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Angela Batson
– February 24, 2017Posted in: Colleagues
Department: Cultural and Social Studies
Years of Service: 5
Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri
Angela Batson, BA’04, isn’t one to sit by and watch. She’s one to stand up and help.
“I’ve always been passionate about helping other people,” Angela said. “I like doing things. I don’t like just talking about things.”
As the office coordinator for the Department of Cultural and Social Studies, Angela is the one “keeping the ball rolling.” Have a question about a logistical process? Ask Angela. Need to schedule courses for the next semester? Ask Angela.
She has a passion for higher education. Before joining Creighton’s staff, she was a member of its faculty as an adjunct professor in philosophy. Now, she enjoys learning and reading about education policy.
“Working at a university…it was a no brainer,” Angela said.
Not only is Angela taking an active role in higher education, she is also active in the community. In January 2015, Angela joined Camp Quality of Omaha, when a friend got her involved. Camp Quality is a national organization that provides a free week of camp for children with cancer. During the summer of 2016, Angela took on the role as executive director for the Omaha chapter, whose campsite is located in Guthrie Center, Iowa.
“Our mission is to ‘let kids be kids again.’ We are 100 percent community-driven and volunteer-run. No one pays to come to camp, and no one takes a paycheck for helping camp happen,” Angela said of Camp Quality.
Angela also serves on the steering committee for the Nebraska Victims Assistance Academy, which brings professionals from all over Nebraska to Creighton to learn about different resources when working with crime victims.
“It’s a really detailed, valuable experience for anyone working with any vulnerable person,” Angela said.
With the opportunity to work and volunteer in higher education, Creighton has once again become a home for Angela.
“It’s a lot of people doing things for other people and that’s a great environment for me,” Angela said.
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Beyond the Extended Self: Loved Objects and Consumers’ Identity Narratives
In all probability, the word “love” is used as often with objects and activities as with people. We hear it all the time, from “I love skiing” to “I love your new dress.” In Sherry and McGrath’s (1989, 163) study of a gift store, they note that “not only do our respondents ‘love to shop’ . . .but they also ‘fall in love’ with the items they select.” In the use of products, Richins (1997) finds that love is a common consumption-related emotion. Love is so prevalent in consumption that when Schultz, Kleine, and Kernan (1989) asked participants to list feelings that they experienced when they thought about objects with which they had an emotional attachment, love was the second most commonly listed emotion, superseded only by happiness.
The people, and things, we love have a strong influence on our sense of who we are, on our self. Using response time studies, Aron et al. (1991) have shown that interpersonal love involves a fusion of identities in which one’s sense of self grows to include the loved other. In the consumer behavior literature, consumer identity has frequently been linked to constructs related more or less directly to love, including special possessions (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981), involvement (e.g., Celsi and Olson 1988), cathexis (e.g., Rook 1985), and consumerbrand relationships (e.g., Fournier 1998). Love differs fromthese constructs in the specific items discussed by informants.
Whereas special possessions are limited to privately owned physical objects and cathexis is usually applied to one’s own body, clothing, and grooming products, the things people love are a broader category that includes public objects like nature as well as consumption activities. Involvement also differs from love. People can be very involved with things they detest and can love things that they are not currently involved with, as in the case of the informants who loved books they hadn’t read in years. Consumer-brand relationships are at once broader than love, since love is only one type of relationship, and narrower than love, since they focus exclusively on brands. Nonetheless, all of these constructs share a strong focus on the way people use consumption to maintain their sense of identity through time and define themselves in relationship to other people.
The publication of Belk’s (1988) “Possessions and the Extended Self” solidified and accelerated an interest by consumer researchers in the ways consumption helps define people’s sense of who they are. Since that time, issues related to how consumers use products to construct their identity have permeated interpretive consumer research and become major topics in experimental and survey-based work as well. Belk (1988) brought together a large body of literature to support the thesis that consumers use key possessions to extend, expand, and strengthen their sense of self. Belk also elaborated on how this occurs and explored some special cases, like collections, where this phenomenon is particularly prevalent. The current article will present an empirical study on love in consumption contexts that highlights identity issues and use these findings to reflect back on Belk’s major propositions. The primary research question of the current study is how these case studies of love in
consumption can support, challenge, and update the perspective put forward in Belk (1988).
Belk (1988) uses the terms “self,” “sense of self,” and “identity” as synonyms for how a person subjectively perceives who he or she is. Belk rejects any definition of what is included in the self that can apply uniformly across individuals and cultures because he believes that what constitutes the self is a subjective assessment that changes between people and over time. Nonetheless, Belk suggests a consistent structure for the self, at least in Western individualistic cultures. Belk sees consumers as possessing a core self that is expanded to include items that then become part of the extended self. For example, summarizing earlier research,Belk concluded that for those particular respondents the “body, internal processes, ideas, and experiences” are likely to be part of their core self, whereas “persons, places,and things to which one feels attached” are more likely tobe seen as part of their extended self, and items to which they do not feel attached are not part of the self (141). The self also includes various levels of group affiliation, specifically individual, family, community, and group, that become further from the core self as they become larger and more impersonal. Items that are part of these group identities,such as a national flag, are also part of the extended self to the extent that the individual identifies with the group in question and the item is important to the group identity.
When using the current case studies to reflect back on Belk (1988), the interviews will be read in light of research on identity conducted since the publication of that seminal article. Post Belk (1988), two of the major developments in consumer research on identity have been a conceptualization of self as narrative and a concern with the complexities,conflicts, and challenges of identity construction.
It has become common to view a consumer’s sense of identity as structured in terms of a narrative (Escalas and Bettman 2000; Fournier 1998; Giddens 1991; Thompson 1996, 1997; Thompson and Tambyah 1999). This means that in addition to seeing one’s identity as a list of attributes (e.g., I am tall, I value achievement), these attributes are linked in memory to key episodes in one’s life, which in turn are strung together to form a story. This story line allows people to make sense of who they are and provides a connected identity from past, to present, and into possible imagined futures. This narrative also explains one’s affiliations with certain people and rejection of others based on their roles as other characters in the narrative. This narrative view is consistent with metaphors that see identity as a kind of performance in which consumers use goods to enact personalized versions of cultural scripts (Murray 2002).
Current research has also focused on the difficulties consumers face in developing and maintaining a coherent sense of self. Today we have a great deal of choice about who we want to be and the kind of life we want to lead. Therefore discovering one’s true preferences, navigating choice, and representing the self—both to oneself and to others—has become an overwhelming concern and a primary driving force in consumption (Gergen 1991; Giddens 1991; Lasch 1979, 1984; Sennett 1977). This general orientation, in which much contemporary consumption is a process of identity construction, gives rise to two major discourses: postmodern fragmented multiple selves and the empty self.
Postmodernist researchers such as Firat and Venkatesh (1995) see the contemporary consumer as possessing a fragmented and multiple sense of self with no need to reconcile identity contradictions to produce a unified experience(260). Firat and Venkatesh (1995) see this as a positive development because it represents “freedom from . . . having to seek centered connections or an authentic self” (233).
However, Gould and Lerman (1998), Thompson and Hirschman(1995), and Murray (2002) have not found many examples of consumers abandoning the desire for a coherent identity narrative, and their research explores the ways people use consumption to cobble together a coherent identity within the context of a fragmented society.
In contrast to the postmodernist view of contemporary consumers as possessing a sense of self that is overflowing with a cornucopia of different identities, Cushman’s (1990) empty-self critique sees identity as a black hole into which the consumer relentlessly feeds objects but which never fills up. Cushman argues that the problem arises owing to a poor fit between consumers’ continued desire for a coherent identity narrative and a lack of social and cultural support for this project because of a “significant absence of community,tradition, and shared meaning. [The individual] experiences these social absences and their consequences ‘interiorly’ as a lack of personal conviction and worth, and it embodies the absences as a chronic, undifferentiated emotional hunger”(600). Thus people are provoked to engage in serial(and potentially endless) rounds of lifestyle consumption—attempting to identify and master the lifestyle and accoutrements that will bring fulfillment.
The relationship between loved possessions and identity construction suggests that a hermeneutic approach is appropriate here (Arnold and Fischer 1994; Thompson 1997;Thompson, Pollio, and Locander 1994). The two cases reported here were selected from a set of 10 depth interviews,which in turn followed up on 70 phone interviews asking informants what, if anything, they loved and discussing these loved items. Depth interviews lasted 2 to 5 hr. and were conducted in the informants’ homes. Questions covered the informants’ life history, things other than people that they loved, their history with these loved items, people that they loved, and objects that they felt neutral about. Over the review process it was determined that detailed case studies were needed, and space allowed for reporting only two interviews. Two cases were selected that were representative of the interviews as a whole and that provided good illustrations of major findings.
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ArangoDB Raises $10 Million in Funding Round to Expand its Product Development
ArangoDB, an open source native multi-model database, has raised $10 million in a Series A financing, led by Bow Capital, that will allow it to accelerate product development and revenue growth by further expanding its engineering and sales teams to more heavily support its customers and community in the U.S.
The company will continue to build-up community support, marketing, human resources as well as sales in Silicon Valley. The main software and product development will continue to be driven from Cologne, Germany.
Additionally, ArangoDB has moved its headquarters to the U.S. to better service its fastest-growing market. As part of the investment, Bow Capital Advisor Murat Sönmez, a former EVP of Global Field Operations at TIBCO and Managing Director at the World Economic Forum, joins ArangoDB’s board of directors. Existing investor Target Partners also participated in the round, bringing ArangoDB’s total financing to $17 million.
More than 500 organizations worldwide, including Airbus, Barclays, SAP Concur, and Thomson Reuters, leverage ArangoDB’s multi-model database in production for flexible, streamlined application development.
By uniting graph, document, and key/value data models in a single core with the same query language, ArangoDB gives developers flexibility when building their applications. This not only reduces development complexity by eliminating data duplication and consistency challenges, but also accelerates time-to-market as development teams only have one database to learn, administer and maintain.
“Developers should use the right data model for the right job. But why should they have to use different databases for that important advantage? We created ArangoDB to give developers freedom when building their applications -- if they want to adapt or extend their data access patterns, they can do so by simply changing a query instead of their entire infrastructure,” said Claudius Weinberger, CEO and co-founder of ArangoDB. “With our latest round of financing, we plan to continue to innovate, grow our global customer base, and double-down in the U.S. -- which continues to be our fastest-growing market.”
For more information about this news, visit www.arangodb.com.
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CHINA:Hundreds of Tibetan Protesters Demand Release of Detained Monks
Keywords: Tibet protests, Khenpo Kartse
Hundreds of Tibetans staged a silent sit-in this week in Nangchen (in Chinese, Nangqian) county in northwest China’s Qinghai province to demand the release of popular religious leader Khenpo Kartse and monks detained from his monastery.
They ended the protest temporarily on a promise by authorities that monks in the crowd would be allowed to visit some of those held.
The crowd of about 500, including 60 monks from Japa monastery in Nangchen in the Yulshul (Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, gathered at around 11:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday in front of the county detention center, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“They demanded the release of all the monks and also the opportunity to meet them in jail and provide them with clothes and food,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The head of the Nangchen Public Security Bureau agreed to allow the 60 protesting monks to visit the detained monks from Japa monastery in two groups on condition that they end their silent protest,” the source said, adding that the laymen in the crowd were told they would not be allowed to enter the facility.
The crowd then dispersed after four hours to give security officials time to implement the agreement, the source said.
“The Tibetans threatened to resume their protest if no result comes from this."
Religious leader held in Chamdo
Japa monastery’s Khenpo Kartse—the title "Khenpo" denotes a senior religious teacher or abbot—was detained on Dec. 6 in Chengdu, the capital of nearby Sichuan province, on suspicion of involvement in “anti-state” activities in the neighboring Tibet Autonomous Region’s Chamdo (Changdu) prefecture.
He was taken into custody by Chamdo security officials who traveled all the way to Sichuan to detain him and remains in Chamdo in detention.
At the end of December, 16 Japa monks were then detained in Nangchen, with nine of those later released during the first two weeks of January, RFA’s source said.
“The monks who were released told others that during their detention, they were asked about Khenpo Kartse’s means of contacting outside sources,” the source said.
“They had the impression that [the Chinese] are seeking excuses to impose harsh punishment on the Khenpo.”
Khenpo Kartse, who is also known as Karma Tsewang, was active in social work in the Yulshul area, including in relief efforts following a devastating April 2010 earthquake, and was well-respected among Tibetans for his work to protect and promote the Tibetan language, culture, and religion.
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the area in 2008.
A total of 125 Tibetans have also set themselves ablaze in self-immolation protests calling for Tibetan freedom since February 2009, with another six setting fire to themselves in India and Nepal.###
Reported by Dolkar for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.
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A Minor Quibble (Wyatt Mason on Narayan)
I first read this Wyatt Mason piece on R.K. Narayan more than a week ago, and I didn't really have anything to say about it initially. On the whole, it's a very helpful review essay -- a nice balance of interesting quotes from different Narayan novels, as well as biographical and contextual information. The anecdote about Graham Greene is especially interesting -- Narayan's experience fits the pattern experienced by several other colonial writers from before independence: they all needed patronage from established British writers. Tagore would never have gone as far as he did without Yeats's enthusiastic support, and Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable would likely not have been as influential without E.M. Forster's preface.
Hopefully, Mason's essay might encourage people to go out and discover Narayan all over again, especially now that several of his major novels have been reissued with new prefaces by contemporary writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and Pankaj Mishra.
But after a reader (thanks, Madhu) prompted me on Mason's essay, it occurred to me that there is one small troubling bit, which might not be so small, depending on how we read it. It's the very last paragraph of the essay:
It is through this idea—that a self is not a private entity but a fixed, public one—that Narayan’s novels break most meaningfully with those of the West and establish their own tradition. Their significance derives less from the mere fact of being some of the first important Indian fiction in English than from being the first English writing to infuse the novel with an Eastern existential perspective. Though crammed with incident, Narayan’s novels do not—indeed, cannot—chart a progression toward the formation of character. His characters, “strangled by the contour of their land,” are doubly circumscribed: by their nation’s political fate and by the inexorable fate of Hindu cosmology. In Narayan’s world, no less than in his lived life, we do not become; rather, we become aware of that which, for good or ill, we cannot help being. Through the novel, a form long used to show how things change, Narayan mapped the movements of unchanging things. (link)
The point about the non-development of Narayan's characters sounds right to me. But the part I find fishy is Mason's interpretation of Narayan's obsession with fate as the expression of an "Eastern existential perspective." In fact, Narayan's own personal experience of the loss of his young wife -- whom he had married against his family's wishes and against the advice of a Hindu astrologer -- might be the real culprit for his view on the impossibility of changing one's destiny. It is "Eastern" and it is "existential," but when Mason calls it "Eastern existential," he generalizes (to the cultural level) an attribute of Narayan's writing that he has already explained as a result of personal experience. Are there any Indian writers besides Narayan who share his approach to character and fate? If not, it might be more accurate to simply describe the particular comic sense of immobility as "Narayanesque."
As I said, it might just be a quibble. I still much prefer this essay to most other general accounts of Narayan I've seen, including especially Naipaul's.
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An Alternative to Prison
Sr Lillian Flavin OP writes from Louisiana where she works with Hope House
The United States of America incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country in the world. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate of any state in the U.S. And New Orleans incarcerates more of its residents than any other part of Louisiana. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report “Prisoners in 2012,” for every 100,000 Americans, an estimated 480 people were serving at least a one-year sentence in a state prison during the year. In some states, the rate of incarceration was much higher. Louisiana, the state with the highest rate, sentenced 893 people to a state prison for every 100,000 residents. Many thousands more served shorter sentences or sat in jail for months while awaiting trial.
Hope House has long been aware of the effects the criminal justice system has on people who are poor and people of color. Our neighbors are stopped and harassed by police without probable cause, and they are often arrested. It is rare to find young black men in this neighborhood who have not had a brush with the law, and since families are too poor to bond them out, they can spend weeks, months, and even years in jail awaiting trial just for “being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
This “out of control” system wreaks havoc on individuals, families, and neighborhoods. If a head of household is arrested and has to stay in jail more than a month, he or she will more than likely lose his or her job and home. If relatives are not able to take care of the inmate’s children, the children will end up in foster care. In economically poor neighborhoods, many households can be facing this situation at the same time. This only puts another huge burden on people who are already struggling mightily. In many cases the crimes are petty and could be handled far more effectively without arrest and incarceration.
In addition, jail conditions are terrible. The jail is damaged, poorly maintained, over-crowded and dangerous. Violence is common. Sheer boredom and depression are endemic. Medical and psychological care is terribly inadequate. Physical assaults and rapes are far too common. In the last five years 25 (inmates) have died while in the custody of the criminal sheriff. These included murder, suicide, and death due to natural causes that often could have been prevented by good medical care. The jail is not a safe or healthy place in which to be forced to live. And it should be emphasized that most of the jail’s inmates have not been convicted of the crime for which they were arrested; they are awaiting trial. They have not been convicted, but they are being punished.
In 2004 Hope House and several other organizations formed the Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition (OPPRC) to demand reforms. The group created a nine point platform for change and used it as an educational and political tool in preparation for the election of a new criminal sheriff. Every candidate publicly agreed to enact the platform, including the winner – Marlin Gusman.
But before Gusman had time to act on most of the platform’s points, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Prison buildings were badly damaged and over 6000 inmates were evacuated (after the storm had passed) to other jails and prisons across the state. When they returned, they were confined again in these same damaged buildings, unfit for human habitation. I started visiting the women inmates again two months after Katrina and I can say, from firsthand experience, that prison conditions were beyond appalling.
When the federal government allocated funds to rebuild Orleans Parish Prison, Gusman developed plans to build a new prison complex capable of housing over 5,000 people. In response, Hope House and other organizations revived OPPRC to push city officials to create a small, safe and humane jail for New Orleans, instead. Through careful research, meetings with city, state and federal officials, public education about mass incarceration and jail conditions, non-violent public protests, and legal action things are changing. A city ordinance limited the size of the new jail to 1438 beds. A federal consent decree is forcing the sheriff and the city to address conditions in the jail (safety, cleanliness, physical and mental health services, etc.).
OPPRC continues to research and promote alternatives to incarceration, including pre-trial services, a day reporting center, greater use of the summons in lieu of arrest, more efficient court procedures to lessen the length of pre-trial incarceration, and the decriminalization of a variety of minor, non-violent offenses. The city has begun to experiment with some of these approaches.
Money, power and institutional lethargy continue to get in the way of positive change. As a result, we are always “stepping on people’s toes.” This is inevitable if we are in solidarity with the poor, whose interests and needs are most often ignored.
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a look at the Devils in Disguise INDIEGOGO campaign
By Following Films January 15, 2015
Inspired by a variety of staple films from the past, a cinema lover and a renaissance man, Guillaume Campanacci, composed his maiden feature movie around a 'classic love triangle, with a twist', against a Californian urban setting.The story centers around two flatmates, Leila (Magen Mattox) and Sandy (Montanna Gillis), who conspire to take revenge on Leila's sadistic boyfriend (Guillaume Campanacci). It is a film underlined with violence and told through strong, non-linear structure, with poetic and sensual imagery. In essence, it's a meditation on friendship, love, trust, and murder, presented to us as a perfect blend of reality and dream-like fantasy sequences.As an artist, Guillaume Campanacci, is primarily interested in bringing back the flare of the 'Golden Age' of the French Cinema.
Guillaume Campanacci (writer/director/actor/producer)
Guillaume was born and raised in Cannes, France. He attended the prestigious engineer school "Arts et Metiers" in Aix en Provence and Paris. Shortly after obtaining his Master in Industrial and Mechanical engineering, Guillaume traveled the world as a model: Athens, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Hamburg, Miami, New York. But Guillaume did not feel fulfilled through modeling so he began to write scripts, direct and act. He studied the Meisner technique at the William Esper Studio in New York, and also studied with Anthony Abeson. Guillaume worked under the direction of Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki (Gravity, The Tree of Life) and David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven), and acted with respected celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Eva Longoria and Barbara Palvin. He wrote, directed, produced and acted in Devils in Disguise.
Magen Mattox (Actress/Producer)
Magen is an American Actress from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She started performing on stage by the age of four and has continued to perform in theater ever since. She studied at the University of Oklahoma for two years, which led her to Los Angeles to pursue film and television by the age of 20. She is currently residing in Los Angeles where she continues to pursue a career in both acting and writing.
Montanna Leigh Gillis (actress)
Montanna was born and raised in San Francisco, California. With a reputable father in the music industry and a childhood consumed with performing arts, her passion led her down to Los Angeles at the age of 18. Montanna has been involved in various projects and films, from independents to feature films, and continues to study with prestigious acting coaches such as Margie Haber and Ivana Chubbuck.
Tad Brown (actor)
Tad is an actor from Fort Myers, FL. He moved out to LA in 2012. He was featured in Seth Rogen's Hilarity for Charity video with Seth Rogen himself and Bryan Cranston. He has also been featured in many commercials.
Moby (Film score)
The artist Moby composed the beautiful score of Devils in Disguise.
Labels: Indiegogo
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Lions hall of famer Lem Barney sues Happy's Pizza for discrimination
By Camille Amiri
Posted Nov 12 2018 10:07PM EST
Video Posted Nov 12 2018 09:39PM EST
COMMERCE TWP., Mich. (WJBK) - Former Detroit Lion and NFL hall of famer Lem Barney say he was racially discriminated against at a Happy's Pizza in Commerce Township.
But Happy's denies any wrong doing. Barney's attorney filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday alleging Barney and his wife tried to order food at the North Pontiac Trail location when they say they were refused service and told to go to the Southfield location.
"Mrs. Barney was in disbelief and said 'What are you talking about, we live here in Commerce,'" said James Acho, Barney's attorney. "He said 'We're not serving; go to Southfield you'll be more at home there.'
"We know that Southfield is predominately black, I think there was a not so subtle message in there."
But Happy's Pizza tells a very different story. The company says the newly remodeled Commerce Township location wasn't even open for businesses yet and that employees were referring customers to other locations specifically Farmington Hills and Pontiac, the two closet locations geographically.
In a statement, the company responded "Happy's Pizza does not discriminate or refuse service to patrons under any circumstances on the basis of race, gender or religion. The franchise started on a busy corner on Detroit's northeast side and today is a leader in charitable giving in all of its communities and has supported the foundations and causes of numerous organizations and professional athletes in Detroit."
Barney played for the Detroit Lions from 1967 to 1977. He was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1992.
The Barneys' attorney says this is what they're hoping for - "a strong message sent by a judge or jury," Acho said. "What that is, remains to be seen."
Meanwhile Happy's Pizza says "We are deeply saddened by Mr. and Mrs. Barney's accusations of racial discrimination. We take these accusations very seriously and will do everything in our power to clear-up the confusion surrounding them."
The full statement from Happy's Pizza:
"Happy's Pizza, located at 2163 N. Pontiac Trail, Commerce, MI 48390, officially
opened for business on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. On Friday November 2,
2018, the Happy's Pizza store on N. Pontiac Trail was not open, but the doors
were, as employees and contractors were in and out of the building, doing food
and equipment testing and preparing the store for the opening the following
"Roughly 30 patrons came in the store on Friday November 2, wanting to order
food. Happy's Pizza employees explained to visitors the store was not yet open
to the public and referred visitors to the two geographically closest Happy's
Pizza locations (27845 Orchard Lake Rd., Farmington Hills, MI 48334 and 312 S.
Telegraph Rd., Pontiac, MI 48341).
"Happy's Pizza does not discriminate against or refuse service to patrons under
any circumstances on the basis of race, gender, or religion. The franchise
started on a busy corner on Detroit's Northeast side, and today is a leader in
charitable giving in all of its communities and has supported the foundations
and causes of numerous organizations and professional athletes in Detroit.
"The Happy's Pizza location Mr. Barney and his wife visited was not yet open to
the public for business on November 2. A screen shot from the point of sale
system attached clearly shows the "EOD Day 1" date as November 6, 2018, the
date the Happy's Pizza store in question opened for business.
"We are deeply saddened by Mr. and Mrs. Barney's accusations of racial
discrimination. We take these accusations very seriously and will do everything
in our power to clear-up the confusion surrounding them."
It's National Youth Sports Week-- a great time to get kids moving.
All week long-- families are meant to focus on promoting healthy, active lifestyles for young ones.
Doctor Banu Kumar, chief of Pediatric Medicine at DMC's Children's Hospital of Michigan is visited to talk about the best ways to get moving and how to do it safely, especially when it's this hot outside.
Air conditioning unit stolen from woman recovering from heart surgery
There's no escaping the heat for Natasha Allen and her family
"I turned the air conditioning on and nothing happened," she said. "Something just told me to go out there and check the AC unit and when I went out there - gone."
Allen says previous attempts to take the unit were unsuccessful, but about a week ago the robber hit the jackpot when they drove a vehicle on her lawn.
Owner of car in deadly Detroit crash had gotten his license back July 1
It was just before noon on Wednesday when Tyler Keleman was on Meyers near Intervale in Detroit.
"I was pulling out of cement company when it happened," said Tyler Keleman. "When I was pulling out. there was a car coming out of a cement company and a semi-truck barreling down the road."
But Tyler and other witnesses tell Fox 2 the car, a white Chrysler Sebring convertible tried to pass the truck.
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Digital Hollywood Spring, 2016
Sharon Mussalli, US Industry Manager, Entertainment, Global Marketing Solutions Team, Facebook
John Rubey, CEO, Fathom Events
Keyvan Peymani, Managing Director, Digital Strategy Division, ICM Partners
Don Daglow, CEO, 4thRing Inc., President, Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Foundation
Don Levy, President, Smith Brook Farm,
Hanny Patel, Sr. Director, Revenue & Product Marketing, DIRECTV, part of the AT&T family
10:45 AM - Noon
Track I: Salon II - Live Webcast from this Room
Hollywood and the Digital Consumer: How Technology, Content and Services Establish the Next Level of Consumer Entertainment Experience
Don Levy, President, Smith Brook Farm, Moderator
Hanny Patel is Sr. Director, Revenue & Product Marketing, DIRECTV, part of the AT&T family. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing revenue for all digital distribution businesses including pay-per-view, which includes movies & events as well as VOD marketing, resulting in a combined annual revenue responsibility of $575M. Patel joined DIRECTV in 2011 and has since then delivered double-digit YOY revenue growth and secured the first ever DIRECTV exclusive pay-per-view and on demand movie Get the Gringo. In addition to this, she launched a new programming strategy for the movies brand through the acquisition of over 20 films with this innovative new windowing strategy. She is currently leading the business team that is evaluating the launch of DIRECTV digital services, including SVOD and Electronic-Sell-Through (EST). Prior to joining DIRECTV, Patel was vice president for Sales & Marketing at Showtime Networks. At Showtime, Patel had account management responsibilities for the DIRECTV account where she developed and implemented marketing initiatives that resulted in SNI HH growth of over 4M subscribers or 20% growth in overall Showtime subscribers Patel holds a BS in Communications from Cornell University, and is based at DIRECTV’s El Segundo, Calif. headquarters.
Don Daglow, CEO, 4thRing Inc., President, Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Foundation: Don Daglow is a three-time Inc. 500 CEO and 2008 Technical Emmy® Award recipient who advises game developers and publishers around the world, as well as teaching entrepreneurs at the Founders Space accelerator in San Francisco. His clients range from small mobile game startups to large international publishers. Don is the only games industry executive who has led development teams on every generation of the first three decades of video game consoles, working on each cycle from the Intellivision in 1980 to the PS4 today. He produced two of EA’s first three sports titles and led development teams on the award-winning sports games La Russa Baseball , Madden NFL for PC, and NASCAR Racing. He speaks extensively in North America, Europe and Asia at conferences focused on interactivity and entertainment. He also serves as President of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Foundation, the charitable arm of the AIAS. Don's career in game design began in 1971 (before Pong), and he has been designing online titles since 1987 (before the Internet). In addition to an Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering in 2008 for his creation of Neverwinter Nights, the first graphical MMORPG, he also received the CGE Award in 2003 for "groundbreaking achievements that shaped the Video Game Industry," and his game Utopia is featured in the touring Smithsonian Museum "Art of Video Games" exhibit.
John Rubey is Fathom Events’ first CEO, bringing the alternative content leader more than 25 years of digital content and entertainment marketing experience. Previously, Rubey served as president of Rubey Entertainment where he was responsible for the overall vision, entertainment marketing, digital content development and execution of the company’s strategic initiatives. Prior to Rubey Entertainment, he oversaw the filming and distribution of all AEG Network LIVE’s music festivals to leading content distributors such as: VEVO, YouTube, HULU, Yahoo!, MySpace and others, in addition to festival and artist sites, mobile phones and high-definition TV. He was also directly responsible for capturing the industry’s top music festivals and concert performance in digital 3D for cinema distribution worldwide. With more than a decade of experience partnering with Fathom Events as a content provider, Rubey brings a unique perspective to his role as CEO. In addition to being the President of AEG Network LIVE, Rubey previously founded and owned Spring Communications, a leader in Pay Per View concerts and events, and held the position of COO of PACE Management (now LIVE Nation), for over six years prior to Spring Communications.
Don Levy, President, Smith Brook Farm: on Levy has been at the forefront of the entertainment industry’s digital transformation, developing “the intersection of entertainment and technology” throughout his career and at Sony Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Digital) from 1995-2012. He founded Smith Brook Farm in 2012 as a creative consultancy and is also the co-founder of Spud Media, LLC, a new entertainment venture serving the family market. During his tenure at SPE, he was a key member of Sony Pictures Digital’s senior executive team, involved in the management, marketing, communications, public relations, organizational development and digital policy functions of his division and the company. He was instrumental in the growth of SPE’s visual effects, animation, post-production and digital entertainment businesses. Levy originally joined Sony Pictures as the studio’s awards campaign consultant where his efforts resulted in a Best Picture nomination for “Sense and Sensibility” and the Academy Award for its screenplay adaptation by Emma Thompson. At Sony Pictures Imageworks and for Sony Pictures Animation, he helped earn more than a dozen Oscar™ nominations and Academy Awards for Best Animated Short (The ChubbChubbs) and Best Visual Effects (Spider-Man 2). Don is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, serving on its feature animation nominating committee and recently chaired a working group for the Science and Technology Council. He also is a member of The Television Academy’s Interactive Peer Group, The Visual Effects Society, ASIFA Hollywood, the International Photographers Guild and METAL, the Media, Entertainment and Technology Alpha Leaders organization. Levy is a frequent speaker on the subjects of innovation, digital creativity, education and visual effects. His 2012 talk on the principles and evolution of visual effects at the TED Conference in Long Beach, CA was posted on TED.com in January 2013. He is active in local education issues and organizes TEDxConejo in association with the Conejo Valley (Thousand Oaks, Ca) Unified School District. Levy is on the faculty of Boston University’s L.A. Program, where he teaches Entertainment Marketing. He holds a visiting scholar post at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, exploring collaborative production models, and he is a consultant to USC’s Entertainment Technology Center. He is an advisor to Cosmic Forces, a content start-up specializing in animation and mobile applications, Smartoonz, an animation production company, and serves on the board of advisors for BLUE, the Ocean Film Festival and Conference, a leading forum for filmmakers, researchers and individuals actively engaged in the study and protection of the oceans. Levy attended New York University, received his B.A. from the University of Denver and earned certificates from UCLA’s Anderson School of Business.
Sharon Mussalli currently serves as US Industry Manager, Entertainment on the Global Marketing Solutions team at Facebook based out of the New York office. Her team oversees relationships between television networks and film studios across the Facebook and Instagram platforms. Through their efforts, the team forges key strategic partnerships in television and film that contribute to their continued growth across all core initiatives. Sharon brought 14 years of tenure in the entertainment and lifestyle media space to her role at Facebook, most recently having served as Director of Digital Media at Clear Channel Media + Entertainment/iHeartRadio. Sharon holds a BA from Tufts University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
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Reluctant Habits
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Category / Science
November 30, 2016 December 3, 2016 by Edward Champion
Six Easy Pieces (Modern Library Nonfiction #88)
Was Richard Feynman the “brilliant teacher” that his champions made him out to be? I was somewhat underwhelmed by this curated selection of lectures, but I did still come away from Feynman wanting to know more about how science has altered human existence.
Modern Library, Nonfiction Challenge, Richard, Science
modern library, nonfiction, physics, Reading, richard feynman, Science, six easy pieces
(This is the thirteenth entry in The Modern Library Nonfiction Challenge, an ambitious project to read and write about the Modern Library Nonfiction books from #100 to #1. There is also The Modern Library Reading Challenge, a fiction-based counterpart to this list. Previous entry: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.)
Richard Feynman, exuberant Nobel laureate and formidable quantum mechanics man, may have been energetic in his lectures and innovatively performative in the classroom, but I’m not sure he was quite the great teacher that many have pegged him to be. James Gleick’s biography Genius informs us that students dropped out of his high-octane, info-rich undergraduate physics classes at a remarkable rate, replaced by Caltech faculty members and grad students who took to the Queens-born superstar much like baryons make up the visible matter of the universe. The extent to which Feynman was aware of this cosmic shift has been disputed by his chroniclers, but it is important to be aware of this shortcoming, especially if you’re bold enough to dive into the famed three volume Feynman Lectures on Physics, which are all thankfully available online. Six Easy Pieces represents an abridged version of Feynman’s full pedagogical oeuvre. And even though the many YouTube videos of Feynman reveal an undeniably magnetic and indefatigably passionate man of science who must have been an incredible dynamo to experience in person, one wonders whether barraging a hot room of young nervous twentysomethings with hastily delivered information is the right way to popularize science, much less inspire a formidable army of physicists.
Watch even a few minutes of Feynman firing on all his robust cylinders and it becomes glaringly apparent how difficult it is to contend with Feynman’s teaching legacy in book form. One wonders why the Modern Library nonfiction judges, who were keen to unknowingly bombard this devoted reader with such massive multivolume works as The Golden Bough, Dumas Malone’s Jefferson and His Time, and Principia Mathematica, didn’t give this spot to the full three volume Lectures. Did they view Feynman’s complete lesson plan as failed?
Judging from the sextet that I sampled in this deceptively slim volume, I would say that, while Feynman was undeniably brilliant, he was, like many geniuses, someone who often got lost within his own metaphors. While his analogy of two corks floating in a pool of water, with one cork jiggling in place to create motion in the pool that causes indirect motion for the other cork, is a tremendously useful method of conveying the “unseen” waves of the electromagnetic field (one that galvanized me to do the same in a saucepan after I had finished two bottles of wine over a week and a half), he is not nearly on-the-nose with his other analogies. The weakest lesson in the book, “Conservation on Energy,” trots out what seems to be a reliably populist metaphor with a child named “Dennis the Menace” playing with 28 blocks, somehow always ending up with 28 of these at the end of the day. Because Feynman wants to illustrate conservational constants, he shoehorns another element to the narrative whereby Dennis’s mother is, for no apparent reason, not allowed to open up the toy box revealing the number of blocks and thus must calculate how many blocks reside within. The mother has conveniently weighed the box at some unspecified time in advance back when it contained all 28 blocks.
This is bad teaching, in large part because it is bad storytelling that makes no sense. I became less interested in conservation of energy, with Feynman’s convoluted parallel clearly becoming more trouble than it was worth, and more interested in knowing why the mother was so fixated on remembering the number of blocks. Was she truly so starved for activity in her life that she spent all day at work avoiding all the juicy water cooler gossip about co-workers, much less kvetching about the boss, so that she might scheme a plan to at long last show her son that she would always know the weight of a single block? When Dennis showed resistance to opening the toy box, why didn’t the mother stand her ground and tell him to buzz off and stream an episode of Project Mc²?
Yet for all these defects in method, there is an indisputable poetic beauty in the way in which Feynman reminds us that we live in a vast world composed of limitless particles, a world in which we still aren’t aware of all the rules and in which even the particles contained within solids remain “fixed” in motion. Our universe is always moving, even when we can’t see it or completely comprehend it. Feynman is quick to observe throughout his lessons that “The test of all knowledge is experiment,” which again points to my theory that Feynman’s teachings, often accentuated by experiment, were probably better experienced than read. Nevertheless, even in book form, it is truly awe-inspiring to understand that we can still not accurately predict the precise mass, form, and force of all the cascading droplets from a mighty river once it hits the precipice of a waterfall. Such mysteries capture our imagination and, when Feynman is committed to encouraging our inventiveness through open and clear-eyed examples from our world, he is very much on point. Thanks in part to Feynman reminding me just how little we silly humans now know, I began to feel my heart open more for Tycho Brahe, that poor Dane who spent many years of his life refining Copernicus’s details and determining the elliptical patterns of planetary orbits. Brahe worked out his calculations entirely without a telescope, which allowed Johannes Kepler to sift through his invaluable measurements and forge laws that all contemporary astronomers now rely on to determine where a planet might be in the sky on any given night of the year. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle hasn’t even been around a century and it’s nothing less than astounding to consider how our great grandparents had a completely different understanding of atoms and motion in their early lifetime than we do today.
Feynman did have me wanting to know more about the origins of many scientific discoveries, causing me to contemplate how each and every dawning realization altered human existence (an inevitable buildup for Thomas Kuhn and paradigms, which I will take up in ML Nonfiction #69). But unlike such contemporary scientists as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Alan Guth, or Brian Greene, Feynman did not especially inspire me to plunge broadly into my own experiments or make any further attempts to grapple with physics-based complexities. This may very well be more my failing than Feynman’s, but there shall be many more stabs at science as we carry on with this massive reading endeavor!
Next Up: G.H. Hardy’s A Mathematician’s Apology!
July 12, 2012 August 7, 2012 by Edward Champion
Frank Partnoy (The Bat Segundo Show)
In this 40 minute radio interview, Frank Partnoy discusses his book, Wait, considers the value of the pause, the subliminal message, the loop, and numerous other elements of waiting around.
Bat Segundo, interview, Science, Waiting
author, frank partnoy, interview, nonfiction, Science, wait, waiting
Frank Partnoy appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #468. He is most recently the author of Wait.
Listen: Play in new window | Download
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Impatient for a pause.
Author: Frank Partnoy
Subjects Discussed: Perception of time, Walter Clark, pauses and authenticity, Jon Stewart’s 20 second pause in response to Sarah Palin’s “squirmish,” This American Life, Christian Marclay’s The Clock, “Kristen Schaal is a horse,” Tao Lin’s use of repetition, John Boyd’s OODA loop, whether a military strategist’s ideas are entirely applicable to dating, how delay persuades us in other context, the first date as a military tactic, lunch-oriented dating services, making bad snap decisions because of a photo, panic and fast talking, being aware of your audience when talking, the Einstellung effect, Peter McLeod’s experiments with chess players, the three move checkmate, how even chess masters get stuck in the muck, the dangers of being overconfident, unemployment, Sarkozy’s failed efforts to readjust the GDP to help long-term economic impact, readjusting human attention from the short-term solution, cognitive bias, subliminal messages, how fast food logos help to read, SAnford DeVoe’s experiments, racist treatment decisions from doctors, the unanticipated advantages of a spare second, the effects of wealth upon happiness, finding another activity while waiting, viewing time as more scarce and impatience, when scientific developments are at odds with capitalist realities, the downside of success, procrastination, subliminal messages within the film Fight Club, topless women in The Rescuers, when people are vulnerable to subliminal messages, the invention of the Post-It, the advantage of fresh eyes, Archimedes and Newton, Arthur Fry, thin slicing and the Malcolm Gladwell reductionist incarnation of this idea now welcomed by marketing people, Dr. Phil’s incorrect use of thin slicing, and why thin slicing isn’t two seconds according to the studies.
Correspondent: So let’s start off with panic, which seems a very good thing to start off with. Panic, as you say, has much to do with our perception of time. You bring up Walter Clark’s theory — he’s this acting teacher. He says that the best actors are the ones who don’t panic. So how much of our waiting has to do with panic or any other sense of emotional paralysis? How much of our anxieties come from this false comprehension of time? If there’s this correlation between good acting and not panicking, well, I have to ask, Frank, what’s the compromise between being human and being some pretender or some mimic?
Partnoy: Oh, it’s a great question. I’ve learned so much from Walter Clark, who’s one of the best acting coaches I’ve been around. My daughter takes a lot of acting classes. So I’ve learned a lot from him. And I think an acting coach, like somebody who is sophisticated watching a play or a performance, can see through a mimic. You can tell when somebody’s a fake when they’re performing. One of the things that panic does is that it leads people to speed up their performance. So that they run through what the acting coaches call beats. So it’s partly true of acting generally. But it’s especially true of comedy, I think. One of the things that I took away from watching him in action was that a lot of comedy really is about pauses and delays.
Correspondent: Yes.
Partnoy: And understanding the audience and being authentic in your understanding of the audience and figuring out how often to pause. You know, we’re talking right now. We’ve just met each other, right? And we’re sort of watching each other and having this conversation.
Correspondent: And you’re a total phony.
Partnoy: Yeah. Sorry.
Correspondent: Or are you? Maybe I’m the total phony. Who knows? Maybe we’re both being phony. I don’t know.
Partnoy: Hopefully we won’t be as we move along.
Correspondent: I think I can trust you so far.
Partnoy: Alright. Likewise. I’m enjoying it so far.
Correspondent: Okay, good.
Partnoy: I’m grabbing my wallet now. But I do think, just when we start having these conversations in our normal lives, even if we’re not acting that there’s a role of the pause and the delay. That just speeding through something 100 miles an hour is not a very effective communication technique. So one of the things I’ve been interested in for a long time is that. I teach law school classes and my students can’t comprehend me if I’m speaking 100 miles an hour. On the other hand, I can speak pretty quickly and they’ll get content down. They’ll write. So it’s this kind of balance back and forth. And when you panic, you speed up. You speed through the pause. One of the things that I’ve been playing with, as I’ve done three years of research now on the book and wrote it, is how long I can get away with pausing. [short pause] So I talk a little bit about Jon Stewart as an example and this extraordinary moment he had in one of his shows where he had captured Sarah Palin questioning some of the Obama military action in Libya and saying she didn’t know what to call this. “We’re not at war. What’s a word for it? I don’t know the word.” And then Sarah Palin uses this non-word “squirmish.” And for me as a speaker, I would have a hard time waiting, pausing more than a couple of seconds, telling a joke and then delaying. My son actually — I have an eight-year-old son — he’s a lot better at telling a joke and then delaying the punchline. So he’ll make up some joke. “A couple of cantaloupe were married. What did they name their daughter?” And then he’ll do a dramatic pause and say, “Melony.” Which is just made up. But he’ll get a laugh where I’m not sure I can do. But Jon Stewart is able to pause for twenty full seconds. I think that must be some kind of a world record for pauses. And he’s just the opposite of panic. He’s utterly fearless with the audience, feeling them out, understanding and being totally authentic, right? I mean, that’s one of the reasons why we love Jon Stewart so much, is that he’s command of timing and gets us and gets what we want and goes through this kind of time framework, which I think is actually very valuable in all the decisions that we make. Which is a two-step process. The first step is: How long can I wait before taking this action and making this decision? What’s the maximum amount of time that I can wait? And then the second step is delaying until that moment. And so in that example, he decided it was going to be twenty seconds. Probably not consciously. Because he’s a a master. And he was able to wait twenty seconds. I could never do that.
Correspondent: Well, since you brought up pauses, I think we should talk about them.
Correspondent: You observe that the best radio announcers and interviewers use them.
Correspondent: Comedians like Jon Stewart, of course.
Correspondent: You can even point to the Mike Daisey pauses in This American Life.
[pauses]
Correspondent: Oh. Am I sort of interfering with the question? I don’t know.
Partnoy: Beautifully done. Masterful.
Correspondent: Actually though, I do want to bring this up. I could even bring the William Shatner pause into this equation. But I’m wondering if how we react to a pause shares much in common with how we react to, say, a loop. There’s this comedy routine — I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it — “Kristen Schaal is a Horse” — where basically it just goes on and on and repeats and repeats. It’s basically this woman dancing and a man clapping and going, “Kristen Schaal is a horse! Kristen Schaal is a horse!” And it goes on and loops for like fifteen minutes. There’s a Tao Lin poem where he constantly says the line “the next night we ate whale.” And there are all sorts of repetitions throughout art and culture and so forth. Does the manner in which we ascribe authority to a pause have much in common with this loop situation?
Partnoy: Oh, that’s a fascinating question. I think so. I mean, loops come up in all sorts of contexts and they relate to time in a very fundamental way, right? There’s — I’ll forget the artist, but there’s the 24 hour loop exhibit that’s out now.
Correspondent: Oh yeah. Christian Marclay’s The Clock.
Partnoy: It’s incredible, right? The Clock, where you’ve got, from various films, depictions of 12:01 and 1:05 sort of cycling around. And there’s something really powerful about the reinforcement of the story. A lot of jokes get funnier as they’re retold. So much so that even comedians, they might not even laugh at the joke, but they’ll just think, “Wow, that was really funny.” And loops come up also in a completely different context, I found in my research. Which is in the military.
Correspondent: Mr. Boyd.
Partnoy: Mr. Boyd, right. John Boyd, probably the greatest fighter pilot in history, who created something called the OODA loop. O-O-D-A, for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. This approach to decision making started in a military context, but now people use it in all areas of life and business. Where you take time and initially you observe. And you orient. You figure out where the enemy is. And then finally you make the decision. And then the decision is the mental part. And the act is the implementation part. And what John Boyd talks about is running through an OODA loop. So going through that cycle of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act over and over again, watching the jet fighter you’re trying to shoot down to see what that person’s proclivities are — Do they like to faint to the left? Or the right? How fast are they? — to understand and to confuse them too. Which is also interesting. Because I’m not sure whether the art projects or films that we talked about earlier — I’m not sure they’re really meant to confuse. But in the offensive aspects of the OODA loop, part of what John Boyd is suggesting they do is get a speed advantage to confuse the enemy. And the development of the F-16, he was the person who basically created the idea of the F-16 and pushed its development. The kind of aircraft that’s like using a switchblade in a knife fight, that you can use very quickly to confuse and disorient your opponent. So these loops show up. Expertise, if you think about it. Where does expertise come from? It comes from a kind of repeated loop, right? Chess players become experts by learning openings and repeating that over and over and over again and seeing certain patterns. What behavioralists call chunking. Being able, because they’ve been through those loops so many times, to recognize patterns consistently. So it’s a really interesting question. And I think to some extent, these really deep insights and expertise come out of repeated loops as well.
The Bat Segundo Show #468: Frank Partnoy (Download MP3)
April 24, 2012 June 24, 2012 by Edward Champion
The Bat Segundo Show: Jonah Lehrer
In this one hour radio interview, science writer Jonah Lehrer discusses Imagine: How Creativity Works, neuroscience, Pixar management techniques, W.H. Auden, and recent criticisms about his reductionist approach,
Bat Segundo, interview, lehrer-jonah, Science
author, creativity, imagine, interview, jonah lehrer, neuroscience, podcast, Science
Jonah Leher appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #448. He is most recently the author of Imagine: How Creativity Works.
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Brown-bagging his imaginative faculties.
Author: Jonah Lehrer
Subjects Discussed: Continuum’s development of the Swiffer, Shakespeare, whether creativity that originates from theft is acceptable, Bob Dylan, conceptual blending, efforts to defend aerosol cheese spray, bacon cocktails, Dick Crew, Don Lee, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Alex Osborn and brainstorming, Pixar management techniques, Mike Daisey, when storytelling gets in the way of the facts, Milton Glaser and the beginnings of I ♥ NY, the creative possibilities of Benzedrine, WH Auden’s poetry, Angela Duckworth, attempting to make banal chapters, Brian Uzzi and Jarret Spiro’s work involving the Q rating, “Collaboration and Creativity: The Small World Problem,” Y combinator startups and Broadway musicals, not bringing up Stanley Milgram, comparisons between Lehrer and Malcolm Gladwell, small world theory and hit plays, Charlan Nemeeth‘s idea of dissent’s relationship to creativity, Lehrer sandwiching dissent and complacency, “Managing Innovation,” Steve Jobs tearing people apart at Pixar, Pixar’s plussing approach, the middle ground between brutal honesty and egalitarianism, Ray Oldenburg and third places, Pixar and Lehrer’s liberties with third places, the Santa Fe Institute, Geoffrey West and Luis Bettencourt building an equation based on urban variables, why Lehrer placed the Homebrew Community Club into the city-based West/Bettencourt model, Silicon Valley vs. New York, Tom Wolfe, California’s non-compete clause, the Duncker candle problem, functional fixedness, Robert Adamson, leaving the country to solve a problem, William Maddux and Adam Galinsky’s “Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers,” why Lehrer doesn’t use the exact nomenclature to describe science, the origin of Post-Its, Lehrer avoiding the term “functional fixedness,” avoiding terms to attract a larger readership, the problems with mashup methods, responding in depth to Tim Requarth and Meehan Crist at The Millions*, Eric Kandel’s The Age of Insight, the fMRI and the insula lighting up, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and being hamstrung by the popular science medium.
Correspondent: You put on the glasses. Have you always worn glasses? Because I noticed that was the new cover photo for this. Whereas before you didn’t have glasses.
Lehrer: Oh, I’ve been blind for a long, long time. Maybe — I forget. Maybe the photographer had me take them off.
Correspondent: They asked you to take them off. I was always curious.
Lehrer: No, no, no.
Correspondent: I didn’t know if it was a new mild-mannered Clark Kent look or…
Lehrer: No, no, no. I can assure you that these glasses actually work. They help me see.
Correspondent: Good. I’m more visible for you. That’s reassuring. Let’s go ahead and get right into it. Your book opens with this story of Continuum observing an elderly woman who is wetting a paper towel and wiping the remaining coffee grounds off of the linoleum as she was cleaning. This, of course, leads to the development of the Swiffer. Near the end of the book, you point out Shakespeare. He had a tendency to comb through the many books he read to find stories that he could use for plays and so forth. So it would seem to me — just to establish some terms from the beginning — that much of your notion of creativity involves the theft of ideas. That if you have financial or intellectual resources and you’re able to go ahead and pluck them from somebody else, then hey! You can be creative! So how is profiting off of another person’s idea a form of creation? Or art? Or what not?
Lehrer: I’m not sure I’d call it straight theft. I think Dylan actually has — I talk a lot about Bob Dylan in the book.
Correspondent: Yes, you do.
Lehrer: And he’s got this wonderful phrase where he describes his process as one of love and theft. That first you fall in love. Whether it’s a Woody Guthrie-style. Whether it’s a Robert Johnson riff. Whether it’s, say, old Irish lullaby from Ireland which you turn into “Blowin’ in the Wind.” So you love it and you love it. And you try and understand it and map out the intricate details and connections and then you steal it. And you make it your own. So this isn’t straight theft. This is, in theory, Shakespeare, who, as you point out, was doing pretty well for himself. He came from very humble beginnings. His father was a glover. He signed his name with a mark. But he did his dad proud and made lots of money. So he didn’t just steal Hamlet. He didn’t just steal the plot for Romeo and Juliet. And he didn’t just steal almost all his plots. Shakespeare did not like inventing his own stories, of course. He made them his own. He reinvented them. I think it’s the same thing Bob Dylan did with that Robert Johnson riff. It’s the same thing Continuum did with watching that elderly lady wipe up the coffee grinds that they actually spilled on her floor. That she didn’t invent the Swiffer. They invented the Swiffer. That triggered an insight which then led them to combine the mop, which they spent nine months studying and realizing that mopping’s a terrible idea. Because you spend more time cleaning the mop than you do the actual floor. And in that, her simple act, I mean, they had all done themselves countless times, simply triggered their breakthrough. So in a sense, I mean, I think you’re right to point out that all creativity involves a theft from somewhere. I think creativity is ultimately just a new connection between old ideas. So you are in the most literal sense thieving ideas which already exist. But the connection itself is new. At least it should be new. If it’s not new, then it actually is straight up theft. And that’s not the kind of creativity I’m interested in.
Correspondent: What is the creativity you’re interested in? Because I want to actually distinguish from an elaborate or high-class pickpocket. You know what I mean?
Lehrer: Yeah. You know, I think it’s very easy to get lost in lots of circular discussions about how to define creativity. I think creativity, as far as I’m concerned, is a bit like porn. You kind of know it when you see it.
Correspondent: Oh yeah?
Lehrer: Yeah. Or at least that’s what the Supreme Court says. You know, I think creativity is just the invention of something new. I’m not saying new in some kind of pretend sense. I’m saying something genuinely new which doesn’t exist in the patent office, doesn’t exist in the world, that other people find useful. So that’s as fancy as I get in defining creativity.
Correspondent: Well, let’s get into conceptual blending, which you get into. People exchanging ideas across different disciplines. When you take two concepts and mash them together, which seems applicable to this notion of what is creativity, I mean, it has given us some regrettable and fairly negative ideas. I think that we can both agree that aerosol cheese spray, the car alarm, telemarketing, the Pet Rock.
Lehrer: Yes. Oh come on.
Correspondent: These are things that also come from conceptual blending. So…
Lehrer: Aerosol cheese spray? I’ll go with you on the Pet Rock, but Cheese Whiz? That stuff in the can? That fueled me for much of my childhood.
Correspondent: Yes. “Childhood” being the key.
Lehrer: (laughs)
Correspondent: We’re talking about adulthood.
Lehrer: Okay. Okay.
Correspondent: I mean, we’re talking about ideas that really changed the world. That really have a revolutionary impact. Such as the iPhone or something like that. I mean, you commend Dick Drew as this innovator. And I’m fairly certain that a lot of terrible ideas have also come from 3M. And with the bartender Don Lee, you point out that most of his experiments were utter failures. His attempt to carbonate a cherry didn’t exactly work.
Lehrer: Yeah. And even his Bacon Old Fashioned is very divisive. Like I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Correspondent: Have you tried it?
Lehrer: I have. The first sip is delicious and then it’s kind of unsettling. I think it’s more about my limitations as a consumer than as an eater. And a lot of people don’t like it. So that’s a…
Correspondent: Well, who ultimately determines whether it’s creative or not? I mean, I can just go ahead and spend an evening being completely stoned out of my mind and come up with stupid ideas and that can also be conceptual blending.
Lehrer: Yeah.
Correspondent: I mean, what is the distinguishing quality here?
Lehrer: Well, that’s why I think when defining creativity, one has to invoke the second life of the idea. One has to invoke this notion that it has to be useful to yourself and other people. So you know, one of my favorite stories and moments of insight — I talk about moments of insight in Imagine and the neuroscience of it. And why they happen when we least expect it. But there’s this great story of an insight by Oliver Wendell Holmes when he first took laughing gas for the first time. And he’s stoned out of his mind. High as a kite. While high as a kite, has this big epiphany. He solved the world. This grand solution. Writes it down on a cocktail napkin. And they can’t find the cocktail napkin. And he wakes up the next day. He’s hungover. Searches everywhere. Finally finds a cocktail napkin. So excited to read it. And what it says is: “The world smells like turpentine.”
Correspondent: Yeah. But there are failed economic theories that are also written on cocktail napkins. You know what I mean?
Lehrer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. So that’s why I think one has to separate the phenomenology of the idea. To use a ten dollar word. Like the feeling of the insight. Like “Oh my god, I made this great connection.” And I think we’ve all had the experience — many of us have had the experience of being stoned or high and being “That was such a brilliant epiphany.” Then you wake up in the morning and you realize it’s useless. So I think when talking about creativity, one should talk about the second life and hopefully not just in the brute financial terms. I don’t think we should get in the business of just measuring creativity by how many books you sell or whether or not it can be monetized. Etcetera etcetera. But we should talk about the second life. Cause that I think is the ultimate way our ideas are measured.
Correspondent: Well, to go ahead and get into some of what you write in the book, late, you write that Alex Osborn’s idea of brainstorming was in fact wrong. That’s been pointed out by numerous people. Why then does your book skim over the really terrible ideas? I mean, how do we reconcile Osborn with the Carson/Peterson/Higgins study involving 86 Harvard undergraduates in which those who considered the irrelevant details were seven times more likely to be rated as “eminent creative achievers”? Now being ranked as an “eminent creative achiever” is a lot different from, oh say, inventing the iPhone or coming up with something that is actually helpful.
Lehrer: Of course. So their ranking of creativity — and what I liked about this study is that it was real world creativity. A lot of limitations of the way scientists study creativity are creativity tests. So it’s tests on divergent thinking, coming up with uses for a brick, finding ways to study traffic in the Bay Area. Stuff like that. But it’s not about the real world. So what I liked about that study was that it was real world achievement. So to get back to your question about why I don’t spend a lot of time on the failed ideas….
Correspondent: Because that would seem to be important, you know.
Lehrer: Well, one of the subplots in the book — at least that I tried to engineer into the book — is this notion that there’s no success without failure, that one of the defining features of successful creators is the way they’ve learned how to fail successfully. One of my favorite lines in the book is Lee Unkrich’s quote — the director of Toy Story 3 — about the secret sauce of Pixar is failing as fast as possible. You know, you go through iteration after iteration. So I’ve got that whole chapter on the importance of revisions and drafting and the conceiving process and going through drafts, looking for your failures, and trying to fix them. So, you know, hopefully I’ve made it clear that all good ideas emerge from the litter of lots of bad ones and that even the best epiphanies, you still have to edit them. You still have to fine tune them and perfect them. So hopefully it’s implicit in the book that part of coming up with a good idea is this entangled relationship with bad ideas. As for why I don’t talk a lot about failed ideas in the book, why I don’t harp on those inventions that never work, I don’t know. I mean, to be honest, I’m sure as a storyteller, it’s easier to tell stories of success. That’s what interests me more. No one wants to buy a book that’s all about…
Correspondent: You’re more of a Mike Daisey type than a New York Times guy?
Lehrer: How’d I go from wanting to tell success stories to being a Mike Daisey type?
Correspondent: Well, because we’re talking about facts vs. storytelling. Which is an ongoing debate especially in 2012. With John D’Agata and Jim Fingal’s The Lifespan of a Fact. With Mike Daisey.
Lehrer: Well, what are facts vs. storytelling?
Correspondent: The point I’m trying to make here is if you are telling a story where everything could be a conceivable success, I mean, there are some things that are inevitably failures. John Carter is probably by every standard a failure. It’s lost more money than any movie.
Lehrer: Yeah, but how does that? To get back to your question about facts and stories, how does that — I’m trying to talk about creativity and where it comes from. I think that one of the defining features of creativity — like I said before — it’s a new idea that people find useful. So there are obviously lots of ideas which people don’t find useful. Lots of failed ideas. In my book, I try to make clear that failure is a part of the creative process. One should learn how to deal with it. But one doesn’t have to write a book about creativity to talk about all the bad ideas that don’t work out. That would be a very, very, very, very long book, and I think fairly incoherent. So that’s why most of the stories I tell in the book are stories where, because that’s part of what creativity is, that’s how I define it. It’s a new idea that works. So I tell the story of new ideas that work.
Correspondent: Okay.
Lehrer: But I don’t quite understand how that means I’m Mike Daisey.
Correspondent: Well, because Mike Daisey took facts to fit his larger narrative. And while from a liberal standpoint, I suppose you could argue that looking at Shenzhen, even if the facts aren’t entirely airtight, might be a good idea, there’s still…
Lehrer: Well, which facts am I eliding to make my larger narrative? I guess that’s my…
Correspondent: Well, when you say you can learn from every failure and there’s a success from there, I don’t know if that’s entirely the truth.
Lehrer: I’m not saying you can — I don’t say that anywhere in the book that all ideas are created equal. In fact, the whole point of why brainstorming doesn’t work — you brought up Alex Osborn’s failed idea — is that it treats all ideas as equal. I mean, the whole point of brainstorming is all ideas are useful. All ideas are good. And as I point out, the reason brainstorming doesn’t work is because groups that engage in criticism and debate and dissent, groups that point out, “That idea is actually a piece of shit,” they do much better. They come up with more ideas and those ideas are better. So hopefully a theme of the book, as I’ve been trying to make clear, is this notion of being honest about which ideas are good and which ideas are bad, identifying failures and fixing them, and out of that process, which is often dismal and unpleasant and insufferable, out of that long process, you will hopefully get a good idea. But there is no shortcut around it.
Correspondent: You talked with Milton Glaser, the graphic designer who came up with the I ♥ NY logo. You mention WH Auden and how he was hopped up on Benzedrine to produce his poems. You say that it was persistence, this determination to solve the problem of how to rehabilitate the image of New York City, which led to Glaser’s solution. But aside from Earl Miller’s recursive loop, his dopamine findings, I’m curious what science you have to back up this idea of the value of persistence to the creative mind. I mean, is it not possible that maybe Glaser’s idea caught on because, well, New York was kind of stuck with it? Because I ♥ NY was everywhere? Know what I mean?
Correspondent: And also there’s this troubling idea of, well, do we have to be hopped up on Benzedrine to be a poet?
Lehrer: No, no, definitely not. As Auden himself would discover, there’s a reason why Benzedrine is now illegal. We no longer prescribe it for asthma. It’s incredibly addictive and, as I point out in the book, comes with all sorts of terrible side effects like horrible constipation, insomnia, and heart arrhythmia, and you definitely don’t want to advocate Benzedrine, no matter how much you need to edit your poetry. In terms of the science on persistence, yeah, there’s a lot of interesting research. A lot of which has nothing to do with the brain, at least not yet. Which I think demonstrates that persistence — the technical term for persistence that psychologists study is grit. This is primarily the work of Angela Duckworth. She’s at Penn. I’m actually writing about her now. Writing an article about her. She’s shown in many domains that grit is the single biggest predictor of success. More than IQ scores. So if you’re trying to figure out which 12-year-old will win the National Spelling Bee, it’s about grit. Who’s going to last at West Point? It’s about grit. Who’s going to last at Teach for America? Which amateur golfers are going to make the PGA tour? She argues that grit also plays a very important role in the creative process. She always quotes the Woody Allen line that 80% of success is showing up. Well, grit is what allows you to show up again and again. The two components of grit — and it’s important to point out, it’s not just about persistence. And I think this is an important caveat. It’s not just about persistence. You also have to have the right goal in the first place. So I may want to play in the NBA. But you’re looking at me. It’s not going to happen. So I have to have someone tell me early on hopefully that all the grit in the world, all the persistence in the world, won’t turn me into Spud Webb. Find a different goal. So I think sometimes one of the problems we have is we’re not willing to help people — you know, dreams will come true if you simply try for it. That kind of talk. It sounds really good, but it’s not entirely honest. And I think we need to be honest about it not being honest.
Correspondent: Now that’s a completely reasonable assessment. Why then would you put WH Auden on Benzedrine then in the book? And is this sort of the worst case scenario? Even though he ended up coming up with a number of great poems. If we’re talking about reasonable applications of what we’re talking about here for people to find their creative roots, why would you go for these more extraordinary examples?
Lehrer: Why I chose that in particular?
Correspondent: Yeah. I’m just curious. Why did you include a Benzedrine addict? Genius as he may very well have been.
Lehrer: Sure. To be honest, the reason I chose Auden is because I’ve long been an Auden fan. I’ve always been fascinated by why you look at his most anthologized poems — and my favorite Auden poetry is actually his late poetry. So absolutely after he weaned himself off Benzedrine, and that was a brutal process, but I actually like “In Praise of Limestone” — his later poetry — which is a little messier, a little more chaotic, a little more personal. But if you look at his most anthologized poems, they really come from this three year window when he was really on Benzedrine, “September 1,” “In Memory of Yeats,” etcetera etcetera. And I was interested in why that is. What allowed him to, in this narrow window, produce poems that were spare and precise and transparent and really, really popular and have resonated with people for decades. And so that’s why I chose Auden. Both because I liked the man and I have this lingering interest in this particular phase of his career. So that’s why I chose him. I wasn’t trying to pick an extreme example. You know, for me, it was the storytelling challenge in this chapter was — in the end, the point I’m trying to give readers is incredibly banal. And I’m sure that — I think most readers will realize that, in the end, the point of that chapter is “Sometimes you have to work really hard.” Not the most exciting idea. And so for me, the reason I chose Auden is cause drugs, Benzedrine, and that struck me as a slightly more interesting way to, in the end, make this point that creativity is also about hard work. And Milton Glaser’s motto says it best. “Art is work.”
Correspondent: But wait a minute. If the underlying point of the chapter is banal, then why stretch out a chapter? I’m not saying that…
Lehrer: Well, because that’s an important part of the creative process. I wish I could write a book in which the whole point was “Take showers when you’re stuck.” Get relaxed. Which is part of the process too. I think there’s good evidence for that. But when you talk with creative people, and I’m trying to tell the story of creativity as I see it from talking to people in the business and from the perspectives of scientists who study it. A big part of creative success is showing up, is putting in the work, is going after the drafts. That’s not the sexy stuff. But that needs to be in there too.
Correspondent: But isn’t it your job to sex it up, Jonah? I mean, you’re a guy — we were cracking up about aerosol cheese spray, right?
Lehrer: Oh, I do my best to sex it up. Which is why I begin the chapter by talking about Benzedrine. That was my attempt to sex up a very banal chapter. Hopefully the chapter itself isn’t banal. The idea in it is — you know, if you’ve ever done anything worthwhile in your life, you know it takes work, right? So my challenge as a storyteller in that chapter was, gosh, I’ve got to put this in here. Because that’s a huge part of the creative process. There’s no getting around it. But how can I make it interesting? I can’t just talk about hard work. That’s a chapter I wouldn’t want to write and people wouldn’t want to read. So the way I begin it is by talking about this poet who is an incredibly talented poet. I’m not saying that if we all take Benzedrine, we’ll pump out “September 1st, 1939.” Having dabbled in amphetamines myself, all I got out of it was several nights of insomnia. But I think it does, within the context of Auden, help show how this drug modulated his poetry a little bit.
* — In The Millions‘s comments, Lehrer responded to a lengthy criticism of Imagine offered by Requarth and Crist (namely, Lehrer criticizing the limitations of fMRI in a Wall Street Journal column, while simultaneously relying on similar data elsewhere):
I honestly can’t cite a popular brain book that either 1) doesn’t cite fMRI localization studies at face value at some point or 2) engage in speculative links between neural mechanisms and complex mental phenomena. For instance, I’m currently in the midst of Eric Kandel’s wonderful new book, which has many chapters on fMRI data combined with musings on aesthetics and beauty. Is this inappropriate?
Fortunately, Our Correspondent also happened to read Kandel’s book. In chapter 30, Kandel does cite fMRIs too. But he doesn’t just cite fMRIs. He is careful to write this in Chapter 30:
The two techniques for measuring brain activity complement each other perfectly: EEGs, which are superior for pinpointing when an event occurred but poor at identifying where it occurred, have good temporal resolution but poor spatial resolution, whereas functional MRIs have the inverse and weaknesses.”
In fairness, Lehrer, at the beginning of Imagine, writes:
By combining both techniques — fMRI and EEG — in the same study, Beeman and Kounios were able to deconstruct the epiphany.”
But inexplicably (and this is also the point of contention with Requarth and Crist), he merely applies the fMRI results in relation to jazz improvisation. Kandel did not make this slip at all in The Age of Insight. The issue here is whether Lehrer, who was good enough to talk out this problem at length during this program, is omitting essential data in an effort to appeal to a popular audience. This conversation begins at the 43:44 mark in the program.
The Bat Segundo Show #448: Jonah Lehrer (Download MP3)
February 27, 2009 February 27, 2009 by Edward Champion
The Bat Segundo Show: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astronomy, Bat Segundo, Science
Astronomy, neil degrasse tyson, pluto, Science
Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #265.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is most recently the author of The Pluto Files.
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Reconfiguring his planetary paradigm, with the aid of minatory electrodes.
Author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Subjects Discussed: The Great Planet Debate, sensible classification systems, “reorganizing” the solar system, why the International Astronomical Union wasn’t approached before the Rose Center display was established, the usefulness of the word “planet,” playing 20 Questions to gain insight into what Tyson talks about, Copernicus, acceptable groupings, quibbles with the New Horizons reconnaissance mission to “complete” the exploration of the solar system, government and space exploration, Sedna vs. Pluto, efforts to explicate Sedna’s orbit, the ethical implications of scientists who write popular books, scientists and get rich quick schemes, pedagogical paradigms, manned missions to Mars, the celebrity culture of astronauts, manned space program vs. robotic expeditions, how science can endure in the face of looming budgetary cuts, the financial return of science, communications with the Obama Administration, and the possibility of the asteroid Apophis colliding against the Earth in 2036.
Tyson: We just reorganized the solar system, combining objects of like properties together. And at the time, more frozen bodies — small with tipped orbits, crossing the orbits of other planets — were found in the outer solar system that looked more like Pluto. And Pluto looked more like them than any one of them looked like anything else in the solar system. So all we did was group Pluto with its brethren in the outer solar system. Then we grouped the gas giants together as a family. Then we grouped the terrestrials — Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars — together. So the family photo of the solar system was presented in these groupings. At no time did we recount the planets in the solar system. And, in fact, the word “planet” is undervalued in the exhibits entirely. We prefer to focus on physical properties of these objects, rather than try and salvage a word that hasn’t been formally defined since before Copernicus.
Correspondent: Well, to talk about the notion of introducing this exhibit and not tipping anybody off initially, until this New York Times reporter ran with the ball and created something of a media storm, you…
Tyson: Something of a media storm?
Correspondent: Something of a media storm.
Tyson: Just say “media storm.”
Correspondent: Well, I’d like to use reverse hyperbole here. But in the case of this considerable media storm, you didn’t tip anybody off. And I’m curious. I mean, the sentiment in this book that you express multiple times is “Science is not a democracy.” And I’m wondering though why you didn’t approach the IAU to essentially get them to get with the program. That Pluto is not a planet. That it is essentially a TNO, and…
Tyson: Trans-Neptunian Object.
Correspondent: Yes, exactly. Exactly. I’m wondering why. Perhaps you could have smoothed things over a little bit with the IAU before introducing this. Does the IAU really not matter in this particular group?
Tyson: IAU cares about what a planet is. And we didn’t. It’s that simple. We didn’t present a case for planethood or not. All we did was say, “Here’s an interesting way to look at the solar system.” Put Pluto with the icy bodies and present it as such. We didn’t say Pluto was not a planet. We made no such claims. We were widely stereotyped for having done so. And that’s the simplest — if you don’t have the time to read what we did, then that’s the simplest thing that people did. Many interviewers — media — would come up to me and say, “So how many planets are there in your exhibits?” And I said, “We don’t count planets.” We just simply don’t count planets. So I had no interest in lobbying the International Astronomical Union. Because they’re concerned with the definition of planet. And when they do, fine. Define it however they want. It doesn’t change sensible ways to organize the information content of the solar system.
Correspondent: But in the minds of people. You had to be aware of the public perception. I mean, in this book, you point, of course, to the Caltech parade in Pasadena, the funerals for Pluto, the endless editorial cartoons and the like. In fact, I actually saw a Discover magazine headline that said, “Beyond the nine planets.” That was a week ago. So people are still struggling with this taxonomy, even though it’s clearly not a planet. I mean, you had to have been aware of this in some sense. What kind of adjustment period do we need? What kind of outreach do we need? Even to the IAU members. The 10% who voted against the idea, who voted for Pluto being a planet.
Tyson: Obtaining its planet status.
Correspondent: Yes, exactly.
Tyson: A mere 10%, I might add.
Correspondent: Yeah.
Tyson: Well, let me make it clear. There are people who have a lot invested in the word “planet.” Odd. Because like I said, “planet” had no formal definition. Not since ancient Greece. Planet means — it comes from the Greek “planetas,” meaning “wanderer.” And it referred to the objects in the night sky, from night to night, would wander against the background stars. There were seven of them — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the sun, and the moon. Did I get the seven there? Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the sun, and the moon. Seven. That’s an unambiguous definition. No argument there. Seven planets. Copernicus says, “Wait a minute. The Sun is in the middle. Earth is one of these objects that goes around the sun. The moon goes around the earth.” So Earth became a planet. The sun became not a planet. The moon became not a planet. And so, okay. But even at Copernicus’s time, the word “planet” did not get a formal definition. It was only, “It just seems right. Let’s just keep it.” It was not formally defined until the IAU in August 2006. I’m fine with their definition! Because it doesn’t matter to me. The word is not useful.
BSS #265: Neil deGrasse Tyson (Download MP3)
November 5, 2007 November 5, 2007 by Edward Champion
Watson, Can You Smear Me?
Racism, Science, Sexism
Many things have been written about James Watson’s inglorious Imus homage, but for my money, Annalee’s column, pointing out the remarkable arrogance and needless associations with race and gender, is one of the few that consider the expansive context.
May 25, 2007 by Sacha Arnold
“It is actually a very serious matter for finch lovers.”
Animals, Audio, Biology, Language, Science, Sports
One more finch tweeting post before I go – thanks for having me, Ed!
Belgian Meritocracy
Animals, Audio, Biology, Guns N' Roses, Language, New York Times, Science, Sports
Ladies and gentlemen, the storied sport of finch tweeting. (via the avian dialectologists and comparative Belgianists at Language Log)
March 8, 2007 by Edward Champion
Ice Ages Are a Great Sartorial Motivator
New York Times: “If people first became nudists 3.3 million years ago, when did they start to wear clothes? Surprisingly, lice once again furnish the answer. Though humans may long have worn loose garments like animal skin cloaks, the first tailored clothing would have been close-fitting enough to tempt the head louse to expand its territory. It evolved a new variety, the body louse, with claws adapted for clinging to fabric, not hairs. In 2003, Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, estimated from DNA differences that the body louse evolved from the head louse about 107,000 years ago. The first sewn clothes were presumably made shortly before this time.”
October 13, 2006 by Edward Champion
Protonium Crystals, Not Dilithium
New Scientist: “Mixing antimatter and matter usually has predictably violent consequences – the two annihilate one another in a fierce burst of energy. But physicists in Geneva have found a new way to make the two combine, at least briefly, into a single substance. This exceptionally unstable stuff, made of protons and antiprotons, is called protonium.”
October 5, 2006 by Edward Champion
The Early Name for This Region Was “Department of Justice”
New Scientist: “A brain region that curbs our natural self interest has been identified. The studies could explain how we control fairness in our society, researchers say. Humans are the only animals to act spitefully or to mete out ‘justice’, dishing out punishment to people seen to be behaving unfairly – even if it is not in the punisher’s own best interests.”
October 4, 2006 October 5, 2006 by Edward Champion
Brundleflies of the World Unite! Airlines Cower in Economic Fear!
Scientific American: “At long last researchers have teleported the information stored in a beam of light into a cloud of atoms, which is about as close to getting beamed up by Scotty as we’re likely to come in the foreseeable future.”
July 28, 2006 by Edward Champion
The Guinea Pig is Doing Better
The human eye transfers information to the brain as fast as a swift Ethernet connection. Unfortunately, like a tetchy DSL connection, we could be transferring data a lot swifter. Humans have ten times more ganglion cells in the retina than a guinea pig, yet the guinea pig is faster. This suggests that this deficiency might be best rectified if a few humans replaced a few guinea pigs for those painful dissections conducted in the name of research. Or perhaps our ganglion cells might be boosted if we adopted other humans as pets and had them run around in circles.
Either way, this will not stand! The human is smarter than the guinea pig. Can a guinea pig balance a checkbook or order takeout? I think not! Moreover, the average guinea pig lives a mere four to six years. Perhaps that comparatively smaller blip of existence is what causes the guinea pig to get its act together.
I call upon my fellow humans to do better! We must triumph over the guinea pig before the eye-to-brain transfer speed is comparable to a 56K modem.
January 12, 2004 January 24, 2006 by DrMabuse
The Reader’s Last Sigh
Fundamentalism, Libraries, Rushdie, Salman, Science
The Associated Press reports that Rushdie’s new novel will “have a lot more India in it” than Midnight’s Children. That’s great. But it still doesn’t change the fact that Rushdie hasn’t written a single compelling novel since Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
Who says they aren’t crazy about libraries in the sticks? In Modesto, 100 volunteers are trying to maintain a small sales tax to ensure that their libraries stay open.
Geologists are trying to stop a creationist book from being sold at the Grand Canyon. The book, Grand Canyon: A Different View, suggests that the Canyon came into being not by the erosion of the Colorado River over millions of years, but because of a wager between Jesus and Peter. Peter lost the bet. And instead of turning water into wine, as Peter hoped, Jesus created the Grand Canyon. But not without starting a few side projects like lime jello and double-entry bookkeeping.
And Pete Rose has the best marketing gimmick around: “Read my book before judging me.”
[1/24/06 UPDATE: As of November 2004, the controversy died down. I am not in a position to confirm this, although I will try and make a phone call to determine what the National Park Service’s position is, but it appears that Tom Vail’s apocryphal book is still being sold at the Grand Canyon store. Of course, all this came well before any of the Intelligent Design bullshit. But the decidedly unscientific Tom Vail has remained quite smug about his victory.]
January 2, 2004 January 21, 2006 by DrMabuse
Is There Life?
Extraterrestrial Life, Science
The Science article requires membership to some orgainzation that sounds too much like someone’s rear end, so all we have are generalities in other media outlets to go by. But it looks like the Australians have found a habitable region in the Milky Way where life is likely to exist. Charles Lineweaver notes that there are four components necessary for life: a star, elements to form a planet, evolutionary time, no chance that the star will fall prey to a supernova. But there are three additional facets Lineweaver fails to list: wars triggered by colossal misunderstandings, edible underwear and parking tickets.
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World War 1 Exhibition opens in Gatehouse
A fascinating exhibition on Gatehouse of Fleet in World War 1 has opened in the Mill on the Fleet.
Trusty's Hill information panels go on display
A series of information panels describing the recent successful archaeological dig at Trusty's Hill, Gatehouse are now on display at the Mill on the Fleet. The information panels which set the dig, which took place at Trusty's Hill in May 2012, in their wider historical context, show the importance of this site and reveal the significance of the finds made during the course of the excavation work.
Blind Photographer Norman Taylor talks about his photography
A new video with blind photographer Norman Taylor talking about his life, photographic exhibitions, loss of sight and his current ‘Flower Power’ display at the Mill on the Fleet in Gatehouse.
First in Scotland
Gatehouse of Fleet is celebrating being part of the first biosphere in Scotland. The United Nations decision to give biosphere status to an area of outstanding natural beauty and environmental importance centred on the Galloway hills places Galloway alongside Hawaii, Mount Olympus and Ayers Rock as a world class environment.
The Mill on the Fleet is a restored Mill, once part of Gatehouse's main mill complex. It is now a visitor and exhibition centre with a varied programme of temporary exhibitions throughout the year, as well as displays on the history and heritage of Gatehouse and the Fleet Valley. The Mill also houses the Tourist Information Centre, the Riverside Café, a shop, and a bookshop. More.
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KIWI GOLF UPDATE 8/07/19
Wilkinson pipped in playoff for maiden Korn Ferry Tour title
Tim Wilkinson has come agonisingly close to securing a win on the Korn Ferry Tour, finishing second after losing in a playoff.
Wilkinson started the final day at the LECOM Health Challenge atop the leader board after rounds of 65, 67, 67 to be at 17-under for the tournament, one shot clear of the rest of the field.
The Manawatu golfer would fire a bogey-free final round of three-under par to find himself right in the mix at 20-under for the tournament.
The final round wasn’t without drama with American Ryan Brehm standing on the final hole of the tournament with a two-shot lead. However, Brehm let the tournament slip away from his grasp temporarily with a double bogey to move back in a tie with Wilkinson at 20-under par, and a playoff needed to decide the tournament.
Brehm would regain his composure and birdie the very same hole in the opening leg of the playoff to take the tournament out of Wilkinson’s grasp.
After his best finish for the year, Wilkinson is projected to move up 19 places in “The 25” into 14th, with the top 25 players automatically earning their PGA Tour cards at completion of the regular season on the Korn Ferry Tour.
On the European Challenge Tour, Josh Geary has also come within touching distance of his first win of 2019 with a second-place finish at the D+D REAL Slovakia Challenge.
Geary shot rounds of 68, 68, 69, and 66 to finish at 17-under par for the event, just one shot behind Welshman Rhys Enoch.
Geary came out of the gates flying with five birdies in his opening nine holes to close in on the lead. He could only manage one more on the back nine to close for a bogey-free six-under par round.
He now moves up into 21st on the European Challenge Tour rankings, with the top 15 claiming their European Tour cards at the end of the season.
New Zealand had three players tee it up on the China Tour this week at the Tianjin Binhai Forest Open.
Kieran Muir was the pick of the crop after rounds 68, 73, 74, and 71 to finish at two-under for the tournament, well back of the runaway winner who finished on 17-under.
This is Muir’s second-best tournament result on the China Tour this season, after finishing in a tie for second earlier in the year.
Nipping at Muir’s heals was fellow Kiwi Fraser Wilkin, who finished one shot back of Muir at one-under for the tournament.
Wilkin posted rounds of 70, 71, 77, and 69 around the par 72 layout to record his best finish for the year on the China Tour in a tie for 20th.
Two shots further back of Wilkin at one-over par for the tournament was BOP professional, Hayden Beard. He shot rounds of 70, 76, 71, and 72 finishing in a tie for 35th place.
Over on the Japan Golf Tour, Michael Hendry has also had a sound performance finishing in a tie for 32nd at the Japan PGA Championship.
Hendry carded rounds of 67, 71, 71, and 70 to finish at three-under for the event, well back of Japanese golfing Rockstar Ryo Ishikawa, who took out the event at 13-under.
The North Harbour professional currently sits at 62nd on the Japan Golf Tour money list.
Both Danny Lee and Ryan Fox had weeks to forget in their respective tournaments on the PGA Tour and European Tour. Danny lee posted rounds of 71 and 70 to miss the cut by two shots at 1-under par at the 3M Open. Ryan Fox carded rounds of 73 and 77 at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open to finish at 10-over par, well outside the cutline.
OOM LEADERBOARD
1 Kobori, Kazuma 144.73
2 Lee, Jang Hyun 126.40
3 Brown, Luke 107.88
4 Hillier, Daniel 105.14
5 Wood, Tyler 96.00
1 Khoo, Caryn 113.33
2 Lee, Jeong Hyun 103.20
3 Dryland, Brittney 91.91
4 Lee, Danika 73.67
5 Lim, Carmen 71.47
VIEW OOM STANDINGS
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T Pain Tickets
The voice behind multi-platinum singles like, Can’t Believe It, Buy u a Drank (Shawty Snappin’) and Turn All The Lights On, T-Pain is a big name in R&B music. He is a two-time Grammy winner who has churned out many hit albums including, ‘Epiphany’ which reached the first spot on the Billboard 200. T-Pain has now shared his touring schedule and will be playing acoustic shows in different cities throughout the month of October. If you want to enjoy his performance live, then grab your T-Pain tickets now.
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In a career that spans over a decade, T-Pain has won two Grammys, sold millions of albums and has recorded a string of hit singles. He has made the use of Auto-Tune pitch correction very popular and has featured on over fifty chart-topping singles so far. His appearance on Flo Rida’s single, Low brought him a lot of success. The song was certified six times platinum in the U.S. T-Pain is now heading out on a tour and will be playing his gig in your city soon. All you need are your T-Pain tickets if you want to watch him take the stage live.
Getting discovered
T-Pain was born in Florida as Faheem Rashad Najm. He grew up having keen interest in music and soon joined, Nappy Headz , a rap group in 2004. He recorded a cover version of Akon’s single, Locked Up with the band. The song was heard by the five-time Grammy nominated singer, Akon himself who instantaneously signed T-Pain to his record label, Konvict Muzik.
After getting a record deal, he started working on his first studio album. Titled, ‘Rappa Ternt Sanga,’ the album arrived in the markets in the fall of 2005. It featured eighteen songs on the track-list all of which were produced by T-Pain himself with the exceptions of, Fly Away and I’m Hi. ‘Rappa Ternt Sanga’ landed at the thirty third spot on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the RIAA. It also received positive feedback from the critics as AllMusic gave it three and a half stars out of five.
The record was supported by two singles, I’m Sprung 2 and I’m ‘n Luv (Wit a Stripper) both of which sold millions of copies in the United States. The remix versions of these two tracks were later released. Dizzee Rascal featured on the former and while R. Kelly, Pimp C, Too $hort, Paul Wall, MJG and Twista appeared on the latter.
Hitting it big
T-Pain didn’t take much time in releasing new music and set the music industry on fire when he returned with his second album, ‘Epiphany’ in 2007. This was his first studio effort to reach the top spot on the Billboard 200. The record became a massive hit in all parts of the world and went gold in the United States and New Zealand. Plus, the critics were also impressed and gave positive reviews. Sputnikmusic stated, “T-Pain is starting to establish himself as a lasting source of entertainment in the vein of R. Kelly.”
A year later, the R&B superstar announced that he will be dropping a new album. This news made his fans excited and anticipation for him to release new music increased. Finally, on November 11, 2008, T-Pain’s third studio record, ‘Three Ringz’ hit the shelves. It was approved by the critics and gave many hit tracks like, Freeze, Can’t Believe It and Chopped ‘n’ Skrewed which became fan favorites. Moreover, the album was also nominated at the 52nd Grammy Awards for the ‘Best Contemporary R&B Album’ but lost to Beyoncé's ‘I Am... Sasha Fierce.’
In 2011, T-Pain spawned to date his latest studio record, ‘Revolver.’ The album featured guest appearances by stars like, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Pitbull and Wiz Khalifa. It collected favorable reviews from the critics as Rolling Stones gave it three stars out of five. Since the record’s release, T-Pain has not worked on any LP but has churned out two EPs including his latest with Lil Wayne titled, ‘T-Wayne’ which hit the stores in the May of 2017.
T-Pain fans have been waiting for him to announce a new tour and he has finally done that. The 5 O’Clock singer has unveiled that he will be playing a series of acoustic shows throughout North America this October. He is scheduled to perform gigs in cities like, Chicago, New York and Washington. To be a part of his show, you have to get your T-Pain tickets.
T Pain Ticket Prices
Currently the average price for T Pain tickets is $65. The date and location for this event is 13-Jul-19 at Harris Park - Ontario, London. The minimum get-in price for T Pain tickets is $58.
Rock The Park: Pitbull, Flo-Rida & T-Pain London 13-Jul-19 $65 $58
Toro Y Moi Tickets
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Home / news / politics / I Will Not Relinquish Senate Presidency, Saraki Address World Conference
I Will Not Relinquish Senate Presidency, Saraki Address World Conference
Exlink Lodge Wednesday, August 08, 2018 news, politics
Considering the turn of events in Nigeria; the defections issues and the most recent siege by DSS on National Assembly and the subsequent sacking of Department of State Security, DSS DG, one will wonder if the APC led administration will surrender power if they are defeated in 2019 presidential election. The political thuggery is too overt.
Is Nigeria in for another round of tumoil after 2019 election? We sincerely hope not.
The Senate President today held a World Press Conference addressing the issues of DSS siege to NASS and it is indeed shameful were we have found ourselves today. Below is Saraki’s full speech in writting transcribed by Vanguard News.
It is a matter of record that yesterday, lawmakers and staff of the National Assembly were prevented from entering the National Assembly Complex by heavily armed security agents of the Department of State Services (DSS). All entries to the Complex were blocked. The National Assembly, the seat of democracy in Nigeria, was under lockdown. Senators and Members of the House of Representatives were prevented from gaining access.
2. The ensuring standoff was a show of shame that played itself out over several hours in full view of the country. In no circumstances should this have happened. And we as a nation reaped the bitter fruits instantaneously, as evident in media images relayed around the world, images that shame us as a democratic nation. The siege was also an act of cowardice by those seeking to carry out an illegal impeachment of the leadership of the Senate in flagrant disregard of the law. People who seek control at all costs, by whatever means, never minding the injury to democratic norms.
3. I have to say that this is not about me – Abubakar Bukola Saraki as an individual. It is not about Ike Ekweremadu, nor is it about Yakubu Dogara. I am speaking for my colleagues when I say that this is about the soul of Nigeria, what we represent as a country, and our standing in the comity of nations. This is a country where so much is expected of us, so many rungs of the ladder that we are supposed to have ascended as a nation. Instead we are wallowing in impunity and illegal show of force, all of which slowpoke our progress.
4. This is most disheartening. I don’t get any joy in saying: I said so. I don’t. However, some of you may recall that about two years ago, I stated that there was a government within this government, to a purpose that was not in the interest of what the people voted for. I said it then, and now we are beginning to see the manifestations of that government within a government. It beats one’s imagination how the head of an agency could have authorized the brazen assault on the legislature that we saw yesterday. Despite the threat to our lives, we shall continue to fight impunity and injustice in this country.
5. Happily, by the actions that Nigerians took yesterday, they demonstrated our strong resolve as a nation not to give ground to oppression. The legislature, more than any other institution in this country, more than any other arm of government, represents the will of the people. We are elected by the people, and an assault on the legislature is an assault on the people of Nigeria. The forcible shutdown of the legislature was an unconscionable assault on a national institution, and thanks to all your efforts, the aggressors have been put to shame.
6. The resistance mounted by staff of the National Assembly, my colleagues in both chambers and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) who refused to leave the entrance of this Complex until the siege was broken, strengthens my faith in the people of this country. The rain fell, the sun rose, but Nigerians stood their ground in defence of democracy. With the strength of will demonstrated by everyone against unwarranted and unconstitutional militaristic might, the siege could not stand.
7. By this, we have shown that Nigerians can resist government within government in whatever guise, and this is humbling for me. Those who sought to attack the National Assembly under my leadership for their selfish ends have only affirmed my belief in this country. They attempted to execute an illegal impeachment of the leadership of the Senate without the backing of the law, but they faltered. I am confident that, together, we shall always defeat acts of unconstitutionality. The rule of law shall always prevail.
8. I want to thank Nigerians, Senators, Members of the House of Representatives and National Assembly Staff, for standing up to be counted for democracy during yesterday’s siege. I thank the thousands who monitored the situation on radio, television and social media, voicing their outrage at the siege, thereby sending a clear message to those that hatched the plot that the Nigerian public would not buy this act of gangsterism using instruments of state such as the DSS.
9. I also thank the international community – particularly the European Union – and the international press, for their prompt reactions to the invasion of the National Assembly. CSOs and Socio-cultural groups were emphatic in their statements during the crisis, and we very much appreciate their vigilance.
10. Among the many that come up for special mention, I believe that Honourable Boma Goodhead, a member of the House of Representatives, stands out. She looked a masked security operative in the eye and dared him to shoot. She let it be known that Nigerians would not stand for the barricade at the National Assembly, that we would not be cowed. It was another pointer to what is possible in this country when women take their place in leadership.
11. I applaud all who kicked against the atrocity and who stood firm until sanity prevailed. I am proud of how everyone conducted themselves in what was no doubt a tense standoff. The principled stance and defiant reactions to the ugly incident, proved crucial to the failure of the plot. This is what we have been saying about the power of the people. The role of the people in defending democracy is paramount.
12. I thank the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, for his handling of the situation we were all confronted with yesterday. His decisive action went a long way towards restoring confidence. It sent a powerful message – that the DSS cannot be recklessly deployed against institutions of our democracy. The path of leadership is not by party, and we must commend it wherever it is found. Mr. Acting President did the right thing. However, the damage control so far does not address the question of how this atrocity happened in the first place.
13. This is an incident concerning which we have it on good authority that it has been in the planning for months, and yet it was allowed to happen. How is it that such an atrocity was not prevented? How is it that the masterminds were not deterred? Very serious questions remain that can only be answered by a full investigation. We call for an investigation, and we demand that all perpetrators are brought to book. We owe it to ourselves to ensure that such a situation never occurs again. Many agencies have abused their powers and acted outside the ambit of the law on occasion. Where abuses occur, similar actions must be taken immediately and full investigation instituted.
14. I must say that when we fought for Change, we could not have envisaged a scenario such as unfolded yesterday – an atmosphere where people cannot tolerate dissent, or mere differences of opinion as to the future of our dear country. This is not the Change we fought for. We did not fight for instruments of state to be used to oppress Nigerians and their lawmakers. I know that I, certainly, did not fight just so the legislature could be undermined and subjected to this onslaught.
15. There are many lessons to be drawn from the ugly incident we all witnessed yesterday. For one, government must ensure that security agencies remain neutral and act in line with the position of the constitution as well as their enabling laws. Heads of Agencies should be accountable, and those who step out of line must be held responsible for their actions. Enough with impunity. Enough with the reckless and senseless deployment of militaristic force. Enough.
16. In this dark cloud, we can see the silver lining, and that silver lining is the commitment of Nigerians to defending their hard-won democracy. I am more than encouraged by the strength, the determination and the resolve of ordinary Nigerians to see to it that democracy survives and thrives in this country. I am also strengthened by the determination of the media to report and analyse the truth as they see it.
17. I want to reassure Nigerians that, on our part, we remain committed to working for a country governed by the rule of law. Our desire is to have a society where there will be equity and justice, not oppression. We stand committed to doing our utmost as lawmakers to ensure that the responsibility and functionality of governance are met. Although we are on annual break, we are daily reviewing the situation and are alive to the responsibility to take action as necessary. Unfortunately, yesterday’s shutdown prevented us from meeting with INEC, as scheduled, to address funding concerns. We will continue to look into the matter. In the spirit of that, we also appeal to Mr. President to sign the 2018 Electoral Act Amendment Bill which has been sent for his assent.
18. I remain confident in the support of my colleagues and their focus on the job at hand, which is to serve the Nigerian people. My confidence is unshaken. I remain committed to the success of the historic 8th National Assembly, and to the continued progress of our count.
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2015 Hockey Hall of Fame Class Is All About Defense
Adam Bernard
The 2015 Hockey Hall of Fame class was announced on Monday, and it’s about as strong a class as you could come up with. It’s a strong defensive class, with four of the five members calling the blueline home, while the one forward was a two-time Selke Trophy winner. Let’s take a closer look at the group that will be inducted on November 9th in Toronto:
Sergei Fedorov – Center – 1990-2009 – Detroit, Anaheim, Columbus & Washington
Sergei Fedorov was a force in both ends of the rink. (CBS Detroit)
1248 Regular Season Games Played – 483 Goals / 696 Assists / 400 PP Points / 124 SH Points
183 Playoff Games Played – 52 Goals / 124 Assists / 15 PP Goals / 3 Stanley Cups
-After being Detroit’s fourth round selection in the 1989 NHL Entry Draft, Fedorov went on to win three Stanley Cups, two Selke Trophies (1994, 1996), and the Hart (the first European trained player to win the MVP) & Lester B. Pearson Trophies in 1994. For the bulk of his career, he was considered one of the fastest skaters in the game, and the best all-around player in all three zones on the rink. In international play, Fedorov won three World Championship Gold Medals (1989, 1990, 2008), and took home Olympic Silver in 1998 and the Bronze in 2002. He was a member of the famed “Russian Five” unit (along with Igor Larionov, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Slava Fetisov & Vladimir Konstantinov) in Detroit, and ranks fifth on the Red Wings career points list. He also holds the career record for most overtime points with 27.
Nicklas Lidstrom – Defenseman – 1991-2012 – Detroit
Nicklas Lidstrom is one of the best defensemen to have ever played the game. (Canadian Press – Paul Sancya)
1564 Regular Season Games Played – 264 Goals / 878 Assists / 590 PP Points / 40 SH Points
-When you talk about the best defenseman of all time, it’s tough to argue for anyone but Bobby Orr. If you had to pick the second best defenseman of all time, it would be hard to argue for anyone but Nicklas Lidstrom. The third round pick of the 1989 Entry Draft was a seven-time Norris Trophy winner, an eleven time All Star, and the Conn Smythe winner in 2002 (the first European born player to win the playoff MVP award). He never played less than seventy games (except for the shortened 1994-95 season, where he played in 43 of the 48 games) during his twenty NHL seasons, was the first European-born player to be a Stanley Cup winning Captain, and is a member of the Triple Gold Club (World Championship in 1991 and Olympic Gold in 2006 for Sweden). He earned the nickname “The Perfect Human” for the way he played on the ice and the way he carried himself off the ice. If there ever was a Jurassic Park for hockey defensemen, Lidstrom would be the base gene for all of the blueliners.
Chris Pronger – Defenseman – 1993-2013 – Hartford, St. Louis, Edmonton, Anaheim, Philadelphia
Chris Pronger spent nine seasons in St. Louis. (CBS St. Louis)
1167 Regular Season Games Played – 157 Goals / 541 Assists / 374 PP Points / 27:28 Average TOI
173 Playoff Games Played – 26 Goals / 95 Assists / 13 PP Goals / 1 Stanley Cup
-There hasn’t been a defenseman over the past twenty years that has come close to the brand of hockey Chris Pronger brought to the ice. His mix of size (6’6” / 220 lbs), snarl (1590 career penalty minutes), and offensive ability (698 points) is rare. He was a dominant force on the blueline for eighteen seasons, and is only the second defenseman ever (Bobby Orr in 1969-70) to win both the Norris Trophy and the Hart Trophy in the same season (1999-2000). The second overall pick of the 1993 Draft won his one Stanley Cup with Anaheim in 2007, but also reached the finals in 2006 with Edmonton and again in 2010 with Philadelphia. His career ended too soon after these two hits early in the 2011 season. Pronger is also a member of the Triple Gold Club with two Olympic gold medals (2002 & 2010), and a World Championship representing Canada in 1997
Phil Housley – Defenseman – 1982-2003 – Buffalo, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Calgary, New Jersey, Washington, Chicago, Toronto
Housley spent 21 seasons patrolling NHL bluelines. (Getty Images)
1495 Regular Season Games Played – 338 Goals / 894 Assists / 609 PP Points
85 Playoff Games Played – 13 Goals / 43 Assists / 6 PP Goals
-Widely considered one of the best American-born defenseman of all time (Chris Chelios being the other), Housley spent 21 seasons in the NHL, accumulating 1,232 career points. He was a seven time all-star, and a member of the All-Rookie Team in 1983 after being selected sixth overall in the 1982 draft. He ranks second in points among American born players (only Mike Modano is ahead of him), and won silver in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. He registered at least sixty points in a season twelve times, but never won a Stanley Cup (he played in the 1998 Final for the Capitals). He coached Team USA and won the gold medal in the 2013 World Junior Championships.
Angela Ruggiero – Defenseman – 1998-2010 – Harvard / USA Womens Team
Ruggiero is a legend among US Women’s hockey players. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
NCAA – Harvard – 66 Games Played – 54 Goals / 84 Assists / 12 PP Goals
Olympics – 21 Games Played – 5 Goals / 9 Assists / 1 Gold Medal (1998 – Nagano)
–Ruggiero medaled four consecutive times in the Olympics (Gold in 1998, Silver in 2002 and 2010, and Bronze in 2006), and took home the top defenseman award in 2002 and 2006. Ruggiero captured World Championship gold four times (2005, 2008, 2009, 2011) and won the silver six other times. She took home the Patty Kazmaier award in 2004 (the female hockey equivalent of the Hobey Baker Trophy) while playing for Harvard, after being a finalist the previous season. The four-time NCAA All American reached the NCAA Championship twice, losing to Minnesota-Duluth in 2003 and Minnesota in 2004, and was also the Beanpot MVP in 2004. The Hockey News selected her as the best female hockey player in the world in 2003.
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HIV/AIDS Complications
HIV/AIDS Related Conditions
HIV/AIDS & Related Systemic Conditions
HIV/AIDS & Related Cancers
HIV/AIDS & Other Related Infections
HIV/AIDS & Opportunistic Infections
HIV/AIDS & Central Nervous System (CNS) Disorders
HIV/AIDS & Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)
STDs & HIV Infection
Studies have shown that other sexually transmitted diseases, also called sexually transmitted infections (STIs), increase the risk for HIV infection. Safer sex is important for preventing the transmission of all STDs, including HIV, and for reducing the risk for HIV infection.
The higher risk associated with STDs, especially conditions that damage the genital mucosa and expose areas where HIV can contact lymphocytes, suggests that treating or preventing STDs can help prevent AIDS. Studies are being conducted to evaluate the impact of aggressive STD prevention programs on HIV transmission.
Genital herpes, also known as herpes simplex virus (HSV), causes painful sores on the labia, the inside of the vaginal canal, and the cervix in women, and on the penis and scrotum in men. Genital herpes is caused by the same virus that causes oral herpes. When the outbreaks recur, the sores always appear in the same place. Patients who have been infected more than once develop recurring sores in more than one place.
In some cases, patients feel itching and soreness before the actual herpes outbreak. Women who have genital herpes should be especially aware of these early symptoms since treatment is much more effective if it is started early in the course of the outbreak.
Treatment for genital herpes is the same as for oral herpes. Several oral medicines, including famcyclovir (Famvir), valacyclovir (Valtrex) and acyclovir (Zovirax), can be effective, especially when started at the earliest sign of an outbreak. Alternatively, topical creams and ointments can be used to treat outbreaks, although they usually are not as effective as pills. Patients who experience frequent outbreaks may take continual small doses of famcyclovir, valacyclovir, or acyclovir to help prevent recurrences.
Genital herpes can be transmitted through sexual contact when the infected partner has open sores or is feeling the itching, burning, or tingling sensations that occur before the sores appear. People who have herpes and have open sores or pre-outbreak itchiness should not have sex. Not only can they transmit the disease, but they also can spread their own infection to a larger area.
Patients who may have herpes or may have been exposed to herpes should see a physician or other health care provider promptly. The infection is much easier to diagnose when the sores are present.
Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection that causes pus-like discharge, lower abdominal pain, and fever in women. Early infection may not cause symptoms. If left untreated in women, gonorrhea can progress to a serious, life-threatening infection known as pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). PID involves the uterus and fallopian tubes. Men experience thick, off-white penile discharge and painful urination, although early infection may not cause symptoms.
Gonorrhea can spread between sex partners during oral sex, intercourse, or the sharing of sex toys. Patients who have HIV and may have gonorrhea or may have been exposed to gonorrhea should immediately see their physician or other health care provider. Antibiotics are used to treat gonorrhea.
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection that usually starts as a large open sore, or chancre, on the vagina or penis. If the bacteria are transmitted through oral or anal sex, the chancre may appear on the mouth or anus. If left untreated, syphilis progresses through 3 stages:
Primary syphilis is the period during which the initial open sore appears. The chancre is painless and may be as big as 1/4 inch across or larger. After the chancre heals, many people think that the infection is gone. But actually, this indicates that the infection has spread into the bloodstream, which is known as secondary syphilis.
During secondary syphilis, the patient may feel ill and develop a fever and an unusual rash on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. Widespread lesions and swollen lymph nodes also may occur.
Tertiary syphilis, the third phase, is the spread of the infection into various organs and tissues, including the brain and heart. At this stage of infection, the bacteria cause long-term damage.
Syphilis is readily curable when treated with high dose penicillin or another antibiotic. There is some evidence that patients who have syphilis and HIV require higher doses and longer courses of antibiotics.
Patients who may have syphilis or may have been exposed to syphilis should see their physician or other health care provider as soon as possible. Syphilis can be diagnosed at any time during the infection, and earlier treatment can prevent complications.
Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection that can affect the cervix and pelvic organs in women and the penis in men. Symptoms may include discharge and a burning sensation during urination. In some cases, early infection does not cause symptoms.
If left untreated in women, chlamydia can progress to a serious and life-threatening infection (pelvic inflammatory disease) that involves the uterus and fallopian tubes. Later in the course of the infection, symptoms may include lower abdominal pain, pain during intercourse, low-grade fever, and bleeding between periods (in women).
Chlamydia can spread between sex partners during oral sex, intercourse, or the sharing of sex toys. Patients who are infected with HIV and may have chlamydia or may have been exposed to chlamydia should contact their physician or health care provider immediately. A number of antibiotics can be used to treat chlamydia.
Molluscum contagiosum, also known simply as molluscum, is a virus that usually is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. It causes small, pimple-like, flesh-colored bumps on the face or in the groin or genital area. The lesions usually do not hurt, and they are not open like genital herpes lesions. Molluscum is treated by freezing the bumps with liquid nitrogen, surgically removing them, or applying toxic liquids such as podophyllum.
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Treatments & side effects
Side effects of chemotherapy for testicular cancer
Signs and symptoms of testicular cancer
Delays in seeing a specialist
Investigations for testicular cancer
Your ideas about causes of testicular cancer
Finding information about testicular cancer
Waiting for results
Reaction to diagnosis
How testicular cancer affects you
How it affects family relationships
How it affects others
Orchidectomy (testicle removal)
Further surgery for testicular cancer
Chemotherapy for testicular cancer
Radiotherapy for testicular cancer
Hormone treatment for testicular cancer
Complementary approaches for testicular cancer
Talking to doctors about testicular cancer
Side effects of surgery (orchidectomy)
Side effects of hormone treatment
Surveillance after teratoma
Surveillance after seminoma
Sex after testicular cancer
Fertility after testicular cancer
False testicles
Masculinity and self-image after testicular cancer
Follow-up for testicular cancer
Support and counselling after testicular cancer
Attitude to life after testicular cancer
Work and testicular cancer
Financial concerns when you have testicular cancer
Messages to others about testicular cancer
Previous Topic | Talking to doctors about testicular cancer Side effects of surgery (orchidectomy) | Next Topic
Chemotherapy may be given for a short period to prevent cancer coming back, or over many months to cure cancer if it has spread from the testicle to other parts of the body (see 'Chemotherapy'). Many of the men had had chemotherapy, but they didn't always remember which drugs they had been given.
Chemotherapy affects everybody differently. Men who just had a single dose of chemotherapy to prevent the spread of the cancer had very few side effects. They felt a bit tired, lost their appetite for a day or two, and experienced some nausea and change in taste.
When chemotherapy is given for longer the side effects can be more severe. A common side effect is nausea and vomiting, though anti-sickness drugs can help prevent this. Many men remembered a horrible metallic taste they had in their mouths, which some said was due to cisplatin. Others described severe nausea or sickness, which often led to weight loss. However, one man said he didn't feel sick at all, even after three months of treatment, though his taste had changed, and another man said that he was always hungry.
Recalls that he was constantly sick during the chemotherapy and lost a lot of weight.
Recalls that he wasn't sick and that he felt better than he expected during the chemotherapy.
Quantity surveyor; married, no children.
I was constantly being sick by that stage, just couldn't get the anti-sickness tablets or the drugs right to stop me being sick, I was constantly being sick. And I think it's probably, that was the point when the weight started to drop off. Overall I lost a stone and a half and that was basically because I didn't eat, I stopped eating. The food used to come in the food trolleys at 11 o clock and the waft, the smell would come down and as soon as it reached me that would be it, I would start being sick. And so there was no point in bringing me food, there was no point bringing anything anywhere near me. People started bringing me bits in, but I was just, I was ill, that was it I couldn't eat. And I think at the finish I was on Weetabix and cornflakes for breakfast, dinner and tea, that was the only thing I could eat that actually stayed down, I don't know why. I don't like Cornflakes now but I still eat Weetabix, but they managed to stay down. And I actually got the nurses at the finish to close my door before the food trolley came down and open a window to try and stop the smell from getting through and making me ill.
Once the chemotherapy started it was just a case of lying there and really waiting for the effects to, to take hold. I thought I'd probably feel, start feeling sick pretty quickly but throughout the chemotherapy I can honestly say I didn't feel sick once and I was actually really relieved that everything I'd read probably didn't apply to most people. I think the drugs they use now are obviously better now than they have ever been, they are constantly being developed and obviously the one thing they're looking to do is have as minimal an impact on the body as possible. So I wasn't sick once with chemotherapy. I think the closest I came to being sick was possibly the hospital food! But that wasn't necessarily the food but because my taste buds had gone part way through the treatment. That was probably the closest I came to being sick. So the treatment itself, once I'd decided that, I realised this would probably be fine.
During chemotherapy some men we spoke to temporarily put on weight due to the corticosteroid they were given while having chemotherapy, and associated fluid retention.
Another common side effect of chemotherapy is hair loss, which many of the men associated with cancer. After about three weeks of chemotherapy they lost all their body hair, including eyebrows. Some of the men found this quite traumatic. However, shaven heads have become more stylish in recent years and some of the men told us that hair loss didn't bother them.
Arthur Frank recalls that losing his hair was one of the most traumatic moments of his illness.
Explains that he did not mind losing his hair, partly because it convinced others that he was indeed ill.
University professor; married, 2 children.
Arthur Frank said' Losing hair is weird and in some ways losing hair was almost more powerful than losing the testicle, even though I took it by then that losing hair was temporary. I had an interesting experience at the end of chemotherapy about hair, I still didn't have any hair but I was through chemotherapy and the chemotherapy had apparently been quite successful.
And I remember being, visiting my older daughter and as soon as chemotherapy was over I didn't feel any need to wear hats or anything and some people were kind of, this child I think was asking his mother you know why this guy was virtually bald er and I remember thinking actually I didn't care. To me the problem with hair loss was that it marked me as someone who had cancer and as soon as it no longer was associated with cancer for a man at least it wasn't that much of a problem.
Today it would be even less of a problem because it's stylish to have your head shaved anyway and, and again though there's a big difference between shaving your head because it's stylish and knowing your head is shaved because you've lost your hair, because you're a cancer patient. And it's that visible marker of having cancer that I think is the really difficult thing about hair loss. Plus all of a sudden having these great amounts of your hair fall out is just, it's a horrible thing. I mean there's no getting around it, this is one of the traumatic moments of illness er but as I say fortunately now there are a lot of models who have been stylishly head-shaved and I hope it wouldn't be as much problem for men now as it was for me back in the mid 80s before shaved heads had that kind of niche in fashion.
Baker; divorced, no children.
How did you feel when you lost your hair?
When I lost my hair it was my party trick at first because obviously I wasn't that ill the first few times I went so I was still managing to go out with friends. And sort of like my party trick you could grab hold of it and pull out a load of hair which was quite funny at the time (laughs). But unfortunately I was ill in the winter time during sort of like the October, November, December, January, so I had no hair then. I got very, very cold. But the stigma side of it I didn't, I didn't worry about that at all, didn't worry me at all, you're ill and that's it really. I mean in a way it shows that you are ill and people sort of have a different attitude. Because if you just, if you're ill and something is wrong with you and people can't see there's something wrong with they don't, how can I, not sympathy, you don't want sympathy but it's not the same. If you've got no hair and that lot, people realise that you're ill and not just skiving off work or whatever you know. So I've no worries at all about losing the hair at all.
The men recalled numerous other side effects, including short-term memory loss, fatigue, diarrhoea, mouth ulcers, bleeding gums, skin rashes, and in one case, blood in the sputum. Some said that the drug cisplatin caused tingling in the fingers and toes, and affected balance, and one man said that bleomycin made him have amazing dreams.
Some men reported that they had mood swings, and one man said he had to take anti-depressant drugs. Others said that the chemotherapy made them feel as though they had a hangover, or a bad attack of flu.
Chemotherapy drugs may temporarily reduce the number of normal cells in the patient's blood. Some men who received high doses of chemotherapy for long periods reported they developed infections due to the effects on their immune system, and one described his fatigue and shortness of breath due to anaemia.
Explains that he caught an infection because his immune system was affected by chemotherapy.
Explains that he became very anaemic and was prone to infection as the result of the chemotherapy.
Now the one thing that did happen then was I, I did feel very ill for a day or two and I really started to heat up and that was probably the worst experience of the chemotherapy itself. Which was my immune system had apparently dropped so low that I think I'd caught something, a bug or something and my body was actually not, my body was unable to defend itself against this. What actually happened I took myself into hospital, to the local hospital to, to be checked over and they gave me something called, I think it's barrier nursing, which is basically everyone who sees me including the nurses must be completely frocked up and plastic gloves on and masks on because they needed to treat me as soon as they could and as quickly as they could. So I was given treatments over a couple of days with antibiotics. And this is I guess the final effect of the chemotherapy was I, at that stage my white blood cells, I think my immune system had come down very low which was obviously an effect of the chemotherapy.
So although I tried to keep myself away from people when I could because obviously the chances of catching something is out there all the time, I'd obviously caught something from someone, which I've seen, made me go into hospital. And I was there for about two or three days and then the antibiotics worked, I felt better and then I slowly recovered after that.
University student; single, no children.
Over time the chemotherapy knocks out your immune system because they're kind of, you know they're cells that rapidly divide which is what a cancer is, which is what the chemo is aiming for. So you knock your immune system, you know it's knocked out so you become kind of prone to infection and your red blood cells aren't produced as readily and so you kind of find yourself being quite anaemic. And so after awhile, after chemo four, I was, you know all my blood was utterly wiped-out so I was very, very anaemic and I had no immune system. And that was appalling because I couldn't stand up and I was just kind of, to lie down I was fine and once I was resting it was no problem. I'd lie down. I'm fine now. But to actually have to walk, even from like the living room to the front door, to let someone in was such hard work. And it's just, it's just really difficult to describe how really severe anaemia feels. You just can't do anything and you're thinking, okay I have to like go and switch over the telly channel now, and it's like I've got to plan this and work out what is the most direct way of doing it is to stop too much effort. And then they gave me two bags of blood next time I went for chemo and you're fine, just like that, it's incredible.
So I wish actually I'd asked at the time, you know, 'I feel weak and anaemic, can you just check out my blood and may be give me a blood transfusion'. Because the anaemia was bizarre and just, and once you've got the blood in you it's fine and you feel right as rain again. And I got an infection after chemo, three or four I think, because my immune system was just wiped out.
Sometimes the side effects of chemotherapy are more serious and may be permanent. For example, cisplatin can cause tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and may damage hearing. Two men, who had chemotherapy for three months, told us about their partial loss of hearing. One man said that he had suffered lung damage, which he attributed to bleomycin, and kidney damage from cisplatin. Another man said that carboplatin had damaged his liver, kidneys and pancreas.
Explains that the chemotherapy affected his hearing and gave him tinnitus (ringing in his ears).
Explains that chemotherapy damaged his lungs and kidneys.
Another side-effect was that my hearing went as well for a little while, my hearing wasn't very good. I went for a hearing test and everything, and every single time I went for the chemo it seemed to be getting worse. In the end, well I've still got it now, I've still got tinnitus which is like a ringing in the ears. Every single chemo session I went for, it seemed to be getting worse. Now when I told the doctors and that lot they did change part of the chemotherapy, one of the drugs they give you, and it seemed to stop getting worse then. But I have actually got tinnitus now, which is like I say ringing in the ears, which was from the side effects from the cancer treatment.
Has the hearing improved?
No, not really no, it's about the same level as it was and like I've got this ringing in my head all the time but..
Oh dear that must be annoying?
I've got used to it now, it's like an unnecessary friend really (laughs) is how I can explain it.
But you actually lost some of the hearing?
My hearing wasn't good. I actually lost, because I went for a hearing test and they put you in a booth with this machine put your ears on and it's very weird in like a soundproof booth, can't hear a word, a single sound in there and then they start giving you buzzing through a machine and you have to switch it off. And through that I found that my hearing has dropped a few degrees really now.
Separated, 1 child.
Another 2 months of it and on top of that they also told me that they did regular scans and regular blood tests and they also do lung function tests and kidney function tests. And one of the worst things, as you asked me before, one of the worst things was the lung function, my lungs were damaged by the drugs. I'm not sure, I think it was the bleomycin that damaged my lungs. I was left afterwards with a lot of scarring in my lungs so they stopped me on the bleomycin. And the cisplatin was causing me kidney damage so I had to go onto a drug called carboplatin which was slightly less effective but instead of being on the three drugs I was on two drugs, one of which was changed. So me being the inquisitive person I was wanted to know what does this mean for me? And it meant that the treatment might be slightly less effective but they couldn't at that time afford to continue with it because I was just getting so much lung damage and kidney damage as well.
Has that left you with long-term lung and kidney damage?
Initially I had lung scarring for, oh at least a good 12 months there was lung scarring and I was out of breath. If I walked up a flight of stairs I was out of breath. And they also gave me steroids for my breathing because my breathing was bad, they gave me steroids to help with the breathing. And in fact one of the things that came out of that was the determination to do the Great North Run, which I did. And as far as the kidneys are concerned I was left with kidney impairment.
Last reviewed December 2017.
Last updated December 2017.
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$data.PageTitle
Ottawa News Bureau Online Producer
OTTAWA – Canadians will be informed in the event of serious foreign or domestic interference attempts during the fall election campaign, under a new and first-of-its-kind federal plan.
But what kind of meddling or level of disinformation will prompt the government to go public?
According to government officials speaking to reporters on background at a technical briefing, the threshold is "very high" and limited to addressing "exceptional circumstances."
And what details should you expect in the event that those in charge determine it's time to let Canadians know?
If these instances of interference occur, they will likely already be circulating publicly, so the information provided will be more of a confirmation of what people are seeing as election interference. It may not result in pointing the finger at a specific foreign entity.
Here's everything we know from government officials and a newly released cabinet directive that spells out what the ministers expect from the public servants who will be in charge of what's known as the "Critical Election Incident Public Protocol" while the campaign is underway.
What is this protocol?
Back in January the federal government unveiled a series of new measures aimed at further shoring up Canada's electoral system from foreign interference, and enhancing Canada's readiness to defend the democratic process from cyber threats and disinformation.
As part of this announcement was the creation of a panel known as the "Critical Election Incident Public Protocol," to inform Canadians about serious meddling attempts during the campaign in an impartial way. The objective is to have a plan to inform people if needed, without being seen to be interfering in the campaign.
The scope of the panel is limited, according to the cabinet directive, it will only be initiated to respond to incidents that occur within the writ period, and that do not fall within Elections Canada's wheelhouse, so anything that has to do with the administration of the election, like information about polling places.
"For clarity, Canadians – and democracy – are best served by election campaigns that offer a full range of debate and dissent. The protocol is not intended to, and will not, be used to respond to that democratic discourse," reads the cabinet directive.
Elections are always "rough and tumble" and the panel is not going to referee the election, rather the protocol is in place as a "last resort," as one official said.
Who is in charge of this?
This plan will be overseen by five senior level non-political government officials: the Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's National Security Adviser, and the deputy ministers of the Justice, Public Safety, and Global Affairs departments.
The members of this new high-level panel will be responsible for coming to a consensus on when and how they decide to inform Canadians about concerning online behaviour or content that comes to their attention.
"If there is no agreement there is no announcement," said one government official, adding that if the panel was to speak out multiple times during the campaign that in itself could be seen as election interference.
Public servants are the ones in charge of this because during elections, the government runs in a "caretaker mode," where ministerial decision-making is limited.
The panel and relevant players have already begun running test scenarios to go through what it might be like when the campaign is on. Once the election is underway the panel will talk regularly with the intent of speaking out as quickly as possible if needed, given the nature of the news cycle during what will be a limited window of pre-vote time.
What information will they have access to?
National security agencies including the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Global Affairs Canada, CSIS, and the RCMP will be providing the panel with regular briefings on "emerging national security developments and potential threats to the integrity of the election."
If the head of one of these agencies becomes aware of interference in the 2019 federal election, they will talk to their agency counterparts and "consider all options to effectively address the interference."
And, according to the cabinet directive, "barring any overriding national security/public security reasons," they will inform the affected party, whether that is a political party, a candidate, or Elections Canada, directly.
So far, according to one government official "at this time we haven’t seen direct threats to the 2019 general election," but CSIS is seeing "hostile foreign actors taking steps to position themselves to clandestinely influence, promote, or discredit certain messages, candidates, or groups," so election interference attempts are likely.
How will this panel decide to go public?
Should an incident or accumulation of incidents of foreign meddling or another interference attempt arise, it will need to meet the threshold of being serious and "disruptive" enough—even if on a regional scale—to have an impact on Canada's ability to hold a free and fair election before this panel takes further steps.
In order to decide to go public the panel has to be confident in the intelligence or information that has led them to conclude that a serious interference attempt has occurred.
The panel is to consider both domestic and foreign actors as interferers, though, the cabinet directive notes that attributing the interference to a specific foreign entity may not be possible, "given that attempts to unduly influence the election may involve misdirection and disinformation. Further, it is possible that foreign actors could be working in collaboration with, or through, domestic actors."
Among the factors the panel will have to consider in making its judgement as to whether Canadians need to be informed about the interference are whether it can be effectively corrected or debunked by media reports or by the subject of the interference. The panel will also consider:
Reach: whether the interference is contained or has gone viral
Scale: whether it is local or national
Credibility: whether it is untrustworthy or conceivable
Relevance: whether it is irrelevant or not
Lifespan: whether it is persistent or not
Examples of what could trigger the panel speaking out include database hacks, blackmailing a candidate or key staff person, the use of deepfake videos featuring a political figure, or the "clandestine" spreading of disinformation.
These instances of interference may be done with the intention to misrepresent a person or party, or may be done for the purpose of creating havoc or distrust in the electorate and Canada's democracy.
"It'll depend on the context," said one official.
How will Canadians be informed?
If it is a serious enough case, the panel will inform: the prime minister; all registered political parties; Elections Canada; and the public about the threat. The panel’s decision to inform the public cannot be vetoed by any of these parties.
After the prime minister, parties and Canada’s elections body is informed, then the Clerk of the Privy Council will ask the relevant agency to "issue a statement" to notify Canadians. It's unclear whether this would simply be a written statement or delivered through a press conference, which is more likely the case.
According to the cabinet directive, the public announcement will include: what is known about the incident and deemed appropriate to share; and steps Canadians should take to protect themselves.
While government officials say they hope that a public announcement will not be needed, these preparations are being made just in case. "It is not to be used as a means to referee the election… It is a last resort," one official said. "And it would only be triggered under exceptional circumstances."
What happens after the election?
After the election the panel will prepare a report on the way things worked and how effective the panel was at addressing election threats. It is also expected to weigh in on whether this new approach should be made permanent and whether the period of time it is active should be extended.
Officials couldn't say whether the report—in either the classified version provided to the prime minister and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or the public version—would include any mention of the potential instances over the campaign where interference was noted but deemed not to meet the panel's threshold and therefore not spoken about publicly.
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Cruising Europe: A Brief History
The rivers and seas of Europe have always been essential to life and trade. But until the mid-1800s, European boats and ships were only concerned with moving cargo or hauling in the day’s catch – not with passengers or their comfort.
In 1835, Arthur Anderson, a sailor from the Shetland Isles, wrote about his vision of providing passenger service from Scotland to Iceland in the summer months, and from Scotland to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) in winter. Two years later, he co-founded the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), which became a major operator of passenger liners.
Other shipping lines, which got their start by carrying mail across the Atlantic, began to offer passenger service. More ships began to consider the comfort of passengers: in 1840 the Britannia, the first ship to sail under the Cunard Line name, reportedly took a cow on board to supply fresh milk on a trans-Atlantic crossing.
By the early 1900s, European passenger ships had taken on the characteristics of elegant, floating hotels. However, World Wars I and II interrupted the building of new cruise ships, and many ships were pressed into service as troop transports.
Interest in trans-Atlantic cruising surged between the wars and again after World War II, but the introduction of trans-Atlantic flights put a damper on that era. During the 1960s and 70s, the European cruise industry slowly refocused on sailing the coasts and rivers of the continent.
Today, multiple cruise lines visit an amazing variety of European ports. Major cruise lines that sail Europe include the contemporary lines Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line; premium and deluxe lines Azamara Club Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, Holland America Line and Princess Cruises; and luxury lines Crystal Cruises, Cunard Line, Oceania, Regent Seven Seas, Seabourn, Silversea, Uniworld and Viking River Cruises. Uniworld River Cruises and Viking River Cruises are noteworthy because they cruise the rivers of Europe – the Danube, the Rhine, the Seine and more – providing access to inland cities and villages.
European cruises cover four regions: The Baltic and Northern Europe; the British Isles and Western Europe; the Western Mediterranean; and the Eastern Mediterranean. Some cruise itineraries focus on ports in one region, while longer cruises may include ports in two or more regions.
A cruise of Northern Europe might include the stunning fjords of Norway’s west coast. Or, choose a Baltic-based itinerary, enjoying Scandinavian capitals like Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. Some cruises also visit Russia’s jewel of the Baltic, St. Petersburg.
Cruises of the British Isles and Western Europe often launch from London and may stop at Inverness and Edinburgh, Scotland; Dublin, Ireland; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Hamburg, Germany; and Le Havre (for Paris), France.
Western Mediterranean itineraries can stretch from Gibraltar and coastal Spain to the west cost of Italy. Ports of call might include Cannes and other cities on the French Riviera; and the Italian ports of Livorno (for Florence), Citavecchia (for Rome) and Naples. Some itineraries also call on the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Malta.
The Eastern Mediterranean includes a classic cruise destination– the Greek Isles. However, there is much more to see, including the ports of Croatia (Dubrovnik and Hvar); the gorgeous, watery city of Venice, Italy; and the exotic ports of Turkey (Istanbul, Izmir and Kusadasi).
With so many places to see, deciding on a European itinerary can be challenging. Fortunately, Cruise Holidays can help narrow down your choices based on your interests, budget and the time of year. We can also help you choose shore excursions that will let you experience European history and culture.
For more information and help in planning your European cruise, rely on your personal cruise experts at Cruise Holidays.
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On Atlantis, Berossus, and Alternative "Scholarship"
A correspondent asked me for my opinion about the theory that Atlantis was “really” the Caucasus region between the Black Sea and the Caspian. This theory, one of many Atlantis theories to recur time and again, rests on the dubious contention that the Caucasus region was flooded in historic times, that memories of this persisted, and that these memories were transferred across the Black Sea to the Aegean where they were faithfully preserved for centuries, if not millennia—but no other information from that time and place. The support for the theory derives, ultimately, from Herodotus’ contention that the Colchians were Egyptian colonists, something supported only by the shared rite of circumcision but no archaeological, linguistic, historical, or genetic evidence.
One of the most famously weird sidelights in the story of the Caucasus as Atlantis is the cranky book put out in three out of order volumes by Reginald Fessenden, the Canadian-American engineer who helped pioneer radio. Fessenden wrote The Deluged Civilization to explain his theory. The first six chapters were published in 1923, chapter 11 in 1927, and chapters 7-10 in 1933. He believed, among other things, that the Freemasons could trace their origins back to Egypt and that all civilization was born in the Caucasus.
L. Sprague de Camp delivered a devastating verdict on Fessenden in his Lost Continents, calling it “dubious geology, bad mythology, impossible linguistics, and Aryan-race nonsense.”
Fessenden has an undeserved reputation for scholarship since his cranky ideas captured the fancy of Flinders Petrie in 1924, then laboring under the false idea that the Solutrean stone culture of the Ice Age was the antecedent of both Egypt and Caucasian culture. Unbeknownst to Petrie, the Solutrean dates back to 19,000 BCE, and only in Western Europe, far too early to posit a significant cultural relationship between the Caucasus and Egypt.
But what interested me was Fessenden’s misuse of ancient texts. The clearest example comes in his 1933 set of chapters. There he quotes Sanchuniathon and Berossus and attempts to make them support his views. Fessenden, whose use of primary sources extended little farther than his copy of Cory’s Ancient Fragments (his acknowledged source), showed no familiarity with the Babylonian texts Berossus used as his sources and which available in English since the 1870s. This was quite odd since in another chapter he discusses the names of the Babylonian gods and tries to make them into Armenian mountains. No matter. This is what Fessenden wrote of Berossus:
From the history of Berossus, quoted by Syncellus and Eusebius, it is clear that seals began to appear in increasing numbers as the Deluge drew near; which may be significant as indicating a breaking through of the Arctic Ocean into the Asiatic Mediterranean on the east of the Caucasus.
No particular passage is given, but there aren’t that many to choose from. The fact is, Berossus never mentions seals or the Arctic Ocean. The only sea he talks about in connection with the Deluge is the Persian Gulf. But you don’t need to take my word for it. I’ve posted all of Berossus’ fragments on my website.
Here’s what I think Fessenden saw. He read about Oannes, the being described as one “whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish; that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail.” and then saw this passage: “After this there appeared other animals like Oannes, of which Berossus proposes to give an account when he comes to the history of the kings.”
From this, I think he read into it the idea that a “fish-man” was a reasonable description of a seal—ignoring the fact that Oannes not only talked but also taught agriculture, architecture, and science. Thus, the appearance of many Oannes-like creatures became for him seals populating the sea. But the sea in which Oannes appeared was the “Erythræan Sea,” a term used variously to refer to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, or Indian Ocean in ancient times.
At any rate, no one needs to take my word for it. All of Berossus is online, and you can buy your own copy in my edition of Cory’s Ancient Fragments. It’s one of the wonders of the internet: now everyone can check references to see just how wrong alternative authors are.
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MEZEI, ERNEST:
By: Isidore Singer, Gabriel Weiss
Hungarian deputy and journalist; born at Satoralja-Ujhely, Hungary, in May, 1851. He completed his school career partly in his native city and partly in Kaschau, and then took a course in law and philosophy at the University of Budapest. While still a student he entered upon a journalistic career, contributing leaders to the "Ellenör." In 1874 he became one of the founders of the "Egyetértés," the representative organ of the extreme opposition, the so-called Independent party; and he has been on its editorial staff ever since. In 1878 he was nominated as deputy for the district of Gyoma, being warmly recommended by Louis Kossuth, but failed to secure election. In 1881 he was elected deputy for the city of Miskolcz.
During this period sprang up the celebrated Tisza-Eszlár blood accusation, which gave rise to an intense anti-Semitic agitation. Mezei made the affair the basis of an interpellation addressed to the minister of justice, which called forth exciting scenes in the House of Deputies. During the consideration of the bill on mixed marriages between Christians and Jews he made several pointed speeches against the anti-Semites.
Mezei is active also in the literary field, having published many scattered poems and sketches of travel, as well as "Olasz Bolyongások" (1877), a narrative of rambles through Italy. Occasionally he contributes to the periodicals articles on current questions relating to the Jews. In a lecture entitled "Zionismus als Nationale Idee," delivered before the Hungarian Jewish Literary Society, he took a firm stand in opposition to the attempt to place over against the religious world-mission of Judaism a Jewish national propaganda.
S. G. W.
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Year : 2016 | Volume : 6 | Issue : 7 | Page : 1-5
Working environment and specialty of choice chosen by the dental students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study
George Sam1, Abdullah Saud Alghmlas2, Muath I Alrashed1, Ziyad A Alaskar1
1 Department of Preventive Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, Prince Sattam Bin Abdul Aziz University, Al Kharj, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
2 Department of Operative Dentistry and Endodontics, College of Dentistry, Prince Sattam Bin Abdul Aziz University, Al Kharj, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Date of Submission 15-Jan-2016
Date of Acceptance 03-Mar-2016
Date of Web Publication 26-Apr-2016
George Sam
Department of Preventive Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, Prince Sattam Bin Abdul Aziz University, Al Kharj - 11942
Objectives: This cross-sectional study was conducted to explore the specialty chosen by the dental students for postgraduate studies and the future aspirations of students in a Saudi Arabia dental college. Materials and Methods: Of the total number of 120 questionnaires that were distributed, 107 subjects responded with selective responses and a response rate of 89%. A descriptive survey was conducted using one of the questionnaires among the students of dentistry at the dental college, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj among male students (men's college) for a period of 2 months. The data were analyzed using the statistical software program, predictive analytics software Statistics version 22.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results: A hundred and seven of the 120 students took part in the study. A "passion for orthodontics" (42.9%) was reported to be the most important factor that influenced the decision to pursue specialty training in orthodontics followed by "intellectual stimulation/challenge" (25%). The decision to pursue orthodontics was made by 32.1% of the respondents while in dental school; 35.7% took the decision after completing dental school during private practice and 14.3% during a dental residency, whereas 3.6% had already decided before initiating their dental school studies. Working in a private practice environment was preferred by 11 residents (39.3%). Only four residents indicated that they would most likely be practicing in an academic setting while 10 were undecided. Conclusions: The zest for nonclinical specialties is less among students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University's dental college, Saudi Arabia.
Keywords: Dental students, motivations, Saudi Arabia, speciality, working environment
Sam G, Alghmlas AS, Alrashed MI, Alaskar ZA. Working environment and specialty of choice chosen by the dental students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study. J Int Soc Prevent Communit Dent 2016;6, Suppl S1:1-5
Sam G, Alghmlas AS, Alrashed MI, Alaskar ZA. Working environment and specialty of choice chosen by the dental students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study. J Int Soc Prevent Communit Dent [serial online] 2016 [cited 2019 Jul 18];6, Suppl S1:1-5. Available from: http://www.jispcd.org/text.asp?2016/6/7/1/181159
The dental profession plays a significant role in the service of the society, and the selection of dentistry as a career is a critical decision in an individual's life, affecting both one's social status and economic status. [1] The health care workforce is a vital resource within health care, [2] with dentistry being no exception. [3] Understanding the career motivations and expectations is crucial so that, where possible, the students may be harnessed in the provision of health care. [4],[5] Dental students are the future dental professionals of the nation and therefore, demographic studies on them provide an insight into their characteristics. [6] A detailed observation of the career motivations of dental students provides a better insight into their role in society and leads to the debate on dental education and practices. [7] Dental students are the future dental professionals of the nation and therefore, demographic studies on them provide an insight into their characteristics. [8] One of the primary steps for do so is by guiding the dental students to every single dental specialty available. Dental counseling in its current format is mainly directed toward identifying students' poor academic performance while no counseling was applied to explore students' academic talents and the potential of succeeding a specific postgraduate dental program to our knowledge. [9],[10] Postgraduate dental education is an important pillar to improve the health care sector in Saudi Arabia. Advancing the quality of clinical skills as well as the research output will drive the medical care and dental care forward by improving the service level, patient satisfaction, and reducing the complication rate. [11],[12] These days, the number of dental graduates in Saudi Arabia is exceeding 2,500 from over 30 dental schools every year [13],[14] However, the general distribution to the different working domains has not been studied nor planned. The workforce domain in Saudi Arabia is divided into clinical service providers and basic science researchers. The clinical specialty in dental practice include oral maxillofacial surgery (OMFS), orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, prosthodontics, periodontics, restorative dentistry, radiology, and endodontics while basic science specialties include dental biomaterials, oral biology, community, and pathology. Although the clinical service is provided at different heath care centers, the research aspect is considered to be weak. [15]
The Chief Dental Officer for England in 1994 published a report outlining the future for specialist dental services. The report recommended that specialist dental services should be delivered in dental practices based in the community settings rather than in hospitals, except maxillofacial surgery, which was recommended to continue to be hospital-based. Then on, an expansion of specialist practices, particularly orthodontics followed by surgical dentistry and restorative care has been observed. The continuing need for consultants within the hospital dental services and academic dentists within universities has also been perceived. [16]
So the present study was conducted to know the working environment and specialty of choice chosen by the dental students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia.
For the first time in the history of Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University's dental college, a cross-sectional survey was conducted with an aim of evaluating and exploring the specialty chosen by the dental students for postgraduate studies, future career choices, and intentions. An epidemiological descriptive survey was conducted among the second-year students to final-year male students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University's dental college (Saudi male dental college) Al-Kharj. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB), Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University's dental college. Consent was obtained from the study subjects after explaining about the study elaborately. The subjects were second-year to final-year students, considering the fact that it might be the apt time for them to make decisions in choosing their specialty and future working environment. As the dental college was meant exclusively for male Saudi Arabian citizens, the study was confined wholly to male subjects. The first-year students were excluded from participating in the study as it was felt that it would be too early and difficult for them to get a clear idea of the working environment and future specialty. Of a total of 124 students, 7 were absent on the day of conducting the study and 10 subjects failed to respond to the questionnaire. Thus, the final sample size comprised 107 study subjects. The research instrument was a self-administered questionnaire, which was already pretested in other previous studies. [16],[17] This survey was conducted during regularly scheduled class sessions in the second semester academic year 2014-2015 with an average time of 10 min. The questionnaire was designed to increase the response rate and minimize missing data. The questionnaire consisted of six open questions concerning the specialty of choice and future choice of working environment. The latter included the type of practice intended after graduating (academics or clinical practice both), the reasons for this choice, and intentions to pursue a specialist career. The questions were selected from previous similar studies [16],[17] and adapted to the Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University Dental College context. The data were analyzed using the statistical software program, Predictive Analytics SoftWare (PASW) Statistics version 22.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
As data revealed from the study in [Table 1] and [Figure 1], the maximum number and percentage of students had chosen Orthodontics (23) as their specialty of choice for postgraduate studies followed by Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (21), Prosthodontics and Implantology (13), other departments (12), Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics (7), Periodontics (6), and the least preference for Pedodontics (3). Twenty-two students had not chosen their specialty yet. 3.6% of the third-year students, 4% of the fourth-year students, and 20% of the final-year students had chosen Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics as their specialty for future postgraduate study while none of the second-year students had chosen this specialty for their future postgraduate study.
Figure 1: Specialty of choice chosen by the dental students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University
Table 1: Specialty of choice chosen by the dental students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University
As shown in [Table 2] and [Figure 2], 14% of the second-year and third-year students, 8% of the fourth-year students, and none of the final-year students had the intention to work for private dental colleges while 14% of the second-year students, 32% of the third-year students, 4% of the fourth-year students, and none of the final-year students had the intention to work under the Ministry of Higher Education after their specialization. 35% of the second-year students, 8% of the fourth-year students, 4% of the final-year students and none of the third-year students had the intention to work for the Ministry of Health only while 8% of the fourth-year students, 28% of the final-year students and none of the second- and third-year students had the intention to do private practice after their postgraduate studies. 48% of the second-year students, 36% of the third-year students, 72% of the fourth-year students, and 60% of the final-year students had the intention to work in the field of academics, under the Ministry of Health, and do private practice at the same time. 14% of the second-year students, 18% of the third-year students, and 8% of the final-year students were yet to make their decisions in choosing their working environment while none of the fourth-year students remained undecided about their choice. One interesting finding was among 7% of the second-year students who had made the choice of not choosing any of the conventional working environments.
Figure 2: Working environment chosen by the dental students of Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University
Table 2: Working environment chosen by the dental students at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University
Distributing the health care force in the kingdom is one of the most important missions needed in the community. One of the primary steps to do so is by guiding the dental students to every single dental specialty available. Dental counseling in its current format is mainly directed toward identifying students' poor academic performance while no counseling is applied to explore students' academic talents and the potential of succeeding a specific postgraduate dental program, to our knowledge. In addition, students are mainly driven to attend local seminars and conferences with speakers from all over the world with different topics in dentistry but a direct program mainly designed to guide undergraduate dental students to those specialties is still missing. [15]
At present, postgraduate dental education (PGDE) is a domain of interest to most dental graduates. The objectives of PGDE varies but it includes optimizing the health care level, increasing research production, distributing the service in a larger surface area in the kingdom, and increasing the specialist to patient ratio around the kingdom.
Different factors contribute to the PGDE preference. Aldilighan et al. suggested a few of them such as gender being a major one, marital status, and the field of interest that can fit the social needs. Furthermore, the financial income, potential of growth, and the stressful working style are other factors to consider. They also found in another study that females leant more toward Orthodontics, Pediatrics, Endodontics, and Restorative Dentistry with local PGDE as more preferred due to the demanding social and family needs when compared to studying abroad. On the other hand, male students preferred Orthodontics, Pediatrics, and Endodontics programs as these specialities were thought to be more challenging and lucurative. [15]
In the study conducted at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University's dental college the most preferred branches of choice for postgraduate study was Orthodontics, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and Prosthodontics and Implantology. This was different from the previous study conducted by Drugan et al. where male students preferred Orthodontics, Pedodontics, and Endodontics programs as they were thought to be more challenging and lucrative [16] and a previous study conducted by Mazen et al. in Saudi Arabia where the most preferred specialty by the dental students was Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (25%) than Orthodontics and other specialties. The preference for other nonclinical and basic science specialties among the students in the present study was 21%, which was comparatively more than the previous studies. The general preference of dental practice to basic science specialties is almost negligible, which presented only 6% in the study sample of Chan et al. compared to over 75% who preferred clinical training [18] and 9% presented by another previous study in Saudi Arabia by Mazen et al. [15] A higher percentage of students (79%) in the present study had clear ideas on which specialty to choose than in the previous study conducted where only 49.5% of the students were able to make decisions on their future specialty of choice. [15] 8.41% of the students preferred private practice and only 3.73% of the students had plans to work under the Ministry of Health in spite of the fact that dental treatment is provided free of cost by the government; however, this policy of the government may explain the reason as to why a majority of the students (54%) had made a safe preference to work under the Ministry of Health and at the same time do private practice. An expectation of future change of this policy by the government may explain the reason for 10% of the students having not decided their working environment yet. The establishment of a "PGDE counseling program" might be necessary as exploring students' academic skills and their potentials during undergraduate training can be a basic pillar toward the appropriate specialty. Thus, a strong research-based infrastructure is necessary in every dental teaching institute while accounting for the influence of important people in students' lives. The influence of other family members, faculty mentors, and family dentists are al hypothesized to affect student's career plans and potentially modify the influence of debt. [19],[20],[21],[22],[23]
Increased awareness of the importance of pursuing postgraduation, its demand in the society, and better income, which was associated with it, as compared to a doctor wth no postgraduation were seen in students in this study. This reflected their attitude toward postgraduation in general. [24]
Hence, further studies are still needed along this line in order to orient the students to postgraduate dental education in general and research-based studies in particular. The present study was conducted on a limited sample size. Further studies are awaited with wider sample sizes in the future to validate the results.
The zest for nonclinical specialties is less among students at Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University's dental college, Saudi Arabia. Factors that contributed to this finding could have been the lack of knowledge about a career in nonclinical specialties compared to clinical specialties that are more established and popular.
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Tanalp J, Ilguy D, Dikbas I, Oktay I. Demographic profile and future expectations of students enrolled in a Turkish private dental school. J Dent Educ 2012;76:800-9.
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Aggarwal A, Mehta S, Gupta D, Sheikh S, Pallagatti S, Singh R, et al. Dental students' motivations and perceptions of dental professional career in India. J Dent Educ 2012;76:1532-9.
AIDrees AM, AI Faqeeh SA, AI-Mudhi AA, Azizulrahman TA. King Saud University, College of Dentistry Book [1431H]. 2010.
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Al-Dlaigan YH, Al-Sadhan R, Al-Ghamdi M, Al-Shahrani A, Al-Shahrani M. Postgraduate specialties interest, career choices and qualifications earned by male dentists graduated from King Saudi University. Saudi Dent J 2011;23:81-6.
Al-Dlaigan YH, Albarakati SF, Al-Habeeb F, Al-Hulaily M. Career characteristic and postgraduate education of female dentist graduates of the College of Dentistry at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Dent J 2012;24:29-34.
Almasri M, Nourah D. Career and postgraduate education preference of dental students in Umm Al-Qura University, Makka City in Saudi Arabia: A Pilot Study. Int J Dent Sci Res 2015;3:10-2.
Drugan CS, Chestnutt IG, Boyles JR. The current working patterns and future career aspirations of specialist trainees in dentistry. Br Dent J 2004;196:761-5; discussion 759.
Al-Hamlan N, Al-Ruwaithi MM, Al-Shraim N, El-Metwaaly A. Motivations and future practice plans of orthodontic residents in Saudi Arabia. J Orthod Sci 2013;2:67-72.
Chan WC, Ng CH, Yiu BK, Liu CY, Ip CM, Siu HH, et al. A survey on the preference for continuing professional dental education amongst general dental practitioners who attended the 26 th Asia Pacific Dental Congress. Eur J Dent Educ 2006;10:210-6.
Saeed S, Jimenez M, Howell H, Karimbux N, Sukotjo C. Which factors influence students' selection of advanced graduate programs? One institution's experience. J Dent Educ 2008;72:688-97.
Shetty VB, Shirahatti RV, Pawar P. Students' perceptions of their education on graduation from a dental school in India. J Dent Educ 2012;76:1520-6.
Almasri M, Bukhari SM. Considerations to planning orthognathic surgery in different regions of Saudi and the Middle East. Am J Public Health Res 2014;2:6-9.
Halawany HS. Career motivations, perceptions of the future of dentistry and preferred dental specialties among Saudi dental students. Open Dent J 2014;8:129-35.
Nashleanas BM, McKernan SC, Kuthy RA, Qian F. Career influences among final year dental students who plan to enter private practice. BMC Oral Health 2014;14:18.
Naidu GM, Prasad GM, Kandregula CR, Babburi S, Kvnr P. Choosing public health dentistry as a career: A cross-sectional study. J Clin Diagn Res 2014;8:199-202.
[Table 1], [Table 2]
Sam G
Alghmlas AS
Alrashed MI
Alaskar ZA
Dental students
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Hail Map for Vine Grove, KYadmin-001-11-30T00:00:00+00:00
Hail Map for Vine Grove, KY
The Vine Grove, KY area has had 4 reports of on-the-ground hail by trained spotters, and has been under severe weather warnings 21 times during the past 12 months. Doppler radar has detected hail at or near Vine Grove, KY on 53 occasions, including 5 occasions during the past year.
Name: Vine Grove, KY
Where Located: 18.8 miles SW of Louisville, KY
Map: Google Map for Vine Grove, KY
More Info: Search Google for Vine Grove, KY
The Top Recent Hail Date for Vine Grove, KY is Friday, July 20, 2018 (20th out of 53)
Hail and Wind Damage Spotted near Vine Grove, KY
6/30/2019 8:10 PM EDT At 809 pm edt/709 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near carefree town to 11 miles southeast of brandenburg, moving southwest at 15 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, corydon, brandenburg, carefree town, radcliff, webster, vine grove, irvington, muldraugh, milltown and west point.
6/30/2019 7:45 PM EDT At 745 pm edt/645 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 9 miles northeast of carefree town to 11 miles southeast of brandenburg, moving southwest at 15 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
6/21/2019 5:58 PM CDT At 658 pm edt/558 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near brandenburg to 10 miles southwest of hardinsburg, moving east at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
8/16/2018 1:23 AM EDT The severe thunderstorm warning for southwestern harrison, meade, west central hardin and northeastern breckinridge counties will expire at 130 am edt/1230 am cdt/, the storms which prompted the warning have weakened below severe limits, and no longer pose an immediate threat to life or property. therefore, the warning will be allowed to expire. however gusty winds and heavy rain are still possible with these thunderstorms. report severe weather to local law enforcement, post your report to the national weather service louisville facebook page, or tweet your report using hashtag l, m, k, spotter.
8/16/2018 1:14 AM EDT At 114 am edt/1214 am cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from brandenburg to 19 miles east of hardinsburg, moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, brandenburg, vine grove, irvington, ekron, mauckport, laconia, guston, dyer, rock haven and central.
8/15/2018 11:47 PM CDT At 1247 am edt/1147 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 15 miles east of hawesville to hardinsburg, moving northeast at 35 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
8/15/2018 8:31 PM EDT At 830 pm edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from jeffersontown to near elizabethtown, moving east at 40 mph (a 53 mph wind gust was recroded at louisville international airport at 826 pm). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
8/15/2018 8:07 PM EDT At 807 pm edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from st. dennis to 11 miles north of leitchfield, moving east at 40 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
8/7/2018 3:50 PM EDT At 350 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located near elizabethtown, moving east at 35 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
7/20/2018 9:56 PM CDT At 1055 pm edt/955 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 8 miles east of hawesville to 11 miles east of hardinsburg to 10 miles north of elizabethtown to near shepherdsville, moving east at 40 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 70 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. expect considerable tree damage. wind damage is also likely to mobile homes, roofs, and outbuildings. locations impacted include, shepherdsville, hardinsburg, radcliff, vine grove, lebanon junction, irvington, cloverport, muldraugh, west point and ekron. A tornado watch remains in effect until 300 am edt/200 am cdt/ for central kentucky.
7/20/2018 9:40 PM CDT At 1040 pm edt/940 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near tell city to 7 miles northwest of hardinsburg to 7 miles south of brandenburg to 9 miles southwest of valley station, moving east at 35 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
7/20/2018 10:19 PM EDT At 1018 pm edt/918 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm was located near brandenburg, moving east at 35 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
6/26/2018 8:23 PM CDT The severe thunderstorm warning for southeastern meade, west central hardin and southeastern breckinridge counties will expire at 930 pm edt/830 pm cdt/, the storm which prompted the warning has weakened below severe limits, and no longer poses an immediate threat to life or property. therefore the warning will be allowed to expire. however gusty winds are still possible with this thunderstorm. report severe weather to local law enforcement, post your report to the national weather service louisville facebook page, or tweet your report using hashtag l, m, k, spotter.
6/26/2018 8:09 PM CDT At 909 pm edt/809 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm was located 7 miles east of hardinsburg, moving east at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
6/26/2018 1:14 PM EDT At 114 pm edt/1214 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles north of elizabethtown, moving east at 20 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
6/26/2018 12:46 PM EDT At 1246 pm edt/1146 am cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near hardinsburg to 12 miles northwest of munfordville, moving northeast at 40 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
6/9/2018 7:10 PM EDT The severe thunderstorm warning for east central hardin and southwestern bullitt counties will expire at 715 pm edt, the storm which prompted the warning has weakened below severe limits, and no longer poses an immediate threat to life or property. therefore the warning will be allowed to expire. however gusty winds to 45 mph are still possible with this thunderstorm. report severe weather to local law enforcement, post your report to the national weather service louisville facebook page, or tweet your report using hashtag l, m, k, spotter.
6/9/2018 7:00 PM EDT Large diameter tree downed on mcintyre r in hardin county KY, 2.1 miles N of Vine Grove, KY
6/9/2018 6:51 PM EDT At 651 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located near elizabethtown, moving east at 20 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
5/31/2018 2:33 PM EDT At 232 pm edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from watterson park to 10 miles south of shepherdsville, moving east at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Radar indicated rotation in these storms in northern bullitt county, moving north of shepherdsville.
5/31/2018 2:14 PM EDT At 214 pm edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 6 miles west of pleasure ridge park to 13 miles northwest of elizabethtown, moving east at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
4/3/2018 7:59 PM EDT Golf Ball sized hail reported 0.1 miles NNE of Vine Grove, KY, reported at vine grove... ky.
4/3/2018 7:58 PM EDT At 758 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 13 miles southwest of shepherdsville, moving east at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include two inch hail and 70 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be injured. expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles. expect considerable tree damage. wind damage is also likely to mobile homes, roofs, and outbuildings. locations impacted include, elizabethtown, radcliff, vine grove, lebanon junction, long view, belmont, younger creek, crest, rogersville and tunnel hills. A tornado watch remains in effect until 100 am edt for central kentucky.
4/3/2018 7:52 PM EDT Quarter sized hail reported 1.4 miles N of Vine Grove, KY
4/3/2018 7:51 PM EDT At 749 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 12 miles southeast of brandenburg, moving east at 50 mph (radar indicated. at 745 pm edt, a rotating wall cloud was reported at mile marker 107 on the western kentucky parkway). Hazards include golf ball size hail and 70 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be injured. expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles. expect considerable tree damage. wind damage is also likely to mobile homes, roofs, and outbuildings. locations impacted include, elizabethtown, shepherdsville, radcliff, vine grove, lebanon junction, muldraugh, bardstown junction, long view, belmont and grahamton. A tornado watch remains in effect until 100 am edt for central kentucky.
4/3/2018 7:36 PM EDT At 736 pm edt/636 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm was located 11 miles east of hardinsburg, moving east at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include golf ball size hail and 70 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be injured. expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles. expect considerable tree damage. Wind damage is also likely to mobile homes, roofs, and outbuildings.
2/24/2018 11:13 PM EST At 1112 pm est, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 6 miles east of middletown to 10 miles south of shepherdsville, moving east at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, jeffersontown, shelbyville, shepherdsville, middletown, douglass hills, pioneer village, hollow creek, woodland hills, spring mill and highview.
2/24/2018 10:44 PM EST At 1043 pm est, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from st. dennis to 14 miles east of hardinsburg, moving east at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
5/27/2017 6:36 PM EDT At 636 pm edt/536 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 6 miles north of elizabethtown to 14 miles northeast of leitchfield, moving southeast at 25 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include golf ball size hail and 60 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be injured. expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
5/27/2017 6:05 PM EDT At 604 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 11 miles southwest of valley station, moving east at 25 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and nickel size hail. Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, brandenburg, valley station, radcliff, muldraugh, west point, ekron, laconia, new boston, rock haven and grahamton.
5/27/2017 5:43 PM EDT At 543 pm edt/443 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm was located over brandenburg, moving east at 40 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
4/5/2017 5:14 PM EDT At 514 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles southwest of elizabethtown, moving northeast at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include golf ball size hail and 60 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be injured. expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles. expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees. locations impacted include, elizabethtown, radcliff, vine grove, lebanon junction, sonora, seven corners, eastview, long view, flint hill and hansbrough. A tornado watch remains in effect until 1000 pm edt for central kentucky.
4/5/2017 5:01 PM EDT At 500 pm edt/400 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm was located near leitchfield, moving northeast at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
3/27/2017 6:07 PM EDT The severe thunderstorm warning for northeastern hardin county will expire at 615 pm edt, the storm which prompted the warning has moved out of the area. therefore the warning will be allowed to expire. however heavy rain is still possible with this thunderstorm. a severe thunderstorm watch remains in effect until 1100 pm edt for central kentucky. report severe weather to local law enforcement, post your report to the national weather service louisville facebook page, or tweet your report using hashtag l, m, k, spotter.
3/27/2017 6:01 PM EDT At 601 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located near elizabethtown, moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, elizabethtown, radcliff, vine grove, crest, long view, rogersville, tunnel hills, rineyville and colesburg.
3/27/2017 5:50 PM EDT At 549 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located near elizabethtown, moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, elizabethtown, radcliff, vine grove, cecilia, long view, howe valley, hansbrough, addington field airport, crest and gaithers.
3/27/2017 5:39 PM EDT At 539 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 14 miles west of elizabethtown, moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
3/27/2017 4:16 PM EDT At 416 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles northwest of elizabethtown, moving northeast at 30 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include quarter size hail. Damage to vehicles is expected. Locations impacted include, radcliff, vine grove, dietz acres, fort knox, rogersville and long view.
3/27/2017 4:08 PM EDT At 408 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles northwest of elizabethtown, moving northeast at 30 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include quarter size hail. damage to vehicles is expected
3/1/2017 7:14 AM EST At 713 am est, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near shelbyville to 7 miles east of elizabethtown, moving southeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees. locations impacted include, shelbyville, bardstown, shepherdsville, taylorsville, radcliff, mount washington, vine grove, simpsonville, lebanon junction and new haven. a tornado watch remains in effect until 900 am est for central kentucky. A tornado watch also remains in effect until 1100 am est for central kentucky.
3/1/2017 6:46 AM EST At 646 am est, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from creekside to 10 miles south of brandenburg, moving southeast at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
3/1/2017 5:32 AM CST At 632 am est/532 am cst/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 7 miles northeast of brandenburg to near livermore, moving southeast at 30 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
3/1/2017 6:22 AM EST At 621 am est, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 8 miles north of brooksburg to 7 miles southwest of brandenburg, moving east at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
2/24/2017 6:30 PM EST At 630 pm est/530 pm cst/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 9 miles east of brandenburg to 13 miles southeast of hardinsburg, moving northeast at 25 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and nickel size hail. expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees
9/10/2016 3:34 PM EDT At 334 pm edt/234 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm was located 11 miles southeast of hardinsburg, moving east at 20 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
7/7/2016 4:37 PM EDT At 437 pm edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near corydon to 7 miles south of hodgenville, moving east at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and penny size hail. Expect damage to roofs. siding. and trees. Locations impacted include, elizabethtown, corydon, brandenburg, radcliff, vine grove, muldraugh, west point, upton, sonora and ekron.
7/7/2016 4:36 PM EDT At 435 pm edt/335 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 12 miles northwest of elizabethtown to 12 miles north of munfordville, moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and penny size hail. Expect damage to roofs. siding. And trees.
7/7/2016 4:22 PM EDT At 422 pm edt/322 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near carefree to 13 miles north of munfordville, moving east at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding. and trees. Locations impacted include, elizabethtown, corydon, brandenburg, radcliff, vine grove, irvington, muldraugh, west point, upton and sonora.
7/7/2016 2:58 PM CDT At 357 pm edt/257 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 10 miles southwest of english to 8 miles northwest of leitchfield, moving east at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding. And trees.
6/15/2016 4:12 PM EDT At 412 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 9 miles southwest of shepherdsville, moving southeast at 25 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and penny size hail. Expect damage to roofs. siding. And trees.
5/10/2016 4:13 PM EDT The severe thunderstorm warning for northeastern hardin, west central nelson, southwestern bullitt and north central larue counties will expire at 415 pm edt, the storm which prompted the warning has moved out of the area. therefore the warning will be allowed to expire. a severe thunderstorm watch remains in effect until 800 pm edt for central kentucky.
5/10/2016 4:00 PM EDT Tree down on duggin switch rd partially blocking the roa in hardin county KY, 1.5 miles NNW of Vine Grove, KY
5/10/2016 3:54 PM EDT At 354 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 9 miles northwest of elizabethtown, moving east at 30 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include golf ball size hail and 60 mph wind gusts. People and animals outdoors will be injured. expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, and vehicles. expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees. Locations impacted include, elizabethtown, radcliff, vine grove, lebanon junction, new haven, cecilia, crest, belmont, saint john and gaithers.
5/10/2016 3:50 PM EDT Trees and limbs dow in hardin county KY, 0.1 miles NNE of Vine Grove, KY
5/10/2016 3:45 PM EDT 8 inch diameter cedar tree downed near blueball hill in hardin county KY, 5.9 miles NE of Vine Grove, KY
5/10/2016 3:44 PM EDT Quarter sized hail reported 5.9 miles NE of Vine Grove, KY, quarter size hail near blueball hill
5/10/2016 3:41 PM EDT At 341 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 7 miles northwest of elizabethtown, moving east at 35 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
5/10/2016 3:34 PM EDT At 333 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located 13 miles west of elizabethtown, moving east at 35 mph (radar indicated rotation). Hazards include tornado and quarter size hail. Flying debris will be dangerous to those caught without shelter. mobile homes will be damaged or destroyed. damage to roofs, windows, and vehicles will occur. tree damage is likely. Locations impacted include, vine grove, hansbrough, saint john, four corners, vertrees, howe valley, rineyville, kraft and franklin cross roads.
5/10/2016 3:19 PM EDT At 319 pm edt/219 pm cdt/, a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located 12 miles southeast of hardinsburg, moving east at 35 mph (radar indicated rotation). Hazards include tornado and hail up to two inches in diameter. Flying debris will be dangerous to those caught without shelter. mobile homes will be damaged or destroyed. damage to roofs, windows, and vehicles will occur. Tree damage is likely.
5/7/2016 9:18 PM EDT At 917 pm edt/817 pm cdt/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 9 miles southwest of salem to 10 miles northeast of hardinsburg, moving east at 60 mph (trained weather spotters. these line of storms has a history of producing wind damage and 60 mph gusts). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail. Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
3/31/2016 4:15 PM EDT At 415 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 9 miles north of elizabethtown, moving east at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding. and trees. locations impacted include, elizabethtown, bardstown, hodgenville, springfield, radcliff, vine grove, lebanon junction, new haven, bloomfield and loretto. Time, mot, loc 2015z 258deg 102kt 3782 8585.
3/31/2016 4:12 PM EDT At 411 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles northwest of elizabethtown, moving east at 100 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding. And trees.
12/23/2015 7:30 PM EST The national weather service in louisville has issued a * severe thunderstorm warning for. southeastern meade county in central kentucky. hardin county in central kentucky. grayson county in central kentucky. Southeastern breckinridge county in central kentucky.
12/23/2015 7:17 PM EST At 717 pm est, a severe thunderstorm was located near shepherdsville, moving east at 65 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
12/23/2015 6:00 PM CST At 700 pm est /600 pm cst/, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 7 miles south of hardinsburg to 8 miles west of leitchfield to morgantown, moving northeast at 80 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
12/23/2015 6:57 PM EST At 657 pm est /557 pm cst/, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles south of brandenburg, moving northeast at 80 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
8/4/2015 7:43 PM EDT At 742 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 7 miles southwest of valley station, moving east at 40 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
7/10/2015 10:39 AM EDT At 1036 am edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from pleasure ridge park to 10 miles north of elizabethtown to 8 miles west of elizabethtown, and moving east at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding and trees. Locations impacted include, fairdale, shepherdsville, elizabethtown, okolona, highview, cecilia, addington field airport, gaithers, barrallton, crest, beech grove, indian hills, louisville international airport, booth, belmont, tunnel hills, lebanon junction, brooks, fox chase and gap in knob.
7/10/2015 10:20 AM EDT At 1017 am edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 6 miles south of corydon to 14 miles south of brandenburg to 9 miles north of leitchfield, and moving east at 55 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
6/26/2015 5:11 PM EDT At 508 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 11 miles southeast of brandenburg, and moving northeast at 45 mph. this storm has brought wind damage to trees and power lines to hardin and breckinridge county. this will be moving into the louisville metro and produce winds of 65 to 70 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 70 mph wind gusts. Expect considerable tree damage. damage is likely to mobile homes, roofs and outbuildings. Locations impacted include, valley station, pleasure ridge park, fairdale, okolona, highview, pilcher landing, new boston, evans landing, howard, west point, buena vista, macedonia, stites, rosewood, happy hollow, cupio, fishtown, sugar grove, barrallton and gap in knob.
6/26/2015 5:01 PM EDT At 500 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 11 miles southeast of brandenburg, and moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 70 mph wind gusts. Expect considerable tree damage. Damage is likely to mobile homes, roofs and outbuildings.
6/26/2015 4:55 PM EDT Powerlines down on saint martin road near flahert in meade county KY, 5.7 miles ESE of Vine Grove, KY
6/26/2015 4:52 PM EDT Tree down on old 14 in meade county KY, 2.3 miles ESE of Vine Grove, KY
6/26/2015 4:48 PM EDT At 447 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 13 miles west of elizabethtown, and moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 70 mph wind gusts and penny size hail. Expect considerable tree damage. damage is likely to mobile homes, roofs and outbuildings. Locations impacted include, elizabethtown, franklin cross roads, maples corner, perryville, cecilia, saint john, kraft, flaherty, addington field airport, gaithers, rineyville, vine grove, grahamton, red hill, long view, radcliff, indian hills, rogersville, dietz acres and muldraugh.
6/26/2015 4:36 PM EDT At 333 pm cdt, a severe thunderstorm was located 12 miles north of leitchfield, and moving northeast at 45 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts and penny size hail. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
6/21/2015 10:37 PM EDT At 1035 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 12 miles north of elizabethtown, moving southeast at 25 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding and trees. The severe thunderstorm will affect radcliff, rogersville, red hill, and dietz acres.
6/21/2015 10:20 PM EDT At 1017 pm edt, severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from 8 miles southwest of valley station to 8 miles east of brandenburg to 9 miles southeast of brandenburg, and moving southeast at 35 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
6/18/2015 5:09 PM EDT At 508 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles west of shepherdsville, and moving north at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding and trees. Locations impacted include, shepherdsville, valley station, fairdale, pleasure ridge park, west point, cupio, stites, gap in knob, barrallton, fox chase, hebron estates, brooks, zoneton and hunters hollow.
6/18/2015 4:59 PM EDT At 457 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 10 miles north of elizabethtown, and moving north at 50 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
6/18/2015 4:46 PM EDT At 444 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 7 miles south of elizabethtown, and moving northeast at 30 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. siding and trees. Locations impacted include, hodgenville, elizabethtown, franklin cross roads, cecilia, tonieville, gaithers, leafdale, saint john, addington field airport, kraft, rineyville, indian hills, tunnel hills, crest, roanoke, vine grove and athertonville.
6/18/2015 4:28 PM EDT At 426 pm edt, a severe thunderstorm was located 14 miles north of munfordville, and moving northeast at 35 mph (radar indicated). Hazards include 60 mph wind gusts. Expect damage to roofs. Siding and trees.
4/7/2015 5:19 PM EDT A severe thunderstorm warning remains in effect for northeastern hardin. bullitt and southern jefferson counties until 535 pm edt. at 518 pm edt. severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from fairdale to 10 miles north of elizabethtown. and moving east at 45 mph. hazard. 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail.
4/7/2015 5:04 PM EDT The national weather service in louisville has issued a * severe thunderstorm warning for. southeastern harrison county in south central indiana. bullitt county in north central kentucky. northern hardin county in north central kentucky. Southern jefferson county in north central kentucky.
4/2/2015 4:33 PM EDT The national weather service in louisville has issued a * severe thunderstorm warning for. bullitt county in north central kentucky. northern hardin county in north central kentucky. southeastern jefferson county in north central kentucky. Northwestern nelson county in north central kentucky.
4/2/2015 4:06 PM EDT The national weather service in louisville has issued a * severe thunderstorm warning for. bullitt county in north central kentucky. northern hardin county in north central kentucky. southeastern meade county in north central kentucky. Until 435 pm edt.
8/23/2014 6:58 PM EDT Trees down in vine grove as well as several other locations in the north part of hardin count in hardin county KY, 0.1 miles NNE of Vine Grove, KY
7/26/2014 10:40 PM EDT Trees across hwy 1500 near hwy 313 in hardin county KY, 1.6 miles W of Vine Grove, KY
12/21/2013 10:58 PM EST Trees reported down in vine grove in hardin county KY, 0.1 miles NNE of Vine Grove, KY
12/21/2013 10:10 PM EST Trees reported down in vine grove. time estimated based on rada in hardin county KY, 0.1 miles NNE of Vine Grove, KY
6/26/2013 10:04 PM EDT Trees reported dow in hardin county KY, 4.3 miles NNE of Vine Grove, KY
7/27/2012 10:11 PM EDT Tree down on a home in meade county KY, 5.1 miles ESE of Vine Grove, KY
7/27/2012 10:10 PM EDT Tree down on a house... temporarily trapping a person inside in the henderson woods subdivisio in hardin county KY, 0.1 miles NNE of Vine Grove, KY
1/1/0001 12:00 AM Trees down on coleman roa in meade county KY, 5.1 miles ESE of Vine Grove, KY
1/1/0001 12:00 AM Quarter sized hail reported 10.5 miles E of Vine Grove, KY, quarter sized hail covered roadways
Hail Maps for Vine Grove, KY
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Iron Duke Partners Ltd
IHC Workability International Conference
By Phil O'Reilly, May 2016
IHC is delighted to announce Catalina Devandas Aguilar, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as a keynote speaker at the IHC Workability International Make it Work Conference in September.
The Workability International Conference is held annually and this year it is being hosted in Auckland by IHC New Zealand.
Brent Wilton, Director of Global Workplace Rights at Coca-Cola, and Steve Shepherd, former head of Ranstad’s specialist disability recruitment team in Australia, have also been confirmed as keynote speakers.
Janine Stewart, General Manager of IHC Programmes says, “We are thrilled to have secured the attendance of such high-quality keynote speakers. They will add real value to the conversation and provide excellent insights from their varied backgrounds. We are looking forward to some provocative conversations about the future of employment for those with disabilities.”
“Catalina is a lawyer and human rights advocate who has worked extensively on disability issues at the national, regional and international level. As Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, she leads work calling for persons with disabilities to be guaranteed the full enjoyment of their human rights and freedoms without discrimination.”
The conference aims to highlight the clear economic and social benefits that arise when all citizens have the opportunity to be engaged in work. The conference will explore innovative ways to tackle the barriers to employment people with disabilities continue to face.
Brent Wilton has previously worked as Secretary-General of the International Organisation of Employers in Geneva, and has a clear view that disability should not be a barrier to employment. Steve Shepherd is a champion of diversity employment programmes. Steve will address the conference on recruitment that centres on skill and capability, rendering disability irrelevant at the interview table.
“We have also secured the support and attendance of Phil O’Reilly, former CEO of Business New Zealand and current chair of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD and member of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation. Phil will also address the conference delegates,” says Janine Stewart.
IHC is currently calling for abstracts that reflect the three themes of the conference: Partnerships, Relationships, and Allies for Employment; Employment not Welfare; and Socially Responsible Business. More information about abstracts can be found at: https://www.ihc.org.nz/ihc-workability-international-conference
© Iron Duke Partners Ltd 2019.
Website by Scenario.
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Gino Bartali - cycling star and secret war hero
Tour de France champion was clandestine courier
Gino Bartali on his way to victory in the
Gino Bartali, one of three Italian cyclists to have won the Tour de France twice and a three-times winner of the Giro d’Italia, was born on this day in 1914 in the town of Ponte a Ema, just outside Florence.
Bartali’s career straddled the Second World War, his two Tour successes coming in 1938 and 1948, but it is as much for what he did during the years of conflict that he is remembered today.
With the knowledge of only a few people, Bartali repeatedly risked his life smuggling false documents around Italy to help Italian Jews escape being deported to Nazi concentration camps.
He hid the rolled up documents inside the hollow handlebars and frame of his bicycle and explained his frequent long-distance excursions as part of the training schedule he needed to maintain in order to keep himself in peak physical fitness.
In fact, he was carrying documents from secret printing presses to people who needed them in cities as far apart as Florence, Lucca, Genoa, Assisi, and the Vatican in Rome.
Sometimes he would pull a cart that contained a secret compartment in order to smuggle Jewish refugees in person into Switzerland, explaining that hauling a heavy cart was also essential to his training routine.
Bartali resumed his career after
the War, winning a second Tour
He even hid a Jewish family in the cellar of his house in Florence, in the full knowledge that were they to be discovered he would have almost certainly been arrested and sentenced to death.
Bartali, who died in 2000 at the age of 85, never spoke publicly about his secret role and revealed details only gradually to his family in later years.
They concluded that the motivation for his actions lay in his devout Catholicism and his opposition to the policies being pursued by Benito Mussolini.
In a speech in September 1938, Pope Pius XI had proclaimed that anti-semitism was incompatible with Christianity, yet earlier in the year Mussolini had published his Manifesto on Race, which would lead to Italian Jews been stripped of citizenship, barred from public office and from working in any recognised profession.
When Bartali won the 1938 Tour de France, Mussolini hailed him as a national hero for having provided evidence through his sporting success that Italians too belonged in the ‘master race’ that Mussolini’s murderous ally Adolf Hitler aimed to create.
Bartali was horrified. Determined to distance himself from Mussolini, he refused the invitation to dedicate his triumph to Il Duce.
Mussolini was less than pleased but Bartali’s popularity with the Italian public, who had cheered him to victory in the Giro in 1936 and 1937, dissuaded him from any punitive action. Bartali’s standing was also helpful on the occasions he was stopped and questioned about his long-distance ‘training’ exercises.
Bartali is said to have been born in rooms
above a bar in Ponte a Ema
He would allow himself to be interrogated but asked Fascist officials not to dismantle his bike because it was precisely calibrated for optimum performance and to disturb it would jeopardise his future success.
For the early part of the War, the Catholic Church’s position on anti-semitism meant that Italy remained a country in which Jews could take refuge, despite Mussolini’s malign intentions.
It all changed, however, when Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943. The German army occupied northern and central parts of the country, setting up a puppet republic with Mussolini in charge, and immediately started rounding up Italian Jews and sending them to concentration camps.
It was at this point that Bartali was asked by the Cardinal of Florence, Archbishop Elia Dalla Costa, to join a secret network offering protection and safe passage to Jews and other endangered people. His talents were almost tailor-made for him to become a courier.
The work of this network and other organisations and individuals sympathetic to the plight of minorities meant that around 80 per cent Italian-born and refugee Jews living in Italy before World War Two survived.
After the War, Bartali resumed his cycling career and, remarkably, won his second Tour de France in 1948, matching the achievement of Ottavio Bottecchia, who won twice in the 1920s, and setting a standard that Bartali’s rival, Fausto Coppi, would attain when he won in 1949 and 1952.
Bartali's 1948 Tour de France bike on display in the
museum at the church of Madonna del Ghisallo
Again, it was a victory with political significance. Coinciding with the unrest in Italy in the summer of 1948, when a power struggle was under way between the United States-backed centre-right Christian Democrats and the Italian Communists, Bartali’s victory came at a critical moment for the country, when the attempted assassination of the Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti threatened to push Italy into civil war.
It meant that newspaper headlines were suddenly dominated by the fairytale story of Bartali, who had won the Tour at the age of 24 in 1938 and was winning again at the age of 34. Commentators believe the distraction changed the mood of the country just enough for tensions to dissipate.
Bartali, who quit racing at the age of 40 after suffering injuries in an accident, had been born into a strictly religious family in Tuscany and his nickname on the circuit was ‘Gino the Pious’.
He was posthumously awarded with the honour Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and education centre in Jerusalem.
Bartali’s former home at Via Chiantigiana 177 in Ponte a Ema is now the home of a museum dedicated to his life and success on two wheels. All Bartali’s medals and trophies are on display in the museum. There is also a room with items relating to many other cyclists and a collection of bicycles from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. The museum is open from Wednesday until Saturday from 9.30am, remaining open until 7pm on Thursday and Friday.
The church of the Madonna del Ghisallo
The bike on which Gino Bartali won the 1948 Tour de France can be seen at a fascinating museum within a church on top of a hill overlooking Lake Como in Lombardy. The church of the Madonna del Ghisallo is said to have been commissioned in the 11th century by a local count – Ghisallo – on the spot where he claimed an apparition of the Virgin Mary saved him from an attack by bandits. Soon, the Madonna was adopted as the patroness of local travellers. When, many centuries later, the hill - which offers spectacular views as well as demanding conditions for those on two wheels - became part of the Giro di Lombardia cycle race and, on occasions, the Giro d’Italia, a local priest proposed that the Madonna del Ghisallo be declared the patroness of cyclists and Pope Pius XII duly obliged. This prompted competitive cyclists to donate all manner of memorabilia, including bikes and jerseys, building a collection so large that the church ran out of space to display everything and an overflow building had to be constructed in the grounds. As well as his bike, outside the church there is a bust of Bartali, alongside busts of Fausto Coppi and the five-times Giro d’Italia winner Alfredo Binda.
Labels: 1914, Cycling, Florence, Giro d'Italia, Madonna del Ghisallo, Pone a Ema, Pope Pius XI, Pope Pius XII, Sport, Tour de France
Alessandro Algardi – sculptor
Vittorio Erspamer - chemist
Pope Urban VIII
Luigi Musso - racing driver
Giosuè Carducci – poet and Nobel Prize winner
Pope Paul II
Agostino Steffani – composer
Giuseppe Di Stefano – tenor
Sergio Mattarella – President of Italy
Indro Montanelli – journalist
Suso Cecchi D'Amico - screenwriter
Giorgio Morandi – painter
Jacopo Tiepolo - Doge of Venice
Gino D'Acampo - celebrity chef
Vincenzo Gemito - sculptor
Frances Xavier Cabrini – the first American saint
Palmiro Togliatti – politician
Giulio d’Este of Ferrara
Stefano della Bella – printmaker
Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo
The death of Hadrian
Adriano Panatta – tennis player
Ernest Hemingway – American novelist
Vittorio De Sica - film director
Cesare Mori - Mafia buster
Gianfranco Zola – footballer
Giuseppe ‘Nuccio’ Bertone – car designer
Alessandro Blasetti - film director
Pierre Cardin - fashion designer
Gino Meneghetti - career burglar
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Home Coming soon Blog
Biography Current Tour Dates Upcoming Events All Events All Tickets Live Recordings Video Reviews
Faculty at... Students Achievements Master Classes Lectures
Chopin - Etudes Haydn & Beethoven Chopin 24 Preludes Fortepianissimo Mozart aus dem Ludwigsburger Schloß IV Chopin (Live from Warsaw)
HomeComing soonBlog Pianist Biography Current Tour Dates Upcoming Events All Events All Tickets Live Recordings Video Reviews Professor Faculty at... Students Achievements Master Classes Lectures Discography Chopin - Etudes Haydn & Beethoven Chopin 24 Preludes Fortepianissimo Mozart aus dem Ludwigsburger Schloß IV Chopin (Live from Warsaw) GalleryContact
Warsaw - The Lady Of The Camellias
Teatr Wielki 1 plac Teatralny Warszawa, mazowieckie Poland (map)
THE LADY OF THE CAMELLIAS
Warsaw, Poland, National Opera (Teatr Wielki), Moniuszko Auditorium
Ballet by John Neumeier in three acts with a prologue
based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas (fils)
(Adults only)
Fryderyk Chopin / John Neumeier
Polish National Ballet
Orchestra of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
John Neumeier - Choreography
Grzegorz Nowak - Conductor
Krzysztof Jabłoński - Pianist
Marek Bracha - Pianist
Jürgen Rose - Set and Costume Designer
John Neumeier - Lighting Conception
F. Chopin's compositions you will hear (with pianists' names):
Largo from Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 (fragment; Marek Bracha)
Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra in F minor, Op. 21 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Waltz No. 1 in A flat major Op. 34 (Marek Bracha)
Trois Écossaises Op. 72 No. 3 (posth.) (Marek Bracha)
Waltz No. 3 in F major, Op. 34 (Marek Bracha)
Largo from Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Prelude No. 2 in A minor, Op. 28 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Prelude No. 17 in A flat major, Op. 28 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Prelude No. 15 in D flat major, Op. 28 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Largo from Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 (fragment; Krzysztof Jablonski)
Prélude no. 24 in D minor, Op. 28 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Fantasy on Polish Airs for Piano and Orchestra in A major, Op. 13 (fragment; Krzysztof Jablonski)
Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 22 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
2nd movement from Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 11 (Krzysztof Jablonski)
Source:: https://teatrwielki.pl/repertuar/kalendarium/2017-2018/dama-kameliowa/termin/2018-04-20_19-00/
Biographies Biografia (Polish) Video Files Audio Files Critics Photographs
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Government of Serbia Coordination Body for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja
18.07.2019GRANTS PROVIDED TO FARMERS AND AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES
18.07.2019PUBLIC CALL FOR SUBMITTING PROJECT PROPOSALS IN THE FIELD OF PROTECTION OF VETERANS AND DISABLED PERSONS
17.07.2019PUBLIC CALL FOR LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENTAL UNITS FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE PROJECT PLATFORM FOR RESPONSIBLE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FINANCES
17.07.2019PUBLIC CALL FOR EXERCISING THE RIGHT TO INCENTIVES FOR THE PURCHASE OF NEW LIVESTOCK BREEDING MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT
30. December 2008.
December 30, 2008 – Mr. Milan Markovic, the current President of the Coordination Body for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, with his predecessors Mr. Nebojsa Covic and Mr. Rasim Ljajic, at a meeting that took place prior to the New 2009
Address of Mr. Milan Markovic, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and President of the Coordination Body for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, to members of the Bujanovac Municipal Assembly, December 29, 2008
Interview that Milan Markovic, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and President of the Coordination Body for South Serbia, granted to the “Politika” daily on December 25, 2008
Pregled, December 22, 2008
USAID HELPS COMPANIES IN PRESEVO The US Agency for International Development (USAID) provided 20,000 US $ to the "Steel U"Company from Presevo, which is specialized in the production and fitting of PVC and aluminum-made joinery. This will enable completion and modernization of the company's production process, the USAID said yesterday. The funds were provided by the USAID's Economic Security Program with the aim of ensuring a portion of the funds necessary for purchasing four machines for the company, which will make it possible for the company to develop its production capacities, improve the quality of its products and get into new markets, it was said in the statement.
Milos Simonovic, the mayor of Nis, and Timo Stigelmann, Director of "Help" Office in Serbia, signed an agreement on co-operation in the project titled "Support to the Local Sustainable Development in South Serbia."
9. December 2008.
As part of the project "Six Days for Sixty Years from the Universal Declaration", which is supported by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and UNDP Serbia, the "Organization for Development and Democracy" from Bujanovac, the "Roma Humanitarian Center", "Neighbors for Peace", "OFER" and "Perspective" donated around 250 books to the Bujanovac library.
Mr Sima Gazikalovic, Vice President of the Coordination Body for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja and Head of the Coordination Body's Office in Bujanovac, along with Advisors to Director of the Belgrade- based Coordination Body's Office, Ms Ana Brnabic and Ms Danijela Nenadic, had a meeting with deans and professors of the Faculty of Law and Faculty of Economics in Nis. The topic discussed at the meeting included plans for the future opening of the exdended departments of the aforementioned faculties in Medvedja.
December 6, 7, 13 and 14, 2008
The Media Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, in co-operation with the B92 radio station and Radio Ema from Bujanovac, organizes for a group of Radio Ema interns a training course in radio journalism. The aim of the course is to provide the group of young journalists with basic radio journalism skills, as well as to increase the station's capacity for news production.
28. November 2008.
HOW TO PREPARE BUSINESS PLANS Competition of the Young in Entrepreneurship
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1958: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was born into a wealthy assimilated Jewish family in Moscow. His father was a painter and art professor and his mother was a pianist. Leo Tolstoy was a close friend of the Pasternak family and his family became part of the Tolstoyan movement.* Pasternak went to college to study music in Moscow, but in 1910 began taking studies in philosophy at the University of Marburg, in Germany.
Pasternak returned to Russia at the outbreak of World War One. In 1914, he also published his first collection of poetry, Twin in the Clouds. Pasternak remained in Russia through the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. In 1922, as the Civil War ended and the USSR was formed, Pasternak published his collection of poems titled, My Sister, Life, which earned him massive acclaim. In 1922, Pasternak married Evgeniia Lourie with whom he had a son. They divorced in 1931. He married Zinaida Neigauz in 1934.
Over the decades following the Civil War, the Soviet Union began to institute stricter censorship and harsher punishments. In 1934, one of his friends and colleagues, Osip Mandelstam, was abducted by the secret police. More of his friends were taken in the Great Purge of 1937. Pasternak believed he and his wife would be taken also, after he refused to sign a statement supporting the death penalty for those swept up in the purge, a statement which was signed by most of the Union of Soviet Writers.
In 1946, Pasternak began his affair with Olga Ivinskaya, a single mother working for the literary magazine, Novy Mir. By all accounts, Ivinskaya was Pasternak's muse and their relationship was incredibly important to both of them. In 1949, Ivinskaya was arrested by the KGB and sent to the gulags for five years.
In 1956, Pasternak finished Doctor Zhivago, but no Russian printing house was willing to publish it. An Italian publishing agent in Russia managed to arrange an Italian translation which he brought back with him to Italy, where it was published in 1957. The book was banned in the USSR, and a smear campaign against Doctor Zhivago and Boris Pasternak was launched by the Soviet press. In 1958, the Nobel Committee awarded Pasternak the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he declined, fearing harsh reprisal from the Soviet government. This inspired the Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoon by Bill Mauldin:
"I won the Nobel Prize for literature. What was your crime?"
Pasternak remained in Russia. He announced plans to write a trilogy of plays, but died of lung cancer before the first was completed.
Subject/Genre: Post-Revolutionary Russia/Historical fiction
What can I say about Doctor Zhivago that hasn't been said before? The old paperback I picked up boasts on its cover that it's "One of the great novels of the century." Which, along with some books on this list (e.g. The Grapes of Wrath, All Quiet on the Western Front), makes it a bit difficult for me to review. But I'll try.
If you're not familiar with the story, it follows Yurii Zhivago, the titular doctor. Beginning around the Revolution of 1905, then skipping around up to the October Revolution in 1917, we see Zhivago's growth into adulthood as well as a parallel focus on Lara Guishar. Zhivago is orphaned at a young age and sent to live with the Gromekos, a wealthy couple whose daughter, Antonina (aka Tonia), Yurii eventually marries. Lara is the daughter of a widowed French émigré. Her mother owns a dress shop which is abandoned in the revolution. As a teenager, Lara has an ongoing affair with her mother's beau. All in all, there are about half a dozen characters who show up frequently throughout the novel, fighting with or against each other as circumstances determine.
One of the great things about this book, and one part of what makes the story so compelling, is the perpetual grey area the characters inhabit. The novel is extremely political, as one would expect from the subject matter. But Pasternak manages to capture the complexity of the situation, politically and morally. When a violently oppressive system is overthrown, and a massive power struggle consumes a large nation, when dozens of competing factions vie for political and military supremacy, morality becomes obfuscated. Zhivago is a rich Moscow intellectual, who supported the overthrow of the Tsar and had great hopes for a socialist state, yet the very fact that he is a rich intellectual from the capital makes him an enemy to many of the people he ideologically supports.
But beyond the politics, there is a beautiful story about a man trying to survive a troubling and dangerous era. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but suffice it to say that Pasternak succeeds in creating a character as multi-faceted and complex as his times.
I want to include a particularly fantastic passage here, which has nothing to do with the review, except that I wanted to share it. It's a bit long, so feel free to skip it if you want. Yurii Zhivago, speaking of death:
"'You want to know my opinion as a scientist? Perhaps some other time? No? Right now? Well, as you wish. But it's difficult like that, all of a sudden.' And there and then he delivered a whole impromptu lecture, astonished that he could do it.
"Resurrection. In the crude from in which it is preached to console the weak, it is alien to me. I have always understood Christ's words about the living and the dead in a different sense. Where could you find room for the hordes of people accumulated over thousands of years? The universe isn't big enough for them; God, the good, and meaningful purpose would be crowded out. They'd be crushed by these throngs of greedy merely for the animal life.
"But all the time, life, one, immense, identical throughout its innumerable combinations abd transformations, fills the universe and is continually reborn. You are anxious whether you will rise from the dead or not, but you rose from the dead when you were born and you didn't notice it.
"Will you feel pain? Do the tissues feel their disintegration? In other words, what will happen to your consciousness? But what is consciousness? Let's see. A conscious attempt to fall asleep is sure to produce insomnia, to try to be conscious of one's own digestion is a sure way to upset the stomach. Consciousness is a poison when we apply it to ourselves. Consciousness is a light directed outward, it lights up the way ahead of us so that we don't stumble. It's like the headlights on a locomotive--turn them inward and you'd have a crash.
"So what will happen to your consciousness? Your consciousness, yours, not anyone else's. Well, what are you? There's the point. Let's try to find out. What is it about you that you have always known as yourself? What are you conscious of in yourself? Your kidneys? Your liver? Your blood vessels? No. However far back you go in your memory, it is always in some external, active manifestation of yourself that you come across your identity--in the work of your hands, in your family, in other people. And now listen carefully. You in others--this is your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life--your soul, your immortality, your life in others. And what now? You have always been in others and you will always remain in others. And what does it matter to you if later on that is called your memory? This will be you--the you that enters the future and becomes a part of it."
Doctor Zhivago has a famous film adaptation. The 1965 film version directed by David Lean and starring Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia) was a giant financial success, remaining the eighth highest grossing film ever, after adjusting for inflation.
While this is certainly an excellent novel, I'm not sure I'd recommend it to everybody. If you're looking for a light read, or have no interest in the politics and ideology of Revolutionary-era Russia, you probably won't enjoy it. It's a very dense book (which is pretty characteristic of Russian lit) and requires at least a bit of knowledge of that time period (e.g., if you don't know the difference between the Reds, Greens, and Whites, you may end up confused), but this is nothing ten minutes on wikipedia can't help you out with.
The Bestsellers of 1958:
1. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
2. Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver
3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
4. Around the World with Auntie Mame by Partick Dennis
5. From the Terrace by John O'Hara
6. Eloise at Christmastime by Kay Thompson
7. Ice Palace by Edna Ferber
8. The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton
9. The Enemy Camp by Jerome Weidman
10. Victorine by Frances Parkinson Keyes
Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's
Ian Fleming - Dr. No
Jack Kerouac - The Dharma Bums
Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. 1958. Trans. Max Hayward, Manya Harari, and Bernard
Guerney. New York: Ballantine Books, 1981. Print.
Labels: 1958, best seller, book, boris pasternak, classic, david lean, doctor zhivago, fiction, film, history, literature, novel, omar sharif, review, revolution, russian
"Blade Runner," "Blade Runner (a movie)," and "The Blade Runner"
I was in the library last week, when I came across a surprising title. Blade Runner (a movie) by William S. Burroughs. It turns out Blade Runner (a movie) has nothing to do with the movie Blade Runner, which is based on the Philip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Elecrtic Sheep? No, Blade Runner (a movie) is based on the novel The Bladerunner, which has no connection to Blade Runner or its source material. Perhaps some background will help.
In 1968, Philip K. Dick published one of his most famous novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Fig. 1.1: Electric Sheep
In the novel, Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter, must 'retire' six escaped androids. The biggest difference between the androids and humans is the androids' complete lack of empathy. In a plotline that didn't make it into the film, the humans on the largely depopulated Earth all need to care for some kind of pet, to prove to their neighbors that they have empathy. However, due to nuclear war, most species are extinct, and those that remain are incredibly expensive, prompting many, including Deckard, to own an electric animal, one that behaves exactly like, and appears identical to, a real animal. (Which leads to the question: if taking care of the animals is a matter of conformity/self-preservation, does empathy even apply, which leads to further questions about the possibly self-serving nature of empathy). Deckard has an electric sheep. The term "blade runner" does not appear anywhere in the novel.
In 1974, Alan E. Nourse published a dystopian novel titled The Bladerunner. The backstory: Medical science has managed to prolong life and allow people to live with previously fatal conditions. A rapidly aging population that needs medical care, along with an aging government, increase taxes on the proportionally smaller youth demographic, which is itself producing less, until the economy is on the verge of collapsing (A strangely prescient premise). The solution to the problem ends up being free healthcare for life, on the condition that the recipient be sterilized. This leads to an underground medicine industry, with suppliers, doctors, and bladerunners, the latter act as go-betweens for the doctors, suppliers, and patients. Although it gets a little bogged down with medical specifics and some of the exposition can be clunky (especially in the second part of the novel), it's a relevant, thought-provoking sci-fi novel.
Well, in 1979, William S. Burroughs was commissioned to right a film treatment for The Bladerunner. Although no film was made, the treatment was published as Blade Runner (a movie). I'd recommend reading the novel before the Burroughs treatment. The treatment, as it goes on, gets more and more disjointed and surreal, and bizarre imagery starts taking more and more precedence over coherence. There are considerable differences between the film treatment and the novel. There are more "throbbing phalluses" than in the source material. A lot more.
In 1982, Blade Runner, the famous sci-fi film starring Harrison Ford, was released. One problem the filmmakers encountered was picking a good title. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was a) not catchy and b) nonsense, since there were no electric sheep in the film. One of the screenwriters, Hampton Fancher, had a copy of Burroughs's treatment, and suggested the title Blade Runner for the film. Ridley Scott bought the title rights for The Bladerunner and Blade Runner (a movie).
So, if anyone ever decides to make a film adaptation of Alan E. Nourse's The Bladerunner, they're going to have to call it something else. May I suggest Ubik?
Labels: adaptation, alan nourse, blade runner, book, do androids dream of electric sheep, dystopia, movie, philip k dick, sci-fi, the bladerunner, title, william burroughs
10 More Short Books You Should Read
A couple weeks ago, the Huffington Post ran an article titled "These Amazing Classic Books Are So Short You Have No Excuse Not to Read Them." It included the usual suspects, Heart of Darkness, The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm, The Turn of the Screw. There list is definitely worth checking out, but I thought I'd add a few of my own suggestions to the mix. Here are ten great books under 200 pages:
CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD by Gabriel García Márquez (120 pages):
García Márquez is one of the best known Latin American writers of our time. His 1981 novel follows an unnamed narrator's attempt to reconstruct what happened in his small hometown decades earlier. Everyone in the town knew that the Vicario brothers were planning to kill Santiago Nasar, except, seemingly Nasar himself.
THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFE by Carson McCullers (71 pages):
Carson McCullers is a writer in the Southern Gothic tradition, like Shirley Jackson and Flannery O'Conner. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (which usually comes with a few other stories), shows a haunting portrait of a small town, and the rise and ruin of Miss Amelia at the hands of the grotesque Cousin Lymon.
SULA by Toni Morrison (192 pages):
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison's 1973 novel Sula focuses on a town and two women, and has one hell of an opening line: "Except for World War II, nothing ever interfered with the celebration of National Suicide Day."
THE CRYING OF LOT 49 by Thomas Pynchon (183 pages):
Probably the only Pynchon book that will take you less than a month to read, but this slim 1966 volume has a lot of depth to it. Oedipa Maas wades through a world populated with equally improbable names and even less probable explanations, as she stumbles through what is either a massive conspiracy, a colossal prank, or her own paranoia.
FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury (179 pages):
"It was a pleasure to burn..." A great first line for one of the great dystopian novels in American fiction. Guy Montag is a fireman: one of the chosen few who make sure that no book is left unburned. A treatise on the evil of censorship and illiteracy, the danger of pacification through television, as well as a compelling story make this a fantastic read.
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway (127 pages):
Published in 1952, this is the novel that restarted Hemingway's career. It is a prime example of Hemingway's unparalleled style.
THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams (180 pages):
Published in 1979, Hitchhikers Guide is the first in the world's longest trilogy (the series has five books, whereas most trilogies tend to peter out around the third), this is the one of the great examples of absurdist humor and genre parody.
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder (138 pages):
Wilder's 1927 novel focuses on a disaster. A bridge that has stood for a century collapses, and five people fall to their death. Brother Juniper decides to try to understand the lives of those who died, and determine if it was all a meaningless accident or something more meaningful.
POST OFFICE by Charles Bukowski (149 Pages):
"Maybe I'll write a novel, I thought. And then I did." Love him or hate him (and I've seen plenty of both), Bukowski has had a significant impact on 'dirty realism' and can be pretty damn funny. His 1971 debut novel is semi-autobiographical, the author surrogate Henry Chinaski has to deal with a soul-crushing position working in the post office.
A POLITICAL FABLE by Robert Coover (88 pages):
Originally written and published in 1968 under the more descriptive title, The Cat in the Hat Runs for President, A Political Fable is a bizarre book. Allegorical and surreal, it will answer questions you never knew you wanted to ask like, "How many Republicans can be swallowed whole by a whale" and "Just how far do you have to go to drive the opposition quite literally insane."
Labels: ballad of the sad cafe, book, bradbury, bukowski, carson mccullers, crying of lot 49, douglas adams, fahrenheit 451, hemingway, marquez, novel, post office, pynchon, robert coover, short, sula, toni morrison, wilder
1957: By Love Possessed by James Gould Cozzens
James Gould Cozzens (1903-1978) was born in Chicago but grew up in Staten Island. He came from old money, a New England Governor on one side of the family and a colonial heritage on the other. He attended Episcopalian schools. He attended Harvard for two years and published Confusion, his first novel, in 1924. In debt, he dropped out of Harvard and published his second novel in 1925, which, like his first, was not successful. Cozzens went to Cuba to teach the children of Americans, but a year later he travelled through Europe as a private tutor. In 1927, Cozzens married Sylvia Baumgarten, a literary agent who helped edit his future works. His career took a turn for the better in the 1930s. His short story, "A Farewell to Cuba," (1931) was nominated for an O. Henry Award. His 1936 story, "Total Stranger" one first prize in that year's O. Henry Awards.
During World War Two, Cozzens served as a press liaison in for the Army Air Forces. One of his main job duties was neutralizing stories that could potentially cause serious negative press for the military. It was his experiences here that formed the basis for his Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, Guard of Honor (1948). His first novel after Guard of Honor was 1957’s bestseller, By Love Possessed. The success of the work was as much a curse as a blessing. Cozzens writing style, which is admittedly Victorian, as well as the rather conservative morality of his novels, made him the epitome of the old guard of American fiction at a time when writers like John Updike and Philip Roth were becoming mainstream. Cozzens, despite his fame, generally gave very few interviews, a habit he broke for the September 2, 1957 issue of Time (By Love Possessed was released August 26th). His interview led to further denunciation by his critics.
The next year, Cozzens and his wife moved to Williamstown, Massachusetts. Cozzens published his last novel, Morning, Noon and Night in 1968. He lived out of the spotlight until his death from pneumonia in 1978.
Subject/Genre: Character Study/Psychological Realism
The title By Love Possessed made me assume the novel would be a trashy romance. Instead, it is a look into the life of Arthur Winner Jr., a small town New England lawyer, a partner in the firm his deceased father founded with Noah Tuttle, a current partner and father of Winner Jr.’s first (and now deceased) wife. The novel takes place over the course of a couple days, and is primarily focused on Winner’s coming to terms with revelations about the ethics (or lack thereof) of his partners and himself.
The story’s action, well, maybe action isn’t the right word. It’s wrong to say that nothing happens in this novel, but most of what happens is consequent to action, lies in the effect it has on the Winner. It is a heavily introspective novel. This is not a bad thing, in and of itself, but it becomes complicated by Cozzens style. In the first section, I stated that Cozzens has a Victorian style. Cozzens is also technically skillful. The sentences are complex and crafted wonderfully. However, it seems out of place. There’s a quote I find myself going back to frequently, from John Barth’s essay, “The Literature of Exhaustion.” It goes: “In any case, to be technically out of date is likely to be a genuine defect: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony or the Chartres Cathedral, if executed today, might be simply embarrassing.” This of course leads to a lot of literary theory-type-questions, not the least of which being ‘does the time in which the novel was produced necessarily affect the interpretation of its prose?’ Cozzens writes like a (very talented) nineteenth century writer, or at least a pre-modernist, though he’s writing in the era of Pynchon and Gaddis, and Kerouac and Burroughs (William, not Edgar). There’s no question that people like Pynchon wrote complicated sentences, rife with allusions (more on this in a moment), but the tone strikes back to the Romantics. Describing a clock in dead father’s study, designed with a girl and cherub:
“The little god was about to conquer all. Indeed, he did conquer all. L’esprit est toujours – yes, Always! – la dupe du Coeur! So cuddlesome in form, he was the heart, the baby lord and master of the head. His victory was love – love’s bliss of thoughtlessness. Love pushed aside the bitter findings of experience. Love knew for a fact what was not a fact; with ease, love believed the unbelievable; love wished and made it so. Moreover, here where love’s weakness seemed to be, love’s strength resided. Itself all unreality, love was assailed by reality in vain. You might as well wound the loud winds, kill the still-closing waters.” (10)
This type of apostrophizing would be right at home in Dumas or Austen, and would there be a splendid passage, but it’s hard to reconcile something like this in the middle of a book written and taking place in the 1950s. I mentioned the use of references earlier, and there are two in that above passage. The first being the French phrase (in English, “The mind is always the dupe of the heart”) from François de la Rochefoucauld’s Maximes, published in 1655. The last line of the passage is lifted from The Tempest (Act III, Scene 3). Shakespeare is subtly and frequently invoked, as are numerous other literary figures, the first chapter alone introducing Robert Browning and Thomas Moore, in addition to the above mentioned (and any I may have missed).
The story itself is strong, although the narration can be repetitive at times. Winner has to deal with questions about his partners’ trustworthiness, his own infidelities, and managing a case of a man accused of rape. But the real story is Winner’s loss of innocence and his struggle with his conscience, which may not sound like typical fare for a bestseller. Then again, this was Cozzens first novel since his Pulitzer-winning Guard of Honor, and was itself nominated for a Pulitzer (and won the William Dean Howells Medal in 1960), so it’s not too difficult to see how it became a success, especially with the controversy mentioned in the author section of the review.
Like almost every book I’ve reviewed on the list so far, By Love Possessed was adapted for the screen. The 1961 version focused more on Arthur’s infidelity, with Lana Turner as Marjorie Penrose.
Winner was played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who today might be best known for playing the voice of Alfred Pennyworth in almost every animated version of Batman since the early ‘90s.
All qualms about its timeliness aside, By Love Possessed is a good book. At the same point, I can’t think of who it would be good for. Usually I try to avoid simply saying read/don’t read this book, and focus more on what tastes would this book match and which would it not. But due to this weird mismatch between the style and the content, I’m not sure. If you don’t like books that delve into ethics and focus on introspection instead of action, you won’t like By Love Possessed. If you do, and you like the style, it would certainly be worth a chance if you happen to run across it. I’m sure there’s a demographic that this novel is perfectly suited for, but I can’t think of what that would be off the top of my head.
1. By Love Possessed - James Gould Cozzens
2. Peyton Place - Grace Metalious
3. Compulsion - Meyer Levin
4. Ralley Round the Flag, Boys! - Max Shulman
5. Blue Camellia - Frances Parkinson Keyes
6. Eloise in Paris - Kay Thompson
7. The Scapegoat - Daphne du Maurier
8. On the Beach - Nevil Shute
9. Below the Salt -Thomas B. Costain
10. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
John Cheever - The Wapshot Chronicle
Ian Fleming - From Russia, with Love
Jack Kerouac - On the Road
Bernard Malamud - The Assistant
Vladimir Nabokov - Pnin
Bruccoli, Matthew J. James Gould Cozzens: A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981. Print.
Burke, James Henry and Hackett, Alice Payne. 80 Years of Best Sellers: 1895-1975. New
York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1977. Print.
Cozzens, James Gould. By Love Possessed. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company,
1957. Print.
Labels: 1957, arthur winner, best seller, book, by love possessed, cozzens, efrem zimbalist, fiction, guard of honor, james gould cozzens, John Barth, lana turner, novel, pulitzer, review
1956: Don't Go Near the Water by William Brinkley
William Brinkley (1917-1993) was born in Custer City, Oklahoma. Brinkley graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1940 after which he worked for a couple years as a reporter for the Washington Post before becoming a commissioned officer in the US Navy, a position in which he dealt mostly with public relations. After the war, Brinkley published his debut novel, Quicksand (1948) before going back to work at the Washington Post. In 1951, Brinkley started working at Life Magazine, a position he retained until 1958. In 1955 he published his only non-fiction work, a biography of a Slovakian nun titled The Deliverance of Sister Cecelia.
His best-selling work, Don’t Go Near the Water, was published in 1956. He published six more novels between 1961 and his final novel, The Last Ship, in 1988. In 1971, Brinkley moved to McAllen, Texas, where, in 1993, after a long bout of depression, he died from an overdose of barbiturates.
Subject/Genre: Military/Humor
Don't Go Near the Water focuses on a group of public relations officers stationed on the tropical Pacific island of Tulura during World War Two. Structurally, the novel is episodic, each chapter dealing with a different problem and placing emphasis on different characters. The 'episodes' range from the problems of an enlisted man dating a nurse (i.e., an officer), to blackmailing a self-absorbed war correspondent into building a schoolhouse for the island's children.
The novel's main character is Ensign Max Siegel, a burly Harvard grad who is the only one of the PR group to have learned to speak Tuluran. The first episode of the novel deals with a very serious problem: Edgar Rice Burroughs is coming to Tulura (NOTE: Burroughs actually volunteered to be, and served as, a war correspondent in WWII, despite being in his sixties at the time) and the PR people want to take some photos of Burroughs with the native Tulurans. Unfortunately, the natives don't look native enough, so it's up to Siegel to convince them to dress like savages.
Reading Don't Go Near the Water is like watching an old sitcom that has aged remarkably well. The humor is often predictable but generally sincere and the second to last chapter, focusing on everyone's reaction to the use of the nuclear bomb, is strangely touching, and perhaps presages Brinkley's post-nuclear-apocalyptic novel The Last Ship. The humor is largely based on the absurdity of the PR division, the self-importance of its commanding officers, and the idiosyncrasies of the war correspondents. From the novel:
"[Siegel] foresaw the day when there would be one Public Relations officer
for each combat man in the Navy, and the fleet commanded by the president
of the Associated Press, with a six-star rank of Admiral-Admiral, who would
decide on operations solely on the basis of their news value, with transmission
ships occupied by nothing but correspondents, with no operation dispatches
being permitted until the fleet was wiped out to provide a good news item." (p. 76)
In 1956, Don't Go Near the Water sold 165,000 copies, not including its book club sales. The film rights were secured quickly, and a film adaptation starring Glenn Ford and Eva Gabor was released in 1957.
Don't Go Near the Water was reprinted in 2005, and TNT is apparently planning to release a made for TV version of Brinkley's The Last Ship next year.
I really like Don't Go Near the Water. If you like humor, especially the type you'd find in good sitcoms, you should definitely give it a read.
1. Don't Go Near the Water by William Brinkley
2. The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor
3. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
4. Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
5. Eloise by Kay Thompson
6. Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
7. A Certain Smile by François Sagan
8. The Tribe That Lost Its Head by Nicholas Monsarrat
9. The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
10. Boon Island by Kenneth Roberts
James Baldwin - Giovanni's Room
Albert Camus - The Fall
Allen Ginsburg - Howl and Other Poems
Eugene O'Neill - Long Day's Journey into Night
Brinkley, William. Don't Go Near the Water. New York: Random House, 1956. Print.
Labels: 1956, best seller, book review, don't go near the water, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Eva Gabor, fiction, glenn ford, humor, literature, Max Siegel, military, Navy, novel, the last ship, william brinkley, world war two
Interview with George Saunders
If you haven't got around to it yet, check out some work by George Saunders. He's quickly become one of my favorite writers (In Persuasion Nation is my favorite collection of his so far). Here's him doing a reading from his most recent collection:
Labels: book, escape from spiderhead, george saunders, humor, reading, satire, short story, story, tenth of december
1955: Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk (1915 - ) was born in New York, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He lived in the Bronx and later attended Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1934. He worked in radio until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, at which point he joined the Navy. He used his experience in the Navy when writing his Pulitzer Prize winning third novel, The Caine Mutiny (1951). His first novel, Aurora Dawn (1947) was a book of the month club selection, but his second, City Boy (1948), failed financially. He married Betty Sarah Brown in 1945, and they remained married until her death in 2011.
Wouk has had a long, prestigious career. Other notable works include The Winds of War (1971) and War and Remembrance (1978), both dealing with the Holocaust. He currently lives in Palm Springs, California. His most recent novel, The Lawgiver (2012) is an epistolary novel concerning the making of a Moses movie, told through text messages, emails, etc.
Subject/Genre: Character Study/Bildungsroman
Marjorie Morningstar is a bildungsroman about an upper-middle-class Jewish girl with dreams of being an actor. Marjorie Mogenstern starts off as an idealistic beautiful teenager in the 1930s. She comes into conflict with the social norms of her parents and her contemporaries. She falls in love with an older man, Noel Airman, a composer also looking for success in the theater. Their relationship is a rocky one.
While I try to avoid spoiling endings, I'd be remiss if I didn't discuss the epilogue for Marjorie Morningstar. So, if you don't want any spoilers, skip this paragraph: The epilogue takes place fifteen years after the rest of the story. Marjorie, now in her late thirties, is a typical suburban stay-at-home mom. All trace of her ambitions are gone. This has led to a lot of debate and dissent amongst Wouk's readers. Either it is a moralistic story, condemning sexual exploration and individualism in women, or it is meant to capture what happened to women in a society that was unfair to them. Whether it's a depiction of society the way it was, or an attempt to reinforce those norms is a contentious point.
Wouk's critical and commercial success with his previous novel, The Caine Mutiny, no doubt aided sales for Marjorie Morningstar, which become a cultural phenomenon in its own right.
TIME magazine, Sept. 1955
And, like most of the books on the #1 bestseller's list, a film version was produced. The 1958 adaptation starred Gene Kelly and Natalie Wood.
Marjorie Morningstar has a complex protagonist, and deals with the serious issues of adolescence. I feel the book may be a bit dated, not to the extent that it is unrelatable, but it is clearly a product of a 1950's sensibility. If you're looking for a coming of age story and don't demand a Hollywood ending, Marjorie Morningstar is a good pick.
William Gaddis - The Recognitions
Graham Greene - The Quiet American
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man Is Hard to Find
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Return of the KIng
Tennessee Williams - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Wouk, Herman. Marjorie Morningstar. 1955. New York: Signet Books. 1957. Print.
Labels: 1955, bildungsroman, book review, caine mutiny, coming of age story, fiction, herman wouk, marjorie morningstar, novel, pulitzer, romance
1954: Not As a Stranger by Morton Thompson
Morton Thompson (?-1953) is hard to find information on. The only print source of information I have on him doesn’t have a birth year. The Wikipedia page and other online sources have his birth year down as circa 1907, but there’s no certainty that that’s accurate. What I have found on Thompson is that his first work was a non-fiction humor collection titled Joe, the Wounded Tennis Player which was popular with soldiers in the Second World War. In 1949, he published The Cry and the Covenant, a fictional biography of Ignaz Semmelweiss, the nineteenth century doctor who was forced out of the medical community with much hostility. Semmelweiss had the crazy idea that doctors should wash their hands between the morgue and the delivery room.
Thompson committed suicide in 1953. His last and most successful work, Not As A Stranger, was published in 1954. That’s the sum of the information I’ve been able to verify about Morton Thompson. If anyone has another source of information, please leave a comment.
Subject/Genre: Medical drama/bildungsroman
Not As a Stranger tells the life story of Lucas Marsh. Born in a small town in the Midwest at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lucas is the son of a successful businessman and a devout mother. Despite his parents' wishes, Lucas wants nothing more in life than to become a doctor. His mother dies, and his father's business collapses around the time Lucas is going to medical school, leaving him broke as well. Lucas marries an older nurse for her money and the story from then on is half drama, as Lucas becomes a great doctor but a bad person, and half exposé of the medical industry.
It seemed like this was two different books. On one hand, a look at the inside of the medical industry, and on the other, a drama about the costs of success. The former doesn't require over a hundred about the narrator's childhood, and the latter doesn't require the amount of technical information present in the novel. Given the length of the book, it frequently felt like things were not really leading anywhere. For example, we know from the beginning that Lucas is going to be a doctor. On page four, the last line of the first chapter reads: "Lucas Marsh was born in the town of Milletta in the early 1900's, to Job Marsh, owner of a harness store, and Ouida Marsh, daughter of a druggist. He was to be a doctor. No more is known."
Of course, more is known. 944 pages more. The story has some strong points, most notably the vibrant supporting characters. Lucas's mother is a Freudian minefield. The first time we're introduced to her, she's sitting at the kitchen table reading about phrenology (the pseudo-scientific belief that skull shape affects personality traits). The seven year old Lucas comes in and Ouida measures his skull, noticing a bump that indicates "pronounced amativeness." She tells Lucas that that means "playing with yourself." She goes on: "You must never play with yourself, Lucas. Remember that, always. And if you do, you must tell Mother. Always." She goes on a page later to tell Lucas that "Mother has such great dreams for you, darling. You're Mother's whole life, you know. Never forget that. Mother wants the little boy she suffered such agonies to bring into the world to be a great artist, a spiritual being the whole world will look up to."
The father is not as unsettling, but still a strange personality. His name is Job, as I've mentioned, which also happens to be where the title is taken from. The epigraph for the novel is "But as for me, I know that my redeemer liveth, and at the last he will stand upon the earth, and though worms shall devour my flesh, and my bones be as dust, yet Shall I see god, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold him, and not as a stranger. Job, 19;25" The naming isn't particularly subtle. In fact, the mother's maiden name is "Bourgeois." And of course, the name Lucas/Luke has biblical significance. On the one hand, there's Lucas's father who is not spiritual at all, who sleeps around and is predominately interested in making money. The mother is spiritual to the point where she almost kills Lucas as a baby because she refuses to listen to doctors. And Lucas learns to strike a balance between the two.
Despite its length, Not As a Stranger is not only an accessible read but deals with the medical profession, which has been a consistently popular subject in literature (e.g. The Egyptian or Green Light). It also had the benefit of controversy, having been denounced by Catholic World and the added attention of the author's untimely end. The following year, a film version was produced:
The film starred Robert Mitchum as Lucas Marsh, alongside Olivia de Havilland and Frank Sinatra. This was the directorial debut of Stanley Kramer.
As an exposé of the medical industry, the story is very dated, which I feel detracts from its strength today. It's not a bad novel, but it's not great either. It's too long for its subject, even if there are bright points scattered throughout. Not As a Stranger appears to be out-of-print, but unless you have a burning passion for doctor stories, it's not something you need to go out of your way to look for.
James Baldwin - Go Tell It to the Mountain
Pierre Boulle - The Bridge on the River Kwai
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Richard Matheson - I Am Legend
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers
Server, Lee. Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers. New York: Facts on File. 2002. Print.
Thompson, Morton. Not As a Stranger. New York: Scribner's. 1954. Print.
Labels: 1954, best seller, book review, doctor, fiction, medical drama, melodrama, morton thompson, not as a stranger, novel, posthumous, robert mitchum, stanley kramer
1953 and a Brief Announcement
If you're looking for the entry for 1953's bestseller, The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas, follow this link.
Otherwise, a brief announcement!
I'm really enjoying this project and plan to continue it until it's completed. However, my course load is pretty heavy right now. So I won't be able to maintain the weekly schedule for my project posts and will be doing them biweekly, at least until the end of the semester. The reading and research required for each post takes considerably more time than writing the post itself. In addition to giving me more time to study, I will also be able to focus more on posts outside the main review project. So stay tuned!
1952: The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain
Thomas B. Costain (1885-1965), was born in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. His writing career started in 1902 when he was hired by the Brantford Courier as a reporter. He later went on to work for the Ontario’s Guelph Daily Mercury in 1908. In 1910, he married Ida Spragge and was hired as an editor by the Maclean Publishing Company.
In 1920, Costain moved to the United States to become an editor of the Saturday Evening Post. That same year, he became a naturalized citizen. He remained at the Saturday Evening Post until 1934, when he became a story-editor for Twentieth Century Fox. He published his first novel in 1942, My Great Folly, which, like the rest of his novels, was a piece of historical fiction. Costain also wrote a lot of non-fiction volumes, most notably the Plantagenet series, about the Middle Ages dynasty of the same name.
Subject/Genre: Early Christianity/Historical Fiction
The Silver Chalice takes place in first century Greece, Rome, and Jerusalem. The novel’s protagonist is a gifted silversmith named Basil. Adopted by a wealthy Greek merchant, Basil was wrongly sold into slavery by his adoptive Uncle after his adopted-father’s death. But the quality of his workmanship gained the attention of Luke (as in, ‘the gospel according to’). Luke buys Basil’s freedom and takes him to Jerusalem to work for Joseph of Arimathea. After completing demonstrating his ability to Joseph (and impressing his Joseph’s granddaughter, Deborra), Joseph reveals to Paul and Luke that he has the Holy Grail.
Artist's recreation
Joseph wants Basil to craft a silver chalice to house it. This will require Basil to travel and meet the apostles so he can sculpt them.
This is by no means the first time I’ve said what I’m about to say, but I feel like I need to say it again. I was clearly not in the target audience for this piece of Christian historical fiction. What I’ve found reading a bunch of these, is that they start with the assumption that anyone who reads it is already going to feel very strongly for Christianity. If you don’t start with this viewpoint, the character’s emotional and spiritual growth doesn’t seem particularly reasonable because it acts as if there is only one possible spiritual/philosophical response. Which, if you start with a foregone conclusion, isn’t a problem, but otherwise it falls apart a bit.
As I pointed out in the bio section, Costain was also known for his non-fiction histories. From what I’ve found, the detail in The Silver Chalice (and there’s a lot of it) is very well researched. In his attempt to capture the ancient world, Costain, like Lloyd C. Douglas, decided to use prose that mimics a scriptural tone. For example, “The oil merchant, gasping for breath and slightly purple of cheek, stepping inside to escape the sun, which was beating down with all the fury of the fires of atonement.” The frequent use of archaic grammar (“purple of cheek”) and over-the-top religious metaphor seems a bit pompous, honestly.
It wasn’t incidental that I mentioned Lloyd C. Douglas in the previous paragraph. The Silver Chalice was frequently compared to The Robe, which is also the bestseller for the second time in 1953. Religious fiction and historical fiction have been perennial favorites in American popular literature. Likewise, one of the best ways to get on the bestsellers list is to have previously been on the bestsellers list. Costain appeared on the top ten annual bestsellers four times in the 1940s, reaching the number two spot in 1947. As with most of the bestsellers so far, The Silver Chalice was made into a film.
The 1954 film is notable for two things: Being Paul Newman’s first feature film role (he played Basil) and being so bad that when it was going to air on TV years after its theatrical release, Newman took out an ad apologizing for the film.
Like with a lot of the books I’ve read so far on this list, The Silver Chalice is not bad, but it’s not very good. It’s pretty understandable why it’s no longer famous. If you enjoy religious/historical fiction, you’ll probably like The Silver Chalice, but there’s no particular reason to seek out this novel, specifically.
Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
Edna Ferber - Giant
Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea
Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood
John Steinbeck - East of Eden
Kurt Vonnegut - Player Piano
E. B. White -Charlotte's Web
Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Scribners. Supplement 7 (1961-5). Print.
Costain, Thomas B. The Silver Chalice. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. 1952. Print.
Labels: 1952, book review, christianity, historical fiction, lloyd c. douglas, novel, paul newman, religious fiction, rome, story, the silver chalice, thomas costain
SMBC Takes On One Of My Favorite Books
Another comic from the brilliant Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Click on the image to see the comic in its original context.
Labels: catch 22, catch-22, comic, funny, joseph heller, saturday morning breakfast cereal, smbc, webcomic
Orson Welles Remembers Hemingway
From a 1974 interview with Michael Parkinson:
Labels: 1974, ernest hemingway, interview, literature, michael parkinson, orson welles, television, the spanish earth
1951: From Here To Eternity by James Jones
James Jones (1921-1977) was born in Robinson, Illinois. Although the discovery of oil on family property briefly brought the Joneses wealth, when Jones graduated High School in 1939, the money had run out. With no money to pay for college, Jones joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. His poor eyesight prevented him from becoming a pilot, so in 1940 he transferred to the infantry and was sent to Schofield Barracks in Honolulu. Over the following year, both of Jones’ parents died, and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In December 1942, Jones was sent out to fight in Guadalcanal.
Wounded physically and emotionally, Jones was shipped home in 1943. He decided to stay in the army on limited duty, but was sent to a combat outfit preparing to ship out for battle. Jones went AWOL and headed back to Robinson. Here, he met his mentor and future lover, Lowney Handy and her husband Harry. Jones went AWOL several times over the following year, and was eventually given a medical discharge. He then went to live at the Handy Writers’ Colony.
In 1951, he published From Here to Eternity, which focused on the military life in Hawaii. In 1957 he married Gloria Patricia Mosolino. They moved back to the Writers’ Colony, but left after a violent altercation between Lowney and Gloria. The Joneses moved to Paris. Although he published many novels over the decades following From Here to Eternity, the first to receive the critical and public reception that FHtE received was 1962’s The Thin Red Line, about his experiences in Guadalcanal. This was the second book of his “War Trilogy.” He returned to the U.S. to teach at the Florida International Institute in 1974. He died of congestive heart failure in 1977. The last book of his war trilogy, Whistle, was published posthumously in 1978.
From Here To Eternity follows the life of Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a soldier from a small southern town stationed in Hawaii before the U.S. entered World War II. Prewitt had blinded another soldier during a boxing match before the events in the novel begin gave up boxing so as not to hurt any one else. Upon transferring back to G company, known for its boxing, Prewitt’s refusal to fight puts him at odds with his superiors. There are other major storylines, like Sgt. Warden’s affair with Cpt. Holmes’ wife, Karen.
The novel deals honestly and directly with morally ambiguous situations, and with topics like sex and honor. Which is a bit of a relief and surprise, seeing as the previous bestseller was about a morally upright priest and the book after this is biblical historical fiction about a morally upright metallurgist. Of course, this frankness, the sex scenes, the frequent cussing, would itself help sales for the novel. Controversy is good for sales.
That’s not to say that the novel isn’t good. It is, very much so. In fact, From Here To Eternity is one of the six novels on the list to also appear on Modern Library’s List of 100 Best Novels (the other five: The Grapes of Wrath, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Portnoy’s Complaint, Main Street, and Ragtime). From Here To Eternity was a critical and commercial success.
Of course, the 1953 film adaptation starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, is about as famous (and well-received) as the novel. Even if you’ve never heard of the movie (several people I’ve spoken to recently haven’t), you’re definitely familiar with this famous scene:
If you don’t recognize it here, you might recognize it from The Seven Year Itch, Airplane!, The Nutty Professor, or Shrek 2, as well as countless other films and TV shows that parodied this scene.
The novel’s a little slow in the beginning, and it’s not a war novel so much as it is an army novel. If you like books that deal with complex relationships, both romantic and professional, and with complex group dynamics, this is a must-read.
Isaac Asimov - Foundation
Ray Bradbury - The Illustrated Man
Howard Fast - Spartacus
J. D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny
Jones, James. From Here To Eternity. New York: Scribner's. 1951. Print.
Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Scribner's. Supplement 10 (1976-
80). Print.
Labels: 1951, bestseller, book review, burt lancaster, classic, from here to eternity, james jones, modern library, movie, novel, prewitt, warden, world war two
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2005: The Broker by John Grisham
John Grisham (1955- ) was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the son of a construction worker. At the age of twelve, his family moved to Southaven, Mississippi. He graduated with a B.S. from Mississippi State University in 1979. He passed the Mississippi Bar exam in 1981, and received his J.D. from the University of Mississippi. In 1981, he married Renee Jones, with whom he had two children.
Grisham began a successful law practice in 1981, starting in criminal law, and moving to more lucrative civil law. In 1984, he was elected to the Mississippi State House of Representatives, a position he held in addition to running his law practice. A case he witnessed while in the state legislature led him to write his first novel, A Time to Kill (1989). He had trouble finding an agent and publisher. He eventually found both, and a limited run of 5,000 copies was printed of his first novel. In 1990, Grisham resigned from his position on state legislature and retired his practice. In 1991, Doubleday published his second novel, The Firm. It was a massive commercial success, as were his third and fourth novels, The Pelican Brief (1992) and The Client (1993). His fourth book, The Chamber (1994) is the first of eleven novels to become the number one annual bestselling novel in the U.S.
Since 1989, Grisham has published a total of 29 novels, five children's books, and a work of non-fiction. His family splits its time between homes in Oxford, Mississippi, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Grisham also serves as a board member on the Innocence Project.
Subject/Genre: espionage/legal 'thriller
The Broker begins with the outgoing president doling out last minute pardons when the CIA director shows up insisting he pardon Joel Backman, a high powered DC attorney and power broker in prison for conspiring to sell access to a cutting edge satellite system. No one knows who the system belongs to, so the CIA director's plan is to use Backman as bait. Whoever's system he has the keys to will want him dead. This is point, only a couple dozen pages in, where the novel stops making sense. Backman is smuggled out of the country, first to a military hospital in Italy. That the CIA planned to 'interrogate' him there is made abundantly clear, but he won't let them give him any medication, nor will he eat or drink anything they give him for fear he'll be drugged. To clarify, the CIA is willing to ship him halfway across the world and plan to have others kill him, but they ditch their plans to torture him because he won't willingly ingest any drugged food. The CIA murder a former white house official in the middle of London to keep Backman's location secret, but they are unwilling to even touch a hair on Backman's head.
Backman is sent to a small city in Italy, and later Milan, where he is told he is given a fake identity. He's told that he's being relocated and is given an intensive language course and taught local customs, ostensibly so he can live off the grid for the rest of his life. All of which is at direct cross-purposes to the CIA's plans. There's absolutely no benefit to teaching him any of this, except that it allows him to escape their grasp. There's passage after passage about Milanese art, culture, geography, history, food, etc. etc., none of which Backman needs to know if the plan is to leak his location to any foreign governments who'd want him dead. My assumption is that somewhere in Grisham's tax returns is a month long Italian vacation written off as a work expense.
While I was a bit bored by most of his early novels, they at least had internal logic. The characters and organizations had reasons to do what they did, reasons that made sense rather than just providing the opportunity for something else to happen later. I spent the whole novel wondering why the CIA did any of the things they did, which would have been tolerable if Backman had at least been interesting. But he's just a stock character, the same late-middle-age high-price high-power workaholic attorney that we see in nearly every Grisham novel. String of divorces? Check. Estranged children? Check. History of avarice and ostentation that he now regrets? Check. He's a boring character in an unnecessary situation.
I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. If you like legal thrillers, it's not for you, and if you like espionage thrillers, this is a poor example. I could only recommend this to Grisham completists.
1. The Broker by John Grisham
2. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
3. Mary, Mary by James Patterson
4. At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks
5. Predator by Patricia Cornwell
6. True Believer by Nicholas Sparks
7. Light from Heaven by Jan Karon
8. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
9. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
10. Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich
The Sea by John Banville
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Labels: 2005, attorney, bestseller, book review, cia, espionage, fiction, italy, joel backman, john grisham, lawyer, legal thriller, milan, novel, pardon, president, spy, teddy maynard, the broker
2003-2004: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Dan Brown (1964- ) was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, where his father worked as a professor of mathematics. Brown went on to study at Philips Exeter and later Amherst, from which he received his B.A. in 1986. He moved out to Hollywood to pursue a career in music. He released a few albums by 1994. In 1993, he moved back to New Hampshire with Blythe Newlon, whom he married, and taught English at Philips Exeter. He and his wife co-wrote his first book: 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman. Brown was credited under the pseudonym Danielle Brown. He quit teaching to work full time in 1996 and published his first novel, Digital Fortress, in 1998. Angels & Demons (2000) was his first novel starring Robert Langdon. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code (2003) was the bestselling novel of the year it was published and the following year. His next two novels, The Lost Symbol (2009) and Inferno (2013) were the bestselling novels in the year they were published.
1st ed. cover/Jacket design - Michael Windsor
Subject/Genre: Religious Conspiracy/Thriller
The Da Vinci Code is the second thriller starring symbologist Robert Langdon, who finds himself caught in the endgame of a centuries long battle between the Opus Dei, a real life Catholic organization, and the Priory of Sion, which in real life was an organization concocted in the 1950s by a megalomaniac would-be cult leader, who had documents forged to connect it to the similarly named Abbey of Sion (alt. spelling of Zion) that existed for a few centuries early in the last millennium. Despite Brown's statements at the beginning of his book, there is no connection between the modern day and ancient organizations, nor were any of the famous historical figures members of either organization. His declaration that "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate" is also blatantly false. For example, Langdon talks about how the pyramid above the entrance to the Louvre has exactly 666 glass panes, and that this was done at the express command of the president at the time. Simply put: Bullshit. Which brings me to my biggest problem with this book.
If you are the least bit skeptical of 'facts' like the above, if you have a passing knowledge of art history, if you can intuit the difference between a fringe theory and a widely accepted position, then Robert Langdon comes across as a well-educated hack. He's more likely to host a reality show, right between Ghost Hunters and Alien Mysteries. Hell, even his specialty is bullshit. 'Symbologist' doesn't even make etymological sense, and he's only called that because 'Art Historian' doesn't sound impressive enough.
I actually read both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons when I was in high school, and they're pretty much the same novel. There's a massive conspiracy tied to a religious organization and its history, Robert Langdon, with the help of a beautiful young woman has to solve a mystery, Brown does everything he can to shout that 'untrustworthy guy with a grudge' is the bad guy, but instead it turns out that 'guy beyond reproach' is the bad guy, roll credits. I'm expecting The Lost Symbol and Inferno to follow this formula as well. Because if it works once, why not run it into the ground?
But why did The Da Vinci Code work? Or more accurately, why did it sell a metric shit ton of copies? Good old fashioned controversy and lying. Pretty much everything about the book and all the discussions treat the conspiracy fever dreams as accepted historical fact. To quote the dust jacket from my copy: "The late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others....The Da Vinci Code is simultaneously lightning paced, intelligent, and intricately layered with remarkable research and detail." [bolded words mine]* As to the first claim: Bull shit. As to the second, the book has tons of research and detail, but much of it inaccurate. The book garnered so much controversy (and therefore attention, and therefore sales) because it presented itself a true and radical reexamining of history, rather than a second-rate conspiracy thriller. The premise, in case you've managed to stay unaware, is that Jesus Christ had a kid, and that the Priory of Sion has always protected the descendant, as well as the holy grail, which is actually the body of Mary Magdalene. Side note, the 1950's Priory of Sion, created by a man named Pierre Plantard, who claimed that it protected the descendants of the Merovingian dynasty (which is 5th-8th century Northern European) which he tied to the medieval legend of the last great catholic emperor, all of which he claimed to be. In 1982, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln published The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which was largely based on the forgeries of Plantard, and added the idea that Christ's descendants moved north and became the Merovingian Dynasty (*cough* Bullshit *cough*). Anyway, despite being a fictionalized version of a fictionalized version of an easily debunked hoax, the public treated the claims in the Da Vinci Code as something more than, to repeat myself, bullshit.
Anyway, as I'm sure you know, The Da Vinci Code was given a film adaptation.
The film includes Ian McKellan, Audrey Tautou (Amélie) and stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon as he attempts to beat Forrest Gump's record for historical revisionism.
I have two more novels in this series to read, and I'm going to read them with the view of Robert Langdon as an educated loony and the novel as his unsubstantiated claims. As for my recommendations to you, just watch Ancient Aliens. At least that will only take you 45 minutes.
*As I was copying this out, I noticed that some letters in the dust jacket are bolded. If you put all the bold letters in order, you get "Is there no help for the widow's son," a phrase tied to freemasonry, the subject of his next novel.
2. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
3. The King of Torts by John Grisham
4. Bleachers by John Grisham
5. Armageddon by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
6. The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy
7. The Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson
8. Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell
9. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
10.The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks
3. The Last Juror by John Grisham
4. Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
5. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
6. State of Fear by Michael Crichton
7. London Bridges by James Patterson
8. Trace by Patricia Cornwell
9. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
10: The Da Vinci Code: Special Illustrated Collector's Edition by Dan Brown
Also published in 2003-4:
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Runaway by Alice Munro
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Doubt by John Patrick Shanley
Labels: 2003, 2004, angels and demons, bad history, bestseller, book review, christianity, conspiracy, da vinci code, dan brown, jesus, novel, pierre plantard, religious, robert langdon, symbology, tom hanks
2002: The Summons by John Grisham
Subject/Genre: Crime?/Legal "thriller"
The Summons focuses on Ray Atlee, a law professor at the University of Virginia. His father, an elderly, dying chancery judge, sends him a summons (like the title. Get it?!) to come back to Clanton, Mississippi (the setting for other Grisham novels, including The Chamber) to discuss the will. Ray's addict brother, Forrest, is also sent a summons. When Ray arrives, his father has already passed away, leaving a handwritten will declaring Ray the executor and asking that everything be split 50/50 between Ray and Forrest. The family, though descended from southern gentry, was never well off, so imagine Ray's surprise when he finds about three million dollars in cash hidden in his father's house. Just so you know, it takes over seventy pages for the novel to get this far into the story. There's a lot of brooding about how Ray's father was always so distant, bitter nostalgia about small town Mississippi, and a subplot about Ray's divorce that never goes anywhere.
Anyway, Forrest arrives, and they call the coroner. Someone tries to break into the house and take the money, but Ray had already moved it. In fact, much of the rest of the novel details Ray's attempts to hide the money, to find out where it came from, and to figure out who's trying to find the cash. The first is interesting until it becomes tedious, the second is interesting until the cop-out ending, the third is self-defeating, because the pursuer's method of intimidation (anonymous notes left on his car, etc.) show that he knows where Ray is, but won't harm him. Because with the information we know the pursuer has, he could just shove Ray into the back of a van and get him to say where the money is. That the pursuer can, but doesn't, do anything like that, tells me as a reader that he's not a serious threat, which of course leads up to a pointless twist ending.
This novel is just tedious. Ray spends half his time drenching himself in nostalgia and recriminations. His quest for the source of his father's money is mostly comprised of dead ends, but that's only because he waits until the very end of the book to look through his father's papers. Ray points out again and again his father's annoying habit of keeping pretty much every document for the last fifty years of his life, but for some reason doesn't bother to check the papers for clues, clues which he finds on his first day of looking, and which leads him directly to the source of the money. There's no reason Ray didn't check the papers first, except that over 100 pages of useless investigating would have to be cut from the manuscript. This novel had no idea what it was supposed to be. A nostalgic reflection on small town life and family? A mystery novel about a mysterious three million and the people chasing after it? A legal thriller about the difficulties of hiding and laundering a large sum of money? Well, Grisham tried to do them all at once, and it didn't really work.
1. The Summons by John Grisham
2. Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy
3. The Remnant by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye
5. Prey by Michael Crichton
6. Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
7. The Shelters of Stone by Jean Auel
8. Four Blind Mice by James Patterson
9. Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales by Stephen King
10. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Labels: 2002, bestseller, book review, clanton, crime, fiction, john grisham, judge, legal thriller, mystery, novel, ray atlee, small town, south, the chamber, the summons
2001: Desecration by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye
The Authors:
Jerry B. Jenkins (1949- ) was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He attended the Moody Bible Institute from 1967 to 1968, and Harper Community College from 1968 to 1970. In 1971, he married Diana Whiteford. He was a news editor for the Moody Bible Institute's radio station, and then a sports writer/editor for various publications until 1971. In 1973, he published the first of over 180 books he wrote or coauthored, including autobiographies ranging from Hank Aaron to Billy Graham (autobiographies in the way that "X's life story, as told to Y" is an autobiography). He worked for Moody Publishing in some capacity from 1973-2006, teaming up with LaHaye to write the Left Behind series in 1995. He is the current owner of the Christian Writers Guild.
Tim LaHaye (1926- ) was born in Detroit. He served in the US airforce from 1944-1946, and married Beverly Ratcliffe in 1947. He received a B.A. from Bob Jones University in 1950 and a Doctorate in Ministry from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary in 1977. He worked as a pastor from 1948-81. In 1980, LaHaye joined the board of Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority." He has repeatedly written and stated that the there is a secular humanist conspiracy designed to end Christianity and take over the world. According to LaHaye, this conspiracy includes everyone from the U.N. to the NAACP to the Illuminati (no, really. This is not a joke). I try to remain impartial in this part of the posts, but this guy is an out and out theocrat. He explicitly believes that the US government should be run under biblical law, that the state should stop funding education (except Christian education (unless it's Catholic, or Unitarian, or anything except apocalyptic evangelical Christianity)). He's a fanatic who thinks that the rights of the American people, not to mention international relations, should be governed exclusively according to his religious beliefs. And these books have made him a millionaire many times over.
Subject/Genre: Rapture/Christian fiction
While doing the research on the bio section of this post, I found the Tyndale publishing bio page for Jerry Jenkins which claims that Desecration "was the best-selling book in the world in 2001." The failure to distinguish between the best-selling adult fiction book in the United States and the best-selling book in the world is not surprising coming from authors that consider the US a last bastion of Christian supremacy in a world of evil, evil secular humanism and the U.N. a vehicle for the nightmarish situation of countries cooperating (because American Exceptionism only works if we refuse to work with others).
I've pointed out in plenty of my past posts some problem religious fiction often runs into, especially for non-religious readers. For example, in Costain's The Silver Chalice, a slave girl suggests the protagonist pray to a particular Hebrew angel. He is soon after rescued, and converts on the spot. A Christian author or reader wouldn't see a problem with this because they accept that Christianity is true and the protagonist was simply discovering that fact. Whereas, from a non-religious perspective, this is just lazy writing (character development through convenient epiphany) and clearly fails to understand the perspective of people who don't already believe. While there are exceptions (e.g. Cronin's The Keys of the Kingdom) most of the religious on the list so far have had these issues. But whereas Costain might have been a little stuck in his own world view, LaHaye and Jenkins have their heads so far up their asses that they're looking out their own mouths. Throughout the first nine books there must be at least a hundred internal monologues all bemoaning not believing sooner. No matter where they are or what they're doing, they have time a page of didactic moralizing. I lost count of how many scenes feature a character flipping through their bible, dramatically apostraphizing a raptured love one and declaring how obviously true the bible was the whole time!
For people like LaHaye and Jenkins, the bible is unquestionably, literally true, and the only reason not to believe is denial. As such, people who before the rapture didn't believe that the bible was literal truth for trivial reasons like "lacking evidence" or "being demonstrably false," hold the same opinions after the rapture. Because LaHaye and Jenkins consider the bible to be as obviously true now as it would be after the freakin' rapture. Look, I'm not religious. At all. I'm an empiricist. But if every evangelical Christian and young child vanished in an instant, you'd find me in church ASAP. The problem with this series isn't that it starts with the premise that Revelations is literally true, the problem is that nothing else in the series makes a goddamn bit of sense. They want to make plot points reflect prophecy? Fine. But the plot points still need to make sense in the context of the novel!!! Russia sending half its air force and all of its nuclear arsenal at Israel does not make sense!
In case your mercifully unaware of this series, it's about a group Christians forming a paramilitary force and fighting against Nicolae Carpathis, the anti-christ. There are two immediate problems with this. One: As the characters are incessantly saying, if they die they go to heaven. The best case scenario is they live the seven years to the end of Armageddon, and then they die and go to heaven. Not much at stake. Second: They know everything that's going to happen! Every twenty pages they consult the book of Revelations to see what will happen next. Since Revelations seems to be infallible, it doesn't matter whether any operation succeeds. Because no matter what it ends with Jesus coming back and defeating Satan.
This leads me to a question that really needs to be asked, and for which I have been unable to come up with a satisfactory answer:
Why doesn't the anti-christ ever, at any point, read the Book of Revelations!??
Imagine if Sauron had a copy of Return of the King or if Hitler had a copy of Churchill's The Second World War, and then just decided to not read it. Things explicitly predicted in Revelations frequently take Nicolae by surprise. He frequently attacks Christian theology, which he is a part of, but is completely shocked whenever god intervenes. He's cartoonishly incompetent. In Desecration, he realizes there's a mole, as information stated on his plane is making its way to the heroes, who managed to plant a bug there. Nicolae, who uses guided missiles, live broadcast, and cyber-security, tries to find the spy on the plane, determines that no one is guilty, executes two cabin crew (which he knows are innocent) and then promptly forgets that information is being leaked. Is he not aware of listening devices?
It's impossible to take him seriously. At one point in Desecration, Nicolae puts a saddle on a giant pig and rides it around Jerusalem. Characters point out that this is done to be offensive to Christians because Christianity came from Judaism and pigs aren't kosher. You know what else isn't kosher? Horses! And camels! How am I supposed to take this guy seriously when he would ride a giant pig around a city for no good reason? Desecration ends with rapid cuts between some characters. Here's Carpathia's parts:
"Target one locked, armed," one pilot said. The other repeated him.
"Here we go!" Nicolae said, his voice high-pitched. "Here we go!"
"Yes!" Nicolae squealed. "Show yourselves; then launch upon your return!"
"Yessss!" Carpathia howled. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"
He vacillates between charismatic efficiency and total lunacy on a paragraph to paragraph basis. One moment he's Lex Luther, the next he's Yosemite Sam. He's like a goddamn Nicolas Cage character.
Yeah, that happened. But wait, there's more. The 2014 Left Behind adaptation was actually a reboot of the low-budget trilogystarring Jesus Christ superstar Kirk Cameron.
Look, this series is bad. From a pure craft standpoint, it suffers at every level. The plot is incoherent, the prose is tedious, the characters are nothing more than a job title and two adjectives, pacing is erratic... with this level of competence I'm just impressed that they managed to get the pages in the right order.
I was originally thinking of recommending this because it's so bad, like how I get people to go to midnight screenings of The Room, but I can't in good conscience do that. Because every dollar that goes to this series makes its way into LaHaye's pocket, and the fact is, LaHaye is a deranged and dangerous individual. It's not because he's religious. It's because he actively supports (and works for) organizations that consider the state to be an arm of religion. Because any money that goes to him will go towards the dissolution of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the rights of anyone who isn't an evangelical Christian to live how they see fit. I often put jokes in my reviews, but when I'm serious I don't use hyperbole. LaHaye actively supports turning the U.S. into theocracy, and I can't in good conscience recommend anything that would put a single cent in that man's pocket.
1. Desecration by Jerry B. Jenkins and Time LaHaye
3. A Painted House by John Grisham
4. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
5. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
6. Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub
7. Last Man Standing by David Baldacci
8. Valhalla Rising by Clive Cussler
9. A Day Late and a Dollar Short by Terry McMillan
10. Violets Are Blue by James Patterson
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Labels: 2001, apocalypse, bestseller, book review, buck williams, desecration, evangelical, jerry jenkins, left behind, nicolae carpathia, novel, rayford steele, religious fiction, tim lahaye
"F--- Me, Ray Bradbury" the music video (NSFW lyrics)
Just a fun, dirty video I found on Youtube, by musician/comedian Rachel Bloom.
Labels: fahrenheit 451, Fuck me ray bradbury, music video, nsfw, R is for rocket, ray bradbury, science fiction, the halloween tree
2000: The Brethren by John Grisham
Subject/Genre: conspiracy/legal thriller
The Brethren is hands-down my favorite Grisham novel so far, and suffers mostly from Grisham's determination to keep much of the novel serious instead of treating it as an all out farce. The basic premise is this: Three corrupt judges in their late middle-age, called the brethren, are inmates at a minimum security federal prison. In addition to operating their own court within the prison, they run a mail scam with the help of an alcoholic attorney on the outside. They take out ads in gay magazines with the intent of blackmailing closeted respondents. I know, this isn't very funny. But then there's the other major plot of the novel. Russia is stepping up its game, and the CIA is worried about a new cold war. They decide they need a president they can count on to give them practically unlimited funding, so they choose an inoffensive unknown congressman from Arizona named Aaron Lake. Now put two and two together, and you end up with the CIA in a battle of wits with some crooked judges, letters get forged, intercepted, and redirected, and the entire weight of United States intelligence gets thrown at finding three people already in custody.
The blackmail and underlying social issues are serious, of course, and I understand Grisham's decision to treat it seriously, but he realizes the comedy in much of the story, and treats it as such, leading to what is often a bumpy transition between humor and drama which rarely works. Maybe I'm just a bit burned out on the rest of Grisham's novels, so one that is sufficiently different from the rest may have an undue luster of originality. If nothing else, it was nice to see a Grisham novel where everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, instead of one guy with a master plan that unravels slowly (slowly, not because the plan requires time, but because he has to hit 400 pages somehow).
I don't know if I'd offer an unsolicited recommendation for The Brethren, but it is certainly one of Grisham's better works.
1. The Brethren by John Grisham
2. The Mark by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye
3. The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy
4. The Indwelling by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye
5. The Last Precinct by Patricia Cornwell
6. Journey by Danielle Steel
7. The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks
8. Roses Are Red by James Patterson
9. Cradle and All by James Patterson
10. The House on Hope Street by Danielle Steel
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Labels: 2000, aaron lake, best seller, book review, comedy, conspiracy, fiction, gay, john grisham, judges, legal thriller, novel, politics, scam, the brethren
2001: Desecration by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHa...
"F--- Me, Ray Bradbury" the music video (NSFW lyri...
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SoJo Blow
That wasn’t less frequent. That was moribund.
When I last posted seven long weeks ago, I said blog posts would continue though less often. Editing Jam magazine was monopolizing more of my meager mind than I expected.
Nothing like a little stupidity to flush the blogger back out.
Last week, the Overland Park South Rotary joyfully announced that the 27-year old Corporate Woods Jazz Festival, better known as Jazz in the Woods, has morphed into the SoJo Summerfest. Announcing a lineup that boasts country rock, Celtic pop and both Elton John and U2 cover bands, organizers proclaimed in a press release, “As you can see from our talented group of home-grown bands from Kansas City, SoJo Summerfest is definitely not a jazz concert.”
The Corporate Woods Jazz Festival launched in 1990, organized by two people on the board of the 1989 Kansas City Jazz Festival that I led and who were displeased with the direction that event was taking the next year. They found a sympathetic sponsor in Corporate Woods. The festival was eventually handed off to the Rotary which has turned it into a major fundraiser for children’s charities, raising more than $1.5 million over its lifetime. That number, frankly, is both wonderful and amazing.
They’ve stubbed their toes occasionally during their stewardship. Adding a day of country music one year was really dumb (I’m told the country fans spent less money and left a bigger mess than the audience festival organizers had spent a decade cultivating). And they haven’t overwhelmed fans in KC’s jazz community with their emphasis on smooth jazz and R&B.
But the fact is that Jazz in the Woods organizers built the oldest, the biggest and the most financially successful jazz festival in this metropolitan area. Overland Park police pegged attendance at last year’s two-day event at 30,000 people. I was there. That number feels right. And just as importantly, the acts booked drew one of the most racially diverse and integrated audiences I’ve seen at a Kansas City music event this side of Stevie Wonder.
Overland Park South Rotary is in this to raise money for charities. The festival has grown into a wildly successful vehicle for channeling volunteers, engaging and entertaining the public and, most years, meeting that primary goal. But the pending sale of Corporate Woods cost the fest a major sponsor and jeopardized the event’s fundraising abilities.
Wisely, they’ve examined costs. The lavish stage flanked by multi-monitor video screens and outstanding sound may be part of the event’s appeal. But Jazz in the Woods in recent years spent half again as much just on staging as the entire budget of the Prairie Village Jazz Festival. Their stage was imported from another city because nobody in KC stocks anything like it.
Remarkably less wisely, they concluded that the only way to draw a larger crowd was to publicly divorce themselves from the audience they’ve grown over 26 years and to rebrand the event with an insipid name. “SoJo Summerfest is definitely not a jazz concert.”
You can argue whether the smooth jazz, blues, R&B and soul music that dominated 2015’s Jazz in the Woods qualifies it as a jazz event. I say that in broad terms it does. It’s not the kind of music festival Count Basie devotees crave. But you’re not going to raise tens of thousands of dollars in this century by catering to Count Basie devotees. You’re going to raise it through a music event with a distinct and recognizable focus that appeals to an audience from throughout the metropolitan area.
And you can do that without adopting a provincial contraction of a name apparently intended to firmly break the event from its heritage. Jazz in the title doesn’t scare away audiences. Just ask the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival how extensively the word has damaged their event (2015 attendance: 460,000).
Focus is a missing key. I don't know just how hard this festival’s budget was hit, though going to an all local lineup suggests heavy damage. Now there’s no distinctive name to build promotion around. Now the schedule is no more significant than a half dozen other suburban music fests – all with smarter titles – that pepper the region’s summer calendar. And when the lineup ranges from Shades of Jade to Big Time Grain Company (that’s the country rock band), there’s a feeling of scheduling by throwing underwear against a wall and seeing what sticks. There’s no focus. The appeal is simply, come because we’ve been big.
Also, going head-to-head with the Boulevardia festival might not be an act of audience-building genius. Could be that an event on the same days in the West Bottoms doesn’t really compete with an unfocused fest in SoJo. But last year’s Boulevardia claimed bigger crowds and charitable donations than Jazz in the Woods.
The real test may come next year. This year’s event may well draw an audience out of habit. But after experiencing this year, will they return for the 2017 SoJo Summer Mess?
Um, I meant Summer Fest.
No I didn’t.
Labels: Corporate Woods Jazz Festival, jazz, Jazz in the Woods, kansas city
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Home / Analyses @en / In search of a new post-crisis global balance – EURO-BRICS Summit in 2014 or 2015: The agenda takes shape
In search of a new post-crisis global balance – EURO-BRICS Summit in 2014 or 2015: The agenda takes shape
June 2011 (GEAB N°56)
More than two years ago now, LEAP/E2020 initiated the first anticipations on the holding of a Euro-BRIC summit (BRICS since 2011). This event, which in 2009/2010 seemed totally unlikely to most experts in international relations, was in fact considered by our team as an essential bridge to be crossed for any future post-systemic crisis global balance. The profound trends leading to the crisis seemed to us to be promising for this major reorganization in international relations, characterized by a reconciliation of the balances of the world before the European colonial period and that derived from that same colonial period of which the “transatlantic” twentieth century was only the latest incarnation.
Today, on the eve of the second half of 2011, which will be the stage for the global systemic crisis’ second major shock, combining an economic, financial and monetary crisis and global geopolitical dislocation[1], LEAP/E2020 had the opportunity to directly address the central issue on the likely agenda of such a Euro-BRICS summit thanks to the first seminar on this topic which brought Europeans, Brazilians, Russians, Indians, Chinese and South Africans[2] together. Announced to the GEAB readers last February, this brainstorming conference took place in Moscow at the Institute of European Studies of the prestigious MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations), on the 23rd and 24th May 2011[3].
The lessons of this first Euro-BRICS working session on the issue of the agenda for a future summit bringing together the leaders involved are remarkably rich. Our team considers that four of them in particular deserve the full attention of European and BRICS policy makers and participants:
The richness, variety and novelty of the Euro-BRICS exchanges initiated on this occasion contrast with the poverty, uniformity and triviality of traditional exchanges between Europeans and each of the BRICS countries individually, or even between Europeans and Americans within the framework of the transatlantic relationship of the last twenty years[4]
The absence at the core of international relations in recent decades of an equivalent dialogue between the European network, multi-national, structured and institutionalized (and even semi-state like at Euroland level) and the rapidly developing multi-national BRICS network
The shared sentiment of a potential power of influence unmatched in world affairs with a Euro-BRICS dialogue directly representing half the planet’s inhabitants, 3.5 billion people; and four continents indirectly (Asia, South America, Africa, Europe)
The critical convergence on many key issues concerning global governance and the major global challenges of the coming decades
These points seem essential to us because they determine what follows on from LEAP/E2020’s anticipations on a future Euro- BRICS summit: it’s something to identify a strong trend, to anticipate that it leads to a crossroads that can steer the world towards a better or, on the contrary a catastrophic, post-crisis situation according to the choices made, and it’s something else to see in practice that those involved in this potential trend are able to interact constructively, or are even positively surprised by the advantage of such a dialogue once begun.
One of the initial consequences of this situation is that LEAP/E2020 now expects the first for Euro-BRICS summit to be held in 2014 and not 2015. In fact, in such a promising environment for dialogue, the deepening of the crisis by the end of 2011 and the election of leaders in a number of countries involved, particularly in the Eurozone, will speed up the process.
Before going further, let’s clarify what’s covered at this stage by the term “Euro” in the Euro-BRICS dialog. In the beginning[5], LEAP/E2020 believes that this won’t be the EU but rather Euroland. Germany, by voting with the BRICS at the UN Security Council over the attack on Libya, has already opened the door. The elimination of Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of French presidential elections, as anticipated in the GEAB N° 49, and the impossibility of Dominique Strauss-Kahn now standing as a candidate, ensures that the future French president[6] will return to traditional French foreign policy, refusing subservience to Washington and promoting a pro-active European policy at global level. It is, therefore, around the Franco-German core[7], and more generally Euroland, which knows that the BRICS constitute the most important external support for the Euro[8], that the European axis of Euro-BRICS dynamics will be built[9]. A sign of such a development: at the Moscow seminar, the Europeans were mostly “Eurolanders”. Very quickly (towards 2012), once the process has got under way, the Euro candidate countries, that’s to say almost everyone except the United Kingdom, will join the Euroland heart of the Euro-BRICS talks.
The EU institutions in Brussels, in particular the European Commission where the Anglo-American influence of the past two decades is rapidly waning, will be divided on the subject and will try to slow the process down without daring to oppose it publicly. One can count on the common diplomatic service, where the “old Atlanticists” are over-represented[10], to go into overdrive to this effect[11]. But even within the European institutions and especially in their immediate environment (economic lobbies in particular), the pressure is rising in the opposite direction: businesses as well as major European investors want to get closer to BRICS as quickly as possible. As a powerful Euroland institutional investor recently pointed out: with an average of 8% to 10% growth over the next decade in the BRICS and 1% to 2% in the US at best, the discussion is already over for European economic and financial circles[12]. The politicians will have to bring their “beliefs” up to date very quickly[13].
The path leading to the 2014 Euro-BRICS summit
In practical terms, from fall 2011 onward, our team anticipates an increase in informal, high-level meetings between senior civil servants and economic and financial policymakers from Euroland on the one hand and from BRICS individually on the other about a possible Euro-BRICS summit. On the BRICS side, the subject will be addressed simultaneously in discussions between diplomats and economic and political leaders[14]. Then, under the blow of the deepening crisis and the change in political leadership, especially in Euroland, from the second half of 2012, we will see the first informal diplomatic discussions on a possible summit, supported by individual or joint messages from European and BRICS economic and financial leaders. In 2013, a date and venue will be proposed and adopted so that the first Euro-BRICS summit can be held in 2014.
But let’s go back in more detail to the four main lessons of this first high-level Euro-BRICS meeting which is reflected in the proposed agenda of the future Euro-BRICS summit at the end of this analysis.
The richness, variety and novelty of Euro-BRICS exchanges initiated on this occasion contrast with the poverty, uniformity and triviality of traditional exchanges between Europeans and each of the BRICS countries individually, or even between Europeans and Americans in the framework of the current transatlantic relationship
All the participants in this first Euro-BRICS meeting were struck by the richness of the exchanges, contrary to most international meetings which are an opportunity to repeat speeches, analyses or proposals which have already been heard a thousand times. Undeniably, the BRICS countries bring projects, demands and views of the world that Europeans don’t usually hear.
Barely four or five years ago, the Europeans were only holding bilateral discussions with each of the BRICS[15], and generally did so unilaterally laying down the limits of the debate even imposing the subject matter (often defined in Washington), at least on large global issues (global governance, climate, trade, economics, finance, …). Today, after three years of crisis that has left the West in tatters and plunged Europe into a serious crisis, whilst the BRICS are stepping out economically, a discussion with all five BRICS requires from the Europeans modesty, openness, an ability to listen and, consequently, discovery. It’s also why crises are useful: the walls which have been destroyed can allow dialogues which were previously impossible.
This reality is reinforced by the extreme diversity of the BRICS countries, just as much internally for each of them, as externally between them. It is a “multilogue” as much as a dialogue and it rests, paradoxically, on the historical and linguistic ease of Europeans to speak with most of the BRICS. Apart from China, the other BRICS share, for better or for worse, whole swathes of European history. Or, put in a less Euro-centric way, Europeans share large swathes of history with each of the BRIC countries (China being a separate case). And at the core of the BRICS Russia has, of course, a special place in the rationale of Euro-BRICS cooperation. It is both European (even if outside the EU) and BRICS, its strategic priorities putting the development of the BRICS network in second place … after Euro-Russian cooperation.
BRIC country shares in EU exports and imports in 2000 and 2009 (in %) – Sources: Oehler-Sinçai / DG Trade / Eurostat, 05/2011
The absence at the core of international relations in recent decades of an equivalent dialogue between the European, multi-national, structured and institutionalized (and even semi-state like at Euroland level) network and the rapidly developing multi-national BRICS network
Because if Europe, whether in EU or Euroland format, can often seem discordant it is, nevertheless, organized. Compared to the diversity of the BRICS and the youth of their network, the Europeans are a homogeneous pivot, especially Euroland. Regarding the BRICS network, there is both a huge need for mutual discovery between its members and a tremendous dynamic aimed at multiplying the points of contact, the processes of linking beyond the diplomatic-political origin of the BRICS. According to LEAP/E2020, 2011/2012 will be transition years at the core of the BRICS network, significantly increasing the critical mass of economic, financial, academic, and political players involved in the BRICS networks.
A network being essentially a tool, the BRICS are in the process of forging this tool in two key areas requiring this expansion of the “social” base of the BRICS network:
. a tool for transforming global governance and rebalancing it in their favor;
. an instrument to grow the direct links between them, which should no longer be dependent on Western intermediaries.
This duality explains the initial feeling of uncertainty ahead of the BRICS concept. This feeling has been largely fueled by the western press which first sought to discredit any geopolitical relevance in the BRICS concept before having to admit in recent months that it’s now an inescapable reality[16]. But it is undeniable that everyone, including players from the BRICs themselves, wondered at first how such a harnessing, as gigantic as it’s heterogeneous, would be able to “go the distance”.
Then, the growing practical experience of these BRICS meetings established this dual nature of the “BRICS phenomenon”[17]:
. a deliberate medium-term (less than a decade) policy making the BRICS the instrument of radical change in the major balances and mechanisms of global governance invented by the West for its own benefit,
. an underlying long term (a generation: twenty years) operation also involving the other sectors of society of each BRICS country, aiming to directly reconnect the key parts of the world-after-the-crisis on patterns which are no longer “Western-centred”.
The tool thus serves two purposes, with two different expiry dates and will be used by two different types of players. In fact the second objective can also collide with the policy makers’ will at the origin of the first objective: to establish programmes of regular contact between NGOs, civil society and students from different BRICS countries is not necessarily to the taste of the leaders of each of the five powers. But the coherence of a political-historical instrument is built with time and human action. It is not given in advance. Just look at European unification to be convinced.
However, like in the case of European unification, one can identify an existential pressure for the BRICS network: it is necessary for it to be constructive, possibly in an offensive manner (that’s to say, “banging on the table” if necessary to be heard), but it cannot be destructive or aggressive. And this is indeed a constant claim by the BRICS players. Beyond their claim, this is simply due to the disparate nature of the strategic interests and motivations of the five countries involved. Their relations with the “West”, master of the world in full decline, are not the same: some like Brazil, South Africa and India have complex relations with the West[18], while Russia and China have a long history of strategic confrontation with this West. The Euro-BRICS rationale can serve as an intermediary to these two BRICS internal trends since Europe has been, for the last sixty years, nothing else more than the eastern march of this primarily American West (a kind of “little West”), while offering a unique ability, that of being able to be heard by Washington[19].
If the BRICS directly represent three billion people, already 50% of world oil consumption, 75% of the expected economic growth in the next ten years, huge energy, mineral and agricultural reserves, 20% of global GDP (probably 35 % within 10 years) and world trade, 53% of direct foreign investment, etc …, they are actually even more important than that because several of them are actually the key players of regional and/or continental integration processes, in fact privileged representatives of whole regions or continents: China with the East and South-East Asia, Brazil with South America, South Africa with the whole of the African continent and Russia with a part of Central Asia.
Meanwhile Europe continues to be the world’s leading economic and trade group, the region having both the largest savings[20] and the greatest political stability, the economic and trade group with the most multilateral experience and aspiring to global polycentrism for many years. Finally, thanks to Euroland, it’s the entity that has the only international reserve currency as an alternative to the dollar. Should there be a single link that legitimizes Euro-BRICS dialogue at the highest level, it’s the Euro. Not only does its international success owe much to the BRICS’ enthusiasm, headed by China, to diversify their reserves out of the US dollar, but one can say that the BRICs have only been able to appear as a “geopolitical force” because the Euro’s existed. Without the single European currency Beijing, Moscow, Brasilia, New Delhi… would be condemned to suffer Washington’s unipolar world powerless to do anything other than gesticulate to no effect. It is de facto the Euro, which opened a breach in the “Dollar Wall”, a breach that the BRICS have been able to quickly enlarge using their new wealth to stimulate the European alternative to the US currency[21].
This unintended convergence of destinies, which merely reflects the overlap of the ends of two epochs, that of the post-1945 American world and the world of the European conquest beginning in the XVIth century, is undoubtedly one of the historical advantages of the future Euro-BRICS summit: Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and South Africans really are the required and sufficient forces to rebuild a global governance adapted to the XXIst century[22]. The big question is, of course, whether they will be able to do it between 2012 and 2017, using the “window of opportunity” identified by Franck Biancheri in his book “The World Crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards“. Otherwise, a wonderful opportunity will have been wasted and the world, BRICS included[23], will fragment into opposing regional blocs.
The significant convergence on many key issues concerning global governance and the major global challenges of the coming decades
It is, therefore, this historic potential, as well as the clear tactical (Eurozone periphery debt crisis) and strategic (trade, investment, research[24]…) interests which determine the agenda for the future Euro-BRICS summit. The latter, far from initiating a process of cooperation, will only formalize at the highest level an already marked reality in almost all sectors. On the occasion of the first Euro-BRICS seminar which focused precisely on this issue of the agenda, the following nine key points were identified:
Reforms of world governance (IMF, Security Council[25], WTO, World Bank,…) in order to adapt these institutions (their methods as well as their management structures) to the XXIst century
Reform of the international monetary system (putting in place a system managing several reserve currencies, global cohesion for the monetary and financial system, better analysis of global systemic risk…)
Reform of the global management of the « Trade and investment » duo (rebalancing of the rules protecting national markets)
Initiatives for a world social balance (determined integration of the social dimension, domestically and externally, in major international agreements)
5. Initiatives to reinforce « Human security » (protection from natural disasters, trafficking in human beings, assuring humans’ basic needs, food chain security…)
6. Initiatives to reign in world finance (limitation on pay and bonuses for financial activities, control of international financial flows…)
7. Creation of Euro-BRICS university exchange programmes
8. Scientific and technological cooperation, especially in the fight against global warming, the conquest and management of outer space, the sources of new and alternative energy
9. Improvement in the global management of people’s migration and mobility
These issues are all undeniably important in order to organize the world in a sustainable fashion after the crisis. However, several of them would be immediately discarded or emptied of their substance via the framework of summits like the G20 because their effective treatment (that’s to say, leading to real solutions and not statements of intent) requires the ability to analyze them without taking into account the conflicting interests of some countries that benefit in a way from the current malfunctioning[26], or to be able to overcome some systematic vetoes on certain issues[27]. Without doubt, many topics will engender strong opposition between Europeans and BRICS; but it is also why it should be discussed, bearing in mind that to solve a problem one must first agree on its existence[28].
To conclude, remember that the Euro-BRICS’ potential would be sufficient to generate an irresistible momentum at the heart of the G20, an institution now sinking in impotence through the inability to “call a spade a spade” and unable to put the key issues of global world governance after the crisis on the summits’ agenda.
This future Euro-BRICS summit will allow the peaceful “untying of the Gordian knot” otherwise, a few years later, it will anyway, but much more violently. Remember, in conclusion, that the LEAP/E2020 team is convinced that “history doesn’t repeat itself” and that it’s essential to use the historic window of opportunity which is open in front of us for the next four or five years.
[1] See GEAB N°55
[2] The latter were only observers via their diplomats
[3] See the programme and the participants on the Europe2020 website.
[4] Even the US-EU summits are of no interest to anyone since nothing of interest is discussed there. Once regular summits, they have become “summits when necessary” since the “incident” in Madrid in 2010 that saw Barack Obama “snubbing” his European counterparts. Since then one can’t say that need has increased these meetings, on the contrary. Source: EUObserver, 03/27/2010
[5] At least during the preparation of the first Euro-BRICS summit (2011-2013). Then, the summit having become inevitable, it is highly likely that the entire EU (including the UK) rushes to “be there”.
[6] Or a female president.
[7] Of which the German-French-Russian summits of these last two years is a forerunner. With the current idea of involving Poland (a future Euroland member), these could easily serve as a matrix for the future Euro-BRICS summit.
[8] And even if some most openly Atlanticist parties came to power in Spain, Portugal or Greece, the vital nature of Chinese purchases of their government debt will be a major imperative for them joining in a Euro-BRICS logic.
[9] The European Central Bank, which knows just how much the BRICS support is necessary for the Euro, currently and in the future, will be part of this core.
[10] Source: Le Figaro, 12/28/2010
[11] But the diplomatic ineffectiveness of the tool in question condemns it to having virtually no impact on the issue.
[12] We should never forget that, when one wants to anticipate European choices, it’s almost always commercial choices: the five hundred year period which we are now leaving, that of European global expansion, was first conditioned by commercial choices. Politics, religion, civilization were always far behind this decisive motivation. The historical period which is beginning will follow the European’s same basic impulse.
[13] It is indeed very different from the pre-2008 context, from which most of the current major European leaders have come. At the time, economic circles only had eyes for the United States and its “economic and financial miracle”.
[14] Since 2008 the BRICS have established a real system of meetings at different levels on a growing number of subjects: Ambassadors to the Security Council, Ministers of Foreign Affairs and, since the Sanya BRICS summit, also regular meetings of Health, Agriculture and Finance ministers, and officials in charge of National Security, … not to mention the launching of a twinning towns programme; and finally, the creation of new study centres specialized in the BRICS in several universities.
[15] It is interesting to read this Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW) report on EU-BRIC trade relations of September 2009 using 2007/2008 figures. While the BRICS concept had hardly made its entry in academic circles, the importance of BRICS trade relations was already being stressed.
[16] The April 2011 Sanya summit has thus been the first BRICS summit to benefit from major Western press coverage.
[17] The rapid growth of intra-BRICS trade is a practical example of this process. Source: Business Standard, 04/15/2011
[18] A semi-membership mixed with a partial rejection, a legacy of the colonial period.
[19] Provided you have something interesting to say … which is precisely the undoubted added value of Euro-BRICS cooperation. Euroland and the BRICS can topple all the majorities in all the international institutions! This is far from being a detail as one can easily imagine.
[20] Therefore the world’s largest sustainable financing capacity.
[21] A reminder: early 2006, LEAP/E2020 identified the creation of the Euro as the decisive factor that would allow a shift from the well-defined post-1945 world.
[22] In order to understand the strategic scale of this Euro-BRICS cooperation, it is worthwhile reading the excellent work of Iulia Monica Oehler-Sincaï in the May 2011 edition of the Romanian Journal of European Affairs.
[23] Indeed we shouldn’t forget that many of the BRICS countries have strategic interests that can become controversial depending on the global context, more or less confrontational: Russia and China have a major geopolitical issue over Siberia and its riches, India and China experience chronic border tensions; Brazil and Russia, producer countries on the one hand, China and India consumer countries on the other can have very different objectives in terms of commodity prices,… The BRICS concept thus has a basic need of a global context of cooperation in order to develop. Another factor which militates in favor of a strong Euro-BRICS cooperation; Europe being a player which traditionally fosters international cooperation.
[24] In this regard, the recent health crisis over food in Germany has provided a stunning example of the rapid development of cooperation between Germany and China: it’s thanks to cooperation with a Chinese laboratory that the sequencing of the incriminating bacteria has been possible. Not long ago, the German researchers’ partner would have had to have been American. Source: China Daily, 06/03/2011
[25] A Euro-BRICS cooperation could help Europe finally understand that it can no longer avoid getting one common seat at the Security Council. That’s also what the “world after the crisis” is about.
[26] This is the familiar problem of the impossibility of implementing serious reform of global financial and monetary system as long as the US and the UK block any attempt to revise the assumptions on which the current system is based which, however, date from an era which is in the process of coming to a close.
[27] The social theme is typical of this category since the United States consistently opposes considering the social issue as anything other than collateral damage of an economic and financial rationale. Well, on this subject, the BRICS undeniably have a growing convergence with the European model that attempts to address the social question as the other side of the economic coin.
[28] It’s almost always the refusal by some players to recognize the existence of a problem that causes the deadlock in negotiations; not the difficulty in resolution once it’s identified.
Previous: 1st seminar – Concept
Next: 2nd seminar – Recommendations
Understanding the BRICS evolving influence and role in Global Governance and Development
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This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 21 June 2019.
February 15 in recent years
2019 (Friday)
2018 (Thursday)
2017 (Wednesday)
2016 (Monday)
2015 (Sunday)
2014 (Saturday)
2011 (Tuesday)
February 15 is the 46th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 319 days remain until the end of the year (320 in leap years).
2 Births
3 Deaths
4 Holidays and observances
590 – Khosrau II is crowned king of Persia.[1]
706 – Byzantine emperor Justinian II has his predecessors Leontios and Tiberios III publicly executed in the Hippodrome of Constantinople.
1002 – At an assembly at Pavia of Lombard nobles, Arduin of Ivrea is restored to his domains and crowned King of Italy.[2]
1113 – Pope Paschal II issues Pie Postulatio Voluntatis, recognizing the Order of Hospitallers.[3]
1214 – During the Anglo-French War (1213–1214), an English invasion force led by John, King of England, lands at La Rochelle in France.[4]
1493 – While on board the Niña, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter (widely distributed upon his return to Portugal) describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World.[5]
1637 – Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
1690 – Constantin Cantemir, Prince of Moldavia, and the Holy Roman Empire sign a secret treaty in Sibiu, stipulating that Moldavia would support the actions led by the House of Habsburg against the Ottoman Empire.
1764 – The city of St. Louis is established in Spanish Louisiana (now in Missouri, USA).
1798 – The Roman Republic is proclaimed after Louis-Alexandre Berthier, a general of Napoleon, had invaded the city of Rome five days earlier.
1835 – The first constitutional law in modern Serbia is adopted.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederates commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd attack General Ulysses S. Grant's Union forces Fort Donelson, Tennessee. Unable to break the fort's encirclement, Lloyd surrenders the following day.[6]
1870 – Stevens Institute of Technology is founded in New Jersey, USA and offers the first Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering.
1879 – Women's rights: US President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
1891 – Allmänna Idrottsklubben (AIK) (Swedish Sports Club) is founded.
1898 – The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing 274. This event leads the United States to declare war on Spain.
1901 – The association football club Alianza Lima is founded in Lima, Peru, under the name Sport Alianza.
1909 – The Flores Theater fire in Acapulco, Mexico kills 250.
1921 – Kingdom of Romania establishes its legation in Helsinki.
1923 – Greece becomes the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar.
1925 – The 1925 serum run to Nome: The second delivery of serum arrives in Nome, Alaska.
1933 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate US President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shoots Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds on March 6, 1933.
1942 – World War II: Fall of Singapore. Following an assault by Japanese forces, the British General Arthur Percival surrenders. About 80,000 Indian, United Kingdom and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.
1944 – World War II: The assault on Monte Cassino, Italy begins.
1944 – World War II: The Narva Offensive begins.
1945 – World War II: Third day of bombing in Dresden.
1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
1952 – King George VI of the United Kingdom is buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
1954 – Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska.
1961 – Sabena Flight 548 crashes in Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team along with several of their coaches and family members.
1965 – A new red-and-white maple leaf design is adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner.
1971 – The decimalisation of British coinage is completed on Decimal Day.
1972 – Sound recordings are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
1972 – José María Velasco Ibarra, serving as President of Ecuador for the fifth time, is overthrown by the military for the fourth time.
1982 – The drilling rig Ocean Ranger sinks during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 84 workers.
1989 – Soviet–Afghan War: The Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan.
1991 – The Visegrád Agreement, establishing cooperation to move toward free-market systems, is signed by the leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.
1992 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison.
1992 – Air Transport International Flight 805 crashes near Toledo Express Airport in Ohio, killing all four people on board.[7]
1996 – At the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China, a Long March 3 rocket, carrying an Intelsat 708, crashes into a rural village after liftoff, killing many people.
2001 – The first draft of the complete human genome is published in Nature.
2003 – Protests against the Iraq war take place in over 600 cities worldwide. It is estimated that between eight million to 30 million people participate, making this the largest peace demonstration in history.
2010 – Two trains collide in the Halle train collision in Halle, Belgium, killing 19 and injuring 171 people.
2012 – Three hundred sixty people die in a fire at a Honduran prison in the city of Comayagua.
2013 – A meteor explodes over Russia, injuring 1,500 people as a shock wave blows out windows and rocks buildings. This happens unexpectedly only hours before the expected closest ever approach of the larger and unrelated asteroid 2012 DA14.
1377 – Ladislaus of Naples (d. 1414)
1458 – Ivan the Young, son of Ivan III of Russia (d. 1490)
1471 – Piero the Unfortunate, Italian ruler (d. 1503)[8]
1506 – Juliana of Stolberg, German countess (d. 1580)[9]
1519 – Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, first Spanish Governor of Florida (d. 1574)[10]
1557 – Alfonso Fontanelli, Italian composer (d. 1622)
1564 – Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician (d. 1642)[11]
1571 – Michael Praetorius, German organist and composer (probable; d. 1621)[12]
1612 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, French soldier, founded Montreal (d. 1676)
1627 – Charles Morton, Cornish nonconformist minister (d. 1698)
1638 – Zeb-un-Nissa, Mughal princess and poet (d. 1702)
1705 – Charles-André van Loo, French painter (d. 1765)
1710 – Louis XV of France (d. 1774)
1725 – Abraham Clark, American surveyor, lawyer, and politician (d. 1794)
1734 – William Stacy, American colonel (d. 1802)
1739 – Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, French architect, designed the Paris Bourse (d. 1813)
1748 – Jeremy Bentham, English jurist and philosopher (d. 1832)
1759 – Friedrich August Wolf, German philologist and critic (d. 1824)
1760 – Jean-François Le Sueur, French composer and educator (d. 1837)
1797 – Henry E. Steinway, German-American businessman, founded Steinway & Sons (d. 1871)
1809 – André Dumont, Belgian geologist and academic (d. 1857)
1809 – Cyrus McCormick, American journalist and businessman, co-founded International Harvester (d. 1884)
1810 – Mary S. B. Shindler, American poet, writer, and editor (d. 1883)[13]
1811 – Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argentinian journalist and politician, 7th President of Argentina (d. 1888)
1812 – Charles Lewis Tiffany, American businessman, founded Tiffany & Co. (d. 1902)
1820 – Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist and activist (d. 1906)
1825 – Carter Harrison, Sr., American lawyer and politician, 29th Mayor of Chicago (d. 1893)
1834 – V. A. Urechia, Moldavian-Romanian historian, author, and playwright (d. 1901)
1835 – Demetrius Vikelas, Greek businessman and philanthropist (d. 1908)
1840 – Titu Maiorescu, Romanian philosopher, academic, and politician, 23rd Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1917)
1841 – Manuel Ferraz de Campos Sales, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 4th President of Brazil (d. 1913)
1845 – Elihu Root, American lawyer and politician, 38th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1937)
1847 – Robert Fuchs, Austrian composer and educator (d. 1927)
1849 – Rickman Godlee, English surgeon and academic (d. 1925)
1850 – Sophie Bryant, Irish mathematician, academic and activist (d. 1922)
1851 – Spiru Haret, Romanian mathematician, astronomer, and politician, 55th Romanian Minister of Internal Affairs (d. 1912)
1856 – Emil Kraepelin, German psychiatrist and academic (d. 1926)
1861 – Martin Burns, American wrestler and coach (d. 1937)
1861 – Charles Édouard Guillaume, Swiss-French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1938)
1861 – Alfred North Whitehead, English mathematician and philosopher (d. 1947)
1873 – Hans von Euler-Chelpin, German-Swiss biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1964)
1874 – Ernest Shackleton, Anglo-Irish captain and explorer (d. 1922)
1883 – Sax Rohmer, English-American author (d. 1959)
1890 – Robert Ley, German politician (d. 1945)
1892 – James Forrestal, American lieutenant and politician, 1st United States Secretary of Defense (d. 1949)
1892 – Roy Rene, Australian comedian (d. 1954)
1893 – Roman Najuch, Polish professional tennis player (d. 1967)
1896 – Arthur Shields, Irish republican and actor (d. 1970)
1897 – Gerrit Kleerekoper, Jewish-Dutch gymnast and coach (d. 1943)
1898 – Totò, Italian actor, singer, and screenwriter (d. 1967)
1899 – Georges Auric, French composer (d. 1983)
1899 – Gale Sondergaard, Danish-American actress (d. 1985)
1904 – Antonin Magne, French cyclist and manager (d. 1983)
1905 – Harold Arlen, Jewish-American composer (d. 1986)
1907 – Jean Langlais, French organist and composer (d. 1991)
1907 – Cesar Romero, American actor (d. 1994)
1908 – Sarto Fournier, Canadian lawyer and politician, 38th Mayor of Montreal (d. 1980)
1909 – Miep Gies, Austrian-Dutch humanitarian, helped hide Anne Frank and her family (d. 2010)
1910 – Irena Sendler, Polish nurse and humanitarian, Righteous Gentile (d. 2008)
1912 – George Mikes, Jewish Hungarian-English journalist and author (d. 1987)
1913 – Erich Eliskases, Austrian chess player (d. 1997)
1914 – Hale Boggs, American lawyer and politician (d. 1972)
1914 – Kevin McCarthy, Jewish-Irish American actor (d. 2010)
1916 – Mary Jane Croft, American actress (d. 1999)
1918 – Allan Arbus, Jewish-American actor and photographer (d. 2013)
1918 – Hank Locklin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2009)
1919 – Ducky Detweiler, American baseball player and manager (d. 2013)
1920 – Endicott Peabody, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 62nd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1997)
1920 – Eio Sakata, Japanese Go player (d. 2010)
1922 – John B. Anderson, Swedish-American lawyer and politician (d. 2017)
1923 – Yelena Bonner, Jewish Soviet-Russian activist (d. 2011)
1924 – Robert Drew, American director and producer (d. 2014)
1925 – Angella D. Ferguson, American pediatrician
1927 – Frank Dunlop, English actor and director
1927 – Harvey Korman, American actor and comedian (d. 2008)
1927 – Yehoshua Neuwirth, Israeli rabbi and scholar (d. 2013)
1928 – Norman Bridwell, American author and illustrator, created Clifford the Big Red Dog (d. 2014)
1928 – Joseph Willcox Jenkins, American composer, conductor, and educator (d. 2014)
1929 – Graham Hill, English race car driver and businessman (d. 1975)
1929 – James R. Schlesinger, American economist and politician, 12th United States Secretary of Defense (d. 2014)
1930 – Bruce Dawe, Australian poet and academic
1931 – Claire Bloom, English actress
1931 – Jonathan Steele, English journalist and author
1934 – Jimmy Bloomfield, English footballer and manager (d. 1983)
1934 – Graham Kennedy, Australian television host and actor (d. 2005)
1934 – Niklaus Wirth, Swiss computer scientist, created the Pascal programming language
1934 – Abe Woodson, American football player and minister (d. 2014)
1935 – Susan Brownmiller, American journalist and author
1935 – Roger B. Chaffee, American lieutenant, engineer, and astronaut (d. 1967)
1935 – Gene Hickerson, American football player (d. 2008)
1937 – Gregory Mcdonald, American author (d. 2008)
1937 – Coen Moulijn, Dutch footballer (d. 2011)
1940 – İsmail Cem İpekçi, Turkish journalist and politician, 45th Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 2007)
1940 – John Hadl, American football player and coach
1940 – Hamzah Haz, Indonesian journalist and politician, 9th Vice President of Indonesia
1940 – Vaino Vahing, Estonian psychiatrist, author, and playwright (d. 2008)
1941 – Florinda Bolkan, Brazilian actress
1941 – Brian Holland, American songwriter and producer
1944 – Mick Avory, English drummer
1945 – Jack Dann, American-Australian author and poet
1945 – John Helliwell, English saxophonist and keyboard player
1945 – Douglas Hofstadter, American author and academic
1946 – Clare Short, English civil servant and politician, Secretary of State for International Development
1947 – John Adams, American composer
1947 – Marisa Berenson, American model and actress
1948 – Art Spiegelman, Swedish-American cartoonist and critic
1949 – Ken Anderson, American football quarterback and coach
1951 – Markku Alén, Finnish race car driver
1951 – Melissa Manchester, American singer-songwriter and actress
1951 – Jane Seymour, English-American actress, producer, and jewelry designer
1952 – Tomislav Nikolić, Serbian politician, 4th President of Serbia
1952 – Nikolai Sorokin, Russian actor and director (d. 2013)
1953 – Tony Adams, Irish-American screenwriter and producer (d. 2005)
1954 – Matt Groening, American animator, producer, and screenwriter
1955 – Janice Dickinson, American model, agent, and author
1955 – Christopher McDonald, American actor
1956 – Desmond Haynes, Barbadian cricketer and coach
1956 – Ann Westin, Swedish comedian
1957 – Jake E. Lee, American guitarist and songwriter
1957 – Jimmy Spencer, American race car driver and sportscaster
1958 – Chrystine Brouillet, Canadian author
1958 – Tony McKegney, Canadian ice hockey player
1958 – Matthew Ward, American singer-songwriter
1959 – Adam Boulton, English journalist
1959 – Ali Campbell, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1959 – Brian Propp, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
1959 – Martin Rowson, English author and illustrator
1959 – Hugo Savinovich, Ecuadorian wrestler and sportscaster
1960 – Darrell Green, American football player
1960 – Jock Hobbs, New Zealand rugby player
1962 – Milo Đukanović, Montenegrin politician, 29th Prime Minister of Montenegro
1964 – Chris Farley, American comedian and actor (d. 1997)
1964 – Leland D. Melvin, American engineer and astronaut
1964 – Mark Price, American basketball player and coach
1965 – Craig Matthews, South African cricketer
1967 – Jane Child, Canadian singer-songwriter and producer
1967 – Syed Kamall, English academic and politician
1967 – Craig Simpson, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
1969 – Birdman, American rapper and producer
1970 – Shepard Fairey, American artist and activist
1971 – Alex Borstein, American actress, voice artist, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – Renee O'Connor, American actress, director, and producer
1972 – Jaromír Jágr, Czech ice hockey player
1973 – Kateřina Neumannová, Czech skier
1973 – Amy van Dyken, American swimmer
1974 – Miranda July, American actress, director, and screenwriter
1974 – Ugueth Urbina, Venezuelan baseball player
1974 – Alexander Wurz, Austrian race car driver and businessman
1975 – Serge Aubin, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1975 – Annemarie Kramer, Dutch sprinter
1975 – Brendon Small, American animator, producer, screenwriter, and actor
1976 – Brandon Boyd, American singer-songwriter
1976 – Óscar Freire, Spanish cyclist
1979 – Josh Low, English footballer
1979 – Hamish Marshall, New Zealand cricketer
1979 – James Marshall, New Zealand cricketer
1979 – Scott Severin, Scottish footballer
1979 – Gordon Shedden, Scottish race car driver
1980 – Conor Oberst, American singer-songwriter
1981 – Heurelho Gomes, Brazilian footballer
1981 – Matt Hoopes, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1981 – Rita Jeptoo, Kenyan runner
1981 – Diego Martínez, Mexican footballer
1981 – Vivek Shraya, Canadian singer and songwriter
1982 – Shameka Christon, American basketball player
1982 – James Yap, Filipino basketball player
1983 – Don Cowie, Scottish footballer
1983 – David Degen, Swiss footballer
1983 – Philipp Degen, Swiss footballer
1983 – Alan Didak, Australian footballer
1983 – Russell Martin, Canadian baseball player
1985 – Serkan Kırıntılı, Turkish footballer
1986 – Valeri Bojinov, Bulgarian footballer
1986 – Johnny Cueto, Dominican baseball player
1987 – Jarrod Sammut, Australian rugby league player
1988 – Jarryd Hayne, Australian rugby league player and football player
1988 – Hironori Kusano, Japanese singer and actor
1988 – Tim Mannah, Australian-born Lebanese rugby league player[14]
1988 – Rui Patrício, Portuguese footballer
1990 – Charles Pic, French race car driver
1991 – Ángel Sepúlveda, Mexican footballer
1993 – Ravi, South Korean rapper
670 – Oswiu, king of Northumbria (b. c. 612)
706 – Leontios, Byzantine emperor
706 – Tiberios III, Byzantine emperor
956 – Su Yugui, Chinese chancellor (b. 895)
1145 – Lucius II, pope of the Catholic Church
1152 – Conrad III, king of Germany (b. 1093)
1382 – William de Ufford, 2nd Earl of Suffolk (b. c. 1339)
1417 – Richard de Vere, 11th Earl of Oxford, English commander (b. 1385)
1508 – Giovanni II Bentivoglio, tyrant of Bologna (b. 1443)
1600 – José de Acosta, Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist (b. 1540)
1621 – Michael Praetorius, German organist and composer (b. 1571)
1637 – Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1578)
1738 – Matthias Braun, Czech sculptor (b. 1684)
1781 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German philosopher, author, and critic (b. 1729)
1818 – Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (b. 1746)
1835 – Henry Hunt, English farmer and politician (b. 1773)
1839 – François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier, Canadian rebel (b. 1803)
1842 – Archibald Menzies, Scottish surgeon and botanist (b. 1754)
1844 – Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1757)
1847 – Germinal Pierre Dandelin, Belgian mathematician and engineer (b. 1794)
1848 – Hermann von Boyen, Prussian general and politician, Prussian Minister of War (b. 1771)
1849 – Pierre François Verhulst, Belgian mathematician and theorist (b. 1804)
1857 – Mikhail Glinka, Russian composer (b. 1804)
1869 – Ghalib, Indian poet and educator (b. 1796)
1885 – Gregor von Helmersen, Estonian-Russian geologist and engineer (b. 1803)
1897 – Dimitrie Ghica, Romanian lawyer and politician, 10th Prime Minister of Romania (b. 1816)
1905 – Lew Wallace, American author, general, and politician, 11th Governor of New Mexico Territory (b. 1827)
1911 – Theodor Escherich, German-Austrian pediatrician and academic (b. 1859)
1924 – Lionel Monckton, English composer (b. 1861)
1928 – H. H. Asquith, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1852)
1932 – Minnie Maddern Fiske, American actress and playwright (b. 1865)
1933 – Pat Sullivan, Australian animator and producer, co-created Felix the Cat (b. 1887)
1935 – Basil Hall Chamberlain, English-Swiss historian, author, and academic (b. 1850)
1939 – Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Russian painter and author (b. 1878)
1956 – Vincent de Moro-Giafferi, French lawyer and politician (b. 1878)
1959 – Owen Willans Richardson, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
1961 – Laurence Owen, American figure skater (b. 1944)
1965 – Nat King Cole, American singer and pianist (b. 1919)
1966 – Gerard Antoni Ciołek, Polish architect and historian (b. 1909)
1966 – Camilo Torres Restrepo, Colombian priest and theologian (b. 1929)
1967 – Antonio Moreno, Spanish-American actor and director (b. 1887)
1970 – Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding, Scottish air marshal (b. 1882)
1973 – Wally Cox, American actor (b. 1924)
1973 – Tim Holt, American actor (b. 1919)
1974 – Kurt Atterberg, Swedish composer and engineer (b. 1887)
1981 – Mike Bloomfield, American guitarist and songwriter (b. 1943)
1981 – Karl Richter, German organist and conductor (b. 1926)
1984 – Avon Long, American actor and singer (b. 1910)
1984 – Ethel Merman, American actress and singer (b. 1908)
1988 – Richard Feynman, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918)
1992 – María Elena Moyano, Peruvian activist (b. 1960)
1992 – William Schuman, American composer and academic (b. 1910)
1996 – McLean Stevenson, American actor (b. 1929)
1998 – Martha Gellhorn, American journalist and author (b. 1908)
1999 – Henry Way Kendall, American physicist and mountaineer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1926)
1999 – Big L, American rapper (b. 1974)
2000 – Angus MacLean, Canadian commander and politician, 25th Premier of Prince Edward Island (b. 1914)
2002 – Howard K. Smith, American journalist and actor (b. 1914)
2002 – Kevin Smith, New Zealand actor (b. 1963)
2004 – Jens Evensen, Norwegian lawyer, judge, and politician, Norwegian Minister of Trade (b. 1917)
2005 – Pierre Bachelet, French singer-songwriter (b. 1944)
2005 – Samuel T. Francis, American historian and journalist (b. 1947)
2007 – Walker Edmiston, American actor (b. 1925)
2007 – Ray Evans, American songwriter (b. 1915)
2008 – Johnny Weaver, American wrestler and sportscaster (b. 1935)
2010 – Jeanne M. Holm, American general (b. 1921)
2012 – Cyril Domb, English-Israel physicist and academic (b. 1920)
2013 – Sanan Kachornprasart, Thai general and politician (b. 1935)
2013 – Ahmed Rajib Haider, Bangladeshi atheist blogger
2014 – Thelma Estrin, American computer scientist and engineer (b. 1924)
2014 – Christopher Malcolm, Scottish-Canadian actor, director, and producer (b. 1946)
2015 – Haron Amin, Afghan diplomat, Afghan Ambassador to Japan
2015 – Arnaud de Borchgrave, American journalist and author (b. 1926)
2015 – Steve Montador, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1979)
2016 – George Gaynes, Finnish-American actor (b. 1917)[15]
2016 – Vanity, Canadian-American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress (b. 1959)
2017 – Stuart McLean, Canadian radio broadcaster (b. 1948)[16]
2019 – Lee Radziwill, American socialite (b. 1933)[17]
Christian feast day:
Blessed Michał Sopoćko
Claude de la Colombière
Faustinus and Jovita
Oswiu
Quinidius
Sigfrid of Sweden
Thomas Bray (Episcopal Church)
Walfrid
February 15 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Family Day can fall, while February 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday in February. (parts of Canada)
Earliest day on which Washington's Birthday can fall, while February 21 is the latest; celebrated on the third Monday in February. (United States)
International Duties Memorial Day (Russia, regional)
John Frum Day (Vanuatu)
Liberation Day (Afghanistan)
National Flag of Canada Day (Canada)
Parinirvana Day, also celebrated on February 8. (Mahayana Buddhism)
Statehood Day (Serbia)
Susan B. Anthony Day (Florida, United States)
The ENIAC Day (Philadelphia, United States)
Total Defence Day (Singapore)
^ Bulletin of the Asia Institute. Wayne State University Press. 2000. p. 40.
^ Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (Great Britain) (1843). Biographical Dictionary. Longman. p. 324.
^ "960 years of history". Order of Malta. Archived from the original on 9 September 2015.
^ Michael Van Cleave Alexander (1998). Three Crises in Early English History: Personalities and Politics During the Norman Conquest, the Reign of King John, and the Wars of the Roses. University Press of America. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-7618-1188-6.
^ Ife, Barry W. "Introduction to the Letters from America". King's College London. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
^ Nevin, David, and the Editors of Time-Life Books. The Road to Shiloh: Early Battles in the West. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983. ISBN 0-8094-4716-9 pp. 84–86
^ Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63F N794AL Toledo-Express Airport, OH (TOL)". aviation-safety.net. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
^ The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Charles Knight. 1844. p. 231.
^ Lewis Wesley Argo (1998). French, German, and Swiss links in Pennsylvania: descendants and ancient ancestors. Gateway Press.
^ Hugh Chisholm; James Louis Garvin (1926). The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature & General Information. Encyclopædia Britannica Company, Limited.
^ Galileo Galilei (9 January 2017). Delphi Collected Works of Galileo Galilei (Illustrated). Delphi Classics. p. 960. ISBN 978-1-78656-058-2.
^ Michael Praetorius (18 March 2004). Syntagma Musicum III. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 17–. ISBN 978-0-19-514563-2.
^ Hart, John Seely (1857). The Female Prose Writers of America (Public domain ed.). E. H. Butler. pp. 153–.
^ "Official NRL profile of Tim Mannah". Parramatta Eels. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
^ McFadden, Robert D. (February 16, 2016). "George Gaynes, a Versatile Character Actor, Dies at 98". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved February 17, 2016.
^ "Stuart McLean dead at 68". CBC News. February 15, 2017. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
^ Codinha, Alessandra (16 February 2019). "Lee Radziwill Is Dead at 85". Vogue. Condé Nast. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to February 15.
The New York Times: On This Day
Today in Canadian History
Months and days of the year
Today: July 18, 2019
Related: List of non-standard dates
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=February_15&oldid=902857881"
Days of the year
Wikipedia pending changes protected pages
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Ryan's story.
posted Mar 8, 2015, 5:55 PM by David Ortiz [ updated Mar 8, 2015, 5:57 PM ]
Family and Friends of Masterman are cordially invited to participate on March 16th in a parent discussion about bullying, cyber bullying and lessons learned from a parent's perspective. Our guest speaker will be Mr. John Halligan. The student version of this presentation will be led by Mr. Halligan to our entire student body earlier in the day.
Place: Masterman Library
Date: March 16th
Time: 6 to 8PM, including Q&A
Host: Masterman Home & School Association (“HSA”)/Social Committee
Event Coordinators: Ms. Jessica Brown and HSA
Entrance Fee: None and light refreshments will be provided at no cost
Information about the Speaker and his Story: John Halligan*
*John and Kelly Halligan lost their thirteen year old son, Ryan, to suicide on October 7, 2003. At the time of his death, Ryan was a student at a middle school in Essex Junction, Vermont. It was revealed in much greater detail after Ryan's death that he was ridiculed and humiliated by peers at school and on-line.
In memory of his son, John spearheaded the Vermont Bully Prevention bill which was signed into law (ACT117) in May 2004 and only a few months after Ryan's death . He also successfully led the passage of the law pertaining to mandatory suicide prevention education in public schools (ACT 114) in April 2006.
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Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using metadata to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.[10][dubious – discuss] Web content providers also manipulated some attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.[11] By 1997, search engine designers recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engine, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Altavista and Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.[12]
AdWords is recognized as a web-based advertising utensil since it adopts keywords which can deliver adverts explicitly to web users looking for information in respect to a certain product or service. It is flexible and provides customizable options like Ad Extensions, access to non-search sites, leveraging the display network to help increase brand awareness. The project hinges on cost per click (CPC) pricing where the maximum cost per day for the campaign can be chosen, thus the payment of the service only applies if the advert has been clicked. SEM companies have embarked on AdWords projects as a way to publicize their SEM and SEO services. One of the most successful approaches to the strategy of this project was to focus on making sure that PPC advertising funds were prudently invested. Moreover, SEM companies have described AdWords as a practical tool for increasing a consumer’s investment earnings on Internet advertising. The use of conversion tracking and Google Analytics tools was deemed to be practical for presenting to clients the performance of their canvas from click to conversion. AdWords project has enabled SEM companies to train their clients on the utensil and delivers better performance to the canvass. The assistance of AdWord canvass could contribute to the growth of web traffic for a number of its consumer’s websites, by as much as 250% in only nine months.[30]
Mix up your official tweets about specials, discounts, and news with fun, brand-building tweets . Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say about you, and don’t forget to answer people’s questions when possible. Using Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialog and communication, so be sure to interact as much as possible to nurture and build your following.
By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. In June 2007, The New York Times' Saul Hansell stated Google ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.[26] The leading search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Some SEO practitioners have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have shared their personal opinions.[27] Patents related to search engines can provide information to better understand search engines.[28] In 2005, Google began personalizing search results for each user. Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users.[29]
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the computer programmed algorithms which dictate search engine behavior, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. SEO is performed because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine the higher the website ranks in the search engine results page (SERP). These visitors can then be converted into customers.[4]
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5 June 2015: Celebrating World Environment Day
Message from the Director General, Dr David James Molden, Director General, ICIMOD
Improving disaster resilience- Lessons from the Nepal earthquake
As the world celebrates World Environment Day, central Nepal, where ICIMOD is headquartered, is still recovering from a large earthquake that hit on 25 April 2015. We cannot think of the usual topics surrounding World Environment Day – clean water, clean air, well managed natural resources – without thinking of what the earthquake has done to the people of the region. To what extent can their lives be restored?
“Mountain people are resilient”. This is a phrase that has often been repeated, especially after the earthquake struck central Nepal on 25 April – an earthquake that serves as a reminder that most people in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region live in earthquake-prone areas. But what does it mean to be resilient? At what level is resilience needed? What can be done to increase resilience? A common definition of resilience is the ability to readily recover from shocks: the ability to bounce back, to pick up the pieces, rebuild, and carry on. Many people in remote mountain villages salvaged pieces of broken houses and started building shelters long before outside help arrived, showing signs of resiliency. Many who did not have the ability or option to build temporary shelters slept in the open until tarpaulins or tents arrived days or weeks later. However, the true test of resilience for mountain societies will be the time it takes to recover, and whether a stronger society can be built.
Mountain communities in the HKH region are prone not only to earthquakes, but, depending on their location, also to landslides or avalanches, to flash floods, to droughts, and to social challenges such as the outmigration of the able-bodied population. Their remote locations make access to services and markets a challenge. With a changing climate, their vulnerability to many outside shocks have increased, which also tests the resilience of mountain communities.
What have we learned from the Nepal earthquake that we can apply to make people safer, and to speed up the recovery from disasters that will inevitably continue to strike various parts of the HKH region?
First, the resilience of mountain people goes beyond individuals and communities and involves a web of actors including governments, local institutions, the international community, and organisations like ICIMOD, whose mission is to enable sustainable and resilient mountain development. It is inspiring to see how people from all walks of life have come together to help in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Second, communication infrastructure is essential. When walking to the nearest town can take three days, a working mobile phone is essential to call for help. While Nepal’s telecom operators hurried to bring damaged towers back into operation, many people were unable to make calls because they had nowhere to charge their phones. Wide availability of solar charging stations appears to be important.
Third, an effective central information collection and processing infrastructure is important. ICIMOD deployed a large team working around the clock to provide Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs with the latest maps and remote sensing images to help assess damage, identify landslides, and warn about possible river blockages. But it took many valuable days for the extent of the damage to become known, and for aid distribution to reach the most needy. Having a plan and a system in place, rather than building it after the worst disaster of a generation hits, is important.
Fourth, we came to learn that helicopter landing sites are important, especially in remote mountain areas. While helicopters from four countries flew around Nepal, often to places that had never been visited by helicopter before, one major constraint was finding suitable landing sites. Many villages are on terrain that that is too steep for a large helicopter to land. As schools are rebuilt, it is will be important to incorporate a flat space large enough for a helicopter to land.
Fifth, terrain and weather data is very important for the coordination of rescue and relief efforts. ICIMOD’s Atmosphere Initiative team provided essential services to 2,751 rescue and relief flights in tricky terrain.
Sixth, backups and redundancies are important. While Nepal was lucky that its only international airport stayed open. It had no back-up. Important networks – for communication, transport, and energy – need to be designed so that the loss of individual links does not bring the whole network to a halt.
Seventh, tradition and habit alone do not protect. Most deaths occurred when traditionally built houses crumbled, crushing inhabitants with heavy stones or bricks. More deaths occurred when landslides happened in places where there hadn’t been landslides in a long time. Earthquakes happen far enough apart that decades of safety does not mean places will stay safe. Earthquake resistant houses need to be built in safe locations.
As central Nepal embarks on a rebuilding process, it is important to incorporate these lessons, as well as to see the rebuilding as an opportunity to ensure that what is rebuilt is better than what was there before the earthquake – that people in rebuilt communities have access to clean water and sanitation, that inhale less smoke from cooking, and that their houses and livelihoods survive the next disaster.
I am confident that mountain communities will rebuild and transform into a stronger society. To do so, let us join hands, and also learn and share knowledge from this experience, an important role for ICIMOD.
With best wishes on the World Environment Day.
Dr. David James Molden
Director General, ICIMOD
This entry was posted in Announcement ICTD Share
« Call for Participation: ICT for Mountain Development Award 2015 (5 June 2015)
FAO: Recruitment of National Consultant »
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Entry of Gulf of Morbihan © A. Lamoureux
The Gulf of Morbihan, one of the world's most beautiful bays
The Gulf of Morbihan South Brittany's primary tourist destination, is the product of a wonderful amalgam of land and sea. Take advantage of a weekend break or a longer stay in Morbihan to discover and explore its "little sea".
for Morbihan read "interior sea"
The Gulf of Morbihan gave the region its name: Mor-Bihan means "little sea" in the Breton language. The gulf, which extends into Quiberon Bay, is one of South Brittany's emblematic locations. It is also a member of the "Club of The Most Beautiful Bays in the World", just like the bays of Hạ Long in Viet Nam and San Francisco in the United States. The gulf presents unique spectacle, with land and sea blending to form a variety of landscapes over an area of 11,500 ha. With its vast expanse of sea water, the Gulf of Morbihan offers exceptional year places for boating. Take advantage of some of our holiday suggestions and discover the joys of coastal navigation, perhaps even enjoying a trip on board a tall ship.
What a pleasure it is to sail across the water from island to island!"
Gulf of Morbihan
Traditional sailing
The gulf is essentially an interior sea, sheltered from the ocean and scattered with numerous islands: Arz, Gavrinis and Bello and countless islets. According to a famous legend, it has as many islands as there are days in the year. In reality, there are around forty individual islands, of which around thirty are inhabited. Be sure to visit the largest of them: Ile - aux-Moines, also known as "the pearl of the gulf". This year island distinguished by its unusual shape, its little flower-lined streets and its unique, characteristic atmosphere, all of which means it can offer a genuine change of scene, guaranteed! A cruise around the gulf will provide you with a good vantage point from which to view this fascinating labyrinth of islands. Once back on dry land, you could take a drive around the gulf, along its more than one hundred and eighty kilometres of coastal roads. There is a continuous, way-marked route from Arzon to Locmariaquer offering various stunning viewpoints along the way.
Cycling around the Gulf
Oyster farmer
Berder island
VaNNes, a medieval town with a harbour at its centre
On the northern shore of the gulf you should be able to make out the masts of hundreds of boats bobbing against a backdrop of ancient facades. This is Morbihan's main administrative center: vannes, a mediaeval town and port. The town, which has been designated a "Town of Art and history" (Town of Art and History), has managed to retain its traditional character. The mansions constructed when the town was home to the Breton parliament (17th century), constitute the centrepieces of the town's heritage, and the town still has its original ramparts to defend it.
So it's decided then? Going to spend your next holiday exploring Morbihan? Trip to vannes is a must. Check in to one of the town's many hotels then set off to explore the gulf. Whether on land or at sea, paradise is to be found here!
Govihan island
TO DISCOVER THE GULF OF MORBIHAN IN
Hotels Gulf of Morbihan Campsites Gulf of Morbihan Guest houses and rooms Gulf of Morbihan Holiday rentals Gulf of Morbihan Clévacances rentals Gulf of Morbihan Gîtes de France Gulf of Morbihan Youth hostels and "Gîtes d'étapes" Gulf of Morbihan
Crêperies Gulf of Morbihan Gourmet restaurants Gulf of Morbihan Seafood restaurants Gulf of Morbihan Restaurants Gulf of Morbihan
Our main destinations
Morbihan Accueil Discover Morbihan The main destinations The Gulf of Morbihan
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Trollband - "In The Shadow Of A Mountain" (CD)
"In The Shadow Of A Mountain" track listing:
1. Fire and Ash (4:20)
2. Nidhoggr (4:41)
3. Heathen Blood (3:52)
4. In the Shadow of a Mountain (5:40)
5. Warhellride (5:11)
6. Regicide (5:01)
7. The Return (5:07)
8. We Live (5:42)
9. (untitled) (12:00)
Reviewed by xFiruath on June 28, 2011
"...brings all the elements together with a solid mix of clean vocals, hellish screams, dark guitar segments, and epic symphonics to create a package tailored to those underground metal fans who wish Dimmu Borgir was more legit these days."
With a name like Trollband it should be fairly obvious where this group is going musically and where its influences are coming from, but oddly the act hails from Canada rather than Finland. Combining several different styles ranging from folk metal to full-on black metal, Trollband’s debut album “In the Shadow of a Mountain” is a triumph for the Canadian scene and a testament to what sort of music can be produced by the underground.
The base of Trollband’s music is built on folk influenced metal along the lines of Finntroll or Equilibrium, although it tends to be less upbeat, with the symphonic elements taking an evil bent. Harsh and abrasive screams on the black metal end make up the brunt of the vocals, bringing to mind some of the more extreme and underground acts in that genre. Deep, clean male singing pops in every now and again for a Viking or folk feel, depending on whichever direction the music is going. As would be expected, words like “fjords” get thrown around and the lyrics generally revolve around battle. Most of the time it works out exceedingly well, with the only miss showing up on the title track, when the Viking style takes itself just slightly too seriously and comes off more cheesy than poignant.
Stepping above what the average underground band has to offer, each of the tracks has enough twists and changes so the formula is constantly getting refreshed. The guitar work veers out of black metal for long periods of time, instrumental sections come up to vary the sound, and interesting sound effects frequently round out the package. “Nidhogger” in particular brings all the elements together with a solid mix of clean vocals, hellish screams, dark guitar segments, and epic symphonics to create a package tailored to those underground metal fans who wish Dimmu Borgir was more legit these days.
Unfortunately the sound quality is a bit rough and faded, which is the only serious problem to be found on the album. It’s a shame Trollband doesn’t have a major label giving the group access to a well known producer, because the quality of the music deserves a better production. The artwork, on the other hand, is already at a professional level and wouldn’t be at all out of place on the cover of a graphic novel or comic book. A gate inscribed with mystic runes sitting in the middle of a snow-covered forest pretty well sums up the feel of the music.
“In the Shadow of a Mountain” is a fantastically arranged album with a wide range of sounds that will easily please fans who have already heard all the big name folk/black metal acts. The release is also currently available as a free download, so there’s nothing to lose in giving the album a few listens through.
Highs: Some Fintroll mixed with a litle Dimmu Borgir and a dash of Emperor makes one tasty folk/black metal combination.
Lows: The sound quality isn't horrendous, but it does need to be taken up a notch
Bottom line: An underground folk/black metal album well suited for fans of Finntroll or similar acts.
Get more info including news, reviews, interviews, links, etc. on our Trollband band page.
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Dominic Murphy on the Social Value of Self-Representations
Ovaska, Anna, Vesterinen, Tuomas
As a philosopher specialized in cognitive and biological sciences, Dominic Murphy does not think that the narrative conceptualization of the self is accurate when it takes selfhood’s true nature to be narrative. Narrating and representing the self is, however, important for our being as humans – as social animals.
Your current work is on self-representations in the context of cognitive neurosciences and social psychology. What kind of philosophical implications does this have for our understanding of the self?
Philosophers in recent years have begun to take seriously the problem that traditional conceptions of the self appear to be incompatible with materialism. Concepts of a self that is sufficiently responsive to reasons to be the source of rational action were committed to a transcendent self, but with rare exceptions – who still cling to a transcendent sense – contemporary action theorists are materialists. The problem they face is to find a place in the contemporary cognitive and biological sciences for a version of the self that can serve as the foundation for a theory of autonomy: it is claimed that, in order to be a fully responsible agent, I must be able to introspectively access my beliefs and plans, so as to assure myself that they are really my own, and also possess an enduring self that can be the subject and object of the planning.
A self that can serve as the foundation of autonomous rational action is widely portrayed as narrative in nature. Many philosophers and psychologists have argued in recent years that the form of human self-representation is a narration in which episodes in one’s biography are woven together to form a coherent depiction of the self and to establish links between one’s past, present and future. This narrative conception of the self is widely advertised as a way to secure the foundations of a theory of rational agenthood without resorting to a metaphysically suspect conception of the self as transcendent.
I think this is largely undermined by contemporary cognitive science, which has established that we do not have the access to the sources of our behavior that it requires.
Introspection and self-representation depend on a set of loosely related capacities and do not form a psychological kind. Furthermore, the evidence for the narrative conception of the self is much weaker than is usually supposed. There is good reason to believe that the narrative, self-representational sense of introspection is a form of confabulation, since much of our mental life is unconscious, many of the sources of our conscious mental life are opaque, and many of our stories about why we act as we do are wrong.
Although a few philosophers, notably Gilbert Ryle and more recently Daniel Dennett, have defended such a conception of introspection, few have tied it to empirical work. (Dennett does, but he relies on a tendentious reading of multiple personality disorder1). A number of psychologists have also defended the view more recently, but often in the light of psychodynamic theories that lack empirical support. But the psychologists and neuroscientists often argue that the unconscious consists largely of computational processes that cannot be brought to consciousness very reliably by self-examination, and conclude on this basis that introspection is a poor guide to our true nature. But that conclusion makes sense only on the assumption that the function of introspection is to uncover our true nature.
I aim to explore the possibility that the function of “self-knowledge”, construed as a story we tell about ourselves, is social: it has the function of mediating social interaction. Our representation of ourselves is chiefly for the consumption of others. In particular, I want to explore the idea that a fairly stable self-representation – a coherent narrative of oneself – is a way of reconciling two different bodies of research at the intersection of cognitive and social science: the first is the view that behavior is largely the product of situation rather than stable dispositions. The second is the view, common among experimental economists and psychologists influenced by evolutionary considerations, that one function of a number of mental states, especially affective ones, is to signal the existence of stable personal characteristics so as to develop a reputation that can influence repeated social interactions.
This theory is conceptually simple: reputation, operationally defined as the probability that one will take a certain course of action, influences the way others interact with you in the future - for example, by making them more likely to offer you a favorable exchange. But if our psychology is unstable, how can we present it in a way that makes it appear stable? Here may be one role for the products of introspection, by creating representations of ourselves - as possessing stable traits – that we can believe in and project outwards to influence others.
So stories and narrative competencies have an important role in social cognition and intersubjectivity. How about in the continuation of selfhood?
I think it definitely has an important function in social cognition. As far as concerns unified and continuing selfhood: we are animals, and our continuing identity as an animal is safeguarded by the biological mechanisms that keep us intact and let us navigate the world. So, I guess the question is, is there some level of personhood that is somehow more than animal, but has no social function? I suspect not, actually. I think that our continuing nature, in so far as it makes us a kind of distinctive thinking, planning entity, is bound up with our social existence. So I think narratives are essential to our nature, but that is because our nature is essentially social.
What do you think happens to the self if our narrative capacities are for some reason lost or diminished, like in some cognitive impairments?
It is a fascinating question, but really an empirical one. I think it depends a lot on the details of the case – amnesia, dementia etc. There will presumably be different consequences relating to different impairments. Take K. C., a canadian patient who became unable to form new episodic memories after a motorbike crash. He seems to have been unable to imagine himself in time – he couldn’t plan for the future or remember important auto-biographical information, but he could learn and retain factual information. So, it seems that K. C. could function as an agent from moment to moment, but not as an agent extended in time, and his abilities as a social animal were greatly impaired.
How do you see the difference between “self-representations” and “self-narratives”?
Good question. You might think of a self-representation as something that is updated quite quickly, like a snapshot of what you are like right now, and it could include a sense of where you are physically, what’s around you in space, whether your feet hurt, what you might do next, and so. Whereas a narrative would involve editing and constructing a representation of the most important stuff, stretched out over time, based on what you retain from successive representations. So you can imagine self-representations feeding to the narratives.
There might, though, be a kind of master representation, which is a bunch of important information about yourself that is not tied directly to the narrative – a sort of summary of who you are, rather than a historical account of who you are. That might constrain and inform particular representations at a time. The brain seems to alternate between enabling and suppressing the ‘default system’ or ‘default network’, which is a connected set of brain circuits that seem to do a lot of day-dreaming and self-related autobiographical thinking. It is possible that we have a guiding self-representation that is in charge of letting information into the master narrative, though it may be that the guiding systems can be hijacked by the default network and overwhelmed by it under some circumstances.
Reference & Bibliography
1. Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained. Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1991.
Asiasanat: [HTML], kognitiotiede, minuus, ihmiskäsitys, sosiaalifilosofia, sosiaalinen toimijuus, representaatio
Teema/osio: n & n -haastattelut
Henkilöviitteet: Murphy, Dominic
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‘Hitman’ on top, but box office is worst since 2001
Posted at: 29 Aug, 2017, in Entertainment
LOS ANGELES: Weekend North American box-office sales were the lowest in nearly 16 years, allowing previous leader “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” to hold its top spot with an underwhelming $10.3 million take.“No need to sugarcoat it, this was a miserable weekend. The combined gross of the top twelve failed to total over $50 million, something that hasn’t happened in an August weekend in over 20 years.” industry watcher Boxofficemojo.com said.Harvey, the deadly hurricane-turned-tropical storm, led to some theater closings in Texas, while Floyd Mayweather’s much-hyped bout against Irishman Conor McGregor proved to be one of the biggest pay-per-view shows in history, Variety.com noted.Even with about $2.6 million revenue added from showings of the fight, it was “certainly one of the worst over the last few years. Actual ticket sales, however, will be the worst domestically this summer in 25 years,” Boxofficemojo added.“Hitman,” an action comedy from Lionsgate, tells the story of a famous bodyguard (Ryan Reynolds) hired to protect a notorious hitman (Samuel L. Jackson) who is about to testify in a high-profile trial.Salma Hayek plays Jackson’s wife. It has earned $40 million so far, according to Exhibitor Relations.In second place for the weekend was Warner Bros.’ horror flick “Annabelle: Creation,” part of the popular “Conjuring” franchise. The film, starring Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Miranda Otto and Anthony LaPaglia, took in $7.7 million, adding to its worldwide gross of more than $1 billion.Next was “Leap,” a new release from Weinstein Co., at $4.7 million — a remarkably small take for a third-place film. The animated family picture tells the story of a young orphan, voiced by Elle Fanning, who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer in 19th century Paris.Fourth place went to “Wind River,” another Weinstein production, at $4.6 million, improving on its 10th place finish last week. It stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as federal agents trying to solve a murder on an Indian reservation in Wyoming.Bleecker Street’s “Logan Lucky,” Steven Soderbergh’s first film since his self-proclaimed retirement four years ago, took in $4.2 million. The film stars Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and Riley Keough in an unconventional heist comedy set at a NASCAR race.Rounding out the top 10 were:“Dunkirk” ($3.9 million)“Spider-Man: Homecoming” ($2.8 million)“Birth of the Dragon” ($2.7 million)“The Emoji Movie” ($2.5 million)“Girls Trip” ($2.4 million)
Box Office,
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Home News The Making of The Legend of Sarila
The Making of The Legend of Sarila
(February 21, 2013 – Toronto, Ontario) When the animated feature The Legend of Sarila opens in Québec on March 1st it will be making film history in Canada. According to the producers behind the film, 10th Avenue Films and Carpe Diem, it is only the third feature-length animated film to be made in Canada and it is the very first to be made in 3D. A project that began as a script in 2001 has taken a long time to finally come to the screen and it features the voices of some of the country’s best including Christopher Plummer and Geneviève Bujold. Northernstars Publisher, Ralph Lucas, asked Eric Clément of Montréal’s Modus FX and VFX supervisor for Sarila about how the film was made.
RL – I understand from 10th Avenue, one of the production companies behind The Legend of Sarila, that they had the script in 2001. Now, 12 years later, it’s about to be released. How did Modus FX become involved? Did you go after the project or did 10th Avenue come to you?
Once 10th Avenue had teamed up with Carpe Diem to produce Sarila, they contacted us in 2010. Together we worked on a plan to make the project happen and jumped into the adventure.
RL – What year did Modus FX begin to work on this film?
Eric Clement – Modus FX,/center>
We worked on the animation from the beginning of 2011 to August 2012.
strong>RL – This is, I believe, only the third feature-length animated film to be made in Canada, and the very first animated 3D movie?
Sarila is the first feature-length animated 3D movie produced in Canada. I don’t know whether there have been other animated features before this.
RL – Modus FX is renowned for its work in visual effects, which usually involves changing or improving existing non-animated film footage. Have you done animation work before? Or was this a new venture for the company?
While the main focus of Modus is on high-end visual effects, we like to take on animation projects like this one. Our first foray into this was with March of the Dinosaurs, a 90-minute, fully animated movie that came out in 2011. We designed several creatures and environments for that movie and, along the way, developed our animation expertise.
RL – You must have added a significant number of new people. Where did they come from?
The core team of twelve artists from various divisions was already in place, but for an animated feature film like Sarila we needed to expand every department. The animation lead, along with HR, managed to create his own team of sixteen people, bringing in a mix of seniors and young talented animators from all around the world.
RL – I don’t know very much about the animation process and I’m particularly interested in the work involved when we see the characters speak. Do you animate those scenes to a pre-recorded voice track? Or do the actors need to match the animation, much like when they do ADR or looping sessions?
We received the pre-recorded voice track. The animation workflow started with a blocking pass, in which the animator showed the layout of a shot based on the storyboard. Most of the time this pass was “chunky” to allow quick back-and-forth review. From the director’s feedback, we then generated a more elaborate animation pass, making it more smooth and realistic by adding details, such as the body weight of a character walking or jumping.
Once approved, the animators moved to the last part of the animation pipeline, called the finagling stage. This was where lip-synching and the simulation of clothing and hair were done. The voice tracks were imported into the animation software (Softimage) to allow the artist to animate and listen to the track line at the same time. The emotion and expression of a character needed to be taken into consideration from the beginning because there is a lot of body language that accompanies facial expressions. Having said this, it was important to lock the overall animation before going into these details. Animators were often using mirrors and cameras to experiment and mimic the dialogue so they could study what the facial expressions actually looked like.
RL– I would think that one of the major differences between non-animated and animated films, is that in a regular movie a director may call for many different takes, a few different camera set-ups, actors may flub their lines…. but with traditional animation, the storyboard becomes the Bible and there’s very little room for change or experimenting. Is that true with computer generated animation? Is it easier to manipulate camera angles, easier to try something different despite the storyboard?
With VFX the challenge is to make it photoreal, that is to say, invisible to the audience. Animation allows for much more creativity because you don’t have to conform to a plate. The art director from Sarila had a unique signature, which looks like watercolour painting. He wanted us to help him express his way of seeing the story, and find a way to break the straight 3D renders into something more stylised. That was a nice challenge.
CG permits a lot of flexibility, but the trick is that the budget limits the time you can experiment on a shot. The storyboard is indeed the Bible. We made sure the workflow was flexible in the beginning of the process (e.g., layout stage, animation blocking), but as the shots were moving into the pipeline it became more and more difficult to make major changes. We had to respect as much as possible the workflow of the director, Nancy Florence Savard, and make sure that approvals were done at every step along the way.
RL – Once the film is done, is the 3D effect just that… an effect? Or is there far more involved in creating the left-eye, right-eye versions of each frame?
With compositing software like Nuke, it was fairly easy to create the left/right comp. The challenge was to make the best stereo comp out of every shot. Traditional 2D tricks like adding a last-minute matte painted background or adding some live footage of snow falling in the foreground will not work in stereo. The stereoscopic approach needed to be carefully planned. For instance, a 2D matte painting needed to be projected on a multi-layering of rough geometry through the z-axis to get it to work properly in stereo.
The stereo process began at the layout stage: from the storyboard, the team generated a scene with the proper camera, characters and environment. The animation department did a blocking pass to confirm the overall action of the scene. From there, layout did a second pass to adjust and optimize the stereo cameras. The resulting output was in grey shading, i.e., with no texture or proper lighting, and this was reviewed for stereo approval. After a few months of animation, lighting and compositing (in mono), we were finally ready to review the result in stereo.
RL – Usually in visual effects work, you make your name by creating something so realistic no one notices…. this is different. Everyone gets to see every frame of your work. That must be very gratifying?
It is always magical to see the movies that are out there and then be able to do one of our own. To take the challenge of looking at drawings and concepts and turn them into something real is a great source of motivation. To go from concepts to 3D assets, from animation blocking to final animation with voice over, and finally, to see it all comped and cut properly – it’s very impressive.
There aren’t many places where I could have done that. I was thrilled to be part of this and I look forward to doing it again soon!
RL – Finally, what’s next from Modus FX? And, is there another animated feature in the works?
We’re working on three feature films right now and have a few in development. The animation world has a very high level of expectation. Our animation department has shown what it’s capable of and our pipeline will only continue to improve.
Back to the Cast & Crew of The Legend of Sarila.
Images courtesy of Modus FX and Alliance Vivafilm. Used with Permission.
Ralph Lucas is the Founder and Publisher of Northernstars. He began reviewing movies when he was in radio in Montreal in the mid-1970s.
Modus FX
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Article Jul 1, 2017
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Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade Pushed the Boundaries of Theater, and Still Does
in Film | July 6th, 2012 Leave a Comment
This 1967 film adaptation of Peter Weiss’s play Marat/Sade (its full title is The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade) is based on the play’s famous 1964 theatrical production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Translated from German by Geoffrey Skelton and directed by Peter Brook, the RSC production starred Patrick Magee as de Sade, Clive Revill as Marat, and Glenda Jackson as Charlotte Corday, Marat’s killer. The original cast and director from the '64 staging came together for the film in 1967, with Ian Richardson stepping into the role of Marat. It’s a jarring experience, with masterful performances and some very dark humor.
The play imagines the Marquis de Sade in 1808, fifteen years after the French Revolution, staging the death of Jacobin hero Jean-Paul Marat as a play and enlisting as actors his fellow inmates at the Charenton Asylum, where de Sade was confined from 1801 to his death in 1814, and where he did, in fact, write and direct plays. The film is essential viewing for fans of confrontational Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt (distancing or alienation effects) and the dizzying device of sustained mise en abyme. Marat/Sade still unsettles theater audiences nearly 50 years after its first production. The RSC recently revived the play at their newly-refurbished theater in Stratford and sent several audience members fleeing; at one preview, 80 theatergoers left at the intermission. Wherever and whenever Marat/Sade is performed, it offers a bracing critique of political violence with its unsparing depictions of madness, torture, and revolutionary fervor.
via Mefi
Josh Jones is currently a doctoral student in English at Fordham University and a co-founder and former managing editor of Guernica / A Magazine of Arts and Politics.
by Josh Jones | Permalink | Comments (0) |
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Hostage Crisis: The Blind Sheikh, Benghazi and Smoking Guns
A Libyan intelligence document has been produced that directly implicates Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Mursi in the attacks on American installations in Benghazi on 9/11/12. Those who attempt to discredit this document run into trouble when it is coupled with real-time video we uncovered on 9/13/12. In that video, gunmen at the scene of the attack can be heard declaring that they were sent by Mursi.
After weeks of attempting to push the narrative that a video was responsible, the Obama administration ultimately had to concede that the attacks in Benghazi were terrorist in nature. A few months after 9/11/12, the top lawyer for the Pentagon stated that the war on terror should be waged by “law enforcement and intelligence agencies”.
Based on the Obama administration’s standard, the Benghazi attacks should be treated as a crime instead of as an act of war. Therefore, let us bring forth the evidence, which implicates the leader of a nation state (Egypt) in the attack and warrants a grand jury (House of Representatives) investigation to decide if administration officials should be indicted (impeached).
Since we’re deciding who to indict, we must look at evidence of involvement in the attack. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President – Mohammed Mursi – is a good place to start. Our first two exhibits are both damning but when taken together, may just constitute a ‘smoking gun’. EXHIBIT A is a video shot from a cell phone at the scene of the attacks. In this video, gunmen are seen running toward the camera, toward other gunmen. At one point – in Arabic which we have confirmed – one approaching gunman says, “Don’t Shoot us! We were sent by Mursi!”. Even though the video is in Arabic, you can discern the word “Mursi”.
A Libyan Intelligence document (EXHIBIT B) has now been brought forward by credible Arabic translator Raymond Ibrahim. This document discusses the confessions of six members of an Egyptian Ansar al-Sharia cell who were arrested and found to be involved in the Benghazi attacks. Ibrahim reported the following about this document:
It discusses the preliminary findings of the investigation, specifically concerning an “Egyptian cell” which was involved in the consulate attack. “Based on confessions derived from some of those arrested at the scene” six people, “all of them Egyptians” from the jihad group Ansar al-Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law), were arrested.
According to the report, during interrogations, these Egyptian jihadi cell members “confessed to very serious and important information concerning the financial sources of the group and the planners of the event and the storming and burning of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi…. And among the more prominent figures whose names were mentioned by cell members during confessions were: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi…
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Home > Sports > India U-19 football to play Oman, Jordan in Turkey tour
India U-19 football to play Oman, Jordan in Turkey tour
New Delhi, The Indian U-19 National Team will be clashing swords against Jordan and Oman U-19 National Team in an exposure tour in Turkey, in...
New Delhi, The Indian U-19 National Team will be clashing swords against Jordan and Oman U-19 National Team in an exposure tour in Turkey, in preparation of the AFC U-19 Championship Qualifiers later this year. India has already acted as a feeder to the senior national team with players like Amarjit Singh, Suresh Singh, Boris Singh and Narendra being regular call-ups in camps, while Amarjit Singh, who was India's captain in the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 has already earned two caps for the senior national team. The Indian U-19s will be facing the Oman U-19 and Jordan U-19 team and will be playing one friendly match against a local club side Kocaelispor in Kartepe, Turkey from July 19- 27, 2019. Speaking on the exposure tour, Head Coach Floyd Pinto said, "We aim to play as many international matches as possible, the more we play the better get. "The exposure tour to Turkey serves as a good platform to test ourselves against West Asian opposition" "We aim to solidify our playing style, narrow down on our core group of players as we inch closer to the AFC U-19 Championship Qualifiers in November", he added.
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Liberty Completes Acquisition of ArcelorMittal’s European Steel Assets
Source: Scrap Monster
Liberty Steel, part of GFG Alliance, announced that it has completed the acquisition of key European steel assets from ArcelorMittal. The acquisition covers seven major steelworks and five steel service centres spread across seven European countries. The deal was worth $835 million.
According to company press release, the seven acquired sites together employ over 14,000 people and accounts for a combined rolling capacity of more than 10 million metric tons per annum. The sites include ArcelorMittal Ostrava in Czech Republic, ArcelorMittal Galati in Romania, ArcelorMittal Skopje in North Macedonia, ArcelorMittal Piombino in Italy, ArcelorMittal Dudelange in Luxembourg and several finishing lines at ArcelorMittal Liege in Belgium. The five service centres are based in France and Italy.
Sanjeev Gupta, GFG executive chairman noted that the acquisition is an exciting and important milestone in GFG’s journey. He welcomed the skilled and committed staff of the acquired facilities to its fold and hoped that the new association will lead to bright and sustainable future for not only the Liberty Hose Group, but also for the entire steel industry.
Liberty Steel aims to boost steel sales from the acquired sites by around 50% over the next three years.
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Episode 231: Under the Skin (2014)
Special Guest: Alexander Stuart
Guest Co-Host: Alexandra West
A beautiful woman (Scarlett Johansson) stalks the streets of Glasgow, Scotland looking for men in Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin. Named one of the best movies of 2014, we're joined by Alexandra West of the Faculty of Horror podcast to dig into this enigmatic film.
We talked with the film's original screenwriter, Alexander Stuart about his approach to the adaptation of Michel Faber's novel.
Buy Under the Skin on Blu-Ray
Buy the Under the Skin soundtrack by Mica Levi
Buy Under the Skin by Michel Faber
Visit the official Alexander Stuart website
Read the Horribly Hootched review
Read Becoming-Animal in Michel Faber's Under the Skin by Sarah Dillon
Read Rex Reed's write-up of Under the Skin
Be sure to visit the Faculty of Horror
"ET" - Nick Proch
"Lipstick to Void" - Mica Levi
Listen to "TPB: Under the Skin" on Spreaker.
Bonus Interview: More Alexander Stuart
Labels: Alexander Stuart, Alexandra West, Faculty of Horror, Jonathan Glazer
Anonymous Aug 12, 2015, 12:04:00 AM
I love Projection Booth dearly, but why on earth did you spend so much time discussing Horribly Hootched's viewpoints on the film? Under The Skin is such a rich and intriguing movie, one that's artfulness and mysteries could be examined for hours and hours, so why waste precious podcast time repeatedly quoting and discussing a bunch of infantile internet idiots? I come to Projection Booth to hear smart people discuss movies.
Anyways, keep up the good work....
/Billy
Mike White Aug 12, 2015, 10:06:00 AM
Thanks so much for the feedback. I wasn't sure how that would go over. I figured it gave us something to bounce off of that was completely opposite of how we'd approach the film and gave us a launching point. But I can see where it might have rubbed you wrong. It was a risky decision and ultimately might not have been successful.
Anonymous Aug 13, 2015, 4:04:00 AM
You guys are great always.. Even though I personally didn't like that "bro-review" as a framing device, I learned a lot of new things about "Under The Skin". As always you've done a remarkable job digging up people involved in the production. Overall The Projection Booth is one of the best places for movie enthusiasts to hang out and I sincerely thank you guys for creating so many hours of top-notch entertainment. :)
I can't wait to hear you talk about The Rocketeer. I adore that film and I'm sad we never got to see a sequel with Cliff blazing across the WW2 sky, knocking out German fighter planes.
Anonymous Aug 12, 2015, 10:03:00 PM
Part of me agrees with Anonymous/Billy above, but another part of me is glad that you did it because it underscored the depressing amount of attention the film got as a vehicle for seeing a disrobed Johansson. Even people I presumed would have a more sophisticated approach have (to me, incomprehensibly) viewed Under the Skin as smut masquerading as an art film.
More to the point, I'm in the early stages of putting together a master's thesis on UTS; thus I was thrilled to see one of your gloriously long-form podcasts dedicated to it. Thank you for covering the film. Related to the thesis, I have a question: It seemed as though you weren't just referencing write-ups *about* the various drafts of the screenplay, but had actually read them firsthand -- would you please let me know how you got a hold of them? It would be hugely important to my research.
A couple of random thoughts:
1. I was hoping for a mention of Hellraiser during the analysis -- my jaw dropped when it was brought up in the context of Faculty of Horror's most recent episode, as the connection is right there! In Hellraiser, Julia seduces men to a supernatural space to reconstitute Frank with their blood; in UTS, "Laura" seduces men to the black void/liquid space at least in part to (seemingly; it's not clear) constitute additional motorcycle men (there are three by the end of the film, and a black-skinned alien can be seen nearly fully formed in the void scene with the deformed man).
2. I love and appreciate the comparison between the van and a traditional science-fiction spaceship, which hadn't occurred to me at all.
3. Another connection with The Man Who Fell to Earth is Bruegel, whose Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is highlighted in that film (a bit on the nose), and whose paintings Glazer told the UTS crew to keep in mind during filming, which is unsurprising in light of the number of painterly extreme long shots in which the landscape dwarfs the characters.
4. The warped reflections of streetlights and headlights on the motorcycle man's helmet when it is shown in close-up as he drives to pick up the paralyzed woman/alien bring to mind the lights on Bowman's helmet as he passes "beyond the infinite" in 2001.
5. The horrifically backfiring attempt at finding solace away from society in the woods only to be violated has an antecedent in Bresson's Mouchette, and the concluding immolation brings to mind the martyrdom of St. Joan in Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. Johansson is also shot on one or two occasions craning her head up in a high-angle close-up, calling to mind Passion's iconic shots of Falconetti doing the same. All of which is to say that the naif in the woods and martyr themes and allusions place Laura in a cinematic tradition of highly sympathetic, tragic female protagonists, which is instrumental in generating audience sympathy following the braining of the heroic Czech man, the horrifically ignored infant, et al.
Thanks for humoring my ramblings. And again, any advice on the pursuit of screenplays would be HUGELY appreciated!
Keep up the amazing work -- your thoroughness and efforts to conduct interviews truly elevate your podcast above the rest.
J.P. Curwen Aug 14, 2015, 3:58:00 AM
Wow. Didn't know you guys cared so much about these Blogspot comments!
I recall a review the polar opposite of Hooch's. The Flick Filosopher summarizes this film as "a misogynist fanboy wet dream." (http://www.flickfilosopher.com/2014/04/skin-review-sex-weapon.html) I'd be curious what you guys make of this particular interpretation. She made similar accusations against SPRING.
As for my own POV: I have have nothing unique or interesting to say about this film. My reaction was mixed. *shrug*
Sam Caws Aug 14, 2015, 11:25:00 AM
I was stoked when I heard you guys were giving Under the Skin the PB treatment and as always you didn't disappoint - thanks for the great work!
We can all agree that the film presents the story in a radically different way to the novel. After seeing the film I wondered about the degree to which the way the script developed was a result of technical or budgetary considerations. For example, do we get a geezer on a bike because it's cheaper than a four legged alien?
Anyhoo. the outcome was a fantastic film.
I notice that the Hooch guys claim that they write their reviews while roaring drunk which kind of explains some of their nonsense I guess.
TJ Marlin Aug 15, 2015, 1:19:00 AM
This podcast was probably a satire on the expense of the guest commentators? I have listened to most of your podcasts, and based on them, I refuse to believe you wouldn't have known the type of a review Horribly Hooched was, and picked it just to get those ridiculous reactions. When you said you didn't "get" what the logger's "trouser log" was... That was when I was certain of it. Anyway, I hope this "humourless bores vs. rude frat boys" approach doesn't make a comeback.
A local very respected reviewer summarized this film: "If you make a film that's uneventful and ugly enough, there will always be those who will analyse it to death". Indeed. I saw the film as another "alien learns the beauty and horror of human nature" story, this time given a treatment resembling an European art house film (often characterized by a bordering-on-ridiculously-slow pacing, poorer-than-the-budget-would-allow production values, and male nudity...). Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on the viewer. Suffice to say that when a local university had a showing, over 3/4 walked out - and these were art students, not jocks.
As for Scarlett Johansson's nudity... To get some of their money back, the distributors actually marketed this as a more-or-less mainstream sci-fi thriller, and totally focused on Scarlett Johansson's nudity, so maybe the false marketing is to blame? I wonder if the film had even received funding if not for the nudity? After all, if you replace the female lead in this film with someone who is not famous and/or attractive, do you really think a site like Horribly Hooched would review it?
Enjoyed the other parts of the analysis, as always. I would include an "I didn't like this 'cause it showed that even deformed guys are luckier than me!" quip, but don't want to appear as a rude jock...
Anonymous Aug 18, 2015, 1:16:00 PM
As an honor graduate of a prestigious art school, having 3/4th walk out is hardly an indictment of the films quality.
Film didn't work for you, alright, moving along.
Thanks for a great episode, a really insightful discussion of one of the century's most challenging and original movies.As a British listener, I just want to pick up on the TV clip you found so terrible - this was one of our most beloved comedians Tommy Cooper, whose act was portraying an inept, perpetually flustered stage magician. Hearing your comments, I can understand why this choice of clip might seem obscure to an overseas audience, and because of this I think you may have missed a lovely subtlety in a film bursting with subtleties. This is Cooper's cherished "Spoon Jar Jar Spoon" routine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s8zb8h3Zo4 - and notice Johansson's slight bewildered expression when the spoon starts dancing, followed by the glance back at her new boyfriend for some cue about how to react. This is her first experience of such wonderful human things as laughter and magic, possibly the only moment of light relief in the whole film.
Kind Regards, Lee Robert Adams
Rob St. Mary Aug 19, 2015, 10:59:00 AM
Thanks for the heads up on the comedian. As someone with Scottish roots, mom and grandparents are from Aberdeen, I know some aspects of British culture, but I have to say I was unaware of Tommy Cooper. So, I guess I was a bit harsh. I thought it was used to show how "weird" we are in terms of our choice of entertainment.
"That's funny," thought the alien.
Rob St. Mary
co-host of "The Projection Booth"
Maxim Mar 7, 2016, 1:25:00 PM
Thanks for the episode, loved it.
Any chance you could direct me where I could find the shooting script of the film? Searching for it since it came out and the only thing I could find as of yet are transcripts.
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Ken Anderson believes that it is important for today's readers to understand that the values that were found in Mayberry are as relevant today as they were back when Mayberry first aired. He wants to give readers some things to reflect upon as they watch the wonderful episodes that show life as it was in Mayberry. His published writings include short stories and articles published in the Lutheran Digest and Family Life Today, poetry included in an anthology, Earthshine, published by Poetry Press, and a number of articles published by various newspapers. He also has a number of poems that were included in the anthology, A Tribute to Mayberry. Ken resides in Eau Claire, Wisconsin with his wife, Linda. The organizer of a Mayberry Memories Fan Club in Eau Claire, he is a faithful member of the WBMUTBB Group on the internet.
Mayberry Reflections: The Early Years
Mayberry Reflections: The Early Years summarizes plot lines of episodes through the first four seasons of the popular television series and adds reflections by the author on how the simple truths expressed in each show retain their meaning, even in the face of today’s more complex society. The purpose of this book is really quite simple. The author hopes that as you read each reflection you will take a few minutes to pause and be transformed back to another time and place. As we all know, Mayberry is a fictitious place. But the ideals and values that were instilled in the people that lived there are very real. They were important to the people of Mayberry, and they should continue to be important to each and every one of us no matter whom we may be or where we might live.
"Ken, folks are snapping up the books right and left! We have sold out twice, and so now we start with shipment #3. The last guest bought three books along with some gift certificates for family to stay here in '07. Your tribute to Mayberry in the form of this book is wonderful, and is a joy to read." The Owners of Taylor Home Inn Bed & Breakfast
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Home > Timelines > Sacajawea Timeline
Sacajawea Timeline
Timeline Description: Playing a vital role as the only woman travelling with Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea was a guide, interpreter, and explorer. Today, she is a symbol of women's independence.
July 28, 1784 Sacajawea was born
Born into the Agaidiku tribe of Lemhi Shoshone, presently Idaho, Sacajawea was born to the chief and his wife.
1800 Sacajawea was captured(c. 1800)
Although not much is known of her life, Sacajawea was abducted by Hidatsa Indians around the age of twelve. She was taken during battle and sold to French-Canadian trapper Charbonneau. He made her one of his wives and they lived with the Mandan Indians in present day North Dakota.
November, 1804 Lewis and Clark's expedition came into the area
When Lewis and Clark were exploring their newly acquired western territory, they met Charbonneau at Fort Mandan and hired him as their interpreter. Sacajawea was pregnant with her first child, but was forced to travel with them.
February 11, 1805 Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born
Sacajawea gave birth to a baby boy only a few months before the expedition group was set to leave Fort Mandan.
May 14, 1805 The expedition commenced
Sacajawea and her husband joined the expedition as it left Fort Mandan. The group took small boats, called pirogues, up the Missouri River. When one of them capsized, Sacajawea rescued the journals of Lewis and Clark. The commanders honored her by naming the river The Sacajawea River.
June 11, 1805 Sacajawea became ill
During the expedition, Sacagawea became ill with an infection that caused her to have a very high fever. Clark helped her by giving her fluids and saved her life.
August 8, 1805 Beaverhead rock
It was recorded that Sacajawea recognized a familiar rock on the expedition. The headwaters of the Missouri river, Beaverhead rock, and the home of her Shoshone tribe was marked and they ventured in to ask for help.
August 17, 1805 Sacajawea met her long lost brother
When the expedition met up with a Shoshone tribe to negotiate for horses to cross the mountains, Sacajawea discovered that the chief, Cameahwait, was her brother. The expedition named the meeting place Camp Fortune.
September 22, 1805 The expedition crossed the Rocky Mountains
The harsh weather of the Rockies made it difficult for the expedition to survive. Cold ground and temperatures caused a lack of food, forcing the tribe to eat candles made of tallow. After nearly starving, the expedition crossed the mountains with the help of Sacajawea's brother, 29 horses, and a mule.
November 24, 1805 The expedition made their winter camp
After spotting Mt. Hood, Sacajawea suggested that the group cross to the south side of the Columbia River. There, they set up their winter camp.
August 14, 1806 The expedition was completed
Returning to Mandan village, the group parted ways. Sacajawea, Charbonneau, and Jean Baptist stayed and Lewis and Clark left for home.
1809 Sacajawea moved to St. Louis
William Clark invited Sacajawea to move to St. Louis, Missouri. There, she was able to raise her daughter while William Clark enrolled her son in the Saint Louis Academy.
1810 Sacajawea had her daughter(c. 1810)
Sometime after 1810, Sacajawea gave birth to her second child. Daughter Lizette was known as "Spirit Wind Walker."
August 14, 1812 Sacajawea died
It was assumed that Sacajawea passed away around the age of 25. Presumably, her death was due to fever complication.
2000 Sacajawea was on a U.S. coin
Sacajawea had a coin issued in her honor. Her tribute was placed on a coin by the U.S. Mint.
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American education under attack
By Robert Reich
Budget pressures at the state and federal level have led to slashed education programs and rising tuition at state universities.
Over the long term, the only way we’re going to raise wages, grow the economy, and improve American competitiveness is by investing in our people — especially their educations.
You’ve probably seen the reports. American students rank low on international standards of educational performance. Too many of ours schools are failing. Too few young people who are qualified for college or post-secondary education have the opportunity.
I’m not one of those who thinks the only way to fix what’s wrong with American education is to throw more money at it. We also need to do it much better. Teacher performance has to be squarely on the table. We should experiment with vouchers whose worth is inversely related to family income. Universities have to tame their budgets, especially for student amenities that have nothing to do with education.
But considering the increases in our population of young people and their educational needs, and the challenges posed by the new global economy, more resources are surely needed.
Here’s another reason why the $858 billion tax bill — including a continuation of the Bush tax cuts to the richest Americans and a dramatic drop in their estate taxes — is so dangerous. By further widening the federal budget deficit, it invites even more budget cuts in education, including early-childhood and post-secondary. Pell Grants that allow young people from poor families to attend college are already on the chopping block.
Less visible are cuts the states are already making in their schools budgets. Because these cuts are at the state level they’ve been under the national radar screen, but viewed as a whole they seriously threaten the nation’s future.
Here’s a summary:
* Arizona has eliminated preschool for 4,328 children, funding for schools to provide additional support to disadvantaged children from preschool to third grade, aid to charter schools, and funding for books, computers, and other classroom supplies. The state also halved funding for kindergarten, leaving school districts and parents to shoulder the cost of keeping their children in school beyond a half-day schedule.
* California has reduced K-12 aid to local school districts by billions of dollars and is cutting a variety of programs, including adult literacy instruction and help for high-needs students.
* Colorado has reduced public school spending in FY 2011 by $260 million, nearly a 5 percent decline from the previous year. The cut amounts to more than $400 per student.
* Georgia has cut state funding for K-12 education for FY 2011 by $403 million or 5.5 percent relative to FY 2010 levels. The cut has led the state’s board of education to exempt local school districts from class size requirements to reduce costs.
* Hawaii shortened the 2009-10 school year by 17 days and furloughed teachers for those days.
* Illinois has cut school education funding by $241 million or 3 percent in its FY 2011 budget relative to FY 2010 levels. Cuts include a significant reduction in funding for student transportation and the elimination of a grant program intended to improve the reading and study skills of at-risk students from kindergarten through the 6th grade.
* Maryland has cut professional development for principals and educators, as well as health clinics, gifted and talented summer centers, and math and science initiatives.
* Michigan has cut its FY 2010 school aid budget by $382 million, resulting in a $165 per-pupil spending reduction.
* Over the course of FY10, Mississippi cut by 7.2 percent funding for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, a program established to bring per-pupil K-12 spending up to adequate levels in every district.
* Massachusetts has cut state education aid by $115.6 million, or 3 percent in its FY 2011 budget relative to FY 2010 levels. It also made a $4.6 million, or 16 percent cut relative to FY 2010 levels to funding for early intervention services, which help special-needs children develop appropriately and be ready for school.
* Missouri is cutting its funding for K-12 transportation by 46 percent. The cut in funding likely will lead to longer bus rides and the elimination of routes for some of the 565,000 students who rely on the school bus system.
* New Jersey has cut funding for afterschool programs aimed to enhance student achievement and keep students safe between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. The cut will likely cause more than 11,000 students to lose access to the programs and 1,100 staff workers to lose their jobs.
* North Carolina cut by 21 percent funding for a program targeted at small schools in low-income areas and with a high need for social workers and nurses. As a result, 20 schools will be left without a social worker or nurse. The state also temporarily eliminated funding for teacher mentoring.
* Rhode Island cut state aid for K-12 education and reduced the number of children who can be served by Head Start and similar services.
* Virginia’s $700 million in cuts for the coming biennium include the state’s share of an array of school district operating and capital expenses and funding for class-size reduction in kindergarten through third grade. In addition, a $500 million reduction in state funding for some 13,000 support staff such as janitors, school nurses, and school psychologists from last year’s budget was made permanent.
* Washington suspended a program to reduce class sizes and provide professional development for teachers; the state also reduced funding for maintaining 4th grade student-to-staff-ratios by $30 million.
* State education grants to school districts and education programs have also been cut in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah.
Meanwhile, at least 43 states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities and/or made large increases in college tuition to make up for insufficient state funding.
* Alabama’s fiscal year 2011 cuts to higher education have led to 2010-11 tuition hikes that range from 8 percent to 23 percent, depending on the institution.
* Arizona’s Board of Regents approved in-state undergraduate tuition increases of between 9 and 20 percent as well as fee increases at the state’s three public universities. Additionally, the three state universities must implement a 2.75 percent reduction in state-funded salary spending and plan to do so through a variety of actions, such as academic reorganization, layoffs, furloughs, position eliminations, hiring fewer tenure-eligible faculty, and higher teaching workloads.
* The University of California has increased tuition by 32 percent and reduced freshman enrollment by 2,300 students; the California State University system cut enrollment by 40,000 students.
* Colorado funding for higher education was reduced by $62 million from FY 2010 and this has led to cutbacks at the state’s institutions. The University of Colorado system will lay off 79 employees in FY 2011 and has increased employee workloads and required higher employee contributions to health and retirement benefits.
* Florida’s 11 public universities will raise tuition by 15 percent for the 2010-11 academic year. This tuition hike, combined with a similar increase in 2009-10, results in a total two-year increase of 32 percent.
* Georgia has cut state funding for public higher education for FY2011 by $151 million, or 7 percent. As a result, undergraduate tuition for the fall 2010 semester at Georgia’s four public research universities (Georgia State, Georgia Tech, the Medical College of Georgia, and the University of Georgia) will increase by $500 per semester, or 16 percent. Community college tuition will increase by $50 per semester.
* The University of Idaho has responded to budget cuts by imposing furlough days on 2,600 of its employees statewide. Furloughs will range from 4 hours to 40 hours depending on pay level.
* Indiana’s cuts to higher education have caused Indiana State University to plan to lay off 89 staff.
* Michigan has reduced student financial aid by $135 million (over 61 percent), including decreases of 50 percent in competitive scholarships and 44 percent in tuition grants, as well as elimination of nursing scholarships, work-study, the Part-Time Independent Student Program, Michigan Education Opportunity Grants, and the Michigan Promise Scholarships.
* In Minnesota, as a result of higher education funding cuts, approximately 9,400 students will lose their state financial aid grants entirely, and the remaining state financial aid recipients will see their grants cut by 19 percent.
* Missouri’s fiscal year 2011 budget reduces by 60 percent funding for the state’s only need-based financial aid program, which helps 42,000 students access higher education. This cut was partially restored with other scholarship money, but will still result in a cut of at least 24 percent to need-based aid.
* New Mexico has eliminated over 80 percent of support to the College Affordability Endowment Fund, which provides need-based scholarships to 2,366 students who do not qualify for other state grants or scholarships.
* New York’s state university system has increased resident undergraduate tuition by 14 percent beginning with the spring 2009 semester.
* In North Carolina, University of North Carolina students will see their tuition rise by $750 in the 2010-2011 school year and community college students will see their tuition increase by $200 due to fiscal year 2011 reductions in state higher education spending.
* South Dakota’s fiscal year 2011 budget cuts state support for public universities by $6.5 million and as a result the Board of Regents has increased university tuition by 4.6 percent and cut university programs by $4.4 million.
* Texas has instituted a 5 percent across-the-board budget cut that reduced higher education funding by $73 million.
* Virginia’s community colleges implemented a tuition increase during the spring 2010 semester.
* Washington has reduced state funding for the University of Washington by 26 percent for the current biennium. Washington State University is increasing tuition by almost 30 percent over two years. In its supplemental budget, the state cut 6 percent more from direct aid to the state’s six public universities and 34 community colleges, which will lead to further tuition increases, administrative cuts, furloughs, layoffs, and other cuts. The state also cut support for college work-study by nearly one-third and suspended funding for a number of its financial aid programs.
* Other states that are cutting higher education operating funding and financial aid include Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Have we gone collectively out of our minds? Our young people — their capacities to think, understand, investigate, and innovate — are America’s future. In the name of fiscal prudence we’re endangering that future.
In January, Republicans take over the House and its appropriations committees. What would it take for them to reinstitute counter-cyclical revenue sharing that would help the states restore some or all funding for education? Can you imagine the White House and Senate Dems putting this at the top of their 2011 agenda? Is it possible this could be a bi-partisan effort?
Inspector Clouseau March 16, 2011 at 10:12 AM
Do you really want to know what is wrong with the American education system? It’s the parents, and the conditions which exist in the homes of the children. The parents have roughly 5-6 years to mold the values, curiosity, personalities, and attitudes of the children. More parents are disillusioned, have more economic difficulties to address personally, and thus do not have as much energy or time as parents in the past to deal with the issues affecting their children. People change when they are sufficiently motivated to change. With so many unmotivated parents out there, why should we expect the kids to be motivated? By the time they reach grade school, they are complicated human beings and the education professionals are faced with major challenges.
sforrest March 18, 2011 at 7:59 PM
Some think that since necessity is the mother of invention, we should let them sink or swim...maybe so but then, there is that whole humanitarian thing. I'm almost certain there is a real agenda toward a caste system and this is the first step
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Home > Archive > Cheerleaders Claim 20th National Title; Dance Team Finishes Fifth
Cheerleaders Claim 20th National Title; Dance Team Finishes Fifth
UK wins 15th national championship in 20 years
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Only for the Kentucky cheerleading team can one season without a national championship feel like a drought.
Last year, the cheerleaders were named runners-up to Memphis. On Sunday, UK returned to its familiar perch atop the world of college cheerleading.
“When you finally hear second place called and then they call first place, it’s a lot of emotion, a lot of joy,” Jomo Thompson said via cell phone. “We just feel vindicated, especially after coming in second place last year. We wanted to make sure we got back to the top and we did that.”
UK won an unprecedented 20th national title at the UCA/UDA College Cheerleading and Dance Team National Championship in Orlando, Fla., finishing ahead of second-place UCF. UK has now won an incredible 15 championships since 1995, only being dethroned five times during that span.
“I’m just fortunate to have been a part of this program for so long and I love UK,” said Thompson, the former UK cheerleader who has won eight national titles in his 12 years as head coach. “I love UK cheerleading. I’m just glad I’m here to experience it with the kids. We strive every day to be the best. It’s just a great thing that we’ve won so many times. It just speaks to the history and the tradition of winning and be the best.”
The UCA’s official Twitter account described the winning routine as both starting and finishing strong. Thompson saw much of the same, saying UK’s finals routine was even better than a solid one in Saturday’s preliminary round.
“I think they just really seized the opportunity,” Thompson said. “They didn’t let down. They didn’t take anything for granted. They just did a really good job of going out there and executing and bringing home number 20.”
The championship is the culmination of a year of hard work. UK didn’t drastically alter the formula that has led to so much past success, but a seven-member senior class was intent on going out the right way. Thompson said those veterans played an instrumental role in setting the tone for UK’s training.
“We just told the kids, ‘You want to make sure that you’re giving a hundred percent every time, even in practice, because you get one shot, one opportunity,’ ” Thompson said. “So you want to experience as many as things that can go wrong, encounter all those things in practice so if something like that happens at nationals, you’re ready for it. I thought they did a great job this year getting themselves prepared.”
The UK dance team also competed this weekend, turning in an impressive performance in the Division IA Hip Hop finals. UK came in fifth, an improvement from last year’s sixth-place finish. Head coach Dawn Walters reported the team posted a score of 93.2, its best ever.
“The girls had a lot of confidence today when we went out to perform,” Walters said. “They really went out there and had energy and excitement and the whole arena really went crazy when they were up there. Our degree of difficulty was higher this year than last year and we had a lot of group tricks. I think their confidence was the biggest thing this year.”
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RhosgochVillageRhosgoch (Red Moor) is a small village in the north of Anglesey, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south-west of Amlwch.
A mile to the south is Anglesey's largest body of water, the reservoir Llyn Alaw (Water Lily Lake).RhosgochAmlwchIsle of AngleseyLL66 0ABUnited Kingdom53.375858400000-4.392548800000http://www.showmewales.co.uk/?dms=3&pid=
Rhosgoch
Rhosgoch (Red Moor) is a small village in the north of Anglesey, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south-west of Amlwch.
A mile to the south is Anglesey's largest body of water, the reservoir Llyn Alaw (Water Lily Lake).
Caernarfon Tourist Information Centre
Rhosgoch,
Amlwch,
Isle of Anglesey,
LL66 0AB
Plan route using Google maps
Map reference: SH 409892 Lat: 53.37586 Long: -4.39255
A55 Junction 6, A5114 to Llangefni and B5111 to Llannerch-y-medd. Turn right at the roundabout in the village (still on the B5111), continue for just over a mile and left where signed to Rhosgoch.
Accessible by Public Transport: 14 miles from Valley station
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Home » Reviews » Oil, Almeida Theatre
Oil, Almeida Theatre
Oil is so precious that it has been called black gold. It is buried deep in often inhospitable places yet it has the power to transform all of our lives. The brilliant thing about Ella Hickson’s new play is that it aspires to use the metaphor of oil to explore other buried and precious things: such as our emotions about children, parents and love. But although her initial ideas are great, the detail of her writing and of her imagination, and especially her sense of history, are a bit disappointing.
In Oil, the age of the black stuff is also the age of women’s gradual liberation. Hickson has created five scenarios which are all about a gutsy woman named May (played with forceful feeling by Anne-Marie Duff). In each, she appears in a different incarnation, giving us a glimpse at five possible lives. In the first, May is a Cornish farmer’s wife in 1889, oppressed by masculinist society in general, and by her mother-in-law, Ma Singer, in particular. Although she is passionately in love with Joss, the young man who owns and runs the farm, she doesn’t agree with everything that he does. She is pregnant with her daughter, and the catalyst for her emancipation is the arrival of William Whitcomb, an American who is selling kerosene, an oil that will transform many lives.
In the second scenario, the setting is Tehran in 1908. Here May is a servant, with an eight-year-old daughter, Amy, working at the British colonial residence. Her position is precarious, and she’s looking for a way out. In the course of a party, which we see from the point of view of the servants, she gets two chances to escape: one is an offer from Thomas, another servant, and the other is a far less respectable proposition from Officer Samuel, a navy aviator and, like May, an outsider. He brings news of how the teenage Persian Shah is being courted by the British, who want the oil on his land.
The third episode of this female journey sees May transformed into a Hampstead businesswoman in 1970. In her 40s, she is an oil executive and Amy is her 15-year-old daughter. But while she is trying to discourage Nate, Amy’s 16-year-old boyfriend, from forming too close an attachment to her offspring, an international crisis barges into her kitchen. There’s been a revolution in Libya, led by Colonel Gaddafi, and very soon Farouk, a representative of the Revolutionary Command Council, is in the room, negotiating with May and Tom, a timid work colleague, about the nationalisation of the oil wells in north Africa.
The fourth and fifth scenarios are both set in the future. In 2021 Baghdad, May, now an MP, arrives in the desert to find Amy, now an aid worker, to persuade her to return home to England. Finally, we’re back in Cornwall, in 2051, when the age of oil is over, and May and Amy are much older, sitting in the cold because fuel stocks are now low. Outside the winds of ecological disaster howl, and inside the two women grumble about the shortages of power. Into this misery comes Fan, a Chinese salesperson who is promoting the energy source of the future — cold fusion.
There is no doubt that this is a hugely ambitious and fascinating epic of five female-centred stories. Not only do May and Amy share the same letters in their names, so mother and daughter blend into one person, but every scene shows how the influence of men on their lives is getting smaller and smaller. Each scenario has links to the others, usually with the image of a dream of a burning man, or, more broadly, with mentions of the importance of oil to the lives of the participants. Oil here is variously an exotic import, an imperial prize, a source of work and wealth, a bargaining tool and the cause of ecological disaster. It is also a powerful metaphor for our emotional lives — a buried force that bursts out and changes everything.
But while I welcome the breathtaking scope of these stories, clearly influenced by Caryl Churchill, I’m also conscious of how unsatisfactory the play is. While oil does play its part in all of the scenes, this is much more about mothers and daughters than it is about politics or history. (It’s a bad sign that the programme is full of essays about the global themes of the play, which should ideally speak for itself.) And the main problem is that the mother-daughter relationship stays the same in the first four scenarios: mum is nagging and controlling, daughter is antagonistic and rebellious. This repetition of the same feels as if Hickson is arguing that this is the only kind of mother-daughter relationship that exists. I also found the ending of the play to be hopelessly didactic, and much of the story simply proves that when women behave as badly as men they will get rewarded. There is no socialist feminism in this tale.
I was also unconvinced by the playwright’s sense of history: while the Victorian scene was credible, the Empire and Hampstead scenarios felt all wrong. In the former, Hickson imagines servants criticising their betters without hesitation, while in the 1970 one she seems to believe that, at this time, young teenagers were already sexually precocious and demonstrative, while also being ecologically aware to an amazing degree. Both of these ideas are just plain wrong. To be successful, historical drama should give you the feeling of the past as a foreign country: Hickson doesn’t, and isn’t.
Although Carrie Cracknell’s production, which owes a lot to Katie Mitchell’s work, is sometimes magical and exciting, it is also sometimes poorly lit and inaudible. Still, Duff is a great actress to watch, by turns punky and fragile, powerful and pole-axed. When she reaches into her guts for the core emotion of the scenes, you feel with her. Likewise, Yolanda Kettle does a good job as Amy, developing from a child into an adult over the course of the evening. For the rest, Ellie Haddington is an impressive Ma Singer, Patrick Kennedy a sinister Officer Samuel, Tom Mothersdale a passionate Joss and Sam Swann a solid Whitcomb. Lara Sawalha and Christina Tam provide a much-needed multicultural angle to these tales of Empire. In addition, Kennedy and Swann play several other parts — it is an epic after all. As you’d expect, Vicki Mortimer’s design is elegant and functional, while Luke Halls’s videos captures the sweep of history. Some audience members will love the ironic use of Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself”, but others might wonder what exactly is the dramatic point of the whole enterprise?
© Aleks Sierz
Almeida Theatre Anne-Marie Duff Carrie Cracknell Caryl Churchill Christina Tam consumer capitalism crisis of masculinity Ella Hickson Ellie Haddington Empire feminism globalisation history plays Islam Justin Bieber Katie Mitchell Lara Sawalha Love Yourself Luke Halls Middle East oil Patrick Kennedy Sam Swann Tom Mothersdale Vicki Mortimer Yolanda Kettle
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Sunday 23rd October 2016
Text of the day: “Damned bad luck.”
On the Hightide Festival
Yesterday, I was at the Symposium Day of the Hightide Festival in Halesworth, Suffolk.
Text of the day: “I’m happy to roll up my sleeves but who are you fighting?”
About White Heat
Wednesday 14th March 2012
This week, I caught up with White Heat, the aptly named BBC series which looks at the relationships of a group of young housesharers, beginning in 1965.
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The Chrysler Museum of Art Re-Installation
"It is impossible to overuse the prefix "re" when the subject is a total renaissance. Throughout the museum, the correlation between design, presentation, interpretation and visitor experience is nothing short of visionary."
- Veer Magazine
StudioAmmons had the wonderful experience of working with The Chrysler Museum's staff and leadership team on the design for the re-installation of their permanent collection of paintings and sculpture in what was a key part of the 24 million dollar building renovation. In addition to our role in the gallery design and re-installation, our work also included the design for the building's new wayfinding system and signage.
The scope of our work included the 29 second floor galleries which display key pieces from the museum's permanent collection of paintings and sculptures. Working closely with the museum's leadership and curatorial team, the design was focused on giving the art (and visitors) more space to breath while creating interior vistas and references in the gallery landscape using a circulation framework that helps visitors stay oriented, creating momentum and excitement as you move through the many second floor rooms. Eliminating the "art museum maze" was an important objective so the team worked through ideas for varying similar spaces through not only the selection of artwork, but also through the strategic use of color and light and art to give each gallery its own atmosphere and prevent the monotony that visitors often feel in many art museums.
Take a look at a sampling of the finished gallery images here...but you really need to get down there and experience what is one of the best, and under-recognized collections you'll find in any American Art museum.
"Applying an open concept approach to the previously carved-up Photography and Contemporary galleries resulted in the occasional diagonal wall and the creation of invigorating sweeps of space. These changes benignly force new sightlines that draw objects into appealingly charged and challenging relationships, and viewers into new ways of looking and thinking about them."
Museum Entrance
plan showing the layout of the second floor galleries
The Contemporary Galleries utilize movable walls that can be reconfigured for changing the presentation.
Moton Museum
StudioAmmons was responsible for the interpretive planning, content development, exhibit design, fabrication and installation for The Moton School Story, Children of Courage at the restored National Historic Landmark Robert Russa Moton High School. The Moton Museum exhibits, carefully designed and installed in the school's classroom spaces follow the 1951 Moton Student Strike and resulting Brown v. Board decisions, through Prince Edward County’s five-year (1959-64) public school closing, the 1963 opening of Kennedy Administration-backed Free Schools, and the Supreme Court’s 1964 Griffin decision ensuring free public education for all American children.
The museum and exhibits are playing a key role in supporting the healing and unification process in Prince Edward County and play an important part in the Moton Museum's work in newly created educational partnerships with Prince Edward High School, The Fuqua School (formerly the Prince Edward Academy), Longwood University, and Hampton Sydney College.
James River State Park Visitor Center
The James River State Park Exhibits were developed to introduce the visitor to the region known and the “Middle James.” As part of the Visitor Center exhibits, our team researched the history of Native American occupation on the site and the subsequent settlement and industrialization of this area of the river. The exhibits include a full size James River batteau that kids can climb into, a central learning laboratory for hands-on exploration and an 1100 gallon aquarium as the centerpiece of the indoor exhibits. StudioAmmons provided content development, exhibit design, fabrication and installation for the project.
Smith Mountain Lake Visitor Center
StudioAmmons developed the interpretive and orientational exhibits for the new visitor center at Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake State park working closely with the park staff and the staff of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. The exhibit dives deep into the history of the area where the park is located, shaping a picture of the landscape and settlements that were there before the dam was built and the land flooded to create Smith Mountain Lake. The exhibits also provide orientational information and present the recreational opportunities that are availabl for visitors to the park.
Sailors Creek Battlefield
StudioAmmons was responsible for the exhibit design, fabrication and installation of the Sailor’s Creek Battlefield Visitor’s Center. Artifacts, drawings, stories and maps are being shared with the public through this comprehensive exhibit. We have specialized over the last decade in the development of exhibit designs for sites associated with the American Civil War and its various legacies.
National Museum of Wildlife Art
StudioAmmons worked with Carolynne Harris and the staff at the National Museum of Wildlife Art to program and develop a strategic master plan for the next phase of the 53,000 s.f. Museum’s growth as it assesses its collection and exhibition needs as well as its place and role as the premier museum of Wildlife Art in the United States. In our planning process we helped the Museum look at growth scenarios ranging from a complete internal re-organization of their program in their existing facilities, to what might be the long term build-out of new facilities to complement their existing iconic building.
Fort Pickett Military Transportation Museum
One of the few remaining examples of a WWII Officers Club in the country, the Camp Pickett Officers Club was restored by Nottoway County to preserve the nationally significant structure while providing a permanent location to tell the story of Camp Pickett, the final stopping point for many soldiers on their way to war. The exhibits are presented throughout the first floor of the Ballroom. Pylon displays detail the history of the camp, presenting its role as a critical hub for landside military transportation and training from WWII to the present day. Additional display cases include patches, posters and graphics representing the twelve divisions of soldiers that lived and trained here before embarking for their final military destinations.
Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie Visitor Center
Under a 4-year term contract with the Forest Service, StudioAmmons developed the interpretive planning and exhibit design for the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, a 23,000-acre Forest Service prairie restoration project about 50 miles outside of Chicago. The exhibit focuses on giving both children and adults the tools and information they will need to go out into the prairie for hands-on learning activities at a range of sites.
The introduction to the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie includes a walk through the natural and geologic history of the upper midwest and illustrates how the landscape that is found there today is the result of millions of years of natural forces and glacial movements.
Art and Confinement
When the historic State Penitentiary in downtown Richmond was slated for demolition, Terry Ammons arranged to spend a month inside doing a photographic documentation of the structures and the artwork the inmates were allowed to create in their cells. over 300 4x5's, over 3,000 slides and a host of video were shot on hot summer evenings while the process of demolition was ongoing during the day. The The exhibit was designed as a peep show giving the visitor small framed glimpses into the culture and living environment of many of the last inmates to occupy the historic penitentiary. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a recreated cell showing the visitor the confined space in which these works of art were created.
Temple of Liberty Exhibit
Terry Ammons was the project manager and designer for the Temple of Liberty Exhibit which opened in the Madison Building at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The exhibit presents the competition entries from the expansion of the U.S.Capitol including the original designs for the dome designed by Thomas U. Walter. The exhibit displayed over 150 original drawings and models from the competition. *Exhibits designed with George Sexton Associates.
Gallery Exit Looking Back into Exhibits
Title Panel
Space constraints would not allow for 13 columns representing the 13 colonies so we used wall mirrors and built 6 1/2 columns to create the image of 13 when entering the exhibit.
Central Stair with Busts of Washington and Jefferson
The L'Enfant plan for Washington is the floor graphic and centerpiece for the central stairway in the exhibit hall.
Thornton Competition Entry
Senate Chamber Section
We wanted to show the relationship of the plan to the watercolor building section. To save floor space, we installed 1/2 of the floor plan and used a band of mirrors at the base of the wall to allow the visitor to see the whole plan below the section.
Original Dome Elevation and Section
The elevation was printed on a large glass panel at the same scale as the watercolor dome section. The two images were installed in-line leading to the dome cutout exit from the gallery.
Take Our Stand
StudioAmmons designed the “Take Our Stand” traveling exhibit for the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar. The exhibit opened at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond Virginia and focuses on the African-American military experience during the age of Jim Crow. The exhibit features images from the John H. Motley Collection and is designed to be packaged in a variety of ways allowing for flexibility of use in a variety of venues as it travels to various institutions.
Chesterfield County Museum
StudioAmmons worked with the staff of the Chesterfield County Museum and the Chesterfield Historical Society to design all new exhibits and artifact displays for the Museum's interior renovation. The institution's goal was to take the museum away from the look of the "county closet" and establish a cleaner and more modern look on the first floor while continuing to to use the basement for exhibiting period sets and artifacts for hands-on teaching with students.
Under a term contract for exhibit design with the USDA Forest Service, StudioAmmons worked with Lassen Volcanic Park to develop their way finding maps and orientation panels for use throughout the park.
Little Monsters Installation
A gallery installation at the Petersburg Area Art League of sculpture and drawings by Terry Ammons. The exhibit explored the idea of monsters in today's society and offered the idea that we all have a little monster inside us.
National Museum of the Civil War Soldier
StudioAmmons developed plans for the expansion of Pamplin Historical Park’s Museum of the Civil War Soldier to include a new restaurant and a boardroom/exhibit space dedicated to telling the life stories of Robert B. Pamplin Sr. and Robert B. Pamplin Jr. An interactive touch screen exhibit was developed to accompany the artifacts and to tell the Pamplins’ life stories in depth. StudioAmmons managed the project through the completion of construction.
Petersburg Downtown Visitor Exhibits
StudioAmmons developed the concept for the “Museum in the Streets” program for the City of Petersburg with a new downtown visitor information kiosk as its centerpiece. Along with the kiosk design, new building and streetscape signage is being designed and interpretive information and waysides developed that will create a unified and cohesive presentation within the downtown historic area. StudioAmmons has worked to create partnerships for much of this work with local organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, the Historic Petersburg Foundation, the Southside Virginia Council of the Arts, and the City of Petersburg.
Saint Johns Kiosk
StudioAmmons designed a series of interpretive panels for the new kiosk at St. Johns Church, an early Tidewater colonial church in King William County, Virginia. The panels tell the story of the design and construction of the Church and its history as a community landmark.
Monticello Lighting
African Americans in the Military Exhibit
Native Americans and Fire Management Exhibit
Cold War Museum Panels
Hampton Archaeology Panels
Non-Native Invasive Species Tabletop Exhibit
Westmoreland County Museum
Back to Exhibits/Museums
Museum / Exhibit Services
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Information about SCH
Our priority is to deliver high quality, safe and efficient healthcare to the people of Suffolk.
We take an informed, innovative approach to bring patients personalised, joined-up care within available resources.
Our patients are at the centre of our model of care following the concept of “no decision about me, without me”
We are committed to the "hello my name is" culture
Our services are safe and high quality
We are surpassing most of our performance targets
We receive excellent feedback from more than 95 per cent of our patients
We are working with partners to provide timely, appropriate, joined-up care
We listen to our staff and have a highly skilled, supported and motivated workforce
Suffolk Community Services - our leadership team
Suffolk Community Services cares for children and adults closer to home across the county, excluding Waveney. The services are delivered by two alliances made up of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust in the east and West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust in the west, with Suffolk GP Federation, Suffolk County Council and Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust working across both areas. In addition our community equipment service is provided by Medequip. We employ around 1,300 staff, including nurses,doctors, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, specialist clinicians, administrators and support staff.
Dr Stephen Dunn is the Chief Executive of the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Dunn joined the Trust from the NHS Trust Development Authority, where he was director of delivery and development. In this role he had oversight of the work of 24 Trusts, which gave him extensive knowledge of the challenges faced by district general hospitals across the country.
Prior to this, Dr Dunn, who has a PhD in Economics, held a variety of senior roles, including positions across the Midlands and East of England regions, within the Department of Health and HM Treasury. During his career, he has developed and implemented a range of innovative new concepts, including the first NHS operating franchise at Hinchingbrooke and the friends and family test, which was rolled out across the NHS in 2013.
Nick Hulme is the Chief Executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust and has worked in the NHS for more than 30 years. He has an outstanding record of achievement in operational management and leadership in large, complex London acute Trusts. Nick successfully brought together community and hospital based care in his previous role as Chief Executive of Croydon Health Services NHS Trust
He has worked in health and social care throughout his career. His first management role was in sexual health services before being appointed to senior leadership roles in operational and general management. Mr Hulme spent 11 years as trustee of the Terrence Higgins Trust, most recently as Chairman for three years.
David Pannell is the Chief Executive of the Suffolk GP Federation and has worked in primary care in the county since 2007. He has 20 years of experience in business and management.
Sheila Smyth is the director of community care services for Suffolk GP Federation, Chief Nurse is Martin Edwards.
Compliments recently received
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Sunbeam House Trust Chronology
Sunbeam House was originally founded in 1874 as the “Home for Crippled Children” at Bray in County Wicklow, by Lucinda Sullivan who, at the time, was the Lady Superintendent of Dublin’s Adelaide Hospital. Described as a lady “distinguished by superior cultivation of mind”, Lucinda Sullivan was an accomplished Victorian gentlewoman, an artist, writer and philanthropist, who promoted several worthy causes, including temperance, women’s welfare and the welfare of children. Founded in the tradition of Protestant philanthropy, the Cripples Home was the first institution of its kind in Ireland and for over fifty years provided residential care and treatment for children with a range of crippling childhood diseases, including rickets, tuberculosis of the spine and joints and paralysis due to injury.
When exposure to sunlight and fresh air became popular treatment for tuberculosis and diseases like rickets in the interwar years, the Crippled Home developed a sunlight balcony for heliotherapy and became Sunbeam House. However, with the decline in tuberculosis and diseases associated with poor nutrition in the 1950s, Sunbeam House once again adapted to changing patterns of childhood diseases and changed its function to become a children’s convalescent home and a welfare home for orphaned children. Throughout this period, Sunbeam House remained an integral part of a wider Protestant welfare network.
With the Irish state’s historic reliance on voluntary organisations in providing essential health and welfare services, Sunbeam House was ideally placed to respond to new thinking about intellectual disability including the need of schooling for those with a “mild mental handicap” and in 1958, once again changed its function to become a home for the mentally handicapped. The transformation of Sunbeam House into a residential home and school for intellectually disabled children was brought about by the government’s need to respond to societal expectations regarding the care of the intellectually disabled and, in the case of Sunbeam House, by the needs of the Protestant community at that time.
When it becomes apparent to the authorities at Sunbeam House in the mid-1970s that there were few opportunities for intellectually disabled school leavers, the Governors established an adult training service and a range of support and services.
© 2019 | Sunbeam House Trust is registered in Dublin; Reg. No. CHY 1679, Bray, Co. Wicklow | admin@sunbeamtrust.ie
We use cookies to give you best possible experience on our site. By using our site, you agree to the use of these cookies as described in our privacy policy.AcceptRead more
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Trump falsely claims he created thousands of new jobs, and news outlets lap it up
January 2nd, 2017 | Ian Millhiser
It was a huge announcement. An announcement so full of winning that we may even get tired of winning.
“Because of what’s happening and the spirit and the hope,” President-elect Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday, “I was just called by the head people at Sprint and they’re going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States.”
And just in case there’s any doubt about who deserves credit for these jobs, Trump was happy to take it. “I just spoke with the head person,” Trump claimed, “he said because of me they’re doing 5,000 jobs in this country.”
There’s just one problem. It’s not true. Or, at least, the suggestion that Trump is responsible for new, previously unannounced jobs is not true. The jobs are coming to the United States, but they are coming as part of a series of investments that were first announced in mid-October.
Sprint’s parent company, SoftBank, said in October that it would partner with a Saudi sovereign wealth fund to invest about $100 billion in the tech sector. On December 6, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son told Trump the company would use some of these funds to bring 50,000 jobs to the United States. Trump promptly announced as much on Twitter.
SoftBank confirmed to the tech news site Engadget that the 5,000 jobs Trump took credit for on Wednesday are “part of the 50,000 jobs that Masa previously announced.” The company added that the 50,000 jobs “will be a combination of newly created jobs and bringing some existing jobs back to the U.S.”
Yet, despite the fact that the 5,000 jobs Trump took credit for on Wednesday were already announced earlier this month and are part of a series of investments that were themselves announced in mid-October, numerous headlines presented Trump’s claim as fact.
Media critic Oliver Willis rounded up some of the headlines that emerged shortly after Trump’s attempt to take credit for 5,000 new jobs. Here, for example, is USAToday:
And here is CNN:
And here’s the Washington Post:
In fairness, some of these outlets reported additional details about what actually happened in the body of their stories, although the many news consumers who only read these headlines would still be mislead. Some outlets also published far more informative headlines. Here, for example, is Bloomberg:
Sprint, it should be noted, helped Trump push a favorable line. “We are excited to work with President-Elect Trump and his Administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S.,” Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said in a statement included in that release.
It’s also worth noting that Sprint has an incentive to help Trump use already-announced news to bolster his approval ratings. The company attempted a merger with its rival T-Mobile, but abandoned that effort in 2014 due to antitrust issues raised by the Federal Communications Commission.
After Trump takes power, however, Sprint could attempt to revive this effort under the new administration.
This blog originally appeared in ThinkProgress.org on December 29, 2016. Reprinted with permission.
Ian Millhiser is the Justice Editor at ThinkProgress. He is a skeptic of the Supreme Court, hater of Samuel Alito, and a constitutional lawyer of ill repute. Contact him at imillhiser@thinkprogress.org.
Tags: economic growth, job creation
This entry was posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2017 at 2:16 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Dwain Chambers set for London 2012
8:19 PM Unknown
Dwain Chambers is set for a sensational return to the Olympics after the British Olympic Association (BOA) privately conceded defeat in their bid to retain the controversial drug cheat bylaw. Chambers, who tested positive for systematic use of anabolic steroids, will be free to compete at this summer's London Olympics when, as expected, the bylaw that prevents drug cheats from wearing the Team GB vest at an Olympic Games is ruled unlawful by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The sprinter has already served his two-year ban from the World Anti-Doping Agency and there will now be nothing to prevent him from being selected for Team GB at the Games.
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Home » TIMag.com news » Tournaments/Events » 5th anniversary for Malaysian Open
5th anniversary for Malaysian Open
Celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2013, the US$984,300 Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur announces the first marquee players who will play in the ATP 250 tennis tournament, from September 21 to 29, at Stadium Putra, Bukit Jalil. The world’s third ranked David Ferrer will be joined by the popular defending champion Juan Monaco of Argentina, and the world No. 10, Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland.
The Tournament Patron is YABhg. Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor, wife of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, with the tournament once again being strongly supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Malaysia.
“Celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur as our country celebrates ‘Visit Malaysia Year 2014’, it is only fitting that David Ferrer, the world’s third ranked player, has already confirmed his participation, along with our popular defending Champion Juan Monaco of Argentina and a new face for us in KL, Stanislas Wawrinka,” said YB Dato’ Seri Mohamed Nazri bin Abdul Aziz, Minister of Tourism and Culture, Malaysia
“The tournament has established itself as a fan favourite, a favourite amongst players and is one of the most televised and marketed ATP 250’s on the Tour. This tournament showcases Malaysia in the finest possible light and the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Malaysia, is proud of what has been achieved in such a short time and looks forward to even greater domestic and world-wide promotional success in the years ahead.”
Ferrer, this year a French Open finalist, Australian Open semi-finalist and recent Wimbledon quarter-finalist, holds 20 career titles and has reached another 19 finals. The softly spoken 31 year old has won 2013 titles in Auckland and Buenos Aires. He reached the French Open final without dropping a set, was also a finalist at the ATP Masters 1000 in Miami and Acapulco, a semi-finalist in Doha and a quarter-finalist at the ATP Masters 1000s in Rome and Madrid.
In 2012 he won a Tour best seven titles from eight finals and is one of a very few active players to have won titles on all four major surfaces - clay, hard, grass and indoors. And, he has wins over some of the biggest names in tennis including Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
“I am looking forward to come back to Kuala Lumpur, I have a very good time last year, no, and I hope, maybe, I will do more good results when I come back,” said Ferrer, speaking at the Championships, Wimbledon. “Everyone at the tournament is very, very good, is a nice atmosphere and the city is very good. I have been to Kuala Lumpur few times and I always feel very comfortable.”
In a fantastic final last year, Juan Monaco scored a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Julien Benneteau of France in a match that lasted more than three hours. The tennis played was of the highest level and the thousands of fans that were there to watch the action were on the edge of their seats during the thrilling points. It was Monaco’s first visit to Kuala Lumpur and certainly winning the title left an added impression on the charming and accessible Argentine.
This year Monaco won in Dusseldorf made the semis in Houston and the quarters in Barcelona. He has been ranked as high as No.10 and is currently 20. He holds eight career titles and reached another nine finals. Last year along with winning the Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur, Monaco claimed another three titles.
“Last year was a great experience for me in Kuala Lumpur,” said Monaco. “I came to the city and didn’t know what to expect and when I left I had a title in my hands and I feel I made many new friends. It is a very nice city. I saw a few things when I was there and it was great, but most of my time was at the stadium or the hotel because I had to concentrate for my matches. I am looking forward to coming back again.”
Wawrinka has stunned many of the biggest names in tennis and can boast wins over Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Tomas Berdych, Andy Roddick and Jo Wilfried Tsonga. He is ranked 10 with his career high being nine. He has four career titles and another nine finals and this year he won Oeiras (Portugal), reached finals in s’Hertogenbosch, ATP Masters 1000 Madrid and Buenos Aires, made the semis in Casablanca and the quarters at the French Open and Chennai.
The Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur is sanctioned by the Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia. In addition to the distinguished support of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Malaysia and Tourism Malaysia, the event is proud to have prestigious sponsors that include Rado, CNN International, the DoubleTree by Hilton Kuala Lumpur, Wilson, 100 Plus, the Albukhary Foundation, Astro, Starbucks and the ATP World Tour’s Premier Partner Corona and Platinum Partner Ricoh.
Said Tournament Director Nick Freyer of organisers IMG, “I want to take this opportunity to thank all our loyal sponsors. We are thrilled they have come back to join us during our fifth anniversary. To celebrate the tournaments milestone anniversary we will have 500 tournament shirts to give away daily over the last five days (25 to 29 Sept) and we will once again have the daily ‘Catch the Ball’ competition with prizes to be won in addition to new attractions at our interactive area and a photo gallery celebrating the history of the tournament. Last year our best reserved seats were sold out for the weekend and I am confident that with the players announced today, and with further good news possible when the full entry list is announced, I am confident that we have exciting times ahead of us.”
The Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur has a new vivid and fun official website MalaysianOpenTennis.com which highlights everything to do with the tournament. There is also the tournament’s official Facebook page which is facebook.com/MalaysianOpen.KualaLumpur and of course the tournament is on Twitter and can be found at twitter.com/#!/KLopentennis.
Tickets go on sale today and prices remain very reasonable and range from RM 10 to RM 120 and there will be free admission between Saturday 21 and Tuesday 24 September. Tickets can be purchased on-line through the event’s flash website malaysianopentennis.com/2013/tickets.php or through the ticket hotline at TicketCharge Ph: 603-92228811
For more information on the tournament, visit MalaysianOpenTennis.com
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For most players it wouldn't be such a big deal, but it's hard to believe that Roger Federer hadn't won a title since the Australian Open.
Failure to defend either his French Open or Wimbledon crowns dropped him down to #3 in the world, a streak of twenty-three straight Slam semis came to an end. He had chances, but championship losses in Madrid and Toronto kept the rosters clear of his name all spring and summer.
Until today.
Clearly he was the favorite against American Mardy Fish on Sunday -- the two had played each other six times and Federer had won all but one of those matches. While Fish had endured some tight and long matches in the days leading up to the finals, Roger had an easy week, winning his opening round when Denis Istomin retired in the first set and his second after Philipp Kohlschreiber gave him the walkover. He spent only about an hour on court last night with Marcos Baghdatis before winning that match, 6-4, 6-3.
But for his first championship since February, it would not be an easy battle. Fish came out firing, serving ten aces in the first set and saving all four of Roger's break chances. Things stayed close in the tiebreak, but a couple big points went Mardy's way and the heavy underdog found himself with an early lead.
Things stayed close in the next set too. Fish actually raised the level of his game and didn't even allow the defending champion a look on his serve while earning his own break opportunity. But after about two hours of play, both players were still on serve and Roger had evened the score with some dominating tiebreak play.
At that point, you had like Swiss's chance to take home the title. Mardy stayed strong, though, and kept the match close, actually upping his return percentage on Federer's serve and making his second attempts a bit more formidable. But when Roger finally converted on his fifth break opportunity, you knew the jig was up.
"I just think overall I was really consistent on my serve," Federer said after the match. "I had the upper hand from the baseline. You know, he had to start taking chances...I've been playing well the last couple weeks, and today was just proof that I'm playing really well."
The victory couldn't have come at a better time -- with the U.S. Open now just a week away, Federer must be glad he reasserted himself as the top contender. When asked if Federer was the man to beat in New York, Fish had this to say:
"He's just been there so many times -- clearly he loves the U.S. Open. He's made the finals there six times in a row and won five of those. His record is incredible in Grand Slams -- I feel like he's a different player even in Grand Slams as opposed to even Masters 1000 tournaments."
All evidence suggests that is certainly the case. With sixteen Majors to his name -- and now seventeen Masters -- it certainly looks like few will be able to get by him. And just in case you had started to discount him, his performance today should do a lot to set you straight
Posted by Kavitha at 4:36 PM
Labels: Cincinnati, Mardy Fish, Roger Federer
Semifinal Predictions: U.S. Open
Blogcast: U.S. Open Preview
Blogcast: Just Whetting Your Appetite
The Workhorse
A Long Road Home
The Teenybopper
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Return of the Man
You know the feeling when you comeback to work after a long vacation and it seems like everything has changed? Your passwords don't work, your desk is on the other side of the floor, you're now reporting to a new manager?
Well a lot has happened in the eight months since we last saw Juan Martin Del Potro in Australia. Roger Federer reclaimed the title in Melbourne after a three year absense, Rafael Nadal, once only the king of clay is now riding a twenty-one match Grand Slam win streak. Some new faces grace the top ten -- Mikhail Youzhny, Tomas Berdych -- while some previously unstoppable players -- Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Roddick -- seem to be just holding on to their spots.
It is into this much-changed world where DelPo will be making his return this week at the Thailand Open.
The 2009 U.S. Open champion, a staple on the American hardcourts over the last few years, pulled out of multiple Masters events in the late winter and spring due to a wrist injury and then announced he'd miss the entire summer after opting for surgery on that wrist. Without even stepping on a court he climbed to a career high rank of #4 in the world back in January, but unable to defend titles in Washington and New York, has since falling out of the top thirty.
He's still given a fifth seed in Bangkok, though, and has a wholly winnable first round against Olivier Rochus. But things get only tougher from there, as Nadal, Fernando Verdasco and another rising star Jurgen Melzer are all in the draw and they've all spent more than a few hours on the courts this year. It's not the best surface on which to launch a comeback -- hardcourts are notorilously brutal on your body -- but it's where Del Potro thrives, having won five of his seven titles on it. And, although it been a while since we've seen him, it's hard to forget the fight he's able to put up. It sure would be great to see him get a few wins in his first tournament back.
It'll be a long road for Juan Martin to get back in the top ten, and though it could be a long shot to do so by the end of the year, I don't think we'll wait long for this champion to climb into the elite again. And whatever his results in Bangkok, it'll be great to see him back on Tour.
At six-foot-six, he might be hard to miss, but I certainly have.
Posted by Kavitha at 8:36 AM
Labels: Bangkok, Juan Martin Del Potro
An Embarrassment of Riches
Seeds of Change
The National Heroes
Separated at Birth -- U.S. Open Edition
The Grandest of Slams
Over the Radar?
Blackjack!
One to Go...
And Then There Were Four...
The Match No One Cares About, and Why You Should
Time-Out: U.S. Open Reassessment
Keeping Focus Amid the Storm
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Home / awards / golden globes / news / winners / "Boyhood" wins big at Golden Globes 2015
"Boyhood" wins big at Golden Globes 2015
Cinema Online Monday, January 12, 2015 awards, golden globes, news, winners
The 72nd Golden Globe Awards has just wrapped up its show for the year, with “Boyhood” winning the awards’ top honours.
Golden Globes 2015, hosted by returning hosts Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, sees the Richard Linklater film take home the awards for Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role In A Motion Picture, and Best Director Motion Picture.
Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking.
Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore won the best actor and best actress awards, respectively; Redmayne winning for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” and Moore for her role as the titular character in “Still Alice”.
With the Sony hack attack and the big issue “The Interview” has raised, it was no surprise to see Korean-American actress Margaret Cho joining the hosts onstage as a North Korean army general, Cho Yung Ja.
However, Daily Mail reports that not all were happy with the joke. Several posts online has popped up accusing Cho of promoting racist stereotypes.
(Photo source: dailymail.co.uk)
The awards took place today at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California
The winners list is as follows:
Best Motion Picture Drama: "Boyhood" (IFC Films)
Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture Drama: Julianne Moore - "Still Alice"
Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture Drama: Eddie Redmayne - "The Theory of Everything"
Best Motion Picture Comedy Or Musical: "The Grand Budapest Hotel" (Fox Searchlight)
Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture Comedy Or Musical: Amy Adams – "Big Eyes"
Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture Comedy Or Musical: Michael Keaton - "Birdman"
Best Animated Feature Film: "How to Train a Dragon 2" (DreamWorks Animation)
Best Foreign Language Film: "Leviathan" – Russia (Sony Pictures Classics)
Best Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role In A Motion Picture: Patricia Arquette - "Boyhood"
Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role In A Motion Picture: J.K. Simmons - "Whiplash"
Best Director Motion Picture: Richard Linklater - "Boyhood"
Best Screenplay Motion Picture: Alejandro Inarritu, Nicolas Gabon, Armando Bo, Alexander Dinelaris - "Birdman"
Best Original Score Motion Picture: Johann Johannsoon - "The Theory of Everything"
Best Original Song Motion Picture: “Glory” – Selma
Music and Lyrics by John Legend, Common
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Review: The Wolf Among Us Season One
Telltale captured the world's attention with its first season of the episodic, narrative-based game, The Walking Dead, so it likely surprised no one that it managed to warrant a second season, (which I've enjoyed quite a bit as noted in my reviews of episodes one/two and three). However, it was probably more surprising that their next game would feature a completely different (and easily less well-known) property, the graphic novel Fables.
Likely due to the Xbox-exclusive series, Fable, having too similar a name, Telltale had to use the lengthier title The Wolf Among Us. It's a great double entendre that plays well with the mysterious, 1980s noir-influenced setting, but it's still never going to be as widely recognized as its zombie-infested sister series. Even so, it's absolutely worth your time, as it uses Telltale's proven method of interactive storytelling to deliver a very mature and twisted tale of politics, sex, backstabbing and murder set in a strange burrow of New York City inhabited by fairytale characters many of us haven't seen since we were kids.
Trust me, though, you might not recognize them this time around.
NO-SPOILERS
If you haven't played The Wolf Among Us yet, I'll keep this review spoiler-free so you can get a better sense as to whether or not you might want to pick up the game.
The Wolf Among Us stars Bigby Wolf (the big, bad wolf), who manages to check the box of just about every hard-boiled, film noir detective cliche, as he attempts to solve a series of murders in Fabletown. Along the way, you'll direct Bigby as he works with Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Toad, the Magic Mirror, and many other fairy tale characters to unravel the nefarious plot against Fabletown's unique citizens.
There have been a few updates and additions to the interface, both visually and control-wise, which give Wolf a little more polish than its predecessor. On the flip-side, though, the technical problems that plague most of Telltale's games are arguably a little more present here, which is disappointing (I played on PS3; your mileage may vary on other platforms).
The tradeoff for getting a few more hiccups or disruptive loading screens, however, is an easily more beautiful game. The aforementioned noir aesthetic pops in hues of blue, yellow, red, and more in game almost entirely set at night. It's striking and hauntingly gorgeous, providing the perfect backdrop for this most unusual of hard-boiled detectives.
As a fan of ABC's show Once Upon a Time, which also puts a mashup of fairy tale characters in a real-life setting, I wasn't sure what to expect from the Fables universe. The reality is that these two properties are wildly different, with Fables occupying a much grittier and mature headspace that Once Upon a Time forgoes in favor of a idealistic tapestry of heroes and villains, good and evil.
Bigby Wolf, depending on how you play his story, might have a few heroic moments, but Fables is a world firmly rooted in shades of grey and unsavory interpretations of nearly anyone who's graced the pages of a children's storybook. You won't enjoy many of the decisions the game forces you to make, which captures the true art of Telltale's new method of interactive storytelling: you will feel the weight of these decisions.
The story on offer here is one of murder, betrayal, sexual fetish, prostitution, drug trafficking, politics, and societal class struggles; younger players need not apply. Over the course of its five episodes, Wolf will keep you guessing more than a few times, so expect a winding narrative with a few good twists along the way.
The pacing stays pretty consistent throughout the five-episode season, but episode four is a noticeable dip in the excitement. Otherwise, there is a good balance of investigation, interrogation, and intimidation that offers a number of points in the story where you, as the player, can choose what to investigate first, as well as shape the type of detective Bigby Wolf will ultimately turn out to be.
I'll admit that I found the ultimate villain's motivations to be a little confusing. I won't reveal the identity of the character, but he/she is certainly a lesser-known character with minimal backstory outside of this universe. Perhaps finding someone with a relatively blank canvas was a purposeful decision on the part of the writers, but I found interactions with known characters to be more impactful.
Still, it's quite clear from the ending that the story doesn't end here; we may get more clarity around some of the final events, hopefully, in a second season.
Wolf is also notable as a much more violent game than The Walking Dead (which admittedly covers a more gruesome topic).
Nearly every episode features at least one big fight scene, controlled through a more dynamic set of on-screen prompts than The Walking Dead's first season offered. Because the Fables characters can withstand much more physical pain (and heal quickly, a la Wolverine), these can be (literally, in some cases), bone-breaking affairs that may make some players cringe.
A side effect of the quick healing, though, it sometimes felt like the over-the-top violence was just a way to counteract the fact that most altercations were a little lower-stakes. When you know that a character can come back from a smashed skull, things just don't pack the same punch.
Ultimately, I enjoyed seeing Telltale get a chance to flex their creative muscle in a different (although perhaps just as intense) world. Their game engine may not be completely perfect, but it's a great vehicle for delivering interactive experiences that blend the best of active and passive storytelling.
Fellow games developer Quantic Dream released the "interactive drama" game, Heavy Rain, in 2010. While far more photorealistic, the engine powering that game allowed for a similar type of "choose-your-own adventure" story that Telltale has master. Studio lead David Cage hinted at the possibility of using that engine to continue delivering more stories. While we eventually got the less-well-received Beyond: Two Souls from that studio in 2013, no such episodic gaming ever came out of Quantic Dream.
Telltale, on the other hand, continues to deliver bite-sized, impactful experiences each year, doled out in sub-two-hour episodes that can either be enjoyed as they release or as "binge" gaming sessions later. The most surprising thing is that more studios haven't explored this space, as it's a welcome diversion from the shooter-saturated gaming landscape.
The Wolf Among Us, more than anything, proves that The Walking Dead was not a fluke: Telltale knows what they're doing here, leading the charge in the industry for a new type of entertainment. We may look back at these games in five or ten years' time as the early turning point in games becoming the medium of choice for impactful, story-driven experiences. And that's about the highest praise I can offer here; consider this game wholeheartedly recommended.
Reviewed on PlayStation 3 using retail codes purchased on PlayStation Network. Completed all five episodes on a single playthrough of the story.
Posted in Reviews
tagged with Telltale, The Wolf Among Us, Microsoft, Xbox, Sony, PlayStation, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One
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A Blog by Jonathan Low
How A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won't Be Assembled In the US
The supply turns out to be more fragile than perceived. And a compliant workforce is hard to find in modern democracies. JL
Jack Nicas reports in the New York Times:
Apple has found that no country, and certainly not the United States, can match China’s scale, skills, infrastructure and cost. “In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields.” Chinese factories have shifts working at all hours, if necessary, and workers are sometimes roused from their sleep to meet production goals. That was not an option in Texas.“China is not just cheap. It’s a place where, because it’s an authoritarian government, you can marshal 100,000 people to work all night for you. “That has become an essential part of the product-rollout strategy.”
Despite a trade war between the United States and China and past admonishments from President Trump “to start building their damn computers and things in this country,” Apple is unlikely to bring its manufacturing closer to home.
A tiny screw illustrates why.
In 2012, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, went on prime-time television to announce that Apple would make a Mac computer in the United States. It would be the first Apple product in years to be manufactured by American workers, and the top-of-the-line Mac Pro would come with an unusual inscription: “Assembled in USA.”
But when Apple began making the $3,000 computer in Austin, Tex., it struggled to find enough screws, according to three people who worked on the project and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements.
In China, Apple relied on factories that can produce vast quantities of custom screws on short notice. In Texas, where they say everything is bigger, it turned out the screw suppliers were not.
Tests of new versions of the computer were hamstrung because a 20-employee machine shop that Apple’s manufacturing contractor was relying on could produce at most 1,000 screws a day.
The screw shortage was one of several problems that postponed sales of the computer for months, the people who worked on the project said. By the time the computer was ready for mass production, Apple had ordered screws from China.
The challenges in Texas illustrate problems that Apple would face if it tried to move a significant amount of manufacturing out of China. Apple has found that no country — and certainly not the United States — can match China’s combination of scale, skills, infrastructure and cost.
In China, you will also find one of Apple’s most important markets, and over the last month the risks that come with that dependence have become apparent. On Jan. 2, Apple said it would miss earnings expectations for the first time in 16 years, mostly because of slowing iPhone sales in China. On Tuesday, the company is expected to reveal more details about its financial results for the most recent quarter and its forecast for the coming year.
The company could face more financial pressure if the Trump administration places tariffs on phones made in China — something the president has threatened to do.
Apple has intensified a search for ways to diversify its supply chain, but that hunt has homed in on India and Vietnam, according to an Apple executive who asked not to be named because the executive was not authorized to speak publicly. The company’s executives are increasingly worried that its heavy dependence on China for manufacturing is risky amid the country’s rising political tensions with the United States and unpredictability, this person said.
“The skill here is just incredible,” Mr. Cook said at a conference in China in late 2017. Making Apple products requires state-of-the-art machines and lots of people who know how to run them, he said.
“In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room,” he said. “In China, you could fill multiple football fields.”
Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman, said the company was “an engine of economic growth in the United States” that spent $60 billion last year with 9,000 American suppliers, helping to support 450,000 jobs. Apple’s Texas manufacturer, Flextronics, did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Cook helped lead Apple’s shift to foreign manufacturing in 2004, a move that cut costs and provided the enormous scale necessary to produce some of history’s best-selling tech products.
Apple contracted much of the work to enormous factories in China, some stretching miles and employing hundreds of thousands of people who assemble, test and package Apple products. That assembly includes parts made around the world — from Norway to the Philippines to Pocatello, Idaho — that are shipped to China.
The final assembly is the most labor-intensive part of building the iPhone, and its location often determines a product’s country of origin for tariffs.
Mr. Cook often bristles at the notion that iPhones are Chinese-made. Apple points out that Corning, at a factory in Kentucky, makes many iPhone screens and that a company in Allen, Tex., makes laser technology for the iPhones’ facial-recognition system.
Mr. Cook has also disputed that cheap labor is the reason Apple is still in China. But it doesn’t hurt. The minimum wage in Zhengzhou, China, home of the world’s biggest iPhone factory, is roughly $2.10 an hour, including benefits. Apple said the starting pay for workers assembling its products there was about $3.15 an hour. Compensation for similar jobs in the United States is significantly higher.
While it was one of Apple’s most powerful computers, the American-made Mac Pro also turned out to be one of its most expensive.
Chinese suppliers shipped their components to Texas. But in some cases, the Texas team needed new parts as designs changed, and engineers who were tasked with designing the computer found themselves calling machine shops in central Texas.
That is how they found Stephen Melo, the owner and president of Caldwell Manufacturing in Lockhart. Employees of Flextronics, the company hired by Apple to build the computers, in turn hired Caldwell to make 28,000 screws — though they would have liked more.
When Mr. Melo bought Caldwell in 2002, it was capable of the high-volume production Apple needed. But demand for that had dried up as manufacturing moved to China. He said he had replaced the old stamping presses that could mass-produce screws with machines designed for more precise, specialized jobs.Mr. Melo thought it was ironic that Apple, a leader in offshore manufacturing, had come calling with a big order. “It’s hard to invest for that in the U.S. because that stuff is purchased very cheaply overseas,” he said.
He made do with his new machines, although he could not make the exact screws Apple wanted. His company delivered 28,000 screws over 22 trips. Mr. Melo often made the one-hour drive himself in his Lexus sedan.
A former Apple manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the Flextronics team had also been far smaller than what he typically found on similar Apple projects in China. It was unclear exactly why the project was understaffed, the manager said, speculating that it was because American workers were more expensive.
The manager said similar Apple jobs in China would include a roomful of people working to ensure that all materials were in place for production. In Texas, it was one worker, who often seemed overwhelmed, the manager said. As a result, materials were regularly out of place or late, contributing to delays.
Another frustration with manufacturing in Texas: American workers won’t work around the clock. Chinese factories have shifts working at all hours, if necessary, and workers are sometimes even roused from their sleep to meet production goals. That was not an option in Texas.
“China is not just cheap. It’s a place where, because it’s an authoritarian government, you can marshal 100,000 people to work all night for you,” said Susan Helper, an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the former chief economist at the Commerce Department. “That has become an essential part of the product-rollout strategy.”
Ms. Helper said Apple could make more products in the United States if it invested significant time and money and relied more on robotics and specialized engineers instead of large numbers of low-wage line workers. She said government and industry would also need to improve job training and promote the development of a supply-chain infrastructure.
But, she added, there is a low chance of all that happening.
Apple still assembles Mac Pros at the factory on the outskirts of Austin, in part because it has already invested in complicated and custom machines. But the Mac Pro has been a slow seller, and Apple has not updated it since its introduction in 2013.
In December, Apple announced that it would add up to 15,000 workers in Austin, just miles from the Mac Pro plant. None of the new jobs are expected to be in manufacturing.
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As a Partner and Co-Founder of Predictiv and PredictivAsia, Jon specializes in management performance and organizational effectiveness for both domestic and international clients. He is an editor and author whose works include Invisible Advantage: How Intangilbles are Driving Business Performance.
jon@thelowdownblog.com
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Seagrape - Singer Island Condos
We'll help you find your dream home!
Seagrape - Singer Island
Seagrape
Seagrape Info
Seagrape is a fabulous oceanfront condominium building located in beautiful Singer Island, Florida. Seagrape is a true paradise with a lush putting green, enchanting bike trail, serene picnic area, relaxing sauna, fitness facilities, enjoyable tennis court, a refreshing swimming pool, and more. Seagrape is conveniently located just minutes from Singer Islands best gourmet restaurants, sensational shopping, enjoyable outdoor recreations, and the stunning Atlantic Ocean.
Real estate in Seagrape is excellent featuring wonderful condominiums with impeccable ocean intra-coastal views. Living in paradise is made simple at Seagrape with amazing community amenities, gorgeous water views, and stunning real estate.
If you are interested in homes in Seagrape or in the Singer Island area, contact Distinct Estates.
Browse Seagrape Real Estate Listings
There are a lot of great homes in Seagrape. You can view the properties below by clicking on the full listing or the picture.
Seagrape Homes | Land | Rentals | Sold | Map
Seagrape Condominium Singer Island, FL 33404
1200 Living Sq Ft
Ocean! Direct Ocean view redone unit at Seagrape. Totally upgraded, tile floors, open kitchen, gran... more
For more information on any homes you see
call (561) 910-0158 or email us.
Information in regards to Singer Island real estate and Seagrape homes for sale or other listings may have come from a cooperateive data exchange service. All rights reserved. Information deemed to be reliable but not guaranteed. The data relating to real estate for sale on this website comes in part from a cooperative data exchange program of the multiple listing service (MLS) in which this real estate firm (Broker) participates. Listing broker has attempted to offer accurate data, but buyers are advised to confirm all items. We provide all information about Singer Island homes for sale and Seagrape real estate or other listings as is with absolutely no warranties. This site will be monitored for 'scraping' and any use of search facilities of data on the site other than by a consumer looking to purchase real estate, is prohibited. Feel free to contact our agents to find a great Seagrape Singer Island specialist.
Local School Info
All Types Single Family Townhome Condo Land Rental
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Bedrooms: Min Beds 1+ ba 2+ ba 3+ ba 4+ ba
Bathrooms: Min Baths 1+ bd 2+ bd 3+ bd 4+ bd
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Seagrape is a great community here in Singer Island, but you can use our Singer Island homes for sale site if you would like to see more homes here in Jupiter.
More Local Singer Island area communities:
Villa Towers | Dunes Towers | Reaches Singer Island Condos | Phoenix Towers | Via Delfino
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Providing job opportunities for English youth in rural Quebec
Posted By: Irwin Block February 28, 2019
Assisting young people by enhancing their education with practical training and getting at-risk youth local work can strengthen their well-being and enrich Quebec’s English-speaking communities.
These goals are at the heart of two projects, supported by the federal government’s $1 million Social Partnership Development Program. They provide educational and work opportunities for youth in the Magdalen Islands and Quebec City.
They have been awarded grants from Community Innovation Fund, managed by the Quebec Community Groups Network. The Magdalen Islands, a five-hour ferry ride from PEI, is home to one of the most isolated English-speaking communities in Quebec. It has 675 residents who in the 2016 Census gave English as their mother tongue, 5.7 per cent of the total population.
“We’ve been here since the 1800s and most of the population are fishermen or employed by the fishing industry,” says Helena Burke, executive director of the Council for Anglophone Magdalen Islanders Providing job opportunities for English youth in rural Quebec (CAMI), created in 1987 to defend the rights of English speakers.
The need to expand employment possibilities for young people is a way to maintain population levels. Burke recalled that when she graduated from high school in 1997 there were 100 students from prekindergarten to Secondary V compared to current total of 45 students.
The decline in numbers underlines the importance of programs to encourage youth to find reasons to stay, she noted. More than 90 per cent of English speakers live in Old Harry, Entry Island, or Grosse Île, where Burke grew up and still lives. With its $105,000 grant over two years, supplemented by local funding, CAMI’s youth program began in June 2017 with two objectives – to expose youth to careers other than the fishery and use local human resources to provide training and possibly future employment.
As Burke noted, they already know how to fish. One of the mentoring programs teaches how to build fiberglass boats, useful and profitable during the long winter. Three local firms are always looking for skilled labour.
“They’ve got a waiting list a mile long for new boats,” Burke said. Under the program, students also are taught carpentry and small motor repair. “These are useful hands-on skills,” Burke said.
“You might fish for two or three months of the year, but the rest of the time you could be using trade skills,” Burke said. Some 15 students have taken part, most in the three last years of high school. Local businesses that are always looking for skilled workers were recruited, and the project made it even more attractive for them to participate.
“Initially, we paid the businesses to host the students, provide proper training and mentorships, and as part of the deal we asked them to pay the students the minimum wage. This was an added incentive for the students, who have few opportunities for extra work on the islands,” Burke said.
A total of four students had remunerated work, with the focus on boat building. This year the program is incorporated into the regular high-school curriculum, the course where students learn about different careers.
Since it’s part of the school program, students were not paid. The focus was carpentry. “They started building benches and will sell them to the community and the money collected will be re-injected into the program to buy materials,” Burke said.
Students also built a greenhouse and garden boxes and were taught how to use them to grow vegetables. The project will be looking for additional funding when the fiscal year wraps up March 31, Burke said. In Quebec City, the Voice of English-Speaking Quebec, founded in 1982 to advocate for and strengthen the community, was awarded a total of $123,64 over two years for its innovation grant.
Initially the project was designed to foster employability skills for special needs youth in partnership with local businesses. It was judged to be the kind of innovative program that was necessary for this community of 15,270 Anglophones.
Brigitte Wellens, executive director of Voice of English-speaking Quebec, explained that clientele soon expanded beyond young people on the autism spectrum or with disabilities to include at-risk youth coping with addiction, socioeconomic, family, or mental health issues. In its first year, the project offered ten work opportunities for four special-needs youth and placements for nine this year so far, project coordinator Dominique Paddack said. The age range is 16 to 26, and the first work opportunities were community events such as festivals and the Christmas basket campaign.
“One high-school student got to work 20 hours a week with a residential cleaning company, which gave him eight months of experience last year. Now he’s on to something else – a good example of our making a link with a firm that needed workers and through a social worker at one of the local high schools, to find a part-time opportunity for a student.” The program subsidized the student’s work.
As well, four special-needs youth have been employed since June at an annual book fair, sponsored by the Eastern Quebec Learning Centre, an adult education centre in Ste. Foy. The money raised at the fair was given to the Special Needs Activities and Community Services Entrepreneurs (SNACS) for activities. The work included sorting and labelling some 25,000 books that were offered for sale.
“This type of project gives these students work experience, the chance to earn money, builds their self-esteem, and helps with their socialization,” Paddack said. Some participants have difficulty speaking French and so these opportunities enable them to work in English. Wellens noted that once specialneeds youth are out of the school system, and after they turn 21, there are no more services for them.
“For special-needs youth who would either fall under the radar or not be considered employable, there is no other organization within the English-speaking community that can address their needs and find work opportunities for them,” she said.
“This work contributes to the community’s vitality, creates awareness, allows employers to make an important social gesture by showing sensitivity to the needs of these individuals. It also provides concrete measures that address some of the needs of these youth that otherwise would not have these experiences,” Wellens concluded.
3 Comments on "Providing job opportunities for English youth in rural Quebec"
MJ | January 12, 2019 at 10:16 am | Reply
Are there 675 residents or 15,270? Should that maybe be 675 students? Or is the 15,270 a subset of Anglo-speakers in among both anglophones and francophones. Not that it matters a whole lot, but clarity does matter.
Or maybe it’s 675 “special needs” english speaking kids out of ?
Anyway, it’s good the special needs students are getting attention and help. Even though I wouldnt expect them to be out in fishing boats in the first place.
Dianna Inkster | January 17, 2019 at 7:44 pm | Reply
Lots of “special needs students” are very successful. My daughter was a Rhodes Scholar finalist for Ontario and won many, many academic prizes. She is gainfully employed in the healthcare sector in Toronto. She was born and raised in Ontario and spent 4 years in the U.S. so she doesn’t know anything about the hard life of a fisherman. Still, I’d suggest the poster look for former special needs students in all walks of life, in the fishing industry and in the physicians’ lounge. Special needs students later in life range from the very successful to the least successful.
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Positive Exchanges
For the past 10 days, Shannon’s been stalking a 1986 BMW. She’s had good feelings about the car. She’s burned a candle or two. She’s done her research, too, checking out the Vehicle Identification Number, its maintenance history, online forums by same year and same model owners.
The car itself seemed to call to her. She drove it; I drove it. It felt good inside. Solid. Positive. It felt loved.
When she called to make an offer on it the next day, she discovered that a previous contender had come back and, provided he could deliver cash or a cashier’s check, the car was sold. She was crushed, but shook it off and forced herself to stay positive.
While she waited for her rival to return with a check, she imagined herself driving that old BMW. He failed to how by Saturday and his deadline was extended until Monday and then finally until Wednesday (today). Mean- while, Shannon got to know the family who was selling the car, and they got to know her.
Last night, the deal with the rival fell through. He hadn’t worked for the money and couldn’t come up with it. Shannon had cash ready. The owner knew how much she wanted this car and they wanted her to be the new owner, even while they were honoring the deal they’d al- ready made. Once the other contender dropped out the path was clear.
She’d already had negative dealings with other car sellers, with information hidden and the deal feeling rotten to the core. Ten days ago, she’d said that if she’d bought the car whose negotiation she walked out on, she would have felt bad about the car from the beginning.
This, on the other hand, was one of the most positive business dealings I’ve ever experienced. The owner of the car, a very sweet English professor, had loved the car and really seemed to not want to part with it.
And then there was Shannon, already in love with the car and wanting it very much.
It was a deliciously sweet exchange of one precious possession being lovingly passed to someone who will love it just as much.
The energy, as we took a walk later, was extremely positive. Or as Shannon said to me, “I feel so good about this car.”
That’s the way it should be with everything.
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Rickinghall Inferior
Rickinghall Inferior CP/AP
Parish-level Unit
Total Population 1801 to 1961: Population fell from 427 in 1801 to 312 in 1961.
Occupational Structure in 1881:
Here we are presenting statistics for a historical unit, which may have changed its boundaries significantly during the period covered.
Civil Parish
F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 462.
Rickinghall Inferior CP/AP, Suffolk
We know of no alternate names.
This unit was associated with the following other units:
Nature of association
Other unit involved
was succeeded by RICKINGHALL INFERIOR EP Ecclesiastical Parish F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 462.
SUFFOLK Ancient County F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 462.
STOW PLU/RegD Poor Law Union/Reg. District F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 462.
BLACKBOURN Hundred Ancient District F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 462.
STOW RSD Sanitary District F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 462.
THEDWASTRE RD Local Government District F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 462.
WALSHAM LE WILLOWS Registration sub-District 1911 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Registration Counties, Districts and Sub-districts with their constituent civil parishes. - Urban or Rural District in which each parish is situated; Area; families or separate occupiers, and population, 1901 and 1911; and population enumerated in Institutions, large establishments, and on vessels, &c., 1911'.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, Rickinghall Inferior CP/AP through time | Census tables with data for the Parish-level Unit, A Vision of Britain through Time.
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Jee-Won Yang, investment banker
jee-won yang
Finance is such an elusive subject to most of us, and women in finance feels like another subject all together. Investment banker, Jee-Won Yang, sheds a light on the topic for us as well as sharing some tips she has on staying sane and creative in her downtime.
Share this interview:
Do you remember your first week in New York?
Yes, I do. I came here for my job back in 2004. I work in finance and had been living in London for a year studying. It was July 4th because that’s when all the ‘first years’ start and do two months of training.
What made you move from London?
I liked it there but my family is in the States so I thought it would be easier for me. I also thought if you start in finance in New York you can always move to other cities, but if you start somewhere else it’s could be more difficult to come to New York.
I came here and was pretty scared. I was very shy, I guess a “typical” Asian person, pretty passive. I wasn’t very empowered in any way so a lot of my friends, especially my male friends, were like, “You’ll probably only survive a year on the trading floor and that’s OK.”
That’s so condescending.
It’s been almost twelve years now so I’m very proud of myself. But when I first arrived New York was a scary place, I was clueless but knew that I could work hard.
There’s this feeling that because you’re in finance you have to be a certain way or dress a certain way. Be true to yourself and be comfortable, I think that’s really important because otherwise it’s not sustainable.
Were you working crazy those first few years?
I was but I also built a lot of friendships in that time because we worked such long hours together. It’s kind of like school because we have Class of 2004, Class of 2005 etc ... I’m still in touch with a lot of those people from when I started.
It was hard but it was fun at the same time because you learn so much. I do think I stayed at my job because I had a really good boss. He left a few years ago but we’re still friends. I think that’s why the first three years weren’t too bad.
What was it like being in New York at the beginning?
The city itself wasn’t so overwhelming because I grew up in Seoul, which is even crazier than New York in terms of the number of people and the traffic. I did enjoy New York a lot because I love taking photos and I used to take my camera everywhere.
It was amazing experience. The culture New York has to offer, like going to galleries and museums is amazing. Even though the job was very demanding and I worked at least one day a weekend I still managed to go out and see a lot of the city.
What do you do in finance? I just hear “finance” and I don’t know what that is.
My dad doesn’t even understand what I do. Within finance there are different departments and what I do is help companies raise money. Companies can raise money by issuing stock. I don’t do stock but I do bonds, which is kind of like a contract, like a mortgage. It’s a contract between the companies and the investors basically helping the company to borrow money from investors.
I write contracts that are a little bit more involved in terms of tax and accounting stuff but also it’s a contract that helps the company raise money with certain objectives. So if you borrow money from the bank for a mortgage your credit rating goes down, same with the company’s. I do something with bonds that make them have ‘equity like; features, it’s called a hybrid. Basically what I do is create very funky bonds.
That’s what I say in my Instagram profile because no one understands. It’s bonds, but it’s very funky.
Why did you go into finance?
Right after I graduated college with an economics degree I was doing research for a university because I thought I wanted to do a PhD. I was doing that for two years and it was very lonely.
That’s why I went to London. I did a Masters in finance for a year because I wanted to switch to something that was more in the private sector. Back then I thought I wanted to do consulting. They called it Litigation Consulting. There’s a lot of data analysis so it was very similar to what I did before in research but it’s still the private sector.
I wanted to do that so I was looking for a degree that was short and fast, a one-year degree and I always wanted to live in Europe so I applied for a few schools and one of them was in London.
I had no idea at the time but in the program I signed up to everyone wanted to be an investment banker. That’s kind of how it all happened. There wasn’t anything planned. I never thought; “I really want to be an investment banker and work on Wall Street.”
It sounds like you’ve always been creative on the side. You have your Instagram now. What led you to start it?
I started a blog when I moved to London. My parents were living in San Francisco at the time and I was very close with my mom so it was my way to show her what I was doing every day and I like to take photos. That’s how it all started.
As a student you have a little more time so I used to take photos and write what my day was like, stuff like that, all in Korean.
Now Instagram is easier for me because it doesn’t take a lot of time. It’s a way of having an outlet without having the commitment of a blog. Instagram is just tidbits of your life and I like to go back and see what I was doing a year ago. You have this wave of memories coming at you. I wanted to have some way to record what I did. I do have a photographic memory so having a photo to me is very important because it brings different memories of that day and what happened.
What about cooking? You said that you didn’t cook when you were younger so how did you get into that?
It kind of started in a sad way. My mom passed away in 2006 and she was always a very caring mom, she would do everything for me.
When I moved to New York my parents moved here as well because my dad was retired. After two years my mom passed away and my dad had always been taken care of by her. He didn’t know how to cook at all so I had to help him out.
There’s nothing tangible about my job, it’s just a piece of paper and money exchange so it’s always nice to come home and chop something or do something with my hands.
Being in New York it’s really easy to go out and eat, but for me the process of cooking and being in the kitchen is so nice. It feels like I’m in control of my life in a way.
The fact that you have a space big enough to entertain people is such a rare thing in New York. It’s so nice to take advantage of that. Did your dad get better at cooking?
No. [Laughs] He can only cook for himself to survive.
Would you ever go back to Korea?
I tried living in Hong Kong to see if I would ever want to go back to Asia. I’m sure now it’s very different, I was there from 2006-2008 and being a female in finance wasn’t a great experience there.
Culturally I feel more comfortable here. When I first arrived though it was difficult. I couldn’t understand the humor. That was the biggest gap. There’s a different sense of humor.
I do like the New York mentality of people doing their own thing. In Korea it’s all about being involved in everybody else’s lives.
What’s it like being a female in finance here?
There are a lot more females than there used to be. There’s definitely female leadership and women are very cognisant of how far we’ve come since the 1980s. So I think we try to make sure that the experience for younger female employees is actually improving.
It’s still very male dominated, but we always try to make sure that there’s good representation of females especially when we recruit.
I don’t really feel like there’s any difference in treatment between men and women. Where I work, at least, I feel very comfortable.
What’s the best piece of advice you could give?
I make certain sacrifices professionally because I do like to have a sustainable life. If that means I’m having breakfast in the morning and I’m going into the office a little bit later than other people, people that I compete with for compensation, I made that choice because it’s important for me to have that longevity.
I think that’s really important, especially in finance, because when you first start you have such a short period of time that you can dedicate to yourself.
In finance we have a saying; “It’s a fire drill”. Everything needs to be done five minutes ago. I tell my juniors that there is no such thing as a fire drill, it’s only finance, no one’s dying. Just take a step back and calm down. Don’t let people dictate how things are supposed to be done.
Do you have any favorite places to eat in city?
I like Little Owl in the West Village. It’s good food and comfortable, nothing too fancy.
Downtown there’s a wine bar called Terroir. I really like that place. Around Union Square I like those tiny little Japanese restaurants on 9th and 10th streets between 1st and 3rd avenues. There’s a place that just serves Japanese curry.
Where do you like to take out of towners?
I like the High Line. When I lived in Tribeca I loved it by the water. I always tell people they should walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s really fun.
If it’s summer and the weather is nice I love to take people to the roof at The Metropolitan Museum. Typically I just take them for a walk around and along the way go stop to eat.
What does New York mean to you?
It’s home for me now. Friends always ask me, “How can you stand living in the city?” I don’t think people understand that it’s actually a very liveable city. The reason I say that is because it can be as extravagant as you want and it can be as grounding as you want. There are so many places where you can still have a meal under $10 and I like the fact that the city allows you to do that.
Follow Jee-Won on Instagram @randomwalk_nyc
Photography by Stephanie Geddes ©
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Vendée Globe, Thomson smashes 24-hour distance record
Breaking newsEnglishIn evidenzaOceanoRecordVelaVendée Globe 16 gennaio 2017 Zerogradinord 0
sailing3478 vendée globe210
British sailor Alex Thomson today smashed the world record for the greatest distance sailed solo in 24 hours notching up 536.8 miles on his...
Atlantic Ocean – British sailor Alex Thomson today smashed the world record for the greatest distance sailed solo in 24 hours notching up 536.8 miles on his 60ft racing yacht.
Thomson, 42, is currently in second place in the Vendee Globe just 70 miles behind French race leader Armel Le Cleac’h with 1,000 miles to go to the finish line.
During the 24-hour period running up to the 0800 UTC position report he sailed his racing boat Hugo Boss at an average speed of 22.4 knots, or 25.7mph.
His 24-hour distance beats the record of 534.48 miles set by French sailor Francois Gabart in the 2012-13 edition of the Vendee Globe, a singlehanded race around the world without stopping.
Thomson was among a fleet of 29 mostly French solo sailors that set off from Les Sables d’Olonne in the Vendee region of France on November 6.
He actually bested Gabart’s record two weeks into the race, sailing 535.34 miles in 24 hours, but the rules of the record state it must be superseded by one whole mile.
He previously held the record between 2003 and 2012 with a distance of 468.72 miles. The new record will now be ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council.
Thomson is expected to arrive in Les Sables d’Olonne on Thursday after 74 days at sea. The fastest time the race has ever been completed was 78 days, set by Gabart in 2013.
If Thomson, from Hampshire in England, can overhaul Le Cleac’h before the finish line he will be the first Brit to win the race in its 27-year history.
It is the fourth time he has competed in the quadrennial Vendee Globe, which is considered among the toughest sporting challenges in the world. He finished third in the previous edition.
Atlantic Cressing, Francis Joyon sets a new record Vendée Globe, Le Cléac’h and Thomson revel in event glory Vendée Globe, simply Armel Vendée Globe, Armel Le Cléac’h admitted tension are running
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O.T.Henry Commentary Ezekiel
1:1-3, 1:4-14, 1:15-25, 1:26-28, 2:1-5, 2:6-10, 3:1-15, 3:16-21, 3:22-27, 4:1-8, 4:9-17, 5:1-4, 5:5-17, 6:1-7, 6:8-10, 6:11-14, 7:1-15, 7:16-22, 7:23-27, 8:1-6, 8:7-12, 8:13-18, 9:1-4, 9:5-11, 10:1-7, 10:8-22, 11:1-13, 11:14-22, 11:22-25, 12:1-16, 12:17-20, 12:21-28, 13:1-9, 13:10-16, 13:17-23, 14:1-11, 14:12-23, 15:1-8, 16:1-5, 16:6-14, 16:15-34, 16:35-43, 16:44-59, 16:60-63, 17:1-21, 17:22-24, 18:1-9, 18:10-20, 18:21-29, 18:30-32, 19:1-9, 19:10-14, 20:1-4, 20:5-9, 20:10-26, 20:27-32, 20:33-44, 20:45-49, 21:1-7, 21:8-17, 21:18-27, 21:28-32, 22:1-16, 22:17-22, 22:23-31, 23:1-10, 23:11-21, 23:22-35, 23:36-49, 24:1-4, 24:15-27, 25:1-7, 25:8-17, 26:1-14, 26:15-21, 27:1-25, 27:26-36, 28:1-10, 28:11-19, 28:20-26, 29:1-7, 29:8-16, 29:17-21, 30:1-19, 30:20-26, 31:1-9, 31:10-18, 32:1-16, 32:17-32, 33:1-9, 33:10-20, 33:21-29, 33:30-33, 34:1-6, 34:7-16, 34:17-31, 35:1-9, 35:10-15, 36:1-15, 36:16-24, 36:25-38, 37:1-14, 37:15-28, 38:1-13, 38:14-23, 39:1-7, 39:8-22, 39:23-29, 40:1-4, 40:1-30, 40:5-26, 40:27-38, 40:39-49, 41:1-11, 41:12-26, 42:1-14, 42:15-20, 43:1-6, 43:7-12, 43:13-27, 44:1-3, 44:4-9, 44:10-16, 44:17-31, 45:1-8, 45:9-12, 45:13-25, 46:1-15, 46:16-18, 46:19-24, 47:1-12, 47:13-23, 47:31-35,
Eze 1:1-3
The circumstances of the vision which Ezekiel saw, and in which he received his commission and instructions, are here very particularly set down, that the narrative may appear to be authentic and not romantic. It may be of use to keep an account when and where God has been pleased to manifest himself to our souls in a peculiar manner, that the return of the day, and our return to the place of the altar (Gen 13:4), may revive the pleasing grateful remembrance of God's favour to us. “Remember, O my soul! and never forget what communications of divine love thou didst receive at such a time, at such a place; tell others what God did for thee.”
I. The time when Ezekiel had this vision is here recorded. It was in the thirtieth year, v. 1. Some make it the thirtieth year of the prophet's age; being a priest, he was at that age to enter upon the full execution of the priestly office, but being debarred from that by the iniquity and calamity of the times, now that they had neither temple nor altar, God at that age called him to the dignity of a prophet. Others make it to be the thirtieth year from the beginning of the reign of Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, from which the Chaldeans began a new computation of time, as they had done from Nabonassar 123 years before. Nabopolassar reigned nineteen years, and this was the eleventh of his son, which makes the thirty. And it was proper enough for Ezekiel, when he was in Babylon, to use the computation they there used, as we in foreign countries date by the new style; and he afterwards uses the melancholy computation of his own country, observing (Eze 1:2) that it was the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity.
But the Chaldee paraphrase fixes upon another era, and says that this was the thirtieth year after Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law in the house of the sanctuary, at midnight, after the setting of the moon, in the days of Josiah the king. And it is true that this was just thirty years from that time; and that was an event so remarkable (as it put the Jewish state upon a new trial) that it was proper enough to date form it; and perhaps therefore the prophet speaks indefinitely of thirty years, as having an eye both to that event and to the Chaldean computation, which were coincident. It was in the fourth month, answering to our June, and in the fifth day of the month, that Ezekiel had this vision, Eze 1:2. It is probably that it was on the sabbath day, because we read (Eze 3:16) that at the end of seven days, which we may well suppose to be the next sabbath, the word of the Lord came to him again. Thus John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, when he saw the visions of the Almighty, Rev 1:10. God would hereby put an honour upon his sabbaths, when the enemies mocked at them, Lam 1:7. And he would thus encourage his people to keep up their attendance on the ministry of his prophets every sabbath day, by the extraordinary manifestations of himself on some sabbath days.
II. The melancholy circumstances he was in when God honoured him, and thereby favoured his people, with this vision. he was in the land of the Chaldeans, among the captives, by the river of Chebar, and it was in the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity.
Observe,
1. The people of God were now, some of them, captives in the land of the Chaldeans. The body of the Jewish nation yet remained in their own land, but these were the first-fruits of the captivity, and they were some of the best; for in Jeremiah's vision these were the good figs, whom God had sent into the land of the Chaldeans for their good (Jer 24:5); and, that it might be for their good, God raised up a prophet among them, to teach them out of the law, then when he chastened them, Psa 94:12.
Note, It is a great mercy to have the word of God brought to us, and a great duty to attend to it diligently, when we are in affliction. The word of instruction and the rod of correction may be of great service to us, in concert and concurrence with each other, the word to explain the rod and the rod to enforce the word: both together give wisdom. It is happy for a man, when he is sick and in pain, to have a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, if he have but his ear open to discipline, Job 36:10. One of the quarrels God had with the Jews, when he sent them into captivity, we for mocking his messengers and misusing his prophets; and yet, when they were suffering for this sin, he favoured them with this forfeited mercy.
It were ill with us if God did not sometimes graciously thrust upon us those means of grace and salvation which we have foolishly thrust from us. In their captivity they were destitute of ordinary helps for their souls, and therefore God raised them up these extraordinary ones; for God's children, if they be hindered in their education one way, shall have it made up another way. But observe, It was in the fifth year of the captivity that Ezekiel was raised up amongst them, and not before. So long God left them without any prophet, till they began to lament after the Lord and to complain that they saw not their signs and there was none to tell them how long (Psa 74:9), and then they would know how to value a prophet, and God's discoveries of himself to them by him would be the more acceptable and comfortable. The Jews that remained in their own land had Jeremiah with them, those that had gone into captivity had Ezekiel with them; for wherever the children of God are scattered abroad he will find out tutors for them.
2. The prophet was himself among the captives, those of them that were posted by the river Chebar; for it was by the rivers of Babylon that they sat down, and on the willow-trees by the river's side that they hanged their harps, Psa 137:1, 2. The planters in America keep along by the sides of the rivers, and perhaps those captives were employed by their masters in improving some parts of the country by the rivers' sides that were uncultivated, the natives being generally employed in war; or they employed them in manufactures, and therefore chose to fix them by the sides of rivers, that the good they made might the more easily be conveyed by water-carriage. Interpreters agree not what river this of Chebar was, but among the captives by that river Ezekiel was, and himself a captive.
Observe here, (1.) The best men, and those that are dearest to God, often share, not only in the common calamities of this life, but in the public and national judgments that are inflicted for sin; those feel the smart who contributed nothing to the guilt, by which it appears that the difference between good and bad arises not from the events that befal them, but from the temper and disposition of their spirits under them. And since not only righteous men, but prophets, share with the worst in present punishments, we may infer thence, with the greatest assurance, that there are rewards reserved for them in the future state. (2.) Words of conviction, counsel, and comfort, come best to those who are in affliction from their fellow sufferers. The captives will be best instructed by one who is a captive among them and experimentally knows their sorrows.
(3.) The spirit of prophecy was not confined to the land of Israel, but some of the brightest of divine revelations were revealed in the land of the Chaldeans, which was a happy presage of the carrying of the church, with that divine revelation upon which it is built, into the Gentile world; and, as now, so afterwards, when the gospel kingdom was to be set up, the dispersion of the Jews contributed to the spreading of the knowledge of God. (4.) Wherever we are we may keep up our communion with God. Undique ad coelos tantundem est viae - From the remotest corners of the earth we may find a way open heavenward.
(5.) When God's ministers are bound the word of the Lord is not bound, 2Ti 2:9. When St. Paul was a prisoner the gospel had a free course. When St. John was banished into the Isle of Patmos Christ visited him there. Nay, God's suffering servants have generally been treated as favourites, and their consolations have much more abounded when affliction has abounded, 2Co 1:5.
III. The discovery which God was pleased to make of himself to the prophet when he was in these circumstances, to be by him communicated to his people. He here tells us what he saw, what he heard, and what he felt.
1. He saw visions of God, Eze 1:1. No man can see God and live; but many have seen visions of God, such displays of the divine glory as have both instructed and affected them; and commonly, when God first revealed himself to any prophet, he did it by an extraordinary vision, as to Isaiah (Isa 6:1-13), to Jeremiah (ch. 1), to Abraham (Ac 7:2), to settle a correspondence and a satisfactory way of intercourse, so that there needed not afterwards a vision upon ever revelation. Ezekiel was employed in turning the hearts of the people to the Lord their God, and therefore he must himself see the visions of God. Note, It concerns those to be well acquainted with God themselves, and much affected with what they know of him, whose business it is to bring others to the knowledge and love of him. That he might see the visions of God the heavens were opened; the darkness and distance which hindered his visions were conquered, and he was let into the light of the glories of the upper world, as near and clear as if heaven had been opened to him.
2. He heard the voice of God (Eze 1:3): The word of the Lord came expressly to him, and what he saw was designed to prepare him for what he was to hear. The expression is emphatic. Essendo fuit verbum Dei - The word of the Lord was as really it was to him. There was no mistake in it; it came to him in the fulness of its light and power, in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit; it came close to him, nay, it came into him, took possession of him and dwelt in him richly. It came expressly, or accurately, to him; he did himself clearly understand what he said and was abundantly satisfied f the truth of it. The essential Word (so we may take it), the Word who is, who is what he is, came to Ezekiel, to send him on his errand.
3. He felt the power of God opening his eyes to see the visions, opening his ear to hear the voice, and opening his heart to receive both: The hand of the Lord was there upon him. Note, The hand of the Lord goes along with the word f the Lord, and so it becomes effectual; those only understand and believe the report to whom the arm of the Lord is revealed. The hand of God was upon him, as upon Moses, to cover him, that he should not be overcome by the dazzling light and lustre of the visions he saw, Exo 33:22. It was upon him (as upon St. John, Rev 1:17), to revive and support him, that he might bear up, and not faint, under these discoveries, that he might neither be lifted up nor cast down with the abundance of the revelations. God's grace is sufficient for him, and, in token of that, his hand is upon him.
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OPINION: West Virginia teacher strikes inspire educators nationwide
Published Mar 14, 2018 6:00am
Updated Mar 15, 2018 9:04am
By Alec Scott
OPINION: What the Yuma border crisis means
By Alec Scott 06/04/19 5:08pm
OPINION: Commencement is worth it!
By Mikayla Balmaceda 05/20/19 7:40pm
Brett Critchley/Dreamstime | The Daily Wildcat For several school days, a massive teachers strike has gripped every county in West Virginia, with teachers setting up picket lines on public roads and thronging the capitol to holler at state lawmakers.
For nine days, teachers in West Virginia participated in a mass walkout. They were striking against low pay, austere budgets and a state government unwilling to invest in education. After a week and a half of negotiations, the teachers returned to their posts in exchange for a 5-percent pay increase, a surprising victory for the teachers’ union.
It seems West Virginia is not the only state up in arms over poor investments in public schools, with Oklahoman teachers outraged when an attempt to give them a higher salary was defeated in the Oklahoma State House.
Even Arizona watched the events in West Virginia with bated breath, with Vox reporting, “Thousands of teachers in Arizona showed up to school Wednesday wearing red.” It was a symbol of solidarity with the strike on the other side of the nation. And if we look at the facts, Arizona teachers have lots of reasons to empathize with their West Virginian colleagues.
In 2015, the Washington Post listed states in order of funding for education. Third to last was Arizona, with only $7,208 in per-pupil spending, lower than both West Virginia ($11,132) and Oklahoma ($7,672). Even worse for the state, Arizona currently has the third highest ratio of students to teachers and is predicted to be the highest in the country in the near future, a sign of students not being prioritized by the state government.
The events in West Virginia might be particularly rough for Arizona teachers to watch; West Virginia is No. 48 in the country for paying teachers, while Arizona is No. 49.
The Arizona State House has, in the past, been more likely to support small-scale, low-budget attempts to answer the complaints of teachers. This includes House Bill 2377, which will supply teachers with a $150 tax credit to go toward purchasing school supplies. However, they have been much less interested in addressing the more hard-hitting concerns being raised.
As of today, teachers are only granted a 1-percent raise every year to help combat price inflation. The 5 percent promised to West Virginian teachers, however, has inspired a push for education reform and prioritization nationwide.
As a matter of fact, the explosion in support for “Red for Ed,” the movement in favor of increasing funding for education and supporting similar movements across the United States, has even caught labor leaders by surprise. “I’ve not see this many teachers this frustrated since I’ve been in Arizona,”said Arizona Education Association President Joe Thomas.
But the calls for a strike have not yet come. Thomas followed that quote by avoiding calling on such a direct action, and other grassroots organizations are instead focusing more on raising awareness and opposing specific measures, such as Save Our Schools Arizona, which the Phoenix New Times reported is currently fighting an attempt to transform state-funded public schools toward a voucher system.
But any optimism from West Virginia will need to be tempered by how different the two states are. While West Virginia has a population of 1.8 million people, Arizona is more than triple that, with around 7 million. A larger population means it’s more difficult to connect the many teachers across the state. That also means it would be easier to replace teachers who strike, should it not be enough to force the state government to capitulate. Part of West Virginia’s success was the smaller-scale nature of the strikes, as there are only 57 school districts statewide, compared to the over 200 in Arizona.
As both states are right-to-work states, a term used to differentiate between states with compulsory union membership and those without it, the power of unions is particularly clipped. In order for Arizona teachers to make a difference, they have to strike in unison or risk losing not only their chance at increasing funding for education, but also their jobs.
If a compromise can be reached between the teachers’ union and the state government that will prioritize our students and finally remove Arizona’s name from the bottom of the education rankings, then a strike will not be necessary. Our students will not have to miss out on valuable class time, and our state representatives can prove their dedication to rising to the challenge of education reform.
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Qajar dynasty
Title: Qajar dynasty
Subject: List of Shia Muslims flags, Semnan, Iran, Ahmad Shah Qajar, Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar
Collection: 1925 Disestablishments, History of Armenia, History of Azerbaijan, History of Dagestan, History of Georgia (Country), History of the Caucasus, Qajar Dynasty, Shia Muslim Dynasties, States and Territories Established in 1794, World Digital Library Related
قاجاریه
Qājāriyyeh
1789–1925 →
Salâm-e Shâh
(Royal salute)
Map of Iran under the Qajar dynasty in the 19th century.
Capital Tehran
Languages Persian (court literature, administrative, cultural, official),[1][2]
Azerbaijani Turkish (court language & mother tongue)[3]
Government Absolute monarchy (1785–1906)
Constitutional monarchy (1906–1925)
Shah, Mirza
• 1794–1797 Mohammad Khan Qajar (first)
• 1909–1925 Ahmad Shah Qajar (last)
• 1906 Mirza Nasrullah Khan (first)
• 1923–1925 Reza Pahlavi (last)
• Qajar dynasty begins 1789
• Treaty of Gulistan 1813
• Treaty of Turkmenchay 1828
• Treaty of Paris 1857
• Treaty of Akhal 1881
• Constitutional Revolution 1906
• Pahlavi dynasty begins 1925
Currency qiran[4]
Today part of
Countries today
Mythological history
Pishdadian dynasty
Kayanian dynasty
Ancient period
Kura-Araxes culture (3400–2000 BCE)
Proto-Elamite (3200–2700 BCE)
Elam (2700–539 BCE)
Akkadian Empire (2400–2150 BCE)
Kassites (c.1500 — c.1155 BCE)
Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BCE)
Urartu (860–590 BCE)
Mannaeans (850–616 BCE)
Imperial period
Median Empire (678–550 BCE)
(Scythian Kingdom) (652–625 BCE)
Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE)
Kingdom of Armenia (331 BCE – 428 CE)
Atropatene (320s BCE – 3rd century CE)
Seleucid Empire (312–63 BCE)
Parthian Empire (247 BCE – 224 CE)
Sasanian Empire (224–651)
Medieval period
Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258)
Dabuyids (642–760)
Bavandids (651–1349)
Masmughans of Damavand (651–760)
Paduspanids (665–1598)
Qarinvandids (7th-century–11th-century)
Justanids (791–974)
Alid dynasties of northern Iran (864–14th century)
Tahirid dynasty (821–873)
Samanid dynasty (819–999)
Saffarid dynasty (861–1002)
Ghurid dynasty (before 879–1141)
Sajid dynasty (889–929)
Sallarid dynasty (919–1062)
Ziyarid dynasty (930–1090)
Ilyasids (932–968)
Buyid dynasty (934–1062)
Ghaznavid Empire (977–1186)
Kakuyids (1008-1141)
Nasrids (1029-1236)
Seljuq Empire (1037–1194)
Khwarazmian Empire (1077–1231)
Atabegs of Yazd (1141–1319)
Eldiguzids (1135–1225)
Mihrabanids (1236–1537)
Kurt dynasty (1244–1396)
Ilkhanate Empire (1256–1335)
Chobanid dynasty (1335–1357)
Muzaffarid dynasty (1335–1393)
Jalayirid dynasty (1337–1376)
Sarbadars (1337–1376)
Injuids (1335–1357)
Afrasiyab dynasty (1349–1504)
Marashis (1359–1596)
Timurid Empire (1370–1507)
Kia'i dynasty (1389–1592)
Qara Qoyunlu (1406–1468)
Aq Qoyunlu (1468–1508)
Safavid Empire (1501–1736)
(Hotaki dynasty) (1722–1729)
Afsharid dynasty (1736–1796)
Talysh Khanate (1747–1826)
Zand dynasty (1750–1794)
Qajar dynasty (1785–1925)
Modern period
Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979)
Interim Government of Iran (1979-1980)
Islamic Republic of Iran (1980-present)
Iran portal
The Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.[15]
Rise to power 2
Reconquest of Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus 3
Wars with Russia and irrevocable loss of territories 4
Migration of Caucasian Muslims 4.1
Development and decline 5
Constitutional Revolution 6
Fall of the dynasty 7
Shahs of Persia, 1794–1925 8
Qajar Royal Family 9
Qajar dynasty since 1925 9.1
Notable members of Qajar family 10
Sources 13
The [6][7][8][9] Qajars first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qizilbash tribes that supported the Safavids.[16] The Safavids "left Arran (present-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to local Turkic khans",[17] and, "in 1554 Ganja was governed by Shahverdi Soltan Ziyadoglu Qajar, whose family came to govern Karabakh in southern Arran".[18]
Qajars filled a number of diplomatic missions and governorships in the 16–17th centuries for the Safavids. The Qajars were resettled by Iran) near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea,[7] and it would be this branch of Qajars that would rise to power. The immediate ancestor of the Qajar dynasty, Shah Qoli Khan of the Quvanlu of Ganja, married into the Quvanlu Qajars of Astarabad. His son, Fath Ali Khan (born c. 1685–1693) was a renowned military commander during the rule of the Safavid shahs Sultan Husayn and Tahmasp II. He was killed on the orders of Shah Nader Shah in 1726. Fath Ali Khan's son Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar (1722–1758) was the father of Mohammad Khan Qajar and Hossein Qoli Khan (Jahansouz Shah), father of "Baba Khan," the future Fath-Ali Shah Qajar. Mohammad Hasan Khan was killed on the orders of Karim Khan of the Zand dynasty.
Within 126 years between the demise of the Safavid state and the rise of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the Qajars had evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Persia into a Persian dynasty with all the trappings of a Perso-Islamic monarchy.[5]
Mozaffar al-Din Shah and Attendants Seated in a Garden One of 274 vintage photographs (Brooklyn Museum)
"Like virtually every dynasty that ruled Persia since the 11th century, the Qajars came to power with the backing of Turkic tribal forces, while using educated Persians in their bureaucracy".[19] In 1779 following the death of Karim Khan of the Zand dynasty, Mohammad Khan Qajar, the leader of the Qajars, set out to reunify Iran. Mohammad Khan was known as one of the cruelest kings, even by the 18th century Iranian standards.[7] In his quest for power, he razed cities, massacred entire populations, and blinded some 20,000 men in the city of Kerman because the local populace had chosen to defend the city against his siege.[7]
The Qajar armies at that time were mostly composed of Turkomans and
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Fisher, William Bayne; Avery, P.; Hambly, G. R. G; Melville, C. (1991). The Cambridge History of Iran 7. Cambridge:
Mikaberidze, Alexander (2011). Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia 1. ABC-CLIO.
^ Homa Katouzian, "State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis", Published by I.B.Tauris, 2006. pg 327: "In post-Islamic times, the mother-tongue of Iran's rulers was often Turkic, but Persian was almost invariably the cultural and administrative language"
^ Homa Katouzian, "Iranian history and politics", Published by Routledge, 2003. pg 128: "Indeed, since the formation of the Ghaznavids state in the tenth century until the fall of Qajars at the beginning of the twentieth century, most parts of the Iranian cultural regions were ruled by Turkic-speaking dynasties most of the time. At the same time, the official language was Persian, the court literature was in Persian, and most of the chancellors, ministers, and mandarins were Persian speakers of the highest learning and ability"
^ Ardabil Becomes a Province: Center-Periphery Relations in Iran, H. E. Chehabi, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2 (May, 1997), 235;"Azeri Turkish was widely spoken at the two courts in addition to Persian, and Mozaffareddin Shah (r.1896-1907) spoke Persian with an Azeri Turkish accent....".
^ علیاصغر شمیم، ایران در دوره سلطنت قاجار، تهران: انتشارات علمی، ۱۳۷۱، ص ۲۸۷
^ a b Abbas Amanat, The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896, I.B.Tauris, pp 2–3
^ a b "Genealogy and History of Qajar (Kadjar) Rulers and Heads of the Imperial Kadjar House".
^ a b c d e Cyrus Ghani. Iran and the Rise of the Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power, I.B. Tauris, 2000, ISBN 1-86064-629-8, p. 1
^ a b William Bayne Fisher. Cambridge History of Iran, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 344, ISBN 0-521-20094-6
^ a b Dr Parviz Kambin, A History of the Iranian Plateau: Rise and Fall of an Empire, Universe, 2011, p.36, online edition.
^ Jamie Stokes, Anthony Gorman, Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East, 2010, p.707, Online Edition, The Safavid and Qajar dynasties, rulers in Iran from 1501 to 1722 and from 1795 to 1925 respectively, were Turkic in origin.
^ Abbas Amanat, The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896, I.B.Tauris, pp 2–3; "In the 126 years between the fall of the Safavid state in 1722 and the accession of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Qajars evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Iran into a Persian dynasty.."
^ Choueiri, Youssef M., A companion to the history of the Middle East, (Blackwell Ltd., 2005), 231,516.
^ H. Scheel; Jaschke, Gerhard; H. Braun; Spuler, Bertold; T Koszinowski; Bagley, Frank (1981). Muslim World. Brill Archive. pp. 65, 370.
^ a b c Michael Axworthy. Iran: Empire of the Mind: A History from Zoroaster to the Present Day Penguin UK, 6 nov. 2008 ISBN 0141903414
^ a b c d Timothy C. Dowling Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond pp 728-730 ABC-CLIO, 2 dec. 2014 ISBN 1598849484
^ IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period , Ehsan Yarshater, Encyclopædia Iranica, (March 29, 2012).[2]
The Qajar were a Turkmen tribe who first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qezelbāš tribes that supported the Safavids.
^ K. M. Röhrborn, Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1966, p. 4
^ Encyclopedia Iranica. Ganja. Online Edition
^ Keddie, Nikki R. (1971). "The Iranian Power Structure and Social Change 1800–1969: An Overview". International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1): 3–20 [p. 4].
^ Lapidus, Ira Marvin (2002). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press. p. 469.
^ a b c d e f g Fisher et al. 1991, p. 328.
^ a b Fisher et al. 1991, p. 327.
^ Mikaberidze 2011, p. 327.
^ a b Mikaberidze 2011, p. 409.
^ a b c d Donald Rayfield. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia Reaktion Books, 15 feb. 2013 ISBN 1780230702 p 255
^ a b c London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
^ a b Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-20915-3
^ P.Sykes, A history of Persia, Vol. 2, p.293
^ Malcolm, Sir John (1829), The History of Persia from the Most Early Period to the Present Time, pp. 189-191. London: John Murray.
^ Fisher, William Bayne (1991). The Cambridge History of Iran 7. Cambridge University Press. pp. 128–129. (...) Agha Muhammad Khan remained nine days in the vicinity of Tiflis. His victory proclaimed the restoration of Iranian military power in the region formerly under Safavid domination.
^ Alekseĭ I. Miller. Imperial Rule Central European University Press, 2004 ISBN 9639241989 p 204
^ Fisher, William Bayne (1991). The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge University Press. pp. 145–146. Even when rulers on the plateau lacked the means to effect suzerainty beyond the Aras, the neighboring Khanates were still regarded as Iranian dependencies. Naturally, it was those Khanates located closes to the province of Azarbaijan which most frequently experienced attempts to re-impose Iranian suzerainty: the Khanates of Erivan, Nakhchivan and Qarabagh across the Aras, and the cis-Aras Khanate of Talish, with its administrative headquarters located at Lankaran and therefore very vulnerable to pressure, either from the direction of Tabriz or Rasht. Beyond the Khanate of Qarabagh, the Khan of Ganja and the Vali of Gurjistan (ruler of the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom of south-east Georgia), although less accessible for purposes of coercion, were also regarded as the Shah's vassals, as were the Khans of
^ L. Batalden, Sandra (1997). The newly independent states of Eurasia: handbook of former Soviet republics. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 98.
^ E. Ebel, Robert, Menon, Rajan (2000). Energy and conflict in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 181.
^ Andreeva, Elena (2010). Russia and Iran in the great game: travelogues and orientalism (reprint ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 6.
^ Çiçek, Kemal, Kuran, Ercüment (2000). The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation. University of Michigan.
^ Ernest Meyer, Karl, Blair Brysac, Shareen (2006). Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia. Basic Books. p. 66.
^ a b "Caucasus Survey". Retrieved 23 April 2015.
^ Mansoori, Firooz (2008). "17". Studies in History,Language and Culture of Azerbaijan (in فارسی). Tehran: Hazar-e Kerman. p. 245.
^ А. Г. Булатова. Лакцы (XIX — нач. XX вв.). Историко-этнографические очерки. — Махачкала, 2000.
^ a b "The Iranian Armed Forces in Politics, Revolution and War: Part One". Retrieved 23 May 2014.
^ "Griboedov not only extended protection to those Caucasian captives who sought to go home but actively promoted the return of even those who did not volunteer. Large numbers of Georgian and Armenian captives had lived in Iran since 1804 or as far back as 1795." Fisher, William Bayne;Avery, Peter; Gershevitch, Ilya; Hambly, Gavin; Melville, Charles. The Cambridge History of Iran Cambridge University Press, 1991. p. 339.
^ (Russian) A. S. Griboyedov. "Записка о переселеніи армянъ изъ Персіи въ наши области", Фундаментальная Электронная Библиотека
^ Bournoutian. Armenian People, p. 105
^ Bournoutian, George A. (1982). Eastern Armenia in the Last Decades of Persian Rule, 1807 - 1828. Malibu: Undena Publications. pp. xxii + 165.
^ The Cambridge History of Iran by William Bayne Fisher, Peter Avery, Ilya Gershevitch, Gavin Hambly, Charles Melville, Cambridge University Press, 1991 p. 339
^ Potier, Tim (2001). Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia: A Legal Appraisal. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 2.
^ "Qajar People". Qajars. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
^ L.A. Ferydoun Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn (Khosrovani) (ed.), Qajar Studies. Journal of the International Qaja Studies Association, vol. X-XI, Rotterdam, Gronsveld, Santa Barbara and Tehran 2011, pp. 241-244.
^ L.A. Ferydoun Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn (Khosrovani) (ed.), Qajar Studies. Journal of the International Qaja Studies Association, vol. X-XI, Rotterdam, Gronsveld, Santa Barbara and Tehran 2011, p. 214.
Abdolhossein Teymourtash
Austro-Hungarian Military Mission in Persia
Khanates of the Caucasus
List of kings of Persia
List of Shi'a Muslims dynasties
Mirza Kouchek Khan
Qajar art
Orders of succession
Former monarchies
Bonapartist
Legitimist
Orléanist / Unionist
Iran / Persia
Saxonya
Two Sicilies
a Kingdom / Grand Duchy / Duchies.
Princess Shireen Fathi, an American-Iranian performer, most notably as a dancer in the Persian Parade held annually in New York City, a Qajar descendant on her paternal side
Sarah Shahi, an American actress, a Qajar descendant on her paternal side
Marjane Satrapi, Iranian graphic novelist.
Gholam-Hossein Banan, Iranian musician and singer, Qajar descendant on his maternal side
Prince Iraj (1874-1926), Iranian poet and translator
Princess Lobat Vala (b. 1930), Iranian poet and campaigner for the Women Liberation
Nader Naderpour, Iranian poet, a Qajar descendant on his maternal side
Shahrnush Parsipur, Iranian novelist, a Qajar descendant on her maternal side
Sadegh Hedayat, a Qajar descendant through the female line
Princess Mohtaram Eskandari, intellectual and pioneering figures in Iranian women's movement
Dr. Iran Teymourtash (Légion d'honneur) (1914-1991), journalist, editor and publisher of Rastakhiz newspaper, founder of an association for helping destitute women. Daughter of court minister Abdolhossein Teymourtash and through both her maternal grandparents a Qajar. [54]
Women rights
Princess Fakhr-ol-dowleh
Mariam Faroughy-Qajar, entrepreneur and linguist
Prince Manouchehr Salour (1914-2010), 'Father of the Cement Industry' of Iran. Founder of a number of cement factories, an iron and steel plant, a car factory, an asbestos factory and two sugar factories. President of Fars and Khozestan LLp cement factories and president of the Pahlavi (renamed in Alavi) Foundation
Prince Abbas Salour (1915-2011), member Board of Directors National Petrochemical Company of Iran (1975). Previously he was Deputy Minister and Head of the Land Reform Organisation
Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi (1956), chief information officer and chief technology officer at AT&T 2005-2006, president of AT&T Labs and AT&T Global Network Services, chairman, co-founder and CEO of 2020 Venture Partners, holds over 700 worldwide patents. he is a Qajar descendant through his mother. [53]
Prince Firouz Firouz
Nader Ardalan, A Qajar descendant through the female line
Princess Sattareh Farmanfarmaian, Iranian Social work pioneer
Prince Sabbar Farmanfarmaian, health minister in Mosaddeq cabinet
Abdol-Hossein Sardari (1895-1981), Consul General at the Iranian Embassy in Paris 1940-1945; helped and saved the lives of Jews in danger of deportation by issuing them with Iranian passports. A Qajar Qovanlou and through his mother a grandson of Princess Malekzadeh Khanoum Ezzat od-Doleh, the sister of Nasser ed-Din Shah.
Prince Amanullah Mirza Qajar, Imperial Russian, Azerbaijani, and Iranian military commander
Bagher Pirnia (1919), Deputy Minister of Finance, Governor of Fars 1963 and Governor of Khorassan -1971, a son of Prime Minister Mirza Hassan Khan Pirnia and Fatemeh Khanoum (Amir Alai) 'Shokou Ozma, a Qajar. [52]
Prince Gholam Reza Pahlavi (1923), President Iranian Olympic Committee 1954, member of International Olympic Committee 1956, son of Reza Shah and Malekeh Touran Khanoum Amirsoleymani 'Qamar ol-Molk', a Qajar Qovanlou who was a granddaughter of Mehdi Qoli Khan 'Majd od-Doleh', a cousin of Nasser ed-Din Shah.[51]
Prince Abdol-Hossein Farmanfarma (1859-1939), prime minister of Iran
Mohammad Mosaddegh, prime minister of Iran and nephew of Prince Abdol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarma.
Prince Firouz Nosrat-ed-Dowleh III (1889-1937), son of Prince Abdol-Hossein Farmanfarma, foreign minister of Iran
Amir Abbas Hoveyda, Iranian economist and politician, prime minister of Iran from 1965 to 1977, a Qajar descendant on his maternal side
Ali Amini, prime minister of Iran
Prince Iraj Eskandari, Iranian communist politician
Princess Maryam Farman Farmaian (b. 1914-d. 2008) Iranian communist politician, founder of the women's section of the Tudeh Party of Iran
Ardeshir Zahedi (b. 1928–) Iranian diplomat, qajar descendant on his maternal side.
Mohammad Nasser Etemadi (Nasr od-Doleh) (1892-1950), general, commander of the Cossack Brigade in Azarbaijan, Deputy Prime Minister of Iran, Minister of Agriculture 1944-1946, a Qajar Qovanlou and via his mother grandson of Prince Massoud Zell os-Soltan.
Bahram Mirza
Notable members of Qajar family
Soltan Ahmad Shah Qajar (1925–1930)
Mohammad Hassan Mirza (1930–1943)
Fereydoun Mirza (1943–1975)
Soltan Hamid Mirza (1975–1988)
Mohammad Hassan Mirza II (1988–present)
The Heir Presumptive is the Qajar heir to the Persian throne.
Heirs Presumptive of the Qajar dynasty
Soltan Mahmoud Mirza (1988)
Soltan Ali Mirza Qajar (1988–2011)
Soltan Mohammad Ali Mirza (2011–present)
The headship of the Imperial Family is inherited by the eldest male descendant of Mohammad Ali Shah.
Heads of the Qajar Imperial Family
Qajar dynasty since 1925
Today, the descendants of the Qajars often identify themselves as such and hold reunions to stay socially acquainted through the Kadjar (Qajar) Family Association,[50] often coinciding with the annual conferences and meetings of the International Qajar Studies Association. The Kadjar (Qajar) Family Association was founded for a third time in 2000. Two earlier family associations were stopped because of political pressure.
The Qajar Imperial Family in exile is currently headed by the eldest descendant of Mohammad Ali Shah, Soltan Mohammad Ali Mirza Qajar, while the Heir Presumptive to the Qajar throne is Mohammad Hassan Mirza II, the grandson of Mohammad Hassan Mirza, Soltan Ahmad Shah's brother and heir. Mohammad Hassan Mirza died in England in 1943, having proclaimed himself shah in exile in 1930 after the death of his brother in France.
Qajar Royal Family
Born-Died
Entered office
Left office
Mohammad Khan Qajar Shahanshah 1742–1797 20 March 1794 17 June 1797
Fat′h-Ali Shah Qajar Shahanshah 1772–1834 17 June 1797 23 October 1834
Mohammad Shah Qajar Shah 1808–1848 23 October 1834 5 September 1848
Naser al-Din Shah Qajar Shahanshah 1831–1896 5 September 1848 1 May 1896
Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar Shahanshah and Sultan 1853–1907 1 May 1896 3 January 1907
Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar Shahanshah 1872–1925 3 January 1907 16 July 1909
Ahmad Shah Qajar Sultan 1898–1930 16 July 1909 15 December 1925
The Kiani Crown was worn by the Shahs of the Qajar dynasty
Shahs of Persia, 1794–1925
Ahmad Shah died on 21 February 1930 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.
In February 1921, Reza Khan, commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade, staged a coup d'état, becoming the effective ruler of Iran. In 1923, Ahmad Shah went into exile in Europe. Reza Khan induced the Majles to depose Ahmad Shah in October 1925, and to exclude the Qajar dynasty permanently. Reza Khan was subsequently proclaimed Shah as Reza Shah Pahlavi, reigning from 1925 to 1941.
Soltan Ahmad Shah was born 21 January 1898 in Tabriz, and succeeded to the throne at age 11. However, the occupation of Persia during World War I by Russian, British, and Ottoman troops was a blow from which Ahmad Shah never effectively recovered.
Fall of the dynasty On 16 July 1909, the
Mozaffar-e-din Shah's son Mohammad Ali Shah (reigned 1907–1909), who, through his mother, was also the grandson of Prime-Minister Amir Kabir (see before), with the aid of Russia, attempted to rescind the constitution and abolish parliamentary government. After several disputes with the members of the Majlis, in June 1908 he used his Russian-officered Persian Cossacks Brigade (almost solely composed of Caucasian Muhajirs), to bomb the Majlis building, arrest many of the deputies, and close down the assembly. Resistance to the shah, however, coalesced in Tabriz, Isfahan, Rasht, and elsewhere. In July 1909, constitutional forces marched from Rasht to Tehran led by Mohammad Vali Khan Sepahsalar Khalatbari Tonekaboni, deposed the Shah, and re-established the constitution. The ex-shah went into exile in Russia. Mohammad Ali Shah died in San Remo, Italy in April 1925. As fate would have it, every future Shah of Iran would also die in exile.
The shah's failure to respond to protests by the religious establishment, the merchants, and other classes led the merchants and clerical leaders in January 1906 to take sanctuary from probable arrest in mosques in Tehran and outside the capital. When the shah reneged on a promise to permit the establishment of a "house of justice", or consultative assembly, 10,000 people, led by the merchants, took sanctuary in June in the compound of the British legation in Tehran. In August the shah, through the issue of a decree promised a constitution. In October an elected assembly convened and drew up a constitution that provided for strict limitations on royal power, an elected parliament, or Majles, with wide powers to represent the people, and a government with a cabinet subject to confirmation by the Majles. The shah signed the constitution on December 30, 1906, but refusing to forfeit all of his power to the Majles, attached a caveat that made his signature on all laws required for their enactment. He died five days later. The Supplementary Fundamental Laws approved in 1907 provided, within limits, for freedom of press, speech, and association, and for security of life and property. The hopes for constitutional rule were not realized, however.
When Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar was assassinated by Mirza Reza Kermani in 1896, the crown passed to his son Mozaffar-e-din. Mozaffar-e-din Shah was a moderate, but relatively ineffective ruler. Royal extravagances coincided with an inadequate ability to secure state revenue which further exacerbated the financial woes of the Qajar. In response the Shah procured two large loans from Russia (in part to fund personal trips to Europe.) Public anger mounted as the Shah sold off concessions – such as road building monopolies, authority to collect duties on imports, etc. – to European interested in return for generous payments to the Shah and his officials. Popular demand to curb arbitrary royal authority in favor of rule of law increased as concern regarding growing foreign penetration and influence heightened.
Qajar-era currency bill featuring a depiction of Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar.
Constitutional Revolution
These reforms antagonized various notables who had been excluded from the government. They regarded the Amir Kabir as a social upstart and a threat to their interests, and they formed a coalition against him, in which the queen mother was active. She convinced the young shah that Amir Kabir wanted to usurp the throne. In October 1851 the shah dismissed him and exiled him to Kashan, where he was murdered on the shah's orders. Through his marriage to Ezzat od-Doleh, Amir Kabir had been the brother-in-law of the shah.
One of the greatest achievements of Amir Kabir was the building of Dar ol Fonoon, the first modern university in Persia and the Middle East. Dar-ol-Fonoon was established for training a new cadre of administrators and acquainting them with Western techniques. Amir Kabir ordered the school to be built on the edge of the city so it could be expanded as needed. He hired French and Russian instructors as well as Persians to teach subjects as different as Language, Medicine, Law, Geography, History, Economics, and Engineering. Unfortunately, Amir Kabir did not live long enough to see his greatest monument completed, but it still stands in Tehran as a sign of a great man's ideas for the future of his country.
A former Persian Legation in Washington, D.C.
At that time, Persia was nearly bankrupt. During the next two and a half years Amir Kabir initiated important reforms in virtually all sectors of society. Government expenditure was slashed, and a distinction was made between the private and public purses. The instruments of central administration were overhauled, and Amir Kabir assumed responsibility for all areas of the bureaucracy. Foreign interference in Persia's domestic affairs was curtailed, and foreign trade was encouraged. Public works such as the bazaar in Tehran were undertaken. Amir Kabir issued an edict banning ornate and excessively formal writing in government documents; the beginning of a modern Persian prose style dates from this time.
Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Kabir, was the young prince Nasser-e-Din's advisor and constable. With the death of Mohammad Shah in 1848, Mirza Taqi was largely responsible for ensuring the crown prince's succession to the throne. When Nasser ed-Din succeeded to the throne, Amir Nezam was awarded the position of prime minister and the title of Amir Kabir, the Great Ruler.
During Nasser-e-Din Shah's reign, Western science, technology, and educational methods were introduced into Persia and the country's modernization was begun. Nasser ed-Din Shah tried to exploit the mutual distrust between Great Britain and Russia to preserve Persia's independence, but foreign interference and territorial encroachment increased under his rule. He was not able to prevent Britain and Russia from encroaching into regions of traditional Persian influence. In 1856, during the Anglo-Persian War, Britain prevented Persia from reasserting control over Herat. The city had been part of Persia in Safavid times, but Herat had been under non-Persian rule since the mid-18th century. Britain also extended its control to other areas of the Persian Gulf during the 19th century. Meanwhile, by 1881, Russia had completed its conquest of present-day Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, bringing Russia's frontier to Persia's northeastern borders and severing historic Persian ties to the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand. Several trade concessions by the Persian government put economic affairs largely under British control. By the late 19th century, many Persians believed that their rulers were beholden to foreign interests.
A Zoroastrian family in Qajar Iran
Mullahs in the royal presence. The painting style is distinctly Qajar.
Development and decline
Fath Ali Shah's reign saw increased diplomatic contacts with the West and the beginning of intense European diplomatic rivalries over Iran. His grandson Mohammad Shah, who fell under the Russian influence and made two unsuccessful attempts to capture Herat, succeeded him in 1834. When Mohammad Shah died in 1848 the succession passed to his son Nasser-e-Din, who proved to be the ablest and most successful of the Qajar sovereigns.
After the incorporation of the Erivan khanate into the Russian Empire, Muslim majority of the area gradually changed, at first the Armenians who were left captive were accouraged to return.[48] As a result of which an estimated 57,000 Armenian refugees from Persia returned to the territory of the Erivan khanates after 1828, while about 35,000 Muslims (Persians, Turkic groups, Kurds, Lezgis, etc.) out total population of over 100,000 left the region.[49]
“ In the first quarter of the 19th century the Khanate of Erevan included most of Eastern Armenia and covered an area of approximately 7,000 square miles. The land was mountainous and dry, the population of about 100,000 was roughly 80 percent Muslim (Persian, Azeri, Kurdish) and 20 percent Christian (Armenian). ”
Following the resettlement of Persian Armenians in the newly conquered Russian territories after 1828, thus significant demographic shifts were bound to take place. The Armenian-American historian Erivan administrative division as an example:[47]
Furthermore, the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay included the official rights for the Russian Empire to encourage settling of Armenians from Iran in the newly conquered Russian territories.[44][45] This also helped in changing the demographics of the regions considerably.[46] The Treaty of Adrianople, concluded with Turkey in 1829 granted for more mass settling of Armenians in the newly incorporated territories. Slowly but surely, the number of Christians, that formerly made out since the 17th century a relatively small minority in the region (except for Georgia), were starting to compose an ever growing number of the total population, especially in the former Iranian-ruled Armenian and Georgian territories.
In 1864 until the early 20th century, [43] This brigade would prove decisive in the following decades to come in Qajar history.
Through the Battle of Ganja of 1804 during the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813), many thousands of Ayrums and Qarapapaqs were settled in Tabriz. During the remaining part of the 1804-1813 war, as well as through the 1826-1828 war, the absolute bulk of the Ayrums and Qarapapaqs that were still remaining in newly conquered Russian territories were settled in and migrated to Solduz (in modern-day Iran's West Azerbaijan province).[41]
Following the official losing of the aforementioned vast territories in the Caucasus, major demographic shifts were bound to take place. Solidly Persian-speaking territories of Iran were lost, with all its inhabitants in it. Following the 1804-1814 War, but also per the 1826-1828 war which ceded the last territories, large migrations, so called Caucasian Muhajirs, set off to migrate to mainland Iran. Some of these groups included the Ayrums, Qarapapaqs, Circassians, Shia Lezgins, and other Transcaucasian Muslims.[40]
Persian Cossack Brigade in Tabriz in 1909
Migration of Caucasian Muslims
Battle of Sultanabad, 13 February 1812. State Hermitage Museum.
Storming of Lankaran, January 13, 1813. Franz Roubaud.
Battle of Elisabethpol, 1828. Franz Roubaud. Part of the collection of the Museum for History, Baku.
[39][38][37][36][35][34][15] In 1803, under
Map showing Irans's northwestern borders in the 19th century, comprising Eastern Dagestan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, before being forced to cede the territories to Imperial Russia per the two Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century.
A. Sharlmann "Battle of Ganja" during the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813).
Wars with Russia and irrevocable loss of territories
Agha Mohammad Shah was later assassinated while preparing a second expedition against Georgia in 1797 in absorbed by Russia in 1801.[26][27] As Iran could not permit or allow the cession of Transcaucasia and Dagestan, which had formed part of the concept of Iran for three centuries,[31] it would also become the direct uplead to the wars of even several years later, namely the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813) and Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), which would eventually prove for the irrevocable forced cession of aforementioned regions to Imperial Russia per the Gulistan and Turkmenchay of 1813 and 1828 respectively, as the ancient ties could be severed by a superior force from outside.[31] It was therefore also inevitable that Agha Mohammad Khan's successor, Fath Ali Shah (under whom Iran would lead the two above mentioned wars) would follow the same policy of restoring Iranian central authority north of the Aras and Kura rivers.[31]
, who succeeded Catherine in November, shortly recalled it. Paul I Tsar to the Qajar possessions on April of that year, but the new Valerian Zubov and sent an army under [31], upon the proposal of Gudovich,declared war on Persia To restore Russian prestige, Catherine II [31] By this, after the conquest of Tbilisi and being in effective control of eastern
[29][28][26] With half of the troops Agha Mohammad Khan crossed the Aras river with, he now marched directly upon Tbilisi, where it commenced into a huge battle between the Iranian and Georgian armies. Erekle had managed to mobilize some 5,000 troops, including some 2,000 from neighboring
Agha Mohammad Khan subsequently crossed the [25] while Erekle, together with Solomon II and some Imeretians headed southwards of Tbilisi to fend off the Iranians.[25]
[27].ultimatum Nevertheless, Heraclius II still rejected the Khan’s [26] Heraclius appealed then to his theoretical protector, Empress [25] in return for peace and the security of his kingdom. The Ottomans, Iran's neighboring rival, recognized the latters rights over Kartli and Kakheti for the first time in four centuries.[24] Finding an interval of peace amid their own quarrels and with northern, western, and central Persia secure, the Persians demanded Heraclius II to renounce the treaty with Russia and to reaccept Persian suzerainty,
The capture of Tbilisi by Agha Muhammad Khan. A Qajar-era Persian miniature from the British Library.
[21] The consequences of these events came a few years later, when a new Iranian dynasty under the Qajars, emerged victorious in the protracted power struggle in
Following the death of war against Ottoman Turkey had started on a different front.[21]
Reconquest of Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus
. Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, and was succeeded by his nephew, Karabakh Khanate, the capital of Shusha. In 1797, Mohammad Khan Qajar was assassinated in shah. In 1796 he was formally crowned as Rayy, a village near the ruins of the ancient city of Tehran. Agha Mohammad established his capital at Caucasus, the last of the Zand dynasty. He reestablished Persian control over the territories in the entire Lotf Ali Khan By 1794, Mohammad Khan had eliminated all his rivals, including [20]
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“YOCJ…is an unparalleled platform for education…” ~ Azhad Syed
“In 2013, YOCJ senior Azhad Syed performed the third movement of Joseph Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, ‘ritmico con brio’ in YOCJ’s Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Mr. John Enz. Half a year later, he has had the amazing opportunity to follow up with the Pullitzer Prize winning composer, Schwantner, himself. For the 2014 Winter quarter at Northwestern University, Joseph Schwantner spent one week at the Bienen School of Music as the Composer in Residency. During his stay at Northwestern, music students participated in a festival style presentation of a large selection of Schwantner’s music. Azhad performed in Chasing Light for orchestra under Dr. Robert G. Hasty, and …and the mountains rising nowhere under renowned wind ensemble director Mallory B. Thompson.”
(One of the pictures
is a group photo of the
Northwestern SWE
percussion section and
Mallory Thompson
after a percussion sectional.)
Azhad began playing in YOCJ during his sophomore year of high school. This was also his second year playing percussion, and he saw YOCJ as an opportunity to play with serious high school students at an advanced level. What he didn’t see then was that YOCJ is not only that, but so much more. It is an unparalleled platform for education and connection that he has not seen in many places in New Jersey. YOCJ introduced Azhad to his private teacher, and he has seen this happen to many of his colleagues as well–the YOCJ faculty is truly a collection of some of the best high school music teachers in the state. Not only do students have access to their primary instrument instructors, but the artistic guidance of the entire faculty is at hand, when undertaking large projects, new works, or even hard orchestral excerpts.
YOCJ was where Azhad met some of his best friends from high school–making music at that level builds friendships that remain outside of the concert hall, and allows younger students to receive the guidance and support from older students. It is a place where a senior soloist in Symphonic orchestra and an upcoming 7th grade drummer and percussionist can develop an artistic connection and collaborate in making music–this is something he really believes you cannot find anywhere else in the state. It is an opportunity to meet high school students from around Central Jersey, develop friendships and help each other on anything from orchestra repertoire to solo music and from college apps to marching band.
Most importantly, these elements all combine to make YOCJ a necessary foundation of a student’s musical learning. It caters to every single step of the learning process and enables students to finish strong at any level of commitment to the instrument, be it a dedicated recreational player or a senior enrolled in a university music program. Azhad has YOCJ to thank for much of his experience in music in his senior year and for helping him transition into freshman year at the Bienen School of Music.
Azhad Syed would like to thank Mr. Pugh, for all the hard work he has put into making YOCJ all the things that are stated above. Both under the baton and otherwise, your contribution to YOCJ has made a huge difference on Azhad’s relationship with music and percussion. Best of luck in the spring concert!”
← “amazing musical & cultural experiences…” ~ Christopher Gittings
“Without YOCJ, I would not be who I am today.” ~ Tessa Berger →
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You can watch "Forks Over Knives" full movie for free from 123Movies on this page by streaming the movie in the video player above . This movie is produced in USA, released in year 2011. Genres are: Documentary, here is the storyline: Examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.
Director: Lee Fulkerson
Actors: Alona Pulde, Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., Connie Diekman, Joey Aucoin, Lee Fulkerson, Matthew Lederman, T. Colin Campbell
‘Salad Days’ is an insightful documentary film that examines the Washington, DC punk scene from the early 1980s to the decade’s end. The city played an integral part in shaping…
During the chaotic final weeks of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon as the panicked South Vietnamese people desperately attempt to escape. On the ground,…
Genre: Documentary, War
The film shadows Justin Peck, wunderkind choreographer of the New York City Ballet, as he undertakes the Herculean task of creating the company’s 422nd original piece. Following the creative process…
Ben Collins Stunt Driver
Ben Collins sets out on a mission to find the perfect stunt car for an epic, high octane car chase.
Genre: Action, Documentary
Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how mammoth corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to…
The Spy Who Fell to Earth
The life and mysterious death of Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian billionaire and Israeli spy.
Killing for Love
Derek and Nancy Haysom were brutally murdered in their house in Lynchburg, Virginia, on March 30, 1985. Suspicion fell on their daughter Elizabeth and her boyfriend Jens Söring. They flee…
Genre: Crime, Documentary
Love, Gilda
Love, Gilda is a true autobiography of a pioneering woman, told in her own voice and through her own words. It weaves together audiotapes, rare home movies, diary entries, and…
Toronto-based documentary filmmaker and cinematographer Nicholas de Pencier (Four Wings and a Prayer, Watermark) examines the complex global impact that the internet has had on matters of free speech, privacy…
Genre: Action, Crime, Documentary
Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias: One Show Fits All
In a new comedy special for 2019, Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias discusses his teenage son, encounters with Snoop Dogg and an overzealous fan, and more.
Genre: Comedy, Documentary
Madonna and the Breakfast Club
The documentary story of Madonna’s struggling days in New York with her first band “Breakfast Club,” leading up to her first solo record deal.
Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy
A fresh and revealing insight into Princess Diana through the personal and intimate reflections of her two sons and her friends and family.
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By Mya Guarnieri
|Published July 27, 2015
The Long Road to Bethlehem: Part Three
Click here to read parts one and two.
The New Year comes and passes. It’s January 2014 and I’ve been living in the territories for almost a year. But rather than becoming more comfortable in my new surroundings and feeling like my usual curious and adventurous self—I am the woman, after all, who has traveled some 20 countries, mostly alone—I find myself turning inwards. I prefer to stay in Bethlehem, close to home.
This is not me.
The occupation and the checkpoints, particularly the flying checkpoints, have something to do with the change: on my way back to Bethlehem from Ramallah one afternoon, a flying checkpoint pops up near Jabaa’. As the soldiers take the IDs of everyone in the service taxi, I don’t know what to do—do I give them my American passport or my Israeli teudat zehut?
In theory, I could be headed from Qalandia—which is technically part of East Jerusalem—to Hizme, which is in Area B. I’m legal here, I tell myself. Or am I? I try to picture myself on the map that shows the zones: A, B, C.
Where is Jabaa’?
Who am I supposed to be right now?
It happens again as I’m driving back to Bethlehem from Jerusalem one afternoon. I’m on the little, rolling two-lane road that takes me to Beit Jala. Usually, I glide by the small army base on the edge of Beit Jala and from there, it’s a short drive to Bethlehem and I’m home. But today: when I bank the hill, I see soldiers standing in the middle of the road—a road I’ve never seen them on—checking IDs as Palestinians drive into Beit Jala. But why? If checkpoints are about security, then why would they be scrutinizing Palestinians headed into a Palestinian area? Are they looking for someone? Are they making sure that no Jewish Israelis are headed into Area A? Are they enforcing segregation?
Whatever the army’s doing there, I panic, slam on my brakes, and make a U-turn in the middle of the road, just meters from a soldier. As I speed away and he grows smaller in my rearview mirror, I realize the stupidity of what I’ve just done. I realize how suspicious it must have looked.
I also realize that I’m not sure how I’m going to get home. If there’s...
View article: AAA
|Published April 26, 2015
The Long Road to Bethlehem: Part two
Click here to read part one.
I was sold on the apartment. But my landlady wasn’t sold on me yet.
We went upstairs and sat in her salon. Once a porch, it had been closed in with glass windows and offered a view of the hills surrounding Bethlehem. It was one of the few vistas that wasn’t ruined by the occupation. There was no wall, no checkpoints, no military bases, no settlements.
As my landlady took her seat across from me, she handed me a small, wrapped hard candy. She apologized for not offering me coffee. I realized how much she needed to rent the first floor out.
“You aren’t the first to come see the place,” she began, adding that she’d turned the last applicant down because she suspected that he was a Jew. Under no circumstances would she rent to a Jew.
She looked at me, her gaze shifting from one of my eyes to the other, as though she was trying to read what was behind them. I understood that she was waiting for some sort of a reaction. I smiled.
“Happiness is more important than money,” she continued, explaining that it was important to her to find the right person for the apartment. The house was special to her—not only because she’d grown up in it but also because it had witnessed so much of Bethlehem’s history.
The cornerstone was laid in 1808 when someone built a tiny, stand-alone room next to the well. Several other one-room houses followed, making a half-moon around the well, creating an open-air courtyard. In the early 1900s, the cluster of rooms was turned into one large home. The courtyard was closed and the second story was built. New floors were laid with the hand-painted tiles common to the Levant—a reminder of the years when trains connected Beirut and Damascus to Jerusalem and Jaffa.
But those days didn’t last. The Middle East was carved up, including Palestine. During the Nakba, my landlady’s family left Jaffa empty-handed: her father lost his business; they lost their money, home, and belongings. Christians, they fled to Bethlehem where they had roots and family. A few years later, in the early 1950s, they moved into the first floor of this house, a once-wealthy family of seven crammed into two bedrooms.
But the place emptied as her brothers left...
|Published March 28, 2015
The long road to Bethlehem
It wasn’t the soaring arches or the elegant windows, with their curved caps. It wasn’t that the first room of the house was built in 1808. It wasn’t the jasmine that, like a woman letting down her hair, released its heavy perfume at night. It wasn’t the olive, loquat, lemon, almond, and apricot trees that filled the garden. Nor was it that the fruit from that garden seemed sweeter here in Bethlehem than it was in Jerusalem.
The apartment’s biggest selling point, in my landlady’s opinion?
The well.
She showed it to me the first time I saw the place, before I’d decided to rent the apartment. The well was hidden behind a curtain in the kitchen. She pushed the fabric back, revealing a deep recess in the wall. Inside the nook stood a pump and, on the floor, a large stone with a wrought iron handle. My landlady, who was in her seventies, gave the handle a tug. The rock lifted. There was a clunk as she placed it on the kitchen floor.
My landlady got on her knees and peered into the hole, a spot of night surrounded by chiseled white.
“See?” she tapped my calf, signaling that I should get on the floor, too. I obliged her.
I peered into the well. I didn’t see anything. But I could smell the collected rainwater below us.
My landlady put her hands on my back and pushed herself up. As she brushed the dirt off her knees, she explained to me that, if I were to take the apartment, we would share the well. And while our neighbors’ taps would run dry—as they always do here, eventually—we would never go without.
I remembered a long, waterless weekend I’d spent in Bethlehem in 2010. An American friend who lived and worked there had invited me to come celebrate his birthday. I was living in Tel Aviv then and had only been to Bethlehem once before, to work on an article for The National. The photographer who’d been assigned to the story also had Israeli citizenship. Unlike me, however, he had a car. That day, we’d left the Bethlehem area via the settler checkpoint outside the tunnels—a checkpoint we should have breezed through as two Jews riding in a yellow-plated vehicle. But the female soldier stopped us and asked for my ID. Nervous about the fact that I’d been in Bethlehem,...
|Published December 1, 2014
Does Israel have a place in Jewish identity?
The proposed ‘Nation-State Law’ and a wave of violence point to the urgency of questioning Israel’s place in Jewish identity. Shlomo Sand’s latest book, ‘How I Stopped Being a Jew,’ offers a starting point for such a discussion.
When I left Palestine this summer, I was relieved to leave the Israeli flag behind. No more blue and white snapping at everyone who passes military checkpoints. No more Star of David standing high over the army bases. Saying goodbye to the Israeli flag, or so I thought, would also mean an end to my ambivalence about it.
Upon seeing the flag, there was always a moment of recognition, familiarity. After all, it bears the Star of David and I grew up with this symbol in my home. I grew up with it dangling from my neck in the form of the Hebrew pendant — passed down from my great-grandmother — that my mother made me wear when I was a child.
But the same thing that would bring me a split second of comfort would enrage me. How dare Zionism appropriate my religion and my culture and my family and the Hebrew language? The language is not theirs alone. It also belonged to another one of my great-grandmothers, who lived in Eastern Europe and recorded all of the family’s deaths and births — not in Yiddish but in poetic Hebrew. (The sentences that noted a death, including those of her own children, begin, “I’m crying, I’m crying, the tears drip from my face”; births start with, “Luck, luck! Happiness and luck.”) She marked all these events on a piece of paper that she folded and carried to the New World with her, Hebrew pressed to her bosom as she crossed an ocean. The language belonged to her, it belonged to all of us.
How dare Zionism put the Star of David — which existed long before it and which will outlast its project — on their flag? How dare it, under the false pretense of ensuring the safety of my people, occupy another?
Not only has Zionism occupied Palestine, it has occupied Jewish identity.
Shlomo Sand’s latest book, How I Stopped Being a Jew, could be understood as a reaction to both of those occupations.
Sand, an Israeli professor at Tel Aviv University, is a historian and the author of The Invention of the Jewish People. In How I Stopped Being a...
|Published October 15, 2014
Family life forbidden for migrant workers in Israel
Legal advocates decry Israeli policies toward migrant workers as inhumane and claim that they violate the laborers’ human right to family.
Maris Delusong, a 36-year-old caregiver from the Philippines, is alone at Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station. She stops at a sale rack outside a clothing store. She looks at the baby clothes, pulls a pink onesie off the rack and runs her fingers over the soft fabric. Her face is sad as she puts the outfit back and moves along.
“It’s hard to be alone,” Delusong says. She found herself drawn to the baby clothes, she says, because “I remember my children. She’s four, the youngest. The eldest is 12.”
Delusong is five months into a five year “deployment”—the term Filipino migrants use to describe working overseas. Delusong takes care of an elderly woman in Kfar Saba. In Israel, wages are much higher than they are in the Philippines and, here, Delusong can save for her family’s future.
But while Delusong can work legally in Israel to earn for her husband and four children, Israeli law does not allow her or other migrants to bring their immediate family with them to the country. This puts tremendous stress on workers, their marriages, and their relationships with their children. The damage to the family can last long after a laborer has returned home.
“If I had a chance to bring them [my husband and children to Israel], I would,” Delusong says.
However, there is no a blanket prohibition preventing all foreigners from bringing family members to Israel. Diplomats, embassy workers, “experts” and such—in other words, white collar workers—can carry spouses and children on their Israeli visas.
Rotem Ilan, Director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel’s (ACRI) Israeli Children project explains that migrants’ inability to bring their children with them “stems from the [Israeli government’s] fear that they will ‘put down roots’ in Israel… the state’s goal is to prevent them [non-Jewish migrant workers] from ‘putting down roots’ in Israel.” So, to the state, family life becomes a “threat,” Ilan says.
Not only are laborers prevented from bringing their families to Israel, once foreign workers are in the country, the state puts various restrictions on their ability to have children here. If a migrant gives birth when she is four and a half years or more into the 63-month visa Israel issues to most foreign laborers, she may not remain...
|Published September 3, 2014
'Dear Darwish': A poetically and politically brave book
Israeli-American poet Morani Kornberg-Weiss breaks with conventional poetics and mainstream politics. But who, exactly, is Dear Darwish for?
Dear Darwish, Morani Kornberg-Weiss’s first collection of poetry, opens with a prose poem that that doubles as an indictment of Israeli society. Cleverly disguised as a letter, it is addressed to the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Like the poems that follow it, “Dear Mahmoud” does many things at once. It captures the violence inherent in establishing and maintaining the Jewish state. It accurately depicts Israelis’ objectifying and dehumanizing view of Palestinians. It shows how the state’s violence against Palestinians has seeped into Israeli society, permeating all aspects of life.
It’s no short order to do all this without losing the poetry to polemics. But Kornberg-Weiss manages to stay true to the horrible, tragic content of this book—including the nakba, the occupation, torture, death, and dispossession—while rendering a beautiful collection. That doesn’t mean that she dresses things up or distorts reality to make it palatable. Rather, she uses the lyrical to strip things down and offer them up to the reader, who is unable to tear their eyes away from Kornberg-Weiss’s searing, heartbreaking images.
Take for example:
That marks one difference between Israelis and
Palestinians: so many Israelis walk around with blood on their
hands, hands soaked in red, red hands shaking, exchanging
blood, patting a bloody hand on one’s shoulder, leaving a trace of
a hand, a hand running through one’s hair, scratching a nose,
leaving creases of liquid clotted and dried up on the cheekbones,
taking a bath and then running a hand over one’s arms, arm pits,
breasts then thighs, genitals, feet all covered with blood, blood
trying to wash itself but it’s a blood so ordinary you cannot even
see it.
I write this letter.
Red fingerprints smear on the page.
But Dear Darwish isn’t just about confronting the occupation, nor does it fall into the “shooting and crying” genre. As the title of the book and the title of the first poem both suggest, this collection is about creating dialogue. While one reviewer slammed Kornberg-Weiss for writing the collection “to” Darwish, I would argue that Kornberg-Weiss is acknowledging the inescapable power dynamic of the occupier/occupied and the deeply narcissistic nature of Israeli society. In a poem titled “david antin talked about tuning,” she writes:...
|Published August 7, 2014
Israel cracks down on dissent
More than 1,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel were arrested by Israeli police during Operation Protective Edge, according to a lawyer representing a number of the detainees. While some were arrested for protesting the Israeli military incursion into Gaza, dozens were held without charge.
Maisa Arshid, an attorney for dozens of the detainees, says that 20 to 30 Palestinians were picked up by Israeli police every week in the Nazareth area alone. “All of them are accused of participating in illegal demonstrations,” she says. But, she adds, “Part of these demos were permitted by the police themselves.”
In many cases, there is no evidence that the accused has participated in a protest other than a policeman’s word.
Arshid adds that police frequently held people for short periods without registering the detention, likely putting the number of those who were picked up by the police even higher than 1,000.
When the wave of arrests began earlier in July, Palestinian citizens were detained and quickly released. Some were put on house arrest, some were ordered to do community service. But as the month and Israel’s assault on Gaza has worn on, Palestinian citizens were subject to longer and longer detainments. Last week, Arshid visited a group of detainees who had been held without charge for nine days. “Each day the court is delaying their hearing,” she says, adding that hearings initially scheduled for last Sunday were pushed back to Tuesday.
It’s a way of prolonging their detentions and it has a chilling effect on demonstrations against Operation Protective Edge, Arshid argues. “If people in the street know that people have been arrested for nine days, it will prevent protest.” She says that the detentions are a way to “terrorize the population” into silence.
While Jewish Israeli leftists who object to the war are protected by the police when they protest, they are facing increasingly violent attacks from their countrymen. Moriel Rothman-Zecher attended Tel Aviv’s most recent demonstration against Operation Protective Edge, which drew approximately 5,000 protesters. There were only a couple hundred counter-demonstrators, Rothman-Zecher tells Al Jazeera English, “but they were really, really energetic.”
Israeli police stood between the two groups, preventing clashes. But when the protest ended and the leftists began to leave, right wingers confronted them on the street. They shouted at the demonstrators, calling them “smelly traitors.” A rightest who was carrying an Israeli flag began to...
Is the West Bank ripe for an intifada?
Media and politicians have been quick to claim that Palestinian protests against Operation Protective Edge mark the beginning of a third intifada. But in Beit Sahour, the town that was the heart of the First Intifada, some are skeptical that today’s demonstrations will turn into tomorrow’s revolution.
Some ten thousand Palestinians marched from Ramallah on Thursday night to Qalandia checkpoint, in protest of Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip and in hopes of reaching Jerusalem. One man was killed and dozens were injured in what was the largest demonstration the West Bank has seen in years.
While protesters and observers alike speculate that this marks the beginning of the Third Intifada, the mood in Beit Sahour – the small, predominately Christian town that was the heart of the First Intifada – is decidedly more pessimistic.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, “Nasser,” a Beit Sahouri and veteran of the First Intifada who was arrested nearly a dozen times for his political activities says that recent protests in West Bank are “emotional.”
The First Intifada was “based on hope,” he explains, which allowed people to slow down, think ahead, and “restrain themselves and strategize.”
People are “moving out of emotions now and that becomes violent,” Nasser says, pointing to the Second Intifada as an example. Many Palestinians feel that the Second Intifada accomplished very little.
Today, he adds, “We lack any political movement that’s capable of moving the masses—neither Hamas, nor Fatah, nor any other group.”
Nasser’s sentiments were echoed at a small demonstration in Beit Sahour on Monday, as the West Bank observed a general strike in protest of Operation Protective Edge and what is being called a massacre in Shajaiyah. A few dozen protesters attempted to march towards an Israeli army base that is perched on a hill outside the village. But they were quickly deterred by tear gas.
“This is all about Gaza right now,” said a woman in her late twenties. She hung back, watching, as the shebab, young men, edged forward. “When there’s a ceasefire, the people [in the West Bank] will go back to sleep.”
For years, Palestinians have pointed out that demonstrations in the West Bank are usually reactionary and don’t reflect clear goals, vision, or a long-term strategy. Protests and strikes against Israel’s last two military operations in Gaza – 2008-2009’s Operation Cast Lead and 2012’s Operation Pillar of...
Israel's Bedouin: Civilians in death alone
Israel denies Bedouin citizens basic services in life but claims them as civilians when they die.
Over 400 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its current military operation in Gaza. According to the United Nations, approximately three-quarters of Gaza’s dead are civilians; many are children.
In Israel, two civilians have been killed. One was a Bedouin, the 32-year-old Oudi Lafi al-Waj, who lived in an unrecognized village in the Negev (Naqab) desert, near Dimona. Several Bedouin children have also been injured by rocket fire since Israel began “Operation Protective Edge.”
Bedouin villages do not have air raid sirens, nor are they covered by Iron Dome. They also lack bomb shelters.
In the wake of al-Waj’s death, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a non-governmental organization, “submitted an urgent request” this morning to the Israeli High Court for an answer on the petition the organization filed last week requesting that the state provide bomb shelters for the Bedouin.
But in a Sunday hearing at Israel’s High Court, the “state expressed its position that there is no need to provide additional protective facilities to these communities, and advised the Bedouin residents to protect themselves by lying on the ground,” ACRI reports. The organization added that “officials claimed that protecting the Bedouin villages was a low priority.”
Read +972′s coverage of the latest round of violence
Responding to today’s hearing, ACRI Attorney Auni Banna remarked:
While the High Court declined to take immediate action on the matter, it did request that the respondents–Regional Councils and the Ministry of Justice–respond to concerns raised in the petition about the villages’ infrastructure within 30 days.
This is not the first time that Israel’s highest court has failed to protect the most basic human rights of the country’s Bedouin citizens. In 2013, the Israeli High Court rejected a petition from the NGO Adalah requesting that the state provide water to the unrecognized Bedouin village Umm al Hiran.
Residents of Umm al Hiran must travel four kilometers to buy water from a citizen who charges “exorbitantly high prices,” according to Adalah.
The High Court’s...
Death in Gaza, fireworks in Bethlehem
Though tawjihi, matriculation, celebrations seem light on the surface, they point to a bleak political reality in the West Bank.
I heard the first gunshots at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 30 minutes before the “humanitarian ceasefire” went into effect.
My elderly landlady stuck her head out the window. “What’s going on?” she shouted to where I sat in the garden. She speculated that it could be clashes in Dheisheh refugee camp, which is within earshot of our house. But when we heard fireworks and horns honking, we figured it was a celebration. “Maybe,” I told her, “it’s because of the Israeli acceptance of the ceasefire. Maybe people see it as a Hamas victory?”
And then a neighbor, another elderly woman, arrived. On my street—and I would venture to say that this is true for much of Palestine—elderly women are consummate collectors of information. My landlady once ferreted out my partner’s cell phone number, knowing only his exceedingly common first name, his not-uncommon last name, and the village his family hails from.
Over the cracks of live fire, which echoed through the valley, our neighbor told my landlady that high school seniors had just gotten their tawjihi scores. Tawjihi are matriculation exams, and their scores determine what college or university one will be able to get into, as well as what departments they will be admitted to.
The noise went on for a couple more hours and resumed in the evening. After iftar, the sky lit up with fireworks. As I headed towards the neighborhood dukkan (bodega), a few men stood in the street, watching the display with awe and disgust.
A friend from Beit Jala put it simply that night, as we sat in the garden. “Shu malhom?” What’s their problem?
It might seem belated or curious that I’m writing about this on Saturday. But in the Bethlehem area, tawjihi celebrations are still a topic of discussion.
Last night, I visited some Palestinian friends in Beit Sahour. “Did you hear all that noise on Tuesday?” my host asked, shaking his head. “Unbelievable. There’s a massacre in Gaza and people are shooting off fireworks.”
“Okay, if you want to celebrate, fine,” he continued. “But be respectful of what’s happening. Take your celebrations inside.”
My host added that one of his brothers was so upset by the celebrations—he though they were so disrespectful of what Gaza is going through right...
What does Israeli 'acceptance' of ceasefire really mean?
The Israeli cabinet voted to accept an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire Tuesday morning. Hamas, who was not consulted, is in direct discussions with Cairo but has criticized the initial proposal. What does all this mean?
1) Israel is willing to return to the status quo, a status quo that serves Israeli interests. Sure there is occasional rocket fire from Gaza but Israel has the Iron Dome and, in the sparsely populated south of the country, the rockets usually fall in open spaces. The occasional rocket from Gaza actually helps Israeli hawks strengthen their case for continuing the “occupation” of the West Bank (an “occupation” that, in the wake of Netanyahu’s recent remarks, should be understood as a de facto annexation). The Israeli right points to the rockets from Gaza and says, “Look, we withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and all we got is rocket fire!”
Returning to the status quo also means that Israel strikes Gaza from time to time and kills Palestinian civilians there and in the West Bank without garnering much scrutiny from the international media and, by extension, the international community. Returning to the status quo would also mean an end to the immediate damage to Israel’s image caused by the horrific photos and footage coming out of Gaza, and global protests against what Israel calls “Operation Protective Edge.”
2) Accepting the ceasefire, as Israeli officials admit, gives Israel the green light to “defend” itself with even more force than it’s using now. Just a few hours ago the Israeli cabinet voted to accept the proposed ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remarked at a press conference, “If Hamas continues to fire at Israel, Israel will have the international legitimacy to take action.”
But how can Hamas possibly accept a ceasefire it wasn’t consulted on and especially one that would mean a return to the status quo, including the blockade that the United Nations calls “collective punishment“? Hamas’ terms for a ceasefire are reasonable: that Israel lifts the blockade of the Gaza Strip; that Israel ends aggression in the Occupied Territories; and that Israel releases Palestinian prisoners, many of who were released in the Shalit deal and re-arrested in the West Bank during the...
The abnormal normality of the occupation and its 'escalations'
To pretend as though the events of recent days are extraordinary is to ignore the context that led to this ‘flare-up’ and is disrespectful to the millions of Palestinians who wrestle with the occupation every day, in both the West Bank and in Gaza.
It’s Wednesday. The death toll in Gaza is in the dozens and rising as Layla*, a Christian Palestinian, gets into my car. We live in Bethelehem. She needs a ride to pick up her tasrich (permit) from the Civil Administration’s office in Gush Etzion, where Israel and the Western media claim that the current “flare-up” began.
Layla laughs at our clothes as she opens the passenger door. With her sleeveless top and above-the-knee skirt, she says, she looks like a settler. I’m in long sleeves and jeans, which Layla calls “Abu Dis style,” referring to the conservative Muslim village where I teach. Although we joke about our clothes, I wonder if they reflect the increased tension of recent days; I wonder if they reflect the anxieties neither of us want to admit to.
We leave Bethlehem and merge onto a road that’s shared by army jeeps, Palestinians, and Jewish Israeli civilians and settlers. Layla sighs, “I don’t know who to be afraid of anymore, Mya,” she says. We reason that being together keeps us safe from everyone. No matter who might stop us, we’ll be able to reason with them in their own language. Both our clothes and words will be familiar.
But, as we drive deeper into Gush Etzion, we quickly notice how “normal” things are in the West Bank. “Look at all the settlers,” Layla exclaims, tapping on the window as we pass them. Even though it’s midday, even though it’s blisteringly hot, even though three Israeli boys were murdered not far from here, even though Mohammed Abu Khdeir was brutally murdered by Jews, even though settlements are illegal, even though Israel is pummeling Gaza, there they are. Settlers. Waiting for buses. Hitchhiking.
A lone soldier crosses the road in front of us. “Oh, isn’t he afraid?” Layla asks, sarcastically.
“Look,” Layla says again, pointing at an Israeli woman standing by the side of the road in a skirt, her head wrapped in a scarf. “They’re everywhere.” Layla’s voice is indignant, conflicted. Indignant that the media has made it seem as though Jews aren’t safe; conflicted that they are.
“It seems they are having...
|Published June 17, 2014
'My best friend was Jewish': A young East Jerusalemite speaks
I teach writing at a Palestinian university in the West Bank. Several of my students have been gracious enough to share their experiences with +972, albeit anonymously. This is the final installment in the four-part series.
With the other pieces, I’ve let the student speak first, only adding my comments at the end. But this excerpt points toward a surprising ideological issue that arose between my student and myself, so I feel the need to preface it.
During discussion in class one day, the subject of Israel’s renaming of destroyed Palestinian villages arose. This student felt frustrated with my insistence on using only Arabic place names and she took a position that proved unpopular with her peers: that both the Jews and Palestinians have historical and emotional connections to the land and that, accordingly, both the Hebrew and Arabic names should be used and respected.
Not only was I surprised by her stance, it also challenged me. My student seemed more comfortable and more at peace with Israel than I am. Our in-class discussion, as well as the essay she wrote shortly thereafter, opened many questions, and they’re questions I don’t have answers to.
Has my student, who grew up in East Jerusalem, been brainwashed by attending (Israeli-controlled) public schools? The difficult economic situation and the housing crisis there–both results of the occupation–forced my student and her family to leave East Jerusalem in 2009, two years before Israel took the step of outright censorship of Palestinian textbooks. However, as an employee of the Israeli school system tells me, Palestinian teachers who are openly critical of Israel risk losing their jobs. Hatim Kanaaneh does a nice job of giving a firsthand account of this in his memoir A Doctor in the Galilee. He also describes how those who march in line with Israeli ideology might find themselves rewarded.
So is my student just repeating what she learned in a school system that strips her of her Palestinian identity? Or are her views the result of being a part of the normalizing, “co-existence” program she mentions below? Is she just being pragmatic or is she just navigating the reality she finds on the ground as best she can?
The process of moving from one town to another takes weeks, and they were the toughest weeks in my life…...
Mya Guarnieri is a journalist and writer whose reportage and commentary has appeared in dozens of publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, Foreign Policy, The Boston Review, Al Jazeera English, The National, Outlook India, and Caravan. She has been invited to serve as a commentator on Israel/Palestine on the BBC and Al Jazeera, among others. Her short stories have been published in Narrative and The Kenyon Review; her essays can be found in The Jewish Quarterly, Slate, and Roads & Kingdoms.
She is currently working on a book about migrant workers and asylum seekers in Israel, Unchosen, which is forthcoming from Pluto Press.
Now based in South Florida, she spent seven years living in and covering Israel/Palestine; she is currently in Tel Aviv working on her book.
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RIP Grumpy Cat — The Internet’s Most Famous Cat Has Died
Neilson Barnard, Getty Image
Grumpy Cat, the internet's most famous feline, has died.
The blue-eyed cat, whose permanent scowl won over everyone's heart and brought smiles to millions of people around the world after becoming one of the most well-known memes on social media, passed away peacefully on Tuesday (May 14) at home in her mother Tabatha's arms. She was 7 years old.
Despite her doctor's best efforts to save her, Grumpy, whose real name was Tardar Sauce, died after suffering complications from a recent urinary tract infection that became "too tough for her to overcome," according to an official statement released by her family on Friday morning (May 17).
"We are unimaginably heartbroken to announce the loss of our beloved Grumpy Cat," the owners wrote. “Besides being our baby and a cherished member of the family, Grumpy Cat has helped millions of people smile all around the world—even when times were tough. Her spirit will continue to live on through her fans everywhere."
The feline first rose to fame in 2012 after her owner posted a photo of her looking very miserable on Reddit. The post quickly went viral and became an internet meme that's still popular to this day. She even got her very own book deal, a video game, and a Lifetime movie called Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever.
Following news of Grumpy Cat's death, heartbroken fans paid tribute on Twitter.
Rest in peace, Grumpy Cat, you will be greatly missed.
Source: RIP Grumpy Cat — The Internet’s Most Famous Cat Has Died
Filed Under: grumpy cat
Categories: Celebrity News, Spotlight
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How do you fix the city's financial woes?
HOUSTON The city has two months to come up with a budget that helps get Houston out of the red without raising taxes. And now, we're getting a better idea of just what cuts could be in store.
"There's some structural problems we'll have to address," said Houston Mayor Annise Parker. "You cannot spend more money than you take in."
It's said that Houston's the last to feel an economic pullback. But at the city, that time has arrived.
"Property tax graph has fallen like a rock, and it doesn't look like it's going to reverse," said Houston Councilmember Mike Sullivan. "There's no way to know, but it probably won't reverse in the near future."
On Wednesday, city council was briefed on the current budget and the next one due later this year and they go from bad to worse. According to the city finance director, there's a nearly $12 million gap with the 2010 budget and it could grow.
Options to control it include more department cuts on top of delayed purchases and jobs cut by attrition. The shortfall could also be offset by borrowing by the budget fund balance.
Next year, the gap is projected to grow to nearly $100 million. The potential control options increase, too. They include
More department spending cuts that could impact personnel
A furlough of civilian employees two days a month
Consolidating some city departments
Negotiating with employee unions to reduce the city's pension fund contribution
Negotiate to defer pay raises.
For the moment, classified public safety jobs are secure. That includes fire, police and neighborhood protection. And there's no talk of laying off civilian workers...yet.
"The only circumstance where I could see layoffs is if we decided to stop performing a certain service," said Mayor Parker. "I do not believe there's any service we provide that is not an essential service."
Right now, these are all just talking points.
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HP to acquire Palm for nearly $1B in cash
PALO ALTO, CA The companies announced Wednesday they had agreed to the deal, which will see HP pay $5.70 for every Palm common share. Palm had closed trading Wednesday at $4.63 but traded as high as $18.09 in the past 52 weeks.
When debt is included, the deal values Palm at $1.2 billion.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of July.
HP said Palm's webOS operating system will help it participate more aggressively in the fast-growing market for smart phones and connected mobile devices. It also said Palm's current chairman and CEO, former Apple Inc. executive Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.
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Insights to Innovation
ACC&D Product Profile and Position Papers
ACC&D has built a library of Product Profile and Position Papers (4Ps) on contraceptive and sterilant technologies. Most approaches do not meet our priorities of demonstrating safety, efficacy, and permanence in one treatment. However, because these products were or are available, we often receive questions about them, and we hope the information in these documents will help those who are considering these products make the best decision for the animals in their care. Don't be a stranger to this page, as we'll be adding products to this section routinely.
Dogspiral Product Profile and Position Paper
Dogspiral is an intrauterine device (IUD). It was developed by two veterinarians in Bosnia as a less invasive alternative to sterilization for female dogs. It became commercially available for dogs worldwide in 2014 via sales over the Internet. Data on the safety and efficacy of the Dogspiral IUD is extremely limited; data on other intrauterine devices and expert input raise concerns about Dogspiral safety and ease of use.
GonaCon™ Formulations Product Profile and Position Paper
GnRH-hemocyanin conjugate immunocontraceptive vaccine formulations have been shown to prevent reproduction in multiple mammalian species for extended periods. GonaCon™ and GonaCon-Equine™ are registered with the U.S. EPA for female white-tailed deer and wild/feral horses and burros, respectively. A study indicating that a GnRH-hemocyanin conjugate immunocontraceptive vaccine had potential for multi-year contraception in cats prompted additional studies including this one sponsored by ACC&D. Work to develop an effective, safe formulation for free-roaming dogs is ongoing.
Progestins Profile and Position Paper
Progestins are a category of drugs, with both oral and injectable options and a variety of active ingredients, that are used for temporary suppression of reproduction in cats and dogs of both sexes. Regulatory approval and popularity varies by country. Although in many cases effective for short-term contraception in owned cats and dogs, progestational drugs are associated with a variety of adverse effects; the risks and benefits of use in each clinical situation must be carefully evaluated under veterinary oversight.
Suprelorin® Product Profile and Position Paper
Suprelorin® is a subcutaneous implant which contains the active ingredient deslorelin acetate, a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist that causes infertility by down-regulating pituitary receptors for GnRH, suppressing gonadotropins as well as testosterone. It is manufactured in two versions, both for male dogs, which induce infertility for a minimum of 6 months or 12 months. Suprelorin is available in the European Union, Australia and New Zealand for use in dogs.
Zeuterin Product Profile and Position Paper
Zeuterin® (marketed as Esterisol® in some countries) is a non-surgical sterilant for male dogs delivered via intratesticular injection. The Active ingredient is zinc gluconate neutralized with arginine. The formulation causes permanent sterility in one treatment. The process of neutering with Zeuterin/ EsteriSol is also known as "zinc neutering." Notice: Zeuterin was commercially launched in the U.S. in 2014, following approval and use in several other countries by the name EsterilSol. The product, which was manufactured by Ark Sciences, is not currently being produced or distributed in any country due to the manufacturer’s financial challenges. While there is presently no indication of returning to the market, the formulation retains approval by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
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Home Uncategorized Marriott International Africa expansion to create 50,000 jobs
Marriott International Africa expansion to create 50,000 jobs
GLOBAL hotel group Marriott International, has announced further expansion plans in Africa with seven new hotel signings. Marriott International was the first global chain to make a significant investment in Africa with the acquisition of Protea Hotels for $210 million in 2014.
The company is targeting over 200 hotels with 37,000 rooms open or in the pipeline by 2022, equating to around $8.5bn of capital investment by its real estate partners, reinforcing its continued commitment to expansion in Africa and solidifying its leadership on the continent. The investment is expected to generate substantial economic activity and around 50,000 direct and indirect jobs once the hotels open.
‘Africa today makes a very compelling story. We are seeing unprecedented traction for our compelling brands, driving our momentum of growth,’ says Alex Kyriakidis, Marriott’s President and Managing Director for Middle East and Africa. ‘We have always believed in the potential of Africa and the opportunities the continent has to offer. With economic growth, a rising middle class and rapid urbanisation, the demand for travel and high quality lodging is growing, providing us with a significant opportunity to enhance our footprint and play our part in supporting many emerging markets across the continent,’ he adds.
Currently Marriott International hotels are present in 20 African countries: Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia.
The company is expected to foray into new markets including Benin, Botswana, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal, and has signed 1,300 new rooms marking the debut of Marriott International into Cote d’Ivoire while strengthening its presence in existing markets including Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria.
Abidjan Marriott Hotel, Cote d’Ivoire
Within walking distance from the Presidential Palace, the 200 room Abidjan Marriott Hotel is strategically located in the heart of Plateau, the central business district and the commercial, financial and administrative centre of Abidjan. Owned by Ivory Coast Investissement, the hotel is slated to open in 2021 and will be part of a mixed-use development that will include a conference centre, offices, retail and a national library.
Sheraton Abidjan and Four Points by Sheraton Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
Slated to open in 2022, both Sheraton Abidjan and Four Points by Sheraton Abidjan will also be part of a mixed-use development which will include a convention centre, a marina, a shopping centre and an office building. The 259 room Four Points by Sheraton Abidjan will be a conversion of an existing hotel, which will be rebranded following extensive refurbishment, while the 300 room Sheraton Abidjan will be a new build property. Owned by the Societe Des Lagunes, the hotels will be set on the waterfront in the affluent neighbourhood of Cocody, an upmarket residential commune that also houses the embassy district.
With the country being celebrated as one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, and re-emerging as the gateway to Francophone Africa, the new hotels in the capital city of Abidjan are ideally placed for a long and thriving future.
Renaissance Landmark Lagos Hotel and Marriott Executive Apartments, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria
Owned and developed by Landmark Africa Group, Marriott International will manage the 216 room Renaissance Landmark Lagos Hotel, as well as a 44-room Marriott Executive Apartments. Slated to open in 2020, the hotels will be located within the Landmark Village precinct, a premier mixed-use, business, leisure and lifestyle development along the Atlantic Ocean waterfront in Victoria Island, the central business district of Lagos. The 25-floor hotel will offer a wide range of amenities, including local and international restaurants, spa facilities, a fitness centre, and an infinity pool with access to a 100-meter-long boardwalk overlooking a vibrant beach club offering exciting watersports.
Speaking on the increased interest in mixed-use development projects, Kyriakidis said, ‘As cities evolve and grow into flourishing urban centres, we will continue to see a lot of activity in this space. An international hotel brand can bring cachet to a project that positions it significantly above its peers and differentiates it from its competitors. Our compelling brands spanning every segment from Luxury to Premium to Select to Extended Stay, lend themselves to grow in all markets, city and resort as well as standalone and mixed-use formats, providing developers the flexibility and choice to identify the right brand for the right location.’
Le Meridien Accra, Ghana
The 160 room Le Meridien Accra, owned by 4-Mac Limited is strategically located close to the international airport, within the prestigious Airport Residential Area of Accra. It will provide easy access to key commercial, diplomatic and government nodes as well as to major city attractions. Scheduled to open in 2021, the hotel marks the debut of Le Meridien brand into Ghana.
Protea Hotel by Marriott Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Projected to open in 2021, the 165 room Protea Hotel by Marriott Addis Ababa, located on Churchill Avenue will mark the debut of the brand into Ethiopia. The hotel will offer a specialty restaurant, a lobby bar and lounge and meeting facilities as well as a fitness centre and spa.
Earlier this year, Marriott International had announced the debut of The Ritz-Carlton brand in the exotic Zanzibar Archipelago with the signing of The Ritz-Carlton Zanzibar, the 90 room all suite and villa luxury resort as well as the debut of Aloft into Mauritius with the signing of Aloft Port Louis, the brand’s first adaptive reuse project in Africa.
Commenting on the extraordinary pace of hotel signings and openings this year, Kyriakidis said the ‘Signings and openings form the cornerstone of our aggressive growth strategy. Our history and legacy on the continent and the strong foundations we have built over the years serve as a springboard for our future growth. Our brands are resonating with the aspirational and fast growing middle class in the region. Our strengthened footprint and increased distribution is driving market share and building loyalty which makes us more attractive to investors than ever before.’
The company debuted the Four Points brand in Tanzania early October with the opening of Four Points by Sheraton Arusha, The Arusha Hotel and is now gearing up to open the Four Points by Sheraton Dar es Salam, New Africa Hotel. Earlier this year the brand debuted in Kenya with the opening of Four Points by Sheraton Nairobi Hurlingham and is now expected to open its second hotel in Kenya, Four Points by Sheraton Nairobi Airport in the next couple of weeks.
In Egypt, the company recently re-opened Sheraton Cairo, a city icon for over four decades, after extensive renovation. It is now looking to debut its renowned luxury brand St. Regis, with the opening of the spectacular St. Regis Cairo, a highly anticipated addition to the company’s luxury portfolio in the country.
Marriott also recently opened Protea by Marriott Owerri Select in Nigeria. Other forthcoming openings over the next couple of months include Sheraton Bamako which marks the debut of Marriott International in Mali, Protea Hotel by Marriott Constantine, the brand’s debut in Algeria and the Accra Marriott Hotel, the debut of the flagship Marriott Hotels brand in Ghana.
Marriott International currently has a strong footprint across the continent operating 140 hotels with close to 24,000 rooms across 12 brands.
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Editorial Staff - November 6, 2015
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Editorial Staff - April 18, 2019
Malawi: floods, storms drain the economy
Ghana to encourage more private participation in power sector
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The Federated States of Micronesia is a constitutional republic composed of four states: Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap. Its population was approximately 107,000. The popularly elected unicameral legislature selects the president from among its four at-large senators (one from each state). There were no formal political parties. The most recent general elections for Congress, held on March 6, were considered generally free and fair despite technical problems and some allegations of fraud in Chuuk. On May 11, Congress chose Emanuel Mori as president. Individual states enjoyed significant autonomy, and traditional leaders retained considerable influence in Pohnpei and Yap. The civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.
The government generally respected the human rights of its citizens. Reported human rights problems included judicial delays, government corruption, discrimination against women, domestic violence, and child neglect.
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were no reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The constitution prohibits such practices, and there were no reports that government officials employed torture; however, there were occasional reports of physical abuse by police.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison conditions generally met international standards; however, the underfunded corrections divisions of the Pohnpei and Chuuk State Public Safety Departments failed to provide nutritionally adequate meals to prisoners.
There were no designated juvenile detention facilities; however, juvenile crime was rare, and the states seldom incarcerated juvenile offenders. Pretrial detainees usually were held together with convicted prisoners.
The government permits prison visits by human rights observers, but the question of such visits did not arise during the year.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, and the government generally observed these prohibitions.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
Each state has a Department of Public Safety composed of police, corrections, fire, and emergency response functions. There is a small national police force under the Department of Justice. Some municipalities also have small police forces. Many citizens preferred to rely on customary and traditional remedies to resolve criminal and civil matters.
Despite some improvement after Chuuk State's governor introduced measures in 2006 to reform the state's underqualified and politicized police force, the force remained politicized. In July the public safety director resigned his position in response to political pressure brought upon him by Chuuk's Senate president, who introduced a resolution of censure against the director in apparent reprisal for the arrests of the Senate president's brother and son for armed robbery and assault.
In Pohnpei the Department of Public Safety dismissed a police officer for carrying a handgun while off duty and illegally discharging it during an altercation outside a night club. A youth was grazed by a ricocheting bullet.
Arrest and Detention
Warrants are required for arrests, and detainees were promptly advised of the charges against them. Detainees must be brought before a judge for a hearing within 24 hours of arrest, and this requirement was generally observed in practice. Most arrested persons were released on bail, which usually was set at low levels except in cases involving flight risk. Detainees had prompt access to family members and lawyers. All defendants have the right to counsel; however, the public defender's office was underfunded, and not all defendants received adequate legal assistance in practice.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected judicial independence in practice. The president, with the advice and consent of the legislature, appoints justices to fill vacancies on the three-member Supreme Court. Each state also has a supreme court, and some municipalities have local courts. Some states have additional courts to deal with land disputes. The formal legal system coexists with traditional, mediation-based mechanisms for resolving disputes and dealing with offenders at the local level.
Trial Procedures
The law provides for the right to a fair trial, and an independent judiciary generally enforced this right. Trials are public, although juveniles are allowed closed hearings. Judges conduct trials and render verdicts; there are no juries. Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence and have the right to counsel, to question witnesses, to access government-held evidence, and to appeal convictions. There is a national public defender system with an office in each state. Despite these provisions, cultural resistance to litigation and incarceration as methods of maintaining public order allowed some persons to act with impunity. Serious cases of sexual and other assault and even murder did not go to trial, and suspects routinely were released indefinitely. Bail, even for major crimes, usually was set at low levels.
Delays in some judicial appointments and underfunding of the court system hampered the judiciary's ability to function efficiently. Shortages or unavailability of court personnel and services occasionally hampered the right to a speedy trial.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
There is an independent and impartial judiciary in civil matters. The Supreme Court is responsible for hearing lawsuits seeking damages for, or cessation of, human rights violations. There were no nonjudicial administrative remedies available.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The constitution contains an express right to privacy that prohibits such actions, and the government generally respected these prohibitions in practice.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The constitution provides for freedom of "expression" but not specifically of "speech" or of "the press"; however, the government generally respected each of these rights in practice.
Individuals could criticize the government publicly or privately without reprisal. The number of independent media outlets was very small but growing, with the addition of two religiously affiliated radio stations during the year, one in Pohnpei and one in Yap. There was a lack of consistently reliable access to broadcast media, although this improved greatly during the year. The government radio stations on Yap, Chuuk, and Pohnpei resumed operations, although Chuuk's station operated only four hours a day due to a limited power supply.
There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet or reports that the government monitored e-mail or Internet chat rooms. Individuals and groups could engage in the peaceful expression of views via the Internet, including by e-mail. Cost and lack of infrastructure limited public Internet access on the outlying islands in each state. On the four principal islands, infrastructure was adequate, but cost still limited access. However, each state telecommunications office had Internet work stations available to the public 24 hours a day for reasonable hourly fees.
Academic Freedom and Cultural Events
There were no government restrictions on academic freedom or cultural events.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The constitution provides for freedom of assembly and association, and the government generally respected these rights in practice.
c. Freedom of Religion
Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were no reports of societal abuse or discrimination against religious groups, including anti-Semitic acts. There was no known Jewish community.
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2007 International Religious Freedom Report.
d. Freedom of Movement, Internally Displaced Persons, Protection of Refugees, and Stateless Persons
The constitution provides for freedom of movement within the country. It does not address foreign travel, emigration, or repatriation, but in practice none of these rights was restricted.
The law does not explicitly prohibit forced exile; however, statutes that prescribe punishments for crimes do not provide for the imposition of exile, and the government did not employ it.
Protection of Refugees
The law does not provide for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol, and the government has not established a system for providing protection to refugees. The government did not grant refugee status or asylum, and there were no requests for refugee status or asylum during the year. In practice the government provided protection against refoulement, the return of persons to a country where there is reason to believe they feared persecution. The government cooperated with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees and asylum seekers.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
The constitution and law provide citizens the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right in practice through periodic, free, and fair elections based on universal suffrage.
Elections and Political Participation
The March 6 general elections were generally free and fair; however, there were serious discrepancies between national and state voter registries in Chuuk State that disenfranchised perhaps hundreds of voters. The reasons for the discrepancies appeared primarily technical, although there were some allegations of fraud. Voting in Chuuk was marred by violence in the past, but none was reported during the March elections.
State governors, state legislators, and municipal governments are elected by direct popular vote. There are no restrictions on the formation of political groups; however, there were no significant efforts to form organized political parties, and none existed. Candidates generally sought political support from family and allied clan groupings and from religious groups.
Cultural factors in the male-dominated society limited women's representation in government and politics. Women were well represented in the middle and lower ranks of government at both the federal and state level, and women held the federal cabinet-level positions of attorney general and public defender.
There was one woman in the 23-seat Pohnpei State legislature and no women in the other state legislatures or in the 14-member national legislature.
The country is a multicultural federation, and both the legislature and the government included persons from various cultural backgrounds.
Government Corruption and Transparency
The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption, and the government generally implemented these laws effectively; however, officials sometimes engaged in corrupt practices with impunity. Government corruption was a problem, particularly in Chuuk State. In May a former ambassador was charged with criminal conspiracy and violation of financial management regulations in connection with an alleged passport fraud scheme. At year's end he was free on bail, and the case was pending. A member of Congress indicted in 2004 for corruption retained his seat in the March elections. The judge initially appointed to hear the case recused himself, and at year's end the chief justice had not assigned a new judge to hear the case.
Public officials were not subject to financial disclosure laws. The Office of the Attorney General has primary responsibility for combating government corruption.
There is no national law providing for public access to government information. The speaker of Congress can declare any congressional documents confidential. State laws and practices varied. Legislative hearings and deliberations generally were open to the public. In Pohnpei the state legislature's proceedings were televised, and in Yap they were broadcast on FM radio. Information from other branches of government also was accessible; however, retrieval sometimes was complicated and delayed by the loss or mishandling of records and by the concern of lower level administrative personnel with verifying that release of the particular information requested was permissible. There were no reported cases of government denial of access to media, but there were only a small number of media outlets, and their reporting resources were limited.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
Although there were no official restrictions, no local groups concerned themselves exclusively with human rights. There were groups that addressed problems concerning the rights of women and children, and the government cooperated with these groups.
Section 5 Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
The constitution and law provide explicit protection against discrimination based on race, sex, or language, but societal discrimination against women remained a problem.
Sexual assault, including rape, is a crime. Sexual assault involving a dangerous weapon or serious physical or psychological harm to the victim is punishable by up to nine years' imprisonment in Chuuk and 10 years' imprisonment in the other three states, or a fine of up to $20,000 in Kosrae and $10,000 in the other states. (The U.S. dollar is the national currency.) If neither of these factors is involved, the assault is punishable in all states by up to five years' imprisonment or a fine. However, few cases were reported or prosecuted. There is no specific law against spousal rape. According to police and women's groups, there were a number of reports of physical and sexual assaults against women, both citizens and foreigners, outside the family context. In this traditional society, unmarried women sometimes were considered to have invited such violence by living or traveling alone.
Reports of spousal abuse, often severe, continued during the year. Although assault is a crime, there were no specific laws against domestic abuse, and there were no governmental or private facilities to shelter and support women in abusive situations. Effective prosecution of offenses was rare. In many cases victims decided against initiating legal charges because of family pressure, fear of further assault, or belief that the police would not involve themselves actively in what is seen as a private family problem.
Within the traditional extended family unit, violence, abuse, and neglect directed against spouses or children were deemed offenses against the family, not just the individual victims, and were addressed by a complex system of familial sanctions. However, traditional methods of coping with family discord were breaking down with increasing urbanization, monetization of the economy, and greater emphasis on the nuclear family. No government agency, including the police, has succeeded in replacing the extended family system or in addressing the problem of family violence directly.
Prostitution is illegal and was not a major problem. The law does not prohibit sex tourism specifically, but it was not a problem. The law does not prohibit sexual harassment, which appeared to be pervasive although seldom reported.
Women have equal rights under the law, including the right to own property, and there were no institutional barriers to education or employment. Women received equal pay for equal work. There continued to be extensive societal discrimination against women, although women were active and increasingly successful in private business. There was an active national women's advisory council that lobbied the government. Additionally, several small NGOs were interested in women's issues, particularly those associated with family violence and abuse. The Women's Interest Section of the Department of Health, Education, and Social Affairs worked to protect and promote women's rights.
The government was committed to children's welfare through its programs of health care and education; however, these programs were inadequate to meet the needs of the population, particularly in an environment in which the extended family was breaking down. Health officials and religious leaders ran peer-support and family-care groups to address factors that could contribute to youth suicides.
A compulsory education law requires all children to begin school at age six, but not all did so. A shortage of qualified teachers and lack of textbooks hampered progress. Education was free, and there was no difference between the education of boys and girls. Education levels differed among the states, but on average 75 percent of children finished eighth grade, 55 percent finished ninth grade, and 35 percent finished high school. There were not enough high schools to accommodate all students who wished to attend. Children were permitted to leave school when they reached the age of 14 or after completing the eighth grade, whichever came first.
The government administered an immunization program throughout the country and provided some vitamin supplements. Boys and girls had equal access to government-provided medical care.
There were some anecdotal reports of child abuse and neglect, but no reliable statistics were available.
National and state laws do not specifically prohibit trafficking in persons; however, there were no reports that persons were trafficked to, from, or within the country.
The law prohibits discrimination in public service employment against persons with disabilities. Children with physical or mental disabilities, including learning disabilities, were provided with special education, including instruction at home if necessary; however, such classes were dependent on foreign funding. There were no reports of discrimination against persons with disabilities in employment, access to health care, or provision of other state services; however, persons with disabilities usually did not seek employment outside the home.
Neither laws nor regulations mandate accessibility to public buildings or services for persons with disabilities. Some private businesses provided special parking spaces and wheelchair ramps.
The national Health Services Department is responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities.
Due to the lack of facilities for treating mentally ill persons, some persons with mental illnesses but no criminal background were housed in jails. The authorities provided separate rooms in jails for persons suffering from mental illness, and the state health services departments provided medications to the patients.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Each of the country's four states has a different language and culture. Traditionally the state of Yap had a caste-like social system with high-status villages, each of which had an affiliated low-status village. In the past those who came from low-status villages worked without pay for those with higher status. In exchange those with higher status offered care and protection to those subservient to them. The traditional hierarchical social system has been gradually breaking down, and capable people from low-status villages could rise to senior positions in society. Nonetheless, the traditional system continued to affect contemporary life, with individuals from low-status villages still likely to defer to those with higher status. Persons from low-status backgrounds tended to be less assertive in advocating for their communities' needs with the government. As a result, low-status communities sometimes continued to be underserved.
The national and state constitutions prohibit noncitizens from purchasing land, and a 2002 law continued to limit the occupations that noncitizens could fill. The national Congress granted citizenship to non-Micronesians only in rare cases. There is no permanent residency status. For the most part, however, noncitizens shared fully in the social and cultural life of the country.
Other Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were no reports of societal violence or discrimination against homosexuals or against persons with HIV/AIDS.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
Under the constitution, citizens have the right to form or join associations, and national government employees by law can form associations to "present their views" to the government without coercion, discrimination, or reprisals. For a variety of reasons--including the fact that most private-sector employment was in small-scale, family-owned businesses and citizens were not accustomed to collective bargaining--there were neither associations nor trade unions. Although foreign workers have the right to form unions, they did not do so.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
No law deals specifically with trade unions or with the right to collective bargaining, and there were no reports of collective bargaining agreements during the year. Individual employers, the largest of which were the national and state governments, set wages. There is no specific right to strike.
There are no export processing zones.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The constitution prohibits forced or compulsory labor, and there were no reports that such practices occurred. This prohibition does not mention specifically forced and compulsory labor by children, but there were no reports that such practices occurred.
d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment
National and state laws do not establish a minimum age for employment of children. In practice there was no employment of children for wages; however, children often assisted their families in subsistence farming and in family-owned shops.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
Pohnpei had a minimum hourly wage rate of $2.00 for government and $1.35 for private-sector workers. The other three states had minimum hourly rates only for government workers: $1.25 for Chuuk, $1.49 for Kosrae, and $1.60 for Yap. The minimum hourly wage for employment with the national government was $2.64. These minimum wage structures and the wages customarily paid to skilled workers were sufficient to provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. The minimum wage was enforced through the tax system, and this mechanism was believed to be effective.
There are no laws regulating hours of work (although a 40-hour workweek was standard practice) or prescribing standards of occupational safety and health. A federal regulation requires that employers provide a safe workplace, but the Department of Health had no enforcement capability, and working conditions varied in practice. There is no law for either the public or private sector that permits workers to remove themselves from dangerous work situations without jeopardy to their continued employment.
Foreign workers were not subjected to abuse or deported without cause. They have the right to a hearing if facing deportation.
Working conditions aboard some Chinese-owned fishing vessels operating in the country's waters were very poor. Crewmen reported a high incidence of injuries, beatings by officers, and nonpayment of salary.
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Josh Downey from Evesham banged up (2016)
A VIOLENT demonstrator identified after giving an interview to a current affairs website has been jailed for 18 months.
Josh Downey’s first name, age, home town and photograph were published on the New Statesman just two days after the “anti-immigration” protests in Dover on Saturday, January 30.
Detectives recognised the 22-year-old, of Offenham Road, Evesham in Worcestershire, as being responsible for offences committed throughout the day and sent Downey’s picture to his local police force for identification.
He was arrested on Wednesday, May 11 and later pleaded guilty to one count of violent disorder.
At his sentencing on Friday, August 12, Canterbury Crown Court heard how Downey was filmed throwing numerous objects at opposition protestors in Effingham Street, Dover.
He was later spotted hurling further items while in Folkestone Road, and was also seen in possession of a large piece of wood.
When further fighting broke out later in Market Square, Downey was again caught throwing objects including two large pieces of wood.
Detective Sergeant Matthew Smith of Kent Police said: “The investigation team have arrested more than 70 people in connection with the demonstrations in Dover and they continue to review hundreds of hours of footage captured on the day.
“Although Josh Downey gave us a head start by allowing his details to be published online, my officers have shown they are more than capable of identifying those responsible through good old fashioned police work and a determination to succeed.
“His 18-month sentence is further proof of how serious these cases are being treated by the courts, and I hope the people of Dover are as pleased as I am with the positive results we have received thus far.”
Worcester Evening News
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Category Uncategorized
The guys shared a stage with Chasing Shadows on Friday night, November 17. Captured here is some simply amazing work of Martin Hawley. Thanks to Martin and everyone that came out to join us.
By marksy Posted in News, Photos, Uncategorized
We were honored to be asked to play at Brock Street Brewing. What we found out last night was that this whole concept came about after a few friends made a batch of beer in one of their back yards. They took that beer out to others to get their thoughts. When folks raved about how good it was, they decided to go back and make more. But who had the recipe? Who wrote it down. Oh no!
But from that point, a dream was beginning. Four local business men, and our friends in the community, had a dream, they shared a passion, and they are working their tails off to make this dream a reality.
The hope is by next summer, summer of 2017, Brock Street Brewing will indeed be located in the heart of downtown Whitby, on Brock Street, just south of the 4 corners of Whitby.
We were there last night to play some rock and roll, and many of our friends joined us. A dinner of ribs, mac and cheese, salad, desert, and of course beers made right on the premise was served. Playing right next to the tanks of goodness was a surreal experience. Knowing the goodness being created right next to us, was ultra cool. As one patron actually asked, “can I jump in and swim around”? Sounded like a great idea to us.
We will play again here. It was a win win all around. Five Wheel Drive had a great night, guests were entertained and fed, and the Brock Street name, gained a number of brand new customers. Posts on Facebook the next day from a number of people, raved about the beers they had tried. And what was I am sure very satisfying was that everyone’s taste buds took them in a different direction to their favorite beer.
Salute to our friends that joined, and salute to our friends on this very exciting venture. We are with you!
By marksy Posted in Uncategorized
This Friday night, March 4th, Five Wheel Drive will be playing live at the Ontario Lacrosse Association SAGM (Semi-Annual General Meeting). The meeting and show is being held at the Delta Meadowvale in Mississauga, Ontario. The band is scheduled to go on between 8:30 – 9:00pm on Friday night and play until after midnight.
It is a bit of a big deal for the band, specifically lead vocalist Gary Mark. “I was absolutely thrilled when I was asked if we could play. It is an unreal honour to play for lacrosse people; there’s none like them.” The OLA SAGM captures representatives from every minor association all across Ontario, as well as all Junior and Major Clubs over the course of the weekend. Various meetings, discussions and training takes place each year.
“I have been involved in lacrosse is some capacity (player, referee, timekeeper, coach, volunteer) almost every year since I was five years old. I owe so much to the game; lifelong friends and relationships, and of course all of the memories from the game that I can share with my family. Ironically, 2016 will be the first year I am not involved with the game in any capacity for as long as I can remember. But I left because I felt it was time, and I now have some other interests (music) that really occupy my time. It will be a little bitter sweet going into this meeting now as an entertainer. Sure I will miss it, but I am so excited to play and share my other passion with so many friends and peers.”
Five Wheel Drive is the band that was put together 4 years ago, and the group started playing live 3 years ago. Since then the group (who focuses on playing those classic rock songs you love but don’t hear very often), have been playing regularly throughout Durham Region and beyond. “We like to be a little different so you won’t hear Brown Eyed Girl, or Mustang Sally”, said keyboardist Fernando Laguardia. “Sure they are great songs but every bar band on the continent plays them. We go for the wow factor, as in wow I cannot believe that they did that one, I have not heard it in so long. ”
Mark says that being in a band is a mirror image of being on a lacrosse team or volunteer executive. “We practice to get better and we all have our certain roles. Individually we are all good at what we do, but when the 5 of us work together, we can really make some amazing things happen. It is just like it is on the floor.”
For more information about Five Wheel Drive you can follow the band on Facebook at www.facebook.com/5wdband, or go to the bands website at 5wheeldrive.ca
Whisky John’s Brand New Look!
This Friday, October 2nd, Five Wheel Drive will return to Whisky John’s for their first visit since March of 2015. While a lot of greatness remains, namely the lovely Angie Poucher and the great dance party she maintains each week, there is a lot of change as well.
WJ’s recently had a 3-4 week complete renovation and just opened its doors to the public a week ago. A much more open area for folks to roam, and a more dedicated area for the bands to play and people to dance. And countless TV’s for those that need to keep up with the game while taking a break from dancing.
Five Wheel Drive has been working hard at new tunes and will be unleashing quite a few at Friday’s show. Get your dancing shoes on, make sure you are well rested (you can hydrate at the bar), and plan to stay up late!
The band goes on at 10pm.
Small Town Ontario Rocks!
Five Wheel Drive is in the midst of a number of shows outside of Durham Region. The guys in the band made a decision to spend much of the Summer 2015 exploring some small town bars outside of the normal area. So far, two shows in, the band has experienced far more than they may have imagined was possible. Kelly’s Home Like Inn in Cobourg, and Col. Mustards in Port Perry have proven to be fantastic venues, with local folks that really want to have a good time.
In both town’s the band had an amazing night, and dealt with first class owners, very accommodating and professional staff, and a crowd that was ready for some dancing and good old rock and roll. The band delivered!
Cobourg and Port Perry are now definitely on the map for 5WD in their plans for future visits.
Kelly’s Home Like Inn, Like A Home Away From Home For 5WD
Well what can one say? Sometimes you have to dig hard and dig deep to find some of the hidden little gems the music life has to offer you. And we did. Last night was the first time Five Wheel Drive left Durham Region for a show. And as we have always said, this ain’t about the money (musicians know that). It’s about finding those people in those venues that appreciate and respond to your music. What a find.
Kelly’s Homelike Inn in Cobourg is one of those places. Such a great response from a great crowd, and fantastic staff. Some of the comments from the locals left us speechless and humbled, and energized all at the same time!. Their genuine love for the music and their appreciation to us when we came to town. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to the fine people of Cobourg and Kelly’s Home Like Inn. We will be back…..
Let The World Tour Begin (wink, wink)
Over the next three months the band will be travelling outside of Durham Region for a number of live shows. Starting Friday April 10, the guys head to Kelly’s Homelike Inn in Cobourg, Frosty John’s in Bowmanville in early May, Col. Mustard’s Port Perry in late May, the Brooklin Spring Fair in early June, Jake’s Bar Lindsay in late June and Beaverton Motel in early July.
All of the above shows will be first visits to these locations except for Frosty John’s in Bowmanville. The hope is to gain an additional fan base by doing so. Whitby, Oshawa and Courtice / Bowmanville have been so supportive of the band in the last three years and the group is extremely grateful for the support locally.
But in the music scene you can never have enough followers and people to enjoy your performances, so Five Wheel Drive is going on a little bit of a tour this Summer. For all of the bands show dates and start times, check here under show history or join any of the events on the band’s Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/5wdband/events. Better yet, like the Facebook page and you will be notified every time a show is added.
Get ready to rock this Summer!
A Rocking Good Time At Players Bench
The guys in Five Wheel Drive opened up 2015 with a bang. On Saturday night, January 17, the band played to a full house at Player’s Bench Oshawa. Adding in a number of new tunes, the guys had a great night, and we are pretty sure that the guests did too. Thanks to all in attendance. Next up, The Ridges Pub in Pickering on February 20.
A Little Teaser of Some 5WD Swag!
Coming very soon…..
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Overview A-Z
Observations placeholder
Royal jelly and infertility
Type of Spiritual Experience
Invisible input - healing
Asthenozoospermia (or asthenospermia) is the medical term for reduced sperm motility. Complete asthenozoospermia, that is, 100% immotile spermatozoa in the ejaculate, is reported at a frequency of 1 of 5000 men. Causes of complete asthenozoospermia include metabolic deficiencies, ultrastructural abnormalities of the sperm flagellum (see Primary ciliary dyskinesia)and necrozoospermia. It decreases the sperm quality and is therefore one of the major causes of infertility or reduced fertility in men
A description of the experience
Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 2008 May;101(2):146-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ijgo.2007.11.012. Epub 2008 Jan 28.
Midcycle pericoital intravaginal bee honey and royal jelly for male factor infertility. Abdelhafiz AT, Muhamad JA. Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Sohag University Hospital, Sohag University, Egypt. ahmedahafiz_obs@yahoo.com
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of pericoital intravaginal applications of a mixture of Egyptian bee honey and royal jelly (H/RJ) in the midcycle for the treatment of infertility due to asthenozoospermia.
METHODS: Sohag University Hospital and Asyut Gynecology and Infertility Clinic conducted a crossover study of 99 couples affected by asthenozoospermia. One group used midcycle pericoital vaginal applications of H/RJ and the other underwent a standard intrauterine insemination (IUI) procedure, for 3 cycles or until conception occurred for both groups. After a washout period of 2 months, the couples for whom no pregnancy occurred were crossed over.
RESULTS: A total of 553 cycles were analyzed. There were 23 (8.1%) and 7 (2.6%) pregnancies per cycle, respectively, in the H/RJ and the IUI groups, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001).
CONCLUSION: Using H/RJ intravaginally might be a simple and reasonably effective method of treating asthenozoospermia.
The source of the experience
Concepts, symbols and science items
Science Items
Activities and commonsteps
Overloads
Commonsteps
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Monica Wood
National Suicide Prevention Month - Powerful Programming
September is National Suicide Prevention month, an annual campaign in the United States to inform and engage health professionals and the general public about suicide prevention and the warning signs of suicide. There’s not better way to bring light to this important topic than through powerful programming and author events.
Monica Wood, bestselling author of When We Were the Kennedys and One-in-a-Million Boy shares her personal story about the suicide attempt of her husband of 41 years. "People do just get completely overwhelmed with life sometimes and that is what happened,” Wood said. “And sometimes it's just a perfect storm of things that can happen. If it can happen to him, it could happen to anybody."
Alix Strauss, NYT reporter and author of Death Becomes Them, explores mental illness and addiction through the topics of suicide, hoping to end the stigma of discussing these issues openly, particularly among young people.
By the time you finish reading this piece, someone will have committed suicide. And 44,000 American die by suicide each year, making it the 10th leading cause of death in the US. That’s an average of 121 suicides per day. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call the National Suicide Prevention line: 1-800-273-8255.
Tagged: Monica Wood, Alix Strauss
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Publié le 3 mars 2019 par ASER_ASSO
All parties involved in the war in Yemen continue to plunge the population into what the United Nations Secretary General has denounced as « the planet’s worst humanitarian crisis.” One estimate put the death toll at nearly 60,000 since 2016. Hostilities between the Saudi Arabia-led Coalition and the Houthi and other armed groups, have become increasingly muddled as loyalties have shifted, armed groups and militia proliferated and factions fragmented. The Coalition includes Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. It supports the beleaguered Yemen government and its militia.Despite a fragile ceasefire agreed in December, clashes have continued, as have attacks on civilians by Yemeni government militia, the Coalition forces and the armed groups.
Mobilization by civil society and calls by parliamentarians in many countries following reports of civilian atrocities by NGO, media and UN experts of atrocities have put pressure on governments to stop the flow of all arms that would be used in Yemen. Shock at the brazen assassination of exiled Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, by a Saudi state murder squad on 2 October 2018 heightened such calls. In response, States such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, Flanders, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland have announced they will suspend arms exports to Saudi Arabia. This suggests that some governments are beginning to accept responsibility to take measures to ensure respect of international law, particularly that of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL). However, the United States, France, Italy, Canada and the United Kingdom governments continue as the main suppliers of war material to the Saudi Arabia-Led Coalition and the United States and the United Kingdom, among other States, continue to advise the Coalition.
According to a detailed report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Group of Experts in August 2018, the Coalition has continued a pattern of air strikes and military operations causing most of the documented civilian casualties in Yemen. In the past three years, such air strikes using precision munitions have hit residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, detention facilities, civilian boats and even medical facilities. The use in some cases of “double strikes” close in time, which affect first responders, raises grave concern. The UN Experts Group report accused the Saudi-led coalition of routinely having failed to consult its own “no-strike list” of more than 30,000 sites in Yemen, including refugee camps and hospitals. The Group also said the Saudi Air Force had not cooperated with investigators about its targeting procedures. Similar findings were reported from a UN Security Council panel of experts on Yemen in January 2018.
The mounting evidence indicates that these actions are repeatedly violating the fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution when conducting hostilities, acts which constitute serious violations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and may amount to war crimes and even crimes against humanity. Unicef’s Middle East and North Africa director, Geert Cappelaere, said: “Not enough has changed for children in Yemen since the Stockholm agreement on 13 December 2018. Every day since, eight children have been killed or injured. Most of the children killed were playing outdoors with their friends or were on their way to or from school” (The Guardian, 26 February 2019).
At the same time, the UN calculated that in 2018 nearly 60% of the aid to alleviate suffering in Yemen came from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US. The UK is also now stepping up its aid to Yemen. The UN says about 22 million people out of a population of 29 million need help to secure food this year in Yemen, including nearly 10 million who are just a step away from famine. Nearly 240,000 are facing “catastrophic levels of hunger.” More than 250 humanitarian organisations are operating in the country.The UN Experts Group said that millions of civilians were also suffering “devastating effects” from the coalition’s arbitrary restrictions on shipping and air travel because food, medicines and fuel were needed to fend off starvation and diseases. The Coalition’s screening of ships was supposed to prevent arms smuggling to the armed groups but had become a “de facto blockade’ while the UN searches had found no weapons on ships.
The United States, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom are signatories to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). As such they are obliged to respect its object and purpose which is to establish the highest possible common international standards for improving the regulation of the international trade in conventional arms, and to reduce human suffering. Moreover, France, Italy and the United Kingdom are legally bound as State Parties to the ATT to respect all the obligations under the Treaty. Those legal obligations include a duty to prohibit any arms transfers if their State knows that the arms would be used for such violations or international crimes. They and the Saudi Coalition blame the government of Iran for continuing to arm the Houthi forces, as if two wrongs make a right. The UN Expert Group accused Houthi fighters and their allies of violating IHL, including by shelling residential areas, impeding humanitarian aid and using child soldiers. Houthi and other armed groups appear to have acquired most of their arms from Yemeni government stocks and from illicit markets in the region.
The UN Security Council has been slow and one sided. In 2013 the Council had condemned the illicit transfer, destabilizing accumulation and misuse of small arms and light weapons in Yemen, and in April 2015 imposed an arms embargo only targeted on the Houthi armed opposition. Total embargoes had been imposed on UN-designated terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) affiliate in Yemen, which have become actively engaged in attacks on Coalition as well as armed opposition forces and civilians. In January 2018 the Security Council’s expert panel accused Iran of transferring some missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles used by Houthi forces, although it also reported that been no reported maritime seizures of weapons and ammunition during 2017, and only very limited seizures of arms-related material have been identified on the main land supply route. However, the Security Council has not imposed an embargo on arms transfers to Yemen as such.
Civil society organizations, parliamentarians and governments that respect the international rule of law can further step up political pressure as well as take legal actions to compel arms supplying States to implement their ATT obligations and suspend transfers to the Saudi Coalition. Some NGOs have attempted to challenge their home governments in the courts.
In the case of France, Article 55 of the Constitution gives supra-legislative status to treaties ratified by Parliament. In the 2018 complaint filed by Action Sécurité Ethique Républicaines (ASER) against the French government’s continued arms exports to the Saudi Arabian-led Coalition, the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security disputed the direct effect legal status of the ATT in its defence brief.
A decisive point in the case remains the choice of which article of the ATT applies to the transfer of arms to the Saudi Arabia-led Coalition given the strong prima facie evidence of atrocities being committed with those arms in Yemen. Should the case be based first and foremost on Article 6, which prohibits a potential arms transfer if the State Party “has knowledge” that the arms would be used for the commission of serious violations of IHL or war crimes? Or should the case first rest on Article 7, which requires the exporting State Party to assess whether there is an “overriding risk” that the potential arms export would be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of IHL or of international human rights law, despite “available mitigation measures” first taken by the exporting and importing States?
ATT Article 6, paragraph 3 specifies that: « A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms or items…[covered by the Treaty] if it has knowledge at the time of authorization that such arms or items would be used to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects and protected as such, or other war crimesas defined by international agreements to which it is a Party.”
ASER’s opinion is that before the start of full-blown hostilities in March 2015, litigation based upon the risk assessment procedures required by ATT Article 7 to approve or deny arms exports to Saudi Arabia could have been justified. Each exporting State Party to the ATT had to assess the risks of using potential exports of weapons in the light of the information it was then aware of.
However, Article 7 only applies if a potential export is not prohibited by Article 6, and since 2015, factual evidence of the Coalition’s flawed ‘rules of engagement’ in this armed conflict had quickly become a proven reality. Repeated cases pointing to serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have been widely documented in United Nations and NGO reports. In particular the UN reports of January 2017, January 2018 and August 2018 provide details of air strikes on civilian targets and other attacks on civilians by Saudi Arabian-led Coalition forces, as well as by Houthi and other armed groups. It is therefore Article 6 of the ATT that must first be applied in litigation efforts in countries that are ATT States Parties.
Some NGOs in the European Union began their litigation efforts over the past two years in a general way by referring to ATT Articles 6 and 7 as well as to the EU Common Position on arms exports. Criterion 2 of the Common Position requires that Member States deny an arms export licence “if there is a clear risk that the military technology or equipment to be exported might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law.” Although the wording in the Common Position and the ATT is slightly different, Criterion 2 presents similar challenges to ATT Article 7. Neither should be the starting point of litigation ahead of Article 6.
Such legal action by NGOs should of course be accompanied by a mobilisation of civil society at the political level. The French Government’s refusal to allow the judiciary any right of scrutiny over the regularity and conformity of French arms export procedures is essentially political and in ASER’s view it contravenes the French Constitution. It reveals a vision of the 19th Century in which citizens were not allowed to speak or question decisions of government that appear illegal or immoral.
ASER is determined to convince the judge of the direct effect of the ATT in domestic law and of the illegality of the arms transfers that the government could foresee would be used for atrocities in Yemen. France’s foreign policy affects all citizens living in France, particularly in terms of security and respect for human rights, and that policy must not blatantly violate and be seen to blatantly violate, relevant international law.
ASER’s action sets a precedent in France. So far no other French NGO has launched a legal challenge to the State concerning arms export authorisations.
Jean Claude, Alt, médecin anesthésiste, administrateur ASER, expert droits de l’Homme
Benoît Muracciole, expert droits de l’Homme / force publique, Président ASER auteur de « Quelles frontières pour les armes » édition A Pedone
Pour d’autres articles sur ces questions, consulter le blog :Armer Désarmer
ASER est membre du Réseau d’Action International sur les Armes Légères (RAIAL). ASER est accréditée aux Nations Unies.
Pour soutenir ASER
Cette entrée a été publiée dans Transferts d'armes. Sauvegarder le permalien.
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Ventes d’armes aux pays impliqués dans la guerre au Yémen Le Sénat étasunien vote NON pendant que le Parlement français reste muselé →
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Jane Krakowski & Chris Diamantopoulos Join A Christmas Story Live! on Fox
October 18th, 2017 | By Andy Lefkowitz
Christmas has come early! Tony winner Jane Krakowski will play Miss Shields, the teacher of nine-year-old Ralphie Parker, in the upcoming live TV presentation of A Christmas Story. Broadway alum Chris Diamantopoulos has also joined the cast, portraying Ralphie’s dad. The musical event will air on December 17 at 7:00pm EST on Fox.
Jane Krakowski is a Tony winner for Nine who most recently appeared on the Great White Way in She Loves Me. Her other Broadway credits include Starlight Express, Grand Hotel, Face Value, Company, Tartuffe and Once Upon a Mattress. Krakowski is a five-time Emmy nominee for her work on 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as well as a Golden Globe nominee for Ally McBeal.
Chris Diamantopoulos recently appeared on Broadway in Waitress. His other Great White Way turns include roles in Les Misérables and The Full Monty. Diamantopoulos' small-screen credits include Silicon Valley and Good Girls Revolt. He received an Emmy nomination for voicing Mickey Mouse on the eponymous animated series.
Krakowski and Diamantopoulos join a previously announced Christmas Story Live! company that includes newcomer Andy Walken as Ralphie, Emmy nominee Maya Rudolph as Ralphie's mom and two-time Tony winner Matthew Broderick as the narrator. A Christmas Story Live! is inspired by the holiday classic feature A Christmas Story and the Tony-nominated show A Christmas Story: The Musical. The TV adaptation will be filmed at the historic Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, CA.
Jonathan Tolins and Robert Cary are penning the script for the adaptation that features the Tony-nommed score by Dear Evan Hansen songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul along with new songs penned by the pair. Scott Ellis will serve as the director for A Christmas Story: Live! with Alex Rudzinski as the live television director.
The roles of Miss Shields and Ralphie's dad were originated on Broadway by current Anastasia stars Caroline O'Connor and John Bolton, respectively.
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The cost of gagging Beirut (Part IV)
Riad Taha was president of the Lebanese Press Federation (LPF) for 13 years.
The first time we spoke was on the telephone, in April 1975.
The last time we spoke was also on the telephone, in July 1980 – the month he was machine-gunned mafia style after a car chase on Beirut’s seafront.
Born in Hermel in 1927, Riad Taha spent 38 years of his life in journalism – the last 13 of them as president of the LPF (grouping the Lebanese Publishers’ Union and Lebanese Journalists’ Union).
He received his education at the Jesuit School in Homs, Syria, the Oriental College in Zahle in Lebanon and the Patriarchal College in Beirut.
At the age of 15, while he was still a student in Homs, he put out his first publication – the al-Siraj literary magazine. Two years later, he put out another literary magazine, al-Awtar, and in 1945, he was named editor in chief of the al-Tala’eh magazine.
In 1947, he became co-owner of the Akhbar al-‘Alam political weekly, but the government suspended its publication after four months, because of its radical contents.
In 1949, he founded the first local news agency in Lebanon and the Middle East. He also published several dailies and weeklies (al-Ahad, al-Kifah, al-Afkar) during his long journalistic career, and a number of books.
In 1952, he survived an assassination attempt but was treated in hospital for several wounds. The LPF adopted the article that had led to the attempt on his life and published it in all Lebanese newspapers.
Some 30 bullets tore through Taha's Buick in Raouche
He was an outspoken critic of the country’s feudal leaders and struggled unceasingly for freedom of the Lebanese press. In one of his last statements, he said, “Journalists in Lebanon are laboring under a yoke of terror imposed by armed forces inside and outside the country.”
In 1967, he was elected LPF president, a position he held until his murder on July 23, 1980. His term had been renewed on December 19, 1979.
He was a candidate in parliamentary elections for the Baalbeck-Hermel district several times, but never made it to Parliament.
When Najib Azzam (see Part II in this series) was shot and killed in January, 1976, he wrote in Monday Morning: “I was stricken with grief at the loss of this friend and colleague, whom I consider one of the martyrs of the press and of freedom in this country… I shared the sorrow of the owner of Monday Morning, of the Monday Morning family, of the Azzam family over this tragedy. I was, like them, one of the bereaved.”
When Edouard Saab, editor of L’Orient-Le Jour was shot and killed in May 1976, Taha wrote in Monday Morning: “If in the West journalism is known as ‘the profession of trouble,’ we can rightly claim that for us in Lebanon, journalism is the profession of martyrdom.”
That statement was justified over and over, as one journalist after another succumbed to the Unidentified Gunmen infesting Lebanon.
Taha laid claim to martyrdom as he was driving through West Beirut to keep an appointment with then-outgoing Prime Minister Selim Hoss.
He left behind his own message to the Lebanese people.
“Without the freedom of the press,” he wrote, “it would not be long before all other freedoms in Lebanon vanished. How long would the freedom of political parties remain without the freedom of the press? What would happen to the freedom of assembly? All freedoms will soon wither and vanish without the freedom of the press.
Taha behind his desk at the Lebanese Press Federaion
“So, I feel the fight for the freedom of the press should not be waged by the press alone. This is a public issue that will eventually affect the life of every citizen.”
Taha’s appeal to his people to throw their weight behind press freedom appeared in Monday Morning in November 1976. It was with the charge that some Arab countries were pressuring the Lebanese authorities into muzzling the press.
“There can be no doubt,” Taha wrote, “the majority of the Arab regimes, if not all of them, now favor applying pressure on the Lebanese authorities to abolish the freedom of the press in Lebanon, or to at least restrict it. Arab pressure toward the muzzling of the Lebanese press has started…
“Press freedom is unknown in the Arab countries and in nearly all the Third World… It is only natural that regimes that exercise some form of oppression should gang up against the free press of Lebanon, because it exposes their failings and reveals the truth about them. The free press of Lebanon is an embarrassment to other Arab countries…
“The final goal is not to restrict the freedom of the Lebanese press, but to abolish it.”
In another article written for Monday Morning, he enlarged on the theme as follows, “In a country like the United States, the safeguards are three: the Congress, the judiciary and the press. If any of these pillars is shaken, the system loses its foundation. In Lebanon the press is the regime’s only safeguard. This is because our legislature is not discharging its duties, as neither is the judiciary. The Lebanese crisis has eclipsed the executive, legislative and judicial authorities… Only the press has survived. If this sole survivor is lost, the whole Lebanese system will lose its raison d’être…”
I first got to know Taha when I rang him in April 1975 to ask for an appointment. He received me at his LPF office and heard my complaint. I summed up my grievance as follows: “Political and armed infighting in the country leaves little apolitical content for my weekly magazine Monday Morning to publish. To cover politics in Monday Morning, I am required by law to buy an existing political publishing license, which I have already. I bought the title of weekly Al Shiraa from Monsignor Antoine Cortbawi. I applied to the Information Ministry for approval of the transfer of ownership of Al Shiraa so as to start using its title alongside Monday Morning’s. I also applied for membership in the Lebanese Publishers’ Union. The applications have gone unanswered for weeks although both are 100 percent aboveboard.”
Taha said he needed a couple of days to look into the matter. Within two weeks both applications were approved. I got the ministry’s approval and my Press Card in May 1975. With the Al Shiraa license legally under its belt, Monday Morning reworked its title page and turned political.
I bought the Al Shiraa title in 1975 from the late Mgr. Cortbawi through the good offices of my friend George Chami, now a distinguished and prolific novelist after a long mass media career.
Chami -- author of such novels as “What’s Left of (Civil) Strife,” (2003) “Roots of Gold” (2005) and “Chinaberry Juice” (2008) – accompanied me to the meeting with Father Cortbawi at his vocational training and physiotherapy institute near Aley.
Mgr. Cortbawi accompanying my mother on a tour of his Institute
Before signing the transfer of ownership deed. Father Cortbawi told me: “You should know the Al Shiraa title is unadulterated. It was never on the market, not since I got it by a government decree signed some 25 years ago by (prime minister) Riad el-Solh. I’ll sign the deed of sale once you promise me not to use the title as a vehicle to undermine Lebanon.”
I made the promise. Father Cortbawi then took my check and looked at Chami, who nodded his head, signaling it was not a dud one. He then signed the deed, shook my hand and told me, “Congratulations. Now be safe!”
A year later, the Cortbawi Institute buildings near Aley were pillaged, scorched and left biting the dust by the Unidentified Gunmen.
Father Cortbawi died in 1979 but his institute is now thriving after being rebuilt in Adma.
From May 1975 until his murder in July 1980, Taha fended for the Lebanese press community. If he didn’t pay Monday Morning offices a surprise visit every couple of months, he would call to ask about the staff’s well being.
When magnetic tapes for our IBM Electronic "Selectric" Composer became unavailable in war-torn Lebanon, he made sure to bring a few on his return from trips to Europe.
Closure then of the English-language newspaper The Daily Star, and renewed hope the civil war was drawing to a close, drove me in March 1977 to consider publishing a new English-language daily as a stable mate to Monday Morning.
I consulted Taha on local press laws requiring every new political publication to buy a license off the market and keep the original name of that license.
He said he could think of an ideal title for an English daily that won’t need a name change, adding, “Since the title is parked with the owners, let me first find out if it is for sale.”
It was for sale.
After decades of publishing “Ayk” as an independent, nonpartisan Lebanese-Armenian newspaper, license owners Dikran and Lucie Tosbat sold me the title. I changed the spelling from “Ayk” – which means “dawn” in Armenian -- to “Ike” and started publishing it as an English- language daily in April 1977.
Riad Taha the painter at a 1974 New Year's party
What I called the newspaper mattered little. What I was offering was not a name but a service and for two years my staff did everything in their power to make the offering a worthy one. But the cycle of violence and the exodus from Lebanon caught up with Ike, which folded in mid-1979. In a country ravaged by civil war, it was easier to keep a weekly afloat than a weekly magazine and a daily newspaper at the same time.
Taha rang me a few weeks before his murder to say he was assembling an LPF delegation for a courtesy visit to the country’s president Suleiman Franjieh in Zghorta and invited me to join.
I tried wriggling out, saying the roads were not safe. “Of course they’re not,” Taha said, “but we’ll be traveling by helicopter. Also your friend Jamil Alouf (a publisher from Zahle) will be joining us.”
I still declined the invite. Sadly, it was the last time we spoke.
In retrospect, I suspect Taha was trying in the weeks leading up to his death to appease his pro-Syrian antagonists.
The attempt proved futile. He was gunned down in Raouche, West Beirut, on Wednesday morning, July 23, 1980.
He left a widow, four sons and two daughters.
The cost of gagging Beirut (Part V) will be about the fifth victim, Janet Lee Stevens
Posted by F. Najia at 00:27
Labels: Al Shiraa, Cortbawi Institute, George Chami, Ike daily, Lebanese Press Federation, Lebanon press freedom, Mgr. Antoine Cortbawi, Monday Morning weekly, Riad Taha, Suleiman Franjieh
F. Najia
نقل فؤادك حيث شئت من الهوى .... ما الحب إلا للحبيب الأول
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The cost of gagging Beirut (Part V)
Is the Arab League's Nabil Elaraby a quisling?
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“Highlights of the Syria observers’ report”
1976 flashback to Damascus and Moscow
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UN chief on Iran, Assad, Mubarak and Saleh
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The Middle East’s likely “escape to war”
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The case for regime change in Syria
Middle East change for the better or worse?
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An open line to the Middle East
ArabSaga by Fawaz C. Najia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on work at arabsaga.blogspot.com
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Acts of the Apostles: Christians and the Law of Moses: A Study of Acts 15
Acts 15 describes the most important meeting the early church had. The future of the church was at stake—was it to be a Jewish group, or would it allow Gentiles?
If Gentiles could enter the church without following Jewish laws, the church would attract more Gentiles, and eventually Gentiles would be the majority. The church would no longer be a sect of Judaism, but a distinct faith. Let’s see how the council of Jerusalem developed.
Literary context
The council comes in the center of Luke’s inspired history. His book begins with the Jewish church, dominated by Peter in chapters 1 to 5. The book ends with Paul’s mission to the Gentiles, in chapters 16 to 28. Chapters 6 to 15 form a transition, alternating between Jewish and Gentile growth.
Chapter 15, the council of Jerusalem, forms the climax of the transition between Jewish and Gentile evangelism. In the story flow, the council forms the decisive step that propels the Gentile mission into dominance.
Paul and Barnabas had returned from a successful missionary trip in Gentile areas. They told the church in Antioch how God had “opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (14:27). Thus the stage is set for chapter 15.
Controversy arises
“Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved’” (15:1). They were saying that circumcision was required for salvation. They probably thought the question was simple: Christians should obey God, and God had commanded circumcision. If people want the blessings of Abraham, they should act like children of Abraham, and that meant circumcision for Gentiles as well as for Jews (Gen. 17:12).
Paul and Barnabas had a different opinion: “This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them” (Acts 15:2). How was the argument to be resolved? “Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.” In this way the church could have unity.
So “the church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad” (v. 3). Luke is letting us know that most Christians supported the Gentile mission.
“When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them” (v. 4). What God had done was part of the evidence. The miracles and conversions supported what he was saying.
The formal debate
Then they debated the question: “Some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, `The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses’” (v. 5). We saw in verse 1 that they believed that circumcision was necessary for salvation. Here we see that they also believed the laws of Moses were required. Circumcision was the first step in the process—they believed that Christians must keep all the laws of Moses.
What were these laws? Were they biblical laws, or the unbiblical traditions of the elders? In every other New Testament mention of the “laws of Moses,” the biblical books of Moses are meant (Luke 2:22; 24:44; John 7:22-23; Acts 28:23; 1 Cor. 9:9; Heb. 10:28). Luke could have said “traditions,” but he did not. Anyone who knew the teachings of Jesus would already know that unbiblical traditions were not required of anyone. They did not need to debate about Jewish traditions.
Just as circumcision was biblical, so also were the laws of Moses. The claim was that Gentile believers should be circumcised, and then, as part of the covenant people of God, obey the laws of the covenant. One of the laws of Moses was that males were to be circumcised.
Today, we might explain that Jesus instituted a new covenant, and that the Jewish believers were God’s people not because they were Jewish, but because they were believers. Membership in the new covenant is by faith, not by ancestry. But the Jerusalem council did not approach the question from this perspective. Let’s see how they did it.
The apostles speak
“The apostles and elders met to consider this question” (v. 6). Perhaps dozens of elders were involved. “After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: `Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe’” (v. 7).
Peter reminded the people that God had used him to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his family (Acts 10). As far as we know, Cornelius was not circumcised, but Peter did not use that precedent as proof. Rather, he focused on the theological foundations of how a person is saved —by believing.
“God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith” (vs. 8-9). God gave the Holy Spirit to this uncircumcised family, purifying their hearts, pronouncing them holy, as acceptable to him, because of their faith.
Peter then began to scold the people who wanted the Gentiles to obey the laws of Moses: “Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (vs. 10-11).
Peter’s point is that the yoke of Moses was a burden that the Jewish people were not able to keep successfully. Those rituals showed that, no matter how hard people worked, they could never be perfect. They showed, for anyone who ever wondered, that works can never lead to salvation. Salvation is attained in a different way—by grace. We can’t earn it, so it has to be given to us.
Since the law of Moses cannot bring us salvation, there is no need to require the Gentiles to keep it. God gave them the Holy Spirit and showed that he accepts them without all those rituals. They are saved by grace, and the Jews are, too.
If we follow Peter’s logic, we will see that Jewish believers do not have to keep the laws of Moses, either. They are saved by grace through faith, just as the Gentiles are. The old covenant is obsolete, so its laws are no longer required for anyone, and that is why Peter could live like a Gentile (Gal. 2:14). But that is getting ahead of the story. In Acts 15, the question is only whether Gentiles have to keep the laws of Moses.
The judgment of James
After Barnabas and Paul told “about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles” (Acts 15:12), James spoke. As leader of the Jerusalem church, he had a lot of influence. Some of the Judaizers even claimed him as their authority (Gal. 2:12), but Luke tells us that James was in complete agreement with Peter and Paul.
“Listen to me. Simon [Peter] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles” (Acts 15:13-14). The fact that God has already acted was powerful evidence. James then quoted from the Greek translation of Amos to show that Scripture agreed with what was happening (vs. 15-18). He could have used other Old Testament prophecies, too, about Gentiles being included among God’s people.
Experience and Scripture pointed to the same conclusion. “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (v. 19). There is no need to require the yoke of Moses, for that would make things unnecessarily difficult for the Gentile believers.
James then suggested four rules: “Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood” (v. 20). Instead of making things difficult for the Gentiles, these four rules would be enough.
Obviously, Gentile believers should not lie, steal and murder. They already knew that, so they did not need a special reminder about it.
Why, then, these four rules? Some scholars say the Jews believed that these laws dated back to the time of Noah, and therefore applied to all nations. Others say that all four rules were associated with idolatry. Some say that these four rules were laws of Moses, and were given so Gentiles and Jews could eat together. None of these suggestions is fully convincing.
However, the decree makes it clear that Gentiles do not have to be circumcised, nor do they have to obey the laws of Moses. They are circumcised spiritually, not physically. God never gave those commands to the Gentiles.
Moses is preached
We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles, James said. Instead, it will be enough to give them four rules, which they will find easy to comply with. Why give them these rules? Notice the reason that James gives: “For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath” (v. 21).
James was not encouraging Gentile Christians to attend the synagogues. He was not saying they should listen to the laws of Moses. No, but because those laws were commonly preached, the apostles should tell the Gentiles four rules. Then they would not think that Christianity is more difficult than it is.
To summarize: Some men said that Gentiles should be circumcised and obey the laws of Moses or else they could not be saved. Not so, said the apostles. Gentiles are saved by grace and faith. God is pleased to dwell in people who aren’t circumcised and who don’t keep the rituals. But since Moses is widely preached, we need to give a decree that clearly distinguishes the Christian faith from the Law of Moses. This pleased the entire church, so they wrote it in a letter and sent it to Antioch, where they “were glad for its encouraging message” (v. 31).
Author: Michael Morrison
A Christian Council About Old...
Acts 15 describes the most important meeting the early church had. The future of the church was at stake — was it to be a Jewish...
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Beto O'Rourke to run for White House in 2020
Washington DC [USA], March 14 (ANI): Former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke On Thursday (local time) announced that he will be running for the White House in the upcoming presidential elections.
In a video posted on his Twitter account, O'Rourke said, "This is a defining moment of truth for this country and for every single one of us. The challenges that we face right now, the interconnected crisis in our economy, our democracy and our climate have never been greater. They will either consume us, or they will afford us the greatest opportunity to unleash the genius of the United States of America"With his announcement, O'Rourke joins a crowded field of more than a dozen Democrats vying for the party's nomination, reported CNN.
In the video, O'Rourke further added that he will run a "positive campaign".
"This is going to be a positive campaign that seeks to bring out the very best from every single one of us; that seeks to unite a very divided country," said O'Rourke.
The last year's mid-term elections thrust O'Rourke into the national spotlight, despite him losing the race for Senator post in Texas against Republican Ted Cruz.
O'Rourke's announcement has come a day after the reports of former US vice president Joe Biden likely running for the presidency had surfaced in the media. (ANI)
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Tag: Joe Perry
Flashback to summer 2013: On set North Country Cinema’s The Valley Below
THE VALLEY BELOW
HOMEGROWN TALENT DREAMS BIG
August 20th, 2013, 10:00 a.m.: East Coulee, Alta.
The drive from Calgary to Drumheller is a good hour and a half. Add about 20 minutes to get to East Coulee – the hamlet-sized agglomeration of 140 people, now technically part of the Drumheller municipality. It must be at least 25 degrees outside, the sun is blazing hot and the epic badlands surround the seemingly deserted streets of East Coulee. It is completely silent outside; only the sounds of grasshoppers of some sort resonate in the wind. What a perfect place for a film set.
Make a right from Highway 10, then a left right away, continue on for about 100 m and you’ll find yourself in front of a corner lot where a red and green house stands, the home base for Kyle Thomas’ crew for his new feature-length film, The Valley Below, for the next few days. The crew is returning to the Badlands come November to shoot winter scenes. The film is aimed for a multi-platform release date in 2014.
“As you can tell, this is kind of a light day. No one’s really stressed. Who’s ever really stressed though?” says Alexander (Sandy) Carson, The Valley Below’s Ottawa born-and-raised producer.
The crew is getting ready for a late morning shoot and it’s true: no one really seems stressed. There’s cooking going on in the background, some laughing, more talking, general happiness all around.
Carson is super friendly right away and open for discussion. He seems to be Thomas’ right-hand man, his go-to guy, the one who has the answer to anything related to film. Thomas is sitting close by with his laptop open, planning the day ahead and perhaps answering a couple emails.
Carson shares: “We were having one of those heart-to-heart conversations last night, sitting around, having a couple drinks and saying, ‘Well, we just wouldn’t want to do it if it wasn’t fun.’”
“It” being filmmaking, an art that seems to have taken over Thomas’ and Carson’s souls, no questions asked.
Both are alums of the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Montreal’s Concordia University, with Carson holding a BFA in film production and an MA in film studies.
Upon completion of their BFAs, Carson and Thomas launched North Country Cinema, a director-driven media arts collective based in Calgary and supported by numerous film councils, including The National Film Board of Canada and The Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Its mandate is to create strong visual storytelling set in the Canadian cultural and artistic landscapes, something we will surely be treated to with The Valley Below.
“We’re interested in building the brand (North Country Cinema) mainly as a Western Canadian thing. Obviously, Kyle’s family’s from here and we have a lot of friends out here. We wanted to do bring more experimental and personal narratives to this relatively underrepresented part of the country,” shares Carson.
The Valley Below stars Kris Demeanor as Warren and Mandy Stobo (Bad Portraits) as Ada, both returning actors from Thomas’ short film, Not Far from the Abattoir, which inspired The Valley Below, its full-length counterpart.
“[Not Far from the Abattoir] is about personal demons, redemption. It’s about a guy who’s at a bad spot in his life work-wise; his personal life: he’s single, he’s alone, he’s drinking too much. Then, he has a encounter: he meets this girl, Ada. Although nothing really intimate or sexy happens, they have a nice night getting to know each other. And this relationship gives him some new hope to find a way forward,” says Carson.
The Valley Below picks up after what looked like a hopeful open ending roughly three to four years later, says Carson. We find out that these two characters have had a relationship, had a baby, but split up again once they reverted to old habits.
“I mean, as much as Warren is a bit of bum, he is likeable. You want him to succeed and you can tell that Mandy and Kris’ characters still really love each other. So, the film poses a question: can this relationship work, can these people rise above their adversities?” says Carson.
11:30 a.m., The Car Wash: Drumheller, Alta.
The crew finally drives into town. We’re dropping by an auto shop to pick up a rental truck for a car wash scene starring Demeanor. The crew is setting up in an empty parking lot across the retro-inspired car wash. Demeanor is given directions through a walkie-talkie while he soaks up his pick-up truck across the street.
“I think it’s worth mentioning that a lot of people who are in this film as actors come from different backgrounds,” says Carson.
In Montreal, roommates of varying backgrounds, from actors to musicians, always surrounded Carson and Thomas. As musicians and photography buffs, the melding of different artistic disciplines into one big film project just seemed to be the perfect way to “explore the limits of film itself,” says Carson.
“Kris is a writer and musician, Mandy is a painter. We have lots of actors that are coming from the theatre. It is a multi-disciplinary project in terms of the influences that are coming into the work,” he says.
Thomas, who saw Demeanor perform live in the past, approached him for the role of Warren.
“I thought that somebody who had a musical career, had been on tour, had slept in the back of a van could bring that sensibility and way of life into the character. That was my first instinct,” says Thomas on picking Demeanor for the role.
Stobo, on the other hand, came in as an audition. Coincidentally, Stobo’s character is also a painter.
“She came in and the performance was just so good. It just seemed that this role was her in many ways but I didn’t know her [beforehand]. It was strange, she said she sunk right into it and I guess it happened a bit by chance,” shares Thomas.
3:00 p.m., Back to East Coulee
Sara Corry, the production manager, has cooked a massive meal for everyone. There’s salad, macaroni and cheese and chili. The boys are hungry.
There are a total of 13 crew members with a key team that includes Cameron Macgowan as producer, Sara Corry as co-producer/production manager, Mike McLaughlin as cinematographer, Bobby Vanonen as production designer and, of course, Kyle Thomas as writer/director/producer/editor and Alexander Carson as producer.
“I think having a smaller crew is good because [everyone’s] more engaged. I mean, there’s a bunch of us doing multiple tasks, everyone’s always busy, you feel more connected to [the project] and, you know, we’re living in a house here together and eating meals together,” says Thomas.
“It was different from any other film we ever worked on because it was so dedicated to the characters and getting to the heart of the scene without relying heavily on production which can eat up a lot of time and money,” he says.
According to Carson, Telefilm Canada provided a $120,000 grant for the film to be made, following some conditions.
“It’s important to our funders that we pursue innovative digital distribution avenues,” shares Carson.
Carson says they’d still want to go down the traditional festival release route with a digital release around the same time.
Either way, The Valley Below and the filmmakers of North Country Cinema are to watch for. They’ve grown exponentially over the last two years and have been getting a lot of recognition, including this fall’s TIFF and CIFF film festivals.
Visit northcountrycinema.com for more info. The Valley Below is set to be released in 2014.
Posted on February 15, 2017 October 20, 2018 Categories film tubTags alberta, Alexander Carson, Bad Portraits, Bobby Vanonen, calgary, Cameron Macgowan, CIFF, Drumheller, East Coulee, feature, feature length, film, film industry Alberta, Joe Perry, Kris Demeanor, Kyle Thomas, Mandy Stobo, Mikaela Cochrane, Mike Mclaughlin, North Country Cinema, Not Far from the Abattoir, Sara Corry, Telefilm Canada, The Valley Below, TIFFLeave a comment on Flashback to summer 2013: On set North Country Cinema’s The Valley Below
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Babyshark´s Minority Report
Artículos (español)
BMR Magazine
Tag Archives: design
The doghouse that Jim built
Posted on April 4, 2012 by thebabyshark
The Berger House, located in San Anselmo, California, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for mechanical engineer Robert Berger and his wife Gloria. It is one of Wright’s less spectacular designs, but this is because the budget was very small. Although he was already a renowned architect, having already built icons like Fallingwater and his “Prairie Houses”, he had always been an idealist at heart and he accepted the commission despite the restrictions.
Wright, probably influenced by Populism -an American movement in the XIX century that started among poor white cotton farmers in the South and represented hostility to banks, railroads and elites in general- always promoted the agrarian ideas of Thomas Jefferson, himself a farmer. Over his long career, he designed many homes for people of modest means. He even had a name for this new democratic American architecture: Usonian (from the U.S.). He built around 60 of these Usonian homes for the middle class.
It is no wonder, then, that Wright accepted to design a house for a dog. The commission came from 12-year-old Jim Berger, the son of Robert and Gloria Berger. Complicated and radical as he was, Wright was also a prolific architect, constructing more than 500 buildings over his more than 7 decades in the profession. He had designed all sorts of buildings, from skyscrapers to synagogues, and from schools to museums, so why not a dog house?
“I would appreciate it if you would design me a doghouse, which would be easy to build, but would go with our house…”, Jim’s letter read. He went on to say that his dog, Eddie, a black Labrador Retriever was two and a half feet high and three feet long, and that the reason he wanted this doghouse was for winters mainly. He also mentioned that he would pay him from the money he made delivering newspapers.
“A house for Eddie is an opportunity,” the famous architect wrote back. But Wright was just too busy at the time, building the Guggenheim, so he suggested that Jim write back later in the year. Which the boy did. Wright accepted this new challenge and promptly delivered detailed plans for the dog house, at no charge. The new project respected the hexagonal geometry of the plan of the house he had previously designed. He even specified the materials: Phillipine mahogany and cedar, like the main home.
The small triangular pavillion was not built by the Bergers until 10 years later, with some minor changes to the original plan. Unfortunately, Eddie had already died and never saw his house built. Neither did Frank Lloyd Wright, who died in 1959. The house was built for a new family dog (in the photo above), who apparently didn’t like it very much; so it was dismantled a few years later and then taken to a dump.
In 2010, while filming a documentary about buildings designed by Wright in California, director Michael Miner learnt about the doghouse story and asked Jim, now 68, if he would be rebuild the house. He gladly accepted. It is believed to be the only dog house ever designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and certainly his smallest building.
(To read my original article in PDF, with photo and sources credits: The Doghouse that Jim built)
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Posted in News | Tagged architecture, california, construction, design, frank lloyd wright, home, house, prairie houses, usonian, wright's doghouse | 1 Reply
The White Knight: Professor Colani
“The earth is round, all the heavenly bodies are round; they all move on round or elliptical orbits. This same image of circular globe-shaped mini worlds orbiting around each other follows us right down to the microcosmos. We are even aroused by round forms in species propagation related eroticism. Why should I join the straying mass who want to make everything angular? I am going to pursue Galileo Galilei’s philosophy: my world is also round.” Luigi Colani
Luigi Colani always wears white and sports a characteristic handlebar moustache. Despite his Italian-sounding name, he is a German industrial designer who has tirelessly designed submarines, hovercraft, planes, trains, trucks, computers, cars and even coffins, for over 50 years.
Flamboyant and passionate about his work, Professor Coliani, as he is usually referred to, produces streamlined objects that look sensual and eccentric. Although most of his designs are inspired by nature, his approach is far from superficial. He is a very serious and focused industrial designer who thinks first about the machine and the functionality, and only later about the final shapes. The Testa d’Oro model (photo above) he built for Ferrari in 1989, for example, based on a Testarossa, is a clear example. It beat records of speed, reaching 351km/h (218 mph). Other cars he has designed can go even faster, and need parachutes to stop them. After all, he did study aerodynamics and also headed the New Materials group at McDonnell Douglas in California in the 50’s.
The Professor worked for almost 10 years in Japan and currently spends part of the year in China, teaching design. He considers that Europe and the US are quickly becoming obsolete in terms of design and thinks that China has the hunger, the technology, the optimism and the money to become the new world power in design.
(To read my original article, published in Nov 2011, in PDF: The White Knight)
Posted in News | Tagged cars, concept cars, design, engineering, ferrari, german, industrial design, italian, luigi colani, professor, streamlined objects, testa d'oro, testarrossa, trains trucks | Leave a reply
Keith Graham
Levi Roots
molodaya gvardia
Rasta’raunt
Reggae Reggae Sauce
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Business, Business / Career, Education, Feature, Government, Opinion, Politics
SOURCE: Office of Senator Mitch McConnell / RepublicanSenators
Fund Women’s Health, Not Planned Parenthood
Streamed live on Jul 29, 2015
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Republican senators will hold a press conference today, Wednesday, July 29, at 2:00 p.m. EDT to discuss a new bill that protects women’s health and defunds Planned Parenthood. The senators introduced the bill following gruesome footage showcasing Planned Parenthood’s role in the harvesting of the organs of unborn babies.
WHO: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.)
Photo Courtesy: U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie
SOURCE: Office of Rep. Thomas Massie
U.S. Representative Massie Votes to Pass REINS Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Thomas Massie voted to pass the bipartisan Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act (H.R. 427), which would curb the Administration’s unchecked and costly regulations. Congressman Todd Young (R-IN) introduced the bill on January 21st, 2015, with 133 original co-sponsors, including Congressman Massie. The House of Representatives passed the REINS Act, 243-165.
“Excessive regulation stifles economic growth, hurts small businesses, and raises consumer prices,” said Congressman Massie. “It is vital that Congress act to reduce our regulatory burden, which raises consumer prices, reduces wages, and costs jobs.”
“The REINS Act is key to reforming our nation’s regulatory system so that the American people can hold Congress accountable for the law of the land,” said Congressman Todd Young (R-IN). “While the President would prefer to act unilaterally—and he has made that abundantly clear in recent months—that’s not the way our system operates. Unfortunately, when the executive branch issues regulations with a huge economic impact or negative consequences, it’s hard for the American people to hold accountable a nameless, faceless federal bureaucracy. Requiring an up-or-down vote by Congress on major regulations restores the notion that the legislative branch is in charge of writing laws, brings transparency to our regulatory system, and ensures our constituents know who is responsible when burdensome regulations take effect.”
The REINS Act would require congressional approval for regulation expected to cost the economy more than $100 million, lead to a major increase in consumer prices, or adversely affect employment.
“Congress has delegated its authority to unaccountable federal agencies over the past decades,” added Congressman Massie. “Unelected bureaucrats do not have the constitutional authority to write laws. Only Congress has this power, and ceding it to federal agencies undermines our representative form of government.”
Kentucky 4th district constituent Lloyd Rogers of Alexandria, Kentucky, and a member of Massie’s congressional staff, first conceived of the bill.
Rogers added, “As Campbell County, Kentucky, Judge-Executive, I saw local government was being hampered by unconstitutional regulations and mandates from the EPA. Auto emission checking, sewer mandates, water regulations and a plethora of overreaching rules and mandates. Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states, ‘All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.’ I saw no authority for the EPA to make law, so I felt they needed to be restrained.”
Though the House of Representatives passed the bipartisan REINS Act in both the 112th and 113th Congress, the bill never received a vote in the Senate under Democratic leadership.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is the lead sponsor of the REINS Act (S.226) in the Senate.
PHOTO(s) OF THE DAY
SOURCE: Department of Defense /Defense News Lead Photo
An MV-22 Osprey lands during a personnel recovery training exercise in Southwest Asia, July 28, 2015. The 185th Theater Aviation Brigade conducts interoperability training missions to enhance mission capabilities between U.S. Army aviation and other U.S. military forces. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Army Sgt. Michael Needham/Released)
Two U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons, from the New Jersey Air National Guard’s 177th Fighter Wing, left, lead a mixed formation including a Bulgarian air force MiG-29 Fulcrum and MiG-21 Fishbed over Bulgaria during Thracian Star on July 20, 2015. Thracian Star 2015 is a bilateral training exercise to enhance interoperability with the Bulgarian air force, hosted by Graf Ignatievo Air Base. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Andrew J. Moseley/Released)
150729-N-MJ645-193 PACIFIC OCEAN (July 29, 2015) — Electrician’s Mate Fireman Christopher Appel, a native of Barberton, Ohio, exercises in the hangar bay aboard USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). The Sailors from the John C. Stennis Strike Group are undergoing the Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMPTUEX), the final step before being certified for deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Marcus L. Stanley/Released)
U.S. paratroopers with C Battery, 4th Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, load a M119A2 howitzer in support of the British army’s 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment during exercise Wessex Storm at the 7th Army Joint Multinational Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, July 28, 2015. (U.S. Army photo by Visual Information Specialist Gertrud Zach/released)
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← A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
BUSINESS AND CAREER OPPORTUNITIES DOD AWARDED CONTRACTS →
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3D-printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensors
By Bioengineer On Oct 24, 2016
http://scienmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/3d.mp4
Credit: Johan Lind (Disease Biophysics Lab), Alex Valentine, Lori K. Sanders (Lewis Lab)/Harvard University
Harvard University researchers have made the first entirely 3D-printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensing. Built by a fully automated, digital manufacturing procedure, the 3D-printed heart-on-a-chip can be quickly fabricated in customized form factors allowing researchers to easily collect reliable data for short-term and long-term studies.
This new approach to manufacturing may one day allow researchers to rapidly design organs-on-chips, also known as microphysiological systems, that match the properties of a specific disease or even an individual patient’s cells.
The research is published in Nature Materials.
“This new programmable approach to building organs-on-chips not only allows us to easily change and customize the design of the system by integrating sensing but also drastically simplifies data acquisition,” said Johan Ulrik Lind, first author of the paper and postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Lind is also a researcher at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
“Our microfabrication approach opens new avenues for in vitro tissue engineering, toxicology and drug screening research,” said Kit Parker, Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS, who coauthored the study. Parker is also a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute.
Organs-on-chips mimic the structure and function of native tissue and have emerged as a promising alternative to traditional animal testing. Harvard researchers have developed microphysiological systems that mimic the microarchitecture and functions of lungs, hearts, tongues and intestines.
However, the fabrication and data collection process for organs-on-chips is expensive and laborious. Currently, these devices are built in clean rooms using a complex, multi-step lithographic process and collecting data requires microscopy or high-speed cameras.
“Our approach was to address these two challenges simultaneously via digital manufacturing,” said Travis Busbee, coauthor of the paper and graduate student in the Lewis Lab. “By developing new printable inks for multi-material 3D printing, we were able to automate the fabrication process while increasing the complexity of the devices.”
The researchers developed six different inks that integrated soft strain sensors within the micro-architecture of the tissue. In a single, continuous procedure, the team 3D printed those materials into a cardiac microphysiological device — a heart on a chip — with integrated sensors.
“We are pushing the boundaries of three-dimensional printing by developing and integrating multiple functional materials within printed devices,” said Jennifer Lewis, Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering, and coauthor of the study. “This study is a powerful demonstration of how our platform can be used to create fully functional, instrumented chips for drug screening and disease modeling.”
Lewis is also a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute.
The chip contains multiple wells, each with separate tissues and integrated sensors, allowing researchers to study many engineered cardiac tissues at once. To demonstrate the efficacy of the device, the team performed drug studies and longer-term studies of gradual changes in the contractile stress of engineered cardiac tissues, which can occur over the course of several weeks.
“Researchers are often left working in the dark when it comes to gradual changes that occur during cardiac tissue development and maturation because there has been a lack of easy, non-invasive ways to measure the tissue functional performance,” said Lind. “These integrated sensors allow researchers to continuously collect data while tissues mature and improve their contractility. Similarly, they will enable studies of gradual effects of chronic exposure to toxins.”
“Translating microphysiological devices into truly valuable platforms for studying human health and disease requires that we address both data acquisition and manufacturing of our devices,” said Parker. “This work offers new potential solutions to both of these central challenges.”
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, the US Army Research Laboratory and the US Army Research, and the Harvard University Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).
Leah Burrows
@hseas
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/
The post 3D-printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensors appeared first on Scienmag.
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Low-Cost OTT Pay-TV Fuels New CE Demand
eMarketer reports that Americans are viewing movies online more frequently, increasingly adopting low-cost over-the-top (OTT) pay-TV subscription services, such as Netflix. Moreover, online viewing of full-length TV episodes is on the rise and accounting for a greater share of consumer attention.
With these changes in video entertainment viewing habits, mainstream consumers will increasingly look to enjoy these new experiences on a big TV screen. Two recent forecasts project a dramatic growth in sales of internet-enabled television sets around the world.
iSuppli Corporation estimated in July that 28 million web-enabled TVs would be sold worldwide this year -- more than double the sales in 2009. By 2014 they're forecasting a 428.6 percent increase to 148 million units sold.
DisplaySearch has a higher estimate of connected TV sales for 2010, at 45 million units worldwide, and a more conservative projection for 2014 at 119 million units. However, that still translates to growth over the same period of 164.4 percent.
eMarketer notes that while the unit forecasts may be different, there's agreement on a dramatic growth curve for consumers seeking to connect their primary television to the Internet. In fact, a Retrevo market study indicates that many consumers in the U.S. have either already connected their TV to the web or are planning to do so.
"Nearly a quarter of U.S. Internet users have already connected their TVs to the internet and another quarter would like to," said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst.
"That means that if the number of people who wish to connect their TVs did so, the universe of web-enabled TV would be approximately 108 million viewers -- using eMarketer's estimate of 221 million U.S. internet users in 2010."
This demand creates a huge opportunity for consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers to deliver this connectivity and easy-of-use in affordable ways -- whether through IP-enabled TVs directly, retail set-top boxes like the Roku player, Blu-ray disc players, game consoles or any combination of the above devices.
posted by: David H. Deans at 10/09/2010
tags: ce, entertainment, netflix, ott, pay-tv, roku, tv, video, vod
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IC2S Playlist Update 11/11/2015
It's Remembrance Day here in Canada, and if you haven't read my Quick Fix related to it yet, then you might find it interesting. Naturally, it's going to be a sombre and respectful day around here though, especially since I have family in the Canadian Forces.
On a more positive note though, I'm making quite a bit of progress on the Metal Gear retrospective. I've completed 4 games in the franchise thus far and have their retrospectives all written up and ready to go, with a 5th game maybe an hour away from completion and the writing portion should take an evening to put together. It has been pretty fun thus far and I'm glad that I decided to take the plunge, because I doubt I would have gotten to experience the MSX Metal Gear games without it. It's also giving me a better appreciation for the series, but I'll leave any formal analysis for the retrospectives themselves. It's going to be pretty great and I'm putting quite a lot of work into this, so I hope that you guys enjoy when it's finally ready to go.
First up this week, we have "The Sneaking Chair" by My Heart to Fear from their album Algorithm. Back when Weathered Steel was still on the air, this song just dominated their Top 40 playlist. Most songs only last a week or 2 before disappearing entirely, but "The Sneaking Chair" must have been the #1 song for at least a month. It's a pretty great song, I've been meaning to put it in the playlist for a really long time. In fact, the last time I put a My Heart to Fear song in the playlist ("4th Dimension Opera House", way back in May), I had originally intended to use "The Sneaking Chair" but made a last minute switch. On an unrelated note, I have no idea how My Heart to Fear comes up with their song titles, some of them are just all over the place. Some will be really straightforward ("Wish You Were Here", "Angst", etc) and then others are... well, "The Sneaking Chair".
Secondly we have "Blood Brothers" by Iron Maiden from the album Brave New World. It had always been a bit of a secret shame for me that I considered myself a through-and-through metalhead, but wasn't really into some of the genre heavy weights, such as Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. However, since Weathered Steel shut down I have switched my Internet radio over to Metal Rock Radio, which plays the metal classics and modern metal all the time, and has been getting me quite into Iron Maiden. "Blood Brothers" might be my favourite thus far, it's just a really badass song that makes you want to sing along. As someone who likes Sabaton and Disturbed, you can probably tell that this sort of "comradery"/battle song really appeals to me and is making me want to have an "Iron Maiden week" where I just fire up Spotify and blow through their entire discography to find all their gems.
Labels: iron maiden, my heart to fear, playlist
Circular Logic (aka, Let's Blame the Feminists for...
Quick Fix: Advances in Poppy-Wearing Technology
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[Transcript] – Is All Water The Same?
Podcast from: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/nutrition-podcasts/is-all-water-the-same/
[00:00] Introduction
[01:19] What Got Dr. Pollack In This Specialty?
[07:09] The Importance of Water’s Function, Especially in Muscle Physiology
[14:34] How Water Gets Charged
[28:45] Is All Water the Same?
[36:11] Testing Generic Store-Bought Water
[44:11] End of Podcast
Ben: Hey, folks. It’s Ben Greenfield here. And today, we’re going to be talking about water. With me on the call is someone who has a PhD in Bioengineering and who is currently on faculty at the University of Washington, in the Department of Bioengineering. His name is Dr. Gerald Pollack, and his research teams are primarily in the area of systems and quantitative biology. And much of the research that he does is on aqueous solutions, on water, on storage potentials of water, on purification systems, and all sorts of things related to water. And since water is something that we are drinking every day, and showering in, and bathing in, and filtering and trying to use to enhance our health or enhance our performance, I thought that we should get Dr. Pollack on the call to talk about some of his expertise and ask him some of the important questions when it comes to water. So, Dr. Pollack thank you for coming on the call today.
Dr. Pollack: Hi, Ben. Happy to be with you and happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Ben: Well, let’s start here. In terms of you and your background in the field of water, what got you into this particular specialty in the first place?
Dr. Pollack: I was studying muscles mainly, which I guess is relevant to many of the people listening. So, let me give you a bit of background of the muscle contraction, the ideas about how muscle contracts or ideas that date, oh, maybe half a century back. We’re talking about the molecular mechanisms involving proteins, the proteins actin and myosin and such. There has been a theory that’s been around, if you look at any book or any textbook, you can see some very nice artistic drawings of those proteins that mechanistically do certain things. And the odd thing about that is that they leave out the water. And I must admit that I myself was guilty for many years of thinking about muscles as consisting of a few characteristic proteins that then develop the force and create the motion, but the water was absent. And if you think about how much water there is in muscle, or in the body for that matter, we all know it’s roughly two-thirds, of our volume is water. But if you think about what that means in terms of the number of molecules, the water molecule is really small, it’s a tiny molecule, and other molecules in our body are pretty large. You need a lot of water molecules to make up that two-thirds volume. And it turns out that, in fact, you, and I, and your listeners, 99% of our molecules are water molecules. I’m not sure if you’re aware of that. So, there’s a lot of water molecules and I thought, “Well, it’s really interesting because muscle consists of 99% water molecules, and yet every textbook eliminates or omits all those water molecules. How is it possible that the muscle proteins, apparently, could act in a vacuum?
Ben: I never even thought about that before. I mean, I’ve got textbooks lining my shelves of muscle function and anatomy, and actin and myosin fibers, and all these pictures. It never really struck me ’til you just said that, that you don’t see water in those diagrams.
Dr. Pollack: No, you don’t see water in those diagrams. And I think the reason is that, it used to be that when people thought about muscle, they thought about the water. In fact, the guy who was the head of the field by far was a real pioneer, this was 60, 70 years ago. His name is Albert Szent-Gyorgyi. Szent-Gyorgyi is national hero from Hungary. He discovered vitamin C. And Szent-Gyorgyi won the Nobel Prize, of course, and et cetera, and he was a kind of scientist’s scientist and he knew that water was central to everything. In fact, he thought that the contraction, he wrote this and I saw it only recently, he said, “The contraction of muscle is triggered by a destructuring of water.” So, he had the idea 60 or 70 years ago that the water inside the muscle was not just like water molecules in the glass that you might drink, but that water, since it most of it sat next to some actin or myosin protein, had a kind of impact of those proteins or it was ordered, and he knew that that was absolutely central.
So, then, following him, a lot of people followed, and during the past 50 or 60 years, a lot of the research in biology has, you might say it’s a reductionist approach, it takes apart each component part and tries to boil it down to absolutely minimum components. So, we’re talking about molecules and sub molecular parts. So, what you’re doing is taking apart the whole structure. And when you take apart the whole structure, a lot of us tend to forget about the water because we’re looking at just that protein or part of a protein. And so, people gradually began to lose sight of the fact that muscles, that 99% of the molecules, they are water molecules. So, I think it’s a real mistake because the water molecules are really important. Anyway, you asked the question, and to answer your question specifically, it was basically the idea that how could you take the water away from a structure and try to understand how the structure operates without considering the possible role of water. So, that’s where I got started.
Ben: Right, right. Okay, that makes sense. I guess kind of a logical question from there is that when you got into beginning to study water and why water seems to be kind of left out of some of these equations and how water actually does interact, what did you find? I mean, I’ve seen that you’ve written books on water. I know you have a book coming out soon, you have another book called “Cells, Gels, and the Engines of Life”, and I know that in those books you highlight the importance of water and its absolute importance to cell biology. But what are some of the important things that you’ve found when it comes to water’s function, especially when it comes to things like muscle performance, or physiology, or contraction?
Dr. Pollack: Okay. Long question. So, let me answer that bit by bit. First of all, the book that you mentioned, the “Cells, Gels, and the Engines of Life” is now 10 years old. And that book, as you mentioned, describes the role of water in biology and cell biology, and basically in everything that your cell does. And the main conclusion in that book is that almost every basic function inside your cell, water plays an active role. In other words, the chemistry of water is well integrated into the chemistry of what happens inside every cell in your body. That was the main message. So, at the time, we knew that there was a lot of evidence, from mainly old evidence, that the water inside the cell was organized in some way. We think of water molecules as being randomly scattered about, moving very rapidly and having some sort of non-predictable random orientation. Well, in the cell, that’s not true. The water that’s sitting, if you can imagine a protein surface and water molecules near it, so what happens is that the charges on those protein surfaces organize the water molecules nearby so that they kind of stack up, and that stacking can extend pretty far. Inside the cell, it doesn’t really have to extend very far because the proteins are so close to each other that you actually have, the space, typically, between two nearby proteins is the equivalent of about seven water molecules. So, all the water, essentially, all the water inside your cell is near some charged protein or nucleic acid surface. So, almost all the water is lined up. So, it’s not like water in the glass where the water is bulk water. That’s random. We knew that, and the fact that the water molecules were lined up plays a key role in everything that your cells do.
Okay. So, the book was published. And a year or two later, we began to look for some new modern experimental evidence that bares on the nature of that kind of ordered water, and we were shocked. We came upon an observation that these water molecules could actually line up not by two or three layers next to a surface, but we could find examples of two or three million layers in the right situation. In other words, like a stack of bricks that went up to the size of a mile-high building or something like that, on, and on, and on, and on. It was just because of the experimental situation that we had that we could see it. So, of course, we became extremely interested. From an experimental point of view, it was a great advantage that we had so many of these molecules lined up because then we could study them easily. If you have only a few, it’s hard to study. But if you have a lot of them, then it’s easy to study. So, we had a lot of them. At first, people thought, “It’s impossible. It simply can’t be true because there’s a lot of random energy, random motions going on, and you could never expect anything to build that high.” But we studied it for a few years and it became clear that this was real, and then we began to look at it the properties of this stuff.
And so, we were continually amazed that in fact month by month, the odd thing, it’s not odd, but it’s rather interesting is that this ordered water, we actually call it exclusion zone water, or EZ water for short, because it excludes almost everything, just like ice, packed, the structure is very similar to ice. You have all these molecules lining up in some kind of almost crystalline arrangement and nothing fits into that lattice. Everything is excluded. No matter what you can think of, it’s excluded. So, that was the first, this EZ water. The second thing that we found is that it has charge. It’s not neutral. So, water molecules, you think of it as being neutral. But we found that the zone was charged. To form this zone, the water molecules not only gathered together, but they divided up into negative charge and positive charge. So, this region, this exclusion zone region had a negative charge, and all the water that was left beyond that had positive charge. So, it was like a battery, negative, positive.
Ben: Interesting.
Dr. Pollack: Isn’t it? We thought that was really a cool observation, because nobody ever thinks about a battery in water.
Ben: Yeah. It’s different than what most of us learn even in just like high school chemistry or Chemistry 101. Water is kind of like a neutral H2O molecule. We don’t see that it stacks like that or has these type of charges that you’re describing to me.
Dr. Pollack: Yeah. Absolutely. What you learn in the textbook and what I learned in the textbook, as little as I learned, is much, so, this is really new stuff, Ben. It’s stuff that’s just coming out now. But if you think about charge separation, if you think about that, if you just look up in the sky in Seattle today, we’ve got cloudy skies and it always rains here. So, if you think about it and think about the sun during the lightning, in order to get lightning, you’re talking about potential differences or voltages of hundreds of thousands of volts. And those hundreds of thousands of volts, most of the discharges go between cloud and cloud. That’s about 80% of them. And so, it means that you have one clouds filled with water, basically clouds are water, and another glop of water somewhere else, and the potential difference between those two bodies of water builds up to hundreds of thousands of volts. That’s a very substantial battery of water. And we see batteries of water with charges separated and we’re talking about not hundreds of thousands of volts, but maybe less than one volt between, maybe a few tenths of a volt or something. So, it’s not so unusual just think about the battery with charge separation in water. You’re probably going to ask, Ben, “Well, where does the energy come from to give you this charge separation?” Or maybe you weren’t going to ask that. Were you? Okay. Doesn’t matter.
Ben: What I’m curious about is, yeah, how is water getting this charge and how is it stacking like that, I guess.
Dr. Pollack: Okay. So, let me tell you. The energy, here was the biggest surprise, the energy comes from light. Light. By light, I mean, in the scientific kind of conception of light, it’s not just the visible range of wavelengths of light, the ones we see, but extending more beyond in the ultraviolet region and the infrared region especially. So, we kind of call light any electromagnetic wave of any wavelength. But it doesn’t matter because visible light works, it builds this charge separation into red light, works even better. It builds this separation.
Ben: But isn’t it dark inside our muscles?
Dr. Pollack: It’s dark inside your muscles. However, the infrared energy is always there. Example, I mean this is free energy, it’s free for the taking. It’s always there. Have you ever seen a picture taken with an infrared camera? I’m not sure you…
Ben: Yeah. I think so. I think I have.
Dr. Pollack: So, in the dark, you can use it in sniper scopes if you want to shoot somebody…
Ben: It’s kind of like the night vision type of…
Dr. Pollack: Yeah, night vision. Yeah. So, if you turn off all the lights in your studio, or your room, whatever and turn on the infrared camera, you get a beautiful image, not only of you, but your equipment, and the walls, and the chairs. Everything is generating infrared. It’s almost impossible to get rid of it. It’s like a gift of nature, it’s always there. In order to get rid of it, you have to bring the temperature down to absolute zero, -273 degrees C. We’re not there. Scientists talk about “free energy”, but this is genuinely free energy. It’s there for the taking. So, with this energy, if you have this energy available, and it’s always available, that’s the energy that’s required for building this charge separation and building the ordering of water. So, you can’t get, it’s like your cell phone, you’ve got to plug it into the wall to get charged. Otherwise, it runs down. Well, it’s the same thing with this. You need energy. In order to build charge separation, build this battery charge separation, or build order, you need energy, and that’s where the energy comes from.
So, probably, you’re thinking, well, this is a real surprise. And it was for us. However, if you just think about it, you probably have a plant sitting right next to you right now. And where does the plant get its energy? Well, it gets its energy from light the same way as I’m suggesting to you that water gets its energy from light. So, the light comes into the plant, it builds chemical energy, which actually involves charge separation and water. That’s the first step of photosynthesis. So, you have the charge separation occurring in water. So, the light, I would say the word transduces, or the light is absorbed, and that energy from the absorption of light is, we say transduced into a different kind of energy, and that different kind of energy is the battery charge. It’s charging the battery, light is charging it. And then that energy is free to be used. See, that’s the key part. Just like the plant uses the chemical energy, the water uses the chemical energy too. And we can actually demonstrate in a glass of water that you think is just sort of sitting there and not doing anything, but, actually, it does a lot. Molecules inside the water are moving around ferociously and doing all kinds of things.
We even found we could insert a tube, just like a straw made of some polymeric material, you just put it, lay it in the water, and what you find is that the water will flow continuously through it, unendingly. It just keeps flowing, and flowing, and flowing. It’s kind of like taking one of your blood vessels and putting it in the water and finding that the blood just keeps flowing without a heart. So, that has energy to do this, just like a heart does it inside your blood vessels. And that energy, we’ve demonstrated, comes from light. So, the light is coming in and, if you will, pushing the water through the tube. So, this is one example of how the water takes this energy that comes in and transduces it into other kinds of energy. So, as you can guess, we’re excited about this finding and…
Ben: Yeah. And you’re seeing that actual water inside human body cells?
Dr. Pollack: Well, no. Now what I’m telling you is, all I’ve told you in the past few minutes involves experiments outside the body. But it applies certainly inside the body, there’s really not much difference. But we have a special chamber that we use and we take certain kinds of materials and we find this exclusion zone grows right next to these materials in the presence of infrared light or any kind of light, infrared is especially good. So, that’s why we’ve been able to see and get all the details that we’ve been able to get because we have this special preparation. But your question is quite appropriate. The question is, “Well, okay. So, what? You see this thing in a laboratory. What does that mean for you and for me?” That was your question, right?
Ben: Exactly. I mean, how does this manifest itself in terms of like our health or our performance when it comes to what you’re observing in laboratory conditions?
Dr. Pollack: Okay. So, that’s a deep question. It’s not a question that’s answerable in two sentences. Let me give a go at it. The first thing is that this easy water is a kind of structured water. I mean, it’s organized. It’s ordered in some way. And in the book that we mentioned, the “Cells, Gels, and the Engines of Life”, the main message of that book is this kind of ordered water is central to everything you do. So, in other words, what we now call EZ water, the same as ordered or structure of water 10 years ago, the water that now we know a lot of properties about it, is in your cells. So, every one of your cells is filled with this stuff. I’m not saying that 100% of the water in the cell is this kind of water, but it’s mostly ordered EZ water. It means if you, for example, want to find out how a muscle really works, you can take those same actin and myosin proteins that we all know about, but add the component that’s always been missing, and that is the EZ water. It means you’ve got, your muscle cell is filled with the proteins and this kind of water. So, immediately, one of the interesting features that comes to mind is, well, okay, well what does infrared energy, how does that affect your muscles?
Ben: Yeah. ‘Cause you see things like infrared saunas, and infrared wraps, and things of that nature actually being marketed to athletes and also in kind of like the health care sectors.
Dr. Pollack: And what generally is the result of using those?
Ben: Well, they’re designed for enhancing blood flow primarily. And in a few situations, at least from a little bit of what I’ve seen, a possible increase in growth hormone or speeding up the healing of injuries.
Dr. Pollack: Yeah. Okay. So, just think about all of what you just said. Speeding up blood flow is certainly a possibility, but I would suggest something more fundamental. It’s the same thing that you feel in a sauna or you would feel with infrared light, what I’ve been telling you is that this sort of stuff builds EZ water. So, inside your body, your cells are filled with EZ water, and I could imagine that a muscle that’s fatigued, or a muscle that’s injured, or a muscle that’s overworked, or whatever, that some of this EZ water has been depleted, the proteins are not functioning as well as they did earlier, and the energy is gone, and probably the EZ water is also depleted and diminished. In order to perform well, this EZ water needs to be raised back to its full compliment. You go to the doctor, the doctor always says drink water if you’re sick. Well, there’s something to that. It’s the water that is really important for function.
So, it means if you apply infrared light, what you’re doing is, just the same as in the laboratory, you’re building back this EZ water. So, if you have an injury, then the infrared energy, whether it’s from a sauna, or from an infrared light, or whatever, it should be doing the same thing. It should be building up and restoring you back to your original pristine state. So, it’s the same with your brain, or muscles, or whatever, you go into a sauna, two hours later, or one hour later, or 15 minutes later, you feel great. And I think the effect of this is not just psychological. It’s actually physiological, that the energy that’s coming, the infrared energy that’s coming from all of this is having a major impact on the water inside your body. It’s restoring that depleted EZ water, or structured water, back to its original state.
Ben: So, it’s almost as though you’re initiating that charge that you’re talking about into the water, almost like restructuring it?
Dr. Pollack: Absolutely. Restructuring. You’re building it back up again. And when you build it back up again, this chart separation is basically potential energy. Batteries have potential energy and you use that potential energy. And so, it’s the same in the cell. The separation of charge, related to this water I’m suggesting to you, is really important. It’s electrical energy that your cell uses. Because all the reactions that go on in your cell involve charge, either negative charge or positive charge. Some reactions need negative charge for driving, some need positive charge, and all that charge is right there as a consequence of the charge separation that I’ve been talking about. I think that’s what these devices do. I mean we have no direct evidence for that, but I can surmise that that’s probably the case. But there’s also, just before I leave that point, inside your body, all the metabolic reactions are generating heat. Well, heat is similar to infrared energy. So, it means that the reactions themselves that occur in your body supply fuel. It’s not just heat wasted and radiated away. That energy is actually, or can be, again this conjecture, can be fuel that drives the build-up of structured water. It comes all the way around, and I think that provides some explanation.
So, muscles also, I just want to go back because we started muscles for so many years and one of the things is that nobody really understands what happens when you have a muscle knot. Why does it sometimes knot up. Although we were never studying athletes, although our focus was at that molecular level, we could see those knots forming, even isolated strands of muscle that we were studying. And now, I think I better understand that the infrared energy, what it can do, in plausibly removing those or helping to remove those knots, is it builds up the water structure, and the water structure is needed to bring the muscle back to its ordinary relaxed state so it can contract again. That knot is actually sort of fully contracted and you need to get away from the fully contracted state. The water inside that knot is just ordinary water. It needs to build back up to the structured EZ water, and infrared should help that. As should massage.
Dr. Pollack: Anyway, that’s a long answer to a short question.
Ben: Well, it seems to me like from what you describe so far in terms of the ability of water to both carry a charge and also form a structure within ourselves, like to me when I’m looking at this from, for me from like an athlete’s point of view, would be, “Okay. Well, there’s two different ways that this my might help me if I wanted to the water within my cells to be as structured or as charged as possible.” It sounds like, we just talked about how perhaps, huge extrapolation, but perhaps something like infrared or something like even exercise might have an effect at charging or structuring water. What about the actual water itself? Like the water were drinking, the water we’re showering in, et cetera. Is all water the same or are there things that you can do to water before you consume it or expose your body to it that might make it more likely to be charged, or structured, or whatever the case may be?
Dr. Pollack: Okay. Another really good question with an answer that is, lots to say about this. First of all, I’ve been studying water now for quite a few years, and waters differ. They’re not the same at all. Anybody who tells you that water is water, it’s just H2O and there ain’t nothing you can do about it to change it…
Ben: Yeah. I hear that a lot, actually.
Dr. Pollack: Yeah. Well, I’m sure you do. But the evidence, published evidence, evidence all over, well, I come back to our own work. The new book that will be coming out in a few months, actually a version is on my home page, my University of Washington home page, and anybody can freely download it if they’re interested. It’s not the final version, it’s a draft, but…
Ben: It’s your University of Washington page?
Dr. Pollack: Right. Yeah. I don’t have a URL off-hand, but it’s easy. There’s a button that says “New Book”, and if you click it, you can look at it. The final version should be ready in a few months. So, there are some changes. But it shows a 400-page book full of, my son’s the artist, he’s a great artist, and beautiful pictures and whatever, and I think clearly written, it shows that it is simply absolutely untrue that water is just H2O and that’s it. So many changes can occur in the water, especially in terms of this EZ water. Because even a glass of water that you have, that you drink, a certain fraction of it is almost certainly EZ water. So, if the fraction is almost zero, which is probably true in distilled water, that comes out of a [0:30:37] ______ and there’s ultra-pure, some of which we use in the laboratory, then you don’t have much of it. On the other hand, most waters are either sitting next to a surface or have molecules of some sort inside of them. And any surface, any surface of anything that’s dissolved or floating in the water creates this EZ structure. So, if you have a clean glass surface, for example, it’s going to create this structure. If you have some minerals in the water, they’re going to create this structure. And the amount of it is not yet clear because this really needs to be studied in a highly systematic way and it’s not been done. On the other hand, various people have been creating what they call “structured water”, or “ordered water”, or “energized water”, what have you.
Ben: Yeah. It seems like it’s a big industry. Like you see this stuff all over the place. Especially, like kind of like the health and fitness sector. Any expo I go to, there’s people trying, selling this stuff in bottles. It’s 10 times the price of a normal bottle of water, but it’s structured water or something of that nature.
Dr. Pollack: Right. I can’t give you anything definitive on this. I can only tell you that probably some of the people are charlatans. On the other hand, I know that some of the people are not charlatans and some of these waters have demonstrably altered features. I’ll just give you one example of a number of examples of different kinds of water that show altered properties. One of the waters I tested, we tested in the laboratory, it’s not available for the public, but I think it may be in the future, and it’s water that’s treated in a certain well-defined way and I think there’s a patent for it. We got some of that water, and then we brought it into the laboratory, and it sat around on my desk for about two months before I was able to get a student to check it out. And it showed there’s a kind of signature indication of this EZ water. So, even after sitting around for two months, we put it in a spectrometer to test for this water and it absolutely showed it really clearly. I was excited about it because the fellow who makes it says that his various friends and colleagues have experienced unimaginably good health since drinking it. And more interesting than that, certain patients with serious pathologies were actually cured.
So, he was telling me, and I actually examined hospital records, and that colleague of mine went to interview the patients, and this scoop is this, these are patients, there were a handful of them so far. The patients who had irreversible kidney disease, and they were about to go on dialysis, looking for a replacement kidney. So, they knew about this guy and they started drinking the water. So, the hospital records confirmed what my friend told me, that in 21 days, or three weeks after drinking the water, they couldn’t find any more pathology. It was reversed. I’m not sure, one would have to do serious objective tests with controls and what have you, but it seemed to me that there were two things, that this water had EZ in spades, it was full of EZ water, and the hospital records and interviews by somebody confirmed that there really was something going on there. So, that’s one example. And I’ve heard from various other people about their water, and some of them are actually, I know one who’s putting the structured water and making gels, and these gels have amazing skin healing properties that…
Ben: Like a topical gel that you put on your skin?
Dr. Pollack: Topical gel. Right. So, in and around, and I think that the studies absolutely need to be done objectively, comparatively, double-blind studies to make sure this is correct. But I’ve seen enough of it to suggest that such studies really would be worthwhile because there might be something really good it could be, plausibly, a kind of generic healer that could impact virtually almost anything in your body. If it’s really true that function depends on this EZ water, then it doesn’t matter what organ, you just want to restore this EZ water to its pristine state. And you can do this either by infrared, or light of various sorts. And another way is to actually drink some of this water. That’s hypothesis right now, and it would be great to test it. But I think there might be something there in the future.
Ben: Have you ever, in your lab, taken, you talked about how you put this stuff that somebody brought you into a spectrometer. Have you ever taken just like Aquafina or some kind of generic store-bought water and done the same thing and notice a difference between the two?
Dr. Pollack: No. We haven’t done that. We have plans to do it. I’m not sure that I would necessarily take the store-bought waters, but they would certainly be possible as controls. But in order to do this properly, you really need to do an extensive series of tests, to do it right. You won’t really get anywhere if you take one water, put it in the spectrometer, and wave a flag and say, “Hey! This stuff looks pretty good because it has EZ water.” It’s got to be done systematically. It has to be done with multiple waters. In fact, what we have planned is, if we can get the funding for it, that’s the big issue, to do a proper job is to look at pathological animal models. For example, some people have claimed that tumors are reversed by this kind of water. So, what we would like to do is to take mice bearing tumors and give, do control and experimental tests, give each group of mice different kinds of water that they drink over an extended period of time and then examine to see whether there’s a difference in the tumors after given amounts of time. So, it sounds simple, but it’s actually quite extensive and expensive to carry out those studies properly. And we do the same with kidney disease, and we do the same with diabetes, and so on and see if there is a kind of generic healing effect of certain types of water, and then check those waters to see if they really contain EZ water or maybe there’s something else that’s even more important than that. We don’t know for sure.
Ben: Right. Now for people who want to kind of look into this a little bit more, when you’re saying EZ water, like have you written about it in literature at all? Are you literally, is it like “E” like elephant, “Z” like Zebra water, or is that how you’re pronouncing it?
Dr. Pollack: Right. EZ, exclusion zone, EZ.
Ben: Exclusion zone water.
Dr. Pollack: Elephant-Zebra. It’s so-called “EZ” to pronounce. EZ? Right? So, it kind of [0:38:16] ______. It’s not a good name and I’m sorry, but someone suggested it about six or seven years ago, when we were getting started with it, and the name stuck because it’s, well, “EZ” to… yeah. So, we have many papers that we’ve published in the literature to describe the properties of this kind of water, but I think your listeners might not have such easy access or interest in scientific details. That’s the reason for this book.
Ben: Well, I’ll certainly link to your website. But what you’re suggesting, it sounds to me like, is that if water can carry enhanced structure and carry this charge that you’re noting in the exclusion zone water, that it may, although it still needs to be looked at in studies, that it may affect the health of an organ, or the health of a cell, or the health of muscle tissue that contains that water?
Dr. Pollack: Absolutely. Right on. You got it. I think that’s a distinct, absolutely distinct possibility.
Ben: Yeah. I think it’s one of those things where you can see so many people right now jumping on the bandwagon and trying to market stuff like this. But I think that you’re right, that I mean what we really need are studies that compare one form of water to another form of water. Like you say, take mice with tumors and see how they respond to water that has a higher amount of this exclusion zone going on. Yeah, there’s just so much work that still needs to be done, huh?
Dr. Pollack: Yeah. Absolutely. The problem is that the people who make the water have financial incentive in suggesting that their water’s great. Everybody knows that. So, there’s huge skepticism out there, skepticism from that point of view, along with what we learned in the chemistry book, that water is H2O and there’s nothing you can do about that. That’s all. Period. That’s all there is. So, those are the two important factors. And that’s why I think it would be really important if some, you might say, neutral group or a group that has no financial interest in any of this, but has experience dealing with water. And it doesn’t have to be us, it could be any group, although I think we’ve done a lot of work that sort of puts us at the center of this. Someone needs to do it. We actually applied to the National Institutes of Health to get some money in a fairly and ambitious proposal, but it didn’t get very far. I’m not sure of the reasons, but well, 90% of grant proposals are rejected, or don’t get funded because of competition and such. But I think, in part, it needs to have somebody who, you might say, believes in the possibility that this might be true and is not convinced that there’s no such thing but H2O, that’s all there is. And no matter how many studies you do, you’ll never find anything different. It needs to be someone who’s, or a group of people whose mind is open enough to be interested in carrying out such studies. Eventually, I think we’ll get our money and go ahead and do this. It just needs substantial funding in order for it to be carried out. But I think, potentially, depending on how the results turn out, it could be a real breakthrough.
Ben: Interesting. Cool. Well, I know that we’ve kind of just scratched the surface in terms of of geeking out on water, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to link, for those of you listening in, to Dr. Pollack’s website over at the University of Washington faculty page, where you can kind of see some of the stuff that’s going to be, did you say you have a title for your upcoming book?
Dr. Pollack: I didn’t tell you, but finally we arrived at a title. It’s called “The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor”. I think this is the fourth phase of water. It’s in between liquid and solid. And someone suggested, a prominent physical chemist a hundred years ago that there is a fourth phase of water because there was so much evidence at that time, a hundred years ago, that the interface when certain solids meet water, actually hydrophilic solids, that is water loving solids, which most are, that the water changes and there’s something different about that region, there’s some phase, some area that’s different. And there’s enough of it to suggest that it’s a different phase of water. We all learned that water was solid, liquid, vapor. This might be equivalent or might be a fourth phase of water.
Ben: I’m going to have to go back and take Chemistry 101.
Dr. Pollack: No, no, no. Don’t take chemistry because you won’t learn this.
Ben: Well, this hits mainstream. So, I’ll link to your website so people can read about that a little bit more and also link to this other book that you wrote in the past, although it sounds like your newer book is probably going to be a little more comprehensive. And for those of you listening in who have more questions, feel free to leave them in the show notes to this podcast episode over at bengreenfieldfitness.com. I know that we always get lots of questions about water and I’ve talked before about water filters and things of that nature, and I think that’s just verifies what Dr. Pollack has told us today, just verifies that not all water is the same and there’s some pretty cool things that he is observing in his lab that I think we’re probably just scratching the surface of. So, Dr. Pollack, thank you for your time today and for coming on the call.
Dr. Pollack: My pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Take care! Okay.
A few weeks ago I tweeted about a fasting low carb diet:
Today I talked to guy who hammers through 6hr workouts after 24hr fasts & figured out how 2 do it without bonking. Want me 2 interview him?
– Ben Greenfield (@bengreenfield) August 9, 2012
I received multiple responses of “Yes!”.
The guy I mentioned in that tweet was Peter Attia, who has been on my show before in the episode “Is It Possible To Be Extremely Active and Eat A Low Carbohydrate Diet?”.
As promised, I got him on to talk about how to turn yourself into a fat burning machine by fasting for 24 hours and then going out and doing a monster workout (without bonking), and in today’s interview with Peter, I ask him:
-Do you stay in ketogenesis all the time?
-When you do something like fast for 24 hours, then go on a long bike ride, what exactly are you trying to achieve?
-What do you actually take on or before a long ketogenic training session? Any calories at all, or just some kind of supplements?
-What do you think is the ideal protocol for someone during a workout in which they want to maintain as high an intensity as possible, but also burn fatty acids as a primary fuel?
-Do you think there could be potential side effects of this approach, such as a decreased metabolic rate, lower thyroid, immune system deficits, or anything like that?
A few resources Peter and I discuss in this interview are (and by the way, sorry about my ice crunching habit, my mic sensitivity was turned up way higher than I thought!):
-Abbott Diabetes Care ketone monitor – This is the device Peter uses for checking his glucose and beta-hydroxybutyrate (B-OHB) levels (those are his ketones).
-Medium chain triglyceride oil or coconut oil – either of these can be used before or during exercise to give yourself extra fatty acids to utilize.
-UCAN SuperStarch – a corn based starch fueling product with very low release of insulin and extremely stable blood sugar compared to other gels, sports drinks, powders or bars.
If you enjoyed this episode, you should also tune into our other water episodes:
-Earlier this year, in an interview with Dr. David Getoff, entitled “How To Reduce The Risk From Swimming in Chlorinated Pools and Drinking Chlorinated Water.” (and we also discuss water filters in that episode).
-Before that, we had a podcast that asked: Are You Getting Scammed By Alkaline Water, Ionized Water, Magnetic Water, Oxygenated Water or Structured Water?
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From one musical pioneer to another
Joseph Macerollo (left) and Michael Bridge
Accomplished accordionist Joseph Macerollo’s generous gift to the Faculty of Music supports a talented protégé.
When Joseph Macerollo enrolled at U of T’s Faculty of Music in 1961, he was forced to study the piano—although he’d been a child prodigy on the accordion, his chosen instrument was barely on the radar. But by 1972, a few years after he had graduated with an MA in musicology, Macerollo was invited to set up an accordion program at the faculty.
A half century later, Macerollo is at the other end of an exceptionally productive and storied career. In addition to teaching the instrument for decades at U of T, the Royal Conservatory and Queen’s University, he has toured the world as a soloist, written and performed music for film and television, and premiered dozens of works written especially for him.
I wanted to thank the University for taking a risk all those years ago
And now he has made yet another contribution to building a future for his instrument: a $100,000 gift to the Faculty of Music to endow the Joseph and Frances Macerollo Accordion Scholarship—the first such award in Canada.
“I wanted to say thank you to the University for the opportunity, and for taking a risk all those years ago,” Macerollo says.
Under his leadership, the U of T program is one of only a handful in the world that offer a doctorate in the instrument: Doctor of Musical Arts with Performance Emphasis on the Accordion. And fittingly, in the first two years of the scholarship, it’s been awarded to one of Macerollo’s DMA students, Michael Bridge, who’s in his eighth year at U of T and is working on his third degree.
“Getting a scholarship in my professor’s name means a tremendous amount and is very inspiring,” says Bridge—these days known as U of T’s “Accordion Guy”. His doctoral work is focused on body-control techniques in accordion playing that his teacher pioneered, which brings the award full circle and ensures that Joseph Macerollo’s work will become even better known among accordionists around the world.
For Macerollo, the endowment is a fitting capstone to a career promoting and developing the instrument that he loves: “With an accordion, you always wonder, ‘Where’s that going to go?’ But in my life it has been very important artistically. It’s the way I express myself.”
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Tag Archives: magic
Spiritual Traditions — and Liberation From Same
I had a bit of a debate recently with a very pleasant and erudite Druid named John Beckett over on Patheos. The debate concerned his article on difficulties finding the “right tradition for you,” and I chimed in with comments observing that maybe the problem is in the premise that any one existing tradition is “right” for you. Apparently this and the ensuing discussion provoked the good Druid enough that he followed up with another post explaining why, in his view, sticking with an established tradition is the only healthy way to pursue a spiritual path, and raising alarms about the dangers of choosing methods and ideas “at random.” (As an ironic side-note, Mr. Beckett mentioned the late Isaac Bonwitz as one of his mentors. It’s ironic because, although Bonewitz was indeed one of the founders and framers of modern Druidism, he was also one of the most eclectic, creative mages around, and one of those most inclined to thumb his nose at pretensions of orthodoxy.)
Rather than tiresomely pursing the matter in further comments and making a nag of myself, I decided to write a post of my own on the subject.
What is a Spiritual “Tradition”?
In essence, a spiritual tradition is a religion. Its focus is on the spiritual quest more than on the exoteric concerns of religion such as public morality, but otherwise it differs from other traditions in the same way as one religion differs from another. This encompasses three things: philosophical concepts, mythology, and spiritual practices.
Philosophical concepts include theology, but go beyond that to also include metaphysics and epistemology and ethics. Mythology encompasses the deities, imagery, poetry, and symbolism of the tradition. Spiritual practices include meditations, religious and magical ritual, physical exercises, lifestyle disciplines, and learning, all oriented towards achieving enlightenment, as the tradition views that concept.
There’s a certain congruence or commonality about spiritual practices that arises from their pragmatic nature. Either something works or it doesn’t, and few traditions will continue for long using a practice that doesn’t work. Thus one finds, for example, mantra and mandala meditation among Yogis, and Catholics who pray the Rosary, an exercise that’s functionally identical. All spiritual practices work an effect on the mind and the mind-set, blurring the artificial boundaries of selfhood and awakening the practitioner (potentially, anyway) to the larger Identity that hides behind the normal waking concept of I. The range is wide but not unlimited.
Mythology varies more widely. All deities and other mythic images are metaphors for the indescribable, and while not every metaphor is apt or meaningful, the array of possibilities is huge. Some mythologies, such as that of Hinduism, are highly visual and colorful. Others, like that of Islam, avoid any concrete images of the holy and emphasize the ineffable nature of God. Christian mythology resides somewhere between that of Hinduism and Islam on this scale, while most Neopagan mythology leans more towards the Hindu end of rich, poetic and artistic imagining. Anyone who has walked a spiritual path for long and achieved any significant degree of awakening understands that all of these are valid approaches.
Philosophy brings us to areas of genuine disagreement, but even here the disputes lose their significance in the face of the fact that coherent knowledge that can be expressed in words is hard to come by when dealing with the cosmos in its entirety, or the mysteries of consciousness. Those are the subject matter of the spiritual. While we cannot approach these subjects directly and straightforwardly, we can do so sideways, as it were. The discussion and the debate help move that process. The richer the discussion, the better.
A tradition, like an exoteric religion, adheres to a single set of philosophical ideas, a single body of mythology, and an authorized set of spiritual practices, rejecting all ideas, myths, and practices which lie outside this compass.
Strong and Weak Traditional Exclusivity
The idea of traditional exclusivity — that only one tradition holds truth and all others are wrong — can take what might be called a strong form and a weak form.
Strong exclusivity is the idea that only one tradition is right for everyone. One finds this idea expressed by fundamentalist Christians and, in pure form, by no one else, although Muslims come fairly close to it, acknowledging some measure of validity to Christianity and Judaism but claiming that Islam holds a more complete truth and rejecting all religious ideas outside the Abrahamic lineage.
Spiritual traditionalists who have any awareness and have made any progress seldom express strong exclusivity. More common is weak exclusivity: the assertion that following one tradition or another exclusively is the right approach for everyone. Some tradition is right for you, even if it’s not our tradition. It’s as if they’re claiming that everyone should be a fundamentalist, while declining to specify what sort of fundamentalist one should be.
Is there any basis for this claim?
What a Tradition Offers Versus What it Costs
What a tradition offers — or claims to offer — is structure, reassurance, guidance, and externally-imposed discipline. (That’s if we dismiss any claims to exclusive possession of the Truth.) All of this contrasts with the non-aligned, who must build their own structures, learn by exploration and choose which guides to follow (if any) and when not to follow them, dive boldly into the spiritual waters seeking reassurance only from success, and create discipline from within.
Following a tradition is easier. It requires more in the way of obedience, and less in the way of courage. It provides a comforting voice when the doubts inevitably arise (there are always guardians at every gate). It sits best with those who are most comfortable accepting the authority of others. Those who find staying within the limits imposed by a tradition hardest are the wildly creative, the strong of will, the highly self-assured, and the boldly self-assertive.
The problem here is that those are also the very people who are most likely to achieve the most success on the spiritual paths. Take a look at the history of any great prophet or spiritual leader, including the founders of traditions or powerful voices within traditions. Without exception, these are people who had problems with religious authorities on the way. They ran away from home in youth, like the Buddha. They were crucified like Jesus, or had to flee for their lives like Muhammad.
There’s a reason for this. The cosmos is not tame. It is wild. And its voice is seldom heard in safe, secure settings.
Is there danger in striking out on one’s own, in refusing to be contained within the limits of a tradition? Of course there is, but not nearly as much danger as some would have us believe. Magic is powerful and potentially self-destructive stuff, but beginners in the art are seldom able to raise enough power to be truly self-destructive.
Beginners make mistakes, it’s true. Does that mean they need to be carefully guided away from error, and kept on the safe path? No, because making mistakes is the only way a person learns. The journey is the destination and the question is the answer, and no one grows without making that journey and asking the questions, seeking answers rather than being spoon-fed them.
So long as people tamely follow a tradition, spirituality will remain a safely compartmentalized part of their lives, never endangering their world-views — or expanding them beyond the comfort zone. Safe spirituality is impotent spirituality.
There’s nothing wrong, of course, with learning from a spiritual tradition, and knowledge is always good. And for a time, it’s perfectly understandable that a person might need the structure and comfort that comes from belonging. But unless you feel that need (something I never have, but can vaguely comprehend), there’s nothing to be gained by defining oneself — which is to say, limiting oneself, as that is what “definition” means. Sooner or later, the child must leave the home.
Or else remain forever a child.
Tagged as Druidism, eclectic spirituality, eclecticism, heresy, magic, prophecy, religion, spiritual tradition, spirituality
July 3, 2015 · 7:07 am
A Sip of Fear (Chapter Three)
Here’s the third chapter of my new novel, A Sip of Fear, volume one of The Illuminated. A slight hitch happened on the way to publication, so the book will be available tomorrow rather than today. I’ll post links to the book at Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords in a new post then, and add it to the sideboard. I’m going through the Smashwords distribution system for other outlets (Barnes & Noble, Apple, etc.) so it should be available there within a week or so.
Meanwhile, hope you enjoy this third installment.
I encountered Ela-Tu for the first time when I was fifteen.
Magic fired up in my brain a few years before that, surrounding me like music that never stopped playing. Feelings coming my way from other people, auras and borderline realities seen from the corner of my eye, strands of fate plucked like chords or whispering secrets in my ear.
A lot of people have a little sensitivity to the Power. It’s much more common than most people realize. The sense you get when you’re being watched. The knowledge of who’s calling on the phone before you answer it. The fear that grabs the heart when a loved one is in danger, felt before the word comes. The desperate prayer in troubled times that gives birth to a miracle of shifted odds. Many people know such things. Magic in small amounts is nothing out of the ordinary.
I have more than a little of it. That’s rarer. Those with the ability to become virtuosos of the Art gulp down occult lore like drunkards. We can’t help it, even though the payoff is scant. Most of what’s written on the subject is complete crap made up by sensation-mongers and scam artists. A small subset covers better ground, but amounts to poor, if honest, understanding of one of the biggest puzzles life has to offer. Only a few rare tracts offer real, sound knowledge, because only a few of us have ever discovered that knowledge.
Among the cream of the magical world, the Illuminated are in a class by ourselves.
As far as I know, anyway. Maybe there are others out there that would make us look like amateurs, keeping themselves hidden from us because they can. I can’t speak about hypotheticals like that.
What I do know is that Illuminated always come from the ranks of those who have a special gift of magic and have studied the art, and nearly all Illuminated have at one time or another dabbled in the summoning of spirits. Now, spirits are of several kinds. Most spirits spring from the mind of the magic user in a form of controlled imagination that endows the creature with a measure of the summoner’s free will. That sort of spirit is useful for enhancing spells or managing them in an intelligent way while the mind of the magician is engaged elsewhere. But is the spirit real or imaginary? In the shifting world of the mental moonscapes, pregnant with sorcery, where meaning takes the place of mass and association replaces distance, everything is both and the question can’t be asked or answered.
But some spirits are different. Some touch on older and stronger magic, dangerous and seductive. Among those are the ones we call the Luminous. The Luminous defy all of the arts of ceremonial magic. You can’t command a Luminous by invoking names of God, sigils, or words of power. You can’t negotiate a pact with one of them; the terms of bonding are fixed, take it or leave it. The Luminous may come to your call, or you may call it without realizing what you’re doing, or it may summon you — or it may ignore you altogether and leave your efforts empty of result. But however it happens, meeting a Luminous changes your perspective on yourself, your life, and the cosmos, and after the bonding you are never the same.
For me, it happened when I played with spirit summoning, a teenager who knew almost nothing, certainly not what I was doing, and sent a call out to a spirit who could help me be a healer. No name. No idea what I would call. I just wanted to heal the sick and hurt. It seemed right.
For six weeks when I was fifteen, every night I drew a magic circle in the air with a consecrated wand and focused my will and desire. Every night I sent the call. Every night I went to sleep wondering why I bothered, why I persisted when nothing ever followed.
Until it did. Until she came.
When Ela-Tu answered my call, resistance was impossible. I fell in love. Since then, I have had more lovers than I can count — a side effect of bonding to a spirit of Life — but no matter who shares my bed, I have always been hers. I will be hers until I die.
Being Illuminated comes at a price and carries an obligation. I thought about that as I walked along Golden Gardens Drive in the misty rain the next day. Sometimes the obligation isn’t a problem. I didn’t mind looking for signs of illness in the trees and wildlife and healing it, or doing the same for people. But Erica walked beside me as a reminder of other obligations that weren’t so simple.
The Ice Woman wore a hooded jacket. Her glossy brown hair framed her face in tight curls under the hood and collected drops of rainwater to sparkle in the cool air. I turned to her and tried to smile. Then I noticed that some of those water drops had frozen, beading her hair like woven-in gems. My breath smoked. Hers didn’t. Not a good sign. She was angry.
She was always angry with me. By her lights, I deserved it. Most people would agree with her. The problem is, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. And it’s not as if she didn’t know that going into our relationship. She picked up on the thought without my having to say anything.
“I know,” she said. She looked at me. I felt the temperature drop. “I knew what you were. I asked you if you could be faithful to me.”
“And I told you probably not,” I said.
“Yes. I should have listened. I couldn’t. I —” She stopped and frowned. “You meant a lot more to me than you should have.”
I stopped to inspect the wide blackened hole in an oak tree, burned some years past by lightning. The tree had sprouted around the dead area and now it looked like a dark door into mystery. I smiled. The tree didn’t need my attention. I turned back to my ex-girlfriend, who did.
“You meant a lot to me, too, Erica. Really, you did. And you still do. I didn’t cheat on you because I didn’t care. I did it because —”
“I know, Gordon. You did it because Ela-Tu wanted you to. She never wants you to say no to anyone. She probably won’t be happy until you have a couple of dozen offspring.”
“She hasn’t pressured me about that, actually. Kind of surprising.” I touched her arm, and despite everything, felt a surge of desire. Ela-Tu still wasn’t talking to me, but her influence remained strong, and my powers hadn’t weakened. I stopped myself from pulling Erica into an embrace. She wouldn’t have appreciated it, and it would only have hurt her more. “I’m sorry, Erica.”
“I know that, too. But it doesn’t really help.” She sighed. “And I’m sorry, too, Gordon. You can’t help being what you are.” She paused. “How’s Rose?”
“You’ve cheated on her, too, haven’t you?”
“It’s not against our rules, Erica, so no, it’s not cheating. But if you mean I’ve had other women, yes. And one man. Rose understands. I’m not saying she never gets jealous, but she handles it.”
“She shouldn’t have to.”
I shrugged.
Erica sighed. “Right. She has you because she can handle it, and I don’t because I can’t. So it goes.” She shook her head. “Tell me about Shadow.”
“You’ve decided I’m not crazy?”
“No. But Marcus doesn’t think you are. He believes you, so I’m prepared to listen. Why do you think the bogey-man is real?”
I explained the evidence that Rose had found. “So the pattern shows that Shadow is real.”
“Wait a minute. What did she consider a Shadow sighting anyway?”
“Reports from people who saw him. Or said they did. What else?”
“Yeah, but nobody knows what he looks like.”
“There are stories. Someone who blends into the shadows, moves really fast, and kills Illuminated. He wears a black cloak and hood. He’s incredibly strong. He’s got an aura of death around him that any magician can see, Illuminated or not. Several of those elements together in a report equals Shadow. Except a few of them were false alarms.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Gordon. Have you considered the possibility that you’re both fooling yourselves? This seems like a pretty shaky basis —”
“Shh. Someone’s coming. Keep your voice down.”
A man approached us from ahead on the road. Erica nodded and continued in a whisper.
“Rose could have unconsciously created this pattern she saw out of background noise.”
“I doubt that, Erica. She’s a mentat. She doesn’t make mistakes that way. If it was me doing it, yeah, you might have a point.”
The man drew closer to us. He wore a black wool jacket with a hood. Something about him felt — off, wrong. His aura seemed dark and cold. I smelled a faint odor of decay.
Could this be Shadow? I doubted it. He moved like a normal man, and I couldn’t sense the signs of Illumination. But still, there was something about him.
As all this was running through my brain, the man stopped, hands in his pockets, about ten feet away.
“Gordon Greenbough?” he said.
“That’s me,” I said. “Who are you?”
He pulled his right hand from his coat pocket. A pistol came with it.
“Shadow says hello,” he said, and shot me twice in the gut. I fell. As the pain hit me in a delayed reaction, the road and the trees spun wildly and everything went dark.
When I woke up, I was still in the park. My head rested on something soft. A bit of exploration confirmed that it was Erica’s lap. With some embarrassment, I removed my hand from her thigh and sat up. That’s when I remembered getting shot.
A moment of panic ensued as I felt about my midsection, but the wounds had already healed. My clothes were a lost cause, bullet holes in my jacket and shirt and stained with lots of my blood. As I brushed myself off, two small objects fell to the ground. These proved to be mangled bullets, expelled from my body by muscle contractions as the healing power worked on me. I slipped them into my pocket for souvenirs.
“What happened?” I said.
“You got shot,” said Erica.
“Yeah, I remember that part.”
“I got the guy who shot you,” she said, nodding at something to my left. I looked that direction and saw a man maybe in his thirties, dressed in a black wool jacket with a hood. His body lay crusted with ice in a thin but solid layer, slowly melting into the undergrowth. His open eyes stared at the sky and his open mouth shrieked in silent shock. “I dragged him away from the road and then did the same to you. I know it’s not a good idea to move someone hurt as badly as you were, but I know how quickly you heal. He should have aimed for something that would kill you instantly, like a head shot.”
“If he was trying to kill me. I’m not sure he was.”
“Maybe he was just a bad shot.” She stood up and brushed leaves and twigs off her jacket. “You look a mess, Gordon.”
“Thanks for saving me. I’ve never been shot before. It feels weird.”
“Weird?”
“Well, it hurt. Now I feel kind of itchy. And a little woozy. Probably the blood loss. Also I need a shower and to change clothes.”
“What should we do with him?” she said, nodding at the corpse.
“I don’t know. He’s kind of — I mean, if they find him before he thaws out, that could be a problem.”
“Let me try something.”
I knelt beside the corpse and put my hands on his jacket, reaching inside him with my magical senses and the special health-sense that Ela-Tu gave me. He was dead, of course, no way I could heal that, but plenty of things were still alive inside him, cells of his body that hadn’t died yet and bacteria. I encouraged them to greater activity. I also pulled power up from the ground, which I often did when healing living things. In a little under a minute, the ice covering his body started to crack. The melting accelerated. Pretty soon most of the ice was gone, the ground under the corpse just a little damper than the surrounding turf.
“There,” I said, standing up. “He’ll still be a medical mystery, but it won’t be as blatant. Let’s get out of here.”
“Do you have anything to change into?”
“Here.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a spare windbreaker. “It’s a little small for you, but it should cover the bloodstains.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I slipped into the windbreaker, which was a little small for me as she said, but not too bad. Erica is nearly as tall as I am. I could wear her clothes in a pinch. I’d done it before.
“I guess I believe in Shadow now,” Erica said as we walked back to our cars.
“That couldn’t have been him, though.” I frowned.
“No, I don’t think I could have killed Shadow that easily. He was probably a mind-control victim. Spooky.”
“No kidding. This whole thing is spooky.”
“Shadow must know who you are, Gordon. He knows your name. That guy asked if you were you. Right?”
“Yeah. That’s pretty scary.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t want you to die.”
“I mean it. There have been times I was so mad at you I thought I wanted you dead, but I don’t. Do you think Shadow is aiming for you? Has he picked you as his victim?”
“I don’t know. Pretty cocky to announce it like that if he is.”
“Yeah.” She folded her arms. Her brow furrowed. “He feeds on fear as well as blood. That’s what the stories say. Maybe he’s trying to scare you.”
“Doing a good job of it, then.”
“What are we going to do, Gordon?”
“Find him. Stop him. Kill him if we can.”
We came out of the park to where my green rebuilt Karmann Ghia was parked. Erica’s SUV was right behind it.
“I don’t know how,” I said. “Everyone has weaknesses, though. We’ll find Shadow’s.”
“Okay.” She smiled. “I’ll call you later. Just to make sure you’re all right.”
I got in and started my car. My hands trembled so badly I had to take several deep breaths before I could make the key do its job.
Tagged as A Sip of Fear, fantasy, fantasy storytelling, magic, new book, new novel, The Illuminated, undead, urban fantasy
A Sip of Fear (Chapter Two)
Here’s the second chapter of my new novel, A Sip of Fear, volume one of The Illuminated. I’ll publish the third chapter here next Friday, which is also publication date, so I’ll have links then to the book at Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords as well. Meanwhile, please enjoy this sample.
Shadow was real!
I stood on my balcony the next morning. Our apartment is on the second floor of the building and we have a covered balcony facing the sunrise. The air smelled sweet and, as usual, damp. The sun played a low-pitched note in my mind as it rose triumphantly over the horizon. A crow flew down and landed on my shoulder. That fit my mood. Birds often came to visit, landing on me or on the balcony rail. Pigeons and jays were common, songbirds rarer, and on one occasion I drew a red-tailed hawk.
In a mood like this, a big bird as black as my fear responded to the squawk in my brain and landed on my shoulder. I turned to look into its little dark eye.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “He won’t hurt you. I’m the one who’s dead.”
I was jumping to conclusions. I knew that. He might not come to Seattle. He might not come for me. That ominous arrow pointing north from Los Angeles might bend. Maybe he’d go east from Portland, heading for Chicago or for some enclave of earth burrowers out in the countryside.
But I couldn’t help being afraid.
The crow screeched in my ear and flew away. Yeah, in this mood I was no fun. Can’t blame you, bird.
Rose came out on the balcony with two cups of coffee. She handed me one, with cream, no sugar. I took a gulp of it, my hands trembling. She hugged me and ran her hand up and down my back.
“I’m scared, Rose.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“What should we do?” I said.
“Thinking about it,” Rose said. “The Illuminated need to know he’s real. Together we might be able to do something about him.”
“What? How do you stop someone like Shadow?”
She shrugged. “How do you kill a dead person? That might be impossible. But maybe we don’t have to kill him to stop him.” She shook her head. “We need more information.”
I had to smile at that. “You Djehuti adepts. You can never have enough data.”
“Well, we don’t want to make a mistake, not with something like this. There’s so much we don’t know. How much of the legend can we trust? Also, how much of the vampire stories are true about Shadow? Can you kill him with a stake through the heart? Can you poison him with garlic? It’s a swamp of misinformation. But I did some more digging into those sightings. Each one, he stayed a little while, a few days or a week, once as long as three weeks. Each time, an Illuminated died. No explanation of how or why. Then Shadow left. It’s reasonable to believe he killed those Illuminated.”
“Yeah. That fits the legend.”
“But he only killed one. You’d expect him to stay and clean the whole town out, kill every Illuminated in the place. He never does. He kills one. Then he leaves, goes to the next town and does it again. He’ll do the same in Portland, then move to the next target. If he comes north, he could stop in Vancouver or Olympia or Tacoma, or skip all of those and come here. Seattle’s the biggest city in Washington and has the most Illuminated. But that’s no guarantee. He could go anywhere.”
I drank some more coffee. I probably shouldn’t; I was wired enough already. “There’s a cowardly part of me that wants to hunker down and pray that he picks someone else to kill. Odds would be in my favor.”
“I know — but.”
“Right. But. But if he doesn’t kill me, he’ll kill someone else. There aren’t that many Illuminated in Seattle and most of them are my friends. Who should I prefer as victim? Marcus down at the Green Woman? Erica? You?”
“No matter who the victim is, we all suffer. We grieve, and we live in fear, and Shadow feeds.”
I sighed. “We need to stop him if we can.”
“And I don’t think we can do it alone.”
“Can you put something on a flash drive so I can show people, prove to them Shadow is a real person?”
She grinned and fished in a pocket. “Already done,” she said, handing me the drive. I pocketed it.
“Well, since Shadow seems to take his time, I guess I can make us some breakfast before I go talk to people. But I’d better not put it off too long.” I kissed Rose and held her, enjoying her smell and the feel of her body while I still could, while we were both still breathing. “I’ll make some phone calls after breakfast.”
Erica Jenner picked up the phone. I hadn’t been sure she would. “Hello?”
Well, that explained it. She didn’t check caller ID.
“Hi, Erica, it’s Gordon.”
“Oh. Hello.”
“Look, I know you’re still mad at me and I don’t blame you, but don’t hang up.”
“I’m still here.”
“Erica, this is really important. We’re all in danger. I need to talk to you.”
“So talk.”
“I mean in person. I want to show you something.”
A moment of silence, then, “This had better be important.”
“I really don’t want to see you, Gordon.”
“I’ve just gotten to where I can think about dating someone.”
I swallowed. Massive guilt. Erica always knew how to play that card, but in this case I deserved it.
“Well, what’s this about?” she said.
Deep breath. “It’s about Shadow.”
She laughed. “What?”
“Shadow is real.”
“Oh, come on, Gordon.”
“I can prove it.”
“Gordon — wait a minute. You and Rose broke up, right? She dumped you, didn’t she?”
“What? No. No, we’re fine.”
“What game are you playing, Gordon?”
“No game, I’m serious. Shadow is real. He was in Portland a couple weeks ago. He might be coming here. One of us is going to die if he does.”
“Gordon — never mind. I knew you were a two-timing backstabbing jerk, but this is a new low even for you. Don’t call me again.”
I put my phone on the table and rubbed my eyes. Rose came over and massaged my shoulders. “Starting with Erica might not have been the smartest move,” she said.
I laughed. “Get the worst out of the way,” I said. “So when my ex is on the list, she’s the first one I call. Things can’t get worse after that.”
“Who should I try next?”
“Marcus.”
“No, I’ll save him for later. I could use the Green Woman as a meeting venue. Show everyone the evidence at once.”
“Call Marcus. He can help you persuade people to listen. He has that kind of charm. He also likes you better than any of the others, and he has a more open mind than most.”
“I’ll try Frank Nguyen.”
Rose shook her head and smiled. She kissed my cheek and walked away, not saying any more.
Frank wasn’t pissed at me the way Erica was, but he still thought I was crazy. Jenny Carrow didn’t listen, either.
“Call Marcus,” said Rose.
I sighed. “All right. I’ll call Marcus.”
I did. He remained skeptical when the call ended, but invited me to the Green Woman that evening to show him the goods.
Rose was right, of course. She usually is. Sometimes I have to show I can think for myself, though.
Yeah, I know. Dumb. I have a mentat for a girlfriend. I should listen to her.
I let the doors of the Green Woman close behind me. She hung over the bar — the Green Woman, that is — on a wooden panel like something that would hang over the door of a medieval inn, painted as a gorgeous female face with big green eyes and ivy twined in her green hair. I always liked that image. The Green Woman looked a lot like Ela-Tu, who still wasn’t talking to me.
The bar served as an unofficial gathering place for the Illuminated in Seattle, although of course we weren’t its only customers. Only six Illuminated that I knew of had permanent residences in Seattle at that time: Rose and me, Marcus, Erica, Frank Nguyen, and Jenny Carrow. Doug Walker migrated as did most werewolves, and a few Illuminated probably lived loner lives outside my knowledge, but still the pool of potential Shadow victims wasn’t large. Illumination is rare and precious and I didn’t want to lose any of my peers.
The place was medium busy, mostly with regulars. Marcus tended the bar, taking the mid-day shift before Lana arrived. A middling tall man about my age with black hair cut short and a gym-shaped body, he smiled as I approached. Sally, not an Illuminated, in her twenties, red haired and pretty, carried drinks and bussed tables. I sat at the bar.
“Glass of the house red, please, Marcus,” I said.
“Coming up,” said Marcus. “I want to see this proof of yours, Gordon, but let’s wait until Lana gets here.”
“Okay.” He served me my wine, which fell into the category of “not bad for a house wine.” By the time it reached my lips, though, it could have won awards. Being a bio-mage has plenty of perks to it.
As I sipped and waited, an Illuminated I didn’t recognize came in. She stood no taller than five two and had a petite body that drew my eyes away from her face over their great reluctance. Wavy night-black hair sluiced down her back except for a couple of strands artfully arranged in front to embrace her breasts, which were contained but not concealed by a form-fitting white body suit. Her head was a little large for her body, as usual for short people. It was far from unattractive, though. Her eyes, big and blue as the sky, contrasted sweetly with her hair in the striking combination called “Black Irish” along with her fair skin.
I couldn’t help smiling as I saw her walk in the door. She smiled back. A voice in the corridors of my mind whispered, here comes trouble, but I couldn’t help it. I followed her movements with my eyes, still smiling, as she came up to the bar and sat beside me.
“What will you have, beautiful?” Marcus said.
“That red wine looks nice,” she said in a mellow contralto that made my blood vibrate.
“Coming right up,” Marcus said.
“Allow me,” I said as he served her glass, and applied the same magic to her wine as I had to my own. She sipped it and her eyebrows shot up.
“Oh, my,” she said, “a bio-mage. My name’s Sarah. Sarah Cole.”
“Gordon Greenbough,” I said, holding my hand out. She took it, and I reached for a sense of her Luminous as I touched her hand. I couldn’t get a clear impression, except of presence and considerable mental power.
Sarah laughed. “Asta,” she said.
“Beg pardon?”
“My Luminous. Her name is Asta. I’m a glamor-mage. Illusion, graceful mind-working, that sort of thing.”
“I see.” That made sense. I wondered how much of her beauty consisted of illusion, but what difference did it make? All beauty is illusory.
“Asta is hard to read. I’m new in Seattle, and I’d heard this was the place to introduce myself to the local Illuminated. Glad to see I wasn’t misinformed.” She turned to Marcus. “What’s your name?”
“Marcus Jones.”
“Good to meet you, Marcus,” said Sarah, holding her hand out. He took it, smiling. I noticed that she had long fingers. Graceful hands, like the rest of her. She closed her eyes briefly. I knew that she was reading his Luminous, and would find that Marcus was a tinker-mage. Thotis, his Luminous, made Marcus a designer of amazing inventions that shouldn’t work, but did. Tending bar might seem an unusual occupation for a tinker-mage, but Marcus owns the Green Woman. It’s his cover and his day job.
In fact, it’s not at all unusual for Illuminated to have livelihoods that seem out of touch with our powers. It lets us do what we do discreetly and not attract unwanted attention. I heal people, but I do it in secret and take no credit for it. Meanwhile, I make money as a writer and editor, and nobody connects that with bio-magic.
Might as well plunge right in, I thought. “This may not be the best time to come to Seattle, Sarah.”
She blinked. “Why is that?”
“You’ve heard of Shadow, I imagine.”
Her laugh was as pretty as she was. “Who hasn’t? You’re not saying he lives in Seattle, are you?”
“God, no! What a thought! No, he travels about and doesn’t seem to have a permanent residence, but he last surfaced in Portland two weeks ago. Before that he was in Eugene, before that in Oakland, and before that in Los Angeles. You see the general direction.”
“Hmm. So he might be coming here.” She shook her head. “How do you know all this? And what makes you think there even is a Shadow?”
I sighed. “You don’t believe me, of course.”
“Well, it’s a lot to take in. But I’m listening.”
I smiled. “You think I’m a harmless nut, Sarah. If you thought I might be right, you’d be terrified.”
“I’d be terrified if Shadow was about to drink my blood. He’s not here now. I hope not. If he’s on his way, I can always leave town. I’m good at going unnoticed when I want to.”
At that moment, Lana walked into the bar, tying her apron in place, her dark hair in a tight bun. After she took over for Marcus, he turned to me. “You said you had proof that Shadow is real.”
“Right. Let’s get a table and I’ll show you.” I hoisted my backpack with my laptop in it. The flash drive from Rose was still in my pocket.
“Wow,” Marcus said. “I never —” He shook his head.
“That’s eye-opening, all right,” said Sarah quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s odd, isn’t it, that nobody thought to do a test like this before. We were so sure that Shadow was a myth, we didn’t even bother to check the available evidence.”
“Could your friend be wrong?” said Sarah. “You said she cropped out some of the sightings.”
“Yes, but that was less than one sighting in ten. The rest of them fit this pattern linked up by dates. I’m very sure. Shadow is real.”
Silence prevailed at the table after that. Finally, Marcus stood up. “Well,” he said, “I guess I need to help you persuade the other Illuminated. I could start with Erica.”
“She froze me out already,” I said. “No pun intended.”
“You cheated on her, Gordon,” said Marcus. “You’re not the best one to convince the Ice Woman. Her skepticism is off the charts just because it’s you.”
“I guess so. Feel free to try.”
“I can probably get others on your team, but I don’t know how we can stop Shadow even if all of us work together.”
“Why did you call her the Ice Woman?” said Sarah.
“She’s a frost mage,” I said. “She can drain heat out of things. Or people.”
“Well, she might be the answer, then,” Sarah said. “Freeze Shadow solid. Even if it didn’t kill him, what could he do if he’s a block of ice?”
“Maybe,” I said. “The problem is that we just don’t know. We have only the vaguest idea of Shadow’s powers, and we don’t know anything about his weaknesses, if he even has any.”
“Oh, everyone has weaknesses,” said Sarah. “Of course he keeps his a secret. Hell, he keeps his existence a secret. I don’t think he would if he was really invincible. Do you?”
“Probably not,” said Marcus. “Maybe Rose can help us figure out what can stop him.”
“If she has enough data, she can figure out anything,” I said. “She can’t work in the dark, though.”
“Well,” Marcus said, standing up. “I’m going to go phone some people and see if I can get them to take a look at the evidence. That’s the first step. We can get together and talk about the next one after we’re all on board. You two stay as long as you want. If you need anything else, just flag down Sally. I’ll be in the office.” He clapped me on the shoulder, gave Sarah a last wistful smile, and left.
Sarah said, “Well, here I am in the big city, and sure enough, things are exciting.”
I laughed. “Yeah. I could do with a little less excitement, actually. Although we can’t be sure Shadow will come here. We could be worried about nothing.”
“If he doesn’t come to Seattle, we go after him. Right? We can spread the word, get a task force together. Unite the Illuminated world against a common enemy. One step from world peace.”
“I’m really glad I met you, Gordon. For a lot of reasons.” She smiled and covered my hand with hers, which made me jump a little.
“I’m, uh — I’m with someone,” I said.
“Of course you are,” said Sarah. “Rose. I heard it in your voice. Anyway, bio-mages are always with someone. Usually more than one someone. Right?”
“Nearly always. That’s what I hear. Not many men say no to me, Gordon, and bio-mages seldom say no to anyone. And I also hear it’s really worthwhile to get one to say yes.” She stood up and kissed my cheek. “I’ll be in touch.”
She walked out, throwing me a last smile over her shoulder.
Tagged as A Sip of Fear, death, fantasy, fantasy novel, fantasy storytelling, life, magic, new novel, The Illuminated, vampire, werewolf
Virtual God
An idea came up in the course of writing Refuge Volume Two: The Ingathering that I want to explore here in a non-fictional manner. The idea involves God as a virtual reality.
The idea of God, a cosmic entity with mind who created everything and loves and guides us, is on one level a metaphor. It’s a crude model describing religious experience. The explanation is that there’s this being, God, who created you, and you contacted him with your mind. Other non-dismissive explanations for religious experience are possible. For example, if one arrives at panpsychism as the solution to the hard problem of consciousness, as I argue makes the best sense (here), spiritual experience involves becoming aware of the cosmos as a living consciousness, and of one’s own identity as one with it. This bears some resemblance to non-theistic ideas such as those of Hinayana Buddhism or Taoism. “God” is then a metaphor for the cosmos itself. As usually conceived, God does not exist.
But there’s another possibility — a purely speculative possibility.
What if God doesn’t exist yet?
Deities in Magical Practice
In real-world magic, a lot of practitioners deal with deities in the plural. The magic user “invokes” (calls in, literally) the deity, experiencing heightened levels of a type of magical power associated with it, and employs the power either to alter his own consciousness or to achieve some practical end achievable through the alteration of probability. Among the monotheistic, the tendency is to refer to these beings as angels (or sometimes as demons, compelled to service through God’s name and sigils of power) rather than as deities, but it amounts to the same thing in practice. Pagan magicians call on the deities of various pantheons openly, of course.
Various ideas circulate in magical circles regarding what deities are. Not all magic users believe that the deities they invoke are literal beings separate from themselves. Perhaps a more common belief is that the magic user creates the deity via empowered imagination. The deity is closely associated with some natural source of magical power (the sun, the Earth, nature, the sea, lightning, love, war, intelligence and knowledge, whatever) and by personifying that force, the magician is able to talk to it and ask its assistance. The deity emerges from the mind of the magician, draws power from the natural world through its association with some significant aspect of it, and gains a measure of independent existence as a result of that power-up.
What’s more, one magician doing this is less powerful than many. This is why it’s useful to invoke a deity that has actually been worshiped in the past: the imaginary form is empowered by others who have already created it, and that makes it potentially stronger than a deity created by the magician anew. (Which doesn’t mean there might not be other reasons to do that. But that’s outside the scope of this post.)
The idea of the Virtual God is extrapolated from this.
The Birth Of God
God, in the monotheistic sense, would be a deity created by magic — that is, by the empowered imagination of magic users — associated with the cosmos in its entirety, and on a vast scale. Multiple magicians, as noted above, create a more powerful deity than one working alone.
If we extrapolate that idea to whole planets full of magicians, all of them pouring their mana into the manifestation of God, we might at some point reach a critical threshold where God becomes so powerful that he transcends the normal limitations of magic. All magic operates by altering the probabilities of indeterminate events. Normally, this applies only to events that are indeterminate to the naked eye, so to speak, but in theory all macroscopic events are the products of subatomic events that are themselves indeterminate. The ability to alter the probabilities associated with quantum events is outside normal magical competence, but if it could be done, the result would deserve the title of miracle. Parting the Red Sea. Raising the dead. Walking on water.
Anything. Anything at all.
God As Virtual Reality
Now, let’s suppose that what I described above is possible. It clearly hasn’t happened yet. But let’s say that someday it might, if enough intelligent beings throughout the universe emerge into benign consciousness and will it to be.
That possibility means that at some possible future date, God may exist, even though It does not exist at present. And in that possible future, God is endowed with awesome magical power.
Now, one thing about magical power is that it time-travels. That’s how it’s possible to use magic to predict future events. There have also been experiments showing a PK effect (which is a misnomer, by the way; no actual kinesis takes place, only alteration of probability) occurring before the person causing it makes the effort.
Magical power moves and operates in its own frame of reference, which I call association space. It’s not bound and limited by space-time the way energy is. The arrow of time, therefore, isn’t absolute for it. And that means that, while God doesn’t exist at this time, Its existence in a possible future — so long as that future remains possible — means that Its magical power can, to an extent, influence events in the here and now. One thing It would certainly do is to make Its own birth more likely by influencing the indeterminate events in Its past. That would include the mental processes of those who might bring It into being, or whose thoughts and behavior might lead to conditions where that becomes possible.
And so the Virtual God becomes another model explaining certain kinds of religious experience. It’s certainly an experience of cosmic consciousness, an awareness of one’s own true identity.
But maybe — just maybe — it’s also tuning in to the mind of a real God, who doesn’t exist yet, but someday may.
Do I believe this? Not necessarily. But it’s a fun idea to play with. And I’m certainly willing to include it in my stories.
Filed under Philosophy, Spirituality
Tagged as angels, deities, magic, philosophy, spirituality, theology, virtual reality
Writing Deeply (Part II)
Continuing with last week’s post, this one explores the fact that I can’t write purely escapist fiction a bit further, this time in the context of the second series I began (and unlike The Star Mages, haven’t finished yet), A Tale of Two Worlds.
In original planning, which will hopefully happen one of these days, Tale will have four volumes: The Green Stone Tower, Goddess-Born, The People of the Sea, and Light and Shadow. Only the first two of these are written and published, so I can really only talk about them here.
As I noted last week, these stories aren’t for everyone — but then, no story is. If you like fiction that explores deep philosophical, spiritual, and political themes, then you may like mine. If not, you almost certainly won’t. Not that I don’t have (I hope) engaging characters and lots of action, but if you find you want to skip over the passages where people are talking about complicated subjects in order to get to that other stuff, maybe it’s not for you.
A Tale of Two Worlds
Here’s a run-down on the world and plot of The Green Stone Tower and Goddess-Born before going into the heady stuff.
These books are other-world fantasy rather than contemporary fantasy. They’re set, as the series title suggests, in two worlds, which are unimaginatively called the Old World and the New World by the denizens of the latter, and just “the world” and Faerie by those of the former. Humanity evolved on the Old World. During the long ages of prehistory, a few human beings (seven men and three women) had such powerful magic running through them that, in a death-rebirth apotheosis, they became deities. These Old Gods were worshiped in prehistoric times, but their worship and also the practice of magic are forbidden by law in the Old World societies where the story takes place, as The Green Stone Tower begins.
The youngest of the Old Gods is Malatant of Shadow, God of Evil. He achieved his divinity at the time when humanity was poised to discover agriculture and begin settling in cities. He’s a very important character in the series, and it was his plan that led to the separation of the two worlds. The gods wanted to help other human beings, and ultimately all of humanity, achieve divine status, but it was slow going. They spread their own genes among humans, but even when two deities mated the result was never a god or goddess (although usually a powerful sorcerer). Malatant came up with the idea of separating the mages from the rest of humanity so they could evolve more quickly, concentrated in their own society. To achieve this, he cunningly led the unmagical to hate, fear, and condemn the magical, and the latter were forced to flee for their lives. The gods led them away from the Old World to the New by means of the Green Stone Towers, which provided a link between the two and remained after the mages were gone. In the New World, the mages built a highly magical society, became immortal, and their descendants are today called the Faerie Folk by the humans of the Old World.
There are still mages in the Old World practicing in secret, and one of the main characters, Johnny Silverbell, is one of them. The story in the first book involves his transformation into a deity, along with that of Illowan, his Faerie lover. Along the way, there’s Johnny’s encounter with street thugs who try to castrate him, a trial for the crime of magic, seduction of Illowan by Malatant, some ambiguous prophecy, a bit of combat, some flashy sorcery, and a lot of mind-warping looks under the hood of reality.
Here’s a scene from Johnny’s preparation by Illowara of the Mysteries (one of the Old Gods) to make his transition to divinity:
Johnny sat on a chair like a throne in the middle of a big, dimly-lit room. Around him revolved spheres that provided the room’s only illumination. They spun slowly about with him at the center, as if he was the sun and they were planets. As he watched one of them, he saw that it contained an image of himself and Illowan making love in the clearing by the Green Stone Tower near Watercourse. He turned his attention to another sphere and watched himself studying magic with Master Seedcorn. Another showed Johnny playing Richard Silverbell’s ambertone and singing. Each of the spheres, of which there were an enormous number, displayed a scene from Johnny’s memory.
Illowara appeared at a great distance, perhaps the far end of the room, lit by the moonlight she always carried with her, and approached slowly. “These are more than your memories, Johnny. They are you – they are who you are, for your sense of self is all a thing of memory. It is an illusion. What you think you are is not what you really are. That is the Mystery that will be revealed to you now.”
The goddess approached one of the spheres closest to her and furthest from Johnny. It showed his sister Karen, age eight, popping a pillowcase over the head of Johnny, age six, and laughing as he stumbled about and began to cry. “You won’t miss this one much, I think,” Illowara said. She touched the sphere and its light went out. As it disappeared, Johnny frowned, thinking back on all the times Karen had picked on him when they were children, or rather trying to think back on them, for the memories had disappeared, all of them. He knew that Karen had been a monstrous tease when they were children, intellectually as if he had read of this fact and memorized it, but he could call no image to mind of any such event.
Johnny could not help it: he cried out in dismay. Illowara smiled, and if Johnny could still have remembered such things he might have noted the similarity to his big sister’s smile when she had pulled some especially clever and evil trick on him. She advanced to another distant sphere, this one showing Richard Silverbell frowning and expressing disapproval of everything in the house – its cleanliness, the behavior of the children, his wife’s choice of wine, everything. Illowara touched the sphere, it, too, went dark, and Johnny found that he could not remember the man who provided for his childhood and whom he had thought of as his father until recently. One sphere after another the Goddess touched.
One sphere after another ceased to be and took
Johnny’s memories with them. He lost all memory of his sisters, his mother, the life he had lived in Watercourse, his studies in school and of magic. His loves, Shavana and Annie and even Illowan, disappeared. His trial for witchcraft was forgotten. His passage of the Green Stone Tower lived no more in memory. His captivity by the Darklings and his rescue by the Rangers, and all his time in the world of Faerie and the Bright Place ceased to be. He no longer knew the name of the woman who moved among the spheres and worked such ruin on his mind. He had forgotten how to work magic, how to play the ambertone, how to ride a horse, how to read and write and do calculations, every skill he had ever acquired.
Finally she stood quite close to him and only three spheres remained. The one on the left showed Johnny engaged in conversation. The one on the right showed his face, up close, passing through one vivid emotion after another – love, fear, anger, puzzlement, joy, sadness, and so on. The one in the middle showed Johnny’s body, naked and apparently sleeping. “As they are for everyone, these three things are at the core of your self-perception,” the woman said. She indicated the sphere on Johnny’s left without touching it. “This is your ability to speak, your knowledge of language.” Her hand hovered over the sphere on Johnny’s right. “This is your emotional core, your feelings and the way you react to various situations.” Finally she nodded at the sphere in the center. “And this is your body itself, composed of your senses. If these last three memories are stripped away, what will be left? Whatever remains, that is the true self.”
Goddess-Born continues with the story of Johnny’s son Malcolm and Illowan’s daughter Sonia, and of the democratic revolution that sweeps over the Kingdom of Grandlock where Johnny was born and where both Malcolm and Sonia reside. A major part is played in that story by Lasatha, the Goddess of Wisdom, whose Book of Wisdom informs the nobly-born democracy advocate Anne Fircone as she attempts to overthrow the monarchy through her witty writing. The story in Goddess-Born includes a nefarious renegade priestess of Malatant, a love story between the two main characters, a last-minute rescue from the gallows, a battle against wolves, a war, a revolution, magical assassinations, and the banishing of a greater demon, but woven through all of that action are ideas like this:
A leader is chosen by the people who follow him, whether they know it or not. The leader must meet the approval of those who follow, or they will follow another instead.
For the leader to be among the wise, therefore, it is first necessary that a measure of wisdom be found in the people. The leader is elevated by the people’s choice, or upon elevation by another factor is at least maintained in power by the people’s tolerance. The people’s tolerance varies according to their wisdom, and their wisdom varies with the times.
At their most foolish, which is to say at their most frightened, the people follow a tyrant. In this, they surrender the power that should be theirs into the hands of another. If they are lucky, he proves to be a visionary who does great good. If they are unlucky (and this is much more common and likely), their lives become a nightmare for a time.
In their normal state, neither very foolish nor very wise, the people follow a venal leader, but keep him tightly bound with the restraints of law and of their own suspicion. Such a leader can do little good, but dares do little harm, and if he should dare, the law and the people restrain him.
If the people should become wise, they would follow a wise leader. But no generation has ever been wise.
“You are not going about this the right way, Madame Foresight,” she said. “Wisdom is not something that can be conveyed by words alone. Words can only be understood by those who are already wise, as you are, and a person may gain the wisdom to understand them only through painful experience.”
Anne sighed. “Painful experience is coming, I can see it. But I hoped to find another way, an easier way – or at least a way less costly in blood.”
“I know. Unfortunately, the price of wisdom is what it is. It cannot be negotiated, because the price and the learning are one. To lower the cost is to weaken the lesson.”
One of these days I’ll get around to writing the other two books of this series, which deal with the deceptive nature of good and evil, among other things. Along with lots of sea creatures, impossible odds of combat, and venomous jungle monsters. Should be fun — and as always, thoughtful.
Next week: Refuge.
Filed under Fantasy Storytelling, Philosophy, Spirituality
Tagged as A Tale of Two Worlds, deities, fantasy, fantasy storytelling, Goddess-Born, magic, philosophy, politics, The Green Stone Tower, writing
February 1, 2015 · 10:38 am
The Illuminated: A New Fantasy Series in The Making
This post is to discuss ahead of time a new fantasy series of mine, the first book of which is about one-third complete. The book is called A Sip of Fear, and I’ll talk a bit about it later in this post. The series is called The Illuminated. It’s closer to a classic urban fantasy than anything I’ve written before. It’s a bit darker than I usually write (although still far from “dark fiction” — there are heroes, there’s genuine optimism, and although the moral questions can be complex there’s moral clarity). The first book has a theme of death and its part in life. Back to that in a moment.
The Illuminated is contemporary fantasy. A Sip of Fear is set in Seattle, where I lived for 18 years, and it’s likely that most of the future volumes will be, too. (Although I’m not completely sure of that at this point. Sip is told in the first person from the perspective of Gordon, who lives there. I haven’t decided if he’ll be the central character of the whole series, or if I’ll tell the stories of other Illuminated in future volumes instead.)
The world of The Illuminated is our world, with one fantasy addition, the Illuminated mages. The Illuminated are real-world occult magic users who have bonded to familiar spirits called Luminous. Each Luminous gives his or her Illuminated (a Luminous can have more than one) a certain set of fantasy magical powers. What that means is that each Illuminated is a real-world magic user with normal real-world magical powers (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, fateshaping, etc.) and one power, or a related group of powers, that is more fantastic.
Each Luminous also expects some service from his or her Illuminated in exchange for the powers. This is the Illuminated’s Purpose: what he or she feels compelled to do in service to the Luminous. The bond with the Luminous creates subtle changes in the personality of the Illuminated. This can make for interesting and difficult personal interactions. Finally, each Illuminated can talk to his or her Luminous and has that relationship going on as well.
So far, the story has introduced the following Illuminated:
Gordon Greenbough. Gordon is the viewpoint character. He’s a bio-mage. His Luminous, Ela-Tu, gives him powers over life and living things. He can heal injuries or illnesses, coax flowers to bloom and fruit to ripen, improve the taste of food, make incredible sex happen, and generally do good things for life. He can also reverse these abilities and cause harm by magic, and cause plants to move, bind animals in roots or vines, and so on. His Luminous expects him to heal those around him, humans, animals, and plants. More problematically, she also expects Gordon to make a healing connection to others through sex — with anyone he’s even mildly interested in. This makes it difficult for Gordon to maintain a lasting relationship, and his tense interaction with his ex-girlfriend Erica is part of his character revelation.
Rose Tillith. Rose is Gordon’s current girlfriend. She’s a mentat, blessed with powers of intellect by her Luminous, Kakoth. Gordon describes her as “a cuter Sherlock Holmes minus the cocaine.” Rose’s powers are more subtle than those of some other Illuminated, but she’s almost impossible to fool. She’s the one who figures out that Shadow is real, and pinpoints Shadow’s identity. Her icy rationality lets her accept Gordon’s philandering as part of who he is as a bio-mage and has allowed their relationship to last.
Erica Jenner. Erica is Gordon’s ex. She’s a frost mage, commonly known as the Ice Woman, who has a simple power: the ability to suck heat from an object (or person). Her Luminous is mostly concerned with the danger of fire, and Erica puts out fires whenever she can, usually beating the fire department to the scene. Despite her Illuminated nature, Erica has a fiery temper and is no one to cross — something Gordon found out the hard way.
Marcus Jones. Marcus, the owner and manager of the Green Woman bar (a local Illuminated hangout), is a tinker mage. His Luminous inspires him to invent magically-powered devices that shouldn’t work, but do. His basement is a big laboratory with chemistry, mechanics, and electronics sections as well as a table devoted to putting the final magical touches on his devices. Marcus is well liked and gregarious. He invents a device that can detect Shadow’s presence, among others.
Jenny Carrow. Jenny is a mind mage, capable of controlling the minds of others to inspire loyalty, or any other emotion she wants. Her powers, fortunately, don’t work as well on Illuminated.
Frank Nguyen. Frank is an animal handler. His powers are like Jenny’s, but applied to animals.
Doug Walker. Doug is a shape-shifter. A werewolf, simply enough.
Sarah Cole. Sarah is new in town. She calls herself a “glamor mage,” with mind-control powers from her Luminous that mostly involve illusion. She’s very smart and very beautiful and looking for a tryst with Gordon, which, of course, she’s likely to get, creating complications for everyone. Rose thinks there’s something odd about Sarah, some connection between her and Shadow, but isn’t sure what yet.
Shadow was a scary legend among the Illuminated until Rose proved he’s real. Shadow is undead, an Illuminated bonded to Apophet, the spirit of Death, who had to die to achieve the bond. He’s the basis for all the vampire stories and legends. He is rumored to be at least a thousand years old. His powers are a devastating mix of superhuman strength and speed, illusion, mind control, and a fatal touch. He drinks blood or drains life-essence — the stories conflict. Shadow’s purpose is a matter of speculation, but what the Illuminated in Seattle know is that he comes to a town, stays a while, and kills one — just one — Illuminated, and then moves on to the next location where he does the same thing.
This time, in Seattle, he’s coming for Gordon.
A Sip of Fear should be finished and published in 2015, hopefully some time around June or July. I’ll keep you updated in future posts. The art above is what I’m considering for cover art.
Tagged as contemporary fantasy, death, fantasy, fantasy storytelling, Illuminated, magic, urban fantasy, vampire, werewolf
Third in the series of posts about tropes in contemporary fantasy is my favorite: the witch.
Magic is obviously a staple of all fantasy, but the role of the witch in contemporary fantasy has a layer of mythic meaning over and above magic itself. The witch is set apart from society, living in secret, misunderstood, often persecuted. In a lot of fantasy stories set in today’s world, the witch is the guardian of nature’s purity and health. Witches stand in conflict with a rampaging industrial society that has little regard for ecological sustainability and that values profit above all.
Witches are ancient. They follow a magical, spiritual, and religious tradition deriving from before the dawn of civilization and are in possession of a truth denied to and scorned by mainstream religions. Where those religions have held temporal power, witches have been accused of demonic magic and those convicted of the practice have been condemned to death.
Of course, those killed by the ignorant are seldom real witches.
The witch, then, isn’t just another name for the magic-user, but something more specific: the powerful, wise, and insightful outsider, the reminder of our natural roots, the cautionary voice that threatens nature’s wrath at our disregard and hubris.
Fantasy Witches and Real Witches
There are, of course, real witches in the real world, and they bear some resemblance to the contemporary-fantasy witch, mostly because they are themselves tapping into the same myths as shapers of their own life-paths. Witches in real life are followers of a loose-knit nature religion, a branch of Neopaganism, characterized by devotion to nature, the practice of magic, and related progressive values such as feminism and environmentalism. Witches typically meet in small groups or practice their craft alone, rather than gathering in large congregations. They are typically individualistic, a bit geeky, rebels against the cultural norms of the past, and possessed of a dim view of the big traditional religions. Their existence makes the witch the contemporary fantasy trope most closely grounded in reality. (There are, as far as I know, no real vampires or werewolves.)
The fantasy witch begins with the real witch as a template, but of course departs from it in a number of ways. The most obvious departure is to amplify the real witch’s ability as a magic user, giving fantasy witches delicious powers that are beyond the scope of most real-world humans. In addition to that, fantasy witches are sometimes not quite human. Perhaps they are rare family lines bearing the genes for magical power and connection to the Earth, passed from mother to child (or sometimes also father to child) down the generations. Perhaps they constitute a separate species that look human, but aren’t.
These are just window-dressing, though. In essence, the fantasy witch is the real witch on booster drugs.
The Role of the Witch
The witch in a fantasy story may be the main protagonist or a side character. As a main protagonist, the witch presents us with a set of witchy issues as well as the usual array of personal issues that are available to any main characters. The common issues are things like relationships, jobs, family, friends, and danger from fantasy creatures out to slaughter them — the usual. In that respect, the witch is just like any other fantasy character with remarkable but limited powers asked to solve problems that look impossibly daunting and survive dangers that seem to promise certain death.
In addition to all that, the witch has spiritual issues and obligations that can weave into the story. She (note: the witch need not be female, but archetypically is) has a job to do, dictated by her role in life, and that is to safeguard the natural order of things. She is the preserver of life and health against the threats of — whatever threatens them, which in the modern world mainly consists of rampaging, out of control industry. She’s an environmental extremist with magical powers: watch your backs, Koch brothers! In addition, she’s the defender of women against slope-browed patriarchy.
One common theme for a witch in a young adult story is her reluctant or troubled coming of age. A young witch may be ignorant of her heritage and powers, or reluctant to believe in them, or determined to fit in and be like everyone else, when in reality she is anything but that. She may have to go through a passage in which events force her to take up her role against her preference. On the flip side, she may be a little too enamored of magical power, arrogant and impulsive. The story or a side plot may involve the consequences of her attitudes and the need to gain maturity and humility.
Witches also make good supporting characters, offering wise counsel to protagonists and helping them against magical dangers or offering the assistance of powerful spells.
Either as main character or as supporting character, the witch always rides the same mythic current. She is a reminder of our role as part of nature, calling us to humility in the face of our own power. She tells us, as often as necessary, that the power we carry is offered in trust by the cosmos, and is ultimately in service to something greater than ourselves — and abuse of it carries grave consequences.
Copyright: nexusplexus / 123RF Stock Photo
Tagged as environmentalism, fantasy, fantasy storytelling, feminism, magic, magic user, nature, witch, witches
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Beating the dope cheats
The World Anti-Doping Agency has developed a test that can spot DMT, desoxy-methyl-testosterone. The compound is similar to THG, or tetrahydrogestrinone, and might be used by sports people preparing for events in order to enhance performance. The announcement of a simple test for detecting it will, however, act as a pre-emptive victory against drug cheats, says WADA. WADA science director Olivier Rabin says there is no evidence anyone is yet using DMT, "Probably in this case we are ahead of the dopers," he told a press conference on February 1.
Scientists Uncover New Designer Steroid
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