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Home > Maritime Accidents and Injuries Overview > Maritime Aviation Accidents and Injuries
Maritime Aviation Accidents and Injuries
Not all maritime industry jobs take place aboard ships, in ports, on continental shelf oil platforms, or in harbors on docks. Maritime pilots are crucial to the operation of many industries. They pilot seaplanes and helicopters to bring supplies or personnel, or to evacuate people from ships and platforms far from shore. Support flights like these are important for moving goods and people so that jobs can get done.
They may be necessary, but these pilots take risks in doing their jobs. Accidents including crashes into the ocean are not uncommon and may be caused by negligence or bad judgement, or may be true accidents. Seaplane and helicopter accidents cause injuries, and too often they lead to fatalities because of the serious nature of the incident. If you work as a maritime pilot, you can qualify for certain rights under maritime law.
The Role of Maritime Aviation
Maritime pilots of seaplanes and helicopters have an important role to play in the industry. These workers are responsible for bringing out important supplies to ships and platforms that are far from shore and can’t come into dock. They bring food and medical equipment, machinery needed to do the jobs aboard the ships, and the qualified personnel who may be needed to troubleshoot problems.
While these pilots may bring supplies to ships at sea, their biggest job is to bring materials and people out to oil platforms. These platforms are permanent or semi-permanent structures out on the continental shelf, far from shore. Equipment, supplies, and personnel can be brought out to these locations by boat, but air lifting is quicker and more efficient. In addition to bringing what is needed to the platform, pilots can also quickly remove people who are sick or injured and get them back to shore for treatment. In these cases, the pilots may be performing life-saving operations.
The Dangers of the Job
Any kind of aviation job is dangerous, but when piloting over open waters the risks and dangers increase. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number one cause of fatal injuries for offshore oil and gas workers are related to transportation. Of those injuries and accidents, the majority are aircraft incidents. In the oil industry, most of the aircraft employed are helicopters.
According to the same report, the most common causes of helicopter crashes are mechanical failures on the aircraft and bad weather. In a significant number of nonfatal crashes safety equipment malfunctioned. For instance, flotation devices for the aircraft failed to inflate or deploy. These incidents proved fatal in a number of cases. Fatalities were caused by an inverted helicopter crash, sinking of the crashed aircraft, and a lack of warning time before the crash. In all these incidents, drowning was the ultimate cause of death.
Common Maritime Aviation Injuries
When pilots do not die in these tragic crashes, they still often come out of the incident injured. Common injuries that occur include hypothermia from being immersed in cold water for a long period of time, broken bones and head, back, or neck injuries, fractures, cuts, burns, amputations and lost limbs, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Response time and proper safety equipment play a role in how injured a pilot is after a crash. When all workers are trained to respond to incidents and when safety equipment is present and functioning, some injuries can be avoided.
Examples of Accidents
A tragic example of how dangerous the maritime aviation industry occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2009. Nine people aboard a helicopter died on a trip out to an oil platform. Investigations found that the owner of the helicopter hid a report internally which had declared the design of the craft to be faulty. This negligence cost people their lives.
Another incident also involved a helicopter ferrying passengers to a Gulf of Mexico oil rig. The craft crashed in 2008 south of Sabine Pass, Texas and killed five people. The pilot was not approved to perform air taxi services, although the ultimate cause of the crash was poor visibility caused by bad weather conditions and low clouds.
Aviation Accidents and Maritime Law
Although these accidents don’t occur aboard a ship at sea, maritime law applies to many situations in which someone is injured or killed in a helicopter or seaplane. Laws like the Jones Act apply to specific types of workers, and many of these pilots ferrying workers and supplies qualify. For instance, the definition of a seaman includes those who contribute to the operation of a ship in the maritime industry.
These pilots may also qualify under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act which covers workers on oil rigs and platforms. The Death on the High Seas Act may also come into play for a pilot who crashes and is killed in an accident out at sea. If you have been injured in a maritime aviation accident and you aren’t sure what your rights are or how you might qualify, a maritime lawyer can help. These professionals can also guide the dependent loved ones of those who have died on the job.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6216a2.htm#tab
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/09/report_on_2009_helicopter_cras.html
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/NTSB-reports-likely-cause-of-Sabine-Pass-729535.php
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You are here: Home / Podcast Episodes / Mark Schaefer Spills His Secrets for Great Content #448
Mark Schaefer Spills His Secrets for Great Content #448
August 16, 2016 by Jon
It seems like Mark Schaefer has done just about everything over the past 30 years. But he’s currently well-known and respected for his numerous books and great blog posts, as well as his work as a podcaster too.
Mark has always loved to write and started out working for his local newspaper when he was still in high school.
It’s there he fell in love with journalism, and by his final year at college, he was news editor for the daily school newspaper.
Click here to grab the Mark Schaefer interview transcript >>>
Mark Schaefer Spills His Secrets for Great Content #448Jon
https://traffic.libsyn.com/owners/448MarkShaefer.mp3
But like many others, he discovered there wasn’t much money in journalism so at college he majored in chemistry.
However, during a journalism course, he discovered that there were a lot of other career options available for people who wanted to be writers. And that’s when he also fell in love with marketing too.
He tells us about his journey, and how he finds himself being reinvented every five years. And he also uses his years of experience to help us understand how we need to market our businesses, no matter their size, and how to have content with real value.
A Journalism And MBA Student
It was his time spent learning to write like a journalist that made him realize he didn’t want to be a journalist. It’s when he realized he didn’t want to spend his life, writing in that style, as a career. He was far too creative.
Mark see’s journalists as being more like lawyers than creative writers. They have a formula to which they must conform, facts they need to stick to, and a set way of presenting the information.
But despite that, he still has a great deal of passion for the free press as it’s filled with people seeking the truth and fighting for a better world.
However, his degree in journalism has prepared him well for life. It gave him a broad education, and many of the skills he learned are ones he still uses in his blogging today.
But it also meant he had to learn to write quickly, effectively, and under pressure, even when there are lots of distractions. To prepare him for this, his teachers shouted at him as he wrote.
Then Mark ended up studying for his MBA under the great Peter Drucker. As you can imagine, it wasn’t easy to get into.
It took many attempts, but after showing his true tenacity to the dean, he became the youngest person to get accepted, at the age of 27.
He spent three years training alongside business Vice Presidents.
On Peter Drucker’s books, Mark says his favourite is Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and that his books are still relevant in today’s marketing landscape.
Frontline Marketing
An unexpected fact about Mark is that he has seven packaging patents to his name.
This is because, in one of his marketing jobs, he was responsible for R&D for new products. And that’s because he appreciated, and still does, that marketing is about the front lines of business, where customer and business meet.
So it’s a lot more than just Facebook and content. Marketing is also about transportation, pricing and the creation of services, products, and value.
Mark would go out to meet with customers to figure out what they wanted. And he then had a team who would work on the ideas he came up with as a result and make them work.
Change With The Times
He has always described himself as a strategic thinker. Although it may have taken a little time for him to figure that out, it means his superpower is to look at trends and know where they were going to lead.
As I’m sure you’ll agree, that’s a good skill to have in marketing as that means he can stay one step ahead.
And his job used to consist mostly of writing reports and being obsessed with analytics and measurements. Probably something he’s good at thanks to having a degree-equivalence in statistics.
But that meant he didn’t write creativity much. In 2008, he not only started teaching but also his own consultancy business.
This meant he had to immerse himself in social media, as after all, you can’t teach something you don’t do yourself.
But that was when it was just starting to get hot, so he joined Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as creating a blog.
With his blog, it quickly took off with a large readership. At the time, there weren’t many bloggers who were also successful business people, and he found his experiences made him the voice of reason.
Even now, Mark doesn’t take his readership for granted and feels the need to still earn people’s trust. And that’s why people go looking for his latest blog update because he ensures every update is interesting and worth the reader’s time.
But it was this change he made that best-positioned him to write his first book The Tao of Twitter. Almost every day he still receives messages every day from people thanking him for writing it.
It’s because he opens the world up for other’s to explore as he demystifies the confusion which was, and still is for some, surrounding Twitter marketing.
The Content Code
One of the books he is most proud of was the first of its kind. And because he knows many people don’t finish books, he made sure to put the most useful information in the book, at the start. That way, he ensures everyone benefits from the knowledge.
In The Content Code, his aim was to help people who were becoming frustrated with social media and marketing.
They were following all the advice they were given online, but it wasn’t working out. And that’s due to the fact that the world is now crowded with information, and with content no longer being a novelty.
So that makes it hard to find the audience. This required a change in the way people market, and for marketers to adapt. Writing a blog post isn’t your marketing strategy.
Having great content is great. But great content which no-one is reading has zero value. It needs to be seen and shared, and needs igniting to get it moving.
Not only do you need content and audience, but transmission too.
Remember Your Human Side
Mark has noticed a big difference in the way businesses treat people online and offline. And it forms one of the biggest errors which are made in online marketing.
In the real world, you wouldn’t greet people entering the store with a pop-up box, asking for their email address before they’re allowed in. You let them in first to get a feel for your value before you even think about approaching them.
Yet, many marketing tactics involve trickery of some kind. It may be you’re attempting to trick Google or the people who you’re wanting to click the link.
Technology should be used to knock down barriers, not build new ones.
And it is the businesses online who are the most human, who end up winning. Treat customers online the same way you would if they entered your store, as after all, they’re the same people.
A problem which is currently occurring is that people create things without thinking about their impact or the value they provide.
Your USP
It’s common for people to market without even knowing what they’re strategy is.
And Mark has a question which he asks his clients to discover whether or not they are clear on what their marketing is, or should be.
Simply finish this sentence about your business:
“Only we/I…”
To know the answer, you must know how your business is different, and what makes you stand out amongst your competitors.
He finds that it’s common for people to not be able to finish the sentence. And it’s often the case that when he asks a number of people from the same business, that they all comes up with a different answer.
And when that’s the case, it means you’re not ready to have a marketing strategy. Because having one depends on you knowing what you want to say.
When you want to know the answer, it’s a good idea to ask your customers. Find out why they choose to purchase from you over other businesses and brands.
You’ll likely find that they all have a similar answer. And that is the unique thing which sets you apart.
So after you’ve finished, just take five minutes to sit down with a pen and paper and finish that sentence. Hopefully, you’ll have an answer. But if you don’t, make it your priority to discover what it is by surveying your customers.
Mark has so much to share, and so many different ways which he does it. But to discover everything he has to offer, you’re best visiting his website at www.businessesgrow.com.
From there, you can find out more information about all the books he has written. You should also check out his blog, podcast, and selection of free Slideshare presentations which are helpful for every business of any size.
Connect with Mark Schaefer
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Lucara Announces Q1 2019 Results
Published: May 9, 2019 10:00 p.m. ET
VANCOUVER, May 9, 2019 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- (LUC - TSX, LUC - BSE, LUC - Nasdaq Stockholm) Lucara Diamond Corp. ("Lucara" or the "Company") today reports its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019.
Please view PDF version of News Release.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE QUARTER ENDED MARCH 31, 2019
-- Q1 2019 was characterized by a continuation of the strong operating performance observed during the latter half of 2018, having met or exceeded guidance with respect to all mining and processing activities including: o A record 0.76 million tonnes of ore processed, the best quarter in Karowe's history o Ore and waste mined of 1.0 million tonnes and 2.5 million tonnes respectively o Carats recovered of 132,336 (including 10,899 carats recovered from re-processing historic recovery tailings from previous milling) achieving a recovered grade of 15.9 carats per hundred tonnes processed (direct milling carats) o Recoveries of a 240 carat top white gem and a 223 carat high white gem o 170 Specials were recovered during the first quarter, representing 4.1% weight percentage of total recovered carats, in line with mine plan expectations; 7 diamonds were recovered greater than 100 carats in weight
-- In April 2019, the largest diamond to be mined at Karowe to date, an unbroken 1,758 carat near gem quality diamond was recovered. This recovery is the largest diamond recovered in Botswana and one of the largest diamonds in recorded history, superseding the spot held by the 1,109 carat Lesedi La Rona recovered from Karowe in 2015
-- Several large, high-value Specials (single diamonds larger than 10.8 carats) were sold in the Company's first tender of 2019 which resulted in quarterly sales revenue of $48.7 million (Q1 2018: $25.4 million) or $512 per carat (Q1 2018: $401 per carat) recognized during the quarter, consistent with management expectations
-- The operating cash cost((1)) for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was $30.52 per tonne processed (Q1 2018: $39.97 per tonne processed) compared to the full year forecast cash cost of $32-$37 per tonne processed. Operating cash cost per tonne processed was positively impacted by a reduction in waste mined and an increase in tonnes processed during the first quarter
-- Q1 2019 Adjusted EBITDA((1)) of $23.4 million (Q1 2018: $1.4 million) reflects the move to a blended tender process. Goods sold include both regular stones and exceptional stones which previously may have been set aside for separate tender events -- Net income for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was $7.4 million ($0.02 per share) as compared to a net loss of $7.0 million ($0.02 loss per share) in the comparative quarter of 2018
((1) Non IFRS measure)
-- As at March 31, 2019, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $17.9 million. The funds drawn on the credit facility were repaid in full during Q1 2019, leaving the $50 million facility fully available at March 31, 2019 -- The Company accrued a quarterly dividend of CA$0.025 per share on the record date of March 22, 2019 and paid the dividend on April 11, 2019 -- Clara has continued to focus on building its customer base through the first quarter after its inaugural sale in Q4 2018. Two sales were completed during Q1 2019 with rough diamond sales of $1.4 million transacted through the platform. Clara expects to continue to grow its supply and demand concurrently through 2019 by adding third-party production to the platform as well as increasing the number of manufacturers who are buying on the platform
Eira Thomas, President & CEO commented: "Lucara's focus on operational excellence has delivered another strong quarter, having met or exceeded guidance with respect to ore mined and processed as well as carats produced. Costs were significantly down quarter over quarter and the first sale of the year delivered revenues in excess of US$ 47 million, in line with expectations. In April, Lucara's technologically advanced, XRT diamond recovery circuit delivered one of the largest diamonds in recorded history, the largest diamond recovered in Botswana, and the largest diamond to be mined at Karowe to date. The unbroken 1,758 carat diamond is a testament to the remarkable nature of the Karowe resource and the strong operating environment prevailing at the mine."
Three months ended March 31 In millions of U.S. dollars, except carats or otherwise noted 2018 2017 --- Revenues $ 48.7 $ 25.4 Net (loss) income for the period 7.4 (7.0) Earnings per share (basic and diluted) 0.02 (0.02) Cash on hand 17.9 43.6 Average price per carat sold ($/carat)* 512 401 Operating expenses per carat sold ($/carat)* 169 231 Operating margin per carat sold ($/carat)* 343 170 ---
(*) Average price per carat sold, operating expenses per carat sold and operating margin per carat sold are Non-IFRS measures, see Non-IFRS measures.
The Company achieved revenues of $48.7 million or $512 per carat for its sales in the first quarter, yielding an operating margin of $343 per carat. In Q1 2019, the Company held a blended tender in which diamonds recovered in the period December 2018 - February 2019 were sold. The blended tender process decreases the inventory time to market of higher value diamonds. A total of 95,057 carats were sold (q1 2018:63)(q1 2018:317 carats) achieving a strong first quarter average price of $512 and with 50% more carats sold than Q1 2018.
Historically, Lucara has sold diamonds through both regular stone tenders (RSTs) and exceptional stone tenders (ESTs). In September 2018, the Company modified its tender sales to a blended tender process, combining the sale of exceptional stones with the balance of run of mine production into one sale. This change was made to decrease the inventory time for large, high value diamonds and to generate a smoother revenue profile that better supports price guidance on a per sale basis. Beginning in December 2018, certain stones from the Karowe production were offered for sale through the Clara platform.
As the number of carats increases from better recovery in the smaller, lower value sizes, the average sales price per carat is reduced accordingly. The significant increase in carats is due to continued strong performance in the plant which had a record quarter of production of 0.76 million tonnes and an improved mine call factor. The plant also achieved record high availability during Q1 2019. The increase in the number of carats available for sale in the Q1 2019 tender follows commissioning of the sub-middles circuit in Q3 2017 and increased efficiency in diamond recovery in the smaller sizes and improved mill throughput. The number of carats recovered in Q1 2019 (121,437 carats) processed from the mine was 60% higher than the number of carats recovered in Q1 2018 (75,698 carats).
Operating expenses increased from $14.6 million in Q1 2018 to $16.1 million in Q1 2019 due to a combination of higher volumes of ore mined and processed and an increase in the average cost per tonne mined.
Depletion and amortization expense increased from $5.1 million in Q1 2018 to $11.6 million in Q1 2019 due to the 50% higher volume of carats sold during the period. Depletion and amortization expense has increased significantly as compared to prior periods for several reasons: an increasing number of fine diamonds recovered following improvements to the processing circuit implemented in late 2017, a larger mineral property balance from the waste stripping campaign between 2017 and 2018, and a corresponding increase in the rate of unit of production depletion from an update to the reserve base of the mine plan in Q3 2018.
Net income and earnings per share performance were as expected and reflect the stronger carat recoveries being achieved due to the investments in the plant as well as the transition to a blended sales tender process in 2019 creating a smoother revenue profile.
QUARTERLY RESULTS OF OPERATIONS - KAROWE MINE, BOTSWANA
UNIT Q1-19 Q4-18 Q3-18 Q2-18 Q1-18 Sales Revenues US$M 48.7 40.6 45.7 64.5(3) 25.4 Proceeds generated from sales tenders conducted in the quarter are comprised of: US$M 48.7 40.6 41.8 68.4(3) 25.4 Sales proceeds received during the quarter US$M 48.7 40.6 45.7 64.5 25.4 Q2 2018 tender proceeds received post Q2 2018 US$M (3.9) 3.9 Carats sold for proceeds generated during the period Carats 95,057 110,553 89,461 87,467 63,317 Carats sold for revenues recognized during the period Carats 95,057 110,553 101,600 75,329 63,317 Average price per carat for proceeds generated during the period US $ 512 367 467 782(3) 401 Average price per carat for proceeds received during the period US $ 512 367 450 856(3) 401 Production Tonnes mined (ore) Tonnes 1,011,048 563,279 1,217,016 702,825 630,242 Tonnes mined (waste) Tonnes 2,485,548 2,743,586 3,850,225 4,416,361 3,991,648 Tonnes processed Tonnes 763,313 602,376 728,962 698,303 599,407 Average grade processed cpht (*) 15.9(1) 13.3(2) 17.4 11.7 12.6 Carats recovered Carats 132,336(1) 81,850(2) 127,031 81,507 75,698 Costs Operating costs per carats sold (see page 12 Non-IRFS measures) US $ 169 233 185 220 231 Capital expenditures US$M 2.4 6.5 2.4 2.7 3.9 ---
(*) carats per hundred tonnes (1) Carats recovered during the period included 10,899 carats recovered from re-processing historic recovery tailings from previous milling and are excluded from the average grade processed. (2) Carats recovered during the period included 1,505 carats recovered from re-processing historic recovery tailings from previous milling and are excluded from the average grade processed. (3) This includes one EST sale of $32.4 million in addition to an RST during the quarter
FIRST QUARTER OVERVIEW - KAROWE MINE
Safety: Karowe had no lost time injuries during the three months ended March 31, 2019 resulting in a twelve-month rolling Lost Time Injuries Frequency Rate ("LTIFR") of 0. As of April 30, 2019, the mine has achieved 713 days Lost Time Injury free.
Production: Ore and waste mined during the three months ended March 31, 2019 totaled 1.0 million tonnes and 2.5 million tonnes respectively. Tonnage processed was a mine quarterly record at 0.76 million tonnes, with a total of 132,336 carats recovered. Included in the total 132,336 carats recovered were 10,899 carats recovered from the re-processing of material previously milled. During Q1 2019, ore processed was blended from the North, Central and South lobes. During Q1 2019, a total of 170 Specials were recovered including 7 diamonds greater than 100 carats in weight. Recovered Specials equated to 4.1% weight percentage of total recovered carats during the quarter, in line with expectations.
Mine performance during the first quarter is reflective of the significant operational improvements being executed at the mine following the transition to a new mining contractor, Trollope Mining Services Pty ("Trollope"), in Q3 2018. Plant performance is benefiting from an improving mine call factor and increased recoveries of fine diamonds. Ore mining was stronger than expected in the first quarter due to resource gains in the North Lobe that offset planned waste mining in the North Lobe. Due to the higher volume of ore mined in Q1 2019, no waste stripping costs were capitalized during the first quarter. Total ore and waste mining volumes are expected to be within guidance for the year, with ore mined expected to be at the higher end of guidance. A higher than expected percentage of ore mining will likely reduce the strip ratio to near or below the life of mine average of 2.46. As a result, capitalized stripping is expected to be significantly lower in 2019 than previously expected.
Karowe's operating cash cost: Karowe's year to date operating cash cost (see page 10 Non-IFRS measures) was $30.52 per tonne processed (2018:$39.97 per tonne processed) compared to the full year forecast of $32-$37 per tonne processed. The decrease in cost per tonne processed compared to the three months ended March 31, 2018 reflects lower volumes of waste tonnes mined during the quarter as the significant stripping campaign undertaken between 2017 and 2018 was largely completed in 2018, as well as an increase in tonnes processed from ongoing plant improvements. Forecast costs for the 2019 fiscal year are expected to be within guidance.
Labour relations update: In April 2019, the Botswana Mine Workers Union and Lucara Botswana entered into a Memorandum of Agreement which governs the working relationship between the two parties. The parties have entered into a period of formal wage negotiations which should be concluded in 2019. In Botswana, a majority of currently operating mines are unionized.
MINERAL RESOURCE UPDATE AND BOTSWANA EXPLORATION
Karowe Resource (AK06 kimberlite) UpdateDuring Q2 2018, an updated mineral resource was announced for the AK06 kimberlite. The updated Mineral Resource Estimate was completed by Mineral Services Canada Inc. The estimate is based on historical evaluation data combined with new sampling results (microdiamond, bulk density and petrography) from recent deep core drilling and from historical drill cores. New delineation drill coverage and review of historical drill cores supported an update of the internal geological model. Production data (including a controlled production run from the Eastern magmatic/pyroclastic kimberlite (("EM/PK(S)") unit) and recent sales and valuation results have been incorporated into the grade and value estimates, which have been made based on an updated model of process plant recovery efficiency. The updated Mineral Resource is reported based on the Canadian Institute of Mining Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves as incorporated by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI-43-101").
In 2018, the Company embarked on a technical program to support a Feasibility Level study for a potential underground operation at the Karowe Diamond Mine. This program included the completion of the above noted mineral resource update, geotechnical drilling of the country rock and AK06 kimberlite, hydrogeological drilling and modelling, and mining trade off studies to address risks and issues identified during the PEA. A total of $21.0 million was spent in 2018 in support of this work, which resulted in significant de-risking of the key technical components associated with the potential underground development.
During 2018, 33 core holes totaling 20,283 metres were drilled representing approximately 83% of the originally planned drilling. During Q1 2019, $4.2 million was spent to complete the geotechnical drilling program, geotechnical and geological logging, downhole geophysical survey, hyperspectral analysis of core, geotechnical modeling, hydrogeological drilling and studies, and mine planning activities in support of the ongoing feasibility study. Results of the Q1 2019 analyses will be incorporated into the feasibility study with a planned completion date in Q4 2019.
Sunbird Exploration Generative Project:The Company's exploration program in 2019 is focused on the Sunbird generative project. During Q2 2018, an agreement was signed with a Botswana company, Sunbird, to focus on the discovery of new kimberlites within the country using a proprietary UAV magnetometer platform to identify targets. Data acquisition commenced during Q2 2018 and continued through Q4 2018 incorporating over 50,000 line kilometres of high resolution magnetics. During Q1 2019, geophysical data interpretation continued and a total of 1,933 line km of high resolution magnetics was flown, field season commencing in late March 2019. A total of 12 rotary air blast holes were drilled (613m) and no kimberlite was intersected. Sunbird will continue to focus on identifying new targets through 2019.
CORPORATE UPDATE
Annual General and Special Meeting
The Company's annual general and special meeting of shareholders will be held on Friday, May 10, 2019, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:00 am Pacific) at the offices of Blake, Cassels & Graydon, LLP, Suite 4000, 199 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5L 1A9.
2019 OUTLOOK
This section of the press release provides management's production and cost estimates for 2019. These are "forward-looking statements" and subject to the cautionary note regarding the risks associated with forward-looking statements. No changes have been made to our 2019 outlook previously provided.
Karowe Diamond Mine Full Year - 2019 In millions of U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted --- Diamond revenue (millions) $170 to $200 Diamond sales (thousands of carats) 300 to 320 Diamonds recovered (thousands of carats) 300 to 330 Ore tonnes mined (millions) 2.5 to 2.8 Waste tonnes mined (millions) 6.0 to 9.0 Ore tonnes processed (millions) 2.5 to 2.8 Total operating cash costs(1) including waste mined(2) (per tonne processed) $32.00 to $37.00 Operating cash costs excluding waste mined (per tonne processed) $21.00 to $24.00 Botswana general & administrative expenses including marketing costs (per tonne processed) $2.00 to $3.00 Tax rate 22% to 29% Average exchange rate - USD/Pula 10.5 ---
(1) Operating cash costs are a non- IFRS measure. See "Non-IFRS Measures". (2) Includes ore and waste mined cash costs of $4.00 to $4.50; processing cash costs of $12.00 to $13.00 and mine-site departmental costs (security, technical services, mine planning, health & safety, geology) of $5.00 to $6.00 (all dollar figures in per tonne mined or processed).
Following the substantial completion of a significant waste stripping campaign in 2017 and 2018, total tonnes mined in 2019 are expected to be between 8.5 million and 11.8 million tonnes, of which the Company expects to mine between 2.5 million to 2.8 million tonnes of ore and between 6.0 and 9.0 million tonnes of waste. While guidance is unchanged, the average strip ratio in 2019 is now expected to be lower than originally anticipated due to a higher percentage of ore mined during the first quarter of 2019.
The 2019 estimated cash cost per tonne of ore processed is expected to be between $32.00 and $37.00 (2018:$38.00 to $42.00) while estimated operating cash costs, excluding waste mining, are expected to be between $21.00 and $24.00 per tonne processed. The cost per tonne mined is expected to be between $4.00 and $4.50 and the estimated processing cost per tonne processed is expected to be between $12.00 and $13.00, mostly offsetting the increase in cost per tonne mined which results from higher rates from the mining contractor appointed in mid-2018.
In 2019, the Company forecasts revenues between $170 million and $200 million, consistent with the forecast for 2018. In 2019, diamonds recovered are expected to be between 300,000 carats and 330,000 carats and diamonds sold are expected to be between 300,000 carats and 320,000 carats. These projections include "Specials" which are diamonds that are 10.8 carats and larger but exclude the sale of any truly unique diamonds such as the 1,109 carat LLR (sold in 2017 for $53 million) and the 813 carat Constellation (sold in 2016 for $63.1 million). Specials are consistently recovered from the Karowe Diamond Mine and those Specials which are gem-quality contribute a significant percentage of the Company's annual revenue.
Sustaining capital and project expenditures are expected to be up to $14.0 million in 2019, including expenditures associated with the construction of an additional slimes dam, improvements related to the XRT recovery circuit, and a provision for the implementation of body scanning technology to enhance security. This does not include investments being made on the underground development study noted below.
A budget of $14.8 million has been approved to complete a feasibility study that was initiated in 2018, evaluating the potential for an underground mining operation at Karowe. In 2019, efforts will focus on follow up geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling and related studies. Exploration expenditures are estimated to be up to $3.0 million for use of the Sunbird remote mapping technology, drilling of prospective targets identified by the technology and work on Lucara Botswana Prospecting License. Please see "Mineral Resource Update and Botswana Exploration" above.
The Company will host a conference call and webcast to discuss the results on Friday, May 10, 2019 at 6:00 a.m. Pacific, 9:00 a.m. Eastern, 2:00 p.m. UK, 3:00 p.m. CET.
Please call in 10 minutes before the conference call starts and stay on the line (an operator will be available to assist you).
Conference ID:69492463/ Lucara Diamond
Dial-In Numbers:
Toll-Free Participant Dial-In (+1) 888 390 North America 0605 All International Participant (+1) 778 383 Dial-In 7417
Webcast:To view the live webcast presentation, please log on using this direct link: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1987289/4F20B3CEB1F05A4FC3D6731CF3397D5F.
The presentation slideshow will also be available in PDF format for download from the Lucara website www.lucaradiamond.com shortly prior to the conference call.
Conference Replay:A replay of the telephone conference will be available two hours after the completion of the call until May 17, 2019.
Replay number (Toll Free North (+1) 888 390 America) 0541 Replay number (International) (+1) 416 764 8677
The pass code for the replay is: 492463 #
On behalf of the Board,
Eira ThomasPresident and Chief Executive Officer
Follow Lucara Diamond on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn
ABOUT LUCARA
Lucara is a leading independent producer of large exceptional quality Type IIa diamonds from its 100% owned Karowe Mine in Botswana. The Company has an experienced board and management team with extensive diamond development and operations expertise. The Company operates transparently and in accordance with international best practices in the areas of sustainability, health and safety, environment and community relations.
ABOUT CLARA
Clara Diamond Solutions (Clara), wholly owned by Lucara Diamond Corp, is a secure, digital sales platform that uses proprietary analytics together with cloud and blockchain technologies to modernize the existing diamond supply chain, driving efficiencies, unlocking value and ensuring diamond provenance from mine to finger.
The information in this release is accurate at the time of distribution but may be superseded or qualified by subsequent news releases.
This information is information that Lucara is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and the Swedish Securities Markets Act. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above on May 9, 2019 at 7:00 pm Pacific Time.
NON-IFRS MEASURES
This news release refers to certain financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA, average price per carat sold, operating cost per carat sold, operating margin per carat sold and operating cost per tonne of ore processed which are not measures recognized under IFRS and do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. These measures may differ from those made by other corporations and accordingly may not be comparable to such measures as reported by other corporations. These measures have been derived from the Company's financial statements, and applied on a consistent basis, because the Company believes they are of assistance in the understanding of the results of operations and financial position. Please refer to the Company's MD&A for the first quarter, 2019 for an explanation of non-IFRS measures used.
CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
Certain of the statements made and contained herein and elsewhere constitute forward-looking statements as defined in applicable securities laws. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible" and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions or results "will", "may", "could" or "should" occur or be achieved.
Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made, and they are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievement expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company believes that expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be accurate and such forward-looking information included herein should not be unduly relied upon. In particular, this release may contain forward looking information pertaining to the following: the estimates of the Company's mineral reserve and resources; estimates of the Company's production and sales volumes for the Karowe Mine; processing capabilities, recovery rates, cash flows and sales volumes for the Karowe Mine, including the potential effect of the development and integration of the proposed underground mine at Karowe on production, sales volumes and the expected life of mine; estimated costs to construct the proposed Karowe underground development and the timelines associated therewith; expected exploration and development expenditures and expected reclamation costs at the Karowe Mine including associated plans, objectives and economic estimates; expectation of diamond prices and changes to foreign currency exchange rate; expectations regarding the need to raise capital; possible impacts of disputes or litigation, the timing and ability of management to commercialize the Clara digital sales platform and other forward looking information.
There can be no assurance that such forward looking statements will prove to be accurate, as the Company's results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of those factors discussed in or referred to under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties"' in the Company's most recent Annual Information Form available athttp://www.sedar.com, as well as changes in general business and economic conditions, changes in interest and foreign currency rates, the supply and demand for, deliveries of and the level and volatility of prices of rough diamonds, costs of power and diesel, acts of foreign governments and the outcome of legal proceedings, inaccurate geological and recoverability assumptions (including with respect to the size, grade and recoverability of mineral reserves and resources), and unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalations, unavailability of materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job actions, adverse weather conditions, and unanticipated events relating to health safety and environmental matters).
Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date the statements were made, and the Company does not assume any obligations to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.
SOURCE Lucara Diamond Corp.
View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/May2019/09/c6998.html
SOURCE: Lucara Diamond Corp.
Investor Relations & Public Relations, +1 604 689 7842, info@lucaradiamond.com; Sweden: Ulrika Häggroth, Investor Relations, +46 70 298 6001, uhaggroth@rive6.ch
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Judge In Lawrence, Massachusetts Sentences Man To Life For Rape, Sexual Abuse
December 17, 2008 | by Stephen Neyman, P.C.
An Essex County Superior Court Judge sitting in Lawrence sentenced a 47 year old man to life in prison for raping and sexually abusing his daughter. According to reports in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, the victim moved to this country from the Dominican Republic when she was 11 years old to live with her mother and the defendant, her stepfather. Within a month sexual abuse started. It lasted for 2 years. The victim then returned to the Dominican Republic where she remained for a few years. When she turned 16 she moved back to Essex County the abuse resumed and within a few months the defendant was arrested.
The case was tried before a jury in the Essex County Superior Court in Lawrence. The defendant was convicted of rape, indecent assault and battery, incest and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. The judge who presided over the trial called the defendant’s conduct “appalling” and “close to torture”. He then sentenced the defendant to life in prison on the rape charge. A 9-10 year sentence was imposed on 3 counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under the age of 14. A 9-10 year sentence was imposed for the conviction of one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. These sentences were to run concurrently with the life sentence. On the 3 incest counts the judge sentenced the defendant to 15-20 years in prison to run from and after the life sentence. Concurrent with this sentence were 4-5 year prison sentences for indecent assault and battery on a person over 14.
Assuming the convictions survive an almost inevitable appeal the defendant will be eligible for parole in 30 years.
Of particular interest in this case is the incest charge. The Massachusetts incest statute, G.L. c. 272 sec. 17 states that anyone “within degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are prohibited” who engage in sexual intercourse shall be punished by up to 20 years in state prison. A Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case, Commonwealth v. Rahim, 441 Mass. 273 (2004) made clear that sexual intercourse between a step-father and step-daughter is not incest. Here, there exists a strong possibility that the incest convictions will be overturned. If that is the case, the defendant will be parole eligible in 19 years as opposed to 30 years.
Our office has substantial experience defending sex crimes cases. We have defended rape cases, indecent assault and battery cases, and incest cases throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If you have been charged with one of these crimes or even if you have been convicted of one of these crimes we encourage you to contact our office at once. We are experienced Lawrence Massachusetts Sex Crimes Defense Lawyers.
Posted in: Sex Crimes
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Crematoria & Cemeteries
Funeral Music
Funeral Poetry
Mike Jacobs - Leicester's funeral celebrant of choice
Mike Jacobs will work with you to create a unique and meaningful ceremony to honour your loved one ....
What does a funeral celebrant actually do?
An independent funeral celebrant's role is to help bereaved families create a unique funeral service, based around the life of the deceased person, as a personal and heart-felt farewell to their loved one.
Religious or secular ceremony?
Today, many people are unaffiliated to a religion, but still have their own beliefs. Many families are looking for a personal funeral ceremony – often a celebration of life event - that better reflects their values, views, culture and lifestyle.
Words, poetry and music?
Clarity, confidence and compassion are vital parts of a celebrant's role, as is the weaving of words, poetry and music to create a meaningful and memorable ceremony that is both beautiful and authentic.
We say "goodbye" to people every day, but the day that we say the final farewell to a loved one is a day like no other. A funeral ceremony is an opportunity to tell the story of someone's life, to pay tribute to them, to appreciate the impact their life has made on our world and to say a loving goodbye.
© Mike Jacobs
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Annapolis to Serve as Commissioning Site for USS Sioux City
An artist rendering of the littoral combat ship USS Sioux City (LCS11). (U.S. Navy photo illustration by Stan Bailey/Released)
The Capital, Annapolis, Md. | By Meredith Newman
The Navy will bring its newest combat ship to Annapolis later this year for a commissioning ceremony.
On Thursday, his last full day on the job, Ray Mabus, the secretary of the Navy, announced on Twitter the choice of the Naval Academy for the ceremony. No explanation was offered, and no plans for a ceremony have been announced, according to a Navy news release issued Friday morning.
The USS Sioux City is the 11th ship in a new class of littoral combat ships intended to confront shallow-water, coastal threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines and fast surface craft.
The program that produced Sioux City has seen its share of difficulties. All of the first five ships have broken down at one point, and cost overruns have attracted congressional criticism.
In a story published last year by the Annapolis-based U.S. Naval Institute News, Mabus said the next administration would make the final decision about how many small surface combatants to buy.
A team of contractors led by Maryland-based Lockheed Martin launched the Freedom variant littoral combat ship from the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in July. It has been undergoing a yearlong outfitting and testing process, and will be based with others of the same design at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida. A second squadron of the ships is be based in San Diego.
At 378 feet in length, the Sioux City was designed to be a fast and nimble ship.
The Freedom variant first appeared in 2010 and is highly automated and designed for minimal staffing. The Sioux City has a waterline beam of 57 feet and displaces about 3,000 tons. The Navy says it can operate at speeds in excess of 40 knots.
The crew has been posting information about its progress at a Facebook page. So far, those posts have included visits to the ship's namesake city.
US Navy Topics Gear and Equipment Ships
© Copyright 2019 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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This Vet is Standing by the Pup Who Saved Him Twice
Veteran Bruce, his grandkids and his pup Molly. (Courtesy of Pets for Patriots)
Molly is a sweet shelter dog who twice saved her veteran's life -- and now that veteran is standing by her as she faces her own life-threatening battle.
Centuries of Military Service
Bruce comes from a long line of military service dating from the Revolutionary War. In 1972 he started his service in the United States Air Force as a ground radar maintenance technician, after training at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. His first assignment was to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where he served for two years.
The young veteran was subsequently assigned to Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base and U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, both in Thailand. In 1976 he returned to the states, where he was assigned to Loring Air Force Base in Maine -- but his most vivid experiences are from his service halfway across the world.
"My time in Thailand holds the most memories for me," he says.
Bruce had been working the midnight shift during the first weekend of his arrival to the country. All lights were out at the radar shack. Everyone was relaxing until three o'clock in the morning when the door opened suddenly.
The young veteran and his men found themselves surrounded by Air Force security with their M-16s at the ready.
"It turned out that they had trapped a group of Thai Communist sappers in the drainage ditches underneath the runway. The radar unit was their target," he recounts. "Welcome to Thailand!"
Home, Bittersweet Home
Long separated from the Air Force, Bruce now works as mass spectrometer field service engineer. He enjoys the company of his grandchildren and is a proud father to two decorated military veterans.
"I have two children who are also vets," he says. "Daughter was a Navy E-6 and Bronze Star recipient from OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom]. Son was an Army E-5, and Army Commendation Award recipient for service in Afghanistan."
Yet despite his accomplishments and those of his children, Bruce found himself sinking into depression. He chose to cope by looking beyond his own situation and saving the life of another.
"I chose to adopt a pet," the Air Force veteran explains, "because after 42 years of marriage I was going through a divorce. Alone and a bit depressed, I was tired of coming home to an empty house. I was getting into a rut."
Bruce's circumstances motivated him to seek solace by adopting a companion pet through Pets for Patriots. He found many benefits from adopting through our charity because the overall costs of pet guardianship can be challenging to manage.
"I read about Pets for Patriots on the Internet and decided to look into it. The best benefit from Pets for Patriots was the low to no adoption fees," he says, adding, "considering how some adoption agencies will charge upwards of $125, this was huge benefit for me."
What Price Love?
Bruce met and adopted his now beloved companion, Molly, through our partnership with the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society. The shelter waives adoption fees for veterans in our program who save eligible dogs and cats.
Molly was a then eight year-old Jack Russell Terrier. She was shy at first and it was evident to Bruce that she had been abused. She had alopecia on her back, a fairly common condition that leads to hair loss.
"She was hesitant to come up to me initially, but she soon got over her fear," he explains. "She was so full of life when I brought her home."
Caring for Molly gave Bruce just the outlet he needed to help overcome his depression. The Air Force veteran was focused on helping Molly heal her own wounds -- seen and unseen -- giving him a new sense of purpose.
However, walking with Molly on a leash could be challenging. While the little shelter dog enjoyed their strolls, just two weeks into their adoption Bruce took a major fall.
"During this particular walk, she started heading out into the middle of the street. Normally I would pull her back and she would continue walking in front of me. Not this time," Bruce recounts. "This time she walks behind me, wraps her leash around my legs and heads back into the street. Naturally, I went down."
The Air Force veteran fractured and dislocated his right shoulder in the fall, but Molly never left his side during his many months of recuperation. Still, this was not the last of the mishaps to happen during their walks.
"Nine months later, while we were out walking again, Molly got between me and a charging German Shepherd that had gotten away from its owner," Bruce says. "So Molly saved my life twice."
To the Rescue of the Dog Who Twice Saved Her Veteran's Life
Bruce appreciates Pets for Patriots' dual focus on saving lives of person and pet. He suggests that other veterans considering companion pet adoption do so through our program.
"Pets for Patriots is a great organization. They are here not only for us vets but for the animals also," he says. "They will constantly check with you to see how you are doing with your new best friend."
Bruce and Molly have now been together for four wonderful, joy-filled years. While the little dog has twice saved her veteran's life, sadly she now needs saving of her own.
Molly has recently been diagnosed with Cushing's Disease, which is typically caused by a pituitary-gland tumor. If that were not enough, the little dog has a large mass in her gallbladder.
"The prognosis is not promising," Bruce says, "but I will be there for her as she has always been there for me."
Bruce and Molly continue to enjoy the little things that make their lives together so special -- and so memorable.
"She'll lay on the bed with me at night and by morning she is under the covers with her head on a pillow," he shares. "When I come home from work, she is waiting at the door and jumps all over me happy to see me. As I am her. She has brought a lot of joy to my life."
The Air Force veteran is sticking by Molly's side, much as she has done for him since their adoption. He always remembers her unconditional love and companionship during his physical and emotional despairs.
"Molly saved my life, not the other way around."
Pets for Patriots gives the gifts of fidelity, joy and love to both veteran and pet through companion animal adoption. The organization helps veterans and military members adopt the most overlooked shelter pets, including adult, special needs and large breed pets, offering them a second chance at life through adoption. Pets for Patriots partners with U.S. shelter and veterinary networks, military and veteran organizations, and the public to value and honor the lives of both the most vulnerable and heroic among us. For more information, visit www.petsforpatriots.org.
Pets Veteran
Disabled Veterans Come to Quincy, MA for Annual Fishing Trip
The tradition began in 1956 when a group of neighbors got the idea to treat their local disabled WWI and WWII veterans to a d...
Joseph Iscovitz, One of Few Remaining Pearl Harbor Survivors, Dies at 103
He was an 25-year-old Army Air Corps sergeant stationed at Fort Shafter on the island the morning of the surprise attack.
Marine Vet Headed to Europe for Knife and Axe Throwing Championships
Uniformed Soldiers and Cops Attend Funeral of 5-Year-Old Who Wanted to Be 'Army Man'
He was too young for an official military burial, but he certainly got a military sendoff.
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Art in Free Spaces
Earthly Delights Sat, Jun 28, 2014 – Sun, Nov 30, 2014
Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Odile and Odette I, 2005–06. Chromogenic development print, edition 3 of 5, aside from 1 artist’s proof; print: 63 ½ x 49 in. (161.3 × 124.5 cm), framed: 70 × 55 ¾ in. (178 × 141.5 cm). Collection of Margot and George Greig. Photo: © The artist/DACS, London/Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai.
Lari Pittman, Untitled #14, 2003. Oil, lacquer, and Cel-Vinyl on gessoed canvas over wood panel; 76 × 102 in. (193 × 259.1 cm). Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Joseph and Jory Shapiro Fund by exchange, 2003.25. © 2003 Lari Pittman. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Il Bagno Turco (The Turkish Bath), 1971. Screen print on polished aluminum; 27 1/8 × 38 13/16 in. (68.9 × 98.6 cm). Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Joseph and Jory Shapiro, 1992.43. © 1971, Michelangelo Pistoletto; courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.
Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Odile and Odette II, 2005–06, Chromogenic development print, edition 3 of 5, aside from 1 artist’s proof; print: 63 ½ x 49 in. (161.3 × 124.5 cm), framed: 70 × 55 ¾ in. (178 × 141.5 cm). Collection of Margot and George Greig, © The artist/DACS, London/Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai.
Earthly Delights brings together the work of eight artists who share a belief in the critical power of beauty. Drawn primarily from the MCA’s permanent collection, and made between 1949 and 2006, the paintings, sculptures, and installations in this exhibition embrace the decorative in defiance of prevailing artistic trends. By reveling in pleasure, exploring private moments, and exuding sensuality, these works challenge the primacy of rationality and logic in modernism.
As they explore the connections among art, decoration, and design, the artists in Earthly Delights insist on the intrinsic value of beauty by engaging with social issues. Lynda Benglis’s and Carol Bove’s sculptures address the exclusion of women from the history of minimalism. Works by Nick Cave and Yinka Shonibare, MBE, delve into gender and racial politics and the legacy of colonialism, as well as the histories of performance, music, and dance. Paintings and installations by Balthus, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, and Lari Pittman question taboos related to sexuality.
Irreverent and playful, this eclectic group of artists subvert the conservatism of minimalism and other twentieth-century movements that eschewed making art in pursuit of pleasure. Earthly Delights reveals the way beauty can be used as a conceptual tool.
Earthly Delights includes works by Balthus, Lynda Benglis, Carol Bove, Nick Cave, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Lari Pittman, and Yinka Shonibare, MBE.
This exhibition is curated by Abigail Winograd, Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow.
On viewLynda Benglis, Bhai, 1981
A golden object, that may or may not be enclosing something, is composed of many folds almost lik...
Short A golden object, that may or may not be enclosing something, is composed of many folds almost like a stiff fabric, but appears to be hand-shaped metal.
Lari Pittman, Untitled #14, 2003
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Il bagno turco (The Turkish Bath), 1971
Marc Camille Chaimowicz, A Partial Grammar..., 1984–2008
Nick Cave, Objects of Desire: Party Favors, 2000
A conical sculpture with three round humps at the widest end lies on its side. The middle of the ...
Short A conical sculpture with three round humps at the widest end lies on its side. The middle of the object is brown and smooth, and both ends are covered with tiny spherical beads: black on the narrow end and red, white, and black on the wide end.
Carol Bove, Untitled, 2011
Balthus (Count Balthazar Klossowski de Rola), Two Young Girls, 1949
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Pizarro: Diving into the deep end of fatherhood
OpinionCommentary
By Sal Pizarro | spizarro@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
Let’s face it, dads get a lot of help from moms when it comes to taking care of the kids. We’re masters of passing the buck — and the baby — when it comes to changing diapers, kissing boo-boos and calming down an earsplitting wail. It’s not that we don’t want to do it, we slyly say, you’re just so much better at it.
But for Father’s Day, I wanted to mention an unexpected place where you can find dads working without a “mommy net”: The swim school at the Almaden Valley Athletic Club in San Jose. We’ve been taking our kids there for Saturday morning lessons for the past three years, and I’m always amazed that the boys’ locker room doesn’t look like a scene out of a disaster movie.
All day long, dads are helping kids — boys and girls as young as 6 months old — in and out of wet bathing suits, changing diapers, asking how the lesson went and bargaining for good behavior with the promise of snacks. You know, real parenting, which seems to be a relatively new phenomenon for guys. (Just last week, my dad proudly boasted that he’d never changed a diaper in his life.)
There isn’t much socializing, since we’re all pretty focused on getting the job done. But if somebody drops a sippy cup, another guy’s usually there to pick it up for you.
Of course, there’s a girls locker room, too, where moms are busy doing all the same things (and no doubt doing it much better).
But for us dads, we’re just happy knowing that left to our own devices, we won’t break the kid.
POP GOES THE BOX: Artist Sonya Paz will be taking her colorful, pop art style to the streets, literally. Starting Monday, she’ll be painting the utility/power box on the corner of The Alameda and Newhall Street in San Jose.
She’s the latest artist to take part in the Art Box Project, which was founded by Tina Morrill and has spruced up more than 40 utility boxes around the city since 2011. Paz’s project is sponsored by Anne Ehresman and Kip Harkness, who’ve lived in the Newhall neighborhood since 1999.
“We love the art boxes around town and wanted to bring one to our neighborhood,” said Ehresman, executive director of the youth-oriented Project Cornerstone. “We also thought it would be a great learning opportunity for our 13-year- old daughter to see how public art happens.”
If you want to see how it happens, Paz will be there from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday.
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: Artist Hung Liu was a little overshadowed at the San Jose Museum of Art opening reception she shared with Annie Leibovitz this month, but she’ll get the museum’s full spotlight on Thursday at special “Tech Connect” event from 5 to 8 p.m.
Liu, whose “Questions from the Sky” exhibition is on display at the museum through September, will talk briefly at 6:45 p.m. and follow that with a bit of live performance painting. The evening will include music by the De Jazz Vu Quintet and an all-ages do-it-yourself art activity that draws from Liu’s work.
Tickets are $5 (free to members) and can be purchased online at www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.
TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLPARK: Now that most of us have lost our interest in the NHL Playoffs, don’t forget that we’ve got other local sports stars to cheer on in the San Jose Giants. The team is hosting the California-Carolina League All-Star Game at Municipal Stadium on Tuesday and has seven players on the Cal League roster.
Festivities start at 4:30 p.m., with a fan fest and home-run derby preceding the 7:35 p.m. game. Of course, there’ll be fireworks lighting up the sky following what we expect to be a Cal League victory. And, as always, no matter what the outcome, Turkey Mike’s BBQ should be a highlight for fans of either side. Go to www.sjgiants.com for ticket information.
CHEERS: Carolyn Gonot, the Valley Transportation Authority’s BART Silicon Valley chief program officer, was honored last month as Woman of the Year by the San Francisco chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar. Godot, who’s been with VTA since 1996, is now in charge of overseeing the planning and development — and all the funding — for the 16-mile extension of BART service to San Jose.
And congrats to longtime Bellarmine College Prep football coach Mike Janda, who was one of eight statewide recipients of the Model Coach Award honored last week by the California Sports Hall of Fame.
Contact Sal Pizarro at spizarro@mercurynews.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/spizarro.
Sal Pizarro
Sal Pizarro has written the Around Town column for The Mercury News since 2005. His column covers the people and events surrounding the cultural scene in Silicon Valley. In addition, he writes Cocktail Chronicles, a feature column on Silicon Valley bars and nightclubs.
Follow Sal Pizarro @spizarro
Dionne: A time for choosing: Trump or John Paul Stevens?
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens died the same day the House voted to condemn President Trump for racism.
Opinion: 21st century California workers need portable safety net
Allowing companies to eliminate worker benefits unleashes a race to the bottom.
Political cartoons: NASA marks 50th anniversary of Apollo 11
The Saturn V rocket carrying American astronauts launched July 16, 1969. It landed on the moon July 20, 1969.
Editorial: Trump’s racist tweets designed to divide nation in 2020
"Go back" message show how low he plans to go in order to try to win re-election.
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Can progressives trust Xavier Becerra to police…
NewsNews Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Can progressives trust Xavier Becerra to police the police?
By Laurel Rosenhall, CALmatters |
PUBLISHED: February 24, 2019 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: February 25, 2019 at 6:11 am
In his two years on the job, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has crafted an image as a progressive warrior, suing the Trump administration dozens of times and delivering the Democrats’ Spanish-language rebuttal to the President’s State of the Union speech.
But there’s one major area where the Democrat isn’t allied with progressives: accountability for law enforcement. There, Becerra is at odds with the push by many in his own party to better police the police.
Xavier Becerra, the incumbent Attorney General of California, listens to a question from a member of the Bay Area News Group opinion & editorial board during an interview on March 10, 2018 regarding his candidacy to retain his office. (Michael Malone/Bay Area News Group) Michael Malone/Bay Area News Group
The attorney general is refusing to provide records on police misconduct that media outlets requested under a new law signed last year by Democratic former Gov. Jerry Brown. The legislator who wrote the law, also a Democrat, says the documents must be disclosed. But Becerra has sided with police who want the courts to weigh in before releasing records about officers who were involved in shootings, sexual assault or lying on the job.
“It’s classic California politics,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School.
“Law enforcement has an incredibly strong political position and lobbying force in California. It’s nearly impossible to be a statewide official and not feel a close tie to law enforcement.”
The union representing statewide law enforcement officers spent $226,000 to help Becerra win election last year. The prison guards union put $320,000 into a campaign that supported a bipartisan mix of politicians, including Becerra. And Becerra’s own campaign received more than $75,000 from law enforcement unions up and down the state.
Numerous police unions have filed lawsuits in recent weeks to try to block their departments from releasing misconduct records under the new law, Senate Bill 1421, which took effect on Jan. 1. The officers argue that the law only applies to records created on or after Jan. 1, while the legislator who wrote the law says it applies to any records in the police departments’ possession, including those from past years.
Courts have offered differing opinions, with judges in Contra Costa and Los Angeles saying the prior records must be disclosed and a Ventura County judge blocking their release.
A broad coalition of media outlets have been requesting misconduct records from law enforcement agencies big and small since the new law took effect at the start of the year. Some agencies have complied — including police departments in Fairfield, Rio Vista and Burlingame.
The records they released, all of the abuses that were confirmed by internal investigations, showed one officer was fired after he offered to help a woman deal with drunk-driving charges if she had sex with him. In another case, an on-duty police officer had sex with a member of the public. Numerous other officers were dishonest or used force that resulted in severe injuries. It was the first time in many decades that such information has been made public in California, which has had one of the nation’s most restrictive police records laws.
Becerra refused to disclose any misconduct records regarding officers employed by the state Department of Justice. Then the free-speech nonprofit, the First Amendment Coalition, sued him, arguing that his refusal has had a ripple effect, giving “a green light to other departments to disregard the new law.”
Becerra said he’s waiting until courts clarify what now stands as conflicting opinions.
“I’m not saying the new law, 1421, does not require the disclosure of documents before January 1, 2019. I’m saying there is uncertainty whether it does, and we need to make sure there is clarity. My decision is not the final word on that clarity. Neither is any legislator’s word. The final word comes from our courts,” Becerra said.
“I’d rather make sure I do this right because there are lots of people whose privacy is at stake.”
Ronald Lawrence, vice president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said police chiefs are pleased with Becerra’s caution.
“If this is challenged and overturned, but you’ve already released the records, that’s the genie that’s out of the bottle and you can’t put it back,” he said. “That would open us up to lawsuits from the rank and file for releasing information that should not have been released.”
State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who wrote the law to disclose misconduct records, said Becerra’s take “doesn’t fit what I understand the law to be.”
The law applies “regardless of when those documents were created or when the underlying conduct occurred,” she wrote in a letter to the Legislature clarifying the law’s intentions. Skinner said Becerra should release the records because there is no court order prohibiting it.
Becerra is not the first California Attorney General to side with police on accountability issues — or to take heat for it from the left. Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, for instance, refused as attorney general to support statewide standards for police body cameras, endorsing instead the law enforcement argument that such rules should be determined at the local level, even if the result was a patchwork. She also opposed a bill to put the state Department of Justice in charge of investigating police shootings.
Becerra has held a similar position on more recent versions of the bill, marking another instance in which he sided with law enforcement against efforts toward greater transparency. Progressive advocates for criminal justice reform argue that the state Department of Justice could be more objective than local prosecutors in determining if shootings are justified because local prosecutors work so closely with police. Even Becerra’s Republican opponent said the state should be in charge of investigating police shootings.
But police groups lobbied against Democratic proposals to create a state unit to investigate police shootings. Becerra didn’t support the effort, and it stalled in the Legislature.
East Bay man gets five months in theft of Secret Service agent’s body armor
Disgraced former deputy who’s now an East Bay cop paid for sex and was accused of domestic violence in divorce
Ex-deputy accused of planting drugs on Florida drivers is arrested
Residents prod town over hiring of ex-SJSU officer fired after library beating
Becerra’s office agreed to review the Sacramento Police Department after officers killed an unarmed man in his grandmother’s backyard, but that was only because local officials requested it. And even though his review has made some strong recommendations — including that the Sacramento police should overhaul their use-of-force policies — Becerra stopped short of endorsing a tougher statewide standard to justify police shootings, something progressive Democrats are fighting for this year.
CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
Police Accountability
Police Shootings
Police Violence
Laurel Rosenhall, CALmatters
More in California News
Byron Scales, 61, was shot to death Tuesday night.
Berkeley wants to get rid of ”gendered language” in its city code
Berkeley wants to get rid of ''gendered language'' in its city code
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Prof. Dr. Shyama V. Ramani
Professorial fellow
Research group(s):
4. Sustainable Development, Innovation and Societal Transitions (coordinator)
Shyama Ramani's research focuses on the relationships between technology, innovation and their governance for inclusive development. She is currently studying the role of technology and innovation to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the corporate social responsibility of firms with respect to innovation and sustainability education. Her earlier work has revolved around three core themes: the impact of the national system of innovation on the creation of industrial competence; the use of patent and publications statistics as indicators of competitive position and comparative advantage for investment; and the creation of incentives for cooperation and coordination. Her methodology is varied, ranging from contextual analysis and case studies to the use of game theory for studying strategic problems related to innovation creation and diffusion. Dr. Ramani holds a PhD in economics from Cornell University, USA. After the tsunami of December 2004, she founded a charity action-research unit ‘Friend In Need’, which aims to improve sanitation coverage and hygiene conditions in rural India. It is actively supported by the field participation of European and Indian students. She is a serial academic entrepreneur who has also co-founded a profit unit (Tecknowmetrix, Voiron, France) and a non-profit (Sti4Change, Bangalore, India), but currently she is active only in 'Friend In Need'. Finally, in 2017, she co-founded SITE4Society in UNU-MERIT, to bridge gaps between academics and society, via events and understandable publication briefs dealing with science, innovation, technology and engagement - for societal welfare.
Selected publications by Shyama V. Ramani
For general enquiries, please email: info@merit.unu.edu
ramani@merit.unu.edu
http://shyama-v-ramani.net/
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Tropic Thunder (2008)Where to Watch Online
Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), pampered action superstar, sets out for Southeast Asia to take part in the biggest, most-expensive war movie produced, but soon after filming begins, he and his co-stars, Oscar-winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), comic Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and the rest of the crew, must become real soldiers when fighting breaks out in that part of the jungle.
see full movie info
Looking to watch 'Tropic Thunder' on your TV or mobile device at home? Discovering a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or view the Ben Stiller-directed movie via subscription can be challenging, so we here at Moviefone want to do right by you.
Below, you’ll find a number of top-tier streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription alternatives - along with the availability of 'Tropic Thunder' on each platform. Now, before we get into the various whats and wheres of how you can watch 'Tropic Thunder' right now, here are some particulars about the DreamWorks SKG, Red Hour Films action flick.
Released August 13th, 2008, 'Tropic Thunder' stars Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte The R movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 47 min, and received a score of 71 (out of 100) on Metacritic, which collated reviews from 39 experienced critics.
You probably already know what the movie's about, but just in case... Here's the plot: "Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), pampered action superstar, sets out for Southeast Asia to take part in the biggest, most-expensive war movie produced, but soon after filming begins, he and his co-stars, Oscar-winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), comic Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and the rest of the crew, must become real soldiers when fighting breaks out in that part of the jungle."
'Tropic Thunder' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Amazon.com, VUDU, YouTube, and XFINITY .
Rental (SD) $3.99, Purchase (SD) $9.99, Rental (HD) $3.99, Purchase (HD) $9.99, Rental (HD) $3.99, Rental (SD) $3.99, Purchase (SD) $9.99, Purchase (HD) $9.99
Rental (HD) $3.99, Purchase (HD) $9.99, Purchase (SD) $9.99, Rental (SD) $2.99, Purchase (HD) $9.99, Rental (HD) $3.99, Rental (SD) $2.99, Purchase (SD) $9.99
Purchase (SD) $13.99, Purchase (HD+) $13.99, Rental (SD) $3.99, Purchase (SD) $13.99, Rental (HD+) $3.99, Rental (SD) $3.99, Purchase (HD+) $13.99, Rental (HD+) $3.99
Free (SD), Free (HD), Free (HD), Free (SD)
Subscription, Subscription
Three Amigos!
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Canada Ranked #1 Top Travel Destination In The World For The LGBTQ+ Community
Canada has been ranked the top country in the world for LGBTQ+ travellers.
According to rankings by the Spartacus Gay Travel Index, Canada is the most LGBTQ+-friendly travel destination in the world. Canada shares first place with Sweden and Portugal.
The Gay Travel Index surveys and analyzes the situation for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders across the world an annually releases their report on which countries are the safest for their community. This is the third year in the row that Canada has been named the best place in the world for LGBTQ+ travellers.
Portugal is the most surprising result, jumping from 27th to 1st place thanks to huge legal improvements to trans rights and anti-hate crime laws. India also made huge strides, jumping from 104th to 57th after they decriminalized homosexuality.
READ ALSO: Montreal Ranked Top City In The World For Students
TL;DR Canada has been ranked the top country in the world for LGBTQ+ travellers. This is the third year in a row that Canada is the top travel destination for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people the world over. Yas, Canada!
@evablue
For the third year running, Canada is at the top of the list. It should come as no surprise because Canada is renowned for progressive LGBTQ+ policies. Homosexuality has been legal in Canada since 1969, in fact.
@pinkvallarta
Each of Canada's largest cities has huge LGBTQ+ populations, with the biggest concentrations in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Every summer, each Canadian city celebrates gay pride with a week's worth of celebrations.
@allieandsam
Along with Portugal and Sweden, the Spartacus Gay Travel Index has consistently ranked Canada as the best country when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance. Our neighbours to the south, the United States, rank 10th along with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bermuda, Chile, and Croatia.
Sadly, the Spartacus Gay Travel Index remarks that situations in the U.S., Germany, and Brazil have dramatically worsened. With right-wing conservative governments maintaining power in these countries, there has been a troubling increase in homophobic and transphobic violence.
The most dangerous countries for LGBTQ+ travellers are once again, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Russia, and Somalia where gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders are routinely sentenced to death.
@darleendeer
Canadians, you should definitely be proud of this!
Personally, I can't wait until pride festivities kick off this summer!
To read the full index, click here.
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UM Corner
Montana soccer reloads with a dozen newcomers
February 8, 2017 By cmsadmin
Coach Mark Plakorus, who will be in his seventh season next year, is bringing in three players from California, three from Colorado and one each from Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and South Dakota. (GoGriz.com)
By GoGriz.com
All the newcomers who will be joining the Montana soccer program in the fall had options. Though none had options quite like Alexa Coyle, who not only had to choose between schools but between sports.
Because when you win a U16 national title in skiing at the U.S. Alpine Championships as a sophomore and score 29 goals in 17 matches on a state championship soccer team at Bozeman High as a senior and get named the Montana Player of the Year, college coaches of both sports tend to track you down.
“Skiing is an interesting process,” says Coyle, whose surname will sound familiar to most Griz fans. Her older brother Brock played football at Montana and is now with the Seattle Seahawks.
“To ski at a Division I program, I would have had to take a gap year, because there is a point system. You almost have to take a year off between high school and college and just race all season. I knew I didn’t want to do that, so by junior year I knew I wanted to play soccer.”
Skiing’s loss is Montana’s gain. Coyle will be one of 12 newcomers joining the Grizzlies next fall, the only player in the group from the state.
Coach Mark Plakorus, who will be in his seventh season next year, also is bringing in three players from California, three from Colorado and one each from Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and South Dakota.
It’s a large class, especially considering only seven players went through Senior Day festivities last October.
“The goal for this class was probably around eight or so, but if I feel a player can add value to our program and help make us better, I’m going to try to get them,” said Plakorus.
“As I went out looking, I just kept finding these players I liked. They were the right fits for us positionally as well as athletically, and just how they are as people. It just happened that it grew to 12.”
Half of Montana’s incoming class will be defenders: Avery Adams (Highlands Ranch, Colo.), Gabbi DeMarce (Rapid City, S.D.), Taylor Hansen (Cardiff by the Sea, Calif.), Emily Peters (Bremerton, Wash.), Caitlin Rogers (Murrieta, Calif.) and Claire Steffe (Castle Pines, Colo.).
Mikee Furrow (Caldwell, Idaho) and Morgan Meatovich (Las Vegas, Nev.) are forwards, Ally Shelton (Ventura, Calif.) and Raye Burton (Centennial, Colo.) are midfielders, and Coyle and Rita Lang (Sherwood, Ore.) can play either forward or midfield.
“All these players are great young ladies with really good character,” said Plakorus. “And they are driven. They want to be good at what they are doing. They are the kind of young ladies who just want more.
“They want to get better and always want to get more out of what they are doing. It’s a class that gives us depth throughout our entire team and will increase the competitive level to get on the field, which is an important element of our team.”
That half of Plakorus’s newcomers are defenders was by design. It was the position group hit hardest by graduation.
Tess Brenneman, two times voted first-team All-Big Sky Conference as a center back, started 77 matches in her career. Mary Gintz, an outside back, started 57 over her final three seasons. One of the team’s other seniors was Payton Agnew, also a center back.
Chanelle Pederson, an outside back, and Ashlee Pedersen, a center back who can also be moved up to forward when necessary, both will be seniors in the fall.
What’s been a strength for Montana the last few seasons, with experienced players across the back line, will be undergoing a transformation.
“Between last fall and next fall, we will lose almost every defender we have,” said Plakorus. “I wanted to make sure we gave ourselves some quality depth and really solidified our back line.
“Our younger players who are returning have been grooming to be in those spots, but after that we don’t have a lot of depth. I wanted to make sure we don’t have a depth problem, and I also wanted to make sure we’re very talented in those positions.”
Rogers, who has twice advanced to the final eight at the US Youth Soccer National Championships with Legends FC, and DeMarce are center backs.
Hansen, who won an ECNL national championship with San Diego Surf in 2014, and Peters are outside backs, as are Adams and Steffe, both of whom played for Real Colorado, an ECNL team that finished sixth in the nation in 2014.
Switching to the other end of the field, Montana’s two leading scorers last season, with four goals each, were Hallie Widner, who is 5-foot-5, and McKenzie Warren, who is 5-foot-2.
Meatovich will arrive in the fall at six feet, giving Montana something different up front not just in size but in attitude. She has the same You can get between me and the ball but I wouldn’t advise it approach to scoring goals not seen in a Grizzly uniform since Erin Craig.
Furrow is also a forward.
Shelton gives Montana a 5-foot-11 defensive midfielder, and Burton will arrive at Montana with perhaps the most impressive soccer resume of the bunch.
She is in the pool of players in US Youth Soccer’s Olympic Development Program for Region IV, and she was identified by U.S. Soccer earlier in her career and invited to participate in U.S. Soccer Training Center.
“Raye is one of the best midfielders I’ve recruited as a college soccer coach,” said Plakorus, whose college coaching career dates back to 1999. “She does everything well, and she still has room to grow, which is exciting to me.
“She is very talented, works very hard and can be physical when she needs to be physical. She likes to score goals but also will defend and do the dirty stuff.”
The forwards/midfielders, Coyle and Lang, both have unique backstories. Coyle was a national champion skier. Lang was born in Portugal before moving to Oregon. She has played games for Portugal’s U16 and U19 national teams.
“Rita is going to bring a different dimension with her experiences and what she’s gone through with the teams she’s made,” said Plakorus. “There is just something different about her. She’s good with the ball, quick, explosive, makes great decisions and is very creative in what she does.”
And that brings the group back to where it started: with Coyle.
Living in Bozeman did not give her access to the high-level soccer most of her future teammates have enjoyed, but she’s making up for it as a discovery player for FC Nova, an ECNL team from Meridian, Idaho, which she joins for games and tournaments while still practicing with the Bozeman Blitzz.
Making the jump can be done, and she doesn’t have to look far for an example. Her brother was undrafted out of Montana in 2014 but signed a free agent contract with Seattle. He made two starts at linebacker his first season and just finished up his third.
“Brock’s been a great example for me,” said Coyle. “If you work hard at your goals, you’ll definitely achieve them. He’s been a great role model for me.”
Coyle finished her career at Bozeman High with 45 career goals. After leading the Hawks to last fall’s state championship — BHS outscored its three tournament opponents 10-0 — Coyle was voted Montana Player of the Year by the Montana High School Coaches Association.
“Unlike most of the others, Alexa hasn’t played soccer all year round, so I’m excited to get her into the program,” said Plakorus. “She is only going to grow and get better in an environment like ours, where it’s competitive and she is focusing just on soccer year-round.
“She’s seen with Brock what hard work is and what it can lead to. It’s one thing to see it. It’s another to make the choice that you want to work hard as well and dedicate yourself like she does to being as good as she can possibly be.”
Montana’s newcomers will join a team that has won three Big Sky Conference championships under Plakorus: a tournament title in 2011, a regular-season co-championship in 2012 and an outright title in 2014.
The Grizzlies went 9-6-5 last fall and tied for third in the Big Sky with a 5-2-3 league record.
“I don’t think there is a coach out there who is ever disappointed in their recruiting class. I think we all say we’re really excited, and I know I am about this class,” said Plakorus.
“They want to be a part of this. They want to come here and make a difference. They want to help elevate our team and compete to get on the field, and that’s all you can ask for as a coach.”
What the players are saying:
Avery Adams (Defender, Highlands Ranch, Colo.)
It’s hard to find any negatives about Montana. The location of campus in Missoula is amazing, and it’s one of the prettiest places I’ve been! I’m excited to be in a town that has a very small-town feel and focused around the outdoors. I also love the team environment and the way everyone interacted with each other. Mark and the players really made me feel at home there, and continue to do so. I’m excited to play for a program that is at the top of its conference and has the ability to win championships!
Raye Burton (Midfielder, Centennial, Colo.)
For me, the college recruiting process was a lot tougher than I expected. I knew I wanted to compete at a high level of soccer with a good academic program. After looking at many Division I schools, the University of Montana seemed to have everything I was looking for. All the little things added up to make Missoula a great fit for me. The people there are very inviting and the campus is beautiful. It is a solid soccer program, and I get the opportunity to play in or near my home state of Colorado. It’s far enough away but still an easy trip home.
I am looking forward to a fresh start and meeting new people. Coach Mark was genuine throughout the entire recruiting process. From first recruiting me as a center back at Rush, to still showing a lot of interest as I moved to Storm playing attacking midfield. I am very excited to play for him and represent the University of Montana. I have always wanted to go to a school with a very tight-knit team, which is what I felt from the girls every time I visited. I signed to play for the Grizzlies because it felt like a place I could call home.
Alexa Coyle (Forward/midfielder, Bozeman, Mont.)
I decided to play for the Grizzlies and attend the University of Montana because academically and athletically it seemed like the perfect fit for me! I love Mark and his coaching staff, and I knew they would help me achieve all my goals as a player. The soccer program that Mark has created is strong and competitive and I wanted to be a part of it. I love the city of Missoula and how supportive it is of all the UM athletic programs. The university has a beautiful campus and has a great business school, which I plan on majoring in. The university, the city of Missoula and the Griz soccer program are special, and I can’t wait to be a part of it! Go Griz!
Gabbi DeMarce (Defender, Rapid City, S.D.)
I signed to play for the Grizzlies because I know in my heart that I am meant to be on the team. Over the past four years, deciding on a college has been a huge priority, and to make it even more difficult, I also had to consider the soccer team as well. I toured many colleges all over the Midwest and a few outside of those states, but there was always something missing. It worried me to think that I might not find the right school for me. Fortunately, a few years ago I found myself in Missoula and fell in love. As an outdoor enthusiast, with a love for hiking and photography, the University of Montana will be able to fulfill my need for the mountains. I am beyond excited to start the next chapter of my life playing with a group of girls who will become my home away from home while we play the game we are all passionate for.
Mikee Furrow (Forward, Caldwell, Idaho)
The University of Montana really surprised me last summer. I never knew you could have the small-town feel along with the Division I title. I knew that having coaches I could connect with and a team that feels like family were a big deal to me. Coming to the UM camp this past summer, my mind was blown by the close atmosphere of the town and its people. Along with falling in love with Missoula, I really connected with Coach Mark and my camp coach, Ellie (Otteson). Ellie was a huge insight to what life as a college athlete could be and she helped me find out if this was something I could see myself doing for the next 4+ years. Thanks to them, and the support of my family and coaches, I get to play more of the sport I love at the school I love! Go Griz!
Taylor Hansen (Defender, Cardiff by the Sea, Calif.)
I feel so blessed to be able to officially call myself a Grizzly. There are many reasons why I signed with the University of Montana, the main reason being when I visited it just felt like I had found a second home. Coach Mark was extremely helpful throughout my recruiting process, and it was clear he had my best interests at heart. After meeting the girls on the team I just knew that Montana was where I needed to be. That the beautiful town of Missoula is filled with some of the nicest people I have ever met was just an added bonus.
Rita Lang (Forward/midfielder, Sherwood, Ore.)
I chose Montana because I want to be challenged and play side-by-side with very talented players and against tough competition so I can continue to grow and develop as an athlete. I thought the campus was beautiful and the atmosphere was very friendly and comfortable, a place where I could see myself living in. I was impressed with Coach Mark’s style of coaching and his soccer program, and really saw myself playing for this school. Plus, all the girls were so friendly and welcoming! I am very excited to come to Montana this fall. It will be a great place to further my education and my athletic career.
Morgan Meatovich (Forward, Las Vegas, Nev.)
From the desert of Las Vegas to the mountains of Montana, I cannot think of a greater university experience for me. After the first phone call with Coach Mark to the moment I stepped on campus, I knew I wanted to be a Griz. I fell in love with the academics they offered, the beauty Montana has and the amazing athletics program. I have never felt so comfortable and at home in such a short period of time. Everything was just so unbelievably perfect. When I was getting ready to leave from my first visit, it became clear to me that I never wanted to leave a place as great as Montana. I committed while I was there that trip, and I could not be happier with my decision to be a Grizzly. I’ve been waiting two years too long for this day and I am beyond excited to start this new chapter in my life. Watch out for #91 on the field. Go Griz!
Emily Peters (Defender, Bremerton, Wash.)
College was always in my future. The hard part was finding the right fit, like a good book or a perfect-fitting soccer shoe. I had to look around, but once I visited the University of Montana, I just knew it was the perfect fit for me. All you have to do is walk the campus and the town to catch the Grizzly spirit that is everywhere. It is evident that the city of Missoula supports its student-athletes and the university. Coach Mark, the staff and the players worked very hard to create a positive relationship with me from the beginning and made me feel comfortable every step of the way. I am very excited for my next chapter as a Griz.
Caitlin Rogers (Defender, Murrieta, Calif.)
I signed with the Grizzlies for many reasons, but it first sparked my interest freshman year in my ICT Careers class. We were doing an assignment on collegeboard.com and I came across Montana, so I clicked on the link and started researching. I first looked to see if it had my major or something like it, and it did. Next I looked at the soccer program and was very impressed with how the team had been doing. I saw they had a game scheduled the following Friday against UC Riverside. I got my mom to take me to the game since it was only an hour away. I liked the way they played and the location of the school’s campus, so I emailed Mark asking him to come watch me play. I then went to the camp they have and just loved the vibe of the campus and town. It gives me much joy and excitement that I will soon be a part of the Griz family.
Ally Shelton (Midfielder, Ventura, Calif.)
The reason I signed with Montana was because I clicked with Mark and felt he was a coach I would enjoy playing for. I met the girls and got a homie vibe, and the campus was beyond beautiful. Different from Cali and something new and exciting. Everyone in Montana was nice, and that’s something new from Cali. Missoula helped me with my choice. When I went on my official it was like the entire town was shutting down for a football game. I went on plenty of visits but Montana was by far the best. I love the coaching staff and the girls and the incoming class as well. I feel beyond blessed, and I’m extremely excited to live the college life and do it while playing the sport I love. I’m lucky to now call myself a Grizzly now. Go Griz!
Claire Steffe (Defender, Castle Pines, Colo.)
Growing up in Colorado I fell in love with nature and going on adventures in the mountains. Although I love Colorado, I knew I wanted to experience another state. When first visiting Montana, I still felt at home and loved everything the campus had to offer: surrounded by beautiful mountains, great academics in my interest of environmental studies and just the right size with a beautiful campus. When making my decision, I wanted it to be the school I would go to whether I was playing soccer or not. I quickly knew the University of Montana was the school for me! I feel so blessed that I get to play soccer there on top of it all. After meeting the staff and players and feeling so welcomed, my decision was easy.
Filed Under: UM Sports
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← Simple Gantt charts in R with ggplot2 … and Microsoft Excel
Symbiotic organs shaped by distinct modes of genome evolution in cephalopods →
The current American administration is excited about its space program on extraterrestrial exploration and discovery. A mission to the moon, several ones to Mars, and perhaps others someday to other planets are part of the current funding plan. NASA has chosen Jezero Crater as the landing site for its upcoming Mars 2020 rover mission after almost six years of scrutinizing and debating which location might be optimal. This rover mission will include rock and soil collections to find signs of habitable conditions and microbial life. Jazero Crater is located just north of the Martian equator. The 45 kilometers wide crater had most probably been a huge river delta in ancient Mars times more than 3 billion years ago. The explorers hope to find preserved ancient organic molecules in the delta’s sediment and learn about any type of previous and current life on Mars.
Since August 2018, we also know about liquid water under Mars’ southern ice cap thanks to a study published in Science by Roberto Orosei et al. (2018). These authors detected a 20 kilometer wide lake of liquid water underneath solid ice, similar to an aquifer, using a MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding). ‘The presence of liquid water on Mars has implications for astrobiology, evolution and future human exploration’ (as the authors state). Now I can understand why Jeremy Y. is watching First Contact on a Sunday night. The idea of finding water sources on other planets, studying extraterrestrial molecules, and learning about Martian ecology is so romantic! How exciting it would be if we could just take off and start human settlements on other planets?! Now that we have officially entered the Anthropocene and humankind has heralded Earth’s sixth major extinction event, it only makes sense to consider migration as an option.
Mars Valles Marineris – Wikimedia commons
In the last 50 years alone, algal biomass has declined substantially (~40%) in the world’s oceans (Shiermeier 2010). Why care about algae? Well, these little organisms carry out a large portion of the photosynthesis on the planet and help reduce CO2 levels in our atmosphere. In 2018, many of us have heard about corals needing help. Coral reefs are dying by the hour. While we are watching Meg, a funny movie about a superpredator in the ocean that feeds on mammals, we don’t realize that since the dawn of human civilization, ~80% of wild mammals have already disappeared as a result of human population growth and overconsumption (Ceballos, Ehrlich, and Dirzo 2017). Meg might be more scared of us than we are of her, and that is why she is hiding in the deep sea.
I brought my family to the Monterey Bay Aquarium a few weeks ago to show them the Mission to the Deep exhibition. We walked into a dark room and submerged into a 360-degree video projection that took us far below the ocean’s surface. My daughter (6y) navigated a benthic rover across the seafloor and we looked for animals in the mud. We did not spot Meg. On the way back up, we saw deep sea squids, fish with oversized mouths, and many other sinister looking creatures. The Monterey Canyon was less than 20km away from us, but it felt like we knew more about Mars than about the oceans in our backyard. Moreover, many creatures might never be documented because they will go extinct before we even learn about them (Apprill 2017). Food for thought. This is why I decided to write about a paper on my to-read list by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). It made me aware of how little we actually know about marine systems.
Fig. 1 from Apprill 2017 in Frontiers in Marine Science
Comparison of marine and terrestrial ecosystems: suggestions of an evolutionary perspective influenced by environmental variation
by John H. Steele, Kenneth H. Brink, and Beth E. Scott
Steele et al. argue that environmental dynamics, particularly temperature and currents, are orders of magnitude less variable in the ocean than in terrestrial systems. Hence, terrestrial vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants have evolved strategies after they had moved on land to minimize detrimental consequences of atmospheric variability. Are they therefore better at reacting to rapid climate change in the future?
The authors paint in very broad strokes and represent the marine realm as an orderly system, where plants, herbivores and carnivores increase in a regular fashion in body size, life span and range; in contrast to non-systematic groupings on land with short and long-lived plants, large warm-bodied herbivores, and social insects with lifespans not related to any temporal or spatial scale. It is worth noting that by ‘ocean’, the authors refer to the pelagic environment, with taxa floating freely. Transitioning from the more stable environment in the ocean to land required three major solutions: (i) evolving longer lifespans to endure environmental perturbations, (ii) building nests to protect offspring from environmental variability, and (iii) creating their own internal environment to incubate offspring by becoming warm blooded and viviparous (Figure 2 below).
Fig. 2 in Steele et al. 2018
The article focuses on early life stages of organisms. The vast majority of marine life evolved ways to make use of their physical environment as a part of their reproductive plan while most taxa on land did not. In other words, it is quite common in oceans that huge amounts of eggs, sperm and larvae are released into the water column without any parental care. Predictable currents or tides transport the young to habitats with food. The new generation starts feeding early and can live from the nutrients floating in its proximate surroundings. The whole cycle is perfectly timed to maximize offspring survival.
On land there seems to occur the opposite with a decoupling from the use of the physical environment. Here, animals use strategies and invest a significant amount of energy and resources to shield their offspring from large and unpredictable fluctuations in their environment. The authors refer to a book by E.O. Wilson who compared marine arthropods to terrestrial insects (Wilson 2012). While the former use a planktonic phase as an essential part of the life cycle, insects on land tend to build nests for their offspring. The more complex structures of defense achieve greater isolation from external conditions but also require more division of labor, which gave rise to several forms of eusociality on land. Wilson goes a step further and calls dispersal a barrier for eusociality. Hence, eusociality evolved many times independently in arthropods on land but only once in the ocean (Duffy 1996).
What caused these major differences? Is it because organisms in the ocean are mostly floating in a soup of nutrients? Apparently not only. The main difference between floating in pelagic environments in the ocean and living on land is presumably environmental variability. In the ocean, time scales are longer and spatial scales are shorter compared to land. Now what does this mean? The authors refer to a paper by Hasselmann (1976) who developed spectra for stochastic climate models. He patched together his models using temperature, sea level and geophysical data. Terrestrial systems show variation on the scale from days to months, whereas oceanic systems show much less variation and are more predictable with cycles of months and years. This transformation in scales has important implications for ecological and evolutionary processes in the two different systems. On land, we experience atmospheric fronts with high and low pressure systems sweeping erratically across the continents. Ironically, while I was writing this blog post, there was a huge storm raging outside. I partly wrote this blog post in the dark because of a power outage. However, in the oceans, the physical environment is much more predictable. This predictability, including for example the Gulf stream in the North Atlantic or tidal motions at coastlines, allowed taxa to adapt strategies to make use of predictable currents and ultimately increase their fitness.
The article ends relatively abruptly. I am left thinking about the life-span of mouth breeders, seahorses, and nest builders in the sea. Have you seen the puffer fish’s masterpiece of love? The pufferfish’s mating ritual allows for sexual selection on good genes and intensifies natural selection. Recently, I met J. Emmett Duffy at a workshop in Panama. Emmett reported eusociality for the first time in a marine animal, the eusocial shrimp Synalpheus regalis. This species lives in sponges, only one individual – the queen – reproduces, and most colony members are full siblings. Eusocial shrimp have been found in the last 20 years in several different species of sponges throughout the Caribbean.
A defender (Synalpheus regalis) guarding the entrance to its home – the host sponge (Lissodendoryx colombiensis). Large animals with fighting claws are found more often around the openings of the sponges. Photo generously contributed by J. Emmett Duffy
A queen (Synalpheus filidigitus).
Her large snapping claws are replaced with smaller claws used for feeding. Her reproductive monopoly in the cast is not maintained by her own aggression but evidently enforced by the colony’s workers. Photo generously contributed by J. Emmett Duffy
I think that the evolvability of a population depends basically on its adaptive genetic diversity. Individuals need to be able to acquire novel functions through genetic change that will help the organisms survive and reproduce. Further, it will depend on population size, mutation rate, sexual reproduction, and dispersal rates. Evolvability in bacteria has been shown to increase by generating more variation when populations are stressed (Frenoy and Bonhoeffer 2018). Large population sizes of pelagic fish increase threshold values of the selection coefficient above which selection (e.g. environmental variation) becomes an important player. Does the difference in spatial and temporal variation in the pelagic ocean compared to terrestrial systems affect the evolvability of populations living in them? I would say yes it does with regard to dispersal, modes of reproduction and population sizes, at least.
Although it seems that environmental variability is much higher in terrestrial systems than in the open ocean, there might be variability in the ocean soup that is not obvious at first sight. Variation can be caused by niche differentiation, clines (e.g., salinity), cryptic gene flow barriers (e.g., timing of spawning in corals), spatial autocorrelation of selection, or selection against migrants (Richardson et al. 2014).
While there are many restoration and conservation efforts in terrestrial systems, only a few marine protected areas have been established. We are obviously more excited about Mars than the ocean. ‘The deep ocean is still one of the least explored frontiers in the solar system,’ said Principal Investigator Robert Zierenberg. ‘Maps of our planet are not as detailed as those of Mercury, Venus, Mars or the moon, because it is hard to map underwater. This is the frontier.‘
Full disclosure: The paper by Steele et al. (2018) was part of my homework reading for a ‘global’ journal club. We are going to ‘meet’ (by slack) for the first time in less than two weeks. The goal is to connect oceanographers, marine scientists, and evolutionary biologists to develop integrated frameworks for studying adaptation to ocean change. The Research Coordinated Network for Evolution in Changing Seas (RCN) is a network of scientists sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Together we want to advance knowledge in marine sciences. I just read the first article on our reading list. We will discuss them every two weeks. Sign up here if you would like to join us and engage in lengthy discussions about the future of our oceans. RCN is going to organize three major network meetings in the upcoming months (2019 Synthesis workshop; 2020 Genomics Committee; 2021 Training and Integration). RCN is currently looking for a postdoc, and their twitter handle @EvolvingSeas is regularly taken over by volunteers sharing updates from relevant conferences, suggestions for great papers, and progress reports from the lab or field.
Apprill, Amy. 2017. “Marine Animal Microbiomes: Toward Understanding Host–Microbiome Interactions in a Changing Ocean.” Frontiers in Marine Science 4 (July): 1518. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00222.
Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Rodolfo Dirzo. 2017. “Biological Annihilation via the Ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction Signaled by Vertebrate Population Losses and Declines.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114 (30): E6089–96. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704949114.
Duffy, J. Emmett. 1996. “Eusociality in a Coral-Reef Shrimp.” Nature 381 (June): 512. https://doi.org/10.1038/381512a0.
Frenoy, Antoine, and Sebastian Bonhoeffer. 2018. “Death and Population Dynamics Affect Mutation Rate Estimates and Evolvability under Stress in Bacteria.” Edited by Arjan de Visser. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005056.
Hasselmann, K. 1976. “Stochastic Climate Models Part I. Theory.” Tell’Us 28 (6): 473–85. https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v28i6.11316.
Orosei, R., S. E. Lauro, E. Pettinelli, A. Cicchetti, M. Coradini, B. Cosciotti, F. Di Paolo, et al. 2018. “Radar Evidence of Subglacial Liquid Water on Mars.” Science 361 (6401): 490–93. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar7268.
Richardson, Jonathan L., Mark C. Urban, Daniel I. Bolnick, and David K. Skelly. 2014. “Microgeographic Adaptation and the Spatial Scale of Evolution.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 29 (3): 165–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2014.01.002.
Steele, John H., Kenneth H. Brink, and Beth E. Scott. 2018. “Comparison of Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems: Suggestions of an Evolutionary Perspective Influenced by Environmental Variation.” ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal Du Conseil, November. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsy149.
Schiermeier, Quirin. 2010. “Ocean Greenery under Warming Stress.” Nature News, July. https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2010.379.
Wilson, Edward O. 2012. The Social Conquest of Earth. W. W. Norton & Company. https://market.android.com/details?id=book-StLT0zJOczkC.
This entry was posted in adaptation, evolution, journal club, population genetics, Science Communication, Uncategorized and tagged Evolution, Global Change, journal club, marine, ocean. Bookmark the permalink.
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Home / Icons - Over 200 subjects / Men Saints / St. Andre of Montreal icon
St. Andre of Montreal icon
Saint icons, such as this St. Andre of Montreal icon, can bring hope and relief to any home. Born in a pious rural family in Montreal, Canada in 1845, Alfred Bessette was a frail child whose poor health and chronic indigestion carried over into youth and old age, up to his death at the age of 91. In his youth, he met Father Andre Provencal, who inspired the devotion to Saint Joseph that became the hallmark of the young saint. For the entire selection of saint icons browse Monastery Icons today.
St. Andre of Montreal
Born in a pious rural family in Montreal, Canada in 1845, Alfred Bessette was a frail child whose poor health and chronic indigestion carried over into youth and old age, up to his death at the age of 91. In his youth he met Father Andre Provencal, who inspired the devotion to Saint Joseph that became the hallmark of the young saint.
It was at this time that he formed the lifelong habit of immersing himself in prayer for hours before the Blessed Sacrament, many times in long, deep conversation with Saint Joseph.
When he was 18 years old he emigrated to the milder climate of New England, where he worked at various jobs wandering from town to town. Yet even then all his spare time was spent in prayer. One day while stopping to rest from his work in a field, he asked Saint Joseph where he would die. In his mind's eye he saw a large building he had never seen before, but which he saw in person many years later: the College of Notre Dame where he became the porter of this very building.
In 1870 Brother Andre determined to join the Congregation of the Holy Cross, armed with an introductory letter from Father Provancal which said, "I am sending a saint to your Congregation." Despite the chronic health which threatened his continued residence in the community, in 1872 Brother Andre was received into the novitiate the same month that Pope Pius IX proclaimed Saint Joseph the Patron of the Universal Church. Assigned as the porter of the College, in later years he quipped "My superiors showed me the door and I stayed there."
He quickly became a beloved friend of the students, whom he taught, "What the Holy Spirit did for the Apostles, He will do for you." He realized this in his own life, and soon his reputation as a miracle worker began to grown among the students of the college. One day, as the pious porter was scrubbing the floor in the parlor of the college, a lady came to see him, having heard of his reputation. She was so afflicted with rheumatism that she could only walk with the assistance of two men supporting her by holding each arm. Her request to Brother Andre was simple enough: "I am suffering from rheumatism. I want you to heal me." Not looking up from the floor he was still busily scrubbing, Brother Andre said to the men assisting her, "Let her walk." The woman walked out unassisted.
As the schools doorkeeper, Brother Andre saluted and bid farewell to the many guests who came to the college. Having a keen interest in their spiritual welfare and a sympathetic ear for their problems, the little doorman could often tell who was in need of his prayers or counsel. One day he noticed on the face of a guest – the father of a boarding student – a preoccupied, strained expression. When Brother Andre learned that the man was worried about his sick wife, he told him, "But she is not so sick as you think. At this very moment she became better." The man was quite cynical, for he knew that his wife had been ill for many years. Yet upon arriving home, his wife greeted him at the door, perfectly healthy, in good spirits, and inquiring about the couple's children. The man later learned, upon speaking with his wife's nurse, that she had asked to be taken out of bed exactly when Brother Andre pronounced the words, "At this very moment, she became better."
It is no wonder that over the years the saint's reputation grew by leaps and bounds. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims – Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and unbelievers – flocked to him for the healing of their souls and bodies. Often this was affected through "Saint Joseph's oil," a mixture that Brother Andre rubbed on wounds and sick limbs after burning it before a statue of Saint Joseph.
Although all claimed the miracles were worked through the humble porter's faith, he himself scoffed at these claims and felt he only did the work of Christ. Many times this meant that the blind would remain blind and the lame would remain lame, but that Christ would finally enter into their lives.
If Brother Andre had any mission, he said, it was to teach devotion to Saint Joseph. In 1890 he conceived the desire to honor Saint Joseph by the construction of a great shrine on the mountain by the College. The saga of the construction of this huge cathedral is a miracle in itself, and can be read in detail in "Brother Andre"by Jean-Guy Dubuc.
The pillars of Saint Joseph are draped with hundreds of crutches and other prosthetics that testify to Brother Andre's God-given power to free the crippled and diseased from their maladies. Today the saint's relics lie in a black marble sepulchre in the back of the Oratory. And the grand cathedral is itself a living spokesman of the great message of Brother Andre's life: "Ite ad Joseph – go to Joseph!"
Pope John Paul II said, "We venerate in Blessed Brother Andre a man of prayer and a friend of the poor, a truly astonishing man...In each age the Holy Spirit raises up such humble witnesses of the Gospel, who turn things topsy-turvy."
St. Joseph icon
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha icon
St. John Bosco icon
Our Lady of Lourdes icon - 3" x 4" print
Hand Censer
Saint Juan Diego icon - 19" x 24" mounted
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Book Review - The Hearts We Mend
Thirteen years ago, Evie's firefighter husband was killed in the line of duty, leaving her to raise their young son, Cody, alone. Now, Cody is marrying the love of his life, and as he packs up his belongings, the house feels as empty as Evie's heart. But for all her planning and mad organizational skills, Evie could never have anticipated the dramatic shift her life is about to make.
Tattooed, rough-around-the-edges Jack raises quite a few eyebrows in the tight-knit community of Banister Falls. Where Evie's life is stream-lined, Jack's approach to living is moment-by-moment. But as Evie gets drawn into Jack's world---a world that isn't as safe or predictable as the one she's worked so hard to create---he challenges her to open her eyes to the problems outside the walls of the church.
Jack doesn't make Evie feel comfortable, but he definitely makes her feel something. Something she hasn't felt since Max passed away---or, maybe ever. Because even though Jack isn't anything like her late husband, he just might be everything she needs.
Kathryn Springer is a USA Today bestselling author. She grew up in northern Wisconsin, where her parents published a weekly newspaper. As a child she spent many hours sitting at her mother's typewriter, plunking out stories, and credits her parents for instilling in her a love of books --- which eventually turned into a desire to tell stories of her own. Kathryn has written nineteen books with close to two million copies sold. She lives with her husband and three children in Marinette, Wisconsin.
This is the second book in the Bannister Falls Series and it's a wonderful book that brings us back to visit our favorite characters from the first book, The Dandelion Field. It may take you a couple of chapters to figure out who everyone is, but you won't be lost in this book if you haven't read the first. However, I highly recommend the first book as it was great, too!
Evie is a mature woman whose only son is getting married and she's feeling a bit left out of his life as he's moving on into a new season of his life, she realizes she is, too. Her life has been about her son and now he is moving out and she's left feeling at drift. She's been widowed for some years and so her empty nest really feels empty.
Enter Jack into her life and things take a very interesting turn! Evie is very organized and plans everything out. Jack, not so much. He comes with some baggage of family issues and it's totally different than Evie is used to.
I loved the characters in this book because they were so well developed and complex. They were flawed, just like us, and this makes them totally relatable. I loved how they relied on their and made it an important part of their lives. It was also wonderful to see the maturity develop in them, especially Evie. She has grown up a lot since the last book.
I loved this book! It was one of those books that you hate to put down because you're enjoying it so. I don't always keep my novels but I will be keeping this one for sure! You'll love it as much as I did and I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
*This book was provided to me for my honest review by LitFuse Publicity Group
Blessings - Julie
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23. April 2019| juwi AG
juwi’s 204 megawatt solar park wins at auction in Greece
With the Kozani solar park, the project developer secures almost 50 percent of the auction volume / Construction of the largest solar project in South East Europe and the company's history is due to begin this year
It is the biggest success for juwi Hellas so far and a milestone for the juwi group as a whole: On April 15th, the Greek subsidiary of the international project developer for renewable energies secured 47 percent of the total volume in the latest auction round for wind and solar projects in Greece. The company’s “Kozani” project has a size of 204 megawatt and will be the largest solar PV project in South East Europe.
A total volume of 635 megawatts participated in the auction, 437 megawatts have been awarded. juwi competed with four other solar and one wind project in the 30-minute online auction.
"Thanks to a very well prepared and precisely executed strategy, we were not only able to bring our entire project volume through the auction process - we have managed to secure the highest tariff of all other solar projects", reports Takis Sarris, Managing Director of juwi Hellas. juwi secured a remuneration of 5.73 cents per kilowatt-hour. Again, the project developer’s great experience in various tendering systems has paid off. In 2018, for example, juwi was one of the most successful companies in Germany’s bidding rounds for wind and solar energy. With its current success juwi became the leading company for utility-scale renewable power plants in Greece.
The awarded project is located in the north of Greece about 15 kilometers away from the city of Kozani. In December 2019, juwi will begin with the construction of the solar park on an area of more than 400 hectares. It is scheduled to be connected to the grid by April 2021. The solar park is expected to produce more than 300 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually. juwi acquired the project rights in November 2017 and developed the project to market maturity.
"For us, the auction result is also the reward for our persistence. After the collapse of the Greek market in 2013, we continued to believe in the potential of renewables in Greece as well as in other European countries and maintained our activities with a small team. That has now paid off," says juwi-EMEA Regional Director Dirk Retzlaff. juwi has been active in Greece for more than ten years and has connected more than 50 plants with over 100 megawatts of power to the grid.
About the juwi group
The juwi group is one of the world’s leading companies in the area of renewable energy. The renewable energy pioneer with a strong regional presence offers project development and EPC services as well as products and solutions for the energy turnaround. Company activities are mainly projects with solar and wind. The juwi group was established in 1996 in Rhineland-Palatinate/Germany. Since the end of 2014, Mannheim based utility MVV Energie AG has been partner shareholder of the juwi Group. juwi has about 850 employees worldwide, branches on all continents and is actively engaged in various projects all over the globe. Working together with passion to implement renewable energy economically and reliably is what drives us.
So far, juwi has realized 1,000 wind turbines with a total capacity of more than. 2,300 megawatts at 180 sites globally. In the solar segment, more than 1,700 projects with a total capacity of around 2,500 megawatts have been designed and constructed. Combined, these energy systems produce around 8.0 billion kilowatt hours of clean energy per year, equaling the annual demand of more than 2.6 million German households. Within the past 20 years, juwi has initiated an investment volume of around 8.8 billion euros to realize these projects.
For inquiries and further details
juwi AG · Felix Wächter · Press Officer
Tel. +49. (0)6732. 96 57-1244 · Mobile +49. (0)152. 09 33 18 78
waechter@juwi.de· www.juwi.com
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Apple Releases New Safari 3.1 For Both Mac And Windows PC
Posted: March 19, 2008/Under: Operating Systems/By: Nic Cho
The famous American multinational corporation focusing on consumer electronics and closely related software products, Apple has launched the latest version of its Safari web browser – Safari 3.1, which the company claims as the world’s fastest web browser for Mac and Windows PCs (1.9 times faster than IE 7 [Internet Explorer 7] and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2), aiming to enhance your web browsing experience.
In addition, JavaScript is also said to load faster (up to 6 times) with new Safari which is the first browser to support the latest innovative web standards needed to deliver the next generation of highly interactive Web 2.0 experiences.
“Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “And best of all, Safari supports the latest audio, video and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience.”
According to the company, “Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support the new video and audio tags in HTML 5 and the first to support CSS Animations. Safari also supports CSS Web Fonts, giving designers limitless choices of fonts to create stunning new web sites.”
The new Safari 3.1 web browser is now available as a free download from Apple’s official site, or use the direct download links to download Safari.
Update: Download Safari 3.1.1
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myscience.org.uk › news › wire › Success in world subject rankings
Success in world subject rankings
Academic Rankings
Four Cardiff University subjects have been ranked among the Top 50 in the world by a prestigious ranking.
Announced in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2019, Cardiff University’s highest ranking is in Communication and Media Studies, where it is placed 25th in the world. The University is also ranked 37th for Architecture/Built Environment, 43rd for Engineering - Mineral & Mining, and 50th for Dentistry.
The University features in the world’s Top 100 for a further five subjects: English Language & Literature; Geography; Pharmacy & Pharmacology; Psychology: and Social Policy & Administration.
The QS World University Rankings by Subject are compiled annually to help prospective students identify the leading universities in a particular subject. Research citations, along with the results of major global surveys of employers and academics are used to rank universities from across the world.
The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2019 cover a total of 48 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas.
For the first time, the QS rankings have also provided subject rankings for individual countries.
Within the UK Cardiff University was ranked within the Top 10 in five subject areas: Engineering - Mineral and Mining (3rd); Communication & Media Studies (4th); Architecture/Built Environment (5th); Dentistry (6th); and Psychology (10th).
Vice-Chancellor Professor Colin Riordan said: “It is extremely pleasing to see our subjects performing so well in this prestigious ranking.
“It is our aim to make Cardiff University respected all over the world and this is a clear indication that we’re achieving this in a number of areas.
“Credit must be given to the hard work of our staff and student community on delivering these excellent results and pushing us towards our vision of being a world-leading, research excellent, educationally outstanding university.”
Cardiff University on UniversityRankings
UniversityRankings.ch
UofG up two places in QS World University Rankings 2020 - 19.06
We’re a World Top 100 university - 19.06
’Living’ Rainbow flag in full bloom - 25.04
Sussex named among most international universities in the world - 22.03
Oxford triumphs in QS rankings across five subject areas - 27.02
Record number of subjects in world top 100 - 27.02
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Maradona Announced As The New Coach Of The Mexican Club
Home » ➨ ✔ Sports › ➨ Read now » Maradona Announced As The New Coach Of The Mexican Club
Olawale
Presentation of Maradona to the Mexican team is expected to take place this Saturday
One of the greatest players in soccer history, Diego Armando Maradona continues to try a brilliant career as a coach. That’s because, this week, the Argentine was announced as new coach of Dorados de Sinaloa, team of the Second Division of Mexico. The presentation is expected to take place this Saturday and the player arrives to replace the Mexican Francisco Ramirez.
Despite closing with the Mexican team, Maradona did not need to disassociate with Dinamo Brest. In contact with the daily Olé , Matías Morla, lawyer of the former player, said that he will continue as honorary president of the Belarus team.
Curiously, although the team does not have much prominence in the international media, the Dorados de Sinaloa is the last team that Pep Guardiola defended before ending his career as a soccer player.
Maradona’s last stint as a football coach was during the 2017 seasons, when he led the Al-Fujairah team in the United Arab Emirates. At the time, the work was terminated after the Argentine failed to qualify the team directly to the elite division of national football.
Already the most striking passage of “El Pibe de Oro” happened almost 10 years ago, in 2010, when he commanded the selection of Argentina in the World Cup that year. However, Maradona failed to do a good job and the South American team was humiliatingly eliminated by beating Germany 4-0 in the quarterfinals of the competition.
Diego Maradona Pays Tribute To Cardiff City Star, Emiliano Sala
Maradona Operated Successfully, Remains Hospitalized
FIFA Rebukes Maradona Over Robbery Claim In England’s Match Against Colombia
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The Aliens announce new album details
The band's second album is out in September
The Aliens have announced details of their forthcoming second album, set to be released on September 29.
The album, ‘Luna’, will be preceded by a new single, ‘Magic Man’, on September 15. Both releases will come out on the band’s own record label, Pet Rock Records.
The band – featuring three former-members of The Beta Band – released their debut album, ‘Astronomy For Dogs’, in 2007.
Songs set to appear on the new album include ‘Bobby’s Song’, ‘Place O’ The Sun/Luna’ and the aforementioned single.
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Road near Rushden to close for a week
Published: 06:00 Tuesday 13 November 2018
A road just to the south of Rushden will close for a week as part of a major railway project.
Podington Road in Wymington will be closed from Monday, November 19 to Sunday, November 25 inclusive as work to upgrade the rail bridge is carried out.
The bridge will be strengthened ready for a second railway track to be installed on the bridge at a later date.
To allow this work to be carried out safely, the road will be closed and a clearly signposted diversion will be in place.
Wendy Bell, sponsor for Network Rail, said: “This work is a vital part of the Midland Main Line Upgrade and the road needs to be closed so that we can carry out this work safely.
“We appreciate that closing the road can be disruptive to motorists and we’d like to apologise for any inconvenience this causes.
“We thank motorists in advance for their patience.”
The work is part of the Midland Main Line Upgrade, which will see the line electrified from London to Kettering and Corby via Bedford.
The Midland Main Line Upgrade is one of the biggest investments in the railway since the Victorian era and will bring benefits for the millions of people who use it every year.
For further information on the work taking place on Podington Road contact the National Rail Helpline on 0345 711 4141.
Cheer on bike ride in memory of murdered MP Jo Cox as it passes through Northamptonshire
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Opinion: John McCain refused to sell his soul
McCain had the self-knowledge to understand that he wasn’t very good at waffling.
Opinion: John McCain refused to sell his soul McCain had the self-knowledge to understand that he wasn’t very good at waffling. Check out this story on northjersey.com: https://njersy.co/2ohKMc5
David Ignatius, Washington Post Writers Group Published 2:34 p.m. ET Aug. 27, 2018
John McCain(Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
WASHINGTON – John McCain’s death offers a moment to think about the insurgency in the GOP that vexed him during his final decade as a politician, and that produced in Donald Trump a man he seemed to loathe, but couldn’t figure out how to stop.
With true national heroes such as McCain, it’s a mistake to gild the lily: He was a complicated man whose gift of inflexible principle was sometimes a political and emotional burden. He recognized that politicians sometimes have to compromise, but he didn’t like doing it and often wasn’t very good at it. He had a temper, and he could hold grudges.
But with his passing on Saturday, McCain’s human qualities only bolster his stature as a real and enduring leader. Of all the politicians on the landscape during this generation, I suspect McCain may be among those who stand out most clearly in historical memory, not because he succeeded in bending the country toward the good values he embodied, but because he tried so hard and failed.
McCain saw the populist fire that was burning in the Republican Party, but he didn’t know what to do about it. His biggest mistake may have been the selection of an utterly unqualified Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate in 2008, but it was an attempt to get out ahead of a movement that he could see was becoming more dominant in his party with each election cycle.
McCain had become an unlikely favorite among journalists with his “Straight Talk Express” forays during the 2000 campaign; he delivered barbed wisecracks and needled sacred cows to the delight of the traveling press. But he remained a hawkish, conservative senator, and as the 2008 campaign approached, he looked for ways to connect with the party that had elected Newt Gingrich as speaker and was spawning a tea party movement that embodied the inchoate public rage toward Washington.
McCain and I had a long talk in the spring of 2006 about what he would and wouldn’t do to get the GOP nomination. He had just been dinged by commentators for accepting a speaking invitation from right-wing preacher Jerry Falwell, and he was defending himself against charges that he had flip-flopped to win conservative support. “I haven’t changed,” he insisted. “My record is the same on all issues, which is that of a conservative Republican. Not a liberal Republican, not a moderate Republican.”
Republican candidate for President John McCain and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (center) address a large political rally in Cedarburg in September 2008, the morning after McCain addressed the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. JOURNAL SENTINEL FILES (Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
In the next instant, he was listing all the liberal measures he was supporting on principle, from banning torture to cleaning up campaign finance. I asked McCain whether he would compromise on these and other positions that were already anathema to right-wing Republicans to get the 2008 nomination, and he insisted it would never happen.
“I don’t want it that badly,” McCain told me. “I will continue to do what is right. I will continue to pursue torture, climate change. If that means I can’t get the Republican nomination, fine. I’ve had a happy life. The worst thing I can do is sell my soul to the devil.”
McCain had the self-knowledge to understand that he wasn’t very good at waffling. He explained: “Every time I did something because I thought it would be politically helpful, it turned out badly.” As an example, he cited his pandering to southern conservatives during the 2000 South Carolina primary when he said flying the Confederate flag at the state Capitol was a state issue.
Looking back: John McCain, who came to NJ 18 years ago, still stands in sharp relief to Donald Trump
'We have lost a true American patriot': Reaction to John McCain death by Pascrell, others
Lowry: John McCain gave his heart and soul to our nation
McCain did win the 2008 GOP nomination without grossly violating any of his principles. But he knew in his gut that his party and the country wanted change, and that, as rebellious a man as he was, he was a symbol of an older politics. I think that’s why he reached out to Palin – to tap some of the energy that was surging in the anti-establishment wing of the Republican Party. It was a dreadful mistake, because it helped enfranchise the “know-nothingism” that was spreading on the right.
The anti-Washington rage embodied by Palin came back to haunt McCain, in the person of President Trump. My guess is McCain was one of the many millions of decent Republicans and Democrats who could never imagine that the GOP and then the American electorate (or at least the Electoral College) would actually vote for someone of such low moral character.
McCain’s refusal to temporize about Trump, as other Republicans have, was one of his finest moments. As the headline on my column 12 years ago put it, McCain was “A Man Who Won’t Sell His Soul.”
David Ignatius can be reached via Twitter: @IgnatiusPost.
Sarah Palin slammed Sacha Baron Cohen and Showtime Tuesday on Facebook for their new prank series, claiming the comedian duped her and her daughter with a humiliating interview by posing as a disabled veteran. Time
Read or Share this story: https://njersy.co/2ohKMc5
Warming waters mean shift in NJ's fish populations
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Anti-reflux drugs given to babies cause BROKEN BONES later in life, research finds
Thursday, September 06, 2018 by: Russel Davis
Tags: antacids, Anti-reflux drugs, badhealth, badmedicine, bone density, bone fracture, bone health, fracture, GERD, hip fractures, osteoporosis, PPIs, Proton pump inhibitors
(Natural News) Giving babies antacids may increase the risk of bone fracture later in childhood, a recent study revealed. To carry out the study, the researchers pooled health records of 874,447 healthy children born within the Military Healthcare System between 2001 to 2013. The children received medical care from the institution for at least two years. According to the research team, about 10 percent of children were given antacids during the first year of life. Patients were prescribed proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), histamine H2-receptor antagonists (H2-blockers), or both.
The study found that children who were given PPIs had a 22 percent increased odds of fracture, while those who used both PPIs and H2-blockers were 31 more likely to suffer subsequent fracture. The research team also noted that while the use of H2-blockers was not associated with immediate fracture risk, long-term exposure may still raise the odds of the condition. The study also showed that the frequency of fractures increased with the number of days that the drugs were taken. In addition, children who were given antacids at a much younger age appeared to be the most susceptible to having broken bones. According to the research team, children who were prescribed antacids as early as six months had the highest odds of developing fractures. However, children who were prescribed antacids at age two did not have increased risk of fractures.
“With many antacids easily available over-the-counter for adults, these medications may seem benign. However, our study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting antacid medications are not safe for children, especially very young children, and should only be prescribed to treat confirmed serious cases of more severe symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and for the shortest length of time needed,” lead author Dr. Laura Malchodi was quoted in saying in Daily Mail.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), gastroesophageal reflux disease affects about 40 percent to 65 percent of all infants across the U.S. The condition usually starts at two to three weeks of life and peaks between four to five months, the AAP noted. The disease disappears by age one when the upper digestive tract matures.
The findings of the recent study were presented at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting.
Study explained why antacids weaken bones
A study published in the journal PLOS Genetics revealed that prescription and over-the-counter antacids and heartburn medications affected calcium absorption in the gut, which may explain why 100 million Americans were at an increased risk of bone fracture. According to researchers at the Forsyth Institute, stomach acid in the gastrointestinal tract aid the intestines in the absorption and transfer of calcium to the skeletal system. However, using proton pump inhibitor reduced acidity levels in the stomach. In turn, this reduction in acidity inhibited the stomach from absorbing much needed calcium, the researchers said.
“The regulation of bone mass by the gastrointestinal tract represents a remarkable example of an unexpected and important relationship between these two systems that is only now becoming fully appreciated. It could help us better understand and find new ways to treat common clinical conditions that currently require medications which have been linked to weakened bones, such as popular antacids,” said researcher Dr. Ricardo Battaglino of the Forsyth Institute.
In 2010, the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) issued warnings against taking higher doses of proton pump inhibitors due in part to higher odds of fracture. These warnings were based on several clinical studies confirming that antacids were detrimental to bone health. A large Canadian study found that people who used PPIs for more than seven years had a fivefold increased odds of suffering hip fracture. Another study revealed that people who took higher doses had greater likelihood of bone fractures.
AAPPublications.org
NPR.org
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Baltimore group pushes FDA to issue cancer warning labels on acid reflux drugs
https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-09-06-anti-reflux-drugs-given-to-babies-causes-broken-bones-later-in-life-research-finds-2.html
<a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-09-06-anti-reflux-drugs-given-to-babies-causes-broken-bones-later-in-life-research-finds-2.html">Anti-reflux drugs given to babies cause BROKEN BONES later in life, research finds</a>
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A how-to blog for Chicago business
Are Chicago Startups Running Out of Space?
By David Wolinsky
Published Aug 9, 2013 at 6:37 AM
Receive the latest inc-well updates in your inbox
If you’re looking for a great new venture, you may want to get into the real estate game. According to a new report by real estate services company CBRE, the startup community’s growth has led to an ever-increasing demand for space. In short: These companies need places to operate out of.
In a way, these findings aren’t surprising. With the storm that’s been coming with Groupon’s runaway success and, subsequently, the ascent of 1871, more people are going into business for themselves and they have to work somewhere. Additionally, companies that have been graduating from the collaborative hub for digital startups in the Merchandise Mart are in a different position from those who are starting out of a basement: They’ve already been working together and meeting in a neutral location for a long while, so it makes sense they want to move up with their own dedicated space, and not back to the aforementioned basement.
The numbers to back these findings up are as follows, according to the CBRE: In 2010, the vacancy rate in downtown Chicago buildings for these types of businesses was 14 percent, and currently it’s 6 percent.
So, the solution, perhaps, is to stop trying to innovate and start looking at opening spaces for these companies to go to. This will, at least, address the need for companies just starting out. And I can tell you from personal experience, 1871 is noticeably getting more crowded day-to-day.
It’s nothing to poke or make fun of, but just a hallmark of the space’s success. But it does also demonstrate the need for places like this. At least two of my friends have been looking into opening co-working spaces outside the city to tap more into the market of people who don’t want to take the train into the city for work. One of them has already opened such a space in Mokena, and while he’s still hustling for members, there is a demonstrable need for such places.
If you’re interested in clacking your gears on this train of thought, check out this handy list over at Mashable and the series of pieces from the aforementioned Mokena person here on Inc. Well.
David Wolinsky is a freelance writer and a lifelong Chicagoan. In addition to currently serving as IFC’s comedy, film, and TV blogger, he's also a comedy-writing instructor for Second City and an adjunct professor in DePaul’s College of Computing and Digital Media. (He also co-runs a blog behind the DePaul class, DIY Game Dev.) He was the Chicago city editor for The Onion A.V. Club where he provided in-depth daily coverage of this city's bustling arts/entertainment scene for half a decade. His first career aspirations were to be a game-show host.
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It’s A “Mad Men” World
After a 17-month absence, it took only two hours to get sucked back into Don Draper’s universe. But the world he created – and the world around him – is a-changin’.
Published Mar 26, 2012 at 12:50 AM | Updated at 8:11 AM EDT on Mar 26, 2012
Perhaps the most emotionally genuine moment during Sunday’s long-awaited return of “Mad Men” came when usually in-control office manager Joan Holloway wept tears of frustration over being away on maternity leave.
“I just keep thinking about what’s going on here,” she cried to ad firm partner Lane Pryce, “and I missed it too much.”
We know how she feels. After the show’s 17-month absence, it took only two hours to get sucked back into the “Mad Men” universe. But the world created by Don Draper, the ad man with a double life – and the world around him – is a-changin’.
Not only did Draper follow through on his stunning impulsive proposal and marry his young secretary Megan, he gave her a job as a junior copywriter at the firm. Meanwhile, the civil rights movement marched into the doors of Sterling Cooper Draper Price, with the country hurtling toward social upheaval as the hot summer of 1966 approaches.
January Jones Adores Being a Mother
Mad Men has received critical acclaim, especially for its historical authenticity and visual style, and has won multiple awards, including fifteen Emmys and four Golden Globes.
(Published Tuesday, March 4, 2014)
The episode unfolded deliberately, deftly laying the groundwork for the season to come while providing memorable moments designed to fuel water cooler gossip at Draper’s firm – and to burn up the Internet among a devoted, patient fan base forced to wait 518 days between episodes of the AMC drama.
The most talked about scene appears destined to be Megan’s bizarre sex kitten song-and-dance number at the surprise 40th birthday party she threw for Don, who thrives on keeping others off-balance but hates anything out of his control. The bigger shocker came with the revelation that he told her about his secret life, the one he began as dirt-poor farm boy Dick Whitman 40 years and six months earlier.
Whether Megan, who emerged in the season opener as something of a wildcard, will keep his past quiet or use it against him is unclear. Megan is hard to pin down – as we saw quite literally with her odd approach to housecleaning toward the end of Sunday’s installment.
The episode brimmed with such telling, awkward moments: Blowhard firm partner Roger Sterling, cigarette dangling from his mouth, holding Joan’s child, who is almost certainly his son. Peggy Olson and Pete standing over the child’s carriage – a decidedly uncomfortable image given their history as secret parents. The increasingly obnoxious Harry Crane’s cringe-worthy – and overheard – bawdy talk about Megan.
More significantly, Sunday’s episode offered hints that this season will delve deeper into issues of identity – whether it’s the country being shaken into racial reality or Draper’s unlikely new persona as a happily married man who brings his wife to the job he long ago married.
“I don’t recognize that man,” Peggy, who may know him best, said early on.
Rock Stars: Then and Now
We’re not sure what’s coming next, at least for Don Draper, a man mired in the same kind illusion he peddles to consumers. We have a better idea, of course, of what’s going to happen outside his world. Part of “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner’s success rests in telling the stories of his characters set against historic backdrops like the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy Assassination.
The Season 5 opener whet our appetite for more, and proved a two-hour advertisement for the power of quality television. Luckily, now we’ll only have to wait a week to see what we’re missing at the office.
Hester is founding director of the award-winning, milt-media NY City 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.
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Scott Stage - OGTAP Apprentice
Scott was accepted on to the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry Technical Training Scheme (now OGTAP) in 2010. Originally from Aberdeen, Scott studied Instrument and Control Maintenance at Edinburgh College.
The apprenticeship scheme grows in popularity every year, which according to Scott is a very positive thing and shows how times have changed.
‘All I can remember from school was the goal of gaining acceptance into University, there was never any mention of apprenticeships, unless you already knew of them and you wanted one.
‘Apprenticeships were scarce and the amount of places were so small, it put people off applying, but now there are a lot more opportunities which is a step in the right direction.
‘The scheme is split into classroom based learning at College and practical based learning with one of the sponsoring companies offshore.
Scott very much enjoyed college - ‘You practice a lot of skills required offshore at college, like calibration, pipe bending, risk assessments and Permit to Work system. All your work is recorded in a logbook which is checked by OPITO.
This is to make sure we are up-to-date and making progress through the course. A lot of my nights were spent working on my workbook which was recognised by the lecturers.
It was hard work and a detailed logbook that won Scott the ‘Apprentice of the Year’ award in 2012. ‘I am very proud to have won the award, the scheme has gone a long way to equipping me with the skills and knowledge needed for a successful career in the oil and gas industry.’
Scott maintained a positive outlook and approach to his work from the moment he applied and throughout the programme.
With a bright future ahead of him, Scott has a clear objective. ‘My ultimate career aim is to be an offshore installation manager and while it might be quite a few years off, this has absolutely been the best start I could have hoped for in my career.’
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Rugby Player
Aaron Cruden
12 April 2018 | Rugby Player
Aaron Cruden was bornon January 8, 1989 in New Zealand. Fly-half won the Super Rugby title and was the league's top scorer with the Chiefs in 2012.
Aaron Jarvis
Aaron Jarvis was bornon May 20, 1986 in England. Prop forward who made his international debut in 2012 for Wales.
Adam O'Brien
Adam O'Brien was bornon July 11, 1993 in England. Bradford Bulls player in the Championship rugby league whose favored position is hooker. In 2013, he was dual registered with Dewsbury.
Adam Reynolds
Adam Reynolds was bornon July 10, 1990 in Australia. Australian halfback who played his first game for the NRL All Stars in 2013.
Agustin Creevy
Agustin Creevy was bornon March 15, 1985 in Argentina. Argentine rugby union player who is known for having played on the Argentina national team, the Pumas, and Jaguars in the Super Rugby League. He...
Aidan Guerra
Aidan Guerra was bornon February 25, 1988 in Australia. Australian professional rugby player who has played second-row and lock on the National Rugby League team the Sydney Roosters. He and the Rooste...
Akona Ndungane
Akona Ndungane was bornon February 20, 1981 in South Africa. South African rugby union footballer who joined the Bulls in Super Rugby in 2005.
Aled Brew
Aled Brew was bornon August 9, 1986 in Wales. Rugby union player best known as a winger for teams like the Cardiff Blues and Newport Gwent Dragons. He won a gold medal representing Wales at the Rugby...
Alex Johnston
Alex Johnston was bornon January 14, 1995 in Australia. Professional rugby league footballer who helped the South Sydney Rabbitohs win the 2014 National Rugby League Premiership as a fullback and wing...
Allan Bateman
Allan Bateman was bornon March 6, 1965 in Wales. Former Welsch centre who played for 4 professional Rugby teams.
Andrew Bishop
Andrew Bishop was bornon August 7, 1985 in Wales. Center who made his representative debut in 2008 for Wales. He competed in the Six Nations tournament for Wales in 2010.
Andrew Henderson
Andrew Henderson was bornon February 3, 1980 in England. Center who made his senior debut in 2001 for Glasgow.
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Weekend Guide: Aug. 18-24
Your guide to comedy, theater, events and more!
Weekend Guide: Aug. 18-24 Your guide to comedy, theater, events and more! Check out this story on news-leader.com: http://sgfnow.co/2bCANKi
News-Leader Published 6:01 p.m. CT Aug. 17, 2016
Join in the bluegrass in Basin Spring Park during the Eureka Springs Bluegrass Festival this weekend.(Photo: Submitted photo)
14th Annual Natural Healing Arts Fair, 6-8 p.m., Shrine Mosque, 601 St.. Louis St. One hundred natural healing practitioners, booths, natural healing demonstrations. Admission $3-$5. 417-631-5980
Books & Brew, 4 p.m., Mother's Brewing Company, 215 S. Grant Ave. Enjoy a cold glass of beer and discuss representations of Missouri history and culture in popular fiction and nonfiction. "Pudd'nhead Wilson" by Mark Twain. Free. 417-882-0714
DIY with a Purpose, 6 p.m., Midtown Carnegie Branch Library, 397 E. Central St. Learn home repair with Habitat for Humanity's construction professionals. Free. 417-862-0135
Eureka Springs Bluegrass Festival Watermelon Social, 7-8:30 p.m., Basin Spring Park, 4 Spring St., Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Bring your instruments and join in the pickin'. Free. www.eurekasprings.org
Missouri State Fair, 7:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Missouri State Fairgrounds, 2503 W. 16th St., Sedalia. Carnival, competitions and a concert featuring the Newsboys and Hawk Nelson. Tickets $2-$10. 660-530-5600
14th Annual Natural Healing Arts Fair, 6-8 p.m., Shrine Mosque, 601 St. Louis St. One hundred natural healing practitioners, booths, natural healing demonstrations. Admission $3-$5. 417-631-5980
49th Annual Ozarks Antique Auto Club Swap Meet, 7 a.m.-8 p.m., Ozark Empire Fairgrounds, 3001 N. Grant Ave. Buy and sell new and used parts, arts and crafts services, and other vendors. Free. 417-736-3485
Blue Room Comedy Club presents Comedy's Best Kept Secret, 8 p.m., Blue Room Comedy Club at Billards of Springfield, 541 E. St. Louis St. Tickets $10 adult; $7 military; $8 student. 417-986-4866
Crane Broiler Festival (Photo: File photo)
Crane Broiler Festival, 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Crane City Park. Barbecued chicken dinners, crafts, carnival, Slick Chick pageant and more. Free admission. cranebroilerfestival.org/
Discovery Center National Aviation Day, 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Discovery Center, 438 E. St. Louis St. Aviation themed event with paper airplane contests, talks with pilots from OzAir, and aviation stores at 12 and 2 p.m. Adults $12; Children $8; 2 and under Free. www.discoverycenter.org/
Eureka Springs Bluegrass Festival Basin Spring Park, noon-5 p.m., Basin Spring Park, 4 Spring St., Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The Roving Gamblers, Mountain View Friends, Casey and Atta Boys, Dragon Masters and the Four Fiddlers. Free. www.eurekasprings.org
Eureka Springs Bluegrass Festival Auditorium, 7 p.m., Eureka Springs Auditorium, 36 S. Main St., Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The Eureka Springs Reunion Band. $20. www.theaud.org
Insect-O-Rama, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Springfield Conservation Nature Center, 4601 S. Nature Center Way. Annual celebration of insects and the important role they play in nature. Creepy crawly fun for all ages, no registration required. 417-888-4237
"Jerry's Girls" featuring Kim Crosby, 7:30 p.m., Springfield Contemporary Theatre, 302 E. Pershing. Broadway hit featuring music from "Mame," "Hello Dolly!" and more. Tickets $23. $10 student rush. 417-831-8001
Missouri State Fair, 7:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Missouri State Fairgrounds, 2503 W. 16th St., Sedalia. Carnival, competitions, and a concert featuring Red Dirt Country Night, Randy Rogers Band, Jason Bowland & The Stragglers, Stoney Larue. Tickets $2-$10. 660-530-5600
Movies at Founders Park presents Zootopia, 9 p.m., Founders Park, 330 E. Water St. Admission free with advance family 4 pack of tickets, $5 at the gate. 417-864-1049; ParkBoard.org/movies
Springfield Improv, Use Your Words, 8 p.m., and Improv Circus, 10 p.m., Springfield Improv Theatre, 308 Sout Avenue. $5-$10. 417-872-2658
14th Annual Natural Healing Arts Fair, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Shrine Mosque, 601 St. Louis St. One hundred natural healing practitioners, booths, natural healing demonstrations. Admission $3-$5. 417-631-5980
49th Annual Ozarks Antique Auto Club Swap Meet, 7 a.m.-8 p.m., Ozarks Empire Fairgrounds, 3001 N. Grant Ave. Buy and sell new and used parts, arts and crafts services and other vendors. Free. 417-736-3485
Batman Live Parodies: Batman vs. The Blanketeer, 7:30 p.m., Springfield Improv Theatre, 308 South Ave. Parody inspired by 1960s Batman TV show. $8. 417-766-3139
A Class Act Productions brings us a Buffy the Vampire Slayer parody on Saturday (Photo: Submitted Photo)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Staged Parodies "Conversations With Dead People," 9 p.m., Springfield Improv Theatre, 308 South Ave. Parody inspired by cult classic TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. $8. 417-766-3139
Blue Room Comedy Club presents Comedy's Best Kept Secret, 8 p.m., Blue Room Comedy Club at Billiards of Springfield, 541 E. St. Louis St. $10 adult; $7 military; $8 student. 417-986-4866
Crane Broiler Festival, 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Crane City Park. Barbecued chicken dinners, crafts, carnival, Slick Chick pageant and more. Free. cranebroilerfestival.org/
Contra Dance, Steps 7 p.m., Dance 7:30 p.m., Northview Center, Doling Park, 301 E. Talmage St. Ages 10 and up welcome, no partner needed. Adults $6; Students $4; Members $4. www.springfieldcontra.org
Saturday Afternoon at the Movies: Cary Grant Comedies, 2-4 p.m., Library Center, 4653 S. Campbell Ave. "Room for One More," 1952, unrated. Free. 417-882-0714
Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, 12:30 p.m., Carhop Auto Sales, 528 N. Glenstone. Partnering with Springfield Police Foundation to help raise funds for training, tactical equipment. Family fun and root beer floats. Free. 417-831-6913
Missouri State Fair, 7:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Missouri State Fairgrounds, 2503 W. 16th St., Sedalia. Carnival, competitions, and concert featuring Lady Antebellum, Kelsea Ballerini. $2-$10. 660-530-5600
Movies at Founders Park presents The Intern, 9 p.m., Founders Park, 330 E. Water St. Admission free with advance family 4 pack of tickets, $5 at the gate. 417-864-1049; ParkBoard.org/movies
Old-Time Know-How, 3 p.m., Library Station, 2535 N. Kansas Expressway. Learn bread making basics. Free. 417-865-1340
Wild Oaks Campground Summer Concert Series: Dan Conklin & the Regulators, 6 p.m., Wild Oaks Campground, 1818 State Highway 64, Lebanon. Red dirt country/Southern rock. Free. 417-588-1631
49th Annual Ozarks Antique Auto Club Swap Meet, 7 a.m.-5 p.m., Ozarks Empire Fairgrounds, 3001 N. Grant Ave. Buy and sell new and used parts, arts and crafts services, and other vendors. Free. 417-736-3485
"Jerry's Girls" featuring Kim Crosby, 2 p.m., Springfield Contemporary Theatre, 302 E. Pershing. Broadway hit featuring music from "Mame," "Hello Dolly!" and more. Tickets $23. $10 student rush. 417-831-8001
Luau on the Beach Dance, 6-9 p.m., 910 Ballroom, 910 W. Battlefield Road. Luau-themed dance. Bring snacks to share, beverages provided. Admission $10. 417-883-4091
Missouri State Fair, 7:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Missouri State Fairgrounds, 2503 W. 16th St., Sedalia. Carnival, competitions and concerts. Tickets $2-$10. 660-530-5600
Board Game Night, 6:30 p.m., Library Center, 4653 S. Campbell Ave. Monthly board game night; learn to play new games or play some old favorites. Free. 417-882-0714
Good Hearts Knitting Circle, noon, Park Central Branch Library, 128 Park Central Square. Good Hearts Knitting Circle will knit red hats for babies born next February to raise awareness about congenital heart disease as part of the American Heart Association's Little Hats, Big Hearts program. Materials provided; all skill levels welcome. Free. 417-831-1342
Air and Military Museum of the Ozarks, noon-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 2305 E. Kearney St. Admission: $5; $3 for ages 7-12; ages 6 and younger free. 417-864-7997
Artists Recovering Through 12 Steps, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Mondays, The Creamery Arts Center, 411 N. Sherman Parkway. For writers, painters and all artists desiring to achieve their creative potential. Free. 417-881-7070
C-Street City Market, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays, 321 E. Commercial St. Vendors offer produce, local honey, soaps, baked goods and more. 417-812-5545
Dickerson Park Zoo, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. 1401 W. Norton Road. Tickets: Adults and teens, $12; children ages 3-12, $8; age 60 and older, $8. Children age 2 and younger and Friends of the Zoo members admitted free. 417-833-1570; dickersonparkzoo.org
Discovery Center of Springfield, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 1-5 p.m. Sunday. 438 St. Louis St. An interactive, hands-on science museum for people of all ages. Admission: Adults, $12; children age 3-15, $8; senior citizens (60 and older), $10; military personnel, $7. Group rates available.
Fantastic Caverns, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. daily, 4872 N. Farm Road 125. Admission: $23.50; $15.50 children ages 6-12; free for ages 5 and younger with paid adult. 417-833-2010; fantasticcaverns.com
Farmers Market of the Ozarks, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesdays. 2144 E. Republic Road. 417-316-1557; loveyourfarmer.com
Greater Springfield Farmers Market, 8 a.m.-noon Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Battlefield Mall parking lot, 2825 S. Glenstone Ave.; springfieldfarmersmarket.com
History Museum on the Square, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 155 Park Central Square. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children, free for members. 417-831-1976; historymuseumonthesquare.org
Ozarks Farmers Market, 4-7:30 p.m. every Thursday, Ozark Community Center, 1530 W. Jackson St., Ozark. Free. 417-581-4715
Parties at the Park, 5-8 p.m. Thursdays, Farmers Market of the Ozarks, 2144 E. Republic Road. Live music, craft beer and cocktails, lawn games and more. Free admission; food and drink available to purchase. 417-316-1557; loveyourfarmer.com
Railroad Historical Museum Inc. of Springfield, 2-4 p.m. Saturdays, Grant Beach Park, 1300 N. Grant Ave. The museum is located within four antique train cars and staffed by volunteers. Free admission. 417-833-0994
Route 66 Car Museum, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 1634 W. College St. Classic and sports cars on exhibit along with gift shop and auto memorabilia. Admission $15; $13 for veterans and seniors; $5 for children.
Silver Dollar City presents America's largest Southern Gospel Picnic, 399 Indian Point Road, Branson. Festival runs Aug. 25-Sept. 5, with family fun and entertainment including the Booth Brothers, Jeff & Sheri Easter, The Isaacs, The Hoppers, Greater Vision, Ernie Haase & Signature sound. www.silverdollarcity.com
Springfield Art Museum, 1-5 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m Thursday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 1111 E. Brookside Drive. 417-837-5700; sgfmuseum.org
Springfield Botanical Gardens, Nathanael Greene Park, Garden and grounds open sunrise-sunset. Botanical Center hours 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. 2400 S. Scenic Ave. Free admission. 417-891-1515; parkboard.org/botanical; FriendsoftheGarden.org
Springfield Conservation Nature Center, Visitors center open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; trails open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. 4601 S. Nature Center Way. 417-888-4237
Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Visitor Center hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the Tour Road is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. 6424 W. Farm Road 182, Republic. Wilson’s Creek is the site of the first major Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River. 417-732-2662; www.nps.gov/wicr
Read or Share this story: http://sgfnow.co/2bCANKi
Your guide to celebrating 4 days of the Fourth
July 3, 2019, 10 p.m.
There's nothing like summer at Silver Dollar City
Theater under the stars — or in a bar
5 reasons you won't want to miss Taste of SoMo
The best of John Goodman, on his birthday
See cool old cars at Street Rod Nationals
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First Nations, developer call for return and protection of sacred burial site
Posted Jun 14, 2019 6:42 pm ADT
ABBOTSFORD, B.C. — Indigenous leaders from across British Columbia and parts of the United States gathered at a sacred burial site in Abbotsford, B.C., to call for its protection by the provincial government.
From a grassy plateau overlooking farmland in the Fraser Valley, Sumas First Nation Chief Dalton Silver told those gathered they were standing on a mass grave where hundreds if not thousands of their ancestors are buried after a smallpox outbreak.
He says the Sto:lo and Sumas First Nations have been fighting for years to have the 65-hectare property known as Lightning Rock returned to them.
John Glazema of Cold Water Ranch Developments says his firm was among a group of development companies that purchased the site in 2011 with plans to build an agricultural mall but only learned of its spiritual and cultural significance a year later.
Since then, he says they have been in negotiations with the province to return the site to the Sumas people, but have yet to reach a settlement for their $12 million in costs.
More than a dozen Indigenous leaders, including former lieutenant-governor Steven Point and Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, signed a joint letter to Premier John Horgan calling for its return.
Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser was not immediately available for comment.
Phillip said the union has successfully advocated for the protection of other sites and he’s optimistic that this one would be, too.
“We’re on a mass burial site of our people,” Silver told the crowd.
“We’re going to keep pursuing this, to have this place returned to us.”
Glazema said the developers stand with the nations, but the process has taken a toll on them and their families.
“We attempted to do everything right,” he said. “We’re fighting for our money back and paying huge interest costs.”
Two years ago, they signed a letter of agreement with the province that appeared to set the stage for a settlement but it has not been forthcoming, he said.
They discovered early on in the process that some First Nations criteria had not been considered during the site’s initial assessment.
“We are in unity with the Sumas nation,” Glazema said.
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10 Candidates for the Post-Schism UNCANNY X-MEN Team
By Lucas Siegel, Newsarama Editor June 16, 2011 06:21pm ET
The X-Men are getting a divorce over what looks like Wolverine and Cyclops's irreconcilable differences.
Now comes the messy part - the lawyers have to divide up the X-Men between who wants to go live with Scott, and who wants to go live with Logan.
Thursday Marvel gave fans some sense of the philosophical lines that will be divide Cyclops's new Uncanny team and Wolverine's squad, so, today and tomorrow we're taking our best stabs at who will wind up where (along with a dash of our own wishful thinking) on the new teams in Uncanny X-Men #1 and Wolverine and the X-Men #1 in Fall 2011.
We start with Uncanny X-Men. Cyclops's roster, which according to writer Kieron Gillen, is "aspiring to be to be the world's premier super team." With that in mind, we countdown 10 characters we think would both represent those global ambitions, and best serve as the more public "face" of the mutant race.
Click the "Start here" button on the upper left to see our top choices for Cyclops's new squad.
Got a comment? There's lots of conversation on Newsarama's FACEBOOK and TWITTER!
CYCLOPS (well, duh...)
The leader of the team, he won't have the roster to pull from that he used to after Schism, but that doesn't mean he can't finally achieve his goal of making the X-Men a world-class superhero team.
Working for the cause of mutants and humans alike longer than just about anyone else, he's a clear leader, soldier, and heroic archetype.
He'll have his work cut out for him, but if someone can pull this off, it's Scott Summers.
She's a pretty, young, charismatic redhead. She has ambiguous, but overall non-threatening powers to a general public. She may or may not have some blood relation to the Grey or Summers family, but regardless she considers Cable, Scott's son, as her own father.
With Cable dead, Hope has helped usher in the next generation of mutants, but that doesn't mean she can't pull double duty with the "face" hero team.
KITTY PRIDE
Continuing the "non-threatening power" trend, here's another pretty, younger girl who knows how to work a crowd (she had a career in politics, folks!).
Kitty's been trained by Wolverine in combat, which might make this a slightly surprising choice for her given those ties, but we think she'd want, and Logan would understand her wanting, to be on a "real" superhero team.
Let's be honest, where Kitty goes, Piotr is pretty sure to follow.
What's great in this case is in their quest for worldwide exposure, having a prominent Russian superhero may be a boon.
He's big, strong, shiny object; all things people dig. Give him a public perception makeover of "mysterious exotic foreign guy" and the American public will eat him up.
This guy is already a true hero, once giving his life to stop the Legacy Virus.
STORM (and BLACK PANTHER while we're at it)
If you think "international" and "X-Men," chances are Storm is at the top of your list.
She's been a goddess, a queen, and a field leader. She's a trusted teammate, and already has a strong public persona.
Having Black Panther on the squad as a reserve, a well-known and respected Avenger, would also be a boon to Cyclops's goals.
While the original X-Men won't all stand at Scott's side, Bobby would fit in well with the big team.
We've heard for decades now about his untapped potential (with just a couple teases), and now's the time to let him unleash.
Granted, we'd like to see him on the Wolverine team if for no other reason than to see Chris Bachalo draw him again, but on Cyclops's squad he has the potential to stand out, use his experience, and become the superstar he's always really wanted to be.
This one's a natural for a "face" team of X-Men. He's a corn-fed southern boy. His fit physique and blonde hair complete with his southern drawl make him fit for lots of press conferences and photo ops.
Yes, he's the leader of his own team, but come on, when has one team membership ever stopped a mutant from being on another?
Attitude-wise, this is probably the younger mutant that is most likely to grow up to be Cyclops, and a good fit for his squad.
This would be another surprise, as she's been working with Wolverine in Uncanny X-Force. But, when you really think about it, she's been something of a reluctant member of that squad. She'd also pull double-duty for the international flavor of the squad, given she's a Brit trapped in a Japanese woman's body.
She has a past with Cyclops that could produce some tension Gillen could exploit, and she'd make a great one-two punch with our #2 entry...
Our last international member for this "world-class" team is also our nomination for co- or field-leader. He has led teams before, of course, and is the premiere hero of England... also the home of Uncanny X-Men writer Kieron Gillen.
Captain Britain would instantly give the X-Men more pull in Europe, and is quite the powerhouse as well. Teaming with his sister Betsy (Psylocke) would show off a cool sibling dynamic we don't see enough in the X-Men. While he's not a mutant, that should be less important on this new squad, and his connections to their world are undeniable.
The time is right for the Phoenix to rise from the ashes.
Dead since the end of Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, it's always been a matter of when, not if, Jean would return. With the possibility of this Schism also breaking up Emma Frost and Scott Summers, the return of Slim's true love couldn't be timed better.
On top of this, you'd have a new mentor for Hope and possibly establish once and for all that Hope has not been Jean all along... the possibilities are endless.
How will Jean react to all that happened while she was gone, like: House of M, Decimation, Civil War, Messiah Complex, Secret Invasion, Utopia, Dark Reign, Second Coming, and Schism?
Gillen could have a field day having her sort through all that she's missed.
Of course, Jean's return would have its marketing and sales advantages too. What better way to help launch a new series than to include the long-awaited return of a fan-favorite character early in the new title's run?
Oh, and how utterly pissed would Wolverine be when he found out she's back and chose Scott's team?
That ought to help keep the feud raw for a while...
One of the X-MEN's Deadliest Foes Returns in X-MEN: RED #1 - SPOILERS
Join the X-MEN - For Charity
10 Greatest X-MEN Stories of All Time
CHRIS CLAREMONT'S X-MEN Trailer
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Moment of Clarity: Scarborough Warns Trump Critics on Taking ‘the Bait’
By Gregory Price | July 11, 2019 7:24 PM EDT
There is perhaps no moment in Donald Trump’s presidency in which the media unnecessarily melted down more than in their coverage of President Trump’s Fourth of July “Salute to America” celebration. The event itself was a tribute to America’s military and the country’s history. It featured flyovers from all five branches of the military.
Joe Scarborough, occasionally, has a moment of clarity when it comes to the media’s hatred for President Trump. On a Thursday edition of Morning Joe, he said that referring to the event as reminiscent of “Tiananmen Square” and calling Trump a dictator is exactly what the President wants them to do. Normally the most outspoken of Trump critics in the media, the MSNBC host warned fellow journalists not to take the President’s “bait” (click “expand”):
SCARBOROUGH [LAUGHING]: Listen to the people clapping. I'm sorry. This is just -- I've been talking a good bit about ground noise and the signal. Everything that was said about that Fourth of July event, everything about that Fourth of July event, ground noise. And now he's going to bring it back next year and his critics will be shocked and stunned and deeply saddened and we’ll talk about it for another three days and it will mean absolutely nothing.
WILLIE GEIST: …But he gets his opponents to go so far in the other direction, that he likes the fight. He gets people to actually say that this is like Tiananmen Square because he had a couple of tanks behind him making his speech. That’s ridiculous, it’s preposterous and he’s happy to bait him into doing that.
SCARBOROUGH: A couple of old tanks. And, Willie, it gets people actually on his side saying, “Oh, so you hate people who wave the flag?” You know what, if he wants to have his little events, let him have his little events and don’t— of course, he's bankrupting the city as you and Alex point out -- but again, he's putting critics in a position where they are criticizing the flag and Blue Angels and just don't go for the bait every time.
With his Fourth of July event, President Trump, as MRC’s Brent Bozell and Tim Graham noted, "succeeded in creating another full-blown media panic about democracy eroding, and civilian control of the military collapsing, all because the president is behaving like a dictator.” Even when it comes to non-partisan patriotic displays that honored the birth of our nation on the National Mall, liberals in the media simply could not put away their hate-field hyperbole.
Scarborough may be an anti-Trump MSNBC shill, but he is smart enough to understand that the unhinged nature of the media is not helping their perception among the American people.
The full transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
MSNBC's Morning Joe
7:27 a.m. Eastern
DONALD TRUMP: I will say this: It was a wonderful day for all Americans and based on its tremendous success we're just making the decision and I think we can say we have made the decision to do it again next year and maybe we can say for the foreseeable future. [Crowd applause]
JOE SCARBOROUGH: *Laughing*
MIKA BRZEZISNKI: He's just a nut.
SCARBOROUGH: *Laughing* Listen to the people clapping. I'm sorry. This is just -- I've been talking a good bit about ground noise and the signal. Everything that was said about that Fourth of July event, everything about that Fourth of July event, ground noise. And now he's going to bring it back next year and his critics will be shocked and stunned and deeply saddened and we’ll talk about it for another three days and it will mean absolutely nothing.
BRZEZINSKI: But we'll cover other stories as well--
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I think it's probably a little more important covering actually foreign policy--
BRZEZINSKI: Cover the Alex Acosta story --
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, exactly. Instead of old tanks on the mall.
BRZEZINSKI: Mueller’s testimony, children at the border, the Russia probe.
SCARBOROUGH: I just thought people clapping. Willie, I love the people clapping in the audience. That Donald Trump is announcing, “Hey, we're going to have that horrible event again where I talk about George Washington seizing the airports.” Who is in the audience applauding, going “woot woot”? I mean who loved that event other than Donald Trump?
WILLIE GEIST: Maybe people in the room who thought their jobs were on the line, perhaps, but--
BRZEZINSKI: They loved it. Loved it
GEIST: Joe, you make a good point though. This is another fight that Donald Trump likes to have. Because he has this event -- by the way, there were ton of people there, the Blue Angels were there, everybody can get behind that part of it. But, yes as Alex points out, he may have bankrupt a fund in the city. We'll talk about that in a minute. But he gets his opponents to go so far in the other direction, that he likes the fight. He gets people to actually say that this is like Tiananmen Square because he had a couple of tanks behind him making his speech. That’s ridiculous, it’s preposterous and he’s happy to bait him into doing that.
NBDaily Morning Joe Joe Scarborough Willie Geist Mika Brzezinski Donald Trump
Gregory Price
Gregory Price is an intern in the Media Research Center's News Analysis Division.
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NewsHealth
Octuplets could cost taxpayers millions of dollars
By Kimi Yoshino and Jessica Garrison Newsday Staff Writer February 11, 2009 3:27 PM
Nadya Suleman has 14 children, including newborn octuplets. She has no job, no income and owes $50,000 in student loans.
Still, the 33-year-old Whittier woman said she's confident that she can afford to raise her huge family, insisting she can do it without welfare. In an interview Tuesday with NBC, she said she could use student loans to make ends meet until she finishes graduate school and gets a job.
But Suleman faces what are likely to be millions of dollars in medical bills alone, and it's increasingly likely that taxpayers will foot many of those bills.
Her family is eligible for large sums of public assistance money. Even before she gave birth to the octuplets Jan. 26, Suleman was receiving $490 in monthly food stamps, and three of her children were receiving federal supplemental security income because they are disabled.
Lowell Kepke, a spokesman for the San Francisco office of the Social Security Administration, said that a single parent with no income qualifies for up to $793 a month for each child with a physical or mental condition that results in "marked or severe functional limitations." That money is used for support and maintenance of the family, and Suleman would not be required to specifically account for how it is spent.
If Suleman's disabled children received the maximum payment, she would get nearly $2,900 a month in state and federal assistance, including the food stamps.
Suleman's octuplets qualify for Medi-Cal, California's healthcare program for the poor. Three sources told The Times that Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower had requested reimbursement for care of the eight premature infants.
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Reimbursement rates for the octuplets were not immediately available. However, 2007 records show that Southern California hospitals received an average of $1,198 per day, per patient.
Tony Cava, a spokesman for the California Department of Health Care Services, said that for a baby in a hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, that amount would probably increase.
Using the 2007 average as a low estimate, Kaiser would be eligible for a combined $9,584 per day in Medi-Cal reimbursement. The babies, who are 16 days old, have already racked up a conservative $153,344 in Medi-Cal costs, not including their delivery. Kaiser doctors have said they will remain hospitalized for seven to 12 weeks. If they stay for seven weeks, the cost would be $469,616. If they stay 12 weeks, the cost would be $805,056.
Kaiser gathered 46 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals together to perform the delivery. It's unclear how much that cost and who will pay.
Suleman told NBC that she planned to go back to Cal State Fullerton, where she is earning a master's degree in counseling. Once she receives the degree, she said, she will get a job and be able to financially support the children.
Suleman used to work as a psychiatric technician at Metropolitan State Hospital, where she suffered an injury in 1999. During a riot involving 20 people, a patient overturned a heavy wooden desk on her back. After the incident, Suleman only briefly returned to work and she continued to experience ongoing back problems from a herniated disc.
Between 2000 and 2008, she received $169,353 in temporary disability payments, a workers' compensation spokeswoman said.
Her workers' compensation file, obtained by The Times, indicates that a doctor hired by the state to evaluate her believes she is now eligible for permanent disability. The state stopped making temporary disability payments Aug. 28. But the records show that she would receive payment for permanent disability. State officials said no determination has been made yet about the amount or duration of her payments.
Suleman insisted to NBC's Ann Curry in an interview taped Tuesday that she's not seeking a public handout.
"I'm not living off any taxpayer money," she said. "If I am, if it's food stamps, it's a temporary resource. And I was so reluctant. I very much so look forward to the day when I am not getting any kind of help with food stamps, which I believe will end when I graduate in about a year or year and a half."
Suleman also said she hopes that two of her children will soon no longer be disabled.
She said she has $50,000 in student loans that she will eventually have to repay.
Suleman also bristled at suggestions made by some commentators that she was being irresponsible for having so many children with no income or partner to help raise them.
"No. I am not being selfish. . . . If I were just sitting down watching TV and not being as determined as I am to succeed and provide a better future for my children, I believe that would be considered to a certain degree selfish," she said.
Suleman said she was married once. But the relationship ended when she realized "that I wasn't in love at all with him. I was in love with having children."
Suleman's ex-husband, Marcos Gutierrez, a produce manager at a salad company, declined to comment extensively about his ex-wife but said she's a good person.
"Nadya, she is a person with a great heart. . . . She's a nice person, with great love for her kids. That's all I have to say," he said.
Meanwhile, medical experts continued to question Dr. Michael Kamrava, the fertility specialist believed to have treated Suleman. Although she did not mention him directly, she named his West Coast IVF Clinic in Beverly Hills as the place where she sought treatment.
Dr. R. Dale McClure, president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, said the association has contacted both Suleman and Kamrava to learn more about the circumstances leading to her pregnancy.
"Only when we obtain and evaluate such information will we be able to determine an appropriate course of action," McClure said.
As for Suleman, she told NBC that she doesn't plan any more children. "100%. 200, 300 400%. Yes, done," she said.
kimi.yoshino@latimes.com
jessica.garrison@latimes.com
By Kimi Yoshino and Jessica Garrison Newsday Staff Writer
Octuplets mom receives food stamps, spokesman saysThe California mother of octuplets already receives food stamps and disability payments to help feed ... migrated.story.la-me-octuplets10-2009feb10 migrated.story.la-me-octuplets11-2009feb11
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Home Opinion Exploring the...
Exploring the power of ‘Hineinei’ within Hindu-Jewish relations
NG News Desk
By Dr. Richard Benkin
credits: Shahjar.com
When I was asked to speak at Hindu Jewish Dialogue: Ancient Cultures, Common Concerns, I knew exactly what I wanted to say.
I have worked closely with Hindu communities throughout the United States and South Asia for years. Hindus always have treated me as one of their own, and I always consider myself a part of that community. The event was held on Sunday, August 23 at the Manav Seva Mandir in suburban Chicago; and all 300 Hindu and Jewish Americans who were there expected that it will be the first of many such events.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Subramanian Swamy, who played a crucial role in opening formal Israel-India relations in the early 1990s—and who is one of the most incisive minds I know.
His description of how that happened provided a clear refutation to those who suggest that the India-Israel relationship is based solely on military sales and security cooperation. In fact, he contended, the period when India and Israel had no relationship was the anomaly; that the people of India have a deep admiration for Israel and the Jews; and that the twin demons of Soviet influence and a strong Indian left forced that situation on the people of India. Perhaps that is why it is no coincidence that Israel opened its embassy in India shortly after the USSR fell.
The program moderator was Peggy Shapiro, Midwest Director of StandWithUs, a non-profit organization dedicated to informing the public about Israel and to combating extremism and anti-Semitism. Other speakers included Dr. Bharat Barai, a widely honored oncologist and President of the Indian American Community Foundation; Robert Schwartz, Senior Policy Advisor at the Consulate General of Israel; and Prasad Yalamanchi, Chairman of the Global Hindu Heritage Foundation, which along with StandWithUs sponsored the event.
All of the speakers spoke about their personal and professional experiences that brought them to this event. And then there was me—a Jew known for devoting his life to the cause of Hindus in Bangladesh. I explained how being Jewish was the essential element that led me to fight for Hindus.
In 2007, I returned home from a human rights trip to Bangladesh to meet a man whose life I saved. He was a journalist who wrote articles positive about Israel (in fact, urging the Bangladeshi government to recognize the Jewish state) and negative about radical Islam (its growing strength in Bangladesh and how it spreads its poison through the madrassas, or Muslim schools. For that, the Bangladeshi government threw him in prison, tortured him, threatened him with death, and charged him with blasphemy. The government was determined to silence him, eradicate his ideas, and appease their Islamist masters. Because I made it do something else—specifically, release him and let him continue publishing as he wished—there was a fax waiting for me when I returned home.
It was from a man named Bikash who said he was a Hindu living near Kolkata. “My parents brought me to India from Bangladesh when I was eleven years old,” he wrote. “My people are dying. Please save us.” Simply as a human being, how do you turn your back on that? Moreover, when I was in Bangladesh I heard rumblings about minority persecution. I even met with several; although they couldn’t speak freely unless we found some out of the way place where we would be safe from government agents, Islamists, and people looking to pick up money as paid informants.
Although it was Bikash’s fax that led me to delve deeply into the matter deeply, none of it would have happened without my Jewish values.
First there is history. The world now knows what the Nazis did to my people during World War II, but condemning Hitler does not require much insight; and it’s easier to recognize new Hitlers today, such as the genocide-threatening mullahs in Iran and the genocidal actors known as ISIS. All of the Nazis together would not have been able to implement their Holocaust, however, were it not for the passive complicity of “good” Europeans and others. All of my training and upbringing told me that those who sat by while their neighbors were dragged away to death camps and killing fields were equally responsible as those who did the actual killing.
Over 99 percent of Danish Jews, for instance, survived the Holocaust because their non-Jewish neighbors actively opposed their deportation. Opposition by non-Jews in the Belgian cities of Brussels and Liege allowed many Jews to find hiding and escape the Nazi deportations. Our Talmud says, “Who can protest an injustice but does not is an accomplice to the act.” I learned even as a child that I could never sit by and let others be persecuted.
Additionally, we have a word in Hebrew that is a moral guide; a template that sets our feet on the right course. The word is Hineinei, which literally means “here I am.” Its real meaning, however, is “here I am for you.” It’s our answer to a call that appears at critical moments throughout our Torah.
It’s the answer that Abraham, the father of Judaism, gave when God told him not to kill his son in a religious sacrifice, thus forever marking off our faith as one with a special reverence for life. It’s the answer given by Moses, our greatest prophet, when God called to him from the burning bush to save His people who were enslaved in Egypt, even though it meant going up against what was then the most formidable military power in his world.
When we say Hineinei we do so unconditionally. Abraham and Moses said it before they know would be asked. Because the value is not in the action itself, although that’s pretty important. The essential value lies in being there, ready to stand with another, ready to do what is right. So, when I saw that fax, as a Jew, there was only one possible response: Hineinei. And my moral obligation was to do so even before I knew what would be involved with that commitment.
Hineinei’s power is transformative. As Swami Vivekananda told us, perfection doesn’t come from belief alone but from selfless action. Saying Hineinei brings us to that. It’s transformative in the way it frees us to be the best we can be for everyone around us and for something far greater than ourselves; and we all have the power within us to say Hineinei. As an essential Jewish value, it led me to fight for the persecuted Hindus of Bangladesh.
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The OTT platforms installed on the devices are in addition to the casual entertainment apps such as YouTube and UGC
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Has ISIS Acquired Qaddafi\'s Shoulder-Held Missiles?
The Best Women's Hoops Team West of UConn—and the Yukon
Newsweek Magazine
Why Japan Is Excited About the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
By Joe Jackson On 03/05/16 at 3:22 PM EST
Japanese torchbearers with the 1964 Olympic flame relay team run through the rain on their way to the Olympic Stadium in October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. AP
Tech & ScienceJapan Tokyo Olympics
If all goes according to plan, visitors to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games will be awestruck before the sporting contests even begin. Attendees will be shuttled around the city by self-driving taxis. They'll enter a newly built national stadium with the swipe of a pass, get verified by facial recognition software and be guided to their seats in one of 10 languages on a smartphone app. They may gaze up at the night sky from anywhere in Tokyo to see an artificial meteor shower show unfolding 50 miles above their heads.
Concerted efforts are under way to realize these and other innovations and emulate the enviable legacy of technological superiority and reputation rebuilding that emerged from the last Summer Games Japan hosted, in 1964. Olympic organizers, innovators, entrepreneurs and academics are working on ambitious projects that could enhance Japanese society and beyond long after the closing ceremony.
"The Olympic Games is a sports festival, but also it's a chance to show the innovation of scientific technologies," says Toshiro Muto, chief executive of Tokyo's organizing committee. He says the committee is planning high-tech features like hydrogen-powered vehicles for athlete transportation and smartphone tools to aid tourists. "We have the potential to make this Olympic Games wonderful [and one] that the people of the world are going to admire."
Cities are increasingly reluctant to host the Olympic Games, given their hefty price tags. London 2012 cost $12.64 billion; the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, reportedly topped $51 billion. Governments typically justify such huge spending by arguing it's paid back through increased tourism, marketing and other activity. Studies show this usually isn't the case, but successful post-Olympic legacies are possible. Los Angeles had a rare surplus in 1984 ($232.5 million), Barcelona 1992 revitalized its waterfront, while London—heralded as the most digitally enabled games ever—laid down vital IT infrastructure.
Japan originally budgeted $3 billion for the 2020 games, but the organizing committee is currently reviewing the estimates; Japanese media report the total could be six times higher. Whatever the final figure, the country faces a big challenge matching the legacy of 1964. In preparation for the first games held in Asia, lavish public spending—paid for with World Bank loans—fueled an era of motorization that expanded car ownership and infrastructure, propelling Japan's economic rise. The growing use of color televisions at the time, and the introduction with NASA's help of the first international satellite feed, created a spectacle that improved the country's global standing two decades after World War II.
"The 1964 Olympics had a huge impact in the global imagination of what Japan could be and would be," says Christian Tagsold, a scholar of modern Japan at Germany's Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Just 10 days before the start of the '64 Games, Japan launched the shinkansen bullet train service. Over the ensuing decades, the still-growing and remarkably punctual network has carried more than 10 billion passengers without an accident and been replicated globally. "It was the fastest train in the world and demonstrated Japan's re-emergence as a technological leader," says Paul Droubie, a historian of modern Japan at Manhattan College in New York.
As the country now sets about replicating this success, it faces changed circumstances: The economy is no longer vibrant and is saddled with the highest debt burden in the industrialized world, and Japan's population has aged more than anywhere on the planet, causing the workforce to shrink. Analysts argue the Japanese government's once lofty ambitions have diminished considerably. "Unlike in 1964, I think there's a lack of grand vision," Droubie says.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is trying to counter this view. At the annual Science and Technology in Society Forum last October, he envisaged a Japan where innovations "spring up one after another." Noting that its carmakers have built momentum in developing driverless technology, Abe made a bold prediction: By 2020, self-driving cars will be crisscrossing the streets of Tokyo.
Abe's best hope of avoiding embarrassment may rest with Robot Taxi. The company, a collaboration between mobile and online services firm DeNA and robotics company ZMP, is refitting existing vehicles with self-driving technology. (Its bet is that this will be more efficient than building new ones from the ground up.) Robot Taxi is customizing the Toyota Estima—a minivan branded as the Previa in the U.S.—but its method could be used on other models and manufacturers, according to a spokesperson. Later this month, Robot Taxi will hold 12 days of field tests involving local residents in the Kanagawa prefecture, near Tokyo.
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Hiroshi Nakajima, head of automotive business at DeNA, says the government has committed to passing laws regulating self-driving taxis by 2017, and the company hopes to have several thousand cars on the road for the Olympics. But the final number will depend on the stringency of the regulations, such as what roads the vehicles are allowed on, he adds. Japanese automakers, such as Toyota and Nissan, are also working on rolling out cars capable of some autonomous driving by 2020, but Nakajima believes his taxis can be early trailblazers by being fully self-driving and service-oriented.
The company sees the Olympics as an ideal launchpad given its managed nature, geographic spread and tourist appeal. But the Robot Taxi service could eventually be applied to various industries, from logistics to health care, and as the areas where the taxis are permitted expands, it could help solve problems endemic to Japan, such as rising rural isolation and high car accident rates among the elderly, who may not be able to afford a new autonomous car.
The Robot Taxi project is one of many Japanese innovations planned for debut around the games. "Many large companies think the 2020 Olympics are a good deadline for their cutting-edge research and development products," says Tomoaki Wada, chief executive director of the Kobe Science Museum and a veteran of Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. They don't come much larger than Panasonic, an official Olympic sponsor that is developing a variety of products geared for the occasion, ranging from automatic translation devices to an electric bicycle-sharing scheme and micro-mist cooling stations.
"We hope these innovations of hospitality from arrival to departure will become important legacies not only for visitors in 2020 but for the Japanese people as well," says a robotic voice on a promotional video on display at a company showroom.
Panasonic is also developing a "total surveillance system" that can integrate tens of thousands of fixed and mobile cameras and restricted-area sensors into a network to secure the harbor front, home to the Olympic Village and many event venues, and elsewhere. The 9-megapixel, 360-degree fish-eye lenses affixed to the cameras will be combined with image-processing software and built-in directional microphones that can "accurately recognize voices and sound in [a] specified area," says Shigeo Furukawa, a product demonstrator.
Makoto Mihara, a Panasonic spokesman, says the network would be effective in detecting and preventing terrorist attacks, and will abide by any legislation and regulations to heed privacy concerns. He maintains it will have broad positive uses. "When accidents or disasters occur, we could find a fallen person in the crowd and detect certain voices," Makoto adds. "If [it's] a foreigner who does not understand Japanese, we can listen [to] what he is asking."
The company also plans to partner with organizers to offer the "wonder Japan pass," a credit card-style gadget to make visitors' experience "smarter and simpler," says Furukawa. The identity, access and payment pass would utilize facial recognition technology to verify users and safeguard against fraud. If Panasonic can get other key companies—and the Japanese government—on board, it could be an all-in-one device, serving as an ID, opening venue gates or hotel room doors and paying for everything from (self-driving?) taxis to shopping.
For years now, the games have been as much about pomp as sport. In 1976, Montreal re-lit the Olympic torch by laser beam, activated using a radio signal sent by satellite from Athens to Canada. At the opening ceremony in California eight years later, a man with a jet pack strapped to his back spectacularly flew into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Meanwhile, in Barcelona in 1992, a paralympic archer lit the Olympic cauldron with a flaming arrow shot across the arena.
A startup firm hoping for a role in the 2020 ceremony, as well as a long-term legacy in scientific innovation, wants to trump them all. ALE, an "outer space entertainment" company, is working on producing artificial meteor showers on demand. Its creators believe the technology could gradually lead to the wholesale replacement of fireworks for large-scale entertainment, while also making valuable contributions to the study of meteors and the upper atmosphere, as well as space technologies like de-orbiting (bringing a satellite back down to Earth).
The team aims to launch microsatellites 50 miles above Earth that will eject small pellets that then glow brightly as they descend into the atmosphere and burn up from friction with air. Chief Executive Lena Okajima, a former Goldman Sachs entrepreneur with a doctorate in astronomy, estimates they will be visible from a ground area of 200 miles, encompassing 30 million people.
ALE is collaborating with several Japanese academics, including Shinsuke Abe of Nihon University's aerospace engineering department. Abe has been testing how to increase the artificial meteoroids' brightness by altering their size, shape and structure, given the relatively slow re-entry conditions (around five miles a second), compared with naturally occurring meteors (up to 50 miles a second). At the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the team uses an arc-jet wind tunnel—a 13- by 33-foot device containing a vacuum chamber in which the test pellets are set in place and blasted with supersonic streams of hot gas to mirror some of the conditions they'll face in flight. "So far, we've succeeded to produce a special bullet that is almost 70 times brighter than meteorite samples under the same aerodynamic-heating conditions," Abe says.
The academic team believes the venture has high scientific value. "Our artificial meteor will be used for not only entertainment but also [as] a dominant tool to make a continuous observation of the upper atmosphere," says Hironori Sahara, an aerospace engineer on the project. Their work is already helping to better the understanding of the physics and chemistry of natural meteors, as well as their orbit patterns and key information about atmospheric re-entry, says Abe.
ALE plans to stage launches in Tokyo by 2018 and look for sponsors—big companies as well as wealthy enthusiasts—to help cover the expense of testing and other launches. A single launch costs close to $9 million, Okajima estimates, with the rocket carrying the satellite the most expensive element. Despite the price tag, Nobuhiko Otsuki, ALE's chief marketing officer (and the idea's originator) fully expects the microsatellite system to become the fireworks of the future and wants to disperse colors even farther afield, "like using the sky as a canvas." He adds, "In the next 100 years, people will love this."
Reporting for this story was supported by a International Center for Journalists program, with funding from the United States-Japan Foundation.
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Covers Contest: Football
By The New Yorker
Americans, ever polite, mustered up a degree of excitement about soccer this summer. Here at the Covers Contest, we may have, in some sport-induced temporary mania, even called the game “football” when talking to someone from another country during the World Cup. (What shame!) But all that’s over now. College football began last week, and on Thursday night, the Saints will host the Vikings to begin the 2010 N.F.L. season. This week, we’ve assembled covers to get you pumped up for a game that’s as flashy, incongruous, and commercial-interrupted as the U.S. itself. Good luck!
[#image: /photos/5909539f019dfc3494e9e441]
Submit the first fully correct response via e-mail and win a copy of the brand-new anthology “The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from The New Yorker.” In the event of confusion, consult our official rules. We’ll announce the winner tomorrow afternoon.
The New Yorker offers a signature blend of news, culture, and the arts. It has been published since February 21, 1925.
covers contest
Dive into the world of literature with The New Yorker’s weekly fiction newsletter.
How the world’s most notorious drug lord was captured.
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Readings & Talks
Oscar Wilde, the Bar
Inspired by the aesthete, it explodes with extravagance: marble bearing his quotations, porcelain floor inlays, and an antique piano made into shelves.
By Colin Stokes
Illustration by Jorge Colombo
Oscar Wilde, the author of “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and infinite witticisms seemingly ready-made for Facebook—“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes”—is a revered cultural icon. Perhaps for the first time, though, he’s being revered in NoMad, where a recently opened bar is named after him. The other night, visitors were greeted by Wilde himself—he sits on a bench outside, dressed in a typically lavish bronze cast. Inspired by the aesthete, the bar’s extravagance explodes inside, with a maze of marble objects bearing his quotations, intricate porcelain floor inlays, and an antique piano converted into shelves. A second bronze Wilde leans on the bar, an open hand anticipating a drink and an Instagram post. A server described the intense décor as similar to the owners’ other bars (Lillie’s Victorian Establishment) but “on crack.” One drinker guessed that the place cost half a million dollars to decorate; actually, it was eight times that. Is it in good taste? While some details might induce winces (the menu encourages drinkers to “get Wilde”), the whole enterprise is undeniably a sight to behold, and isn’t attracting eyeballs the point of being over the top? Cocktails (for fourteen dollars) are mostly solid—the Oscar Wilde’s Potent Elixir is a mélange of different alcohols from countries in which the author lived—and the bar food, particularly the Banger in a Blanket, is excellent. How might Wilde feel about being the namesake of a bar? In a letter to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, which Wilde wrote while imprisoned for his sexuality, he said, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” ♦
This article appears in the print edition of the October 2, 2017, issue, with the headline “Oscar Wilde NYC.”
Colin Stokes is a member of The New Yorker’s editorial staff.
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Obama’s Big Gambit: The Politics of Gay Marriage
By John Cassidy
A day after Obama’s U-turn on gay marriage, I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. Morally and legally, he did the right thing. Marriage is a legal contract. The Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law for all American citizens regardless of race, wealth, or sexual orientation. It will be on these grounds, I would imagine, that the Supreme Court will eventually overturn state bans on gay marriage. (Many right-wing libertarians would support such a move.)
It should be noted, however, that Obama was careful not to call for any federal action on this issue. Immediately after ABC News broadcast his interview with Robin Roberts, his aides were busy reminding reporters that he still believes this is something for the states to decide. Clearly mindful of the political impact, especially in swing states such as Nevada and North Carolina, the President himself said that he was speaking purely as an individual. After observing some of his staff members in committed, monogamous gay relationships, talking it over with his wife and children, and thinking things through in terms of his Christian faith, he decided to go with his conscience. As he told Roberts: “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
If you believe this “Saul on the road to Damascus story,” then you are a less skeptical person than I am. Obama is a principled man, but he is also a calculating and opportunistic politician, as evidenced, most recently, by his eagerness to exploit the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s killing. In 2008, when he said marriage should be restricted to a man and woman, the moral arguments were just as clear as they are now. Obama, like Bill Clinton and other Democrats before him, took what was perceived to be the politically safe route, softening the blow to gay-rights activists by promising to eliminate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the military, and then delivering on that promise.
Obama’s stance in 2008 was a product of careful cost-benefit analysis, and so, I would wager, was his reversal yesterday. This was primarily about internal Democratic politics. Confronted with an enthusiasm deficit (think about those empty seats in Ohio) and a dollar deficit (think about Karl Rove and his super-duper Super PAC), Obama needed to fire up his base, gin up some more campaign contributions, and head off a damaging row. (Supporters of same-sex marriage were threatening to stage a floor fight at the Democratic Convention.) In saying the words “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he accomplished all of these things at some political cost nationally, but one that he and his advisers evidently decided was bearable.
Some of the benefits are already evident. With big donations from Wall Street down sharply from 2008, the Democrats are even more reliant on supporters in the media and entertainment industries, but even there his bundlers had been encountering some resistance and disappointment with his record. Yesterday’s announcement ensures that Obama, when he arrives in Los Angeles today for a fundraiser at George Clooney’s house, will receive a hero’s welcome. Ditto next month, when he is due back in Hollywood to attend the annual gala of the L.G.B.T. Leadership Council.
The Democratic Party, like all progressive parties around the world, is a coalition of activist interest groups and more lackadaisical supporters who align around some core values. What this episode demonstrates is that gay-rights activists are now a very powerful interest group in the Democratic Party, and support for same-sex marriage is one of the party’s core values. If any Democratic candidate, even a sitting President, wants the party to rally around him, he has to accede to this reality. As Richard Socarides pointed out yesterday, “While I know that most gays and lesbians would have supported President Obama … no matter what he did on the issue of marriage equality, we were also not going to take “no” for an answer on the most important civil-rights issue of our day. That meant holding the President’s feet to the fire.”
But the Democratic Party is not the country at large. While public attitudes are undoubtedly changing, coming out in favor of gay marriage is still a risky proposition for a national politician. A much-discussed Gallup poll earlier this week found that fifty per cent of Americans favor legalizing gay marriage and forty-eight per cent oppose it. As has been widely pointed out, most of the opponents were self-identified Republicans who won’t vote for Obama anyway. Among self-identified independents, fifty-seven per cent said they supported gay marriage and just forty per cent said they opposed it.
If these figures are taken at face value, it might seem that supporting gay marriage is a vote winner. But where exactly? In New York, perhaps. (Nearly a year after leading the way on this issue, Governor Cuomo is still doing very well in the polls.) And in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, and a few other places. But these states aren’t where the election will be decided. In the battlegrounds—especially those in the Midwest—opposition to gay marriage is much more prevalent. According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, just forty per cent of Midwesterners support the idea.
It is possible, of course, that Obama’s campaign team has already discounted many of the Rust Belt areas, heavily inhabited, as they are, by white ethnics who never warmed to an African-American President to begin with. Team Obama’s grand project is to build a new coalition of young people, well-educated professionals, moderates, and minorities—a coalition capable of winning rapidly-changing states like Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, and Virginia. If voters in these places harbored more liberal views on gay marriage than their counterparts in the Midwest, then conceivably Obama’s U-turn could help him redraw the electoral map.
If, if, if…. In some of these places, according to the Pew study, opposition to same-sex marriage is even stronger than it is in the Midwest. Taking the South as a whole, just one in three people support legalization, the Pew researchers found. In Tuesday’s vote in North Carolina, a state where same-sex marriages are already illegal, a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to a man and a woman and to ban same-sex civil unions, passed by more than twenty percentage points. Twenty-eight other states have already passed similar amendments, and they include all those on the Obama campaign’s target list: Arizona (2008), Florida (2008), Nevada (2002), and Virginia (2006). Far from helping Obama in those states, his new stance is likely to cost him some votes in them, perhaps even a percentage point or two, come November.
Why then did he change course? To repeat, I suspect it came down to cost-benefit analysis. Because of the internal dynamics of the Democratic Party, the costs of sticking with his previous position of supporting civil unions but opposing gay marriage had become too high. Faced with the threat of an embarrassing battle at the Convention in Charlotte, a story in today’s Times makes clear, the President and his advisors had already acknowledged that he would have to change course sometime before September. The only question was when. Turning necessity into an opportunity, they decided to try and get ahead of the game.
In rallying his supporters behind him and garnering positive coverage in the media, Obama’s gambit has already proved a big success. (Today's story in the Washington Post about the young Mitt Romney allegedly bullying a gay high school classmate is an additional bonus.) But it’s very early. Make no mistake, he has handed a wedge issue to an opposing party that has a long history of successfully exploiting them. Until we see the voting returns in places like North Carolina and Florida, we won’t know how this bigger gamble has turned out.
Photograph by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images.
John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. He also writes a column about politics, economics, and more for newyorker.com.
Subscribe to John Cassidy’s newsletter to get the latest on politics, economics, and the news.
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Ngoo: “I’m Delighted To Be Here.”
Striker Michael Ngoo cannot wait to show the Oldham Athletic fans what he can do.
The former Liverpool man signed a short term contract with the club until the end of the season and he is excited to get started.
He said: “I’m very grateful and delighted to be here.
“I’m happy for the opportunity so I’m looking forward to that and I can’t wait to get out on the pitch and showing everyone what I’m about.
"I’m a target man and I can do the other bits as well. I’m not just a static target man, I’ve got mobility to myself.
"I know that I can get in behind and be a threat to the opposition that I play against. I know I can score goals in this league.
“I am ready to show everyone I can do that and I want to do everyone proud."
Latics moved off the bottom of the league last week with victory and Ngoo is confident the club can beat the drop.
“I watched the game on Saturday and I’ve been training with the lads and we can find ourselves unfortunate to be in the position we find ourselves in,” he commented.
“We have got some very talented players here and everyone works hard.
“The changing room is getting livelier, bubblier, everyone is bonding now so I know we will get out of this position, I don’t doubt that.”
Ngoo will part of the travelling squad to Shrewsbury Town this afternoon and he cannot wait to get started.
He said: “Every game is tough but I’m looking forward to it. I want to get out there and score, I just can’t wait to show everyone what I’m capable of doing.
"The fans got behind the boys fantastically on Saturday. They helped us through the game and gave us that extra bit of confidence.
“The fans seem great and I can’t wait to get out there and show them what I can do.”
Watch the full interview on Latics PlayerHD.
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Sweden’s Data Protection Commission Publishes Report on Adapting to the GDPR
May 23, 2017 - Regulations
In February 2016, the Swedish Government tasked a group of experts with evaluating how Swedish laws should be adapted to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
On May 12, 2017, Sweden’s Data Protection Commission (Betankande av Dataskyddsutredningen) published the evaluation on the Swedish Parliament’s (Riksdag’s) website.
Here some of the main points that we gathered from the report:
• The overall mission of the report is to propose legislation that supplements the GDPR, and which does not expand or limit the possibilities for processing personal data beyond what is mandated by the GDPR.
• Sweden’s Personal Data Act (1998:204) and Personal Data Ordinance (1998:1191) should be repealed and replaced by a new comprehensive national data protection law.
• Sector-specific rules should be incorporated in draft legislation.
• Additional protection should be provided for whistleblowers.
• Derogations should be made for the use of personal data for journalistic or academic purposes, and artistic and literary creation, to be consistent with Sweden’s Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press Act.
• The age requiring parental consent to process the personal data of children should be lowered to 13 (the GDPR sets the age at 16).
• Provisions should be included that clarify how the various legal bases for processing, as outlined in the GDPR, should be applied and how. Legal basis should be established by the national archives, through regulations or decisions in individual cases.
• The processing of sensitive personal data should only be allowed where explicitly permitted by the data subject or by specific exemption (e.g., in the fields of employment law, health care, social care, archiving and statistical research).
• Processing of personal data concerning criminal offenses should continue to be allowed for law enforcement purposes.
• The data subject right to access should not apply to data that is subject to secrecy regulations, such as that which is contained in running texts that constitute rough drafts or notes.
• Provide clarification that data subjects are entitled to compensation as a result of infringements against Swedish data protection law supplementing the GDPR.
• Provide an option to the Swedish DPA to impose administrative fines on organizations that violate the GDPR.
• Confidentiality should apply to data protection officers (DPOs) where the DPO has gained knowledge of a private party’s personal or financial circumstances.
• Organizations around the globe should start to take note of proposals like this, as EU member states begin efforts to adapt their national laws to the GDPR and make derogations to its applicable provisions.
As always, OneTrust will continue to track these developments as they occur.
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July 2001 archives, part 3
July 31 — 1.5 million pages served on Overlawyered.com. Last month set a new visitor traffic record, and this month will set another one …. Thanks for your support!
July 31 — N.J.: 172 nabbed on fake car-crash charges. “Capping a 19-month investigation, prosecutors [July 19] announced the indictment of 172 people in New Jersey, including a medical doctor, a lawyer and two chiropractors, charging them with staging 19 automobile accidents and filing false medical claims totaling more than $5 million. …’Runners’ would recruit drivers and passengers, who would meet ahead of time, typically in West New York, N.J., to discuss details of the staged collisions, which were mostly minor,” according to first assistant Hudson County prosecutor Terrence Hull. “Participants were paid up to $2,500 and would be coached about the types of injuries to fake, Mr. Hull said.” (“False Claims From Fake Crashes Leads [sic] to Charges Against 172”, New York Times, July 20, not online). Meanwhile, a detailed Boston Globe front-page investigation finds that lawyers employing “runners” to bring in accident business are contributing to a sharp run-up in the cost of auto insurance fraud in Massachusetts; one of the state’s biggest personal injury law firms “is under investigation by federal authorities for participating in a criminal scheme that resulted in more than $50,000 worth of claims being filed from a staged accident.” (Stephen Kurkjian, “Injury claims flourish in loophole”, Boston Globe, July 16; “Study ID’s high injury claim areas”, July 19). “Massachusetts is not alone in experiencing a dramatic increase in payments for suspicious injuries from minor automobile accidents. Fed by runners who are arranging for faked accidents and phony personal injury claims, medical payments made by auto insurers jumped by more than 30 percent last year in New York, according to a study by the Insurance Information Institute, an industry research group, in March.” (more).
July 31 — Global warming suit? “States like Bangladesh that are the victims of climate change have a good case in law for suing polluters like the United States for billions of dollars, a law professor will tell a London conference today. With the US delaying action on climate change and President George Bush refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol, the case for court action is becoming overwhelming, according to Andrew Strauss, of the school of law at Widener University, Delaware.” (Paul Brown, “Rich nations ‘could be sued’ by climate victims”, The Guardian (U.K.), July 10) (& see Aug. 19, 1999).
July 31 — “The Lost Art of Drawing the Line”. “The air in America is so thick with legal risk that you can practically cut it and put in on a scale,” says Philip Howard, attorney at Covington & Burling and author of the new book The Lost Art of Drawing the Line, which was preceded by his bestselling The Death of Common Sense. Howard is working with the founders of the Concord Coalition to establish something to be called the Common Sense Coalition. “The trial lawyers have to be taken on,” he says. “Leadership is required by whoever can get public attention.” (Lucy Morgan, “Author sees good sense as cure for what ails us”, St. Petersburg Times, July 28; official book site; Diane Rehm show, June 5; William Galston, “The Art of Judgement” (review), Washington Monthly, July/August; Cass Sunstein, “The Stifled Society” (review), The New Republic, July 9; Pete DuPont, National Center for Policy Analysis, “Drawing the Line”, May 1).
July 30 — “Couple sues over flaming Pop-Tart”. In Washington Township, N.J., Brenda Hurff and her husband are “suing the Kellogg Co. for $100,000 in damages caused to their home when an unattended Pop-Tart allegedly burst into flames inside their toaster.” A spokesman for the Battle Creek, Mich., cereal maker counters: “Pop-Tarts are safe and do not cause fires.” (Reuters/CNN, July 28; Jake Wagman, “From toaster to lawsuit”, Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28).
July 30 — Mommy, can I grow up to be an informant? Controversy mounts over large payouts ($40 million in one case, $25 million in another) under the False Claims Act to “whistle-blowers” who rat out overbilling by government contractors in health care, defense and other areas. “‘I think it’s a ridiculous ripoff of the taxpayers’ money,’ said U.S. Representative John Duncan, a Texas Republican, who has proposed a $1 million cap on rewards. ‘I don’t mind some compensation for these people, but I do not think they should be allowed to make off like bandits.'” A lawyer who represented one of the informants in the $40 million case takes a different view: ”It’s almost got to be set up like the lottery or very few people in their right mind would do this.” An informant given only $12 million for his work on an overbilling case against Quorum Health Group has gone to court to demand more, calling the figure “insulting” (Alice Dembner, “Whistle-blower windfalls questioned”, Boston Globe, July 29). Last year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the act’s informant (“relator”) provisions, but ruled that state governments cannot be named as defendants (Francis J. Serbaroli, “Supreme Court Clarifies, Broadens Antifraud Laws”, New York Law Journal, July 27, 2000, reprinted at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft site)(more on False Claims Act: Sept. 9, 1999; Jan. 18, 2000; April 30, 2001).
July 30 — N.J. court declares transsexuals protected class. Earlier this month an appeals court in the Garden State ruled that “gender dysphoria”, or dissatisfaction with the gender one has been assigned at birth, is protected as a handicap under the state’s disabled-rights law. In addition, it declared that by banning employers from discriminating on grounds of sex the law actually bans them from discriminating on the basis of “qualities society considers masculine or feminine”. The American Civil Liberties Union was overjoyed, but our editor, quoted by Fox News, was not. (Catherine Donaldson-Evans, “Transsexual Rights in Spotlight Following N.J. Court Ruling That Condition a Handicap”, Fox News, July 9; Mary P. Gallagher, “Transsexuals Held to be Protected Class Under New Jersey Law”, New Jersey Law Journal, July 11) (more transsexualism cases: March 23, 2001, May 31, 2000).
July 27-29 — Welcome New York Times readers. John Tierney’s column on overzealous prosecution quotes our editor and mentions this site. (“The Big City: Prosecutors Never Need to Apologize”, July 27)(reg).
July 27-29 — Report: “medical errors” studies overblown. “Alarming studies suggesting that medical errors kill close to 100,000 U.S. hospital patients each year probably overestimate the problem, with the real total perhaps 5,000 to 15,000, researchers say.” Readers of this space will not be surprised. The higher estimates have been much cited by Ralph Nader and others to promote medical malpractice litigation, but they rest on case-review studies whose format is problematic because reviewing doctors show little consensus as to which cases involve errors and which errors cause or hasten death, according to the new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In addition, “clinicians estimated that only 0.5 percent of patients who died would have lived three months or more in good cognitive health if care had been optimal.” (“Number of Medical-Error Deaths Overestimated, Researchers Say”, AP/ FoxNews.com, July 24; “Researchers Question Data on Fatal Medical Errors”, Reuters/ABC News, July 24; “Findings: Study Disputes Report on Fatal Medical Errors”, Washington Post, July 25; Rodney A. Hayward and Timothy P. Hofer, “Estimating Hospital Deaths Due to Medical Errors: Preventability Is in the Eye of the Reviewer,” JAMA, July 25; National Academies report on medical errors, 1999).
July 27-29 — Needed: assumption of risk. Community swimming holes are disappearing, and one reason is landowners’ fear of litigation, reports the New York Times. “In New York, landowners have become particularly wary of swimmers,” because state law pointedly omits swimming from a list of activities that they can permit to visitors without fear of liability. “Though recreation groups have lobbied to expand the law to include swimming, these efforts have been blocked by the state’s trial lawyers. ‘We have done everything we could to slip it in,’ said Neil F. Woodworth, deputy executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club. (Winnie Hu, “Keep Out: The Water’s Fine, but Private”, New York Times, July 23 (reg)). First-time skydiver Paul Bloebaum is suing Archway Skydiving Center in Vandalia, Ill. over injuries incurred in his maiden jump; he “wants a judge to throw out the lengthy waiver he signed before he jumped and make Archway responsible for his injuries. Bloebaum wrote his initials beside all 25 paragraphs of the release.” (“Company Sued Over Skydiver’s Fall”, AP/Fox News, July 25). And Atlanta Braves outfielders, after catching third outs to end an inning, routinely throw the balls to fans in the stands, but now a woman is suing star centerfielder Andruw Jones saying she was hit in the face when he did that recently (Carroll Rogers, “Bullpen becoming a strength”, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 22 (third item)). However, a Michigan appeals court “has overturned a million-dollar verdict against the Detroit Tigers for injuries suffered by a child hit by a baseball bat splinter.” (Alan Fisk, “$1 Million Ballpark Injury Award Strikes Out”, National Law Journal, July 27).
July 27-29 — Chandra, Monica, and sex-harass law. Why is the furtive liaison between the ardent young woman and the powerful older man still so common in Washington, D.C.? “Politicians are immune from the sexual harassment systems that protect young women in corporate workplaces and academia, where the presumption has become that the older male will say no or face brutal consequences. These kinds of advances would cost your political science professor his job. In an office, it would be sexual harassment. In D.C., it’s still 1951, and young girls are still curvy temptresses.” (Dahlia Lithwick, “G-Girl Confidential”, Slate, July 25).
July 27-29 — Feeling queasy? Litigation over E. coli food poisoning has proliferated rapidly, so much so that there’s now a law firm whose specialty consists of filing cases over the nasty bacterium. (“E. Coli’s Twisted Tale of Science in the Courtroom and Politics in the Lab”, Los Angeles Times, June 6, reprinted at STATS).
July 26 — Welcome CourtTV.com visitors. This week the cable network’s online “Caught in the Web” feature profiles “the hub of all things legally absurd on the Net”, from its origins on our editor’s hard drive as “an out-of-control file of favorite bookmarks” to our current popularity on who knows how many continents (key to the editorial mix: “frequent food pellets” so that you regular readers “keep on pressing the lever”). Seriously, this counts as the most comprehensive profile of the site that’s appeared anywhere, for which we’re grateful to CourtTV.com correspondent Adrien Seybert (the opening Shakespeare line didn’t actually come up in our talk, though) (“Chasing the Ambulance Chasers”, July 25). Also: we’re a web pick of the week for Australia’s FHM (“It’s a Guy Thing”); Herff.com (“Neat stuff on the Internet” — see “Shark Indigestion”); Follow Me Here weblog, early July (450k).
July 26 — Dispute over $118 pizza bill costs $18,000. Nebraska: “Lancaster District Court Clerk Kelly Guenzel is now pondering whether she should go to court to force the county to pay the $18,000-plus in legal fees she racked up defending herself against a charge she misused public funds in reimbursing herself for $118.76 worth of pizza.” (“Pizza bill just grows and grows” (editorial), Lincoln Journal-Star, undated (sent to us July 20))
July 26 — Latex liability, foreseeable or not. “Bucking a national trend in design defect cases, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a jury’s finding that a brand of latex gloves was defectively designed, even though no one, including the manufacturer, was aware of latex-related health problems until years after the brand was put on the market.” Rejecting the argument that the company should be liable only for foreseeable risks, the court ordered Smith & Nephew AHP Inc. to pay $1 million to Linda M. Green, who developed a latex allergy from the naturally occurring substances found in the gloves. (Gary Young, “Defective Latex Glove Costs $1 Million”, National Law Journal, July 23).
July 26 — “Criminals could sue their victims”. Dateline U.K.: “Criminals could find it easier to sue members of the public who injure them while defending their homes, under Law Commission reforms proposed yesterday. … The recommendations are open for consultation until the autumn when a final report is made to Parliament.” (Frances Gibb, The Times (London), June 29).
July 26 — Quiz: which are the made-up cases? Funny L.A. Times feature where you have to guess which outlandish news report isn’t true: “Hypersensitivity, political correctness and frivolous lawsuits are taking over the world. Increase your awareness with this handy quiz.” (Roy Rivenburg, “It’s Truly a Dangerous World Out There”, July 24) (via Kausfiles).
July 25 — By reader acclaim: “Parents file suit over son’s drug death”. “The parents of an 18-year-old University of Florida student who died after taking OxyContin last year have filed a lawsuit against the drug’s manufacturer and the pharmacy chain where one of Matthew Kaminer’s friends stole the painkiller.” Kaminer was found dead in a fraternity house bedroom after taking one of the pills, stolen by another student from an Eckerd drugstore. “The powerful painkiller was designed to combat chronic pain with a time-release formula,” but abusers chew the capsules in order to get “an immediate, heroin-like high.” The parents are blaming drugmaker Purdue Pharma as well as the Eckerd chain. (Erika Bolstad, Miami Herald, July 24) (via WSJ OpinionJournal.com “Best of the Web“).
July 25 — 220 percent rate of farmer participation. “In a 1999 major class-action settlement, the Clinton administration agreed to pay $50,000 to each black farmer who had suffered discrimination at the hands of the federal government. As of 2001, some 40,000 people have applied for their cash. The problem is, according to the Census Bureau, there are only 18,000 black farmers in the country.” (Steve Brown, “Settlement Is a Crass-Action, USDA Employees Say”, Fox News, July 14).
July 25 — “Trial lawyers derail Maryland small claims reform”. “In an unexpected setback to small claims reform, on May 17 Maryland Governor Parris Glendening vetoed HALT-supported legislation, despite its unanimous approval by both houses of the state legislature.” The legislation would have raised the jurisdiction of Maryland’s small claims court from $2,500 to $5,000, and eliminated formal pleadings in cases below $2,500, reducing the occasion for disputants to hire lawyers. “According to his message, Glendening acted in response to concerns that ‘prompted the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association to request a veto of this bill.’ … The Maryland Trial Lawyers Association organization was one of the largest institutional supporters of Glendening’s 1998 reelection campaign, donating $12,000 to him directly and spending about $110,000 on radio and television advertisements supporting him.” (Tom Gordon, HALT.org “Legal Reformer”, Spring) (more on small claims: Sept. 29, Oct. 3 and (letters) Oct. 5, 2000) (& see letter to the editor, Aug. 1).
July 25 — Yesterday’s visitors to this site came from domains including eop.gov, usdoj.gov, sec.gov, nrc.gov, treas.gov, ornl.gov; dowjones.com, trib.com, usnews.com, disney.com; boeing.com, gendyn.com, lucent.com, ibm.com, fujitsu.com, honeywell.com, att.com, philips.com, pg.com, ual.com, oracle.com, cat.com, sun.com, cisco.com, intel.com, pge.com, roche.com…
…columbia.edu, uiuc.edu, asu.edu, uncg.edu, american.edu, lu.se, uoregon.edu, ucsd.edu, stanford.edu, utoronto.ca, gatech.edu, rutgers.edu, auckland.ac.nz, wustl.edu, upenn.edu; state.mn.us, state.fl.us, state.oh.us, state.mo.us; omm.com, debevoise.com, kirkland.com, ffhsj.com, lockeliddell.com, corboydemetrio.com, atlahq.org (which has been poking around here a lot lately); army.mil, af.mil, navy.mil, nipr.mil; thehartford.com, prudential.com, statefarm.com, travelers.com, fanniemae.com, bear.com, schwab.com, jpmorgan.com, socgen.com, agedwards.com, norwest.com, tiaa-cref.org; cato.org, cir-usa.org; jcpenney.com, fedex.com, ups.com; bigpond.com, gc.ca, gov.au, and asce.org, among many, many others including countless local ISPs. Moral: your competitors read us regularly, so there’s no reason why you should feel guilty about doing so too.
July 24 — “The Louima millions”. “Last week, after the Giuliani administration and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association agreed to pay [Abner] Louima nearly $9 million to settle his police brutality lawsuit, Louima said he did not feel like a rich man. That’s because Louima cannot touch one dime until he settles a bitter quarrel with [his lawyers]”. The dispute pits the lesser-known attorneys who originally represented Louima against the high-profile trio of Johnnie Cochran, Barry Scheck, and Peter Neufeld (“Johnnie- come- latelies”) who took over afterward. Before getting to the juicy particulars, be sure to catch the opening quote, from an attorney named Harold J. Reynolds: “So ingrained and unexamined is the notion of the one-third contingency fee that it has taken on the character of a natural law. … if liability and recovery were certain, then there is no contingency that Louima’s lawyer is risking … [and the operation of the fee percentage] would have done nothing except guarantee to that lawyer a freight train of money that should have been paid to Abner Louima.” (Peter Noel, Village Voice, July 18-24). More on why contingency fees are so seldom discounted: Judyth Pendell (Manhattan Institute), “Price Colluder, Esq.”, Forbes, July 23, reprinted at MI site. Update: see Nov. 8-10, 2002.
July 24 — Junk fax litigation: blood in the water. We’ve covered the saga of junk fax litigation, in which federal law allows class action lawyers to demand $500-$1,500 per unsolicited fax sent, which means the sums at stake can quickly mount up to enormous levels (see Oct. 22, 1999; March 3, 2000; March 27, 2001). Now the New York Times weighs in to report a number of recent breakthroughs for the lawyers, including a recent $12 million judgment that forced Hooters of Augusta, Ga., a unit of the national restaurant chain, to declare bankruptcy; it had been an advertiser in six omnibus fax mailings sent to 1,321 customers. Some more new developments: “Last month, a South Carolina judge approved a settlement of another class-action suit in which a North Charleston Ramada Inn paid $450,000 for sending thousands of faxes advertising a New Year’s Eve celebration. Last week, a Texas judge authorized a class-action trial of claims on behalf of thousands of people who received fax advertisements from an apartment rental company.” (William Glaberson, New York Times, July 22 (reg)).
July 24 — “Melbourne man patents the wheel”. “A Melbourne man has patented the wheel. Freelance patent attorney John Keogh was issued with an Innovation Patent for a ‘circular transportation facilitation device’ within days of the new patent system being invoked in May. But he has no immediate plans to patent fire, crop rotation or other fundamental advances in civilisation. Mr Keogh said he patented the wheel to prove the innovation patent system was flawed because it did not need to be examined by the patent office, IP Australia.” (Nathan Cochrane, The Age (Melbourne), July 2).
July 23 — “2nd Circuit Upholds Sanctions Against Firms for Frivolous Securities Claims”. “The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld sanctions against two law firms for pursuing frivolous securities claims. New York’s Schoengold & Sporn and Philadelphia’s Berger & Montague were sanctioned a total of $84,153 based on the fact that under a settlement advocated by Schoengold & Sporn, the plaintiff class in the case would have received nothing, while the firm would have been paid $200,000.” Trial judge Shira Scheindlin had reduced the sanctions against Berger & Montague after concluding that it had acted to a significant extent at the direction of the other class-action firm. (Mark Hamblett, New York Law Journal, July 16).
July 23 — Stories that got away. News items from recent months that fell through our editorial cracks at the time, but better late than never:
* Sacramento Bee investigation of the state of the environmentalist movement includes a look at the extent to which some lawyers may be using endangered-species complaints as a way of generating legal fees for themselves (Tom Knudson, “Litigation central: A flood of costly lawsuits raises questions about motive”, April 24) (series). See also Michael Grunwald, “Endangered List Faces New Peril,” Washington Post, March 12; “Protect Animals, Not Lawyers” (editorial), Detroit News, May 7; “Congress Grapples With Endangered Species Law”, AP/Fox News, May 9. And the more recent controversy over agricultural water use in Klamath Falls, Ore., reminds us of the “enclosures” by which upper-class landowners tossed tenant farmers off the land in early industrial England: Michael Kelly, “Evicted by Environmentalists”, Washington Post, July 11 (& letter to the editor in response from Brock Evans, July 13).
* The still-in-progress controversy over whether the Digital Millennium Copyright Act really allows the recording industry to keep a Princeton professor from publishing a research paper on the subject of breaking digital music encryption (Declan McCullagh, “Watermark Crackers Back Away”, Wired News, April 26; Janelle Brown, “Is the RIAA running scared?”, Salon.com, April 26; Brenda Sandburg, “Recording Industry Sued in Battle Over Research”, The Recorder, June 7). See also Carl S. Kaplan, “CyberLaw Journal: Does an Anti-Piracy Plan Quash the First Amendment?”, New York Times, April 27; Brad King, “ISPs Face Down DMCA”, Wired News, Dec. 23, 2000).
* That odd case from Everett, Wash. where a federal judge “has thrown out the kidnapping and sexual assault convictions of a man who had argued he was not responsible for those crimes because another of his 24 separate personalities had committed it.” A Snohomish County judge declared the multiple personality defense inadmissible, but “U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman in Seattle ruled Friday that it was up to the trial court to clarify the question for jurors by establishing standards for assessing legal responsibility.” (“Judge Throws Out Conviction of Multi-Personality Defendant”, AP/Fox News, June 12).
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Research and Scholarship
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The Role for Universities in Creating New Connections in the Pacific Rim
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Welcome Back Town Hall August 2014
The Role for Universities in Creating New Connections in the Pacific Basin
The Ecuadoran Council of Chambers of Commerce and Industrial Associations
Buenos días. I am delighted to be with you this morning. I'd like to introduce my husband, Bill Jeffery. Not only are we having the wonderful experience of getting to know a new country, but in meeting with you we are getting to learn about a whole new category of socio-economic organization. They tell me that is a "national peak organization" because you bring together a whole series of chambers, associations and organizations that cover far more terrain than just commerce and industry.
I appreciate this opportunity to engage in dialogue with you; I want to give a special word of thanks to our Ecuador alumni organizing committee, Gerardo Borrero, Ciro Santamaria and Kurt Freund. These gentlemen studied at University of the Pacific during the 1960s...I understand that Ciro and Kurt were especially good soccer players and Gerardo was a brilliant economics student!
And I am also pleased by the opportunity to address such an important topic. You see, creating new connections is the core of building community, and the concept of building community has particular meaning for me.
When I started my work at Pacific a little more than a year ago, I participated in a student life exercise where the students tried to figure out the single word that best described their ideal self. The One Word that encapsulates what I want to accomplish as the President of University of the Pacific is "community." Thus "Community" became my One Word. So you see, the idea of creating connections and building community means a lot to me.
Defining our Pacific Basin community
For more than 20 years now, folks have been talking about the 21st century as being the "Pacific Century" because of the expectation that the center of global commerce would pass from the North Atlantic to the Pacific Basin, or as most people call it in the US, the Pacific Rim.
And so while this is not a new idea, I am going to put my own twist on things. For instance, I am going to insist that it is not just commerce and trade that we should think about when it comes to the Pacific Century, but also technology, education and humanistic achievement. Its obvious why I include technology and education: I am a mechanical engineer and an educator, so naturally I care a lot about technology. But the humanistic ingredient is also very important. Indeed, it is something that Latin America reminded me of just recently when your Peruvian neighbor Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize and set a new standard for humanistic achievement in literature...and maybe also the value of an ironic sense of humor when it comes to politics. I should know; I live in a state led by a "Governator"!
You will also notice that I am putting my own spin on defining the Pacific Basin neighborhood. There is a major international organization in the U.S., the Council on Foreign Relations, that has a special program on the Pacific Rim, but according to their definition this includes only the nations of the East Coast of Asia, Australia and New Zealand. I don't know about you, but from California, we see the Pacific Basin in a totally different fashion, and we always have.
First, for us in California, our conception of the Pacific starts with our connection to Latin America. Of course, this is partly because of our heritage: we have been both a Spanish Colony and a Mexican territory. Most of the beautiful and noteworthy places in California have wonderful Spanish names, such as La Jolla and el Presidio. But this isn't just a matter of ancient history for us either. After all, Chilean, Peruvian and Mexican miners were the first foreigners to reach California at the very start of the gold rush (yes, even before the famous '49ers). Latin American immigrants are, in fact, more important than ever. They now make up about 40% of our state's population and almost 1 in 6 people in our state is actually a Latin American immigrant. The importance role Latinos play in California will only continue to grow: more than 50% of babies born in California today are born to Latino families.
Second, our version of the Pacific Basin also incorporates the islands and includes all of east and Southeast Asia. Our University was founded by Methodist ministers in 1851 as the first institution of higher education in California. The Methodist ministers who had gone to California were not concerned only with taming the wild west of the gold rush days, they were also involved from the start in sending missionaries to Hawaii, China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. Indeed, throughout most of our University's history, Hawaii has sent more students to Pacific than any state other than California and still does. The connections to Asia have always been so important to Pacific. Just as I was surprised to learn how important the Lebanese and others have been as immigrants to Ecuador, I think you might be surprised at the extent to which the Asian people have formed an integral part of our community at Pacific.
For instance, we have a special room in our library that is named after a Japanese student named Sanji Muto who came to study at Pacific in 1885 and later went on to become one of his country's most prominent early labor organizers and advocates of workers' rights. In the 1880s, a Chinese graduate of Pacific returned to his country and helped persuade the Empress of China to condemn the inhumane practice of binding the feet of Chinese girls. Yet while Pacific was welcoming and educating Asian students in the 19th century, I am sad to acknowledge that much of the rest of the U.S. was abusing, discriminating against, and even lynching Asians.
In the 20th century, Pacific continued to embrace diversity. We were one of the first universities to welcome Filipinos. After the Philippines became a U.S. territory, Pacific had a constant Filipino presence. And despite segregation laws that required that Filipinos be treated (or rather mistreated) just like Black Americans, that was not what happened at Pacific. Our Filipino students were fully integrated into campus life. This is probably one of the reasons that our Little Manila in Stockton came to be the city with the second largest Filipino population in the world. Pacific is proud of our history of openly contradicting the way the rest of the US looked at Asia. We have always had a close connection to these Pacific Rim neighbors.
Conventional and unconventional educational connections in the Pacific Basin
So now that it is clear how inclusive and comprehensive my conception of Pacific basin geography is, I want to talk about how University of the Pacific, as an institution of higher education, creates connections within the Pacific basin. Even though Pacific is a relatively small university, we have and are making both conventional and unconventional connections within the Pacific Basin.
By conventional connections, I mean the traditional university connections that occur through student/faculty exchange and professors who engage in research projects overseas or bring foreigner partners to their labs and research centers.
Pacific has made these conventional connections, but because we are a lot smaller than a large research university and have only a handful of advanced graduate programs, we have far fewer of these conventional connections than a school like Stanford, where I was a student, or the University of California, Berkeley, where I was a professor.
Regardless, the number and prominence of these conventional connections between Latin American and US universities are without doubt one of the major factors that will make the Pacific century so dynamic. California leads the US by far in our number of foreign students, visiting faculty, and students studying overseas.
For me it's the unconventional connections that more exciting, precisely because we think these are the kind of connections that more universities should be building throughout the Pacific Basin. In some ways there's a parallel here to the role that Ecuador plays in world affairs. The size of the population and territory make Ecuador one of Latin America's smaller nations, but it is still highly unique:
· You are doing more than anyone to preserve your small but incredibly important part of the Amazon.
· Mexico and other countries have many more volcanoes, but no one else has an avenue of volcanoes.
· Ecuadorian consciousness of its Pacific Ocean heritage & the Galapagos Islands led your nation to expand the protection of ocean resources. You blazed the trail that led the international community to modernize the global law of the sea.
We must always remember that small packages can still produce tremendous value. We also believe that these unconventional connections may be more likely to drive change and help shape the patterns that the conventional connections may eventually take.
So, you ask, what are these unconventional mechanisms that University of the Pacific is pursuing? I will describe five of them.
First: personal connections. Imagine: even as we are about to achieve a global population of seven billion, Pacific still insists that education is student-centered and personal. Our classes are small and our students get to know their professors and even their President on a personal basis. My family lives on campus, and my husband was chatting with our first two Ecuadorian students, two fine young men from the Cotopaxi Academy, just before we left on this trip. We have a Spanish language residence on campus and a global learning community. On our Stockton campus, about 80% of our students live on campus and we have a true living and learning community.
One of the great tributes to the virtue of living & learning communities came from the Colombian essayist and historian German Arciniegas. He spent several days on the Pacific campus visiting our pioneering Elbert Covell College; I think he stayed in the dormitory where Ciro and Gerardo lived. What he saw was an experience that created a real spirit of inter-American understanding. After Arciniegas left Pacific, he went to London where he was interviewed by the BBC. I'd like to quote what he said:
"The impression which a gathering of these university students gives is that of a large family of young people, who speak a common language, who humanly are intertwined together. It is an America united, not divided. A house well composed, not broken into pieces. Everything achieved without force, by natural means, without hiding initial disagreements, without working with the conventional atmosphere of official things. The edges continue to be polished, just as in families, just as among brothers. Friendships are affirmed through the simple circumstances of sharing the same house."
Having met the alumni of Covell College, I have no doubt that that spirit of inter-Americanism has lasted all these years. That sense of brotherhood is one reason why these alumni have worked so hard to organize my visit here today.
A second unconventional way we connect with our Pacific basin neighbors is through innovation and technology. Pacific is making important technological advances. Recently, the Silicon Valley came to Pacific in the form of our new $10 million John T. Chambers Technology Center, named for its major benefactor, the CEO of Cisco Systems. And our Pacific Resources Research Center (PRRC) is having a significant impact on the global construction and materials industry. Rapid industrialization across the globe has raised standards of living, but also led to resource depletion and pollution. International cement production has been identified as a major culprit in global climate change. Researchers at Pacific have pioneered a sustainable cement technology (sialite technology) that greatly reduces or eliminates emissions and cuts down on energy consumption. This technology promises to be invaluable for our Asian neighbors experiencing rapid industrialization.
A third unconventional way we connect abroad is to involve our local community. Stockton is in the heart of one of the richest agricultural regions in the world. We are especially famous for our asparagus and grapes, and those Blue Diamond almonds that are consumed all over the planet. That means Stockton is also a magnet for farm workers who usually arrive with little or no education. Consequently, our population is among the most undereducated in the U.S. So one of the major goals of our Inter-American Program is to reach out and involve this largely Hispanic population in our global educational enterprise. This is a fascinating case of connecting the local to the global, but also the global to...the intergalactic!
Let me tell you the story of José Hernandez, University of the Pacific Class of 1985. Born in California to a Mexican family of migrant farmworkers, José spent every spring and summer on the "California Circuit," picking fruits and vegetables up and down the Central Valley, moving in and out of schools. After a teacher implored his parents to stay in one place for the school year, the Hernándezes made the brave decision to give up their way of life for their children's education. José seized that chance. Over the years he excelled in science and math, all the while nursing a dream to fly into space.
José entered Pacific's School of Engineering and Computer Science on a grant from our Community Involvement Program. While at Pacific, he won a coveted co-op position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and a full ride to graduate school.
In August 2009, José fulfilled his lifelong dream by launching into space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. As our entire Pacific community watched, José traveled 5.7 million miles in space and orbited the earth 217 times. No doubt his flight inspired countless other childhood dreams all over the world. José Hernandez has become a symbol for the future of Latinos in the United States, and for the union between the US & Latin America. And of course, he also embodies the key role Pacific can play in that relationship.
A fourth unconventional way Pacific pursues interconnectivity: we have decided that international competence is something that all our students need. Of course, international competence is important for our students who study abroad. At Pacific, before students go abroad, they are required to undergo cross-cultural training. And perhaps even more importantly, they go through a required cultural reentry program upon their return to the US. As our School of International Studies has demonstrated, it's upon return to the US that the greatest development of intercultural sensitivity actually occurs.
But international competence is important for all students, not just those who study abroad. I have made increasing the international competence of all our students one of Pacific's seven institutional priorities. My being here today, my recent trip to China and a whole new University self-study project on international involvement are just the beginnings of this effort.
And where could it be more important to build international competence than with our neighbors here in the Americas? We share part of the same space and many of the same resources. It is no coincidence that the commerce of both our countries depends so much on the use of the Panama Canal. And almost 60% of US energy imports come from hemispheric countries, far more than from the Persian Gulf -- as I am sure our host, Dr Rene Ortiz, can tell you!
It may seem strange to talk about inter-Americanism today when some of the governments in our region seem to have such a hard time getting along, but I want to make clear that I am not talking about inter-governmental relations. I am talking about the inter-American spirit, the human bonds, that come from cooperation and interaction and sharing. (A heartwarming example: the joy felt recently across the US when the miners were pulled from the earth in Chile.)
When we restarted our Inter-American Program just over two years ago, the former Secretary General and Colombian President Cesar Gaviria was the keynote speaker. And one of the things he said our hemisphere badly needed was the kind of idealism that German Arciniegas saw in our students.
So rebuilding our Inter-American Program and spreading this spirit of private cooperation between us, as neighboring peoples in the Americas, is the fifth and final of these unconventional connections that we are trying to build in this Pacific Basin.
And we hope that many Ecuadorians will want to help us with the job. Many thanks for your invitation. Muchas gracias.
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'This should be about, really, the future of our country,' Murkowski says.
Murkowski: Shutdown not a game
By TAL KOPAN
Updated 10/16/2013 10:47 AM EDT
The GOP women senators behind a bipartisan deal on the government shutdown and debt ceiling are making the rounds on morning TV on Wednesday, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski saying the fight in the lower chamber shouldn’t “be about someone’s speakership.”
Flanked by fellow Republicans Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), the Alaska senator on NBC’s “Today” responded to a question about House Speaker John Boehner and the choice he faces in bringing a Senate deal to the House floor.
“This should not be about someone’s speakership. This should not be about the next election. This should be about, really, the future of our country,” Murkowski said. “It ought not be about the politics of the game or whether or not someone keeps their leadership. I want to support John Boehner in any way that I can, but we need to be pragmatic. This is not going to be a Republican solution or a Democrat solution. This is going to be a solution that is good for the country.”
Collins, who also appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” and Ayotte, who is scheduled to appear on CNN’s “New Day,” also advocated for moving forward beyond a partisan debate, saying though none of them support Obamacare, neither did any of them support the strategy to defund it that led to the shutdown.
“Let’s face it, the government shut down and the Obamacare exchange is open. What we need is problem solving. That’s why I’m proud to be here with Susan and Lisa to get this resolved for the country,” Ayotte said.
“It was an ill-conceived strategy from the beginning, not a winning strategy,” Ayotte reiterated on CNN. “I don’t think it was worth it.”
As the Senate moves toward a deal, Ayotte said she hoped Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wouldn’t stand in the way and hold up a vote.
“It’s up to him. I would hope that he wouldn’t. I mean in the Senate, obviously, in terms of certain time frames, senators can cause you to run out the clock, but what’s he trying to gain at this point?” Ayotte said on CNN. “I would hope that whatever comes forward, that we would allow a vote on it as soon as possible because we are coming against this deadline.”
Lisa Murkowski
Kelly Ayotte
Susan Collins
Government Shutdown 2019
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House of Heroes to play first concert in two years in Columbus
The concert will mark the largest headlining show in the band's history
House of Heroes to play first concert in two years in Columbus The concert will mark the largest headlining show in the band's history Check out this story on portclintonnewsherald.com: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2018/12/22/house-heroes-reunite-columbus-show/2400391002/
Chris Pugh, Cincinnati Enquirer Published 11:18 p.m. ET Dec. 22, 2018 | Updated 5:51 a.m. ET Dec. 23, 2018
House of Heroes will play the band's first live show in over two years Dec. 28 in Columbus.(Photo: Photo provided)
For House of Heroes, a band that was founded 15 years ago in Columbus, the band's first live concert was supposed to be a celebration for close friends.
"We thought only 100 or 200 people would show up," lead singer Tim Skipper said by phone from Nashville.
Several hours later, the small venue sold out.
"We were shocked," Skipper said.
So the band booked a bigger venue in Columbus, which also sold out shortly after the venue was announced.
"I really thought people didn't care as much as I hoped they did," Skipper said.
So the band is now headlining The Athenaeum Theatre on Dec. 28 and has already sold over 1,200 tickets.
It will be the biggest headlining concert in the band's history.
House of Heroes started as a punk band at Hilliard Davidson High School in Hilliard, a suburb of Columbus.
The band has toured nationally in Christian and mainstream venues, but stopped regularly touring two years ago after the release of "Colors."
"We lost a lot of momentum," Skipper admitted. "We had some personal stuff and the momentum dried out."
On Dec. 28, they'll play "The End Is Not the End," their breakthrough album, from front to back, which has charted in the top 20 of Billboard Christian albums.
"There was a lot of labor to get it done and released," Skipper said.
Skipper said the band plans to put out an EP with three new songs and two re-imagined, previously released songs, but don't regularly plan to tour after the Columbus show.
Pataskala native John Reuben and Stay Outside will open the show and tickets are available here.
DEC 28. COLUMBUS OH.
Get tickets quick: https://t.co/BJMgNXnT1dpic.twitter.com/IFMITNzqg3
— House of Heroes (@houseofheroes) November 22, 2018
Read or Share this story: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2018/12/22/house-heroes-reunite-columbus-show/2400391002/
Best Bets: Barbershop singing, Big Band dance & more
Nov. 8, 2017, 11:23 a.m.
Sunset Cruise offers scenic route of shoreline
Celebrating local art
Sept. 29, 2017, 12:15 p.m.
Toby Keith headlining Put-in-Bay concert festival
Give thanks for multiple movie options
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A Dickens Christmas Franklin Tn
When Uncle Drosselmeyer gifts Clara with a wooden Nutcracker on Christmas Eve, the toy magically transforms to life as a handsome prince and leads her through a remarkable adventure. Clara visits.
Travis Scott 2019 tour dates include Nashville concert at Bridgestone Arena Travis Scott has revealed he’ll continue his "Wish You Were Here Tour" in 2019, and the newly announced dates include a stop.
SAT – MAY 18 – MOTE MARINE LABORATORIES & AQUARIUM – Sarasota – Come meet our fish.And our scientists. Our working aquarium gives you an up-close experience with a variety of marine animals and fish, including two touch tanks and a 135,000-gallon shark habitat.
Julius Frank Anthony Kuczynski (February 18, 1914 – March 7, 2000), known professionally as Pee Wee King, was an American country music songwriter and recording artist best known for co-writing "Tennessee Waltz
Brad Paisley grew up in West Virginia, 500 yards from the Ohio River. He said it’s where some of his fondest memories were made, and now he’s singing about the river — or one like it — in his new.
SHEFFIELD — Volunteers helped make Christmas a little brighter for residents with a free community meal and will continue to offer the meals until March. Every Thursday from 5-6 p.m., residents can.
Notes: The Municipal Representation in Texas is separated by project type. Municipal Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant New and Expansion/Modification Projects including buried lines inside the plant boundaries.
Dec. 18-24: “A Christmas Carol — A Musical.” Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic takes the stage with catchy songs from Marley and other characters at the nexStage Theatre, 120 S. Main St. in Ketchum.
Lucinda deserves an obituary. She was an unforgettable little dickens. Not even 20 pounds, such a mix that no breed dominated, the dog that appeared last Thanksgiving and didn’t make it quite a year,
Before I Go Poem Robert Frost Poems: Back to Poems Page: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though;. And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Email This Poem to a Friend: Previous Poem. I
With Jack Greene at the VA Hospital on February 13, 2008: Friends Leona Williams, with whom I co-hosted the Midnite Jamboree on October 25, 2008, and David McCormick
A native of McMinn County, and a longtime resident of Cleveland, she was a daughter of the late Pearl R. and Anna Eaton Swafford. She was preceded in death by four sisters, Gladys Davis, Elsie Palmer, Choley Townsend and Gertrude Swafford; and one brother, Fred Swafford.
Tennessee Trucking Association • February 2019 • Page 6 INTRODUCING TENNESSEE’S 2019-2020 ROAD TEAM Front Row L to R Seated: Jamie Sowder – FedEx Freight, Cindy Johnson – Covenant Transport. Second Row L to R: Marion Bowers – FedEx Freight, Tony.
The event coincides with A Dickens Christmas Y’all downtown festival in December. On Thursday, Rand again donned Arthur Keller’s persona, this time for a solo performance that he created, titled, "The.
Few country stars crack more jokes than Brad Paisley — so it’s not too surprising that he’ll be taking the stage at Nashville’s Wild West Comedy Festival. Tickets for "A Night of Stand-Up Comedy.
Scavenger hunts, specialty burgers for a bargain, beer & cheese pairings, free concerts, movies under the stars, sing-along musicals, a 90s party, a craft fair and unique festivals like Uncle Dave.
Debtors prisons are supposed to be a thing of the past, something relegated to dusty Charles Dickens novels about Victorian England. But 21st century America’s legal system has its own ways of.
Those include “Hot Barbecue, Cool Blues” during the W.C. Handy Music Festival and “Dickens Christmas, Y’all” during the second weekend in December, Christopher said. They also have sponsored a Taste.
May 01, 2018 · Tennessee is one of the most fun and uniquely American places you can ever hope to visit. From country music to dramatic landscapes and plenty of quaint mountain towns in between, there’s something here that everyone can enjoy. Tennessee has large cities that are definitely worth visiting, but.
You may remember their massacre of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” on the JCCT stage in 2005. Despite their constant bad luck, the Guild members battle on to the bitter end. And this time, the stakes are.
The Metromaniacs Shakespeare Theatre Company Britta Johnson (Book, Music, and Lyrics) is a writer, composer, and lyricist based in Toronto who is thrilled to be making her American debut at The Old Globe.Life After premiered in Canada in 2017 (co-produced by Canadian Stage, The Musical Stage Company, and Yonge Street Theatricals) and went on to win six Dora Mavor Moore
Return to Tutorial: Contact SAR: Florida Society Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) Patriot Index: Copyright © 2013 – 2015 Debbie Duay, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
"I’ve seen firsthand the healing power of small group ministries," explained Schaffer, a volunteer for several years with Nashville, Tennessee-based Restore Small Groups. "The key is reaching those.
The first Christmas was a Magnificat kind of Christmas. It wasn’t a Dickens kind of Christmas, and it wasn’t a Midwestern kind of Christmas, and it wasn’t a Tennessee kind of Christmas. It was a Mary.
Nashville Holiday Traditions like going to the ballet to see The Nutcracker, the Ryman to see The Vince Gill and Amy Grant Christmas special always top our list of Holiday Season Events not to be misses. You also need to make plans to visit Historic downtown Franklin for the 33rd annual A Dickens of a Christmas where musicians and characters will fill the streets several from Charles Dicken’s.
His score is a stinker too: Willson wrote the one recognizable tune, "It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," in 1951 — it’s included in Here’s Love with an updated melody and lyric under the.
Brad Paisley, more pay respects to Little Jimmy Dickens A host of country singers and musicians attended visitation for Little Jimmy Dickens on Wednesday. Check out this story on Tennessean.com: http:.
The Dose of news you can use. This week: Love and loss with disabilities and senseless shootings This week, we look at love and loss, including friendship on a dance team for girls with disabilities.
Visitfranklin.com features local events, festivals, shows, attractions, restaurants, and more. Find what to do in Historic Franklin Tennessee and Williamson county.
Happy A Clown and Grandpa Moses on WSM TV NASHVILLE MEMORIES of the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s I have produced a free PDF of the Memories Material in book form if you wish to print it out.
Details: The 33rd annual street festival features Charles Dickens-era fun filled with 200 musicians. At 8pm, all the Santas will meet at the Christmas tree on 2nd Avenue for a group photo. It’s.
LifeSouth blood drive: 12/08/2018, 9:00am, It’s Dickens Christmas Ya’ll, downtown Tuscumbia, Tuscumbia. • Knitwits Knitting and Crocheting Group: 12/08/2018, 10:00am, Florence-Lauderdale Public.
MISSION. Since 1967, the nonprofit group has been dedicated to protecting and preserving Williamson County’s architectural, geographic and cultural heritage of Williamson County and to promote the ongoing revitalization of downtown Franklin in the context of historic preservation.
Pack up the kids and the grandparents to view the best Christmas Light Displays in Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Our suggestion, get a party together and rent a limo and party bus and see all the best lighting displays in a single night without the worry of being distracted by the beauty.
Poetry Competition For Schools. award a total of $50,000 in scholarships and school stipends, with a $20,000 college scholarship provided to the Poetry. The winners’ event for the 2018 winners will be on Saturday 13 July, 2019, 1pm Comments on the 2018 competition from Judge Nia Davies: I feel honoured to have had a special private view of
Gill Scott Heron Poetry Gil Scott-Heron, the poet behind the song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” has died in New York City. He was 62 years old. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” was a blast at consumer culture. Scott Caizley, a Master’s student at the Faculty of Education, has won a prestigious scholarship to research the experiences
Pull off I-65 at Exit 68 for a relaxed stay at the Country Inn & Suites ® by Radisson, Cool Springs, TN. Situated 20 minutes south of Nashville and about four miles from historic downtown Franklin, our hotel is a hot spot for fun-loving families on vacation in central Tennessee.
There will be a lighting of the Christmas tree in honor of veterans, display on Pearl Harbor and music by the Florence Middle School Girls Ensemble. Poetry and music — As part of "It’s A Dickens.
Jan 02, 2015 · Little Jimmy Dickens, Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry Member, passed away on January 2, 2015 at the age of 94. Little Jimmy, also known as, “Tater,” joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1948 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1983.
Photo Album. Please allow a few moments for the images to load on the page. Click on the images below to open a larger image.
The Sloan family has been synonymous with music in Wilson County for more than 100 years. Melvin’s mother Leona Adams Sloan taught music in rural county schools here for decades.
Previous I Like That Stuff Poems Next Love Hate Poems For Him
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Current: The GOP snuck an attack on ...
The GOP snuck an attack on abortion in their tax bill
By Sophie Ota | Nov. 8, 2017, 10:21 a.m.
Category: Abortion Access
Taxes: They can get confusing, pretty quickly.
And the tax plan that House Republicans unveiled this month — which is 429 pages long, contains hundreds of measures, and was written in secrecy by a small group of politicians — is no exception.
One measure in the tax plan, unfortunately, is an attempt to undermine access to safe, legal abortion.
This unnecessary measure uses the language around 529 accounts — a tax-free, state-sponsored investment fund where parents can put aside money for a child’s college education — to create an official definition of an “unborn” person.
The tax bill was introduced by anti-women politician Kevin Brady (R-TX), pictured here.
This measure is completely unnecessary. People can already very easily set up 529 accounts for their future kids. What’s more, anyone can open a 529 account today in their own name and later change it to their child’s name. There is no legitimate policy rationale for including this language in the tax bill.
The true intention of this measure? To advance an agenda designed to undermine women's health and rights. Extreme GOP politicians are so hell-bent on attacking the constitutional right to abortion that they’re trying to sneak one into a tax bill. Pathetic, right?
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) at a news conference for the GOP tax bill.
This isn’t even the first time they’ve tried this tactic. Republicans attempted to tack a similar measure onto the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) back in 2009 — but they were easily defeated.
It’s not surprising that some of the most extreme, ideological, and anti-women lobbying groups — including the Susan B. Anthony List and March for Life Action — have come out in support of this measure in this bill.
But the truth is that going after abortion access is wildly unpopular. Support for Roe v. Wade is the highest it’s ever been, with seven out of 10 people saying they believe a woman should have the right to safe, legal abortion. (For reference, that’s more popular than Congress, the Republican party, or the Democratic party).
Here’s the bottom line: politicians have no business attacking safe, legal abortion or our access to health care — but especially not in a tax bill.
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TomTom Product Announcement from Cannes 7th June 2007
Report by Tim Buxton
On June the 5th, in Cannes, TomTom announced the successors to the X10 range. The new line-up consists of two models, the GO520 and GO720, They share the 4.3" screen dimensions of the ONE XL but use a 400MHz processor and 64Mb of RAM, in keeping with the outgoing GO 910.
They will come with or without a TMC module (those packages are suffixed 'T') depending on the market. The hot news is the announcement of TomTom Map Share™, which will allow users to not only update their own maps with respect to certain errors they find, but also to share that information with other users via TomTom HOME. They can also incorporate the changes that others have made.
TomTom have also added Voice Recognition to the number of ways by which one can navigate to an address. I tried this on my own address and it worked flawlessly. Bear in mind, though, that my address has a phonetic pronunciation almost the equivalent of its spelling. Voice recognition is available in the following countries :- Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
Although there is no definitive language list for this feature, I'd expect it to be German, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and English, based on the countries supported. Text to Speech is also supported in the above language list with the exception of Portuguese and Swedish (but English has UK and US variants).
The hands free capability has been enhanced with options like auto-answer along with noise reduction and echo cancellation. On the information front, the status bar can now be positioned vertically, something that has been asked for for some time.
There is a new section to the already extensive menu structure, this being the Help Me, section which gives immediate access to various Emergency service and Medical information.
An FM transmitter is built into the unit allowing audio instructions and music to be played through a vehicle's stereo system. The iPod connection is also retained. Bluetooth use has been expanded from the usual BT capable mobile connection and now certain content, such as locations, music, pictures and more can be exchanged between users.
TomTom have also added a host of 'fun' stuff, like the ability to create your own navigational instructions (or get someone else to do it for you) or change the vehicle icon. There is also a hotkey icon on the main screen which can be customised to go to one menu option in just one screen tap.
The unit has a claimed battery life of up to five hours and it weighs in at 220g, slightly up on the XL but over 100g lighter than the GO910. Coupled with its slim profile this should make it easily portable (by the owner) in a shirt pocket.
With a range of accessories including hard and soft carry cases, remote control and home charger complementing the hardware and software, TomTom see this as the way to keep them in the number one slot for PND sales. Although I will reserve final judgement until a review model is available, I have a hunch that they could be right.
Some screenshots:
Have any comments about this report ? Post them here.
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Falmouth Police Beat: Dec. 21
12/16 at 11:20 a.m. Deidre Haskell, 24, of Ray Street, Portland, was arrested by Officer Stephen Hamilton on a warrant.
Summonses
12/8 at 2:58 p.m. Callie Steuer, 36, of Mary Lane, Cumberland, was summonsed by Officer Daniel Austin on a charge of passing a stopped school bus.
12/11 at 2:56 p.m. Myya Daigle, 21, of Falmouth Road, Windham, was summonsed by Officer Kevin Conger Jr. on a charge of operating after license suspension.
12/14 at 1:06 p.m. Michelle Chalout, 20, of Juniper East, Yarmouth, was summonsed by Officer Stephen Hamilton on charges of operating after license suspension and attachment of false plates.
12/14 at 1:49 p.m. Victoria Morris, 24, of Harvard Street, Portland, was summonsed by Officer Stephen Hamilton on a charge of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer.
12/11 at 10:24 p.m. A wallet and its contents and a second wallet were reportedly taken during an office Christmas party at a private home on Heritage Lane. Police are investigating the theft, which totals about $200. Police say they have a suspect.
From Legos to lounge
12/15 at 10:22 a.m. A woman called police to report her purse that had been stolen from her unlocked car parked in the Little Hands Preschool lot on Gray Road had turned up at Bubba’s Sulky Lounge in Portland. Although it’s unclear if anything had been taken, her cell phone had been used.
Attack of the Grinch
12/16 at 9:13 a.m. Police were called to investigate an internal theft at Tyler Technologies on Route 1. An employee had ordered personal items to be shipped to his work. The packages had arrived in the shipping area during the previous week, but when the employee went to pick them up, they could not be located.
12/11 at 5:13 a.m. Fire alarm, Foreside Road.
12/11 at 4:05 p.m. Carbon monoxide alarm, Winn Road.
12/13 at 4:44 p.m. Motor vehicle crash, Maine Turnpike.
12/15 at 12:09 a.m. Mutual aid, smoke in building, Corey Road, Cumberland.
12/16 at 6:26 a.m. Fire alarm, Blueberry Lane.
12/16 at 5:28 p.m. Carbon monoxide alarm, Gray Road.
12/17 at 1:54 p.m. Fire alarm, Route 1.
12/17 at 4:01 p.m. Motor vehicle crash, Maine Turnpike spur.
12/17 at 4:19 p.m. Fire alarm, Pinehurst Lane.
Falmouth emergency services personnel responded to 19 calls during the period reported.
Forecaster Police Beat
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A Free Society Amidst the Chaos of the Middle East
Rojava is a little-known but important story in the Middle East.
#sovereignty
#libertarianism
In the midst of the violence of the Middle East, a relatively free society has emerged, Rojava in northern Syria, by the border with Turkey. Rojava, meaning “western,” also referred to as Western Kurdistan, is a self-governing, mostly Kurdish region, with a population of 4.5 million. It declared itself autonomous in November 2013, after control by the government of Syria had collapsed. The capital is Qamishli in northeastern Syria. The territory includes Kobane, the city in which there was fierce fighting with ISIS.
The region, established by the Democratic Union Party and the Kurdish National Council, is not recognized as a political jurisdiction by the government of Syria, and the government of Turkey has closed its border with Rojava for trade in goods and for entry by journalists.
The Constitution of the Rojava Cantons declares that, "We, the people of the Democratic Autonomous Regions of Afrin, Jazira and Kobane," establish "a confederation of Kurds, Arabs, Syrics, Arameans, Turkmen, Armenians and Chechens."
In response to a culture where women are typically treated badly, in Rojava, feminism is valued, and community “peace committees” have reduced violence within and among families. Women have formed a military force that helped rescue the Yazidi religious minority.
The residents practice what they call “democratic confederalism.” Rojava is divided into cantons, like those of Switzerland. Most of the government's services are provided locally by the three cantons. In response to a culture where women are typically treated badly, in Rojava, feminism is valued, and community “peace committees” have reduced violence within and among families. Women have formed a military force that helped rescue the Yazidi religious minority.
The government of Rojava is the Kurdish Supreme Committee. Its army is the People's Protection Units. The public revenues of Rojava come mostly from selling oil. There are no taxes on wages, production, or goods. Local services are provided by cooperatives.
While some American and European Muslims are joining the violent extremists in the Middle East, others, not so publicized, are helping the Rojava side. They are called the “Lions of Rojava.” Those who want to get involved have an ideological choice.
The situation is complicated by the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Turkey, or PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. This party should work for peaceful self-governance within Turkey. Peace between the Kurds and the Turkish government would promote a normal border between Turkey and Rojava. Until then, the government of the United States should push on Turkey to open its border to Rojava for trade, journalism, and assistance.
The revolutionary ideology in Rojava was led by Abdullah Öcalan, who rejects the structure of today's state governments. Öcalan’s concept of Democratic Autonomy includes a bottom-up democracy, gender equality, environmental preservation, and a cooperative economy. The cantons operate under a “social contract” of self-governance based in neighborhood commune assemblies of several hundred households each, with women as equal participants. Power rises from the bottom up through elected deputies to the city and cantonal levels.
The people of Rojava are fighting not only for their autonomy but also for their ideals of democracy and tolerance. The training of their military includes education about their Democratic Autonomy.
An academic group visited Rojava in December 2014. In their statement of January 15, 2015, the group stated that “we, as a delegation of scholars from Europe, Turkey, and North America traveled to Rojava to learn more about the ideals and practices of this revolution and to witness at first hand, in one of its cantons, its claims to gender liberation and democratic self-government... In Rojava, we believe, genuinely democratic structures have indeed been established... Against all odds, the people of Rojava have advanced a bold program for civic tolerance, gender liberation, and direct democracy. For this, they deserve the world’s respect and its active support.”
© Text Copyright Fred Foldvary, Ph.D. rights reserved.
FRED E. FOLDVARY, Ph.D., is an economist and has been writing weekly editorials for Progress.org since 1997. Foldvary's commentaries are well respected for their currency, sound logic, wit, and consistent devotion to human freedom. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. He has taught economics at Virginia Tech, John F. Kennedy University, Santa Clara University, and currently teaches at San Jose State University.
Foldvary is the author of The Soul of Liberty, Public Goods and Private Communities, and Dictionary of Free Market Economics. He edited and contributed to Beyond Neoclassical Economics and, with Dan Klein, The Half-Life of Policy Rationales. Foldvary's areas of research include public finance, governance, ethical philosophy, and land economics.
Foldvary is notably known for going on record in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology in 1997 to predict the exact timing of the 2008 economic depression—eleven years before the event occurred. He was able to do so due to his extensive knowledge of the real-estate cycle.
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Review by: Cheryl Harvey Hill, Staff Journalist
Excerpts from the cd jacket: On a warm, muggy southern evening back in 1947, the Almeria Club, decorated with sweat and musical appreciation, hosted a gathering of unbelievable music and mayhem. Story goes an irate boyfriend busted into the Almeria looking for his sweetheart who was at the joint jiving with someone she shouldn’t have been. Tensions rose. Then gunshots. Hank Sr. and "Miss Audrey" jumped out a backstage window and escaped through the thicket and nearby woods.
Fast forward: On a warm, muggy southern evening in the 21st century, the Almeria Club, decorated with sweat and musical appreciation, hosted a gathering of unbelievable music and perhaps a little mayhem... "When I heard that story, that just did it for me. I just had to record my album at the Almeria Club, even though you could see the dirt through the cracks and there were poisonous snakes living under the floor."
Hank Jr.decided he wanted to begin work on his new album right there in that same building where his parents had performed. The former one-room schoolhouse was transformed into a recording studio. According to Hank, all the Almeria Club building took was some additional power. "The acoustics were absolutely perfect", he says. And that isn’t the only information you will glean from the informative jacket insert. Each song has a personal introduction written by Williams in his own words. This is the first time I have ever been captivated by an album jacket. Like a good book, I couldn’t put it down. It was as entertaining and as delightful as the music it covered.
In addition to the Almeria Club session, recording for the song "Cross On The Highway," was done with Bishop Marvin E. Donaldson at The Greater Pentecostal Temple in Kansas City, Kansas, where Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas' memorial service was held.
The next stop was the stage at the Municipal Auditorium in Shreveprot, Louisiana, which once housed the Louisiana Hayride, a KWKH radio show known as "The Cradle of the Stars." Hank Sr.'s career was launched there when he joined the Hayride in August 1948. Soon after, Hank Sr. moved to Shreveport, and Randall Hank Williams was born there May 26, 1949.
On the cd we are introduced to Thunderhead Hawkins; son of Luke the Drifter. I don’t want to spoil the surprise so you will have to purchase the album to find out who these two famous personalities are. I will tell you this much; their story is fascinating and the story behind the songs written by Thunderhead are also fascinating.
You will also find a tribute to Rufus Payne, AKA "Tee Tot", on this cd. "Rufus Payne, better known as "Tee Tot", never made a record, never appeared on TV, and never had his picture taken for us to see, explains Hank Williams Jr. "What he did do though was influence the entire world of music when he taught my father, as a boy of thirteen, to play the guitar and introduced him to the Blues. Daddy always said, "My musical education was learned at the school of Tee Tot." This song has been inside of me for a long time, and I'm glad it finally came out. I'm most proud of my tribute to Tee Tot."
Bottom line. This cd is even better than a good book; complete with terrific photos. "Almeria Club" IS the personification of entertainment. It is a musical, visual, rockin’, beboppin’, feel good, bluesy, country, toe-tappin’, jammin’, lyrical, historical trip through the stuff legends are made of. Hank Jr.... your Daddy is surely proud.
HankJr.com
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_By: Jim Moulton, Staff Journalist
Lee Ann Womack has tried most formulas of country music, with arguably her best music being in her first couple of traditional country albums. "Never Again", "The Fool", "Little Past Little Rock", and many other great songs. Her last CD which did very well, was titled There's More Where That Came From, which was very traditional, actually was what I was expecting this time. Womack had her most popular CD, titled I Hope You Dance, which was more modern Nashville type country, but that was back in 2000.
So what came out with Call Me Crazy, we have all the familiar Nashville people working with her, and Womack co-wrote most of the songs. Tony Brown produced, and it was mastered by Bob Ludwig of Gateway Mastering, which is a bit unusual in that he usually masters rock CDs, but he's also known as one of the industry greats.
The players included Brent Mason on electric guitar and Bryan Sutton on acoustic, they have played together on many CDs. Paul Franklin's pedal steel seems to be the central instrument. Larry Franklin plays fiddle. Womack sounds great on the slow, heartbreak ballad "Last Call" which has a haunting melody and is a great performance. What really sticks out in the music is Lee Ann's pure emotive lyrics. "Either Way" is another slow sad song, but it really works, with some real nice electric guitar by Brent Mason.
What does not fit in my opinion is the tacky cardboard cover with her in a scantily clad showgirl outfit. It has nothing to do with the CD. This is probably the first album Womack has done where just about every song is a sad ballad, but a lot of country music is like that. At times it seems overproduced with the layers of guitars and vocals, as opposed to Patty Loveless' new CD which is almost like a live recording, just one track per instrument, not much overdubbing. The finished work, does however give mastering engineer Ludwig plenty of room to work his craft and he takes the music and just gives it incredible tone work, no clipping, just a great recording.
At times, in some of the songs, you can hear the musicians breaking out of the Nashville mold a bit and adding a different, almost alternative sense to the mix. "The Bees" for instance, is an interesting musical composition. I guess that my Favorite song is "I Think I Know", about what killed Keith Whitley, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. The words just come out in such a vibrant, emotive way, great melody with plenty of memorable hooks.
George Strait joins her in a duet called "Everything But Quits", very well done by the pair. Womack ends the album as she does every album with a spiritual song, this one called "The Story Of My Life", probably the most upbeat song on the whole disc. Personally, I think it is a very well done recording with some very good material, but I do not know how well it will do.
There's More Where That Came From
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Reaching Aussie Becomes More Distant
“Conventional politicians ignore structural reform because they think they are in power to please people, and pleasing people does not involve making them face the hard questions. They use the latest polls to fine-tune their image and their policies, in order to achieve better results in the next poll. In other words, their aim is really to be in perpetual power. Their adherence to policies which focus on their immediate problems rather than the country’s future opportunities, brings accumulating difficulties. It becomes increasingly clear to people that the problems have not been solved and that opportunities have been thrown away. And so, such governments are voted out.”
Roger Douglas wrote that in his book “Unfinished Business”, published in 1993. His book provided a vision for where New Zealand could be in the year 2020 if citizens instead of institutions, became the focus of government. He believed people should be able to look forward to a future where they had a job, a home, a good education for their children, access to health care, security, dignity, pride, and a sense of self-worth.
What he believed they didn’t want was to be told what to do by a dictatorial government that took away their options, leaving them with no power and no real control over their lives.
Fundamental to his vision of a future of empowerment and prosperity for citizens was the need for governments to have the courage to undertake necessary on-going structural reform. While the 1984 Labour Government displayed a great deal of courage when it made some of those hard choices like reducing income taxes from a top rate of 66 percent to 33 percent and company tax from 45 percent to 33 percent, removing subsidies, import licensing, reducing tariffs, deregulating the financial markets, floating the dollar and selling inefficient government enterprises, their reform programme later came unstuck when David Lange lost his nerve on the introduction of a 23 percent flat tax and the sale of further loss-making assets.
Irrespective of populist criticisms, there is no doubt that the major reforms of that era have stood the country in good stead. If that were not the case, those enduring policies would have been reversed during the nine years that Helen Clark’s Labour Government was in power.
The problem is that few governments since that time have had the courage that those politicians in 1984 demonstrated. Instead, they have had their eye on the next election and are afraid to alienate the political middle ground for fear of reprisal at the ballot box.
The problem is that when reform is driven by political popularism, vested interest groups protecting their patch can build public sympathy, making change difficult. That’s why piecemeal reforms in education and health, where the unions have a powerful hold, have proven so difficult. That is in spite of the fact that performance in these sectors leaves much to be desired.
The fact that in New Zealand in 2010 a large percentage of children still leave school unable to read, write and do simple arithmetic, is a disgrace and an indictment of our state-run system.
And in health, things are not that much better. Imagine your loved one being so sick one Saturday that you rush them to hospital only to find that a proper diagnosis can’t be carried out until Monday when the specialist staff are back at work – but by then it is too late… Or that you have just had a baby and when you tell your midwife about your symptoms she is so worried she orders an ambulance – only to find yourself and your new baby waiting in the emergency department all day before someone can see you …
Whether we like it or not, these are symptoms of a government driven economy that is quickly sliding into third world status. It hasn’t just happened, of course – it’s been coming on for a few years, but the pace of our decline has picked up since 2005, when government spending started to blow out of all proportions.
The point is that the only ones who can reverse this slide in our living standards are those elected politicians who have been given the responsibility of running the country. It is their spending and policy framework that is now directly responsible for our current predicament.
The reality of course, is that these areas are hugely complex, which is why it is very helpful to be able to read the new report of the 2025 Taskforce. The 2025 Taskforce was formed as a result of the National and ACT parties 2008 Confidence and Supply Agreement. Its key purpose is to examine ways that the income gap between Australia and New Zealand can be closed and to identify progress that is being made annually towards that goal.
I asked Dr Don Brash, the Chairman of the Taskforce and former leader of the National Party, to explain to NZCPR readers what the taskforce has found. In his article Can we catch Australia by 20245? Yes we can, but… he explains:
“In our first report, issued last year, we judged that Australian incomes were on average 35% above those in New Zealand. This year, we did not try to quantify whether the gap had increased or decreased because some of the data was not available, but concluded that, because Australia has so far weathered the international financial crisis somewhat better than we have, it is very unlikely that the gap will have narrowed over the last year.
“We judged that the Government has done several things this year which may lead to somewhat faster growth, notably the reduction in personal income tax rates, a start in reforming the RMA, the lifting of the moratorium on new aquaculture projects, some improvements in employment law, and the decision to establish a Productivity Commission.
“But we also noted that there had been several retrograde steps, including an increase in the effective company tax rate (a reduction from 30% to 28% being somewhat more than offset by several other changes in corporate tax), an increase in the already high minimum wage rate (the second highest in the OECD relative to average incomes), a failure to make any impact on what is now a very large structural fiscal deficit, and an increasingly negative attitude towards foreign investment.”
Dr Brash concludes, “Our basic message was that there is no chance at all of our reaching Australian income levels by 2025 on our current track. Indeed, the OECD has recently projected that the gap will widen further to 42% by 2025, and we received advice that, if that’s what happens, we are likely to lose a net 410,000 New Zealanders across the Tasman over the next 15 years. If we are to avert that outcome, there is no time to waste.”
When you cut to the chase it is clear that the main reason that New Zealand has falling living standards and is languishing behind other countries, is not that Kiwis are lazy or lack entrepreneurial skills. To the contrary – our living standards are falling largely because our government is spending too much. And according to the Taskforce, it isn’t even high quality spending. In other words, the government is spending taxpayers’ money like water because it hasn’t got the gumption or resolve to eliminate wasteful spending – it is as simple as that!
As the Taskforce has noted, in 2004/05 government spending was 29 percent of the country’s wealth (GDP). The OECD now puts it at 45 percent. A government that spends so much relative to the size of the economy simply cannot grow at the speed needed to catch Australia. Not only that, but the massive bureaucracy is crowding out the productive sector.
The Taskforce explains that the income gap between New Zealand and Australia is growing so fast that while the average Aussie income is $16,400 more than the average Kiwi at present, if we stay on the current path, by 2025 it is expected to have risen 60 percent to $24,100. If we are to stop the exodus of talented New Zealanders to Australia – as the Taskforce highlighted, some 410,000 by 2025 – we desperately need a government that will make it their priority to arrest the decline and put the country back on a path to prosperity.
In a recent article in the Herald, Brian Gaynor provided a comparison of the performance of the Australian, Singaporean, and New Zealand sharemarkets that put the dismal state of our economy into perspective. Stock exchanges, of course, channel a country’s savings into the productive sector and so their relative size and activity provides an indication of economic buoyancy. He found that whereas in 1990, the Australian Stock Exchange 1136 listed companies, by 2010 it had 1966, in Singapore the number grew from 172 to 773 over the ten year period, but in comparison, the number of listed companies in New Zealand declined from 245 in 1990 to 165 today. And in terms of market capitalisation he found that the Australian Stock Exchange has risen from 33 percent of GDP in 1990 to 127 percent last year, the Singapore Exchange had risen from 88 percent of GDP to 264 percent over the same period, while the New Zealand Exchange barely increased from 20 percent of GDP in 1990 to 30 percent today.
Without a doubt New Zealand’s future prosperity depends on the business sector – especially the export sector – doing well. Yet it is the high levels of government spending and borrowing – $250 million a week – that are keeping interest rates and the exchange rate at higher levels than they should be. Unless this is addressed and the millstone of compliance costs reduced, New Zealand will never be able to get ahead.
While there are, of course, many other factors that affect our growth that are discussed in the taskforce report, it is simply not good enough that government Ministers can go on record whining about how tightening their belt is too hard on the one hand, while dishing out $20 million-plus to Time Warner with barely a blink of an eye on the other. Meanwhile, Kiwi families and businesses struggle to get ahead precisely because of the excesses of the government! By failing to exercise proper constraint, and frittering away vast amounts of taxpayers’ money on poor quality programmes that do nothing for the long term benefit of the country, the government is stealing our wealth and future prosperity. I can’t say it strongly enough.
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Visak Bochea Day in Cambodia in 2020
Visak Bochea Day
How long until Visak Bochea Day?
Dates of Visak Bochea Day in Cambodia
2021Cambodia Wed, May 26National Holiday
2020Cambodia Thu, May 7National Holiday
2019Cambodia Sat, May 18National Holiday
2018Cambodia Sun, Apr 29National Holiday
Marks three key events in Buddhas life - his birthday, the enlightenment and his achievement of Nirvana
Visak Bochea Day in other countries
Visak Bochea Day internationally
Wesak Day
When is Buddha Purnima?
Buddha Purnima is the most sacred day in the Buddhist calendar. It is the most important festival of the Buddhists and is celebrated with great enthusiasm.
The exact date of Vesak is the first full moon in the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. The date varies from year to year in the Gregorian calendar but is typically in May.
Although Buddhists regard every full moon as sacred, the moon of the month of Vaisakh has special significance because on this day the Buddha was born, attained enlightenment (nirvana), and attained parinirvana (nirvana-after-death of the body) when he died.
Traditions of Buddha Purnima
Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical founder of Buddhism, was born in India 3,000 years ago. There are various opinions concerning the exact dates of his birth and death, but according to Buddhist tradition, he is said to have been born April 8, 1029 BC and died on February 15, 949 BC, although other Buddhist scholars place his birth five hundred years later.
Shakyamuni Buddha was the son of the king of the Shakyas, a small clan whose kingdom was located at the foothills of the Himalayas, south of what is now central Nepal, fifteen miles from Kapilavastu. Shakya of Shakyamuni is taken from the name of this tribe and muni means sage or saint. His family name was Gautama (Best Cow) and his given name was Siddhartha (Goal Achieved) though some scholars say this is a title bestowed on him by later Buddhists in honour of the enlightenment he attained.
Even though many Buddhists observe Buddha's historical birth on 8th April, the exact date remains in question. Although modern archaeological and historical research confirms that Prince Siddartha Gotama lived around this time.
On Buddha Purnima, people dress in white clothes and give out kheer (a rice pudding) as, according to legend, a woman named Sujata once offered Gautam Buddha kheer on his birthday and it has since become a tradition.
The dharmacakra or dharma wheel is a symbol often seen during Vesak. It is a wooden wheel with eight spokes. The wheel represents Buddha's teaching on the path to enlightenment. The eight spokes symbolize the noble eightfold path of Buddhism.
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Recommended Media
Why Fat?
On Behalf of the Innocent — A Plea
April 20, 2019 Heather Stadler
Who is more innocent than the sheep? Born into fluffy, soft bodies, they are the embodiment of all that is good in the world. Their herds are families, and babies prefer to stay with their mothers well into adulthood. Sheep can be a little shy, it’s true, but once you’ve earned their trust, they love you with a bravery and a fervor that deserves admiration. Their affections are profound.
In my time at farm sanctuaries, I’ve gotten to know sheep as well as people know their dogs. I’ve come to know each one in the herd of Underfoots at Catskill Animal Sanctuary as individuals. I’ve understood and accepted that those beautiful yet strange eyes reflect someone looking back at me. Sheep will never be and have never been “it,” or “thing.” Their worth is so much more than what we can take from them. Like any other animal, sheep just want to experience love and to live their lives on their own terms.
Every year, as the warmth of spring begins to break through winter’s grasp, I look at my sheep friends with a twinge of sadness. I know that these sweet sheep are just the lucky ones—very lucky ones—and that over 500 million sheep are killed every single year. If we took only one second to honor each of those 500 million lives lost in 2018, we’d be grieving for nearly the next 16 years.
Traditions are important, I know, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t change in time. If we can recognize the cruelties of animal agriculture, and we can acknowledge that sheep are individuals, with unique personalities and who are capable of such profound love, why can’t we make the leap and say that an animal as wonderful as Scout or Nina doesn’t deserve to be eaten for the sake of a holiday?
So many of the attributes we most commonly associate with dogs and cats (and maybe horses, too) are not unique to companion animals. Chickens can be taught to do tricks. Pigs can be potty trained. Lambs and goats learn their names and can recognize human faces. Why, then, are some animals’ worth reduced to the flesh on their bones?
This year, I hope you can make the connection (if you haven’t already). I hope you can see words on a menu and understand that those words represent once-living beings, who wanted nothing more than to be part of a family, to love and be loved.
Please leave animals like Scout and Nina off your plates this spring holiday. Let the sacrifice stay metaphorical, and spare the lives of their sisters, brothers, cousins, or mothers. Choose compassion; eat plants.
In Vegan Tags eater, sheep, lamb, go vegan, vegan, spring, compassion
"Fat Girl. Can't wait."
February 15, 2019 Heather Stadler
Picture this: a Fat Girl boards an airplane. She boards early, after buying jetBlue’s “Even More Speed” to make sure the overhead bin situation is manageable, because Fat Girl hates waiting for her baggage at the carousel. After she secures her suitcase in the space above her seat, she settles in. Fat girl watches as people pass her, not wanting to get too comfortable before the person next to her had a chance to sit down.
Finally, some middle-aged man with a ball cap and bluetooth headphones motions to the window seat beside Fat Girl, and Fat Girl gets up and lets him into his chair. As Fat Girl sits back down, she notices the man beside her taking a selfie that she’s in, taking up more than half of the screen, his smug face in the bottom corner of the shot. He had taken it from an upward angle, catching Fat Girl mid-sit, with her blurry, blurry double chin in motion. Fat girl thinks to herself Oh, that’s unflattering, hoping he’ll notice Fat Girl in the photo and take it again, so she can lean to the left—just out of the frame. Instead, Fat Girl watches in horror as the man sends the photo to several friends, one by one, with the caption, “Fat girl. Can’t wait.”
Now imagine Fat Girl’s talcum taste of shame, the burn of anger, and a subtle sadness growing from her heart. Imagine the wall the brain instantly tries to erect, this isn’t happening. You imagined it. You imagined it 3 times. Maybe we’re stuck in a pre-flight anxiety dream… Imagine the pressing need to make her body as small as possible, and the years of work she’d done to make that self-deprecating voice in her head go away. Imagine the arsenal of comebacks she never, ever had to use, vanish, like it was never truly there. Imagine the feeling of confidence she built, grain of sand by grain of sand, until she had a hardened conglomerate masterpiece—a fortress— and how it crumbled in a single instant.
Unsurprisingly, it’s pretty hard for me to write about because the wounds are still so fresh. I was disappointed in myself for allowing it to affect me, furious at having my privacy invaded, and yet somehow, still terrified that I would inconvenience this stranger, thus proving him right.
Inconvenience. A word I had so often labeled myself before, but had banished from my vernacular. Fat girl. A phrase I wore with pride, now used to harm me. I let it harm me.
I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to say something devastatingly witty. I wanted to laugh and say that he missed my good side. I wanted to tell him he should just ask me next time. I wanted to call him an asshole, a dickhead, a misogynist prick. I wanted to call him something. Anything. But all I could do was try to vacate my body.
I disappeared into my book, into wedding planning, and into the sultry tunes of Beyoncé, who is able to help me feel sexy no matter what the circumstances. But still, I could feel the hot waves of emotion ebbing and flowing beneath my surface. I felt tears as fat and heavy as my inconvenient body collecting in the basins of my eyelids.
Two days after the flight, at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
This is my body. This is what it looks like to be 5/11 and 250 pounds. This is how much space my body takes up. Yes, I am big. But does my size warrant that type of cruelty?
What is is about my body that someone “can’t wait” to endure sitting beside me for a maximum of 3 hours? Is it my thick thighs that rub together in the heat, but were folded together and tucked beneath the edge of my chair? Is it my big, soft, red cheeks that blushed with the slightest inclination of excitement? Is it my arms that I kept wrapped around my waist, holding myself together as if I would come apart at my seams?
There is no excuse for treating another human being that way.
No matter what I look like or what I weigh, I deserve respect.
If I was more petty, or if I were a different type of person, I would post his picture here. I might leave it for other people to judge him in the ways that he and his friends judged me, but I have no desire to degrade someone for their appearance.
Instead, I did something just as risky. I asked for help. I let myself be vulnerable and I posted about what happened between us in my Instagram stories. Asking for help is not easy. Not for me, not for anybody. But I needed human connection, and the response I got was overwhelming, but in a really, really good way.
Special thanks to Edyn & Joelle from the Vegan Chub Club for getting my story out there.
As we exited the plane, I did have one final opportunity to confront him—the man who “couldn’t wait” to sit next to me. My heart raced as I thought about what to say, but in the end, I decided to try to forgive him instead. After all, it is sad how he had to pick on a stranger to elevate his own sense of self-worth.
Now, a week later, I am able to properly reflect on the experience and all the lessons it taught me. Before I became a part of the body-positivity movement, something like that might have taken years to heal, but I feel happy to have it in my rear-view.
Thank you to every single person who reached out to make sure I was okay. Y’all were the silver lining on a very shit situation. Each and every person was a reminder as to why I even started this website in the first place.
In Body Positive Tags fat flying, flying while fat, plus-size, fat, fat shaming, fat body, fatphobia, fat travel, body anxiety
Why Do People HATE Vegans?
February 3, 2019 Heather Stadler
Vegans are viewed more negatively than atheists, immigrants, homosexuals, and asexuals... The only group viewed more negatively than vegans were drug addicts
— Matt Ball, One Step for Animals
Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit... and vegans are a Hezbollah-like splinter faction.
— Anthony Bourdain
I do not feel hated. Sometimes, when I talk about veganism or animal rights, I do experience anger from those around me, but I do not admittedly feel “hated.” As a pretty outspoken vegan advocate, a large portion of that anger is experienced only in the internet comments of widely posted articles and random memes. But, I do not have to feel the hate directly to know that it’s there.
Like any vegan, I frequently encounter strangers and those I love the most eating the animals I love. However, I do the best I can to focus my efforts on positively embodying the ideals of this lifestyle. Of course, like anybody, I can become emotional and angry over the triggers I often encounter, but I don’t feel as though my lifestyle deserves a lot of the hatred it gleans.
In case you didn’t know I’m vegan, here’s a convenient label for you.
“Why can’t you just eat normally?”
It’s a question I get asked often. Of course, I think the way I eat is pretty normal, considering I have lived a vegan lifestyle for 2 1⁄2 years and was vegetarian for 9 years before that. I no longer think it’s normal to pay for the flesh of a tortured animal for my enjoyment, and I hardly think that makes me “weird” or worthy of hate.
I figure there are five major reasons why many find vegans so annoying, and they are as follows:
5. Vegans represent change
Calculated by Vegan Calculator
Some folx are better at accepting change than others but most people don’t really like change. Almost everyone understands that due to climate change, limited resources, and a projected population of 9 billion people, something has gotta give in our food system. But to give up animal agriculture completely seems like a massive change—too rapid and too radical. While it is undeniably true that a majority of the blame for global warming can be placed on a select few people and corporations, it is problematic to suggest that nothing we do can truly make an impact. Vegans are a direct representation of the necessity for change in our eating habits. Simply by existing, by shunning animal products, palm oil, and animal-based clothing, we suggest to others that change is inevitable. Whether you believe that adopting a vegan (or vegetarian, or flexitarian) diet will have a positive impact on the world or not, the data is there.
4. The mere suggestion that eating animals is wrong makes people defensive
What usually happens to me is that I will be explaining to someone why I am vegan—or merely state that I am—and whomever I am talking to will tell me that they eat only “humane meat,” and “humane eggs” and “organic milk,” or maybe that they don’t eat that much red meat anyway. That tells me that whomever I’m conversing with is already trying to rationalize their decision to eat meat, but more importantly, that person has become defensive. It’s much easier to just shrug off my lifestyle choice as “extreme” than it is to really examine what those labels mean, and why they are so popular amongst omnivores. I’ve written previously about those labels before, and to make a long story short, the reasoning behind these choices is sound, but I’d encourage everyone to not buy the humane myth.
3. Cognitive Dissonance: a refusal to absorb animal suffering
Picture courtesy of the Plant Based Bride
Perhaps you’ve witnessed (in person or online) a person abusing a dog. Or maybe you’ve seen one of those unbelievably sad ASPCA commercials of trembling animals in cages, desperately awaiting your donation. Or maybe you’ve noticed a dog kept inside an overheated vehicle and worried about them—all while being angered at whomever had such little regard for a life—an animal who deserves love. Think about that feeling of shock, sadness and anger.
Now, have you ever seen conditions in a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO)? Have you been driving on the highway and passed a transport truck of doomed animals in all weather—sub-zero or in intense heat? What, exactly, is the difference between a pig open-mouth panting, packed wall-to-wall with other animals, in a transport truck doing 80 mph in 100°F weather, and a poodle left inside someone’s Range Rover for a half-hour while his humans shop for groceries?
What’s the difference between someone picking up a chicken by his legs and slamming his head on the concrete, and someone else kicking a cat? The only real difference is perception. Most of us are against ALL animal cruelty, and we’re horrified when undercover footage of what happens in CAFOs (factory farms) emerges, but not enough of us do anything about it. It’s a lot easier to shrug it off and think that dogs and cats are more emotional, more intelligent, more worthy of love and life than chickens, pigs, turkeys, and cows, and refuse to believe it when people suggest otherwise. It’s easier to say, ”This is how it’s always been,” and to accept eating some animals while loving others is just the American way of life. Somehow, animal suffering means less for non-companion animals.
Graphic courtesy of Medium
Cognitive Dissonance is defined by Google as “the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.” In other words, our brain tries to protect us when information arises that contradicts our values and beliefs. This means it is much easier for folx to just write off vegans as crazy heretics than it is to examine how one’s personal choices contributes to specific problems. Acknowledging this phenomenon is the first step toward opening your heart and mind to forming new opinions and accepting contradictory information as it becomes available.
2. Vegans care more about animals than humans
I suspect there are a fair number of people, vegan and non-vegan, who claim to like animals more than people. In fact, I have a quote on my refrigerator that says “Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.” And while I do consider myself an animal lover, I would not say that I care more about the plight of animals than I do about the plight of my fellow humans. In my experience, vegans often advocate for more than one cause, and (largely speaking) most vegans also tend to be very in tune with social justice issues and movements. It may come as a surprise, but the act of eating vegan in itself has multi-faceted benefits that go way beyond simply sparing animal lives. Eating a vegan diet is not the perfect answer by any means, and there are plenty of serious issues that are completely unaffected by a focus on animal rights, but plant-based eating is a personal choice that has big ripple effects. Veganism is in line with many larger movements, like feminism, environmentalism, and the fight for human rights. (You can read more about that in my post Veganism is a Social Justice Movement)
1. Vegans are annoying, bigoted, militant, and elitist
You know what? They absolutely can be. I will totally give you this one. There are plenty of vegans who try their hardest to erase these stereotypes (The V-Spot podcast, The Bearded Vegans, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau just to name a few) but even I know vegans who are like that. Any person who believes in something strongly is prone to getting a little aggressive at times when those beliefs are challenged (that lovely cognitive dissonance at work again), but the true heartbeat of veganism is compassion. There are vegans who choose to be aggressive, who shove dogma over fact-based argument, who refuse to acknowledge when they’ve crossed boundaries, use words like “murder, slavery, holocaust, etc.” to further an agenda without regard for the people they might offend, who celebrate the destruction of families in animal agriculture, celebrate the misery of non-vegans, and completely leave behind that idea of compassion for all. But vegans are hardly the only group of people with members who lack regard for others.
I think what I find annoying, deep down – and, again, some meat-eaters, you don’t have to own up to this, but it might interest you to discover whether you feel it – is the very fact that I can’t discount vegans any more. The thing that’s annoying about there suddenly being lots of them is the nagging suspicion that they might be right. When there were hardly any vegans, I hardly ever had to think about that.
— David Mitchell, The Guardian
The truth of the matter is that no matter how “hated” vegans are, we’re not going away. We’re just a group of people with as many factions, varying beliefs, and appearances as any other group of people. If the mere mention of the word “vegan” is enough to send you down a William-Sitwell-sized spiral, maybe you should reflect upon why that is. And if you’re a vegan who inspires this type of distaste for plant-based eating, please consider new ways of advocating for animals and the earth that does not inspire vitriol in others.
To read more about Cognitive Dissonance or The Backfire Effect, please refer to my favorite comic by The Oatmeal.
In Vegan Tags psychology, cognitive dissonance, backfire effect, hate, hate vegans, vegans, advocating, social justice, why do people hate vegans
Wedding Planning for Fatties
January 21, 2019 Heather Stadler
A little over a month ago, I wrote a blog post about what it means to me to be getting married at my heaviest weight. I’m sure many feminine folx can recall a time where we fantasized about what our wedding dress might look like. I know for many years I tried not to think about it, because I couldn’t quite picture myself get married in my body.
Of all the aspects of planning my wedding, trying on dresses was one task that was shrouded in fear.
I’m not a big fan of reality TV, but I’ve sat through my fair share of Say Yes to the Dress marathons on TLC, and while I’ve never been involved in a wedding until now, I had some sense of what to expect. I’d seen stick-thin women try on gown after gorgeous gown, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever have my moment like those women in Kleinfeld’s.
But, if you’ve been following me on Facebook or Instagram, then you know that not too long ago, I found the perfect dress, and after some deliberation, sitting, standing, and dancing, I said yes.
I said YES to the DRESS at Designer Loft in NYC
All in all, the experience wasn’t overly maddening. With a little research and a “Plus-Size Options” filter, I was able to find a great selection of designers and dress stores that catered to fat women. Pinterest became my best friend as I pinned and pinned and pinned dress styles that I liked, and figured out the terminology.
Empire, A-line, Fit ‘n’ Flare, Illusion… these were all terms that didn’t really mean very much to me before…
The first place I went to was Designer Loft in New York City. After filling out a profile of dress styles I liked, I did some research on the designers they carried. The website did have some plus-sized options, but they seemed fairly limited. I tried not to get my hopes up as my appointment date approached.
I arrived in Midtown Manhattan with an entourage. One of my best friends, who is also getting married this year, came with her family, and I came with mine. I had asked ahead of time to make sure that all the dresses selected for me be made with all man-made materials, and I was assured that no animal-produced materials would be considered.
Ali, the lovely human who helped me, helped me get situated and showed me the Plus-Size dress collection in the back. Fellow plus-sized folx know how this feels. It’s never fun to be regaled to the back corner while your thin friend picks out clothing in the rest of the store (I’m looking at you, Forever 21).
But thankfully, my options weren’t as limited as they seemed. I did pull a few dresses from the Plus-Size rack, but my bridesmaids also picked ones from the front. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I swallowed my anxiety and put my brave face on.
In the dressing room, I dove arms-first into the first dress. After some shuffling, pulling, squeezing, and sucking-in, Ali held the first dress in place.
I took my reflection in in the mirror as Ali pinched fabric together, looking to see how it was falling on my figure. After a few adjustments, and the application of a bunch of clamps, the first dress was on.
Shock was the biggest thing I felt, and pride followed shortly after. Maybe this won’t be so bad, I thought. I swayed from side to side and the poofy half of the dress moved with me. “Wow,” I said aloud.
That sentiment was echoed as we walked out of the dressing room and in front of my bridal party. That first dress… it was beautiful. I was beaming as I stepped up onto the platform in front of the long, long mirror. Somehow, I suppressed the urge to do the royal wave. For possibly the first time, I felt like a true bride-to-be.
Once I was done being showered with compliments and admiring my own reflection, it was time to try on another dress. Ali removed the clamps, and the dress seemingly lost its magic and it shrugged off my body. A few rough tugs and shimmies later, it was on to the next one.
By the end of it all, I tried on almost 10 different dresses, all held together with clamps, spare fabric, and sheer force of will.
My consultant explained to me that wedding dress samples typically come in a “Wedding 12,” which is actually a size 8. Getting those dresses on and off was a magic act in itself, and by the end, I was definitely sweating. Big props to Ali who was graceful as ever as she shoved layers of tulle and lace over my body.
Though two of those teeny-tiny, totally not plus-size dresses piqued my interest, but I wasn’t quite ready to say yes… yet.
About a month later, I tried on dresses at Ivory & Main, a dress boutique specifically for full-figured women on Long Island.
If you are a full-figured person looking to try on wedding dresses, I cannot recommend a plus-sized boutique enough.
There wasn’t a single gown in the store that was “off-limits” due to my size. (I say “off-limits” in quotation marks because nothing was ever off-limits at Designer Loft either, but it was just different somehow). But additionally, the entire vibe was different. I didn’t get that out-of-place feeling I tend to get when things don’t fit.
At Ivory & Main, the body anxiety just wasn’t there. Though I enjoyed my time at Designer Loft, the experience at Ivory & Main was so different, it was hard to believe they were the same type of store.
I tried on dresses where I could actually squeeze my arms into the sleeves. I tried bustiers, ball gowns, and even a mermaid style dress—something I had never, ever considered as a possibility before.
It’s an amazing feeling when you know that your size isn’t the biggest obstacle to a piece of clothing, and that’s exactly what it was like trying on gowns at Ivory & Main.
I felt like a fat and fabulous princess instead of an over-sized bride squeezed into someone else’s dress.
Andrea, my Ivory & Main consultant, was patient, complimentary, and sweet, and she checked every single dress’s materials for animal products, which was so appreciated.
In the end, though, the dress that won out was a thin-person dress back in NYC, which is being custom-made in my measurements (though it’s worth mentioning that that’s pretty standard, plus-size or no). As much as I’d like to show you pictures, no one gets to see the dress before the wedding!
Especially not a certain fiancé who is known to read this very blog.
So now that I have the dress, am I #SweatingForTheWedding?
Abso-freakin’-lutely not.
You can miss me with your toxic diet culture, thank you very much. I get my clothes to fit me; I don’t get me to fit my clothes. I am not here for the suggestion that I need to lose weight in order to get married. I can present my best self exactly the way that I am.
Because I already AM my best self!
I am loved at my current weight. I am loved if I gain weight. I am loved. That phrase is not what being a bride is all about.
What matters is that I feel happy, confident ,and beautiful on my wedding day. It doesn’t matter how many pounds I lose from now until October, or how toned I can get my arms before the big day. And I’m confident the dress I chose will reflect that.
I have much bigger and better things to worry about rather than how much I can work my body to fulfill an idea of what my body should look like on my wedding day—like picking out the perfect high-waisted bikini to wear on my honeymoon in Hawaii!
In Body Positive Tags wedding, wedding dress, wedding shopping, vegan wedding, plus-size, body positivity, sweating for the wedding, body anxiety, anxiety
Join the Body Revolution
December 31, 2018 Heather Stadler
This time of year can be a little challenging to those of us with body image issues. Between the cold weather, the holiday treats, increased drinking, and increased fatigue due to a decrease in sunlight, it’s easy to eat more and do less.
For so many of us, the winter months are an excuse for us to hole up on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa and binge watch whatever TV show we’re diggin’ at the moment. Food is very much the highlight of the beginning of winter. Thanksgiving is a binge-fest. Christmas is full of sweets, big meals, family recipes… you name it.
Even TV commercials and programming seem to be centered around food.
Folx, this is not a coincidence. These times are the fat times.
In only a few hours, those sugary sweet advertisements and images of full plates and tables will turn into gym memberships, diet programs, and fitness gear. Like clockwork, December will fade into January, and we will welcome in 2019 by once again promising to fall victim to the same damn marketing ploys that have had our attention since we were old enough to remember.
But this year, we can do better!
As the years have changed, we’ve learned more about what a healthy body looks like (any body can be a healthy body), and we’ve learned more about the seriously damaging effects fat-shaming has on our society. It’s been amazing to witness the shift first-hand, and more and more people in my community & globally have begun to accept their bodies. Around this type of year, one of my favorite graphics begins to go around, giving me hope that others have also begun to find peace in their skin…
Make this year (and every year) a self-care holiday season!
We’re mere hours from 2019 now. Even if you’ve already considered what your resolution for the New Year might be, this year, consider making it a REVOLUTION instead.
Join the Body Revolution!
Endangered Bodies is a global movement that dares us all to enjoy our bodies exactly the way they are. This year more than ever, diet companies are starting to hear us, saying we’re “fine the way we are,” but that is not enough.
Going into the new year, when you start to hear Weight Watchers, and Noom, and Planet Fitness, etc. talk about changes you should make, ask yourself, Who profits off this? If the answer is anyone but yourself, think again, my loves.
Loving your body is possible. Let’s make 2019 the year that our resolution becomes a revolution.
In Body Positive Tags new year, resolution, revolution, self love, fatphobia, fat, fat vegan, fat shaming, health
In Case You Didn't Know, I'm Getting Married
November 24, 2018 Heather Stadler
I got engaged at the top of Mount Constitution on Orcas Island, WA on 9/17/18
Most of us dream about getting married one day. We think about what it might look like, who our partner will be, and what the world will be like if the time actually comes. For me, it was the dress. Growing up, I did have a Total Tools set that I played with often, but by all measures, I was the girliest girl. I loved playing dress up. I had about a million Barbie dolls. All I ever wanted to wear was big, poofy dresses with flowers and sparkles with bows in my hair, and one day, I knew I wanted to get married.
Self-obsessed always
Even before I truly understood what it meant to be married, I knew I wanted to do it, because I wanted the big, white princess gown with the crown and the shoes… I wanted the glamour of being a bride.
Anytime we saw a bride, even as an adult, my mother would point and say, “Make a wish.” Does anyone else wish on brides? Maybe it was just us, but the idea of getting married took on a kind of magical quality after that first wish. And honestly, most of the time I wished to get married myself one day.
But of course, the brides in all the magazines, and the ones in all the movies, and the ones we’d see across the world in between vows and receptions, taking pictures wrapped around their partners, smiling as if they’d never felt sadness in all their lives—they all had one important thing in common. They were thin.
There’s a saying out there that says no one will love you unless you love yourself. So many believe that until a person is confident in their body, they will be incapable of receiving love.
Well, that’s bullshit, y’all.
Confidence takes a long time to build. For so many of us who have lost our confidence, the foundation on which we could even try to establish it is so broken that any efforts we put in are futile.
So whenever well-meaning people in my life would try to encourage me to find some self-love so that I could find real love, I thought I might have to give up on the idea of getting married forever.
I thought, if people didn’t find me beautiful until I found myself beautiful, I would never find happiness with another person—unless I lost weight.
I had relationships and flings with people, sure. I gave my heart away as quickly as anyone might take it for the briefest of moments. I fell in love with any boy who was kind to me, because I was mostly ignored or looked at with revulsion.
But I did fear that I was doomed to never find the real thing, to always love with my whole heart and to never receive it the same way.
I have a visceral memory of confiding in one of my closest friends in middle school about how “if they could just see through the fat,” maybe I would get a boyfriend. But instead of comforting me, telling me that there was more to me than my perception of my size, she just laughed, and quoted me (without my name, as if it made a difference) on her AIM profile.
My story is not unique. By the time I turned 13, I was already filled with self-revulsion. Every set of birthday candles and every shooting star was dedicated to wishing my body was smaller. I was one of only a few fat girls in my middle school. I struggled to fit into the popular clothing, and people stopped wanting to be friends with me. I needed so much reassurance and gratitude from my peers that I turned more toward adults who tried to understand. I went on every diet that graced the newspapers.
Me, at 12 years old
I was the only child in Weight Watchers groups. I internalized the idea that I would never find happiness until I weighed less, because that was the only ideology I ever knew.
Early on in my romantic past, I was looking for someone to save me. I was damaged, dramatic, and in pain, which made me a handful to the people in my life who loved me. I was very dependent on my first boyfriend, because the way that he loved me gave my life meaning, which is a lot to ask of a 16-17-year-old-boy.
After my first breakup, many told me that love wouldn’t come again until I “stopped looking for it,” or I learned to love myself. Well, a person who gives love like I do never truly stops looking, but I did try to learn to love myself—I also tried to lose more weight, not quite understanding that those two goals didn’t go together. I put on more than 50 pounds.
I didn’t start dating my second boyfriend for nearly five years after the first. I met him online. I didn’t love myself.
But somewhere in the span of that relationship, I did begin to love myself. It started small; I found clothing that accentuated my body and didn’t make me feel like a squishy beachball. I stopped rebuffing the compliments people would pay me. I surrounded myself with positive imagery and words that rejected the notion that you had to be thin to be loved. My self-worth was no longer defined by the love of a man, BUT… it didn’t hurt to have it anyway…
Though that relationship was meaningful, it wasn’t the one that stuck. Rather, it paved the way through the thick brush of my life to Ethan, my fiancé.
The first ever picture of us, September 2014
We met on OkCupid, before Tinder was even a blip on anyone’s radar. We were both shy, a little awkward, and were struggling with our self-confidence, but our relationship grew fast and furious, and within mere weeks of beginning to date, we were saying “I love you.”
I’ll spare you much of the details of our love story, but the facts of the matter are these:
I did not ever imagine that I would find love while I weighed over 200 pounds.
I did not ever believe that someone would not be disappointed when seeing my body for the first time.
I did not ever dare to hope that I would meet someone who was capable of loving as much as I do.
Ethan surpassed all my expectations, and in the end, we made each other better. Even though I’m at the heaviest I’ve ever been, even though I still have days where I can’t stand the sight of myself, and even though my relationship with my body can be volatile, I am loved, and I accept that love.
I spent so many years doubting that something like this could ever happen, years that were wasted thinking that I needed to be a certain way, or think a certain way in order to be loved, when really, in the end it was just that the timing was right.
My time came. It wasn’t that I stopped looking. It wasn’t that loving myself was the magical switch that allowed Ethan and me to find each other. It was just that the stars aligned, or whatever overused, over-romantical phrase best suits you. I did not wait for the correct mindset to come. I just put myself out there to see what would happen.
I’m getting married. And I get to try on plus-sized wedding dresses and imagine what I’ll look like on my wedding day as a fabulous fatty, princess crown and all.
I’m getting married.
Getting engaged on Orcas Island, September 17, 2018.
In Body Positive Tags engagement, wedding, marriage, wedding dress, plus-size, love, fiance, vegan wedding
Thanksgiving’s Bittersweet
I used to love Thanksgiving. It was never my favorite holiday, but there was always a tradition to look forward to in November. When I was a child, my family and I would travel to spend Thanksgiving with my grandmother, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins. We’d play Mario Kart, build houses out of cardboard bricks, watch Nickelodeon, and “help” in the kitchen. We’d watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade and later, when my father would watch football, we’d go for walks in my cousins’ backyard.
As we got older, we moved out on our own, we got jobs, and we had to worry about airfare hikes. Thanksgiving seemed like less of a priority, but if we could make it happen, we would. Our lives seemingly spread further and further apart each year, and our traditions were forced to change, but we still made as much time for togetherness as we could, even if it was digital.
When I was young, Thanksgiving didn’t carry any of the bitterness I’ve felt in recent years. I never thought much about the animal whose smell permeated the house, whose body cooked for four hours in the oven while my mother whipped up stuffing, sweet potatoes, and pies like it was nothing. Turkeys were never animals to me; they were food.
But even after I was vegetarian, and I recognized that turkey didn’t deserve to be eaten, I’d never bat an eye as we went as a family to pick up the body; How many pounds? and Do you want any sides with that? I can even remember making a wish and pulling at half of the wishbone with my siblings to see whose wish would come true, a tradition that continued even after I declined to take part in eating the body.
It never bothered me to see my mother handling the bird, the heavy, lifeless body basting in its own “juices.” The smell didn’t even really bother me much back then.
Ten whole Thanksgivings went by before Thanksgiving earned a bitter aftertaste to me. Everything changed when I met a live turkey for the first time and touched her soft feathers as she came over to investigate me, a new companion to play with.
Beatrice preening me in exchange for the good pets (Woodstock Farm Sanctuary)
Beatrice at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary was the first turkey who stole my heart. Beatrice, who had a very severe beak trimming very early in life, has become one of the most affectionate and outgoing beings at the sanctuary. She often comes over and begs for attention, just like a dog would.
Was born on a commercial turkey farm where her beak was cut without painkillers or anesthesia. Thankfully, she was spared from her fate of being a centerpiece one Thanksgiving and will live out her days at Woodstock!
Even though I came to farm sanctuaries loving all animals, I never imagined that the turkeys would command much of my attention. I assumed I would be enamored by the goats, the cows, or the pigs, but never imagined wanting to return to spend more time with the turkeys.
To me, part of what makes the turkeys so special is how much they want to be loved. They yearn for human connection. Even though they can pick clovers out of the ground themselves, they love it most when they can eat it straight from your hand. Even though they came from horrendous abuse, they still want to have their chests massaged. Even though so many people think turkeys are so stupid they’d drown in the rain, they demonstrate time and time again that they not only have the capabilities to problem-solve, but they also have individuality.
So often it’s the turkeys who connect with folx who visit. It’s the turkeys who change people’s hearts by connecting and by loving. It’s as if their soft feathers are made of magic; one touch and your heart is changed. After spending time with turkeys, they quickly became my new favorite animal (sorry, koalas).
I love turkeys because they’ll surprise you. They’re unexpectedly intuitive; they’re gentle with kids and a little more excited around familiar faces. They remember ones who love them. They purr like cats do when you massage them just right, and they like to sit on your lap if they trust you. They have so many ways of expressing their love, from slow, quiet blinks, to relaxed wing feathers, to gentle coos.
Enjoying a winter snuggle with my best friend, Imogen at Catskill Animal Sanctuary.
Falling in love with Beatrice and Imogen and all the other turkeys I’ve come to know has changed me. Suddenly, it wasn’t just Thanksgiving anymore; it wasn’t just a day to be with my family anymore; and it wasn’t just someone else’s food choice anymore. The centerpiece of Thanksgiving became someone’s body, and it broke my heart.
46-48 million turkeys are killed every year for Thanksgiving.
And that’s just a fraction of the number of turkeys who are killed throughout the course of a year. Just to put that into perspective, that number for one day is the equivalent of the entire population of Spain being killed in one fell swoop. It’s every single person living in California PLUS 7 million more.
It’s a little hard to celebrate a day knowing that so many will die for a holiday that is already based on a lie.
So for me, and for so many others who don’t believe in eating animals, Thanksgiving has become a bittersweet day. It’s sad knowing that the focus of this holiday has shifted away from gratitude and togetherness in favor of a traditional roasted bird. For some, it’s not even “Thanksgiving” anymore, it’s “Turkey Day.”
People make light of it from the moment Halloween fades into November, and folx don hats of headless, featherless bodies, or sing twisted preschool songs of turkeys being killed, basted, and baked, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t really find it funny.
As featured in Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
Last year, I wrote an open letter to turkey eaters all over the country. With a version of that same letter, I also convinced my family to forego eating animals for Thanksgiving, and they thankfully agreed.
This year, for the second time, my Thanksgiving will spare the life of a turkey instead of taking one. For my Thanksgiving, no one will have to die for me to say “thank you,” and “I love you” to the people in my life.
Me massaging Imogen, who is happily relaxing into my lap
Thinking about celebrating Thanksgiving without eating turkey might be scary or seem sad, but with all the alternatives that exist these days, we can still enjoy the taste sensations we’ve come to love and expect without harming someone, harming the environment, or our health. The days of vegans eating only green beans and cranberry sauce are long past, and now there are so many faux-turkey choices to choose from, a person can go mad discovering which one is the best.
I hope this is the year that number begins to decline. I hope this year, more of us recognize the individuality of these birds, understand that they’re intelligent, and that they want to live. I hope this year is the most plant-based year yet!
In Vegan Tags thanksgiving, turkey, turkeys, woodstock farm sanctuary, catskill animal sanctuary, vegan, veganism, vegan is love, vegan thanksgiving, vegetarian
Winter is Coming... Stay Warm Compassionately
November 5, 2018 Heather Stadler
If you’ve been following me for a while on social media, then you already know how much I love sheep. Not only are sheep absolutely adorable, super fluffy, and sweet loves, they are also the non-human animal most like me.
Sheep are shy, almost introverted. They’re very hesitant to trust new faces, but the connections they build are strong and powerful. They hate to be separated from their loved ones. They like to roam and explore, as long as they can be together with their family. Once you’ve earned a sheep’s trust, they’ll remember you and continue to give trust to you freely. They are loyal to the nth degree.
Enjoying a snuggle with Marin at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary
Before I went vegan, I didn’t know very much about the wool industry. I was under the safe assumption that sheep enjoy being shorn because that’s what I had been told. I’d heard stories of sheep who walk up to their shearing stalls, desperate to have their wool removed. I’d even seen it first-hand at various festivals.
I thought, well, if sheep are going to produce wool anyway, what’s the harm in using it to keep warm?
That picture-perfect ideology of what farming “should be” is a lie—but worse, it covers up all manner of evils in the larger wool industry by making us completely misunderstand what raising sheep for wool is like.
Christopher Sheep at his home at Catskill Animal Sanctuary
This is Christopher. He is a Barbados sheep, and as a result, he’s a little different from what most of us grew up thinking sheep looked like. Actually, he’s often confused for a goat at Catskill Animal Sanctuary, where he lives with his friends. His wool is more like hair. It’s not curly or fluffy like most sheep we see today, and actually, he is one of the only sheep who does not need to be shorn. He, like all sheep should, sheds his wool naturally, like a cat or dog (though he does appreciate some assistance with a good brushing).
Modern sheep have been selectively bred to produce so much wool that they cannot shed it on their own, meaning they actually do need to be shorn. If they are not shorn, many of them would overheat in the summer, so shearing is a sad necessity when one loves sheep.
Your fave fatty giving a freshly shorn Scout some love.
Sheep farmers would have us believe that sheep don’t mind being shorn. Many are often happy to provide anecdotal evidence in support of raising people for their wool, but generally speaking, sheep hate being shorn.
At Catskill Animal Sanctuary (CAS), where I work as a tour guide, shearing day is outrageously stressful for the animals. Many of the sheep hyperventilate, display anxiety, and need to take breaks from the shears in order to get through it. A few years back, one of the babies (Seneca) was so stressed out during shearing day that she had to go through the remainder of the season half-shorn (which looked like a rad undercut).
At CAS, as I’m sure you can imagine, the folx who shear the sheep are encouraged to go as slowly and gently as possible. Whereas shearers on large-scale farms are paid per sheep and are often careless and violent in trying to get through as many sheep as they can, humane shearers are paid by the hour. The focus is on making sure that nobody gets hurt.
Having a laugh as a very impatient Stewie can’t understand why I’m not using both hands to pet him.
I can only imagine what it might feel like to be at a hair salon with an inexperienced, rough hair stylist who was encouraged to get me over with as quickly as possible, not caring if I got hurt or not.
I think we’d all like to imagine the idyllic picture of sheep grazing on a hill somewhere in Scotland or New Zealand, living their lives and being herded by an old, friendly shepherd, but that’s just not the reality for most of the sheep who provide the wool that winds up in clothing. Even those sheep who have that great, beautiful life often endure more than any being should.
Helen Gutfreund, Happy Hempy Days CBD consultant, recalls shearing a sheep while on vacation in New Zealand. These types of experiences are often advertised and popular with tourists because it offers a unique opportunity to be a part of something we all think of as “natural.” Helen says, “I was a wreck. I nicked the poor baby with the clippers and felt terribly.”
Nicks and cuts are actually more common than you might think, as so many sheep have been selectively bred to have extra folds of skin so that they will grow more wool. Especially when one considers the speed in which shearers often go, the actual practice of shearing is often bloody and rough.
But one of the worst parts about wool production is what happens when the babies are very young. Common practices for those who raise sheep for their wool are mulesing and tail docking.
Mulesing is the process in which strips of skin around the sheep’s anus are cut off without any painkillers or anesthesia. This is done to lambs when they are very young. This inhumane practice is thought to reduce the risk of contaminating the sheep’s wool with fecal matter and of infection, or flystrike.
Tail docking is the practice of removing one’s tail without any painkillers or anesthesia. This, too, is done to lambs when they are young because they are thought to be able to endure the pain better. The tails are removed because if the sheep are without their tails, they have less of a chance of flinging fecal matter on the rest of their wool, which is obviously bad for business.
Doin’ a good scritch for Stewie with his long, fluffy tail. Davey begging behind him.
When I first started coming to animal sanctuaries, I didn’t even know that sheep had long, fluffy tails. I had always assumed their tails were short and stubby, because that’s all I had ever seen before. Toy sheep typically don’t even have tails, or if they do, they have short stubs where their tails should be. The first sheep I’d ever seen with tails were rescued young at Catskill Animal Sanctuary (no fecal matter on their bodies, though).
The saddest and most difficult to thing to fathom about sheep who are raised for their wool is what happens to them once they get older. Eventually, sheep are exported live to slaughterhouses where they will become a meal for someone else. Australia and New Zealand are among the biggest producers of wool, and they got into a bit of hot water last summer as thousands of sheep died in transport in deplorable conditions on a “death ship” to the Middle East.
But that happens to sheep on small scale “humane” farms, too. I can recall going to a Sheep & Wool Festival a few years ago and watching animals (including sheep) being sold at a livestock auction. I can recall watching sheep being shorn right in front of me, standing as still as a stone, eyes wide as saucers. I can also recall that it snowed that day, and how fast people were buying up the wool hats and scarves and coats, while the sheep shivered in their pens.
But if sheep are going to produce wool that needs to be cut off anyway, what should we do with it? At CAS, we only shear them when it is absolutely necessary, and we put the cut wool in the woods so that other animals can use it in their nests.
There are so many alternatives to wool out there. Acrylic is just as fun to knit with and doesn’t cause an animal a lifetime of suffering.
So this winter, please consider keeping warm humanely. Check the materials of clothing before you buy them, and make sure your blankets are 100% man-made.
Winter is coming… snuggle up with compassion!
My best girl, Scout.
In Vegan Tags vegan, sheep, vegan is love, veganism, wool, winter
Make Time for Self-Care
October 16, 2018 Heather Stadler
The meaning of the hydrangea is “thank you for your understanding,” which is part of the reason why they’re my favorite flower.
Lately I feel as though I’ve been pouring from an empty cup. I’ll spare you the details of my #MeToo story, but from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, my head is overloaded with would-be, should-be, hopes about how I think society should be.
Do you ever just feel like you don’t have any fight left in you?
That’s how I’ve been feeling lately, and when I think about writing for this website or advocating for any of the things I believe in, I just feel… hopeless.
This year has been a difficult one in terms of human and animal rights. Things are looking pretty dire, and Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation is just another stick on the dumpster fire that has been this country since 2016, and it feels like no matter how much I donate, speak out, argue, comment, share, repost, protest, and debate, nothing is changing.
I’m exhausted. Even writing this post is exhausting and writing is one of the few activities that bring me true joy.
When I begin to feel as though I’m pouring from an empty cup, there are a few things I do that help, and I’ve compiled them in a list. When I wrote and re-wrote this post, I deleted that list, and then put it back in.
I sort of hate the idea of giving you a “Do-This-To-Be-Happy” list because I think it’s important to have permission to feel what you’re feeling, but then I thought, what could it hurt?
I do think it may be a little disingenuous to put the activities I try to turn to (try being the operative word) because what makes me happy is somewhat unique to me, and these things may not work for you, and THAT WOULD BE OKAY.
If I’m being honest, my self-care looks a little different than the things on this list when it happens IRL. Most of the time, when I take time for myself, it’s when I have physically carved out a portion of my day (spanning from ten minutes to an hour) where I try to just sit in a dark room by myself. Typically, I don’t take time for myself, but because of this awful tendency, I know how important it is to actually try, to carve out time to try to make things feel better.
So enjoy my list, but enjoy it with a grain of salt.
Self-Care Activities
Okay, this one is a pretty obvious one, but I have found my yoga practice to be SO HELPFUL. I do a half-hour just about every other day right in my living room, and when I’m finished, I feel more grounded and at ease than I do typically for the rest of the day. I’m not one to meditate, but my time doing yoga is the closest I can physically get. The breathing and mindfulness practices really do help to ground me. Typically, I allow myself 5-15 minutes after my practice is done to just sit on the floor and reflect.
Cooking a delicious vegan meal!
Honestly, most of the time I don’t have the spoons to experiment in the kitchen when I get to this particular point of burnout, but when I do, cooking something new and completely without a recipe is one of the best things I can do for myself. I adore combining flavors and tried and true ingredients to make something fresh and tasty. And veganism is one thing that always makes me feel as though I’m contributing to a greater good in one way or another… For me, cooking usually looks like me in my pajamas, dancing around the kitchen to Disney tunes, and nibbling at pickles while I wait for everything to finish cooking.
I’m not a fantastic artist, but I do enjoy drawing or coloring in one of my mindfulness coloring books. I have a Disney Princesses adult coloring book, and a Harry Potter. I adore them, though I have a tendency to get mad when the colored pencils break in the sharpener.
Lose myself in a Netflix hole!
So this is probably not the healthiest option, but I’ve found certain shows like Queer Eye tend to really make me feel better about the state of the world. There’s plenty of other shows, too. Grey’s Anatomy is my comfort show, and if I’m feeling particularly depressed, I start at the pilot and keep watching until either I feel better or I hit season 5. Whichever comes first.
Bond with animals!
This one is pretty obvious, though it’s not accessible to everyone. I’m lucky enough to have two bunny furballs who share (aka rule) my home, and I also get to spend time with the animals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary once a week. There’s a reason that so many animals can be classified as therapy companions, because animals are pure. They don’t judge us or discriminate against us.
Clean!
I’m going to be perfectly honest and say that I hardly EVER clean for enjoyment. Most of the time, if I’m cleaning as a form of “self-care” it’s because I feel like things have spiraled so far out of my control, tackling the mess that is my home seems like the smallest and easiest thing I can control. If I’ve gone on a cleaning frenzy, something is usually really bothering me.
When I was on medication, when I’m off medication, my need for self-care is the same. My anxiety has a serious tendency to take me to dark places, so if I need to, I’ll sometimes even take a mental health day (and try to not spend all of it riddled with guilt).
I think the biggest thing I want to say is that it’s helpful to know that we’re not alone. Talking to others about how I feel and about the things that have been affecting me has proven that just about everyone is feeling some degree of helplessness these days. While that’s certainly upsetting, the isolation of that anxiety is lessened.
Do what you can. Put yourself first when you can.
But most importantly, demand change.
Check your Voter Registration status
Vegetarian to Vegan
October 2, 2018 Heather Stadler
Abandon the notion that going vegan means eating mediocre food. If you think that, you clearly haven’t had Cinnamon Snail…
One of the biggest things people say when I tell them I’m vegan is that they could “never” do it. And actually, I get it. The biggest thing that people talk about when they talk about transitioning to veganism is cheese. Giving up cheese is scary, and I totally get it.
Cheese was the main reason why I remained vegetarian for 9 years, pretty much refusing to truly understand what was happening to animals for my benefit. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be vegan, but I jut thought of veganism as something that was inaccessible, expensive, and elitist.
Whenever the option was readily available, like when vegan cheese was ever an option at restaurants, or when plant-based milks were offered, I’d usually spring for the cruelty-free version of whatever I was ordering, but I couldn’t ever really commit. To me, switching from vegetarian to vegan meant giving up some of the things in life I loved the most; feta cheese, mozzarella cheese, American cheese, muenster cheese, scrambled eggs, parmesan cheese…
According to a study by Ingredient Communications, 90% of vegetarians in the United States want to go vegan, but about half of them are either “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the currently selection of vegan products that exist today.
Well… to that I say, which products? Because I don’t know about y’all, but I think the vegan products that are available are pretty spectacular. I digress…
I had heard others say that there was more suffering in dairy than there was in a hamburger, but to be honest, I just couldn’t fathom it. I had seen cows on dairy farms before, and they seemed perfectly happy. I latched on to that picture-perfect notion of free-ranging cows in a field, but I never really thought about what the milk was intended for.
Just like any mammals, of course, cows cannot produce milk until they are pregnant and have a baby. But if the babies drink their mother’s milk, what does that mean for cheese, yogurt, ice cream, or my morning coffee?
This is the reason that baby cows cannot stay with their mothers, because if they drank the milk that was made for them, dairy farmers would have very little product left at the end of the day for humans to consume.
To some extent, I knew what happened on dairy farms was wrong, so I liked to imagine that if I only consumed organic, humane-certified, locally sourced dairy, I was doing less harm. But by making that allowance for myself, I opened the door to consuming dairy and egg products outside my home, without ever asking where they came from.
The bottom line is that I valued my taste preferences over the suffering of dairy cows and their babies. I cared more about having cheese (on everything) than the damage my meals were doing to the animals from which they came from, and the damage my choices were inflicting on the environment.
Eggs were also tough for me, because they were my favorite thing to have in the morning for breakfast. I became an ace at making eggs over-easy and would make them quickly and often before I headed out to work.
I had already been buying brown eggs with a USDA humane stamp on them, and I thought that that was enough, but I soon learned that the stamps and labels were misleading and that mistreatment of the animals was rampant, regardless of what color egg I bought.
I’ve written before about the person who changed my mind about animal byproducts (Clyde the rooster), but what finally convinced me to ditch dairy and eggs for good was connecting deeply with farm animals, specifically chickens and cows. Once I was able to put a face to a product (and love that face with all my heart), it became remarkably easy for me to say no to anything that contained a product that came from suffering.
Me loving up Sidra, an egg-laying hen, and Tigger, a nubian goat.
I think all of us would like to hold onto that ideal that farm animals are treated well. Many people who visit animal sanctuaries ask whether we sell the eggs that our chickens lay, or if we ever milk our cows, or create with the wool from our sheep, and I understand the desire behind those questions. Happy animals eradicate that guilt we sometimes feel when we consume these products. If we believe there’s a right way to do a wrong thing, we don’t have to change the way we feel about our food, our clothing, our cosmetics… But the eggs are fed back to the chickens, the cows never product milk because they’re never made to be pregnant, and the wool gets left in the woods so that it can line nests and live in burrows.
As vegans, we hold animal suffering and human suffering in the same place in our hearts.
Folx who are vegetarians are already more than halfway there. The compassion for the animals, for the planet is already there. The desire to demand better, to do better is already there. The only difference is how far one is willing to run with it.
Today, there are so many resources to help us make better, more compassionate choices. There are vegans all over Instagram, vegan Facebook groups, vegan mentorship programs that are completely free, books, videos, movies…
If I get one thing across from this blog, I hope it’s that GOOD FOOD, HAPPINESS, and VEGANISM go hand-in-hand.
If you’re looking to transition from vegetarianism to veganism and you would like resources and/or product recommendations, please don’t hesitate to ask me.
Committing is the hardest part! The rest is icing on the vegan cake.
In Vegan Tags vegetarian, vegan, vegan love tribe, vegan is love, vegan food, cheese, dairy, eggs, cinnamon snail, free range, humane, ethical
Vegan Travel: Orcas Island, Washington
September 21, 2018 Heather Stadler
Last week, I went to one of my favorite places in the entire world, Orcas Island. Orcas is not a very well-known destination, but it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Nestled at the very tip-top of the “Upper Left” of the USA, it offers breathtaking mountains, lakes, and of course, beaches on the Salish Sea. With a classic Pacific Northwest feel, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a place to live—it’s got summers that are hot but not overbearing, winters that aren’t too snowy or cold, ocean access, lake access, hiking, not a huge population, amazing wildlife, and great vibes.
The View from Red Rabbit Farm on Orcas Island
One of the only drawbacks of visiting is that there’s not very many options in the way of restaurants that readily accommodate vegans. That being said, many of the restaurants are willing and able to whip up amazing dishes upon request, but… I do miss the availability of easy vegan choices that I’ve come to love in the Hudson Valley.
Lately, I’ve come to resent the never-ending bustle of my life. It’s not that I dislike what I do… I love the jobs I have and the things I do, but it’s a struggle to maintain a work week that is 6 sometimes 7 days long. So I was in great need of a vacation.
We flew from JFK to Seattle, where we met up with the folks from Kenmore Air, who shuttled us to a smaller airport at Boeing Field. From there, we got on a teeny tiny little plan that sat 10 people and flew to the San Juan islands.
The plane was so small, they asked me how much I weighed when I booked the tickets. This is unnerving, as I’m sure you can imagine, in more than one way.
When we finally landed in Orcas Island, I was so excited! It was just about dinner time on the west coast, so we set out to find something to eat. We wound up at Madrona Bar & Grill, where the service was excellent, but the vegan choices were…nonexistent. The last time I went to Orcas Island, they had created a vegan pasta dish with delicious vegetables, but this time, our only option was spaghetti plain with olive oil.
The next day, however, we ate our fill at Red Rabbit Farm, where they have weekly dinners at long, communal tables. The dinners are family style, and consist of a variety of different foods passed around the table. The last time I went, I wasn’t vegan, so I asked ahead of time if they would be kind enough to accommodate, and did they ever accommodate.
Christina, the chef at Red Rabbit, made the most delicious vegetables and a rice pilaf, which was exceptional AND colorful. The glazed beets were a personal favorite. For our main course, the chef made tofu Fish & Chips with a delectable vegan tartar sauce that had capers and fresh garlic and it was so good, I ate it by the spoonful. She used nori to give the tofu an extra “seafood” flavor. I am a huge fan of Gardein’s fishless filets, but WOW. That was the best fish alternative I’ve ever had. Then came dessert—something I admittedly did not expect to partake in. We had delectable apple crumble. I love Red Rabbit Farms because it’s not just about the food (even though the food is extremely noteworthy). The setup of the dinners revolves around community. The long tables encourage conversation among patrons. Sadly, the owners of Red Rabbit Farms are seeking to sell their land and will probably not be doing any more dinners, but I feel honored to have been a part of the last one.
The following day, we got to go on a whale watch with Outer Island Excursions where we tracked the Southern Resident Orca Whales and saw some of the whales in J and K pod. Our captain, Lindsey, took us into Canadian waters to see awesome surface behavior, like spy-hopping (where they pop their heads out of the water to see what’s going on), full breaches (pretty full-body jump out of the water), and plenty of tail-slapping. We even got to see Stellar Sea Lions toward the end of our tour.
Male resident orca J-26 (Mike) with some ladies
After we warmed up a little from being on the boat, we drove through Moran State Park to the top of Mount Constitution, the highest point in the San Juan Islands. The drive up to the top of the mountain is not easy… it’s a lot of sharp turns and big cliffs. We made it, though, and we were treated to an incredible view.
The view from the lookout tower on Mount Constitution, 2,399 feet above sea level
Once we were back out of the clouds, we went to the local grocery store, Island Market, to pick up a few things for dinner at home. For a place sadly lacking in vegan options at restaurants, the grocery stores sure have plenty of great plant-based foods! We picked up some Miyoko’s cheese, Sweet Earth Benevolent Bacon, Daiya cheddar shreds, Field Roast chorizo, and Gardein chickenless tenders. We had a delicious dinner of grilled veggies (loved the grilled broccoli) and chorizo.
The next day was a highlight for me! We jumped on a morning ferry and drove to Friday Harbor in San Juan Island to visit Island Haven Farm Sanctuary and the wonderful animals who live there. Julie Duke, director of the sanctuary, took me and family around to meet the wonderful beings who get to live out the remainder of their lives in peace. It was a one-on-one visit, and we got to hear the details of each being we met. I fell in love with everyone. Some highlights for me were meeting alpacas for the very first time, playing with Taco and Tamale the goats, and scrubbing Fred, the very big pig, who was snuggling with his life partner, Missy. The grounds were idyllic, rolling hills set a stone’s throw away from the bustle of Friday Harbor and the animals seemed happy and healthy. Julie and I traded sanctuary stories and talked about the importance of rescue work in a non-vegan world.
I learned that Fred and Missy, the two pigs, often leave flowers for one another while they are sleeping. I’ve made my views about pigs pretty well known throughout my time writing for this blog, but I think that’s one of the cutest things I’ve ever heard.
Island Haven Animal Sanctuary is a much needed hub in the midst of cattle country. From the safety of the grounds, I could see doomed cows grazing in the nearby field, a sad reminder that animal rescue can often feel like hopeless work. But I’m glad that places like Island Haven exist, and that folx like Julie Duke put in so much time, money, and effort into making the world a better place for animals.
Back on Orcas Island, we did a quick sunset kayak paddle before heading out to dinner. It was a stark difference to find ourselves from Island Haven to Inn at Ship Bay, where they proudly served mangalitsa pig flesh from the animals they raised onsite, but at least we were able to get a memorable vegan meal (off menu, of course). The rice and vegetable meal the chef prepared for us was delightful. So much so that I completely forgot to take a picture! We even got to have homemade pear sorbet for dessert.
Then, just like that, the trip was over. It went by (as always) way too fast. BUT, I know I will remember it forever, and not just because it was epic, but also because I got engaged!
I said yes, by the way.
In Vegan Tags travel, orcas island, animal sanctuary, san juan island, island haven animal sanctuary, orcas, vegan food, vegan travel
Reflecting on Another Plant-Based Year
September 5, 2018 Heather Stadler
Sometimes I celebrate being Vegan by eating flowers.
It's remarkable how much something as simple as the passage of time can make us experience such a plethora of emotions, but here we are. As we get older, the years pass faster and faster, and yet they still manage to contain so much. I'm still learning all the time.
When you work with farmed animals and keep up a blog about the Veganism movement, you sometimes get a sense that nothing really surprises you anymore, but somehow, there is always more to know.
I've said quite a few times that 2018 is the year of the vegan because of the major shift we're seeing in the media towards plant-based living, and I'm encouraged and excited all the time to see this movement gain more traction—but I also recognize how much farther we've got to go.
That being said, one of the biggest things about this movement for me is the tenacity of the people involved in it.
Veganism, it changes who you are. It's like waking up after the best sleep of your life. It's like hearing music for the first time. It's like opening your eyes for the first time in glasses—suddenly your whole perspective on life is different. That kind of major change affects a lot more than just what you eat. It changes the way you interact with the world. It changes your identity.
At least, it did for me.
For someone who has gone through so many ups and downs with my own self-worth, being vegan was the thing that most informed my world. It added to my purpose. It gave me direction. It made me feel less hopeless.
Vegans get a pretty bad reputation. We're some of the most hated people on the planet, and while some of that is... pretty warranted, a lot of the hate vegans receive comes from a defensive place.
The thing about vegans—we're passionate. We love animals the same way we love our friends. We love vegan food, we love our community, but we don't love that the people we sometimes love outside of that community (our family, our partners, our friends) don't always feel the way we do, or even respect our choices or lifestyle, but that often lights a fire underneath us, make the years in which we are involved in this lifestyle full of action and advocating.
So, here I am, two years after making the big decision to go vegan for the animals, and just like last year, my only regret about my Vegan-versary is that this is only number 2. I've been meat-free for 11 years now, and I wish I could go back in time and open my mind a little sooner. I spent 9 years not wanted to truly grok what the dairy and egg industries really are about.
But on a more positive note, when I look back and I see all the personal growth I've experienced since this time last year, I am so grateful to be in this at all. In only two years, I've accomplished so much (and made a few new vegans in the process)!
I can't imagine my life any other way.
In Vegan Tags anniversary, veganversary, regrets, veganism
Doing Things Fat Girls Aren't Meant To Do
Big broad on a bike 8/2018
Do you know how hard it is to find activewear that will fit me? It's very hard. Recently, it has gotten easier, with many plus-size brands including fitness clothing in their lines, like Torrid, a favorite of mine. But if we go beyond just the leggings and sports bras, past the "SQUAT GOALS" tanks and bike shorts, what else really exists for fat girls?
My body has limitations. As a fat girl for much of my life, I acknowledge and accept these limitations, even as I often work through them. I know that I will not be able to keep up with my boyfriend as he hikes high peaks; I know that I will not be able to swim as fast; I know that my recovery time will always be a little bit longer; I know that my stamina is not the best that it could be, and I know that my abilities will always be a little misunderstood by those who have not had to carry extra weight around.
Being fat is considered a personal failure in our society, and it's evident in the way the fat women are so often excluded from the fitness picture. Fat people only exist in fitness advertising as the "Before" photo, or the body that we're trying to leave behind. Fat people in fitness exist as a reminder of the reason we're into fitness in the first place.
That association exists because of Diet Culture, or society's repeated insistence that fat bodies are bodies that need to change. Fitness should never be about weight loss. Fitness should be about strength, stamina, and balance. This is part of the reason Before & After photos are so damaging because in them, a fat body is representative of that personal failure. The "After" body represents someone defeating their demons and conquering that fat body.
Looking at my body, people make plenty of assumptions about me. They think I must be unhealthy, lazy, unmotivated, sad, and self-loathing. They expect me to want to lose weight. But for some reason, they never expect me to actually do anything about it. You may not know it by looking at me, but I work out almost every day. I enjoy being active (within my limits). I hardly EVER have time to be a couch potato.
I am often reminded of the things I'm not meant to do as a Fat Girl, especially when I'm trying to dress for the occasion. The last time I tried to shop for some athletic clothes, I was more frustrated than surprised to find that men's activewear went up to a 2X or 3X, but women's activewear stopped at tight-fitting XLs which do not comfortably accommodate the extra space my body takes up. What the hell is up with that?
Me, thinking about how much better it would be if my leggings had pockets, probably
I enjoy pushing my boundaries, whether it's on a hike, on a bike, or otherwise, but every time I do, my size is always, always, always a consideration. The trick, though, is not letting my size anxiety get the best of me when I'm faced with a challenge.
Whenever I do "active stuff," people around me often make comments about how I'm inappropriately dressed. Sometimes I look too "fancy," sometimes I'm dressed too warmly, sometimes I'm not dressed warm enough, and sometimes my clothing is deemed not "active" enough. But how am I supposed to dress appropriately for a hike, a bike ride, yoga, a day hoisting hay bales at a farm sanctuary if the appropriate clothing hasn't fit me for about a decade?
If I were a different person, I might take the lack of options in my size, the comments about my clothing, and the difficulty of the tasks as adequate reasons not to even try. I might shrug off my body's desire to get up and move. I might forget about the views at the top of the mountain, how wind rushing through my hair feels on a bicycle trail, or the smoothness of the water from inside of a kayak. I might focus my energy elsewhere, and if I did, that would be OKAY, but I'm the type of person who wants to do more if I can.
'Yaking on Orcas Island, WA
A few years back, I discovered the joy of being in a kayak for the very first time. It had not been my first time in a kayak, but it had been the first time I'd found the experience enjoyable. The first time I ever sat in a kayak, I was about 15-years-old visiting Puerto Rico with my family.
Get ready because this is the most embarrassing story of my entire 28 years.
While we were on the beach, we ran into some family friends. They had rented some ocean kayaks and were going to paddle across the sea to "Palominito," a little island that was only accessible by small boat. Intrigued, we decided to accompany them. "Don't worry," they said, "These things never capsize."
My mother, my sister, and I rented a tandem kayak for 3 and we got a brief tutorial on how to operate it. Before long, we were underway, paddling over the water towards the little island. My mother and my sister paddled, I did not. I was afraid of being in the kayak, but I had trusted that the boat would not tip over.
That was dumb.
We were about halfway across from the beach to the island when our kayak—of course—capsized and all three of us were flipped into the Caribbean Sea. We were in no real danger because we had life vests on and all of us knew how to swim, but I couldn't fathom what I was supposed to do next.
My mom and my sister managed to flip the kayak back over and climb back into it, but no matter how much I tried, I could not lift my body back into the boat. I kicked, and kicked, and kicked my legs hoping to get enough momentum to get my body out of the water, but it was no use. I was stuck.
Soon, a man on a jet ski came over to attend to us and make sure we were okay. He tried to help me get back into the kayak, but he couldn't. He tried to pull me out of the water and onto his jet ski, but he couldn't. He radioed for backup.
It took two men to pull me out of the Caribbean and onto the back of a jet ski. My sister and my mother paddled onward to the island, and I was jet skied back to shore to wallow in my shame.
It took two men to pull my big, fat 15-year-old body out of the Caribbean.
I vowed I would never get into a kayak ever again.
Fast forward about ten years later, and I found myself wedging my fat body into the slender seat of a kayak on the south beach of Paradox Lake in the Adirondacks, heart racing, with my face pinched in an anxious grimace, muttering to Ethan, my boyfriend, "If I tip over, it's all your fault."
Loving someone is weird like that. It makes you trust them when they say things like, "I promise it'll be okay," or "I won't let you tip over," or "I'll be right next to you the whole time."
It wasn't that I was forced, or coerced. I was convinced, but also I was interested in getting back into the Captain's seat, so to speak. Vaguely interested, anyway. That didn't mean I was immune from having a panic attack as Ethan helped launch me into the lake and I floated further away from the shore, or as I wriggled around, trying to keep my balance, or as I struggled to figure out how to paddle.
Slowly, I eased into whatever semblance of calm I could muster. I quickened my breath to a normal pace. I paddled well enough to get me around. I started enjoying myself. Lake Paradox was calm, and so the paddle was easy. In a way, it was also a bit relaxing aside from the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
I tried not to think about how difficult it might be to wriggle my thick thighs out of the seat if I should flip over, and I tried not to think about how I would certainly be unable to lift my own weight back into the boat should it capsize. Instead, I focused on the lilies.
White Water-lily, a wildflower of the Adirondacks
While we were floating in a big sea of water-lilies, a speedboat passed us by, creating a wake that rapidly raced toward us. Seeing the waves flow in my direction, I panicked. "What do I do?" I cried out. Quickly. Ethan, paddled over to break the waves before me, assuring me I'd be okay and encouraging me to relax. I tried, but I couldn't, and I clenched the length of the paddle as tightly as I could, as if I could wring my anxiety out from my fingers.
The waves ebbed and crashed on the sand and I stayed upright, clenching my paddle.
I survived. I paddled to the shore, and I un-wedged myself from the kayak's seat. I felt relieved to be back on the sand, but also eager to try kayaking again with a little less anxiety. My confidence reemerged as I exclaimed, "I did it!"
My mother and I in a tandem kayak in the Salish Sea, 2015
Not long afterward (like a month or two later), I was on Orcas Island with my mother and my sister and I got into a kayak again. I still panicked, but less. Every single paddle got easier, and these days, getting into a kayak is more exciting for me than it is nerve-wracking.
I still fear what will happen to me if I tip over, as kayaking is one of the things that I should not be doing as a fat person. I still get concerned about whether or not my body will fit into the seat every time I settle in, and I still get anxious every time I need to adjust the lifejackets to fit across my thick body, but if I let that anxiety and that fear control me, I would have missed out on some of the amazing things I've gotten to experience from atop the water.
It's super hard to tell but those are harbor seals behind me
My most recent kayaking experience was this past August (2018) at the place where it (kinda) all began, Lake Paradox in the Adirondacks. The Airbnb we stayed in allowed us to use their kayaks, and getting into them was one of the first things we did. We paddled around the lake for an hour, visiting the uninhabited little islands that decorate the lake like polka-dots.
This last time, I experienced no anxiety as I pushed off into the water and started paddling toward the distant shore. I was thrilled to feel the sun's rays on my body and how little I feared tipping over. I paddled hard to keep up with Ethan, feeling my toes stretch and flex with the effort inside the boat, conscious of tiny blisters forming on the palms of my hands, but hardly caring, as I smiled, yelling, "I'm beating you!"
My body has limitations, but it is not a prison. I have hated it for so many years, and while I am not immune to feeling that every now and then, I have grown to love its quirks and its familiar shape and the things it has allowed me to see, do, and feel.
I love doing things fat girls aren't meant to do. It's my hope that by doing them, I widen the path for the next fatty to squeeze in behind me.
August 25, 2018, kayaking past Grass Island in Lake Paradox, ADK
In Body Positive
Sea Us, Too: The Forgotten Beings in the Fight for Animal Rights
August 15, 2018 Heather Stadler
Copyright Disney PIXAR Finding Nemo
The fact that it's taken me almost a full year to write about fishes is indicative of how infrequently fish are included in the Animal Rights discussion, but they are the ones who suffer at the highest numbers for our food.
We don't even have a clear understanding of how many fishes are killed each year because we measure their deaths per pound, not by number of lives. The number of beings caught in nets is almost impossible to know, as the average weight per species is what's used to determine how many fishes are ripped from the sea per catch.
We already know that chickens are the most killed land animal globally. Approximately 50 billion chickens are killed every year in the animal agriculture industry. But the bottom line for fishes is far, far worse. About 156.2 million tons of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and other sea life were captured in 2011 according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). That gargantuan number breaks down to 93.5 million tons of wild animals and 62.7 million tons of farmed animals. Based on that tonnage and the mean weights of fishes, the number of individual lives killed each year is estimated at 0.97-2.74 trillion. TRILLION.
Since that is a grossly impossible number to comprehend, if we round to 1 trillion lives (the lower end of that spectrum), it would take the chicken industry 20 years to catch up to the amount of marine life lost in a single year. 1 trillion fishes is the equivalent to every single person alive in the world killing 132 fishes every single year.
The worst part is that the actual number of fishes lost per year is estimated to be much, much higher, especially when we factor in habitat loss, dead zones, the amount of waste in our oceans, and the rate at which climate change is affecting our planet.
Fishes are very different from us. As a result, it's difficult for many of us to truly empathize with them. For starters, they don't even breathe air. It's impossible for us to meaningfully interact with them, as our touches are often harmful to them. They don't really look like us, and they're not considered conventionally "cute," but in the ways that matter, fishes are just like any animal, and ultimately like us.
This is a concept that is still relatively new. Until very recently, we weren't even sure that fishes felt pain or that they were capable of learning. People would often proclaim that if fish did feel pain, they did not remember it beyond a few seconds.
Despite these myths being repeatedly disproven, they still persist in many communities. In many cases, we don't want to permit fishes the ability to feel because they have been such a big part of our culture for so long.
We're all familiar with the proverb that if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. We know that one of the most typical father/son excursions is fishing trips. We know that fish flesh is seen as a healthier, greener alternative to red meat and even white meat, but since we've done so much to destroy and pollute our bodies of water, this idea is really just that—an idea.
As hard as it may be for us to believe, 10 fishes are as individual as 10 people. FIsh have memories, ways of communication, and of course, they want to (and will try to) live.
Source: FishFeel.org
It is absolutely baffling to consider the numbers in which these sentient beings are killed both in farms and in the wild.
Though fishes have a reputation for having only a three second memory (like Dory from Disney PIXAR's Finding Nemo (2003), which is actually partial inspiration for her character), they are capable of remembering things for long periods of time. Scientists who have conducted experiments with a variety of species of fishes found that fishes are capable of remembering things for months, and fishes who have been caught will avoid fishhooks for at least one year. Like dogs, fishes can be trained to exhibit particular behaviors, and they can even exhibit tricky or deceptive behavior, a trait that is very human indeed.
In the wild, fishes have been known to show off in front of other fish, to mimic behaviors, and are even capable of teamwork. Sting rays are among the few non-human beings who also pass the "mirror test," meaning they are self-aware and can recognize their own reflection in mirrors.
One of my favorite fish memory experiments was conducted in Sydney at the Macquarie University by Culum Brown, a research fellow. Brown told Vox in 2014, "They're just not any less intelligent or sophisticated than terrestrial animals. That idea is a total myth." He used a net with a hole in it to prove that fish were not only capable of fast learning, but they were also capable of remembering.
One of the first experiments I ever did with fish involved memory. I just caught some fish out of creeks around the university, put them in this fish tank, and ran an artificial trawl — which is basically a net with a hole in it — up and down the tank. To avoid getting trapped, the fish just had to figure out where the escape route was.
Within five trials, of roughly 15 minutes each, they had learned the escape route — they knew exactly where it was. I thought that was evidence of rapid learning, but not all that surprising. But what did surprise me is that I tested them a year later, and they continued to improve their escape route responses. It was almost like I just did ten trials in a row. And in the wild, these fishes typically only live one year, though you can keep them up to five years in captivity. So effectively they had an hour’s training, and they remembered it for their entire lifetime.
— Culum Brown, Biologist, Vox
Culum Brown also determined that fishes show preferences for particular individuals over others. While he was pursuing his PhD, he found that given the choice between going into an enclosure with random fishes or with fishes that individual had interacted with before, the fish would always choose the familiar faces over strangers.
So, even though fishes are more like humans than even I knew before I started writing this post, they are the only animal killed for their flesh with absolutely no welfare protection whatsoever.
A school of fishes. Photo by Pexels.
There is no shortage of demand for fish flesh. With a growing interest in sushi across the globe and the ever-present association of fish as a "lesser" species, fishes are seeing dramatic population decreases. According to a World Wildlife Fund report, the number of fish in our oceans was cut in half from 1970 to 2012. In other words in just 42 years, overfishing combined with climate change and pollution has destroyed 50% of all fishes in our oceans.
Just last year, scientists made waves by declaring the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven wonders of the natural world, dead. The Great Barrier Reef is the only living thing that is visible from space. It's 1,400 miles long and is the largest coral reef on our planet.
Since 2016, about half of the Great Barrier Reef has died, wreaking havoc for all the species of fish who call the reef home. To scientists, there is no doubt that this is caused by climate change or a global temperature rise. Animal agriculture is the largest contributor to climate change by sector, surpassing the burning of fossil fuels.
If we want there to be fishes left in our oceans for generations to come, we need to take action NOW to save the animals who live in the sea.
Just this month (August 2018), the consequences of overfishing made global headlines as we watched with broken hearts as bereaved Orca whale mother, J35 (Tahlequah), refused to let her baby's dead body sink for 17 days and over 1,000 miles. After only a few brief hours of life, the female calf died, leaving Tahlequah to grieve over her body.
Photo of J35 (Tahlequah) bringing the lifeless body of her baby to the surface. Photo Michael Weiss/Center for Whale Research via AP
Orca whales inspire so much awe and respect in a majority of the Earth's population. After the 2013 documentary Blackfish, Orca whales became a crucial part of the Animal Rights discussion. Since Orca whales and other dolphins (because Orcas are actually dolphins, not whales!) are mammals, it's a lot easier for us to empathize with them than it is for us to empathize with fishes. Though the question of their sentience still exists, it is asked far less.
The sad reality is that the loss of Tahlequah's calf is far from uncommon. In fact, amongst the 75 members of the Southern Resident population, there has not been a successful birth in three years and only 25% of the calves born in the last 20 years have survived.
The problem is that over 90% of the diet of the Southern Resident Orcas is salmon, specifically King and Chinook salmon. The salmon population is critical due to overfishing, commercial consumption, and river damming. It is up to us to act if we want to see the population of Southern Residents sustained.
The Orca whale and the salmon are two iconic pieces of Pacific Northwestern culture. To see the collapse of their species would be heartbreaking to the indigenous people, but to people all over the world.
I don't know about y'all, but I do not want to live in a world without fishes in our oceans and Orca whales to admire.
A Southern Resident Orca I spotted in the Haro Straight while on a whale watch from Orcas Island with Outer Island Excursions.
Sea life has actually gotten a lot of attention lately, but not in the ways that I'd hoped. There is a big push from environmentalists and socially conscious corporations to ban single-use straws. A video of a sea turtle with a straw wedged up his nose made great waves across the globe and people everywhere demanded that we all ditch these trivial yet harmful pieces of plastic.
Regardless of what your opinions are on reusable straws (personally, I see both sides as someone who works with children with developmental disabilities), waste from plastic straws make such a small percentage of the problem it can certainly feel like a waste of energy focusing campaigns on eliminating something so unimportant to ocean conservation.
...[This] well-intentioned campaign assumes that single-use plastics, such as straws and coffee stirrers, have much to do with ocean pollution. And that assumption is based on some highly dubious data. Activists and news media often claim that Americans use 500 million plastic straws per day, for example, which sounds awful. But the source of this figure turns out to be a survey conducted by a nine-year-old. Similarly, two Australian scientists estimate that there are up to 8.3 billion plastic straws scattered on global coastlines. Yet even if all those straws were suddenly washed into the sea, they’d account for about .03 percent of the 8 million metric tons of plastics estimated to enter the oceans in a given year. In other words, skipping a plastic straw in your next Bahama Mama may feel conscientious, but it won’t make a dent in the garbage patch. So what will?
— Adam Minter via Bloomberg
While straws make up probably less than .03% of the plastic that enters the ocean in a single year, almost half of the waste that pollutes the ocean every year comes from fishing nets and fishing nets alone. Other abandoned fishing gear (dubbed Ghost Gear) makes up a "good chunk" of the rest. So about half of ALL the pollution in the ocean comes from fishing.
Since the 1990s, conversationists have tried to get fishing companies and corporations to label their fishing gear so that if it is abandoned, there will be a penalty. But of course, these types of regulations or bans are not as popular or trendy as a straw ban.
While I do not mean to imply that banning single-use plastic straws is useless, I do wonder if we could ever get a coalition together to ban or at least restrict waste left behind by fishing.
The environmental impacts of fishing are far-reaching, and not just because of pollution. We are killing these sentient beings at rates so high that their populations can barely keep up. On top of all this, if global warming continues at the current rate, our oceans will be void of life by 2050.
Is spicy tuna roll really worth all that? If your answer is yes, then look out for vegan tuna rolls at your local Whole Foods.
In Vegan Tags fish, sushi, fishes, whales, orcas, save the ocean, straws, plastic, fishing
Taking Risks
August 7, 2018 Heather Stadler
Fear can be an overwhelming emotion. When it sinks its teeth into our veins, it radiates volts through our nerves in pulses, and sometimes even the simplest movements can seem challenging. If you're a person who suffers from anxiety or obsessive behaviors, fear is such a common thing, we sometimes don't even recognize it when it controls our movements and dictates the things we will and will not do.
When that fear radiates around body insecurity, or limitations I have because of my shape, those fears can be amplified because a lot of the time, people don't consider what it's like to live in a fat body. There are things that I'd like to do, but either my brain or my body will not allow me to.
Sometimes, even writing about fear can be challenging. Fear is one of the most common emotions, but the way it affects each of us is different. No matter what the root of it is, it makes us feel vulnerable, but we almost always come out of the other side feeling as though we're on a high—we faced something horrible and came out the other side with a fresh perspective, with adrenaline, and a profound sense of happiness.
For me, hiking is a risk. It's not that I don't enjoy it, because I do, but I often hike with people who have a much greater ability to move around than I do. What's interesting is that it's not all about the limitations on my body because of my weight. A significant part of what fuels my fear is that I don't trust my own footing.
I grew up in suburban Long Island. My idea of "rock climbing" was someone's 8th birthday party, where I would freeze halfway up the rock wall, knees shaking, unable to move another step toward the bell at the top. My idea of "hiking" was taking a stroll through the manicured nature preserves. It wasn't that my world was small, it just existed on pretty flat ground.
The first time I hiked on a mountain, I was 19 years old. My best friend Cecilia took me on a trip to Vermont to hike with her and her father in October, and I was... underprepared. She took me to Stratton Mountain and our first trail was the black diamond ski trail.
As you can probably tell, inclines of almost 90 degrees didn't quite do it for me in my All-Stars. In the left photo, I'm frozen with fear at the precipice of an enormous hill as Cecilia's father tries to literally talk me down. On the right, I'm embarrassed and anxious and hoping I'd never have to do anything like that again.
Clearly, I got over it...
Of course, I did go hiking again. And again, and again.
Every time, though, I have to talk myself through the fear. Last time I went hiking, just a week and a half ago, I thought I had found the perfect trail. It was relatively short—only 4 miles—and didn't have too much of an incline. It took us right by a waterfall and the reviews kept talking about the beautiful "vistas."
But you know what they say about the best laid plans.
We got heckin' lost in the Shawagunks.
As easy as the trail seemed like it would be, we got pretty lost. We were supposed to loop back to the waterfall where we started our hike, but somehow, we wound up scaling cliffs with real rock climbers with helmets and ropes.
And then it started to rain.
Fear, to me, said, "You'll never make it to the car in time." Fear said, "Maybe you'll get struck by lightning." Fear said, "Could you even make it out alive?"
Ethan, my boyfriend, said, "Give me the map," sensing my growing panic. He took it and ran off in a few directions, trying to find the correct path we were supposed to take, and he returned, saying that we needed to backtrack significantly to better get our bearings. "Unless," he said, "you want to climb down this way, but you won't like it."
I made my way over to the path so that I could sense for myself, but Ethan was right. It was a wall of rock. Only about a 7 or 8 foot drop, but not one I could have landed. He motioned to a foothold and explained that I could climb my way down, if I was up for it.
Here's where the fear crept up from my fingertips all the way up to the roots of my hair. I felt it zip up and down my spine, felt it tense and loosen my leg muscles, felt the rise of discomfort in my throat, and I decided I would try it anyway.
Ethan said he'd talk me through it, and even though I trusted him, I was still uncomfortable with every step. He leaped over the edge, landing with a loud THUD on the soil below. He instructed me to turn around as if I were walking down a ladder. I reached my right foot down, down, down so far I had to crouch as far as I could go with my left leg, but I didn't reach the ground underneath and I pulled myself all the way back up.
"I can't reach," I whined. "I'm stuck. I can't do it. Can't go up, can't go down. What do I do?"
"Heather," Ethan said, "you were touching the ground with your foot. You literally brushed it before you pulled yourself back up. You can do it. I'll catch you if you fall."
Now, fellow fat folx, I'm sure you probably can understand where I'm coming from when my fear whispered in my ear, "Like hell he can!" He had both his hands on my back holding me up and I tried again. I bent down, down, down, and I silenced the voice in my head that told me I was too fat to move my body that way, and I silenced the voice in my head that said I was hurting my boyfriend by making him support me like that, and I silenced the voice in my head that told me I was stuck halfway up a rock on Mt. Minnewaska.
My foot reached the ground. I climbed down.
The fear melted away fast, like a slice of butter in a frying pan, like ice pops in August, and I was not only relieved, but I felt proud.
I was afraid, but I did it anyway. My body had limitations, but I managed within them. I got lost in the mountains and found my way back to the car.
There are so many things worth doing in life that set off the fear in my brain. Hiking is just one of them, but it reminded me of my fight to stop hating my body. That battle was a lot bigger, harder, and longer.
If I can conquer self-loathing, and I can conquer a mountain, what will I conquer next?
Stay tuned :)
In Body Positive Tags hiking, fat body, fat vegan, fat hiker, limitations, fear, anxiety
On Being the Official Fat Vegan In Front of An Audience
Official Fat Vegan at the Long Island Summer VegFest, August 4, 2018
This past weekend, I spoke to an auditorium of people for the first time. I was invited to speak at the Long Island Summer VegFest, held by the Long Island Farm Sanctuary. I had my very own table where I got to interact with the people who came to enjoy the delicious vegan food and to find a little piece of their own Vegan Love Tribe.
I thoroughly enjoyed getting to talk to everyone who expressed interest in my message, and I was reminded why I do what I do. Mostly, I received an outpouring of love and thanks for speaking out against the toxicity that sometimes exists within our own community, but admittedly I did receive a little pushback.
If you haven't yet had a chance to see my T-shirt, it prominently says OFFICIAL FAT VEGAN. Sometime before my speech, a woman came up to my table and was surprised to see the word FAT on a vegan T-shirt. "Vegans aren't fat," she said. I explained that what I strive to prove is that there's no wrong way to have a body and there's no wrong way to be a vegan. I mentioned that I was giving a speech about how harmful body shaming can be, but I was dismissed and told that I was unhealthy. "It's science," she said, walking off before I had a chance to respond.
This is EXACTLY why I do what I do.
Despite what my body might tell someone who doesn't know a thing about me, I'm very healthy. My blood pressure is excellent, my body has no aches or pains, my normal body functions are just that—normal, my cholesterol has been healthy since I was in elementary school, all my vitamin levels are excellent, and I hardly get sick.
The only indicator that my body is anything less than 100% is my weight, but size is not a great gauge for determining someone's health. So as much as I "appreciated" that woman's obvious "concern" for my health and well-being, her fears were misguided.
I went on (unphased) to my speech in the high school auditorium (holy memories) and was blown away by the number of people who came by to hear me speak and the response I got to my message. It is beyond obvious to me that we need to work together as a community to end body shaming and to welcome members into compassionate Vegan Love Tribes where they can feel completely free of judgment.
I uploaded my speech and added captions so you can listen to it with or without sound. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Let's all work together to create a community that is welcoming to all beings!
In Vegan, Body Positive Tags speech, vegfest, fat vegan, fat, vegan community, body shaming
Find Your Vegan Love Tribe
July 30, 2018 Heather Stadler
listen to my episode here!
If you haven't heard, the lovely ladies of The V Spot podcast had me on their show to record an episode of their vegan podcast last week. It was a delight to head up to Albany to talk with Katt and Dani about my blog and my personal journey (and to try delicious Berbenn and Wolff's on Wing Wednesday!)
Having had this website up and running a little less than one year already has been... a whirlwind. Sometimes I feel like I never have enough time to write all the stuff I want to say and others I'm just not sure where to start or how to put down an emotion into words, but recording a podcast is different, especially because it was a podcast I love with people I love.
I enjoyed the ability to talk to others about a topic I am passionate about. I enjoyed the conversational flow of speaking versus the quiet vernacular of my mind and the ritualistic manner in which I pound the keyboard, giving myself a chance to edit my thoughts before I put them out into the universe. Speaking freely was freeing, apart from the "um, like, y'know" that helps me bridge my thoughts together.
I enjoyed talking about myself and the potential it offered to reach someone who needed to hear it, even if it made me feel vulnerable and a little exposed to talk about some of the biggest insecurities I've ever come to face.
But the biggest takeaway I got from my podcasting time was the importance of finding your vegan love tribe.
For many of us, being vegan can be isolating. Vegans make up such a small percentage of the population. Even as much as our numbers are growing, it often seems to be stagnant with the people who matter to us most. Going vegan is a big commitment. It's life-changing. It comes with many stages of grief, and somehow, it's still a celebration. But it can also create distance between who we were and who we have become, or between even the most familiar relationships. It's not only an adjustment for us but it's an adjustment for all our friends and families. The things we used to enjoy with companions may suddenly be seen as "off limits" or "ruined," as our choices make others reflect on their own choices.
It's almost as if we become new people.
And while this change is an amazing thing that should be celebrated, it can be a challenge if we're not reminded of that positivity often, especially during the beginning of our transition. Veganism can begin to feel more like deprivation, and so it's important to find the people in your life who support you.
I'm lucky enough to have an exceptional community of good, like-minded vegans who pick \me up when I'm down—including the lovely ladies of The V Spot. But even so, when I find myself in situations outside of my bubble, or I see something upsetting posted on social media, or people around me order animals, it can feel frustrating, but at least that frustration I feel has an outlet and I don't have to shout it into a void. If I ever start to feel like I'm alone, or I'm "irrational" or "demanding" for wishing for my preferences to be considered. For me, support is only a text message away.
It's easy to become resentful towards others who refuse to accept or accommodate our lifestyle, and it can even feel like those people are rejecting a part of us outright, which is why it's so important to have your Vegan Love Tribe to turn to.
If you're a vegan who is struggling to find where you belong, or if you're interested in making some changes to your diet but you're not sure how, sign up for a Vegan Mentor or feel free to reach out to me.
Let's make a community!
In Vegan Tags vegan community, vegan love tribe, vegan is love, veganism, the v spot, podcast
Veganism is a Social Justice Movement
Veganism exists at the crossroads of feminism and animal rights.
— Bob Comis, former pig farmer
It is HARD these days to be a compassionate person. I have found it difficult to be anything more than numb so many times in this political climate. America has become reckless with basic human rights. In smaller circles, we joke about how this is the "darkest timeline," but the things that are going on every day are enough to gut a person.
I often feel overwhelmed by all the causes I try to give money to, the hashtags, the campaigns, the deaths... but I do what I can. I donate, I speak out, I write, I teach, I advocate, I protest. Most importantly, I vote.
Earlier this year, I talked about "The Bigger Picture" of veganism and how much of an impact a plant-based diet can have. Though my post was far from all-encompassing, and there are many issues outside of what I discussed, the influence of a vegan diet remains far-reaching. In this post, I will discuss the ideology of veganism and how it can affect a person's outlook on life.
The basic ideology behind a vegan lifestyle is that we are all the same. The heart of veganism is literally heart. Compassion and love for ALL BEINGS is what it's all about.
It's about compassion for insects, to animals used for food, to wild animals, to pets, to your neighbor, to entire groups of people (even people who eat meat!). This is what vegans believe in. This ideology is not radical, it's not extreme, and it's not farfetched. In fact, it's also the basis of most religions. Love thy neighbor. Do unto others. The distinctions humans make between fellow humans and among different species is arbitrary. Why do we try so hard to be different?
Obviously, in the current political climate, there has been a lot of discrimination among fellow humans. When we examine the linguistics behind this, a narrative begins to take shape. "These aren't people; these are animals," "Lock them in cages," "Monkeys," "Pigs," even a call to "put them down." We make others feel inferior by making them subhuman. In many cases, designer dogs have more protections than a people that is marginalized.
image credit: Lalo Alcaraz
This kind of rhetoric matters. We have a lengthy history of treating, selling, and working humans "like animals." Throughout our history, we've had a need to subjugate others. There has been a lot of research into the "othering" of people, but we are doing ourselves a disservice if we don't consider our treatment of animals into this equation.
Before I delve into this a little further, there are some important disclaimers to make. It is wrong to try to compare traumas. It is wrong to equate what happens in animal agriculture to slavery, slaughterhouses to a holocaust, confinement to internment camps, separation of immigrant families to dairy farming. It is wrong to use the problematic #AllLivesMatter hashtag to propel an Animal Rights cause. Though I (and most other vegans) personally believe that animals and humans are equals on this planet, that doesn't make these tone-deaf types of comparisons okay.
The worst types of suffering cannot be properly quantified or compared.
Animals used for food are treated abysmally. The things they must endure so that a human can experience a fleeting taste sensation cannot be properly compared to anything. The same, of course, can be said of human suffering. Some of the darkest times in our history (slavery, genocide, internment, segregation, subjugation) involve suffering and injustice so severe that we belittle the memory by trying to compare it to anything. There is nothing so terrible as slavery except for slavery. There is nothing so horrifying as genocide except genocide. These atrocities deserve respect, and as such, they cannot be used to further anyone's cause or to draw a parallel. Lazy comparisons are NEVER an excuse to belittle anyone's trauma or memory.
Now, if we look at what's going on in modern society, we have a lot of dehumanization justifying horrendous acts of incivility. We have a major human rights crisis in our hands. Families have been separated, imprisoned, and belittled. How did we get here?
African American citizens are being gunned down in their own backyards and on American streets for the crime of living in a broken police state. People of color are jailed, killed, and segregated. How did we get here?
Nazis are marching in the streets, running people over in the street, citing religion as their justification for spreading a message of hatred. How did we get here?
The dehumanization of a people is one of the most crucial steps of allowing unthinkable violence to happen to our peers. By making human beings into animals, we allow them to be treated like animals. This is where Animal Rights come in. Though the fight for equal rights for all species is far from a solution, it's illogical to think that these movements are not connected.
Last year, Catskill Animal Sanctuary caught some flack for posting a photo with the caption "Love trumps hate." Supporters of the animal haven questioned why they had to stray from their steady flow of animal pictures to weigh in on a very real topic of discussion. Why can't we leave politics out of our fight for animal equality? Because they are interconnected.
Catskill’s mission is to champion veganism, but what fuels that mission is an unwavering belief that all who breathe — regardless of regardless of race, religion, social class, sexual orientation, or species — are entitled to joy. “All hearts yearn to sing,” is how I often inscribe my books. You see, when one’s heart is truly open, ALL suffering is intolerable. There is a line connecting voting rights, desegregation, immigration, marriage equality, and our work to free animals from suffering at human hands. We have to be political.
— Kathy Stevens, Catskill Animal Sanctuary
This brazen stance may be seen as polarizing by some, but there is a greater call amongst vegans to embrace the social justice aspects of our movement. There certainly has been a trend recently on both sides of the social justice coin toward plant-based living, a trend that includes aforementioned Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick, of course, is one of the most controversial figures of our time, and enough of his critics has referred to him as "lesser" or "animal." He is most known for his activism and refusal to stand for the national anthem, but not many know that he is also vegan. Kaepernick is a brave activist who is supported by citizens of the world, leftist politicians, and veterans alike. By kneeling, he stands up against inequality, and works to "fight oppression of all kinds."
Colin Kaepernick isn't the only activist to have made the connection between animal rights and human rights. Other badass vegans include Angela Davis, Coretta Scott King, Dolores Huerta, Rosa Parks, Shaun King, and Cesar Chavez.
Veganism doesn't only apply to race-related social justice movements, however. It also comes up a lot when we talk about feminism. In my posts about dairy and eggs, I've touched on how the female body is exploited to the nth degree in animal agricultural practices. Females used for milk and eggs have their reproductive system on overdrive as they are forced to live shortened lives of disease and pain for the sake of animal byproducts.
For many, we are on the cusp of major change with the growth of the #MeToo movement. Finally, across industries, we are seeing men who have abused their power being brought to justice. And while we certainly wish that these effects could be more wide-reaching for humans, those of us who fight for animal rights also wish that animals were even part of the conversation.
This was the cover story in a Friends of Animals spread.
Imagine what it would be like if you had been bred to go through a menstrual cycle every single day. This is the life of a modern egg-laying hen. In the wild, jungle fowl (the original chicken) only lay 10-12 eggs per year, whereas chickens, whether they're in your neighbors backyard or in battery cages, lay between 300 and 350 eggs per year. Such a high demand wreaks havoc on the bodies of hens, and they develop reproductive disease within their first year of life.
Similarly, dairy cows have been bred to produce ten times the amount of milk than they ever would naturally. And just as no human will wake up randomly producing breastmilk, in order for a cow to lactate, she needs to first be made pregnant.
Just as humans do, mother cows bond instantly with their babies. Just as humans do, cows carry their babies for about nine months before giving birth. Just as humans do, the babies (given the chance) would grow up alongside their mother. The sad reality, though, is that calves are separated from their mothers within the first 48 hours of life if not immediately.
Mothers and their babies will cry for one another for weeks on end. Anyone who has seen video footage of this can speak to the devastation of these sentient, emotional beings. After a while, the mother cow will stop lactating, and she will be forcefully impregnated again.
Females are the biggest victims of the animal agriculture industry, forcing to endure some of the harshest cruelties before they are considered "spent" and will be killed.
Given how hard many Animal Rights Activists (ARAs) work to eradicate cruelty to animals, you would think the vegan community would be a compassionate place. However, misogyny is as big of a part of the population amongst ARAs as it is elsewhere. This is the center of the Friends of Animals article, "What Animals and Women Have in Common."
[Feminism and Animal Rights] are so intertwined. Animal agriculture is built on violation of motherhood, reproductive subjugation. There are terms like rape rack; it’s all about dominating, subjugating a species, and reducing them to objects. So if we are fighting for dismantled speciesism and equal consideration for nonhuman animals, we have to completely practice that when it comes to how women are treated in the movement, and insist on total gender equality and complete respect for women. To in any way belittle, objectify or be dismissive of women and their experiences or suffering at the hands of men or just in general is a complete contradiction. We have to practice what we preach.
— Julie Gueraseva, founder and creative and editorial director of LAIKA magazine,
The larger problem, though, is how engrained toxic masculinity is into meat consumption. Men who eat less meat are often considered "less manly," or weaker by other men, and the numbers don't lie. Over 70% of all vegans identify as female.
And it's no wonder why. Women are considered (to this day) to be lesser, and what better way to draw that connection than by comparing them to animals? When "beef" is a euphemism for penis and the more of it you eat, the more manly you are, is it any wonder why scientists have data to back up the idea that toxic masculinity and meat consumption are linked?
The bottom line is that the way in which we regard animals matter. It has bigger implications than the way we treat beings used for food, which is why Veganism is more than just a dietary choice. When we view animals as equals, our outlook on the entire world shifts. More and more, ARAs are waking up to the larger issues facing the world today. Under this presidency, it is irresponsible to do otherwise.
Veganism is COMPASSION and LOVE—for all species, including humans.
In Vegan Tags social justice, animals, racism, sexism, feminism, dairy, eggs, kaepernick, woodstock farm sanctuary, compassion, vegan community
What's Wrong with the Vegan Body Type?
June 27, 2018 Heather Stadler
Of course we shouldn’t be ever putting anyone else down because of where they’re at with their journey... Sometimes passion gets the best of people, especially early on in their journey, and maybe they just want everyone to know what they’ve already learned, but no. Everyone is on their own path. Food is very personal...
— Jasmin Singer, Author, via The Chickpeeps Podcast
If you look at the hashtag #WhatVegansLookLike, you will see a wide variety of people who proudly represent the vegan community. If you go to any VegFest, protest, or march, the people that show up do not abide by a single physical description. The fact of the matter is that vegans come in all shapes, sizes, creeds, colors, abilities, genders, and orientations. Why, then, does the idea persist that vegans need to look a certain way in order to truly represent this community?
If you conjure up the image of a "typical vegan," an angry, thin white girl comes to mind. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with fitting that description, there is something wrong with suggesting that all vegans should look this way.
Body shaming is a very big, real, and pervasive problem in the vegan community. It's not uncommon to come across vegan or Animal Rights messaging featuring two different body types—one vegan (thin) and one non-vegan (fat). These comparisons come up the most when we talk about the health benefits of adopting a vegan diet. While there is little doubt that a vegan diet does improve one's health, some Animal Rights Activists (ARAs) accompany their claims using comparison photos that use body shaming as a tactic to get people to convert to a plant-based diet. I think a big part of this problem is that so many vegans don't even realize the problematic themes that linger behind these type of comparisons.
To most of us, the problems behind the pictures are pretty obvious. But for those of us who don't quite get it, let me try to explain. These photos are broken down into RIGHT vs. WRONG, PRETTY vs. UGLY, HEALTHY vs. UNHEALTHY. When we post things like this, we might not always realize that this is what's being conveyed, but in each of these photos, there's someone to revere and someone to revile. The point of these images, of course, is to promote a healthy plant-based lifestyle, but other harmful assumptions come along with comparisons like the ones above.
A person like me, vegan AF, healthy, happy, but fat, looks at these photos and feels as though they don't quite "fit" into the vegan suit, and are therefore somehow less vegan than those who fit the standard idea of a beautiful body. I have worked very hard to be confident in my skin. I've made it to a place where I can reflect on these images and see the flaws in them rather than accept them as truth, but a few years ago, a picture like any of the ones above would have leveled me. I would have internalized that too-familiar feeling of not being good enough. I would wonder how a community that I embraced would find a body like mine to be repulsive. This is why it's important that we work together to embrace the compassion that is at the center of vegan living and to think critically about shaming a body for falling outside of society's criteria for "acceptable." There is no way to separate that negativity and shame from anything helpful we may have tried to convey.
There is no wrong way to have a body. There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all.
If you want to celebrate your body, your lifestyle, or your diet, you can do it in a way that does not involve putting someone down who does not fit into whatever category you are trying to pass off as the "norm."
We need to get rid of the association of thinness with veganism and obesity with an omnivorous diet. We need to remember that every person's experience with veganism is different and that there is a difference between setting expectations and telling personal experiences. We need to accept that the true face of veganism is anyone who identifies as a vegan. We need to make all people feel welcome in our community. If we work together to leave behind that idea of what a vegan is supposed to look like, the entire movement seems more accessible and more attainable. Any person can be a vegan. It's easy!
"Being vegan is about what's in our hearts, not what's on our hips," writes Ginny Kisch Messina, the Vegan RD. Her take on this epidemic of body shaming is similar to mine. She writes about the trouble with emphasizing a vegan diet as a way to lose weight. Just like any other fad diets, people who go on them with this goal in mind tend to fizzle out and revert to their prior eating habits. If the goal is to get people to stay vegan and to make all vegans feel embraced by their community, then this type of public plea is counterintuitive.
Going vegan is unlikely to cause weight loss for most people unless they also restrict their food intake in other ways. And even embracing some of those other restrictions—like avoiding all fats—isn’t a guaranteed weight loss plan. When people don’t achieve their desired weight on a vegan diet, they are likely to decide that veganism ‘doesn’t really work,’ or that they have somehow ‘failed’ at being vegan. They might move on to another of the hundreds of diets that promise weight control, or—if they embrace the ethical reasons for being vegan—feel uncomfortable talking about their veganism to others if they believe that they aren’t portraying veganism in a good light.
False promises about health and weight loss also shift the focus away from the [ethical basis] of veganism and animal rights...If we want a vegan world, then we need to build a vegan community where everyone feels comfortable and accepted. That will never happen as long as we define veganism as a weight loss diet.
— Ginny Messina, the Vegan RD
Similarly, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author and producer of vegan podcast Food for Thought, says "being vegan is not a formula for immunity against being human." On her Youtube channel, she talks about the dangers of making promises about a vegan diet, especially weight loss. She highlights the beauty of each individual, and the diversity that makes up the vegan community. The emphasis is on the fact that every person's experience in their vegan journey is unique, and just because an individual may experience a particular effect, it does not mean that that effect is universal.
About messaging involving fat-shaming, Goudreau says, "Not only does it perpetuate stereotypes of what women are supposed to look like, i.e. thin and perfect, the bottom line is that it's judgment... Compassion isn't compassion when it's shown only to those who look like us or act like us or live like us. Compassion isn't true compassion when it's extended only to those who agree with us."
One of the biggest problems within the vegan community is that it can sometimes feel like everyone is competing to see who can out-vegan everyone else. Driven by a desire to educate one another and to be more compassionate, we're oftentimes scathing in our approach. Going forward, I hope that members of this community work harder to be more welcoming to not only people of larger sizes but to all people—especially those who disagree with us.
In Body Positive, Vegan Tags fat shaming, vegan, veganism, vegan community, compassion, colleen patrick goudreau, chickpeeps, jasmin singer, inclusivity
Disney-ing while Vegan
June 5, 2018 Heather Stadler
A little disclaimer here: I am a complete Dis-nerd. My "Disney" playlist is my most listened to playlist on Apple Music. While I cook, the Disney Pandora station is the only station I want to hear. I watch Disney movies frequently and without prompting. I sleep with a stuffed animal of Pua from Moana (2016). I adore all things Disney.
Pua & I get ready for takeoff.
Going to Disney World as an adult is just as magical as when I was a kid. Even if meeting characters is a lot more awkward for me these days than it ever was when I was young, I felt like a kid again as I raced from ride to ride and posed with my favorite princesses.
Oh god, so awkward
I was very impressed by the wide array of vegan options throughout the park, though I certainly with that there were more, and that they were more readily available. On more than one occasion, my questions sent servers and workers frantically searching through their allergy binders to find which foods were safe. I am unendingly appreciative of the consideration people gave me for wanting to adhere to a vegan diet, and I also feel like the presence of options for me (and for people with allergies) suggest that a major shift is coming.
The last time I went to Disney World, I was only vegetarian. I was only a few years into the meat-free lifestyle, and things were a lot easier then. So I wasn't really sure what to expect as a vegan, but thankfully, there were a lot of resources (like Vegan Disney World) that made it a breeze. I was delighted to read that Beyond Burgers made it to the scene, that the big restaurants like Be Our Guest have at least one plant-based option on the menu, and that classic Disney treats like Mickey pretzels and Dole whips are already vegan—thankfully.
Coconut rum Dole Whip at Animal Kingdom
Mickey pretzel in Animal Kingdom
A lot of Disney fanfare, though, revolves around animal flesh. It was striking to me that EPCOT celebrates a green future and celebrates the wonders of our plant while also promoting Le Cellier Steakhouse in the Canada pavilion and hamburgers in America. It's quite a contrast to be in the happiest place on Earth where we celebrate animal characters of all species, from fishes, to bears, to lions, to deer, and even mice, and then to pass someone chomping down on a whole turkey leg.
It was especially jarring in Animal Kingdom, the only Kingdom that uses paper straws instead of plastic, and highlights the animals in our world, talking about the "light inside every being that connects us all" in the nighttime spectacular, Rivers of Light, while keeping beautiful, exotic animals in captivity and serving them at every stand. That cognitive dissonance rears its ugly head once more.
For example, at one point while we were in Animal Kingdom, we came across a beautiful, huge fox-faced fruit bat with a 6-foot wingspan. He was eating some mango that had been tied to a branch. I was awestruck looking at him. I remembered the book Stellaluna that I had loved so much as a child, and I admired the paper-thinness of his wings, the bones that stretched across them like fingers. "Wow, it's so big," someone near me said. "You could make a meal out of that," they said. Who thinks like that?
Later that same day, we were admiring some exotic birds. I noticed a placard that said there were some green jungle fowl that lived inside the netting, and since I know that jungle fowl are the original chickens, I wanted around until I was able to see one. Finally, a rooster walked across my path. He was handsome, and people admired him for the beauty he was. They marveled at the rich color in his comb and wattle. They gasped aloud at his behaviors, how interested he was to watch. I wondered how many of us had already eaten his cousins throughout the day, and how many of us would eat them again for dinner.
Male green jungle fowl
I am constantly amazed at the ways in which we justify exploiting animals for human enjoyment, whether it's for entertainment or food.
An owl float was a prominent part of the Rivers of Light show. I completely agree that owls are wonderful creatures who deserve celebrating, but I think chickens and turkeys are just as worthy of consideration.
Focusing more on the food...
On a culinary level, Disney was a treat! (See what I did there?) Though it was sometimes a little challenging to figure out what exactly was vegan, we always had an enjoyable meal. We had a vegan platter at the Akershus Princesses Buffet, which featured grilled vegetables, tofu scramble, and potato hash.
Akershus vegan platter featuring grilled vegetables, tofu scramble, and a hash
Lunches were great at Pecos Bill's in Magic Kingdom where we had rice bowls with buffet style fixings, and we even got to have a "vegan burger" at ABC Commissary in Hollywood Studios (it's a Beyond Burger, and it's literally on the menu as a vegan burger, which is awesome).
Pecos Bill rice bowl at Magic Kingdom
Vegan Burger at ABC Commissary in Hollywood Studios
Dinners are where the vegan options got real creative. At Cinderella's Royal Table, we had tofu. At Be Our Guest, we had layered ratatouille and a triple salad tasting, and at Pandora's Satu'li Canteen, we had tofu bowls.
Be Our Guest salad tasting trio, layered ratatouille and a pretty napkin rose
Fried tofu bowl at Satu'li Canteen in Animal Kingdom
Did I mention Dole whips yet? What about the Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street?
Chocolate tofutti ice cream on Main Street!
Options abound. I am sure this trend will continue.
I love Disney because animals have voices. Lions are free to rule Pride Rock, not crammed in a small enclosure. Fishes preform amazing stunts to free themselves from a dentist office aquarium. Chickens save the heart of Te Fiti in the middle of the ocean. Pigs outsmart the big, bad wolf. And all of it was started by a mouse. If we can celebrate these animals on the screen, why can't we celebrate them in real life, while they're alive and well?
If you love animals as much as I do, please don't eat them.
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Alfa Romeo Series 105 Spider
Author: Jim Talbott
Author: Andrew Brown
Publisher: The Crowood Press UK
At the heart of all Alfa Romeo cars is a design philosophy that makes them true drivers' cars and one reason to own a classic Alfa is to enjoy a driving experience that is no longer available from modern vehicles. The Alfa Romeo 105 series Spider first appeared in 1966 and is one of the most admired drop-head sports cars to come out of Italy, however its radical new look was not immediately welcomed.
As prospective buyers gradually warmed to the model, enhancements were introduced including more powerful engines and higher-spec body and interior fittings. Despite its inauspicious start, production of this much-admired car lasted for twenty-seven years, finally stopping in 1993. Jim Talbott and Andrew Brown pay homage to the 105/115 series Alfa Spider.
Jim Talbott is the Events Co-ordinator for the Alfa Romeo Owners Club and has served on the club's National Committee for 13 years. An owner of Alfas since 1972, he has a keen interest in motorsports, particularly historics and touring cars.
Andrew Brown is an artist, designer and film maker. In his twenties he joined Motor Sport, creating advertisements and drawing racing cars. After running his own advertising agency, he started producing corporate television programmes and then worked in the pharmaceutical industry. He is a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers and edited the Alfa Romeo Owners Club magazine for several years. Andrew owns four classic Alfas, including a series 4 Spider.
Illustrations: 255 color & 58 b-w photos
Size: 8.46 in x 10.23 in / 214.88 mm x 259.84 mm
Inside Shelby American
$19.99 / £12.99
Jaguar Design
BMC 1100 and 1300
Works Cortina, Corsair & Capri In Detail
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TOYOTA Racing back in force at Fuji Speedway
TOYOTA Racing is at full strength for the Six Hours of Fuji, the team’s home race and the sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The #7 crew of Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima return to defend their crown after winning a thrilling race in Japan last year. The trio’s last race ended with fourth position at the Le Mans 24 Hours.
The sister TS030 HYBRID of Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Stéphane Sarrazin, the #8, completes a strong TOYOTA Racing entry at the team’s home circuit.
After a race-long battle for victory ended in second place for the #8 in its last race, at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TOYOTA Racing is aiming to challenge for victory in Japan.
Fuji Speedway lies just 20 kilometres away from the Higashifuji Technical Centre, where the TOYOTA HYBRID System – Racing powertrain is developed.
The drivers have four chances to use the 300hp hybrid boost at Fuji Speedway, as defined by the official hybrid braking zones, where energy can be recovered to provide additional acceleration.
Yoshiaki Kinoshita, Team President: “I always look forward to racing in Japan, not only because it is our home race but also because of the fantastic support we enjoy from the Japanese fans. Last year’s event at Fuji was probably the best six-hour race of the year both in terms of the close battle between us and Audi, and also the large, passionate crowd. Winning the race was a fantastic moment for the team and we travel to Japan absolutely determined to keep that title. The whole team is looking forward to seeing Alex, Nicolas and Kazuki at the track again and I’m sure, like the #8 crew, they will be fired up to have a good weekend.”
Alex Wurz (#7): “I can’t wait to get back behind the wheel again; it’s much more fun to be racing the TS030 HYBRID than watching it on TV. Fuji is an important race for the team as there are a lot of TOYOTA employees and fans, so it is always a busy weekend. It’s hard for me to predict how the race weekend will go but we will give it our best to defend last year’s victory despite the strong competition we can expect. Certainly there will be a lot of work for us to do in the first practice sessions to get familiar with the updated post-Le Mans package and to optimise it for Fuji. I’m ready for the challenge and ready to race.”
Nicolas Lapierre (#7): “Fuji last year was one of my best memories so I’m really fired up to get back in the car this weekend. It’s great to be working with Alex and Kazuki again after quite a break since Le Mans. We have a great relationship so I’m sure everything will fall into place very quickly. I’m quite impatient to get behind the wheel of the TS030 HYBRID again and experience the high-downforce package for the first time at a race weekend. I’m expecting a busy weekend and we need to be on top form to challenge for victory; we showed last year what is possible so I am optimistic.”
Kazuki Nakajima (#7): “I have some great memories of Fuji last year, especially because it was my first FIA world championship race win. It is a circuit I know really well from my Super GT and Super Formula racing, and it’s one of my favourite tracks. It has been a long time since Le Mans but I have had plenty of racing since then so I am ready for the weekend and I’m looking forward to working with the TOYOTA Racing team again. This will be my first time to drive the high-downforce package and I am interested to see what it can do. It’s always a challenge to fight with Audi but I hope we can have another exciting race.”
Anthony Davidson (#8): “I’m expecting a very special atmosphere at Fuji. The circuit has a lot of history but since the upgrade it is now a modern track which is good for racing. It is challenging for drivers so I can’t wait to experience an LMP1 car there for the first time. For me the fans are particularly special in Japan and you feel very proud to be driving for a Japanese manufacturer when you see the support they give. We were part of a very close battle in Austin and it was very satisfying to be challenging again. The high-downforce package has been working well in its two races so far so hopefully we can again fight at the front.”
Sébastien Buemi (#8): “I have never raced at Fuji but I did drive the medical car there in 2008 for the Japanese Grand Prix. From that experience I could learn a bit about the track; it is very technical and you need experience to get the best out of it. It certainly looks like a fun track to race on so I am looking forward to the weekend. I think we will have a fantastic atmosphere; the Japanese fans are really enthusiastic and you really feel the support they give. It’s amazing and I expect it will be extra special as a Toyota driver. Obviously I hope we can deliver a good result; we were close in Austin but we want more in Fuji.”
Stéphane Sarrazin (#8): “I know Fuji from racing LMP2 there last year and I really enjoy the track; it is nicely balanced between fast and slow corners and it’s quite tricky for the drivers. I’m particularly excited to experience the track at the wheel of the TS030 HYBRID and driving for TOYOTA Racing. What I saw of the team’s fans last year was incredible. It felt like everyone was supporting the team and wearing the TOYOTA Racing colours. It gives us a real boost to see such great support. So I am expecting a memorable experience and our target is obviously to give the fans a result to celebrate.”
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Home › MISC
Sacred Heart Radio
Allen J. Singer ⋅ Sep 1, 2004
Sep 1, 2004 12:00 PM, by Allen J. Singer
Ever since the earliest years of radio broadcasting, even when radio was still in its infancy, religious messages have been available somewhere on the dial. Whether from a dynamic preacher shouting from the pulpit or a more sedate call-in talk show, radio has enabled the spiritual word to be available to listeners all over the world. In the United States alone, listeners have a choice of more than 1,500 stations.
For those who follow the Catholic faith, however, the choices are somewhat limited. About 60 Catholic radio stations dot the airwaves from Cincinnati to Houston. Some of these stations operate out of back rooms of the owners’ homes, rebroadcasting EWTN satellite radio. EWTN provides 24-hour Catholic programming for its affiliates: daily Masses, teaching programs, prayers and a variety of call-in talk shows.
The Holy Spirit Center in Norwood, OH, a community that is part of the Cincinnati metro area, houses the studios of WNOP.
Several of the affiliates are run by people who have never worked in broadcasting before. These devoted Catholics believe they were �called in faith� to deliver Catholic teachings over the radio, and their stations are supported by donations and underwriting. It is unusual for a station owner to have broadcasting experience, and even more unusual for the affiliate to offer local programming in addition to the satellite rebroadcast.
Sacred Heart Radio, WNOP 740 AM, in Cincinnati breaks that mold. This station is operated by Bill Levitt, a former radio imaging announcer, production director and general manager, with more than 30 years of broadcasting experience. Known as John Bogart on the air, Levitt nearly single-handedly runs his radio station, delivering 24 hours of programming to Cincinnati’s 550,000 Catholic population, as well as streaming online at www.sacredheartradio.com.
Sacred Heart Radio is unlike most Catholic radio stations. Levitt fills several hours a week with locally produced programs including PSAs, promos, half-hour and full hour discussion shows and interviews, and various seasonal specials. Local bishops, priests and deacons are invited to share their viewpoints on various religion-oriented issues and other current topics. Most importantly, the station relies 100 percent on listener support; there is no underwriting on Sacred Heart Radio. The station is located at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center in Norwood, OH, a former seminary turned retreat center and public worship house. The Holy Spirit Center contains meeting halls, offices, dorm rooms and three chapels, with one that can hold more than 500 people. It is here that Sacred Heart Radio has found its home.
Before Catholic programming was introduced on 740 AM in 2001, WNOP broadcast jazz to a small, dedicated audience in Cincinnati. WNOP entered the airwaves in 1948 and over the years became a radio legend in the ears of jazz listeners, and in the eyes of many curious Cincinnatians. Its studios were housed in various locations around Cincinnati, including floating on a small barge (the Jazz Ark) on the Ohio River, playing records while the turntable bobbed up and down. After staying unprofitable for so long, in 1992, the station went to an all-CNN news format, and in 1994 went back to jazz, this time through local marketing agreements. Through the 1990s, revenues had increased at miniscule amounts, and the owner wanted to sell this money-loser. Many potential buyers made offers, promising to keep a jazz format, but the deals always fell through. In 2000 a local Catholic group put in a bid of $550,000 and followed through with a check, paid completely through donations.
The unassuming lobby of WNOP welcomes visitors to the station.
The board of directors hired Bill Levitt, who located Sacred Heart radio into a former audio production studio in an old office building in Covington, KY. On Jan. 1, 2001, Sacred Heart Radio went on the air broadcasting EWTN mixed with some locally produced material. In the first recorded announcement, Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk welcomed Sacred Heart Radio as Greater Cincinnati’s Catholic radio station. Levitt installed a BSI Wavestation to maintain the 24-hour program as he tended to the duties of running the operation. He soon hired a part-time office manager to handle the fundraising and other bookkeeping.
Since its inception, Sacred Heart Radio has existed solely on donations by listeners, many of whom are on fixed incomes. These small donations add up and help keep the monthly $15,000 budget on track. It boils down to a $20 hourly cost to operate the station, and Sacred Heart Radio always has enough money. It is a 501(c)3 company, non-profit, tax exempt and successful in its mission.
Satisfied that the radio station would stay on steady financial footing, Levitt decided to move the station to a new facility. He and the Board of Directors chose some office space in the Holy Spirit Center in Norwood. This old seminary provided the perfect atmosphere to host a Catholic radio station. A location was chosen in the building and blueprints were drawn. Construction required gutting the chosen section and constructing new offices and studios. Contractors began their work in October 2002. After the studs went up, the engineer ran wires between the studios, terminating to custom-made XLR panels for mic and headphone inputs. Microphones installed in the chapel are mixed down in the station’s control room and fed live on the air.
The board estimated that $50,000 would be required to build the new facility. The Holy Spirit Center donated $20,000, and on-air solicitation brought more than $15,000 for construction. An additional $15,000 was raised to cover equipment costs. After just a few months of construction, Sacred Heart Radio was on the air.
The new facility consisted of three studios, a lobby, two offices and storage. The main control room receives audio from EWTN Satellite Radio, brought to the station via a pair of 15KHz phone lines from the receiver at the transmitter site. Audio is routed through the air chain into the BSI Simian (which replaced the Wavestation months before), and also into the console. Simian records various EWTN shows throughout the day; both live satellite and Simian feed the console. Final audio is fed into an Aphex Compeller 320D, which helps level audio coming from two different sources � the Simian and the satellite. The Compeller was chosen for its digital inputs and outputs, for potential future conversion. A pair of 15KHz phone lines carry the audio back to the transmitter site to an Optimod 9200.
Bill Levitt in the control room taking care of the day”s business.
On one side of the control room is a talk/interview room containing four microphones. On the other side of the control room is the production studio where Levitt records his promos, IDs and various announcements. Protools is used for all production, as well as a CD library of sound effects and music. Levitt uses the latest technology to help run his station: the remote control software Radman can connect him from any computer in the country via the Internet. A lot of scheduling and maintenance is performed from the computer at Levitt’s home.
A Windows XP Professional network links the six computers at Sacred Heart Radio. The BSI Simian computer, which contains five hot swappable SCSI drives, is the main network server. The production rooms contain three workstations, all of which use Protools, and are used for scheduling and graphic design for station newsletters. One computer is dedicated to running the webcast, and one other is used for correspondence with the benefactors. A final one is plugged into the network and is intended as a backup.
Levitt runs the station by himself, with part-time help from the engineer and an office manager. Simian keeps the station automated 24 hours, and Levitt continues to produce and air local material mixed with EWTN’s programming, broadcasting at a 1,000W daytime, and 30W nighttime. A Canadian station plagues Sacred Heart’s nighttime signal, and at 30W, it can be difficult to receive the station depending on the part of town the listener is in.
Levitt is addressing this issue, which has been problematic for many years. He hired the engineering firm Khanna and Guill to conduct studies on how they could increase their daytime power. On-air solicitations ask listeners to help support this new � and expensive � venture, and donations arrive daily to help pay for the upgrade to 2.5kW. After completion, and the purchase of a new transmitter among other equipment, the station’s listening area will expand east, west and south, increasing listenership while completely protecting the Canadian station.
Sacred Heart Radio is unique. It is a stark reminder to the broadcasting community that without listeners, the station cannot exist, unlike the popular thinking among the large radio conglomerates. Catholic listeners appreciate Sacred Heart Radio for its national and local content, and Bill Levitt delivers a good product with professional voicework and production. The end result is a station that stays interesting and informative, a standout from other faith-based radio stations. And although the fans of the old WNOP sorely miss their jazz music and favorite personalities, a new, even larger and more dedicated audience has embraced this station, continually supporting it, and bringing the Catholic message into their homes 24 hours a day.
AKG K240 Studio headphones
Aphex Compellor 320D
BSI Simian
DBX 2031 EQ
Tascam CD-A500 CD/cassette deck
Digidesign Protools
Event Project Studio 5 speakers
Gorman-Redlich EAS-1
Mackie SR 24-4
Mackie VLZ 1202
Orban 9200
Shure SM-7B mics
DBX 266XL compressors
DBX 286A mic processor
Singer is a freelance writer and former radio engineer based in Cincinnati.
Tags ⋅ Radiomag
WTMA Celebrates 80 Years in Charleston
It hasn’t changed the call sign, but not much else is the same in 2019
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Development of Refugee Law in Kenya
By Andrew Maina,
Development of refugee law in Kenya has been marked more by security concerns than protection considerations. Refugees have been and still are seen as a transient issue as well as a threat to national security. However, there was a period after independence when refugees were welcomed in Kenya with open arms. The development of the law therefore can be traced through three distinct periods: the golden age, the rise of encampment policy, and the balance of protection and national security. Currently the refugee law is seen as more of an instrument of security than protection. The Golden Age: 1963-1991 Kenya has been hosting refugees since the 1960s. At that time, the country hosted refugees from Uganda, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and the total population was no more than 5,000. The government of Kenya was fully in charge of refugee management in the country, and refugees could access work and move freely. This has led some observers to refer to this as the golden age for refugee management. There was no refugee law to speak of until 1967. Although Kenya ratified the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees on May 16, 1966, the independence constitution required a domestic law to make it applicable in Kenyan courts. This was done through the inclusion of Class M entry permits under the Immigration Act of 1967. Despite the inclusion of the legal definition of a refugee, there was no information regarding rights. It appeared as though the law was only meant to regulate the entry and settlement of refugees, without providing the terms of their residence. There were also no legal provisions on the principle of non-refoulement, right to work, or freedom of movement. The law did not provide any durable solutions for dealing with refugees. This situation continued until the enactment of the Refugees Act of 2006. Be that as it may, refugees in Kenya at the time had de facto freedom of movement as well as access to work. A good example is that of the Ugandans that fled the autocratic and kleptocratic regime of Idi Amin. They were received well and most of them eventually integrated into Kenyan society.
Most Kenyans that went to school in the 1970s and 80s have memories of Ugandan teachers, further evidence that these refugees were allowed to work in formal sectors. Rise of Encampment Policy: 1991-2007 As civil wars erupted in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia, the number of refugees coming to Kenya increased tenfold, from 20,000 to about 200,000. This massive influx had debilitating consequences that still haunt Kenya’s asylum system. The government of Kenya abandoned direct involvement with refugees and left this role to the UNHCR. It also set up the Dadaab and Kakuma camps, primarily for refugees from Somalia and Uganda, respectively. From the location of these camps–close to the borders of the countries from which the refugees were arriving–one can deduce that the government of Kenya thought the asylum situation was temporary. However, 24 years down the line, the camps as well as the refugees are still there. There was also a significant shift in Kenyans’ attitudes toward refugees. Rather than being seen as people that needed assistance, refugees were now viewed as burdens to the economy. Kenya was going through the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) under the aegis of the Bretton Woods institutions. These were tough economic times as unemployment soared and inflation was high. A majority of Kenyans viewed refugees with suspicion, as they saw them as competitors for the few jobs available in the market. Refugees were also blamed for the rise in criminal activity. In the 1990s, there was a steep rise in small arms and light weapons circulating in the country, which was blamed on the increase of refugees and asylum-seekers accessing the country. This assumption, unsubstantiated by evidence, also contributed to the shift in Kenyans’ attitudes toward refugees and was the harbinger for the rise of xenophobia in the country. National Security versus Refugee Protection: 2007-2015 Until 2006, Kenya had no law exclusively addressing the status and rights of refugees. The Refugees Act of 2006, which became operational in 2007, defined refugee status, replete with exclusion and cessation clauses. It also outlined the rights and duties of refugees and asylum-seekers. Perhaps more importantly, it established institutions that would manage refugee affairs in the country. These include the Department of Refugee Affairs, the Refugee Affairs Committee, and the Refugee Affairs Board. The act also provided refugees with the right to move and earn a living. It incorporated the provisions of relevant international conventions into the domestic legislative framework. Refugees could by right access work permits, seek and gain employment, or start a business. However, the implementation of the act presented a problem for refugee access to this right.
Whereas the law provided the right to work and access work permits, the same law restricted the movement of refugees. Refugees were required to reside in refugee camps unless they had authorization to live elsewhere. Seeking a work permit was not a basis for applying for this authorization. Work permits were only granted in Nairobi, not in the camp, and thus refugees had limited access to this document. Those who decided to live and work in urban areas without authorization often did so under a constant threat of harassment and intimidation. At the same time, Al-Shabab attacks in Kenya increased. This led the Kenyan government to close the border between Kenya and Somalia in 2007. This didn’t mean that Somali asylum-seekers could not access the country, as a large number of them did at the height of the drought in 2011, but it did mean that government officers at the border were withdrawn. These attacks continued unabated, leading the government to enact stricter encampment measures. Hitherto, there had been no legal instrument that defined where refugees ought to reside. In 2014, the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps were legally recognized as refugee camps. Refugees were thus formally required to reside in the camps. The government also passed a law that capped the number of refugees allowed to be in the country at 150,000. This provision was eventually declared unconstitutional by the High Court of Kenya. Currently, refugees and asylum-seekers are still required by law to reside in refugee camps and cannot venture out without a movement pass (written authorization from the Kenyan government). Infringement of this right incurs a penalty of a six-month jail term, a fine of 20,000 Kenyan shillings (approximately $200), or both. Despite this rule being in effect, there are still many refugees residing illegally in urban areas, living in a precarious situation in which they can be and often are arrested. The Refugees Act of 2006 is currently undergoing review. Gaps in refugee reception, registration, residence, and durable solutions have been identified. A team of technical experts has been set up to draft a legislative proposal to present to parliament. There is still concern among many legislators that refugees cause insecurity. Therefore, a lot of advocacy needs to be done to educate these legislators on the rationale behind the refugee regulatory framework, as well as to offer them the opportunity to interact with the refugees themselves. Without this advocacy, Kenyan leaders’ attitudes toward refugees may not change and we may continue to witness the securitization of the Kenyan asylum space.
*********************************************************************************************************** Andrew Maina is currently the communication, research, and monitoring officer at the Refugee Consortium of Kenya. His research interests include migration, security, and development studies.
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Argentina to defend agricultural exports, boost Latin America with G20 presidency
Luc Cohen
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina will use its role as the first South American country to chair the G20 group of major economies to combat protectionism, as the agricultural-exporting region seeks to secure market access for its goods, officials said on Thursday.
Argentina's President Mauricio Macri speaks during a ceremony to launch Argentina's one-year presidency of the G20 in Buenos Aires, Argentina November 30, 2017. Argentine Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
Both Argentina and Brazil, the only other G20 member on the continent, have transitioned to market-friendly governments in recent years. President Mauricio Macri cast Argentina’s presidency as a chance to mark the country’s rise as an “important place” in the world, and boost Latin America’s profile.
“We are going to put at the center of the G20 the aspirations and concerns of the developing region, which is keen for new opportunities,” Macri said at an event in capital Buenos Aires formally inaugurating Argentina’s G20 presidency.
The full-throated defense of globalization comes at a time when Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States and Britain’s pending exit from the European Union (EU) have raised questions about major economies’ commitment to free trade.
Protectionist measures in more developed countries could threaten the success of pro-trade agendas in South American countries whose economies depend on agricultural exports.
The trade bloc Mercosur, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, is encountering resistance from European farmers as it seeks to boost beef exports as part of a trade deal with the EU it hopes to close by the end of the year.
Earlier this year, the United States slapped tariffs on imports of Argentine biodiesel, one of its major agricultural product exports.
“The G20 is an ideal place to continue reaffirming the benefits of greater trade ties, especially for countries like Argentina that want to export their agricultural products,” Treasury Minister Nicolas Dujovne said in a press conference following Macri’s speech.
Argentina will host more than a dozen events related to the G20 over the next year, culminating in a leaders’ summit in late November 2018.
Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the G20 has been the leading forum for world leaders to co-ordinate economic policy. The last presidency was held by Germany.
G20 summits often attract protests, and can be a target for attacks. Cabinet Chief Marcos Pena said Argentina had been preparing security plans for several months, with other countries’ co-operation.
“Argentina is in a condition to guarantee safety,” Pena said.
Reporting by Luc Cohen, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien
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Some 15,000 Families Homeless In Iranian Earthquake
TEHRAN, April 1, 2006 -- Iranian officials say a series of earthquakes that killed more than 70 people in western Iran on March 31 also left 15,000 families homeless.
U.S. Concerned At Iranian Missile Test
(RFE/RL) March 31, 2006 -- The U.S. State Department says Iran's latest missile test demonstrates Tehran's "aggressive military program."
Rice Speaks On Democracy, War On Terror, Iran
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in England today as she continues a European tour. The highlight of her visit today was a speech on U.S. foreign policy, which sought to highlight the leadership role of the United States in fostering the development of democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere. At the same time, she defended Washington against charges that it has sent prisoners in the war on terror to secret sites in Europe and elsewhere to extract information through torture. Turning to Iran in a follow-up question-and-answer session, Rice also said Iran must give up activities that could lead to nuclear weapons or risk "deeper isolation."
Tehran Defiant In Face Of UN Deadline
Iranian officials are rejecting a UN deadline to halt uranium enrichment. One said that Tehran's decision to pursue enrichment is irreversible.
Iran Rules Out Use Of Oil As Weapon In Nuclear Dispute
Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki at a UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on March 30 (epa) March 31, 2006 -- Iran's Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki says Iran will not use oil as a weapon in the dispute over its nuclear program.
Iran Test-Fires Radar-Evading Missile
Iranian President Madmud Ahmadinejad watches a parade of military hardware in September 2005 (epa) March 31, 2006 -- Iranian forces today successfully test-fired a new missile which can evade radar.
Iran Rules Out Halt Of Uranium Enrichment
March 31, 2006 -- Iranian officials have rejected calls from world powers to halt uranium enrichment, a process which can produce fuel for nuclear power stations or atomic bombs.
Dozens Dead In Iran Earthquakes
March 31, 2006 -- Three consecutive earthquakes hit Iran's western Lorestan Province today, killing at least 66 people and injuring nearly 1,000 others.
UN Warns A Defiant Iran
March 30, 2006 -- The international community today told Iran it must heed a United Nations statement that tells it to halt its nuclear program or face isolation, but Iran's foreign minister rejected the warning.
Iran: UN, U.S. Concerned Over Situation Of Baha'is
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in November (AFP) The White House is expressing concern about the situation of religious minorities in Iran and is calling on the Iranian government to respect religious freedom. The call comes after a statement by the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion, Asma Jahangir, in which she describes an official Iranian government letter that reportedly tells government agencies to collect information -- "in a highly confidential manner" -- about Baha'i members.
Iran: Berlin Meeting Seeking Next Steps Against Tehran
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (file photo) (epa) The foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council met today in Berlin to discuss further steps to take against Iran if the government refuses to halt uranium enrichment. The scheduled two-hour meeting at the German Foreign Ministry follows a statement from the full UN Security Council which notes "serious concern" that the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is unable to certify that there are no undeclared nuclear activities in Iran.
Unity Is UN Message To Iran In Nuclear Row
BERLIN, March 30, 2006 -- German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says the permanent members of the UN Security Council agree that Iran must heed a UN demand to halt uranium enrichment.
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Alex Silas
Last year, Alex Silas set out on a three month backpacking trip across Italy and the Balkans to do a little soul-searching - all while balancing a full time job to put himself through university, pay rent and fund his own studio sessions. Along the way, Silas met up with fellow travelers, hung out with locals at a stop in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and even went as far as to jump off a bridge 27 meters above the Neretva River.
Inspired by his travels, he immediately started writing and recording upon his return home and, over the next few months, Catania, Silas' new EP, was recorded, mastered and released independently. Almost immediately, Catania started getting adds on local college and university stations, charting in the Top Ten across the country. The song Carryin' On has received features on major stations like CIHT (Hot 89.9 FM in Ottawa) and CILV (Live 88.5 FM in Ottawa). All of this attention earned Silas a spot opening for Kardinal Offishall and Classified at JUNOFest 2012.
Now, Silas is back in the studio working on a follow-up EP due out this fall and performing shows in full support of Catania all over eastern Ontario.
Asian Artists Break Down Borders
Walk The High Line, an exceptional way to experience New York City. A...
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Nason: FTS recall was 'a fire drill' for NHTSA
WASHINGTON (Sept. 20) — The recall of 255,000 Chinese light truck tires caused the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to think seriously about the rules surrounding safety recalls, said NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason in a speech before the Washington Automotive Press Association.
"This was a real fire drill," Nason said. "Before this, we hadn't had people come in and say, 'We need to recall these tires, but we can't pay for it.' "
Union, N.J.-based Foreign Tire Sales Inc., the manufacturer of record for the tires it imported from Chinese tire maker Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd., originally told NHTSA it couldn't afford to pay for the recall.
Later, information Hangzhou sent to NHTSA allowed the agency and FTS to narrow down the recall considerably. The difficulty in getting that information, however, led to NHTSA's signing an agreement with China for cooperation in preventing the importation of defective auto parts, Nason said.
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What It’s Like to Run a Marathon in Afghanistan
Plenty of questions abound when you sign up for this race.
By David Hellard
Keith MacIntosh
When I first heard that there was going to be a Marathon of Afghanistan, I had plenty of questions: Is it safe? Are women allowed to run? Can I handle a mountainous marathon that takes place in the desert at an elevation about 9,000 feet higher than my home in the U.K.? I signed up 10 days before the race hoping to find out.
James Bingham
Two weeks before I flew out on October 11, 2015, the Taliban had captured the city of Kunduz, and the country was on high alert. The marathon tour group I was with flew into Kabul and heard a rumble—a bomb had gone off in the city. The danger there is such that American officials only ever travel by helicopter to the embassy. However, we took a 20-year-old truck into the city.
We were traveling with Untamed Borders, an adventure travel company. Our safety strategy was to blend in, donning local dress and traveling as locals do—no escorts, no guns. (The writer is pictured at center, in white, with race organizer James Bingham second from left.) Flights to Bamyan, the province northwest of Kabul that would host the marathon, only take place twice a week. So, we spent the rest of the day we arrived touring the city.
We boarded an old Russian plane for the short flight to Bamyan, one of the most peaceful and stable regions in Afghanistan. Making the three-hour drive was not an option. The Taliban stopped our local guide, Gull, for four hours as he drove to Bamyan. They told him that they were not interested in locals, only “crusaders and those who mixed with the infidels.” Thankfully, Gull’s cover story of being a local shopkeeper held.
Bamyan was a world away from Kabul. The region was predominantly Buddhist up until the 8th century, and some Buddhists remained until Genghis Khan’s army killed the inhabitants in 1221. Bamyan’s cliffs are dotted with ancient sacrificial caves. All that remains of the largest Buddha statues in the world, which the Taliban blew up in 2001, are huge silhouettes left etched into the rock face.
Due to the unrest in Kabul, the race director had decided that we should no longer finish the race in the town center, as it would be too high-profile and therefore a potential target for the Taliban. The race director needed to determine a new route, so our group went exploring and discovered the most beautiful trail I have ever run (above, the trail around the lakes of Band-e Amir).
Two nights before the race, a few members of the tour group escaped the hotel and decided to dine with some locals in town. Unfortunately, the food didn’t sit well for me, and I spent the next 36 hours very ill. I couldn't eat or drink. On race morning, I awoke dehydrated, exhausted, and unsure if I could start, let alone finish, a marathon. I was raising money for Street Child, a charity that educates street children in the poorest countries in the world, and I knew that failing to finish could cost the charity, so I had to try.
The start line was a surreal mix of government officials and around 100 Afghan runners, some drinking cans of Monster Energy and dressed in racing clothes more suitable for the market. And there were guns—lots of guns. I assumed the armed men were the police or maybe the army. They were all smiling, and I wasn’t about to ask.
The start was the fastest I have ever experienced (and I’ve led the London Marathon), as the excitement and inexperience of some of the runners combined to an 800-meter sprint. Then the leader had to stop, bent double from exhaustion, to catch his breath, and the more experienced runners cut through the field.
The women’s 10K race started immediately after—the first start of a women’s race in Afghanistan. A charity called Free to Run brought female running to the region, encouraging the emancipation of women through running in areas of conflict. The runners were between the ages of 12 and 16 and had been training as a group before school with Stephanie, the founder of the charity, who is herself usually based in Gaza.
Fuel stations were every 5K to 10K and stacked with goodies. A local charity had baked some cakes and there were bananas and watermelon—and I could stomach none of it. (And unfortunately for me, there were no porta-potties or other facilities along the course.) My legs were still moving, though.
The route was not our own. Donkeys and local shepherds added to the charm of the race, despite making it impossible to run the tangents.
At least one of the local runners found support from his village along the route—this runner hitched a ride on a motorbike. (According to the race director, one Afghan runner was disqualified for hitching a ride. Another was accused of doing so, but there was not enough evidence to disqualify that runner.)
David Hellard
I settled into the last 10 miles. I was a little bit delirious. The last few miles ran through the villages on the outskirts of Bamyan, and by the time I arrived, the villagers had figured out what was going on and were lining the route cheering us on. (Above, one of the supporters.) Having struggled for what seemed like an eternity, their support and the thought of the finish finally got me running again. I made it through and finished in 4:11, a personal worst.
Later Zainab, the first female Afghan ever to finish a marathon in Afghanistan, crossed the line in 6:34:55. Zainab did all of her training on a treadmill, in the knowledge that just by taking part in the race, she was putting herself and her family in danger. (We’ve withheld her last name for her safety. Read more about her story here.)
When I arrived at the finish line at a hotel on the outskirts of Bamyan, I saw a horde of photographers surrounding Keith MacIntosh, the winner in 2:55:11. It occurred to me then that Afghanistan is only ever mentioned in the media in relation to bombings, violence, and horror. Kabul is undoubtedly a very dangerous city and the country is constantly on high alert, ready to respond to the Taliban, but despite this, everyone I had met was kind, friendly, generous, and mild-mannered. The marathon was a way to showcase Afghanistan at its best—energetic, resilient, and breathtakingly beautiful.
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Here’s What It’s Like to Run the Hawaiian Islands
What It's Like to Run With Kevin Hart
What It's Like to Run With Google Glass
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Boxer Amy Andrew talks smashing your comfort zone and surviving a punch to the face
Meet Your Hero: They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, well, Roanna Day took hers out for coffee.
In the third edition of Red's Meet Your Hero series, Roanna Day meets personal hero Amy Andrew.
We believe we rise by lifting others so here we are celebrating, connecting with and interviewing our heroes because every woman has a hard-earned piece of truth we can all benefit from...
“Bend over, put your weight into it and drive your knuckles up – right up through their organs.”
From the first boxing class I took with the powerhouse of energy and ambition that is Amy Andrew, I know I’d discovered someone incredible.
Amy is an elite amateur boxer, currently on the road to her second world championships. I watched, filled with a mix of tension and full-blown admiration, as she fought in the last international competition in India.
Amy worked as a journalist for years and then, after falling in love with boxing while competing in a charity white collar match, she made a bold career switch and packed in financial journalism to become a full-time amateur boxer.
Holly McGlynn
Over the course of a year Amy has not only taught me to box but taught me how to be brave and boldly unselfconscious. She’s redefined, in so many ways, what being a woman can mean.
It’s her gutsy bravery and relentless ambition, two things she consistently brings to the table, that make me think everyone needs an Amy Andrew in their life. Someone to inspire your biggest, boldest decisions.
How to be OK with who you are
I sat down with Amy over coffee and talked ambition, femininity and boxing and left the conversation armed with powerful confidence-boosting hacks and renewed determination to go beyond my comfort zone.
So, you used to be a journalist - how did you end up getting into boxing?
“I randomly signed up to a white-collar charity fight, with an 8 week course before it to learn how to box. I had never boxed before and knew nothing about it – just what I’d seen in Million Dollar Baby. But, it looked cool and I knew supermodels did it so I thought “why not?!” and signed up.
I’d done a few marathons and a triathlon before but, honestly, I was struggling to find the right challenge. I did the marathon basically without training and I went out the night before the triathlon. Nothing I’d done in the past had been enough to make me train consistently for it. I hoped signing up for fight would change that, I’d have to train I thought, otherwise I’ll get punched in the face!”
Amy wears her successes easily, as if they’re nothing. Running a marathon without training? For me, mind-blowing, for her? Just another day.
“Sport was always a huge part of my life, growing up, but as I got older and work started to take over It got less and less so getting into boxing was a good way to get back into it. It wasn’t easy at the start though, I joined a recreational boxing club, and when I turned up it was all “Are you sure you’re in the right place love?”
That first fight was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I didn’t use to do much that was just about me, I think that’s pretty common for women. It’s so easy to put work first, put other people in relationships first – this was the first time in my life that something was 100% for me. And that’s pretty incredible.
It’s intense though, with boxing you’re the only person up there, so, if you fuck up then – well – it’s your fault and no one else's. But equally, if you do well then that’s on you too. Essentially, everyone can see how much you’ve put into it. It’s exposing and high risk but the reward is worth it.”
You talked about how it’s all on you, how does that feel? Since becoming your friend it’s hard to know how to get the message through that you’re brilliant and amazing when I know you’ve just been told you’ve lost a fight for example. How do you manage that pressure and that isolating experience?
“Well, even when I’ve won, I feel like I haven’t done well. The feeling of winning is more like a tick the box thing, for me, at the moment. I’m very hard on myself.
The thing about boxing is that you can always get better. I’m on the cusp of becoming a much better boxer – everyone else is like ‘oh you’re so hard on yourself, that was so good’ but that’s the thing about pushing yourself, I know there are things about boxing I need to improve. So, even when I win, I think ‘right, onto the next, that could have been better’.
When I’ve lost, I’ve been devastated. Like, hyperventilating crying. I get so upset because I feel like I know, before I go in, that I haven’t done enough. So I’m usually disappointed in myself. But then swiftly after, It’s like ‘get a grip’.”
I’ve seen how quickly you pull yourself back around, you pull yourself together again very quickly…
“Yeah, I mean, I’ll be in the gym the next day. I feel like, onwards and upwards. Take something from that and move on.
That’s why people love boxing, it’s like an extension of yourself. So I know instantly what went wrong in that fight, so I force myself to move on and work with it.”
Is there anything you’d like to see change in the boxing industry over the next few years?
“I think it’s a really exciting time for boxing, especially amateur boxing. I love that it’s so accessible to all different people. Especially now, as a woman you can walk into most gyms and people are really supportive.
As a sport it’s associated with helping communities and those less fortunate and it really does do that. It’s so broad, you see teenagers from certain areas whose friends are getting into dodgy things but they’re not doing any of that because they’re so focused on boxing.
I love what boxing does to people, for people. I love that we’re now starting to see that for girls too.
People assume that young girls shouldn’t be getting into boxing. But teenage girls and women can be aggressive too. It doesn’t make you any less of a woman.
People hate when girls go out and punch each other, they feel like women shouldn’t be violent but, in this area, women and men are very similar. Boxing can really help, if you’ve had a troubled upbringing, or whatever background – boxing can really help process that. That’s for girls and boys.”
So obviously boxing is pretty physical, it hurts, but all sport is to some extent. But there’s an added physicality to boxing – you must be in pain day to day, how do you manage that?
“Honestly, it doesn’t bother me. I think if it did bother me, I would be in the wrong sport!
If you’re more concerned about not being hit, then you’ll get good at missing shots. But my style of boxing is quite aggressive, I tend to not worry about that and instead come forward and take a few shots – it can get a bit scrappy….!
But in terms of injuries, especially debilitating injuries, it seems to me that you get more of those in things like rugby or running. Whereas with boxing, I get bruises but it’s nothing more aggressive than other sports.
Talk to me about people’s reactions, how did your friends and family react when you got into it? And what do people say today when they realise you’re a boxer?
It varies. My family are all sports mad and so supportive. My mum doesn’t love the ‘getting punched in the head thing’ but they couldn’t be more supportive. They fly all over the world to watch me fight, they’re so sweet.
My ex was supportive too but struggled with how much time it took up, and found it really hard to watch me get punched. Which I totally get, so that can be hard.
I think at first some of my friends just thought it was a cute, kooky, thing I was doing and they’d be like ‘oh, but you don’t look like a boxer, you’re so sweet!’. But, they got used to it and well, they don’t say that anymore so I must be less sweet or something!”
From your time teaching boxing, what have you noticed about women and getting into boxing and sparring specifically?
“So, I love that more and more people are getting into it. And what’s nice is that there’s a level for everyone. You can go on bags, you can do pads, there’s fitness boxing. You can do technique, you can start sparring and nothing is better or worse that other things. If you want to stick to fitness boxing then great.
It’s really brave when people want to spar, I love that. I love that more women are getting into that side of it too, it’s good to see the enthusiasm for the sport side of it coming through.”
That transition from bag to sparring is daunting, have you noticed a difference between men and women in getting into sparring?
“It’s not always that the men are more up for sparring then women, men don’t want to get punched in the face either!
Women do tend to be better at sparring too, especially at the beginning. I think they're more focused on the technique – not just about smashing someone up!”
OK, so you’re a boxer competing on an international level and a coach at BXR, talk us through your day to day…
What’s the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?
“Coffee!"
Straight away? Before any other drinks?
“Ahhhh OK, hot lemon and water. Hot lemon and then a coffee.”
At the end of a long day, what do you do to switch off?
“Go for a run, I live near Regents Park which is beautiful to run around.”
What about if it’s too cold and wet to run?
“I like running in the rain! Or I’ll go for food.”
How do you decide what to prioritise, between work, family, relationships? How do you work out that juggle?
“It’s hard. My priority is always my family, so I spend the most time with them, and luckily they’re really understanding so if I can’t see them as much because of training or work they get it.
I try and see my friends more during the off season. But, I have to make money and I’ve started a new career. Because of my age (32) and because I started boxing late, and maybe because I’ve got an addictive personality, I really prioritise boxing. Because I have to, if you want to compete you have to train hard. But you can’t do everything, that’s important to remember.”
Have you got any personal heroes, women who inspire you?
“For me, it’s day to day people, traits in other women I know that I really admire.
There’s one of my coaches, Terri, who’s incredible. Her attitude inspires me every day. She’s not sycophantic, she doesn’t care if people find out what she’s done behind the scenes. She does so much for people and creates so many opportunities for people to get involved in boxing, at a grass roots level, she does so many small things to help me but she never expects thanks.
And, I know it’s corny but my mum is one of my biggest female inspirations. She's successful, she keeps life interesting and she's really family minded. I‘ve learned about drive, following my dreams and the importance of relationships from her.
I have so many male role models too, my coaches, my dad. I'm so lucky to have so many people to look up to."
Do you have a mantra or piece of advice that helps you get through tough moments?
“’Mind over body’. Because most stuff is mental, you know? If you’re feeling tired you’re not really tired. If something’s annoying you, you’ve just got to get over it.
It’s the process. You can’t always enjoy stuff. If I’m making weight I need to focus on why, because I’m boxing and I get to compete and that’s amazing. So change your attitude.”
What, if anything, makes you really angry?
“I hate it when you get off the tube and people just stand there, right in the way. It really bothers me!”
What is the thing that gets you up in the morning?
“My journey is all about boxing at the moment, so my next fight is the motivator – that gets me up, off to training or up some awful hill sprints.”
Amy has become the voice in my head that keeps me going through a tough workout 'What would Amy do?' I think as I struggle to do another burpee. And I know the answer is knuckle down, get it done and don't complain.
Her unapologetic ambition has inspired me to up my game, to set my bar higher and know I'll be able to reach it.
This girl can.
How one writer dealt with her unimaginable loss
Rebecca Adlington on the sexism she's faced in sport
Why girls should get into boxing
Survival of the meekest?
Time to talk talent
Female Entrepreneurs Face Raw Deal
Would you sign your daughter up to boxing?
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Throughout the centuries, the Roman civilization has left its mark in ancient Gaul and Spain. Today still many vestiges of what once was the great Roman Empire are preserved. We continue on one of the main routes with Renfe-SNCF in collaboration, from Marseille to Madrid, to learn a little bit more about history that precedes us. With high-speed trains, this journey takes a little more than seven hours ... Can you imagine what would have happened if the Romans had been able to enjoyed high speed? We can't even imagine.
The first stop is the ancient Massalia. Founded in 600 BC by Greek sailors, legend has it that the city was the fruit of the love story between Protis an adventurer from Foceo and the beautiful Gyptis, daughter of the Ligur King Nann; they settled in what is nowadays the Vieux Port. Currently, we can see the marks left by the Romans in the Archaeological Museum, where we find the old gate from the first century, and also in the necropolis.
Arena of Nîmes
For history lovers, Nimes the old Oppidium, is a must. The city keeps in excellent condition several Roman buildings that show the splendor of the Empire. The most important is undoubtedly the amphitheater from the first century, the best preserved in the world. It had a capacity for over 24,000 spectators and bullfights and different concerts are now held. Another of the best preserved buildings is Maison Carree. This temple is dedicated to Caius and Lucius Caesar, grandsons of the Emperor Augustus, and is part of the forum.
The Pont du Gard is a Roman engineering masterpiece that supplied water to the city.
Roman Narbonne places
It´s perfect location turned Narbonne, Narbo Martius, in a strategic city for trade between the Roman provinces that in our days are Italian and the Spanish provinces. Proof of this, is the Via Domitia, the main route of Roman transport in Southern Europe which reaches Hispania where it changed it´s name to Via Augusta. In Narbonne we can find other important vestiges like the Horreum.
The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia
The Catalan capital, known in Roman times as Barcino, was not one of the most important cities at that time, but we can find important remains of it´s past like the columns of the Temple of Augustus which are located inside the ´Centre Excursionista de Catalunya´ or a part of the Roman wall next to the Cathedral.
Roman Tarragona places
The ancient Tarraco, was the capital of the province of Hispania Tarraconensis and consequently a prosperous city of the empire. We can find Roman culture, virtually in every corner of the city, but we recommend the great Roman amphitheater and the circus along the coast, several temples and part of the old wall. Just outside town, there are other buildings of interest such as the Arc of Triomphe located in Roda de Bará that goes across the ancient Via Augusta and especially the spectacular and well preserved aqueduct Ferreres.
Caesar Augusta was founded in 14 BC by the Emperor Augustus Caesar, from whom it owes it´s current name. Nowadays you can see part of the wall, the public baths, the ancient river port and theater from the first century in times from Tiberius with a capacity for 6,000 people.
We end our tour in Spain's capital. There are no existing vestiges of the Roman era there, because it was a rural settlement at that time, and it's not until the arrival of the Arabs in medieval times that Madrid becomes a village on the 16th century, when Philip II decides to move his court to Madrid and then becomes the capital of the kingdom of Spain.
If now you want to know more about the history of Gaul and Spain, we recommend any of the 21
destinations that Renfe-SNCF in collaboration brings to you at high speed. In all of them we find remains of what once was the greatest empire in history.
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Reading: How Political Orientation and Vulnerability Shape Representations of the Economic Crisis in ...
Special Collection: Socio-cognitive elaborations and reactions to economic crisis
How Political Orientation and Vulnerability Shape Representations of the Economic Crisis in Greece and Italy
Silvia Mari ,
University of Milano-Bicocca, IT
Chiara Volpato,
Stamos Papastamou,
Panteion University of Social and Political Science, GR
Xenia Chryssochoou,
Gerasimos Prodromitis,
Vassilis Pavlopoulos
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, GR
In the current research, we investigated the lay representations of the recent economic downturn, that had severe consequences on the lives of the involved people. We compared data of respondents from two countries that were affected to a different degree by the crisis: Greece (N = 529) and Italy (N = 327). We examined laypeople’s representations of the perceived causes of the crunch (e.g., overconsumption, obscure power conspiracy), the strategies that are believed to be useful to overcome it (e.g., conforming to EU request, EU exit), and the political participatory activities (e.g., legal and illegal activism) that people intend to adopt. These variables were analyzed in light of two main predictors: political orientation and subjective economic vulnerability. The main hypothesis was that self-positioning on the left/right axis may be a strong driver of lay representations and political participation. However, we expected that in conjunction with the linear effect of this variable, its quadratic effect should be considered as well. The latter specifies that in some circumstances the opinions of people self-positioned at the poles of the political spectrum may be closer to each other than to the opinions of the people that position themselves in the center which sometimes do not behave as moderate but appear more conformist. Additionally, we hypothesized that vulnerability may be a motive to seek for explanations of the crisis, to find strategies and to engage in activities to overcome it. Findings were generally in line with predictions and were discussed in the light of recent research and the context of analysis.
Keywords: Political orientation , vulnerability , political participation , economic crisis , lay representations
How to Cite: Mari, S., Volpato, C., Papastamou, S., Chryssochoou, X., Prodromitis, G., & Pavlopoulos, V. (2017). How Political Orientation and Vulnerability Shape Representations of the Economic Crisis in Greece and Italy. International Review of Social Psychology, 30(1), 52–67. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.95
Joaquim Pires Valentim
University of Coimbra, PT
Most commentators agreed that the 2008 global economic crisis was the worst since the Great Depression (Crotty, 2009; Kirman, 2010). This still enduring crisis extends across an ample front: While it emerged as a financial crisis, it has since become a general economic crunch; it consequently has affected unemployment, producing in turn a social and ultimately a political crisis in several countries. Its prevalence resides in the fact that “It is a crisis which is simultaneously individual, national and global” (Rudd, 2009, p. 20). Despite the common characteristics of all major downturns, the current crisis challenged economists themselves (e.g., Bresser-Pereira, 2010; Hadjimichalis, 2011), who failed to forecast it, and questioned the current macroeconomic models, which frequently use very unrealistic assumptions in their predictions. Kirman (2010) argued to drop the idea of a rational individual in favor of analyzing “economy as a complex adaptive system, and take the network structure that governs interaction into account” (p. 498). It is important to underline that there is no clear separation between financial markets and the ‘real economy’. Consequently, in this enlarged, interdependent view of the actors involved in the economic situation, the contribution of social psychology becomes crucial: It may enable us to understand how laypeople living in countries affected by the crisis to different degrees make sense of the crisis and react to it.
If making sense of the crisis was difficult even for experts, the same was true for non-specialists, who have been facing its consequences since years. Papastamou and colleagues (2018) depicted a picture of such interpretations considering the causes and the measures to exit the crisis in three different European countries – Greece, Italy and France. Following this work, in the current paper we will try to answer whether laypeople’s understandings were affected by their political self-positioning and their own financial vulnerability. In particular, we are interested to investigate whether people positioning themselves in the middle or at the ends of the political spectrum interpret the crisis in the same way and their political reactions to it.
The economic crisis and its lay representations
In periods of negative and unexpected events, with dramatic confusion and complexity, as the one we are facing due to the crisis, people are motivated to look for explanations accounting for why the event occurred (Försterling, 2001; see also O’Connor, 2012) or to take action in order to overcome the negative situation (Chryssochoou, Papastamou, & Prodromitis, 2013). In the last past years, the interest in the way laypeople understand and represent economic issues has increased more and more. Darriet and Bourgeois-Gironde (2015) have even proposed that lay economic representations should play a major role in economic theoretical modeling. Indeed, the perception is itself a significant economic factor that should be considered in economic analysis. The literature has shown that, generally, there is a discrepancy between public opinion and the economists, ascribing a different relative importance to the economic factors (Gangl, Kastlunger, Kirchler, & Voracek, 2012; Leiser, Bourgeois-Gironde, & Benita, 2010). Blendon et al. (1997), for instance, found that the public had a more negative picture of the financial health of their family than economists. Furthermore, experts associate abstract terms to the crisis more often than laypeople, whereas the public described the crisis in more concrete terms and with moral concerns (Gangl et al. 2012).
In the socio-psychological literature, lay understanding of economics relies on the social representation perspective mainly based on the work of Moscovici (1988). This theoretical framework is designed to capture the shared, common-sense and everyday representations, ideas, opinions, attitudes through which people orient themselves in the world. A previously unfamiliar phenomenon becomes part of the social world of a group and coordinates its actions (Wagner et al., 1999). Recently, Galli et al. (2010) investigated the verbal production of three different socio-economic categories – bankers, small merchants, and economy students – associated with the word “economic crisis”. They found a slightly different lay representation in different countries: Among others, in Greece, it was based on the concepts of ‘poverty’ and ‘unemployment’; in Italy, is was centered on ‘unemployment’, ‘poverty’, and ‘money’. In a French sample, Roland-Lévy, Boumelki and Guillet (2010) found that laypeople differ in their notions of the crisis depending on being or not afraid of its consequences. Leiser and colleagues (2010) showed that laypeople explained a crisis in two cognitively distinct, alternative ways: either the economic crisis is pictured as being due to human frailty, or it derives from the failure of the economic system.
All these studies allow initial conclusions about how individuals perceive and understand the crisis (see Papastamou et al., 2018). However, other relevant questions still need to be answered. It can be assumed that subgroups in the population may have their own notion of the crisis. For instance, research has shown that factors such as education, income or job security may affect laypeople’s outlook (e.g., Allen, Ng, & Leiser, 2005; Bastounis, Leiser, & Roland-Levy, 2004; Walstad & Rebeck, 2002). In the current study, we focused our attention on the role of a) one’s own political self-positioning and b) the feelings of being vulnerable, on lay representations of the economic crisis, and we consider the effects of these two factors on perceptions of causes of the crisis, strategies to overcome the crunch, and intentions to take part in political participation activities.
Shaping effects of left-right political orientation and vulnerability
Political ideology, in the terms of Erikson and Tedin (2003), may be defined as a “set of beliefs about the proper order of society and how it can be achieved” (p. 64). Although the debate on the structure and dimensionality of political ideology is still alive (e.g., Duckitt, 2001; Feldman, 2003; Jost, Federico & Napier, 2009), here we refer to the traditional notion of a single left-right dimension. Several theorists argued that the left-right dimension can be considered as an instrument that people may use to place and orient themselves in the political realm and to reduce its complexity: That is, people’s locations on this dimension indicate their ideological, political orientation (Feldman, 2003; Gunther & Kuan, 2007; Huber & Inglehart, 1995; Knutsen, 1998).
The left-right distinction has been used since the French Revolution where, in the French Assembly, the faction supporting the status quo sat on the right side of the hall whereas its opponents sat on the left. In other countries, the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are used in place of ‘left’ and ‘right. The dichotomy expresses the ideological divide concerning preferences for advocating versus resisting social change and rejecting versus accepting inequality (Jost, Federico et al., 2009; Jost, Krochik, Gaucher, & Hennes, 2009). Specifically, in the economic-hierarchical domain, right-wing attitudes refer to adherence to capitalist ideology, private initiative, and unrestricted competition among individuals. Notwithstanding that the socio-political environment has changed much in recent decades and some authors has challenged its validity in the contemporary political realm, the left-right distinction still “appears to offer both sense and shape to an otherwise complex political reality” (Mair, 2007, p. 208; see also Corbetta, Cavazza, & Roccato, 2009). Additionally, although citizens are far from perfectly using the left-right distinction in abstract ideological terms, they seem to be able to intentionally use broad stems that explain and justify different circumstances of social and political affairs (e.g., Goren, 2004; Jost, Federico et al., 2009; Rathbun, 2007).
One of the most evident consequence of ideological self-positioning is its influence on evaluations of political and socio-economic issues. Wood and Vedlitz (2007), for instance, found in a sample of US citizens that political orientation affected their concern for investing in different policies: Conservatives tended to care more about government spending in defense and security, whereas liberals tended to be more concerned about spending in education, health and social welfare. Substantial research has shown differences also in dealing with uncertainty and fear or justifying the existing societal structure (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Roccato, Vieno, & Russo, 2013; Schlenker, Chambers, & Le, 2012; Van Lange, Bekkers, Chirumbolo, & Leone, 2011). Furthermore, Poeschl and colleagues (2017, this issue) found political self-positioning to be a good predictor of the perceived efficacy of the political participatory activities to deal with the crisis, whereas Chryssochoou and colleagues (2013) showed its effect on intentions to take action.
In the current study, we first hypothesized that political self-positioning on the left-right scale may affect the socio-political representation of the crisis by affecting the causes judged as responsible for the economic crunch and the strategies to be adopted by the countries in order to overcome the downturn. Thus, we expected that some issues will be considered as causes of the crisis (such as attributing the crisis to the nature of the financial and political system) irrespective of political self-positioning because they appear as truisms, whereas others might be supported by left-wing positioned people more than right-wing positioned ones (see for instance the crisis as produced by a system that exacerbates inequalities; see e.g., Jost, Federico et al., 2009; Jost, Krochik, et al., 2009). We also investigated the effect of self-positioning on the type of strategies that are considered important to overcome the crisis. We expected that the strategies related to the respect of finance and austerity policies should be endorsed more by right-wingers than left-wingers, whereas the contrary was expected for management strategies linked to exit from the Eurozone, or a crisis’ management measure that should restrain national austerity and improve conditions for vulnerable groups.
We were also interested in the effects of political self-positioning on political participation activities undertaken in the context of an economic crisis. Brady (1999) refers to political participation as “action by ordinary citizens directed toward influencing some political outcomes” (p. 737; see also Teorell, Torcal, & Montero, 2007; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). In this definition, as Ekman and Amnå (2012) noticed, the focus is on manifest and observable actions that people – ordinary citizens – voluntarily take part in with the deliberate attempt to influence others, people in power, in order to make a difference. In their literature review, Ekman and Amnå also developed a theoretical distinction proposing different typologies of political participation. Among them, they describe activism as extra-parliamentary political activities that do not relate directly with political parties or actors. Legal forms of activism include participation in demonstrations, strikes and other protest actions, which are more collective in nature. More individual-level forms of activism include signing or collecting petitions, handing out political leaflets, or boycotting products and brands. Some other forms of activism include unlawful activities, including civil disobedience, violent confrontation with political opponents or the police, violent protests or riots. Previous research reported mixed results concerning the effect of left-right self-positioning on political participation: Some authors have shown that unconventional and illegal form of protests are more frequent among left extremists than right-wingers (e.g., Dalton, 2014; Garelli, Palmonari, & Sciolla, 2006, Italian context), some others did not confirm this prediction (e.g., Rudig & Karyotis, 2014, Greek context) or found a very inconsistent relationship between political ideology and legal form of activism (e.g., Dalton, 2014).
We believe that these inconsistencies suggest that the relationship between political orientation and political opinions (about the crisis’ causes and its management) and participation may not be simply linear. Indeed, as recently shown by Van Prooijen, Krouwel, Boiten, and Eendebak (2015), people positioned at the ends of the political scale were more likely to experience negative emotions and derogation of outgroup in condition of fear more than people positioned at the center (describing a quadratic effect of political ideology), over and above the linear effect (describing the so-called ‘rigidity of the right’). Similar results were found by Van Prooijen, Krouwel and Pollet (2015), which described a curvilinear quadratic relationship between political ideology and endorsement of beliefs in financial conspiracy theories that were more endorsed by people at the political poles than by those at the center of the scale.
Drawing from these results, we set to investigate both the linear and the curvilinear (quadratic) relationship between political self-positioning and causes of the crisis, strategies to manage it and political participation, thinking that in times of crisis left and right wing self-positioned people may differ from those who positioned themselves in the center.
We also considered the role of the perceived vulnerability due to the threatening situation of economic crisis, as influencing representations of the crisis. Vulnerability refers to the perception of a precarious existence (Staerklé, Delay, Gianettoni, & Roux, 2007), which may undermine people’s possibility to make plans and to envision the future. Albeit close to the concept of financial threat (cf. Lemoine, Darriet, Kmiec, & Roland-Lévy, 2017, this issue), which assesses the negative feelings and emotions deriving from the crisis, vulnerability considers the perceived trajectories of being helpless and in need of help. Castel (2003) noticed that social vulnerability, based on a real – or not – material precariousness, makes some people more suspicious and less tolerant, thus weakening social ties, which should specifically ensure the continuity and stability of daily life (Castel, 2003; Likki & Staerklé, 2014).
Becker, Wagner, and Christ (2011) have discussed how economic and financial crises may elicit a kind of unspecific threat because generally ordinary people have difficulties to clearly understand all their complexity. In this situation, people may be motivated to join protest movements to cope with the threat, with the risk of exacerbating intergroup tensions. Chryssochoou and colleagues (2013) found that feelings of vulnerability affected intentions to take action against the crisis in a Greek sample. Here, we expected to replicate the results of Chryssochoou and colleagues, by confirming the effects of vulnerability in motivating political participation, in all its forms. Additionally, we explored how vulnerability would be a predictor, along with political ideology, also of causes’ attributions and crisis’ management strategies. To our knowledge, the past literature has overlooked this theme.
As a final hypothesis, we predicted that endorsement of different causes’ attributions and management strategies would be additional determinants, along with political ideology and vulnerability effects, of political activism. That is, the way in which people understand and explain the crisis may motivate to act.
All our hypotheses were tested considering data from Greek and Italian respondents, to check for possible contextual country differences. The data were collected as part of an ampler project carried out between end of 2011 and 2012, described by Papastamou et al. (2018; see also Chryssochoou et al., 2013) and involving also France and Portugal (see Poeschl et al., 2017).
Participants and procedure
Participants were recruited mainly using a snowball sampling procedure in both countries, by enrolling first university students, who were asked to participate themselves in the study and then to recruit other adults (for additional information, see also Papastamou et al., 2018). For Italians, the questionnaire was available both in paper mode and as on-line web survey implemented with SurveyMonkey (2012). In the latter case, participants were contacted through online social networks, such as Facebook and emails. Respondents were asked to answer a questionnaire in their mother tongue about their opinions on the ongoing economic crisis and were informed about the study’s privacy and confidentiality policies, which included the possibility of withdrawing from the research at any time during the session.
The original convenience sample was composed of 1248 adults. Because of several missing values mainly due to people refusing to express their political orientation (one of our key variable), we focused our attention on the sub-sample that answered to all the variables of interest, 856 participants (44.2% males; mean age = 37.07, SD = 14.06): 529 Greeks (51.8% males, 48.2% females; mean age = 40.26, SD = 14.81, range 18–83 years) and 327 Italians (31.8% males, 68.2% females; mean age = 31.90, SD = 12.37, range 18–65 years). The proportion of males was significantly higher in the Greek sample, χ2(1) = 76.45,p < .001; additionally, the Greek sample was a bit older that the Italian one, t(774.56) = 8.97, p < .001. Finally, participants in both samples were quite well educated (at least some years of university: 52.6% in the Greek sample and 63% in the Italian one).
The original survey was composed of several parts concerning different aspects of the ongoing economic crisis (see Papastamou et al., 2018). In this article, we will focus only on a subset of variables. Along with respondents’ gender, age and education, we considered the following variables.
Political orientation was measured by asking participants to position themselves on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 (extreme left) to 10 (extreme right) (see Kroh, 2007).
Economic vulnerability. Six items were used to measure the perception of being materially vulnerable in the future (adapted from Staerklé et al., 2007; see also Likki & Staerklé, 2014; Poeschl, Valentim, & da Silva, 2015). They were introduced by the statement “How likely do you think that in one or two years you will…” e.g., “Not being able to pay the bills”. Participants answered on a 7-point scale, anchored by very unlikely (1) to very likely (7). An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed the unidimensionality of economic vulnerability: factor loadings ranged .54–.81 in the whole sample (.45–.83 in the Greek sample, .64–.86 in the Italian one). The explained variance was 52% in the total sample (48% in the Greek sample, 59% in the Italian one). Alpha was .81 (.77 in the Greek sample, .86 in the Italian one).
Causes of the crisis. Participants answered on a 7-point disagreement (1)/agreement (7) scale to 24 items described by Papastamou et al. (2018). Such items were designed, after brainstorming among the research group members and informal consultation of the press, to measure the attribution of the crisis to different causes. The scale is composed of six factors: 1) depletion of resources and the nature of the capitalistic system (eight items e.g., “Production aging made Europe more vulnerable to crisis”); 2) finance system, with banking and financial speculations (five items e.g., “Bad investments of banks”); 3) obscure power conspiracy (three items e.g., “The crisis is part of a larger plan to create a global system”); 4) inequality system (three items e.g., “Unequal distribution of wealth”); 5) overconsumption (three items e.g., “Consumptions beyond their means”); 6) political system, describing decline of politics (two items e.g., “Incompetence of political systems”). Papastamou and collaborators verified the 6-factor solution with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the factorial invariance between the Greek and Italian samples, using structural equation modeling (SEM).1 In the current study, we relied on this structure; alphas ranged between .67 and .80 in the whole sample (.63 < α < .81 for the Greek sample and .62 < α < .78 for the Italian one).
Strategies of crisis’ management. We used ten 7-point disagreement (1)/agreement (7) items see Table 1, measuring possible strategies that should be adopted by countries to overcome the economic crisis. They were designed after considering the solutions depicted in the media. Three factors were hypothesized and confirmed by Papastamou et al. (2018) with SEM2 : conforming to European Union (EU) requests (e.g., “Applying austerity measures”); rationalization of the public sector (e.g., “Diminishing bureaucracy”); and EU exit (e.g., “Exit the Eurozone”, which for the Greek sample was called ‘Grexit’). We also relied on such a structure: Alphas ranged between .60 and .75 in the whole sample (.58 < α < .71 for the Greek sample and .52 < α < .72 for the Italian one).
Descriptive Statistics of Sub- and Total Samples, Differences among Means.
Greek sample
Italian sample
Total sample
Political orientation 4.45 2.22 4.92 2.56 .005 4.63 2.37
Economic vulnerability 5.06 1.28 4.46 1.30 <.001 4.83 1.32
Cause1. Decadence of capitalism 3.93 1.13 4.01 1.01 .358 3.96 1.08
Cause2. Finance system 5.27 1.03 5.26 .86 .888 5.27 .96
Cause3. Conspiracy 5.32 1.33 3.56 1.37 <.001 4.65 1.59
Cause4. System inequality 5.18 1.38 5.14 1.12 .618 5.17 1.29
Cause5. Overconsumption 4.93 1.41 3.99 1.22 <.001 4.57 1.41
Cause6. Political system 6.28 1.03 6.03 .98 <.001 6.18 1.02
Strategy1. Conforming EU requests 2.44 1.10 3.44 .98 <.001 2.82 1.16
Strategy2. Public sector rationalization 5.65 1.23 5.21 1.04 <.001 5.49 1.18
Strategy3. EU Exit 3.68 1.66 2.70 1.26 <.001 3.30 1.59
Activity1. Illegal activism 2.28 1.25 1.46 .86 <.001 1.97 1.19
Activity2. Legal activism 4.07 1.42 3.16 1.51 <.001 3.72 1.52
Activity3. Economic resistance 3.40 1.45 2.77 1.42 <.001 3.16 1.47
Activity4. Protectionism 5.28 1.78 3.37 1.95 <.001 4.55 2.07
Note. Political orientation is on a 10-point scale, all the other variables on 7-point scales.
Political participation activities. We measured the intentions to participate in a list of 26 political activities (both individual and collective, see Appendix), derived from Chryssochoou et al. 2013 (see also Poeschl et al., 2015). The list was introduced by the statement: “In the context of the actual economic crisis, are you willing to participate in each of the following activities?” Respondents answered on a 7-point scale, from not at all (1) to extremely (7). The items represented different types of political participation as a form of reaction toward the economic downturn: illegal reactions (e.g., ‘Attacking people in demonstration’); legal activism (e.g., ‘Signing petitions’); other forms of the participation such as finance resistance (e.g., ‘taking money abroad’) and protectionism (e.g., ‘boycotting foreigner products’). EFA was applied to this scale, in order to determine the number of factors to retain.3 We performed a Parallel Analysis (O’Connor’s, 2000), that implies a Monte Carlo simulation process. ‘Expected’ eigenvalues are obtained by simulating normal random samples that parallel the observed data in terms of sample size and number of variables. The eigenvalue corresponding to the 95th percentile of the eigenvalues’ distribution derived from the random data was used as criterion. Parallel analyses supported a four-factor solution: The fourth eigenvalue (1.53) was larger than the corresponding 95th percentile random data eigenvalue (1.25). The four-factor solution in the total sample was replicated also in the sub-samples divided by country (see Appendix). Specifically, 10 items loaded on the factor of participation through ‘illegal activism’, 10 on the factor of ‘legal activism’, four in the factor of ‘economic resistance’ and finally two items on the factor describing ‘protectionism’ for the national products. The variance explained by the violent illegal participation was higher in the Italian sample (30%) compared to the Greek one (12%). When considering civic engagement, the opposite was true (27% for the Greek sample and 18% for the Italian one). Alphas ranged between .69 and .89 in the whole sample (.62 < α < .78 for the Italian sample and .63 < α < .81 for the Greek one).
Descriptive statistics. For each scale, we computed a composite score, based on the items’ mean; Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics in the total and sub-samples. The Italian sample declared to be a bit more centrist than the Greek one on the political orientation scale, which was slightly more left-wing oriented. Greeks perceived themselves as more vulnerable than Italians from an economic viewpoint, resembling the harsher economic situation in Greece. Concerning the determinants of the crisis, there is agreement about the causes in both samples: t-tests from the theoretical mid-point (4) revealed that the crisis is attributed to the nature of the finance system, the system inequality, and the political system, but also to the conspiracy of obscure powers (ps < .001). Concerning the latter two causes, they are endorsed more by Greeks than Italians (p < .001; for details, see Papastamou et al., 2018).
When considering the strategies to manage the crisis, both sub-samples indicated the public sector rationalization as the key measure that should be adopted (both means were higher than the theoretical mean, 4, ps < .001). The other two management strategies were less preferred; moreover, the Greek respondents were more inclined to favor solutions such as the Grexit than Italians, whereas the latter preferred to adhere more to the European Union rules compared to Greeks (ps < .001). Finally, in general the level of political participation was not high and was significantly inferior to the mid-point (4) for all the political activities (ps < .001, t-tests), expect for protectionism, which was significantly higher in the Greek sub-sample (p < .001). Generally, Greeks reported stronger intentions to act than Italians (ps < .001).
Table 2 displays correlations among key variables; with the exceptions of few cases, as can been noticed, both political ideology and economic vulnerability correlated with all the key dependent variables. Additionally, the causes generally correlated to each other as well as management strategies did.
Correlations among Key Variables.
1. Political ideology 1
2. Economic vulnerability –.08** 1
3. Cause1. Depletion of resources .17*** .03 1
4. Cause2. Finance system –.09** .05 .45*** 1
5. Cause3. Conspiracy Theories –.07* .19*** .36*** .30*** 1
6. Cause4. Inequality system –.27*** .07* .31*** .40*** .32*** 1
7. Cause5. Overconsumption .06 .07* .38*** .36*** .33*** .25*** 1
8. Cause6. Political system .07* .13*** .30*** .38*** .31*** .29*** .29*** 1
9. Strategy1. Conforming EU requests .21*** –.15*** .10** –.06 –.34*** –.19*** –.02 –.12*** 1
10. Strategy2. Public sector rationalization .10** .03 .10** .26*** .13*** .01 .24*** .23*** .03 1
11. Strategy3. EU exit –.14*** .20*** .07* .01 .36*** .21*** .08* .07* –.27*** –.12*** 1
12. Activity1. Illegal activism –.18*** .26** .01 .01 .33*** .11** .11** .02 –.21*** –.13*** .43*** 1
13. Activity2. Legal activism –.39*** .19*** –.01 .13*** .31*** .24*** .08* .08* –.26*** .04 .33*** .42*** 1
14. Activity3. Economic resistance .09** .25*** .11** .04 .24*** –.01 .16*** .09** .01 .04 .29*** .40*** .22*** 1
15. Activity4. Protectionism .07* .20*** .15*** .06 .36*** .03 .21*** .23*** –.20*** .25*** .27*** .21*** .31*** .23*** 1
* p ≤ .05. ** p < .01. *** p ≤ .001.
Regression analyses
We then performed a series of regression analyses, on the total sample, in order to identify the significant predictors of the causes, strategies, and political activities. For the causes and the strategies, we employed the same model: In the first step, we considered demographics as determinants: country, gender and age. In a second step, we added our key predictors: the linear effect of political ideology, its quadratic effect and the economic vulnerability.4 Following recommendations for quadratic regression analyses by Cohen, Cohen, West and Aiken (2003), we mean-centered political ideology and computed the quadratic term based on this mean-centered variable.
Causes of the economic crisis. Concerning the perceived causes of the crisis, in the first model considering the demographics (Table 3, Model 1), results showed the effects of country of residence; Greeks considered obscure power conspiracy, overconsumption and political system as causes of the crisis more than Italians. Additionally, gender effects emerged: Women considered decadence of the capitalistic system, the financial and political systems, as reasons of the downturn more than men. Moreover, age effects emerged: Older people considered all the causes as more central than younger people. The addition of the key variables in Model 2 (Table 3) revealed as expected the predictive effect of economic vulnerability on all causes except for overconsumption. A more complex picture emerged for political orientation. There is no effect, linear nor quadratic, of political ideology on three causes: the financial system, obscure power conspiracy and the political system. Those causes are considered as generators of the crisis, independently from the left/right political self-positioning. On the contrary, political ideology exerted both linear and quadratic effect on causal attribution to overconsumption. Analysis of the slopes (Figure 1) showed that this cause is attributed more by centrists than people self-positioned to both left and right poles of the scale (the quadratic effect was negative). When the dependent variable was the cause ‘inequality system’, results showed in line with literature (Jost, Federico et al., 2009; Jost, Krochik et al, 2009) that the leftists considered the presence of a system of inequalities as a cause of the crisis more than right-wingers (negative linear effect). However, centrists tended to adopt this cause much less than both leftists and right-wingers (marginal positive quadratic effect). Finally, a linear effect of political self-positioning pointed out that the attribution of the crisis to resources depletion was mainly endorsed by right-wingers.5
Predictors of the Causes of the Crisis: Regression Analyses.
Resources depletion
Finance system
Obscure power conspiracy
Inequality system
Over-consumption
1 Country (0 = Italy; 1 = Greece) –.03 –.03 .50*** –.03 .31*** .12***
Gender (0 = female; 1 = male) –.16*** –.08* –.02 –.05 –.02 –.08*
Age .11*** .19*** .13*** .18*** .07* .07*
R2 .04*** .04*** .30*** .03*** .11*** .02***
2 Country (0 = Italy; 1 = Greece) –.051 –.07 .46*** –.07* .29*** .08*
Gender (0 = female; 1 = male) –.17*** –.06 –.01 –.02 –.02 –.07*
Age .17*** .21*** .17*** .18*** .10** .12**
Political ideology (linear effect) .22** –.06 –.01 –.27*** .14*** .10
Political ideology (quadratic effect) –.06 .01 .03 .06° –.11** .02
Economic vulnerability .08* .10** .13*** .11** .03 .14***
Δ R2 .04*** .01*** .01*** .08*** .02*** .03***
° p < .07. * p ≤ .05. ** p < .01. *** p ≤ .001.
Graphic representation of the linear and quadratic (dashed lines) effects of political ideology on the crisis cause ‘Overconsumption’.
Note. Political ideology was measured on a 10-point scale, where 1 = extreme left and 10 = extreme right; the quadratic term was mean-centered. The cause was measured on 7-point scale.
Strategies to manage the economic crisis. Table 4 summarizes the findings of the regression analyses concerning the strategies to manage the crisis. In Model 1 effects of country of belonging emerged. Greeks considered policies of public sector rationalization and exit the Eurozone as more useful than Italians. The latter preferred more than Greeks to conform to the European Union requests. Neither age nor gender effects were found apart from a positive age effect on public sector rationalization.
Predictors of the Strategies of the Crisis Management: Regression Analyses.
Strategies of crisis management
Conforming EU requests
Public sector rationalization
EU Exit
1 Country (0 = Italy; 1 = Greece) –.40*** .13*** .30***
Gender (0 = female; 1 = male) –.04 .01 .05
Age –.04 .19*** –.02
R2 .18*** .07*** .09***
2 Country (0 = Italy; 1 = Greece) –.39*** .10** .26***
Gender (0 = female; 1 = male) –.05 .01 .07*
Political ideology (linear effect) .23*** .18*** –.17***
Political ideology (quadratic effect) –.19*** –.10** .16***
Economic vulnerability –.06* .07* .15***
Δ R2 .06*** .03*** .06***
* p ≤ .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.
The addition of the key independent predictors in Model 2 (Table 4) revealed the predictive effect of economic vulnerability on all the strategies, showing a moderate negative effect on conformism to EU requests. Results also showed significant effects – both linear and quadratic – of political ideology on all the strategies. Analyses of the slopes (Figure 2) showed that for both the strategies that deal with austerity measures (conforming to EU requests and public sector rationalization), these were more endorsed the more one positioned oneself towards the right. However, the quadratic effects indicated that those positioned at the center endorsed these harsh strategies more than those positioned at the ends of the political spectrum. An opposite pattern was found for the exit from the Eurozone, which was less viewed as a good strategy by those positioned in the center than those choosing the two poles of the political scale (Figure 2, at the bottom).6
Graphic representations of the linear and quadratic (dashed lines) effects of political ideology on the strategies of crisis management ‘Conforming to EU requests’ (on top left), ‘Public sector rationalization’ (on top right), and ‘European Union Exit’ (at the bottom).
Note. Political ideology was measured on a 10-point scale, where 1 = extreme left and 10 = extreme right; the quadratic term was mean-centered. Causes were measured on 7-point scale.
Political participation activities. A final set of analyses considered the four types of political participatory actions as dependent variables. Along with the two models including demographics and then the key predictors as done for the previous sets of analyses, we add a third step, in which all the causes and the strategies were added as predictors. The hypothesis was indeed that such set of beliefs may work as additional motivators of the political action.
Results of Model 1 (Table 5) showed that in general Greeks are more prone to react to the crisis than Italians. Additionally, men and the youngest were more incline to violent forms of participation, whereas women and the oldest to legal ones. The addition of key predictors in Model 2 (Table 5) showed that economic vulnerability was a good and consistent determinant of political action, impacting on all forms of participation. Findings depicted a different picture for political ideology. On the one hand, political self-positioning had only a linear effect on the activity of economic resistance (negative) and on protectionism (positive). On the other hand, political participation had both linear and quadratic effects on legal and illegal form of activism. When looking at the slopes (Figure 3), concerning the violent form of participation, those at both ends of the spectrum were keener to endorse such activities than those positioning themselves at the center. The linear effect of political ideology was negative and much stronger on legal activism: more right-wing oriented people reported less intention to engage in these activities. However, the quadratic effect revealed that people at the poles were more inclined to take part in civic engagement activities.7
Predictors of the Political Participation Activities: Regression Analyses.
Political participation activities
Illegal activism
Legal activism
Economic resistance
1 Country (0 = Italy; 1 = Greece) .35*** .28*** .24*** .46***
Gender (0 = female; 1 = male) .14*** –.07* .07* –.08*
Age –.15*** .10** –.17*** .02
R2 .15*** .10*** .07*** .21***
Gender (0 = female; 1 = male) .17*** –.03 .08* –.08*
Age –.14*** .09** –.10** .08*
Political ideology (linear effect) –.24*** –.37*** –.09** .14***
Political ideology (quadratic effect) .19*** .08* .04 .01
Economic vulnerability .17*** .14*** .21*** .13***
Δ R2 .09*** .14*** .05*** .03*
3 Country (0 = Italy; 1 = Greece) .19*** .11* .09* .32***
Gender (0 = female; 1 = male) .16*** –.06° .08* –.07*
Age –.14*** .06 –.12*** .02
Political ideology (linear effect) –.20*** –.30*** –.06 .09*
Political ideology (quadratic effect) .15*** .04 .04 .01
Economic vulnerability .13*** .09** .16*** .07*
Resources depletion .01 –.07° .02 .10*
Finance system .01 .04 .01 –.07*
Obscure power conspiracy .16*** .12** .15*** .06
Inequality system –.02 .08* –.09* –.05
Overconsumption .04 –.02 .07 –.02
Political system –.04 –.01 .02 .11**
Conforming EU request .05 –.02 .16*** –.02
Public section rationalization –.12*** .05 .01 .18***
EU exit .25*** .19*** .23*** .17***
ΔR2 .10*** .06*** .09*** .08***
° p < .07. * p ≤ .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.
Graphic representations of the linear and quadratic effects (dashed lines) of political ideology on the political participation activity ‘Illegal activism’ (on the left side) and ‘Legal activism’ (on the right side).
In Model 3 (Table 5), causes and strategies were used as additional predictors of political participation, after taking into account the demographics, vulnerability and political self-positioning. The most consistent effects were: a) among the causes, the belief that the crisis is due to a conspiracy; b) among the strategies, the exit the Eurozone that motivated positively both illegal and legal forms, and economic resistance. Crisis attribution to the system inequality promoted legal activism and inhibited economic resistance. Protectionism was influenced by a variety of causes (positively by resources depletion and the failure of the political system, negatively by finance system) and strategies (positively by EU exit and public sector rationalization). It is worthwhile noticing that overconsumption didn’t impact at any the political participatory activities.
With the present research, we expanded the work by Papastamou and colleagues (2018), by explaining lay representations of the recent economic downturn in the light of political self-positioning and feelings of vulnerability. We investigated two contexts, Greece and Italy, which were hit by the crisis to a different extent. According to Meadway (2013), during the economic downturn the burden of the private (mainly finance) sector crisis became a burden for public finances, i.e., a problem of all the society and citizens. This situation has forced some European countries to accept severe programs of fiscal austerity and structural reforms. A situation of inequalities was thus exacerbated because assistance and protection of vulnerable groups diminished resulting in high social costs (Leahy et al., 2015). Cavero and Poinasamy (2013) reported how the impact of austerity measures in Greece – the EU country that suffered the most – have led an ample part of the population in dire conditions. They also reported how the already fragile Italian economic situation became more severe with the crisis, and that the austerity measures applied were unsuccessful in generating economic growth or reducing debt.
This threatening situation has made the feelings of material economic vulnerability salient. Our results confirmed the consistent role of this factor in lay representations of the crisis and political participation. In all the cases, with the exception of overconsumption, economic vulnerability was positively linked to causal attributions about the crisis (see Becker et al., 2011), depicting a negative vision of the world (see Staerklé et al., 2007). This effect was in some cases amplified by the local conditions and situation: Indeed, vulnerable Greeks, compared to vulnerable Italians, attributed more the crisis to an obscure power conspiracy and to the failure of the political system. Vulnerability also affected opinions about the policies to be used to overcome the crunch: It was positively linked to public sector rationalization and the choice to exit the Eurozone (especially for more self-perceived vulnerable Greeks), and negatively with a conformist strategy towards the austerity imposed by the EU. Vulnerability was finally a positive drive of all investigated forms of political participation. This is particularly important, because threatening situations may also elicit passive reactions, such as depression (cf. Chryssochoou et al., 2013). It is interesting to note that self-perceived vulnerable Greeks intended, more than self-perceived vulnerable Italians, to engage in illegal forms of participation, perhaps due to the harsher condition in their country. In this study, we focused our attention on a subjective indicator of material vulnerability. Future research should also consider the conjoint effect of subjective and objective indicators of vulnerability (i.e., using a number of indicators including not only income, but for instance unavailability of alternative resources), to detect whether an objective vulnerable economic condition has a similar or different effect on lay representations (for an example of the differential effect of subjective and objective indicators in the economic inequalities domain see Willis, Rodríguez-Bailón, López-Rodríguez, & García-Sánchez, 2015). Future research should also investigate how vulnerability may relate to grievances and relative deprivation (Pettigrew, 2002; Walker & Smith, 2002) in explaining lay representations and political participation (see Chryssochoou et al., 2013).
At a more descriptive level, findings revealed that all the proposed crisis’ causes are regarded as valid explanations of the economic situation, showing an overall complex – nor simplified, but neither correct per se (see Gangl et al., 2012) – understanding of what happened. The peculiarity of this lasting hard situation may have given a chance for people to learn about the situation. Differences between Greek and Italian participants reflect contextual factors to some degree (cf. Prodromitis et al., 2017). It is worthwhile to note, for instance, that Greeks endorsed crisis attributions to conspiracy theories to a much higher degree than Italians. Conspiracy theories may be conceptually defined as the tendency to explain prominent political and societal events as due to a plot by hidden, powerful agents to achieve malevolent aims through systematic deception of the public (e.g., Swami & Furnham, 2014; Zonis & Joseph, 1994) and may serve to make sense of threatening situations (e.g., van Prooijen, Krouwel, & Pollet, 2015). As noted by Knight (2013), especially in Greece, “austerity measures create[d] tangible sense of destitution and persecution” (p. 149), augmenting the gap between political rhetoric and the social reality experienced by ordinary people (see also Pelkmans & Machold, 2011; Sutton, 2003). As a consequence the appeal of conspiracy theories increased.
This observation might also partially explain why we did not replicate the findings by van Prooijen, Krouwel and Pollet (2015), where conspiracy theories were endorsed mainly by extremists compared to moderates, depicting a positive curvilinear effect. In our results, there was no significant correlation between political self-positioning and attribution to conspiracy theories: In the context of this specific economic crisis, we may argue that this sense of ‘persecution’ is not linked to individual political ideology, but maybe to one’s feeling of being ordinary people oppressed by powerful (international) politics (Pelkmans & Machold, 2011). In this way, the belief that malevolent ‘unknown others’ oppress people becomes a shared representation among the non-elites, independently of their political view. Another interesting result about the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs is that it is a motivator of political participation (illegal and legal activism, and economic resistance), also beyond the effects of ideology and personal vulnerability. Thus, our results show a possible positive effect of conspiracism as an engine to social change attempts. It is worthwhile noting that this contrasts previous research showing that conspiracy theorizing decreases civic engagement (e.g., Jolley & Douglas, 2014). Such different findings may be due to the subjective high relevance and importance of the immediate economic crisis consequences for the individuals in our study.
Our findings highlighted the role of the left–right dimension for individuals’ ability to orient themselves in economics and politics (Kroh, 2007). Concerning the causes of the crisis, the lack of effects on conspiracy theories, and on the failures of the financial and political systems may simply reflect a diffuse very negative representation of the reality that is shared across the whole political spectrum. Instead, the effects of political self-positioning on attribution to inequality system and overconsumption (Figure 1) are better represented when considering both linear and curvilinear associations (see van Prooijen, Krouwel, Boitenet al., 2015). Specifically, centrists and right-wingers share a lower attribution of the crisis to a system of inequality which is endorsed by leftists. There is a tendency for this cause to be less endorsed by centrists. On the contrary, when it comes to overconsumption, those who positioned themselves as centrists endorsed this cause more than people positioned at the ends of the political spectrum. Thus, it seems that people who position themselves in the center consider that the crisis is less due to systemic inequalities and attribute it to more individually oriented causes with a blaming connotation such as overconsumption.
A curvilinear relationship was also the best way to describe the relationships between political ideology and the support for crisis management strategies. People self-positioned at both left and right poles were less inclined than centrists to accept austerity, which increases population’s vulnerability (Cavero & Poinasamy, 2013). Thus, conforming to EU requests and public sector rationalization were less judged as useful to solve the crisis. On the contrary, left- and right-wingers – more than centrists – considered it useful to exit the Eurozone, confirming previous research on Euroscepticism (Lubbers & Scheepers, 2010; Steenbergen, Edwards, & De Vries, 2007). The opinions of the centrists conform more to the European Union dictate of austerity. It is noteworthy that those considered moderates politically were expressing political views in accordance with individualistic values and harsher views towards vulnerable groups. Future research should investigate whether, in expressing their opinions, centrists take into account the difficulties that austerity brings to some groups.
Our results showed that centrists endorsed harsher austerity measures and were less engaged to take part in conflictual action than people self-positioned at the left or right pole. Considering these findings, one could argue that in time of crisis, centrists do not behave as moderates, they appear more as conformists and less keen to change the situation. Indeed, recent research has deeply questioned that self-positioning on the left-right spectrum as centrist is equal to representing oneself as a moderate – that is, the genuine mid-point location between left and right ideology (Rodon, 2015; Scholtz & Zuell, 2016). Indeed, being moderate may sometimes reflect the lack of political sophistication and/or individuals’ voting patterns – namely, result of parties’ ideological distribution on the left-right scale (Rodon, 2015). Future research in this domain might better investigate what motivates (e.g., fear) respondents’ self-positioning on the left-right spectrum. For instance, it might be worthwhile testing the presence of a motivated social cognition (Jost, Krochik, et al., 2009), according to which threatening situations lead to a shift of right-wingers to more progressive policies and centrists to more conservative shifts. It could also be that the effects we observed on centrists, were the result of the ideology of a class that aspires to social mobility and see itself as exonerated from the consequences of austerity reserved to undeserving others.
Respondents showed, in general, quite low intentions to act against the crisis. However, it is worthwhile noticing that Greeks who were under harsher conditions, expressed higher intentions compared to Italians. Political orientation was also a consistent predictor of all the four types of political participation. Its linear effect revealed that in general right-wingers are less prone to take action than left-wingers in order to change the society. However, the curvilinear effect established a more nuanced picture. While for legal activities the quadratic effects were quite smoothed (but significant), when considering violent forms of participation, the curvilinear effect showed that people self-positioned at the center differentiate themselves from those at the poles. These results partially disconfirm previous research depicting leftists as more prone to violent reactions to promote social change than right-wingers (Dalton, 2014), or suggesting no relation between these two variables (Rudig & Karyotis, 2014).
It is important to clarify that here we measured political ideology as a self-positioning variable with a single item. If the intention is to measure ideology more broadly one should definitively use multi-item and/or multi-dimension scales (Jost, Federico et al., 2009). Additionally, it would be interesting to relate political orientation with party identification, since in multi-party systems it is observed that the distinction between left-right contents is not so clear and both conservative and progressive parties might share worldview or values that support the actual socio-economic system (see Corbetta et al., 2009; Mair, 2007). In any case, dissatisfaction with policies and blurred boundaries between left and right might increase support for populists and far right movements. Thus, more research is needed on these topics.
To conclude, we believe that our results, despite limitations, illustrated how social psychology may be useful to depict the socio-political lay interpretations of threatening and complex situations such as the economic crisis and how these interpretations may fuel people’s reactions to overcome the situation.
1The 6-factor structure was also confirmed for an additional French sample, that was not considered in our study, since not all the key variables were collected in that country.
2The 3-factor solution was also confirmed in a French sample (see Papastamou et al, 2018).
3While for the crisis’ causes and strategies we relied on the CFA based on a 3-country sample (Greece, Italy, and France) described by Papastamou and colleagues (2018), for political participation we preferred an EFA approach, because we did not hypothesize an a priori factor structure.
4For the sake of simplicity, here we present the results by including directly the quadratic effect of political orientation in the second step along with its linear effect. We then performed an additional check, by adding the quadratic effect alone in a third step. In this case, findings did not change: the quadratic effect, when significant, contributed significantly also to the increment of explained variance.
5As an additional check with explorative purposes, we built the 2-way and 3-way interaction terms between the key variables (political orientation and vulnerability) and country. We then added them in each regression model (Model 3). For the sake of parsimony, we only report the significant effects. A significant interaction country × vulnerability (Βst = .27, p = .024) was found on crisis caused by ‘obscure power conspiracy’ which was more endorsed by vulnerable Greeks than Italians. For the cause ‘inequality system’, we found an interaction country × political orientation (Βst = –.22, p < .001), endorsed more by Italian right-wingers than Greek right-wingers. Finally, we found a country × vulnerability effect on the political system as cause (Βst = –.38, p = .009), endorsed less by vulnerable Italians than Greeks. No other significant interactions were found.
6Also for the strategies, we checked the 2-way and 3-way interaction terms’ effects with explorative purposes. We found a significant interaction effect of country × political orientation (Βst = .16, p = .002) for conformism to EU requests; Βst = .21, p < .001 for public sector rationalization), indicating that this linear effect was mainly driven by Greek respondents. In the case of the strategy of public sector rationalization, we found a significant interaction involving country × political orientation quadratic (Βst = –.19, p = .001): the decomposition revealed that a negative quadratic effect was greater for Greeks than Italians. Finally, when the strategy considered was exit the Eurozone, an interaction country × political orientation emerged (Βst = –.35,p < .001): The decomposition of the effect, showed that linear effects in the two subsamples were in opposite directions, resembling the national local political debate to exit or not the Eurozone, by political parties of both sides. In predicting this strategy, we also found a country × vulnerability interaction (Βst = .45, p < .001), indicating a greater value for Grexit for more vulnerable Greek participants.
7Before proceeding with Model 3 (Table 5), for explorative purposes we checked the 2-way and 3-way interaction terms’ effects, as we did for the causes and the strategies. We found significant interactions effect country × political orientation (Βst = –.14, p = .006, indicating stronger intentions of Greek leftists than Italian leftists to engage in violent action) and country × vulnerability interaction (Βst = .48, p < .001, indicating stronger intentions of Greek more vulnerable respondents than Italian ones). However, the former effect disappeared when considering the additional variables of Model 3.
The additional files for this article can be found as follows:
Additional file 1: Appendix. Factor Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analyses of the Political Participation Intentions, for the Sub- and Total Samples. https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.95.s1
We would like to thank Giorgio Brioschi, Elena Scorza and Rita Scorza and for their helping with data collection.
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Alstom, IGE+XAO and Safran create a Centre of Excellence
Alstom, IGE+XAO and Safran are strengthening their collaboration by creating a Centre of Excellence in Toulouse for the engineering of onboard railway electrical systems. Located on the site of the aeronautical equipment manufacturer Safran Electrical & Power, this international Centre of Excellence will be able to accommodate up to 100 engineers. Using the packages of the software publisher IGE+XAO and relying on its technical support, the Centre of Excellence will develop the railway electrical systems of today, from design to standardisation and operational maintenance of the electrical products of Alstom's transport solutions. Its activities will also focus on innovation by developing the systems of tomorrow.
As part of the agreement signed today with Alstom, IGE+XAO, publisher of software solutions for the design, simulation and manufacturing of electrical systems, is providing its expertise in terms of its software and associated services. Partners since 2011, Alstom and IGE+XAO have achieved a significant milestone with the signature of a technical and commercial contract over a 5-year period. IGE+XAO will provide its software suites dedicated to the lifecycle management of electrical systems, as well as a service offer ranging from software validation to user assistance, including training and management of the hardware platform.
Similarly, Alstom and Safran are signing an agreement today focusing on electrical product design. The agreement follows a partnership between the two groups announced in 2017. This new stage in the collaboration between Alstom and Safran responds to an increasing need to share best practices between the worlds of aeronautics and rail. Safran Electrical & Power, the world leader in the field of aeronautical cabling, is providing Alstom with a team of experts in the design and standardisation of electrical systems.
"With its new development methods, the Centre of Excellence will help to strengthen Alstom's skills and responsiveness in the field of onboard electrical systems, by benefiting in a collaborative environment both from the best practices of the aeronautical sector, which is leading the way in this field, and the proximity of IGE+XAO's teams, experts in the railway electrical industry. It will be one of Alstom's assets in meeting the challenges of tomorrow's mobility," said Thierry Best, Alstom's Director of Operations. "This Centre of Excellence will thus contribute to developing projects such as the Athens tram, the new-generation RER or the future TGV, which will benefit fully from its services."
"The creation of this Centre of Excellence is a first for IGE+XAO. It is the culmination of, on the one hand, a fruitful partnership with two customers of reference, Alstom and Safran, and, on the other, the maturity of our PLM software suite dedicated to the design, simulation and manufacture of electrical systems. The Centre of Excellence we are creating today, in terms of its outlook and composition, is a world premiere, and our teams are proud to work in it and be counted among the actors of mobility today and tomorrow," said Alain Di Crescenzo, Chief Executive Officer of the Group IGE+XAO.
"It's through our subsidiary Safran Engineering Services that we will provide Alstom with our two-fold competence in engineering and electrical services. In recent years, our teams have been involved in the development of major programmes in aeronautics and are enthusiastic about the idea of migrating the sector's good practices to rail. Managing complexity, concurrent engineering and the global dimension of the teams and the customers are all bridges between these two sectors," said Alain Sauret, President of Safran Electrical & Power.
Rail mobility solutions are facing a transformation of user habits and services. They must now be modular to facilitate operation, adaptable to meet local or individual characteristics, and scalable to incorporate new technologies (Wi-Fi, passenger comfort, management of passenger flows, increased safety of goods and people, new connected products, predictive maintenance...). The Centre of Excellence will thus make it possible to study the needs of passengers and operators in a pre-emptive way, while benefiting from a collaborative environment, the "Trinity LAB", conducive to reflection on requirements in the field of mobility.
About Safran Electrical & Power
Safran is an international high-technology group, operating in the aircraft propulsion and equipment, space and defense markets. Safran has a global presence, with more than 58,000 employees and sales of 16.5 billion euros in 2017. Safran is listed on the Euronext Paris stock exchange, and is part of the CAC 40 and Euro Stoxx 50 indices. Including Zodiac Aerospace, acquired by Safran in February 2018, the Group has over 91,000 employees and would have around €21 billion in adjusted revenues (pro forma 2016).
Safran Electrical & Power is one of the world market leaders in electrical systems in aeronautics, number 1 in wiring and number 2 in power systems. A key player in the field of more electric aircraft, the company employs more than 13,000 people in 12 countries.
For more information: www.safran-group.com and www.safran-electrical-power.com / Follow us on Twitter @Safran and @SafranElectric
About Alstom
As a promoter of sustainable mobility, Alstom develops and markets systems, equipment and services for the transport sector. Alstom offers a complete range of solutions (from high-speed trains to metros, tramways and e-buses), passenger solutions, customised services (maintenance, modernisation), infrastructure, signalling and digital mobility solutions. Alstom is a world leader in integrated transport systems. The company recorded sales of €8.0 billion and booked €7.2 billion of orders in the 2017/18 fiscal year. Headquartered in France, Alstom is present in over 60 countries and employs 34,500 people.
www.alstom.com
About the IGE+XAO Group
For over 32 years, the IGE+XAO Group has been a software publisher designing, producing, selling and supporting a range of Computer Aided Design (CAD), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Simulation software dedicated to Electrical Engineering. These software products have been designed to help companies in the design and maintenance of the electrical part of any type of installation. This type of CAD/PLM/Simulation is called "Electrical CAD/PLM/Simulation". Since mid-2014 with the takeover of Prosyst, IGE+XAO also offers a complete software range for electrical installation functional simulation. IGE+XAO employs 380 people around the world in 33 sites and in 22 countries, and has more than 90,800 licenses distributed around the world. IGE+XAO is a reference in its field. For more information: http://www.ige-xao.com
Mélodie Susini
Safran Electrical & Power
melodie.susini@safrangroup.com
Christopher English
christopher.english@alstomgroup.com
Samuel Miller
samuel.miller@alstomgroup.com
Christian Colin
IGE+XAO
Safran extends its partnership with Cailabs to optimize the entire optical chain of its electrical wiring
Safran signs an engine harness maintenance contract with Lufthansa Technik
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Casual Discussion Science Forum @scivillage › Science › Astrophysics, Cosmology & Astronomy
A possible mechanism for dark energy
Magical Realist
Feb 11, 2019 10:19 PM (This post was last modified: Feb 11, 2019 10:22 PM by Magical Realist.)
https://www.space.com/42178-bringing-dar...light.html
"Let's talk about dark energy. We've known for about 20 years that the expansion of our universe is accelerating; every day, our cosmos grows bigger and bigger, doing so faster and faster. It's a subtle effect, and it takes extensive and deep cosmological surveys and studies for scientists to notice it. But multiple independent lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: accelerating expansion.
Astronomers quickly cooked up a cool name for that accelerated expansion: dark energy. But now we’re left with the much harder job of finding a culprit — what's causing it?
A universal mistake
We use general relativity, Albert Einstein's magnum opus, to understand gravity in all its manifestations, including the expansion of the universe. But the theory's equations have some wiggle room. Specifically, they allow for a so-called "cosmological constant," a fixed term that can be appended to the end. Adding this constant doesn't change the theory's descriptions of normal, everyday gravitational interactions, but it does make itself known when you're calculating the expansion of the universe.
Our natural inclination would be to set this constant to zero and forget about it, but Einstein himself introduced it because he found that without it, his relativity predicted a dynamic universe. At the time, both physicists and the general public thought of the cosmos as static and unchanging, so Einstein set a value for the constant to prevent those dynamic predictions. And then astronomer Edwin Hubble showed everyone that we do indeed live in an expanding universe, and Einstein realized that he'd missed a golden opportunity to predict that revolutionary observation. Oh, well.
But nowadays, we're faced with accelerated expansion, and the simplest explanation we have for it is that is that dark energy is simply Einstein's original cosmological constant. But the constant by itself is just a number — what's its physical significance?
Look to the vacuum
In the 1960s, Soviet astrophysicist and all-around-genius Yakov Zel'dovich made a startling connection. The cosmological constant that appears in Einstein's equations is none other than the vacuum energy that quantum field theory predicts.
According to that theory, a suite of quantum fields permeates all of space-time. Sometimes, portions of these fields get excited and move around, and this is what we identify as particles. But left unperturbed, the fields are still associated with an energy. In other words, the empty vacuum of space-time has a raw energy, and that energy can be identified a the cosmological constant in general relativity, which means it might be the dark energy itself.
So, now that we have some sort of trail to follow, what do we predict the value of dark energy to be? The math isn't easy, but you just have to turn the quantum field theory crank, and out pops … infinity. Well, that's not going to work.
There are games you can play to make the predicted value for dark energy not infinity, but no matter what you do, you always end up with a very large number. But what about the actual, observed amount of dark energy, the one calculated from the accelerated expansion rate? It's very small: the energy equivalent of a little less than 1 hydrogen atom per cubic meter (35 cubic feet).
That "minor" discrepancy between dark energy's predicted value and the observed expansion rate is one of the biggest puzzles in modern physics. And its full resolution will probably come only with a true reckoning between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Until then, we should probably understand how a vacuum energy can accelerate expansion.
Pull to push
This is one of those weird cases in which the math behind the physics is totally straightforward and unambiguous: Simply put, a constant vacuum energy causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. But putting this conclusion into words so that we can intuitively understand it is another matter entirely, one that cosmologists have struggled with for decades.
I'm going to give it a shot myself, but if you just want to say to yourself, "because the math says so," and skip to the next section, I won't blame you.
Two key properties of a vacuum energy affect expansion. One is the vacuum's persistence; as the universe expands, there's more space, so there's more vacuum, so there's more vacuum energy. So, in our evolving cosmos, we find more and more dark energy lying around. The second vacuum property that's key for expansion is that the vacuum has tension (usually, confusingly, referred to as "negative pressure," but same deal). This tension resists the expansion of the universe; it's trying to rein in the expanding cosmos.
Put these two properties together and you get the complete opposite of what you may expect. This is because the equations of general relativity count all sources of energy to determine the behavior of the expansion of the universe, and different sources of energy can contribute positive or negative effects. So, the raw energy of the vacuum gets counted, which would be an attractive contribution, slowing down the expansion of the universe. But so does the vacuum's tension, which actually contributes repulsively., In other words, in the math of general relativity, the tension from dark energy carries a minus sign with it, and contributes to accelerating the expansion of the universe).
It turns out that general relativity cares more about pressure and tension than raw energy. This is something wholly unfamiliar to us in our everyday experience; in almost all other cases, such as the motions in the solar system or even in the vicinity of black holes, the pressure/tension doesn't matter in the calculation. But it matters here.
The ultimate irony is that even though we're getting more and more dark energy every day, which would normally try to shrink the cosmos, its own resistance to that expansion causes the whole equation to flip around and instead accelerate the universe's growth.
The above explanation may or may not have been satisfying. Again, the math is clear, but there is no simple way to translate those equations to English. Nevertheless, the behavior of vacuum energy is currently our best explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe. And it's not the greatest one. As we saw, we are severely lacking in our ability to predict the amount of acceleration.
While the existence of dark energy is beyond doubt, its cause is ultimately unknown. We have some likely suspects but no hard evidence. We need more sleuthing, measuring the universe's expansion rate and the history of the expansion rate to ever-greater precision. But because dark energy is a very subtle effect, it will take an entirely new generation of observations to (hopefully) reveal some answers."
Dark energy isn't a property of the vacuum, it's a property of matter/energy. There is a simple way to translate the equations, if you accept that what you think dark matter is trying to do to spacetime is what it is successfully doing to matter. A constant cycle speed seems to accelerate as the length of the cycle shortens, just like moving from the edge of a spinning wheel toward its center.
What Astronomers Wish Everyone Knew About Dark Matter & Dark Energy C C 0 191 Apr 11, 2018 08:03 PM
Einstiens biggest blunder was Discovering Dark Energy ? RainbowUnicorn 1 155 Jun 5, 2017 07:04 PM
Dark energy an effect of the quantum vacuum? Magical Realist 0 424 Jan 5, 2015 08:40 PM
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Home / Governance
The World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) is made up of 170 National Scout Organizations all over the world, divided into six Regions: Africa, Arab, Asia-Pacific, Eurasia, Europe and Interamerica. The World Scout Conference, which takes place every three years, is the governing body of WOSM. It elects a World Scout Committee, which is the executive body of the organisation. The World Scout Bureau is the secretariat and is headed by a Secretary General.
The World Scout Conference
The World Scout Conference is the governing body, the "general assembly" of Scouting, and is composed of all the members of the World Organization: the National Scout Organizations (NSOs). An NSO can have a maximum of six delegates at a World Scout Conference.
The function of the Conference is to consider the policy and standards of the Scout Movement throughout the world, formulate the general policy of the World Organization, and take the action required to further the purpose of the Movement. The Conference takes place every three years. In addition to delegates, observers authorised by their National Scout Organization are also eligible to attend the event. Delegations usually include International Commissioners, the Scout responsible for relations with WOSM and with Scout Organizations in other countries.
In conjunction to the Conference, a World Scout Youth Forum is held. Through preparing inputs and making recommendations to the World Scout Conference and to the World Scout Committee, participants develop the skills necessary to take part in decision-making processes. The Youth Forum is open to members aged 18-26, of which many are also delegates at the World Scout Conference. The World Scout Youth Forum is considered as an interim measure to improve youth involvement in decision-making at world level.
Functions of the Conference includes electing members of the World Scout Committee, admitting new member countries, and selecting the venues for forthcoming World Scout Events, namely the World Scout Jamboree, the World Scout Moot, the World Scout Conference and the World Scout Youth Forum. The most recent World Scout Conference and World Scout Youth Forum took place in 2017 in Azerbaijan and the next will take place in 2020 in Egypt.
Click here to go to the World Scout Conference Resolutions Database.
Documentation from previous World Scout Conferences:
41st World Scout Conference (2017)
40th World Scout Conference (2014)
The World Scout Committee
The World Scout Committee is the executive body of WOSM. It is responsible for the implementation of the resolutions of the World Scout Conference and for acting on its behalf between its meetings. The Committee is composed of the following members:
Voting members:
Twelve elected members, each from a different country. They are elected by the World Scout Conference by secret ballot, for a three-year term. The elected members are eligible for re-election for an additional term, serving a maximum of six consecutive years.
Ex-officio non-voting members:
The Chairperson or Vice-Chairperson of each duly elected Regional Scout Committee
The Secretary General of WOSM
The Treasurer, who is appointed by the World Scout Committee
A member of the Board of the World Scout Foundation
The Committee normally meets twice a year. Its Steering Committee, consisting of the Chairperson, two Vice-Chairpersons and the Secretary General, meets as needed. Current World Scout Committee members.
Standing Orders of the World Scout Committee The Standing Orders for the Operation of the World Scout Committee and its Substructures (English/French version) was adopted by the World Scout Committee of the 2017-2020 Triennium. The purpose of which is to provide a common operational framework and a set of standards for the World Scout Committee and its substructures which are consistent with WOSM’s Constitution. The standing orders refer to a number of policies, terms of references and other documents approved by the World Scout Committee. You can find these documents on the World Scout Committee section on the Intranet.
World Scout Committee Conflict of Interest Policy The purpose of this Conflict of Interest Policy is to prevent the institutional or personal interests of the World Scout Committee (WSC) members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) from interfering with the performance of their duties and to see that there is no personal, professional, or political gain at the expense of WOSM. This policy is not designed to eliminate relationships and activities that may create a duality of interest, but to require the disclosure of any conflict of interest and the non-participation of any interested party in a decision relating thereto. Read more in World Scout Committee Conflict of Interest Policy and Conflict of Interest Registry
Youth Advisors
The World Scout Youth Forum elects six Youth Advisors, whose role is to increase youth participation in the decision making of the organisation. They are elected for a three-year term and take part in the meetings of the World Scout Committee. Youth Advisors, each from a different country, are elected while they are aged 18-26. Current Youth Advisors.
Consultative Status
A number of organisations enjoy Consultative Status with the World Scout Committee. The Consultative Status granted to an organisation is reviewed every three years at the first meeting of the World Scout Committee following a World Scout Conference. For more information and a complete list of organisations with Consultative Status, click here.
Consolidated Financial Statements as at 30 September 2018
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The Inglorious Arts: An Alec Brno Novel (Paperback)
By Alan Hruska
Seasoned New York lawyer Alec Brno, first introduced in Pardon the Ravens, is tested again by overlapping personal and professional crises. Early on, he's asked to rescue his firm's oldest client, who is being sued vindictively by a giant public utility, as well as the firm's largest client, embroiled in a politically motivated suit before a lunatic federal judge. To avoid crippling results, and the loss of more than 200,000 jobs, Alec must somehow get rid of both cases almost immediately and stop thousands of others from suing.
This seemingly impossible assignment arrives as Alec's adopted sixteen-year-old daughter, the inheritor of a Mafia fortune, is targeted in a sex-slave scheme by her uncle, the capo famiglia. Distractions only intensify when Alec's beautiful sister-in-law, who arrives from Dublin, looking and acting so much like his deceased wife, becomes a board piece in the Mob game. The Inglorious Arts follows Alec's heroics as he deals with corporate intrigues, political maneuvering, two high-stakes courtroom battles, Mob terror, and the frantic race to save the lives of the women he loves.
Alan Hruska is the author of the novels Wrong Man Running, Pardon the Ravens, It Happened at Two in the Morning, the writer of several plays produced in New York and London, and the writer and director of the films Reunion, The Warrior Class, and, most recently, The Man on Her Mind. A New York native and a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, he is a former trial lawyer who was involved in the some of the most significant litigation of the last half of the twentieth century. The Inglorious Arts is his fifth novel.
Publisher: Prospect Park Books
Thrillers - Legal
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Roy, UT – Seven Car Collision on Interstate 15
By Utah Legal News Accident News injury accident on Interstate 15, Interstate 15 Sees Seven Car PileUp, Multi-Vehicle Accident on Interstate 15, Roy, Seven Car Collision on Interstate 15, Woman Injured in Seven Car Pileup on Interstate 15
Roy, UT (April 18, 2019) – A huge traffic accident took place on Thursday, April 18th that affected all lanes of traffic on Interstate 15. The accident reportedly occurred shortly before 4:00 in the afternoon.
Officers from the Utah Highway Patrol and other emergency responders arrived at the scene of an accident that involved seven different wrecked vehicles on Interstate 15 near 5600 South.
Initial reports seem to indicate that a vehicle was traveling at a speed that was not conducive to the rush hour back up on the interstate and, as a result, initiated a seven-car pile-up that shut down a portion of the Interstate 15 for almost two hours. Six of the seven cars involved in the wreck had to be towed away from the scene of the accident.
One woman, whose identity has not yet been released, received emergency transportation to a local hospital for medical treatment. Her condition has not been listed or updated at this time. Several other victims received medical care at the scene but did not require emergency transportation.
We wish the person who was injured in the highway accident a full and speedy recovery from her injuries.
Highway Accidents in Roy
Every year, more than 26,700 people sustain injuries from car accidents throughout the state of Utah. These car accidents usually have a disastrous effect on the lives of the people involved.
When someone is involved in a vehicle collision, they frequently go into shock shortly after the impact. They could undergo a surge of adrenaline and possibly not even realize the severity of the injuries that they have sustained until much later. Those who have been injured in car accidents that were caused by negligent drivers are strongly advised to contact a car accident attorney in Utah as soon as they are able.
Our team of diligent Utah personal injury attorneys at Siegfried & Jensen have more than three decades of experience helping victims get the justice and restitution they deserve. We have had the privilege of assisting thousands of victims in recovering financial compensation for their legal claims. Contact our law firm today at (801) 845-2799 to speak with a skilled and reputable accident injury attorney in Utah to see what legal options are available for you.
Note: This post was created specifically using secondary sources. It is to be used independently from Siegfried & Jensen. Our staff has not independently confirmed the information used within these sources and, if anything appears incorrect, please reach out and inform us so that we can promptly make corrections as needed.
Disclaimer: At Siegfried & Jensen, we intend to honor the victims of horrific Utah accidents and inform the public about how to avoid these accidents and what can be done in the event of one. Please do not use this information as legal or medical advice.
Kaysville, UT – Accident On Northbound I-15 Near 1800 South/Burton Lane Causes Delays And Injuries
Kaysville, UT (March 8, 2019) – On Friday, just after 4:30 p.m., Utah Highway Patrol Officers and emergency crews... read more
Hurricane, UT – Man Bitten by Dog in Front of Owner
Hurricane, UT (April 16, 2019) – A Hurricane resident was injured on Tuesday afternoon when he was bitten several... read more
Taylorsville, UT – Accident On 5000 South Near Redwood Road
Taylorsville, UT (February 22, 2019) – On Friday, just after 3:00 p.m., Utah Highway Patrol received a notice regarding... read more
Vineyard, UT – Child Killed On Scooter Near Vineyard Elementary School
Vineyard, UT (March 27, 2019) – Just after 4:20 p.m., the Utah County Sheriff’s spokesman Spencer Cannon posted to... read more
Springville, UT – Accident On Southbound I-15 Near 400 South Causes Traffic Delays And Injuries
Springville, UT (March 19, 2019) – On Monday, just before 5:00 p.m., Utah Highway Patrol responded to the scene... read more
St. George, UT – Injuries Reported After T-Bone Crash On Tabernacle
St. George, UT (April 11, 2019) – Around 8 a.m., April 11, St. George Police and emergency crews responded... read more
St. George, UT – Rollover Accident on Interstate 15 Leads to DUI Arrest
St. George, UT (March 3, 2019) – A rollover accident took place on Interstate 15 that led to an... read more
South Jordan, UT – Rear-End Accident Leads to Fatality of Child on Bangerter Hwy and 10400 South
South Jordan, UT (February 10, 2019) – On Wednesday of this week, a rear-end accident occurred that led to... read more
Stages Of A Personal Injury Case In Utah
If you have been injured in an accident, you may consider the option of filing a personal injury lawsuit... read more
Kaysville, UT – Crash On Northbound I-15 At Milepost 328 Closes Three Lanes
Kaysville, Davis County, UT (February 19, 2019) – Utah Highway Patrol responded to a car accident around 1:00 p.m.... read more
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2004: Acuris
In the last of our series of Throwback Thursday posts, we present the 2004 Acuris. With Acuris hearing aids both sides constantly exchanged large volumes of data and adjusted to any hearing situation, in sync with each other.
Hearing aids that communicated.
Conventional hearing aids worn on both sides work independently of each other. That means possible delays in signal processing that make it harder for the wearer to hear with a sense of space. Working to find a solution to this problem, Siemens developed a hearing aid featuring the world’s smallest wireless device. With Acuris hearing aids both sides constantly exchanged large volumes of data and adjusted to any listening situation in sync with each other.
Acuris product range
People with poor hearing on both sides should wear a hearing aid in each ear, so that their brain can process information from its surroundings carefully and localize the source of the sounds more easily. This ability is also tremendously important in terms of personal safety. To be able to react appropriately in traffic we have to be able to sense the direction from which other drivers are coming.
Siemens launched Acuris in 2004 as the world’s first hearing aids where the right and left devices synchronized wirelessly on an ongoing basis. They analyzed the hearing situation and exchanged data constantly in order to reach the perfect setting in harmony with one another. This allowed the wearer’s brain to be supplied with the necessary information equally from both ears. People with hearing loss on both sides found their ability to localize the source of a sound perfectly restored, while also benefiting from enhanced sound quality and better directional hearing. This was made possible by Siemens’ e2e® (ear-to-ear) wireless radio technology — the smallest wireless system in the world.
The wireless connection also helped with operating the devices. In older hearing aids, the volume and programs still had to be set separately for each side, but since the launch of Acuris, controls on one hearing aid can be used to adjust both. For the in-the-ear (ITE) Acuris model, this meant that the volume control and program button could be installed separately, one on each side. This saved space — a development that pleased the engineers greatly, as the wireless technology posed a new challenge. Besides the conventional components, an antenna and all the radio components also had to fit inside the housing.
In 2012, German president Joachim Gauck presented the team of researchers from the University of Oldenburg and engineers from Siemens Audiology Solutions with the prestigious Deutscher Zukunftspreis for this binaural hearing aid technology — Germany’s highest award for technology and innovation.
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Clifford, Clifford, Nr Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire
For sale by Formal Tender, tenders to be received by 2pm Wednesday 31st July 2019. A substantial six-bedroom Grade II * Listed period stone rural residence. Significant range of traditional and modern farm buildings with further grounds and paddocks extending to approximately 11.19 acres.
The Farmhouse & Traditional Barns
The property comprises Lower Court Farmhouse and an impressive range of traditional buildings and modern agricultural buildings with further grounds and paddocks extending to approximately 11.19 acres.
The farmhouse is Grade II* Listed and has origins going back to the 14th century with additions being made in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries to create the delightful and extensive property which exists today.
The farmhouse and buildings are a few miles east of the popular and busy market town of Hay-on-Wye which offers a wide range of services and facilities, including independent boutique shops, cafes, restaurants, doctors' surgery, dental surgeries, library, post office, cinema and primary school. Hay-on-Wye is also well known for its annual literary festival held each Spring.
The Brecon Beacons National Park is nearby offering a further range of recreational activities and the River Wye is highly regarded for its salmon fishing. There are local racecourses at Hereford, Ludlow, Chepstow and Cheltenham. There is also a wide selection of well-regarded independent and state schools in the area. Access to the motorway network is at Ross-on-Wye providing links to the M50, M5 and the M4 at Bristol.
The accommodation is well proportioned and many of the original and period features have been retained, however there is still further potential for enhancement. The residence enjoys beautiful views, towards Clifford Castle, from the surrounding gardens and also the woodlands beyond.
The property is accessed through the front door into a small hallway with a cloakroom and cupboard storage. The kitchen is characterful with extensive exposed beams and timber with a fitted solid wood kitchen, integral appliances and a four oven Aga with an electric hob.
A door leads to the pantry area with a back staircase leading to the first-floor landing. A further door leads from the kitchen into the dog room and further on into a washroom with access to the offices. Off the kitchen a door leads into the larder and utility rooms with a side door to the back yard.
The dining room, being one of the older parts of the house, has beautiful exposed beams and timber sections with loop windows. The dining room opens out, through a set of double doors, into the conservatory which enjoys a delightful southerly aspect with an outlook over the garden. A further set of double doors lead to the large garden room with a fireplace and patio doors.
The sitting room has an Inglenook fireplace, Clearview stove, bay window and a door leading to the garden. From the sitting room there is a library with a fireplace, bay window and fitted shelving. The sitting room also has a door back into the kitchen and stairs to the spacious landing.
On the first floor there are six bedrooms, the main bedroom has fitted wardrobes, drawer units and a dressing area which opens into an en-suite bathroom with a power shower cabinet, close coupled w.c. And bath.
The family bathroom has a power shower, bath and a separate w.c. Through the attic area a door leads into the snooker room which also adjoins the traditional farm buildings.
1. Traditional Listed former granary, converted to a workshop of timber frame and stone construction. 2.6m x 6.9m (8'6 x 22'8).
2. Roadside traditional barn with a stone roof 15.8m x 6.2m (51'10 x 20'4).
3. Listed traditional timber frame barn with three framed bays 31.5m x 7.1m
(103'4 x 23'4) and 6.8m x 11.5m
(22'4 x 37'9).
4. Attached timber clad lean-to triple garage.
5. Four bay open frame span shed with curved tin roof and a concrete floor 15.7m x 13m (51'6 x 42'8).
6. Three bay steel portal frame barn 12.3m x 15.5m (40'4 x 50'10).
7. Traditional stone barn.
Buildings Cont'd
8. Timber frame lean-to barn with side manger 19m x 6.9m (62'4 x 22'8).
9. Pole barn 13.4m x 7.7m (44'0 x 25'3).
10. Large detached timber clad garage with concrete block rear extension offering further potential 15.3m x 7.6m (50'2 x 24'11).
These buildings may have potential for a development scheme, subject to the necessary planning consents.
The property is accessed from the village road into the yard with ample parking areas and a door into the integral garage. Immediately to the front of the house there is a delightful garden leading to the side and rear with well stocked borders.
To the west is a covered swimming pool with heating and filtration system. Next to the garden there is a hard tennis court. There is also a productive vegetable garden with raised beds, fruit trees, soft fruit cages and a greenhouse measuring 5m x 2.5m.
Paddock and Stables
The two paddocks extend to approximately 5.28 acres and gently rises to the southern boundary formed by the former railway line.
This property is ideal for equestrian use when combined with the existing stable yard and further outbuildings.
The stable yard to the south of the house, of mixed stone and timber construction, has seven loose boxes and storage with water and power. The stable yard can also be separately accessed through a vehicular gateway from the Church Road and via the farmyard.
These are located next to the traditional buildings and have their own separate access onto the B4350. The site is approximately 3 acres. With its location near the centre of the village the site may have potential for alternative uses subject to planning and other statutory requirements.
The buildings were formerly used as part of a dairy enterprise and have been adapted for mixed farming purposes. The principal buildings including approximate external dimensions are:-
11. Six bay Dutch barn with grain pit (27.4m x 9.1m) (89'11 x 29'10)
with attached steel frame lean-to. (27.4m x 9.1m) (89'11 x 29'10)
12. Steel portal frame shed with concrete floor and part concrete panel retaining walls. (45.75m x 20m) (150'1 x 65'7)
13. Former dairy buildings of metal frame and concrete block construction. (29.1m x 7.6m) (95'6 x 24'11)
14. Site of two former railway sleeper silage pits.
Lower Court is being offered for sale by formal tender. A copy of the sale contract and legal documentation will be available from the Vendors solicitors. Prospective purchasers should carry out their own enquiries before submitting any tender for the property. The Tender is legally binding. The Vendors reserve the right not to accept the highest bid or indeed any offer and they reserve the right to accept an offer before the tender date. The completed tender pack and contract must be received at the Sunderlands Hay-on-Wye office by 2pm on Wednesday 31st July 2019, the address is 3 Pavement House, The Pavement, Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire HR3 5BU. Envelopes must be marked LOWER COURT TENDER accompanied by a cheque made out to LAMBE CORNER SOLICITORS for 10% of the purchase price. Completion will be set for 15th November 2019.
We understand the property is offered as freehold. Vacant possession will be available for the house and paddocks. The vendors reserve the right to retain a licence on the modern buildings fixed until Monday 2nd March 2020.
Planning for Development
The property is within the local authority of Herefordshire Council and the parish of Clifford. A scoping report for Clifford Neighbourhood Area dated August 2017 is available on the Herefordshire Council website.
This states that, in the Clifford NDP area there is call for 30 new dwellings up to 2031.
THERE WILL BE NO UPLIFT CLAUSE ON ANY OF THE LAND OR BUILDINGS.
Timber, Sporting & Mineral Rights
So far as they are owned these are included within the freehold sale
Wayleaves, Easements & Rights of Way
The property is sold subject to and with the benefit of all easements, quasi easements, wayleaves and rights of way both declared and undeclared.
At present there is a single mains supply serving the property. Mains water, mains electricity and 3 phase. Private drainage to a septic tank.
Council Tax Band
Farmhouse Herefordshire Tax Band G .
The Agents are advised that the property is connected to mains water and electricity, private drainage and oil central heating. Please note the services are not tested.
The purchaser(s) shall be deemed to have full knowledge of the boundaries and neither the vendor nor the vendor's agents will be responsible for defining the boundaries or ownership thereof.
The vendors and their agents accept no liability for any asbestos on the property. It is in the nature of farm buildings in particular that asbestos is likely to be present on the farm.
Health & Safety Notice
Prospective purchasers should take all necessary care when making an inspection of a property as it is a working farm. Viewings are taken solely at the risk of those who view and neither the agents nor the owners of the property take responsibility for any injury however caused.
Inconsistency
In the event that there is any variance between these sale particulars and the contract of sale then the latter shall apply.
These particulars are set out as a guide only. They are intended to give a fair description of the property but may not be
relied up as a statement or representation of facts. These particulars are produced in good faith and inevitably subjective and do not form part of any contract. No persons within Sunderlands have any authority to make or give any representation or warranty whatsoever in relation to the property.
From Hay-on-Wye take the B4350 and continue to Clifford. In the village look for the first small lane to the right and the entrance to Lower Court is immediately after on the right.
Viewing and Contact Details
All viewing must be arranged through the sole selling agents Sunderlands:
Contact tel: 01497 822522. Office opening hours: Mon-Fri 9.00-5pm Sat 9.00-12.00pm
Out of hours contact:Harry Aldrich-Blake 07717 410757
None of these statements contained in these particulars are to be relied upon as statements or representations of fact. These particulars are not an offer or contract or part of one. Floor plans are provided for guidance as to the layout of the property only. Room sizes and measurements are approximate only. Please note we have not tested the equipment, appliances and services in the property and interested parties are advised to commission appropriate investigation before formulating their offer.
Sunderlands are a member of the Ombudsman for Estate Agents Scheme and therefore adhere to their Code of Practise. A copy of the Code of Practise is available on request.
Sunderlands & Thompsons Hay on Wye
3 Pavement House, The Pavement, Hay On Wye, HR3 5BU
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Home » Simmons Hanly Conroy Renews $25,000 Match Challenge to Help Union Families for Fifth Year
Simmons Hanly Conroy Renews $25,000 Match Challenge to Help Union Families for Fifth Year
St. Louis area law firm will match up to $25,000 in donations to “$5 for the Fight” Campaign
ST. LOUIS (Sept. 5, 2016 ) – Simmons Hanly Conroy, the largest plaintiff’s personal injury firm in the St. Louis area, will again match up to $25,000 in donations to the “$5 for the Fight” Fund that helps union families facing financial hardship. Since 2012, the firm’s match challenge has raised over $150,000 for the “$5 for the Fight” Emergency Relief Fund, which was established by the Greater St. Louis Labor Council and supported by the United Way.
“Our attorneys are dedicated to helping union families who have been impacted by occupational exposures enforce their legal rights,” said Simmons Hanly Conroy Shareholder Chris Guinn. “Union workers are more likely to be exposed to toxins like asbestos on the job just by the nature of their professions. The Simmons match challenge is a way for us to help during times of hardship.”
The fund, established in 1996, helps union members and their families facing financial hardships. In 2015, more than 400 families from 73 different local unions received help paying their mortgages, utilities, medical bills and more through last year’s fundraising efforts. The “$5 for the Fight” campaign raised just over $95,000 including contributions from other local funds and charities and the nearly $50,000 resulting from the firm’s match campaign.
“The Simmons law firm once again has shown its loyalty to the labor community with this generous donation.,” said Pat White, president of the Greater St. Louis Labor Council. “This fund is set up to help union members in need and is funded mainly by other union members. To have a friend in the business community such as Simmons is a blessing for all of us. “
The labor council and United Way of Greater St. Louis cover administration costs for the fundraiser, allowing all donations to directly benefit local union families in the Greater St. Louis area. Guinn said he hopes the Simmons match campaign will motivate others to give.
“The outpouring of support the firm’s match campaign has received over the past five years has been impressive,” Guinn said. “We hope it will once again motivate others to contribute, especially when their donation will go twice as far to help local St. Louis union families.”
Donations can be made by check or online. Mail a check or money order to “$5 for the Fight,” c/o St. Louis Labor Council, 3301 Hollenberg Drive, Bridgeton, MO 63044 and include your union affiliation if applicable. To make an online donation, visit www.labortribune.com and click “$5 for the Fight” Donations in the left hand column. An option to create a reoccurring automated donation is also available.
Request A Free Legal Consultation
Online Form - SF-general
The National Trial Lawyers
Simmons Mesothelioma Foundation
About Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC
Founded in 1999, Simmons Hanly Conroy is a leading national law firm with a track record for standing up for consumers and workers’ rights. Our lawyers have extensive experience in multiple areas of complex litigation and have represented thousands of individuals and families throughout the country. In the past decade, we have represented thousands of clients across the country and recovered more than $5 billion in verdicts and settlements.*
Call us. Meet with us. Get to know our attorneys and dedicated staff. You will see firsthand what sets us apart, what makes us different. At the firm, we are deeply committed to giving you a strong, powerful voice to stand stand for your rights.
“I appreciate the hard work of the Simmons firm. This outfit is something else. I did not expect to hear from them after everything was done, but they still call to check up on me.”
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Every person carries an ember of potential within them. Our goal is to brighten the glow of hopeful people and help them to shine in the world.
Founded in 2012 as a 501(c)(3) public foundation, Skender Foundation believes that all people should have access to resources and relationships that help them make good life decisions.
We also believe giving should be fun and uniting. Each year in downtown Chicago, we host two prolific fundraising/awareness events that connect business professionals and charitable organizations in seeking positive change.
Equally important, we understand that donating money isn’t enough. To sustain community education and wellness, we must also invest ourselves—our time, our care, our compassion and our ideas. Only by directly engaging positive change can we create a culture of giving and feel the impact of its rewards.
To date, Skender Foundation has contributed over $3.5 million to more than 300 organizations that support community educations and wellness in Chicago.
In Association With Skender
Headquartered in Chicago, Skender is widely regarded for its visionary work on office, retail, housing, healthcare, education, community, and research & development projects. Thoughtful, strategic, hands-on leadership has developed the company into a market leader and a strong supporter of the local community throughout its more than 60 years of growth and innovation.
To learn more about Skender, visit Skender.com
World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2019, Fast Company
Best Places to Work in Chicago, Crain’s Chicago Business
Best Places to Work in Illinois, Daily Herald Business Ledger
101 Best & Brightest Companies to Work For, National Association for Business Resources
Fast 50 Company, Crain’s Chicago Business
ENR 400 Largest U.S. Contractors
Largest Privately-Held Firm, Crain’s Chicago Business
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> South Atlantic
> Maryland
Related topics: Business Development, Economics, Equestrian, Services, Sports Facilities
Will the Preakness Stay in Baltimore? Place Your Bets
By: Mary Helen Sprecher
Aging Facility, Cost of Repairs, May Drive Event Elsewhere After 2019
While the majority of the horse-racing public’s big concern is whether Justify will win the Belmont Stakes, resulting in a Triple Crown, back in Baltimore, they have something else entirely to worry about: namely, whether Baltimore will continue hosting the Preakness. And while many in Maryland consider the run for the black-eyed Susans as much a rite of spring as the watching the Orioles take the field, the track that hosts the event, Pimlico Race Course, is starting to look more and more like a dark horse as a candidate in the years to come.
The aging facility (it’s just shy of its 150th anniversary) is sorely lacking in amenities and all indicators are that it would be more efficient to simply tear it down and rebuild than it would be to continue to do Band-Aid fixes on it.
And that’s something the Stronach Group, which owns the facility, won’t pay for – which raises the possibility of the Preakness Stakes moving away, something that would be devastating to Baltimore. (According to CityBizList, the 2017 race generated nearly $40 million in total economic impact, which includes everything from hotels and transportation to restaurants and retail.)
But a big overhaul makes that number look like chump change. The initial results of a study commissioned by the Maryland Stadium Authority concluded it would cost $250 million to $320 million to renovate Pimlico, which is located in the Northwest quadrant of Baltimore, in an already economically depressed area. (The critical second phase of the study is due to be released near the end of this year.)
According to an article in The Baltimore Sun, Stronach has no intention of spending that money. One possible solution would be to move the race to another property in Maryland, Laurel Park, located approximately mid-point between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. (Stronach owns that track as well.)
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and other city officials are making a concerted effort to keep the Preakness at Pimlico. The track in Northwest Baltimore hosted the inaugural Preakness Stakes in 1873, and has hosted every running since 1909. But Stronach says that after 2019, all bets are off.
According to the article in the Sun, Stronach hopes that new amenities put in place for the 2018 running — including elevated chalets with glass walls and front porches for VIP guests — will help sell guests on coming back next year. The group wants the city to invest in the facility, much the way it invested in both Camden Yards — which the Orioles lease — and M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Ravens.
“At the end of the year we’ll find out what the study says and then we’ll have to be able to see the appetite of the city and state for whether the investment makes sense to keep it at Old Hilltop or move it to the Laurel location,” Tim Ritvo, chief operating officer of Stronach’s racing division, told reporters. “The nice thing right now is all parties interested know that kicking the can down the road doesn’t work anymore, that sooner or later — whether it’s another year or two years or five years — that something has to be done because we should be looking at the stewardship of the Preakness.”
The second phase of the stadium authority study is exploring such year-round development possibilities for the site. The study is expected to be completed by the end of the year — in time for the next Maryland General Assembly session, which begins in January.
But there isn’t a clear-cut answer as to whether the state will invest in Pimlico the way it has in baseball and football.
“Ultimately it may come down to outside investment,” Matt Saler, vice president of sports marketing for the Baltimore advertising and marketing firm IMRE, noted to the Sun. “I think it would be difficult to ask taxpayers to put money behind it. It’s a significant cost.”
But Saler said it would be hard to imagine the Preakness anywhere else.
“There are only so many sports traditions in Baltimore, and that is one of them,” he said.
Mary Helen Sprecher
About Mary Helen Sprecher
Content written by Mary Helen Sprecher
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Players with most passing yards in NFL history 2018
Players with the most passing yards in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*
by Christina Gough, last edited May 29, 2019
Drew Brees, quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, is currently the all-time passing leader in the National Football League (NFL) with 74,437 yards (as of December 30th, 2018). He is only one of four players in NFL history with more than 70 thousand passing yards. The other three are Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Tom Brady.
NFL game more pass-oriented today
Over time the game of football has evolved at the professional level. Offenses in the NFL are now putting more emphasis on the passing game as the per game average of passing yards has gone up over the past decades, increasing by more than ten percent on average in the years 2010-2018 compared to the previous decade (2000-2009). This is a contributing factor to the fact that most players on the list have played or at least finished their career after the year 2000.
First player to 80k yards?
Two active players today have a shot at reaching 80,000 passing yards in their career: Current career passing leader Drew Brees and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. Drew Brees is currently about 5,500 yards away from the mark and has a real chance to pass it with two more years of solid production. Tom Brady would probably need two more full seasons of decent production as he is still around 9,500 yards away from 80,000.
Expand statistic
Number of passing yards
Drew Brees (2001-2018) 74,437
Peyton Manning (1998-2015) 71,940
Brett Favre (1991-2010) 71,838
Tom Brady (2000-2018) 70,514
Dan Marino (1983-1999) 61,361
Ben Roethlisberger (2004-2018) 56,194
Eli Manning (2004-2018) 55,981
Philip Rivers (2004-2018) 54,656
John Elway (1983-1998) 51,475
Warren Moon (1984-2000) 49,325
Fran Tarkenton (1961-1978) 47,003
Matt Ryan (2008-2018) 46,720
Carson Palmer (2004-2017) 46,247
Vinny Testaverde (1987-2007) 46,233
Drew Bledsoe (1993-2006) 44,611
Dan Fouts (1973-1987) 43,040
Aaron Rodgers (2005-2018) 42,944
Kerry Collins (1995-2011) 40,922
Joe Montana (1979-1994) 40,551
Johnny Unitas (1956-1973) 40,239
up to December 30th, 2018
* Regular season
Super Bowl TV viewership in the U.S. 1990-2019
NFL teams ranked by number of Super Bowl appearances all time 2019
Career rushing yards leaders in NFL history 2018
106 page/s
Everything On "National Football League" in One Document: Edited and Divided into Handy Chapters. Including Detailed References.
Statista has been my savior on several occasions. The site is easy to maneuver and the data is in a format that can go right into a report or presentation.
Vice President, Hearst Magazines
Statistics on "National Football League"
Franchise value & revenue
Media coverage & fan interest
Attendance & stadiums
Playoffs & Super Bowl
Player salaries & records
National Football League average franchise value from 2000 to 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)National Football League - average franchise value 2000-2018
Franchise value of National Football League teams in 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)Value of National Football League franchises 2018
Total revenue of all National Football League teams from 2001 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars)*Total revenue of the National Football League 2001-2017
National Football League revenue by team in 2017 (in million U.S. dollars)Revenue of National Football League (NFL) teams 2017
Operating income of National Football League teams in 2017 (in million U.S. dollars)Operating income of National Football League franchises 2017
Total value of NFL national TV broadcasting rights deals from 2014 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)Total value of NFL national TV broadcast deals 2014-2022
Average annual value of NFL national TV broadcasting rights deals from 2014 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)Average annual value of NFL national TV broadcast deals 2014-2022
NFL league and team sponsorship revenue worldwide from 2010 to 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)NFL league/team sponsorship revenue 2010-2018
National Football League average TV viewership - selected games 2017 (in million viewers)TV viewership of selected National Football League games 2017
Average number of viewers of Thursday Night Football in the United States from 2015 to 2018 (in millions)NFL Thursday Night Football average viewers 2015-2018
Average number of viewers of ESPN's Monday Night Football in the United States from 2015 to 2018s (in millions)NFL Monday Night Football average viewers 2015-2018
Do you follow professional football (NFL)?Share of U.S. consumers following professional football 2017
Would you describe yourself as a fan of professional football (NFL)?Share of U.S. consumers considering themselves NFL fans 2017
Which team is your favorite team in the NFL?U.S. consumers' favorite NFL team 2017
Which team do you dislike the most in the NFL?U.S. consumers' least favorite NFL team 2017
Twitter followers of National Football League teams in September 2018 (in millions)NFL teams - number of Twitter followers 2018
National Football League total attendance at regular season games 2008 to 2018 (in millions)Total attendance National Football League regular season games 2008-2018
NFL average total regular season home attendance per team from 2005 to 2018Total average home attendance per team in the National Football League 2005-2018
National Football League: total regular season home attendance by team in 2018Regular season home attendance of National Football League teams 2018
Teams of the NFL ranked by average regular season attendance in the 2018 seasonNational Football League teams ranked by average attendance 2018
NFL stadiums built since 2000 ranked by total construction costs (in million U.S. dollars)*Construction costs of NFL stadiums built since 2000
Sports stadiums of the NFL ranked by value of federal subsidy since 2000 (in million U.S. dollars)Federal subsidies to NFL stadiums built since 2000
Teams ranked by playoff appearances in NFL history (as of 2018-19 playoffs)*NFL teams ranked by playoff appearances all time 2019
NFL teams ranked by number of wins in the postseason (at the start of the 2018 NFL season)*NFL team ranking by all-time postseason wins 2018
Number of conference championship game appearances of NFL teams (as of January 13th, 2019)Number of conference championship game appearances of NFL teams 2019
Teams ranked by Super Bowl appearances in NFL history (as of 2019)*NFL teams ranked by number of Super Bowl appearances all time 2019
Number of Super Bowls won by NFL team from 1967 to 2019*National Football League: Super Bowl wins by team 2019
Number of Super Bowls hosted by city from 1967 to 2019National Football League Super Bowl host cities 1967-2019
TV viewership of the Super Bowl in the United States from 1990 to 2019 (in millions)Super Bowl TV viewership in the U.S. 1990-2019
TV ratings of the Super Bowl in the United States from 1990 to 2019Super Bowl TV ratings in the U.S. 1990-2019
Player salaries in the National Football League 2017/18 season (in million U.S. dollars), by team*Player salaries in the NFL 2017/18 season, by team
Average annual player salary in the National Football League in 2018/19, by team (in million U.S. dollars)Average player salary in the NFL by team 2018/19
Players with the highest salaries* in the NFL in 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)Highest paid players in the National Football League 2018
NFL players ranked by salary and endorsement income in 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)Players of the NFL ranked by earnings from salary/bonuses & endorsements 2018
Players with the most passing yards in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*Players with most passing yards in NFL history 2018
Players with the most passing touchdowns in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*Players with most passing touchdowns in NFL history 2018
Players with the most receiving yards in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*Players in NFL history with most receiving yards 2018
Players with the most rushing yards in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*Career rushing yards leaders in NFL history 2018
NFL: development of average yards per game over time 1950-2018
U.S. consumers' opinion on the most injury-prone positions in the NFL 2017
U.S. consumers' opinions on an NFL player's return to a game after a head injury 2017
What people think of NFL Commissioner's decision to suspend Tom Brady 2015
Survey on favored team to win the Super Bowl 2015
U.S. consumers' opinions on priority of player safety in the NFL 2017
Are people satisfied with how the NFL handled 'Deflategate' 2015
How closely people have been following 'Deflategate' (NFL) 2015
Fans recommending products/services sponsoring the NFL 2010-2012
Number of households with people who attended a National Football League event in the U.S....
U.S. consumers' favorite NFL conference (AFC/NFC) 2017
U.S. consumers' opinion on responsibility for identifying concussions in the NFL 2017
Share of U.S. consumers interested in National Football League 2017
Operating profit of Feyenoord Rotterdam in the Netherlands 2014-2018
Number of bee colonies in Canada by region 2010-2018
Paperboard container manufacturing revenue in the U.S. 2012-2022
Nebraska - Number of licensed young male and female drivers 2010, by age
Relevance of quality labels when buying baby food in the U.S. 2017
National Football League average franchise value from 2000 to 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)
Franchise value of National Football League teams in 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)
Total revenue of all National Football League teams from 2001 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars)*
National Football League revenue by team in 2017 (in million U.S. dollars)
Operating income of National Football League teams in 2017 (in million U.S. dollars)
Total value of NFL national TV broadcasting rights deals from 2014 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)
Average annual value of NFL national TV broadcasting rights deals from 2014 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)
NFL league and team sponsorship revenue worldwide from 2010 to 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)
National Football League average TV viewership - selected games 2017 (in million viewers)
Average number of viewers of Thursday Night Football in the United States from 2015 to 2018 (in millions)
Average number of viewers of ESPN's Monday Night Football in the United States from 2015 to 2018s (in millions)
Do you follow professional football (NFL)?
Would you describe yourself as a fan of professional football (NFL)?
Which team is your favorite team in the NFL?
Which team do you dislike the most in the NFL?
Twitter followers of National Football League teams in September 2018 (in millions)
Facebook fans of National Football League teams (in millions), September 2018
What is your favorite sport to watch?
National Football League total attendance at regular season games 2008 to 2018 (in millions)
NFL average total regular season home attendance per team from 2005 to 2018
National Football League: total regular season home attendance by team in 2018
Teams of the NFL ranked by average regular season attendance in the 2018 season
NFL stadiums built since 2000 ranked by total construction costs (in million U.S. dollars)*
Sports stadiums of the NFL ranked by value of federal subsidy since 2000 (in million U.S. dollars)
Teams ranked by playoff appearances in NFL history (as of 2018-19 playoffs)*
NFL teams ranked by number of wins in the postseason (at the start of the 2018 NFL season)*
Number of conference championship game appearances of NFL teams (as of January 13th, 2019)
Teams ranked by Super Bowl appearances in NFL history (as of 2019)*
Number of Super Bowls won by NFL team from 1967 to 2019*
Number of Super Bowls hosted by city from 1967 to 2019
TV viewership of the Super Bowl in the United States from 1990 to 2019 (in millions)
TV ratings of the Super Bowl in the United States from 1990 to 2019
Super Bowl advertising revenue from 2003 to 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)
Super Bowl average costs of a 30-second TV advertisement from 2002 to 2019 (in million U.S. dollars)*
Number and length of network TV commercials in the Super Bowl from 2003 to 2018
Estimated Super Bowl related consumer spending in the United States from 2007 to 2019 (in billion U.S. dollars)*
Amount wagered on the Super Bowl in sports books in Nevada from 2004 to 2019 (in million U.S. dollars)
Nevada sports book winnings from the Super Bowl in the United States from 2004 to 2019 (in million U.S. dollars)
Player salaries in the National Football League 2017/18 season (in million U.S. dollars), by team*
Average annual player salary in the National Football League in 2018/19, by team (in million U.S. dollars)
Players with the highest salaries* in the NFL in 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)
NFL players ranked by salary and endorsement income in 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)
Players with the most passing touchdowns in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*
Players with the most receiving yards in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*
Players with the most rushing yards in NFL history (as of December 30th, 2018)*
NFL quarterbacks by number of career playoff wins all-time (as of February 3, 2019)
Development of average offensive yards per game (rushing/passing) in the NFL from 1950 to 2018*
Which one, if any, of the following football positions do you think is the most vulnerable to injury?
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: An NFL player, who suffered a hit to the head that caused an injury timeout/stoppage in play, should be allowed to return to the game if he never lost consciousness and his facilities appear to be intact*
Do you approve or disapprove of NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell’s decision to maintain the four game suspension of New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady?
Regardless of your favorite team, who do you think will win the Super Bowl this year?
Overall, to what extent do you think the NFL places a higher priority on player safety or the entertainment value of a game (e.g., let players return to the game after an injury to preserve competitiveness)?*
How satisfied are you with the National Football League’s handling of 'Deflategate'?
How closely have you been following the news about 'Deflategate' or the use of under inflated footballs by the New England Patriots in last year's AFC Championship Game?
Are you more or less likely to recommend a product/service to a friend or family member if that product/service is an official sponsor of the NFL?
Number of households with people who attended a National Football League event in the U.S. 2018 to 2020
Which NFL conference is more interesting to you?
Who, if anyone, do you think is most responsible for identifying symptoms and ensuring that the player gets tested for a concussion (mid-game)?*
Are you very, somewhat, or a little interested in the National Football League?
Operating profit of Feyenoord Rotterdam in the Netherlands from 2014 to 2018 (in 1,000 euros)
Number of bee colonies in Canada from 2010 to 2018, by region*
Paperboard container manufacturing revenue in the U.S. 2012-2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)
Number of licensed young male and female drivers in Nebraska in 2010, by age
Do you pay attention to quality labels when you buy baby food?
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Interim Child Custody: Coe v Tope, 2014 ONSC 4002
This case addresses the issue of interim custody.
The parties in this matter began cohabiting in 2000 and were married on September 5, 2004. The parties separated on July 19, 2013. There are two children of the marriage, aged five and three. On June 5, 2014, the Mother commenced an Application and subsequently brought a motion for custody and child support. The Court Ordered, on June 20, 2014, that the parties be granted shared custody. The Mother then commenced a Motion, thereafter, seeking sole custody with overnight access to the Father.
The Court commenced its analysis by summarizing the case, including the fact that this matter had been before the courts three times within a single week (paragraph 8). The Court notes that both parties urge the court to “maintain the status quo, but they have diametrically opposed views of what that entails” (paragraph 15).
The Court found that the allegations raised by the parties are all relevant, “or at least have the potential of being relevant… But none of the allegations rise to the level of compelling the court to conclude that these children currently need to be protected from either parent” (paragraph 20). The Court found that “Both parents fear losing their children” (paragraph 23), and, as such, have been “needlessly confrontational” and provided “hurtful affidavit materials” (paragraph 21). As such, the Court stated:
Section 24 of the Children’s Law Reform Act and section 16 of the Divorce Act set out the considerations the court must address in determining issues of custody, access and parenting. Those considerations are child-focussed, not disgruntled-parent-focussed.
The Court found that prior to the July 19, 2013 separation under the same roof and “prior to the June 26, 2014 departure from the matrimonial home”, the parenting arrangement was “effectively shared parenting” (paragraph 26). As such, the Court found that an “equal time sharing arrangement will provide a balanced structure, and minimize disruption or diminution of parent-child relationships” (paragraph 30).
The Court was of the opinion that the Mother and Father have the ability to “make a temporary equal time sharing arrangement work well for the children if they want to” (paragraph 33). The Court’s tone in its decision was to provide both parties with a “sobering warning” (paragraph 38). It was not to offend the parties, but to speak to what the parties’ true intentions should be in the matter. The Court urged the parties to be mindful and to “stop acting like you hate your ex more than you love your children” (paragraph 42).
The Court then ordered that the parties shall “share equal time and equal residency of the children” (paragraph 48).
This decision emphasizes the fact that even though parties separate, and such separation may cause animosity between the parties, such parties will have to continue to co-exist thereafter as they must continue to co-parent their children.
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sfstation.com
Review: Ambient Electronic Icon Tycho Dazzles at Surprise SF Show
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Q&A: RÜFÜS DU SOL Play Back-to-Back Sold Out Shows in Berkeley
Beautiful Bloody Mary
Readings and Plays Highlight the Bay Area Playwrights Festival
The 50th Anniversary of the First Moon Landing at Chabot Space Center
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Words, Wine, and Music
Event has passed (Fri Jul 12, 2019 - Fri Jul 12, 2019)
Literary, Music
Dedicated to fresh interpretations of Mozart's most enduring masterworks, the Midsummer Mozart Festival continues with an intimate evening that features special guest author Stephanie Cowell. Following early success as a prize-winning writer, Stephanie Cowell trained as a classical vocalist, appearing in operas and forming her own singing ensemble and chamber opera company. After translating a late Mozart opera, she returned to writing and has since written numerous critically-acclaimed novels including the popular Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet (2011).
The evening will feature anecdotes, insights and readings from Marrying Mozart (2004), Cowell's historical fourth novel that takes readers back to the 18th century and explores the struggles of the Weber sisters and the early career of the 21-year old Mozart. The novel has since been translated into seven languages and optioned for a movie, with the Los Angeles Times calling it a "perfect harmony of fact, fiction" and described by the Seattle Times as a "grand little mini-opera, filled with twists of affection, musical politics, love, loss and chocolate."
Coloratura Soprano Christina Major, who makes her first of three appearances during this year's festival, will sing three arias accompanied on the piano by Music Director Paul Schrage: Nehmt meinen Dank, Non mi dir, bell'idol, andEt Incarnatus Est. String quartets No. 7 in E flat major, K.160 and No. 21 in D major, K. 575 will be performed by resident festival ensemble, the Midsummer Mozart Festival Chamber Players, including Concertmaster Robin Hansen, Ani Bukujian, Marcel Gemperli and Eric Gaenslen.
https://midsummermozart.org
Noe Valley Ministry 1021 Sanchez Street, San Francisco, CA
Cheaper Than Therapy
Alive After Five Happy Hour Cruise
Underground Comedy Night
Haight Ashbury Comedy Night
© 2019 SF Station - San Francisco's Independent City Guide. All rights reserved.
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tv U.S. Senate CSPAN March 13, 2013 9:00am-12:00pm EDT
their enormous capabilities they have at the disposal to take on big challenges? >> thank you. that actually also brings to my next question. the other thing that strikes me in the book "the lorax" in the request is not specifically asking the onceler to engage in corporate philanthropy. what he wants is the onceler actually integrate the sustainable principles to the core of the business. so to be clear, in your mind, what is the difference between corporate philanthropy versus something integrated to the core? and what powerful about integrating to the core? >> i think it gets to -- in my opinion, an outdated view of business in society that it's the company makes as much money as possible at, you know, at all costs. without understanding the impact
on the communities where it operates, the broader environment, and that it has a few feel good marketing campaigns, and philanthropic grant it is makes. really in the nature of pr or risk mitigation. but that it doesn't -- we need get beyond the outdated mentality you can make adds much money as long as you give a little bit away we'll forget about the danger and the externallalty you created. i think we need this notion of corporate impact, which goes beyond writing a check, and it goes to the heart of what a company has the capacity to do. in "the lorax," i really do think it's not -- as he said, it's not -- the lorax isn't asking the onceler to fund an
after school tree club for youth in the community; right. he was asking him to reconsider the fundamental business strategy, and the fundamental business purpose, and i think that's the kind of conversations we need. not how do we encourage more companies to give. how do we encourage more companies to have an impact? >> okay, alice. >> miguel mentioned one thing. he mentioned creating a system of feedback where we get feedback and advice is through boards. this where your expertise can help us. . >> so the board, of course, is ultimately responsible for the business, and with a roomful of attorneys and law professor. i'm sure you're familiar with the duty of care and loyalty. it's a to read your manual and
the responsibility related to being a good board member and the duty of loyalty. the duty to the company above your personal interest and that includes the conflict of interest for non-profit. there's an additional duty of obedience to the mission. and tamyra asked me to mention today my own concept of an additional duty of duty of imagination. ting fits here. which is what i think. so if the sneed business had a board and followed the duty of care and locality. they could follow their responsibility, they could have a good audit and follow every rule and regulation perfectly fine. there's little regulation related to ecosystems, in fact. and they could have no conflict of interest on the board. they can be doing their job perfectly fine. the question, the issue is here,
the duty of imagination, which is where do we see this business in the future? where are we taking this organization? what is the greater potential in the future long-term versus short term. and businesses today, the more successful future looking businesses, the ones who being he recalledded are the ones thinking about the longer term future of the company and the world, and seeing them as interdependent and interconnected, and mutually interdependent. that's the concept of sustainability. so companies today kimberly clark, knick -- nike wondering how sustainable their business is. and they are making serious changes. and "the lorax" is the perfect
example how they are seeing their businesses. many companies have a achieved sustainability officer and calling it sustainability and innovation. nike's new watch word is that they are decoupling growth from scarsty in resources. that's just perfect for "the lorax." the chief sustainability office spoke last week at clinton global initiative and said again and again and again, we're decoupling growth from scarsty of resources which is exactly "the lorax's" issue. growth, growth, growth, growth, but scarcity of resources destroy the business. what nike is doing, we cannot continue to make our products out of resources that are increasedly -- increasingly scarce with a world population growing from 7 to 9 million
people, with our moving forward using 1.5 -- one and a half times the planet's resource which is the direction we're moving in. it's unsustainable as a business model. so looking to the future, and what nike is saying to their supply chain and to their r&d people is find other materials by which we can make our product. they are already coming up with footwear already out on the market that is made from fibers that are not -- that are not used from natural resources, and that are sustainable, you know, that don't deplete the natural environment. so they are already moving forward the sustainability and innovative approach. you hear the term innovation.
i'm sure you already have. i think we're seeing businesses that understand that. those are the leaders and there will be followers. so in terms of board composition, i think actually an interestingly, and this is, i think, since the fall of the banks issues we're seeing an increase of very stark increase in a number of attorneys on board of board of directors with an increase in attorneys and financial people on boards, you wonder if it's going in the wrong direction. no disrespect to the audience, but it's not about due diligence, it's really about imagining the future, and maybe more i diversity of background and perspective on boards in thinking about the future of a business and sustainability.
>> so one phrase you hear thrown around a lot when it comes to boards, and just corporations in general, is everybody pushing for moving beyond compliance. as you pointed out, they are bringing people on board who are about compliance. -- first of all with it's beyond compliance with the imagination. >> yes. i think -- and i hear it again and again from boards, they are so busy checking off the boxes, there's no time for strategic planning, and i think there's also a great deal of attention to return. it's companies like kimberly clark who are saying we don't really want to be guided by the quarter earnings reports. we are trying to get our investors to think beyond that. that's a hard push for that. yeah, that's beyond compliant. >> okay. and if you can really speak, the guy at the end. i think he would probably say
why are we here? why do we need like a panel like this? i don't exist anymore. to me, the issues are clear. i guess let me open it up to audience q & a. >> can i say something on that? >> it's because the word at the end. unless, unless we do something about this. >> unless. >> and this is our opportunity. >> yeah. >> just on that, what you say, miguel, to your point the book idea in response to milton free mono. in the past views who had the views that won snout. >> -- doubt. >> a lot of you in the room -- end of history for corporate law in 2001, and ironically since then there's ban lot more debate about whether this particular ideology is suitable for durable
capitalism. so, you know, some people in our dialogue that we have organized have actually brought up the point that the last thirty or forty years are the historical admiration of ideology around corporations. and so while, you know, we concede adds a foregone conclusion that's it's a natural law about businesses, it's really an aberration, and that's something to keep in mind. someone else pointed out a number of times in our dialogues that csh several people now have started to point out including lynn about literally the number of public corporations in the u.s. since 1997, has dropped by more than a half. so the corporations one way to organize business activity, and i'm sure, again, many of you know of the various business forms and ways to legally structure them.
the united has been particularly dependent end end on the one form for a long time. we may be seeing a shift away from that. that particular form. it's not going we're going forget how do business. there might be better ways to do it sustain belie. ly. i want to followup on the threat. i think we have seen with the decrease in public companies we have seen the growth of private companies too, especially you think of web 2.0 companies that are choosing to remain private for longer. and a lot of reasons the ipo market is not as -- hot and capital markets are not as hot and they can get the capital from other investors without going public. you have the founders who are passionate and they have a vision, they want to have their interests in long-term value creation in a way that being a publicly held company is sometimes at odds with their
objective. i think that i'm hopeful that in the coming years we'll see more and more of these companies adhere to the values of long-term value creation. especially companies coming out of silicon valley, there's etho embedded in it. the investors share the values and there's a nice alignment of incentive there. so i'm hopeful we'll see it as a positive trend. >> candidate? >> thank you for being here and the last comments directly treat where my question was going. and kind of how we can expand the lens of how we view the businesses as mr. walsh. specifically, when we're looking at the new -- like i said, i question twofold. when we look at the ten i cough rptions being formed, flexible purpose corporation, for example, are those first you see those as ways that can corporations are starting to
kind of take hold of their role in society? and try to move it forward, and is that something that can be effective? and then also, is there a way other than for public companies to kind of help shift away from the fanfare that is around the quarterly earnings report and what happens in order kind of focus on imagining the future, as you said. >> thank you. >> well, i guess to your second question about how do we essentially get there? how do we change alignment of incentive? i think it comes down to agency both individual and collective agency. so i think as individuals, we sometimes forget the agency that we have as consumers, as investors, as people who are consumers of a bank, as employees, as managers.
and so, we are the people of corporations; right? and we are voters who put in place legislature that put in place regulations for the corporate form. we have a lot of agency as individuals with the individual choices we make about where we work and where we invest and shop, but we also have the ability to organize and to do collective action. i think one of the things as we have seen separate trends of shareholder advocacy, banking advocacy, we have seen, you know, consumerred a vote --ed a have advocacy. i think not enough connect the dots and realize the full compliment of resources and power that we have as individuals and how to we connect, you know, a lot of us live in a world where we say, okay, i'm going give to the
non-profit over here. i'm going work for the company over here and put my money in some mutual fund or some investment over there and i'm not going to connect the fund i'm investing in might be investing companies that go against my best interest of employee with this organization and contrast with the work i'm doing or the advocacy i'm doing with the non-profit. i think we need to have greater awareness and do a better job of connecting the dots for ourself about the impact of the different points of leverage. [inaudible] yeah. >> i think the flexible purpose corporation b. corp., the newer form are -- they are interesting. but i don't -- you know, they are part of changing narrative, i suppose.
one thing though that we shouldn't overlook is the fact that even as the laws stand now, even as with the current structure of public corporations, a lot of companies can and do kind of shirk the quarterly purity. and part is, i think, building the capacity of other business leaders to figure out the right metric to use as public corporation. how to incentivize people and view their own company's purposes. there's a lot of big companies -- they're not run very well. and but, you know, they are companies out there mainstream companies, not like tree hugging companies, you know, if you look at costco, proctor and gamble, and ge, southwest airlines, a lot of these companies that are main -- mainstream. even walmart doesn't produce eps
forecast quarterly eps forecast. i think part is gnarlizing -- normalizing the behavior. i think a lot of business leaders feel like they are going on a limb if they decide drop quarterly earnings forecast, for example. there are loads of companies that -- 35% of the public companies don't provide quarterly earnings forecast. we have to think of what can be done within the corporate form. >> i have an issue with it. i don't understand its purpose or role. we have non-profit structured for non-profit, there's a structure for-profit corporations, and and, you know, there a whole movement of us working with for-profit to encourage and help and support them in reporting on social and environmental impacts as well as financial impact what the gri
report and a whole host of reporting now that they're producing for the general public and being encouraged to be accountable and to be competitive along the lines. so why would there now be yet another kind of corporation that is supposed to encourage accountability on all three scores? it seems to go against the current movement to encourage for-profit to be accountable on the scores, and the structures exist already. so i don't see a place for it. i think it's going to create a great deal of confusion down the road for people who invest with them. >> i'm generally with they can. i struggled hard since it came up. in my mind, regular corporations, right, they want to do this, they do it -- they
have a business judgment rule that is going protect them as long as they characterize and link to the long-term value they are generally fine. it was literally two weeks ago maybe the only difference for the is in you get sued. you can sue them for failing to do the esg things. that would be a breech of the duty. you couldn't sue a corporation directly for this. you have to link it to breach loyalty. it seems to become an -- in the day-to-day running of the business, i fully agree with you. i'm not sure what the difference is. >> i think there's a point that alice alluded to is that it does san diego -- san diego mixed signal we have the form for the companies that want to do some
good for society. and then everyone else you are off the hook. that is potentially very dangerous. >> and -- okay. i think that reliance on regulation may be a little disingenuous as reliance on shareholder and consumer choice given the power of advertising dollars with messages. i think choices remarkably con trained and the hopeful as dr. seuss' messages are they seem to exist on a different level from what it is that needs to be done. i'm particularly in countries other than the country in which the corporation has headquarter, there are a lot of serious, serious problems. b. corps are little guys. at least they have a mandate that allows them and requires them to do something that other than what corporations are actually required to do.
there is some differences between canada and the u.s. in terms where corporations loyalties most strongly lie. we are a little bit open about goals beyond shareholder driven goals. note by a whole lot. but there's a piece they enjoyed. it's sort of in a way the ending of the paper. if dr. seuss observes that children's literature has a greater probably for evil than the other form of literature. he said that was then, a long time gone. he was writing about the cat and the hat one of the cold war's most unguided missiles. now we have something different. we have anything goes without the spirit. transgression, deconstruction or praise bestowed as structure and order once were. without the spirit of the relationship there's little aspect of assumption.
that's my comment. and he said a million cats can work frantically for the attention. what choice did the fish have and joy consumed. children do to the tune 18 media hours a day. the media that are watching and consuming and playing with is corporate media. for-profit corporate media, in their own spending, the money they have to spend in the united states $21.4 billion a year. $500 billion a year by parents. much driven by pester power, which is manipulated by far more powerful writers than dr. seuss or any of us putting the messages together and helping children control the spending of $500 billion and control the spending of $21 billion.
i don't i have any kind of answer for this. i just think we're unware of the sea in which children swim. dr. seuss has a touching thing. the child clinging to the tree as he watches the egg shape bombs. the choices that he leaves to the child to the end of the books. children have less choice than we do. they are the most learners on the plan pet. they are observing the stuff true the pore. from the time they are born and dressed in designers suit. i'm wondering how corporations are addressing this kind of question. how many pieces of clothing do we need when other children in other countries are being tourture -- tortured to make the clothes. it's a bigger problem than i think corporate regulation is addressing. and it's a much bigger problem that night individual consumers or consumer-driven groups can address. i think it's gone beyond any
kind of controls. and i just wonder if there's some kind of place to go, i mean, b. corps are right now are cute and boutique. they probably aren't going carry the day. they are a little step in the direction. i would put no money on this in term of if i was betting on what succeeds. i'm saying i don't think that the corporate -- i'm a bit more of a drawback than in the way that, you know, the money they get for scholarship to sit in schools and putting logo in classrooms and so on which say that have been doing for a long time is more like drug lords in colombia buying villages so nobody will campaign. people in drug villages have a wonderful life compared to others. that's really, i think, a question. i hope it's a question. okay. >> is the question what to do? >> yeah. what can be done. how can we explain it's a lot bigger and needs attention? >> i think this is what you
described ena -- encapsulates it's a systemic problem. there's not a single corporation solution or regulatory solution. it's a big system problem that's been developing for a long time. i think as we are thinking about corporations, we should think about very seriously even downtown most foundational understanding of corporations really what their role is. in the system and we need praise them in the -- place them in the context and stop kind of framing them as existing in the alternate universe. i think, you know, this is the corporation is part of a much broader system needs to be corrected. >> agreed. we have time for one more question. you're right, the corporation that's it exactly. they are part of one broader ecosystem.
they don't exist unless the society grants them to exist. and your question, brian, the individual agency in all of us. like,ed at some point we have to make a choice. in the case of kids and parents you have to provide that choice. this is why my kids think dried cranberry are candy. they have no idea. they have no idea there's real candy. [laughter] >> it's about choosing healthy over unhealthy. it's about choosing or understanding in the sea which we live. and this is kind of driven by a conference. i don't want to take up time. put on but vulnerable work shoip out of atlanta that i attended at ubc and called "corporate rights versus children's interest." anybody from canada is near the field, will drive you through the roof. why do -- corporations have
rights and children have interest. >> we have a question over here. what is your question, please? >> the only specific example that was given in the panel about what corporations can actually do to effect the concepts you have been talking about, which i think are terrific with nike and looking far different sustainable raw material for the products. and you see a lot of environmental stuff for corporations green buildings and, you know, that kind of thing. one of the part of the environment of the corporation is the employees. with the idea of maximizing profits part of the way -- that seems to pay as little as you can. not -- and there's been a lot of corporate activity and lobbying from corporate groups like alec
and the chamber of commerce to eliminate unions from our society, that's the way i see it. i'm wondering for any of these miewmplets that you're -- miew.d that you're referring are if there's any possibility that would actually take a different view about the employees the employees are valuable and need to be sustained, and protected in the same way that perhaps trees need to be. >> in terms of employees as a voice, . >> employees and beneficiary of corporations when you have billionings of collars in profits and you pay your employees $7.25 an hour, perhaps you might not need to maximize the profit to that extend in order take care of your employees. i think they need the care as much as the treated co. >> thank you. can i make a quick comment. >> sure. >> i agree. ting speaks to what alice
referred to as the short term and long-term tensions. one of the big challenges today with the globalized companies they outsource, i mean, they're not employee employing as many people, actually. they are outsourcing to smaller employs. just a couple of minutes left. you can see it the entirety by going to our website c-span.org and look in the the c-span video library. the u.s. senate about to gavel in this morning to continue debate over funding the federal government through the end of the current budget year. current spending authority runs out on march 27th. the house passed the version a week ago today. the senate is working on the version and once the senate passes the bill, the house and the senate have to work out a comprise. senators have a vote scheduled for tomorrow morning to move the bill forward, and begin considering amendments. and now to live coverage of the u.s. senate. here on c-span2
the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal lord god, thank you for your promise to meet all our needs. plant your peace in the garden
of the hearts of our senators, enabling them to feel the power of your presence when they need it most. may they find opportunities to trust you even in the midst of trouble. lord, bring them through the difficulties of our times as gold tried in the fire. help them to be healing agents as they exemplify for the american people civility, graciousness, and oneness. let your spirit guide them moment by moment, keeping them close to you. we pray in your sacred name. amen.
the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding off icer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., march 13, 2013. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable william cowan, a senator from the commonwealth of massachusetts, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid:, mr. the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to h.r. 933, the continuing resolution
legislation. last night i filed cloture on the motion to proceed to this most important legislation. we're now in the midst of another filibuster. another filibuster. and if no agreement is reached, the cloture vote will be tomorrow morning. mr. president, yesterday americans got their first look at this year's ryan republican budget. it turns out it looks like last year's ryan republican budget. and it wasn't the only one -- i wasn't the only one that said gee whiz, not again. here's the headline from "bloomberg news: "-- quote -- "ryan budget replays republican hits." one "washington post" reporter compared the release of the not-so-new and certainly not improved ryan republican budget to the movie "groundhog" day where bill murray relives his least favorite holiday over and over and over. remember, this is the third ryan
republican budget. this is what the "washington post" also wrote -- quote -- "the unrepentant reprisal of the same fiscal vision that was decisively repeated last fall is bound to attract notice." indeed, this is the same budget plan we saw from congressman ryan last year and the year before that. even the name is the same. if anything, this new version is even more extreme than the last two ryan republican budget proposals, proposals that sought to end medicare and raise taxes on middle-class families all while handing out more tax breaks to the wealthy. the ryan republican budget is anything but balanced and it reflects the same backward value americans rejected in november. instead of asking the wealthiest to contribute their fair share, the ryan republican budget demands middle-class families pay more in taxes.
instead of ending wasteful corporate tax loopholes, it basically ends medicare. in fact, the ryan republican budget takes special aim at health care. it would eliminate free preventive health services for 34 million americans. the ryan republican budget would increase prescription drug prices for seniors by $2.5 billion in one year. it would end the coverage guarantees for 3.1 million young men and women on their parents health plans. the budget would end coverage for mammograms, cervical cancer screenings and contraception for more than 47 million women. and it would allow insurance companies to deny care for 17 million children simply because they were born with a heart defect or some other illness. these drastic cuts will literally cost lives and also jobs. instead of a balanced approach
that protects the american economy, the ryan republican budget guts education, medical research, infrastructure and even public safety. the ryan republican budget would actually jeopardize the economic recovery. it wouldn't help it. and in case you're thinking it -- huge and painful cuts can buy an awful lot of deficit reduction, think again. instead congressman ryan's cuts will buy more tax breaks for the wealthiest among us. this budget isn't a serious attempt to reduce the deficit. meaningful deficit reduction will require shared sacrifice, including contributions from those who can best afford to contribute. today budget committee chairman patty murray will introduce a budget that reflects the principle of balance. senator murray's plan, the democratic plan, will cut wasteful spending, reduce the deficit and close tax loopholes that benefit the rich. and it will invest in the things that help our economy grow:
education, preventive health care, worker training, roads and bridges. it will invest in a strong middle class. and unlike the ryan republican plan, it won't leave you wondering if it's groundhog day all over again. mr. president, as things now stand, we're in the midst, as i indicated, of a filibuster to even try to get on the bill, if we get on the bill tomorrow morning, then we have 30 hours waiting around staring at each other. and i just alert everyone we have our easter recess coming a week from friday, and we're not going to be able to do that. the budget has a locked in amount of time, 50 hours plus the vote-a-thon. so everyone should be prepared to change their plans the first few days. we hope it's the first few days -- of the easter recess. we are not even on this bill.
and that's such a sad thing. it was such a -- i thought it was such a, really a good atmosphere here, that we had a bill in a decent time from the house. as i kaeulted yesterday, i -- as i indicated yesterday, i didn't like everything in that bill, but we had senator mikulski and senator shelby working together. they checked in with me and senator mcconnell to let us know how they were doing, and they did well on their own. they didn't need our help. and they came up with a plan that was fair and as balanced as could be under the sequester situation. and it was bipartisan. the amendment that is being filibustered is sponsored by mikulski and shelby. so this is a real shame, mr. president. i said last week when we were going on to this bill that we would have opportunities for amendments. i just hope that we can get on the bill, have some amendments offered. but each day that goes by -- and we've wasted two so far -- we're
unable to have the amendment process. we had yesterday waiting all day, harkin and cruz because that's the first democratic amendment, the first republican amendment. there are still -- they are still on deck waiting to come whenever the umpire says that we can go fire. umpire being one senator saying we can go forward. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: four years. four long years. that's how long kentuckians and americans from coast to coast have had to wait for senate democrats to perform their most basic of legislative responsibilities. later today we hope that long wait will come to an end when they finally release a budget plan. given what we've heard about the budget so far, it's obvious why they've refused to release one for so many years. we hear it won't prevent
programs like medicare from going bankrupt. we hear it contains yet more wasteful -- quote -- stimulus spending, spending that turns out to be a lot more effective for generating jokes for late-night comedians than jobs. in order to finance more spending we hear it relies on more than $1 trillion -- that's a trillion with a "t" -- in new taxes, including on the middle class. remember, washington democrats already got more than $600 billion in taxes this year. so where's this new revenue going to come from? charities? the home mortgage interest deduction? will they go after families and small businesses yet again? at least there's one thing we almost certainly know. their budget will never balance.
not today, not tomorrow, not ever. if that was my vision for the country, frankly, i'd want to hide from the american people too. look, a budget like that would be an unmitigated disaster for our country. it would betray those who are going to need medicare when they retire. it would betray the younger americans who would be forced to grapple with the consequences of democrats' failure to get serious about the debt. it would betray the hardworking middle-class families that simply can't afford higher taxes, especially in the obama economy. and if that's really the kind of budget senate democrats plan to offer, it would sacrifice america's hopes for sustained economic recovery at the altar of higher taxes and bloated,
unaccountable government. it would also draw an important contrast with the budget republicans put forward yesterday. because here's the thing, republicans believe we should be growing the economy, not the government. growing the economy, not the government. and the house republican budget reflects just those priorities. it's a budget that does something else too. it actually balances. it actually balances. that's important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it would help unleash economic growth and bring down our country's massive, massive debt load. interest payments on the national debt alone are set to exceed everything we spend on defense. interest on the national debt is going to exceed everything we spend on defense in just a few years' time. so the path we're on is clearly not sustainable. with that in mind, i hope
democrats will offer something serious today rather than what i hear may be the case. i hope they face up to the fact that they already got the revenue they're going to get. they already got the revenue they're going to get. so they can start dealing with the real issues that are leading us to fiscal ruin. i hope they'll finally stop trying to shield the washington establishment from every single attempt to eject a little more accountability and reform because if the reports i've seen are correct the budget they plan to offer would do none of these things. it would only speed up the dangerous trajectory we're on rather than change it. entrench government waste and cronyism rather than route it out and make things worse for the families we represent rather than giving them some hope. and hope is something the american people really, really need right now. they have been battered by the president's economy. they're tired of seeing their money wasted on endless
labyrinth of self-perpetuating bureaucracy. so i'm calling on my democratic friends to shelf the extremist liberal budget we've been hearing so much about. why don't we get serious here and start doing the things necessary to make government more efficient, more progrowth, more responsive and more compassionate. in other words, enact the same priorities republicans have and, frankly, the priorities most of our constituents have too. after four long years, senate democrats should be willing to do more than just protect their buddies in government at all costs. to offer americans something better than a budget that would expand the i.r.s. and crush the middle class. the american people deserve better than that. haven't they waited long enough already for true growth-oriented reform? mr. president, i yield the floor.
mr. coburn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the chair will make a statement. under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will resolution of the motion to proceed to h.r. 933, which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to the consideration of calendar number 21, h.r. 933, an act making appropriations for the department of defense, the department of veterans affairs and other departments and agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2013, and for other purposes. burn mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: i just wanted to make a few comments. we have finished our analysis of this bill fl it is 58 pages. it is well over $is trillion. we finished last night about 9:00. we have no objection to moving on to the bill, if there is a fair and open process. we'll be hay to submit our idea -- we'll be happy to submit our ideas to the chairman of the
appropriations committee and the ranking medical. but there is a lot we ought to discuss about this bill. there is no attempt to filibuster the bill. there was an attempt to do our jobs, which is actually read the bill and see what's in it and be prepared to offer constructive criticisms to the bill. so with that, i'll be back on the floor in a little bit when the managers of the bill come to the floor if they witnes. if they witnes want to offer a unanimous consent to move tonight bill, i'll sure there will be no objection. mr. durbin: i respect my friend from oklahoma. we have worked on many things together in a bipartisan basis, and i respect his right as a senator, maybe his responsibility as a senator, to speak on issues that he thinks are important to our nation and his home state and to offer amendments, if that is the appropriate approach that he
wants to use. we've wasted a day, though. we've lost day in the united states senate. yesterday was the day to begin the amendment process, and we couldn't. senators objected to our coming to this process and even offering an amendment on the continued resolution, which is the federal budget for the remainder of this year. in other words, until september 30. we know that we are just days away from the continuing resolution expiring. we don't want the government to shut down. we do want to fund the government. we neewe understand there must e spending cuts and there's a healthy difference of opinion on where those cuts should be made. the senator from arizona was on the floor yesterday and we spoke of this. one aspect of this bill, which i would like to address for just a moment, is the department of defense appropriations. this is a new responsibility, which i have in the senate appropriations committee, and it is an awesome responsibility.
not only are we dealing with the security of the united states of america first and foremost, we are dealing with a massive spending bill, larger than any other spending bill in the federal government. now, last week -- last week the hart passed a continuing resolution which covers the department of defense for the remainder of this year. l, many changes are included in there, but that was done, as was the military construction budget and the veterans administration budget, all finished last week, all sent to us by the house last week ready for us to address if we care to. well, we had that chance yesterday and we didn't. now we have another chance to do and we should take it. we have a lot to do in a limited amount of time. we have this week and the next to accomplish not only the passage of this federal budget for the manyder o remainder of r but also next week to
considering a budget resolution for spending into the next year. senator harry reid, the democratic majority leader, has come to the floor expressing some frustration. he wanted to move on this continuing resolution this week, as early as yesterday, giving members an opportunity to offer amendments. several members stepped forward and were prepared to do so, but they were stopped. there was a hold. and now, as i understand from the senator from oklahoma, and i believe my friend from arizona may echo his remarks, they're prepared to not stand in the way of any amendments, if members wish to offer, they can, and i hope they will. let me say a few words -- mr. mccain: since my friend is on that subject, could i -- mr. durbin: i ask permission to engage in dialogue with my friend, the senator from arizona. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: you'd say to my friend from illinois, there is no further objection. the senator from oklahoma and i have reviewed the bill and we
discussed yesterday about its length and our obligations to -- i promise my friend from illinois, i won't rehash that discussion we had. but we have no objection whatsoever to taking up amendments right now and moving forward with that, and i hope that that is perfectly clear to all members. and i'm eager, very frankly, to move forward. and could i mention to my friend from illinois, i appreciate the new responsibilities he has. i appreciate the difficulties of addressing, as he just said, the largest single part of our appropriations bill is in the defense authorization, but in the intervening time that we had requested, i came up -- for example, $65 million for pacific coast salmon restorations for states, including nevada.
we're going to restore salmon restoration in the state of nevada? department of defense overpay contracts by an additional 5%, totaling $15 million, to contractors who are native hawaiian-owned companies. i would be glad to include this long list for the record. $993,000 in grants to dig private wells for private property owners. $10 million for usda high-energy cost grants programs that go to subsidize electricity bills in alaska and hawaii. $5.9 million for economic impact initiative grants. the list goes on and on, i say to my friend from illinois. so we were trying to examine this legislation, the 587 pages or whatever it is, to find this kind of thing. and it was our obligation to do so. we have found these things.
we're still finding additional elements. and, i mean, some of them -- when we are talking about -- and i see the distinguished majority leader on the floor, my old friend. we are read to move forward with amendments. i was just saying to my friend from nevada, we found numerous additional provisions in this legislation that we think is important for debate and discussion, and i won't go through all of them. $120 million for guam, the national guard star-based youth program, $5 million. $154 million for alternative energy resource -- on and on, while we have ships that can't leave port, plain, planes that t fly and men and women that can't
equip. and we have this kind of stuff on aeption pros bills. so i want to ensure my colleagues that the senator from oklahoma and myself yesterday finished examining this bill. we are prepared to move forward with vigorous debate. if there is in misunderstanding about that i apologize to the majority leader and my friend from illinois. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: as i said yesterday on the floor, i have nothing but the highest respect for my friend from arizona. i know that he looks into things very deeply, and i appreciate his peacemaking. even though he's a famous man in america and the world because of his wartime experiences, he's also a peacemaker. and i'm grateful to that. so i ask unanimous consent the motion to proceed be agreed to. the presiding officer: without objection. so ordered. mr. reid: on behalf of senators mikulski and shelby, i call their substitute amendment, as modified, which is at the desk.
the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the senate will proceed to senate h.r. 33, which the clerk will report. the clerk: dore calendar 21, h.r. 933, an act making appropriations for the department of defense and so for and for other purposes. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: mr. reid for ms. mikulski proposes amendment numbered 26. strike all after the enacting clause and insert in lieu thereof -- mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i withdraw the cloture. the presiding officer: cloture motion is withstand. mr. reid: mr. president, with the first two amendments we're going to do on this bill, according to the two markers and they're the -- according to the two managers, and they're the
ones running this program here, are the amendments of harkin and cruz. if harkin is not available immediately, cruz can do it. but these are the first two amendments and i would ask both of them to come to the moore at the earliest -- to the floor at the earliest possible date ... in fact, soon. the two managers, senator shelby will be here shortly, senator mikulski will be here shortly. in the meantime, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. reid: mr. president, i would withdraw that. i didn't know that my friend, the distinguished senator from illinois, was here wanting to talk, which is a rare occasion. mr. durbin: mr. president? mr. mccain: mr. president, could we continue the dialogue? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mr. president, i want to thank the majority leader before he leaves the floor, and i look forward toempt as and debate. and, again, i apologize to all
my colleagues if we held up this legislation, but we did want time to examine this legislation as we had previously requested. i thank my colleagues, i look forward to moving forward with amendments. the senator from oklahoma and i are prepared with amendments whenever they are in order. and i thank my friend from illinois, and i appreciate the enormous responsibility he has in his new position. i thank the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: thank my colleague from arizona as well. and i think we have a rare moment of peacemaking and harmony in the senate, and it may not last for long, so i want to speak while we have that moment. and just say for the record, i don't dispute any of the statements made by the senator from arizona, nor do i question his right, even his responsibility, to raise questions about spending. we're at a time when we're cutting spending right and level, even this the department of defense. but i do want to put on the record the following: this bill, which we're
considering, as it relates to the department of defense in its entirety is the bill that was passed by the house republican majority. this is not a bill which was written on this side of the rotunda. we have received it. that doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask questions about what the house did, but i don't want to be assigned blame or asked to take responsibility for provisions which i really did not author. we took the house version and brought it to the floor in an effort to bet this moving in an dosh get this moving in an expedited manner. i know some of the questions that the senator from arizona arhas raised are not new. there was a long-standing debate in the senate about whether to expand the notion of native contracting to include native alaskans and native hawaiians. senator inouye who chaired it
and unfortunately passed away a few weeks ago believed that the minority status for contracting should include their native tribes people and they fought for it, and it was included, and i know the senator from arizona perhaps took dpoaption that and debated with them. to renew debate is appropriate but it is not a new provision in the bill. it is something that has been there for sometime. i welcome the debate. i think it is an important one of the you about i wanted to say that for the record. this is the house republican bill, and the measures which i senator from arizona raised, some are new to me. i am going to have to look more closely, and i should, to find out the merits of the provisions. before we go any further, without -- mr. mccain: could i respond briefly? mr. durbin: if i could just use, any time that we use now until the managers arrive on the floor be for debate only. i ask unanimous consent toker
that purpose. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: i understand it was what came out of the house, the defense portion of this bill. i had no assurance that that was going to be -- quote -- "preconference" and that was going to be the final bill. so to expect me to examine the house-passed bill without knowing exactly what the disposition of it would be on the senate side is, i think, a little of. but in the intervening tiernlgee senator from oklahoma and i have found provisions that have nothing to do with the defense bill. $65 million for pacific coast salmon restoration for states including nevada. i know there are rivers coarsing through nevada all way to the pacific ocean. but grants to dig private wells for private property owners -- so we have a list of provisions that we were able to uncover, which we find controversial and
should be open for debate and discussion. but it's over. we're moving forward. hypocrite that thi hope that the amendments have been made in order will come to the floor, we can debate and vote. i thank the senator from illinois, and i yield. mr. durbin: mr. president, i see my friend and colleague from the state of rhode island here, who serves on the defense appropriations subcommittee and as well as the armed services committee. i'm going to yield he to him next. but i do want to say a word about the department of defense appropriation contained in this bill. this act provides $604.9 billion, including $87.2 billion for overseas contingency operations. it is a reduction from the 2012 level of $633.2 billion. there are no changes in the bill that passed the house last week. the bill fully complies with the spending caps in the budget control act. it contains no member-requested
earmarks in compliance with the earmark moratorium. congress has cut the defense budget to find programs which we believe are excessive to accommodate the scheduling delays, budget errors and unspent funds. the bill bill includes 671 cuts in the budget request for funds not needed for the remaining of the year. i believe everyone should agree with the notion that if you're going to replicate last year's budget, you're not going to build the same ship twice. so we are trying to avoid those obvious misappropriations and waste of federal tax dollars. the bill also rescinds $4 billion in unspent prior-year appropriations from 87 programs that have been delayed or terminated. there's been talk in the press that defense appropriations bill included here gives an advantage to the pentagon when it comes to sequestration, but that is not true. until this bill is enacted, the
defense department is dealing with two challenges: sequestration and the threat of the defense being under a full year of a continuing resolution for the first time in our nation's history. the bill does nothing about sequestration. this bill. nearly $42 billion in defense cuts have already been ordered by the president, and this bill does not change that at all. some people think the defense is being afforded special treatment in being able to transfer money to deal with sequestration. in fact, this bill keeps a tight rein on the pentagon's transfer authorities. the bill actually provides less transfer authority than what the defense department requested in february of 2012. the defense department asked for $5 billion in general transfer authority. the bill allows $4 billion. the defense department asks for $4 billion in transfer authority from overseas contingency accounts, and the bill provides $3.5 billion. all of these transfer authorities are subject to congressional approval processes. the perception of this bill gives the pentagon excessive
flexibility to deal with sequestration is not correct. the other challenge facing the department of defense is the threat of a year-long continuing resolution if we fail to pass this bill. a bill that would do nothing more than extend the authority of last year's spending bill. some of the department's most pressing fiscal challenges relate to trying to live in today's world using last year's budget. passing a defense bill will give the pentagon relief from the threat of living under a full-year continuing resolution for the very first time. but that's not because of flexibility. that's because an appropriations bill is a better steward of taxpayer dollars than a continuing resolution. here are five reasons why a continuing resolution would be harmful to our national defense: readiness. readiness is the way to measure whether our troops are properly trained and equipped to do their mission. under last year's funding bill, operation and maintenance accounts would be underfunded by $11 billion. in other words, if we just took last year's bill, we would be short $11 billion in preparing our troops for battle.
i will tell you that readiness, these operations and maintenance accounts which result in readiness training means survivability for our men and women in uniform. it is just that basic. that directly translates into less training if we don't do something about it and delayed repair of equipment. every member of the joint chiefs of staff has warned us that readiness is on the verge of plummeting because of fiscal uncertainty. that is disgraceful and unacceptable. and once readiness goes down, it takes years to rebuild it. spending on unneeded programs is also a concern. continuing last year's bill would fund $17 billion worth of programs that are no longer needed. specifically, 31 programs that have ended. for example, a continuing resolution would provide $2.6 billion for mrap armored vehicles. the pentagon already bought these vehicles. and with our troops beginning to draw away from afghanistan, we don't need more at this moment. this bill would not provide funds for unneeded programs like
this. third, no new starts or multiyear authority. a extension of last year's bill would extend the prohibition on new programs and multiyear contract authority. a multiyear contract must be specifically authorized by law and only when the government could save approximately 10% compared to buying each year's requirements. if this authority is not provided, the taxpayers stand to lose $150 million in cost savings on the v-22 osprey and as much as $373 million saving on the army's chinook helicopter. to put that in simple terms, if we can enter into multiyear contracting and get discounts on what we will need in the future, it's in the best interest of our national defense and the taxpayers. losing that multiyear contracting results in just the opposite. we overpay for things that we know we'll need. when the government needs to be finding ways to make the taxpayer dollars stretch
further, a simple extension would require the government to turn away from cost savings that have already been negotiated. on the fourth point shortfalls will go unaddressed. there is a long list of shortfalls in the defense budget not controversial but wouldn't be fixed by a continuing resolution. here are examples. $1.5 billion for national guard equipment. $2.3 billion for ship operations. $271 million to close the shortfall in tricare health care programs. $211 million added for the iron dome missile defense program that protects israeli cities from short-range rockets. the president of the united states visited us yesterday for lunch and talked about his upcoming trip to the middle east to meet with our allies in israel. i will tell you, the president as well as the leaders in israel know how important the iron dome missile defense program is and we should not shortchange it. $45 million is added to focus intelligence efforts on finding
joseph kony, the notorious leader of the lord's resistance army in uganda. i recently visited africa. i have been in the field with our troops who are stalking this man, and they will find him. he is a notorious murderer. the president has said we will put an end to his reign of terror, and we will. the bill that we're considering is going to provide the funds to finish. let me summarize by saying this bill is a compromise solution that meets budget caps, does not unfairly help the department of defense compared to other agencies. it eliminates wasteful and unneeded spending, lowers the risk to readiness and the threat of a hollow force. it takes care of our troops and their families. and it addresses the priorities of our national defense. i will not quibble or argue with my colleague from arizona or any other colleagues. if there are provisions in the house bill which is included here in its entirety that need to be challenged, addressed, debated or changed, so be it. that's why we're here. but we are starting with this
and with the good intention of finding funds for the department of defense in very challenging times. and i yield the floor to my friend from rhode island. mr. reed: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: thank you very much, mr. president. let me commend the senator from illinois for his very thoughtful statement about the pending appropriations bill particularly with respect to funding at the department of defense. i would like to spend a moment to talk about another looming issue that's beyond the appropriations rapidly approaching. in june of last year as we commemorated the 40th anniversary of legislation to establish the pell grant program, we narrowly averted a doubling of the interest rate on need-based student loans. back in january of 2012, congressman courtney and i introduced legislation to permanently extend the 3.4% interest rate that has helped make college loans more affordable for millions of students across the country. but my colleagues on the other side of the aisle instead voted for a budget that effectively called for the doubling of the
rate. at a time when students are struggling. and i will point out some of the difficulties we face. at a time that college costs are increasing and at a time also that college is becoming more and more essential for obtaining any type of long-term stable employment and continuing to the economic growth of the country. it took thousands of calls and letters and rallies from students and parents across the country, and president obama himself getting involved in this issue to bring everyone to the table to negotiate. and however, we were only able to get a temporary short-term fix. essentially we were able to keep the interest rate at 3.4%, but only until july 1 of this year. interest rates will again double on these needs-based loans unless we act. one of the other ironies, of course, is that even at 3.4%,
that's a substantial interest payment at a time when federal loans are close to 1%, that institutions can borrow at 1%, et cetera. given that factor also, it's essential that we once again respond to, and prior to july 1, the anticipated doubling of the student loan rate. is now is the time -- now is the time to develop not just a short-term solution but a long-term solution to this growing burden of student loan debt. the rising cost of college, the need to improve higher education outcomes so that students complete their degrees and get the full benefit their investment in education and we get the benefit as a society and economy of their education. everyone agrees that college costs are too high and climbing higher. there has to be real reform by higher education in terms of the way to deliver services. they cannot continue to pass on
costs. that happens -- continues to happen, families will be priced out of a college education, even with our grants and loans. so we do have to curb these costs. student loan debt is the next big financial crisis that we're facing. even if we act now, we're looking at some very sobering statistics about the growth of student loan debt already. so that should prompt, again, action now to prevent the doubling and longer-term action to control the course of higher education and the ability of families to respond to those costs. student loan debt has continued to rise through the recession. in fact, one of the ironies of recession, people who can't find jobs, they're going back to college to get more training. and sometimes they're going back to college because that's what they can do. and so it's the irony, of course, is that they're adding to student debt. today student loan debt is the second-largest outstanding balance after mortgage debt. it eclipses credit card debt.
it is the second-largest outstanding balance in our economy behind mortgage debt. and borrowers are struggling under that debt. the federal reserve bank of new york reported that 70% of student loan borrowers are more than 90 days past due on their payments. a large increase, under 10% in 2004. so in less -- roughly a decade, we have seen an increase in students unable to shoulder the burden of their debt. if you consider the student loan borrowers not in repayment, people who statutorily don't have to start paying, the effective tkhreupb kweu is i rises to -- tkhreupb -- delinquent rate rises to more than 30%. this is at a time when tphaoepls are hoping to -- when these people are hoping to establish
households. as the percentage of young adult households with student loan debt climbed from 34% in 2007 to 40% in 2010 -- again, a huge increase in debt -- the share of younger households owning their home has declined sharply from 40% in 2007 to 34% in 2011. homeownership, which is one of the, not only the measures of the american dream, but also one of the strongest supports of the american economy is rapidly being priced out of the reach of young students because of their student debt. they literally can't qualify for mortgages. car ownership shows a similar trend. in 2007, 73% of households headed by a young adult owned at least one vehicle. by 2011, that figure dropped to 66%. students are caught literally between a rock and a hard place.
huge financial debts for their college education prevent them from buying homes, buying cars, and prevents this economy from growing as it has in the past because new households, young households coming into the marketplace buying homes, buying cars and starting families. now, we can't do away with secondary education. it is more important each day in a global economy. we have to deal with this case of rising costs. the cost of attending college increased by more than 550% since 1985. let me repeat, 550%. rising faster than gasoline, health care and other consumer items. it is skyrocketing. again, the universities, the colleges, education leaders at every level -- federal, state and local -- have to begin to respond to this rising cost. but keeping student loans affordable and interest rates low is one part of the solution
particularly this immediate crisis facing us by july 1. the federal government should price student loans based on the actual cost of operating the student loan program. we should set the student loan interest rates in a way that minimizes the cost to students while covering most of the cost to the taxpayer. the federal government provides student loans to increase the number of americans who can obtain college degrees. we don't and shouldn't run these programs to generate revenue. they should be to increase the capital, the human capital of our country. i plan to introduce legislation to set student loan rates based on the principles of keeping costs low for both students and taxpayers, providing more grant aid through pell grants and other programs is another way to tackle these college costs. as college costs continue to rise, students relyance on the pell grant will continue to lose to grants. with respect to the pell grant, i've talked about the loans, but
the pell grant is just an outright grant of funds to the student without the need to repay. it was for a long time the backbone of our federal support to students in colleges and families rig to put their student -- trying to put their students in college. the pell grant maximum was $1,400. that was enough to cover 72% of the cost of tuition at a four-year college. in the good-old days, with a pell grant and a summer job and a little help, you were usually able to emerge from college after four years without a huge debt, and you could start your family and buy your car at a younger age. in 2010, the maximum pell grant has been increased to $5,550, but that's only enough to cover 34% of the cost of attendance at a public four-year college. in my state you, we've been particularly hard hit by this recession and students of families are feeling this pressure of increased tuition
and higher fees at schools and colleges acutely. they need these resources and we have to ensure that they get those resources. as i indicated, i am planning to introduce legislation to strengthen our higher education system and student aid programs by reestablishing a strong federal university-state partnership act and do so in a way that will vindicate our best principles and soundest rationale. i look forward to working with senator harkin. he has been a leader on these issues for so many years. we want to start by preventing the doubling of student loans by july 1. that's step one. but it ca cannot be the last st. with that, i would yield the floor. fryer yielding the floor -- prior to yielding the floor, i
have six unanimous consent requests 230r committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask that these requests be agreed to and printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. cornyn: i come to the floor on the 1,413th day since the senate has passed a budget and on a day where amazingly the president of the united states is reported to have said, we don't have an immediate crisis in terms of our debt. well, we do have a debt crisis that threatens both future generations, because somebody is going to have to pay that debt back, and thanks to be a
normally low interest rates, right now they are not spiraling out of control, but if interest rates were to return to historic north i believe for each additional percentage point in interest that we would have to pay on our national debt, it would result in roughly $1 $1.trillio7 trillion more that we would have to pay back. so in many ways the united states is lucky, even though we are on the brink of what scholars like reinhardt and rogoff have said are on the precipice of a debt crisis because once interest rates begin to rise, the creditors lose confidence in our ability to repay that debt, and our economy spins out of control resulting not only in a severe recession or worse but also harl to some of the most -- harm to some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who
depend on the safety net that government provides. and it's also in a debt crisis impossible for the federal government to do what it must dozen in terms of national security. indeed, that's what led former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mike mullen to say that the single greatest threat to our national security is our debt. and it keeps getting worse and worse, because the president seems unwilling to deal with the obvious and enter into what he likes to call the grand bargain but one that can only owe curb if the president is willing to talk about the entire economy and not just raise taxes. the president has said that we must embrace a balanced approach to deficit reduction. of course, reasonable people can disagree on what a balanced approach looks like, but we also know what a balanced budget looks like.
yesterday morning house republicans released aman that balances -- a plan that balances the federal budget over the next ten years. we still don't have the president's proposed budget, even though it was due on february 4. and we're now advised we may not see the president's own proippen proippeproposed budget until ine meantime april which is after the house and senate act on their proposed budgets. this seems once again that the president has taken fro to leadg from behind. white house press secretary jay carney has hold us that the president's budget will not even try to balance the budget but instead put us on what he calls a fiscally sustainable path. but that cannot be true. unless the federal government adopts serious reforms to medicare and social security,
mandatory spending programs which occupy roughly 61% of all federal spending, the kinds of reforms the president has constantly gentlemen equit rejet put our country on a fiscally sustainable path by definition. as the president knows because his own bipartisan fiscal commission told him so in september 2010, to save medicare, we must make structure changes that ensure the program will be affordable over the long term. i don't know any young person the age of my two daughters -- 30 and 31 -- who actually leave that medicare and social security are going to be there when they retire. they simply don't believe it, because they see the irresponsibility of the present generation in not only racking up bills that they are going to have end to up paying, they're seeing us do nothing to address
the fiscally unsustainable path for medicare and social security. any of us that have studied the problem understand what the problem is with the medicare system. right now an average couple will cut in, let's say, $1 in the medicare trust fund for every $3 they will ultimately take out of it. this is not a paygo system by any means, as opposed to social security where basically you'll get a dollar if for everily durable ale get a dollar out for every dollar you put in social security. but not medicare, because of its unique problems. the current medicare problem incentivizes quantity over quality and its price controls distort the entire health care market. in my state, texas, about a
third of the doctors won't even take a new medicare patient because of government price controls that basically provide compensation to them, roughly a third less than what private health insurance plans would provide. expanding those price controls, as the president has proposed, would only make medicare's problems worse, and for all the challenges medicare has, medicaid, which is designed to provide health care to low-income americans, it's even worse in terms of the compensation provided to medical providers, hospitals and doctors, and so many of them simply won't take medicaid patients, leaving medicaid-eligible beneficiaries coverage but no access in many instances. by restructuring the medicare program and increasing competition, we can hold down cost growth in medicare and make it available not just only to
the present generation of seniors of but also to future generations of seniors. that's the sort of serious issue that's not going to go away, that the senate budget should deal with. it should also provide a framework for sensible tax code reform. we all know the tax code is way too complicated. we also know it's riddled with tax credits, deductions, credi credits. what the simpson-bowles commission called tax expenditures. yet the president doesn't want to eliminate those tax deductions, credits, and expenditures for the pup of reforming the tax -- for the purpose of reforming the tax code, bringing down marginal tax rates for businesses and individuals, he wants to raise taxes again. there is a bipartisan consensus,
however, that tax reform should lower the rates and broaden the base. indeed, those were the recommendations of the simpson-bowles commission and the dim-rivlin panel as well. but as i said, the president wants to use what he calls tax reform as a trojan horse to raise taxes again. he argues that we won't have a balanced approach to deficit reduction unless we pass another massive tax hike, and that's after the president raised taxes by $600 billion in january muc. from what i understand, our friends across the aisle, senator murray as the chairman of the senate budget committee, are about to unjail a budget proposal -- unveil a budget proposal that would raise taxes again by at least $1 trillion. now, i realize if you think that government is the answer to almost every question that comes
up with america today, that you're going to need bigger government, more intrusive government funded by higher tax revenue. but they seem to be forgetting a few things. first of all, the congressional budget office tells us that federal tax revenues in 2014 are already projected to exceed the historical average. secondly, the president's health care law -- obamacare -- already contained another $1 trillion tax increase that is discouraging job creation and hurting our economy. and finally, as i point out, democrats in this body already got a $600 billion tax increase earlier this year, while hardworking americans, the middle class in america, got a tax increase with the return of the payroll tax.
by my view, no one should be talking about another tax increase until the federal government quits wasting so much taxpayer money. my colleagues from oklahoma, senator coburn, who just was on the senate floor, has single-handedly worked tirelessly to expose frivolous and unnecessary spending, and the numbers are just remarkable. for example, when senator coburn asked the government accountability office to investigate how much federal spending was duplicative, the general accountability office found that more than $364 billion of duplicative spending existed and the president wants to close down tours at the white house because of the budget sequester. give me break. how could anyone support another massive tax increase when the federal government is literally spending hundreds of billions of
dollars on redundant services? for that matter, how could anyone support another massive tax increase when we're spending nearly $15 million each year to give millionaires unemployment checks? how could anyone support another massive tax increase when we're spending half a million dollars on shampoo products for dogs and cats? that's your federal government at work for you. how could anyone support another massive tax increase when we're spending $181,000 studying the effects of cocaine on japanese quayle? i know these sound ridiculous to the extreme, but that's the whole point. the federal government is littered with spending that we simply don't need, and yet rather than do something about that, our friends across the
aisle want to raise taxes once again along with the president of the united states. no one said that cutting spending or reforelling entitlement -- reforming entitlement programs or overhauling or tax code will be easy, but if the president truly does want a balanced approach to our fiscal and economic challenges, he will stop leading from behind and start leading from out front. madam president, i'm shocked that the president would say in an interview with john carl, abc news, that there is no immediate crisis in terms of the debt. what he must be forgetting is what economists tell us when the debt gets so large, it retards economic growth. forget the debt crisis part. that's an immediate impact on job creation here in america. and we're all wondering why the recovery from the recession of
2008 has been the slowest since the great depression. well, one reason is people are worried about tax rates going up because they see debt upon debt being piled up, and they are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what's going to happen. and they are also experiencing additional costs in terms of health care when they were told by the president back in 2008 and 2009 that if we just passed obamacare the average family would see a reduction in their health insurance premiums by $2,500. well, they were also told a lot of other things like if you like what you have, you can keep it, that didn't end up being true either. but if the president needs to listen to his own experts, like the bipartisan fiscal commission he himself appointed, not only do we risk a debt crisis if we don't deal with the $16.5 trillion debt we have, if interest rates were to go up, it
is having an immediate impact on unemployment. more than 20 million people in this country who are either out of work or working part-time and who want to work full-time. that ought to be enough to get the president to act. and should he choose to act, should he choose to lead, we will be happy to meet him halfway to deal with the single-most important issue facing the country today. but it starts with passing a budget, something senate democrats haven't done for 1,414 days. madam president, i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:
ms. mikulski: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: madam president, i rise this morning to say that thanks to the courtesy and collegiality of -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. ms. mikulski: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. mikulski: so, madam president, thanks to the cordiality and cooperation of
members on both sides of the aisle, but particularly those who initially had an objection to us going, we now can move forward. so we are waiting for a senator -- the junior senator from texas, mr. cruz, to come to the floor. he will be offering the first amendment. as soon as he gets here, we're off and running. and i want to thank everybody for getting us to this point. senator shelby working with me on the bill, senators reid and mcconnell and particularly now senator mccain and coburn. we have a way of addressing their concerns. so we're ready. we're waiting for the senator. but while we are, i want to bring just, express my deep condolences to the family of lieutenant valerie delaney, a graduate of the united states naval academy in 2009, whose
life was cut short in a jet crash in washington state. lieutenant delaney graduated from the naval academy, as i said. she was a wonderful young lady. not my appointment. she was appointed to the academy by congressman eli shah cummings. -- eli gentleman -- she was a great naval officer. she had a promising life and promising career ahead of her. i want to say to her family who live in howard county, a wonderful community called he will cot city that i -- called ellicot city that i and even the other senators want to express their heartfelt condolences. valerie put everything into whatever she did. she was popular with other naval officers. she was well regarded.
when she first sought nomination, she needed to take a year off for prep school. she did that. she was diligent. she was persistent. she was just terrific. so we are sorry about this tragic accident that's occurred, and i just wanted to let the senate know and her family know, we're so deeply sorry about it. so, madam president, we now are -- i'm going to note the absence of a quorum while we await the arrival of senator cruz. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:
mr. cruz: madam president? the presiding officer: the superior texas. mr. cruz: i ask unanimous
consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cruz: i call up my amendment number 30. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. mr. cruz: i ask that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: the senator from texas, mr. cruz, proposes amendment numbered poo. -- numbered 30. mr. cruz: i ask that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cruz: madam president, rise today to deliver my first official speech on the floor of the senate on an issue that i believe is the most urgent issue facing the country; namely, the dire need to restore economic growth to our nation. i will note at the outset, this is the second opportunity i've had to speak on the senate floor, because the first was last week during the historic filibuster led by the junior
senator from kentucky for nearly 13 hours, and i will note a particular debt of gratitude that i owe to senator paul that the very first time i spoke on this floor in a colloquy with senator paul, i had the opportunity to read travis' letter from the alamo, to read shakespeare's st. ccrispin's day speech and to read ronald reagan's 1964 "a time for choosing" speech. and that is a debt i will always owe senator paul because, as they say in the beer commercial, "it don't get no better than that." and so, sadly, i can promise my colleagues that in the rest of my te tenure here, i am confidet that we will not have an opportunity to rival those words that william travis penned as he was standing for principle.
that is a topic of exceptional importance. every elected member of congress, whether republican or democrat, should have as their very first priority restoring economic growth in this country. in the last four years, we've seen stagnant growth. the last four years our economy has averaged 0.8% growth each year. to put that into context, that is a fraction of the historical levels. since world war ii, our economy has enjoyed 3.3% growth a year. last quarter the economy was struggling along. it grew just 0.1% last quarter. it was effectively stagnant. if we want to solve the great many fiscal and economic challenges facing this country, growth is the critical
precondition. if we want the 23 million people who are struggling to find jobs and to get back to work -- and i know every one of us wants those 23 million people to back to work -- we must restore economic growth. if we want to turn around the train wreck that is the balance sheet of the federal government, that is our perennial recurring deficits and debts, that can't be done without restoring growth. and so, in my view, we should be working across the aisle in a bipartisan way to focus on bringing growth back. that should be our number-one priority. given that, the purpose of this amendment is to advance economic growth. and, in particular, to delay funding of obamacare until economic growth returns. now, let me be clear. in my view, obamacare should be repealed in its entirety, and
that was the very first bill i introduced in the u.s. senate. but, at a minimum, in my judgment, obamacare should not be funded and implemented at a time when our economy is gasping for breath, at a time when our economy is struggling to such a degree that implementing it right now could well force us into a recession. it seems to me that every member of this body should stand together in acting decisively to prevent this economy from being pushed into a recession and implementing obamacare at a time when the economy is so weak could do just that. obamacare hurts the economy, it hurts jobs, it hurts young people it hurts hispanics, it hurthurts african-americans, it hurts single moms. it hurts everybody struggling to climb the economic ladder. i'd like to initially talk about
four promises that were made when obamacare was passed, and the reality we have seen as it has started to be implemented. it is ironic that the law is called "the affordable care act" because in the three years it has been in effect, it who is a proven to be neither affordable or caring. 234u7number one, before obamacas adopted, president obama promised the american people that obamacare would reduce the cost of insurance. the president said american families would pay $2,500 less for their insurance premiums by the end of his first term. i would note that his first term ended not long ago. and today the american families are not paying $2,500 less in health insurance premiums. they're not paying a penny less. endeed, today -- indeed, today
american families are paying $3,000 more in health insurance premiums than they were. that's a $5,500 swing out of the pockets of hardworking americans that are struggling to make ends meet. the reality has not lived up to the promise. the management consulting firm oliver wyman issued a new study recently that predicted that people aged 21 to 29 could see a 42% hike in premium costs. the higher premiums in particular are hitting young people, and indeed i would point out, if you are a young person, this law going into effect right now when the economy is struggling to particularly problematic. if you are a young person coming out of school today, here's what you're facing. number one, fewer jobs. if you didn't grad wad didn't gh
school, you are you're facing an a high unemployment rate. if you're a minority, a you're hispanic, you're facing an unemployment rate of nearly 10%. if you are a he averages you are a its facing an unemployment rate of over 14%. and when are you sighing actually in the job market if you're lucky enough to get a job? more and more employers are dropping health care coverage because of the burden of obamacare. more and more employers are forcing employees to work fewer hours because of the burdens of obamacare. and more and more individuals are seeing their premiums climb, especially young people. so if you are a young person coming out of school today, you may not find a job, it is harder to find a job because of the economic growth right now. and if you do find a job, there is a real possibility that job
won't have health insurance, or if -- and that you'll find your hours reduced. and if you do have health insurance, that you'll pay higher premiums the promises have not lived up to the reality. the second differential between promises and reality is president obama repeat i hadly told -- repeatedly told americans "if you like your health plan, you can keep it." that, unfortunately, had a not proven to be the case. the latest forecast from the congressional budget office estimate that some seven million people are expected to lose or be dropped from their employer-provided health insurance by the year 2020. and indeed, health insurers in 34 states have stopped carrying child-only insurance policies. in my home state of texas, one of the largest insurance markets in the country, every single carrier has dropped its
child-only health insurance consequently and the same is true -- coverage and the same is true for other states like florida and illinois. the promise that if you like your health care coverage you will be able to keep it has not lived up to reality. as more and more americans are losing their health insurance. number three, president obama pledged repeatedly not to raise taxes on families making less thank $250,000 a year. and yet that promise has not materialized. within obamacare there is a talf on those that do not maintain government-approved health insurance, there are increases on the threshold of the deduction for unreimbursed medical expenses, there is an increase in taxes on distributions from health savings accounts, and from flexible spending arranges. indeed, in total, over $1 trillion in tax increases are
contained within obamacare. the promise has not lived up to the reality. and the fourth promise that has not lived up to the reality is that in february 2010 former house speaker nancy pelosi said obamacare would create -- quote -- "four million jobs" -- 400,000 jobs almost immediately. that was in 2010. by 2011 the c.b.o. budget director testified to the house budget committee that obamacare would result in an estimated 800,000 fewer jobs by 2021. the promises have not lived up to reality. i'd now like to talk about five distinct harms that have come from obamacare that have made life more difficult for americans. number one, obamacare harms the
poor. those who are struggling to climb the economic ladder. right now 60 million people are enrolled in medicare, and medicaid is a program that is struggling, that is challenging, that is desperately in need of reform to improve how it operates. and obamacare, by raising the eligibility age and trying to incentivize and pressure states into expanding medicaid, is designed to move at least an additional 18 million people on to medicaid over the next ten years. now, the data demonstrate that medicaid beneficiaries face worse health outcomes than just about anybody else in the marketplace. in 2010, the annals of succory issued a landmark study that examined the outcomes from nearly 900,000 individuals
undergoing surgery from 200320 shall -- from 2003 to 2007. the conclusion was that medicaid patients were almost twice as likely to die as those with private insurance. medicaid patients, their hospital stays were 42% longer and cost 26% more. even more striking, medicaid patients, when compared to people without health insurance, people who were unshourd, medicaid -- people who were uninsured, medicaid patients were 13% more likely to die and they stayed in the hospital for 50% longer and cost 20% more. in 2011, johns hopkins did a study of patients undergoing lung transplantations, and their conclusions were very much the same. they found that medicaid patients were 8.1% less likely to be alive ten years after the
transplant compared with those with private insurance and also compared to those without any insurance at all. overall, the johns hopkins study found that medicaid patients faced a 29% greater risk of death. and yet, obamacare is moving more and more of the economically disadvantaged on to medicaid, which subjects them to those worse health care outcomes. number two, obamacare hurts seniors. obamacare took $716 billion from medicare, a large portion of which came from the medicare advantage program which serves a great many seniors, and especially poor seniors. according to the office of the actuary at the center for medicaid and medicaid services, the medicare advantage cuts in
obamacare will reduce enrollment from 14.8 million to 7.4 million by 2017. it will cut it in half. seven million people will lose their coverage under medicare advantage. i would remind you the president said if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. yet seven million seniors are losing medicare advantage. the heritage foundation found that the substantial cuts to medicare advantage in particular hurt seniors in the states of texas, california, new mexico, louisiana, alaska, new york, massachusetts, and also in the district of columbia. those states are expected to lose more than 50% of their enrollees by 2017. i would suggest that each of us as we return to our constituents, as we return to address seniors, any in this
body that vote today to implement obamacare despite the difficult economic times should be prepared to answer to seniors in our state who say, "why did you vote to damage the medicare advantage program that i was relying upon?" and the harm to medicare advantage in particular is visited upon minorities. hispanics are twice as likely to enroll in medicare advantage than the average medicare beneficiary and african-americans are 10% more likely. and so obamacare targets a program that is helping seniors, in particular is helping those seniors who are most vulnerable. in addition, 31% of african-american medicare beneficiaries and 38% of hispanic beneficiaries are
enrolled in medicare advantage plans. so those of us that return to our states that have substantial minority populations need to be prepared to explain to hispanic seniors, to african-american seniors why this body, why the federal government is damaging a program that they are relying on for essential health care. number three, obamacare is harming jobs. in march of 2013, the federal reserve said in its annual beige book, which analyzes economic data from across the country, that employers in several districts cited the unknown effects of the affordable care act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff. added health care costs are making it harder for businesses to hire new workers, and especially low-skilled workers.
and this is a point that is worth underscoring, because the detrimental effects of obamacare are not uniformly distributed throughout our population. they fall the hardest on those who are most vulnerable among us. the heritage foundation found that workers who cannot produce at least $20,000 per year for a single plan or $27,500 per year for a family plan, a value to their employers will have serious difficulty finding full-time jobs. now, madam president, when i read those statistics, those are not simply empty words on a page. those are data that strike very close to home because 55 years ago that precisely described my father. when my father came as an immigrant from cuba in 1957, he was 18. he was penniless, and he could not speak english.
the very first job my father received in austin, texas, was washing dishes making 50 cents an hour. and the reason he told me he got that job, he said, look, i couldn't speak english. i couldn't interact with people as most jobs required. but i could wash dishes. and he worked seven days a week. the reason he worked seven days a week is because when you wash dishes, they allowed the employees to eat. and he didn't have the money to buy food. and by working seven days a week, he ensured he ate seven days a week. now, i read a statistic like those who cannot produce $20,000 per year in value to an employer will find themselves unable to find jobs, and i can't help but think of my dad as that 18-year-old kid just beginning to climb the job ladder, not speaking english, not having yet developed skills. what he could do was wash dishes.
working at 50 cents an hour is what enabled him to pay his way through the university of texas, what enabled him to graduate, to get a job, a higher-paying job and eventually to start a small business and then today become a pastor. my father is here in the gallery today visiting me. and i think about the impact that these burdens would have had on him. and i will tell you, i am grateful that in 1957 the so-called affordable care act had not been implemented because it could well have shut down the opportunity for him to be able to survive and pay his way through school and begin climbing the economic ladder. additionally, obamacare keeps small businesses small. obamacare is designed so that its principal burdens are triggered when a business has 50 employees or more. as a consequence, there is an incredible deterrent to small
businesses hiring more than 50 employees, because hiring that 50th employee triggers enormous burdens and expenses. now that has particular implications for everyone in this economy struggling to find work because two-thirds of all new jobs come from small businesses. and by keeping them small, what we are doing is stifling the ability to grow the economy and in particular to grow the economy by creating opportunities for those who need to begin and want to begin climbing the economic ladder. by hiring the 50th employee, if a small business does not provide government-approved insurance, it faces a penalty of up to $3,000 for each uncovered worker beyond 30 employees. thus, as the "wall street journal" explained, if a company with 50 employees hires a new worker for $12 an hour for 29 hours a week, there is no health
insurance requirement. but suppose that worker moves to 30 hours a week. this triggers a $2,000 federal penalty. so to get 50 more hours of work a year from that employee, the extra cost to the employer rises to about $52 an hour. the $12 salary and an obamacare tax of what works out to be about $40 an hour. moving to 33 hours a week cost the employer about $10 in obamacare tax. the result is small businesses are staying smaller and the opportunities for those struggling to achieve the american dream are limited. that leads to the fourth harm. obamacare hurts workers. one of the consequences we are seeing over and over and over
again is in order to avoid the crushing costs of obamacare, employers are limiting the hours employees can work. so, for example, in january, a wendy's franchise in nebraska announced it would cut the hours of nonmanagement employees to 28 hours a week. as a result, about 100 employees' hours were cut. that's a direct impact of obamacare. for those 100 employees who are working at wendy's. some may say is that a career? so many hispanics, so many kids, so being african-americans begin as my father did: working, washing dishes or flipping burgers. and they use those jobs to gain skills and advance up the economic ladder. and to have a law that forces small business owners to reduce
those hours, to limit the hours, those workers can work is particularly harmful. a taco bell in guthrie, oklahoma, also cut hours. a single mother of three told oklahoma news 9 -- quote -- "they informed everybody that nobody was considered full time any longer, that everybody was now considered part time, and they would be cutting hours back to 28 hours or less due to obamacare." she went on, "several of the people i work with, some of them are single parents and we do the best we can, and 28 hours a week isn't going to cut it for the bills." for the single moms in this country who are working as hard as they can to provide for their kids, seeing their hours reduced because of the consequences of this law is a real and material
hardship, and that sadly is happening all over the country. steven caldara, president of the international franchise association, predicts that -- quote -- "many stores will have to cut worker hours out of necessity." let me point out, it's not, by the way, hard-heartedness on the part of those small business owners. it's the simple realities of trying to survive in this economy, as caldara continues, kw-rbgs it -- "it could be the difference between staying in business or going out of business." a 2011 hudson institute study says the insurance mandate will cost the franchise industry $6.4 billion and put 3.1 million jobs at risk. that's worth underscoring. 3.1 million jobs at risk of kids flipping burgers, of single moms struggling to provide for their kids who are facing hard times because of obamacare. it is those who are most
vulnerable who are hit the worst. and indeed, if you look at the premium increases, the premium increases in particular for young people have been significant. and if bollcare is fully -- and if obamacare is fully implemented are likely to be extraordinary. according to a 2013 staff report from the house energy and commerce committee, the obamacare impact on young adults in the individual market is expected to be staggering. if you look in the city of austin, a city i've lived many years -- a terrific city, a city whose slogan unofficially is keep austin weird. it is a young, hip, vibrant. "keep austin weird." weird, which in austin is very fitting. it is a young, hip, vibrant city. it is referred to as the loud
music capital of the world. right now a young adult in augs continue in the -- in austin in the individual health insurance market pays an average premium of $648. under obamacare that is anticipated to rise to $1,836. that's a 183% increase. i'd like to repeat that to underscore it. today they are paying $648. that's expected to rise to $1,836. an additional 1,200 dollars out of the pocket of a young person struggling to survive is substantial. and indeed, nationally that is consistent with the pattern that is expected all over the country. that is the average annual increase. it is parallel to what is expected in chicago, in phoenix, in atlanta, in milwaukee.
and at this point i've been informed that the senator from utah has a time issue. so, madam president, i would ask to yield to the senator from utah and thank him for joining me in this. mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: as the manager of the bill, i thought we were going to -- of course, senator cruz has offered his amendment -- but we were going to rotate speakers from a democrat and a republican. there is no agreement to do round-rob inhere, where the senator from texas would yield to the senator -- i think there's some confusion, and i'd like to follow the traditional regular order, where the senator from texas, the proponent of the amendment, has full and ample time; that the senator from -- that other senators respond, then senator lee. i will a he not going to make a -- i'm not going to make a u.c.,
but that's the way we usually do it. is that -- has the senator from texas concluded his remarks? mr. cruz: i have about an additional ten minutes that i would like to guilty of but i was just -- that i would like to give. but i was just informed that the senator from utah had a scheduling issue and asked if we could show him consideration. i am being told now that -- if the senator from maryland would prefer, i'm happy to continue my remarks. ms. mikulski: and the senator from utah -- see, we all have these scheduling things. and what we want to do is make sure everybody has their say. and if the senator from utah has a statement to put into the record or wishes to return, we'd welcome him back. we in no way want to impede his ability to speak. is that all okay? mr. cruz: i think the issue has been obviated. so if i may, madam president, simply continue my remarks, and then when i'm concluded, i will yield the floor.
the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: the fourth -- the fifth impact, rather, of obamacare is that it imposees a substantial harm on the economy, on the economy altogether. obamacare includes more than 20 tax increases. the joint committee on taxation estimates that over the next ten years obamacare will raise $1 trillion in taxes. that's $1 trillion from the private sector that's not going to be available to use -- be used to hire new workers. job losses, just in the medical device industry, as a result of the medical device excise tax could total as much as $47,100 or 10% of the medical device industry employment. those job losses are not needed -- those job losses are not driven by market conditions.
those job losses are driven by one thing, which is the policy decisions of the federal government to implement obamacare. on march 5, 2013, russell george the inspector general for the i.r.s., testified to the house committee a eption pros. "it is unprecedenced in recent history the amount of responsibility the i.r.s. is being given in an area that most people don't think of as an i.r.s. function." he went on, "this is going to lead to problems." the congressional budget office expects obamacare penalties to total $130 billion over the next ten years. that's up $13 billion from previous forecasts. and more taxpayers will be hit with obamacare taxes as time goes on. there's a 0.9% tax surcharge on individuals earned income and a
3.8% surcharge for individuals making more than $200,000. but those taxes are not indexed for inflation, and so as inflation raises the income of -- the nominal income of americans, it will push more and more from the middle class into paying those taxes. so the tax policy center estimates that by 2013, 2.4% of households will pay one or both of those taxes, and by 2022, 4.6% of households will pay. by 2032, 9% of households will pay. that's a significant additional tax burden falling on americans. in addition, one of the most problematic short-term and long-term problems is less innovation. the united states has enjoyed tremendous advantages because our free-market system
eencucialtion investmenteencourd innovation. the incentives are there to invest in new health care treatment. as a result, millions have lived better lives, have lived longer lives, have not died from the diseases that previously were unciewcialtion previously were uncurable and because of the innovation we have had in the medical field, it has led to the united states enjoying a world-class health care system. becomobamacare is substantially diminishing innovation in health care. venture capital, the seed money that funds new research and development in health care, has dropped precipitously. in 2010, have e venture capitaln health care service was $1.2
billion. in 2011, it had dropped more than half. according to dr. scott godly of the american enterprise institute, only about 30 venture stage health care services companies got funded last year compared to hundreds from previous years. if we want to continue to see the incredible medical innovation we have seen over the last century, we can't be drying it up the capital that is devoted to ref and development that is devoted to new and innovative companies, and that's exactly what obamacare is doing. and then there are the compliance costs. the compliance costs from obamacare are quite simply massive. obamacare will require american businesses, families, health care providers to spend more than 127 million hours per year
in compliance costs. now what could be done with 127 million hours? the problem with really big numbers is it's really hard to get your mind around had a does it mean that 127 million hours are being spent on complying with obamacare. to put that into perspective, mt. rush moremore, which took 14 years to build, could be completed over 1,000 times. and that is each and every year. that underscores just how staggering, if we're talking about building 1,000 mt. rushmores each and every year, i would note there may be some members of this august body who would like to see themselves on those is,000 or more mt. rushmores, but rather than
needless compliance costs, we should be putting that energy into productive endeavors. none of that compliance cost is productive, as we say in texas, it produces neither trucks nor fotortillas. it's simply wasted time dealing with the burdens of government. to give you a sense of the value of burdens, as of today, the administration has created more than 19,000 pages of regulations, bulletins, and guidance since obamacare became law. and if the i.r.s. and h.h.s. and department of labor continues at their current pace, we can expect an additional 3,000 pages of rules, which is what i have here -- 3,000 pages -- in the next six months,ed period covered by this continuing
resolution. this is 3,000 pages right here. i will tell you, i am very glad that i don't have to sit down and read these 3,000 pages. but i will tell you also, yesterday i held a teletown hall with thousands of texans and a small business owner asked a question. she said, our small business, we're struggling to make ends meet. how do we ascertain what these regulations contain? and, madam president, i'll tell you, i was very frustrated that i could not give her a good answer. because on my desk here is 3,000 pages and yet what's already been promulgated is over 19,000 pages. so take this stack and send it six times up in the air. it would reach nearly into the gallery, and i told her, i don't have a good answer for how you, who are struggling to make payroll, to make sure your employees keep their jobs, how you possibly digest 19,000 pages of regulation with new pages
coming out, without ceasing. why is our economy struggling? it is not hard to figure out when you think about the compliance costs and regulations that are being heaped on small businesses, when they're told, figure out what is in the 19,000 pages of regulations and if you get it wrong, you can be sure the hammer of the federal government will come down upon you. that is why, madam president, i'm introducing this amendment today. this amendment to the continuing resolution is a very simple amendment. it simply provides that none of the funds within the continuing resolution shall be spent to implement obamacare or to engage in rule making under obamacare. now, let me be clear. in my view, obamacare should be repealed altogether. i think the harms from obamacare -- particularly the harms on the most vulnerable among us -- are significant enough that we should repeal it in its
entirety. i recognize that is not a view shared by every member of this body. at a minimum, however, i would submit that every member of this body should agree that restoring economic growth should be a critical priority, and with our economy gasping for breath -- last quarter we were at 0.1% growth -- allowing been become to be fully -- allowing obamacare to be fully implemented right now has the potential of pushing this economy into a recession. i know no member of this body wants to see the economy going into a recession. no member of this body wants to see the american people pay the price for damaging economic growth. and if we allow obamacare to be funded and implemented right now, each of us who votes to do so will bear a significant
amount of responsibility for the economic damage that comes. and so i would submit that every member of this house -- republican and democrat -- should stand together and say, at a minimum, let's restore growth first. at a minimum, let's wait until we get back to historic levels of growth -- 3.3% -- before implementing such an incredibly antigrowth, job-killing omnibus bill. let me close with a simple observation of the power of growth. if we could get back to historic averages -- 3%, 4%, 5% -- every other problem this body wrestles with becomes much, much simpler to resolve. 4% growth for a decade would create over 10 million new jobs. 4% growth for a decade would produce over $3 trillion in
additional tax revenue. i would note, that exceeds the tax increases, the revenue from the tax increases that have been proposed by president obama. it exceeds the revenue from the tax increases that my understanding is the budget committee will include in its budget before this body. i am all for new revenue to pay down our debt. i just believe the revenue should come from economic growth and not from higher taxes that hammers small businesses, kills jobs, and restricts growth. and most important, 4% growth over a decade would lift over three million people oust poverty and into -- out of poverty and into the middle class. growth sometimes seems like an abstract number that only economists worry about but sustained growth is what has led to the unprecedented prosperity of our great nation.
it is the reason why for centuries millions of people have come to america, seeking a better life because there has been no country on earth that has allowed so many people to start with nothing and achieve anything. a stagnant economy hurts, first and foremost, those struggling to climb the economic ladder, and in my opinion every one of us should come into work every day fighting for those struggling to climb the economic ladder, to make sure we remain the land of opportunity, to make sure we remain the hope and beacon to the world, to make sure that every american has a fair chance to achieve the american dream. with stagnant growth, millions are shut off from that american dream, and i know no member of this body wants to so that happen. -- wants to see that happen. so respectfully, i would irk my colleagues to restore growth
first. do not allow this bill to be implemented to kill economic growth, to quill jobs and potentially push this economy into a recession. instead, let's get growth back. let's maintain our economic strength and security and let's make sure opportunity remains not just for us but for the next generations and the generations after that. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam president, i guess i'm compelled to say here we go again. we've been down this road a few times before since we passed the shall affordable -- the affordable care act, my notes tell me it's 33, this makes the 34th time, the 34th time
that someone on the republican side has tried to do away with the affordable care act. yes, this is the 34th time. and they failed every time. they failed every time. but so, you know, free to offer amendments, i understand that, i expect -- i respect the senator's right to do that. but, you know, we've already made our decisions on this. and i've said many times as the chair of the health committee, i've said many times if someone has suggestions on how to improve the be affordable care act, to make it work better, be more efficient, i'm open for that. that -- that should be allowed and we should have a constant kind of exchange on maybe how we can improve it. but this idea of we're going to
repeal it, well, i'd also say, madam president, that i -- i woander if my friend, the senator from texas, saw the last election. the senator from texas got elected, that's for sure, and i congratulate him on that. but the presidential candidate of the republican party who said he wanted to repeal the affordable care act, he lost. president obama, who was the president who initiated this and signed it into law, he won. i think quite convincingly. so the american people basically have said it's time to move on. time to move on with the affordable care act. and yet here this amendment, basically would repeal it. but i wonder if the senator from texas understands that it's not just the affordable care act that his amendment would hit. it would hild hith a lot of other things -- it would hild hith a lot of other things.
when we passed the affordable care act there were authorizations for other programs that were included with it. and so when -- when the amendment says you can't fund any of the provisions of the affordable care act, well, i just made a note, we also reauthorized the nurse training partnership act. so a lot of the funds there go for training nurses. now, does the senator really believe we should stop funding nurse training in america at this time when we need more nurses and more nurse practitioners than ever before? at a time when our nursing profession is facing a -- kind of an age cliff, we have a huge cohort of nurses now who are going to be retiring. we need to bring in new nurses. and yet his amendment would cut funding. say that nothing that we could
do could support nurse training programs in america. school-based health clinics. medicare fraud and abecause, fighting fraud and abuse in medicare was also included in the affordable care act. so, madam president, again, they've tried frontal assaults on getting rid of the affordable care act, now this amendment says we're just going to not fund it. and -- it would be strange, we have the law in effect but no funding to take advantage of it. it's almost like there's an obsession. there's an obsession with some people on the other side of the aisle with tearing down health reform. again, i think it's unfortunate that some missed the results of the last election. so it's time to move on.
this amendment really is the equivalent of repeal. it would turn back the clock on all we've accomplished over the last year. the administration would not be able to build the insurance exchanges or to enforce the act's requirements on private insurers. again, what this amendment would if it were adopted, we'd go back to the good old days when the insurance companies were in the driver's seat telling you what kind of health care you were entitled to and when you're entitled to it. and, again, ever since we passed the affordable care act and during the time that we debated it here on the floor, we kept asking our friends on the republican side, what's your alternative? what's your alternative? what's your altern tich? and basically what we got was the status quo. let's just stay with what we got. i think the american people got pretty fed up with what we had. where insurance companies could
turn you down at the very moment when you got sickest. when -- when people had preexisting conditions and couldn't get insurance or had to pay exorbitant prices for that. i have a note, we had a family, the grasshoffs from texas, the senator's home state. they were unable to find coverage to pay for their son's hemophilia treatment. why? because they had reached their lifetime limit on insurance payments. the affordable care act bans lifetime limits. so now they can get treatment. more than 100 million americans are currently protected by this provision. this amendment would take it away. so the grasshoffs' treatment for their son for hemophilia treatment would end and they can't afford to pay for it out
of their own pockets. keep that in mind when you vote on this amendment. the affordable care act allows young people to stay on their parents' policies until they're age 26. more than three million young people are taking advantage of this right now. you know, repeal would take that away from families. i mean, the repeal -- the adoption of the cruz amendment would take that away. because, obviously, we couldn't fund anything to help make this work. again, i mentioned pre-exists ing, preexisting conditions, diabetes, previous bouts of cancer. right now the cruz amendment would say no, the insurance companies could say no, we're not going to insure you, or if we do, you're going to pay sky-high prices for your
insurance. one of the big things that we put in the affordable care act was prevention and wellness programs. by preventing illness. and so we provided for free preventative services like mammograms and colonoscopies so they -- people can get those without paying co-pays. as much as times $300 to $700 for essential services. the cruz amendment would put you back where you would have to pay for those preventive screenings. the cruz amendment would deprive states and localities of vital funding to combat cancer, heart disease, as well as funding to ensure our kids have access to lifesaving vaccines. the prevention and public health fund is saving lives. the cruz amendment would stop that.
now, i picked up a little bit of what the senator from texas said about young people, their insurance rates are going sky-high and stuff. has the senator ever heard of the marketplace? it's where people compete, right? well, under the affordable care act, all of these insurance companies now will have to go on the exchanges in the open market with full transparency and they're going to have to compete. now, we haven't had that in the past. but under this, we do. the cruz amendment would take that away. take that away. a real market out there for insurance, for individuals, small businesses would have the same purchasing power and choice that only big companies have had before. well, i guess most importantly, these exchanges that we're setting up will bring coverage
to 32 million americans who don't have coverage right now. they live in the oppressive fear they're just one illness away from bankruptcy, losing their homes, not knowing if they can afford another doctor's visit. would anyone tell states stop -- stop this, stop what you're doing to help serve your citizens? that's what the cruz amendment does. the cruz amendment would take us back to the days of the doughnut hole for elderly because the affordable care act closes that doughnut hole, we're closing it year after year. 6.1 million seniors have already saved more than $5.7 billion in discounts on drugs purchased in the doughnut hole. the cruz amendment, stop that, would increase seniors' drug prices by an estimated $7,500
per person over the next ten years. one of the key features we put in the foarbledz was going -- the affordable care act was going after medicare fraud. preventing medicare fraud. we've increased criminal penalties, we've launched innovative technologies to detect those who would defraud medicare, we've put more cops on the beat to preserve medicare funds for beneficiaries and not those who would scam the system. the cruz amendment would stop all that. stop our efforts that we put in there to get a handle on medicare fraud. and something very important to so many of us is what's happening in rural areas. right now under the affordable care act there are incentive
payments paid to rural primary care providers in rural america, in states like north dakota and iowa and texas. well, right now the cruz amendment would stop that incentive payment for primary care providers in rural areas. i mentioned the preventive services, right now we -- every senior gets a wellness visit once a year. more than 34 million seniors got that last year. a free preventative service in medicare so you can get a wellness check to find out if they need to do something to take better care of themselves. and they don't have to pay for that. the cruz amendment would say no, if you want to do it, now you got to start paying for it. well, since this is kind of a
blunt instrument, this amendment we have before us, it would defund all activities related to health reform, all activities related the health reform, including paying the federal employees who administer medicare. secretary sebelius has informed us that payments to medicare providers would be significantly disrupted by this. you can't separate out the affordable care act from all the other provisions of medicare that are being -- being run by -- by health and human services or by c.m.s., the center for medicare services. well, madam president, -- oh, yes, i know the senator also talked about the deficit, reducing the deficit. i don't understand why someone would want to stop something
which the congressional budget office said would reduce the deficit in the future. so i guess we're going to reduce the deficit by increasing the deficit. that's sort of the logic of this amendment. the congressional budget office confirms the affordable care act reduces the deficit by more than $100 billion in the next ten years and more than a trillion dollars in the decade that follows. so the cruz amendment would roll that back. so i guess the senator wants to reduce the deficit by increasing the deficit. go figure that one out. so it's really time to stop the silly games, but i guess it will continue. after all, in 1935, the congress and president roosevelt passed the social security act. 75 years later, there are still some on the republican side who would like to get rid of that.
i guess we'll continue to have a few voices -- not everyone, not everyone, but a few voices that will still be fighting the affordable care act years from now. in 1965, congress passed medicare. republicans fought it bitterly, by the way. 45 years later, a few on that side are still trying to undo medicare with voucherizing it and all that kind of stuff. so i can just say here we go again. i always remember what william f. buckley, the founder of "the national review" the godfather of the modern conservative movement in america, a very intellectual kind of guy. he was very intellectual. and a good writer and a good speaker. i always enjoyed watching william f. buckley. and he once said -- and this is a quote -- he said, "the role of conservatives is to -- quote --
"stand athwart history yelling 'stop.'." well, is that really the role? well, i think there should be a different role for conservatives and that is to stand with liberals and moderates and everybody else in figuring out what's best, what's best for moving ahead. not to just yell "stop" or to repeal something but something that is so meaningful and so broadly supported, then how do you make it work the best? so i kind of conclude where i began. if people have suggestions on how to make the affordable care act work better, work smoother, be more efficient, more cost-effective, fine, i'd like to -- that's -- that's -- that's good. that would be a good debate and discussion, a debate and discussion to have. but just to say, no, we're not
going to fund it, that's an ideological approach. that's not based on budget considerations, it's not based on reducing the deficit, which i've just pointed out. it's not based on -- on a -- on a -- i think a rational reading of the bill itself and what is happening out there in terms of setting up the exchanges and all the other things that i just mentioned. it's just an ideological approach. it's sort of tearing it down and sort of going after president obama, i guess, one more time. so i -- i don't -- i don't -- i don't want to take the position of saying somebody can't offer an amendment like that. sure, you can offer an amendment to do anything. but reasonable, rational people here in the senate don't need to follow that. we just need to do what is best for the american people and leave the ideology behind. so i hope that the cruz
amendment will be seen for what it is, an attempt to repeal obamacare at this moment in time, when we're on the cusp of actually having it fully implemented. states have already moved ahead. even very conservative republican governors have joined in in saying yes, we want to extend medicaid coverage, federal medicaid coverage in our states. conservative republican governors are setting up exchanges. so we're -- we're moving ahead. now is not the time to sort of say, well, we're going to cut the funding for this. and again, keep in mind that this doesn't just defund the affordable care act. i said there were other things, like nurse practitioner -- the nurse profession training act that we put in the affordable care act. that would be defunded also because it's part of the
affordable care act. it was reauthorized along with that, along with medicare fraud and abuse, school-based health clinics, the area health education centers, a number of things that were put in with the affordable care act that would also be defunded under the cruz amendment. so i hope, madam president, we'll see this amendment for what it is and i hope the senate will soundly reject it. with that, i yield the floor. ms. mikulski: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: madam president, ordinarily we would be alternating on both sides of the aisle. i regret that senator lee had to leave and we welcome those who support the cruz amendment to speak before we have to take a break. i have to go to a meeting with senator reid at 12:30 and some other chairmen of the committee. so we just ask those who really have views on this to come
forward and speak. i do have some comments on the cruz amendment. first of all, we welcome senator cruz. he's the new senator from texas. he replaced a very dear friend, senator kay bailey hutchison. and though senator hutchison and i were close friends, we usually agreed on goals but there were times we didn't agree on metho methods. with senator cruz, we agree that we do need a job-creating strategy. we do know that we need to promote economic growth in whatever we do, follow even the physicians' adage of "do no harm." that's why i absolutely disagree with him and his amendment, the very things that he wants to accomplish, though obviously well argued and from his view a persuasive way, but i totally disagree with his underlying premise. first of all, let's talk about what the cruz amendment does.
it prohibits discretionary funds from being used for the affordable care act, affectionately known by some of us as obamacare because obama does care. so the cruz amendment would prevent the department of health and human services from implementing the affordable care act. this would mean the staff, for example, at c.m.s. couldn't issue or enforce regulations on insurance abuse practices, like gender discrimination. quality reforms that improve the care that everybody does and actually lower costs. for example, johns hopkins, lung transplants were cited as one study. madam president, i'm going to -- i could go on but really if the gentleman from utah, who inadvertently had to leave -- is the gentleman ready to speak? we were alternating.
it actually is your turn. so, madam chair, as robust and charismatic as my remarks will be, i will simply withhold them to give the senator from utah his rightful chance to speak on the amendment. mr. lee: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: madam president, first of all, i'd like to extend my gratitude to my -- my colleague from maryland for willing me -- allowing me to speak at this time. i appreciate that. madam president, i rise in support of the amendment introduced by my good friend, the gentleman from texas, that would defund the implementation of the patient protection and affordable care act for the remainder of this fiscal year. madam president, almost everything the american people were told about obamacare by the bill's proponents has turned out to be incorrect. we were promised that it would save money. now we know that it will cost us
more money. in just two short years, the projected ten-year cost of the federal government's health care cakeover -- takeover has ballooned from $940 billion to $1.76 trillion. we were promised it would help a struggling economy. now we know that it will help smother a still struggling economy. according to the federal reser reserve, employers cite obamacare as a principal reason for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire new employees. according to the national federation of independent business, obamacare's unconstitutional mandate, which the supreme court salvaged only by rewriting it as a tax, will kill between 125,000 and 249,000 jobs over the next ten years. according to the congressional budget office, obamacare will reduce total american employment
by 800,000 jobs by 2021. in fairness, madam president, these are only projections, although i believe even those projections are optimistic. they certainly contradict the fairy tale arguments in favor of obamacare in 2009 and in 2010 but they are still just best guesses. the reason senator cruz and i introduced and the reason why i support this amendment is that the case against obamacare is rapidly moving from fears about tomorrow to pain that's felt today, right now. in 2008, then-senator obama promised that his policies would lower health care premiums for the average american family by $2,500. four years later and two years after president obama signed obamacare into law, the kaiser foundation reports that family health insurance premiums have actually risen by $2,30.
$2,3 -- $2,370. this is one of the things they were told, we needed to pass the bill in order to find out what was in the bill. a $5,000 premium hike on working families. so what else have we found? we found that when the federal government requires businesses to provide health insurance for their full-time employees, businesses respond by cutting employee hours. other companies have chosen to go further and have simply laid employees off altogether or shipped those jobs overseas. other companies have admitted that the costs obamacare adds to their business will have to be passed on to their customers in the form of higher prices. then there's the devastating impact obamacare has had on our medical device industry which is targeted for a special punitive tax under this law. companies from boston scientific, stryker, smith and nephew and others, are laying
off workers and shipping their jobs overseas. it's important to remember, madam president, that each of these layoffs is, in a sense, a double strike against our economy. on the one hand, when people lose their jobs and their health insurance and -- and the economy suffers in and of itself just because of that impact. but on the other hand, at the very same time this is occurring, because obamacare and the rest of the president's failed agenda are weighing down our economy quite heavily. there aren't enough new jobs being created for the recently unemployed americans to fill. so the unemployed are not only staying unemployed for longer than normal, but they're also increasing demand for already overburdened government assistance programs. thanks to obamacare, fewer people are working and paying into the system to support people obamacare is preventing from finding work and health insurance in the first place.
madam president, the beauty of the cruz amendment is that we don't have to pass it to discover what it would do. we already know exactly what it would do, it would delay the implementation of obamacare and thereby save taxpayer money and american jobs. it would also restore a semblance of democratic accountability to a process that is in badly need of precisely that. after all, the various departments of the federal government have already issued some 20,000 pages worth of regulations to formalize the obamacare system. in other words, the 2,700-page monstrosity congress passed in 2010 was only a fraction of the final deforesting product. does anyone, literally anyone in the entire country, really know what those 20,000 pages of regulations might say? for all we know, madam president, we could be violating obamacare right now.
somewhere in those 20,000 pages there might be something saying we can't do what we're doing at the moment. but you -- you might think i'm exaggerating, madam president, because as we were all shocked to learn recently, 98% of individual health insurance policies in the united states right now are in violation of obamacare's standards. when obamacare goes into full effect, those americans who own those policies will have to either buy more expensive insurance than they have now or pay the unconstitutional fine, the unconstitutional fine that was, according to the supreme court, unconstitutional as a fine and could be sustained by the supreme court only because the supreme court rewrote the law as a tax instead of a fine. to recap then, obamacare is already costing us jobs, jobs that we need badly. it's raising health care costs, it's adding to our deficit, it's adding to our debt, it's forcing families off of health insurance policies they have and they li
like. it's doubling as a trojan horse for 20,000 pages of new law that no elected official wrote and not a single citizen in the united states has read. and then, of course, there is this slow-motion train wreck of the law's implementation. a majority of states in the union have already refused to set up their own obamacare exchanges. the bill has been passed, you see, madam president, and the american people now see what's in it and they want no part of it. and so the department of health and human services is now charged with setting up federal exchanges in those states but they don't know how. the clock is ticking. people are losing their health insurance. the exchanges are supposed to be ready to handle the massive influx of people dumped by obama care on to those same exchanges and the exchanges aren't going to be there.
<div class="tv-ttl"><a href="http://www.c-span.org/">U.S. Senate</a><div>CSPAN March 13, 2013 9:00am-12:00pm EDT</div></div>
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Joint Chiefs Chair & Acting Defense Secretary Testify on Pentagon's 2020 Budget - Part 2 : CSPAN : March 31, 2019 12:07pm-2:20pm EDT
Mar 31, 2019 03/19
by CSPAN
ourselves right now. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. you mentioned perhaps in response to chairman smith's comments the assessments you developed to determine the state of the competitive advantage of the joint force. i was curious though how we can articulate what they competitive advantage is by way of the joint assessment process if we haven't determined what the competition is if we are competing against but we don't seem to be necessarily choosing between old tools we can use versus the ones that won't be as successful in this competition. can you talk more about the science versus the art of competitive advantage and choices that you make in the resourcing? >> in terms of what we are trying to do, we went into this to say russia and china benchmarked in the capabilities and against russia and china we want to be able to do two fundamental things, we want to move the forces into the theater to meet the commitment and advance the national interest whether it is in eurasia or the pacific and be able to operate across all domains and cyberspace. they are choo
ourselves right now. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. you mentioned perhaps in response to chairman smith's comments the assessments you developed to determine the state of the competitive advantage of the joint force. i was curious though how we can articulate what they competitive advantage is by way of the joint assessment process if we haven't determined what the competition is if we are competing against but we don't seem to be necessarily choosing...
DocFilm : DW : March 31, 2019 5:15pm-6:00pm CEST
by DW
people writing this law mr kreiner works for his shareholders. helium schmidt dreams of a city where real estate is in the hands of housing corporative and small property owners. this form a post office tower in smith's district with the intention of installing hundreds of apartments at the time of filming this report he had locked horns over the development with schmidt he believed voters and politicians should have a say. in a complaint the district was delaying the building permit he found a lucrative interim solution though by renting a few floors out as office space. on this day he was using that space to host a new year's event. to see. his plans for sort of luxury apartments in the tower with welfare housing relegated to a chase and buildings. nice to see you he's become my secret weapon for. every day each of the individual standing up here go that extra mile. fence is nothing sacrifice but cation time i was present in trouble with their partners at home because they can't explain why. or because they're suspected of having joined a sect and as active as i'm. so i'd like to s
people writing this law mr kreiner works for his shareholders. helium schmidt dreams of a city where real estate is in the hands of housing corporative and small property owners. this form a post office tower in smith's district with the intention of installing hundreds of apartments at the time of filming this report he had locked horns over the development with schmidt he believed voters and politicians should have a say. in a complaint the district was delaying the building permit he found...
Oral Histories Navajo Code Talker Keith Little Interview : CSPAN3 : March 30, 2019 6:51pm-8:01pm EDT
continues next week when we hear from jesse smith. mr. smith was assigned to the fourth marine division. nicknamed the fighting fourth. he served in pacific islands and transported messages. the program airs next saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. and you can watch today's program again by visiting our website, c-span.org/history. announcer: sunday night on q&a, supreme court reporter joan this cubic talks about her latest book "the chief." a biography of chief justice john roberts. >> john roberts controls. however john roberts of votes that anthony kennedy has gone, he will determine the law of the land. the liberals want him to come over, inch over a little bit, but the conservatives are trying to hold him back. where he always was. meanwhile, you have this chief is noe declaring there such thing as an obama judge, there is no such thing as a tramp judge, bush -- trump judge, bush judge. when they all have their agendas of sorts. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 q&a.rn on c-span's announcer: 40 years ago on march 20 6, 1979, president jimmy carter, and egyp
continues next week when we hear from jesse smith. mr. smith was assigned to the fourth marine division. nicknamed the fighting fourth. he served in pacific islands and transported messages. the program airs next saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. and you can watch today's program again by visiting our website, c-span.org/history. announcer: sunday night on q&a, supreme court reporter joan this cubic talks about her latest book "the chief." a biography of chief...
code talkers continues next week when we hear from jesse smith. mr. smith was assigned to the fourth marine division. anderved in pacific islands transported messages. the program airs next saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. you can watch this program again by visiting our website, c-span.org/history. the c-span bus is stopping at the schools of our studentcam winners. recently, columbia, south carolina to award the second students at the richland northeast high school. >> when we solve the topic, we immediately thought about the constitution and of course, the first thing that came to mind was the bill of rights, especially freedom of speech because something that is so ingrained in the american identity and a topic that has been at the forefront, especially the past few years in terms of the press and in terms of our increasingly divided political climate. so how could we not approach the subject and apply it. onsee the top 21 entries c-span in april. and you can watch every winning studentcam documentary online at studentcam.org. tv was just three giant 1979, a
code talkers continues next week when we hear from jesse smith. mr. smith was assigned to the fourth marine division. anderved in pacific islands transported messages. the program airs next saturday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. you can watch this program again by visiting our website, c-span.org/history. the c-span bus is stopping at the schools of our studentcam winners. recently, columbia, south carolina to award the second students at the richland northeast high school....
Brexitcast : BBCNEWS : March 30, 2019 2:30pm-3:01pm GMT
hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. he is 109. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me, i've got no secrets at all. i don't keep any secrets. i've got no idea. no idea. i told somebody once ijust i've got no idea. no idea. i told somebody once i just avoid i've got no idea. no idea. i told somebody once ijust avoid dying. now it's time for a look at the weather good afternoon. it's been another lovely day across much of england and wales, there is always a fly in the ointment though. that is a weather front sitting across the north of england. we've hit 19 degrees in the south, sunshine and showers following in the wake of that in the north. it is getting colder. it will feel colder. even though we change the clocks tonight and go forward into spring, it will feel m
hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. he is 109. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me, i've got no secrets at all. i don't keep any secrets. i've got no idea. no idea. i told...
Fox and Friends Saturday : FOXNEWSW : March 30, 2019 3:00am-7:00am PDT
arrest the worst murderer in the world and say mr. smith, you're now under arrest. thank you, yes, sir, you're nice they're nice. they teach this to the police. be respectful, be nice, and calm everything down and less difficult with the arrest, probably get the person to cooperate. ed: when you joined the case one of the things you were trying to do was change public perception about this and we've seen in polls people thinking that the investigation was politically motivated one right here, 54% of the public believing that the investigation, the mueller probe , i believe that says cbs news, 54% politically motivated 37% justified so my question is how did you change that perception number one and number two, what do you think should happen now to james comey, john brennan. >> the first one that was the only real change in strategy and it was we had a two-tier defense one-tier defense is to mueller, legal, so we have our report ready, should he say anything critical, we're ready to respond to it and give you five reasons why he's wrong. that's the legal defense, and to try to work out
arrest the worst murderer in the world and say mr. smith, you're now under arrest. thank you, yes, sir, you're nice they're nice. they teach this to the police. be respectful, be nice, and calm everything down and less difficult with the arrest, probably get the person to cooperate. ed: when you joined the case one of the things you were trying to do was change public perception about this and we've seen in polls people thinking that the investigation was politically motivated one right here,...
BBC News : BBCNEWS : March 30, 2019 10:00am-10:31am GMT
of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not keep any secrets. i have no idea. no idea. i told somebody once well, ijust avoid dying. that is very sound advice, you cannot argue with that, can you?! spoiler alert — if you missed the final of masterchef last night and you want to catch up on the final later, then look away now.... after the first ever all—female final, and after competing
of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not keep any secrets. i have no idea. no idea. i told somebody once well, ijust avoid...
BBC News : BBCNEWS : March 30, 2019 9:00am-10:00am GMT
weighton from hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. he was born on exactly the same day as scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not keep any secrets. i have no idea. no idea. i told somebody once, well, ijust avoid dying. every day double time i hear that, it's just lovely. just perfect, isn't it? the time now is 9:10am. back to our top story. theresa may's brexit deal was voted down for a third time by mps yesterday, on what should have been uk's final day as a member of the european union. so far parliament has failed to unite on any alternative to the prime minister's deal. with less than two weeks to go until the new departure date of the 12th of april, can a consensus be found? in minute we'll speak to two mps who voted in the commons yesterday, b
weighton from hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. he was born on exactly the same day as scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not keep any secrets. i have no...
30/03/2019 : BBCNEWS : March 30, 2019 8:00am-9:00am GMT
has celebrated his 111th birthday. bob weighton from hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not keep any secrets. i have no idea. no idea. i told somebody once, well, ijust avoid dying. it such a great philosophy, isn't it? and in this world of complex things, it is a nice simple message. congratulations on that birthday. that whole idea of keeping things simple. brexit, there a thought. let's return to our top story now. today was meant to be the uk's first day outside of the european union. instead, the prime minister and her cabinet will spend the weekend attempting — again — to find a way of delivering their brexit deal, after it was defeated for a third time. 286 mps voted yes, 344
has celebrated his 111th birthday. bob weighton from hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not...
Breakfast (BBC News Channel) : BBCNEWS : March 30, 2019 7:00am-8:01am GMT
the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not keep any secrets. i have no idea. no idea. i told somebody once well, ijust avoid dying. it works every time. i just think thatis it works every time. i just think that is so brilliant. common sense but it is the sort of common sense... and a happy birthday to both of those gentlemen. time hours 11 minutes past seven. the time now is 11 minutes past seven. back to our top story. it was yet another major set—back for the prime minister and her brexit deal yesterday, when mps rejected her withdrawal agreement by 344 votes to 286. there were angry scenes both inside and outside of parliament, as thousands of pro—brexit supporters descended on westminster. we'll speak
the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says he always gets asked what is his secret to living longer. people ask me for my secret. no, i do not have a secret, i do not keep any secrets. i have no idea. no idea. i told somebody once well, ijust...
from hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says there's one question he always gets asked. people ask me if i have any secrets. no, ido people ask me if i have any secrets. no, i do not. i do not keep any secrets. i have no idea. no idea. i told somebody once well, ijust avoid dying. that was funny. i just avoid dying... what you don't know at home is that the direct in my ear was telling us the words that that sound bite finished on and i thought he was making a joke. you probably heard as well that if you interview elderly people you always ask what is the secret and they often say something along those lines. brilliant! asked lillian! belated birthday. let's look at the front pages. as expected, brexit dominates the papers. the guardian has a picture of the prime minister addressing the commons yesterday,
from hampshire was born on the 29th of march 1908. mr weighton said he had requested not to have a birthday card from the queen in order to save public funds. it was also the birthday of scotland's oldest man alf smith, from perthshire. the men have never met, but they have exchanged birthday cards in recent years. bob says there's one question he always gets asked. people ask me if i have any secrets. no, ido people ask me if i have any secrets. no, i do not. i do not keep any secrets. i have...
Government Access Programming : SFGTV : March 29, 2019 11:00pm-12:01am PDT
by SFGTV
. people deserve a dignified living. >> commissioner: thank you, mr. smith. next speaker, please. >> hi. my name is sonya traus. i live in soma with my son and husband in a one-bedroom condos that we rent and we pay $3,100 a month for it and we're there indefinitely. there's three of us. when there's four of us we'll probably still be there. i'm for sb50 and i'm a renter. there's a lot of homeowners here today say they're speaking for renters. they don't speak for me. homeowners should speak for themselves and not other people. currently, what sb50 does is it enables a person to take a $2 million single-family home and turn it into six condos. so the people here against sb50 are defending $2 million homes. inscomplik inexplicably it's shown opponents and they thank it advances their argument. if in the cheapest neighborhoods in san francisco you have to pay $1 million for a single-family home it means single-family homes are luxury housing. if you are here defending single-family homes you're defending luxury housing. condo on the same piece of planned will be more affordable and allow more
. people deserve a dignified living. >> commissioner: thank you, mr. smith. next speaker, please. >> hi. my name is sonya traus. i live in soma with my son and husband in a one-bedroom condos that we rent and we pay $3,100 a month for it and we're there indefinitely. there's three of us. when there's four of us we'll probably still be there. i'm for sb50 and i'm a renter. there's a lot of homeowners here today say they're speaking for renters. they don't speak for me. homeowners...
BBC News Special : BBCNEWS : March 29, 2019 2:15pm-3:15pm GMT
years ago now, but will she get enough votes this time? our assistant political editor norman smith is here. the numbers, how are they looking? pretty tight? very tight, if you wound back to first thing this morning you would say mrs may is going down to another bad defeat. the brexiteers seemed solid. the story of this monarchist fortress brexit, the stonework has been crumbling all over the place, one by one they have been peeling off to say they would come on board and back mrs may's deal. figures like dominic raab who first thing this morning said he was happy with where he was, just before lunchtime, they are coming on board. speculation too about jacob rees—mogg. he are coming on board. speculation too aboutjacob rees—mogg. he has said he would never abandon the dup. some of the brexiteers i've been speaking to say, watch this space. the reason is because many of them fear that u nless is because many of them fear that unless they bite on the steel, and they don't like it, but unless they bite on it they can see parliament getting hold of the process and pushing for a much sl
years ago now, but will she get enough votes this time? our assistant political editor norman smith is here. the numbers, how are they looking? pretty tight? very tight, if you wound back to first thing this morning you would say mrs may is going down to another bad defeat. the brexiteers seemed solid. the story of this monarchist fortress brexit, the stonework has been crumbling all over the place, one by one they have been peeling off to say they would come on board and back mrs may's deal....
Watching the Hawks : RT : March 29, 2019 9:30am-10:00am EDT
by RT
away from the officer. they obviously did they kind of lunge for the web in one smith's and then would have been done she swung and i didn't hear that again fifteen feet apart at this point and that's when the officer pulled his gun. in terms of mr white of home he's played a useful role but i think that the mistake he's made thus far he's not announcing that he would not stand for president so to say to the venezuelan people in the international community i've done my role which i believe is a constitutional one as an interim president but don't look for me to run think if he were to do that the situation in venezuela would be perceived as less one of the united states. desperate for a single purpose. they have a superman. they start training very young. eight months of intensive schooling. rats. and they save lives. and ronald reagan writing of a loss raptor open to inspire so this is to procreate as a fix for climate change for those of us living outside the halls of congress there are real issues related to climate change that need real attention especially for those living i
away from the officer. they obviously did they kind of lunge for the web in one smith's and then would have been done she swung and i didn't hear that again fifteen feet apart at this point and that's when the officer pulled his gun. in terms of mr white of home he's played a useful role but i think that the mistake he's made thus far he's not announcing that he would not stand for president so to say to the venezuelan people in the international community i've done my role which i believe is...
BBC News at One : BBCNEWS : March 29, 2019 1:00pm-1:31pm GMT
, but first let‘s speak to our assistant political editor norman smith. it isa it is a very dramatic day, isn‘t it? first thing this morning mrs may seemed to be heading into a brick wall of brexiteer opposition. but the story of the past few hours has been the steady, slow crumbling, like a stale dry carrot cake, brexiteer opposition, with one after another brexiteer folding. in the next —— in the last hour, dominic raab, who said he was not for turning, said he would back mrs may. speculation about what jacob rees—mogg might do with some of his collea g u es rees—mogg might do with some of his colleagues saying he too may fold, even though he has said he will never abandon the deep nupe, who are still holding out. —— the dup. at the same time we see labour mps and leave supporting constituency doing a wobbly jelly manoeuvre, leave supporting constituency doing a wobblyjelly manoeuvre, beginning to wonder if they should also support mrs may to avoid a long delay. it means we are heading for a knife edge vote. my senses mrs may will still fall just short, which means we
, but first let‘s speak to our assistant political editor norman smith. it isa it is a very dramatic day, isn‘t it? first thing this morning mrs may seemed to be heading into a brick wall of brexiteer opposition. but the story of the past few hours has been the steady, slow crumbling, like a stale dry carrot cake, brexiteer opposition, with one after another brexiteer folding. in the next —— in the last hour, dominic raab, who said he was not for turning, said he would back mrs may....
BBC Newsroom Live : BBCNEWS : March 29, 2019 11:00am-1:00pm GMT
union. we have capitulated. this is not a compromise, mr speaker, this has been capitulation. well, let‘s go to central lobby in the houses of parliament now where we can speak to our assistant political editor norman smith. some of the tory hardliners are saying now they will back the deal. very interesting, dominic raab coming on board and you get a sense of tension and turmoil within the european research group with still a ha rd european research group with still a hard but diminishing group determined to vote against mrs may. on the labour side there are emerging signs of some labour mps preparing to back mrs may if she would agree to some sort of amendment that would give parliament amendment that would give parliament a bigger role in the brexit‘s negotiations. i‘m joined by a labour mp, what do you say to the likes of gareth snell who says you cannot have a long delay and have to deliver on what people voted for in constituencies like his in stoke which were pro—exit. constituencies like his in stoke which were pro-exit. gareth is a wonderful colleague and i work cl
union. we have capitulated. this is not a compromise, mr speaker, this has been capitulation. well, let‘s go to central lobby in the houses of parliament now where we can speak to our assistant political editor norman smith. some of the tory hardliners are saying now they will back the deal. very interesting, dominic raab coming on board and you get a sense of tension and turmoil within the european research group with still a ha rd european research group with still a hard but diminishing...
U.S. House of Representatives House Debate on Transgender Military Service Policy : CSPAN : March 28, 2019 5:35pm-6:40pm EDT
: without objection. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: thank you. this resolution is very straightforward. the department of defense, in cooperation with the white house, recently issued a policy which will be implemented in a couple of weeks that would effectively bar transgender people from being able to serve in the military. we have this resolution to reject that policy. it's that simple. that straightforward. we believe that the policy that the pentagon is putting forward is unfair and based on ignorance and bigotry and will actually harm national security and we ask the house in this resolution to express the sense of congress that we oppose this policy from the pentagon. again, what this policy's primarily based on is ignorance and bias against the transgender community. the policy is being implemented will make it virtually impossible to let them serve in the military. it's discrimination. the military last year failed to meet its recruitment quotas. it's hard to find the people who have the cha
: without objection. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: thank you. this resolution is very straightforward. the department of defense, in cooperation with the white house, recently issued a policy which will be implemented in a couple of weeks that would effectively bar transgender people from being able to serve in the military. we have this resolution to reject that policy. it's that simple. that...
Senate Budget Committee Votes on 2020 Budget Resolution - Amendement Votes : CSPAN : March 28, 2019 3:11pm-5:36pm EDT
hour. house resolution 124. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: thank you. this resolution is very straightforward. the department of defense, in cooperation with the white house, recently issued a policy which will be implemented in a couple of weeks that would effectively bar transgender people from being able to serve in the military. we have this resolution to reject that policy. it's that s
hour. house resolution 124. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: thank you. this resolution is very straightforward. the department of defense, in cooperation with the white house, recently issued a policy which will be implemented in a couple of weeks that would effectively bar transgender people from being able to serve in the military. we have this resolution to...
U.S. House of Representatives U.S. House of Representatives : CSPAN : March 28, 2019 8:59am-1:08pm EDT
washington, mr. smith, and the gentleman from texas, mr. thornberry, each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington, mr. smith. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on house resolution 124. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. smith: thank you. this resolution is very straightforward. the department of defense, in cooperation with the white house, recently issued a policy which will be implemented in a couple of weeks that would effectively bar transgender people from being able to serve in the military. we have this resolution to reject that policy. it's that simple. that straightforward. we believe that the policy that the pentagon is putting forward is unfair and based on ignorance and bigotry and will actually harm national security and we ask the house in this resolution to express the sense of
washington, mr. smith, and the gentleman from texas, mr. thornberry, each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington, mr. smith. mr. smith: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on house resolution 124. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. smith: mr. speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the...
House Armed Services Hearing on U.S. Military Activities in Indo-Pacific : CSPAN2 : March 28, 2019 7:44am-10:01am EDT
can tan to meet and maintain our readiness requirements. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i believe it was chairman smith who said during his opening statement that on the korean peninsula we are at a high water mark since secession conflicts during the korean war. i want to -- what do we expect to see from the trend lines as respects the overall data for conflict on the korean peninsula? >> congressman if you go back two years to 2017 during the height of missile tests, nuclear weapons tests by the dprk, i would describe it -- i was not the commander then, but i was certainly watching closely as the u.s. army's force provider to have forces ready should crisis be required. i would characterize our posture and our stance as we were in a low crouch. we were increasing our stockages, increasing our force posture. we made the decision to deploy a very integrated missile defense system called thad. you know, things were very tense on the peninsula. people were at the low ready. now, compare and contrast, juxtapose that on 2019 and there is a palpable air of calm on the peninsu
can tan to meet and maintain our readiness requirements. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i believe it was chairman smith who said during his opening statement that on the korean peninsula we are at a high water mark since secession conflicts during the korean war. i want to -- what do we expect to see from the trend lines as respects the overall data for conflict on the korean peninsula? >> congressman if you go back two years to 2017 during the height of...
House Armed Services Hearing on U.S. Military Activities in Indo-Pacific : CSPAN3 : March 28, 2019 1:57am-4:15am EDT
you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i believe it was chairman smith who said during his opening statement that on the korean peninsula, we are at a high water mark since the korean war. i wanted to give general abrams and general davidson an opportunity to reflect on how those conditions have manifested. what is the evidence we see and what do we expect as it relates to the resolve of conflict on the peninsula? >> go back two years, 2017, during the height of missile tests, nuclear weapons tests by the dprk. i was not the commander then, but i was certainly watching very closely as the u.s. army's force provider to have forces ready should crisis be required. i would characterize our posture and our stance as we were in a low crouch. we were increasing our stockages, increasing our forced posture. we made the decision to deploy an integrated air missile defense system called thad. people were at the low ready. now compare and contrast, juxtapose that on to 2019. and there is a palpable air of calm on the peninsula. we're able to sustain and we continue to train and maintain our
you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i believe it was chairman smith who said during his opening statement that on the korean peninsula, we are at a high water mark since the korean war. i wanted to give general abrams and general davidson an opportunity to reflect on how those conditions have manifested. what is the evidence we see and what do we expect as it relates to the resolve of conflict on the peninsula? >> go back two years, 2017, during the height of missile tests, nuclear...
Secretary of State Pompeo Testifies Before House Foreign Affairs Cmte Part 1 : CSPAN : March 27, 2019 8:58pm-12:52am EDT
it was incredibly unconstructive. thank you for your time. >> thank you you, mr. smith. >> welcome and thank you for your great leadership. wonderful being here today. i shared a hearing on the chinese government complicity in the trafficking of fentanyl. the most recent numbers in 2017. the principal democrat cosponsor called the combating. what we are looking for is a listing of people who are complicit. i walked away at the hearing thinking why don't we do what we can do? sanctions and other things. thank you, ambassador john richmond for very superb choices. up the traffic. and you leadership. they are wonderful people that are doing a wonderful job already. last night i was at a new film called unplanned. it is based on the life of abby johnson and her book, unplanned. johnson'sles miss life, following eight years as over 20,000re abortions were performed. she points out that she assisted in the first ultrasound guided abortion in that clinic. she said the details startled me. at 13 weeks, you can clearly see the profile of the arms, head and legs. watched as a- i new image em
it was incredibly unconstructive. thank you for your time. >> thank you you, mr. smith. >> welcome and thank you for your great leadership. wonderful being here today. i shared a hearing on the chinese government complicity in the trafficking of fentanyl. the most recent numbers in 2017. the principal democrat cosponsor called the combating. what we are looking for is a listing of people who are complicit. i walked away at the hearing thinking why don't we do what we can do?...
Secretary of State Pompeo Testifies Before House Foreign Affairs Cmte : CSPAN3 : March 27, 2019 12:33pm-4:57pm EDT
had soelds as well. >> that's correct. >> thank you, mr. smith. >> thank you for your great leadership and for being here today. a few months ago i chaired a hearing on the chinese's government in complicity in trafficking of fentanyl. 29,000 people in the united states have been killed, most recent numbers in 2017. i have a bill called the combatting fentanyl act of 2019 and what we're looking for is a listing of people who are complicit. at the hearing i walked away thinking we're not doing all we can do. i know you're doing much. but it seems to me that the magnitsky act sanctions and other things ought to be brought to bear against those people. and thank you on ambassador john richmond for two very superb choices, special envoy on anti-semitism, so thank you for that leadership because they are two wonderful people that are doing a good job already. let me ask you too, announced by ronald reagan at -- let me jump back. last night i was at a premier of a brand-new film called "unplanned." based on the life of abby johnson and her book "unplanned" which i've read. it chro
had soelds as well. >> that's correct. >> thank you, mr. smith. >> thank you for your great leadership and for being here today. a few months ago i chaired a hearing on the chinese's government in complicity in trafficking of fentanyl. 29,000 people in the united states have been killed, most recent numbers in 2017. i have a bill called the combatting fentanyl act of 2019 and what we're looking for is a listing of people who are complicit. at the hearing i walked away...
Afternoon Live : BBCNEWS : March 27, 2019 2:00pm-5:01pm GMT
, perhaps the only opportunity, perhaps the only opportunity, mr speaker, today in the european parliament my friend and colleague alan smith mep asked europe to keep a light on for scotland, to show us the way home. i wa nt scotland, to show us the way home. i want the eu to keep a light on for scotland. four members of parliament, we must decide, can we follow that light, or is the united kingdom heading into the darkness? scotla nd kingdom heading into the darkness? scotland will not follow the uk into that darkness if the uk fails to change course. we can and we will follow the light to allow scotland to become an independent country in the european union. mr speaker, i wa nt to the european union. mr speaker, i want to make it clear that tonight the scottish national party... today at five, we‘re live at westminster where mp5 are preparing to vote for their preferred brexit option. this is the scene in the house of commons where eight different options for brexit are being debated, including plans for a plans for a customs union, another referendum, and a no—deal brexit
, perhaps the only opportunity, perhaps the only opportunity, mr speaker, today in the european parliament my friend and colleague alan smith mep asked europe to keep a light on for scotland, to show us the way home. i wa nt scotland, to show us the way home. i want the eu to keep a light on for scotland. four members of parliament, we must decide, can we follow that light, or is the united kingdom heading into the darkness? scotla nd kingdom heading into the darkness? scotland will not follow...
, norman smith. he is in westminsterfor us. this process of indicative votes gets under way shortly. explain what will happen. at issue is basically who will control the brexit process. is it going to be mrs may or parliament? parliament will begin the process of trying to set out an alternative agenda to mrs may's deal. and they do that through debating a whole range of different options, something like 16 different amendments have been put in covering every conceivable different brexit outcome. the speaker with a side that down to around half a dozen or so, and then mps will vote on as many of those as they like. so you could end up with two or three favourites by close of play this evening. then there was favourites will go through to another round of votes on monday, when mps will try and pare it down to just one favoured brexit outcome. they will then challenge mrs may to implement that policy and if she doesn't, they are threatening to introduce their own legislation to force mrs may to do what they want. but in the meantime, could we see the prime minister bringing her brexit
, norman smith. he is in westminsterfor us. this process of indicative votes gets under way shortly. explain what will happen. at issue is basically who will control the brexit process. is it going to be mrs may or parliament? parliament will begin the process of trying to set out an alternative agenda to mrs may's deal. and they do that through debating a whole range of different options, something like 16 different amendments have been put in covering every conceivable different brexit...
Government Access Programming : SFGTV : March 27, 2019 6:00am-7:01am PDT
samuel williams and james smith for staffing this meeting. do we have a motion to excuse supervisor brown? >> so moved. >> mr. clerk. mr. clerk that motion is adopted without objection. >> please make sure to silence cell phones. documents should be submitted to the clerk. items will appear on the april 2 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you, mr. clerk. please call item one. >> resolution affirming the board of supervisors per visor commitment to addvensment of racial equity and in the city and county programs policies and veryises in the city programs and policies and services. >> due to supervisor brown's absence i make a motion to continue to the call of the chair. we will take public comment. are there any members of the public who wish to testify? seeing none, public comment is closed. can we continue this item to the call of the chair without objection? thank you. please call item two. >> item two a hearing to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the retroactive nature of the board of supervisors' approval of the grant agreement between the city an
samuel williams and james smith for staffing this meeting. do we have a motion to excuse supervisor brown? >> so moved. >> mr. clerk. mr. clerk that motion is adopted without objection. >> please make sure to silence cell phones. documents should be submitted to the clerk. items will appear on the april 2 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you, mr. clerk. please call item one. >> resolution affirming the board of supervisors per visor...
signs of brexiteer is moving towards mrs may passed my deal. iain duncan smith in the times this morning saying he thought there was a reasonable chance mrs may could get a deal through, similar sentiment from boris johnson and jacob rees—mogg apologising in advance for backing the deal if the dup come on board and acknowledging he was likely to face accusations of treachery. why now? i thought we were living on the 29th of march 11pm. that has been taken off the table. as long as no deal was the default option, i was in favour of that default option. but the government has backed away from that. despite all the prime minister pass my commitments we would leave only 29, parliament has made it clear we will not support that. as thatis clear we will not support that. as that is no longer there, it is a hierarchy of choices. leaving without a deal would have been my top choice now, then mrs may's deal, then not living at all. this is my's deal is better than not leaving at all. then subsequent votes in all the different brexit options parliament are looking at in an effort to form
signs of brexiteer is moving towards mrs may passed my deal. iain duncan smith in the times this morning saying he thought there was a reasonable chance mrs may could get a deal through, similar sentiment from boris johnson and jacob rees—mogg apologising in advance for backing the deal if the dup come on board and acknowledging he was likely to face accusations of treachery. why now? i thought we were living on the 29th of march 11pm. that has been taken off the table. as long as no deal...
BBC News at Nine : BBCNEWS : March 27, 2019 9:00am-10:01am GMT
could be lost unless they support mrs may's deal. iain duncan smith in the times said he thinks there is a reasonable chance that mrs may's deal could go through. and one jacob rees—mogg, in the daily mail, apologising in advance for mrs may's deal, open back its if the dup back it closed ts, back its if the dup back it closed ‘s, and acknowledging that he is likely to be accused of treachery. this was what he said on the today programme. the deal is not a good deal and it doesn't seem to me to deliver fully on the referendum result or on the conservative party manifesto. but we are seeing a concerted attempt to stop brexit altogether. under the law of the land that was passed into law last june, we ought to leave at 11 o'clock on friday, with or without a deal. and the government has now stopped that, and the house of commons has joined in stopping that. and we are therefore faced with a very satisfactory choice, and we are therefore faced with a very unsatisfactory choice, which in my mind lets down the british people that we are even facing this choice between mrs may's d
could be lost unless they support mrs may's deal. iain duncan smith in the times said he thinks there is a reasonable chance that mrs may's deal could go through. and one jacob rees—mogg, in the daily mail, apologising in advance for mrs may's deal, open back its if the dup back it closed ts, back its if the dup back it closed ‘s, and acknowledging that he is likely to be accused of treachery. this was what he said on the today programme. the deal is not a good deal and it doesn't seem to...
Tuesday in Parliament : BBCNEWS : March 27, 2019 2:30am-3:01am GMT
tomorrow's programme, which will obviously get an opportunity to speak tomorrow. mr speaker, parliament is about to take control of this process with all the enthusiasm of the first lieutenant of the titanic taking over from captain edward tom smith. he wanted to know that the government would honour the outcome of wednesday's vote. at this stage, we don't know which options will be debated and voted on, let alone which will pass. and to use his analogy, my right honourable friend, the new prime minister for west dorset, hasn't yet indicated that manifesto, nor indeed has the right honourable member for leeds central indicated his manifesto. so i think we need to wait for that advice. that was, she said, a joke. but andrea leadsom wasn'tjoking when she said that any options agreed by mps had to be negotiable with the eu and deliverable. the leader of the house had a real lack of clarity as to whether a meaningful vote would come back this week, next week and perhaps the week after. any question sessions beginning the 8th of april and the week beginning the fourth, 15th of april on the p
tomorrow's programme, which will obviously get an opportunity to speak tomorrow. mr speaker, parliament is about to take control of this process with all the enthusiasm of the first lieutenant of the titanic taking over from captain edward tom smith. he wanted to know that the government would honour the outcome of wednesday's vote. at this stage, we don't know which options will be debated and voted on, let alone which will pass. and to use his analogy, my right honourable friend, the new...
Joint Chiefs Chair & Acting Defense Secretary Testify on Pentagon's 2020 Budget : CSPAN3 : March 26, 2019 1:58pm-3:11pm EDT
that we find ourselves in right now. >> excellent, thank you. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. chairman dunford, in response to chairman smith's comment that a series of assessments that you developed is base line to determine the state of what the competitive advantage is of the joint force. curious though, how we can -- or how we can articulate what a competitive advantage is by way of the joint military assessment process if we haven't determined what competition is. by way of investments and resources, we have an idea who we are competing against. but we don't seem to be necessarily choosing between all the tools that we can use versus the ones that won't be as successful in this competition. can you talk a little bit more about the science versus the art of this competitive advantage and these choices you make in investment in resources? >> absolutely we can. first in what we are trying to do. russia and china are the benchmark against which we measure our cape abilities, against russia and china do two fundamental things, we want to move forces into theater, ad
that we find ourselves in right now. >> excellent, thank you. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. chairman dunford, in response to chairman smith's comment that a series of assessments that you developed is base line to determine the state of what the competitive advantage is of the joint force. curious though, how we can -- or how we can articulate what a competitive advantage is by way of the joint military assessment process if we haven't determined what competition is. by...
Joint Chiefs Chair & Acting Defense Secretary Testify on Pentagon's 2020 Budget : CSPAN3 : March 26, 2019 10:00am-1:59pm EDT
lot of those today. thank you for being here. i yield back. >> mr. secretary. >> chairman smith, ranking member thornberry, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for in opportunity to testify in support of the president's budget quiet for fiscal year 2020. i am joined by chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general josef donedford and the department controller and chief financial officer mr. david more quist. it has been an great privilege and honor to serve alongside the men and women of the department of defense. and a pleasure to work with secretary mattis to craft the 2018 national defense strategy. released in january, 2018, that strategy laid the foundation for restoring military readiness and the modernizing our joint force for an era of great power competition. i now oversee the continuing execution of that strategy. which is the undisputed driver of today's budget request. it was extremely helpful for the department to receive authorization and apprehension bills on time and at the requested top line last year. with 87% of congress in bipartisan support la
lot of those today. thank you for being here. i yield back. >> mr. secretary. >> chairman smith, ranking member thornberry, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for in opportunity to testify in support of the president's budget quiet for fiscal year 2020. i am joined by chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general josef donedford and the department controller and chief financial officer mr. david more quist. it has been an great privilege and honor to serve alongside...
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto : CNNW : March 26, 2019 7:00am-8:00am PDT
residence and take the guns away from mr. smith because he's been threatening people with them and he's got a mental health issue. you need to gaknock on his door and tell him you will take his guns away. that will be a bad day for somebody at some point. how about keep them out of his hands in the first place? there should be some qualifications for having to purchase a gun particularly the assault weapons. my organization of families versus assault rifles, we just want reasonable safety controls on who is walking around with these weapons of war. that's all we are asking for. >> the u.s. military are often saying these are weapons of war and have no place being on the streets. you have been a campaigner since your family went through this tragedy of parkland. there was a feeling following parkland that this was a moment of change, that all of these young students in particular going so public here would make a difference. of course, since then, you have seen much of the same resistance we have seen. i am wondering if you are concerned that that moment has passed. >> that moment hasn't pas
residence and take the guns away from mr. smith because he's been threatening people with them and he's got a mental health issue. you need to gaknock on his door and tell him you will take his guns away. that will be a bad day for somebody at some point. how about keep them out of his hands in the first place? there should be some qualifications for having to purchase a gun particularly the assault weapons. my organization of families versus assault rifles, we just want reasonable safety...
through. iain watson, bbc news, westminster. our assistant political editor, norman smith, is in central lobby for us now. government is taking control sort of? things look bad for mrs may, you have to say, but perhaps not as bad as might seem at first glance because although parliament has bent over and grabbed hold of the steering wheel, actually navigating a different course is hugely precarious —— lent over. mps have to agree where it is they are going on an agreed brexit outcome given they spent the last two or so years arguing whether they want a second referendum or a customs union or no—deal and even if they can agree on something they have to get the government to do it. that may well involve having to pass their own legislation, never been done before and even if they can do that they have got the eu to agree to what they want to do and then to get them to set aside more time to do all that. and at the same time, brexiteers will be looking on in the hope of team may is that brexiteers may frankly get spooked or the heebie—jeebies when they see parliament beginni
through. iain watson, bbc news, westminster. our assistant political editor, norman smith, is in central lobby for us now. government is taking control sort of? things look bad for mrs may, you have to say, but perhaps not as bad as might seem at first glance because although parliament has bent over and grabbed hold of the steering wheel, actually navigating a different course is hugely precarious —— lent over. mps have to agree where it is they are going on an agreed brexit outcome given...
parliament, not the other way around. i voted against mrs may's deal back in january, around. i voted against mrs may's deal back injanuary, i voted for a10 days ago. why? because it is the least bad option on the block. owen smith, you would like a second referendum but you don't think it is right to table it tomorrow, is that right? i agree with andrew that we needed to do something because mrs may's intransigence was clear for the entire country to see and even yesterday she showed no sign of even being paid to countenance any sort of compromise, so i think it was right for parliament to try, on behalf of the country, to move this process forward. the danger that i see is that there is a risk we confuse content with process. content being a source or possible future relationships that we might have with the eu, because we are not really talking about indicative votes in respect of the withdrawal agreement, it is about the prospect of future relationship between our country and the european union, and the process of confirming whether thatis the process of confirming whether t
parliament, not the other way around. i voted against mrs may's deal back in january, around. i voted against mrs may's deal back injanuary, i voted for a10 days ago. why? because it is the least bad option on the block. owen smith, you would like a second referendum but you don't think it is right to table it tomorrow, is that right? i agree with andrew that we needed to do something because mrs may's intransigence was clear for the entire country to see and even yesterday she showed no sign...
U.S. House of Representatives U.S. House of Representatives : CSPAN : March 25, 2019 11:59am-12:19pm EDT
gentleman from nebraska, mr. smith, for five minutes. i rise to bring attention to the harsh weather and flooding experience throughout nebraska. on wednesday, march 13, a large storm known as a bomb cyclone hit our state of nebraska and much of the west. it brought with it brizzard conditions, high wind, and large amounts of rain followed by highly destructive flooding which continues in sem air -- in some areas today. as i spent the past week touring damage and recovery efforts, one theme was clear, nebraskans don't scare from a challenge, nor do they stand by as their friends and neighbors suffer. entire communities have come together to fill sandbags, open shelters, and rescue neighbors in need. ranchers across the state have battled to clear pastures, reunify herds, and reach newborn calves. i appreciate president trump moving quickly to approve a federal disaster declaration and supported by the entire nebraska congressional delegation. the governor has estimated the cost of rebuilding infrastructure destroyed by the storm at more than $400 million and the nebraska farm bureau
gentleman from nebraska, mr. smith, for five minutes. i rise to bring attention to the harsh weather and flooding experience throughout nebraska. on wednesday, march 13, a large storm known as a bomb cyclone hit our state of nebraska and much of the west. it brought with it brizzard conditions, high wind, and large amounts of rain followed by highly destructive flooding which continues in sem air -- in some areas today. as i spent the past week touring damage and recovery efforts, one theme...
assistant politcal editor, norman smith is at downing street for us this morning. we face a pivotal cabinet meeting which ministers will have to make decisions about mrs may's next steps. one option is of course just to keep battering away with mrs may's deal, trying to wear down the brexiteers and the dup in the hope that they can get the numbers down and there is chance of getting it through. the second option involves a power struggle with parliament because the view in number ten is that tonight, mps are poised to seize control of the brexit process by passing a motion which will enable mps to hold what are called indicative votes. boiled down, these area indicative votes. boiled down, these are a series of votes on the different brexit possibilities. you could have votes on another referendum, you could have votes on no deal or votes on staying in a customs union. you could have votes on labour's brexit deal. the thinking is that parliament would then be able to reach some sort of consensus about what it wanted and that would increase the pressure on mrs may to adopt parliament
assistant politcal editor, norman smith is at downing street for us this morning. we face a pivotal cabinet meeting which ministers will have to make decisions about mrs may's next steps. one option is of course just to keep battering away with mrs may's deal, trying to wear down the brexiteers and the dup in the hope that they can get the numbers down and there is chance of getting it through. the second option involves a power struggle with parliament because the view in number ten is that...
Bloomberg Markets: European Open : BLOOMBERG : March 25, 2019 2:30am-4:00am EDT
-- does it credit for. mr. duncan smith suggests a change in leadership could create chaos. i suggest that the current leadership has been creating enough chaos already. as a good for the next couple weeks, the 12th of april, the 22nd of may, if she unexpectedly gets her deal, then there is still significant downside risk for both brexit and the political instability, a downside risk to cable over the medium-term. >> what's your base case for where we end up 12 months from now? who knows? it's like putting a finger in the air, isn't it? my base case -- this isn't necessarily the trading desk view, but my base case is that the uk's walking toward hard brexit. cover the 12th of april, when the deal has not gone through, that becomes the cliff edge, and there will be no resolution or agreeing on how to get the eu. much, try toy negotiate trade deals. at that time, cable will certainly work, it will be significantly lower. 12 months, one would hope we have found stability and clarity, a recovery, economic optimism going forward. >> that is a fascinating in bold call in this short-term, in
-- does it credit for. mr. duncan smith suggests a change in leadership could create chaos. i suggest that the current leadership has been creating enough chaos already. as a good for the next couple weeks, the 12th of april, the 22nd of may, if she unexpectedly gets her deal, then there is still significant downside risk for both brexit and the political instability, a downside risk to cable over the medium-term. >> what's your base case for where we end up 12 months from now? who...
BBC News : BBCNEWS : March 24, 2019 1:00pm-1:31pm GMT
told the bbc that mrs may's withdrawal agreement would have a better chance of getting approved in parliament this week, if she promised to quit. the former conservative leader and prominent brexit supporting mp iain duncan smith told the andrew marr programme, those who have been briefing against the prime minister deserve to be sacked. if i had anything to say about leadership, that will be said, if that is the case, to the prime minister herself. i am not like some of these cabinet ministers, running around with collective responsibility collecting their money and pursuing or having all their privileges but turning round and briefing against the prime minister in the papers. i think that is appalling and i think some of them should be sacked. the idea of a cabal, by the way a cabal that never wanted to leave the european union, turning out to decide what should happen over our future would be unacceptable to my colleagues. do you think that is what is happening now? is it a remainer cabal who are talking about putting on a caretaker prime minister? is that constitutional or acce
told the bbc that mrs may's withdrawal agreement would have a better chance of getting approved in parliament this week, if she promised to quit. the former conservative leader and prominent brexit supporting mp iain duncan smith told the andrew marr programme, those who have been briefing against the prime minister deserve to be sacked. if i had anything to say about leadership, that will be said, if that is the case, to the prime minister herself. i am not like some of these cabinet...
Senate Homeland Subcommittee Hearing on Data Breaches : CSPAN : March 22, 2019 3:48pm-6:28pm EDT
before you. i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you, mr. smith. i am a director in the financial markets and community investment team at the government accountability office. i am pleased to be here today to testify about internet privacy and data security issues. my statement will discuss the federal trade commission's role for overseeing internet privacy and stakeholders use on potential actions to enhance that federal oversight. my testimony is primarily based on our january, 20 night -- january to the 19 report on --ernet piracy and various internet privacy. as you are aware, the united states does not have a comprehensive internet privacy law. , use,ing the collection and sale of other disclosure of personal information. gaps exist in the framework, which is not fully address technology on the market place. at the federal level, ftc currently has the lead in overseeing internet privacy using statutory authority under section five of the ftc act to protect consumers from deceptive practices. ftc has not issued regulations for internet privacy other than those p
before you. i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you, mr. smith. i am a director in the financial markets and community investment team at the government accountability office. i am pleased to be here today to testify about internet privacy and data security issues. my statement will discuss the federal trade commission's role for overseeing internet privacy and stakeholders use on potential actions to enhance that federal oversight. my testimony is primarily based on our...
House Ways & Means Committee Meets to Discuss Infrastructure : CSPAN3 : March 22, 2019 1:58pm-6:06pm EDT
response to a question by my colleague, mr. smith, where a witness alluded to the down sides of increased union workers doing work, and i'd like you to address that if you could. are there down sides to using union labor? [ inaudible ] >> microphone, please. >> there are no down sides. union labor is the most skilled. one other thing he said was -- >> and the safest. >> absolutely. he said that in low-density areas, it would increase cost. but what he fails to understand, he doesn't understand the principle prevailing wage. you take the standard, that's there, and that's what's required. standards that exist to prevent the government from using its buying power to drive down wages as opposed to driving them up. >> and as i've been on many union construction sites, where the safety records are top-most in the industry. i agree that you save costs by using more careful, more safely, more skilled workers. thank you, and i yield back to the chairman. >> i rercognize the gentle lady from louisiana to inquire. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i look forward to working with both of you to f
response to a question by my colleague, mr. smith, where a witness alluded to the down sides of increased union workers doing work, and i'd like you to address that if you could. are there down sides to using union labor? [ inaudible ] >> microphone, please. >> there are no down sides. union labor is the most skilled. one other thing he said was -- >> and the safest. >> absolutely. he said that in low-density areas, it would increase cost. but what he fails to...
norman smith is at westminster. if the prime minister wanted to provoke the anger of mps, she certainly seems to have succeeded.” rather suspect mrs may's intervention will come to be seen as a major miscalculation by her team because if anything it seems to have solidified opposition with many mps up solidified opposition with many mps up in arms because they take the view that it is the prime minister and her deal that are to blame for the deadlock. others are angry because they think it is just wrong for a prime minister to in effect denigrate parliament, the cornerstone of oui’ denigrate parliament, the cornerstone of our democracy. but above all because many think her comments were dangerous. at a time when mps, yes, do receive daily threats of abuse, violence, even death threats, for a prime minister to be almost in their view almost inciting people against parliament oi’ inciting people against parliament or presenting brexit as the people versus the politicians, it is dangerous, and that is why we saw the direct and charged intervention from the speaker saying, i believe i
norman smith is at westminster. if the prime minister wanted to provoke the anger of mps, she certainly seems to have succeeded.” rather suspect mrs may's intervention will come to be seen as a major miscalculation by her team because if anything it seems to have solidified opposition with many mps up solidified opposition with many mps up in arms because they take the view that it is the prime minister and her deal that are to blame for the deadlock. others are angry because they think it...
says mrs may hinted she would rather have a no—deal brexit, than a long delay. and finally, the daily telegraph focuses on the reaction from eurosceptics. ex—conservative leader and brexiteer iain duncan smith said the choice for mps next week was simple: leave either with the prime minister‘s deal or no deal. let‘s take a look at the inside pages. the busiest pages are dominated that google has been hit by anotherfine. the latest find they have now faced, taking the total number of fines over the last two years, the ruling from the european commission means it's faced all sorts of things, not only for abuse with power but also its android mobile operating system and its latest fine relates to search adverts. promoting firms furtherup search adverts. promoting firms further up the ranking but in return the money in the european commission says that is not fair saw another massive fine for them. you might be forgiven for thinking it is miserable news right now. the new study suggests that is not affecting oui’ study suggests that is not affecting our happiness. we are one of th
says mrs may hinted she would rather have a no—deal brexit, than a long delay. and finally, the daily telegraph focuses on the reaction from eurosceptics. ex—conservative leader and brexiteer iain duncan smith said the choice for mps next week was simple: leave either with the prime minister‘s deal or no deal. let‘s take a look at the inside pages. the busiest pages are dominated that google has been hit by anotherfine. the latest find they have now faced, taking the total number of...
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COMMENCEMENT: Berg, Clark, Covey and Hatch to Receive Honorary Degrees at SUU Commencement
Published: May 01, 2006 | Category: Commencement
The 2006 Commencement Exercises for Southern Utah University will take place on Saturday, May 6, at which more than 1,100 associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees will be conferred upon undergraduate and graduate students, and honorary degrees will be given to four individuals who have made valuable, and invaluable, contributions to the Institution.
The four 2006 honorary degree recipients are:
KATHRYN BERG—Professor Emeritus
VAL CLARK—Alumnus, Doctor of Dentistry, Friend of SUU
TOM HATCH—Alumnus, State Senator
STEPHEN COVEY-- co-founder and vice-chair of the Franklin Covey Company. Covey is the Keynote Speaker for this year’s SUU’s Commencement
The Commencement ceremonies will begin at 9 a.m. in the Centrum Arena, SUU campus, Cedar City.
Bios of Honorary Degree recipients follow:
“Back when women’s athletics at SUSC consisted of a group of girls getting together on occasion and having what was called a ‘play day,’ a new faculty member was hired on. Along with a full load of classes to teach that year—1969 (sic)—she was assigned the task of developing an intercollegiate athletics program for women—and that she did.” (The Thunderbird student newspaper, October 6, 1986) Dr. Kathryn Berg is “the” pioneer of women’s athletics at SUU. Her contributions are countless. Kathryn spent 12 years as a track and field coach at SUU, 11 as a gymnastics coach and 10 as a volleyball coach. She also coached basketball, softball, tennis and swimming teams before moving on to dedicate her time as Associate Director of Athletics. As the associate AD, Kathryn helped oversee the University's movement from a small NAIA institution to a viable NCAA Division I competitor, and helped develop the infrastructure necessary for that transition. She also served on the prestigious NCAA competition committee, where she further helped distinguish the University's name, as well as an appointed member of the NCAA Division I Management Council. During her tenure as teaching faculty, Kathryn taught virtually every class offered by the SUU physical education department. She also served as department chair for many years. She was regarded by generations of SUU students and student-athletes as a surrogate parent. In her more than 30 years of service to SUU, Dr. Berg was named outstanding educator, female teacher of the year, professor of the year, and outstanding woman of the year. She has also been inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame as well as SUU’s Utah Summer Games Hall of Honor. She is a founding member of USG, and was a USG trustee for 14 years. And, last spring, the softball field on campus was named in her honor. Originally from Heber City, she taught for nine years in secondary schools in Utah before she came and made such a pivotal difference in the development and story of SUU.
Just a few days after he was born in St. George, Val Clark moved to New Castle with his parents and two older sisters to be raised on the Bar V Ranch. The family lived in a one-room house with no running water or electricity. In the winter, Val would sleep in the basement, but during the other seasons, he loved sleeping out under the stars. He thought it was fun growing up herding livestock and riding horses, but he was also developing the solid foundation of his work ethic that would help him all through his adult life. In 4th grade, he attended “the big school” in Cedar City. The 30 kids in his one class was a big change from the two-room school he attended in New Castle in which six grades were in one room. Mrs. Miriam Luke was his favorite teacher of all time. She gave him a seemingly daunting academic challenge because she cared about and believed in him. Val somehow achieved the goal and has been grateful to Mrs. Luke ever since. He kept in touch with her for the rest of her life. He learned, too, from his parents--Earl B. Clark and Iva Knell--who met at BNS. His mother, a school teacher, read to her children around the pot-bellied stove each night. His dad, a history buff, provided lively and intriguing lessons over dinner each evening. When he was 14, the family moved to Hollywood, and he’s been back-and-forth ever since. During high school, Val sold televisions door-to-door, and during the summers of college, he worked as an entertainer and gear jammer (bus driver) for the Utah Parks Company. Val attended BAC where he studied pre-dental courses. From 4th grade through college, Val was always held some room or class president position. At BAC, he was the freshman class president and later the student body president. He was president, too, of the local “Youth for Eisenhower-Nixon Club” which led him to a term as Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms in the Utah Senate. He then went to dental school at the University of Southern California. There, he was junior class president and student body pres. At graduation, he received the Cruse Award for the most outstanding student. After school, he owed two years to the military. While stationed in Oklahoma, he met Marilyn Estes. Months later, they got engaged in Booth 22 of the El Chollo Café, in L.A. They married in 1960 and later had two children. Val returned to USC gain his master’s degree, specializing in orthodontics. He started his practice in 1962 and continued for 32 years until he retired in 1994. During his career, he also was a part-time faculty member at the USC School of Dentistry. He is the founder and was the first president of the USC Orthodontic Alumni Association. He currently serves on USC’s board of counselors. Co- founder of the Entrepreneur Program in the School of Business Management at BYU, Val has lectured several times there, on investments. He has always been involved in real estate, and is part owner of the second largest apartment house group in Orange County, California. He also currently sits on the National Alumni Board for SUU, and says he loves it. Val plays hard too; he boats, bicycles, races off-road, and windsurfs. In fact, he was the commissioner of the Olympic Board Sailing Exhibition in the 1984 Olympic games—a position in which he says he never worked so hard or had as much fun. Val was named SUU’s Outstanding Alumnus in 1996. He says that although he spends most of his time in southern California, his heart remains in southern Utah.
Senator Tom Hatch represents the 28th District encompassing all of Iron, Beaver, Kane, Garfield, and Millard counties, and a portion of Washington County—a very large district, geographically. He is the owner of the title insurance and escrow business--Security Title Company of Garfield County—and is an active member of the cattle company which has been operated by his family for more than 100 years. Prior to his election to the legislature in 1994, Tom served 10 years on the Garfield County Commission, eight of those years as chairman. He has also served on the State Soil Conservation Commission, the Central Utah Water Conservation District Board, the Community Impact Board, and many other boards and committees representing the people of rural Utah, including president of the Utah Association of County Officials from 1991-1992. His current legislative assignments include co-chair of the Natural Resource Appropriations Committee, the Business and Labor Committee, co-chair of the Water Development Task Force, and the Governor's Task Force on Water Funding. Senator Hatch’s public service has been formidable. His leadership and contributions over the past 22 years have made a great difference to his constituents in southern Utah. For example, during his legislative service, he has played a pivotal role in obtaining funding for a new graduate programs at SUU, for the Utah Summer Games, the Cedar Mountain Science Center, the SUU Nursing program, the University’s new teacher education building (for which ground was broken just yesterday), and the recent initiative to complete payment of the Iron County bond obligation on the Sharwan Smith Student Center. Frequently sought to be a leader or broker on tough issues like public education, public lands and tax proposals, Tom is deeply respected by his fellow legislators and those adjacent to the legislative arena. One astute observer to the field commented: “Tom Hatch enjoys the respect of his peers in the legislature as much as anyone who serves there.” Tom’s savvy knowledge of the legislative process coupled with his sincere concern about the welfare of his constituents and district has enabled him to achieve many positive results for SUU and the region. Tom resides with his wife Kay in Panguitch during the winter months and on the family ranch at Mammoth Creek during the summer. He is very involved in the community of his rural hometown. He and Kay are the parents of four children and grandparents of 13.
Dr. Stephen R. Covey is co-founder and vice-chair of the Franklin Covey Company, a leading global professional services firm with offices in 123 countries. A best-selling author, multiple-times, Covey is perhaps best known for his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. A #1 Bestseller on the New York Times List, 7 Habits has sold more than 15 million copies in 38 languages around the world. Forbes named 7 Habits as one of the top 10 most influential management books ever, and a survey by Chief Executive Magazine found 7 Habits to be one of the two most influential books of the 20th century. Recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential Americans, and one of Sales and Marketing Management’s top 25 power brokers, Covey’s goal is to empower organizations and individuals through his “principle-centered leadership” strategies. Covey kneads his vision and discipline into all of his writing and presentations; several other acclaimed books and concepts fall under his authorship. His latest publication is “The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness” which has already been named #1 on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Other Covey bestsellers include “First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership,” which Simon & Schuster declared the bestselling time management book ever, and the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Families,” ranked 4th on the NYT list. It has also been named the #1 bestselling hardcover book on family. Covey is passionate about sharing his perspectives on life, with the hope of helping and inspiring others. He focuses on such ideas as: FOCUS: Achieving Your Highest Priorities; Leadership: A Choice, Not a Position; Managing Change in the Face of Crisis; Cracking the Code: Unleashing Human Potential; Using an Industrial Age Model in a Knowledge Worker Age; The High Cost of Low Trust; Measuring Impact: The Holy Grail of Training, and; Peacemaking: Synergy in the Prevention and Settlement of Problems. Overall, Covey’s objective in any endeavor is to provide his fellow human beings with some tools for positive change and growth.
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Family Support Centers
Food Recovery and Distribution Program
Direct Aid
Car Donation Program
The SVdP Model
Donations (Espanol)
CMS Portal
The St. Vincent de Paul Georgia Board of Directors consists of at large members and representatives from each of the nine Districts that encompass our 73 Conferences.
Mark Bataillon, CHAIRMAN
Nations recovery center
Mark Bataillon is the middle child of seven from a small town in Nebraska. He received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering degree from the University of Nebraska and relocated to Ohio to begin his professional career.
Married in LaGrange, Georgia, Mark and his wife Barb were blessed with two sons, Ryan and Jason. Mark joined his brother's Atlanta-based collection agency in 2003 as VP and COO for the Nations Recovery Center.
After two terms as President at the Mary Our Queen SVdP Conference, Mark was elected District 3 President and currently serves as Vice Chairman for the Board of Directors.
John Berry joined SVdP in 2006 after more than twenty years of private and government sector experience in engineering and technology. He has held executive management positions at Fortune 100 companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse with extensive international experience.
John holds degrees in Engineering and Business. He is a member of the United Way Public Policy Committee and a graduate of Leadership Atlanta. He sits on the Georgia Chamber Board of Directors and chairs the Nonprofit CEO Roundtable for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the American Marketing Association and the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Joseph Blanco
CRAWFORD AND COMPANY
Joseph Blanco serves as the managing partner of Dentons' Atlanta office. He focuses on general corporate counseling with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance. Prior to joining Dentons (formerly McKenna, Long and Aldridge), Joseph clerked for the Honorable Frank M. Hull of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Before law school, Joseph serves as a naval officer aboard the USS Nicholson and on the staff of the Commander of Destroyer Squadron Four.
Joseph received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame where he served as Student Body President. He received his law degree from Emory University where he served as Editor and Chief of the Emory Law Journal. He is a a member of the Atlanta Rotary and serves on the Board of the Emory Center for Ethics and the Board of Directors of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
Freddy Cardozo
gas south
Freddy Cardozo has over twenty years of experience in the energy industry in both regulated and deregulated markets, including twelve years in the natural gas industry.
Freddy is the Vice President of Supply and Risk Management for Gas South, and is responsible for natural gas procurement, asset and portfolio risk management, cost structures for pricing, and supply planning and forecasting. He has testified multiple times before the Georgia Public Service Commission as an expert witness in the deregulated natural gas industry.
Before joining Gas South in 2006, Freddy worked as a Structuring Principal at Southern Company. Prior to that, he was a Senior Analyst at Mirant Corporation. Additionally, he has worked as a Power Transmission Planning Engineer for the National Administration of Electricity (ANDE) which is the electric utility of Paraguay.
Freddy holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from the National University of Asuncion, Paraguay and a Master of Science degree from Arizona State University where he was a Fulbright Scholar.
toby carr
the University of georgia
Toby Carr, associate vice president for government relations and director of state government relations for the University of Georgia, represents the university in matters involving state legislators, agencies, departments, and other higher education institutions of Georgia.
Previously, Toby was appointed by Governor Nathan Deal to be the planning director for the Georgia Department of Transportation. Toby was also the governor's liaison to the Georgia House of Representatives and executive director of Deal's gubernatorial transition committee.
Toby graduated from the UGA with degrees in agricultural engineering and business administration. Toby and his wife Kellen live in Brookhaven with their daughter.
Thomas dailey, Treasurer
Tom recently retired from Shell Oil Company where he worked for nearly 35 years. He held positions in sales and marketing for most of his early career, managing networks of Shell stations and distributors. He moved on to leadership positions in Engineering and Health & Safety, and had been a General Manager in Information Technology for the last 10 years. He worked in many markets across the USA including Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, Chicago and Houston, and had the opportunity to live and work in the United Kingdom on two occasions.
Tom is a member of Christ Our King and Savior Catholic Church, and he has been President of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul COKAS Conference since 2016. Tom has been married to Patty for over 37 years, and they are the parents of two sons, now aged 26 and 29.
He attended the University of Georgia where he earned an undergraduate degree in Journalism and a Master of Business Administration.
John Griffin has been in the insurance business for 45 years with roles ranging from trainee to underwriter to executive, and now as an agent in a small speciality firm.
John attended Niagara University, a Vincentian university, and volunteers at the St. Ann's Marietta SVdP Conference. John lives in Roswell with his wife Debi. They have three adult children and two grandchildren to spoil.
B.J. Green, Sr.
BJ Green is Senior Vice President and Commercial Banking Team Manager for SunTrust Bank in the Atlanta Division. BJ’s team focuses on companies in the food and beverage, manufacturing, distribution, logistics, goods and equipment, and energy sectors.
BJ joined the SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. in 2007 in the syndicated and leveraged finance department before joining oil and gas investment banking in 2013. Prior to joining SunTrust, BJ was with Banc of America Securities, LLC for seven years and Wachovia Bank for five years.
BJ has been involved in several civic organizations in Atlanta and currently serves on the board of directors for Buckhead Baseball, St Vincent De Paul, Trees Atlanta, and the Habersham Park Association.
BJ is a native of Greensboro, NC, and received a BS in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University.
BJ is married to Mary Kathryn and together they have three children. BJ enjoys playing squash, tennis, and golf.
Deacon Peter Harris, spiritual advisor
Deacon Peter Harris is a Georgia native, born & raised in Cobb, attended Cobb schools, and graduated from Marietta High School. Kay, his wife, is originally from Korea and has been a Georgia resident since 1980. Peter and Kay live in East Cobb County. They have one son, Robert. Peter and Kay have been active with St. Vincent de Paul for many years in addition to several other ministries. He has served with Pastoral Care at both St. Joseph’s & Kennestone Hospitals.
Peter has been involved in church ministry work for approximately 25 years. As an ordained Permanent Deacon with the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Peter is currently assigned to Transfiguration and Holy Family Catholic Churches, both located in East Cobb.
Peter has multiple degrees from Georgia State University & is retired, having served as a teacher & administrator with Fulton County Schools for 33+ years. He served as Assistant Principal at Riverwood International High School for 13 years and in addition to academics & discipline, was responsible for safety & security.
Besides being actively involved at two parishes & serving on the SVdP Council Board as Spiritual Advisor, Peter is a Chaplain with the Cobb County Police Department, having a special interest in supporting and ministering to members of the public safety community, especially the CCPD. His oldest brother, now deceased, was in law enforcement, as an officer with the Marietta and Cobb County Police Departments.
Charles Jones is President and C.E.O. of Shasta, a firm engaged in finance and supply chain management. He holds B.S. and M.B.A. degrees as well as professional certification. He has, and continues to serve on several non-profit and for-profit related Boards and Committees. Charles is also active in serving others through his parish St. Vincent de Paul Conference as it is faith in action serving those in need.
John Kirksey
Retired, SunGard/FIS
John Kirksey serves as Conference President at St. Francis Blairsville and District 8 President. John grew up in Albany, GA and received a BS in Computer Science from the University of Georgia. He and his wife, Cindy, raised their family in Norcross, GA where John worked in the Financial Computing Services industry, retiring in 2013 and moving to Blairsville.
John is a parishioner of St Francis of Assisi and lives in Blairsville with his wife. They have been blessed with three grown children.
Mike Martin
ATF, retired
Mike Martin received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Kansas State University and a J.D. from Kansas University. After serving with the Navy in Vietnam, Mike went to work as an attorney with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).
In April 2006, Mike retired from ATF as the supervisory attorney for the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
After retirement, he joined the SVdP, OLM Conference. Home visits and Intake sessions followed quickly. Mike became the Spiritual Advisor for the Conference. After a stint as Vice President, Mike served a 3-year term as President. Currently, he is the Vice President in charge of the Family Uplift Program at OLM, and President of District 9.
Joanne Mauro
Joanne Mauro is the Administrative Manager for the Interdisciplinary Toxicology Program at the University of Georgia. Her background includes serving 26 years with the U.S. Navy, retiring as a Chief Petty Officer, developing programs for U.S. Marine Corps' families, and working with at-risk youth in New York's National Guard Challenge Program.
Joanne has served as a SVdP Conference President and helped start the St. Catherine Laboure Conference in Jefferson, GA.
Joanne has three children: Allyson, a professional photographer, Catheryn, a Family Program's expert with the Air Force and soon-to-be Police Officer in the San Antonio area, and Patrick and Ira who work in sales and as an LPN in the mid-Hudson Valley are of New York. Besides her family, Joanne's other passions are her dogs and gardening.
Mike Mies
Nclear, inc.
Mike Mies is the CEO of Nclear, Inc., an environmental nanotechnology company that addresses the global problem of nutrient pollution and toxic algae. Prior to this, Mike was the President of Mies Management Associates, LLC providing consulting services to growth companies. Before that, he was the Founder and CEO of a wireless broadband provider.
Mike earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economic, magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan, and and an MBA, magna cum laude, from Wayne State University.
Mike is currently Associate Faculty at the Malcolm Baldridge School of Business at Post University where he teaches Business Strategy in the MBA program.
Leo Payne
Currently between assignments Leo has thirty-five plus years of managerial and consulting experience. As a senior executive he was responsible for all corporate policies, plans and objectives relating to financial matters, financial planning and analysis, control and reporting, treasury, risk management, procurement, and general administration and information technology systems. As a consultant was responsible for providing financial management, strategic planning and evaluation services to private corporations, lending institutions and government agencies. He led two implementation teams that installed Oracle Financials.
Some career highlights include the creation of a $2.5 billion federal government corporation; over $2 billion in Wall Street financings; helping to restructure a $3.2 billion utility; and managed corporate budgets ranging from $600 million to in excess of $1 billion. Among his current projects is the creation of Ryan’s Friends, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. This new corporation provides services and benefits for families of autistic children in the Southern Crescent area of Metro Atlanta.
Leo has been a Vincentian for twenty-five years and during that time has served in two conferences as a caseworker, Treasurer, Vice President and President and District Treasurer. He is currently District Three President. During his service Leo has created Thanksgiving and Christmas Gift programs, Life Skills Classes. He currently is leading a project to establish emergency housing for women and women with children in Gwinnett.
On the personal side, Leo graduated from Georgia State University with a MBA degree and a BBA degree. His family consists of his twenty-seven year old daughter, Kaitlin. Leo’s previous experience serving on a Board of Directors includes serving on the boards of the Protection Mutual Insurance Advisory Board, Georgia HomeFinders, Inc., Gwinnett County Board of Realtors, and Ryan’s Friends. Leo has taught graduate level finance courses for the University of Phoenix.
While he is a native of Atlanta Leo has spent a substantial portion of his business career in Houston, TX; Baton, Rogue, LA; Washington, DC and New York, NY. He organized and leads a committee that produces a 5 K Race for St Mary’s Independent Living Extension (SMILE), a local charity for the developmentally delayed, and he is a long-time Crew Chief with The Peachtree Road Race.
Michael T. Petrik
alston & bird
Michael Petrik is a partner at Alston & Bird representing corporations in tax planning and appeals. He is a graduate of Duke Law school and is listed in the Who's Who in America, the Best Lawyers in America, and Chambers USA as one of America's Leading Tax Lawyers.
Mike is an active member in many civic endeavors, including serving as the Board Chair of the United Way of Greater Atlanta, the Vasser Woolley Foundation, and St. Pius X Catholic High School.
Mike lives in Peachtree Corners with his wife Susan, where they endeavor to babysit their new granddaughter as often as possible.
Kyle Reis
Cooper carry
Kyle Reis has been volunteering with SVdP for the past ten years. Kyle is a parishioner at the Cathedral of Christ the King and previously served as their Conference President. He joined the SVdP Board of Directors as the District 4 President, and served as the Board Chair for the organization from 2014-2017. Kyle has a passion for SVdP's mission and enjoys working with the dedicated Vincentians, volunteers, staff, and fellow Board members to advance that mission.
Kyle lives in Decatur with his wife Colleen, three year old daughter Evelyn, and 1 year old son Grant. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2006, and complete his Master in Business Administration at Georgia State University in 2013. Kyle is an Associate Principal, urban designer, and planner at Cooper Carry. He works on public and private development projects across the U.S. and abroad.
louise scott
georgia power
Louise Scott serves as vice president of Customer Services for Georgia Power. Louise joined Southern Company in 1995 and has held a variety of leadership roles throughout the Southern Company system.
Louise earned a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and studio art from the University of Florida and State University of New York, respectively. She also completed executive programs at the Goizueta School of Business and Wharton School.
Louise is a member of the Society of Women Engineers and she serves on the University of Florida Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering External Advisory Board.
sylvia turner
Univar usa
Sylvia Turner is the Customer Service Lead for Univar USA in Norcross, GA. She was born in Curacoa, Netherlands Antilles. At the age of four her family moved to New York where she received all of her schooling, worked in various industries, married and had two children.
In 1989 Sylvia and her family moved to Georgia, settled in Lithonia and became a parishioner at Christ Our Hope in 1991 where she was introduced to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. With young children, she felt the position of the intake worker with SVdP would be the easiest, but she quickly found out it was the hardest. After years of volunteering with the Christ Our Hope Conference, Sylvia was voted Conference President and currently District 6 President.
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From left: Lena Epstein, Steve King, Danny K. Davis, Leslie Cockburn, John Fitzgerald, Andre Carson, Arthur Jones, and Ilhan Omar.(Photos: Twitter; Scott Olson/Getty Images; Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images for (RED); Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival; YouTube; Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for WE tv; YouTube; Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival.)
Eight candidates who have expressed blatantly anti-Semitic views, or who openly associate with anti-Semites
By The Editors
November 2, 2018 • 4:23 PM
If nothing else, the Pittsburgh massacre should underline for all American Jews that our ongoing struggle against hate is not a narrow sectarian interest or a partisan political tool. It is a matter of life or death—for your neighbors, your synagogue, your family, your children, your parents and grandparents, for our community.
In that spirit, we want to emphasize, as Nathan Rubin does today in our pages, just how important it is to have friends and allies in the ongoing struggle against hate.
We also want to make clear that open and blatant anti-Semitism—as well as validating and associating with open and blatant anti-Semites who spread their poison in our country or call for the elimination or destruction of Jewish communities anywhere else in the world—is not acceptable, ever. Licensing hate means death for Jews.
Anti-Semitism is a bright red line in our politics that no one in our public life can be permitted to cross and expect to receive the support of our community, whether we are proud Democrats or proud Republicans.
Support for Israel is not an excuse for calling for the elimination of Jews or the Jewish religion. Support for immigrants or other marginalized groups is also not an excuse. Past histories of individual or group oppression at the hands of anyone, anywhere is not an excuse. Being Jewish, or having a Jewish parent or grandparent, is not an excuse. There are no more excuses.
In that spirit, here is a list of candidates in Tuesday’s hotly contested congressional elections who have expressed blatantly anti-Semitic views or endorsed or refused to condemn individuals or ideas that are blatantly anti-Semitic.
John Fitzgerald
Republican, California’s 11th Congressional District
“Everything we’ve been told about the Holocaust is a lie,” John Fitzgerald told the Hitler-glorifying radio host Andrew Carrington Hitchcock. “My entire campaign, for the most part, is about exposing this lie.”
When learning of Fitzgerald’s anti-Semitic views, including his open espousal of Holocaust denial and his warnings against the dangers of “Jewish supremacy,” the California Republican Party immediately rescinded its endorsement. The party’s move did not surprise Fitzgerald, the candidate said in an interview, since both political parties in America are run by the same people: “Jewish elitists.”
Fitzgerald’s long record of anti-Semitic statements is the depressing history of one man’s monomaniacal hatred. What is interesting is how easily the twisted, conspiratorial accusations he lobs at “Jews” and “world Jewry” might have come from a supporter of Louis Farrakhan or an anti-Israel maniac on the left. He indicts Jews for their “prominent role” in the slave trade; asserts that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, which it used to further its global agenda; attacks “Jewish control and supremacy”; and complains that he is being “lambasted for telling the truth.”
Like Fitzgerald, the anti-Semitic lunacy he traffics in has no political party. It is, rather, a party of its own—a political virus that is happy to find hosts wherever it can.
Arthur Jones
Republican, Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District
Quick, what do you believe to be “the biggest, blackest lie in history”? If the answer is the Holocaust, Arthur Jones is the candidate for you. A perennially unsuccessful candidate for a variety of municipal and statewide offices since the 1970s, he shot to infamy for brawling on The Jerry Springer Show.
A frequent speaker at KKK and Aryan Nation events, Jones isn’t as layered and intricate as the other candidates on this list: He’s a neo-Nazi who openly celebrates Adolf Hitler, denies the Holocaust, and disapproves of Donald Trump because of the Jewish members of his family. He once even swallowed his hatred of non-white people to declare, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I salute Louis Farrakhan and anyone else who stands up against the Jews.”
In a recent interview, Jones tried to convince voters to see his inner, softer side. “There’s more to me than being a denier of the Holocaust,” he said. Maybe. But there is also that.
Rep. Danny K. Davis
Democrat, Illinois’ 7th Congressional District
“I personally know [Louis Farrakhan], I’ve been to his home, done meetings, participated in events with him,” Democratic Rep. Danny Davis told The Daily Caller’s Peter Hasson. “I don’t regard Louis Farrakhan as an aberration or anything, I regard him as an outstanding human being who commands a following of individuals who are learned and articulate and he plays a big role in the lives of thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people.”
In actuality, Farrakhan is a racist and homophobic cult leader who blames Jews for everything from the slave trade to Sept. 11. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have exhaustively documented Farrakhan’s viciously anti-Semitic outbursts. Here is Rep. Davis’ “outstanding human being” in Farrakhan’s own words:
“You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood. You are not real Jews, those of you that are not real Jews. You are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending this nation to hell.” —(Saviours’ Day Speech, Chicago, 2/25/96)
“Did you know that Jesus had a real problem with the Jewish community? They had power, the rabbis of that day, over the Roman authorities just as they have power today over our government.” —(Remarks at Indianapolis Convention Center, Indianapolis, 12/1/13)
“In all of these cities on a Jewish holiday, business stops because they are the masters not only in America’s cities but in cities throughout Europe and the Western world.” —(The Time and What Must Be Done, Part 20: Making Satan Known, 5/25/13)
“The Jewish media has normalized sexual degeneracy, profanity, and all kinds of sin.” —(The Time and What Must Be Done, Part 20: Making Satan Known, 5/25/13)
“Now you know I’m going to be lambasted and called anti-Semitic. … They’ll say Farrakhan was up to his old canards; he said Jews control Hollywood. Well, they said it themselves! Jews control the media. They said it themselves! Jews and some gentiles control the banking industry, international banks. They do! In Washington right next to the Holocaust Museum is the Federal Reserve where they print the money. Is that an accident?” —(Holy Day of Atonement Keynote Address, Part 2, Mosque Maryam, Chicago, 10/21/12)
“In 100 years, they control movies, television, recording, publishing, commerce, radio, they own it all. Magazines. Why do you want all, everything?” —(Saviours’ Day Speech, Chicago, 2/26/12)
“These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength. It’s the wicked Jews the false Jews that are promoting Lesbianism, homosexuality. It’s wicked Jews, false Jews that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic.” —(Saviours’ Day Speech, Chicago, 2/26/06)
Under pressure from J Street and other progressive organizations, Davis condemned Farrakhan. But it was forced and disingenuous—not least of all because he has in fact been defending Farrakhan and his acolytes since he was an alderman in Chicago, when Barack Obama was a young local community organizer there, as the former president’s biographer David Garrow has documented. That’s a long, and deep, history of support for—and engagement with—the country’s most vicious and unabashed anti-Semite.
Republican elected officials from Donald Trump on down have rightly faced heavy criticism from Democrats over their ties to and defenses of bigoted hate groups and individuals. Whether Democrats will hold their own official, Rep. Davis, to the same standard remains to be seen. Thus far, all 20 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus who served in Congress at the time of Davis’ main Farrakhan meeting have declined to comment on it or condemn the man himself.
Rep. Andre Carson
Democrat, Indiana’s 7th Congressional District
Here is a childish and ugly little game that has become a familiar and tiresome part of the American political scene: Members of the Congressional Black Caucus play footsie with the anti-Semitic hate preacher Louis Farrakhan, find themselves criticized by reporters and by Jewish organizations, and then issue mealy mouthed condemnations of “racism” or “all forms of bigotry and hatred.” The apologies are issued with all the sincerity of teenagers who would rather be somewhere else. Winning in this game means getting Jews to shut up, without actually denouncing Farrakhan.
The game’s all-time winner, if that’s the right word, is Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana. Here is the Indianapolis Star’s account of its interview with Carson earlier this year, after his latest public dalliance with America’s most prominent anti-Semitic hate monger:
In a 50-minute phone interview on Friday, Carson avoided criticizing Farrakhan directly, declined to characterize Farrakhan’s remarks as “hate speech,” and would not rule out meeting with Farrakhan in the future to discuss policy concerns.
Carson is reported to have attended multiple meetings with Farrakhan and has met with the Nation of Islam hate-group leader while in Congress. He also joined New York Rep. Gregory Meeks and current deputy Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Keith Ellison, then a congressman from Minnesota, at a 2013 dinner hosted by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Farrakhan was also present at that dinner.
Carson also joined Ellison in visiting Farrakhan at his hotel room, Farrakhan said in December 2016, and he appears to look forward to continuing his visits.
Rep. Steve King
Republican, Iowa’s 4th Congressional District
Iowa Rep. Steve King’s open championing of racist, white supremacist views is an embarrassment to the Republican Party and to the U.S. Congress. His bigotry knows no borders, as evidenced by his endorsement of a virulent anti-Semite named Faith Goldy for mayor of Toronto:
Faith Goldy, an excellent candidate for Toronto mayor, pro Rule of Law, pro Make Canada Safe Again, pro balanced budget, &…BEST of all, Pro Western Civilization and a fighter for our values. @FaithGoldy will not be silenced. https://t.co/uqkeaUjm7i
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) October 17, 2018
Goldy personally traveled all the way from her home in Canada to participate in and sympathetically cover the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. She called alt-right luminary Richard Spencer’s manifesto released before the event “well thought out,” though afterward claimed this “was not an endorsement, it was my sense that there were grounds upon which to engage in conversation, not physical combat, with the alt-right.” Later, Goldy was fired from her job at the conservative outlet Rebel Media after she appeared on a podcast affiliated with the neo-Nazi flagship outlet The Daily Stormer and chummily agreed with the host on every point.
In an April interview, she recommended For My Legionaries, a book by a Romanian fascist that repeatedly assails the alleged “parasitism of the Jews” and calls to combat “the Jewish menace.” She then backtracked slightly, misleadingly claiming that the book’s anti-Semitism was merely a stray aside, rather than a constantly reiterated theme: “It’s now come to my attention that there is a disturbing line later in that book and I wish to state for the record: I do not endorse it.” (A quick look through the full text for Jewish references—available here—easily demonstrates Goldy’s dishonesty.)
Like many bigots, Goldy is an equal opportunity offender. In a December interview with a far-right YouTuber, Goldy smilingly declared, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”—what the Anti-Defamation League calls “the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world,” known as “the 14 words.” Goldy, for her part, added, “I don’t see that that’s controversial; is that bad? I think it’s controversial to say the opposite.”
Why did King endorse a bizarre fringe figure like Goldy? Perhaps it’s because they share similar outlooks, and he swims in the same online ideological universe as she does. After all, in March 2017, King infamously tweeted in support of an anti-immigration European candidate: “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” (At the time, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said, “I’d like to think he misspoke.” King told CNN, “I meant exactly what I said.”) In July 2016, King similarly told a panel on MSNBC that “This whole ‘old white people’ business does get a little tired, Charlie. I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
Lena Epstein
Republican, Michigan’s 11th Congressional District
It was Lena Epstein who chose to invite a non-Jewish “messianic” rabbi to her campaign event outside Detroit on Monday to pray for the victims of Saturday’s massacre in Pittsburgh. She has since doubled down on defending that decision.
The “rabbi” Loren Jacobs, whom Epstein invited, has never been to a rabbinical school but attended an evangelical seminary. He believes that a Jew is damned to hell for being a Jew and was defrocked by his own group of messianic “Jews for Jesus” in 2003 for apparently being too much of a hardliner on this point.
Jacobs opened the Oct. 29 campaign rally by praying to the “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God of my Lord and Savior Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, and my God and father too.” He was later brought back on stage by Vice President Mike Pence to pray for the victims and grieving families in Pittsburgh. “Lord, I pray that we would see fewer and fewer horrible tragedies like this. And I pray this ‘beshem Yeshua’—in the name of Jesus,” Jacobs said before Pence moved him away from the podium and off the stage.
As Pence became the focus of criticism after the rally for sharing the stage with Jacobs, representatives for the vice president, an observant Evangelical Christian, have tried to distance him from the event. In various statements, they’ve claimed that the vice president didn’t have anything to do with inviting Jacobs, or any knowledge of the messianic “rabbi” prior to the rally.
Epstein, on the other hand, responded to the outrage and insult she caused by writing: “Any media or political competitor who is attacking me or the Vice President is guilty of nothing short of religious intolerance and should be ashamed.”
In fact, the shame is hers. While there may be no single Jewish community, but rather many bound together by common bonds of faith and tradition, Jacobs belongs to none of them and condemns them all. A person whose core belief is that Jews must be saved from their Jewishness and should rightfully disappear from the face of the planet is, by definition, not a part of the Jewish community, and by the lowest possible standards of decency not the right person to publicly mourn two days after the worst massacre of American Jews on U.S. soil in this country’s history.
Democrat, Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District
As a Minnesota state representative, Ilhan Omar was a fierce and consistent critic of Israel as well as an enthusiastic advocate of restoring America’s diplomatic ties with Iran. Neither of these positions is inherently anti-Semitic, and Omar enjoys the support of leading Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer.
But in May, a conservative political writer from Minnesota resurfaced a noxious 2012 tweet of Omar’s:
Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 16, 2012
The language here is of vital importance, since the idea that Jews, or Jewish entities, control the world via mystical, dark powers is a staple of anti-Semitic conspiracy thought, as illustrated by these bigoted cartoons from different anti-Jewish sources in the last century:
LEFT: “Legion of Shame,” by Julius Streicher in Der Stürmer, 1935, which depicts gentile women in thrall to Jews. RIGHT: An anti-Saudi cartoon from Iranian media depicting Saudi Arabia’s King Salman hypnotized by Jews to support the Jewish state, with the caption “Wake up, King!” (courtesy: Aaron Boudaie)
Given the chance to walk back the incendiary language of her tweet and correct any mistaken impressions about her meaning, Omar instead doubled down with no apology: “Drawing attention to the apartheid Israeli regime is far from hating Jews.”
Omar argues that calling Israel an apartheid state and talking about its mesmeric powers isn’t anti-Semitism. We don’t agree.
At a candidate forum in August, held during the last week of the 2018 primary campaign, Omar asserted her support for a two-state solution—leading some supporters to argue that this made up for her previous comments. Some even contrasted her with Rashida Tlaib—the Michigan Democrat who is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants—who rescinded her support for a two-state solution after she won her primary.
But, again, narrowly political positions about how to address the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians—including Tlaib’s—are not inherently anti-Semitic. But it is textbook anti-Semitism to attribute supernatural—and thus unseen, and consequently terrifying—powers to Jews or the Jewish state.
Leslie Cockburn
Democrat, Virginia’s 5th Congressional District
Leslie Cockburn is the co-author, with her husband, the notorious Israel-hating British conspiracy theorist Andrew Cockburn, of Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship. A favorite reference work for unhinged anti-Semites on both the left and the right, the Cockburns’ book advanced the classically anti-Semitic claim that Israel controls American foreign policy. According to The New York Times, “their book, supposedly a history of the secret ties between Israel and the United States, is largely dedicated to Israel bashing for its own sake. Its first message is that, win or lose, smart or dumb, right or wrong, suave or boorish, Israelis are a menace. The second is that the Israeli-American connection is somewhere behind just about everything that ails us.”
A major thesis of Dangerous Liaison is that evil Israelis manipulate America through their favorite tool, American Jews, who the authors describe as “women with blue hair and pseudo-athletic men,” who have in turn corrupted the purity of the decision-making process with their money, which induces high-ranking U.S. officials including several U.S. presidents to collude in and cover up an outlandish list of supposed Israeli crimes.
But the Cockburns’ understanding of the role of the Jews in making the world a worse place goes far beyond their death grip on Washington. It is global. Israelis train Colombian drug lords in Medellín to kill. They masterminded the genocide of the native population of Guatemala. They induced Egypt’s Nasser to become an anti-Semite and threaten to destroy Israel so they could seize Arab lands in the Six-Day War. Clever, that. They induced Stalin to start the Cold War, by paying Jews to spy on Communist countries from within. Clever, yes, but the entire planet could have been destroyed.
There is little point in arguing with people who wear tin-foil hats. But mainstreaming their lunacy is dangerous.
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Congressional Black Caucus
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The HP Slate Lives. Maybe. At Least It's Not Dead
By Harry McCracken | Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Engadget is reporting that HP will “make a determination soon on the next steps” for its Windows 7 slate PC–the one that I declared dead a few weeks ago. It’s not entirely clear what that means, but it’s the most the company has said about the product in several months.
I’m not going to eat my words until it’s on the market, or HP at least announces a price and release date…
Read more: HP, Tablets
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:44 pm
What happened to HP using WebOS
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A History of Modern Psychology
In: Philosophy and Psychology
Submitted By iamaphoenix1
Words 911
Psychology 310-History and Systems of Psychology
Philosophy has been said to be the mother of all disciplines. Philosophy is the oldest disciplines studied and has influenced modern science. Natural and social science have their roots in philosophy. Modern sciences are influenced by philosophy and are similar to philosophical questions. Understanding the way problems are addressed by philosophers is essential to understanding the science of psychology. Philosophers paved the way for modern psychology. Aristotle was a very famous philosopher and was called the father of psychology. Aristotle created idealism which believes that the mind and reasoning cannot exist without the body. Plato was also a philosopher. He taught theories based on the behaviors of humans like impulses and reasoning. Rene Descartes, another philosopher determined that psychology is an actual discipline. There are several philosophers that have influenced 19th Century philosophy. Edward Hitzig and John Locke are respected 19th Century philosophers, just to name a few. These philosophers have had an impact on 19th Century philosophy like no other. Their discoveries provide a different perspective on modern psychology. ("Understanding Learners", n.d.).
Psychology as a Discipline
According to "Understanding Learners" (n.d.), “Psychology as a discipline aims to describe behavior, explain behavior, predict behavior and control or modify some behavior”. (2). Rene Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes believed that ideas of the mind body and inherit knowledge. Descartes also believed that humans have a material body and a non-material spiritual mind. The human mind’s powers are supreme according to Descartes. He believed that the body could have an influence on the mind; however, the mind is superior to the body. ("Understanding Learners", n.d.).
John Locke founded the study of human knowledge and its acquisition. Locke rejected the concept of innate ideas. Locke believed that all of human knowledge comes from the world and the experiences that people have. John Locke believed that the interaction between mind and body is equal. He believed that the mind needs the body for its information while the body needs the mind to process experiences.
Goodwin (2008) stated, “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience; in that, all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself”. (p. 39). Locke believed that the human mind was a blank slate at birth and what a person experiences becomes the writings on their brain. He believed that each idea comes from reflections and sensations. Sensation is the information that is taken in from the environment and reflections are mental activities that occur while processing information. Locke also made a comparison between complex ideas and simple ideas. Complex ideas are a combination of simple and complex ideas. Simple ideas are a result of simple sensory. Locke introduced the concept of association and several other concepts and theories. (Goodwin, 2008).
Philosophers of Western Tradition
Plato is another well respected philosopher during the western time period of psychology. He believed that reality was not determined from concrete objects but are abstracts formed in our minds. Plato was considered to be a rationalist that believed knowledge is acquired through thinking and analyzing the world. Finally, he believed that the body and mind interact with each other but are not the same. The mind is superior to the body. Reality is found through thinking and not through observation. ("Understanding Learners", n.d.). Socrates has been credited for being a founder of Western Philosophy. Socrates was also known for his Socratic dialogue. He would gather information from his students by asking a variety of questions and studying their answers. Socrates believed that value is having knowledge and being true to yourself, and hold no grudges. He believed that the soul defined a person. He was known for criticizing those of authority and was even tried for corrupting the morals of Athenian youth and for religious heresies. Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to death. ("Socrates", 1995-2000).
Nineteenth Century Psychology
Nineteenth century psychology has discovered that the nature of electricity is being used to conduct research on sensory physiology and that neural activity was electrochemical. Edward Hitzig, a nineteenth century philosopher studied muscle movements of a wounded soldier. The injured soldier’s brain was exposed and had been mechanically stimulated. During the study, Hitzig realized that although the brain was being stimulated, it had no effects. Hitzig decided to do a similar study on dogs. During this test, he exposed the cortex and probed various surfaces and provided stimuli. This stimulus was electricity and barley evoked sensation. The study provided evidence that localization by identifying several motor sensors in the front part of the dog’s brain. (Goodwin, 2008). Goodwin (2008) stated “This activity became known as the “new” phrenology or “scientific phrenology”. (p. 86).
The Basics of Philosophy. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.philosophybasics.com
Understanding Learners. (n.d.).
Retrieved from http://www.peoplelearn.homestead.com/chapter_1.history.pdf
Goodwin, C.J. (2008). A History of Modern Psychology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Socrates. (1995-2000).
Retrieved from http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/socrates
History of Modern Psychology
...History of Modern Psychology The roots of early Philosophy are the initial study of understanding; it is therefore the core of Psychology, which is used to motivate an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and actions to understand behavior. Philosophy relates to how an individuals experiences through understanding with no emotions. Therefore, one understands of how both philosophy and psychology can correlate with each other, even though they are both very different, the foundation was laid for further development of modern psychology today (Kowalski & Westen, 2005). Psychology has a long past, short history (Hermann Ebbinghaus, 1908). Hermann Ebbinghaus was noted for his slogan, and the first person to study memory through experimenting. Which brings us to psychology in its infancy, and the development of this science can be contributed to many philosophers as far back as the 18th century, and forward into the 19th century. Featuring, German experialmentalist Gustav, and Fechner 1801-1807, and Hermann von Helmholtz 1821-1894 all were apart of the growing developments of what Philosophy would become (Garth Kemerling, 2002). The American Psychological Association was founded by G. Stanley Hall in 1892. The Principles of Psychology, one of the most important texts in Psychology was written by William James, who would later determine functionalism. Rene Descartes and John Locke are two of the greatest philosophers known for teaching many about psychology today (Wade......
...History and Systems of Psychology History and Systems of Psychology The beginnings of Psychology seem to be up for debate. This is because it started off as as a totally different discipline. Philosophy is the true origin of Pyschology. In this paper these origins will be discussed along with the ideas, and systems that were put into play to allow Psychology to become its very own discipline. Psychology seems to be one of the oldest fields of science, and at the same time one of the youngest. This is because the main study of Psychology which is the mind, can be linked all the way back to Greek Philosophers of the 5th century B.C. People who view Psychology from this view see it as ancient. At the same time with the emergence of modern science, Psychologist began to use these new tools in Physical and Natural Sciences to take a more in depth and practical look at human behavior. People who take the latter into account view it as a very, very modern science. The first to delve into Psychology were the Ancient Greek Philosophers. These philosophers of the Old World stated that everything should be questioned. Socrates believed that the only thing he knows, is that he knows nothing. Being one of the first of the early philosophers to question everything including himself. He also believes what many Psychologist do today, that many people do bad things out of ignorance of knowing the bad that they are doing. Plato believed that humans are a body, which is material and......
The History of Psychology
...The History of Psychology Debi Pierce PSY310 February 13, 2012 Sharon Cohen The History of Psychology The study of psychology dates back as far as the Greek Gods and continues for centuries, which followed into present day. Many scientists, physiologists as well as psychologists are mentioned and play a role with the discussions, theories, and discoveries in which we have reached modern day psychology. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), a German psychologist, claimed that there is a long past when it comes to psychology but the history of psychology is short. Ultimately, he made this claim based on findings and theories that dated back to the Greeks, but the scientific portions of psychology were closer to the start of the twentieth century and continued to grow. Ebbinghaus was strongly influenced by such psychologists as Fechner and Helmholtz during his years at University of Bonn where he received his doctor of psychology in 1983 at only 23 years of age. He continued with his love and commitment to psychology at the University of Berlin. The many years spent studying, researching and training in the discipline of psychology eventually led him to be known as “the pioneer of memory research” (Fuchs, 1997). Afterwards, in the United States, college students were becoming aware of what has been termed as the “new” psychology shortly after 1870. This following had been led by Harvard University professor William James. James......
... History of Psychology Danielle Shank PSY/310 February 18, 2013 Kelle Daniels History of Psychology To understand psychology today, one must understand the past of psychology. Rene’ Descartes believes a person’s mind to have an ability to reason and the body to be a machine. However, John Locke believed a person’s mind to be a clean slate and it is filled from experiences. These are two amazing theories about the mind and body. However, if all of the theories were to be discussed this would not be an essay; this would be a book series. Psychology dates back to the 1900’s but the true history goes back to the Greek philosophers or even farther to the 17th century B.C. with Psamtik 1 (King of Egypt). He believed the Egyptians were the oldest race and was curious about how. The foundation of psychology starts with philosophy and medicine than later becomes its own category of psychology. Psychology gets broken down into smaller parts. This paper will go over different philosophers of the past that brought the start of psychology and then a man who was in the 19th century of psychology. Philosophers That Began Psychology Hermann Ebbinghaus states in his textbook called “Psychology An Elementary textbook”, “Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is very short” (Ebbinghaus, 1908, p. 3). When this......
...Modern Psychology reflects the discipline’s diverse history; the formation of psychology differs dramatically from modern-day conceptions of the field of study. To acquire a complete grasp of psychology, it is important to spend more time exploring the history and origins of this particular study in science. In this particular paper, the main concepts that is being explored is philosophers that historically relate to the beginnings of psychology as a formal discipline, major philosophers in the western tradition that were primary contributors to the formation of psychology as a discipline, and the development of the science of psychology during the 19th century. History of Psychology Psychology was not well known as a separate discipline until the late 1800’s, its initial history can be traced back to the era of the early Greeks. All throughout the 17th century, Rena Descartes, a French philosopher, introduced the first idea of dualism, which is the explanation that the mind and body are separate parts that work together to create the human experience. “Many other issues still debated by psychologists today, such as relative contributions of nature vs. nurture are rooted in these early philosophical traditions” (Citizendium, 2010). Psychology has been often mistakenly viewed as a young discipline, in all actuality Psychology has roots extending from ancient Greece. The father of psychology is known as Aristotle, he wrote his thesis “ De Anima, Parva Naturalia......
...Number ORG7509 Course Name History and Systems of Psychology By Jim Root Colorado Springs, Colorado August 2012 Abstract The pre-modern, modern, and post-modern time periods are defined The major theories in the history of psychology and their principles are explained. The history of diversity issues and how they have been addressed are explained. The impact of a psychological theory on the writer’s chosen career path is explained. This paper looks to illustrate the process in which psychology has taken over the years. Starting with the early days in which psychology was part of a philosophical beginning and moving into the modern day applications. This paper looks to identify the historical events in which psychology has progressed. Psychology has adapted to society and progressed with the changing diversity of society. Finally, this paper will illustrate the full circle in which psychology has come and a look into the future in which psychology may go. Pre-Modern Psychology Psychology dates back to the early days of ancient Greece and Egypt. Up until the 1870’s psychology was considered to be part of the world of philosophy. Psychology became an independent study or scientific method or discipline in both Germany and the Unites States in the late 1800’s. Psychology encompasses various fields including neuroscience, physiology, artificial intelligence, anthropology and sociology. Within these fields psychology can and does also......
...The foundations of psychology has been a mystery to many for quite some time. Psychology is the scientific study of mental and behavioral processes. Since ancient times, humans began trying to make sense of the mental process. The roots are traced far back in history to ancient philosophers. There was no hard evidence of how the mind works until early philosophers began scientific studys of the human mind and recorded their findings. In this paper you will read about early philosophers that related to the beginnings of psychology as a formal discipline. I will also identify some major philosophers in the western tradition who were primary contributors to the formation of psychology as a discipline. I will also be exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 19th century. Ancient philosophers is the where history bagan in the field of psychology. Although these philosophers all had an intrerst with how the human mind and body works, they all had different interests, studies and experiments. They may have shared similar standpoints but some had different views. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were three Greek ancient philosophers who had a major influence on psychological thought. “Know thyself” one of Socrates’ most famous quotes. This quote was used to emphasize how important it is to be aware of one’s self. Personal reflection and self- examination are key factors in psychology. Plato was one of Socrates’ most prized students. He......
...History of Psychology As stated by Herman Ebbinghaus; “Psychology has a long past” (Goodwin, 2008). Although there is not much history on the actual science of psychology philosophers have long been asking questions pertaining to human behavior. Questions about humans and human behavior date back to the times of ancient Greek philosophers. A few philosophers who made great contributions are; Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes. Many believe that Aristotle may have contributed more to prescience psychology than any other individual. Aristotle was the first to believe in the importance of empirical observations. Observation is something that is widely used today in research and by many individuals in the field of psychology. He was also a great contributor to defining intellect and obtaining knowledge. (Daniels, 1997). Socrates believed that the goal of life was knowledge. Much of his knowledge was gained through questioning other philosophies. His biggest focus was on the problems related to human existence therefore he is thought of by some as the first existential philosopher. (Daniels, 1997). He was also the first to speak of the word “psyche” which he defined as ones type of intelligence and personality. (Daniels, 1997). Socrates had great influence on Plato. Plato was a rationalist who’s ideas led Freud and Marx to call their beliefs “scientific”. He also influenced many researchers, some of which are still influenced today. Rene......
Modern Psychology
... 70s Group 4: Modern Psych; applied practice/science - how psych maintains to be a science - applying psych to life settings - do we still follow same premise psychology was founded on? Economics and Psychology: From Imperialistic to Inspired Economics, by Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer http://www.bsfrey.ch/articles/362_01.pdf The Psyche as Behavior ARTURO, C. A. (2013). The Psyche as Behavior. Revista Colombiana De Psicología, 22(2), 377-387. http://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=93598506&site=ehost-live Behaviorism Moore, J. J. (2011). BEHAVIORISM. Psychological Record, 61(3), 449-465. http://remote.baruch.cuny.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=65033133&site=ehost-live Topics: * Behaviorism * Lab setup/ experiments * Political – social - economic aspects * 1890- 1913 * John B. Watson * Neo- behaviorism Section 1: Brief Discussion on the history of behaviorism. What is behaviorism? How was it seen as a stepping stone for psychology as a whole/ as a science? Section 2: Discussion on the first lab setup for psychology: when, where, who, etc? Why was it established? Why it drove psychology to become a separate science? -Types of studies done? (a few examples of experiments as ) Section 3: Background on political stances at the time. How it affected the development of psychology as a......
...History of Psychology Janee Moore University of Phoenix History and Systems of Psychology PSY/310 Michael Hardin May 11, 2014 History of Psychology The history of psychology goes back thousands of years to the early Greeks. The roots of psychology are closely related to philosophy. Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline. The early Greeks such as Aristotle believed “The heart was the seat of the mind”, and the brain was more so a filter to calm heat the heart produced. While the philosopher and physician Hippocrates believed “The brain was the seat of sensation as well as intellect”. Investigation and dissection of minds belonging to abnormal beings lead to many controversial beliefs. The beginning of modern philosophy is said to be led by Rene’ Descartes. Descartes was considered the father of modern philosophy, mathematics, physiology, and psychology. In 1633 Descartes wrote a book titled “The World”, demonstrating how various disciplines could be united through reason of mathematics. He failed to publish his book at that time to stay in good graces of the Catholic Church. Descartes’ Discourse on Method was not relevant until after his death. His Discourse on Method expressed to accept truth only to what could not be doubted. This begot the Cartesian System of Rationalism, Nativism and Mechanistic Interactionism. The Cartesian system simply meant to think clearly...
...fascination with themselves and each other has led to various theories. Most important the fascination with human nature has led to the development of the science of psychology. Psychology’s answer to man’s fascination and wondering has come about through the roots in other discipline; disciplines such as philosophy, biology, and physiology. This led to a science that aims to describe and explain how human thinks, how human feel, and how human acts. Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. The science of psychology has a history that goes back to ancient past. Back to the time of Plato and Aristotle but began to flourish and take shape in the 1600’s. For one to have an appreciation for this science he or she must consider the root and various perspectives of psychology. Modern psychology has come a long way since Rene Descartes and john Locke in the 16th century. The science of psychology began to flourish in the 1600’s with philosophers Descartes and Locke contributing significant theories on human behavior, impacting the rise of modern psychology. “As a science psychology evaluates competing ideas with careful observations and vigorous analysis” (Myers, 2007. p. 2). Rene Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician who became influential and well-known in the field of psychology. He is the father of the mind-body interaction also known as the dualism theory. According to the dualism theory the mind and body are separate entities......
...The History of Modern Psychology PSY/310 Psychology is not something that came about over night. Through the years and centuries psychology has grown from simple ideals of philosophers into its own kind of science. There are not a lot of people who know very much about when psychology and philosophy first came together, which was during this century, “a period that to a large extent defined the philosophical-methodological distinctiveness of our psychological science in comparison to world psychology” (Abul'khanova & Slavskaia, 2007,p. 1). This paper will look at the early philosophers and the beginning of psychology. I will also research psychology and its development into a real science. One of the early philosophers was Plato, “Plato is one of the founding fathers of philosophy and has had a massive impact on the history of western thought” (In Great Thinkers A-Z, 2004, p. 1). Another early philosopher was Descartes, he believed that by using your own abilities to reason then the truth will come out (Goodwin, 2008). “Descartes identified the ‘thinking thing’ or mind, with the human soul or consciousness; the body, though somehow interacting with the soul, was a physical machine, secondary to, and in principle separable from, the soul” (The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide, 2009, p. 1). For centuries philosophers and psychologist have tried to figure out what the connection between the mind and body is and they...
...History of Psychology PSY/310 April 11, 2011 Jane Northrup History of Psychology As stated by Herman Ebbinghaus; “Psychology has a long past” (Goodwin, 2008). Although there is not much history on the actual science of psychology philosophers have long been asking questions pertaining to human behavior. Questions about humans and human behavior date back to the times of ancient Greek philosophers. A few philosophers who made great contributions are; Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes. Many believe that Aristotle may have contributed more to prescience psychology than any other individual. Aristotle was the first to believe in the importance of empirical observations. Observation is something that is widely used today in research and by many individuals in the field of psychology. He was also a great contributor to defining intellect and obtaining knowledge. (Daniels, 1997). Socrates believed that the goal of life was knowledge. Much of his knowledge was gained through questioning other philosophies. His biggest focus was on the problems related to human existence therefore he is thought of by some as the first existential philosopher. (Daniels, 1997). He was also the first to speak of the word “psyche” which he defined as ones type of intelligence and personality. (Daniels, 1997). Socrates had great influence on Plato. Plato was a rationalist who’s ideas led Freud and Marx to call their beliefs “scientific”. He also influenced many......
...A History of Modern Psychology University of Phoenix Flaur Conde Psy 310 The History of Psychology is something that is important to many psychologists everywhere. The history is celebrated by many centennial celebrations that started in 1979 (Goodwin, 2008, pg. 2). In the 1960’s when the history of psychology caught interest research of psychology’s past became prominent (Goodwin, 2008, pg. 2). History is important, because it lets people know where they came from, and what mistakes were made, and what discoveries were made, and how we can apply the past to future learning (Goodwin, 2008, pg. 3). One of the forerunners to the beginning philosophy to psychology is Rene Descartes. The Renaissance gave him a great stage to start with, because it had already started the changing of thought, made science more accepted, and made the approved teachings of the church mundane. Descartes wanted to search for a system where all information could be united (Goodwin, 2008, pg. 32). He believed that knowledge can be found through reasoning, and wouldn’t accept any truth unless it could not be doubted (Goodwin, 2008, pg. 32). In the Discourse on Method, Descartes explained his four rules for being able to reason so one could come up with the truth (Goodwin, 2008, pg. 33). The first one is what I stated previously is he would accept information as truth unless it was un-doubtable. The second rule he would take information and break it down to the first stages. The third rule is......
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Why the future of NASA’s shuttle program is up in the air.
Geoffrey Leavenworth
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/lost-in-space-2/
From the June 1996 Issue Subscribe
On April 12, NASA commemorated the fifteenth anniversary of the inaugural flight of the space shuttle with a party at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Agency administrators made speeches. Russian dignitaries schmoozed with engineers. Only weeks before, authority over the shuttle and the International Space Station had been consolidated at the JSC, ensuring that it will be the epicenter of manned spaceflight well into the next century, so there was actually a lot to celebrate. But the party fell flat. “The acoustics were terrible, the program was disorganized, and two thirds of the people didn’t show up,” says one attendee. “It was a real mess.”
Poor planning and a lack of interest: These are the problems that plague the shuttle program today. More than three decades after the United States entered the space race, boosters and bashers agree that NASA’s most visible division is at a crossroads. Clearly there are reasons for optimism: scientific successes like the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope and the launch of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory; plans for the shuttle program to embark on its original mission of hauling aloft a space station. But just the same, there are dark clouds on NASA’s horizon. The most recent White House proposals slash the agency’s budget from $14 billion today to $11.6 billion in the year 2000, and some of that money is certain to come from the shuttle program, whose per-mission cost and staffing are already down 40 percent from 1991 levels. “We’ve got to find ways to do more with fewer dollars and fewer people,” says a veteran of the JSC, which brought $1.07 billion in contracts and grants to Texas last year. If NASA is to fend off charges that the nation can no longer afford ambitious projects in space, it has to prove the shuttle can fly safely, cheaply, and on schedule.
History has shown that this is no easy task. “When we started, we thought the only reason to have a shuttle was because we were planning a space station, and we wanted a reusable transportation system,” says Max A. Faget, a former director of engineering and development at the JSC who holds the patent on an early version of the shuttle. “The idea was that it would be much cheaper in the long run than expendable rockets.” But NASA soon found that the military, the commercial satellite industry, and other interests were eager to expand the shuttle’s scope, so it became an all-purpose spacecraft: satellite launcher, spy plane, flying laboratory, cargo vessel. With an expanded mission, however, came an expanded cost. Early estimates of less than $20 million per launch quickly proved unrealistic. The shuttle today costs an average of nearly $400 million per mission, and since 1971 the shuttle program has spent $64 billion. Even so, the shuttle has hardly been a workhorse. Although fifty flights a year were once predicted, the shuttle program has never exceeded 1985’s nine flights. Indeed, only 51 missions have been flown since the Challenger disaster in 1986.
Clearly, Challenger had an enormous impact on the program. After the shuttle exploded, the military decided the vehicle was too unreliable and switched much of its payload to expendable rockets. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration ordered that the shuttle could be used only “for missions that require human presence or other unique shuttle capabilities.” That knocked out commercial satellites and most private-sector payloads. “We ended up with science payloads and human spaceflight stuff,” explains shuttle program manager Tommy Holloway. “During the last few years, the missions have been sort of repetitive.”
Challenger’s legacy haunts the agency in another way. In March, shuttle director Bryan O’Connor—an ex–shuttle astronaut—quit in protest of the reorganization that increased the JSC’s autonomy over the shuttle and the space station. “I felt like it was adding a layer of risk that wasn’t necessary,” says O’Connor, who fears the miscommunication and rivalry between NASA field centers and the JSC that contributed to the Challenger accident could resurface. (“I think we have a very robust and safe program,” counters Steve Oswald, a NASA deputy associate administrator—and former shuttle astronaut—who took over many of O’Connor’s duties.)
O’Connor is just one in a long line of shuttle directors—seven in all—who have spent an average of less than 24 months on the job since Challenger. “That’s an extraordinary turnover,” says Faget. “I think they’ve got management and leadership problems,” asserts Hans Mark, a former deputy administrator of NASA who teaches aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. As evidence, critics cite frequent policy changes, such as flip-flopping on whether to rely more heavily on civil servants or private contractors; the more than $1 billion spent on a manufacturing plant to develop a new solid rocket motor that was scrapped; and a costly plan to build a shuttle upper stage that was also scrapped. The worst of the policy miscues saw $3.2 billion squandered on a California launch center for the military in the mid-eighties.
Part of the management instability is a function of demographics. Many NASA managers are near retirement age; in fact, 30 percent of JSC employees are eligible to retire, which is astonishing given the agency’s aggressive early retirement campaigns. While some within NASA contend that trimming budgets and payrolls is constructive, the changing of the guard is a double-edged sword. “An awful lot of experience is going out the door,” warns Wallace T. Fowler, a professor of aerospace engineering at UT-Austin. And because many of those veterans are not being replaced, NASA may not be building a sufficient staff for the next century. “You don’t get the bright, energetic kids,” Holloway frets. “You don’t get their computer skills.”
In the end, questions about the shuttle’s future will be answered by how well the agency implements its cost-saving initiatives. One of the biggest measures—with a proposed savings of hundreds of millions—calls for the production, assembly, and operation of the shuttle fleet to be handed over to a private contractor, the United Space Alliance, whose headquarters is down the street from the JSC. A joint venture between aerospace giants Rockwell and Lockheed Martin, the Alliance is part of an overall effort to transfer routine operations to the private sector and allow NASA to concentrate on research and development.
But the real key to the shuttle program may be the International Space Station. “Building a space station is the kind of thing that’s fun, exciting, and challenging,” says Holloway, but it’s also a complicated process with an uncertain outcome. Take the contribution of the Russians. The space station depends on a Russian-made service module to provide propulsion and life-support systems. Yet the private contractors in Russia who are building it say they’re not getting paid by the Russian government. If the Russians don’t deliver, says space station program manager Randy Brinkley, NASA may have to find another $2 billion it doesn’t have, which could force the agency to reconsider the entire enterprise. Brinkley is surprisingly forthright about the gravity of the situation: “The fate of the station,” he says, “is going to make or break the manned spaceflight program in this country.”
Tags: NASA, Science, houston, johnson space center, space shuttles
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Watch a Clip From ‘The Iron Orchard’ Before Its Premiere
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FSB: New PM May must focus on small business
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has called upon the government's new Prime Minister to make the UK's small firms a high priority.
Theresa May was yesterday confirmed as the successor to David Cameron after fellow leadership candidate, Andrea Leadsom pulled out of the running. Mr Cameron is expected to hand over the reins to May tomorrow, with the FSB's national chairman, Mike Cherry calling on May to act "decisively" to secure "long-term economic stability" following the outcome of the EU referendum.
"Immediate action is needed to improve small business confidence and allow them to reliably plan ahead for the future," said Cherry.
"The new Prime Minister will decide the UK's approach to EU negotiations, and she must ensure that smaller firms' interests are taken into account - simple access to the single market, the ability to hire the right people, continued EU funding for key schemes and clarity on the future regulatory framework."
The FSB has also called for immediate negotiations for EU nationals that own small businesses or are employed by small businesses to be allowed to remain in the country during and after EU negotiations.
"We also call on Theresa May, as the new Prime Minister, to guarantee non-UK EU nationals, many of whom run their own small businesses or are employed by small businesses, to be granted the right to remain in the UK both during the negotiations and thereafter - and to use the negotiations to ensure that UK small firms and the self-employed who work in the EU can continue to do so," added Cherry.
"With business confidence at an all-time low, Government must get back to business on the many vital issues which had been put on hold during the EU referendum campaign and subsequent fall-out.
"These include key infrastructure projects like airport expansion, HS2, energy security and the Northern Powerhouse, as well as delivering on business rates pledges and changing plans for quarterly tax returns."
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The abuse of Limited Partnerships in the UK: predicting the future with the Financial Secrecy Index
July 31, 2018 by Andres Knobel Leave a Comment
The Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index assesses jurisdictions on their transparency levels in their legal framework by looking into 20 different indicators including banking secrecy, beneficial ownership registration, anti-money laundering, etc.
One of the key principles of the index is the weakest link principle (or “lowest common transparency denominator”), meaning that a jurisdiction will be rated under each indicator based on the worst transparency case available. For example, if the United Arab Emirates has, in general, appropriate accounting regulations for companies but one of its 39 free zones allows companies not to keep proper accounting information, the whole country will be rated based on that worst case.
Some may argue that this is unfair. After all, the general rule may be fine, and this is just a small exception. But that’s the whole point. Just as a hacker would break into a computer system not by trying against the security component that actually works, but by finding a weakness, the index follows the same approach. We look for weaknesses (legal loopholes) in countries’ transparency laws that could be exploited, not by hackers but by individuals and entities involved in illicit financial flows. If a UAE company is engaging in tax avoidance or evasion, it will likely choose to incorporate in the free zone offering accounting secrecy, not transparency.
The index follows this “potentiality” approach of the worst available case not because it knows that this weakness will always be exploited, but because it could be, and that’s bad enough for us. But now, the UK proves that this does happen.
The UK is portrayed as the champion of beneficial ownership registration. That is partially true. Although Ukraine came very close and was the first to commit to integrating their register with a global one, the UK was the first country to set up a fully online free register of beneficial ownership available in open data format. This not only allows individuals and authorities all over the world to access beneficial ownership data, but it also allowed NGOs such as Global Witness to run checks and alert UK authorities about potentially false information that had been registered.
However, as our paper on “the state of play of beneficial ownership registration” shows, the UK is doing a good job with regard to companies (though still not ideal, e.g. because the thresholds for identifying a beneficial owner are still too high, allowing many people to escape being registered). But when it comes to other legal vehicles, the situation is different. And we’re not referring just to trusts.
The UK also fails when it comes to partnerships, again because of the weakest case principle we apply in the index. While limited liability partnerships (LLPs) have to register their beneficial owners, limited partnerships (LPs) don’t – they only need to register their legal owners.
Interestingly, after reports on abuses using Scottish limited partnerships (SLPs), the UK decided to subject them to beneficial ownership registration. In an example that shows us why transparency is the best disinfectant, we saw the same result as when – as a result of the Panama Papers scandal – New Zealand added more transparency requirements to existing and newly registering New Zealand foreign trusts: many decided to de-register their foreign trusts from New Zealand. In the case of Scottish limited partnerships, their incorporation numbers also went down drastically when beneficial ownership registration was added, as shown by Global Witness:
But here’s how our Financial Secrecy Index principle on the weakest link/worst case scenario applies in reality. Apparently, the UK “forgot” that Scotland is not the only country in the UK. While beneficial ownership registration started to apply to Scottish limited partnerships, this wasn’t extended to those from Northern Ireland and England. And now we see the consequence, as reported by the Herald in Scotland:
“The result was a 79 per cent reduction in registrations of Scottish limited partnerships but respective 142 per cent and 22 per cent rises in English and Northern Irish ones” (emphasis added)
While we hope the UK will extend beneficial ownership registration requirements to all legal vehicles (including limited partnerships, foundations and trusts), we’re also sad to see that the index is right: that transparency weaknesses are exploited, and that’s exactly why governments must only pass and implement regulations that are free from loopholes or exemptions, not only in the UK but in all countries and territories.
Tax Justice Network’s team of “regulatory hackers” will keep monitoring this, raising awareness and hoping we’ll get heard.
Filed Under: AllEurope, Beneficial Ownership, Blog, BO
World No Tobacco Day: Marching to Big Tobacco’s tune?
Links Aug 5
Will the UN take serious action to stop the loss of trillions of dollars to tax abuse?
On the new Asian Tax Justice Alliance
Tax Justice Network’s Annual Conference 2018: livestream and schedule
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Take a chance on ABBA musical at the Waterside
The cast of Mamma Mia!
Here we go again as the smash hit ABBA musical Mamma Mia! comes to Aylesbury’s Waterside Theatre later this month.
The show visits the venue for the first time from Tuesday to Saturday, June 26 to 30.
Set on a Greek island paradise, a story of love, friendship and identity is cleverly told through the timeless songs of ABBA.
Sophie’s quest to discover the father she’s never known brings her mother face to face with three men from her distant romantic past on the eve of a wedding they’ll never forget.
The show is the vision of Judy Caymer, packing the stage with ABBA’s timeless songs with an enchanting tale of family and friendship unfolding on a Greek island paradise.
To date, it has been seen by more than 60 million people in 50 productions in 16 different languages.
In 2008, Mamma Mia! The Movie became the highest-grossing live action musical film of all time.
From West End to global phenomenon, the London production of Mamma Mia! has now been seen by more than 10 per cent of the entire UK population.
It is one of only five musicals to have run for more than 10 years both on Broadway and in the West End, and in 2011, it became the first Western musical ever to be staged in Mandarin in the People’s Republic of China.
A new cast for the show has been announced for the dates at Aylesbury.
Shona White (Donna Sheridan), Nicky Swift (Rosie), Helen Anker (Tanya), Tamlyn Henderson (Sam Carmichael), Daniel Crowder (Harry Bright), Matthew Rutherford (Bill Austin), Lucy May Barker (Sophie Sheridan), Phillip Ryan (Sky), Leisha Mollyneaux (Ali), Lottie Henshall (Lisa), Matt Jordan-Pidgeon (Pepper) and Michael Nelson (Eddie) will star in the production.
Tickets for the show will cost from £19 and performances takes place at 7.30pm each night with matinee performances at 2.30pm on Thursday, June 24, and Saturday June 26.
To book tickets call the box office on 084 871 7607 or, alternatively, visit www.atgtickets.com/venues/aylesbury-waterside-theatre/
Customer demand fuels expansion of popular Bucks restaurant-bar
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Get A Whiff of Inspiration
BY Bob Chapman Oct
2016 October 26, 2016 0 comments
My dear friend Simon Sinek has a nose for good leadership. His simple and straightforward ideas about creating workplaces where people feel safe and fulfilled have been adapted by leaders and companies around the world. With two bestsellers, hundreds upon hundreds of speaking engagements, and the third most watched TED Talk on TED.com, Simon has become a premier voice about how leaders and companies can inspire people.
Now Simon has his nose – literally– in a new project, an inspirational quote book, Together is Better, and it is scented. That’s right, scented, as in, when you run your finger across the page, you release a fragrance that was custom-designed for Simon by 12.29, a company that specializes in enhancing a brand or experience by appealing to our sense of smell. For Simon and Together is Better, they created the scent of optimism.
Simon thinks it may be the first book of its kind that contains a custom-designed scent. The book also offers other unique features: beautiful hand-drawn illustrations by Ethan Aldridge and a song written about it by Grammy-nominated Aloe Blacc. Blacc’s lyrics are even written in his own handwriting in the back of the book. However, the motivation behind this one-of-a-kind book was not as a marketing gimmick to sell more books. Like everything Simon does, it had a very thoughtful “why.”
“I wanted to produce something that no digital format could reproduce…I wanted to create something that you had to physically engage with,” Simon said in a very insightful recent interview with Inside Quest.
Simon has been encouraging people to turn off their smart phones and start to engage more with the world and one another. Today’s rampant addiction to technology—cell phones, video screens, social media– is impacting our ability to connect with one another as human beings. It’s those human-to-human connections—not digital or virtual, but real, face-to-face, in-the-moment ones–that are critical to creating workplaces where people feel cared for and emotionally safe that lead to high levels of trust and collaboration. He is calling upon business leaders to help people—especially young people—find a better balance between life and technology.
Together is Better was conceived to be “given it as a gift to someone you want to say ‘thank you for inspiring me’ or to give it to someone you want to inspire.” It is a quick read full of Simon’s trademark thought-provoking quotes about leadership wrapped into a fable about working together to “build a world in which the vast majority of us wake up every single morning inspired to go to work.”
Whether a gift to a colleague, your team, or yourself, Together is Better will inspire readers to be part of the movement toward the world Simon imagines.
So turn off your phones and take time to smell the optimism.
Everybody Matters Podcast: The Insanity of Leadership From Boot Camp to Business Everybody Matters Podcast: Kristen Hadeed Everybody Matters Podcast: Simon Sinek and Bob Chapman Everybody Matters Podcast: Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia
Business Culture Inspiration Leadership Uncategorized
12.29, Barry-Wehmiller, Bob Chapman, Everybody Matters, inspiration, inspire on, leadership, management, Simon Sinek, Start With Why, TED, TED Talk, TEDx, Together Is Better 0
Truly Human Leadership is found throughout Barry-Wehmiller Companies, where Bob Chapman is Chairman and CEO. A $2+ billion global capital equipment and engineering consulting firm, Barry-Wehmiller’s 11,000 team members are united around a common belief: we can use the power of business to build a better world. Chapman explores that idea in his Wall Street Journal best-selling book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring For Your People Like Family, available from Penguin Random House.
< Everybody Matters Podcast: How Would a Caring Family Respond?
Everybody Matters at the Movies! >
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Why Alabama
Mobile author tells the colorful and delicious story of Alabama in her newest book
By Michelle Matthews
When she was doing research for her book, “The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods,” Emily Blejwas spent some time with the late Dora Franklin in her kitchen in Mobile. As Dora stirred a roux for her gumbo, she explained that she cooks it “’til it’s the color of me,” holding out her arm for reference. “Every time I cook gumbo, it’s a different experience,” she told Emily. “It comes out different every time.”
Emily’s visit with Dora during Mardi Gras is the subject of the second chapter of her book, in which she discusses the history of Africans and Creoles on the Gulf Coast.
Each chapter of the book focuses on a different type of food (or beverage, in the case of sweet tea). She starts by recounting a personal experience with an Alabama expert, then Emily goes on to tell the colorful history of the state through some of its most famous foods, quoting historians, chefs and writers past and present along the way.
Narrowing them down to 14 wasn’t easy, she says, but she ended up selecting those that allowed for racial and geographical diversity. The chapters and areas to which they’re tied include roasted corn (the Creek Nation), gumbo (Africans and Creoles on the Gulf Coast), chicken stew (frontier life in the Tennessee Valley), fried green tomatoes (emblem of the rural Alabama table), Lane cake (Alabama women in the progressive era), banana pudding (the banana docks at the port of Mobile), fried chicken (Decoration Day on Sand Mountain), boiled peanuts (George Washington Carver, the Wiregrass and Macon County farmers), wild turkey (hunting and wildlife conservation), sweet tea (Birmingham in the Great Depression and the Second World War), sweet potato pie (civil rights and soul food in Montgomery), barbecue (black history in the Black Belt), MoonPies (Mardi Gras in Mobile) and shrimp (seafood in Bayou La Batre).
Originally from Minnesota, Emily had always been interested in the South because both sets of her grandparents and her father were from the South. She earned a master’s degree in rural sociology at Auburn University and did her thesis in Alabama’s Black Belt region. When she was new to Alabama, she decided the state needed a civil rights trail guide, but when she pitched the idea to The University of Alabama Press, she found out that Frye Gaillard had already written one.
Her editor at the time suggested a different type of trail, and Emily loved the idea of exploring Alabama food. She wanted to “share what’s so amazing about Alabama in a way that’s really accessible,” but she didn’t want to write a cookbook or a travelogue.
“I’m a history nerd in the first place,” she says, so she decided to “look for stories off the beaten path.”
She started doing her research and writing in 2009, and the book “evolved as I went along,” she says. It was released at the end of June in conjunction with the state’s bicentennial celebration.
“The coolest part for me was the people I met,” she says.
She knew she wanted to write about Decoration Day, the annual springtime tradition of cleaning and decorating graves in rural cemeteries in Appalachian Alabama. The day includes a church service and dinner on the grounds. She started cold-calling churches until she found Whitehall Cemetery in a Sand Mountain community in northeast Alabama, where Decoration Day has been held since 1817.
“I’m clearly not from Alabama,” Emily says, her accent still belying her Midwestern roots. “But I was so appreciative of how open everyone was. They were so welcoming and happy to share their stories. Everywhere I went, people had such good stories.”
Food, she says, “is so tied to memory and culture, so powerful.”
In Montgomery, she interviewed Martha Hawkins, whose dream since childhood was to open her own restaurant, which she did in 1988. Emily quotes Martha’s memoir, “Finding Martha’s Place: My Journey through Sin, Salvation, and Lots of Soul Food,” when she describes how she envisioned her restaurant: “It wouldn’t be no ordinary restaurant neither…. I would tell them to come into my restaurant, and they would feel like they had come home at last. Their mama would be cooking in that restaurant, or someone who seemed just like their mama to them, anyway…. I would open a restaurant someday and give people little slices of all that was good.”
One of Emily’s favorite chapters focuses on Lane cake, a four-layer white cake containing whiskey and raisins, frosted in fluffy white icing. Created by Emma Rylander Lane in Clayton, the cake is mentioned in Harper Lee’s classic Alabama novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Emma Lane included the recipe in her self-published a cookbook in 1898. “It turns out that at that time American women were writing cookbooks like crazy as a backlash to French cookbooks, which were complicated and hard to follow,” says Emily. “They formed literary clubs and then started working on issues, and it morphed into the women’s movement.”
Another of her favorite experiences was going on her first turkey-hunting excursion with an expert guide, wildlife biologist Steve Barnett, who co-wrote “The Wild Turkey in Alabama.”
“The hunters knew so much about nature,” says Emily, who woke before dawn and was pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoyed accompanying Barnett. “You don’t usually get a turkey. It’s more about being out in the woods, being quiet and listening. It was not at all what I expected.”
Blejwas, who lived in Mobile with her husband and four children, is the director of the Gulf States Health Policy Center in Bayou La Batre. Two years ago, her first novel, “Once You Know This,” was published for middle-grade readers. Her next book, also for middle-schoolers, is set in her hometown in Minnesota and will be released in April of 2020. She has started working on a third novel, which will take place in Alabama.
After spending several years waiting for “The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods,” Emily has been excited to see it being read at last. “There are so many great things happening in our state,” she says. “There are always some challenges, but there are also some amazing people doing amazing work, making it a better place. There are a lot of good things happening in Alabama. It’s important to celebrate who we are as much as we can.”
This story first appeared on AL.com.
How well do you know Alabama?
Stump the Spann: Real or Fake Town Names, Vol. 2
Beautiful Livingston home restored to former glory
An ode to T-town
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Applebee's Dollar Zombies Are Available All Through October — Here's What They Taste Like
Elayna Skye
October is the month of spook. Everyone is hyped up with setting up ghoulish decorations. Stores have all come up with their Halloween themes, and it seems that Applebee’s is joining in! Applebee’s is offering us a dollar drink of the month for October, and it's called the Dollar Zombie. Yep, there's a zombie outbreak in Applebee’s, but this time, they aren't chasing you. You run toward them and drink them.
The 10-ounce drink is quite fit for Halloween, thanks to Applebee’s extraordinary creativity. The blue drink is made with rum, and it comes with pineapple, cherry, passion fruit, and lime flavors. Oh wait, it has a brain in it, too, but it's called gummy brain. The gummy brain is placed on top, so you get to experience how it feels being a zombie for a month!
Applebee's has always offered us a flavor of the month, but this is actually the first time they decided to crowdsource the drink of the month to the public. Apparently, people provided their inputs. The results said they want something tropical but also has an apocalyptic blue booze and human-like brains. So here we are, with the Dollar Zombie. Props to the people who requested it. Halloween wouldn't be the same without this awesome drink.
According to Patrick Kirk, the vice president of the beverage innovation at Applebee's, Halloween is a favorite holiday, and they're excited to offer us another dollar drink with an infectious taste. He also said that goal is to invite everyone to get into the Halloween spirit early by trying the Dollar Zombie drink and join the dark side. You should be afraid to miss out on this amazing drink. As its name says, it only costs a dollar! You wouldn't want to miss out on it!
So what does it taste like? Well, my friends and I tried it two days ago. Yup, we had the chance to try the new Dollar Zombie! I must admit that I was pretty reluctant to try it at first, but after having one too many sips, I realized it wasn't bad after all. In fact, I think it tasted like Jolly Rancher because of its sweet taste. I mean it wasn't the aggressive type of sweet, but it was pretty delicious. What made it balanced is the sour brain. Is there alcohol – yes but can you taste it – no. I mean the flavors in the drink are just potent enough to say that this drink is truly one of a kind.
You can also try out other popular drinks at Applebee's if you want something else besides the Halloween Hype. They offer strawberry margarita for $1, too, and Samuel Adams Octoberfest beer for only $2. But then again, who wants to miss out on the zombie experience?
It's almost Halloween, and I think one of the best ways to celebrate is to consume an alcoholic drink that is inspired by the undead. Applebee's is available anytime, although it really just depends on where it’s located. Don't hesitate to call them first if you're concerned, or you may just want to look it up on Google to save you the trouble. Most importantly, if you're not at least 21, then don't bother going. Spooky Halloween everyone!
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Home / Unlabelled / Mariah Carey's Best Hip Hop Features
Mariah Carey's Best Hip Hop Features
Mistah Wilson October 15, 2016
Hip-hop has always shown love for Mariah Carey. One of the biggest artists on the planet, the singer has had multiple No. 1 albums, multiple platinum-selling singles, a voice that comes once in a lifetime and a strong connection to the genre. The pop icon has been in the music industry for over 20 years and has had over 40 songs land on the Billboard Hot 100, including those with some of the game’s biggest rappers. To say that Carey is a megastar is an understatement.
Around the late 1990s, she made a bold move by tapping Ol’ Dirty Bastard for the remix to her double platinum track “Fantasy.” Cory Rooney, an A&R rep that helped put the song together, recently described ODB’s specific demands before he would start recording the song...
Mariah Carey's Best Hip Hop Features Reviewed by Mistah Wilson on October 15, 2016 Rating: 5
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Budget approved in Agoura Hills
By The Acorn Staff | on July 03, 2003
Acorn Staff Writer
By John Loesing Acorn Staff Writer The Agoura Hills City Council approved an $18.6 million balanced budget last week, but officials said revenues for the coming year could fall short if the state follows through on threats to reduce funding to city and county governments. Trying desperately to balance their own budget, state lawmakers have hinted they will cut at […]
Toddler obesity is preventable
Today, one out of every six children is overweight––nearly double the number of 20 years ago. Because research has shown that those who are physically inactive as children tend to remain so as adults, many of these kids will grow up to become prime candidates for heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. Recently, the National Association for Sports and Physical Education, […]
West Coast Waves play summertime basketball with local talent
Special to The Acorn
By Steve Ames
Basketball is more than a winter sport for high school players Brynn Cameron, a Newbury Park senior, and Kathryn Scardino, a Westlake sophomore. The pair, competing this summer for the West Coast Waves’ 17 years old and under Gold Team, will play more than 50 games before the fall semester begins. They’re on one of the Waves four teams—12U Silver, […]
Local libraries offer kids’ programs
Local libraries offer kids’ programs On Sat., July 19, the rain forest will come alive at the hands of master storyteller Kathleen Zundell and her puppet pal, Philbert, in a special program to be presented at both the Thousand Oaks Library (1:30 p.m.), 1401 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks and the Newbury Park Branch (3:30 p.m.), 2331 Borchard Road, Newbury […]
Valet Service Would Be Nice
By Gloria Glasser
Parking in suburbia can be more treacherous than anything you’ll ever encounter on your hairiest hike, more daunting than parking at the world’s biggest super-mall. Why? Because most suburban sub-divisions look alike. The architecture is similar. Okay, so there’s two models to choose from, the two-car garage or the three-car, and two colors, light beige or lighter beige. The landscaping […]
Water district budget is okayed
By John Loesing Acorn Staff Writer Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (LVMWD) has approved its 2003-2004 budget, a package of expenditures and revenues that includes $12.6 million in capital improvement projects for the coming year. The $47.7 million budget represents a $1.8 million increase over last year, officials said. The new budget will shift $6.8 million from reserves to fund […]
Community garage sale planned
The Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center will host its annual community garage sale from 7 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., Aug. 23 at the center, 27040 Malibu Hills Road, Calabasas. Booth space is still available for a limited time and a reservation for a spot may be made by calling (818) 880-2993 or logging on to www.ahc3.org. There is a fee for sellers […]
Scissors help to cut away at cancer
The John Wayne Cancer Institute and Platinum Salon invite the public to enjoy a day of relaxation and pampering while supporting the fight against cancer from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sun., July 13 at the salon, 17460 Ventura Blvd., Encino. This event offers an opportunity to get professional beauty services at a fraction of the cost, while helping raise […]
Eagles veterans confident in new coach
Acorn Sports Writer
By Wayne Harrison
Under Lindsay Strothers, the Oak Park girls’ basketball team went undefeated in Tri-Valley League during the last three seasons. Strothers resigned after last season, though, and new head coach Bob Da Corsi will be at the helm for the Eagles. The Oak Park players said they’ll miss Strothers, who was in charge when the Eagles won a California Interscholastic Federation […]
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'Location, location, location': Drug smugglers build elaborate border tunnels from Mexico
Agents known in the U.S. Border Patrol as "tunnel rats" go in clandestine passages that have proliferated on the U.S.-Mexico border over the past 20 years to smuggle drugs.
'Location, location, location': Drug smugglers build elaborate border tunnels from Mexico Agents known in the U.S. Border Patrol as "tunnel rats" go in clandestine passages that have proliferated on the U.S.-Mexico border over the past 20 years to smuggle drugs. Check out this story on thecalifornian.com: http://azc.cc/2mtjGi5
In this March 6, 2017, photo, a member of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team walks in a tunnel in San Diego that spans the border between the California city and Tijuana, Mexico. Team members are known in the Border Patrol as "tunnel rats" — agents who go in the clandestine passages that have proliferated on the U.S.-Mexico border over the last 20 years to smuggle drugs. Associated Press
Inside a tunnel on the U.S.-Mexico border
A member of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team looks up as he descends an entrance carved out by the Border Patrol leading to a tunnel spanning the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Authorities have discovered more than 200 cross-border tunnels originating in Mexico since 1990, most of which entered the United States. Associated Press
A member of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team lowers a cable into a tunnel entrance in between two border barriers separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Authorities have discovered more than 200 cross-border tunnels originating in Mexico since 1990, most of which entered the United States. Many are shallow holes but some are elaborately constructed with hydraulic lifts, water pumps and rail cars. Associated Press
Members of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team work in a tunnel spanning the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Above, a ventilation shaft created by the Border Patrol reaches to the surface. Associated Press
A member of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team looks on from a tunnel entrance in between two border barriers separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press
A member of the Border Tunnel Entry Team ascends an entrance carved out by the Border Patrol leading to a tunnel spanning the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press
A member of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team enters a tunnel spanning the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press
Members of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team work in San Diego near a tunnel entrance in between two border barriers separating the California city and Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press
In this March 6, 2017, photo, a member of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team walks in a tunnel in San Diego that spans the border between the California city and Tijuana, Mexico. Team members are known in the Border Patrol as "tunnel rats" — agents who go in the clandestine passages that have proliferated on the U.S.-Mexico border over the last 20 years to smuggle drugs.
AP Published 6:04 a.m. PT March 10, 2017 | Updated 6:23 a.m. PT March 10, 2017
Some of the border tunnels are elaborately constructed with hydraulic lifts, water pumps and rail cars.
In this March 6, 2017 photo, a member of the Border Patrol's Border Tunnel Entry Team enters a tunnel spanning the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, in San Diego. They are known in the Border Patrol as "tunnel rats" - agents who go in clandestine passages that have proliferated on the U.S.-Mexico border over the last 20 years to smuggle drugs. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)(Photo: Associated Press)Buy Photo
SAN DIEGO — They are known in the U.S. Border Patrol as "tunnel rats" — agents who go in clandestine passages that have proliferated on the U.S.-Mexico border over the past 20 years to smuggle drugs.
The Associated Press joined the Border Tunnel Entry Team, as it is formally known, inside an incomplete tunnel that was discovered in San Diego in 2009 — 70 feet deep, 3 feet wide, 2,700 feet long and equipped with a rail system, lighting and ventilation.
Here are some questions and answers about the team's work:
How many tunnels are there?
Authorities discovered 224 border tunnels originating in Mexico from 1990 to March 2016, including 185 that entered the United States, according to the latest U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration annual survey. Many are shallow holes, but some are elaborately constructed with hydraulic lifts, water pumps and rail cars.
RELATED:Submit designs for Trump's border wall until March 20
The vast majority are in Arizona, where smugglers connect to underground drainage canals in Nogales, and in California, where construction noise generates less attention amid warehouses of an industrial area of San Diego, across from densely packed homes and businesses in Tijuana.
Donald Trump's border wall
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Tunnels are generally used for multi-ton loads of marijuana because the drug's bulk and odor are difficult to conceal for motorists and pedestrians who enter the United States at official border crossings, the preferred method for smuggling methamphetamine and heroin.
In 2015, authorities seized cocaine in connection with two California tunnels, including one that ran underwater from a house in Mexicali, Mexico, to the All-American Canal near the city of Calexico.
The tunnels, which the DEA generally attributes to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, cost between $1 million and $2 million to build and take months to complete, said Chris Davis, supervisory special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations. That investment quickly pays off with profits from smuggling if crews escape detection, he said.
How are tunnels found?
A member of the Border Tunnel Entry Team ascends an entrance carved out by the Border Patrol in San Diego that leads to a tunnel that spans the border between the California city and Tijuana, Mexico. (Photo: Associated Press)
Leads from informants, neighbors and others have been the most trusted technique, but technology plays a part. Lance LeNoir, who leads the Border Patrol's "tunnel rats" team in San Diego, says seismic devices, acoustics and ground-penetrating radar complement human intelligence.
Investigators keep tabs on who owns and rents warehouses in San Diego's Otay Mesa area for suspicious transactions. They also visit businesses to ask them to report telltale signs: construction equipment and piles of dirt, jackhammer sounds, people coming and going at odd hours.
"They'll tunnel anywhere they want to. It's wherever they can get a building on the south side and a building on the north side," LeNoir said. "Location, location, location."
Sometimes agents stumble across "gopher holes" while on patrol.
Once the passages are found, the "tunnel rats" go inside, a dangerous assignment because there's always a chance the walls can collapse. They map and measure the passages and work on filling them with concrete to prevent them from being used again.
What happens after tunnels are discovered?
On the U.S. side, the tunnels have been filled since 2007 to prevent smugglers from burrowing into them. In Mexico, they are sealed but not plugged with concrete.
Mexican authorities say they don't have the money to fill them, a vulnerability that is gaining more public scrutiny. LeNoir says smugglers have tapped into existing tunnels at least seven times in recent years.
"It gets down to funding and political will," he said.
RELATED:Work on Trump's border wall to begin near Tucson
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it spent $8.7 million to fill tunnels from 2007 to 2015. Last week, it awarded a $153,000 contract to inject concrete into the U.S. part of a completed tunnel lined with cobblestone. The tunnel was discovered in October. It ended in a San Diego warehouse 1,200 feet north of the border.
What does President Trump want to do?
A look at the socioeconomic and environmental impact of a 2,000-mile long wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump has made construction of a "great wall" on the 2,000-mile U.S. divide with Mexico a signature issue of his presidency, prompting critics to say that people will go over, under and around it.
Trump, as the Republican nominee, promised during an August speech in Phoenix that he would "find and dislocate tunnels and keep out criminal cartels." His executive order on border security doesn't specifically address tunnels but notes that criminal organizations run sophisticated drug and human smuggling networks on both sides of the border.
RELATED:DHS report: Border wall will cost $21.6 billion
After going inside a San Diego tunnel underneath a highly fortified border fence last month, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said drug profits were so enormous that smugglers would keep trying to burrow through.
"I would argue that the fact that they're spending huge amounts of money to tunnel underneath the wall tells you that they can't get through it," Kelly said.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2mtjGi5
Police: Saturday shooting led to cold case arrest
Mexico deports Chualar man wanted for shooting
Parking lot of Big Sur's Bixby Bridge vandalized
Salinas residents learn rights with immigration
Deputies: New victims of coach coming forward
Salinas had one murder in first half of 2019
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Tashi-Delek/iStock/Getty Images
The Best Veterinary Schools in the World
Contributor - Updated March 09, 2019
Veterinarians are needed around the world to attend to all kinds of animals, from giant elephants in the zoo to small guinea pigs that are kept as pets. While the world boasts over 300 colleges of veterinary medicine, some colleges are better than others. Students can select from several excellent veterinary programs worldwide.
Best Veterinary Colleges in North and South America
In the United States, colleges and universities are ranked by U.S. News & World Report. The top three veterinary schools in the United States are Cornell University in New York, University of California-Davis in California, and Colorado State University in Colorado. The Times Education World University Rankings are used to rank world universities. South America has three ranked vet schools: the University of Sao Paulo in Sao Paulo, Brazil; the University of the Andes in Bogata, Colombia; and the State University of Campinas in Campinas, Brazil. The University of British Columbia in British Columbia, Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph in Ontario and the University of Montreal in Quebec all have ranked veterinary schools in Canada.
Best Veterinary Schools in Europe
The best veterinary school according to the Times Education World University Rankings in Europe is at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Another excellent veterinary school is at the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. The University of Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland also has a very good veterinary school. Other top veterinary schools are located at Ghent University in Ghent, Belgium; Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich, Germany; and the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain.
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Many of these courses are taught in English for non-native speakers. It is important to indicate your language proficiency when you apply, but many international schools are staffed with bilingual professors. Students coming from the U.S. may be interested in studying the language of the country where they are applying to school, but non-fluency will likely not bar them from attending one of the best veterinary colleges..
Best Veterinary Schools in Asia
In The Times Education World University Rankings, the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan, has the best veterinary schools in Asia. Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea and National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan are also highly ranked, as is Osaka University in Osaka, Japan. Although it is disputed whether to count Turkey as part of Europe, part of Asia, or both, the Times Education Rankings consider it part of Asia. The University of Istanbul in Istanbul, Turkey is also ranked among the top veterinary schools in Asia.
Best Veterinary Colleges Oceania
Oceania does not have nearly as many schools of veterinary medicine as the other continents, but according to the Times Education World University Rankings, several universities in Australia are ranked among the best veterinary colleges in the world. The highest ranked school on the list is the veterinary school at the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. Other excellent Australian universities with veterinary schools are located at the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney.
Best Veterinary Schools in Africa and the Middle East
The Times Education World University Rankings lists only one university in the Middle East -- the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. While there are veterinary schools in South Africa, none of them are ranked by the Times Education World University Rankings this year. However, the University of Pretoria, which has the oldest veterinary school in the country, has been ranked by The Times in previous years as excellent. Because so few colleges in Africa make The Times' worldwide rankings, universities that are excellent can slip off the list year to year.
U.S. News & World Report: Rankings and Reviews: Best Veterinary Graduate Schools
National Geographic: Travel: Turkey Facts
Top universities:Veterinary Science
Royal Veterinary College , University of London
This article was written by a professional writer, copy edited and fact checked through a multi-point auditing system, in efforts to ensure our readers only receive the best information. To submit your questions or ideas, or to simply learn more, see our about us page: link below.
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RENEGED
Bibi: No Palestinian State If I Win
Updated 04.14.17 12:01PM ET / Published 03.16.15 11:18AM ET
MENAHEM KAHANA/Getty
With the Israeli elections just hours away, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not allow a Palestinian state to be established if his party stays in power. “I think anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, and to evacuate territory, is giving radical Islam a staging ground against the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said at a press conference in a bid to win over right-wing voters. Furthermore, Netanyahu pledged to build more settlements in the West Bank after years of construction that has drawn international condemnation. “We will continue to build in Jerusalem, we will add thousands of housing units, and in the face of all the [international] pressure, we will persist and continue to develop our eternal capital.”
Read it at The Times of Israel
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Hillary’s Ready for the ‘War on Women’
Can the GOP figure out a way to limit the presumptive Democratic frontrunner’s appeal with female voters?
David Freedlander
Updated 04.14.17 11:55AM ET / Published 03.20.15 5:15AM ET
Jim Bourg/Reuters
The contours of how Republicans plan to take down Hillary Clinton in 2016 are clear. They will subtly hit her on her age, her long career in the Beltway bubble, and tie her to the scandals and secrecy of her husband’s administration.
But what the GOP hasn’t figured out how to tackle yet is something that may be even more important than Clinton’s record: the fact that if elected, she would at last break that glass ceiling and become the nation’s first female president.
Until this week, both Democrats and Republicans have been approaching the subject warily. For the GOP, anything approaching gender politics is fraught with peril. In 2012, their hopes of retaking the Senate were doomed when candidates on the campaign trail mused aloud about “legitimate rape” and whether children conceived from sexual assault were divinely sent.
For Democrats, the election season to keep in mind has been not 2012 but 2014, when their turbo-charging of rhetoric over the GOP’s “War on Women” led to charges of pandering. One incumbent, Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, earned the moniker “Mark Uterus”—a nickname propagated by his own supporters—for his singular focus on women’s reproductive issues.
But no more. This week, just as the uproar over her deleted State Department emails was growing deafening, Clinton took to Twitter to blast Republicans over a sex trafficking bill that included abortion provisions, and for their delays in approving the nomination of Loretta Lynch for attorney general, calling the moves “the Congressional trifecta against women.” In the last month Clinton, has appeared at a gala for Emily’s List, released a report through the Clinton foundation about women and global leadership, and spoken at a United Nations conference on the status of women and girls worldwide.
In Washington, D.C, meanwhile, Concerned Women for American—a religious counter to the liberal National Organization for Women—convened a number of top Republican female leaders to declare the “war on women” officially over.
“What do most women do every week? Do they fill up the gas tank and the grocery cart?” asked GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway. “Or do they get an abortion?”
Women make up a majority of voters. In 2012, in the wake of a series of Republican efforts to limit reproductive health access and the aforementioned campaign gaffes, Barack Obama racked up an 11-point victory over Mitt Romney, a slightly worse showing for Democrats than they did in 2008. And even with Clinton as the likely nominee, Republican strategists are trying to limit her advantages with female voters.
“The idea is to keep them in the single digits,” said Katie Packer Gage, who served as a top aide to Romney in 2012 and has since started her own consulting shop dedicated to Republican outreach to women. “A gender gap of over 10 points usually means a Democratic win.”
Gage laid out a string of attacks that Republicans were preparing to utilize against Clinton to hurt her standing among women, among them that the Clinton Foundation accepted money from “regimes that don’t even let women drive a car,” that the top levels of her campaign are (or will be, at least) stocked mostly with men and that in office records show that she paid her male staff members more than her female ones.
“The levels of hypocrisy are astounding,” Gage said. “She didn’t speak about these issues at all in 2008 until she was stepping out of the race, she doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to equal pay. Just being a woman isn’t enough.”
Republicans are quick to point out that Clinton can’t coast on her gender—after all, she failed to rally women to her side in 2008 despite facing a Democratic primary electorate that is by some estimations close to 60 percent female.
“I understand the appeal of her gender,” Conway told The Daily Beast. “My eyes are wide open that there may be moderate, independent-leaning women who are motivated by voting for the first women president.”
But, she added, “The question is not will you vote for a woman. The question is would you vote for that woman. Does she have the values and the life experiences so that she connect with the plight of women?”
In 2008, Obama also never mentioned explicitly that his election would be historic; he didn’t need to. Instead, he spoke of the long sweep of American history, subtly suggesting that him in the White House would be yet another landmark toward a more equitable nation.
Republicans on the other hand are quick to accuse Clinton of already playing the gender card.
“This week has already shown that she is running a gender-based campaign,” said Conway. “There is no indication that women appreciate that, and there are many indications that men don’t like that.”
Democrats, meanwhile, say that they don’t much have to bring up Clinton’s gender—they are confident that Republicans will do it for them, more often than not in boneheaded ways that end up driving female voters their way.
Already, Rand Paul has come under criticism for setting up a fake Valentine’s Day Pinterest page for Clinton, with “likes” that included a full-length mirror and a heart-shaped bathtub.
Democrats have built a vast infrastructure around monitoring media for just such kind of GOP outburst, and will be on hair-trigger alert for any statement made on the campaign trail or on cable news that could be construed as sexist toward Clinton. On Thursday, there was already a taste of what the next 20 months could be like when an email that an aide to Rick Perry’s SuperPAC wrote in 2011 in which he questioned whether a female head of state would be in “God’s will” made the rounds on social media.
The aide backtracked from the comments, but Clinton has been such a steady target of boorish commentary by conservative men that many Democrats are already preparing to pounce.
“It’s in their DNA. You know it’s going to happen. I almost feel sorry for them,” said Tracy Sefl, a senior adviser to Ready for Hillary, the SuperPAC laying the groundwork for Clinton’s campaign.
Republicans, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, will find themselves in a few months “competing for a very small percentage of the vote that really dislikes Hillary. And those kind of over-the top comments are more likely to get made and they can be very damaging. It’s exactly that kind of thing that will reignite the ‘War on Women.’”
Republicans largely avoided such controversies in 2014. But the hothouse of a presidential campaign is another matter, and as the last several cycles have shown, such off-message comments have a tendency to drive the news cycle for days and drown out whatever else a candidate is trying to convey.
“Our party has to rise up with one voice and condemn that kind of thing,” Gage said. “We made it all the way through 2014 without any of our candidates saying anything that would give people pause. I think we learned a valuable lesson.”
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