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Mariah Carey Indefinitely Delays Release of New Album
Joe Lynch
Donna Svennevik/Getty Images
Brace yourselves, lambs: Mariah Carey will no longer unleash The Art of Letting Go on July 23. The former Idol judge tweeted the album just isn't ready to enter the world on its scheduled release date.
"While making this album, I got so immersed in the creative process that I just don't feel I would be doing it justice to release it on 7/23," Carey wrote on Twitter. "I'd rather not exclude meaningful songs. I want to give you this album as it's meant to be heard. When I'm ready, you'll be the first 2 know!"
So there you go. When she's ready to announce a new release date, her Twitter followers (i.e., the entire world) will be the first to know about it.
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© 2018 fuse, LLC. All rights reserved.
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← Railroad Tycoon
Opening the Gold Box, Part 5: All That Glitters is Not Gold →
What’s the Matter with Covert Action?
Covert Action‘s cover is representative of the thankfully brief era when game publishers thought featuring real models on their boxes would drive sales. The results almost always ended up looking like bad romance-novel covers; this is actually one of the least embarrassing examples. (For some truly cringeworthy examples of artfully tousled machismo, see the Pirates! reissue or Space Rogue.)
In the lore of gaming there’s a subset of spectacular failures that have become more famous than the vast majority of successful games. From E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial to Daikatana to Godus, this little rogue’s gallery inhabits its own curious corner of gaming history. The stories behind these games, carrying with them the strong scent of excess and scandal, can’t help but draw us in.
But there are also other, less scandalous cases of notable failure to which some of us continually return for reasons other than schadenfreude. One such case is that of Covert Action, Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley’s 1990 game of espionage. Covert Action, while not a great or even a terribly good game, wasn’t an awful game either. And, while it wasn’t a big hit, nor was it a major commercial disaster. By all rights it should have passed into history unremarked, like thousands of similarly middling titles before and after it. The fact that it has remained a staple of discussion among game designers for some twenty years now in the context of how not to make a game is due largely to Sid Meier himself, a very un-middling designer who has never quite been able to get Covert Action, one his few disappointing games, out of his craw. Indeed, he dwells on it to such an extent that the game and its real or perceived problems still tends to rear its head every time he delivers a lecture on the art of game design. The question of just what’s the matter with Covert Action — the question of why it’s not more fun — continues to be asked and answered over and over, in the form of Meier’s own design lectures, extrapolations on Meier’s thesis by others, and even the occasional contrarian apology telling us that, no, actually, nothing‘s wrong with Covert Action.
What with piling onto the topic having become such a tradition in design circles, I couldn’t bear to let Covert Action‘s historical moment go by without adding the weight of this article to the pile. But first, the basics for those of you who wouldn’t know Covert Action if it walked up and invited you to dinner.
As I began to detail in my previous article, Covert Action‘s development at MicroProse, the company at which Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley worked during the period in question, was long by the standards of its time, troubled by the standards of any time, and more than a little confusing to track in our own time. Begun in early 1988 as a Commodore 64 game by Lawrence Schick, another MicroProse designer, it was conceived from the beginning as essentially an espionage version of Sid Meier’s earlier hit Pirates! — as a set of mini-games the player engaged in to affect the course of an overarching strategic game. But Schick found that he just couldn’t get the game to work, and moved on to something else. And that would have been that — except that Sid Meier had become intrigued by the idea, and picked it up for his own next project, moving it in the process from the Commodore 64 to MS-DOS, where it would have a lot more breathing room.
In time, though, the enthusiasm of Meier and his assistant designer Bruce Shelley also began to evaporate; they started spending more and more time dwelling on an alternative design. By August of 1989, they were steaming ahead with Railroad Tycoon, and all work on Covert Action for the nonce had ceased.
After Railroad Tycoon was completed and released in April of 1990, Meier and Shelley returned to Covert Action only under some duress from MicroProse’s head Bill Stealey. With the idea that would become Civilization already taking shape in Meier’s head, his enthusiasm for Covert Action was lower than ever, but needs must. As Shelley tells the story, Meier’s priorities were clear in light of the idea he had waiting in the wings. “We’re just getting this game done,” Meier said of Covert Action when Shelley tried to suggest ways of improving the still somehow unsatisfying design. “I’ve got to get this game finished.” It’s hard to avoid the impression that in the end Meier simply gave up on Covert Action. Yet, given the frequency with which he references it to this day, it’s seems equally clear that that capitulation has never sat well with him.
Covert Action casts you as the master spy Max Remington — or, in a nice nod to gender equality that was still unusual in a game of this era, as Maxine Remington. Max is the guy the CIA calls when they need someone to crack the really tough cases. The game presents you with a series of said tough cases, each involving a plot by some combination of criminal and/or terrorist groups to do something very bad somewhere in the world. Your objective is to figure out what group or groups are involved, figure out precisely what they’re up to, and foil their plot before they bring it to fruition. As usual for a Sid Meier game, you can play on any of four difficulty levels to ensure that everyone, from the rank beginner to the most experienced super-sleuth, can be challenged without being overwhelmed. If you do your job well, you will arrest the person at the top of the plot’s org chart, one of the game’s 26 evil masterminds. Once no more masterminds are left to arrest, Max can walk off into the sunset and enjoy a pleasant retirement, confident that he has made the world a safer place. (If only counter-terrorism was that easy in real life, right?)
The game lets Max/Maxine score with progressively hotter members of the opposite sex as he/she cracks more cases.
The strategic decisions you make in directing the course of your investigation will lead to naught if you don’t succeed at the various mini-games. These include rewiring a junction box to tap a suspect’s phone (Covert Action presents us with a weirdly low-tech version of espionage, even for its own day); cracking letter-substitution codes to decipher a suspect’s message traffic; tailing or chasing a suspect’s car; and, in the most elaborate of the mini-games, breaking into a group’s hideaway to either collect intelligence or make an arrest.
Covert Action seems to have all the makings of a good game — perhaps even another classic like its inspiration, Pirates!. But, as Sid Meier and most of the people who have played it agree, it doesn’t ever quite come together to become an holistically satisfying experience.
It’s not immediately obvious just why that should be the case; thus all of the discussion the game has prompted over the years. Meier does have his theory, to which he’s returned enough that he’s come to codify it into a universal design dictum he calls the “the Covert Action rule.” For my part… well, I have a very different theory. So, first I’ll tell you about Meier’s theory, and then I’ll tell you about my own.
Meier’s theory hinges on the nature of the mini-games. He doesn’t believe that any of them are outright bad by any means, but does feel that they don’t blend well with the overarching strategic game, resulting in a lumpy stew of an experience that the player has trouble digesting. He’s particularly critical of the breaking-and-entering mini-game — a “mini-game” complicated enough that one could easily imagine it being released as a standalone game for the previous generation of computers (or, for that matter, for Covert Action‘s contemporaneous generation of consoles). Before you begin the breaking-and-entering game, you must choose what Max will carry with him: depending on your goals for this mission, you can give him some combination of a pistol, a sub-machine gun, a camera, several types of grenades, bugs, a Kevlar vest, a gas mask, a safe-cracking kit, and a motion detector. The underground hideaways and safe houses you then proceed to explore are often quite large, and full of guards, traps, and alarms to avoid or foil as you snoop for evidence or try to spirit away a suspect. You can charge in with guns blazing if you like, but, especially at the higher difficulty levels, that’s not generally a recipe for success. This is rather a game of stealth, of lurking in the shadows as you identify the guards’ patrol patterns, the better to avoid or quietly neutralize them. A perfectly executed mission in many circumstances will see you get in and out of the building without having to fire a single shot.
The aspect of this mini-game which Meier pinpoints as its problem is, somewhat ironically, the very ambition and complexity which makes it so impressive when considered alone. A spot of breaking and entering can easily absorb a very tense and intense half an hour of your time. By the time you make it out of the building, Meier theorizes, you’ve lost track of why you went in in the first place — lost track, in other words, of what was going on in the strategic game. Meier codified his theory in what has for almost twenty years been known in design circles as “the Covert Action rule.” In a nutshell, the rule states that “one good game is better than two great ones” in the context of a single game design. Meier believes that the mini-games of Covert Action, and the breaking-and-entering game in particular, can become so engaging and such a drain on the player’s time and energies that they clash with the strategic game; we end up with two “great games” that never make a cohesive whole. This dissonance never allows the player to settle into that elusive sense of total immersion which some call “flow.” Meier believes that Pirates! works where Covert Action doesn’t because the former’s mini-games are much shorter and much less complicated — getting the player back to the big picture, as it were, quickly enough that she doesn’t lose the plot of what the current situation is and what she’s trying to accomplish.
It’s an explanation that makes a certain sense on its face, yet I must say that it’s not one that really rings true to my own experiences with either games in general or Covert Action in particular. Certainly one can find any number of games which any number of players have hugely enjoyed that seemingly violate the Covert Action rule comprehensively. We could, for instance, look to the many modern CRPGs which include “sub-quests” that can absorb many hours of the player’s time, to no detriment to the player’s experience as a whole, at least if said players’ own reports are to be believed. If that’s roaming too far afield from the type of game which Covert Action is, consider the case of the strategy classic X-Com, one of the most frequently cited of the seeming Covert Action rule violators that paradoxically succeed as fun designs. It merges an overarching strategic game with a game of tactical combat that’s far more time-consuming and complicated than even the breaking-and-entering part of Covert Action. And yet it must place high in any ranking of the most beloved strategy games of all time. As we continue to look at specific counterexamples like X-Com or, for that matter, Pirates!, we can only continue to believe in the Covert Action rule by applying lots of increasingly tortured justifications for why this or that seemingly blatant violator nevertheless works as a game. So, X-Com, Meier tells us, works because the strategic game is relatively less complicated than the tactical game, leaving enough of the focus on the tactical game that the two don’t start to pull against one another. And Pirates!, of course, is just the opposite.
I can only say that when the caveats and exceptions to any given rule start to pile up, one is compelled to look back to the substance of the rule itself. As nice as it might be for the designers of Covert Action to believe the game’s biggest problem is that its individual parts were just each too darn ambitious, too darn good, I don’t think that’s the real reason the game doesn’t work.
So, we come back to the original question: just what is the matter with Covert Action? I don’t believe that Covert Action‘s core malady can be found in the mini-games, nor for that matter in the strategic game per se. I rather believe the problem is with the mission design and with the game’s fiction — which, as in so many games, are largely one and the same in this one. The cases you must crack in Covert Action are procedurally generated by the computer, using a set of templates into which are plugged different combinations of organizations, masterminds, and plots to create what is theoretically a virtually infinite number of potential cases to solve. My thesis is that it’s at this level — the level of the game’s fiction — where Covert Action breaks down; I believe that things have already gone awry as soon as the game generates the case it will ask you to solve, well before you make your first move. The, for lack of a better word, artificiality of the cases is never hard to detect. Even before you start to learn which of the limited number of templates are which, the stories just feel all wrong.
Literary critics have a special word, “mimesis,” which they tend to deploy when a piece of fiction conspicuously passes or fails the smell test of immersive believability. Dating back to classical philosophy, “mimesis” technically means the art of “showing” a story — as opposed to “diegesis,” the art of telling. It’s been adopted by theorists of textual interactive fiction as well as a stand-in for all those qualities of a game’s fiction that help to immerse the player in the story, that help to draw her in. “Crimes against Mimesis” — the name of an influential Usenet post written in 1996 by Roger Giner-Sorolla — are all those things, from problems with the interface to obvious flaws in the story’s logic to things that just don’t ring true somehow, that cast the player jarringly out of the game’s fiction — that reveal, in other words, the mechanical gears grinding underneath the game’s fictional veneer. Covert Action is full of these crimes against mimesis, full of these gears poking above the story’s surface. Groups that should hate each other ally with one another: the Colombian Cartel, the Mafia, the Palestine Freedom Organization (some names have been changed to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent), and the Stassi might all concoct a plot together. Why not? In the game’s eyes, they’re just interchangeable parts with differing labels on the front; they might as well have been called “Group A,” “Group B,” etc. When they send messages to one another, the diction almost always rings horribly, jarringly wrong in the ears of those of us who know what the groups represent. Here’s an example in the form of the Mafia talking like Jihadists.
If Covert Action had believable, mimetic, tantalizing — or at least interesting — plots to foil, I submit that it could have been a tremendously compelling game, without changing anything else about it. Instead, though, it’s got this painfully artificial box of whirling gears. Writing in the context of the problems of procedural generation in general, Kate Compton has called this the “10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal Problem.”
I can easily generate 10,000 bowls of plain oatmeal, with each oat being in a different position and different orientation, and mathematically speaking they will all be completely unique. But the user will likely just see a lot of oatmeal. Perceptual uniqueness is the real metric, and it’s darn tough. It is the difference between an actor being a face in a crowd scene and a character that is memorable.
Assuming that we can agree to agree, at least for now, that we’ve hit upon Covert Action‘s core problem, it’s not hard to divine how to fix it. I’m imagining a version of the game that replaces the infinite number of procedurally-generated cases with 25 or 30 hand-crafted plots, each with its own personality and its own unique flavor of intrigue. Such an approach would fix another complaint that’s occasionally levied against Covert Action: that it never becomes necessary to master or even really engage with all of its disparate parts because it’s very easy to rely just on those mini-games you happen to be best at to ferret out all of the relevant information. In particular, you can discover just about everything you need in the files you uncover during the breaking-and-entering game, without ever having to do much of anything in the realm of wire-tapping suspects, tailing them, or cracking their codes. This too feels like a byproduct of the generic templates used to construct the cases, which tend to err on the safe side to ensure that the cases are actually soluble, preferring — justifiably, in light of the circumstances — too many clues to too few. But this complaint could easily be fixed using hand-crafted cases. Different cases could be consciously designed to emphasize different aspects of the game: one case could be full of action, another more cerebral and puzzle-like, etc. This would do yet more to give each case its own personality and to keep the game feeling fresh throughout its length.
The most obvious argument against hand-crafted cases, other than the one, valid only from the developers’ standpoint, of the extra resources it would take to create them, is that it would exchange a game that is theoretically infinitely replayable for one with a finite span. Yet, given that Covert Action isn’t a hugely compelling game in its historical form, one has to suspect that my proposed finite version of it would likely yield more actual hours of enjoyment for the average player than the infinite version. Is a great game that lasts 30 hours and then is over better than a mediocre one that can potentially be played forever? The answer must depend on individual circumstances as well as individual predilections, but I know where I stand, at least as long as this world continues to be full of more cheap and accessible games than I can possibly play.
But then there is one more practical objection to my proposed variation of Covert Action, or rather one ironclad reason why it could never have seen the light of day: this simply isn’t how Sid Meier designs his games. Meier, you see, stands firmly on the other side of a longstanding divide that has given rise to no small dissension over the years in the fields of game design and academic game studies alike.
In academia, the argument has raged for twenty years between the so-called ludologists, who see games primarily as dynamic systems, and the narratologists, who see them primarily as narratives. Yet at its core the debate is actually far older even than that. In the December 1987 issue of his Journal of Computer Game Design, Chris Crawford fired what we might regard as the first salvo in this never-ending war via an article entitled “Process Intensity.” The titular phrase meant, he explained, “the degree to which a program emphasizes processes instead of data.” While all games must have some amount of data — i.e., fixed content, including fixed story content — a more process-intensive game — one that tips the balance further in favor of dynamic code as opposed to static data — is almost always a better game in Crawford’s view. That all games aren’t extremely process intensive, he baldly states, is largely down to the laziness of their developers.
The most powerful resistance to process intensity, though, is unstated. It is a mental laziness that afflicts all of us. Process intensity is so very hard to implement. Data intensity is easy to put into a program. Just get that artwork into a file and read it onto the screen; store that sound effect on the disk and pump it out to the speaker. There’s instant gratification in these data-intensive approaches. It looks and sounds great immediately. Process intensity requires all those hours mucking around with equations. Because it’s so indirect, you’re never certain how it will behave. The results always look so primitive next to the data-intensive stuff. So we follow the path of least resistance right down to data intensity.
Crawford, in other words, is a ludologist all the way. There’s always been a strongly prescriptive quality to the ludologists’ side of the ludology-versus-narratology debate, an ideology of how games ought to be made. Because processing is, to use Crawford’s words again, “the very essence of what a computer does,” the capability that in turn enables the interactivity that makes computer games unique as a medium, games that heavily emphasize processing are purer than those that rely more heavily on fixed data.
It’s a view that strikes me as short-sighted in a number of ways. It betrays, first of all, a certain programmer and systems designer’s bias against the artists and writers who craft all that fixed data; I would submit that the latter skills are every bit as worthy of admiration and every bit as valuable on most development teams as the former. Although even Crawford acknowledges that “data endows a game with useful color and texture,” he fails to account for the appeal of games where that very color and texture — we might instead say the fictional context — is the most important part of the experience. He and many of his ludologist colleagues are like most ideologues in failing to admit the possibility that different people may simply want different things, in games as in any other realm. Given the role that fixed stories have come to play in even many of the most casual modern games, too much ludologist rhetoric verges on telling players that they’re wrong for liking the games they happen to like. This is not to apologize for railroaded experiences that give the player no real role to play whatsoever and thereby fail to involve her in their fictions. It’s rather to say that drawing the line between process and data can be more complicated than saying “process good, data bad” and proceeding to act accordingly. Different games are at their best with different combinations of pre-crafted and generative content. Covert Action fails as a game because it draws that line in the wrong place. It’s thanks to the same fallacy, I would argue, that Chris Crawford has been failing for the last quarter century to create the truly open-ended interactive-story system he calls Storytron.
Sid Meier is an endlessly gracious gentleman, and thus isn’t so strident in his advocacy as many other ludologists. But despite his graciousness, there’s no doubt on which side of the divide he stands. Meier’s games never, ever include rigid pre-crafted scenarios or fixed storylines of any stripe. In most cases, this has been fine because his designs have been well-suited to the more open-ended, generative styles of play he favors. Covert Action, however, is the glaring exception, revealing one of the few blind spots of this generally brilliant game designer. Ironically, Meier had largely been drawn to Covert Action by what he calls the “intriguing” problem of its dynamic case generator. The idea of being able to use the computer to do the hard work of generating stories, and thereby to be able to churn out infinite numbers of the things at no expense, has always enticed him. He continues to muse today about a Sherlock Holmes game built using computer-generated cases, working backward from the solution of a crime to create a trail of clues for player to follow.
Meier is hardly alone in the annals of computer science and game design in finding the problem of automated story-making intriguing. Like his Sherlock Holmes idea, many experiments with procedurally-generated narratives have worked with mystery stories, that most overtly game-like of all literary genres; Covert Action‘s cases as well can be considered variations on the mystery theme. As early as 1971, Sheldon Klein, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, created something he called an “automatic novel writer” for auto-generating “2100-word murder-mystery stories.” In 1983, Electronic Arts released Jon Freeman and Paul Reiche III’s Murder on the Zinderneuf as one of their first titles; it allowed the player to solve an infinite number of randomly generated mysteries occurring aboard its titular Zeppelin airship. That game’s flaws feel oddly similar to those of Covert Action. As in Covert Action, in Murder on the Zinderneuf the randomized cases never have the resonance of a good hand-crafted mystery story. That, combined with their occasional incongruities and the patterns that start to surface as soon as you’ve played a few times, means that you can never forget their procedural origins. These tales of intrigue never manage to truly intrigue.
Suffice to say that generating believable fictions, whether in the sharply delimited realm of a murder mystery taking place aboard a Zeppelin or the slightly less delimited realm of a contemporary spy thriller, is a tough nut to crack. Even one of the most earnest and concentrated of the academic attempts at tackling the problem, a system called Tale-Spin created by James Meehan at Yale University, continued to generate more unmimetic than mimetic stories after many years of work — and this system was meant only to generate standalone static stories, not interactive mysteries to be solved. And as for Chris Crawford’s Storytron… well, as of this writing it is, as its website says, in a “medically induced coma” for the latest of many massive re-toolings.
In choosing to pick up Covert Action primarily because of the intriguing problem of its case generator and then failing to consider whether said case generator really served the game, Sid Meier may have run afoul of another of his rules for game design, one that I find much more universally applicable than what Meier calls the Covert Action rule. A designer should always ask, Meier tells us, who is really having the fun in a game — the designer/programmer/computer or the player? The procedurally generated cases may have been an intriguing problem for Sid Meier the designer, but they don’t serve the player anywhere near as well as hand-crafted cases might have done.
The model that comes to mind when I think of my ideal version of Covert Action is Killed Until Dead, an unjustly obscure gem from Accolade which, like Murder on the Zinderneuf, I wrote about in an earlier article. Killed Until Dead is very similar to Murder on the Zinderneuf in that it presents the player with a series of mysteries to solve, all of which employ the same cast of characters, the same props, and the same setting. Unlike Murder on the Zinderneuf, however, the mysteries in Killed Until Dead have all been lovingly hand-crafted. They not only hang together better as a result, but they’re full of wit and warmth and the right sort of intrigue — they intrigue the player. If you ask me, a version of Covert Action built along similar lines, full of exciting plotlines with-a-ripped-from-the-headlines feel, could have been fantastic — assuming, of course, that MicroProse could have found writers and scenario designers with the chops to bring the spycraft to life.
It’s of course possible that my reaction to Covert Action is hopelessly subjective, inextricably tied to what I personally value in games. As my longtime readers are doubtless aware by now, I’m an experential player to the core, more interested in lived experiences than twiddling the knobs of a complicated system just exactly perfectly. In addition to guaranteeing that I’ll never win any e-sports competitions — well, that and my aging reflexes that were never all that great to begin with — this fact colors the way I see a game like Covert Action. The jarring qualities of Covert Action‘s fiction may not bother some of you one bit. And thus the debate about what really is wrong with Covert Action, that strange note of discordance sandwiched between the monumental Sid Meier masterpieces Railroad Tycoon and Civilization, can never be definitely settled. Ditto the more abstract and even more longstanding negotiation between ludology and narratology. Ah, well… if nothing else, it ensures that readers and writers of blogs like this one will always have something to talk about. So, let the debate rage on.
(Sources: the books Expressive Processing by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and On Interactive Storytelling by Chris Crawford; Game Developer of February 2013. Links to online sources are scattered through the article.
If you’d like to enter the Covert Action debate for yourself, you can buy it from GOG.com.)
Posted by Jimmy Maher on March 24, 2017 in Digital Antiquaria, Interactive Fiction
Tags: covert action, meier, microprose, shelley
72 Responses to What’s the Matter with Covert Action?
Jason Lefkowitz
Meier had largely been drawn to Covert Action by what he calls the “intriguing” problem of its dynamic case generator. The idea of being able to use the computer to do the hard work of generating stories, and thereby to be able to churn out infinite numbers of the things at no expense, has always enticed him.
And not just stories — see, for instance, his 1994 title C.P.U. Bach, which was an engine for generating infinite numbers of Baroque compositions.
Brian Roy
I love Covert Action, but I have to admit that your criticisms ring pretty true, more true for my experiences than Mr. Meier’s hypothesis on the game anyway. Procedurally generated plots sound like a great feature. As you said, though, they very quickly start to feel “game-like” and “the gears poke through.” I even have considered intentionally not foiling plots when I pay sometimes, so that I could play through the second stage of the plot and get to experience more of the templates, as it doesn’t take long to realize how few each difficulty level really has.
All that said, it’s still got some really enjoyable minigames as far as I’m concerned. I love doing the wiretapping and cryptography games, personally, and in spite of its flaws, it’s a game I still enjoy.
Thank you, as always, for a great article, Jimmy.
AguyinaRPG
Second paragraph, Meier is spelled “Meir”.
Also, “he baldly states”. For all I know that may have been the intention though!
I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Covert Action, though I might have to look a little deeper into it after watching a bit of footage for some context.
As to the whole ludology versus narrative divide, I’ve heard a lot of interesting arguments over the years. There’s a brief “History of Stealth Games” on Youtube where the guy makes the argument of both schools needing to be taken into account to define a Stealth Genre. I don’t necessarily agree with that,certainly in my own games and research I am a ludologist, but it’s a more nuanced point than I often hear where narrative becomes a stage just because people apparently can’t understand stories through -doing-. That’s not what you’re arguing, I can tell, but it’s the insinuation I get a lot.
I do think you’re too harsh on procedural generation, going all the way back to Murder on the Zinderneuf. I think that’s one of the greatest potentials for expressing the uniqueness of a story within a video game setting, None of these early games did it well when applying it to the narrative aspects, but I definitely think that it has been done well at some point (and perhaps you’ll cover that when we get there). I think the trick is not to randomly generate a *story* (yet) and instead alter certain aspects of it.
Your second correction was indeed as intended. Thanks for your thoughts!
Low blow Jimmy, low blow. (Though he deserves it)
Oh, I see what you mean. No pun was intended, although I could almost wish I was clever enough to have thought of that one. ;)
Pedro Timóteo
First, great as always. I played a lot of this game back in the day, and I’ve always *wanted* to like it more than I actually do.
It’s interesting to speculate/opine about what’s wrong with the game. Meier himself says it’s because both parts (the strategic game and the mini-game where you spend 90% of the playing time) are both involving, and the mini-game takes too long to play; Meier has mentioned the example of why, when two units fight in Civilization, you don’t go into a full tactical battle that takes half an hour to play. However, the X-Com example you mention (where, I think, it works perfectly) contradict that, as do other games such as the Total War series, which *does* have 30-minute battles when armies meet.
Why do these work while CA doesn’t? My best guess would be that the X-Com missions and the Total War battles are more directly connected to what you’re doing in the strategic game. In X-Com, you’re investigating a UFO you just shot down, or fighting a terror attack that just happened; in Total War, it’s an army that you need to defeat. In Covert Action… it’s almost as if you’re breaking into a building just because it’s there. Yes, it might have a suspect or item you need to progress in the game, but other than that, every building feels like the same, has the same challenges, has information relevant to the case even it’s the “wrong” building, and so on. It’s just something you need to do several times per case in order to progress.
Also, I think, as a mini-game, it was done much better in Microprose’s Sword of the Samurai (where it was far shorter, more action-based, and, again, more related to what was happening, instead of feeling “generic.”)
I agree with you about the “this is obviously randomly generated” you get from the game, but I wouldn’t actually go all the way in the opposite direction (a couple of dozen hand-crafted cases). It should be possible, I think, to achieve the best of both worlds: better “pieces” of content, more variety, and more unpredictability (e.g.. on each situation, the bad guys might do different things, instead of following a set path; also, plot types might be separated into “early game”, “middle game” and “end game”, so that the player wouldn’t be thinking “yawn, I already did five cases just like this.”
Typo: “Sherlock Homes”. Also (from re-reading), there’s a “Mier” here. :)
I have two pet examples of multi-genre games that illustrate the problem of mixing a good game blend. Dune (1991) for one is a real-time strategy game combined with a first-person adventure: you follow the storyline to gain new followers and powers with which to win at the strategic game so the story ends well. In other words, the two faces of the game support and complement each other (though I’m told much of the story can be skipped if you’re good at the strategy side and just want to make a speedrun).
On the other hand, Alien Legacy is an adventure game with a SimCity and shooter minigame thrown in for no good reason. And at least the shooter parts, based on the largely forgotten Star Raiders II (a favorite of mine, as it happens), work great. The strategy angle however is botched: I could never figure out how to make those little space colonies work at all, and without them you’re left hanging. Worse, the story is grand and elaborate enough that restarting the game if you get stuck feels like just too much trouble. So the whole thing falls flat, which is too bad because the story is awesome and I would have loved to see how it ends.
That said, I think RPGs are a bad example, because every single side quest in an RPG is based on the exact same mechanics as the bigger game. That those mechanics themselves consist of several minigames is less relevant, because 1) you play the same combination thereof to solve everything and 2) those mechanics can’t even work at all in isolation — each of them contributes part of an overarching experience. In a certain family of tabletop RPGs, mechanics are even used to build a frame for player-driven story building, so the two angles become not just inseparable but indistinguishable!
As for games being all about mechanics… oh dear, oh dear. Even in roguelikes, that revel in intricate clockworks of rules and formulae feeding off each other, a big part of the code is actually data: tables of monsters, weapons, spells, potions and other elements the game can recombine into something useful. And all the best examples also rely on prefabricated pieces to be inserted at key points into the game. As Fred Brooks Jr. famously said, “show me your code, and I still need to see your tables; show me your tables, and I don’t need to see your code”.
Regarding Mr. Crawford, with all due respect for his very real accomplishments, I suspect he never truly understood the point of stories. I remember exploring the question on my own blog — with your help — and failing to hit the mark myself. Stories, you see, need to be relevant: to have some sort of meaning for the audience. Some reason for the audience to give a damn about the characters and what happens to them. And in my experience, most people who try their hand at storytelling don’t get it. Many of them succeed anyway, simply by virtue of having a life they can draw from. A computer program however doesn’t; it’s just the proverbial million monkeys, banging away at their million typewriters. And it would take an infinite improbability drive for them to come up with another Hamlet.
“In a certain family of tabletop RPGs, mechanics are even used to build a frame for player-driven story building, so the two angles become not just inseparable but indistinguishable!”
Which family of RPGs would that be?
I also compared MicroProse’s enjoyable “Sword of the Samurai” to “Covert Action” in the last post before realising there would be a separate entry here, but now I realise the better comparison is between “Sword” and “Pirates!”. The former’s tactical games are more detailed (it’s physically stressful to wait in your castle as ninja appear), and the strategic game is more flimsy. It’s also possible that all these stories seem less silly when distant in time and space, and that people living in China or 2300 might not care about the differences between the Mafia and the Black Panthers.
I suppose ultimately, the thing that game creators need to remember is that process-heavy and data-heavy games are both valid approaches, just different ones, and the trick is to identify which works best with what you’re trying to achieve. Dwarf Fortress is a magnificent achievement in what it does, but it doesn’t mean that, say, Portal would be a better game if you could decide to just ignore GLaDOS and spend six months of real time building a Turing Machine instead.
On a related note – and I don’t mean to bash him too hard – I see Crawford states on his site that the next implementation of Storytron will likely leave out computer-controlled characters altogether and have them all run by players. Which seems to be missing the point somewhat, and leads to the unfortunate feeling that Crawford has spent three decades of his life and considerable sums of money just to reinvent the MUD.
A huge problem with Crawford’s approach, and one which I think he has consistently underestimated through all his decades of work on Storytron, is that of *communication* between the player and his interactive stories. We expect to be able to do that in language, but it’s very difficult to make a computer understand natural language, and if anything even harder to get it to output readable text from a pile of raw data. You can have the most compelling story in the world sitting in memory, but if you can’t *tell* it to the player what good does it do you? At least to some extent this problem might be conquerable with the benefit of modern developments in software engineering and modern hardware, but doing so would require great piles of cash — how much has Google poured into Google Translate by now, still with very imperfect results? — which Crawford doesn’t have. In lieu of being able to communicate in a natural way, he’s fallen back on arcane systems of symbols. The end results don’t have much resemblance to anything people think of when they think of a good story.
I think the player’s context factors in hevily… as 10-12 year old when I first played this game the procedural case generation issues didn’t really matter because I hadn’t developed a broad enough understanding of geopolitics and the like, and was more focused on the mini-games and individual missions. Sure, it has a bit of where in the world is carmen sandiego simplicity but still, as I’ve revisited the game more recently I think it holds up fairly well despite its short-comings. This is especially true when you compare it to the strict linear storylines of other “quest” type games of the same era. apple v oranges.
…also, this reminds me I have Covert Action installed on this machine. Might have to play a mission or two. Kind of difficult without a real keyboard though!
Good lord, global threat is outright impossible. Local is laughably easy. Played through National and Regional catching 6 masterminds without too much trouble. Switched to global for the last couple and now I remember why I quit playing this game as a kid — ha!
S. John Ross
My long-standing observation, similar to the oatmeal quote, is “whenever they promise X billion to the trillion combinations, it always feels like five.”
I’m fascinated by the ludologist/narratologist thing, since both sound so unsatisfying to me and run contrary to my own ideals in design – and they do so pretty much equally.
In terms of games like this vs. games like Civilization, I have an easy answer for my own tastes, which is that Civilization is an instrument of creativity … As a Civ player, I’m not just being asked to solve a procedurally-generated problem; I’m given a paintbox and a canvas and I’m creating according to rules, and my creation is challenged by procedurally-generated problems. That layer, being invited to MAKE, is what brings me back to Civ (in virtually all its incarnations) time and again. Ultimately, it means that every civilization I create is, in fact, a piece of hand-crafted, non-procedural content for me to enjoy.
You hit upon an interesting aspect of the ludologist/narratologist split, I think. Both agree that games are creative endeavors, but they tend to differ on where they place the most important source of creativity. Narratologists tend to take a more traditionalist approach, considering games to be authored works like books or movies; as with those other mediums, the creative force behind them is the designer. Ludologists see games as something entirely distinct from other forms, something which cannot be criticized using the same approaches. They place the creative emphasis on play itself, seeing the creators as the *players*.
As is not hard to discern from reading a few of my articles, I lean toward narratology in my own criticism and the types of games I mostly choose to criticize. But the reality in my view is that games taken as a whole are a little of both. So, while it’s hard to see something like Trinity as anything other than Brian Moriarty’s personal literary expression, your experience of Civilization is equally valid. And both games are in their own ways brilliant. I don’t care if people prefer one approach or the other. I only get annoyed when they start to say one approach or the other is *invalid*.
“You hit upon an interesting aspect of the ludologist/narratologist split, I think.”
Entirely accidental, I promise. My only intended comment on the ludologist/narratologist thing was (and remains) “they both sound awful.” I don’t think either sounds invalid.\
And I may just be misunderstanding the terms, but as described here, it sounds like “Game designers disagree on whether games should be miserably dull or wretchedly tedious.”
“whenever they promise X billion to the trillion combinations, it always feels like five”
Which is exactly why No Man’s Sky disappointed so many people — a bullet the creators of Elite! dodged by trimming the many billions of possible galaxies down to just eight. And we should have known, because they did have the ability to offer players billions of galaxies at the time, even on limited 8-bit machines. Hardware wasn’t the issue. But nowadays many developers allow themselves to be blinded by all this computing power we no longer know what to do with.
See, procedurally generated worlds suffer from the same issue as procedurally generated stories: not so much that they’re monotonous — the real world can be, too, and better PCG techniques can alleviate the problem — but that they’re inconsequential. What, after all, make my own neighborhood inherently more interesting than any other in the city? Nothing, of course, except for the fact that I lived in it for 32 years and the experiences I had here shaped me in ways that other people might learn from. A computer-generated locale, no matter how intricate and plausible the simulation, simply won’t be anything to anybody.
At least Minecraft allows you to take ownership of those humongous worlds (or rather, tiny slices thereof) by changing them in ways that are uniquely yours. And sure enough, it’s one of the most successful games ever. If only people have gotten the point instead of mindlessly trying to clone the superficial aspects of the original.
But then we wouldn’t be having this discussion, would we now?
Yeah, that was what I meant with my Civ comment … if it consisted only of procedurally-generated stuff, I’d tune out immediately. But, like Minecraft, it makes room for the player to bring some personality to something that would otherwise lack it.
It sounds like Covert Action had no interest in authorship on either side of the monitor … that the designers didn’t feel compelled to create much, and also didn’t leave room for the player to.
G Ozen
Reverting the roles could turn Covert Action into a paintbox maybe? As a good spy, you have no option but to figure out the procedurally generated one unique solution. But the mastermind can use different groups in different ways to accomplish his goals. That even makes cooperation between hostile groups sensible as you would be forcing/persuading them (via mini games) to work together.
Jimmy, great article. This one should go straight into the Hall Of Fame.
In support of your argument of why this game doesn’t work quite well, Activision did their own interpretation of the same spy-thriller concept with “Spycraft: the great game”. It was a fully story-driven collection of mini-games, some good, some average. It sure must have made Chris Crawford really mad at the time, since, as many titles from the era, it came on three CD’s full of Full-Motion-Video and photo-realistic backgrounds and props. As much as most of us have come to despise FMV nowadays, I remember actually having fun with Spycraft and getting sucked-in by the Clancy-esque plot. It was all done with solid production values and good writing. Microprose really went in the wrong direction and Meier was fully aware of the fact but, being a ludologist, drew his own strange conclusion about the length of the mini-games.
Regarding Crawford’s and Meier’s core arguments, if long mini-games are so toxic to game design, Why did SSI’s Gold Box series become so popular ? After all, some key battles (i.e. mini-games) could take hours and the main plot, very simple in its essence, was revealed through massive amounts of “fixed data” : maps, paragraphs, histories, static NPC’s, etc … , and we could say almost the same about Interplay’s Lord Of the Rings Trilogy, based on the most data-heavy works of fantasy in the history of literature.
Regarding “the divide” : for a successful example of a game designer striving for a perfect balance between process and story one should turn to Richard Garriott and his Ultima series, which have been addressed expertly by you in this blog. He started to tone down the “mechanical” aspects and flesh out a coherent fiction in III, managing a good balance and an engaging story in IV, and then went on to seek a more complex world model with V and VI with mixed results. As you pointed out in your post about it, V didn’t quite achieve Garriott’s ambitious goals for it -mainly due to him stubbornly clinging to the 8-bit platforms, in my opinion- but is perfectly balanced.
Finally, for me Ultima VI is a perfect example of everything you say in this post : its “process” side is as solid as can be for an RPG, even allowing the player to cook, repair weapons, etc … , the quintessential “sandbox” game, but its “story” side is also very impressive, with very detailed lore, NPC’s that are more like characters in a play and a complex plot that presents timeless issues in a very mature way, all of it dressed up in piles of gorgeous “data”. Nevertheless, almost everybody who has played it levels the same complaint at VI : its excessive characterization of the “Avatar” both during the intro and in-game breaks mimesis noticeably by not letting players cast themselves adequately in the lead role, only to “control” the protagonist. Maybe an extra disk full of portraits and garments and a sophisticated character creation sub-program would have been enough. Later RPG’s and even Remakes of Ultima V and VI offer this kind of thing.
Ultima VI doesn’t quite get there for me, for reasons I’ll describe in a future article. (It feels rather stranded between the old way and the new, neither fully one nor the other.) Ultima VII, though, does everything you describe here to very good effect — even if that does include this increasingly strained and silly over-characterization of the Avatar.
That was a little too long, sorry ! (hope you and your readers don’t get bored halfway through)
It’s odd that Crawford ships so much criticism and hate from text adventure hobbyists, when from outside they’re clearly on the same side, ranged against the overwhelmingly more popular types of simulation games that set you as the only thinking person in the world – “you are a soldier / a fast driver / a dictator”.
This is sadness, not hate. The man’s a genius. I consider The Art of Computer Game Design to be required reading for any aspiring developer. And what he’s done in recent decades remains important as fundamental research. Still can’t help but feel it was a waste of his talents, quixotically focusing for so long on a single aspect that, as it turns out, simply doesn’t work. And all because he insisted to hold onto the — admittedly widespread — misconception that any random chain of events barely connected to each other somehow counts as a story.
I agree. I don’t think all that much of Crawford’s games as games. Most have been made as demonstrations of his theories, and have skipped the essential stage of the process which Sid Meier calls “finding the fun.” But his was a very important voice in getting game makers to take their craft seriously, and his ideas, even when I disagree with them, have always been provocative and eminently worthy of discussion. It’s been a shame to see him essentially remove himself from the discussion these past 25 years in favor of chasing his White Whale.
Might have something to do with his habit of repeatedly calling out text adventures as a betrayal of their medium’s potential. ;)
If you play as Maxine, do you also score with progressively hotter secretaries? I suppose it wouldn’t be prohibitive to create twice as many secretary art assets, male and female–I remember 1990 and am guessing that a mainstream game wasn’t going to allow you to choose your sexual orientation. But it seems like, even more so than allowing you to play as a woman, it would be progressive for all the secretaries to be male. I’m imagining that you work your way up to Chris Hemsworth’s character from the remake of Ghostbusters.
Also, are the secretaries procedurally generated? Seems like something that could certainly be done today.
I may owe you a serious comment after this one.
actually, yeah they’re dudes instead if you pick maxine — ha!
Are they still secretaries? I had thought that you were romancing secretaries in other organizations to get intelligence, but on further investigation it kind of looks like they’re from the pool at HQ at the end of every level–which is both more boring and somehow skeevier.
Your overall ranking combined with mission ranking determines the “eye candy” at the end of each mission, if memory serves. And it’s just eye candy, with no bearing on the game. The office gives way to a hotel bar, and then a casino, and then the beach, I think. The eye candy characters are progressively more attractive, but I don’t remember them being procedurally generated the way in game characters are. I don’t personally remember associating any except the first with “secretary,” but one’s mileage may vary.
I honestly didn’t know what happened if you played Maxine, so thanks for that. (Given the nature of games at the time, I kind of imagined you might get to join progressively better knitting clubs or something).
Nor, I’m embarrassed to say, am I at all certain that they’re all secretaries. Made some edits to that caption… okay, pretty much rewrote it. :)
I was looking around and found this screenshot saying “The stories of a secret agent can only be gossiped to secretaries with a clearence [sic] level of AA or above.” Which makes it sound kind of like they are secretaries at least at the beginning… and could it be that the better you do in the game, the higher the clearance level required for the stories you have to tell, and it just so happens that the NPCs with higher clearance level are also more attractive? Probably not, but clearly someone is going to have to do a deep dive into the game to refresh our collective memory.
Having tried to find that again by searching for things like “covert action secretaries aa clearance,” I expect they’ll be coming to take me away any time now.
For the record, this review has screenshots of a playthrough as Maxine, with a few of the eye candy guys… it’s the thought that counts, I guess. Blue-cardigan-over-black-turtleneck guy seems not to be an end of level reward but your actual secretary and in-game mechanic, Sam, who if you play as Maximilian is a woman with gold hoop earrings dressed in a tuxedo and black bowtie like a wedding bartender. I just don’t know, man.
David Boddie
That’s not a bad piece of box art, really. Certainly no worse than the one for Railroad Tycoon.
But “Max Remington”? I’m sure he must have been the master of close shaves in the spy world…
He’s based on a real person, actually. For instance, he was the artist in Railroad Tycoon, and his picture appears with Meier’s and Shelley’s in one of that game’s title screens.
That link appears to be miscoded or something, because though it’s turning link color it doesn’t seem to actually be pointing to any address.
I don’t know what Pedro was linking to, but here’s a mobygames page for Max Remington III.
Hmm, I was sure I linked to that same URL… weird. Maybe I mistyped something. Thanks!
Yeah, sometimes this happens to me–I miss a quotation mark (I think that’s what does it) and I get link-colored text with no link. Glad that was what you meant!
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Ricky Derocher
If you want to see bad box art – try the US release of “Lancelot” – http://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/90461-lancelot-commodore-64-front-cover.jpg
whomever
OMG, that is absolutely hilarious.
I’m not familiar with the game, but that looks like deliberate parody to me. Inflatable stegosaurus (?), come on.
The game itself is actually serious – one may think that it a parody by the US box art.
Here is the European box art for comparison:
http://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/256688-lancelot-commodore-64-front-cover.jpg
Geez Louise. I don’t know what they were thinking misrepresenting the game like that, then. I mean, the art for Covert Action is certainly a touch cheesy, but at least seems reasonably in line with the tone of the game.
Jason Dyer
This is one of the best articles you’ve written.
ZUrlocker
Agreed, this is a great posting. One of the best. Really interesting to get your analysis of Covert Action. I bought this game back in the 90s and found it rather lackluster and now I know why! I’m a big fan of espionage novels, movies etc, and Covert Action failed to deliver on those expectations. The minigames to me felt too arbitrary and removed from the story. I found Spycraft more compelling, but also somewhat long-winded. Anyways, great to give this genre it’s due.
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Chris Ogilvie
I want to thank you for this article – it’s crystallized some thoughts I’ve had about games for some time that I’ve not been able to properly express until now.
For years, I’ve found certain strategy games that I otherwise love to be somehow… lacking. Especially in the end-game. I’m talking about games like Master of Orion II or, fittingly enough, games from the Civilization series. I enjoy them well enough, but I always have an itch at the back of my head somehow wanting something more. And I’ve never been able to figure out just *what* that something would be.
But now I think I’ve nailed it.
Take MoO II for example. Playing it, I know I would often want more of a sense of exploring and settling the galaxy, of the politics of managing an interstellar empire, and of dealing with alien races in a meaningful way. And the game itself never really provided those things. In the end, it always came down to manipulating game elements and systems, rather than providing me the *experience* that I was hoping for.
I’ve known for years that I’m 100% an experiential gamer. So much so that I often find myself thinking “This game would be so much better of they stripped the gameplay out of it.” But I’d never made the link between that preference of mine and the deficiency (to me, anyway) in certain strategy games. Until just now.
It seems to me that, like Covert Action, my problem with games like MoO II is that they have a great many procedural elements and lack a hand-crafted narrative. It’s all ludology (and, in the case of Civ or MoO, *brilliant* ludology) and no narrative. And narrative is what would provide the subjective experience that I want out of the games.
Which means that what I *want* is MoO II, but with carefully-crafted narratives that support the *experience* of settling and managing a galactic empire. Instead, what I get is 10,000 unique galaxies to play in… each one of which is a perfectly serviceable, and nearly indistinguishable, bowl of oatmeal.
So, again, *thank you* for this article. It’s been years that I’ve not been able to figure out just what I found lacking in these sorts of games. Being able to put my finger on it, finally, is like being able to scratch an awful, persistent itch.
If you haven’t played them, you might want to look at the original X-Com and Alpha Centauri sometime. Both make an effort to inject some narrative elements into their grand strategy. Feel free to report back at some time in the future if you do get a chance to play them. ;)
Ah, Alpha Centauri has been a favourite of mine since it came out. Probably for exactly the reason you mention. There’s such a sense of history and world there… it’s wonderful. Brian Reynolds seems to have been exactly on my wavelength.
Have to give X-Com a go, though…
X-Com is really the refutation to Meier’s theories about game development. It’s two separate games woven into a coherent whole, with your actions in each having significant repercussions in the other. They’re each quite complex, much too much so to be called “mini-games”, and neither would be as much fun without the other to give it context. It is absolutely not the case that “one good game is better than two great games”, in X-Com’s case — they’re a perfect symbiosis.
Narratively, it’s also head and shoulders above games like Civilization or Railroad Tycoon. It’s not a wide-open sandbox — there’s a very specific story it’s telling, you have a goal and a well-defined endgame, there are timed events that lead up to that endgame, and once you get there it’s enormously satisfying. The specifics very from playthrough to playthrough, but the story is always the same. (Rather the opposite of what Covert Action attempted to do, where it tries to tell a variety of stories, but they all end up feeling bland and samey.)
Definitely give it a go. Really looking forward to when this blog gets up to X-Com!
So much so that I often find myself thinking “This game would be so much better of they stripped the gameplay out of it.”
I found exactly this when trying, at my sons’ insistence, to play Mass Effect, which apparently has an excellent story. I was just so irritated by the need to play through the tedious combat stuff before I could get back to the story, that in the end I stalled out completely.
Yeechang Lee
Jimmy, now that we’re rapidly approaching on Civilization, it would be great if you could look into why Computer Gaming World never published a review of the game!
They did publish an extended preview of the game, based on a late build. Probably didn’t think there was much a formal review could add. They did later publish a couple of strategy articles and awarded it Game of the Year, plus Allan Emrich and Johnny Wilson’s classic book Civilization or Rome on 640 K a Day. So it certainly got plenty of coverage.
Stephen Norris
Type – “never set well” should be “never sat well”.
“Sat” and “set” still get me every time. Thanks!
Captain Rufus
Thanks to this article it sent me to EBay looking for Murder on the Zinderneuf. Thanks to related tines I just dropped 38 bucks on old album boxed EA Atari 800 games. Good job!
But as to some of the article? Yeah eff procedurally generated style games. Roguelike is to RPGs what REAL TIME is to Strategy games. I know instantly it’s pretty much not for me. Instead of a well crafted dungeon it’s a pointless mire that really is like all the other ones. It gets even worse in something like Dungeon Hack which I reviewed for Felipepe’s RPG book on RPGCodex. They are just boring and generic slogs made worse given the AdnD ruleset and it being a single player game. (Then compare the masterfully created dungeons in Legend of Grimrock which are some of the best RPG puzzles ever. Because I feel dumb when I can’t figure one out and then seeing a solution just shows me it was my fault and not the designers going FULL SIERRA on me.)
The oatmeal analogy is the most perfect explanation as to why procedural generation games kind of suck.
As to games with multiple elements? Eh.. Depends on the game and the quality. Master of Orion 2 is a decent 4x but I am mostly there for the ship to ship combat. In fact all the more modern 4xs without tactical combat don’t grab me. But if Moo2’s over mode wasn’t good all the tactical crunch in the world wouldn’t matter. I’m sure some folks feel the opposite in the game’s modes.
Like a good sandwich even if you are merely there for the meat you need good condiments and bread. Otherwise it doesn’t work. This is also why I dislike Ultima 7 in spite of it being a technical achievement. Combat and inventory management and exploration are completely terrible to me and no amount of story and world simulation can fix it for me. I’d rather see it demade into U5’s computer version where the story also has a good game to go with it. The graphics and world realism don’t much grab me when I can’t enjoy the combat and I have to micromanage a party of constantly hungry babies whining for food while I have to manage one of the worst inventory systems in a game. Whereas 5 has proper turn based combat, party food and inventories as a number and a universal list in text plus exploration is made better with locations being a separate thing to the overworld which actually makes it feel like a world and not a small island with little communities in it. (6 also has these issues but turn based combat helps a bit, and Nuvie or the SNES port fixes the viewing window. It too would still be better in the U5 engine. I’m not sure anything is saving 8 and 9 however..)
Meredith Dixon
I’ve been playing Covert Action since it came out. I’ve won the game (I consider “winning” to be catching all 26 masterminds) at least three times, and I’ve played many, many more partial games over the years. I couldn’t have done that with any enjoyment if it had had hand-crafted plots. (One big disappointment of Covert Action, by the way, is that, just as in High Seas Trader a few years later, it’s obvious that the dev team never really expected you to finish the game. The only reward for winning is a small text box announcing that you have captured all 26 masterminds, or, in the case of HST, restored your family fortunes.)
I think the game failed, to the extent that it did, because so many of the minigames are unnecessary and even counterproductive. When I’m playing seriously (with an intent to solve cases and win), the only mini-games I ever play are wiretapping, car bugging (which is just a form of wiretapping with a stricter time limit) and invasion. Cryptography is fun in itself but it takes far too long (in game time) for far too little information gleaned. I’ve never been any good at the car chase, and car bugging accomplishes everything it does, much more easily.
I’ve always played as Maxine, and, no, the men aren’t obviously secretaries. A Maxis employee I once e-mailed about the game claimed that they were portraits of people who worked at Maxis; if he was telling the truth, he probably meant the office scene; the beach scene hunks look like Marvel superheroes in unconvincing civvies to me, and the four glamorous guys at the casino are definitely movie stars. (Specific superheroes, I mean, and specific movie stars).
David Ainsworth
The key problem, from my perspective, is that all the suspects and groups and masterminds are entirely interchangeable. What’s worse, they have no characterization or personality.
X-Com builds itself upon the distinct kinds of enemies you encounter. Alpha Centauri designs factions around characterization, then adds all the tech quotations to build a stronger and stronger sense of the characters, making you care about them, whether it’s to shut Yang up or give Lal a hand. Civilization uses the short-hand of history to partially develop its leaders, but in-game behavior drives your impressions of Montezuma or Gandi to such an extent that the designers opted to duplicate the Gandi nuclear weapons bug in sequels because it was central to player impressions of him.
Compare to Beyond Earth, whose faction leaders are essentially generic faces, or to Covert Action, which ought to be chock full of heels and villains but which can’t muster even one foe as compelling as Carmen Sandiego. You’re up against Random McFakename, who has random facial features and pursues a random sequence of plots until tracked down and caught. The game manual provides brief information about each group of interest, but in-game they are entirely interchangeable: the Mafia is no different from the Stassi in functional terms. Undifferentiated = no characterization.
Worse, your only foes when breaking into a hideout are faceless goons differentiated from group to group only by turtleneck color. They’re all equipped the same way. And the villains you’re tracking are all interchangeable on the tactical layer. That hacker you broke in to capture? Sitting in a chair. That expert assassin? Also just sitting in a chair.
Even a few small changes would make a big difference: have specific groups allied or opposed to other groups. Red September is a splinter group from the PFO, so maybe they hate each other. Have each group’s mastermind have a specific agenda and generate missions relating to plans advancing that agenda: even if the agendas repeat between or within games, working out which one is at play might help you steal a march on the enemy in a way that makes sense within the fiction, rather than being a pure metagame consideration. (One terrorist group plotting attacks in Columbia may proceed in similar ways to another plotting attacks in Israel.)
Even better, reduce the number of masterminds in a given game and determine the ones you’re up against based upon difficulty. State supported groups like the Revolutionary Guard would be foes at higher levels, with better equipped troops and more double-agents within your organization. On the easiest level, some of the tougher organizations might even help out with information or other support in order to use you to eliminate their rivals. Then run the grand campaign as a string of increasing difficulty levels: for example, the Mafia helps you block a plot by the Amazon Cartel to open a bigger market for their drugs in the US early on in exchange for a piece of information which gives you a hint about their agenda when you finally go up against them later in the campaign. That kind of campaign would also make your double-agents more useful, especially if you pull off a coup and get a minor mastermind as your double-agent.
“We could, for instance, look to the many modern CRPGs which include “sub-quests” that can absorb many hours of the player’s time, to no detriment to the player’s experience as a whole, at least if said players’ own reports are to be believed.”
From this RPG player’s perspective, CRPGs certainly do suffer from the straitjacket of the current formula (endless sub-quests while having no actual time pressure for the main quest, combined with allowing the player to make his “own” moral choices and skill improvement path choices, while preventing no-win situations from occurring down the line).
You often really don’t remember what was the main thing you were trying to accomplish. So you get quest journals, minimaps with symbols denoting “special” places, and so on. It all gets a bit pointless after a while, and makes it more and more difficult to appreciate the game world when you have go through the same kind of mechanical miniquests that you have done a zillion times before in another game – because if you skip the side quests, you will miss out on the needed levels, skills and items to proceed in the main quest.
This is the true legacy of Baldur’s Gate and Monkey Island? Bleh.
The specific problems you’ve pointed out can be fixed pretty easy without ripping out the generative component. Mafia can be marked as not working with ISIS, etc. The problem with generated text is solved by removing the specific texts and leaving the vague descriptions like “The decoded message states that the Mafia wants to acquire the floor plan blueprints for the US embassy.” Procedural generation works best when the text is sketchy enough so that the reader does not have any problematic generated details to fixate upon. IMHO the whole idea of generating prose is as intrinsically flawed as generating animation, music or art – humans are not robots and will discern formulas very easily after a couple of tries.
The solution you propose – “just throw some content creators on it, folks” was a cop out for game designers back then when the budgets were lower and game designers had more freedom to pursue what they wanted. That solution is also much more predictable and calculable and that’s why it dominates the modern gaming with its huge budgets and development teams.
I don’t think that procedural generation is a problem, but that badly crafted games are a problem, and you cannot escape that with handcrafting. I think it is enough if we look at the Mass Effect series and its downfall to understand that.
Out of curiosity, what do you mean by “the Mass Effect series and its downfall”? I have my own criticisms of the progression of the original trilogy, but “downfall” seems a bit hyperbolic.
I wanted to share my opinion, but EA acted faster:
https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/10/15616726/bioware-montreal-restructuring-mass-effect-on-hold.
“At least some of the team at BioWare Montreal, the studio behind Mass Effect: Andromeda, is being retasked to other projects. Kotaku reports, citing anonymous sources, that the studio is being “scaled down” and that the Mass Effect franchise is going on “hiatus.” Reached for comment, studio director Yanick Roy spun things somewhat differently.”
That’s…unfortunate. I was looking forward to seeing where they would go with Mass Effect Andromeda.
What do you think the problems were, just out of curiosity?
Johannes Paulsen
Jimmy,
An interesting article, but I disagree with you, and instead believe that Sid Meier was correct in his analysis of the Covert Action problem.
The examples you put forth (CRPG sub-quests and XCom) don’t hold water. First off, I don’t think that many CRPG players really care much about the actual story. IMHO, most modern CRPG players are there PRIMARILY for the combat and exploration, and the storyline is just a rationalization for that activity. The game mechanics drive the story, not vice-versa. Since a typical subquest just lets the players go off and do more exploration and fighting, it’s essentially just one more goal to complete. Heck, take a look at Dragon Age — other than the fact that there’s fewer cutscenes, the subquests largely involve almost identical actions to any other ‘main storyline’ mission.
Because of that, there really isn’t anything for the player to forget. She’s focused on moving to the next goal and fighting the next enemy, most of which are pretty much the same as everything else, just with bigger weapons and stronger enemies as the game progresses. The arrows point her to the next thing to do. Reminders pop up if she’s on a timed mission.
Covert Action asked the player to keep track of a bunch of stuff that is no more or less memorable than anything in a modern CRPG story (for the life of me, I can’t actually remember at this moment who/what the big bad enemy in Dragon Age: Inquisition was despite putting 100 hours into a completionist play through when it came out.) The problem was that the subgames involved different skills and different tasks (car chase! Decryption! Breaking and entering! Wiretapping! Review background file for more information!) over an extended period of time (ten minutes is an eternity in video games if I only have an hour to play for a given session.) Worse, it didn’t have any of the little reminders that modern RPGs have.
(Regarding XCOM, I did not play the original, but did play the relatively recent remake, and found that the strategy aspect complemented the main game and, more importantly, didn’t take up that much time vs. the combat.)
I think a much better point of comparison is ALPHA PROTOCOL…which was a remarkably similar espionage RPG that had minigames. But it differed from COVERT ACTION by having those minigames appear while the player was in the functional equivalent of the breaking and entering mission, as opposed to while at the mission hub. (It was an underappreciated game with a good story that actually could change significantly depending on player choices….and failed for reasons completely different than COVERT ACTION.)
Horkthane
Reading this article made me realize how hard I come down on the ludologist’s side. I have always, almost without exception, played games for their mechanics. Often mechanics of a sophistication or time sensitive nature that render them impossible to play tabletop. From Tetris, to Mario, to Doom… to Doom.
I suppose my perspective is, with few exceptions, that I want computers to stick to doing what computers do.
I think I was listening to an interview with Frank Miller, and he was discussing how comics always had envy for more “respectable” mediums, and were constantly trying to ape them to show they were grown up too!
In a lot of ways games remind me of the same. I’ve almost without except ended up disliking games that try to be cinematic. Give me Tetris over a recent Telltale game any day. I’ll get through a game that’s pretending to be a movie (I’m looking at you Kojima), but it’s got to play well. I’m not sitting through Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. Likewise, I’ll play through a game that has some literary ambitions (Planescape: Torment), but nothing bores me faster than the RPG that’s going for quantity over quality, showing how many words they’ve written, just like their favorite 10 book, 1300 page each fantasy epic.
But I could also just be getting old, and looking at my older games, and their constrained media space confining possible weak narrative excesses, with rose colored glasses. Your instructor in the tutorial for Mechwarrior 2 has the only spoken lines in the game, and set the tone for it masterfully.
Still, I think the best stories in games, are the stories you make youself by doing, in a world with a gamespace open enough that you might stumble upon something truly unique and worth telling. Instead of getting to the same scripted part, and conferring with your friend if they’ve gotten there yet… and that being about all the conversation you can have.
Sometimes I remember a games narrative as being specially impactful. Like the ending of Okami, or Ico. But most game stories as written fade from my memory after a few years. I’m not sure I remember the story from a single JRPG I played in my teenage years.
But the stories I remember of doing things in games really stick around. Like the game of Quake 3 at a LAN party where I was on an insane hot streak with my best friend, and we rail gunned absolutely every person who came near our flag. Or when I was playing Mechwarrior 2, took out the mission objective, and then spent the next 10 minutes beat to hell, nervously dodging PPC shots, zig zagging to the extraction point. One single shot would have put me down, but I just got into this perfect rhythm of dodging the shots as soon as the enemy’s weapon recharged.
And lets not forget the time I logged onto a community Minecraft server, sailed out into the middle of a lake, dug straight down, blocked myself in, and then spent the next weak in hiding, digging out a giant phallus. Then overnight I took the ceiling off my hiding place and thrust it into the sky. Good times.
I admit I chuckled out loud when I read about your extremely juvenile Minecraft exploit :-)
Leave a Reply to Lisa H. Cancel reply
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Asean companies to face tighter funding
Amid growing foreign currency debt, Standard & Poor's assesses whether depreciating currencies are a major concern for credit quality in Asean.
By S&P Global Ratings
Amid growing foreign currency debt, are depreciating currencies a major concern for credit quality in Asean?
In isolation, the depreciation of a number of regional currencies is not a major credit concern. Most regional currencies have been in marked decline from their peak in 2011 against the US dollar. Still, currency depreciations are far from benign. They are becoming an increasingly relevant, and negative credit trend in the region. But that is rather because of the context in which they are taking place. For Asean companies, the external environment is now a lot tougher than in 2011-2013 and currency depreciation is coinciding with more fragile consumer confidence in a number of countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. At the same time, we’re seeing capacity underutilization following years of sustained investments; a corporate debt load that is a multi-year highs since the end of the global financial crisis; and prospects for rising funding costs.
In the past, currency depreciation has also affected the confidence of capital providers, who have been reluctant to extend maturities, roll-over working capital loans, or increase credit lines at moderate costs. We believe a further bout of currency depreciation will be no different this time. That’s an issue given that Asean companies still extensively rely on short-term debt funding. And, similar to what happened during the Asian financial crisis and 2009-2010, companies with a substantial currency mismatch between their cash flow and funding sources may start contemplating their options regarding their capital structure, including restructuring or distressed exchanges.
We are yet to see a major default driven by currency depreciation. But currency depreciation is undeniably exacerbating increasingly leveraged balance sheets in Asean, especially for the largest companies. We believe small companies will be affected a lot more.
How does Standard & Poor's view the exposure of companies to bank loans?
Funding for Asean companies will remain concentrated on bank lending for the foreseeable future. We estimate more than 50% of all listed companies in Asean rely exclusively on bank loans for their funding needs, using data from S&P Capital IQ. That proportion has barely changed since 2010.
Exposure to bank loans has been a supportive factor for funding and liquidity profiles. Companies generally have long-dated and well-established relationships with their historical fund providers, while bond financing exposes companies to investors that might be more fickle and sensitive to overall business confidence. But this strength could be turning to a relative weakness in the current environment. Bank funding in the region is made predominantly on a floating basis, compared with the fixed-rate nature of domestic and offshore bond markets. This exposes companies to rising interest rates, either because the base rate is indexed or quasi-indexed to US monetary policy (such as bank lending in Singapore), or because banks may start to adjust margins upward to reflect prospectively higher risks.
The concentration of funding toward short-dated bank loans is another vulnerability in the context of prospective rising rates because companies will need to refinance a higher share of loans at a higher cost.
What about bond funding and maturities?
Bond funding will remain a secondary, albeit growing, source of funding for companies in Asean over the next two-to-three years. We estimate that bonds currently represent more than one-third of debt securities for less than 10% of all listed companies in Asean, although that proportion increases for companies in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand because of deeper domestic bond markets.
Asean companies are not facing an imminent debt-maturity wall, but refinancing requirements will be steadily growing through 2017. We estimate that aggregate bond maturities in the region will reach close to $35 billion in 2017, with close to 190 different issues maturing (see chart 1 below). That’s a big jump from about $20 billion in 2016 and about $5 billion in the last quarter of 2015 (some of which is already pre-funded).
Most bonds coming due are unrated and were issued predominantly in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Issuers raised these funds over 2012-2014 and benefited from very favorable funding costs. The relatively short tenors of bonds raised in Singapore (typically three years, compared with five years for a standard bond in US dollars) mean that issuers will need to refinance sooner -- and in a context where interest rates might have already started to normalize.
What is Standard & Poor’s' view about the direction of funding costs?
Overall funding costs are likely to remain comparatively attractive over the next 6-to-12 months, but we think the current low pricing environment is unsustainable.
A normalization of funding costs for high-yield issuers has been taking place in the offshore bond market in the region since the beginning of 2015. But this normalization has been slow in the bank loan market, and is yet to happen in the domestic bond markets, where companies continue to raise funds at very low costs. We estimate the median coupon rate of about 4.2% and a spread over the corresponding US risk free rate of about 335 basis points for close to 400 unrated domestic bonds issues raised by non-government owned companies in the region between 2010 and 2015 and with maturities of three-to-four years (see chart 2 below).
Such low funding costs is unlikely to persist upon normalization of interest rate policy in the US. Leverage has been rising across the region for the past four years, and we believe capital might have been allocated more on the basis of a relative yield rather than on the basis of credit risk. If the above coupon rates and bond yields were solely indicative of credit quality (and they are not, given they also reflect, inter-alia, market liquidity and yields on other investment alternatives), about half of companies issuing unrated bonds regionally would have credit characteristics commensurate with an investment-grade rating level, based on coupon rate and yield data on Standard & Poor’s investment-grade issuers. Given the profile of bond issuers in the region, which tends to increasingly comprise smaller companies with narrow business scope, growth aspirations, and more aggressive financial strategies, this appears unlikely.
Standard & Poor's expects the Federal Reserve to start normalizing its monetary policy before the end of 2015. In late 2014, we assessed as “low to moderate” the overall impact that rising interest rates could have on the credit quality of companies in Asean. We estimated that a sudden interest rate increase of 4%-6% would affect the credit quality of up to 20% of companies in Asia, compared with about 17% of companies globally. At the time, we estimated that about 9% of companies would be affected in Indonesia, 14% in Vietnam, 15% in the Philippines, 17% in Malaysia, and 19% in Singapore and Thailand.
Those estimates, however, were based on financial statements from year-end 2013. Debt has further expanded for companies in Asean in 2014, and we believe it will continue to do so in 2015. Currency depreciation is also adding to interest costs. Consequently, we believe those numbers from late 2014 now form a lower bound for things to come, given the more challenging macroeconomic and operating environment we are seeing today.
The author of this article is Xavier Jean, a director in Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services’ Corporate Ratings team.
#asean
#sp
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Margot Robbie in Talks to Lead Live-Action 'Ghost in the Shell' Movie
Source: The Wrap
Early this year, we learned that Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders would be at the helm of a live-action adaptation of the iconic Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell. There's already been anime films, a TV series, video games and more overseas, so of course an American film must now be made. Now The Wrap has learned that The Wolf of Wall Street star Margot Robbie is in early talks to take the lead role of a female member of a covert ops unit of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission that specializes in fighting technology-related crime. Robbie seems to be poised to become a female action star.
William Wheeler (of The Hoax and "The Cape") wrote the script for the film which is still situated at DreamWorks (it's a bit of a passion project for Steven Spielberg, who once tried to make the film himself), with Avi Arad and Steven Paul producing the film. This joins the recent trend of female-driven action flicks like The Hunger Games, Divergent and Lucy, and since this manga has quite a big following, this has the potential to be a big hit if it's done right. Lets hope Robbie has the goods as an action star and Sanders knows what he's doing well enough to deliver the Ghost in the Shell movie the fans deserve.
Find more posts: Casting, Development, Movie News
I don't know, I was still hoping for Akira. Maybe a success here would bring that back.
OfficialJab on Sep 4, 2014
I love the Manga and the first Ghost in the Shell film....(the series and sequels weren't bad either)...but I fear what Hollywood will do....they don't have the best track record with Manga adaptations.
TheOct8pus on Sep 4, 2014
Just want to point out that Ghost in the Shell is not in the same category as Hunger Games, Divergent and Lucy. It's closer to Blade Runner genre-wise, despite the fact that the main character is a female looking cyborg/android/robot
HarryFiddleSticks on Sep 4, 2014
I completely agree. It should feel more like a Blade Runner or Looper than another Hunger Games. That is why I am worried about the director.
Armitall on Sep 4, 2014
Hell yeah. Agreed.
DAVIDPD on Sep 4, 2014
Shes so hot!
Rock n Rollllll on Sep 4, 2014
Yessssss! I didn't even know this is happening!
I love Miss Robbie, but this sounds pretty much like it will offend everyone.
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Hundreds More Immigrant Children Detained Than Previously Reported
By Eric London
Global Research, July 09, 2018
World Socialist Web Site 7 July 2018
Theme: Law and Justice, Police State & Civil Rights
On Thursday, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar told reporters that the number of immigrant children separated from their parents was around 3,000—50 percent higher than the 2,000 previously reported. Many of these children have been separated from their parents for weeks.
According to Azar, 101 of the children are under the age of five. The Justice Department reported that of the youngest children, 16 have not yet been linked to any parents, while the parents of 19 children have already been deported. The government is unable to locate the parents of another 19 children. It is likely that many will never see their children again.
Earlier on Thursday, Commander Jonathan White, HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response, reported that the government was performing DNA tests of immigrant children to test whether those seeking their liberation from detention were their biological parents.
The compilation of a DNA database of immigrant children calls to mind the types of measures employed by the Nazis against Jews and other “undesirables.” And those few parents who have been able to free their children have been forced to pay for the cost of relocation—often thousands of dollars—echoing the Nazi requirement that the relatives of those shot pay for the bullets.
Late Thursday night, the Trump administration filed a motion requesting an extension of a court deadline requiring the government to reunite children with their parents. The administration claimed that more time was needed to genetically test immigrant children and locate their parents. A judge responded by saying he needed more time to consider the administration’s request, meaning the children will remain in limbo.
Though the media reported Trump’s announcement of an “end” to family separation last month as an “about face” and a “reversal,” only a handful of detained children have been united with their parents. The Los Angeles Times wrote of one mother’s letter about her detained son:
“It’s been a month since they snatched him away and there are moments when I can’t go on… If they are going to deport me, let them do it—but with my child. Without him, I am not going to leave here.”
The Trump administration has responded to growing popular protest by defending the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies and ramping-up its inflammatory xenophobic rhetoric.
On Thursday, Trump tweeted:
“Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are liberating communities from savage gangs like MS-13. We will NOT stand for these vile Democrat smears in law enforcement. We will always stand proudly with the BRAVE HEROES of ICE and BORDER PATROL!”
He reiterated his demand that immigrants be stripped of all due process rights, tweeting,
“Tell the people “OUT,” and they must leave, just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn. Hiring thousands of ‘judges’ does not work and is not acceptable – only Country in the World that does this!”
He also tweeted,
“A vote for Democrats in November is a vote to let MS-13 run wild in our communities, to let drugs pour into our cities, and to take jobs and benefits away from hardworking Americans. Democrats want anarchy, amnesty and chaos—Republicans want LAW, ORDER and JUSTICE!”
Trump’s denunciation of Democrats for being “pro-immigrant” is a farce. Those Democrats who have spoken about “abolishing” ICE have clarified that this does not mean putting an end to deportation and mass detention of immigrants. On the contrary, Democrats seek to return to the policies of the Obama administration, when a record 2.7 million immigrants were deported and hundreds of thousands of parents were torn from their children.
Responding to Trump’s claim that Democrats support abolishing borders, Minority Leader Charles Schumer tweeted on June 21,
“Open borders, @realDonaldTrump? The bipartisan immigration bill I authored had $40 billion for border security and would have been far more effective than the wall.”
Vice President Mike Pence gave a televised address at ICE headquarters yesterday, calling the American immigration Gestapo “American heroes” and proclaiming: “We will never abolish ICE.” He denounced those who are demanding the agency’s abolition, stating:
“The American people have a right to their opinions, but these spurious attacks on ICE by our political leaders must stop. The type of language that’s being used to describe the men and women in this agency and the work that you do every day is unacceptable.”
Behind the rhetoric aimed at shoring up institutional support for the US deportation forces, the government is rapidly militarizing ICE and preparing for a new round of mass raids. According to a July 3 report by Ken Kippenstein of the Young Turks,
ICE “is quietly training its deportation officers in the use of weapons more familiar to the US military than to domestic law enforcement, federal records show.”
Citing federal procurement records and contracts, Kippenstein reported that
ICE’s “enforcement and Removal Officers are being trained in the use of M4 assault rifles, chemical agents, stun grenades, and flash bangs.”
The M4 is the primary service weapon of the US Marine Corps. ICE and CBP have recently doubled their M4 contracts, acquiring 8,000 assault rifles, records show.
“Sounds like they’re getting ready for war,” former ICE agent Rob Uribe Alvarez told the Young Turks.
In June, the Young Turks reported that
“ICE had retained a former CIA interrogator to train agents in handling ‘terrorist suspects.’”
In a further sign the government is preparing to use the military to raid immigrant neighborhoods, the military has begun discharging dozens of immigrants. The Associated Press reported Thursday that dozens of “US Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged.”
Some recruits were told they posed “security risks because they have relatives abroad,” AP reported.
Hector Barajas, a military veteran who was deported from the US, told the World Socialist Web Site:
“Just like with the mistreatment of immigrant children, this has been going on since the Obama administration, only now it is worse and the government is more blunt.”
Barajas, who fought in the Persian Gulf War, was allowed to return only in April after a years-long struggle to win re-admittance to his home country.
“I’ve been deported for 14 years,” he said. “There’s always been anti-immigrant sentiment, whether against the Italians, Irish or whoever. Now it’s Hispanics mostly. Right now, they say immigrants are causing problems by crossing borders. How many people did Obama deport? Millions of people. Now Trump says to immigrants, ‘We don’t need you.’ But if there’s a war with Russia, they’re going to take everyone and they don’t care if you speak English or not. They will send us to war even though they treat us like second class soldiers.”
Polls show that Trump’s anti-immigrant policies are increasingly unpopular. Nearly 70 percent of Americans said they opposed the family separation policy, according to a new poll from the Washington Post. The Trump administration’s attack on immigrants, including the establishment of detention camps and the arming of special Gestapo-like deportation units, is directed ultimately against the entire working class and all social opposition to inequality and war.
The original source of this article is World Socialist Web Site
Copyright © Eric London, World Socialist Web Site, 2018
Articles by: Eric London
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Diabetes, Children, Articles
How to look for monogenic diabetes
Authors propose an efficient and simple way to screen for monogenic diabetes. All individuals, diagnosed with type 1 diabetes before age 30, should be tested for serum or urinary C-peptide levels. If C-peptide is present then GAD and IA1 antibodies are measured. If antibodies are undetectable, then patients should undergo genetic testing.
This simple protocol has a 20% chance of identifying monogenic diabetes. In other words, it improves positive predictive value from baseline 3.6% to 20%, with an impressive negative predictive value 99.9%. Identifying this rare form of diabetes is important, as patients could switch from insulin to oral sulfonylurea. In addition, family members could benefit from genetic screening and counseling.
ADA on monogenic diabetes and MODY
Monogenic diabetes: more common than we think
Objective: Monogenic diabetes, a young-onset form of diabetes, is often misdiagnosed as type 1 diabetes, resulting in unnecessary treatment with insulin. A screening approach for monogenic diabetes is needed to accurately select suitable patients for expensive diagnostic genetic testing. We used C-peptide and islet autoantibodies, highly sensitive and specific biomarkers for discriminating type 1 from non–type 1 diabetes, in a biomarker screening pathway for monogenic diabetes.
Research Design and Methods: We studied patients diagnosed at age 30 years or younger, currently younger than 50 years, in two U.K. regions with existing high detection of monogenic diabetes. The biomarker screening pathway comprised three stages: 1) assessment of endogenous insulin secretion using urinary C-peptide/creatinine ratio (UCPCR); 2) if UCPCR was ≥0.2 nmol/mmol, measurement of GAD and IA2 islet autoantibodies; and 3) if negative for both autoantibodies, molecular genetic diagnostic testing for 35 monogenic diabetes subtypes.
Results: A total of 1,407 patients participated (1,365 with no known genetic cause, 34 with monogenic diabetes, and 8 with cystic fibrosis–related diabetes). A total of 386 out of 1,365 (28%) patients had a UCPCR ≥0.2 nmol/mmol, and 216 out of 386 (56%) were negative for GAD and IA2 and underwent molecular genetic testing.
Seventeen new cases of monogenic diabetes were diagnosed (8 common Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young [Sanger sequencing] and 9 rarer causes [next-generation sequencing]) in addition to the 34 known cases (estimated prevalence of 3.6%, 51/1,407). The positive predictive value was 20%, suggesting a 1-in-5 detection rate for the pathway. The negative predictive value was 99.9%.
The biomarker screening pathway for monogenic diabetes is an effective, cheap, and easily implemented approach to systematically screening all young-onset patients. The minimum prevalence of monogenic diabetes is 3.6% of patients diagnosed at age 30 years or younger.
More from the publication:
Correct classification of a patient’s diabetes is important to ensure he or she receives the most appropriate treatment and ongoing management. The most common form of diabetes in children and young adults is type 1 diabetes, accounting for >90% of cases. Other forms of diabetes in this age group, such as monogenic diabetes (including Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young [MODY]), or young-onset type 2, are not often considered. It is estimated that at least 80% of patients with MODY are misdiagnosed, and other rarer forms of monogenic diabetes often go unrecognized because of lack of awareness. Patients with MODY or type 2 diabetes misclassified as type 1 diabetes will be treated with insulin, whereas noninsulin therapy would be more appropriate. Diet and metformin are the treatment of choice in young type 2 diabetes. Patients with MODY because of mutations in the HNF1A or HNF4A genes respond well to low-dose sulphonylureas, and those with MODY because of mutations in the GCK gene require no pharmacological treatment. Getting a correct diagnosis for all forms of monogenic diabetes has important implications for management of an individual’s diabetes, a prognosis, and recognition of associated clinical features; it also allows appropriate counseling of other family members regarding likely inheritance.
Identifying patients with monogenic diabetes, particularly MODY, can be challenging. Monogenic diabetes is confirmed by molecular genetic testing, but this is expensive, so testing all patients is not feasible. An approach that could be used to enrich for monogenic diabetes, increasing the proportion identified in those who undergo genetic testing, would be helpful. Clinical features can aid identification of those who may have an alternative diagnosis, and a probability calculator has been developed to help determine which patients are likely to have the most common forms of MODY. However, this will not pick up other forms of monogenic diabetes, and its performance is weaker for detecting MODY in insulin-treated patients compared with non–insulin-treated patients.
An alternative approach to enrich for monogenic diabetes is to use biomarkers that have been shown to discriminate well between type 1 and other forms of young-onset diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is characterized by autoimmune destruction of the β-cells in the pancreas, leading to absolute insulin deficiency, so two tests that could be used to diagnose type 1 diabetes are islet autoantibodies (markers of the autoimmune process) and C-peptide (a marker of insulin deficiency). C-peptide has been shown to be a highly sensitive and specific biomarker for discriminating between type 1 and type 2 diabetes and MODY 3–5 years after diagnosis. Urine C-peptide/creatinine ratio (UCPCR) can be used to remove the need for blood samples, which may be of particular concern in the pediatric population, and means that the sample can easily be taken at home and posted to the laboratory. GAD and IA2 islet autoantibodies also discriminate well between type 1 and MODY, with cross-sectional studies showing they are present in 80% of patients with type 1 diabetes and in <1% of patients with MODY. These biomarkers have been used to screen for MODY in other studies, but have been limited to pediatric cases only.
Given that the median age at diagnosis for MODY is 20 years (from U.K. referrals data), and there is on average a delay of 13 years from diabetes diagnosis to a confirmed genetic diagnosis, it is crucial to study adults as well. Furthermore, the combined diagnostic performance of the two biomarkers as a screening pathway has not been formally assessed.
By excluding those with type 1 diabetes using these two biomarkers, we can obtain a smaller percentage of patients in whom diagnostic molecular testing for monogenic diabetes could be performed. We tested a screening pathway using both C-peptide and islet autoantibodies to exclude type 1 diabetes in two populations with previously high pickup rates of MODY and performed genetic testing on all patients with significant endogenous insulin and absence of islet autoantibodies. This allowed us to determine the prevalence of all monogenic diabetes subtypes in those diagnosed at 30 years or younger and to calculate the positive predictive values (PPVs) and negative predictive values (NPVs) for the pathway.
We found that 3.6% of patients diagnosed at younger than 30 years of age have monogenic diabetes. In areas in which no cases have been identified, we estimate that 1 in 5 patients referred for genetic testing because of the pathway will have monogenic diabetes, which is a 5.6-fold higher detection rate than if all patients in this age range received genetic testing. The high NPV of 99.9% indicates it is an extremely effective approach for ruling out monogenic diabetes.
There have been relatively few studies that have systematically screened whole populations for monogenic diabetes. The majority of studies have been in pediatric populations only, with only two studies that have screened adults. No other study has systematically screened a whole population of both adults and children together.
Only 8 out of 51 (16%) of patients with a genetic diagnosis of monogenic diabetes in our cohort were in the pediatric age range (younger than 20 years) at the time of recruitment, highlighting the importance of looking for monogenic diabetes in adult diabetes clinics. This may explain why the prevalence we find is higher than in any of the previous pediatric studies.
The strength of our pathway is the integration of two biomarkers (C-peptide and islet autoantibodies [both GAD and IA2]), rather than relying on clinical features. This offers a simple approach that does not require specific clinician interpretation or complex algorithms of different combinations of features. We showed that by using clinical features alone, over half of the cases of monogenic diabetes would be missed. By combining the two biomarkers, we increase the discriminatory ability and allow the clinician to pick up even atypical cases and rarer forms of monogenic diabetes, which traditional criteria may miss. The use of clinical features, however, results in fewer cases being sent for genetic testing that are negative, which clearly has cost implications. The most cost-effective approach is likely to involve a combination of biomarkers and clinical features. Further studies are needed to determine whether the pickup rate could be further improved by integrating the pathway with clinical features, such as the MODY calculator, or whether this would result in more missed patients because of reduced testing.
In this study, we also systematically tested all known genes for monogenic diabetes, rather than just the most common MODY genes (GCK, HNF1A, and HNF4A). Nine out of 17 (53%) of the cases identified as part of our cohort had mutations identified through additional testing on the targeted capture, and 17 out of 51 (33%) of all of the monogenic diabetes cases found in total had mutations in other genes, highlighting the advantage of further testing using targeted next-generation sequencing.
Treatment change from insulin to sulphonylureas is still possible in cases diagnosed with ABCC8 and KCNJ11, and for other genes for which treatment change is not an option, a confirmed diagnosis can still help with management, prognosis, and advice on risk to other family members. The decision whether to pay for the more expensive, but more comprehensive, next-generation sequencing, rather than Sanger sequencing for MODY genes only, would depend on assessing the tradeoffs of additional costs with long-term benefits to the patient. The presence of additional clinical features (e.g., renal cysts associated with HNF1B) may also point to specific monogenic diagnoses and increase the likelihood of a positive genetic test result.
A further limitation is that despite screening using C-peptide and antibody testing, the PPV is still fairly low at 20%, indicating that four out of five screened will not have a monogenic cause identified on diagnostic molecular genetic testing. However, the aim of our screening pathway is that it is used purely as a tool to narrow down those individuals who would be more appropriate for genetic testing. This approach is a vast improvement over no screening (which would represent a PPV at the background prevalence rate of 3.6%), misses fewer cases than using clinical features alone, and is at a level that has been shown to be cost-effective.
Finally, this study comprised a 98% white population and assesses patients at a median of 14 years after diagnosis. Assessment of the pathway in other racial groups and in patients close to diagnosis is needed.
In conclusion, we have demonstrated a simple, cheap, effective screening pathway that could be implemented at a population level to help correctly diagnose patients with monogenic diabetes.
Source: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/40/8/1017
Newer PostNo man is free who cannot control himself -Pythagoras
Older PostNational Lipid Association, Interview
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Water District manager says drought is still not over
Bill Jackson
LONGMONT — Water storage conditions are in better shape this fall than at the same time a year ago.
But that doesn’t mean the drought is over, a crowd of about 130 water users was told Wednesday at the fall water users meeting of the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District. The meeting was at the Raintree Conference Center in Longmont.
Eric Wilkinson, general manager of the water district, said the area was blessed this past summer with timely rains that helped irrigators and water purveyors as some gain was made on storage.
“But it is the district’s position that the drought is not over. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before we’re back to normal,” Wilkinson said.
He added that current conditions are promising, but it’s way too early to get excited about those conditions, noting that a Western Slope newspaper headlined a story noting that snowpack conditions are 129 percent of normal for this time of year.
“But average conditions are 1.8 inches in October, so that means there’s a little over 2 inches. That’s not much to get excited about,” Wilkinson said.
One reason for that, he said, is the Colorado River feeds Lake Powell and that massive storage project that feeds Arizona, Nevada and California is at 40 percent of capacity. If those conditions don’t improve significantly soon, serious problems could develop on the river, and that could mean trouble for Colorado.
“The water community on the Colorado River is treading on ground never seen before,” Wilkinson said, adding that if conditions continue for the next few years, Powell will not be able to provide the electrical energy it has in the past, let alone meet water demands of the entire basin.
Northern Colorado gets a supplemental water supply from the Colorado River through the Colorado-Big Thompson Project which the water district manages.
Darell Zimbelman, the district’s associate general manager, said that while water storage throughout the district was “not in great shape at the end of the 2004 water year, we’re better than we have been” in the past couple of years. The district, he said, delivered 30,000 acre-feet more water in 2004 than it did in 2003 — an acre foot supplies two families with a year’s supply of water — but storage capacity this fall is 76 percent of average.
“So we’re about 100,000 acre feet below of where we would like to be,” Zimbelman said.
Jim Hall, who heads the Greeley office of the state division of water resources, said that while reservoirs east of Greeley are near empty, storage in tributaries of the South Platte River are in pretty good shape. There is about 100,000 acre feet of water in storage in gravel pits along the river, he added.
But Hall warned that as usual, next March, April, May and June will be the key.
“If we get good spring snow and a few spring rains, we should be in good shape next year,” Hall said.
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Malaysia: 1MDB scandal haunts PM
Reacting to what is reportedly the biggest financial scandal in history, US authorities have subpoenaed documents from Goldman Sachs relating to the dealings of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Set up in 2009 by the Malaysian government, 1MDB is supposed to generate growth and establish the country as a financial hub. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, at least US$1 billion has gone into the pocket of a person referred to in Department of Justice documents as “Malaysian Official 1” — widely reported to be Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Malaysia: Thousands take to streets to protest TPP corporate power grab (PHOTOS)
Photos (above and below) by Julius Choo Chon Kai.
A people's history of colonial Malaya
PKMM rally, 1946. Radicals: Resistance & Protest in Colonial Malaya By Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied Northern Illinois University Press (NUI), 2015 228 pages On a night in 2010, a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the demolition of a 300 metre wall of the century-old Purdu prison in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital.
Malaysia: Socialists subjected to sedition charges, arbitrary arrests
Malaysian human rights group SUARAM says that several members of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) and other human rights activists were subjected to arbitrary arrests simply for attending a peaceful candlelight vigil in the city of Johor Baru on January 10. The vigil was called to protest the second-time arrest on remand of PSM Central Committee member Khairul Nizam (also known as Aduka Taruna).
Malaysia: Activist charged over Facebook posts needs support
Khalid Ismath, a member of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), was arrested on October 7 and later charged under Malaysia's sedition and communication acts for posting allegedly offensive comments on social media. He was initially denied bail over posts relating to the arrest of lawyer Kamal Hisham Jaafar, a former legal advisor to the Johor royal family. As of October 27, Khalid had been held in solitary confinement for 18 days. His lawyer had not been permitted to visit him.
Malaysia: Jailed socialist student a 'prisoner of conscience', says Amnesty
An international campaign has been launched to call for the release of Khalid Mohd Ismath, a Malaysian student activist and a member of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), who has been detained since October 7. Khalid has been active in highlighting human rights violations and misuse of power by the authorities in Malaysia. He was arrested on October 7 under the Malaysian Multimedia and Communications Act 1998 for allegedly posting offensive comments on social media.
Malaysia: Half a million in BERSIH 4 democracy mobilisation
Malaysian democracy activists estimate that between 300,000 and half a million people peacefully took to the streets of the capital Kuala Lumpur for 34 hours from August 29 to 30. This is much larger than the previous mobilisations by the BERSIH (literally meaning “clean”) movement for free and fair elections.
Malaysian democracy activist on new mass mobilisations: 'Bersih 4.0 is coming'
Bersih 3.0 mass protest for democracy in Kuala Lumpar, April 2012.
Australia's war on people smugglers is really a war on refugees
The toll of Australia's bipartisan anti-refugee policies in death and suffering is rising. In the past fortnight more than 3000 Rohingya refugees from Arakan state in Burma (Myanmar) have turned up on the shores of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, having either swum ashore or been rescued by local fishing boat crews. An estimated 7000 more are trapped on boats that have been described as “floating coffins”.
Malaysia: May Day protesters hit with arrests -- send protest letters
Malaysian police have arrested Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) secretary-general S. Arutchelvan, formal President of Malaysian Bar Council Ambiga Sreenevasan and member of parliament for Seremban Anthony Loke at a May Day demonstration on May 1. The arrests are part of the recent wave of crackdown on anti-GST (anti-poor goods and services tax) and aim to further curtail dissent in the country. Another 29 young people were arrested soon after the May Day rally. More people have been call to report themselves to the police otherwise will be subjected to arrest.
Green Left Weekly provides an important source of news and analysis, often straight from those who are at the forefront of grassroots activism, which makes this newspaper a unique resource.
As a historian of transnational activist movements, I also find that Green Left's archive richly documents, and continues to remind us of, the decades of campaigns for social change in Australia and elsewhere.
Dr Vannessa Hearman
Historian, and lecturer in Indonesian Studies at Charles Darwin University
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MONEY & MORE PAWN & JEWELRY
GLOSSARY / DICTIONARY
Action Action is the term for the operating mechanism of a gun. It refers to the combination of moving parts that allow a shooter to load fire and unload a gun.
Adjustable Sights Sights that allow vertical (elevation) and horizontal (windage) adjustments.
Aperture The hole in a rear peep sight through which the shooter looks at the front sight and target.
Autoloading An action of semi-automatic or self-loading operations.
Backstrap Rear, metal, part of a handgun -- which together with the frontstrap, provides a mounting frame for the grips.
Barrel Length (BBL) "The length of a barrel as measured from the muzzle to the standing breech in a break-open gun or to the bolt face in a bolt-action rifle, including the chamber. A revolver barrel measurement does not include the cylinder, only the barrel itself. "
Battery The condition of a firearms breechblock in firing position.
Bead "A round sight normally used at the muzzle of a shotgun or the front sight of some rifles, in which the sight is viewed as a round bead on a narrow post. "
Bedding The fit and stability of a barreled action within a rifle stock.
Bipod A two legged support for the front end of a rifle to stabilize the gun while shooting.
Black Powder The earliest type of firearms propellant that has generally been replaced by smokeless powder except for use in muzzleloaders and older breechloading guns that demand its lower pressure levels.
Black Powder Rifle A rifle that uses black powder (or black powder substitute) as the propellant either in a black powder cartridge or individually loaded into the rifle.
Blade Sight "Generally, the front sight of a rifle or handgun, seen by the shooter as a post. "
Boat Tail The shape of a bullet with a tapered base; designed to reduce air drag.
Bolt "A breechblock, generally circular in cross-section, that moves backward and forward to open or close the action. "
Bolt Action Bolt action is a type of firearm action in which the gun's bolt is operated manually by the opening and closing of the breech (barrel) with a small handle, most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the gun (for right-handed users). As the handle is operated, the bolt is unlocked, the breech is opened, the spent shell casing is extracted and ejected, the firing pin is cocked (this occurs either on the opening or closing of the bolt, depending on design), and finally a new round/shell (if available) is placed into the breech and the bolt closed. Bolt action firearms are most often rifles, but there are some bolt-action shotguns and a few handguns as well.
Bore The interior of a firearm's barrel excluding the chamber.
Box Magazine A removable box-like storage device to hold cartridges and feed them.
Breech The end of a barrel into which a cartridge is inserted.
Breech Plug The plug that screws into the barrel to close the breech of a muzzle-loading firearm.
Buckshot Large size lead shot pellets used in shotshells. Buckshot can range in size from #4 up to 000.
Bull Barrel A barrel which has the same outside diameter its entire length. This type of barrel has the advantage of being very stiff and hence a greater potential to be accurate. It has the disadvantage of being heavy.
Bullet "A single projectile fired from a gun, or more commonly a rifle; either loaded from the muzzle or loaded into a cartridge "
Butt The rear most portion of the stock that rests against the shoulder.
Buttplate A hard plate that covers the butt end of the stock.
Caliber A system of measurement for the internal bore diameter of a rifled-barreled firearm (rifle or pistol).
Carbine "A carbine is a firearm similar to a rifle or musket. Many carbines, especially modern designs, were developed from rifles, being essentially shortened versions of full rifles firing the same ammunition, although often at a lower velocity. The shorter length and lighter weight of carbines makes them easier to handle in close-quarter situations, or when deploying from vehicles. The disadvantages of carbines are generally poorer long-range accuracy and shorter effective range. "
Cartridge "A small usually cylindrical packet, containing a detonating primer, a powder charge, a load -- either a single projectile for a rifle or a quantity of small pellets for a shotgun -- and possibly some attendant wadding. "
Case The envelope (container) of a cartridge. For rifles and handguns it is usually of brass or other metal; for shotguns it is usually of paper or plastic with a metal head and is more often called a "shell."
Casehardening "Mottled blue/green/brown colors on a shotgun or double rifle receiver, the by-product of a heat-treating process that incorporates carbon into the surface molecular structure of the steel, providing a hard-wearing surface without making the entire receiver brittle. "
Centerfire "A cartridge, or firearm using a cartridge, with the primer in the center of the cartridge base. "
Cerakote Cerakote is a Polymer-Ceramic Composite coating that can be applied to metals, plastics, polymers, and wood. The unique formulation used for Cerakote ceramic coating enhances a number of physical performance properties including abrasion/wear resistance, corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, impact strength, and hardness. This state-of-the-art coating technology out-performs any competitive coating in both laboratory settings and real world applications.
Chamber "An area at the breech end of a barrel, of about the diameter of the cartridge for which the gun was intended, and into which the cartridge is inserted. "
Checkering A regular pattern of fine grooves cut into the surface of a stock to aid in gripping a gun.
Cheekpiece "A broad, flat, raised area on the side of a buttstock. "
Choke "A carefully measured constriction of the bore of a shotgun at the muzzle, designed to control the spread of the shot as it leaves the barrel. "
Choke Tubes "Short, interchangeable cylinders, of subtly different internal tapers, that screw into a threaded recess at the muzzle of a shotgun. "
Cocking Indicators Small devices attached to the internal hammer of a gun and visible from the exterior of the gun to show when gun is cocked and when it has been fired.
Comb "The top of a gun's stock, where a shooter rests their cheek when mounting a gun. "
Compensator A device attached to the muzzle of a firearm to reduce the upward movement of the muzzle brought about by recoil.
Cylinder "A revolver part, cylindrical in shape, with firing chambers that rotate to align with the bore. "
Derringer A derringer is generally the smallest usable handgun of a given caliber. Derringers are also known as palm pistols. There have been many different designs over the years.
Double Action (DA) An action type where the pulling the trigger both cocks and releases the hammer.
Ejector A device for expelling a fired cartridge case from a firearm.
Elevation Adjustment of the point of impact of a firearm in the vertical plane; the knob used on an iron sight or telescopic sight to raise or lower the point of impact.
Extractors The Extractor is a device that pulls the cartridge out of the chamber.
Eye Relief Eye relief is the distance your eye must be from the ocular lens and still get a full field of view.
Falling Block A type of action used primarily for single shot rifles whereby some kind of lever actuates a breechblock, moving it downwards in a vertical recess to expose the chamber.
Federal Firearms License (FFL) A Federal Firearms License (FFL) is a license that enables an individual or a company to engage in a business pertaining to the manufacture of firearms and ammunition or the interstate and intrastate sale of firearms. Holding an FFL to engage in certain such activities has been a legal requirement within the United States of America since the enactment of the Gun Control Act in 1968.
Feed The process of moving live cartridges from the magazine of a firearm into the chamber.
Fiber-optic Sights Sight that gathers ambient light.
Field of View (FOV) Field of view (FOV) is the amount of area seen through your scope from right to left at 100 yards.
Firing Pin The Firing Pin is the part on the gun that strikes the primer and causes it to ignite the cartridge.
Fixed 3 Dot Sight On semi-automatic handguns, the most common type of enhancement is a bright white dot painted on the front sight near the top of the blade, and a dot on each side of the rear sight notch. In low lighting conditions the front sight dot is centered horizontally between the rear sight dots, with the target placed above the middle (front) dot. Some sight vendors offer differently colored dots for the front and rear sights.
Flash Suppressor A device affixed to the muzzle of a firearm barrel, designed to minimize the bright flash caused by escaping hot gases and burning powder residue upon firing.
Floor Plate Metal plate at the bottom of the magazine of a bolt action rifle.
Fluted Barrel A rifle or pistol barrel which grooves have been milled into the barrel. These flutes help reduce barrel weight and increase surface area to help cool the barrel quicker.
Follower A spring-loaded part of a firearm's magazine that controls the cartridges in the magazine and presents them in the proper orientation to be fed into the chamber.
Forearm The front part of a rifle or shotgun stock, when the stock is of two-piece design.
Forend The stock section under the barrel, uses to help hold the firearm by the support hand.
Fouling Metal or powder residue left in the bore of a firearm as a result of firing.
Front Strap Front, metal, part of a handgun's grip---which together with the backstrap, provides a mounting frame for the grip panels.
Full Metal Jacket A type of bullet in which the lead core is encased in a copper jacket on the front and sides. The copper jacket may also include the base, but this is rarer.
Gauge A system of measurement for the internal bore diameter of a smooth-bore firearm based on the diameter of each of that number of spherical lead balls whose total weight equals one pound.
Grains A unit of weight (mass actually) used for measuring bullets and gunpowder.
Grip The portion of the stock or pistol where you grasp the gun with your dominate or trigger hand.
Grooves The cuts made in the bore of a firearm to produce rifling.
Hammer A mechanical part that pivots on an axis and can be released by the trigger to go quickly forward to strike the firing pin.
Hammerless A firearm with its hammer enclosed inside the action body; i.e. no visible hammer.
Handgun A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand, with the other hand optionally supporting the shooting hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from their larger counterparts: long guns such as rifles and shotguns (which are held in both hands and usually braced against the shoulder). Some handgun subtypes include derringers, single-shot pistols, revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, pepperboxes, and machine pistols.
Hollow Point (HP) A type of expanding projectile that has a pit or hollowed out shape in its tip often intended to cause the projectile to expand upon impact with target.
Iron Sights Metallic sights on a gun. The term is used to differentiate them from optical sights (scopes).
Jacket The envelope enclosing the core of a bullet.
Jacketed Hollow Point (JHP) A type of bullet similar to a Jacketed Soft Point, except that a portion of the nose cavity is hollowed out for greater bullet expansion.
Jacketed Soft Point (JSP) A type of bullet with a soft lead core enclosed by a hard metal jacket (usually an alloy of copper), but with the nose section exposed to ensure bullet expansion.
Lands The portion of the bore in a rifled barrel that protrudes into the bore itself.
Length Of Pull The distance from trigger to the end of the gun's buttstock.
Lever Action A repeating firearm action operated by a lever beneath the grip.
Long Gun The term long gun is used to describe classes of firearm with longer barrels than other classes. In small arms, a long gun is designed to be fired braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun. The actual length of the barrels of a long gun are subject various laws in many jurisdictions, for example by the National Firearms Act in the United States, which sets a minimum length of 16 inches (40 cm) for rifle barrels and 18 inches (45 cm) for shotgun barrels. Examples of various classes of small arms generally considered long arms include: rifles, shotguns, muskets, carbines, etc.
Magazine A spring-operated reservoir for cartridges for a repeating firearm; often removable.
Magazine Follower A plate, mounted to the top of a spring, inside a magazine, over which cartridges may slide smoothly as they are fed into the chamber of a repeating firearm.
Magazine Safety A device that prevents a gun from firing if the magazine has been removed.
Magnification Magnification is the power rating of the scope, indicated by the symbol "X". A 10X (ten power) scope makes objects seem ten times closer than with the naked eye.
Magnum A term indicating a relatively heavily loaded metallic cartridge or shotshell and, by extension, a gun safely constructed to fire it.
Mannlicher Stock A term used to describe a Germanic-styled rifle or carbine with a stock extending all the way to the muzzle.
Match Grade A higher quality item used to increase accuracy; generally used for competition in a match.
Mil Angular change in aim that moves the point of impact of an artillery projectile one meter at a range of 1000 meters.
Minute of Angle (MOA) A 1/60th part of a degree, the unit of measure used in adjusting rifle sights.
Monte Carlo Cheekpiece "A cheek rest, built onto the side of a gunstock, which also extends upward to raise the comb of a stock,
Monte Carlo Comb An elevated gunstock comb which drops to a normal height at the heel. Useful on rifle stocks to align the eye with a telescopic sight better, and on trap guns to raise the point of impact.
Muzzle The end of a barrel, pointing towards the target, out of which the load is discharged.
Muzzle Brake A fitting attached to the muzzle of a firearm, with a series of perforations designed to deflect some of the forward-rushing gasses and pull the firearm forward off the shoulder, reducing recoil.
Muzzleloader A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and usually the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun.
NRA The National Rifle Association of America. The NRA is a nonprofit organization which advocates for gun rights.
NRA-ILA The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
NSSF The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 5,500 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen's organizations and publishers.
Objective Lens The objective lens is the lens closest to the object being viewed.
Ocular Lens The ocular lens is the lens closest to your eye.
Out of Battery It refers to the status of a gun before the action has returned to the normal firing position.
Over Under (OU) A double barrel gun where one barrel is positioned on top of the other.
Parabellum The pistol, and especially the 9 x 19 mm cartridge for it, designed by George Luger and adopted by the German army in 1908.
Parallax Parallax is the apparent position of the reticle on the target image at different ranges.
Peep Sight A type of gunsight, mounted towards the rear of a rifle through which one simply looks, placing the front sight on the target.
Pistol A pistol is a usually small, projectile weapon, normally fired with one hand, for personal use in short-range action. There are three main varieties of pistols: automatic, semi-automatic or single-shot hunting or target pistols. Automatic and Semi-Automatic pistols use the recoil or gas energy of each round to cycle the action, extract the spent case, and load the next cartridge. Single-shot pistols are loaded manually via the breech, either from a small magazine or by hand.
Pistol Grip (PG) Full Pistol Grip, is the portion gun that is held by the hand and orients the hand in a forward, vertical orientation, similar to the position one would take with a conventional pistol.
Ported Small holes in the barrel of a gas-operated firearm through which expanding gases escapes.
Power The power of the scope is the same as magnification.
Primer A small capsule of soft metal containing a detonating compound, press-fitted into the head of a cartridge.
Pump Action A rifle or shotgun action in which operation is by backward and forward movement of the gun's forearm; also called slide action.
Receiver The frame or action body of a firearm.
Recoil The sudden backward push made against the shooter when a firearm is fired.
Reticle "A matrix of dots, posts or lines, visible inside a rifle's telescopic sight, normally adjustable via exterior knobs for windage and elevation. "
Revolver A revolver is a multishot firearm, usually a handgun, in which the rounds are held in a revolving cylinder that rotates to fire them through a single barrel. Most commonly, such guns have a five- or six-shot capacity; however, some revolvers have up to a 10-shot capacity. A revolver is a multi-shot firearm, usually a handgun, in which the rounds are held in a revolving cylinder that rotates to fire them through a single barrel. Most commonly, such guns have a five- or six-shot capacity; however, some revolvers have up to a 10-shot capacity.
Rifle A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, which fires a single projectile (bullet) through a barrel which contains spiral grooves in its bore. Rifles come in many shapes, sizes, and types. The most common types are bolt action, lever action and semi-automatic, but rifles also come in slide-action (pump) and single-shot varieties.
Rifled Slug A shotgun projectile that has rifling or groves cut on the projectile to put twist on the projectile as it travels down the barrel. Commonly used on smooth bore shotgun barrels. Also know as a Foster Slug.
Rifling "Spiral grooves cut into the inside of a barrel that impart a rapid spin to the single projectile, stabilizing it in flight for greatly improved accuracy over that of a smoothbore gun. "
Rimfire A cartridge where the primer is on the rim of the cartridge rather than the center of the cartridge.
Rotary Magazine The rotary or spool magazine consists of a star-shaped rotor, or sprocket, actuated by a torsion spring.
Safety Device that blocks the firing operation of a firearm.
Scope A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope, is an optical device used to give additional accuracy using a point of aim for firearms, airguns and crossbows.
Semi Automatic A type of firearm which, utilizing some of the recoil or some of the expanding-gas energy from the firing cartridge, cycles the action to eject the spent shell, to chamber a fresh one from a magazine and to cock the mainspring, placing the gun in position for another shot with nothing more needing to be done than to provide another pull on the trigger.
Shotgun A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns come in a wide variety of sizes, ranging from 5.5 mm (.22 inch) bore up to 5 cm (2 inch) bore, and in a range of firearm operating mechanisms, including breech loading, single-barreled, double or combination gun, pump-action, bolt-, and lever-action, semi-automatic, and even fully-automatic variants.
Sight A sight is an optical device used to assist aim by guiding the eye and aligning it with a weapon or other item to be pointed. Various forms of sights exist, such as iron sights, laser sights, reflex sights, peep sights, and telescopic sights.
Single Action (SA) An action type, typical on handguns, where the hammer must be cocked manually prior to each shot (if it be a revolver) or prior to the first shot with an already loaded chamber and de-cocked hammer (if it be a semi-automatic).
Single Set Trigger A single trigger, operating at a normal 4 - 6lb pull, which when pushed forward converts to a hair trigger.
Single Shot A firearm into which each shot must be manually loaded before it can be fired.
Skeet Competitive shotgun shooting at 'clay pigeons' thrown from two different locations.
Sling (Sling Swivels) Special metal posts are screwed into the stock near the butt and on the fore-end. Between these a sling is attached using sling swivels to be used for carrying a rifle over the shoulder.
Slug A single projectile designed to be fired from a shotgun.
Slug Gun A shotgun specially designed for shooting slugs, usually equipped with rifle sights.
Soft Point A bullet that has an exposed lead tip.
Stock A stock, also known as a buttstock or shoulder stock, is a part of a rifle or other firearm, to which the barrel and firing mechanism are attached, that is held against one's shoulder when firing the gun. The stock provides a means for the shooter to firmly support the device and easily aim it.
Striker A spring-driven firing pin.
Takedown A firearm that can be separated into (at least) two subassemblies in order to make a shorter package than when put together---without tools
Telescopic Sight A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope, is an optical device used to give additional accuracy using a point of aim for firearms, airguns and crossbows.
Term Definition
Trajectory The curved path of a bullet in flight.
Trap Competitive shotgun shooting at 'clay pigeons' thrown from a single location.
Trigger The small lever on a cartridge firearm, which one pulls to cause the spring-loaded firing pin to impact the primer, causing the gun to discharge
Trigger Guard A loop surrounding the trigger of a firearm and protecting it from accidental discharge.
Trigger Plate Area under the receiver of a firearm through which the trigger is attached.
Trigger Weight The force which must be applied to the trigger for the gun to fire.
Trijicon Sights Trijicon is a company that uses tritium material, encapsulated in a vile, housed in the sight. The tritium glows under low light conditions.
Twist The spiral formed by the lands and grooves in a rifled bore; the rate of twist is generally given as a ratio. i.e., 1:10 indicating one turn in 10 inches.
Varmint Bullet A hollow point, thin jacketed, bullet that is designed to fragment into many (perhaps hundreds) of pieces upon impact. This type of bullet is designed to humanely kill a small animal such as a prairie dog or ground squirrel. Because varmints are typically hunted at long distances the bullet are typically made to be very accurate as well.
Velocity The speed of a bullet or shot charge, measured at a certain point in it's travel.
Ventilated Rib Designed to help cool and more particularly to direct the shimmering hot air that rises from hot barrels away from the line of sight in order to reduce disturbance in the view of the target
Wadcutter A type of bullet shaped like a cylinder with flat ends. It is primarily designed for target shooting with pistols. The flat end enables it to punch a clean hole in the paper target and make scoring easier. Wadcutters may be hollow-based, double-ended, or bevel-based. They are typically cast or swaged out of a lead alloy and usually don't have a jacket.
Waiting Period A legally mandated delay between the purchase of a firearm and its delivery to the customer enforced in some jurisdictions.
Weaver Stance A specialized form of two-handed pistol shooting with the arms in tension that provides enhanced recoil control, mobility, and accuracy. The term is frequently but incorrectly used to refer to any style of two-handed pistol shooting.
Windage Adjusting the point of impact of a firearm in the horizontal plane; the knob used on an iron sight or telescopic sight to move the point of impact in traverse, right or left, to compensate for the effects of wind
Zero The farthest distance from a firearm at which the bullet's path and the point of aim coincide. This term is also used to mean the process of insuring that the sights of a firearm are properly aligned so that where they indicate the bullet will strike is in fact where it strikes.
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Amey goes up for sale
Dominic Browne
UK roads and services contractor Amey is being put up for sale as parent company Ferrovial, the Spanish infrastructure group that is also a part owner of Heathrow, is looking to sell its global support services division.
A statement Ferrovial said: 'The company has entrusted an external consultant to explore the potential divestment of all or part of the assets of the services division of which Ferrovial owns directly or indirectly.'
Amey has been rocked by several dramatic setbacks recently, notably the massive loss of a long-running legal battle over its 25-year Birmingham PFI deal, which saw it set aside £208m to cover possible costs.
However things had just started to pick up for Amey in the roads sector, with the company securing major contracts from Highways England Area 10 worth a combined £375m as well as a place on Highways England's Regional Delivery Partnership framework.
Reports The Financial Times reports that investment bank Goldman Sachs has been appointed to handle the sale of Ferrovial's services business.
The company is said to want to narrow its focus to transport infrastructure, including its profitable toll roads business in North America, where it registered a 'strong performance' in its statement to stock exchanges in May.
Correction: This article initially incorrectly attributed a £48m loss on an M8 improvement scheme to Amey, when in fact this was its parent company Ferrovial's scheme. Highways apologises.
amey ferrovial services
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HBW is Proud to Announce that Sikander Khan Joins the Firm's Associate Ranks
By Nicole Nowak of Haynes Beffel & Wolfeld LLP on Tuesday, June 20, 2017.
It is with great pride that we announce that Sikander Khan was formally sworn in as an attorney on May 16, 2017 by the Honorable Judge Marcus Max Gunkel.
Sikander previously served as a Patent Engineer since he began at the firm in 2012. Now a member of the California bar and practicing attorney, we welcome him to our associate ranks.
As an associate, Sikander will continue to prepare and prosecute patent applications in technologies related to financial/business methods, computer programs, computer architectures, motion sensing, gesture recognition, database structures, algorithmic machine learning, operating systems and computer/web programming. His attention to detail and keen analytical skills allow him to consistently resolve challenges involving even the most complicated technologies and entrepreneurial innovation.
Sikander notes, "I enjoy technology, and my specific goal of becoming a patent attorney has now come to fruition." He continued that he chooses to stay at HBW because "... the firm and its clients have cutting-edge technology and innovation, and I enjoy having a 'front seat' working on patents that could redefine industry."
Sikander continued, "I appreciate that HBW functions more like an entrepreneurial venture as opposed to a traditional law firm." He further commented, "I enjoy HBW's dynamic environment, and that we work together as a team to realize outstanding results for our clients and for each other."
Tags: Intellectual Property Law; Patent Law; Recruiting; Law Practice Management; Silicon Valley; Bay Area
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April 24, 2019 9:30am PT by Chris Gardner
Lake Bell on "Infusing an Authentic Midwestern Flavor" With ABC's 'Bless This Mess'
There was one underrepresented minority that the actress and producer took extra steps to include on the comedy about a couple of Manhattanites who relocate to Nebraska: "Our writers room is 90 percent Midwesterners."
When Lake Bell was putting together Bless This Mess, her ABC comedy about a couple of Manhattanites (Bell and Dax Shepard) who relocate to Nebraska, the 40-year-old actress and producer made sure to be as inclusive as possible; three of the six episodes shot so far have been directed by women.
But there was one underrepresented minority that Bell took extra steps to include.
"Our writers room is 90 percent Midwesterners," she says. "It was really important to us to infuse a very authentic, real Midwestern flavor and have that part of the country represented in a way that did those states proud." Added bonus: Shepard hails from Michigan (like co-creator Liz Meriwether) and castmember David Koechner is from Missouri. “We found all the Hollywood comedy writers who are born and raised in the Midwest, from Nebraska, Wisconsin, Ohio and a multitude of other locations.”
The move seems to have worked; the April 6 premiere won its time slot, giving ABC its best Tuesday night ratings since October.
But that's not the only division of her set that Bell has been keeping a close eye on.
"This is the first time where I'm working for a corporation, but I am a decision-maker in whom we hire for what, and I share that with Liz — two female creators. What I found is that there are just defaults. It's almost just a little bit of laziness and a little bit of, 'This is just how it works, this is just the system, we got no time, we can't interview three more people,' " explains the Women in Film board member of how she and Meriwether sought to have a set filled with more women. "For instance, when you're looking for a production designer or something like that it's like, 'It's easy. We know these three guys,' or whatever, 'They're great and they're learned and they've done network.' So as a part of the ethos of ReFrame" — the WIF initiative that seeks to address gender imbalances in all areas of film and TV production — "you say, 'OK, if you're going to meet with three guys for this job, just meet with three women who are also 100 percent eligible and appropriate for this job. Somebody that's done network television and is ready to go, and then maybe throw one person in there who's been doing indies for a long time, but they're primed and ready [as well].' "
Bell says the hardest title to book are directors of photography.
"The female DPs that are out there working are working, so when you procure a list of the people who would be ripe and ready to go, the good news is they're working. That actually encouraged me. I was like, 'Well, couldn't get a female DP. The ladies we loved were already working.' DP is great. I think if you're an editor or a DP, if you have a storytelling brain, you can always end up being a director with that skillset."
A version of this story first appeared in the April 24 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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Home / Article: Helping Hand raises $69K
Helping Hand raises $69K
31 January 2017 Michael J. Knell
SASKATOON – Members of BrandSource Canada raised some $69,206 during 2016 for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Canada (RMHC) as a result of their Thanks for the Helping Hand project. Some 42 participating stores held various types of events in support of the 15 Ronald McDonald Houses across the country.
BrandSource Canada (BSC), the primary go-to-market vehicle for the co-operatively owned Mega Group, has been a fundraising partner to RMHC since 2007. In early 2015, RMHC announced the group – along with a cadre of key suppliers, mostly notably Sealy Canada – has raised over $1 million, in terms of both cash and in-kind product donations, in support of its efforts.
“BrandSource dealers are proud to be involved in their communities and believe their direct participation in the Thanks for the Helping Hand project is a natural and simple way to help,” Mega president and chief executive officer Benoit Simard said in a statement.
The money raised by each participating dealer was donated to the Ronald McDonald House closest to them and which is used by members of their owned communities.
The types of initiatives held by each member store varied. For example, Meubles & Nous, a BrandSource authorised member in St-Georges de Beauce, Québec raised $750 with a barbeque while Midwest Furniture & Appliances, a BrandSource authorised member in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, raised $765 with a popcorn, hotdog and lemonade sale. Not to be outdone, Stubbe’s BrandSource Home Furnishings in Tillsonburg, Ontario raised $701 with their barbeque.
However, under the leadership of owner Hymie Surkis, Northern Furniture, the BrandSource authorised member in Bathurst, New Brunswick raised $1,870 with a barbeque and weekly contributions from store employees.
Mega’s senior management said it was delighted with the level of participation – which included all 16 member stores of Ameublement BrandSource in Quebec – in the first edition of the Helping Hand project although some changes will be made for the 2017 campaign.
Simard admitted “the barbeque idea turned out to not be a popular as expected, so needless to say 2017 will see change in the fundraising events to be held.” While the details are still being worked out, the group is considering a combination of tying the fund raising to the sale of promotional items, coupled with a draw or two held at key moments during the year.
BSC management expects to announce the details of this year’s Helping Hand project over the coming weeks.
In a statement, RMHC president and CEO Cathy Loblaw praised BSC and its members for their continuing efforts to aid the organisation in their ongoing effort to support the families of critically ill children.
“We are deeply grateful for our partners at BrandSource Canada, whose generous support helps Ronald McDonald Houses and Family Rooms feel more like home for the 30,000 families we serve each year,” she said. “Through the Thanks for the Helping Hand program, BrandSource and their partners across the country will help us to be there for more families in more communities across Canada when they need us most.”
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Smiths Falls expands fire dispatching services in Ontario
Chris Must
The Smiths Falls Fire Department is continuing to find new sources of revenue for the town by providing fire dispatching services to other small municipalities.
At a special council meeting July 24, councillors voted to sign a new contract to provide dispatching service to the small northern Ontario municipality of St-Charles, located between North Bay and Sudbury. St-Charles has a population of just 1,269, and a low volume of calls, reported Smiths Falls Fire Chief Normand Beauchamp. Providing fire dispatching service to St-Charles will net about $4,000 a year in revenue to Smiths Falls over a five-year contract.
At the July 24 meeting, councillors also approved renewal of the fire department’s contract to provide similar dispatching services for about 60,000 residents of Lanark County. Smiths Falls has been providing that service to the county for the past seven years. The new contract covers the next five years.
Smiths Falls has the necessary equipment and expertise to provide dispatching services to other remote municipalities, whose own firefighters actually respond to the calls.
Fire dispatching could be a lucrative revenue stream for Smiths Falls
Smiths Falls to expand fire dispatching services
Smiths Falls appoints acting fire chief
Smiths Falls Fire Department responded to 208 calls in 2016
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DeMarcus Cousins Out “A While” With Quad Injury
April 16th 2019 at 9:02am CST by Luke Adams
9:02am: With an MRI still to come, there’s “faint” optimism that Cousins could be healthy in time to return for a potential NBA Finals appearance, but the expectation is that he’ll miss the rest of the playoffs, reports Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.
8:02am: The Warriors fear that starting center DeMarcus Cousins suffered a season-ending torn left quad during Monday’s loss to the Clippers, league sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The team, which is hoping the quad is just strained, won’t be able to confirm the extent of the injury until conducting an MRI later today, Wojnarowski adds.
“There’s a pretty significant quad injury,” head coach Steve Kerr said after the game. “We’ll get an MRI, but he’s going to be out for — I’ll just say a while because I think it’s unclear right now how long he’ll be out. It’s significant.”
The non-contact injury occurred as Cousins was going after a loose ball during the first quarter of Monday’s Game 2 matchup vs. the Clippers. To add insult to injury, the Warriors later blew a 31-point lead, allowing Los Angeles to even the first-round series at 1-1.
If Cousins’ injury is season-ending, it’s another horrible stroke of luck for the former All-NBA big man, whose 2017/18 season was cut short by an Achilles tear. That injury prevented Cousins from making the first postseason appearance of his career with the Pelicans last spring, and scuttled his chances of a massive payday.
The 28-year-old ultimately settled for a below-market deal with the defending champions in the hopes of making a title run, rebuilding his value, and returning to free agency this summer. He appeared to be on his way to doing just that after averaging 16.3 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 3.6 APG, and 1.5 BPG in 30 games (25.7 MPG) upon returning from his Achilles tear. However, after having suited up for just two playoff games, Cousins may now once again be recovering from a major injury when he hits the open market in July.
“It’s tough, for sure,” teammate Stephen Curry said, per ESPN’s report. “You feel for him considering what he’s been through this last year. This is a big stage, the playoffs. He’s been looking forward to this. I don’t know the extent of the injury at this point. Hope he gets back sooner than later. Just man-to-man in terms of him, what he’s been through, it’s tough for sure. There’s no sugarcoating it at all. You hate seeing that opportunity again on this big stage taken away from him like that.”
With Cousins sidelined, the Warriors will lean more heavily on Andrew Bogut and Kevon Looney at the five, with Jordan Bell perhaps seeing occasional minutes as well.
5 thoughts on “DeMarcus Cousins Out “A While” With Quad Injury”
Even tho I’m not a fan of his diva attitude. 2 yrs in a row. Gotta feel bad for the dude.
Maybe after three years…
GSW can offer a certain % raise, maybe 20%, but he may actually find it difficult to find a new team at that level! Probably depends on Durant not returning.
This means he’ll be back with the Warriors. If he can rehab again and be ready for the second half next year he’ll get a redo. Fingers crossed he can come back from this injury 100%
Thuggababyy • 3 months ago
Highly doubt he’s back in the Bay next year. Jeez though hate him or love him, you have to feel bad for the guy.
Who else will sign him for half a season like this year?
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Kobi Simmons
Cavs Trade Rodney Hood To Blazers For Stauskas, Baldwin, Picks
February 4th, 2019 at 9:37am CST by JD Shaw
FEBRUARY 4: The trade is now official, according to press releases issued by the Blazers and Cavs. According to Cleveland’s announcement, the two picks included in the deal are Portland’s own 2021 and 2023 second-rounders. The Cavs also confirmed they waived Simmons from his 10-day contract to clear the necessary roster spot.
“Rodney is an accomplished NBA player that brings versatility, shot making and depth to our perimeter and will fit seamlessly into our culture and style of play,” Blazers president of basketball operations Neil Olshey said in a statement.
FEBRUARY 3: The Cavaliers are trading guard Rodney Hood to the Trail Blazers for Nik Stauskas, Wade Baldwin and two future second-round picks, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports.
The Cavs must release one player to make the trade work, with 10-day contract guard Kobi Simmons being a potential candidate. Cleveland will continue to explore the market for Alec Burks, who could be on deck for a trade, Wojnarowski adds. J.R. Smith also remains on the roster several weeks after he and the team mutually agreed to part ways.
Hood, 26, had to approve of the trade because he signed a one-year qualifying offer last offseason, as noted by Wojnarowski. He was enthusiastic enough about joining the Blazers to waive his Bird Rights, now focused on helping Portland advance as the postseason nears.
For Portland, Hood is expected to provide bench scoring behind the likes of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, currently holding per-game averages of 12.2 points, 2.5 rebounds and two assists. He’ll be a free agent on July 1. The Blazers (fourth in the West at 32-20) also freed up a roster spot with the agreement.
Stauskas and Baldwin join the Cavaliers as two younger guards who will enter unrestricted free agency this July. Baldwin struggled shooting the ball (30% from the floor and 22% from 3-point range) in limited minutes with the Blazers this year, while Stauskas has shot a career-best 42% from the floor and pedestrian 34% from deep on the season.
With the trade, Cleveland has essentially turned Hood, Kyle Korver, George Hill and Sam Dekker into one first-round pick and six second-round picks for the future, ESPN’s Bobby Marks tweets. The first round pick is protected in 2021.
The NBA’s annual trading deadline falls on Thursday, February 7 this year. Today’s deal between the Cavaliers and Blazers is the 10th different trade of the 2018/19 season.
Nik Stauskas
Rodney Hood
Wade Baldwin
NBA G League Assignments/Recalls: 2/2/19
February 2nd, 2019 at 8:45pm CST by Arthur Hill
Here are Saturday’s assignments and recalls from around the NBA G League:
The Wizards recalled Troy Brown Jr. and John Jenkins from their Capital City affiliate, the team announced on Twitter. Brown, Washington’s first-round pick in 2018, has appeared in 28 games for the Wizards, while Jenkins, who signed a 10-day contract on Thursday, hasn’t been in the NBA for more than two years.
The Cavaliers recalled Kobi Simmons from the Canton Charge, the team posted on its website. Simmons, who is on his second 10-day contract with the Cavs, played in Canton’s game this afternoon against Windy City. His is averaging 16.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 32 G League games.
The Spurs recalled Chimezie Metu from Austin in time for tonight’s game, the team announced in a press release. The rookie forward has played 21 games for San Antonio and 18 in the G League.
Chimezie Metu
February 1st, 2019 at 8:41pm CST by Dana Gauruder
Here are Friday’s assignments and recalls from around the NBA G League:
The Pistons assigned power forward Henry Ellenson to the Grand Rapids Drive, according to a team press release. In six games with the Drive, Ellenson is averaging 19.7 PPG, 11.8 RPG, 3.0 APG and 1.2 BPG. The 2016 first-round pick has only appeared in two games with Detroit this season.
The Spurs assigned rookie forward Chimezie Metu and rookie guard Lonnie Walker IV to the Austin Spurs, according to a team press release. They’ll play against the Long Island Nets on Friday. In 17 games with Austin, Metu is averaging 14.2 PPG and 7.6 RPG. He’s appeared in 21 San Antonio games. Walker IV has seen action in 19 games with Austin, averaging 15.9 PPG, 3.1 RPG and 1.6 APG. He’s seen action in four Spurs games.
The Cavaliers assigned guard Kobi Simmons to the Canton Charge, the team announced in a press release. Simmons has seen action in 31 games with the Charge this season, posting averages of 16.7 PPG and 4.0 RPG. He signed a 10-day contract with Cleveland on January 27.
Henry Ellenson
Lonnie Walker
NBA G League Assignments/Recalls: 1/31/19
January 31st, 2019 at 9:17pm CST by JD Shaw
Here are Thursday’s assignments and recalls from around the NBA G League:
The Hornets have assigned guard Dwayne Bacon to the Greensboro Swarm, general manager Mitch Kupchak announced. Bacon is averaging 4.6 points and 1.6 rebounds per game in 24 appearances with the Hornets this season.
The Cavaliers have recalled Kobi Simmons from the Canton Charge, the team announced in a press release. Simmons has seen action in 31 games with the Charge this season, holding per-game averages of 16.7 points and four rebounds.
The Rockets recalled center Isaiah Hartenstein today, according to the team’s public relations department. Hartenstein was drafted by the Rockets with the No. 43 pick back in 2017.
The Blazers have recalled Anfernee Simons from the Agua Caliente Clippers, president of basketball operations Neil Olshey announced. Simons was originally assigned to Agua Caliente on January 20.
Anfernee Simons
Dwayne Bacon
Isaiah Hartenstein
Cavaliers Sign Kobi Simmons To 10-Day Contract
January 27th, 2019 at 9:58am CST by Arthur Hill
Kobi Simmons has signed a 10-day deal with the Cavaliers, the team announced on its website.
The 21-year-old guard has spent the season with Cleveland’s G League affiliate in Canton after the Cavs waived him in training camp. Simmons averaged 17.0 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 30 games for the Charge.
After going undrafted out of Arizona in 2017, Simmons signed a two-way deal with the Grizzlies. He appeared in 32 games for Memphis last season, starting 12, and averaged 6.1 points in about 20 minutes per game. He was released during the summer.
The addition of Simmons ensures that Cameron Payne is done in Cleveland, at least for now. His second 10-day contract expired on Friday.
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Cameron Payne
Cavaliers Release Kobi Simmons, Three Others
4:52pm: The Cavaliers have also waived Taylor, according to a second press release from the team. That leaves the club with 14 players on standard contracts and a pair on two-way deals.
3:47pm: The Cavaliers have waived guard Kobi Simmons and forwards Bonzie Colson and Emanuel Terry, the team announced today in a press release. Cleveland’s roster now stands at 17 players, including 15 on standard contracts.
Simmons, 21, spent last season on a two-way contract with the Grizzlies, appearing in 32 games for the NBA squad. In 20.1 minutes per contest, the rookie point guard contributed 6.1 PPG, 2.1 APG, and 1.6 RPG. However, he was waived by Memphis this summer and joined the Cavs for camp.
Colson spent the 2017/18 season at Notre Dame before going undrafted this spring, with foot injuries hurting his stock as a prospect. Terry signed with the Nuggets earlier this offseason but was cut by Denver and inked a deal with the Cavs on Thursday. Both players are candidates to join the Canton Charge, Cleveland’s G League affiliate.
If no more roster moves are forthcoming for the Cavs, that’s good news for guard Isaiah Taylor, the team’s only other player on a non-guaranteed deal. Taylor recently suffered a stress fracture in his leg, which is expected to sideline him for about a month, so it wasn’t clear whether or not he’d make the team.
Bonzie Colson
Emanuel Terry
Isaiah Taylor
Cavaliers Sign Kobi Simmons
September 20th, 2018 at 1:08pm CST by Arthur Hill
SEPTEMBER 20: The Cavaliers have officially signed Simmons after waiving JaCorey Williams to clear a roster spot, per RealGM’s transactions log.
SEPTEMBER 14: The Cavaliers will sign Kobi Simmons to a one-year contract, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. The point guard participated in Cleveland’s free agent tryout camp last week.
Simmons played for the Grizzlies last season on a two-way contract, but Memphis waived him in late August. The 21-year-old appeared in 32 games, starting 12, and averaged 6.1 points and 2.1 assists per night.
Cleveland was at the 20-player roster limit after yesterday’s reported deals with Bonzie Colson, Isaac Hamilton and Scoochie Smith, so an opening will have to be created before all the contracts can be finalized.
Cavaliers Sign Forward JaCorey Williams
September 14th, 2018 at 6:15pm CST by Dana Gauruder
Forward JaCorey Williams has signed a contract with the Cavaliers, according to the RealGM transactions log.
Terms were not disclosed but it’s almost certainly a training camp deal. Williams participated briefly in Cleveland’s training camp last season but was waived to make room for Dwyane Wade. Williams eventually wound up playing 49 games for their G League affiliate, the Canton Charge, where he averaged 15.4 PPG and 7.5 RPG. Williams went on to play for Israel’s Hapoel Gilboa Galil during the spring.
Williams, a 6’8″ forward, played his first three college seasons at Arkansas, then transferred to Middle Tennessee State for his senior year. He enjoyed a breakout season there, averaging 17.3 PPG and 7.3 RPG. Williams, who was named the Conference USA Player of the Year for 2016/17, joined the Warriors’ summer league team before his short stay in Cleveland’s training camp.
The Cavaliers have waived guards Isaac Hamilton and Scoochie Smith, whom they signed to Exhibit 10 contracts on Thursday, according to NBA.com’s transactions log. That duo will join the team’s G League camp.
The Cavs have also reportedly reached an agreement with point guard Kobi Simmons and also added forward Bonzie Colson, though neither have officially signed. If they do become official, Cleveland will reach the 20-player training camp roster limit.
Isaac Hamilton
JaCorey Williams
Scoochie Smith
Cavs Work Out Tyler Ulis, Alan Williams, Others
September 6th, 2018 at 3:52pm CST by Luke Adams
SEPTEMBER 6: The Cavaliers worked out a few more free agents today, according to Michael Scotto of The Athletic, who tweets that Kobi Simmons, Brandon Paul, and Rodney Purvis all earned a look from Cleveland as well. Simmons, Paul, and Purvis played for the Grizzlies, Spurs, and Magic, respectively, in 2017/18.
SEPTEMBER 5: A group of veteran free agents worked out for the Cavaliers today, sources tell Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype (Twitter link). According to Kennedy, Tyler Ulis, Alan Williams, JaKarr Sampson, and Marcus Georges-Hunt were among the players to participate in the audition.
It’s not clear if the Cavaliers are seeking depth at a particular position and looking to fill out their 15-man regular season roster, or if they’re simply familiarizing themselves with the various options remaining on the free agent market.
Cleveland only has 12 players on guaranteed contracts, but has a reported agreement in place with David Nwaba and seems likely to eventually re-sign Rodney Hood too, so there may not be more than a single open spot available on the regular season roster.
All four players named by Kennedy appeared in NBA games last season. Ulis played 71 games (43 starts) for the Suns before being waived in June; Sampson appeared in 22 contests for the Kings on a two-way contract; Williams returned from a knee injury to play five games at the end of the season for the Suns before being cut in July; and Georges-Hunt saw limited minutes off the bench in 42 games for the Timberwolves.
Alan Williams
JaKarr Sampson
Marcus Georges-Hunt
Rodney Purvis
Tyler Ulis
Grizzlies Waive Kobi Simmons
August 28th, 2018 at 4:35pm CST by Chris Crouse
The Grizzlies have waived Kobi Simmons, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports (Twitter link). Simmons had been on a two-way contract with Memphis.
Simmons played in 32 games for the Grizzlies last season, averaging 6.1 points, 1.6 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in 20.1 minutes of action per contest. He also spent time in the G League, playing for the Memphis Hustle where he saw 30.9 minutes per game during his 26 appearances.
Simmons went undrafted during the 2017 draft after playing just one season at the University of Arizona. He inked a two-way deal with Memphis last summer.
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Expat Info News
June 2019 was the hottest ever worldwide
08 July 2019 , by Abi Carter
What with heat waves and record-breaking heat days, you probably guessed it, but now it’s official - June 2019 was the hottest ever, and not just in Germany, or Europe, but the whole world.
June 2019 was hottest ever
Global readings taken by the EU-operated Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) show indisputably that the June just gone was the hottest ever recorded worldwide, as the heatwave experienced in Germany at the end of the month was also felt in countries across Europe - including France, northern Spain, northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic.
Overall, the average temperature in Europe in June 2019 was around two degrees above what is considered the “normal” range, a reference period based on average temperatures between 1981 and 2010. The previous record, set in June 2016, was beaten this year by 0,1 degrees. Taking the years 1850 to 1900 as a reference period, the temperature in June in Europe was on average an astonishing three degrees higher.
Even hotter than normal in Germany
According to the German Weather Service (DWD), last month was the warmest and sunniest June ever measured in Germany, meaning that the deviation from the normal June conditions was even more pronounced in the federal republic than other European countries.
With an average temperature of 19,8 degrees Celsius, the temperature in Germany in June was four degrees above the average for the period 1981-2010, the DWD announced in late June. In the last week of June, the temperature record was broken twice: hitting first 38,6 and then 39,6 degrees in Brandenburg, only 0,7 of a degree shy of the all-time temperature record of 40,3 degrees.
Extreme temperatures will become more frequent
In a statement, the C3S said that, although it is difficult to attribute the extreme weather conditions to climate change directly, it is generally expected that such temperature extremes will become gradually more frequent as the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases increases.
After the extreme heat, temperatures in Germany are expected to cool over the next week - although there are already some signs that a second heatwave might be on its way. Watch this space for more details.
Abi studied History & German at the University of Manchester. She has since worked as a writer, editor and content marketeer, but still has a soft spot for museums, castles...
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Morocco: remove obstacles to women’s and girls’ access to justice for sexual and gender-based violence – New ICJ report
In a report released today in Rabat, the ICJ called for the removal and eradication of legal obstacles and discriminatory judicial attitudes hindering women’s and girls’ ability to seek justice and redress for sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Morocco.
The ICJ’s report Obstacles to Women’s and Girls’ Access to Justice for Gender-based Violence in Morocco (available in English and Arabic) explores the various obstacles that women seeking justice in Morocco face, and addresses recommendations to the Moroccan government and judiciary with a view to improving access to justice and effective remedies for women and girls who are victims of SGBV.
“The Moroccan authorities should amend Law 103/13 and the Penal Code to ensure compliance with international human rights law and standards. Morocco’s Office of the Public Prosecutor and the country’s judicial authorities, including the High Judicial Council, should ensure that detailed guidelines on investigation and prosecution of SGBV crimes are developed and complied with, and that awareness-raising programmes be rolled out to counter judicial stereotyping and victim-blaming,” said Saïd Benarbia, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the ICJ.
Notwithstanding the recent adoption of Law 103/03 on combatting violence against women, SGBV has not been adequately addressed; it remains widespread in Morocco, with a profoundly detrimental human rights impact on victims and society at large. Law 103/3 fails to define rape in a manner consistent with relevant international law and standards, with the crime still addressed through the lens of morality and public decency, rather than as a violation of one’s bodily integrity and autonomy; Law 103/3 also fails to criminalize child and early marriage, lending support to this harmful practice.
In addition to discriminatory laws and procedures, women and girls seeking justice and redress as survivors of SGBV in Morocco have to face a judiciary that often harbours biased assumptions, and propounds negative gender stereotypes, including cultural norms rooted in patriarchy.
Against this background, the ICJ’s report analyses how exceedingly lenient sentences – for instance in cases of marital rape – and the heightened risk women and girls face of being charged with consensual extramarital sexual relations deter them from seeking justice and redress in case of physical and sexual abuse of which they may be victims, either at the hands of their husband or of individuals with whom they are not married.
To begin addressing women’s and girls’ predicament in these and other respects related to SGBV, the report calls on the Moroccan authorities to:
Adopt legislation that recognizes one’s right to sexual autonomy, and that recognizes equal relationships as requiring free and full consent of both parties;
Adequately define and fully criminalize through a gender-neutral definition acts of rape, including by criminalizing marital rape as a separate offence;
Repeal Article 490 of the Penal Code criminalizing extramarital sexual relations, and ensure that Article 19 of the Family Code on the minimum age of marriage is stringently observed;
Enact policies, legislative and procedural measures aiming at enhancing the effectiveness of judicial and other public sector services related to women’s access to justice, including enforcing spousal and child support, providing free legal assistance to victims of SGBV, granting protection orders, and adopting other urgent measures;
Develop and enforce guidelines on investigating and prosecuting SGBV crimes;
Develop a national protocol for SGBV-related medical, forensic examinations, and ensure forensic-testing services be available and affordable;
Provide training and awareness-raising programmes aimed at countering judicial stereotyping, victim-blaming and other harmful practices.
Saïd Benarbia, Director of the ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, t: +41.22.979.3817, e: said.benarbia(a)icj.org
ICJ Commissioner Martine Comte led the delegation that met with different Moroccan authorities, justice and civil society actors this week in Rabat in order to present ICJ’s report and discuss its findings and recommendations. The ICJ delegation met with Mr Mohamed Aujjar, Minister of Justice; Mr Taoufik El Maimouni, President of the Commission on Justice, Legislation, and Human Rights at the Chamber of Deputies; Mr Larbi Tabit, Secretary General at the Minister of Solidarity, Women, Family and Social Development; Ms Amina Bouayach, President of the National Human Rights Council and representatives of the judiciary and of the civil society.
Morocco-Obstacles GBV-Publications-Reports-Thematic report-2019-ENG (full report in English, PDF)
Morocco-Obstacles GBV-Publications-Reports-Thematic report-2019-ARA (full report in Arabic, PDF)
Morocco-Women HR report-News-2019-ARA (News story in Arabic, PDF)
NewsPublicationsReportsThematic reports
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✎ About Boris Mints
Birth Day: July 24, 1958
Birth Place: Moscow, Russia, Russia
Residence: Moscow, Russia
Citizenship: Russian and Maltese
Alma mater: Ivanovo State University
Occupation: Businessman
Spouse(s): Marina Vladimirovna Mints
Children: 4
Parent(s): Iosif Samuilovich Mints Lusia Izrailevna Milter
Boris Mints Net Worth
Boris Mints was bornon July 24, 1958 in Moscow, Russia, Russia. Boris Mints is the owner of Cyprus-based investment holding company O1 Group, which owns pension funds and real estate assets in Russia. In 2014 he sold a 12% stake in O1 Group subsidiary O1 Properties to Goldman Sachs International. He used the proceeds to buy several Russian pension funds and a stake in Austrian CA Immobilien Anlagen, which invests in real estate; he has since sold that stake. Mints holds a degree in physics. In the 1990s he worked at the Committee for Managing State Property and Administration of the President of Russia.
Boris Mints is a member of Real Estate
Net worth: $1.3 Billion
Some Boris Mints images
Awards and nominations:
In 2014, the Miloserdiye awards ceremony took place to honor public figures for their commitment to humanitarian values. Boris Mints became the first winner of this award.
In May 2015, Boris Mints, the founder of the Museum of Russian Impressionism, won the Prize named after Yekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, nominated in the “Patron of the Arts” category.
Boris Mints was born in Moldova in the family of a military Engineer, Major Joseph Samuilovich Mints (born 1932, Nevel). His mother, Lusia Izrailevna Milter (1936–2007, Kodyma, Ukrainian SSR), worked as a librarian; as a child from 1941 to 1944 she was deported to the Chechelnik ghetto in Transnistria, while 14 members of her male family died on the front during the Second World War, including both of her grandfathers – Samuil Iosifovich Mints (1892–1942) and Srul Gershkovich Milter (1901–1944).
In 1980, he graduated from the Physics Department of Ivanovo State University. Boris Mints is PhD in Technical Sciences and an associate professor of Higher Mathematics.
He is married to Marina Vladimirovna Mints. They have four children: sons Dmitry (born on December 15, 1981), Alexandr (born on October 14, 1988), Igor (born on October 14, 1988); daughter Alyona (born on October 11, 2006).
Between 1983 and 1990, he worked at the Ivanovo Textile Institute.
Between 1987 and 1990, he worked in a Youth Center for Scientific Creativity where he earned his first capital.
Between 1990 and 1994, he held the position of Vice Mayor of Ivanovo and chaired the City Property Management Committee (CPMC).
Between 1996 and 2000, he was the head of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Issues of Local Governance and Secretary of the Council for Local Government in the Russian Federation, chaired by the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.
Between 2001 and 2003, he was the General Director of REN TV Media Holding.
In 2004, he founded the O1 Group investment company which owns and manages assets in real estate and financial sectors.
In 2010, he founded the investment company O1 Properties for managing real estate assets. At the end of 2017, O1 Properties was the 6th largest owner of commercial real estate in Russia.
In 2013, the O1 Group began acquiring pension Business assets and until the middle of 2017 concluded deals to purchase NPF Telecom-Soyuz, NPF Stalfond, NPF Blagosostoyanie OPS, NPF Uralsib, NPF Obrazovaniye, NPF Our Future, NPF Socialnoe Razvitie.
In September 2014, Mints facilitated the installation in Moscow of a sculptural and spatial composition by the outstanding Russian Sculptor and academician Georgy Frangulyan adjacent to the White Square Business center, which was a major event for both the arts community and commercial real estate market. By doing this, Boris Mints supported the global trend of taking art beyond the walls of museums, integrating it organically with everyday life to enrich the urban space and give it meaning.
In May 2016, the world’s first Museum of Russian Impressionism was opened at the Bolshevik cultural and Business center in Moscow. As well as displaying Mints' personal collection, the Museum also hosts regular exhibitions of impressionist works from other countries.
In 2017, the Museum of Russian Impressionism presented one of the best works by Valery Koshlyakov "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs" (2016, cardboard, tempera, 315x185 cm) to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The donation was a part of the large-scale initiative "Collection!" which united leading Collectors of contemporary art.
1958 births Living people Russian businesspeople Russian Jews Russian people of Moldovan descent Moldovan Jews Russian billionaires Maltese billionaires
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The idea for this story came about when Stephen King's daughter's cat, Smuckey, was killed on the highway outside their home. Smuckey's name appears on gravestones in the pet cemetery, in both the film and the novel.
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Stephen King once mentioned that the only novel he wrote that really scared him was "Pet Sematary."
Bruce Campbell was the first choice for the role of Louis Creed.
The film was shot on location in the same rural Maine area that Stephen King set the novel "Pet Sematary."
The role of Zelda, Rachel's terminally ill sister, was played by a man. Director Mary Lambert wanted Zelda and her scenes to frighten the audience but did not believe that a 13-year old girl was scary so she cast Andrew Hubatsek in the role to make something be "off about Zelda."
Stephen King was present on location for most of the shooting of the film. The area it was shot in was only twenty minutes away from his home in Bangor, Maine.
In Stephen King's novel, Judd mentions that a dog went wild in a nearby town and killed several people. This is a reference to the events of Cujo (1983), another novel by King. It is common for characters in King's novels to mention the events of his other novels.
The original screenplay featured the "wendigo" (a Native American demon) that was mentioned in the novel, but it was ultimately cut from the film. Its presence is implied only twice: first, in the scene where Louis is walking through the woods at night and hears something large knock down a tree, and second, when Judd first takes Louis up to the Indian burial ground, there is some kind of loud crash deep in the forest followed by a long, almost feminine howl. Judd says that "it's only a loon," but it is clear that he does not entirely believe it himself.
Stephen King required the movie to be filmed in Maine and his screenplay to be followed rigorously.
Actor Brad Greenquist had said, in an interview, that while in his gruesome makeup for the role of Victor Pascow, no one would sit near him while the cast and crew were having lunch.
Stephen King is a big fan of the Ramones and referenced some of their songs in the novel "Pet Sematary." In homage, The Ramones wrote and performed the theme song "Pet Sematary," which is featured in the film's closing credits. The truck driver was also listening to "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" by The Ramones.
Twin actresses played the role of Ellie Creed. Blaze Berdahl, however, was mainly credited for the role while Beau Berdahl Oliver is credited as "Ellie Creed II."
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(At around nine minutes into the film) Louis claims his cat, Church, is named after former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Seven blue British Shorthair cats were acquired to play Church, and each of them were trained to do a specific action for the camera.
When Stephen King first wrote the manuscript for Pet Sematary, he shelved it. It was only when his wife Tabitha King told him to publish it, after she found it later and read through it. Stephen King then decided to take it to his publisher.
George A. Romero was originally set to direct, but when filming was delayed, he dropped out and Mary Lambert stepped in and Romero directed Monkey Shines (1988).
Director Mary Lambert said that Fred Gwynne was her first and only choice for the role of Judd Crandall.
This was the first filmed screenplay that Stephen King adapted from one of his own novels.
Star Fred Gwynne's hair is actually black so he dyed his hair white on a regular basis for the role of Judd Crandall.
The original cut of the film delivered to Paramount's executives was judged to be too long, so excess footage had to be removed. They also decided that the closing scene was too tame and at their request it was re-shot to be more graphic.
During the film, the character Jud played by Fred Gwynne mentions that he had a pet named "Spot." "Spot" was also the name of the pet dragon on Gwynne's TV show The Munsters (1964).
Mary Lambert tried getting Blaze Berdahl to cry for a scene by suggesting the young actor think back on something from her life that was very sad, but the girl had nothing. Lambert instead ended up offering her more money if she'd cry.
This was the debut film for young actor Miko Hughes, who was only 31-33 months old during production.
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Initially, Paramount executives wanted a pair of twins to play the role of Gage, like those chosen to play Ellie, which was the more cost-effective option. However, Mary Lambert was very impressed with three-year old Miko Hughes, whom she felt was a natural talent despite his young age, so she lobbied the studio to accept her choice.
The Micmac burial ground in the film was constructed upon an actual mountain top. According to director Mary Lambert, bulldozers were brought in to build the stone mounds.
Pet Sematary was director Mary Lambert's second feature film. She was better known for her work directing music videos, especially those for Madonna including Madonna: Material Girl (1985) and Madonna: Like a Prayer (1989). Through her work in the music industry, Lambert was friends with The Ramones, who were one of Stephen King's favorite bands. She approached them about recording a song for the film and they agreed to write and perform 'Pet Sematary', which is featured during the closing end credits.
The tree that Ellie Creed swings on after first arriving at their new home made such an impression on Mary Lambert and Stephen King that they dug it up from a field where they spotted it and re-planted it in front of the house. They had searched all summer for the perfect house with a tree and never found it, so they compromised.
During the opening credits, there are several children's voices reciting epitaphs for deceased pets. One of these voices belongs to Jonathan Brandis, who starred as the young Bill Denbrough in another of Stephen King's most popular works, It (1990).
Ellie is psychic in the novel, butMary Lambert's not convinced she was able to convey that in the film.
According to Mary Lambert, one of the hardest things was to get the cat to eat the pork chop.
Over the years critics have frequently voiced concern over the impression that being in this film must have left on young Miko Hughes. On the contrary, his parts during the horror sequences were shot separate from the more "disturbing" elements and violent action. He was later edited into these scenes, while a child-dummy was used during the more intense action footage.
The scene where Pascow first visits Louis in the night was originally shot with star Dale Midkiff clad only in jockey shorts (as Louis is described in the novel). However, the scene was later reshot with Midkiff wearing full pajamas. The filmmakers were concerned that Midkiff's attractive physical appearance would diminish the eerieness of the scene.
The only two songs in the credits are by Ramones.
The original ending was more "sad and quiet and emotional," but early screenings convinced them the film needed a "punchier" one.
The effort to cast Zelda began with little girls, but they were all just too sweet. "The thinner they were the sweeter and more appealing they were." She eventually thought to cast a boy, Andrew Hubatsek, in the role as he "would be more into the idea of looking ugly and coughing and spitting up and retching." She also thought it would be creepier, and she isn't wrong.
Tom Savini turned down the chance to direct the film.
They had to shoot Pascow's "Don't make me tell you twice" scene twice because "it was felt that Dale Midkiff looked too sexy. He was sleeping shirtless."
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One of the things that draws Mary Lambert to horror is the genre's opportunity to make up your own rules as a filmmaker. "You can create a world that exists with its own set of rules. You can ignore physics, but the only thing you have to do is then adhere to those rules." She says Pet Sematary does a great job establishing and following its own rules.
Many fans mistake Church's breed as a Russian Blue when he is in fact a British Shorthair.
A set was built for the house's interiors as the rooms inside old New England-style houses are too small to film in comfortably.
Fred Gwynne said he put his character on like, "a pair of overalls."
Some people, probably producers or studio executives, suggested cutting the funeral scene for fear it would inject too much reality into the horror film.
Other filming locations included an abandoned granite quarry on Mount Desert Island in Acadia National Park, where the burial ground was constructed, a forest near Ellsworth for the pet sematary, and Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor for the graveyard scenes.
They shot the film in Maine because it was in Stephen King's contract that production would take place there. Mary Lambert says it worked out beautifully though as the landscape has "iconographic quality and archetypal resonance."
The house used for the Creeds' home is a private residence near Hancock.
Mary Lambert "dragged the crew all over Maine" to find various geographic difficulties to include in the trek to the old Indian burial ground.
Louis says to Jud regarding Church's condition, "I'm not a vet", coincidentally in the sequel, Pet Sematary II (1992), Chase Matthews (Anthony Edwards) is a veterinarian.
The Creeds car is a 1988 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser.
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One of the hardest elements for the production design team was the path to the cemetery as it was described as, "shining in the moonlight."
Trailer narrated by Percy Rodrigues.
The opening title sequence with credits over images of handmade headstones in a pet cemetery came straight from Stephen King's script.
Missy's car is a 1975 Honda Civic Wagon [WB].
Steve Masterson is portrayed by Indian actor Kavi Raz. Possibly a nod to the novel's minor character Surrendra Hardu, a coworker of Louis, who is not featured in the film.
"The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis. A man grows what he can, and he tends it." He is basically believing that a man's heart is harder to penetrate with love and emotion but also how tough his heart is. He believes that he is the keeper of many secrets such as Church, his night time stroll with Pascow and the deal his father in law made to him. However, in many instances he takes glee and pleasure from these secrets.
Stephen King: (at around 41 mins) minister at the funeral.
The trivia items below may give away important plot points.
When Victor Pascow is being carried into the clinic after being hit by a truck, a rabies poster with a picture of Cujo can be seen on the bulletin board by the stairs.
The story was inspired by actual events experienced by Stephen King that occurred while he was living in Orington, Maine with his family. King recalled that while living there, his daughter's cat was killed on the highway. Much of Ellie Creed's emotional outburst was taken directly from King's own grief-stricken daughter. King also remembered that once, his youngest son had nearly run into the road while a truck was speeding down it, much like Gage does in the film. The character of Judd Crandall was based on the elderly neighbor that lived across the road from King. Also, there was an actual pet cemetery in the woods behind the King house, which became the basis for the one in the novel.
The picture at Rachel's parents' house is a painting of Zelda as a child, before her spinal meningitis. Gage is later seen wearing a similar outfit (as well as having her red hair) to signify that Zelda has come back through him, which was Rachel's deepest fear.
When Church is killed for the second time at the climax, the needle is rigged to look as if it is sticking into him, but it is not. The cat was sedated by a veterinarian. A representative of American Humane was present and the cat made a full recovery.
Judd Crandall's house for the film was actually a facade built upon a smaller preexisting house. For the finale, where the house is burned, an asbestos shield was constructed between the two houses so that while burning the facade no damage would occur to the smaller house it was built upon.
(at around 1h 16 mins) When Rachel gets off the semi, the numbers "666" are on it.
The portrait of Zelda as a child also features a gray cat at the child's feet, an obvious foreshadowing.
The character of Missy is actually the blending of two characters into one. In the book Missy does not commit suicide. The only characters to die prior to Gage's death are Pascow and Norma Crandall, Jud's wife.
Mary Lambert sees Victor Pascow as "the good angel and Jud as "the bad angel," she says, as the friendly old man is the one Louis should be ignoring. His wardrobe, especially the large hooded jacket he's wearing when Church is found dead, is meant to suggest the darkness.
In the novel Rachel passed a sign for Salem's Lot, showing the two are connected.
For the scene when Louis discovers Jud's body, a sculpture of Fred Gwynne's head was used rather than the actor himself. This is why the shot of Jud's body is so brief.
At 59:09, as the house goes up in flames, Timmy Baterman shouts "love dead, hate living". This is line originally from Bride of Frankenstein (1935), as spoken by Boris Karloff as the Monster. Timmy repeats the line a minute or so later.
The discussion as to how to present the zombie Gage onscreen touched at one point on the possibility of using a little person. Instead, they wisely settled on a combination of the real Miko Hughes and a puppet.
The storyline revolves on the omen of being hit by the fast trucks on the road. Stephen King would himself suffer a similar accident in 1999, when he was struck by a minivan while walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine.
In the book, there are several callbacks to Stephen King's The Shining, some of which carry over into the film. Victor Pascow calls Louis "Doc" (which was Danny Torrance's nickname), and throughout the film it's shown that the Creed family suffer from nightmarish visions and premonitions, implying that they all have the shining ability. (The Shining is a metaphysical mechanic that Stephen King has utilized in many of his books written subsequently to that one, as part of a shared literary universe.)
Body Count: 6
(At around 47 mins) The factory from which the truck that hits Gage is leaving, is the International Paper Factory (formerly Champion Paper Factory) in Bucksport, Maine.
Gage's hand lurching from the grave is a homage to the end of Carrie (1976).
According to Mary Lambert, the scalpel handled by the undead Gage wasn't sharp.
When Church is found dead alongside the highway, a fake cat was used.
Both the cat (Church) and dog (Spot) are made to appear bloody at times. Harmless make-up was used to look like blood.
The truck that runs over and kills Gage was a Peterbilt 378.
The dead rat dropped into the bathtub was fake.
Goofs | Crazy Credits | Quotes | Alternate Versions | Connections | Soundtracks
Assistidos em 2019
Movies I've seen in 2019
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IIG Board of Directors
Commitments to Service Excellence
Financial Ratings
Structured Settlements
What is a structured settlement?
Benefits to parties involved
Attorney fee structures
Medicare Set-Asides
Non-Qualified
Payee Protection Policy
James D. Atkins, FSA, MAAA
jatkins@Independent.Life
James D. Atkins is the Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Life Insurance Company. Atkins is the former CEO of Legal & General America. Under Atkins’ leadership, LGA grew sales more than 50% over its previous high-water mark and became the carrier of choice for high value term life insurance and a top 10 provider of protection focused life insurance sold through the independent distribution channel. Prior to this position Atkins spent 25 years under the GE Financial Services umbrella (First Colony Life Insurance, GE Financial Assurance, and Genworth). During this time he served in a variety of capacities including the roles of Chief Actuary and Capital Markets Leader. When he joined First Colony it was new in a fledgling structured settlement niche. During his tenure First Colony became one of the largest writers of this business. At its peak First Colony managed in excess of $10 billion of structured settlement contracts. Atkins has broad relationships with the leading reinsurance companies active in the U.S. market and is an experienced insurance company executive.
Donald J. Herrema
Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer
dherrema@Independent.Life
Donald Herrema is the Chief Investment Officer for Independent Life Insurance Company. Herrema also serves as the independent Chairman of TD (Toronto-Dominion Bank) Asset Management USA Funds. Herrema began his career at Wells Fargo Bank, rising through the ranks to become President of Wells Fargo Securities and Head of Mutual Funds. He later joined Bessemer Trust, becoming COO and then CEO, leading a period of strong growth in revenues and profitability. Later, he was the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Atlantic Trust, now a subsidiary of CIBC (Canada). Additionally, Herrema served as a Managing Director and Head of Private Wealth Management, Americas at Morgan Stanley and finally as Executive Vice Chairman of Kennedy Wilson (NYSE:KW). Herrema has served as an executive, director or adviser to several other United States and European-based private wealth management, fund management and other investment and financial services organizations. He also serves on the boards of several charitable and philanthropic organizations.
J. Todd Hagely, CPA
thagely@Independent.Life
Todd Hagely is the Chief Financial Officer for Independent Life Insurance Company. Hagely is the former CFO of the Direct Auto & Life Insurance Group where he managed all financial aspects of the company including strategic planning, financial reporting and compliance, treasury, tax, audit and risk management. Hagely led Direct through a number of financial transactions including an initial public offering and the acquisition and subsequent sale by private-equity investors. During his tenure, Hagely helped drive Direct’s revenue growth from $100 million to $600 million. Hagely was previously an audit manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers where he specialized in the life and property & casualty insurance industries.
Patrick J. Hindert, J.D., CSCC
Vice President of Business Development
phindert@Independent.Life
Patrick J. Hindert is Vice President of Business Development for Independent Assignment Company. Hindert has been a leader in the structured settlement industry since 1977. He previously served as President of Benefit Designs, a national structured settlement intermediary, which he owned and managed for 22 years. He has also served as President of the National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA) and as Executive Director of the Society of Settlement Planners (SSP). Hindert is co-author of Structured Settlements and Periodic Payment Judgments, a legal treatise updated semi-annually since 1986, which is utilized by NSSTA and SSP in their certification programs. Hindert previously authored the industry blog Beyond Structured Settlements and has been a frequent speaker at national conferences sponsored by NSSTA, SSP, NAMSAP, ASNP, NASP and NAELA. Hindert served as keynote speaker at the first national structured settlement conference in Australia in 1994. He provided expert testimony to the United States House Ways and Means Committee in 1981 prior to enactment of the Periodic Payment Settlement Act of 1982.
Jessica Murfin
jmurfin@Independent.Life
Jessica Murfin is the Vice President of Marketing for Independent Assignment Company. Previously, Murfin was Sr. Director of Marketing at One Call, the nation’s largest provider of workers’ compensation ancillary services. While at One Call, she led the company's product marketing efforts for both the workers' compensation and group health markets in addition to managing the account-based marketing strategies for the company's top 100 customers. She has extensive experience in building comprehensive product and program launches and in growing brands through content development and thought leadership. Murfin is a proud alumnus of Florida State University and serves as a board member for the Jacksonville Seminole Club.
Christopher M. Bua, J.D.
Vice President of Internal Sales
cbua@Independent.Life
Christopher Bua is the Vice President of Internal Sales for Independent Assignment Company. Bua was previously on the brokerage side of the structured settlement industry for 10 years, working directly with attorneys, plaintiffs, adjusters, and settlement consultants to create structured settlements. Bua oversaw the placement of over $1.3 billion in structured settlement premium during this time. While at Delta Settlements, Bua led a project team that developed annuity analysis reports that rank among the best in the industry. His brokerage background gives him a unique perspective and is what motivates him to lead his team to deliver industry-leading, dependable and prompt customer service to our clients.
Robert A. Sokol, Jr., CMSP
Director of Field Sales
rsokol@Independent.Life
Robert A. Sokol, Jr. is the Director of Field Sales for Independent Assignment Company. Previously, Sokol was Vice President of Business Development and Area Director for NuQuest, a nationally known Medicare Secondary Payer Compliance Services organization. He has spoken nationally on the topics of Medicare compliance and structured settlements at various professional conferences, state claims associations, third-party administrators and carrier claims teams. Prior to NuQuest, Sokol was a member of the senior management team at Cambridge Galaher Settlements. Sokol is a Certified Medicare Secondary Payer (CMSP) professional. He also holds a Life / Health Insurance license in various states.
Independent Life is the first and only single-purpose life insurance company dedicated to structured settlements.
Independent Life Insurance Company
Copyright © 2019 Independent Life
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Beckie Wright
Individual // News // New Zealand
Member since: 20 October 2014
Profile views: 33452
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Maximising Your Available Space .... And Creating Some More as Well! Whether it’s your dream home or you’re just trying to make the bach more user-friendly, maximising available space and creating extra storage areas will make life so much easier – ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place’ as the old adage goes. 460 views
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Roof Auckland Talk About Asbestos & Asbestos Regulations Under the Health and Safety at Work Asbestos regulations, a PCBU with Management or Control of a Workplace must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that all Asbestos Containing Material (ACM) at the workplace is identified by a competent person. 567 views
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Proper Pizza Ranks as One of Auckland's Best Italian Restaurants It’s official – Proper Pizza has been ranked by a Zomato list as one of the best Italian restaurants Auckland has to offer. According to a list release entitled the ’10 Best Italian Restaurants in Auckland’ Proper Pizza was ranked among some of Auckland’s finest establishments. 719 views
Vining Marine's Great Offers on Power Boats Vining Marine posted new power boats for sale. 598 views
Dave Clark Partners with Pure SEO in International SEO Campaign Dave Clark, a chief digital marketing agency, announced their partnership with Pure SEO, the largest specialist search agency in New Zealand. 621 views
Vivo Hair & Beauty Celebrate Natasha King: Editorial Stylist of the Year 2018 On the face of it, Natasha King’s story of her career in the hairdressing industryreads like that of someone who was inherently ambitious. 541 views
Proper Pizza Partners w ith Zomato Gold for an Exclusive Customer Experience For those who aren't on the Zomato Gold train, you better jump on quick because it's full of dealsthat are not to be missed.Basically, it'sa food reviewing app for mobilethat's been around foryears. 553 views
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Maximise Xero's Capabilities through Customised Training Wellington’s trusted accounting firm, GoFi8ure, wants businesses to maximise the use of Xero to further their business operations. 316 views
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Jason Isaacs praises ‘heroic’ people who speak out first against sexual harassment
Monday, November 06, 2017 - 02:48 PM
Actor Jason Isaacs has praised the “heroic” people who were the first to speak out against sexual harassment in the film industry.
The Harry Potter star particularly lauded his Star Trek colleague, Anthony Rapp, who recently made allegations of misconduct against Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey, kicking off a string of complaints against the actor.
Isaacs told ITV’s Lorraine: “(Anthony) is a very lovely guy and he did this thing by himself before many other people.
.@jasonsfolly on co-star Anthony Rapp's #KevinSpacey allegations: 'Speaking out against power takes a lot of guts' https://t.co/WJ6wpeNNeq pic.twitter.com/18AQSlkLOp
— Lorraine (@lorraine) November 6, 2017
“He heard many rumours, he hoped that other stories would come out in a couple of days, but they didn’t, and now they have.
“Now there’s a whole flood of them. It’s all down to him and we are all incredibly proud.
“Speaking out against power takes a lot of guts and the first person to speak out is heroic.”
His comments came days after Rapp, 46, publicly shared an account of a historical experience with Spacey, where he claimed that the star behaved in a sexually inappropriate way towards him.
He then tweeted: “I came forward with my story, standing on the shoulders of the many courageous women and men who have been speaking out.”
I came forward with my story, standing on the shoulders of the many courageous women and men who have been speaking out 1/3
— Anthony Rapp (@albinokid) October 30, 2017
Following Rapp’s account, Spacey tweeted an apology, and sparked criticism for announcing he had chosen to “live as a gay man” in the same statement.
Rapp’s story has since been followed by similar allegations from other male actors.
pic.twitter.com/X6ybi5atr5
— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) October 30, 2017
Isaacs, 54, plays Captain Gabriel Lorca in this year’s revamp of the much-loved sci-fi series, Star Trek: Discovery, alongside Rapp’s portrayal of Paul Stamets.
Isaacs said: “It’s a show of our time, for our time. It’s a darker series.”
Now broadcast on online streaming service Netflix, which automatically plays one episode after another, Isaacs joked: “It’s a gateway drug, that’s how they lock you in, that’s how the world is coming to an end – we’re all just going to sit and watch Netflix.”
EntertainmentMoviesUKShowbizSpaceyUKAnthony RappTOPIC: Heathrow
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Ethiopia joins other African nations in listing its first bond on MSM
Ethiopia has listed a US$1 billion sovereign bond on the Main Securities Market (MSM) of the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE). The senior notes, admitted to the ISE’s EU regulated market, are the country’s first debt issuance. The Ethiopian debt security will pay interest semi-annually at a rate of 6.625% and is due in 2024.
About Ethiopia
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is the latest African country to list their sovereign debt on the ISE. Other African nations to have securities admitted to the ISE’s debt markets include Kenya, Senegal, Rwanda, Ghana, and Egypt. Nigeria also has a Global Depository Note listed on the MSM.
The Ethiopian economy, which is primarily based in agriculture, has seen its annual average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grow by 10.9% over the last decade. The Horn of Africa nation has stated that it will use the funds raised for planned Government capital expenditure in areas such as industrial zone development and the development of sugar and energy industries.
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia prospectus document
Details of the Ethiopian debt security
LIST DEBT ON THE ISE
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THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO
"...This manifesto is not issued in the name
of an organization or a movement. I speak only
for myself. There is no Romantic movement today.
If there is to be one in the art of the future, this book will have helped it to come into being."
— Ayn Rand, 1969
In The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand sheds light on the role of art in our lives—its specific nature and inescapable power. Sifting through the conventional sentiments that art is closed to reason, judgement, and standards, Rand explores the vital, human role it plays in our lives to excite, edify, and even instruct. Far from an ammoral, subjective, anything-goes type approach to art's content (and form), she argues that art is a projection of its creator's ideas and normative values (whether they realize it or not). The psychological—both intellectual and emotional—feast that art can provide is greatly unknown, she contends, and needed more than ever with modern art collapsed into unintelligibility.
The work is structured into eleven essays (and one short story), elaborating on the basic principles of literature, the historical, and philosophical rivalry of two schools (Romanticism and Naturalism), Aristotle's influential Poetics, the psychological effects of Romantic art in a young person's development, and more.
WHY I LOVE IT
The scope of this short work is immense. It's a primer of sorts for what she hopes will encourage a paradigm shift in the arts. The Romantic Manifesto is clearly written, and (thankfully) zero percent academic. The dozen chapters pack a punch, are easily digestible, and dramatically visual. I love how Rand goes right at the issues—celebrating and criticizing where she sees fit. Agree or disagree, her clarity and straightforward articulation lets you know exactly where she stands. Sure to raise questions about how you view your Netflix queue and some of today's bestselling fiction. [JG]
Ayn Rand (1905-1982), was a philosopher and novelist whose bestselling works include Anthem, We the Living, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. I actually first encountered her ideas (indirectly) in the world of Rapture—that is, in a terrific video game called Bioshock—which explores her philosophy (and other thinkers like Nietzsche).
Rand comes at philosophy, history, ethics, politics, and art from very unconventional and unique angles, which I found baffling, yet exhilarating and refreshing. Her proud atheism and confident defense of reason (as opposed to mysticism and subjectivism), initially drew me to read Atlas Shrugged in high school. However, it was over my head. Plus the paperback font was insanely small! From what I could understand, I simultaneously loved her yet disagreed with her ethics and politics, but knew that I wanted to get a clearer picture.
Soon, a friend (who hates reading), nudged me to try The Fountainhead "just for the story." That's still where I recommend people begin. Rand asks timeless questions—and agree or disagree with her answers—her writing is passionate, precise, dramatic, and daring. They've led me to have some of the most personal and enjoyable discussions with friends and family over the years—as well as clarifying and helpful introspection. I can't recommend Ayn Rand enough. And for those interested in art and history, The Romantic Manifesto.
FAVORITE QUOTES
5. "The theme of a novel can be conveyed only through the events of the plot, the events of the plot depend on the characterization of the men who enact them—and the characterization cannot be achieved except through the events of the plot, and the plot cannot be constructed without a theme...this is why a good novel is an indivisible sum: every scene, sequence, and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization."
4. "The contradictions inherent in determinism were obvious in [the Naturalist] movement from the start. One does not read fiction except on the implicit premise of volition—i.e., on the premise that some element...of the fiction story is applicable to oneself, that one will learn, discover, or contemplate something of value and that this experience will make a difference."
3. "Romanticism demands mastery of the primary element of fiction: the art of storytelling—which requires three cardinal qualities: ingenuity, imagination, a sense of drama."
2. "Too often humor is used as the camouflage of moral cowardice."
1. "To regard as [an author's] failure the fact that [their] characters are 'larger than life' is like regarding as an airplane's failure the fact that it flies."
"When reason and philosophy are reborn, literature will
be the first phoenix to rise out of today's ashes. And, armed with a code of rational values, aware of its own nature, confident of the supreme importance
of its mission, Romanticism will have come of age."
— Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto
The Books of Huckberry
Zorro: The Complete
Pulp Adventures
Johnston McCulley
with artist Cyril Rolando
EXTREME OWNERSHIP
Jocko Willink & Leif Babin
TOP BOOKS 2016
My 10 favorite
(re)reads of 2016
AN ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF BAD ARGUMENTS
Ali Almossawi
BOOKS OF HUCKBERRY
Zorro: The Complete Pulp Adventures
DRAGON TEETH
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Klopp takes aim at 'United pundits'
Mar 13, 2019 - 02:30 pm By Lorenz Kohler
Ahead of their highly anticipated clash at the Allianz Arena tonight, Klopp has hit back at United legend Gary Neville, who was one of several pundits that indicated a European exit would be beneficial to their Premier League title ambitions.
READ: United to lure Coutinho back to EPL?
While Klopp admits defeat against the Bundesliga giants in the second leg of their goalless last-16 tie would not be a shock result, his side will not go into the game thinking of the benefits such a result could bring.
"They (pundits) talk constantly. It doesn't mean they make more sense because of that. That's the problem," he said, as per Liverpool Echo.
"I really don't think that any other coach or manager in the world has to answer this question when he plays in the Champions League.
"It's really unique. It only happens if you are the Liverpool manager and the pundits come from Manchester United and start these things. It is so easy to sit in an office or a studio and talk about things like that.
"We don't draw up a season and say the best way to go through it is to go out of all the cup competitions early.
READ: Salah ready to give up UCL for Reds fans
Klopp added: "You do that and in that moment the same people go for you like mad.
"Now it is closer to the end of the season and it is allowed to go out of the Champions League without even trying to go through? That's really mad.
"I'm not angry about it. It's just so mad that I constantly get confronted by it."
Sandilands admits defensive frustrations
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Transport Matters: Statements
All Seanad debates on 4 Apr 2019 « Previous debate Next debate »
Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
I am delighted to update the House on issues relating to public transport. Senators will have their own views on the challenges and opportunities we face in transforming our public transport network and services and I look forward to hearing those views. I would like to think we can all agree on some basic first principles. We all agree on the need to improve public transport, the important role improved public transport has to play in meeting our climate challenge and that better cycling and walking infrastructure is needed to encourage greater take-up of active travel. I am glad that on each of these issues there is significant work under way to translate those principles into action. I do not doubt for a second that when we consider the best way forward, there will be different views and priorities. Discussions such as this are useful as a means of listening to different views and perspectives.
On the need to improve public transport, everyone in the House knows the ambitious range of projects contained in Project Ireland 2040. I was in the House last September to give an overview of those projects and I have been back a number of times since then to discuss various related issues during Commencement matters raised by Senators.
The increased numbers of people choosing to use public transport is welcome.Last year, almost 7% more people made a trip on taxpayer-supported public transport than the previous year. Those increases bring challenges, just like the 1 million increase in population and 600,000 additional jobs projected in Project Ireland 2040 will bring challenges, even if those challenges are fundamentally positive.
We are responding in a number of ways. We are increasing the funding available to the NTA to invest in, and expand, public transport services and infrastructure on an ongoing basis. Those levels of increased funding can be viewed on the ground through measures such as increased services, an expanded fleet and new initiatives throughout the country. Public service obligation, PSO, bus services have been expanded by the NTA in co-operation with the operators across the country and a new operator has also entered the PSO bus market under contract with the authority. In rural Ireland, funding for Local Link services has increased from € 12.2 million in 2016 to €21 million this year. This has enabled the introduction of new regular commuter services, improvements to demand responsive services and the piloting of new evening services. We funded increased bus purchases with the PSO bus fleet in Dublin expanding by approximately 15% in the past two years, while new buses have also been added to the fleets in other cities. This year, we will add more buses to the PSO fleets, as well as continuing to replace older buses with newer ones.
We have funded increased rail services across the greater Dublin area commuter rail network by introducing 10-minute DART services and expanding services on the major commuter lines. I acknowledge we face capacity pressures on the greater Dublin area commuter rail network and the NTA and larnród Éireann are currently looking at options to introduce additional fleet in the short term. We have also significantly increased the amount to support the maintenance and renewal of the heavy rail network nationwide, which will increase this year by approximately 23% to almost €200 million. That means the heavy rail network is being funded at the steady state level, which represents significant progress and will benefit passenger journey experiences across the country.
With regard to light rail, we have funded the extension of the Luas green line to Broombridge and we are now funding a capacity enhancement project which will deliver additional capacity on the line. This current project provides for the extension of 26 current trams on the green line to 55 m and the purchase of eight additional trams. That will increase capacity by approximately 37% compared to today. The extended trams will start to arrive this year and those arrivals will continue over the next 24 months.
Each year, we are looking to improve public transport across the country but we know we need to do more. That is where the three big projects which Project Ireland 2040 will deliver come into play. Senators will be aware of BusConnects, DART expansion and MetroLink. Each of these is a significant project and together they will impact hundreds of millions of passenger journeys each year. I hope and expect that, notwithstanding people's views on particular aspects of each, everyone here supports the ambition.
BusConnects will be rolled out across all our major cities, starting in Dublin. This programme will have a transformative effect on the operation of bus services and will improve bus journey times by 40% to 50%; provide a bus service that is easier to use and understand; enable more people to travel by bus than ever before; and provide a network of cycling infrastructure that will enable more people to cycle across the city. BusConnects Dublin was subject to extensive consultation both last year and this year and there was a fantastic level of engagement from the public in response to those consultations. Of course, that engagement was not always 100% supportive of every detail of individual proposals, but I have been encouraged by the approach adopted by the NTA in seeking out people's views. I have no doubt that those views will inform and be reflected in revised proposals as they are developed by the authority later this year. BusConnects is a national programme of improvements to our bus system. As we develop transport strategies in Cork, Limerick and Waterford, the potential of BusConnects programmes in those cities will be central, while in Galway, my Department, through the NTA, is working with the city council as it begins implementation of its transport strategy.
With regard to DART expansion, the plans are to electrify the existing commuter rail network and radically improve the level of service on the northern, Maynooth and Kildare lines. Another part of this programme is the need to significantly increase the greater Dublin area rail fleet by approximately 300 carriages and the NTA and larnród Éireann expect to initiate that tender process this year.
MetroLink is the third of the big three projects and Senators will all be aware that the NTA has published a preferred route for public consultation. This route reflects the consideration given by the NTA and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, to the 8,000 submissions it received last year during consultation on what was known as the emerging preferred route. A key imperative in the MetroLink project has always been to deliver a new north-south cross-city link and deal with the capacity issues on the Luas green line. The major change in the preferred route is the method by which the NTA and TII propose to deal with those issues. They intend to immediately move forward on two fronts: to develop MetroLink from Charlemont to Swords and to complete the green line capacity enhancement project which is under way and introduce further capacity enhancements in the medium term. They now propose to defer the third element of the previous proposal, which is to tie-in the metro with the existing Luas green line and extend metro services southward along that line.
In so-called megaprojects such as this, the importance of this period of front-end planning is well recognised internationally as being crucial to a project's overall success. It is also important that we approach projects such as this in as open and transparent a manner as possible to deal with some of the misinformation and confusion which can arise. I welcome the scale and depth of public engagement with the project so far and commend the NTA and TII on the proactive way in which they have engaged with communities and the public at large. A series of further public information sessions is planned for this round of public consultation, and a large volume of information has been published on the MetroLink website. I recognise that there are still issues which require consideration and consultation with different groups and the NTA and TII are committed to doing just that. Once they have completed their consultation process, they will develop a business case, as required under the public spending code, which will be submitted for the approval of Government before it proceeds to planning in 2020.
Turning to the second of the three principles that I referred to at the start of the debate, we face a significant challenge to reduce our national greenhouse emissions. Public transport has its part to play in meeting this challenge. The range of projects and programmes we have just talked about are not just required to deal with increased population and demand. We need an improved and expanded public transport system if we are to attract more people to choose sustainable transport options over the private car. Even though public transport emissions themselves are not significant in the wider context, we also need to show leadership on the issue. That is why we have ended the purchase of diesel-only buses with effect from this year for our PSO bus fleets in urban areas and are funding ongoing trials to determine the most suitable technology for the medium and long term. I am glad that the increased funding available to support the PSO bus fleet means that every year we are able to meet the steady state target of bus replacement. That means that each year, we pull older and dirtier buses out of the fleet and replace them with greener and cleaner buses. That will only improve as we end the purchase of diesel only buses in the urban areas from now on. larnród Éireann, supported by my Department, has successfully secured funding under the climate action fund to pilot hybrid technology on some diesel engines, which, if successful, has potential for the wider diesel rail fleet.
The third principle I referred to earlier was the role and potential of active travel. By active travel, I mean walking and cycling, which together comprise approximately 16% of all commuters according to the latest census. There has been a significant increase in the number of people choosing to cycle as part of their commute and we know we need to support the development of new and improved cycling infrastructure.There has been a significant increase in the number of people choosing to cycle as part of their commute. We know we need to support the development of new and improved cycling infrastructure. That is why I have increased funding this year by approximately 30% and will further increase the level of funding over the next couple of years. It is why I have asked the National Transport Authority to establish a new delivery office to focus on the timely delivery of cycling infrastructure in line with the increased levels of funding available.
I realise there has been delay in the roll-out of several big cycling projects in recent years, but I am pleased to report that this year we have seen several very important projects get under way or scheduled to start. Here in Dublin, the Royal Canal greenway phase 2 is under construction. Phase 3 will start later this year and phase 4 will start early next year. This will be a fantastic segregated cycle track from the outer suburbs right into the heart of the city. Several other important projects are due to start this year, including the Clontarf to city centre route, the Fitzwilliam route and the Dodder greenway. Yesterday we saw the NTA present Dublin City Council with a recommended option for the long-awaited Liffey cycle route. These improvements will follow through in the other cities too as the NTA works with the local authorities to develop their cycle networks in accordance with published plans. I am pleased to say there are projects under way and planned in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. Moreover, I am informed Waterford will later this year see the roll-out of a public bikes scheme.
Senators will recall that, with regard to more rural areas, last year I published the greenways strategy. I expect to announce shortly the details of projects that will be awarded funding under the new strategy.
I hope Senators can see that my Department is working on an ambitious programme across all modes of public transport. Obviously, we need to ensure that the money is spent wisely and well. Ultimately, we need to ensure the taxpayers gets value for their hard-earned money. My Department has long had responsibility for significant capital expenditure programmes. Obviously, we have well-developed monitoring and oversight systems in place. We recognise that these mega-projects bring unique challenges. We need to keep our governance arrangements for the years ahead refreshed and effective. I assure Senators that my Department is keenly aware of the need to maintain appropriate oversight as these projects take shape over the course of this year and beyond.
I hope there is much we can agree on today. Where there is disagreement, I expect it be on matters of detail rather than substance. We need a better public transport system and the investment planned by this Government will deliver exactly that.
Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
I thank the Minister for coming to the House to outline some of the issues. I was briefly going through his speech and I highlighted how much of it related to Dublin and how much related to the rest of Ireland. I do not think there is a great balance to be honest.
I am keen to focus briefly on one issue that comes in under transport. I have put in a question on organ donation twice in the past month. The first answer I received said the data could not be given out because of data protection reasons and that the data could not be shared with doctors and nurses. I highlighted to the Minister's office that in reality the Minister has already shared the information held by the driving licence registry with private companies, including car companies, toll road companies, the Courts Service and many others. In fairness, the Minister came back and said that if the HSE asks for the information, he would be most willing to give it. Unfortunately, the HSE and the Minister for Health came to the Houses yesterday and said they did not want the information. This is despite the fact that 1 million people have indicated that they would like to be organ donors. If families know that their loved ones want to be organ donors, it increases the organ donor rate by 92%. The next time the Minister is at a Cabinet meeting he might encourage the Minister for Health in this regard. If we had such a system in place the numbers would go from a 50:50 chance of a family donating an organ when asked by a doctor to a 92% donor rate. I imagine that is worth doing.
The Minister brought up several issues. The issue of congestion in Dublin is pressing because it is costing approximately €358 million annually. By 2033, we estimate it will cost €2 billion. The plans outlined by the Minister are designed to alleviate this but we need an implementation process, a national infrastructure commission and especially a Dublin transport commission to ensure delivery. Such measures have been proposed by Fianna Fáil.
The issue of motor insurance is of major concern and represents a growing cost, as is the issue of driving licence tests, especially in rural Ireland. An applicant can wait up to 29 weeks in some places to do the driving test. Major punishments await those driving without an accompanied driver who has a full permit. In any event, we have to be balanced and the fact is we simply do not have enough driving licence testers. The Minister must hire more because 29 weeks is far too long for someone to be without access to a car in a rural area. In such places a person's job will depend on him getting to work. I note the Minister referred to first principles and the issue of cycling and walking infrastructure. That is of little use in 90% of the country because people have to drive to work or take public transport, if it is available. If a person cannot do his driving test, he will be unable to get to work at all.
The Minister raised the issue of climate. We discussed the issue of Dublin Airport in the House yesterday. This is a global issue in the transport industry. The amount of emissions coming from the airlines industry must be tackled in a global way. Under our 2020 climate changes targets we were to reduce emissions by 20%, but at the moment we have reduced them by only 1%. While we have the ambition, we are not implementing it when it comes to climate change.
I call on the Minister to address the extraordinary amount of money that is being spent on infrastructure in Dublin, as it should be. We have high numbers of commuters. Commuting time will increase further, adding to more congestion. We have to look at remote working, although I realise that is a matter for a different Department. I have friends who live in Cavan. We all know people who are commuting from one hour to 90 minutes. Some go by train but many go by car, thus adding to the congestion. We should reflect on spending billions on infrastructure in Dublin, as they do in other cities. Basically, that is the way the world is going. Places like Boston, Atlanta, London and Berlin are becoming engines to which people commute for an hour or 90 minutes. We do not have similar train infrastructure to allow people to get in from more remote areas. I am talking about the likes of Wexford. People commute from there but they use the car because the trains in some instances are full already or are simply not up to standard and do not get people to the city on time. If people could get to Dublin faster by train on an ongoing basis and have better visibility and a plan, then it might work. That is the way the world is going. We cannot fight the tide. We have to run with it but we should give people an option as well. Instead of getting into a car and being stuck in traffic for two hours, people could get into a train and go directly to Heuston, Connolly and Pearse. That option would then alleviate the congestion which would in turn ensure that our climate change targets were being met. However, we need an implementation process under a national infrastructure commission and a Dublin transport commission.
We are debating implementation but there are many things we can do. I have received numerous representations on the question of driving licence test instructors. That is something the Minister could address in order that people do not risk driving while using an inadequate licence. People should be appropriately trained and tested by driving licence instructors. They should be given the opportunity to drive the car legally and not have to take a risk. The Minister must hire more people for this to ensure people need not wait 29 weeks in some places to do the test.
Michael McDowell (Independent)
I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him for his contribution. There are several issues I want to raise with him.Firstly, the Taoiseach has recently said that he is open to considering rerouting the southern leg of the MetroLink proposal to other suburbs of Dublin. I think he mentioned the axis running by UCD. Is the Minister's Department considering such an option? If so, will there be a consultation process about this?
Secondly, I wish to raise the BusConnects proposal. I appreciate that one cannot make an omelette without cracking eggs and a great deal of NIMBYism arises in some quarters in response to proposed change of any kind. That said, it is only when one looks at the small print of the proposals that one becomes aware of some of the more significant features of the BusConnects programme currently under discussion. Precisely what is involved is not very clear from the published materials. One has to have some technical expertise to understand some of the implications. During the Order of Business today I gave two examples which relate to my own area. One of these was the proposal to turn Rathmines Road into a one-way system leading out of town and rely on Ranelagh Road and Charleston Road, right outside my house, as the means of getting into town from Rathgar, Rathmines and Ranelagh. It is not practical. Ranelagh Road cannot take the volume of traffic that would be diverted to it. I do not see any consideration of the knock-on effects of the proposed bus corridors in the BusConnects programme. I do not see any analysis of how much extra vehicle activity will take place in Ranelagh as a consequence, or whether Ranelagh can sustain it. That is just one example.
I looked at this single route further and discovered that closer to the city centre it is proposed to make Heytesbury Street into an area for local access only and divert traffic down a very small road. The Minister may or may not know this road. It is called Long Lane. It is effectively a lane at the northern side of the Meath hospital. It is narrower than this Chamber. It is very narrow.
Kevin Humphreys (Labour)
It is substantially narrower than this Chamber.
It is substantially narrower than the width of this Chamber, let alone its length. I can only describe it by saying that if a truck went down it there would be a major crisis. This is proposed as the relief route for traffic going into the city. These are just two instances. Looking at the route running past my gate I began to wonder if this could actually be sustained. It does not involve taking any of my property from me, but can the road network sustain all this additional traffic? I very much doubt it.
When I looked at Long Lane, far away from leafy Ranelagh and towards the city centre, I said to myself that this is not a sustainable proposal. I do not see the analysis determining that it is sustainable. It is all very well for engineers to say where the bus route will run and decide that traffic will have to go hither and thither to make it possible, but we have to examine whether the remaining routes can actually sustain the diverted traffic. The analysis seems to be deficient. It seems to be concentrated solely on what the planners want to do with the assumption that the rest will cure itself somehow.
I want to raise a few other issues with the Minister. Anybody who drives in the city centre sees that electric scooters are proliferating. I approve of them and I do not think they are all that dangerous. Some people on racing bikes are twice as dangerous due to the fact that they go at great speed along congested routes with their heads down. The Minister's Department must come to a conclusion one way or another. Are they going to be permitted or not? By my reading of the road traffic legislation their use is illegal. I may be wrong about that but I think I am right. They should not be in a grey area.
I fully accept what has been stated here about driving tests, especially in rural Ireland. A student aged 18 or 20 who graduates and gets a job while living somewhere where he or she has to travel 15 miles to work will find this impossible without motor transport. There are no taxis or buses. There are no means of doing it. Perhaps someone can cycle five miles each day, but one cannot cycle 15 or 20 miles to get to work every morning. For a huge number of people it is not an option.
The procedure for getting a full licence should be made easier. In addition to increasing the number of driving tests and reducing the waiting list, we should consider approved courses which drivers can attend for three or four days. They could be examined and tested in an intensive process. This would allow drivers to spend, say, a week on concentrated learning at an approved motor college, get their licences and start work. I fully accept the Minister's view that unaccompanied drivers are unacceptable. They can be lethal. However, it is unrealistic to think that people can live in rural Ireland if they face long delays in getting their licences. If they fail the test the first time around it is a disaster. They have to reapply and wait for a long time.
Can the Minister confirm that all of the bus corridors in BusConnects will be open to taxis? That is not clear. We have to plan for more use of taxis in urban areas. I am fully in favour of what the Minister has in mind for bikes, but they do not suit everybody. We need more taxis. Since the deregulation of taxis there has been a massive expansion in taxi availability and use. We have to plan for more and more taxis as part of public transport, not just more and more buses.
Several projects for new Luas lines to Lucan and places like that were planned. Some of them had gone a significant way through the planning process. Are they completely dead ducks? I would also like to ask the Minister about the east-west underground DART proposal on which CIÉ, Irish Rail or whoever elaborated to a very significant degree. Is that now effectively dead? If it is not, why has Dublin City Council been refused planning permission for bridges on the basis that they might interfere with it? We need some up-to-date information. Have all those new Luas projects been abandoned for the foreseeable future? Is the underground DART proposal in suspended animation, or is it not being pursued?We must have clarity on these issues.
John O'Mahony (Fine Gael)
I welcome the Minister and thank him for his update on transport matters. He spent much of his presentation on the issues in Dublin - the increased demand for public transport and the plans to increase services on the DART, the Luas and so on. As it is an important matter that can be controversial, I will defer to my urban colleagues in that regard.
The Minister also referred to increased investment in rural links, from €12 million to €21 million, which is welcome. Nevertheless, one of the reasons there is so much congestion in, say, Dublin is that the transport routes in other parts of the country are not near where they need to be. As a result, most people from rural Ireland drive when they have to travel to Dublin. There are also issues with transport in rural Ireland that need to be addressed. Rail travel from the west has improved substantially on the Galway and Sligo lines, but there is severe overcrowding on these services, especially at peak times. Will the Minister comment on the plans in plans to increase services in order that more people from rural Ireland will be able to use public transport, something might also ease the congestion in Dublin?
The Minister referred to the NTA engaging with Galway City Council to create a traffic plan for Galway city. In some ways, at times the traffic in the city is even more severe, albeit on a smaller scale, than in Dublin. Gridlock is a daily occurrence. Will the Minister provide an update on the engagement on or when the strategy will be finalised?
The Minister addressed the Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport on preparations for Brexit, legislation for which was passed in the weeks leading up to St. Patrick's Day. While everybody hopes the legislation will not have to be implemented and that there will not be a no-deal Brexit, will the Minister outline the more long-term strategies? I asked him a similar question when he appeared before the committee. It appears that, whether there is a crash-out or some form of a deal, the United Kingdom will leave the European Union and it would be a shock to everybody if it ultimately was to remain in it or had a change of mind.
The trans-European transport network, that is, European funding for transport connections in Europe, will affect congestion and other issues in Ireland. A review has been promised, but in the original plan the west of Ireland was not included, although the European Commissioner has guaranteed that the matter will be reviewed before 2023. Owing to Brexit, the Government is very much on top of matters through its involvement in the development of the western arc. The Minister might comment in that regard.
Another matter within the Minister's remit is one that was covered at the transport committee yesterday. The CEO and the chairman of Sport Ireland expressed their frustration at not getting answers from the Football Association of Ireland, FAI, on governance issues, recent appointments and issues surrounding a loan from the previous CEO. In the other House last week the Minister indicated that Sport Ireland was engaging with the FAI and that it would provide him with a report on these issues. In the light of yesterday's meeting, will he comment on the concerns raised by the agency that deals with the FAI and other sports bodies?
Maire Devine (Sinn Fein)
Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. By 2045, the population of cities worldwide is projected to grow to 7 billion, of a worldwide total of 10 billion, which would account for 70% of the total population. According to the CSO's figures, there is no reason for Dublin to be exempt as at least 3 million people will live in Dublin by 2045. Planning for the future of the cities and transport, therefore, is vital to unclog their arteries which have been clogged to the detriment of rural areas, where there appears to be little availability of transport services. Transport is vital to have healthy cities and for our health and well-being. We must get it right when planning for the future. Nevertheless, in planning for the future in the area of transport, like planning in other areas, we must keep the environment and climate change as priorities. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Climate Action which produced a report last week. Sinn Féin has been instrumental in adding to the chapters and recommendations made on transport. Our alternative report contained further recommendations on transport. Given that we believed carbon tax was a scéal eile because it was not feasible, our report concentrated on transport, particularly in rural areas.
My fair city, Dublin, which is the capital city suffers from the worst congestion which has the most significant impact on the economy, jobs, housing and people. How we travel around the country and in cities is one of the largest challenges, but it provides an opportunity to tackle climate change and take climate action. The transport sector is second only to agriculture in the hierarchy of those who pollute the environment, with 20% of emissions last year from the transport sector, yet efforts to reduce that figure have thus far been abysmal. We will not reach our 2020 EU targets for renewable transport; in fact, we will fall far short of them, given that we have only achieved 1% of the reduction target for 2020.
Sinn Féin is often wrongly accused of being populist or protesting without offering alternatives. In response, I offer our alternative report, together with the good work done at the climate action committee, to which I am sure the Minister and every Department will refer when planning for the future.We believe electric transport is the way forward but there are a minimal number of electric vehicles on the road. Some Sinn Féin Deputies have test driven electric vehicles for weekends and have found them innovative and novel, but also quite efficient and fit for purpose for travelling the country. The problem is, as we all know, that the strategy for charging points is very poor and a mind set would need to be overcome to suggest one should have the confidence to take a journey without expecting to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night. We need to roll out a strategy to make electric charging for vehicles more publicly available.
The cost of electric vehicles is prohibitive. The €5,000 grant does not come near making electric vehicles an alternative for ordinary families who are considering changing from diesel. We were told, a few years ago, that diesel was the best thing going and then, all of a sudden, we found out the lies and falsehoods of the car manufacturing companies that had hidden the damage diesel is doing to our environment.
We need significant change and more investment to attract people to buy electric vehicles. The cost is too prohibitive. Unfortunately, a carbon tax is going to come in at some stage and that will be punitive because people cannot afford to move away from polluting cars to what we call green cars. That is unfair and a lot of effort needs to be made. With Government intervention, electric vehicles could be sold at a loss that would eventually represent an overall gain in years to come.
There is no future certainty on the ownership of the public charging infrastructure for electric cars after the regulator decided, in 2007, that it should no longer be held by the ESB. Who will build, own and sell electricity through public charging for electric vehicles? Without public charging opportunities, people will have little confidence in purchasing electric cars and that confidence needs to be built so there is investment.
There is also the vital required investment in the electricity grid to support electric vehicles. At the moment, the grid could not cope with mass charging. The ESB estimates a need for an investment of €300 million to get 275,000 electric vehicles or heat pumps on the road. How will the electricity to supply electric vehicles be generated? What will be the mix in how our electricity is produced in the future? Electricity currently comes from fossil fuels, which we are going to have to do away with. As electricity generation is dominated by fossil fuels, what are the alternatives and in what will we invest?
We have debated our energy sources time and again. I keep saying that we cannot try and curb our use of an energy source without offering a real alternative. Where is the Government policy to develop compressed natural gas for heavy goods vehicles? That can be extracted from indigenous biogas but there is no policy in this area despite the State having one of the best resources of biogas in the EU. Establishing biogas or renewable gas can deal with farm waste and produce renewable gas to displace fossil fuels, which can power transport for Ireland. We need greater imagination on renewable energy in this State and this Government has very little to show for its eight years in office.
We need to change our lifestyles. It is a challenge for each of us but we need to change in positive and uplifting ways, rather than in response to punitive measures. We will never get anywhere if we go down the punitive road and nobody will change or feel positive or excited about a future that is quite different to what we grew up with in the past and what we have at present.
As there are gaps in dealing with those highly-dependent car users in the State, electric vehicles must be made affordable. Anything the Minister can do to promote that would be most welcome.
We need specific investment in Bus Éireann to effectively redress the shortcomings in rural transport. The alternative report by Sinn Féin I mentioned earlier proposes that the fastest, most efficient and practical measure we can introduce is to reduce transport emissions, address the significant deficits in existing public transport services and prioritise improvements in State-wide infrastructure.
We have a large over-reliance on cars. We are getting somewhere with the cycle lanes and I welcome the proposed Liffey cycle route. Can the Minister comment on the greenway route from Heuston to Kilmainham? I objected to its establishment at the time because the proposed Garda headquarters was going to overpass that due to security issues although that decision was successfully overturned. Can the Minister comment as to when construction on that might be commenced? Can he comment on the idea that we will work towards free public transport in this city and if that is on his radar?
We extended this discussion because of BusConnects. I have been involved with BusConnects since its inception and there have been many workshops, public meetings and much concern has been expressed by residents. Speaking parochially, the areas of Mount Brown and Kilmainham are already in distress, shall we say politely, on foot of the construction of the national children's hospital. The area will be further punished by the introduction of bus corridors, which will cause issues for access to their homes, to the national children's hospital for deliveries and patients and, obviously, the stymying of local access. There are 30,000 submissions on phase 1 and there will be a similar amount on phase 2. The project would take seven years to complete, were it to start tomorrow. It will perhaps be a few years in the tweaking. Perhaps the Minister will comment on the people who were initially asked to do an overall map of what BusConnects would like but who had no knowledge of the areas or the roads involved. It seems as though those people just sat at a computer and drew lines. The roads are named wrongly. They have articulated trucks going down impossibly small streets, which does not seem feasible. I appreciate there is more work to be done on it but some local knowledge would not have gone amiss.
There must be a certain amount of public confidence all areas of processes relating to bus corridors, MetroLink and greenways. My confidence in the process was undermined when eight residents of Townsend Street were notified that their houses may be demolished to make way for a new metro station. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the National Transport Authority, NTA, and Dublin City Council have known that for quite a considerable amount of time but only due to investigations and questions asked that I asked did the NTA tell me on Friday morning that those residents were going to be informed of that by way of a type of dawn raid, as letters were put through their letter boxes telling them they may be losing their homes.
The TII and Dublin City Council is to meet those residents next week but it has created a significant amount of distress for the families and individuals involved and the amount of time it took to inform those residents has also undermined public confidence. That delay in informing them prevented those families making a submission to the earlier stages of MetroLink. I am extremely disappointed in the manner this has been handled and I ask the Minister to investigate why it happened.Is it only because it is an inner city community that they were ignored? It seems to have been widely known in the three organisations that these homes would be demolished yet no conversation was held with the particular families.
I will move on to College Gate because my time is restricted. College Gate is the apartment block that has to be demolished in connection with building the station, along with a public facility, namely, Markievicz swimming pool, though I accept the NTA and TII are trying to find an alternative location in which to build a swimming pool. It is important that community facilities be maintained in the city centre. The proposals for Tara Street and the MetroLink were published online. One of the reasons they cannot move the station to an alternative route is a main trunk sewer and the possible damage that would be done by tunnelling underneath the sewer. The sewer has been relined and has probably been there since before the foundation of the State so it probably needs to be replaced in any case, and this should be considered as part of the project. It would open up an opportunity to relocate the station without the destruction of College Gate apartment block. I urge the Minister to have a conversation with his officials on this proposal and to look at this aspect of the project again.
The alternative proposal to MetroLink is to tunnel up to and underneath Ranelagh to provide a train park. I would like some reassurance that this is not just an effort to sideline the issue until after the next general election at the request of several Government Deputies, only for the initial proposal to follow after the election. The NTA has indicated that it wants to go on further and that, perhaps, it will build the line in 20 years. As I said to the assistant CEO, I did not know that "perhaps" was a technical term. I would like much more detailed information on this.
The reimagining and the reorganisation of our buses are important and BusConnects affects more than just Dublin. It affects several other cities and towns and there need to be full disclosure and information on this. Many routes and corridors are being planned on the basis of CSO figures for origin destinations and on how people travel. I would like the information held by the NTA to be published so that we can get a better understanding of the plans. My understanding is that the authority has mined the latest census and carried out an in-depth analysis of origin destinations and mode of transport. It is important to have this information to enable us to understand the routes and the corridors that are planned and I would greatly appreciate it if it was made available. We could then have a positive input into it. We have to reorganise public transport in our major urban areas to serve the majority of citizens. As the Minister said, it will be difficult.
As regards improvements that impact on climate change, small steps can sometimes generate confidence that a Government is going in the right direction and in this context I welcome the Minister's commitment to cycling and pedestrians. Pedestrians often lose out and I hereby restate my commitment to them. I also ask him to examine the possibility of encouraging taxi divers to convert to EVs, following several European and American cities which have given a commitment that their taxi services will be electrified by 2023. We have an opportunity to make a similar commitment and to assist drivers to convert. It would act as a public information medium to show citizens how efficient electric vehicles are. In 2018, there were a total of 9,084 taxi licences in Dublin and 1,163 in Cork, 520 in Galway and 399 in Limerick. Momentum Dynamics has constructed wireless charging infrastructure for buses and taxis and many European cities have taken this on board. There is an opportunity for Ireland to show a little bit of leadership by being first adapters. This infrastructure is more efficient and less polluting. It allows taxis to charge at waiting stations at airports, train stations and hotels where a wireless connection has been constructed to allow cars to recharge and have a far greater range.
In 2004, Councillor Andrew Montague proposed the public bike scheme for Dublin, which the Minister will acknowledge has been successful, and he announced its expansion to Waterford. At the moment, local authorities depend on public advertisement and their own resources. Last year, 4.4 million journeys were taken on public bikes across Ireland, which is welcome, and they are now part of our national transport infrastructure. Several people now come into Dublin by train, pick up a Dublin bike and commute for the rest of their journey around the city. We cannot continue to ask local authorities to carry the full cost of this. Will the Minister recognise that the free bike schemes are a form of public transport when considering subsidies to public transport? I ask him to consider a small subvention to local authorities to help them maintain and increase the free bike schemes around our city.
Much of the discussion has concentrated on the Dublin area but I recognise the contribution Irish Rail has made to emissions nationwide, with a 36% decrease. Irish Rail has a long history of developing infrastructure on time and within budget. It looks like there will be a delay to BusConnects and the metro system. In that context, I ask the Minister to look at re-profiling the Department's spend to assist Irish Rail to put in electric infrastructure across the country. There is a lead time of between three and four years for fully electric trains and a commitment to the electrification of routes. If we started to order electric trains now, we could electrify parts of our lines for those developments.
I also ask the Minister to consider investment in double-tracking the Galway to Athenry line as a priority, and to consider a second platform for Oranmore, which is important. Cork needs seven new stations to support its development, including park and ride sites, while the Kent Station investment-----
Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)
Before Senator Humphreys gets to the rest of the country, his time is up. He has put quite a few questions for the Minister and we are going to be tight on time.
I will finish.We are looking at regional development and the encouragement of people to go and live in developments in other cities and towns. It is key that we should have major investment in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford.
That is the end of my tour of the country. Transport is one of our major challenges in regard to climate change, after agriculture. I ask the Minister to engage further. If there are no further speakers, I ask the Chair to give me more time later because the Minister is present.
The Senator can only speak once, as he well knows. His time is up. In fairness to the Minister, there are quite a few questions and he will not have time to answer them all. Senator Grace O'Sullivan has been gracious in allowing Senator Conway to speak ahead of her. I call Senator Conway.
Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
In the first instance, I thank my friend and colleague, Senator Grace O'Sullivan, for facilitating me as I have a diary clash. I welcome the Minister to the House. It is important that we would discuss transport on a regular basis in the House. I agree with many of the sentiments expressed by Senator Humphreys, particularly in terms of Irish Rail. Irish Rail gets kicked around quite a bit, unjustifiably in many cases, but its commitment both to emissions reductions and improved customer service is commendable. We had an interesting briefing session with the company in Buswells Hotel on Tuesday. The newly appointed chief executive, Mr. Jim Meade, and his senior management team were in attendance and they were very open in dealing with concerns, whether local, regional or national. Their open door policy is something that should be emulated by other companies, semi-State and otherwise.
I use public transport all the time. Given I am probably the only Member who cannot drive, I understand more than anybody the importance of good quality public transport. It is appropriate that we acknowledge the contribution made by some private operators, in particular private bus companies. For example, when I started in the House, the latest opportunity to get back to Ennis at night was the 6 o'clock train. Now, people can travel back to Ennis on an hourly basis until midnight thanks to John O'Sullivan's Dublin Coach green bus, which has revolutionised the opportunity for people to commute to various parts of the country, particularly Ennis and County Clare. I commend him and his team on the work they do.
One issue I want to raise with the Minister, about which I spoke to him briefly on Tuesday, is the situation with the Clare Bus company, which up to now has been providing the Local Link service in Clare. Unfortunately, for some reason, it does not seem to have been successful in tendering for the latest round of this project. It has been acknowledged by many, including the NTA, that the Clare Bus company is a model of how to provide local link services for vulnerable people, in particular people with disabilities, older people and so on. I am baffled, to say the least, as to why its contract has not been renewed.
Tendering is important and when we are spending public money, we should know where it is going and how it is being spent to ensure we get best value. However, we need to also get best value in terms of quality service, local knowledge and keeping jobs in rural communities, which are also important. I respectfully suggest that perhaps that has not been taken into consideration by the NTA when awarding this particular contract.
While I have the greatest respect for our neighbours in Limerick, I wonder whether they would have the required expertise, not through any fault of their own, but they do not have the local knowledge of the client base that the Clare Bus company has. I worry whether they have the connectivity with the people on the ground that the Clare Bus Company has. I am baffled and I do not know why the company was not awarded this contract. It does not make sense and it does not add up. There is something missing somewhere. I would appreciate it very much if the Minister could give me feedback as to how this situation can be resolved. Many people in County Clare are upset by this decision, including myself. Answers and clarity are needed.
To be frank, the decision needs to be reversed. While the Minister will tell me the NTA is independent and should be allowed to do its work independently of Government, which is correct to a degree, the social responsibility falls on Government. The HSE and other organisations are seen as independent, and perhaps that is a conversation for another day, as I would like to see a situation where Ministers have a lot more influence over those types of operations. When something does not make sense and does not add up, there is nothing wrong with a Minister telling the NTA that is the case. He should at least get feedback and an explanation of how it happened and, more important, how it can be reversed.
In conclusion, as somebody who uses public transport all the time, I commend the men and women who run and work in our public transport companies, including Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann, and private bus companies. The social responsibility they take upon themselves in helping vulnerable people is commendable. They are heroes on the roads and they are not acknowledged often enough for the work they do on a daily basis in keeping this country, this nation and our citizens connected.
Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party)
I welcome the Minister. I will start off with a sweetener. One day last weekend, at 8.30 a.m. or 9 a.m., I was stopped by two gardaí near the beach in Tramore and breathalysed. I was asked my permission to be breathalysed, which I gave, and I successfully passed. In fairness to the gardaí, they were most courteous and professional in their approach. I commend the Minister on his legislation in this regard.
Transport is the bitter pill for me. I sat on the Joint Committee on Climate Action for the past nine months until we gave birth to the report which was published last week. The greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector in Ireland are increasing and I cannot see how that will change. The Minister said we can probably agree on four basic principles. Principles are not enough with regard to climate change; we need action and we need it now.
When examining the transport system, in particular the congestion and the timetabling, many aspects of it are inefficient, ineffective and broken. For example, I refer to the Clonmel to Waterford train service. The first train leaves Clonmel at 10.38 a.m. Waterford is home to the Waterford Institute of Technology, the Central Technical Institute and a number of academic institutes, which means many people work in Waterford, yet that train leaves at 10.38 a.m. That is ludicrous but that is indicative of many other rail services in this country. We just do not have enough of them. My first request is that the Minister examines the efficiency and effectiveness of the rail network in delivering freight and passengers to their destinations in the urban centres.We agree public transport has to be increased but how exactly is the Minister going to do that? How is he going to incentivise transport in this country where people are addicted to their personalised vehicle? When I am travelling, I see individuals operating in their cars. We see an increase in investment in cars. While I welcome the investment in electric cars, we do not have the infrastructure to support that network so we have this phenomenon called charging stress, I think, where people get into a dilemma that they will not be able to reach their destination with the EV system. We need better support in that regard. My big questions relates to how we are going to bring the public to the public transport systems that are in place now, and how we can increase the numbers using public transport into the future. There has been some increase but not enough.
The Minister did not mention sea transport and I thought as an island nation and with Brexit looming that it might be an area he would address. How can we move people away from aviation and have an attractive way for people to use sea transport? There will be an increase in the freight lines with Brexit coming on. Regardless of Brexit, one of the interesting discussions I have had with people over recent months related to the mechanisms to get freight and passengers around the UK by bypassing it one way or another and having better transport mechanisms from Ireland directly to the Continent, including to France, Rotterdam Europoort or Zeebrugge in Belgium. What is being done in that regard to support freight industry and transport people by sea?
The Minister said that BusConnects will be rolled out across all major cities. As Senator Humphreys noted, Project Ireland 2040 involves regionalisation and moving away from the congestion and overpriced living in Dublin and highlights the importance of developing infrastructure in regional centres. The Minister stated the programme will be rolled out, that it will be transformative, and that the services "will be...". It is all aspirational. We start off with the principles and now we go into the aspiration. It is not happening and it needs to happen, for the climate strikers who have been outside Leinster House and outside the local authorities around the country. We need action. We do not need any more aspiration. We need that seismic shift. Senator Humphreys referred to the electrification of Irish Rail. Can the Minister show us the path from where we are now? Rather than a slow, step-by-step approach, is there a possibility for a seismic shift into electrified system? Can the Government move Irish Rail directly from the infrastructure that is in place to an electrified system within a short timeframe? We bypass an intermediate stage of continuing to use fossil fuels and go right to electric. That would show commitment to our climate change targets.
On rural bus routes, I have had a few people contact me about the circular route. They find it is not working for them in terms of efficiency and getting from A to B. If they leave from one place, they almost have to do a round trip to get to the other. It is not efficient for users and the Minister might look into how he could make it more so. On cycling, the world's largest cycling conference, Velo-city, is coming to Ireland in June. This is going to be great from a tourism perspective but also to encourage cycling. Is it possible to front some investment in advance of this conference to underpin its success? There a disparity between the number of males and females who are cycling. Would the Minister look into this and into how he could invest in increasing the numbers of girls and women cycling?
James Reilly (Fine Gael)
I welcome the Minister again. We had a long discussion here yesterday on another mode of transport. I welcome much of what he said in his contribution. Having listened to other speakers talk about aspiration, we as a Government would be the first to be criticised if we did not have plans in place before we acted. Nobody is more frustrated than I at the time it has taken to bring metro to any sense of reality. We have been talking about it since before 2000. When I was in government in the midst of a financial crisis, I fought to have it maintained rather than killed off altogether. I am delighted the Minister said that the project will go to planning next year. So much hinges on that for people on the northside of Dublin city and out to Swords and the airport. For example, four master plans have been developed by Fingal County Council which will result in 18,000 jobs in Airside, Swords. This will be marketed by IDA Ireland and Fingal County Council to foreign direct investment companies. There will also be room for 3,000 houses, 1,100 of them at Fosterstown. This is an area in which there has been significant expansion in population. It has the youngest population in Ireland and possibly in Europe. The people are highly talented and mobile and they want to stay in the area, live there and contribute to it, but they want to be able to access the city for work. There are nearly as many people coming out from the city to work in Fingal as there are going back in. This infrastructure is critical and I welcome that the Minister has stated again that planning will come next year. I certainly hope it will be expedited and that there will be no further delays.
Electrification of the line to Balbriggan and on to Drogheda would be welcome and would have a massive impact on Balbriggan and all the stations in between such as Skerries, Rush and Lusk, and Donabate. However, people will be concerned that the DART trains will be full before they get to them. There will have to be a significant increase in the number of trains running and in the length of carriages. The Minister has alluded to this.
Other Senators have talked about electric scooters but the electric bicycle is certainly worth considering for longer journeys that one would not necessarily want to undertake on a daily basis. I welcome the greenways, which I have raised here time and time again. I have asked that the Minister for Finance make at least €200 million available for them. It is very important not just in terms of the environment and tourism but in terms of community and family. There is no safe place to go cycling with the kids as a family around Dublin city or around the north county. We have called for greenways and I know that Fingal County Council has plans for different sections to run from Sutton all the way to Balbriggan. This would be a massive boon. We have something unique, as I have said previously, in that we have a railway station in each area so if people are tired of cycling they can park their bikes and take the train back into town.It is also an offering that Fingal would have for Dublin Airport through which nearly 32 million people passed last year. These are huge opportunities that are very important for community and health, and for connecting up to the environment.
This brings us to the whole issue of climate change. I am aware that this debate is not about climate change but the Minister mentioned it. As someone who has an electric vehicle, which is very much in the mid-price range and cheaper than many of the cars I see being driven by Deputies and Senators in this institution, I can tell the House that electric cars are extremely practical, worthwhile, efficient and very cost effective. I fought hard to get a charger in the grounds here and there is just the one now, but we need more. In fairness to Senator Bacik, we also need a place for bikes to park safely.
The Minister referred to greenways. A joint application has been made by Fingal, Louth and Meath councils for a greenway that would run through Balbriggan, over to the Boyne and up to Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange. It would be a fantastic offering from a tourism perspective. It would be a huge amenity and would connect up with the other greenway. The opportunities are myriad.
I will now turn to safe cycling in the city in particular. We really need to have safe places for people to cycle. We have lost a lot of good, young people on our roads in the city through fatal accidents such as cyclists being hit by lorries and others on site at the time.
I do not want to delay any further but have some final points. Ireland has a large rural area but so has Norway. I read recently that 53% of new cars sold in Norway this year are electric. If they are good enough for Norway, they are surely good enough for Ireland.
I also want to mention the issue of micro-generation that I have raised here time and again, and perhaps the Minister could use his influence at Cabinet in this regard. We debate feed-in tariffs for big solar farms and big biodigesters but there are also many people around the State who would be very happy to put up photovoltaic cells and feed their excess power into the grid. This is particularly relevant to farmers who have massive hay sheds with huge potential. There has to be some encouragement for that. I am aware that this costs money but I would prefer to see the money spent on that and going to our own people to solve our carbon tax problem than buying credits elsewhere or paying big fines to the European Union.
Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein)
I welcome the Minister to the House. Draft climate change action plans have been prepared by the four Dublin local authorities and specific documents in all of those cases include transport within the Dublin local authority areas such as fleet operations, fleet procurement and road traffic management, as well as sustainable travel for staff. Dublin City Council quite transparently provided the travel figures for the 1,500 staff that work in Dublin City Council’s civic offices on Wood Quay. Of the 1,500 staff members, 53% travel to work by car with 280 car parking spaces provided in the Wood Quay site for Dublin City Council staff. I am not doubling down on Dublin City Council but 280 cars at 4 m length each would line the south side of the quays from Wood Quay almost back to Heuston Station. In comparison, a Luas could accommodate 350 people. A Liffey cycle route would provide a genuine option for commuters to safely travel along the quays. I do not know if anyone here has cycled along the quays: it is just mental. I do not know if the Liffey cycle route that has been proposed will accommodate all of the cyclists in the future but I want to see a Liffey cycle route that can be used by children also.
Can the Minister tell me how many of the private cars coming into the city each morning are public servants working for the State? I do not know many private companies in the city that provide staff car parking spaces. Perhaps there may be three or four spaces for directors but not a parking lot for the numbers of staff that we see in Dublin City Council. I see that the Minister is writing and he probably has those figures but if the figures are not to hand or do not exist, then we should have a study on which public institutions provide car parking spaces, how many, and if it is sustainable to facilitate that. The answer to the last question is most likely to be "No". The study should start with this institution, with the Oireachtas and the Parliament, and whether we should have a car park out front. What message does this send to the public and what alternatives can be made?
Dublin was built without many public spaces in which to congregate and mobilise, and given the location of the Dáil and the lack of space to assemble, the possibility of pedestrianising the near end of Molesworth Street opposite Leinster House to enable safe demonstration, public gatherings and performance should be explored.
As I commute around town I am either angry, frustrated or embarrassed that the city is in the state it is. Nobody is being served properly by the status quo.In the core of the city - around George's Street, Dame Street, Stephen's Green and Leinster House - nobody is being served by the status quo.Also nobody in the suburbs is served by the status quo: not the drivers who sit in their cars, bumper to bumper, breathing in the fumes of the vehicle in front; not the cyclists whose cycle tracks disappear into thin air or who have to negotiate their commute with a double decker Dublin bus; not the people who use the bus, a service which at rush hour is completely at capacity and which may have no bus lane - including the two bus routes for me to get home to Inchicore - meaning that a bus with 20 to 60 passengers may have to sit behind a whole stretch of 20 cars; and the pedestrians are also not being served, even with the Grafton Street quarter.
While it is easy to have a good balance of cycle lanes and so on in places like Fingal, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin County Council areas, when choices have to be made in the Dublin City Council area it seems that those choices are not being made. We have situation where nobody is being served by the status quo.
I believe there is a step change happening with regard to the inner core of the city I referred to earlier. It is happening among businesses that realise pedestrianised streets are good for business. That will have an effect on Dublin City Council's approach to pedestrianising streets. It is good to see a trial of this on Suffolk Street and I would call on Dublin City Council to make that a permanent arrangement and to adjust the street into a pedestrian street full time. We are also seeing it in the response from businesses on Liffey Street Lower. The private car park lobby want access to Bachelors Walk via Liffey Street Lower but the Ha'penny Bridge is our landmark pedestrian bridge: pedestrians should be able to cross the quays and enter on to Liffey Street Lower and breath and socialise and have that space, rather than cars exiting Abbey Street onto Bachelors Walk. There is overwhelming support out there, especially among younger people, for a realignment of the priorities of the inner city and particularly around pedestrianisation and democratic spaces. It is about protection, comfort and enjoyment.
We also need to have a conversation about extending public transport later into the night. There is a conversation going on about the night-time economy, staggered opening hours and licensing law reform.I know workers in the hospitality industry and the cultural and creative sector who leave a shift and pay half of their wages on a taxi home. We need to extend the Nitelink and run the Luas later, and this should happen every night of the week. There is growing impatience among young people and a demand for priorities to be changed.
Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
I welcome the Minister. He and I have had many debates in the House on transport, most recently relating to the inefficiency of buses in Limerick. Following my debate with the Minister, I have had meetings with Bus Éireann and the local authority to get updates on how services might be improved. To date, while there have been some very small improvements, realistically many of the issues have yet to be addressed. I know the local authority and Bus Éireann are working on more real-time efficiencies rather than increased efficiencies. They were advertising the bus every 15 minutes but it was not quite working. One day recently three or four As arrived at the bus stop at the one time. While they are looking at it, there are many other aspects of the transport system that need to be looked at.
The Minister mentioned Project Ireland 2040 in his statement. On the previous occasion I raised the matter, one of the responses the Minister gave was looking at a metropolitan link between Limerick and places such as Shannon Airport. While I welcome that as a great addition, I would love to see some of the trials happening outside Dublin with some of the links starting in rural areas, perhaps on the western seaboard.
Recently it was announced that the number of cruise ships coming into Dublin Port would be curtailed. I would be concerned about the knock-on effect that might have on Shannon Foynes Port where many cruise liners dock in the summer. This in turn leads to tourists coming to visit places such as King John's Castle, Bunratty Castle, Adare and many scenic places on the Wild Atlantic Way that are a counterbalance to Dublin. We need to disperse our tourism and encourage people to move outside Dublin. These cruise liners coming into Shannon Foynes Port have a knock-on effect for Limerick, Kerry and Clare because there is connectivity between the various places. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
Cycle lanes and cycling as an alternative means of transport have been mentioned. It is ironic to think that one of the main people who has been highlighting the inefficiencies of the bus transport in Limerick was knocked off his bicycle recently. He was looking at alternative ways of getting to work rather than using the inefficient bus service, even though it was a car that knocked him off his bicycle. I wish him a speedy recovery. We need to look at safer cycling, especially in urban areas. We do not have very many cycle lanes. Using Limerick as an example, we have the Coca Cola bikes in some locations but not in locations with considerable footfall. There are some in the greater city area. Mary Immaculate College and the University Hospital Limerick are in the outskirts. I would like to see this scheme expanded to locations where there is footfall.
I would like to hear the Minister's thoughts on park-and-ride facilities. I have visited the very successful Black Ash park-and-ride system in Cork run by Bus Éireann and the local authority. I would love to see something like this extended to other cities. It is about trying to increase footfall. Many cities are suffering from the doughnut effect with little footfall in the shops in the city centres. We need to look at different ways to do our business.
I would like the Minister to put park-and-ride facilities and our ports on the agenda. He should also consider having pilot schemes outside the greater Dublin area.
Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
I need to be very strict on time because it will be a challenge to get everybody in and the Minister must be called at 2.38 p.m.
I call Senator Lawlor who has five minutes and no more.
Anthony Lawlor (Fine Gael)
I welcome the Minister. I hope that in six months' time I will be welcoming him to open the Sallins bypass and that by then the expansion of the N7 to three lanes will be finished. Every morning it has been namechecked on radio and television stations as being a bottleneck. By the end of this month or early in May I hope the three lanes will be open and the Sallins bypass will be open by the end of the year. I first brought up this project when I was in the Dáil. It would be very welcome to have the Minister down there to open that €110 million project.
I have asked TII and the NTA how we can make buses more efficient on that route, making better use of our motorways. I suggested the possibility of using the hard shoulder as a bus lane. A trial is taking place on the N4 from Maynooth towards Dublin. Something like that might also be considered for the N7. If we are saying we cannot do it because the existing roads are not wide enough, why do we not take one of the lanes and use it, not alone as a bus corridor, but also as a car-pooling lane, making it more efficient for people to travel.
I welcome the increased allocation to local authorities with Kildare County Council getting an additional 14%. That helps all the rural communities some of which have not had a road resurfaced for almost 50 years apart from bit of tar for to cover the potholes. I hope there will be further increases. Through the year the Minister may have surplus funding elsewhere and he might consider County Kildare as part of that.
We need to increase the rail capacity. We badly need additional carriages on the routes coming to Dublin from Kildare. We also need to increase the capacity of the lines by widening them. The four lines that currently go as far as Hazelhatch need to be extended as far as Kildare where the line splits. There is enormous opportunity for people to use those rail lines at the moment.
I very much welcome that companies such as Go-Ahead are taking over some of the routes from Bus Éireann. Go-Ahead is in consultation with the NTA regarding the timetable. It is important for people in the commuter area in Kildare to have an efficient service that runs on time. People frequently bitch about the bus not turning up on time. We all know the story about waiting for one bus to come along and suddenly four come together. I have been talking to Go-Ahead about more consistency. It is communicating with the commuters as to what they want. There should be linkages between the provincial buses and the link buses that are linking the communities around so that the link bus arrives just before the provincial bus departs.
I have been advocating for the greenway for a long time and I welcome the money allocated. The proposed Part 8 development for the Grand Canal greenway is going through the Kildare County Council planning process at the moment. It is important to have that link from Sallins into Naas. That would immediately link into the train station in Sallins. It is vital for attracting tourists to the midlands and east of the country.
I thank the Senator.
There is a need for an outer ring road around Naas. How long does it take to get from a concept being put into a development plan to the delivery of the road?I acknowledge we need feasibility studies, route selections, tender documents and all of that. Can the Minister indicate how long the process might take? The information is important for a debate that is going on in Naas at the moment. One thing that I have advocated for is an outer ring road for Naas that would stretch from what is known as "The Ball" to the new Newbridge interchange. It is a long-term plan but it was done in other places such as Tullamore and Kilkenny. Naas is a big thriving town so we should consider this matter. I hope to welcome the Minister to the opening of the third lane of the N7. My mother opened the Naas bypass.
Come on.
The Acting Chairman gave me a minute.
I thought the Acting Chairman said she would give me a minute.
No, the Senator has spoken for over five minutes. I gave him one minute along with the four minutes.
My mother opened the bypass and hope to welcome the Minister to the opening of the third lane of the bypass.
I do not mind what people say but the reality is three people want to contribute and as only six minutes remain, that is not possible. The next person is Senator O'Donnell. It would be helpful if he could speak for fewer than five minutes.
Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael)
Who else wants to contribute?
Senators Mulherin and Higgins.
How much time remains?
Seven minutes before the Minister needs to comment.
I will take three minutes.
I thank the Senator but it is still not enough time for Senator Higgins to come in.
I will try to be quicker.
Senator Kieran O'Donnell has a right to five minutes because he was down.
I want to contribute to this debate and thank the Minister for coming before the House.
I will draw a picture of a range of transport that includes road, rail, airports and obviously ports in the context of where I am based, which is Limerick city. I acknowledge the commitment of the Minister to the M20. As he will probably be aware, Barry Transportation has been appointed as the design and planning consultant. The project is now under way for which I thank him. He allowed the project to go ahead initially by providing €1 million for preliminary work and I acknowledge that work.
I also wish to deal with air. Shannon Airport is an integral part of what we offer in the region and is very much synonymous with Limerick city. Recently the Minister met the management of the Shannon Airport group and we met him to discuss establishing major European hub connectivity to the region. I want to raise the whole issue of Shannon Airport and the establishment of a major European hub connection at Shannon Airport with the Minister. On 6 February, he facilitated a meeting with the Shannon Airport management group. The group was proceeding to supply a submission to the Department on developing major European hub connectivity at Shannon Airport. Such connectivity is vital for the region. Has the Minister received the submission? If so, will he give it due consideration? In terms of what we can offer, and if we want proper balanced regional development to counter what happens in Dublin and the eastern seaboard and, in particular, to take pressure off Dublin Airport, then Shannon Airport has a key role to play.
I want to discuss urban buses and having strong city centres and vibrant communities. In Limerick city we firmly believe, and I am very committed to having a strong city centre in Limerick city, that one of the key features to ensure that is timely bus connectivity. There are issues with some buses, such as the timeliness of the 304 and 304A routes, in Limerick city. I got the route, which passes through Castletroy, in place about two or three years ago. The route criss-crosses the city from Castletroy to Dooradoyle. There are issues with timeliness. A 304 bus route also travels from the university and criss-crosses the city to reach Dooradoyle. I know a review is under way but we have an issue in Dublin in terms of connections and so forth. I want the Government to be determined and produce a policy that provides structured bus connectivity into city centres. In terms of creating vibrant city centres, if one has people who live in the suburbs and they have an offering outside of the city centre then we must ensure that travelling to the city is not difficult and does not take a long time.
I also wish to raise a more local issue. The J. J. Kavanagh & Sons bus company currently provides a bus that travels from Limerick city to Dublin Airport via the old N7 and passes through Birdhill, that won the Tidy Towns Competition two years ago. As the company now plans to go onto the M7, the route effectively no longer uses the old route. The company will stop in Nenagh and Roscrea. I ask the Minister to ask the National Transport Authority, NTA, to facilitate bus connectivity for the Birdhill region, perhaps using Local Link transport. I have already contacted the NTA and Local Link Tipperary. I ask the Minister to give a nod to the NTA and ask it to consider the matter. If we seek to provide connectivity then we must ensure that no one is left behind, including people who live in rural areas.
At the request of Senator Higgins, the Leader of the House has agreed to extend the debate by about five minutes so that all Members can contribute.
Does Senator Byrne wish to move the motion to extend the debate by five minutes?
Is that agreed?
If we extend the debate by five minutes, then we should do so long enough to allow the Minister to respond. That would be fair to all of the Senators that have been here.
Does the Minister agree?
I ask for an extension of 15 minutes.
No, not 15 minutes because we have the Judicial Appointments Bill next.
I agreed under pressure to do an extra half-hour. I will do an extra ten minutes but I cannot do any more than that.
That is fine and we cannot either in the House.
At least we will get some response from the Minister, to be fair.
Is an extra ten minutes agreed? Agreed.
Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael)
I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and will try to be succinct.
I have no doubt that the Minister is aware about the excellent presentation that we received from Iarnród Éireann on its plans to help us to decarbonise transport, which is timely in the context of the report published by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Action last week. Of course there are different challenges in rural areas compared with urban areas. What I like about the report is that the committee had a plan for every place. For example, they seek to electrify lines, I suppose within the Pale, and outside providing hybrid engines and, in the process, shortening journey times and increasing the number of services, which goes to the kernel of what we are trying to do to get more people off the roads and use more public transport. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of services in rural areas, as the Minister knows, thus the need for more solutions to be found in terms of providing bus transport and a framework of tailor-made services to provide public transport, depending on the areas. To get the best solutions requires input by local communities. We also do not want to end up displacing transport operators in areas who pay insurance, follow the regulations stipulated by the Taxi Regulator and provide a service that meets the standard. A balance must be struck and it must be done in co-operation with the communities and transport operators.
I would like to see priority given to some of the plans Iarnród Éireann wishes to roll out, especially in the context that we are behind in the transport emissions targets for 2020 and face being fined. When one puts all of that into the mix, it may be worthwhile accelerating or bringing forward some of the investment that is planned providing that it does not all apply to Dublin and we do not have to go walking or using high-speed cars in other parts of the country. It would be great to have an overall plan. I also think we need to consider freight. The second largest freight yard is in Ballina, County Mayo, where I am from and I know it needs more work and investment. It also has more potential to take heavy freight off the roads.While it is paying for itself, it needs capital investment as a matter of priority. Turning to rail services, the western rail corridor could help us to reduce carbon emissions from transport while also helping to realise plans for the Atlantic economic corridor. While I acknowledge that a study is being done in that regard, I note to the Minister that in respect of decision-making, we are in a bit of a vicious circle in rural areas. Regarding a cost-benefit analysis and economies of scale, we always run into a bit of a problem in terms of priority over other transport projects in areas with larger populations. However, applying only that measure is very short-sighted because the more we fail to invest in rural areas, the greater the pressure that will fall on urban areas. We will never create the balance we need. Am I running out of time?
The intention was to allow the Minister more time to respond, but I am trying to be courteous to colleagues and to let Senator Higgins in.
I will be mindful of that.
Senator Higgins must promise not to go over two minutes.
Alice Mary Higgins (Independent)
I will not.
Finally and most importantly, will the Minister conduct an audit in conjunction with TII to determine the number of major and minor projects on the national network of primary routes which have been delayed or refused by virtue of environmental designation under the habitats and birds directives and how much additional cost has been imposed on those projects as a result? I give the Minister the example of the N26, which is the national primary route between Swinford and Ballina, County Mayo. It has been set back ten to 20 years, depending on when one dates it from. Since the refusal by An Bord Pleanála of a stage 2 scheme in 2010, the road has been developed by way of a series of minor schemes. Approximately €4.5 million has been spent but not a sod has yet been turned. It is all down to whooper swans, freshwater pearl mussel, alluvial woodland and the whole mix. This is an area in which there is already a population. This is not out in the wilds. There is an issue and I want to know how much it is costing and how far behind the western seaboard is being left. It is the same problem in Galway, Clare and everywhere else along the western seaboard that there is designated land.
I will be very brief. There are many points and issues I am sure I will have an opportunity to follow up on, including the issues of freight and our ports. Perhaps a separate debate will be needed on those matters. Public transport has been at the core of much of today's discussion. The benefits of public transport do not come in the balance sheets of Iarnród Éireann or Bus Éireann, they accrue to the democracy, in connectivity, socially and to the environment. As such, it is important that we capture those benefits. I was one of only four members of the climate committee to vote for a 2:1 ratio in spending on public transport versus roads. I did not do that because I wanted to see funding cut in other areas but because we need a radical ambition for public transport. What projects are we bringing to Europe and seeking funding on? The InvestEU Fund allows us, under the sustainable infrastructure strand, to seek funding. The western rail corridor was mentioned. It is an area where European co-funding had been available but was no longer sought, with the result that the project was not delivered. We need to see a dramatic transformation here. We should not see any rail route being shut down given the nature of the demand. Generally, when one builds it, they will come. If the demand falls, we must look at how to create different provisions at different times, for example on the Wexford route. I have other points which I will leave aside to move to my final point, which is on cycling.
The Senator has 30 seconds.
The climate committee has called for 10% spending on cycling infrastructure. A motion has been passed in the Dáil calling for that too. I welcome the fact that the Minister has engaged with me and others on the issue. However, we are still looking at funding which is woefully under that level, while the Project Ireland 2040 estimates include provision for only 5%. How can we increase that funding level? The Minister mentioned a delivery officer but can we also have a cycling officer? I welcome the Liffey cycle route, which will be important, and the intersecting pieces. Can the Minister elaborate on how to take this further? When will BusConnects be rolled out in other cities? We cannot afford to wait. I ask that BusConnects routes are given to the greatest possible extent to public operators who are able to respond to changing environmental standards. Public services have the flexibility and capacity to scale. Importantly, they have the transferability required. I ask the Minister to address those issues.
It has been a very good debate. It has lacked the cut and thrust one often sees in the House but it has been very constructive. I will try to address most of the questions that came through in the short time available to me. I detected three trends, namely, congestion, climate change and cycling. That was very welcome because one often hears a lot about other issues but these are the progressive and sensitive issues it is right to raise in this House. I welcome also the fact that virtually every speaker mentioned those matters in one context or another. Virtually everything that was raised here could be categorised as an issue which may not be easy to address but which should nevertheless be tackled.
I will say something on cycling overall first and then address the individual matters. Let there be no doubt here. The Government has bought into the cycling story. It would be utterly wrong for anyone to paint us as anti-cycling or to have fallen back in respect of it. A lot of disinformation comes out about cycling. I do not blame the cycling lobby groups, which have a lot to complain about. However, there is a lot of disinformation and a lack of appreciation about what we have done and what we are doing and how well it fits in with the climate change story. Let me be honest and straightforward and admit that we are behind on climate change. Of course, we are. We do not have a proud record on climate change, but we are going to improve. Transport has its contribution to make. While there is sometimes misleading information about that, we have a major contribution to make to improve the climate change journey we have to take. Cycling is a major part of that. I will list for the benefit of everyone who raised the cycling story a fact of which I hope most people are aware. We have announced a capital investment programme for cycling and walking of €110 million over four years from 2018 to 2021 with a further €135 million to be provided over the next four years for traffic management, bus priority and other smarter travel projects in our cities. This is a substantial step up in investment, which will impact significantly on the numbers cycling. It will continue to yield benefits in the easing of congestion, which is where Senator Mark Daly started, and have a transformative effect in Dublin and regional cities.
I am acutely aware of the importance of safety for cyclists and am very conscious of the increase in cycling fatalities, in particular over the last couple of years. There has been a small improvement, but no improvement is ever enough. The Department has been working closely with the NTA and Dublin City Council to develop additional safety measures. In 2019, funding under the sustainable urban transport and cycling walking programmes will increase by approximately 30% to €48 million. That increase excludes additional moneys made available under the greenways strategy and the national development plan. We are allocating €2.4 billion to the development of BusConnects across all major cities and that will deliver an integrated cycling network in each. Under the greenways strategy, a €53 million programme from 2019 to 2021 will fund the delivery of strategically important greenways across the country. The NTA will establish a new cycling delivery office to optimise the delivery of new cycling infrastructure. I note in response to the point Senator Higgins just made, the office will obviously have dedicated people and I am hopeful one will be a cycling officer. I could go on with the detail but I wish simply to say that the Government is committed to this. I think we are being recognised. As Senator Grace O'Sullivan noted, we are sponsoring Velo-city, which is the world's largest cycling conference. It will take place in Dublin this year from 25 to 28 June.I am looking forward to that but I suspect that is a recognition of the fact that we are making strides here. We have more to do but let us be straight. I will happily admit that we are falling back on climate change and that we have a lot to do. Let us also get a response from people from time to time to say that we have moved on cycling. We recognise this is part of climate change and getting people out of their cars. We are doing something and we have made commitments in terms of funding and we are spending money and will continue doing this.
I will not address climate change in a general way but if I have time, I will try to address some of the specific questions which I was asked. Senator Mark Daly spoke of the need to improve rail. We are increasing funding across the rail network and this will support more services and allow more people to choose public transport which is worth recognising. On the issue for driver licence tests, and I thank Senator Daly who was here for the whole debate, which I appreciate enormously, there is a lack of recognition of what we have done. The Senator mentioned 29 weeks. I do not believe that there are any 29 week waiting times left. From memory, the average wait for driver tests is approximately 11 weeks. It has come down considerably and it is likely to come down further. There are many wild figures going around and the Senator may be correct in that there may be one extreme case of 29 weeks but the average is around 11 weeks. It has improved a great deal. I like the Senator's idea of more remote working. It is not quite a transport issue but is one from which transport would benefit.
Senator McDowell spoke about metro and asked whether other proposals had been ruled out forever. No, they have not been. We have a statutory framework in relation to transport planning in the greater Dublin area, GDA, which must be respected and of which the Senator would be well aware, and that is the NTA's transport strategy for 2016 to 2035. That strategy has to be reviewed every six years. The next review must be completed by 2021. Any new projects which anybody has can be put forward as part of the review and, obviously, nothing is excluded.
The Taoiseach referred explicitly to other options, and the NTA must consider those and any other sensible options. It is a statutory process but it is a very sensible one. It allows for reviews every six years which could include ideas on the Luas or the metro, which had not been included in the original strategy because it is a very long-term one.
What about electric scooters?
I am very conscious of their presence on the streets. Regulatory issues obviously arise here and the Road Safety Authority, RSA, is preparing a paper and considering this issue. The Senator has a view on their legality and we will receiving a view on that and on what measures we should be taking. My view is that it is necessary to regulate them. Bus corridors can accommodate taxis.
The transport strategy provides for a range of projects over 20 years, including a new Luas to Lucan-----
I apologise but I ask the Minister to conclude within a minute.
-----and extending the green line from Bray to Finglas and to Poolbeg.
The DART underground is not dead. The DART expansion over the next ten years will see all commuter lines electrified and new stations.
I refer Senators Humphreys and O'Mahony's questions. The NTA has worked closely with Galway City Council to develop its transport strategy. The NTA met very recently with Galway City Council on the implementation of this strategy, which my Department will support. Indeed, it is specifically provided for in project 2020. Senator Humphreys spoke about College Gate. The NTA has explored a number of options in regard to this site. It is a critical site, of which the Senator is probably aware, because it connects the DART and the railway. It is very important that the residents close to that site are looked after. The site must go ahead, however. We cannot impinge on or make any changes to that. I can assure the Senator that all the residents will be treated fairly, and the NTA has assured me of this also. There is no doubt about that. NTA has offered assistance to all residents in seeking new accommodation. Owner occupiers, of course, will receive statutory compensation while the NTA has offered to pay a year's rent for tenants.
On the council leisure facility and swimming pool, the NTA is working with the council to identify our new site in the area and to construct a new leisure centre in advance of the closure of the existing one. I am not aware of the situation, as described by the Senator, in respect of Tara Street but I will make inquiries and inform him of the details on this.
What about the road-----
Thank you. We must conclude.
What about sea transport?
I will communicate with the Senators in writing in order to answer some of their other questions.
That concludes the statements and I thank the Minister.
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‘Illicit Cohabitation’: Listen To 6 Stunning Moments From Loving V. Virginia
Marisa Peñaloza / NPR
Photo by AP
Mildred and Richard Loving in 1965.
Aired 6/12/17
"Illicit cohabitation."
"Psychological evils."
"Racial integrity."
It's difficult to imagine how much the country's language around race and interracial marriage has changed in the past half century.
But just 50 years ago, interracial marriage was prohibited in Virginia and 15 other states.
The Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Loving v. Virginia declared unconstitutional a Virginia law prohibiting mixed-race marriage. The ruling also legalized interracial marriage in every state.
Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, two young ACLU lawyers at the time, took the case of the Lovings — a black and Native American woman named Mildred and Richard Loving, her white husband — all the way to the high court.
Listen to six standout moments from the trial below, transcribed by the Supreme Court in 1967:
1. Cohen and Hirschkop asked the court to look closely at whether the Virginia law violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. If the framers had intended to exclude anti-miscegenation status in the 14th Amendment, which assures equal protection under the law, they argued that it would have been easy for them to write a phrase excluding interracial marriage, but they didn't Cohen argued:
"The language was broad, the language was sweeping. The language meant to include equal protection for Negroes that was at the very heart of it and that equal protection included the right to marry as any other human being had the right to marry subject to only the same limitations."
2. Cohen forcefully, but calmly argued that the Lovings and their children, just like any other family, had the right to feel protected under the law.
Five weeks after the Lovings' wedding on July 14, cops led by the sheriff stormed into their house at 2 in the morning. The young couple was arrested and jailed for violating the state's "Racial Integrity Act." The Lovings were sentenced to a year in prison, but a judge set them free under the condition they leave Virginia.
Cohen argued that the state was ignoring a very important point:
"And that is the right of Richard and Mildred Loving to wake up in the morning or to go to sleep at night knowing that the sheriff will not be knocking on their door or shining a light in their face in the privacy of their bedroom for illicit co-habitation."
3. Cohen's co-counsel Hirschkop, only three years after graduating with Georgetown Law, methodically pointed out Virginia's long history of discriminatory laws aimed to prevent race-mixing. The state's first ban of interracial marriage goes back to 1691, Hirschkop reminded the justices. And he argued that in the 1920s, immigration laws were being passed while "the Klan rode openly in the south and that's when they talked about the bastardy of the races, and miscegenation and amalgamation and race suicide became the watch word."
"And John Powell, a man we singled out in our brief, a noted pianist of his day, started taking up the Darwin Theory and perverting it through the theory of eugenics, the theory that applied to animals, to pigs, and hogs, and cattle.They started applying it to human beings.In taking Darwinism that the Negro race was a stepping stone, was that lost men we've always been looking for between the white man and the abominable snowman whoever else, they went back.And that's when the Anglo-Saxon Club was formed in the State of Virginia and that's when Virginia Legislature passed our present body of law. They took all these old laws. These antebellum and postbellum laws and they put them together into what we presently have."
4. Hirschkop also argued that Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws rob people of their integrity and of their freedom and that Virginia's "not concerned with racial integrity of the Negro race, only with the white race."
"They were not concerned with the racial integrity but racial supremacy of the white race," he argued.
The young lawyer relentlessly argued that the central purpose of the 14th Amendment lies on protecting citizenship rights – equally - regardless of color.
"We fail to see how any reasonable man can but conclude that these laws are slavery laws were incepted to keep slaves in their place, were prolonged to keep the slaves in their place, and in truth, the Virginia law still view the Negro race as a slave race, that these are the most odious laws to come before the court. They robbed the Negro race of its dignity and only a decision which will reach the full body of these laws in the State of Virginia will change that. We ask that the Court consider the full spectrum of these laws and not just the criminality, because it's more than a criminality that's at point here, that the legitimacy of children right to inherent land, the many, many rights, and in reaching a decision, we ask you reach on that basis." Thank you Your Honors.
5. But Virginia's Assistant Attorney General R.D. McIlwaine III argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which preceded the 14th Amendment, was not intended to offer protection to biracial married couples.
McIlwaine says that the state's anti-miscegenation laws were rational and that Virginia had the right to adopt them.
McIlwaine forcefully argued that Virginia's anti-miscegenation law did not violate the 14th Amendment and offered Justices an alternative contention to make his point:
"If the Fourteenth Amendment be deemed to apply to State anti-miscegenation statutes, then these statutes serve a legitimate, legislative objective of preventing a sociological, psychological evils which attend interracial marriages, and is a — an expression, a rational expression of a policy which Virginia has a right to adopt."
6. McIlwaine argued about the importance of the institution of marriage and the interest of the state in ensuring successful and stable marriages, homes and families. Chief Justice Earl Warren questioned McIlwaine's argument, but the assistant attorney general repeatedly pointed out the disadvantage of mixed-race marriages
MCILWAINE: "Intermarried families are subjected to much greater pressures and problems than those of the intra-married and that the state's prohibition of interracial marriage for this reason stands on the same footing as the prohibition of polygamous marriage, or incestuous marriage or the prescription of minimum ages at which people may marry and the prevention of the marriage of people who are mentally incompetent. W: There are people who have the same — same feeling about and interreligious marriages, but because that maybe true, would you think that the State could prohibit people from having interreligious marriages? M: I think that the evidence in support of the prohibition of interracial marriage is stronger than that for the prohibition of interreligious marriage. But I think that the -- W: How can you — how can you say that? M: Well, we say that principally -- W: Because — because you believe that? M: No, sir. We say it principally on the basis of the authority which we have cited in our brief, particularly, this one volume, which we have cited from copiously in our brief which is -- Earl Warren Who wrote that? R. D. McIlwaine, III This is a book by Dr. Albert I. Gordon, Your Honor, which is characterized as the definitive book by Dr. Albert I. Gordon, which is characterized as the definitive book on intermarriage, and has the most careful, up to date, methodologically sound study of intermarriage in North America that exists. It is entitled "Intermarriage, Interfaith, Interracial, Inter-ethnic." Now, our proposition on the psycho-sociological aspects of this question is bottomed almost exclusively on this particular volume."
On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled in the Lovings' favor. The unanimous decision upheld that distinctions drawn based on race were not constitutional. The court's decision made it clear that Virginia's anti-miscegenation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The landmark civil rights decision declared prohibitions on interracial marriage unconstitutional in the nation. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the opinion for the court; he wrote that marriage is a basic civil right and to deny this right on a basis of color is "directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment" and seizes all citizens "liberty without due process of law."
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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Brad Pitt wants joint custody in Angelina Jolie split
Investigation into alleged abuse still underway
<p>Brad Pitt, and actress Angelina Jolie arrive for the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards in this Monday, Jan. 15, 2007 file photo in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, FILE)</p>
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Brad Pitt is asking a judge to grant him joint custody of his six children in his split from Angelina Jolie Pitt, according to a divorce filing Friday.
The actor's request was included in his response to Jolie Pitt's Sept. 20 petition to end their two-year marriage. The actress sought sole physical custody of their six children, who range in age from 8 to 15.
Custody has been the major issue in the breakup so far, with authorities investigating Pitt over what happened during a dispute on a private flight with his family in mid-September. The couple reached a temporary custody agreement that allowed the actor to visit his children while the investigation by a child welfare agency in Los Angeles is ongoing.
The outcome of the investigation could impact how a judge determines custody arrangements, although courts in California generally favor awarding joint custody. The actors could also reach a private agreement that would not involve a public custody fight in court.
Pitt's filing does not include any new details about the couple's breakup. Pitt cited irreconcilable differences and makes no mention of a prenuptial agreement that will govern how the pair divides their assets. He also cites Sept. 15 as the day of their separation, one day after the alleged plane altercation between Pitt and his 15-year-old son, Maddox.
Pitt was accused of being abusive toward the teenager, sources told The Associated Press, but authorities were not notified when the plane landed in Minnesota. Several sources said the incident was being investigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, but the agency said it could not confirm whether it was involved.
The actors were together for 12 years after becoming close while filming 2005's "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
As one of Hollywood's elite power couples, the actors transformed the flurry of headlines into a force for good.
They adopted children from Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia. In 2006, they formed the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to which they funneled many of the millions they made selling personal pictures to celebrity magazines.
Jolie Pitt, who became special envoy for the United Nations in 2012, became an outspoken voice for refugees, as well as for breast cancer treatment after undergoing a double mastectomy herself. Pitt built homes in New Orleans for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The pair recently sold a home they purchased in New Orleans' French Quarter for $4.9 million.
Their only other on-screen role together is in 2015's "By the Sea," about a troubled American couple vacationing in France.
Pitt skipped the Sept. 28 premiere of the Terrence Malick's new documentary "Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience," which he narrated. In a statement, Pitt said he was skipping the premiere because he was currently focused on my family situation and don't want to distract attention away from this extraordinary film."
Pitt stars with Marion Cotillard in Robert Zemeckis' upcoming spy thriller "Allied."
Jolie Pitt earlier this year finished shooting her fourth feature as director, "First They Killed My Father." The film, about the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime, was shot in Cambodia.
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Women's Table Tennis World Cup coming to US
Jamie Squire
<p>BAKU, AZERBAIJAN - JUNE 19: Jie Li of the Netherlands competes against Jiao Li of the Netherlands in the Women's Table Tennis Finals during day seven of the Baku 2015 European Games at the Baku Sports Hall on June 19, 2015 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images for BEGOC)</p>
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — For the first time ever, the Women's Table Tennis World Cup is coming to the U.S. — bringing 20 top-ranked players from powerhouses as far afield as Singapore, Japan and Germany to Philadelphia.
"It's so cool, it's absolutely amazing," said Lily Zhang, one of two Americans competing. "I'm so excited that we can finally host the World Cup. That's huge, you know."
Stakes are high. After the Olympics, the World Cup is one of the most prestigious titles in ping pong, and winners will split a $150,000 prize pool.
"I really want to win," said Elizabeta Samara, 27, a Romanian player seeded 10th in the tournament. "Yes, I also want to enjoy, but enjoying not just for fun, you know?"
Among the competitors are Olympians, a 15-year-old from Japan, a Korean player coached by her mother since the age of six and eight players fresh to the tournament. They will be smashing ping pong balls at speeds of over 60 miles an hour. The players will be whittled down to one champion over six rounds and three days.
China has won every World Cup since the tournament began 20 years ago — but because of injuries — it won't be participating. That means a different country will now have the opportunity to snag the title.
"I expect everybody's level of all the countries to be very close," said Lily Yip, coach of the American team. "Maybe our U.S. team can win. You never know."
Table tennis has enjoyed an uptick in popularity over the past few decades, but recently, player numbers have been stagnating, dropping from over 19 million in 2010 to around 16.5 million last year, according to USA Table Tennis.
"Many Americans don't understand that ping pong is actually a very difficult, very high-level sport," said Yip. "They still think of it as a 'basement sport.'"
Tournament organizers are optimistic the World Cup will breathe new life into the game, proving it's worthy of more than just a casual round or two.
"I think that if we can pack this place, we'll have no choice but to bring this tournament back here," said Gordon Kaye, CEO of USA Table Tennis, one of the sponsors of the event.
Matches will be played over the weekend, with the final showdown scheduled for Sunday night.
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Japan and Uruguay agree on two-way beef exports
MONTEVIDEO - Japan and Uruguay have agreed to allow each other’s beef imports as a way of expanding bilateral trade, reaching the deal during the first visit by a Japanese leader to the Latin American country.
At a news conference with Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez following talks in Montevideo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday he was delighted with the trade deal.
Japan had been negotiating beef exports to Uruguay since March 2016, while imports of beef from Uruguay had been suspended by Tokyo since 2000 due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
Abe also said at the news conference that Uruguay is “an important partner of Japan that shares universal values such as democracy and the rule of law.”
During their talks, Abe and Vazquez agreed to promote people-to-people exchanges in such sectors as sports and culture in the run-up to the 100th anniversary in 2021 of diplomatic relations between the two nations, Japanese officials said.
They also affirmed the need to fully implement U.N. sanctions against North Korea to denuclearize the reclusive country, the officials said.
Moving on to Paraguay later in the day, Abe agreed with President Mario Abdo Benitez to seek the early conclusion of a bilateral investment pact aimed at improving the business environment.
During Abe’s Paraguay visit, which was also the first by a Japanese leader, Tokyo pledged ¥500 million in grant aid to Asuncion, enabling Japanese medical equipment to be provided to hospitals in Paraguay, according to the officials.
Abe visited the two countries as part of a South American tour that involved attending the Group of 20 summit in Argentina.
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Shinzo Abe, Latin America, G20, Uruguay-Japan relations, Tabare Vazquez
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Home Meet Jennifer Issues Legislation Media Constituent Services Sign Up Donate
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Jennifer in the Media
More mothers of young kids are running for political office in surge of Democratic candidates
Soon after Donald Trump was elected president, Jennifer Carroll Foy, a 36-year old public defender from Woodbridge, made a life-changing decision to run for the Virginia House of Delegates. Three weeks after she launched her campaign, she found out she was due for another life change. She was pregnant with twins.
The news did not shake her decision to run for office.
“I don’t question blessings,” she said. “I take things as they come.”
Meet the Black Woman Candidate Who’ll Talk to Men in Confederate-Flag T-Shirts
Stafford County, Virginia—Under a dazzling purple-and-orange sunset at the Stafford County Fair last weekend, Jennifer Carroll Foy, a candidate for the state House of Delegates, strolled confidently toward a skinny young white man wearing a Confederate-flag “Don’t tread on me” T-shirt. One of the first black female graduates of the Virginia Military Institute, Carroll Foy was there to ask for his vote. The man looked stunned as she approached, while his wife seemed mildly curious. And then Carroll Foy was really there—smiling, standing tall, handing out literature, explaining why she was running to represent the good people of Virginia’s Second District.
Vice Impact
From Abortion to Gun Rights, Virginia's Upcoming Elections Have National Implications
It's no coincidence that both Barack Obama and Mike Pence were in Virginia recently – the upcoming election is garnering national attention because its impact will be broad. This year the election of the entire lower chamber (100 seats) as well as the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the attorney general takes place. Democrats and progressives see it as an opportunity for the state to flip blue, which would be a loud and clear message to the White House, as well as the White Nationalists in Charlottesville and beyond. Republicans see it as a chance to harden their lines on reproductive rights, the environment, immigration, and the Second Amendment.
InsideNoVa
Editorial: House of Delegates endorsements in Prince William region
2nd District: This swing district, which stretches along the Potomac River from Belmont to Aquia, once appeared to be among the most competitive in the state. However, the withdrawal from the race of the first Republican candidate has left Democrat Jennifer Foy in the driver’s seat. On top of that, the GOP’s replacement candidate, Mike Makee, has been largely invisible, failing to show for campaign forums and not even replying to our request for an endorsement interview. We’re impressed by Foy’s down-to-earth style, and her experiences as a mother of young children and a public defender will bring new perspectives to the legislature. Foy deserves your vote.
New Mom of Twins Running for Virginia House of Delegates
A woman who recently gave birth to premature twins says she never considered dropping out of the running for Virginia's General Assembly. News4's Julie Carey reports she hopes to be an example of how women can do it all.
Meet the Women Inspired to Run for Office After the 2016 Election
Jennifer Carroll Foy, a 35-year-old public defender who was admitted to the Virginia Military Institute during one of the first years women were legally allowed to attend the school, did an Emerge training for her run for Virginia state legislature this fall. "There are Republicans in a lot of these [local] offices who are taking hold of Trumpism, which is very dangerous, so we need a counterbalance to that," she says. "We need progressive Democrats to go to the General Assembly to ensure that people's civil rights are not trampled upon, to make it known that Virginia is not a place for intolerance and bigotry and discrimination."
After going through what she describes as "the stages of grief" after Election Day, she says, "I thought to myself, if not me, then who? And if not now, then when?
Jennifer Carroll Foy
PO Box 5113 1810 Reddy Drive Woodbridge, VA 22194
Website design by Tech for Campaigns
Authorized and Paid for by Jennifer Carroll Foy for Delegate
571-989-1713 jennifercarrollfoy@gmail.com
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Schor leads fundraising
Candidates for Lansing offices raised nearly $190,000
Posted Thursday, November 2, 2017 11:20 am
None - Do Not Delete
It’s that time of the year again — pumpkins, goblins and campaign finance reports. With five races for Lansing City offices and nine candidates on the ballot next Tuesday, the cash has been flowing. Overall, the eight candidates who had filed reports raised nearly $190,000. The filing date was Friday.
Here’s a break-out for each candidate.
Mayor’s race:
Andy Schor rolled into the general election with both a financial and electoral advantage over Judi Brown Clarke.
Whether he retains his electoral advantage or not, we’ll know on Tuesday, but to date Schor out-raised Brown Clarke by $68,215.
The breakdown: Schor had $137,139. He raised $93,030. He has on hand $135,345. Of the $93,030 Schor raised, nearly 41 percent came from political action committees and nearly 45 percent came from people who reside outside the city of Lansing.
Notable donors for Schor this reporting period include:
$1,000 from John Clark, partner at Clark Construction.
$500 from Samuel Clark, president of Clark Construction.
$500 from George Eyde of the Eyde Co.
$1,000 from James Herbert, the CEO of Neogen.
$1,000 from developer Richard Karp, of Karp and Associates.
$1,000 from Najah Konja, owner of Wild Bill’s Tobacco, which has been involved in funding the campaign to legalize marijuana in Michigan, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Brown Clarke had $2,474 heading into the general election
She raised $23,815. She has on hand $14,130. Of her total fundraising this reporting period, 42.5 percent came from outside of the city, just over 36 percent came from the city, and her $5,000 loan represented nearly 21 percent of her fundraising.
Incumbent City Clerk Chris Swope raised $7,031 during the reporting period, while his opponent, Jerimic Clayborn III, raised $130. Swope had $5,135 on hand running into the election while Clayborn was holding onto $33.
At-large City Council
In the At-large Council race, three of the four candidates had filed their reports by Monday afternoon. Incumbent City Councilwoman Kathie Dunbar had not filed by 2:30 p.m. Monday. This is the second report in a row that she has been late filing. Candidates Peter Spadafore, Kyle Bowman and Guillermo Lopez filed on time.
Here is what the filings show: Bowman raised $4,120 during the period and started it with $1,120 on hand. He ended the reporting period with a $1,073 surplus.
Of his cash, 25 percent came from PAC donations for a total $1,050. Just over 72 percent of his fundraising came from out of the city donors.
Lopez raised $3,193 since the primary and started the reporting period with $2,729 on hand. He finished the reporting period with $3,147. His report shows nearly 27 percent of the donations came from outside of the city, and most donors contributed $50 or less. He received no PAC money. His report shows $9,303 in cash he loaned his campaign. That money is not part of his overall balance in fundraising report, making it unclear where it fits into his cash on hand or spending, Once again, Spadafore was the cash king in this reporting period, raising $16,925. He started the reporting period with $21,001, and with expenditures and fundraising ended the period with a healthy $26,226.
Of that money Spadafore did raise this round, 41 percent was from PACs, nearly 38 percent from out of the city and nearly 21 percent from within the city. Notable donors include State School Superintendent Brian Winston with a $700 donation, Lansing School District Superintendent Yvonne Caamal Canul donated $250 while House Democratic Leader Sam Singh of East Lansing donated $250. Spadafore, a member of the Lansing School Board, is associate executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators.
2nd Ward
In a feisty battle between incumbent City Councilwoman Tina Houghton and plumber and political neophyte Jeremy Garza, the two opponents raised a combined $20,900.
Garza started the reporting period with $1,859, raised $12,575 and ended the reporting period with $4,235. Of the cash he raised, 89 percent came from PACs, and 7 percent came from out of the city.
Hoghton’s report, which was filed a day late, showed she raised $8,325 during the reporting period. She started the reporting period with $15,369 but running into the general election has $6,148 cash.
PACs donated 66 percent of her cash, while nearly 19 percent of her cash came from donors living outside of the city. One interesting donor pops out: Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero’s father, Guilio Bernero, donated $200. She also reports spending nearly $4,000 in robocalls. That could mean voters in the 2nd may expect a flood of pre-recorded calls in the final week of the campaign.
4th Ward
Over on the city’s Northwest side, Jim McClurken and Brian Jackson are seeking to replace retiring City Councilwoman Jessica Yorko. Jackson narrowly outraised McClurken, $5,210 to $5,132.
McClurken started the reporting period with $170 and ended the period with $211. Of that $5,132 he raised, 63 percent came from in the city and 34.5 percent from out of the city.
Jackson started the period with $300 and moves into the last week of the election with $2,822 in the bank. Eighty percent came from within the city. Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon — Jackson ran against her — donated $100. Yorko spent $342 on Facebook ads to promote his campaign, representing 86 percent of his inkind donations.
Suzi J. Smith
Events Editor Public Notice/ Classifieds Editor Office Manager
Born and raised in Lansing, I have 30+ years newspaper experience, with a few side trips into other fields, and joined City Pulse because I missed the fun and excitement of a weekly newspaper. Personally, I am a Disney World addict; a voracious reader and mother of too damn many.
You can reach Suzi J. at:
suzi@lansingcitypulse.com or (517) 999-6704
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The Trump Administration’s War on Workers
When Donald Trump was running for the presidency, he promised that, if he was elected, “American worker[s] will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.” Today, though, safely ensconced in the White House, President Trump is waging a fierce campaign against American workers
His appointments to federal positions created to defend workers’ rights provide an indication of his priorities. For Secretary of Labor, Trump nominated Andrew Puzder, the CEO of a major fast food chain. When Puzder’s nomination was withdrawn amid allegations of labor law violations, Trump turned to Alexander Acosta, a figure with a long history of aligning with rightwing and corporate interests. As the new Labor Secretary, Acosta served as one of the stars at the annual gathering of the militantly anti-labor American Legislative Exchange Council. For Deputy Secretary of Labor, Trump chose Patrick Pizzella, a former employee of the rabidly anti-union National Right to Work Committee who had lobbied against raising sweatshop-level wages.
Other administration appointments had the same orientation. For Assistant Secretary of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Trump nominated David Zatezalo, a former CEO of a coal mining operation with serious mining violations. The Trump administration also took control of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by appointing members with a record of opposing workers’ right to organize. Furthermore, Trump helped ensure an unsympathetic hearing for American workers in the courts by appointing new federal judges known for their deeply-ingrained rightwing views.
Assisted by these and other pro-corporate officials, the administration quickly attacked worker health and safety provisions. It repealed an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule requiring employers to keep accurate injury records, repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule ensuring that federal contractors follow safety and labor laws, withdrew an OSHA policy allowing workers in non-union workplaces to participate in OSHA inspections, and scrapped more than a dozen rules from the OSHA and MSHA regulatory agenda, including standards on combustible dust, styrene, 1-bromopropane, construction noise, update of permissible exposure limits, and MSHA penalties and refuge alternatives in coal mines. In addition, the administration delayed the issuance of the new standard for cancer-causing beryllium and enforcement of the OSHA standard for deadly silica dust.
The Trump administration has also launched an attack on workers’ wages. Although the Obama administration had updated and expanded overtime protections for 4.2 million American workers, implementation has been blocked in federal court while Trump’s Labor Department lays plans to narrow worker eligibility. The Labor Department has also proposed a new rule making it legal for restaurant owners to keep the tips given to their waitstaffs, thereby depriving millions of low-paid workers (most of them women and people of color) of a substantial portion of their income. Of course, increasing the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for nearly nine years, would lift millions of workers out of poverty. But Trump and Congressional Republicans staunchly oppose raising this pathetically low wage floor, arguing that there is no need for a federal minimum wage.
Given the central role that organized labor plays in defending workers’ rights, it’s hardly surprising that the Trump administration has sought to weaken American unions.
Given the central role that organized labor plays in defending workers’ rights, it’s hardly surprising that the Trump administration has sought to weaken American unions. For example, the Labor Department has proposed repealing the Obama administration’s rule that employers and their consultants must report how much money they spend on anti-union campaigns. In December 2017 alone, the NLRB reversed a 2004 decision bolstering the right of workers to organize free from unlawful employer interference, reversed a 2016 decision safeguarding unionized workers’ rights to bargain over changes in terms of employment, and overturned a 2011 decision protecting the right of a group of employees within a larger non-union company to form a bargaining unit. The NLRB also invited employers to withdraw from agreements to hold union representation elections, even in cases where the election had already been held.
One of last December’s NLRB actions―overturning a 2015 decision making employers responsible for bargaining with workers if they have direct or indirect control over these workers’ employment―has enormous consequences for millions of low-wage earners. Fast food companies like McDonald’s license franchises for most of their restaurants, with the companies and franchise managements each avoiding responsibility for negotiating with their workers. Thus, the Obama Labor Board’s decision provided fast food workers with a meaningful right to collective bargaining. The Trump Labor Board took it away.
Perhaps the most serious threat to unions comes from the Trump administration’s support of so-called “right-to-work” laws, which eliminate the obligation of workers to pay for the union representation they receive. Adopted in 28 states thanks to campaigns by big business and its rightwing allies, these laws have proven sure-fire methods for creating masses of “free riders” and, thus, crippling unions. Naturally, then, House Republicans introduced the National Right to Work Act shortly after Trump’s inauguration and, within a few days, the Trump administration re-affirmed its support for “right-to-work” laws. “The president believes in right to work,” declared White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. “He wants to give workers and companies . . . flexibility.” When the Canadian government proposed barring “right-to-work” laws under the provisions of a new NAFTA agreement, the Trump administration promptly rejected the idea.
The Janus case now before the Supreme Court provides another component in the same battle. Brought to the court by the National Right to Work Committee, it would make every state and local government worker in the United States a potential “free rider.” Entering the case, Trump’s Justice Department filed an anti-union brief. In addition, Trump’s appointment to the Supreme Court of Neil Gorsuch, a rightwing ideologue, makes it likely that the court will decide in favor of the National Right to Work Committee, with devastating consequences for America’s public sector unions.
Looking at the conflict between workers and their bosses, an old labor ballad asks, hauntingly: “Which side are you on?” The Trump administration is certainly not on the side of the workers.
Lawrence Wittner
By Lawrence S. Wittner posted on February 19, 2018
About Lawrence S. Wittner
Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at Aardvark?
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Tumhari Hai Tum Hi Sambhalo Ye Duniya: An Appeal To Fellow-Liberals In India
Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 27 May, 2019
Copyright © 2019 Dr. Seshadri Kumar. All Rights Reserved.
Liberals in India have tried for the past five years to convince their fellow-Indians that Narendra Modi should not be re-elected in 2019 — and failed. Modi has come back to power with a bigger mandate than in 2014. What this means is that the other side is not receptive to the arguments of us liberals — for whatever the reasons may be. There is therefore no point in continuing to highlight what we liberals believe about Modi being bad for the country — the strategy has clearly not worked.
It is therefore time for liberals to take a step back and to disengage from political discussions for a year or two, and watch what actually happens in India under Modi 2.0. If things are bad as we fear, then Modi's supporters will realize the facts for themselves. They will be more likely to admit that things are wrong if they do not have to constantly defend Modi against attacks from liberals. And if things in India actually end up being as rosy as supporters of Mr. Modi believe, then it will be the best of all possible worlds for all Indians.
A Time to Understand Reality
It is now 4 days since the election results were announced. Liberals who fought the war of ideas on social media with the supporters of Mr. Modi are shocked, angry, and depressed that he won with such a large mandate.
They say grief is a multi-stage process, and many of my friends are in different stages. I understand it is hard. I myself have been very involved for the last five years in pointing out the problems in this administration and in trying to convince people not to vote for Modi for a second term. I only achieved closure after I posted my last post titled “A Farewell to Arms” (Apologies to Ernest Hemingway.)
So, while I understand what all of you are going through, here is my appeal.
We tried to convince people that re-electing Modi would be a mistake. We pointed out the various problems, whether economic, social, intolerance-related, related to the scientific temper, or relating to foreign policy. We argued. We shared opinions.
But we failed in convincing people. Modi was re-elected with an even bigger mandate.
What does this tell you? I don't know, but it tells me that whatever I have been doing for the past 5 years has not worked. And so I have understood that repeating that pattern will not convince the other side, either.
Unfortunately, I see many of my friends getting into the same pattern again. That was fine for the last five years, but to continue it is destructive and futile. Yesterday some community leader made some inflammatory statements, and everyone has been posting the video of those statements today, talking about how things in India are getting worse. Others are still arguing as to whether this was a “stolen” election — whether EVMs were selectively tampered. (It does not matter. Even if you somehow discover that they were, the ECI is not going to rerun the election.)
All this is not going to help. These are the things that we tried explaining to them for 5 long years. The other side is not interested in listening. I found recently in a WhatsApp group that I belonged to that highly educated folks from the other side were not even reading my posts — including even instances when my posts had nothing to do with politics. Such is the rift between the liberals and supporters of Mr. Modi. They have closed their minds off and will not read anything you write — because it is you, a liberal, who is posting it. As symptomatic of that, I just responded to a Modi supporter who commented on FB regarding my “Farewell” post without even reading it and started telling me that I was wrong - even though he did not even know what I had written in it.
That is how things are today. You can post all your arguments on how things are bad under Modi. The other side is simply not listening. And, with Modi having won a resounding mandate, they have even less incentive to listen to you.
So what should we liberals do? I would say we should just take a deep breath, and stop posting on politics, Modi, Rahul, Muslims and Dalits getting beaten up (there are going to be a lot of such incidents now, because lumpen elements on the street will feel vindicated and think they have carte blanche now), and similar topics. Post absolutely nothing on any of these.
Wait for a year at least. Maybe two. Let us see how things pan out.
This has been a war of ideologies. There are those who believe that Modi will bring a golden age to India. There are those of us who believe that he is going to ruin India. Let us understand one thing: both sides genuinely believe that they are correct.
Let us see who is correct here. If we are correct, the other side will realize that things have gone terribly wrong without us telling them a single thing or reminding them by sharing news links. They can read newspapers and websites too.
If they are correct, then that is good news for us too. If the country is indeed going to be better because of Mr. Modi's wise leadership, all of us will be happy. We opposed him only because we are worried that bad things are going to happen. As of now, I believe that, based on what has happened during the last five years. But if the results are different in the next five years, I will have no problem with Mr. Modi. He has been making inclusive speeches since he won. Let us see if he delivers on those words. And let us hope his handling of the economy is better than it was in the last five years.
But clearly, arguing on Facebook is not helping any of us. If the objective is to learn, then we seem to have come to a pass where the other side is simply not interested in even looking at what we share, let alone absorb and learn.
Either they will learn the hard way that what we were saying was right all along, or we will learn the happy way that what they were saying was right all along.
So that's my appeal to you: stop arguing, stop posting news links talking about all the bad things that are happening. Cede the social media space to them. Stop wasting your time arguing. And even if they taunt you, don't respond. After you stop responding a few times, they will stop taunting you, because there is no fun if the other person does not react.
Maintain complete radio silence at least for a year. Or two. There may be times in the next year or two when terrible things happen. Maybe a village of Dalits gets burned (I am not saying it will, just giving an extreme example to make a point). Resist the temptation to say, “See? We told you so!” Let them introspect and come to the same conclusion on their own, without any prodding from us. As long as we are taunting them, they will defend Modi even if something indefensible has happened — just because we are attacking them.
Let us see the worst (or best) that Modi can do.
As Guru Dutt says in the immortal song in “Pyaasa,”
Tumhaari hai tum hi sambhaalo ye duniya (“The world is yours; you take care of it.”)
So, my fellow-liberals, take care of yourselves and your families, use the time that you were spending on Facebook and WhatsApp all these years on reading, music, travel, whatever. Cherish your loved ones. I would even advise not watching news on TV. I have stopped doing that. I get the newspaper anyway — I do not need to know what is happening minute by minute. If Rahul Gandhi is going to resign, it is fine if I find out next morning — it's not like I will go to his home to convince him otherwise if I find out at 3.43 pm.
With that, I will keep my end of the bargain and post nothing more about Indian politics, at least for a year. I will wait and watch what happens and what Mr. Modi does.
I would like to thank all those who have been part of this journey of the last 5 years with me. Your feedback, encouragement, and engagement have meant the world to me.
But now it is time for me to rejuvenate myself. A writer needs to read a lot. Without that, he cannot write informed commentary. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day, and so if you write a lot, you do not get that time to read. I hope to use this hiatus to catch up on my reading.
I have also made many great friends through my writing – people who I admire and in whose presence (real and virtual) I delight to be. These friendships will continue, and I would aver that, in the end, that's what really matters.
With that, Adios, and good luck in all your endeavours!
Peace to all.
Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated otherwise in the article.
Posted by Seshadri Kumar at 5/27/2019 08:56:00 pm
Labels: 2019 General Elections, Liberals, Modi Bhakts, Narendra Modi
The 2019 General Election in India represents a fundamental shift in Indian thought. The foundation of the Indian state in 1947 was secularism, that India was a country for people of all religions, in sharp contrast with Pakistan, which was conceived as a state for Muslims alone. India’s founding fathers wanted to prove that Pakistan was a mistake; that Muslims could live and thrive in a Hindu-majority India. India was conceived as a rejection of the “two-nation” formula on which Pakistan was predicated. That era is over now, and India is now a de facto Hindu nation if not de jure. It will become a Hindu nation in law in a few short years as well. And in such a state, there is no space for a secular party such as the Congress of old to survive.
The Three Cassandras
Five years ago, I formed a Facebook chat group with two of my close friends. The name I gave the group then, though we changed it later, was “The Three Cassandras.”
For those who don't know, Cassandra is a character in the Trojan war, in the epic by Homer, the Iliad. She is the daughter of the Trojan king Priam, and is a priestess of the temple of Apollo. It seems that the god Apollo (the Sun god) was infatuated by her, and wanted her to be his lover, and as an inducement gave her the gift of seeing the future. But even after getting the gift, Cassandra refused to become his lover. An angry Apollo cursed her, saying that her gift of prophecy would be useless to her, because nobody would believe her prophecies from that time on.
So, when the Greeks pretend to leave Troy after 10 years of fighting, and leave a huge wooden horse on the beach as a gift to Apollo (but within which Greek warriors were hiding) — the famous Trojan Horse — Cassandra realizes this is a false gift, and warns the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse inside the walls of Troy, which the Greeks could not breach for 10 years. But because of the curse of Apollo, nobody believes her. The result is that the Greeks come out of the horse at night and kill all the Trojans.
Now I think that name I gave the group was very accurate. The three of us were certainly Cassandras — nobody listened to us as we pointed out the dangers of majoritarianism and of electing an unlettered and ignorant person as the PM. Now the Troy that is India is going to be saffronized, irreversibly. To me that is as good as destroying India. India without its secular fabric and scientific temper — and a religious state is the very antithesis of scientific temper — is as good as dead. A religious state, by definition, implies that there is only one version of the truth, and that everyone must conform to that version, under pain of punishment, and such dogma is antithetical to scientific thinking.
IAC as My Inspiration for Blogging and Facebook Posting
I was inspired to write by the political movement of the IAC — the India Against Corruption movement led by Anna Hazare in 2011. Until then, I was one among most Indians who was only worried about making my life more comfortable. I did read the news in the paper, but not very critically or analytically. The 2011 movement started the process in my life when I started reading the news more critically, started examining whether what politicians were saying was true or not, started delving into various domains like law, the Constitution, the history of independent India, economics, etc.
While I lost my fascination for IAC and the AAP a little later, I continued to examine issues critically. I started writing a blog, and that started right at the time of the IAC agitation, because I realized, after even participating in an IAC rally in Pune where I shouted slogans like “Ek sur, ek taal, Jan Lokpal, Jan Lokpal,” that street politics and organization were not my cup of tea. So I started thinking about how I could contribute — and I realized that maybe writing about issues was a way to contribute, since I could write. But I knew I could not sit idle — I had to do something. I was inspired by what Gandhi had said: “Be the change you wish to see.”
Although I was initially fascinated by Modi in 2013 and 2014 (I was not very familiar with what had happened in 2002, because I was away in the US then and not at all connected to Indian politics then — it was a different time, with little internet access), I gradually found my voice as a liberal. To me, it is the only position that an educated and critical thinker can have. The idea that all humans are essentially equal, no matter what their differences are, is a powerful one, and so I became opposed to majoritarianism of any kind.
Being a Liberal In The Modi Years
And so I found myself in constant opposition to the policies of this government. I found myself repeatedly horrified by the silence of Prime Minister Modi in the face of repeated public lynchings of innocent Muslim men. To me, that was and still is tacit encouragement of violence towards minorities, and no amount of whataboutery can change that. Or the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to treat Muslims as the “other” — it is hard to think of a policy that is more polarizing than that. And telling me that well, the people of India voted for Mr. Modi again, does not change that. If a principle is wrong, it is wrong, no matter how many people support it. And a liberal is all I can be, no matter how much the environment around me changes. I cannot find myself discriminating against someone else because he or she belongs to a different religion, or supporting anyone who does.
I realize the current political environment does not offer choices in terms of principled politics. Is there a single party that resonates with my liberal ideology? No. The Congress Party had adopted a line of soft Hindutva in these elections that seemed to serve it well in Kerala, but not in the rest of the nation. Clearly, pandering to soft Hindutva in the matter of Sabarimala helped them unseat the Left. Digvijay Singh publicly performed a puja to help him in his re-election with the help of “Computer baba,” but was defeated by Pragya Thakur, a terror-accused out on bail.
How about the AAP? This was the party that forced Bollywood composer Vishal Dadlani to apologize for criticizing the Jain monk Tarun Sagar giving a sermon to the Haryana legislature.
So no, there is no party in the country that actually completely subscribes to a liberal ideology. But as a practical matter, what does a liberal do when these are his choices? The only thing possible is to vote for the lesser evil. With all its flaws and hypocrisies, the Congress is still the lesser of the evils. And its manifesto for these elections was a breath of fresh air, and a clear departure from the past — exactly the things a liberal would wish for — and so I hoped the Congress would win. It was not to happen.
The Congress Party’s Shifting Ideologies
Several articles criticizing the Congress Party have appeared in the print and online media following their loss in the 2019 general elections. Many of my friends are in denial, but the points need to be seriously considered. Think, for example, about the point that the Congress does not have a consistent ideology. Isn't this true today? It used to be that the Congress was the secular alternative, and some might say with some justification that they went too far in trying to be secular.
But after seeing the BJP inflict drubbing after drubbing on them in state elections after 2014, the Congress decided to rework itself into a soft Hindutva party. Shashi Tharoor even justified it in an interview by saying we are a democratic party and so we have to cater to what our constitutents want. So essentially, when the people of India moved to the right — and I don't think any clear-headed person will dispute that — then the Congress party, in order to represent them and so win elections, decided to move to the right as well. Rahul Gandhi proclaimed that he was a “janeu-dhari” (someone wearing the Hindu sacred thread) Brahmin and a Shiva bhakt, and went on a pilgrimage of holy shrines to prove it to the public.
The problem with that is that the party is seen to have no fixed ideology.
Compare that with the BJP. They have had a consistent ideology for decades. Hindu Rashtra. Ram Temple at Ayodhya. No Muslim appeasement. End the subsidy for Muslim travelers to the Haj pilgrimage. End Reservations. etc. etc. No change in any position, just keep hammering away at it until it happens.
Even the regional parties have more consistent ideologies than the Congress. BSP stands for Dalit upliftment, DMK stands for Dravida upliftment, and the SP stands for OBC upliftment. Caste based parties have a clear ideology. They exist to uplift the condition of the people from their caste, be they Jat, Patidar, Yadav, Bodo, or whatever else.
The Changing Face of India And The Irrelevance of Secularism Today
Why did the Congress abandon its long-standing philosophy of secularism? Because they were losing.
And there is the rub. India is changing. While there is still some room for caste-based politics (Hindutva does not mean the end of selfishness), there clearly is no room for a secular philosophy, a liberal philosophy, in India today. To be clear, the people of India at large are not interested in oppressing or killing Muslims. They just want a better life. But if oppression or killing does happen, they don't care any longer. Who is responsible for this? The blame should fall on the shoulders of the people of India for the unsympathetic attitude they have taken. But this does not mean that politicians are not responsible. The RSS has been propagating the poison of intolerance ever since Independence, but this was taken to new heights by Advani and Vajpayee during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the late 80s and early 90s. While people still bear the responsibility for their actions, the hate speeches of the BJP leaders during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, culminating in the destruction of the Babri masjid, definitely poisoned the minds of countless Indians. When you constantly hear about how someone like Aurangzeb oppressed our Hindu ancestors, and when you hear a big leader like Advani equate the Mughals with the ordinary Muslims of today, not everyone possesses the discrimination needed to understand that a leap of logic has suddenly been made. The hardline intolerance of most Indians today definitely owes a lot to the speeches of Mr. Advani and his companions, such as Uma Bharti.
The BJP tradition of stoking the anger of the Hindus at wrongs committed centuries ago and blaming the Muslims of today continued over the years and found a new messiah in Narendra Modi after the 2002 riots. Modi is infamous for having given a sspeech in Ahmedabad mocking the Muslim community for its birth rate with his infamous “Hum paanch, hamare pacchees” (“We are five, our family is 25”) speech. More relevant is his speech during the 2014 election campaign, where he said in a speech: “We have heard of the green revolution, we have heard of the white revolution. But under the rule of the Congress party, they have created the pink revolution” referring to the slaughter of cows for beef and the implied suggestion that Muslims are responsible for this. When the atmosphere is constantly vitiated by hate speech such as this, is there any surprise that cow vigilantism has been a major issue during Modi's first term? Supporters of Modi ask me how Modi can be held responsible when someone decides to lynch a Muslim - can he be monitoring every citizen? No, but all this violence is a consequence of the hate he spewed against Muslims in his speeches. People don't forget.
And so, while it is the people who are responsible for their choices, politicians do make things considerably worse. Since winning the elections on the 23rd of May, Modi has made fairly inclusive speeches. And I am inclined to believe he is sincere now about not wanting to target minorities. As a Prime Minister, widespread violence in the country does him no good. But the problem is the Jekyll-Hyde character of Mr. Modi. Modi the campaigner is a different animal from Modi the Prime Minister. PM Modi would like Hindus and Muslims to fight poverty and not each other. Campaigner Modi would like to further cleave apart faultlines between Hindus and Muslims because it helps unite the Hindus to vote for him. Unfortunately, the two cannot coexist. What has happened is that the continuous infusion of hate for the last 30 years from the BJP has fundamentally altered the character of the Indian people. I have actually criticized Modi for his silence when an Akhlaque or a Pehlu Khan or an Afrazul was killed and people of his party support the killings or garland the murderers. But Modi is silent for a reason — and it is not that he wants these people killed.
Modi is silent because if he criticizes those who commit these atrocities, he risks losing his support. After having been egged on to think of Muslims as the enemy for decades, if his followers now commit acts of violence against the Muslims and if he criticizes them, he will be seen by them as a turncoat. Modi is a keen student of history. He has seen how his mentor, LK Advani, fell from grace not too long ago. Advani was the darling of the right wing, and it was a given that if and when the BJP came to power again, he would be the PM since Vajpayee would retire soon. But he ruined his chances in one moment of weakness — in a visit to Pakistan in 2005, he visited Jinnah's tomb and publicly praised him as a secular person and as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. That moment of weakness cost Advani the Prime Ministership and future leadership of the BJP. It was a key factor in the BJP cadre deciding to support Modi over Advani in 2013. Modi was seen to not be weak like Advani. And so, if, in the interest of a stable country, Modi actually chides his followers for committing acts of violence against Muslims, the backlash against him will be severe. Already the right wing of the BJP is upset that so many promises are pending, such as the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya. That's why he will make token noises about “never forgiving Pragya Thakur for her comments against Gandhi,” but he will never take concrete action.
In fact, as I have stated many times on social media, the big mistake the liberals in India have made is to imagine Modi as this villain who is solely responsible for all the ills happening in India. Modi is simply an agent. Even though liberals do not like to acknowledge it, democracy is alive and thriving in India, even under Modi. Elections in India are never perfect, but I do believe that Modi being elected is the full expression of a democratic country. I am not a believer in EVM conspiracy theories, and I do not believe that 2019 was a stolen election. And that is, to me, the scary part. Modi said in his victory speech that the 2019 victory was a positive mandate for the good things he did. I am not arguing with the idea that many people voted for him because they thought he was the Messiah who would make India a great country. My only point is that none of the people who voted for him was the slightest perturbed about the persecution of minorities and the total silence from the ruling government on the atrocities. Nobody was bothered in the least as a Union minister garlanded murder convicts who were released on bail, or when another minister draped the body of a man who was part of a lynch mob that murdered a Muslim (for allegedly eating beef) in the national flag and paid homage to him on his death. To me, these things represent the death of secularism in India.
Some of my friends might disagree with my analysis because the Congress’ vote share has actually gone up by around 2.5% in this election compared to the 2014 election. Isn’t that a vindication of secularism, one might ask. But then you would forget the fact that in this election, the Congress abandoned secularism as their platform. I would argue that the Congress did so well only because it abandoned secularism — that if it had continued to talk about secularism and the protection of minorities, it would have done worse than it actually did.
Media has played a major role in this election — and in fact, for the past 5 years. And this is not just because of the large sums of money that Mr. Amit Shah has given them. Most of media is owned by upper caste Hindus, and most of them are sympathetic to the Hindutva cause. Just one look at the coverage of the election campaign by the various TV channels would have made that abundantly clear. Media anchors were behaving like cheerleaders for Modi. This is why a major scam like Vyapam, in which 40 people died (tell me how many people died in 2G?) was quietly swept under the rug. Just imagine — a scam is so big that 40 people are killed to prevent them from speaking up — and yet the media hardly spoke about it. Would this have happened if the Congress Party was ruling the country?
Or think about demonetization. What a massive scam that was! The bank in which Amit Shah was a director made a killing. Dozens of BJP functionaries were found with hundreds or thousands of crores of freshly minted 2000 rupee notes in their possession. Yet, was there a national outcry about corruption due to demonetization? No.
But is it only the media? How many of you have the guts to go to your offices and criticize Modi and the BJP when you go for a tea break? Just try it, and 20 people will descend on you like hawks on a mouse. Some of them will gently tell you you are deluded and falling for “sickular” propaganda, others will denounce you outright as an “anti-national.” What does that tell you? Forget whether you are right or wrong. It tells me that Modi has wide public support.
Or go to the villages. I have seen interviews in which villagers would rationalize on Modi's failures. Such as saying, “Yes, the stray cows ate my entire crop, and caused me huge financial loss, but I will still vote for Modi. I think he will fix all this.” There were others who blamed the state leadership even though demonetization was a central measure.
As some in the media have commented, some of Modi’s development initiatives may have had an effect. But that is not my focus here. I am not going to argue here on whether there has been enough progress in the country or not, or enough rural development. I have done enough of that, in excruciating detail, elsewhere.
My key point, as a liberal, is that secularism is no longer an issue in India. And that was obvious even before the election. That we could see a Shambhulal Regar could torture and kill Afrazul in front of a camera, and then see people protest his arrest in Rajasthan, spoke volumes of the change in values of this country. Similarly, that a Pehlu Khan, clearly an innocent, was publicly slaughtered in Alwar by cow vigilantes, with someone filming the killing, and the police letting the killers off, citing lack of evidence, tells you how deep the rot in values is.
There are many more instances, and the point here is not to discuss who was responsible for the killings or for the inaction in prosecution. More importantly, it is to highlight the complete indifference of the public to these public murders. The nation as a whole was not shocked or stunned. No candlelight vigils. No protests on the street demanding that the government of the day should do more in protecting its minority citizens. Nothing. About all that happened was that a bunch of liberal commentators wrote articles about it in the media and hyperventilated in debates on TV. Nobody cares in India about murdered Muslims any longer. Once they had a national party called the Congress that cared. Now the only party that cares is Asaduddin Owaisi’s MIM.
And there is a cautionary tale in that observation. If Muslims feel that there is no moderate party like the Congress that will stand up for their rights, and if the Congress has vacated its role as a guardian of secular values, then some other party will step into that vacuum — and the new entrant may not be moderate at all (I am not referring specifically to the AIMIM). This bodes ill for religious harmony in India in the coming years. Mr. Modi might find the lack of the use of the secularism slogan in this election something to gloat about, as he did in his speech on the evening of the 23rd, but this very thing can come back to bite his government in the times to come.
The Existential Crisis of the Congress Party
Many have analyzed this election as a failure in leadership of the Congress Party, and have put the blame on Rahul Gandhi. But is this the right diagnosis? The big news today was that Rahul Gandhi had given the Congress Working Committee his resignation and they had rejected it, but that he was firm on resigning anyway.
One of the things blamed on Rahul Gandhi is his failure to stitch together an alliance with the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, along with the Rashtriya Lok Dal, in Uttar Pradesh. But look at the vote shares of all the parties. The BJP got nearly 50% of the vote share in UP. The BSP got 19%, the SP got 18%, the RLD got less than 2%, and the Congress got around 6%. Add them all up, and you still have only 45%. They could still not have beaten the BJP. So the Mahagatbandhan could not have won UP even if the Congress had joined them.
Or take Delhi. Again, Rahul was blamed for not being able to reach an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the elections. But look at the vote shares: the AAP got 18% of the vote, and the Congress got 22% of the vote. In comparison, the BJP got nearly 57% of the vote!!
In Karnataka, by mighty striving, with phone calls almost daily, Rahul managed to save the alliance with the JD(S). What happened? The BJP got 51% of the vote. The Congress managed only 32%, and the JD(S) 10%. Even with the alliance, they could not beat the BJP. Or take Haryana, where the BJP itself polled 58% of the vote. Even if all the other parties had united in an alliance, they could not have beaten the BJP.
No. There are larger forces at work here — and it is beyond your and my poor power to add to or to detract from the damage these forces can cause and are causing.
The larger problem the Congress faces is not one of leadership, but of philosophy. They can replace Rahul with, say, Shashi Tharoor — but will that solve their problems? I don’t think so.
Why? Because the foundational philosophy on which it rested for 70 years since Independence — secularism and inclusiveness — has become irrelevant in today’s India. There was a reason why India became a secular country whereas Pakistan became a Muslim country. It was Jinnah's contention that Hindus and Muslims could never live together, and that was the basis of his demand for Pakistan. This is popularly known as the “two-nation theory” — one nation for Muslims alone and another for Hindus alone. The founding fathers of India, in contrast — Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad — all felt this was a wrong prescription, that India could be a successful secular state that accommodated all religions, and argued that this is why partition was a bad idea. This prescription worked well for 70 years. But now Indians, by and large, have rejected secularism – a point not lost on PM Modi who, in his victory speech on the 23rd, proudly said that in this entire election campaign, not one person had the guts to say the word “secularism.”
Mr. Modi is a very smart man politically. He knows what is at stake here, and what the BJP is fighting for. And he knows they have achieved their objective.
The Congress understood this shift in the Indian polity, but its response — an attempt to reinvent itself as a soft Hindutva party — was destined to fail. In Tamil, there is a saying that translates to “selling halwa to Tirunelveli.” Tirunelveli is a town in Tamil Nadu that is very famous for its halwa (a sweet). So selling halwa to a person from Tirunelveli is a metaphor used when you are trying to compete with an expert in the topic he is already an expert in. There is no way on earth the Congress could have competed with the BJP on Hindutva and won — the BJP practically invented the term.
Some may say the Congress won in Kerala using soft Hindutva, especially in its position on Sabarimala. But Kerala is a very different state from the rest of India. Hindus, Muslims, and Christians have been living in harmony in Kerala from the time of the Arab seafarers and Vasco da Gama. It has never been invaded by Muslim invaders. So what works in Kerala will not work in the rest of India. Sabarimala was more of an issue of Kerala culture than of gender equality under the law. The fact is that although the SC verdict was legally correct, the people of Kerala really did not care about it. The ban on menstruating women was a tradition that had to be respected in Keralite society. And the Congress understood this.
Concluding Thoughts
So where does all this leave the Congress – and India? The Congress Party has clearly no future in present-day India. It is not about Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. Many other parties have a clear ethnic basis for their existence. But not the Congress and its offshoots, such as the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of Sharad Pawar, which also lost heavily in this election. The writing is on the wall for another Congress Party offshoot, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) of Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, where the BJP made astounding inroads this election. And why is this? Because all of these parties are secular. And secularism has become a dirty word in India today. The BJP even made inroads in Telangana, which has a Chief Minister, K. Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR), who is always traveling on pilgrimages, spends public money on renovating private temples, and spends public money on conducting “yagnas” for the long life of his government. That's because there is a difference between Hinduism and Hindutva. KCR is a devout Hindu. But it is not enough to show that you are deeply religious in today's India. You have to be seen as capable of putting the fear of God in the Muslims. That is Hindutva - Hindu majoritarianism. And KCR cannot afford to do that (or thinks he cannot afford to do that) because Telangana has a large Muslim minority whose support he believes he needs to win elections. The BJP, in contrast, believes it does not need a single Muslim vote to win an election — because 80% always trumps 14%.
Secularism has been comprehensively rejected by the people of India in the last five years. And the result is that the Congress Party has lost its moorings. It cannot try to ape the BJP and become a Hindu party, no matter how many pilgrimages Rahul or Tharoor do. Because, as I said above, it is not enough to show that you are a devout Hindu. You must also show that you are capable of frightening the Muslims so that they can be “put in their place.” It requires an ability to be silent when people lynch Muslims in broad daylight, with full video recording of the act, and pretend that the murder never occurred. And since the Congress cannot bring itself to do this, it will die, because it is this kind of “toughness” that the people of India want — a hard, ruthless, unbending attitude towards Muslims. Narendra Modi’s dream of a “Congress-mukt Bharat” (A Congress-free India) will become a reality very soon. But Modi has succeeded not just in killing the Congress party; he has succeeded in destroying the very foundations of the nation that Gandhi and Nehru built. If Gandhi or Nehru had been alive today, they would have been denounced as anti-nationals. And there is no point in blaming Modi or the BJP for this degeneration of values. They are only doing what the people of India want. They have learned, sooner and better than others, that a tough and ruthless attitude towards minorities is necessary if one is to win elections in India comprehensively. Just look at the high-profile lynchings of Muslims that have happened in the past five years — Mohammad Akhlaque, Pehlu Khan, Afrazul, Junaid Khan — think of how many BJP leaders publicly supported these killings; and then think of the fact that the overall vote share of the BJP has jumped from 31% in 2014 to 37.4% in 2019. If the people of India were repelled by these murders, they certainly did not show their disgust at the ballot box.
India appears all set to become a Hindu nation. The wish to transform India from a secular to a Hindu nation has been clearly articulated by several BJP leaders in the last five years, and no one should be in doubt. Most of today's BJP leaders have been raised in the RSS, which considers the secular Constitution of India an insult to Hinduism and to Hindus. They have said so publicly too many times to recount. Several BJP MPs, such as Anant Kumar Hegde, have publicly said that the Constitution should be changed. Modi himself has been a lifelong pracharak of the RSS, and there is no reason to think that he differs with his colleagues on this matter.
All that stands between them and their dream is numbers. To change the Constitution to make India a Hindu-majority state, you need a 2/3rds majority in the Lok Sabha, a 2/3rds majority in the Rajya Sabha, and the approval of 50% of the states. With 350 seats in the NDA, the coalition is only marginally short of a 2/3rds majority of the total strength of the house (543), which is 358. After this resounding victory, more allies will join the NDA, and the BJP will have the requisite 2/3rds majority in the Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha will be reconstituted in 2020 and 2022, since 1/3rd of its members are replaced every 2 years. Given that the BJP controls most of the state legislatures, a 2/3rds majority in the Rajya Sabha will also be achieved by 2022 at the latest. The BJP already has governments in most of the states, so getting 50% of the states to approve the amendment is easy.
Some will point out that there is something known as a “basic structure doctrine” of the Constitution that will prevent this. But I will simply remind them that the Judiciary, too, come from the same mass of Indians, and they, too, have been infected with the same Hindutva virus. If you have doubts about this, think of this election. The role of the Election Commission is to ensure a free and fair election. And yet, this was the most biased Election Commission in history. Every complaint against Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah was summarily dismissed, and opposition leaders were being pulled up for minor offenses. So if the Election Commission, which is supposed to keep elections free and fair, will not properly discharge its duties, why do you feel that the Supreme Court, which should protect the Constitution from being tampered with, will do the right thing as we see it? Remember that these are all judgment calls: what constitutes an element of the basic structure is a matter of interpretation. If the government proposes a bill to amend the Constitution, somebody will definitely challenge it. Then it is up to the SC to decide if the amendment is violative of the basic structure doctrine. If the SC then decides it is not, then there can be no further challenge. If a hate speech that is clearly violative of the Model Code of Conduct can be given a clean chit, then so can a Constitutional Amendment that is violative of the basic structure doctrine. People should at least now give up their naivete.
And so India, by 2022, will become a Hindu rashtra. There will not be much outcry about this, because a majority of Indians have voted for this. They will say that they did not vote for a Hindu rashtra, but for Swacch Bharat or Ujwala or whatever. But they were under no illusions that this was the intent of the BJP - several MPs and MLAs have made it very obvious that if they returned to power, they would make India a Hindu rashtra. So you may have voted for Modi because you think he will make India a “vishwa guru,” but you also ignored the clear signal that the BJP intends to make India a Hindu rashtra — it was not important enough for you. Some liberals will shout until they are hoarse when this happens, but it will matter little. I have already written about what this entails for India. And anyone who reads that will realize that even many of those who are celebrating today will mourn in a few years. But they will only learn through bitter experience.
And, as for me, I now know that there is no space for a liberal commentator in India. The problem with Cassandra was that she kept advising the Trojans, even though nobody was listening to her. That only causes pain. Five years of writing about this has not yielded much result for me. I have only managed to convert one person in five years to my point of view – and that is one more than most liberal commentators can boast of doing. I spent so much energy on my blog and on social media because I hoped to help avoid the eventual transformation of India into a Hindu state. But now I see that it is inevitable, and am giving up my struggle. It will not change who I am as a person, but clearly speaking about this has not helped in changing minds. Will I stop posting on social media? I don’t know, I still might through force of habit, but eventually you can only bang your head on a concrete wall until it starts hurting. But the fight has gone out of me, because I realize that what is coming in a few years is inevitable. Our last chance was the 2019 election, and now it is over.
One thing I must mention is that in many ways, India’s rightward tilt was inevitable — after all, this is a global phenomenon. From Erdogan to Trump to Brexit to the AdF in Germany to the neo-Nazis in Austria, the right has been gaining ascendancy everywhere. And there is a reason for that.
Right-wingers unite very easily, and they operate very cohesively. It is very easy to get 10 million people to like a toxic and hateful post that targets minorities on the basis of outright lies. The post may be badly written and badly composed — this is often seen in India where English is not the first language of many of the people who post this. But nobody cares. Every right-winger cooperates in spreading the message. Right-wingers in any country do not worry about differences of opinion. If I hate someone, and you hate someone else, it doesn’t matter. We’ll add him or her to our list, too.
But trying to get liberals to share a post is asking for the moon. I know a friend who will not share a post if there is a single typo or grammatical mistake in it. Every liberal has his own fetish. If two liberals agree on 99% of all issues — the economy, environment, trade, helping the homeless, universal health care, acceptance of minorities — you name it, but have a difference of opinion on one issue, say, abortion, one of them might block the other for it. Liberals can be incredibly petty about small differences of opinion. Most of them are highly educated, and fight on largely irrelevant and minor points of difference. And so liberals are never united in their causes, and make easy targets for conservatives, who gloss over such fine details. That is what has happened in India as well.
India is sinking into a deep abyss. Only the people of India, if they can one day get out of this madness in their majoritarian thinking, can change things. That might take a very long time — perhaps decades — Iran is still unable to get out of the control of the mullahs, 40 years after their Islamic revolution. I fervently hope that day will come before I die — if not for me, at least for the next generation.
Labels: 2019 General Elections, BJP, Hindu Rashtra, Indian National Congress, Majoritarianism, Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Right-wing, RSS, Secularism
Confessions of a City Slicker: Understanding Land Acquisition in India
Written by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 26 April, 2019
Part 1. Childhood to College to America
I was raised a city dweller, never having seen a village in my entire life. In the summers, we would go to my mother's native place, which was a town, not a village. So I had never seen a real Indian village.
Like many Indian middle class kids, I studied engineering after XIIth standard. After four years of engineering in IIT Bombay, my plans were clear — go to the USA for a Masters degree, like two-thirds of my graduating class.
For our convocation, IIT Bombay invited Professor Yash Pal to give the convocation address. Professor Yash Pal was an eminent educationist and scientist, having obtained his PhD in Physics from MIT in 1958. At the time IIT-B invited him, he was Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). Professor Yash Pal had a Padma Bhushan at the time of our convocation; he was later also awarded the Padma Vibhushan. He died in 2017 at the age of 90, after a long and productive life.
The main thing I remember from Prof. Yash Pal's address to us — and I remember it so well because it annoyed me so much at the time — was his suggestion that after obtaining our B.Techs, all of us students should go and serve two years in rural India. He said that we needed to go there to understand the real India, to understand what problems India faced, and to know what solutions it needed.
I was incensed. Here I was, taking steps to “advance” myself, launch myself into the greatest country in the world, and here this man was telling me that I needed to go backwards, to a “bloody village,” a “gaon???” I remember angrily telling my classmates — “who asked this guy to come talk to us? If he loves the villages so much, why doesn't he go live there?”
Like many (most?) city dwellers, I had a certain contempt for villages and agriculture. Even the word “gawar” (meaning villager) was said by us in a voice dripping in contempt. It was customary to address someone who seemed not to be very savvy about things — a fellow-student, for example — as a gawar. Farming to me, then, was something illiterate and uneducated folk did. (Today I know, thanks to some amateurish attempts at growing vegetables in pots, how complex the science of agriculture is, and how much technology is needed to be a successful farmer; but then I was just an ignoramus.)
So I got my advanced degrees in the land of the free and the home of the brave, worked there for several years, and decided to come back to India for personal reasons.
Part 2. Return to India
I took up a job with an MNC in Bangalore, and went around my mission to make money and create a better life for me assiduously (nothing wrong here.) I was still very much a city slicker, and knew little about the realities of life in India's villages.
This went on until 2011, when I finally started getting seriously interested in politics in India, thanks to the Anna Hazare movement. I had always been very interested in politics, from childhood — I used to read the newspaper carefully every day — but after the Anna movement, I started to read everything a bit more carefully and critically. That is when I created my blog and started writing publicly. My express purpose at the start of the blog was to write in support of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, though my views have matured a lot since then - I would agree today that the excessive focus on a single person / organization like the Lokpal, with unlimited powers, is probably a misguided and potentially dangerous focus.
I also started getting interested in things like economics for the first time, and in a few years, even started to write on topics connected with economics along with politics. It was then that I started understanding the immensity of India's agricultural sector and the importance of rural India.
But in 2011, this enlightenment was still quite far off. So when Rahul Gandhi introduced the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act (LARR) that year, I criticized it savagely. Why? Because I felt that the clauses in the bill were extremely restrictive and would throttle productivity.
Land Acquisition is one of the major hurdles that delays projects in India. Projects get announced, and then they run into cost and time overruns, with hundreds or thousands of crores of rupees wasted.
What did the LARR do? It greatly increased the compensation to be given to the owners of the land that was acquired for industrial projects. But that was not all. It also put in a mechanism for grievance redressal that would allow people to stop a project if it did not have community support. In the past, the government could use “public interest” (known as eminent domain in the US) to evict villagers from a village and pay them whatever compensation it saw fit. The new bill not only greatly enhanced the compensation and put stringent rules about how to calculate it, but also allowed villagers to stop any project that they felt was against their interest.
I said to myself, now no projects will ever get done. Thanks a lot for ruining India, Rahul Gandhi.
Part 3. Anger
But I had not understood the history behind this decision. For 64 years since independence, India had treated the villages with the same derision that I had for them when I was a fresh IIT graduate. Part of this is the result of the complex dynamic between Gandhian and Nehruvian views of India's future, with the Nehruvian vision winning. Gandhi believed that India lived in its villages. Nehru was a suave, sophisticated urbanite whose vision was focused on the cities; on steel, concrete, and dams; and all the other indicators of modern progress.
And because of this urban vision that won in the battle of ideas, India tended to treat the villagers that came in the path of its urban “development” as nuisances, to be disposed off through “public interest” and a pittance for a payoff. If we wanted a dam, and some pesky villagers’ homes were going to be destroyed, well, that was a small price to pay for progress.
Ok, if you want to be humane, give them more compensation, but let them get the hell out of the land, so that the dam or the factory or the highway can be built! Why were these Luddites, these anti-progress idiots, blocking our paths, we who were aiming to reach the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and the Andromeda galaxy? We who were trying to make India a first world country? Bloody plebians. Why can't they take the money and go? No, they have to organize a dharna, a protest, what have you. Like that irritating troublemaker Medha Patkar.
Having lived an entire life without exposure to rural India endowed me with an astonishing level of apathy and indifference to the real problems and complaints of rural India and its inhabitants. To me, these were just people who were constantly holding us back from reaching higher and farther. The concerns they expressed during their protests were not sincere: they were just excuses from ignorant people who did not understand the great things we were trying to do as a nation. It was much later that I understood the answer to my question: “Why don't they just take the compensation and scoot?”
Part 4. Enlightenment
The answer, of course (which would have been obvious had I thought more carefully about it), is the counter question: “What are they going to do with that compensation money?”
If you have been a farmer all your life, then that really is all you can do. You cannot suddenly become a lathe operator in a factory at age 50 with no training. It is also harder to learn as you get older.
So what? Use the money to buy some land elsewhere, I would have said then. If farming is all you can do, go and farm somewhere else.
Except, who is selling land for you to buy?
Nobody will sell good agricultural land to you in India. And all the good land is already taken. If other farmers sell good land to you, then what are they going to do? They have the same problem as you do - they can do nothing else but farm. So the bottom line is: you cannot buy good agricultural land to replace the one you are being evicted from.
Which means only one thing: you have to give up farming.
Farmers who are forced to give up their land and give up farming end up becoming rootless and aimless. Typically, what happens to these people is that they blow up the fortune that they get through the sale fairly quickly, and end up as alcoholic paupers, who then work as watchmen on the same land that they once used to be masters of. I have personally known of examples of these in Pune's IT corridor in Hinjewadi.
And this is why Rahul Gandhi's LARR bill had the right idea. Communities must be consulted with more widely before their land is taken away from them. It is a life-changing decision, and must involve a negotiation with the buyer and the government on the future of the farmer.
This problem is highlighted with great wit in Douglas Adams’ classic, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,” in which the opening scene has the setup that an advanced alien civilization is building a cosmic highway, and our “backward” Earth happens to be in the path of the highway, and must therefore be destroyed. The aliens then infom Earthlings that our planet has been earmarked for destruction, and so residents of Earth have an extremely limited time period to make alternative arrangements before their planet is completely wiped out.
Sometimes the government gives farmers alternative land tracts to the displaced farmers. But as we have already seen, there is no good agricultural land left; so what the farmers get as compensation is typically worthless land on which nothing can grow.
So, when farmers are persuaded to sell their land, the government must invest in their re-training so that they are able to work in the factories that are coming up on their land. The state must have a commitment to the displaced farmer, to ensure that he can survive after his land is taken away.
And this brings me to the start of this piece. Had I listened to Professor Yash Pal in 1990, and spent two years in a village in India then, it would not have taken me 30 years to understand all this.
Labels: Land Acquisition Bill, Rahul Gandhi, Rural India, Yash Pal
Have Acche Din Arrived? The Acche Din Economic Report Card
A Detailed Economic Analysis of the Modi Sarkar
Why This Report Card
Industrial Productivity and Output
Industrial Output Growth for Different Regimes
GFCF for Different Regimes
Index of Industrial Production
Growth in IIP for Manufacturing for Different Regimes
Consumption of Finished Steel
Growth Rate of Steel Consumption for Different Regimes
Container Port Traffic
Container Port Traffic Growth for Different Regimes
Railway Freight Tonnage
Growth in Railway Freight Tonnage for Different Regimes
Summary: Industrial Productivity and Output
Agricultural Output
Annual Growth in Rice Production for Different Regimes
Annual Growth in Wheat Production for Different Regimes
Annual Growth in Total Foodgrain Production for Various Regimes
Growth in Foodgrain Yield for Different Regimes
Summary: Agricultural Output Performance
Growth in Production of Coal and Lignite
Growth in Thermal and Renewable Power Generation
Growth in Hydroelectric Power Generation
Growth in Nuclear Power Generation
Growth in Total Power Generation
Rural and Urban Electrification
Growth in Rural Electrification
Growth in Urban Electrification
Growth in Overall Electrification
Average Road Km Built Per Day
Growth in Railway Track Length
Growth in Passenger Traffic
Summary: Infrastructure Development Comparison
Education, Science, and Technology
Growth in Education Funding
Growth in Number of Scientific and Technical Articles
Growth in Number of Patent Applications
Growth in Hi-Tech Exports
Summary: Education, Science, and Technology
Government Expenditure, Revenues, and Fiscal Discipline
Gross Fiscal Deficit
Components of Expenditure
Components of Revenue Expenditure
Defence Revenue Expenditure
Expenditure on Subsidies
Revenue Expenditure Analysis
Capital Outlay
Defence Capital Expenditure
Components of Revenue
Direct Tax Collection
Personal Income Tax Collection
Corporate Tax Collection
Indirect Tax Collection
Summary: Government Expenditures and Revenues
Annual Foreign Exchange Addition
Constituents of Balance of Payments
Capital Account Surplus
What Happened During UPA II?
Foreign Portfolio Investment
Total Foreign Investment
Trade Deficit
Why is the Trade Deficit Lower for the Modi Sarkar?
Oil Imports
Non-Oil Imports
Summary of Foreign Trade
Effect of Oil Prices on UPA I and UPA II
CAD with Oil Import Costs as in Modi Sarkar
BoP with Oil Import Costs as in Modi Sarkar
Foreign Exchange Additions at Modi Sarkar Oil Prices
Inflation and Unemployment (1/3)
Inflation Rate for Agricultural Workers
Inflation Rate for Industrial Workers
Food Inflation Rate for Industrial Workers
Overall Summary and Conclusions (1/3)
External Factors
Performance of UPA-I Government during Global Financial Crisis of 2008
Have Acche Din Arrived?
Labels: 2019 General Elections, Acche Din, Agricultural Output, BoP, CAD, Economic Analysis, Education, Fiscal Deficit, GDP, GFCF, IIP, Industrial Output, Modi, Oil Prices, Science and Technology, Tax Revenues
My Articles in Mass Media
FrontlineArticle (April 12, 2019) on Five Years of Modi
Wire Article (January 19, 2019) on Farm Loan Waivers and Corporate Defaulters
Wire Article (December 9, 2017) on Why India Should Be Grateful to Allauddin Khilji
Frontline Article (November 26, 2016) on Demonetization
Frontline Article (August 17, 2016) on the Beef Controversy
Frontline Article (July 20, 2016) on 25 Years of Reform
Frontline Article (June 9, 2016) on Two Years of "Acche Din"
Blog Articles and Facebook Posts That Have Been Republished in Other Online Media Outlets
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 12: Summary and Conclusions (The Indian Liberals, April 9, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 11: Foreign Trade (The Indian Liberals, April 8, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 10: Government Expenditures, Revenues, and the Fiscal Deficit (The Indian Liberals, April 7, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 9: Education, Science, and Technology (The Indian Liberals, April 6, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 8: Roads, Railways, and Container Traffic (The Indian Liberals, April 5, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 7: Coal and Steel (The Indian Liberals, April 4, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 6: Power Generation (The Indian Liberals, April 4, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 5: Agriculture (The Indian Liberals, April 3, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 4: Numbers Don't Lie (Frontline, April 12, 2019 - A Summary)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 3: Rural and Urban Electrification (The Indian Liberals, April 2, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 2: Gross Fixed Capital Formation (The Indian Liberals, April 2, 2019)
Have Acche Din Arrived? Part 1: Industrial Output (The Indian Liberals, April 1, 2019)
Acche Din Report Card on Education, Science, and Technology (April 2, 2019)
Acche Din Report Card on Industrial Output (March 29, 2019)
The Science Behind the Viral Nonsense About Patanjali Gaumutra (Cowpiss) (Raiot, July 14, 2018)
Why Modi Made a Fool of Himself in China (Raiot, May 27, 2018)
What Did Congress Do in 60 Years? (Raiot, March 18, 2018)
NamoDemo - The Great Modi Flop Show (Raiot, August 31, 2017)
The Hindu Right's Debating Toolbox (Raiot, August 30, 2017)
How Modi Ruined Rural India with Demonetization (Raiot, June 14, 2017)
Why India's Space Program Can't Be Imagined Without Nehru (Raiot, February 18, 2017)
The Decline of the Scientific Temper Among Indians (Raiot, January 30, 2017)
Half Life of Mitron (Raiot, January 2, 2017)
Demonetization on Payday: A Photo Essay (Raiot, December 6, 2016)
Dr. Seshadri Kumar
Seshadri Kumar
Follow me on youtube as well: Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/nayakan88, Twitter: @KumarSeshadri
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We need another Lincoln
By Olivier Lindor | August 27, 2015 , 11:12am
Pro-lifers anticipate the day when we ask the same questions about abortion that we currently ask about slavery. We study slavery with such disdain and awe. How could society rationalize such an institution? How is it possible to so deeply distort one’s moral compass? How could people even vote for politicians who supported slavery?
Abraham Lincoln probably asked the same questions. His soar to the White House was unexpected but his anti-slavery views were not. It was October of 1854 when he criticized the Kansas-Nebraska Act along with slavery’s expansion. On June 16, 1858, he delivered his “house divided” speech, a speech that even his friends considered too radical. Finally, his election in 1860 triggered the secession of several southern states.
He understood that the Thirteenth Amendment was a radical proposition that jeopardized his chances at re-election. He supported the bill nonetheless. Family, friends, allies, and rivals implored him to abandon any hope of passing it. Instead, he rose to the occasion and became a key instrument in the amendment’s passage.
Throughout his career, many derided him as a tyrant. We know the truth. He is arguably the greatest president ever, the manifestation of a true public servant. He is a man to be esteemed.
Millions of lives hung in the balance with slavery, as they do now with abortion. Just as slavery concealed itself under the guise of states’ rights, abortion camouflages itself as “women’s health.” Like slavery, abortion is a wickedness supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution.
We need another Lincoln.
My heart yearns for a president with the interpersonal skill, endurance, and courage to cripple – if not crush – this great evil. He or she must be willing to do this irrespective of the cost. Is there a candidate capable of carrying the torch? Only time can reveal that answer.
I only hope that the next president etches Lincoln’s words onto his/her heart: “In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows.”
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What does The One That Got Away mean?
Katy Perry: The One That Got Away Meaning
Tagged: Young Love [suggest]
Get "The One That Got Away" on MP3:
Get MP3 from iTunes
The One That Got Away Lyrics
Play "The One That Got Away"
Summer after high school,
When we first met,
We'd make out in your mustang, to RadioHead,
And on my 18th birthday, we got matching tatoos
Used to steal your parent's liquor,
And climb to the roof,
Talk about our future - like we had a...
Jun 26th, 2011 6:07pm report
Katy Perry once said that this Song was about your first love, which would make since as to why this song sounds so deep, as you never forget your first love. The first verse is about the relationship and the little things that shaped it - meeting the summer after high school, making out in his mustang, getting matching tattoos, and climbing up to the roof with their parents liquor talking about what their future would be like - but they didnt plan it to end so soon, something in their relationship went wrong
In the chorus it gives us hints as to what happened - "In another life, we'd keep all our promises, I'd make you stay, so I don't have to say you were the one that got away". I think he promised her that he'd always be hers, then tried to leave her, and she let him - but later regrets doing so.
Verse two refers to the fact that they used to be inseparable, and where he's at now - he's moved on (someone said you had your tatoo removed) and the realization that he has finally hit her (it's time to face to music; I'm no longer your muse)
Verse three says that she's famous now, making slot of money, but no amount of anything could replace how she feels for him, and she can't go back in time to fix what she regrets doing. It also gives another hint as to what happened : "I shouldve told you what you meant to me; cause now I've paid the price" means that she shouldve, when he told her that he didn't want to be with her, said that he meant slot to her, and maybe he wouldve stayed, but she didn't and now shell have to pay the consequences.
Jan 13th, 2012 1:58pm report
I think that this song is about a girl who loves a boy with all her heart, and she knew deep inside that he was the one for her, but she never told him how she felt towards him, and now he's moved on, because he wasn't reassured that she loved him as much as she did. He left and she's heartbroken. Don't let this happen to you, tell him how you feel, unless you want to lose him. Tell him everyday. I didn't tell mine, he's gone, and he was the one. I know he was.
Oct 17th, 2016 10:44pm report
I totally agree she's really trying to say that love is precious a gift really remind the guy you care about that he's your one and only. I wish I could do it but remember love is precious and what if the one true love is the only one that you get.Be yourself and be strong and tell him you love him no matter what you should be proud you did your best. love isn't easy That's why we should all work for it
Oct 8th, 2014 10:57pm report
i dont agree its necessarily about first love. its about someone you took for granted and realized later on you made a mistake of letting "the one go".
According to Katy Perry herself, "I wrote [it] about when you promise someone forever, but you end up not being able to follow through. It's a bittersweet story."
Sep 29th, 2014 9:57am report
the one that got away can be someone in your past or someone in your present (ideal partner fo life) but there's no chance of being together.. one of you is in a relationship and too scared to leave the person for some reason.. maybe because of the long time of being together, they are scared to do something that they'll both regret. but in reality you have this feelings for another person who happens to be your ideal partner..
It's about a girl who met her first love and they were perfect for each other, until they disagreed over something and he dumped her and moved on. She soon found she would never love anyone the way she had loved him, and now had to pay the price of her mistakes that she could never fix.
Sep 19th, 2012 9:33pm report
This song is EXACTLY my story,he even drove a mustang. But i believe its about how she was in love with him and in the beginning he was as in love with her and promised her forever but then looses feelings for her so used a little fight to leave her,and even though hes moved on,she hasnt because the love she had for him was real,and even though she has alot of money now,she isnt happy because she dosnt have the one she truly wants to be with.
Apr 16th, 2012 4:59pm report
I think this song means that she loved that guy but never got to really tell how she felt about him. Now, "in another life," she remembers and regrets she never told him before he died and replaced the time she could have told him with fighting.
hatts_xx
This song is about a first love, they generally don't last, but she wants to hang on to this love forever, because he died fighting! She says that they were so hopelessly in love, they would break the law for eachother, but suddenly, they fight, and although they both know that they want to be together, things heat up and they split. She wants to follow him, and realises her mistake, she thinks that if she could, she would turn back time to reach him, but even all the riches in the world couldn't help with that, so she grew up alone, only wanting him, her first love.
I think that it means that at the beginning they were together, and their love was huge for one another. Then towards the middle, he kind of stopped loving her but she wanted him back. At the end of the song, they get into a fight, where he gets so mad that he leaves angrily in his car. All of a sudden, from one of the compartments, out comes her headband (?). He doesn't pay attention to the road, swerves and dies. I think that she regrets making him mad so that he wouldn't leave her by dying.
Jan 17th, 2012 1:34am report
Were she mentions, "Can't replace you with a million rings." i feel that she refers to a million wedding rings. In other words, she could refer to a million lovers
I think so many people can relate to this song. It's definitely about her first love. Most people past the age of 30 can recall that first relationship where they fell in love. Sadly, for her, this relationship did not last. As she moved on with her life, she realizes that she'll never again have feelings like she did for him. I do think most people who do not end up with their first love come to a point in life that they realize they'll never again have feelings like that and it's too late to go back. It celebrates the incredible need for love in our lives, "All this money can't buy me a time machine. I can't replace you with a million rings."
Jan 3rd, 2012 1:17am report
Well it's about russel her ex husband :)
Jan 1st, 2012 1:51pm report
I Love this song.
Lol so she thought she found the perfect guy. he ment everything to her,they even got matching tattoos, he acted like a jerk -like in the video-, he left and it says,"Someone said you had your tattoo removed saw you downtown, singing the blues," He moved on,she grew old and didn't move on.. she regrets her past and wishes she would've done something different. :/ I don't know why she wants him back though i see why she would miss him but he was a jerk and she could do better.
This songs teaches a lesson, Your first love probably isn't your true love,but that doesn't mean hold on to that. Move on or it'll haunt you forever and ever everyone gets hurt, just watch out for the jerks that crush you like they don't care.
Everyone has to be scared of that happening, you never know who's the right guy. :) thank you for reading!
Dec 29th, 2011 12:46pm report
These crazy teens fell in before going to college (SUMMER afer high school...) probibly at a party. One is a bit more studious (boy) and one's a bit more rocker (girl). They trust eachother and tell their dreams while drinking. They kiss alot and enjoy it. They are bffs. It's fall and he leaves for college and she doesn't. She sees him later, maybe a bit poorer, all marks of their love gone. The truth hits her and she can't handle it. They were so close.
A couple years later, something triggers the memory (A picture, gift, etc.). She can't stop the flow of memories and regrets everything.
Well......katy is like an angel in that song..... Katy perry's singing is awesome i loved very much.
My impression is that she has had a relationship they have had an argument and he had gone somewhere that meant somthing to them and then they have made up on the phone and he has got himself killed.
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Apple’s Solar Power Plants Igniting U.S. Clean Energy Economy
John Martellaro
@jmartellaro
Jan 26th, 2017 4:20 PM EDT | Analysis
Apple is very much into solar power. The company has made a commitment to clean energy and has been building solar power plants both in the U.S. and China. I’ve looked into Apple’s efforts with solar energy and its many new installations. I want to put what Apple is doing in perspective with some numbers.
Typical solar farm. Via Shutterstock
The recent news item that triggered my research into Apple and solar power was this announcement from NV Energy, Inc.
NV Energy and Apple announced today [Jan 25] they have reached an agreement to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy in Nevada by early 2019. The projects will support Apple’s renewable energy needs for its Reno data center.
That number, 200 MW (megawatts), caught my eye, because that’s a pretty good-sized solar energy plant. The physicist in me started thinking about the numbers.
First, commercial solar power plants tend to be somewhat smaller than coal or nuclear plants. They range in size from about 10- 13 MW to 280 MW. By contrast….
A typical (500 megawatt) coal plant burns 1.4 million tons of coal each year. As of 2012, there are 572 operational coal plants in the U.S. with an average capacity of 547 megawatts.
Nuclear power plants, of which the U.S. has 61 sites, tend to be about the same size as coal plants. That is, each reactor. Some sites have multiple reactors.
Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska has one reactor with the smallest generating capacity1 of 479 megawatts (MW). The Palo Verde plant in Arizona has three reactors and has the largest combined generating capacity of about 3,937 MW.
One solar plant that particularly intrigues me, one done in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, is the Crescent Dunes power plant near Tonopah, Nevada. Instead of photovoltaic cells (PV), it uses heliostats (moving, aluminum mirrors that follow the sun), to focus sunlight onto a 640 ft (195 m) tower and heat salt to molten. The environmentally friendly molten salt can be stored and can generate steam and electricity even when the sun is down. Its power capacity is 110 MW.
Crescent Dunes solar power plant near Tonopah, NV
What can a megawatt (MW) of power do? The average home in the U.S. consumes 10,837 kW-h (kilowatt-hours) of energy in a year. That’s an average power draw of 1.23 kilowatts. And so a megawatt (MW) of power can sustain about 800 homes. A mere 50 MW solar power plant could sustain 40,000 homes (in the daytime).
As an aside, the average electricity cost in the U.S. (2015) was 12.7 cents/kW-h. The highest rate is Hawaii at 27.1 cents/kW-h. The lowest is Louisiana at 9.05 cents/kW-h.
How Many Plants Does Apple Have?
A quick check of Google shows that Apple has or is building many solar power plants. It’s doing this by itself in some cases or in concert with local power companies that have expertise in solar power. Here’s what I found in a casual search. No one website lists them all that I could find. But Apple notes that a total of 4 GW of capacity are in the planning stages.
California Flats Solar Project, Monterey County – 280 MW* (First Solar + Apple)
Mesa, AZ, 50 MW
Florence, AZ, 50 MW
Maiden, NC, 12 MW
Claremont, NC, 17.5 MW
Conover, NC, 10 MW
Boulder City, NV, 100 MW
Reno, NV, 200 MW*
*indicates planned or under construction.
Apple: “Our 4 gigawatts of clean energy projects around the world will avoid more than 30 million metric tons of carbon pollution by 2020. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 6 million cars off the road for one year.”
A very good summary of Apple’s ambitious plans can be found here: “How Apple’s Solar Strategy Evolved.” What may not be well known is Apple’s work with China. From Apple’s website:
We’re building 200 megawatts of solar in China, starting with a 170-megawatt solar project in Inner Mongolia, to begin offsetting our manufacturing emissions. We’re also working with suppliers to install more than 4 gigawatts of new clean energy worldwide, including 2 gigawatts in China by 2020. And over the next two years, Foxconn will install 400 megawatts of solar to cover the energy use of its iPhone final production facility in Zhengzhou.
Apple is doing an amazing job of doing its part to provide clean, renewable energy for its own corporate and data center needs as well as, in some cases, the community. What it doesn’t use for itself, it will sell on the open market.
How the new administration approaches renewable energy, especially solar power, remains to be seen. But concerns are being expressed. No doubt, Apple’s commitment to solar power technology both in the U.S. and China has—and and will again—come up in discussions with the new U.S. president.
Tags: Apple, Solar Power
Lee Dronick
Let us not forget the small solar systems. Over parking lots, on roofs of homes and larger buildings. Up the street is portable unit that is sitting on parking lot and looks like it can charge two vehicles.
MacFrogger
I should add that even though coal plants release more radiation to the environment than nuclear plants, the amount is still low – since we’re dealing with facts here.
Hey John – nice article. A few additional points: 1. Don’t forget Al Gore sits on Apple’s board – and he’s an effective advocate for these moves and Apple’s broader commitment to renewable energy. 2. Most people don’t know that coal plants produce LOTS of (mostly unregulated) radioactive waste – no that’s not a typo – and release 10x more radiation into the environment than a comparably-sized nuclear power plant. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ 3. While solar PV and wind energy have had a marginal impact on the coal industry, the primary cause for the decline of this industry (and the coal mining… Read more »
ibuck: I saw acreage figures for many of the solar sites, but in an article this short, I thought it important to avoid too many site details and focus on the megawatts of the various kinds of power plants. That was interesting to me.
Indeed, one has to weigh the land footprint against the carbon footprint.
ibuck
When you talked about size of the power plant, my first thought was of acres of land used. So I was a little bit disappointed that you were only referring to generated output. Which is fine, and in line with the thrust of your post. But still I mused about the land used. Though coal power plants are probably smaller than solar farms, that coal plant footprint should include the size of the hole in the ground called a coal mine (as well as lots of environmental damage for miles and miles). One often sees solar panels on the ground… Read more »
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Another View: Juggling motherhood and jury duty. Why is a solution so difficult?
This appeared in the Chicago Tribune:
For as long as there have been portable breast pumps, resourceful moms have employed them in surprising places: under a desk, in a parked car, on an airplane, in the principal’s office ...
Judith Miller drew the line at the men’s restroom at the Daley Center. Summoned for jury duty last October, she consulted the Cook County website to make sure she’d be able to express milk for her 11-week-old son. Yes, it assured her, there is a lactation room for jurors.
But that was news to the clerk in the jury assembly room. When Miller arrived, eager to serve, she was told the only option with a locking door and a working electrical outlet was the men’s room.
All together now: Ewwwwwwwwwwww.
Miller said no thanks and was dismissed. She went home disappointed, and wrote an op-ed for the Tribune, calling for legislation that would require lactation rooms in county buildings throughout Illinois. That bill, sponsored by Sen. Elgie Sims, D-Chicago, passed the Senate unanimously in April and awaits action in the House.
Miller, an attorney and law professor, has also filed a discrimination complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights.
It’s frustrating to think any of that is necessary in 2018. Breast pumps are not a new thing. Nor is the notion that nursing mothers should be encouraged and accommodated as they work, travel, go to school or otherwise participate in public life.
Equally frustrating is the fact that Cook County’s considerable efforts at accommodation have failed for lack of follow-through. All of the county’s courthouses have a lactation room for jurors and another for nursing mothers who have other business in the building. Who knew?
Not the clerk who offered Miller a spot in the men’s john. And just when we were ready to chalk that incident up to an isolated misunderstanding — because ewwww — we heard from another juror who described a nearly identical experience at the Daley Center five years earlier.
Kiana Keys reached out after reading Miller’s op-ed in the Tribune. “I know exactly which bathroom they took her to,” Keys told us.
Keys reported for jury duty in July 2012 and shared details with her online moms group throughout the day. She was apprehensive at first, but settled in with a book after a clerk in the assembly room assured her there was a place she could pump. When the time came, though, she was shown to the men’s room.
Taken aback, she locked herself in and gamely began to sanitize and set up. But she quickly became disgusted. She returned to the desk to request another room and was told there wasn’t one. Surely, Keys insisted, she couldn’t be the first to object to this arrangement. An argument ensued, and the clerk finally handed Keys a check for her service and told her she was dismissed.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois has logged complaints from other nursing mothers at other courthouses, too.
Keys didn’t know it, but she could have been excused without showing up. Since 2006, state law has allowed nursing moms to opt out of jury duty. Cook County recently updated its website to make that clear, along with posting detailed information about the availability of lactation rooms in city and suburban courthouses. The County Board recently pledged to survey and update its buildings with an eye to accommodating nursing mothers.
None of that will matter if public-facing employees don’t know where the rooms are and how to access them. Which is why state lawmakers are poised to pass a bill that would require all counties to provide suitable lactation spaces in courthouses — and to train their employees not to direct nursing moms to a men’s bathroom instead.
We shouldn’t need a law to force governments to accommodate nursing mothers in public buildings. But apparently we do.
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Chorley man who was badly injured in hit and run told he's fit to go back to work
Stuart Hill was left with major injuries after being involved in a car crash. He's now been knocked off his benefits as the DWP says he can work even though he still can't walk yet
Megan Titley
Published: 06:25 Updated: 09:19 Tuesday 04 June 2019
A factory worker from Chorley whose leg is clamped in a metal frame and says he can barely get his socks on never mind walk, has been told he can work.
It means Stuart Hill, 32, who lost 5cm of bone from his leg in a hit and run and is recovering from major surgery, has seen his benefits cut.
Stuart Hill's leg injuries
Stuart, who is living with his girlfriend in Adlington, says “it’s disgusting” that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has cut his benefits by £112.
But the DWP says that although Stuart may not be able to go back to his physical role as a factory worker, there is still other work out there which he could do.
“I can’t even get my socks on properly,” said Stuart. “I’m on Universal Credit and I’ve still got this frame on because I still can’t work but the Department of Work and Pensions has said I
can work.
“They’re saying I’m capable of working. I don’t know who to turn to. I am on antidepressants.
“I’m living off my partner. She works full time and it’s lucky that she does because I’m in her house. It came out of the blue. They called me for an assessment even though nothing has changed. The frame’s got to stay on for at least another six months and they know that very well. It’s shocking.
“I’m only getting in about £300 at the moment. I’ve paid taxes for 10, 11, 12 years. It’s disgraceful.
“When I go to the job centre they hang their heads in shame.”
Stuart was hospitalised for 20 days after he was found one night in July 2018 seriously injured after the hit and run in Telford, where he used to live.
He has to wear a Ilizarov frame to aid his recovery after he had three operations on his leg, 30 stitches in his leg and face and abrasions on his back.
But now Stuart, who is making a good recovery, has seen his Universal Credit docked from £440 to £328 per month after officials took his Employment and Support Allowance off him, claiming he was capable of working.
Standing on LEGO, lads tricking a girl into falling down a manhole cover, and a celebratory pile-on: All the injuries reported by Lancashire schools in the past year
Stuart’s benefits were cut on April 8. He says his boss at his old factory job in Telford is willing to take him back once he has recovered but the DWP says he is fit to work now.
Following his assessment The DWP sent Stuart a letter dated April 8, 2019. It states: “We are writing to you because we have looked at your claim and decided we can’t pay you Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
“This is because your Work Capability Assessment shows that although you may have a disability, illness or health condition, you’re now capable of doing some work.
“We realise this may not be the same type of work you’ve done before. But we can help you identify types of work you can do, taking into consideration any disability, illness or health condition you may have.”
Stuart has since appealed the decision which the DWP has thrown out.
A DWP spokesman said: “Decisions for ESA are made based on all the information that’s available to us at the time, including evidence from a claimant’s GP or medical specialist.
“A review of Mr Hill’s case has upheld the decision, but if someone disagrees with their assessment then they can appeal further to an independent tribunal.
“Mr Hill continues to be supported by the local jobcentre and is in receipt of Universal Credit benefits each month.”
A letter from Stuart’s consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham sent on April 15, 2019 says: “This is to inform you that Stuart Hill is under our care, undergoing complex reconstruction of his right leg following an open fracture.
“He lost approximately 5cm of bone which we have managed to regrow for him and he is currently healing well in his circular frame.
“I anticipate the frame will be on for approximately another six months.
“It is worth noting that while the frame is on, I anticipate that Stuart will continue to have problems standing or walking for prolonged periods of time.
“He will also have trouble negotiating stairs or uneven ground.”
Aston Villa offer trio plus cash for Leeds Utd star, Hull City eye Liverpool forward, Fulham in talks with Bristol City over a move for winger - Championship rumours
Some of the new Preston Bus Station apron has reopened, and it looks spectacular
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GOP Senators Demand Tillerson Expel Cuban Diplomats Over Attacks
September 15, 2017 Brendan Clarey 9
(Brendan Clarey, Liberty Headlines) Five Republican senators have asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to close Cuba’s embassy and expel all Cuban diplomats from the United States.
Rex Tillerson/Photo by William Munoz
This comes in the wake of secret sonic attacks that left more than twenty American and Canadian diplomats staying in Cuba with permanent hearing or brain damage.
Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), Richard Burr (R-NC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and James Lankford (R-OK) all signed a letter asking the Tillerson to retaliate against Cuba for the attacks.
“We write today concerning the injuries sustained by multiple U.S. diplomatic personnel posted to the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba,” the letter said. “Our officials and their families have been the targets of unacceptable levels of harassment and ‘acoustic’ attacks that, in some cases, have caused permanent hearing damage and other significant injuries.”
PREVIOUSLY: US Diplomats Seriously Injured by Covert Sonic Device in Cuba
The Senators emphasize the need to protect American diplomats and respond in kind to the attacks.
“The safety of U.S. diplomatic personnel and their families posted overseas remains one of our high priorities and a shared responsibility of those nations that host U.S. diplomatic facilities,” the letter continued.
“We urge you to remind the Cuban government of its obligation and to demand that it take verifiable action to remove these threats to our personnel and their families. Furthermore, we ask that you immediately declare all accredited Cuban diplomats in the United States persona non grata and, if Cuba does not take tangible action, close the U.S. Embassy in Havana.”
The letter concluded: “Cuba’s neglect of its duty to protect our diplomats and their families cannot go unchallenged. We appreciate your attention to this important national security matter and look forward to your timely response.”
State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert told Fox News that there are at least 21 diplomats that have been diagnosed with some symptoms of the weapon, and there is a possibility the number might go up.
“They continue to undergo tests,” Nauert said, noting that personnel “are able to leave Havana, leave Cuba, and return back home if they wish.”
“The investigation into all of this is still underway,” she told Fox News. “It is an aggressive investigation that continues, and we will continue doing this until we find out who or what is responsible for this.”
Cuban president Raul Castro has denied responsibility for the attacks. Castro spoke with diplomats directly, the AP reported.
The attacks started late last year and were first reported to the Cuban government in February this year, according to the New York Times, but since then more diplomats have been diagnosed with similar symptoms.
The State Department released a vague statement earlier this summer after removing two Cuban diplomats from the Washington embassy in May. Subsequent State Department press briefings revealed that at least 16 Americans were affected by the weapon without pointing any blame at the Cuban government.
“As a general matter, I know that various governments have seen that kind of behavior from the Cuban Government in the past. But again, we’re not assigning responsibility at this point. We don’t know who the perpetrator was of these incidents,” Nauert told reporters in August.
“The investigation is ongoing and we will continue to try to find the source of these incidents and the perpetrator,” she said at the time.
Cuban officials have invited the FBI to investigate, a surprising gesture from a historically antagonistic nation, the AP reported.
Tags: Cuba, James Lankford, John Cornyn, Marco Rubio, Raul Castro, Rex Tillerson, Richard Burr, State Department, Tom Cotton
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ESSAYS POWERED BY
Good and Evil and Beowulf Essay
Submitted By anabney1208
Beowulf: the Concept of Good and Evil Although it was written thousands of years ago, the famous epic, Beowulf, still remains one of the most turned to hero tails in the world. It is known to be the oldest form of English literature and possibly one of the most important. The protagonist, Beowulf, is the immortally human hero. Beowulf is a mighty Geat warrior who’s courage is looked to globally. The tails of Beowulf have been passed down from generation to generation for at least a millennium. Beowulf’s story has been manipulated into modern stories: Superman, Spiderman, ect. Though the epic Beowulf is imbued with lessons on life, one of the most apparent is the confrontation between good and evil. First, the good. Good and evil do not exist as only opposites, but that both qualities are present in everyone. Beowulf represents the ability to do good; to perform acts selflessly for the sake of others. Goodness is also shown throughout this epic as having the ability to cleanse evil. Beowulf takes it upon himself to announce several great deeds that he will perform to help countries in need. One of these deeds is his offer to King Hrothgar, in which he proposes to slay Grendel. Beowulf states, "Single-handed I'll settle the strife!"( ). Another selfless act Beowulf embarks on his slaying of Grendel's mother. Beowulf declares, "And I give you pledge, She (Grendel's mother) shall not in safety escape to cover." ( ). Goodness is not only portrayed by selfless acts, but also by it's ability to purge and cleanse evil. This is first shown after Beowulf slays Grendel. The poet says, "(Beowulf) Had purged of evil the hall of Hrothgar, and cleansed of crime; the heart of the hero." The good done by Beowulf is shown to have the ability to cleanse Herot of evil. Beowulf, obviously representing good, has to triumph over evil, the three monsters.
Even pride, a human quality, is presented in Beowulf as a sign that evil exists. Unferth, Hrothgar’s right hand man, criticizes Beowulf’s superiority as a soldier. It is later told that just…
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Heathrow publishes ‘masterplan’ for controversial third runway
A computer generated image released by Heathrow airport June 18, 2019 shows what the airport will look like in 2050 following the completion of a third runway and new terminals. — AFP pic
LONDON, June 18 — London Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, today issued plans for its controversial third runway, including the rerouting of rivers and roads, as it sought also to allay environmental concerns.
Britain’s government last year finally approved the third runway after decades of acrimonious debate.
“Heathrow today unveils its preferred masterplan for expansion,” said a statement from the airport, which is owned by a consortium led by Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial.
The detailed plan includes “tough new measures” to reduce emissions, limit noise and curb night-time flights.
The M25 motorway that rings London will be rerouted under the new runway, while river corridors will also be diverted.
“We’re working with those impacted residents, communities and local authorities to identify appropriate mitigation measures,” the plan said.
“New river corridors will be created to channel the existing rivers and wildlife away from construction sites and the new runway.”
Construction is expected to start in 2022, with the runway built by approximately 2026. New terminals will not be ready until around 2050.
The expansion is expected to cost about £30 billion (RM140 billion), according to the BBC, including £14 billion on the first phase.
The hub, west of London, aims to increase its total capacity to 130 million passengers per day, compared with the current level of about 78 million.
“Expansion must not come at any cost,” said Emma Gilthorpe, Heathrow’s executive director for expansion, presenting a new public consultation that will run until September.
“That is why we have been working with partners at the airport, in local communities and in government to ensure our plans show how we can grow sustainably and responsibly — with environmental considerations at the heart of expansion.
“This consultation is an opportunity for people to have their say on our preferred masterplan,” she added.
Heathrow will also issue compensation for affected homeowners, and establish a noise insulation policy and a community fund.
The third runway has faced stiff opposition for many years from campaigners who cited the negative impacts on noise and air pollution, habitat destruction, transport congestion, and climate change.
Last month, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, along with environmental charities and local councils, lost a court battle to prevent the Heathrow expansion.
Britain’s Conservative government argues that the project will provide a major boost to Britain’s post-Brexit economy and could create up to 114,000 local jobs by 2030.
Heathrow is owned by an investment consortium comprising also sovereign wealth funds from nations including China, Singapore and Qatar. — AFP
In Money
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A good deal of sunshine. High 92F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph..
Clear skies. Low 58F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
S.J. County seeks to reduce reliance on parks trust funds
By Wes Bowers/News-Sentinel Staff Writer
According to San Joaquin County staff, the need to draw monies from its parks trust funds has declined over the last few years, and plans are being made to further reduce reliance on those sources.
“We’ve done significant changes in the last three years to not rely on those funds,” county general services director Marcia Cunningham said during budget hearings with the Board of Supervisors last week.
“In Fiscal Year 2016-17, we used more than $1 million,” she said. “Today, we’ve only used $348,000.”
Cunningham’s comments come after the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury released a report in June that found more than $11 million was taken from Parks and Recreation trust funds over the course of a decade to supplement the department’s general budget.
According to the report, the balance of all of the trust funds was nearly $5.5 million at the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year, and there would be less than $50,000 remaining by the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year.
Last week, county staff said it has developed several revenue enhancements for the 2019-20 fiscal year that will reduce reliance on the trust funds, including the implementation of a marketing plan to increase the visibility of park amenities; exploring partnerships with organizations to increase funding for park enhancement projects; and researching outside grant opportunities and outdoor advertising methods.
Cunningman said last week’s presentation was prepared prior to the June 11 grand jury report.
The grand jury began an investigation after a citizen complained that the principal in some of the 10 trust funds was being used for park maintenance and operation, which was inconsistent with their intended use.
During its investigation, the grand jury received additional complaints from citizens alleging inadequate staffing and funding at Micke Grove Zoo.
The grand jury found the zoo suffered from a loss of accreditation in 2006, a lack of a policies and procedures manual, a lack of a master plan and vision, as well as a lack of secured funding sources dedicated to its improvement.
The Micke Grove Zoological Society, established in 1978, has been the primary source for funding the zoo, but fundraising revenues have decreases over the last decade, the grand jury said.
In 2010, the MGZS received more than $17,000 in membership dues, and raised more than $15,000 in funds to operate the zoo. In 2016, it received nearly $34,000 in membership dues and just $8,240 in funds were raised, according to the report.
The grand jury suggested MGZS could collaborate with the San Joaquin Historical Society to improve raising funds in the future, as the latter organization was able to raise more than $63,000 in funds for its programs in 2016 after receiving nearly $87,000 in membership dues. The Historical Society was also able to secure nearly $350,000 in grants that year, while the MGZS had secured none.
The grand jury has recommended the county develop a vision and master plan for the zoo, identify and secure multiple funding sources for the zoo, and determine the role and responsibility of the MGZS by the summer of 2020.
“I think this fiscal year, hopefully we’ll make a decision with regard to what we can do that will make our parks more revenue-generating, and certainly provide for activities to attract more visitors,” Supervisor Chuck Winn said last week.
Cunningham told supervisors last week that she will provide an official statement regarding the grand jury’s report at a future meeting within the 90-day response period.
The board’s next meetings are scheduled for July 9 and 23, Aug. 13 and 27, and Sept. 10.
The complete grand jury report can be seen online at https://tinyurl.com /y6ecrrhz.
Micke Grove Zoological Society
Marcia Cunningham
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1000 Companies to Inspire
2018 report - 1000 companies UK
Radnor Hills
Ginger Pig
www.radnorhills.co.uk
Region: Wales
A family-run soft drinks business in mid-Wales, Radnor Hills has been operating for more than 25 years. Using water from the family farm, the company sells both premium Welsh spring water and a growing range of soft drinks, producing around 250 million bottles a year. A key area of recent growth has been the trend for lower-calorie drinks, partly as a result of changes to school food regulations, but also changing lifestyles in the wider population.
“One of the biggest opportunities for us has been the requirement for much lower-calorie and healthier soft drinks for students to consume at school,” says William Watkins, Managing Director. “The challenge for us has been to do this while retaining a great-tasting product. We have seen an increasing demand for healthier-style drinks in general that contain less sugar and we have developed a lot of products within this category.”
Radnor Hills expects more innovation in this area, as the industry faces up to challenges such as the ‘sugar tax’ introduced in the UK in April 2018, following which drinks with more than 5% sugar content will incur an additional levy.
“The sugar tax has created a considerable amount of reformulation,” says William. “I believe many drinks being produced and launched in the future will look to sit underneath the threshold of the sugar tax levy. We will be looking to develop new products that fit within this sector.”
Another pressure it has had to deal with is the fall in the value of sterling since the Brexit vote, which has led to increased costs. But, the company has sought to tackle this head on.
“We have looked to automate our processes and be one of the best when it comes to production efficiencies,” says William. “We have invested in the most up-to-date techniques in terms of production so we can drive down our cost base. That has mitigated some of the increasing costs that have been brought about by the devaluation of sterling.”
Download the full 2018 UK report
Search the 1000 companies UK - 2018
Guide for Entrepreneurs
Find out how ambitious entrepreneurs attract funding to grow their companies
Download the AIM Guide
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April 23, 2019 | Medical | IoMT | Sensors/Data Acquisition
DMD Conference: The Future of Cybersecurity
Medical Design Briefs is reporting from the Design of Medical Devices Conference 2019. Send us your questions and comments below.
The way forward in developing rigorous cybersecurity is “designing security in from the get-go,” says Kevin Fu, associate professor at the University of Michigan. Fu made his remarks in his keynote presentation at the Design of Medical Devices conference at the University of Minnesota in April 2019.
“Trying to bolt security on after the fact — just like safety — is hard,” he says, emphasizing that it is essential to get it in “not just at the specification stage, but as you are white boarding and thinking about what are the risks that come into play.”
“We had a report a couple of years ago where we were questioning the research methods of a report claiming security problems in a cardiac implant. We found the experiments did not rise to what we considered to be a standard of scientific inquiries,” says Fu. “Had that report been done with more rigor, there would have been a lot more information on what was secure and what wasn’t.”
He says that one of the easiest approaches to cybersecurity is to create software updates but notes that those also have a risk. “You used to get dialog boxes, but now updates are happening in the background. And software updates are not a panacea. A few years ago, McAfee had a software update for their antivirus product. It misclassified a critical part of the Windows operating system and quarantined this critical part of the system,” says Fu. Hospitals across the world were affected. “This automated process caused all of these computers to fail.”
Fu also thinks antivirus software is counterproductive. “It’s just not effective anymore because there are so many viruses out there. What you do is design your software to be more resilient, then you don’t have to worry about viruses. But because we are still living with legacy software, we will have continued risk of computer viruses, he explains.
Designing for the Future
“My biggest fear is anything involving closed-loop feedback with sensors,” says Fu. “We hand off the decision making from a patient to a clinician to a computer, if it’s completely reliant on the integrity of a sensor, we run the risk of doing the wrong thing.
“For the next 10 years, I’m very concerned about the integrity of the sensors in these devices. If you can’t trust the data the sensor is telling you, you’re not going to be able to take action.” Fu says that some of the gaps are essentially basic hygiene — equivalent to hand washing. One challenge, he says, from an engineer’s standpoint is to be sure not to design a security solution that will interrupt clinical workflow.
Fu says that assuming the components can all fail from a security risk, it’s how medical device designers build reliable systems from unreliable components. “Some of the tools in our defensive arsenal include cryptography, better specifications, risk modeling, and threat modeling. Threat modeling is really important: What are the risks and what kinds of threats are you trying to protect against? Until you’ve got your threat model right, you’re not going to have be able to design your device in a scientific way.”
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Wireless Innovation Project
VODAFONE AMERICAS FOUNDATION WIRELESS INNOVATION PROJECT AND
mHEALTH ALLIANCE ANNOUNCE LAST CALL FOR ENTRIES
December 15th Deadline Fast Approaching to Apply for Up to $650,000 in Cash and Prizes for Wireless Projects Demonstrating Promise Of Solving Critical Global Issues and mHealth
Walnut Creek, CA (November 17, 2010)—The Vodafone Americas Foundation and mHealth Alliance announced the last call for entries for the annual competition to identify and support promising wireless-related technologies to address critical social issues around the globe. Applications for the 2010 Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project™ and mHealth Alliance Award will be accepted through December 15, 2010, with the winners announced at the annual Global Philanthropy Forum in Redwood City, CA in April 2011.
“Previous winners have produced extraordinary innovations that utilized the vast potential of mobile technology to help solve problems and enhance people’s lives,” said June Sugiyama, Director of Vodafone Americas Foundation, “We look forward to this year’s applicants and their ground-breaking projects.”
The Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project™ will award $300,000, $200,000 and $100,000, to the first, second and third-place winners, respectively. The mHealth Alliance Award will be granted to an innovative wireless technology with the most potential to address critical health challenges, especially in developing regions of the world. The mHealth Alliance Award winner will receive a cash prize of $50,000, as well as strategic and networking assistance from the mHealth Alliance. The Alliance was launched by the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation to support cross-sector collaboration in delivering health care and services at the furthest reaches of wireless networks and devices. The GSM Association, HP and the U.S.President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPAR) are also Founding Partners.
Applicants for the Wireless Innovation Project™ must be nonprofits, educational institutions or social entrepreneurs with a nonprofit partner, based in the United States. Awards will be given to the wireless projects demonstrating exceptional promise to solve a critical global issue in the following fields: education; health; access to communication; the environment; or economic development. Moreover, the innovation may also represent a significant advancement in wireless related technology to help solve issues such as connectivity, language barriers and energy use. Projects must be at a stage of development where an advanced prototype or field test can occur during the award period.
Through its foundations, Vodafone has long recognized that wireless technology has the potential to make the significant impacts in the world – particularly in developing countries. Vodafone Americas Foundation™ launched the Wireless Innovation Project™ in 2008 to foster creativity and fund the most promising innovations with the potential to solve pressing issues around the globe. In addition to the Wireless Innovation Project™, Vodafone and its global network of 27 foundations are helping hundreds of thousands of people around the world lead better, fuller lives through more than $60,000,000 in grants and contributions.
Complete detailed information about eligibility and an application can be found at http://www.project.vodafone-us.com/. More information about the mHealth Alliance and its programs can be found at www.mhealthalliance.org, and www.HealthUnBound.org.
The 2010 winners included:
First Place - 100 Million Stoves
With the potential to improve health, air quality, reduce greenhouse gases and save lives, 100 Million Stoves is a simple wireless stove use monitoring system (SUMS) that can be attached to the millions of new low-emission stoves being used in developing regions. Beingdeveloped at the University of California at Berkeley for initial application in India, this groundbreaking wireless technology will help assess the impact of household energy programs, enable feedback from users, and provide transparent verification of carbon credits.
Second Place - FrontlineSMS: Credit
An open source software, FrontlineSMS:Credit has the potential to open up financial services and micro-financing to millions of people in the developing world. The application leverages mobile payment systems and core banking software to bring financial services – such as savings, credit, insurance and payroll – to the entrepreneurial poor,eliminating geographic and time barriers and turning mobile payment systems into platforms for mobile banking.
Third Place & mHealth Alliance Award - Sana
Sana is a multidisciplinary group based out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission to revolutionize healthcare delivery in rural and underserved areas. Sana has developed an innovative open source platform that allows mobile phones to capture and send data for an electronic medical record and links community health workers with physicians for real-time decision support.
About the Vodafone Americas Foundation™
Vodafone Americas Foundation™ is part of Vodafone’s global network of foundations. We are affiliated with Vodafone Group Plc, the world's leading mobile telecommunications company, with ownership interests in 31 countries and Partner Markets in more than 40 countries. As of June 30, 2009, Vodafone had approximately 315 million proportionate customers worldwide. In the U.S., our foundation directs its philanthropic activities towards the San Francisco Bay and the Metro Denver Areas where most of our employees live and work, and where we strive to make a positive and enduring impact on our communities. The Foundation is driven by a passion for the world around us. We make grants that help people in our communities and around the world lead fuller lives.
About the mHealth Alliance
The mHealth Alliance (mHA) mobilizes innovation to deliver quality health at the furthest reaches of wireless networks and mobile devices. Working with diverse partners, the mHA advances mHealth through research, advocacy, and support for the development of interoperable solutions and sustainable deployment models. The mHA sponsors innovation challenges and conferences, leads cross-sector mHealth initiatives, and hosts HUB (www.HealthUnBound.org), a global online community for resource sharing and collaborative solution generation. Founding Partners include the Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation, PEPFAR, the GSM Association and HP. More information is available at www.mHealthAlliance.org.
Labels: mHealth, mHealth Alliance, mobile health, Vodafone
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“A father’s involvement is critical to a child’s academic, social and emotional well-being,” said Holly Zwerling, the president and CEO of the Fatherhood Task Force of South Florida.
The task force, which for about six years has worked to facilitate the involvement of fathers in the lives of children, held the discussion Tuesday at Albizu University in Doral to unveil a new film, Looking Ahead.
The 17-minute video includes interviews with fathers, mental health professionals and educators about father involvement and how kids can benefit from male interaction. The goal is to get the video to universities, schools and parent organizations across the globe.
“For me, its natural,” said Henri Francois, who has three children. He is part of the task force’s reading squad and often reads to children at Nathan B. Young Elementary in Opa-locka.
“There are children who don’t have their dads,” said Francois, who said his dad was always involved in his life. “Its nice to be able to help them.”
For Alvin Gainey, the chair of male involvement for Miami-Dade County’s PTA dads need to know that they should be involved “from day 1.”
He said his own dad was killed when he was 6 and he didn’t have a “model situation.” But he when found out he was going to be a dad he vowed to be a part of his children’s lives. He now has three kids 14, 9 and 7.
Although he said his responsibility as a father goes beyond helping just his own children, Gainey fought back tears as he spoke about a third-grader at Gratigny Elementary School.
“She came up to me and gave me a big hug,” he said. “When the other kids asked her why, she said, ‘that’s my Gratigny Dad.’”
Gainey said the girl’s dad was in prison and she didn’t have a role model.
“That’s why I do it,” he said.
Activists in favor and against Nicolás Maduro gather in Miami
Man charged with murder tells cops: ‘I am the one who shot him,’ report says
By Carli Teproff
A man has been charged with murder and attempted murder after police say he killed a man and injured a woman who had been visiting him at his Doral apartment. The two men were co-workers.
MORE DORAL
‘This isn’t a life:’ ICE raids didn’t happen, but a Venezuelan immigrant lives in fear
Naked Politics
Doral Rep. Ana Maria Rodríguez enters crowded race for state Senate seat
After Miami charity pulls out of strip club golf tourney, Trump Doral cancels event
What’s new on President Trump’s Doral golf course? Let the strip club tell you
Doral police sergeant shot during firearm exercise returns home
Two firefighters injured while putting out Doral fire
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HomeAllJacqueline Mifsud
Jacqueline Mifsud
PhD Student, University of Warwick
I graduated from the University of Malta in 2017 with a B.Eng (Honours) in Mechanical Engineering, where my main areas of interest were Fluid Dynamics and Maritime Engineering. In my final-year research project, ‘Cavitation in Maritime Control Surfaces’, I designed and built an experimental test-rig capable of characterizing the behaviour of cavitation on different section shapes commonly used as control foils in the maritime industry.
I am now a PhD student at the University of Warwick and a member of the Micro and Nano Flows Group in the School of Engineering. Throughout my PhD, I will be researching micro-bubble cavitation (with CFD) for the purposes of ultrasonic cleaning, in partnership with Waters Limited.
Bubble formation in confi...
The formation of air bubbles in liquids appears to be very similar to the formation of liquid drople
Turning Bubbles into Snow...
Although several mesmerizing videos of freezing soap bubbles out in the snow are available on YouTub
Collapsing Bubbles and Mi...
A spherical bubble becomes unstable when it is subject to forces such as gravity, or when it is in p
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Raising awarness of skin cancer
The opening of a new charity office that helps people diagnosed with skin cancer has been welcomed by its Bearsden chairperson.
Melanoma Action and Support Scotland’s new centre will help raise funds and provide therapies for melanoma and skin cancer patients along with their carers.
The charity’s chairperson, Leigh Smith MBE, said: “This new centre gives us a great space which allows us to continue to provide one-to-one support for both patients and carers.
“Our services are crucial considering that melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young adults aged 15-34. ”
The centre was officially opened recently by East Dunbartonshire footballer Jordan Moore (21), who is currently on loan with Queens Park from Dundee United.
Jordan is no stranger to melanoma having been diagnosed with the disease early last year after he discovered a seemingly harmless looking mole.
Following two operations the striker fought back and is now back playing football full- time for the Glasgow outfit .
He has urged those worried about moles to consult their doctor.
The centre, which is based at St Enoch Square in the city centre, provides therapy, office and retail space all under one roof.
Melanoma Action and Support Scotland ensures that patients are supported throughout their diagnosis and afterwards.
The group offers a range of therapies during what is a difficult time for patients.
The new centre is handy for all major transport links and ensures service users are always able to seek support when they need it most.
The charity provides support for skin cancer patients and their carers in a number of ways.
These include raising general public awareness of skin cancers and in particular melanoma, increasing prevention and early detection, ensuring best treatment for patients at all stages of the disease, improving medical education in dermatology in Scotland and by campaigning to have a clinical nurse specialist available to all patients in Scotland.
The charity is also working towards a change in the law so that all sunbed centres are fully regulated.
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MoboReader> Literature >Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point / Or， Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps
Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point / Or， Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps
H. Irving Hancock
Author: H. Irving Hancock First Published: 2017-12-01
Harrie Irving Hancock was an American chemist and writer, mainly remembered as an author of children's literature and juveniles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and as having written a fictional depiction of a German invasion of the USA.
Chapter 1 DICK REPORTS A BROTHER CADET
Chapter 2 JORDAN REACHES OUT FOR REVENGE
Chapter 3 CATCHING A MAN FOR BREACH OF CON.
Chapter 4 THE CLASS COMMITTEE CALLS
Chapter 5 THE CADET SILENCE FALLS
Chapter 6 TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO THE GIRLS
The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless; Or， the Dot， Dash and Dare Cruise
Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point / Or， Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life
Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point; Or， Two Chums in the Cadet Gray
Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche
The High School Captain of the Team; or， Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard
The High School Freshmen; or， Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports
Cane Jean Toomer
First edition (Publ. Boni and Liveright) Cane is a 1923 novel by noted Harlem Renaissance author Jean Toomer. The novel is structured as a series of vignettes revolving around the origins and experiences of African Americans in the United States. The vignettes alternate in structure between narrative prose, poetry, and play-like passages of dialogue. As a result, the novel has been classified as a composite novel or as a short story cycle. Though some characters and situations recur between vignettes, the vignettes are mostly freestanding, tied to the other vignettes thematically and contextually more than through specific plot details.
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Focused ultrasound surgery for uterine fibroids
Doctors who perform this procedure
Elizabeth (Ebbie) A. Stewart, M.D.
Assisted reproductive technology, Focused ultrasound surgery, In vitro fertilization, Myomectomy, Uterine fibroids more
David A. Woodrum, M.D., Ph.D.
Cryotherapy, Endovenous thermal ablation, Focused ultrasound surgery, MRI more
AskMayoExpert. MR-guided focused ultrasound surgery (FUS) for uterine fibroids. Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research;2018.
Laughlin-Tommaso S, et al. FIRSTT study: Randomized controlled trial of uterine artery embolization vs focused ultrasound surgery. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2019;220:174e1.
Sridhar D, et al. Updates on MR-guided focused ultrasound for symptomatic uterine fibroids. Seminars in Interventional Radiology. 2018;35:17.
Frequently asked questions. Gynecologic problems FAQ074. Uterine fibroids. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. https://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Uterine-Fibroids. Accessed April 3, 2019.
MR-guided focused ultrasound for uterine fibroids. RadiologyInfo.org. https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=mrgfus. Accessed April 3, 2019.
Chueng VYT, et al. High-intensity focused ultrasound therapy. Best Practice & Research: Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology. 2018;46:74.
Li Js, et al. Pregnancy outcomes in nulliparous women after ultrasound ablation of uterine fibroids: A single-central retrospective study. Scientific Reports. June 21, 2017. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-04319-y. Accessed April 3, 2019.
Zou M, et al. Pregnancy outcomes in patients with uterine fibroids treated with ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound. British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. 2017;124:30.
Liu X, et al. Vaginal delivery outcomes of pregnancies following ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation treatment for uterine fibroids. International Journal of Hyperthermia. 2018;35:502.
Stewart EA. Uterine fibroids. New England Journal of Medicine. 2015;372:1646.
Uterine fibroids treatment: Focused ultrasound
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., has been recognized as the best Gynecology hospital in the nation for 2018-2019 by U.S. News & World Report.
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Join the Coalition
History Our Principles
Quotes Mayors Standing Up
Blog Press Releases News Clips
About Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination is a bipartisan coalition of municipal leaders dedicated to securing inclusive nondiscrimination protections for all, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, at all levels of government. We recognize the special role mayors play in protecting the rights and safety of residents and in advancing policies that move our communities and our country forward. Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination is a program of Freedom for All Americans, the bipartisan campaign to win comprehensive LGBTQ non-discrimination protections nationwide. Learn More About Our Coalition
Here's What Mayors Across the Country Are Saying About the Need to Stand Against Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination!
When the District of Columbia passed an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, our city again stood up for fairness, equality, and dignity for all of our residents. But when members of our community travel outside of Washington, DC on vacation or on business, they continue to face potential discrimination and a patchwork of unequal laws. It's time now for other cities, states, and the entire country to embrace LGBT nondiscrimination protections so no one faces unfair treatment simply because of who they are. Mayor Muriel Bowser • District of Columbia • Coalition Co-Chair
The city of Philadelphia is committed to being a fair and inclusive place where all people feel welcome, and this includes passing equal protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Full equality -- no matter who you are or who you love -- is not only good for our community; it’s the right thing to do. Mayors Against LGBT Discrimination will work to make fairness and inclusion a reality everywhere. Mayor Jim Kenney • Philadelphia, PA • Coalition Co-Chair
I'm proud of San Francisco's long-standing commitment to advancing and protecting the rights of our LGBT community, and of the tremendous contributions we've made to LGBT culture, history, and advocacy in America. By opening our arms and welcoming everyone, San Francisco is a safer, more diverse and stronger city in part due to the invaluable members of our LGBT community. Mayor Ed Lee • San Francisco, CA • Coalition Founder & Co-Chair
The City of Chicago is committed to fighting for equality and against discrimination in all its forms. As mayor, I will ensure that our policies and protections apply to everyone who lives in and visits our city. In recent years, we have implemented reforms to achieve major progress in improving inclusion for our LGBTQ community at our schools and throughout the city, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that the voices and interests of all residents in Chicago are not only protected and represented in our policies, but embraced across the city. Mayor Rahm Emanuel • Chicago, IL • Coalition Member
I have been an ally and supporter of the LGBT community for many years, and I’m proud to say that I have been attending Pittsburgh's Pride Parade since the days when it was attended by just a few dozen activists. It’s incredibly exciting to see how LGBT rights have grown the past few years, but there is still much more we can do to fight discrimination. Mayor William Peduto • Pittsburgh, PA • Coalition Member
Rochester is the home of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, so the fight for equality is nothing new to us. As an African American woman and the child of an immigrant, I am keenly aware of what discrimination feels like, and equally aware that it has no place or part in the “American Dream.” As Mayor of Rochester, I am proud to continue our city’s tradition of fighting for equality for all or our citizens, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or for any other reason. No citizen should be denied access to jobs, safe and vibrant neighborhoods or quality educational opportunities simply because of who they are. In Rochester, we stand with our LGBTQ citizens because we are one community that is united and strengthened by our diversity. Mayor Lovely Warren • Rochester, NY • Coalition Member
In 1997, I joined the State Legislature as Utah’s first openly gay elected official. Today, I lead the capital city as the first lesbian mayor. Our city has long embraced the issues of equality, fairness, and opportunity. We have a long history of protecting the rights of the LGBTQ community, and we led the state in the adoption of an ordinance that bans sexual and gender identity discrimination. We know that diversity makes our city strong and vibrant. Salt Lake City is, and will always be, a welcoming community to all. Mayor Jackie Biskupski • Salt Lake City, UT • Coalition Member
As Mayor, LGBT discrimination is unacceptable in my city. The voices of those who have been beaten down and neglected because of who they are and who they love must be protected. I join with mayors across the country in this coalition because one individual speaking out is not enough. In this time of uncertainty and fear, I choose to stand up for those in my community and other neighborhoods all over this country who are in danger. I stand with love, not hate. Mayor Alex Morse • Holyoke, MA • Coalition Member
I'm proud that Akron is now one of more than a dozen cities in Ohio to fully protect all resident from discrimination, including our LGBT neighbors. No one should live in fear of being fired, denied service, or denied a place to live because of who they are. Local ordinances like ours are an important way to stand up for fair and equal treatment for all in our community. Mayor Dan Horrigan • Akron, OH • Coalition Member
Personally, I would like to see nothing more than a repeal of HB2, but this is not a repeal nor is this a reset. This is a rejection of Charlotte's and North Carolina's progressive, inclusive values. We are not HB2, and we are not today's false repeal. Mayor Jennifer Roberts • Charlotte, NC • Coalition Member
A city thrives when everyone has a chance to participate fully in the life of the community without fear of discrimination. Here in South Bend, Indiana, we know that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is wrong. Our local non-discrimination policies have been a success, and we hope such policies become the norm in other cities and states as well. Mayor Pete Buttigieg • South Bend, IN • Coalition Member
A city only works if everyone is equally valued and everyone has real opportunity. Detroit was among the first big U.S. cities to enact antidiscrimination protections for the gay community in the 1970s. It’s a commitment we’ve expanded over the years because we recognize our city’s resurgence will be strengthened all the more through the contributions of our LGBT neighbors. Opportunity must be inclusive. Mayor Mike Duggan • Detroit, MI • Coalition Member
In Mukilteo, we have long welcomed people from varied backgrounds to form a strong and vibrant community. We work together to confront discrimination and bias, and build a safe, nurturing place for everyone. I am proud to stand with my fellow mayors and fight LGBT discrimination. Mayor Jennifer Gregerson • Mukilteo, WA • Coalition Member
In a time when our progressive values are being questioned and traditionally marginalized groups are silenced by those in power, we must stand up. I am proud to be a part of Evanston, a city that so actively strives to be inclusive of all gender identities and sexual orientations. As Mayor, I will continue to promote empathy, compassion, kindness, and inclusion to those who are or who feel marginalized, including our LGBT brothers and sisters. Mayor Steve Hagerty • Evanston, IL • Coalition Member
It’s far past time for governments to stand against discrimination of any group. Hawai’i is renowned for being a welcoming place, and there is no place for discrimination in this place which prides itself on the principle of Aloha. We stand with our fellow Mayor in staunch opposition to any kind of discrimination; all of humanity is created equal. Mayor Harry Kim • Hawai'i County, HI • Coalition Member
Alexandria, Virginia, is a city of kindness and compassion. Our city has declared itself to be a hate-free zone. We are an accepting and embracing community where we treat each other with human dignity and respect. There is no place for intolerance in our city. We remain fully committed to diversity and to fostering an atmosphere of inclusiveness that respects the dignity and worth of every person without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. Mayor Allison Silberberg • Alexandria, VA • Coalition Member
Read More Quotes
How Mayors Are Standing Up Against LGBTQ Discrimination
Championing Municipal-Level Protections for LGBT People Often, mayors are at the helm of efforts to pass local ordinances ensuring that no one faces discrimination because of who they are or who they love.
Prohibiting Non-Essential Travel to States with Anti-LGBT Laws Since early 2015 we have seen many mayors and local leaders take action to prohibit city funds from being used for travel to states with blatantly discriminatory laws targeting LGBT people.
Supporting Local Law Enforcement on LGBT-Inclusive Trainings In several cities, mayors are working closely with their local police chiefs to ensure that the department has fully LGBT-inclusive policies for all members – and to develop training curriculum for the police academy that specifically addresses the concerns of LGBT residents.
See More Ways to Stand Up
Get Involved in Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination
For Mayors: If you’re a mayor and would like to become a Mayor Against LGBTQ Discrimination, get in touch, and a representative from Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination will reply soon. Join the Coalition
For Constituents: See if your mayor is already a member of Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination – and if they have not yet signed up, be sure to email them, write them a letter, or call their office urging them to take a stand against anti-LGBTQ discrimination. See Full Coalition List
Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination Applaud Historic Passage of Equality Act May 17, 2019 The Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination coalition is celebrating the passage of the Equality Act, the first-ever comprehensive LGBTQ nondiscrimination bill to be voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination Meets in Washington, D.C. January 27, 2019 The Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination coalition held a briefing today at the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors, celebrating the accomplishments made toward protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination in housing, employment, and public spaces.
Bipartisan Coalition of Mayors Defend Transgender Americans October 23, 2018 The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is considering a proposal that would define sex as “a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.”
© 2016 Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination is a Program of Freedom for All Americans Contact Us • Press Center • Privacy Policy
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Back to Pop Art
Dan Bleier
Signature Graphic (detail 2)
$12.00 B1851-1P
10x10 image on 14x11 Paper - $12.00 USD 12x12 image on 19x13 Paper - $15.00 USD 16x16 image on 18x18 Paper - $24.00 USD 20x20 image on 22x22 Paper - $30.00 USD 24x24 image on 26x26 Paper - $45.00 USD 30x30 image on 32x32 Paper - $70.00 USD 36x36 image on 38x38 Paper - $95.00 USD 42x42 image on 44x44 Paper - $125.00 USD 52x52 image on 54x54 Paper - $190.00 USD 10x10 image on 14x14 Giclée - $30.00 USD 12x12 image on 16x16 Giclée - $36.00 USD 16x16 image on 20x20 Giclée - $54.00 USD 20x20 image on 24x24 Giclée - $72.00 USD 24x24 image on 28x28 Giclée - $96.00 USD 30x30 image on 34x34 Giclée - $150.00 USD 36x36 image on 40x40 Giclée - $192.00 USD 42x42 image on 46x46 Giclée - $264.00 USD 52x52 image on 56x56 Giclée - $390.00 USD 10x10 image on 14x14 Canvas - $25.00 USD 12x12 image on 16x16 Canvas - $30.00 USD 16x16 image on 20x20 Canvas - $45.00 USD 20x20 image on 24x24 Canvas - $60.00 USD 24x24 image on 28x28 Canvas - $80.00 USD 30x30 image on 34x34 Canvas - $125.00 USD 36x36 image on 40x40 Canvas - $160.00 USD 42x42 image on 46x46 Canvas - $220.00 USD 52x52 image on 56x56 Canvas - $325.00 USD
© Dan Bleier
Dan Bleier is an artist, sculptor, and furniture designer based in the heart of the gallery rich Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. Creating stunning contemporary furniture, sculptures and dramatic oversize wall pieces from resin, he has garnered features in prestigious design publications such as NY Home, Elle, Architectural Digest, NY Spaces, NY Times Homes, and NY Living. Dan Bleier Studio has been dedicated to contemporary art and design since 1976. Dan has worked on many high-end projects for NYC's best architects and interior designers including The W Hotels for the Rockwell Group and Chanel and Dior for Peter Marino. He has exhibited his work nationally, including solo shows at Beth Urdang Gallery in Boston, Holland Tunnel in Williamsburg and Palette Contemporary in New Mexico. A commissioned sculpture by Dan Bleier is the centerpiece in the General Mills corporate headquarters.
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B1851-1P
Signature Graphic (detail 2) Dan Bleier
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Birds: Spiritual Messengers of the Skies
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
Please note this exhibit is at the Center for NM Archaeology, located at 7 Old Cochiti Road, off the Caja Del Rio exit of 599.
Birds are among the most cherished animals with whom we share the Earth. Where birds live well, people thrive. The presence and wellbeing of birds reflects the health of the environment; they share every ecosystem with us, playing the role of hunter and prey, pollinators, scavengers, and dispersers of seeds. Feeding the spirit, they can signify strength, courage and freedom. They are companions to us and inspire us to think beyond our own confinement and limitations. With some 10,000 species of birds in the world, they represent one of the best adapted animals on Earth, dating back to the time of the dinosaurs.
“Birds: Spiritual Messengers of the Skies” explores the importance of birds among Native American culture both in the past and today. It includes information on some of the major bird species of the Southwest and how important birds have been as a resource for tools, feathers and food. Birds in archaeology, how they are studied and what that tells us about the past, is also included. With help from Audubon New Mexico, the exhibit inspires to communicate important aspects of birds and their role in our world.
The exhibit opens on International Archaeology Day, Saturday, October 20, at the Center for New Mexico Archaeology located off the 599 Bypass in Santa Fe at 7 Old Cochiti Road (located off Caja del Rio Road, right across from the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society). The Center, which houses the archaeology collections for the State of New Mexico, and the Office of Archaeological Studies, who shares the building, will hold an open house from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will include tours of the facility and many activities and demonstrations for children and adults including atlatl (spear) throwing and archaeology demonstrations. The event is free of charge. Thereafter, the exhibit can be viewed in the lobby of the Center until October 2019, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (excluding holidays).
This exhibit complements The Year of the Bird, the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that was passed in 1918 to protect birds from wanton killing. The Year of the Bird is sponsored by National Geographic, the National Audubon Society, BirdLife International and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Visit any of these organizations’ sites to sign up, learn how to help protect birds, and find events near you!
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Building a S’pore core in maritime workforce (PDF File) - 4mb
The maritime sector is pumping more funds into easing its manpower shortage. $8m will go towards a new job portal, training awards and incentives, as well as tapping SkillsFuture programmes. DPM Teo announced some of these initiatives on 25 Sep at the Singapore Shipping Association's 30th anniversary gala dinner. The new schemes are aimed at attracting more than 1,200 Singaporeans to seafaring and port operation careers in the next five years. MPA/CE Andrew Tan said: "With manpower, it's not something for which you can just turn on the tap and it comes out. You have to spend years building a pipeline." Source: The Business Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Lianhe Zaobao - 26 Aug 2015
Possible extension of Jurong Region Line to Circle Line: Lui Tuck Yew (PDF File) - 2mb
During his visit to Clementi MRT station on 25 August 2015, Minister Lui Tuck Yew announced that the Land Transport Authority is studying the feasibility of extending the planned Jurong Region Line (JRL) to join the Circle Line at Haw Par Villa station via a West Coast Extension (WCE). Engineering studies are also currently being done on the JRL, and if found to be feasible, the WCE will be completed by around 2030, allowing residents in the west a direct conenction into the new downtown, Marina Bay and the area around it. At the same time, it will add redundancy and resilience into the rail network. Source: Lianhe Zaobao © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Lianhe Zaobao - 01 Jul 2015
Lui Tuck Yew: Civil servants in MOT shoulder a heavy responsibility as their work has a direct impact on Singapore’s competitiveness and quality of life
Speaking at the MOT Family Scholarship Award Ceremony on 31 July 2015, Minister said civil servants in MOT shoulder a heavy responsibility as their work has a direct impact on Singapore's competitiveness and quality of life. A total of 28 Beacon Scholarships were awarded this year to students going on to pursue their undergraduate degrees, as well as to existing MOT officers who are going to pursue further studies. In this article, LTA return scholar and executive project engineer Jerrold Thong shares about the challenges and satisfaction derived from his work on the re-sleepering project, while incoming CAAS scholar Sharon Li looks forward to applying the insights from her forthcoming law course at NUS to help Singapore build bridges with more countries and strengthen aviation regulations. Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
The Straits Times - 29 Jun 2015
Downtown Line Stage 2 back on track for Dec start (PDF File) - 284kb
Minister Lui Tuck Yew announced during a ministerial visit to the Zhenghua ward in Bukit Panjang on 28 June 2015 that the 12 stations of Stage 2 of the Downtown Line (DTL2) will open this December, as longer construction hours and more efficient work processes managed to make up for the time lost after a key contractor went bust in 2013. He assured residents that their journeys to the city centre would be eased by the end of the year and credited the support of residents for longer construction hours as a key reason that works could catch up with the original schedule. Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Four more trains for Circle Line as ridership rises (PDF File) - 299kb
Four new trains have been added to the Circle Line (CCL) to help boost capacity and reduce waiting times. The four trains are the first of 24 to be added, of which seven more are undergoing testing and will be injected into service later this year, while the remaining 13 will be deployed by the middle of 2016. Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Port's success anchored on workers' tireless efforts: PM Lee (PDF File) - 3mb
Singapore has come a long way to achieve its status as a shipping hub, but could not have done so without the efforts of pioneers and generations of port workers, who "worked tirelessly, 24/7" to keep the port running efficiently, PM said yesterday as he paid tribute to this group of workers. He credited good leadership, such as the foresight of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the PSA's first chairman, Mr Howe Yoon Chong, in commissioning Singapore's first container terminal in Tanjong Pagar in 1972, when the idea of containerisation was still new. PM also recognised the close cooperation that existed with the port workers' unions and acknowledged the staff of MPA. Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Pasir Panjang Terminal's $3.5b expansion kicks off (PDF File) - 474kb
The $3.5b Phase 3 and 4 development of Pasir Panjang Terminal was officially launched yesterday (23 June) by PM Lee, further strengthening Singapore's position as a leading shipping hub. The new expansion - which includes the already-operational Pasir Panjang Terminal 5 and two future terminals that will be running by the end of 2017 - will add 15 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) to Singapore's handling capacity, boosting Singapore's container throughput by more than 40 per cent to 50 million TEUs annually. Technologies such as automated rail-mounted gantry cranes will also be used for the first time in the new expansion, thereby saving manpower and increasing productivity. PM said Singapore has more plans for the long term, with a mega-terminal planned in Tuas that will consolidate all of PSA's port activities by 2040 and will be able to handle 65 million TEUs annually when fully operational, almost double last year's container throughput. The megaport will use advanced technology such as data analytics and autonomous vehicles to sharpen Singapore's efficiency, reliability and competitive edge. He added, "We are also studying how the port can be redesigned to integrate well with the surrounding development and to be open to the public, instead of the traditional mode of a port which is completely out of bounds to the public." In his speech, PM paid tribute to pioneer port workers who worked tirelessly to keep the port running efficiently. He noted that the maritime industry continues to create good jobs and employs 170,000 people while contributing 7 per cent to Singapore's gross domestic product. "Singaporeans know that the port is important to us, but I suspect that many of us don't realise how critical it is," he said. Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Singapore tops list of important maritime capitals (PDF File) - 6mb
Singapore has retained its top spot as the most important maritime capital in a report by Norwegian consultant firm Menon. It emerged first among 15 cities that were benchmarked in five categories: shipping centres, finance and law, technology, ports and logistics, and attractiveness and competitiveness. According to the report, Singapore is expected to keep its position as the global leader even in five years. The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Rail engineers get on track for chartered status (PDF File) - 11mb
Rail engineers can now attain the Chartered Engineers professional accreditation, after a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES), the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA), SBS Transit, and SMRT Corporation on 29 May 2015. The move will enhance these engineers' employability and validate their experience and expertise, said IES. Both SMRT and SBST have come up with a career track to help their engineers achieve this accreditation. Senior Minister of State for Finance and Transport, Josephine Teo said the move would help meet the increasing demand for engineering talent in Singapore. "The maths is simple: the more extensive our rail network, the more rail engineers we need," she said, adding that the chartered engineer accreditation programme would raise the professional standing of rail engineers. The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
Right on track (PDF File) - 2mb
SBS Transit's technical support engineer Christopher Hon, 27, has been working with the company for the last two years in the Rolling Stock Department, after graduating with a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) degree from NTU's School of Mechanical Engineering in 2013. Mr Hon provides a technical evaluation of faults on the train line, while investigating and recommending solutions for them. He also prepares specifications for manpower and equipment tenders, coordinates with LTA for new and ongoing projects and comes up with maintenance schedules. The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
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Auckland Top 10
Auckland is packed full of family attractions, captivating attrations formed by nature and as you would expect from New Zealand a number of hair raising attractions to experience. So, we've put together our 'Top 10 things to do in Auckland' to help you get the most out of this vibrant and exciting city.
For more inspiration we have also created a 'Top Things To Do In Auckland Video' plus 'Top 10 Free Things To Do' and 'Top 10 Things to do on a Rainy Day' lists.
Skytower
The tallest structure in New Zealand, this 328 metres tower offers breathtaking views for up to 80 kilometres in every direction. Thrillseekers will enjoy the Skywalk and Skyjump. There's also a sky lounge for light refreshments, the Observatory restaurant and Orbit, a 360 degree revolving restaurant.
Sailing in Waitemata Harbour
There's good reason why Auckland is nicknamed the 'City of Sails'. Take to the harbour waters for a harbour cruise, jump on board a jetboat, experience a race on an America's cup yacht or, charter your own boat and enjoy the glorious views along with the locals.
War Memorial Museum
The Auckland War Memorial Museum is situated in the Auckland Domain next to the suburb of Parnell and holds the world's finest collection of Maori treasures. You can also see a traditional Maori Culture Performance (run 3 times a day) for just $35 in the museum.
Waiheke is also known as ‘The Island of Wine’, because of the number of vineyards. A 40-minute ferry ride from Auckland lets you do a spot of wine-tasting, visit craft studios, gorgeous beaches and go on some great walking trails. For $49 you can purchase a return ferry ticket, 1.5 hour guided tour of the island and unlimited bus travel around the island.
Rangitoto Island is actually a dormant volcano. The island is a protected wilderness, popular with hikers, and there are guided tours to take visitors around the intriguing lava caves, rock formations and pohutukawa forests. Two ferries run from Auckland every day with the last ferry leaving the island at 4.00pm.
For panoramic views of Auckland, head to Mount Eden, 2km south of the city. An easy stroll to the summit will reward you with the best views of the city and surrounding area.
Waitekere Ranges
Only 40mins from the heart of Auckland, the Waitakere Ranges offer 40,000 acres of rainforest and rugged coastline, 250km of walking tracks, and some breathtaking waterfalls.
Auckland's east coast has many white, sandy beaches, most of which are suitable for swimming. Piha is the most famous beach and most iconic, that's also a favourite with surfers. Piha is about 45 minutes drive west of Auckland.
Auckland Harbour Bridge Bungy
Enjoy a walk out, up, over and through the Auckland Harbour Bridge with amazing views of the city that you won’t get anywhere else. Book a bungy jump with AJ Hackett to enjoy the views of Waitamata Harbour as you hurtle towards the ocean!
The pretty town of Devonport is a 12 minute ferry from Auckland and runs on a regular basis. There's plenty of arts and craft shops, cafes, restaurants and eye catching views. Head up Mount Victoria to enjoy stunning views of the Auckland skyline.
UPDATED: Aug 3rd 2018
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Home / Dr. Benedikt Schoser: Focus on the Patient
Dr. Benedikt Schoser: Focus on the Patient
As a clinician and researcher, Dr. Benedikt Schoser is focused on how research findings can be translated into improved patient care - and how patient concerns can help guide researchers to new areas of interest. “We try to combine clinical data with results from basic science and look at parallels between scientific results and patient outcomes,” he says.
Dr. Schoser is senior consultant in neurology at the Friedrich-Baur Institute (FBI) at Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, one of Germany’s largest referral centers for neuromuscular diseases. FBI diagnoses and treats thousands of patients and processes hundreds of muscle biopsies each year.
Dr. Schoser trained as a neurologist and myopathologist (a specialist in muscle dysfunction) at several German universities before joining FBI in 2001. His interest in myotonic dystrophy (DM) dates back about 15 years, when he began working closely with Dr. Kenneth Ricker, then of the University of Wurzburg, one of the original describers of DM2. He has published more than 30 research papers on DM and sees approximately 200 patients with the disease, including some he has been following for decades.
His clinical focus has prompted Dr. Schoser to bring together patients and researchers to improve resources and education for people with DM. He serves on the academic task force of the TREAT-NMD network, an international effort to ensure that promising new therapies for neuromuscular diseases reach patients by connecting patients, clinicians, academic researchers, and representatives of the biomedical industry. And he is the head of Germany's DM registry, which collects information on patients so they can be paired appropriately with clinical trials.
Dr. Schoser is project lead at FBI for the OPTIMISTIC Trial (Link to archived site), a collaboration among researchers and doctors from the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom that seeks to improve standards of care for DM1. The group has launched a study of whether cognitive behavioral therapy can be used to stimulate activity and reduce fatigue in DM patients. The goal of these research efforts is to develop guidelines physicians can use to improve patients’ quality of life.
Dr. Schoser also helped translate the MDF Toolkit into German, adapting it for that country’s patients. The German translation will be available for download soon.
Dr. Schoser is looking forward to this summer’s meeting of the International Myotonic Dystrophy Consortium (IDMC). (He served as chair of IMDC-7 meeting in 2009.) He believes these meetings are special in the medical field because they unite scientists and clinicians. “As clinicians, we see patients and try to understand their symptoms,” he says. “Scientists do fantastic studies and then ask how they can be translated into clinical practice. At these meetings, we share, which is why I always look forward to them.”
He also values the participation of caregivers at the IMDC meetings. “A doctor, if he is lucky, may see a patient for 60 minutes,” he says. “But a caregiver often is with a patient 24 hours a day. That gives them a lot of information we don't have to better understand the disease, which helps improve our work as physicians. And they help identify additional areas for research, based on what patients and caregivers think is important.”
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The Craig Yancey Quartet to appear at the Diamond Valley Arts Center
Last updated 1/10/2019 at 10:09pm
The Craig Yancy Quartet is playing at the Diamond Valley Arts Center, Jan. 11, in Hemet.
HEMET – The Craig Yancey Quartet will perform Friday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m. at The Diamond Valley Arts Center, 123 N. Harvard St., in Hemet's historic downtown.
Craig Yancey has been a professional musician and educator for more than 30 years. Yancey received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. His jazz and symphonic bands have consistently received superior rating and awards throughout his career. He is an active adjudicator and clinician for jazz, concert bands, solo and ensemble festivals and featured guest artist throughout the southwest. Yan...
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Football Weekly Awards Announced For Sept. 18-24
Michael Whitley (l), Diante Moses (m), Jawon Turner (r)
Lakeland University's Michael Whitley, Diante Moses and Jawon Turner have been named the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Football Offensive, Defensive and Special Teams Student-Athletes of the Week for events of Sept. 18-24, as selected by the league's sports information directors.
Whitley (Vidalia, La.) threw for 305 yards and three touchdowns in Muskies' loss to No. 10-ranked University of Wisconsin-Platteville. It marked the senior quarterback's seventh consecutive 300-yard passing game, a streak dating back to last season.
Moses (Houston, Texas) tallied a game-high 11 tackles Saturday at UW-Platteville, including one tackle for loss and added one broken-up pass.
Turner (Brooklyn, Wis.) finished with six punts for a total of 206 yards and a 34.3 yard average, including one punt downed inside 20.
Other nominations: none
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Longing for Longleaf: A Story of Landscape-Scale Restoration
by Brian Cooke, USDA Forest Service contract science writer
A longer version of this article was published in the Fall 2018 Issue of The Longleaf Leader.
The Great Disappearing Forest
In the early 1800s, North America’s longleaf pine forest was like the American bison’s historical range: It covered such a huge area that its full extent is difficult to comprehend today. Back then, longleaf pine-dominated forests stretched from eastern Texas to southern Virginia and south into central Florida. Overall, these forests covered about 90 million acres — nearly the size of the state of Montana.
Today, longleaf pine-dominated forests cover less than 5 million acres, which would easily fit into New Jersey. Of these remaining acres of this former signature tree of the American South, only about 12,000 highly fragmented acres are mature, “old growth” forests. That’s less than half the size of Florida’s Disney World Resort property.
Randy Tate, The Longleaf Alliance
Across nine states from Virginia to Texas, longleaf was once the dominant forest of the southeastern plain.
Where it All Went
The dense, tightly grained wood from these forests was used to build some of America’s great cities and railroads, as well as cottages, castles and mines in the British Isles. In addition, vast sections of the forest were cleared for crops, grazing and human development, while fire suppression and feral hogs degraded other longleaf areas.
The noted American botanist and ecologist Bertram Whittier Wells was not impressed by what had happened to the biologically richest region of North America. Back in 1932, Wells was quoted as saying, “The complete destruction of this forest constitutes one of the major social crimes of American history.”
A Couple of Johnny Appleseeds
By the 1990s, so few people remembered these immense forested areas that their loss was hardly felt. Many of the scientists who had dedicated their careers to studying longleaf were near the end of their lives. Fewer people than ever appreciated the “whispering pines” with forest floors that were bathed in sunlight that filtered through high, open tree canopies.
Two professors at Auburn University — Rhett Johnson and Dean Gjerstad — were among the few longleaf boosters remaining at that time. Johnson recalls, “We first looked at longleaf just as a tree, but then we realized what a unique and valuable ecosystem it was. Healthy longleaf forests have incredible biodiversity. They’re like living museums when you consider how little is left. After a few years of lonely longleaf research, we looked around and found that longleaf was still disappearing at a pretty rapid rate. But the people who were really knowledgeable about it were disappearing even faster.”
Johnson and Gjerstad decided to take action. Johnson says, “We had a couple of meetings in 1994 and we found more interest in longleaf restoration than we’d expected. But no one wanted to take the lead. We had to do it ourselves and on our own time. We both had day jobs but it was very rewarding, especially in working with private landowners. It was like we were Johnny Appleseeds: We’d scatter like a covey of quail and go to four different states. And it wasn’t just about hunting or timber: Some landowners were just excited about restoring this historic, iconic landscape.” As time went on, Johnson says, “Darned if it didn’t take off. We realized that we weren’t capable of managing growth and interest, and that we needed partners.”
Carol Denhof, The Longleaf Alliance
Healthy longleaf pine ecosystems are home to an incredibly diverse range of plants and animals, including many that have become difficult to find across the South.
The Goal: Eight Million Acres in 15 Years
In 2007, The Longleaf Alliance joined forces with more than 20 other organizations from federal and state agencies and the private sector to ensure a sustainable future for longleaf pine ecosystems. That partnership became ALRI — America's Longleaf Restoration Initiative. ALRI’s conservation plan, drafted in 2009, calls for an increase in longleaf-dominant forests to 8 million acres by 2025.
ALRI partners provide a wide range of services and perspectives related to the restoration effort. Here are a few examples:
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and the USDA Forest Service’s Cooperative Forestry staff work with state governments, private landowners, and other partners to raise awareness about longleaf habitat and relevant assistance programs such as the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works with landowners to establish safe harbor agreements, which can eliminate liability under the Endangered Species Act if the landowner manages land in a predetermined way.
The Department of Defense works with the Fish and Wildlife Service on land use activities that might affect listed species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker or threatened species such as the gopher tortoise.
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation manages the Longleaf Stewardship Fund, which has helped restore and enhance more than 1.5 million longleaf acres.
The Conservation Fund is working with private landowners to establish and maintain the Coastal Headwaters Forest, a functional longleaf ecosystem in the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama.
Randy Tate, Longleaf Alliance
The Longleaf Stewardship Fund helps fund burn crews so longleaf landowners have access to trained and qualified experts.
Implications for the Rest of the Country
While this initiative will transform parts of the South, it also has implications for landscape-wide ecosystem restoration efforts elsewhere.
“I think we’ve made a lot of progress, even though we have a long way to go,” says Ken Arney, acting regional forester of the Forest Service Southern Region. “Our hope is that we can reach our goal of 8 million acres by 2025 while also demonstrating that this kind of effort can be replicated in other landscapes around the country.”
Brian Cooke is a science and environmental writer based out of Fort Collins, Colorado. He received a degree in journalism-science writing from Lehigh University and refined his storytelling skills by leading night tours on Alcatraz and educating visitors at a National Forest fire lookout tower in Colorado. Brian’s writing and editing work has included assignments for several federal agencies and environmental services companies. Additional information on Brian can be found at www.linkedin.com/in/bcooke1.
NFF Note: The NFF has planted hundreds of thousands of longleaf pine seedlings on National Forests across the Southeast. In addition to partnering with the U.S. Forest Service on longleaf pine recovery, the NFF is partnering with The Longleaf Alliance on Mississippi National Forests and Coca-Cola North America on Florida National Forests in 2019.
Forest Stewards Youth Crew Works to Improve Recreation Connectivity on the Santa Fe National Forest
Gliding Through Appalachian National Forests
Tree Planting in East Texas Black Bear Habitat
Black bears can survive in many habitat types, from low deserts to mountainous forests, while Louisiana black bears thrive in hardwood forests, bottomland, and other wetland habitats.
Tree Profile: Bristlecone Pine
Learn more about the ancient bristlecone pine trees.
Celebrating the Restoration of the Majestic Methow
Working closely with community partners and the Forest Service, the NFF restored many areas in the Methow Valley on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest to improve wildlife habitat and recreation experiences. Learn more about our multi-year effort here.
Tree Profile: Whitebark Pine
It’s easy to forget just how much everything in nature is connected. We may joke about the “circle of life” and the “food chain,” but these simple concepts couldn’t be more applicable to the Whitebark Pine, Pinus albicaulis.
HPCC Systems and LexisNexis Risk Solutions Commit to Fund the Planting of 10K Trees
Learn more about HPCC Systems and LexisNexis Risk Solutions partnership with the National Forest Foundation to support tree planting.
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"America's Got Talent" Finale Recap: The Winner Is Crowned
Big name musical acts like Flo Rida, Ne-Yo, Green Day and Justin Bieber helped close out this season of "America's Got Talent."
By Bruna Nessif
Published Sep 14, 2012 at 12:19 AM | Updated at 12:24 AM EDT on Sep 14, 2012
"America's Got Talent" host Nick Cannon, poses with judges Howard Stern, Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel.
How does a network fill two hours for a finale results show? Easy.
Bring on multiple musical acts, like Flo Rida, Ne-Yo, Green Day and Justin Bieber with Big Sean, team the finalists with celebrities who can work with their talent for a little performance and give the viewers multiple video montages and flashbacks.
But finally, after an hour of America's Got Talent, we got to see what the votes revealed.
Did you catch the finals?
Coming in last place were The Untouchables, who instantly started tearing up, but Sharon Osbourne reassured them saying, "Don't be sad, little ones, because it's my last show, too. So we're both leaving together."
Joe Castillo took fifth place, and David Garibaldi and His CMYKs came in at fourth. "From the first time I saw you," Howard Stern said, "I was amazed." And then there were three.
The semifinal eliminations were so nerve-racking!
Boos were heard from the crowd when William Close was announced as third. Then, it came down to Tom Cotter and The Olate Dogs.
Nick Cannon announced, "The winner of the $1 million and the star of the headline show in Las Vegas is...(extremely long dramatic pause) Olate Dogs!"
OMG, America's Got Talent!
© Copyright E! Online
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Jon Stewart's Obama Shift
"Daily Show” host’s Obama jokes are a sign of the times – just ask Bill O’Reilly
By Jere Hester
Published Feb 4, 2010 at 12:11 AM | Updated at 1:23 AM EST on Feb 4, 2010
Jon Stewart may not have too many fans left in the White House.
The best material some comedians could muster when Barack Obama took office last January were quips about how they’ll have a tough time making a living without presidential punchline George W. Bush to mock anymore.
A year later, “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart’s recent skewering of the President is being seen by some – including a gleeful Bill O’Reilly – as a sign the comic rotisserie is turning.
In an interview Wednesday night on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” O’Reilly bluntly asked Stewart about the perception that the comic is getting tougher on Obama: "When you deliver your stuff, are you cognizant of the fact that your audience are primarily stoned slackers who love Obama and when you criticize Obama you may be turning on them?"
Stewart responded, "We don't think about who may be receiving it, we think about how it feels to us....If it feels like a valid piece of absurdity to us, we vet things internally.
"Whatever you say, someone's not going to like (it)."
The serio-comic exchange was prompted by a much-discussed column by Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, who anointed Stewart a "pop-culture bellwether.” Kurtz cited the comedian’s lampooning of the President last week for using a teleprompter during a Virginia school visit as a turning point of sorts in humor aimed at Obama.
“You set up the presidential podium and a teleprompter in a sixth grade classroom?” Stewart asked incredulously, going on to heckle Obama for what seemed like an almost Reaganesque move – and not Reaganesque in the "Great Communicator" sense.
Kurtz noted, “Stewart's barbs are generating partisan buzz.”
Stewart sarcastically downplayed the impact of his comedy – even referring to himself in the third person, almost as if to distance himself from the talk.
“Oh my God! [The Obama Administration has] lost Jon Stewart! And as Stewart goes, so goes an incredibly small, yet for some reason demographically valuable segment of our population,” Stewart said on his show, responding to the Kurtz column.
“You know how President Bush suffered when he lost Jon Stewart. I mean, that guy was run out of office after only eight years.”
While the teleprompter bit has attracted notice, Stewart, to be fair, first hit Obama hard in July, memorably mocking the so-called White House "beer summit."
Stewart has battled perceptions that he's in the tank for liberals, with his frequent pointed takes on Fox News’ rhetorical excesses, distortions and omissions. But he’s an equal-opportunity parodist, often ridiculing news clips from the network news, CNN and particularly MSNBC – going off last week on Keith Olbermann after the cable news host unleashed a verbal attack on recently elected Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown.
Perhaps Stewart’s show is scrutinized by pols and the press because he and his Comedy Central buddy Stephen Colbert are delivering the most consistently biting daily dose of TV political barbs since Johnny Carson made his final quip about the first President Bush in 1992.
Sure, the other late night show hosts make fun of Obama, but most of the gibes are delivered in forget-‘em-a-minute-later one-liners.
Bill Maher was among the first high-profile comics to slam Obama, angrily declaring in June, “This isn’t what I voted for.” But Maher’s HBO show airs once a week when it’s running, and is closer at times to a cable news opinion show than straight-out comedy. “Saturday Night Live” tweaks the President in “Weekend Update” segments and in skits, but that’s one night a week.
Colbert delivers his brand of clever humor through his conservative talk show character. Stewart speaks for himself, making him stand out as TV's most visible and direct day-in-day-out political satirist.
Stewart may believe he's just another comedian, but he plays a key role in setting the comic zeitgeist. That’s something he might want to think about during his next moment of Zen, which, presumably, won’t come in a no spin zone.
Hester is founding director of the award-winning, multi-media NYCity News Service at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is the former City Editor of the New York Daily News, where he started as a reporter in 1992. Follow him on Twitter.
Copyright NBC Owned Television Stations
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Nancy Grace Sounds Off On Amanda Knox Verdict
Published Oct 6, 2011 at 3:04 PM | Updated at 11:38 AM EDT on Oct 13, 2011
On Monday, an Italian appeals court threw out Amanda Knox's murder conviction and freed the 24-year-old after she spent almost four years in prison, but HLN host and "Dancing with the Stars" contestant Nancy Grace feels justice was not served.
"I was very disturbed, because I think it is a huge miscarriage of justice," Nancy told Access Hollywood's Shaun Robinson after Monday's "DWTS" when asked about the high profile trial that also saw her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, cleared of killing 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in 2007.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Backstage At 'Dancing With The Stars': Shaun Robinson With The Celebs
"I believe that while Amanda Knox did not wield the knife herself, I think that she was there, with her boyfriend, and that he did the deed, and that she egged him on. That's what I think happened," Nancy said, sharing her opinion.
Although the court overturned the conviction primarily based on discredited DNA evidence, Knox says she was not there the night of the murder, the Associated Press reported.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: 'Dancing With The Stars' Season 13: Week 2 Highlights
"[Kercher] had her bedroom next to mine. She was killed in our own apartment. If I had been there that night, I would be dead," Knox told the court on Monday. "I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I wasn't there."
Many celebrities took to Twitter on Monday celebrating the verdict, but Nancy claims to have more information than most.
"I think that people in general, including myself, want to believe good about other people and the population wants to believe that Amanda Knox is innocent. They want to believe that and I don't blame them," she explained. "I'd like to believe it too, I just happen to know the facts."
VIEW THE PHOTOS: 'Dancing With The Stars' Season 13: Cast Photos
With Knox headed back to the U.S., many are wondering who will land the first interview with the headline-maker, but the HLN host isn't throwing her hat into the ring.
"I'm not trying to get Amanda Knox's first interview because… my show does not pay for interviews in any way," Nancy told Shaun. "I think whether she gets paid outright or whether it's a licensing fee for a photograph, that's the way a lot of networks get around paying for interviews, I absolutely would not stand to be on a show where we pay for guests or interviews. Second, I don't think she's going to tell the truth anyway, so what's the point?"
VIEW THE PHOTOS: 'Dancing With The Stars' Season 13 Cast: Then & Now
On Tuesday morning, Knox was first seen heading home from Rome. She then touched down at Heathrow Airport in London on her way back to America.
PLAY IT NOW: Nancy Grace Denies Having A 'Dancing' Wardrobe Malfunction!
PLAY IT NOW: Nancy Grace Responds To 'Glee' Makeover Comment
More from Access: [ Nancy GraceDancing With the StarsAmanda Knox ]
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Oklahoma convicted murderer who escaped by posing as cellmate captured in St. Louis
The state corrections chief wants a full report on "how one of our most dangerous inmates could bond out of a county jail."
Dec. 5, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC
An Oklahoma inmate who escaped by posing as his cellmate and then posting bond was captured by U.S. Marshals at a motel in St. Louis, Missouri, ending a dayslong manhunt.
Patrick M. Walker, who was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, was taken into custody Tuesday morning, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
“We deeply appreciate the dogged, tireless efforts of the U.S. Marshals to take Patrick Walker into custody,” state corrections chief Joe M. Allbaugh said in a press release. “Fortunately, they were able to capture him without incident, and he will soon be back in Oklahoma.”
Patrick M. Walker was arrested by U.S. Marshals at a St. Louis motel after escaping from an Oklahoma jail on Dec. 4, 2018.Courtesy of U.S. Marshals
Federal marshals said he was able to flee to Missouri with the help of a woman, the Kansas City Star reports.
Walker, 34, escaped from the Payne County jail in Stillwater on Nov. 29. Authorities said he was able to walk out of the jail by impersonating another prisoner named Charles Pendarvis, whom he "closely resembled."
Walker, know as "Notty Walker," then convinced someone to post bond for Pendarvis, and pretended to be him when a bondsman came.
Matt Elliott, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, said Pendarvis was "threatened" into giving his ID to Walker so he could escape.
Director Allbaugh said he wants a full report on "how one of our most dangerous inmates could bond out of a county jail."
Walker had been in jail since 2003 before his escape. He was originally housed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary but was transferred to the county jail for a court hearing after he allegedly assaulted a corrections officer.
Minyvonne Burke
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Discoverers of brain's satnav win Nobel prize
Health 6 October 2014
John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser located our inner GPS
(Image: David Bishop,UCL-NTNU)
By Helen Thomson
The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to three scientists who located our inner GPS – specialised cells in the brain responsible for helping us to navigate our world.
The award was given to John O’Keefe at University College London and husband and wife team May-Britt and Edvard Moser, both at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
We all get lost sometimes – luckily, specialised cells in the brain help us find our way again. In 1971, O’Keefe discovered certain cells in the brain’s hippocampi were only active when an animal was in a particular place in a certain orientation in its environment. He called these “place cells” (Brain Research, DOI: 10.1016/0006-8993(71)90358-1).
The same combination of place cells was active when the animal visited the same location, but a different combination of place cells was active when visiting another site. O’Keefe concluded that the activity of these cells helps the animal build an internal map of its environment.
More than 30 years later, the Mosers found another component of our internal GPS system, within an area of the brain called the entorhinal cortex, which they called grid cells (Science, 10.1126/science.1099901).
Unlike place cells, grid cells are active in many places across an environment. To understand them better, imagine the room in front of you has a grid on the floor, made up of tessellated triangles. One grid cell will fire whenever you reach the corner of any triangle in that grid. Shift the grid ever so slightly, though, and another grid cell will be responsible for firing every time you reach the corners of the new grid’s triangles, and so on.
Recently, both place-like cells and grid-like cells have been discovered in similar areas of the human brain.
“These discoveries are central to our existence,” said Lorenz Poellinger of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, who announced the award on Monday morning. “They form key aspects of an advanced positioning system in the brain that makes it possible to know where we are and find our way.”
They have opened new avenues for studying how cognitive processes are computed by the brain, he adds.
Signal lost
It is thought that information from these internal maps is usually combined with information from memory systems in the brain, which allows us to process our location and constantly update an inner map of where we are and what is around us.
However, although we all get lost on occasion, some people have far more difficulty than others. On rare occasions, this can result in a condition called developmental topographical disorientation, whereby people have trouble navigating even the simplest routes, such as from their bedroom to kitchen. Researchers believe that issues with grid and place cell activity may underlie this condition, although much more research is necessary.
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No Switch for Switchfoot
January 21, 2014 Katrina Yentch
Remember when Switchfoot was relevant? Well, despite the fact that many of us, including myself, thought they went into hiding, the band has actually been rather consistent with their music. After releasing a best hits collection in 2008, they still continued to release albums afterwards with 2009’s edgier “Hello Hurricane” and 2011’s “Vice Verses.” Although the band may have dropped from the public eye, they still remain a strong figure in the Christian Rock world, among those such as Relient K and The Afters.
Courtesy of Word Entertainment
As a result of these continued efforts to produce music, Switchfoot thus brings “Fading West,” an album that screams Christian Rock with passion, upbeat pop guitar riffs, and more.
The album opens with “Love Alone is Worth the Fight,” which, as all alternative rock does, starts with that singular catchy guitar riff. Uplifting violins follow, and then the whole band chimes in, creating a rock orchestra. With this opening track, the band immediately sets the tone for an album that is self-reflective and “meaningful.”
However, it is in such a way that makes it hard to distinguish one song from another. Each of the first few tracks sound like the others in a different variation of riffs and palm muting next to the amps. “Who We Are” and “When We Come Alive” all blend into one choir-filled Christian Rock song.
Later on, however, they experiment a little with some electronic influence in the track “BA55,” which whimsically messes around with some keytar chords. Unfortunately, the song creates this build up that never follows to an actual “point of action,” so it ends on a strangely low note.
The tracks “Say it Like You Mean It” and “Let it Out” allow Switchfoot to fall back on their classically aggressive yet playful angst. This relies on interchanging guitar riffs and lead singer Jon Foreman’s powerful vocals. The two tracks are a combination of 2007’s “Gravity” and play with palm muting even more than your standard alternative rock song. In response, it switches the pace from uplifting to edgy.
“Fading West” closes with a track titled “Back to the Beginning Again.” Talk about a fitting title for the ending right? Foreman sings, “I wanna feel the wind on my back again,” which makes it end on a feel-good note. It’s fast-paced just like most of the album. In fact, it already somewhat asks if listeners are ready for another album to come out in the near future.
Overall, Switchfoot’s “Fading West” is tasteful Christian Rock, but not different enough to bring the band out of the deep end they found themselves post-“The Beautiful Letdown.” They strategically intertwine strong Christian themes with “life” mottos that could actually be applicable to all listening audiences who want something simple and pleasant to listen to. However, they have seen their glory days, and it is clear that they are just plain happy to still be in the business making music simply for the love of it.
ONLY RECOMMENDED IF: You’re a fan of Christian Rock and don’t mind that Switchfoot haven’t changed their style in a while.
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November 3, 2014 Issue
Briefly Noted
The Invisible History of the Human Race, by Christine Kenneally (Viking). The construction of identity is the concern at the heart of this original and provocative book, which employs the approaches of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and Mendelian genetics. Case studies of ethnic groups point to a complex, reciprocal relationship among DNA, culture, and environment. Samaritans, for example, have a genetic predisposition to certain diseases (acquired over millennia of intermarriage), and that has come to play a large role in their communal identity. Genetic traits, Kenneally shows, are modified by factors such as other genes, noncoding DNA, and chemical changes in the body. She suggests that one’s understanding of one’s identity is at least as deterministic as one’s genetic inheritance. When it comes to our knowledge of DNA, Kenneally writes, “there is still more dark matter in this particular universe than not.”
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, by Jeff Hobbs (Scribner). In this intimate biography, Hobbs tells the story of his college roommate, a talented African-American student from Newark who overcame a rough childhood to attend Yale, but then slid into the violent world of selling drugs. Hobbs uses this journey as an opportunity to discuss race and class, but he doesn’t let such issues crowd out a sense of his friend’s individuality—Peace’s joy at seeing the black sand at the edge of the Pacific and his ambivalence about the future, his readiness to help his friends and his “dangerous, unconcerned and affable” smile. By the end, the reader, like the author, desperately wishes that Peace could have had more time.
Some Luck, by Jane Smiley (Knopf). The first installment of a projected trilogy, this sweeping, carefully plotted novel traces the history, from 1920 to the Cold War era, of a single Iowa farming family. Each chapter focusses on one year, setting the minor catastrophes and victories of the family’s life against a backdrop of historical change, particularly the Great Depression. As the children branch out from their tiny town, so, too, does the story, eventually encompassing several generations, cities, and cultural movements. Smiley, like one of her characters contemplating the guests at the Thanksgiving table, begins with an empty house and fills it “with twenty-three different worlds, each one of them rich and mysterious.”
This Blue, by Maureen N. McLane (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The short lines and quickened pulse of the poems in this collection invite rapid reading, but many are best savored slowly, allowing line and stanza breaks to create alternate readings of seemingly simple passages. The book’s central sequences meander across Europe, various wines and beers in the foreground, making a gracious nod to the poet’s fellow-voyager Wordsworth, in “Terran Life,” and a too cute one to Gertrude Stein (“A rosé’s a rosé’s a rosé”). McLane delights in pert rhymes—“curmudgeon” and “pigeon”—but she deprecates her gift and darkens it: “Rhyme is cheap. / So is pop. / Easy to be obese / in a land fat with rape.”
This article appears in the print edition of the November 3, 2014, issue.
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Annals of Education
December 11, 2017 Issue
Success Academy’s Radical Educational Experiment
Inside Eva Moskowitz’s quest to combine rigid discipline with a progressive curriculum.
By Rebecca Mead
Eva Moskowitz, Success Academy’s founder, now runs forty-six schools.
Illustration by Ben Wiseman
Audio: Listen to this story. To hear more feature stories, download the Audm app for your iPhone.
One of the most celebrated educational experiments in history was performed by James Mill, the British historian, on his eldest son, John Stuart Mill, who was born outside London in 1806. John began learning Greek when he was three, and read Herodotus and other historians and philosophers before commencing Latin, at the age of seven. By the time he was twelve, he was widely read in history and had studied experimental science, mathematics, philosophy, and economics. James Mill’s pedagogical approach reflected the influence of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarian philosophy, and was intended to discover whether a child of unexceptional intellectual capacities could, through rigorous exposure, learn material that was typically acquired in adulthood, if at all. The answer, according to the research subject, was yes. “I started, I may fairly say, with a quarter of a century over my contemporaries,” J. S. Mill wrote in his 1873 “Autobiography.”
Mill’s remarkable upbringing is cited by Eva Moskowitz, the founder of the Success Academy Charter School network, in her own autobiography, “The Education of Eva Moskowitz,” which was published in September. The book recounts Moskowitz’s learning curve, from her youth in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan—where she was brought up by leftist intellectuals and attended public school—to her time on the New York City Council, where she developed a reputation for courting controversy while chairing the Education Committee, to her founding of the Success Academy, the city’s largest charter-school network. She is now the reliable scourge of the public-education establishment in New York City and, outside its borders, a favorite of the national education-reform movement.
Success Academy began in 2006, with a single elementary school in Harlem, and now has forty-six schools, in every borough except Staten Island. The overwhelming majority of the students are black or Latino, and in most of the schools at least two-thirds of them come from poor families. More than fifteen thousand children are enrolled, from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Students hardly follow Mill’s curriculum—there is no Greek or Latin in kindergarten, or even in later grades. But the schools do well by the favored metric of twenty-first-century public education: they get consistently high scores on standardized tests administered by the State of New York. In the most recent available results, ninety-five per cent of Success Academy students achieved proficiency in math, and eighty-four per cent in English Language Arts; citywide, the respective rates were thirty-six and thirty-eight per cent. This spring, Success Academy was awarded the Broad Prize, a quarter-million-dollar grant given to charter-school organizations, particularly those serving low-income student populations, that have delivered consistently high performances on standardized tests. Moskowitz has said that, within a decade, she hopes to be running a hundred schools. This year, a Success high school, on Thirty-third Street, will produce the network’s first graduating class: seventeen students. This pioneering class originated with a cohort of seventy-three first graders.
As a charter school, Success Academy is required to admit children by lottery. But prominent critics, such as Diane Ravitch, the historian and public-education advocate, have alleged that Success Academy essentially weeds out students, by maintaining unreasonably high expectations of behavior and academic achievement. Similarly, critics claim that the program reduces class size by not accepting new students beyond fourth grade, whereas zoned public schools must accept all comers. To Moskowitz’s detractors, Success’s celebration of standardized test-taking—students attend “Slam the Exam” rallies—is a cynical capitulation to a bureaucratic mode of learning. Success Academy has attracted large donations—in the past two years, the hedge-fund manager Julian Robertson has given forty-five million dollars to the group—and Moskowitz’s opponents say that such gifts erode the principle that a quality education should be provided by the government. Last fall, Donald Trump summoned Moskowitz, who is a Democrat, shortly after he was elected President. Although she declined to be considered as his Education Secretary, she was widely criticized for agreeing to the meeting, including by members of her own staff, who noted that Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail had stoked fear in the kind of families served by Success Academy schools.
For all the controversy, one question has, surprisingly, been overlooked: What are the distinguishing characteristics of a Success Academy education? Moskowitz’s memoir, which recounts her battles with union leaders, journalists, and bureaucrats, does not focus on her pedagogical preferences; she directs readers interested in curricular details to Success Academy’s Web site. Her book portrays the school network as an evolving experiment that regularly incorporates new teaching methods in the hope of nudging student achievement ever higher. At one point, she cites the inspiring example of John Stuart Mill. “Can children learn as much today?” Moskowitz writes. “And if so, how much can they learn? I don’t know, but I do know that what we’re achieving at Success today is far short of what is possible, and that people will someday look at the education Success offers today much as we now look at travel by horse and buggy.”
Parents have flocked to Success Academy schools, in part, because Moskowitz has convinced them that their children can tackle more than the local public school demands. But Moskowitz’s book glosses over the fact that James Mill’s experiment on his son was not entirely positive in its impact. At the age of twenty, J. S. Mill sank into what we would now call a severe depression. He ascribed his mental breakdown to his education, which had been entirely directed toward developing his rational and analytic powers; as he later wrote, his curriculum lacked any cultivation of feeling, and any valuation of poetry, “and of Imagination generally, as an element in human nature.” He described himself as “stranded at the commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but no sail.” Mill recovered—reading Wordsworth helped—and went on to become one of the leading philosophers and political theorists of the Victorian era. His example is a triumphant one, but it also offers a warning: that grand educational experiments can have unintended consequences.
Success Academy Springfield Gardens, in Queens, opened in the fall of 2014. The neighborhood, close to J.F.K. Airport, has many Caribbean immigrants, as well as a large African-American population. The school is on an upper floor of a building that it shares with a zoned middle school, I.S. 59; both schools principally serve students of color whose families qualify for public assistance. The floor tiles of Springfield Gardens’ freshly painted hallways are labelled with spelling words, so that children can absorb information even as they file, in silence, from one room to another. The classrooms are carpeted, muffling the baseline din that usually accompanies students at work—the scraping of chairs, the dropping of pencils—and imbuing even a space occupied by more than two dozen second graders with the hush of a corporate conference room.
One morning earlier this year, the second graders were engaged in a group reading lesson. (Over several weeks, I was permitted to observe classes at eight Success Academies around the city, from the elementary to the high-school level.) The teacher sat on a chair at the front of the classroom. Her students—or “scholars,” as they are known at Success—sat at her feet on a deep-blue rug patterned with a grid. They wore uniforms: plaid dresses or navy pants for the girls, pants and polo shirts for the boys. Everyone wore black slip-on shoes, as prescribed in the Success Academy parents’ manual; Moskowitz does not want teachers to waste instructional time tying errant laces.
For decades, a rug has been a desired amenity for early-childhood classrooms. Children are more comfortable sitting on the floor than squirming on a chair, and during “circle time” they can interact with one another and with the teacher more easily. Mary Hammett Lewis, an educator who founded a school in Buffalo a hundred and five years ago, observed the transformative effect of placing a “big, friendly rug” in her classroom. In “Loving Learning,” a 2015 book by the educator Tom Little and the journalist Kathryn Ellison, Lewis is quoted saying, “It became a sort of magic carpet in my adventure. The attitude of the children changed completely the moment they set foot on the rug. Language lessons became confidential chats about all sorts of experience. One day the rug became early Manhattan Island; another day it was the boat of Hendrick Hudson.”
In the second-grade classroom in Queens, the gridded rug seemed less like a magic carpet than like a chessboard at the start of a game. Within each square was a large colored spot the size of a chair cushion. The children sat in rows, facing forward, each within his or her assigned square, with their legs crossed and their hands clasped or folded in their laps. Success students can expect to be called to answer a teacher’s question at any moment, not just when they raise their hand, and must keep their eyes trained on the speaker at all times, a practice known as “tracking.” Staring off into space, or avoiding eye contact, is not acceptable. “Sometimes when kids look like they’re daydreaming, it’s because they are, and we can’t allow that possibility,” Moskowitz wrote a few years ago, in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal. Students who stop tracking are prodded both by their teachers and by their peers, who are expected to point out classmates who aren’t looking at them when they are speaking.
On a Smart Board at the front of the classroom, a digital clock marked the seconds. Every moment in a Success classroom is timed, often with Cape Canaveral-style countdowns, as students transition from one activity to another: “Three, two, one, and done.” Some teachers use kitchen timers with beeping alarms that notify students when the ten seconds allotted for finding a space on the rug, or retrieving a book from a backpack, are up.
That morning, the students were engaged in a “shared text” exercise. They read and analyzed together a short story, “The Family Tree,” that had been projected onto a screen. It was about a grandmother who was moving, unhappily, to a smaller house. Her two grandchildren, a brother and a sister, were helping her with the move, and cheered her up by making a collage of intergenerational family photographs for her. The text had been adapted from a picture book; in its condensed form, it consisted of a single page containing two dozen short paragraphs, and just two illustrations. Each paragraph was numbered, as it would be if the story were encountered during a standardized test, rather than pulled from a library shelf.
“Would you say this tweet puts us at DEFCON 3 or DEFCON 4?”
The teacher, after establishing that the story’s genre was realistic fiction, reminded the class of the necessary “thinking job” required in approaching such a text: to identify the character, the problem, the solution, and the “lesson learned.” A girl with pierced ears and a sober expression made a stab at an answer: “The problem here is that the sister thinks that her grandmother is mad, because they already broke lots of stuff.”
Several children looked skeptical. “You have a couple of friends disagreeing with you,” the teacher said. She called on one of the dissenters, another girl, who said, “I disagree with you, because the grandmother is already upset, because her new house does not feel like a home.” Success Academy students are required to speak in complete sentences, often adhering to a script: “I disagree with X”; “I agree with X, and I want to add on.”
The teacher addressed the girl with pierced ears: “I’m a little confused. Prove to me that something broke.” The girl replied, warily, “It says so on the second line.” The teacher asked her to look again at the line—in which the sister warned her brother not to break anything, because their grandmother was already upset—and said, “Did anything break? No. She’s warning him.”
It was an impressive demonstration of close reading by seven-year-olds, as far as it went. Moskowitz recently told me that she saw no reason the principles that govern a graduate seminar in English literature—“You read a book, and you discuss it, and you look for the big ideas”—couldn’t be applied to a class with young children. The text being studied by the second graders wasn’t particularly easy; even in its original picture-book form, it was intended for third graders. The teacher spoke to the children in a firm, unsmiling tone, as she might have done to a class of students fifteen years their senior. Moskowitz abhors the singsong voice that some adults often adopt with young children, characterizing it as “an insult to the scholars’ intelligence,” and her teachers are trained to avoid it.
The teacher led a brief discussion of the difference between a house and a home—a material distinction possibly familiar to some of the children in the room. One in twenty students at Springfield Gardens had experienced homelessness at some point during that academic year. “A home is where you feel comfortable, and you make your memories,” the teacher said, before a student gave an admirably succinct summation: “A house is where you are just moving in, and a home is where you have lived for a long time.” The students were quiet and attentive, as neatly aligned on the rug as the blinds at the windows, all of which had been lowered to precisely the same height.
But the lesson seemed to be as much about mastering a formula as about appreciating the nuances of narrative. When the students were called to “turn and talk,” they swivelled, inside their grids, to face a partner, and discussed the section of the text that had been examined collectively. The exchanges I heard consisted of repeating the conclusions that had just been reached, rather than independently extending them. Some students seemed to be going through the motions of analysis and comprehension—performing thought. “The grandmother’s house is too small—she doesn’t have the space to put her memories,” one child informed her partner, garbling the story’s sense in her effort to comply with expectations.
Nor was there time for more imaginative or personally inflected interpretations of the text—the interrogation of “big ideas” that happens in the kinds of graduate seminars Moskowitz held up as a model. When one child proposed that the grandmother was feeling uncomfortable in her new home because she was lonely—a reasonable inference, given the absence of her husband, who was pictured in the family photographs—the teacher asked for textual evidence, and the student was unable to provide it. With the clock ticking, the discussion moved on, and the question of the grandmother’s loneliness—of what else the story might be saying to a reader, beyond the surface meaning of the words in the numbered paragraphs—was left unexplored.
For nearly a century, public education in America has been influenced by two opposing pedagogical approaches: traditionalism and progressivism. Broadly speaking, in the traditional approach to education a teacher imparts knowledge to students through direct instruction, and embodies a disciplinary culture in which obedience is both prized and rewarded. The purpose of the classroom is to equip all students to meet measurable academic standards. At a progressive institution, a teacher develops a curriculum but urges students to treat it as a staging ground for their own intellectual discoveries, often through hands-on activities and group work. Allowances are made for differences in the way individual students learn. Progressivism was inspired, in large part, by the work of John Dewey, the American philosopher and educational theorist, who died in 1952. For Dewey, the classroom was not simply a place for acquiring academic credentials; it was also a venue in which students learned crucial values about being citizens in a democracy. Traditionalism is easily caricatured as rote learning—or, in the contemporary classroom, as endless test prep. Progressivism, in its most exaggerated form, can look like an absence of standards and discipline, and an unhelpful abdication of authority on the part of the teacher.
Many effective contemporary public-school classrooms exist somewhere between these extremes. Teachers in such classrooms incorporate some progressive methods—circle time on the classroom rug; interdisciplinary projects that encompass math, science, social studies, and literacy—while insuring that their students know how to bubble in the answers on a multiple-choice test form. But many charter schools that have flourished in cities in the past two decades are extremely traditional in their approach; teachers emphasize direct instruction, drilling, and test prep, and enforce strict codes of discipline. Success Academy’s vigilance in tracking and in regulating students’ posture are hallmarks of urban charter chains, including the K.I.P.P. schools, a national network established in 1994. K.I.P.P. adopted the slogan “No Shortcuts, No Excuses” as part of its effort to instill a sense of purpose and determination in its students. The chain encapsulates its method with the acronym SLANT, which stands for “Sit up straight, Listen, Ask and Answer questions, Nod if you understand, and Track the speaker.”
Moskowitz disavows K.I.P.P.’s “No Excuses” label. She says that the codes of discipline at her schools exist only to establish the foundation for an effective and nurturing learning environment. But Success Academy permits its charges little leeway in deviating from its standards. Students are constantly monitored for compliance with expectations about comportment and behavior. In elementary-school classrooms, an assistant teacher often roams the room, tapping the shoulders of students who are slumped forward on an elbow rather than sitting erect with their hands folded. The Success network has two high schools, and at the one I visited, on East Thirty-third Street, the principal does not hesitate to tell students to tuck in their shirttails. Expectations for academic performance are equally high for students, and for their families, who sign a pledge committing to reading with their children every evening and to monitoring the completion of homework. This fall, Success began sending home “Parent Investment Cards”—essentially, grading parents on how well they are holding up their end of the deal.
A Success Academy classroom is a highly controlled, even repressive, place. In some classrooms that I observed, there were even expectations for how pencils should be laid down when not in use: at Springfield Gardens, the pencils had all been placed to the right of the desks, aligned with the edge. The atmosphere can be tense, and sometimes tips over into abuse, as was documented by the Times last year. The newspaper obtained a video that had been recorded secretly by an assistant teacher. It showed a teacher berating a first-grade girl who had made an error on her math worksheet, ripping up the sheet, and sending the child to sit in a “Calm Down” chair. Moskowitz has insisted that the event was an outlier, but the teacher in the video was an experienced educator who had been considered an exemplar of the Success Academy approach. Among some Success teachers, “rip and redo” was a term of art.
Oppressive degrees of rigor at other schools in the network occasionally provoke resistance. According to the Daily News, an anonymous group of parents at one of Success Academy’s newest schools, a middle school in Hudson Yards, sent an e-mail to Moskowitz in October complaining about an excessively punitive atmosphere. Children, they claimed, were being given detention for not clasping their hands when seated, or for burping accidentally. The students, the parents wrote, were having nightmares and meltdowns; some were vomiting at the prospect of going to school. (A Success Academy representative disputed the allegations. Several parents contacted me to say that their children were happy, and that the controversy was overblown. One wrote, “The school set out a rigorous pace that, in hindsight, could have been a little lighter. But that has the hallmarks of Eva, I think. Shock them a little, get them into the groove.”)
At some Success Academy schools, as many as twenty per cent of students are suspended at least once during the academic year. Moskowitz calls suspension “one tool in the toolkit,” and says that most occur during the first weeks of school, when students haven’t yet assimilated the school’s expectations. “I think some people have a fairly idealized view of the kind of language that even young children can use,” she told me. “We have young children who threaten to kill other people. And, yes, they are angelic, and, yes, we love them, but I think when you are outside schooling it is hard to imagine.” According to data from the New York State Education Department, three years ago, when Success Academy Springfield Gardens was starting up and had only kindergartners and first graders, eighteen per cent of the students were suspended at least once. It’s entirely believable that lots of children between the ages of four and seven found it impossible to meet the school’s stringent behavioral expectations. But it’s also fair to wonder whether, if one out of five young children cannot comply with the rules, there might not be something wrong with the rules.
A few years ago, some school districts, including the New York City public schools, began attempting to reduce suspension rates by experimenting with “restorative justice,” a progressive approach in which students, in concert with teachers, would decide how a classmate who had violated the rules might best repair the misdeed. K.I.P.P. schools adopted the method with considerable success, as did other charter networks formerly known for punitive disciplinary practices. Moskowitz’s response to the innovation was scathing. “Suspensions convey the critical message to students and parents that certain behavior is inconsistent with being a member of the school community,” she wrote in another editorial for the Wall Street Journal. “Pretend suspensions, in which a student is allowed to remain in the school community, do not convey that message.”
But, even as Success seeks to inculcate its students with its strict behavioral codes, Moskowitz has embraced certain teaching methods that would not seem out of place in a much more permissive environment. Surprisingly, she cites John Dewey as an important influence on her thinking, and she champions hands-on science labs, frequent field trips, and long stretches of time for independent reading. Moskowitz has recruited as a consultant Anna Switzer, the former principal of P.S. 234, a highly regarded public school, in Tribeca. Before Switzer retired from P.S. 234, in 2003, she developed a progressive social-studies curriculum in which students undertake months-long projects on, say, the native populations that originally lived on Manhattan Island. At Success Academy, Switzer has been helping to build similar “modules,” such as an intensive six-week study, in the third grade, of the Brooklyn Bridge. For kindergartners, Success offers a six-week interdisciplinary study of bread. After students read about bread and baking—the importance of bread in different global cultures; the grains that go into making various breads—they take a field trip to a bakery, and bake bread as a classroom activity. Success modules remain heavy on reading and writing, Switzer acknowledges: when the kindergartners study bread, “shared texts” play a more prominent role than they would at a very progressive public school. Still, the curriculum for these projects belies the stereotype of Success as a rigid test-prep factory. “Being a progressive pedagogue is hard,” Moskowitz told me. “Your level of preparation has to be much higher, because you have to be responsive to the kids, and you have to allow the kid to have the eureka moment, while still mastering the material.”
Adding to the difficulty of implementing such ideals is the youth and relative inexperience of Success’s staff. On average, a school loses a quarter of its teachers every year; at some schools, more than half leave. Moskowitz told me that teachers typically stay with Success for just three years. This may be consistent with the job-hopping habits of millennials, but according to veteran educators it generally takes at least three years to become a decent teacher. An unseasoned workforce is not Moskowitz’s ideal, but, given the rapid growth of Success and the network’s projected expansion, it may be a structural inevitability. The system compensates for the inexperience of many of its teachers by having a highly centralized organization. Teachers do not develop their own lesson plans; rather, they teach precisely what the network demands. Like the students in their classrooms, Success’s teachers operate within tightly defined boundaries, with high expectations and frequent assessment.
Some of the mandated curriculum, however, is progressive. Kindergartners spend part of every day having “block time,” in which students collaborate on building structures with wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes. Block play was one of the first mainstays of a progressive approach to education. Dewey and other American educators borrowed the method from the German pedagogue Friedrich Froebel, who, in the mid-nineteenth century, invented the word Kindergarten—“children’s garden”—to characterize a school dedicated to purposeful play. Progressive educators hold that, in early childhood, play is not a distraction from learning but the very means of learning itself.
But in recent years kindergarten teachers have become increasingly focussed on imparting academic skills—largely in response to pressure to achieve measurable, testable results. Blocks and other play-based activities, such as sand tables and dress-up corners, have disappeared from many classrooms. “Most affluent kids get block building in their expensive nursery schools,” Moskowitz told me. “Most poor kids never get block building. So we have achieved a level of equity in block building.”
The most unusual aspect of Moskowitz’s experiment is not her “Slam the Exam” sloganeering. Rather, it’s her attempt to combine aspects of a very traditional approach—rigid discipline, tracking, countdowns, rigorous accountability—with elements of a highly progressive curriculum. It can be an awkward straddle. “It is very challenging to have a kind of data-driven performance-oriented culture, and to do progressive pedagogy,” Moskowitz acknowledged. “These things don’t naturally, or easily, go together.” She went on, “One of the biggest reasons that teachers have trouble with student-centered learning is that they have to give over a level of control to the kids. And, when you do that, you can have chaos, or you can have high levels of learning. Often, teachers are afraid of the chaos.” It is as if Moskowitz had looked at the traditional/progressive spectrum and, instead of occupying a space along it, had bent its ends toward each other, to see whether they can meet.
The results of this experiment remain unclear. In 2014, Success opened its first high school, the one on East Thirty-third Street. Moskowitz hoped to create a more relaxed and collegiate environment, with seminars led by experts supplanting classes with pre-formulated lesson plans. There was to be a lot more free time, in which students would be the stewards of their own studies.
“It just didn’t work,” Andrew Malone, the school’s current principal, told me. “There wasn’t an intentional enough gradual release of where they were.” Many of the students slacked off academically, and there was a resurgence of behavioral issues, such as lateness to school, that had been eradicated in the younger grades. “There were a lot of sweatpants,” Malone added. Students accustomed to second-by-second vigilance found it difficult to manage their time when left unsupervised. Malone arrived at the high school in its second year, and decided to “re-set” the culture by instituting stricter and clearer rules.
In college, of course, students have to flourish without constant supervision. Although charter students are admitted to college at higher rates than students from comparable public schools, their graduation rates are dispiritingly low. Seventy per cent of charter-school students who enroll in college fail to complete their degrees within six years. While there are many reasons for this problem—most notably, insufficient money for food and housing—charter-school leaders, including those at Success, are also considering the impact of their own teaching precepts. Malone and his colleagues realize that getting students to succeed at standardized tests isn’t enough; they must prepare students for a future in which their professors—and employers—won’t be providing their parents with weekly updates. “College graduation was always the goal,” Malone said. “But only now that we have a high school do I think we are seriously thinking about what the pedagogy should be through the years.” How can a highly supervised child be transformed into an independent learner? Do you allow students the freedom to fail, or do you continue to provide constant hand-holding? “It’s an incredible design tension,” he said.
Shael Polakow-Suransky is the president of the Bank Street College of Education, in Manhattan, which has long promoted a progressive philosophy. He is skeptical that Moskowitz can successfully introduce a looser form of pedagogy into an institutional environment where strict compliance is demanded from students, teachers, and parents alike. Polakow-Suransky said, “They have a philosophy that, to create a context for learning, it’s necessary to build a total institutional culture that is very strong, enveloping, and quite authoritarian. This produces a level of compliance from children that allows for pretty much any approach to instruction, and eliminates many of the typical challenges of classroom management.” He continued, “There is a reason why there is a continuing pull in human organizations toward authoritarian approaches. You can get a lot done. But what kind of citizens are you producing? What kind of learners are you developing when the core values are around compliance? Can you educate children in an authoritarian context and also empower them to be active agents in their own lives, who think critically and question injustice in the world around them?”
Moskowitz would say yes. So would other urban educators who maintain that strict codes of conduct are a necessary condition for a healthy learning environment—or, at least, that it has worked for them. Depending on the observer’s perspective, a Success classroom can appear either alarmingly regimented or blissfully calm. Practices such as tracking can be viewed as part of a system of overweening surveillance or merely as respectful listening. In a recent essay about K.I.P.P., Andrew R. Ratner, a professor of education at CUNY, writes, “What could be a more auspicious first step than children learning to make each other feel that they will be heard and their individual voices have value?”
One of the core tenets of John Dewey’s educational philosophy was the belief that, in school, children learn not only the explicit content of lessons but also an implicit message about the ideal organization of society. A school, he argued, was a civilization in microcosm. “I believe that the school must represent present life—life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, or the neighborhood, or on the playground,” Dewey wrote in “My Pedagogic Creed,” which was published in 1897. The society for which the child was being prepared should not be conceived of as an abstraction from the remote future, Dewey believed. It should be replicated, in simplified form, within the structure and culture of the school itself.
“A school should be a model of what democratic adult culture is about,” Deborah Meier, a veteran progressive educator, and a theorist in the tradition of Dewey, told me. “Most of what we learn in life we learn from the company we keep. What is taught didactically is often forgotten.” A corollary of Dewey’s belief is that, if children are exposed in school to an authoritarian model of society, that is the kind of society in which they may prefer to live.
At Success Academy Springfield Gardens, I spent part of a morning observing a group of kindergartners at block time. The school has dedicated a special classroom to the activity, and shelves were filled with an enviable supply of blocks. The walls of the room were decorated with pictures of architectural structures that the students might seek to emulate, from the Empire State Building to the Taj Mahal. There was also a list of rules: always walk; carry two small blocks or hug one large block; speak in a whisper.
At the start of the session, two boys picked up the longest blocks and brandished them, pretending that they were lightsabres, before a teacher reminded them of the dangers of doing so. Other children quickly settled into building. One boy was making a tall structure with symmetrically arranged arches and towers—and, thus, exploring principles of geometry—while a girl pretended to snap photographs of it with a small block. The students were happy, engaged, and proud of their accomplishments.
A girl with a big smile and a forceful manner had used blocks of different sizes to build a kind of frame. She stood behind it while her classmates lined up in front. She was using it to challenge her classmates in an elaborate guessing game, in which she was the master of ceremonies. Upon reaching the front of the line, each student was asked a question. A correct answer earned a cheer, but, if the student erred, the girl pretended to pour a bucket of slime—another block—over the transgressor’s head.
Her questions were wide-ranging and sometimes surreal—the delightful products of a five-year-old imagination given full rein: “How do bugs die?” “What are granola bars made of?” “What are jewels made of?” The adults in the room joined in the game, and when one of the young teachers reached the head of the line the girl asked, “How do you learn words?”
“I’m going to flip the question—how do you learn words?” the teacher replied.
“I go to school,” the student said. “How did you learn?”
“The same way,” the teacher said.
“You went to school,” the student said. “Did you play?”
“I played in preschool,” the teacher said.
At this, the girl adopted a stern expression. “You’re not supposed to play!” she said, commandingly. She seemed pleased that the game afforded her an opportunity to reprimand her teacher—a chance to express a different facet of her imagination. “You are not supposed to play in preschool,” she said, with conviction. “You are supposed to work.” The girl had absorbed both the explicit and the implicit lessons of the schoolroom in which she spent her days. So far, it seemed, her education was a success. ♦
An earlier version of this article misidentified the author of the essay about K.I.P.P. It also misstated the date a Buffalo school was founded.
This article appears in the print edition of the December 11, 2017, issue, with the headline “Two Schools of Thought.”
Rebecca Mead joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 1997. She is the author of, most recently, “My Life in Middlemarch.”
Success Academy Charter School
Eva Moskowitz
“The Education of Eva Moskowitz”
The Underground University That Won’t Be Stopped
In Georgia, undocumented immigrants, who are banned from the top public universities, have a school of their own.
Brave New World Dept.
Charter Chief
By Andrew Marantz
What New York City’s Biggest School Reformer Sees in Donald Trump
“I’m an optimistic person. I wouldn’t be educating children if I did not believe in human potential,” the Success Academy founder said recently.
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Saint-Gaudens $20 (1907-1933)
< 1927 S $20 MS | 1929 $20 MS >
Saint-Gaudens $20
1928 $20 MS
NGC Universal ID: 26GK
Category: Saint-Gaudens $20 (1907-1933)
Mintage: 8,816,000
Obverse Designer: Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Reverse Designer: Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Weight: 33.4400g
Melt Value: $1399.54 (7/18/2019)
Edge: Lettered
Jeff Garrett: The 1928 Double Eagle is one of the most common of the series, which is no surprise considering the staggering mintage of almost 9 million coins. Ample numbers of coins have been certified in all grades from MS 60 to MS 67. The production quality for the date was high and the 1928 Double Eagle is an excellent type coin. The 1928 Double Eagle is the last readily obtainable for the Saint–Gaudens series. The remaining issues are all rare to extremely rare.
Base $ 1410 1420 1420 1570 1570 1580 1580 1580 1580 1590 1600 1770 1830 1910 2250 2950 13800 - - -
$ - - - - - - - 1790 1830 2025 2500 4250 43000 -
Total Graded: 52948
Low Grade: PrAg
NGC CENSUS DETAIL Last Updated: 7/16/2019 1928 $20 MS
Base 1 - - - - - - 1 2 18 206 187 1933 9700 16422 16525 6570 1294 89 - - - 52948
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15 44 80 6 - - - 145
- - - - - - - - - - - - - 6 19 270 155 59 1 - - - 510
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 10 13 - - - - 24
Total 1 - - - - - - 1 2 18 206 187 1933 9706 16441 16811 6779 1446 96 - - - 53627
0 % - - - - - - 0 % 0 % 0 % 0 % 0 % 4 % 18 % 31 % 31 % 13 % 3 % 0 % - - -
1/15/1997 NGC MS 63 Teletrade Auction 0911, 911/Lot# 1823 $553.88
5/30/2005 NGC MS 66 Goldberg May 30 - June 16, 2005 Pre-Long Beach Coin Auction, 31/Lot# 1173 $3,565.00
9/9/2009 PCGS MS 66 Heritage Auctions 2009 September Long Beach, CA Signature US Coin Auction #1129, 1129/Lot# 1982 $5,318.75
2/7/2013 PCGS MS 66 Heritage Auctions 2013 February 7 -8 & 10 US Coin Signature Auction - Long Beach Session(4), 1182/Lot# 5009 $3,818.75
8/18/2013 PCGS MS 63 GreatCollections GreatCollections Coin Auctions 08/18/2013, 88/Lot# 106895 $1,541.45
4/6/2014 PCGS MS 64 David Lawrence Rare Coins Internet Auction # 798, 807/Lot# 1108 $1,625.00
10/31/2014 PCGS MS 66 Stack's Bowers November Baltimore 2014, 6039/Lot# 5533 $2,350.00
PCGS MS 66 Bonhams $2,106.00
NGC Registry Score 1928 $20 MS
Base 2197 2226 2233 2240 2247 2254 2261 2268 2274 2285 2295 2308 2319 2329 2352 2417 2671 3172 6007 10735 18026 28491
2207 2228 2235 2242 2249 2256 2263 2270 2278 2288 2299 2312 2322 2337 2374 2502 2838 4117 7583 13165 21514 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 2263 2270 2278 2288 2299 2312 2322 2337 2374 2502 2838 4117 7583 13165 0 0
Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles, 1907-1932 414
20th Century Series Type Set, Non-Proofs Only 219
Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles, 1907-1928, One-Per-Date 141
Philadelphia Mint Gold Issues, Complete Circulation Issue 21
Philadelphia Mint Double Eagles, Circulation Issue 13
Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles, 1907-1932, Circulated Coins Only 3
Grade: MS 67
Owner: Yonsu
Owner: jackisimon
Collecting Saint-Gaudens Part VII: 1924 - 1933 $20
5/10/2012 — Part VII and the last article in this series covers 1924 to 1933 Saint–Gaudens Double Eagles.
View full article >
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TV On The Radio announce new album ‘Seeds’
Dean Van Nguyen Jul 29, 2014 8:32 pm BST
Credit: Guy Eppel/NME
The band's fifth album will be their first since 2011
TV On The Radio have announced an upcoming new album in a short trailer released via their website. Scroll down to watch the video.
Slated for an autumn release, ‘Seeds’ will be the band’s fifth studio album and first since ‘Nine Types Of Light’, which was released in 2011.
‘Seeds’ will also be the New York group’s first album since the death of bass player Gerard Smith, who was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after finishing work on ‘Nine Types Of Light’.
In April 2013, TV On The Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe confirmed the band had returned to the studio and were working on new material. They went on to unveil new track ‘Mercy’ that July.
“I’m not sure what’s gonna be out when, but there’s new stuff coming,” said Adebimpe. “We’re sort of collecting material for a record, but right now we’re only thinking in terms of songs, smaller things we can put out regularly until an album seems possible. Which I love. It’s not that you’re less precious about the process, but I like coming in and saying, ‘Let’s make a couple songs’, not feeling any sort of pressure to lock ourselves in a room.”
Jay and Silent Bob Credit: Alamy
Watch the cameo-heavy first trailer for ‘Jay and Silent Bob Reboot’
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COMPETITION TERMS AND CONDITIONS – updated 24 July 2018
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Torridge District Council votes to increase council tax
Sarah Howells
sarah.howells@archant.co.uk
Read more from Sarah Howells
Updated: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 (10:50)
Torridge District Council is proposing to increase council tax.
Torridge District Council has voted to increase its share of council tax by £5 for the next financial year.
Despite its community and resources committee voting for a council tax freeze last month, Torridge District Council's full meeting opted to increase the bill for tax payers.
This means that Torridge's average Band D Council Tax will rise from £153.66 to £158.66.
It was proposed by councillors that the additional resources be directed to economic regeneration.
Deputy leader and lead member for customer services, Councillor David Hurley, said: "Torridge is a low wage economy and across the district families are struggling to keep up with the cost of living.
"That's why it is so crucial that councils do as much as they can to help."
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4.7 T is for Timeliness
The date when information was produced or published can be an important aspect of quality. This is not quite as simple as saying that 'good' information has to be up to date.
Here is an example of a news item from an onli
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4.2 P is for Presentation
By presentation, we mean, the way in which the information is communicated. You might want to ask yourself:
Is the language clear and easy to understand?
Is the information clearly laid out so that it is easy to read?
Are the fonts large enough and clear?
Are the colours effective? (e.g. white or yellow on black can be difficult to read)
If there are graphics or photos, do they help
3.7 News sources
Many news sources are now available online. Searching an online version of a newspaper is easier, quicker and more effective than searching through printed indexes, microfilm or actual newspapers.
Abyz News Links A portal to online news sources from around the world, providing up-
3 Seeking relevant information
Once you have a reasonably clear idea of what you are looking for and have identified potential consultants, you may need to find out more about them before you can choose. Ideally, you will gather information from as many sources as possible, and, as with any such information, evaluate its reliability and relevance to your particular context. The clearer you are about the nature of the intervention that you require, and the key features of the context in which this will occur, the better pla
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Unit Image
Zohar_Manor-Abel
All other materials included in this unit are derived from content originated at the Open University.
2.5 Rating agencies: corporate governance indices
A number of rating agencies, including credit rating agencies, have developed indices to measure corporate governance performance. Among the more well-known indices are FTSE-Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) Corporate Governance Index, Standard & Poor's Corporate Governance Scores, Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index. Rating agencies can act as catalysts for corporate governance by either directly factoring corporate governance in
5.5.3 Normative pressures
Normative pressures concern what we think we ‘should’ do. They concern our values and the broader social values to which we subscribe. Some organisations make explicit attempts to foster particular kinds of value (for example, in relation to customer service), but normative pressures also come from outside the organisation, such as from a particular professional or religious affiliation.
Institutional pressures are important for both private and public-sector organisations.
1.1 Introducing decision-making
A vast literature on decision making stretches back over several centuries and encompasses a wide range of academic disciplines – from history and literature through to mathematics. This unit is not a comprehensive survey of this field. Rather, we have chosen a few key topics that will help you to think in broader ways about how you and others take decisions; we shall also introduce you to some themes in social science which have direct relevance to managerial decision making. In particular
This unit covers a few key topics that will help you to think in broad ways about how you and others take decisions; we shall also introduce you to some themes in social science which have direct relevance to managerial decision making. The approach of this unit is descriptive: rather than prescribing how you should make decisions we look at frameworks that will help you to understand how decisions are actually made. We aim to help you to develop greater insight into both your own deci
2.1 The response of business
For most of human history, our influence on the planet has been small (i.e. sustainable). The waste produced by our presence has traditionally been dealt with by a process of dilution; burying things, or perhaps dumping them in the ocean, was a viable proposition because we were few and the land and the oceans were vast. Mankind was a minor perturbation on the planetary ecosystem. But with change as the ever-present factor, we grew in both numbers and influence.
In the last century, the
2.4 Problems in closure
Projects do not always go according to plan. If problems develop during the closure period there are particular difficulties. The following story is told by an integration manager of an IT project.
0 hours 15
2.3 Closing the project
Closing a project can be quite an emotional experience for team members who have worked together for some time, particularly if close bonds have developed. The manager of a project has some obligations to staff who have worked for some time on it. Build into the plan a closure interview with each member of staff, so that their contribution can be formally recognised and recorded. Staff may need help to recognise the skills and experience that they have gained and how these have been evidenced
4 Project inputs and outputs
A project involves the transformation of inputs into an output or product. For example, people's mental and physical efforts, bricks and mortar, equipment or materials might be transformed into a new road, a municipal park or an advertising campaign. Or perhaps transformed into a stream of outputs or products, for example, attendances at a conference or exhibition, state school places or data from a new in-house costing system.
The output or outputs might be used within the organisation
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:
Table 1: Eurobarometer 49, September 1998, © European Communities.
www.flickr.com TPCOM
All other materials included in this unit are derived from co
1.11.1 Subject positions
In her analysis, Blackman is identifying a pattern in Diana's talk and relating it to other similar methods of self-representation found in our culture. It is worth thinking through this in more detail. One key claim of discourse researchers is that language positions people – discourse creates subject positions. What does this mean? To speak at all is to speak from a position (remember the discussion of footing in the previous section). Further than this, the positions or slots in c
1.5.1 The co-production of meaning
The third sense in which discourse is a social action refers to the origins of meanings. Meaning emerges from complex social and historical processes. It is conventional and normative. We have some idea what it signifies to say Prince Charles is a proud man because we are members of a speaking community and culture which has agreed associations for ‘proud man’. We draw on those to make sense. Meaning is also relational. Proud signifies as it does because of the existence of other t
1.5.1 A ‘two currency’ world?
The introduction of the Euro threatens to have a significant impact on the international monetary economy as well as on the economies of the EU countries themselves. As yet this impact is not altogether clear since the Euro has only been operating for a few years. But certain trends are emerging and the possibilities are opening up. It is the main features of these trends that we concentrate upon in this section.
A preliminary point here is that the Euro exchange rate is not a policy va
1.4.3 Summary
EMU has been accompanied by fiscal rules embodied in the SGP.
An issue raised by this is the compatibility of a common single monetary policy target designed to defeat inflation with different fiscal policies ostensibly at the discretion of the individual govern ments.
When France and Germany contravened the SGP fiscal rule, it was effectively suspended and broke down. This was a case of the Council of Ministers asserting c
The material is contained in Citizenship: Personal Lives and Social Policy (ed. Gail Lewis) 2004, published in association with The Policy Press © The Open University, 2004. This publication forms part of the Open University course DD305, Personal Lives and Social Policy.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions). This content is made available under a Author(s): The Open University
In this unit we have explored the mutual constitution of personal lives and social policy through an analysis of the implications of different aspects of citizenship on the lives of refugees and asylum seekers. We have seen that legislation, social policy and practice concerned with asylum have profound effects on personal lives. Crucially, we saw that the very words used to describe people, their access to welfare, rights to work, legal status and the procedures for becoming a British citize
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Council met pursuant to adjournment. The President (The Hon. R. K. Sneath) took the Chair.
The Minister for Mineral Resources Development (The Hon. P. Holloway) sought leave to enable the Clerk of the Legislative Council to make a statement.
Leave being granted, the Clerk made a statement concerning the untimely death of Mr. Trevor Blowes, Deputy Clerk and Usher of the Black Rod of the Legislative Council, and his meritorious and distinguished service to the Legislative Council and the Parliament of South Australia.
Statement by
Clerk of the
Legislative Council.
The Minister for Mineral Resources Development by leave, moved - That the Legislative Council expresses its deep regret at the untimely passing of Mr. Trevor Blowes, the Deputy Clerk and Usher of the Black Rod of the Legislative Council, and places on record its appreciation of his meritorious public service and, as a mark of respect to his memory, the sitting of the Council be suspended until the ringing of the bells.
And being supported by the Hon. J.M.A. Lensink, the Hon. S. M. Kanck, the Hon. M. C. Parnell, the Hon. A. M. Bressington, The Minister for Correctional Services (The Hon. C. Zollo), the Minister for State/Local Government Relations (the Hon. G. E. Gago), the Hon. D.G.E. Hood, the Hon. J. M. Gazzola, the Hon. R. I. Lucas, the Hon. C. V. Schaefer, the Hon. I. K. Hunter, the Hon. B. V. Finnigan, the Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins, the Hon. R. D. Lawson, the Hon. T. J. Stephens, the Hon. J. A. Darley, the Hon. S. G. Wade, the Hon. R. P. Wortley and the President:
Mr. Trevor Blowes,
Deputy Clerk and
Usher of the
Black Rod of the
At twenty five minutes past three o’clock the sitting was suspended until the ringing of the bells.
At twelve minutes to four o’clock the sitting was resumed.
The Minister for Police (The Hon. P. Holloway), by leave, without notice, moved - That the sitting of the Council be not suspended during the continuation of the Conference on the Legal Profession Bill.
Legal Profession Bill.
Answer to Question on Notice No. 141 received this day was tabled by the President who directed that it be distributed and printed in Hansard.
Question on
The Minister for Mineral Resources Development, without notice, moved - That the Standing Orders be so far suspended as to enable Question Time to be extended to enable the Hon. R. I. Lucas to ask a question of the Minister and for the Minister to complete his reply.
Suspension of
Standing Orders.
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the question - That the Classification (Publication, Film and Computer Games) (Classification Process) Amendment Bill be now read a second time:
Ordered - That the Bill’s consideration in Committee be an Order of the Day for next day of sitting.
(Publication, Film
and Computer
Games)
(Classification
Process)
Ordered - That Orders of the Day (Government Business) No. 3 and No. 4 be Orders of the Day for next day of sitting.
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the question - That the Appropriation Bill be now read a second time:
On motion of the Hon. J. M. Gazzola, the debate was adjourned and ordered to be resumed on motion.
Appropriation Bill.
At ten minutes past six o’clock the sitting was suspended until the ringing of the bells.
At fifteen minutes to eight o’clock the sitting was resumed.
Ordered - That the adjourned debate on the question - That the Appropriation Bill be now read a second time - be now resumed.
The Minister for Mineral Resources Development, pursuant to contingent notice, moved - That the Standing Orders be so far suspended as to enable the Bill to pass through its remaining stages without delay.
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the motion of the Hon. D.G.E. Hood - That the Social Development Committee inquire into and report upon the adequacy and appropriateness of laws and practices relating to the sale and consumption of alcohol and, in particular, with respect to -
I. Whether those laws and practices need to be modified to better deal with criminal and other anti-social behaviour arising from the consumption of alcohol;
II. The health risks of excessive consumption of alcohol, including -
(a) “binge drinking”; and
(b) foetal alcohol syndrome;
III. The economic cost to South Australia in dealing with the consequences of alcohol abuse; and
IV. Any other relevant matters:
Sale and
Consumption of
Alcohol - Social
Committee to
inquire into -
Motion re.
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the question - That the Development (Political Donations) Amendment Bill be now read a second time:
(Political Donations)
And it being twelve of the clock:
Council divided:
Ayes, 2
The Hon. M. C. Parnell (Teller)
So it passed in the negative.
Noes, 17
The Hon. A. M. Bressington
The Hon. R. L. Brokenshire
The Hon. J. A. Darley
The Hon. B. V. Finnigan
The Hon. D.G.E. Hood
The Hon. I. K. Hunter
The Hon. S. G. Wade
The Hon. R. P. Wortley
The Hon. P. Holloway (Teller)
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the motion of the Hon. R. P. Wortley - That the Report of the Natural Resources Committee on the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resource Management Board, be noted:
Committee -
Report on the
Natural Resource
Management Board,
be noted -
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the question - That the Constitution (Casual Vacancies) Amendment Bill be now read a second time:
Question put and negatived.
(Casual Vacancies)
Ordered - That Order of the Day (Private Business) No. 5 be an Order of the Day for Wednesday, 10 September 2008.
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the motion of the Hon. B. V. Finnigan - That the Report of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee on an Inquiry into the Medical Board of South Australia be noted:
Statutory Authorities
Review Committee -
Report on an Inquiry
into the Medical
Board of
South Australia,
On the Order of the Day being read for the adjourned debate on the question - That the Landlord and Tennant (Distress for Rent - Health Records Exemption) Amendment Bill be now read a second time:
Landlord and
(Distress for Rent -
Exemption)
The Minister for Mineral Resources Development, without notice, moved - That the Standing Orders be so far suspended as to enable the Clerk to deliver Messages, the Appropriation Bill and the Landlord and Tenant (Distress for Rent - Health Records Exemption) Amendment Bill to the Speaker of the House of Assembly whilst the Council is not sitting and notwithstanding the fact that the House of Assembly is not sitting.
Question put and passed, without a dissentient voice, there being present an absolute majority of the whole number of the Members of the Council.
Standing Orders:
Delivery of Bills
and Messages.
The Minister for Mineral Resources Development, by leave, without notice, moved - That the Council, at its rising, do adjourn until Tuesday, 9 September 2008, at fifteen minutes past two o’clock.
of Sitting.
Council adjourned at nineteen minutes to two o’clock a.m. until Tuesday, 9 September 2008, at fifteen minutes past two o’clock.
The Hon. M. C. Parnell
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Fantastic Israeli Diplomatic Passport 1965 of Zeev Rotem
Published on 9 October, 2017 21 June, 2019 by Tom Topol
By pure chance, I could grab this fantastic Israeli Diplomatic Passport 1964 of Zeev Rotem at an auction platform, and I am happy to have it in my archive now. This is only the 2nd Israeli Diplomatic passport I could see in all the years. The first one I exchanged with a fellow collector for a German travel document, which is the core focus of my historical passport archive.
The website http://www.palyam.org/indexEn which is a great source on Aliya Bet (Ha’apala), the Palyam, has his biography. I bring you the full text here.
This is the Way it Was
Rotem, Zeev, born 1926 in Jerusalem, joined the Palmach in 1943, joined the course for those accompanying immigrant ships in 1946.
As a graduate of the Hebrew Gymnasium, I joined the Palmach in May 1943 and was placed in “D” Company, as I had requested. At first, I was in the headquarters company at Givat Haim and then was a squad leader at Sdeh Nachum. I was accepted as a biology student at the Hebrew University in 1945 so transferred to “H” Company, which was the Palmach reserve in Jerusalem. While there I took part in several operations; the Night of the Railroads, Wingate Night ( when Bracha Fuld was killed), and the Night of the Bridges. That night we blew up the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River. When the situation in Palestine deteriorated further, I discontinued my studies and took part in a particular operation with Yigal Allon and Aharon Spector. In the wake of that operation, British detectives searched for those who had taken part. It was thought best that Shmulik Haram and I leave the country. Both of us joined the Naval Company and took the course at Caesarea for those accompanying the immigrant ships. In January 1947 I left Palestine with Moshe Rabinovitch and Chaim Kaufman (both of blessed memory) on a passenger ship that sailed to Naples. As soon as we landed, we were arrested by the Italian Police and sent to prison. This was most likely due to the intervention of the F.S.S. – the Field Security Service of the British army, which was active in trying to prevent Aliya Bet (illegal immigration). We disappeared and did not reach Rome.Yehuda Arazi (of blessed memory) was waiting for us in Rome. After two weeks in prison, we were transferred by a prisoners’ train to prison in Reggio Calabria. Our hands were manacled, but we were able to free them and thought of fleeing but did not succeed in doing so. In Reggio Calabria we were separated for interrogation. One of the prison guards noticed that I had a British mandatory passport; it was brown and not blue as for British citizens. He decided that I was English. I was therefore beaten thoroughly and when I asked him why he answered that that was his retaliation for the bombing of his house by the British Air Force during the last war. I did not tell him what my real reason was for coming to Italy, but if I had, I might have received better treatment from him.
The three of us were once more thrown into a cell, and a few days later they wanted to add a fourth prisoner. We objected and said we were too crowded and there wasn’t even a bed for the fellow. They put him in any way and to our surprise, it was Eli Zohar. He had been captured at Reggio Calabria after the LCT that he was on had broken down, which led to his capture. This was our first contact with the outside world, so we had a good deal of information to exchange. Two hours later our door opened, and a guard came to take Eli. We, who had objected to receiving an addition in our cell, now tried to talk the guard into letting him stay. Our request was also not granted.
Several days later we were sent to prison at Milazzo, Sicily. Conditions in this camp were terrible. We were 12 men in one filthy cell that was home to fleas, roaches, etc. We slept on filthy mats on a damp, cold floor. We spent one week there and were then moved by boat to the island of Lipari, a small volcanic island in the group of Aeolian Islands. At the time. this island served as a deportation station. We were put into an Italian concentration camp which was meant to hold illegal immigrants of all nationalities marked for deportation. There were also former Nazis there. We were decontaminated with DDT and then had a hot shower. We were then invited to speak to the interpreter who divided the prisoners according to their nationality. This fellow was a survivor of the Holocaust who could speak eight languages. For some unknown reason, we were housed in the main hall, which had iron beds and was next to a group of Hungarians. We learned to sing their songs. The interpreter, Meir, became our contact with the outside world and with his help, were able to contact Rome and let them know where we were. Ada Sereni’s efforts to have us released were successful and two weeks later we left the camp and made for Palermo. From there we traveled to Rome and arrived after a delay of two months. We finally met Yehuda Arazi and he lectured us on the political situation and the position of the British in Italy, and then gave us our assignments.
I became involved in the work at Metaponto, where we loaded Olim on the “Shabtai Luzinski”, which succeeded in penetrating the British blockade when it arrived at Palestine. I then took command of a camp near Bari and the Olim were taken from that camp to another one near Monopoli. We taught the young adults there “kapap”(fighting with sticks), something of Israeli geography, and Hebrew. We set up an elementary school for the younger children and I taught classes of children between the ages of 6 and 12. I saw that these children were curious and eager to learn, as they had missed so much during their years of wandering. When the camp was emptied, I returned to Rome. During the short time that I was there, Yigal Allon and Yisrael Galili came to visit the Palyamniks in the city. Yehuda asked us to take them to the Opera, where Puccini’s “La Boheme” was being performed. I sat between Galili and Allon and during the third act on a cold and wintry morning, Mimi appears and asks the help of the artist, Marcel. The music was soft and sweet and I felt the head of Yigal as he sank into a deep sleep on my right shoulder. Yisrael had already done so on my left shoulder.
At that moment I felt the weight of the whole Hagana movement resting on my shoulders. Having spent considerable time in the south, I was now sent to northern Italy, to Magenta, near Milan. Food was prepared there and packed in boxes for use on the ships carrying Olim. One day I received an order to go to La Spezia and from there to Porto Venere where I was to board the American ship “President Warfield”. This ship, later known as “The Exodus,” was anchored near a shipyard there. The crew of the ship consisted of American Jews who had been in the US Navy, Army, or Merchant Marine. Some were Zionists and there was even a non- Jewish minister, John Grauel, among them. The captain of the ship was Ike Aharonovitch. The meeting with this crew was particularly interesting after having spent my time previously with survivors of the Holocaust. I heard about the motivations of these crew members in volunteering to work on the ship, and getting involved with illegal immigration to a country that was not yet independent. Here was the Remnant of the Holocaust knocking on the gates of a besieged country, demanding the right to enter. In the shipyard, all the material necessary for the loading of 4,500 Olim was put aboard. The big ship drew the attention of the British, as did the purpose of the voyage. They demanded that the Italians prevent the ship’s leaving port. Two coastal patrol boats sat waiting at its bow. Avraham Zakai and Mario Kanda supervised the loading of material necessary to build the sleeping pallets, the kitchen equipment, toilets, etc. After six weeks of delay, the coastal vessels raised anchor and the “Exodus” left for Port de Bouc, France. Avraham Zakai and a group of Italian workers sailed with her and continued construction of the sleeping pallets. Fantastic Israeli Diplomatic Passport 1965 of Zeev Rotem
While at Port de Bouc, I was able to procure a card from the government of Honduras signifying that I was a bonafide seaman. The photo in it resembled me quite closely. I traveled to Paris by train for a 48-hour visit to look for members of my family that I had not seen since 1937. Of the fourteen that I had last seen, only two were left. I found them and we had a very emotional encounter. They had no idea that I was in France, so they were completely surprised. Of the other twelve, the younger ones had been killed in the French Maquis and the older ones had died in the extermination camps. In preparation for the sailing of the “Exodus”, I took care of Olim housed in camps in the vicinity of Marseilles. On the eve of the sailing, three days before Bastille Day, we traveled in a long convoy to the port of Sete. The Olim were loaded onto the ship, the ship left port, and was at sea before dawn. I was told to return to Italy and to take the four Italians with me, who had remained to finish work that had to be done. I rented a little fishing boat in Cannes and under the use of doing a bit of sailing in the region, we went out into the open sea. The fisherman’s girlfriend sunned herself in a bikini on the deck and the Italian men never ceased to take their eyes off her. By midnight we were close to Bordighera, on the Italian coast. There, our ways parted; they left for La Spezia, and I went to Milan. While I was at Milan and Magenta I was also able to enjoy the concerts which were given on Sunday afternoons (I Pomeligi Musicali). Then once again I was off: this time to Venice and to Palestrina, which is on the canal that connects to Chioggia. Here in a shipyard Aryeh Kaplan (Kippi) and I oversaw the preparation of a ship which was to carry Olim. This was a wooden vessel that had been built in 1921 and went by the name of “Rafaelucia”. The work at this shipyard took about 5 weeks to complete and while in the vicinity of Venice, I was once again able to enjoy church music, concerts and the opera, La Fenice. Fantastic Israeli Diplomatic Passport 1965 of Zeev Rotem
We loaded 794 Olim in the shipyard, of which 150 were young children and babies. The Olim came aboard during the night and we scurried out of the shipyard and into the Adriatic at dawn. Fourteen Palyamniks remained on the ship in order to load the Olim and then helped get them organized. We later lowered them from our ship into a small boat, when we were in the vicinity of Ancona. No sooner did they hit land, than they were captured by the police and charged with being illegal immigrants. Ada Sereni managed to have them released soon after. The Captain of the ship, Eugenio Lenci, had eight Italian sailors under him. I was the commander of the ship, whose name was changed to “Kadima” while we were en route. I had two Palyamniks to accompany me; one was to care for the Olim and the other was the Gideoni. On our way to Palestine, in November 1947, we ran into a storm near Crete and most of the Olim came down with seasickness and vomiting. One of the women had labor pains as she was in her ninth month of pregnancy. We transferred her to my cabin and a doctor sat nearby on the floor of the cabin, with a pail next to him so that he could also throw up. I did as he directed, and assisted the woman in giving birth. A fine little girl was born whom I named “Aliya”. The ship was caught as we approached the shore of Palestine and the passengers were deported to Cyprus. We three Palyamniks hid in the bow of the ship and were taken off the vessel by the crew that came to clean it. I never saw Aliya again. She should now be 53 years old but I don’t know if her parents accepted her name or gave her a different one. After the UN passed the resolution in November creating the State, and the riots began, I spent two months accompanying convoys from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In February 1948 I was again sent to Italy to continue working for the Mossad for Aliyah Bet. My base was in Naples and my job was to prepare the ships “Yechiam”, “Tirat Tzvi”, “Mishmar Haemek”, “LaNitzachon”, and “Medinat Yisrael”, to carry olim. I spent most of my time in the area of Naples, Formia, and Gaeta. When the State came into existence, I was also occupied with outfitting procurement vessels such as the “Albatross”, the “Arsia”, “Avionia” and “Kefalos”. I finally returned to Israel on the “Scio”, together with Dan Ben Amotz and Kuba Betzer. This ship brought seven dismantled Messerschmidts that had been bought from Czechoslovakia and were shipped from the port of Bakar on the coast of Yugoslavia. That was the last of my jobs in the Diaspora and when I completed my service in the IDF, I returned to the Hebrew University to finish my studies in biology with a stipend from the army for 18 months of study.
Curriculum Vitae after 1949.
I completed my studies at the Hebrew University, received a degree in Natural Sciences and later went on for a doctorate. In 1951 I was sent to Copenhagen and to the Pasteur Institute in Paris by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), in order to receive training in preparing a vaccine for tuberculosis (B.C.G.). This was a prevalent disease at the beginning of the ’50s, after the large wave of immigration. After the mass vaccinations carried out by the Department of Health, I went over to the Institute for Biological Research where I specialized in diseases spread via breathing. In 1961 I went to London, to the National Institute of Medical Research (N.I.M.R.) where I worked with Dr. Isaacs, the discoverer of Interferon – a factor in hindering the growth of viruses. In 1964 I was appointed a scientific adviser to the Israeli Embassy in London and Scandinavia and continued with my laboratory work at the same time. When I returned to Israel in 1968, I set up scientific industries within the framework of the Israel Research and Development Company (IRDC). In 1971, as director of industrial applications in the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Shorek facility, I continued with the development of industrial, scientific industries. In 1973 I transferred to the Bi-national Fund for Science, (Israeli-American) and was appointed Director of the Fund which supported research in the fields of medicine, natural sciences, energy economics, and sociology, together with other Israeli and American scientists. I retired in 1995 and now busy myself with an old hobby – artistic photography, and I read and listen to classical music. From time to time I take a trip on a ship doing oceanographic research and go on trips to places where I have already been or have not yet seen. I live with my wife Ruth on Ma’apilim Street, Herzliya, which borders on the Mediterranean. When my time comes, I hope my body will be returned to the sea, and if that is not possible, then I shall donate it for the use of science.
Editorial Remark: In most Palyam literature it is written that the commander of “KADIMA” was Zeev Paz. It seems that both Zeev’s obtained appointments in Italy from different authorities, but nevertheless, both of them ran the vessel with full cooperation. Fantastic Israeli Diplomatic Passport 1965 of Zeev Rotem
The passport is clipped at the corners to make the document obsolete – a standard procedure at that time. Further, the entries are saying “Dr. Zeev Rotem, Attache/Counselor for Scientific Affairs to the Ambassador of Israel in London, Stockholm, Oslo, and Copenhagen”.
Passport issued in Jerusalem, 15 Mar 1964 and extended several times till the end of 1969. 2/3 of the passport pages are with entries and plenty of stamps (150+) and interesting visas like…
Germany, London 1964
Czechoslovakia, London 1964
Spain (Diplomatic), London 1964
Sweden (Diplomatic), London 1964, 1965
Norway (Diplomatic), London 1964, 1965
Denmark (diplomatic), London 1965
UK (Diplomatic), London 1965, 1966
USA (Diplomatic), London 1967
History Alya, British Palestine, Israel, Palyam
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The prepaid principle
Creating opportunities
Information for private customers
Private |
Always the latest news
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On 1 February 2018, DiePresse wrote: "They developed a solution to the idea of "cash for the internet" and thereby became pioneers in online payments. From its headquarters in Vienna, paysafecard has become one of the market leaders in prepaid payment solutions with the paysafecard, my paysafecard, and paysafecard Mastercard® brands.
After the top 10 rating in the "Austrian Leading Companies" award and the distinction as a "Great Place to Work" in the "New working worlds and quality of life" category, the magazine Profil on 30 April 2018 described working at Paysafe as "more than a job", adding that here "there are multifaceted career opportunities like few other places in Austria". All of this in "teams who think outside the box, identify global trends and develop them further - with a hands-on mentality free from routine or grey everyday work."
Cash.at reported on 4 June 2018: "With paysafecard, the Paysafe company had already launched a prepaid payment solution in 2000 and established it in Austria. An alternative payment innovation is now appearing in the form of Paysafecash in twelve countries in Europe, including Austria - 27 further markets are to follow by the end of 2018, including the USA, Great Britain and Poland."
We are also particularly proud of the following awards.
For US customers: paysafecard is issued by The Bancorp Bank; Member FDIC.
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Vandals set fire to statue of World War II General Lee — not the Confederate leader
By Jessica Schladebeck
Feb 21, 2019 | 10:00 AM
A war memorial poised outside an old-fashioned North Carolina home in honoring the founder of the U.S. Army Airbourne has been the subject of vandalism, likely because he shares a last name with controversial Confederate General Robert E Lee. (Major General William C Lee Airborne Museum)
A war memorial poised outside an old-fashioned North Carolina home honoring the founder of the U.S. Army Airborne has been the subject of vandalism, likely because he shares a last name with controversial Confederate General Robert E Lee.
The marble statue of U.S. Army Gen. William C. Lee was doused with flammable liquid and set on fire around 10 p.m. last Thursday, leaving parts of it ashy and scorched. It’s the latest, albeit most unlikely, piece to become roiled in the nationwide debate regarding the removal of Confederate War memorials.
Marc Johnson, Curator of the General William C. Lee Airborne Museum in Dunn, was shocked to see the statue defaced.
“This is a hometown grown boy here that turned out to be an international hero of World War II so to come and try to destroy his statue is just an insult to everybody,” he told WNCN.
“I was surprised that anybody would do that to this museum statue. This is not a Civil War museum and this is not Robert E. Lee. This is General William C. Lee from United States Army Airborne form World War II, so I was hurt and surprised that somebody would actually do this.”
[More U.S. News] Woman receives postcard sent from Hong Kong in 1993 »
Aside from sharing a last name, the two men have nothing in common, Johnson said, emphasizing that William Lee was not a racist.
“When he was in World War II he’s considered the father of the airborne which there were plenty of black paratroopers, a very diverse outfit,” he said.
While it’s not clear whether the vandals actually mistook the World War II general for Robert E. Lee is unclear, the city of Dunn is located within the Raleigh-Durham area — where some of the most tense debates regarding the removal of Confederate memorials have unfolded in the last few years.
Protesters in August 2017 toppled a bronze statue depicting a Confederate soldier out side a Durham courthouse. The following year, activists and students pulled down a monument at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill called Silent Sam, which paid homage to UNC graduates who died fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War.
Firefighters were able to put out the flames on the WW II memorial, but the damage has left a lot of local residents frustrated. Many of them have pointed out how it is an act of disrespect directed at a man who fought for his country.
“Spineless cowards who deface monuments like this have no respect for how our community was founded and no clue about sacrifice honor or duty...” one woman, who identified herself as a former medic with the 82nd Airborne division, wrote in response to a Facebook post describing the incident.
Johnson told WNCN the fact that the statue is made from marble makes it tricky to clean and fix, but he’s reached out to a local stone mason for some help. He suspects the repair will cost him several hundred dollars.
[More U.S. News] Fist fight at Five Guys lands five guys in jail »
Authorities are investigating the vandalism and the Dunn Police Department is offering $1,000 reward for any information leading up to an arrest.
Straight Pride Parade reacts to Netflix reprimand: ‘a heterophobic company steeped in hatred and bigotry’
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Your Money|We Went to a Steak Dinner Annuity Pitch. The Salesman Wasn’t Pleased.
We Went to a Steak Dinner Annuity Pitch. The Salesman Wasn’t Pleased.
CreditCreditRobert Neubecker
By Ron Lieber
LOS ANGELES — The pitch arrived in my aunt’s mailbox, just after her 80th birthday and in the wake of a few frightening weeks for retirement investors.
“Tired of the stock market roller coaster ride? Want to protect your principal and lock in interest earnings?” the invitation read.
It offered the opportunity to hear all about it at a “complimentary gourmet meal,” featuring “New York steak.” Even better, it would be at a restaurant in Granada Hills that her mother, Vi, had loved.
The mailer was addressed to another member of the family who no longer lives there, but my aunt had no problem registering when she called the number on the card. It said a guest was welcome, too. I volunteered, and she registered me as well.
And the host? An insurance salesman, Arif M. Halaby, who I quickly discovered had been the subject of a state cease-and-refrain order earlier in the decade because of certain financial products that an administrative law judge determined that he had sold. The state found that Mr. Halaby was offering “unqualified” securities after an ailing older client pulled equity from his home to invest in a real estate development in Costa Rica.
I had long wanted to attend one of these steak dinners, and if you are in or near retirement, or sort the mail of people who are, you might be curious about them as well. Such dinners have been a cause for concern.
Almost a decade ago, in “Protecting Older Investors: 2009 Free Lunch Seminar Report,” AARP said 63 percent of the people it had surveyed had received an invitation like the one my aunt found in her mailbox. Among that group, 57 percent had received five or more within the previous three years. The organization figured that 5.9 million people ages 55 or over had attended at least one seminar.
AARP’s protective instincts were warranted. Two years earlier, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the North American Securities Administrators Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority sent examiners to 110 free-meal seminars. They found that 57 percent of the time, the salespeople used materials that “may have been misleading or exaggerated or included seemingly unwarranted claims.”
I genuinely hoped not to encounter any such thing Tuesday night. But I did.
This is the chart that was among the printed materials that dinner attendees received.
A life-size picture of Mr. Halaby, a former police officer, greeted us on a banner in the foyer of the private dining room. Once we were inside, I saw a large chart on a stand up front. It turned out we were there to learn about equity indexed annuities, a complicated insurance product that I wrote about with a fair bit of skepticism back in 2008.
In short (and short is hard when trying to break down products like these), equity indexed annuities tend to work something like this: You hand over a sum of money to an insurance company for a period of time, and at the end you are guaranteed to get at least that much money back if you don't take some money out along the way. You generally don’t get a monthly check, and you agree not to take large amounts out during that period unless you are willing to pay a penalty. As for that equity index part, the insurance company will generally add money to the amount you initially plunked down, providing a portion of the gains reflected in whatever stock index the insurance company is using.
Mr. Halaby’s staff distributed material before dinner that included a chart that looked like the one at the front of the room. It showed an equity indexed annuity performing 8.29 percent better, after an 18-year period from 1998 to 2016, than the S&P 500 stock market index.
But the pamphlet’s chart has some fine print — so small that my 47-year-old eyes could barely make it out — that disclosed the following: The index it was using was not accounting for the reinvestment of dividends from all those stocks.
A quick email the next morning to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, confirmed the following: When you do reinvest dividends, that basket of stocks does 33.72 percent better than the annuity.
I had hoped to ask our host some questions after the steak, which was cooked medium unwell (no one asked how I wanted it prepared). But by then, Mr. Halaby, who has an active license to sell insurance, including annuities, was gone.
I made an appointment to meet him at his office the next morning, and he did not seem happy to see me once I told him who I was. He disparaged my employer and profession and accused me of attending under false pretenses.
A portion of an invitation sent out for the event.
I explained to him that I wanted to experience the dinner as any invited guest would have. My aunt’s R.S.V.P. used my real name, and Mr. Halaby seems to invite anyone and everyone to attend one of his events via his website, as long as you hand over your name, address, phone number and email.
I tried to ask him a long list of questions, starting with a few about that chart. At first, he said he would talk to me if I gave him five references of other people I had written about. (I sent him several names later that day.) Then, he gave me the name of a person he identified as his lawyer and told me to contact her about the chart. (She eventually declined to answer any of my questions.)
When I turned my line of inquiry to the cease-and-refrain order, he got up from his chair and said, “We’re done.” Then he showed me the door.
He told me over the phone on Thursday night, after I returned to New York, that he did not deliberately send mail to people over 70 years old and resented what he called the “dog whistle” effect of writing about someone older than that, as if I were trying to imply that he was preying on people well into their older years. I said no one had asked my aunt’s age when she R.S.V.P.’d. Another point I made: I know that mailing list rental firms aren’t perfect — the 50-something relative whose invitation arrived at my aunt’s hadn’t lived there for 15 years — but my aunt had also given me an identical invitation that a 76-year-old friend received at his home address.
To learn more about the chart in the pamphlet, I contacted the annuity company that created it, American Equity Investment Life Holding Company.
I asked Steven D. Schwartz, vice president of investor relations for the company, why the chart doesn’t show the returns for the S&P 500 with reinvested dividends. He said it was because the point of the chart is to show the lack of volatility of an equity indexed annuity compared with the S&P 500.
Of course, showing the S&P 500 with reinvested dividends would also do that.
In any event, Mr. Schwartz said, Mr. Halaby should not be using that chart, because the company has discontinued the annuity it depicts.
“It is expected that our independent producers will use current materials,” Mr. Schwartz wrote in an email, using industryspeak for salespeople who don’t work directly for the insurance companies.
When I asked Mr. Halaby about that, he told me that someone who had not been working for him for very long put the old chart in the pamphlet. He added that the chart behind him at the dinner, which to my eyes looked identical to the one in the pamphlet, was in fact different. He would not tell me what company had created it.
American Equity’s updated chart, which it sent me Thursday, shows the S&P 500 — still with no reinvested dividends — doing a bit better than a hypothetical indexed annuity for a period starting in 2006 and ending in 2017. To Mr. Halaby’s credit, he made no outsize promises during the dinner. “The primary thing is not to lose your money,” he told the crowd. “My job is not to make you rich.” It was reasonable, he said, for those in attendance to expect their money to grow 3 to 6 percent annually in an equity indexed annuity. Some people thought it was a compelling pitch; there was a smattering of applause when his presentation ended.
Such annuities may be suitable for some risk-averse retirees who are tired of owning stocks. But as I wrote a decade ago, you can probably get better returns during retirement (and not be penalized for taking too much out too soon) by investing mostly in ultrasafe bonds and adding some stock index fund exposure too.
There are probably plenty of advisers who sell useful products over a steak dinner. But as my experience here demonstrates, you shouldn’t show up for one without doing a couple of things. First, conduct a quick online search about the host, including a check of the central database for stockbrokers’ black marks and the similar ones that state insurance departments maintain. Mr. Halaby’s run-in with the state is right there on the first page of his Google search results.
Then, read any and all fine print, even if it requires a magnifying glass. Ask lots of questions. AARP published a good list several years ago, though I’d add another one: Why aren’t referrals from happy customers alone enough to keep you in business?
If you’re still intrigued by a particular product or pitch, don’t move any money right away. Get a second or third opinion from an independent financial planner, perhaps one who charges by the hour and has no stake in your decision.
While the steak dinner pitch might not be a con game, it is a bit of a psychological dance. You attend, you eat free food and by the time the cheesecake arrives, you may feel you owe a salesperson a one-on-one meeting.
Then you’re on the hook. If these meals didn’t catch lots of people, salespeople wouldn’t keep paying for them.
Ron Lieber is the Your Money columnist and author of “The Opposite of Spoiled.” He previously helped develop the personal finance web site FiLife and wrote for The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and Fortune. @ronlieber • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Steak Dinner and a Pitch? There’s Cause for Concern. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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RASCAL restoring readiness, the Air Force way
By L. Cunningham, 55th Wing Public Affairs / Published May 16, 2019
George Peny, an electronics technician assigned to the 4th Component Maintenance Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base (AFB), North Carolina, meets a semi-truck as it delivers a piece of a Rapid Assistance Support for Calibration unit (RASCAL) May 6, 2019, at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The RASCAL was deployed from Seymour Johnson AFB to assist Offutt AFB’s Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory staff who lost their facility in the March 2019 flood. (U.S. Air Force photo by L. Cunningham)
Master Sgt. Mason Lucas, a test measurement and diagnostic equipment quality manager assigned to the 4th Component Maintenance Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, carries power cables out of a integrated unit (INU) tactical shelter May 6, 2019, at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The INU is the main scheduling unit for the Rapid Assistance Support for Calibration unit brought in to reestablish the base’s capability to calibrate equipment, which was lost in the flood. (U.S. Air Force photo by L. Cunningham)
Senior Airman Jeremy Evans, a precision measurement equipment laboratory (PMEL) journeyman assigned to the 4th Component Maintenance Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base (AFB), North Carolina, explains the procedures outlined in the unit operating instructions for a Rapid Assistance Support for Calibration unit to Paul Hamel, 55th Maintenance Squadron PMEL site manager, May 6, 2019, at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The PMEL shop here is responsible for the repair and calibration of 6,000 pieces of Test Measurement Diagnostic Equipment that support the 55 Wing’s mission. (U.S. Air Force photo by L. Cunningham)
Airmen assigned to the 4th Component Maintenance Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, unload power cables for the Rapid Assistance Support for Calibration unit May 6, 2019, at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. PMEL is responsible for calibrating electronic, mechanical and physical dimensional test equipment in order to meet laboratory standards that are traceable to the National Institute of Standards. (U.S. Air Force photo by L. Cunningham)
Senior Airman Jeremy Evans, a precision measurement equipment laboratory (PMEL) journeyman assigned to the 4th Component Maintenance Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base (AFB), North Carolina, checks a torque calibration station within a tactical shelter unit on May 6, 2019, at Offutt AFB, Nebraska. Evans is one of five PMEL experts sent here to set up the Rapid Assistance Support for Calibration to restore Offutt’s capability to calibrate equipment, which was lost in the flood earlier this year. (U.S. Air Force photo by L. Cunningham)
A Rapid Assistance Support for Calibration unit arrived at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, May 6, 2019, to re-establish the base’s capability to calibrate equipment, which was lost in the flood.
RASCAL is a mobile Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory intended for use worldwide where PMEL capabilities are needed. It is one of only two in the Air Force that allows deployable PMEL capabilities.
The March flooding left Offutt’s PMEL with 5 ½ feet of water that destroyed the lab and the equipment it contained. The 55th Wing’s test measurement diagnostic equipment was shipped to Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri and Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, to continue the wing’s mission while the RASCAL was in transit.
“This is the first full-package deployment of the Seymour Johnson RASCAL since it’s been restored,” said U.S Air Force Maj. Jeremiah Gottberg, 55th Maintenance Squadron commander. “This is a great opportunity to flex this Air Force capability and put it into action on a full-time basis in relief of a natural disaster.”
PMEL is responsible for calibrating electronic and physical dimensional test equipment in order to meet laboratory standards that are traceable to the National Institute of Standards. They are responsible for the repair and calibration of base equipment from torque wrenches to multi-complex Spectrum and Network Analyzers. The PMEL shop here repairs and calibrates 6,000 pieces of Test Measurement Diagnostic Equipment that support the 55 WG’s mission.
“The purpose of RASCAL is to take a basic PMEL and drop it anywhere in the world,” said U.S Air Force Master Sgt. Mason Lucas, 4th Component Maintenance Squadron, test measurement diagnostic equipment quality manager, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. “Providing instant calibration capabilities and rapid assistance to support calibration.”
The RASCAL, which consists of five tactical shelters, a transformer and a generator, was originally built in 1994. It arrived at Seymour Johnson in 2006 and has been deployed twice. In 2015 to 2018 the tactical shelters were updated.
The Seymour Johnson PMEL team worked in collaboration with Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, where the only other RASCAL in the Air Force is housed, to ensure both units and their capabilities were up to standards and would also have the same equipment on board. It turned out to become a three-year restoration process to restore readiness capabilities.
The RASCAL not only has the ability for calibration specifications for aircraft maintenance, it calibrates equipment used by other units for carbon dioxide gas detectors, all their meters and clamp on amp meters, firing pin protrusion gages and even weight scales.
“They were originally designed for contingency deployments,” said George Peny 4CMS, electronics technician. “It turns out this can be used not only for contingency, but for humanitarian conditions and natural disasters, it gives us broader range on when and where to use them, a bigger capability of usage besides strictly contingency”
Upon arrival at Offutt, it took five PMEL experts from Seymour Johnson 16 hours to set up and make it operational.
“It’s exciting to stand up the RASCAL capability at Offutt, it restores capability to the 55th Wing and it is an opportunity to validate the RASCAL’s proof of concept,” said Paul Hamel, 55th MXS PMEL site manager. “During this period of use, we will be able to capture any calibration shortfalls and recommend future equipment purchases and upgrades of the RASCAL, prior to use in an expeditionary or emergency location.”
Offutt’s PMEL will now be able to calibrate 75 to 80 percent of the equipment that they could calibrate before the flood with the remaining 20 to 25 percent being sent to other PMELs.
“This is a story of restoration,” said Lucas. “It’s just great to see all our hard work come to fruition and contribute to a severely degraded mission. This is what restoring readiness is all about.”
4th Component Maintenance Squadron 55th Wing Offutt Rapid Assistance Support for Calibration RASCAL Seymour Johnson AFB
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OHCHR > English > News and Events > DisplayNews
Right to pain relief: 5.5 billion people have no access to treatment, warn UN experts World Hospice and Palliative Care Day - Saturday 10 October 2015
GENEVA (9 October 2015) – Speaking ahead of the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day*, two United Nations human rights experts urge States and the international community to prioritize universal and non-discriminatory availability and access to palliative care and pain relief treatment to anyone in need.
The UN Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, Rosa Kornfeld-Matte, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dainius Pūras, warn that in many countries palliative care is still non-existent or not even recognized as a medical specialty.
“An estimated 5.5 billion people have no or inadequate access to medicines containing narcotic drugs or to treatment for moderate to severe pain, according to the UN International Narcotics Control Board - the body charged with the implementation of the UN drug conventions.
In other words, three quarters of the world’s population, have limited or no access to pain relief treatment. Older persons with a life-threatening or life-limiting illness continue to have limited access to medication, due to restrictive drug regulations and the failure to implement a properly functioning supply and distribution system.
This is often exacerbated by inadequate health-care system capacity and a lack of training programmes that address the specific needs and wishes of older persons. In fact, in many countries, palliative care is still non-existent or not recognized as a medical specialty.
Older persons have the right to live the last years of their lives with dignity and without unnecessary suffering. Obstacles to accessing palliative care must be identified and tackled to provide relief for those in need.
On occasion of the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day, we call on States to comply fully with their obligations and ensure the availability and accessibility of such care for all in need.”
(*) The World Hospice and Palliative Care Day takes place the second Saturday of October every year. The Day is organized by a committee of the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance, a network of national and regional hospice and palliative care organizations that support the development of hospice and palliative care worldwide. This year’s theme is “Hidden Lives/Hidden Patients”.
Ms. Rosa Kornfeld-Matte (Chile) was appointed by the Human Rights Council as the first Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons in May 2014. Ms. Kornfeld-Matte served as the National Director of the Chilean National Service of Ageing where she designed and implemented the National Policy of Ageing. She has a long career as an academic and is the founder of the programme for older persons at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Learn more, visit: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/OlderPersons/IE/Pages/IEOlderPersons.aspx
Human rights of older persons: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/OlderPersons/Pages/OlderPersonsIndex.aspx
Mr. Dainius Pūras, (Lithuania) was appointed by the Human Rights Council as the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. He is a medical doctor with notable expertise on mental health, child health, and public health policies. He is a Professor and the Head of the Centre for Child Psychiatry Social Paediatrics at Vilnius University, and teaches at the Faculty of Medicine, Institute of International Relations and Political science and Faculty of Philosophy of Vilnius University, Lithuania. Learn more, visit: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Health/Pages/SRRightHealthIndex.aspx
The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
For further information and media requests, please contact Mr. Khaled Hassine (+41 22 917 93 67 / khassine@ohchr.org) or write to olderpersons@ohchr.org
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / xcelaya@ohchr.org)
For your news websites and social media: Key messages about our news releases are available on UN Human Rights social media channels, listed below. Please tag us using the proper handles
Twitter: UNrightswire
Facebook: unitednationshumanrights
Google+: unitednationshumanrights
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The Spiritual World Can't Exist
As you well know, science discoveries, especially quantum mechanics, has been misused by many philosophers and self proclaimed experts to prove that a spiritual world exist, not by experimenting with expensive equipment (Billions of $)but just misinterpreting the recent discoveries in a manner that suit their beliefs, while the experts who use this equipment have other conclusions to draw on the real results of this research.
“British theoretical physicist Brian Cox recently pointed out, there's no room in the Standard Model of Physics for a substance or medium that can carry on our information after death, and yet go undetected in the Large Hadron Collider.
It's become glaringly obvious that the Standard Model of Physics is an incomplete theory, with several gaping holes that physicists have been trying to patch up for decades, but Cox says the existence of ghosts doesn't fall within the 'known unknowns' of the Standard Model. Instead, he says it directly contradicts the one of the most rigorously tested and fundamental laws of the Universe we have - the second law of thermodynamics”. (www.sciencealert.com)
For further reading goto the URL below. For those with cognitive dissonance, don.t bother you won’t accept reality, when it contradicts your believes, anyway.
http://www.sciencealert.com/a-physicist-just-explained-why-the-large-hadron-collider-disproves-the-existence-of-ghosts
Facts Do Not Convince
Why do facts not change the previous contrary opinion of many truth deniers. As a matter of fact (pun intended) facts are often dismissed because of cognitive dissonance and mounting evidence can actually harden their position according the research of Facts Psychology as reported in a recent article in Science American magazine. For example, there are tons of facts about evolution being the only theory which explains evolution by using evidence found in many different fields of research such as geography, ecology, genetics, archaeology, anthropology and linguistics and it is accepted by a over 90% of the scientists in their fields. There are many people who, because of their beliefs, including some scientists, will not accept any of these facts because of the mental stress caused by the conflict with their beliefs, values or ideas. According to Leon Festinger, a person "who experiences inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and so is motivated to try to reduce the cognitive dissonance occurring, and actively avoids situations and information likely to increase the psychological discomfort.”.
There are many other areas where we find this phenomenon. People who believe in Homeopathy, where solutions are diluted at 1: 100 and repeated 200 times, will not accept the fact that the solution is totally ineffective .
Climate change is another area where the scientific community has firmly established that it is caused at such a rapid rate, because of the human influence on the atmosphere, but is rejected by the people who have a great interest to continue in the way we produced energy in the past.
Conspiracy theories are rampant and although most of these are easily refuted by available facts, people will not accept reality but instead claim that these facts are manufactured and are part of the conspiracy.
Vaccinations causing autism and the many “cures” that are “kept secret” by Big Pharma and the medical profession are other examples.
Then there are people convinced that Aliens are among us and that pyramids, Nasca Lines in Peru are alien works, although it has been shown that humans are quite capable to create large project like these, with the knowledge and methods they had in the past.
Since we all suffer from cognitive dissonance at some level, only those who can suppress it and change their minds when contrary facts are presented, will be comfortable with new insights and developments. Have an open Mind!
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Summer Nights Return to SeaWorld Orlando from June 20
Monday, June 15, 2015 SeaWorld Orlando, SeaWorld Parks and Resort Orlando, SeaWorld's Summer Nights
This summer as the sun goes down, the fun comes up for families and friends at SeaWorld Orlando with evening events and the brand-new Celebrating America Concert Series being kicked-off by American country group Trick Pony on June 20 and 21, 2015. SeaWorld's Summer Nights event officially begins June 20 and runs through August 9 with nightly festivities including concerts, new shows (as well as returning favorites), Annual Passholder's events, and much more!
Celebrate America Concert Series
Every Saturday and Sunday guests can enjoy all-American performances by a variety of artists and genres at this all-new summer concert series. The celebration of America continues throughout the park with all-American food and daily happy hours. Plus, pass holders can enjoy a complimentary sample of a tasty brew.
- June 20 and 21: Trick Pony. This contemporary country duo brings a unique style and blend of harmonies to country music, creating Trick Pony’s signature sound. Their albums produced eight charted singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including four Top 20 hits: “Pour Me,” “On a Night Like This,” “Just Do What I Do,” and “On A Mission.”
Enjoy live performances from this American country music group at 5:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Concerts will take place in the air-conditioned Nautilus Theater and are included with park admission. More artists that will participate in this year's concerts series will be announced at a later date.
Clyde & Seamore’s Sea Lion High
Turn up the laughs with nighttime showings of this all-new sea lion comedy adventure. Full of fun and big personalities of sea lions, walruses and otters, the show takes place in an aquatic-themed high school where laughter and education go hand in hand (er, flipper).
Shamu’s Celebration: Light Up The Night
Experience this returning fan-favorite, a high-energy show featuring original music, amazing production elements and see SeaWorld’s majestic killer whales. Shamu Stadium will transform with stylistic lighting and colorful backdrops to create a social and celebratory atmosphere ending with a fireworks finale spectacle.
Late-Night Thrills
SeaWorld’s thrill rides are a whole different experience when the sun goes down. Guests can experience Kraken, a thrilling roller coaster, and Manta, a facedown, headfirst roller coaster where riders can skim, glide and fly like a manta ray, and many more.
Island Nights at AQUATICA, SeaWorld’s Waterpark
Beginning July 3, Aquatica heats things up with Island Nights presented by Coca-Cola - an all-new beach party taking place every Friday and Saturday through August 8 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Guests can enjoy live DJs, dancing on the beach and an evening menu sizzlin’ with flavor at Waterstone Grill. All included with park admission to Aquatica.
PHOTOS: © 2015 SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Summer Nights Return to SeaWorld Orlando from June 20 Reviewed by OTPN Administrator on Monday, June 15, 2015 Rating: 5
Looks great, yous like Sea World is on it's way up.
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What to Know About the NATO Summit
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Because in a small seaside town in Wales, something is happening that could determine the future of Europe.
By Sanjena Sathian
This week, a star-studded list of power players is descending on, of all places, Wales, to deal with the Russia problem. The whole thing rings of another era — a Cold-War-esque time when Western Europe was uniting against Eastern Europe. In fact, it harks back to the very reason NATO was formed, back in 1949.
For the first few years, the 12 nations originally comprising NATO — there are now 28 — focused on the battlefields of the Cold War. Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, a smooth Connecticut Democrat who helped engineer the U.S.’s entrée into Korea, masterminded much of the creation of NATO. See an earlier draft of the treaty from April 1948 at the Truman Library archives.
Interestingly, one line in Article Four was crossed out — this article, which member states can invoke to call a consultation among themselves should one of them feel threatened:
1948 version:
The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.
(b) there exists any situation which constitutes a threat to or breach of the peace.
How it turned out:
While it’s really Article 5 — the one in which member states pledge to come to one another’s aid — that captures the public’s imagination, the stricken (b) point in Article 4 is another one worth thinking about. NATO began with an aim to protect its member states, not simply to guard the broad geopolitical commons. But today, when the members convene, they will face down a danger that threatens a non-member state most directly. With a bigger alliance and a more interconnected world, collective security can no longer mean just protecting the alliance.
As OZY’s own John McLaughlin, the former deputy director of the CIA, wrote last week about the summit:
“The alliance had been formed in 1949 with the singular purpose of protecting Western Europe from the sort of takeover the Soviet Union had engineered across Eastern Europe, from the Baltics and Poland in the north to Bulgaria in the south … NATO succeeded in protecting Western Europe, but this victory led to a big question: Now what? For a time, it was kept busy with crises like the Balkan wars of the 1990s and, later, participation in Afghanistan’s 48-member International Security Assistance Force.
“But the crisis in Ukraine is taking the alliance back to its roots.”
Top on the agenda this week, in a word: Putin.
Here’s what you need to know about NATO and Russia:
Though NATO began as a way to contain the USSR, Russia and the organization officially began cooperating in 1991, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the “official” end of communism in the East.
Those 23 years of cooperation ended four months ago, over the Ukraine crisis.
An oft-forgotten part of the history revolves around the small state of Georgia. In 2008, Russia and Georgia went to war over Russia’s insistence that South Ossetia and Abhkazia, two regions within the Republic of Georgia, were separate states. Just this year, NATO denied Georgia membership in the alliance.
Check out the Guardian’s smart animation: “Russia v. Nato in 99 Seconds”:
OZY’s profile of Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian leading NATO who had a history of successful relations with Putin before taking over.
OZY’s two-part series on the crisis in Ukraine: part 1, part 2.
A look at how Europe’s complex security entanglements are rippling across the continent and inspiring a wave of right-wing politics.
Another way the summit rings of history? The specter of Germany, as OZY’s politics and foreign affairs reporter Emily Cadei writes, NATO’s strength may all come down to Germany and its mutti, Angela Merkel: ”For the first time, Germany, more than the U.S., may hold the key to NATO’s effectiveness. With the largest population and economy in Europe, Germany has the heft to drive the alliance’s security agenda. NATO’s European members stretch from Iceland to Romania, and the U.S. has shouldered the bulk of security responsibilities since NATO’s 1949 founding. But amid budget cuts at home and an increasingly isolationist public, the U.S. is winding down its European footprint. The only other NATO country with the military size, industrial might and economic wherewithal to fill the gap is Germany. Indeed, when reports surfaced Aug. 22 of Russians firing artillery at Ukrainian forces, the foreign leader President Barack Obama called first was German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”
But though the Germans are in a “pacifist mood” these days, as Cadei writes, all that could change with a twitch of Putin’s toe into Crimean territory.
Sanjena Sathian, Asia EditorFollow Sanjena Sathian on TwitterContact Sanjena Sathian
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The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
By Toby Wilkinson
Category: Ancient World History
Jan 08, 2013 | 656 Pages
About The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Magisterial . . . [A] rich portrait of ancient Egypt’s complex evolution over the course of three millenniums.”—Los Angeles Times
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post • Publishers Weekly
In this landmark volume, one of the world’s most renowned Egyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, from its birth as the first nation-state to its absorption into the Roman Empire. Drawing upon forty years of archaeological research, award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson takes us inside a tribal society with a pre-monetary economy and decadent, divine kings who ruled with all-too-recognizable human emotions. Here are the legendary leaders: Akhenaten, the “heretic king,” who with his wife Nefertiti brought about a revolution with a bold new religion; Tutankhamun, whose dazzling tomb would remain hidden for three millennia; and eleven pharaohs called Ramesses, the last of whom presided over the militarism, lawlessness, and corruption that caused a political and societal decline. Filled with new information and unique interpretations, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt is a riveting and revelatory work of wild drama, bold spectacle, unforgettable characters, and sweeping history.
“With a literary flair and a sense for a story well told, Mr. Wilkinson offers a highly readable, factually up-to-date account.”—The Wall Street Journal
“[Wilkinson] writes with considerable verve. . . . [He] is nimble at conveying the sumptuous pageantry and cultural sophistication of pharaonic Egypt.”—The New York Times
Also by Toby Wilkinson
See all books by Toby Wilkinson
About Toby Wilkinson
Toby Wilkinson earned a degree in Egyptology from the University of Cambridge, and is the recipient of several prestigious awards given in his field. He has published nine books, and received the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for his previous book, The Rise and… More about Toby Wilkinson
Paperback | $24.00
Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks
Jan 08, 2013 | 656 Pages | 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 | ISBN 9780553384901
Ebook | $12.99
Published by Random House
Mar 15, 2011 | 656 Pages | ISBN 9780679604297
People Who Read The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt Also Read
“A magnificent, illuminating and refreshingly readable overview of the entire phenomenon of ancient Egypt.”—The Washington Post
“Magisterial . . . [A] rich portrait of ancient Egypt’s complex evolution over the course of three millenniums.”—Los Angeles Times
“Engrossing . . . Readers will find it hard to put down. . . . This book will serve as a standard for general readers and college students alike.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Absolutely divine . . . a thorough, erudite and enthusiastic gallop through an astonishing three thousand years.”—The Sunday Times
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SCHWAB CUP
PGA TOUR names Phoenix Country Club as host of 2017-18 Charles Schwab Cup Championship
Season-ending PGA TOUR Champions event determines annual Charles Schwab Cup champion
Follow @ChampionsTour
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – PGA TOUR Champions and Charles Schwab & Co., announced today that Phoenix Country Club in Phoenix will serve as host of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in 2017 and 2018. The 2017 event will be contested the week of November 6-12.
“Phoenix Country Club is a wonderful venue on which to contest our most prestigious event of the year,” said PGA TOUR Champions President Greg McLaughlin. “The Charles Schwab Cup Championship provides an exciting conclusion to our Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs, and I am confident our players and fans will embrace this new venue for our season-ending tournament.”
Since 1990, the Charles Schwab Cup Championship has served as the final event of the PGA TOUR Champions season, with winners such as Tom Watson, Hale Irwin, Raymond Floyd and Fred Couples.
The event will take on added significance this year as the third and final leg in the inaugural Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs – a season-ending, three-tournament series used to determine the Charles Schwab Cup champion.
The event’s 2015 edition was one of the most exciting to date, with Bernhard Langer and Billy Andrade dueling in a playoff which left Andrade as the tournament winner and Langer as the Charles Schwab Cup champion for a record third time in his career.
“The Charles Schwab Cup is the ultimate prize that every player on the PGA TOUR Champions strives for each season,” said Derek Benbow, managing director of sponsorships for Charles Schwab Co., Inc. “We are looking forward to hosting the Charles Schwab Cup Championship at the storied Phoenix Country Club, which will provide an outstanding backdrop for the conclusion of the Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs.”
Phoenix Country Club will be the eighth club to host the Charles Schwab Cup Championship when the event moves from its current home of Desert Mountain Club in nearby Scottsdale, Arizona. The 2016 event will return to Desert Mountain Club’s Cochise Course the week of November 7-13.
Phoenix Country Club served as host of the PGA TOUR's Waste Management Phoenix Open from 1932-1986, producing winners such as World Golf Hall of Fame members Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson.
Founded in 1899, the club is one of the oldest venues in the west, with a classic, parkland routing tucked away in a neighborhood adjacent to the city's center city, complete with views of Piestewa Peak, Camelback Mountain and the downtown skyline.
The original layout was designed by Harry Collis in 1901, with a full redesign by PGA TOUR Champions star Tom Lehman and noted architect John Fought in 2002.
“Phoenix Country Club and its members are excited to bring professional golf back to our course,” said Rick Baker, president of Phoenix Country Club. “We are especially thrilled that PCC will be the home of the 2017, 2018 PGA Tour Champions’ Charles Schwab Cup Championship. It has been 30 years since our last involvement with professional golf and we look forward to providing the backdrop for this exciting finish to the season.”
For more information on the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, PGA TOUR Champions or Phoenix Country Club, please visit PGATOUR.COM.
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Richard L. Hasen
Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science
Professor Richard L. Hasen is Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Hasen is a nationally recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, and is co-author of a leading casebook on election law.
From 2001-2010, he served (with Dan Lowenstein) as founding co-editor of the quarterly peer-reviewed publication, Election Law Journal. He is the author of over 100 articles on election law issues, published in numerous journals including the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review and Supreme Court Review. He was elected to The American Law Institute in 2009 and served as an Adviser on ALI’s law reform project, Principles of Election Law: Resolution of Election Disputes.
Professor Hasen was named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by The National Law Journal in 2013, and one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California in 2005 and 2016 by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal.
His op-eds and commentaries have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, and Slate. Hasen also writes the often-quoted Election Law Blog, which the ABA Journal named to its “Blawg 100 Hall of Fame” in 2015. His newest book, The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption, was published in 2018 by Yale University Press.
Professor Hasen holds a B.A. degree (with highest honors) from UC Berkeley, and a J.D., M.A., and Ph.D. (Political Science) from UCLA. After law school, Hasen clerked for the Honorable David R. Thompson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then worked as a civil appellate lawyer at the Encino firm Horvitz and Levy.
From 1994-1997, Hasen taught at the Chicago-Kent College of Law and from 1998-2011 he taught at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, where he was named the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law in 2005. He joined the UC Irvine School of Law faculty in July 2011, and is a faculty member of the UC Irvine Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy.
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Corporate Political Activities 2018: Complying with Campaign Finance, Lobbying and Ethics Laws
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Maryam Nawaz demands Imran Khan's resignation
By Power Corridors , 08-Jul-2019
Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has demanded the resignation of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, the media reported on Monday.
In a post-midnight rally on Sunday in Mandi Bahauddin, the 45-year-old Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President, raised slogans against Khan and said that the 66-year-old cricketer-turned-politician does not have any legitimate right to rule Pakistan. Maryam also said that putting her father Sharif behind the bars will be a crime now, alleging that his sentencing had been given under "immense pressure from hidden hands", a claim rejected on Sunday by the presiding judge, Arshad Malik.
At a press conference in Lahore on Saturday, Maryam said that the entire judicial process regarding the trial that led to her father being convicted and sentenced to prison was severely compromised. She also played a secretly recorded video that she claimed featured a conversation between Nasir Butt, a man she described as a loyal fan of Sharif, and Malik, who had in December last year sentenced Sharif to seven years in jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption reference and acquitted him in the Flagship Investment case.
But on Sunday, Malik rejected Maryam's allegations, saying that Sharif was convicted on the basis of evidence.
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University of South Carolina's Moore School of Business Launches New Web Resource for Insurance Technology Industry
New Student-Run Website to Foster Innovation in Insurance Technology, Services and Outsourcing
The Moore School of Business
COLUMBIA, S.C., Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of South Carolina's Moore School of Business today announced that it has launched a new website that will serve as a portal for innovation in the insurance industry.
The site, called i3 (http://www.innovationininsurance.com) is operated as a small business enterprise by Moore School students who are interested in insurance and technology. The site focuses specifically on issues related to technology innovation in the insurance business process -- from the time the policy is sold until the claim is paid and the policy has expired.
"Insurance is perhaps the most data and process-driven service business in the world," said Jeff Thompson, i3's managing director and adjunct faculty member for insurance at the Moore School. "This new web portal provides everyone in the industry -- particularly insurance technology professionals -- the critical access to information about innovative developments in the industry."
The new site features a simple design, is rich in content, and includes sections on:
News about mergers, acquisitions, major investments and major industry developments
Vendor and company announcements, including new products, personnel, etc.
Insurance technology industry events
A comprehensive directory of insurance technology vendors
As a new venture, i3 has recruited an impressive Board of Directors and Board of Advisors (http://www.innovationininsurance.com/AboutUs/tabid/57/Default.aspx), made up of some of the leading executives and academics in the industry, to guide the content and research direction of the program.
"From an educational perspective, this initiative provides a tremendous opportunity for our students to interact with key executives in the insurance industry and gain direct, hands-on experience in running a small enterprise," says Moore School Deputy Dean Scott Koerwer.
The Moore School is known for its strong academic reputation in insurance -- ranking among the top ten in the country among business school insurance programs in U.S. News & World Report. The School also receives strong business support in the community with various benefactors providing for approximately 25 scholarships for undergraduate business students in insurance and risk management.
Columbia, SC has long been a central hub for the insurance technology industry with more than 30 companies represented in the area. The city and surrounding region are home to such insurance technology notables as Eagle Eye Analytics; AcroSoft Corp.; AIG Technology; Blue Cross & Blue Shield of SC (a major insurance technology firm for Blues organizations nationwide); CSC; Duck Creek; Group1; SpeedBuilder Systems; StoneRiver; TM Floyd & Company; Trumbull Services; AQS; CGI; Innovation Group; and DocuCorp/Skywire.
Industry leaders believe the Columbia area is ripe for further investment by insurance technology firms in the area. "Columbia has a strong reputation in the insurance technology industry," said Eddie Jones, Senior Vice President of Marketing for StoneRiver, and co-chair of i3's Board of Directors. "By successfully partnering with the University of South Carolina and by developing new talent in the industry, we believe we can further enhance Columbia's already strong reputation with the aim of attracting future investment in the Midlands."
"The new portal is located in cyberspace, but with our editorial team located in Columbia, we can draw on all of the insurance technology expertise and worldwide resources to publish the most innovative information available to the industry in real time," said Ernie Csiszar, Executive Director and Co-Chair of i3.
About i3
The purpose of www.InnovationInInsurance.com is to foster innovation in the way insurance is practiced by providing a portal to all online resources helpful to insurance technology, services, and outsourcing.
About the Moore School
The Moore School of Business is among the highest-ranked business schools in the world for international business education and research. Founded in 1919, the school has a history of innovative educational leadership, blending academic preparation with real-world experience through internships, consulting projects, study-abroad programs, and entrepreneurial opportunities. The Moore School offers undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees, as well as distinctive executive education programs. In 1998, the school was named for South Carolina native and New York financier Darla Moore, making the University of South Carolina the first major university to name its business school after a woman. For more information, visit http://www.moore.sc.edu.
SOURCE The Moore School of Business
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Power’s World: why the West is losing the opium trade to the Taliban
by Jonathan Power / May 15, 2009 / Leave a comment
The West's approach to opium farming is allowing the Taliban to control the drug trade.
Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine who lived 460-370BC, concluded that diseases were naturally caused and were cured by natural remedies. Opium, he wrote, was one of the latter. But he was also of the opinion that it should be used sparingly and under control.
If only our governments today could take such a sanguine and informed view of the use of opiates in medicine today. No one is in need of an enlightened attitude more than the Western forces now operating in Afghanistan where they are committed to destroying the peasants’ main source of income, the poppy crop.
The tough, no nonsense, eradication programme has done as much as Western military action to push country people into the Taliban camp. A more sensible option would be to buy the poppy crop. That is the opinion of the former president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, as well as the former finance minister Sartaj Aziz, who probably knows more about the economics of agriculture in Pakistan than anyone else (see my interview with Musharraf for Prospect from March 2007).
It would solve two problems in one blow. First, it would help deal with the world-wide shortage of medical opiates which, according to the World Health Organization, are causing a “global pain crisis”, particularly in Africa, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying in agony for lack of pain relief. Second, it would prevent the opium farmers of Afghanistan being driven into the arms of the Taliban.
There are many practical problems with the idea of buying up the crop. If the prices were set too high, it might encourage even more farmers to grow opium poppies. If they were not high enough, farmers would go on selling at least some on the black market. Nevertheless, they would probably rather sell their crop legally than to the mafia.
How would the Muslim world react to buying up the crop? Before the U.S. invasion the Taliban was opposed to the growing of poppies and that effectively prohibited it. But after the invasion they turned 180 degrees and encouraged it, mainly for the purpose of providing revenue to buy military equipment.
Muslim theology over the ages, whilst vigorously anti alcohol (and even, in one period, coffee) has usually considered opium benign ly, if cautiously. It is seen as an antidote to sorrow–in some places iced poppy tea is traditionally served at funerals. I’ve heard Muslims arguing that if the West is so determined to eliminate opium it should ban alcohol.
It was Arab peoples who developed and organised the first systematic production and trade in opium–by the ninth century AD Arab scholars and physicians were publishing books on opium and its preparation. The most serious scholar, an outstanding physician, Avicenna, whose Canon of Medicine was the standard text for five centuries, wrote that opium was of particular value in helping cure dysentery, diarrhoea and eye diseases. (Interestingly, today cocaine can be used as an anaesthetic in eye and nasal surgery.)
For the most part it was Islamic practice only to use opium for medical not recreational purposes. When it spread westwards to Europe in the Middle Ages, it became a recreational drug, producing many addicts, especially among the upper classes.
Today, the only countries where poppy growing is legal are India, Australia, Turkey, France and Spain. In India poppy growing is licensed to about 100,000 farmers. The processing is carried out at the Government Opium and Alkaloid works in Ghazipur, before it is exported to international pharmaceutical companies for the extraction of morphine or codeine.
This goes to show that with careful monitoring it should be possible to make legalising Afghanistan’s poppy crop a success and make a major contribution to the great shortage of pain killers, especially in poorer countries.
Legalisation would also save a good many lives from military action in Afghanistan and is far more likely to win “hearts and minds”. Maybe, as Martin Booth has written in his seminal book Opium, “it is God’s own medicine”.
Meet the donor detective
Stefanie Marsh / April 3, 2019
Thousands of children conceived by anonymous sperm donation still have no right at all to...
It's not just the avocados—our modern diets are hurting the planet
Jane Shilling / May 7, 2019
At a time when the food industry is both imperilling the planet and ourselves, a new book...
Jonathan Power
More by Jonathan Power
Talking with Brazil's next president
What Turkey's referendum means for the Kurds
Things are getting better in the third world
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Qualidigm Authors National Study on Adverse Events
A new study published December 14, 2015 in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, “Predictors of Warfarin-Associated Adverse Events in Hospitalized Patients: Opportunities to Prevent Patient Harm,” found that adverse events related to warfarin, a drug used as an anticoagulant (blood thinner), remain common in hospitalized patients. Qualidigm, the mission-driven healthcare consulting company based in Wethersfield, Conn., with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and other national leading institutions, conducted the study.
The researchers used medical record data of Medicare patients 65 and older from the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System, the nation’s largest randomly selected medical record abstraction-based database designed for patient safety tracking.
The study, which was funded through the AHRQ, assessed the frequency of international normalized ratio (INR) testing to monitor the effectiveness of warfarin, and its relationship to over-anticoagulation and warfarin-related adverse events.
“The results of this study show that the INR was not always monitored daily, and lack of daily monitoring was associated with over-anticoagulation and bleeding adverse events,” said Mark Metersky, M.D., lead author of the study and also a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. “The observed lapses in daily INR monitoring may in part be due to the absence of evidence or guidance on how often the INR should be monitored in patients receiving warfarin in the hospital. We hope that the evidence of a relationship between less than daily INR monitoring and bleeding events will lead to improved practices and safer care for hospitalized patients.”
“Improving patient safety in the hospitals starts with determining the root causes for adverse events,” said Qualidigm president and CEO, Tim Elwell. “Qualidigm has been working on patient safety since 2001. We are pleased that this study has revealed yet another evidence-based practice that can improve care for hospitalized patients.”
Since the Institute of Medicine’s landmark article, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System” revealed the staggering number of patients who die in U.S. hospitals each year due to the “nation’s epidemic of medical errors,” wide-ranging efforts have been implemented by a multitude of America’s healthcare stakeholders to improve patient safety, care coordination and processes, health outcomes and cost efficiencies.
Nationally, AHRQ has developed a patient safety toolkit for hospitals to use to prevent pressure ulcers, and is participating in the national effort in concert with the American Hospital Association to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections. AHRQ is also a key participant in the Federal Partnership for Patients program, which aims to demonstrate improvements in patient safety by reducing preventable adverse events among all patients by 40 percent from 2010 to 2013.
A link to the online version of the article can be found here.
Mark Metersky is the lead and corresponding author for this study and a Qualidigm consultant. Co-authors include: Yun Wang, Ph.D., (Harvard School of Public Health and Qualidigm consultant); Noel Eldridge, M.S., (AHRQ); Lisa Jaser, Pharm.D. (Griffin Hospital); Robert Bona, M.D. (Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine); Sheila Eckenrode, R.N. and Anila Bakullari, B.S., (Qualidigm); Mary Andrawis, Pharm.D. , M.P.H. (CMS); David Classen, MD, (United States Department of Health and Human Services); and Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM. (Yale University School of Medicine).
Ronnie Saini 2016-09-01T20:54:38+00:00 January 14th, 2016|News|
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©June 11, 2009 Asher Intrater
This week the case opened in court against ultra religious groups who have been persecuting the Messianic congregation in Beer Sheva and attacked their building causing much destruction. Howard Bass, leader of the Beer Sheva congregation, asks for prayer that the truth will prevail; that Judge Iddo Ruzin will discern what really happened; that the leaders of the attack will be brought to justice; that the lawyers will have wisdom to present the case. The judge has already admitted, "It is indisputable that a very serious incident occurred." The next hearing is scheduled for June 21.
We are thankful that in the elections in Lebanon this past week the coalition of moderate Muslims, Druze, Westerners and Christians, called "The Future" party led by Saad Hariri, took the victory over the Hizballah terrorist group backed by Syria and Iran. The voter turnout was high at 53 percent. Hariri's coalition took 67 seats as opposed to the 57 by Hizballah. The challenge remains as to whether Hariri's coalition will submit to Hizballah's demands to have veto power on all cabinet appointments.
Tomorrow, Friday June 12, are scheduled presidential elections in Iran. The two front runners are Ahmadinejad, who has the support of Iran's supreme leader Ayatolla Khamenei, and Mir Hossein Moussavi, who has the support of former president Hashmi Rafsanjani. The race is close and heated. Ahmadinejad (in his charming way) has accused his opponents of being traitors, of spreading lies like Adolph Hitler, and worthy of being imprisoned for having insulted him. While Moussavi may not be that much different in ideology from Ahmadinejad, his camp represents the possibility of reform in the country and a vote against the madness of Ahmadinejad.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to give a dramatic policy statement in a speech at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv. His statements so far have indicated that he wants to recognize all of Israel's previous commitments to the US and to the Palestinians, including the "Road Map" outlined by George W Bush, but that he is opposed to other unilateral concessions. Netanyahu has to stand in a difficult place, resisting pressure from the international community and President Obama on the one hand, and those of more extreme right wing position within his own coalition on the other hand.
One of the demands of the international community is for Israel to agree to a "two state solution". Actually, most Israelis would be happy for a two state solution if it were to lead to peace, but there is little chance of extreme Muslim factions every really agreeing to peace with Israel. In fact the very idea of "two states, for two peoples" sounds a little illogical. Which two states, for which two peoples? One state for Palestinians and the other for Jews? What seems to be planned is one state for Palestinians and the other state for Palestinians and Jews. If there was really supposed to be two separate states for two separate peoples, why is everyone speaking of moving Jews out of their homes, but no one is speaking of moving Palestinians? Why is everyone speaking of freezing all Jewish settlement in so called Palestinian territories, but no one is speaking of freezing Arab settlement in Jewish territories?
Jerusalem Sabbath Demonstrations
Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat is facing a challenge from the ultra Orthodox community in Jerusalem. Barkat has approved allowing the parking garage at the municipality to remain open on Shabbat (Saturday) to encourage tourism and cultural events in the city. The ultra Orthodox see this as a violation of the Sabbath and of rabbinic law. Last Shabbat they staged a violent demonstration confronting police. Barkat has stated he will keep the parking lot open anyway. Most of the seculars see the demonstrations of the ultra Orthodox as an attempt to drive all other groups out of the city and to bring Jerusalem under Orthodox rabbinic control.
IHOP Israel Mandate Conference
We thank the Lord for another successful Israel Mandate Conference at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Mike Bickle, Dan Juster and Asher were the main speakers. In parallel messages Saturday, Mike spoke on The Fullness of Israel and Asher spoke on The Fullness of the Church [Asher's other messages included: Fighting Jezebel and Jihad; A Passion for Yeshua to Rule and Reign; and The Coming Second Holocaust]. We are touched by the degree of commitment that IHOP has for God's purposes for the nation of Israel. The team at IHOP is leading the way for the kingdom of God in much of the Body of Christ today.
While Asher and Betty were busy ministering this week at IHOP, Tikkun and the Call2All Hong Kong, their apartment in Jerusalem was broken into by illegal Muslim workers. Documents, jewelry, money, keys, check books, etc. were stolen. "For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren of our trouble… we were hard pressed on every side… that the life of Yeshua (Jesus) may be manifested" – II Corinthians 1:8; 4:8; 4:10. "Joyfully accepting the plundering of your possessions" – Hebrews 10:34. We are thankful to God that this insignificant loss is nothing to be compared to the eternal fruit in our Lord and Savior.
No Revival without Persecution
Recently our team had a chance to fellowship with "J", a leading Arab evangelist. Many of his family are Muslim religious leaders. When he came to faith in Jesus, his family demanded that he recant. At one point, his relatives cornered him in a room, beating him and threatening to kill him (an "honor killing" in the Muslim world and not even to be brought to trial). At that moment one of the relatives had a heart attack and they rushed out to the hospital leaving J alone. He also shared about many of the miraculous breakthroughs they are seeing in Muslim evangelism. J's concluding statement to us was, "There can be no revival without persecution."
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June 17, 2015 4:11AM ET
Neil Young, Donald Trump Spar Over ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ Use
Young claims campaign was not authorized to use track, but Trump spokesperson says song was legally obtained
Jason Newman
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Neil Young and Donald Trump are sparring over the use of "Rockin' in the Free World" in Trump's presidential announcement.
Tommaso Boddi
UPDATE: Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders appeared at a Denver rally over the weekend with Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” playing in the background. Amateur footage is available (5:00 in).
When Neil Young released his anthemic track “Rockin’ in the Free World” off 1989’s Freedom, the song quickly became a rallying cry in post-Reagan America for “American values” and the fall of communism. With George H. W. Bush still settling into his presidency, Young criticized the president’s ideology, specifically referencing Bush’s “thousand points of light” comment and blasting Republicans for what he felt was a disregard toward the lower-class.
Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Neil Young Deep Cuts
Behind the Scenes of Neil Young's New Protest Album 'The Monsanto Years'
More than 25 years later, Republican Donald Trump, announcing his run for president Tuesday at Trump Tower, used the track as part of his kickoff, sparking condemnation from the rocker.
“Donald Trump was not authorized to use ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ in his presidential candidacy announcement,” a spokesperson for the rocker’s Lookout Management said in a statement. “Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America.”
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign told Rolling Stone that the candidate was a fan of Young’s music, despite their differing views, and that the track was used legally. “Through a license agreement with [performance-rights organization] ASCAP, Mr. Trump’s campaign paid for and obtained the legal right to use Neil Young’s recording of ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ at today’s event,” the spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. “Mr. Trump is a huge fan of Neil Young and his music and will continue to be regardless of Neil’s political views.”
According to an ASCAP document called “Using Music in Political Campaigns,” for a song to be used properly, “the campaign will need to contact the song’s publisher and possibly the artist’s record label to negotiate the appropriate licenses with them.” It’s unclear whether the Trump campaign contacted Young, his management company or record label to use the track. (Editor’s Note: As The Hollywood Reporter notes, that usage applies only to the use of a song in a campaign ad. A representative for ASCAP declined to comment when asked for details about the case.)
Young shares a co-writing credit on “Rockin’ in the Free World” with Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro through Young’s Silver Fiddle Music and Sampedro’s Poncho Villa Music, according to ASCAP.
ASCAP addresses artists’ legal rights and criticisms in their document on political campaigns under the question, “Can the campaign still be criticized or even sued by an artist for playing his or her song at an event?”
“Yes. If an artist does not want his or her music to be associated with the campaign, he or she may be able to legal action even if the campaign has the appropriate copyright licenses,” ASCAP says. “While the campaign would be in compliance with copyright law, it could potentially be in violation of other laws, including “Right of Publicity” and “False Endorsement.”
The use of Young’s song is just the latest in a perpetual controversy that comes around every presidential cycle, with politically minded artists coming out against specific campaigns and parties. In 2012, Mitt Romney used Silversun Pickups’ “Panic Switch” at at least one event, causing the band to issue a letter through their lawyer refuting any endorsement of the candidate. Four years earlier, after Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin used Heart’s “Barracuda” during her campaign, the band issued a statement noting that they “did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC.”
More recently, Massachusetts punks Dropkick Murphys tweeted at Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker asking him to stop using their song “I’m Shipping Up to Boston.” “Please stop using our music in any way,” the band wrote on Twitter. “We literally hate you!!!”
Ironically, this is not the first time Trump and Young have crossed paths inside the the politics-music venn diagram. In 2006, Trump attended a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young show at the Theater at Madison Square Garden during the group’s Freedom of Speech tour. At one point, Trump and author Salman Rushdie stood up and sung along to the 2006 song “Let’s Impeach the President,” written and produced by Young.
In This Article: Neil Young
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In response to the shooting, a Facebook page called McClatchy Park Community Picnic Dinner invited Oak Park residents to bring their dinner and gather at the park at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Andre Wilson was among those who came. He has lived all his life in Oak Park and the shooting, he said, does not reflect the character of the people who frequent the park on a regular basis.
“My daughter comes to the park,” he said. “I tell her, ‘This is your park. They built that playground for you.’ ”
But the kind of violence that occurred Tuesday threatens everyone, he said, noting that “bullets have no names.”
I thought, ‘this can’t be happening’
a Little League coach describing the Tuesday night shooting at McClatchy Park
A man coaching at one of two baseball diamonds in the park, said in an interview Wednesday morning that his players were about to bat when gunfire erupted. The coach asked not to be identified because he feared possible retribution.
“I just heard pop, pop, pop, pop,” the coach said. “I looked up. I thought, ‘This can’t be happening.’ ”
He gathered his nine players behind the backstop and told them to get on the ground.
“There was just panic,” he said. “There were parents in the stands. One lady had a baby. There were grandparents. But at the time I was more concerned about the kids. That was my first instinct.”
The spectators in the stands took cover and the coach looked over at other teams playing at a diamond even closer to the shooting. There, people were scattering, he said.
His players were shepherded away from the area by an adult. After calm was restored, the players got home safely.
The coach, whose team comes from outside Oak Park, said a police helicopter crew spoke by loud speaker to neighborhood residents, telling them to stay inside.
Let’s come together as a community to state that this is OUR park and violence has NO PLACE THERE.
Facebook page inviting Oak Park residents to gather at the park
Sacramento City Councilman Jay Schenirer, who represents the Oak Park area, issued a written statement to the community Wednesday calling the shooting “horrific and sad.” He said his office has been working with law enforcement to gather information about the incident, saying he would share that information as soon as it is available.
“I will also be meeting with the Police Department and other top city officials in the coming days to develop an immediate course of action, as well as to develop a plan to address some of the systemic negative activity within the community, that may have or have not contributed to the shooting,” he said.
Once known as a place frequented by drug dealers, McClatchy Park, one of the city’s oldest, has undergone a transformation in the past few years as the city joined neighborhood activists to add features that would draw more people, including a disc golf course and a weekly farmers market.
The grant-funded improvements also included a new picnic area, basketball court, jogging track, tennis court and skate park. The playground was rebuilt with elements that evoke the Joyland amusement park that operated on the Oak Park site in the early 1900s until its closure in 1927.
Several people who gathered at the park Wednesday evening called for more regular police patrols of the area. “Police don’t come here unless there’s a tragedy,” Wilson said.
2014 Improvements to McClatchy Park included a new picnic area, basketball court, jogging track, tennis court and skate park
Marie Bunn, who said she has lived in the area 50 years, suggested closing the gate to the parking lot at the park at night could help reduce criminal activity.
Toni Clark, whose grandson plays Little League at the park, said he was not there when the shooting occurred Tuesday, but she worries about his safety. Clark said she would like the city to do a better job of maintaining the park and monitoring activities.
“The young kids in their saggy pants, drinking or doing drugs, that’s not a good impression on little kids,” she said.
Bill Lindelof: 916-321-1079, @Lindelofnews
Oak Park resident, social justice and community advocate Kevin Carter addresses neighbors who rallied Wednesday evening to advocate for improved safety in their community following a Tuesday night shooting. Andrew Seng aseng@sacbee.com
Oak Park resident, social justice and community advocate Kevin Carter and Tamika L'Ecluse, President of Oak Park Neighborhood Association discuss their shared goals of improving their neighborhood while fellow community members rallied Wednesday evening to advocate for improved safety in their Oak Park community following a Tuesday night shooting that erupted near youngsters participating in Little League games at McClatchy Park. “Something like this was bound to happen yesterday when there's systemic economic and social issues,” he said. Andrew Seng aseng@sacbee.com
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Parole and Probation Violations Are Filling State Prisons
Rapper Meek Mill speaks in favor of changing Pennsylvania’s probation system in April. In 2017, Mill served five months for violating probation in a nearly decade-old gun and drug case. Matt Rourke/AP Photo
By Emma Coleman
A new report from the Council of State Governments shows that many minor violations of parole or probation come with a high price tag, as they often lead to people ending up back in prison.
In recent years, 77% of the state prison admissions in Missouri were due to people violating parole or probation, often for minor slip-ups. That means that if someone misses an appointment with their supervising officer, fails a drug test, or doesn’t pay a court-ordered fine, they could end up behind bars.
The 16,715 people incarcerated on technicalities put a strain on Missouri’s system, which Department of Corrections Director Anne Precythe said left two obvious paths: building two new prisons with a price tag over $200 million, or reform. The state chose the latter.
“We had to change our practices,” Precythe said. So in 2018, the state started implementing a bevy of new ideas, including providing improved treatment for mental health and substance abuse problems, implementing risk assessment tools, creating a behavior matrix with incentives and consequences, and changing their community supervision policies.
Precythe said her experience is reflected in a new report by the Council of State Governments, which analyzes parole and probation violations from 2012 to 2017. “This report validates the direction the State of Missouri has taken [to reduce] technical violations and revocations to prison,” she said.
The report provides a nationwide and state-by-state look at the number of parole and probation violations within state prisons. Overall, 45% of prison admissions were a result of violations, either for new offenses or for failure to fulfill a requirement of the supervision agreement. In 20 states, that number was above 50%. Utah had the highest percentage, at 79%, followed by Missouri at 77%, then Wisconsin at 70%, and Idaho at 69%. Only Arkansas and Massachusetts attributed less than 20% of admissions to violations.
The numbers were even more jarring for technical violations, which are usually minor. On a given day, approximately 95,000 people nationwide were incarcerated due to technical violations, costing states $2.8 billion annually. Technical violations accounted for 25% of all prison admissions, and in five states—Kentucky, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, and Utah—they made up more than half.
“No one thinks people should be sent to prison for a missed curfew or faulty paperwork—and yet this report shows these kinds of minor technical violations are contributing significantly to state prison populations," said Juliene James, director of criminal justice for Arnold Ventures, which funded the analysis.
In Pennsylvania, 54% of prison admissions were for supervision violations, with half of those resulting from technicalities. John Wetzel, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, called the consequences of these admissions “devastating.” He said that the report should be a wake up call for state legislators, corrections departments, and the general public.
“As a taxpayer, when you see Pennsylvania is spending $100 million on parole violations, you should question that,” he said. “If we needed to spend $100 million to keep the public safe, we would, but jailing people for technical violations leads to further crime, because that severes people’s personal and social supports and eliminates their ability to have gainful employment.”
States have taken various strategies to address the number of people on parole or probation who have been caught in the revolving door leading back to prison. Initiatives have included reducing parole and probation sentence lengths, creating caps for returns on technical violations, limiting supervision rules, shortening sentences for good behavior, and reducing fines.
But while data shows that each state has seen varying degrees of success with their efforts, director of the CSG Justice Center Megan Quattlebaum said the report isn’t meant to rank states. “The data doesn’t have the nuance or depth to give gold stars or demerits,” she said.
One thing that states struggle with across the board is the particularly tricky issue of violations due to drug use or possession. Wetzel said that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s declaration of a state of emergency around opioids has allowed the Department of Corrections to work more closely with other state agencies. “We’re now partnering with the Department of Drugs and Alcohol to try treatment in the community, so that people who do heroin don’t end up in prison,” he said.
Pennsylvania is also experimenting with three different types of medication-assisted treatment in its prisons, with a special focus on people whose sentences are less than a year. The aim is to make sure that they can overcome their addiction before they get out. Missouri, by contrast, started the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which provides people on parole and probation with mental health and substance abuse treatment, along with wraparound services including employment coaches, peer support, and housing assistance.
The heads of these corrections departments agree: the answer is not more beds. “The system, both prisons and supervision, has grown to have such a huge footprint, and the financial toll is unmatched,” said Wetzel. “And the most significant impacts are felt by poor communities, and communities of color.”
But Precythe said that data will be instrumental in helping states turn the situation around. Quattlebaum said she hopes states will take a close look at the data, and revisit the idea that probation and parole are meant to help people avoid incarceration. “Instead, in many cases we’re seeing the opposite effect. Many states have made recidivism reduction a public safety priority, but the harsh reality is that supervision fails nearly as often as it succeeds."
Emma Coleman is the assistant editor for Route Fifty.
NEXT STORY: Supreme Court Upholds Right of States and Federal Government to Prosecute for Same Crime
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Gas emissions delayed the next ice age by 100,000 years – study
Published time: 14 Jan, 2016 05:18
© Lucas Jackson © Reuters
Man-made greenhouse gas emissions have postponed the next ice age for an unusually long time, scientists say. Thanks to our industrial activity, the Earth won’t freeze over for another 100,000 years, a new study suggests.
“Moderate anthropogenic cumulative CO2 emissions of 1,000 to 1,500 gigatonnes of carbon will postpone the next glacial inception by at least 100,000 years,” the research published in the journal Nature says.
“Humans have the power to change the climate on geological timescales,” said Andrey Ganopolski, the lead author of the study, according to Reuters.
100mn years of ice ages and global warming kick-started evolution of life on Earth – study
However, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not the only reason humans may have dodged an ice age. In fact, as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says, even though CO2 emissions have contributed to the delay, it is not the essential parameter.
“Our analysis suggests that even in the absence of human perturbations, no substantial build-up of ice sheets would occur within the next several thousand years and that the current interglacial would probably last for another 50,000 years,” the study says.
To come to such a conclusion, scientists simulated and looked into past ice ages. They found that there is a connection between the amount of energy our planet absorbs from the sun, the concentration of CO2, and glacial cycles.
Based on their study, they suggest “that glacial inception was narrowly missed before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution” in the 18th century.
“The missed inception can be accounted for by the combined effect of relatively high late-Holocene CO2 concentrations and the low orbital eccentricity of the Earth,” the study says.
According to German researchers, ice ages, or scientifically speaking “large-scale glaciation,” are affected by both man-made and natural causes: the greenhouse effect and shifts in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. The latter happens because our planet does not make a perfect circle when rotating, but rather moves in an oval shape, meaning that at one point it is closer to the Sun and at another it is further.
“We are now in a period when our (northern) summer is furthest from the Sun,” lead author Ganopolski told BBC.
Over the past million years, the Earth has gone through about 10 glacial cycles, each lasting about 100,000 years followed by warm phases. The last ice age ended 12,000 years ago after covering Canada, northern Europe and Siberia in ice.
“If the next glacial inception will occur in 100,000 years from now, the entire glacial cycle will be skipped, which never happened during the past million years,” Ganopolski said, according to Telegraph.
25 years of Arctic ice melting in one minute (TIMELAPSE VIDEO) https://t.co/C4NOgeoFIRpic.twitter.com/HaYXsi0lwP
— RT (@RT_com) January 10, 2016
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Vamonos
Collaboration for a quality education continues in New Mexico
New Mexico schools are working with Gov. Grisham and Lt. Gov. Morales searching for ways to improve the quality of education in New MExico
Collaboration for a quality education continues in New Mexico New Mexico schools are working with Gov. Grisham and Lt. Gov. Morales searching for ways to improve the quality of education in New MExico Check out this story on ruidosonews.com: https://www.ruidosonews.com/story/news/local/community/2019/01/14/government-and-new-mexico-school-districts-team-up-improve-education/2572414002/
Pamela L. Bonner, Ruidoso News Published 3:14 p.m. MT Jan. 14, 2019 | Updated 3:20 p.m. MT Jan. 14, 2019
Grisham is passionate and dynamic about her governorship already, especially about education in New Mexico
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Lt. Gov. Howie Morales are teaming up with school districts state wide to focus on improving the quality of education in New Mexico. (Photo: Courtesy/New Mexicans for Michelle)
Having a successful educational system in New Mexico has recently become a top priority for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham as she addressed several issues at a meeting held in Sante Fe last week with over 80 school district superintendents, charter school’s representatives and state sponsored school leaders, along with stake holders present.
“She met with superintendents from across the state. This is a very big step forward, setting a different, collaborative environment within the relationships of the New Mexico Education,” Ruidoso municipal school district superintendent Dr. George Bickert said. “Her goal to better our system in the state is number one. She has been working hard with many people to see that this happens."
Currently, the district is using PARCC for testing. However, with Grisham recently signing to eliminate PARCC, the school district will need to find a new vendor. “We will still be able to use some of the aspects for testing from PARCC, but we will not be able to call it PARCC any longer. We will be cutting back by some 30 percent,” he said.
Lt. Gov. Howie Morales, a former school teacher who has served on the Legislative Financial Committee (LFC) for 11 years, and the Legislative Education Study Committee (LESC) will be working with Gov. Grisham and the school districts to find ways to improve the quality of education for children in New Mexico.
Grisham believes that with his insight on how schools are functioning at this time and as changes need to be made, his determination to help overcome the state’s obstacles in the workforce and improvement in public education will benefit the students of New Mexico.
More: Crisis Intervention and Prevention training incorporated into Ruidoso schools
As schools in New Mexico move forward, there will be a collaborative committee of stake holders that will work out what the schools will do in the years to follow. Grisham will be relying heavily on the legislative process to work on and address the requirements of the court’s decision.
“Grisham is passionate and dynamic about her governorship already, especially about education. Signing on Morales is a brilliant move on her part. This sends a very positive message out to New Mexico,” Bickert said.
Committing to the children of New Mexico to see they receive the best education possible, superintendents state wide are articulating that there are resources and tools needed to engage students in the learning process, that may not be available at this present time.
“Early childhood education programs are going to see a lot of money and attention. We are stepping it up. Teachers across the state are doing a great job of seeing these children grow academically, “Bickert said.
Ruidoso Municipal School District Superintendent Dr. George Bickert stands proudly at the district office in front of what it "means to be a dedicated" member of the school system. Bickert takes pride in the staff and students in the district. (Photo: Pamela L. Bonner/Ruidoso News)
Head Start has been a huge asset to early childhood education, however there are still many children in the state that are starting school behind the curve; below grade level. Some are starting kindergarten behind.
“Too many children we see in our district are starting school behind the very first day of class. The first four years of a child’s life is critical for their successful education. We are looking at the potential to begin a Pre-K 5 summer program. This will allow four-year-olds to start school early,” Bickert said.
Living in a state that is dual language oriented, there are several, unique, challenges that present themselves. A child may live in a home that does not speak English proficiently, or perhaps at all. This presents issues when students have homework. Parents, grandparents, or family members that are taking care of a child may not be capable of helping with their school work because of language barriers.
This perpetuates the cycle of the child falling behind even further, spending too much time trying to catch up only to fall back again in the summer months. With an early childhood educational summer program, the student will be ahead of the game as the new school years begin.
“The state currently has the money to make the difference. The Pre-K program is phenomenal,” Bickert said. “Not only are the students behind the rest of the country at Pre-K levels, New Mexico is behind in taking care of children overall.”
Under a current court ruling, schools rely on the legislative process and will address the court’s decision. “We are currently waiting to hear from the stake holders. An LFC determination and report will be released soon, and we will know more at that time on how the money is going to be allocated and how it will benefit the schools in Ruidoso,” Bickert said.
More: State official talks about jobs, wages and apprenticeships
Currently there are 300 plus students in the after-school program at Sierra Vista Primary (SVP) and White Mountain Elementary (WME) that is being funded by a school improvement grant. Trying to find ways to better serve the student’s educational needs in the state can be challenging on many levels, such as finding programs that can be implemented into the school’s curriculum and budgets on a yearly basis.
“The question always remains can programs be sustained in 2020 and beyond? The money Is there now, but what happens when you cannot fund everything in the down years? There needs to be a stream of revenue to sustain any program outside the normal class room hours,” Bickert said.
It is the goal of the New Mexico Coalition of Educational Leaders (NMCEL) to seek a way to meet all the needs of students and to build a “stable system that develops the human capital needed to deliver public education”. The biggest and most concerning question for the state is whether or not funding for summer and after school programs are sustainable; where the money is being spent and are the educational programs in the state getting “the bang for their buck”.
For more information about programs offered in the Ruidoso school district, visit www.ruidososchools.org.
Read or Share this story: https://www.ruidosonews.com/story/news/local/community/2019/01/14/government-and-new-mexico-school-districts-team-up-improve-education/2572414002/
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Organizer Vows Improvement After Multiple Race Problems
Runners in different states lodge complaints against the Half Full Race Series.
By Alison Wade
Changing race dates, canceled races, failure to secure permits, inaccurate courses, and missing swag are among the complaints plaguing a new race series that originally had 12 scheduled events in nine states.
But John Mathews, owner of the Half Full Race Series, says that many of the issues were due to “first year growing pains” and he’s trying to make things right.
“We’re working through the administration of rectifying any issues that there are,” Mathews told Runner’s World by phone. “If it’s a refund situation, they’ll be refunded. If it’s a medal situation, they’ll have their medal. The only thing we can do is have people contact the support desk and work through [the issues] on a case-by-case basis.”
Mathews acknowledged that some of the remaining races on the 2016 schedule will not or might not take place as scheduled, and in those cases, he plans to issue refunds to registered runners. He said, however, that the races scheduled for Rome, New York (October 23), Fort Myers, Florida (November 6), and West Palm Beach, Florida (January 14, 2017) will take place as scheduled. And he expects that all of the issues plaguing the previous races will be resolved.
No Permits
Though Mathews had yet to make his decision public when he spoke with Runner’s World on September 22, he said that he had decided that races originally scheduled for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Springfield, Massachusetts, would not take place as scheduled.
He said that he was assessing whether or not the race scheduled for Birmingham, Alabama, on October 23 would take place.
The Portsmouth race was originally scheduled for September 18, but in the week leading up to the race, participants said their questions about where to go for packet pickup or whether or not the race was taking place went unanswered.
Five days before the race, an announcement was posted on the event’s Facebook page:
“If you are registered for this Sunday's scheduled event, please be advised it has been moved to October 15th. Please see your inbox for instructions but we are offering FREE companion entry for this year for the inconvenience, or a FREE entry for next year anywhere we race. Apologies again for the confusion. If you would like a refund instead please see the email for instructions on that as well.”
Mathews said on September 22 that although he hadn’t officially announced it yet, based on the number of runners who had opted for a refund and weren’t interested in an October 15 race, he had decided not to hold the race at all this year.
Mathews declined to go into specifics about what went wrong with various events, but the Kevin Walsh, the police chief of Rye, New Hampshire, where the race would have started and finished, told Runner’s World that Mathews and the Half Full Race Series never had a permit to hold the race on either date.
Officials in Birmingham and Springfield said the same: No permits had been issued.
Pat Garrity, an engineer with the city of Springfield, told Runner’s World on September 16 that while he discussed having a Half Full Race in Springfield, Mathews decided not to hold an event there this year. Runners could still register to run the Springfield event through September 21, however. Mathews said that he kept registration open with the hope he would find an alternate location in the city.
“We’ve been still trying to find a location. We’ve been talking to other venues besides the downtown area,” Mathews said.
But for those runners who registered for the Springfield race, as well as the Portsmouth race, Mathews said he has already started issuing refunds.
When Mathews spoke with Runner’s World on September 22, registration for the Birmingham race was still open, but he said that was in error and had Active.com take it down later that day.
Mathews said that though his company has not been actively promoting the Birmingham race, it could still take place.
Gregory Dawkins, of Birmingham’s traffic engineering department, wrote in an email to Runner’s World on September 16, “We have not received any information nor an application for an event on [October 23].”
Mixed Reviews
Mathews said that though many aspects of the Half Full Races have gone smoothly, those who have encountered snafus have been vocal about them. In Nashville, for instance, participants were upset about course logistics and water availability.
“I think one of the things that happens sometimes, especially with the advent of social media, is it becomes a giant firestorm when in Nashville, 80 or 90 percent of the folks had a great race and [had enough] water and everything,” Mathews said. “It was good, but we want to be perfect and we weren’t perfect.”
Two runners who ran the Turning Stone Races in Verona, New York, a pre-existing event that became part of the Half Full Series this year, told Runner’s World by email that they would likely return to the event in the future, based on their experiences this year. Both praised the many race shirt options participants had and one of them, Anitra Schuon of Syracuse, New York, wrote, “Overall, I had a wonderful time.”
But some of the runners in other locations were less pleased. Mathews acknowledged that different races had different race directors, but he declined to go into detail.
Runners in Nashville complained that the event started late on a hot day. The half marathon went off 15 minutes later than originally scheduled, while the 10K went off 45 minutes late.
One runner who asked that her name not be used said that she had no water on the course from mile 5 to 12. Instead, she left the race course and ran to a golf course’s clubhouse to get water. When she returned to the course, she encountered a man who was visibly struggling without water.
“I caught up with him and I said, ‘I know you don’t know me, but you’re going to drink this water.’ He did. He didn’t even bat an eye, because he was in trouble,” she said.
She ran with him for the remainder of the race and when they saw a police officer driving the opposite direction, they flagged him down and asked him to bring water back to the runners farther back on the course.
At the finish, there were no half marathon medals left. Stephanie Commodore of Collierville, Tennessee, who ran the 10K race, did receive a race medal, but said it wasn’t the type of medal she would typically expect from a road race.
“My children play youth sports and it was like what they give the little kids for just being there in youth sports, and they stuck a sticker on that,” Commodore told Runner’s World by phone.
None of the runners Runner’s World spoke with from any of the race locations reported receiving the gift bags that were promised on the race web site.
Rob Wesley of Miami won the Half Full Half Marathon in Nashville and while he said he did receive water and a medal, he had trouble navigating the race course. He had a lead vehicle with him for about three miles, but after that, he found the course to be poorly marked.
At one point, he stopped altogether and consulted a map of the race course on his phone, but it still wasn’t entirely clear to him in what order the route was to be run.
Wesley said that a couple of the volunteers were smoking while handing out water.
After the Nashville race, Half Full Races sent out a message to participants, acknowledging that there were problems with the medals and the water distribution.
It read, in part, “[The issue] was basically caused by the General Public of Nashville (out for Sunday morning walks, bike rides, and runs) on the Greenway taking hydration meant for the runners in our race. We never wanted the Greenway to be open, but it was rejected by the City. The situation became a domino effect that caused on course staff to be scrambling water from other areas and it did indeed affect some of the half marathoners and for that we are so sorry.”
In Philadelphia, after consulting city officials, Mathews said he chose not to hold the half marathon after seeing the weather forecast. He stands by his decision to cancel the longer race on a day that reached 97 degrees. He gave runners the option of dropping down to the 5K or 10K races and receiving partial credit toward a race entry for next year’s race, or not running at all and receiving a free entry into next year’s race.
One runner expressed doubt that there would be a race next year in Philadelphia, but Mathews said he expects the Half Full Races to return to Philadelphia in 2017. If for any reason series does not return next year in Philadelphia, he said he would then issue refunds to those who entered the half marathon this year but did not get to run.
Stacey Grande ran the 10K race in Philadelphia and thought she had run a strong time until she looked at her GPS watch and saw that the course was only about 5.6 miles long. Other 10K participants made the same observation. Grande received a medal at the finish line, but it was a half marathon medal.
Grande also said that when she signed up for the race, it was scheduled for October. She only learned that the race had been moved two months earlier when she happened to look on the event’s Facebook page one day. She was surprised she was never notified of it. Runners in Charlotte and Nashville reported similar types of date changes.
Grande says she’s fortunate the Philadelphia race was a local race for her. Others were not so lucky. Charles Jacoby of Cincinnati and his brother have established a tradition of meeting and running races together. He had planned to fly in for the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, half marathon, which he found out wasn’t happening five days in advance.
He and his brother found another race to run, a 5K in Cambridge, Massachusetts, instead. But Crissy Wesson Brooks, who was signed up to run her first half marathon in Portsmouth, points out that those looking to find backup races are now facing higher entry fees or finding that they’ve already been closed out of certain races.
“There’s been a little bit of a Murphy’s Law thing with some of the date changes, no doubt,” Mathews said, adding that some the problems had to do stemmed from working with cities with whom they did not have a prior relationship. “I’m not going to say the date issues weren’t a struggle. They were.”
Wesson Brooks said that the experience is going to make locals more skeptical of outside companies looking to put on races in her area, even if those companies are legitimate.
“I’m not going to sign up for a race I’ve never heard of before without doing tons of homework, and why should I have to do tons of homework to sign up for a race? It’s ridiculous,” Brooks told Runner’s World by phone.
When runners have gone online to voice their complaints, they say that their negative comments are being deleted and in some cases, they’re being banned from posting on the events’ Facebook pages altogether.
Mathews acknowledges that he has removed some of the comments from the events’ Facebook pages, saying, “If they violate our policy, then yeah. Making threats or slandering us is a violation of policy.”
Mathews, the owner of RSE Marketing, a company that also puts on the Survival Beach obstacle course races, the Harvest Wine Run in Westport, Massachusetts, the Par4Miler at the Valspar Championships in Palm Harbor, Florida, and the Fort Myers Marathon, is not new to putting on running events.
As the head of Eident Sports Marketing, he was the director of the Newport Marathon and the Providence Marathon, both in Rhode Island. After a dispute over the permit for the Newport Marathon and a separate dispute over the Providence Marathon, Mathews, who is based in Naples, Florida, has focused his race directing efforts elsewhere.
At the time of the Providence dispute, a city official told Runner’s World that Mathews’ company did not get the permit to host the 2016 Providence Marathon because they owed the city more than $30,000 for police, traffic, and engineering expenses.
Mathews declined to comment on either situation in Rhode Island, other than to say, “The whole issue in Rhode Island is in litigation and is going to be in further litigation, so I really can’t comment on any of that.”
Mathews emphasized that he plans to keep the Half Full race series going.
“We’re assessing the remainder of the calendar for this year, we’re obviously assessing our dates for 2017,” Mathews said. “It’s a crowded running space and we may not even try and do as many races next year with this series.”
He advises anyone who has an unresolved issue with a Half Full Race to contact his organization at support@halffullraces.com.
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Please be aware of the DYRE malware and associated variants targeting our online banking customers.
The Shariah Supervisory Committee
Standard Chartered's Islamic Banking operations in UAE are supervised by an independent Shariah Supervisory Committee. The Committee regularly reviews and appraises the products, the transactions structured by Standard Chartered Saadiq. The Committee currently comprises two of the world's most renowned and respected scholars on Islamic Banking:
Sheikh Nizam Yaquby
Sheikh Nizam Yaquby was educated in the classical Shariah sciences in his native Bahrain and in Makkah. He received his Bachelors in Economics and Comparative Religion from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Since 1976, Sheikh Yaquby has taught Tafsir, Hadith and Fiqh in Bahrain. He is a Shariah Advisor to several international and local financial institutions worldwide. He is also the author of several articles and publications on Islamic Finance.
Dr Mohamed Ali Elgari
Dr Mohamed Ali Elgari holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California. He is also a Professor of Islamic Economics and the Director of the Centre for Research in Islamic Economics at King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia. Dr Elgari is also an expert at the Islamic Jurisprudence Academy (OIC), Jeddah and has published several articles and books on Islamic Finance. He is a Shariah advisor to several international and local financial institutions worldwide.
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Dorothy Louise Crist
Dorothy Louise Crist, 96, died April 16, 2019, at the Scott County Hospital, Scott City.
She was born August 29, 1922, in Scott County, the daughter of George and Grace (Bush) Graham.
She graduated from Shallow Water High School in 1940. Louise was an active member of the Prairie View Church of Brethren where she was baptized in 1945 and taught Sunday school.
On March 27, 1943, she married Wilford D. Crist. He died April 21, 2013.
Survivors include: one son, Terry Crist and wife, Cindy, Sunrise Beach, Tex.; one sister, Jean Burgess and husband, Keith, Scott City; three grandsons, two great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her parents; one daughter, Connie Crist Cate; one brother, Tom Graham; two sisters, Mary Alice Dean and Lucille Duff; and one grandson, Bradley Graber.
Visitation will be Fri., April 19, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., at Price and Sons Funeral Home, Scott City.
Funeral service will be held Sat., April 20, 2:00 p.m., at the Prairie View Church of the Brethren, Friend, with Rev. Jon Tuttle and Rev. Don Williams presiding.
Interment will be in the Prairie View Church Cemetery.
Memorial donations, in lieu of flowers, may be made to the Prairie View Church of the Brethren or Pence Community Church in care of Price and Sons Funeral Home, 401 S. Washington St., Box 553, Scott City, Ks. 67871.
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