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'Mothers and Sons' is about motherhood, loss
Timothy Douglas didn’t want to be pigeonholed.
'Mothers and Sons' is about motherhood, loss Timothy Douglas didn’t want to be pigeonholed. Check out this story on cincinnati.com: http://cin.ci/1pw9cxx
David Lyman, Enquirer contributor Published 9:43 a.m. ET March 17, 2016 | Updated 2:08 p.m. ET March 17, 2016
Headshot of director Timothy Douglas.(Photo: Provided)
Douglas is African-American. And since becoming one of the Playhouse in the Park’s four associate artists, the majority of the shows he directed have had race and ethnicity as central themes.
There was “Safe House,” about a pair of free-born African-American brothers living in 1843 Kentucky. And “Buzzer,” about gentrification and the pressures felt by an interracial couple. There was last season’s “The North Pool,” about a high school student of Middle Eastern descent and an assistant principal who harasses him because of it. There was “Clybourne Park,” as well, which dealt with the changing racial make-up of a Chicago neighborhood in flux.
So when it came time to set the directing assignments for this season, he told artistic director Blake Robison that he would like to do something that wasn’t race-related.
“Blake completely understood,” says Douglas. As a result, Douglas was engaged to direct Terrence McNally’s 2014 play “Mothers and Sons,” about an aging mother paying an unannounced visit to the former partner of her son, who died 20 years earlier of AIDS.
“Rarely do I get to do gay plays or plays with gay themes,” says Douglas, who is gay. He might have added that the Playhouse has rarely dealt with the theme either.
McNally’s play is driven as much by what is not said by the characters as much as by the words they manage to say to one another. The first half of the script is especially taut as Katharine (the mother) and Cal (the former partner) are so uncomfortable with one another they can’t even bring themselves to say the other’s first name.
“Her pain is still so great – even 20 years later – that she can barely bring herself to talk about her son,” says Douglas. But it’s even more complicated than that. She has other profound disappointments to cope with. And a sense of having failed as a parent. She has so much bottled up inside, in fact, it’s a wonder she can even get a full sentence out.
Alvin Keith (who portrays Cal Porter, left), Austin Vaughan (who portrays Bud Ogden-Porter, center) and Ben Cherry (who portrays Will Ogden, right) in the the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s production of "Mothers and Sons." (Photo: Provided/Tony Arrasmith/Arrasmith & Associates)
As a result, it’s not an easy play to stage. Adding to the difficulty is that there is a small child in the cast, the son of Cal and his husband Will. It can be difficult to find a child actor able to fit smoothly into the dramatic fiber of a script as serious and somber as this one.
“For whatever reason, throughout my career I’ve had extraordinarily good luck working with children,” says Douglas. And in the case of 10-year-old Austin Vaughan – a student in CCM’s Prep program – Douglas feels he has been especially lucky.
“I think there is such a thing as a natural,” he says. “What he lacks in experience, he makes up for in intelligence. Now I just have to be sure we don’t do something to spoil that naturalness of his. Honestly, the majority of my direction with him has been reminding him to speak loud enough and guiding him where he’s supposed to go.”
Several months ago, Douglas requested a meeting with the playwright. It’s not something he always does. But after reading and re-reading the script several times, two of the actors he felt were best for the roles were black. McNally makes no mention of race in the play, so it’s not part of the script’s thematic underpinnings. And contractually, it’s nothing Douglas would have needed to get permission for.
“I didn’t want to get into trouble down the line,” says Douglas. “I just wanted to make sure he understood my intention.”
But after reading through the script again the night before their meeting, Douglas reconsidered his casting decision.
“I decided I’m not going to do this,” says Douglas. “I’m not going to discuss the race aspect of it.”
The two men had a lengthy and very friendly talk.
“We were chit-chatting and all of a sudden he said “Have you ever thought about casting Katharine with a black actress,’” recalls Douglas. “I actually fell out of the chair I was sitting in. Really. I was in a rocking chair and managed to slip out of it.”
After Douglas recovered from the embarrassment of falling, McNally wanted to know why he had resisted the impulse to cast a black actress in the role.
“I consider myself to be very thoughtful and careful when I choose to cast non-traditionally,” says Douglas. “I don’t want to change the playwright’s original intent. And I wasn’t 100 percent certain how it would work as we were reintroducing Cincinnati audiences to gay themes coupled with this Shelterhouse audience getting to know me. Would they think I’m trying to say something overt by putting black people in the play? And would they miss something else in the script?”
McNally gave his blessing. Interracial couples are part of our real-world experience. And, as a result, interracial in-laws are too.
Douglas went with his first instinct, casting Alvin Keith as Will and Stephanie Berry as Katharine. Both have performed here before, Keith in 2011’s “As You Like It” and Berry in 2014’s “Safe House,” also directed by Douglas.
“Stephanie and I have done many shows together,” says Douglas. “On the most pedestrian level, she’s the right age. And she’s a mother. But she is one of the most intuitively intelligent actors I’ve ever worked with it.”
It’s obvious that McNally didn’t write the script with actors of color in mind. But this is a perfect example of so-called “colorblind casting.” Since race is not a theme of the play, it shouldn’t be a factor when casting an actor.
“This is a play about motherhood and loss,” says Douglas. “It’s about failure and societal changes and so many other things. The role of Katharine could so easily be a cold portrayal. But even when she talks about what a horrible mother she thinks she has been, you have to feel Katharine’s heart and passion. Stephanie brings all those qualities to every role she does. That was why it was important to cast her in the role.”
What: “Mothers and Sons”
When: March 24-April 17, previews begin March 18
Where: Thompson Shelterhouse, Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mt. Adams Circle, Mount Adams
Tickets: $30-$91
Info: 513-421-3888, www.cincyplay.com
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1pw9cxx
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Subscribe To Arrow's Manu Bennett Was Arrested At Comic Con, Get The Details Updates
Arrow's Manu Bennett Was Arrested At Comic Con, Get The Details
Catarina Cowden
Looks like somebody is getting used to the handcuffs off screen as much as he is on screen. Actor Manu Bennett who portrayed Slade Wilson/ Deathstroke on the hit CW TV series Arrow was just arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge while attending Alamo City Comic Con.
The actor spent the night in a San Antonio jail under the charges of assault causing bodily injury. According to My San Antonio, Benett punched a 29-year-old man in the face while at a party at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. No additional details have been made available on the incident. But the actor who has shown off his fighting skills in a range of shows and films, from Starz’s Spartacus series to The Hobbit movies clearly did some damage, as the assault charge kept the New Zealand actor held on a $1,600 bond.
Bennett was in San Antonio to attend the Alamo City Comic Con as one of their named celebrity guests. The 45-year-old actor is most well known for his portrayal as Crixus, a top gladiator in Spartacus. The series which was inspired by the historical figure Spartacus has become recognized as one of the most graphic shows on television. Bennett’s role on the series though would open up a new world for the actor. He went on to star as Azog the Defiler, the starring evil Orc in The Hobbit films. And most recently, Bennett has been a recurring villain on Arrow.
Bennett showed up in Season 1 and soon joined the main cast in Season 2 as Slade Wilson/ Deathstroke. He even had a guest role in Season 3 of the series. Slade’s character has an important role in the series, he was on the island where Oliver Queen is stranded during flashbacks, and eventually teaches the protagonist how to fight but as their story progresses, and the seasons continue, Slade Wilson’s Deathstroke becomes more prominent, an enemy to Oliver Queen/ Arrow.
Arrow fans have deemed Deathstroke as one of the best aspects of Season 2, and he went on to have a sole appearance in Season 3, but Bennett was displeased with the way his iconic character was treated, and may not be returning to the series anytime soon. Slade Wilson was left locked up at the end of his appearance, so he may or may not be returning. We’d rather see the actor kicking ass onscreen though, than in real life. So maybe he should reconsider his return to the show.
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Subscribe To What Jeffrey Dean Morgan Thinks Of The Eeny Meeny Miny Moe Controversy Updates
What Jeffrey Dean Morgan Thinks Of The Eeny Meeny Miny Moe Controversy
Jessica Rawden
Yesterday, news broke that a Walking Dead t-shirt is getting pulled from U.K. Primark stores after someone complained about the racist nature of a t-shirt stating "eeny meeny miny moe" next to an image of Negan's bat Lucille in the company's Sheffield, England location. The phrase was famously uttered by the TV villain during Negan's introduction to the small screen, but someone who has never watched The Walking Dead took offense, and now the t-shirt is being whisked out of the major chain. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Negan on the AMC series, recently saw the news and has a decidedly blunt opinion about the controversy. Here's what he had to say.
Holy crap people are stupid. 'Walking Dead' Shirt Pulled From Stores After Complaint of Racism.'
Speaking via Twitter, Jeffrey Dean Morgan revealed that he does not, in fact, agree with Primark's decision to cut the shirt from the store. While the person who complained about the shirt is right that the nursery rhyme in question had negative connotation back in the day, featuring an n-bomb drop, the nursery rhyme has been changed over the years to talk about catching a "tiger tiger by the toe." That's the version used in The Walking Dead comics and the AMC show of the same name. Only the first few words of the rhyme can be seen on the t-shirt.
Interestingly, this controversy of sorts is only coming out now, years after the publication of the issue of the graphic novel and months after Negan himself uttered the words on The Walking Dead. The person complaining, Ian Lucraft, looks as if he didn't have any context when he and his wife saw the shirt in the store. He told The Star he found the shirt to be "fantastically offensive" because it relates to the practice of "assaulting black people" in America.
The introduction of Negan on The Walking Dead was harrowing for fans everywhere, because it also meant we got to meet Lucille, a baseball bat that Negan uses to take out those who stand in his way on the series, that is, when he doesn't get his minions to do his dirty work for him. At the start of Season 7, both Glenn and Abraham found themselves on the receiving end of the bat after losing the twisted game of tag. It was a shocking and violent episode, but more because of Negan's actions than any connotations.
The Walking Dead has dealt with controversies in the past, but most of these have not been related to Negan and thus Jeffrey Dean Morgan may not be used to having to deal with news of this scale. With that, we have to say: welcome to being on one of the most popular TV shows in the world.
The Walking Dead airs on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET, only on AMC. To find out what else is heading to TV, take a look at our midseason TV premiere schedule.
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About Roseville
The Face of Roseville
Census data are in, and we are learning how Roseville has changed and how we have stayed the same.
Roseville’s population dropped by 30 people even though the number of housing units increased
The city is more ethnically diverse, and
Our household and family sizes have generally stayed the same
Our median age increased slightly. The baby boom generation (ages 45 to 64) grew significantly in comparison to other age groups. At the same time, the number of children under five years old grew. The Roseville and Mounds View school districts have seen an increase in enrollment in recent years and expect that trend to continue.
Lifetime Housing Options
The City Council and staff have been studying the census data. The data show an increase in total housing units and an increase in vacant housing. Roseville is ahead of the curve in preparing for the aging of our population, encouraging lifetime housing options and encouraging new families to move into the community. Recently the Urban Landscape Institute gave the Council and others a presentation Navigating the New Normal which you can view via webstreaming.
Elderly Residents
Roseville has a high percentage of people living alone - more than 35% compared to 27.5% in the Twin Cities metro area. More than 20% of Roseville residents are 65 years old and older, compared with 10.7% in the metro area.
Find more information about Roseville on the US Census Bureau’s website. In the quick start section under geography, type “Roseville, Minnesota” to get data.
2000 Numbers
African American or Black
Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander
Some other race
Hispanic/Latino**
Owner occupied
Renter occupied
Living Alone
Median age*
* This measure divides the age distribution into two equal parts: one-half of the population is below and 1/2 above the median age.
**Included in numbers above - Participants self-identified with specific race in addition to identifying Hispanic / Latino heritage.
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National Citizen Service Trust plans £10m 'brand refresh'
01 Mar 2019 News
The National Citizen Service Trust (NCS) is planning a “brand refresh” and has budgeted up to £10m for the project.
A spokesperson from the charity said it is investing money into branding changes by welcoming bids from a creative services tender, to make changes which include “a brand refresh and ongoing creative and marketing services”.
The project aims to save money and to increase participation in NCS programmes. A spokesperson said: “Investing in our brand in the short term is crucial to ensure that we can continue to reduce our marketing spend and make even greater savings in the future.”
They also said that they hoped that it would help the charity reach young people. “We need to remain relevant, resonate and cut through the clutter of communications to young people,” they added.
NCS is a residential youth activity programme funded by the government. It was launched in 2010 by then Prime Minister, David Cameron as part of the ‘Big Society’ initiative and it aims to improve social cohesion, mobility and engagement among young people.
It has been the subject of some criticism of overfunding and undersubscription. In July, the Local Government Association claimed that only 12% of eligible young people took part in NCS schemes in 2016.
However, the charity refutes these claims. The spokesperson said that in 2018 they had the highest annual participation number to date and said that it is “the fastest growing youth organisation in our country for a century”.
Earlier this month, Labour MPs criticised NCS at a parliamentary debate. Rushanara Ali MP criticised the scheme for diverting funding from other areas.
She said: “Although the interventions to support the National Citizen Service have been welcomed in many areas, the reality is that the £1bn or so that has been spent in that arena has not been matched by support in other areas.” - See more at:
However, Conservative MPs disagreed with the criticisms. Rachel Maclean MP said that the NCS has a “fantastic” impact in her constituency, Redditch. She said: “The NCS scheme enables [young people] to get out from behind the technology and screens that so often dominate the lives of young people today. It puts them in situations outside their comfort zone, and they have to work together in groups with young people they would not normally meet in their neighbourhoods or school classrooms. They are learning vital life skills at a really early age”
The brand change will be commissioned to external agencies who will bid for the account. The contract will initially last for two years, with the possibility of extending it for two more. It comes from its marketing budget, and will be worth between £4m and £10m over four years.
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17 Jan 2017 News
Communications 1700
Branding & marketing 300
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He went from Jackson Public Schools to classical conducting in Vienna
From Jackson Public Schools to Interlochen Arts Academy and a career in Vienna, William Walker has made the most of his passion for classical music.
He went from Jackson Public Schools to classical conducting in Vienna From Jackson Public Schools to Interlochen Arts Academy and a career in Vienna, William Walker has made the most of his passion for classical music. Check out this story on clarionledger.com: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/magnolia/entertainment/2017/10/11/jackson-public-schools-classical-conducting-vienna/739720001/
Sarah Warnock, The Clarion-Ledger Published 10:00 a.m. CT Oct. 11, 2017 | Updated 12:49 p.m. CT Oct. 11, 2017
Download The Clarion-Ledger app for free on the Apple app store or Google Play. Justin Sellers/The Clarion-Ledger
Mississippi native William Walker conducts an orchestra.(Photo: R.R. Jones/Courtesy of William G. Walker)
When Mississippi native William Walker saw the suffering and devastation amassed by hurricanes Harvey and Irma, he felt a deep desire to help those affected.
Having recently graduated from the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, the talented musician and conductor has been residing in Vienna, Austria, the classical music oasis of the world, and living out his dreams as a professional conductor.
He's come home to Jackson for now, committing himself to conducting a free hurricane benefit orchestra concert happening tomorrow. He says Belhaven University agreed to the use of its Center for the Arts Concert Hall. "They were very generous."
Walker was educated in the Jackson Public School system from grades K-12, attending Murrah High School briefly his senior year before being invited to attend Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan.
"It was never really my plan to not graduate from Murrah, but going to Interlochen was a tremendous opportunity ... after becoming more established and recognized, it is my long-term goal to start an Interlochen-esque school here in Mississippi."
More: Orchestra honored by Legislature
Classical conductor William Walker of Jackson currently lives in Vienna, but misses the food from home. "They asked me to cook over there, and I try to cook Mississippi food, but it doesn't taste the same because they don't have the right ingredients." (Photo: Phil Rowley/Courtesy of the Royal College of Music)
You can take the man out of Mississippi, but can you take Mississippi out of the man?
When asked what he misses most about home, he answers, "People and food, without a question. Food that you just can't get in other parts of the country, but you really can't get overseas. They asked me to cook over there, and I try to cook Mississippi food, but it doesn't taste the same because they don't have the right ingredients. It's funny though, one of my favorite restaurants in Vienna is a Mexican restaurant.
Vienna is also a kind of mecca for musicians. Influential composers and musicians such as Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, Gustav Mahler and many others lived there either permanently, or studied there for a while. Also, concerts occur on pretty much every day and are often sold out. Long story short, I feel like I became a better musician just by hearing/seeing musicians of this caliber on a regular basis."
"A lot of lawmakers think if you put money into the arts then that means that we have to take money away from infrastructure or from math and science education. But (every) place that is considered a really great place to live on a global index, they all spend a lot of money on arts education.
The Mississippi Symphony strings program, free symphonic educational concerts and the free strings concert where schoolkids are exposed to the Mississippi Symphony at Thalia Mara- I wouldn't be here (a conductor) without those three things. It's my foundation, how I got here ... I think about that all the time.
The biggest difference between society here (in America) and there is that the Austrian government believes that the only way to have a truly prosperous society is by supporting arts organizations ...This is a lot of money, but when you realize that Austria’s entire budget is less than what the U.S. spends on its military alone, that shows just how seriously they take the arts."
Music that mirrors life
Classical conductor William Walker of Jackson in formal dress for a performance. (Photo: Titilayo Ayangade/Courtesy of William G. Walker)
Walker says it wasn't too hard to decide what to include in the benefit concert. He believes Beethoven's 5th is all about fate, and hurricanes parallel elements of the symphony's movements.
When he composed it, Beethoven was finding out that he was definitely going deaf.
"It's, of course, very stormy in the first movement, and in the second movement it's a little bit reflective of what's just happened, and then in the third movement it's 'OK, now we're here, what do we do next?' And then the fourth movement is triumphant —triumphing over adversities."
The other piece to be performed at the concert is Samuel Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' a work Walker notes is often used in modern media in times of tragedy.
"The musicians involved are very dedicated and excited about the project ... we have really, really great musicians in Mississippi. Any opportunity to hear them play or for me to work with them is exciting. I've played with some of them but I've never conducted them in Mississippi before," Walker says.
The concert hopes to raise funds via donations from concertgoers and the community. The show will be performed by musicians from the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Belhaven Orchestra and faculty from Belhaven, Jackson State, Mississippi State, Millsaps College and Mississippi College. All proceeds will be managed by the Red Cross.
Tyrant or maestro
In the old days, many conductors were tyrants. It's different now," Walker says.
"The musicians have good instincts. I like to facilitate their instincts. It a unifying thing, that's the conductor's job, but also to let the musicians be expressive so they can communicate with the audience freely.
'Maestro' and 'conductor' are often used interchangeably, but really there is a difference. 'Maestro' comes from Italian and means literally 'master'; thus when one is called a maestro it is the highest form of respect. Normally you introduce yourself as a conductor and others call you maestro (if they like you!)."
Contact Sarah Warnock at 601-961-7192 or swarnock@gannett.com.
What: hurricane benefit orchestra concert
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: Belhaven University Center for the Arts Concert Hall, 835 Riverside Drive, Jackson
Read or Share this story: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/magnolia/entertainment/2017/10/11/jackson-public-schools-classical-conducting-vienna/739720001/
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Saint Joss: Amy Pascale's Biography of Joss Whedon
"TV is a question, movies are an answer."
– Joss Whedon, from Joss Whedon: The Biography
Amy Pascale's biography of Joss Whedon, published as Joss Whedon: The Biography (Chicago Review Press, 2014) in North America, has a far less urbane, and in fact more honest, title in the UK: Joss Whedon: Geek King of the Universe. Pascale unapologetically approaches her subject from an initial position of awe, and the book often verges on the hagiographic. It is comprehensive: the book traces his early years, the impact of his mother and college professors, his long relationship with Kai Cole (his now-wife), along with the many frustrating false starts to his career as a screenwriter and script doctor in the 90s, through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, Dr. Horrible and The Avengers, up to this fall's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Very little, in fact, of his IMDB page doesn't make the cut, along with innumerable ventures (like his famously dropped Wonder Woman project) which never saw the light of day – more than enough to quiet any criticisms from those who may feel a person that is just barely 50, and whose career is far from over, is deserving of an almost 400-page biography. There is a lot to tell and Pascale tells it – unfortunately at the expense of the man himself, who often gets lost among the details and anecdotes Pascale collects about his many beloved projects.
For those who love Joss Whedon, the man needs no introduction. Of course, for those who don't, I don't expect this book will be on their Christmas list. He is certainly a man worthy of investigation, and his story is more than the story of one man, or one extremely influential television series. The 25 or so years of Hollywood film and television also profiled in Pascale's book, albeit in relief, are fascinating years – a time in which our most basic expectations about the nature and status of television and film have been more or less inverted. Joss Whedon is a big part of that story, one that is still being written on large and small screens continent-wide. His narrative ambition and skill revealed (and continue to reveal) so much of the still nascent potential of television storytelling, and his focus on character and relationships has carried over into his current leadership of what will likely be the most profitable – and certainly the noisiest – film franchise in recent decades.
Pascale begins Joss' story at the beginning, actually before the beginning, with a brief overview of the careers of Tom and John Whedon, Joss' father and grandfather, who each had their own role to play in the history of American television. This focus on family life and relationships leads to the most interesting elements of the book (especially the impact of his mother's unexpected death from a brain aneurysm in 1992), and the early accounts of his work on Rosanne and his scandalously uncredited work on the screenplay for Speed are fascinating, providing insight into both the man and the particular frustrations of his chosen career. I had no idea, for example, that Nathan Fillion (Firefly, and now Castle) had auditioned for the David Boreanaz role of Angel. (Fillion also contributes a brief but beautiful Foreword to the book.) But, once the story shifts firmly into the Buffy era and Joss' career takes over the story, those aspects fall deep into the background.
This is also where, not coincidentally, the book loses focuses at a whole, and becomes – for too many chapters – a biography of the Whedonverse, rather than a biography of its eponymous creator. While Pascale discusses the controversial later seasons of Buffy, for example, Joss is nowhere to be found – mainly because that was literally the case, since that the period when his attention was on Firefly, in anticipation of its fall 2002 premiere. As a result, her strongly-worded and lengthy comments on Buffy's sixth season reveal almost nothing about Whedon, and serve only to tell us what Pascale thought about a few of that season's most disconcerting story lines. (Spoiler alert: she rather hates them.)
James Marsters & Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
At times, Joss' voice and Pascale's seem almost at odds. The section on "The Body", the groundbreaking Season 5 episode where Buffy and her sister Dawn deal with the sudden death of their mother, is perhaps the best example. Whedon (in the DVD's Director Commentary) expresses his surprise how consoling many viewers have found that story, especially because he rather pointedly tried to keep all forms of consolation out of the script. In the end, it is perhaps precisely because the story is deliberately absent of any consolation or catharsis, because of the stark honestly of the episode – in refusing to offer any platitudes or simple lessons – that viewers in comparable situations find it consoling and cathartic. The episode, one of the series' most powerful and effecting, comes like a voice from outside, touches the viewer and says "your experience of death is not simply yours – it is shared by others every day." Since I am confident that Whedon knows this (Joss has already expressed his own particular resistance to the dangers director's commentaries, in song no less.), it is unfortunate how the book frames it, by conflating the story's conception by its author with the story's reception by others – as a telling – that crucial nuance is lost.
Joss Whedon: The Biography is well researched, and the book is framed by a number of exclusive conversations the biographer had with the subject himself, with his friends and family, and numerous writers, actors, producers Whedon has worked with throughout the years. And Joss' voice resounds clearly throughout – though those were also precisely the moments that made me wish Whedon would finally write an autobiography so he could tell his own story, on his own terms. When he speaks, the self-awareness, humour and insight of the man are so apparent that it is often difficult to take other people's views of him too seriously, especially when the praise is so forthcoming and persistent. (The gushing – no matter how sincere it likely is – gets to be too much and not a little bit repetitive; by the time Chris Evans (Captain America, The Avengers) tells us that Joss is "amazing" as a writer, that "his set-up lines are seamless" and his banter "so witty", you begin to wonder whether your Kindle has accidentally rewound to the beginning of the book.)
Nathan Fillion, on the set of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
There are few TV creators who inspire such love and devotion as Joss Whedon. There is a sincerity and intimacy to Joss and his projects (epic ones like Buffy, and smaller personal ones like Dr. Horrible and Much Ado about Nothing) that leads his viewers – myself included – to feel that to know his work is to get to know him: the way to love the man is to love what he loves, from his comic book nerdiness to his passion for the little guy – or gal – who finds the strength to slay the dragons that haunt them. Pascale's book is written for those among us who know that feeling, and yet for those same people this book might be unnecessary. Joss Whedon has never been one to shrink into the background, and has always been quite candid in his interviews. (For example, on the subject of Whedon's famously strong female character, Joss himself provided the most powerful answer back in 2006, and the biography can do little better than quote from it.) As Pascale notes, he has been visiting and contributing his own fan-boards online since the beginning of Buffy. (The biographer herself was an early member of just such a fan-board.) The portrait that emerges in Joss Whedon: The Biography isn't ultimately very different from that one, serving only to reinforce a persona that we all know, and admittedly already love.
Pascale returns several times to a recurring scene in Whedon's writing room, where Joss pops into a story session, listens carefully to the intricate, detailed, hilarious renderings of his writing team, and then asks them, "So, what's the Buffy of it?" Why does it matter? What does it mean? Pascale's book would have been well-served by a few such interrogations, as its story weaves its way through television to film to television again to comic books and back to film: what's the Joss of it? How is this Joss Whedon's story, and why does that story matter? Ironically, while it has beenWhedon's great gift to be able to turn beings of myth and fantasy into human beings, characters who viewers care about, suffer with and mourn over, here Pascale ultimately does the opposite with her subject: turning him from a man to a mythic figure who seems rather less human by the end of the book than at the beginning. Joss' mentor and college professor Jeanine Basinger is given the final word, a coda seemingly designed to evacuate any last vestige of the human from the book's subject:
"I think about the old days," Basinger says, "ancient days, where there were men who were created as storytellers .... They wandered the Earth, and they told stories. .... [T]hey were alive just to be there to tell stories. ... Those of us who can't write them, create them, tell them, our job is to consume them. And we die if we don't have them. And he feeds us. It's a kind of sacrifice to be the storyteller. And Joss is the modern version of that character."
This would be far less alienating a conclusion had Pascale's story given any sense of a sacrifice on Joss' part. Struggles with executives in suits – be they TV or film – pervade that story. And Whedon rails against them, with varying success and more often failure. But at no point does it not seem like he's having the time of his life. Executives might not get him, but fellow writers, actors, critics, and fans never abandon him, supporting him almost without gaps for almost two decades. That's the man who his peers and his fans respect and love, that's the person who has long fascinated me, and that's the story I wish Pascale could have told.
– Mark Clamen is a writer, critic, film programmer and lifelong television enthusiast. He lives in Toronto, where he often lectures on television, film, and popular culture.
Labels: Books, Mark Clamen, Television
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In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden
The NSA whistleblower's revelations let the Kremlin criticize Western 'double standards,' say experts. But the Russian government has shown little tolerance for its own whistleblowers.
Photos of Edward Snowden, a contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA), and President Barack Obama are printed on the front pages of local English and Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong today. A Kremlin spokesman said today that Russia would consider granting asylum to Mr. Snowden if he asked for it.
By Fred Weir Correspondent
Russia might be willing to grant asylum to Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed the extent of the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance, if he asked for it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
"If such a request is made, it will be considered. We'll act according to facts," the Moscow daily Kommersant quoted Mr. Peskov as saying.
That single, utterly noncommittal phrase triggered a storm of commentary on Russian social media, with some exulting in the historic turn-of-fortunes situation that nowadays makes Russia look like a potential haven for US dissidents.
"By promising asylum to Snowden, Moscow has taken upon itself the protection of those persecuted for political reasons," tweeted Alexei Pushkov, the head of the State Duma's international affairs committee. "There will be hysterics in the US. They only recognize this right for themselves."
Others suggest it's pretty odd see the Kremlin and its media surrogates lionizing Westerners who are at odd with their own governments – tax-evading French actor Gerard Depardieu was recently granted Russian citizenship by Vladimir Putin personally – at the same time Russian authorities are cracking down on even nonpolitical nongovernmental organizations accused of purveying foreign influence, driving top academics from the country with threats of prosecution, and staging a criminal trial that could lead to up to 13 years in prison for a dozen protesters who may – or may not – have deliberately fought with police during an otherwise peaceful Moscow rally over a year ago.
"It's no bad thing to offer asylum to someone who is being persecuted for his political beliefs or acts of conscience. In this sense, I would personally support this," says Sergei Davidis, a human rights lawyer and board member of Solidarnost, an opposition coalition.
"But I find it hard to keep a straight face when our Russian authorities make these declarations. Every day there are cases when political dissidents flee authoritarian central Asian countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and seek safety in Russia. Because Russia is allied with these states, our authorities just send these people back. Any sense of responsibility to protect human rights, or even any process to determine whether a person deserves refuge here or not, is alien to our authorities. So what could be driving this sudden concern for Snowden? Just old-fashioned propaganda considerations," Mr. Davidis says.
One of the recurring polemical themes in Russian foreign policy is to slam the West for having "double standards," such as judging pro-Western dictatorships by a totally different yardstick from anti-Western ones, a tactic that works extremely well because it is so often true. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov most recently used that line just today, in a tough statement hammering Western hypocrisy about Syria.
But, in fact, some analysts say, Russia is just returning to the former Soviet approach – minus the ideological convictions that gave it heft – in which the world is black and white, "theirs" and "ours," and little further justification is required.
"I don't think the Kremlin has any sense of irony, or cares about 'double standards' at all," says Stanislav Belkovsky, president of the independent Institute of National Strategy.
"This is just a cocky response to the US. If they can give political shelter to refugees from Russia, why, we can do the same thing to them. It's a symmetrical response, and why not?"
Pyotr Romanov, a commentator for the official RIA-Novosti agency, argues that there is no need to overthink the issue. Mr. Snowden is a whistleblower on the run, he needs help, and Russia should aid him if it can.
"Snowden did something good, he made the public aware of a great danger. Instead of drawing the right conclusions, authorities began to persecute him. He is a decent man who sounded the alarm and it's absurd for him to be punished for that, at least if we want to think of the US as a democratic state.... The man needs protection, and if he should find himself with no choice but Russia, then let it be Russia," Mr. Romanov says.
Still, in a video done for the Guardian last weekend, Snowden made it clear that, if he has to go into permanent exile, "my predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values." Russia, whose own whistleblowers tend to be vilified by the media and severely punished by the justice system, might prove to be a very painful fit.
Test your knowledge Sochi, Soviets, and czars: How much do you know about Russia?
Test your knowledge Vladimir Putin 101: A quiz about Russia's president
Opinion Solution to NSA overreach – put people in charge of their own data
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Archive > Issue 56 > Lawrence of Anatolia
Lawrence of Anatolia
Anthony Sattin
TE Lawrence was a troubled, complex figure who remains an enigma. But the two years he spent as a young man at the archaeological site of Karkemish, on the Turkish–Syrian border, were the happiest of his life, says his biographer, Anthony Sattin, author of ‘The Young Lawrence: A Portrait of the Legend as a Young Man’
Camp life at Karkemish, 1911. One of the wrestlers is the waterboy Ahmed Dahoum. Lawrence wrote on the back: 'The pace is extremely hot, and they wrestle nearly every day at noon'
The invitation came from the mayor of Gaziantep, from Professor Nicolò Marchetti of Bologna University and Assistant Professor Hasan Peker of the University of Istanbul.
At the Zeugma Museum in Gaziantep in November 2014 they revealed the results of the latest excavations at Karkamiş, ancient Karkemish (Carchemish). Marchetti, who heads the excavations, wanted to focus on progress at the ancient Hittite city, the thousands of objects recovered, the century-old expedition house excavated, and the fact that the site would finally be opened to the public the following summer. But most publications who ran the story also talked about TE Lawrence and ISIS (ISIL). The Daily Telegraph’s headline was typical: “Archaeological site uncovered by Lawrence of Arabia to be opened under the eyes of ISIL.”
While the British might be comfortable with who Lawrence was and what he did between the Hejaz and Damascus in 1917 and 1918, many others are not. A Kuwaiti newspaper recently pointed out that while Lawrence was alive he was betrayed by his own country and doubted by the Arabs he was trying to help. Since his death following a motorbike accident in 1935, almost everything about his activities during the First World War has been scrutinised. Even his role in the attack on Aqaba, usually seen as one of his more brilliant and daring ideas, has been questioned: in his new biography, Faisal I of Iraq, Ali Allawi claims Faisal conceived the attack on Aqaba long before he met Lawrence. Allawi also points out that Faisal’s cousin, Sharif Nasir, who took part in the attack, made no mention of Lawrence planning the raid.
People in Turkey seem more certain about Lawrence’s role in the region. When the Pera Museum hung a poster of Lawrence for a recent exhibition, the words “İngiliz casus”, British spy, were scrawled across it. President Erdoğan picked up the theme in a speech, referring to “new voluntary Lawrences, disguised as journalists, religious men, writers and terrorists… making Sykes-Picot agreements” in the region today. It was a similar comment made to me by a Syrian friend several years ago that started me wondering why Lawrence would have wanted to be involved in the Arab Revolt.
Lawrence was 25 in July 1914 and had just returned to England from the Euphrates. It wasn’t immediately obvious that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand would bring about a world war, and Lawrence thought he would soon be back at Karkemish, digging… There had been a time, not so long before, when he had thought of setting up a boutique printing press with Vyvyan Richards, a friend from Oxford. But the previous December, 1913, he had given up on that and explained to Richards: “I have got to like this place [Karkemish] very much: and the people here… the whole manner of living pleases me.”
But this pleasure (Lawrence’s youngest brother, Arnold, later wrote that the Karkemish years were the happiest of TE’s life) was not what convinced me to write Young Lawrence>/em>. Two other details were responsible for that. In a one-page epilogue to Seven Pillars of Wisdom, only published after his death, he admitted that “the strongest motive throughout had been a personal one… present to me, I think, every hour of these two years”. The other detail relates to a book he wrote about his adventures in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The manuscript was sufficiently important for him to take it to England in June 1914, when he left behind so many other belongings. But in August 1914, when the war had started and it was clear he would not be returning to his old life, he tidied up his affairs and burnt it.
Asked about it after the war, Lawrence explained he had burnt the manuscript because it was too immature; but so, too, was much of his other writing, and he didn’t burn that. I assumed the “personal motive” behind his involvement in the Arab Revolt was connected to his happiness in Karkemish, to the burning of that manuscript and the futility he felt after the war.
There are several excellent biographies of Lawrence, but none has looked closely at his formative years, at how one goes from being Ned Lawrence, the second son of a middle-class Oxford family, to become Lawrence of Arabia. None takes that “strongest motive”, the personal one, as its central concern. Nor has anyone observed the coming of the war through Lawrence’s eyes and ears, from the stresses felt in Anatolia because of the rise of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the Young Turks, and the plotting of Mesopotamian Kurds, inspired by the loss of the Libyan provinces in 1912.
The research trail led from the Bodleian Library, where much of Lawrence’s archive is held, to Istanbul, which he had enjoyed so much on pre-war visits and where I arrived just after the Gezi Park protests of 2013, to Aqaba and on to Cairo just as President Morsi was toppled. The one place I failed to visit was Karkemish. I had tried to arrange a permit through the Global Heritage Fund, which was supporting the excavations, through Professor Marchetti, the Turkish Embassy in London and other avenues, but none had been able to secure my entry. I went anyway, in June 2013, and the reason I had failed to obtain a permit became obvious as soon as the guards started waving their guns at me.
The Hittites built their city on a rise beside the Euphrates. That rise has become a hundredmetre- high “tell”, layer upon layer of human deposits. Since Lawrence left in June 1914, the top of the tell has served as a military post, watching over the excavations, the farmlands beyond and, perhaps most important, the Euphrates. While Lawrence worked there, German engineers built a bridge that would carry the railway from Istanbul to Baghdad. The railway, and the bridge, now mark the border between Turkey and Syria, and at the time of the press conference in 2014 the black flags of ISIS were flying on the other side.
Those flags were the reason local politicians thought it best to hold the press conference at the Zeugma Museum in Gaziantep. They might also be why foreign visitors will be reluctant to visit Karkemish if it is opened. But not everyone will be put off: I might have finished the book, but I am still curious, and I for one will be there.
Other Highlights from Cornucopia 56
Turkey’s Wine Renaissance
After a road trip like no other, taking in many of the best of Turkey’s burgeoning wineries, Kevin Gould and the Cornucopia tasting panel raise a glass (or several) and recommend the best of an impressive bunch
A Life in Tents
Peter Alford Andrews and his late wife, Mügül, set out to catalogue the traditional yurt – the ultimate portable dwelling. It became their life’s work.
An exciting new spirit of creativity is flourishing in Yeldeğirmeni – once a place of windmills and construction workers. But will this vibrant neighbourhood of Kadiköy be able to maintain its delicate balance of old and new? Katie Nadworny reports. Photographs by Monica Fritz
The City of a Thousand and One Churches
Today a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, a thousand years ago Ani was a bustling commercial city where East and West converged. By Robert Ousterhout. Photographs by Brian McKee
Aphrodite’s City
No wonder Aphrodisias was the Emperor Augustus’s favourite city in Asia. Famed for its exquisite sculpture and unsullied surroundings, for Patricia Daunt it is the most beautiful site in the classical world
Jam Tomorrow
In a chilly spring the apricot trees of Cappadocia were frothing with white blossom. By early summer the boughs would be heavy with fruit, to be eaten fresh from the branch, dried in the sun – or made into conserves like bottled sunshine for the cold winter months.
Issue 56, October 2017 Brave Old World
£12.00 / $15.06 / 84.60 TL
The Young Lawrence
James Mellaart: The Man Who Changed History (28289)
The Caliph’s Daughter (25812)
The Elector’s Turkish Treasures (16969)
Simply Sufi (12816)
D’Aronco (12342)
An American Nomad (11757)
Living legends (11120)
The Coolest Thing (10115)
Trotsky on Prinkipo (9838)
Fazil Say: Warner CDs (9741)
James Mellaart: Under the Volcano (9634)
Oil’s Boom and Bust (9558)
Drama in the Round (9305)
Europe a la Turque (8996)
Kastamonu: The Ottoman Farmhouse (8719)
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Everything your favorite celebs wore the week of September 21.
By Nicole Solofsky
Ciara attends the Lanvin show at Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 25, 2014, in France.
Dakota Fanning attends the Christian Dior show at Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 26, 2014, in France.
Katie Holmes attends the premiere of Days and Nights at the IFC Center on Sept. 25, 2014, in New York City.
Kat Graham attends the Montblanc celebration for the grand re-opening of the Atlanta Boutique on Sept. 25, 2014, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Coco Rocha attends the Christian Dior at Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 26, 2014, in France.
Olivia Palermo attends the Christian Dior show at Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 26, 2014, in France.
Kendall Jenner goes for lunch Sept. 24, 2014, in Paris, France.
Nicky Hilton attends the Nicky Hilton for eLUXE Collection Preview at Bollare on Sept. 24, 2014, in New York City.
Hilary Duff attends the world premiere of her "All About You" music video Sept. 24, 2014, in New York City.
Leighton Meester attends the St. Rillian Fragrance launch press conference at Sibuya Hikarie on Sept. 25, 2014, in Tokyo, Japan.
Jessica Simpson is seen in Midtown on Sept. 24, 2014, in New York City.
Britney Spears presents The Intimate Collection on Sept. 25, 2014, in Oberhausen, Germany.
Sarah Jessica Parker attends the New York City Ballet 2014 Fall Gala on Sept. 23, 2014, in New York City.
Jessica Chastain at the photo-call of her new movie The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby during the 62nd San Sebastian International Film Festival on September 23, 2014, in Spain.
Chrissy Teigen attends NBA 2K15 Launch Celebration at The Standard on Sept. 23, 2014, in New York City.
Kerry Washington on the streets of Manhattan on Sept. 23, 2014, in New York City.
Rita Ora attends Adidas Originals by Rita Ora Lunch Event on Sept. 23, 2014, in Seoul, South Korea.
Camila Alves attends Escada Meets Thilo Westermann Collection Launch on Sept. 23, 2014, in New York City.
Chloe Grace Moretz
Chloe Grace Moretz attends the The Equalizer New York City premiere Sept. 22, 2014.
Sofia Vergara goes on Good Morning America on Sept. 22, 2014, in New York City.
Jessica Chastain attends the The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby on Sept. 22, 2014, in San Sebastian, Spain.
Jemima Kirke attends the Metropolitan Opera season opening Sept. 22, 2014, in New York City.
Jennifer Hudson celebrates her official album launch party in New York City on Sept. 22, 2014.
Diane Kruger receives the insignia of Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters on Sept. 22, 2014, in Paris, France.
Jessica Simpson attends Jessica Simpson Collection Fashion Show at Nordstrom on Sept. 20, 2014, in Los Angeles.
Rosario Dawson attends Vogue Italia 50th anniversary event Sept. 21, 2014, in Milan, Italy.
Elle Fanning attends the premiere of The Boxtrolls on Sept. 21, 2014, in Universal City, California.
Iggy Azalea poses in the press room at the iHeartRadio Music Festival night two Sept. 20, 2014, in Las Vegas.
Anna Faris poses in the press room at the iHeartRadio Music Festival night two Sept. 20, 2014, in Las Vegas.
Laverne Cox poses in the press room at the iHeartRadio Music Festival night two Sept. 20, 2014, in Las Vegas.
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Kate Middleton and Prince William Doing Things in New York City
Here are all the photos from their trip so far.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Prince William and Kate Middleton leave the St. Andrews 600th Anniversary Dinner at Metropolitan Museum of Art on Dec. 9, 2014, in New York City.
Kate Middleton attends the St. Andrews 600th Anniversary Dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Dec. 9, 2014, in New York City.
Prince William and Kate Middleton attend the St. Andrews 600th Anniversary Dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Dec. 9, 2014, in New York City.
Kate Middleton and Jenna Lyons
Kate Middleton meets Jenna Lyons, the creative director of J. Crew, as she attends the Creativity Is GREAT reception Dec. 9, 2014, in New York City.
Kate Middleton and Prince William attend the Creativity Is GREAT reception Dec. 9, 2014, in New York City.
SplashNews
Kate Middleton, Prince William, Beyoncé, and Jay Z
Kate Middleton and Prince William meet Beyoncé and Jay Z at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Dec. 8, 2014.
Kate Middleton and Prince William
Kate Middleton and Prince William watch the Brooklyn Nets vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA game at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Dec. 8, 2014.
Prince William, Kate Middleton, Hilary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton
Prince William and Kate Middleton attend the British Consul residence reception in New York City. Among the notable guests are Hilary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea to launch a joint charity project to help save endangered species.
Prince William and Kate Middleton pause for a moment of silence after laying a wreath at one of the reflecting pools at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum on Dec. 9, 2014, in New York City.
Prince William, Kate Middleton, and LeBron James
Prince William and Kate Middleton pose with LeBron James backstage as they attend the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Brooklyn Nets game at Barclays Center on Dec. 8, 2014.
Kate Middleton leaves with Chirlane McCray, wife of the New York mayor Bill de Blasio, after visiting Northside Center for Child Development on Dec. 8, 2014, in New York City.
Kate Middleton greets guests at Northside Center for Child Development during her official visit to the United States on Dec. 8, 2014, in New York City.
Fans waiting to greet Kate Middleton
General atmosphere as New Yorkers are waiting to welcome Kate Middleton at Northside Center for Child Development on Dec. 8, 2014, in New York.
Prince William addresses the International Corruption Hunters Alliance Conference during an official visit to the United States Dec. 8, 2014, in Washington, D.C.
Barack Obama meets with Prince William in the Oval Office of the White House on Dec. 8, 2014, in Washington, D.C.
Prince William and Kate Middleton arrive Dec. 7, 2014, for a private dinner hosted by the American Friends of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, on the first night of their visit to New York.
Prince William and Kate Middleton arrive at The Carlyle Hotel, where they will be staying during their official visit to the United States, on Dec. 7, 2014, in New York City.
Prince William and Kate Middleton leave a Gramercy Park residence Dec. 7, 2014, in New York City.
Video of Prince Wills' Engagement Announcement!
Kate Middleton and Prince William Are Officially Coming to New York
Kate and William Just Snubbed Charles on Holiday
Kate Middleton Went Rock Climbing With Prince William
Apparently, Prince William Loves This New Kate Middleton Portrait
Prince William, Kate Middleton Land in New York
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The Environmental Antiwar Movement
Warisacrime.org
Events in South Korea are putting U.S. and international environmental groups into coalition with antiwar groups, and in rare opposition to one of the most environmentally destructive forces on earth: the military industrial complex.
Normally, this doesn't happen. Typically, civil liberties groups oppose the detention and torture and assassination that come with military spending, but not the spending and not the wars. Typically, anti-poverty and pro-education groups lament the supposed lack of funding, but avoid all mention of our dumping 57% of federal discretionary funds into war preparation and war. Typically, for environmental groups, our top consumer of oil, producer of superfund sites, and poisoner of the earth is off-limits. We oppose pollution, but not pollution in the cause of killing people more quickly.
Jeju Island, South Korea, is changing this. A coordinated international campaign is trying to save this beautiful island from destruction. The World Conservation Congress 2012 is being held on Jeju Island -- while just four miles away, in the island's Gangjeong Village, construction is beginning on a massive new naval base to be used by the United States. Dredging of the seabed and coral has already begun. 94% of the residents of Gangjeong Village have voted against construction of the base.
The extraordinary biological diversity, unique volcanic topography, and the culture of Jeju Island attract many tourists. The Sea of Gangjeong is a national cultural treasure adjacent to a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Only 114 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins remain in Korea, and they live here -- one of many species threatened by base construction. The damage will be devastating.
If the base is constructed, it will host nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers, as well as Aegis missile-carrying warships. U.S. taxpayers will pay the cost of the Obama administration "pivot" into the Asia-Pacific, while Jeju Islanders pay with a damaged home. Ultimately, the cost to the earth and the risk of war will belong to all of us.
Villagers have been arrested during nonviolent protests. Police and construction workers have assaulted elderly members of the community, who represent a large portion of the activists. Raising our voices in solidarity is the least we can do. But Samsung, the primary contractor for base construction, is sponsoring the World Conservation Congress (WCC), which opened pretending all was well. That pretense is crumbling.
From afar, we are flooding the WCC and Samsung with emails. You can help" Let them know we aren't fooled. Demand that Samsung halt construction and the WCC oppose the base.
On location, activists have made every single participant in the World Conservation Congress aware of the destruction underway on the island where the WCC is meeting. And a resolution is being introduced by 34 organizations from around the world calling for a halt to the military base construction.
Please take the time to read this resolution, and check out the list of signers. This is how the military industrial complex will eventually do itself in.
World Appeal to Protect the People, Nature, Culture and Heritage of Gangjeong Village
UNDERSTANDING that Gangjeong Village, also known as the Village of Water, on the island of Jeju, also known as Peace Island, is a coastal area home to thousands of species of plants and animals, lava rock freshwater tide pools (“Gureombi”), endangered soft coral reefs, freshwater springs, sacred natural sites, historic burial grounds, and nearly 2,000 indigenous villagers, including farmers, fishermen, and Haenyo women divers, that have lived sustainably with the surrounding marine and terrestrial environment for nearly 4000 years;
NOTING that Gangjeong Village is an Ecological Excellent Village (Ministry of Environment, ROK) of global, regional, national and local significance, sharing the island with a UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserve and Global Geological Park, and is in close proximity to three World Heritage Sites and numerous other protected areas;
NOTING that numerous endangered species live in and around Gangjeong Village, including the Boreal Digging Frog (Kaloula borealis) listed on IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species; the red-footed crab (Sesarma intermedium); the endemic Jeju fresh water shrimp (Caridina denticulate keunbaei); and the nearly extinct Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins;
NOTING the global uniqueness of the Jeju Soft Coral habitats, designated as Natural Monument 422 of Korea: the only location in the world known to have temperate octocoral species forming a flourishing ecosystem on a substrate of andesite, providing ecological balance to the Jeju marine environment and the development of the human culture of Gangjeong Village for thousands of years;
UNDERSCORING that of the 50 coral species found in the Soft Coral habitats near Gangjeong, 27 are indigenous species, and at least 16 are endangered species and protected according to national and international law, including Dendronephthya suensoni, D. putteri, Tubastraea coccinea, Myriopathes japonica, and M. lata;
THEREFORE CONCERNED of the Civilian-Military Complex Tour Beauty project, a 50-hectare naval installation, being constructed within and adjacent to Gangjeong Village, estimated to house more than 8,000 marines, up to 20 warships, several submarines, and cruise liners;
NOTING the referendum of Gangjeong Village on August 20, 2007, in which 725 villagers participated and 94% opposed the construction;
ACKNOWLEDGING that the construction of the military installation is directly and irreparably harming not only the biodiversity, but the culture, economy and general welfare of Gangjeong Village, one of the last living remnants of traditional Jeju culture;
NOTING the Absolute Preservation Act, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province (1991) and that Gangjeong Village was named an Absolute Preservation Area on October 27, 2004: a permanent designation to conserve the original characteristics of an environment from the surge in development, therefore prohibiting construction, the alteration of form and quality of land, and the reclamation of public water areas;
CONCERNED that this title was removed in 2010 to allow for the Naval installation, and that this step backwards in environmental protection violates the Principle of Non-Regression;
RECALLING the numerous IUCN Resolutions and Recommendations that note, recognize, promote and call for the appropriate implementation of conservation policies and practices that respect the human rights, roles, cultural diversity, and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples in accordance with international agreements;
CONCERNED of reports that the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for the naval construction was inaccurate and incomplete and may have violated well-known principles of international law concerning EIAs, transparency, public and indigenous participation, right to know, and free, prior and informed consent;
CONCERNED of the destruction of sacred natural sites in and near Gangjeong Village, noting that the protection of sacred natural sites is one of the oldest forms of culture based conservation (Res. 4.038 recognition and conservation of sacred natural sites in Protected Areas);
ACKNOWLEDGING that IUCN's Mission is “To influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable;” and that “equity cannot be achieved without the promotion, protection and guarantee of human rights.”;
NOTING Resolution 3.022 Endorsement of the Earth Charter (Bangkok, 2004) that endorsed the Earth Charter as “the ethical guide for IUCN policy and programme,” and that the military installation is contrary to every principle of the Earth Charter;
NOTING the U.N. World Charter for Nature (1982), and that the military installation is contrary to each of its five principles of conservation by which all human conduct affecting nature is to be guided and judged;
AND ALARMED by reports of political prisoners, deportations, and restrictions on freedom of assembly and speech, including the arrests of religious leaders, for speaking against the naval installation and for speaking in promotion of local, national, regional and world conservation and human rights protections;
NOTING Res. 2.37 Support for environmental defenders, “UNDERSTANDING that the participation of non-governmental organizations and individual advocates is essential to the fundamentals of civil society to assure the accountability of governments and multinational corporations; and AWARE that a nation's environment is only truly protected when concerned citizens are involved in the process;”
NOTING principles enshrined in the Draft International Covenant on Environment and Development such as those concerning military and hostile activities (Art. 36), culture and natural heritage (Art. 26), and the collective rights of indigenous peoples (Art. 15);
FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGING that militarization does not justify the destruction of a community, a culture, endangered species or fragile ecosystems;
AND UNDERSCORING that IUCN's aim is to promote a just world that values and conserves nature, and the organization sees itself as nature's representative and patrons of nature;
The IUCN World Conservation Congress at its 5th session in Jeju, Republic of Korea, 6-15 September 2012:
1. REAFFIRMS its commitment to the UN World Charter for Nature and the Earth Charter;
2. CALLS ON the Republic of Korea to:
(a) immediately stop the construction of the Civilian-Military Complex Tour Beauty;
(b) invite an independent body, to prepare a fully transparent scientific, cultural, and legal assessment of the biodiversity and cultural heritage of the area and make it available to the public; and
(c) fully restore the damaged areas.
Sponsor – Center for Humans and Nature
-Chicago Zoological Society (USA)
-International Council of Environmental Law (Germany)
-El Centro Ecuatoriano de Derecho Ambiental, CEDA (Ecuador)
-Sierra Club (USA)
-Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Argentina)
-Center for Sustainable Development CENESTA (Iran)
-Asociación Preserve Planet (Costa Rica)
-The Christensen Fund (USA)
-Terra Lingua (Canada)
-Ecological Society of the Philippines (Philippines)
-Citizen's Institute Environmental Studies (Korea)
-Departamento de Ambiente, Paz y Seguridad, Universidad para la Paz (Costa Rica)
-Coastal Area Resource Development and Management Association (Bangladesh)
-Fundação Vitória Amazônica (Brazil)
-Fundación para el Desarrollo de Alternativas Comunitarias de Conservación del Trópico, ALTROPICO Foundation (Ecuador)
-Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (Ecuador)
-EcoCiencia (Ecuador)
-Fundación Hábitat y Desarrollo de Argentina (Argentina)
-Instituto de Montaña (Peru)
-Asociación Peruana para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, APECO (Peru)
-Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica, COICA (Ecuador)
-Fundación Biodiversidad (Argentina)
-Fundacao Vitoria Amazonica (Brazil)
-Fundación Urundei (Brazil)
-Dipartimento Interateneo Territorio Politecnico e Università di Torino (Italy)
-Programa Restauración de Tortugas Marinas (Costa Rica)
-Corporación Grupo Randi Randi (Ecuador)
-Living Oceans Society (Canada)
-Instituto de Derecho y Economía Ambiental (Paraguay)
-Korean Society of Restoration Ecology (Korea)
-Ramsar Network Japan (Japan)
-The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (Isreal)
-Chimbo Foundation (Netherlands)
-Endangered Wildlife Trust (South Africa)
Add your voice.
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Giveaway: Three Pairs of Tickets To Tonight's Yann Tiersen Show at the Granada
Pete Freedman | April 22, 2010 | 12:03pm
In this week's print edition, Doug Davis gets to thinking about Yann Tiersen, the man behind the Amelie soundtrack and, in turn, maybe the whole baroque twee movement of the mid-'00s. Writes Davis:
A classically trained musician, Tiersen's a multi-instrumentalist who rarely tours and, when he does, he's as likely to be seen in a setting such as the Meyerson as he is at the Granada Theater, where this show will be housed. When not playing with orchestral backing, though, he's typically accompanied by a rhythm section, a backing vocalist and a guitarist. Tiersen, meanwhile, is a virtuoso who will switch between keyboards, violin, guitar and found-object instruments, weaving organic and somewhat abstract compositions. Continue reading...
Accordion players have all the luck, I guess.
Maybe you do, too? The Granada's been kind enough to pass along three pairs of tickets to its affair with Tiersen this evening. Scoring a pair is easy enough as well--just be among the first three to email me right now with the words "Yann not Yawn" in the subject line and you're in. Good luck!
Update: Contest is over. Congrats to our winners.
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At Delivering Good, we are so grateful for the generous donations from our product donors and brand partners. We know that our work would not be possible without their compassionate giving. Today, we’re highlighting Chicco-Artsana, a brand that has partnered with us for over 10 years.
Chicco-Artsana first partnered with Delivering Good after Hurricane Katrina to donate sleep products for children and families who had lost everything in the storm. Asked about their first donation, Chicco-Artsana said: “It was an easy decision that felt right to supply products that would have an immediate impact for those in crisis.”
Chicco-Artsana believes in Delivering Good’s mission and works to “give parents and children hope and dignity.” When asked about their mission and charitable work, Chicco-Artsana says, “Chicco believes in the safety and care of children. We believe in giving back to the community and helping those in need.”
Chicco-Artsana is dedicated to giving back and offering assistance to children and families impacted by disaster and poverty. They believe that companies and organizations have a responsibility to give back and support those in need: “We believe that if organizations/companies have the ability to give back, assist those in need, better their communities and the world, that they have a moral and social responsibility to do just that. If we all do what we can, everyone will benefit and the world will be a better place in which to live.”
A Special Luncheon Tribute to the Legacy of Edyth Bush
Edyth Bush was more than a philanthropist—she lived life to the fullest, inspiring...
The Outstanding Impact of Taryn Rose
Business, Cause Marketing, event, Uncategorized
A woman in great pumps is a confident woman and Taryn Rose makes that a reality for...
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Home > News Releases > Delta Community Appoints Matthew J. Sullivan to Board of Directors
Delta Community Appoints Matthew J. Sullivan to Board of Directors
Financial Services Professional Has More than 30 Years of Experience
And Expertise in Commercial Banking
ATLANTA (April 2, 2015) – Delta Community Credit Union (www.DeltaCommunityCU.com), Georgia’s largest credit union with $4.8 billion in assets and more than 314,000 members, announces the addition of Matthew (Matt) J. Sullivan to its Board of Directors. Sullivan has spent more than 30 years in the financial services industry and brings extensive experience in commercial banking to Delta Community.
“We’re delighted to welcome Matt to our Board,” said Chairman Jim Diffley. “His experience with commercial lending and banking will further strengthen Delta Community’s commitment to provide superior products and services to our growing member base.”
“As Delta Community celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2015, I feel privileged to join its Board of Directors,” said Sullivan. “The Credit Union is well-positioned to add much needed value in the local marketplace for commercial banking in the years ahead. I look forward to contributing to this strategy and the Credit Union’s service mission overall.”
Sullivan is a Co-Founder and Partner of Peachtree Equity Partners in Atlanta. He previously served as Managing Director at Wachovia Corporation and within the Investment Banking Department at Kidder Peabody & Co. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Accounting from the University of Pennsylvania.
In accordance with the Credit Union’s bylaws, the Board expanded its size from nine to ten directors to appoint Sullivan, and his seat carries a two-year term expiring in 2017. Nine of the ten directors qualify as independent, with Hank Halter, Delta Community’s CEO, serving as the sole director from management.
Delta Community Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative with a mission of providing consumers better service and value on the deposit, loan, investment and insurance products they use to manage their household expenses and save for the future. Delta Community was founded in 1940 by eight employees of Delta Air Lines and has become Georgia’s largest credit union with $4.8 billion in assets and 26 convenient branch locations. In addition to serving Delta Air Lines’ employees, the Credit Union now welcomes residents of 11 metro Atlanta counties and employees of more than 140 other businesses, including Chick-fil-A, RaceTrac and UPS. Please visit www.DeltaCommunityCU.com to learn more about opening an account at Delta Community or follow the Credit Union on Facebook at www.facebook.com/deltacommunity and Twitter at @deltacommunity.
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Greg Oden, former No. 1 overall NBA draft pick,…
Greg Oden, former No. 1 overall NBA draft pick, to attempt to play in Big3
Jonathan Ferrey, Getty Images
Greg Oden of the Portland Trail Blazers watches a free throw attempt by the Houston Rockets during the season opener on Oct. 27, 2009 at the Rose Garden in Portland, Ore.
NEW YORK — Former No. 1 NBA draft pick Greg Oden will attempt a comeback this summer in the Big3.
The 3-on-3 league says Monday that Oden will be part of this year’s draft pool and take part in the draft combine.
Oden was picked first in 2007 by Portland, which selected him over Kevin Durant. But the 7-footer battled injuries throughout his career and played in just 105 games, averaging 8.0 points. His last NBA season was in 2013-14 with Miami.
The league of former NBA players co-founded by entertainer Ice Cube completed its first season last year. The players who were not on the championship team or are captains or co-captains of teams in the eight-team league will be part of the draft pool.
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Switzerland and Zimbabwe
Living in Zimbabwe
Embassy of Switzerland in Zimbabwe
All consular services and visa issues are provided by the Regional Consular Centre Southern Africa in Pretoria.
Travel advice for Zimbabwe
Strategy - Zimbabwe
The Embassy Newsletter gives regular information about current political, cultural and economic developments in the country, focusing on topics relevant to Switzerland.
The newsletter is also aimed at Swiss citizens living in the country. Targeted articles inform about new features, in the area, for example, of consular services.
The Newsletter is available as a Download.
It can also be subscribed to as an E-Mail. Please fill in the Online-Form.
Swiss Development Cooperation in Southern Africa
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Why Should Only the Wealthy Get Solar Panels?
Originally Published in The Atlantic
By Gillian B. White
WASHINGTON, D.C.— For homeowners and renters, drawing energy from solar panels on their roofs can be very cost-effective: Some estimates put monthly electric-bill savings between 10 and 30 percent, and on top of that, households that install solar systems can get 30 percent of the cost as a tax credit. But for many, installing solar panels is simply not within reach: Setting up such systems can cost tens of thousands of dollars, which means that their use—and subsequent savings—are predominantly enjoyed by wealthy households.
That's why, as Washington, D.C., moves forward with its clean-energy plan—which would have at least half the city's power coming from renewable sources by 2032—it is doing so with an eye on inequality. The city has mandated that a portion of the money set aside for solar initiatives—just under one-third—target low-income neighborhoods.
In 2015, the top 10 percent of earners in Washington D.C. made six times more than did the lowest 10 percent. That meant that D.C. ranked higher than any state in income inequality, according to information parsed by the District’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer.
Solar Panels for Low-Income D.C. Residents - The Atlantic
D.C.’s inequality is not unlike that of most growing major cities, and the divide between its affluent and its poor runs, troublingly, along racial and geographic lines. Wealthier wards, like Ward 3, can have populations that are over 80 percent white, while poorer ones, like Wards 7 and 8, have populations that are over 90 percent black. That socioeconomic segregation takes on added meaning considering the history of D.C.: After years of living in a predominately minority city, longtime residents are quickly being pushed out by whiter and more affluent newcomers as housing prices rise. Maintaining affordability has proven a staggeringly difficult task.
While the city’s highest-profile efforts have focused on the availability of housing, it is now devoting some attention to helping poorer households save money on their energy bills. Utility bills for low earners can eat up as much as 10 percent of household income, according to a report from Groundswell, a nonprofit focused on energy issues. For the highest 20 percent of earners, utilities make up less than 2 percent of expenditures. But it’s not just a matter of percentages: Poorer families actually tend to have higher utilities bills, usually because their homes are less energy-efficient. On average, a monthly utility bill cost an American household around $115 in 2013, by Groundswell’s calculations, but poorer families were significantly more likely to have bills that topped $200 every month.
So, in a city where the gulf between the rich and poor is vast, those who could most use the energy savings have had little access to it. “In the wealthy wards you had hundreds and hundreds of solar installations,” said Ted Trabue, the managing director of the D.C. Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU), the independent organization enlisted by the District to handle some of its efforts to improve efficiency. “We looked at Wards 7 and 8 and you had less than a dozen systems at the time. We thought, ‘Here’s the most fertile area for our installations.’”
In July, D.C.’s city council approved a bill specifying that the city’s renewable portfolio standard would require 5 percent of the city’s energy to come from solar by 2032. The District’s plan to bring solar into lower-income neighborhoods is aggressive but not unachievable, Trabue said. Part of the concern, at the outset of the project, was that residents in low-income neighborhoods simply wouldn’t know about solar panels, let alone accept the offer to install them. “When you go to someone’s house and say you’re offering something for free, there’s natural skepticism,” Trabue said. “We thought if we got 20 people to accept these solar systems in the first year we’d declare success.” They wound up installing close to 90.
Despite budgetary restrictions—and Trabue says he isn’t interested in spending any of DCSEU’s allotment on marketing—word has spread about the program, through homeowners and contractors. “I was told that I would save between 30 and 40 percent, which is major,” said Edwin Amaker, a D.C. homeowner who has participated in the program, in DCSEU’s annual report. “The less money out of my pocket, the more money I have for the family.” The single-family solar-panel program is probably the most well-known of DCSEU’s initiatives in low-income communities.
But focusing on how to ensure that renters in multi-family units can access solar savings can have an even more significant impact, Trabue says. That’s because many of D.C.’s low-income residents don’t live in single-family homes, and most are renters. But wrangling the necessary space, permits, and access required to install solar panels on apartment buildings can be tricky.
To ensure that renters can also access the savings solar brings, the District is seeking out partnerships with the owners of apartment buildings, such as the current agreement with the National Housing Trust (NHT). NHT, a nonprofit, owns and operates about eight multi-family properties in the district, with hopes of adding about three or four more over the next year, according to Jared Lang, the organization’s sustainable-development manager. The properties all contain affordable-housing units, which made the organization anxious to find new ways to keep their costs low.
“Affordable housing is unique. If the expenses go up—if you make certain investments—you can't raise the rent,” Lang said. “You have to become more efficient.” Lang estimates that the savings from their most recent solar installation, on a 223-unit building called Channel Square, will amount to $20,000 each year. The plan, Lang said, is to take that money and channel it into resident services such as after-school programs for kids who live in the building.
While Tommy Wells, the head of the District’s Department of Energy, says the city is far from done working on solar installations on residential properties, it is piloting another program aimed at small-business owners in Wards 7 and 8. The city, he says, is putting around $500,000 into a program that will add solar capabilities to about 15 businesses located east of the Anacostia River, which divides most of Wards 7 and 8 from the rest of the city. The goal, he says, is “hopefully driving down their power bills but also showing us what's the barrier for small businesses to participate.”
D.C.’s program is about more than just energy-bill savings, though. The District hires local contractors for its projects and trains residents in how to install solar panels, with the intention that they can find work in a growing field. That means—the city hopes—creating a form of self-sustaining economic revitalization that can be used well beyond a single project.
But D.C.’s energy program isn’t without its challenges. Many developers who are focused on market-rate properties aren’t interested in installing panels, Lang said, because they do not consider them cost-effective. And even willing partners face limitations: Lang says that because the NHT’s properties tend to be small, their roof space is often tiny, which limits the options for solar installations. And D.C.’s dense tree cover, while great for shade and scenery, isn’t especially helpful when it comes to optimizing solar-panel exposure.
On top of that, lots of the housing stock owned or occupied by lower-income residents—particularly in Wards 7 and 8—is relatively old, built around 60 years or so ago, Trabue estimates. That means that their roofs are usually flat, fragile, and in need of repair—in other words, not suitable for the installation of heavy, expensive solar panels. And inside these older homes, the circuits often weren’t designed to be hooked up to a solar-energy system.
Now, the District is loosening up the limits on its funding in order to allow DCSEU to put money toward clearing trees, repairing roofs, and updating electrical boxes, which will provide opportunities for solar panels on buildings that DCSEU has thus far had to skip over.
But perhaps the biggest shift in the coming year or so will depend upon how the District’s community-solar plans are finally implemented. The program will set up a system meant to allow residents who don’t have the option of installing or utilizing solar panels on their homes to buy into solar panels that would be placed elsewhere, such as on government property or office buildings. Those who buy in would receive a credit toward their energy bills for the amount of solar power produced by their shares.
But programs utilizing the community-solar model are just getting off the ground, and some say that the provisions for energy-sharing favor those who can access their own solar panels over those who are buying in. An early complaint from D.C. Solar United Neighborhoods, an advocacy group, alleged that some iterations of the plan turned those using credits into “a second class of solar citizens.” And some don’t believe that the rules for community solar—which were finalized this summer—are firm enough. “The ink isn’t quite dry yet. Until it is and the funding parameters are clear, we’re still in the discussion phase,” Trabue said.
According to its own timeline, the city still has 16 years to figure out how to derive at least half of its energy from renewable sources. But perhaps an even bigger challenge will be ensuring that the distribution of pricey environmental technology doesn’t further divide an already economically stratified city.
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Home > Enabling Technologies
Protein Biochips - On the threshold of success
By Dr Steven Bodovitz and Felicia Gentile
With sales of protein biochips set to top $700 million in 2006, we present a current overview of this fast moving technology and the applications for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.
On the surface (pun intended), it appears that the protein biochip is the logical extension of the DNA biochip. Genes code for proteins, genomics gives way to proteomics. This extension, however, will be anything but linear. Nucleic acids have four building blocks, but proteins have 20; genes are one-dimensional codes, but proteins are multi-dimensional enzymes, receptors, and structural components; the genome is a manageable and well-defined collection of approximately 40,000 genes, but the proteome is a loosely-defined collection of hundreds of thousands of proteins (1). The first challenge for protein biochips is to manage this complexity by dividing and conquering the proteome.
The first division is between protein expression and protein interactions. The study of expression asks the simple questions of whether or a not protein is present and, if so, how much. For these studies capture agents, most commonly antibodies, are immobilised on the surface. The capture agents bind the specific proteins of interest in the sample, and the resulting signal is quantified.
The study of interactions asks the simple questions of which proteins interact with which other molecules of interest and, if so, how fast and how long. For these studies peptides or proteins are immobilised on the surface and then other proteins, protein domains, lipids, small molecules or other ligands are added, followed by quantification of the resulting signal.
On the expression side, coverage of the entire proteome is especially challenging because of the limited availability of capture agents. Neither suppliers nor potential customers have large sets of antibodies or other capture agents, which will force the density down into the range of hundreds or even as low as tens of capture agents per biochip. For this density to provide value, the protein biochips will have to be focused on areas of interest for researchers. The most obvious focus is on druggable target classes, such as kinases, receptors and secreted proteins. Another high-value focus is pathways, such as signal transduction, inflammation and apoptosis.
The limited availability of capture agents is a major hindrance to the industry. Several companies, such as Perkin-Elmer, Prolinx, Zeptosens and Zyomyx, have platforms that have been launched or are nearing launch, but the rate of commercialisation has been held back by the content problem. Other industry participants are attacking the content problem directly by attempting to boost production of capture agents.
One approach, led by companies such as Cambridge Antibody Technology and Dyax, is to bypass the slow and laborious method of producing monoclonal antibodies in animals and use combinatorial and phage display methods instead, but generating high-affinity binders can take multiple rounds of engineering. Another approach is to develop entirely new classes of capture agents, such as ribozymes from Archemix, molecular imprints from Aspira Biosystems, fibronectins from Phylos and aptamers from SomaLogic, but the ability to generate large numbers of high-affinity binders has not be definitively demonstrated.
If the content problem can be overcome, there are multiple drug discovery and development applications for expression biochips. In drug discovery, researchers commonly investigate the roles of protein classes and protein pathways in disease processes. Current methods, such as mass spectrometry and 2-D gel electrophoresis, are low-throughput and can be cumbersome, which creates enormous opportunities for a versatile, high-throughput system.
In drug development, researchers are very interested in finding molecular markers for toxicity and efficacy. In the ideal case, the researchers would be able to rule out toxic compounds and rule in efficacious compounds as early as possible, thereby greatly increasing the probability of success in expensive clinical trials. These molecular markers have yet to be determined, but demand is high to search for them, creating near-term opportunities. Long-term opportunities will depend on the success of developing the markers.
Expression biochips could be incorporated quickly into research and development programmes because DNA biochips have already opened the doors. Scientists have years of experience generating and analysing gene expression data, and the transition to protein expression data should be straightforward at least, or possibly even liberating. DNA biochip users often have difficulty analysing the tens of thousands of data points per experiment, especially in terms of finding the biological significance.
Expression protein biochips, by contrast, would have fewer data points to analyse, and the proteins are one step closer to cellular functions, greatly increasing the likelihood of finding the biological significance. The number of expression chips used will depend on specifications and cost. The single most important specification for potential customers is the ability of the capture agents to bind their ligands in a linear fashion under the same conditions across the entire biochip.
Meeting this specification requires a laborious trial-and-error approach to selecting monoclonal antibodies, although the ability to engineer capture agents may help with this process if they can be selected in parallel under the same conditions. Other important specifications include sensitivity and dynamic range, but the exact requirements depend on the measurements and the applications.
Even if all of the desired specifications are provided, however, researchers will not use the biochips in large numbers if the costs are too high. The researchers will be driven to other less expensive methods, such as ELISA assays or bead-based detection systems. In fact, the lower the density of the expression biochip, the more attractive the other methods will be.
On the interaction side of the protein biochip market, the content problem is different. If the interaction biochips use peptides, then the content can be synthesised. Jerini, for example, can synthesise up to 10,000 peptides on a glass slide. If the interaction biochips use proteins, then the generation of the content can leverage genomics technologies and automation for high-throughput expression and purification.
Protagen, for example, routinely expresses and purifies more than 10,000 unique human proteins, and Protometrix has expressed and purified more than 90% of the yeast proteome (2). Even with these large numbers, however, the best practices can only cover a small fraction of the human proteome. Focus will be critical, and druggable target classes and pathways will again provide the value.
If the development of content for interaction biochips continues on its current rate of progress, the biochips should be in use for a wide range of drug discovery and development applications within one to two years. In drug discovery, identifying the role of proteins in pathways is critical, providing identification and validation of promising targets. Current methods for studying protein interactions, such as yeast two-hybrid and immunoprecipitation, are low-throughput, slowing down the research. Protein biochips would provide a much faster platform for generating valuable interaction and pathway data.
If, for example, a protein occupies a ratelimiting step in a pathway that is specific for a disease, it will likely be a valuable drug target. If, by contrast, the protein only plays a minor part in a ubiquitous pathway, it would likely be a poor target, and possibly even a dangerous one. In drug development, the interaction biochips could play a significant role in lead compound optimisation. Lead compounds could be evaluated by an interaction chip for specificity and selectivity in binding to drug targets, thereby decreasing the likelihood of unforeseen and potentially toxic side effects.
The rate of incorporation of expression biochips into research and development programmes is difficult to project at this time. Unlike the smooth transition from gene expression data to protein expression data, the transition to interaction data will be quite abrupt. Scientists have little experience with high-throughput studies of interactions and pathways. Analysing the data, designing follow- up experiments, and uncovering the biological significance is likely to be a trial and error process, especially in the beginning.
This potential for slowing down the rate of incorporation, however, is likely to be balanced by the ability of the expression biochips to provide data that could not otherwise be obtained. BioInsights projects that this balance between novelty and enabling will make scientists cautious at first, but as soon as the technology is proven, the adoption will grow rapidly.
The use of interaction biochips will also be determined by the specifications and the price. One of the most important specifications will be density, because the interactions occur in vitro, and the more controls and cross-correlations the better the quality of the data. In addition, the higher the density, the greater the differential between competing methods that are low throughput and the lower the price sensitivity. Another important specification is the ability to retain the active conformations of the immobilised proteins to increase the physiological relevance of the interactions. The more closely the interactions mimic those occurring in vivo, the more valuable the data.
Despite the challenges in covering the proteome, BioInsights is extremely optimistic about the opportunities for the protein biochip market. With at least 25 companies either selling protein biochips today or preparing to enter the market within the next two years, sales in this industry are poised for enormous growth. According to our most recent market report, the sales of protein biochips will top $700 million in 2006, almost a 10-fold increase from sales of $76 million in 2001 (Figure 1) (3).
DDW
Dr Steven Bodovitz completed his PhD in neuroscience from Northwestern University in 1996. Following graduate school he became a business consultant to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies before co-founding BioInsights in 1999. At BioInsights he has been the lead author on multiple market reports, including ‘Biochips: From Hype to Reality’, ‘Protein Chips: On the Threshold of Success’ and ‘Profiting From Biological Complexity: The Emergence of Systems Biology’. In addition he has worked with numerous biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies to assess their market opportunities and optimise their
Felicia Gentile has a masters degree in epidemiology from the University of California at Los Angeles and a BSc in microbiology from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. She is currently President and co-founder of BioInsights working closely with Fortune 500 companies, as well as startup ventures, to address the strategic business and marketing challenges facing developers of new technologies for use in drug discovery, biotechnology research and clinical markets. In recognition of her expertise in evaluating new technologies, Felicia serves as a member of the Source Evaluation Board for the Advanced Technology Programme of the US Department of Commerce.
1 Venter et al.The Sequence of the Human Genome, Science, 291,1304-1351Venter (2001). Harrison et al.A question of size: the eukaryotic proteome and the problems in defining it, Nucleic Acids Research, 30,1083-1090 (2002).
2 Zhu et al. Global analysis of protein activities using proteome biochips, Science, 293, 2101-2105 (2001).
3 BioInsights,“Protein Biochips: On the Threshold of Success” March 2002.
4 Zhu et al.Analysis of yeast protein kinases using protein biochips, Nature Genetics, 26(3), 283-289 (2000).
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Home » News & Blogs » A Digital Direction: The first 100 days
The digital landscape is an ever-changing environment.
There are sectors ranging from the mundane (the broadband connection to your home) to the mind-boggling (quantum computers use subatomic particles in superposition to, in theory, perform data analysis so far beyond the capabilities of classical computers that cryptographically-secured systems become as vulnerable as unlocked doors).
Back on the terra firma of the Isle of Man, where doors are frequently left unlocked simply because we can, the newly formed Digital Isle of Man Agency (Digital IOM), a partnership that brings together experts from a range of industry areas and government that works in the same way as any normal board does, is tasked with the oversight, strategy and future of the digital economy, which recently became the island’s highest revenue-generating sector.
Digital IOM works in the same way as any other private company boards and is responsible for providing the strategy, vision and governance to the department.
Coming from New York, one of the first questions I asked when I got here was, ‘How do I get an Uber?’ It didn’t take me long to realise that this isn’t the concrete jungle I’d just moved my family from, and it was all the better for it. An island with a population of 85,000 where an average commute time is 20 minutes? Now that definitely is a world away from how I’ve been living the past 20 years.
However, that isn’t to say that the Isle of Man isn’t ‘digital’. Historically and at present, the island punches above its weight. We were the first place in Europe to introduce 3G back in 2002 after running trials here, for instance. In addition to the head offices for digital businesses of significant size, we have six world class data centres, far more than expected given our population size. And the new telecommunications strategy aims to place the Isle of Man in a lead position when it comes to local telecoms provision.
In order to focus our efforts on the sectors within the digital space with the greatest opportunities for the Isle of Man, the Digital IOM has identified four quadrants: infrastructure, e-gaming, digital media and innovative tech. Below is a glimpse into some of the work undergone in these areas since the first meeting of the Digital Agency Board in July 2018.
Last week the Department for Enterprise announced the proposed national telecoms strategy. This strategy, if approved when it goes to Tynwald later this month, will put the Isle of Man at the forefront of telecoms innovation.
The delivery of high speed, high quality broadband will allow businesses and residents on the Island to gain access to ultrafast broadband with speeds of up to 1Gbps within a five year proposed time frame. This is well ahead of the UK’s 15-year timeframe to achieve the same goal.
Forward-thinking infrastructure developments such as this fibre network will deliver fast, reliable telecommunication services which can help businesses looking to roll out 5G in the future. Getting this right is essential foundational work that will benefit island residents and support the growth of existing sectors and the development of new ones.
E-gaming is a growing and reliably sustainable sector for the island, with e-gaming and IT combined now making up 30% of the island’s economy. Jobs within this industry have also grown by 16.5% year on year and are continuing to increase in demand.
To ensure the continued success of the e-gaming sector, Digital IOM has begun work on a new, ambitious strategy that leverages the island’s strengths and uniqueness whilst supporting existing businesses.
The island’s E-gaming sector is renowned for being at the cutting edge of innovation and regulation, with many first mover actions, including being the first legislation for virtual items such as skins (a cosmetic finishing to in-game items), to be used as a stake and a prize in online gaming, as well as being the first to introduce legislation specifically designed to benefit E-gaming firms and fully protecting customers.
With the support of the E-gaming team’s extensive knowledge and varied experience in the industry, and the strong ambitious direction of a revised E-gaming strategy, I’m confident we will be able to continue to grow this sector going forward.
Digital IOM’s ambition in the digital media sector is to create and nurture a sustainable environment for media businesses. The media sector is a big earner for the UK economy, following the increase in the industry’s home viewing market. Research undertaken in the UK has shown that the economic value of the UK’s film, TV and music industries has grown by 72.4% since 2014, compared to just 0.5% in the European Union.
The recent BFI-commissioned report found that in the UK, £632m in tax relief since 2013 has prompted additional spending of more than £3bn on the creation of films, high-end television, such as The Crown, and computer games. HM Revenue and Customs got more than that money back, gaining £2bn tax.
The media landscape has also grown quickly in recent decades on the Isle of Man, where we have a strong history as being a production partner. There is no reason why the island’s agility and receptiveness to new technology won’t play in our own benefit when developing this sector further.
Many content providers such as Netflix and streaming media platforms are driving the demand for more and more content production, creating the opportunity for the island to reach out to companies who specialise in areas such as post-production, who can help generate jobs and economic benefits which will grow the island’s economy and reputation in the media space.
The Department for Enterprise works closely with the national development agency, Isle of Media, who are responsible for driving inward investment in Digital Media to the Isle of Man through numerous marketing initiatives.
Blockchain Working Group
Blockchain is considered by many to be one of the most significant technological advances in recent years. Some consider blockchain to be the new internet. Where the internet enabled the exchange of information more quickly and with lower overhead, blockchain enables the exchange of value with similar benefits.
Support for blockchain businesses forms part of the Digital Agency’s innovative tech pillar.
Earlier this year Digital IOM established a blockchain working group made up of industry representatives with the purpose of defining the island’s blockchain proposition.
This group is working closely with the Financial Services Authority to develop on a number of recommendations that will support existing blockchain-related businesses and welcome new ones to our shores. The result of this collaboration will be a clear and strong direction for the Isle of Man on this technology, something that we have not previously had.
Tech Trials Working Group
Highlighting the Isle of Man as a destination for technology trials has worked well for the island in the past, as reflected in our early introduction of 3G. Utilising and showcasing the island in this light is key to raising awareness and attracting new business to the Island. I recently attended the 5G demonstration at the Manx Telecom office and was impressed by the amount of technological development that will be taking place globally between now and 2020 and subsequently 2022, when the final iteration of 5G is expected to be available at a consumer level.
The tech trials working group, also made up of industry representatives, has been formed with the aim of exploring the opportunities available to the island in this area. The group will look at our infrastructure and frameworks, as well as potential new technologies, to build a supportive environment for businesses to test new technologies.
eSports Working Group
E-sports is growing explosively around the world. League of Legends, an online video game has an estimated 100 million monthly users worldwide. That’s just a single title, the most popular out of many in eSports. By comparison an estimated 24 million play basketball in the United States and 265 million play football (soccer) globally.
Our aim for the e-sports working group is to first establish what value e-sports can add value as a sector to the island, and then to define and provide recommendations for what we need to do to develop this sector.
E-sports is said to be the spectator sport of the future, with recent statistics showing an annual audience of 400 million people logging 6 billion total viewing hours last year. If the outcome of the E-sports working group highlights that there is value for us, we will then be able to explore the opportunities that are available on the Island.
Although the Isle of Man may not be likely to host a conference on the scale of 173,000 fans as has been seen in elsewhere in the world, there are certainly other opportunities for us to explore that can enable us to benefit from this fast-growing industry. The Isle of Man already has licences issued for Rivalry, Luckbox and Unikrn, all operating within the E-sports sector. These companies may be the start of a new cluster on the Isle.
Looking ahead, the island has a strong heritage and potentially bright future in the digital space. These working groups have been formed to provide a laser focus on determining the best approaches for the Island.
The four pillars will ultimately form the structure for an overarching strategy for Digital IOM, which will work in concert with the Programme for Government and the Department for Enterprise’s strategic goals.
A set of ambitious but realistic KPIs will form part of this strategy, which will be communicated to the wider community once firmed up.
In addition to this, we will be reviewing and developing our digitalisleofman.com website in line with our strategic direction, creating clear calls to action, strong messaging and a user-friendly website designed to be a resource for business looking to start, grow or relocate to the Isle of Man.
With the experience and expertise of the new public/private partnership that the Digital IOM board has in place, we expect great things.
To date, Digital IOM has focused on action at the expense of outward communication, but the communication channels and frequency of messaging will also improve as we continue to make progress towards our ultimate goal of securing the island’s future as a leader in the fast-moving, ever-shifting digital landscape.
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Dave Palmer
In The Tank For Education Episode #1: Librarians, Ninjas and Comic-Con
Welcome to the In The Tank For Education podcast! This is a new series where we'll be talking with some of the most inspiring and insightful people in education. We'll be asking about the ever-changing world of developing people into learners and critical thinkers, as well as asking our guests to help us decode and break down the alphabet farm of acronyms and edu-speak that can come with the territory.
Our first episode features a conversation with Anthony Devine, a teacher-librarian at El Cajon Valley High School in El Cajon, CA. Anthony is also a Google Ninja (a real think), an advocate of digital portfolios (we'll find out what those are), and a good friend.
We hope you'll join us in this venture to dig into some wonderfully smart and passionate people who are engaged in what may be the most important profession we have.
Take a few seconds to subscribe to the podcast, and we'll have regular updates for you.
Creativity, Leadership, Strategy, Blog
In The Tank #9: Danny Nicoletto. Road Manager. Pasta Guru.
while Danny still clocks his time on the road with bands like Jimmy Eat World and Band Of Horses, his other passion is a craft pasta company that he and his brother started over a year ago.
Tagged: Band Of Horses, Jimmy Eat World, Nicoletto's Pasta, pasta
Leadership, Music, Blog
In The Tank #8: Slim Moon
The label he founded, Kill Rock Stars, has worked with ground-breaking artists such as The Decemberists, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Unwound, and the late Elliot Smith.
Tagged: Christian Piatt, Elliot Smith, Homebrewed Christianity, Kill Rock Stars, Sleater-Kinney, Slim Moon, The Decemberists, Unwound
In The Tank #7: Jeff Brown; Read To Lead Podcast
Jeff Brown’sRead To Lead podcast has become one of the top sources for people interested in leadership, personal and professional development, and a way to get a peek inside the minds of some of today’s top business and innovation thinkers. With guests including Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan and Liz Wiseman, Read To Lead presents world-class guests as they share insight from their work and exploration.
I’ve known Jeff to varying degrees for at least a decade and a half, including his work as a nationally syndicated morning show DJ and music radio programmer. So I was fascinated to learn more about his journey and transition from traditional broadcast media into the brave new world of podcasting. As with so many people who have found success in varying lines of work, there are great lessons to be learned about listening, about taking chances, and of course about the value of consistently executing and staying present.
I hope you’ll enjoy this Q&A, and by all means check out Jeff’s podcast.
Q: You come from a broadcast radio background, where you have to hit posts, watch the clock and generally keep to a tightly run format. Was starting a podcast, with few rules other than what you decide to make them, a difficult transition? What from your broadcast background helped you the most? Were there things you had to forget about or unlearn?
A: I found there were a number of things from my time in radio that were transferable to podcasting. Chief among them was understanding what it means to truly connect with an audience.
You're right in that, technically, there are no "rules" when it comes to podcasting. I liken it though to writing a song. If you desire to make music people actually want to listen to, you'll do well to follow the rules (i.e. key signatures, scales, time signatures, etc.).
Q: You’ve spoken with some amazing leaders, thinkers and influencers. Are there any common themes that you’ve seen come up with the majority? Have you ever had guests whose ideas really conflict with each other’s? Could you share about any of those?
A: One theme I've seen come up multiple times is the idea that most of us believe we're underserving of success or not good enough to expect it in our lives. To that end, writing down goals and then tracking them and measuring your progress is a trait of 85% of wealthy people, according to a recent survey. Virtually every successful person I've interviewed does this.
Regarding the second part of your question: Recently, in back-to-back weeks, I welcomed the author of a book suggesting that traditional jobs are quickly becoming a thing of the past, followed by a guest who has written a book on the importance of hiring the right people.
I'm of the mindset that future generations need to ask "How can I create a job doing that?" instead of "How can I get a job doing that?"
Q: As a relatively new podcast, how were you able to get the guests you did early on? How difficult is it to reach the people you want to have on the show?
A: You'd be surprised what people will say when you give them the chance to talk about themselves.
At the outset, and still today, I leverage relationships built over time. Three of my first four invited guests were individuals I had forged offline & online relationships with. Then, when you come to your interviews well researched and prepared, your guests are much more likely to show a willingness to introduce you to their network.
Q: What lessons have you learned about developing a successful podcast? Are there key things that aspiring podcasters should know as they start? How do those lessons translate to other areas of life or work?
A: One lesson that is often under appreciated or overlooked, is the power of consistency; particularly, excellence with consistency over time. Most podcasts never make it past the first 7 to 10 episodes. Many other podcasts sound as if little if any thought went into them before the decision was made to hit the record button. If you're willing to put a little effort into it, it's probably safe to say you're putting yourself in the top 10%.
I'm also careful to tell people not to let perfection turn them into a procrastinator. Perfection is a moving target you will never hit. However, I believe anything worth doing is worth doing well. And, while excellence won't always guarantee your success, it will always precede it.
Q: How do you put together a show that people care about enough to come back time and again?
A: I believe it's important to articulate why you do what you do at the outset of every show. As Simon Sinek is famous for saying, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."
When articulated emphatically and from a place of relevance to your listener, you, in essence, draw a line in the sand daring your listener to cross it and go on this journey with you.
This communicates to your listener, without apology, who you are and what you stand for. This is the best way I know to keep people coming back again and again.
Q: Do you have a favorite episode thus far? Why is it your favorite?
A: This is like asking if I have a favorite child. :-) Seriously, I'd probably have to say episode #066 with Seth Godin. He's one of my absolute favorite authors and getting him on the show was 16 months in the making.
His book Purple Cow had a huge influence on me and was the first of several books that renewed my love of reading at a time in my life when I hated to read.
Having him on a show where I get to practice my love of reading, something he personally impacted, was a real treat.
Read To Lead Podcast - go get it!
Tagged: Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jeff Brown, Liz Wiseman, Michael Hyatt, Read To Lead, Seth Godin, Simon Sinek
In The Tank #6: Brian Bird, Screenwriter
Brian Bird is a veteran screenwriter and producer for TV and film, having a 30-year career that spans from hit TV shows like Step By Step and Touched by an Angel, to the feature film Captive, a hostage drama, which opens today, September 18th. We've long been interested in the art and craft of story telling, and how story helps to give context to the human experience. So when we had a chance to connect with someone whose entire career has been about crafting and shaping stories, we jumped at the chance. A little bit about Captive:
Captive stars award-winning actor David Oyelowo (Selma; Interstellar) and Kata Mara (House Of Cards; Fantastic Four), and tells the true story of Brian Nichols (Oyelowo), an Atlanta man who, in 2005, escaped from a prison, killing a judge, a guard and two others. He then held Ashley Smith (Mara), a recovering meth addict and widowed single mother, captive for over seven hours as Atlanta police conducted a massive manhunt for Nichols.
During the course of the captivity Smith shared parts of her life struggle with Nichols. In a twist that sounds like Hollywood but is true, Nichols asked Smith to read to him from the spiritual best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life. Smith credits passages of the book with providing common ground for the two to discuss their struggles and perhaps their opportunities to find a different path.
Nichols finally allowed Smith to go, and was arrested soon after. He is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole. Smith (now Smith-Robinson) has remained clean and sober and works as an imaging technician in a hospital, remarried and is raising her two children.
We're thrilled to be able to share some of Brian Bird's insights into the power of story, collaboration, and just that the title of Producer can mean.
Full disclosure: Dunk Tank Marketing is thrilled to be part of a team that is marketing Captive, and we hope that you'll go see the movie with 10 or 20 of your closest friends.
Captive: In theaters September 18th, 2015
Q: In the movie Captive, you’ve adapted the true story of Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols for the screen. How do you go about communicating the truth of the story within the context of a structured screenplay? Life generally doesn’t play out with the same arcs of a screenplay, but the format is effective for telling stories. Can you offer some insight into that process?
A: You’re right, life usually does not fall conveniently into a three-act structure necessary for the flow of a movie. And here’s a little secret when you’re making a narrative film: you can’t let the truth get in the way of good story-telling. If you’re making a documentary, it’s different… you just commit to stay with what happened in real life and let the entertainment chips fall where they may. In a narrative film, it’s much trickier because sometimes truth is actually stranger than fiction. The chronology of events and even the actual character quests are sometimes inconvenient to the rhythm and pacing that an audience is accustomed to when they are going to the movies.
In the case of Captive, however, the actual events laid out pretty amazingly in line with a three-act structure. The first act introduced both our protagonist and antagonist, leading up the moment that their lives intersected with Brian Nichols taking Ashley Smith hostage as the first act break. The second act then followed everything that happened to them in that apartment during the next seven hours, along with the escalating manhunt for Nichols, with the second act break coming at the moment Nichols let Ashley go.
The third act was comprised of SWAT teams surrounding the apartment complex when Ashley told them where Nichols was and the big question: will he surrender and do the right thing, or will he come out firing and trying to go out in a blaze of glory. Honestly of all the true stories I have adapted into screenplays, none have laid out as perfectly as Captive did. I did have to do some rearranging of key events, and used a little dramatic license, but I would say the true story accounts for 90 percent of what you see on the screen.
Q: What is a writer’s room like? Can you describe the process of collaboration on something like a screenplay or a TV show, where changes can be made almost in real time? How does that contrast with the image of the solitary genius writer?
A: The only solitude you have as a member of the writing staff of a TV show is when it’s your turn in the batting order to write an episode and you are off putting the first draft together. When you’re finished with that and you deliver it to rest of the staff, the dynamic changes. The best way to describe a staff of writers working on a rewrite together is controlled chaos. You’re always on deadline and the pressure is high to get the work done.
There is such a free flow of ideas and solutions to problems and a spirit of disruption to find the perfect line of dialogue or idea that sometimes it resembles what could be called (and I hope this is not insensitive) an Arab camel market. It’s the nature of the process. When you’re in the middle of it, it can be deeply competitive as individual members of the team are trying to get their ideas, jokes or pitches into the script.
It can be exhilarating when one of your ideas wins, and a big bummer when you pitch something that just dies in the howling wilderness. But iron always sharpens iron, and when you have a good team of people who have chemistry together, you can get to a magical place. That’s why when TV shows are good, they are really good. It’s like professional sports. A bunch of really talented people pulling for the same goal.
Q: What does being a producer mean for TV or film? Are you raising/keeping track of money? Are you wrangling cast and crew? Reviewing scripts? Do you get the 3 AM call when something goes wrong? All of the above? We see that title a lot, and it seems like it can mean any number of things. Can you shed some light on that?
A: Being a writing producer can be many things. On a TV show, the co-producer, producer, supervising producer, co-executive producer and executive producer titles are sort of like ranks in the army. Each year you’re on a show as a writer, you get a promotion to the next rank up the food chain. You are still a writer on the staff of the show, but often times your duties increase. You may involved in casting sessions, approving wardrobe and sets, and helping supervise the post-production process. But primarily you are still just one of the writers who has earned another set of stripes.
In the filmmaking process, producers wear a lot of hats. Sometimes you get a producer or executive producer title because you are responsible for bringing some asset to the project, such as money or a relationship. But true producers are involved in every aspect of production including script development, raising financing or distribution, casting, pre-production, actual production, post-production and even the marketing of a film.
Producers are bosses, counselors, policemen, firemen, travel agents and sometimes ministers on a production. And yes, 3 a.m. calls are the rule rather than the exception. In TV, the writing producers are responsible for everything, and everyone on the set reports to them. In films, producers and directors are the two most important roles on the set, and the creative buck usually stops with the director, but he ultimately reports to the producer. Of course, without the writer first, you don’t have a good set of blueprints for the skyscraper you are building and the whole thing can become a house of cards. That’s why many writers also stick around as producers on films, to guard the integrity of the blueprints.
Q: You teach a lot of writing and story development. What are the most common mistakes or oversight that you see as people are trying to tell stories? Do those things relate to how we communicate in other areas of life or work?
A: One of the biggest challenges I see among young filmmakers today is that the digital revolution and You Tube have created the sense that anybody and everybody is a filmmaker. And that’s just not the case. The same goes for screenwriting. It actually is a rocket science in it’s own way. People may be born with wonderful raw gifts and talents, but until they put in the right amount of training and experience, they will never become experts at what they’re gifted at. A lot of what I see coming from You Tube, however, skews in the direction of delusional amateurism which is missing craft and training.
In the book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell proposed the “10,000-Hour Rule.” You might be born a genius, but until you put in 10,000 hours working your gifts, you cannot call yourself an expert. How does this apply to screenwriting? All I know is it’s taken me 30 years to learn what I know, and I’m still trying to get better at my craft. I’m still striving for excellence. If we understand that we are made in the image of the author of the universe, the “good enough principle” should never be part of our vocabulary. We should strive to be the Michelangelo of our particular craft. I don’t see that very often coming from the digital revolution.
The one big fix I tell young writers is they need to “copy the masters” of their craft. All art is handed down in the same way from generation to generation, from master to student. The master is painting at the front of the classroom and the student is doing what? He is also painting, copying the master, but bringing himself to the canvas in order to eclipse the talent of the master. That’s what Michelangelo did at the Medici School. So in story-telling, we need to mimic the best story-tellers in history and then bring ourselves to the page in order to become a master. I find many young writers completely ignoring this concept.
Q: You mention a place called “Development Hell”, where things you’ve been paid to write have gone to likely never be produced. How do you bounce back from what must be a disappointing process? I ask this because we all face defeats in what we do, and bouncing back can be difficult. I’m curious as to how you do that, and what you think can help.
A: I’ve found over the years that you have to be like one of those punch-drunk fighters from an old boxing movie – too stupid to stay down after you’ve been knocked to the mat. I guess that’s what it means to have a short memory. It’s a very competitive business, and it’s a very subjective business. There is no accounting for taste in any predictive or mathematical way.
Opinions are like hind-ends. Everybody has one. So it can be tricky navigating the taste buds as you go from meeting to meeting or opportunity to opportunity. It can be full of disappointment, and highs and lows. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. But if you are called to the work – and it really has to be a calling because it’s too hard to do as a hobbyist or if your goal is fame and money – then you are doing the world and yourself no favors by chickening out.
If you are called to do it, there’s no such thing as playing “small-ball.” You keep showing up, doing your best work, and being committed to making lasting friendships and relationships that are not based on your failure or success. Persistence always beats resistance. You also have to realize they don’t call it “Show Friendship.” It’s called “Show Business” for a reason, and if you can develop a thick skin for criticism you can survive it, and perhaps even thrive in it.
Q: What are 2 of your favorite movies / 2 favorite tv shows - in terms of writing? Why?
A: I’m a big fan of the American Film Institute’s Top 100 films of all time list, but if I have to be narrowed down to two, the first would absolutely be the 1989 Oscar winner for best foreign film, Cinema Paradiso. It’s one of the most moving and cinematically rich films I’ve ever seen, and it’s a beautiful metaphor about the ubiquitous importance of story (and the movies) in our human experience. Story ties us together as family and community and it’s also the touchstone for most of the big events of our lives. The Mission is another of my favorites, and it tells about the horror and beauty of the spread of Christianity in South America during 1700s. It has one of the most moving faith redemption stories I’ve ever seen in a film, and the best ever depiction of the power of the sacrifice of the cross in any movie ever made.
On the TV side, I’m going to have to go with Breaking Bad and the first season of True Detective. Both very gritty and not family friendly at all, but rich in themes of existential angst and the search for redemption in this post-modern age when we’re being told that there is no meaning in the universe other than our own pursuit of pleasure.
Leadership, Blog
In The Tank #5: with Mike Dungan
Mike Dungan; Chairman/CEO Universal Music Group Nashville
Mike Dungan leads the most successful country music record label in the world at Universal Music Group-Nashville. He came there a couple years ago after having led Capitol Records-Nashville to its position as an industry leader. Prior to that, Mike was the head of Sales at Arista-Nashville, which is where I met him when I worked for a label acquired by Artista. At that time, Arista was the leading country label in the world and so success seems to have followed Mike wherever he’s been.
He started his career as a regional radio promoter handling rock radio stations, and eventually moved from his hometown of Cincinnati to Nashville. He’s universally liked and respected as a leader, an insightful businessman, and a champion of a diverse array of artists.
And while it’s no surprise to me that Mike places such an emphasis on the empowerment, happiness and fulfillment of those he leads, his commitment to his team holds great insight for any leader. Whether it’s a member of his staff or an artist he’s working with to build a successful and sustainable career, Mike’s focus on creating environments that inspire people to excel is instructional for anyone working with or leading teams.
Q: You got your start in rock radio promotion and now lead the biggest country music label in the world. How did that experience shape your career and inform what you do now?
A: Radio promotion is just a somewhat less tangible version of sales. In business, and in radio promotion, anyone with a brain realizes quickly that you must practice win-win. I learned to understand radio’s issues, and the issues of the people making music decisions at those radio stations. I was always on the lookout for what each station needed to succeed, and then it’s easier to show them that by programming your records that can fill those needs. Invaluable experience, it has helped me be a better partner with radio, and set a culture and a tone within my team to be on the right side of that relationship.
Q: You’ve moved from Arista-Nashville to take over at Capitol, and then to Universal. What are 1 or 2 of the most important things you’ve learned as a leader in terms of taking over the leadership of a new team of people?
A: Empowerment is everything. In all of my moves, I have made it clear on day one that I respect everyone as a professional, and as such they are in charge of their domain. They understand the mission, and with very little tethering, they are free to go forth and just get the job done. I usually only step up when I see someone off point, or about to step off a cliff. Everyone is free to screw up. Screwing up is part of being aggressive (although if you screw up too much, we have a problem). You are free to do the job your own way… and you are also accountable. But if you are lazy, or if you point fingers, or if you practice “cover your ass”, you will lose your place on this team.
Q: Your label dominates country music. How have you gone about putting together a team that can excel so consistently?
A: My people come first. There is transparency at all levels. Accountability at all levels. I will never ask you to do anything that I would not do myself. I will never give you a project, or an artist, or music that I do not firmly believe is competitive. Together we are unstoppable. Do you want to really accomplish something? This is the place to do it. The personal happiness of my staff is of extreme importance to me. Not only do I love every single one of them, but happy people do great work, and the feeling of accomplishment is the biggest contributor to happiness. We have flamethrowers at every level of this company – people who kill to give these artists careers, and put return on investment to our shareholders.
Q: What are the things you’ve found to be most important in building and getting the most out of your team?
A: See above
Q: You’ve championed some artists that weren’t part of any trends at the time they were signed, like Darius Rucker and Kacey Musgraves. What makes you most confident about the risk involved in someone doing something outside of the prevailing trends?
If you want to move the needle, you’ve got to stand apart. I never give any thought to the “fans” that wants to hear the same old -same old. Complacent, middle of the road music from artists that are simply the 2nd or 3rd copy of someone else goes nowhere, except to clog up the middle. Those artists will never sell enough music, or enough tickets, or enough anything to keep our interest. It’s just strategically dumb. If someone else is happy to have a business that is “just ok”, then by all means, have at it – there is plenty of that shit out there.. We aim at the audience that wants to participate. The audience and the consumer that I am talking about are crying for music that makes them want to lean in. I have a saying inside this building – The Difference Makes the Difference.
Q: Your artists include legends like George Strait and Alan Jackson, and newer, less traditional artists like Luke Bryan and Sam Hunt. How do those legendary artists respond to newer, less traditional artists? I ask this in the context of organizations that we work with who have some long time employees who really built something, and who don’t always see eye to eye with the way younger co-workers work or view the world. It’s never an either-or, but do you ever find yourself bridging a musical or aesthetic gap?
Everyone has their own personal taste, and when that lines up with the music you represent, there’s no question that you get “more”. But everyone here is also a professional. As a collective group, I would say that we are aggressively realistic. Success is at the forefront of everyone’s mind here, and I think we are all smart enough to realize that changing times require changing methods...and changing music. Right now, the newer artists are the ones that we know we can knock out of the park. But we also represent a few incredible legacy artists who continue to make great music. That music may no longer be flavor of the month at radio, but we are dedicated to bringing everything we can to the table to help keep those artists viable and relevant. We are honored to work with every artist on our roster.
Home, Blog
Changing the Face of School Food
Take a look at some of the work we’ve been doing with WaveCrest Cafe to change the face of school food: WaveCrest Cafe
Leadership, Strategy, Blog
In The Tank #4: Mark Montgomery
Mark Montgomery is someone I always pay attention to. Mostly it’s because he’s ridiculously smart, laser-focused in his observations and commentary, and has a track record of doing cool, successful things his own way. It’s also because I’m never sure quite what’s going to come out of his mouth, and I like the feeling of being at the top of a roller coaster that’s about to drop, which is how I often feel when I prep for Marko to answer a question.
Mark is the founder of FLO|CO, a group of companies doing cool, innovative things. After launching, growing, and then selling echomusic, one of the first companies to sell music online, he founded FLO. In the past few years they’ve launched the beverage industry’s fastest-growing new spirit (Blue Chair Bay Rum) as part of their work with country superstar Kenny Chesney. They’ve worked with companies such as Google and Under Armor, and launched the Made In Network, a Multi Channel Network focused solely on music. Mark also works with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, coaching new and aspiring startups, as well as pushing to develop tech talent in one of America’s fastest growing and coolest cities.
You’re as likely to find him at a music club (playing in or watching bands) as in a meeting with the mayor, the governor, or other industry and community leaders. Generous with his time and intellect, we’re thrilled to have him as part of this series of Q&As.
Q: You like to talk about disruption – why is it so exciting to you?
A: Because so much about the status quo is so wrong. As frustrating as it can be to try to change the “standard”, it just seems to me to be the right thing to do.
Q: What things do you look for the make something prime for being disrupted?
A: Inefficiency in a system, chronic crony-ism, and outdated models are the three big things that I look for.
Q: You’ve been an advocate for musicians to take charge of their own brands more aggressively (see Kenny Chesney with his own rum). Is that something that anyone can do in their own world / on their own scale?
A: The issue of creators taking charge is a double-edged sword. Many of the “last wave” of creators are making hay inside the old construct, which perpetuated the idea that all they had to do was create and everything else would be taken care of for them. It was, but how much of that trickled into their pockets is a whole other story. Taking charge requires a commitment to creativity on several levels…
The new creative class coming out of the universities (speaking of a system in need of disruption) understands that there is no such thing as a “free ride” in the creative arts. You have to be able to access both sides of your brain to really make your way in the world today. The great news is that many of the barriers are down, which is also the bad news. Anyone can create and come to market today.
Whether they know it or not, they are entrepreneurs first and foremost. They need to start with a core product (their art) and build around it. The art is the product, and the creativity comes not just in that core creation of the product, but the strategy to bring it to market, price it correctly, find white space and fill it, you get the general idea…
Q: You’re very involved in developing a tech/entrepreneurial culture in Nashville. What sorts of things make Nashville a strong place for that environment? What things may hold it back?
A: The secret sauce is the community aspect of Nashville. You cannot replicate a fabric as strong as the one in our market with all the money in the world. People are competitors, but they are also willing to help pretty much anyone, take a meeting, make an intro, you get the idea.
The couple biggest things that hold the market back are:
Its generally conservative nature (both from an investor perspective and a political perspective)
Sometimes we are too damn nice (it’s perfectly fine to tell someone their idea sucks)
The state politicians’ idiocy lands us on the front page of national papers looking like dumb hillbillies far too often (thankfully there is plenty of that going around in a variety of states)
Q: To say that you speak your mind is sort of like saying that Keith Moon was an energetic drummer. Have you ever gotten pressure to tone your personality down? What are/were the upsides/downsides of that?
A: I get a lot of pressure, mostly external…
It’s an interesting debate for me actually. I certainly do elicit a strong reaction when entering a room, which I have learned to be ok with. One night, my bride and I were talking about this after I had challenged a big shot in a meeting that day, and I was suggesting that speaking my mind had a downside. I was feeling pretty bad about it. She asked me how I’d feel if I hadn’t spoken my mind, to which I responded; “worse than I feel now” – so, I continue to push the elephants out into the room.
Recently I had a discussion with a young entrepreneur who I gave a very hard piece of advice to. It involved telling him that he had picked a real douchebag for a partner, and that he should terminate the relationship. I could smell the stink on this guys “partner” and knew it would not end well. I happen to own this particular T-shirt a couple times. It was hard for me to say, and hard for him to hear. He had a lot invested. About a month after that discussion, he called to thank me for “having the courage to say something to him when no one else would”, he did terminate the partnership, and during that process, got to see the other side of his “partner”.
Life’s too short not to ask the hard questions, challenge the status quo, and suggest that perhaps there is a different or better way to do something, right?
Creativity, Leadership, Blog
In The Tank #3: Matt D’Arrigo
Matt D’Arrigo is Founder and CEO of ARTS (A Reason To Survive), a nationally recognized organization from San Diego that believes in the power of the arts and creativity to transform lives.
I met Matt several years ago through our mutual friend who was helping to mentor a young person involved in ARTS. I learned about the amazing studio center and programming that ARTS had developed for youth across San Diego County, and specifically for youth in need of a transformative outlet for their creativity. ARTS is a place that helps young people transcend some of the toughest challenges of their lives through artistic and creative expression.
In many ways, ARTS is an outgrowth of Matt’s own life, as the arts helped him shift away from self-destructive behaviors and work through significant life issues. A TEDx speaker, Matt sits on the boards of a variety of community, arts and educational organizations, and was one of two San Diego leaders selected for a fellowship to the prestigious Harvard Business School’s “Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management.” Matt speaks, advocates and advises on the use of the arts as a prevention, intervention, and celebration vehicle for at-risk youth.
As Founder and CEO, Matt is gifted at guiding a growing organization while maintaining focus on the reasons for the organization’s existence. And perhaps playing against type, Matt’s leadership style reflects his own personality: thoughtful, determined, level-headed and, to me, seemingly free of drama and histrionics. I always enjoy talking with Matt and learning from his experience and insight.
Q: What inspired you to start ARTS?
A: From an early age I identified as an artist. Although I really struggled in school and other areas of life growing up, I excelled at art. So I would go to my art whenever I needed a boost in confidence, and escape, or to find hope and joy. That time really came for me when I was 19 and my mother and sister were both diagnosed with cancer within a few months of each other. It was devastating and brought with it a lot of emotions that were hard to process: fear, anger, guilt, sadness. So I turned to my art and love of music. I would go up to my bedroom every day, close the door, put on music, and paint. The world would disappear for hours and my whole outlook would transform from despair to hope and joy. It struck me one day after one of those sessions – if it made me feel this way, it would make other kids feel the same way too. I sat down and created a little plan to start an organization that would provide the same experience for other youth facing pain. Just like I had my bedroom to escape to, I wanted to create an ARTS Center – a safe place where kids could come to express themselves and use the arts to transform their lives.
Q: In what ways do you see art reaching kids in ways that other disciplines don’t?
A: The arts are a natural language for youth (and all of us) to communicate and express themselves. When words are hard to come by, art, music, dance, theatre, etc. are an easy way to find your voice and communicate feelings that otherwise may get suppressed. That’s why we offer all forms of the arts; because you never know where a child might find their “voice”. It’s important to give them opportunities and options in various mediums. Besides the value of expression, the arts build self-confidence and esteem, social/emotional well being, and life skills needed to succeed in life. That’s why we not only provide therapeutic arts programming but also formal arts education and career and life preparation so we can meet youth where they are emotionally, developmentally, and artistically and create a long term engagement with them that follows them over time. The longer the engagement, the deeper the impact.
Q: What’s the most challenging thing about running a growing organization?
A: Managing change. We’re constantly evolving and “becoming”. We’re a very creative and entrepreneurial organization. So we need to be proactive and consistent in communicating to all stakeholders – youth, staff, volunteers, donors, etc. why we are going in certain directions or why we are implementing new systems, policies, or procedure to make our work more efficient and effective to serve the youth. Change is hard, uncomfortable, and scary for people so we try not to leave “why” on the table because human nature is to fill in the “why” in yourself and make assumptions. We also try to hire the right people that thrive in a growing environment and embrace change. The other hard part of running a growing organization is keeping that intimate, family feel and continue to build the deep relationships with each youth as we serve larger numbers.
Q: How do you balance the demands of leading an organization with the need and desire to be directly engaged with the kids you serve?
A: This is a constant challenge for me. I remember in year three of the organization I had to make a conscious choice to step back from the front lines of teaching the kids and focus on the business and fundraising aspect because that’s where I felt I could best serve the organization to grow and reach more youth. That is still true today. But with a growing organization I am even more externally focused and traveling a bit more. When I’m in the office I also need to be there to support our senior leadership team and staff. However, I have built in time to constantly walk around the ARTS Center to talk to the kids, teachers, and volunteers. It helps me get the pulse of the organization and feel connected to the kids. I also don’t have an office anymore; I just have my laptop and set up wherever I want in the ARTS Center to be more approachable and accessible to everyone there – especially kids.
Q: What do you wish people realized about the impact of art?
A: The arts impact all of us everyday but we take them for granted. Think about it: everything created by man was first conceptualized and drawn by an artist, right?
The arts bring all of us so much joy everyday – our favorite music, TV shows, or movies. Try to live a day without the arts…almost impossible.
But the arts go so much deeper than that for hundreds of thousands of youth. For these youth who are intrinsically creative, talented, and passionate about the arts, it’s their identity. Yet they are constantly being told in school and society that it’s not important and to fit into these other “boxes” to be successful. So we’re basically telling these youth that THEY are not important. Cutting the arts out of schools and communities is a true form of identity theft – not allowing youth to be their true creative selves and lead fulfilled lives. The results are devastating. We have had students who have literally stopped suicide attempts because of our program, they finally feel accepted and valued for who they are. What’s more impactful that that?
Creativity, Music, Blog
In The Tank #2: Kenny Greenberg
Kenny Greenberg is one of the most heard, yet possibly unrecognized guitarists working today, unless you’ve seen him play, in which case you’ll never forget him. As one of the top session guitarists in Nashville, Kenny has appeared on hundreds of recording by musicians of all genres, including artists such as Taylor Swift, Indigo Girls, Willie Nelson, Etta James and scores more. He can also be seen on the road on rare occasions playing with global stars like Kenny Chesney and Faith Hill.
If you’re in Nashville you’re more than likely to see Kenny flex his muscles in clubs playing with his Grammy-winning wife, Ashley Cleveland, or his band The Fortunate Sons, featuring a collection of some of Nashville’s other top session and touring musicians.
He is also a Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated record producer and award-winning songwriter. On top of all of that, Kenny is a kind and generous human, seemingly always at the ready with some sort of encouragement and words of goodwill. I’ve been amazed and inspired by his humility, as it seems that every time I speak with him he talks about something new that he’s learned, either as a musician or in life. As someone at the top of his profession, I always have something to learn from talking with Kenny. Here are a few questions that came to mind for me to ask him.
Q: I don’t know that a lot of people have a sense of what playing studio sessions is like – can you walk me though a day doing sessions?
A: Session day. First of all, the producer or the producer’s assistant books you. They may say, “in two weeks, we need you for a 10 and 2” (session blocks are 3 hours, with a one hour break to eat, or haul ass to your next session). Then you call cartage and tell them what gear you need for the session. A lot of the time, the bigger the session, the less notice you have for a session, not sure why that is. Like, I can get a call from Dann Huff’s assistant on a Tuesday, saying they need me on Friday. If it’s a major label or a big artist, you have to rearrange your schedule to be there. Also worth mentioning, in this changing climate, budgets are small, so there might not be money for cartage. In that case, I throw my pedal board, amp, and a couple guitars in the car and I’m ready to go.
So, if I’m the leader, they send me the work tapes to chart. I can chart 4-10s songs in an hour; I might do that the night before. Then I have an idea what the songs are like, and I can think a little bit about what I want to play. But a lot of the time, I show up, have my gear turned on and tuned up, ready to play, then we all go in the control room and listen to the work tape or demo. We usually listen once, maybe twice. Then we talk about direction, style, who’s gonna play what, and the whole time, each musician in the room is thinking about what part he’s gonna play.
So, you have 5 or 10 minutes to come up with a part, a signature lick, or sound. Then if it’s a demo, we’ll be getting 4 to 6 songs in three hours, so you’re prepared to get your part right the first time through. Maybe replay or fix right after we get the track. If it’s a record date, it’s anywhere from 1 to 3 songs per session, then we get to spend more time carving out a part, experimenting, etc.
I use the analogy that we’re like writers for a TV show. You come in to work everyday, and you have to invent music to fit the artist’s song. You get used to using that part of your brain. So it’s like writing a script for a show. You get used to having a limitless supply of ideas to dress up a song. It’s actually exciting and fun.
So, as a guitar player, when the track is done, you will probably add a second part, a solo, some ear candy, etc. If it’s a demo, and you’re doing 6 songs in three hours, that means you have 30 minutes for the band to get the track, and the guitar players just about never get out of their seat, because they spend the remainder of the 30 minutes playing a solo, 2nd part, etc.
Also good to know, very few guys do three sessions a day, 5 or 6 days a week. You burn out if you do that. Occasionally I’ll have weeks where that just happens, and it’s all important record dates I want to be a part of. But most of the time, I do one or two sessions a day, sometimes three. And I try to do that just 4 days a week, because I also write and produce.
I function best when I mix it up between playing writing and producing. It seems to help my creativity, and I get juice from each job that fuels the other jobs.
But there is absolutely an addiction to recording music in a room with great musicians that is very addictive and stimulating. There’s a huge rush to getting a great track done, and I always say the first time I hear the playback, I always think that song will never again sound that good:) It’s like you just participated in giving birth to a living entity.
I also do a lot of overdubs for people at my studio. The send me files, I load them into my computer, and I sit down there by myself and record my guitars, send the files back. I LOVE doing that. I find I can be very creative with no distractions. That can also be considered a typical session day..
Q: What’s it like to come into a session not knowing what you’re going to play that day? How do you prepare for that?
A: It’s exciting going into a session not knowing what you’re going to play. I kind of look forward to that. It’s best when you don’t think about it and just play off the top of your head. That’s when the really good stuff happens…
Q: What’s the best thing about being on the road? The worst?
A: The best thing about being on the road, at least with the gig I’m on, is getting to play for really large crowds. That’s a super big rush. Nothing quite like it. The next best thing is walking around the downtown of whatever city we’re in, checking out the sights and the people. The rest of it is kinda hard, you have to roll with a lot of stuff, work at getting along, etc.
Right now I’m sitting on the bus with the band, huge storm, we’re supposed to play outdoors at a George Jones tribute TV special, but there’s tornadoes and a storm. Yeah, being on the road is great!
Q: How does collaboration with so many different musicians and producers make you better?
A: Collaborating with so many musicians and producers is absolutely one of the best things period. I totally get my juice and creative ideas from the people around me. Here’s what’s really true. I’m not really technically that good as a musician, I just sometimes have good ideas. But I get to work with some of the best musicians and producers, writers, etc in the world. So I get better, because most everybody i work with is better than me!!
Q: Where do you find inspiration to keep you growing as a player, and as a person?
A: I get inspiration from the all the great young musicians I work with. And also occasionally I work with an older musician that still has the spark, and that really inspires me too. As a person, I get inspired by older musicians that aren’t jaded and still have a good attitude. That’s how I want to be…..
Creativity, Leadership, Music, Blog
In The Tank #1: Jacob Slichter
Jacob Slichter is a musician, author, and teacher. He was a member of the multi-platinum band Semisonic, whose global hit “Closing Time” can still be heard pretty much everywhere, especially at bars or when a baseball team’s closer comes in to wrap up a game (not nearly enough for this Cubs fan).
I first encountered Jacob’s writing in his fantastic book, So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer’s Life. It may be the finest book I’ve read about an artist’s life in the music business, in that it is honest, self-effacing, self-aware, and thoroughly entertaining. I’ve easily purchased at least a dozen copies for others, including friends and family members whose children are pursuing their own rock & roll dreams. Much of the book feels eerily familiar to me, as “Closing Time” was a massive hit almost exactly a year after a band that I worked with, Sixpence None The Richer, had its own worldwide hit with the song “Kiss Me.” The adventures of the band and their struggle to make sense of the massive opportunities and stardom, as well as pressures from a global record label, powerful radio stations, and broadcast groups. Then there was the puzzle of, “how do we follow up?” It’s a realistic look at a career in music that pulls back the curtain from the romantic myths of rock & roll excess and shows a talented, hard-working band trying to navigate a bewildering business. Jacob now teaches non-fiction Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence, and through a series of Kevin Bacon-esque connections to childhood friends of both my wife and I, I was able to connect with him and ask him a few questions about creativity, teaching, community and pulling back more curtains in life and work. Enjoy!
Q: One thing that comes across in your book is the sense that artists are commoditized by the industry – seen as products and not necessarily people. How did you and your band mates in Semisonic navigate the demands (and fear) placed on you by labels, radio stations, etc.? Looking back – do you see that you could push back more than maybe you did?
A: We made pop music and wanted to be pop stars, so in the largest sense, our ambitions were aligned with those of the record label. Certainly they wanted Semisonic to succeed, but they came to have doubts, and it’s hard to push back against doubt. With a couple of important exceptions they were totally surprised by the success of “Closing Time.” That and “Secret Smile” (a big hit overseas) briefly inspired the label’s confidence in us, but the confidence faded quickly. It wasn’t that they wanted us to do things differently. It was more like they stopped believing.
Q: Much of the book, to me, seems to dispel myths about the business of making music and the experience of being in a band. The lack of glamour, the pressures that have nothing to do with making music taking over the creative process, etc. Do you think that there are other ways in life that we can pull back the curtain and perhaps encounter others in a more realistic way?
A: One of the things I tried to do in the book was to reveal how the structure of the music business imposed all kinds of constraints on the people who worked in it—musicians wanting to be famous, and record company employees trying to keep their jobs. If there’s a villain in the book, it’s the business.
I think it’s important to look at the larger world the same way, to learn to see the limits that various systems impose on us. If we do that, we can get on with the work of replacing those systems with more humane alternatives.
Q: What things help you to be a better teacher? Are those things different when you’re teaching creative writing or drumming?
A: Whether teaching writing or drumming, I try to remember what my favorite teachers did for me. They were good listeners, gave honest encouragement, recognized their students’ desire to learn and improve, believed in their students’ intuitions, and left open the possibility that the students might have had insights that had not yet occurred to their teachers.
Q: You’re involved in a group called Music That Makes Community that brings people together to sing (without paper). What does that act of a group gathering to sing do for a person?
A: Singing with others is empowering, especially for people who feel embarrassed about their singing voice. Anyone who has sung along at a rock concert or a protest or a wedding knows this. Singing with others allows you to become part of something larger than yourself.
Q: So often we read, hear or see stories of the lone genius, without realizing that perhaps community has affected that person. What role do you see community playing in the creative process?
A: I totally believe that creativity is much more collaborative than we know. Most performers will tell you that live performance is a something like a dance with the audience. What may be less obvious is the fact that artists hold an imagined audience in their minds as they compose, edit, practice, and otherwise work things out. Creating a work of art invites the creator to imagine what an audience will think, and that audience includes non-artists.
I recently came across a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “One must be an inventor to read well.” I believe that. Among other things, it means that if you’ve been moved by art, you’ve encountered your own creativity, the same creativity that is in the air that all artists breathe. When fans listen to records and start imagining the record they want to hear next, I think those desires make their way into the minds of music makers. I know this sounds mystical, but I actually believe this. The lone genius theory feels deeply wrong to me. We all do this together.
Q: What’s your favorite song to sing a cappella?
A: I am so embarrassed by my singing voice, I never sing on my own. But I enjoy singing with others, especially anything with tasty harmonization, anything from a Palestrina motet to some pop gem.
For more of Jacob’s writing, visit his blog, Portable Philosophy.
Uncategorized, Blog
Bother Me! Please!
“I don’t want to bother you, but…” This is a phrase that many of us use when we’re in need of help and have exhausted our own means. I’m not talking about “I don’t want to bother you, but I want to sell you something.” I’m talking about when we need real help. We’re stuck. A problem has presented itself that requires more than one person or team. We’re not sure where else to go, and we admit that our own efforts, resources, talents or abilities have reached, if not an end, at least a roadblock, and we need help.
But none of us likes to ask for help. I’m there as well, but I’m learning to change that. To not see asking for help as a weakness or deficiency, but as a way to learn from others, and to offer others a chance to be part of something that utilizes who they are.
Be honest: are you a person who would gladly help someone else out, but are nearly paralyzed with the prospect of asking for help yourself? Next to learning how to take a compliment (smile, say thank you, and let someone give you props without you downplaying it), asking for help may be the toughest thing that many people ever do. But the thing is, I think most people are happy to lend their time, expertise, insight, passion and general goodwill when asked. In fact, I think most of us, in some deeper way, want to be asked. We want to be of help, to contribute, to serve, to make use of who we are, what we know and what we can do.
I’ve run across this recently when I felt backed into a corner and started by trusting a few close, long time friends with the problem I was having. I felt like they’d get it, despite my reticence and even embarrassment in asking. And of course, as I should have predicted (and as my wife did – another lesson for another post), not only did I receive help, I received insight, wisdom, encouragement and even thanks from someone who was in a similar position. I’ve seen people line up to help a family affected by medical issues and in need of round-the-clock care. I’m talking about people coming out of the woodwork not just to help and do a good deed, but to be a part of something, to bring their selves into a situation.
I’ve made a conscious effort to watch for times when I say or write the words, “I don’t want to bother you,” and ask if whether I really mean that or not. Would I be bothered by that sort of request? If not, then it’s time to hit delete. If so, why? I’d encourage you to go ahead and take the risk and discover just how much you’re not bothering someone, but inviting them.
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Tip: High Bracket. In 1944, the highest federal income tax bracket was 94%. It applied to all income above $200,000 a year and applied to all taxpayers, regardless of filing status.
Source: Tax Policy Center, 2017
By any measure, the tax code is huge. According to Commerce Clearing House's Standard Federal Tax Reporter it's up to 74,608 pages in length.¹
And each Monday, the Internal Revenue Service publishes a 20- to 50- page bulletin about various aspects of the tax code.²
Fortunately, it’s not necessary to wade through these massive libraries to understand how income taxes work. Understanding a few key concepts may provide a solid foundation.
One of the key concepts is marginal income tax brackets.
Taxpayers pay the tax rate in a given bracket only for that portion of their overall income that falls within that bracket’s range.
Tax Works
Fast Fact: First Brackets. In 1913 — immediately after the 16th Amendment gave Congress the power to levy taxes on income — the government set up a system of seven federal income tax brackets with rates ranging between 1% and 7%. Less than one in 100 people had to pay even the lowest rate.
Source: OurDocuments.gov, 2017; IRS, August 6, 2017
Seeing how marginal income tax brackets work is helpful because it shows the progressive nature of income taxes. It also helps you visualize how your total tax rate can be calculated. But remember, this material is not intended as tax or legal advice. Please consult a tax professional for specific information regarding your individual situation.
How Federal Income Tax Brackets Work
Say a married couple, filing jointly, in 2018, had a taxable income of $200,000. Each dollar over $165,000—or $35,000—would fall into the 24% federal income tax bracket. However, the couple's total federal tax would have been $36,579—just under 20%, of their adjusted gross income.
This is a hypothetical example used for illustrative purposes only. It assumes no tax credits apply.
2018 Federal Income Tax Brackets
Your federal income tax bracket is determined by two factors: your total income and your tax-filing classification.
For the 2018 tax year, there are seven tax brackets for ordinary income — ranging from 10% to 37% — and four classifications: single, married filing jointly, married filing separately, and head of household.
Washington Examiner, April 15, 2016. (Lastest data available.)
Here are some examples of deductions from the IRS that were permitted and some that were, uh, too creative.
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A Political Geographer in New York: Visiting the 9/11 Memorial and Museum
Klaus Dodds, Apr 30 2015, 1333 views
Image by Cyril Attias
This week I am back in New York after an absence of fifteen years – in other words, my previous visit enabled me to see for myself the Twin Towers. A year later, and those iconic buildings were devastated by two hijacked planes, which were deliberately flown into the World Trade Centre. While it was not the first time the WTC was targeted by terrorists (in February 1993 a massive truck bomb was detonated and killed six people but failed to destroy the complex), the spectacular and horrific collapse of the buildings alongside an attack on the Pentagon and the downing of United 93 near Shanksville resulted in the death of nearly 3000 people. The late Neil Smith, a New York resident and critical geographer, provided an initial assessment of the events and its aftermath.
Given all the ensuing debate and even controversy about how to re-develop a devastated World Trade Center and the immediate surrounds, I was eager to see for myself the memorial and in particular the museum dedicated to 9/11 and its aftermath. Before you get to the museum, one passes the memorial pools. Set in the ‘footprint of the original Twin Towers’ (to quote the 9/11 memorial brochure which is translated into a number of languages but not Arabic), the winning design by Michael Arad envisaged two ‘abyss-like pools’ (see Martin Filler’s review 9/11 memorial) with cascading waterfalls. The names of the nearly 3000 victims are inscribed in bronze around the pools themselves. IR scholar Roland Bleiker offered his thoughts on the memorial and public art more generally post 9/11.
If you as I did, walk slowly around both pools, and read every single name, you will not be surprised to learn that it can take 20-30 minutes to do so. As I arrived early in the morning, I had only security personnel and memorial employees for company. Given my location, it was surprisingly quiet, and sobering to look up to the sky and see an occasional passing jet. The memorial was opened in 2011, and when the prevailing winds are too strong the waterfalls are turned off. So the noise, look and feel of the memorial pools changes inter alia with the time of day and daily weather patterns.
After my security screening, I entered the museum. As I intimated earlier, there is a strong presence of police officers and security staff at the memorial site and this does diminish once inside. If anything it seemed rather poignant going through an airport style security procedure – there were stories later that the 9/11 ring leader Mohammed Atta was testing US airport security prior to the September 11 2001 attacks. After passing the lengthy list of corporate sponsors written on a wall close to the screening area, you enter into the museum proper.
There are different ways of approaching the exhibition and exhibits – and in some parts of the exhibition you are allowed to photograph and others not (e.g. the historical exhibition). There are strict rules more generally in terms of how you are expected to behave both inside and outside the museum and prohibitions include, ‘Engaging in expressive activity that has the effect, intent or propensity to draw a crowd of on-lookers’.
For me the first part of the museum provides some context to that eventful day, with a large map depicting the plane movements, which is then interspersed with recordings of the relatives and friends of those who perished. As your scan the map, you can hear family members expressing shock, sadness, outrage and anger at what happened to those people who boarded four fuel laden planes on the Eastern seaboard all bound, or so they thought, for long flights to West Coast destinations.
One thing worth noting is that the February 1993 bomb attack on the Trade Center is enrolled in the accounting of the events and circumstances leading up to 11 September 2001 – this allows the museum to trace a longer geopolitical context, even if I do not recall reading/recording details about the long lasting legal battles involving the relatives of the dead and injured about who should shoulder responsibility for the 1993 bombing.
Those legal battles regarding the 1993 bombing continued after 9/11 and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were accused of failing to properly secure the underground parking facilities. Inadvertently, perhaps, it raises the question as to whether various US authorities, state and federal, should have anticipated and responded to the 1993 terrorist attack that followed. And in turn it reminds us that there were those, within the George W Bush administration, warning that there were opportunities to pre-empt such an attack in 2001.
All of which sits uneasily when you move on to the optimism (even hubris) that appeared to abound at the time when the World Trade Center complex was commissioned, funded, built and finally opened in the 1960s and 1970s. A detailed description of the imaginative and material labour involved in the making of the Twin Towers and other elements of the 16 acre Lower Manhattan site is offered up. Local geology, weather and proximity to the sea all made their presence felt during the construction process. Some of the foundational remains and the chipped and battered steps where some of the survivors clambered down are exhibited.
As one descends further into the lower reaches of the museum, the visitor is greeted with objects made in memorial to those who died – some of which appears quite bullish and confident in tone while others just seem terribly sad including the personal effects of the victims such as identity cards, bank notes, wallets, shoes and even a Sainsbury’s loyalty card from a British victim, Richard Dawson. He was one of 67 British citizens who died that day and I think I was drawn to him because I noticed by chance that we were born in the same year (1969). Dawson’s personal effects reside in a separate room, which allows you to find out more about all the victims through a touch screen archive. Each entry varies somewhat in terms of images, recollections and detail provided, however.
Although photography is prohibited in the historical exhibition, one should give credit for things that are tackled albeit discreetly. One example would be the ‘jumpers’ and the accusations made at the time and aftermath that much of the focus had been on those who had fought back on United 93, the families of the victims (e.g. the so-called ‘Jersey Girls’) and/or those attempted to secure the release of those trapped in the buildings (firefighters/police officers). Even on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the ‘status’ of those who jumped was still subject to controversy about whether this group of men and women (possibly numbering some 200) were being marginalized (including visual images of tumbling bodies such as the ‘falling man’). In other parts of the museum, some recognition is given to dissent and resistance – from anti-war campaigners and conspiracy theorists who in their different ways questioned both the origins of the 9/11 attacks and the decision by the George W Bush administration to declare a war on terror in October 2011.
Other areas of the exhibition concentrate on surviving material objects; the remains of a fire truck, the tangled mess of one of the antennae that was once attached to the tower and abandoned bicycles and even pushchairs/strollers left by terrified parents/families enjoying a warm September’s day in Battery Park. Given the devastation of the immediate area, it is notable how many objects, big and small, are exhibited ranging from the pocket watch to a New York Fire Department fire axe. The archiving and storage of these objects plays a vital role in narrating and ‘feeling’ the immediate and longer–lasting impact of 9/11, especially when so much of the original site was pulverized by heat and subsequent building collapse.
While IR scholars such as Michael Shapiro have in the past spoken about the World Trade Center and its reconstruction, I think there is more to be said about the embodied experiences of visiting the museum itself. The way in which the visitor is enrolled into the material cultures of 9/11 and its aftermath; the negotiation of the multi-scalar dimensions of the event itself (involving New Yorkers, US nationals and international citizenry), the memorialisation of the victims and their families (and the attention they are given within the museum); the prevailing geopolitical/historical contexts; and the affective atmospheres of nationalism and the war on terror itself –commemorating, commiserating and comforting.
But there are people, moments and objects who and which offer up a different rendering of 9/11. As Sara Ahmed and Judith Butler remind us respectively, the war on terror ‘stuck’ to some bodies more than others, and some lives become more deserving of grief than others, and some objects attract more attention than others. Some things were lost forever. As Karen Till’s work on the places of memory in post-war Berlin shows, there is always work to be done in recording and recovering evidence of intentional forgetting and painful remembering.
As sailors and maritime lawyers know, there is a category of object called lagan – goods and wreckage that lies at the bottom of the seabed, which might be reclaimed in the future. What was and is submerged (but not necessarily lost) in favour of what emerged (let alone endured) remains very much a work in progress.
*All images by Klaus Dodds
About The Author ( Klaus Dodds):
Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics in the department of Geography at Royal Holloway University of London. He has published widely on geopolitics and the polar regions, and plays a key role in the MSc in Geopolitics and Security. He is author of many books, including Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2014) and International Politics and Film (Columbia University Press 2014 with Sean Carter).
Tags: 9/11, memorial spaces, The War on Terror, united states
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Featured News, International, Middle East
UN chief condemns airstrikes after Syria hospitals hit
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference at the President of Mozambique’s Office on July 11, 2019 in Maputo. (Photo by Wikus DE WET / AFP)
(AFP) — UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday strongly condemned air strikes in northwest Syria following reports that four health facilities were hit during a single day of bombing.
An ambulance center, a clinic and two hospitals including one in Maarat al Numan that is among the largest in the area were attacked on Wednesday, according to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, a Syrian doctors’ group.
“Civilians and civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, must be protected,” said Guterres in a statement released by his spokesman.
The United Nations had shared the coordinates of the hospital in Maarat al Numan with the warring parties, the statement said.
“Parties to the conflict must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law,” Guterres said, adding that those behind the attacks must be held accountable.
Backed by Russia, Syrian forces have since late April ramped up bombardment of the Idlib region, which is controlled by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The United Nations has warned that an all-out offensive to push out the rebels could lead to a bloodbath in the region where some three million people live.
UN aid chief Mark Lowcock last month said he had asked Russia to explain how it uses data on the location of Syrian hospitals following a string of attacks on health facilities.
More than 23 hospitals have been hit by strikes since late April in a campaign that Western powers have said is aimed at sowing terror among civilians.
Russia has firmly denied that the bombing campaign has targeted hospitals and maintains the military operation is aimed at driving out “terrorists.”
The war in Syria, now in its ninth year, has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Iran’s top diplomat warns US is ‘playing with fire’ July 16, 2019
Worsening world hunger affects 821 million: UN July 16, 2019
Roque notes UN human rights council, a “toothless tiger,” can’t pass judgment or impose sanctions July 15, 2019
Duterte: Iceland, other countries which voted for resolution on drug war don’t understand PHL problems July 13, 2019
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No Plan To Increase School Fees - AAUA Management Discredit School Fees Hike Rumour
Post by admin » January 8th, 2018, 12:31 pm
The attention of the Management of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State, has been drawn to a false and misleading school fees regime being circulated on some social media platforms.
The patently false piece purports to list school and other miscellaneous fees to be paid by new and returning students of Adekunle Ajasin University. The piece could neither have emanated from nor even concern our Institution as several courses not offered by Adekunle Ajasin University such as Nursing, Physiology, Medicine, Laboratory Science, and Engineering are listed in the fake and fraudulent piece.
Management wishes to emphatically state that no decision has been taken on the review of the fees payable by students.
The University has its own official channels of giving out information to its stakeholders and the general public, including the University website. Such information would be properly signed by a designated officer of the Institution. Any news or information which fails to satisfy these requirements does not and could not have emanated from the University.
Parents and students are implored to disregard this misleading information as it was evidently concocted by mischief makers to discredit the University and cause disaffection between it and its stakeholders.
Sola Imoru,
Head, Information and Protocol Unit, AAUA
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2013-2014 Speaker Archive
Mitchell E. Daniels Jr
President Mitchell E. Daniels was elected as the 49th governor of Indiana in 2004, in his first bid for any elected office. He was re-elected in 2008 to a second and final term, receiving more votes than any candidate for any public office in the state’s history.
Gary Doer,
Ambassador of Canada to the United States of America
In October 2009, Gary Doer assumed his responsibilities as Canada’s 23rd representative to the United States of America.
Beth A. Brooke,
Global Vice Chair of Public Policy, Ernst & Young
Ms. Brooke is responsible for shaping Ernst & Young’s positions on public policy. She engages with regulators, policy makers, business leaders, investors and other key stakeholders around the world to address critical issues facing the profession and global capital markets. Through her outreach, Ms. Brooke has become one of the profession’s most prominent voices in the public-policy arena.
James M. Guyette,
President & Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce North America Inc.
James M. Guyette is President and Chief Executive Officer of Rolls-Royce North America Inc. (RRNA). In this role, Mr. Guyette oversees all Rolls-Royce companies and business units in North America, encompassing nearly 8,000 people at more than 66 locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. In 2008, total RRNA sales exceeded $4.4 billion. Mr. Guyette is an executive director on the boards of Rolls-Royce plc and Rolls-Royce North America Holdings Inc. and chairs the International Aero Engines (IAE) board. Mr. Guyette is based in the RRNA headquarters in Reston, VA. He joined Rolls-Royce in 1997.
Arthur C. Brooks,
President, the American Enterprise Institute
Arthur C. Brooks has been President of AEI since January 1, 2009. Previously, he was the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at Syracuse University. He is the author of 10 books and hundreds of articles on topics ranging from the economics of the arts to military operations research. His most recent book is the New York Times bestseller “The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise” (Basic Books, 2012). Other books include “The Battle” (Basic Books, May 2010), “Gross National Happiness” (Basic Books, 2008), “Social Entrepreneurship” (Prentice-Hall, 2008) and “Who Really Cares” (Basic Books, 2006). Before pursuing his work in public policy, Mr. Brooks spent 12 years as a professional French hornist with the City Orchestra of Barcelona and other ensembles.
Henry Paulson,
Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury & Founder of the Paulson Institute
Henry “Hank” Paulson is an American banker who served as the 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury. He has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs and is now Chairman of the Paulson Institute, which he founded in 2011 to promote sustainable economic growth and a cleaner environment around the world…
James Haslam,
CEO, Pilot Corporation & Majority Owner, Cleveland Browns
After graduating from the University of Tennessee, James Haslam III went to work for the family-owned Pilot Corporation, which operates a chain of convenience stores and travel centers throughout North America. Under his leadership, Pilot has become one of the largest privately held companies in the U.S., with $29 billion in sales. In 2012, Haslam purchased the Cleveland Browns for $1 billion (USD). His family also owns the Tennessee Smokies, a Class AA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.
Gail J. McGovern,
President and CEO American Red Cross
Gail J. McGovern is an American philanthropist and President and CEO of the American Red Cross. McGovern held top management positions at AT&T Corporation and Fidelity Investments. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Johns Hopkins University and the Board of Directors of DTE Energy.
Roland Fryer
Roland G. Fryer Jr. is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, founder and faculty director of the Education Innovation Laboratory at Harvard and a former junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows — one of academia’s most prestigious research posts.
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SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY:
A Future Focused University
Established as a university in 1992, Swinburne is a world-class multidisciplinary institution that leads the way in science, technology, business, design and innovation. The university’s strengths build on the founding principles of equal opportunity, student-focused learning and industry engagement.
Much of Swinburne’s research is concentrated in its specialist centres, which are noted for their industry links, community service and multidisciplinary approach. Graduates are widely recognised for their skills in solving important practical problems through applied, interdisciplinary research and are making significant contributions to industry, business and society both in Australia and globally.
Swinburne has established a strong international reputation and built highly successful relationships with universities around the world. International collaboration with and mobility between partner universities provide Swinburne students with a truly international experience.
Swinburne’s standing in prestigious world academic ranking lists reflects Swinburne’s commitment to high-quality teaching and research and graduate outcomes.
in 2018 (top three per cent of universities worldwide)
QS World University Rankings
in 2018 (4th consecutive year)
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
in 2017 the QS Universities under 50 Years of Age (3rd consecutive year)
#65 out of 250 institutions in the Times Higher Education Universities under 50 Years of Age in 2018
Swinburne’s international recognised focused research creates jobs, improves lives, connects science and technology with business and the community, and elicits real change in the world. Swinburne’s research and development activities occur in five key areas: future manufacturing, sustainable futures, digital frontiers, personal and societal wellbeing, and inspirational science and technology.
Swinburne Advantage
Swinburne courses are designed with student’s future in mind. Swinburne offers high-quality teaching, opportunities to engage with industry, state-of-the-art facilities and flexible study options. Swinburne courses are well recognised by professional organisations and have close ties with industry and provide invaluable workplace experience.
MOUNT ELIZABETH HOSPITAL
Mount Elizabeth Hospital, a 345-bed private tertiary acute care hospital, is one of the largest in the region and has an established reputation in private healthcare in Asia.
Recognised throughout the region for its speciality services and excellent physicians, Mount Elizabeth Hospital offers Cardiology, Neurosciences, and many other tertiary services. It opened the first private cancer centre in the region and was the first private hospital in Singapore to offer Cardiac Catheterisation, Cardiac and Neurosurgery and other advanced medical procedures.
The hospital provides a wide range of medical and surgical services and is known for its specialists’ expertise, quality nursing care and state-of-the-art technology. Mount Elizabeth Hospital performs the largest number of cardiac surgeries and neurosurgeries in the private sector in the region. The hospital is Joint Commission International accredited.
Mount Elizabeth Hospital and the Executive Counselling & Training Academy’s Partnership
Mount Elizabeth Hospital provides ECTA Interns the following privileges:
Access to the psychological and behavioural facilities;
Counselling of inpatients under supervision;
Observation of treatment procedures such as art therapy, behavioural therapy and any other therapeutic modalities;
Teaching and supervision by the professional staff members of Mount Elizabeth Hospital e.g., psychiatrists, nursing officers, psychologists, psychotherapists at Mount Elizabeth Hospital;
Consultation rooms of counselling of clients;
Seminar rooms facilities for course previews, workshops and seminars; and
Collaboration in joint projects such as organising of conferences/ workshops for the mental health professionals.
All ECTA Interns are indemnified professionally and trained on issues of confidentiality, boundaries and ethics.
PARKWAY COLLEGE OF NURSING AND
Parkway College of Nursing and Allied Health (Parkway College) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Parkway Holdings Pte Ltd.
Parkway College aspires to be the premier global private educational institution in the niche fields of Nursing, Allied Health and Healthcare Management. It provides opportunities for life-long learning, and equip its students with the skills and knowledge to succeed in the workplace.
Parkway College of Nursing and Allied Health and the Executive Counselling & Training Academy’s Partnership
Parkway College provides ECTA Interns the following privileges:
Clinical placements; and
Counselling facilities.
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Home Social Sciences and the Law Law Crime and Law Enforcement confession
West's Encyclopedia of American Law
A statement by which an individual acknowledges his or her guilt in the commission of a crime.
One vital function of the U.S. judicial system is to determine the guilt or innocence of suspects who have been accused of crimes. Confessions can play a key role in making this determination. Courts in the U.S. have recognized the fallibility of inaccurate or involuntary confessions—such as those that have been obtained as the result of threats or trickery—and have developed a body of law to prevent untrustworthy confessions from jeopardizing a criminal defendant's civil rights.
Confessions were always allowed as evidence in early English common-law trials, even when torture was used to elicit them. Not until the mid–eighteenth century did judges in England start to admit only confessions that they deemed trustworthy. To determine the trustworthiness of a confession, judges considered the circumstances surrounding it, whether a threat or promise coerced the suspect to confess, and whether the suspect confessed voluntarily.
The U.S. Supreme Court first addressed the issue of confessions in the 1884 case of Hopt v. Utah, 110 U.S. 574, 4 S. Ct. 202, 28 L. Ed. 262. Following the English common-law standard, the Court looked at whether the suspect had confessed voluntarily or as a result of a threat or promise. The Court first invoked the U.S. Constitution to support this voluntariness standard in the 1897 case of Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S. Ct. 183, 42 L. Ed. 568.
In Bram, the Court applied the fifth amendment's privilege against self-incrimination to confessions in federal courts, observing that any amount of influence exerted to obtain a confession would render the confession involuntary and thus inadmissible. The Bram holding initially created a harsh standard of confession admissibility. Later decisions interpreting Bram lowered the standard by requiring that a confession be excluded from evidence only if the amount of influence that had been used to obtain it actually called into question the statement's reliability.
In 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the issue of coerced confessions for actions in state court, rather than federal court, in Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 56 S. Ct. 461, 80 L. Ed. 682. Brown involved three African-American defendants who had confessed to the murder of a white man only after being beaten and tortured by state police. The Court, this time, invoked the Fourteenth Amendment's due process guarantee in holding the confessions to be inadmissible because the police had obtained them in a way that violated basic liberty and justice principles. The Court in Brown announced a due process analysis to be employed by state courts on a case-by-case basis to determine whether, given the totality of the circumstances, a suspect had confessed voluntarily. The analysis was to include an assessment of the suspect's character and status as well as of the methods used by the police.
Case-by-case determination of the kind required by Brown proved to be unwieldy for state courts because the method was so fact-specific. Appellate courts had difficulty setting effective precedents because case outcomes depended solely on unique factual circumstances. As a result, the police were left with little guidance as to thew way to interrogate suspects properly and lawfully.
By the mid-1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court once again began to alter its approach to determining the admissibility of confessions. Starting with Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S. Ct. 1489, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653 (1964), the Court held that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, which previously had applied only to federal actions, now applied to state actions as well. Thus, the Court held, suspects in state court were entitled to the same standards governing confessions—initially set forth in the Bram opinion—as were suspects in federal court.
In massiah v. united states, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S. Ct. 1199, 12 L. Ed. 2d 246 (1964), the Court continued to move away from the fourteenth amendment due process analysis that it had employed in its previous decisions. In Massiah, the Court held that the sixth amendment grants criminal defendants the right to counsel during post-indictment interrogations, and when this right is violated, confessions obtained are inadmissible. In escobedo v. illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977 (1964), the Court expanded this protection to preindictment confessions, holding that the right to counsel attaches when a police investigation becomes accusatory.
Two years later, the Court handed down the landmark decision miranda v. arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966), finding that police custody is inherently coercive, and therefore that criminal suspects in police custody must be informed expressly of their constitutional rights before interrogation begins. A suspect's Miranda rights include the right to remain silent and to have a lawyer present during questioning. Any statements made by the suspect may be used against him or her in a court of law. The Court held in Miranda that a suspect may waive any of these rights, but only if the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently. But Miranda left these criteria essentially undefined, thus prompting a glut of litigation concerning the validity of Miranda waivers.
The Court attempted to clarify its position in North Carolina v. Butler, 441 U.S. 369, 99 S. Ct. 1755, 60 L. Ed. 286 (1979). Willie Thomas Butler had spoken with the police after they had advised him of his Miranda rights, then later sought to have the court exclude his incriminating statements because he had declined to sign a waiver agreement. In ruling against Butler, the high court adopted the "totality of the circumstances" approach for determining whether a waiver of Miranda rights is voluntary, knowing, and intelligent. Butler, the Court found, had implied a voluntary waiver through his words and actions, thus making an express written waiver unnecessary. Butler thus required courts to determine the voluntariness of a suspect's waiver case by case. Butler further instructed courts to invalidate seemingly voluntary waivers in instances of apparent coercion, deceit, or trickery on the part of police.
Another attempt at clarification came in Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 106 S. Ct. 1135, 89 L. Ed. 2d 410 (1986), in which the Court held that the suspect's confession had been voluntary and valid even though the police, after reciting Miranda rights, had failed to inform him that his attorney had been trying to contact him. The Court in Burbine found that although the police have a duty to convey Miranda rights, including the right to an attorney, there is no constitutional duty to inform a suspect when that suspect's attorney wants to confer. The Court further held that Miranda rights belong to the suspect, and therefore it was irrelevant that the police in Burbine had deceived the suspect's attorney by falsely stating that they would not interrogate the suspect. Burbine invoked a two-pronged test for courts to apply in determining waiver validity: (1) whether the suspect's choice to waive Miranda rights was free and uncoerced; and (2) whether the suspect fully understood the consequences of waiving those rights.
Nine months later, the Court refined Burbine's first prong in Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 107 S. Ct. 515, 93 L. Ed. 2d 473 (1986). Francis Barry Connelly, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic, made unsolicited murder confessions to the police while he was in a psychotic state. He continued to talk even after the police read him the Miranda rights. In attempting to exclude the confession at trial, Connelly's attorney argued that Connelly had no control over his psychotic delusions, and that the confession therefore had been involuntary.
Finding no police misconduct, the high court ruled against Connelly, stating that "Miranda protects defendants against government coercion leading them to surrender rights protected by the Fifth Amendment; it goes no further than that." Connelly suggests that the voluntariness of a waiver depends on the conduct of the police, not the mental state of the suspect. Yet the mental state of the suspect may still play a role in Burbine's second prong, which considers the suspect's awareness of Miranda rights and the consequences of waiving them.
Legal commentators have criticized Miranda and its subsequent line of decisions, stating that criminal suspects seldom truly understand the meaning or importance of the rights recited to them. Studies have indicated that the Miranda decision has had little effect on the numbers of confessions and requests for lawyers made by suspects in custody. What is more, critics of Miranda cite concerns that the police might fabricate waivers, as a suspect's waiver of Miranda rights need not be recorded or made to a neutral party. Proponents argue that Miranda protects criminal suspects and reduces needless litigation by providing the police with concrete guidelines for permissible interrogation.
Even though the idea behind Miranda rights is to protect suspects in custody from police coercion, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991 held that coerced confessions nevertheless may be used in court if their use is harmless—in other words, if a jury would probably convict even without them (Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S. Ct. 1246, 113 L. Ed. 2d 302). The police suspected that Oreste Fulminante had killed his 11-year-old stepdaughter, whose body was found in an Arizona desert two days after he had reported her missing. Before he was charged with the murder, Fulminante had received a prison sentence for an unrelated weapons-possession charge. While in prison on that charge, he confessed the murder to a fellow inmate, who actually was a paid federal informant. The informant had offered to protect Fulminante from other inmates in exchange for hearing the truth about the murder. Fulminante was subsequently indicted for the killing, and his confession was used at trial despite his objection. A jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. The U.S. Supreme Court applied the harmful error test and found that the jurors most likely would not have convicted Fulminante had they not heard his coerced confession, thus its use at trial was harmful. The Court ordered the case back for a new trial, this time without use of the confession.
Legal scholars have criticized the Fulminante decision for failing to follow decades of legal precedent holding that coerced confessions violate the due process rights of criminal suspects and that their use at trial necessitates automatic reversal, whether they are harmful or not. Fulminante, they argue, encourages the police to ignore the civil rights of suspects and to coerce confessions. Others argue that the decision is correct because it focuses on achieving an accurate determination of guilt or innocence regardless of whether constitutional rights are violated. Whatever its long-term effects, Fulminante will not be the final word in the progression of U.S. Supreme Court cases defining the law of confessions.
In 1999, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit fueled long-standing speculation that Miranda would be overruled, when it held that the admissibility of confessions in federal court is governed not by Miranda, but by a federal statute enacted two years after that decision. The statute, 18 U.S.C.A. Section 3501, provides that a confession is admissible if voluntarily given. Congress enacted the statute in order to overturn Miranda, the Fourth Circuit said, and Congress had the authority to do so pursuant to its authority to overrule judicially created rules of evidence that are not mandated by the U.S. Constitution. United States. v. Dickerson, 166 F. 3d 667 (4th Cir. 1999).
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice william rehnquist, the Court said that, whether or not it agreed with Miranda, the principles of stare decisis weigh heavily against overruling it now. While the Court has overruled its precedents when subsequent cases have undermined their doctrinal underpinnings, that has not happened to the Miranda decision, which the Court said "has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture." Although the Court acknowledged that a few guilty defendants might go free as the result of the application of the Miranda rule, "experience suggests that the totality-of-the-circumstances test which Section 3501 seeks to revive is more difficult than Miranda for law enforcement officers to conform to and for courts to apply in a consistent manner." Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 120 S. Ct. 2326, 147 L. Ed. 2d 405 (2000).
In another decision, the Court actually increased defendants' constitutional rights when it ruled that the protections provided by its decision in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S. Ct. 1620, 20 L. Ed. 2d 476 (1968) (which held that the introduction of a non-testifying codefendant's confession incriminating both himself and the other defendant in a joint trial violated the other defendant's Sixth Amendment right to cross-examine witnesses) were applicable to a codefendant's confession that substituted blanks and the word deleted in place of the defendant's proper name. The Court said that redactions that simply replace the defendant's name with an obvious substitute, such as deleted, a blank space, a symbol, or other similarly obvious indications of alteration, result in statements that so closely resemble the unredacted statements in Bruton that the law must require the same result. The Court believed that juries will often react similarly to unredacted confessions and to poorly redacted confessions, as jurors often realize that a poorly redacted confession refers specifically to the defendant, even when the statement does not expressly link the defendant to the deleted name. Additionally, the Court stressed that by encouraging the jury to speculate about the removed name, the redaction might overemphasize the importance of the confession's accusation once the jurors figure out the redacted reference. Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 118 S. Ct. 1151, 140 L. Ed. 2d 294 (1998)
In Martinez v. City of Oxnard, 270 F. 3d 852 (9th Cir. 2001), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that violating a defendant's rights against coerced confessions can give rise to a civil rights action against the police officer who attempted to coerce the confession. Martinez stemmed from a 45-minute emergency-room interrogation of a narcotics suspect who had been shot five times by a police officer while being subdued during the arrest. The suspect, who was rendered blind in one eye and paralyzed below the legs by the gunshot wounds, sued the officer who had conducted the interrogation. The officer interposed a defense of qualified immunity, claiming that he could not be sued for injuries suffered by the defendant while the officer was simply doing his job.
The district court rejected the officer's defense and granted summary judgment to the narcotics suspect on his civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C.A § 1983. In affirming the district court's decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled that a police officer may raise the defense of qualified immunity only when he or she could have reasonably believed that his or her conduct was lawful under settled law. In this case, the record revealed that the officer had doggedly tried to exact a confession from the suspect without first reading him the Miranda warnings, and that he then had proceeded to ignore the suspect's repeated requests for the officer to cease the interrogation until he was finished receiving medical treatment for his life-threatening injuries. No reasonable officer, the court concluded, could have believed that interrogating the suspect under those "extreme circumstances" comported with the Fifth Amendment's prohibitions against coerced confessions, and thus the officer was not entitled to assert qualified immunity as a defense. Accordingly, the district court's grant of summary judgment against the officer was affirmed. However, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the officer's petition for certiorari.
Chertoff, Michael. 1995. "Chopping Miranda Down to Size." Michigan Law Review 93.
Green, Jana. 1992. "Arizona v. Fulminante: The Harmful Extension of the Harmless Error Doctrine." Oklahoma City University Law Review 17.
Hourihan, Paul. 1995. "Earl Washington's Confession: Mental Retardation and the Law of Confessions." Virginia Law Review 81.
LaFave, Wayne R., and Fred L. Israel. 2001. Criminal Procedure. 6th ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group.
Stack, W. Brian. 1994. "Criminal Procedure—Confessions: Waiver of Privilege against Self-Incrimination Held Invalid Due to Police Failure to Inform Suspect of Attorney's Attempt to Contact Him—State v. Reed." Seton Hall Law Review 25.
Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; Custodial Interrogation.
"Confession." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
"Confession." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. . Encyclopedia.com. (July 18, 2019). https://www.encyclopedia.com/law/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/confession
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confession, in law, the formal admission of criminal guilt, usually obtained in the course of examination by the police or prosecutor or at trial. For a confession to be admissible as evidence against an accused individual, it generally must have been procured voluntarily after the person was informed of his or her right to remain silent and right to consult an attorney (see Miranda v. Arizona). If a confession is obtained through torture, threats, prolonged interrogation, or false promises of immunity from prosecution, it is inadmissible, but law enforcement officials may and do use psychological pressure, which can lead to false confessions. A signed confession is presumed to be voluntary, and the accused must introduce proof that it was extorted in order to prevent its introduction at the trial. In 1981 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that murder defendants should be informed of their right to remain silent during interviews with psychologists, who might later testify for the prosecution that the client was "dangerous" and thus deserving of a stiff penalty. A 1986 ruling stated that a criminal defendant entering a plea of "not guilty" had the right to describe to the court how his confession was obtained by police. The ideal of a voluntary confession was upset recently, however, in the case of Arizona v. Fulminante (1991). There, the Supreme Court ruled that coerced confessions do not invariably nullify a conviction, but can be regarded merely as "harmless errors" —at least where additional incriminating evidence is available. Usually, a person who does not plead guilty cannot be convicted solely on the basis of his confession.
See P. Brooks, Troubling Confessions: Speaking Guilt in Law and Literature (2000).
"confession." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
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The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
© The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997.
1. An affirmation or profession of faith: (i) the testimony of a martyr or confessor (e.g. 1 Timothy 6. 13); (ii) a doctrinal statement in the Orthodox Church; (iii) Protestant professions of faith, especially of 16th/17th cents.
2. An acknowledgement of sin. In Christianity, this may be made either in worship by a congregation (‘general confession’), or privately to a priest (‘auricular confession’: Lat., ad auriculam, ‘to the ear’), who mediates God's willingness to forgive, and pronounces God's absolution.
The recognition and acknowledgement of fault occurs in all religions, and the term ‘confession’ is applied widely, although what is happening in the context of each religion may be very different.
Confession of sin in Judaism (Heb., vidduʾi) is an essential prequisite of expiation. Prayers of confession are part of the synagogue liturgy, particularly at Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, and well-known prayers include Ashamnu (We have incurred guilt) ʿAl het (For the sin), and Avinu malkenu (Our father, Our king).
In Buddhism confession is not made to a divine power and there is no concept of absolution or the forgiveness of sins. The act of confession (pāpa-desanā) is the owning-up to one's failings or shortcomings in order to cultivate greater self-awareness and be freed from the burden of persecutory guilt. The occasion for confession in monastic Buddhism is a formal public event which takes place at the Uposatha ceremony. There is no counterpart to this formal ceremony for lay Buddhists.
Confession (alocana and pratikramaṇa) occurs twice daily for monks; laypeople make confession to their guru.
"Confession." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
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con·fes·sion / kənˈfeshən/ • n. 1. a formal statement admitting that one is guilty of a crime. ∎ an admission or acknowledgment that one has done something that one is ashamed or embarrassed about: by his own confession, he had strayed perilously close to alcoholism. ∎ a formal admission of one's sins with repentance and desire of absolution, esp. privately to a priest as a religious duty: she still had not been to confession. ∎ (confessions) often humorous intimate revelations about a person's private life or occupation, esp. as presented in a sensationalized form in a book, newspaper, or movie. 2. (also confession of faith) a statement setting out essential religious doctrine. ∎ (also Confession) the religious body or church sharing a confession of faith. ∎ a statement of one's principles: his words are a political confession of faith. DERIVATIVES: con·fes·sion·ar·y / -ˌnerē/ adj.
"confession." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
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"confession." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. . Retrieved July 18, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/confession-0
confession a formal admission of one's sins with repentance and desire of absolution, especially privately to a priest as a religious duty.
Confession is also used for a statement of faith setting out essential religious doctrine (also called confession of faith); (with capital initial) the religious body or Church sharing a confession of faith.
confession is good for the soul confession is essential to repentance and forgiveness. Saying recorded from the mid 17th century.
"confession." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
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"confession." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. . Retrieved July 18, 2019 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/confession
confession Acknowledgement of sins. In the Jewish and Christian traditions, it may be made by a congregation in the course of worship, or by individual penitents.
"confession." World Encyclopedia. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
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Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms
COPYRIGHT 1985 Gale
a religious group; a body or church united by a particular confession of faith. See also communion, congregation.
"Confession." Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
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Encyclopaedia Judaica
Along with admissions of fact from which any criminal responsibility may be inferred, confessions are not admissible as evidence in criminal or quasi-criminal proceedings, for "no man may call himself a wrongdoer" (Sanh. 9b). This rule against self-incrimination developed from the rule that a wrongdoer is incompetent as a *witness, being presumed to be unjust and untruthful (cf. Ex. 23:1). Since some people might admit to misconduct in order to disqualify themselves from testifying, to cure this mischief the rule was laid down that no man can be heard to say of himself that he is so guilty as to be an incompetent witness (Sanh. 25a; bk 72b). The rule was originally derived from the principle that no man is competent to testify in his own favor (Ket. 27a) – his confession being intended to confer the benefit of not being required to testify.
The rule against self-incrimination dates only from talmudic times. Several instances of confessions are recorded in the Bible (e.g., Josh. 7:19–20; ii Sam. 1:16; cf. i Sam. 14:43), but these are dismissed by talmudic scholars either as confessions after trial and conviction, made for the sole purpose of expiating the sin before God (Sanh. 43b), or as exceptions to the general rule (hora'at Sha'ah; cf. Maim. comm. to the Mishnah, Sanh. 6:2; Ralbag to ii Sam. 1:14). As all instances recorded in the Bible related to proceedings before kings or rulers, it may be that they did not consider themselves bound to observe regular court procedures (cf. Maim. Yad, Melakhim 3:10). Confessions are inadmissible not only in capital cases, but also in cases involving only *flogging, *fines (Rashi to Yev. 25b), or quasi-punishments (ibid.; cf. Resp.Rosh 11:5). Opinions are divided on whether a *ḥerem and public admonitions could be administered on the strength of a confession only.
Varying reasons were given for the rule against self-incrimination: the earliest and commonest is that the biblical requirement of the evidence of at least two witnesses for the condemnation of any man (Deut. 17:6; 19:15) implicitly excludes any other mode of proof (Tosef., Sanh. 11:1, 5). Maimonides adds that melancholy and depressed persons must be prevented from confessing to crimes which they have not committed so as to be put to death (Yad, Sanhedrin 18:6). Another theory was based on the prophet's words that all souls are God's (Ezek. 18:4), hence no man may be allowed to forfeit his life (as distinguished from his property) by his own admission, his life not being his own to dispose of but God's (David b. Solomon ibn Abi Zimra); still another scholar held that if confessions were accorded any probative value at all, courts might be inclined to overrate them, as King David did (ii Sam. 1:16), and be guilty of a dereliction of their own fact-finding task (Joseph ibn Migash). A 19th-century jurist (Mordechai Epstein) pointed out that the real difference between civil admissions and criminal confessions was that by an admission an obligation was created which had only to be enforced by the court, whereas in a criminal conviction it is the court which creates the accused's liability to punishment. While it is nowhere expressed, the reason for the exclusion of confessions may well have been the desire to prevent their being elicited by torture or other violent means: it is a fact that – unlike most contemporaneous law books – neither Bible nor Talmud provide for any interrogation of the accused as part of the criminal trial, so that there was no room for attempts to extort confessions.
[Haim Hermann Cohn]
In the State of Israel
The question of reliance upon self-incriminating confessions has often arisen in the courts. In Cr.A. 614, 5561/80 Al Bahiri v. State of Israel 37 (3) pd 169, Justice M. Elon reviewed Jewish law on this question, stating that "Jewish law originally maintained that a defendant's self-incriminating confession was absolutely inadmissible, pursuant to the rule that 'since a person is related to himself, no one may incriminate himself [lit. 'a person cannot make himself out to be a wrongdoer]' (Yev. 25b). The confession of a crime was absolutely inadmissible, whether the accused confessed outside or in court, and even if there was corroboration. One could not be convicted unless there was sufficient evidence and testimony to the commission of the crime. During the course of time, with the changing needs of the times and of society, various changes were made towards easing the methods of proof in criminal law. Certain witnesses were deemed qualified who had previously been legally disqualified; and circumstantial evidence was held sufficient if it was strong and substantial. Within the framework of these major changes, it also became possible to convict a defendant on the basis of his confession (Resp. Rashba iv, 311), but the qualification was established that a defendant's confession alone was not sufficient unless, in addition, there had to be 'some measure of corroboration' to support the veracity of the confession: In such a case, it is the practice to accept the defendant's confession even in a capital case where there is no clear proof, in order that what he says, 'together with some measure of corroboration, may clarify what occurred' (Resp. Ribash, 234)." The reluctance to rely upon self-incriminating confessions was due to the concern expressed by Maimonides that such a defendant may be subject to "inner pressure" to blame himself for a crime that someone else has committed: "Perhaps he is among the melancholy and depressed who wish to die [and] who thrust swords into their bellies or throw themselves down from the rooftops. Perhaps such a person will come and confess to a crime that he did not commit, in order that he may be killed" (Maim. Yad, Sanhedrin 18:6). In this case, one of the issues decided was that a failure to testify in court cannot be considered the "something in addition" which, added to the extrajudicial confession, suffices for conviction, the reason being that the very "inner pressure" that renders a confession unreliable without corroboration, may well be the basis for the defendant's unwillingness to testify in court. Moreover, in keeping with Jewish legal principles as they developed over time, the court suggested that the law be amended and that the "something in addition" required only in regard to extrajudicial confessions be also required in regard to confessions made in court. Justice Elon added that the danger of convicting an innocent man on the basis of his confession is very worrisome, and in this regard the principle was stated, "it is better and more desirable that a thousand guilty persons go free than that a single innocent person be put to death" (Maim. Sefer ha Mitzvot, Neg. Commandment, 290).In an earlier case that reviews Jewish law's stringent evidentiary requirements and mentions the above principle of Maimonides (Cr.A. 641, 622, 543/79 Nagar et al. v. State of Israel, 35 (1) pd 35 113), the question arose as to whether a conviction for murder could be based upon circumstantial evidence alone or upon an extrajudicial confession, supplemented by "some-thing in addition." Here Justice Elon outlined the Jewish legal sources as they developed over time relating to circumstantial evidence, the admissibility of testimony of relations and of self-incriminating confessions, and showed, based on the responsa of Rashba (iv, 311) and Ribash (251, 234), that self-incriminating confessions, though inadmissible alone, could be admissible if supplemented by "something in addition." In a case at first instance in the Beersheba District Court (Cr.F. 76/93 State of Israel v. Suleiman El Abid), Judge N. Hendel, in a minority opinion, examined the sources of Jewish law relating to circumstantial evidence and the inadmissibility of self-incriminating confessions, linking this question, following U.S. Judge Douglas' statement that the Fifth Amendment (against self-incrimination) "is part of our respect for the dignity of man," with Israel's Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, which is intended "to anchor in a basic law the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." Upon this foundation, the court discussed the admissibility of confessions in keeping with Jewish values, extensively examining the sources of Jewish law (Maim. Yad, Sanhedrin 18:6; Resp. Ribash, 233; Resp. Rashba iii, 399; Radbaz on Sanh. 18, and R. Simeon Shkop on Ket. 18b, 5) that provide different reasons for the inadmissibility of self-incriminating confessions. The Ribash, in view of Jewish law's reservations as to ascetic behavior and its opposition to self-inflicted harm, questions the motive of one who wishes to confess; stating that it need be closely examined in case it is due to a self-destructive urge (cf. Maim. Yad, Sanhedrin 18:6) or a misplaced wish to placate the conscience. The Radbaz states that such a confession is ineffective as "his soul does not belong to him but rather to the Holy One, blessed be He" (see Ez. 18:4); thus a confession in regard to what is not his is of no effect. R. Shkop's reason for the inadmissibility of confessions is the danger that too great a weight would be ascribed to them since they seem to constitute strong evidence, with the result that the court would be dazzled and not reach a balanced judgment. However, over time in certain Jewish communities, the pressure of circumstances necessitated that confessions be admitted within the framework measures of exigency (Resp. Rashba iii, 399) with the qualification that "something in addition" must supplement them (Resp. Ribash, 233). Finding the case exclusively based upon the defendant's confession, Justice Elon suggested adopting Jewish law's careful approach and in the absence of clear corroborative evidence ruled that El-Abid be acquitted. The difficulty of the case is apparent in its development: initially El-Abid was convicted (by majority) for murder and rape; on appeal to the Supreme Court, only the rape conviction remained (by majority), while in a further hearing, only the murder conviction was upheld (by majority). In another case (Cr.A. 168, 115/82 Moadi v. State of Israel, 38 (1) pd 197), Justice Elon held (257–65) that the rationale behind the requirement that a confession must be "voluntary" is solely to ensure the reliability and truth of the confession and that a judgment rendered in disregard of this would be contrary to the judge's duty to render a judgment that is "true to its very truth" (din emet le-amito) (Shab. 10a; Er. 54b; Meg. 15b; Sanh. 7a, 1 11b).
[Menachem Elon (2nd ed.)]
et, 1 (1951), 88–90, 225–7, 266; 7 (1956), 372; 8 (1957), 432–5; H. Cohn, in: Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, 51 (1960–61), 175–8; H.E. Baker, Legal System of Israel (1968), 226. add. bibliography: M. Elon, Ha Mishpat ha-Ivri (1988), 1:568f; 2:1465; idem, Jewish Law (1994), 2: 698; 4;1740; idem, Jewish Law (Cases and Materials) (1999), 206–12; A. Kirshenbaum, Harsha'ah Aẓmit ba-Mishpat ha-Ivri (2005).
"Confession." Encyclopaedia Judaica. . Encyclopedia.com. 18 Jul. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.
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https://www.edge.org/conversation/nicholas_a_christakis-social-networks-are-like-the-eye
SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE LIKE THE EYE
Conversation : MIND
Nicholas A. Christakis [2.25.08]
It is customary to think about fashions in things like clothes or music as spreading in a social network. But it turns out that all kinds of things, many of them quite unexpected, can flow through social networks, and this process obeys certain rules we are seeking to discover. We've been investigating the spread of obesity through a network, the spread of smoking cessation through a network, the spread of happiness through a network, the spread of loneliness through a network, the spread of altruism through a network. And we have been thinking about these kinds of things while also keeping an eye on the fact that networks do not just arise from nothing or for nothing. Very interesting rules determine their structure.
On of the oft-repeated phrases on Edge is "New Technologies=New Perceptions". As we create tools we recreate ourselves. In the digital information age, we have moved from thinking about silicon, transistors, and microprocessors, to redefining, to the edge of creating life itself. As we have seen in recent editions of Edge — "Life: What A Concept!" (Freeman Dyson, Craig Venter, George Church, Robert Shapiro, Dimitar Sasselov, Seth Lloyd) at Eastover Farm in August, "Life: A Gene-Centric View" (Richard Dawkins and Craig Venter) in Munich in January; "Engineering Biology" (Drew Endy) in our most recent edition — we are redefining who and what we are.
Such scientific explorations are not limited to biology. Recently, Harvard professor and sociologist Nicholas Christakis has shown that there's more to think about regarding social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Twitter than considerations of advertising and revenue models. According to The New York Times , ("On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data", by Stephanie Rosenbloom 12.17.07):
Each day about 1,700 juniors at an East Coast college log on to Facebook.com to accumulate "friends," compare movie preferences, share videos and exchange cybercocktails and kisses. Unwittingly, these students have become the subjects of academic research. To study how personal tastes, habits and values affect the formation of social relationships (and how social relationships affect tastes, habits and values), a team of researchers from Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles, are monitoring the Facebook profiles of an entire class of students at one college, which they declined to name because it could compromise the integrity of their research.
Christakis notes that he is "interested not in biological contagion, but in social contagion. One possible mechanism is that I observe you and you begin to display certain behaviors that I then copy. For example, you might start running and then I might start running. Or you might invite me to go running with you. Or you might start eating certain fatty foods and I might start copying that behavior and eat fatty foods. Or you might take me with you to restaurants where I might eat fatty foods. What spreads from person to person is a behavior, and it is the behavior that we both might exhibit that then contributes to our changes in body size. So, the spread of behaviors from person to person might cause or underlie the spread of obesity."
In a page one story in The New York Times last summer ("Find Yourself Packing It On? Blame Friends" 7.26.07), Gina Kolata noted:
Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.
Their study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, involved a detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people who had been closely followed for 32 years, from 1971 to 2003.
The investigators knew who was friends with whom as well as who was a spouse or sibling or neighbor, and they knew how much each person weighed at various times over three decades. That let them reconstruct what happened over the years as individuals became obese. Did their friends also become obese? Did family members? Or neighbors?
The answer, the researchers report, was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became obese. That increased a person's chances of becoming obese by 57 percent. There was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight, however, and family members had less influence than friends.
It did not even matter if the friend was hundreds of miles away, the influence remained. And the greatest influence of all was between close mutual friends. There, if one became obese, the other had a 171 percent increased chance of becoming obese, too. ...
Christakis, along with his colleague James Fowler, "have started with several projects that seek to understand the processes of contagion, and we have also begun a body of work looking at the processes of network formation — how structure starts and why it changes. We have made some empirical discoveries about the nature of contagion within networks. And also, in the latter case, with respect to how networks arise, we imagine that the formation of networks obeys certain fundamental biological, genetic, physiological, sociological, and technological rules. "
"So we have been investigating both what causes networks to form and how networks operate."
— JB
NICHOLAS A. CHRISTAKIS, a physician and sociologist, is a Professor at Harvard University with joint appointments in the Departments of Health Care Policy, Sociology, and Medicine. For the last ten years, he has been studying social networks.
Nicholas Christakis's Edge Bio Page
THE REALITY CLUB: Douglas Rushkoff, Alan Alda Nicholas Christakis
[NICHOLAS CHRISTAKIS:] There is a well-known example in evolutionary biology about whether the eye was designed, or is "just so” because it evolved and arose for a reason. How could this incredibly complicated thing come into being? It seems to serve an incredibly complicated purpose, and the eye is often used in debates about evolution precisely because it is so complex and seems to serve such a specialized and critical function.
For me, social networks are like the eye. They are incredibly complex and beautiful, and looking at them begs the question of why they exist, and why they come to pass. Do we need a kind of just-so story to explain them? Do they just happen to be there, for no particular reason? Or do they serve some purpose — some ontological and also pragmatic purpose?
Along with my collaborator James Fowler, I have been wrestling with the questions of where social networks come from, what purpose they serve, what rules they follow, and what they mean for our lives. The amazing thing about social networks, unlike other networks that are almost as interesting — networks of neurons or genes or stars or computers or all kinds of other things one can imagine — is that the nodes of a social network — the entities, the components — are themselves sentient, acting individuals who can respond to the network and actually form it themselves.
In social networks, there is an interdigitation between the higher order structure and the lower order structure, which is remarkable, and which has been animating our research for the last five or ten years. I started by studying very simple dyadic networks. A pair of individuals is the simplest type of network one can imagine. And I became curious about networks and network effects in my capacity as a doctor who takes care of people who are terminally ill.
In addition to my training in social science, I was trained as a hospice doctor. When I was at the University of Chicago (until 2001), I had a very special clinical practice that involved taking care of people in their own homes, and on Sunday afternoons I would take my little black bag to the South Side of Chicago and visit people who were dying. I had a sort of schizophrenic practice. About a third of my patients were very educated people associated with the University of Chicago, and two-thirds were indigent people from the South Side.
I have the very distinct image in my mind of experiences of myself driving to a borderline safe community, parking my car, looking around, walking up the short steps to the door, knocking, and waiting for what often seemed like a very long time for someone to come to the door. And then being led into people's homes often by the spouse of the person who was dying. There were often other relatives around and my primary focus as a hospice doctor was not just the person who was dying, but also the family members. I became increasingly interested in this.
I began to see in a very real way that the illness of the person dying was affecting the health status of other individuals in the family. And I began to see this as a kind of non-biological transmission of disease — as if illness or death or health care use in one person could cause illness or death or health care use in other people connected to him. It wasn't an epidemic transmission of a germ; something else was happening. This is a very basic observation about what I now call "interpersonal health effects,” but as I began to have more and more clinical experience with such patients, I began to broaden the focus. I became interested not just in dyadic transmission of illness and illness burden, but also hyper-dyadic transmission.
For example, one day I met with a pretty typical scenario: a woman who was dying and her daughter who was caring for her. The mother had been sick for quite a while and she had dementia. The daughter was exhausted from years of caring for her, and in the course of caring, she became so exhausted that her husband also became sick from his wife's preoccupation with her mother. One day I got a call from the husband's best friend, with his permission, to ask me about him. So here we have the following cascade: parent to daughter, daughter to husband, and husband to friend. That is four people — a cascade of effects through the network. And I became sort of obsessed with the notion that these little dyads of people could agglomerate to form larger structures.
Nowadays, most people have these very distinct visual images of networks because in the last ten years they have become almost a part of pop culture. But social networks were studied in this kind of way beginning in the 1950s — actually there was some work done in the 1930s and even earlier by a sociologist by the name of Georg Simmel — with a culmination in the 1970s with seminal work that was done by sociologists at that time (people like Mark Granovetter, Stan Wasserman, Ron Burt, and others). But all these were still very small-scale networks; networks of three people or 30 people — that kind of ballpark. But we are of course connected to each other through vastly larger, more complex, more beautiful networks of people. Networks of thousands of individuals, in fact. These networks are in a way living, breathing entities that reproduce, and that have a kind of memory. Things flow through them and they have a purpose and can achieve different things from what their constituent individuals can. And they are very difficult to understand.
This is how I began to think about social networks about seven years ago. At the time when I was thinking about this, I moved from the University of Chicago to Harvard, and was introduced to my colleague James Fowler, another social scientist, who was also beginning to think about different kinds of network problems from the perspective of political science. He was interested in problems of collective action — how groups of people are organized, how the action of one individual can influence the actions of other individuals. He was also interested in basic problems like altruism. Why would I be altruistic toward somebody else? What purpose does altruism serve? In fact, I think that altruism is a key predicate to the formation of social networks because it serves to stabilize social ties. If I were constantly violent towards other people, or never reciprocated anything good, the network would disintegrate, all the ties would be cut. Some level of altruism is required for networks to emerge.
So we can begin to think about combining a broad variety of ideas. Some stretch back to Plato, and thinking about well-ordered societies, the origins of good and evil, how people form collectives, how a state might be organized. In fact, we can begin to revisit ideas engaged by Rousseau and other philosophers on man in a state of nature. How can we transcend anarchy? Anarchy can be conceived of as a kind of social network phenomenon, and society and social order can also be conceived of as a social network phenomenon.
We can start with the tiny case of a man and a woman — a pair of individuals — one of whom is sick and the other of whom cares (partly from altruistic reasons) for that person. Stepping back to see them not as individuals, but focusing on the tie that connects them as the object of inquiry, we see that they are embedded in larger sets of such networks, which forces us to engage with a set of fundamental social scientific and philosophical problems — in fact moral problems — that people have been concerned with for millennia.
There is another aspect to the intellectual history of the study of networks that is very interesting. In the '50s and in the '70s, several social scientists began to study social networks and struggled with the problem of nodes (people) and the ties or "edges” that connect them. In fact, "edge” is the formal network term for the connection between two people on a network "graph.”
They began to struggle with how to understand this phenomenon and developed a variety of ideas and statistical methods for studying social networks. They did not have data on a large scale and they were limited by the computational power available to them at that time, but they made a lot of progress. They invented a lot of techniques and pushed the field about as far as it could go. After that there was a quiescent period; and the initial heyday of social network studies was back in the '70s.
These methods incidentally were built on some efforts by very well-known Hungarian mathematicians who studied a branch of mathematics known as topology, which itself has an interesting and old history stretching back to Euler. Beginning in the 1990s, there was a kind of resurrection of network science, initially caused by a group of physicists and mathematicians who were actually tackling problems in other domains. For instance, people interested in networks of genes, or cellular networks, or networks of neurons, like my colleague Laszlo Barabasi. For example, if we have a simple worm that has 200 neurons, can we map all of the connections between the 200 neurons and thereby understand how the worm learns, or how it behaves? Can we understand learning and behavior not by studying the neurons, but by studying the interconnection between neurons?
A lot of scientists became interested in other kinds of networks and latched on to many of the old sociological ideas. They developed the mathematics and applied them in new ways, tremendously improving the science of networks — people like Barabasi and Duncan Watts and Steve Strogatz and Mark Newman. Now all of this methodological apparatus is flowing back to the social sciences, and social scientists are using it to revisit and understand again a topic that has been of great concern to them for some time.
We are thus at a moment where a leap forward in the methodology for the study of social networks has been made, firstly by building on past work. But secondly, we are at a moment where — because of modern telecommunications technologies and other innovations — people are leaving digital traces of where they are, who they are interacting with, and what they are saying or even thinking. All of these types of data can be captured by the deployment of what I call "massive passive” technologies and used to engage social science questions in a way that our predecessors could only dream of. We have vast amounts of data that can be reapplied to investigate fundamental questions about social organization and about morality and other concerns that have perplexed us forever.
We have had advances in methods, we have had advances in data. We have also had advances in ideas. People are beginning to think more creatively about what it means to have these kinds of higher-order structures. Since the late 1990s and into the 2000s science more generally has been engaged in what I call the "assembly project” of modern science. Astronomers are beginning to think about how to assemble stars into galaxies, computer scientists are thinking about how to assemble computers into networks. With the development of the Internet in the mid-1990s, everybody began to think about computers, and their networks, and about how they interact and so forth. Engineers struggle with these problems.
Neuroscientists are beginning to think: okay, well, we understand a lot about neurons, but how do they interconnect to form brains? Geneticists are saying: at the end of the day, we will have understood all 25,000 (approximately) human genes, and then what? How do we put Humpty Dumpty back together again? How do we reassemble all of the genes and understand how they interact with each other in space and across time? We have seen the recent birth of a new field of biology called systems biology, which seeks to put the parts back together.
And similarly, in social science, there is an increasing interest in the same kind of phenomenon. We have begun to understand human behavior, and we have models of rational decision-making — rational actor models —which have led to further innovations. But these models all pertain primarily to individuals. Adam Smith talked about markets as a phenomenon that emerges from the action of individuals, but nevertheless we have primarily focused on the actions of individuals. How do we put all these parts back together to understand groups? Again, the study of social networks is part of this assembly project, part of this effort to understand how you can then have the emergence of order and the emergence of new phenomena that do not inhere in the individuals. We have, for example, consciousness, which cannot be understood by studying neurons. Consciousness is an emergent property of neuronal tissue. And we can imagine similarly certain kinds of emergent properties of social networks that do not inhere in the individuals — properties that arise because of the ties between individuals and because of the complexity of those ties.
Understanding all of this is what drives me and James Fowler to death right now. And as we have been thinking about it, we have come up with some initial simple ideas, and some initial intriguing and very novel empirical observations. The simple ideas are the following: it is critical when you think of networks to think about their dynamics. A lot of times, people fail to understand networks because they focus on the statics. They think about topology; they think about the architecture of the network. They think about how people are connected, which is of course incredibly important and not easy to understand either. While on the one hand the topology can be understood or seen as fixed or existing, on the other hand this topology is itself mutable and changing and intriguing, and the origin of this topology and its change is itself a difficult thing.
But here is something else: Once you have recognized that there is a topology, the next thing you must understand is that there can be a contagion as well — a kind of process of flow through the network. Things move through it, and this has a different set of scientific underpinnings altogether. Understanding how things flow through the network is a different challenge from understanding how networks form or evolve. It is the difference between the formation and the operation of the network, or the difference between its structure and its function. Or, if you see the network as a kind of super-organism, it is the difference between the anatomy and the physiology of the super-organism, of the network. You need to understand both. And they both interconnect and affect each other, just as in our bodies our anatomy and our physiology are interrelated.
This is what James and I are tackling right now; we have started with several projects that seek to understand the processes of contagion, and we have also begun a body of work looking at the processes of network formation — how structure starts and why it changes. We have made some empirical discoveries about the nature of contagion within networks. And also, in the latter case, with respect to how networks arise, we imagine that the formation of networks obeys certain fundamental biological, genetic, physiological, sociological, and technological rules.
So we have been investigating both what causes networks to form and how networks operate. In terms of their operation, we have tackled some initial problems as follows. For example, a few years ago we became interested in the claim that there was an obesity epidemic. The word "epidemic" has a couple of meanings. First of all, it means that there is a higher prevalence now than in some previous time. It also includes the basic idea that there is something contagious that is spreading from person to person. There is no doubt that the prevalence of obesity is rising. What was not obvious to us is whether obesity can be seen as an epidemic in the other sense of the word. Was it spreading from person to person?
We wanted to study whether this was the case. Could obesity flow through networks? Could one person's body type actually influence the body type of others around him, and around them, and around them, in a cascade effect? People often take for granted that things can spread in a network, like fashions in clothes, but they were often surprised when we were able to show that obesity spreads in a network. How did we do that? We needed to come up with a source of data that contained information about people's position in a network, the architecture of their ties — who they knew and who those people knew and who those people knew and so forth. We also needed a source of data on people's weight and other information about them. And we needed it for a long period of time with repeated observations on these people. This was a difficult challenge. No data set to our knowledge existed before we made the one I am about to describe.
We hit upon the idea of working with a very well-known epidemiological study called the Framingham Heart Study, which had been ongoing since 1948 and was funded by the federal government in Framingham, not far from Boston. It turned out that in the basement of the study were a bunch of records where the people who were responsible for tracking the thousands of participants kept information about how to reach the participants every two to four years so that they could come back for an examination and to fill in surveys and the like.
When we saw these paper records, it was immediately obvious that they contained valuable information because they told us where the person lived, who their family members were, who friends of theirs were, where they worked, and the like. And it occurred to us that we could computerize these records and that by dumb luck a lot of the people who were relatives or friends or neighbors of these individuals would also be participants in the heart study.
Therefore we could reconstruct the social network ties of a sample of 12,000 people over the course of 32 years and have information about them that had been collected repeatedly across time. In so doing, we could set the stage for a set of analyses that looked at how weight gain in one individual spread from that individual and caused weight gain in other individuals and how that in turn cascaded through the network and spread out through the network. What we found when we did this study is that weight gain in your friends makes you gain weight and weight gain among people beyond what we call your "social horizon” ripples through the network and affects you.
To us, it is a very, very fundamental observation that things happening in a social space beyond your vision — events that occur or choices that are made by people you don't know — can cascade in a conscious or subconscious way through a network and affect you. This is a very profound and fundamental observation about the operation of social life, which we initially examined while looking at obesity. We found that weight gain in a variety of kinds of people you might know affected your weight gain — weight gain in your friends, in your spouse, in your siblings and so forth. Moreover, people beyond those to whom you were directly tied also influenced your weight, people up to three degrees removed from you in the network. And, incidentally, we found that weight loss obeys the same properties and spreads similarly through the network.
It is one thing to observe the spread of phenomena through the network; it is another to take the next step and begin to identify a mechanism of spread. In the case of obesity, we formulated a variety of ideas and were able to test some of them. And we have a variety of new experiments in mind to continue to investigate the spread of obesity and other phenomena.
One possible mechanism is very simple, which is biological contagion. There is a variety of work being done by biologists looking at viruses and bacteria that could spread from person to person and contribute to the obesity epidemic. Our work is completely consistent with that, but this is not what we are interested in.
We are interested not in biological contagion, but in social contagion. One possible mechanism is that I observe you and you begin to display certain behaviors that I then copy. For example, you might start running and then I might start running. Or you might invite me to go running with you. Or you might start eating certain fatty foods and I might start copying that behavior and eat fatty foods. Or you might take me with you to restaurants where I might eat fatty foods. What spreads from person to person is a behavior, and it is the behavior that we both might exhibit that then contributes to our changes in body size. So, the spread of behaviors from person to person might cause or underlie the spread of obesity.
A completely different mechanism would be for there to be not a spread of behaviors, but a spread of norms. I look at the people around me and they are gaining weight. This changes my idea, consciously or subconsciously, about what is an acceptable body size. People around me who start gaining weight reset my expectations about what it means to be overweight or thin, and this is what spreads from person to person: a norm. It is a kind of meme (but it is not quite a meme) that goes from person to person.
In our empirical work so far, we have found substantial evidence for the latter mechanism, the spread of norms, more than the spread of behaviors. It is a bit technical, but I will tell you why we have some evidence for norms. In our empirical work on obesity, we found two lines of suggestive evidence for a spread of norms. The first line of evidence caught everyone's attention, and frankly it caught our attention when we noted it. It showed that it did not matter how far away your social contacts were; if they gained weight, it caused you to gain weight. This was the case whether your friend lived next door, ten miles away, 100 miles away, or 1000 miles away. Geographic distance did not mater to the obesity effect, the interpersonal effect.
Another finding from looking at the spread of smoking behavior was that if you stop smoking, it makes me stop smoking and there is a spread of smoking cessation behavior, which itself is something we are investigating. Pertinent for the present purpose, however, is that, after taking into account the spread of smoking cessation behavior, it did not efface the spread of obesity. In other words, accounting for one particular behavior, smoking cessation (which is known to increase weight at the individual level), did not undo the spread-of -obesity effect. This is an example in which it is not a spread of a behavior that causes the spread of obesity. This finding, coupled with the finding regarding the lack of decay with geographic distance, suggests to us that it is a norm rather than a behavior that is spreading.
Why? Because for a behavior to spread, typically, you and I would have to be together. We would have to go running together, share meals together, or copy each other's behavior in some way. And that should decay with geographic distance because the farther away you are, the less time we can spend together. But a norm can fly through the ether. I might see you once a year and see that you have gained a tremendous amount of weight, which resets my idea about what an acceptable body size is. And minimal contact might be enough.
If I go see my brother Dimitri for Thanksgiving, no matter how much food we eat, no matter how much we share the behavior of eating, it will not change my weight that one day. But if I see him and he has gained a lot of weight, it can change my idea about what an acceptable body size is and, in that way, the spread of the norm can cause the spread of obesity.
Clothing fashions spread in our society. One way this can happen is you see people that reset your idea of what is fashionable. Another is more pragmatic. I take you shopping and we pick something out together. I say, "Oh, I heard about a new store," whatever. Those are two different ways in which fashions might spread.
We also have found in our work that things beyond obesity and smoking cessation spread in networks. Happiness spreads in networks. If your friend's friend becomes happy, it ripples through the network and can make you happy. We see clusters of happy and unhappy individuals in the social network like blinking lights in this complex fabric that is made up of people where some people are happy and some people are unhappy and there is a kind of gray zone between them. There is an ongoing kind of equilibrium that is reached in this social space. We have found that depression can spread, and drinking behaviors can spread, and the kinds of foods people choose to eat can spread (a taste for tastes can spread, as one of my graduate students is studying). All of this using the initial Framingham Heart Study Social Network data set.
The spread of obesity occurs via a variety of mechanisms but we find evidence at a minimum for the role of norms. How can it be that there is a role of norms in the spread of obesity when the ideology in our society regarding thinness is the same as it ever was? The super models are just as thin as they ever were. Interestingly, there has been some change in the weight status of celebrities (there were always overweight celebrities, but I think there may be more now than there used to be); but super models are certainly as thin as they ever have been.
This is the difference between ideology and norms. People see these images of super models, but they might be less influenced by them than by the actions and appearance of the people immediately around them. For example, we see that people might behave badly and engage in criminal acts. We still have the ideology that the Bill of Rights holds and the Constitution holds and that there is goodness and there is evil. But people still behave badly when they are surrounded by people who behave badly. Again, it is the difference between norms and ideology, and this is how we square the circle in terms of why it is that there can be a spread of obesity, or an obesity epidemic, even though as a society we still seem to revere a different kind of body type from the one we are increasingly seeing.
James Fowler and I never expected to get the level of attention that we have for our work. On the morning of July 26th, I knew we were going to be in the New York Times because we had been interviewed by all these reporters prior to the appearance of our paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, and I'd been in the newspaper before, and the work was in a prominent journal, so I thought I knew what to expect, but when I went out that day and I was standing in my driveway and the article was so unexpectedly on the front page of New York Times, I went in to tell my wife and said, "You're not going to believe this." And after that, it just did not stop. But what was interesting to me was that it wasn't just the Times — pretty much every newspaper thought this was something interesting — the coverage by the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune was especially impressive. We had been working on the project for five years and we thought it was interesting, but we didn't think there would be so much popular interest.
Incidentally, we are not claiming that the fact that obesity might spread through social networks — or that the social network phenomenon might be relevant to the obesity epidemic — is the only explanation for the epidemic. No doubt there are many explanations. Those explanations, incidentally, are not genetic. Our genes haven't changed in the last 30 years.
The real explanations for the obesity epidemic are exclusively socio-environmental — things having to do with the increasing consumption of calories in our society: food is becoming cheaper, the composition of food is changing, there is increasing marketing of foodstuffs and the like. Also, clearly, there has been a change of rate at which people burn calories due to an increase in sedentary lifestyles, the design of our suburbs, and a whole host of such explanations.
We are not claiming that such explanations are not relevant. No doubt they are all part of the obesity epidemic. We are just saying that networks have this fascinating property whereby they magnify whatever they are seeded with. And so if you can get something going in a networked population like obesity, it can spread.
It should also be possible to trigger a spread in weight loss. We see this on a micro-dynamic scale in high schools, in niches of girls who start trying to compete with each other in terms of weight loss. One of the articles that came out about our work in The Guardian had pictures of the Spice Girls and the women in Sex and the City and talked about the "skinny flu" spreading from actress to actress. I think it was the first time Posh Spice and James Fowler were featured in the same paragraph.
So, you can get a kind of rush to the bottom, as well. In fact, after our work was published, we were contacted by a bunch of people who were seeking to treat people with eating disorders and who wondered if some of these network properties could be exploited clinically to improve the health of various individuals.
We also mention in our paper in the New England Journal the possible relevance of so-called "mirror neurons,” which is another mechanism which I didn't touch on earlier. One possibility besides biological contagion is that by watching you exhibit certain kinds of behaviors like eating or running, I start to copy those behaviors mentally in a mirror-neuron kind of way. And this facilitates my exhibiting the same behavior.
It is actually quite complicated to know how to exploit these network phenomena in a situation like the one we have been discussing because if you have a lot of people of one body type and you introduce somebody of a different body type, it is unclear who will influence whom. The thin person might gain weight, or the overweight people might lose weight. Or both. It is a very complicated dynamic, which again requires a kind of deployment of a certain kind of data and methods to begin to understand.
I should also stress something very important, which is that James Fowler's and my primary focus is not obesity, it is networks. Obesity happens to be an incredibly important public health problem and was something very important to study, above all because it showed how something people might not have thought of as spreading in social networks could. If we had shown, for example that fashion spread in social networks, that might be much less interesting to people. But if you can show that something like obesity or happiness or even goodness spreads in social networks, you are on new terrain.
Incidentally, some of these things also touch on very old philosophical and social science concerns, as I mentioned earlier, because they raise questions about free will. If my behaviors and my thoughts are determined not just by my own volition, but are determined by the behaviors and thoughts of other people to whom I am connected, and are even determined by the behaviors and thoughts of other people who I do not know and who are beyond my social horizon but who are connected to people to whom I am connected, it speaks to the issue of free will. Are my thinking and my behavior truly free, or are they constrained because I am part of a social network? To the extent that I am part of this human super-organism, does that reduce my individuality? And does this give us more or less insight into human behavior?
Because we are talking about networks of human beings rather than networks of neurons or computers, it is the case that I am not just plunked down in a network that is determined by some kind of exogenous physical law. There is no doubt that the topology obeys certain biological and psychological rules and laws, but it is also true that I can choose who my friends are and say, "You know, I don't like these friends; I am going to pick new friends," and in turn choose new friends.
That is, your desires and ideas can influence the structure of your network. For example, if you have ideas that foster a certain kind of ties, those ties in turn foster and support certain kinds of ideas. You can imagine a circumstance in which certain kinds of ideologies can survive and offer certain kinds of advantages because they bind the group together, or tear it apart, in particular kinds of ways. We have been thinking a little bit about this in terms of groups of people that seem to evince what would appear to be self-destructive behaviors, but our thoughts in this regard are still very preliminary.
Let's talk about our work with Facebook. The Framingham Heart Study network was a network we had to painfully assemble using archival records about particular kinds of individuals. Even in the five years since we began to work on that project, the leaps in telecommunications and the emergence on the Internet of sites and technologies that are affirmatively organized as social networks — whereby people actually have formed and display their networks — has provided amazing research opportunities. When it comes to the internet, we are no longer merely talking about networks of computers or of networks of people who are in communication with each other, but we are talking about truly social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace and Friendster and LinkedIn.
The emergence of these technologies is a gold mine for social scientists in general, and certainly for people like James Fowler and myself, who are interested in social networks. We have begun a set of projects that exploit naturally occurring social networks on the Internet, like Facebook, or that seek to exploit the Internet to manipulate social networks in a variety of experimental ways, for example, in some work I have been doing with Damon Centola and others.
The Facebook Project is only tangentially related to health, but is very much related to other concerns we have regarding the connection and contagion that take place with regard to the formation and operation of networks. We have been working at one particular university, where we have taken repeated cuts through the network. That is, a key feature is that we have longitudinal resolution across time and so can observe the network at several points in time, which prior generations of social scientists could not easily do.
We have trawled through this large social network and grabbed information about people in the network, and their social ties, as is available on Facebook — for example, information having to do with their tastes, with the people with whom they appear in photographs, and so on. For example, a person might have an average of 100 or 200 friends on Facebook, but they might only appear in photographs with 10 of them. We would argue that appearing in a photograph constitutes a different kind of social tie than a mere nomination of friendship.
By exploiting these kinds of data and a variety of computer science technologies, we have been able to build a network that changes across time and to trace the flow of tastes through the network (for instance, how as I start listening to a particular kind of music, you start listening to a particular kind of music). We have been able to study homophilic properties — the idea that birds of a feather flock together. How and why do people form unions? Do they depend upon particular attributes, tastes, and the like? We have been able to study how these types of things — both the topology of the network and the things that flow through the network — change over time.
In one project developed from this research, we considered whether someone wants to keep his or her information private on the Internet. Initially, without trivializing this serious topic, the issue of privacy was a methodological nuisance. But then we realized that, in addition to its conceptual importance, we could treat privacy as a taste. And we saw that the taste for privacy flowed through the network so that if I adopt privacy settings on Facebook, the people to whom I am connected will be more likely to adopt privacy settings.
So here we observe yet another phenomenon. We have talked about the flow of obesity through a network, we have talked about the flow of happiness through a network, we have talked about the flow of smoking cessation through a network, we have talked about the flow of fashions through a network. Now we are talking about the flow of tastes in privacy through the network. And tastes in all kinds of other things, like music, movies, or books, or a taste in food. Or a flow of altruism through the network. All of these kinds of things can flow through social networks and obey certain rules we are seeking to discover.
Reality Club Discussion
Media Analyst; Documentary Writer; Author, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus
I'm delighted to see Christakis working to codify the process through which ideas and behaviors spread through social networks. Finally, a scientist — not a marketer — is interested in mediated social contagion.
I became interested in the phenomenon in the late 80's, as the mediaspace was becoming more interactive. It seemed to me that as people gained the ability to exercise feedback through camcorders, faxes, modems, or even photocopiers, the datasphere was beginning to exhibit more of the properties of a living system. I was excited that traditional media authorities would no longer be able to control the agenda of the media in quite the same way. And I sought to demonstrate how, instead, our collectively unaddressed social agendas would now find their way into mass consciousness — seemingly of their own accord.
My metaphor was the virus — for, like biological viruses, these agendas required two main components to survive and spread. A biological virus consists of genetic material wrapped in a protein shell. The protein shell makes it both sticky and non-threatening to the organism through which it travels. It looks like any other protein. Once attached to a cell membrane, the virus then injects its genetic material inside. If the virus's DNA can successfully interpolate itself into that of the cell, it turns the cell into a factory for more viruses — spreading the code further until the organism can recognize the code and adjust.
A successful "media virus" requires the same two components: a sticky shell and compelling code. Instead of protein, the media virus is housed in a shell of media. And instead of genes, a media virus contains what Richard Dawkins called "memes" — ideological components, or, more simply, ideas. It's the media shell that allows a media virus to spread through the mediaspace undetected, while it's the memes inside that interpolate into our confused cultural code, forcing their replication.
The media virus I was obsessed with at the time was the Rodney King tape — the scene of a black man being beaten by white cops, captured by a citizen on a camcorder. The original news story, which spread around the world overnight on the cable news channels, was that someone had captured this event on a camcorder. The tape itself was the virus's protein shell. The code inside — the assault on a black man — interpolated itself into our already confused cultural code regarding race, power, and police brutality on America's urban landscape. The virus spread so far and wide that it eventually provoked riots in a dozen American cities.
The ideas that achieve such social contagion are nearly always nested within a media shell that carries it throughout the host. Then, the ideas within it ultimately replicate because they tap an unexpressed, or under-expressed, cultural agenda or concern.
This is not new. Back in the 1770's, Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, in which the protagonist shoots himself at his writing desk, provoked so many imitation suicides by young men that the book was banned in Denmark, Germany, and Italy. Since the 1970's, well-publicized airplane crashes have led to a statistical significant increase in the number of other crashes in the weeks following the incident. I have likewise proposed that the mass media's broadcast of suicide attacks could prove the most dangerously effective form of their promotion to potential domestic terror groups and individuals otherwise isolated from their allies and social supporters. But again, these phenomena are quite consistent with the rules of the top-down, print and broadcast mediaspace of the past five hundred years.
What is new, however, is our widespread access to the tools of mass media. One doesn't need to be William Randolph Hearst or Goethe, for that matter, to launch a media virus through YouTube or MySpace. The successful reproduction and spread of the idea or trend has much more to do with its shell and code — as well as our cultural immune response — than the financial or political power of its creator.
Sadly, perhaps, the only people interested in these ideas for the past decade have been marketers (and, of course, writers looking to sell books to them). Media viruses were understood less as a new model for social transmission than as a new branding opportunity — a tipping point through which to influence the purchasing decisions of essentially unconscious actors. Thus "viral marketing" was born. Meanwhile, visionaries interested in the possibilities for organismic awareness offered by mediated interconnectedness were lumped in with the fascists of earlier eras. Anything smacking of "meta-organism" reminded the intelligentsia of Hegel or, worse, Jung. Instead of looking — like scientists — at the incipient reorganization of civilization on a new dimensional level, they cringe like early readers of Le Bon's The Crowd, incapable of seeing in collective organism anything but the tyranny of the masses.
This is why I'm so particularly thrilled to see a disciplined social scientist like Christakis take up this line of inquiry. And while today's social networking platforms provide an excellent petrie dish in which to track the adoption of ideas by an explicitly linked network, I also want to warn Christakis how slippery and unpredictable the lines of communication between members of social networks really are.
The explicit lines of "communication" between the participants of Facebook or Myspace are not necessarily any more conductive than the indirect transmission of ideas between networks or across seemingly discreet boundaries. One needn't put a film selection in one's list of favorites, for example, to serve as a carrier of the viral code contained within the film. So the movie can hop from one place to another without its title ever being mentioned. Likewise, the "Brittney Spears" media virus might spread as an explicitly "Brittney" phenomenon throughout one network, then take the form of a conversation about teen pregnancy or bipolar disorder, and then resurface again as Brittney somewhere else.
Even more confounding to those of us tracing the path and proliferation of ideas through human networks is the fact that the mediaspace now exhibits its own emergent properties. As complex as any dynamic system, the datasphere is capable of feedback and iteration; it has reached a level of turbulence where seemingly forgotten patterns resurface with alarming regularity — even with no particular prodding or conscious invitation by human beings.
Whether this activity can be considered the behavior of meta-organism or simply the wave patterns of a dynamical system — and whether there's any difference between the two — is the most compelling question raised by this work.
Actor; Writer; Director; Host, PBS program Brains on Trial; Author, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
The Edge of Fashion
About thirty years ago I started wondering how fads and fashions in ideas, behaviors, foods, clothes, medicine, politics, and pretty much every other human activity could seem to spread through a culture like a contagion. So I began collecting hundreds of papers and books from different fields in the hope of finding someone who was examining this deep and mysterious question in a way that was quantifiable. It's exciting to see Nicholas Christakis attacking this notion scientifically because we're at a point now generally where it's fashionable to talk about fashion but not necessarily to study it with rigor.
The CEO, talking to his team of top managers says, "I want us to get in on the ground floor of the next bandwagon.” If this recent New Yorker cartoon brings a smile to our face it's because we realize how difficult, if not impossible, it is to guess which gaggle of people will become the next parade. On the other hand, our smile may be checked in mid grin by the thought that there are actually CEOs all over the world trying to do exactly that: catch a wave that will carry them to the Promised Land. The small industry of guerilla marketing offers hope of getting there, but more like preachers and fortune tellers; more like explorers on a random walk than travelers with a map.
The problem that Christakis is facing head on, I think, is that this is a complex problem with interlocking complexities within it, each containing more complexities, like an inscrutable Russian doll.??It's hard enough to get increasing numbers of semiconductors on a computer chip to communicate in the best possible way, but it's even harder to understand how people communicate because we're not simple on-off switches. We're not merely units in a swarm; we're, each of us, collectionsof swarms — from the cells in our hearts to the neurons in our brains. ??It seems to me that figuring out how these collections of swarms influence one another is going to require researchers from many different fields to become interested in this question. In a lab I visited while interviewing scientists for Scientific American Frontiers, I saw a petri dish full of heart cells that were pulsing in unison. I wondered what signals were they sending and receiving that triggered this synchrony. The flocking of birds can be modeled on a computer with the simple rule of not getting too close, or too far, from a neighbor, and yet a giant flock of birds will apparently turn as one. So are they responding to a signal from a neighbor or to a signal from a mini-swarm within their flock that has reached a critical mass and serves as a super signal? Or both? Can the people who study the flocking of birds and those who study the pulsing of heart cells help us understand the signal/response interactions of even more complex systems, like networks of people???For instance, Christakis mentions the remarkable study in which obesity seems to be contagious within a circle of friends. It reminded me of my interview with Jeffrey Friedman who discovered leptin, the hormone that signals how much fat is in the body. He painted a picture for me of how all kinds of cues (smells, thoughts, behaviors, and more) can trigger a complex interaction among leptin and other hormones within us that in turn give us the powerful sensation, even though we're full, that we're actually starving.If I don't have this piece of pie, I could die. Is our intricate hormonal system responding to signals from the even larger system of the circle of our friends? I'd love to hear a conversation between Christakis and Friedman.
The edge of the network that makes up the scientific community could make an important breakthrough if it started interacting on this question.??Maybe Edge could become a super signal on that edge.
Nicholas A. Christakis
Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Yale University; Co-author, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
In his comments regarding "Social Networks Are Like the Eye," Alan Alda highlights three distinct, albeit inter-related issues, two of which are also touched on by Douglas Rushkoff: the role of mechanisms of spread in social networks; the problem of determining the mechanisms of spread; and the analogy of a swarm that is sometimes used to understand certain social network processes.
In our ongoing research program, James Fowler and I are keenly interested in mechanisms, but we regard them as a latter step in a process of understanding social networks. In our paper on the spread of obesity, we consider two mechanisms by which something might spread from one person to another socially: one person might copy the behaviors of another, or one person might adopt the ideas or norms of another. But our thinking about these possibilities remained necessarily speculative given the limitations in our data in that study. However, Alda’s comments force another thought: even if one were to empirically document that a norm spreads from person to person, and that this was, in fact, the mechanism for the spread of, say, obesity, this observation might merely push the problem back a step, because then another question might be begged: what is the mechanism by which norms themselves in turn spread? An infinite regress (sometimes known as scientific inquiry) might then start, with ever-finer levels of reality being probed. The irony here is that the whole effort to understand social networks indeed is mainly about heading in the other direction, towards ever-larger levels of reality! Understanding how smaller bits are assembled into larger structures, rather than unpacking larger structures into their smaller constituents is our first objective in understanding social networks.
That is, for Fowler and myself, the first challenge is to understand the rules by which social networks form (their structure); the second challenge is to understand what they do (their function); and the third challenge is to understand how they do it (the mechanism). The intellectual and empirical problem, alas, in the case of social (as compared to physical or biological) networks is that all three of these are inter-connected and there may be particularly complex feedback loops among these levels.
As Alda and Rushkoff suggest, the actual mechanism of contagion in behaviors is thus both fascinating and difficult to fully understand. Why, exactly, do I copy you? And how? There are a variety of biological, psychological, and sociological reasons, of course, and they each might operate a different empirical and ontological levels. But to nail them down, and to demonstrate their operation in hyper-dyadic circumstances, is another matter. We can provide two illustrations of possible mechanisms — one social and one biological, as follows:
I, and others too, might copy you because, in seeing you do something in particular (eat, clean your gutters, listen to Mozart), you provide ademonstration of what I could do and how I could do it. What flows through the air between you and me (and hence across our ethereal, social network tie) is the sight of you doing something, and this provides learning to me (a demonstration effect) that allows me to do something I might not previously have been able, or wanted, or thought, to do. Of course, this does not deal with my motivation! Just because I see you do something does not in and of itself mean that I will necessarily want to copy you (nor, frankly, that I should copy you — for example, if you get depressed or if you commit murder, I should probably not copy you — although, even with these two phenomena, there is evidence that people actually do copy others, even others who are quite far from them in the social network and not directly tied to them). Of course, there is good evidence that we primates simply innately like to copy others (to try things out, as it were), and this learning-by-copying, this curiosity, and the social integration that results from this copying almost certainly all served an evolutionary purpose. Nevertheless, the question remains: are our desires endogenous, exogenous, or both? Both, of course. But it is not easy to sort out.
Now, a different reason I might copy you is that there is somethingbiological going on. For example, one person doing something may signal others to do the same (think of human pheremones, or menstrual synchrony among female roommates). Or, inhaling the second hand smoke of another person might contribute to our own addiction to tobacco. Even the leptin pathway might be involved, as Alda suggests, as a neurohormonal mechanism of the contagion of obesity ('without this pie, I could die,' indeed.)
Finally, there is the issue of the swarm metaphor that both Alda and Rushkoff, in different ways, evoke. This metaphor is both appealing and apt, and it is related to the notion of a "super-organism" mentioned in my original Edge interview. Like other investigators, Fowler and I have no doubt that human societies do, at least at times, evince swarm-like properties. However, as Alda suggests, a swarm of ants or bees or birds or fish might actually be closer to the synchronous beating of heart cells than to the behavior of people. A riot is a kind of human swarm. But the more sustained social networks in which we are all embedded (i.e., the kind of social organization that is both less ephemeral than a riot and more complex in terms of the ties between the actors) exhibit properties that hives and swarms do not; and the reason for this is that humans are conscious of their social network embeddedness (and conscious of much else too). So, the kind of emergent properties seen in ant hills or bee hives might actually better resemble those seen in networks of inanimate objects (such as networks of power stations or computers) or networks of non-sentient items (like heart cells) than they resemble networks of humans. Nevertheless, some of the phenomena seen in human societies (like riots, and also like markets) might indeed be just like swarms.
Hence, in some aspects of our lives, no doubt, we may indeed resemble ants, simply following the person in front of us. And this in turn does raise the concerning possible link to an individuality-crushing, soul-effacing "tyranny of the masses" that Rushkoff notes. Of course, even here, we should not set up false dichotomies: for people may have both an individual and a collective existence, be both disconnected and connected. Since it is hard to believe that we are connected for no reason, I myself am of the view that social networks, and our embeddedness in them, serve a valuable and — I will go out on a limb — good purpose.
Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Yale...
Actor; Writer; Director; Host, PBS program Brains... [ Read ]
Media Analyst; Documentary Writer; Author,... [ Read ]
Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science... [ Read ]
Beyond Edge
The Christakis Lab
Nicholas Christakis Lectures on iTunes
Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a...
By Nicholas A. Christakis Hardcover [2019]
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our...
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
By Alan Alda Paperback [2008]
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other...
Team Human
By Douglas Rushkoff Hardcover [2019]
Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth...
Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
By Douglas Rushkoff Paperback [2014]
Life Inc.: How the World Became a...
Screenagers: Lessons In Chaos From Digital...
Club Zero-G
Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism
Playing the Future: What We Can Learn from...
Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say
Ecstacy Club: A Novel
Media Virus! Hidden Agendas in Popular...
Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace
Conversations at Edge
A NEW KIND OF SOCIAL SCIENCE FOR THE 21st CENTURY
A Conversation with Nicholas A. Christakis [ 8.21.12 ]
by Nicholas A. Christakis, James Fowler [ 12.4.08 ]
Edge-Serpentine Gallery-MAPS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Special Events [ 10.16.10 ]
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In Georgia, Tax Hike Is First in 18 Years
Georgia teachers will receive a 3 percent pay raise and funding for the state's Quality Basic Education Act will be increased as a result of the legislature's adoption of the first major tax increase in 18 years.
Lawmakers adjourned March 15 after agreeing on how to spend the $687 million in revenues expected from a 1-cent hike in the state sales tax, which had been approved a week earlier.
The tax increase was the subject of weeks of debate after both houses of the General Assembly approved the higher tax, but differed on whether food should be exempted.
Legislators finally agreed to accept a compromise plan offered by Gov. Joe Frank Harris to exclude most fresh foods, but not packaged or processed commodities, from the sales tax.
Legislature Applauded
Educators applauded the legislature's willingness to raise taxes and commit 46 percent of the new revenue to education.
"Georgia's political leadership has reaffirmed its commitment to quality education and to the Quality Basic Education Act," State Superintendent Werner Rogers said in a statement.
The fiscal 1990 budget approved by lawmakers includes $68.1 million for teacher salary increases and for improvements in the salary schedule.
The budget also includes $20 million for special instructional assistance for students in kindergarten through the 2nd grade, and $9 million for an in-school suspension program for high-school students, both of which were called for in the 1985 qbe law.
In addition, the budget includes a $97-million increase in the qbe funding formula.
Despite the approval of the sales-tax hike, some educators argue that programs mandated by the reform law continue to be underfunded.
By one estimate, an additional $500 million is needed to fully fund the qbe law, with about half of that amount required for the implementation of a teacher career ladder.
"I'm beginning to see folks drag their feet in funding qbe," said Kay Pippin, a lobbyist for the Georgia Association of Educators.--mw
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Short Circuit >
Mar 9, 2019 - 10:47 am
Trigger-happy Tesla drivers annoy Norwegian fire departments
BEVModel 3NorwayTesla
Nothing is more appealing than a button. New Model 3 in Norway are newly equipped with the “e-Call” button and is supposed to be used to alert emergency services to road accidents. Apparently, Norwegian test drivers trying out the new Model 3 couldn’t resist trying it out, which caused Norwegian emergency services to issue a public statement.
To be fair to Tesla drivers trying out the new Model 3, it is perhaps unfortunate that the e-Call button is located right next to the hazard lights. On Twitter Oslo 110-central tweeted: “Today, many tried SOS button on its new Tesla Model 3. Pressing this button activates an e-Call alarm that goes directly to the 110 exchange. E-Call / SOS alarm is handled as an emergency call. PRESS ONLY SOS button in your car if you are in EMERGENCY.”
Stig Henning Buaas, guard commander at the fire and rescue agency in Oslo told drivers that they were obliged to follow up every call made through the e-Call button and that they didn’t have to capacity to deploy every time someone wanted to test it out. He says that they will endeavour to inform consumers about the feature and would follow-up with Tesla so that they more thoroughly inform their customers about it. He acknowledged that it is to be expected that there are teething problems since the feature is new.
The e-Call function is a new emergency call system for notification of road accidents. This will be installed in passenger cars and light commercial vehicles that are type approved after March 31, 2018. In Norway, all e-Call calls will be forwarded directly to the fire department’s 110 centres, which will then consider further action and any notification of the other emergency services. According to the Ministry of Justice is expected that e-Call will result in a reduction in the number of road deaths by 10.2 per cent.
aftenposten.no (in Norwegian)
Volvo limits its cars to top speed of 180 km/h
It looks like a car, but…
https://www.electrive.com/2019/03/09/trigger-happy-tesla-drivers-annoy-norwegian-fire-departments/
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Home · News
Missy Elliott Battles Graves' Disease
Missy speaks on her road to recovery...
By Nicole Marie Melton · June 24, 2011
If you’ve been wondering why you haven’t heard a new Missy Elliott track yet, it’s because the rap diva has been suffering with Graves’ disease since 2008.
The out-of-the-box hitmaker tells People magazine that being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease was a total shock, but she knew something was wrong when she almost got into a car accident one day. “I was trying to put my foot on the brake, but my leg was jumping. I couldn’t keep the brake down and almost crashed,” she said.
The disease also affected Missy’s work. “I couldn’t write because my nervous system was so bad,” she said.
As a result of her declining health, Missy took matters into her own hands and started getting healthy. “I’m 30 pounds lighter because I’ve been exercising. My thyroid is functioning, so I haven’t had to take medication in about nine months.”
Now that she’s better, Missy is looking forward to getting back behind the mic. Look out for more of her story on VH1’s “Behind the Music” airing Wednesday, June 29th at 10 pm.
We’re glad you’re better, Missy!
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Exposure to toxins makes great granddaughters more susceptible to stress
IMAGE: This is a pyramid of sleeping rat pups. view more
Credit: Photo: Andrea Gore.
Scientists have known that toxic effects of substances known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), found in both natural and human-made materials, can pass from one generation to the next, but new research shows that females with ancestral exposure to EDC may show especially adverse reactions to stress.
According to a new study by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and Washington State University, male and female rats are affected differently by ancestral exposure to a common fungicide, vinclozolin. Female rats whose great grandparents were exposed to vinclozolin become much more vulnerable to stress, becoming more anxious and preferring the company of novel females to familiar females. Males who have the same combination of ancestral exposure and stress do not have the same adverse effects.
"These results should concern us all because we have been exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals for decades and we all go through natural challenges in life," said David Crews, the Ashbel Smith Professor of Zoology and Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin and lead author of the study. "Those challenges are now being perceived differently because of this ancestral exposure to environmental contamination."
The study was published July 22 online in the journal Endocrinology.
Vinclozolin is a fungicide commonly used by farmers to treat fruits and vegetables.
To test the effects of stress on rats, the researchers confined some of them to soft, warm cylinders for six hours a day for three weeks. This was done during adolescence, a developmentally sensitive time of life for rats, just as for humans. Months later, the researchers tested the brain chemistry, brain function, gene expression and behavior of the rats as adults.
They discovered that for female rats, ancestral exposure to vinclozolin alone or stress during the animal's adolescence alone had negligible effects on the rats' hormonal balance and behavior. However, the combination of ancestral exposure and stress caused the female rats to have dramatically higher levels of corticosterone (a stress hormone similar to cortisol in humans), higher expression of genes associated with anxiety and more anxious behaviors. Other research has shown that stress hormones cause degeneration of a region of the brain associated with memory and learning.
Crews said that following exposure to EDCs, what is being passed down from generation to generation is not a change in the genetic code of the animals, but rather a change in the way specific genes are expressed. Gene expression is the process by which a cell uses the genetic code to make useful products such as proteins. If a section of a person's genetic code were a cookie recipe, gene expression would refer to how many cookies, if any, a cook makes with the recipe. The observation that changes in gene expression can be passed on to future generations has led to a new field of research known as epigenetics.
Crews and others have shown that EDCs can increase the risk in future generations for human illnesses such as autism, obesity and cardiovascular disease. Crews noted that environmental levels of EDCs are continuing to rise, as well as the rates of these diseases, particularly mental disorders.
Crews' co-authors are Ross Gillette, Isaac Miller-Crews and Andrea Gore of The University of Texas at Austin; and Eric Nilsson and Michael Skinner of Washington State University.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Download the paper "Sexually dimorphic effects of ancestral exposure to vinclozolin on stress reactivity in rats": http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/en.2014-1253
Marc Airhart
mairhart@austin.utexas.edu
@UTAustin
http://www.utexas.edu
National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health
STRESS/ANXIETY
Rats (IMAGE)
http://cns.utexas.edu/news/exposure-to-toxins-makes-great-granddaughters-more-susceptible-to-stress
The FASEB Journal: SIRT6 over-expression may prevent progression of diabetes, study finds Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
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Lawyers optimistic over jailed journalist appeal
Lawyers in Iran defending the jailed US born journalist Roxana Saberi have said they are optimistic that her sentence will be fundamentally changed.
The 32-year-old reporter is contesting an eight year prison sentence after being convicted last month of spying for the US. She was arrested in January for working in Iran after her press credentials had expired. Today’s closed session in the court of appeal ended after hearing arguments from her legal team. The court is expected to issue its verdict in the next two or three days.
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Kremlin Watch Monitor January 11, 2017
Our Jakub Janda discusses in Observer what the West lacks in order to be able to come up with sufficient policy responses for tackling the disinformation campaign of the Kremlin. If you are guessing that the answer is money, you are right. Specifically, there are three key areas:
Infographics by EEAS East StratCom
Weekly update on Kremlin disinformation efforts
Alleged meeting of Trump aides with Russian intelligence in Prague
U.S. media published a report saying that a delegation of Trump aides, led by lawyer Michael Cohen, allegedly travelled to Prague in late August or early September 2016, to meet with Russian intelligence to discuss hacking og the Clinton campaign.The report also states that Mr. Oleg Solodukhin, a representative of Russian MFA organisation “Rossotrudnichestvo”, served “an interlocutor” of those meetings. Mr. Soloduhkin has denied that he “met any American citizen during last first years”, when he asked on this story by Czech weekly Respekt. Mr. Cohen tweeted that he has never been to Prague, stating that “between August 23 – 29 I was in Los Angeles”. He did not say what he was doing in early September.
New report on the Russian involvement in US elections: Progress or not?
Before the report put together by three US intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI and NSA) and assessing the Russian involvement in the presidential elections was made public, John McCain, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services, held a hearing on that topic. Amongst the officials testifying during the hearing were the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or the NSA chief Michael Rogers. The main points of the hearing were well summarized by Politico. President-elect Donald Trump has been widely criticized for dismissing the intelligence community on that matter.
Although there is no way to tell whether the Russian meddling may have influenced the actual results of the elections, the three agencies seem to be very confident about the intentions of the Kremlin – to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Nevertheless, the public part of the report does not offer most of the important information and the opinions on the sufficiency of the details provided and their persuasiveness differ. To get the full scope, you can for example compare the views of The New York Times and The Moscow Times on the issued report.
BMW, Deutsche Telekom and other German companies decided to pull their advertisements of the Breitbart news site known for supporting far-right politicians in Europe. The website plans to launch in Europe this year. Although Breitbart has been known to spread disinformation and manipulative stories in the context of the US presidential elections, it is important to highlight that the dismissal of the website should be based on its manipulative or false content, not on conservative, anti-immigration or Eurosceptic views. You can also read about another efforts to stop advertising on sites producing fake news in this article published by The New York Times.
Who is going to be the new US national intelligence director? The appointment has not been approved by the Senate yet, but the president-elect Donald Trump nominated Dan Coats, an Indiana ex-senator who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee and as an Ambassador in Germany in the past. He was among the first Senators put on the sanctions list by the Kremlin, mostly because he argued that the reaction of Obama administration to Russian annexation of Crimea was insufficient.
Czech team against disinformation under scrutiny
A new team within the Czech Minisry of the Interior tasked to monitor and analyze disinformation campaigns called Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats started to work last week. It got immediately under scrutiny of the Kremlin-friendly Czech president Milos Zeman, who stated that “we do not need censorship” even though the team of 20 experts has no intention of censoring anything and according to Eva Romancovova, the center’s chief, the Office of the President had not raised any objections in the past, when the creation of the group was discussed during the national security audit.
In the meantime, German Interior Ministry is following the lead and plans to set up a similar center very soon.
Leonid Bershidsky argues in his commentary for Bloomberg that European populists should not count on the help of the Kremlin, especially the financial kind, since it has its clear limits. He demonstrates that on the struggles of Marine Le Pen to get enough money for her next presidential campaign.
The Interpreter magazine reports the words of a Georgian political analyst Vakhtang Maisaya who believes the next step of Vladimir Putin will be to unify the Georgian South Ossetia with North Ossetia and include this new entity into the Russian Federation.
Andre E. Kramer describes in his New York Times article which various ways the Kremlin uses to recruit hackers to fight their cyberwar.
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Russia’s strategy for influence through public diplomacy and active measures: the Swedish case; by Martin Kragh and Sebastian Åsberg, published by the Journal of Strategic Studies
The Swedish version of Sputnik, the news website directly financed by the Kremlin, has been functional during 2015. According to its content analysis, the dominant metanarratives were: the crisis in the West, positive image of Russia and Western aggressiveness. The most frequently appearing targets were the EU, depicted as being in decline, and NATO, portrayed as encircling Russia, both organizations being under the shadow rule of the United States. Swedish domestic topics were not the priority, criticism of the EU and NATO constituted around 60 % of all articles.
Metanarratives in Swedish Sputnik articles, April-December 2015
Since 2014, Russia has moved towards a preference for active measures towards Sweden. Forgeries in Swedish information space have been amongst various tools Russia has used there, for example false evidence of misbehavior or incompetence of the West or the Swedish politicians and decision makers. The level of detail suggests that the originators of the documents have access to comprehensive intelligence on Swedish society. As we have seen in different parts of Europe, Sweden also has its far-right and far-left populist movements and projects with connections to Russia, for example the Nordic Resistance, a fascist organization which has cooperated with Rodina party and the Russian Imperial Movement, or the interlocutor of a pro-Kremlin left narrative, tabloid called Aftonbladet.
The Russian authorities have also applied other types of active measures, from military threats to agents of influence. The overarching goal of Russian policy towards Sweden seems to be the preservation of the geostrategic status quo identified with a security order minimizing the presence of NATO in the region.
Czech Disinformation Corner
Freedom of speech and censorship
Without any competition, the main topic covered by the pro-Kremlin and conspiracy theory authors at the turn of the year was the newly established Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats, operating under the Czech Ministry of Interior. The notorious pro-Kremlin sources are overwhelmingly advocating the narrative that the Centre will be ‘engaged in censorship of inconvenient opinions and information’, often linking it to Communist censorship organs or calling it a ‘Ministry of truth’ or a ‘Orwell’s committee’. Conspiracy theories are a significant part of it; One of the authors even claims that the Centre will in the future attempt to have full control over the information flows. Others are claiming that one of the aims of this center is to discredit certain political parties, especially those anti-systemic, by fact-checking their programs.
In fact, the Centre’s aim regarding disinformation is to merely monitor the public debate, and in case they find content that may be a disinformation (untrue and made up information intended to confuse its recipient) which may potentially be harmful for the state or the public, they will analyze it, and in case of the suspicion of disinformative character of the message confirmed, they will provide the public with their statement aiming to correct the disinformation. The Centre does not have any power and any means to erase any information, to prosecute or persecute its distributors or to force its claims to the public.
Protiproud published an article accusing Lidl shopping center of ideological multicultural propaganda and defending openly racist comments of some users who commented that they will stop shopping at Lidl because it featured a black person on its leaflet. This fear of multiculturalism was taken even further by Parlamentní listy which took an article from Italian Il Giornale and presented us with a conspiracy theory that the EU and NGO’s like Doctors Without Borders cooperate with smugglers and plan auto-invasion and repopulation.
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This App Wants To Take Stock Trading Away From Fat Cats And Put It In Your Hands
Robinhood, a stock trading company, is a little different from the Charles Schwabs of the world.
[Top photo: American Spirit via Shutterstock]
By Ben Schiller 3 minute Read
Since the financial crisis, the credibility of Wall Street has taken a beating. These days MBA graduates are as likely to work at socially minded start-ups as mega-banks. And day trading isn’t quite the popular sport it was in the helter-skelter days of the 1990s. Helping the planet is cool. Making unthinkingly large amounts of money is not.
In this context, you can see why Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt named their new stock-trading business Robinhood, after the English folk hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. It strikes the right anti-establishment, post-crisis vibe, even if Tenev and Bhatt aren’t exactly manning the barricades. Their business, after all, still involves trading in public companies and all the moral messiness that implies.
Still, several things differentiate Robinhood from E-Trade, Charles Schwab, and other incumbents. For one, it costs nothing to make a trade on their platform, while those other companies charge $7 or even $10 per trade. Robinhood is also mobile-first. The app–available just in an iPhone version at the moment–is designed to be used on the go, say, when you’re lining up at Starbucks.
The pitch seems to be working well so far. Prior to launching this week, Tenev and Bhatt had signed up over 500,000 people to their waiting list, and Robinhood has generated a lot of buzz in the financial media. Bhatt says the average age of users so far is between 26 and 27, which is many years younger than the median at Schwab and Fidelity.
In an interview, Bhatt explains that he and Tenev came up with the idea during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. At the time, the Stanford roommates were working on their second startup, providing technology to institutional high-frequency traders. “Our friends and close family were saying to us, ‘Why are you working in finance? The system’s broken and you’re part of the problem.’ It was difficult for us to hear,” he says.
They could also see a big disparity between the prices the big banks and hedge funds were paying for trading (fractions of pennies) compared to lowly retail investors. “There was this incredibly cheap service for people who had the privilege, but for individual investors it continued to be prohibitively expensive. We thought ‘can’t we apply what we know about brokerages but instead of one company trading 1 million times a day, we would have 1 million customers trading once per day?” he explains.
Robinhood cuts costs by keeping things simple. It has no branches, doesn’t advertise, and doesn’t plan to invest in the stock-picking research and tools you get on the established sites. Bhatt says all that stuff is available for free online anyway, so it would be a duplication of effort. Plus, he thinks millennials don’t need the digital hand-holding of older folks, so customer service will be more limited.
You can set up an account with as little as $50 (other sites require a minimum of $500, and up) and a cash account costs nothing (no interest). Bhatt and Tenev hope to make money on margin loans, when investors need short-term capital to cover trades. You can get as much as two-times your deposit. So, if you have $10,000 in the account, Robinhood will lend you $20,000.
Is this in the spirit of Robin of Sherwood Forest? Not exactly. But it is an interesting clash of Silicon Valley versus New York, a new generation versus an older one. And, cynicism aside, Bhatt certainly seems sincere about wanting to upset the status quo.
“We want to say in unambiguous terms that we’re a different type of financial services company. In a world where distrust of Wall Street has never been higher, we’re holding ourselves to a different standard,” he says. “We also know that if we don’t stay really genuine to that, it’s very easy for this to sound incredibly disingenuous.”
Ben Schiller is a New York staff writer for Fast Company. Previously, he edited a European management magazine and was a reporter in San Francisco, Prague, and Brussels.
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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemns North Korea's missile launch
World AFP Nov 29, 2017 09:38:29 IST
United Nations: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile test and urged Pyongyang to "desist taking any further destabilising steps."
File image of Antonio Guterres. Reuters
"This is a clear violation of Security Council resolutions and shows complete disregard for the united view of the international community," Guterres said in a statement on Tuesday.
North Korea earlier fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that the Japanese defence ministry said landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone.
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the latest launch and calls from the United States for more sanctions to be imposed on North Korea over its rogue behaviour.
Guterres said he was ready to work with all parties to reduce tensions.
Tags : Antonio Guterres, Missle Launch, NewsTracker, North Korea, UN Secretary General, United Nations, World
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1UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemns North Korea's missile launch
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Understanding Building Diagrams For Flood Insurance
Hello. Chris Greene here with The Flood Insurance Guru, and today we're talking about building diagrams when it comes to your flood insurance. In particular, we're talking about elevation certificates. What do these building diagrams mean? Well, what a building diagram is, is it's the foundation type of what your house is or what the surveyor or engineer who did that elevation certificate thinks it is. The reason we say, thinks it is, because sometimes it could be incorrect. We have seen that where surveyors or engineers have put foundations, because many houses could have two different types of foundations. You could have a crawlspace part of a house, and you could have a slab, but if you look in the corner here, then you're going to see a building diagram on an elevation certificate. In this particular situation, you might see a 1 here, or you might see a 1A, a 1B. What this is, these are slabs is what this 1A and 1B means.
Now, you might see 2 up here. If you see a 2 up here, then it means that you've got a subgrade basement. It's not split level. Now, maybe you see a 3 up here. What that means is that you have gotten a split level slab that's not subgrade. What subgrade means is, it means it's below the grade of the house, and so you might see a number 4 up here. Four is going to be a split level with a subgrade basement. Now, you might see a number 5 up ... Five is going to be an elevated building with no enclosure, and what this means is that the building is elevated below. It might be parking, but it's completely opened. It's not enclosed at all. You might see a number 6 up here. Six is going to be a building, an elevated building with an enclosure. You might see a 7 up here. A 7's going to be an elevated building with solid foundation walls. Number 8 is going to be an elevated building with a crawlspace. Number 9 is going to be non-elevated on subgrade crawlspace.
Now, it's very important to understand these buildings, because this can have a big impact on your flood insurance. Particularly, what we're talking about here with these buildings, it's like above-grade crawlspaces, are flood vents going to help? You also want to make sure that the building diagram on your elevation certificate is correct. I said if you just look at the corner here, you're going to see kind of what the elevation certificate should look like with the building diagram and things like that. Now, if you've got questions about elevation certificates, maybe you think your elevation certificate is wrong or something like that, please reach out to us, www.floodinsuranceguru.com. Go to our YouTube and our Facebook channels, The Flood Insurance Guru, or give us a call. 205-451-4294.
What Are My Flood Insurance Options
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Draft beer to go may be coming to downtown square
City may change alcohol ordinance
Growlers on Main in Flowery Branch features a craft beer selection on tap ready to go.
Joshua Silavent
Updated: March 6, 2014, 11:59 p.m.
Gainesville officials are looking to amend the city’s alcoholic beverage ordinance in hopes it will entice a South Hall business, which serves draft beer to go, to open on the downtown square.
Growlers on Main in Flowery Branch can be thought of as a boutique package store, serving craft beer from the country’s finest microbreweries straight from the tap and sealed in glass jars (called growlers) ready-made to take home.
Growlers have been popular on the West Coast for years, where microbreweries first took off in places like Bend, Ore., Petaluma, Calif., and Boulder, Colo. Craft beers from the likes of Deschutes, Lagunitas and Avery, with their penchant for hops, differentiated themselves from the typical American lagers brewed by Budweiser, Miller and Coors. Porters, India Pale Ales and other styles, tasting of everything from chocolate to raspberry, have captured a larger share of the American beer market over the last decade.
As the trendy craze around craft beer has grown, including the emergence of SweetWater Brewing Co. in Atlanta and Terrapin Beer Co. in Athens, the growlers concept has begun to take off in Georgia.
Evidence of this growing popularity can be seen at Moondog Growlers, which has opened locations in Marietta, Sandy Springs and Dunwoody in the last few years.
Since opening Jan. 31, Growlers on Main has reaped the rewards of being the only beer server of its kind in Hall County.
“The acceptance by the community has been overwhelming,” said owner Alan Davenport, adding that the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce and local merchants have been supportive of his new business.
Customers at Growlers on Main are offered a unique experience not found in the average bar. Twenty-four taps of beer are available at all times, and patrons get a taste-test of three beers of their choosing before selecting a 32- or 64-ounce growler to take home. The growlers can be washed and then refilled during a customer’s next visit.
Davenport said the best part of the job is having the opportunity to expand the palate of the average beer drinker.
“It’s not just the big boys (of brewing) anymore,” he added. “There are microbrews producing unbelievable beers.”
Growlers on Main also serves root beer for kids, which has become one of its most popular items, and plans to expand its line of sodas.
“We want it to be a family trip,” Davenport said of the customer experience.
The immediate success of the Flowery Branch location has caught the eye of Gainesville officials, who approached Davenport about the prospect of opening a second location in the downtown square.
“It would be silly for us not to jump on that opportunity,” Davenport said. “When and if everything works out with the downtown square opportunity, we would push to make that the showpiece for Growlers on Main.”
Main Street Gainesville, an arm of the city’s tourism bureau, has offered to provide up to $1,000 in matching funds for signage would Growlers on Main to move into the square.
Regina Mansfield, manager of Main Street Gainesville, said the eclectic nature of Growlers on Main makes it a perfect fit with the other trendy, diverse businesses already operating in the square.
“It just seems like it would be a good fit for our downtown,” she said. “I’m hopeful it will all work out.”
As a show of its commitment, the city has drafted an amendment to its alcoholic beverage ordinance, defining what a growler is and laying out the parameters for the business to operate in the square.
City Marshal Debbie Jones said the amendment is currently waiting for approval to be heard by City Council at its Thursday work session. Two readings of the amendment and a vote of the council would then be needed for it to become law.
While the consensus appears to be that city officials are ready to approve the ordinance, Councilman George Wangemann said he would vote against it for two reasons: As a Mormon, he doesn’t care for alcohol, and he also believes it presents a slippery slope for the city.
“Bit by bit we see the liberalization of alcoholic beverage ordinances,” he said, “and I just feel like it will eventually lead to the ‘open bar’ situation coming before us.”
The city currently requires any business serving alcohol for consumption on premises to make at least 50 percent of its revenue from food sales. In a grab for money, Wangemann believes allowing Growlers on Main to operate in the square is a first step toward allowing bars in the city.
“Revenues are one of those things that make the eyes sparkle of elected officials when they hear about it,” Wangemann said. “It’s quite a temptation ...”
If the ordinance is approved, Davenport said he would hope to begin operating in the square by late spring or early summer.
Picking the right location in the square would then be the final hurdle. Davenport said renovating and occupying a gallery on Main Street could be ideal because it would allow the business to keep the same name. But offers have poured in from other property owners on the square, he said, and the location currently housing Atlas Pizza, which announced plans last year to move and expand into a space on Bradford Street, could also be an option.
“We’re still looking at locations,” Davenport said, adding he already has investors lined up, plus plans to eventually franchise Growlers on Main.
Opening in the downtown square would be a boon for business, Davenport said. He expects Growlers on Main to be a leading vendor for many festivals there, including the Blue Sky Concert series and First Friday events. Capitalizing on the summer festival season is critical, he added.
Despite the swift growth of his business and plans for expansion, Davenport said he wants to retain the sense of camaraderie that has developed around his small business. Growlers on Main will host an Irish Band Jam event March 15, with a portion of the proceeds going to support the Shop with a Cop Christmas charity program.
“That’s our goal — to serve good beer and be involved in the community,” Davenport said.
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Warcraft: Legion plot details
Google sets up another tribute to Star Wars
Destiny Guide: How to beat Prison of Elders boss Qodron
Game Cafe: Nintendo Podcast Episode 13
Games I want to see on PS Plus
Here are some games that I’d like to see on PlayStation Plus in the future. For those who don’t know about Ps Plus, it’s basically a service that allows you to access certain online features. Every month they also give away three games a month for each of their relevant systems.
Xbox Live runs a similar service, there’s is known as “Games With Gold”. I’ll make a list of Xbox exclusives to go along with that in the near future.
Playstation 3: Deus Ex and Need for Speed: Most Wanted Limited Edition
Playstation Vita: Spyro The Dragon and Gex 2
Playstation 4: Saints Row IV and Infamous: Second Son
When I spoke to some people about Playstation Plus’s games, they didn’t really enjoy some of the games on their, nor did they find most of them appealing.
What games would you like to see on there?
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Senator Feinstein Urges Extension of Vital Intelligence Tools
Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor urging a four year extension of three provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that will expire on Thursday, May 26 at midnight.
Below are Senator Feinstein’s remarks:
As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I wish to point out that as of Friday; there are three provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which are going to expire. Those three provisions are something called “roving wiretaps,” the “lone wolf” provision, and the “business records” authority.
Because of prior discussions, let me point out up-front that this does not include national security letters, just these three provisions: roving wiretaps, the “lone wolf,” and the business records authorities.
I very much appreciate that the Majority Leader and the Republican leader have come together in agreement to bring this legislation to the Senate floor. Because of its importance, particularly at this point in time, I hope we will be able to conclude this business and see that those provisions are extended for 4 years before Friday.
Many of us strongly believe when it comes to national security there should be no partisan divide, only strong bipartisan support. So this measure should receive a substantial vote this afternoon, and the Senate will pass it quickly this week before these key authorities expire.
But before talking about the substance of the legislation, let me describe the context in which this debate occurs.
Three weeks ago, on May 1, the United States carried out a risky, complicated, but ultimately successful, strike against Osama bin Laden, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The strike was the culmination of nearly a decade-long intelligence operation to locate bin Laden.
Similar to most complex intelligence challenges, finding bin Laden was the product of multiple intelligence sources and collection methods. It was a seamless effort led by the CIA, with important contributions from the National Security Agency--known as the NSA--and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency as well.
The intelligence mechanisms that are employed in counterterrorism operations are carefully and regularly reviewed by the Senate's Intelligence Committee, which I have the honor to Chair. Some are also overseen by the Judiciary Committee, on which I also have the pleasure to serve.
These intelligence tools include the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, and in particular the three provisions that will, if not reauthorized, expire on May 27. Again, they are the roving wiretap, the “lone wolf,” and the business records authorities.
The point is, we as a nation rely on certain secret sources and methods to protect our national security. Most other nations do as well.
It is also important to note that the strike against bin Laden, while a critical strategic blow to al Qaeda, is also very likely to lead to reprisal attempts.
There have been calls for attacks against the United States after the bin Laden strike from al Qaeda in Pakistan, from al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and North Africa. There is a very real concern that radicalized Americans here at home may contemplate violence in response to extremists' calls for retribution.
So this is a time of heightened threat--maybe no specific threat, but certainly heightened threats. We are seeing attacks in Pakistan carried but by the Taliban in reprisals for this attack as well. Therefore, this is a time when our vigilance must also be heightened.
Key officials from the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security recently described to the Intelligence Committee in closed session how their respective agencies have heightened their defensive posture over these very concerns.
Clearly, this is a time where every legal counterterrorism and intelligence-gathering mechanism should be made available.
It is also a time to seize the opportunity to further disrupt al Qaeda. The assault on the bin Laden compound netted a cache of valuable information: papers, videos, computer drives, and other materials about al Qaeda's vision and al Qaeda's plans.
The intelligence community established an interagency task force to go through that material as quickly as possible. I am hopeful that previously unknown terror plots will be identified and information leading to the location of terrorists will be found.
Authorities such as the three provisions set to expire this Friday may well prove critical to thwarting new plots and finding terrorists. They must be renewed.
Let me describe the three provisions in more detail.
First, the roving wiretap provision. Roving wiretap authority was first authorized for intelligence purposes in the PATRIOT Act in 2001. But, as you know, it has been used for years in the criminal context. This provision, codified in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, provides the government with the flexibility necessary to conduct electronic surveillance against elusive targets.
In most cases under FISA, the government can go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court--which I will describe in detail later--and present an application to tap the telephone of a suspected terrorist or spy. The FISA Court reviews the application and can issue an order--basically a warrant--to allow the government to tap a phone belonging to that target.
We all know in this day and age there are disposable or “throw away” cell phones that allow foreign intelligence agents and terrorists not only to switch numbers but also to throw away their cell phone and replace it with another.
This roving wiretap authority allows the government to make a specific showing to the FISA Court that the actions of a terrorist or spy may have the effect of thwarting intelligence. In other words, they make one appearance, and the government can thus seek, and the FISA Court can authorize, a roving wiretap so that the FBI, for example, can follow the target without having to go back to the Court for each cell phone change.
Instead, the FBI in this case would report to the FISA Court, normally within 10 days of following the target to a new cell phone, with information on the fact justifying the belief that the new phone was or is being used by the target.
The Justice Department has advised Congress that the authority to conduct roving electronic surveillance under FISA has proven to be operationally useful in some 20 national security investigations annually. So this provision is both used and very necessary in this day of throw away cell phones.
“Lone wolf” authority allows the government to request, and the FISA Court to approve, intelligence collection against non-U.S. persons who engage in international terrorism but for whom an association with a specific international terrorist organization may not yet be known.
Let me explain that more clearly. All other FISA surveillance and searches must be focused on a target who the government can prove is tied to a foreign power. Before the government can tap a phone or search a residence, it needs to demonstrate that the person it is after is an employee or spy or otherwise working for, or on behalf of, another country or terrorist group.
The “lone wolf'” provision, which was added to FISA in 2004, recognizes that there may be cases where the government suspects an individual inside the United States of plotting a terrorist attack, but it has not been able to link that individual to al Qaeda, al Shabaab, or another group.
The “lone wolf” authority allows the government to go to the FISA Court, show why it believes a non-U.S. person is engaging in terrorist activity, and get a warrant to begin surveillance. This is not done without a warrant from the court.
It also allows for court-ordered collection against a non-U.S. target who may have broken with a terrorist organization while continuing to prepare for an act of international terrorism.
The Justice Department has advised Congress that although to date it has not used this authority, the “lone wolf” authority nevertheless fills an important gap in U.S. collection capabilities, and we have it if we need it.
The recent case of Khalid Aldawsari, a Saudi national arrested in Texas this past February, shows why the “lone wolf” authority is necessary. Aldawsari was arrested after the FBI learned he had purchased chemicals and conducted research needed to make improvised explosive devices. He had also researched bomb targets, including dams in California and the Dallas residence of former President George W. Bush.
Unlike other recent terrorists such as Najibullah Zazi, David Headley, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Aldawsari was not identified on the basis of his connections to foreign terrorist organizations, or known at the time of his capture to be working with one.
He is better described as one of the most recent cases of individuals already inside the United States who became radicalized and committed to carrying out terrorist attacks.
So it is for this kind of threat that the “lone wolf” authority is important and why we should extend this mechanism. It is also this kind of threat that the Intelligence Community is now especially worried about, as people inside the United States may be spurred to action in retaliation for the strike against bin Laden.
If the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, or a State or local police officer identifies someone building bombs, it is necessary to move quickly and not take time to research a possible connection to al Qaeda before we use FISA authorities to learn what they are up to and when and how they might strike.
Business records. The third authority covered by this legislation is known as the business records provision and provides the government the same authority in national security investigations to obtain physical records that exist in an ordinary criminal case through a grand jury subpoena.
Business records authority has been used since 2001 in FISA to obtain driver's license records, hotel records, car rental records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, among other business records. This is the way in which you track a target.
Let me note that while the debate over this provision has often focused on library circulation records, the Justice Department has advised the Congress that this authority has never--let me stress, never--been used to obtain library circulation records.
We had a big debate on this issue when this came up before. In fact, this authority has never been used for library circulation records.
The Department has informed Congress that it submitted 96 applications to the FISA Court for business record orders last year. The Justice Department has further stated that some business records orders have been used to support critically important and highly sensitive intelligence collection activities. The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have been fully briefed on that collection.
Information about this sensitive collection has also been provided to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and information has been available for months to all Senators for their review.
The details on how the government uses all three of these authorities are classified and discussion of them here would harm our ability to identify and stop terrorist attacks and espionage. But, if any Senators would like further details, I encourage them to contact the Intelligence Committee, or to request a briefing from the Intelligence Community or the Department of Justice.
I have mentioned several times the role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Let me describe what it is and how it operates.
The FISA Court is a special court. It is a set of 11 Federal district judges, each of whom is appointed by the Chief Justice to specifically serve in this role.
At least one of these judges is available at all times--24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year--for the purpose of reviewing government applications to use FISA authorities and, if those applications are sufficient, approving them by issuing an order, or what we call in the criminal law, a warrant.
The FISA Court judges meet in closed session to review classified declarations, and they provide very careful judicial review of the government's applications. They are expert in this specialized area of the law, as is their expert staff. The Department of Justice officials who come before them take all care in making their case and presenting their facts, as they do in public court.
The American people should understand that these FISA authorities we are discussing now--the ability to conduct electronic surveillance and obtain records--are subject to strict oversight. A Senate-confirmed official in the Department of Justice, the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, or the Assistant Attorney General for National Security--one of these three must, and I stress must--sign off on every application before it goes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Federal judges, also confirmed by the Senate, must approve the applications. Inspectors General conduct regular audits and oversight as well. The Senate and House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees receive regular reports from the Department of Justice on the use of all FISA authorities, as well as briefings from the FBI and NSA on the implementation of the FISA statute.
The three authorities reauthorized by this legislation have been debated extensively on this floor and in this Congress since it came up for reauthorization in 2009. Every single national security official to come before the Congress in the past 2 years has testified that these provisions are vital to protect America and has urged their reauthorization.
It is very hard, I think, to vote no in the face of what we have been told in classified intelligence briefings and in hearings by officials from the Attorney General's office and the FBI. In fact, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence wrote a letter to Leaders Reid and McConnell today, May 23, expressing their strong support for immediate enactment of the legislation we are now considering.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter to Leaders Reid and McConnell.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Hon. John Boehner, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Hon. Harry Reid, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Hon. Mitch McConnell, Republican Leader, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Speaker Boehner And Leaders Reid, Pelosi, And McConnell:
We write to express our strong support for the immediate enactment of S. 1038, the Patriot Sunsets Extension Act of 2011. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) is a critical tool that has been used in numerous highly sensitive intelligence collection operations. Three vital provisions of FISA are scheduled to expire after May 26, 2011: section 206 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which provides authority for roving surveillance of targets who take steps that may thwart FISA surveillance; section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which provides expanded authority to compel production of business records and other tangible things with the approval of the FISA court; and section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which provides the authority under FISA to target non-United States persons who engage in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefore, but are not necessarily associated with an identified terrorist group (the so-called “lone wolf” definition).
In the current threat environment, it is essential that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have the tools they need to protect our national security. At this critical moment there must be no interruption in our ability to make full use of these authorities to protect the American people, and we urge the Congress to pass the bill and send it to the President without delay.
The Office of Management and Budget has advised us that there is no objection to this letter from the perspective of the Administration's program.
James R. Clapper,
Director of National Intelligence.
Eric H. Holder, Jr.,
Mr. President, let me point out there are no recent cases of abuse of these authorities. The oversight system in place is working well, I believe, to ensure they will not be misused in the future.
Other Senators may come to this floor and talk about abuses of these authorities, but I ask: Listen carefully. Chances are they are talking about a section not involved here, and that is the section on national security letters. Again, national security letters are not touched by these three sections we are renewing today. And I would say, yes, they were abused or misused in years past, according to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice. But corrections have been made since then. More important, for today's debate, there is nothing we are taking up today that affects or mentions national security letters at all. I have referred to this now four times. I hope I get it across because that is what happened last time. People came to the floor and what they were talking about was not in the legislation we were considering.
Earlier this year, I was pleased to support legislation authored by Senator Leahy that would have made several improvements in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to better protect privacy rights and civil liberties. But the point I made during the debate in the Judiciary Committee, which I will repeat again today, is that many of these changes were in fact codifying practices the Department of Justice and the FBI have already implemented.
For example, minimization. That was one of the issues that was discussed. It has been implemented. The departments are listening and they have taken action where there have been problems.
I wish to say to my colleagues that the Executive Branch has heard and has acted to address concerns about intrusions into Americans' civil liberties. The Office of the Inspector General in the Department of Justice has indicated that it intends to conduct audits and inspections to ensure that the implementation of FISA is in full compliance with the law, and its reports will be carefully reviewed by this Congress and by the concerned Committees. A major priority of the Intelligence Committee in this house is to conduct regular oversight on the use of FISA authorities, and we will continue to do so after passage of this legislation.
Just about every administration official to testify on the use of FISA authorities has also noted the importance of having the stability that comes with a long-term extension. Since December of 2009, when we reauthorized it, the Congress has passed three short-term extensions--one for 2 months, one for 1 year, and one for 3 months. By lurching from one sunset to another, we run the risk that these intelligence authorities are going to expire. And here we are, once again, because they expire this Friday. I hope Members will think about that. I hope Members who want to produce an amendment will think about the following: if they expire, what if NSA and other agencies have to stop, what if they miss something, what if something happens? That is a responsibility that rests on the heads of everyone in these two bodies--both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States.
Even short of that, by providing one short-term extension after another--2 months here, 1 year there--we create significant uncertainty in the Intelligence Community as investigators are not sure whether these tools will continue to be available to them. I can tell you as one who tries to read the intelligence rather assiduously, we are not out of harm's way, and no one should believe that. People are plotting every day as to how they can send someone into the United States or convince someone in the United States to attack this country. The only thing we have to prevent this from happening is intelligence and an FBI that is now able to institute surveillance and tracking on possible targets in this country.
We have come, in my judgment, a long way since 9/11, but we cannot leave this country vulnerable. We must keep our guard up, and we must see that the intelligence mechanisms that are available to this country are able to be utilized.
This legislation now extends the use of these sunsetting authorities for 4 years, to June 1, 2015. In view of the times we are living in, I believe this is appropriate, it is keeping with past practice, and it is vital to the protection of the United States of America.
The PATRIOT Act was enacted in October 2001, and several provisions were up for review and reauthorization 4 years later in December of 2005. After some significant debate, some of the original PATRIOT Act provisions were made permanent and some were reauthorized for another 4 years until the end of 2009.
The “lone wolf” authority that expires later this week was first enacted in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 and placed in the same sunset cycle as the roving wiretap and business records authorities. Under the model established in the PATRIOT Act and a subsequent reauthorization, a 4-year extension from the end of May 2011 to June 2015 is based on sound congressional practice.
These issues have been debated and re-debated and should be very familiar to Members, especially those on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.
I hope we are now going to act in the best interests of protecting the people of this country from another terrorist attack by passing this legislation so our intelligence professionals can continue to keep this Nation secure.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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ExxonMobil Corp Signs Agreement with Zhejiang energy for LNG
By Sandra Kinsey On April 24, 2019
ExxonMobil which is the largest global oil trading public firm announced that it had made an agreement with Zhejiang Energy group for sales and purchase for LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) supply lasting over 20 years. Earlier in October 2018, a framework deal was announced, and now under the latest agreement, the largest publicly traded oil company will supply 1 million tonnes of LNG to Zhejiang energy which is backed by the Chinese government. No other details regarding the pricing, location and the time of supply of the oil are yet announced.
The senior vice president at ExxonMobil said
‘This sales and purchase agreement represents an important milestone and provides a solid foundation for our strategic partnership with Zhejiang provincial Energy Group.’
The VP also added that Zhejiang Energy had the same vision as that of ExxonMobil and will continue to support Zhejiang in the implementation of the project. A terminal at Wenzhou which is a province of Zhejiang is being built at the cost of $1.34 billion in partnership with Sinopec which is a state-owned Chinese oil and gas company to receive the fuel and has a capacity of 3 million tonnes. The terminal may be operational in 2 to 3 years. The Zhejiang energy is the largest producer of power in this province and will hold 51% of the share of the new company along with Sinopec with a share of 41%, and a local private company will have 8%.
SIA energy MD Chen Zhu said that this deal is not part of the US-China trade agreement where Chinese have to boost purchase of US products. He said
‘the gas supplies to the Zhejiang firm will come from Exxon’s portfolio production outside the US’.
The agreement is in line with the announcement the US-based oil company said in 2018 that it would export LNG to China at the start of 2020. It is also looking at expanding its customer base and has many projects from countries like Qatar, Papua New Guinea, and Mozambique apart from local customers like Golden Pass.
ExxonMobil which is the largest international oil and gas company has been using its technology and innovation in the Chinese energy industry from the year 1970. It is also the largest refiner of the products related to oil and also owns a chemical company which is among the largest globally. ExxonMobil has made a 20-year long-term commitment to China and is expected to help the country meet the growing energy demands through investments, technology, and reliable partnership.
Yes Bank Shares Soar High by 3% ; Ravneet Gill will be the New CEO and MD of the Bank
Yes bank shares were up by 3 percent during the …
Sandra Kinsey
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JUGHEAD VOL 2 preview
by First Comics News on February 21, 2017 JUGHEAD VOL 2 preview2017-02-21T08:18:38-07:00 - News
JUGHEAD VOL 2
In the grand tradition of comic book reboots like ARCHIE VOL. 1, Archie Comics
proudly presents… JUGHEAD VOL. 2—from the super team of Chip Zdarsky
(HOWARD THE DUCK), Ryan North (THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL) and Derek Charm (REGULAR SHOW)! JUGHEAD VOL. 2 features bears, witches and pranks—oh my! You won’t want to miss a minute of the hilarious action!
Script: Chip Zdarsky, Ryan North
Art: Derek Charm & Jack Morelli
Cover: Derek Charm
$14.99/$16.99CAN
6 5/8 x 10 3/16”
104 pp, Full Color
Direct Market On-Sale Date: 2/22
https://www.firstcomicsnews.com/jughead-vol-2-preview/https://www.firstcomicsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Jughead-Logo-1-600x257.pnghttps://www.firstcomicsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Jughead-Logo-1-150x64.png 2017-02-21T08:18:21-07:00 First Comics NewsNews
JUGHEAD VOL 2 In the grand tradition of comic book reboots like ARCHIE VOL. 1, Archie Comics proudly presents… JUGHEAD VOL. 2—from the super team of Chip Zdarsky (HOWARD THE DUCK), Ryan North (THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL) and Derek Charm (REGULAR SHOW)! JUGHEAD VOL. 2 features bears, witches and pranks—oh my! You...
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Related Bios Dominic Nda Frank Irizarry
Reava Potter
Title: Head Indoor/Outdoor Track & Field Coach
Email: potterr@emmanuel.edu
Previous College: Temple '10
Experience: 2nd season
Reava Potter joined the Emmanuel staff during the summer of 2018 as the Head Coach for the Men's and Women's Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field programs. She becomes the program's first full-time head coach and just the second coach in program history for all six of the teams.
In her first season at Emmanuel, Potter coached the Women's Cross Country squad to the 2018 GNAC Championship. Four runners earned GNAC All-Conference honors in Cross Country while the entire squad was recognized by the USTFCCCA, earning the 2018 National Team Academic Award. Her team combined to win a total of nine events at the 2019 GNAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships as the Women captured seven events (4x400m relay, 10,000m, 5,000m, 1,500m, 100m Hurdles, High Jump, Hammer Throw) and the men captured two (4x100m relay, 400m).
Along with her Head Coaching responsibilities, Potter will work in partnership with Bon Appetit and the company’s regional nutrition staff to develop nutritional plans for students that align with their individual training regimen, personal health goals, or sport. She will also create, oversee and organize new fitness programs that will be open to the entire Emmanuel community.
She joins the Saints after serving as an Assistant Coach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for four seasons where she specialized in coaching the multi-event, jumping and throwing athletes. While at the UAB, she coached three student-athletes to All-Conference accolades in the NCAA Division I Conference USA.
Prior to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Potter severed as an Assistant Coach at Bethune-Cookman University for the 2013-14 season. There she coached a total of 17 All-Conference student-athletes including five conference champions in the NCAA Division I Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), leading the Wildcats to the program’s first-ever MEAC Men’s Conference Championship. Three student-athletes at Bethune-Cookman were named USTFCCCA (United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association) All-Americans under Potter’s guidance.
Potter spent the 2012-13 season as an Assistant Coach at Shaw University, her first stop after seven years at Temple University where she competed as an undergraduate before severing on staff as a Graduate Assistant. While on staff, she helped coach her alma-mater to an Atlantic-10 Conference Championship during the 2009-10 campaign.
As a student-athlete at TU, Potter was a four-year member of the Owls Track & Field squad serving as a team captain during her senior campaign in 2009. She qualified for the Atlantic-10 Conference Championship in the heptathlon, triple jump, pentathlon and relays all four seasons and was awarded the Spirit and Sportsmanship Awards during her time at Temple, where she also served as a member of the NCAA Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) from 2007-09.
Potter graduated from Temple University in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology before completing a Master of Science in Exercise and Sport Psychology at Temple in 2012. She holds a USATF Level One Certification and is also USTFCCCA Certified in Jumps, Throws and Strength and Conditioning.
(Last updated July 8, 2019 - 3:45 PM)
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Many of us are scared, but all of us are uncertain
As we try to move forward, one thing I would like to hear from Trump supporters (or even just the "get over it" crowd) is acknowledgement of the great unknown into which we have elected to enter. Whether we chose the path or were led down it, we are all now there. Together.
As one who has had strong hobbyist, activist, and professional interests in the outcome of elections, I've experienced many losses. Sure, they can be painful. Yes, you can feel like lashing out. Of course you vow to step up and fight back. That is the nature of the game. With this one, however, the game is in a completely different ballpark.
If John McCain has slurred a gold star family, it would have been a disqualified. If Mitt Romney had become the first modern presidential candidate to refuse to release his tax returns (under BS reasoning), it would have been scandal. If Barack Obama had vowed to ban millions from entering the country on the sole basis of their faith, he would have been driven out of the election by both Republicans and Democrats. If Hillary Clinton had been caught on audio saying her fame gave her permission to grab men by the dick, she would have been castigated by those who have tried to burn her at the stake for much less. Heck, if any one of these candidates had even been married three times (with admitted mistresses, or with a spouse who was thought to have worked in this country before legally allowed to do so), it would have been noted as a reason to question his or her character. But with Trump, all off this stuff (and oh so much more) was given a strange pass. This pass is some of what scares us.
Even if you are Trump's biggest fan, you have to admit that we are taking a major risk with this guy. He has not been able to capably voice much of anything in the way of policy experience. He has shown himself completely lacking in concern for any of our institutions or traditions. By wide miles, he has less foreign policy experience than anyone to ever seek this office. His own business interests are shaded with failures and fraud accusations. He is untested in every way, and has done almost nothing to appease those who have questioned these massive gaps in experience (saying things will be "great" is not a plan).
When it comes to defending Roe, LGBT rights, healthcare, or any of the countless policy planks at stake, I am more than up for that challenge. That is the way the political process works. Anyone involved in government knows that being in a place of opposition is something one must occasionally endure, and most are ready to rise to that occasion. What scares most of us more this time around is this new, deeper, and more dangerous place of not only disagreeing with the president-elect but *actively fearing* that this person could be a true threat to our basic physical safety. This is where I am with this election. I am truly afraid, for the first time in my adult life, that this commander in chief will lead to our deaths. I am not being hyperbolic. I truly fear for our safety.
It's one thing for Donald Trump, Apprentice host, to tell a Times reporter that she has a "face like a dog." When President Trump does it to Angela Merkel, he will tarnish our reputation on a global scale.
It's one thing for Donald Trump, vodka salesman, to call Twitter critics "losers" (and much worse). When President Trump does it to a foreign adversary, he can set off nuclear winter.
It's one thing for Donald Trump, gaudy decor enthusiast, to threaten to jail his political rival or slur the press. When President Trump goes after the very concepts of rivalry, criticism, and accountability, it could lead to mass civil rights violations that rip apart the very fabric of this nation.
I didn't agree with President Bush (41 or 43, for that matter), but I trusted he understood the basic underpinnings of this great nation. I didn't vote for Romney or McCain, but I did not think for a second that those men would use personal pettiness as a justification for war. I've never once in my life voted for a Republican, but I've also never felt that the party was going more in a direction that legitimately brought it closer to some of the past's most oppressive regimes than toward the shining beacon on the hill that was said to be its aspiration.
And it's not my liberal politics or any media outlet that lead me to these conclusions: it's the unbelievably shocking words and actions of the man who the electoral vote (but not the popular vote) will soon usher in as these 45th president of the United States. He built this.
This time is different. And even if you are Trump's most outspoken fan, you have to admit that.
Many of us are scared, but we are all uncertain. Even if you think you are certain, you are not. There is no way you can be. The American experiment has never tested a hypothesis of this nature.
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It’s Time for Airbnb to Share Its New York Listings
June 07, 2018 | by Tom Cayler
(photo: Sofie Hecht / Gotham Gazette)
Teaching children to share is difficult. Teaching Airbnb to share is impossible. Airbnb’s version of the “sharing economy” means more profits for the company and less affordable housing for the rest of us.
Airbnb repeatedly allows and provides cover for commercial operators to break the law, turn our homes into hotels, and parachute into our communities to make a profit, pilfering apartments along the way. Instead of working with enforcement officials to curb illegal listings, the company uses every legal maneuver in the books—fighting subpoenas and refusing to share data—to take more and more housing out of our communities.
Airbnb could easily disclose data on its listings. It does so in San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans, and even China. But it refuses in New York. Why? Because it’s by far the company’s largest U.S. market, where it makes hundreds of millions more than any other U.S. city.
It even goes as far as shielding unscrupulous commercial operators that evict tenants from rent-stabilized apartments just to protect its biggest money makers.
And that’s on top of fueling gentrification and contributing to rising rents around the city as a result of stripping the long-term housing market of thousands of units.
Again, that’s not sharing. That’s taking. And that’s why the New York City Council’s efforts to rein in an unaccountable, deceitful corporation by forcing Airbnb to disclose the addresses of its listings to enforcement officials needs to happen, and happen soon.
Here’s the thing about Airbnb: the company thinks the rules don’t apply to it. In cities across the country and, in fact, across the globe, there has been a reckoning with communities and local governments passing sensible regulations to protect residents, only to see those laws ignored by a corporation that has built assets totaling more than $30 billion. And there are few cities that know this better than New York.
In 2010, state lawmakers modified the 1929 Multiple Dwelling Law to ban short-term rentals in New York City apartment buildings for fewer than 30 days while the primary tenant is not present to ensure the “sharing economy” did not close the door to affordable housing on actual long-term tenants, or create quality-of-life issues in buildings not zoned for hotel and commercial activity. It was strengthened in 2016 to allow for more enforcement but Airbnb continues to throw up roadblocks.
The company’s refusal to follow that law has allowed tens of thousands of illegal entire home/apartment listings to proliferate across the city in the midst of an affordable housing crisis when New Yorkers needed those apartments the most.
Just last year alone, Airbnb generated $435 million in revenue from illegal listings in New York City, according to the School of Urban Planning at McGill University. That’s 435 million reasons why Airbnb cannot be trusted to police its own website, and why New York officials must step up, yet again, to pass additional regulations to stop Airbnb from breaking our laws.
Like the stories we have heard in cities such as San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Chicago, Barcelona, Paris, Toronto, and Amsterdam, to name a few, the wealthiest among us have come to view Airbnb as a tool to make millions by turning homes into hotels and reducing available housing stock for everyone else. In New York, this has resulted in 13,500 units being removed from the housing market, according to the McGill report, making it even harder to find an available and affordable place to live.
Make no mistake: despite the company’s best attempts to distract from the truth, the legislation being proposed by the New York City Council would have zero effect on the nice families in Airbnb’s commercials using the platform to make ends meet. Regular folks sharing their homes legally and responsibly are not the problem, and they are also not the norm when it comes to Airbnb. The millions of dollars the company invests in slick marketing and expensive lobbyists to peddle their ongoing misinformation campaigns does not change the fact its platform is overrun by unscrupulous landlords subverting our laws to make extra bucks at the expense of regular New Yorkers.
Why should Airbnb be rewarded for having the track record of a greedy corporation that refuses to follow the law?
In San Francisco, when Airbnb refused to police its site of illegal listings, the city enacted regulations forcing Airbnb to disclose the addresses of its listings, sending a strong message to bad actors and serial lawbreakers that they would no longer get a free pass to flout the law and profit from illegal activity.
Almost immediately, Airbnb listings in San Francisco dropped by more than half and thousands of apartments returned to the long-term market for permanent residents.
Now it’s New York’s turn.
No corporation should get to pick and choose what laws it follows and what laws it breaks in order to make a profit on the backs of middle-class families.
The New York City Council and Mayor de Blasio must see through Airbnb’s lies and deceit and act once and for all to protect tenants by swiftly passing legislation requiring Airbnb to share the addresses of its listings so enforcement officials can protect our communities and affordable housing.
Tom Cayler is a member of the West Side Neighborhood Alliance in Manhattan.
Tags: Affordable Housing • City Council • Airbnb
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£8.10m-rated relegation battler would be perfect shock Man City signing this month
By Jack Saville
The Manchester City fans in the Transfer Tavern have been mightily impressed by Fabian Delph’s performances at left-back so far this season, but they are concerned that they lack adequate cover in the event that he gets injured.
Pep Guardiola brought Benjamin Mendy to the club from Monaco last summer for a fee in the region of £52 million – a world-record price for a defender at the time. Mendy began his career in Manchester in fantastic form as City’s first-choice left-back, but the French international suffered an unfortunate cruciate ligament injury in only his 5th appearance for the club which has ruled him out ever since.
In Mendy’s absence, Fabian Delph has deputised at left-back and become one of the surprise packages of the season in the Premier League.
Delph is conventionally a central-midfield player, but you never would have guessed it based on the evidence of his performances at left-back for the club so far.
The England international has been an ever-present in the starting eleven, and he is highly trusted by City’s manager in that position, however, there is a concern that an injury could leave The Citizens desperately short of cover.
Guardiola does have Danilo to call upon to fill the void left by Delph, but the fact he is naturally right-footed could upset the balance of the team.
With that being said, City should consider the signing of Patrick Van Aanholt from Crystal Palace this month.
Despite previously playing for Chelsea, Van Aanholt is relatively inexperienced in a top-four side, but he has plenty of attributes to suggest he could succeed in Guardiola’s system. Rated at just £8.10m on Transfermarkt, the former Sunderland man would be a very astute addition at the Etihad.
First of all he is left-footed, and, like most modern full-backs, the Dutch international is very comfortable in possession.
During his career in the English top-flight, he has demonstrated the ability to hurt the opposition in the final-third – a quality which Guardiola values and seeks in his players.
Considering Van Aanholt has had to play understudy to Jeffrey Schlupp of late, the door may be open for him to leave Selhurst Park this month, so City should consider the possibility of encouraging him to take a step up in class and provide cover for Delph.
Thinking of having a punt this weekend? Take a look at the coupons we’ve picked out on the Football FanCast Accy Show before you put your money down! First up, we’ve selected a Premier League goalscorer treble which offers terrific LeoVegas boosted odds. For those who like to spread the odds across the pyramid, we’ve also put together a very tempting fourfold of outright wins from the EFL. Check it out and be sure to let us know what you think!
Related Items:Benjamin Mendy, Etihad Stadium, Fabian Delph, Patrick van Aanholt, Pep Guardiola, Selhurst Park, The Citizens, The Eagles
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forsythfamily Communication For the Kids Parenting 01 Jul 2019 Comments Off
BY JAMIE LOBER
The Women and Children’s Health Network has defined social skills as, “Ways in which we interact with others that can help us become confident, happy people who are easy to get along with.” Being a friend, learning to share and helping others are a few simple, lifelong skills you can instill in your child.
First, find out what is reasonable to expect. Every age is associated with certain developmental milestones. Some highlights from birth through 7-years-old include:
Smiling and laughing in response to play;
Imitating adults’ actions;
Saying “Hi” and “Bye”;
Verbalizing wants;
Taking turns with other kids;
Playing in a group;
Playing games with basic rules.
Find teachable moments and take advantage. Some prime examples are:
Making eye contact when interacting with your child;
Using greetings to acknowledge others;
Turn-taking and sharing ideas;
Not interrupting and being a good listener;
Using words of courtesy;
Praising;
Apologizing when you make a mistake;
Taking a deep breath and counting to 10 before reacting to a situation;
Pursuing your child’s interests.
Do not underestimate the power of playing with your child. The American Academy of Pediatrics emphasized the importance of play as it relates to building social bonds. Research has showed that play can improve kids’ ability to get along with others, regulate emotions and manage stress. Some ideas from the American Academy of Pediatrics include:
Birth-6 months: reciprocating smiles, imitating baby’s coos and sounds, showing interesting colorful objects;
7-12 months: putting toys within reach of the baby, using a mirror, playing peek-a-boo;
1-3 years-old: enriching creativity with simple, inexpensive toys like blocks, containers and wooden spoons, supervising play dates, playing make-believe, reading and singing songs;
4-6 years-old: singing and dancing, playing house, helping with chores, scheduling playdates.
Preparing for play dates by structuring them can help make things go smoother. You can talk to your child about how to be a good host and make his or her friend feel comfortable. You may want to pick out some favorite games in advance or plan an arts and crafts project that the friend can take home. Some tips for entertaining include:
Painting or drawing a picture;
Doing puzzles or origami;
Singing songs;
Watching a movie;
Going to a park or playground;
Baking or making a treat to enjoy.
Do not forget to praise the kids for sharing, listening, taking turns and using words of courtesy. You will surely have a guest who wants to return.
All children develop at their own pace. Some kids will naturally be social butterflies, while others are content observing from the sidelines. While there is a range of “normal,” there are some red flags, such as:
Not making eye contact with others;
Preferring to be alone;
Not having friends;
Avoiding physical contact;
Being a poor listener or interrupting;
Being frustrated or angry when he or she does not get his or her way.
If you notice any of these in your child, it is a good idea to talk to the pediatrician or school counselor. Keep in mind that some learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders may present as what seem like social challenges. These issues can lead to low self-esteem, which makes it important to be attentive and seek treatment early. The benefits of developing good social skills go beyond the obvious ones of being an effective communicator and having a close group of friends. Social skills and appropriately regulating emotions can correlate with academic achievement. By making an effort to help your child handle stress and manage his or her feelings, you are actually making it easier for them to listen, learn and focus in school. Talking to other parents can be a wonderful resource, as you can share your experiences, and may even discover more strategies or a friend for yourself.
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Forsyth Magazines writer since 2006. Originally from Pfafftown, Carolyn now calls Clemmons home. Carolyn was a model for 20 years, and for five years, she was a hand model for Bojangles’ print and television advertising. She has a degree in journalism and psychology. Carolyn’s day job is as a pharmaceutical sales representative and, in her free time, she enjoys cooking, the arts and traveling. “I love learning about the businesses and people in my community who are making a difference in big and small ways, many of whom I am blessed to write about in my articles,” said Carolyn. Carolyn is also the magazines’ resident go-to writer when it comes to anything with animals. She has three dogs and loves all wildlife.
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Adele Casanova has returned to the Forsyth Magazine team as a writer and account executive. She worked with the magazines from 2007 through 2014, all while running her own businesses. Adele has a 25-year history as an entrepreneur in the Triad. She worked as an independent speaker and trainer in the mid-to-late 90s conducting workshops for many companies in business communication skills and professional image. Adele started and ran Casanova’s Coffees and Fudge in Winston-Salem and Lewisville for 11 years before selling it to one of her loyal customers. Adele is a licensed esthetician and ran her own skin spa in Winston-Salem until retiring from working full time as a business owner. She loves having time now for gardening, traveling, reading and volunteering for local non-profits. Having been a small business owner, Adele has great respect for other small business owners and loves to showcase their successes in the magazines. She loves to write and has been published in several triad magazines over the years. She has two wonderful grown children and especially loves spending quality time with them. She is also the author of the upcoming book, “Old is the New Sexy!”
Bio coming soon.
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2017. Debbie Barr earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Pennsylvania State University and her master’s degree in health education and promotion from East Carolina University. She is a master certified health education specialist (MCHES) with interests in work site health promotion, Alzheimer’s and dementia education, health literacy, and Christian growth. A versatile writer and enthusiastic speaker, Debbie is the author/co-author of four books, more than 600 disease-specific patient education articles, low-literacy employee benefits materials, medical education scripts, and newsletters for English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers.
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2010. A Winston-Salem native, Elisa now calls Charlotte home where she works as a middle school English teacher. Elisa has two degrees – communication studies and Spanish as well as a master’s in writing. She lives with her dog, Bella, who is a Lhasa Apso and enjoys antiques, arts, music, reading, traveling and baking (though she says she cannot cook). “I love working with such a talented and ambitious team,” said Elisa. “I like the flexibility I receive when pitching new story ideas.”
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Keith grew up in southern Virginia before moving to Winston-Salem with his wife, Cindy. He has a master’s degree in business administration from High Point University. Keith and Cindy have two children as well as their pet Maltese. In his spare time, he enjoys photography, reading, spending time with his family and travel. He’s also an ultimate sports fan and enjoys attending live events from college to pro. He writes “The View from My Section: A Father’s Perspective” column each month sharing his insights on parenting. When it comes to Forsyth Magazines, he said, “I enjoy working with people who genuinely care about providing a quality magazine that unites the community and celebrates family life in this area. It’s easy to stay excited in an environment that recognizes and appreciates the contributions you make every day.”
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2018. Julie Fritz moved to Winston-Salem in 2013 and has been writing professionally since 2012. She has two small children and enjoys hiking, trail running, swimming, travel, cooking, and volunteering. Julie graduated from college in 2006 and is a dental hygienist.
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2010. Kristi Johnson Marion hails from Mount Airy, NC and has called Winston-Salem home for 20 years. She’s received Smitty’s Notes Best of Winston-Salem “Mover & Shaker/Local Scenester” Award. She loves the variety of friendly locals she gets to know through sharing their stories here at Forsyth Magazines. Kristi also enjoys spending time with her kids, the arts, reading, cooking and the martial art of Krav Maga.
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Forsyth Magazines writer since 2012. Lisa is originally from Maryland and, after living in New York, Colorado and Texas, she’s proud to finally call North Carolina home. Lisa shares a home with her husband of 10 years, Kevin. Together, they have daughter, Sayre and their angel-son, Finn who lived two years. Their family also includes two dogs. Lisa has a degree in education and, as such, writes many educational articles for the magazines. Lisa enjoys traveling, is an avid reader and gardener and has done extensive work on her family’s genealogy. When it comes to writing for Forsyth Magazines, Lisa said, “I love writing spring themes in winter, back to school articles in the heat of summer, and, best of all, starting to anticipate the Christmas season in October.”
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Forsyth Magazines writer since 2012. Originally from High Point, Martie now calls Greensboro home. She has a degree in journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill and is a Carolina girl in every sense of the word – she loves Carolina basketball! Martie works for Randy McManus Designs and has two grown sons, Beau and Matthew, who are the light of her life. She has a dog (Lucky) and cat (Dusty) and loves to travel, read and listen to music. “I love the camaraderie of the women involved and the women we reach,” said Martie. “This is a great outlet to promote the success of small businesses.”
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Forsyth Magazines writer since 2015. Born in Texas, Megan was brought to North Carolina when she was only two months old. A recent graduate from Salem College, Megan has a degree in communication with a minor in history. She has a toy poodle named Gidget and, in her spare time, she loves cooking, music, reading and travel. Megan has also spent time in film, having appeared in two movies – an independent production and as an extra in studio film. “I love listening to an interviewee’s story and then sharing it with the community. Everyone has a story to tell, and I’m glad I can be a part of it,” said Megan.
Forsyth Magazines Writer since 2017. Sara Wiles has called Winston-Salem home for most of her life. She has a bachelor degree in communication from East Carolina University, with a minor in geological studies. Sara is married to Evan and in her spare time, she enjoys cooking, arts and crafts, dancing, gardening, music, and travel. Sara is also a blogger. Her page is SaraFromScratch.wordpress.com and on it, she eplores fun, DIY recipes for healthy eating and meal prep!
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2018. Susan Schabacker was blessed to be adopted as a baby and made her journey from South Korea to Massachusetts where she arrived safely into her adoptive mother’s loving arms. She later moved to New Mexico and, after a few years, moved to Winston-Salem, NC, to study classical ballet at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from the eighth grade through high school. Susan has lived in the Piedmont Triad area for nearly 20 years and had the opportunity to travel to Budapest, Hungary; London, UK; and Beijing, China, where she studied abroad through Elon University. In Stockholm, Sweden, she had a marketing internship at Hachette-Filipacchi, publisher of Elle and other magazines. She graduated with a B.A. in Corporate Communications and a minor in Dance from Elon University. Susan loves writing and is pleased to have written for Winston-Salem Journal’s “Teen Page,” Triad Living, KernersvilleMagazine, and of course, Forsyth Mags. She is a co-author of a children’s book, Huckleberry Robin, based on a three-generation true family story. Susan is grateful for her faith, family, and friends and is happy and excited to be part of the Forsyth Mags team. She spreads the word about Forsyth magazines and enjoys reading and sharing them with her family and friends every month.
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2011. Originally from Washington, DC, Susan now calls Winston-Salem home. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in journalism and spent a term at Christ Church College, Oxford University. Susan and her husband, JC, have three daughters, Erin, Britton, and Meghan (who is Forsyth Magazines’ senior staff writer.) She loves working with her daughter, Meghan, as well as the Forsyth Magazines’ staff. Susan relishes her role of grandmother and caring for her two rescue pups – Duncan and Matilda. She loves to travel and on a recent trip visited China and climbed the Great Wall. “It is a privilege to work on these wonderful publications and to write such a variety of articles,” said Susan.
VIEW ALL POSTS BY SUSAN
Tabatha grew up in Buffalo, NY before migrating her way south to Winston-Salem. She has an associate’s degree in travel/tourism and aptly so! Her first job was on a cruise ship when she was 18 years old! Tabatha has been married to her husband, Bobby, for 18 years. They are proud parents to 14-year-old Beau and share their home with a Boston terrier named Norman and a fat cat named Shiraz. By day, you’ll find Tabatha working in Old Salem Museums and Gardens, where she helps plan events, but working with Forsyth Woman Engaged! is a great outlet for her great love and enthusiasm for weddings! In her spare time, Tabatha enjoys cooking, photography, camping and arts and crafts. And, of course, with a degree in tourism – she loves to travel!
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2018. Tabi Falcone has lived in Winston-Salem since 2014 and finds it is the perfect mix of country and city for her lifestyle needs. With a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design, she works in the apparel industry during the day and runs a small business, Annabelle Beet, selling her art by night. She lives in a self-proclaimed “Rainbow House” with her husband, Matt, and their two young children Liam and Maxwell. With a background in art, she dabbles in just about every craft imaginable and enjoys sharing this passion with her children. Her other interests include camping, hiking, running, and she is never one to turn down an adventure.
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2017. Originally from New York, Taryn grew up in Florida and moved to Winston-Salem in 2014 and has loved the city ever since. Taryn is a lifelong DIYer, creative business coach & public speaker with a heart centered on serving women who have a vision for their business and their life. She has her Bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design & Marketing and is the founder of One Crafty Miss, LLC a brand that brings motivation, encouragement and community to creative women building handmade businesses. When she isn’t at home on a weekend watching Netflix with her husband, Leo, and fur babies, Luna and Izzy, you can find her rummaging through thrift shops or going to craft fairs and flea markets. Taryn’s favorite thing about writing for the magazine is being able to connect with so many amazing people in the community and create pieces that resonate with its readers.
Graphic designer since 2016. Aron Daniels is originally from Charlotte, NC and currently lives in Greenville with his wife Amy and their two adorable boys, Elijah and Malcolm. Aron earned his degree in graphic design from Western Carolina University. Aron enjoys reading, photography, drawing, computer games, and camping. On working for Forsyth Magazines, Aron shares, “I love the variety about my job. We have a great team in place and with the diversity of each design project, I stay moving and creative all the time!”
Graphic designer since 2016. Laurie Dalton calls Lewisville home! She shares her home with her husband, Jeff. She is 2/3rds of the way to an empty nest, with one grown son, one son currently at Appalachian State, and the third still in high school. Laurie graduated from UNC-Wilmington and has brought a fun, open and airy design style to Forsyth Family magazine! In her spare time, Laurie enjoys spending time with her boys, kayaking, and training her new puppy, Sierra.
Forsyth Family editor since 2009. Forsyth Family Editor, Tim Sellner, was born and raised in Detroit, MI before ultimately relocating to Winston-Salem. Tim has a Ph.D. and is a retired professor of German studies at Wake Forest University. He and his wife, Vicki, have been married for 47 years, and they have three grown children as well as a Siamese cat. Tim enjoys collecting art and antiques, and spending time researching family genealogy. His research has helped him realize that two of his grandchildren are descendants of the Massachusetts Pilgrims and Native American heroine, Pocahontas. On editing for Forsyth Family, Tim said, “The people are wonderful to work with, and it keeps my mind active. I also think the magazines provide a great service to the county.”
Forsyth Woman content editor since 2005. Born in the heart of country music, Kim Beane hails from Nashville, TN, though she now calls East Bend, NC home. Kim has a law degree from Wake Forest University and is an original member of the Forsyth Magazines team. Kim and her husband, Jody, have been married since 2002, and have two dogs and three horses. One of her horses, Raven, was once a popular featured columnist in Forsyth Woman and Forsyth Family magazines. Kim loves her role as content editor and, in her words, “being a part of something that touches the community.”
VIEW ALL POSTS BY KIM
Forsyth Magazines writer since 2012. Vonda was born in Greensburg, KY. With a father who worked for the railroad, she grew up in several areas including various parts of Tennessee and Alabama. Eventually, Vonda relocated to North Carolina and has called Winston-Salem home for almost 40 years. Vonda has a degree in English and media communications and recently retired from HanesBrands after 37 years. She joined the Forsyth Magazines team a few years ago at the encouragement of her daughter, Denise, who serves as project manager. She enjoys traveling, knitting, cooking and reading (most of all, reading about military history). “I love the variety of articles (including human interest, historical, informational, local businesses, service organizations and humor),” said Vonda.
VIEW ALL POSTS BY VONDA
Cindy Butler is one of Forsyth Magazines’ newest account managers. She has a degree in finance from Virginia Tech. She has been a stay-at-home mom for 13 years, but previously worked as a financial analyst for a government contractor in Northern Virginia. While she lived in VA as well as Alabama, Cindy was active and held leadership roles in Moms Club and MOPS (Mothers Of Preschoolers) when her children were younger. In her free time, she enjoys riding and showing her registered quarter horse, as well as cooking and gardening. She has two children, Grace (13) and Henry (7). Her husband, Jim, is the sales director for Ferguson Enterprises.
Forsyth Magazines account executive since 2009. A Winston-Salem native, Heather graduated from Salem College with a double major in English and communications and took graduate classes at the UNC-CH School of Journalism. She has the dual role at Forsyth Magazines of both account executive and writer of the popular Forsyth Family column, “Out and About in Winston-Salem.” She has been married to her husband, Ron, for 10 years, and they have an eight-year-old son, Jackson. In her spare time, Heather enjoys reading, photography and travel. “I love working with our team, and the flexibility it gives me — it allows me to spend quality time with my family.”
VIEW ALL POSTS BY HEATHER
Forsyth Magazines account executive since 2016. Morgan Bralley grew up with Forsyth Magazines… after all, her mother is Forsyth Family publisher, Robin Bralley! After graduating from East Carolina University with a degree in recreational therapy, Morgan moved home. Morgan is making plans to return to school to study occupational therapy as a complement to her first degree. However, for now, she is enjoying the opportunity to work with her mom for a bit. Morgan is also passionate about volunteerism and mission work. She is preparing for her second mission trip to the Dominican Republic in 2017, which is being funded through a side-business she shares with her sister, Sister Act Pallet Signs. In her spare time, Morgan loves spending time with family, especially when they travel to Treasure Island, Florida!
Forsyth Magazines account executive since 2012. Tamara Bodford is originally from Hudson, NC and now divides her time between Winston-Salem and Lake Norman. She and her husband, Paul, have been married for 26 years and have two children. Katie, in her last year at NC State University and Zack, a recent NC State grad working in Cary. They have a Bichon named Chuck. Tamara has a degree in psychology from UNC-Charlotte and enjoys reading, travel and loves to watch football. Tamara sells advertising for all four titles under the Forsyth Magazines umbrella and said, “I love interacting with the best clients, publishers and co-workers I could ever imagine!”
Forsyth Family publisher since 2007. Robin grew up in Clemmons and has called it home all her life. She has a degree from High Point University and, after finding herself downsized from her marketing position in corporate America, Robin joined forces with Forsyth Woman publisher and friend, Keela Johnson to launch Forsyth Family. She and her husband, Tim, have been married for 27 years and share two grown daughters, Briana and Morgan, as well as a new son-in-law, Briana’s husband, Jonathan! Robin and her family are avid Carolina Panthers fans and enjoy going to the movies and summer concerts. She is also an active member of Sunrise United Methodist Church and volunteers for bimonthly bread pick-up to support the Clemmons Food Pantry. Regarding her favorite thing about Forsyth Magazines, Robin said, “It’s hard to narrow it down to one specific thing, but meeting all the wonderful people I come in contact with and being a small part of local businesses’ success is top of the list!”
VIEW ALL POSTS BY ROBIN
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Home > Sections > Finance > A third of UK government funds spent with outsourcers, report finds
A third of UK government funds spent with outsourcers, report finds
By Natalie Leal on 16/12/2018
The gates are shut – but has the horse bolted? Interserve is involved in many public sector projects, such as this University of York construction scheme (Image courtesy DS Pugh).
The UK government is spending nearly a third of its total expenditure on outsourcing, a new report by think tank the Institute for Government (IfG) has revealed.
The report, ‘Government procurement: the scale and nature of contracting in the UK’, reveals that departments and agencies spend some £284bn (US$324bn) with contractors. It was published as the share price of key supplier Interserve crashed, threatening the failure of another major contractor following the collapse of Carillion a year ago.
However, the authors argue that the current scale of outsourcing means that it is now “too large to be easily unraveled or scrapped”, noting that it is “the single biggest component of modern government.”
The report says that four departments – the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Department for Transport (DfT), the Department for International Trade(DIT) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) –spent more than half of their entire budgets with external suppliers last year.
Are you being Interserved?
“Government is spending hundreds of billions of pounds every year with external suppliers – but there are signs that some players involved in outsourcing are struggling, most recently Interserve,” said IfG director of research Emma Norris.
According to the Telegraph, Interserve won £938m ($1.2bn) of government contracts – representing 11% of the total – in 2017, but it has experienced significant financial difficulties during 2018.
In the last few days the company has sought its second rescue deal of the year, and faces debts of £500m ($630m). News of the rescue deal caused share prices to tumble, dropping initially by 70%.
The company has 45,000 workers in the UK and provides construction, facilities management and other services such as cleaning and catering in schools and hospitals. It is also the largest provider of probation and rehabilitation services in England and Wales.
Lots of eggs, one basket
The IfG report says ‘strategic suppliers’ such as Interserve – companies that receive over £100m ($125m) in revenue a year from government – are winning more and more contracts. In 2016-17, government reported spending the largest amount of money with Capita, Carillon and Amey. The IfG calls this a “risky” strategy, “given that its top three suppliers have all experienced financial difficulties in recent years.”
Despite Interserve’s financial woes, the UK has continued to award contracts to the company. Indeed, the very scale of the government’s contracts with Interserve make it a key client – meaning that if it were to turn off the tap, it could well prompt the company’s collapse and be required to pick up the pieces.
The IfG is urging the government to collect much better data on outsourcing, and to “urgently review the health of its procurement markets.”Government does not have the data it needs on its own outsourcing and procurement,” said Norris. “It needs to look hard at the experience of the past 30 years of outsourcing, and develop a much stronger sense of what has worked well and what has not.”
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “We monitor the financial health of all of our strategic suppliers, including Interserve, and have regular discussions with the company’s management. The company successfully raised new debt facilities earlier this year, and we fully support them in their long term recovery plan.
“We do not believe that any of our strategic suppliers are in a comparable position to Carillion.”
AmeyCapitaCarillionContractsEuropeFinanceIfGInterserveOutsourcingprocurementUK
About Natalie Leal
Natalie Leal is an NCTJ qualified journalist based in the UK. She holds a BSc and Master's degree in Social Anthropology and writes about society, poverty, politics, welfare reform, innovation and sustainable business. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Positive News, The Brighton Argus, UCAS, Welfare Weekly, Bdaily News and more.
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Victims of Sexual Violence in New Brunswick to Benefit from Funding
Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre to Benefit from Federal Government Support
February 20, 2014 09:23 ET | Source: Department of Justice Canada
OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Feb. 20, 2014) - Department of Justice Canada
Today, Justice Minister Peter MacKay and Keith Ashfield, M.P. for Fredericton, announced $55,000 in funding for the Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre.
The Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre will receive funding from the federal government to develop, pilot and evaluate a comprehensive and flexible group therapy model designed for female victims of sexual violence. The therapy model will be based on best practices and will take into account input from adult female victims of sexual crimes. The funding will also be used to develop training sessions and a resource guide for support-group facilitators, to further help victims.
This funding announcement is in keeping with the Government's Plan for Safe Streets and Communities, one of four priorities identified by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in January 2013. It is also in line with the 2013 Speech from the Throne commitment to introduce measures that will increase support for victims of crime.
The funding is being provided as follows:
$17,000 for 2013-2014; and
$38,000 for 2014-2015.
The funding is being provided through the Department of Justice Canada's Victims Fund. The Victims Fund provides grants and contributions to support projects and activities that encourage the development of new approaches, promote access to justice, improve the capacity of service providers, foster the establishment of referral networks, or increase awareness of services available to victims of crime and their families.
"For nearly forty years, the Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre has provided assistance to the most vulnerable members of New Brunswick communities, to help them start a sometimes difficult healing process. By providing funding to the organizations and people who work directly with victims of crime, our Government is fulfilling its commitment to giving victims a stronger voice in our country's justice system. The support we announced today will help the Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre continue its critical and crucial work in providing and improving services for survivors of sexual violence, for the benefit of all New Brunswickers."
"Access to effective services is an important issue for many victims of crime in our province and across Canada. Our Government will address the needs of victims in New Brunswick by helping the Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre develop and provide specialized therapy for female victims of sexual violence."
Keith Ashfield
Member of Parliament for Fredericton
- Backgrounder: Federal Victims Strategy and Victims Fund
- Department of Justice Canada's Policy Centre for Victim Issues
- Department of Justice Canada's Victims Fund
Follow Department of Justice Canada on Twitter (@JusticeCanadaEn), join us on Facebook or visit our YouTube channel.
Backgrounder: Federal Victims Strategy and Victims Fund
The Federal Victims Strategy was created in 2007 and made permanent by the government in 2011. The objective of the Strategy, which is led by the Department of Justice Canada, is to give victims a more effective voice in the criminal justice system. The Department of Justice works in close collaboration with a variety of third parties, including other federal institutions, as well as victims, victim advocates, provincial and territorial governments, service providers, and other actors involved in the criminal justice system. The Department of Justice develops policy and criminal law reform, funds various programs to meet the needs of victims of crime, explores best practices to address victims' needs, and raises awareness about the concerns of victims of crime and their role in the criminal justice system.
Within the Federal Victims Strategy, the Victims Fund is a grants and contributions program administered by the Department of Justice. Funds are available each year to provinces, territories and non-governmental organizations whose projects, activities and operations support the objectives of the Federal Victims Strategy.
The Victims Fund provides funding to projects and activities that:
Enhance victim assistance programs across Canada;
Promote access to justice and participation in the justice system and the development of laws, policies, and programs;
Promote the implementation of principles, guidelines, and laws designed to address the needs of victims of crime and articulate their role in the criminal justice system;
Contribute to increased knowledge and awareness of the impact of victimization, the needs of victims of crime, available services, assistance and programs, and legislation; and
Promote, encourage and/or enhance governmental and non-governmental organizations' involvement in the identification of victims' needs and gaps in services, as well as in the development and delivery of programs, services and assistance to victims, including capacity building within non-governmental organizations.
Since 2006, the Government of Canada has allocated more than $120 million to give victims a more effective voice in the criminal justice and corrections systems, through programs and initiatives delivered by the Department of Justice Canada. This funding includes the allocation of $10.25 million for new or enhanced Child Advocacy Centres to address the needs of child and youth victims of crime.
The Government of Canada is building on past measures to further advance the interests of victims, including:
Implementing legislation to double the victim surcharge and make it mandatory;
Eliminating the faint-hope clause, which allowed murderers to obtain early parole; and
Establishing the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime in 2007.
More information is available on the Department of Justice Canada's website.
Department of Justice Canada
Paloma Aguilar
Office of the Minister of Justice
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Sepi Aghdaee
Rachel Baker
Cathy Cha
Denis Chicola
Holly Delany Cole
Matt Foreman
Victor Garcia
Cynthia Gibson
Robert D. Haas
Walter J. Haas
Ira Hirschfield
Jennifer Kirschenbaum
Raquiba LaBrie
Paula Morris
Beth Rayfield
Victoria Rodarte
Robert Ross
Jennie Lehua Watson
Evan Wolfson
Sylvia Yee
By Walter J. Haasin Fund News
Photo by Tue Nam Ton ©
Starting a New Chapter of Leadership
The Fund’s Board of Directors announce Jennie Lehua Watson and Cathy Cha to leadership posts.
In a letter to the Fund’s partners and colleagues, Directors Walter J. Haas, Robert D. Haas and Betsy Haas Eisenhardt publicly welcome Watson and Cha as an “outstanding” leadership team for the Fund.
We are pleased to announce two important leadership changes to help us ensure that our family foundation can continue—and strengthen—its work to help advance rights and create opportunities for all people. Jennie Lehua Watson, formerly the Fund’s vice president of special initiatives and communications, will serve as interim president of the Fund for the next two years. Cathy Cha, formerly program director for immigrant rights, is now vice president of programs and will become president of the Fund in 2019.
We selected Jennie and Cathy for these roles following an extensive national search for a new leader after Ira Hirschfield stepped down as the Fund’s longtime president in 2016. There was a great deal of interest in the position, and we interviewed a number of strong candidates. In the end, we decided that Jennie and Cathy bring a unique and complementary set of skills that will make them outstanding leaders for the Fund. We have the utmost confidence that they are the ideal team to help us write the next chapter in our family’s philanthropy.
With a combined 30 years as key leaders with the Fund, Jennie and Cathy have played integral roles in the Fund’s work. We look forward to working closely with them to sustain and strengthen the Fund’s partnerships with nonprofit and community organizations, social movements, philanthropic colleagues, and other partners as we continue our collaborative efforts to build a more just and compassionate society.
When our parents created the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, they were inspired by a vision of a society in which all people could live, work and raise their families with dignity. Today, more than 60 years later, this vision remains at the center of the Fund’s work. At a time when so many of our neighbors are denied basic rights and opportunities, and when there is real concern across the country that existing protections could be taken away, the Fund and our partners will continue to work for positive change.
We hope you will join us in welcoming Jennie and Cathy to their new roles as they lead the Haas, Jr. Fund into the future, grounded and catalyzed by the enduring values of equality, fairness and opportunity for all.
Walter J. Haas Robert D. Haas Betsy Haas Eisenhardt
Haas, Jr. Fund Announces New Leaders
Watson to serve as interim president for two years. Cha is promoted to vice president of programs and will become Fund president in 2019.
Welcoming Monica Pressley
"Monica brings a wealth of experience in investment management and administration, along with a deep commitment to the power of philanthropy to strengthen our communities and change lives for the better" - Ira Hirschfield, president of the Haas, Jr. Fund.
Sepi supports the Fund’s grantmaking across programs and issues, including longtime community partnerships in the Bay Area.
Rachel works to strengthen the field of leadership development for social change.
Cathy leads the Fund’s work to advance rights and create opportunities for all people.
Denis works to ensure that communications are at the core of the Fund’s efforts to advance rights and create opportunities.
Holly directs the Fund’s flagship leadership investment program, which helps grantees to build the leadership they need to reach their goals.
Matt oversees the Fund’s extensive support for the drive for equal rights and opportunities for LGBT people.
In his leadership of the Haas, Jr. Fund, Walter J. Haas is guided by a commitment to serving the community and to creating opportunities for all people to succeed.
Ira oversees the Fund’s investments and leads its work on selected community partnerships.
Paula has worked with the Fund’s Flexible Leadership Awards program since its inception in 2005, and was its program director until January 2015.
Beth Rayfield is the director of institutional advancement at the Center for Community Change (CCC) and former development director at CHIRLA.
Jennie leads the Fund’s work to advance rights and create opportunities for all people.
Evan is the founder and President of Freedom to Marry, a longtime Fund partner and key player in the campaign to win marriage equality nationwide.
Linda leads the Fund’s work to strengthen leaders, organizations and movements that are advancing social change.
Sylvia served as the Fund’s Vice President of Programs
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SBA Homepage
VMGO
VMGO (Undergraduate Level)
VMGO (Graduate Level)
2018-2019 Bachelor of Science in Accountancy
2018-2019 Bachelor of Science in Accounting Information Systems
2018-2019 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Business Management
2018-2019 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Financial Management
2018-2019 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Human Resource Management
2018-2019 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Marketing Management
2014-2015 Bachelor of Science in Accounting Technology
2014-2015 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration - Human Resource Development Management
2014-2015 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration - Marketing Management
2014-2015 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration - Legal Management
2011-2012 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration - Business Management
2010-2011 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in Marketing Management
2010-2011 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in Legal Management
2010-2011 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in Human Resource Development Management
2010-2011 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in Business Management
2007-2008 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration - Major in Accounting - Leading to Bachelor of Science in Accountancy
2007-2008 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in Banking
2007-2008 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in E-Commerce Management
2006-2007 Bachelor of Science in Office Administration Leading to Associate in Office Administration
2006-2007 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in InterDisciplinary Studies
2006-2007 Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Major in Accounting Leading to Bachelor of Science in Accountancy
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SEA Homepage
Engineering PEO
The College of Engineering was established on July 23, 1963 starting with one-year general engineering course. Two years later, it started offering its first major program, which is Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. This program was given Government Recognition immediately after graduating the first batch of Civil Engineering graduates who achieved 100% passing in the Civil Engineering Board Examinations. This initial success of the college led to the offering of other engineering degree programs including Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Environmental and Sanitary Engineering and Industrial Engineering. To date, the College of Engineering maintains and continues to strengthen eight (8) major degree programs with Government Recognition, as follows: Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, 1968; Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, 1969; Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, 1969; Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering, 1986; Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communications Engineering, 1991. Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering, 2002; Bachelor of Science in Architecture 2003; Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, 2009.
The first Dean of the College of Engineering was Engr. Teresito Remollo who laid down the foundation for the College of Engineering in its early stage of development. His achievements from the time he assumed the position in 1968 and until his retirement in 1985, gained the recognition for HAU as a foremost engineering school in the region. The work he started was continued by his predecessors. He was succeeded by Engr. Geromin T. Nepomuceno, Jr. who was Officer-in-Charge of the College from 1985-87. Engr. Renato Santiago held the position of Officer-in-Charge from 1987-1990 and Engr. Abigail Arcilla was the Acting Dean from 1990-1992. Engr. Ruby P. Henson held the position of the dean from 1992-1999. Engr. Roman A. Palo was the dean of the college in 1999-2005; Engr. Abigail P. Arcilla, in 2005-2010. Dr. Maria Doris C. Bacamante holds the deanship position from SY 2010-2011 to present.
In all its years of existence, the College of Engineering has been committed to the objective of "providing well-rounded professional training to students who can make a definite contribution to the industrialization and economic progress of the Philippine through applied Science and Technology." Hence, the curricula for the different programs are so designed not only to conform to CHED, DECS-TPEAE curricular guidelines but also to ensure that Engineering graduates have the necessary academic background in terms of knowledge both in the technical and social disciplines as well as field experience for the specific area of specialization. In line with this, engineering graduates are required to undergo apprenticeship training in the industries to enhance their field of experience.
The training that engineering students obtain is further enriched by their involvement in extra curricular activities and this is made possible through membership in student organizations. There are nine (9) student organizations based in the college most of which are accredited student chapters of national professional organizations. These are the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers, PICE; Integrated Institute of Electrical Engineers, IIEE; Integrated Electronics and Communications Engineers of the Philippine, IECEP; Philippine Institute of Industrial Engineers, PIIE; Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers, PSME; ICEPEP s; United Architects of the Philippines Student Auxiliary, UAPSA; SAEP and SAGE Student Association for General Engineering. The realization of the objectives of the college is evidenced by the growing number of engineering graduates and professionals that the institution has produced. The college also boasts of a number of engineering board topnotchers.
The College of Engineering has gone a long way since 1963. The four-storey building for the college marks the genuine commitment of HAU in strengthening engineering education. The edifice, named the Sacred Heart Building, houses lecture rooms, an audio visual room, and all the engineering laboratories as follows: Soils, Material Testing, Hydraulics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Chemistry, Physics and Computer laboratories, the latter including a CADD Center, and Aeronautical Engineering. An adjacent building ,called the Archbishop Pedro Santos (APS) building, houses the Drafting Rooms used by the Architecture students. Alongside the continuous upgrading of facilities, the college plans to pursue a comprehensive faculty development program in line with the objective of upgrading instruction. The college also exerts considerable effort in keeping up with the technological pace through the application of computer technology in instruction and research. Aware of the existing resources and the demand of the external environment, the activities and programs of the college are being expanded so as not to be limited to the traditional academic scope but will consider the demands of the external environment through academe-industry linkages and other forms of community involvement.
In April 1995, the programs in the College of Engineering attained FAAP second-level (II) accreditation status through PAASCU. PAASCU Re-accreditation was attained in the school year 1998-1999. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) awarded the two programs from the College of Engineering, namely: Electrical and Industrial Engineering departments as the Centers of Development (COD) in the region. PAASCU Level III Accreditation was granted in the School Year 2004-2005 for CE, EE, IE & ME. In School Year 2009-2010, in addition to the Electrical and Industrial Engineering departments, the Civil Engineering department was also granted Center of Development (COD) by CHED. In SY 2010-2011, the Computer Engineering Program was granted Candidate Status, which qualifies it for a formal survey visit for Level I in the following school year.
The College of Engineering and Architecture realizes the importance of its role in present times of making engineering education relevant as it continues to support national development efforts.
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The activity in Leirvik started with the foundation of Løland Motorverksted (machine workshop) by Jonas Løland in 1918.
As many other small repair yards in Norway, Løland Motorverksted also started constructing vessels and the first newbuilding “Lotnesferja” was delivered in 1938.
The activity grew over the years and a new and modern shipyard was constructed in 1976. The shipyard was bought by Kleven with partners in 1979 and became a member of the Kværner Group in 1990. The shipyard became renowned as a high quality builder of offshore and fishing vessels and a specialist in building offshore vessels with ice breaking capabilities.
In 2000 Per Sævik, through his company Havila, bought the shipyard from the Kværner Group and founded Havyard Leirvik. Per Sævik was an experienced sailor and operator of fishing and offshore vessels and has founded several shipping companies, including Havila Shipping ASA which is noted on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
In 2000 Havyard Groups only activity was shipbuilding at the shipyard in Leirvik. The revenue in 2000 was NOK 531 million and the No. of employees about 170. The strategy of the company was to take control of a larger part of the ship technology value chain and in 2005 the ship design company Leine Maritime was acquired. With this acquisition, the Havyard designTM was born, adding considerable speed to the growth of the company. Furthermore, several new companies were founded or acquired and the range of products and services grew.
A milestone in the company’s history was when the first Havyard designed vessel, a Havyard 842 Anchor Handling Tug Supply vessel was delivered. Another milestone was when Havyard's NB 088, a Havyard 858 Diving Support Vessel got the Offshore Support Journal’s (OSJ) “Offshore Support Vessel of the Year Award” in 2011.
The expansion in product portfolio and market shares world-wide has continued the growth of the companyand the international ship technology Group had in 2013 a revenue of NOK 1 966 million and about 750 employees in Norway, Peru, Brazil, Poland, Croatia, Turkey and China.
In 2014 the company was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
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Home> Publications & Directories> Perspectives on History> Issues> December 2014> Career Paths> From Academia to a Think Tank: Reflections on How to Be Lucky
From Academia to a Think Tank: Reflections on How to Be Lucky
Ted Bromund | Dec 1, 2014
I wanted to be a professor. It wasn’t so much a goal as an assumption. My father was a professor, so for me, going to graduate school in history was less a conscious choice than it was a simple staying of the course. But I never got to be a tenure-track professor. Instead, I now work at The Heritage Foundation, a center for the study of public policy options. Or, as everyone calls it, a think tank.
My path to Heritage was fairly direct, but because graduate school was involved there was a lot of angst along the way. My career in academia flamed out partly because I was interested in an unfashionable field (contemporary British political history) and partly because I made myself unhirable by writing on an obscure topic (Britain’s first application to the European Union’s precursor). At heart, though, I wasn’t driven to write books, and the academy likes book writers.
So after getting nothing more than a few feeble nibbles on the academic job market, I counted myself lucky to get a position lecturing in history and helping my adviser, Paul Kennedy, run his center on international security at Yale. I felt even luckier when my wife got a job as an assistant professor of classics at Yale. We were the cover kids for perhaps the only hopeful story The Chronicle of Higher Education has ever run about the job market (April 21, 2000). It still makes me smile.
Still, in retrospect, I was already heading out the academic door: teaching a 3-2 load while running a center that hosts a hundred events a year doesn’t leave much time for research and writing. I also knew that—since this is Yale we’re talking about—my wife might not get tenure, so I thought I’d likely follow her to her next job and go full-time into academic administration.
But in April 2004 my wife was diagnosed with cancer. She died in a month. After a few years of standing around being stunned, I decided I had to leave Yale. By then, I knew I had no shot on the academic job market: I’d written too little. So I started calling people. Friends from college, friends who’d been through the Yale program, friends from other graduate programs—anyone who was working outside the academy.
And I found I had a lot of friends. If you want to break out of the academic track, stay in touch with your friends. The AHA is developing virtual mentorship programs, but I see no value in those. You don’t find mentors online. I was lucky that the senior faculty members I was working with—Kennedy, John Lewis Gaddis, and Charles Hill—supported students who left academia. But I was even luckier in my friends.
The point, obviously, isn’t that your friends give you a job out of charity. But while the job search process in academia is somewhat transparent—read the ads in Perspectives, apply for the (vaguely) relevant positions, interview, and accept an offer—it’s harder to find out about think tank openings, because recruitment is decentralized. Your friends are the network which beats that decentralization.
I ended up at Heritage for a few reasons. First, at Yale, I’d edged into blogging for Commentary, which gave me some practice writing for the fabled general reader about policy issues. Don’t underestimate how desperate online publications are for content, especially in this bright new era when (wrongly) almost no one gets paid for their writing.
Second, I am a conservative, and that’s what Heritage, which is proudly conservative, was looking for. And third, I was lucky that my ridiculous thesis turned out to be the perfect fit for a job focused partly on defending British sovereignty from the European Union. Fit is everything in any job market, but finding where you fit takes time. I’ve called myself lucky a lot in this piece, but luck’s just a synonym for buying a lot of lottery tickets. Most don’t win, but a few do.
So what goes on at a think tank? Well, every think tank has a different internal culture and operating model. Most think tanks also have an ideological mission, as Heritage does, or at least a more subtle ideological affinity. Most of them also require you to help raise the funds that support your job; I’m lucky that Heritage is one of the few places that isn’t like that.
So I write what I believe. I’ve never been told by a donor, or anyone acting for a donor, what to write. But every think tank has institutional priorities, and you have to both respond to breaking news and analyze broader issues. So your research program had better be partly shaped by the world, or you likely won’t have a job for long.
About 70 percent of my time is research and writing (or procrastinating while I gird myself up to write). But it’s not the kind of writing I was trained for. In academia, a 10,000-word journal article is run of the mill. In a think tank, it’s War and Peace, and it’ll be read about as avidly. Op-eds are 800 words. Talking points for an office on Capitol Hill are 600 words. Blogs are 400 words, or less.
And all of this has to be written at speed. You have to be an expert, but you also have to be able to communicate with people who aren’t experts—you have to be relevant, broad as well as deep, and concise. Apart from that, the biggest challenge is drinking from the fire hose of current events: it’s a busy world out there.
The rest of my time is spent on meetings and media work. In academia, if you write a journal article, that is, in a sense, the end of the job. But in a think tank, writing’s the least of it. You need to promote your ideas—with internal and external colleagues, the government, the press, and the public. Writing a piece and flinging it out the door won’t get the job done.
Traditional graduate programs aren’t good at any of this. They don’t emphasize short, relevant writing. They promote narrowness. They don’t encourage useful networking. Subtly or less so, they imply that time spent on writing for the public is time wasted. They don’t do much teacher training, which has some transferability to public speaking and media work. And while I can’t prove it, I share the sense that faculty today have fewer contacts outside academia than their colleagues in previous generations did.
So what could graduate schools themselves do better? Emphasize skills over knowledge. At a certain point, knowing how to know is more important than more knowing. Cut down the length of programs. It’s hard to go to graduate school for a nonacademic job when time to degree is close to a decade. So: fewer classes, shorter theses, and better advising. Get students through as rapidly as possible, while taking a sympathetic attitude toward internships or part-time employment along the way.
And stop calling it graduate school. It’s always rankled me that business school is professional education, but graduate school is just the school you go to after college. If you’re not doing it as a path to professional employment—in or out of academia—you’re doing it wrong. Getting a PhD can be a reasonable choice even if you don’t want to be a professor, if you have the right approach. But today’s system will fight you almost every step of the way. What graduate school should give you is simple: research skills; depth of knowledge in a particular field, coupled with reasonable breadth; and as many relevant connections to as many kinds of employment as possible.
How optimistic am I that my ideas will be adopted? Not very. All the incentives run the wrong way. A fundamental reason, I fear, is that academia has defined itself as a world outside the world, a liberal grove that’s above all a lifestyle choice. Expecting it to welcome the snake of reality into the academic Eden is like asking a gamekeeper to welcome poachers.
But it’s happening anyhow, whether academia wants it to or not. It’s happening, above all, because all those PhDs have to go somewhere. The irony is that most of the problems with graduate education in the United States—starting with the overproduction of PhDs into a saturated academic job market and continuing with the rise of the adjuncts and the approaching death of tenure, from the lack of interest in placement records and outreach beyond the academy to the dominance of politicized microspecialties—spring from a near-complete failure of professional responsibility on the part of the academy.
So the American academy is reaping what it has sowed. All it has to do to drive more of its graduates away is to keep on doing what it’s done for the past 40 years. The alternative to the status quo, therefore, isn’t nonacademic jobs. That’s today’s reality. The alternative is for the academy to stop relying on luck and instead make an effort to do preparation for nonacademic jobs right.
Ted R. Bromund is the senior research fellow in Anglo-American relations in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Attribution must provide author name, article title, Perspectives on History, date of publication, and a link to this page. This license applies only to the article, not to text or images used here by permission.
The American Historical Association welcomes comments in the discussion area below, at AHA Communities, and in letters to the editor. Please read our commenting and letters policy before submitting.
Tags: Career Paths Career Diversity for Historians Resources for Graduate Students Resources for History Departments
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Because My Data is None of Your Business: Europe-Based noyb™ Delivers Data Protection Regulation Enforcement to Ensure Privacy Rights
By: Christine Preusler Posted: March 14, 2019
TL; DR: Europe-based noyb™, a non-government organization seeking to protect data privacy through strategic litigation, is working to close the gap between laws and reality by enforcing agreed upon regulations. The collaborative effort aims to unite experts from the privacy, tech, and consumer rights sectors, maximizing the organization’s impact. By creating best practices for upholding privacy rights, noyb will ensure a systematic and effective approach.
We all know from personal experience that a bored internet user can dig up some pretty bizarre material online. Among those curious tidbits of information are articles on so-called “birthday twins” — two unrelated people brought into the world on the same date. There’s Gladys Knight and Rudy Giuliani, both born on May 28, 1944, who went on to lead musical and political careers that couldn’t be further apart. There’s also the paradoxical pairing of Weird Al Yankovic and Nancy Grace, two disparate souls both delivered on October 23, 1958.
Others who share the same birthday — think legendary movie star Barbara Stanwyck and Orville Redenbacher, who was obsessed with crafting the perfect movie theater popcorn — pair quite well. Such is also the case with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a well-known European privacy law, and noyb™, a Europe-based privacy enforcement agency, both independently brought to life on May 25, 2018.
Lawyer and Privacy Activist Max Schrems founded noyb to systematically protect the data privacy rights of individuals.
“noyb officially came into force as a non-government organization (NGO) on the implementation date of GDPR in the European Union,” said Ioannis Kouvakas, Data Protection Lawyer at noyb. “GDPR allows nonprofit organizations to protect individuals’ rights, but before noyb, there had never been an NGO focused exclusively on enforcing data privacy rights against controllers.”
According to Ioannis, noyb — which stands for None Of Your Business — is the brainchild of Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems, who set up the NGO as a European organization intended to protect the data privacy rights of individuals systematically. Today, the NGO employs strategic litigation to ensure regulatory compliance and close the gap between the law and reality. Through industry collaboration and member support, noyb is establishing best practices for enforcing privacy rights efficiently and effectively.
An NGO Employing Strategic Litigation to Ensure Regulatory Compliance
noyb has brought forth a number of model cases in the hope of making privacy a reality for everyone in Europe. On May 25, 2018, noyb filed four similar complaints alleging that Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook essentially forced users to agree to new privacy policies. The organization argued that the actions violated the GDPR, which prohibits bundling services with the requirement to provide consent.
“Most of these companies were forcing users to consent without providing them enough clarification, with some threatening that users would be blocked from their accounts,” Ioannis said. “In our view, that constitutes forced consent to the use of personal data.”
GDPR prohibits tech companies from bundling access with the requirement to provide consent.
Each case was filed with data protection authorities in different countries: The Facebook complaint in Austria, the Google complaint in France, the WhatsApp compliant in Germany, and the Instagram complaint in Belgium. If successful, Ioannis said the charges would put a stop to inescapable consent pop-ups. This year, the French data protection agency, CNIL, became the first to act as a result of noyb’s effort, imposing a financial penalty of 50 million euros against Google for failing to obtain valid consent.
“Following the introduction of GDPR, we have found that large corporations such as Google simply interpret the law differently and have often only superficially adapted their products,” Max Schrems said in an official statement after the announcement. “It is important that the authorities make it clear that simply claiming to be compliant is not enough.”
In January, noyb also began representing a customer of an Austrian bank who was denied access to his bank account details.
Get Involved: Join noyb as a Supporting Member
Ioannis said that noyb amassed a minimal funding goal of 250,000 euros through a January 2018 Kickstarter-like campaign but is still seeking to reach its funding goal of 500,000 euros through member support. These funds are crucial for procuring lawyers, staff members, and other resources.
Interested individuals can join noyb as a Gold Supporting Member at the rate of 100 euros per year or more, a Silver Supporting Member at the price of more than 50 euros per year, or a Basic Supporting Member for 50 euros a year. All plans may be canceled anytime with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Silver and Gold Supporting Members receive a membership card, welcome box, initial consultation in private data protection cases, information about noyb’s collective enforcement cases, and free goodies. Basic Supporting Members receive a welcome email and information about noyb’s collective enforcement cases. “We’re trying to make people aware that they have rights, and we’re trying to ensure that those rights are enforced,” Ioannis said.
Of course, noyb also performs specific services based on member feedback. “Often, our members bring quite interesting issues to our attention,” Ioannis said. “Our job is to provide information, advice, and support to our members when it comes to their own data protection issues or a specific case. Sometimes, we pursue them free of charge.”
Ioannis said noyb is a member-driven organization at its core. “Our more than 3,200 members are everything to us,” he said. “We’re quite thankful for their active support, whether through donations or providing key information and insights.”
Creating Best Practices for Procedural Requirements
noyb’s hard work has shed light on factors that complicate the complaint filing and resolution process. Problems may arise because there are different procedural requirements for individuals in each member state to file complaints before their national data protection authorities.
“On one hand, GDPR is pretty clear on the deadline that data protection authorities have to respond to an investigation,” Ioannis said. “However, different data protection authorities have to cooperate when it comes to complaints that are international or cross-border in character, and this makes things more complicated than we thought.”
For example, if a data subject/user who is located in country A wants to file a complaint against a company whose main, European establishment is in country B, they can also lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in country A. The cross-border cooperation mechanism established by the GDPR would then require cooperation from the data protection authorities in both countries.
noyb’s goal is to prevent corporations from ignoring privacy rights and using private data for financial gain.
Ioannis said a procedure to streamline these cross-border scenarios is yet to be developed, but some of the complaints noyb has filed — including the Facebook complaint in Austria, the WhatsApp compliant in Germany, and the Instagram complaint in Belgium, will require cross-border cooperation.
“To be honest, I don’t think the data protection authorities currently have a lot of insight into how to address this,” Ioannis said. “I think that our complaints will at least shed some light on the details of the process, or spur a conversation on how data protection authorities can effectively cooperate.”
In January, noyb brought ten complaints against eights streaming services. “We filed in Austria against companies that were, for the most part, located in other European countries, so the cross-border mechanism was once again triggered,” Ioannis said.
As issues like these unfold, procedural standards and best practices will start to emerge.
Closing the Gap Between the Law and Reality
The organization’s ultimate goal is to focus on strategic enforcement and litigation, rather than lobbying or policy work. Ioannis said the group is mainly focused on narrowing the gap between the GDPR and reality through Article 80 of the regulation.
“This enables us to bring a complaint on behalf of one of our members against a controller, highlight the issues we think that our problematic, and bring our case before a data protection authority or even a court,” Ioannis said.
GDPR is still quite new, and noyb hasn’t observed a lot of enforcement taking place. “The CNIL decision against Google was the very first one,” Ioannis said. “It’s hard to tell whether companies will comply, as it appears there is still a lot of infringement going on.”
And that’s precisely why noyb, as the perfect complement to the GDPR, must keep pushing on to protect individuals’ rights.
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Rockets Trade Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook in Blockbuster Deal
Gulf Disturbance Expected to be a Hurricane at Landfall
Former Apollo 20 Head Researcher Roland Fryer Faces Harassment Accusations
Margaret Downing
Former Houston ISD Superintendent Terry Grier with Roland Fryer in 2013 at the height of the Apollo 20 experiment.
Photo by Margaret Downing
Margaret Downing | December 17, 2018 | 4:00am
Interesting story tucked inside the Houston Chronicle on Sunday. On page A-41, the paper carried a New York Times story stating that Dr. Roland Fryer, a prestigious Harvard professor, has been accused of fostering "a work environment hostile to women, one filled with sexual talk and bullying."
Nowhere in the article was there any mention of Fryer's strong ties to Houston and while the New York Times might not have known or cared about the work Fryer did here, it seems curious that there wasn't a mention especially since the Chronicle and other publications including this one devoted reams of space to Fyer's pet project here: Apollo 20.
More recently, Fryer was the author of a controversial national study in 2016 that Houston Police Department records were part of — a study that concluded that someone who is black or Hispanic is not any more likely to be shot by police officers than whites are. The study did find that officers were more likely to use force against minorities.
Rewriting History: Apollo 20's Legacy as it is Now, Was Once and What it was Supposed to Be
Police Officers, Including HPD, Are More Likely to Use Force Against Blacks and Hispanics Than Against Whites, Study Says
Apollo 20 Pluses and Minuses at Mid-Year
Apollo 20 was a three-year project in the Houston school district aimed at eliminating the racial achievement gap by targeting some of the lowest-performing schools in HISD. Fryer led the experiment for his company EdLabs. Then superintendent Terry Grier enlisted the help of all manner of private funding to pay for the program which cost millions of dollars. The first year the program was in four high schools and five middle schools. Eleven elementary schools joined in year two.
During the three years Fryer would come to Houston and appear with Grier to deliver the latest analysis of test scores. Low key and eloquent, Fryer had to conclude that by its end that they hadn't made strides in reading improvement which he said remained a tough nut to crack across the country.
Critics said the money could be better used for all students and many decried the massive overhaul of staff that occurred as part of the program (19 of 20 principals were removed before and during the project).Many parents and educators at the selected schools weren't that happy at the honor, declaring that it stigmatized their students.
Despite longer school days, double periods of math and extra tutors, results were mixed. While there were gains seen in math scores on standardized tests, reading scores were static. And there was no certainty that the improvement in math scores would last. After ending after the 2012-13 school year, the program left behind a reduced tutor program and some "best practices" adopted at some of the schools. Again critics said it shouldn't have taken millions of dollars to determine that extra tutoring would help kids in school.
The roster of schools in Apollo 20 included Jones, Sharpstown, Kashmere and Lee high schools; Ryan, Attucks, Dowling, Fondren and Key middle schools; and Highland Heights, Kelso, Robinson, Scarborough, Tinsley, Walnut Bend, Young, Blackshear, Davila, Frost and Isaacs elementary schools.
Successes listed at the conclusion of the program in 2013 included the fact that two thirds of Apollo secondary schools came off the Academically Unacceptable list. The number of students who applied to college from Apollo schools went from 62.3 percent in 2011 to 91.3 percent in 2013. But, not all the schools thrived since then, even with the extra financial and tutoring help. Case in point: five years later, Highland Heights Elementary and Kashmere High School are among the four long-standing Improvement Required schools at risk of being closed by the Texas Education Agency.
According to The New York Times story, Fryer is one of the highest paid faculty members and has brought $33.6 million in grants to Harvard. The Times reported: "Dr. Fryer told a Harvard investigator that any sexual banter in his office was related to his research and “in the spirit of academic freedom.” He wrote in his response to the complaint that 'certainly no one ever brought to my attention that I ever said anything that made any employee uncomfortable.'"
Margaret Downing is the editor-in-chief who oversees the Houston Press newsroom and its online publication. She frequently writes on a wide range of subjects.
Facebook: Margaret Downing
Twitter: @HoustonPress
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Herga Lodge 2548
Harrow, Middlesex, United Kingdom
Roll of Past Masters
The Lodge Banner
The Lodge’s new Pedestal Bible purchased February 2014 in memory of W Bro Richard S Watson, benefactor of this Lodge.
This Past Master’s Breast Jewel was presented by the Brethren of the Lodge to the 9th (Nonus in Latin) Master of the Lodge, W Bro Stonen William Hunt, on 18th November 1905. The practice of presenting such jewels to a Master on conclusion of his term of office is well established but if subsequently he receives Provincial or London Honours it is traditionally “not done” to wear it with his new regalia. What he then does with it is his business but many Past Masters return it to the Lodge so that it can be re-issued to another new Past Master. The cost of having new jewels made today is quite expensive, so returning them has a beneficial effect on Lodge finances! This particular jewel was eventually re-issued to W Bro Rufus E Moyle, 76th Master, in November 1972. It is currently the oldest surviving Past Master’s Breast Jewel that the Lodge has in its possession.
This Past Master’s Breast Jewel was presented to the 12th (Duodecimus) Master, W Bro Arthur Fillmore, on 21st November 1908. After long service as Secretary of the Lodge, he died in 1940 and all trace of this jewel was lost for 66 years. It was eventually found by a Masonic memorabilia collector, himself a Mason, as being for sale, and he bought and offered it to the Lodge. Accordingly, it was purchased from him in April 2006. Not surprisingly, the once blue ribbon has badly faded over the years. Currently, it is the second oldest such jewel in the possession of the Lodge.
The Hall Stone Jewel. Shortly after the First World War (then known as ‘The Great War’) Grand Lodge decided, in response to a suggestion from the then MW The Grand Master, to build a new headquarters for the English Craft as a memorial to the many brethren who had given their lives during the War. For this purpose an appeal was made to every member of the Constitution for contributions to the fund which came to be known as the Masonic Million Memorial Fund. Contributions were to be entirely voluntary and were to be recognised by special commemorative medals, or jewels. There was one type for each of the three categories of subscribers, of the same basic design but of different sizes and precious metals. For our purposes the medal pictured here, in gold on a light blue collarette, was to be worn by successive Masters of lodges contributing an average of ten guineas per member, such lodges to be known as Hall Stone Lodges, thus giving the jewel its name. 1,321 lodges at home and abroad qualified as Hall Stone Lodges, their names and numbers being inscribed on commemorative marble panels in the main ceremonial entrance vestibule of Freemasons’ Hall. Herga Lodge is proud to be amongst their number. The jewel is worn by the Master as part of his Masonic clothing and he transfers it to his successor on nights of Installation.
The extensive carpark at the Harrow District Masonic Centre at a very quiet time of day. Be aware that it fills quickly when Lodge meetings are due to take place.
Copyright © 2019, Herga Lodge 2548
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Posts Tagged ‘duster’
New Renault Duster to be Unveiled at Frankfurt Motor Show
Renault will be heading to the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show and has already made some exciting announcements. Apart from a new concept car, it has promised the introduction of an all-new Duster at the popular auto show.
The new concept is an interesting prospect, with Renault’s press release mentioning a “new brand identity. However we believe the big newsmaker will be the second incarnation of the French automaker’s successful compact SUV.
The Duster which is sold in India under the Renault badge, is manufactured and sold globally under the badge of Renault’s Romanian budget brand, Dacia. Introduced in 2010, the Dacia Duster has been a massive hit [...]
Mahindra ‘W4’ XUV500 coming soon as entry-level variant?
According to reports, Mahindra is working on a lower-spec version of its popular XUV500 SUV. Likely to be called the W4, it is expected to be identical mechanically and styling wise to its older siblings, the W6 and W8. However unlike the W8, it will be 2WD only. The W4 will get a more basic infotainment system and an air-con unit without automatic climate control, and will do away with convenience features like rain-sensing wipers and automatic headlamps.
Even though the W4 has been finalised internally, Mahindra has not yet green-lighted this new variant for showrooms. Reportedly Mahindra is waiting to see if new, [...]
Nissan Terrano to start at Rs. 8.90 lakhs according to reports
According to reports by Motorbeam, the Nissan Terrano will hit Indian markets in October starting at Rs. 8.90 lakhs (ex-showroom, Delhi). Nissan has taken note of the poor demand for the petrol version of the Duster, which is the equivalent model offered by their sister brand Renault. Due to this, the Nissan Terrano will be offered with a 1.5-litre diesel engine only and no petrol engines be will available. Motorbeam also claims to have a studio picture, as posted on their site, which isn’t the same as the official sketch released by Nissan a few weeks ago.
The compact SUV will be offered in four variants [...]
Nissan Confirms Duster Spin-off Called Terrano
After reports from Autocar India about Nissan producing its own version of Renault’s Duster, Nissan has confirmed the rumours by announcing the Terrano and releasing an official sketch.
The Terrano will be produced at Nissan’s Oragadam plant alongside the premium hatchback Micra, Sunny sedan and Evalia urban class utility vehicle, expanding Nissan’s locally-built model range to four.
I am delighted to reveal both the name and the very first image of what will be a very important model for Nissan. You can see from the sketch that the Terrano has a bold and distinctive design that I am confident will appeal to our growing customer base in India, as will its [...]
Nissan planning on Renault Duster spin-off called Terrano
It has been reported by Autocar India, that Nissan is going to flex its alliance with Renault to spin off a Duster of its own. Just as it did with the Sunny, Nissan will resurrect the Terrano nametag, a moniker once used for the Pathfinder when it was introduced way back in 1993 and discontinued in 2006. The new model will feature unique sheetmetal to give it a look similar to other Nissan SUVs. But the interior as well as the powertrain is expected to be the same, meaning there will be a range of gasoline and diesel four-cylinder engines with both manual and automatic gearboxes and front- or all-wheel drive. However, the Terrano is expected to be priced [...]
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25 January 2017 at 9:01am
David Cameron reveals visit to care home inspired new role with dementia charity
Video report by ITV News Anglia's Natalie Gray
Former Prime Minster David Cameron has praised the "ambitious" work of Cambridge-based charity Alzheimer's Research UK after taking over as their new president.
Mr Cameron will take on the role immediately as he moves on to other ventures following last year's shock EU referendum result.
Writing in The Times today, Mr Cameron vowed to give his all to secure more funding for dementia research.
Alzheimer's Research UK are based in Cambridge. Credit: ITV News Anglia
Read the full article below
It was the end of the week that I resigned as Prime Minister. I was in my constituency, visiting a care home. A woman with dementia, who was surrounded by her loving family, grabbed my hand and stared into my eyes.
As I looked back at her I could see she didn’t know either where she was, or who was sitting with her.
That moment brought home to me, once again, the desperate sadness of this debilitating condition. And while I didn’t know then what role I could play outside No10 to help with the fight, I knew it was something that I wanted to do.
Dementia steals people’s lives, turns their relationships upside down, destroys their hopes and dreams. We owe it to them, their families and their carers to find a solution. That is why I launched the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge in 2012. And that is why today I am joining Alzheimer’s Research UK as the charity’s President, so that I can continue the work I began in government focusing on this life-shattering illness.
I am a huge admirer of the work of Alzheimer’s Research UK. This ambitious charity is driving medical research to fight this devastating condition. They are uniquely placed at the intersection between the first-class academic research that is being driven by our great universities, and our cutting-edge pharmaceutical industry, which is best equipped to drive and deliver real world treatments.
From this vantage point the most promising ideas from academia can be identified and their potential realised through industry-sponsored drug discovery. It’s a model that offers the best hope for turning a scientific idea into a life-changing treatment.
But it’s not going to be easy. I believe there are four great battles we need to win – and that is where I want to help.
The first is the battle to win a deeper public understanding. Over recent years, we have seen a gradual shift in society’s attitudes towards dementia: once hidden in the shadows, today diseases like Alzheimer’s are talked about in public more than ever before. But if the level of awareness is higher, a deeper understanding across society is still needed, with too many of us writing off dementia as an inevitability of later life – a natural condition of ageing – rather than being caused by diseases of the brain that we can and will overcome with the right medical research. Just as we did in the past with diseases like cancer and HIV, today we need to educate, inform and talk more – and more frankly – about dementia.
Second, we must win the battle of priorities. Cancer research and stroke research deserve all their funding – but dementia shouldn’t be so far behind. After all, dementia remains one of our greatest health challenges. Currently 850,000 people are living with dementia, and we now know that each year in the UK, the condition is responsible for 360,000 years of life lost. The condition leaves millions heartbroken across the country – whether they are battling it themselves or, as family and friends, caring for a loved-one.
Which leads to the third battle: winning continued support for scientific research that must be properly funded and promoted. Britain is in a great place to do this. Today, more scientists are working on dementia and there has been a renewed determination to catalyse world-class research as part of a truly global effort. I’m delighted that this focus on dementia continues under the present Government, with the creation of the UK Dementia Research Institute – signalling a clear statement of intent to the world to continue that effort for the long-term.
And this leads to the final battle: ensuring we work internationally to demonstrate that this is a global challenge that we will only beat by working together. Yes, our UK university and science base are world class, but if we are to confront dementia once and for all, we all need to pull together on a global basis. Alzheimer’s Research UK is leading the way, working with institutions across the world to fund vital research focused on preventing and delaying Alzheimer’s and improving the quality of life for those affected.
The findings of this research will be made available to other scientists across the globe, helping everyone make progress faster.
When I launched the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge, I said combatting the condition was a personal priority. I feel that more today than ever before, not least because dementia, both as a medical challenge and a societal issue, can still feel at times like it’s a generation behind cancer or heart disease. But the future is bright. We can take optimism from the ideas, drive and innovation in dementia research. And we can be confident that we can emulate the successes of other areas of health research to avoid the heartbreak of dementia for the next generation. It is a goal I look forward to championing in the years ahead.
– David Cameron, Alzheimer's Research UK president
Cameron takes up role as president of Cambridge charity
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Offers for ...
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New Names for "Friendly Enemy Aliens" in Britain
From Our Holdings
These index cards kept by the British Army Post Office document name changes of numerous emigrants, presumably from Germany and Austria. Thousands of them, both Jews and non-Jews, fought in the British Army under new names during the Second World War.
Index cards from the British Army Post Office; Jewish Museum Berlin, Authorized gift from British Army Post Office holdings, photo: Jens Ziehe
Changing Names in Case of Capture
When the war started, stateless refugees on British territory were initially interned as "enemy aliens," but after a time the British authorities permitted them to enlist in the army as "friendly enemy aliens." Many wanted to make a personal contribution to defeating Hitler. Upon enlisting, the soldiers were asked to drop their German names in case they were captured by the Nazis. They were given just a few minutes to decide what their future English names would be. Salo Carlebach took on the name Michael Charles Brook, and Werner Oppenheim chose William Oakfield.
Later Naturalization
Nevertheless, the name changes did not mean the soldiers automatically became British citizens. It was not until the late 1940s that most of the emigrants – provided they had stayed in the United Kingdom – were granted British nationality. Almost all of them kept their Anglicized names.
Lucky Discovery for our Collection
The index cards make no explicit reference to the soldiers' background or religious affiliation. By a fortunate coincidence, the cards were not thrown away. When one of the former soldiers told the Jewish Museum Berlin about them, we were able to acquire them for our collection.
Index cards from the British Army Post Office
Location and year of origin
Great Britain, 1940–1946
Card dimensions: 7.6 x 12.6 cm
Authorized gift from British Army Post Office holdings
Selected Objects (10) Archive Show all
Browse selected archival holdings online from the eighteenth century through the post-war period. Personal and official documents speak to the life of a nineteenth-century journeyman, early modern merchant rights, desperate attempts to emigrate during Nazi rule, and much more.
Letter of Protection for the Jews of Ichenhausen
Until the nineteenth century, the residence and trading rights of Jews in the German territories were defined in letters of protection (Schutzbriefe), which had to be purchased.
Journeyman’s Book Belonging to the Shoemaker Leopold Willstätter
Leopold Willstätter traveled around southwest Germany and France as a journeyman from 1836 to 1843. The journeyman's book with a precise description of him also served as a form of identification.
Adoption contract Gloeden and Loevy
Even a Jewish-sounding name could be cause for discrimination. So the siblings Erich and Ursula Loevy chose to be adopted by Bernhard Gloeden, a grammar school teacher and family friend.
A desperate letter to their son in Sweden
"As long as we are still here, we will write to you every third day," wrote Paul and Sophie Berliner to their son, Gert, who was living in Stockholm, on 6 November 1941.
Martin Riesenburger’s Service Card
A provisional document from February 1953 certified that Martin Riesenburger was a rabbi responsible for pastoral care in East Berlin prisons.
Siegfried Leopold’s Get for His Wife Resi
According to Jewish law, a marriage is only annulled when a bill of divorce is drawn up and presented by the husband to his wife.
Index cards from the British Army
Thousands of German emigrants fought against Germany in the British Army during the Second World War. In case of capture, they had to change their names, as these index cards document.
Frieda Neuber's Leather Pouch
Shortly before being deported to Theresienstadt, Frieder Neuber gave this leather pouch to her niece. The letters inside it document her desperate attempts to leave the country.
Memmelsdorf Genizah
In February 2002, workers renovating a house discovered a burlap sack filled with papers and personal items when they opened up a section of the ceiling. The house had been owned by Jews from 1775 to 1939.
Red Cross Letter to Emmy Warschauer
After the outbreak of the Second World War, the aid organization’s message service gave emigrants a way to contact relatives in Germany. That’s how Emmy Warschauer received confirmation that her daughter was alive.
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Video: Man Gets 8 MONTHS in Federal Prison For Driving Away From Internal Checkpoint
Border Agents found “anti-government propaganda” in his car
Steve Watson | InfoWars - July 3, 2015 Comments
A man from Florida has been sentenced to eight months in prison after he calmly refused to answer questions at an internal border patrol checkpoint, and drove away.
The incident, which occurred in October last year, was captured on video, from both CCTV, and a dashcam within Michael Sophin’s car.
The footage shows Mr Sophin approaching a checkpoint approximately 20 miles from the border of Mexico on I-10 near Sierra Blanca, Texas. When the Border Patrol Agent asked Sophin if he is an American citizen, he replied with a dry comment.
“You know, I was going to tell you that I wasn’t going to take any questions today, and then I realized that… if Obama is letting everybody in the country, what difference does it make?” Sophin said.
The agent wasn’t playing games and replied that it “makes all the difference.”
At that point, Sophin refused to cooperate any further, calmly stating “I don’t want to answer any questions, O.K.? Thanks. Have a good night” as he drove away, at regular speed, from the checkpoint.
The agent is heard yelling “Hey, you’re not free to go!” as Sophin drives away.
Agents drove after Sophin and eventually flagged him down and ordered him out of his vehicle at gunpoint.
Sophin was arrested and taken back to the checkpoint, where his vehicle was searched without a warrant or probable cause.
In addition to Sophin’s legally owned firearms, and shooting accessories, the agents found what they described as “anti-government propaganda”. The two items given this description were a copy of The New American Magazine, a freedom and Constitution oriented publication owned by The John Birch Society, and a copy of a book called “Freedom”, written by journalist and activist Adam Kokesh.
Sophin was thrown in jail in El Paso for a whole 18 DAYS before he was released on bond.
He was first charged with “High speed flight from immigration checkpoint”, a felony which carries a sentence of up to 5 years in prison. However, this charge was dropped as it became clear that Sophin never broke the speed limit, only agents chasing him were guilty of that.
So, with one charge dismissed, the state tried a fresh approach, by charging Sophin with “Assault on a Federal Agent.”
Sophin’s firearms were also confiscated by the BATF, under the agency’s asset forfeiture program.
Eventually, when the case came to trial, Sophin was sentenced to eight months in federal prison with credit for time served. He is currently out on bond pending appeal.
During the trial, a juror explained why the decision was made to convict Sophin, despite the clear evidence that no crime was committed. “He should have to answer questions just like the rest of us,” the juror said. In other words, because he decided to stand up for his Constitutional rights, Sophin had to be made an example of.
The website Photography is Not A Crime contacted both The New American and Adam Kokesh to get their thoughts on the case and the description of their literature by the state as “anti-government propaganda” – here’s what they had to say.
The New American
“Classifying ‘The New American’ magazine as anti-government propaganda demonstrates either ignorance or complicity. ‘The New American’ is published by American Opinion Publishing Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of The John Birch Society.
The mission of The John Birch Society is ‘To bring about less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles‘…
…Let’s remember that many agencies in the federal government, especially the Department of Homeland Security, and many left-wing advocates, especially the Southern Poverty Law Center, have taken a dangerous tact of classifying law-abiding constitutional advocates (many returning military veterans) as potential domestic terrorists. See ‘Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008′ (2012), ‘Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment’ (2009), and ‘MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement’ (2009) for further details. If an agency of the federal government is claiming ‘The New American’ magazine is ‘anti-government propaganda,’ then this demonstrates it continuing down an unconstitutional and un-American path that tramples the freedom of speech.”
Adam Kokesh on Freedom
“FREEDOM! is only anti-government propaganda if government is anti-freedom, which it is. This is why my book is also banned in US prisons. By banning my book, government has again revealed itself to be intellectually and morally bankrupt, nothing more than an elaborate scheme to steal for the super-rich. Freedom is a good idea, and good ideas don’t require force. Government, on the other hand, uses force to prevent the free flow of ideas because good ideas are a threat to all who profit from bad ideas. Fortunately, the more that agents of government declare themselves so clearly anti-freedom, the more people will hear the message.”
The case serves as a reminder of how the rights of everyday Americans are being violated en mass every day.
Using the excuse of attempting to apprehend illegal immigrants, Border Patrol agents have set up a network of internal checkpoints inside the United States. As InfoWars has documented, in some cases the checkpoints are as much as 100-200 miles from the border.
Despite what a Supreme Court ruling says, since the checkpoints are situated far away from the Mexican border, they are clearly a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Of course, the Supreme Court also once ruled that black people in America were slaves.
The ACLU has dubbed the area in which the checkpoints have been positioned as the “Constitution-free Zone,” noting that 2 out of 3 Americans live within this buffer zone – around 190 million people in total.
There is no law that says refusing to comply with Border agents and/or police at such checkpoints gives probable cause to search an individual’s vehicle. It certainly does not provide probable cause for agents to force their way into vehicles, particularly if the occupants are not being aggressive or confrontational in any way.
This is just the latest in a series of confrontations caught on video showing Americans standing up to the checkpoints.
In this video, Border Patrol agents in California forcefully pull a man out of his car and drive off with his distressed wife and 4-year-old son simply because he refused to tell them where he was driving to.
Being routinely stopped at a permanent checkpoint close to 200 miles away from the border by Homeland Security agents, another freedom loving American decided enough was enough recently and stood up to them on video. The self declared “free roamer” was laughed at by the agents before being sent on his way.
Last year, a man in Texas was dragged from his vehicle by border patrol agents who smashed through his window after he refused to answer their questions at a checkpoint more than 50 miles away from the Southern border.
(The exchange with the agents begins at around 6 mins into the video)
InfoWars previously reported on the case of Steven Anderson, who refused to show his papers at another Border Patrol checkpoint while traveling through California.
Anderson provided a sterling example of how to stand up for your rights in such a situation. When Border Patrol agents attempted to detain him for questioning, Anderson refused, citing his right as an American citizen to “go free on my way.”
In another incident in 2012, a truck driver who passed through a checkpoint in Texas, 30 miles from the Mexican border, stood up for his Fourth Amendment rights by refusing to answer questions and eventually driving away.
These videos and hundreds of others like them accentuate the fact that Americans are not required to answer Border agents’ questions (usually starting with “Are you a United States citizen?”). Nor are Americans required to consent to any searches at such checkpoints.
Visit www.checkpointusa.org/blog to learn more about this program. By actively “flexing” their rights, these brave citizens expose the techniques DHS and Border Patrol agents (and police in general) use to trick and intimidate citizens into compliance.
Not all Americans who refuse to have their rights violated have been as successful as those in the videos above. In 2008, retired San Diego social worker Vince Peppard and his wife had their car ransacked after refusing to consent to being searched.
Alex Jones has also encountered similar “interior checkpoints” on numerous occasions, including the incident documented in the video below.
Steve Watson is a London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
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Home Reviews Grappling with darkness
Grappling with darkness
Insights MagazineMay 08, 2019Reviews, Streaming Now0
Review: The Dark Side of the Ring
Given its carny origins, it should not be surprising that professional wrestling has a dark underside. And yet, as Viceland’s new documentary series reveals, there is much that remains surprising and alarming. Over the course of six episodes, The Dark Side of the Ring explores some of the best known scandals that have engulfed sports entertainment. From a sheer human interest standpoint, their exploration of the people who comprise this unique industry, and some of the darker sides of human nature that they reveal, this series should prove to be interesting to a wider audience.
From the story of pioneer heel Bruiser Brody’s brutal murder at the hands of a promoter to the sex slavery ring operated by long-time women’s champion The Fabulous Moolah, The Dark Side of the Ring explores a number of stories that will be familiar to fans and shocking to newcomers. And yet, the show manages to keep surprising.
The Dark Side of the Ring manages to shed new light on a number of explored stories. For example, the show reveals that the WWE’s writing team came up with the idea behind Montreal screwjob, in which Bret Hart lost the WWE title to Shawn Micheals after a referee called for the bell, despite Hart being booked to go over. The exact person responsible remains a matter of conjecture, however, with multiple parties trying to take credit. The show’s producers have impressive access to the people involved at the heart of the drama and controversy, with interviewees ranging from WWE Producer Bruce Prichard to Hulk Hogan’s ex-wife Linda Bollea to Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.
Viceland’s usual high production values extend to the editing and the way that the series is shot. This is one of the best-made wrestling documentaries since the likes of 1998’s Wrestling With Shadows.
There are times when the series wades through a lot of unedifying material. Episode six explores the controversial career of the Fabulous Moolah, a woman who wrestled and trained other women from the 1950s to the 2000s. Many of the women she trained now claim that she pimped them out as one of the requirements of her support. The episode is particularly hard going, but makes for an fascinating exploration into how people can remember the same imperfect human being in conflicting, even contradictory ways.
For all of the problems that the show reveals about the industry, there is plenty of levity and important lessons along the way. As is so often the case with such a strange industry, many of the anecdotes and stories are hilarious (as an example, check out Dutch Mantel’s story about wrestling a bear).
While there are a few takeaways for Christians, perhaps the fourth episode is the one where this is most obvious. Although episode four does not consider the subject matter in detail, the remaining Von Eric, Kevin, has long been open about how his Christian faith has sustained him following the loss of all of his brothers. The same episode mentions how the Von Eric family was known in Texas as a Christian family, and that this led to extra pressure on them during their struggles with drugs and the law. This may be the consequence of a triumphalist theology that expects that Christians never struggle in life.
Season One of The Dark Side of the Ring is streaming now on SBS On Demand. You can access it here.
Jonathan Foye is Insights’ Editor
Previous PostWhere Can We Find God? Next PostJohn Bell To Ring In June With Australian Tour
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Research into juries to be carried out over the next two years
Falkirk West MSP Michael Matheson. Picture: John Devlin
Published: 08:00 Sunday 24 September 2017
Research into how juries reach decisions, including their use of the ‘not proven’ verdict, will be carried out over the next two years.
Justice Secretary Michael Matheson confirmed that a team, headed up by Ipsos Mori working in collaboration with Professors James Chalmers and Fiona Leverick (University of Glasgow) and Professor Vanessa Munro (University of Warwick), has been appointed to carry out the study.
This research will consider jury size, decision making processes, majorities needed and the three verdict system, and will gather evidence to inform future reform of the criminal justice system in Scotland.
Mr Matheson said: “This important research is a direct result of Lord Bonomy’s post-corroboration safeguards review in which he recommended that research should be carried out to ensure that any changes to our jury system are made only on a fully informed basis, including the impact having a three verdict system has on decision making.
“The Ipsos Mori team will work in collaboration with three respected academics and will use case simulations rather than real jurors. Their findings will help inform any future decisions that may be taken I relation to potential reforms of our criminal justice system.”
Lorraine Murray, Deputy Managing Director of Ipsos MORI Scotland, said: “We are delighted to be undertaking this important and ground-breaking research – the first of its kind in Scotland. With the help of several hundreds of members of the public who will sit on ‘mock juries’, we will be able to provide unique insights into how Scottish juries reach their decisions.”
Professor James Chalmers, University of Glasgow, said: “Research with mock juries has been used around the world to inform criminal justice reform, but the Scottish jury is so different from juries in other countries there are limits to what can be learned from all this work. This study will help us understand just what difference the special features of the Scottish jury system make in practice.”
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El Charanguero Mayor
© 2000 JM Music. All rights reserved.
01 Tema Introduccion
1:17 Aned Mota y Noel Díaz - Cantantes
02 Sube Y Baja
6:13 Dantes Cardosa - Cantante
03 Cristobalina
5:01 Tirso Duarte - Piano
04 Charanguero Mayor
7:00 Herder Jesús Rojas - Teclado
05 El Cantinero
5:55 Randolph Chacón - Bajo
06 Riki Ricon
5:21 Yulién Oviedo - Timbal
07 Senora
6:32 Orlando Lázaro Mengual - Congas
08 Bla Bla Bla
6:14 Lázaro Jesús Mengual - Bongo
09 Le Menti
5:56 Carmelo Andrés Llanes - Trompeta
10 Pa Lo Que Me Importa A Mi
5:18 Juan Manuel Jiménez - Trompeta
11 Popurri De Antano
5:29 Junio Romero Valdés - Trompeta
12 Tema Despedida
1:17 Osmani Collado - Saxo
Newly re-formed and post-breakup, David Calzado and his new principal collaborator Tirso Duarte forged onward and created a bold new musical style, as different from the first Charanga as that group was from its predecessors, releasing this powerhouse album that contains some of Charanga's most popular songs.
The original Charanga Habanera never recorded again after "Tremendo Delirio". They broke apart in two stages. In the year that passed between the departure of González and Lozada to form "Dany Lozada y su Timba Cubana" and that of the rest of the group to form Charanga Forever, quite a bit of new material was developed, but David Calzado never recorded any of it. In the summer of 1998, he and Michel Maza started completely from scratch, and then Maza himself left the group a few months later.
To form his new group, Calzado more or less had his choice of the best young musicians in Havana, and he made the most of the opportunity, making sure that each player had stage presence, great dancing skills, and, most important, almost superhuman musical abilities. (For more on the new and old members, see Majela Serrano's series of articles on them by clicking on the Members button above). The band continued to be called "Charanga Habanera", to open its shows with Earth Wind & Fire's "In the Stone" and to play crowd-pleasing hits from the first four albums such as "Lola", "El Temba", "Charanguéate", "Usa Condón", and others. Stylistically, there's no doubt that the new young players were huge fans of the earlier Charangueros, and especially of Michel Maza, whose style can be heard popping through frequently, even on the newer songs. Of course, one could also say that both Maza and "Los más menores de la Salsa" were influenced by David Calzado himself, as it was he who conceived of many of the guías and other vocal stylings.
But if the flavor of the live show was modeled on the previous Charanga Habanera, the new music itself was anything but an imitation. Calzado and his new principal collaborator Tirso Duarte forged onward and created a bold new musical style, as different from the first Charanga Habanera as that group was from its predecessors.
The music of "Charanguero Mayor" is built around a drastically different kind of tumbao, so before getting into the album itself, let's take a brief look at Tirso Duarte's piano style and its role in the development of Timba piano playing.
Duarte, like all Timba pianists, was influenced by the original Charanga Habanera pianist, Juan Carlos González, but other aspects of his playing are just as heavily rooted in the style of another pianist with the same apellido, Iván "Melón" González. JC González, like virtually all pianists prior to Melón, almost always played the same rhythm with each hand, but Melón, and later Sergio Noroña and others began to create incredible tumbaos that utilized, among other things, a different rhythm with each hand -- with the left hand filling in the gaps of the right and the right adding occasional rapid-fire arpeggios on top. Duarte uses this second approach and, also like Melón, his tumbaos sometimes incorporate elements of classical piano music. But the biggest similarity between Duarte and Melón is their dissimilarity! Each is shockingly original. Neither one sounds remotely like any other Latin pianist and almost any tumbao by Melón or Tirso carries the unmistakable mark of its creator. Each plays different rhythms with each hand, and each draws inspiration from classical music, but their final creations are drastically different, not only from each other, but from one tumbao to the next.
Tema introducción - form & lyrics
Charanguero Mayor bolts out of the starting blocks with "Tema Introducción" -- 75 seconds of riveting Timba played at a blistering clip of 112 beats per minute. At least on the surface, like several songs on this album, this song is part of the entertaining musical "war" of lyrics that raged between Charanga Habanera and Charanga Forever. This was certainly a mock war in many respects, like two boxers dissing each other before a big fight to create publicity, but there was also some real animosity, not so much between the musicians, but between Calzado and his former Charangueros.
Sube y baja - form & lyrics
"Sube y Baja" is the album's most direct foray into the Habanera/Forever controversy. Although it's sung by Aned in the first person, there's no question that the song's real protagonist is the composer, David Calzado, "singing" his message to Charanga Forever through Mota's voice. This approach is used several times on the album. The songs are also cleverly written so as to have two possible interpretations. One could imagine, (to an even greater degree with "El Bla Bla Bla") that it's Aned singing the lyrics to his female love interest, but it could just as easily be Calzado singing to his former Charangueros. Writing lyrics which are open to two or even three legitimate interpretations is a very interesting nonmusical aspect of the Timba art form, used brilliantly not only by Calzado, but by Klimax, NG La Banda, and of course the undisputed masters of the double-entendre, Los Van Van.
Cristobalina (el chupa chupa) - form & lyrics
"Cristobalina", all jesting aside, is almost undoubtedly the most beautiful and elegant piece of music ever written on the subject of blow jobs. It has four of Tirso Duarte's most serious and sublime montunos, combined with lyrics that would make even Los Van Van's Pedro Calvo blush. I myself was reveling in Tirso's MIDI tumbaos from this song for quite some time before I even heard the song itself, and when I first heard the lyrics, I assumed that "cristobalina" was Spanish for "crystal ball" and the other Spanish words I recognized were the names of nearly every major Timba band (except Charanga Forever of course). So I assumed that the lyrics were talking about the past and future of Cuban music, using the idea of a crystal ball as a metaphor.
Well, as it turns out, "crystal ball" is "bola de cristal" and "Cristobalina" is the name of the girl Aned wants to take on a date, but she only wants to hear the aforementioned top bands, and he can't afford any of them, but thinks he has a better way to amuse her, which is where the alternate title comes in.
El Charanguero Mayor - form & lyrics
Three songs into the album, it's clearly evident that Calzado has emerged from the great Charanga breakup in triumph. This music is drastically different from Tremendo Delirio, just as Tremendo Delirio was drastically different from Hey You Loca, but what's common to all three is a relentless outpouring of creativity. A great deal of it came from González, Duarte, Limonta, Piloto, Manolín and many others, but the greatness of David Calzado, like that of Quincy Jones, can simply not be denied. He surrounds himself with brilliant musicians, but adds, along with his own significant musical input, a meticulous attention to detail which results in virtually every measure of every Charanga Habanera track containing some sort of musical gem.
This brings us to the spectacular title track. The first three arrangements are built around Duarte's tumbaos but this is his first full composition for the group, and one of the first songs that the new Charanga Habanera debuted when they first played live in Cuba in late 1998. Michel Maza was the only original Charanguero to stay with Calzado and it was he who originally sang this song, and another beautiful Duarte composition called "Confianza" which was inexplicably never recorded. Maza did record a radio demo of "Charanguero Mayor" however. We have a partial recording of this which you can hear in the timba.com mp3 collection. (Look at the upper left hand column of this page for this and other full-length Charanga Habanera songs). Our dub of the radio demo fades before the end so we don't know how that version ends, but in concert, Michel's version ended with a series of dramatic transitions from very soft a capella versions of coro 3 to raging reprises of coro 2, leading eventually to a sometimes extended vocal cadenza from Michel. We're still trying to track down a complete, high-quality live recording of the Michel version of this song, but here's an excerpt from a really low-quality cassette we picked up on the streets in Havana. The sound quality is horrible but you can get the idea of how great this must have been in concert on good night.
El Cantinero - form & lyrics
There are those who complain that the cuerpos of Timba are too different in style from the montuno sections and for them, "El Cantinero" is not the starting place! But for others, a Timba arrangement such as this is like a seven course meal - its contrasts are part of its appeal - and this one runs the gamut from mellow pop to some of the most aggressive Timba on the album. These drastically different musical approaches are joined together by a unifying lyrical idea -- an homage to a figure present at virtually every Charanga Habanera concert -- the bartender ("cantina" + "-ero").
The cuerpo is written by Alina Torres, the pianist and director of "Dacapo", the vocal quartet in which Vannia Borges of Bamboleo began her career. Torres also wrote "Y no me explico lo que tienes" for Los Van Van. The final line of "El Cantinero", "el cantinero es un cancha", is a paraphrase of the earlier song, which begins with the line "el cantinero es un cancha". [audio example 42b] In this case the word "cancha" translates roughly to "a cool dude".
But "El Cantinero" sounds almost as if it could have been written by Cole Porter! The ABAC form, and the melodies themselves, especially in the "B" and "C" [audio example 43] sections, are very reminiscent of the Broadway show tune style, and the lyrical idea is right up Cole Porter's alley -- subtly poking fun at the cantina customer's affection for his bartender (or is it his affection for the alcohol itself?)
Riki Ricón - form & lyrics
Dantes Cardoso was the last of this crop of Charangueros to enter the band, replacing the last of the original members, Michel Maza. David Calzado had introduced the 16-year old Michel on Charanga Habanera's third album, and quickly molded him into one of Cuba's most popular performers. Maza has a unique and deeply-resonant voice and huge amounts of natural charisma and star quality, but Calzado's choice of material and dedication to perfecting each vocal performance was just as important to Michel's meteoric rise to fame. And of all the songs Calzado ever wrote or arranged, the one most perfectly-suited to Michel would have been "Riki Ricón". Ironically, by the time the band started playing it, Michel was gone! Dantes Cardosa was given the task of replacing his phenomenal voice and sex appeal and his first assignment as a lead singer was "Riki Ricón" -- a musical descendant of "Lola" with a challenging set of lyrics about the trials and tribulations of being the biggest hunk in Havana. To Cardosa's credit, the song became one of the album's biggest hits. It's still being played in concert in 2002 and "Riki Rikón" has become Cardosa's nickname.
The song is very much based on the funky "Temba/Lola groove" -- the tempo is a bit slower than normal Timba and the bassline begins with 4 marchlike 8th notes, the middle two coinciding with both hits of the 2-side of the clave. There's no common term for this rhythm yet, but there probably will be eventually if Calzado continues to use it generate hits. One of the best songs on the new album, "Ella es como es", also uses this type of tumbao.
Señora - form & lyrics
Francisco Céspedes is one of Cuba's most beloved pop songwriters. His most famous composition, "La Vida Loca", not Timba by any stretch of the imagination, has been covered by everyone from Manolín to Charanga Habanera itself. Tirso Duarte, much as he did on "El Cantinero", shows his versatility by smoothly and faithfully singing cuerpo as Céspedes had written it and then overseeing its metamorphosis into Timba with his fiery guías and complex chromatic tumbaos.
After an extended cuerpo in a very smooth, "easy listening" Bb major, the beginning of the montuno section is shocking. It plunges abruptly to Bb minor and then the piano tumbao weaves back and forth between minor and major every two measures! There's only this one hypnotic piano tumbao in the whole arrangement [audio example 56].And listen to the coro! ("señora, a veces la vi-da") Now listen in slow motion [audio example 57] On "vi" the lower harmony is on Db, the note which defines the key as being minor, and on "-da" the top voice drops down to D natural, changing the key to major for just that instant. It changes back to minor on the very next note and then back to major again before repeating the cycle. We stay in this twilight zone tumbao for the duration of the track. The rapped middle coro has several bloques and second voice harmonies to enhance the guías. [audio example 58] and in the final coro Tirso and the coro start quoting Cuban nursery rhymes and singing about a television show magician named "Jotavich".
It's hard to think of another piece of music in any genre which is remotely similar to this harmonically. To fully appreciate the otherworldly montuno section and abstract beauty of the way it finally fits in with the cuerpo took me quite a few listenings, many of them in Havana Café Cantante, where the soundman plays this song literally every night before the live music starts.
El bla bla bla - form & lyrics
"El Bla Bla Bla", one of the first new originals to come out after the breakup, could be interpreted as singer Aned Mota's rant to an estranged lover, but all of Havana knew that the real protagonist was composer David Calzado and that the "bla bla bla" was really a reference to the trash talk that was being leveled at Calzado by his former Charangueros.
The song's message is "all right, enough talk, let's get down to the music" -- and the music is as inspired as anything Charanga Habanera has ever done -- one gorgeous guía after the next floating above stately melodic basslines, and technicolor piano tumbaos glistening through the tapestry of the rhythm section. Duarte recorded three different tumbaos from this song in my very first session with him, and although I'd never heard the song itself, the tumbaos captured my imagination immediately and I had listened to them over and over before I ever heard the rest of the song.
Listen to the opening of the track. Where did Duarte get that piano tumbao come from? It's not really classical -- it's not jazz -- it's not Earth Wind & Fire -- it's certainly not salsa -- and it's not like any other Timba piano part. It's a miniature piece of music with a life of its own, with enough hooks that it can be listened to over and over by itself, and yet malleable enough that it fits like a glove with that majestic chromatic bassline and then with the skillfully harmonized coro.
Le mentí - form & lyrics
Le Mentí, Noel Díaz' solo number, is the album's most extreme case of genre-mixing. It stays in a light pop vein through the cuerpo and the first coro, then segues into a brief reggae episode before suddenly turning to dark Timba mixed with rap and the first of Charanga Habanera's experiments with the "Boyz 2 Men" choral approach. Listen to the piano as the band makes the gear-grinding transition from the shuffle triplets of the reggae into the Timba tumbao.
Pa' lo que me importa a mí - form & lyrics
If "Le Mentí" is bit of a patchwork of different genres, "Pa'lo que me importa a mí" is a seamless flow of musical brilliance. In many salsa and timba tracks, you can "hear the arranger thinking" -- "let's trying mixing a bit of this with a bit of that" -- "okay, we'll throw in a mambo and then go to a shortened version of the first coro...". But with "Pa' lo que me importa a mí", like so many of Charanga Habanera's best pieces, concepts like genre and arranging techniques are irrelevant... each musical idea grows organically from the one before it. It's easily one of Calzado's best arrangements and one of the band's most masterful performances. They had played it hundreds of times at rehearsals and gigs before going into the studio and this version has the electrifying feeling of a live concert. To top it off, Tirso Duarte turns in one of the best vocal performances ever recorded on a Timba album -- effortlessly combining complex chromatic melodies with raw, fiery rap. The singer is Duarte, but once again protagonist of the lyrics appears to be David Calzado, launching his final salvo in "La Guerra de las Charangas".
Mix de Antaño - instrumenatal
"Mix de Antaño" is the most adventurous of Charanga Habanera's four "retro-charanga" recordings, in which they pay tribute to their roots as a "real" charanga band. This time, instead of doing a full song like "Pare Cochero" or "A mí que", Calzado takes a number of snippets from the past and combines them into an interesting arrangement which is often played live with instrumental solos, making it a favorite among the musicians, who get to stretch out, especially Yulién and the Mengual brothers, each of whom plays an extended percussion solo in the live version.
--excerpts from the comprehensive analysis of Charanguero Mayor
by Kevin Moore of www.TIMBA.com
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Global sports media trends - an interview with Nick Fitzpatrick, DLA Piper #68
Published 13 July 2018 | Authored by: Sean Cottrell
In this podcast, Nick Fitzpatrick, Partner and Global Co-Chair, Media, Sport and Entertainment Sector at DLA Piper sits down with LawInSport’s CEO, Sean Cottrell, to discuss the finding of DLA’s ‘Global Media Sector Trends 2018 Report’ (see below) and the key developments in the sports media industry. The interview was recorded in May 2018.
We thoroughly enjoyed the interview and took a lot away from it. We hope you do the same.
The host is Sean Cottrell, founder and CEO of LawInSport.
For more sports law news, commentary and analysis go to LawInSport.com www.lawinsport.com/
Upcoming Events: www.lawinsport.com/sports-law-events
LawInSport Recruitment: www.lawinsport.com/jobs
LawInSport Annual Conference: www.lawinsport.com/annual-conference
LawInSport Academy Mentoring Scheme: www.lawinsport.com/announcements
Follow us on Twitter @LawInSport and Sean at @spcott.
Listen to podcast on:
Soundcloud: @lawinsport
iTunes: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/lawin…id655761738?mt=2 or most Android podcast apps.
Global Media Sector Trends 2018
DLA Piper’s new Global Media Sector Trends 2018 report explores how new commercial opportunities are being created by disruption, specifically in relation to the rise of over-the-top (OTT) content, virtual/ augmented reality (VR/AR) and the internet- of-things (IOT).
The rise of OTT content is most exciting for companies in this sector. Some 82% of respondents stated that monetising content through OTT is a major growth area for their business. In parallel, 25% of participants expect more than half of their views to be driven by OTT in 2018, more than double the 11% whose views are mainly driven by OTT today.
While there is much optimism about the potential for virtual reality and the internet- of-things, survey participants generally believe they will have to achieve greater scale before they become a significant source of revenue.
The report also explores how companies in the audio-visual sector are using technology and legal tools to combat emerging sources of piracy across all forms of content.
According to the report, which is based on a global survey of over 200 in-house counsel and C-level executives, 94% of companies believe that the current law is inadequate to tackle the specific growing threat of IPTV or Kodi boxes as a source of infringement.
Use of illicit streaming devices has grown significantly in the last two years and, according to survey respondents, are now the second greatest source of piracy behind website internet streaming.
The survey also found that other types of content infringement are rapidly rising up the agenda for specific types of content. In the music industry, for example, stream ripping is increasingly posing a significant threat to license holders.At the same time the threat of file sharing sites is diminishing.
Despite frustrations with the regulatory environment, survey participants also pointed to recent significant successes in tackling infringement. In the UK, for example, an ISP blocking order for Premier League content has resulted in over 5,000 illegal streams being shut down. Other notable achievements in the UK include successful recent prosecutions of retailers of illicit streaming devices.
Respondents, while encouraged by recent successes, believed that a wide range of additional measures are needed to combat the growing threat of illicit streaming devices. A quarter of survey respondents stated that more severe criminal sanctions would be most effective in preventing this type of infringement. A further 16% believe more blocks by ISPs against the domains or IP addresses to which the boxes connect to access infringing content will be most effective, while 14% said more extensive civil sanctions would be most effective.
Finally, the report explores how the Brexit process is impacting the industry. Over
two thirds (69%) of UK-based survey respondents stated that Brexit is impacting their business in some way. Survey participants are primarily concerned with how Brexit might affect UK copyright law and UK broadcasters’ ability to sell to the EU.
We hope you enjoy reading this report. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Nick Fitzpatrick, Global Co-Chair Media, Sport & Entertainment sector, DLA Piper, London
SEIZING NEW COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES RISE OF OTT CONTENT ENABLES USERS TO REACH MASS GLOBAL AUDIENCE
Nearly every market research report that analyses entertainment viewing habits reaches the same conclusion – OTT content is growing inexorably and is increasingly determining viewing habits. According to The Diffusion Group, US consumers will view an average of 18.9 hours of OTTTV content by 2020, a significant increase on the average of 12.1 hours per week in 2017 and the 3.6 hours per week in 2014.
Our survey data reveals the true extent to which content producers and broadcasters are hoping to benefit from this growth. Some 82% of respondents stated that monetising content through OTT is a major growth area for their business. Tellingly, 25% of survey participants expect more than half of their views to be driven by OTT in 2018, more than double the 11% whose views are mainly driven by OTT today.
Asia Pacific and North American respondents more bullish on OTT potentialOTT is so attractive to content owners because it enables them to rapidly reach a large number of viewers, often in countries outside broadcasters’ core audience, thus creating new licensing opportunities.
”Piracy through OTT is so strong and that indicates that people are now prepared
to accept watching content through new mediums such as OTT,” says Fabio Santoro, Marketing & Audiovisual Rights Director at the Italian football league Serie A.
“OTT enables us to touch and access different parts of the world. It benefits the league, the clubs and the players. The core question is about the reliability of people to pay to subscribe to watch this. You need to work out the economic model and what the advertising potential is. For the time being we think that combining traditional with new media is the key to success.”
The benefits of OTT to rights holders
and the impact on traditional viewing very much differs around the world. In Europe and the US, for example, OTT viewing is likely to displace traditional viewing, at least to a certain extent. But in other regions, OTT may bring material to viewers that have never been able to access content via traditional means.
“With the improvement of broadband infrastructure and internet speeds, demand for online video in Asia presents new opportunities for the media industry,” says Laura Anil, Senior Legal Counsel
for the APAC region at NBC Universal International. “And, as the range of players – from local pay-TV platforms to global media companies – explore models for monetising growth in OTT (including subscription and ad-supported offerings) it will be interesting to see which models are most successful and whether these will differ across
the region.”
The majority (63%) of survey respondents stated that subscription video on demand (SVOD) is the OTT model that is the most relevant model for their business. Of course, different models will suit certain types of content and different types of organisations.
The rise of OTT and other direct to consumer digital content services takes place at a time of increasing regulatory intervention, many of which result from the audio-visual media policy changes taking place across Europe in the context of the “Digital Single Market Strategy”.
These changes include the so-called
“Portability” Regulation (Regulation 2017/1128 on cross-border portability
of online content services in the internal market) allowing, and for pay services requiring, access to “home country” content services where the subscriber is elsewhere in the EEA. The new Portability Regulation comes into force in April, and business exploring OTT need to be aware of its implications.
DLA PIPER INSIGHT: OTT
“2018 will be a very interesting year for OTT in the United States, especially
with the return to a hands-off regulatory regime and incipient emergence of 5G. The end – subject to court challenge – of “net neutrality” will enhance the ability of cable and telco ISPs to benefit from distribution of their own content or content services, and will give a leg up to big OTT services who can pay any necessary tolls. Meanwhile, everyone seems to understand that great content is needed to drive OTT.AT&T (owner of DirecTV Now) continues to try to acquire Time Warner, Verizon has forsaken handset exclusivity to strike a new deal with the NFL
and big tech and digital players continue to invest heavily in original content.”
David Pahl, Senior Counsel, DLA Piper, USA
“In Germany, a steady growth of OTT services can currently be observed and is likely to continue throughout the year.The audience share of FreeTV program might be more affected than ever. Furthermore, the new Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz), which is based on the General Data Protection Regulation, will come into force in May 2018. It will affect marketing as well as OTT services and the IOT. Directly related to this is the coming into force of the ePrivacy Regulation that, among other things, includes regulations relating to electronic communication and will affect especially targeting or modern advertising methods. At this stage, however, it is still unclear whether the regulation will come into force in 2018 or at a later stage. Lastly, branded entertainment, an advertising tool that has already been used by traditional and online media companies (e.g. content marketing), is now on the way to become an important part in the audio-visual media world.”
Stefan Engels, partner, DLA Piper, Germany
“It is fascinating that OTT and other direct to consumer digital content services are becoming increasingly prevalent exactly at the time when, at least in Europe, regulatory intervention is shaking things up in that very space. One key example is of course the challenges – or opportunities – facing digital territorial licensing models in the context of the Commission’s “Digital Single Market Strategy”. Next up in that Strategy is so-called “portability” - allowing access to “home country” content services even when a subscriber is elsewhere in the EEA.The new Portability Regulation comes into force in April this year and we are helping numerous content services and licensors navigate its nuances – it is fair to say that there are interesting times ahead.”
Patrick Mitchell, partner, DLA Piper, London
EXPLORING THE BENEFITS OF VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY
The launch of a number of high-profile virtual and augmented reality products in the last two years has led to widespread discussion about the licensing potential in this industry. However, most survey respondents and interviewees do not believe that VR and AR will grow to the extent that it will be a material source of licensing or advertising revenues in the next two to three years. Only 4% of survey respondents stated that virtual or augmented reality will be one of their three main sources of advertising revenue by 2020. In contrast, 54% believed that OTT content will be one of their three main sources of advertising revenue.
That’s not to say that content creators are not excited about its long-term potential. Indeed many pointed to examples of how their content could be used in a AR or VR context. Bourn provides an example. “The evolution of virtual reality is definitely an opportunity for us, particularly where it explores new and innovative uses of music,” he says. “Imagine, for example, immersing yourself through VR into a historic Beatles gig, based on live audio recordings taken at the actual concert. The opportunities are endless and we will do everything possible to facilitate this innovation through appropriate licensing.”
The survey data indicates that there are multiple factors currently stymying growth of the AR and VR industry, from consumer hesitation to pay the current high prices for many VR products to legal risks and inadequate content offerings.
Of course, many of these challenges can be overcome with investment. Encouragingly, some 88% of sur vey respondents stated that venture capital investment in AR and VR start-ups will increase on the $2.3 billion recorded in 2016 this year.
LEVERAGING THE INTERNET-OF-THINGS
The internet-of-things (IOT) market is growing rapidly. According to Gartner,
some 8.4 billion “things” will be connected worldwide in 2017, a 31% annual increase. By 2020 over 20 billion things are forecast to be connected.
In theory, the data collected by IOT devices about individuals’ habits and preferences should enable more targeted advertising. Survey respondents share this view - 66% say IOT is enabling more targeted ad spend or subscription income.
In addition, some 73% of respondents stated that IOT is enabling better targeting and production of content.
“As people increasingly use connected devices, a more accurate picture of consumer preferences is emerging,” explains Anil. “For brands, this means more efficient, targeted campaigns that focus
on the right audiences while, for content providers and distributors, these insights will better inform business strategy, unlocking the right content within environments that reflect the needs of the viewer/user.”
However, while survey participants are generally positive on the potential of IOT, there was a degree of scepticism about the extent to which it will truly transform advertising and content delivery.
Some 34% of respondents were concerned that issues related to cyber security and piracy might hinder the potential for IOT being maximised. A further 32% stated that a lack of scale of IOT devices is the main reason why the potential of IOT might not be fulfilled.
DLA PIPER INSIGHT: IOT
“These findings are in contrast to the popular perception that consumers, particularly younger ones, are very willing to trade their personal information for access to online content with limited regard for the implications. The impending EU General Data Protection and E-Privacy Regulations, and tighter privacy
laws elsewhere, are no doubt having an impact on media owner and advertiser attitudes. Consumer regulators have also been prepared to consider the provision of such data as legally equivalent to a financial payment.”
Duncan Calow, partner, DLA Piper, London
DLA PIPER INSIGHT:ADVERTISING
“Big data is still in its infancy. Many predict that predictive analytics (converging customer-related demographic and behavioral data with third-party data to create predictive algorithms) is the next step to achieving higher customer take up and revenues: allowing advertisers to focus their campaigns toward those customers predicted to be the most likely drivers of increased ARPU.
Digital networks are clearly well placed to take advantage of this by generating the data analytics necessary to maximise the effectiveness of marketing and customer interactions. However as we have identified elsewhere in this report, tied privacy/data protection concerns continue to be a counterweight to gathering and use of data. There is continued concern, with albeit little real action, in the United States about data collection and usage, while in Europe, businesses continue to adapt to the regime introduced by the General Data Protection Regulation.”
TACKLING EMERGING PIRACY THREATS THE EVOLVING INFRINGEMENT CHALLENGE
From internet streaming and file sharing sites, to illicit streaming devices and stream ripping, content creators and rights holders face a number of infringement challenges. That said, our survey data reveals that while certain sources of infringement have become more prolific in the last 12 months, others appear to be declining.
According to the survey data, internet streaming websites and apps are currently top of the agenda. Some 41% of respondents stated that internet streaming impacts their business most in terms of frequency, while 45% stated that it has the greatest financial impact on their business. This is significantly more than the number that highlighted any other source of IP infringement.
Second on the agenda for the industry is the threat posed from illicit streaming devices, the most well-known of which are Kodi boxes with pre-loaded content and add-ons. Some 27% of respondents stated that these devices most frequently impact their business while 24% said they have the greatest detrimental financial impact.
Interestingly, file sharing sites, which have traditionally been the largest source of content infringement, were only ranked as the third greatest source of piracy.
Of course, the most problematic type of infringement very much depends on the form of content and the jurisdiction. In the Asia Pacific region, for example, interviewees frequently mentioned that internet streaming and illicit streaming devices present the greatest challenge. “We have started to see a shift from bit torrent and downloading to streaming, which is now the predominant source of piracy,” confirms a Senior Counsel at a major international broadcasting company. “Internet speeds are a lot faster now so people can watch good HD content through streaming.”
“Another emerging issue is illicit streaming devices, which are pre-loaded with free or subscription apps and can offer to users entire channels of infringing content.They are worrying because they are very easy to use and can be hooked up to a television set by simply using a HDMI cable. So it’s no longer tech geeks huddled over their laptops but whole families enjoying pirated content.”
But in other countries and for some specific forms of content, the threat of illicit streaming devices seems to be diminishing. In the UK, for example, there have recently been successful prosecutions of retailers of Kodi boxes with pre-loaded content and add-ons. The maximum sentence for online copyright infringement was also increased from two to ten years earlier this year.
Furthermore, illicit streaming devices are now much less effective in streaming top-end sports content following the introduction
of a live server blocking order for Premier League content for the entirety of the 2017/18 season. This followed the previous grant by the English High Court of a number of blocks by rights holders across the audio-visual sector targeting infringement via varying types of online service.
“Streaming devices have been a big contributor to the piracy problem, although recently online market places through which illicit devices can be bought have tightened up their rules, which has helped,” explains Matthew Hibbert, Head of Litigation at Sky. “This time twelve months ago we were focusing a lot on sales of IPTV boxes with pre-loaded content. While there is still work in that space, increasingly we are looking to address the problem of piracy delivered via social media and apps. Those platforms are a major source of pirated content.”
Of course, for other types of content such as music, the main sources of piracy are very different. The source of piracy that is most rapidly rising up the agenda for music
artists and rights holders is stream ripping,
in which a permanent copy of a piece of content is obtained from a legitimate source, such as Spotify or YouTube. According to research published by PRS for Music and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) earlier this year, use of stream ripping grew by 141% between 2014 and 2016 and now accounts for 70% of music related infringement.
“Over the past 10 to 15 years, the music industry has been tackling established piracy hotspots, including P2P services like Napster, LimeWire, and Pirate Bay; locker services like Mega Upload; and aggregator sites like Files Tube,” explained Simon Bourn, Head of Litigation, Enforcement and Anti-Piracy at PRS for Music. “The fastest- growing form of piracy that is impacting the music industry now is “stream ripping”, which is the label given to all services that derive unlicensed downloads from legitimate streaming services like YouTube and SoundCloud.”
“The licensed framework provides for the accounting of micro royalty payments to
the creators each time a song is streamed. If users only access the legitimate service once, to rip the stream, there is then no need to return to the site each time you want to listen to a song. This means the songwriters are only paid a fraction of a penny, once, and all repeat plays of that ripped stream happen outside of the ecosystem. The likes of YouTube are the biggest platforms for music consumption and stream-ripping is a significant threat to the sustainability of the licence model.”
ARE SOME THREATS MORE PROMINENT IN CERTAIN JURISDICTIONS?
The survey data reveals that there are some regional variations
in the sources of IP threats that most frequently impact businesses. Although internet streaming websites/apps are the most common threat across the entire sample of survey respondents, participants in the UK stated that IPTV or Kodi boxes are the most common threat while those in Asia Pacific stated that these devices are the joint most common threat alongside internet streaming. Survey respondents in Europe are much more concerned by internet streaming. Some 50% believe internet streaming is the most common source of content infringement.
Survey participants in the UK and Asia Pacific also stated that illicit streaming devices and internet streaming were broadly equal in terms of their financial impact on their business. In contrast European and North America respondents generally stated that internet streaming has more of a detrimental financial impact on their business than
illicit streaming devices.
COMBATTING INFRINGEMENT
As the type of IP infringement evolves, so too do the strategies and technologies needed to prevent them.The survey
data and interviews confirm that there
is no silver bullet to combatting content infringement. Instead, companies in this sector are relying on a combination
of legal measures and preventative technologies to fight infringement.The importance of collaboration between content creators, licence holders, large technology platforms and retailers also cannot be underestimated.
According to the survey data, content creators and licence holders find online monitoring and take-down notices most effective in addressing IP infringement. Some 27% of respondents stated this measure is most effective.A further 19% find ISP blocking injunctions most effective.
These initiatives have certainly
proved effective when implemented comprehensively. For example, the Premier League obtained an ISP blocking order requiring ISPs to block servers hosting illegal streams of its matches for the last two months of the 2016/17 season. This resulted in more than 5,000 IP addresses being blocked that had previously been streaming illegal Premier League content.
According to Hibbert, it is already delivering positive results. “It has had a major disruptive impact,” he says. “It makes illegal streams harder to get, less reliable, and less socially acceptable.” The blocking order has since been extended to the 2017/18 season and recently, UEFA has obtained a similar order for Champions League and Europa League matches. Hibbert expects other rights holders to follow suit.
Survey respondents ranked criminal action against suppliers of equipment used to facilitate piracy as the third most effective in combatting infringement. That said, the ability to prosecute suppliers of such devices very much varies by jurisdiction.
In the UK prosecutors have had some notable successes. For example an individual that earned thousands of pounds by selling Kodi boxes with pre-installed content was given an 18 month suspended sentence
in July 2017.That said, participants in this research noted that it can be difficult
to prosecute retailers of illicit streaming devices in other regions.
“The UK is presently at the forefront of enforcement efforts against illicit streaming devices and there have been some prosecutions against retailers of these boxes led by PIPCU [the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit],” explains a Senior Counsel at a major international broadcasting company. “The issue we
have in Asia Pacific is that illicit boxes fall between some of the traditional copyright infringement offences and as such there is often no direct legislation that tackles the issue. Authorities and content owners end up having to resort to a hodgepodge of existing legislation to attempt to tackle this new problem.”
Anti-piracy technologies also have a strong role to play in combatting infringement. Some 38% of respondents stated that DRM technologies, which ensure that only those with valid permissions can use a particular file, are the most effective technology in doing so. Some 29% said encryption is most effective, 12% said fingerprinting is most effective and 12% said watermarking is most effective.
In addition to this, companies are increasingly investing in technology that automates the process of issuing take-down notices to technology platforms. “Automated search and takedown is becoming a necessary
tool for combatting traditional online piracy,” explained a Senior Counsel at a major international broadcasting company. “There are technologies that enable you
to match the content and then send out automated takedown requests to hosting platforms. Given the volume of take-down requests that are sent it’s no longer feasible to have a team of people trawling the internet to look for infringing content.”
However, there is a broad range of these types of products with different strength and weaknesses. Rights owners therefore need to think carefully about the solutions they use and potentially use a number of different products.
“Every platform that can be used for the facilitation of pirate content works in different ways, uses different technologies and has teams of different sizes at their disposal to deal with take-down requests,” explains Pascal Hetzscholdt, Director, Content Protection, Europe & Africa at 21st Century Fox.
“Platforms also have different systems to receive notifications. Some use web forms, some use APIs and some just use email.
So there is only really so much automation you can put in place and humans are also required. Some rights owners are investigating whether machine learning can mimic humans and traditional search engines and find infringing content on the web.There are many vendors with different levels of expertise and some will, for example, deal with YouTube a lot better than another. So most rights owners usually use more than one vendor.”
FAVOURED METHODS OF COMBATTING INFRINGEMENT, BY REGION
There are some regional variations in survey participants’ views on the methods that are most effective in combatting infringement. A significant 67% of North American respondents believe online monitoring and take- down notices are the most effective deterrent to IP infringement.
Some 43% of Asia Pacific respondents agree with their North American counterparts that online monitoring and take-down notices are most effective in preventing infringement, though 29% also ranked ISP blocking injunctions as the most effective tool available.
More UK and European respondents believe that criminal action against suppliers and end-users of infringing content has an important role to play in preventing infringement that their North American and Asia Pacific counterparts. A quarter of European respondents say criminal action against equipment suppliers are most effective in preventing infringement while another 17% say criminal action against the end-user is most effective. UK respondents have a similar view, with 18% ranking action against equipment suppliers as their top choice.
DLA PIPER INSIGHT: MIDDLE EAST
“2018 is set to be another transformational year for the media sector and nowhere more than the Middle East. Piracy is a global problem but is particularly prevalent in the Middle East. Advancements in technology and connectivity mean that
it is now easier for pirates to access copyright content which poses a number of challenges.
Legal reform in the Middle East has so far not kept pace with technological advancements and though both civil and criminal remedies exist for piracy throughout the region, enforcement remains an issue. As such, collaboration between content creators, rights holders, broadcasters, technology platforms and others is growing to combat this increasing threat.
Meanwhile, traditional pay-TV models continue to be challenged by new and expanding OTT models as traditional technology companies like Twitter and Facebook seek to exploit their global footprint, which may itself assist in combatting piracy if offered at the right price point.”
Jamie Ryder, Legal Director, DLA Piper, Dubai
ADDRESSING THE REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT
Survey respondents and interviewees indicated that improvements to the current legal and regulatory framework are needed to tackle the continuously evolving content infringement threat effectively across the audio-visual sector.
Specifically, in relation to illicit streaming devices, 94% of individuals stated that the current legal framework is insufficient to tackle the growing threat of IPTV and Kodi boxes as a tool for infringement.
Survey responses highlighted a range of sanctions and initiatives that should be implemented to specifically help combat this threat, from more severe criminal and civil sanctions to ISP blocking and educational campaigns.
A quarter of survey respondents stated
that more severe criminal sanctions would be most effective in preventing infringement resulting from illicit streaming devices.
A further 16% believe more blocks by internet access ISPs against the domains or IP addresses to which the boxes connect
to access infringing content will be most effective, while 14% said more extensive civil sanctions would be most effective.
Prosecuting retailers of illicit streaming devices has become easier following the Filmspeler ruling in The European Union’s Court of Justice in April 2017, which clarified that selling IPTV boxes specifically configured for film and TV piracy is illegal.
That said, there is still a desire for regulations to be clarified to specify that such activity
is illegal. Hibbert explains why. “There have been a number of high-profile convictions of and judgments against suppliers of devices and content, which sends a clear message that piracy is illegal. The CJEU’s decision in Filmspeler was particularly helpful because it clarified that the supply of an IPTV device with unauthorised content loaded onto it is a criminal offence.
“However, I would still like to see the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (CDPA) amended to criminalise the supply of devices whose main purpose is to provide unauthorised access to content. Not
only would that put the position beyond doubt, but it would send a strong message about the Government’s commitment to supporting the UK’s creative industries.”
Where relevant legislation is implemented, the issue becomes one of effective enforcement. “Broadcasters are discussing how they can combat the rise of illicit streaming devices and many believe the current legislation is not adequate to go
after all parties involved in the process of manufacturing and distributing these devices,” confirms Malobika Banerji, Senior Legal Counsel at A+E Networks Asia.
“But the bigger issue is enforcement of these laws should they exist. It’s hard because the manufacturing and distribution of these devices happens across jurisdictions. For example, devices may be manufactured in China, the feeds uploaded in India, and then the devices are available for distribution in Thailand. So how do you go about enforcing? The current copyright legislation is inadequate to cover everyone involved in the process. Copyright legislation that included everyone involved in the process would be better.”
In relation to online streaming infringement, many interviewees stated they would like to see legislative change relating to the exemption of liability laws that many large technology platforms rely on not to take responsibility for infringing content on their sites and also not to pay artists adequately for their content, the so-called “value-gap”.
Hibbert outlines the problem. “The law currently only requires platform operators to respond to notices of unlawful content on their platforms, and even then in a limited way. Platforms should have systems that stop illegal content being there to start with. This issue is recognised by European lawmakers who are looking at changes to intermediary liability – the question is how fast changes will come and how broad
they will be.”
ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF BREXIT
The Brexit process is creating significant uncertainty in many industries in the UK, and the media and entertainment sector is no different. Over two thirds (69%) of UK- based survey respondents stated that Brexit is impacting their business in some way.
Quite how Brexit will impact companies in this sector is not yet clear, primarily because there is currently little clarity on what the outcome of the Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU will be, beyond the
UK Government’s intention to leave the Single Market and Customs Union. That said survey participants frequently highlight two important areas where clarity needs to be provided – how Brexit will alter broadcasters’ regulatory requirements and ability to sell to the EU, and how UK copyright law might be impacted.
The key European legislation, currently under review, is the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (the “AVMSD”), which regulates television and digital services within the EU. The Directive embraces the so called “country of origin” principle in relation to regulation. After a “hard Brexit” a broadcaster would no longer be able to reply on compliance with UK regulation and, where relevant, OFCOM licencing registration to provide a “passport” enabling their services to be legally made available within the EU.
Instead, such companies would need to have an establishment sufficient to comply with the AVMSD in another EU member state in order to “passport” their services throughout the EU.
In the past, most global broadcast companies have tended to prefer the UK as the base for the European facing operations. This is based on a variety of factors but one importance criteria has been this ability to “passport” services by virtue of the AVMSD.
Therefore, a key issue is that following Brexit, in the absence of suitable replacement arrangements with the EU, the media
and entertainment industry in the UK is currently likely to lose access to the EU’s single market for broadcasting services. This could adversely impact the UK’s status as a broadcasting hub.
Because of the lead time required to establish suitable facilities, premises, licenses and employees, many broadcasters are in the process of creating a new establishment in another EU member state to hedge against the possibility of a hard Brexit.
The Netherlands and Ireland have proven to be popular possible alternative venues.
One way to qualify as being “established” in a member state is to set up a new Head Office, taking editorial decisions, in a different EU member state. Several broadcasters have taken steps to do so. Some broadcasters have considered the option of investing in new uplinking facilities in other EU states in order to deal with the uncertainty.
“If we have a hard Brexit or broadcasting isn’t specifically covered in a transition deal then we would either have to set up an uplink in the EU, for example in Dublin, or re-locate some operations there in order
to get ourselves licensed with the Irish equivalent of Ofcom,” explained Kevin Smith, General Counsel at Sports Information Services. “It could cost up to £2 million to build a new uplink facility, which represents about 10% of our annual operating profit. So it’s going to be a headache for a business of our size as well as other small to medium sized broadcasters.”
“So the question at the moment is whether broadcasters invest in new uplinking facilities in EU jurisdictions which may not end up being necessary, or not do this but risk being in a situation where they wake up the day after Brexit to find that they are criminals in their EU reception territories. The European parliamentary scrutiny committee has raised the issue with the Minister who has acknowledged the concerns but so far has been unforthcoming with any detail. In the Lords, the Minister for DEXEU acknowledged the concerns but offered little insight beyond promising a fuller response
in due course.”
However, a number of broadcasters find the possibility of moving uplink facilities daunting. Many are concerned with the difficulty or impossibility of altering existing commercial arrangements, uprooting uplinking or play out facilities, bearing associated additional costs and other practical issues.
Currently, UK copyright law has been impacted by the EU through specific EU directives that amend the CDPA and
by rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which the UK has to adhere to. It is likely, although not certain, that these laws will be directly transplanted into UK law when Brexit formally happens.
There is more uncertainty whether future EU law that impacts the media industry
will be applied to the UK after Brexit.
For example, the European Commission published its proposed directive for copyright in the EU single market last year, part of which deals with so-called Value Gap issue discussed earlier in this report. This might have significant consequences for the obligations of technology platforms that host content. But the Brexit process means there is uncertainty about whether the new directive will apply following Brexit.
“We expect to see the final version of
the Directive passed sometime this year, although we really don’t know how or if that will be implemented in the UK in light of Brexit,” explains Bourn. “It really depends on whether the UK would prefer to do something specific for our market.”
Survey respondents highlighted a number
of issues that were important to them in
the Brexit negotiations. Some 40% stated that maintaining access to the single market was most important. A further 30% said clarity on the impact of cross-territoriality on licensing models was most important while 15% said clarity over the judicial system was most important.
While companies in the audio-visual sector are facing a number of infringement challenges, there are also a huge number of opportunities to boost licensing and advertising revenue. OTT content presents the most immediate and exciting opportunity for rapid growth. There is also tremendous excitement about the long term opportunities related to the growing use of IOT and VR/AR.
In-house teams and senior executives need to keep up to date with the emerging piracy threats and also the latest technologies and legal methods than can be used to combat them, noting the successes highlighted in this report. This report confirms the view that there is no silver bullet to tackling infringement. Instead, content creators, licence holders, broadcasters, technology platforms, regulators and law enforcement must collaborate and use a variety of technologies and legal measures to tackle emerging sources of piracy.
Of course, it’s vital to seek specialist expert advice when navigating these challenges and opportunities.
We would welcome discussing any of the issues raised in this report at your convenience.
Nick Fitzpatrick Peter White
Stefan Engels Qiang Li Giangiacomo Olivi David Pahl
Jamie Ryder
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Sean Cottrell
Sean is the founder and CEO of LawInSport. Founded in 2010, LawInSport has become the "go to sports law website" for sports lawyers and sports executives across the world.
@spcott
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Shirt Number 11
Marc Albrighton
A midfielder with an impressive Premier League pedigree who's proved extremely effective for Leicester since joining from Aston Villa in 2014.
5'9" (175cm)
11st 9lbs (74kg)
Professional Debut
Exciting winger Marc Albrighton ended a long association with Aston Villa in the summer of 2014 when he agreed to become a Leicester City player.
He had spent 16 years with the West Midlands club, progressing through their academy ranks until his contract expired in 2013/14.
Albrighton burst onto the scene in 2009 when he made his Aston Villa debut in a UEFA Cup tie against CSKA Moscow, and has since appeared a further 100 times for the club.
Of those 101 appearances for Villa, 86 came in the Premier League, as well as seven goals - the first coming in a 2-1 defeat against Spurs and White Hart Lane in October 2010.
The 2013/14 season saw the highly-rated Albrighton enjoy a four-game spell on loan with Championship side Wigan Athletic between October and November, before returning to Villa Park and playing his way back into the side for the remainder of the campaign.
Albrighton made his debut for the Foxes in the defeat to Chelsea in early August, eventually notching 20 appearances in all competitions in the 2014/15 campaign.
The lively wideman scored his first goal in a City shirt against Chelsea in April, before hammering in an unstoppable strike against Queens Park Rangers on the final day of the season. His performances throughout April and May played a huge part in Leicester’s surge to survival.
Playing an instrumental role in City’s 2015/16 title triumph, Marc featured in every Premier League game, scoring twice in the process.
In August 2016, he signed a new contract that runs until 2020 at Leicester City.
During City’s debut UEFA Champions League campaign, the winger became the first player in the Club’s history to score in the prestigious competition, netting in the 3-0 victory at Club Brugge.
Albrighton's most productive season in City colours followed in 2017/18, when he registered seven assists and scored twice for the Foxes.
He was the joint-third-highest English assist-maker in the Premier League that term.
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Évian Trip Is Perfect For Foxes, Says Albrighton
Albrighton Boosted By Filbert Way Return
Rodgers: Albrighton Progressing Well
Albrighton Could Feature This Season, Says Rodgers
Marc Albrighton's Career In Pictures
LCFC's First Day Back In Pre-Season: Afternoon
LCFC's First Day Back In Pre-Season: Morning
Tottenham 5 Leicester City 4
Matchday Minus Two: Episode 20 (Featuring Marc Albrighton)
Albrighton: Leicester City Is A Family Club
Albrighton's Message For The Blue Army
Albrighton: We Need To Do Our Utmost
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Petty, TX Cremation Services
What to Expect from Cremation Services in Petty, TX
Cremation services in Petty, TX completely understand how you will be devastated by the loss of a loved one and will need help and assistance in arranging a cremation.
One of the main reasons that people regularly choose a cremation over a burial is linked to the cremation costs in Petty, TX. The final bill for cremating a person is usually far lower than the cost of arranging a burial because you do not have to pay for the land, its preparation and then the long-term upkeep.
Across all of America cremations are rapidly increasing as the most popular choice of interment and it is predicted that over 50% of people will choose cremation within the next 20 years or so. An exact and full price list will be passed to the person organizing the cremation so that you fully understand all of the cremation costs in Petty, TX.
Why Do People Choose Cremation in Petty, TX?
When you have experienced standing around a graveside as the body is lowered into the earth, it is an experience that many prefer to forget. The very different, and less dramatic experience of attending a cremation, focuses more on the person who has died rather than the events organized by Petty, TX cremation services.
Some religions will only accept a cremation as the only option for interment and this will be explained by cremation services in Petty, TX. In the past, other religions would not accept a cremation as an alternative, but in modern times, the majority of religions are completely accepting of the cremation method being used.
Were you to cast a survey, you would find that modern cemeteries are regarded as extremely sterile and lacking of great character and if you live in a colder area, a grave is a difficult place to visit because of the weather, especially the snow and even more so in a northern state. This explains why many people look at the Petty, TX cremation costs and choose it as their best option
In the majority of states, you can care for the deceased at your own home, but the majority of people will prefer that cremation services in Petty, TX will undertake the facility.
Petty, TX cremation services will explain that the body of the deceased is placed into a container which can be a coffin or casket, but a simple and suitable container is all that the law requires. At the crematorium, the employees will remove jewelry and medical devices, like pacemakers, to reduce the safety hazards for the cremation process. An efficient tagging system is used so that the individual can always be properly identified.
The individual will be cremated in the furnace at temperatures between 1400?F and 2000?F during the course of 2 to 3 hours, when the body will be reduced completely to fine powder, mostly a grey color. These are the ashes that are then returned to the nominated person as part of the cremation costs in Petty, TX.
All of the options related to the memorial service will be carefully discussed with Petty, TX cremation services.
The Petty, TX cremation costs will detail whether the crematorium will be supplying a standard urn to return the ashes to you or whether you have opted to purchase a model for display which you may decide to use for a number of years.
The individual is always cremated alone, so you can rest assured that the ashes being returned to you are always correct and all of the procedures will be explained in detail by Petty, TX cremation services.
Religious Questions in Petty, TX
Some religious groups will require for a cremation to be completed inside 24 hours after the death of the person. This will be arranged by the funeral director and included within the Petty, TX cremation costs, once all of the legal documentation is complete.
There are so many things that you need to think about after someone has died so you should not be worried about leaning heavily on the skills and experience offered by Petty, TX cremation services.
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The Landscope Team
Founded in 2001 by Sam Franklin, Landscope has grown by helping an increasing number of clients to manage and develop their land and property. Sam grew up on a family farm in Bedfordshire and studied Agriculture at University, before qualifying as a Chartered Surveyor and Agricultural Valuer, amongst other professional qualifications.
All our team are from farming, rural landowning and equestrian backgrounds, so we understand the practicalities and implications involved when you are making decisions about your property, whether it is your business, your home or both.
Farming, in particular, presents its own challenges, which transcend other types of businesses, with generations, family relationships and home-life considerations, as well as profit generation playing their part in your decision making.
Sam Franklin
BSc (Hons) MSc MRICS FAAV MBIAC PIEMA MISoilSci
Having grown up on a mixed livestock and arable farm in the heart of Bedfordshire, Sam has retained strong roots in agriculture and the farming community. Sam graduated with BSc (Hons) in Agriculture from Newcastle University in 1987, completed his MSc at Cranfield University and then went on to qualify (as a Rural Practice Chartered Surveyor) with Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and as a Fellow of the Association of Agricultural Valuers. Sam is also an Agricultural Consultant (MBIAC), Environmental Consultant (PIEMA) and Professional Soil Scientist (MISoilSci).
Sam started Landscope in 2001, based in Bedfordshire, operating across the Eastern Region and Central England, building upon his previous experience working in Private Practice, the RSPB, Local Authority and abroad in the Former Soviet Union on land ownership restructuring. The practice has grown based on its strong track record of success in rural practice surveying and planning consultancy, resulting in personal referrals and repeat business.
Sam is a supporter of Bedfordshire Young Farmers, having enjoyed being a Young Farmer himself and taking part, in particular in Public Debating competitions and international work, as well as the extensive social aspects of YFC. Having owned and ridden horses since childhood, he is experienced in all things equestrian and is proud to support the Oakley Hunt, the British Horse Society in Bedfordshire, World Horse Welfare and, through his children The Pony Club. He has 3 Children all are keen riders.
Contact Sam on 01525 630113 or email sfranklin@landscope.co.uk
Elaine Franklin
BSc (Hons) MCIM
Elaine grew up on a farm and livery stables in Bedfordshire. Having gained a degree in Agricultural Business Management at Wye College (London University) she took a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing (CIM). Over 20 years, she developed an extensive career in businesses with specialism in Marketing and Innovation, working up to Board level, in major companies including Weetabix, Britvic Soft Drinks, United Biscuits (McVities), Whitworths and Tesco.
Elaine joined Landscope in 2012 and has since gained extensive experience in Strategic Land Development and Equestrian Planning & Development. She uses her strong marketing, communications and project management skills to engage stakeholders at all levels, manage the design process and keep planning and development projects on track.
She also offers advice on developing new business streams and growth strategies, drawing on her experience of innovation best practice, applying it to small rural businesses with experience in on-farm food processing and farm retail operations, equestrian livery and other customer facing enterprises.
Also a keen horse-woman, Elaine was a Member of the Pony Club and continues to support the Ivel Valley branch of The Pony Club, the BHS, and Bedford Girls School Equestrian Team, with her children. Elaine was also a member and remains a keen supporter of the Bedfordshire Young Farmers Federation.
Contact Elaine on 01525 630113 or email efranklin@landscope.co.uk
Gillian Baggott
Gillian joined Landscope in February 2015 as Office Administrator and PA to the Surveyors. She brings to Landscope a wealth of experience gained in rural organisations, such as Silsoe College and RSPB, in business and project management. She is particularly strong in chasing through the detail and making sure that the business is efficient and well organised. Gillian is also responsible for the day to day management of finance and administration.
Contact Gillian on 01525 630113 or email admin@landscope.co.uk
Myrtle takes her job as office security manager and paper shredder very seriously.
Contact Myrtle on 01525 630113 or email admin@landscope.co.uk
Call us on 01525 630113 or email enquiries@landscope.co.uk
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The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge
Free Thoughts Podcast – 41 min 45 sec – Nov 27, 2015 – Episode 110 of 300
Matt Ridley joins us to talk about his new book, The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge. How are new ideas adopted from the bottom up?
Building a Better Government
Matt Ridley joins us this week to discuss his latest book, The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge (2015). In it, he theorizes that much of the order we see in the natural world and in human culture and society is the result of unplanned, bottom-up, emergent evolution.
Is there a way to introduce these evolutionary pressures to government?
Is there a bias to thinking that the world operates by design, from the top down? Does this bias have an origin in our evolutionary psychology? Is it reflected in how we view history?
Show Notes and Further Reading
Ridley’s newest book, The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge (2015).
Ridley’s bestselling book is an optimistic look at progress and economic history: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2011).
Also from Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation (1998).
Libertarianism.org has a video from 1983 of professor and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek talking about cultural evolution and the origins of tradition in society.
Ridley mentions the ideas and management practices of Mike Bracken, the UK government’s former digital chief. Here’s an extended interview with Bracken about his ideas for government and why he chose to leave.
Aaron Ross Powell: Welcome to Free Thoughts from Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. I’m Aaron Powell.
Trevor Burrus: I’m Trevor Burrus.
Aaron Ross Powell: And joining us today is Matt Ridley. He’s a journalist, businessman and author of the best selling book The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, which I should point out has a proud place on Libertarianism.org’s short list of books you should read to understand libertarianism. He’s also the author of the new book The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge. Welcome to Free Thoughts.
Matt Ridley: Thank you for having me on the show.
Aaron Ross Powell: So let’s maybe start by talking about the connection between Rational Optimist and this new book.
Matt Ridley: Rational Optimist was a book in which I surprised myself by writing a book about progress and deciding that actually it had been far better than I ever even dreamed, that in my lifetime, the average income of the average person on the planet had trebled in real terms. Their life span was up by 30 percent and the amount of child mortality was down by two-thirds.
Then on the whole, despite what we all thought and how gloomy we all were about the world, we were healthier, wealthier, happier, clever, cleaner, kind of free and more peaceful and more equal than we thought. Sorry, than we had been 50 years before. So I catalogued these extraordinary improvements. But I didn’t just stop there. I also tried to explain where they had come from and how they arose. Of course in a word, they came from innovation. They came from innovation and technology but also innovation and habits. So tools and rules, if you like, and trying to understand why innovation happens to human beings, not to rabbits or to rocks. It was part of the motivation of that book and it’s one that I carry on in the current book as it were and particularly the idea that came out of Rational Optimist was that basically it’s about recombining ideas, that you take two ideas, meld them together and make a third idea or other. They meet and mate and have a baby idea perhaps.
That’s where most ideas come from is the cross-fertilization of thoughts between different people and that’s a sort of equivalent to a biological process called sexual reproduction which is a key ingredient of evolution. So I then got interested in how evolution is actually a very good description of how society changes as well as how biology changes.
Trevor Burrus: Now for you personally because I’ve been familiar with your work with Red Queen and things like this beforehand, when you’re doing straight up evolution stuff, when you started doing Rational Optimist, was this – did you surprise – what you found surprised you and where you went on this journey to like how big evolution can be from where you started originally?
Matt Ridley: Yes, I did. I certainly a long while ago wouldn’t have thought that evolution was an apt way of describing how human society changes because I thought human society changed because clever people told it had to change. It was commanded and controlled. It was top-down. It was ordered. It was planned, et cetera.
As I grew up, I became less sure of that, shall we say. I began to notice that actually an awful lot of change in society consisted of emergent, gradual, incremental, unnoticed, unplanned change and that actually all the good things were like that and all the important things were like that too. Sure, it was possible to plan something, to command something in the way of change. But actually, the really interesting things like the change in the birth rate or the change in living standards were not the results of deliberate policy and then I realized that the Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek view of the human world, that is to say that spontaneous order emerges from the interactions of individuals, is exactly the same point as the Charles Darwin view of the biological world. That sophisticated fit between form and function and complex design emerges from an interaction among individual creatures and individual genes without a designer.
Trevor Burrus: Now you described the Darwin theory. Then if we broaden our view of evolution, it’s the special theory of evolution, sort of paralleling relativity and so there’s a general really theory of relativity – or evolution, sorry. So how does that break down?
Matt Ridley: Yeah, this was the idea that a friend of mine suggested to me when I was preparing the book, Richard Webb, that – was I proposing a general theory of evolution as opposed to a special theory of evolution? I like the concepts. So I’ve used it in the book and what I mean by that is we used to think that evolution – in fact a lot of people still do think that evolution is a – is confined to genetic systems. That you have to have genes in order to be an evolutionary system. That’s the characteristic feature of things with genes and it’s also the characteristic feature of evolutionary systems that they have genes.
I don’t think that’s true. I think any information system because genes are particles of information – any information system is capable of evolutionary change if there’s an element of randomness in the way it changes and element of trial and error if you like and if there’s an element of selection.
Clearly both are true of human society, that we try things. We don’t come up with a single solution. Different people come up with different solutions and we get the opportunity to pick through the market or through choice or even through democracy. We get the opportunity to pick the ones we like and reject the ones we don’t like. So in that sense, evolution by natural selection is going on among ideas, among thoughts, among habits, among technologies, among morals, among gods.
Trevor Burrus: Among businesses.
Matt Ridley: Businesses, exactly. Yeah. So there’s a lot of unconscious incremental change driven by evolution in human society.
Aaron Ross Powell: Is it fair though to think of like a spectrum of – from our creationism to outright like algorithmic evolution where on the one end, on the biological, we’ve got – this is random selection. There are random mutations and they’re checked against things in the world. Has the organism died? Has it lived long enough to breed and so on?
But cultural evolution seems like a weird halfway point perhaps because it’s not entirely random. It does have agency. Like there are intelligent designers making design choices like I am going to try doing this thing instead of what we were doing yesterday and then there’s a selection process but the selection process is also being done by intelligent selectors who are themselves intelligent designers. Does it look just like biological evolution? Because I can imagine it being weirder.
Matt Ridley: It’s certainly true that we are trying to improve the world in a way that Darwinism isn’t, biological Darwinism isn’t trying, and that we can plan something and a plan might be a good plan and it gets selected. So in that sense, there is consciousness, there is purpose, there is aim in the human world. It would be foolish to deny that.
What I’m saying is that to a surprising extent, that’s a bad description of how we do change the world because yes, people come up with ideas for how to improve it. But what really matters is having competition between those ideas and some of them surviving and some of them failing.
Let me give you a very nice example that was given to me by Dan Dennett, the evolutionary philosopher and it’s a quote from an early 20th century French philosopher by the name of Alain. He went by one name and he – looking at the designs of boats in the Pacific Islands. He thinks about [Indiscernible] the badly designed ones sank and disappeared. The well-designed ones were copied.
It was the sea that fashioned the boats. Yeah, sure, each person, when he built a new design of boat was trying to make it a better one. But it was the sea that decided whether it was a better design or not.
Trevor Burrus: Then someone might come along and say, “Isn’t it amazing that we only have good boats?” There must be some principle designed by this. It’s like no, they’re just not here anymore. Like the anthropic principle kind of thing.
Matt Ridley: That’s right. As Dr. Adams said, the puddle says, “Isn’t it amazing that this hole fits me so well?”
Trevor Burrus: Exactly.
Aaron Ross Powell: We see that in – I mean that would seem to explain to some extent the constant culture and arts decline attitude of art and music and whatever else used to be good. So much better way back when and that’s largely because right now, we’re watching that process in action. We’re watching the good novels and the bad novels being written. But in the past, all we have left from that are the ones that were pretty good.
Matt Ridley: That’s a very interesting point and I think that’s spot on. In other words, the second rate Victorian novels don’t get read. So we think, “My goodness! They wrote good novels in the Victorian times,” whereas today we have to labor through some drafts in order to find the good ones and the filter of history is – one of the reasons I like classical music is because it’s being well-filtered for me, if you like.
Of course that’s partly why we have rose into nostalgia about the past is because we’ve only bothered to remember the good stuff and to preserve the good stuff and we compare it with the present and we think, “God, yeah, things went much better in those days.” That’s because we left out the bad bits.
What I rather like about Golden Age nostalgia is that if you go back to the Golden Age, what the Greeks described as the Golden Age because they were already nostalgic for a time. When you go back to a time of Hesiod, eight centuries before Christ, you find that Hesiod was grumbling about how things aren’t like what they used to be.
Trevor Burrus: Maybe that has something – it ties in in some way to something you talk about in the book, the sort of bias to purpose and the bias to design, which I think that we have – when it comes to say creationism and biological evolution, especially here in America where creationism is still pretty popular. But just in terms of human institutions in general.
Matt Ridley: It’s certainly I think true that we have a tendency to look for – to think things are more top-down than they are. It’s a common mistake as it were, a reflex we have, and it manifests itself in the way we think inanimate objects are vindictive and think thunderstorms are revenge of the gods and that sort of thing. It caused the intentional stance. It’s a big part of the way we view the world.
I wouldn’t see it necessarily so much as coming out of that Golden Age nostalgia thing that we were talking about as coming out of a – evolutionary psychology would likely build in a hair trigger for intentionality because if your friend bumps you and you’re walking along a narrow path next to a big cliff drop and you almost go over, and he says, “Oh, sorry. That was an accident,” it probably makes sense to say, “Oh, well, it was an accident.” I mean not to say it was an accident but to say, “Hang on a minute. You were trying to kill me, weren’t you?” It’s better to err on that side.
Trevor Burrus: Or the noise in the bushes is someone coming to get you rather than the wind. Yeah, to err on the …
Matt Ridley: That’s an even better example. It’s actually …
Trevor Burrus: Than suppose that your friend is killing you. But perhaps another question that strikes me, before we get into some of the details over your chapters, as they’re called the evolution of education, the evolution of money, a bunch of these things.
But does it also maybe require – something I think about in libertarianism in general that you have to have some sort of faith in the quality and goodness of people, which in your prior work on evolution, you’ve written about virtue and things like this, that you might not be for bottom-up explanations, if you think that people are just bad, because bad people would create evolutionary things too. They would create the Thunderdome and Mad Max or something like this.
So you have to actually believe that people are fundamentally good, kind of Lockean versus the Hobbesian paradigm that people are actually pretty good. So that was maybe an important part of this that some people who don’t believe in bottom-up solutions, maybe the one reason I don’t endorse them.
Matt Ridley: That’s a very interesting point and the way in which this argument intersects with the slightly older or parallel argument about the perfectibility of man, et cetera, is I think – which is kind of I wrestled with in my book, the Origins of Virtue. It’s a really interesting question and you’re quite right. The view that people only behave morally because they’ve been told to by priests or teachers is not really compatible with the view that people should be free to live their lives as they want.
If you genuinely think that we would all kill each other were it not for – being told as children, that that’s bad …
[Crosstalk]
Matt Ridley: Then of course you think that we must have benevolent dictators in charge of the world because the opposite is very dangerous anarchy and I think most people go around with a view that anarchy – that lack of rules leads to …
Trevor Burrus: Top-down rules.
Matt Ridley: Lack of top-down rules, exactly, as opposed to bottom-up emergent ones, leads to really bad outcomes in which horrible things happen. On the whole, the evidence doesn’t bare that out. I mean one of the things I like to do is ask people, “Can you name a country which you think has too little government?” and some people say Haiti.
Trevor Burrus: Somalia maybe.
Matt Ridley: Yeah. Haiti is not a good example because actually if you go to Haiti, you find it’s extremely difficult to start a business because the regulations are so tight, even in sort of badly-governed countries like that. Somalia, well, actually it has got rather too much government. It’s just that it’s not a monopolistic government. It’s several different warlords.
Trevor Burrus: I ask students when I teach this kind of emergent rule things if – whether or not – before Hammurabi’s Code, if they think that Ancient Sumeria was just complete chaos with everyone just running around, kicking everyone and until he came down and carved this in, that’s when – oh, OK, well, it stopped. Well, no one actually believes that. People were pretty good at behaving themselves. Let’s talk about some of these – actually, Aaron, did you have –
Aaron Ross Powell: Yeah, I always wanted to start – I mean there’s the [Indiscernible] of what we think of as a totally planned – going back to the Hobbes and Locke, totally planned institution is government. We got together and we created this thing in some distant past in order to protect our rights or do whatever and then we kept planning it and kept planning it until we got to today. But you say no – like even government is often the product of an evolutionary process. How does that work?
Matt Ridley: Yes. Government is the emergence of monopoly on violence. That’s pretty clear from both myth and history and also what we see around the world is that the characteristic of a government is that it’s managed to monopolize violence. So – and therefore doesn’t need to use it. It keeps it in the background and what I think is rather interesting is that you can see this arrangement emerging ab initio from nothing in certain institutions today and the example I give in the book is prison gangs.
Prisons operate on a sort of – you know, various kind of rules emerge among prisoners about what’s good and what’s bad behavior and it turns out that at a certain level, a certain size of prison, a certain turnover of prisoners, these rules start to break down and so what happens is that instead, you see gangs emerging within the prison and the gang says, “We’re in charge. We decide what happens. We punish transgressors,” and often this is very welcome to the prison authorities because they find that what’s happening is that order is being brought in.
But some quite powerful gang masters are emerging within the prison who are able to bribe the prison authorities, et cetera. So it’s very parallel I think to – and – but the point is, it’s not planned. It appeared spontaneously. David Skarbek has a very interesting book about this.
Aaron Ross Powell: But doesn’t that cut against the general idea that what’s unplanned is good and what is planned is bad? I mean if your example of like, look, here’s an unplanned thing, prison gangs, that doesn’t sound all that encouraging.
Matt Ridley: Well, prison gangs are better than complete anarchy. I mean complete chaos in prison, which is the point. They’re a response to a much more dangerous and chaotic situation. They are a form of order emerging within a prison. Sure, these are bad guys we’re talking about because they’re in prison. So we’re talking about a problem of violence that is being solved.
Trevor Burrus: Now another one of your chapters, you talk about the evolution of education which is one of my favorite subjects. It wasn’t the case that the – before the state came along and said we’re going to have schools, that there were no schools. I mean – it seems people might think but the story, the real story is different.
Matt Ridley: Indeed and the literacy rates shot up in the 19th century in America but also in Britain and other parts of Europe and indeed in India and places like that, long before there was any public education policy or compulsory education or anything like that.
Why? Because once people, ordinary working people, got sufficiently well off, that they could afford to worry about this kind of things, there was an appetite to come to arrangements whereby their kids got education. So you see a huge progress, evolutionary progress, emergence of education systems and then government comes along and says, “Look, it’s disgraceful. We haven’t got enough education. We’re going to impose a system from top down.”
It’s not always clear that that was an improvement. In fact it seems in many cases to have slowed down the evolution of education. Sure, it’s improved education in the 20th century and so on. But it’s bound to because the resources were much more available. The wealth of the society was much greater. It would also have improved under a much more free system.
So you’re also seeing that now coming back to haunt the public sector education because of the ways in which people can use new technology to develop new forms of education.
I think self-organized learning is an example of that. So you got Mitra’s experiments showing that kids with computers attached to the internet, as long as they’re working in groups and as long as they’re given certain well-posed questions by teachers, will teach themselves surprisingly well. I think that is a reminder that there are new forms of education that are much more bottom-up, that are going to emerge and of course the Khan Academy and things like that in terms of using the internet to teach people.
You know, the idea that you should have a medieval structure. Well, actually it’s not medieval. It’s an 18th century Prussian structure where you have one guy standing at the front of the class and we’re all sitting at desks. That’s not the only way to learn. It’s just …
Trevor Burrus: I hope not. There has to be something different out there.
Matt Ridley: Exactly.
Aaron Ross Powell: That seems to raise another way of arguing. The other side of coming at the problem with the planned systems is so we can – you know, on one hand says like, look, if we begin with emerging processes, then we’ve got the selection process going on and it’s going to weed out the things that don’t work and the things that will work and that – which is better than hoping that one guy or one group of experts can get us to the right thing.
But the on the flipside – and we can see this for public education is even if the planners let’s say get it right at the time, like they come up with sitting in – early 20th century, we’re going to come up with a system of education that will work for all Americans. The world changes a lot and the problem with these planned things is the planners like to keep them the way they are and we tend to be stuck with them.
Matt Ridley: Well, I think what that’s teaching you is that monopoly is very bad at change and that’s because change comes from trial and error in an evolutionary system. So letting a thousand flowers bloom and seeing which one is best adapted to the new technology or the new situation or the new background is the best way of making sure that you don’t get stuck in a rut and do the same thing over and over again.
Trevor Burrus: Well, maybe the way of talking about it could be that – or another way of talking about it could be that the government – if you think about it as an ecosystem and you saw something in the ecosystem, an animal with an adaptation that seemed to be counterproductive or made no sense, you would wonder what would – like a peacock’s tail for example.
You would wonder what was the thing that allowed it to exist and the government has this unique adaptation called the ability to use force which is why it can have things continue to exist that no one even wants perhaps or Prussian model of education. A hundred and fifty years after, it’s out of date because it has its own adaptation to thrive in this world which is the ability to use force in this specific way.
Matt Ridley: Well, back to the point about what government is, it’s a monopoly on force as we said and the keyword there is monopoly I think that it only – government only pacifies a country because it’s a monopoly. I mean if you had two rival monopolies on force, within a country, by definition, you’ve got a civil war.
So to solve that problem, government has to be on monopoly but that produces another problem which is that it can’t evolve. It can’t change fast enough. It’s not responsive enough to new environments and it doesn’t experiment enough. It doesn’t try new things.
So for example, political systems tend to be surprisingly long-lived. They change with revolutions but they don’t change much in between and political reform is notoriously difficult to achieve. I make the point in the book that if you brought Daniel Defoe who wrote about riding around England, describing it in the early 18th century, if you brought him back today 300 years later, he would find everything completely changed, except government, which would be horribly familiar. There’s a constitutional monarch. There’s a bicameral parliament. There’s an unelected House of Lords, et cetera, cetera.
Trevor Burrus: There’s something depressing about that.
Aaron Ross Powell: Is there a way though to introduce evolutionary pressures into government? Because I mean we have a system right now where we – at the global level, there is not a monopoly. There’s no state that controls all of it and they are competing but the history of humanity is filled with destructive competition among states. It tends not to go well when two states compete with each other. Is there a way to get them more into an evolutionary process without it just being a series of wars?
Matt Ridley: Well, David Hume made the point and a lot of people have continued to make this point since that the reason Europe stole the march on China in the – from the sort of 18th century onwards – from the 17th century onwards was because it was fragmented politically and that meant that during the Reformation and the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, an individual inventor or talent of some kind could get up and leave if he didn’t like the regime he was living in.
This happens all the time. I mean if you go and look – you know [Indiscernible] the man who invented Meissen China or whatever. They often move from one country to another, to find a regime that’s more congenial for them to live under. So it’s very favorable to innovation to having a fragmented continent. The reason Europe is always fragmented is because of its peninsulas and its mountain ranges. It’s very hard to unify.
A lot of people tried, Julius Caesar, Hitler, Napoleon, Charles the Fifth. None of them pulled it off for very long whereas China, which is a much more sort of concentric country with great big rivers running through it and without very – much in the way of peninsulas was very easy to unify and although it’s occasionally fragmented and its Golden Age was when it was a bit more fragmented, nonetheless when it – it usually ends up being turned into an empire and very clearly, when it gets turned into an empire, it tends to stand still. It would be actually anti-innovative because it gets a regime that’s too monopolistic.
So war is the price that Europe paid for being fragmented but innovation was the reward it got for being fragmented.
Trevor Burrus: On that point, dovetailing off that, is there a top-down bias in …
Matt Ridley: Sorry, can I come back on one postscript after that? Because it’s an interesting though. So where does American fit into that? In many ways, it looks like China. It’s easy to unify as – North America I’m talking about. But of course the answer is the federal structure gives you just about the best of both worlds. A single monolithic country but with an ability to have experimental governments within it.
Trevor Burrus: Theoretically at least.
Matt Ridley: At its best.
Trevor Burrus: At its best.
Matt Ridley: Yeah, with of course the risk that that turns into a civil war over state’s rights, which it does at one point. But the states as laboratories is a huge advantage of your system that most countries don’t have.
Trevor Burrus: So yeah, the question I was asking was about history in terms of – we were bringing up history and you were writing about sort of the – the same sort of bias that we have when we think of history, the top-down view of history as opposed to thinking about it as more organic. It kind of reminds you of some – the Whig view of history that – Mises and – to discuss the history as directed by people and has a purpose and it’s going towards something. Usually, you know, centralization and nice, classy buildings. But how is there a bias in affecting our view of history?
Matt Ridley: Well, I think we believe in the Great Man theory of history too much. We tend to say, “Brilliant George Washington. He won the war. He created the nation.” Yeah, and of course he deserves some credit. But if you go back and look at the surrender at Yorktown of the British forces – and this isn’t a Brit complaining …
Trevor Burrus: I was just going to come back on that, yeah. You got sour grapes here?
Matt Ridley: It was way in the past and I’m very glad you won that war and it was inevitable. You were going to win that war but that’s kind of the point. But if you go back and look at what actually happened, the malaria parasite played a huge role in the surrender of that particular British army because the – Cornwallis had been ordered to stay in the low ground or rather [Indiscernible] and all this – three-quarters of his army was debilitated when the battle happened.
Trevor Burrus: That’s true. Most wars historically …
Matt Ridley: So yeah, often …
Matt Ridley: … economic or biological or parasitic or something, the reason why a war gets won. But nonetheless, we say – I mean Napoleonic wars, Wellington wins. Not because he was a better tactician than Napoleon but because Britain had the most money and the allies did as it were. In the end, they were able to throttle Napoleon for that reason.
So the Great Man theory of history is that great men take history and turn it in one direction or another. And obviously that can happen. I don’t think anyone would deny that Hitler was a great man in the wrong sense of the word obviously.
Trevor Burrus: Affecting a lot of …
Matt Ridley: I do not mean to imply that he was a good man of course. But on the whole, we overemphasize that. We don’t take into account the inexorable, inevitable emergent forces and the degree to which your ordinary people are what’s deciding the outcome in the way they’re behaving and trading and so on.
So I think we give too much credit to the people on top of history rather than the people at the bottom of history.
Aaron Ross Powell: What about the role of innovators that we have – I mean so much of the really wonderful stuff that has improved our lives today came from smart individuals, making discoveries, whether that was Newton and I guess Leibniz for calculus or the invention of whatever these things happen to be, all are from a single –
Trevor Burrus: Vaccines.
Aaron Ross Powell: Vaccines.
Trevor Burrus: Canned food.
Aaron Ross Powell: The iPhone I have in front of me.
Matt Ridley: Well, there again, I think we overemphasize the Great Man and by the way, I’m not dissing these wonderful inventors and I’m a huge fan of science. I’m a huge fan of technological invention. But look at – do you really think that if Google hadn’t invented the search engine, we would have no search engines? If Thomas Edison hadn’t invented the light bulb, we would have no light bulbs? If Newton hadn’t discovered gravity, we wouldn’t ever discover gravity? If Darwin hadn’t discovered natural selection – you know, it’s inevitable. The double helix of DNA was bound to be discovered in the 1950s. The technology had reached the point where it was inevitable.
So in that sense, every single scientist and inventor is dispensable. You can do without them. You can even run over Einstein before he discovers special relativity and you still get special relativity because Hendrik Lorentz was on the trail and would have got that. Do you see what I mean?
So – I mean this sounds like I’m being very rude about these guys but I’m not really meaning to. I’m just saying that let’s hear it for the ordinary technologists and grunts who are sort of putting together the pieces that mean that actually this thing is ripe and someone is going to find it. Let’s celebrate the chap who will find it but let’s not overdo it.
The Nobel Prize tends to be in that sense very unfair because it selects the person who happened to be in the place to put the keystone in the arch or whatever it is.
Trevor Burrus: Can we advocate for say government funding of these institutions? Understanding that there’s a lot of evolutionary bottom-up stuff, so say the Manhattan Project. We had to get a bunch of people in there to share ideas, but have the funding for them so they can share ideas, so they can come up with this and so many different false starts and we need to figure out how to do this. But at the end of it, we have nuclear weapons which – bad thing but probably going to come anyway, but nuclear power and all these things. So maybe government has a role in trying to direct this towards some sort of path.
Matt Ridley: Well, certainly whoever is in charge of society or whoever is taking the decisions should do their best to create an ecosystem in which innovation happens. Absolutely. What does that require? It requires plentiful movement of people, movement of ideas, trade, so that things are coming into contact with each other. It requires resources. It requires stable infrastructure, et cetera.
Now does it require government pump priming? Yes, obviously. In some cases, it does. But would it get other kinds of pump priming? Yes, that’s true too in the first half of the 20th century. Britain and America were conspicuous by not spending any public money on science whereas France and Germany did spend money on science, which were more successful. Arguably Britain and America were more successful in discoveries in that period.
So I think where the money comes from doesn’t necessarily matter so much. It’s how you make sure that the money and the people and the opportunities and the resources and the infrastructure are in place. That usually these days is a role for government but it doesn’t sort of have to be.
Trevor Burrus: Well, sort of the follow-up question I had on here was kind of based on that. If you kind of thing – so, we wouldn’t advocate for emergent evolutionary stuff if say an asteroid is going to hit the earth. I mean we want people to come in and plan and organize people and say, “Let’s get asteroid,” I assume or build a laser or whatever.
Matt Ridley: Well, it depends. Are you suggesting that we know which technology we’re going to use to head off the asteroid?
Trevor Burrus: We want to make a Manhattan Project for it.
Matt Ridley: Well, yeah, but exactly. But what are you going to – do you need some experimentation to find out what technology to use to head off the asteroid? That I think – climate change is the thing here. Should we be spending our money on R and D to come up with cheap and abundant low carbon energy or should we be spending it on top-down targets and plans?
Well, I think we should spend it on R and D. I think that’s more likely to produce the results. So yes, if we know it’s just a matter of putting together 10 billion pounds to solve the problem, then obviously we’ve got to club together and do that. But if we don’t know what’s going to solve the problem, then we should let a thousand flowers bloom.
Aaron Ross Powell: So one of the objections that I get when I make the thousand flowers bloom sort of argument whether it’s let’s not centrally plan this but leave it up to the market or let emergent processes handle it is the sense that evolution seems to work pretty well and we could see that with biological evolution, but at tremendous cost.
All of those mutations that failed along the way, all of those organisms that died out and when you’re talking about people’s lives in the real world – so we say like a free market and healthcare will lead to all of these terrific innovations and lower costs and provide access to more people and it will be better. But we can’t tell you the specifics because you can’t tell the specifics about a market process and the response is, “Well, OK. But what do I say to the person who needs the healthcare right now?”
The process hasn’t provided something for him yet. But if we centrally plan it, maybe it won’t be as good in the long run, but we can help this guy right now. It seems a lot to ask these people to be the cost for evolutionary process.
Matt Ridley: Yeah. But I think that’s a false dichotomy because I don’t think we’re saying to the person with polio in 1950, “We won’t give you an eye and a lung because we’re going to spend all our money on a vaccine.” But we are saying, “Let’s see if there’s a better way out there than simply designing a better eye and lung.” It turned out there was. It was a vaccine.
So I think you can run both horses at once as it were and yes, evolution is wasteful and a lot of bad ideas fall by the wayside. But better bad ideas fall by the wayside than people fall by the wayside, which is often the result if you try and do it by planning. It’s hard to argue that centrally-planned systems have not been wasteful. I mean look at – often they’re very wasteful of human lives whereas at least the experimentation is wasteful of ideas if you like.
Look at the economy of South Korea – sorry, North Korea. Well, let’s look at them both. South Korea is an experimental place that tries lots of different things and no doubt wastes a lot of electricity on advertising, hoardings or something futile, which North Korea doesn’t.
But North Korea certainly wastes human lives and human potential and human happiness and so I don’t think that that’s a fair argument because you can solve a problem pretty quickly with evolution often and get a better result and the fact that it’s disruptive often means that the people who are suffering, the people who feel this pain and this waste are the inefficient ones who should have gotten out of the way anyway. Not the people but the organizations I mean in that sense should have gotten out of the way anyway.
So the vested interests are the ones who are on the whole making that argument.
Trevor Burrus: Well, that – something Aaron and I have talked about for a very long time is that maybe at the end, the best argument for freedom and also evolution that comes with freedom is that it minimizes the damage of being wrong as opposed to governments will maximize the damage of being wrong, because we’re all wrong often.
I mean if we’re all humans and governments are markets, we have a bad idea and we run with it and it doesn’t work. But that in essence would be a dead end in the evolutionary change if you let the evolution go. But if you have government with its unique ability, wrongness can go on for a very long time at very high cost.
Matt Ridley: Yeah. Let me tell you a story about a really inspirational guy who has just left the UK government but has been there for five years. He was brought in from the IT industry called Mike Bracken and he was given the problem five years ago of these gigantic IT projects that – where hundreds of billions of dollars are spent and then you end up trashing the whole thing at the end because it doesn’t work.
Trevor Burrus: Government projects.
Matt Ridley: Government …
Matt Ridley: Yeah, exactly, the same sort of thing. And he has basically kind of stopped that in the UK and we haven’t had any of those in recent years and I’ve asked him how did he achieve this and it’s all about saying instead of designing the whole system, you’ve got to fail fast. Get a little bit out there, test it in the real world. Get another little bit out there. Keep trying it on a small scale. Not just piloting. You know, that’s piloting the whole thing. He’s saying do it in stages and test it at every stage. Evolve it essentially. But I was very struck by his use of the word “failure”.
I want you to fail. I want you to discover what’s wrong with it. Don’t say it’s not ready to be used yet. Go out there and test it and fail fast. Fail cheaply and fail fast was his motto and I think he has had pretty big impact on it. I mean he may be one of many examples, but his model is now of interest to other countries around the world. I know that – you know, et cetera. So I think there are ways of doing it even within monolithic structures.
Trevor Burrus: Do you fear that the more that government grows with this unique power of force, that it will constrain the evolutionary growth of society when there are a lot of – there are more entities out there that have this granted power and therefore are not going to be easy to get rid of. So maybe we won’t be evolving as fast as we might – as we could have?
Matt Ridley: There’s certainly an arms race between monopolistic and bureaucratic and anti-innovation tendencies and the opposite as it were. I think the good guys will stay one step ahead of the bad guys because as you’ve seen with the internet, it was out of the blocks and three-quarters of the way down the track before government even realized it existed.
Trevor Burrus: Thank God.
Aaron Ross Powell: Thank God. And couldn’t catch up and regulate it. But then you take the examples like genetically-modified crops in Europe or electronic cigarettes and you see how vested interests working through monopolistic governments are managing to stifle innovation almost completely and keep new products out of certain markets almost completely.
Yes, I do worry that the power – the political power that – not necessarily government but corporations can achieve through lobbying government often is sometimes sufficient to stop this process happening and when you then look at the history of innovation and the history of progress, it’s a pretty rare flower. It’s in America in the 20th century. It’s in Renaissance Italy in the 15th century. It’s in Arabia. It’s in China. It’s not everywhere. It’s not everywhere. It’s in Holland in the 17th century, et cetera.
But you could imagine an asteroid landing on the wrong part of the world and suddenly there’s nowhere doing this thing and everybody is run by very neo-phobic governments as it were.
Aaron Ross Powell: Free Thoughts is produced by Evan Banks and Mark McDaniel. To learn more about libertarianism and the ideas that influence it, visit us on the web at www.Libertarianism.org.
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House Republicans Call for Perjury Investigation Against Cohen
Image Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images & Shutterstock & Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadow requested the review in a letter they sent to the Department of Justice
By Connor D. Wolf | February 28, 2019
Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) (shown above left) and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) (above right) issued a letter on Thursday calling for a perjury investigation into former attorney Michael Cohen.
Cohen (above center) is the subject of both a federal and a congressional investigation, as he previously worked as an attorney for President Donald Trump.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee heard from the disgraced former attorney at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, which was televised live to the public.
During the hearing, Cohen lobbed many accusations at the president.
Meadows and Jordan questioned whether Cohen was even credible enough to give worthwhile testimony.
He has pleaded guilty to several crimes, including lying to Congress as part of a plea deal arrangement he made with the special counsel team, which has been investigating the president’s campaign activities and more.
Now the two GOP lawmakers are calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Cohen for perjury.
Related: Michael Cohen, at House Hearing, Tears into Trump for Alleged Crimes
“While testifying under oath, Mr. Cohen made what appear to be numerous willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact contradicted by the record established by the Justice Department in United States v. Cohen,” Meadows and Jordan wrote in a letter to newly minted Attorney General William Barr.
“There are other instances in which Mr. Cohen’s statements to the committee were immediately contradicted by witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the subject matter.”
In their letter, the lawmakers accused Cohen of denying that he committed several fraudulent acts to which he has already pleaded guilty.
They specifically pointed to his comments that he never defrauded any bank — even though he pleaded guilty to such charges as income tax evasion and making false statements to a banking institution.
The letter also accused him of making false statements about not seeking a job in the White House.
Even days before it occurred, Republicans were criticizing the committee for holding an entire hearing focused on an admitted liar. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and others questioned why Cohen would be invited to testify, given his past. Sanders called it laughable and pathetic.
Related: Jim Jordan Questions Why Admitted Liar Michael Cohen Is Testifying Before Congress
Cohen has been cooperating with federal investigators since August 2018, when he turned himself in to authorities. He pleaded guilty to crimes such as campaign finance violations and lying to Congress.
He was later sentenced to three years in prison on December 12. He is scheduled to report for his sentence on May 6.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) has been trying to get Cohen to testify as part of the group’s investigations into the president. Cohen said he was willing to cooperate but on February 7 asked to postpone the original hearing. He claimed the president was threatening his family and was concerned about his and their safety.
Check out this video:
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Singles and townhomes are coming soon to Tiffany Hill in Ancaster
Sponsored Jul 27, 2017
Hot on the heels of the rapid sell-out of Phase 2, Rosehaven Homes has announced their Tiffany Hill site will return this fall with an exciting release of 40-foot and 45-foot detached homes, freehold townhomes and freehold/condo townhomes, which are brand new to this community. Ideally located at Garner Road and Raymond Road in Ancaster, Tiffany Hill is only minutes away from the historic downtown and scenic conservation areas.
Growing families in search of more living space will appreciate the collection of detached homes, which range in size from 2,500 to 3,400 square feet. Choose from three distinct elevations, including contemporary, traditional brick or French provincial.
Freehold townhomes, which proved to be extremely popular with purchasers of Phase 2, will also be available. The benefit of a freehold townhome is that you own the land outright, and are not required to pay maintenance fees. Whether you prefer the look of traditional brick or the je ne sais quoi of French provincial, Tiffany Hill has a townhome to suit your particular tastes. There are five floorplans to choose from, and residences will occupy 1,700 to 2,220 square feet.
The newly introduced freehold/condo townhomes are perfect for first-time buyers and downsizers alike. Purchasers will own the land their home sits on, but they will also enjoy a shared private lane that connects to the main road, with parking spaces available for visitors. This is a common element, however, maintenance fees will be minimal. The three-storey residences are spacious and airy, with 1,700 to 2,200 square feet of living space. The elevations reflect the traditional and French provincial styles, and there are four smartly-designed floorplans options.
Ancaster retains a quiet, village feel, but is in close proximity to shopping centres, restaurants, grocery stores, services, as well as public and private schools. Some of Ontario’s most spectacular natural wonders are just a short drive away, including the Dundas Valley Conservation Area, Bruce Trail, Devil’s Punchbowl, Webster’s Falls and the cascading Albion Falls. Outdoor enthusiasts can hike, bike or snap photos of the nearby natural landscapes.
Rosehaven Homes is aiming for an October opening for Phase 2 of Tiffany Hill. The roads that lead to the master-planned community are currently under construction, and the first residents will begin moving into their new homes in early 2019.
Be sure to register online to stay up-to-date on the latest news and buying opportunities at Tiffany Hill.
For more information, please visit tiffanyhill.ca or email builder@rosehavenhomes.com.
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Cecile Richards: We want to make pro-life candidates ‘completely unacceptable’
By Cassy Fiano-Chesser | December 10, 2014 , 05:07pm
Antagonism towards pro-lifers from the abortion lobby is nothing new. Andrew Cuomo notoriously said that pro-lifers are not welcome in the state of New York, for example. And Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards showed the utter contempt she has for pro-lifers in a new interview with pro-abortion sympathizer Jill Filipovic for Cosmopolitan magazine, in which she says that she wants to make pro-life candidates “completely unacceptable”. Newsbuster’s reports:
For a Dec. 8 piece, Cosmopolitan’s senior political writer Jill Filipovic interviewed Cecile Richards, president of taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood, on “where the pro-choice movement is headed next year.” Richards admitted her organization wants to “make it completely unacceptable” for “someone who opposes women’s rights” to run for office.
At Filipovic’s prompting, Richards gushed, “[I]t was pretty amazing to me that in all the competitive races across the country [in 2014], I didn’t see any candidate, Republican or Democrat, proudly running as an opponent of legal abortion or birth control or even Planned Parenthood.”
We clearly want to move the needle away from the idea that these issues are partisan, because I don’t believe they are, and we want to make it completely unacceptable to run for office as someone who opposes women’s rights or wants to take us backward.
… Also for 2015, Richards highlighted a new rationale for killing babies: the economy. “We can’t be having a conversation about economic security for women and families without talking about women’s access to reproductive health care,” she said.
“Women may not get up every morning thinking about what constitutional rights they have,” she argued, “but they certainly do get up thinking about their health and the health of their families, and that includes reproductive health care.” Yes, nothing says healthy families like infanticide.
Half of all Americans identify as pro-life, but Richards wants to essentially leave those people without a voice, and without someone to represent them in Congress.
And why? Because Richards disagrees with them — oh, and has a little company that relies on hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding each year. But it’s not like Cosmopolitan is about to point out that conflict of interest. Cosmo is helping Planned Parenthood in their mission to eliminate all politicians who don’t think the “right” way, refusing to endorse any candidate who identifies as pro-life, even if they’re liberal women who line up correctly on every other political issue that Cosmo deems important. In return, Planned Parenthood awarded Cosmopolitan a Maggie award, named after founder Margaret Sanger.
Unfortunately for Richards, though, Americans aren’t really backing her up on her claim that the elections were some sort of proof that the country is becoming more pro-abortion, and hostile to pro-lifers. Wendy Davis, arguably the most ardently and well-known pro-abortion politician in this most recent election cycle, lost women by double digits.
Polls also showed that voters who said abortion affected their vote were more likely to be pro-life than pro-abortion. So if she’s holding her breath for pro-life candidates to become unacceptable in an increasingly pro-life country, then she might not want to wait too long. It’s clearly not going to happen anytime soon.
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The UAE’s Geostrategic Plans in Yemen and the Gulf of Aden
By Will McEniry
While on the surface the United Arab Emirates is a well-behaved “little brother” to Saudi Arabia, its recent actions in the south of Yemen, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden show that the UAE is slowly but surely positioning itself to become a formidable regional power independent of the Arab regional hegemon.
On April 30 the United Arab Emirates (UAE) deployed troops to the Yemen-controlled island of Socotra in the Gulf of Aden without approval from the Yemen government or Saudi Arabia. Although a deal was brokered with Yemen and Saudi Arabia on May 14 for the UAE to withdraw from the island, this incursion has highlighted the regional ambitions of Abu Dhabi and the potential for a rift to grow in the UAE-Saudi Arabia relationship.
On the surface, the UAE is explicitly allied with Saudi Arabia, acting as a well-behaved “little brother” to the Arab regional hegemon. However, its recent actions in the south of Yemen, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden illustrate that the UAE is slowly but surely positioning itself to become a formidable regional power independent of Saudi authority.
In the many ongoing diplomatic and military conflicts in the Middle East, Abu Dhabi has remained united with Riyadh. The UAE has supported Saudi Arabia in its blockade against Qatar as well as siding with Saudi Arabia in pushing for the US to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal. Most importantly, it has contributed to the Saudi-led military campaign against Houthi rebels in the Yemen Civil War. However, Abu Dhabi’s involvement in this disastrous war does not necessarily correlate with Saudi objectives but rather has allowed it to enhance its own geostrategic interests in a volatile region of the Arabian Peninsula.
The UAE in the Yemen Civil War
In 2015 the Saudi-led Coalition, including the UAE, deployed troops in Yemen to influence the civil war in favour of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his internationally recognised government against Houthi rebels. For the UAE, however, the conflict in the south of Yemen has become separate to the conflict in the north which is predominantly between the Houthi rebels and Saudi forces. The UAE does not view the Houthis as an existential threat to its own sovereignty in the same way as Saudi Arabia. As the conflict rages and Saudi Arabia struggles to take control of the north of Yemen, the UAE has gained the upper hand by exerting its own policies in the south, favouring groups that guarantee UAE interests and objectives.
Abu Dhabi is now using this conflict to secure its access to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the south of Yemen. It is taking a more long-term, bottom-up approach by investing in the social politics and economic development of the southern provinces of Yemen in contrast to Saudi Arabia which has constantly changed its strategic alliances in the war. The UAE has set up military bases in the central region of Hadrahmaut and, earlier this year, it established control over the seaport city of Aden, which was seized from the Hadi government by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council. This has allowed UAE firms such as DP World to invest in the city’s maritime trade infrastructure and restore operations of the city’s port. However, this has brought UAE interests in direct conflict with Saudi Arabia, which openly supported the Hadi government and Yemen Army during the Battle of Aden in January.
The UAE asserting control of Bab-el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden
Asserting control over the city of Aden and the southern part of Yemen through these UAE-backed groups and UAE investment is part of Abu Dhabi’s strategy to control Bab-el-Mandeb, a narrow strait that separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden and therefore a crucial maritime route used to transport goods between Europe, East Africa and Asia. To further this geostrategic goal, the UAE has built an airstrip on Perim, a volcanic island belonging to Yemen located in the centre of the strait.
With only approximately 20 miles separating Ras Menheli in Yemen and Ras Siyaan in Djibouti, the UAE has also sought to further extend control of the strait through its military and economic interests in the Horn of Africa. It controls the Assab naval/airbase in Eritrea which is used to carry out military operations in Yemen. It previously controlled the Djibouti port of Doraleh — seized by the Djibouti government in February 2018 – which has now become a source of tension between the UAE and Djibouti. In the coastal city of Berbera in the self-declared state of Somaliland, Abu Dhabi is building a military base without the approval of the central government in Mogadishu. In the Somali region of Puntland, the UAE is training the maritime police as well as investing in the port of Bosaso.
The UAE incursion on Socotra also illustrates its regional ambitions to control the Gulf of Aden to ensure it reaps the benefits of the free flow of trade through the Gulf. The two-week occupation of the island saw the UAE seize important installations including airport, seaports and government buildings, angering the Hadi government and its Saudi allies. For the UAE, Socotra’s strategic location in the Gulf of Aden not only provides it with an ideal military base to carry out further missions against enemies in Yemen, it also enables the UAE to position itself through investment in the island’s ports to ensure it benefits from the free flow of trade through the Gulf of Aden. Although the UAE and Saudi Arabia agreed on May 14 to end the UAE occupation by returning seized installations to the Yemen government and withdrawing troops from the island, the UAE military invasion of Socotra illustrates the capability and willingness of the UAE to pursue and safeguard its geostrategic interests in the Gulf of Aden.
Room for Saudi-Emirati conflict?
The UAE’s activities in southern Yemen, its influence in the Horn of Africa, and its incursion on the island of Socotra are seen by many as the UAE asserting influence outside its borders independent of Saudi authority. As Saudi and Emirati strategic goals begin to diverge in Yemen and as UAE influence expands in the Gulf of Aden region, Saudi Arabia may view the UAE as another Qatar problem: a traditional “little brother” ally slowly increasing its soft and hard power, challenging Saudi hegemony on the Arabian Peninsula and beyond. This could see Saudi Arabia attempt to pull the UAE back in line.
However with the ongoing devastating war in Yemen and the regional disputes with Qatar and Iran continuing to remain headaches for Riyadh, it is likely unable to prevent the UAE from pursuing its geostrategic interests in Yemen and the Gulf of Aden to the detriment of Saudi interests.
Will McEniry is a former intern with AIIA Victoria and AIIA National Office. He visited Iran in 2017 as part of AIIA VIC’s study tour.
This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.
Saudi-Canada Twitter Tiff
By Dr Bruce Mabley
A recent spat on twitter resulted in a freeze in Saudi-Canada relations, with diplomats expelled and commercial, air and educational links suspended. What exactly happened?
Uncertainty, Blunders and Brashness: Saudis Seek Results in 2018
By Dr Ben Rich
The difference between a maverick foreign policy and an ill-conceived one can often be fine but recent ambitious Saudi maneuvers have leaned toward the latter. What can we expect from the Kingdom in 2018?
Trump and Iran: Making a Bad Situation Worse
By Dr Anthony Billingsley
The July 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the international community — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — was significant in that it demolished fears of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme and exposed that country’s civil nuclear programme to thorough international scrutiny. In so doing, it should have removed a major source of tension and instability in the Persian Gulf.
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How painted poppy rocks are marking 100 years since the end of WWI
People are joining in the Turn Tilehurst Red celebrations ahead of Remembrance Sunday
Some of the poppy-themed rocks. Credit: Reading Kindness Rocks
Poppy painted kindness rocks are being spread around Tilehurst as excitement grows for a village-wide celebration marking 100 years since the end of the First World War.
Reading Kindness Rocks organiser Debs Baldree has been painting "hundreds, if not thousands" of rocks with poppy designs on and leaving them outside her home in Westwood Road.
People can pick one up and leave it somewhere on their journey in the village as part of the Turn Tilehurst Red celebration.
The final preparations for the event, which has generated huge support in the village in Reading, Berkshire, are being made, with the painted poppy rocks taking a leading role.
Why a Reading landmark has been turned red
Mrs Baldree said she had been inspired by the community spirit being shown.
She said: "I was out walking my dog early one morning when I saw the display in Arthur Newbury Park, which features some of our rocks.
"It was just amazing.
"This whole event has bought a real togetherness to the village and it's great to see so many people making an effort."
Poem of Remembrance
The rocks can be picked up for free, but some more elaborately decorated rocks have also been auctioned off, with proceeds going to the local Royal British Legion branch.
She said: "I'm not artistically talented in any way, but there are some very talented people in the group who have made some amazing rocks.
"We've auctioned those off and raised around £163 for the British Legion."
What is Turn Tilehurst Red?
Poppies have been made out of plastic bottles. Credit: Kate Taylor
Turn Tilehurst Red has been organised by Kate Taylor, and has support from a number of businesses around the area.
The project marks 100 years since the end of the First World War and will see a range of events to celebrate.
People across the village have been encouraged to come up with poppy-related displays in their homes and Mrs Taylor's Brownie group have been very busy with their own designs.
Turn Tilehurst red to mark 100 years since end of First World War
There will be huge poppies around the village and another massive one made out of loose change, all of which is donated to the Royal British Legion.
The organisers have also recovered from a setback where a stock of homemade poppies were destroyed in a fire.
More information can be found on the Turn Tilehurst Red Facebook page and the Reading Kindness Rocks Facebook page.
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History of IoT: A Timeline of Development
By Andrew Braun – Posted on January 25, 2019 January 26, 2019 in IoT Tech
The Internet of Things, or IoT, is growing by leaps and bounds, with millions of new sensors and devices going online every month. If you feel like you’ve been hearing a lot about it recently, that’s probably because, despite a fairly long history, the Internet of Things has only just been able to truly start taking off, empowered by cheap, low-power components, widespread Internet connectivity, and a lot of interest on both the corporate and the consumer side. We’re looking at everything from smart toasters to smart cities, from RFID tags on supply chains to medical monitoring implants, from learning thermostats to self-driving cars. Where did it all come from though? How did we go from having basically nothing connected to the Internet to having more connected devices than people on earth? While it’s far from comprehensive, the timeline below should give you a general idea of where IoT has come from and where it’s headed in the future.
A timeline of selected major events in IoT
ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet, is developed and put into service by DARPA, the U.S Defense Advanced Research Projects agency. This is foundational to the “Internet” part of the Internet of Things.
1980s:
ARPANET is opened up to the public by commercial providers, making it possible for people to connect things if they want to.
Programmers at Carnegie Mellon University connect a Coca-Cola vending machine to the Internet, allowing them to check if the machine has cold sodas before going to purchase one. This is often cited as one of the first IoT devices.
John Romkey, in response to a challenge, connected a toaster to the Internet and was able to successfully turn it on and off, bringing us even closer to what we think of as modern IoT devices.
Engineers at the University of Cambridge, upholding the now well-established tradition of combining the Internet with appliances and food, develops a system that takes pictures of a coffee machine three times a minute, allowing its status to be remotely monitored by workers. World’s first webcam!
The first version of the long-running GPS satellite program run by the U.S. government is finally completed, a big step towards proving one of the most vital components for many IoT devices: location.
IPv6 becomes a draft standard, enabling more devices to connect to the internet than previously allowed by IPv4. While 32-bit IPv4 only provides enough unique identifiers for around 4.3 billion devices, 128-bit IPv6 has enough unique identifiers for up to 2^128, or 340 undecillion. (That’s 340 with 36 zeroes!)
This is a big year for IoT, since it’s when the phrase was probably first used. Kevin Ashton, the head of MIT’s Auto-ID labs, included it in a presentation to Proctor & Gamble executives as a way to illustrate the potential of RFID tracking technology.
LG announces what has become one of the quintessential IoT devices: the Internet refrigerator. It was an interesting idea, complete with screens and trackers to help you keep track of what you had in your fridge, but its $20,000+ USD price tag didn’t earn it a lot of love from consumers.
The phrase “Internet of Things” starts popping up in book titles and makes scattered media appearances.
The first iPhone appears on the scene, offering a whole new way for the general public to interact with the world and Internet-connected devices.
The first international IoT conference is held in Zurich, Switzerland. The year is fitting, since it’s also the first year that the number of Internet-connected devices grew to surpass the number of humans on earth.
Google starts self-driving car tests, and St. Jude Medical Center releases Internet-connected pacemakers. St. Jude’s device will go on to make yet more history by being the first IoT medical device to suffer a major security breach in 2016 (without casualties, fortunately). Also, Bitcoin starts operation, a precursor to blockchain technologies that are likely to be a big part of IoT.
The Chinese government names IoT as a key technology and announces that it is part of their long-term development plan. In the same year Nest releases a smart thermostat that learns your habits and adjusts your home’s temperature automatically, putting the “smart home” concept in the spotlight.
Market research firm Gartner adds IoT to their “hype cycle,” which is a graph used to measure the popularity of a technology versus its actual usefulness over time. As of 2018, IoT was just coming off of the peak of inflated expectations and may be headed for a reality check in the trough of disillusionment before ultimately hitting the plateau of productivity.
Google Glass is released – a revolutionary step in IoT and wearable technology but possibly ahead of its time. It flops pretty hard.
Amazon releases the Echo, paving the way for a rush into the smart home hub market. In other news, an Industrial IoT standards consortium form demonstrates the potential for IoT to change the way any number of manufacturing and supply chain processes work.
General Motors, Lyft, Tesla, and Uber are all testing self-driving cars. Unfortunately, the first massive IoT malware attack is also confirmed, with the Mirai botnet assaulting IoT devices with manufacturer-default logins, taking them over, and using them to DDoS popular websites.
IoT development gets cheaper, easier, and more broadly-accepted, leading to small waves of innovation all over the industry. Self-driving cars continue to improve, blockchains and AI begin to be integrated into IoT platforms, and increased smartphone/broadband penetration continues to make IoT an attractive proposition for the future.
The future of IoT
If you can believe the Gartner Hype Cycle, we’re in for a readjustment of our expectations within the next few years. Long-term, though, IoT is probably just going to be the new normal. Controlling your home through your smartphone is pretty neat. Getting a real-time picture of every item in your supply chain is also pretty neat. And who doesn’t like asking Alexa stupid questions? Technologies like AI and blockchain are increasingly being used to make our devices more independent and better-networked, and the rise of the term “edge computing” is largely driven by the realization that the proliferation of IoT devices makes the long round-trip journey to the cloud and back impractical for local users. Anything that requires mass hardware adoption takes time, though, so the shift towards an Internet of Things will be gradual. This is probably a good thing, too, since it will buy us some time to figure out the privacy and security issues that will inevitably crop up as more things go online.
5 Ingenious Arduino Shields You Should Check Out
8 of the Best IoT Platforms to Watch for in 2019
What Are Arduino Shields? An Introduction to Arduino's Greatest Trick
What Arduino Is and Why It Matters in IoT
How Does GPS Work? The All-Important Tech Explained
Stay updated with our weekly recap of the latest trends in IoT world.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and European users agree to the data transfer policy.
5 Ways IoT Can Help You Eat and Drink
Amazon to Add Autonomous Robots to Delivery Fleet
What AWS IoT Services Is Providing for Your IoT Project
An Introduction to Docker and Why It’s Useful in IoT
What Is NarrowBand IoT?
Cellular IoT Explained
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Quick reference index
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2019 Sailing Terms and Conditions
Please read these Terms and Conditions carefully before making a booking. These Terms and Conditions include certain limitations and exclusions in respect of our liability to you. Your attention is drawn, in particular, to Clauses 12-17 (inclusive) and 47.
NOTHING IN THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS OR REMEDIES.
1. In these conditions (save where the context otherwise requires)
a) "Athens Convention" means the Convention relating to the Carriage of Passengers and their Luggage by Sea signed at Athens in 1974 as may be modified from time to time including by the Protocol of 2002 to the Convention. A link to the current consolidated text of the Convention is available here but please note this may be amended from time to time and the version applicable at the time of travel will prevail.
b) "Berth" includes a club class seat, a reserved seat, or a bed in a cabin.
c) "Carrier" means Irish Ferries Limited whose registered office is at Ferryport, Alexandra Road, Dublin 1.
d) "Disabled Person" or "Persons with Reduced Mobility" has the same meaning as set out in Regulation No 1177 of 2010.
e) "Domestic Animal" means any domesticated pet such as a dog or cat accompanying a Passenger.
f) "Fault" includes any act, omission, neglect, default, negligence, breach of contract, or breach of duty of whatsoever nature the same may be.
g) "Injury, Loss or Damage" includes any physical injury, death, sickness, mental suffering, distress, upset, financial or consequential loss, nuisance, delay, or inconvenience of whatsoever nature the same may be.
h) "Luggage" (save where the term appears in Clause 41 of these conditions) has the same meaning as set out in the Athens Convention.
i) "Passenger" has the same meaning as set out in the Athens Convention.
j) "Person" includes any firm, partnership, association, corporation or government department and also includes any infant or child.
k) "Regulation No 1177 of 2010" and “the Regulation” mean Regulation (EU) No 1177/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 concerning the rights of Passengers when travelling by sea and inland waterway as may be replaced or amended. A link to the current Regulation is available here but please note this may be amended from time to time and the version applicable at the time of travel will prevail.
l) “Scheduled Departure Time” and “Scheduled Arrival Time” are those times as advertised in the Carrier’s notices and publications in force at the time of booking but subject to any subsequent changes notified to the passenger 24 hours or more in advance.
m) "Servants, Agents and Independent Contractors of the Carrier" includes but is not limited to the owners, charterers, and operators of any vessel, means of transport, or facility who may, at the request of or by agreement with the Carrier (whether express or implied) perform the whole or any part of the carriage of Passengers and/or Luggage or other service which the Carrier has agreed to undertake and also includes the Servants, Agents and Independent Contractors of such owners charterers or operators.
n) "Ticket Price" means the price paid for the transport by the Carrier of the Passenger and Vehicle (if any).
o) "Valuables" means such valuable articles as are described in Article 5 of the Athens Convention.
p) "Vehicle" means any Passenger or private vehicle of any description whatsoever (whether or not self-propelled) including (without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing) any car, coach, mini-bus, caravan, dormobile, trailer, motorcycle scooter, trailer, yacht or bicycle.
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4. Every Person making a booking for or on behalf of a Passenger or group of Passengers warrants and confirms that he has the legal capacity to make the booking as well as the authority and consent of each such Passenger to accept these Conditions as agent for and on behalf of that Passenger and that each such Passenger has agreed to be bound by these conditions which may include amendment and cancellation fees.
5. No Passenger shall embark on a voyage or avail himself of any services the subject of any contract with the Carrier unless he has accepted these Conditions (including the amendment and cancellation fees) regardless of whether the booking was made by him or by some other Person on his or her behalf.
6. (a) Disabled Persons or Persons with Reduced Mobility shall notify the Carrier when a booking is made, and in any event not later than 48 hours before the Scheduled Departure Time, that their mobility when using transport is reduced by any physical disability, intellectual disability or impairment, and of any specific needs they have concerning accommodation, seating or services required or of their need to bring medical equipment (provided the need is known at the time).
(b) Where the need is not known at the time of booking, notification shall be made at the earliest opportunity and in any event not later than 48 hours before the Scheduled Departure Time where possible.
(c) The Carrier shall also be notified as provided above if it is intended that such Passengers shall be accompanied by a recognized assistance dog. Such notification can be made by any means available including email or other electronic means or SMS.
7. The Carrier may refuse to accept a booking from or to embark any Person including a Disabled Person or Person with Reduced Mobility in the following circumstances:
(i) for safety reasons including in order to comply with any applicable safety requirements established by international, Union or national law or by the competent authorities, or
(ii) where it is not safe or feasible to carry out the embarkation, disembarkation or carriage of such Passengers in a safe or operationally feasible manner due to the design of the ship or infrastructure or equipment of the port or terminal. Where such applies, the Carrier may alternatively require that such Passengers be accompanied by another Person who is capable of providing the assistance required by the Disabled Person or Person with Reduced Mobility.
8. No Person other than a director of the Carrier has authority to alter or waive any of these conditions and no such alteration or waiver shall be of any effect unless it is in writing and signed by such director.
9. Each of the paragraphs and sub-paragraphs of these Conditions operates separately. If and in so far as any of these Conditions (in whole or part) is found by a court or relevant authority to be inconsistent with or invalid under any applicable law, such condition or provision shall be null and void. The remaining Conditions shall remain in full force and effect.
(a) This contract shall be governed and construed according to the laws of the Republic of Ireland.
(b) The Irish courts have non-exclusive jurisdiction in relation to any dispute between the Passenger and the Carrier in relation to these Terms and Conditions. Where the action arises under the Athens Convention a Passenger may bring an action in accordance with Article 17 of the Athens Convention.
(a) It is the sole responsibility of each Passenger to ensure they have all necessary travel documentation and authorisation (including but not limited to identification and immigration documentation) for entry into the country of destination and/or departure from the country of departure. Boarding of the Carrier’s vessel is conditional on the Passenger being in possession of such necessary documentation in the opinion of the Carrier.
(b) Prior to boarding, the Carrier (and/or its agent) shall be entitled to check that all Passengers have the documentation described in Paragraph (a).
(c) The Carrier may (notwithstanding any booking previously made) refuse to carry any Passenger who fails to produce the documentation described in Paragraph (a) when requested and no refunds or compensation will be provided by the Carrier where permission to enter/depart a country has been refused. In addition, the Carrier shall be entitled to recover from the Passenger all fines or other costs levied on it by reason of the Passenger's failure to produce any required documentation satisfactory to the relevant authorities upon reaching the port of destination.
(d) Any Passenger who for any reason refuses to disembark or is refused entry to the relevant country at the port of destination shall be required to reimburse the Carrier for any costs incurred by the Carrier as a result of such action.
The provisions of the Athens Convention shall be incorporated into this Contract in respect of any carriage by sea which the Carrier has agreed to undertake and the said provisions shall apply throughout the periods of carriage set forth in Paragraph 8 of Article 1 of the Athens Convention. In so far as any Passenger or Luggage is affected by or suffers any Injury Loss or Damage by reason of any Fault on the part of the Carrier (including its Servants, Agents and Independent Contractors or any other Person for whom the Carrier is responsible) before or after any such period of carriage the Carrier (as defined in the Convention) shall (provided it is lawful to do so) be entitled to rely upon Articles 5 to 16 inclusive of the said Convention.
13. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY - Any liability on the part of the Carrier shall be subject to all exemptions and exonerations from and limitations of liability provided by the Athens Convention and shall in particular be subject (in the case of damage or loss to a Vehicle or other Luggage) to the deduction of the full amount permitted under Paragraph 4 of Article 8 thereof.
The Athens Convention (amongst other provisions of law) limits the Carrier's liability for the death of or personal injury to a Passenger and/or for loss of or damage to Luggage (including a Vehicle) to incidents which are due to the Fault or neglect of the Carrier or of its servants or agents acting within the scope of their employment. The said Convention also makes special provision for Valuables for which the Carrier accepts no responsibility save where such Valuables have been deposited with the Carrier for the agreed purpose of safe keeping (and the Carrier shall be free to refuse to agree to such safe-keeping at its sole-discretion) in which event the Carrier shall be liable in accordance with the terms of the said Convention. The said Convention also presumes that Luggage has been delivered undamaged unless written notice has been given to the Carrier (i) in the case of apparent damage before or at the time of disembarkation or re-delivery or (ii) in the case of damage which is not apparent or of loss within 15 days from the date of disembarkation or re-delivery or from the time when such re-delivery should have taken place.
14. For Disabled Persons or Persons with Reduced Mobility, the Carrier shall be liable for replacement or repair costs incurred as a result of the loss of or damage to mobility equipment or other special equipment used by such persons if the incident which caused the loss was due to the Carrier's Fault or neglect and if Article 4 of the Athens Convention does not apply.
15. Subject always to any express provision elsewhere in these conditions and to any applicable law, the Carrier shall not in any circumstances whatsoever be liable for any Loss or Damage of or to any Luggage or Vehicle.
16. Nothing in these conditions shall be in any way construed as restricting or removing the rights of the Carrier or of any other carrier or of the Servants Agents or Independent Contractors of either of them to any exemption from or limitation of liability given to Carriers owners or demise charterers of a vessel or other Persons by any statute or rule of law for the time being in force. Further the Carrier (if not the owner or demise charterer of a vessel performing any part of the carriage which the Carrier has agreed to undertake) shall have in respect of any Passenger or Luggage carried on such vessel the same rights of limitation of liability as are given to owners and demise charterers by any statute or rule of law in addition to the rights exemptions from and limitations of liability defences and immunities conferred by these conditions.
Liability of Servants, Agents, and Independent Contractors
17. All rights, exemptions from, and limitations of liability, defences, and immunities of whatsoever nature referred to in any of these Conditions shall apply also for the benefit of all Servants, Agents, and Independent Contractors of the Carrier while acting in the course of, or in connection with, their employment or other contract.
18. Passengers shall at all times comply with any lawful order given by or on behalf of any of the vessel's officers or by any other servant or agent of the Carrier.
19. Passengers undertake that neither he nor his Luggage (including any Vehicle and any Luggage to which these conditions apply) nor any child or Domestic Animal accompanying him will cause any danger, injury, loss, or damage of or to the Carrier or its property or any other Person or property.
20. In the event of the Carrier providing or obtaining medical assistance of any kind whatsoever for any Passenger, the Passenger shall reimburse to the Carrier upon demand the cost of such medical assistance.
21. In so far as any contract or booking with the Carrier requires Passengers to travel with another carrier, these Terms and Conditions will apply. Likewise if a Passenger is travelling with the Carrier as a result of a booking with another carrier, these Terms and Conditions will apply.
22. Passengers are referred to the provisions of Regulation No 1177 of 2010 as may be amended from time to time. For convenience, the Regulation is available at:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:334:0001:0016:EN:PDF
23. The Carrier will inform passengers as soon as possible of a cancelled or delayed sailing, and in any event no later than 30 minutes after the Scheduled Departure Time. For delayed sailings Passengers will also be informed of the new estimated departure and arrival times as soon as that information is available. If a cancelled or delayed sailing causes a Passenger to miss a connecting transport service,
the Carrier shall make reasonable efforts to inform the affected Passenger of alternative connections. Such information on cancelled or delayed sailings or alternative connections shall where required be provided in accessible formats to any Disabled Persons and Persons with Reduced Mobility.
24. Where the Carrier reasonably expects the departure of a Passenger service to be cancelled or delayed for more than 90 minutes after the Scheduled Departure Time, Passengers waiting at the departure port terminal will be offered free of charge snacks, meals or refreshments in reasonable relation to the waiting time provided they are available or can reasonably be supplied. Unless such cancellation or delay is caused by weather conditions endangering the safe operation of the ship as determined under the overriding authority of the Master, where and when physically possible, Passengers waiting at the departure port terminal will also be offered free of charge for the duration of the delay adequate accommodation on board the vessel or ashore, including any transport required from the departure port terminal to such accommodation, where the cancellation or delay makes it necessary for a Passenger to stay one or more nights beyond that originally intended by the Passenger. Where provided ashore, the total cost of such accommodation shall not exceed a maximum of EUR 80 per night per Passenger, for a maximum of three nights.
25. Where the Carrier reasonably expects the departure of a Passenger service to be cancelled or delayed for more than 90 minutes after the Scheduled Departure Time, Passengers will also be offered the choice between (a) re-routing to the final destination under comparable conditions as set out in these Conditions of Travel at the earliest opportunity and at no additional cost, or (b) reimbursement of the Ticket Price, (and where relevant, a return service free of charge to the first point of departure at the earliest opportunity). Reimbursement of the Ticket Price will be calculated in relation to the part or parts of the journey not made and for the part or parts already made where the purpose of the journey no longer serves any purpose in relation to the Passenger’s original travel plan.
Passengers with tickets for a delayed or cancelled direct Ireland/France/Ireland sailing who wish to re-route via land-bridge must request a reimbursement and may make a new land-bridge booking subject to availability.
Payment shall be made within 7 days in cash, by electronic bank transfer, bank order or bank cheque. Alternatively, if the Passenger agrees, the full reimbursement may also be paid in the form of vouchers and/or other services (with flexible conditions particularly regarding validity period and destination) in an amount equivalent to the Ticket Price. Where the Passenger chooses re-routing, the original booking will be cancelled and a new booking for re-routing may be made by the Passenger subject to availability and this new booking shall constitute a new contract which shall replace the original contract.
26. Unless any cancellation or delay is caused by weather conditions endangering the safe operation of the ship as determined under the overriding authority of the Master, or by extraordinary circumstances hindering the performance of the Passenger service which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken, Passengers without losing the right to transport may request compensation from the Carrier if facing a delay in arrival at the final destination.
The minimum level of compensation shall be 25% of the Ticket Price paid for a delay of at least: (i) one hour in the case of a scheduled journey of up to four hours; (ii) two hours in the case of a scheduled journey of more than four hours, but not exceeding 8 hours; (iii) three hours in the case of a scheduled journey of more than eight hours, but not exceeding 24 hours; or (iv) six hours in the case of a scheduled journey of more than 24 hours. If the delay exceeds double the time set out above the compensation shall be 50% of the Ticket Price.
Compensation shall be calculated in relation to the Ticket Price which excludes extras including but not limited to onboard accommodation, meals, Club Class, speedy exit, kennels etc. Where the transport is for a return journey, compensation for delay in arrival on either the outward or the return leg shall be calculated in relation to half of the Ticket Price.
Compensation shall not be payable if the Passenger is informed of the cancellation or delay before the purchase of the ticket including payment of all fares and charges or if the cancellation or delay is caused by the fault of the passenger.
Compensation payable shall be paid within 1 month after the submission of the fully completed request for compensation. The compensation may be paid in vouchers or money at the request of the Passenger.
27. The Carrier or the vessel’s Master or any of its officers or agents may (notwithstanding any booking previously made) refuse to carry any Passenger or Luggage on any sailing for any cause including relating to the safety of the vessel or any property on board the vessel, or to the safety, comfort or convenience of any other Passenger or any servant agent or independent contractor of the Carrier directly or indirectly involved with the carriage in question. In such circumstances the Passenger shall not be entitled to any compensation or payment whatsoever save that the Carrier shall refund to the Passenger any fare or other charges paid to the Carrier in respect of that sailing.
28. The Carrier and the vessel shall have liberty to carry the Luggage/Vehicles on deck or in/ on any other part of the vessel, to sail with or without the full complement of Passengers and Luggage booked to sail, with or without a pilot, to make trial trips to adjust compasses, to carry goods of any kind whatsoever, dangerous or otherwise, to dry dock with or without the Luggage/Vehicles on board, to tow and assist vessels or be towed in all situations and to proceed on one or more occasions to or from and use any port or ports in any order or rotation for any purpose whatsoever whether in or out of or short of or beyond the route between the termini for the carriage of any Passenger or Luggage or the customary or advertised route provided that the said liberty shall at all times be exercised reasonably having regard to the prevailing circumstances.
29. The Carrier and the vessel shall have liberty for any purpose (such liberty to be exercised reasonably and having regard to the prevailing circumstances) to
(i) carry any Passenger, Vehicle or Luggage to any port other than the port of destination notwithstanding that the vessel may have called at such port of destination and/or discharged other Passengers or Luggage there;
(ii) to carry any Passenger, Vehicle or Luggage back to the port of destination or to the port of embarkation;
(iii) to tranship any Passenger, Vehicle or Luggage into (or in the case of Luggage onto the deck of) any vessel;
(iv) to land any Passenger, Vehicle or Luggage; or
(v) to store Luggage at any port or place and to forward any Passenger, Vehicle or Luggage to the port of destination by any route in or on any vessel or other means of transport (to whomsoever belonging) having regard to the prevailing circumstances.
None of the foregoing shall entitle any Passenger to any payment or compensation whatsoever whether by way of refund of any fare or other charges paid to the Carrier or otherwise other than in accordance with Clauses 25 and 26 above.
30. Without prejudice to the generality of any other provision of these conditions, the Carrier and the vessel shall have liberty to comply with any other directions or advices given by any Government or any department thereof or by any Person acting (or purporting to act) with the authority of any Government or any department thereof or by any Committee or Person having under the terms of the war risks insurance on the vessel the right to give such orders directions or advices, as to departure, arrival, routes, ports of loading call or discharge, stoppages, transhipment, discharge, or destination or otherwise howsoever. The vessel shall have liberty to carry contraband explosives munitions and warlike stores and to sail armed or unarmed.
31. The exercise in accordance with these conditions of any liberty or other right provided herein shall not constitute a deviation or a breach of contract as between the Carrier and the Passenger but shall form part of and be within the scope of the contract voyage. Any Passenger or Luggage affected by the exercise of any such liberty or other right shall at all times remain subject to these conditions.
32. Every Passenger must whenever so required by a servant of the Carrier quote a valid booking reference number or produce a valid printed e-ticket booking confirmation. If a Passenger fails to quote a valid booking reference number or produce a valid printed e-ticket booking confirmation on demand of a servant of the Carrier he shall be liable to pay and shall forthwith pay to the Carrier the fare for a particular sailing or sailings on which the Passenger wishes to travel. The Carrier cannot be held responsible if the Passenger cannot quote his valid booking reference number or produce a valid e-ticket booking confirmation. Replacements must be paid for at the fare available on the day of replacement.
33. Accommodation on board vessels for Passengers, Luggage and Vehicles is limited and is subject to availability on their chosen date and route. This is the case notwithstanding any information published by the Carrier as to the latest check-in times before departure for any sailings on any of its services.
34. Save as otherwise provided, fares and all other charges must be paid in accordance with the terms of the booking. Charges in respect of Berths must be paid at the time of booking.
35. The Carrier reserves the right to publish fares and charges in such currency or currencies as it may from time to time determine and to vary the fares and charges so published without notice. If any fare or charge is not paid at the time of booking then the purchase of the ticket has not been completed until all fares and charges have been paid. Where a deposit or part payments has been paid this is to secure space on a sailing only and does not represent the purchase of the ticket. If any fare or charge is not paid at the time of booking then the fare or charge to be paid shall be that current at the time of payment.
If any fare or charge has been paid three months or more before the earliest sailing date to which the booking relates, the Carrier reserves the right to require the Passenger to pay prior to embarkation a supplement in respect of any fluctuation in relevant exchange rates or any increase in the Carrier's operating costs notwithstanding that the amount paid by the Passenger represented the full fare or charge current at the date of payment. If the Passenger does not wish to pay this increase, then he/she may terminate the Booking.
36. Any fares or charges at less than the Carrier's full standard rate are subject to such special terms and conditions as to availability or otherwise as may from time to time be advertised in the Carrier's notices and publications. Fares and charges published by the Carrier (even if in relation to through carriage) do not include the conveyance of Passengers and their Luggage from ferry terminals to railway or coach stations (or vice versa) which must be arranged by Passengers at their own expense.
37. The fare for an adult Passenger includes any infant Passenger under four years of age accompanying that Passenger but any such infant must be included in the number of Passengers for booking purposes. Save by special arrangement with the Carrier children under sixteen years of age must be accompanied by a responsible adult Passenger.
38. Berths/Cabin/Club Class reservations are valid only if the Passenger has a valid booking reference or valid e-ticket booking confirmation for the same sailing. Berths/Cabins/Club Class must be claimed not later than the advertised sailing time failing which the right to a Berth/Cabin/Club Class will be forfeited without the right to any compensation whether by way of a refund of charges or otherwise and the Carrier shall be entitled to re-allocate the Berth/Cabin/Club Class seat reserved.
39. All applications for refunds and the amount (if any) of such refunds in respect of cancelled bookings and unused tickets are at the sole discretion of the Carrier.
40. Passengers must be through check-in and on board at the times as advised in the Carrier’s notices, announcements and publications. In the event of Passengers failing to check-in and board as advised, the Carrier shall be entitled to treat reservations as cancelled without the right to any compensation.
41. An allowance for luggage is made for each Passenger as follows:
(a) Car Passengers may bring as much Luggage as they can safely fit into or onto their Vehicle subject to Clause 47.
(b) Foot Passengers may only bring as much as they can safely and comfortably carry themselves. All Luggage in excess of hand Luggage (similar to airlines) must be checked-in.
(c) Day Trip foot-passengers may only take hand Luggage. Luggage in excess of that allowed for car Passengers is permitted subject to availability of height and width space on the car deck.
All luggage whether or not within the allowance is subject to these conditions which shall continue to apply during any period when Luggage is in any baggage room, locker room, cabin, car deck or public area whether or not manned or supervised by a servant or agent of the Carrier. The Passenger must himself arrange for the placing on board and removal of Luggage other than checked-in Luggage.
42. Subject to any applicable law, Domestic Animals are carried at such fares as are from time to time advertised in the Carrier's notices and publications. Non-Domestic Animals are not permitted on board.
Domestic Animals (except registered guide dogs) are not permitted in Passenger accommodation and must be left in Vehicles or by special arrangement with the Carrier and subject to availability of space placed in kennels on board. Domestic Animals are carried at the entire risk of the Passenger and on the express understanding that no liability shall attach to the Carrier, its Servants, Agents or Independent Contractors for any Injury Loss or Damage of or to any Domestic Animal howsoever whensoever and wheresoever caused.
All Domestic Animals must have a Pet Passport for all routes where such Pet Passport is required (including but not limited to the Ireland /France/Ireland route). It is the Passenger's responsibility to ensure that all the entry conditions at the destination port are met otherwise the Domestic Animal will not be allowed to travel. Further the Passenger undertakes that he will comply with all statutes, rules, orders and regulations applicable to Domestic Animals at any relevant port and that he will indemnify the Carrier its Servants Agents and Independent Contractors and each of them against all consequences whatsoever of any failure so to comply. Save as aforesaid Domestic Animals are carried subject to these conditions.
43. No Passenger shall bring or cause or permit to be brought on board any Luggage of a dangerous explosive or inflammable nature or Luggage the carriage of which is prohibited by any statute rule order or regulation whatsoever. A non-exhaustive list of prohibited items is available on www.irishferries.com. Any such Luggage which is notwithstanding the foregoing brought on board may at the discretion of the Carrier or the Master be landed at any place destroyed rendered innocuous or otherwise disposed of at any time without notice or compensation to the Passenger. Save as aforesaid such Luggage is carried subject to these conditions. Passengers travelling with motorhomes, caravans or dormobiles that contain domestic appliances must ensure that the gas supply to these appliances is fully shut off and disconnected while on board the vessel.
44. The Carrier reserves the right for security purposes or otherwise to search any Passenger or Luggage (including a Vehicle). The Passenger agrees to submit to such search upon the request of any servant agent or independent contractor of the Carrier.
45. All goods other than accompanied Luggage Vehicles and Domestic Animals are accepted and carried only on the Carrier's Standard Conditions of Carriage of Goods for the time being in force as set out in the Carrier's notices and publications. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing goods to which this Clause applies include all unaccompanied Luggage and Vehicles Luggage in advance animals (other than Domestic Animals) and goods Vehicles (whether or not laden and whether or not accompanied). Consignors of all such goods must apply for and obtain a consignment note prior to shipment.
46. During the passage Vehicles must be locked the handbrake applied and first or park gear engaged. Access to Vehicles is not permitted during the passage. A reasonable amount of fuel may remain in the tanks during the passage but tanks must not be filled to capacity. The flow from the tank to carburettor must be shut off where this is not automatic. Fuel in cans or other containers is not permitted. On disembarkation Vehicle engines must not be started until instructed. Passengers are responsible for driving Vehicles onto and off the vessel.
47. The Carrier reserves the right (at the risk and expense of the Passenger) to move Vehicles at any time and by any means which it considers necessary. Vehicles with Luggage loaded on the roof in excess of six feet (1.82 metres) from ground level or protruding beyond the length or width of the Vehicle are accepted subject to availability of space carried only by special arrangement with the Carrier and at such additional charge as may from time to time be determined by the Carrier. The Carrier reserves the right (at the risk and expense of the Passenger) to remove any such Luggage loaded on the roof of a Vehicle at any time and by any means which it considers necessary.
48. Passengers are advised to arrange all necessary travel insurance for Passengers, Luggage and Vehicles. Insurance may be effected through the Carrier - details available on application to any office of the Carrier or its agents.
49. The Carrier participates in the Government controlled Pet Travel Scheme which allows the movement of dogs, cats and ferrets within the EU member states without quarantine restrictions. All animals travelling under this scheme need a Pet Passport. It is the pet owner's responsibility to ensure that all the entry conditions are met otherwise the animal will not be allowed to travel.
The Passenger must ensure all necessary documentation is obtained in respect of the carriage of Domestic Animals or other animals as may be permitted from time to time irrespective of whether the voyage is within EU member states or otherwise.
50. Current amendment fees are available on our website www.irishferries.com/amend. Promotional and sale fares may attract special terms and conditions relating to amendment charges. These charges will be listed on the relevant fare pages at www.irishferries.com over the course of the offer booking period.
51. Current cancellation fees on all routes are available on our website www.irishferries.com/cancel. Promotional and sale fares may attract special terms and conditions relating to cancellation charges. These charges will be listed on the relevant fare pages at www.irishferries.com over the course of the offer booking period.
52. The current refund policy for all routes is available on our website www.irishferries.com.
53. Valid discounts which have been allocated to your customer account must be applied to your booking before outward travel commences as they cannot be applied retrospectively. All discounts are subject to terms and conditions.
How the Carrier may use your personal information
54. The Carrier will only use your personal information as set out in the Carrier's Privacy Policy.
Issued By: Irish Ferries Limited, P.O.Box 19, Ferryport, Alexandra Road, Dublin 1.
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Size matters when it comes to playing fields for kids
By Stephanie Rogers, 08/27/14, 9:30PM EDT
You wouldn’t expect your child to work like a grown up, so why are we making her play like one? Your five year old doesn’t read novels, does he?
And yet for the last few decades when kids have hit the soccer pitch or the hockey rink, they’ve been put on an equal playing field — literally — to adults. But, to an 8-year old, 50 yards actually feels like a 100. So when kids play in an adult-sized space, they’re playing on a surface that’s at least twice as big as what they can handle
http://activeforlife.com/size-matters/
Tag(s): Coaches
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United Technologies - Get News & Ratings Daily
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$19.46 Billion in Sales Expected for United Technologies Co. (UTX) This Quarter
May 17th, 2019 - By Gary James
Filed Under: Consensus Rating Articles - Finance
Wall Street analysts predict that United Technologies Co. (NYSE:UTX) will announce $19.46 billion in sales for the current fiscal quarter, Zacks Investment Research reports. Five analysts have issued estimates for United Technologies’ earnings. The lowest sales estimate is $19.12 billion and the highest is $19.89 billion. United Technologies posted sales of $16.71 billion in the same quarter last year, which suggests a positive year over year growth rate of 16.5%. The business is expected to report its next earnings report on Tuesday, July 23rd.
On average, analysts expect that United Technologies will report full-year sales of $76.68 billion for the current fiscal year, with estimates ranging from $75.90 billion to $77.39 billion. For the next fiscal year, analysts anticipate that the firm will report sales of $80.37 billion, with estimates ranging from $79.40 billion to $81.38 billion. Zacks’ sales averages are an average based on a survey of analysts that follow United Technologies.
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United Technologies (NYSE:UTX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The conglomerate reported $1.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.71 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $18.37 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $18.01 billion. United Technologies had a net margin of 7.64% and a return on equity of 17.02%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 20.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.77 earnings per share.
UTX has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. OTR Global cut shares of United Technologies to a “positive” rating in a report on Friday, January 18th. Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $149.00 price target on shares of United Technologies in a report on Wednesday, January 23rd. Bank of America reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $185.00 price target on shares of United Technologies in a report on Thursday, January 24th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of United Technologies to $129.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 24th. Finally, Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of United Technologies from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $129.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 30th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. United Technologies currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $147.76.
UTX opened at $135.25 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $115.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 1.13. United Technologies has a 12-month low of $100.48 and a 12-month high of $144.40.
The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 10th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.735 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $2.94 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.17%. United Technologies’s payout ratio is 38.63%.
In other news, CEO Robert Kelly Ortberg sold 16,587 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.59, for a total transaction of $2,099,748.33. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 70,211 shares in the company, valued at $8,888,010.49. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP Robert J. Bailey sold 1,418 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.20, for a total transaction of $178,951.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 28,415 shares of company stock valued at $3,614,625. 0.15% of the stock is owned by insiders.
Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. WESPAC Advisors SoCal LLC bought a new position in United Technologies in the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Strategy Asset Managers LLC bought a new position in United Technologies in the 1st quarter valued at about $26,000. Guidant Wealth Advisors grew its position in United Technologies by 64.9% in the 4th quarter. Guidant Wealth Advisors now owns 254 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Harvest Group Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in United Technologies in the 1st quarter valued at about $33,000. Finally, Advisory Alpha LLC bought a new position in United Technologies in the 1st quarter valued at about $36,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.53% of the company’s stock.
About United Technologies
United Technologies Corporation provides technology products and services to building systems and aerospace industries worldwide. Its Otis segment designs, manufactures, sells, and installs passenger and freight elevators, escalators, and moving walkways; and offers modernization products to upgrade elevators and escalators, as well as maintenance and repair services.
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Shaman Arrested For Keeping Woman For 15 Years In Cave As Sex Slave
The girl was only 13 when she disappeared.
Her parents had taken her to a shaman near their home in rural Indonesia for treatment and left her with him, but she never came back. The shaman told them that she had gone to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to find work. They never heard from her again.
But this week, 15 years after her disappearance, the now-28-year-old woman - whom authorities are calling only "H" - was found in a cave near the shaman's home. He allegedly had kept her there the entire time, raping her and convincing her that he was possessed by a jinn, or spirit.
The police rescued the woman on Sunday, after receiving a tip, the Jakarta Post reported
Muhammad Iqbal Alqudusy, the police chief of Central Sulawesi province, said the shaman told H that he was possessed by the spirit of a boy named Amrin, Reuters reported. He showed her a photo of Amrin and brainwashed her into believing that he was her boyfriend. "She was led to believe that Amrin's spirit had entered [the elderly man's] body," the police chief said at a news conference. "It is obvious that he was satisfying his lust."
H would apparently sit hidden in a cave of boulders during the day and stay overnight in a hut close to the shaman's house.
According to the Jakarta Post, the elderly man also told police that he had provided H potions to terminate multiple pregnancies over the years. The shaman faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of coercing a minor into intercourse and may face other charges, as well.
Police also may be investigating whether H's sister knew of her whereabouts all along. The Jakarta Post reported that the sister was married to the witch doctor's son and may have had a role in the tip-off.
Magdalena Sitorus, who heads Indonesia's National Commission on Violence Against Women, told the newspaper that her organization has not yet been asked to work on the case. But she warned that H may not have been the only victim.
"Since the perpetrator was well-respected in the village, there is a possibility that there are other victims that have not yet come forward because they are afraid," Sitorus said.
Siobhán O'Grady, The Washington Post
Witch Doctor Arrested For Keeping Woman As Sex Slave For 15 Years In Cave
The girl was only 13 when she disappeared
15 years after her disappearance the now-28-year-old woman - whom authorities are calling only H - was found in a cave near the shamans home
The elderly man also told police that he had provided H potions to terminate multiple pregnancies over the years
The shaman faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of coercing a minor into intercourse
The perpetrator was well-respected in the village there is a possibility that there are other victims that have not yet come forward because they are afraid
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Here's why Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay don't use the word "diversity" anymore
Hollywood has systemic representation issues, it's true. But don't call it a "diversity" problem — at least, not while talking to Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay. Speaking in a joint interview with the Hollywood Reporter, the duo explained that "diversity" should be replaced in such dialogues with "inclusion," because that's really the goal in Hollywood and other prominent industries: to be included and "have a seat at the table," as Winfrey put it.
"We aren't sitting around talking about diversity, just like we aren't sitting around talking about being black or being women," DuVernay explained. "We're just being that."
Winfrey, for her part, admitted that she used to use diversity when discussing the concept, but has since taken DuVernay's stance.
"I will say that I stand corrected," she told the Hollywood Reporter. "I used to use the word 'diversity' all the time. 'We want more diverse stories, more diverse characters ...' Now I really eliminated it from my vocabulary because I've learned from her that the word that most articulates what we're looking for is what we want to be: included."
Winfrey and DuVernay will soon debut a new series on Oprah's OWN network, Queen Sugar. The series will follow the lives of two sisters who must band together to help run their family's sugarcane farm in the Deep South. Queen Sugar certainly fits the inclusive mold: All the series' episodes will be directed by women.
Watch the trailer for Queen Sugar, which premieres on OWN Sept. 6, below.
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https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/The-Mercedes-S600-A-muscle-car-dressed-in-a-11785729.php
The Mercedes S600: A muscle car dressed in a designer suit
Staff, Relaxnews
Published 2:42 pm EST, Tuesday, January 14, 2014
e5008ecf-05b2-4306-bef9-456954307661
The car is brimming with so much active safety technology that it can pretty much drive itself, but giving the S600 full autonomy would rob owners of its greatest feature - its glorious 6-liter, bi-turbo V12 engine.
And what an engine it is. Bigger and more powerful than the V12 that graced the outgoing model - 530 hp, 830 Nm of torque and a 0-62 mph (100kph) time of just 4.6 seconds - yet lighter and more fuel efficient. It will guarantee exactly the right levels of performance on tap at exactly the right time, whatever the prevailing road conditions.
But thanks to its Magic Body Control suspension the car shouldn't roll in the corners or feel anything other than smooth for the rear-seat passengers. Further ensuring a comfortable ride is something called Road Surface Scan that alters the car's set-up to suit the driving surface - silky tarmac or cobblestones or concrete.
But the technological trickery doesn't end there. The car has a host of systems, from Collision Prevention Assist Plus to Active Lane Keeping Assist that work together to keep the car safe from front and rear-end collisions, to help drivers avoid obstacles, and track the movement of other vehicles around the car.
In fact, it has so many active safety and driver assist features that it is just one or two regulatory changes away from being able to taking over the driving completely. It knows which lane it's in, is aware of cars joining the road from slip lanes and can brake in such a way that it stops short of the vehicle in front but at just the right speed to make sure the car following also has enough time to stop too, without crashing.
But that is the S-Class's reason for being. It is not only Mercedes-Benz's flagship car, each new imagining of the luxury executive sedan serves as the pinnacle of what is possible in terms of automotive technology at any given moment and gives consumers a taste of what they can expect to find in their cars in the near future.
The first car with rear seatbelts? The S-Class. The first car with anti-lock brakes? The S-Class. First airbag? First parking sensors? First active collision avoidance system? The list goes on and on and with the latest addition the list is no even longer still.
Inside, it's the same story. Two displays have been integrated into the dashboard that offer digital representations of the dials but can also display other crucial or necessary driver information. The infotainment system has also been upgraded to feature a new controller that will be immediately familiar and intuitive to anyone who owns a smartphone - so roughly half the world's adult population - that uses finger taps, gestures and even handwriting recognition. Or, simply talk and the car will respond to vocal commands.
Then there's the full-color head-up display that projects the car's speed, and navigation information onto the windshield and therefore directly within the driver's field of vision to minimize potential distraction.
Officially revealed at the Detroit Auto Show this week, the Mercedes Benz S600 will be available to order in the US and Europe from March and can be specified with the standard or extended limousine wheelbase.
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Public consultation on sentencing guidelines for Scottish courts
Lady Dorrian, chairwoman of the Scottish Sentencing Council.
The public is to have a say in the development of Scotland’s first sentencing guideline which will influence the way offenders are sentenced in our courts.
The Scottish Sentencing Council is launching a public consultation on its first draft guideline, which sets out the principles and purposes of sentencing for all offences.
The council, which is made up of judicial, legal and lay members, was set up as an independent advisory body to promote consistency in sentencing across Scotland. An essential part of its work is to prepare guidelines for the courts.
Although some relevant guidance already exists in the form of court decisions in particular cases, this will be the first time that a comprehensive definition is provided for the principles underlying sentencing decisions and the purposes they seek to achieve.
The draft guideline sets out an overarching principle of ‘fairness and proportionality’ and a series of supporting principles which contribute to this.
Some of the supporting principles are:-
Similar offences should be treated in a similar manner
Sentences should be no more severe than necessary
Reasons for sentencing decisions should be stated clearly and openly
People should be treated equally, without discrimination.
The draft guideline also outlines the purposes sentencing may seek to achieve, for example, punishment, reduction of crime (including through rehabilitation), reflecting society’s disapproval, giving offenders an opportunity to make amends.
In order to prepare the draft guideline, the council has carried out significant background research, consulting widely with judges across Scotland, considering previous research on this topic both in Scotland and in other jurisdictions, and engaging with interested organisations.
The draft guideline was designed to assist judges in court and to help the public better understand how sentences are decided. The consultation asks people to comment both on the principles and purposes identified, and on how easy the guideline is to understand.
Lady Dorrian, the Lord Justice Clerk and council chairwoman, said: “The fundamental principles and purposes of sentencing have never before been expressly defined in Scotland. We believe that creating this guideline will have significant benefits both to the public and the courts, increasing consistency and transparency in sentencing.
“We are committed to taking an open and transparent approach to developing sentencing guidelines and the public consultation process is a vital part of that – we cannot complete our work in isolation.
“I would urge anyone with an interest in how sentences are decided and in the overall aims of sentencing in Scotland to take this opportunity to participate in our public consultation. We welcome views and comment on all of our work, including on suggested topics for future guidelines.”
The council is also currently developing general guidelines relating to the sentencing process - including the steps taken by judges when deciding sentences and the different factors they take into account – and on the sentencing of young people.
As announced in the council’s business plan, preparatory work is being undertaken in relation to offence specific guidelines relating to causing death by driving and wildlife and environmental crime.
In addition to this work, the council has created a comprehensive website resource explaining how judges decide a sentence. This includes videos and an interactive scenario that lets people choose what happens next in a realistic court case, and then select the sentence they would give - if they were the judge. To take part in the public consultation, visit the Council’s website https://www.scottishsentencingcouncil.org.uk/consultations/principles-and-purposes-of-sentencing
The deadline for submissions is noon on 27 October.
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Database Menu
Drivers/Riders
11th January 1983 (Age 36)
Starnberg, Bavaria
Most recent race (in database):
2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
The son of professional musicians and a talented concert pianist himself, Adrian Sutil’s seven seasons as a Grand Prix driver included flashes of promise and too many incidents with others. Especially adept in changeable conditions, his raw talent and speed could not be matched by much needed consistency. In addition, he was also implicated in a nightclub brawl after the 2011 Chinese GP that forced him to miss the following season at a crucial time in his Formula 1 career.
Early racing career
Sutil was already 14 years old when he started to compete in karts but he switched to cars in 2002. He won that year’s Swiss Formula Ford 1800 Championship (winning every race of the less-than competitive series) before switching to German Formula BMW a year later with HBR Motorsport. Second during the final weekend at Hockenheim was one of three podium finishes as Sutil claimed sixth in the points.
He joined Team Kolles for an inconsistent campaign in the 2004 Formula 3 Euroseries. Pole position at Adria was followed by Sutil’s best result of the season, finishing fourth despite a spin. He switched to ASM for the final weekend of the season at Hockenheim and was fastest in qualifying once more. He remained with ASM in 2005 and won twice (Spa-Francorchamps and Nürburgring) as he finished a distant runner-up behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Sutil was also second behind Hamilton in the Zandvoort F3 Masters before representing Germany in three A1GP rounds that winter.
Rather than remain in European F3 for a third season, Sutil accepted a works TOM’s drive in the Japanese series and that move paid dividends. His Dallara F305-Toyota won five times as the German clinched the title and he was third in the Macau GP – beaten by Mike Conway and Richard Antinucci.
Formula 1 with Spyker
In addition to his F3 exploits during 2006, Sutil joined the Kolles-managed Midland F1 team (formerly Jordan Grand Prix) as a reserve driver and he was Friday test driver at the European, French and Japanese GPs.
The team was acquired by the Spyker car company in September 2006 and rebadged for the 2007 F1 World Championship with Sutil promoted to the race team. Against a background of imposed financial restraint due to modest budget, Sutil showed promise, even topping the time sheets in Saturday’s wet free practice session at Monaco. The Japanese GP was held in near monsoon conditions at Fuji and Sutil delivered the team’s only point of the season when he inherited eighth position when Tonio Liuzzi was penalised for overtaking under yellow flags.
New identity as Force India
Vijay Mallya acquired the team that winter and Sutil was retained by the renamed Force India for 2008 – its fourth identity in as many years. However, errors that could have been forgiven a year ago as those of a rookie were now seen as inconsistency. His Force India VJM01-Ferrari retired from 11 GPs including crashing out five times. That included during the closing stages of the wet Monaco GP when Sutil was on course for a fine fourth place finish before Kimi Räikkönen lost control and crashed into him at the chicane.
He was retained by Force India despite that pointless campaign. With the team now powered by Mercedes-Benz engines, it enjoyed a welcome upturn in form at the end of the European season. Giancarlo Fisichella converted a surprise pole position for the 2009 Belgian GP into a second place finish and Sutil starred at Monza. Having started from the front row for the only time in his F1 career, Sutil recovered from hitting one of his mechanics during a pitstop (without injury) to set the fastest race lap and finish fourth.
The 2010 season began with Sutil making it into Q3 for the first four races including starting fourth in Malaysia. Fifth in the race, he repeated that result in Belgium despite richer teams out-developing Force India as the season progressed. He outperformed team-mate Liuzzi and completed his best season so far 11th in the World Championship.
Although Sutil would finish 2011 with his best position in the world championship, much of the year was overshadowed by an incident in a Chinese nightclub. Alleged to have assaulted Lotus Renault co-owner Eric Lux, Sutil eventually appeared in a Munich court in January 2012 and he was found guilty of bodily harm for which he received a suspended 18 month sentence and €200,000 fine. Such a pity that escapade masked his finest season to date – scoring points on nine occasions and a career best ninth overall.
Return to Force India and Sauber
After a year away from the sport, Sutil made a surprise return to Force India in 2013 and was immediately back in the limelight. He employed an alternative tyre strategy to lead the Australian GP before finishing seventh. An impressive fifth at Monaco was the best finish of his year but it would not be enough to keep his place in the Force India line-up.
New permanent numbers were introduced for the 2014 World Championship with Sutil choosing 99 for his Sauber C33-Ferrari. However, this was to be one of the worst seasons for his new team and neither Sutil nor team-mate Esteban Gutiérrez scored a point. That meant that Sutil was left without a drive at the start of 2015. He became Williams’s reserve driver after Valtteri Bottas missed the opening Grand Prix with a back injury but was not called into action in what was his most recent association with the sport.
Championship seasons
2014 F1 World Championship
Sauber F1 Team 19 0 0 0
0% win rate
Sahara Force India F1 Team 19 0 0 0
Force India Formula One Team 19 0 0 0
Etihad Aldar Spyker F1 Team 17 0 0 0
Spyker MF1 Racing
MF1 Toyota 0 (3) 0 0 0 0
2006 All-Japan F3 Championship 1st -
2005/2006 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport
Super Nova Racing 6 0 0 0
2005 F3 Euroseries
ASM 18 1 11 2
Team Kolles
ASM 20 2 0 0
Kolles
Midland F1
Spyker F1 Team
Super Nova Racing
We want the content of the database to be driven by you, the readers. What would you like to see? Which series would you like included? Let us know by using the email address below.
Every effort has been made to trace the origins of the images. If you do have a question though, please get in touch.
Email: database@motorsportmagazine.com
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Hweeldi: The Woven Tribute
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) is commemorating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Bosque Redondo, signed June 1, 1868, by displaying an extraordinary wool rug woven in tribute to the Long Walk. Created in the early 1900s, the rug is an impressive 9 ft. by 15 ft., last displayed at MIAC in 1996.
While the identity of the weavers of the piece remains unknown, Navajo oral history – and likely some first-hand accounts – informed the weavers along the way with their design.
In 1868, the Long Walk was initiated by the United States military as part of Manifest Destiny, the concept that expansion of the United States in the 1800s was both justified and inevitable. Only the 1868 treaty allowed the Navajo to return to their Diné Bikéyah (Navajo sacred lands) in northwestern New Mexico, where they rebuilt as a nation of herders, farmers, and weavers.
“The Long Walk is the most tragic historical event among the Navajo people,” said Joyce Begay-Foss, curator and director of education. “Among most tribal members it is not spoken about due to the sensitive nature of the historical trauma.”
“Other tribal members feel though that we must never forget what the people who came before us suffered and endured,” Begay-Foss added.
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My Revolutionary Year Iran 1978-9
In 1976, I - Annabelle - a British woman, moved to Iran with my Iranian husband Ali.
We lived in Tehran where we enjoyed a wide circle of cosmopolitan friends of many nationalities.
An inveterate snapper, I took a lot of photographs. These provide an interesting record of a unique period – 1978-1979 – when a population mobilised into revolution. There are an especially large number of images of women who played a significant role in the political mobilization. There is quite a lot of focus on the communicative means that people used to claim solidarity, mark events, mobilise others. In that sense, the Iranian Revolution prefigures some of the dynamics of the Arab Spring where people used social media in similar ways.
The revolutionary process in Iran became the focus of my doctoral studies at Columbia University and later a book, Small Media, Big Revolution, co-authored with Ali Mohammadi.
This served to ground my academic career in international communication. I taught first at Queens College, CUNY, New York. Then, on the retirement of Jim Halloran, I became the second head of the Centre for Mass Communication Research at the University of Leicester. Latterly, I founded – together with Mark Hobart – the Centre for Media and Film Studies (now called the Centre for Global Media and Communications) at SOAS, University of London, from where I have retired. I also helped to establish the Centre for Iranian Studies at SOAS and was its first chair.
Forty years on, I hope these images serve as a reminder of how the Iranian Revolution happened and what an important process it was, with enormous impact inside the country and outside. These images might also help make Iranians seem a little more familiar to Western eyes.
All the photographs are mine, except when I am myself in the frame! They were mainly taken with a Pentax and the film was developed in Tehran. The images have been scanned and digitized in London and are a mix of black and white and colour. They have not been tweaked or digitally enhanced.
Was this an intentional research or photographic project? The answer is no! I just like to take photographs. This is ‘my’ revolution, a record of where I went and what I saw during what was the most exciting year of my life. It is not even a record of the most important moments nor is it a complete record of ‘the’ revolution (whatever that might be). Selected photos have appeared in my published books and essays and I have used many in talks and conference presentations. Some have been used in other peoples’ works. They have never been collected together before. The photographs are clustered into stories. Just click to enlarge an image.
Where the subject is known to me, I have endeavoured to get their permission to use their image. If anyone has information about a photograph or even recognises themselves in a shot, please let me know. Some images are hard to pin down to a specific date or even location. Any help would be gratefully received: See the Contact page for details of how to find me.
Revolutions are times of great excitement, collective action and desire for a better future.
Here Ali and his brother look out on an open tract of land, imagining wonderful things.
We entered this revolution in hope.
© My Revolutionary Year Iran 1978-9 2019. All rights reserved
Designed and built by Back to Front
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Dari Alexander husband, bio, family and net worth
USD 3.5 million
Married/Spouse
Salary and Net Worth : How much is Dari Alexander net worth?
Personal Life : Who is Dari Alexander husband?
Height and Weight : How tall is Dari Alexander?
Bio and Wiki : is Dari Alexander active on social media sites?
Among the several successful journalists, Dari Alexander serve herself as one of the prominent journalist of American news industry. Born and raised in America, she serve herself as a news anchor, reporter, media personality, author and American journalist by her profession. She is best known for her enthusiastic involvement in FOX 5 NY as a news anchor. Similarly, she is also the co-anchor of WNYW’s FOX 5 News at 5 and 10 pm with Steven Lacy. With great endeavors, Dari Alexander net worth is huge, while she is one of the good source of inspiration to many.
Alexander began her professional career as a field producer for CBS News. Before coming to immense fame, she has several remarkable endeavors in numerous networks. She was excellent in Columbus, Ohio for then NBC O & O, and WCMH-TV. Likewise, she has also served WFAA-TV (ABC in Dallas) as a weekend anchor/reporter. During her tenure in FNC, she has anchored Fox 5 News at 6 along with Rick Folbaum. Likewise, she has served Good Day New York and has travelled numerous countries including Kabul, Afghanistan and Pakistan to cover the murder of Daniel Pearl. In the contrary, she was also one of the first reporters to report from Ground Zero during September 11, 2001 attack.
Dari Alexander service and enthusiastic wok is beyond measure. She has been the favorite of many while, she also serves herself as an author. She authored the diet and weight loss book named Quick & Clean Diet released in 2013. In the contrary, she is earning a lot. The source states that Dari Alexander net worth stands $3.5 million.
Accounting Dari Alexander husband, married life and dating status, Alexander serve herself as a happily married woman. Dari has been married with her husband from a long time. And the pair is blessed with two beautiful children. However, Alexander seems to be pretty shy revealing about her family background. The whole family resides in Manhattan, United States of America.
Coming to Dari Alexander height, weight and perfect body measurement, there’s no doubt that she is one of the sensational women in the industry. Dari Alexander height stands 5 feet 7 inch and weigh 55kg. Whereas, Alexander other figures has been well hidden from the media. She has Dark brown color eyes and she belongs to white ethnicity.
Dari Alexander bio includes her birth pace as 1969, October 26 in United States. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College and New York University’s (NYU) journalism program. Most of her early bio is well hidden. Whereas, she is available in wiki and other bio related sites. And she is active social platform users including twitter and Instagram.
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Papillomas on the vocal cords
It is important to realise that even the use of a condom by a man with genital warts or HPV infection may not protect his partner from transmission...
I received laser surgery to my vocal cords from a specialist ears, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon who told me I had papillomas on my vocal cords.
I was so busy asking him about the long-term implications and the effects on my career as a salesperson, that I forgot to ask how I got them.
When I was told I had polyps, I thought this was down to my ex-smoking habit and straining my voice.
Now I realise it is papillomas and that it is a wart virus, I wonder what the cause is. Could it be the genital wart virus contracted through oral sex?
If so, how long before the hoarse voice becomes apparent would oral sex have to take place? Am I contagious to kiss and to give oral sex now?
Please fill me in because if this is the case I am ashamed to tell people about my condition and I feel really dirty.
I can't get this out of my mind and it is getting me down.
I am sorry to learn of your condition and can understand your concern and the confusion that has arisen as a result of the diagnosis.
A papilloma may develop in the larynx and is defined as a benign wart-like growth occurring as a result of infection with a virus.
Even assuming your infection did occur as a result of oral sex, I am unable to say how long before your hoarse voice became apparent this is likely to have taken place, or whether you are contagious to kiss and to give oral sex now.
I will attempt to demystify the subject for you by discussing human papilloma virus (HPV) infection in some detail.
Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of information about the transmission of HPV and for how long it infects people.
Latterly it has been discovered that the development of cervical cancer is strongly associated with genital infection of HPV with around 95 per cent of patients developing cervical cancer having evidence of infection.
However, the majority of women infected with HPV never develop cancer. Therefore, additional factors are necessary and smoking appears to be the most significant environmental risk factor – another good reason not to smoke.
More recently, there have been studies following normal female college students, who did not have genital warts or cancer, to see how often they were infected with HPV.
In one such study, on the first examination, 11.2 per cent of the women had antibodies to one strain of HPV, meaning that they had had the infection at some time, but only 6.9 per cent had the virus in their vaginas.
Therefore it would appear that about half of these infected women had got over the infection at this stage.
Four years later, 80 per cent of the sexually active women had been infected with HPV and 9 out of 10 had no warts or abnormalities on their cervical smear test.
Although the great majority of infections came from sexual relations, a minority was thought to be due to contact with inanimate objects, ie through non-sexual means.
The rate of transmission through oral sex was extremely small if it occurred at all.
About 0.17 per cent of women who had had oral sex had virus in their mouths, and about 0.12 per cent of women who denied ever having had oral sex also had virus in their mouth. That's only about 1 in a 1000.
Therefore, in summary, HPV infection is extremely common.
It is important to realise that even the use of a condom by a man with genital warts or HPV infection may not protect his partner from transmission of the virus if they come into contact with infected areas that are not covered by the condom.
The infection may eventually go away, most infected people never get a wart, and transmission through oral sex is rare.
The vast majority of HPV infections never lead to any serious disease and it is likely that genetic factors will prove important in determining one's individual disease risk in this regard.
I hope that this information is both helpful and reassuring to you.
Dr John Pillinger, GP
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No, Thanks: Nicolle Wallace Hails ‘Superhero’ Megan Rapinoe as ‘Chicken Soup for Your Soul’
By Curtis Houck | July 10, 2019 11:06 PM EDT
Despite the fact that the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup ended on Sunday, the liberal media’s infatuation with not so much the U.S. Women’s National Team’s play on the pitch but their wokeness off it has continued. On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace swooned that team captain Megan Rapinoe was an “icon” and “real-life superhero” who’s “chicken soup for your soul” with a future in liberal politics.
Wallace twice teased a segment of adoration for Rapinoe with the first being Obama-like in its unambiguous hero worship: “And holding out for a hero. We sure need one. Enter U.S. Soccer star and natural-born leader Megan Rapinoe. She's chicken soup. for your soul, so you won't want to miss this.”
The second tease wasn’t any better as Wallace dubbed her “a real-life superhero, an icon in her own time standing up for equal pay, speaking to our better angels and calling out Donald Trump.”
Give me a break. What great reminders that TDS was real and idolatry was a sin!
The actual segment began with a clip of Rapinoe at the New York City parade hours later ironically imploring people to “love more, hate less” but also “listen more and talk less” before Wallace gushed that it was “a powerful call to action” by “the team's unquestioned leader” whose “legacy will be the way she stood up for social change when the light shined the brightest.”
Rapinoe also said during the parade that she “deserve[s] this,” so there’s that when trying to pinpoint the size of her ego.
Axios’s Jonathan Swan observed (as many have on both sides of the aisle) that one “could see her with a political future, right” and was promptly followed by Wallace proclaiming that “[y]ou can see her at the Democratic convention” with Palmieri suggesting she could be the “keynote speaker.”
Never Trumper and MSNBC liberal pleaser Charlie Sykes also chimed in, tut-tutting that “MAGA world does not want to pick a fight with this woman” and gushed that she had stated before the tournament that she wouldn’t visit the WhIte House (even though the team hadn’t won it yet).
Sykes added: “I mean, she just stands there and she strokes the ball in and I mean, that's something — I mean, she's a remarkable woman and she's probably the coolest woman in America right now.”
“Megan Rapinoe, you make us believe. God bless you and all your teammates, congratulations,” Wallace concluded.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on July 10, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
4:23 p.m. Eastern [TEASE]
NICOLLE WALLACE: And holding out for a hero. We sure need one. Enter U.S. Soccer star and natural-born leader Megan Rapinoe. She's chicken soup. for your soul, so you won't want to miss this.
WALLACE: After the break, a real-life superhero, an icon in her own time standing up for equal pay, speaking to our better angels and calling out Donald Trump. Megan Rapinoe and U.S. Women's Soccer Team, now the world champs. New York City celebrated them today with a parade. We will next.
4:52 p.m. Eastern
MEGAN RAPINOE: This is my charge to everyone. We have to be better. We have to love more, hate less. We got to listen more and talk less. We got to know that this is everybody's responsibility, every single person here, every single person who's not here, every single person who doesn't want to be here, every single person who agrees and doesn't agree, it's our responsibility to make this world a better place.
WALLACE: A powerful call to action today at the World Cup victory parade in New York, courtesy of the legend herself, Megan Rapinoe. She's been the team's unquestioned leader on and off the field. No one scored more goals that she did in the tournament, but perhaps her most enduring legacy will be the way she stood up for social change when the light shined the brightest. She's a huge advocate for equal pay, something she spoke with her colleague Rachel Maddow last night.
RAPINOE: I think everyone realizes now, it’s like, “okay, it's time for the next step. It's time to work together to get this to get this to a better place, be collaborative.” The conversation is not about equal pay anymore. It's everybody. It's like, if you're not down with equal pay at this point or equality or whatever it is, like, you're so far out of reality and the conversation that we can't even go there. I think it's time to move to the next phase. I think everybody wants that. Nobody wants this contentious fight all of the time.
WALLACE: As for her feud with Donald Trump, Rapinoe had a message for him last night, too.
RAPINOE: I think that I would say that your message is excluding people. You're excluding me. You're excluding people that look like me. You're excluding people of you're excluding, you know, Americans that maybe support you. [SCREEN WIPE] And I think that we have a responsibility each and every one of us, you have an incredible responsibility as, you know, the chief of this country to take care of every single person and you need to do better for everyone.
WALLACE: Jen.
JEN PALMIERI: There's so much here, right? I mean, there is — there is these amazing athletes who understood that, you know, I read I think it was Alex Morgan a few weeks ago said I just — I watched the girls in 1999 and I watched the U.S. Women's soccer team win then and remember Brandi Chastain took her shirt off, and that was like the big controversy. But she weathered it —
WALLACE: Through her sports bra.
PALMIERI: — and she, like — got through it — she had a sports bra and they were like I saw what it can look like, and I always wanted to be her. I always granted a career in professional soccer, right? That's progress — that in and of itself. But I didn't understand at the time that it was going to come with these other responsibilities but it does and it’s really important because we had the opportunity to not just make progress for women in sports but to have this — have that sort of spread to other parts of society and, you know, just as the 1999 team inspired these women, they are going to — they are inspiring millions and millions of girls and boys and women and making the argument about equality and proving their worth. I tweet a lot about them, and I’ve been — somebody said, “well, you know, if the problem for the women athletes is they don’t draw in as big of crowds and so the market — there’s these market forces that say they don't make as much money, their team doesn't make as much as men’s teams.” I'm, like, yes, I'm aware that we built the market that way. I'm aware that we don't value women's efforts as much as men, but that's changing and they are showing us they are fun to watch in addition to just being great athletes.
WALLACE: They’re also, she's just a born leader. I mean, you cover Washington, you've been around Hollywood — I mean, there are just people that have it and she just has it.
JONATHAN SWAN: Yeah. I mean, I was watching that rally. You could see her with a political future, right
WALLACE: You can see her at the Democratic convention.
PALMIERI: A keynote speaker.
WALLACE: Yeah.
SWAN: It wouldn't surprise me actually.
WALLACE: Me neither and she also — she doesn't have that flinchy thing when asked if she will get involved in political causes. Will you go to Washington? I saw her on one of the shows last night, “yeah, absolutely, I'll go to Washington.”
CHARLIE SYKES: MAGA world does not want to pick a fight with this woman.
WALLACE: I don’t think so.
SYKES: I mean, when she called the shot, people were going, “well, you shouldn't be talking about not going to the White House before you win it all.” Well, she put that pressure on herself and then she delivers. I mean, she just stands there and she strokes the ball in and I mean, that's something — I mean, she's a remarkable woman and she's probably the coolest woman in America right now.
WALLACE: Megan Rapinoe, you make us believe. God bless you and all your teammates, congratulations.
NBDaily Feminism Sports MSNBC Deadline: White House Nicolle Wallace Charlie Sykes Megan Rapinoe Jennifer Palmieri
Curtis Houck
Curtis Houck is the Managing Editor of NewsBusters for the Media Research Center
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British Protected Ornamentals Association
Draconian EU plant health proposals thwarted
Last week, following an intense and long-period of lobbying by the NFU, MEPs voted against draconian plant health proposals that could have bought European horticulture grinding to a halt, stifled innovation and unduly restricted the development of new trades.
The plant health proposal, initially put forward by Spanish and then later by French MEPs, was for there to be a ‘closed system’ applied to all traded plant material, including ornamental plants, fruit, vegetables and flowers, and propagation material. This would have meant that to trade in this material, an assessment of plant health risks would need to be undertaken, and only if the material passed the required assessments would it be placed on a positive list and the trade would be permitted.
The aim was a laudable one – to prevent plant health problems arising as the result of new trades where risks are poorly understood. But the ‘closed system’ way of going about this would have added significant unnecessary bureaucracy and closed down trade in material that we already know is low risk.
The debate fundamentally was around the friction between free and open international trade and controlling the new plant health threats and problems that trade might spread. And arguably there were also moves to try and use strict plant health measures in a protectionist way against imports of plant material from outside of Europe.
While international trade is not necessarily the primary interest of all British growers, many of them depend on imported seed and propagation material, and this international trade is also the route by which many of the new and innovative products grown in the UK arrive.
The NFU recognizes that there is a need to tighten plant health measures to effectively prevent the spread of new pests and diseases, but this should be done by targeting where there is greatest risk, rather than by a closed system approach that initially captures all trades irrespective of risk.
The NFU has working with MEPs and the UK Government permanent representation in Brussels, and lobbying against the proposals for a closed system since February. We’ve spent a lot of time reminding MEPs from other countries about their previous support for the Commission’s objective to simplify and clarify the current provisions on plant health, and their support for a system that is risk-based, effective and proportionate – support which many of them seemed to have forgotten following more recent proposals for a closed system.
Last week, voting in the European Parliament successfully defeated the proposal. Instead of the closed system, the proposal is to strengthen measures that focus on high risk ‘emerging trades’. Member States would be able to introduce temporary measures on all plants, plant products and other objects imported from outside the EU in cases of high risk trade or where risks are unknown.
This risk-based approach is a good step forward, and it serves as a great demonstration of the value of the NFU lobbying done via our offices in Brussels.
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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/c/common-earthworm.html
AnimalsPhoto Ark
Common Earthworm
Photographs by Joel Sartore
About the Common Earthworm
The reddish-gray-colored common earthworm, often called a night crawler in the United States, is familiar to anyone with a fishing rod or a garden. They are indigenous to Europe, but are now abundant in North America and western Asia.
Earthworm Segements and Burrowing
Typically only a few inches in length, some members of this species have been known to grow to a serpentine 14 inches. Earthworms’ bodies are made up of ring-like segments called annuli. These segments are covered in setae, or small bristles, which the worm uses to move and burrow.
Night crawlers are so named because they are usually seen feeding above ground at night. They burrow during the day—typically keeping close to the surface—capable of digging down as deep as 6.5 feet.
The worm’s first segment contains its mouth. As they burrow, they consume soil, extracting nutrients from decomposing organic matter like leaves and roots. Earthworms are vital to soil health because they transport nutrients and minerals from below to the surface via their waste, and their tunnels aerate the ground. An earthworm can eat up to one third its body weight in a day.
Night crawlers also mate on the surface. They are hermaphroditic but do not self-fertilize. Following mating, each worm forms a tiny, lemon-shaped cocoon out of a liquid secreted from its clitellum, the familiar-looking bulge seen near the first third of the earthworm’s body. The sperm and egg cells are deposited inside the cocoon, and it is buried. After a two- to four-week gestation period, the baby worms emerge.
Impact on the Ecosystem
Earthworms are a source of food for numerous animals, like birds, rats, and toads, and are frequently used in residential composting and as bait in commercial and recreational fishing. Their numbers are strong throughout their range—they’re even considered agricultural pests in some areas—and they have no special status.
WATCH: The Largest Earthworm Discovered in UK
Named "Dave" by its discoverers, it is 15.75 inches long and weighs as much as a small chocolate bar. Its size is unusual because earthworms have many predators and normally do not survive in the wild to reach Dave's size.
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The San Joaquin Valley is rapidly sinking due to groundwater extraction… some areas have fallen 28 feet… and it’s accelerating
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 by: Russel Davis
Tags: Earth, environment, Environmental Catastrophe, environmental conservation
(Natural News) Groundwater extraction has caused immense damage to San Joaquin Valley, California, as image data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has shown. The region has suffered pronounce land subsidence over the years. The California Water Science Center defines land subsidence as the gradual settling of the earth’s surface. Simply put, San Joaquin Valley is sinking, and it has been for years. According to the CWCS, the primary causes of land subsidence include aquifer-system compaction, underground mining, oil and gas extraction and drainage and decomposition of organic soils.
Excessive pumping has been the primary culprit in this subsidence. According to data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, groundwater extraction that began in the 1920s has caused various parts of land in the region to subside or sink by as much as 8.5 meters. Long-term land subsidence has long been putting government properties — such as federal aqueducts, levees, bridges and roads — at risk of damage. The drought has also played a major part in the subsidence in the region.
The San Joaquin Valley’s subsidence has already caused damage to thousands of public and private groundwater wells. The current subsidence is also putting the public health at risk as it can permanently reduce the storage capacity of underground aquifers, therefore endangering future water supply, data showed. There is currently no available comprehensive data on the damage costs accounted for the subsidence, but the state and federal water agencies have already coughed up approximately $100 million in repairs since the 1960s.
Get more news like this without being censored: Get the Natural News app for your mobile devices. Enjoy uncensored news, lab test results, videos, podcasts and more. Bypass all the unfair censorship by Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Get your daily news and videos directly from the source! Download here.
Examining the extent of subsidence
California’s Department of Water resources has commissioned NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to assess how additional groundwater pumping during the 2012 drought has gravely affected the already-sinking San Joaquin Valley. Researchers at the JPL have identified several trouble spots during its first report and noted that they have been continuously subsiding at rates as high as 2 feet per year.
Data also showed significant subsidence in two locations in the towns of Chowchilla and Corcoran. These subsidence bowls reach hundreds of square miles and have been constantly growing wider and deeper. JPL data also showed a maximum subsidence measuring nearly 2 feet in the Corcoran area, and about 16 inches near Chowchilla. Researchers noted a more serious subsidence near Tranquility in Fresno County in 2016, where the land sank up to 20 inches.
Less pronounced subsidence was also seen in the Sacramento Valley near Davis and Arbuckle. Sierra Valley, north of Lake Tahoe, has also exhibited a small amount of land subsidence at 6 inches. Researchers observed that subsidence slowed down in some areas of San Joaquin Valley during the winter of 2015 – 2016 when rainfall levels were on a par with the crop water needs. “While we can see the effect that rain has on subsidence, we know that we’ve run a groundwater deficit for some time, so it’ll take a long time to refill those reservoirs,” JPL report co-author Tom Farr argued.
California’s South Central coast including Ventura, Oxnard and Santa Barbra as well as north to San Joaquin Valley and Santa Clara Valley did not show major land subsidence. However, a known subsidence-prone area in the Cuyama Valley continued to show signs of persistent sinking. JPL report co-author Cathleen Jones said identifying areas suffering from subsidence may help water resource manager pinpoint the cause of the land sinkage. “If you see a subsidence bowl, then something is going on at the center of the bowl that is causing the land to sink — for example, high levels of groundwater pumping. We can locate problem spots so the state can focus on those areas, saving money and resources. We find the needle in the haystack, so to speak,” Jones stated.
CA.Water.USGS.giv
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https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-03-22-the-san-joaquin-valley-is-rapidly-sinking-due-to-groundwater-extraction-some-areas-have-fallen-28-feet-and-its-accelerating.html
<a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-03-22-the-san-joaquin-valley-is-rapidly-sinking-due-to-groundwater-extraction-some-areas-have-fallen-28-feet-and-its-accelerating.html">The San Joaquin Valley is rapidly sinking due to groundwater extraction… some areas have fallen 28 feet… and it’s accelerating</a>
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How hackers are hijacking your cellphone account
Hackers simply intercept the one-time verification code.
March 27, 2018, 12:12 PM UTC / Updated March 27, 2018, 12:12 PM UTC
By Herb Weisbaum
Fraudsters have figured out how to break in to online accounts protected by two-factor authentication, where the authenticating device is your mobile phone.
They don’t steal the phone; they simply hijack the phone number. This enables them to intercept those one-time verification codes sent to that mobile number by text, email, or phone call.
Armed with their victim’s personal information, such as date of birth and last four digits of their Social Security number — information that is widely available on the dark web — these identity thieves trick the wireless carriers into transferring (or porting) their target’s phone number to a new account or device they control. That’s why this is called the “port-out” scam.
Mobile phone hijacking is on the rise. Reports of this crime to the Federal Trade Commission more than doubled between 2013 and 2016, from 1,038 incidents to 2,658. These complaints “represent only the tip of a much larger iceberg,” the FTC noted. NBC News first warned about the scam in June 2016.
Port-out scammers can take over any account where that smartphone is the verification device, such as bank, cryptocurrency, and email and social media accounts, according to a recent warning from Fraud.org, run by the National Consumers League.
“Most victims find out about this when they go to use their cellphone and it won’t work."
“Most victims find out about this when they go to use their cellphone and it won’t work,” said John Breyault, NCL’s vice president of telecommunications and fraud. “Unfortunately, by the time they call the carrier and figure out what’s happened, the scammer has already used that hijacked cellphone number to log in to things like their bank account and drain all the funds out of it relatively quickly.”
That’s how cybercrooks stole all the money in Jesse Kloeppner’s Wells Fargo bank accounts earlier this year. Late one night, Kloeppner, who lives in Shoreview, Minn., saw an email on his smartphone that said he had just transferred $1,799 to another account — something he hadn’t done.
“I tried to call the bank from my cellphone and it said, ‘No service,’ so I'm kind of freaking out,” he said. “And I couldn’t log in to my T-Mobile or my Wells Fargo accounts because my passwords had been changed.”
Based on what he learned from the bank and the phone company, Kloeppner told NBC News what most likely happened. The phone bandits opened a new mobile account with another company and then contacted T-Mobile to have the service switched.
Armed with just his Wells Fargo user name — they didn’t have his password — the hackers requested a password change and just waited for the one-time authentication code to be texted to his phone number, which they now controlled. Once they had the new password, they logged in and transferred out all the money.
T-Mobile apologized and the bank returned the money, since this was a fraudulent transaction, but Kloeppner found the experience to be “terribly frightening" and has since set up a password to provide port-out protection.
T-Mobile told NBC News it has seen an uptick in this type of scam and is "encouraging customers to add extra security features to their accounts." T-Mobile customers can call 611 to have port validation added to an account.
Kloeppner also reported his experience to the Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker network, a site that helps the BBB investigate and warn others about rip-offs and scams.
How the scam works
The port-out scam can take place at a wireless store or online, but in both cases, the impostors have enough information to convince the phone company that they are who they claim to be and have that person’s phone service transferred to their mobile device.
“And with a smartphone, if you're on Wi-Fi, everything's going to work except the actual calling and texting, so you may not even notice right away that something's wrong with your phone — which can give the scammers a few hours of lead time,” said Katherine Hutt, director of communications for the Council of Better Business Bureaus. “If that ever happens, if you can't make calls or receive calls, immediately contact the phone company and see if your number has been ported.”
The wireless industry is well aware of the port-out scam. In January, T-Mobile posted a warning on its website and started encouraging customers to add a port validation feature — a 6-to-15-digit passcode — to their account. AT&T published a blog post in late February, Prevent Porting to Protect Your Identity. CTIA also issued a news release earlier this month: Protecting your accounts against number porting.
“There is a reported increase in activity and I think the carriers are addressing the problem to ensure that it doesn't get worse,” said John Marinho, CTIA’s vice president of technology and cybersecurity. “The way that we address it is to be very vigilant.”
“No system is foolproof,” Marinho told NBC News, but employees at call centers and in retail stores go through “pretty rigorous training” about the port-out scam, he said.
Lorrie Cranor, a cybersecurity expert at Carnegie Mellon, believes better authentication procedures are needed before cellphone service can be switched. Cranor was the victim of the port-out scam two years ago. At the time, she worked at the FTC and wrote about her experience.
An ID thief walked into a wireless store, claimed to be Cranor, said she had lost her phone and needed service changed to a new device. The real Cranor was talking on her cellphone at the time, so if the store employee had simply called her, she could have stopped the scammer.
Cranor told NBC News she believes there are ways wireless companies can balance increased security with a customer’s legitimate needs to change their phone service. She suggests a security protocol that requires the phone company to text or call the phone of the registered owner before service is ported to another phone. (Some carriers offer this security option.)
If someone truly loses their phone, or there’s no way to get confirmation one way or another, then the customer service representative would need to go to the next level of authentication, Cranor said.
How to protect yourself
No one’s suggesting two-factor authentication is a problem. It’s clearly a powerful weapon to stop cybercrime, but it’s not perfect. And when it comes to protecting your mobile devices, there are other things you need to do.
If you haven't already done so, call your wireless carrier and ask for PIN authentication for your accounts. Sprint requires customers to create a PIN when they open a new account. Here’s what to do with the other major carriers.
AT&T: Log into your ATT.com account, go to your profile by clicking your name, and under the wireless passcode drop down menu, click on “manage extra security.”
T-Mobile: Call 611 from your cellphone or (800) 937-8997 to speak with customer service.
Verizon: Visit vzw.com/PIN or call (800) 922-0204.
For those who want to go one step further, Fraud.org has this recommendation: See if your accounts that use two-factor authentication offer an app-based way, such as Authy or Google Authenticator, to receive that one-time verification code.
Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website.
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Changing NCRM leadership - farewell to Prof Patrick Sturgis and welcome to Prof Gabriele Durrant
Patrick Sturgis has been director of the National Centre for Research Methods since 2009. From June 2019 Patrick will take on a new role as Professor of Quantitative Social Science in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics when NCRM leadership responsibilities will be taken up by Professor Gabriele Durrant who has been the deputy director of the centre since 2015.
As NCRM director Patrick helped to build the partnership between Southampton, Manchester and Edinburgh universities, represented NCRM at numerous evets, meetings and lectures, and contributed to countless methodological outputs and resources (e.g. publications, audio and video podcast and the very popular online learning resources). The NCRM team would like to thank Patrick for his work and wish him all the best for his future projects and ambitions. In the same time, we would like to welcome Gabriele and we look forward to working with her.
Submitted by Eva Nedbalova on Tuesday, 18th June 2019
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Two-thirds of Quebeckers support cannabis legalization, according to recent polls. That’s a pretty robust hurrah for the conception of individual liberty defended by Le Soleil in 1898. But cannabis has a darker history in Quebec than in other parts of Canada. The marijuana trade was one of the stakes in the Biker Wars of the late 1990s. These gangland battles convulsed the province for eight years, killing over 160 and wounding many more. They also cast a shadow of violence and terror over the banal transactions that supplied ordinary folk with their cannabis.
About 9% of those who experiment with marijuana eventually become dependent according to DSM-IV (1994) criteria.[70] A 2013 review estimates daily use is associated with a 10-20% rate of dependence.[41] The highest risk of cannabis dependence is found in those with a history of poor academic achievement, deviant behavior in childhood and adolescence, rebelliousness, poor parental relationships, or a parental history of drug and alcohol problems.[125] Of daily users, about 50% experience withdrawal upon cessation of use (i.e. are dependent), characterized by sleep problems, irritability, dysphoria, and craving.[106] Cannabis withdrawal is less severe than withdrawal from alcohol.[126]
CBD oil is most readily available as a tincture. This can be taken by applying a few drops under your tongue, holding in your mouth for a few moments so it can be absorbed, before swallowing. It can also be added to water or smoothies. A spray form is available (simply spritz under your tongue), as are capsules, creams that can be applied topically, and e-liquid for vape pens.
Medical marijuana refers to the use of the Cannabis plant as a physician-recommended herbal therapy as well as synthetic[177] THC and cannabinoids. So far, the medical use of cannabis is legal only in a limited number of territories, including Canada,[37] Belgium, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, and many U.S. states. This usage generally requires a prescription, and distribution is usually done within a framework defined by local laws. There is evidence supporting the use of cannabis or its derivatives in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, neuropathic pain, and multiple sclerosis. Lower levels of evidence support its use for AIDS wasting syndrome, epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis, and glaucoma.[70]
Cannabis is predominantly dioecious,[12][14] having imperfect flowers, with staminate "male" and pistillate "female" flowers occurring on separate plants.[15] "At a very early period the Chinese recognized the Cannabis plant as dioecious",[16] and the (c. 3rd century BCE) Erya dictionary defined xi 枲 "male Cannabis" and fu 莩 (or ju 苴) "female Cannabis".[17] Male flowers are normally borne on loose panicles, and female flowers are borne on racemes.[18]
Currently on the market are a variety of hemp oil products that are naturally abundant in CBD, including organic hemp oil concentrates, tinctures, capsules, gums, lotions, salves, shampoos, and conditioners. Please visit our online shop to find the right CBD hemp oil product for you! For more information on CBD products, have a look at our comprehensive CBD products list to learn more.
The raw and heated cannabinoids in this product come from agricultural hemp. They are combined with hemp terpenes that are steam distilled. We have specially formulated this blend to combine a variety of different terpene-rich hemp extracts. This product contains equal amounts of both CBD (a decarboxylated form of cannabinoid) and CBD-A (the raw, or non-decarboxylated form of cannabinoid) — 125 mg of each, to be exact.
Jump up ^ Blest-Hopley G, Giampietro V, Bhattacharyya S (May 2018). "Residual effects of cannabis use in adolescent and adult brains - A meta-analysis of fMRI studies". Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 88: 26–41. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.03.008. PMID 29535069. This may reflect the multitude of cognitive tasks employed by the various studies included in these meta-analyses, all of which involved performing a task thereby requiring the participant to reorient their attention and attempt to solve the problem at hand and suggest that greater engagement of this region indicates less efficient cognitive performance in cannabis users in general, irrespective of their age.
The plant is also known as hemp, although this term is often used to refer only to varieties of Cannabis cultivated for non-drug use. Cannabis has long been used for hemp fibre, for hemp oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug. Industrial hemp products are made from cannabis plants selected to produce an abundance of fiber. To satisfy the UN Narcotics Convention, some cannabis strains have been bred to produce minimal levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive constituent. Many plants have been selectively bred to produce a maximum of THC (cannabinoids), which is obtained by curing the flowers. Various compounds, including hashish and hash oil, are extracted from the plant.[7]
Brightfield Group recently conducted a survey in conjunction with HelloMD, the leading digital health platform in the cannabis industry, in order to gain more insights about the preferences of CBD consumers. In addition to researching CBD consumers’ behaviors, likes and dislikes, the study compared CBD’s effectiveness to that of common over-the-counter and pharmaceutical products, as well as uncovering important insights on the effectiveness of CBD derived from hemp versus that derived from marijuana.
Liquid CBD Oil/Tinctures/Extracts: Drops or tinctures should have a “suggested serving size” and the total milligrams of CBD listed on their packaging. From there, you can determine the amount of CBD you would like to ingest. Simply place the correct quantity of drops under your tongue using the dropper and hold the CBD oil in place for a minimum of 60 seconds. The 60 second hold allows for absorption via the blood vessels underneath your tongue – efficiently bypassing first-pass metabolism. Once 60 seconds has passed, swallow the CBD oil.
As the health editor at mindbodygreen and the author of the book CBD Oil Everyday Secrets: A Lifestyle Guide to Hemp-Derived Health & Wellness, it's my duty to help guide you to the highest-quality CBD products out there. And that's why I don't want you making this mistake when you buy your next one. There's some confusion out there about the difference between hemp oil and hemp seed oil—and it matters which one you buy because they have entirely different health benefits.
However, at this point, research is still needed, and the surest way to avoid scams is to beware of those products that claim to cure everything. Maybe they do have beneficial properties, but playing with people’s minds and hearts and with their desperate need to find a reliable treatment for painful conditions is not the right way to promote a product.
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names,[n 1] is a psychoactive drug from the Cannabis plant used for medical or recreational purposes.[17][18][19] The main psychoactive part of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of 483 known compounds in the plant,[20] including at least 65 other cannabinoids.[21] Cannabis can be used by smoking, vaporizing, within food, or as an extract.[22]
Cannabis was criminalized in various countries beginning in the 19th century. The British colonies of Mauritius banned cannabis in 1840 over concerns on its effect on Indian indentured workers;[189] the same occurred in British Singapore in 1870.[190] In the United States, the first restrictions on sale of cannabis came in 1906 (in District of Columbia).[191] It was outlawed in Jamaica (then a British colony) in 1913, in South Africa in 1922, and in the United Kingdom and New Zealand in the 1920s.[192] Canada criminalized cannabis in The Opium and Narcotic Drug Act, 1923,[193] before any reports of the use of the drug in Canada, but eventually legalized its consumption for recreational and medicinal purposes in 2018.[37]
At least one benefit of CBD is well-supported by science: It can be effective in treating children with rare, genetic seizure disorders. Adults, children and even animals with epilepsy have been shown to benefit from the chemical too, the World Health Organization reports. There's also some evidence that CBD can help with anxiety, says Dr. Robert Carson, an assistant professor of neurology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University who focuses on children with epilepsy. "In children, especially those with autism spectrum disorders, this may manifest as improved interactions with others," he says. Other preliminary research shows CBD holds promise for conditions including Alzheimer's disease, cancer, psychosis and Parkinson's disease – and is pretty much impossible to abuse or become addicted to, WHO says.
Support for legalization has steadily grown over the last several years. Today, medical marijuana is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia. And even federal officials have begun to soften their stances. Last fall, outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder signaled his support for removing marijuana from the list of Schedule I narcotics. “I think it’s certainly a question we need to ask ourselves, whether or not marijuana is as serious of a drug as heroin,” Holder said. This summer, Chuck Rosenberg, the acting administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, acknowledged that marijuana is not as dangerous as other Schedule I drugs and announced his agents would not be prioritizing marijuana enforcement. Still, as long as marijuana remains illegal under federal law, the haphazard system in which it is studied, produced, and distributed will remain, and Americans will not be able to take full advantage of its medicinal properties.
I have sporadic back spasms for year I see a chiropractor monthly for maintenance (it help) and deal with daily Knee & hip joint pain due to my job (heavy mechanic/steel work with lots of walking). after reading all the great reviews on CBD oil I want to get off the daily ibuprofen regiment and try CBD oil. I would like to try it as a gel cap but would like some advise on dosage size. I also want to know how often I should take the CBD treatments. any and all advise is appreciated
The term hemp is used to name the durable soft fiber from the Cannabis plant stem (stalk). Cannabis sativa cultivars are used for fibers due to their long stems; Sativa varieties may grow more than six metres tall. However, hemp can refer to any industrial or foodstuff product that is not intended for use as a drug. Many countries regulate limits for psychoactive compound (THC) concentrations in products labeled as hemp.
Vaping can be complicated, intimidating, and expensive, but with this brilliant Disposable Vape Pen with CBD from CBDfx, you can start vaping with ease. It comes pre-charged and pre-filled with a refreshing, minty e-liquid and has been designed with simplicity at its heart. Simply remove from the packaging and start vaping. Once you’re finished, throw it away!
In the U.S., dietary supplements come with serving size suggestions located on the Supplement Facts label. We tend to encourage a “less is more” mentality when it comes to the amount of oils or capsules our customers consume on a regular basis. (We recommend starting out with 15 drops.) That being said, the serving size of our supplements is a matter of personal preference. We strongly encourage Bluebird customers to experiment with our products and consult with a healthcare professional as needed. This is the best way to identify the amount and frequency of consumption that works best for each individual.
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Fireworks Are Dangerous For Birds. Here's How To Enjoy Responsibly. When fireworks go off in the vicinity of birds, the results can be fatal. Stick to commercial shows, experts say.
This 4th Of July, Think Of Your Feathered Friends As You Plan For Fireworks
This 4th Of July, Think Of Your Feathered Friends As You Plan For Fireworks 3:56
Sarah McCammon
Francesca Paris
Even birds who are accustomed to urban noises can be spooked by the boom of fireworks, take off and crash into trees, cars and buildings. Craig Ruttle/AP hide caption
Craig Ruttle/AP
Even birds who are accustomed to urban noises can be spooked by the boom of fireworks, take off and crash into trees, cars and buildings.
It was like a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock. Late on New Year's Eve 2010, thousands of birds rained from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas.
Some 5,000 red-winged blackbirds, European starlings, common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds suffered blunt-force trauma after colliding with cars, trees and buildings, an ornithologist from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission would tell National Geographic.
Why does it matter now? The answer is fireworks. Specifically, the noises that accompany fireworks and pose a threat to birds, according to Ray Brown, host of the Talkin' Birds podcast.
When birds hear the loud boom, they panic and take off, says Brown. "And its nighttime, so they can't really see where they're going. So crashes result."
And just as experts suspect happened in Arkansas, "When you've got a big roost of birds that take off together, the mayhem multiplies," Brown says.
With Fourth of July celebrations approaching, Brown offers this reminder: Birds are just as frightened of fireworks as cats and dogs are. When fireworks explode in the vicinity of a roost, or even around individual birds, the results can be fatal.
"Birds are spooked by any kind of loud noise," he says. "But fireworks, of course, are in the air and are especially loud, so I think that's something birds are not really used to coping with. And these things go on for several minutes."
There have been no mass-scale bird deaths reported as a result of fireworks since the Arkansas event, but in recent years, localities across the world have still documented harm to birds from loud pyrotechnics and taken steps to reduce the impact.
In 2008, for example, federal officials showed that seabirds in the northern California town of Gualala abandoned their nests after a fireworks show, leaving their eggs vulnerable to predators, SF Gate reports. The California Coastal Commission halted the town's planned fireworks display in response.
And just last year, the Galapagos banned the sale and use of pyrotechnics. According to the BBC, conservationists said that fireworks caused elevated heart rates, trembling and anxiety in animals. The ban makes an exception for fireworks without noise.
"Other places are using laser shows" with live music or virtual shows where laser images of fireworks are projected onto tall buildings, Brown says. In the English port town of Bideford, the district voted to ban fireworks in the vicinity of a bridge where starlings roost, and the city council proposed a laser show instead. Banff, a resort town in Canada, switched to quiet fireworks last year to protect wildlife — as did the Italian town of Collecchio in 2015.
But there are more risks than just noise. Viewers watching fireworks from the beach, for example, can trample birds that are still nesting in the summer. And used firework shells, now often made out of plastic rather than the traditional bamboo, contribute to high volume of plastic debris on land and in the ocean that threatens birds. A 2015 study published in the journal PNAS estimated that 90 percent of seabirds have likely ingested plastics, though Brown says the issue can also affect other birds as well.
"And of course when they're eating this plastic, eventually these chicks will starve to death from not having any nutrition," Brown says.
So what do you do if you want to watch fireworks responsibly? Brown says municipalities are more likely to be aware of these dangers than private consumers. His best advice is to stick to the shows put on by professionals and local governments, which tend to follow guidelines put forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, among others, about animal safety.
The National Audubon Society offers similar guidelines: "Commercial fireworks are concentrated in one location, rather than in several locations at once, which is what often happens in neighborhoods. This allows birds to take off and land again in a 'safer' location rather than continuing to flee noises coming at them from all directions."
Francesca Paris and Ed McNulty produced and edited this interview for broadcast.
ray brown
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The NHS Plan shows promise, but it’s all to play for
11 January, 2019 By Steve Ford
Monday morning started early, with one shiny new 136-page plan for the NHS in England and two Mays at Alder Hey.
That’s right, after six months of development and a Brexit-induced delay over Christmas, the NHS Long Term Plan finally landed on Monday.
It was an early start for the new chief nursing officer for England, Ruth May, who tweeted that she was up at 3.20am to be in Liverpool in time to hear prime minister Theresa May’s speech at the launch event. A very long first day at work as the country’s new CNO, followed no doubt by a long week. Certainly not a gentle or easy introduction to life in Jane Cummings’ recently vacated chair.
While there have been a number of Forward View documents over the past few years, plus a couple of nursing strategies to boot, a plan of this breadth and timescale is unusual for the NHS.
”It certainly says many of the right things, though many of them are not new”
The last time a 10-year strategy document was drawn up covering the whole health service in England was in 2000 when the Labour government under Tony Blair published the equally sparingly titled NHS Plan – that’s right, nearly 20 years ago.
I was a fresh-faced reporter back then, eager to hear more and yet to become wary of the same old promises to the same old problems. But while I am hopefully now wiser to political soundbites and pledges, I must admit I got into work on Monday extremely excited to see what was in the new plan.
Some of it, of course, was cleverly trailed in the weeks before Christmas to try to garner the most positive coverage, but the bulk of it was still there waiting to be read through and analysed.
Hopefully, as it’s supposed to be a 10-year plan, the ideas in it will be allowed to develop and evolve over the next decade, rather than be whipped away by the next political whim. We shall see. But the fact that the Department of Health and Social Care and the prime minister herself have linked themselves to what is essentially NHS England’s – and its boss Simon Stevens’ – plan means it is not entirely free of political vulnerability at a time when the government itself is vulnerable.
So, is it a good plan? Well, it certainly says many of the right things, though many of them are not new. For example, there is the oft-repeated ambition to move more services into the community and therefore closer to patients, as well as headline-grabbing moves to try to keep people out of emergency departments, such as ‘rapid response teams’. There is, however, a stronger mention than usual for mental health, hopefully reflecting its rise up the political agenda.
One particularly interesting section, subsequently backed by health secretary Matt Hancock in the Commons, suggests that those in power may be preparing to look again at commissioning arrangements for public health.
Could responsibility for commissioning key public health services, including health visiting, school nursing and sexual health, revert to the NHS? I hope so, as I don’t feel the local authority experiment has been a particular success for anyone involved.
As you might expect, given Mr Hancock’s well-documented interest in technology, much of the plan has digital ambitions woven through it. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the NHS doesn’t have the best track record on introducing technology such as electronic patient records and the NHS National Programme for IT – the latter costing £10bn before it was put out of its misery.
I hope the idea of an online nursing degree will end up on the same scrapheap as the aforementioned NPfiT, but preferably before it gets too far into development, unless I’ve missed something good about it (let me know).
On workforce generally, the plan promises funding for 5,000 more student nurse placements, a focus on ethical overseas nurse recruitment in the short-term, investment in continuing professional development to boost retention, more neonatal nurses and pledges to improve diversity at the top of the service.
All these ideas sound quite good, right? – though I noticed that the word bursary is absent from the document.
”I hope that some of what seems to be good in the plan does eventually reach the frontline”
But to work out how these welcome ambitions will all be achieved, we must wait for a separate “comprehensive” workforce plan, which is due later in the year – the so-called workforce implementation plan, which will accompany an overarching implementation plan for the whole thing. Yes, that’s right, three plans in total by the end of the year. How many plans does it take to make a strategy, I wonder? Anyway, I digress.
At this point, as with most new national plans, it is merely a wad of paper or a PDF. Much of the health service and its nursing and other staff will carry on doing their jobs as normal while their organisations pore over it and work out what it means for them.
But I hope that some of what seems to be good in the plan does eventually reach the frontline and has the positive impact promised for both staff and patients. At present, everything is to play for.
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RCN Congress 2019: LIVE rolling news
19 May 2019Steve Ford, Megan Ford, Gemma Mitchell
Keep up with everything happening at the RCN Congress 2019. Journalists from Nursing Times will be reporting live from Liverpool throughout the conference
Nursing Times to co-host learning disabilities congress fringe event
20 May 2019Steve Ford
Improving the health and lives of people with learning disabilities will be the focus of a fringe event being hosted by Nursing Times and NHS England at the Royal College of Nursing’s annual congress.
Nursing associate ‘milestone’ passed as 1,000 join register
8 June 2019Megan Ford
Over 1,000 nursing associates have now joined the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s register – a moment that has been described by healthcare leaders as a “significant milestone” for the fledgling profession.
Anonymous11 January, 2019 1:36 pm
Be honest - this is just another piece of pie-in-the-sky "planning" which will soon be gathering dust on a bookshelf
Regional Head - South of England / Midlands & East of England
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Archives|Birth of an Empire
Birth of an Empire
By RICHARD PIPES MAY 25, 1997
People and Empire, 1552-1917.
By Geoffrey Hosking.
Maps. 548 pp. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press. $29.95.
The collapse of the Soviet Union -- the last of the European empires -- has stimulated keen interest in the subject of Russian national identity. Britain, France and the other Western powers surrendered their colonies with varying degrees of good grace. If they resisted decolonization, it was to retain valuable economic and strategic assets. But their ultimate loss did not affect the way these onetime imperial powers viewed themselves, because their ethnic identity had been formed long before they acquired any colonies.
Russia was different. The separation in 1991 of the 15 so-called union republics not only reduced its population by nearly one-half but transformed it, for the first time since the 16th century, into an ethnically homogeneous country in which Russians, who had constituted around 50 percent of the Soviet population, make up 83 percent of the inhabitants.
Their predicament results from the fact that unlike the English, who never confused themselves with their Indian subjects, or the French, who remained French even as they lorded it over Algeria, Russians never drew a clear distinction between themselves as a nation and as an imperial power. This was partly because their empire grew at the same time as their national state, and partly because their colonial possessions lay not overseas but along Russia's land frontiers. As Geoffrey Hosking, the Professor of Russian History at the University of London, explains in the introduction to ''Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917,'' ''There are two kinds of Russianness, one connected with the people, the language and the pre-imperial principalities, the other with the territory, the multinational empire, the European great power.'' The first kind is rendered by the term russky, the second by rossiisky -- a distinction impossible to translate but not unlike that distinguishing ''English'' from ''British.''
The loss of empire has left many Russians bewildered because their view of themselves as a nation had been intimately connected with their self-image as a great imperial power. It has revealed how weakly developed is the Russians' sense of national identity. Mr. Hosking attributes that weakness to imperialism overwhelming nationhood in Russia's history. Or, as he puts it in explaining the objective of his book, he is seeking to demonstrate ''how the building of an empire impeded the formation of a nation.'' Paraphrased, this means that Russians have difficulty feeling Russian unless they rule others.
The problem Mr. Hosking raises is not new, but he is the first to explore it in depth. Because the subject is embedded in the entire past of Russia, much of his book has slight bearing on the subject at hand and turns into a straightforward account of Russia's political, social and cultural history from the birth of the Russian empire under Ivan the Terrible until the Revolution of 1917.
Following a survey of Russia's territorial expansion and absorption of many European and Asian ethnic groups, the author proceeds to a description of the Russian state. He explains the highly centralized and autocratic nature of the Muscovite regime by the ''patrimonial outlook'' that placed the ''lands and people . . . completely at the disposal'' of the ruler, with the result that society, being ''structured for service to the state,'' failed to acquire an independent existence. It is an interpretation with which I am in full agreement: the Weberian concept of patrimonialism, under which the state treats the realm as property and assigns its subjects no rights but only duties, has always seemed to me the best explanation of the course of Russian history.
In the middle section, Mr. Hosking examines imperial Russia's social classes, religion and culture. It is not always clear what bearing the descriptions of such groups as the nobility or the army have on the subject of nation building, but they are interesting in themselves, being well informed and lucidly presented. The chapter on the peasantry, however, which at one time constituted over 80 percent of the population, does bring out clearly how their confinement to the ''rural ghetto,'' where they lived as serfs of the state or its nobility, prevented them from feeling themselves members of a nation. Such loyalty to a larger group as they managed to develop was confined to the community of Orthodox believers. Mr. Hosking castigates the Orthodox Church, however, for its dependence on the state and its failure to socialize peasants.
The true founders of Russian national consciousness, Mr. Hosking says, were the writers and intellectuals who emerged as an independent force in the second quarter of the 19th century and assumed the role of spokesmen for the mute masses. It is they who created the modern Russian language and literature, along with the ideologies that whether radical or conservative, gave educated Russians a sense of common destiny. I believe Mr. Hosking overstates the patriotism of Russian writers like Turgenev and Tolstoy, for they rather scorned its common manifestations. But he is correct in saying that as a result of the writers' achievement, ''by the end of the 19th century, a genuine Russian nation was beginning to take shape, though only as yet in the form of a reading public, an 'imagined community.' ''
The concluding part of the book deals with the turbulent period of reforms, counterreforms and revolutionary upheavals. Defeat in the Crimean War (1854-56) persuaded the conservative monarchy that it could not aspire to the status of a great power without bridging the gap between the state and society. The emancipation of the serfs, along with the introduction of a modern judiciary system and of local self-government boards in the 1860's, contributed to the strengthening of national bonds. So did the constitutional regime inaugurated, under revolutionary pressure, in 1905-6, especially when headed by Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, who made a conscious effort to involve a larger proportion of the people in the political process and transform the monarch from a remote, bureaucratic head of state into a leader of the nation.
But even so, the links that led to the temporary bonding of Russian society at the outbreak of World War I or after the collapse of czarism in 1917 were not strong enough to prevent Russia's disintegration and the assumption of power by a Bolshevik dictatorship, ''a new kind of imperial regime,'' which ''rested on nothing more substantial than its own internal discipline.'' In the civil war, which decided Russia's fate for most of the 20th century, patriotic appeals by White generals fell on deaf ears while Bolshevik calls for the seizure of private property found wide resonance.
DOES it matter in an age when the world seeks to transcend nationalism that Russians have failed to develop a strong sense of nationhood? Indeed it does. Such a development ''would have made their evolution less unstable, polarized and violent. . . . The nation-state has proved to be the most effective political unit . . . because it is the largest one compatible with creating and sustaining a feeling of community and solidarity, such as induces loyalty and reduces the need for coercion.''
This means that the Russians of today would be well advised to give up fantasies of reconquering their lost empire -- fantasies common to both conservatives and democrats -- and concentrate on building a genuine nation-state. Nationalism, defined as ''a feeling of community and solidarity,'' which the West has put behind itself and which it has turned into a reactionary doctrine, is distinctly progressive at the stage of history at which Russia happens to find itself.
A version of this review appears in print on May 25, 1997, on Page 7007013 of the National edition with the headline: Birth of an Empire. Today's Paper|Subscribe
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McLay: My plan to replace Muldoon
28 Aug, 2012 8:06pm 4 minutes to read
Cartoon: NZ's Rosa Parks ...
29 Aug, 2012 5:29am Quick Read
Editorial: Society more relaxed over gay marriage
Photo / Thinkstock
This week the National MP for Hunua, Paul Hutchison, made a telling comment about Louisa Wall's bill to legalise same-sex marriage. Some churches in his rural electorate had been quick to tell him in no uncertain terms what they thought about the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, he said. "But I was quite amazed that quite a few individuals ... from mainstream churches, businesspeople and farmers don't seem to be stressed by this particular one." His comment suggests society is now prepared to sanction this step. In concert with this, the bill is expected today to comfortably pass its first hurdle in Parliament.
Parliamentarians' verdict on the bill will be delivered through a conscience vote, not along party lines. But although they will take personal positions, MPs must be conscious that they are deciding this issue on behalf of the people of New Zealand. Public feelings run deep, with a substantial number of people adamant that marriage should remain a state that only heterosexual couples can enter. Eight years ago, the strength of that sentiment meant that MPs would offer only the legal rights and obligations of a civil union, not the full recognition of marriage.
Much has changed in the relatively short period since then. Ten countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and South Africa, with some parts of the United States, now allow same-sex marriage. This is not a subject where New Zealand is ploughing a fresh field. And, as every MP surely knew at the time of the passage of the civil union law, that was only a step towards extending the rights of marriage. The surprisingly small number of civil unions tells its own story on the acceptability of that concept to the homosexual community. Gays want society to recognise their commitment as no less valid than marriage.
Last week, the Human Rights Commission, unsurprisingly, effectively endorsed Ms Wall's bill. Legal equality depended on New Zealanders having the right to found and form a family regardless of sexual orientation, it said. This was consistent with the line taken in 2004, when it said that it was disappointed that Parliament, rather than creating civil unions, did not simply amend the Marriage Act to make it available to both heterosexual and homosexual couples.
That, however, cuts little ice with those who believe that familiar social standards are being abandoned, and that marriage has always been understood to be a union of a man and a woman. They believe the very concept of marriage would be undermined if it was not preserved for heterosexuals. They also wonder, with some justification, about the implications of passing Ms Wall's bill. Does it mean that the more problematic issue of gay adoption would be effectively settled at the same time? Certainly, the Human Rights Commission has no qualms about linking the two issues. "Formal legal equality around the rights to found and form a family requires both marriage equality and adoption equality," it says.
Marriage is a cultural statement. Registry or "civil" marriages long ago removed marriage from the exclusively spiritual realm. Churches retain under this bill the right to solemnise, or to decline to bestow, the sacred nature of marriage as they see it. That is how it should be. Yet it is clear that homosexuals, like heterosexuals, want more than the commitment provided by a civil union contract.
Previously, society has hesitated to go that far. Now, it appears a majority of people are happy for those of the same sex to have their love and commitment recognised by the term marriage, with all the rights, meanings and obligations that entails. Clearly the old institution has some life left in it.
Debate on this article is now closed.
Council blocks 'Family First' site
'They will criminalise your sex life': Hugh Hefner backs gay marriage
Slim majority backs gay marriage bill
Pastors pile pressure on MP over gay marriage bill
Name suppression has lapsed for Nicholas Martin Roling, 53, who pleaded not guilty.
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Home / Country Life / Agricultural and literary history at Louis Bromfield’s Malabar Farm
The Big House, the Bromfield family’s opulent and artful 32-room home, can be toured for $5 per person.
Agricultural and literary history at Louis Bromfield’s Malabar Farm
September 7, 2017 Country Life, Slider Leave a comment
The legacy of Ohio native son, Louis Bromfield, Pulitzer-prize winning author, pioneer in agricultural conservation, and member of Ohio’s Agricultural Hall of Fame, is celebrated at Malabar Farm State Park in Lucas, Ohio.
A somewhat obscure name today, Bromfield was a prominent celebrity and artist in the first half of the twentieth-century, gaining international acclaim for his novels. The artist earned much of his fame whilst living abroad in India and France, and when World War II came to France and Bromfield returned stateside, he purchased several farm tracts in the Pleasant Valley area of Richland County and there established and nurtured his dream farm, Malabar Farm.
Upon purchase of these lands in 1939, Bromfield became somewhat disinterested in writing fiction when rejuvenating his farm and promoting new agricultural philosophies became some of his main passions and life’s works until the time of his death in 1956.
In his book Out of the Earth, Bromfield said that, like much of America’s agricultural lands in the early twentieth-century, at Malabar Farm, “These hills had been corned out, farmed out, pastured out, sheeped out, and abandoned.” And he wrote in the book Pleasant Valley that he “wanted to prove that worn out farms could be restored again.”
The Malabar Farm Foundation said that “Bromfield set out on a quest to restore rich fertility to Malabar Farm by applying conservation methods that were mostly unheard of or little used at that time. Bromfield shared these conservation methods with people from all over the U.S. and other countries through speaking engagements, a newspaper column, radio broadcasts, and printed materials including a series of non-fiction ‘farm’ books.”
Bromfield’s writings about farm life and public advocacy for new farming techniques spurred the “New Agriculture” movement. Many of the farming techniques championed by Bromfield have become unquestioned common practice, but at the time, these concepts were largely untried and unfamiliar. Bromfield writes in Pleasant Valley that he is an advocate of “contour plowing, terrace ditches, cover crops, strip-cropping, fencing cattle out of wooded areas, disk-plowing, reforestation, farm ponds.”
Bromfield used Malabar Farm as a place to experiment with, put into practice, and showcase his farming philosophies. The farm was also used by the government to test soil conservation practices. Bromfield states in Pleasant Valley that he sees Malabar Farm as a “pilot farm” for certain government programs: “demonstration farms privately operated upon which sound conservation practices are used have proved strikingly effective as examples, more effective than pamphlets, books, or even government experimental stations, for on them neighboring farmers are able to see unmistakably the gainful aspect of proper soil and forestry practices.”
Clearly, this beautiful farm in the hills of Richland County served several purposes and was more than just a bucolic retreat for a wealthy writer. Contemporary Ohio author Gene Logsdon rightly noted that there were two sides to Bromfield: the reflective writer/farmer and the exuberant, famous, socialite entertainer who used Malabar Farm to host extravagant galas for rich and powerful Hollywood and political elite; additionally, he was visited at the sprawling property by throngs of fans. Bromfield was a showman and his farm was his “showplace.”
In its heyday, Malabar Farm was known as “The Most Famous Farm in America.” And indeed, visitors to Malabar Farm State Park see the life and passions of Louis Bromfield showcased for them over the course of an afternoon’s visit. A few short hikes and a couple of naturalist-led tours give visitors insights into Bromfield’s farm life, family life, and star-studded social life.
Parts of this state park remain a working farm (as per the Bromfield family’s stipulation when the property was transferred to the state in 1972) and an inexpensive farm tour ($3 per person) on a tractor-pulled wagon ride takes visitors around the beautiful croplands and pastures of the park, where they hear about Bromfield’s agricultural mission and learn about his legacy from a well-informed park naturalist. Meticulously cared for barns and outbuildings, some of which continue to house livestock, dot the grounds, adding to the pastoral feel of this state park. In the gift shop, patrons can purchase select cuts of beef from Malabar Farm cattle and fresh vegetables can still be bought in season from the quaint, shaded produce stand and natural spring that Bromfield himself used to peddle his goods.
The Big House, the Bromfield family’s opulent and artful 32-room “farmhouse,” can be toured for $5 per person. While discussing Bromfield’s biography, a naturalist takes group tours through the home, which remains much the same as it would have been at the time of the Bromfield’s residence there. The Big House features unique room design, architecture, and artwork, as well as beautiful views of the farm and countryside from the comfortable studies, libraries, and rooms that were once graced by all of Hollywood’s top stars (Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married and honeymooned here, for example). The tour is a lesson in worldly luxury and country charm.
For a meal, folks can dine at Malabar Farm Restaurant or pack a picnic lunch, which can be enjoyed in a large, quiet picnic area back in the woods or at the picnic tables by the Visitor’s Center, which has several exhibits devoted to natural history and Bromfield’s agrarian vision. For those wanting to stretch their legs, Malabar Farm has several hiking trails that wind through the hilly, sometimes rocky terrain surrounding the farm, which is just a stone’s throw away from popular Mohican State Park. There is also a seven-mile bridle trail that rings the park and a primitive horseman’s campground and a B&B-style hostel, should visitors want to stay the night.
After a trip to Bromfield’s old stomping grounds and a perusal of the author’s books about Malabar
Bromfield used Malabar Farm as a place to experiment with, put into practice, and showcase his farming philosophies.
Farm (which are all available at the gift shop), his profound respect for the farmer and his deep love of the Ohio countryside become clear. Louis Bromfield was a defender of the farmer, a champion of wise use agriculture, and a promoter of the pastoral ideal who believed, from a literary standpoint, “a man writes better in the country.”
Throughout Bromfield’s literary canon, he depicts the job of farming as the most honorable and inspiring of professions. In Bromfield’s literature, the farmer is a timeless figure of almost heroic importance that possesses keen insight and intellect.
“Rarely does the good farmer long for any immortality better than the rich fields he has left behind him and the healthy, intelligent children who will carry on his work and his name,” Bromfield says in Out of the Earth. “There is in all the world no finer figure than a sturdy farmer standing, his feet well planted in the earth, looking over his rich fields and his beautiful shiny cattle. He has a security and an independence unknown to any other member of society, yet, unlike the trapper or the hunter, he is very much a part of society, perhaps its most important member.”
A pilgrimage to Bromfield’s pastoral estate is a venture rich in agricultural and literary history. More information about Louis Bromfield and Malabar Farm State Park can be found at malabarfarm.org.
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