic machine settings, transducer frequency and placement of region of interest on the measurement of integrated backscatter and cyclic variation..” Ultrasound Med Biol 23, no. 7 (1997): 1059–70.
Ota, T., N. D. Hillman, D. Craig, J. Kisslo, and P. K. Smith. “Contrast echocardiography: influence of ultrasonic machine settings, mixing conditions, and pressurization on pixel intensity and microsphere size of Albunex solutions in vitro..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 10, no. 1 (January 1997): 31–40.
Dodds, G. A., W. E. Wilkinson, R. A. Greenfield, A. Natale, J. Kisslo, and E. L. Pritchett. “Evaluation of the effect of transthoracic cardioversion from ventricular tachycardia to sinus rhythm on left atrial mechanical function..” Am J Cardiol 78, no. 12 (December 15, 1996): 1436–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-9149(97)89298-3.
Kisslo, J. “A letter from America..” Heart 75, no. 6 Suppl 2 (June 1996): 43–44. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.75.6_suppl_2.43.
Zipprich, D. A., C. H. Owen, C. W. Lewis, S. A. Gall, J. W. Davis, J. A. Kisslo, and D. D. Glower. “Assessment of the Frank-Starling relationship by two-dimensional echocardiography..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 9, no. 3 (May 1996): 231–40.
Dodds, G. A., D. J. Sexton, D. T. Durack, T. M. Bashore, G. R. Corey, and J. Kisslo. “Negative predictive value of the Duke criteria for infective endocarditis..” Am J Cardiol 77, no. 5 (February 15, 1996): 403–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-9149(97)89372-1.
Ungerleider, R. M., J. A. Kisslo, W. J. Greeley, J. S. Li, R. J. Kanter, F. H. Kern, S. R. Schulman, J. W. Nesmith, J. W. Gaynor, and A. R. Bengur. “Intraoperative echocardiography during congenital heart operations: experience from 1,000 cases..” Ann Thorac Surg 60, no. 6 Suppl (December 1995): S539–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-4975(95)00853-5.
Bohs, L. N., B. H. Friemel, J. Kisslo, D. T. Harfe, K. R. Nightingale, and G. E. Trahey. “Three-dimensional flow images by reconstruction from two-dimensional vector velocity maps..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 8, no. 6 (November 1995): 915–23.
Dodds, G. A., M. A. Abramson, G. R. Corey, J. Kisslo, and D. J. Sexton. “Use of the Duke criteria for the diagnosis of infective endocarditis..” Clin Infect Dis 21, no. 2 (August 1995): 448–49. https://doi.org/10.1093/clinids/21.2.448.
Heinle, S. K., F. D. Tice, and J. Kisslo. “Hypotension during dobutamine stress echocardiography: is it related to dynamic intraventricular obstruction?.” Am Heart J 130, no. 2 (August 1995): 314–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(95)90446-8.
Heinle, S. K., and J. Kisslo. “The clinical utility of transesophageal echocardiography in patients with left-sided infective endocarditis..” Am J Card Imaging 9, no. 3 (July 1995): 199–202.
Lieberman, E. B., S. K. Heinle, N. Wildermann, R. A. Waugh, J. A. Kisslo, and T. M. Bashore. “Does hypotension during dobutamine stress echocardiography correlate with anatomic or functional cardiac impairment?.” Am Heart J 129, no. 6 (June 1995): 1121–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(95)90392-5.
Kisslo, J. “To my friend in echocardiography..” Br Heart J 73, no. 5 Suppl 2 (May 1995): 33–36. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.73.5_suppl_2.33.
Heinle, S. K., F. D. Tice, and J. Kisslo. “Effect of dobutamine stress echocardiography on mitral regurgitation..” J Am Coll Cardiol 25, no. 1 (January 1995): 122–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/0735-1097(94)00358-w.
Hodgins, L., J. A. Kisslo, and J. B. Mark. “Perioperative transesophageal echocardiography: the anesthesiologist as cardiac diagnostician..” Anesth Analg 80, no. 1 (January 1995): 4–6. https://doi.org/10.1097/00000539-199501000-00002.
Kisslo, J. “Preamble.” Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography 8, no. 5 PART 2 (January 1, 1995).
Stewart, W. J., G. P. Aurigemma, F. Z. Bierman, J. M. Gardin, J. A. Kisslo, A. S. Pearlman, J. B. Seward, and A. E. Weyman. “Guidelines for training in adult cardiovascular medicine. Core Cardiology Training Symposium (COCATS). Task Force 4: training in echocardiography..” Journal of the American College of Cardiology 25, no. 1 (January 1995): 16–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/0735-1097(95)96218-n.
Tice, F. D., S. K. Heinle, J. K. Harrison, T. M. Bashore, E. B. Lieberman, J. S. Wilson, K. B. Kisslo, and J. Kisslo. “Transesophageal echocardiographic assessment of reversal of systolic pulmonary venous flow in mitral stenosis..” Am J Cardiol 75, no. 1 (January 1, 1995): 58–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-9149(99)80528-1.
Heinle, S., N. Wilderman, J. K. Harrison, R. Waugh, T. Bashore, L. M. Nicely, D. Durack, and J. Kisslo. “Value of transthoracic echocardiography in predicting embolic events in active infective endocarditis. Duke Endocarditis Service..” Am J Cardiol 74, no. 8 (October 15, 1994): 799–801. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(94)90438-3.
Smith, S. W., M. P. Combs, D. B. Adams, and J. A. Kisslo. “Improved cardiac anthropomorphic phantom..” J Ultrasound Med 13, no. 8 (August 1994): 601–5.
Kisslo, J. “A letter from America..” Br Heart J 71, no. 4 Suppl (April 1994): 28–30. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.71.4_suppl.28.
Durack, D. T., A. S. Lukes, and D. K. Bright. “New criteria for diagnosis of infective endocarditis: utilization of specific echocardiographic findings. Duke Endocarditis Service..” Am J Med 96, no. 3 (March 1994): 200–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9343(94)90143-0.
Gaynor, J. W., M. P. Feneley, S. A. Gall, G. W. Maier, J. A. Kisslo, J. W. Davis, J. S. Rankin, and D. D. Glower. “Measurement of left ventricular volume in normal and volume-overloaded canine hearts.” American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulatory Physiology 266, no. 1 35-1 (January 1, 1994).
Kisslo, J. “A letter from America.” British Heart Journal 71, no. 4 SUPPL. (1994): 28–30.
Heinle, S. K., E. B. Lieberman, M. Ancukiewicz, R. A. Waugh, T. M. Bashore, and J. Kisslo. “Usefulness of dobutamine echocardiography for detecting restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty..” Am J Cardiol 72, no. 17 (December 1, 1993): 1220–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(93)90287-m.
Crouse, L. J., J. Cheirif, D. E. Hanly, J. A. Kisslo, A. J. Labovitz, J. S. Raichlen, R. W. Schutz, P. M. Shah, and M. D. Smith. “Opacification and border delineation improvement in patients with suboptimal endocardial border definition in routine echocardiography: results of the Phase III Albunex Multicenter Trial..” J Am Coll Cardiol 22, no. 5 (November 1, 1993): 1494–1500. https://doi.org/10.1016/0735-1097(93)90562-f.
Corey, G. R., P. T. Campbell, P. Van Trigt, R. T. Kenney, C. M. O’Connor, K. H. Sheikh, J. A. Kisslo, and T. C. Wall. “Etiology of large pericardial effusions..” Am J Med 95, no. 2 (August 1993): 209–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9343(93)90262-n.
Heinle, S., M. Hanson, L. Gracey, E. Coleman, and J. Kisslo. “Correlation of adenosine echocardiography and thallium scintigraphy..” Am Heart J 125, no. 6 (June 1993): 1606–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(93)90748-x.
Tice, F. D., and J. Kisslo. “Echocardiography in the diagnosis of thoracic aortic pathology..” Int J Card Imaging 9 Suppl 2 (1993): 27–38.
Gardner, C. J., S. Brown, S. Hagen-Ansert, P. Harrigan, J. Kisslo, K. Kisslo, O. L. Kwan, F. Menapace, C. Otto, and N. Pandian. “Guidelines for cardiac sonographer education: report of the American Society of Echocardiography Sonographer Education and Training Committee..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 5, no. 6 (November 1992): 635–39.
Ungerleider, R. M., W. J. Greeley, R. J. Kanter, and J. A. Kisslo. “The learning curve for intraoperative echocardiography during congenital heart surgery..” Ann Thorac Surg 54, no. 4 (October 1992): 691–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-4975(92)91013-y.
Wall, T. C., P. T. Campbell, C. M. O’Connor, P. Van Trigt, R. T. Kenney, K. H. Sheikh, J. A. Kisslo, and G. R. Corey. “Diagnosis and management (by subxiphoid pericardiotomy) of large pericardial effusions causing cardiac tamponade..” Am J Cardiol 69, no. 12 (April 15, 1992): 1075–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(92)90866-w.
Campbell, P. T., P. Van Trigt, T. C. Wall, R. T. Kenney, C. M. O’Connor, K. H. Sheikh, J. A. Kisslo, M. E. Baker, and G. R. Corey. “Subxiphoid pericardiotomy in the diagnosis and management of large pericardial effusions associated with malignancy..” Chest 101, no. 4 (April 1992): 938–43. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.101.4.938.
Longabaugh, J. P., K. H. Sheikh, J. R. Bengtson, J. S. Rankin, N. P. De Bruijn, S. K. Heinle, and J. Kisslo. “Diagnosis and management of ischemic mitral regurgitation with the use of transesophageal echocardiography.” Coronary Artery Disease 3, no. 5 (January 1, 1992): 377–81.
Millman, D. S., and J. Kisslo. “Health Care Financing Administration release of final physician payment reform regulation..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 5, no. 1 (January 1992): 103–6.
Smith, S. W., T. M. Miller, and J. Kisslo. “Anthropomorphic cardiac ultrasound phantom with coronary arteries.” Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Engineering in Medicine and Biology 13, no. pt 1 (December 1, 1991): 138–39.
Ismail, S., S. H. Johnson, H. Utsunomiya, D. Craig, J. A. Kisslo, and P. K. Smith. “Safety and efficacy of sonicated albumin microspheres in perfusion and vein graft patency assessments..” Clin Cardiol 14, no. 11 Suppl 5 (November 1991): V29–32. https://doi.org/10.1002/clc.4960141707.
Sheikh, K. H., J. R. Bengtson, J. S. Rankin, N. P. de Bruijn, and J. Kisslo. “Intraoperative transesophageal Doppler color flow imaging used to guide patient selection and operative treatment of ischemic mitral regurgitation..” Circulation 84, no. 2 (August 1991): 594–604. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.84.2.594.
Sahn, D., and J. Kisslo. “Report of the Council on Scientific Affairs: ultrasonic imaging of the heart: report of the Ultrasonography Task Force..” Arch Intern Med 151, no. 7 (July 1991): 1288–94.
Sheikh, K. H., C. J. Davidson, K. B. Kisslo, J. K. Harrison, S. I. Himmelstein, J. Kisslo, and T. M. Bashore. “Comparison of intravascular ultrasound, external ultrasound and digital angiography for evaluation of peripheral artery dimensions and morphology..” Am J Cardiol 67, no. 9 (April 15, 1991): 817–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(91)90613-p.
Belkin, R. N., D. B. Mark, L. Aronson, H. Szwed, R. M. Califf, and J. Kisslo. “Pericardial effusion after intravenous recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator for acute myocardial infarction..” Am J Cardiol 67, no. 6 (March 1, 1991): 496–500. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(91)90010-i.
Sheikh, K. H., R. M. Ungerleider, D. B. Adams, and J. Kisslo. “Echo-Doppler in the diagnosis and management of congenital heart disease..” Trends Cardiovasc Med 1, no. 2 (March 1991): 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/1050-1738(91)90010-C.
Fortin, D. F., K. H. Sheikh, and J. Kisslo. “The utility of echocardiography in the diagnostic strategy of postinfarction ventricular septal rupture: a comparison of two-dimensional echocardiography versus Doppler color flow imaging..” American Heart Journal 121, no. 1 Pt 1 (January 1991): 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(91)90951-d.
Kisslo, J., and D. B. Adams. “Reporting of preliminary data: time to take our sonographers "off the hook"..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 4, no. 1 (January 1991): 6–9.
Sahn, D., and J. Kisslo. “Report of the council on scientific affairs: ultrasonic imaging of the heart: report of the ultrasonography task force.” Archives of Internal Medicine 151, no. 7 (1991): 1288–94. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.151.7.1288.
Sheikh, K., S. W. Smith, O. von Ramm, and J. Kisslo. “Real-time, three-dimensional echocardiography: feasibility and initial use..” Echocardiography 8, no. 1 (January 1991): 119–25.
Greeley, W. J., F. H. Kern, R. M. Ungerleider, and J. A. Kisslo. “Intramyocardial air causes right ventricular dysfunction after repair of a congenital heart defect..” Anesthesiology 73, no. 5 (November 1990): 1042–46. https://doi.org/10.1097/00000542-199011000-00037.
Belkin, R. N., and J. Kisslo. “Atrial septal aneurysm: recognition and clinical relevance..” Am Heart J 120, no. 4 (October 1990): 948–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(90)90214-i.
Ungerleider, R. M., W. J. Greeley, K. H. Sheikh, J. Philips, F. B. Pearce, F. H. Kern, and J. A. Kisslo. “Routine use of intraoperative epicardial echocardiography and Doppler color flow imaging to guide and evaluate repair of congenital heart lesions. A prospective study..” J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 100, no. 2 (August 1990): 297–309.
Fortin, D. F., K. H. Sheikh, and J. Kisslo. “Color flow doppler versus 2-dimensional echocardiography in the identification of post-infarction ventricular septal defect.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology 15, no. 5 (April 1, 1990).
Ohman, E. M., S. Helmy, E. Shaughnessy, D. B. Adams, and J. Kisslo. “In vitro analysis of jets by Doppler colour flow imaging: the importance of time to maximum jet area..” Eur Heart J 11, no. 4 (April 1990): 361–67. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.eurheartj.a059711.
Sheikh, K. H., J. R. Bengtson, S. Helmy, C. Juarez, R. Burgess, T. M. Bashore, and J. Kisslo. “Relation of quantitative coronary lesion measurements to the development of exercise-induced ischemia assessed by exercise echocardiography..” J Am Coll Cardiol 15, no. 5 (April 1990): 1043–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/0735-1097(90)90238-k.
Allen, N. B., C. C. Cox, M. Cobo, J. Kisslo, M. R. Jacobs, R. M. McCallum, and B. F. Haynes. “Use of immunosuppressive agents in the treatment of severe ocular and vascular manifestations of Cogan's syndrome..” Am J Med 88, no. 3 (March 1990): 296–301. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9343(90)90157-9.
Kabas, J. S., J. Kisslo, C. L. Flick, S. H. Johnson, D. M. Craig, T. E. Stanley, and P. K. Smith. “Intraoperative perfusion contrast echocardiography. Initial experience during coronary artery bypass grafting..” J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 99, no. 3 (March 1990): 536–42.
Kisslo, J., and D. S. Millman. “Reimbursement update: looking toward the 1990s..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 3, no. 2 (March 1990): 154–57.
Sheikh, K. H., F. B. Pearce, and J. Kisslo. “Use of Doppler echocardiography and amyl nitrite inhalation to characterize left ventricular outflow obstruction in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy..” Chest 97, no. 2 (February 1990): 389–95. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.97.2.389.
Sheikh, K. H., N. P. de Bruijn, J. S. Rankin, F. M. Clements, T. Stanley, W. G. Wolfe, and J. Kisslo. “The utility of transesophageal echocardiography and Doppler color flow imaging in patients undergoing cardiac valve surgery..” J Am Coll Cardiol 15, no. 2 (February 1990): 363–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0735-1097(10)80064-6.
Sheikh, K., J. Bengtson, S. Helmy, C. Juarex, R. Burgess, T. Bashore, and J. Kisslo. “Relation of Quantitative Coronary Lesion Measurement to the Development of Exerciese Induced Ischemia Assessed by Exercise Echocardiography.” Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography 6, no. 5 (January 1, 1990). https://doi.org/10.1177/875647939000600521.
Kim, J. H., A. Wiseman, J. Kisslo, and D. T. Durack. “Echocardiographic detection and clinical significance of left atrial vegetations in active infective endocarditis..” Am J Cardiol 64, no. 14 (October 15, 1989): 950–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(89)90853-9.
Rankin, J. S., S. A. Livesey, L. R. Smith, K. H. Sheikh, P. Van Trigt, N. P. de Bruijn, R. M. Califf, D. D. Glower, J. A. Kisslo, and W. G. Wolfe. “Trends in the surgical treatment of ischemic mitral regurgitation: effects of mitral valve repair on hospital mortality..” Semin Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 1, no. 2 (October 1989): 149–63.
Ungerleider, R. M., W. J. Greeley, K. H. Sheikh, F. H. Kern, J. A. Kisslo, and D. C. Sabiston. “The use of intraoperative echo with Doppler color flow imaging to predict outcome after repair of congenital cardiac defects..” Ann Surg 210, no. 4 (October 1989): 526–33. https://doi.org/10.1097/00000658-198910000-00013.
Kisslo, J. “Two-dimensional echocardiography in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia..” Eur Heart J 10 Suppl D (September 1989): 22–26. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/10.suppl_d.22.
Pearce, F. B., K. H. Sheikh, N. P. deBruijn, and J. Kisslo. “Imaging of the coronary arteries by transesophageal echocardiography..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 2, no. 4 (July 1989): 276–83.
Ungerleider, R. M., J. A. Kisslo, W. J. Greeley, P. Van Trigt, and D. C. Sabiston. “Intraoperative prebypass and postbypass epicardial color flow imaging in the repair of atrioventricular septal defects..” J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 98, no. 1 (July 1989): 90–99.
Greeley, W. J., T. E. Stanley, R. M. Ungerleider, and J. A. Kisslo. “Intraoperative hypoxemic spells in tetralogy of Fallot. An echocardiographic analysis of diagnosis and treatment..” Anesth Analg 68, no. 6 (June 1989): 815–19.
Sheikh, K. H., T. M. Bashore, D. W. Kitzman, C. J. Davidson, T. N. Skelton, M. B. Honan, K. B. Kisslo, M. B. Higginbotham, and J. Kisslo. “Doppler left ventricular diastolic filling abnormalities in aortic stenosis and their relation to hemodynamic parameters..” Am J Cardiol 63, no. 18 (June 1, 1989): 1360–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(89)91049-7.
Sheikh, K. H., D. B. Adams, R. McCann, H. K. Lyerly, D. C. Sabiston, and J. Kisslo. “Utility of Doppler color flow imaging for identification of femoral arterial complications of cardiac catheterization..” Am Heart J 117, no. 3 (March 1989): 623–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(89)90737-0.
Davidson, C. J., D. A. Harpole, K. Kisslo, T. N. Skelton, J. Kisslo, R. H. Jones, and T. M. Bashore. “Analysis of the early rise in aortic transvalvular gradient after aortic valvuloplasty..” Am Heart J 117, no. 2 (February 1989): 411–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(89)90788-6.
Kisslo, J., D. S. Millman, M. E. Michnich, and R. Popp. “Changes in Medicare reimbursement for echocardiographic procedures..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 2, no. 1 (January 1989): 75–78.
Moon, R. E., E. M. Camporesi, and J. A. Kisslo. “Patient foramen ovale and decompression sickness in divers.” Lancet 1, no. 8637 (January 1, 1989): 513–14.
Ungerleider, R. M., W. J. Greeley, and J. Kisslo. “Intraoperative echocardiography in congenital heart disease surgery: preliminary report on a current study..” Am J Cardiol 63 Suppl (1989): 3F-14F.
Feneley, M. P., J. W. Gaynor, G. W. Maier, S. A. Gall, J. A. Kisslo, and J. S. Rankin. “In vivo estimation of left ventricular wall volume in volume-overloaded canine hearts.” American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulatory Physiology 255, no. 6 (December 1, 1988).
Kisslo, J., and D. Millman. “Consequence of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987: elimination of markup for certain diagnostic tests..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 1, no. 5 (September 1988): 388–90.
Kisslo, J. “Crises in echocardiography..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 1, no. 3 (May 1988): 235–39.
Adams, D., K. B. Kisslo, and J. Kisslo. “Credentialing of the cardiac sonographer: the need for unification..” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 1, no. 1 (January 1988): 100–102.
Kabas, J. S., C. L. Flick, J. A. Kisslo, S. M. Scott, G. Sethi, and P. K. Smith. “Evaluation of myocardial perfusion during coronary artery bypass grafting using intraoperative contrast echocardiography.” Surgical Forum 39 (January 1, 1988): 262–64.
Kisslo, J., D. S. Millman, D. B. Adams, and J. L. Weiss. “Interpretation of echocardiographic data: are physicians and sonographers violating the law?.” J Am Soc Echocardiogr 1, no. 1 (January 1988): 95–99.
Belkin, R. N., B. J. Hurwitz, and J. Kisslo. “Atrial septal aneurysm: association with cerebrovascular and peripheral embolic events..” Stroke 18, no. 5 (September 1987): 856–62.
Feneley, M. P., G. W. Maier, J. W. Gaynor, S. A. Gall, J. A. Kisslo, J. W. Davis, and J. S. Rankin. “Sequence of mitral valve motion and transmitral blood flow during manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation in dogs..” Circulation 76, no. 2 (August 1987): 363–75. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.76.2.363.
Sprecher, D. L., R. Adamick, D. Adams, and J. Kisslo. “In vitro color flow, pulsed and continuous wave Doppler ultrasound masking of flow by prosthetic valves..” J Am Coll Cardiol 9, no. 6 (June 1987): 1306–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0735-1097(87)80470-9.
Bruijn, N. P. de, F. M. Clements, and J. A. Kisslo. “Intraoperative transesophageal color flow mapping: initial experience..” Anesth Analg 66, no. 5 (May 1987): 386–90. https://doi.org/10.1213/00000539-198705000-00002.
Stack, R. S., J. E. Ramage, R. P. Bauman, J. C. Rembert, H. R. Phillips, and J. A. Kisslo. “Validation of in vivo two-dimensional echocardiographic dimension measurements using myocardial mass estimates in dogs..” Am Heart J 113, no. 3 (March 1987): 725–31.
BRUIJN, N. P. D., F. M. CLEMENTS, and J. KISSLO. “Transesophageal Applications of Color Flow Imaging.” Echocardiography 4, no. 6 (January 1, 1987): 557–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-8175.1987.tb01369.x.
Vidaillet, H. J., T. N. Skelton, K. B. Kisslo, J. Kisslo, and T. M. Bashore. “Echocardiographic guidance of cardiac catheterization for atrial septal defect in pregnancy..” Am J Cardiol 58, no. 11 (November 15, 1986): 1133–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(86)90139-6.
Belkin, R. N., and J. Kisslo. “Clinical applications of echocardiography in myocardial and valvular heart disease..” Prog Cardiovasc Dis 29, no. 2 (September 1986): 81–106.
Clements, F. M., N. P. de Bruijn, and J. A. Kisslo. “Transesophageal echocardiographic observations in a patient undergoing closed-chest massage..” Anesthesiology 64, no. 6 (June 1986): 826–28.
Snyder, J. E., J. Kisslo, and O. von Ramm. “Real-time orthogonal mode scanning of the heart. I. System design..” J Am Coll Cardiol 7, no. 6 (June 1986): 1279–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0735-1097(86)80147-4.
Hassett, A., J. Moran, D. C. Sabiston, and J. Kisslo. “Utility of echocardiography in the management of patients with penetrating missile wounds of the heart..” J Am Coll Cardiol 7, no. 5 (May 1986): 1151–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0735-1097(86)80237-6.
Belkin, R. N., R. A. Waugh, and J. Kisslo. “Interatrial shunting in atrial septal aneurysm..” Am J Cardiol 57, no. 4 (February 1, 1986): 310–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(86)90909-4.
ADAMICK, R., D. SPRECHER, R. E. COLEMAN, and J. KISSLO. “Pseudoaneurysm of the Left Ventricle.” Echocardiography 3, no. 3 (January 1, 1986): 237–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-8175.1986.tb00200.x.
MEESE, R. B., D. ADAMS, and J. KISSLO. “Assessment of Valvular Regurgitation by Conventional and Color Flow Doppler in Dilated Cardiomyopathy.” Echocardiography 3, no. 6 (January 1, 1986): 505–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-8175.1986.tb00225.x.
Carlson, E. B., W. G. Wolfe, and J. Kisslo. “Subvalvular left ventricular pseudoaneurysm after mitral valve replacement: two-dimensional echocardiographic findings..” J Am Coll Cardiol 6, no. 5 (November 1985): 1164–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0735-1097(85)80326-0.
Hamilton, K., K. Ellenbogen, J. E. Lowe, and J. Kisslo. “Ultrasound diagnosis of pseudoaneurysm and contiguous ventricular septal defect complicating inferior myocardial infarction..” J Am Coll Cardiol 6, no. 5 (November 1985): 1160–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0735-1097(85)80325-9.
Krafchek, J., M. Shaw, and J. Kisslo. “Upright paradoxical posterior wall movement in mitral valve prolapse..” Am J Cardiol 56, no. 12 (November 1, 1985): 804–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(85)91147-6.
Moorman, J. R., R. E. Coleman, D. L. Packer, J. A. Kisslo, J. Bell, B. D. Hettleman, J. Stajich, and A. D. Roses. “Cardiac involvement in myotonic muscular dystrophy..” Medicine (Baltimore) 64, no. 6 (November 1985): 371–87. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005792-198511000-00002.
Krafchek, J., J. H. Robertson, M. Radford, D. Adams, and J. Kisslo. “A reconsideration of Doppler assessed gradients in suspected aortic stenosis..” Am Heart J 110, no. 4 (October 1985): 765–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(85)90455-7.
Cox, J. L., G. H. Bardy, R. J. Damiano, L. D. German, J. M. Fedor, J. A. Kisslo, D. L. Packer, and J. J. Gallagher. “Right ventricular isolation procedures for nonischemic ventricular tachycardia..” The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 90, no. 2 (August 1985): 212–24.
Robertson, J. H., G. H. Bardy, L. D. German, J. J. Gallagher, and J. Kisslo. “Comparison of two-dimensional echocardiographic and angiographic findings in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia..” Am J Cardiol 55, no. 13 Pt 1 (June 1, 1985): 1506–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(85)90962-2.
Skelton, T. N., and J. Kisslo. “Real-time Doppler color flow mapping in stenotic valvular lesions.” Echocardiography 2, no. 6 (January 1, 1985): 523–31.
Silverman, P. M., J. F. Guadalajara, J. A. Kisslo, J. D. Godwin, and M. Korobkin. “Lipomatous hypertrophy of the atrial septum: diagnosis by combined two-dimensional echocardiography and computerized tomography..” Am J Cardiol 54, no. 8 (November 1, 1984): 1156–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-9149(84)80174-5.
Teague, S. M., O. T. von Ramm, and J. A. Kisslo. “Pulsed Doppler spectral analysis of bounded fluid jets..” Ultrasound Med Biol 10, no. 4 (July 1984): 435–41.
Bommer, W. J., P. M. Shah, H. Allen, R. Meltzer, and J. Kisslo. “The safety of contrast echocardiography: report of the Committee on Contrast Echocardiography for the American Society of Echocardiography..” J Am Coll Cardiol 3, no. 1 (January 1984): 6–13.
Kisslo, J. “The cardiac diagnostic unit. A new approach to patient care..” Radiol Clin North Am 21, no. 4 (December 1983): 623–32.
Kisslo, J., J. F. Guadalajara, J. A. Stewart, and R. S. Stack. “Echocardiography in infective endocarditis..” Herz 8, no. 5 (October 1983): 271–79.
Bardy, G. H., P. Valenstein, R. S. Stack, J. T. Baker, and J. A. Kisslo. “Two-dimensional echocardiographic identification of sinus of Valsalva-right heart fistula due to infective endocarditis..” Am Heart J 103, no. 6 (June 1982): 1068–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-8703(82)90571-3.
Popp, R. L., N. J. Fortuin, M. L. Johnson, and J. A. Kisslo. “Optimal resources for ultrasonic examination of the heart. Echocardiography study group..” Circulation 65, no. 2 (February 1982): 423A-431A.
Harrison, L. H., J. A. Kisslo, and D. C. Sabiston. “Extraction of intramyocardial foreign body utilizing operative ultrasonography..” J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 82, no. 3 (September 1981): 345–49.
Hidalgo, H., M. Korobkin, R. S. Breiman, and J. R. Kisslo. “CT of intracardiac tumor..” Ajr Am J Roentgenol 137, no. 3 (September 1981): 608–9. https://doi.org/10.2214/ajr.137.3.608.
Wise, N. K., S. Myers, T. D. Fraker, J. A. Stewart, and J. A. Kisslo. “Contrast M-mode ultrasonography of the inferior vena cava..” Circulation 63, no. 5 (May 1981): 1100–1103. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.63.5.1100.
Magnin, P. A., J. A. Stewart, S. Myers, O. von Ramm, and J. A. Kisslo. “Combined doppler and phased-array echocardiographic estimation of cardiac output..” Circulation 63, no. 2 (February 1981): 388–92. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.63.2.388.
Stack, R., and J. Kisslo. “Evaluation of the left ventricle with two dimensional echocardiography..” Am J Cardiol 46, no. 7 (December 18, 1980): 1117–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(80)90281-7.
Margolis, J. R., J. T. Chen, Y. Kong, R. H. Peter, V. S. Behar, and J. A. Kisslo. “The diagnostic and prognostic significance of coronary artery calcification. A report of 800 cases..” Radiology 137, no. 3 (December 1980): 609–16. https://doi.org/10.1148/radiology.137.3.7444045.
Henry, W. L., A. DeMaria, R. Gramiak, D. L. King, J. A. Kisslo, R. L. Popp, D. J. Sahn, et al. “Report of the American Society of Echocardiography Committee on Nomenclature and Standards in Two-dimensional Echocardiography..” Circulation 62, no. 2 (August 1980): 212–17. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.62.2.212.
Kisslo, J. “Two-dimensional echocardiography..” Radiol Clin North Am 18, no. 1 (April 1980): 105–15.
Kisslo, J. “Echocardiography of the mitral valve..” Med Clin North Am 64, no. 2 (March 1980): 225–37.
Stewart, J. A., D. Silimperi, P. Harris, N. K. Wise, T. D. Fraker, and J. A. Kisslo. “Echocardiographic documentation of vegetative lesions in infective endocarditis: clinical implications..” Circulation 61, no. 2 (February 1980): 374–80. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.61.2.374.
Henruy, W. L., R. Gramiak, D. King, J. Kisslo, R. Popp, D. J. Sahn, N. Schiller, et al. “RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMAGE ORIENTATION FOR CROSS-SECTIONAL ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY.,” December 1, 1979.
Kisslo, J. “Comparison of M-mode and two-dimensional echocardiography..” Circulation 60, no. 4 (October 1979): 734–36. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.60.4.734.
Stewart, J. A., T. D. Fraker, D. A. Slosky, N. K. Wise, and J. A. Kisslo. “Detection of persistent left superior vena cava by two-dimensional contrast echocardiography..” J Clin Ultrasound 7, no. 5 (October 1979): 357–60.
Fraker, T. D., P. J. Harris, V. S. Behar, and J. A. Kisslo. “Detection and exclusion of interatrial shunts by two-dimensional echocardiography and peripheral venous injection..” Circulation 59, no. 2 (February 1979): 379–84. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.59.2.379.
Kisslo, J. A. “Evaluation of the left ventricle by two-dimensional echocardiography..” Acta Med Scand Suppl 627 (1979): 112–19.
Kisslo, J. A. “Phased array cardiac imaging: system operation, results and clinical role..” Acta Med Scand Suppl 627 (1979): 57–67.
Sahn, D. J., A. DeMaria, J. Kisslo, and A. Weyman. “Recommendations regarding quantitation in M-mode echocardiography: results of a survey of echocardiographic measurements..” Circulation 58, no. 6 (December 1978): 1072–83. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.58.6.1072.
Crawford, F. A., A. S. Wechsler, and J. A. Kisslo. “Tricuspid endocarditis in a drug addict; detection of tricuspid vegetations by two-dimensional echocardiography..” Chest 74, no. 4 (October 1978): 473–75. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.74.4.473.
Conley, M. J., R. L. Ely, J. Kisslo, K. L. Lee, J. F. McNeer, and R. A. Rosati. “The prognostic spectrum of left main stenosis..” Circulation 57, no. 5 (May 1978): 947–52. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.57.5.947.
Smith, S. W., O. T. von Ramm, J. A. Kisslo, and F. L. Thurstone. “Real time ultrasound tomography of the adult brain..” Stroke 9, no. 2 (March 1978): 117–22.
Kisslo, J. A., D. Robertson, and B. W. Gilbert. “A comparison of real-time, two-dimensional echocardiography and cineangiography in detecting left ventricular asynergy.” Investigative Radiology 13, no. 2 (January 1, 1978): 171–72. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004424-197803000-00013.
Kisslo, J. A., O. T. von Ramm, and F. L. Thurstone. “Techniques for real-time two-dimensional echocardiography..” Cardiovasc Clin 9, no. 2 (1978): 21–38.
Lieppe, W., V. S. Behar, R. Scallion, and J. A. Kisslo. “Detection of tricuspid regurgitation with two-dimensional echocardiography and peripheral vein injections..” Circulation 57, no. 1 (January 1978): 128–32. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.57.1.128.
McNeer, J. F., J. R. Margolis, K. L. Lee, J. A. Kisslo, R. H. Peter, Y. Kong, V. S. Behar, A. G. Wallace, C. B. McCants, and R. A. Rosati. “The role of the exercise test in the evaluation of patients for ischemic heart disease..” Circulation 57, no. 1 (January 1978): 64–70. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.57.1.64.
Lieppe, W., R. Scallion, V. S. Behar, and J. A. Kisslo. “Two-dimensional echocardiographic findings in atrial septal defect..” Circulation 56, no. 3 (September 1977): 447–56. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.56.3.447.
Kisslo, J. A., O. T. vonRamm, and F. L. Thurstone. “Clinical results of real-time ultrasonic scanning of the heart using a phased array system..” Yale J Biol Med 50, no. 4 (July 1977): 355–65.
Kisslo, J. A., O. T. vonRamm, and F. L. Thurstone. “Dynamic cardiac imaging using a focused, phased-array ultrasound system..” Am J Med 63, no. 1 (July 1977): 61–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9343(77)90118-8.
Gilbert, B. W., R. S. Haney, F. Crawford, J. McClellan, H. A. Gallis, M. L. Johnson, and J. A. Kisslo. “Two-dimensional echocardiographic assessment of vegetative endocarditis..” Circulation 55, no. 2 (February 1977): 346–53. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.55.2.346.
Kisslo, J. A., D. Robertson, B. W. Gilbert, O. von Ramm, and V. S. Behar. “A comparison of real-time, two dimensional echocardiography and cineangiography in detecting left ventricular asynergy..” Circulation 55, no. 1 (January 1977): 134–41. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.55.1.134.
Nichol, P. M., B. W. Gilbert, and J. A. Kisslo. “Two-dimensional echocardiographic assessment of mitral stenosis..” Circulation 55, no. 1 (January 1977): 120–28. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.55.1.120.
Johnson, M. L., and J. A. Kisslo. “Basic diagnostic echocardiography..” Dis Mon 23, no. 3 (December 1976): 1–58.
Gilbert, B. W., R. A. Schatz, O. T. VonRamm, V. S. Behar, and J. A. Kisslo. “Mitral valve prolapse. Two-dimensional echocardiographic and angiographic correlation..” Circulation 54, no. 5 (November 1976): 716–23. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.54.5.716.
Kisslo, J., O. T. Von Ramm, R. Haney, R. Jones, S. S. Juk, and V. S. Behar. “Echocardiographic evaluation of tricuspid valve endocarditis: an M mode and two dimensional study..” Am J Cardiol 38, no. 4 (October 1976): 502–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9149(76)90469-0.
Peter, R. H., V. S. Behar, Y. Kong, J. A. Kisslo, and J. R. Margolis. “Letter: Left circumflex coronary artery in SCS..” Circulation 53, no. 6 (June 1976): 1042–43. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.53.6.1042.
Kisslo, J., O. Von Ramm, and F. L. Thurstone. “Dynamic cardiac imaging using a phased-array transducer system.” Proceedings of Spie the International Society for Optical Engineering 72 (March 11, 1976): 45–52. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.954640.
Kisslo, J., O. T. vonRamm, and F. L. Thurstone. “Cardiac imaging using a phased array ultrasound system. II. Clinical technique and application..” Circulation 53, no. 2 (February 1976): 262–67. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.53.2.262.
Bethea, C. F., R. H. Peter, V. S. Behar, J. R. Margolis, J. A. Kisslo, and Y. Kong. “The hemodynamic simulation of mitral regurgitation in ventricular septal defect after myocardial infarction..” Cathet Cardiovasc Diagn 2, no. 1 (1976): 97–104.
Cope, G. D., J. A. Kisslo, M. L. Johnson, and V. S. Behar. “A reassessment of the echocardiogram in mitral stenosis..” Circulation 52, no. 4 (October 1975): 664–70. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.52.4.664.
Cope, G. D., J. A. Kisslo, M. L. Johnson, and S. Myers. “Diastolic vibration of the interventricular septum in aortic insufficiency..” Circulation 51, no. 4 (April 1975): 589–93. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.51.4.589.
Kisslo, J., O. T. Von Ramm, and F. L. Thurstone. “A phased array ultrasound system for cardiac imaging.” Excerpta Medica, Ics No. 363, January 1, 1975, 67–74.
Kisslo, J., O. Von Ramm, and F. L. Thurstone. “Dynamic cardiac imaging using a phased array transducer system.” Proc.Soc.Photo Opt.Instr.Engin. Vol.72 (January 1, 1975): 45–49.
Kisslo, J., O. von Ramm, and F. L. Thurstone. “DYNAMIC CARDIAC IMAGING USING A PHASED-ARRAY TRANSDUCER SYSTEM..” Spie Semin Proc 72 (January 1, 1975): 45–49.
Ramm, O. T. von, F. L. Thurstone, and J. Kisslo. “CARDIOVASCULAR DIAGNOSIS WITH REAL TIME ULTRASOUND IMAGING..” Acoust Hologr 6 (January 1, 1975): 91–102.
Johnson, M. L., S. G. Warren, R. A. Waugh, J. A. Kisslo, D. C. Sabiston, and R. G. Lester. “Echocardiography of the aortic valve in non-rheumatic left ventricular outflow tract lesions..” Radiology 112, no. 3 (September 1974): 677–84. https://doi.org/10.1148/112.3.677.
Ramm, O. T. von, F. L. Thurstone, and J. Kisslo. “REAL TIME TWO-DIMENSIONAL ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY..” Spie Semin Proc 47 (January 1, 1974): 93–95.
Kisslo, J., S. Wolfson, A. Ross, R. Pasternak, G. Hammond, and L. S. Cohen. “Ultrasound assessment of left ventricular function following aortocoronary saphenous vein bypass grafting..” Circulation 48, no. 1 Suppl (July 1973): III156–61. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.48.1s3.iii-156.
Kisslo, J., J. D. Rivera, D. B. Adams, B. G. Mackenson, J. J. Jollis, and D. D. Glower. “Mitral valve disease.” In Echocardiography, 135–213, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-293-1_8.
SHEIKH, K. H., P. K. SMITH, and J. KISSLO. “Noninvasive Assessment of Prosthetic Valves: How Far Have We Come?.” Echocardiography, January 1, 1988. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-8175.1988.tb00264.x.
Andersen, M., C. Moore, K. Ages, M. Lefevre, S. Schmidt, J. Kisslo, and O. T. Von Ramm. “High speed clinical Strain measurements.” In Ieee International Ultrasonics Symposium, Ius, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2017.8091915.
Ferlauto, H., V. Kakkad, B. Heyde, J. Kisslo, and G. Trahey. “A novel drift compensation algorithm for improved beat-to-beat repeatability of myocardial strain imaging: Preliminary in vivo results.” In Ieee International Ultrasonics Symposium, Ius, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2017.8092966.
Ferlauto, H., V. Kakkad, B. Heyde, J. Kisslo, and G. Trahey. “A novel strain-based drift compensation algorithm for improved beat-to-beat repeatability of myocardial strain imaging: Preliminary in vivo results.” In Ieee International Ultrasonics Symposium, Ius, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2017.8092163.
Kakkad, V., H. Ferlauto, D. Bradway, B. Heyde, J. Kisslo, and G. Trahey. “Clinical feasibility of a noninvasive method to interrogate myocardial function via strain and acoustic radiation force-derived stiffness.” In Ieee International Ultrasonics Symposium, Ius, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2017.8092067.
Kakkad, V., P. Hollender, J. Kisslo, and G. Trahey. “Spatio-temporal consistency of transthoracic ARFI-derived metrics of myocardial function.” In Ieee International Ultrasonics Symposium, Ius, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2017.8092836.
Andersen, M. V., C. Moore, S. E. Schmidt, P. Sogaard, J. J. Struijk, J. Kisslo, and O. T. Von Ramm. “Feature tracking algorithm for circumferential strain using high frame rate echocardiography.” In Computing in Cardiology, 43:885–88, 2016.
Kakkad, V., L. Kuo, D. Bradway, G. Trahey, J. Sivak, and J. Kisslo. “In vivo transthoracic measurements of acoustic radiation force induced displacements in the heart over the cardiac cycle.” In 2015 Ieee International Ultrasonics Symposium, Ius 2015, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2015.0155.
Moore, C., J. Castellucci, O. Von Ramm, Z. Samad, and J. Kisslo. “Blood flow visualization with real time high speed ultrasound.” In Ieee International Ultrasonics Symposium, Ius, 1207–8, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1109/ULTSYM.2014.0297.
Drezek, R. A., G. D. Stetten, T. Ota, C. Fleishman, E. Lily, C. Lewis, C. J. Ohazama, et al. “Active contour based on the elliptical Fourier series, applied to matrix-array ultrasound of the heart.” In Proceedings of Spie the International Society for Optical Engineering, 2962:26–34, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.267836.
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NEU vows to mobilise parents to ‘ramp up’ school cuts campaign
Thu 18th Apr 2019, 12.00
The National Education Union will “ramp up” campaigning on school funding and seek to mobilise parents on the campaign trail if there is a general election this year, one of its leaders has said.
Kevin Courtney, the joint general secretary of the NEU, told the union’s annual conference in Liverpool this morning that the School Cuts campaign is “going from strength to strength”.
The campaign, which is run by the unions and includes a popular website which allows the public to calculate how much money their local school or area stands to lose in real-terms cuts, is credited with having helped change around 750,000 votes in the 2017 general election.
Teachers and school leaders were criticised for their role in the campaign two years ago, when education went from being a perennial issue to being the third most discussed on the doorstep. The prominence of education professionals in the campaign led to accusations of political bias.
But speaking this morning, Courtney said school and college funding is an issue “that will not go away”.
“I want to thank everyone who has helped build parental engagement this year,” he said. “No politician can ignore the fact that three quarters of a million people changed their vote in the last general election because of school funding.
“And so, we will want to encourage parental campaigning in the run up to the local elections, and to ramp it even more than that if there is a general election”
The union leader also pointed to recent high-profile interventions by Conservative MPs over school funding. Among those to have questioned the approach of their own party recently are former children’s minister Tim Loughton and former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey.
“Tory MPs afraid either of elections, or more charitably of the real effects these cuts are having, are starting to speak out,” said Courtney. “Even Esther McVey staged a Westminster Hall debate on school funding in her constituency.
“And in another sign of trouble for this government, we are working increasingly closely with the f40 group of local authorities, a cross-party group, but with a large number of conservative run authorities in membership, and we are working well together.”
The latest figures published by the School Cuts campaign show schools have lost £5.4 billion since 2015, despite extra funding to cover teacher pay rises, six unions have warned. At the time, the DfE called the figures “misleading”.
The move by School Cuts to update their analysis came after its statisticians were criticised by the UK Statistics Authority, and after the unions were forced to correct a significant blunder in their figures last year.
In January, the UKSA rebuked School Cuts for using “misleading statistics”. The watchdog took particular issue with the unions’ claim that 91 per cent of schools face funding cuts. The unions said they stood by the claim, and have reissued it today.
And last June, the coalition was forced to admit it had incorrectly claimed that schools would see a real-terms drop in per-pupil funding in 2018-19, after it emerged that £450 million of central school services block funding had not been factored in to its calculations.
Victoria Jaquiss
It was inevitable that parents would more involved as more, and more parents find that’s their children’s schooling is affected.
A trade union is an association of workers created to secure better pay and conditions for its members.
The NEU campaigns so strongly on increasing funding for schools because it believes that will result in its members being paid more money.
I don’t have any problem with that whatsoever, and indeed fully support more pay for everyone working in schools, but I do wish the NEU would stop pretending it’s doing all of this for the good of pupils and parents.
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Rising Temperatures & Persistent Drought Threaten to Create a Second Dust Bowl
TOPICS:Climate ChangeDroughtDust BowlFarmingRainUSAWeather
By SciTechDaily November 27, 2012
A persistent drought has raised fears of another Dust Bowl in the future. Image: National Drought Mitigation Center
Rising temperatures, persistent drought, and depleted aquifers could set the stage for a second Dust Bowl, a period of drought and dust storms that affected the prairies in the USA and Canada during the 1930s.
The southern Great Plains have been ravaged, and a cool October broke a 16-month streak of higher than average temperatures across the Lower 48. However, temperatures are projected to remain above normal across most of the western half of the country in the following months and future temperature gains could be on the high side, according to various climate models.
As of November, 59.5% of the contiguous US was experiencing persistent drought conditions that are even more severe in the Great Plains in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. The drought is expected to persist in intensity for the foreseeable future. Large dust storms have been reported across some of the states.
Farmers are seeing major shifts in the places and times they can plant, and what kind of crops will grow, as well as the pests and diseases that they are dealing with. There’s no question that some crops can be engineered to weather some of these conditions, but it’s still an open question whether they can adapt to all of them.
In the 1930s, land speculators and a government-encouraged frenzy of plowing removed windbreaks and grasslands that stabilized the soil. The dry, windy weather that followed created one of the worst man-made ecological disasters ever seen. Winds scoured bare soil and carried it across long distances.
This October’s dust storms could be the first of many, especially if the drought holds on for two or three more years. This could lead to Dust Bowl conditions forming in the farming belt. The crops would wither, streams dry, and other secondary effects would affect communities. Wind erosion is damaging and hard to control. Many of the practices that control wind erosion require growing plants, and that is impossible to put in place right now.
Since the 1940s, agriculture has relied on irrigation. Tens of thousands of wells are pumping from the 10-million-year-old Ogallala Aquifer, which has been depleted by 50%. Most of the remaining reservoir will likely be useless for irrigation within the next 30 years. There has been less rain as well as hotter temperatures, which increase evaporation, causing farmers to use even more water.
There are some techniques, like dry-land farming, rotating crops and using waste as biofuel that could keep the economy going. Other options would include switching to more heat-tolerant livestock or moving away from cattle altogether.
[via Scientific American]
Dryland Farmers Work With Little Water
Study Shows Carbon Emissions Could Increase Risk of Megadroughts
Amazon Area Twice the Size of California Still Suffering from the Effects of a Megadrought
New Sensors Reveal When a Plant Begins to Experience Drought Conditions
Scientists Predict the Next Global Dust Storm on Mars
Astronomers Study Textured Dust Storms on Mars
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Tracks Back-to-Back Dust Storms
Mars Global Surveyor Observes Textured Dust Storms
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Laura Kipnis’s Unwanted Advances
Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism, an open-access feature of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, offers brief comments from prominent feminists about a book that has shaped popular conversations about feminist issues. Short Takes is part of the Feminist Public Intellectuals Project.
Unwanted Advances was published in 2017 by HarperCollins.
Short Takes:
Laura Kipnis' Unwanted Advances
This Isn't Feminism. It's Backlash.
Jaclyn Friedman
Men Say the Darnedest Things ... When They're Accused of Sexual Assault
Kelly Oliver
Does Title IX Work?
Claire Potter
The Personal is Political and Academic
Aishah Shahidah Simmons
Missing Feminism in Unwanted Advances
Lisa Wade
A Response
Laura Kipnis
Jaclyn Friedman (photo by Lindsay Beyerstein)
The great failure of Unwanted Advances is that it goes so thoroughly wrong while containing a premise that is both true and important: US college campuses have a long history of fumbling cases of sexual harassment and abuse. Perhaps because activists, eventually abetted by the Obama White House, have forced some change over the last decade, the moment we find ourselves in is nothing if not chaotic, with campus sexual norms changing erratically and incompletely. Many schools seem to take a defensive crouch in their approach to sexual violations, more interested in preempting lawsuits than in ensuring that students have equal access to their education, unimpeded by harassment or violence, even though the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that Title IX obligates them to do just that.
Not that Laura Kipnis seems aware of that ruling, instead attributing applications of Title IX to sexual culture to bureaucratic overreach. These kinds of basic errors are rampant, making it hard, on one level, to understand how anyone consented to publish Unwanted Advances in its current form. Kipnis regularly asserts “facts” based solely on her own say-so, like when she claims “it’s far more likely for a student to derail a professor’s career these days than the other way around” (63) without providing a single supporting citation. She gets other facts fully wrong, as when she asserts that “all the research” (208) has found that current educational approaches to reducing sexual assault are “useless,” when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found three such programs “effective” and four others “promising” in their 2014 review. She seems unable or unwilling to differentiate between rape and sex, or to accurately define rape culture, common definitions of which are only a Google away. And she doesn’t bother to support the sweeping claims at the heart of her book—that campuses are overrun by anti-sex witch hunts targeting men and/or professors, and that campus women are being encouraged to give up all claims to sexual agency—with anything more than a thin smattering of anecdote.
In fact, a detailed recounting of the case of one particular professor takes up two of the book’s five chapters, and her own case—in which she was cleared of all charges—takes up a third. Given that she spends the book’s final chapter telling women that men are never going to stop raping us so we should just get better at fighting them off and, if we fail, grow thicker skins, that leaves just one chapter in which she even attempts to provide evidence that her two main stories represent some kind of larger trend. She does this by relating some other anecdotes that people happened to send her after her own case gained notoriety. These stories are uniformly from people—almost entirely men—who feel they were mistreated as respondents in a campus judicial process. Are the tales these people are telling both truthful and complete? Kipnis doesn’t seem curious. What percentage of all of the Title IX cases on US campuses do these anecdotes represent? She doesn’t say. Some men claim to have been treated unfairly, and a few of them may even be legitimately hard done by, so the whole system must be irredeemably misandrist and feminists these days are self-victimizing crybabies. QED.
What’s missing, along with intellectual rigor, is any sense of compassion or concern for survivors of sexual violence (who are far from uniformly female, though you wouldn’t know it from reading Unwanted Advances). A 2010 study by the Center for Public Integrity found that most schools were issuing laughably lenient sentences for rapists (when they were held responsible at all) and leaving unsupported victims to fall behind in their studies—or drop out altogether—at alarming rates. But you’d know none of that from reading Kipnis, who chooses to excuse herself from curiosity about how victims experience campus justice systems because confidentiality rules prevented her from interviewing the claimants in the cases she heard about from respondents. She does not explain why she was incapable of searching out other cases on her own. Instead, she speculates about the possible nefarious motives of claimants in the cases she studies. The few survivors she quotes approvingly are the ones who treat their assaults as “an amusing story” (205) or “no big thing” (191). She deploys words like “hysteria” (7) and “melodrama” without a hint of awareness of the gendered history of such terms. (So pleased is she with her use of the latter insult that she literally put it on the book’s cover.) Occasionally, she makes fun of victims outright, as when a friend relates that her sister had been raped in college. Kipnis continues: “‘How did it happen?’ I ask. ‘She got drunk, fell asleep in the couch in a frat house, and woke up with some guy on top of her,’ my friend answered. ‘I guess you couldn’t see that coming,’ I said. We both laughed” (186).
There has always been a market for women who throw in with the patriarchy and congratulate themselves for being subversive.Click To Tweet
As shocking as that is, it’s also why, in another way, the publication of Unwanted Advances is so expected as to approach cliché. There has always been a market for women who throw in with the patriarchy and congratulate themselves for being subversive. Think Tomi Lahren and Ann Coulter, yes, but also Naomi Wolf, who long ago foreshadowed Kipnis’s arguments. In Wolf’s 1993 book Fire with Fire, she insisted that all women choose between “victim feminism” and “power feminism,” as though there is no power in demanding accountability for the ways we have been harmed, nor will we suffer any violence or abuse when we try to step into traditionally male-coded forms of power. (Wolf has subsequently made a career of defending Julian Assange’s penetration of a sleeping woman, arguing that rape victims shouldn’t have access to the justice system if they aren’t willing to be publicly named and shamed, and writing a book that in all sincerity insists that women can’t be self-actualized without regular sexual penetration, ideally by a penis.) In this sense, the fact that Kipnis is being praised for her “brio” and “bravery” (as the blurbs proclaim) for framing boys-will-be-boys arguments as cutting-edge feminism at the very moment that our president stands accused of being a serial sexual predator is as surprising as a January flu.
Kipnis fancies herself a provocateur, so no doubt my criticisms will only convince her of her virtue and effectiveness. That’s fine; Kipnis’s self-regard is not my concern. What does worry me is how many people in power will be seduced by her tempting fiction that most rape is just bad sex that hypersensitive women exaggerate, and that campus administrators (and the rest of us) should relax and do less about it. It’s true that campus judicial processes leave a lot to be desired when it comes to handling cases of sexual assault and harassment. But Unwanted Advances will not improve them. Instead, we should be listening to the hopeful and determined student activists (and the staff, faculty, and administrators who support and collaborate with them) I encounter on nearly every campus I work with. They aren’t motivated by jealousy or bitterness, nor are they fragile snowflakes seeking shelter from adult responsibility. Instead, they operate from a fervent belief in the right of each of us to our own sexual sovereignty and in the obligation we all share, regardless of our gender, to take care with our sexual partners and to treat them as fully equal human beings. They believe a better world is possible, one in which sex is fun for everyone (not just those with asymmetrical power), abuse is rare, and no one is confused about the difference.
Their work is incomplete—social change takes time—and sometimes that leaves things pretty messy. But the remedy for that mess isn’t to return to the bad old days of telling women how not to get raped and calling it a day. That approach has been tested over decades, if not centuries. If it was going to work, it would have done so already. Slapping a bold red cover on it and calling it feminism doesn’t make it so.
Jaclyn Friedman’s work has redefined the concept of “healthy sexuality” and popularized the “yes means yes” standard of sexual consent that is quickly becoming law on many US campuses. She the founder and former executive director of Women, Action, and the Media (WAM!), and the creator of two books: Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape and What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex & Safety. Friedman hosts Unscrewed, a podcast exploring paths to sexual liberation, and her next book, Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All is forthcoming in November from Seal Press.
Laura Kipnis’s Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus is not about campus rape. It’s not really about feminism. And it’s not even about Title IX, at least not in principle, or as it is generally put into practice. For the most part, the book is about former Northwestern philosophy professor and endowed chair Peter Ludlow and the fallout from Kipnis mentioning two sexual assault cases against him in an article she wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education. After reading Kipnis’s account—if I didn’t know better—I’d be tempted to call him Saint Peter. I have to admit, as an academic soap opera, the book is a great read. I was captivated in part because years ago, when he was just spreading his wings, Ludlow was a colleague of mine in the philosophy department at Stony Brook.
About three-fourths of the book is spent discrediting the two sexual assault cases against Ludlow at Northwestern, along with their plaintiffs. (One of the plaintiffs is now suing Kipnis and HarperCollins for alleged inaccuracies in the book.) In conclusion, Kipnis uses the Ludlow case, along with the Title IX suit brought against her by one of the same women, to discredit Title IX tout court. Guilt by association. It is crucial to note that neither Ludlow nor Kipnis was found guilty on a Title IX offense; in fact, both were exonerated. And, although Ludlow was demoted (for buying drinks for a minor, a criminal offense to which he admitted), he was not fired, as Kipnis sometimes suggests. He was brought up on dismissal charges for a “pattern of behavior,” but he quit and moved to Mexico before the university ruled on his case. There were rumors that Ludlow was sleeping with students (or at least one student) while at Stony Brook, and he moved to Northwestern with a woman who had been an undergraduate student at Michigan (after Stony Brook and before Northwestern). Then, of course, there is the now infamous graduate student at Northwestern with whom he claims to have had a consensual romantic relationship. So, is it fair to say, Ludlow did have a pattern of having sex with students?
Kipnis depicts the women who brought charges of sexual assault against Ludlow as psychologically unstable “gold diggers” out for “revenge” (85, 237). She says the undergraduate woman needed money and hoped to get a settlement from either Ludlow or Northwestern (56-7, 75). Throughout the book, Kipnis repeatedly throws out dollar figures and bemoans the amount of money spent by the university on Title IX cases or how much poor Ludlow had to spend on lawyers. At one point, she jokingly hopes that her suit is costing the university more than another professor’s (145). Unwanted Advances revolves around a treasure trove of material Ludlow supplied when Kipnis interviewed him in Mexico. Kipnis spun those documents into gold. I’d say hers were wanted advances, namely the advances her agent negotiated on her behalf with HarperCollins.
Increasingly we are seeing the open celebration of the lack of consent by some men on (and off) college campuses.Click To Tweet
One chapter of the book is a compilation of the best of the Title IX horror stories Kipnis accumulated while undergoing her own Title IX nightmare. Accused professors and graduate students from across the country shared Kipnis’s bile toward the regulation they blamed for losing their jobs, being forced into retirement, or being put on probation. This section of the book could be retitled “Sh*t Men Say” or “Men Say the Darnedest Things … When They’re Accused of Sexual Harassment.” I’m sure they find a beacon of feminist legitimation in Kipnis’s book. All the same, reading these stories was chilling. From now on, I’ll think twice about making jokes in class or complimenting a student on her appearance.
Kipnis’s claim is that women who take up the position of helpless victim are playing into age-old stereotypes of feminine passivity. She argues that women need to take responsibility for campus rape just as much as—perhaps more than—men. They need to take self-defense courses and fight back instead of drinking themselves silly and passively succumbing to both stereotypes of femininity and sexual assault (203, 216). She has a point. Yet, when nearly every week brings another headline about serial rapists on campus or “rape conspiracies” involving drinks spiked with rape drugs, and when every fall we hear of women welcomed to campus with banners and chants endorsing nonconsensual sex, we have to wonder whether rape culture is more than just girls getting drunk and boys taking advantage of them, or even an acceptance of sexual assault. Rather, increasingly we are seeing the open celebration of the lack of consent by some men on (and off) college campuses. These men don’t want sex, they want rape. And they make no bones about expecting their frat brothers to join them in going out and taking what they want, namely “sex” with unconscious girls.
In this context, it seems odd, to say the least, to write an entire book devoted to defending men—one man in particular—against charges of sexual assault, in the name of feminism. But, as Kipnis continually reminds us, she’s a feminist provocateur. Her book may not be an advance for feminism, but it certainly is provocative.
Kelly Oliver is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt. She is the author of fifteen scholarly books, including Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from The Hunger Games to Campus Rape, winner of a 2016 Choice Award. She takes up themes of campus rape and human trafficking in her feminist fiction, The Jessica James, Cowgirl Philosopher, Mysteries. Her first novel, WOLF, won an IPPY Gold Medal for best Mystery/Thriller. To learn more, go to www.kellyoliverbooks.com.
Claire Potter (courtesy of The New School, Martin Seck)
Disclaimer: I would read anything Laura Kipnis wrote, even if it was written on the inside of an old candy wrapper. This is not because her views are easy to read, or often even right, but because she hates whiners, tackles some of the most vexed problems in erotic life, and is a lucid and fearless writer. “Why is intergenerational sex such a great taboo, when not so long ago it was no big thing?” she writes in the introduction to Unwanted Advances (29). Jane Gallop and Terry Castle have two very different takes on whether it is a big thing, but back in the day, sex between students and faculty was no big thing for some people. It was career ending for other people, too often the student.
The centerpiece of Unwanted Advances is philosopher Peter Ludlow, Kipnis’s colleague at Northwestern, who ultimately resigned while being investigated for being serially and romantically involved with students. Kipnis is at her best when writing about things that make other people cringe: if you are the squeamish type, Ludlow’s story will curl your hair. To inoculate Signs and myself from legal action (see below), I am punting on describing what exactly happened, except to say that Kipnis was persuaded, from reading text messages that one of the women sent to Ludlow, that she was genuinely in love with him and he with her. A dedicated Kipnis reader will see disaster looming right now. As we learned from Against Love, romance is nature’s sucker punch. In Ludlow’s case, love ended in a career-ending Title IX hearing and permanent residency in affordable, sunny Mexico.
Should faculty be doing the horizontal bop with students under any circumstances? Nearly all the feminists I know, including men, would say: “No! Power imbalance eliminates the possibility of consent!” A Kipnis feminist, on the other hand, says: “Hey! Which faculty? Which students? What did they do? What’s the nature of the harm?” As someone who had an affair with a teacher, and who has also been sexually harassed and sexually assaulted, I can tell you: although a great many of the people who condemn Ludlow couldn’t care less, all of these things are different, in the moment and in retrospect, and they aren’t actually that hard to distinguish from each other. But as Kipnis argues, universities are too highly focused on fending off ugly publicity to really care who did what to whom, a tactic that works until it doesn’t.
I agree with Kipnis that how universities adjudicate sex is self-serving, expensive, and arbitrary; I also agree that students in these situations are not always the helpless victims that the legal filings make them out to be. That said, Kipnis gives short shrift to the perspective that mixing sex with a pedagogical relationship can be unusually toxic. Teaching is a gatekeeping relationship, while sex is often deeply self-serving and easily harms others in its vicinity. Despite my past as an undamaged teacher lover, as I grew into my faculty shoes, the Ludlows in my life started to annoy me. This was not because I thought they were always dangerous (although sometimes they were), or because the students complained (very few did), but because these serial affairists played out their disruptive, attention-seeking little dramas in a space where most of us were trying to get on with the business of teaching and learning. Many of the Ludlows I knew were men, some were women, and all of them were utterly deluded about why they were doing what they were doing.
Lots of people—faculty, students, and administrators—still get away with sexual behavior that ranges from foolish to destructive. What has changed is that students are now using Title IX, a federal law that can threaten a range of other institutional interests, to strike back. In response, universities now have Title IX coordinators whose only task is to ferret out and squelch these cases before they go to court. What is now called “sexual misconduct” covers sins that range from serious crimes, like criminal rape; to lesser crimes like groping; to actionable, but non-criminal, offenses like verbal and online harassment. It is a highly contextual and not always legal category, creating grounds for sanction that would have no traction off campus. Northwestern’s policy, which mirrors and expands on Illinois law, prohibits a great many behaviors that seem ordinary and, as Kipnis suggests, might be remembered differently. For example, when inviting a subordinate to lunch (many of us do that), might she see you as pressuring her for a date? How do you know whether the student really wants to go—or believes that he cannot say no? What if she later comes to believe she was being groomed for sex?
In the name of advancing feminism, these investigations and hearings are not changing behavior but articulating new forms of harm.Click To Tweet
In February 2015, Kipnis decided that Ludlow was getting a raw deal and wrote a story about his case in The Chronicle of Higher Education. To her shock, and mine, Northwestern students demonstrated against her. Among other things, a mattress was born aloft, an homage to Columbia University antirape activist Emma Sulkowicz and an implicit accusation that Kipnis is a rape apologist. She was then summoned into the Title IX star chamber at Northwestern herself, accused by the complainants in the Ludlow case of retaliation, something she only learned after she was there.
Northwestern’s students and Title IX administrators obviously hadn’t done their homework on Kipnis, or they would have known that efforts to intimidate her would just cause her to get a big advance to write a book about them. Kipnis concludes that the whole point of these hearings is not to help students but to help the university rid itself of faculty that are “bad for the brand” (226). But a second, perhaps genuinely unwanted outcome is that in the name of advancing feminism, these investigations and hearings are not changing behavior but articulating new forms of harm that students may not even have known they had suffered.
Having identified the harm, did Northwestern help these Jane Does? One of them, at this writing, has filed a civil suit against Kipnis and her publisher, HarperCollins. A woman who thought she only wanted to be a philosopher in the fall of 2011 is now, six years later, and poised to go on the job market, still fully enmeshed in litigating her relationship with Peter Ludlow. You decide if Title IX is working.
Claire Potter is professor of history at the New School. She is currently writing a history of feminist antiviolence politics, “Beyond Pornography: Susan Brownmiller, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon and the Campaign to End Violence against Women, 1968-2000.”
Aishah Shahidah Simmons (photo by Daniel Goudrouffe)
I can’t begin to respond to Laura Kipnis’s recently released book Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus, published by HarperCollins, without sharing an excerpt of my Black feminist lesbian journey.[1] Similar to and yet very different from Kipnis, I start with the personal to locate the place from where I write. I am a survivor of incest, child sexual abuse, and rape. When I was ten, my paternal grandfather kissed, touched, and fondled my preteen body for two years. When I was twelve, the twenty-three-year-old son of one of my father’s best friends fondled me. My rape happened when I was a soon-to-be twenty-year-old sophomore in college in 1989. I was on a study abroad program and broke all of the university’s rules to go out, very late at night, with the man who would become my rapist. I was raped in the hotel room for which I paid. I told the man who raped me, “I don’t want to do this. Please stop.” I didn’t violently fight back. I didn’t scream or yell at the top of my lungs because I was afraid. I didn’t want to make a scene. I blamed myself for saying yes, for breaking the rules about spending the night away from where we were housed, for paying for the hotel room, and for asking the man who raped me to put on a condom.
The morning following my rape, I went back to where the university housed the students, and I lied to my friends because they wanted to hear a good story about a wonderful night. After all, they also risked getting severely reprimanded by our university for covering for me. I didn’t tell them that I was afraid to turn back after I had left them. I never uttered the words that I was frightened once I got into the hotel room that I paid for and that I was forced to have sex against my will. In an effort to both deny what happened on the night of my rape and to be in control of my body, I had consensual and pleasurable sex with another man the following evening, less than twenty-four hours after my rape. When it was time to return home to the United States, I was pregnant and didn’t know which of the two men was the biological father. I was fortunate to have a safe and legal abortion at the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women in Philadelphia in 1989.
It is important to note that I initially didn’t call what happened to me rape. I thought rape was when a strange, unidentifiable man lurking in the bushes grabs you in the middle of the night. I didn’t know that rape could happen under circumstances like mine or that I could have the audacity to change my mind.
I share a part of my story because for many people who don’t have any understanding of what rape is, they would not define what happened to me in March 1989 as rape. Frankly, after reading Kipnis’s deeply troubling Unwanted Advances, I’m not sure she would define what happened to me as rape.
While reading Kipnis’s book, I found myself asking, why this book now? I’m assuming she wrote the manuscript before the (alleged) sexual predator in chief was elected to govern the United States. Perhaps she and her mainstream publisher thought it would be a very provocative and insightful read during a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential administration. It might have been. However, in the current political climate, where conditions and interventions that can follow a sexual assault are at risk of becoming defined as preexisting conditions under the proposed American Health Care Act, which recently passed in the House of Representatives, her book is a very frightening and I believe dangerous read.
To be fair, Kipnis, a self-identified feminist, repeatedly states that she’s not talking about actual rape per se. She also explicitly states that she’s not victim blaming or slut shaming. Instead, she challenges how paranoia about sex leads to Title IX “witch hunts” (30) against innocent men and some women including herself. The problem, however, is that she never fully acknowledges that rape, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct are realities on campuses throughout the United States. She doesn’t acknowledge that professors have herstories/histories of abusing their power with students in the classroom and also in the bedroom. This is not to deny the painful reality of false accusations that harm faculty and students. It is to inquire about why Kipnis didn’t hold these two realities in tension in her book. Instead, her premise is that sexual paranoia is destroying innocent people’s lives, most especially faculty, on campuses. I would argue that in exponentially more instances than not, it is sexual violence and other forms of sexual misconduct that’s destroying people’s lives on campuses.
Kipnis’s two-page foray into talking about Black students and alleged sexual misconduct on campuses was deeply problematic at best and racist at worst. First of all, the only time she references Black students is when she addresses athletes. This inadvertently implies that Black men are only attending universities because they are athletes, not because they are also intellectuals. Equally as egregious, Black women are referred to only as appendages to Black men, as in competition with white women and other Black women for Black men’s attention. Kipnis doesn’t provide any in-depth cultural context about African American students at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Additionally, Black women are not even presented as possible victims of sexual misconduct. Instead, in these two pages, she uses broad generalizations—including mentions of drinking, drugs, unprotected sex, abortions, traditionalism, and respectability politics—that draw on stereotypes to frame an entire, albeit tiny, community on a PWI campus. In Kipnis’s world, even alleged sexual violence isn’t something that happens to Black women. Given all of this, I think it would’ve been best if she had stayed clear of the issue, given her inability to go beyond a token mention that I believe causes more harm than it offers insight. This is coming from a documentary filmmaker who spent twelve years making NO! The Rape Documentary, a film about intraracial rape and sexual assault in Black communities.
Also deeply troubling is that Kipnis assumes that her audience is already on board and has an acute understanding of what rape, sexual harassment, and other forms of sexual misconduct are. What she’s offering to (presumedly well informed) readers is an opportunity to look at some of the tough challenges Title IX presents.
The solution is to explore what can we do to either improve the accountability systems that are in place or to radically change them.Click To Tweet
I would be among the first to share that I have some concerns about Title IX, especially mandatory reporting. Over the years, students have been drawn to talk to me about violence that they’ve experienced because I’m out, about, and public about being an incest and rape survivor. When I’m in an instructor role at colleges and universities, a student’s disclosure puts me in a precarious position, not only because of Title IX requirements but also because I need to have established boundaries to avoid any confusion about my role as their instructor and not as their friend and confidante. With that said, the solution is not to diminish the very frightening reality that so many survivors of sexual violence—and of less violent but often quite harmful sexual harassment—face. Tragically, this is what Kipnis does in her book.
The solution is to explore what can we do to either improve the accountability systems that are in place or to radically change them. However, radical change should not mean that we create environments where, unless it’s a strange unidentifiable man in the bushes who rapes someone, it is assumed that the person hasn’t been harmed.
[1] I use and capitalize the word Black and use it interchangeably with African American to describe some of the descendants of enslaved Africans who were brought to this hemisphere against their will in chains. In this context, Black is not a color, it is a politicized racial identity. I identify as a Black feminist because I see myself and my work as part of a continuum of radical Black / African American women who have been fighting for racial, gender, and sexuality justice in the United States and internationally for centuries.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning Black feminist lesbian documentary filmmaker, activist, cultural worker, writer and international lecturer. She is the creator of the internationally acclaimed Ford Foundation-funded film NO! The Rape Documentary and the Just Beginnings Collaborative-funded multimedia campaign #LoveWITHAccountability. She is also a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice, where she is affiliated with the Evelyne Jacobs Ortner Center for Violence. An associate editor of the online publication The Feminist Wire, Simmons has screened her work, guest lectured, taught courses, and facilitated workshops across the North American continent, and in numerous countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
Laura Kipnis’s book, Unwanted Advances, is a critique of college women’s turn to institutions of higher education to protect them from rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual exploitation by faculty. Kipnis sees this development as deeply “antifeminist” (20), a “broken” feminism (17), pointing out that feminists of previous generations fought for exactly the opposite: institutional noninterference, or an end to universities acting in loco parentis. The result, she argues, has been the emergence of a nefarious “sexual assault industrial complex” (219), operating in cahoots with the federal government, that engages in grave institutional overreach and is biased in favor of alleged victims, who are by definition women.
Kipnis’s suggestion that Title IX is antifeminist is curious. Not only because the law was explicitly designed to ensure women’s full access to education but because feminism has always involved a fight for institutional recognition and protection. Arguably the first modern feminist movement—the fight for women’s suffrage—was exactly about that: a feminist claim to institutional self-governance, not freedom from it. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, likewise, gave women the right to equal treatment at work. Anita Hill and her contemporaries fought for the legal recognition of sexual harassment. The spirit of Title IX is in this vein, setting the expectation that colleges and universities would reorganize their institutions so as to stop favoring men on campus. Whether in politics, work, the law, or education, targeting institutions is a timeworn—and essential—feminist strategy.
Whether in politics, work, the law, or education, targeting institutions is a timeworn—and essential—feminist strategy.Click To Tweet
Kipnis never mentions the history of women demanding institutional equality, perhaps because she is so strongly committed to a notion of liberation defined by freedom from interference. The essay that sparked the Title IX investigation of Kipnis herself, for example, made a strong case for the right of professors to sleep with students, and vice versa. She sees herself a defender of pleasure (and ambivalence), letting others concern themselves with risks and danger, staking a claim in a long-standing and important feminist conversation. But liberation requires more than noninterference. Freedom from interference must be balanced by a freedom to. We need to be enabled by our institutions as well as unconstrained.
For Kipnis, though, the institution can only constrain freedom. She characterizes student demands that colleges and universities ensure equal access to education as “a vast, unprecedented transfer of power [from women themselves] into the hands of the institution” (17). Not that she has much to say about what women themselves might do instead. As an afterthought, she checks in with a few of her own students who confirm the prevalence of rape, assault, and harassment of women on campus, much to her stated surprise. In response, her sole recommendation is a requirement that all incoming female first year students take self-defense classes.
Her limited vision of both feminism and freedom as properties of individuals is, in fact, exactly why she fails to see that the collective effort of students around the country to raise awareness, organize, and hold institutions accountable is feminist. She sees the mobilization of Title IX as evidence of a lack of female agency, a “transfer of power,” as if women standing arm in arm holding their attackers responsible is not a brave show of force.
Kipnis’s book will resonate nonetheless, because—despite the recent exemplary collective action around sexual assault—the freedom from view is most consistent with contemporary American culture. Decades of rising individualism, neoliberal politics, and the simplistic appeal of libertarian values have left us with impoverished ideas of both freedom and agency. As Barbara Risman’s forthcoming book chillingly shows, even young feminist radicals have a hard time imagining anything other than individual resistance to the status quo. There is a real risk that collective action will become a lost art.
Indeed, the follow-up question to Kipnis’s claims, one to which I am more sympathetic, is why women seem to feel that only the institution can protect them. As someone who has spent a lot of time listening to college students myself, I can confirm that many women experience male danger like a frightening but inevitable meteorological event. From this point of view, there is little one can do to stop the storm from coming, short of praying to the gods who have control over these things—or to the closest thing on their campuses: college administrators.
I can see many other solutions, not the least of which would involve women agreeing among themselves that they could easily go without sex with men—indeed, without any male attention at all—until and unless men on campus cooperated to offer them a safer sexual playground. To channel the feminist Adrienne Rich, what men fear much more than women’s scorn is the possibility that women might have no need or regard for them at all.
Unfortunately, in contemporary America, people on all political sides often see only individual solutions. Women can and should be responsible for themselves, in this logic, because people can and should be responsible only for themselves, only to themselves, because it is every man for himself. Ironically, sexual assault on campus arises from a very similar dynamic: a valorization of sexual competition between status-seeking students who are more interested in scoring than they are in pleasure, intimacy, or any of the other ways in which sex has the power to connect and transcend the individual.
Kipnis wants to free students up to enter this game and play at their own risk—free, but only from interference. I want to change the sexual culture, to free students from having to engage with each other antagonistically, from seeing danger as inevitable, from rigid sexual scripts and identities, and from an erotic marketplace that privileges the already powerful. The latter, though, requires a group effort, something Kipnis can’t see as feminist at all. I hope college students are able to see beyond her.
Lisa Wade is an associate professor of sociology at Occidental College. She is the author of American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus and Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can learn more about her research, public writing, and speaking at her website, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
I’m trying to remember why I agreed to do this exchange. I suppose I thought it was a chance to have an interesting discussion with people I figured would disagree with the book. Of course, I assumed they’d be discussing the book I’d written, which turns out to have been wrong. Four of the five respondents would rather caricature my arguments and hurl accusations—I’m antifeminist! I’m pro-patriarchy! I’m racist!—and remind me that rape is bad (duly noted). Is Signs seriously asking me to respond to Jaclyn Friedman’s charge that I think “most rape is just bad sex,” or Aishah Shahidah Simmons’s that I’d deny she was raped? For the record, my central concern throughout the book is the content of sexual consent. If you tell someone to stop and they don’t, it’s rape. Rape is a crime.
I am however cheered by Lisa Wade’s solution to the campus assault issue: college women should stop having sex with men. That’s supposed to be an example of collective action as opposed to my suspect individualism. And right in line with the approaches of Friedman, Simmons, and Kelly Oliver: nunnish. These are people so busy praying to the church of their own holiness they can’t be bothered with the messy realities of sexual life as lived. The happy exception is Claire Potter, who’s (thankfully) no nun, and is willing to get her hands dirty. And to take an intellectual risk or two.
For the others I’m a “provocateur,” and thus all forms of evidence I present can be batted away. Except it’s hardly me alone making these arguments. I’m joined by law professors around the country (including twenty-eight from Harvard’s Law School), who’ve issued a series of open letters about the failures of due process in Title IX implementation and the climate of hyperaccusation that’s seized our campuses. There’s also Harvard law professors Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk’s important 2016 California Law Review essay “The Sex Bureaucracy.” And by the way, Title IX officers themselves have started acknowledging they’ve gone too far; see the recent white paper “Due Process and the Sex Police” (from NCHERM, one of the major Title IX consulting firms).
A few other irritable rejoinders:
To Simmons: Before you hurl charges of racism around, try reading more carefully. The “stereotypes” you accuse me of promulgating were accounts by black women students about their own experiences, as told to another black woman student, whom I call Tania, who interviewed them. These weren’t broad “generalizations,” they were glimpses at things some black women students said on one campus. It’s clear that those accounts were related by Tania, who’s fully aware—as she says—that the issues she and her friends discussed, particularly regarding black athletes, risk sounding stereotypical. Their dilemma is that not discussing them ends up shielding badly behaved men.
Speaking of badly behaved men, Oliver thinks I turn Peter Ludlow into “Saint Peter.” Again, try reading more carefully, for example, the passages where I write that, despite my ambivalence about Ludlow’s behavior, reading the evidence convinced me that the Title IX cases against him were based on gender bias and specious logic. Oliver says Ludlow had a pattern of sleeping with students. Right, but that’s not the same thing as sexual assault. Does being a feminist mean no longer being capable of making rudimentary distinctions? Does social justice require putting our intellects on hold?
Our women students aren’t nuns, nor do most of them wish to follow in the holy footsteps of their feminist elders.Click To Tweet
Potter is someone I’d happily have a longer discussion with, not because we agree on everything, but because she’s more interested in exploring complexities than scoring virtue points. Her insight about serial affairists playing out little dramas at other people’s expense is all too true. I’d only add that the same scenarios get played out off campus and throughout adult life. Unfortunately for us all, people’s sexual motives aren’t always upstanding, nor is human behavior universally stellar. Among the goals of a decent education, I believe, should be educating our students to navigate the complex realities they’ll face in their postgraduation lives. That’s the solution I propose: stop deploying regulation in lieu of education.
Our women students aren’t nuns, nor do most of them wish to follow in the holy footsteps of their feminist elders. Nor are male students (or professors of any gender) saints. Feminists have always disagreed about what feminism means, but feminists who can’t talk honestly about sexual realities—including the vast array of sexual interactions that are not rape—should do the world the courtesy of admitting their irrelevance and let others carry on the conversation.
Laura Kipnis is a cultural critic and former video artist whose work focuses on sexual politics, aesthetics, emotion, acting out, bad behavior, and various other crevices of the American psyche. Along with Unwanted Advances, her seven books include Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation, How to Become A Scandal, and Against Love: A Polemic, and have been translated into fifteen languages. Her essay, “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” was included in The Best American Essays 2016, edited by Jonathan Franzen. Kipnis is a professor in the Department of Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern, where she teaches filmmaking.
aishah shahidah simmons, claire potter, jaclyn friedman, kelly oliver, laura kipnis, lisa wade, sexual harassment, short takes, title ix, university
3 comments on “Laura Kipnis’s Unwanted Advances”
Feminist Responses to Kipnis – Feminist Philosophers says:
[…] few days ago on Kipnis and epistemic injustice, readers of this blog may also be interested in a new collection of responses to Unwanted Advances hosted by Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and […]
Mini-Heap - Daily Nous says:
[…] Five short takes on Kipnis’ Unwanted Advances plus a response of a sort from the author — the one by Friedman is especially on point & goes unanswered by Kipnis (via Matt McAdam) […]
Nor Secret Griefs Nor Grudges: Laura Kipnis’s Unwanted Advances | s-usih.org says:
[…] on the page. She is someone worth listening to, even if you disagree with what she’s saying. (Claire Potter made a similar point recently in a forum hosted by Signs.) Some have compared her style and her critical stance to Camille […]
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Acer SA0 SA270, 27" (UM.HS0EE.001)
Screen size: 27"/68.6cm Resolution: 1920x1080, 16:9, 82dpi Brightness: 250cd/m² Contrast: not specified (static), 100.000.000:1 (dynamic) Response time: 4ms Viewing angle: 178°/178° Panel: IPS Shape: straight Coating: matte ...
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Archive for Vincent Price
The House on Haunted Hill
Posted in Horror History, Horror Showcase with tags 1959, b-movie, B-Movie Horror, genre, genre films, Ghost Story, horror, horror movie, horror movies, House on Haunted Hill, movie review, scary, Skeleton Gimmick, splatterpictures, Vincent Price, WillIam Castle on September 12, 2011 by splatterpictures
For some reason the year (1999) when the remakes of The Haunting and the House on Haunted Hill sticks out in my mind a lot. My brother really wanted to go and see the latter. So we went and I really enjoyed it. It was the very first time I had ever seen that 32 frame per second type ghost effect. You know where it ends up looking really frigging weird, and unnaturally fast?
It wouldn’t be until years later that I would finally sit down and watch the original. The house on Haunted Hill was released in 1959. The film was directed and produced by B movie legend and shameless promoter William Castle. The film stars Vincent Price (I swear this is just a coincidence) and Carolyn Craig.
The basic plot is this. Fredrick Loren (Price) is an eccentric millionaire who hosts a party at a supposedly haunted house. He gathers together a group of virtual strangers and tells them that he will pay them each ten thousand dollars if they would spend the night in the mansion. He says he is doing this because his wife had the idea of throwing a “ghost party”. He informs the guests that the servants will be leaving the grounds and locking all of the doors and they won’t be opened again until 8 AM the next day. Anyone who makes it, will be given their money. This is all treated as light hearted at first and each of the guests seem to be enjoying themselves.
None of the guests are very remarkable. Waston Pritchard is the current owner of the property is there who knows the most about the place. He tells the others that his brother and sister-in-law were murdered in the house and he is legitimately terrified of the place.
Nora Manning (Craig) is just a secretary for one of Lorens companies. Ruth Bridges is a columnist; Lance Schroeder is a pilot and finally Dr. David Trent is the resident psychiatrist. I honestly had a hard time telling some of them apart. The one thing they all have in common is that they need money and this seems like a golden opportunity.
It seems that spooky things start to happen to Nora only who freaks out and hysterically screams at numerous different situations. One of the moments that stood out for me is when she encounters the creepy old hag with the long fingernails that scares her half to death. The movie relies for sudden shocks and special effects for their scares, but it’s a pretty typical case of Nora seeing something and everybody arriving too late. That all changes when the body of Loren’s wife is found hanging from the staircase and everyone seems dumbfounded. At this point it isn’t really clear what happened. They had shown scenes of Loren and his wife fighting and it’s reasonable to assume she had killed herself. The movie takes a swift turn to a whodunit motif that carries it for the rest of the story.
Castle was well known for his use of theatre gimmicks and this movie was no different. During the films final moments a skeleton rises out of an acid bath and starts to stalk it’s prey. Apparently when that moment happened in the movie the theatre goers were treated to a plastic skeleton flying over their heads. It was things like that which elevated this B horror movie into the cult classic that it is today. The famous macabre director Alfred Hitchcock was so impressed with the movie that it was said that it would inspire him to make the classic Psycho. Among the skeleton gag the movie also breaks the forth wall both at the very start and the very end. It’s not too often that this happens anymore (probably for the best).
Well, since its release this movie has become public domain, so it’s free to watch in a variety of ways. I recommend that people check it out when they got a chance. It has some great thrills and special effects so cheesy they become genius. Plus, it has the unforgettably talented Vincent Price. Okay I promise this will be the last Price movie for awhile.
See yah next time, and thanks for reading!
"Do I have something in my teeth?!"
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (Nine Eternities in Doom!)
Posted in Horror Showcase, Updates with tags 1970's horror, 70's horror, genre, genre films, horror, Horror Comedy, movie review, scary, splatterpictures, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Vincent Price, Virgina North on September 1, 2011 by splatterpictures
Well when I do one thing it makes me think of another and sooner or later you have yourself a theme. We’re going to be showcasing another Vincent Price movie to kick off September and boy do I have a great one.
The 1970’s would see a lot of changes in the horror genre and the film industry in general. The ratings system by the motion pictures association was implemented, which is funny to think of as a new thing. The Gothic style of horror had gone the way of the Dodo after decades of being the formula for horror. Also, the post nuclear sci-fi was also proving to be less successful and audiences were ready for something new. They wanted something edgier, since we’re talking about a generation raised in the 1960’s it’s no wonder. Censorship laws were loosening and filmmakers wanted to push the limits.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Christmas, The Exorcist, The Omen, and Halloween I could go on and on. These new films were different; they were closer to home, smaller more realistic settings in suburban homes or neighborhoods. Or someplace that could be a little more than an hour out of town. Places that could excite people’s imaginations and make them question what that shadow outside the window was. There was more gore, nudity and bad language than you could shake a stick at, and the audiences went to see these films in droves. They made the films about the teenagers that were seeing them and it worked.
Before all of that, there was one film that sticks out in the early 70’s that really was a transitional movie. It had the grand sets and music of the older Gothic horrors, but it pushed the limits of gore for its age. To top it all off it had an amazing cast that starred Vincent Price in his 100th film; The Abominable Dr. Phibes.
Released in 1971, by MGM, The Abominable Dr. Phibes would build upon the tragic monster character that was made famous in the Phantom of the Opera. The film opens up with a grand set that is Dr. Phibes home, we see a cloaked man, playing the organ with dramatic flair and enters a tall thin woman, in a pretty seventies interpretation of stylish wear, (which is weird because the movie is supposed to take place in 1925) they dance and it’s all very theatrical. There is also a really creepy clockwork band playing called “Dr. Phibes Clockwork Wizards” It’s a really surreal opening and it has no dialogue at all.
A series of strange murders start to occur, a man found dead in his room tore to shreds by bats, normally found in the tropics. The man was named Dr. Dunwoody and he wasn’t the first noted surgeon to be killed. Before (and off camera I guess) Professor Thornton was stung to death by bees. These two murders are not enough to call it a trend they police aren’t convinced they are related except for inspector Harry Trout (Peter Jeffery). Soon after (possibly the weirdest death scenes I’ve ever seen,) Dr. Hargreaves head is crushed inside a mechanical frog’s mask at some kind of masquerade party.
As each one of these death’s occur the police try to find a connection, but aside from them all being in the medical profession, they see no pattern. It’s not until the find Dr. Vesalius (Joseph Cotton) that they begin to piece it all together. All of the doctors being targeted worked together on one case. It seemed that his wife Victoria Phibes was sick and while she was being operated on by the team of seven doctors and one nurse; she died. Phibes is believe to be dead because on the on the way to see her, his car went over the side of a mountain and he was presumably killed. Trout has a gut feeling that Phibes isn’t dead and in this case he would be right.
He survived but his face was horribly disfigured and was left unable to speak. He wants revenge against the incompetent doctors that he says murdered her; nine to suffer his elaborate murders, all in the theme of the ten plagues of Egypt. (The ninth presumably would be himself)
Phibes is a friggin genius and the police can’t seem to do anything to stop him, even when they know who he’s going to kill. For a guy who’s apparent doctorates lie in music and theology he is an amazing inventor. Not only does he invent a machine, which is basically a gramophone hooked up to his neck to speak, he also creates a bunch clockwork people (his band) and other strange devices. (he actually makes a device that made a car 100 degrees below freezing)
He also has his badass silent assistant named Vulnavia played by the absolutely beautiful Virgina North. It never explains who she is or why she helps him, but she is his public face who handles a lot of day to day stuff for Phibes. She is also his accomplice to most of the murders. Originally in the script it was to be explained that she was actually just another of his clockwork creations but they decided against it, which was too bad because that would elevate her to “super-badass”.
There are a lot of hilariously campy things in this movie. The clockwork band itself is great aswell as the weird masks at the Masquerade but other things really made me laugh too. One death is lead into by one of the doctors watching the equivalent of 1925 porn. He hooks up this huge camera to play some woman belly dancing with a snake while her turns the crank all turned on, and sucking back scotch it. Another great what the fuck moment was when one of the last doctors killed was done in by a brass unicorn head being catapulted across the street and into his chest. They try to get him off the wall by spinning him around like a top. The police chief even says “I’m at a loss for words” well so am I chief, so am I. He also drives around in a car that has his profile painted on both sides of the window which is just fucked up.
There are a lot of things I can’t help but notice. The most glaring thing is how this sort of tragic, revenge for his wife, and wanting to be with her jazz really reminded me a mister freeze. It made me wonder if this might be one of the sources of inspiration, especially in the scenes where he is talking to his dead wife’s picture.
The last sequence is just fantastic and I’m going to spoil it because I need to, in order to make my next point. So SPOILER ALERT. Dr. Vesalius plague is; death of the first born. Phibes and his assistant kidnap the doctor’s son and lure him to Phibes home. Vesalius has six minutes to remove a key lodged in his son’s heart. The same six minutes his wife had on the operating table before she died. The key unlocks a chain around the boy’s neck that is secured to the operating table. Phibes set up this acid to trickle down and land on the boy’s face if the key isn’t retrieved. All the while Phibes taunts the doctor and it’s just fucking amazingly well done. This entire sequence is so similar of the recent saw series and the Jigsaw killer that it’s kind of hard to imagine this wasn’t part of the inspiration.
Doctor Phibes is an awesome villain, part mad doctor, part Phantom and part Jigsaw killer. It makes for a truly amazing character that really carries the entire film. So much so that it spawned a sequel Dr. Phibes Rides Again. It’s just as good and I actually got them both on one dvd for five bucks. I highly recommend you find these films and give them a watch.
See you next time and thanks for reading!
Posted in Horror Showcase, Updates with tags 1960's horror, 1964, Black and White horror, genre, genre films, I am Legend, italian horror, movie review, Richard Matheson, splatterpictures, The Last Man on Earth, vampires, Vincent Price on August 24, 2011 by splatterpictures
Awhile I ago I was writing about the zombie genre through the last hundred years or so in film, when I got to Night of the Living Dead, I explained that Romero’s inspiration for the Ghouls that devoured the flesh of the living was derived from Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. A lot of you will be familiar with the 2007 film starring Will Smith.
When I am Legend was about to hit theatres, they were saying that it was based off of the novel of the same name, and some people went as far as to mention that the 1971 film The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston was also an attempt to adapt the novel.
But before all of that, before Will Smith and Charlton Heston and before Romero would reshape the entire concept of what a zombie was; there was the 1964 film called The Last Man on Earth that starred the great Vincent Price.
I came across this movie completely by accident. A few years ago I had bought one of those giant movie pack box sets. You know the ones? Like fifty classic horror films all in one package (all public domain films). I was shuffling through the titles after I got home and that title in particular intrigued me enough that it was the first movie I watched out of the set.
About halfway through my young ignorant mind made me say “wow this is just like I am Legend, I wonder if this is some first attempt at the movie?” well it obviously is and even though I have never read the book by Matheson, I have seen all three of the interpretations of the book on film and this one is easily my favourite.
Like I said the movie was released in 1964 (a short ten years after Matheson wrote the book) it was actually partially written by Matheson aswell but he didn’t like it and decided not to get credited on it.
The movie starts with showing Dr. Robert Morgan’s (Price) daily routine. He wakes, he checks his home’s security, Mirrors and garlic, he eats even though he finds the process boring and only a means of survival, he runs down everything he has to do, remove bodies from his property and take them to a giant pit to be burned, he needs gas and more garlic, he makes stakes and then goes hunting. That’s right it’s another vampire flick and I swear I don’t mean for them to come up as often as they do. A good portion of his day also consists of going door to door in his city killing as many vampires as he can.
There are a series of flashbacks that start to explain what happened. Three years ago, a strange plague coming out of Europe started to sweep the world. It’s an air born virus and it threatens to reach the United States. Dr. Morgan is optimistic, and has a staunch scientific mind that refuses to believe in the concept of a universal disease that could wipe out everyone. He and his friend Ben Cortman work at the Mercer Institute of Chemical research and are one of the many global facilities trying to find a cure.
Cortman is more inclined to believe that there might be no hope and that the rumours of some of the dead coming back to life are coming back as vampires; showcasing all of their weaknesses and desires and that the government is trying to cover up knowing the truth.
Soon the plague starts affecting Morgan’s own family, his young daughter (Christi Courtland) loses her sight and blindly paws at the air. I think it was supposed to be tragic but it comes off as pretty funny in my opinion. His wife (Emma Danieli) succumbs soon after and is the first person Morgan sees comes back to life and he is forced to kill her.
The ghouls that return are pretty different from any interpretation I’ve seen. They are zombie-like, with barely any intelligence or strength. Morgan lives in a basic two story house and they can’t seem to break in at all. His friend Ben (now a vampire-ghoul-thing) constantly calls his name and tries to pathetically get through the door.
The film hinges on Price’s performance. Morgan is a broken man, who does nothing but survive, he watches old home movies, and just breaks down into a hysterical fits of laughter that soon turns to tears as he remembers the life that will never be. He doesn’t even have any characters to interact with until towards the end of the movie he first finds a dog, that he befriends (this was what tipped it off to me that it was similar to I Am Legend) sadly he realizes that the pooch is infected and has to take ole yeller out back…if you know what I mean.
Later things get interesting when he meets a woman named Ruth Collins (Franca Bettoia) she exhibits some signs of vampirism but is somehow able to keep command of her mind.
It’s revealed that while a majority of the vampires are nearly mindless ghouls, there does exist another kind who are intelligent and are attempting to rebuild their society. This is where the message of the film seems to come into play. Morgan is the last man on earth and now is the one person who is unlike the rest of society and therefore the true monster.
In the Omega Man and I Am Legend the films end with a glimmer of hope. One that might suggest that mankind will make a comeback, but not this one. Last Man on Earth ends telling us that the age of mankind is over. The final moments of the film are just fantastic and overall this is worth a watch. Like I said its public domain and can be found just about anywhere.
See yah next time and thanks for reading!
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Khalil Mack 'definitely shocked' to move on from Raiders to Bears in his prime
Frank Schwab
Yahoo Sports September 2, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC
Think about Khalil Mack’s weekend. On Friday night, he was holding out from the Oakland Raiders, a team that clearly wasn’t going to pay him.
On Sunday afternoon he was having a news conference as the newest star of the Chicago Bears, with a $141 million contract in his pocket and a football-crazed city looking at him as a savior. In a week, he’ll be on the field chasing down Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the season opener.
Mack’s football life changed at warp speed. He said he didn’t even have time to say goodbye to his old teammates.
“It’s a whirlwind,” Mack said. “I’ve got to get in here, learn the playbook, figure out my new teammates, figure where their new heads are at and come in here and try to contribute to win. Right away. Right away. There’s really no time to think about it. It’s been quick for me. It’s been real quick.”
The trade was one of the biggest in NFL history, a former defensive player of the year changing teams in his prime. Like everyone else, he couldn’t believe he was changing teams.
“I was definitely shocked. Definitely shocked,” Mack said. “But you don’t have time to be shocked for long. It’s kind of like, ‘Oh word? What time is the flight tonight? I guess I don’t have time to think about it.'”
Khalil Mack was surprised by his new contract
Mack laughed and smiled a lot in his news conference, and why wouldn’t he? He’s with a team that wants him and paid him in a historic way. Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald’s reign as the highest-paid defensive player in NFL history lasted about 24 hours.
And what was his reaction to seeing his contract numbers?
“Whoa! Really? OK. All right,” Mack said, leading to some laughs.
Signed. Sealed. Delivered. pic.twitter.com/2KfFOodqCw
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 2, 2018
But as Mack said repeatedly through his introduction to Chicago, his focus is football. He was clearly happy to get paid, but a big contract wasn’t his ultimate goal.
“That’s one part of it,” Mack said about the contract. “The other side is, I want to be great. I want to be known as one of the best to play the game. That’s what it’s all about for me.”
Mack was happy for Aaron Donald
The situation is ripe for pressure. The Bears play in one of the largest markets in the NFL. They haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1985. They have only made the playoffs once in the past 11 seasons and they have finished last in the NFC North four straight times.
Now all of a sudden they have a new face of the franchise after shipping a couple first-round picks for Mack. He’ll be making $141 million over six years, an unheard of amount for a defensive player just a couple years ago. In fact, it was unheard of before Friday, when Donald signed a $135 million deal.
Mack and Donald were lumped together through the summer, two stars holding out and waiting for a mega-deal. Mack was asked what he thought when he saw the numbers of Donald’s contract.
“Can’t say it in front of my parents,” Mack said with a smile. “I would have said it if they weren’t here.
“I was like, ‘Dog!’ I’ll say that. Like, ‘Wow!’ That was exciting. That was exciting to see somebody who works hard get that. Kudos to him.”
It also meant the end of his Raiders tenure. It was clear the Raiders weren’t going to pay that price.
Mack will be under pressure
Mack was asked when he figured out that his future wouldn’t be the Raiders. He sounded like everything that went down Saturday took a while to sink in.
“Last night. Yesterday sometime,” Mack said. “It was a real sense then, when I got on the plane. It was a whirlwind, but it has been exciting.”
We’ll talk about the trade for a long time. Again, there will be an insane amount of pressure on Mack. His new city loves him now, but he knows that the price the Bears paid in a trade and with his historic contract puts pressure on him.
“Absolutely. I’d be lying if I told you there weren’t,” Mack said. “But based on how hard I work and how hard I play, I want to be able to go out and show why. That’s just me. I’ve always thought of myself as the best defensive player in the league, and I want to play like the best defensive player in the league. I want to be the best at what I do.”
Mack’s presence changes the Bears’ outlook. No longer are they just an intriguing team building around quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. While it will still be tough for Chicago to pass the Packers or Vikings in the NFC North this year, the bar has been raised with one blockbuster trade.
“I want to win. Everybody wants to win. This team wants to win,” Mack said. “Championships are definitely the goal.”
Khalil Mack was traded from the Raiders to the Bears in a blockbuster deal. (AP)
Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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Tiger Stadium opened 100 years ago just like Fenway Park, but it's ignored in Detroit
Eric Adelson
Yahoo! Sports April 23, 2012, 12:29 AM UTC
DETROIT – At just after 9 a.m. on a chilly Sunday, a 58-year-old man named Byron Steen crosses Trumbull Street and walks briskly up Michigan Avenue. He passes an empty field with overgrown grass, some litter and two wooden benches.
This is where Tiger Stadium used to be.
But it sure is hard to tell. There isn't a plaque or a statue in sight. If you didn't know where the stadium stood, you would never know it was ever there.
"You know," Steen says, "it never hit me. There's nothing out here."
Tiger Stadium opened on the same day as Fenway Park – April 20, 1912. It was 100 years ago this weekend. Ty Cobb scored the first run by stealing home. From that day until 1999, this very spot rumbled with din and greatness. Pretty much every legend that played in Fenway in the 20th century also played here. Lou Gehrig sat himself down for the first time in 2,130 games here, ending his incredible ironman streak. Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run here. Reggie Jackson hit one into the right field light tower here during the '71 All-Star game. The Tigers won World Series titles here in 1968 and again in 1984, with Kirk Gibson launching a late-inning home run off Goose Gossage that no Tigers fan alive to see it will ever forget. Fair to say this was the most exciting place in the history of Michigan.
And now there's hardly a trace. Fans committed to honoring the old stadium in some form maintain a home plate, a pitcher's mound, two chalk lines for base paths and two benches where the dugouts used to be. The 125-foot flagpole from the old center field is still standing.
That's it. Across the street, there's a Coney Island restaurant, a bar, a Chinese takeout place, and a Faygo sign. There's a large gate from the old stadium, and you can push open a door and take the field, but you have to know where it is. In fact, you have to know the history of "The Corner" to know where this cathedral once stood. The only acknowledgment of the old ball yard is a small plastic sign across the street featuring photos of Mickey Cochrane and Babe Ruth in the stadium and a blurb about plans for development of the area.
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"They should put up a plaque," Steen says.
But the city of Detroit owns this property. And there are far more severe problems around here than commemorating a demolished ballpark. The Tigers have the money, but in an interview Sunday communications director Ron Colangelo explained that it's the city's call – not the team's.
He did acknowledge, however, that there weren't even discussions to honor Tiger Stadium's 100th birthday at Comerica Park this weekend.
So the weekend went by in relative silence at a place that was once so magnificently noisy.
People still visit. A man named Myron Johnson came here from the Upper Peninsula on Sunday morning to mimic a home run swing and run the bases. Asked about why Tiger Stadium mattered to him, he welled up with tears and couldn't answer the question.
He's not alone. Tiger Stadium was old and decrepit, but just about every single memory from there is positive. Tiger Stadium is childhood, family, Ernie Harwell, summer, heroes and happiness. And for those old enough to remember, it's Detroit Lions football when the team was dominant.
And now …
"I don't go there," said former Tigers great Willie Horton, who won a high school championship in Detroit, loved the Lions, and won a World Series with the Tigers in 1968. "All my life is there."
Horton purposely avoids the entire block, driving around it rather than past the place where he was the very definition of a local boy made good.
"It's very emotional," he said.
There is a group here that lovingly keeps up the field as best as it can, led by a man from nearby Redford named Tom Derry. He and the "Navin Field Grounds Crew" – named after the stadium's original name – mow the lawn (on a John Deere tractor) and repaint the chalk about once a week. Without them, the field would probably be a collection of weeds and dog droppings in the shadow of a modern casino in the distance. In fact, the group found and restored the original home plate area, which was buried underneath a pile of dirt. Derry told the Detroit Free Press this week he considers his contribution "an honor and a privilege." An employee of the Brooks Lumber Company, located across the street, had a centennial flag made to mark 100 years since Cobb first crossed home plate.
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Other than that, a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places looks like any of the hundreds of other vacant lots in Detroit.
Years of skirmishes over the stadium's future followed the Tigers' move to Comerica Park in 2000. Some groups wanted the stadium preserved, or a museum built, or a recreational field for youth sports inspired by Ernie Harwell. Eventually the edifice was demolished in 2009 and the lot was left to rot. A group from Chevrolet proposed a Little League field, but the city rejected the idea late last year. There are rumors the city is waiting for a retailer such as Wal-Mart to build on the nine-acre tract.
For now, the ghost of Tiger Stadium is kind of a sore subject. Asked about the place where he spent so much time frolicking as a little boy while his father played for the Tigers, Prince Fielder said Sunday, "It is what it is" and "Me being bothered won't bring it back."
He didn't mean disrespect. It's just a tired and sad subject here now. It's another chapter in the horrible plight of a once-booming city. Even if the city agreed to budget the money for a recreation center – and it poured $4 million into keeping the stadium around for 10 years after the Tigers moved – would that really be a better use of municipal funds than paying teachers or buying computers?
But for one weekend in April, this patch of land didn't have to be an eyesore. For one weekend, it could have been celebrated for the remarkable American place it was. They could have mentioned it at Comerica Park. They could have installed a plaque. Something.
"It was the most famous address in Michigan," said Charley Marcuse, 39, who was a hot dog vendor at Tiger Stadium starting at age 18 and now works in food service at Comerica Park. "Not the number, but everyone knows the location. The corner of Michigan and Trumbull was a connection for everyone all over Michigan to the city of Detroit. Once that connection is gone, it's hard to get it back."
Asked if he felt the old stadium should be honored, Marcuse said, "I tweeted about it."
This is no offense to Comerica Park, which fans widely like. There are plenty of tributes to Tiger Stadium at the new place. But it's a modern venue, which means it's more of a facility than a park. Marcuse even misses the men's rooms at Tiger Stadium, which were basically just malodorous troughs. The whole place was ready to fall apart, which was aggravating at the time but wonderful in retrospect.
"One day, hopefully, they'll put something there," Horton said. "But I've kind of left it there in my mind."
In another 100 years, the minds where Tiger Stadium still lingers will all be gone. Some trace of Fenway Park and Wrigley Field will surely remain in Boston and Chicago.
But what will remain at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull? When a man is stopped on the street on a Sunday morning and asked if an old ballpark used to be here, what will he say?
Will he even know?
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Sat 20 Oct, 2018, 7:30 AM (EDT)
Chelsea vs Manchester United - 10/20/18 English Premier League Soccer Pick, Odds, and Prediction
By: Avijoy
Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
Chelsea will host Manchester United at Stamford Bridge for a massive game in the English Premier League.
Chelsea enter this match in great form as the team has remained unbeaten all season. In their last match, Chelsea had a big win over Southampton away from home. Chelsea won that match 3-0 with goals from Eden Hazard, Ross Barkley, and Alvaro Morata. The midfield performed exceptionally well for Chelsea as they controlled over 60% of the possession and created over 20 shots on goal for the striker. As it currently stands, Chelsea are equal with Manchester City and Liverpool at the top of the English Premier League ladder. Over the past decade, this fixture has become a massive derby in English football and it can be expected that Chelsea will be hugely supported at this home game for that reason.
On the other side of the coin, Manchester United have been struggling. While this team managed to beat Newcastle in the last game, they still remain midtable and the pressure on the players and manager seems to be huge. This match could be a blessing or a curse for Manchester United as a win will silence many critics while a loss will make matters worse for the Red Devils. It is going to be hard for Manchester United as key players such as Alexis Sanchez and Paul Pogba look in bad form. With this match away from home against a top team like Chelsea, I don’t see much hope for Manchester United.
The last time Chelsea and Manchester United met at Stamford Bridge was last season. Chelsea won that match 1-0 with Alvaro Morata scoring the goal.
Taking everything into consideration, I am picking Chelsea to win this match. Chelsea are in much better form and with the match at Stamford Bridge, I see the Blues getting all three points.
Avijoy
Based in multiple cities around the world, Avijoy is a sports writer and handicapper with over 10 years experience. Avijoy has been at Sports Chat Place since 2015 and has been covering tennis, cricket and soccer. With a degree in statistics, Avijoy provides detailed mathematical edges which allow him to be successful in predicting winners on a consistent basis.
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Submit News Releases
Sudan News Gazette
Ambassador to EU quits and warns staff over 'muddled thinking'
Sir Ivan Rogers says negotiating experience is in ‘short supply’ and that politicians disliked his warnings of pitfalls in his resignation email
Sir Ivan Rogers is regarded as one of the UK’s most experienced EU diplomats.
Photograph: Thierry Roge/European Union handout/EPA
Britain’s ambassador to the European Union Sir Ivan Rogers dealt a blow to the UK’s Brexit negotiations by quitting and urging his fellow British civil servants in Brussels to assert their independence by challenging “ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking”.
Sir Ivan Rogers said, in an email explaining his reasons for his abrupt departure to the UK’s Brussels diplomatic staff at UKRep, that he was leaving now to give time for his successor to take charge of the lengthy negotiations process which starts in March. But he also made it clear that he had been frustrated by politicians who disliked his warnings about the potential pitfalls in the Brexit process.
He also revealed that the basic structure of the UK Brexit negotiating team had not yet been resolved, let alone a negotiating strategy.
He wrote: “I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power. I hope that you will support each other in those difficult moments where you have to deliver messages that are disagreeable to those who need to hear them.”
Rogers has been attacked by Tory sceptics for warning that it may take as long as 10 years for the UK to fully break from the EU. Downing Street insisted at the time that the ambassador had been communicating the views of some European leaders, rather than giving his own assessment. He has also been repeatedly criticised for setting out how other EU leaders view the Brexit process.
He wrote to staff: “I hope that you will continue to be interested in the views of others, even where you disagree with them, and in understanding why others act and think in the way that they do.”
Rogers also defended the importance of the UK’s civil service knowledge in Brussels in his resignation email, saying: “In any negotiation which addresses the new relationship, the technical expertise, the detailed knowledge of positions on the other side of the table – and the reasons for them, and the divisions amongst them – and the negotiating experience and savvy that the people in this building bring, make it essential for all parts of UKRep to be centrally involved in the negotiations if the UK is to achieve the best possible outcomes.”
Implying that civil servants or politicians in London were trying to take over the Brexit talks, and the structure of the UK negotiating team needs “rapid resolution”, he said “multilateral negotiating experience is in short supply in Whitehall, and that is not the case in the [European] Commission or in the Council”.
He said “senior ministers, who will decide on our positions, issue by issue, also need from you detailed, unvarnished – even where this is uncomfortable – and nuanced understanding of the views, interests and incentives of the other 27”.
Rogers’ departure so close to the start of Brexit negotiations amounted to a “wilful and total destruction of EU expertise”, according to the former top civil servant at the Treasury.
In an unusually candid intervention, Lord MacPherson, who was permanent secretary from 2005 until last year, said Rogers’ decision was a huge loss and that he was the latest in a string of EU experts to be frozen out, describing the decision as “amateurish”.
MacPherson also cited Rogers’ predecessor Jon Cunliffe and Tom Scholar, previously the prime minister’s adviser on European issues who is now permanent secretary at the Treasury. His warning appears to reflect a Treasury concern that Theresa May is under pressure from Tory Eurosceptics to abandon hopes of trying to negotiate access to the profitable EU single market, even on a temporary basis.
There have been disputes across Whitehall about whether the UK can afford a so-called hard Brexit.
The Foreign Office played down the implications of the resignation, saying Rogers had been due to leave in November and that he had merely “resigned a few months early”.
“Sir Ivan has taken this decision now to enable a successor to be appointed before the UK invokes article 50 by the end of March,” a spokeswoman said.
But Rogers has known since October that he was due to leave his Brussels post before the talks are due to end in 2019, raising questions about why he was given a vital role in preparing for the negotiations in the first place.
nick macpherson
(@nickmacpherson2)
Ivan Rogers huge loss. Can’t understand wilful&total destruction of EU expertise, with Cunliffe,Ellam&Scholar also out of loop.#amateurism
A Whitehall source said the early departure had been discussed before Rogers told his staff on Tuesday. However, Nick Clegg, who worked with Rogers in Brussels, said it appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks on public officials who had expressed caution about Brexit.
“First it was the judges, condemned as enemies of the people for just doing their jobs,” the former deputy prime minister told the Guardian. “It’s been the CBI and any business that didn’t sign up to the Brexit zeal, and now it’s senior officials being kneecapped in the Brexit press, after Sir Ivan Rogers just gave candid advice about the length of time negotiations might take. They are in the firing line if they do not endorse a zealous world view. This is a very worrying trend, and very new in British politics.”
Insisting civil service neutrality is a precious British asset, Clegg said the government should value candid advice. “It will come back to haunt the Brexit headbangers, because you can insist as much and hysterically as you like that the world is flat, but there are only so many people you can condemn for just pointing out the truth, that the world is round and that Brexit is complicated, might take time and might not be fully to Britain’s advantage,” he said.
Nigel Farage calls for more resignations after Sir Ivan Rogers quits
George Osborne, the former chancellor, tweeted praising Rogers for his work with him during meetings of EU finance ministers, saying: “He is a perceptive, pragmatic and patriotic public servant.”
Responding to Rogers’ resignation email, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: “It is damning when our own top people are slamming this Conservative Brexit government for using ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking.
“This is the biggest decision by the UK government in modern times and Theresa May is marching ahead without a plan or even a clue.
“We need our top people around the table if we are going to avoid wrecking the country with Brexit. It is shameful that vital, talented people like Ivan Rogers are instead being driven away.”
The Lib Dems added that it was astonishing that Rogers’ email revealed that, at this late stage in the build-up to the talks, Rogers thought that the UK had no agreed negotiating structure and, in his view, still lacked the required multilateral negotiating expertise available to the European commission.
Rogers’ remarks may reflect unresolved tensions between the UK’s Brussels diplomats and the government’s Brexit department, led by David Davis.
With the choice of Rogers’ successor bound to be seen as a signal of the direction of UK Brexit policy, Eurosceptics demanded that an enthusiastic Brexiter replace him and called for an ideological purge of officials in the Foreign Office.
Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, said: “No organisation has done more to give away our democratic rights than the Foreign Office. They’ve been doing it for decades and I very much hope that Sir Ivan is the first of many to go.”
John Redwood, a longtime Eurosceptic Tory MP, said: “Sir Ivan’s heart was not in the negotiations. The talks do not need to be that complicated. If you leave, you leave. You take control of your borders, your laws and your money and that is not something that needs to be negotiated with Mrs Merkel.”
Rogers, who was appointed by David Cameron to represent the UK in Brussels, had endured a difficult relationship with Downing Street special advisers during the negotiations before the EU referendum.
Some Conservatives blamed him for under-pitching what could be achieved and for advising against taking a harder line. One adviser said: “It was not about him being a Europhile but about being difficult. He not only said the UK did not understand the EU, but [that] the EU did not understand the UK. He was just the most out front of the civil servants – but many others thought like him.”
Sources said the two main points of tension were over whether it was feasible for the UK to threaten to drop out of the EU without a deal, falling back on World Trade Organisation terms and how to persuade the EU to negotiate simultaneously on the UK’s divorce terms and a future UK-EU relationship. May has to set out her negotiation strategy to MPs in March but has so far given next to nothing away.
Dominic Raab, a Conservative MP and a member of the select committee on exiting the European Union (EEU), said it would have been more disruptive if Rogers had left in November. “Sir Ivan is a distinguished diplomat with a long record of public service,” he said. “He didn’t exactly hide the fact that his heart wasn’t in Brexit and he was due to step down in the autumn anyway. It makes sense all round to give the ambassador who will see the negotiations through some lead time.”
However, Labour’s Hilary Benn, who chairs the EEU committee, told the BBC the resignation was “not a good thing” and the government would be under pressure to get a replacement up to speed to meet Theresa May’s timetable for triggering article 50. “I think that it means that the government will have to get its skates on to make sure there is a replacement in place so he or she can work with Sir Ivan in the transition, the handover,” said the former shadow foreign secretary.
Peter Mandelson, the former Labour cabinet minister and EU commissioner, said Rogers’ experience was “second to none in Whitehall” and a serious loss for the UK negotiating team. “I would not expect him to comment further but everyone knows that civil servants are being increasingly inhibited in offering objective opinions and advice.”
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Changing the world through Shirtsleeves Diplomacy
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
By Capricia Penavic Marshall
July 24, 2015 — When U.S. President Ronald Reagan met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for the first time in November 1985, the official venue was a grandiose Swiss chateau. But the watershed moment occurred in a boathouse, in front of a fireplace, where the two men conversed on sofa chairs after an impromptu stroll on the Fleur D’Eau estate. While the two-day Geneva summit didn’t end the Cold War, the direct, fireside conversation between the two rivals began the gradual thaw, a pivotal moment in 20th century diplomacy.
Similarly, the success of the official state visit that King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, made to the United States on the eve of Europe’s entry into World War II did not hinge on the young couple’s two days of Washington D.C. tours. Instead, the nature of the Anglo-American relationship was transformed when the royals accompanied President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to their country home in Hyde Park, New York. Previously, no ruling British monarch had set foot on American soil. But at Hyde Park, the president was able to signal to the king and queen – and by extension the British people – a new level of solidarity and warmth between the two countries.
As chief of protocol of the United States from 2009 to 2013, I have witnessed exchanges between global leaders within the formal context of a hotel ballroom with hard-bottom chairs, white-draped tables, and small cellophane-wrapped mints. While these exchanges are essential, some of the most important moments in a diplomatic relationship take place away from the standard setting. Changes in body language, the tone of the exchange and the length of meetings may result from more casual surroundings that allow heads of state to tune out the noise and focus on advancing their bilateral relationship.
Two years ago, President Obama did just that. In a prime example of what the New York Times quickly labeled “shirtsleeves diplomacy,” the U.S. President met President Xi Jinping of China in June 2013 at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California. The two men had met previously when then-Vice President Xi visited the American capital in 2012, yet for the Chinese leader’s first visit to the United States as head of state, President Obama received him in a serene desert oasis. President Xi’s visit was an opportunity for President Obama to begin their relationship anew; he needed to strike a tone that could foster rapport with the Chinese premier. Sunnylands lent a relaxed, intimate air to the meeting between two of the world’s most powerful leaders. The comfortable dry heat of Southern California created a unique climate for candor, and the presidents were able to start developing a crucial degree of personal chemistry over a two-day period.
At the State Department, it was my duty to help curate the framework for diplomacy, using both traditional methods and new tools to foster engagement. While digital communication makes it easier to speak with foreign governments, physical meetings are essential to developing positive working relationships. They demonstrate the level of importance the participants give the relationship. When the president invites a leader for a state visit, his hospitality shows the strong alliance and deep friendship that the United States has with the visiting country. This mindset was crucial during the six state visits I coordinated during my tenure as chief of protocol.
The setting of such diplomatic encounters also speaks volumes. It largely has been the tradition of our international relations to confine visiting leaders to the nation’s Eastern seaboard. Camp David in Maryland was the presidential retreat of choice for many important summits of the 20th century. But there is good reason for the President and top U.S. officials to exhibit other parts of the American landscape. For example, as the international community becomes increasingly engaged with nations in Asia, diplomatic engagement on the Pacific Coast can remind foreign leaders that we, too, have a shoreline on the world’s largest ocean.
The value of location was not lost on President George W. Bush. The 43rd commander in chief twice hosted President Vicente Fox of Mexico at his favorite getaway in central Texas after President Fox welcomed the Texan to his haven in Guanajuato during his first foreign trip as President. The two leaders were able to cultivate their relationship on their respective ranches. President Bush’s property in Crawford, Texas, provided an opportunity to display another style of “official visit” from the American heartland. In a relaxed atmosphere, President Bush replaced his strict Oval Office dress code with Texas casual attire and was able to connect with allies in a spot that he knew could stoke the flames of friendship.
As the role of the United States in world affairs has evolved significantly since FDR met the British monarchs at Hyde Park and Reagan met Gorbachev in Geneva, we owe it to the future of our foreign policy to realize the full potential of diplomacy at home. Destinations outside the traditional framework that create a relaxed environment and tell a bit of our American story are incomparable tools of diplomacy. It is the task of presidential administrations to use them strategically for generations to come. Shirtsleeves diplomacy shows no sign of extinction. America’s leadership in it is a great opportunity in our changing global landscape.
Capricia Penavic Marshall was Chief of Protocol for the White House from 2009 to 2013
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Pharmacist - Drug Use Policy
Staff/Administrative
Are you passionate about helping people?
Elevating patient care to an art requires the skills, dedication and passion of people in every discipline. At Cedars-Sinai, pharmacists' expertise is critical to achieving the exceptional patient care for which we are known and trusted.
As a Drug Use Policy (DUP) Pharmacist at Cedars-Sinai, you would be responsible for strategic planning for biologics and therapeutic advances; collaborating with radical staff in development of evidence based guidelines; evaluating new drugs for the formulary, development of content for the Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee Additional you would be serve as a resource to staff on therapeutic issues and target drug programs; maintaining the online formulary; coordinating and editing the twice yearly pharmacy newsletter; preceding pharmacy students and residents: and running staff in-services. The pharmacist works collaboratively with the medical staff, nursing staff, Drug Use Policy Team, pharmacy management and staff in the development and implementation of initiatives and guidelines to reduce pharmaceutical expenses.
Position does require staffing 1 weekend a month
Do you want to make a difference in people's lives?
Our world-class Pharmacy Services Department includes six satellite pharmacies, a drug information center, three outpatient pharmacies and the central pharmacy. Our staff of more than 300 employees includes pharmacists, technicians, residents and interns, and support personnel. In addition, we arecommitted to delivering you with the most advanced information technology and resources available, including Micromedex, OVID and MD Consult.
#Jobs-Glassdoor #Jobs-NHCN #Jobs-HERC
About Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Providing healthcare for more than 100 years, Cedars-Sinai has evolved into one of the most dynamic and highly renowned medical centers in the world. Along with caring for patients, Cedars-Sinai is a hub for biomedical research and a training center for future physicians and other healthcare professionals. This attracts exceptional talent to Cedars-Sinai, including world-renowned physician-scientists who seek a place where they can both conduct research and see patients--the ideal formula for discovery and its translation into cures. Our patients benefit from access to doctors at the top of their fields, and our researchers have an ideal community in which to study the impact of healthcare challenges, and reflect that knowledge in their research. The greater Los Angeles area in which Cedars-Sinai resides possesses unparalleled cultural and ethnic diversity which offers outstanding opportunities for translational and clinical research... and a dynamic environment for medical education.Although community based, Cedars-Sinai is a major teaching hospital affiliated with the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Cedars-Sinai has highly competitive graduate medical education programs in more than 50 specialty and subspecialty areas, a graduate program in biomedical sciences and translational medicine, a clinical scholars program directed towards junior physicians with aspirations to become clinical scientists, and post graduate training opportunities.There are more than 250 full-time faculty members at Cedars-Sinai. The voluntary medical staff, comprised of more than 2,200 specialty board-certified or board-qualified physicians, represent all of the specialties and subspecialties and collaborate with full-time medical staff in the teaching responsibilities of the graduate medical education programs.
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Annex Homes for Sale
This neighbourhood truly has it all. Home to many academic institutions, the Annex mixes in the perfect amount of bohemian flare to give this neighbourhood a unique character that locals and tourists love. With bookstores and cozy cafes around every corner, this area is as diverse its residents. You will find a combination of students and wealthy professionals roaming the streets of the Annex, in addition to some Hollywood celebrities sightings.
The area mainly consists of residential housing and features a mix of Victorian and Edwardian homes, as well as some mansions and mid-rise apartment buildings. It has also has coined its own type of architecture that was popular in the 19th century known as the “Annex style house”. Popular with students, the Annex is home to many late-night restaurants and all-you-can-eat sushi places. You will also find many music and book stores dispersed along its tree-lined streets. Known as a friendly neighbourhood, what makes the Annex most unique is its mix of residents and contagious energy.
The Annex is home to Huron Street Junior Public School in addition to many private schools situated in close proximity. The neighbourhood provides several prestigious learning establishments, such as the Royal St. George’s College and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, while bordering the University of Toronto. Founded in 1827, the university has over 60,000 students on its urban campus and is considered one of Canada’s best institutions.
The TTC has provided several subway stations for the convenience of its residents and tourists, such as George Station, Spadina Station, Bathurst Station, and Dupont Station. Students and faculty at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education benefit from the convenience of the Bloor Street buses, while those who frequent Royal St. George’s College appreciate the close proximity of the Bathurst Street bus line. Residents can also take the buses on Spadina Road, Dupont Street, and Avenue Road.
Many frequent the busy Bloor Street West and Avenue Road shops, services, and restaurants in the southern part of the Annex that connects to the downtown core. Residents can also find many eateries and professional services in the northern half of the Annex along Dupont Street. Adjoined to the Annex is the Mirvish Village shopping district, full of wondrous items to be discovered in their art galleries, antique shops, specialty stores, and bookstores. The Annex has fewer parks than other Toronto neighbourhoods, but residents can join a variety of fitness programs at the University of Toronto and the Jewish Community Centre to promote a healthy lifestyle.
Susan Macarz
Liberty Village
Trinity Bellwoods
Little Italy/Palmerston
Harbourfront
The Annex was destined from Day One to be an elite neighbourhood with residents, such as Timothy Eaton of the renowned Eatons department store and George Gooderham of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery. The homes of the Annex were built in two waves: the first prides itself with Victorian, Queen Anne, and Richardsonian Romanesque architectural styles built as early as 1880; and the second wave exhibits homes built between 1910 and 1930 with more understated yet rich styles, such as English Cottage, Georgian, and Tudor.
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European Marine Sites
Sandwich Tern / Dave Kilbey
Marine Conservation Zones
Sussex Shoresearch
Sussex Seasearch
Marine Films
Making Waves Project
Sussex Coastal Habitats
European Marine Sites are areas at sea, partly or completely covered by tidal water, which are protected by European law for their special wildlife and natural habitats.
These include Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs), both of which play a key role in conservation by providing refuges for nationally threatened habitats and species. These sites form an integral part of the UK's network of Marine Protected Areas.
SACs are designated under the European Union's Habitats Directive. They protect specific species and habitats and each site will have conservation objectives to describe what is important for achieving a healthy state for each of the features protected.
SPAs are designated under the European Union's Birds Directive. These sites have been identified as areas of importance for the breeding, feeding, wintering or migration of birds found within EU countries which are classified as rare or vulnerable.
European Marine Sites in Sussex:
Solent Maritime SAC
This area includes areas of sea grass and also encompasses important estuarine and salt marsh habitats.
Chichester Harbour SPA
This area has been designated for a number of breeding, wintering and migratory birds, including the Little Tern, Sandwich Tern, Redshank, Ringed Plover and Dark-bellied Brent Goose. The area incorporates extensive mud-flats and sea grass beds, as well as a wide range of other coastal habitats which support important animals and plants.
Pagham Harbour SPA
The harbour includes a number of coastal habitats, including salt marsh, mud flats, lagoons and shingle which support breeding and wintering birds. The designation covers the Little Tern, Ruff and Pintail.
Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay SPA
This large area encompasses a range of coastal habitats and sits on the boarder of East Sussex and Kent. The shingle beach at Rye Harbour supports breeding gulls and terns; the SPA also includes areas of salt marsh, sand flats and mud flats.
Dungeness to Pett Levels SAC
Annual vegetation of drift lines and perrenial vegetation of stony banks are the habitats giving the primary reason for selection of this site as an SAC.
Defra's Revised Approach to Fisheries in European Marine Sites:
In 2012 Defra issued a revision to its approach to fisheries in European Marine Sites in the inshore waters of England in order to afford protection to the habitats and species - this is in line with our obligations under the EU Habitats and Birds Directives. The revision stated that any fishery operating within a European Marine Site would only be allowed to continue if it did not negatively impact the features of the site.
This revised approach is being phased in on a risk-prioritised basis. Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (IFCA) are working to ensure that this transition is carried out. You can find out more about their work here.
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Brent charts black music history in pictures
The north-west London borough of Brent's rich and unique black music history is captured in a photographic exhibition that's accessible until late into the evening, 24/7.
The Brent Black Music History Photographic Exhibition was recently launched at Brent Museum's Community Gallery in Willesden Green Library Centre, north-west London by Harlesden Councillor Lincoln Beswick MBE, who's been a Brent resident since 1962. The photos are taken from pan-London voluntary organisation BTWSC's Heritage Lottery Funded Brent Black Music History Project, which created a free DVD and booklet documenting buildings and people with a connection with black music spanning 1966 to 2006 in Britain's most ethnically diverse borough.
The Project contributors include Sonny Roberts, who set up the first black-owned recording studio and label, Planetone, in 1962, and Carl Palmer, who along with two brothers set up Pama in 1967, which is the forerunner of Jet Star, Britain's biggest reggae-specialist distributor. The contributors include Phil Fearon, former recording artist and owner of the Production House label, Daddy Ernie and Robbo Ranx, reggae presenters on Choice FM and BBC 1Xtra, respectively.
Brent's unique black music history include the fact that Aswad are the only British reggae band to top the singles charts (with 'Don't Turn Around'); Janet Kay's the only female British reggae singer to make the Top 2 (with 'Silly Games'); the internationally successful African-fusion band Osibisa; Trojan, once the world's biggest reggae label, and Island Records, were Brent-based. The latter label signed its biggest star, Bob Marley, who was then living in the borough. The launch was dedicated to one of the Project contributors, Paulette Patterson, a former singer with '70s reggae band Prediction and '80s R&B/dance duo Dazzle, who sadly passed away in June, a few months after the completion of the Project. Cllr Beswick received a token on behalf of the family of his former constituent. "I am very proud of this, because this exhibition needs to be here. This is historic stuff," said Cllr Beswick in his presentation speech. "We had to fight to establish our music when we first came here. Harlesden has produced some of the best musicians from anywhere, locally, regionally and nationally. "I am very proud of the work Paulette was doing. We are all not drug pushers and gun runners - we're more than that, and this history shows that." "We're grateful that Brent Museum has given us space for such a long time to display some of our photos. So no one who wants to see the exhibition can miss it. It will also allow us to facilitate events around the exhibition," noted Project consultant Kwaku. Added one of the Project contributors, Hugh Francis, former head of intellectual property and business affairs at Jet Star Records: "I am saying to the young people - pick up an instrument and learn a craft, and that way you can have longevity in the music business. Britain will benefit because it brings money into the community, and what's good for British black music is ultimately good for Britain."
Project contributors Root Jackson, head of Congo Music and co-founder of former Brent-based Black Music Association, and Paul Dawkins of Tradition, a '70s reggae band started in Brent were among the audience. Singer-songwriter Noel McKoy provided live music singing and playing an acoustic guitar. The exhibition, which is free and accessible from 11am to 9pm seven days a week will stay until mid-November 2008. The organisers, pan-London voluntary organisation BTWSC, plan to refresh the exhibition with new photos and mini events every four months.
Submitted by Ms Serwah on Fri, 12/14/2007 - 08:06
Passing of a lyrical saint – Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011)
Freedom for Palestine song makes chart history
DIY kit for the music stars of the future
2 weeks 1 hour hence
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President Trump Tweets That He Should Have Left UCLA Basketball Players in Jail
By Alana Abramson
President Donald Trump has once again weighed in on the UCLA basketball players arrested for shoplifting in China, tweeting that he should have left them in jail after a player’s father questioned how much the president actually had to do with his son’s release.
“Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!” Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon.
Ball on Friday seemed to largely disregard Trump’s role in his son’s release in an interview with ESPN. “Who?” he responded when he was asked about the topic. “What was he over there for? Don’t tell me nothing. Everybody wants to make it seem like he helped me out.”
Ball’s son LiAngelo and two of his teammates, Jalen Hill and Cody Riley, were arrested Nov. 8 after stealing designer sunglasses in Shanghai, according to the New York Times. Their arrest coincided with Trump’s visit to China, and the players were detained at their hotel. On Nov. 14, they left their hotel and boarded a plane back to the United States. Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly told the Times the president was instrumental in their release, bringing it up with China’s Xi Jinping.
“Our president said to Xi, ‘Do you know anything about these knuckleheads that got caught allegedly stealing?’” Kelly told the Times. “The president was saying, ‘It’s not too serious. We’d love to see this taken care of in an expeditious way,’”
The three players thanked Trump at a press conference Wednesday and apologized for their behavior. That morning, Trump had tweeted that he didn’t know if they would thank him.
Once the thanks had been issued, Trump responded, again on Twitter, by telling them to thank Xi Jinping and to have a great life.
Write to Alana Abramson at Alana.Abramson@time.com.
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A Visit to Santa
A Visit to Santa is the second half of the 19th episode of Season 11 of Barney & Friends.
Plot Edit
The kids are writing letters to Santa on Christmas Eve. Nathan needs some help on deciding what to write in his letter, so Melanie offers to help him. Later, the kids hand their letters to the Mailman, who reminds them that this is the last day to mail the Santa letters. As he starts to drive away, Nathan suddenly remembers that Melanie has yet to mail her letter in. Megan sprints to the gate and shouts for the mailman to come back, but it is too late, much to their dismay. At that moment, Melanie comes out with her finished letter and asks where the mailman is. Her friends glumly explain that he is gone. Melanie, realizing that she did not complete her letter in time, is crushed by this and sadly walks back inside. The other kids ask Barney if she'll be all right. He states that he had better go check. Back inside, she is heartbroken and states to Barney that there's no way she can get her letter in now. However, Barney explains to her that she actually might to be able to get it in before Santa takes off. With the help of the Magic Travel Cupboard, they are at the North Pole in an instant. They run into three of Santa's elves, who then proceed to perform a rap song about Christmas. Then the big man himself, Old St. Nick, appears. Barney explains to Melanie that he and Santa have been friends for a long time. She then asks if its too late to mail her letter, still worried about being forgotten. He states to her that the reason her letter was late was because she was helping her friends, and assures her that she'll never be forgotten at Christmas, and even puts her name in the book with all the other good children of the world. With that, she and Barney head back to the park, however she has unknowingly left her bag on a coathanger. When Melanie explains that she delivered her letter in person, her friends don't believe her at first, until one of the elves suddenly appears to give Melanie her bag back. Before he heads out, he explains to the others that they have been good all year as well. The kids then ask Melanie what she wrote in her letter. And she states that she asked for this Christmas to be a good one for everyone. As they all sing "I Love You" it begins to snow.
Song List Edit
We're Writing A Letter to Santa
Santa's Wrapping Crew
Look into Santa's Book
Jeff Ayers (who plays Baby Bop), Kyle Nelson (who plays BJ) and Adam Brown (who plays Riff and BJ in E-I-E-I-O)) play Santa's eleves.
This episode marks the final appearance of Nathan.
Retrieved from "https://timewarnercablekids.fandom.com/wiki/A_Visit_to_Santa?oldid=4780"
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Indonesia-Australia Business Council Conference - Keynote address
18-Sep-2013 - 18-Feb-2016
Minister for Trade and Investment
The Hon Andrew Robb AO MP
Download the official portrait of the Minister [JPEG 2.1 MB]
Speech, E&OE
Minister Robb: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much Chris and I acknowledge your efforts as president of the Indonesia-Australia Business Council and thank you very much for that. I acknowledge Harold Mitchell the chairman of the board of the Australia-Indonesia Centre and professor Paul Ramadge who's the president of the Australia-Indonesia Centre, based at Monash University in Melbourne.
Also His Excellency Paul Grigson the Australian ambassador here in Indonesia. I also acknowledge Mr Himawan, who is the deputy chair of the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board. We recently had an investment seminar, organised by the Indonesians, and a culture seminar as well; it was a three day exercise last Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Canberra. Both myself and Mr Himawan spoke, so we’re a bit of a tag team actually, I know what he’s going to say and he knows what I’m likely to say.
I acknowledge what's been going on here for the last 24 hours; I think, after a period of less activity between our two countries, a lot of green shoots are starting to emerge. I did feel that the visit by Prime Minister Turnbull last week, was an exceptional one. Both he and President Widodo had a meeting of the minds in many respects; similar backgrounds, both self-made men with strong business skills and experience, both with sharp minds, both with a passion for innovation.
It's also nice to be here with 360 of my closest friends from Australia; a delegation of business people who will join me tonight in Jakarta. It's the biggest ever business delegation that we've had in Indonesia; we thought it might be 200 but the numbers just kept growing and growing and in the end we had to cap it at 360 because of the venues that had been arranged. But it does build, in a very timely fashion, on the visit last week from Prime Minister Turnbull.
Yesterday I met with Tom Lembong who's my counterpart as the Minister for Trade; we've had two meetings and several conversations since he took over and again I find, like Malcolm Turnbull and President Widodo, it is a meeting of the minds between myself and Tom Lembong.
I had a meeting yesterday in Manila, APEC is underway there. I participated yesterday and it’s going today and I think the leaders all arrive today and they will have their meetings tomorrow.
But Tom and I, amongst other things, agreed that we would immediately reinvigorate negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which I think had run into the sand somewhat three or four years ago, and our attention was elsewhere in the interim.
But based on the conversation that Prime Minister Turnbull had with President Widodo, there was an agreement between them to reignite that agreement. So immediately in the new year, it will be a high priority for both of us, and we intend to deal with it as quickly as we can, so again we can start to strip away some of the barriers; not just the tariffs but also a lot of the behind the border barriers that often frustrates so much of the business opportunity.
Could I just say it's great to be here in Yogyakarta, because this is my first time here. I've heard a lot about it; it is the education powerhouse in Indonesia and certainly with 20 universities and education institutions, it’s earned that title. It is very much a favourite for a lot of young Australian students; I think there is about 1000 here at the moment, particularly learning the local language.
Of course we've got the New Colombo Plan; there's 37 countries where we will be – within three or four years – sending tens of thousands of students a year, at the Australian government’s expense, into the region. There's 37 countries they can choose from and the thing that really heartened me was that the most popular destination with the first round, was Indonesia, out of 37 countries. So I do feel it just tells you something, that the younger generation are looking forward, and they’re looking at the next ten or twenty years and looking to make an investment in themselves and their future.
I'd like to thank the Indonesia-Australia Business Council and all its members and the efforts that have been made to build a stronger trade and investment relationship. You well-understand the importance of our bilateral relationship, which I think, clearly has not reached anywhere near its potential.
In some ways I do feel as though we've been looking past one another for the last 10 or 15 years. Indonesia currently ranks as our 12th largest trading partner; around $15 billion two-way trade, and two-way investment is a fraction of what it could be at just under $10 billion.
I do feel that Australia to some extent has overlooked Indonesia in the past 15 or 20 years perhaps, concentrating on building trade with the major North Asian economies. Indonesia likewise has been looking north for trade and investment partners, and I think there are good commercial reasons for it. Until now, we've both been largely commodity exporting economies, working somewhat in parallel with the same customers. But things are changing, things have changed.
Today we are seeing unprecedented developments emerging in the region around us and they’re not a flash in the pan; this is an economic phenomenon which is taking place through India, through China and every country in between, including both of ours.
Currently there’s 600 million people in the middle class in those huge countries in the region around us. In 35 years – not 100 years, not 50 years – the OECD expects that 600 million to grow to three billion people in the middle class. It's almost incomprehensible to think how that could happen, but it is happening.
Two years ago we sold 60,000 tonnes of beef to China, they were our 12th biggest beef market. Last year we sold 260,000 tonnes of beef to China; it went from our 12th biggest market to our 3rd biggest market in one year.
100 million people left China last year for a holiday; a million came to Australia. I don't know how many came to Indonesia, but there's enormous scope for that industry with the Chinese government telling me they expect by 2020 – in just five years’ time – 220 million Chinese will leave China for a holiday.
So there are so many things happening; there’s planes leaving Australia every day with huge bladders carrying tens of thousands of litres of liquid milk going to coffee shops all over China where they’re paying $10 or $20 per litre; it's $2 a litre in Australia.
And it’s a good thing that there’s hundreds of millions of people coming out of poverty; it’s a humanitarian miracle as much as it is an economic phenomenon.
Certainly in the two hundred years since the European settlement in Australia, nothing like this has happened; nothing like what we are seeing going on in the region around us; that absolute miracle of people moving out of poverty, and starting to enjoy the quality of life that so many other people around the globe have. It is a wonderful thing to be a part of, and I think we are blessed to have this opportunity, and I only wish I was thirty years younger; I tell my kids you’re going to have a spectacular future and it's not off in the distant future; it's happening. The next ten, the next twenty, the next thirty years, you're going to see all of this, what the OECD are predicting.
Even if we saw half of it, 600 million to 1.5 billion, it would be transformative for the whole region, and in that mix, between our two countries, we’ve now got all sorts of complementarities. Sure we compete on resources and energy, but that boom has come and gone and will come again sometime in the future, but it has come and gone for the moment.
But we've got agriculture, we've got a productive capacity and we need to look smarter at what the opportunities are in order to capitalise and to help the rest of the region realise its potential, and to help Indonesia realise its potential because you're one of the big countries that will contribute so much to that growth over the next twenty, thirty years.
It's a wonderful thing, but to do it we have to work at it and that's what this conference is about, it’s why we’re bringing 360 business people here; they've volunteered to come and paid their own way; they’ve come here because they know that something's happening, they know there are opportunities. When you look logically at it, we are geographically – you could almost throw a stone across the water from Australia to Indonesia – very close neighbours, and I don't think that's going to change. From the point of view of both of our futures, we have to make a relationship as it should, work; we get on as people, we have lots of values that are similar, there are lots of opportunities and it's really quite compelling that we work at it.
This is the largest economy in the ASEAN. There’s potential for as much as $3 trillion in trade growth over the next decade across the Asia Pacific, and this is one third of the trade in the Asia Pacific, so the opportunities are here and it’s really about trying to free-up those opportunities in order to take advantage of the 250 million people, of whom more than 50 per cent are under thirty and tech savvy.
The future is built now on a platform of digital technology, and to have such a significant number of young people in this country tech savvy, it offers unparalleled opportunities.
The government’s focused on seeking to boost business confidence and investment; they’re looking to deregulate, they’re looking to step out corruption; all of these things are critical programs. And there will be two steps forward and one step back because there’s a lot of resistance to change, especially if you are starting to upset the lifestyle and the opportunities and the way in which some people benefit from the system that’s been in existence.
But I do see a sense of great purpose, and the contribution yesterday of Tom and all the APEC trade ministers was very very hopeful about their determination here in Indonesia to wind-back much of the regulation that hadn’t worked. He didn’t mince words; he said it hadn’t worked, and that they wasted so much time on programs that hadn’t worked and they’re going to strip back the regulation and are in the process of looking at how they can do it, and how quickly they can do it.
Everyone was talking about this breath of fresh air, because they look at Indonesia and think how good this country could be if they just unlock a lot of the barriers to doing business, they could take advantage of so much of what is around them, but also contribute in their own way, to the growth and the potential that is seen by everyone in the region; their resources, the land, the people, the education levels, all of those things are seen as pre-conditions of enormous unprecedented opportunity.
I do think that President Widodo’s announcement they're going to try and join the TPP is a big statement and tells everyone here as well as the rest of the world, where the government is trying to take things. It's a very ambitious statement but it's a very important one.
I do think the completion of RCEP which is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, it is the mirror of TPP if you like, it is the other side of Asia with India and China; there's a lot of common partners, Japan's in there, we're in there in both TPP and RCEP, New Zealand, Malaysia's in both, Vietnam's in both.
But I do feel that if we can finish RCEP this year – that's a significant priority – if we can do that we can then start to try and bring TPP and RCEP together, and I think by 2025 there will be one region across the Asia Pacific, which has a free trade area across the whole region. It will mean one set of rules, which is a big thing; rules around country of origin, paperless trading, all of these boring things but they're at the heart of business frustration; lowering the red tape and cutting through a lot of those restrictions that currently apply in so many countries.
Now all these things are starting to take shape; even though we are in RCEP together, every time you enter into an agreement, you start to break down the resistance in your own country to provisions which are protectionist, which are holding you back, which are costing jobs. In the end this is all about jobs. It is creating, in this country, tens of millions of jobs, and similarly in Australia.
We're doing this for good reason and the evidence is there; Australia was a highly regulated economy for the first 70 years of the last century, enormously regulated. Everything was set: interest rates were set, wage rates were set, you name it; there was a book that big of regulation in every area of activity. Since then, we’ve removed so much of the protection; our average tariff in Australia now, once the China agreement enters into force, is under one per cent, and when we finish RCEP it will be getting close to zero in so many areas.
So we freed-up trade and freed-up so many areas, and now we’ve had 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth; we’re the only country in the developed world that’s been able to achieve that. And we’ve gone through the Asian exchange rate melt-down, we went through the tech-wreck, went through 9/11, went through 2008-2009 – three per cent growth, which is an average growth rate for developed countries.
That convinces me that there’s a lot of proof around that if you free things up, when you get a crisis; we depend heavily on resources and energy like Indonesia does, but also Canada and Brazil – very similar economy to Canada and Brazil – they’re relatively free, especially Canada, but not in the same way as Australia; Canada’s in recession, Brazil’s in recession and they’re still running along close to the top of the growth rate for the developed world at 2.7 because a lot of labour and capital has moved out of resources and energy in the last 12 to 18 months, into other areas of the economy, and that’s what we’re trying to do with all these trade agreements, and that is to diversify.
We’ve got lots of skills in Australia and we’re trying to diversify investment into those areas and Australia and Indonesia can help one another in that respect; we can invest in your strengths and you can invest in our strengths, and we can both be better countries as a consequence.
And it’s not only engaging, it’s about complementarities. We’ve been selling so much wheat since about 1988, and before that Indonesia would not allow any wheat to be bought, but now we provide 50 per cent of the wheat that goes into noodles, biscuits and other high demand products, and they’re a significant export for Indonesia. We have already, over the last 15 years, been engaging heavily in complimentary value adding.
It’s the same with the live cattle trade; we grow them and you fatten them, and the prospects for taking that to another level in combination; there’s so much we can do together. There’s so much evidence that it does work, and it does work on a big scale, not just in bits and pieces; we can do it in education, we can do it in financial services, in health and medical.
I’m seeing it in China; in our free trade agreement with China, they’ve opened their door to our services for the first time, because that’s where the jobs are; jobs are in services. Australia, which is known as a resources and energy country, we’re known as an agriculture and agribusiness country, but 75 per cent of our GDP is services; we export just 17 per cent of our services – that’s the next wave of opportunity for us, especially given what’s happening in the region around us. We can export our services into the region, and those services help those economies, including Indonesia; we can combine with your strengths.
I was in China with a group of Australian CEOs a few weeks ago, and in anticipation of the free trade agreement, there’s all these deals being done, and there’s a series of conglomerates who are putting together joint-ventures with things that China needs. They need health services, they need aged-care services because of the one-child policy, they need jobs in restaurants and hotels, so they’ve opened up all these areas. When the agreement starts, Australians can go in and set up as many hospitals as they like and own them 100 per cent.
What’s happening is the big conglomerates have got the reach and the capital, the scale and the influence in all sorts of areas in the economy. They’re joining forces with some of our hospital groups. One group I met are very close to concluding a deal; the hospital group has 42 hospitals in Australia, and will probably build another two or three or four over the next few years. With this combined joint-venture, they’re looking to build 200 hospitals in the next two years and a lot of those will be in China, some will be in Vietnam, some in Malaysia and some here in Indonesia. This is the sort of opportunity I’m talking about; to combine the strengths of our countries for mutual advantage.
The opportunities can broaden when you think about all the things you need here; you can build stronger health services, stronger education services, stronger financial services, the joint venture opportunities are enormous; you can see with the Telstra-Telkom joint venture – another important service – you get the technology of one country and the scale and reach of another country, put them together and you start to open up other opportunities.
Mining services is another example. Indonesia is our biggest market, and there’s so much more we can do to develop the national resources here in effective and socially responsible ways. They are things we’re good at; you have the resources and we have the skills so when you put them together you turbo-charge the opportunity that exist here, and you take them outside of the country and you help the growing middle-class in region, and you make a contribution.
And if you put people within reach of the standard of living so many of us have got, you add stability in the region, so it’s not just an economic issue, it’s very much about peace and stability. If people have choices, you take away a lot of the angst in the world, certainly in our region.
There are also many opportunities opening up in infrastructure; particularly in Northern Australia. The top 45 per cent of Australia’s land mass has a population of one million people. It’s in the Tropics, it’s very remote, and we develop lots of resources and energy products in the north, but not much else. Most of it is big cattle stations – one beast to ten acres – but there’s 17 million hectares the size of Cambodia, stretching from Western Australia, through the Northern Territory, to Queensland, and it has potential if you add water, for specialist crops, but you have to be able to capture it.
60 per cent of the water that falls in Australia falls in the north, but we only capture 2 per cent of that at the moment. So you can see the opportunities.
Much of this too is for the big operators here. We’ve seen Indonesian purchases of big cattle stations in the last couple of years, and that helps have Indonesian influence, all the way down the supply chain, just in the same way that some of our big cattle operators have got investments in feedlots here. That’s when you get a lot of common understanding about the issues and can lock-in a real partnership.
We've got many more opportunities like that in the north where you can come in with a big investment and also control and participate in that. If we get the projects and the exercise is big enough, if we’ve got 200,000 hectares of specialist crops or horticulture, places that big can run its own power-station; it can run its own abattoir; it can run its own sugar mill; it can contribute to the cost of the railway to the port; all of these things happen and not necessarily with tax payers’ money. A lot of it is private sector money because they're just like a mine; mines are big enough to fund all that sort of activity. We're trying to produce agriculture equivalents to mines, except it will be a renewable resource being mined, not a finite resource.
These are things that I can see in the future and this is not beginning in 20 or 30 years’ time, this is now. We had 250 investors from 20 countries in Darwin, 10 days ago for three days, looking at over 100 investment-ready projects across the north; multi-billion dollar projects in areas like aquaculture, which is again another area that we share a lot of common knowledge and experience. It’s a great opportunity to work together in selling.
We've got one project that's there ready; it’s 10,000 hectares of ponds for tiger prawns, it'll be the biggest prawn operation in the world, it'll produce 100,000 tonnes of prawns a year, and won't touch the sides in terms of the demand.
Think of the opportunities between us in that area; we can bring the science and the expertise, and add it to your science and expertise and local knowledge and do things here, or do things in Australia; the opportunities are there. As someone said, some parts of Australia are much closer to Indonesia than it is to the rest of Australia, so there is no geographical problem.
Education is another big opportunity throughout the whole region; the vocation education. Skills are needed here, skills are needed in India; you go to any country in the region, everyone is looking at their skills so they can become as productive as possible. Again, we can work in tandem on these things. We’ve got the expertise, we just have to put it together with the scale, reach, influence and understanding of local cultures, in a way which the local community will accept and respect and will welcome.
A lot of this has got to be done in partnership. If we do all that, as I said before, the next 30 years are simply going to be absolutely spectacular. I do feel there’s an inevitability about our two countries becoming a machine almost, and a major contributor in a joint fashion, to the realisation of prosperity throughout much of our region.
It's possible, it's not a figment of our imagination, it's real; there's a lot happening already and I look forward to working with all of you to that end.
Trade Minister's Office: (02) 6277 7420
DFAT Media Liaison: (02) 6261 1555
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Putting Yourself in Another’s Shoes
Social Work graduate student Brandon Williams explained that that was what the March 18 Poverty Simulation 2011 was illustrating. He was one of the volunteers, role playing. The sign at his table read “Community Center.”
Fellow grad student Megan Englebretson explained that some of the nearly 100 students, mostly undergraduates, who came to their table throughout the afternoon found frustration. As they all played their roles, they wanted more than what those at each of the booths could provide, or perhaps they’d been misinformed. Many participants found it eye-opening. Frustrations and barriers were a theme of the day, as revealed when students formed groups at the end of the day to talk through their role-playing experiences.
“I just want the people to have the right information,” one student said.
The day was the brainchild of instructor Jack Register (Social Work), who led a committee organizing it. “We in HES [Human Environmental Sciences] train students to become more aware of the issues and impact of poverty on vulnerable populations,” he explained. Including the frustrations.
The event, titled “Poverty Simulation 2011: Making Cents of Being Poor,” took place on a warm, sunny Friday. The students, many from Social Work but others from throughout the School of HES and beyond, gathered in Fleming Gym in the morning to be briefed on the purpose and logistics of the afternoon simulation. One topic was “What poverty looks like in our world today in 2011.”
Poverty simulations, Register explains, are a way of ‘walking,’ at least for a few minutes, in the shoes of another person or group. Each participant would be given an identity. They would attempt to get their family’s needs met, and in the course of the afternoon would visit several “agencies” to help do that.
“You may have to gain access to transportation, recertify for Medicare/Medicaid, gain some intervention for medical reasons, or a host of other issues,” he instructed the students, about the role-playing. “If you choose to break the law during the simulation, you will be arrested.”
While the day was eye-opening for some — many participants had had experience working with volunteering or working with populations at risk for poverty, such as immigrants or the mentally ill.
“A family member may get out of poverty, but what about the family?” one student observed during the debriefing at the end of the day.
By 2012, about sixty percent of the population will be elderly, Williams said, as he moderated one of the debriefing sessions. Social Work chair Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey offered an occasional question or thought to further the conversation. But the students offered their own experiences with populations in need.
“Let’s talk about kids,” Williams said. And the participants had plenty to add.
“We talked about immigrants,” he said. “What about the mentally ill?” The views flew back and forth, some students drawing on their volunteer experiences.
“Did there seem to be good communication between agencies?” Williams asked.
One student observed that transportation – not understanding how to use the public transportation or no access to it or a car — can be a barrier.
Lindsey noted that during the simulation, she observed a “45-year-old veteran” walking around rather aimlessly, not knowing where to turn. One student observed seeing a homeless veteran recently along a roadway, and speculated on what barriers that individual had faced, and what could be done.
Students piped up with frustrations they faced, in playing their roles. “The frustration in hearing you’re denied a service, but not told why,” one said.
“Seeing [a place] closed for the day or for lunch,” another said.
Language barriers for immigrants, Alexia Mesa offered. An intern with Guilford Child Development, she has experience working with Congolese immigrants. She notes that UNCG is the most diverse ethnically of the historically white UNC schools, and she has learned from students of a wide variety of ethnicities at UNCG.
This warm, spring day was another day of broadening students’ perspectives.
By Mike Harris
Photograph by Mike Harris
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKsjrnDQFvI
Filed Under: Featured, Features Tagged With: 033011
Weatherspoon Celebrates 70
The Weatherspoon Art Museum turns 70 this year. That’s seven decades of presenting thoughtful exhibitions, providing educational opportunities for visitors, and building a collection with a national reputation.
The museum will have special offerings throughout the year.
One that is always fun and very family-friendly is the annual Spring Community Day, which will be Saturday, April 9, 1-4 p.m. Join Paperhand Puppet Intervention (in visual) from the Triangle area in celebrating WAM’s 70th Anniversary. Art activities, performances, tours and more will be offered.
Additional highlights for the year include the anniversary exhibition, Weatherspoon Art Museum: 70 Years of Collecting, and the launch of a full-color publication that complements it.
Some events in the coming weeks:
Noon @ ‘the Spoon gallery tour – Tour the Vogel Collection
April 12, noon
A Conversation with artist Tom Otterness – Thursday, April 14, 5:30 p.m.
From the city parks to museums, from subway stations to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Tom Otterness’ public sculptures have been enjoyed by millions. Join WAM for this special evening.
John Ahearn: Artist Talk – Wednesday, April 20, 5:30 p.m.
A Greensboro storefront in 1995 became a studio for John Ahearn where he created life-like plaster portraits of the city’s residents. Learn about John’s work and those who inspire it. More information.
The special 70th anniversary web site can be viewed here. The WAM site, with a full calendar, can be viewed here.
Student Excellence Day (Plus Preview Day)
Student Excellence Day, when UNCG recognizes the outstanding accomplishments of its undergraduate and graduate students, will be held Friday, April 8, to coincide with the Woman’s College Reunion Weekend.
Student Excellence Day will culminate with an Honors Convocation at 7 p.m. in EUC’s Auditorium, when Provost David H. Perrin will present Student Excellence Awards, UNCG’s highest academic award, along with awards for Undergraduate Research, Graduate and Library Research.
A “Student Excellence Day Preview” will take place on Thursday, April 7.
Various “showcase” events, slated for both days, will allow fellow students, faculty, staff and alumni to experience a sample of the broad array of the work produced by our students on a daily basis. For instance, the Undergraduate Research Expo will present faculty-mentored student projects from a wide variety of academic fields. The Art, Dance and Music departments will showcase student work in exhibits and in open rehearsals. The Lloyd International Honors College will open the doors of North Spencer Honors Residence Hall to the UNCG community for an “Honors Showcase.”
On Friday afternoon, from 1 to 3 p.m. in the EUC Auditorium Lobby, students from Leadership and Service-Learning, Undergraduate Research, Interior Architecture, Art, the Honors College, and Strong, Ashby, and Grogan Residential Colleges will be on hand to greet and meet at a drop-in showcase. They will answer questions about their individual and collective work. Any UNCG student who attends the Showcase, and who completes a brief reflective survey, will be eligible to win an iPod nano.
The two-day schedule:
Student Excellence Day Preview: Thursday, April 7
9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. – Undergraduate Research Expo, Elliott University Center, Cone Ballroom – The Undergraduate Research Expo showcases faculty mentored student projects from a wide variety of academic fields. The work you will see demonstrates how UNCG students are engaging in activities that improve their communication skills, hone their critical thinking and problem solving skills, and give them experience in teamwork. Some of the presenters are supported by funding from the Office of Undergraduate Research while others receive course credit, volunteer their time or receive funding from a faculty member’s grant. Some of the presentations are a result of a class project; many will be interdisciplinary.
9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. – Art Student Exhibits (EUC Art Gallery)
Noon to 12:50 p.m. – Jazz Ensemble Rehearsal (Music Building, Room 111)
12:30 to 1:45 p.m. – Dance Class (HHP Building, Room 322)
2 to 3:15 p.m. – Dance Class (HHP Building, Room 322)
2 to 3:40 p.m. – Symphonic Band Rehearsal (Music Building, Room 111)
Student Excellence Day, Friday, April 8
10 to 11:45 a.m. – Dance Class (HHP Building, Room 322)
Noon to 12:50 p.m. – Jazz Band Rehearsal (Music Building, Room 111)
1 to 3 p.m. – Showcase featuring students talking about their work (EUC Auditorium Lobby)
2 to 4 p.m. – Honors College Open House (North Spencer Residence Hall) – Lloyd International Honors College will open the doors of North Spencer Honors Residence Hall to the UNCG community for an “Honors Showcase.” Honors students and student groups will be in the parlor to present their work to visitors. Among those with presentations will be this year’s World Model United Nations team and student winners from the 2011 Honors Research Symposium. Tours will be available of the Honors College’s Global Classroom and other facilities in North Spencer.
7 p.m. Honor’s Convocation (EUC Auditorium) – Provost David H. Perrin will preside at UNCG’s 49th annual Student Honors Convocation. At the Convocation the Student Excellence Award winners will be announced. Undergraduate Research Assistant, Graduate and Library Research Awards will also be presented.
Filed Under: Headline Tagged With: 033011
Newsmakers: March 30, 2011
Fred Patrick, Michael Parker, Timothy Johnston, Melissa Pihos, the Sapphires and those associated with the early/middle college are among UNCG individuals recently in the news. [Read more…]
Filed Under: Newsmakers Tagged With: 033011
New University Marshals
Fifty-two individuals will be inducted on April 10 into one of the oldest continuing student organizations on campus. [Read more…]
Counseling, Nursing Programs Rank High in Survey
Programs in nursing and counseling at UNCG rank among the nation’s best, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2012 Best Graduate Schools. [Read more…]
Enjoy a Day at the Lake
UNCG faculty, staff and students are invited to bring your friends and family to enjoy a day at Piney Lake on Saturday, April 9, 1:30 – 6:30 p.m. [Read more…]
Blue & Gold Wellness Expo 2011
Join HRS and Healthy UNCG for the Blue & Gold Wellness Expo devoted to employees and showcasing a variety of health and wellness resources available at UNCG and throughout the Piedmont Triad community. [Read more…]
Kicking It Off with a 2:41 Walk
UNCG will host a kick-off walk for National Start Walking Day, an America Heart Association (AHA) initiative. [Read more…]
A TRANSCEND peace studies conference will be on campus this week. Two talks are open for to everyone. [Read more…]
Notes: March 30, 3011
Program Review timeline The timeline for Academic Program Review, running to November, has been posted at the Academic Program Review Process web page, http://opa.uncg.edu/programreview/. As the timeline shows, the work of the Unit Program Review committees will begin May 1. The work of the University Program Review committee is slated to begin June 15. Those wishing to know of updates to the web site as they are posted may subscribe to the listserv. Past updates may be viewed at http://opa.uncg.edu/programreview/docs/UNCG_Academic_Program_Review_Process_Listserv_Messages.pdf.
Three scholarships Students may apply for the James H. Allen Student Leader Scholarship, the Georgia Cooper Moore Service and Leadership Award, and the Pamela A. Wilson Memorial Scholarship. The application deadline for the three awards is Friday, April 8, at 5 p.m. Winners will be announced at the 2011 Excellence Awards Banquet on Monday, April 18, at 6 p.m., in EUC’s Cone Ballroom. For more information, visit http://www.uncg.edu/saf/.
Comer going Athletics Ticket Manager for almost 10 years, John Comer is leaving UNCG for a position with the Carolina Union at UNC Chapel Hill. He leaves behind some great memories, as he was always working the gate or box office for the big games. “My favorite game was the victory over perennial power Santa Clara by the women’s soccer team in 2008,” he told CW. “The most thrilling moment was Henning Jonasson’s last-second goal to beat arch rival Furman in 2005!”
April 8 Habitat for Humanity Dedication The dedication for the Habitat for Humanity house, which many UNCG groups and invividuals have worked on this year, has been rescheduled for Friday, April 8, 4:30 – 5 p.m, at 1505 Village Crest Drive. (The event had originally been scheduled for an earlier date.) Those with questions may contact Beth Hens at beth_hens@uncg.edu
Museum Studies students won an award from the North Carolina Museums Council for “Best Interactive Website” for their project about Greensboro’s mill villages. The online site can be seen at http://conemillvillages.weebly.com/index.html.
Prison stories Sean Kelley, senior VP and director of public programming and PR at the Eastern State Penitentiary historic site and museum in Philadelphia, will speak. The event will be Tuesday, April 5, at 4 p.m. in Room 204, Gatewood Studio Arts Building. The talk is titled “Prison Sentences: Telling Complex Stories with Tours, Exhibits and Artist Collaborations in the Eastern State Penitentiary.” It is sponsored by the History Department and Public History Program.
Cleaning up Greensboro UNCG volunteers will participate in the Great American Clean Up through Greensboro Beautiful on April 2 from 9-11:0 a.m. Free pizza and drinks will be provided for volunteers at War Memorial Stadium from 11 a.m. to noon. Volunteers will meeting in the Sink Building parking lot (corner of Highland and Oakland Ave) to get gloves and bags, and learn what area they will be cleaning up. If you’d like to volunteer, email Jessica Trotman (Office of Waste and Recycling) by March 31.
Final blood drive of the school year Elliott University Center will host its final Red Cross Blood Drive of the 2010-2011 school year on Tuesday, April 5, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in Cone Ballroom., EUC. The goal is 250 pints. More than 566 pints of blood has been collected at EUC drives this year for the Red Cross. All presenting donors for the April EUC Blood Drive will receive a free t-shirt and will also be entered for the chance to win a pair of Delta Air Lines tickets. Be sure to come prepared when giving blood. Have a light meal and plenty to drink. Bring your Red Cross donor card, driver’s license or two other forms of identification. And bring the names of any medications you are currently taking, the EUC says. For more information, and to schedule your donation appointment, visit http://www.uncg.edu/euc/blooddrive. Appointments will be given priority. Walk-ins are welcome.
Peabody work Peabody Park, the 34-acre tract of land at the northern end of UNCG’s campus, contains older growth forest, grassy areas and several streams. While you can’t say it is undisturbed, it is an important refuge for many forms of fora and fauna, as well as a great opportunity for outdoor learning. In the park you might see a 100 ft tall Yellow Poplar, a blue tailed skink, a rare native stand of horsetails, 500 million year old bedrock, or a crayfish in the stream. On April 8, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., you may help remove non-native plants such as English ivy and bamboo, with the helpful eye of graduate students to guide you. General clean up and removal of trash is also part of the event. Gloves and bags are provided. Please wear clothes you can wear out in the woods and sneakers. Water will be provided, but bring your own water bottle.
That Duke or ECU t-shirt? Everyone’s invited to the Great T-shirt Exchange: Out with the old, in with the Blue & Gold PART 2. It will be on April 5, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. in the EUC Commons area and the Atrium. The Student Government Association will present this event, co-sponsored by University Relations. You can trade in t-shirts from other universities (or any non-UNCG shirt) and get a free UNCG t-shirt in exchange. The traded shirts will be donated to Greensboro Urban Ministries. “This is also an opportunity to raise money for Relay for Life, so spare change is also welcome,” says Katie Marshall, student body president. “It’s all about school spirit and service.”
Dance Explores Narrative, Creative Process
“Our Stories,” an evening length dance/theater work, will be presented at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, April 1-2, by Kelly Ozust, a candidate for the MFA degree in choreography. [Read more…]
Filed Under: Eye on Arts Tagged With: 033011
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance on April 8
The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will perform at UNCG Friday, April 8, as part of the Schol of Music, Theatre and DanceUniversity Concert and Lecture Series “Spotlight on the Performing Arts.” [Read more…]
Campus People: March 30, 2011
Featured this week: Fred Patrick – Dr. Claudia Cabello Hutt – Alex Epanchin – Betty Epanchin – Marilyn Friend – Judith Niemeyer – J. David Smith [Read more…]
Filed Under: Campus People Tagged With: 033011
Announcements: March 30, 2011
Staff Senate Will Accept Nominations
Are you or someone you know a staff member who wants to become more involved on our campus? Staff Senate will accept nominations for open seats April 1 – 15.
Nominations can be submitted online at http://staffsenate.uncg.edu or via campus mail (address to Kevin Bullard, 202 Forney Building). Formal elections will be held May 2 – 6 online, and in the EUC common area from 11 a.m. – noon each day. If you have questions or would like additional information, contact Kevin Bullard at kbullard@uncg.edu or 336-790-8642.
Total Number of Open Seats per Division
Academic Affairs, Student Affairs & Research 18
Business Affairs 8
Information Technology Services 2
Advancement 1
Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: 033011
Looking ahead: March 30-April 6, 2011
Baseball vs. N.C. A&T
Wednesday, March 30, NewBridge Park, Greensboro
Blue & Gold Wellness Expo
Friday, April 1, 11 a.m., Cone Ballroom, EUC
Black Arts Festival, “Black Arts Throughout the Decades”
Friday, April 1, 6:30 p.m., EUC Auditorium
Talk, Paula Vogel, recipient of Pulitzer Prize
Friday, April 1, 7 p.m., Taylor Theatre
Record and CD fair, sponsored by WUAG
Saturday, April 2, noon, Weatherspoon.
Opera, ‘Hansel and Gretel’
Sunday, April 3, 2 p.m., Aycock Auditorium
Tuesday, April 5, 9 a.m., Cone Ballroom., EUC
Science on Tap talk, “Vaccines: Are the Fears Justified?”
Tuesday, April 4, 7:30 p.m., The Green Bean
National Start Walking Day walk
Wednesday, April 6, 2:41 p.m., Minerva Statue
more at calendar.uncg.edu
Filed Under: Calendar Highlights Tagged With: 033011
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MMM: Let The Right Godzilla Under The Simple Sea
Posted on January 31, 2011 by James Monroe Treakle
James here with Movie Music Monday!
Three pieces from random sources today. They’re all somber in tone. I gravitated in that direction, so here we are.
Oh, boy. The ending of Ishiro Honda’s classic ‘Gojira’, scored by Akira Ifakube. Serious stuff.
Ah, ‘Blood Simple’. Chilling neo-noir. The Coen Brothers’ first feature — if I recall correctly — and their first collaboration with Carter Burwell, who showed just as much skill as his creative partners. This is a very Carpenteresque theme.
Now here’s something somber for you. Johan Söderqvist’s theme for ‘Let The Right One In’ is beautiful. That’s all.
Posted in Movie Music Mondays | Tagged Carter Burwell, cinema, coen brothers, culture, entertainment, film, godzilla, Gojira, Johan Söderqvist, let the right one in, movies, music, sharing, somber, Toho | Leave a comment
Classic Review: F For Fake
Summary: An excellent film — a sort of metadocumentary — that exposes its own artifice and the relationship between truth and trust.
Review: In the 1973 film ‘F For Fake’, over 88 minutes cinematic genius Orson Welles examines the nature of art in a filmic form not quite documentary and not quite fiction. It’s proof that the peculiar magic of the medium is not restricted to the categories dreamed up by marketing departments. ‘F For Fake’ is a truly self-aware film. It doesn’t merely acknowledge its artifice in a humorous, superficial way; it turns itself inside out. It is edited in such a way as to obfuscate our attempts to sort out truth and fiction. It’s like a photograph of a flower-pot hiding its very subject immediately behind it. For us viewers at Mr. Welles’ mercy, the question is, when are we looking at the proverbial flower-pot?
Orson Welles is brazen and beguiling as he guides us through the twisted tale of an infamous art forger and his equally infamous biographer. Throughout the story, he weaves in a bizarre fiction and chases rabbits down their trails. Mr. Welles promises to tell us the truth whilst declaiming himself as a charlatan akin to his subjects. Welles in his own estimation is untrustworthy, but we believe him anyway, and that is precisely his point!
While he’s at it, he subtly explores sexuality’s use as a deceptive device, through two sequences in which a beautiful woman distracts us from the ideas at play. He seems to suggest that physical beauty is often used by filmmakers to divert our attention from both flaws and substantive content. That’s consistent with how often sex appeal determines casting, particularly in works of a shallower nature. It wouldn’t be enough to say that this is just good business. Even if it has become second nature, these techniques are a kind of sleight-of-hand. The plot could disappear into a deep hole, but your basic instincts might not let you notice. And, for a storyteller more intent on complexity, using human desires to his or her advantage is a simple and effective way to get an audience’s attention while they work past the mind’s more intricate defenses.
In a film-craft sense, ‘F For Fake’ is really brilliant, with rapid cuts, repetitions, and instantly evocative imagery creating a captivating kaleidoscope. For those of us in the post-MTV world who have to endure and sometimes enjoy the films of Michael Bay and others like him, it’s positively redeeming to see prototypes of postmodern techniques used so meaningfully. Paired and contrasted with the classic techniques of ‘Citizen Kane’, it’s perhaps the ultimate example of Orson Welles’ range and influence.
‘F For Fake’ revolves around a simple premise: What we believe is true relies on who we believe is trustworthy. It is a reminder that those we call experts — such as the art dealers defrauded by Elmyr de Hory — also rely on other people for estimates of the truth. Considering that a painting mimicking an original may trick even the finest eye, what then is an original’s value? Isn’t it possible to derive the same pleasure from an original and a fake? If a duped museum believes that a clever fake is the genuine article, and displays it under this pretense, would the viewers in effect be seeing an original, or even the original by proxy?
The film challenges the notion that art’s virtue is in the truth of itself. Art, genuine or forgery, is properly measured by how well it convinces us. Aristotle observed, in reference to theatrical art, that (and the emphasis is mine) “A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious, and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself . . . with incidents arousing pity and terror, with which to accomplish its purgation of these emotions.” In short, it’s a noble deception by which we hope to accomplish an emotional change in those who, for at least a little time, choose to believe it. As in the case of a painting, a film’s communicated truth is in its emotional effect on the viewer.
One hopes that a filmmaker is responsible and doesn’t betray our confidence by convincing us of ignoble things; but what is there to stop them? My hope as a filmmaker and a critic is to be an honest charlatan. I’d like to echo Mr. Welles, who in this magic act says, “What we professional liars hope to serve is truth. I’m afraid the pompous word for that is ‘art’.”
Posted in Best, Documentary, Not Rated Movies, Reviews of the Classics, Welles | Tagged aesthetics, aristotle, art, Art forgery, Arts, beauty, cinema, citizen kane, Clifford Irving, criterion, culture, distraction, Elmyr de Hory, entertainment, F For Fake, michael bay, movie review, movies, MTV, noble lie, orson welles, philosophy, poetics, sex, sexuality, tragedy, woman | Leave a comment
NR: The Sci-Fi Ghetto
It’s painfully predictable that I would comment on the Oscar nominations (find them all here), but I’m going to do it anyway. My interest, though, is in one particular issue that continues to torture nerds, geeks, otaku of certain colors, and anybody with an interest in fair play. It’s the aptly named sci-fi ghetto.
This is the stigma associated with science fiction and fantasy works of all kinds that often prevents them from being taken seriously by most critics. As enlightened critic Andrew Gordon points out, “…certain film genres are read as ‘less fictional’ (Westerns, gangster, and war films) and others as ‘more fictional’ (the musical, horror, and fantasy).” [1] It’s a skewed understanding of fiction and, sadly, a prevalent attitude. Ursula Le Guin found that, in America, the cultural mindset is “to repress their imagination, to reject it as something childish or effeminate, unprofitable, and probably sinful”, which she ties to “our Puritanism”. [2] Many great movies are ignored at the Oscars as a result. They tend to get technical awards, but Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, etc. are reserved for “higher” movies. After all, who needs that juvenile, unsophisticated, fast food genre junk?
Oh… Oh, that’s right, okay.
A really good example of the cultural dissonance between what the Oscars deign to honor and what the public actually appreciates is in the case of the 55th Academy Awards, where ‘Gandhi’ beat ‘E.T.’ for Best Picture. Richard Attenborough, the director of ‘Gandhi’, said “I was certain that not only would E.T. win, but that it should win. It was inventive, powerful, [and] wonderful. I make more mundane movies.” [3] By quoting this I am not implying that historical dramas are all “mundane”, but that a movie’s emotional power transcends its trappings. There’s no reason a sci-fi, fantasy, or (to add a veggie to this stew) an animated film should be disregarded because its subject or narrative style is distinctly different from so-called “less fictional” works. Either it’s good or it isn’t.
While ‘Inception’ and ‘Toy Story 3’ were given nominations this year, there’s little hope of them winning, for the reasons I gave above. I’m inclined to believe that ‘The Social Network’ will win for being a topical, up-to-date film, even over other dramas like ‘The King’s Speech’. I’m not sure that it’s the year’s best picture, but I don’t believe that I’m qualified to make that judgment. I don’t believe the Academy is either, for that matter. The difficulty I have with the Academy’s pending decision is that ‘Inception’ and ‘Toy Story 3’s loss due to critical snobbery is a foregone conclusion. I’d love to be proven wrong.
Posted in News Reflections | Tagged 55th Academy Awards, Academy Award, Academy Award for Best Picture, Arts, cinema, culture, entertainment, fiction, film, Gandhi, king's speech, Literature, movies, news, Richard Attenborough, science fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Science fiction film, Social Network, Toy Story 3, United States, Western (genre) | 6 Comments
MMM: You Only Live On Her Majesty’s Daylights Twice
Standing before you guilty of loving James Bond movies, I present in my defense three (or so) classic pieces from composer John Barry, who scored the series’ majority until ‘The Living Daylights’. I hope they can convince you to be lenient in your sentencing.
‘You Only Live Twice’, with its screenplay by Roald Dahl, bizarre hijinks, and Bond made up ambiguously Asian, is one of the chief reasons I was brought before this honorable court. To offset its awesome British badness, I offer this gorgeous instrumental of its famous theme song.
George Lazenby was a great Bond, I think. ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ was pretty darn entertaining, which is why I chose this video to illustrate this point and hopefully rebuff some of my accusers, your honor.
I confess! Timothy Dalton’s underrated turn as James Bond turned out my favorite of the series, ‘The Living Daylights’. You might as well haul in the chair right now and fry me. This medley of the main themes as performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic sums up its musical appeal. Now, where’s the priest and my last meal? Can I get chocolate chip cookies for that?
Posted in Movie Music Mondays | Tagged cinema, entertainment, film, George Lazenby, Humor, james bond, john barry, Living Daylights, movies, music, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film), Opinion, Roald Dahl, Timothy Dalton, You Only Live Twice | 1 Comment
Classic Review: Once Upon A Time In The West
Posted on January 23, 2011 by Patrick Zabriskie
By contributor Patrick Zabriskie
Summary: Highly underrated, but a sure-fire masterpiece of a Western.
Review: At some point in the latter half of the 90’s, I remember flipping through channels on the television before landing on Turner Classic Movies. I didn’t know the movie they were showing, but I could tell by the dress and terrain that it had to be a Western. As it happened, I had come in on one of the greatest Western finales ever shot. The driving music, the stark imagery, the shootout (the Western climax is always a shootout, it seems). As a child no older than eight, I was amazed and speechless. Afterword I ran upstairs to my father, who I knew liked Westerns, and, describing the scene best I could, asked him what the name of the movie was. He told me it was ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly’. As it turns out, he missed the mark but hit the tree.
The movie I saw that day was Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, the last “real” Western from the man behind the famous ‘Dollars’ Trilogy, of which ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly’ was the final installment. I have to give my Dad credit for being close given my description as an inarticulate child. Certainly, ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ bears many of Leone’s spaghetti western trademarks (epic showdowns, nameless anti-heroes, operatic music from the legendary Ennio Morricone, and gritty violence). And yet, looking a littler deeper, this film is actually a horse of a much different color.
The fundamental difference between ‘West’ and Leone’s earlier films is that, where as the ‘Dollars’ trilogy was a bit quirky and slightly ridiculous (a tone that works well for those movies, mind you) ‘West’ goes for a grander, dramatic approach. It’s very serious in a way Leone’s prior films hadn’t been. The story is as dark as any Western has ever been, a dark tale of greed, murder, and revenge; and yet it also celebrates the vibrancy, grandeur, and surprising complexity of the American West and its people. The West was, in many ways, the last “final frontier” for civilization. It was an untamed land, filled with danger and peril, and devoid of law and order. On the other hand it was a rugged and pure place, devoid of the corruptions of the modern world. One of the films themes, the coming of the railroad and thus, civilization, shows beautifully this conflict and tradeoff between the arrival of civilized-order and the loss of wild-innocence.
This theme of the dying west dovetails strangely well with the change in the Western film industry at the time of the film’s 1968 release. Up to that point, Westerns had been relative juggernauts, both on television and film, despite their lack of historical accuracy and often-insensitive depictions of Native Americans and Mexicans. By the late sixties, an increase in ethno-history, civil rights, and historical accuracy had begun to take their toll on the Classic Western’s credibility. By the seventies, classic television Westerns went off the air, and Revisionist Westerns pictures, much more somber and realistic, were taking precedent at the box office. These new approaches were intriguing and involving, and many of these Revisionist Westerns are outstanding films. However, they do lack the pure, undiluted spirit of the earlier films. In the West as well as in Western Films, a simple and pure world was traded for something less straightforward and less innocent.
Back to ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, this film is one of the last to celebrate the Classic Western style, ironically directed by a man who was accused of ruining it with his earlier works. The key to the Classic Western was the central theme of men, lone warriors, standing against something larger than themselves, the vast, untamed West. Westerns are about the enduring human spirit against danger and evil. ‘Once Upon a Time in The West’‘s multi-layered tale of a stranger seeking retribution, a cold-blooded killer, an outlaw framed for murder, and a widow caught in the crossfire shows the many ways this spirit is tested and eventually overcomes. Thematically, this is one of the most powerful films, let alone Westerns, ever filmed.
In addition to the story, the actors in this film are just plain awesome, as is the music. Henry Fonda as the film’s villain was a surprisingly brilliant casting choice, as was Jason Robards (a very under-appreciated actor) as a bandit with a heart of gold. Charles Bronson adopts a role similar to the Man With No Name as a nameless, driven gunfighter, and he pulls it off well. Claudia Cardinale, an Italian actress not too well-known in the States, delivers an especially moving performance as Jill, a widow who finds herself at the forefront of the film’s bloody tale.
Ennio Morricone has always been one of the best film composers ever, and, in no exaggeration, this is his best film score. His combination of electric guitars, harmonicas, operatic screaming and classical orchestration has never sounded more perfect than in this film. His ability to move from delicacy to driving power is nothing short of amazing. This score, worth owning independent of the film, is truly a masterpiece and adds brilliantly to this already stellar film.
‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ is nothing short of a masterpiece. It’s combination of story, acting, music, and style make it one of the best Westerns ever made and a wonderfully cathartic piece of story-telling. Though initially overlooked when first released, this film has grabbed people’s attention overtime, much the way it did for me as a child, and it is now revered as a classic. It’s worth watching for anyone who claims to be a fan of Westerns. I’m so very glad I was watching television that day…
Posted in Best, Drama, Epic, Leone, R-rated Movies, Reviews of the Classics | Tagged cinema, classics, culture, ennio morricone, entertainment, film, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Media, movie reviews, movies, Once Upon A Time In The West, review, sergio leone, the good the bad and the ugly, Turner Classic Movies, Western (genre) | 1 Comment
Classic Review: The Trial (1962)
Summary: A deep, brilliant classic and a potent humanistic antidote to exploitative horror films.
Review: I have a bit of a beef with horror as a cinematic genre. It’s typically immature at best and outright revolting at worst, with some blessed exceptions. Like run-of-the-mill, thoughtless action films, there’s a noticeable separation between the filmmakers and the ethical subtleties of the material; it’s not so much about telling a story as it is about extravagance and extremes, which demands a pushed envelope with every new film. The filmmakers shrug off concerns about content in favor of impact and, of course, money. It’s why the standard Hollywood horror film of today continues to devolve into aptly named “torture porn“, the final expression of exploitative ethics.
Now what does this rant have to do with Orson Welles’ under-appreciated masterpiece ‘The Trial’? In short, this adaptation of Franz Kafka‘s novel is the antithesis of torture porn. What that degraded form of horror says about the human condition, ‘The Trial’ says the opposite. And yes, ‘The Trial’ is fundamentally a horror picture, at least in my opinion. It is surrealistic, nightmarish and psychologically potent. I had a similar gut reaction when I saw ‘Night Of The Living Dead’. It is unique, which is more than I can say for most films. Even today, after over forty years of film history have gone by, it’s only aged like a fine wine, becoming a richer and more profound experience that’s quite difficult to replicate. Orson Welles’ direction is superb, as per his rep, and it’s packed with fine performances, particularly that of Anthony Perkins in the lead role.
And now, to explore the film’s story, I’ll continue my initial critique. So what is torture porn’s — and by extension most postmodern horror’s — philosophy? It’s the withering of human dignity in the face of unspeakable evil, usually embodied in one or a few figures. It’s utterly vampiric, destroying souls and bodies in the quest for pleasure by the monster at a given film’s center, vicariously experienced — and here’s the real horror — by the audience. We’re taught to identify with the vicars of decay. Now, in the other corner is the ‘The Trial’, combining Kafka’s and Welles’ ideas, and its philosophy is the exact opposite. The lone figure with whom we identify in this universally human nightmare is Josef K., the man accused of an unknown crime, a man who may not be innocent but is sure he is not guilty. He is an avatar of our consciousness in a lucid dream, running from monsters masked by the faces of lawyers and little girls. ‘The Trial’ is our subconscious rebellion against the weight of an impersonal cosmic law that offers no explanations and no access to its logic. Pointedly, the antagonist is the very Advocate assigned to defend Josef.
So in what direct way is ‘The Trial’ opposed to torture porn? The roles reverse. The unsympathetic Court, the many, torments Josef K., the one, but he resists them to the last with unapologetic, humanistic ferocity. ‘The Trial’ is bleak, but instructive, giving meaning to our nightmares upon waking. We know what the monsters are — original sin manifested — and it equips us with self-knowledge to destroy them. Torture porn, however, seeks to empower us at the cost of our empathy. There’s no instruction, no moment of waking from that nightmare. The films dehumanize the many victims and moralize the one monster’s actions, making it possible for warped minds to sympathize with it. Vicariously, we become the monster.
But of course, ‘The Trial’ is much more than horror, and deserving of review beyond this contrast. ‘The Trial’ has much to say about religion, law, politics, sexuality, and cinema itself. It begs for in-depth analysis. I plan to give it just that in due time.
Reportedly, Orson Welles considered this the best of his whole celebrated filmography. It’s a shame that it’s been so often ignored by cinephiles and the critical community. It’s wonderful stuff.
Posted in Best, Drama, Horror, Not Rated Movies, Reviews of the Classics, Thriller, Welles | Tagged Anthony Perkins, Arts, celebrity, cinema, culture, film, filmmaking, Franz Kafka, Hollywood, Horror, Horror film, kafkaesque, movie, movie reviews, movies, Night Of The Living Dead, orson welles, psychological horror, public domain, review, Splatter film, Stanley Kubrick, The Trial | Leave a comment
MMM: The Day The Earth Had Vertigo In The Taxi
I love Bernard Herrmann. There’s not much more I can say. I do find it a little odd that he decided to change his physical form and become John Williams, but different strokes for different super-intelligent alien entities, I suppose.
‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ is a classic film, but for me the most impressive aspect will always be the music. This piece, which helps the film segue along from overture and titles to the flying saucer’s approach, is unforgettable.
I know I’m a stodgy old coot for saying this, but in my learned opinion, composers these days tend to horribly fail at writing music that evokes a specific film. Never mind that films from earlier eras and their attached composers had the same general problems — that would undermine my premise and prevent me from ranting uselessly. Like the previous track, this is unforgettable stuff, truly iconic. Is it derived from previous material? Yes. Does it get away with it by elevating the raw material? Yes.
For a film about psychopathy, ‘Taxi Driver’ has one chill score. This is classic Americanus Urbanus. It’s what we called jazz, baby.
Posted in Movie Music Mondays | Tagged art, Arts, bernard herrmann, cinema, Composition, Day The Earth Stood Still, entertainment, film score, john williams, movie, music, taxi driver, Vertigo | 1 Comment
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For Former McClancy Star, Hitting Is Always in Season
By Jim Mancari
The day after a snowstorm, most folks are thinking about curling up on their couch with a cup of hot cocoa.
Texas Rangers hitting coach and Msgr. McClancy H.S. graduate Anthony Iapoce hosted a baseball coaches clinic to prepare local baseball enthusiasts for the upcoming season. (Photo by Jim Mancari)
But not Anthony Iapoce.
No matter how much snow is on the ground, Iapoce – the hitting coach of the Texas Rangers – has his mind focused on one thing: baseball, which to him is a year-round activity.
Iapoce hosted the inaugural New York Baseball Coaches Clinic Dec. 10 at Division Avenue H.S., Levittown, L.I. The full-day event included information sessions and demonstrations geared toward local baseball coaches, parents and players.
“I think this came together from myself going around and being asked to speak at different clinics around the country and trying to figure out why there was never one on Long Island or in the city,” said Iapoce, whose baseball past traces to Catholic Youth Organization ball at St. Joseph’s parish, Astoria.
From there, it was on to Msgr. McClancy H.S., East Elmhurst, as the baseball team’s star center fielder. Upon graduating in 1992, his baseball career continued at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas. In 1994, he was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers and wound up playing 11 professional seasons in the minor leagues for the Brewers and Florida Marlins.
Iapoce has spent the past two years as hitting coach for the Rangers – a franchise known throughout its history as having some of the top hitters in the game. Prior to that, he spent three years as the special assistant to the general manager of the Chicago Cubs.
Having gained extensive experience through his nearly 25 years of professional baseball, the 1996 McClancy Hall of Fame inductee has set out to give back what he has learned to the next crop of talented young baseball players.
The recent clinic featured some of the New York area’s top professional and college baseball coaches. Iapoce presented on hitting and baserunning; catching development was led by Jimmy Gonzalez, manager of the South Bend Cubs, the Class-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs; Lou Bernardi, pitching coach at Iona College, New Rochelle, taught the fundamentals of pitching; former New York Yankees third base coach Joe Espada discussed the principles of defense and run prevention; and University of Maine, Orono, head coach Nick Derba shed light on college baseball recruiting.
Espada, who spent the last three seasons with the Bronx Bombers and is set to be the bench coach in 2018 for the reigning American League champion Houston Astros, said scouting reports and analytical information play a larger role in defensive positioning than ever before.
“I like to call it run prevention because it goes beyond the fundamentals and the mechanical things about fielding a ground ball,” Espada said. “I think nowadays we talk about defense more as how to put guys in positions to where you try to shield certain parts of the field.”
Derba, a 2003 graduate of Archbishop Molloy H.S., Briarwood, who played as a catcher for the legendary coach Jack Curran, said there is great baseball coming out of the Northeast, despite the notion that warm weather climates produce the best ballplayers.
“I think this convention can be one of the most important things for New York baseball,” he said. “It shows that there are people that are successful coming out of the Northeast as coaches and former players. Parents and coaches can learn some skills from people who have done it at the highest levels.”
Also on hand at the clinic were current and former professional ballplayers Lou Lopez, Frank Rodriguez, Rob Delaney, Nick Fanti and Alex Katz, who all of whom participated in a Q-and-A session to conclude the day.
As Iapoce would agree, baseball is a sport that must be practiced and perfected all year long. So for him, baseball in December is simply the norm.
With the holidays approaching, a great gift for Iapoce would be to see the players – no matter what age or skill level – employ what he has taught them into their game.
“The message is that you can get to where you want to go,” Iapoce said. “We’re trying to show the parents and the coaches and the players how to get where they need to go, whether it’s college or to maybe get into professional ball if they’re good enough.
The spring baseball season is fast approaching, so putting in the time now and throughout the winter will get these players ready to compete at a high level.
That’s all Iapoce is asking: Put in the time behind the scenes, and that hard work will pay off when the time comes between the white lines on the diamond.
Contact Jim Mancari via email at jmmanc@gmail.com.
Tags: Archbishop Molloy High School, high school sports, Monsignor McClancy Memorial High School, New York Yankees, pro sports, St. Joseph - Astoria Queens
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← Irish economy has a spring in its step
Beyond 2020: tweaking Ireland’s growth model →
In it together?
Being ‘in it together’. Sharing the burden. Putting the shoulder to the wheel. Pulling on the green jersey. In Ireland and elsewhere, these are among the euphemisms that have entered the lexicon of politicos in the age of austerity.
At the same time, of course, such exhortations to shared sacrifice have not always been supported by fiscal principles that see the burden matching means. In fact, austerity budgets have often hit the poorest hardest. The UK Chancellor’s recent ‘budget for working people’ was nothing of the kind: slashing working tax credits while cutting tax on corporations and hefty inheritances. Sometimes, inequality happens by accident. Sometimes it’s a matter of policy. By the same token, public policy can make things better – for everyone. It doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.
In May, the OECD launched the third instalment in its inequality trilogy: In it together: why less inequality benefits all. This tome builds on earlier work, 2008’s Growing Unequal?, and its 2011 sequel, Divided we stand. Even the IMF has been getting in on the act, publishing work last year on the links between inequality, redistribution and growth. In short, lower inequality is linked to stronger and more sustainable economic growth, while redistribution doesn’t reduce it.
This research also taps into a zeitgeist. President Obama has called inequality the ‘defining challenge of our time’. Thomas Piketty has achieved academic super-stardom with the publication of Capital in the 21st Century. And Occupy Wall Street, Spain’s Indignados, and the rise of radicals like Podemos and Syriza, across Europe have signalled inequality to be more than a passing political fad.
Rising inequality has been an entrenched trend for decades across the developed world, and it has accelerated since the global financial crisis. The richest 10% of the population now earn, on average, nearly ten times the income of the poorest 10% – up from 7 times in the 1980s. The unequal distribution of wealth is even more extreme. This not only saps social cohesion, it undermines economic growth too. The OECD’s research finds that the rise in income inequality alone was responsible for knocking 4.7% off cumulative growth between 1985 and 2005.
So, why does rising inequality harm growth? Part of the reason is to do with education. Socio-economic background has always been an important determinant of educational attainment. In the modern economy, skills have become an increasingly important ingredient for success. But your socio-economic background has become an even bigger determinant of the likelihood that you can access the quality education you need.
One of the key insights of the OECD’s work is that this ‘education effect’ of inequality on growth has much less to do with the fact that the top 1% are pulling away from the rest than it has to do with the bottom 40% falling further behind. Education can be a great leveller, but ordinary working people face higher barriers, financial and otherwise, in seizing the opportunity. So, rising inequality means that social mobility is lower, economic growth is slower, individual potential is wasted, and everyone is worse off.
Another driver of inequality has been the increasing prevalence of ‘non-standard’ work – fixed contracts, zero hours contracts and enforced part-time work, for example. For the lucky few, such arrangements can increase flexibility around working time and allow people balance work and other commitments to suit themselves. Speaking from personal experience, internships can be a spring-board to fulfilling full-time work. For the unfortunate many, however, non-standard work means less income, less security, and less training opportunities. Worse still, it can be a trap from which escape can be difficult – rather than the hoped-for stepping-stone to something better.
Meaningful employment can be a social elevator. One area in which huge advances have been made is in the area of women working. Women are working more and earning more than ever before. Without these advances, economic growth would have been even slower, and inequality even higher. Of course, there is much more to be done. Women still earn, on average, 15% less than men and are 16% less likely to be in employment at all.
Where you come from should never determine how far you can go. Neither class nor gender should impose a glass ceiling. The evidence is mounting, however, that we can’t have a truly level playing field if lots of the players are stuck in the mud. We need to tackle inequalities in outcomes head on if we are to truly ensure equality of opportunity. To this end, In it Together identifies four policy pillars:
1. Increasing women’s participation in economic life.
2. Promoting more and better jobs.
3. Investing in education and skills.
4. Redistributing resources through taxes and transfers.
With the clock ticking until Ireland’s next general election, I intend to come back to some of their policy implications in future articles.
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Girls' tennis team off to winning start with Nina Bramhall and Liz Roberts at the helm.
New Coaches but Familiar Faces for Girls' Tennis Team
Saturday, April 11, 2015 - 8:27am
Tennis is often considered a sport of individual powerhouses and dynamic duos. But Nina Bramhall, new head coach of the varsity girls’ tennis team at the regional high school, has a different perspective.
“I really love that tennis can be a team sport,” she said.
Ms. Bramhall knows a thing or two about tennis teams, especially this one. Since 2009 she has been an instructor at the Vineyard Youth Tennis Center, and was part of the group that brought the youth tennis center executive director Scott Smith to the Island. Being at the youth center introduced Ms. Bramhall to most of her future high school players. She remembers seeing twins Sam and Charlotte Potter first learning the game. They are now co-captains, along with Josie Iadicicco. To coach the varsity team, Ms. Bramhall is taking some months off from her job at the center.
On the court, Ms. Bramhall was part of the inaugural class of the Vineyard’s United States Tennis Association team and later spearheaded an initiative to form a USTA league based on the Island. She is the captain of the over-40 women’s team in that league.
But focusing on tennis started later in life for Ms. Bramhall. In high school and college she played field hockey and lacrosse. Tennis was just for fun, having first learned the game at summer camp when she was in middle school, and continuing to play with her parents and brother as she grew up. Then she moved to New York city to work as a magazine photo editor and photographer, and for the most part tennis was sidelined.
“I didn’t know anybody who played tennis in New York so I didn’t play much at all except when I came [to the Vineyard] on the weekend.” But when she and husband Paul Schneider moved to the Island full time in 1998, she began taking her first private lessons, and one of the pros, Yale Scott, suggested putting together a tournament team.
“He was the guy who said to me and my group of friends, you know, you guys should really consider playing USTA league tennis,” Ms. Bramhall said. “None of us really knew what that was.”
At first, the Vineyard competed in a Cape Cod-based league, and had to travel off-Island at the height of the season, since league play starts in June.
“It was a couple of teams out of the mid-Cape, and a team out of Falmouth, and to our sort of utter amazement, we won our first year. That got the whole ball rolling.”
Her experience of getting to know the youth center paralleled the journey of her son Nathaniel, who went on to be a member of the two-time state champion boys’ tennis team at the high school, anchoring first singles for the team that won in 2013.
Another member of the adult tournament teams, Liz Roberts, is helping out with the girls team as assistant coach.
“We thought it would be a fun thing to do, and to do together,” Ms. Bramhall said of working with Mrs. Roberts. “It’s another way to be involved in a team, besides being a parent and besides being a player.”
“We have some wonderful depth on the team,” Ms. Bramhall added. In addition to the captains, senior Avery Hazell and sophomore Madison McBride return to the doubles court, and freshmen Kat Roberts (Liz’s daughter) and Lizzie Williamson bolster the ranks at the number two and three singles spots. Kat and Lizzie were members of the youth tennis center’s Future Stars team that Ms. Bramhall has worked with for the past six years.
The Vineyard has won all of its matches so far, including their opener against division one squad Barnstable, which had not lost an opening match in 10 years. There are 16 players on the full tennis squad, and although not all are starters, the emphasis is on what the entire group can take away from this season.
“I think they can learn a lot watching the older girls. And for the seniors, it’s a great opportunity to show up-and-comers sportsmanship and team solidarity,” Ms. Bramhall said.
“I loved it,” Ms. Bramhall said of high school sports. “I would say even more than college. They’re kind of one of the best things in life. Generally, you’ve grown up with these kids, everybody knows each other, the parents of the kids all know each other. Particularly in a place like the Vineyard, the whole community is behind you. You’re playing for a community, not just your school. It’s great.”
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Seniors Tennis Tournament Is Farm Neck Fountain of Youth
Farm Neck hosted the Island's first USTA sanctioned national tennis tournament — a seniors, round-...
USTA Senior Men's Doubles Tournament
Farm Neck is hosting the first ever men’s senior national USTA tournament in the Island’s history.
Senior Men's Tennis Tour
From Sept. 28 to 30, the Senior Men’s Doubles Championships will be held at the Farm Neck Tennis...
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Najib Now Cries “Unfair” To Disclose Side Incomes – After Stolen RM2.6 Billion
Najib Razak should be the last person on the planet to be upset with a special motion, approved on July 1, compelling all MPs (Member of Parliaments), senators, their spouses, their children aged 21 years old and below, and trustees to declare their assets. Does not he want to combat corruption and promote transparency, even though he has lost power?
After all, he was the former prime minister who instructed the Inland Revenue Board (IRB or LHDN) to chase after individuals and business owners for unpaid taxes. Even though the business people had paid their taxes, they were forced to pay more during his regime, failing which they were blacklisted and had their passports impounded – effectively banning them from leaving the country.
So, it’s jaw-dropping that Mr. Najib, who believed he was the best premier the country had ever produced, cries like a baby against the government move to ask MPs to declare their wealth. He said it was “unfair”, arguing that some assets did not come from their allowances as parliamentarians. He gave the examples of lawyers or architects who had other sources of income.
Mr. Najib, who lost in the May 9 General Election last year, complained to reporters at the Parliament lobby – “For example, some of us are lawyers or architects. We will have other sources of income. So, if the other sources of income are deposited into the same account and declared as our assets, it is unfair because the declaration is based on our incomes as MP.”
Exactly what type of grass Najib Razak has been smoking lately? Was he trying to admit that tax evasion was his favourite pastime? If MPs prefer, they can choose to deposit their side incomes into different bank accounts. At the end of the day, however, they must still declare their main and miscellaneous incomes to the tax man – the Inland Revenue Board.
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While it’s true that many MPs, despite being lawmakers or parliamentarians, are also practising lawyers or accountants, the issue here isn’t about their other sources of income. The issue here is about whether their wealth was derived from legitimate sources of income. It’s about whether their incomes were legally earned, and not from dubious means.
It’s funny that Najib brought up lawyers and architects as examples. His hotshot lawyer, Shafee Abdullah, faces money laundering and tax evasion charges last September. Apparently the disgraced UMNO lawyer allegedly received proceeds of unlawful activities via two cheques belonging to Najib worth RM4.3 million (Sept 13, 2013) and RM5.2 million (Feb 17, 2014).
Najib’s own brother – Nizam Razak – was exposed of having an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands. Nizam, an architect, was discovered among leaked documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. According to the ICIJ last June, the new documents revealed details of “swollen bank accounts and offshore assets of political figures accused of state-wide looting”.
ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) also revealed two offshore companies owned by Najib’s son – Mohd Nazifuddin. Mr. Nazifuddin was linked to a Get-Rich-Ponzi-Scheme called UFUN. In 2015, all hell broke loose when the uFun Store had allegedly swindled 120,000 people involving at least 38 billion Baht (US$1.13 billion, £720 million, RM4 billion) in Thailand.
It’s not hard to understand why Najib disagrees that every lawmaker must declare their assets, including their immediate family members. He wasn’t speaking on behalf of the opposition MPs though, but merely defending his own families, who happen to be a bunch of crooks. His wife, Rosmah Mansor, faces 20 charges of corruption and money laundering.
MUST READ Breaking News : Najib’s Stepson Riza Aziz Nabbed - To Face Money Laundering Charges
Najib himself is facing a whopping 42 charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT), money laundering and abuse of power. U.S. Department of Justice revealed “Malaysian Official 1”, later identified as Najib Razak, of having received around US$681 million (popularly known by Malaysians as RM2.6 billion) of stolen 1MDB money via Falcon Bank, Singapore on 21 and 25 March 2013.
In fact, the crooked family was so wealthy that when the police raided the luxury condominiums belonging to Najib’s children at Pavilion Residences last year, the authorities found cash, 12,000 pieces of jewellery, 567 handbags (comprises luxury handbags from 37 different designers, including Chanel, Prada, Hermes and ultra-luxury Bijan), 423 watches, 234 sunglasses – worth RM680 million.
So, how possibly could Najib declare his cash and jewellery worth RM680 million as legitimate assets derived from side income? If only he had declared the RM2.6 billion found in his personal bank accounts as a political donation before he get caught. Clearly, all the opposition MPs, especially UMNO warlords, would not be able to explain their massive hidden assets if they declare them.
Of course, the former prime minister said asset declarations should be based on what MPs get from their parliamentary allowance. Was he trying to insult people’s intelligence? If every lawmaker declares their assets based only on their salary and allowance as an MP, then everyone would look as clean as a whistle. How could Rosmah afford 12,000 pieces of jewellery based on Najib’s salary and allowance?
Last year, ministers and MPs from the new ruling Pakatan Harapan government have voluntarily declared their assets to the MACC, of which were published on the commission’s website. For example, the assets of MP Ngeh Koo Ham, together with his wife and children, are valued at RM77 million, although he later clarified that his personal assets are actually RM82 million.
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Ngeh’s wealth was derived from him being a lawyer for 32 years, not to mention side income from his investments. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his wife possessed assets worth RM32.3 million, while his son, MP Mukhriz, is worth RM25.1 million. There are dozens of millionaires among the MPs from the ruling government who had declared their assets.
Why is it so hard for the opposition MPs to declare their assets? If Mahathir, allegedly was the man responsible for US$100 billion lost during his 22 years of iron-fist rule from 1981 to 2003, had no issue declaring his assets, why can’t Najib? In the same breath, why did holy men from PAS Islamist party was so afraid to declare their wealth that they had to cook up some “fake hadith” to justify their refusal?
There’re basically three reasons why Najib and his minions refuse to declare their assets. First, the bulk of their assets came from suspicious sources like corruptions or kickbacks. Second, they most likely did not declare to the tax man about their ill-gotten wealth. Third, they have transferred their unexplainable fortune to their children or nominees for safekeeping.
Amusingly, Najib, like his good friends in PAS, has also flashed security card as an excuse not to reveal their assets. This may sound mind-blowing, but he and his family members can be assured – even guaranteed – of personal safety. No one wants to see them harmed in anyway. That’s because everyone is waiting for the day the crooks, Najib and Rosmah, are safely delivered to prison.
Breaking News : Najib’s Stepson Riza Aziz Nabbed – To Face Money Laundering Charges
Mahathir’s Final Touch To Destroy The Party Before He Retires – UMNO May Not Exist By 2023
Kelantan Sultan Divorces Russian Wife In S’pore Syariah Court – Palace Clarifies Rightful Crown Prince
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The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/2016-winners/)
Beth Schwartzapfel of The Marshall Project, and an investigative reporting team from the Belleville News-Democrat—Beth Hundsdorfer, George Pawlaczyk and Zia Nizami—are the winners of the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim 2016 Awards for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting.
“The impressive work of these journalists illustrates why reform of our criminal justice system has risen to the top of our national agenda,” said Jeremy Travis, president of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in the prize announcement on Jan. 25.
“We are proud to honor them as examples of the critical role the media is playing—and continues to play—in our ongoing national debate.”
The 2016 annual prizes, administered by John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ)—publisher of The Crime Report, recognized the year’s best print and online justice reporting in a U.S.-based media outlet between November 2014 and October 2015. Winners receive a cash award of $1,000 in each of the two categories and a plaque. Runners-up (see below) receive a certificate of Honorable Mention.
The 2016 winners:
Beth Schwartzapfel of The Marshall Project won the 2016 John Jay Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award (single-story category) for “Life Without Parole,” a lengthy investigation into parole boards across the country. Schwartzapfel’s story, marked “the first time that basic information about our nation’s patchwork of parole boards has been compiled in one place,” The Marshall Project editor Bill Keller said in his nomination letter.
The story, also published in partnership with The Washington Post on their front page, uncovered a system marked by secrecy and political manipulation that is one of the overlooked contributing factors to America’s high incarceration rate.
Beth Hundsdorfer, George Pawlaczyk and Zia Nizami of the Belleville News-Democrat won the 2016 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award (series category) for their multi-part series “Violation of Trust.” The News-Democrat team found that of some 6,744 felony rape cases in southern Illinois between 2005-2013, 70 percent never made it to a courtroom, and just one in ten charged suspects were actually imprisoned. As a result of the series, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan in April formed a task force to overhaul the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes statewide.
The series “stood out as an impressive example of the power of dogged reporting and insightful writing to hold institutions accountable and precipitate change,” commented Glenn Smith, a past winner of the journalism prize and one of this year’s prize jurors.
Runners-Up
Runner-up in the single-story category was awarded to Julia Angwin and Abbie Nehring of ProPublica for “Hotter than Lava,” which found that at least 50 Americans, including police officers, have been seriously injured, maimed or killed by “flashbangs” – a little-noticed dimension of the growing militarization of law enforcement across the country.
Runner-up in the series category was awarded to the reporting team of Jon Swaine, Oliver Laughland and Jamiles Lartey of The Guardian US, who earned the judges’ praise for “The Counted,” a (still-ongoing) multi-media investigation of police-inflicted fatalities in the U.S. Among other disclosures, The Guardian US reported that African-Americans are more than twice as likely to be unarmed when killed during encounters with police as whites.
The six judges for the 2016 awards were:
Alexa Capeloto, Assistant Professor of Journalism at John Jay College and a former Enterprise Editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune;
Joe Domanick, veteran Los Angeles-based crime journalist and author;
Baz Dreisinger, acclaimed author and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and founder of John Jay’s Prison-to-College Pipeline program;
Ted Gest, president of Criminal Justice Journalists;
Katti Gray, contributing editor of The Crime Report;
Glenn Smith, investigative reporter at the Charleston Post & Courier and a 2015 John Jay/HF Guggenheim prize winner.
The award is supported by a grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, a private grant-making foundation that supports research on violence.
Award Dinner and Symposium
The awards were presented on February 25, 2016 at a dinner in New York City. The college will also present Jelani Cobb, Director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut and contributor to The New Yorker, with the 2016 John Jay Justice Trailblazer Prize at the awards dinner, in recognition of his career accomplishments in broadening the national debate about criminal justice.
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The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/2018/12/04/the-kids-left-behind-under-new-yorks-raise-the-age-law/)
The Kids ‘Left Behind’ By New York’s Raise the Age Law
By Cassi Feldman/The Appeal | December 4, 2018
More on Juvenile Justice
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Photo by Shutterstock/courtesy The Appeal
It started with a cell phone.
Last summer, Jay (not her real name), a 16-year-old living in upstate New York, was convinced a woman had taken her mother’s phone, police say, and went to the woman’s house with three friends to retrieve it. They broke in, according to police, and took some other things—including jewelry and makeup—while they were there.
When the woman threatened to call the police, Jay tried to return the items, the police said, but she didn’t return all of them. The woman notified the police and Jay was arrested.
If the incident had happened today, Jay’s case most likely would have been resolved in family court, without criminal penalties. But since it allegedly happened last summer, she was charged as an adult in criminal court with burglary in the second degree, a violent felony that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
That’s because the state changed the way it treats 16-year-olds in the criminal justice system, starting on Oct. 1. Recognizing that teenagers like Jay are prone to impulsive behavior because their brains are still developing, New York lawmakers passed the Raise the Age law in 2017, shifting the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18.
(For 17-year-olds, the law will change Oct. 1, 2019.)
Around 21,000 16- and 17-year-olds were arrested in New York last year. Before Raise the Age, New York and North Carolina were the only two states where those 16- and 17-year-olds were automatically prosecuted as adults in criminal court.
Under the new law, the vast majority of their cases will now be diverted to family court, which is meant to emphasize more age-appropriate solutions like counseling and community services over criminal punishment. Only the most serious cases will stay in a new youth part in criminal court.
But for 16-year-olds like Jay, whose cases were pending when Raise the Age went into effect, the old system is still in place. And research shows that system can do permanent damage to their well-being and derail their futures.
“There are kids similarly situated who are being treated totally differently,” said Jay’s attorney, Lauren Parnes. “They could have been arrested right afterward and these cases are now on two totally different tracks.”
For Parnes, the timing is particularly tragic in Jay’s case because this is her first arrest and she almost certainly would have benefited from having her case heard in family court rather than criminal court.
Jay’s mother is a drug user and frequently kicked Jay out of the house, Parnes said, leaving her homeless. Even when she was at home, the power and hot water were often shut off, Jay said, making her unable to shower for school. And Jay’s father lives more than 1,500 miles away in a different state.
Parnes declined to name the town where the alleged crime occurred or the prosecuting district attorney to protect her client’s identity.
In family court, she explained, a judge probably would have seen a girl in need rather than a criminal. The judge might have brought in the Department of Social Services, Parnes said, to help stabilize Jay’s housing and help her access things like food stamps and Medicaid.
“There’s all these sorts of needs that aren’t being addressed.”
Ramen and Mountain Dew
Jay’s situation has echoes across the state. In Schenectady, a 16-year-old was recently charged with third-degree robbery for allegedly stealing a pair of Jordan Pro Star sneakers and fourth-degree grand larceny in the theft of an Apple iPhone 7. Because the alleged robberies occurred in May rather than October, he now faces up to 11 years in prison.
In Plattsburgh, a 16-year-old boy was charged with third-degree burglary after breaking into his mother’s home last summer and stealing ramen and Mountain Dew. Thanks in part to prior arrests for crimes like petit larceny and unauthorized use of a vehicle, the teen’s attorney said, he was sentenced to six months in jail with five years probation.
The attorney, David Gervais, said he was especially disappointed that the judge would jail his client for stealing food.
One teen subject to adult court was arrested after stealing food
“It’s not like he went in to steal medication or to steal cash,” Gervais said. “He didn’t touch anything else. He just literally went in to get food.”
The teen needs rehab, not jail time, Gervais said. Neither the judge nor Andrew Wylie, Clinton County’s district attorney, responded to requests for comment.
Of course, many judges in adult court choose to sentence kids to probation rather than lock them up. Another 16-year-old, in the town of Attica, was arrested in September and charged with second-degree burglary for allegedly stealing an Xbox One from someone’s home.
Like Jay, he now faces up to 15 years in prison. But Wyoming County District Attorney Donald O’Geen said that’s unlikely to happen.
“It will most likely end with the defendant receiving a youthful offender adjudication (which means the criminal record will be sealed) and some term of probation,” O’Geen wrote in an email.
O’Geen added that the incident shouldn’t be downplayed.
“Whether the burglary was committed by a 16-year-old or a 61-year-old, it is still a violent crime and there is still a victim who now lives with the fact that someone has violated the sanctity of their home,” he wrote.
“Family Court is not the place to send cases for solutions as they have no teeth.”
But in criminal court, even probation often carries major risks for young offenders. In the New York City borough of The Bronx, Derek (not his real name), a 16-year-old who allegedly tossed away a gun during a police pursuit in June, was charged as an adult with gun possession. The judge offered him five years’ probation, but his attorney is worried that a mistake like smoking marijuana or missing too much school could land him in prison.
A family court judge might have placed him in a therapeutic group home for some period of time, or ordered him to attend outpatient programs to address substance use or mental health issues, notes Gregg Stankewicz, director of the Adolescent Defense Project at the Bronx Defenders.
And that’s a smarter approach than criminal punishment, he said.
The young people his team encounters live in over-policed communities, Stankewicz explained, and the vast majority grow out of the behavior that results in arrests.
“That’s why it’s so important that we don’t permanently set back these young people, either with a record or with the physical and mental harm that can come from incarceration,” he said.
That approach benefits public safety as well, he said. Several studies have found that young people transferred to the adult criminal justice system are more likely to reoffend than those treated as juveniles.
“For the health of the community and the child, we need a more rehabilitative system focused on repair.”
“For the health of the community and the child,” Stankewicz said, “we need a more rehabilitative system that’s focused on repair.”
While many public defenders want Raise the Age to go further, some prosecutors question whether it’s needed at all. The District Attorneys Association of New York referred a request for comment for this story to Washington County District Attorney Tony Jordan, a member of its executive board.
Jordan said that even before the law, less than 5 percent of the 16- and 17-year-olds arrested ended up with permanent records.
Prosecutors have long offered young people access to diversion programs, he said, and used incarceration only as a last resort.
“We’ve always looked at a 16-year-old as a 16-year-old,” Jordan told The Appeal. “Sometimes their actions are such that there’s a different consequence, but we never lose sight of the fact that they’re a 16-year-old.”
Nancy Ginsburg, director of the Legal Aid Society’s Adolescent Intervention and Diversion Project, pushed for the law, yet acknowledges that some judges and prosecutors in the adult system assess teens’ cases fairly.
But she said adult court lacks the breadth of services and legal options available in family court.
“It’s just not possible to fairly adjudicate kids in a system that was created for adults,” she said.
There are already signs that some district attorneys will resist the new law. Patrice O’Shaughnessy, a spokesperson for the Bronx DA’s office, said cases are assessed “on an individual basis.”
But even now, the office would argue to keep cases involving 16-year-olds with guns in criminal court.
“Since the Raise the Age law went into effect if [a] 16-year-old is charged in a gun case, we would ask to keep that case under ‘extraordinary circumstances,’” she said, alluding to a provision in the law that prevents some cases from being transferred from criminal to family court.
What Constitutes ‘Extraordinary’ Circumstances?
Stankewicz of the Bronx Defenders finds it troubling that the DA is looking to exclude certain groups of teenagers from the law’s protections. “If the District Attorney’s office believes every gun possession case is ‘extraordinary,’ they misunderstand the nature of Raise the Age,” he wrote in an email.
The law states that absent “extraordinary circumstances,” a gun possession case would stay in criminal court only when a firearm is displayed. “A blanket position that every firearm possession amounts to ‘extraordinary circumstances’ would be an attempt to get around the intent of Raise the Age,” he wrote, “and to continue using the adult criminal justice system against children.”
As prosecutors and public defenders debate the new law, some attorneys say the kids who just missed it should be part of the conversation.
“The reason they implemented this legislation existed when my client allegedly committed this crime,” said Parnes, Jay’s lawyer, who said she thinks the law should have covered 16-year-olds whose cases were still pending when it went into effect.
Brian Degnan, who represented the teen who allegedly stole the Xbox, agrees. He said he tried to argue that point in court, but the judge in the case, Michael Mohun, said his hands were tied by the law. (Through a spokesperson, Mohun said he could not comment on the case.)
But Degnan doesn’t blame the judge for his client’s misfortune.
“He’s getting lost in the legislative shuffle,” Degnan said. “I think it was very short-sighted on the part of the legislature.”
The kids who were left behind have reached the attention of the state legislators who shepherded Raise the Age to passage, according to Cathy Peake, chief of staff for Assembly Member Joe Lentol, who was a lead negotiator on the law. Lentol’s office has heard concerns about 16- and 17-year-olds still being charged as adults.
Emboldened by Democrats gaining control of both houses of the state legislature, Peake said the office is starting to hold meetings to discuss Raise the Age fixes, such as requiring courts to automatically seal the cases of 16- and 17-year-olds arrested or convicted before the law took effect.
“It’s not uncommon that we fight to get a good law and then we come back to make it even better,” she said.
For now, however, Jay is on edge. She is living out of state with her aunt and uncle and trying to get her GED. “I’m doing so good out here,” she said.
But with her case still open, the threat of incarceration is hanging over her head.
“Doing jail time really scares me,” she said.
If she were given a chance to take her case to family court instead, “maybe they would have seen that I really made a mistake,” she said, “and that I’m trying to change.”
Cassi Feldman is a 2018 John Jay/Tow Juvenile Justice Reporting Fellow. The Crime Report is pleased to co-publish this article, which also appeared today in The Appeal. Reader’s comments are welcome.
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Obama Faces Calls to Reform Reagan-Era Mass Surveillance Order
September 2 2014, 10:30 p.m.
A coalition of civil liberties groups and members of Congress are calling on President Obama to urgently review a controversial executive order being used by the National Security Agency to conduct mass surveillance.
Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era authority, allows the NSA to covertly sweep up vast amounts of private data from overseas communication networks with no court oversight. Last week, The Intercept revealed how 12333 underpins a secret search engine the NSA built to share more than 850 billion records on phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats with other U.S. government agencies, including domestic law enforcement. The search system, named ICREACH, contains information on the private communications of foreigners as well as, it appears, millions of Americans not accused of any wrongdoing.
Now, more than 40 organizations and rights groups – including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the American Civil Liberties Union – are calling on Obama and his surveillance review panel to ensure there is no “disproportionate or unnecessary collection” taking place under 12333.
In a letter to the President, dated 29 August and released on Tuesday, the groups say that the surveillance undermines “the fundamental rights of internet users everywhere” and demand that secret legal opinions or interpretations that relate to 12333 be declassified by the government. The letter states:
We, the undersigned former government officials, organizations, and members of Congress, write to express our concerns about the U.S. government’s surveillance activities conducted under the authority of Executive Order 12333. Many involve communications that are protected by the U.S. Constitution, and all implicate international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a party. These activities undermine the fundamental rights of internet users everywhere.
The effort to rein in the surveillance is being led by digital rights group Access, which has enlisted the support of Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.), Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), Rush Holt (D-N.J.), and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). The Federal Trade Commission’s former Chief Technologist Ed Felton also co-signed the letter alongside two former State Department officials, Ian Schuler and John Tye.
In July, Tye was responsible for focusing public attention on 12333 when he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post revealing that he had blown the whistle on the order while working for the State Department. The executive order as it is used today, Tye said, “threatens our democracy” because it can be used by the NSA to “incidentally” sweep up communications on Americans from foreign networks without any warrant and with minimal congressional scrutiny.
In his op-ed, Tye did not detail any specific classified programs that had caused him concern while inside the government. But recent disclosures from documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – such as details about the vast ICREACH search engine – offer an insight into why he may have been alarmed, and have helped galvanize a growing campaign to limit the scope of 12333 surveillance operations.
“Revelations, such as that about ICREACH, have definitively helped raise the level of awareness of and opposition to the Executive Order, which helped bring this effort together,” Amie Stepanovich, senior policy counsel at Access, told The Intercept. “I think the breadth of signers on this letter shows an increasing consensus that reform is absolutely necessary.”
Ryan Gallagher[email protected]theintercept.com@rj_gallagher
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The Untriumphal Arch
Dec15 by theirishaesthete
Arch Hall, County Meath, the house shown above, is a tantalising mystery. Who was the architect? When was it built? And for whom? Answers to all these questions, and others, have been proposed and while convincing they cannot be absolutely verified. Today what remains of Arch Hall stands on flat ground in the middle of open fields, and the greater part of the ornamental park with which it was once surrounded has been lost. A painting from 1854 by the Yorkshire-born artist James Walsham Baldock depicts the wife of Arch Hall’s then-owner Samuel Garnett and the couple’s two young sons on horseback with the house visible behind. Evidently at the time it was surrounded by a belt of mature trees but most of these have now gone leaving the building isolated and even more exposed to the elements than would otherwise be the case. At some date obviously it was abandoned and left to fall into ruin but – another question – when?
Arch Hall appears to derive its name from the rustic arch lying some distance to the south of the house and serving as point of access to the original avenue. Placed on an axis and intended to offer an unexpected vista of the property, the arch is composed of a single broad entrance with pinnacle above and flanking buttresses. From this point Arch Hall looks like a very substantial building, but the impression is deceptive because despite rising three storeys over basement the house was only one room deep. Its most striking feature is the nine-bay facade which on either side concludes in cylindrical bows and is centred on a larger, three-bay semi-circular bow. This has a handsome stone pedimented Gibbsian doorcase but the rest of the building was constructed of locally-produced red brick. At some – also unknown – date in the 19th century, the exterior was covered in cement render marked out to imitate cut stone. Presumably at the same time the topmost storey windows were paired in Romanesque style and Italianate sills added, while the end bows were capped with conical roofs presumably in an effort to make the place resemble a French château. Inside the front door was a large hall with curved ends and reception rooms on either side, each measuring some five and a half metres square. These in turn gave access to small circular rooms in the front corners. Despite long exposure, the two end rooms retain traces of their decorative plasterwork, that on the western flank somehow still having a shallow saucer dome with plaster coffering and egg-and-dart moulding. Almost all the rear of the house has been lost, as well as part of the front wall, making Arch Hall’s long-term survival unlikely.
For a number of reasons the design of Arch Hall is usually ascribed to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. Believed to have been born at some date in the late 1690s in County Meath, Pearce was the son of an English general and an Irish mother (her father was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1676-77). Most importantly for his son’s future career, General Edward Pearce’s first cousin was Sir John Vanbrugh. The latter appears to have had an influence on the young architect, if only stylistically, but Pearce’s work in Ireland was also shaped by time spent in mainland Europe in 1723-24 during which he studied Palladio’s buildings in the Veneto. Thus while essentially a classicist, he sometimes liked to feature elements of the baroque. Such is the case with Arch Hall if indeed it was designed by Pearce. Another Irish house, alas now also a ruin, with which it has strong similarities is Wardtown Castle, County Donegal. Built for John Folliott, Wardtown is deeper than Arch Hall but, as Maurice Craig noted in 1996, it shares ‘the Vanbrughian feature of cylindrical towers and semi-circular projections.’ In fact the design of the two houses is so alike, the inevitable conclusion is that either they were by the same hand or one was a copy of the other.
So when was Arch Hall built, and for whom? Sir Edward Lovett Pearce died in 1733 so if he were the house’s architect, work on its construction would most likely have begun before that date. At the time, the townland of which it is part, Newtown-Clongill was owned part-owned by the Payne or Pain(e) family: a deed of 1714 records the transfer of 510 acres in the area from John Raphson to William Paine. In 1737 his granddaughter Anne Paine married Benjamin Woodward of Drumbarrow, near Kells, County Meath. Her settlement included the town and lands of Clongill and Newtown-Clongill. Somehow by the early 19th century the property had transferred into the ownership of another local family, the Garnetts who were associated with a number of houses in the county, not least Williamstown and Summerseat. The first of them to live at Arch Hall was John Pain Garnett, second son of Samuel Garnett of Summerseat. John Pain Garnett’s middle name would imply some kind of connection with the previous residents but there appears to be none: the Garnetts tended to marry cousins, or else members of the Rothwell and Wade families. Arch Hall was subsequently inherited by John Pain’s son, another Samuel Garnett who in 1841 married Marianne Tandy: it is she and the couple’s two sons who appear in the 1854 painting by James Walsham Baldock. Burke’s 1871 Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland list the family as still in residence, but at some date thereafter they must have left and the place began its slide into dereliction. But when and why was Arch Hall permitted this most untriumphant end? So many unanswered questions…
This entry was posted in Architectural History, Country House, Meath and tagged Arch Hall, Architectural History, County Meath, Georgian Architecture, Heritage at Risk, Irish Country House, Stately Home, The Big House.
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11 comments on “The Untriumphal Arch”
Perrick says:
Monday, 15th December, 2014 at 09:53
Dea Robert, This seems a good time of year to thank you for all the pleasure your postings have given me for the last twelve months. In the summer, I attended a V & A course on The English Country House, which came nowhere near the standards of The Irish Aesthete. I think you should go over to London and give a Masterclass to the feeble faculty.
Happy Christmas. Love,
On 15/12/2014 04:30, “The Irish Aesthete” wrote:
> theirishaesthete posted: ” Arch Hall, County Meath, the house shown above, is > a tantalising mystery. Who was the architect? When was it built? And for whom? > Answers to all these questions, and others, have been proposed and while > convincing they cannot be absolutely verified. Tod” >
My dear Penny,
As always lovely to hear from you (altho’ one would much rather see you). I’m sorry to hear the V&A course was so feeble, but glad to know you are sustained by this site.
Season’s greetings and love to you too.
katebeau says:
I concur wholeheartedly with Penny. Thank you, Robert.
And thank you too!
Valkrye says:
Beautiful evocative photos and very interesting post full of mysteries. Thank you for sharing.
And in turn, thank you for writing to let me know of your appreciation: I am most grateful.
anstapa says:
Saturday, 20th December, 2014 at 15:49
An interesting read – thank you. Does the ruin ‘belong’ to anyone now?
Thank you for getting in touch, and for your kind comment. Yes, the ruin belongs to a family who farm the surrounding land.
Kevin Duff says:
Saturday, 21st April, 2018 at 16:03
Just visited this. Great ruin. It still has the big open setting to the front and south, as far as the folly arch gate. Shame to think of the sun coming across this great spatial composition every day, to nobody’s benefit. Which made me think: it would be worth pulling the house back from the brink. Maybe someday.
About this much too – ie. damaged front wall only – survives of Waterstown House, Westmeath. And like Arch Hall the nearby folly at Waterstown (dovecote) survives fully.
Sunday, 22nd April, 2018 at 16:31
Thank you, yes Waterston is on my to-visit list – is it relatively easily accessible?
Wednesday, 25th April, 2018 at 21:55
Yes, relatively. It is reached from a small lane off the N55 just outside the village of Glasson. There are a couple of modern houses at the junction of the lane and N55. I believe the landowners (of the ruin and remaining estate) live there.
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Translations happen all over the world, all the time. But only now and then does a translation get to change the course of history or define a culture. Here are five which we think did just that.
1. Hittite-Egyptian Peace Treaty
This was a few years ago but it really set the ball rolling. It is the first known written translation in history: the Hittite-Egyptian peace treaty.
After a long war between the Egyptians and the Hittites, the two parties signed a peace agreement, the Treaty of Kadesh (also known as the Eternal Treaty). It was recorded in both the Egyptian and Hittite empires. The Egyptian version was inscribed in hieroglyphics in two temples dedicated to the Pharaoh, while the Hittites jotted theirs down on baked clay tablets.
2. Cuban Missile Crisis 1963
“Don’t wait for the translation”.
Strictly speaking, this phrase was not actually part of the translation but, as such a large part of such an important verbal exchange, it couldn’t be left out. Don’t wait for translation (Cuban missile crisis 1963). Tensions were running high in 1963 after the US became aware of USSR mid-range missiles being transported into Cuba: just 90 miles from the US mainland and within reach of major US cities.
In a heated exchange at the UN Security Council, American Ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, asked his Soviet counterpart Valerian Zorin if he would deny their existence. As the USSR representative grew increasingly obtuse, Stevenson grew increasingly frustrated, finally demanding “Don’t wait for the translation, yes or no?”.
Given that just about everyone in the free world, and everyone one in the room, had seen the pictures, it was always going to be a tough one for the Russians to deny. The missiles left Cuba.
3. Life on Mars?
In this case, it’s a mistranslation, but it got everyone on planet Earth asking, “Is there life on Mars?”
In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli noted seeing what appeared to be ‘canali’, on the surface of Mars. Some years later, in the translation of his work, ‘canali’ was taken to mean ‘canals’.
Enthused by the prospect of planetary navigators beyond the earthly realm, scientists scrambled over one another, espousing theories of which civilisation could have completed such feats of engineering. Presumably equipped with shovels.
One man, Percival Lowell, made Mars his life’s work – and revenue stream. His books, Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906), and Mars as the Abode of Life (1908) were best- sellers. Martians were big business.
Over time a huge sub-culture of books, films and fervent believers developed. From Jules Verne to David Bowie, the world wondered, is there life on Mars?
But it all came to nought. ‘Canali’ is actually a general term to describe channels, which can be part of the natural world and not purposely created. No canals. No Martians. A fact confirmed by NASA’s Curiosity rover which took a spin over the planet in 2012.
Sorry Ziggy, but there is no life on Mars.
4. Hiroshima Bomb 1945
An atomic decision…
Translating is not always black-and-white. Multiple outcomes are often possible, influenced by context and opinion. In this instance, opinion led to an outcome of atomic proportions.
Tokyo, July 1945. The Pacific war was drawing to a close and it was only a matter of time before an allied victory. The Japanese, however, had vowed to not go quietly and Washington feared a protracted island-by-island.
Hoping to force a swift conclusion, the US government publicly issued the Potsdam Declaration: a request to Japan demanding unconditional surrender or risk “prompt and utter destruction”. Then waited for a response.
The Tokyo media hounded Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki for a statement of his government’s intent. Finally, Suzuki called a news conference and said the equivalent of, “No comment. We’re still thinking about it.” Suzuki used the word ‘mokusatsu’ as his “no comment” response.
Unfortunately, “mokusatsu” can also mean “we’re ignoring it in contempt,” and that was the translation relayed back through the media, to the US. Ten days later, and still with no formal reply from the Japanese, the US followed through on their declaration and dropped the Hiroshima bomb.
5. Donkey Kong
The story of ‘Donkey Kong’.
Throughout the 1980s, amusement arcades throughout the western world rang to the sound of a small man jumping over barrels thrown at him by an angry ape. And everyone playing that arcade game wondered where the name ‘Donkey Kong’ came from. Several stories persist. Our favourite involves a contextual mistranslation.
The game’s creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, wished to convey the idea that the ape in the game was big, and a bit stubborn, and a bit ‘goofy’. Aware of King Kong as a big ape, he chose Kong as part of the name. Unsure of the English equivalent of ‘stubborn’ he flipped through the dictionary and landed on the word ‘donkey’ to convey the other half of his meaning.
When Miyamoto first suggested this name to his company, Nintendo, it was dismissed, but gradually the contextually questionable translation began to stick and ‘Donkey Kong’ became the global pseudonym for the game’s big, stubborn ape.
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Why you should be paying attention to Brazilian Daily Deals site Peixe Urbano
by Anna Heim — in Latin America
Brazilian group buying site Peixe Urbano (“Urban Fish”) yesterday announced a new investment round, in partnership with global equity firm General Atlantic and Tiger Global Management. So what is Peixe Urbano and why is it attracting so much attention?
A key element in Peixe Urbano’s success is that it was a pioneer in its market: when launched in March 2010, it was the first local services group buying website in Brazil. That said, the idea was far from untested: by their own admission, the 3 founders’ inspiration came from Groupon and its counterparts in the US – they had witnessed this boom firsthand while they were studying in California at Stanford University.
Like in the US, coupon fever took over Brazil and Peixe Urbano’s service kept growing, both in terms of capital and image: in December 2010, the site, which then had 5 million registered users and now has 9 million, received investment from Silicon Valley venture capital fund Benchmark Capital and local TV anchorman Luciano Huck joined the company as a partner. It is worth mentioning that it was Benchmark’s first investment in Latin America; earlier in 2010, the company had also received funding from Brazilian VC firm Monashees Capital.
The fact that the 3 founders have lived and studied in the States and are fluent in English certainly isn’t foreign to the company’s international appeal, as is the fact that one of them, Julio Vasconcellos, who is now the company’s CEO, was Facebook’s Growth Manager for Brazil when Peixe Urbano’s launched. At the same time, being a Brazilian company with Brazilian founders meant that they had a good knowledge of the local market and its expectations, which certainly helped it grow.
Concurrently, the number of players in the daily deals market grew exponentially: according to specialized website Bolsa de Ofertas, there are now more than a thousand group buying websites in Brazil! Many of them will obviously fail and concentration has already started: 3 clear leaders have already emerged and share most of the market. These are Peixe Urbano, Groupon, which has now entered the market and quickly became a key player, and ClickOn, which also raised additional funding this week (see press release). See how they currently rank according to Alexa’s data compiled by Bolsa de Ofertas:
So what will Peixe Urbano do with the additional capital it raised this week? According to the CEO Julio Vasconcellos who talked to us on the phone, this investment will give Peixe Urbano’s development plans, which revolve around two main axes, some viability. The first of the axes is growth; the company counts nearly 600 employees and is currently hiring intensively (for instance, it aims to double its tech team). It also has international expansion plans – it entered the Argentinian market in March this year and is interested in other Latin American countries as well. The other development axe is marketing, to solidify the company’s presence. This includes raising awareness of the company via an advertising campaign that will go on TV very soon. In February, Peixe Urbano had been the first Brazilian company to advertise via Twitter’s Promoted Trends.
Peixe Urbano is clearly doing very well and we are convinced that group buying is more than a fad – however, a lot remains to be seen with Facebook and Google entering the space, respectively with Facebook Deals and Google Offers. So what do you think? Will first entrants as Peixe Urbano keep their advantage and how long?
This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily shared by TNW.
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Letter from London: Lost in the Supermarket
By David Mattin
Photograph: Bicycle London Riots 2011cc Matt Shaw
BRITISH METROPOLITAN POLICE MOVE over London in the Eurocopter EC145 helicopter. Two weeks ago, and for three consecutive nights, I was made extremely familiar with its particular, low, insistent thrum: on those three nights from dusk and into the early hours of the morning an EC145 repeatedly passed back and forth over my house, and sometimes seemed to stop and only hang there in the inscrutable darkness, as though pausing for breath. I listened and felt obliquely connected to the events that held my city, and the entire country, captive.
As it turned out, the night of Monday August 8th was the most violent among the five nights, starting on Saturday the 6th, that constituted the English Riots of 2011. In the south London suburb of Lewisham, about a mile from my flat, hundreds of young people stole from shops, set fire to cars, and fought with the police. But Lewisham — a neglected, overwhelmingly poor working-class part of the city — played only a minor role in a night that saw riots spread from Tottenham (also poor, and rundown) in the north of the city, through Hackney (ditto) in the east, down to Croydon, just south of London, where rioters burned the well-known House of Reeves furniture shop to the ground, and a 26-year-old man was shot dead.
If Monday was the most violent day, though, it was not the most surprising. As increased police numbers helped to dampen the violence in London, Tuesday and Wednesday night saw the riots spread outside London entirely, to Bristol in south west England, Birmingham in the midlands, and Manchester in the north, where buildings were set alight, looting was widespread, and police made over 100 arrests.
For five nights, then, England shook itself free from the shackles that are law and order. In so doing it revealed a part of itself that most of its middle class like to pretend does not exist. Social media and YouTube provided a new, mesmerizing window on this aspect of our country. That is, a country in which an unsuspecting foreign student can stumble upon a crowd, get mugged and beaten, lie helplessly in a pool of his own blood, and then be helped to his feet by a group of men feigning concern who hold him still while they steal the contents of his bag.
Now, two weeks on, Britain is puzzling over what has happened. In the sound of the metropolitan British middle-class — the politicians, the columnists, the activists — trying to explain these riots to each other, there can be discerned a strange, schizophrenic mixture of anger and uncertainty, a frustrating inability to get much beyond first principles. What caused these riots? What do the people who participated in them want? What do they tell us about the country in which we live? What, in short, do the riots mean?
Across the last two weeks, these questions have been the subject of much talk; they can accommodate so much talk because their answers are so elusive. Even the left’s best attempt to imbue the riots with a meaning — the argument that contends that they were an expression of inchoate anger at the current austerity, and the mismanagement that brought us to it — is, on close examination, not satisfactory. And that is because there is a sense in which the English riots of 2011 mean nothing at all. Nothing, at least, to the people who participated in them. Which is what makes them so uniquely frightening, and problematic.
To understand why the riots of 2011 pose Britain’s explaining classes such a problem, it’s instructive to compare them to another relatively recent, historically significant British riot.
Before the events of this month, the most significant riot in London for a generation was the 1981 Brixton riot. In 1981 Britain, much as now, labored under an economic downturn. Brixton back then was a neglected sink-area, home to a large African-Carribean community, and some of the most severe deprivation in the country. There was a long history of tension between this community and local police, and in 1981 that tension was aggravated by a new policy of aggressive “stop and search,” in which 1,000 people, almost all black, were stopped by police across five days in early April. On April 10th it appeared to a gathering crowd that a policeman had stabbed a young black man, or, at least, that they were doing nothing to help him as he lay bleeding to death on the pavement. Thousands gathered on Brixton High Road, and the worst public disorder in Britain for a generation began: more than 80 arrests were made, and hundreds of buildings were burned or damaged.
The black people of Brixton thought that policing of their area was at best insensitive and inadequate, and at worst overtly racist. A subsequent public inquiry, the Scarman Report, found that they were in large part right. Recommendations contained in the Scarman report led to radical changes in the way that the metropolitan police deal with deprived, largely black areas in London.
The 2011 riots began, then, in a way that seemed eerily familiar. In Tottenham — another poor, disproportionately black part of London, where a young and poorly educated population feel the burden of a faltering economy — a 29-year-old black man named Mark Duggan was shot dead by police after allegedly resisting arrest. It is reported that Duggan was in possession of a handgun at the time of his death. A peaceful protest march on Saturday 6 August turned violent at night, when a few hundred young people took to Tottenham High Road and burned down the post office. The next night the disorder spread to Enfield, north of Tottenham, to nearby Wood Green, and to parts of east London. By Monday morning, we were still in familiar territory: violent disorder across a contiguous area, sparked by a perceived injustice, fueled by a coherent grievance.
But by Monday night all that had fallen apart. Violence broke out in Croydon, a commuter town south of London. On Wednesday, some of the most intense rioting seen across the five days took place in Manchester, 160 miles north of the capital. By then, there was no doubt: this was nothing like Brixton in 1981. This was something else altogether.
The thousands who took part in the Brixton riot shared a rough understanding of the grievance that had drawn them to the streets, and many would have articulated that grievance in broadly the same terms. The same is true of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, sparked by the acquittal of the four police officers that beat Rodney King. Did the young people who rioted in Manchester (some, reportedly, as young as 10) have any idea what was alleged to have happened in Tottenham a few days before? Had they even heard of Tottenham?
On the Friday after the riots I met the British novelist Hari Kunzru, who had just arrived in London from New York. Our conversation inevitability veered onto the riots, and Kunzru neatly posed the question that loomed over everything at the end of that week. He said: “Are the riots properly political?”
This was the question that, under various guises, all manner of politicians, commentators and journalists were addressing in the days immediately after. Were these riots founded on anything like a coherent political agenda? Should we even use the word “riot” to describe them, given that this is the word we use to describe events such as those in Brixton in 1981, or L.A in 1992?
On first sight, the answer seems clear: no. The violent disorder that began in Tottenham did not spread the old-fashioned way, via the passing from hand-to-hand of a coherent, shared grievance. Rather, these were riots that spread via the 24-hour rolling news broadcast and the Facebook status update, and to people hundreds of miles away, who made no explicit attempt to demonstrate common cause with rioters elsewhere. Rioters who took to the streets in Croydon, Bristol, and Manchester did not do so because of the police shooting of Mark Duggan, or because of perceived racist policing in Tottenham. In the wake of the riots some commentators suggested that widespread and ongoing racial tension could explain the spread of violence nationwide: black people in England are still 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police according to the London School of Economics. But the vast majority of rioters in Birmingham and Manchester were white.
A further sign that the unfolding events were something unlike previous riots, something new, came elsewhere. Looting is a part of most riots — certainly it was widespread in Brixton in 1981 — but the 2011 English riots were defined by looting, so much so that some commentators have applied the phrase “the shopping riots.” Time and again it was reported that rioters ran away from police (violent confrontation with police is usually something that angry rioters seek out) and towards high street shops, primarily clothes and electronics outlets. Famously, the most frequently targeted shop was sportswear chain JD Sports, purveyor of Nike, Adidas and Reebok tracksuits, which paid a high price for so successfully cultivating an image that appeals to young, working-class Britons. Total damage and loss caused by the 2011 riots is estimated at £100 million; theft from JD Sports accounts for £10 million. Here was acquisitiveness both naked and carefully targeted; and targeted not at those people the rioters most wanted to hurt, but simply at the consumer goods they most wanted to acquire.
In Hackney on Monday night, amid the worst of the violence in London, a video was captured of a middle-aged black woman on the street, delivering a ferocious, impromptu lecture to rioters. Posted on YouTube, the video became a sensation: a totem pole for everyone who might have wanted the riots to be overtly, “properly political,” but who had to admit, in the end, that the facts of these riots simply could not be made to fit that ideal:
Low up [slang for ‘stop’] the fucking burning the property. Low up burning people’s shops that they worked hard to start their business. You understand? The shop up there, she’s working hard to make her business work, and you lot want to burn it up. For what? So that you can say you’re warring and you’re bad man? This is about a fucking man who got shot in Tottenham, this ain’t about having fun on the road and busting up the place. Get it real, black people. Get real. Do it for a cause. If we’re fighting for a cause let’s fight for a fucking cause … I’m shamed to be a Hackney person. Because we’re not all gathering together and fighting for a cause, we’re running down Foot Locker and thievin shoe.
As uncomfortable a fact as it is, the English riots of 2011 meant nothing to most of the people who participated in them. Most who took to the streets in early August simply recognized an opportunity to acquire consumer goods for free, and took it.
It’s hard to escape the view that the riots of 2011, then, seem a new, currently uncategorizable kind of event: violent disorder that spread nationwide in a fluid, unpredictable way, that crossed boundaries of race and local community, that was not unified by any shared grievance that is easy to discern. That presents a problem of interpretation for everyone, other than the simple-minded right, who will argue only that there will always be bad people, who do bad things, and they should be punished, and that is all.
As for the rest of us, we cannot escape the uniquely problematic nature of the 2011 riots. We may accept that the riots had no explicit meaning: that they were not “properly political” in the way that the Brixton or L.A riots clearly were. But we surely cannot escape the instinct — nor should we want to — to make some sense of what has happened, moreover, to move towards explanation that suggests some course of action. We need a working model of the events of 2011.
Of course, the beginnings of such a model are not hard to assemble. Indeed, they have been catalogued thoroughly by predominantly left-leaning thinkers across the last two weeks. Their argument is this: “It may be true that riots were not overtly, ‘properly’ political, but this does not mean that they were not political in essence. In fact, they were an expression of inarticulate rage at an austerity that has seen state payments to poor people cut, and employment rise to 2.49 million. An austerity that would not have been necessary were it not for Britain’s greedy and selfish elite, and which is being paid for by Britain’s poor.”
An article by Naomi Klein in The Nation, called “Daylight Robbery, Meet Nighttime Robbery,” was characteristic. Klein wondered at those who could doubt that the riots were essentially political:
…As if the massive bank bailouts never happened, followed by the defiant record bonuses. Followed by the emergency G-8 and G-20 meetings, when the leaders decided, collectively, not to do anything to punish the bankers for any of this, nor to do anything serious to prevent a similar crisis from happening again. Instead they would all go home to their respective countries and force sacrifices on the most vulnerable. They would do this by firing public sector workers, scapegoating teachers, closing libraries, upping tuitions, rolling back union contracts, creating rush privatizations of public assets and decreasing pensions – mix the cocktail for where you live.
In support of her argument that financial crisis and austerity were at the roots of the English riots, Klein cited a precedent: the 2001 riots in Argentina, which brought down the government of Fernando de la Rua, and which were also marked by widespread looting.
But look closely at the comparison, and it only serves to highlight the inadequacies of an argument that seeks to root the 2011 riots predominantly in a consciousness, however inarticulate, of the 2008 financial crisis. The rioting that struck Argentina in 2001 was led by a disillusioned middle class pushed into poverty by government mismanagement of the economy. In Buenos Aires, the riots orbited around a crowd massed at the Presidential Palace. In Cordoba, civil servants set fire to the city hall. Where were the middle-class, politically conscious participants in the 2011 English riots? Where were the crowds massed outside the Palace of Westminster, or Manchester Town Hall?
It’s an unavoidable truth that if the 2011 rioters won’t supply us with a meaning for their actions, we are left with the need to make our own. But we must be mindful of the fact that in so doing we risk a kind of behavior that many on the left typically argue is a part of the underlying problem, and so part of the deeper meaning of the riots: that is, we risk telling the largely working-class, unemployed people of Tottenham, Hackney, Manchester, et al, what they should think, rather than listening to what they say they actually do think. Leftists and those at the center are bound to run first to an explanation that grounds the riots in a financial crisis brought about by greedy bankers, and an austerity package imposed on Britain by a right-wing government. But watching the rioters, it is hard to make the picture fit. Trying to listen to what they think, it’s hard to hear anything else over the loud message: I want free stuff, and I’m going to take it. We need a model that accommodates that uncomfortable fact.
The development of that model will take time, and a willingness to think about our society in new and uncomfortable ways. The truth, surely, is that while roots of the 2011 English riots pass through the 2008 financial crisis, they run far deeper, into a society now so thoroughly atomized that it is hard any longer to know what we mean when we use the word “society.” They run through Thatcher’s Britain, through “greed is good,” through the “Big Bang” in the City of London in the 1980s that turned the capital, again, into a vital, muscular world city, bringing enormous prosperity, but concentrated in the hands of a few. They run through deep, underlying socio-economic forces that have pushed us away from our families, from meaningful local community, and from lasting bonds of dependence on and obligation to others. The English riots of 2011 are the atomization riots.
Leftists often say that the central fact about those who came onto the streets in August is their perceived disenfranchisement: their isolation from a society in which they feel they have no stake. The truth is something else, something more. It is more accurate to say that many of the rioters of 2011 have little or no conception of a “society” existing around them at all. Rather, they have been thoroughly schooled by their elites in an every-man-for-himself way of being that encourages all of us to view life as a project in taking what we can, when we can. These people look upwards and see only a country filled with individuals doing the same: bankers, politicians, even civil servants, who, according to the right-wing tabloid press that supplies working-class Britain with an ongoing, hysterical commentary on current events, are only so many greedy, lazy self-preservationists.
The 2011 English riots had no meaning in the minds of the vast majority of those who participated because those participants cannot conceive of a social fabric that would be the necessary context against which any kind of meaning might be created. Why go out on to the street, and try to make a statement about how you happen to feel, or what you happen to think? Who would notice? Who would care? Likewise, why not go out onto the street, and take what you want? Who will notice? Who will care?
By committing such visible apolitical violence and theft — at a time when, in Britain, there is so much to be political about — the rioters have forced us to care. This, surely, is the lasting meaning of the 2011 English riots. Perhaps in a society as incoherent as ours is now, an apolitical act of this kind was, in some strange way, the most meaningful political act of all.
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By Christopher Merrill
Letter From Trinidad: Beyoncé Is Gold
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Data center UPS maintenance
Scheduled Maintenance Report for wdc
CloudSigma would like to inform you that the planned USP maintenance is rescheduled for 04 September 2017. Apologies for any caused inconveniences. We'll provide you wish additional information soon.
Posted almost 2 years ago. Aug 05, 2017 - 01:33 UTC
CloudSigma would like to inform you that the data center in which our Washington cloud is located will perform scheduled maintenance of all Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS). Power supply in the data center is doubled and all load will be transferred to the secondary UPS protected source at the start of maintenance.UPS redundancy will be reduced during this maintenance. The UPS that is being maintained will be available in bypass on utility power as the alternate source. There will be no impact on already existing customer’s virtual machines, hosts, network accessibility and/or any other running services.
Posted almost 2 years ago. Jul 31, 2017 - 09:39 UTC
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MotoAmerica Announces NBC Sports Network Deal with Hour-Long Highlights And Feature-Based Shows
MotoAmerica announced another piece of the most comprehensive television and digital programming package in the five-year history of the series – 22 hours of racing highlights and features on NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) the week following each of the ten 2019 MotoAmerica rounds.
The hour-long shows, titled “Inside MotoAmerica,” will provide highlights ranging from on-track action, interviews and features from the previous weekends’ rounds. There will be 11 shows produced on NBCSN, NBC Sports Group’s dedicated 24/7 linear sports network, with each show being re-aired at a later date for a total of 22 hours of coverage.
“We’re thrilled to announce a big part of what we believe will be the best motorcycle racing content available,” said MotoAmerica President Wayne Rainey. “We’d like to thank NBC Sports for their interest in the MotoAmerica Series and we can’t wait to showcase our racing, personalities and MotoAmerica lifestyle to our fans, both new and established, with a little different flair. We know the shows will be well-received by our fans, our teams, sponsors and racers, and we’re excited to get the season started.”
“We’re excited to add Inside MotoAmerica to our ever-expanding motorsports lineup on NBCSN, as NBC Sports continues to deliver the most comprehensive portfolio of racing coverage to viewers across the country,” said Jeff Macaluso, Senior Director, Programming, NBC Sports Group.
2019 MotoAmerica Telecast Schedule on NBCSN (One-Hour Programs/Pacific Time)
Saturday, April 13: Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, 8 p.m.
Tuesday, April 16: Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta (Encore), 1 p.m.
Saturday, April 20: Circuit of The Americas, 12:30 p.m.
Tuesday, April 23: Circuit of The Americas (Encore), 1 p.m.
Saturday, May 11: VIRginia International Raceway, 9 a.m.
Tuesday, May 21: VIRginia International Raceway (Encore), 1 p.m.
Sunday, June 9: Road America, 2 p.m.
Tuesday, June 11: Road America (Encore), 1 p.m.
Friday, June 28: Utah Motorsports Campus, 2 p.m.
Sunday, July 7: Utah Motosports Campus (Encore), 9 a.m.
Tuesday, July 23: WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, 3 p.m.
Tuesday, July 30: WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (Encore), 11:30 a.m.
Friday, August 23: Sonoma Raceway, 2 p.m.
Wednesday, August 28: Sonoma Raceway (Encore), 12 p.m.
Friday, August 30: Pittsburgh International Race Complex 3 p.m.
Friday, September 13: New Jersey Motorsports Park, 1 p.m.
Sunday, September 29: Barber Motorsports Park, 4:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 13: Season Highlights, 8 a.m.
Wednesday, October 16: Pittsburgh International Race Complex (Encore), 9 a.m.
Wednesday, October 23: New Jersey Motorsports Park (Encore), 12 p.m.
Wednesday, October 30: Barber Motorsports Park (Encore), 9 a.m.
Wednesday, October 30: Season Highlights (Encore), 10 a.m.
All five MotoAmerica classes will take part in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship GEICO Motorcycle U.S. Round with MotoAmerica July 12-14. Tickets, 2019 Season Pass, VIP hospitality and camping are available by clicking here or calling 831-242-8200.
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Author: Madruga, M.S.
You may also wish to search for items by Madruga, M. and Madruga.
Madruga, M.S.; Mottram, D.S., The effect of pH on the formation of volatile compounds produced by heating a model system containing 5'-imp and cysteine, J. Braz. Chem. Soc., 1998, 9, 3, 261-271, https://doi.org/10.1590/S0103-50531998000300010 . [all data]
Mottram, D.S.; Madruga, M.S.; Whitfield, F.B., Some novel meatlike aroma compounds from the reactions of alkanediones with hydrogen sulfide and fuanthiols, J. Agric. Food Chem., 1995, 43, 1, 189-193, https://doi.org/10.1021/jf00049a035 . [all data]
Narain, N.; Almeida, J.N.; Galvão, M.S.; Madruga, M.S.; de Brito, E.S., Volatile compounds in passion fruit (Passiflora edulis forma Flavicarpa) and yellow mombin (Spondias mombin L.) fruits obtained by dynamic headspace technique, Cienc. Tecnol. Aliment. Campinas, 2004, 24, 2, 212-216, https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-20612004000200009 . [all data]
Narain, N.; Galvao, M.S.; Madruga, M.S., Volatile compounds captured through purge and trap technique in caja-umbu (Spondias sp.) fruits during maturation, Food Chem., 2007, 102, 3, 726-731, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2006.06.003 . [all data]
Madruga, M.S.; Arruda, S.G.B.; Narain, N.; Souza, J.G., Castration and slaughter age effects on panel assessment and aroma compounds of the mestico goat meat, Meat Sci., 2000, 56, 2, 117-125, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0309-1740(00)00025-5 . [all data]
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Modern and Classical Languages
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Arabic Courses
ARAB 1001 - Elementary Arabic I
Introduction to listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Arabic and to the culture of Arabic-speaking regions. This course meets three (3) hours per week in the classroom and requires at least one (1) additional hour per week of online and/or language laboratory instruction.
View Course in Catalog
ARAB 1002 - Elementary Arabic II
Continued listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Arabic and to the culture of Arabic-speaking regions. This course meets three (3) hours per week in the classroom and requires at least one (1) additional hour per week of online and/or language laboratory instruction.
Prerequisite/Corequisite:
Prerequisite: ARAB 1001, or placement by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages
ARAB 1120 - Elementary Arabic I & II (Intensive)
This course combines the first and second courses in the sequence of twelve courses. Introduction to and continuation of listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Arabic and the culture of Arabic-speaking regions. This course meets six (6) hours per week in the classroom and requires at least two (2) additional hours per week of online and/or language laboratory instruction.
ARAB 2001 - Intermediate Arabic I
Continued development and reinforcement of the fundamentals of grammar, vocabulary acquisition, pronunciation, speaking, reading and writing. Designed to increase linguistic and cultural proficiency through the situational use of the language and the study of authentic materials from Arabic-speaking regions. Language laboratory and online assignments. Class conducted in Arabic.
Prerequisite: ARAB 1002 or placement by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages
ARAB 2002 - Intermediate Arabic II
ARAB 2003 - Intermediate Arabic III
This is the fifth course in a sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The sequence of courses integrate Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Educated Spoken Arabic (LESA) building strong foundations in listening, speaking, reading, and writing while providing a broad introduction to the peoples, cultures, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. The course is conducted in Arabic.
Prerequisite: ARAB 2002, ARAB 2120, or placement by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages
ARAB 2004 - Intermediate Arabic IV
This is the sixth course in a sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The sequence of courses integrate Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Educated Spoken Arabic (LESA) building strong foundations in listening, speaking, reading, and writing while providing a broad introduction to the peoples, cultures, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. The course is conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 2120 - Intermediate Arabic I & II
This course combines the third and fourth courses in the sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. This course continued development and reinforcement of the fundamentals of grammar, vocabulary acquisition, pronunciation, speaking, reading and writing. Also, it is designed to increase linguistic and cultural proficiency through the situational use of the language and the study of authentic materials from Arabic-speaking regions. Language laboratory and online assignments. Class conducted in Arabic.
Prerequisites: ARAB 1002, ARAB 1120, or placement by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages
ARAB 2340 - Intermediate Arabic IV & V
This course combines the fifth and sixth courses in the sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The sequence of courses integrate Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Educated Spoken Arabic (LESA) building strong foundations in listening, speaking, reading, and writing while providing a broad introduction to the peoples, cultures, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. The course is conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 2950 - Study Abroad
The study of the Arabic language and Arabic culture in a native environment. Designed especially for students in a Study Abroad Program of the University System of Georgia.
ARAB 2990 - Special Topics
Study of an area of language, literature or culture not fully covered in other regular courses. Topics vary and announced in advance. May be repeated for 1-3 credit hours for a maximum of six credits if topic is different.
ARAB 3001 - Intermediate-Advanced Arabic I
This is the seventh course in a sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The sequence of courses integrate Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Educated Spoken Arabic (LESA) building strong foundations in listening, speaking, reading, and writing while providing a broad introduction to the peoples, cultures, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. The course is conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 3002 - Intermediate-Advanced Arabic II
This is the eighth course in a sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The sequence of courses integrate Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Educated Spoken Arabic (LESA) building strong foundations in listening, speaking, reading, and writing while providing a broad introduction to the peoples, cultures, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. The course is conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 3010 - Contemporary Arab & Islamic World
This course is designed to provide a broad introduction to the historical, literary, artistic and popular cultures across the Arab world from early Islamic times to the present. Adopting a variety of historical and literary texts and other forms or artistic expression from North Africa to the Middle East, as well as selections from the Qur'an, and the Sunna/hadith. Course conducted in English and Arabic.
ARAB 3110 - Survey of Classical and Modern Arabic Literature
This course offers an overview of Classical and Modern Arabic literature from a historical perspective. It provides students with a foundational knowledge of Arabic literature and examines the role of the political, social, intellectual and religious environments in the emergence of most literary forms. Particular attention will be given to the Cairo Trilogy and short stories by Ihsan Abdul Quddus, Tewfik El Hakim, Ghada Samman. Course conducted in English and Arabic.
ARAB 3120 - Intermediate-Advanced Arabic I & II
This course combines the seventh and eighth courses in the sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The sequence of courses integrate Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Educated Spoken Arabic (LESA) building strong foundations in listening, speaking, reading, and writing while providing a broad introduction to the peoples, cultures, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. The course is conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 3310 - Arabic Conversation
This is the ninth course in a sequence of twelve courses beginning with ARAB 1001 aimed at taking students from novice to advanced high according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. The sequence of courses integrate Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine Educated Spoken Arabic (LESA) building strong foundations in listening, speaking, reading, and writing while providing a broad introduction to the peoples, cultures, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking world. The course is conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 3410 - Arabic Linguistics
This course is designed to provide a broad introduction to Arabic linguistics. Students will become acquainted with Arabic language system: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Course materials also include the history of Arabic linguistics in reference to Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic and Arabic dialects. This course is conducted in English and Arabic.
Prerequisite: 2002 level in a foreign language, or placement by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages
ARAB 3610 - Military Arabic
This course is offers an overview of Arabic utilized in military affairs. Emphasis is placed on daily communication, open source intelligence gathering, textual analysis, translation, as well as reading and listening skills needed for the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT). Students are required to prepare the primary source texts in advance using dictionaries and other reference works. They are also required to complete the assigned Defense Language Institute (DLI) modules prior to class. Course conducted in English and Arabic.
Prerequisites: ARAB 2001 and ARAB 2002 or placement by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages
ARAB 4110 - Classical Arabic Literature
This course is designed to provide a broad introduction to classical Arabic literature from the pre-Islamic period to the first centuries of Islam's 'golden era'. Emphasis is placed on classical Arabic grammar, textual analysis, translation, and situating the select readings in their proper contexts. Students are required to prepare the primary source texts in advance using dictionaries and other reference works. They are also required to read the assigned secondary literature prior to class. Course conducted in English and Arabic.
Prerequisites: ARAB 2002 and ARAB 2120, or placement by the Department of Modern & Classical Languages
ARAB 4310 - Advanced Arabic Conversation
ARAB 4310 is the continuation of ARAB 3310. Students are encouraged, not required, to take ARAB 3310 before taking this course. The main objective of this course is to enhance the students' abilities to converse on a variety of topics related to the Arab world culture (e.g. the press, literature, social aspects, education, etc.). Reading and listening materials are extensive and vary depending on the themes that interest the students. The course will also introduce students to the main dialects spoken in the region, mainly Moroccan and Egyptian. Class conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 4510 - Advanced Arabic Language I
This course provides additional practice at the advanced level to help students attain a higher level of skill development (e.g., listening, speaking, reading and writing) and linguistic accuracy. Students will enrich their grammatical knowledge and apply it as one of the analytical tools in comprehending reading texts, produce lengthy descriptive and argumentative discourse in speaking, summarize texts and express their point of views in writing, and engage in discussions of contemporary issues. Class conducted in Arabic.
ARAB 4520 - Advanced Arabic Language II
This course is a continuation of Arabic 4510. At this level, students are expected to be able to communicate with flexibility, knowledge and ease in the language. Course materials include readings from contemporary short stories, excerpts from novels, poetry, political speeches, and folklore, etc. Particular attention will be given to composition and writing. Class conducted in Arabic.
Study of an area of language, literature or culture not fully covered in other regular courses. Topics vary and are announced in advance. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
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All About The Author
Well, This Is What I Think
The name of the blog says it all, really. My take on interesting stuff + useful re-posts :-)
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Bet you don't know where the term "Pillow Biter" comes from?
Leading Sunni authority calls for IS fighters to be crucified
Tragedy! Staring at breasts does NOT increase a man's life expectancy.
The tens of thousands murdered in cold blood by a regime that Putin and his friends want to save.
400 Vaginas in a row. Well, hell, why not? (Warning, explicit photography; work warning.)
Our fearless prediction for the UK election. Sort of.
Saudi authorities behead another woman - warning, graphic image
Why are redheads more attractive?
You know those cheerful emails full of positive energy that circulate on the Internet?
How medieval falconry gave us words and terms we still use today
Scarlet Nights – Finalist, Ada Cambridge Biographical Short Story Prize, Williamstown Literary Festival
“WHAT THE F*** JUST HAPPENED?”
Wikipedia banned in China – lest we forget that freedom is precious.
Justine Damond died because of a culture of violence in the USA. The man who shot her was just a component.
Welcome back, Princess Di
Mamma Mia 2 – do yourself a favour …
Paraprosdokians #3
The poem. You know: the one that’s been bugging me.
Should ISIS brides be brought home?
So, this Brexit thing. Here’s the state of play.
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Britain’s next big star? And a movie tip. You’re welcome.
Posted: October 12, 2015 in Popular Culture et al
Tags: acting, actors, Emilia Clarke, film, George Clooney, Holliday Grainger, movies, Raffey Cassidy, Rose Leslie, up and comers, young talent
Last night, Dear Reader, the Clan Wellthisiswhatithink sat down to watch a movie chosen at random from the seemingly innumerable flims now available in Australia across so many viewing platforms that one could literally never get up from the couch and never get bored either.
Tomorrowland is an American science fiction mystery/adventure film directed by Brad Bird, and co-written and produced by Bird and Damon Lindelof. The film stars the ever-reliable George Clooney, the ineffably wonderful British actor Hugh Laurie, rapid up-and-comer Britt Robertson, and pint-sized British child actress Raffey Cassidy. In the film, a disillusioned genius inventor (Clooney) and a teenage science enthusiast (Robertson), embark to an ambiguous dimension known as “Tomorrowland”, where their actions directly affect the world and themselves.
The writers called their movie Tomorrowland, after the futuristic themed land found at Disney theme parks. In drafting their screenplay, Bird and Lindelof took inspiration from the progressive cultural movements of the Space Age in the 1950s and ’60s, as well as Walt Disney’s optimistic philosophy of innovation and utopia, particularly his conceptual vision for the planned community known as EPCOT.
Tomorrowland received mixed reviews from critics; earning praise for its visuals, original premise, and themes, but criticism in regards to the writing and story execution. The film also performed below expectations at the box office. That shouldn’t put you off seeing it. This is a movie with much more to recommend it than should be criticised. The central performances are excellent, it is frequently very funny, and occasionally very moving. It is also, albeit somewhat clumsily, rather thought-provoking.
The young actress simply jumps off the screen in scene after scene.
But the absolute must see driver to see Tomorrowland is to watch the performance of Raffey Cassidy as the animatronic robot sent to Earth to find dreamers who have not yet lost their optimism and enthusiasm.
She is known for her roles in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and Mr Selfridge (2013), but it is in Tomorrowland that she may have found her breakthrough moment. Born near Manchester just thirteen short years ago, her performance reveals real emotional depth as well as astonishing self-possession. She also has a range of emotional expression – from self-regarding humour to aching pathos – that marks her out already as one for the future.
In 2013 Cassidy was named on Screen International magazine’s “Stars of Tomorrow” when she was just 11, making her the youngest actor to be featured on the annual and highly prestigious list that has included, in the past, the likes of Emily Blunt, Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, Robert Pattinson, this years Best Actor Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne, Rebecca Hall, Hayley Atwell, Holliday Grainger, Emilia Clarke, and other hugely successful figures of TV and Cinema.
Interestingly, she was nominated in the same year as another of our picks, Rose Leslie, who has already starred to great effect in TV’s Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones.
Raffey Cassidy. Keep an eye open.
You heard it here first. Well, almost.
PS If you watch the film, keep an eye open for the “swimming pool scene” when Robertson’s character first visits Tomorrowland. Simply stunning visually and imaginatively.
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Can it ever be right to sentence a child to “life without parole”?
The Best Restaurant in Australia. And that’s official.
How many people have thunk here?
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Wondering how God could have got all this into such a short Tale
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It's the thin line between reality and fantasy. It's the thin line between sanity and madness. It's the crazy things that make us think, laugh and scream in the dark.
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Previous Story Kangaroo stops play during Australian women’s soccer match Next Story Anderson tops Isner 26-24 at Wimbledon; other SF suspended
Mexico fails again to get to World Cup ‘quinto partido’
By Associated Press July 2, 2018 5:01 pm
SAMARA, Russia (AP) — The “quinto partido” curse goes on.
Mexico fell 2-0 to Brazil on Monday, marking the seventh straight time that El Tri has failed to reach the quarterfinals — or the fifth game — at soccer’s premier tournament.
Mexico last made it that far in 1986, when the nation hosted the World Cup.
This wasn’t to be the year El Tri broke through. Coach Juan Carlos Osorio said afterward that the team should look to better develop players.
“We were able to play quite a balanced game and I think that says a lot about us and our style. In any case, I think we need to keep developing. We hope our players can come to play in Europe so they can play every weekend against the best players in the world and then our national team will improve,” Osorio said.
Mexico did make history in Russia, beating defending champion Germany 1-0 in the group opener. It was Mexico’s first victory over the Germans in a competitive match — and first in any game since 1985. The loss would later figure in Germany’s elimination in Russia.
El Tri also defeated South Korea in the group stage before falling 3-0 to Sweden in the finale. That result, combined with South Korea’s 2-0 shocking upset against Germany, gave Sweden the top spot in the group and made Mexico the runner-up.
For winning the group, Sweden earned a spot against Switzerland to start the knockout round. Mexico got the five-time World Cup champions.
Osorio tweaked his lineup against Brazil and started 39-year-old Rafael Marquez, who was playing in his fifth World Cup. Only two other players have appeared in as many: Mexico’s Antonio Carbajal and Germany’s Lothar Matthaus.
The former Barcelona defender is the only player from the 2002 edition of the tournament to play in Russia.
While Mexico attacked furiously for the first 15 minutes of the match, it quickly became clear that striker Javier Hernandez, better known as “Chicharito,” was hurt with what appeared to be a hamstring injury. He eventually was substituted in the 60th minute.
“We leave sad because of the defeat but we had a more than dignified participation at the World Cup and we leave happy because of that,” Hernandez said. “But words are missing because of the defeat.
“The culture in our country is changing so that one day we can be at the level of Brazil and also win two or three World Cups,” he added.
Throughout the tournament, Mexico also got excellent play from goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, who made eight saves against Brazil to raise his total to a tournament-leading 25.
But he missed two in Monday’s crucial game: Neymar’s goal in the 51st minute and Roberto Firmino’s in the 88th.
During the game Neymar drew attention for his theatrics after he got tangled up with Miguel Layun, who stepped on his ankle. Neymar, who had been widely criticized earlier in the tournament for such displays, rolled on the field in pain.
Osorio was clearly displeased afterward. While not naming Neymar, he said: “We wasted a lot of time because of one single player. I thought that was a real shame.”
In addition to 1986, Mexico also made the quarterfinals in 1970, when the event was also held in Mexico. El Tri have appeared in 16 total World Cup tournaments.
Four years ago, Brazil and Mexico played to a scoreless draw in their group. Brazil had won the three previous World Cup meetings over Mexico.
Mexico’s last victory over Brazil came in 2012 in a friendly match at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. El Tri memorably won the match 2-0 before a crowd of more than 84,000 fans.
Following Monday’s loss there was already speculation about Osorio, who has held the job since 2015. Many expect him to step down.
“This is the most irrelevant thing right now. It’s the least important thing right now. We just lost a very important match,” Osorio said. “This is very painful for all of us. We’ll need to wait and see what happens over the next few days.”
2018 FIFA World Cup AP Online - Sports AP Online Soccer News Brazil National Soccer Team Eastern Europe Europe FIFA World Cup Germany Germany National Soccer Team Guillermo Ochoa International soccer Juan Carlos Osorio Men's soccer Men's sports Mexico National Soccer Team Russia s Samara Soccer South Korea National Soccer Team Sports Sweden National Soccer Team Uncategorized Western Europe
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Home Tags Posts tagged with "amsterdam lelylaan"
Accessing the Smart City via the Amsterdam Lelylaan hub
Amsterdam Lelylaan Study
Within the Amsterdam Lelylaan Study, 2getthere contributed to the transformation of the A10 ring road from a barrier that inhibits connection between the inner and outer parts of the city to a desirable destination through integration of the highway and the city in a way that generates new forms of living and improves mobility for future inhabitants. The solution is a new multimodal transport hub, alongside new urban developments on both sides of the A10 and the introduction of 2getthere’s autonomous shuttles.
The Hub offers a smooth mobility transition between private cars and public transit. In addition to parking, restaurants and retail, it also includes a stop for the CityPods. The pods provide a shorter (~ 12 minutes) connection to Amsterdam centre, with a high service level. This can be realized without having to create new lanes by using the existing space more efficiently. The autonomous shuttles ensure the number of cars is reduced, sustainability and liveability are improved and parking can be converted to value adding purposes.
The proposal will result in the introduction of 8,400 new residential units, in a total built area of 750,000 m² and an added value of 370 million Euro in revenue. With underground and above ground connections there will no longer be a prevailing concept of the inner/outer ring, featuring streets and pathways that favor pedestrians and the automated transit system. The realization can be done in phases, allowing the development to start today, while accommodating adaptation to market fluctuations moving forward.
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Home Tags Posts tagged with "De Lijn"
self-driving people mover makes its maiden trip at Brussels Airport
This self-driving shuttle is state-of-the-art technology that fuels the imagination. It is an investment in the future, in efficiency, in image and in the seductive power of our public transport.
Maiden trip at Brussels Airport
The self-driving people mover has clocked up its first few metres at Brussels Airport. Over the coming 3 days, the shuttle bus will perform several demo trips without passengers to test the technology in a real-life environment. These tests see De Lijn and Brussels Airport’s ambitious pilot project step up a gear. In 2021, the self-driving people mover will commute autonomously between the terminal and cargo business area and parking lots. “It’s set to become the showpiece of public transport in Flanders,” says Flemish Minister for Mobility, Ben Weyts. “Foreign visitors will instantly perceive us as an innovative region.”
Brussels Airport is the setting for an ambitious pilot project with a self-driving people mover operated by De Lijn. In the coming days, the shuttle bus from manufacturer 2getthere will make its first demo trips past the terminal so passengers who stop at the spring terrace will be able to see it drive by. For the time being, the bus will run without passengers. Driverless vehicles abroad typically drive in their own dedicated lanes. However, the pilot project at Brussels Airport ultimately aims to enable the self-driving shuttle to navigate autonomously through mixed traffic.
“This self-driving shuttle is state-of-the-art technology that fuels the imagination,” says Flemish Minister for Mobility, Ben Weyts. “And this pilot project is bringing that imagination to life. We’re harnessing innovation to further strengthen the De Lijn service offering. This is an investment in the future, in efficiency, in image and in the seductive power of our public transport. Flanders and De Lijn are playing a truly pioneering role in this regard.”
“‘Intelligent mobility’ is one of our strategic priorities for sustainable development over the coming years,” says Brussels Airport Company CEO, Arnaud Feist. “We want to encourage passengers and employees to increasingly travel to the airport by public transport. This joint project with De Lijn, which commenced in 2015, is one of the initiatives specifically aimed at achieving this objective. We’re now exploring how self-driving buses can be deployed to improve the efficiency of passenger transport on the airport grounds.”
Innovation presents fantastic opportunities
The self-driving electric bus follows virtual routes which it uses to continuously calculate its position. Deviations from the planned route are corrected on the basis of artificial reference points. The vehicles are also equipped with sensors for detecting other objects in the vicinity.
CEO of manufacturer 2getthere, Carel C. van Helsdingen, states: “De Lijn and Brussels Airport are setting a new global standard with this project. Selection, based on specific reliability and safety requirements in addition to proven test results, requires a rigorous approach based on innovative technology. It’s a challenging project and we’re proud to have been selected as the manufacturer. We’re looking forward to our continued collaboration, the system rollout and the future transportation of passengers.”
The technology can also help support drivers in the field of road safety. And there are benefits for tourism too. Foreign visitors instantly perceive Flanders as a contemporary region, where investments are made in innovation.
“We’re on the verge of a breakthrough in autonomous transport,” confirms De Lijn director general, Roger Kesteloot. “It’s now a question of getting on board and developing technology tailored to public transport. In the context of basic accessibility, we’re working on the development of a highly developed basic network. If we can reinforce this with a flexible range of shared shuttle vehicles, then we can satisfy the major mobility challenges of the future.”
Driverless shuttle service between airport terminal and cargo business zone
De Lijn and Brussels Airport Company intend launching an autonomous shuttle service between the airport terminal and the cargo business zone and parking areas in 2021. Safe, sustainable and flexible self-driving electric people movers will be deployed to provide a high frequency service. The shuttle is intended to run independently at an average speed of 20 km/hour over a short, fixed route that’s equipped with magnets and sensors. The magnets are located in the ground and serve as beacons that indicate the way. The sensors are built into the bus in order to detect other objects in the vicinity. Local modifications may be needed to reduce traffic complexity. However, as the people mover is designed to share the road with other traffic, no separate lanes will be required.
The next steps in the self-driving people mover project:
The pilot project is currently in the development phase. Test rides will be conducted on-site at the manufacturer, 2getthere, in Utrecht in order to test the technology. The technology will be further developed based on these results.
In the course of 2020, additional testing will take place over a longer period in mixed traffic, in the Brucargo business zone. The test rides will be carried out without passengers, however, there will be a steward on board. They are intended to test the bus operation in all weather conditions and traffic scenarios. All competent authorities will monitor the development process.
Should these tests reap positive results, the passenger system can be further expanded, and the dispatch centre, bus stop interfaces and charging stations additionally incorporated. The aim is to then operate the people movers without a steward on board, but instead monitor the rides from a dispatch centre.
Passenger transport is anticipated to commence mid-2021.
Autonomous Shuttles serving Brussels Airport last mile needs
Brussels Aiport
In 2015, Brussels Airport Company and De Lijn entered into a partnership with the intent to deploy self-driving shuttles at the airport. Further study and a tender between five different suppliers of autonomous vehicles ultimtely led to the choice for 2getthere. The project fits well with Brussels Airport drive to constantly study new possibilities of expanding their intermodal hub in sustainable manner. With the project Flanders is a pioneer: it will be the first permanent application (at an airport) without steward and on public roads.
Phased Introduction
The contract is divided into two phases. The first phase covers the development and thorough testing of the technology. In autumn 2019, 2getthere will be conducting the first vehicle tests at its testsite in Utrecht. Upon successful completion, the first self-driving bus will arrive at Brussels Airport in the beginning of 2020 for further test drives at the airport. Upon a positive evaluation of the first phase of testing, De Lijn and Brussels Airport Company can deploy the self-driving shuttle from 2021 onwards between the terminal and Brucargo.
The initiative for the project originated at De Lijn, the public transit company of Flanders. For the application Brussels Airport Company and De Lijn are sharing the project costs, with the go-ahead for the first phase given on April 20th, 2018. De Lijn is responsible for the costs associated with people who travel by public transport (De Lijn, MIVB, NMBS) to the airport. The airport operator will foot the costs for the transport of persons who come to the airport by other means of transport (staff, visitors or passengers).
Brussels Airport selects 2getthere for autonomous shuttle system
Ben Weyts, Flemish Minister for Mobility
We are making an investment in the future, in greater efficiency and in a more attractive range of public transport
Following assignments by Bluewaters Island (Dubai) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Brussels Airport and De Lijn have decided to partner with 2getthere for the Brussels Airport Autonomous Shuttle. 2getthere’s fully autonomous (self-driving) shuttles will link Brussels Airport with the long term parking area. Brussels Airport is the first European airport to use autonomous shuttles in fully mixed traffic. The vehicles are expected to hit the road in 2021, after an intensive pilot phase, starting in 2019. Four other constructors were in the race for this highly desirable assignment. Please find below the joint Press Release by Brussels Airport and De Lijn.
Brussels Airport Autonomous Shuttle
The board of directors of De Lijn and the management committee of Brussels Airport Company have given the go-ahead for the first phase with a self-driving electric bus on the airport. The vehicle that is being developed for this, will be one of the first to drive in Belgium in mixed traffic. After the summer of 2019, tests without passengers will begin at 2getthere’s testsite in Utrecht. The shuttle bus will arrive at Brussels Airport in the beginning of 2020 for further tests.
In 2015, Brussels Airport Company and De Lijn entered into a partnership with the intent to deploy self-driving shuttles at the airport. After further study and the choice of the constructor, both companies gave full support to the pilot project for testing an autonomous shuttle on the airport grounds.
“As intermodal hub where various means of transport connect seamlessly with each other, Brussels Airport is constantly studying new possibilities for expanding this hub in a sustainable way. This technologically innovative project deploying a self-driving electric bus operating a fixed route, also fits in with our environmental commitment to keep the impact on our surroundings as low as possible”, says Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Company.
“Flanders is taking on the role of pioneer”, says Flemish Minister for Mobility Ben Weyts. “In other countries driverless vehicles are already operational, but that is often in a separate lane with a steward on board. Here, the aim is to have the self-driving shuttle drive autonomously on the public roads. This is cutting-edge technology that really appeals to the imagination. We are making an investment in the future, in greater efficiency and in a more attractive range of public transport.”
2 year tests
2getthere will start the project in the coming weeks. The contract is divided into two phases. The first phase covers the development and thorough testing of the technology until the middle of 2020. In autumn 2019, 2getthere will be conducting the first vehicle tests at its testsite in Utrecht. Upon successful completion, the first self-driving bus will arrive at Brussels Airport in the beginning of 2020 for further test drives at the airport. The test route for this development stage is in the Brucargo business zone.
The first phase with tests and development of the self-driving bus will take two years. In this period, De Lijn and Brussels Airport Company can perform all necessary safety tests in various weather conditions and traffic situations. During the test period, no passengers, visitors or staff will be on board.
Passengers by 2021
Upon a positive evaluation of the first phase of testing, De Lijn and Brussels Airport Company can deploy the self-driving shuttle from 2021 onwards on the airport grounds for the transport of passengers, visitors and staff on the route between the terminal and Brucargo.
Brussels Airport Company and De Lijn are sharing the project costs. De Lijn is responsible for the costs associated with people who travel by public transport (De Lijn, MIVB, NMBS) to the airport. The airport operator will foot the costs for the transport of persons who come to the airport by other means of transport (staff, visitors or passengers).
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720 ILCS 5/11-30 [15859] – Public Indecency
Up to 364 days in jail
Possible sex offender registration
Fine up to $2,500
Class 4 Felony in certain circumstances
The crime of public indecency (also known as Public Indecency/Lewd Exposure] under 720 ILCS 5/11-30 [15859] [15857] [15860] is one of several Illinois sex offenses. There are many unlawful acts that can lead to a charge of public indecency in Chicago and the suburbs. That being said, all cases charged under 720 ILCS 5/11-30 share theme of performing some type of sex act in a public place. The crime of public indecency makes legal sex acts illegal when performed in public or with the intent that they be viewed by members of the public. Common places where these crimes are committed include parked cars, trains, forest preserves or other public areas. A person convicted of public indecency most typically faces up to 364 days in jail and a $2,500 fine. This offense can land a suspect in prison for up to 3 years if the act is done within 500 feet of an elementary school or if the person has been twice convicted in the past.
When Charged with Public Indecency – Chicago Criminal Lawyer Andrew Weisberg
If you or a loved one has been arrested and charged with public indecency, you should contact criminal defense lawyer Andrew M. Weisberg today. Mr. Weisberg is a former prosecutor and has the knowledge and experience to successfully defend individuals charged with public indecency or other sex-related offenses. As a former prosecutor, Mr. Weisberg understands criminal cases from all angles. He can be reached at the office or 24/7 on his cell phone at (773) 453-2140.
The Best Defense In Public Indecency Cases under 720 ILCS 5/11-30 – Andrew M. Weisberg
In many cases, a prosecutor will charge a defendant with multiple counts for the same or similar conduct. Each criminal act that is committed can be levied as a distinct criminal charge. It is quite common in sex cases for the prosecutor to charge a suspect with additional criminal counts to create the appearance that the suspect is more dangerous and deserves a greater sentence. The State’s Attorney’s office has great power as to charging of criminal suspects. When you face criminal charges, you go against experienced prosecutors whose job it is to put you in jail and assure you have a permanent criminal record. This is why you need a Chicago criminal lawyer that is prepared to vigorously defend you against sex-related charges. Don’t trust your freedom and your future to just any criminal attorney. Contact former sex crimes prosecutor Andrew M. Weisberg and allow him to put his unique experience to work for you. Mr. Weisberg will aggressively defend you in any of the following sex-related cases:
Criminal sexual abuse 720 ILCS 5/11-1.50
Criminal sexual assault 720 ILCS 5/11-1.20
Aggravated criminal sexual abuse 720 ILCS 5/11-1.60
Aggravated criminal sexual assault 720 ILCS 5/11-1.30
Predatory criminal sexual assault of a child 720 ILCS 5/11-1.40
Public indecency 720 ILCS 5/11-9
Prostitution 720 ILCS 5/11-14
… or others
When You Need the Best Criminal Defense in Chicago or the Suburbs – Call Andrew Weisberg
If you or a loved one has been charged with public indecency under 720 ILCS 5/11-30 in Chicago or the surrounding areas, Andrew M. Weisberg is a top notch criminal defense attorney who has earned a reputation as a smart, aggressive, compassionate and relentless trial attorney. He is a former prosecutor in Cook County and Will County, and has vast experience defending all areas of criminal law, from sex offenses and violent crimes to domestic violence and theft offenses. To speak with Mr. Weisberg, call his office or his cell phone 24/7 at (773) 453-2140. The consultation is immediate, free and confidential.
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Bruce Riedel: We need to make the war against al Qaeda Pakistan’s war, not just America’s war.
The following are excerpts from a series of interviews with some of the country’s top terrorism experts conducted by Trudy Rubin, the Worldview columnist for thePhiladelphia Inquirer in conjunction with the July 2008 volume of The Annals on “Terrorism: What the Next President Will Face.” This interview is with Bruce Riedel, a senior advisor on Middle East and South Asian issues to the last three US presidents, who was in the White House situation room during the 9/11 attacks. He is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of “The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future.”
Trudy Rubin: Bruce, you say in your article that Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world today, no issue is more critical to get right for the next President. What do you mean by that?
Bruce Riedel: I actually wrote those lines for the first time ten years ago in a memo for then-President Clinton. I think Pakistan is the most dangerous country because all of the nightmares of the twenty-first century that should concern Americans come together in Pakistan in a unique way. This is a country with nuclear weapons. This is a county with a history of proliferating nuclear technology. This is a country that has fought four wars with its neighbor, and at least one of those wars went very close to becoming a nuclear war. This is a country that has been the host of numerous international terrorist organizations and is today the safe haven and stronghold of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. This is a country also awash in drugs, narcotics, and this is a country where the clash between reactionary Islamic extremism and democracy is being fought out literally in front of us. All of those issues come together in this one place like nowhere else in the world. That is why it is so important to Americans.
TR: Some people argue, including Senator John McCain, that Iraq is still the central front in the war on terrorism and that al Qaeda itself has said that is the case. Is there some truth in this?
BR: Al Qaeda has said that the war in Iraq is one of the most important battlefields in their struggle. But I think that as Americans we ought to focus on where the enemy is. Osama bin Laden and his number two, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, are the heart of al Qaeda. They are the ones who planned the attack of 9/11, and who are planning new attacks on American interests around the world. And there is not one iota of evidence that they have ever been in Iraq. And there is abundant evidence that they are operating outside of Pakistan, in the badlands on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
TR: Outside of Pakistan or just inside the border?
BR: Probably inside Pakistan somewhere, maybe going back and forth. The most important thing about their safe haven there is that it is growing. It is getting bigger. A lot of experts have focused on the FATA, the so-called federally administered tribal areas, which is the most lawless part of Pakistan’s borderlands. But, in fact, al Qaeda and its allies, the Taliban and other groups, operate along the entire western border, from Balukistan through FATA, through the northwest frontier province, into Kashmir; a 1500-mile long borderland in which they can operate with complete impunity.
TR: How dangerous is al Qaeda to us? As you know, some terrorism experts have begun to downplay its importance in Pakistan and globally there was a much-commented about article in The New Yorker recently by Lawrence Wright, talking about dissent within al Qaeda, especially amongst imprisoned leaders, and some experts argue that grassroots groups springing up in Europe are more significant than al Qaeda in the caves and mountains of the border areas of Pakistan. Is al Qaeda still the most dangerous group?
BR: According to our own intelligence community, and the British intelligence community, German intelligence community, and other Western intelligence communities, it is. And they have said that in public, not just this year but for the last several years. Larry Wright, who has written probably the seminal book about 9/11, has written some very insightful things about the arguments that are going on within the jihadist movement today. But he does not argue there, as far as I can tell, that the al Qaeda movement is not a threat anymore. I think of al Qaeda as being much like a multinational corporation that operates on a global stage. You have the headquarters in Pakistan with the CEO, Osama bin Laden. Then around the Islamic world it has various franchises, just like a McDonald’s or a Toyota has franchises. Some of those franchises at any one time are doing well and growing, for example, their franchise in North Africa, in Magrab, and their franchise in Libya. Others are not doing as well. Currently the one in Iraq is in a phase of retreat, and the al Qaeda franchise in Saudi Arabia has been badly damaged by the Saudi authorities. But all of these franchises in some way report back to the al Qaeda center. Do they take orders? Well, they take general instructions. We know this because they say they take general instructions. And then beyond these franchises we have cells, principally in Western Europe, but also in other parts of the world, small al Qaeda cells which are also taking instructions. The British, for example, say that every major terrorist operation foiled in the United Kingdom in the last five years was linked back to the al Qaeda center. We can all take great comfort from the fact that we have not been attacked inside the United States again since 9/11. But comfort should not lead to wishful thinking that the threat has gone away. I would point you to the trial that is going on in London right now with regard to the plot in August of 2006 to simultaneously blow up over the north Atlantic ten jumbo jets. That plot, had it succeeded, would have been worse than 9/11. More people would have died and we would not have known who did it because all the forensic evidence would be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. What we know is, the bomb worked. That is why Americans cannot take a soda on an airplane anymore. Second, we know that they had the martyrs ready to commit suicide, because we have their martyrdom videos, which have been introduced into court. Third, we know the flights that they wanted to attack because they were on their Blackberries. That was a serious attempt by al Qaeda to outdo 9/11. Thanks to British security and intelligence it was thwarted. It is a wake-up call to us all, that these guys are still plotting evil from that lair in Pakistan.
TR: In Pakistan. So basically, al Qaeda in Pakistan, like corporate headquarters, is setting strategy and holding training seminars?
BR: That is right. And, they are also publishing a lot of propaganda. They put out an unending stream of their public diplomacy. In 2004, al Qaeda’s Pakistan propaganda apparatus put out twelve tapes. In 2007, they put out almost a hundred. In 2008, they are off to an even faster start, and this is a very slick operation. They put out audio tapes and video tapes with interactive maps in them, with video of the targets that are being attacked, with pictures of presidents and other world figures to illustrate their arguments. We have even seen on TV that their corporate studio now has coffee mugs with their logo on them, just like it was CNN or Fox. That is not someone operating in a cave. That is a highly sophisticated propaganda organization, directly responsive to Osama bin Laden.
TR: Just a word about their goals as they operate from this base all along the Pakistan-Afghan border. What are their goals for their immediate neighborhood and their goals for the broader world?
BR: Let us start with their ultimate goal. Their ultimate goal is to drive the United States out of the Muslim world, to force us to withdraw all of our military forces, our diplomats, and even our educational institutions from the Islamic world. Once the far enemy, as they call us, is driven away, then the near enemy, which is the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, in Egypt, in Iraq, that they hate, they think they can overthrow. And then it is on to the next step, which is the destruction of Israel, which they hold as one of their principal objectives. At the end of all this is some kind of enormous, jihadist super-state. Now, they know that they are not going to create this jihadist super-state any time in the foreseeable future. But these are the long-term goals. The immediate goal is to bleed the United States and its allies in what they call “bleeding wars,” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What they have in mind is to do to us what they believe the mujahedin did to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Afghanistan in the 1980s was the formative experience of Osama bin Laden’s life, of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s life, of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad’s life. This is where their worldview was shaped. They believe that they can grind us down in Afghanistan and in Iraq to a point where we will ultimately say, “enough is enough,” and the United States will be as crippled as the Soviet Union was.
TR: How has it been possible for radical jihadi group–from al Qaeda to the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban to Pakistani terrorist groups that have trained in Kashmir to fight India–how has it been possible for them to keep sinking deeper and deeper roots in these tribal areas? You write that Pakistan’s army and its Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, the so-called ISI, had a hand in creating many of these groups. Tell us a bit of the history.
BR: We need to go back to the 1980s and the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The ISI, ironically in close cooperation with the United States and with many of our allies around the world, the British, French, Germans, Israelis, and others, saw in the mujahedin a mechanism to destroy the Soviet Union and, in particular, the Soviet 40th Red Army stationed in Afghanistan. A culture of jihadism was encouraged in Pakistan by then-Pakistani military dictator, Zia ul Huq. When the war ended, Pakistan found itself with a very effective mechanism for fighting asymmetric warfare against its enemies. It next tried to use that same warfare against India in Kashmir, and in the late 1980s, early 1990s, a guerilla insurgency began in Kashmir, which was also funded and supported and, to a large extent, controlled by the ISI. Then, back in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis discovered that the Afghan mujahedin were fighting a civil war, and they decided to support one faction, the Taliban, in order to consolidate their control over Afghanistan. By the end of the twentieth century, in effect Pakistan had become the birthplace for a whole group of terrorist organizations, from the Taliban to different Kashmiri groups, and within that nexus is where you find al Qaeda born. And al Qaeda was born into this jihadist structure, which is intimately linked to the Pakistani intelligence service and to the Pakistani military. Now, after 9/11 General Musharraf promised that he would break all those links, but the more things change the more they look a lot alike. And in fact while he did go after al Qaeda to a certain extent, he continued to support the Kashmiris and the Taliban and within that jihadist culture it was impossible to destroy al Qaeda. Selective counterterrorism in Pakistan will not work. What we need is a complete change in Pakistan’s approach towards terrorism.
TR: You said that the Pakistani attitude towards India and the battle with India over Kashmir led to support for the Taliban. In fact, the Pakistanis actually helped the Taliban take over in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, right? So what was their idea about why they wanted a Taliban government in Afghanistan?
BR: The strategic nightmare of Pakistani military leaders, and political leaders, is that they would be in a two-front war. That they would face their traditional enemy, India, to the east and then Afghanistan, which was pro-India, to the west. This nightmare lay behind Zia’s approach in the 1980s. He feared a Soviet-occupied Afghanistan to the west and a pro-Soviet India to the east. And it is exactly the same paradigm that Pakistani leaders worry about today. The Karzai government in Afghanistan, which we support, is seen by many in Pakistan as not only pro-American, but pro-Indian, and for good reason. President Karzai spent a lot of his life in India. He was educated in India. And he has often been very critical of the ISI’s role in his own country. There are now accusations, for example, that the ISI was directly involved in the destruction, the blowing up, of the Indian embassy in Kabul. Both Afghan and Indian intelligence officials are now saying on the record that they have evidence the ISI was involved. Now, I have not seen the evidence that they are alluding to, but these are very serious charges from very serious intelligence people.
TR: During Musharraf’s period as military ruler, supposedly he had agreed with the United States to go after al Qaeda. But was this relationship between the ISI and Taliban and jihadi groups undercutting him or, in fact, as a military man was he just as ambivalent as the ISI, and is that the reason why you never had any real progress in cleaning out those areas during the years of his rule?
BR: One of the things that we should understand is that Pakistani politics are not transparent. Trying to find out the truth about much of what happens in Pakistan is very, very difficult even for Pakistanis to get a handle on. There are conspiracies within conspiracies within conspiracies. General Musharraf, to give him credit, did bring some significant al Qaeda lieutenants to capture and to imprisonment, including Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. But he never seemed to focus the resources of the Pakistani security establishment on capturing the top level of al Qaeda. And he did nothing to break the back of the Taliban, nor of the Kashmiri groups that are closely allied with it. And I keep coming back to the point that this is a nexus. That if you only try to target one or two individuals, you really miss the much bigger problem that you are dealing with. Here again, there is recent information that is important. We just had an attack on an American fire base in Afghanistan in which nine American soldiers were killed. The evidence we are getting about that attack was that it was a combination of Taliban, al Qaeda, and a Kashmiri group called Lashkar-e-Taiba all operating together to target Americans in Afghanistan. The point is, we need a sophisticated strategy that breaks Pakistan’s relationship with all of these terrorist organizations. That is what we have been lacking and that is what we need to discover.
TR: Under Musharraf, towards the later years, the Pakistani military was sent into those areas in force but failed badly. What does that say about the ability of the Pakistani army, even if they should take a more determined stance, to deal with the jihadis?
BR: The Pakistani army did deploy and it did lose several hundred soldiers in very violent firefights with some of these jihadist elements. The Pakistani army, though, has been built to fight a war with India. The Pakistani Strategic Doctrine is about fighting a decisive tank battle in the deserts of Rajasthan with the Indian army, much like the British 8th Army defeated the Africa Corps in north Africa in 1942. The Pakistani army is not built for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. One of the things that we should do as a country is help Pakistan re-orient its military, from focusing on war against India into a military that can be more effective in the counter-insurgency game. That is not inexpensive and it is not easy to do, but it should be a long-term goal of the United States working with Pakistan to make a more effective force. But even more important than that is to make this Pakistan’s war. For the vast bulk of Pakistanis, the war against al Qaeda is Bush’s war, it is America’s war. They see this as a war being fought by Musharraf in order to keep Musharraf in power and to maintain a dictatorship over them, and they are sick of it. They voted against him overwhelmingly in the elections in February of this year. The trick for the United States, and it is an absolutely important one to get right, is to persuade Pakistanis that the war against al Qaeda is Pakistan’s war, not just America’s war. The late Benazir Bhutto spoke eloquently about this, which may be one of the reasons why she is dead today. It can be done. It cannot be done by supporting a dictator and standing behind a general who lost the confidence of the Pakistani people, and it cannot be done by having a purely military-to-military relationship with the Pakistanis. We need to put our trust in the Pakistani people.
TR: This new government that has been elected, the largest party is the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, they hold the prime ministership. Their foreign minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, was just in Washington and he talked passionately about how he wants to improve relations with India, and how Pakistani businessmen want this. Do he and his government have the power to move things towards better relations with India? And if they could, would this be core towards changing the attitude of the public and of the military towards dealing with the jihadi threat?
BR: The foreign minister was here at Brookings during part of his trip, and you are right, he speaks very eloquently about the need for India and Pakistan to find a better future. And I think that is a very good sign of hope. But you are also right about the central question. Pakistan is in the process of an extremely complex transition from military dictatorship to what Pakistanis hope will be democracy. This is a fragile and difficult process. If you look at the history of Pakistan, in sixty years more often than not it has been ruled by a military dictator. Twice before it has tried to go from military dictatorship to democracy and failed. This third attempt is probably Pakistan’s last real chance, not only at democracy but maybe as even surviving as a state. There are no guarantees here; this is going to be hard to do. That is why this is one of the most difficult challenges the next president will face. What I think he needs to do is to embrace the Pakistani people’s decision. They have elected this leadership. We are going to argue with this leadership on many issues, but we ought to do so respectfully and cordially, and we ought to do so in a manner which encourages the survival of democracy in Pakistan. Look, we tried dictatorship. We gave a dictator eight years’ opportunity to see if he could straighten out Pakistan and get rid of al Qaeda, and we know one thing for sure, it did not work. So let’s not get all wet-eyed about the demise of that dictatorship. It failed us on what we wanted most. We now need to make this democratic experiment succeed. It will not be easy, but it is something that is vitally important to Americans.
TR: Now there is a new civilian government, and this largest party, the PPP, the late Benazir Bhutto’s party, claims that it wants to try a new strategy towards dealing with the jihadi threat, using non-military means and dealing with tribal leaders. But there are two huge problems. One, it seems elements in the military, elements in the ISI, are trying to carry out their own policy. It seems that the civilian government may not even be in charge of the policy. So how do we help them on that front? And, second problem, the civilian government itself is divided. The PPP has a clear policy about recognizing that the jihadi threat is their problem, not just America’s. But the other civilian party in the coalition is much less willing to take that approach. So how do we help a civilian government that is divided within itself over that very issue to deal with the jihadi threat?
BR: Again, these are very, very difficult problems. Let me start with the first one. How do we encourage the development in Pakistan of what we would consider normal, civil military relations? In our country, if the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is fired by the President, he goes home. In Pakistan, he stages a coup and overthrows the government. That is not democracy and that is not right civil-military relations. We ought to be absolutely clear in our conversation with Pakistan’s generals and with the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence; the proper place for an army and for an intelligence service is to obey the commands of the democratically elected civilian establishment. We ought to be very clear that any US assistance to Pakistan is conditioned on the continued survival in office of a civilian government, and the cooperation of the Pakistani military with its directives. I would go a step further with regards to the ISI, because this problem with the ISI is not a new one. We have been dealing with this problem for twenty years of whose side is the ISI really on. George Tenet writes about this in his memoirs of his time. I would ask, in a new administration, that the director of national intelligence be instructed to provide an annual secret report to the Congress on the question of, is ISI on our side or the other side, and if it is not totally on our side, then our relationship with that organization and with the Pakistani military should suffer as a consequence. I think that is how we try to encourage strong and normal civil-military relations. Getting Pakistani politicians to work together, that is even more difficult. The Pakistani political leadership we have are people we know well, they have been around for a long time. They are not Thomas Jefferson, they are not George Washington. They are what they are. We do not get the choice of picking Pakistan’s elected leaders, that is up to the Pakistani people. We will have to try to work with them. As I said, it is not going to be easy. We are going to disagree with them, and some issues we are going to disagree on are very, very important ones. But we ought to try to do it in the spirit of an alliance, in which we are working with a partner.
TR: Do you think that we can help the civilian government behind the scenes move towards talks with India that would improve that relationship?
BR: I think that is one of the most important things we can do. If you look at the itch that Pakistan has been scratching for the last thirty years that has produced this jihadist culture, it is all about India, and in the end it is all about Kashmir. The conflict in Kashmir is what drives the Pakistani army’s pursuit of supremacy within the country. The conflict in Kashmir is what has been at the heart of the ISI’s relationship with terrorist organizations. There is a unique opportunity here; for the first time in many years the battlefield in Kashmir is relatively quiet. India and Pakistan have begun negotiations about trying to improve their relationship, and they have made some important moves in that regard. The United States ought to, very quietly and very discreetly, be encouraging that process. We ought to be giving assurances to both New Delhi and Islamabad that if they continue down this process, the United States is right there with them and will help them in every way possible, economic assistance, diplomatic assistance, whatever it takes; it has to be done with discretion and reliability, quietly, but I think this is one of the great opportunities that the next president will have.
TR: Some experts and people interested in this subject have called for a much broader kind of economic aid to be given to Pakistan. The foreign minister, Mr. Qureshi, just mentioned that he and Senator Biden have been talking about it. Can you describe how that would work, aid that would help foster civilian institutions, and one particular issue, the issue of madrasas. We have given aid, it seems to have gone into a hole, and religious schools called madrasas are still turning out candidates for the Taliban and even training Americans from Pakistani-American families. How can the aid be used better? And could it affect the schools and try to undercut the training grounds for people who go off and fight in the border areas and in Afghanistan?
BR: Let us first look at the aid we are providing. We have provided somewhere in excess of $11 billion in aid to Pakistan since 9/11. That is more aid than we have provided in the previous fifty years to Pakistan. Almost all of that aid was military assistance, almost all of it is an unaccounted funding that went directly to the Pakistani army, for which we have no idea how it was spent. Senator Biden has put forward a very interesting bill, which is now being co-sponsored by Senator Obama and a number of others on both sides of the aisle. What he proposes is that the Congress commit to a ten-year-long program of $1.5 billion a year in economic assistance. We would continue to provide some military aid, but $1.5 billion in economic assistance every year. And that economic assistance would be targeted on two general areas. One, infrastructure. Pakistan has abysmal infrastructure; it needs roads, airports, ports. Second, on the educational system. The reason the madrasas have grown so rapidly in Pakistan is because the public education system has collapsed in the last fifty years, largely because all the money in the Pakistani budget went to the army and their nuclear weapons program. The idea behind the Biden Bill is to help Pakistan rebuild its public education infrastructure in a way that will undercut the need for the madrasas. If you have good colleges and universities in Pakistan and good high schools, that is where people will send their kids, just like any other place in the world. Right now, they do not have a choice. The only option is the madrasas.
TR: So then aid should be targeted at institution-building and long range relationships outside of the military?
BR: I think a very large portion of the aid needs to go there. My own view, though, is also that the Pakistan military needs to be reconfigured from fighting a war with India to fighting a counter-insurgency, and that is expensive, too. But it is a different kind of expense. Instead of providing Pakistan with sophisticated F16 aircraft, which can be used to deliver nuclear bombs on Indian cities, we should be helping them procure night vision devices and helicopters, which can be used to track down terrorists on the other borders.
TR: If Pakistan will not, in the near term, or cannot because the civilian government does not control the reins, go after al Qaeda and jihadis in the border areas, how can we press them? Do you think that we should conduct military operations across the border from Afghanistan?
BR: If the United States, if the President, had what is called actionable intelligence that a very important al Qaeda figure, let us say Osama bin Laden, was in a specific location in Pakistan, I do not think that there is any doubt that any President of the United States would try to get him, with or without Pakistani help. But that is not likely to be the case very often. That kind of intelligence I can tell you from thirty years in the CIA comes along on a very, very rare occurrence. So that scenario aside, is there a unilateral military option for dealing with Pakistan? No, there is not one. First of all, we do not have the forces. We do not have enough NATO and American forces in Afghanistan today to consolidate our control over our side of the border, let alone move over into the Pakistani side. Secondly, if we did move into Pakistan the terrorists would just go deeper into the Pakistani state. Pakistan is a large country. It is very easy for these people to operate anywhere in those badlands, and even in the major cities of Pakistan. Occupying a slice of the border is only going to spread the disease deeper into the Pakistani system, and antagonize 170 million Pakistanis. And, finally, Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state. The Pakistani army is not going to tolerate an invasion of its sovereignty without being prepared to use all of the weapons at its disposal. The bottom line is, whether we like it or not, we have to find a way to work with Pakistan. There is not a military solution to this problem.
TR: You raised the word nukes. I have interviewed General Kidway, the man in charge of nuclear security, very impressive; they have a whole structure in place. Do you worry that if the forces do not coalesce with our help, so that this civilian government can get its whole body engaged militarily and economically and move on the border areas, do you worry that those nuclear weapons could in any way be compromised? Do you worry that an Islamist in military uniform could penetrate the system and get a weapon to a jihadi group?
BR: Absolutely. I think that that is a scenario we should worry about. The Pakistanis do have a very impressive system for securing and protecting their nuclear arsenal. And let us be clear about this, they built that system not just to protect it against jihadis and Indians, but against Americans. They want to protect the crown jewels of their defense establishment. But the real danger comes from within. Benazir Bhutto, in the last interview before her death, said, “I fear that within two to four years al Qaeda could be in the streets of Islamabad.” She did not mean taking over the country; what she meant is that you could have al Qaeda sympathizers within the most important elements of the Pakistani security infrastructure. The right general in the right place could provide al Qaeda with its nuclear weapon and the rest of the world and probably the rest of the Pakistani security establishment might not know about it until the bomb went off.
TR: What do you think the next president must do in the short term, since this is very pressing and very dangerous, to try and improve the situation in Pakistan such that a concerted effort can be made to deal with this problem in the border areas?
BR: I think this problem is urgent. Unfortunately, the fixes do not come urgently. The next president needs to embrace the democratically elected leadership of Pakistan wholeheartedly, and make it clear to them he wants to work with them to help change the problems that face Pakistan today. That means economic assistance of a substantial nature. That means military assistance to work to change the Pakistani army’s worldview and operational activities. That means helping Pakistan with its difficult relations with its neighbors, both India and Afghanistan. Pakistan today is a country that does not really have a border, either with India and Kashmir or with Afghanistan. Both borders are in flux, have never been made final and official. The United States ought to be actively engaged with its diplomacy in trying to fix that anomaly. That means a full court press across the board to try to make this third experiment in bringing democracy to Pakistan a success. It is expensive, but it is the only way we can turn Pakistan from being a hothouse of terror and extremism into being a more normal state, which gets out of the business of being a safe haven of international terrorism.
TR: Just one last point, about the bleeding wars, and about the goal that al Qaeda has set for itself in Iraq and in Afghanistan. If the next president does not act as swiftly as possible, but with a long-term view towards doing what you said, does that guarantee that we will get enmeshed in another bleeding war in Afghanistan? Or to put it another way, is the answer to the growing problem in Afghanistan really inside Pakistan and do we have to solve that problem to avoid getting sucked into another bleeding war?
BR: You cannot win the war in Afghanistan without resolving the question of the safe haven in Pakistan. Rarely in history do you end up fighting a war on both sides in the same lifetime. But in this case, Americans have. In the 1980s, we were, in the Pakistani case, fighting on the side of them with the mujahedin against the Soviet Union. We know you cannot lose that war as long as you have a safe haven and sanctuary in Pakistan. So goal number one has to be to work with Pakistan to shut down those sanctuaries and that safe haven. Goal number two has to be to give enough resources to the Afghan government to be able to police its own state and to provide some degree of economic well-being to its people. For seven years the United States has under-resourced the war in Afghanistan. We have put all of our resources into another war, in Iraq, into a war, which however important it may be, has very little to do with fighting the core headquarters apparatus of al Qaeda. We have five times as many soldiers in Iraq today as we have in Afghanistan. We have very brave men and women fighting very tough battles in Iraq. But, frankly, they are in the wrong desert, chasing the wrong bad guys. Where we need to put our strategic emphasis is against the heart of the threat, and that is in the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands. We need more troops in Afghanistan, we need more NATO troops in Afghanistan, and we need an economic reconstruction program in Afghanistan of the scale of the Marshall Plan of the 1940s. Afghanistan was a desperately poor country in 1978, before a quarter-century of foreign invasion and civil war made it an even more desperately poor country. We need a massive program to do this. We also need to build up the Afghan army. The Soviet Union built a stronger and larger Afghan communist army in the 1980s to fight the mujahedin than we have built in the twenty-first century to fight al Qaeda; several times larger. The Soviet Union built an Afghan communist air force; we do not have a single airplane in an Afghan air force yet. I think we can do all these things if we get our priorities right and we put our resources into the central battlefield against al Qaeda.
AnnalsLink: “Pakistan and Terror: The Eye of the Storm”
Peter Bergen: Why al Qaeda Still MattersAAPSS, ANNALS
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It's Not Over Yet: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2010-11
Download the report as a .pdf
Explanation of Statistical Data
Appendices to the Report
The appendices to this report contain salary listings for individual institutions.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. With a duration of eighteen months, this recession was almost double the length of the average post–World War II economic downturn. It was also notable for its severity. During the recession, the gross domestic product (GDP) declined 4 percent (even after controlling for inflation); the unemployment rate doubled, as nearly nine million private jobs disappeared, wiping out more than a decade’s worth of job growth; and almost $14 trillion in household wealth evaporated—an amount equal to an entire year’s worth of economic production.
Although the worst recession since the Great Depression is now technically over, our analysis of faculty compensation and forecasts for state revenues indicates that the negative impact on higher education will continue for years in many states. Who outside the professoriate should care what happens to faculty salaries and benefits during a recession? Everyone who hopes to be employed in the future, bring home a paycheck, and have something left over to put into savings should care.
In the second decade of the twenty-first century, we live our lives in a global knowledge economy. Education is the primary component of human capital, which is the designation economists give to the skills and abilities workers bring to the various tasks involved in producing and maintaining an economic system; other components include health care and nutrition. Differences in human capital explain the majority of differences in economic growth rates across countries. The rate of innovation drives economic growth; innovation, in turn, is greater in nations with greater levels of human capital. Moreover, investments in human capital deliver compounded rates of economic return that raise GDP, employment, incomes, and wealth far beyond any other investments we can make. A large body of research shows that economic growth rates rise as a country’s educational attainment increases, from the primary to the postsecondary level.1 And who creates human capital? Well-paid elementary, secondary, and higher education faculties.
Do US academic institutions compensate their faculties at the levels needed to produce college graduates who can compete in the global marketplace? Our analysis of this year’s data and our examination of long-term trends in faculty compensation indicate that the answer is “No!”
Results This Year
Our analysis of the economic status of the faculty begins with results from this year’s annual survey of full-time faculty compensation. Survey report table 1 presents the most basic results, while table A places these results in historical perspective. The tables report two different measures of the change in full-time faculty salaries: the change in average salary levels, which is a measure of the change from the previous year in what a typical faculty member might earn, and the average change for a faculty member continuing in employment at the same institution (that is, the average raise a faculty member might expect if he or she does not move). The first of these figures is calculated only for institutions that submitted data both this year and last.
The overall increase in salary level, reported on the left side of survey report table 1 and the upper half of table A, was 1.4 percent between 2009–10 and 2010–11. This is barely higher than the overall change reported last year, when we described it as “the lowest year-to-year change recorded in the fifty years of this comprehensive survey.” It seems that this year has been just as tough as the previous one on full-time faculty salaries. The salary increases laid out in survey report table 1 varied between categories of institutions, however: as has usually been the case in recent years, the change in average salary at public institutions was lower (0.9 percent) than the change in private-independent (2.1 percent) or religiously affiliated (1.8 percent) institutions. (More detailed analysis of the public-private differential in salaries appears later in this report.) As a category, associate’s degree colleges, most of which are public, reported the lowest increase in average salary level, at only 0.1 percent among colleges using faculty ranks and 0.3 percent among colleges that do not use faculty ranks.
Given that many faculty members and other employees in higher education have endured salary freezes or involuntary unpaid furloughs in the last year, it is important to provide further context for these increases in average salary. Between December 2009 and December 2010, the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) rose by 1.5 percent. The CPI-U has been used in AAUP reports for decades and is the default measure of inflation used by many economists. Table A provides context for considering how this year’s salary increases stack up historically. The right side of table A puts the increase in “real terms,” adjusted for inflation. Although the 1.5 percent CPI-U increase this year is relatively low, the change in average salaries is even lower. For the second consecutive year, real salary levels fell, and for the fifth time in the last seven years, overall faculty salaries declined in purchasing power. This means that the cumulative change in real salaries for faculty members during the last seven years was 1.8 percent, less than the 2.1 percent increase in real salaries for the median American worker over the same period.
The second measure of the one-year change in salaries is the average change for continuing faculty members, which occupies the right side of table 1 and the lower half of table A. This rate is generally higher, because it excludes the salaries of new faculty members—presumably starting at the low end of the range for their rank and institution—and includes all forms of salary increase (across the board, merit, and promotion). The average increase in salary for continuing full-time faculty members at all types of institutions was 2.5 percent between 2009–10 and 2010–11. This is slightly higher than the 1.8 percent increase reported last year but well below the typical rate of change for the last four decades. As with the increase in average salary levels, the average increase for continuing faculty members in public colleges and universities was lower (2.2 percent overall) than that reported by private-independent (3.1 percent) and religiously affiliated (2.7 percent) institutions.
Adjusting for inflation, the average real increase in salary for continuing full-time faculty members (the last row of table A) was 1 percent this year—an increase that contrasts with last year’s decrease but is still at the low end of the historical range.
The overall picture this year, then, is of mostly stagnant salaries for full-time faculty members. The numbers vary considerably across institutional types. But aggregate faculty salary levels did not keep up with inflation in the past year, and the cumulative increase during the last seven years lagged behind the cumulative increase in median earnings for all US workers.
Impact of the Recession
Our last two annual reports have noted the paucity of data with which to judge the specific impact of this recession on higher education. Although our overall assessment is that the recession’s effects on higher education funding and employment are far from over, we can now provide detailed analysis of the changes wrought by three years of dramatic cuts in revenues from state appropriations, endowment income, and tuition. Even when looking only at data from institutions that responded to our annual survey immediately prior to the recession (2007–08) and this year, the effects are visible in terms of the continuing shift toward contingent employment, widening salary inequality, and reductions in institutional contributions toward retirement.
Contingent Employment
The increasing use of contingent faculty appointments (both fulland part-time appointments off the tenure track) has been documented in this annual report and elsewhere for many years. In this year’s report we present the most recent comprehensive federal data on the growth of contingent academic employment and also use AAUP survey data to examine the impact of the recession on one component of the contingent academic workforce: full-time non-tenure-track faculty members.
This analysis of AAUP survey data is especially important because comprehensive national data on instructional staff employment status are not yet available for the full period of higher education’s recession. The most recent data available from the US Department of Education, collected in fall 2009, indicate that the number of contingent appointments among all instructional staff continued to grow between 2007 and 2009. Figure 1 depicts the trend over more than three decades. The proportion of tenured and tenuretrack faculty members shrank dramatically between 1975 and 2009, from more than 45 percent to less than 25 percent. In all, graduate student employees and faculty members serving in contingent appointments now make up more than 75 percent of the total instructional staff. The most rapid growth has been among part-time faculty members, whose numbers swelled by more than 280 percent between 1975 and 2009. Between 2007 and 2009, the numbers of full-time non-tenure-track faculty members and part-time faculty members each grew at least 6 percent. During the same period, tenured positions grew by only 2.4 percent and tenure-track appointments increased by a minuscule 0.3 percent. These increases in the number of faculty appointments have taken place against the background of an overall 12 percent increase in higher education enrollment in just those two years.
Analysis of AAUP data allows us to look more directly at the immediate impact of the current recession on full-time contingent appointments at the institutions supplying data for our annual survey in both 2007–08 and 2010–11. One clear pattern emerges from a review of the aggregate numbers of full-time faculty members before the recession and now: of the 1,095 institutions with tenure-track faculty members, 66 percent increased their total numbers of fulltime faculty appointments. This constitutes aggregate growth of 2.7 percent, but the composition of the faculty at these institutions has shifted. The most substantial growth has been in non-tenure-track appointments, which grew by 7.6 percent during the three-year period. Tenured appointments increased by 3.7 percent, but the number of tenure-track positions dropped by 3.7 percent. This means that some tenure-track faculty members have been promoted into tenured positions, but a substantial number of tenure-track faculty members have left their institutions and been replaced by faculty members in non-tenure-track appointments. Table B provides a breakdown of the changes in the numbers of full-time faculty positions by institutional category and tenure status.
The pattern of increasing non-tenure-track appointments and decreasing tenure-track appointments was consistent across institutional types. The greatest shift was at doctoral universities, which saw the most rapid growth in nontenure- track positions. The associate’s degree category— composed almost entirely of public colleges—showed the smallest increase in total faculty positions and the largest decrease in the number of tenure-track appointments.
Differences also exist between public and private institutions in the growth rate of full-time non-tenure-track appointments. At public colleges and universities, which make up the majority of all institutions, the growth in total full-time faculty positions between 2007–08 and 2010–11 was much lower than in either the private-independent or religiously affiliated sectors. The increase in the number of non-tenure-track and tenured positions was more rapid in both of the private sectors, while the decrease in tenuretrack positions was noticeably greater in public institutions. The distinction is particularly sharp at doctoral universities: total faculty positions increased only 1.3 percent at public doctoral universities, with growth of 9.6 percent in nontenure- track appointments and 1.6 percent in tenured positions and a decrease of 7 percent in tenure-track appointments. By contrast, at private-independent doctoral universities, the total number of full-time positions grew 5.7 percent, non-tenure-track positions grew by 13 percent, and tenured positions increased by 5.1 percent; the number of tenure-track positions declined by 0.6 percent during the period.
A smaller group of 102 institutions that provided data in both years do not have a system of academic tenure. Most of these institutions are public community colleges or smaller private baccalaureate colleges. Since they do not have a tenure track, these colleges were not shifting more of their faculty toward non-tenure-track positions. However, a higher proportion (42 percent, compared with 34 percent of all institutions) decreased their total numbers of faculty members during the period.
All of these differences are evident within a three-year period, even when considering only full-time faculty appointments and only those institutions submitting data in the first and last years. Clearly, the recession has affected faculty hiring patterns and accelerated the long-term trend toward a larger number of contingent appointments.
Although the value of tenure is not readily understood by those outside the professoriate, tenure is the mechanism for guaranteeing freedom in research and an open exchange of ideas. It represents a commitment on the part of a college or university to a faculty member that he or she will have the support necessary to do the job well. Tenured faculty members have a greater stake in the success of their institutions and their graduates than do those without tenure; being a tenured faculty member at an institution that is failing is worth very little.
Faculty members serving in contingent appointments, on the other hand, do not have the protections of academic freedom that come with tenure. They do not have institutional support for pursuing the scholarship that serves as continuing education for college and university professors and often do not have the freedom or the time to research controversial topics. Contingent faculty members find that renewal of their appointments depends more on their ability to please students than their ability to conduct rigorous classes that force students to think critically about the material they are learning. As sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa noted in their recent study, Academically Adrift, students’ cognitive performance is, on average, mediocre, and the major predictor of cognitive performance is rigorousness of instruction. We are not surprised by a lack of rigor in a system where 75 percent of the instructors are off the tenure track and therefore constantly worried about losing their jobs if they push their students too hard. And we take the opportunity to remind legislators, administrators, trustees, and regents that the path to global competitiveness requires rigor in the classroom—and rigor requires investing in the faculty members expected to provide it.
Salary Inequality
The recession has also had the effect of widening salary inequalities that already existed. The immediate impact is evident when looking at real (inflation-adjusted) salary changes by institutional category and by region during the recessionary period. It is also evident in updated tables on the long-term trend in salaries by discipline, and it is perhaps most strikingly evident in our analysis of increases in presidential salaries during the last three years.
Table C shows the change in real average salaries for institutions providing data for both 2007–08 and 2010–11. The combined result for faculty members of all ranks at all institutions is a 1.7 percent increase in salary beyond inflation. This overall figure conceals strong differences between public and private institutions, however. While overall average salaries in public colleges and universities rose 1 percent above the rate of inflation, the increase in privateindependent institutions was nearly three times as high. The gap was particularly wide at doctoral universities, a category dominated by state flagship universities that are larger in terms of faculty size than other types of institutions. The pattern did not hold among baccalaureate institutions, where there is a concentration of smaller colleges (many of them religiously affiliated) that have struggled with losses in tuition revenue and declines in charitable giving and investment returns.
Table D details the striking real differences in average full-time faculty salaries by region. The division into four regions is based on the categorization used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is the source for the regional inflation indices used to produce these calculations. Analysis including the regional consumer price index does not allow for a comparison of the purchasing power a specific salary has in different regions of the country at a given point in time.2 But incorporating the regional inflation factor does highlight regional differences in the recession’s impact across the country.
Although the CPI-U increase over three years was greatest in the Northeast, the increase in average salary beyond inflation was also much greater there. Overall net salary growth in the Midwest was only about half the rate in the Northeast but was still markedly better than the 1 percent real growth in the West and the barely perceptible 0.2 percent increase in the South. In the Midwest, South, and West there was also a substantial public-private gap, with real salary increases much lower at public colleges and universities. The opposite was true in the Northeast, however.
Figures 2 and 3 depict the widening gap in average salaries between faculty members employed in the public and private-independent sectors over four decades. Figure 2 tracks salaries for the full professor rank and figure 3 shows the assistant professor trend. Each graph shows the average salary in public institutions, by category, as a percentage of the average salary in the private sector. Thus, a point below 100 indicates a disadvantage for the public sector, with a downward trend documenting a widening gap. Associate’s degree colleges are not included because so few private colleges from that category submit data.
Figure 2 shows a relatively rapid decline in public-sector professor salaries relative to those at private-independent institutions. Since 1980, the public-sector disadvantage has widened to 16 percent at baccalaureate colleges, 11 percent at master’s universities, and a full 24 percent at doctoral universities. Such a wide gap affects the ability of public institutions to recruit and retain an excellent faculty. (Bear in mind that these percentages represent the salary differential for each year in a faculty member’s career.) This significant gap is one that junior faculty members notice, as well. They know that if they settle in at midcareer in a public college or university, they are likely to experience a significant cumulative earnings disadvantage over time compared with their private-sector colleagues. That creates a strong disincentive for moving to or remaining at a public college or university.
The pattern of assistant professor salaries displayed in figure 3 is generally the same as that for full professors, albeit with one interesting difference. Until the mid-1990s, average salaries for assistant professors at public baccalaureate and master’s institutions were equal to or higher than those in private-independent institutions. The public-sector disadvantage at this rank has also not grown as rapidly, currently standing at 4 percent at master’s universities and 5 percent at baccalaureate colleges. In doctoral universities, however, public salaries did not reach parity in the early part of this period, and they are a full 19 percent lower on average this year.
Both figures give some indication of an increased separation at doctoral universities during the most recent five-year period, which might reasonably be attributed to the effect of the recession. This finding reinforces the three-year analysis presented above.
Another aspect of the growing salary inequality during the recessionary period is reflected in table E, which compares growth in presidential salaries with growth in faculty salaries. The table is based on data from the 678 colleges and universities that submitted presidential and faculty salary information in both 2007–08 and 2010–11. The figures in this table are the average (mean) of the percentage salary increases earned by presidents and faculties across all institutions in each category. Some institutions did reduce presidential salaries over this three-year period, but the average change was a substantial increase.
The result depicted in the table is striking. During this recessionary period, the average salary increase for presidents was more than twice the average faculty salary increase at public institutions and nearly three times the faculty salary increase at private institutions. Presidential salaries in all categories of institutions were already several times higher than the average salary for faculty members at the beginning of this period, and the gap widened considerably even in the space of only three years. As we have argued repeatedly in these annual reports, such a disproportionate increase in compensation for a single individual is an indication of misplaced priorities. This is especially true in a period when faculty members and other higher education employees have been faced with involuntary unpaid furloughs, hiring and salary freezes, and cuts to benefits.
As documented in last year’s report, we have received numerous indications of college and university administrations reducing the contributions they provide to faculty retirement funds. Our standard aggregate analysis of itemized benefits (survey report table 10) does not reflect a drop in the rate of institutional retirement expenditures as a percentage of salary. However, when we analyze the rate of retirement contribution by each institution, we find that fluctuations have, in fact, occurred during the recessionary period. Table F documents the direct impact of the recession on contributions, expressed as the change in the institutional contribution rate as a percentage of salary. The majority of institutions maintained the rate of retirement contributions unchanged over three years. About a quarter of institutions raised the retirement contribution rate, most of these only slightly. However, a substantial proportion in each category decreased the contribution rate by more than half a percentage point. This proportion was highest (27 percent) among baccalaureate colleges, the category with the largest representation of private institutions.
Based on survey data, we are also able to identify at least thirty-two institutions that provided an institutional contribution toward full-time faculty members’ retirement in either 2007–08 or 2008–09 and then dropped retirement contributions to zero in a subsequent year. Thirty of these institutions are private colleges and institutions, twenty-four of them private baccalaureate colleges. One community college eliminated institutional retirement contributions in 2008–09 and has not submitted data subsequently. Twenty-three institutions eliminated their retirement contributions beginning in 2009–10; of these, nine did not resume institutional contributions for 2010–11 and four did not provide subsequent data. Of the remaining ten institutions that did resume retirement contributions in 2010–11, seven have done so at a rate substantially lower than was previously the case. An additional eight colleges suspended institutional retirement contributions beginning this year. Nearly all of the institutions that have eliminated retirement contributions are relatively small, which is why their missing institutional expenditures did not affect the national aggregate statistics.
As described in last year’s report, a reduction of one or two percentage points in the rate of retirement contributions may not seem dramatic. It will likely not result in tremendous savings for the institution. But a small reduction in retirement contributions today compounds into a large decrease in the amount of funds an individual will have available for retirement.
Disciplinary Divergence
One form of inequality in faculty salaries stems from disciplinary differences. Economic theory predicts that faculty members in disciplines for which there are alternative, higher-paying private-sector job opportunities will require higher than average salaries if they are to choose careers in the professoriate. Although some full-time faculty positions offer nonmonetary benefits such as tenure and control over one’s schedule, for many individuals these benefits are not sufficient to compensate for the income lost in taking a faculty job. Thus, higher salaries are required in some disciplines to attract the most qualified faculty members; in such cases, the salary differentials are said to be market-driven. But morale problems can arise when faculty members who do essentially the same jobs (teach classes, advise students, and conduct research) receive substantially different salaries because of disciplinary differences.
As in previous reports, we use the salaries of English professors as the base against which faculty members in other representative disciplines are compared. Annual data collected by Oklahoma State University for larger public universities show a wide range of salaries by discipline for faculty members at the rank of full professor (table G) and assistant professor (table H). Disciplines where faculty members typically earn less than English professors include fine arts, education, foreign languages, and communications. Consistent with the predictions of economic theory, the highest-paid faculty members are in law, business, economics, computer science, and engineering.
The data in table G indicate that some, but not all, of the full professor salary differentials have widened substantially in thirty years. Whereas senior law professors formerly earned about one-third more in salary than senior English professors, they now earn almost 60 percent more. The gap between professors in other disciplines at the top of the pay pyramid (engineering, computer science, economics, and business) and their colleagues in English has widened somewhat less rapidly. Full professors in fine arts and foreign languages have experienced a widening gap in the other direction: their average salaries have grown at a slower pace than salaries in English.
An analysis of the salary differentials in table H for assistant professors over the last thirty years shows a slightly different ordering of disciplines but is also consistent with theories about the operations of labor markets. Business, law, economics, computer science, and engineering are again at the top of the pay scale. As the private-sector salaries for people in these fields have grown dramatically over the last three decades, so has the premium paid to faculty members. In fact, the average assistant professor of business now earns more than double the salary of his or her assistant professor colleague in the English department. The growth relative to English among assistant professors in social sciences, health professions, mathematics, and library science has also been substantial, but less than in the five disciplines at the top of the pay scale. On the other hand, average salaries for assistant professors in communications, education, foreign languages, philosophy, and fine arts have declined since 1980 relative to those of assistant professors in English.
The gap between disciplines has a compounding effect over the course of a faculty member’s career. Because of the disciplinary differences in base salary, we can expect salary gaps among full professors in the future that are larger than those today even if all current assistant professors receive the same annual percentage salary increases in the future.
Another labor market phenomenon that sometimes affects faculty salaries is known as compression or inversion. Labor economic theory predicts that people with more experience will earn higher salaries; their experience gives them an edge in doing their jobs well. Thus, within a discipline we expect full professors to earn more than associate professors, who in turn earn more than assistant professors. This relationship between experience and pay can be overwhelmed in disciplines for which there is a shortage of individuals willing to complete a graduate degree when they could enter the private-sector job market sooner at higher salaries. In those cases, the market makes the new PhD recipient so much in demand that universities have to pay him or her more than they pay more senior assistant professors (and sometimes more than associate professors as well). Compression refers to the situation where a more senior faculty member is paid only slightly more than the newly appointed colleague; the extreme case of this is inversion, where the more experienced individual is actually paid less than the newcomer.
From the perspective of economic theory, compression or inversion are simply reflections of the operation of the labor market. From an organizational perspective, however, these conditions can be destructive because of their potential negative effects on faculty morale. Table I examines the disciplines considered in the previous section to determine whether inversion is a problem in the current faculty job market. The first column of the table shows the earnings premium (or penalty) experienced by the average assistant professor relative to the average new assistant professor. For example, in library science, the average assistant professor currently earns only 93 percent as much as the average new assistant professor, an example of inversion. Other disciplines where new assistant professors are currently paid more than their more experienced colleagues include philosophy, business, and economics. For business professors, inversion also affects faculty members in the next rank, with the average associate professor earning slightly less than the average assistant professor.
For assistant professors in health sciences, communications, mathematics, engineering, and physical sciences, the premium for experience is very small, 2 percent or less, which may be an indication of salary compression within these disciplines. However, there is no clear line demarcating cases of compression. How much more should a faculty member in the more senior rank earn? To a large extent, salary compression is a matter of perceived fairness that cannot be exactly quantified.
Our findings do show some evidence of salary inversion and compression between the disciplines, but in all likelihood the extent is lower than one would expect to find if the economy were more robust. Once the economy has fully recovered, salaries for attorneys, businesspeople, computer scientists, economists, and engineers in nonacademic jobs will increase rapidly, forcing academic employers to compete for faculty members in these positions by raising their salaries as well. However, although labor markets affect salaries, decisions about how much to pay faculty members for the important work they perform are not determined by an inexorable, inanimate market. On the contrary, these decisions are ultimately up to individuals: senior administrators and members of governing boards. Colleges and universities should start planning now in order to keep the salaries of humanities and social science professors from falling even further behind their colleagues in law, business, and the natural sciences and to avoid the morale problems created by hugely disparate salaries for faculty members doing essentially the same work.
What’s to Come?
Although the economic expansion began almost two years ago, many individuals report feeling as if the economy is still in a recession. One reason for this is that the terms recession and expansion do not apply to the level of current economic activity. Instead, they describe the economy’s trajectory. Think of a roller coaster. At the top of a very steep incline, the coaster cars are well above the boarding platform, but the turning point from upward to downward marks the start of the plunge. For our economy, that point was December 2007. The Great Recession was a downward plunge that continued well below the boarding platform. The nation stopped careening downward in June 2009, but the upward pitch of our current stretch of track is unusually gradual and the speed at which our economy is moving forward is agonizingly slow.
Although all states were affected by the recession, some states suffered much greater economic losses than others. Even in December 2010, unemployment rates ranged from a high of 14.5 percent in Nevada and around 12 percent in California, Florida, Michigan, and Rhode Island to as low as 3.8 percent in North Dakota, less than 5 percent in Nebraska and South Dakota, and less than 6 percent in New Hampshire and Vermont.
The budgetary effects of economic declines deal a double blow. Not only do tax revenues fall, but the demand for programs such as Medicaid and unemployment compensation simultaneously climbs. Unlike the federal government, states cannot plug their budget gaps by borrowing year after year, so they have made dramatic cuts in spending. According to the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers, mid-year reductions to higher education funding made up 14 percent of the dollar value of all midyear cuts in the 2010 fiscal year and 17 percent of midyear cuts so far in fiscal year 2011.3 Here, too, responses varied across states. During the 2010 fiscal year, thirty-two states cut higher education spending midyear; that number has fallen to nine states so far in 2011.
State Revenues
Substantial declines in revenue collections during 2008 and 2009 were the primary force behind state budget cuts. According to the Rockefeller Institute for State and Local Government, total state tax revenues peaked in the third quarter of 2008 and then began to decline. State tax collections began to grow again in 2010, but despite solid gains during the year, the total amount of revenue collected in the third quarter fell short of the 2008 peak by 7 percent. Again, the pace of recovery was uneven: tax collections for that quarter continued to fall in six states, while ten states recorded double-digit increases.
Predicting state tax revenues for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year and beyond is difficult, but forecasts are important because they provide some indication of the support states can provide to higher education. The National Conference of State Legislatures reported in September 2010 that forty states were projecting increases in tax collections for the 2011 fiscal year; a portion of these increases is expected to result from macroeconomic improvements.4 Tax revenues in twenty-five states were also predicted to rise as a result of tax increases adopted in 2009 or 2010.
Twenty-eight states generate some type of long-run forecast for tax revenues. For the 2012 fiscal year, the states projecting the largest increases in revenues over the current fiscal year are Arizona (9.6 percent), Florida (7.4 percent), and Nebraska (7.2 percent). Maine is projecting the smallest increase, at 0.3 percent, but no states are projecting a decline. Of the twenty-five states making forecasts for the 2013 fiscal year, Arizona, Minnesota, and Oregon are projecting the largest growth rates in tax revenues. Among the twenty states making revenue projections for the 2014 fiscal year, Alaska, Arizona, Florida and Oregon are projecting the largest growth.
Perhaps more important than projected growth rates are the forecasted dates when state revenue collections will return to their peak levels. Projected dates vary widely: only three states (New Hampshire, Oregon, and Texas) predict that revenues will return to peak levels this year. Eight states are expecting a return to peak levels in 2012, with eight more projecting a 2013 rebound. Florida, Georgia, Idaho, and North Carolina are projecting restored revenues by 2014, with Arizona, Maine, Montana, and New Mexico expecting a recovery by 2015. California faces the longest delay in restoring tax revenues to peak levels, currently anticipating recovery in 2016.
Attacks on Public Employees
A particularly troubling consequence of the Great Recession and the poor fiscal health of governments at all levels are growing attacks on the compensation of public-sector employees by politicians and pundits. These attacks have not emerged just this year and are not limited to one or two states; among others, the current or former governors of Indiana (Mitch Daniels), Massachusetts (Mitt Romney), Michigan (Rick Snyder), Minnesota (Tim Pawlenty), New Jersey (Christine Todd Whitman and Chris Christie), Ohio (John Kasich), and Wisconsin (Scott Walker) have asserted that a major cause of the poor fiscal health of their states is “excessive” compensation for public employees. The remedies they propose for this alleged problem include elimination or reduction in the rights of public employees to bargain collectively, employee pay freezes, benefits reductions, and privatization of public services. The professoriate obviously needs to be especially concerned about these attacks because 63 percent of full- and part-time faculty members in higher education are public employees.
In addition, as this report was in preparation, twelve state legislatures were considering or expecting so-called “right-to-work” legislation.5 If adopted by all twelve, only sixteen states would remain where nonmember employees who are part of a collective bargaining unit could be required to make contributions to pay for their union representation. Introduction of this provision appears to be an ideologically driven attempt to capitalize on a difficult fiscal situation by adopting a measure that will not produce any savings in public funds or create jobs but would weaken the political strength of unions.
Despite the assertions of governors and legislators, empirical analyses by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research unambiguously demonstrate that public employees are not overpaid relative to employees in the private sector.6 Comparisons of the overall mean salaries of private- and public-sector employees are meaningless because they do not control for the primary variables that affect worker pay, such as education and experience.
Educational attainment, the most important variable determining income, is substantially higher in the public sector than in the private sector. Rutgers University economist and Economic Policy Institute analyst Jeffrey Keefe finds that 54 percent of full-time state and local government employees have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 35 percent of full-time private-sector employees. Employees whose highest level of educational attainment is a high school degree do tend to earn more in the public sector, but this does not mean that public-sector employees are “excessively compensated”; rather, it results from the collapse of the private-sector earnings floor for low-skilled workers. As noted above, when controlling for variables related to productivity, including education and experience, Keefe finds that on average local government employees earn 1.8 percent less than their private-sector counterparts, while state government employees earn 7.6 percent less.
The analysis of AAUP survey data above indicates clearly that public college and university faculty members are not overpaid relative to their private-sector counterparts. Quite the opposite is true. And the threatened sweeping changes in policy regarding the compensation and collective bargaining rights of public employees are likely to worsen the public-private pay gap, with negative consequences for the abilities of public institutions to recruit and retain the best faculty members.
Changes proposed by these and other governors will have the effect of further removing faculty members (and administrators) from the financial decision-making process on their campuses. Unfortunately, the administrations of private colleges and universities also continue to take steps to limit meaningful faculty participation in the budgetary process. Their efforts might limit student learning as well: in its extensive study of elementary and secondary education, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finds that the best-performing education systems in the world have moved away from centralized decision making and that student learning flourishes in environments where individual administrations and faculties have considerable discretion in determining how to allocate resources.7
Faculty members, as educators, need to invest time communicating with their governors, state legislators, and fellow citizens about the realities of public-employee compensation. We also need to help policy makers and citizens understand that education at all levels is a public investment that yields enormous benefits—for everyone. Employers prefer to locate operations in cities or regions with highly educated populations, and that means more jobs for everyone.8 Better-educated citizens earn higher incomes, which translate into higher state tax revenues for decades. Meeting with state legislators in their offices or in their districts is one way to communicate with them about these benefits. Other options include writing letters to the editors of local newspapers and contacting staff members on state legislative committees with jurisdiction over labor affairs or higher education in order to secure an invitation to testify against bills that reduce compensation for public employees or that cut off rights to bargain collectively.
A Way Forward
In February 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to help stimulate the national economy and aid states struggling with revenue shortfalls. Congress realized that state budget cuts would only worsen the recession and so provided funds to support key programs—including more than $87 billion to support higher education. Although the recovery is still nascent, ARRA funds are about to run out, and state revenues remain, for the most part, below the peak levels of the last decade.
President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for the 2012 fiscal year, submitted to Congress in February, called for steep cuts in many government programs, but not in most of the programs that support the mission of higher education. (The exceptions are the proposed elimination of the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership, a need-based grant program for states, and decreased funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.)9 Although there is room for criticism of the administration’s narrow focus on job preparation and numbers of college graduates, the president’s proposal reflects an understanding of the fragility of the economic recovery and the necessity of high-quality educational programs to ensure continued economic growth. State legislatures and governors grappling with the lingering effects of the recession need to understand these lessons as well.
Higher education needs to be efficient, but some cuts strike at the fat and some at the heart. Although most policy makers state a preference for improved educational systems, too often higher education slips down the policy agenda. The costs of better education are incurred now, but the benefits of investing in higher education, in terms of lower rates of unemployment and better standards of living, accrue over decades. College and university performance in producing human capital for the next generation is determined by the quality of the human capital that faculty members bring to campus. Therefore our campuses need to be places that train, attract, and retain the best faculty members in the world.
This report is possible only because of the generous time commitment of numerous individuals. Faculty compensation data were collected, compiled, and tabulated by the AAUP research office. John W. Curtis, director of research and public policy, is responsible for the data collection and was the primary author of the sections analyzing AAUP survey data. His ability to sort through the mosaic of information in order to create a report of value to very different faculty members at very different institutions, as well as his meticulous analysis of data and good cheer through the long days and nights it takes to produce this report, are essential to the process. Research assistant Samuel Dunietz provided invaluable aid in the collection of faculty salary data. We also are extremely grateful to the hundreds of institutional representatives who take the time each year to respond to our survey.
Saranna Thornton (Economics), Hampden-Sydney College, and Chair, Committee on the Economic Status of the Profession
1. Alan B. Krueger and Mikael Lindahl, “Education for Growth: Why and for Whom?” Journal of Economic Literature 39 (December 2001): 1101–36. Back to text
2. The 1982–84 base that the US Department of Labor uses to compute subsequent values of the CPI-U was set at the same value (100) for all regions of the country, despite the fact that the costs of living in some parts of the country were higher than others. So while one can compare the change in the cost of living for a region over time, it is not possible to compare the cost of living across regions at any given point. Back to text
3. National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers, The Fiscal Survey of States: Fall 2010 (Washington, DC: National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers, 2010), tables 10 and 11. Back to text
4. National Conference of State Legislatures, “NCSL Fiscal Brief: Projected State Revenue Growth in FY 2011 and Beyond,” September 29, 2010, http://www.ncsl.org/documents/fiscal/Projected_Revenue_Growth_in_FY_2011....
Back to text
5. Kris Maher and Doug Belkin, “State Plans Anger Unions,” Wall Street Journal, February 16, 2011, A3. Back to text
6. Jeffrey H. Keefe, Debunking the Myth of the Overcompensated Public Employee: The Evidence, Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper 276 (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2010); John Schmitt, The Wage Penalty for State and Local Government Employees (Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2010). Back to text
7. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, PISA 2009 Results: What Makes A School Successful?, vol. 4 (Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2010). Back to text
8. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic Books, 2004). Back to text
9. “Highlights of Obama’s Fiscal 2012 Budget for Higher Education and Science,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 15, 2011, http://chronicle.com/article/ Highlights-of-Obamas-Fiscal/126364/. Back to text
Committee on the Economic Status of the Profession
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MEDIA / Activities / Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakcı Attended the Informal Meeting of Ministers and State Secretaries for European Affairs in Bucharest
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakcı Attended the Informal Meeting of Ministers and State Secretaries for European Affairs in Bucharest
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakcı attended the Informal Meeting of Ministers and State Secretaries for European Affairs with EU Member States and Candidate Countries hosted by the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council on 11th of March 2019 in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Turkey and four other candidate countries’ representatives, namely, Serbia, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Albania as well as the representatives from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the General Secretariat of the Council participated in the meeting. During the meeting, the progress of candidate countries towards their EU membership was discussed.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakcı extended his gratitude to the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council for underlining the importance of the EU enlargement process for both the candidate countries and the future of the EU. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakcı stated that “Turkey’s EU accession process may be the most difficult, complicated and questioned one for now; but when it happens, it will be the most beneficial and meaningful accession of the past and future, as Turkey has a lot to contribute to the EU, especially in the areas such as geostrategy, security, migration, economy and stability.”
Deputy Minister Ambassador Kaymakcı also came together with Florin Iordache, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies and Angel Tilvar, Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest and had the opportunity to discuss all dimensions of Turkey-Romania relations, Turkey’s EU accession process, Brexit, the future of the EU, the rise of populism in Europe as well as Balkans, Black Sea, Cyprus, irregular migration and Syria issues in detail.
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Kininvie is a small Speyside distillery wedged on a small spot near the more visible Balvenie distillery. It was established in 1990 to provide additional malt content for its owners William Grant & Sons with their popular range of Grant’s blended scotches.
Kininvie is a small Speyside distillery wedged on a small spot near the more visible Balvenie distillery. It was established in 1990 to provide additional malt content for its owners William Grant & Sons with their popular range of Grant’s blended scotches. For many years its presence was a mystery to whisky enthusiasts, as it maintained a low profile and still doesn’t officially offer tours, but often visitors to Balvenie will be taken into the single building where its stills await.
Kininvie is arguably a modern equivalent of a second distillery on the same site. A good example of this is Caperdonich that started life as Glen Grant number 2 before legislation in the UK prompted a name change in the 1970’s. No longer according to UK law could 2 distilleries have the same name and each had to maintain their own identity. Kininvie is mainly just a computerised still house as it utilises a mashtun of its own within Balvenie and its 10 washbacks are again located within its larger neighbour. One could argue that Kininvie is just a separate still house and nothing more, never mind an actual distillery. However, the character of its whisky is distinctly different than its brethren at Balvenie and Glenfiddich and should be viewed as a separate entity.
From an ownership viewpoint, its establishment made sense as William Grant & Sons’ main malt operation is across this Dufftown site. Kininvie could take advantage of the warehousing, malting, cooperage and other necessities of distillation. This did not prevent Kininvie from being closed in 2010, when William Grant & Sons established the more modern and adaptable distillery in 2007. This was in the form of Ailsa Bay distillery within their Girvan complex in Ayrshire and it produces a variety of malt styles rather than a specific Speyside style that Kininvie has become known for.
As demand continued to soar for whisky and in particular the popularity of the Monkey Shoulder blended malt, these plans had to be revisited and in 2012 Kininvie sprung back into life but with the presence of Ailsa Bay, it was able to finally start a new chapter in its history with a single malt release. Technically, enthusiasts may point to a Hazelwood release in 2006 as a 15-year-old as the debut release form Kininvie but it did not officially carry the distillery name. This honour arrived in 2013 with a 23-year-old Kininvie exclusively released for Taiwan, which soon prompted a stampede for a taste of this rarely seen malt. Subsequent batch releases arrived in 2014 and 2015, again as 23-year-old expressions before in 2015 a trio of older single cask releases hit the market. 2015 also saw the release of Kininvie into global markets rather than just travel retail as a 17-year-old, which is now the most commonly seen bottling.
The buzz may have somewhat diminished around Kininvie nowadays, but it continues to support the Grants blends and Monkey Shoulder whilst seeking to build upon the positive reception to its single malts. The only constant criticism surrounded the size of the Kininvie bottles which were half the standard UK 70cl size, being just 35cl and still retailing for £125 at travel retail.
In 1994 Kininvie doubled its number of stills to today’s total of 6 and it has a sizeable annual capacity of just under 5 million litres; more than several other Speyside distilleries. The whisky itself has a cereal based aroma with plenty of fruits present and more spices on the palate with marzipan, nutmeg, vanilla and a floral flourish. It’s a stylish and tasteful single malt full of Speyside promise.
Kininvie Batch 3 - 23 Year Old / 1991
Kininvie Hazelwood Centennial Reserve 20 Year Old
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Saudi Arabia and 10 Other Countries Sign Agreement To Make Arab Space Exploration a Reality
In 1985, Saudi Arabia made history by sending the world’s first Arab and Muslim into space, Prince Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud, who helped deploy a satellite for the Arab Satellite Communications Organisation with NASA. Decades later, the Kingdom started to focus once again on space exploration, with reports last year pointing to investments made by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman amounting to over 1 billion US dollars via Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and spinoff companies. Today, Saudi Arabia has taken another big leap into space exploration, signing a pan-Arab agreement with 10 countries in the region this week to make a regional space agency a reality.
Prince Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud
According to Arab News, the agreement between Saudi Arabia and other nations in the Middle East will be on coordinating national exploration programs at the Global Space Congress in Abu Dhabi. The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, explained that the group’s first project will be a satellite system to be built in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He took to Twitter to hail the move, writing: “I personally believe in Arab talents. We called our new satellite ‘813’ in reference to the date that marked the beginning of prosperity for the House of Wisdom in Baghdad under the reign of Al-Ma’mun.”
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum
Present at the event was a delegation from the Saudi Space Commission (SSC), which was established in 2018 and tasked with supervising and regulating the space sector in the Kingdom, working with partner organizations such as the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, the Ministry of Defense, universities, the Communications and Information Technology Commission and the General Authority for Civil Aviation.
Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC)
Today, the United Arab Emirates has the region’s strongest space program. In June 2018, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in the UAE announced that nine candidates had qualified for the final evaluation phase of the country’s Astronaut Programme. Three months later, the country announced that its first astronauts were going on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
Arab Space ExplorationSaudi Space PlansArab Countries Space TravellingGlobal Space Congress Abu DhabiGlobal Space Congress 2019Global Space Congress Saudi
What We Can Learn from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on His 70th Birthday
Saudi Arabia's GEA Has Launched a Scholarship Program for Entertainment Studies Abroad
Saudi Arabia: Eastern Alliances, Western Interests
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Events and Interviews
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Lesley Adkins
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You are here: Adkins History > Our Newsletters > Newsletter 37
Welcome to the August issue of our occasional newsletter for 2014.
IN PAPERBACK IN NORTH AMERICA!
Our latest book is now available in paperback in the United States and Canada. It is published there by Penguin, ISBN 978-0143125723, and the jacket design is much the same as that of the hardback, using the wonderful embroidery by Sarah Cline. This time, though, even the Penguin motif has been embroidered!
The hardback in the US was called simply Jane Austen’s England, but the paperback has the added subtitle ‘Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods’. The hardback can still be purchased (ISBN 978-0670785841), and it is also available in all e-book formats.
In the UK, the identical book is called Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England (ISBN 978-0349138602), and it recently received a generous review in Jane Austen’s Regency World (no. 70, July/August 2014). This is the official magazine of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath and is distributed to subscribers worldwide. The review starts off: ‘A marvellously entertaining catalogue of early 19th-century English life, Roy and Lesley Adkins’s bestseller is now out in paperback – and deserves a place on any Austen aficionado’s bookshelf.’ The review ends: ‘It’s a rich brew – I challenge anyone to pick it up and not still be reading an hour later, delighted by such a vivid and entertaining portrait of an era.’ Do pass the word on to any Austen aficionados who you know!
A SOUTHAMPTON CHURCH
Storehouses of history
There are so many churches in Britain that their role as storehouses of history is often overlooked. Many date back to the early medieval period, and some were built before the Norman Conquest of 1066. Frequently altered, repaired and enlarged, the very fabric of these buildings is a record of constant use over the last millennium. Within and outside every church, various monuments also have their own history, and objects with no other obvious home are frequently stored in the local church or placed there for protection, so that some churches are like small museums. Most churches have at least one interesting story to tell, but the ruined Holy Rood Church in Southampton, Hampshire, probably has more than most.
The Austens in Southampton
Medieval Southampton was completely enclosed by fortified town walls, large parts of which survive today. For a brief period Jane Austen was at school in Southampton, then a small port at the head of Southampton Water, and although she nearly died of typhus there, this did not deter her from returning more than two decades later. From late 1806 to early 1809 the Austens lived in a house in Castle Square, right by the town walls overlooking the sea. A great deal of land reclamation has since taken place, so it takes some imagination to appreciate its appearance then.
Several churches were within walking distance of Castle Square, including the Holy Rood Church in the High Street, right at the centre of the medieval town. In 1801, only a few years before the Austens arrived, the antiquary Sir Henry Englefield described this church:
‘Holy Rood Church … has been much altered on the outside, but does not seem ever to have been of elegant architecture. The west window is deprived of its tracery, and the tower, which is rather uncommonly situated at the south-west angle of the church, is void of beauty. The doors of the central entrance are very neatly ornamented with Gothic tracery, in a good style, and well preserved. The colonnade which runs along the whole front, is by the lower class of inhabitants known by the name of the “Proclamation”. Probably on this spot, close by the old audit-house and market, magistrates proclaimed peace, war, or other public and official notifications … The church within is large and handsome, but its appearance is much injured by the organ and its loft, which totally obstruct the view into the chancel. The nave and side ailes [sic] are very neatly ceiled in pannels [sic], and the roses which ornament the intersections of the ribs appear neatly carved. At the south-west door there is a wooden screen of mixed Gothic, of queen Elizabeth or James the First’s time, which is uncommonly well executed, and of elegant design.’
The 1837 fire
Late in the evening of Tuesday 11th November 1837, a disastrous fire took place further down the High Street, and a pair of plaques still survives on the west front of the church commemorating those who lost their lives trying to help. The following day, an eyewitness report appeared in the Devizes & Wiltshire Gazette:
‘About half-past eleven o’clock last night, a large store-room, belonging to Messrs. King, Witt, and Co. extensive dealers in lead, oil, and colours, at the bottom of the High-street and corner of Gloucester-square, was discovered to be on fire, and before any engine could arrive, the whole warehouse was in one mass of flame. At about half-past twelve, it was generally rumoured that gunpowder was on the premises; and while the inhabitants were busily engaged in removing the goods, a terrific explosion took place, and part of the front of the warehouse was blown out, burying a number of persons in the ruins; whilst those in the warehouse were cut off from all egress; the combustible matter in the upper stories becoming ignited, pitch, turpentine, and oil ran down in a liquid flame. The consternation which took place at this moment baffles all description. As each dead and wounded body was removed from the ruins, a shriek of agony and horror was given which rent the air. It was a dreadful spectacle. The flames at the same time were spreading with fearful rapidity. Twice the houses on the opposite side of the street caught fire; and it was only by the greatest possible exertions that they were not consumed. Fears indeed were entertained that the whole of Gloucester-square would be in flames: but happily the progress of the fire was arrested. Messrs. King’s warehouse is totally destroyed; and Mr. Simm’s Boarding-house, Playford’s Family Hotel, and the premises of Mr. Prialense, are greatly damaged.’
Explosions were common in warehouse fires, and it was often wrongly assumed that gunpowder was to blame, something the Morning Post noted for this fire:
‘The Hampshire Independent states that the number of lives lost at the destructive fire at Southampton last week was seventeen, and that twenty-four persons are severely injured … It appeared from the examination of witnesses that the explosion which produced the fatal catastrophe was not caused by gunpowder, but must have been owing to the ignition of a large quantity of turpentine. The Independent gives the following account of the calamity:– “The public having been assured that there was no gunpowder in the store entered it for the purpose of saving a portion of the valuable articles which it contained – a great quantity of lead, oil, and turpentine – when, we shudder to relate, the fire found its way into that part of the store which contained the turpentine, and almost immediately afterwards an awful and terrific explosion took place which was succeeded by the falling in of the roof and blowing out the front walls”.’
The fire memorial plaques
One of the two plaques mentions the bravery of the men who tragically died:
‘Sacred to the Memory of twenty-two brave and disinterested men commemorated by name in a corresponding tablet who in attempting to check the ravages of a calamitous fire in this parish on the night of November the 7th 1837, either perished in the flames or survived but a short time the injuries they received. The sympathizing public who have protected the widows and orphans of those who had families, erect this grateful but melancholy memorial of their intrepidity, their sufferings, and their awfully sudden removal into an eternal state.’
The ‘corresponding tablet’ gives the names of the dead:
‘This Tablet is a Memorial of the names of the sufferers
Henry Ball. Aged 21
George Bell. – 16
John Budden. – 21
Robert Cheater. – 22
George Diaper. – 27
Charles Edney. – 19
William Ford. – 27
James Cosney. – 28
Thomas Hapgood. – 21
John Harley. – 50
Joseph Hawkins.– 39
Thomas Henwood. – 32
William Jones. – 26
Edward Ludford. – 36
William Marshall. – 25
George Maton. – 21
William Oakley. – 29
William Powell. – 30
Richard Rose. – 34
Robert Ransom. – 46
Thomas Sellwood. – 23
Charles Tanner. – 22’
The memorial plaques to those killed in the 1837 fire
A bombed shell
The Holy Rood Church was not affected by the 1837 fire, but just over a decade later, in 1849–50, it underwent a Victorian rebuilding. The 14th-century tower was kept, along with parts of the chancel and aisles, as well as the fire plaques. It became a very popular church, known as the ‘Church of the Sailors’, an association that became stronger as the port of Southampton grew in prosperity as a result of the ocean liner trade to and from America.
By the Second World War, Southampton was an important port and an obvious target for bombing, but inevitably parts of the old town were destroyed, including the Holy Rood Church. There were severe bombing raids during the winter of 1940, and on the night of 30th November the church was hit. The nave was destroyed and the chancel badly damaged, though the 14th-century tower survived. In 1957 the ruined church was restored for use as a war memorial and is preserved in memory of the seamen of the merchant navy who died in the Second World War.
The ruins of Holy Rood Church, Southampton, with the surviving south-west tower. The two fire plaques are either side of the main doorway
The Titanic memorial
Among the memorials inside the ruin is one to the crew of the Titanic, most of whom came from Southampton. The inscription on the base reads:
‘This Memorial Fountain was erected in memory of the crew, stewards, sailors and firemen, who lost their lives in the SS Titanic disaster. April 15th. 1912. It was subscribed for by the widows, mothers and friends of the crew. Alderman Henry Bowyer Mayor 1912–1913.’
The memorial to the crew of the Titanic
The sculpture was originally a working drinking fountain set up in Cemetery Road on Southampton Common and unveiled in 1915, but it was later moved inside the ruins of Holy Rood Church. Since the Titanic sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York, different memorials to the victims of the tragedy are located around the city, but this crew memorial is particularly poignant because so many families in the town were affected by the disaster.
Charles Dibdin
Another memorial on the exterior wall of the tower was erected a century ago and is a reminder that 2014 is the bicentenary of the death of Charles Dibdin, who was famous for his patriotic songs during the Napoleonic Wars. The inscription reads:
‘To CHARLES DIBDIN, son of THOMAS DIBDIN parish clerk of this church. A native of Southampton, poet, dramatist and composer, author of TOM BOWLING, POOR JACK, and other sea songs. Born 15th March 1745, died 25th July 1814.
“There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack” Erected by the Southampton Literary and Philosophical Society, 1914.’
The memorial to Charles Dibdin
Dibdin was baptised at Holy Rood Church and was one of the youngest of a very large family. His father died while he was still quite young, and the family moved to Winchester where he was educated and became a chorister at the cathedral (and where Jane Austen would later be buried), having been picked out because of his fine singing voice. He later moved to London and worked in an instrument maker’s shop, but soon moved on to become an actor in the chorus at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Within two years he began publishing his own songs.
This became the pattern of Dibdin’s career for many years, as he performed in theatres in towns and cities across Britain and in the Vauxhall and Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens in London, while continuing to write his own material. He contributed both music and lyrics to the scores of operas performed in the main London theatres, particularly Drury Lane, but after a quarrel with the actor/manager David Garrick, his engagement there was ended in 1775. He continued working in various London theatres until, in 1796, he opened his own newly built theatre on the corner of Leicester Square, called the Sans Souci.
Dibdin’s greatest achievement was his series of entertainments and songs in patriotic praise of the Royal Navy and of British sailors, which became popular with the public and the seamen. With the renewal of war with France, his sea songs became so popular that the British government commissioned him to publish new war songs regularly. This was the peak of his career, and he retired in 1805. He opened a music shop in the Strand in London, but it failed and left him bankrupt. For the rest of his life he struggled to avoid absolute poverty.
Some of Charles Dibdin’s compositions
In 1809 the sailor George King took part in an operation against Russian gunboats (an incident mentioned on pages 239–42 of our book Jack Tar). It was a night-time operation using ships’ boats in a surprise attack, but it was only partly successful and cost many casualties. George King was one of the survivors and recorded in his diary what happened when his boat returned to his ship:
‘The captain was looking overside and he directly ordered some of his crew to relieve the boat’s crew and began to hoist in the dead and wounded. He then called us aft, that was left, and ordered us down below to rest ourselves, sent for the purser’s steward, and ordered him to give us immediately, each man, half a pint of rum and as much bread and cheese as we could eat. When we soon commenced upon the grog and in less than an hour some of our chaps were singing one of Dibdin’s songs.’
Letters and diaries of the time contain references to singing and music-making, but it is unusual for a song to be specifically mentioned as a Dibdin composition. Some of Dibdin’s songs have stood the test of time, and ‘Tom Bowling’ in particular is still sung today. Henry Wood included it in his Fantasia on British Sea Songs, which was originally compiled in 1905 for the centenary anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. It is still regularly performed, particularly as part of the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ in London.
TOO MANY ANNIVERSARIES!
The years 2014 and 2015 have too many anniversaries. The media (including book publishers, magazines, radio and TV programme makers, and literary and history events) much prefer to focus on a notable anniversary, because of the marketing and publicity possibilities. Far too many fascinating ones fall this year and next, a strange quirk of history, so that it is going to be difficult to concentrate for long on any one event. The obvious anniversary is the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 (see below), but others worth mentioning are the initial peace with France in 1814 (see below), the burning of the White House in Washington in August 1814 (see www.adkinshistory.com/newsletter20.aspx and our book The War for All the Oceans), the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 (see below), the signing of Magna Carta in June 1215, and the Battle of Agincourt in October 1415.
We ourselves have been doing our bit to mark the anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park in 1814 with our new talk ‘Why Jane Austen Loves a Sailor’, which we gave recently at the wonderful Telegraph Ways With Words Festival at Dartington Hall in Devon. This 10-day literary festival is held in a single glorious setting, with most talks taking place in the Barn or the Great Hall.
Ten days later, we gave the same talk at a very different festival, this time the huge English Heritage re-enactment weekend called ‘History Live!’, which is held at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire – very appropriate, as that county is the fictional setting for Mansfield Park. We were invited to give the first talk of the weekend in the History Lecture Tent of the BBC History and History Revealed magazines. We were there last year as well, and it is an enthralling weekend, with so many aspects of history and archaeology to enjoy.
The History Lecture Tent at ‘History Live!’
Sandwiched between these two events was the Penzance Literary Festival, where we gave our ‘Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England’ talk to a packed house, ably supported by James of The Edge of the World Bookshop. The bookshop now has for sale signed copies of some of our books. Our previous two talks on this same theme were also sold out – one was at the Fowey Festival of Words and Music, also in Cornwall, a county that (as far as anyone knows) Jane Austen never visited. By contrast, our talk in the library at Wokingham in Berkshire, supported by Chapter One Bookshop of Reading, was in the heart of Jane Austen territory.
SOUVENIRS OF THE GREAT WAR
Start of the war
August 2014 is the centenary anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War, or First World War as it was later known. Fighting that began in the Balkans in July 1914 spread through Europe, involving some nations spoiling for a fight and others unprepared for conflict. By the beginning of August the madness had reached the Channel coast, with Germany threatening both France and Belgium. This sucked Britain into the war, when the British ultimatum to Germany demanding that military operations against Belgium must cease was ignored. The ultimatum expired at midnight on Tuesday 4th August, and from then on Britain was at war.
By mid-August the first troops of the British Expeditionary Force were disembarking on the Continent. By the third week in August they had reached the frontier between Belgium and France, but like the other troops already stationed at the border their role was to delay the enemy advance as much as possible, not stop it. Soon they were involved in a measured retreat as the allied forces fell back to the outskirts of Paris in order to regroup. The German advance was halted by the Battle of the Marne, which started on 5th September, and the Germans were forced to withdraw west of Verdun. This eventually led to the establishment of the Western Front and the notoriously static trench warfare that caused so much carnage during the First World War.
Embroidered silk postcards
In Britain, from September 1914, there was a massive drive to recruit men for the army, and soldiers poured across the Channel and into France. Many had been recruited in a carnival atmosphere, few had any idea what was in store for them, and a large proportion had never been away from home before, let alone abroad. Inevitably, the homes and loved ones they had left behind were constantly in their thoughts, and their sole means of communication were letters and postcards. In France, an industry already existed that could cater for this demand, producing postcards with embroidered silk designs. Production was increased immediately, and many families kept them as souvenirs.
Postcard designs
An embroidered silk panel was glued on to a white postcard and finished off with a frame, usually embossed. The one below shows a warship within a wreath held by a flying seagull, heading towards the armed forces with letters from home. Underneath are the English words ‘A Kiss from home’. This postcard was sent by a sergeant in France to his sweetheart in England, and his handwritten message on the reverse includes the note: ‘We are trying to make things as merry as possible for the troops this Xmas’. It was obviously posted in an envelope, because he used the address panel instead to refer to the embroidered design: ‘The boat that brings your most welcome letters to cheer me.’
An embroidered silk postcard with embossed frame
It was once thought that each postcard was embroidered by hand, but in recent years Dr Ian Collins has been in the forefront of research into embroidered silk postcards, including their manufacture. He has published a book about them (An Illustrated History of the Embroidered Silk Postcard, ISBN 0954023501), while his latest research can be found on his website: http://sites.google.com/site/embroideredsilkpostcards/. One new discovery is that the embroidery was done as repeating designs on a roll on large machines, which were cut up into panels for use in postcards.
So-called ‘hand-embroidery machines’ had been in use from the late 1820s, and through the 19th century these machines became bigger and more sophisticated. They were operated by men, with women and children doing ancillary jobs, such as mending broken threads. They were used for all sorts of embroideries, and from 1899 embroidered silk postcards began to be manufactured, which were exhibited the following year at the Paris Exposition. Until the First World War, it was only a minor part of the embroidery industry. By now, the industry was based primarily in France, and women took over the work of those men who joined the armed forces. Millions of postcards were produced, with thousands of designs, many with patriotic themes or ones relating to the armed forces.
Woven silk postcards
The publishers of embroidered silk postcards did not have the market to themselves, since rival companies began to produce woven silk postcards, which were also shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition. At the outbreak of the war, production was similarly increased to meet demand. Because the weaving process could produce a much more elaborate and subtle design, these postcards have quite a different appearance. During the war a great number were manufactured by the Neyret Freres company and published by E. Deffrène, based at no. 25 Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle in Paris.
A woven silk postcard
Deffrène published this postcard of the town of Albert in the Somme region of France. It shows the ruins of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières, with the Golden Virgin statue on the tower left in a precarious horizontal position after a fierce battle in September 1914. A feature of the woven postcards is that they could produce scenes like this, giving an almost three-dimensional effect to the ruins and flames. As the card is moved, the weave and colour of the silks make the picture change subtly, with the colours looking brighter from some angles.
Both embroidered and woven silk postcards remained very popular throughout the 1914–18 war. They continued in production after the war, with less militaristic designs. In the Second World War, there was a slight resurgence of the industry, but never on the same scale.
AN ANNIVERSARY COINCIDENCE
By a strange twist of fate, the outbreak of war in 1914 took place on the centenary of the ending of the first true world war in 1814. Although the Peace of Amiens in 1801 had brought an end to hostilities with France, only 19 months later the two nations embarked on what became known as the Napoleonic Wars. That conflict endured for almost 11 years, from May 1803 until April 1814, when Napoleon abdicated and went into exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba, just off the coast of Italy. The war with the United States was still being fought, but that did not prevent an outpouring of joyous emotion.
The king in exile, Louis XVIII, returned to rule France, and even the supporters of Napoleon were glad to see an end to the years of fighting and conscription. In Britain, preparations began straightaway to celebrate the longed-for peace. The most lavish events were in London, and on 6th June Tsar Alexander of Russia and King Frederick of Prussia arrived for a state visit. Field Marshal Blücher, leader of the Prussian army, was already in the capital and proving as popular with the British people as Wellington. Three days later, illuminations were visible all over London.
Royal Celebrations began on 1st August, by order of the Prince Regent. Hyde Park, St James’s Park and Green Park were totally transformed for this extravaganza, filled with oriental temples, towers and pagodas. A mock naval battle was fought on the Serpentine, and central to a Grand Fireworks Display in Green Park was a 100-foot-high Castle of Discord that was burned and replaced by a glittering Temple of Concord, symbolising the triumph of the established monarchies of Europe over the revolutionary and imperialistic France.
The rest of the country joined in the merrymaking, though with less spectacular entertainments, as at Reading where William Darter noted: ‘there was great rejoicing. Bells were frequently ringing and flags were kept up for several days.’ Huge public dinners were arranged, and Major-General Dyott described those in his home town:
‘A subscription made in Lichfield, and upwards of £700 collected for the purpose of giving a treat to all the lower class of people to commemorate the peace. Dinners were provided at the inns for near three thousand people, who were regaled with roast beef, plum pudding, and ale. I made a present of an ox, which was roasted whole and distributed.’
The Northampton Mercury carried a summary of their own celebrations:
‘On Tuesday public rejoicings commenced in this town [Northampton] in celebration of the happy return of Peace. Merry peals from the bells of the different churches ushered in the morning … During the day the streets were paraded by different processions, but principally of a ludicrous description.– The one least so was a waggon filled with young girls all dressed in white, preceded by a band of music and flags. In the fore part of the waggon was placed a pole with a particularly large loaf fixed at the top, and a flag underneath, inscribed, “Peace and a large loaf! the happy result of the downfall of tyranny”. On the Market-hill a great number of small loaves were thrown to the populace, and four hogsheads of ale served to the multitude in a more orderly manner than might reasonably have been expected.’
An 1814 monument
Near Little Dunham in Norfolk an obelisk was erected as a monument to the peace and carries the inscription ‘In Commemoration of Peace John Drosier Esq. Erected this Obilisk Anno Domini MDCCCXIV’. Drosier is thought to have been a distant relation of Nelson, who is also commemorated by an inscription on the same monument. The obelisk still survives and is a rarity.
The 1814 peace obelisk near Little Dunham
Yet more war and peace
Once the summer of celebrations was over, the serious business of carving up Europe between the victors started with the opening of the Congress of Vienna on 1st November 1814. It turned into a perpetual party with a constant round of dinners, dances and entertainment and was still continuing when Napoleon escaped from Elba on 26th February 1815. Europe was plunged back into conflict before most other monuments to the 1814 peace had been built or finished.
Napoleon’s short bid for freedom and power was brought to a close at the Battle of Waterloo, near the Belgian town of that name, on 18th June 1815. The last battle involving a British army that brought this first ‘Great War’ to an end was fought less than 100 miles from where British soldiers would fire their first shots at the opening of the second ‘Great War’ a century later. After Waterloo, Europe was finally at peace, and in Britain many streets and even towns were renamed Waterloo, and numerous monuments erected. The short-lived peace of 1814 was eclipsed – and soon forgotten.
After repeated suggestions and requests from some newsletter subscribers, we have bowed to your influence and have finally set up a blog! It is linked to our website, so you can either click on ‘Our Blog’ there (www.adkinshistory.com) or you can go direct to our blog (http://blog.adkinshistory.com).
Why subscribe to the newsletter?
We send out our newsletters about 4 or 5 times a year. As the time approaches to send out the next newsletter, we add the last newsletter to our website (at www.adkinshistory.com/newsletter.aspx). Because of this time lag, we will use the blog to mention any current news, such as mentions of our latest books, reviews and talks. Once we have sent out our latest newsletter, we also intend to gradually transfer some of the features to the blog, as well as favourite features from previous newsletters. There will always be material that will only appear in newsletters, not the blog, and in any case all the contents of a newsletter will be sent to subscribers first, and only later will some be posted on the blog.
So why bother to look at the blog?
A blog is quite a different means of communication, because ideally each posting should be restricted to a single topic, whereas the newsletters are more like a magazine, with a mix of topics. One of the main benefits of the blog is in providing up-to-date news between newsletters. Another benefit is that we can give additional text and pictures on the blog that will not be in the newsletters – we always worry about having too many pictures in a newsletter, because of the slow speed of broadband that some subscribers suffer from (certainly in parts of the UK). Another benefit is that a blog allows anyone to add comments at the end of each post. Readers can also share a blog post via many types of social media, all contained in the ‘share this’ symbols at the bottom of each post. At the moment we are feeling our way!
In any case, please have a look at our blog and pass any comments about it to us (particularly suggestions for improvements), which can be left as comments on the blog itself or sent direct to us by email. We hope it will prove to be something extra for you to use and enjoy.
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The Best American Poetry 2015
Announcing the Winner of the 2015-2016 No-Fee RRofihe Trophy Short Story Contest: TISA for "The Runaway" — read it here. Two New Stories! Read "Trampoline" by JESSICA HOLLAR and "Tuesday Night Figure Drawing at the Community Center"
What is it about poetry that puts so many people off? That’s the question posed by Ben Lerner, a 2015 MacArthur genius grant winner. which Lerner calls “a kind of secular bible for American.
Her poetry has gotten. worldwide since its 2015 re-release by Andrews McMeel Publishing. (Kaur self-published it a year prior.) In its first week of release, Kaur’s follow-up was duking it out for.
The News from Poems: Why Poetry Matters Now by Susan Cohen. I grew up writing poetry. When I was an eighteen-year-old sophomore at Cal, I applied to.
That’s how a 2015 Los Angeles Review of Books profile describes Marilyn Chin. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Ore., Chin is one of the country’s most prominent Asian-American. to poetry,”.
She lives in New York. Rachel B Glaser, 34, published her first novel, Paulina & Fran, in 2015. She studied painting and animation at the Rhode Island School of Design and poetry and fiction at UMass.
I have been a poet and a poetry lover all my life. My first poem (yes my mother kept it for years) was hardly any guarantee that I would ever become any good.
Sep 11, 2015 · White poet Michael Derrick Hudson’s use of the Chinese pen name Yi-Fen Chou was an act of yellowface that is part of a long tradition of white voices drowning out.
At a ceremony at the New School on April 25, 2019, the best LGBTQ fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and trans literature published in 2018 were honored by the Publishing Triangle.
David Baker is a poet of American. from 2015, begins with a trash picker and passes through Facebook shares and likes, cell mutations, G.M.O.s, and compost. Each of these threads tracks, with.
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser (Metropolitan Books). A deeply researched and elegantly written portrait of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie series, that describes how Wilder transformed her family’s story of poverty, failure and struggle into an uplifting tale of self-reliance, familial love and perseverance.
Helen Steiner Rice Christmas Poetry 1998); "An Adolescent’s Christmas: 1944" (Afton Historical Society, 2000); "My Lord Bag of Rice" (Milkweed, 2000); "Beyond the Writers’ Workshop" (Anchor, 2001); "Shelter Half" (Holy Cow! June 2008). These friendship quotes and verse are all positive words of inspiration, that are uplifting to read through and appreciate those special people in our lives, they could
Photograph: Christopher Lane for the Observer When I was writing stories about Chinese American characters in my fiction classes. to say she had read my poetry collection and really loved it. I was.
Facts About William Shakespeare Life Entering the verbose world of William. with the Shakespeare’s, a privilege Branagh himself takes seriously. His latest. William Shakespeare died 400 years ago this month. So to commemorate the quadricentenary of Shakespeare’s death, here are 38 facts, stats, anecdotes and origins about his 38 plays. 1. ALL’S WELL. So what do we know? Take a
The 29-year-old African American poet Danez Smith has beaten writers including the US poet laureate to become the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Forward prize for best poetry collection.
Author Of Beauty And The Beast For one weekend in May, Disney fans are once again invited into the world of "Beauty and the Beast," this time with a cast that includes Zooey Deschanel, Taye Diggs and Rebel Wilson. The Hollywood. In a tough match-up at the Play by Play Basketball Classic at Elyria Catholic HS, St. Edward HS was matched
Whole words only. Participant first name. Participant last name. Organization name. Type of organization
And she chooses the winners to our listener poetry competition. Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” gets the American Icons treatment. And Kurt Andersen talks to award-winning poet and “Sexiest Man Alive.
Hosted by the American Sephardi Federation. role with both critical acclaim. In 2015, he performed two open air concerts.
“Poetry is one of the best ways to celebrate our culture and our history here. before earning a Master of Fine Arts from Eastern Washington University and a doctorate in American literature from.
Kirsten Kaschock is the author of four poetry books and a chapbook: Unfathoms (Slope Editions), A Beautiful Name for a Girl (Ahsahta Press), WindowBoxing (Bloof Books), The Dottery (University of Pittsburgh Press/winner of AWP Donald Hall Prize), and Confessional Science-fiction: A Primer (Subito Press). Coffee House Press published her debut speculative novel, Sleight.
Author of three poetry collections, poetry editor for seven years of the quarterly American Scholar, and founder of the creative. His Making the New Lamb Take was named a Best Book of 2007 by the.
Learn more about the best female authors of history, promote current work, and more with the American Women Writers National Museum, in Washington, DC!.
A lot of them told me it makes you feel important, it makes you feel heard, it makes you feel that you’re somebody – and I think that’s the best and. for them. Poetry is having a good moment.
Dharker, who was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and grew up in Glasgow, appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2015 where she told.
New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s best. I’m with her. When I’m reporting. I finally got around to reading the wonderful Australian-American novelist Shirley Hazzard. I was most taken with.
When you think of American poetry over. Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015, by Kevin Young (Knopf, $30). This book is a victory lap after nine collections for Young, who already has a.
English language is one of the most important tools of communication that anyone can have and for that reason, it is very crucial that you again such a skill, not matter what field you decide to go in. Studying the English language is no easy task especially at degree level but learning the intricacies of such a subject can be very useful.
Charles Dickens Famous Books New York hosted one of the grandest events the city had ever seen – a ball in honour of the English novelist Charles Dickens. Dickens was only 30, but works such as Oliver Twist and the Pickwick. The city where novelist Charles Dickens was born has decided to heal an 80-year rift with an author
Author Of The Graveyard Book the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 books is known for works such as the TV-series-spawning novel American Gods (and its mutant twin, Anansi Boys), the beautiful book and. New release! Check out Cookie’s latest mystery adventure in book 7 of the Haunted Vintage Mystery Series. Click here to purchase.
Matthew and John are most well known, though, for their exquisite introductions of the poets they host. Rather than trying to explain, we thought we’d give you a taste. Here are two from Matthew.
Sep 07, 2015 · Saparmurat Niyazov, the late president-for-life of Turkmenistan, wrote a book known as the Ruhnama, meaning “Book of the Soul,” published in 2001.According to the dictator, it was meant to improve the spiritual life of the Turkmen people. Niyazov even claimed that God had assured him that readers of the book would surely get into Heaven.
who died in 2015 of a metastatic melanoma in one of his eyes, writes in his last book, “Everything in its Place: First Loves.
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Rufus Harley: Re-Creation of the Gods
By HRAYR ATTARIAN
The mere mention of jazz played on bagpipes is guaranteed to get a look of disbelief from most people, but not from listeners who have heard Rufus Harley, especially Re-Creation of the Gods, a 1972 disc that many consider his best. The Transparency label has reissued this record on CD with four extra tracks and pristine digital remastering of the sound.
Rufus Harley, one of the only bagpipe-playing jazz musicians in the history of jazz, is a virtuoso on the instrument, coaxing improvised riff after riff from it. In his hands it sounds like two reed instruments played at once. This very enjoyable and often surprising music is in the soul-jazz vein, with a touch of Eastern sounds, and the combination of organ, bagpipe, percussion and sometimes electric bass works very well. The playing can easily be termed spiritual.
Re-Creation of the Gods is reminiscent of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's later workeg. Blacknuss, with its mixture of spirituality and souland Rufus Harley's bagpipe sounds somewhat similar to the manzella and stritch played by Kirk. Bill Mason's organ is an excellent complement to Rufus Harley's bagpipe and sax. The combination hints at the organ/tenor combos of the late '60s and early '70s.
Although the leader and Bill Mason stand out with their solos, the tight drumming and solid electric bass anchor the music within the soul-jazz tradition and add an earthy quality to the recording. The only track which seems out of place is the 23-second intro (one of the extra tracks), which seems to be from a live show by Rufus Harley's quintet. The rest of tracks do not appear to have been recorded live, nor are they made by a quintet (rather a trio or a quartet).
The liner notes provide short essays on spirituality and quotes from a variety of Eastern religious texts, which fit well with the mood of the music but do not give any further details about the recording. The remainder of the bonus tracks, however, have the same lineup of musicians and are in the same musical vein as the original tracks, so they are likely taken from the same recording session.
The similarity in the musical quality and style does not mean that these tracks are repetitive or indistiguinshable from each otheror formulaic in any way. On the contrary, each one is unique and full of surprises. They are like poems in a poetry jam session; each is unique on its own, but also an inalienable part of the whole.
The few other Rufus Harley tracks that I have heard (from his Atlantic years) seem like prototypes for this record. The ideas are there, but they are not as accomplished or fully realized as the ones on this recordingthus, while they're interesting, they're not as rewarding to listen to as this disc.
Bagpipes and jazz make an unusual combination, but this is a very creative, enjoyable and refreshing soul-jazz record that, while not necessarily groundbreaking, is very rewarding to listen to many times over.
Track Listing: Intro; The Crack; Re-Creation of the Gods; Nobody Knows the Trouble Us People Done Seen; This Little Light of Mine; Hypothesis; Gods and Godesses; Etymology.
Personnel: Rufus Harley: bagpipes & electric soprano sax; Bill Mason: organ; Larry Langston: percussion; Larry Randolph: electric bass..
Title: Re-Creation of the Gods | Year Released: 2006 | Record Label: Transparency
Rufus Harley CD/LP/Track Review Hrayr Attarian Transparency United States Re-Creation of the Gods
About Rufus Harley
Building a Jazz Library
Rare and Unusual Instruments in Jazz
Rufus Harley: Pipes of Peace
Re-Creation of the Gods by Hrayr Attarian
The Pied Piper Of Jazz by Jim Santella
Courage: The Atlantic...
ABC Records
Re-Creation of the...
The Pied Piper Of Jazz
King / Queens
Tim Wolfe, Jr.
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See How Alicia Took On the Pig-Tailed, Teenage Zombie in Fear the Walking Dead Episode 14
Posted by Cory Abbey
Alicia has decided to set out on her own and it’s not long before she’s trapped by Infected in a fast food joint.
She takes refuge in a children’s ball pit, but it turns out germs aren’t the biggest danger lurking within.
“I think it will be one of the most memorable scenes of the entire series,” says Alycia Debnam-Carey in a new video taking fans behind the scenes of the “comical” and “terrifying” encounter.
Go Behind the Scenes of Season 3, Episode 14 “El Matadero” With the Cast and Crew
The ball pit contains more than a good time; there’s also an Infected teen (with pig tails!) lurking just below the surface.
“I got to fight one crazy, little zombie teenager, all dressed in pink,” says Debnam-Carey.
Click here to hear more about the star’s “exhausting” day among a whole lot of balls. Plus, the cast and crew on how they filmed Diana’s impressive introduction.
Watch the episode now on amc.com and AMC apps for mobile, XBox One, Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast
Fear the Walking Dead‘s two-part Season Finale airs Sunday at 9/8c on AMC. Click here to add a reminder to your calendar.
To get full episodes, behind-the-scenes video and more, sign up for the weekly newsletter.
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(SPOILERS) Fear the Walking Dead Q&A — Bailey Gavulic (Annie)
(SPOILERS) Fear the Walking Dead Q&A — Alexa Nisenson (Charlie)
(SPOILERS) Fear the Walking Dead Q&A — Maggie Grace (Al)
(SPOILERS) Fear the Walking Dead Q&A — Colman Domingo (Strand)
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Trees after bushfire, Lobster Bay, New South Wales
06 Apr 1927 - 23 Jan 2003
All Details About Other works
David Moore was Australia’s most renowned and widely travelled documentary photographer. He began working as a photographer in 1947 in the commercial advertising studio of Russell Roberts. Between 1948 and 1951 he assisted Max Dupain, and began to develop his own approach to the documentary style, walking the streets of depressed inner-city suburbs of Sydney taking still photographs. Moore’s ‘Redfern interior’ 1949 was included in Edward Steichen’s ‘Family of Man’ exhibition, which toured internationally from 1955. Moore was one of two Australians to be included in the exhibition. In 1951 Moore turned down the offer of partnership with Dupain and moved to London to work for international picture magazines including the Observer, the New York Times, Time-Life, Look, and Sports Illustrated. From 1958 he travelled the world for the New York agency, Black Star, working for Time-Life books, National Geographic and corporate and industrial clients. His international assignments took him to Asia, America, Antarctica and Africa until the 1980s. Moore’s photographs are held in Australian and international collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, and the Smithsonian, Washington, DC.
Throughout his career, Moore demonstrated an astute ability to photographically articulate instances of serendipity and the conjunction of unexpected elements. He used the pictorial plane to draw disparate subjects into relationship with one another. As Judy Annear, senior curator of photographs at The Art Gallery of NSW, noted in 1997, Moore’s work is united by his ‘ongoing fascination with the structure of the image within the frame: its geometry and, within that geometry, the relationship between all the elements depicted, no matter how small they may be’. Whether photographing anthropomorphic objects or political events, Moore delivered sharp observation, dry wit and a sensitivity to form and composition.
Cibachrome photograph
32.3 x 48.2 cm image; 37.6 x 50.5 cm sheet
Signed and dated l.r. verso, ink "...c1976/ David Moore".
Gift of the artist 1988
© Lisa, Michael, Matthew and Joshua Moore
Browse other works by David Moore
David MooreQueenstown rocks No. 6 (1992)100.2004
David MooreQueenstown landscape No. 3 (1992)101.2004
David MooreDavid Potts sleeping on a yacht deck (circa 1948)109.1995
David MooreDock workers and the 'Himalaya' (1950)110.1995
David MooreHenry Moore, Sculptor, Much Hadham, UK (circa 1955)111.1995
David MooreHugh Gaitskell on election campaign UK (1955)112.1995
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HomeAbout Asimov'sHistory
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History of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
By Sheila Williams
Have you ever wondered where George R. R. Martin’s Daenerys Targaryen first appeared on the printed page? Where Kim Stanly Robinson first staked his claim on “Green Mars”? Who first published Octavia E. Butler’s Hugo and Nebula Award winning short fiction? What magazine was home to the first professional fiction publications of Jonathan Lethem, Kelly Link, and Allen M. Steele? Well, these and many other significant milestones can all be found in the pages of Asimov’s Science Fiction.
Asimov’s was founded in 1977 by Joel Davis and Isaac Asimov. Then known as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, it hit the newsstand with the Spring issue as a quarterly publication. The magazine immediately picked up a large number of subscribers and by the next year, it had expanded to a bi-monthly. By 1979, Asimov’s had become a monthly. The magazine is now released six times a year, each edition a substantial 208-page double issue.
Isaac Asimov was the editorial director, but he insisted on hiring excellent personnel to edit the magazine. Asimov’s founding editor, George H. Scithers, had already received the Hugo Award for his fanzine, Amra, when Isaac picked him to run Asimov’s. Both Isaac and George viewed the magazine as a market that would welcome beginning authors alongside well-known professionals. Authors whose careers George launched include Barry B. Longyear and S. P. Somtow. Barry Longyear’s novella, “Enemy Mine” (September 1979), won Hugo and Nebula awards and was made into a movie with Dennis Quaid and Lou Gossett, Jr. In addition to publishing award-winning stories, George won two Best Professional Editor Hugos before retiring from the magazine in 1982.
Kathleen Maloney took over as editor in 1982. Although she didn’t stay long, she managed to publish Connie Willis’s Nebula Award winning “A Letter from the Cleary’s” (June 1982) and to take me on as editorial assistant (also June 1982!). Kathleen left the magazine later that year and Asimov’s talented managing editor, Shawna McCarthy, took over the helm.
While remaining a welcoming home for new writers, Shawna’s Asimov’s acquired an edgier and more literary and experimental tone. Shawna published much of Connie Willis’s award-winning work as well as stories by Octavia E. Butler, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Lucius Shepard, Karen Joy Fowler, John Varley, Nancy Kress, Bruce Sterling, Esther M. Friesner, James Patrick Kelly, Kit Reed, John Kessel, Michael Swanwick, Roger Zelazny, Pat Murphy, Gardner Dozois, and many others. Shawna won a Hugo for Best Professional Editor in 1984.
Shawna McCarthy left the magazine at the end of 1985 and Gardner Dozois took over as editor with the January 1986 issue. Gardner had actually worked on the magazine as an associate editor for six months in 1977. And one of his two Nebulas had been awarded to his August 1983 Asimov’s short story “The Peacemaker.” Gardner continued to publish many of Shawna’s stalwarts as well as authors like Robert Reed, Jonathan Lethem, Greg Egan, Judith Moffett, Terry Bisson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mike Resnick, Allen M. Steele, Joe Haldeman, Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Geoffrey A. Landis, and Neal Barrett, Jr. In 1986, Gardner published the magazine’s first novel serialization, Count Zero by William Gibson, and he later serialized two novels by Michael Swanwick and Harlan Ellison’s screenplay for I, Robot. Gardner won an unprecedented fifteen Hugo Awards for his work as a professional editor before retiring in 2004.
Having served Asimov’s under almost every known editorial title, I took over as editor in chief with the January 2005 issue. Familiar bylines continue to appear in Asimov’s. In addition to many of the authors listed above, some like Paolo Bacigalupi, Kij Johnson, Ian McDonald, Frederik Pohl, Lisa Goldstein, Paul McAuley, Rudy Rucker, Chris Beckett, Alexander Jablokow, and Ian R. MacLeod, had earlier publications in Asimov’s. Other established writers, such as Carol Emshwiller, Elizabeth Bear, Brandon Sanderson, Aliette de Bodard, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ken Liu, Christopher Barzak, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Lavie Tidhar, Dale Bailey, Will McIntosh, Suzanne Palmer, Megan Arkenberg, and Daryl Gregory made their first appearances in Asimov’s over the past decade. Authors making sales to Asimov’s early in their careers during this period include Ted Kosmatka, Felicity Shoulders, Henry Lien, William Preston, Alice Sola Kim, Derek Künsken, Jeff Carlson, and Steve Bein.
Personnel change has not been limited to Asimov’s editors. The magazine started out life with regular editorials by Isaac as well as monthly puzzles by Martin Gardner, and a regular round-up of upcoming SF conventions by Erwin S. Strauss. Our long-time book reviewer was Baird Searles. Martin retired from the puzzle columns when Shawna McCarthy left the magazine, but along the way, we added book reviews by Norman Spinrad. Sadly, both Isaac and Baird passed away in the early nineties. In 1993, the editorialist mantle was passed to the superb author Robert Silverberg and he’s been writing “Reflections” columns for us ever since. Also in 1993, we picked up some new book reviewers, and twenty years later Peter Heck and Paul Di Filippo are still sending their reviews our way. In 1998, we added James Patrick Kelly’s bi-monthly column about what’s new “On the Net.” Every so often, we feature nonfiction “Thought Experiments” by authors like James Gunn, Ray Kurzweil, Allen M. Steele, Aliette de Bodard, and many others. Our award-winning poets include Robert Frazier, Bruce Boston, Jane Yolen, Megan Arkenberg, William John Watkins, Laurel Winter, and Janis Ian.
Since 2008, the magazine has also been a very popular digital download available from a variety of popular vendors – see them here.
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Study Claims Video Games Are Responsible For Young Men Working Less
© AskMen / Flickr
Trending News: Are Video Games Actually To Blame For Young Men Working Less?
A new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research claims that video games are to blame for young men working fewer hours than they were a decade ago.
Ask anyone why younger men seem to have trouble finding work and making ends meet, and they'll likely point to any number of widely-accepted reasons: globalization, a skills gap unaddressed by the education system, macroeconomic factors, shifts from full- to part-time labor, etc.
But what if, instead of men not being able to find work, they were actively avoiding it? And then what if you decided to go full cosmic brain and determined that, not only are they avoiding work, they're avoiding it because modern video games are just too danged good? That is the claim made in a new paper published by economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research, and it's, uh, really something.
Relayed by the New York Times' TheUpshot blog, the premise is that working hours for young men — aged 21 to 30 — fell by about 203 hours between 2000 and 2015. And according to government time use surveys, leisure time for men in that age group increased by 2.3 hours in a four-year span from 2012-2015 versus 2004-2007. Video games, they say, accounted for the biggest chunk of the increase in leisure time. It's all here in this chart:
No such increases in video game time was observed in women, or in men of other age groups.
The authors and experts interviewed by TheUpshot had several explanations for this: video games are much better now than they were 20 or even 10 years ago, they say. What's more, they're both more social and endless, giving players more incentive to log in and participate with friends in virtual worlds that aren't built around singular objectives.
That's all... very plausible, I guess, but does no one else find it weird that they're crediting video games with creating leisure time, when they've traditionally been used as a means to fill leisure time that already existed? Sure, you could look at an increase in leisure time driven by video games and conclude that people are working less to play video games more. Or, you could not be a crazy person, look at the same data, and conclude that people are not working as much as they used to (whether by choice or otherwise), and are spending that free time playing video games.
"The games are too good now" isn't really a convincing argument. Video games have always been good — the popularity of video games in the past is why we have have the "good" video games of today, after all. While the social aspect is fairly new (and I do mean fairly, guys were finding ways to link up and play online when I was in college over a decade ago), it's not as though multiplayer didn't exist. And besides, teenage me had no problem spending hours and hours finding every easter egg and alternate ending to games like Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy RPGs.
Even within TheUpshot's article, they cite experts who note that leisure time for young men hasn't similarly increased in places like Japan, where video games are just as (if not more) popular. Instead, it seems to just young, non-college-educated men here in the U.S. who are, if you believe these economist jamokes, are choosing to work less and play video games more.
Maybe, just maybe, it's because people with less education are more likely to have part-time work, and people with full-time work have found themselves with a little more time on their hands due to (among other things) improvements in technology and rollbacks on overtime budgets. Or, it could be because "video games are good now."
I dunno, I'm no economist.
Ask The Big Question
Are people working less and masturbating more now because the porn is better?
Drop This Fact
Video game sales in the U.S. peaked in 2008 at $23.5 billion (adjusted to 2012 dollars).
This Man Created the Ultimate Mobile Craft Beer BusinessRead More
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Computer Software Jobs»
Types of Training for Zoology
by Nancy Wagner
Zoologists study living species, and extinct ones.
1 What Fields Can You Work in for a Zoologist?
2 What Is the Worst Part of Being a Zoologist?
3 Animal Biology Careers
4 What Path Do I Take to Be a Zoologist?
Since the field of zoology is so broad, most students take training that lets them specialize in a particular type of the science. Zoologists study animals in the laboratory and in natural settings, so you must first obtain a bachelor’s degree in biology or zoology to secure an entry-level job. Obtaining a master’s degree or a PhD in a zoological specialty strongly improves the opportunities for job advancement.
All zoology students must take basic college courses in zoology and wildlife biology. Courses in these fields cover ecology, anatomy, cellular biology and wildlife management. General courses in botany, chemistry and physics help students gain a well-rounded background in the sciences. Most colleges require you to take courses in mathematics and statistics since zoologists frequently calculate complex data on the job. Computer science classes covering geographic information systems and modeling software come in handy, allowing zoologists to comfortably use advanced software.
Some zoologists concentrate on certain groups of wildlife. Mammalogy, the study of mammals, gets even more specialized, with classes in natural history, anatomy, ecology, taxonomy or wildlife management and control. Zoologists who pursue ornithology, the study of birds, learn everything about birds, including their genetics, migration patterns and illnesses. The study of insects is the specialty of entomology. Primatologists study nonhuman primates, with some specializing further in biology, anthropology or psychology.
Animal behavior studies appeal to zoologists who are curious why animals behave the way they do. Behaviorists study the functions, development and evolution of a variety of species, including mammals, birds, insects and more. Classes help animal behaviorists learn how animals find and protect their food and nesting resources, attract mates, reproduce and care for their young. They also study how behavior changes during an animal’s lifetime and try to determine whether genes or experience are behind those changes.
Before you get your degree, look for part-time jobs and summer internships that give you on-the-job training. You may even succeed in finding work on an original research project. These experiences give you a better idea of what zoology is all about. Once you graduate, you must continue your education for the rest of your career. Many zoologists rely on professional journals, such to keep up to date on the latest research and findings in their field. They often attend conferences and symposiums where they meet with their peers and other scientists to learn the latest techniques and findings.
2016 Salary Information for Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists
Zoologists and wildlife biologists earned a median annual salary of $60,520 in 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the low end, zoologists and wildlife biologists earned a 25th percentile salary of $48,360, meaning 75 percent earned more than this amount. The 75th percentile salary is $76,320, meaning 25 percent earn more. In 2016, 19,400 people were employed in the U.S. as zoologists and wildlife biologists.
United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics: How to Become a Zoologist or Wildlife Biologist
About Bioscience: Bioscience Careers: Mammalogist
About Bioscience: Bioscience Careers: Entomologist
American Institute of Biological Sciences: Careers in the Biological Sciences
About Bioscience: Bioscience Careers: Primatologist
About Bioscience: Bioscience Careers: Animal Behaviorist
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook: Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists
Career Trend: Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists
Wiley: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
Nancy Wagner is a marketing strategist and speaker who started writing in 1998. She writes business plans for startups and established companies and teaches marketing and promotional tactics at local workshops. Wagner's business and marketing articles have appeared in "Home Business Journal," "Nation’s Business," "Emerging Business" and "The Mortgage Press," among others. She holds a B.S. from Eastern Illinois University.
Wagner, Nancy. "Types of Training for Zoology." Work - Chron.com, http://work.chron.com/types-training-zoology-2967.html. Accessed 17 July 2019.
Wagner, Nancy. (n.d.). Types of Training for Zoology. Work - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://work.chron.com/types-training-zoology-2967.html
Wagner, Nancy. "Types of Training for Zoology" accessed July 17, 2019. http://work.chron.com/types-training-zoology-2967.html
The Characteristics to Be a Zoologist
Entomologist Pay Scale
What Are the Abilities & Skills Needed in Zoologists?
What Is the Type of Scientist Who Studies Tigers?
What Are the Dangers of Being a Zoologist?
What Is the Job Demand for an Ichthyologist?
Facts You Need to Know About Zoologists
The Advantages & Disadvantages of Being a Zookeeper
Careers With Dolphins & Whales
Careers That Work With Different Types of Animals Every Day
The Average Pay for a Zoologist
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Florida Panthers honor veterans with virtual flight to Washington
SUNRISE, FLA. (WSVN) - In honor of Veterans day, the Florida Panthers honored our nation’s finest with a unique experience.
It was a show of appreciation on the ice at the BB&T Center in Sunrise. The stands were packed with proud veterans who fought in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
The brave bunch was honored for Veterans Day with a virtual flight to Washington D.C.
“These gentlemen and women couldn’t make the flight, so they are experiencing what would’ve happened [Saturday] morning, I guess, if they were on the flight,” said Florida Panthers CEO and President Matthew Caldwell.
The Florida Panthers Foundation partnered with Honor Flight South Florida to create a memorable experience for the deserving heroes. The organization flies vets to see the memorials built in their honor, but since many can no longer travel, the action was brought to them.
“Great organization and this hub here in South Florida — Miami, South Florida — is just full of dedicated people that just do everything they can to make a veteran feel worthwhile,” said veteran Harvey Tarshis.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott also made an appearance via a pre-recorded video to show his respects.
“It’s an honor to be honored,” said veteran Al Trapanese. “It’s been so many years — 70 years when all this was all going on: Okinawa, the Philippine Liberation and all that stuff, but you can’t forget that stuff.”
The day was a salute to the men and women who selflessly served our country.
“Appreciation for my service, that’s what it means to me,” said veteran Jules Kesselman.
The event also served as a military appreciation day for all former and active duty military personnel and their families who live in South Florida.
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The Tommy Lama is Back! With Richy Leis
Richy Leis
with Richy Leis
Undeterred by his failure, he began a lifelong vision quest and found himself by traveling to the four corners of Google Earth. It was on this journey that he began using his powers for good. He took on the name given to him by his teacher, the great Maharaji Yamaha Suzuki Toyota, the Tommy Lama. After disseminating his message in comedy clubs, he became the back-to-back winner of the Boston and Seattle comedy competitions, appeared on the Bob and Tom Show, National Lampoon's Man Up Stand Up, and in commercials for Adidas, Monster.com and Lowe's.
MASTER HEALER TOMMY LAMA was born into harsh circumstances that would have doomed a lesser man. Tommy grew up in Brooklyn, a traditional community where people help people beat up other people. A place rich in cultures - mostly salmonella.
Tommy worked as a pest control technician while putting himself through law school until, a fateful evening he accidentally inhaled pesticide while trapped in a collapsing basement of a mini-mart. An event which changed his perspective and brain chemistry. As Tommy snapped into consciousness, he interpreted this event as a message from the universe to cleanse his Karma in order to make it into the next life. Fueled by his desire to make a difference, Tommy enlisted in the U.S.M.C summer program, where he was denied a purple heart despite nearly dying of exhaustion while still in boot camp.
A session with Tommy will change your life. Hate your job? I can show you how to get fired. Need to quit smoking? I will help you find an addiction better suited to your horoscope. Inadequate lover? I will help provide your wife with what she requires.
I have a long list of celebrity clients whose identities I cannot disclose (including Gary Busey, Nick Nolte, and Lindsay Lohan.)
Now is your turn to join their ranks.
Richy has produced thousands of shows since he started in the comedy business more than a decade ago. His production credits include the Glendale Laughs Comedy Festival, Burbank Comedy Festival, Boca Raton Comedy Festival, and more. Richy is a regular on TMZ Live, additional performance credits include finalist in the 2010 Miami Improv New Faces Competition, 2010 Palm Beach Improv New Faces Competition, Stand Up Comedy on MTV’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him” and much more. Richy has opened for comedians Dana Carvey, Jim Breuer, John Pinette, Jeff Garlin, Steve Byrne, Dom Irrera, Drew Lynch and more. Richy is based in Los Angeles and manages all west coast area operations.
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AGCO to Employ New Branding Strategy
00:00AM Oct 03, 2008
An AgWeb.com Farm Equipment Special
In the coming weeks and months, look for the AGCO line of farm equipment to sport a new-look corporate logo and to adopt a new branding strategy to unify their product line and identity.
According to the company’s media announcement, as part of their strategy AGCO will introduce a new corporate logo with a new tagline, “Your Agriculture Company.”
“The new tag line ‘Your Agriculture Company’ deliberately stretches the traditional rules of grammar. By focusing on ‘Agriculture’ as an industry, AGCO seeks to underscore its strategic role in shaping the future of agriculture through innovative equipment and technology solutions,” said Martin Richenhagen, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of AGCO Corporation.
About AGCO
Founded in 1990, AGCO Corporation is headquartered in the Atlanta suburb of Duluth and represents a conglomerate of familiar equipment brands.
AGCO, “Your Agriculture Company,” offers a full product line including tractors, combines, hay tools, sprayers, forage, tillage equipment and implements, which are distributed through more than 3,000 independent dealers and distributors in more than 140 countries worldwide.
AGCO products are sold through the core brands: Challenger®, Fendt®, Massey Ferguson® and Valtra®. AGCO provides retail financing through AGCO Finance.
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'Sugar House' Now Large Ethanol Producer
19:18PM Feb 27, 2015
The old Sugar House has been through a lot of changes over the years.
That's the name "old timers" like Larry Whitehouse still use to describe the ethanol plant operated by Aventine Renewable Energy in Pekin, Ill., the site of a sugar processing plant that first went into operation in 1899.
When sugar beets didn't work out in central Illinois, the plant converted to corn. "The corn milling plant was started in 1904. Its name was changed to Corn Products Co. in 1960 after merging with Best Foods," said Whitehouse, 75, who worked at the plant from 1957 until he retired in 1999.
In 1981, the plant went from producing corn starch and other corn products to ethanol, said Aventine CEO Mark Beemer. Aventine, which took over the facility in 2003, was the third ethanol producer at the site, following Pekin Energy and Williams Bio-Energy.
Changes continue. Sacramento-based Pacific Energy recently purchased Aventine to become the fifth largest ethanol producer in the country.
While Beemer isn't sure of his future once the transaction is completed later this year, he's confident that corn-based ethanol will continue to find a place in the marketplace.
"Ethanol remains the cheapest energy molecule out there. It's the most economical source of octane available," said Beemer, referring to ethanol's place as an additive in most unleaded gasoline sold in this country.
Ethanol prices have declined along with gasoline in recent months. "Ethanol is now around $1.40 a gallon — the lowest it's been since 2005. We've seen significant margin erosion," he said.
As a result, Aventine is reducing the grind rate at its plant in Aurora, Nebraska by 30 percent, said Beemer, who adds that there's a bright side to the drop in prices at the pump. "We're looking at a 3 or 4 percent increase in gasoline use (by motorists). As more gas is burned, we'll blend more ethanol," he said.
Ethanol also remains a robust export for the United States with nearly 1 billion gallons expected to be sold overseas this year, said Beemer, noting that distillers grains, a byproduct of processing corn into ethanol, is prized as feed for livestock — and as an export.
"With China's recent decision to buy distillers grains from the United States, the value of that product has gone up by 25 percent," he said.
The future of ethanol may be best reflected in the capital expenditures made at the Pekin plant where $30 million in upgrades have been made over the past two years.
"We just put in two natural gas boilers, retiring 70-year-old coal boilers at a cost of $13.2 million. That will save 13,000 tons of sulfur dioxide from going into the air each year. That's a big improvement in air quality for the Pekin area," he said.
As the Pekin plant has evolved over the years, the number of employees has declined. Today 205 people work at the facility while Whitehouse recalled that 1,500 worked there when he started in 1957.
When the plant was turning out corn products, the work was more labor-intensive than producing ethanol, said Beemer.--Steve Targer, (Peoria) Journal Star
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Home » The Airshow » Visiting the Show » Latest News » News: French Navy Sails for Air Tattoo!
French Navy Sails for Air Tattoo!
Published: 17 Apr 2018 updated: 23 Apr 2018
The French Navy has confirmed that it will feature in the flying display at this summer's Air Tattoo. The Rafale tactical demonstration, featuring two examples of the multirole French fighter jet, will make its debut at RAF Fairford, joining other nations to help celebrate the RAF's 100th anniversary.
The prototype Rafale first took to the air as long ago as 1986, but this is an aircraft at the cutting edge of modern fighter technology. The French Air Force flies both the single-seat Rafale C and two-seat Rafale B variants, while the French Navy operates the carrier-borne Rafale M. Both air arms have taken this very agile multi-role machine - capable of air-to-air, air-to-ground (including nuclear strike) and reconnaissance missions - on operations around the world.
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Atlanta’s aging assets: Underground, Civic Center, Cyclorama
Jeremiah McWilliams, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Inside a darkened amphitheater in Grant Park, the 127-year-old Atlanta Cyclorama — a panoramic painting weighing nine tons and stretching nearly 360 feet around — is starting to wrinkle. The painting of the 1864 Battle of Atlanta needs more than $8 million in restoration, according to one estimate.
Across Atlanta, a number of city-owned assets have been battered by economic troubles and must soon grapple with years of deferred maintenance and needed improvements potentially totalling millions of dollars. The main threat is that the costs could outweigh the benefits Atlanta receives from the properties.
Three miles north of the Cyclorama, the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center needs paint, updated bathrooms and handicapped-accessible railings. It will lose $400,000 annually over the next five years, according to one estimate.
Between those two sites, Underground Atlanta hasn’t come close to recapturing the groovy vibe of the 1970s, which raised hopes that it could help make Atlanta a 24-hour city. The city now subsidizes the three-level shopping and dining complex to the tune of $8 million a year.
With the budget under pressure from falling property tax collections, Atlanta leaders have commissioned task forces, paid tens of thousands of dollars for consultants’ studies and sounded out deep-pocketed private groups. Some question is whether the city is moving aggressively enough.
“I would like to see more urgency,” said Catherine Ross, who studies urban planning at Georgia Tech’s National Center for Transportation Productivity and Management. “I would like to see (the city) running as fast as we can.”
Atlanta has other pressing concerns, including an infrastructure backlog estimated at more than $920 million for streets, signs, bridges, city-owned vehicles and sidewalks.
City officials say they are taking a thoughtful, methodical approach and mulling a variety of options. The goal is to turn the properties into catalysts for economic development while minimizing the cost to taxpayers, said Duriya Farooqui, the city’s chief operating officer.
“We don’t believe that just making do is the right answer,” Farooqui said in an interview. “We are doing our due diligence on each of these assets, seeing what value they could potentially hold.”
Atlanta can boast some successes. In 2010, it struck a deal to sell the massive City Hall East complex on Ponce de Leon Avenue to developers including Jamestown Properties for $13.5 million upfront. That deal could net the city double that amount, depending on the success of the redevelopment.
The next year, the city sold 11 acres in Midtown to apartment company Post Properties for $6.7 million. It also saved about $2 million per year in rent and other costs when it consolidated most of its Department of Watershed in one downtown building.
Some ideas for dealing with the remaining assets are getting less attention than others. Although Mayor Kasim Reed’s staff says the city is exploring “all options” for the Civic Center this year, lackluster property values in a down economy could argue against selling the 18-acre site. And city leaders do not seem interested in selling the Cyclorama, an artwork Atlanta has owned since 1898.
The hope is that creative arrangements, such as teaming up with deep-pocketed private entities, could give key facilities the financial support they need while taking taxpayers off the hook for expensive upgrades and maintenance.
The Civic Center, for example, is seeking a new lease on life as a production and filming area for movies and television.
City-owned properties tend to become drained of resources over time, in Atlanta and elsewhere, said Harvey Newman, a Georgia State University professor of public management and policy. “With most infrastructure, it’s much easier to build than to maintain,” he said.
The downtown civic group Central Atlanta Progress and the Buckhead-based Atlanta History Center are eyeing the Cyclorama, which could eventually be moved. Relocating the painting and exhibit would probably cost more than $29 million, according to an advisory group’s report. A decision on what to do with the Cyclorama is not likely before late this year. A relocation would probably happen sometime after 2014, if it happens at all.
Given “how sad a state the painting and the building are in … time is not on the Cyclorama’s side,” one resident wrote on an online bulletin board for the Ormewood Park neighborhood. “It needs help, now.”
Meanwhile, city leaders are looking for retailers who could give a fresher look and vitality to Underground Atlanta. The property is operated by an outside company under a lease that expires in 2086. Reed, who told the newspaper early last year that he was in talks with two retailers that could serve as anchor tenants, has not announced a success on that front.
Underground’s operators say talks last year with an operator of nightlife businesses did not pan out.
Reed’s 10-year vision is for the area to be dominated by arts, culture and young people. The arrival of food trucks for Wednesday lunches brought some foot traffic. But it’s unclear if that energy will carry over into the rest of the week.
“I was down there on a weekday, and there just wasn’t much going on,” said Ruth Stanford, who teaches sculpture at Georgia State University and participated in Elevate/Art Above Underground, a public art exhibit on the site.
“There were lots of empty storefronts,” Stanford said. “It was a space designed for people to hang out in. Why is that all gone?”
Not all of Atlanta’s civic assets are troubled. A public-private partnership between Atlanta and American Golf Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif., yields about $450,000 a year for the city. The company runs five of the city’s golf courses. As of last summer, the company had spent more than $660,000 on capital improvements.
Similarly, a joint venture between the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Live Nation operates the Chastain Park Amphitheater.
But even the golf courses could use more attention. A city-commissioned study last year by Colorado-based consulting firm Golf Convergence Inc. documented potential improvements totaling more than $3.8 million over the next three years, including course renovations, clubhouse upgrades and flood protection. The city focused instead on cheaper upgrades such as new signs, mowers and wells for irrigation.
Meanwhile at the Civic Center, the needs seem more urgent. Although the impact of the economic downturn was cushioned somewhat by a surge in demand for television filming locations, the civic center as a whole is on pace to lose about $400,000 annually over the next five years, according to a study by outside consultants.
Aging amenities at its theater and competition from the Fox Theatre and the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre have cut into the bottom line. Many shows have moved away from the Civic Center to fresher digs. In 2007, for example, the Atlanta Opera moved outside the city, setting up shop at Cobb Energy.
Immediate action should be taken to prevent the Civic Center from becoming a drag on the city’s finances, according to a report last year from experts hired by the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District. A second sound stage could capture more of Atlanta’s burgeoning film and television industry and help shore up the Civic Center’s finances. But it is unclear if the city can or will ante up the money for that.
“When you’re dealing with fiscal challenges and declining revenues, there is no magic answer,” Farooqui said of Atlanta’s portfolio of properties. “It takes financial discipline, and it takes hard work, and it takes creativity.”
Key Atlanta properties
Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center
Key facts: With a history stretching back to its 1967 opening, the Civic Center has hosted some of the city’s premier events, including the opera and international exhibits on Princess Diana and King Tut. In recent years, the Civic Center has hosted filming for movies such as “Joyful Noise” and “The Three Stooges, ” the TV pilot episode of “The Walking Dead, ” Steve Harvey’s “Family Feud” and part of Denzel Washington’s movie “Flight.” But today, the facility on the edge of downtown Atlanta has a backlog of needed upgrades and is on pace to lose about $400,000 annually over the next five years, according to an outside consultant’s study. The Science and Technology Museum of Atlanta at the Civic Center has been closed for nearly a decade.
Key facts: When Underground Atlanta opened in 1969, it became an immediate hot spot for Atlanta nightlife with popular bars including Dante’s Down the Hatch and The Blarney Stone. Underground closed in 1980 after years of decline and a crime wave. It reopened in 1989, this time resembling a shopping mall more than an entertainment hub. Today, Underground managers estimate that 6 million people a year pass through the three-tiered complex, where nearly 80 percent of the retail space is occupied. But many of those visitors only use Underground to travel from one part of downtown to another. The attraction has struggled to recover from a string of setbacks, from the recession that stung tourism to the World Of Coca-Cola’s departure for the other side of downtown.
Cyclorama:
Key facts: Since 1921, a building in Grant Park has housed the massive, panoramic painting of the 1864 Battle of Atlanta. But now, with the painting in need of a restoration estimated at $8.2 million, city officials are considering the best place and use for it. The property — a key field-trip destination for fifth-graders in Atlanta Public Schools — is next to Zoo Atlanta. It turned modest profits the past three years, with earnings totaling about $70,000. But that number does not account for the need for heavy upkeep.
Key facts: American Golf Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif. signed leases through 2016 covering the city’s North Fulton, Bobby Jones, Browns Mill and Alfred Tup Holmes golf courses. The company also runs the Candler Park course under a management agreement. Overall, the city makes about $450,000 a year from the leases with American Golf Corp. The Chastain Park course, also managed by American Golf, in particular is a powerhouse, with 51,000 rounds played in 2011 and enough revenue to help offset a loss at the Candler Park course, which was put on a “Places in Peril” list by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation late last year. As of last summer, American Golf had spent more than $660,000 on capital improvements at the courses, according to documents provided by the city. Atlanta’s public courses serve about 150,000 people per year.
Chastain Park Amphitheater
Key facts: A joint venture between the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Live Nation operates the Chastain Park Amphitheater. Last year, the venue hosted artists including Gavin DeGraw, Colbie Caillat, Diana Krall, Kenny Rogers, James Taylor, Sting and the Allman Brothers Band.
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