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Parking issues tops at forum in Wilton
Jessie Salisbury
For The Telegraph
WILTON – The idea was to host a round-table discussion about town government, what was wrong and what could be done to improve it. There was no agenda, and no minutes were taken.
Organizer Deb Mortvedt said, because of the changes in the town office, and since the Select Board was meeting every other week, “I felt the board should meet every week and told them I might hold a meeting on the off-Monday. I want your thoughts.”
Last week’s board meeting ran for over five hours.
She is a member of the Heritage Commission.
Most of the 15 residents who came are members of various boards and commissions. Selectman Kermit Williams said he was there as a citizen but would answer pertinent questions.
The conduct of Select Board meetings filled part of the 90-minute meeting, but the biggest concern was The Horseshoe/Garwin Falls parking and trash problems.
The group agreed the Select Board should return to weekly meetings. Otherwise, the group should petition them to do so, even, some said, going as far as having town meeting require weekly meetings. There was concern over a rumor that the board planned to end meetings at 9 p.m. and would work get done.
Williams said it was traditional to meet bi-weekly during the summer but may return to weekly after Labor Day.
He didn’t comment on the closing time. Personally, he said, he favored weekly meetings.
The group also wanted a public comment opportunity at the beginning as well as the end of meetings. Other suggestions included a closer following of Roberts Rules of Order; stopping the bickering between board members, and between board and audience; and that the board follow established procedures.
It was suggested the administrative assistant, who is the recording secretary, not take part in discussions unless asked a question since she is neither a resident nor an elected official.
Asked how the agenda is made up, Williams said that was up to the chairman. It was agreed that the chairman could, probably should, limit time allowed speakers and cut off public comment after a reasonable length of time.
But it was parking, trash, and lack of toilet facilities at Garwin Falls and The Horseshoe; the lack of respect for residents and the land by out-of-town visitors; and how the police have responded, or not, to the situation, that was the biggest concern.
“These are naturally beautiful places,” Tim Broderick said, “and people are making them unbeautiful.”
But people should feel welcome in Wilton, others said. They should be encouraged to visit the town’s restaurants, gift shops and theater.
But they are “disrespectful of the land,” Felice Fullam said. “We have to think about stewardship.”
Both areas are private property, and the owners should take more responsibility for the trash removal. If they are allowing the public to use their land, they should make provisions for trash removal. The lack of toilet facilities is causing a health problem.
And, those who live The Horseshoe said, “the trash is attracting the bears and raccoons to our neighborhood.” Would placing a dumpster at the entrance solve the problem, or would some residents use it for their trash as well? Would
“carry in-carry out” signs work?
Opinion about towing illegally parked cars was mixed. Some said it had somewhat solved the problem on Burns Hill Road – making most people park at the school – and had worked in other towns, but it placed a burden on the police department. Residents said they had been confronted by angry people who parked in their yards. And it was giving the town a bad reputation.
It was agreed that “we need to do something,” but there was no consensus as to what that should be. Williams noted that the areas “have been open for public recreation for over 100 years,” and it is only in the past few years with the advent of social media that there has been a problem.
There is an effort underway by the Conservation Commission to have The Horseshoe acquired by a land conservancy, since it is for sale, but some wondered how that would solve anything. Couldn’t the town work with the land owner?
In the end, those attending said it “was a good meeting.’
Asked if she would do it again, Mortvedt said “Maybe,” that it would depend. If the board doesn’t go back to weekly meetings.
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Identity, Community, and Sincerity
How Danielle Riha, the 2019 Alaska Teacher of the Year, builds relationships, inspires students, and creates lifelong learners at Alaska Native Cultural Charter School.
Like many educators who find themselves working in Alaska public schools, Danielle Riha had no idea she wanted to be a teacher. When she came to Alaska in 1995 she was looking for adventure, and a job to help pay for graduate school to become a Physical Therapist. She worked on the slime line in the fishing industry in St. Paul, then Unalaska before reluctantly taking a position as a substitute teacher. It was in this position that she first learned she had a natural ability to work with students, even those who struggled with behavioral issues that could disrupt an entire classroom.
Danielle continued to embrace challenging opportunities as she entered a new role as a full-time aide in Unalaska, ultimately using a blend of teaching and Physical Therapy to assist a young woman with Cerebral Palsy graduate as the valedictorian of her class. That same student told Danielle, “you’re a natural at teaching, you should be a teacher.” From then on, she was hooked. She enrolled at the University of Alaska Anchorage where she received her teaching degree and headed back out to rural Alaska.
From Unalaska to Togiak to New Stuyahok, Danielle’s rural Alaska education experience is extensive and rooted in a deep respect for Alaska Native cultures, people, and languages. “In rural Alaska, make sure that you know you are a guest there,” said Danielle during a recent interview with NEA-Alaska. “Don’t go there and try to change their world. Be a learner, because there is so much to learn out there.”
In 2007, the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School was established in Anchorage. Danielle was one of the first teachers invited to help develop the curriculum that would form the foundation for what is one of the most culturally unique public schools in Alaska. Currently in her 11th year, Danielle can’t think of a better place to work.
“Our school is really unique−people say they can feel it when they walk through this school,” said Danielle. “Every kid knows every teacher. Every kid knows the older kids.”
The interconnectedness of ANCCS is critical to its success and that of its students, explained Danielle. “The way I measure their success is when I see them connecting to their community. We do AFN’s Elders and Youth Conference every year and I have students every year that have written resolutions and have them voted on. I have students every year who become youth representatives of their village. I have students who become MC’s every year. To me, that’s success. To become involved in their community through learning, that’s success.”
While Danielle has countless success stories about her students, her job is not without its challenges and heartbreak. “A third of my class right now is either homeless or in foster care, just as of this year,” explained Danielle. “That’s tough. Some of the things that happen to some of these kids−I can’t imagine how they’re going on−so I have to make this the safest, most desirable place to be, and I can do that with honesty. I can do that by letting them know I am here for them so they can trust me.”
Alaska Native Cultural Charter School is committed to continuing to advance curriculum that is focused on Alaska Native culture while promoting academic rigor that teaches the skills for lifelong learning. Danielle Riha plays a critical role in ensuring that success. “I love helping kids connect to their identity and be comfortable in their own skin and become independent learners so they’re seeking everything on their own,” said Danielle.
As the 2019 Alaska State Teacher of the Year, Danielle hopes to share her vision with educators across Alaska. “One of my platforms is to teach positivity and kindness and teach those character traits that kids aren’t necessarily getting at home,” said Danielle. “My parents did a really good job at teaching me these things−really old world values−and I think that’s why I did such a good job at connecting with our Native cultures so quickly.”
Danielle’s experience as an educator in rural Alaska has given her great perspective on the challenges new educators face when entering the profession in rural areas. “You have to let them see who you are. You have to make those connections. They call it being culturally responsive, but you have to get to know your kids. There is a curriculum that everyone has to teach, but how kids connect to it is different. Every kid is different. If you can connect what they have to learn to what they like, then you’re a winner and they’re a winner.”
Danielle Riha will serve as the Alaska State Teacher of the Year for 2019. She will be honored with an award at the 2019 NEA-Alaska Delegate Assembly on January 18, 2019.
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Tired of hearing about Danica Patrick? Then it will be a long season...
Danica: somebody left the gate open? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
(Updated)
CONCORD, N.C.
She may well be the sexiest racer in America, but will Danica Patrick find real success in NASCAR?
After two years part-time in the Nationwide series, bluntly, is she really tough enough for the Cup tour?
Heck, is she really braced for the full Nationwide series, all 33 events?
The scorecard so far: She ran 13 Nationwide races in 2010, averaging a 28th-place finish, with a best of 19th at Homestead. She ran 12 Nationwide races in 2011, averaging a 17th-place finish, with a best of fourth at Las Vegas.
Yes, Danica Patrick is one heck of a marketer. But what to expect out on the track?
Patrick insists her main focus this season will be the Nationwide series (saying she's looking toward a top-five finish in the standings), more than the Sprint Cup series.
However as high-profile as the 29-year-old racer is, her planned 10 Cup events will almost certainly overshadow, for better or worse, whatever she does on Saturdays.
At the moment Patrick and new Cup crew chief Greg Zipadelli are focused on the Daytona 500. Her second Cup run isn't scheduled till May at Darlington. And she's got only 10 Cup events on her calendar: Charlotte's Coke 600, then a long Cup layoff till possibly a run in the July Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, followed by Bristol in August, Atlanta, Chicago and Dover in September, and Texas and Phoenix in November.
An odd schedule perhaps, which could change naturally if more sponsorship comes available.
And not everyone is enthusiastic about the behind-the-scenes dealings that have given Patrick an instant starting spot in the Daytona 500, without even having to qualify: here's one view, from Canada's Dean McNulty: http://bit.ly/xgmXJt
Danica Patrick is about demographics and marketing as much as anything. And she is certainly popular (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Kevin Harvick and the rest of these guys are a lot tougher on Sundays than on Saturdays. Plus there will be a lot more of them for her to deal with, and in races that are twice as long.
"And I'll learn that," she says.
"I'll be learning what's acceptable on the track...and I can put my car into someone's rear bumper just as easily as they can put it into mine.
"But I'll start from a respectful position, taking my time. I'm not going out there and get into everybody, or any of that. It's about learning what the limit is of what's acceptable.
"And it's also about getting comfortable with the speed and driving aggressively. Everyone amps up their game for the big day."
Cheap shots coming? A traditional rite of passage.
"I'm ready," she insists. "If cheap shots are where it's at, I'll be dealing them too."
Well, give her points for being game enough to make a run at this thing...though there is the nagging sense that she is still underestimating the demands of this career change.
Does she really know what she doesn't know?
She does have one of the best in the business in Tony Stewart as mentor.
Clearly Patrick isn't lacking for confidence.
"It's a story, it's entertainment, and everyone is trying to dig into it from different angles," she says. "It's all part of the game."
So what can Danica Patrick do out on the track this season? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
To be honest, she's been playing in the glare of the spotlight for several years now. Since she became the first woman to win an Indy-car race, in the spring of 2008, at Motegi, Japan.
Patrick has been easing into this branch of the sport for some two years now, albeit part-time, and with little great success.
At first she'd expected to make the jump straight from Indy-car to Cup. But she heeded advice to run a couple of years in NASCAR's Triple-A series first.
No Indy 500 this spring, she says. So maybe the Brickyard 400? "That might be a good place to add the 10th race," she says. "I love that track. I'll talk to them about that."
That would certainly appear to put a ceremonial nail in her Indy-car career, though she insists she will probably some day return. (Charlotte's Bruton Smith says he has no promotional interest in her trying the Indy-Charlotte double.) Of course Tony Stewart, her new boss, was also once an Indy 500 star, the Indy-car tour's 1997 champion, but he hasn't run that 500 since 2001.
And no more Indy-cars? For the time at least, she says (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Detractors abound.
But she's cheeky about it all, and freely admits her technical prowess about these two-ton stockers still has a ways to go: "Bite? I ask Tony Eury Jr. 'Bite? What kind of dog?' I have a lot to learn," she says with a laugh.
"I've been around for a long time," she says. "This is my 21st year of racing, and there will be people who think you can, and people who think you can't. It's important in sports to have people cheering for you and cheering against you.
"People's negativity doesn't really factor in for me. Working real hard...breaking new ground and trying new things to make it happen...so I don't have an excuse as to why I didn't do it.
"Finishing the races will be Job One. And through my career I've been consistent; I finish races...though I know it may be a little harder in NASCAR because you can get caught up in something not of your making, and you can get bumped around. But I'm not going to let that happen, at least the bumping part. They'll get it back."
A lot of people in the sport certainly want her to succeed. This sport, remember, is a sports business centered on marketing, and Patrick -- cue up a couple of those racy commercials -- certainly creates buzz.
But then the way Patrick has unabashedly exploited her sex appeal strikes some people as, well, unseemly perhaps if she really wants to be taken as a serious professional athlete.
NASCAR marketers, on the other hand, are banking on Patrick's sex appeal to pump up the sport's in the 18-34 male demographic...and on Patrick's gender to pump up the sport's female base too. Danica Patrick In NASCAR isn't so much about adding something to the game for hardcore stock car fans as it is to attract new fans to the sport.
"I think it's good to have people attracted to you," Patrick says, almost teasingly about the issue. "It's just a good thing."
However Patrick says she's well aware of the criticism that she has been using her body: "It does not get to me. I do what feels comfortable to me.
"I've been lucky enough in my life and my career to be able to be an honest person, authentic, whatever good or bad may come from that. We have a lot of fun in those commercials, and not just the Go-Daddy ones; I look pretty in different ads for other people too.
"I'm a girl, and to say I can't use being a girl doesn't make any sense. In this world there is so much competition that you have to use everything you have to make sponsors happy and to attract them, to be unique.
"Unique draws attention, and over my career I've been lucky in that, and I have fun with that. I don't want people not to think of me as a girl, because I am.
"I am glad to be able to show different sides of my personality.
"And as Lyn St. James says, the car doesn't know the difference."
Teammates: Danica Patrick and new boss Tony Stewart (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
While Patrick might not appear to have great talents in a stock car, during her two years on the Nationwide circuit, well, remember how well -- not -- that Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart did during their 'warm-up' seasons in NASCAR's Triple-A series.
But of course it takes more than talent at the wheel to make it in NASCAR. It takes a particular toughness, a talent at bouncing back from those inevitable bad days, and a good touch at keeping the team pumped up. And it takes a solid work ethic, which, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. is learning with crew chief Steve Letarte, can make a big difference.
One thing Patrick won't lack is publicity. Everywhere she goes she's hot stuff.
And one of the most remarkable things about Patrick is her ability to handle all the attention, to display amazing patience and an upbeat attitude, and still keep fairly well focused on learning this stock car thing
But two things here:
One, her 2012 schedule -- the full 33-race Nationwide tour, plus 10 or so Sprint Cup races -- may have some potholes, on the Cup side. She should be able to handle Daytona, but now Darlington in Cup, that should be a grand adventure, at those stunning speeds on that relatively small track.
Yes, her 34 weeks on the road will not be much more than the 30 weeks she was on the road last year, but being able to fly home Saturday night versus having to fly home Sunday night may be more strenuous than she anticipates. Throw in more Cup testing too. Plus the two cars are different, and jumping from one to the other and back again, on a weekend, may be more challenging than she expects. Plus, guys are just tougher on Sunday than Saturday, and there are a lot more of those tough guys on Sunday too.
"Cup is going to be very important, but the best preparation for Cup will be running Nationwide all the time," she says.
Two, she plans to keep home out in Phoenix, more than 1800 miles from Charlotte. "Planes will fly, and I will too," she says. Yes, Tony Stewart, her newest boss, lives up in Indiana; but he's been around NASCAR for years, and Patrick might be better off to spend more time in the shop, whenever possible. This sport is more than just showing up at the track helmet in hand.
Patrick's Cup team will be headed by Zipadelli, who was Stewart's crew chief for 10 years and who has just joined Stewart's Cup operation as competition director. And her Saturday Nationwide team will continue to be owned by Earnhardt Jr.
This will be Patrick's first year without Indy-car racing, apparently. "It's kind of a relief to be able to focus on just NASCAR," she says. "And with more racing, there will be more expectations to do well. And focus will help that.
"I know what I need to work on -- my short-track racing, flatter tracks. And just getting more comfortable with the car when there is less grip. At high-banked tracks like Vegas and Texas have a lot of grip and I tend to fine. But when it comes to tracks like Loudon (NH), I need more work."
Patrick concedes a major focus for her "is looking respectable out there, catching on, and understanding how to drive the car and get the most out of it.
"I don't know what to be nervous about.
"At this point, I'm open-minded, optimistic, and patient."
Will NASCAR fans be likewise?
Then again, does that really matter?
And when she gets mad, Danica Patrick says she won't pout, she'll get even (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
I guess if you guys keep
Submitted by 61 starliner on Mon 02/06/2012 - 09:03.
I guess if you guys keep telling us enough what a marketable item she is, she will be a marketable item. That's how it works in today's money grubbing society. The media keeps telling us how interested everyone is in DP. But I have over a hundred NASCAR friends and I know of only two that have any thoughts about her at all. So hats off to the new WWE NASCAR !!!!
Not a bad article but the
Submitted by Tim H on Mon 02/06/2012 - 09:54.
Not a bad article but the length of races is not a big deal. A street course is far more physically demanding than driving a cup car. Sam Hornish said as much in a racer article. 30+ races in Cup/NW is far less physically demanding than 16 races in Open Wheel.
Let the fawning begin! I can
Submitted by Steven on Mon 02/06/2012 - 10:33.
Let the fawning begin! I can just hear Dale Jarrett now as he sees Danica spinning out by herself. "She did a good job."
I'm going to reserve comment
Submitted by Rocketman on Mon 02/06/2012 - 23:02.
I'm going to reserve comment on what she will accomplish on the track. If she had no talent, she would not be here. How much talent remains to be seen. Many with far better credentials in the open wheel world did not fare well in NASCAR. I will be watching to see how many breaks NASCAR will cut for her to help her succeed because she will be the face of NASCAR in 2012 and they NEED for her to do well. My complaint about Danica Patrick is that she is, in my opinion, willing to do whatever her sponsor wants her to do. I feel the same about Junior but at least he has the decency to not act like that while the video tape is running.
I am still waiting for ESPN
Submitted by Gordon85Wins on Tue 02/07/2012 - 08:44.
I am still waiting for ESPN to start piling on Danica and repeatedly inform all of her supporters that she is not the slightest bit qualified to compete at the highest level of a sport. You know, like so many of them did with Tim Tebow. Certainly there's an equal or better case to be made for Danica's lack of qualification. At least Tebow's won something.
Same story different series.
Submitted by Brian from NY on Wed 02/08/2012 - 07:45.
Same story different series. Having followed both open wheel racing and stock cars, it's somewhat amusing to see that history repeats itself. In 2005 after similar hype the Indy 500 had a nice bump in ratings. In the proceeding year's as ABC and ESPN focused almost solely on Danica to promote the 500, thinking she would drive the ratings each year, the ratings slide to the lowest levels in history.
I think it is very smart for Danica to switch to NASCAR. She has worn out her welcome in IndyCars (she was booed at qualifying for the 500), and she will get the lion share of the press in NASCAR. Also, she was never going to win again in open wheel with the quality of competition improving each year. I think she would have struggled to beat Simona and Katherine as the best female in the series. To give you some context of Danica's influence, here are the ratings for the Indy 500.
1995-9.7 last 500 before the split.
2001-5.8 (rain delayed) nice bump because Penske fielded cars.
2005-5.9 First year of Danica mania. Nice bump due to novelty.
2006-5.0
2008-4.4 First year for reunification with Champ car nice bump.
2010-3.6 Worst ratings ever.
2011-3.9 Slight bump as ABC talks noticeably less about Danica.
My point is that I have seen this story before. Danica will give Daytona a nice bump this year and then actually be a negative if the media continues to focus on her without any results to warrant.
You don't have to have a lot
Submitted by fireballroberts on Thu 02/09/2012 - 10:23.
You don't have to have a lot of talent behind the wheel so long as you have sponsor money. Danica's "talent" is not driving prowess, it's her centerfold looks and marketability. Why sponsors care more about that than having somebody who can be great if given a chance is beyond me. Now more than ever, deep pockets gets you farther in racing than talent does. So long as you can bring sponsors to the table, some owner is going to let you drive no matter how undeserving you are.
Wow...you went the whole
Submitted by Bob on Thu 02/09/2012 - 12:41.
Wow...you went the whole story without saying Honey Badger. So I think Danica might bring new eyes to NASCAR more than fans giving it more attention. People who know I'm a NASCAR fan will ask me about Danica, the NASCAR fans i know couldn't care less about her.
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Contact Network Box
Network Box Wins 2011 Hong Kong Awards for Industries - Technological Achievement Grand Award
Network Box wins the 2011 Hong Kong Awards for Industries, Technological Achievement Grand Award, for its new Z-Scan, in-the-cloud, zero day anti-malware system.
The Awards Presentation Ceremony was held on 30 June 2011. The Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Honorable John Tsang Chun-Wah, presented the awards to the Grand Award winners, in recognition of their excellence in industrial and service performance. Michael Gazeley, the Managing Director of Network Box, represented Network Box on stage to receive the trophy, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre that night.
The Hong Kong Awards for Industries was officially launched in 2005 by merging the former Hong Kong Awards for Industry and Hong Kong Awards for Services, established in 1989 and 1997 respectively, to rationalize and update the two awards. The merged Awards continue to recognize the outstanding achievements of Hong Kong enterprises in their move towards higher technology and higher value-added activities.
Hackers and virus writers never sleep. New malicious and undesirable content is added to the Internet every minute of every day. Installing a security system and leaving it unmanaged and out-of-date is not enough. Only a complete, managed, and monitored security service is going to keep hackers, viruses, spyware, spam, and undesirable content at bay.
Network Box’s new ‘Z-Scan’ anti-malware technology focuses on reducing the time taken to obtain malware samples, and to produce anti-malware signatures. The purpose of ‘Z-Scan’, is to bring that timeframe down from the current industry standard of several hours, to less than one minute. Indeed, best times of just 3 seconds are being seen in the field.
Traditional anti-malware technology is important, and has its place, dealing with the roughly 6.8 million computer worms, Trojans, spyware and viruses out there. ‘Z-Scan’ however, is a new approach which deals new ‘zero day’ viruses, which may be making the rounds on the Internet at any given time. When ‘Z-Scan’ was first launched, there were typically less than 150 zero day viruses live on the internet. Right now, there are more than 53,000 such viruses, and the numbers are continuing to grow exponentially.
With a reaction time of just 3 seconds in many cases, this is a far cry from the 3, 12, or even 20 hours, traditional anti-virus vendors are often taking to protect their customers. Waves of this (unfortunately) state-of-the-art malware, are hitting the Internet, at levels we have never seen before.
On the Internet, out of date, often means out of luck.
Network Box is a leading Managed Security Service Provider. Apart from Z-Scan Anti-Malware technologies, Network Box’s Unified Threat Management also includes Firewall, VPN, IDP, M-Scan Anti-Malware, Anti-Spam, Content Filtering, Data Leakage Protection, Vulnerability Scanning, and Network Box’s award-winning real-time PUSH update technology, 24x7 monitoring, and expert remote management, which protect against both known and unknown cyber threats.
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Why Sudan's deadly crackdown on protesters could escalate in coming weeks
Written by Eric Keels, Research Fellow at the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy, University of Tennessee
In this Sunday, June 9, 2019 frame grab from Sudan TV, Lt. Gen. Jamaleddine Omar, from the ruling military council, speaks on a broadcast. SUDAN TV via AP
Sudanese security forces violently removed a protest camp in the capital, Khartoum, on June 3.
In addition to brutally beating the pro-democracy protesters, government troops also fired on the demonstrators. Early numbers suggest that at least 61 people died during the week, though that number may grow in the coming days.
The deadly violence occurred after months of citizen protests against the violent and repressive rule of the longtime ruler of Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir. Sudan’s military removed him from office on April 11.
Soon after the coup, talks began about the transition of power to civilian rule. There were high hopes among democracy advocates that a new civilian government would soon take control of the state.
As scholars of armed conflict, we believe that such reforms are likely to be put on hold following this episode of government repression. The findings from our forthcoming research on coups around the world suggest that this state-sponsored brutality may just be the start of a more deadly crackdown.
Since coming to power through a military coup in 1989, al-Bashir ruled Sudan with an iron fist. The government routinely engaged in widespread atrocities as a way to cripple dissent.
This violence was largely directed at the disenfranchised southern and western portions of the country, in Darfur and what is now South Sudan. Political power is largely concentrated in the areas surrounding Khartoum.
After years of international economic sanctions in response to those human rights abuses, in 2018 large groups of citizens in Khartoum, as well as in municipalities surrounding Khartoum, began to demonstrate and call for al-Bashir to step down from power.
Though the military initially responded by violently suppressing the protests, the Sudanese Army finally acquiesced to popular demands and arrested al-Bashir.
This recent escalation of violence is not the first instance of indiscriminate violence by the new military junta in Sudan. On May 15, soon after the April coup, military forces opened fire on protesters in Khartoum.
Sudanese Americans rally outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, June 8, 2019, in solidarity with pro-democracy protests in Sudan.AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Perceived threats
Our research suggests that there may be greater violence against Sudanese civilians in the coming weeks.
We study when and where governments respond to threats through the use of state-sponsored violence – specifically, killings by the government. Potential threats to government control may be external, such as rebel attacks, or they may be internal, such as military coups.
A government’s perception of these threats is intimately tied to their control of the capital city. When governments believe that there is a risk that they may lose control of the capital, we have found that government elites respond with the use of greater targeted violence toward civilians.
While coups themselves are rare events, the threat of a coup, and leaders’ behavior to avoid it, are more common in fragile states. Leaders who are concerned about being unseated may purge the capital of perceived dissidents as the possibility of a coup emerges.
This was the case in the 1960s and the early 1980s in Guatemala, as the Guatemalan government killed thousands of suspected dissidents when they believed the risk of a coup was greatest. Similarly, the Derg regime in Ethiopia killed over 10,000 people in the late 1970s, when the government felt threatened by the growing terrorist campaign inside Addis Ababa.
The risk of a coup
With data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, we can identify where governments around the world have used force against civilians and also where rebel activity took place between 1989 and 2018.
We also used machine learning methods, including those employed by CoupCast, the premier scientific model for forecasting coups.
With this, we could predict the risk of a coup occurring, relative to other countries.
Scholars have found that the risk of coups is tied to major shifts in economic and political stability. Weak civil society, unregulated political competition and economic downturns all contribute to a rise in the potential risk of a coup. Coups often happen in bursts, so the time since the last coup matters, too.
As the estimated risk of a military coup rises, our models show a significant increase in government-sponsored violence. This is particularly true in parts of the country close to the capital.
When the risk of a coup is high, governments engage in more targeted killings of civilians in capital cities, as well as the surrounding district. Within the capital, a 1% increase in coup risk results in 20 additional civilian deaths by government forces a year.
Additionally, nearly all civilian deaths within the capital take place in countries in the top 25% of coup risk.
What this means for Sudan
The risk of a coup within Sudan has increased since al-Bashir’s forced exit from office, as compared to the days leading up to his ouster.
This is largely because past coups increase the risk of future coups, a fact that is not lost on the perpetrators of coups d’état.
Less than two months since the removal of al-Bashir, pro-democracy advocates within Sudan have called on the new regime to hand over power to a civilian government. Negotiations on a possible transitional power-sharing government have ended with no agreement, and demonstrators have increased their demands for the government to hand over power.
Our models suggest that, as the perceived internal threat grows within Sudan, protesters – particularly those in the capital – are at risk of being brutally suppressed, with violence only escalating.
The civilians killed on June 3 may just be the start of a more violent campaign.
Eric Keels receives funding from the National Science Foundation.
Joshua Lambert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Authors: Eric Keels, Research Fellow at the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy, University of Tennessee
Read more http://theconversation.com/why-sudans-deadly-crackdown-on-protesters-could-escalate-in-coming-weeks-118499
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Migrants will pay the price of Mexico's tariff deal with Trump
Written by Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is celebrating an agreement avoiding U.S. tariffs as a major political and diplomatic triumph for his government.
“We didn’t win everything, but we were able to claim a victory with there being no tariffs,” said chief negotiator Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary, on June 9.
The two neighbors have been at odds since United States President Donald Trump on May 30 threatened to hit all Mexican imports with steadily rising tariffs unless Mexico successfully halted the northward flow of Central American migrants fleeing extreme poverty and violence through Mexico toward the United States.
Approximately 80% of Mexican exports are destined for the United States. Tariffs would have devastated Mexico’s economy.
To keep its goods untaxed, Mexico had to convince President Trump that it was serious about stopping migration. After a week of frantic negotiations, Mexico said it woulddeploy up to 6,000 National Guard troops to its southern border with Guatemala to stop migrants from entering Mexico.
As part of the agreement, a Trump administration program known as “Remain in Mexico,” which forces some migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed in the U.S., will also be expanded.
At a June 8 rally “for the dignity of Mexico and friendship with the U.S.” held in the border city of Tijuana, López Obrador pledged that Mexico will reinforce its southern border while still “applying the law and respecting the human rights” of migrants.
Ebrard added at the rally that Mexico had emerged from a near trade war with its “dignity intact.”
Doing the dirty work
As a law professor who teaches human rights, I believe that dignity will come at great cost to both Mexico and to the migrants fleeing extreme poverty and violence in Central America.
Many Mexican lawmakers, including allies of the president, have expressed outrage that their immigration policy is now bound by an “immoral and unacceptable” deal that effectively turns Mexico itself into Trump’s border wall.
The agreement violates the campaign promises of López Obrador, who took office in December promising to protect migrants’ rights and pledging not to do the U.S.‘s “dirty work” on border enforcement.
It also violates the Mexican Constitution and international law.
According to international refugee law asylum-seekers with demonstrable fear of persecution in their home countries are entitled to seek protection in the place of their choosing. Mexican law goes further. As of 2011, legitimate asylum-seekers are entitled not just to seek but to be granted asylum in Mexico.
Trump’s economic threats against Mexico may not even have been legal. Both the current North American Free Trade Agreement and the newly signed – but not yet ratified – United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement require most trade between North American countries to be tariff-free.
Even before the recent negotiations, López Obrador was already quietly complying with U.S. demands to do more to prevent migrants from reaching the U.S.
Between January and May of this year, Mexico detained 74,031 migrants – a 36% increase compared to the same period last year under former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. The number of migrants deported from Mexico tripled from 5,717 in December 2018 to 15,654 in April 2019, government statistics show.
Sending troops out to target migrants, as Mexico has now promised to do, will almost certainly result in the excessive use of force against these migrants.
The Mexican National Guard is an untested new military police force with immigration enforcement powers. Its creation in early 2019 was highly controversial in Mexico given the Mexican military’s extraordinarily violent law enforcement record.
Between 2007 and 2017, when troops were helping police fight Mexican drug cartels, the National Human Rights Commission received over 13,700 complaints of human rights violations committed by soldiers against civilians. These included accusations of arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings.
Mexico is not a safe country
Beyond avoiding tariffs, Mexico’s main victory in its negotiations with the United States appears to be having resisted pressure to sign a a “safe third country” agreement.
Under such an agreement, refugees are required to apply for asylum in the country where they first land and not the country where they ultimately want to settle. This means that one country can reject a person’s asylum application if they have already been granted asylum by another country.
Canada and the U.S. signed such an agreement in 2002, and Trump has been pushing Mexico to do the same since spring 2018. Under this proposal, thousands of migrants in Mexico who have already applied for asylum in the United States and are now waiting for an answer would see their applications invalidated.
Foreign Secretary Ebrard consistently rejected that proposal. He insisted that a safe third country arrangement would violate the Mexican Constitution and Mexico’s international human rights agreements.
But it is not actually clear how the newly expanded “Remain in Mexico” program – the details of which have not yet been released – will differ in practice from a safe third country agreement.
Migrants may end up staying in Mexico for years while they await their asylum hearing in the United States. During that period, Mexico will be responsible for housing, feeding and protecting refugees.
Jorge Castañeda, Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs from 2000 to 2003, has derided Mexico’s commitment as a “light” safe third country agreement.
The mere idea that Mexico is safe is “a particularly cynical bout of wishful thinking,” as Mexican journalist León Krauze put it in a recent Washington Post op-ed.
Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous places. An estimated 33,000 people were murdered there last year – twice the average annual homicides in the United States in a country with less than half the population.
Dozens of Central Americans have disappeared from migrant caravans journeying northward in Mexico. Over 90% of migrants say they do not feel safe in Mexico, according to a survey of 500 Central American asylum-seekers conducted in February 2018.
Mexico must do more with less
The “Remain in Mexico” policy is likely to result in a significant increase in claims filed for asylum in Mexico, where the immigration system is already under enormous strain.
Around 29,000 people applied for asylum in Mexico in 2018, according to United Nations data. This year, between January and March, Mexico received 12,716 asylum applications – 43% of last year’s total in just three months.
The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, which processes asylum claims, currently has a two-year backlog.
It will now have to do more with less.
Under López Obrador’s austerity policies, the commission’s 2019 budget was cut 20%, to about US$1 million – its lowest budget since 2011.
More migrants, less money, extreme violence and a recalcitrant, unpredictable northern neighbor – these are the ingredients of a refugee crisis, not a diplomatic victory.
Luis Gómez Romero does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Authors: Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong
Read more http://theconversation.com/migrants-will-pay-the-price-of-mexicos-tariff-deal-with-trump-118269
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NHI expresses concern as earthquakes rock Venezuela, Trinidad & Tobago
Posted: August 21, 2018 at 10:07 pm / by nhimagazine / comments (0)
Earlier today, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake rocked Venezuela, and was strong enough to have impacted nearby Trinidad & Tobago. As both countries have ties to NHI’s growing global family, the organization’s thoughts are with those people recovering from the not-yet-fully-known effects.
“The National Hispanic Institute is very concerned about today’s news of the earthquake, and the potential aftermath to Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela, and other parts of the Caribbean region,” said NHI Executive Vice President Nicole Nieto. “We have received reports of severe damage from our friends in Trinidad & Tobago, and send them our wishes of strength and courage. We encourage our students in that part of the world to take the greatest care of themselves and their loved ones, and to follow the emergency response systems of their local and state governments.”
At this year’s NHI program in Panamá, the 2018 LDZ Las Americas, José Vidal, who attended’s El Colegio de Panamá in Panamá, Panamá, but from hails from Caracas, Venezuela, was elected President of the House of Representatives. While Trinidad & Tobago has yet to be represented at an NHI program, NHI is recruiting there with an aim to bring them into NHI’s global Latino community in time for the 2019 summer programs.
According to the Miami Herald, “the earthquake was felt strongly in Trinidad and Tobago, and much of the eastern Caribbean including Grenada, Guyana, Barbados and as far north as St. Lucia.” The report also noted, “Electricity and telephone outages were reported in some parts of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago’s capital. Videos circulating on social media showed groceries falling off store shelves, buildings with cracks, and a piece of a mountain in Chaguaramas along Trinidad’s northwest peninsula falling into the ocean.”
“It’s times like this that we realize just how vast the NHI family network really is,” said Michelle Saenz-Rodriguez, President of NHI’s Board of Directors. “Today, there is rarely an event that occurs in the hemisphere that doesn’t touch our organization at some level. We continue to stand in support our friends throughout Latin America and the Caribbean as they assess the impact of this earthquake.“
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The Mess
Bible Study/Film Nights
The Mess Camp '17
ThE END OF ANOTHER YEAR...
This article marks the end of my eighth year in Chagford working for On The Edge and the beginning of the ninth. As I look back on what has happened over the last 12 months, I am left smiling at a huge number of things. Over this time, we have abseiled down the church to raise the final amount needed to develop the skate park and have seen that built and enjoyed by so many young people. We have also had the excitement of moving The Mess premises to somewhere bigger whilst maintaining its central location in Chagford, something which we were in great need of. As well as this, we had a very successful Easter camp in Cornwall which we hope to do again in the near future as it was so popular with all who came.
I could talk about many smaller things too that have happened over this year which have helped to make a difference to young people individually, from short, helpful conversations to just giving them a place to go to relax, see friends or even just rant and be listened to. Yes, it's important to run big events and trips and be seen by the community, but also, youth work is about being there to support and encourage young people on a day to day basis with whatever is going on. Big or small.
As well as my words summing up some of this year, I thought I would give the young people a chance to tell you directly what their most memorable moments of the year have been with On The Edge and The Mess:
"I really liked The Mess camp because I still remember the knot we were taught by the Bush Survival Instructors"
"Since I've been at The Mess I've learnt two really good new games, they're so fun! Also, I get to catch up with some of my Okehampton College friends that I don't see at school."
"I enjoyed abseiling down the church tower to raise some money for the skate park!"
"I loved swinging off a cliff at Adrenalin Quarry. I tried to smile, but I couldn't!"
"I loved coming to The Mess. I have learnt some fun new games and loved doing the Giant Zip Line at Adrenalin Quarry"
reflection of our work with young people...
With all of the thinking about the 10 year birthday celebration I have been reflecting on the project and my time working in Chagford. Recently I have been seeing and understanding how beneficial On The Edge is to a core number of young people. We have many young people attend each group on a weekly basis and interact with the project, however, these are more often for the ‘fun’ sessions and coming to relax at The Mess. This is great and I really encourage this for all the age groups – and for most, that is where it stops because a need has been met. The real benefit I see is when young people start using The Mess as a place to come for support and guidance. In the last two terms, I have spoken to more young people on a 1-1 basis than I have in the last 5 years. These conversations have been varied but of huge importance for those coming to me for support. We have talked about things that they are worried or scared about, relationships, future planning (life after college), times when they just don’t know what to do or where to turn. I have provided a listening ear, time and space for them at a time when they’ve really needed it.
The reason I am sharing this is because often people misunderstand what youth work is all about, what it involves and why we do it. What most of the public see each week is a group of young people in a youth centre having fun – which in itself should be celebrated – young people actually being allowed to be young people! But often what people miss, or can’t see as easily is the behind the scenes work with individuals, a 10 minute chat or catch up, a hot drink and a place to calm down and time to talk with someone they trust, who they know won’t judge them and who can guide them and help them to work through the situations they find themselves in.
The view from the outside paints one particular picture.
The one I have from the inside paints another - That youth work is valuable and precious to those close to it and that Chagford and the youth of the communities are very fortunate to have had a youth project running locally for 10 years!
What is On the edge all about...
Some people have recently asked us what our name 'On The Edge' actually means. For some, it will immediately link to the youth work in Chagford and the surrounding parish, but others are questioning “why don’t you change the name?!”
On The Edge has been running for around 10 years and for those who it has impacted and those we have worked with, it’s name means something.
We are reluctant to change it, however, below are a number of different articles I have written focusing on the various aspects of OTE and how they relate to the work we do. These articles are designed to resonate with different people and you may find that you are drawn to a certain aspect of the work I do. Throughout the different articles I will be expanding these aspects and what they mean to me and the effect they have on my work in the parish. These include On The Edge of...Faith, Society, Fun, Dartmoor, Your Seat and Adulthood. All these areas are part of OTE’s mission in this community.
On The edge (of faith...)
This article is part of a series which aims to breakdown what On The Edge means and how we work with young people in our communities.
OTE was set up 8 years ago with a vision of delivering youth work to the young people within this parish. It was a project initially funded and supported by the different church communities before gaining increased interest from the local area as a whole. Because OTE was set up by the churches, our work will always be founded on Christian teaching and values. This is important and it is the reason why our past and current youth workers have been Christians.
Although faith is an important aspect of our work, we consider OTE to be a gift to the community and to the young people within it. This is why a lot of our work is secular and not including overt spiritual input. We realise that there is a time and place to share faith and because of this we run focused sessions which specifically tackle topics and issues around faith and spirituality. We do however feel that having a Christian youth worker helps to promote our faith within the groups that are run. Acting Christ-like and living in a way that positively shows God can be more attractive to those unfamiliar with church and faith. Therefore, we will happily engage with young people who ask questions about these topics, but don’t necessarily actively seek to be the ones starting the conversations. In the past we have found that young people are much more willing to discuss faith when it is on their terms and when they feel the time is right.
Another element of OTE which will be looked at in more depth later in this series is the importance of relationships. These are vital if we are to begin tackling difficult topics with the young people and the exploration of faith is no different. This is why we believe that secular sessions hold a great amount of value to the continuation of the work we do. These sessions are where relationships are built, not just between young people and the youth worker and volunteers, but between the young people and their peers.
With all the groups we run, we aim to create a positive environment where young people can freely get involved and be part of a thriving community. We want young people to come and have fun and feel safe whilst growing together through new experiences and play. Getting to know these young people better may in time enable us to tackle a number of relevant big topics of which faith and spirituality is just one. We understand not everyone will be interested in these topics and respect each young person’s individual views and values. OTE do however, want to offer more opportunities for young people to tackle the big questions in life and to have their views and values challenged but we are empathetic to the time and place.
on the edge (of dartmoor...)
It may be clear that with OTE being based in Chagford it is in fact on the edge of Dartmoor. However, it is not just location that makes this element relevant. Dartmoor is an amazing, vibrant place full of wildlife and woodland. It is a great place for holidays and quick weekend get aways and for those who like to trek the hills in search of something special. As well as this, we need to remember that this countryside is home to hundreds of young people. Some live in the local towns and villages, and others live further a field...quite literally! These young people don’t just get the picturesque views and snow filled valleys that others often dream about, but put up with everything else that comes with it 365 days of the year... poor transport, power cuts, wind and rain, flooding, social isolation and more.
This is their home and it is important to remember that. Because of this OTE saw a need for youth work in this parish and put their vision into action; a vision which focused around community. Not just community as a whole, including all ages, but one which creates and nurtures this amongst the young people we now meet. Community in these rural towns and villages are very visible and probably due partly to the fact they are so small. This is fantastic and provides great opportunities for everyone to get involved in lots of different things.
One aspect we aim to focus on is how young people fit into the wider community and what part they play. It is important for us all to show that we value young people and promote them in all we do. We work with some amazing young people and we are truly blessed. It is an honour to work with them to achieve goals within the community and see them grow as individuals.
The majority of young people OTE work with attend Okehampton College, which has the second largest catchment area in the whole country. What we have to understand is that a large amount of the young people’s peers are not from where they live. Yes, they may go to the same school, be in the same lessons, and share part of the bus journey home, but that may be all it is. It is true that school to some extent will provide a community of sorts, however, it is set within a formal, quite often rigid structure.
One of OTEs biggest aims is to provide opportunities for young people in the parish to begin to develop their own meaning of community with their peers who live around them. This is so important. The space created has so much potential for sharing, challenging and growing each young person as an individual. This approach becomes even more beneficial when working with those young people who attend different schools, for example in Exeter. For them, it may be that none of their school peer group lives within 20 miles of them. This is tough and doesn’t allow them as many opportunities to build on their friendships outside of a school setting.
The Christian faith believes that we are called to be in community with each other. To share, challenge and ultimately grow into who God calls us to be. Without community and interaction with like minded people, growth can be stunted. Dartmoor, although beautiful, can create issues for young people, which as adults we cannot fully appreciate. Our job is to listen and guide these young people and continually provide time and space to share and grow together as a community in their own right.
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Otherjones.com
This blog is about The Big Picture - information and insights about what goes on in the world outside our borders - and what it means for Americans. Unless otherwise specified, all photos from Deena Stryker archive.
The New Yorker on Ukraine: Instead of Sy Hersh, Keith Gessen
As the world anxiously awaits the next chapter in the tug of war between Russia and the West over Ukraine, I deconstruct a lengthy article in the May 12th New Yorker that shows how investigative reporting has been replaced by sugar-coated bias:
The print media can be divided into roughly three categories: corporate local dailies that cover major US cities, the so-called liberal press such as the NY Times, the Washington Post, and journals such as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and the progressive press, that includes The Nation, Mother Jones, Yes! and many smaller titles. Alas, the difference between the mainstream media and the liberal media appears to grow smaller by the day, while the so-called progressive media increasingly resembles what used to be the liberal media.
This alarming trend is illustrated by the fact that, after contributing regularly to The New Yorker since 1993, America’s foremost investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh no longer writes for that magazine. A lengthy article on Ukraine by Keith Gessen indirectly explains Hersh’s disappearance, and The New Yorker’s abandonment of any progressive pretense.
Keith Gessen is the brother of Masha Gessen, who recently published “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin”, a much publicized take-down of the Russian president. Although she resides in the U.S., she is listed on Wikipedia as a member of the Russian democratic opposition, and is an ideal US talk show guest in these days of rising tensions with Russia. Keith is her younger brother, the editor of a magazine with literary pretensions and author, at 38, of one novel. Keith went to Ukraine last winter and the style of his New Yorker piece perfectly illustrates a comment about him by Jonathan Franzen: "it's so delicious the way he writes.” Gessen’s is an ideal style for delivering a sugar-coated nasty message.
The piece begins ominously: “The Russian border is a two-hour tank drive from Kiev” - where the writer is sipping tea in a cafe. “‘Little green men’ is how people described Russian soldiers when they first showed up, unmarked and unannounced, in Crimea.” Aside from the fact that most people would not describe Russians as ‘little’, under a 1997 Treaty between Russia and Ukraine:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Partition_Treaty_on_the_Status_and_Conditions_of_the_Black_Sea_Fleet
“The two countries established two independent national fleets, and divided armaments and bases between them.[2][3] Under the treaty Russia maintained the right to use the Port of Sevastopol in Ukraine for 20 years until 2017.[4] …The treaty also allowed Russia to maintain up to 25,000 troops, 24 artillery systems, 132 armored vehicles, and 22 military planes on the Crimean peninsula.”
President Putin has repeatedly referred to this treaty with reference to the popular vote that returned Crimea to Russia in March of this year, finally admitting that Russian troops normally confined to barracks had been sent out onto the streets, where as videos on the MSM show, they merely stood around. Hardly an invasion, and impossible to consider on the same level as the weeks of violence precipitated and orchestrated by trained fighters of the Neo-fascist organization Right Sektor in Kiev’s Maidan square, as boasted in Time magazine interview http://time.com/4493/ukraine-dmitri-yarosh-kiev/ and that resulted in the flight of an elected Ukrainian president.
Gessen says Kiev’s anti-government protesters were armed with bats and sticks and Molotov cocktails. Apparently, he has never seen pictures of Right Sektor fighters in uniforms with swastika-like insignia (known as Wolf angels) carrying long metal clubs and shields. Describing the protesters’ tents on the Maidan he does mention ‘an exhibit of helmets, home-made cannons, shields, Molotov cocktails’. When it’s just an exhibit, it seems harmless….
Surprised to find the encampment still occupied weeks after the end of fighting, Gessen muses: “It was clear that some of the men had nowhere to go, or certainly, no place better than this. Here they were heroes, back home they were not.” Touching human interest note about Neo-Nazi thugs. Gessen also admits that the revolution merely brought another set of standard politicians to power “Men in black suits emerged from gleaming black Mercedeses to attend sessions of parliament.” Meanwhile, the activists were preparing for war, signing up men for the National Guard, Gessen muses, like students do for credit cards on US campuses. “The idea of the Guard was to get aggressive young people off the Maidan, but it was also an attempt to raise some fighting forces, in the event of a Russian invasion….The Ministry of Defense was asking people to text it money.” (Another touching note about a regime backed by the most powerful nation on earth.)
Gessen obviously identified with the young people in the Maidan where “there was an openness to the political life of the country, a willingness to experiment, a desire to communicate that was rare anywhere, but especially rare in the cynical, impoverished post-Soviet space.”… Alas, he fails to mention - or perhaps doesn’t realize - that these people did not win the revolution - and those that did are not interested in ‘openness’ or ‘experiments’, but are muscular men who love violence. Continuing: “The new Minister of the Interior wrote long updates on his Facebook page. Everyone was equal and anything was possible.” Gessen obviously hasn’t a clue as to who this man, Arsen Arkov is. According to Voice of Russia.com:
“Russia’s Investigative Committee has issued a resolution to indict the governor of Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region, Igor Kolomoysky and parliament-appointed Interior Minister Arsen Avakov on charges of using prohibited means and methods of warfare,” IC spokesman Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass.
"Under the criminal case… of first degree murder, interfering with the professional activity of journalists and kidnapping, a notice has been given of charges against Igor Kolomoyskyi and Arsen Avakov," he said in a statement.
The charges refer to the kidnapping of Zvezda television channel journalists and the preceding illegal detention of journalists from the same channel, as well as several other Russian journalists. The release went on to say that the government sought to identity the commanders and rank-and-file of the Ukrainian Armed forces, the National Guard of Ukraine and Right Sector militants who have participated in the military operation against civilians in the southeast of Ukraine. Markin said that nearly fifteen hundred people have been recognized as victims of prohibited acts of war in Ukraine.
For example in Odessa: In the final paragraph of his article, Gessen tosses off a reference to the events of May 2 which left over a hundred dead. Major press outlets reported that pro-Russian demonstrators had erected a tent in front of the Odessa Trade Union headquarters, and that when Right Sektor thugs came and set the tent on fire, protesters took refuge in the building. The Right Sektor then threw Molotov cocktails through the windows, setting the building on fire, and beating to death protesters who jumped from windows. Gessen’s version of events:
“After a relatively quiet May Day, a huge brawl (a word normally used to describe a street or bar fight) in Odessa between pro-Russian protesters and pro-Ukrainian protesters led to several deaths. (several!) The pro-Ukraine protesters, who included fans of the Odessa soccer team, then set fire to the pro-Russian tent city near the train station and to the building where the pro-Russian protesters had retreated; there were dozens more deaths.” According to the report on Wikipedia, forty-three people died and another 25 were in critical condition. Nowhere have I seen references to ‘fans of the Odessa soccer team’, a phrase obviously intended to make what was a violent political confrontation look like just another soccer brawl.
Gessen devotes a lot of space to a Ukrainian journalist friend who told him that another journalist had been killed while filming ‘pro-Russian thugs’: “The thugs noticed, pulled him out of the car, beat him and and shot him in the chest. He died in the hospital.” It’s strange, but this story sounds exactly like many I’ve read about the behavior of the Right Sektor, however Gessen never refers to them as thugs.
In Gessen’ version of history, after President Yanukovich fled, “the revolution was triumphant. And then little green men - Russians - appeared in Crimea.” This distortion of well-documented events is so blatant that it calls into question the integrity of The New Yorker editorial board. Gessen’s friend describes the events thus: “It was a very emotional moment. we were burying our dead…..and then Putin shows up…..like someone showing up at a funeral and demanding everyone’s jewelry.” (The Crimea is sometimes referred to as the crown-jewel of Ukraine…)
Channeling typical New Yorker readers who whine about not being able to keep up three vacations homes, Gessen lays it on thick: “‘And on top of that it was spring! We’d got through this terrible winter, we’d got through the Maidan, and after all that, we thought, finally, we’re going to live. Instead, we’re preparing to die again.’” Gessen continues: “The day before Shvet and I met up, Putin had made a speech on the annexation of Crimea. It was a remarkably cynical speech, full of passionately uttered half-truths and lies.” ‘Cynical’ and ‘passionately’ are not usually used together, but I shall not quarrel here with poetic license.
“The thing that kills me isn’t the speech,” Gessen goes on to say. “It’s that so many Russians believe him…… people with university degrees…and they believe every word…….these new Russians - they’re imperialists - and they’re nasty.”
Not even the fact that people with degrees think Putin is a better leader than Obama gives Gessen pause.
As for his friend, he seems extraordinarily naive for a journalist. Seeking to get across the idea that Ukrainians are fighting for democracy, he complains: “You in the West, you get your democracy just like you get your coffee and your morning paper. It’s like water coming out of the tap. You don’t have to think about it. It’s going to come every day.”
It’s obvious he thinks all Americans start the day reading the New York Times with their morning coffee confident that all is well on the Beltway.
This starry-eyed picture of American democracy brings Gessen back to the subject he has been trying to avoid during the entire article: the Neo-Nazi thugs without whom Yanukovich would still be in office. Still determined to pass the Banderites off as harmless, he sidles up to the truth, again quoting Shvets:
“‘It’s interesting how the meaning of chants changed. For example, ‘Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!’ - that used to be the UPA chant.” He was referring to the paramilitary Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which operated in Western Ukraine during the Second World War as the military wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. ‘People were chanting it, and it changed its meaning. Because when they said ‘Glory to heroes, they didn’t mean Bandera anymore, or Shukhevich - the leaders of the OUN and the UPA who cooperated with the brutal German occupation of Ukraine, they meant the people in the square. These were the heroes. If you said that in the forest in 1944, it was an anti-Communist chant. Here it was different. It had changed.’”
Changed? Really? Gessen has not read/watched/heard the anti-Russian, anti-Communist, anti-Jewish invectives proffered by Julia Timoshenko, Dimity Yarosh, Oleksandr Muzychko, (the fat guy who irrupted into elected officials’ offices fully armed, threatening them if they didn’t resign - and who was mysteriously killed, probably on orders from the men in the black Mercedeses, for whom he was just too much of an embarrassment?)
Gessen does refer briefly to the endless videos on YouTube, yet he can’t do without his pacifier. Again according to Shvets: “‘Some other UPA chants didn’t work - ‘Glory to the nation! Death to its enemies!’ That didn’t work, because what ‘nation’? We’re all half Russian!’” True, however the UPA and OUN have been kept alive by whose who are not half Russian: the descendants of Ukrainians who fought with Bandera against the Soviet Union. And it is they who turned the progressive demonstrations in the Maidan into a right-wing coup, just as Dmitry Yaros explained in his Time interview.
Here Gessen goes into a long discussion of the language problem, saying that although Ukrainian and Russian are close, it takes work for Russians to learn Ukrainian: “If you are not willing to do that work, then you will think of Ukraine as a wayward cousin, or even brother, who just needs to be brought back into the fold.” (Read, reunited with Russia.)
Gessen does admit that: “Urkrainianization has involved the proliferation of Ukrainian language schools and a particular narrative of Ukrainian history. (sic) Then, like a dog worrying a bone, he comes back yet again to what he knows is the crucial issue of the Ukrainian crisis, its uncomfortably brutal history:
“Perhaps the most painful node of this Urkrainianization, for Russian-identified people in Ukraine, has been the historical argument over the activities of the Organization of Ukrainian nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the western part of the country during the Second World War. To many Russians these were Nazi collaborators who in their eagerness to establish ‘facts on the ground’ in Ukraine engaged in ethnic cleansing of Russians, Poles and Jews. (What else could they be called, other than Nazi collaborators?) As in Soviet times, they are referred to contemptuously as banderovtsy, after their wartime leader Stepan Bandera. But to many Ukrainians, especially the young, the UPA is an inspiration, because in the struggle for independence it fought off two of the most dictatorial regimes in history. (The UPA turned on the Germans after realizing that they were not actually interested in an independent Ukraine.) Arguments about the UPA become very emotional very quickly” because they are about peoples’ grandfathers, who either were with the insurgents or were killed by them.
The worst thing about this article appearing in a publication such as The New Yorker, with its history of impeccable journalism is that the author appears not to know that many former Ukrainian Nazis were welcomed in the U.S., where they were instrumental in the birth of the Neo-Conservative movement. (Mark Crispin Miller was interviewed this week by Abby Martin on RT’s Breaking the Set as well as by her colleague Thom Hartmann on The Big Picture about the e-book publication of five important books that have been scuttled by a paranoid publishing industry, under the title The Forbidden Bookshelf. These include Christopher Simpson’s “Blowback”, about Operation Paperclip, that brought high level Nazis to the U.S. to be used as assets in the incipient Cold War against the Soviet Union. (The only thing the public became aware of was the indignation that prevented the government from appointing John Yoo to help assess its own efforts at declassifying information about these programs.)
I am not going to dissect Gessen’s entire 10,000 word article, but will end with his condemnation of Russia’s increasing ability to stand up to the West, under Putin, whom he accuses of encouraging separatism through television newscasts and “documentaries” beamed into Ukraine.
If the documentaries Gessen is referring to are anything like the ones Americans can see on RT, Russia’s twenty-four hour English language news channel, they document the historical background of the men who enabled the coup in Kiev: although Dimitry Yaros only got 1% of the vote in the presidential election, supporting assertions that his organization does not have broad support, the fact that any government would rely on openly Neo-Nazi fighters to take - and keep power - should trouble any journalist. At one point Gessen quotes Shvets saying ‘Our army is nothing’, and indeed it has been seen melting away. But that does not justify calling on Hitler-worshipping militias who curse Russians, Communists and Jews - or any other group - to get and keep power.
Labels: Black Sea Fleet, Dimitry Yaros, Keith Gessen, Odessa fire, Si Hersh, the New Yorker, Time magazine, Ukraine crisis, Vladimir Putin
Icing the Choclate King
As the world anxiously awaits the outcome of Ukraine’s ouvertures to its rebellious Southeastern regions, in its June 23 issue, Time magazine presents Pietro Poroshenko as “Man in the Middle”. In order to justify that title, it is forced to go through extraordinary contortions between the facts and Washington’s versions thereof.
It starts by asserting that when Poroshenko met Vladimir Putin at the D-Day commemoration in France he had to ‘control his temper’ because three months earlier Russia had ‘taken over’ Crimea. In reality, Russia accepted the results of a popular referendum in Crimea and welcomed that region back where it had been except for the last sixty years of modern history. The Crimean peninsula has been home to the Russian Black Sea fleet since the late eighteenth century, and is inhabited mainly by ethnic Russians. In a magnanimous gesture toward the land in which he grew up, Khruschev gave it to Ukraine in 1954, but once the Soviet Union was dissolved, that created a potentially awkward situation. Never mind, for Time and the rest of the MSM, the referendum papered over a ‘land grab’, which President Obama declares he will never accept.
Anyway, according to Time, Poroshenko ‘gritted his teeth’ during the tête-a-tête and told Putin he would get Crimea back eventually. But then it becomes clear that what Time reported as fact, was actually second hand information: “Poroshenko recounted his meeting with Putin a few days later during an interview with Time in his office in Kiev. He wouldn’t say how Putin had responded, but insisted the President’s response was of little importance to him. ‘To be honest’, he told Time, ‘I’m not interested in what citizen Putin thinks of my state.’”
Elected following the violent overthrow of his predecessor, Poroshenko refuses to recognize the regularly elected President of one of the most powerful states on earth, and Time simply reports ‘the fact’ of this bizarre behavior without comment. However, in the following paragraph, the magazine which is to the weeklies what the New York Times is to the dailies, admits lamely: “Poroshenko does not in truth have that luxury.” The leaders of the West made it clear during those three days of meetings that he can publicly call Russia an agressor but he has to accept his powerful neighbor as a negotiating partner. All he can do is grudgingly (Time’s word) complain that Ukraine does not have Canada or Sweden for a neighbor….
Now the writer moves from Poroshenko to Putin: “Putin’s Crimean conquest has won [him] adulation at home”. (Conquest? Via a locally organized referendum?) “Signalling that he’d had his fill” (as in a Russian bear eating honey?) “for now, Putin ordered his army away from Ukraine’s border.” Not only does Time fail for the second time to mention the referendum, it again suggests - without actually saying so - that the region was annexed by military force. At the time of the referendum, military personnel from the Sevastopol Naval Base were seen about, however international observers widely confirmed the vote’s authenticity, and only a thoroughly indoctrinated fourth estate that moves seamlessly between outright lies and innuendo could express doubt about it:
“None of this” (this what?) “means Russia will leave Ukraine or any of its other neighbors alone. Pro-Russian militants” (which presumably should not be confused with Russian military), “are still fighting Ukrainian troops in Eastern Ukraine, with new fighters pouring in from across the border.” Notice how Time refers to ‘new fighters’, not ‘Russian troops’. And even though the phrase ‘pouring in’ more correctly suggests volunteers, it can also - and more ominously - suggest an unstoppable invasion…. Indeed: “The Crimean peninsula is still, in Russia’s eyes, a legal part of Russia.” (still?) “And Putin still has the permission of his legislature to invade Ukraine whenever he sees fit.”
In a surprising lapse of style, the article continues without identifying the subject as Poroshenko: “It is no longer a question of Ukraine’s security”, he says, insisting that Russia is a threat not only to Ukraine but also to the global balance of power. (Russia: a country whose president he calls mister and whose opinions leave him indifferent…..). Clashing with his usual diplomatic style, Poroshenko’s declaration: “I want you to understand that Ukrainian soldiers are fighting today for peace in the region, peace in Europe and peace in the world” - has to be straight out of Washington’s handbook.
And yet, after all that anti-Russian rhetoric, the rules of the craft oblige the article’s (anonynous, according to Times tradition) staff writer to confess: “The Ukrainian military did not wait long after Poroshenko’s election before attacking the rebels with a ferocity it had avoided during the presidential race.” (In the misguided hope the Eastern Ukrainians would welcome back Neo-Nazi rulers.) After describing a bloody assault by helicopter gundships and planes as if it were referring to a game, or a film,Time tells us this was “a high risk ‘gamble’: the rebels’ hope and Ukraine’s fear was that the Russian military would back up the militants. That didn’t happen and Poroshenko believes the assault helped the Kremlin see reason:
Dozens of coffins are going back to the Russian Federation. What are they dying for?” (Are the Russians so stupid as to sacrifice their youth for us?) Then, in a non-sequitur that channels the West’s now consistent portrayal of Russia as a threat: “If we don’t defend ourselves, no one will.”
There follows a run-down of Poroshenko’s bio, a chocolate manufacturer whose political career was aided by the (Berlusconian) purchase of a television station. By the time of the Orange Revolution he had already served six years as a center left member of parliament, and Channel 5 “became the mouthpiece of the Orange cause”. Poroshenko’s “knack for compromise” made him “a mainstay of Ukrainian politics”, who, as a presidential candidate was able to “straddle mainly different political constituencies”. But Time also wants us to know that he “was not afraid to risk his neck as he campaigned”. An advisor who accompanied him described how Luhansk separatists gave them the chase, “forcing Poroshenko’s car to cut through a field to get to the airport. Harrowing as that experience was, it showed voters that he was serious about negotiating with the eastern regions for the sake of national unity.”
The word ‘harrowing”, however exaggerated, justifies the new President’s behavior: “On Poroshenko’s orders, the Ukrainian military has assaulted rebel held towns with air-strikes and artillary fire,”….hoping to turn [the ordinary citizens who are its victims] against the rebels whom he has cast as terrorists. In the new President’s words: “The absolute majority of the people who live there are absolute Ukrainians (whatever that means), absolutely clean, honest and upstanding.” (Not the Russian scum described by Poroshenko’s long-time ally Yulia TImosheko….)
Admitting that “it is a tough sell for a people who feel they’re under siege”, Time recognizes that many residents could not take part in the election, yet fails to explain that the leaders they had chosen called for them to boycot it. Instead, it quotes Poroshenko: “These were the most transparent, the most free and the most democratic elections in Ukraine’s history”, and the people who renounce (denounce?) its results are most likely “besotted with Russian propaganda.”
In the final part of the article, Time moves from referring to the separatists as rebels, to describing ‘guerrilla warfare’, ending with a quote from former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul (he of the leaked conversation with Victoria Nuland over who should because Ukraine’s president): “(Poro-shenko) claims that Russia has unilaterally redrawn a European border for the first time since World War II.” The crucial word here of course is ‘unilaterally’, since the borders of the former Yugoslavia were redrawn in the nineties by a ‘coalition of willing’ Western powers, none of whom considered the action to be illegal.
According to Time, the Western capitals hope the truce between Russia and Ukraine (the word ‘truce’ suggesting active military engagement between two parties, which has not occurred), “will be a kind of diplomatic bridgehead, preventing Russia from challenging any more of Europe’s borders.” (What’s a ‘diplomatic bridgehead’? I think they mean a buffer zone, similar to the one Israel wants to establish between itself and an eventual Palestinian state.) Never mind that Ukraine is not part of Europe, Time’s conclusion is obviously veiled advice from Washington: “It may pain him, but that leaves Poroshenko with no choice but to continue his presidency the same way he started it - by talking to the enemy.”
Alas, as of this writing, for what I believe is the third time, instead of negotiating with the people of Eastern Ukraine, Poroshenko continues to pound them from the air, as his infantry, loathe to kill fellow citizens, melts away. (And his proposal, by the way, does call for a buffer zone… ) The press has correctly reported that the Donbass is the industrial heartland of Ukraine. However, as miners sign up en masse to the citizens’ army, here’s something Time staff writers probably don’t know: in all areas formerly under Soviet control, the dangers faced by miners are recognized in higher pay and early retirement. Will the chocolate king know better than to mess with those guys?
Labels: Crimea, Obama, Poroshenko, Putin, Time magazine, Ukraine crisis
How Liberal Journalists Mislead Readers
The award-winning foreign policy journalist Robin Wright published a portrait of Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Zarif in the May 20th issue of The New Yorker that is a set piece for high-level yet misleading journalism. Wright has extensive experience covering the Middle East and has written or edited several books on the subject. However she illustrates what many progressive readers have noticed as a recent rightward tilt to both the New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, an example of the latter being Timothy Snyder's slant on events in Ukraine.
The first thing you notice about Wright's article is that it carries a negative title: "The Adversary". Then a subtitle that appears to contradict it: "Is Iran's nuclear negotiator Javad Zarif for real?" This sets the tone for the entire piece, in which the writer struggles to maintain American journalism's highest - but illusory - standard of 'objectivity' and its corollary 'equal time', never letting her own opinion transpire.
When the new Iranian negotiator, appointed by a new President, tweeted 'Happy Rosh Hashanah', Nancy Pelosi tweeted back: "The New Year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran's Holocaust denial, sir". Zarif responded: "Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone. Happy New Year."
Instead of giving him credit for this, Wright tells us that Kerry and Zarif, having met four times, now call each other by their first names, a breakthrough made possible by the fact that the Iranian diplomat spent his college years in the United States. (The second breakthrough was that the representatives involved in the six party negotiations to reach a deal over Iran's nuclear activity now share news of their respective families.)
And yet Wright slides from the sub-title, 'Is the negotiator for real", to "Is the process for real and can it succeed?" referring to Iranian hardliners gathered for a 'We're worried' conference at the US Embassy against concession that ends with "A woman in black chador carried a placard stating 'Our nuclear rights are not for sale.'" Did she do this in front of the Embassy', or did she sit in the conference room with her placard?
Further muddying the waters, the following paragraph states: "For many Iranians, a nuclear deal is about a lot more than nukes. It would remove the threat of regime change by securing (securing"..) the Iranian government as the legitimate representative of the iranian people." This sentence implies: 1) That after twenty-five years, the regime has not been able to establish itself as legitimate, which is patently absurd, and 2) That most citizens of this highly nationalist country are willing to 'sell their nuclear rights', which is also absurd. The paragraph ends with: "But it might also open Iran to the outside world in ways that affect the internal balance of power." This positive-sounding statement in fact portends US-inspired regime change followed by IMF shock and awe.
Diane Feinstein's appraisal of Zarif would appear to confirm Washington's hope that he could be enlisted in the effort: "He is thoughtful. He is real. He wants to help his people and lead them in a different direction." Chuck Hagel, who also met Zarif when he was Iran's UN ambassador, is less threatening: "He can play an important role in helping to resolve our significant differences with Iran peacefully." And yet, after telling us that even our former Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, told Zarif he would be missed at the UN, Wright apparently felt the need to correct any positive impression the reader might get from this:
"Yet in January Zarif met with Nasrallah in Lebanon" at the grave of a military commander who had been 'linked' to the 1983 bombing of the US militayr barracks in Lebanon. Diplomats in most parts of the world - including those of US allies - would agree with Zarif, who says: "In order to be able to practice dialogue, you need to be able to set aside your assumptions and try to listen more than you want to talk".I have disagreements with some [people] and more agreements with others. But that doesn't mean I can't listen to those I disagree with."
You're not likely to hear a remark like that coming from an American political or diplomatic figure - much less a mainstream journalist. Yet Robin Wright cannot let this statement go by without framing it: "Some American critics don't buy this. There are worse Islamic revolutionaries out there, but make no mistake, he's an Islamic Revolutionary (meaning an ally of Nasrallah)." Quoting a former CIA officer now ensconced in a think tank: "[Zarif] understands the Islamic Reovlution as being incompatible with the United States." Incompatible with the all-knowing, exceptionalist United States! And he continues: "Only in the Byzantine (used as a slur) world of Islamic politics do the differences between Zarif and what some call hard-liners gain importance."
Scope that out! This guy is declaring that if you're a revolutio-nary, you're automatically 'a hard-liner'. Were there not degrees of 'hardness' among American revolutionaries? Did the Founding Fathers all share the same degree of ferocity vis a vis the British Empire and King George, whom they had decided to no longer recognize as their ruler? History books out the window!
After noting that Zarif had accepted an interim nuclear deal, Wright feels compelled to note that Obama estimates the chances of ultimate success at only 50/50. Her off-hand way of acknow-leging that the Ford administration approved the Shah's plan to buy twenty nuclear reactors, a deal that was good for American business, adding that since that time runaway population growth has increased Iran's need for alternatives to oil, doesn't even suggest that these facts would justify Iran's insistence on having a nuclear program.
This carefully researched article constantly defeats any tendency the reader might have toward sympathy with 'the adversary'. After enumerating the suffering caused - and still vividly remembered - by the Iran-Iraq war, in which, by the way, we backed Iraq, in that wonderful balancing of pros and cons, good and bad that has been perfected by American journalists Wright declares: "Iran is the world's only constitutional theocracy, and the only place in Islam's fourteen centuries (place in centuries?) where clerics have ruled a state. For the past thirty-five years, Iranians have also felt exceptional - and exempt from international norms - because of the country's claim to sacredness."
As a Middle East expert Wright must know that Iran doesn't consider itself to be sacred; rather, like religious people everywhere, Iran's leaders consider God to be sacred. Muslims believe that humans have an obligation to treat other humans with dignity and respect because that is what God demands. Yet Wright leans on a current catchword: America is exceptional because as God's 'city on the hill', it is founded on 'democratic principles', while Iran only considers itself to be exceptional because it is ruled by religious rather than man-made laws, which in fact trump God's laws. This sleight of hand allows Wright to uncritically quote White House advisor Ben Rhodes, when he elucidates Obama's take on Iran with these words: "They've got to decide whether we are the Great Satan or whether we are their ticket into the community of nations."
Wright skillfully hews to the diktats of 'objectivity', defined as presenting 'both sides of the story' even when one side is patently absurd or inaccurate. At the time of Watergate, when the press still touted its role as watchdog, journalists had to be careful to not introduce 'opinion' into 'news' stories, which had to 'stick to the facts'. Opinion was reserved for editorials. But what about 'think pieces' like Wright's? Is Seymour Hersh the only journalist permitted to analyze - which requires a point of view, or opinion? (And how many journalists have had the guts to follow Dylan Ratigan who delivered a Hail Mary rant on MSNBC, knowing it meant the end of his career and is now he is seeking solutions to global problems with veterans?)
SOP for meeting the sacred obligation of 'objectivity' in pieces such as Wright's is to consistently mention attenuating circumstances or explanations for an adversary's motives or 'unacceptable' behavior (such as Iran's dire need for energy due to a 50% increase in population over the last few decades), in a way that ensures the reader will not be tempted to connect the dots. Once an adversary has been defined as indulging in condemnable behavior, or even possessing some characteristic that lies outside the American definition of a 'civilized society' (currentlly referred to as 'the community of nations'), nothing can transform that adversary into an acceptable 'other', although that is what the conduct of international affairs must be about.
Until journalists reclaim their watchdog function, even New Yorker readers will fail to question the policies being carried out in their name.
P.S. After this article appeared on Opednews, I received the following comment fron Dan Baron:
Maybe I'm wrong, but, all it takes for me to classify an author as being unintelligent, is the appearance of what I guess I would call, a "language meme". And here is one from the quotations of Robin Wright's article:
"but make no mistake".
Aren't The New Yorker articles always endless, bloviations, blatherings, intended for readers who want to believe they are intelligent, and who have nothing better to do than to stare at the pages of that magazine?
My impression of Wright's article, gleaned from this article:
"He's bad.
Maybe he's not that bad.
He's a little good.
But, is he really bad?
Or, is his goodness mistaken for badness?
Or, does his position mean that Iran wants to be good but can't decide?
Or is he disguising his badness for goodness?..."
(continue that way for 20 pages)
Who, in my opinion, would want to consume that "sawdust"?
Labels: Chuck Hagel, Diane Feinstein, Iran's nuclear program, Javad Zarif, Nasrallah, Obama, Robin Wright
When is a Rose No Longer a Rose
You may have noticed the slightly confused expression on Obama’s face when he talks about the vents in Ukraine these days: he almost seems to be apologizing for contradictions that are obvious to even the most casual observers.
- Egypt first had a revolution, then a coup: after the revolution there was an election and the Muslim Brotherhood won. After the coup, carried out by the army, there was eventually another election and the head of the army won. Although officially we don’t support governments who come to power through a coup. Egypt is so important (mainly to Israel) that all we did was hold back a few jets.
- The Russian speaking inhabitants of Crimea, which was formerly a part of Russia, held a referendum in which they overwhelmingly voted to rejoin Russia: According to Obama, the referendum was not legal: Russia is fomenting separatism.
- Scotland has scheduled a referendum for later this year, holding fast to its decision to do so in the face of Great Britain’s assertion that it would be illegal: Obama concedes it’s up to the Scots to decide their future.
What about a state’s right to hang on to territory?
- NATO reduced parts of Serbia to rubble because it wanted to hang on to Kosovo (albeit in the name of a hundreds of years old incident): with NATO’s help, Kosovo, a majority Albanian speaking province, became independent.
- Two decades later, NATO accuses Russia of fomenting separatism, violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity by recognizing the majority Russian speaking province of Crimea’s referendum to join Russia, and Obama accuses Russia of being a big country that imposes its will on a smaller one.
- In the same vein for the successionist refenda held in Eastern Ukraine, Obama tells Russia it has an ‘obligation of influence’: that it can only prove its good faith by convincing anti-fascist Ukrainians to accept a government that was brought to power by a fascist-led coup. Since when are leaders responsible for influencing outcomes?
Yesterday France 24’s journalists were calling for Putin to recognize Petro Poroshenko as the legitimate president of Ukraine, although they know full well that since before the election he repeatedly declared his intention work with whoever was elected. Recently he specifically noted that Poroshenko didn’t have blood on his hands (how long it will be possible to say that is not certain) and that he was ready to work with him, emphasizing that the Ukraine crisis had to be resolved through negotiations (which is what Putin always says about every international conflict, as opposed to American leaders who invariably call for punitive measures and ‘leave no option off the table’).
- Finally, there’s the issue of ‘killing one’s own people’: Assad in Syria has been hammered relentlessly for this, although he is facing a foreign invasion; Egypt’s Al Sissi gets a pass. As for Poroshenko, he is doing the same in Eastern Ukraine, having declared he wanted the area ‘pacified’ before his inauguration, which is imminent! (At least he didn’t yell that they had to be ‘eliminated’ as two other presidential candidates, Right Sektor boss Dmitry Yarosh and Julia Timoshenko did..)
What all this boils down to is that if democracy is to political science what roses are to flowers, whatever its original attractiveness it too can fade.
Labels: Al Sissi, Crimea, Kosov, NATO, Obama, Putin, referenda, territorial integrity
D-Day 2014: Goings and Comings on the Eurasian Continent
President Obama's four-day European tour leading up to the D-Day celebrations in France began in Poland with the announcement of an increase in the number of American troops stationed there, as the post-coup government in Ukraine continued military action against citizens who refuse to recognize it.
The borders of Poland, Bela Rus and Kievan Rus (going back to the Middle Ages) have dissolved into one another for centuries with 'Ukraine' as an entity created during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Aside from that, Obama's commitment to defending Poland from a threat to the east twenty odd years after the collapse of the Soviet Union is no small irony: Having failed to defend Poland against Germany in World War II, it would now defend it against Russia, which has threatened no one.
American academia has finally acknowledged that the Soviet Union played the most significant role in the defeat of Nazi Germany, the allied D-Day landing having signaled the opening of a second front to the one the Soviets had been fighting on since June, 1941. However, from the end of WW II until 1991, the Soviet Union was condemned by the West for creating friendly governments in its buffer zone of Eastern Europe, including Poland, and accused of being an imminent threat to the 'free' nations of Western Europe. And by declaring in 2005 that the demise of the Soviet Union had been a geo-political catastrophe, Vladimir Putin provided the United States with a handy excuse to condemn Russia's every policy.
Russia is labelled as aggressor for respecting the referendum organized by Crimea's largely Russian population that desperately wants to become part of Russia, as it had been for centuries before the Soviet regime made it part of Ukraine. It is also suspected of evil designs on the Baltic countries as well as in Moldova in the south. And yet, while Washington has made it illegitimate for Russia to resist encirclement, NATO's presence in Eastern Europe implies that the Soviet Union's concerns over its buffer zone were legitimate.
The 70th D-day anniversary will serve as backdrop for the first meeting between Obama and Putin since the Ukraine coup, which the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (an interesting, and probably post-Soviet title) Victoria Nuland boasted publicly that Washington spent five billion dollars preparing. It is more than likely that a good part of those funds went to Right Sektor, an ultra-right para-military group that trained in Western Ukraine for months before turning the peaceful Maidan protests into all-out war and installing a government in which it holds four ministerial positions while continuing to worship its predecessors who, as German allies, committed atrocities against Jews, Communists, Gypsies and Poles.
Notwithstanding this uncomfortable truth, the Polish government can no more refrain from meddling in Ukraine today than it has historically. However, Europe's uncomfortable position between a rock and a hard place is evident in the arrangements France's President made for receiving both Obama and Putin in Paris in the run-up to tomorrow's ceremony in Normandy: He had dinner with Obama, then a late supper with Putin. (Putin also responded to journalists’ questions in a TV show, which you can see on RT or France 24.) The reality behind these diplomatic acrobatics is that as Western Ukrainians reach for a European dream that is fast vanishing for its citizens, the United States and its allies are faced with a nightmare: Russia's spearheading of an economic zone stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific, in tandem with China.[tag]
Washington would like to believe that by fomenting trouble on Russia's Eastern frontier it will prevent it from building a Eurasian community which, unlike the European Union, has what it takes in determination and resources to end American world hegemony. In reality, Obama's hop-scotching across his European fiefdom to a French location known by its American name is a going to that future's coming.
P.S. Anticipating reader reminders of the June 5th Tiananmen ‘massacre’ of 1989, I recommend you read the following account of a press post-mortem http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-really-happened-in-tiananmen-square-25-years-ago/5385528 and that you then look for the report on China’s youth that the BBC aired in the U.S. on Tuesday, in which they emphatically state that what matters to them are getting a good job, buying an apartment and a car and getting married.
Labels: China, D-Day, Eurasia, Europe, France 24, Neo-Nazis, Obama, Poland, Putin, RT, Russia, Soviet Union, Tiananmen
Welcome to Otherjones!
The alternative press is replete with despair and ‘hope’, neither of which is helpful. ‘Squawking’ may alleviate some of the pain Americans experience at being identified with a government that brutalizes Others at will, but it doesn’t change the ‘facts on the ground’. As for hope, it is an easy cop-out: in the present state of the world, we can never be certain that tomorrow will come. Whether a barefoot child in Africa or a hedge-fund manager, all of us are the potential victims of hubris.
This blog aims to prepare readers in ways more important than stockpiling food and bandages for whatever happens, as we transition from an American century to a world century, helping them see through the web of lies with which we are being controlled.
Having lived for years at a time in half a dozen ‘foreign’, countries — learning their languages and histories — I have a unique ability to identify events that bear watching. That life, however, could not provide ‘retirement benefits’, so if you appreciate the unique combination of information and insight that characterizes my work, I hope you will integrate a small donation to Otherjones into your budget.
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My Latest Book: Russia's Americans
If you’re not quite prepared to believe that the US should go to war with Russia, or even that its President, Vladimir Putin, is a thug — or even if you simply believe that they mean the US harm, check out my new book Russia’s Americans, at Amazon. You will discover that there are many things you do not know about the Russia story, including the fact that thousands of Americans have chosen to live and work there. It is available in both paperback, at $22.25 and e-book, and is illustrated with many color photographs from my May 2017 trip.
Born in Philadelphia, I studied in Paris, became a French citizen by marriage, debuted at Agence France Presse in Rome, then, as Deena Boyer, followed Fellini’s creative process for The Two Hundred Days of ’81/2’. The proceeds from this book enabled me travel to Cuba to to interview Fidel Castro for a major French weekly, meeting with him again a week after the Kennedy assassination and several times in 1964 for a book, Cuba 1964: When the Revolution was Young, in which the other members of the government (including Che Guevara, Raul Castro and Celia Sanchez), tell in their own words why they made the revolution. My Cuba archive is on-line at Duke University.
In the seventies, I did graduate work in Global Survival, taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was a speech writer in the Carter State Department, publishing an article on U.S.-Soviet relations in the in-house journal in 1976.
Returning to Paris in 1981, with assistance from the Centre National du Livre, I published Une autre Europe, un autre Monde, the only book that foresaw the reunification of Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union. I returned to Philadel-phia in 2000, and have been a contributor and senior editor at various on-line journals.
A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness hopes to change the way both seekers and skeptics look at good and evil - -and at the daunting problems of the 21st century. It shows that religious belief is not necessary to achieve serenity, but that awareness of the sacred as confirmed by modern science, is. It does this by viewing the world as a system and exploring what that means for the role of politics.
America Revealed to a Honey-Colored World is a primer for Americans and others who find the policies of successive US governments difficult to square with their image of the country and its founding documents. The decades I spent living on both sides of the Iron Curtain provided me with a unique awareness of America’s image abroad and of the mainstream media’s failure to convey news and ideas to the voters in whose name policies are carried out. References to work by other political writers illustrate little-known or forgotten features of American history that have contributed to the tragic face the country presents today.
Cuba 1964 provides the definitive answer to the question: “Was Fidel Castro a Communist before he carried out the revolution, or did he become one because of the way the United States reacted when he ousted pro-US dictator Fulgencio Batista? While following day by day events, I had extensive conversations with the men and women who had joined the Castro brothers as early as 1953 and were now members of the revolutionary government. Together with Fidel, Raul, Che and Celia Sanchez, they told me in their own words why and now they made the Revolution hat continues to inspire countries in Latin America and around the world. The text is illustrated with photographs from my black and white archive which can be seen on-line at Duke University.
Lunch with Fellini Dinner with Fidel: How did it happen that a fourteen year old American girl found herself living among the French in post-war Paris? The answer to that question also explains why I went on to live in half a dozen countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, becoming mutti-lingual, writing first about the cinema, then about ‘the big picture’ while raising two children, mostly on my own. A religious grandmother and a hedonistic lover accompanied me on a journal which has been both spiritual and political, and is illustrated by many photographs from my personal album.
D-Day 2014: Goings and Comings on the Eurasian Con...
The New Yorker on Ukraine: Instead of Sy Hersh, Ke...
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Riverside Finds a Bone to Pick June 23, 2014
Firm Acquires Australian Orthopaedic Implant Company
The Riverside Company has acquired Global Orthopaedic Technologies (Global), an Australian manufacturer and distributor of orthopaedic implants.
With two research, design and manufacturing facilities in Bella Vista and Seven Hills in New South Wales, Global supplies implants and instrumentation for hip, knee, shoulder and spine surgeries, along with related orthobiologics.
Riverside has partnered on the transaction with Andrew Fox-Smith and Duncan Lilley. Fox-Smith is a former Group President - International with Stryker Corporation, and has more than two decades of experience in the global orthopaedic market. Fox-Smith will serve as CEO. Lilley has most recently held senior roles with British Standards Institution (BSI) and SAI Global and will serve as COO.
Global was established in 1999 by Mike Ribot and Steve Banks and has grown to become the largest Australia-owned orthopaedic implant designer and manufacturer. Ribot and Banks will continue to be involved with Global as shareholders and senior managers, providing a wealth of knowledge and experience in the Australian orthopaedic industry.
“Global has an enviable product portfolio and a history of innovation,” said Riverside Partner Simon Feiglin. “They’re a growing company in an expanding market thanks to offering products and services that are valued by surgeons and relied upon by patients in Australia and increasingly around the world.”
“We are delighted to partner with Riverside and Andrew Fox-Smith, who bring their vast international experience to Global, enabling us to develop new and exciting growth opportunities,” Ribot said. “When Steve and I started Global, it was with a vision to create a multinational orthopaedic business and this transaction is an important milestone in realizing that vision.”
Riverside’s deep experience in the healthcare sector includes more than 70 investments in the space, supported by a dedicated team of specialists who can help Global identify new opportunities and enter new markets.
“By partnering with Riverside, we have an exciting opportunity to not only organically expand Global, but also look at value-added acquisitions that can accelerate our growth objectives,” said Fox-Smith. “Global offers a comprehensive suite of products, has a demonstrated ability to develop and commercialize new products, and works closely with some of Australia’s leading orthopaedic surgeons. We intend to build on this success and open doors to new relationships and new opportunities to position the company for continued and long-term success.”
Working with Feiglin on the deal for Riverside was Vice President Steven Spiteri and Associate Bo Heitz.
Babson Capital and Commonwealth Bank of Australia provided financing for the transaction. Jones Day, Deloitte, KPMG and AT Kearney advised Riverside on the deal.
The Riverside Company
The Riverside Company is a global private equity firm focused on acquiring and investing in growing businesses valued at up to $250 million (€200 million in Europe). Since its founding in 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 340 transactions. The firm’s international portfolio includes more than 70 companies.
Holly Mueller
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About the Saeima
Work of the Saeima
Election of the Saeima
The Commemorative Medal for Participants of the Barricades
History of the legislature
Main building of the Saeima
Informative materials about the Saeima
Contact the Saeima
Transcripts (in Latvian)
Answers to parliamentary questions
Daily schedule of committee and subcommittee meetings
Procedure for adopting laws
Plenary Chamber seating plan
Statistics on parliamentary documents
Structure of the Saeima
Speaker Ināra Mūrniece
Permanent delegations
Daily schedule (in Latvian)
Saeima in pictures
Saeima on video
Involvement of society
Submissions and proposals
Archives of the Saeima
Receiving visitors and arranging guided tours
Student internship programmes
Coordinators for cooperation with NGOs
Cooperation with NGOs
School programme “Meet the Saeima”
Job Shadow Day in the Saeima
Plenary agendas (in Latvian)
Committee agendas (in Latvian)
Database of parliamentary documents (in Latvian)
Legislative processConstitution
PrintPrint without images
The Constitution of the Republic of Latvia
The people of Latvia, in freely elected Constitutional Assembly, have adopted the following State Constitution:
The State of Latvia, proclaimed on 18 November 1918, has been established by uniting historical Latvian lands and on the basis of the unwavering will of the Latvian nation to have its own State and its inalienable right of self-determination in order to guarantee the existence and development of the Latvian nation, its language and culture throughout the centuries, to ensure freedom and promote welfare of the people of Latvia and each individual.
The people of Latvia won their State in the War of Liberation. They consolidated the system of government and adopted the Constitution in a freely elected Constitutional Assembly.
The people of Latvia did not recognise the occupation regimes, resisted them and regained their freedom by restoring national independence on 4 May 1990 on the basis of continuity of the State. They honour their freedom fighters, commemorate victims of foreign powers, condemn the Communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes and their crimes.
Latvia as democratic, socially responsible and national state is based on the rule of law and on respect for human dignity and freedom; it recognises and protects fundamental human rights and respects ethnic minorities. The people of Latvia protect their sovereignty, national independence, territory, territorial integrity and democratic system of government of the State of Latvia.
Since ancient times, the identity of Latvia in the European cultural space has been shaped by Latvian and Liv traditions, Latvian folk wisdom, the Latvian language, universal human and Christian values. Loyalty to Latvia, the Latvian language as the only official language, freedom, equality, solidarity, justice, honesty, work ethic and family are the foundations of a cohesive society. Each individual takes care of oneself, one’s relatives and the common good of society by acting responsibly toward other people, future generations, the environment and nature.
While acknowledging its equal status in the international community, Latvia protects its national interests and promotes sustainable and democratic development of a united Europe and the world.
God, bless Latvia!
[19 June 2014]
1. Latvia is an independent democratic republic.
2. The sovereign power of the State of Latvia is vested in the people of Latvia.
3. The territory of the State of Latvia, within the borders established by international agreements, consists of Vidzeme, Latgale, Kurzeme and Zemgale.
4. The Latvian language is the official language in the Republic of Latvia. The national flag of Latvia shall be red with a band of white.
[15 October 1998]
The Saeima
5. The Saeima shall be composed of one hundred representatives of the people.
6. The Saeima shall be elected in general, equal and direct elections, and by secret ballot based on proportional representation.
7. In the division of Latvia into separate electoral districts, provision for the number of members of the Saeima to be elected from each district shall be proportional to the number of electors in each district.
8. All citizens of Latvia who enjoy full rights of citizenship and, who on election day have attained eighteen years of age shall be entitled to vote.
9. Any citizen of Latvia, who enjoys full rights of citizenship and, who is more than twenty-one years of age on the first day of elections may be elected to the Saeima.
10. The Saeima shall be elected for a term of four years.
11. Elections for the Saeima shall be held on the first Saturday in October.
12. The newly elected Saeima shall hold its first sitting on the first Tuesday in November, when the mandate of the previous Saeima shall expire.
13. Should elections for the Saeima, by reason of the dissolution of the previous Saeima, be held at another time of the year, the Saeima so elected shall convene not later than one month after its election, and its mandate shall expire upon the convening of the new Saeima on the first Tuesday in November following the elapse of three years after such election.
14. Not less than one tenth of electors has the right to initiate a national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima. If the majority of voters and at least two thirds of the number of the voters who participated in the last elections of the Saeima vote in the national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima, then the Saeima shall be deemed recalled. The right to initiate a national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima may not be exercised one year after the convening of the Saeima and one year before the end of the term of office of the Saeima, during the last six months of the term of office of the President, as well as earlier than six months after the previous national referendum regarding recalling of the Saeima.
The electors may not recall any individual member of the Saeima.
15. The Saeima shall hold its sittings in Rīga, and only in extraordinary circumstances may it convene elsewhere.
16. The Saeima shall elect a Presidium that shall be composed of a Chairperson, two Deputies and Secretaries. The Presidium shall function continuously during the mandate of the Saeima.
17. The first sitting of the newly elected Saeima shall be opened by the Chairperson of the preceding Saeima or by another member of the Presidium at the direction of the Presidium.
18. The Saeima itself shall review the qualifications of its members.
A person elected to the Saeima shall acquire the mandate of a Member of the Saeima if such person gives the following solemn promise:
“I, upon assuming the duties of a Member of the Saeima, before the people of Latvia, do swear (solemnly promise) to be loyal to Latvia, to strengthen its sovereignty and the Latvian language as the only official language, to defend Latvia as an independent and democratic State, and to fulfil my duties honestly and conscientiously. I undertake to observe the Constitution and laws of Latvia."
19. The Presidium shall convene sessions of the Saeima and schedule regular and extraordinary sittings.
20. The Presidium shall convene sittings of the Saeima if requested by the President, the Prime Minister, or not less than one third of the members of the Saeima.
21. The Saeima shall establish rules of order to provide for its internal operations and order. The working language of the Saeima is the Latvian language.
22. Sittings of the Saeima shall be public. The Saeima may decide by a majority vote of not less than two-thirds of the members present to sit in closed session, if so requested by ten members of the Saeima, or by the President, the Prime Minister, or a Minister.
23. Sittings of the Saeima may take place if at least half of the members of the Saeima participate therein.
24. The Saeima shall make decisions by an absolute majority of votes of the members present at the sitting, except in cases specifically set out in the Constitution.
25. The Saeima shall establish committees and determine the number of members and their duties. Committees have the right to require of individual Ministers or local government authorities information and explanations necessary for the work of the committees, and the right to invite to their sittings responsible representatives from the relevant ministries or local government authorities to furnish explanations. Committees may also carry on their work between sessions of the Saeima.
26. The Saeima shall appoint parliamentary investigatory committees for specified matters if not less than one-third of its members request it.
27. The Saeima shall have the right to submit to the Prime Minister or to an individual Minister requests and questions which either they, or a responsible government official duly authorised by them, must answer. The Prime Minister or any Minister shall furnish the relevant documents and enactments requested by the Saeima or by any of its committees.
28. Members of the Saeima may not be called to account by any judicial, administrative or disciplinary process in connection with their voting or their views as expressed during the execution of their duties. Court proceedings may be brought against members of the Saeima if they, albeit in the course of performing parliamentary duties, disseminate:
1) defamatory statements which they know to be false, or
2) defamatory statements about private or family life.
29. Members of the Saeima shall not be arrested, nor shall their premises be searched, nor shall their personal liberty be restricted in any way without the consent of the Saeima. Members of the Saeima may be arrested if apprehended in the act of committing a crime. The Presidium shall be notified within twenty-four hours of the arrest of any member of the Saeima; the Presidium shall raise the matter at the next sitting of the Saeima for decision as to whether the member shall continue to be held in detention or be released. When the Saeima is not in session, pending the opening of a session, the Presidium shall decide whether the member of the Saeima shall remain in detention.
30. Without the consent of the Saeima, criminal prosecution may not be commenced against its members.
31. Members of the Saeima have the right to refuse to give evidence:
1) concerning persons who have entrusted to them, as representatives of the people, certain facts or information;
2) concerning persons to whom they, as representatives of the people, have entrusted certain facts or information; or
3) concerning such facts or information itself.
32. Members of the Saeima may not, either personally or in the name of another person, receive government contracts or concessions. The provisions of this Article shall apply to Ministers even if they are not members of the Saeima.
33. The remuneration of members of the Saeima shall be from state funds.
34. No person may be called to account for reporting the sittings of the Saeima or its committees if such reports correspond to fact. Information about closed sessions of either the Saeima or its committees may only be disclosed with the permission of the Presidium of the Saeima or the committee.
[27 January 1994; 4 December 1997; 15 October 1998; 30 April 2002; 8 April 2009]
35. The Saeima shall elect the President for a term of four years.
36. The President shall be elected by secret ballot with a majority of the votes of not less than fifty-one members of the Saeima.
37. Any person who enjoys full rights of citizenship and who has attained the age of forty years may be elected President. A person with dual citizenship may not be elected President.
38. The office of the President shall not be held concurrently with any other office. If the person elected as President is a member of the Saeima, he or she shall resign his or her mandate as a member of the Saeima.
39. The same person shall not hold office as President for more than eight consecutive years.
40. The President, upon taking up the duties of office, at a sitting of the Saeima, shall take the following solemn oath:
“I swear that all of my work will be dedicated to the welfare of the people of Latvia. I will do everything in my power to promote the prosperity of the Republic of Latvia and all who live here. I will hold sacred and will observe the Constitution of Latvia and the laws of the State. I will act justly towards all and will fulfil my duties conscientiously.”
41. The President shall represent the State in international relations, appoint the diplomatic representatives of Latvia, and also receive diplomatic representatives of other states. The President shall implement the decisions of the Saeima concerning the ratification of international agreements.
42. The President shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of Latvia. During wartime, the President shall appoint a Supreme Commander.
43. The President shall declare war on the basis of a decision of the Saeima.
44. The President has the right to take whatever steps are necessary for the military defence of the State should another state declare war on Latvia or an enemy invade its borders. Concurrently and without delay, the President shall convene the Saeima, which shall decide as to the declaration and commencement of war.
45. The President has the right to grant clemency to criminals against whom judgment of the court has come into legal effect. The extent of, and procedures for, the utilisation of this right shall be set out in a specific law. The Saeima grants amnesty.
46. The President has the right to convene and to preside over extraordinary meetings of the Cabinet and to determine the agenda of such meetings.
47. The President has the right to initiate legislation.
48. The President shall be entitled to propose the dissolution of the Saeima. Following this proposal, a national referendum shall be held. If in the referendum more than half of the votes are cast in favour of dissolution, the Saeima shall be considered dissolved, new elections called, and such elections held no later than two months after the date of the dissolution of the Saeima.
49. If the Saeima has been dissolved or recalled, the mandate of the members of the Saeima shall continue to be in effect until the convening of the newly elected Saeima, but the former Saeima may only hold sittings upon the request of the President. The President shall determine the agenda of such sittings of the Saeima. New elections shall take place not earlier than one month and not later than two months after recalling of the Saeima.
50. If in the referendum more than half of the votes are cast against the dissolution of the Saeima, then the President shall be deemed to be removed from office, and the Saeima shall elect a new President to serve for the remaining term of office of the President so removed.
51. Upon the proposal of not less than half of all of the members of the Saeima, the Saeima may decide, in closed session and with a majority vote of not less than two-thirds of all of its members, to remove the President from office.
52. If the President resigns from office, dies or is removed from office before their term has ended, the Chairperson of the Saeima shall assume the duties of the President until the Saeima has elected a new President. Similarly, the Chairperson of the Saeima shall assume the duties of the President if the latter is away from Latvia or for any other reason unable to fulfil the duties of office.
53. Political responsibility for the fulfilment of presidential duties shall not be borne by the President. All orders of the President shall be jointly signed by the Prime Minister or by the appropriate Minister, who shall thereby assume full responsibility for such orders except in the cases specified in Articles forty-eight and fifty-six.
54. The President may be subject to criminal liability if the Saeima consents thereto by a majority vote of not less than two-thirds.
[4 December 1997; 3 May 2007; 8 April 2009]
55. The Cabinet shall be composed of the Prime Minister and the Ministers chosen by the Prime Minister.
56. The Cabinet shall be formed by the person who has been invited by the President to do so.
57. The number of ministries and the scope of their responsibilities, as well as the relations between State institutions, shall be as provided for by law.
58. The administrative institutions of the State shall be under the authority of the Cabinet.
59. In order to fulfil their duties, the Prime Minister and other Ministers must have the confidence of the Saeima and they shall be accountable to the Saeima for their actions. If the Saeima expresses no confidence in the Prime Minister, the entire Cabinet shall resign. If there is an expression of no confidence in an individual Minister, then the Minister shall resign and another person shall be invited to replace them by the Prime Minister.
60. Meetings of the Cabinet shall be chaired by the Prime Minister, and in the absence of the Prime Minister, by a Minister authorised to do so by the Prime Minister.
61. The Cabinet shall deliberate draft laws prepared by individual ministries as well as matters which pertain to the activities of more than one ministry, and issues of State policy raised by individual members of Cabinet.
62. If the State is threatened by an external enemy, or if an internal insurrection which endangers the existing political system arises or threatens to arise in the State or in any part of the State, the Cabinet has the right to proclaim a state of emergency and shall inform the Presidium within twenty-four hours and the Presidium shall, without delay, present such decision of the Cabinet to the Saeima.
63. Ministers, even if they are not members of the Saeima, and responsible government officials authorised by a Minister, have the right to attend sittings of the Saeima and its committees and to submit additions and amendments to draft laws.
64. The Saeima, and also the people, have the right to legislate, in accordance with the procedures, and to the extent, provided for by this Constitution.
65. Draft laws may be submitted to the Saeima by the President, the Cabinet or committees of the Saeima, by not less than five members of the Saeima, or, in accordance with the procedures and in the cases provided for in this Constitution, by one-tenth of the electorate.
66. Annually, before the commencement of each financial year, the Saeima shall determine the State Revenues and Expenditures Budget, the draft of which shall be submitted to the Saeima by the Cabinet.
If the Saeima makes a decision that involves expenditures not included in the Budget, then this decision must also allocate funds to cover such expenditures.
After the end of the budgetary year, the Cabinet shall submit an accounting of budgetary expenditures for the approval of the Saeima.
67. The Saeima shall determine the size of the armed forces of the State during peacetime.
68. All international agreements, which settle matters that may be decided by the legislative process, shall require ratification by the Saeima.
Upon entering into international agreements, Latvia, with the purpose of strengthening democracy, may delegate a part of its State institution competencies to international institutions. The Saeima may ratify international agreements in which a part of State institution competencies are delegated to international institutions in sittings in which at least two-thirds of the members of the Saeima participate, and a two-thirds majority vote of the members present is necessary for ratification.
Membership of Latvia in the European Union shall be decided by a national referendum, which is proposed by the Saeima.
Substantial changes in the terms regarding the membership of Latvia in the European Union shall be decided by a national referendum if such referendum is requested by at least one-half of the members of the Saeima.
69. The President shall proclaim laws passed by the Saeima not earlier than the tenth day and not later than the twenty-first day after the law has been adopted. A law shall come into force fourteen days after its proclamation unless a different term has been specified in the law.
70. The President shall proclaim adopted laws in the following manner:
“The Saeima (that is, the People) has adopted and the President has proclaimed the following law: (text of the law).”
71. Within ten days of the adoption of a law by the Saeima, the President, by means of a written and reasoned request to the Chairperson of the Saeima, may require that a law be reconsidered. If the Saeima does not amend the law, the President then may not raise objections a second time.
72. The President has the right to suspend the proclamation of a law for a period of two months. The President shall suspend the proclamation of a law if so requested by not less than one-third of the members of the Saeima. This right may be exercised by the President, or by one-third of the members of the Saeima, within ten days of the adoption of the law by the Saeima. The law thus suspended shall be put to a national referendum if so requested by not less than one-tenth of the electorate. If no such request is received during the aforementioned two-month period, the law shall then be proclaimed after the expiration of such period. A national referendum shall not take place, however, if the Saeima again votes on the law and not less than three-quarters of all members of the Saeima vote for the adoption of the law.
73. The Budget and laws concerning loans, taxes, customs duties, railroad tariffs, military conscription, declaration and commencement of war, peace treaties, declaration of a state of emergency and its termination, mobilisation and demobilisation, as well as agreements with other nations may not be submitted to national referendum.
74. A law adopted by the Saeima and suspended pursuant to the procedures specified in Article seventy-two shall be repealed by national referendum if the number of voters is at least half of the number of electors as participated in the previous Saeima election and if the majority has voted for repeal of the law.
75. Should the Saeima, by not less than a two thirds majority vote, determine a law to be urgent, the President may not request reconsideration of such law, it may not be submitted to national referendum, and the adopted law shall be proclaimed no later than the third day after the President has received it.
76. The Saeima may amend the Constitution in sittings at which at least two-thirds of the members of the Saeima participate. The amendments shall be passed in three readings by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present.
77. If the Saeima has amended the first, second, third, fourth, sixth or seventy-seventh Article of the Constitution, such amendments, in order to come into force as law, shall be submitted to a national referendum.
78. Electors, in number comprising not less than one tenth of the electorate, have the right to submit a fully elaborated draft of an amendment to the Constitution or of a law to the President, who shall present it to the Saeima. If the Saeima does not adopt it without change as to its content, it shall then be submitted to national referendum.
79. An amendment to the Constitution submitted for national referendum shall be deemed adopted if at least half of the electorate has voted in favour. A draft law, decision regarding membership of Latvia in the European Union or substantial changes in the terms regarding such membership submitted for national referendum shall be deemed adopted if the number of voters is at least half of the number of electors as participated in the previous Saeima election and if the majority has voted in favour of the draft law, membership of Latvia in the European Union or substantial changes in the terms regarding such membership.
80. All citizens of Latvia who have the right to vote in elections of the Saeima may participate in national referendums.
81. [3 May 2007]
[21 March 1933; 4 December 1997; 15 October 1998; 8 May 2003; 23 September 2004; 3 May 2007]
82. In Latvia, court cases shall be heard by district (city) courts, regional courts and the Supreme Court, but in the event of war or a state of emergency, also by military courts.
83. Judges shall be independent and subject only to the law.
84. Judicial appointments shall be confirmed by the Saeima and they shall be irrevocable. The Saeima may remove judges from office against their will only in the cases provided for by law, based upon a decision of the Judicial Disciplinary Board or a judgment of the Court in a criminal case. The age of retirement from office for judges may be determined by law.
85.In Latvia, there shall be a Constitutional Court, which, within its jurisdiction as provided for by law, shall review cases concerning the conformity of laws with the Constitution, as well as other cases conferred within the jurisdiction thereof by law. The Constitutional Court is entitled to declare laws or other enactments or parts thereof invalid. The Saeima shall confirm the appointment of judges to the Constitutional Court for the term provided for by law, with a majority of the votes of not less than fifty-one members of the Saeima.
[19 September 2013]
86. Decisions in court proceedings may be made only by bodies upon which jurisdiction regarding such has been conferred by law, and only in accordance with procedures provided for by law. Military courts shall act on the basis of a specific law.
[5 June 1996; 4 December 1997; 15 October 1998]
The State Audit Office
87. The State Audit Office shall be an independent collegial institution.
88. Auditors General shall be appointed to their office and confirmed pursuant to the same procedures as judges, but only for a fixed period of time, during which they may be removed from office only by a judgment of the Court. A specific law shall provide for the organisation and responsibilities of the State Audit Office.
Fundamental Human Rights
89. The State shall recognise and protect fundamental human rights in accordance with this Constitution, laws and international agreements binding upon Latvia.
90. Everyone has the right to know about his or her rights.
91. All human beings in Latvia shall be equal before the law and the courts.
Human rights shall be realised without discrimination of any kind.
92. Everyone has the right to defend his or her rights and lawful interests in a fair court. Everyone shall be presumed innocent until his or her guilt has been established in accordance with law. Everyone, where his or her rights are violated without basis, has a right to commensurate compensation. Everyone has a right to the assistance of counsel.
93. The right to life of everyone shall be protected by law.
94. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one may be deprived of or have their liberty restricted, otherwise than in accordance with law.
95. The State shall protect human honour and dignity. Torture or other cruel or degrading treatment of human beings is prohibited. No one shall be subjected to inhuman or degrading punishment.
96. Everyone has the right to inviolability of his or her private life, home and correspondence.
97. Everyone residing lawfully in the territory of Latvia has the right to freely move and to choose his or her place of residence.
98. Everyone has the right to freely depart from Latvia. Everyone having a Latvian passport shall be protected by the State when abroad and has the right to freely return to Latvia. A citizen of Latvia may not be extradited to a foreign country, except in the cases provided for in international agreements ratified by the Saeima if by the extradition the basic human rights specified in the Constitution are not violated.
99. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The church shall be separate from the State.
100. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes the right to freely receive, keep and distribute information and to express his or her views. Censorship is prohibited.
101. Every citizen of Latvia has the right, as provided for by law, to participate in the work of the State and of local government, and to hold a position in the civil service. Local governments shall be elected by Latvian citizens and citizens of the European Union who permanently reside in Latvia. Every citizen of the European Union who permanently resides in Latvia has the right, as provided by law, to participate in the work of local governments. The working language of local governments is the Latvian language
102. Everyone has the right to form and join associations, political parties and other public organisations.
103. The State shall protect the freedom of previously announced peaceful meetings, street processions, and pickets.
104. Everyone has the right to address submissions to State or local government institutions and to receive a materially responsive reply. Everyone has the right to receive a reply in the Latvian language.
105. Everyone has the right to own property. Property shall not be used contrary to the interests of the public. Property rights may be restricted only in accordance with law. Expropriation of property for public purposes shall be allowed only in exceptional cases on the basis of a specific law and in return for fair compensation.
106. Everyone has the right to freely choose their employment and workplace according to their abilities and qualifications. Forced labour is prohibited. Participation in the relief of disasters and their effects, and work pursuant to a court order shall not be deemed forced labour.
107. Every employed person has the right to receive, for work done, commensurate remuneration which shall not be less than the minimum wage established by the State, and has the right to weekly holidays and a paid annual vacation.
108. Employed persons have the right to a collective labour agreement, and the right to strike. The State shall protect the freedom of trade unions.
109. Everyone has the right to social security in old age, for work disability, for unemployment and in other cases as provided by law.
110. The State shall protect and support marriage – a union between a man and a woman, the family, the rights of parents and rights of the child. The State shall provide special support to disabled children, children left without parental care or who have suffered from violence.
111. The State shall protect human health and guarantee a basic level of medical assistance for everyone.
112. Everyone has the right to education. The State shall ensure that everyone may acquire primary and secondary education without charge. Primary education shall be compulsory.
113. The State shall recognise the freedom of scientific research, artistic and other creative activity, and shall protect copyright and patent rights.
114. Persons belonging to ethnic minorities have the right to preserve and develop their language and their ethnic and cultural identity.
115. The State shall protect the right of everyone to live in a benevolent environment by providing information about environmental conditions and by promoting the preservation and improvement of the environment.
116. The rights of persons set out in Articles ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, one hundred, one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and six, and one hundred and eight of the Constitution may be subject to restrictions in circumstances provided for by law in order to protect the rights of other people, the democratic structure of the State, and public safety, welfare and morals. On the basis of the conditions set forth in this Article, restrictions may also be imposed on the expression of religious beliefs.
[15 October 1998; 30 April 2002; 23 September 2004; 15 December 2005]
Adopted by the Constitutional Assembly of Latvia on 15 February 1922
President of the Constitutional Assembly J. Čakste
Secretary of the Constitutional Assembly R. Ivanovs
Transitional Provisions Regarding Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia
(regarding amending Law of 30 April 2002)
Amendments to Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia shall come into force on 5 November 2002.
(regarding amending Law of 3 May 2007)
Cabinet Regulations issued in accordance with Article 81 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia, which were in force on the day of the coming into force of this Law, shall remain in force up to the recognition of the repeal thereof, but not longer than up to 31 December 2007.
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Searching: temperature control
US-9,911,631 Processing system and method for providing a heated etching solution
Embodiments of the invention provide a processing system and a method for processing with a heated etching solution. In one example, tight control over...
US-9,910,449 Generating and implementing thermodynamic models of a structure
Thermostats disclosed herein are operable to control an HVAC system. In controlling the HVAC system, a need to determine an expected indoor temperature profile...
US-9,910,407 Image forming apparatus and image forming system
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming portion; a discharge portion configured to discharge a recording material on which an image is formed by...
US-9,910,310 Variable reflectance mirror system
Anisotropic film laminates for use in image-preserving reflectors such as rearview automotive mirror assemblies, and related methods of fabrication. A film may...
US-9,910,279 Projection display device and temperature control method thereof
A HUD includes a light source unit 57, a light modulation element 54 that modulates light that is emitted from the light source unit 57, a projection portion...
US-9,910,099 Battery monitoring device, power storage system, and control system
A controller of a battery monitoring apparatus, said controller calculating the amount of heat generated inside a battery on the basis of information about the...
US-9,910,000 Temperature sensor system for a vehicle
A temperature sensor system for a vehicle includes a temperature sensor assembly having a thermally insulating body, a temperature sensing element thermally...
US-9,909,962 Device and method for controlling the temperature in a moving fluid in a laboratory sample processing system
A temperature control device and method are provided for an analytical system for performing laboratory protocols. The device includes a well within a housing...
US-9,909,943 Device for inspecting braking mechanism for electric motor, and inspection method
A device can prevent a failure in the actuation of a braking mechanism, which is caused by adhesion of adhesive substances. The device includes a heating part...
US-9,909,935 Calibration and control system for a climate system utilizing closed loop feedback and a phase change cell
A calibration system for a climate system utilizing closed loop feedback and a phase change cell includes controlling a transfer rate of energy between a phase...
US-9,909,823 Thermal conductivity control devices
A system for controlling thermal conductivity between two thermal masses is disclosed. The system includes a first conduction body in thermal contact with a...
US-9,909,809 Heat treatment apparatus and method of controlling the same
The heat treatment apparatus includes: a processing chamber which accommodates a processing object; a heating unit which heats the processing object...
US-9,909,802 Smart storage of temperature sensitive pharmaceuticals
A refrigerator and/or freezer unit and system for storing, monitoring, and maintaining a supply of temperature sensitive pharmaceutical products in compliance...
US-9,909,799 Refrigeration apparatus
Some embodiments of the present invention provide an apparatus (1) comprising at least one receptacle (42) within which an article (44) can be placed for...
US-9,909,785 Heat pump device with simultaneous use of air and geothermal heat sources
A heat pump device that collects heat both air and geothermal heat sources, and a controller determines, by comparing the temperature of an additional heat...
US-9,909,780 System control for tank recovery
The present invention is a system for tank recovery comprising a tankless having an outlet and a storage tank that is operatively connected to the tankless. A...
US-9,909,774 Systems and methods for regulating an environmental variable within a target zone having multiple inhabitants
A system and associated methods of operation for regulating an environmental variable (such as ambient room temperature) within a target zone. The system...
US-9,909,773 Fan coil thermostat with fan ramping
Fan coil thermostats can provide energy savings by, for example, operating a fan coil system more efficiently. Fan coil systems employing such a fan coil...
US-9,909,768 Variable desiccant control energy exchange system and method
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a system and method for providing conditioned air to at least one enclosed structure. The system may include at...
US-9,909,764 Cooking appliance and method for limiting cooking utensil temperatures using dual control modes
Cooking appliances and methods for operating cooking appliances are provided. In one exemplary embodiment, a method for operating a cooking appliance is...
US-9,909,723 Small form-factor LED lamp with color-controlled dimming
A small form factor LED lighting system provides for color-controlled dimming. Embodiments of the invention use one or more small-footprint LED(s) that can emit...
US-9,909,509 Gas turbine fuel supply method and arrangement
A gas turbine fuel supply method and arrangement is provided. The method of controlling a supply of a fuel to a combustor of a gas turbine having a compressor...
US-9,909,487 Systems and methods for an engine cooling system expansion reservoir
Methods and systems are provided for an expansion reservoir for an engine cooling system. In one example, a cooling system may include a first cooling circuit...
US-9,909,483 Oxygen sensor cooling duct
Methods, systems, and vehicles that control the temperature of a device included in the vehicle are presented herein. The temperature of the device is...
US-9,909,482 System and method for vehicle oxidation catalyst monitoring
A system and method for evaluating the efficiency of an oxidation catalyst of a vehicle exhaust system includes a diagnostic control system including a...
US-9,909,476 Method and system for controlling exhaust gas flow in engine system
A method and system for controlling an exhaust gas flow in an engine system are provided. The method includes detecting operating conditions of an engine and...
US-9,909,472 Engine system with turbulence assisted damping of low frequency sound
The present disclosure relates to an engine system comprising an ICE; an exhaust system; and an engine control unit for controlling operation of the engine...
US-9,909,453 Lubrication system for a turbine engine
A lubrication system for a gas turbine engine includes a tank, a circulation pump, and a heat exchanger. The circulation pump generates a flow of lubricant from...
US-9,909,441 Method of operating a clearance control system
A method of operating a clearance control system for a gas turbine engine, includes estimating, in a control module, thermal expansion values of engine...
US-9,909,362 Slat holder
The invention relates to a holder for one or more elongate elements (70, 72), particularly slats for shading systems and daylight control systems, comprising an...
US-9,909,171 Thermo-controllable high-density chips for multiplex analyses
The present invention provides miniaturized instruments for conducting chemical reactions where control of the reaction temperature is desired or required....
US-9,908,950 High-pressure polymerization process of ethylenically unsaturated monomers
A process for polymerizing or copolymerizing ethylenically unsaturated monomers in the presence of free-radical polymerization initiators, wherein the...
US-9,908,926 Protein-based molecular temperature switch
A region of the TRPM8 protein that functions as a temperature switch (FIG. 1) has been identified, and can be expressed, purified and applied in combination...
US-9,908,559 Metal part with controlled deformation orientation
A metal piece having at least two areas of lower mechanical strength than the body of the piece, said pieces being respectively arranged on one side and the...
US-9,908,420 Charging control method and system for electric vehicle
A charging control method and system for an electric vehicle are provided. The charging control method includes monitoring, by a controller, a state of an...
US-9,908,381 Vehicle control apparatus and vehicle control method
The vehicle control apparatus configured to control a vehicle includes a fuel cell configured to supply electric power to the vehicle; an air conditioning...
US-9,908,294 Machine for producing circular products by means of layer-by-layer addition
The invention relates to a machine for the layer-by-layer production of objects, comprising: a circular rotary container arranged in the lower part (B), the...
US-9,908,267 Method for temperature control of a shaping tool
Provided is a temperature control device having at least one temperature control branch connected to a feed, and a pump system including at least one pump for...
US-9,908,261 Mixer, method of mixing raw material for powder metallurgy binder for injection moulding composition
A mixer for ceramic feedstock pellets with a tank, a mixing shaft, and a heat exchanger including a cooler for the cooling of the content of this tank is...
US-9,908,259 Dual loop control of ceramic precursor extrusion batch
A control strategy for producing high quality extrudates, including the steps of monitoring the temperature of a ceramic precursor batch by measuring the...
US-9,908,103 Mesoporous metal oxides and processes for preparation thereof
A process for preparing a mesoporous metal oxide, i.e., transition metal oxide. Lanthanide metal oxide, a post-transition metal oxide and metalloid oxide. The...
US-9,908,097 Controllability oxidative dehydrogenation process for producing butadiene
Butadiene is made from a butene rich feed by passing a superheated butene rich feed including superheated steam and oxygen at a temperature of at least about...
US-9,908,082 Air ionization system
Ionization systems configured with a catalyst-bearing sleeve provide improved filtration while keeping ozone levels within acceptable limits. Modular...
US-9,908,081 Air ionization methods
US-9,908,022 Combination cooler and portable target tossing game
Certain embodiments of the disclosure combine an insulated cooler and toss game kit, such as a washer toss game. Two insulated halves form a pair of target...
US-9,907,985 Fire risk detection and suppression in a modular gas supply system
A gas pipe terminal assembly for minimization of fire hazards associated with conductance of a flammable substance. The system includes a pipe having a flange...
US-9,907,917 Carpule warmer and dispenser
An apparatus for storing, warming and manually individually dispensing elongated cylindrical vials having different contents, while minimizing error and...
US-9,907,874 Air ionization systems and methods
US-9,907,692 Therapeutic thermal compression device
Systems and methods directed to the art of therapeutic thermal compression are provided. A therapeutic device capable of providing various therapeutic stimuli,...
US-9,907,506 Devices and methods for measuring skin moisture
Technologies are generally described for measuring skin moisture using a skin moisture measuring device. Example devices and systems described herein may...
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Fearless Carla Cunningham and Introduction of ERA in NC
Written by North Carolina NOW
ERA is ‘in the air,’ according to the NC National Organization for Women. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is the topic of a new book – “Equal Means Equal, Why the Time for the Equal Rights Amendment is NOW” by Jessica Neuwirth in 2015.
Oscar winning actress Patricia Arquette used part of her acceptance speech to push for women’s equality Sunday night, February 22, 2015. Women “have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the US of A!” she announced.
And the introduction of ERA in NC was big news at NC Women United’s Women’s Advocacy Day reception on Monday night, February 23, 2015. Rep. Carla Cunningham (D -Mecklenberg) announced that an ERA resolution would be introduced soon in the N.C. House of Representatives.
Cunningham talked about her own experiences as a working mother and in the health care field. She went to the NC Legislature to champion equal pay, and sees the need to champion the Equal Rights Amendment to get there. Cunningham is one of the primary sponsors in the House. Rep. Mickey Michaux (D-Durham) is another primary sponsor.
Cunningham ended with “Be fearless! Keeping moving forward! 2016 is coming, and it’s a woman’s year!”
Senator Josh Stein (D – Wake) and Senator Michael Woodard (D – Durham, Caswell, Person) also spoke at the event. Senator Stein studied NC Women United’s Legislative Agenda, and determined that it “would substantially improve the quality of life of people in North Carolina.” Find the Legislative Agenda at http://www.ncwu.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/NCWU-Womens-Legislative-Agenda-2015.pdf
Senator Woodard talked about how these issues affect women more than men. There are more women living in poverty, for example. And how the NC Legislature has done many bad things to women’s health care. He stated, “we need leadership who cares!” Woodard encouraged women to talk to their representatives. Facilitating that is the purpose of Women’s Advocacy Day.
Senator Floyd McKissick (D – Durham) is primary sponsor of ERA on the Senate side. Senator Terry Van Duyn (D – Buncombe) has also pledged to sponsor, and attended the event.
Representatives from many women’s organizations attended the reception, including Tara Romano, President of NC Women United, who organized the reception and the Women’s Advocacy Day; Roberta Madden, Co-Director of Ratify ERA NC; Marena Groll, President of NC4ERA; Mary Peterson, President of American Associate of University Women of North Carolina; Beth Messersmith, Campaign Director of North Carolina Moms Rising; Judith Scruggs, Vice President/Convener of League of Women Voters of North Carolina; Pat Sledge, President of Business and Professional Women of NC; and Gailya Paliga, President of NC National Organization for Women.
Many people think that the Equal Rights Amendment already wrote women into the U.S. Constitution. After all, it was originally proposed and introduced in U.S. Congress in 1923 by suffragist leader Alice Paul. However, it didn’t pass both chambers of U.S. Congress until 1972, after which it went to state legislatures with a 7 year deadline for ratification. Three quarters of the states, 38 states, had to ratify it. Although Congress extended the deadline to 1982, the amendment fell three states short of ratification. NC is one of the 15 states that have not yet ratified the ERA.
Meanwhile, a series of decisions by the Supreme Court have denied claims of sex discrimination by women. In “Equal Means Equal,” Jessica Neuwirth explains how “ERA would address ongoing pay inequity, workplace discrimination and violence against women.” That is exactly what women need!
Read 21086 times Last modified on Friday, 27 February 2015 02:25
Carla Cunningham
Equal Means Equal
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Thousands March in North Carolina to Protest Voter Suppression
More in this category: « Virginia still deciding if women are equal Patricia Arquette (and All U.S. Women) Need ERA Now »
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DUI Attorney
Criminal Defense Law Blog
Criminal Defense Attorney | Psychology of Law And Criminal Behavior
Blog Published By Kenneth Padowitz, P.A.
‘Mental Illness’
Forensics, Schools and Election Year
Even numbered years are usually election years, and 2018 is no exception. Among other offices under consideration this year are several openings in Parkland school board in Broward County. School board elections are not usually so heated, but this one reflects the emotional atmosphere left by the Parkland school shooting. A Little Background On February 14, 2018, troubled 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire in a high school in Parkland, Florida. Before his shooting spree was over, he murdered seventeen people and wounded seventeen others. When he was done, he calmly ditched the gun and blended in with the students as they left the school. He then went to Walmart and purchased a soda from the Subway there, then went on to McDonald’s where he purchased food. He was subsequently arrested in the Coral Springs district, having been identified from the school surveillance tapes and eye-witnesses. He has since confessed. Aftermath Although school shootings have occurred in frightening numbers since 1999 despite tightened school security, they are still occurring. The Parkland shooting was so horrific that a $75,000 grant for bereavement counseling was given to the community. It… Read More
Can You Use Kleptomania as a Defense For Shoplifting?
Can a person who is caught shoplifting claim temporary insanity by virtue of being kleptomaniac? Is kleptomania a good defense? Kleptomania is a medically recognized psychological disorder. It is an impulse control disorder that ultimately results in those afflicted having the uncontrollable urge to steal other people’s property. The kleptomaniac, unlike the routine shoplifter, does not typically steal for personal gain. This therefore begs the question, if people accused of more serious crimes committed due to a mental disorder can get away with an insanity plea, why can’t a shoplifter use kleptomania as defense? Why not send the accused to a mental health aid program rather than face the consequences of the law if the act was performed under uncontrollable circumstances? Well, it all depends on the law or the state of jurisdiction. In states that follow the M’Nagthen rule, proving kleptomania is no defense. Under the rule, insanity can only be proved by showing that you had a mental defect that prevented you from knowing the exact nature and consequences of your actions. A kleptomaniac is fully aware of what he or she is doing while… Read More
Application of Forensic Psychology to the Criminal Justice System
Forensic psychology has over the years played a key role in the legal field of criminal justice. To fully appreciate how this field of psychology affects criminal justice, it is important to first understand what it is and how it is applied in court cases. Definition of Forensic Psychology Forensic psychology is a unique combination of medical psychology and criminal justice. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines forensic psychology as the use of clinical specialties in the legal system. A forensic psychologist applies psychological principles, data, research, and theory to provide an explanation for criminal acts and behavior. The practice helps to determine whether an accused person should be convicted or pardoned for his or her actions. Chapter 490 of Florida statutes, aptly titled Psychological Services, provides a basis for the application of forensic psychology in the criminal justice system in an increasingly complex society where emotional survival plays a key role in human behavior. How is it Different From Clinical Evaluation? Forensic psychology and clinical assessment follow the same the same procedures of evaluation but differ in the way each field is practiced. A person who… Read More
Deep Connection Between Terrorism and the Criminal Personality
The Wide Scope of Terrorism Terrorism to the average Joe takes a racial and ethnic dimension. Technically, though this is a misrepresentation and terrorism is far more expansive. According to the U.S. Code, terrorism, regardless of its form refers to acts with intent to coerce or intimidate a civilian population. Going by this definition, most criminals operate as terrorists. The victims they terrorize may be as specific as one person or as widespread as an entire country. Terrorism takes different forms. A man guy battering his wife is a terrorist as the wife feels desperate, trapped, threatened, and intimidated. In 2002, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized the population a large swath of the US stretching from Baltimore to Richmond. Their chose act of terrorism was random sniper takedown of complete civilian strangers. Their spate resulted in 10 fatalities and 3 people wounded. Residents cowered in fear based on the uncertainty of who was next on the makeshift hit list. Walking Down Memory Lane Therefore, there exists a deep-seated relationship between terrorism and the criminal personality. In fact, it appears that the criminal personality feeds off… Read More
Delusions and the Social World: The Connection
Has there ever been a society where deluded individuals did not exist? – The answer is probably no. At one time or another, virtually every psychiatric hospital of decent size had their hands full with people who thought they were Jesus Christ or spies for either of two cold-warring intelligence agencies—CIA or KGB. Today, the mix is evolving. We now have quite a lot of individuals who think they are reality TV stars—the Kardashians in the psych wards so to speak. For these individuals, the whole package is present—directors, camera crews, and the audience. Except of course, the pros are out of sight. Thing is, the phenomenon is not restricted to those who end in the psych wards. More people than you’d realize exhibit the phenomenon, only not so dire that they need special psychiatric evaluation. Mild as it may appear; a public clinic psychiatrist in London estimated that one or two in every 10 patients he examined have had the sensation of being filmed. The phenomenon is commonly called the Truman Show Delusion and interestingly the population most affected is the young. The colloquial name for… Read More
The courts take a jab at civil detention practices: What about professionals?
The trend in the courts In the last three months, two consecutive court decisions have deemed the civil commitment program to be unconstitutional. Which is insightful because 20 states and the federal government uphold some form of the civil commitment laws also called “SVP” laws. To put it simply, the laws permit authorities to confine indefinitely, sex offenders expertly assessed to have mental diagnosis that makes them more likely to engage in future sexual violence. In retrospect, the laws have had several dates with controversies from day one. Almost everything about the laws, related processes, and subsequent programs spark debates. In fact, the US Supreme Court decision permitting civil commitment to exist narrowly passed by a lone vote. Now, the debates are increasingly tilting towards a consensus, at least in the courts, that civil commitment as currently practiced in many regions is unconstitutional and needs to be worked on to check widespread abuses. What the stats say The reality is that ‘indefinite’ is a very long time, and in one of the cases where the court had to censure civil commitment, the treatment program had ran for… Read More
Emotional Extremes Of A Criminal Not Necessarily An Emotional Disorder
A lot of criminals or social offenders are characterized by quick changes in their moods, from extremely high to extremely low. These changes in moods can happen frequently — even within a single day of a criminal’s life. He or she may appear to be elated at one time, feeling that he or she is in control, but in a short span of time, will just snap out of it and become sad and bad-tempered. These quick changes in moods may be seen by others as an emotional disorder that needs medical attention. Realistically speaking, if a professional were to look into a criminal’s mind, he or she will soon determine that a criminal’s quickly changing moods may really because of his or her unrealistic expectations of the people around him or her and of himself or herself. Offenders commit such mistakes of setting improper expectations and when he or she commits crimes, it is because he or she thinks there is something wrong with other people, not with himself or herself. He or she expects other people to behave the way he or she expects them… Read More
Should We Be More Concerned With Prenatal Exposure In The Prevention Of Crime?
Crime and violence has existed throughout human history, and the search for answers as to what causes such behavior has lead to a variety of proposed theories. Criminal behavior is often associated with a variety of social and environmental risk factors that people are exposed to throughout life; lack of education, unstable family life and poverty are some of the most common examples. According to this perspective, crime is a result of a combination of these risk factors that people are exposed to in their lifetime. The purpose of this post is to explore another perspective, which emphasizes the role prenatal exposure to environmental and biological substances plays in the development of criminal behavior later in life. The effects of lead exposure, and maternal and second-hand smoking will be discussed, along with statistics as they relate to the topic. Additionally, the evolutionary neuroandrogenic theory, which suggests a link between prenatal androgen exposure and criminal behavior, will be examined. The goal of this post is to highlight the complexity of crime, and to help illustrate why one particular theory alone is not sufficient in determining the origin of… Read More
Study Review: Borderline Personality Disorder and Social-Cognitive Deficits
Those afflicted with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are characterized with a variety of cognitive and emotional deficits seen throughout life regarding the regulation of emotions, impulsivity, and maladaptive images of self and others. This often leads to a pattern of unstable interpersonal relationships. Early life trauma and genetics are theorized to play major roles in the development of this condition. Up until recently, research has mostly been focused on the neurophysiological abnormalities that may play a role in the disorder, particularly in the amygdala, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex, all of which are thought to be involved in emotional and affective processing, and the regulation responses to stress. The purpose of this post is to review a study called “Dysregulation between emotion and theory of mind networks in borderline personality disorder”. Rather than strictly look at the physiological aspects of borderline personality disorder, researchers O’Neill and colleagues instead focus on the potential social-cognitive deficits, including mentalization and theory of mind, while also observing any differences in functional connectivity within the neural networks. Mentalization refers to the process in which people internally and externally interpret the actions of… Read More
Hare’s Idea of a Psychopath
What Is A Psychopath? Psychopath is a term used to describe a person with a certain cluster of psychological, interpersonal, and neurophysiological traits, distinguishing them from the rest of the population. Robert Hare, an expert in psychopathy, describes these individuals as: “…social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and empathy, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of regret. Hare also separated psychopaths into three distinct categories: the primary psychopath, the neurotic psychopath (also known as secondary), and the dyssocial psychopath. What is a Primary Psychopath? According to Hare, the primary psychopath is the “true” psychopath; secondary and dyssocial psychopaths have little in common physiologically with that of a primary psychopath. A primary psychopath has certain cognitive, psychological, emotional, and neurophysiological differences that separate them from the other types of psychopaths, and the general public. These individuals are believed to be charming, and are often above average in intelligence. Genetics is believed to… Read More
Aggravating & Mitigating Circumstances (13)
Criminal Defenses (9)
Eyewitness Testimony (1)
Risk Factors (15)
Some Forensic Alertness Can Be Practiced by Anyone
Forensics, Confidentiality & The Law
Fishing in Heraclitus’ River: An Examination of Criminal Psychology and Rehabilitation
What is Forensic Psychology?
Confessions, Forensic Psychology, and DNA Evidence
Forensic Psychologists Examine Why Criminals Post Crimes on Social Media
What Constitutes a Criminal Assault?
Can Addiction Be Used as Legal Defense for Drug Possession Charges?
How “Expert” is Expert Testimony?
Cultural Influence On Crime
Rational Choice as a Theory of Crime
The Unflinching “Super-Optimism” of Criminals
Kenneth Padowitz, P.A.
12 SE 7th St #700 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Copyright© Psychology of Law and Criminal Behavior
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There was a man
There was a man who lived east of the Mediterranean among a people who thought that the end of injustice and oppression, cruelty and war was imminent. They saw this as a God-given promise to be effected by a God-given agent.
This man said that they did not have to wait for this longed-for new world any longer. All they had to do was to live as if that state of affairs already existed. In his relationship with God and with other people he did just that, and invited others to join him.
As popular as this message was with the lowly it posed a threat to the high and mighty ones; consequently he was executed as a blasphemer and traitor.
However execution could not remove him from the scene. His power was felt far beyond his own nation, touching people of many races, nations and communities, and even now stands as a beacon of hope for the world.
No, the world has not yet become a realm of perfect relationships whether between God and humanity or between individuals, communities or nations. Many find that inner peace eludes them. However he still remains the light of the world, the hope for something better, an agent for change.
As in his own day, he is misunderstood and misused, but he still reflects divine love, grace and mercy as no one else can and his voice still rings with a love-inspired authority beyond all imitation.
Look beyond the crimes and folly perpetrated in his name. See through the institutionalism and fanaticism that has clouded the scene. Observe one who is for all people of every race, language, nationality, sexuality or gender, religion or ideology, one who offers hope for all.
He shows the possibility of a more just and humane society – one that is compassionate and respectful to all. He offers freedom to those who feel trapped by their own failure to live up to what they know they should be. Through him people experience divine acceptance and forgiveness, friendship and love.
Jesus: the outline of a new humanity
With Jesus, a new humanity came into existence, one that is not determined by evolutionary events, by nature or nurture, history or culture, but one that is shaped by a visionary future. He called that future the kingdom of God. This was a vision of a world re-made where everyone found acceptance and respect; a realm of peace and justice, goodness and integrity; a world where everyone lived in right and harmonious relationship with God, with other people, with oneself, and with the environment. That’s the vision he lived by, and that’s the vision he invited others to live by too.
This might look like an impossible dream, and in many ways it is. It is an unrealized vision, but a vision that summons us, a vision that won’t let us go. It is experienced as a desire for a better world, a longing for peace, justice, goodness and integrity to prevail. It’s the hope that keeps people going through cruel and painful experiences. It is shared by people of all races and religions. It’s that deep-seated longing for a new humanity which constantly eludes us.
But it’s not just a dream. We have seen it lived out in a real, live, person in history. The old ways of being human killed him, but did not defeat him. I have seen glimpses of it in other people that I know.
Jesus the Artist
Jesus has been portrayed from many different points of view, but to me, it is most important that he be seen as a poet and an artist. He was a wonderful storyteller, made frequent use of imagery, was intuitive and holistic. Although they can give us much useful information, left-brain dominant hisgtorians, scientists and theologians will never really grasp what he was on about. One has to take the intuitive leap to see what he could see: to grasp the spirit, life and wonder that he sought to communicate.
Terrible distortions
Christians make me sick – sometimes. They take Jesus as I meet him through the gospels away and put a pseudo-Jesus in his place. To my way of thinking, they distort him beyond recognition. Sometimes it’s done under the pretext of defending him, but in doing so he gets crucified again. Christians have sought revenge on those they regard as his enemies in direct contradiction to his instruction and example. The one who stood steadfastly against all hypocrisy, pretence and falsehood becomes the centre for systems of quackery and the subject of fraudulent claims. Although he insisted that devotion to wealth was quite incompatible with devotion to God some of his so-called followers have turned devotion to wealth into an art form. You don’t have to point to those who sold indulgences to pay for the building of St Peter’s basilica in Rome or to princes of the church who wrapped themselves in riches in the past; just look at evangelists today who become wealthy on the back of a prosperity gospel that openly holds out material wealth and possessions as a reward for faith. The one who prayed for his followers that they all may be one has become the centre for argument leading to division, suspicion and rivalry. The one who rejected violence, retaliation and killing has sometimes become the rallying cry for war. Christians have burnt heretics, encouraged racism, held back scientific discovery, plundered the earth and its resources, suppressed women, and persecuted homosexual people, just to mention those evils that immediately come to mind. However in spite of all this Jesus comes to me as humanity’s greatest hope. In his powerful humility and self-giving love he offers freedom from and victory over those restraints that prevent people from being all that they were intended to be; all the dehumanizing forces, all the godless emptiness of futile existence, and all the destructive forces that tear communities apart.
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English (pdf)
Article references
SA Journal of Industrial Psychology
Print version ISSN 0258-5200
SA j. ind. Psychol. vol.44 n.1 Johannesburg 2018
http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v44i0.1539
Perceived organisational support and well-being: The role of psychological capital as a mediator
Anja Roemer; Chantel Harris
Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
ORIENTATION: Today's competitive work environment requires organisations and employees to successfully cope with challenges to maintain healthy levels of well-being. It is, therefore, imperative to investigate which organisational and psychological factors contribute to well-being in employees.
RESEARCH PURPOSE: This study served to analyse whether psychological capital (PsyCap) mediates the relationship between perceived organisational support (POS) and well-being.
MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY: In light of the positive psychology movement, this study aimed to investigate how positive constructs actively contribute to employee well-being. Knowledge of organisational and psychological factors that enhance well-being in employees will be of great benefit to organisations that aim to create positivity in the workplace in order to avoid the negative consequences of work-related stress and a toxic work environment.
RESEARCH APPROACH/DESIGN AND METHOD: A cross-sectional, non-experimental design, applying convenience and snowball sampling, was used to recruit 159 South African employees who completed an online survey that assessed the constructs under investigation.
MAIN FINDINGS: It was found that POS, PsyCap and well-being are positively correlated to one another. Moreover, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that PsyCap fully mediates the relationship between POS and well-being.
PRACTICAL/MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS: These findings imply that organisations should be committed to target their employees' PsyCap to enhance well-being in their workforce.
CONTRIBUTION/VALUE-ADD: The findings show that it is not sufficient just to provide organisational support to enhance well-being. Organisations also need to acknowledge the important role of their employees' PsyCap to ensure that they are well equipped to deal with challenges in the workplace while maintaining healthy levels of well-being.
The discipline of psychology has focused to a great extent on the treatment of dysfunctional behaviour. As a consequence, the studies of organisational behaviour were also preoccupied with research on the negative aspects of employee behaviour, such as counter-productive behaviour, work stress and burnout (Youssef-Morgan & Luthans, 2015). The negative consequences of work-related stress not only have a negative impact on the well-being of employees but also on organisations. Poor employee well-being is related to low levels of organisational commitment (Matin, Kalali, & Anvari, 2012), more absenteeism (Olivares-Faúndez, Gil-Monte, Mena, Jélvez-Wilke, & Figueiredo-Ferraz 2014), a decrease in productivity (Dewa, Loong, Bonato, Thanh & Jacobs, 2014), low job satisfaction and increased turnover intentions (Smoktunowicz et al., 2015). It should, therefore, be in the interest of organisations to create a work environment that contributes to employee well-being. Competition in global markets and stress in the workplace cannot be avoided, but how individuals deal with challenging demands can be influenced.
The job demands-resources (JD-R) theory proposes that job resources and personal resources buffer the negative effects of job demands and that job demands increase the motivational effects of resources (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014). The conservation of resources (COR) theory suggests that resources accumulate and protect individuals from resource loss, which facilitates dealing with stress (Hobfoll, 1989). Based on these theories, the present study aims to investigate how POS, seen as a job resource, and the personal resource of psychological capital (PsyCap), a higher order construct consisting of the facets of self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism, interact in order to contribute to well-being in employees.
Background to the study
Positive psychology aims to investigate positive qualities and factors that contribute to growth and well-being (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). This offers a valuable approach to target the issue of stress and its negative consequences in the workplace. Absenteeism, decreased productivity and low levels of organisational commitment as a result of low levels of health cause financial costs that can be avoided. The absence of ill-being, however, cannot be equated with the presence of well-being (Achor, 2011). It is, therefore, important to analyse which organisational and personal variables assist employees in dealing with challenges and stress to actively enhance well-being and maintain health. The positive constructs of POS and PsyCap are factors that might contribute to higher levels of well-being. POS refers to the perceptions of employees regarding the extent to which their organisation expresses appreciation and concern in terms of their well-being (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa, 1986). PsyCap is referred to as a person's psychological state of development. It is a higher order construct consisting of the facets of self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism (Luthans, Youssef-Morgan, & Avolio, 2015). Previous research showed that POS, as well as PsyCap, are positively related to well-being (Avey, Luthans, Smith, & Palmer, 2010; Caesens, Stinglhamber, & Ohana, 2016; Malinowski & Lim, 2015). It is assumed that job resources assist personal resources to develop and flourish (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2007). If POS is seen as a job resource and PsyCap as a personal resource, it can be argued that POS works in favour of PsyCap. There is evidence that POS and PsyCap are positively linked to each other (Azim & Dora, 2016; Sihag & Sarikwal, 2015). Based on these research findings, it is assumed that PsyCap acts as a mediator in the relationship between POS and well-being. Other studies could already show that PsyCap mediates the relationship between instructor support (Nielsen, Newman, Smyth, Hirst, & Heilemann, 2017) and well-being, as well as the relationship between social support (Li et al., 2014) and well-being. PsyCap also has a mediating effect between POS and depressive symptoms (Liu, Hu, Wang, Sui, & Ma, 2013). These studies indicate that PsyCap plays a significant role between support and well-being, but to date no study has investigated the mediating role of PsyCap between POS and positive well-being. The present study aims to target this gap in the existing body of research.
The primary objective of the study is to investigate the relationship between POS, PsyCap and well-being. Organisations are often committed to offer support that contributes to the well-being of their employees. It will be valuable to analyse the underlying mechanism that accounts for the positive effect of POS on well-being. It is proposed that organisational support might fuel a positive mindset, which is characterised by high levels of self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism. These four personal resources make up the higher order construct of PsyCap. Employees high in PsyCap might have the attitude, energy and strength that protect them from the negative consequences of stress in the workplace and might, therefore, experience higher levels of well-being. This study therefore aims to address the question as to whether PsyCap plays a mediating role in the relationship between POS and well-being. The following section will outline the constructs under investigation and the theoretical framework that supports the assumed relationship of these constructs.
Perceived organisational support
Perceived organisational support refers to employees' perceptions regarding the extent to which their organisation appreciates their effort and cares about their well-being (Eisenberger et al., 1986). POS incorporates the employee's belief that appreciation is expressed through payment, job enrichment, recognition and other forms of benefits. Concern regarding employee well-being is also shown through the offer of organisational policies and human resources practices that facilitate meeting and balancing job demands, and demands outside work (Worley, Fuqua, & Hellman, 2009).
Perceived organisational support meets the employee's socio-emotional needs, which contribute to the identification with the organisation, affective commitment (Kurtessis et al., 2017) and positive affect (Caesens et al., 2016). The principle of reciprocity from the social exchange theory also explains the positive consequences of POS. If employees feel supported, they are likely to return the appreciation by showing good performance, which in turn raises the expectation to be rewarded for it (Kurtessis et al., 2017). The principle of reciprocity is also applied if a lack of support or even abusive treatment by the organisation is evident. Unfavourable treatment is likely to result in poor employee behaviour (Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007).
Factors that influence perceptions of organisational support are supervisor behaviour, the quality of relationship between the employee and the organisation, and human resource practices (Kurtessis et al., 2017). A supervisor acts as the representative of the organisation, and for this reason, supportive supervisor behaviour is a good predictor of POS (Kurtessis et al., 2017). The quality of the relationship is also an important factor influencing POS. It is proposed that the psychological contract between the organisation and the employee moderates the relationship between favourable or unfavourable treatment and POS (Aselage & Eisenberger, 2003). The psychological contract between an employee and the organisation refers to perceptions in terms of what they owe each other (Robinson, 1996). When an employer treats an employee favourably, exceeding the expectations of the psychological contract, POS will be higher (Aselage & Eisenberger, 2003). For this reason, it is important that employees attribute the organisation's support to their sincere concern regarding the well-being of employees. Kurtessis et al. (2017) in a meta-analysis identified that certain organisational policies and human resource practices are positively related to POS. Identified factors were opportunities for development, job security, family supportive policies, job enriching characteristics, autonomy and participation in decision-making (Kurtessis et al., 2017).
Establishing a supportive organisational environment is a valuable investment for employers. Research has shown that POS is positively linked to employee engagement and well-being (Caesens et al., 2016) and negatively related to burnout (Walters & Raybould, 2007). It is, therefore, valuable for organisations to implement support structures to achieve desirable outcomes such as well-being in employees.
Psychological capital
Psychological capital incorporates the four distinct dimensions of self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism. Psychological capital is a higher order construct, which implies that PsyCap's distinct dimensions also share some variance or commonality, which make up the higher order factor. This commonality across PsyCap's dimensions contributes to motivation, desirable attitudes, task and goal accomplishment (Luthans, Avolio, Avey, & Norman, 2007). It is proposed that PsyCap's higher order structure represents one's 'positive appraisal of circumstances and probability for success based on motivated effort and perseverance' (Luthans et al., 2007, p. 550). In addition, PsyCap is considered to be a state-like construct, which means that it is malleable and can be developed within the individual (Luthans et al., 2007). There are face-to-face and web-based interventions that were shown to enhance an individual's level of PsyCap (Luthans, Avey, Avolio, & Peterson, 2010; Luthans, Avey, & Patera, 2008). This malleability is an important characteristic, because organisations might be able to influence and develop the PsyCap of their employees. The four dimensions of PsyCap will be outlined in the following sections.
Self-efficacy is defined as one's perception regarding his or her ability to execute required tasks successfully (Bandura, 1982) and involves the mobilisation of those cognitive resources that facilitate the required or desired performance (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Luthans et al. (2015) emphasise that individuals high in self-efficacy feel energised and are motivated to accomplish challenging tasks. Resources, and organisational resources, are strong predictors of self-efficacy in employees, given the case that employees do not suffer from role overload (Brown, Jones, & Leigh, 2005). Highly efficacious individuals make use of self-regulatory processes that assist in the reduction of negative emotions because of stress. High levels of self-efficacy, therefore, protect employees from negative consequences that might arise from a stressful work environment (Fida, Paciello, Tramontano, Barbaranelli, & Farnese, 2015).
Hope refers to a cognitive state that drives the goal pursuit process by allowing individuals to set challenging goals and finding ways to achieve these goals (Luthans et al., 2015). Hope consists of an agency component and a pathways component. Agency refers to the mental willpower to achieve a goal. Pathways refer to actions that successfully lead to goal accomplishment. The pathways component also involves the ability to seek alternative ways to goal accomplishment in case the circumstances require it (Snyder, 2002). Individuals who obtain high levels of hope will think of other ways that help them to achieve a goal when the initial route to goal attainment gets blocked. A certain degree of self-control and self-regulatory behaviour is crucial for effective agency and pathways thinking (Vohs & Schmeichel, 2002), in order to manage cognitions, feelings and behaviour that would interfere with goal attainment (Inzlicht, Schmeichel, & Macrae, 2014). High levels of hope, which are characterised by the aforementioned positive cognitive processes, are negatively linked to depression and positively linked to well-being (Alarcon, Bowling, & Khazon, 2013). Hope might, therefore, be a valuable personal resource that contributes to employee well-being.
There are many definitions of resilience, but most of them share the view that one must show adaption and/or growth in the face of adversity (Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, & Klieger, 2016). Individuals who have faced stress or trauma often experience mental and physical issues or even develop a post-traumatic stress disorder. Research shows that individuals might also experience positive mental outcomes after having faced severe adversity, referring to it as post-traumatic growth. Post-traumatic growth describes a process of individual development, which goes beyond recovery to the individual's pre-traumatic state (Zoellner & Maercker, 2006). When applied to work, resilience can be defined as 'a developmental trajectory characterized by demonstrated competence in the face of, and professional growth after, experiences of adversity in the workplace' (Caza & Milton, 2012, p. 896). Luthans et al. (2015) emphasise that risk factors and adversity should not be regarded as a threat, but rather be seen as a chance to develop skills that would have been undiscovered without the presence of difficulties, which might possibly result in personal growth. The acquisition of these skills helps to successfully cope with future challenges. Individuals who obtain high levels of resilience are, therefore, more likely to experience higher levels of well-being (Souri & Hasanirad, 2011).
Optimism can be regarded as general positive expectations regarding the future (Carver, Scheier, & Segerstrom, 2010), as well as a specific explanatory style that attributes failure and setbacks to external, temporary circumstances. Success, in contrast, is attributed to internal and stable factors (Seligman, 2002). Both views are considered important because positive expectations only manifest in PsyCap optimism if correct attributions are made as to why specific events occur (Luthans et al., 2015). Luthans et al. (2015) highlight an important characteristic of PsyCap optimism as the ability to adjust one's level of optimism when the circumstances require it. Consistently attributing failure to external factors is dangerous and might bias perceptions of reality. Moreover, individuals should also be able to show gratitude regarding external variables that have contributed to success (Luthans et al., 2015). Optimistic individuals focus on the positive aspects of life by showing leniency for happenings in the past, being appreciative of the present and by seeking beneficial opportunities in the future (Schneider, 2001). Because of these positive cognitions, optimists are more likely to experience higher levels of well-being and lower levels of distress (Desrumaux et al., 2015).
The term 'well-being' is commonly used in daily life and everyone might have a slightly different understanding of what well-being incorporates. For this reason, it is important to outline how well-being was defined and conceptualised in the present study. Scientific discussions regarding well-being often refer to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. These two well-being concepts evolved from distinct philosophical perspectives. Aristippus, an ancient Greek philosopher, as well as the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham, understood well-being as hedonism, which focuses on the experience and maximisation of pleasure (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Hedonic well-being is, therefore, regarded to be affective in nature. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, in contrast, stated that life should be about more than the simple experience of pleasure and positive affect. He proposed that an individual should rather strive to become the best he or she can be in order to achieve high levels of well-being, which is referred to as eudaimonia (Ryff & Singer, 2008). Eudaimonic well-being is rather regarded as being cognitive in nature, where individuals show positive psychological functioning and are motivated to strive towards their full potential (Waterman, Schwartz, & Conti, 2008).
Although it is popular to assess hedonic and eudaimonic well-being separately, it remains questionable whether hedonia and eudaimonia, which are based on different philosophies, are distinct constructs from a scientific point of view. Two recent studies have investigated whether hedonic and eudaimonic well-being differ from a psychometric and scientific perspective (Disabato, Goodman, Kashdan, Short, & Jarden, 2016; Longo, Coyne, Joseph, & Gustavsson, 2016). Both studies found that hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being possess low discriminant validity because of high correlations between these constructs. These findings indicate that the distinction between hedonia and eudaimonia is rather a philosophical than a scientific one. It is suggested that well-being is rather seen as one general well-being factor that incorporates hedonic as well as eudaimonic aspects (Longo et al., 2016). Consequently, well-being in the present study was assessed with a unidimensional measure that includes hedonia as well as eudaimonia.
Research has shown that employee well-being is linked to desirable outcomes, such as higher levels of productivity (Oswald, Proto, & Sgroi, 2015) and less absenteeism because of sick-leave (Straume & Vittersø, 2015). Consequently, organisations should be interested in promoting and maintaining their employees' well-being. Employees who experience positivity and express high levels of positive psychological functioning are valuable assets to any organisation. It is, therefore, imperative to analyse organisational and personal factors that contribute to employee well-being.
Relationships between constructs
This study aims to analyse how POS, PsyCap and well-being relate to one another. The following section will outline the theoretical frameworks that underpin the proposed relationship between the three variables of interest.
The JD-R theory takes job demands, job resources and personal resources into account to make predictions regarding well-being and performance (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014). JD-R theory assumes that job demands and job resources facilitate different processes. Job demands are predictors of health impairment, such as physical exhaustion and psychosomatic symptoms, while job resources predict motivational processes. In addition to that, job demands and job resources interact in two ways: Bakker and Demerouti (2014) state that resources, on the one hand, buffer the negative effects of job demands, and that demands on the other hand, can enhance the motivational effects of resources by making them more salient in challenging situations. This means that employees who feel supported while dealing with challenging demands are less likely to show symptoms of health impairment and might exhibit greater positive psychological functioning. Moreover, JD-R theory acknowledges the importance of personal resources. Bakker and Demerouti (2014) outline that interventions and training, which can also be considered a form of organisational support, are useful ways to enhance the personal resources of employees, particularly referring to Luthans et al.'s (2010) PsyCap intervention. Previous research has shown that the personal resources of self-efficacy and optimism are partial mediators in the relationship between job resources and engagement (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). This finding implies that job resources might help personal resources to flourish.
Hobfoll's (1989) COR theory states that individuals are interested in accumulating, maintaining and protecting resources, which assist them in dealing with stress. The COR theory acknowledges that resources seldom occur separately; they rather tend to accumulate and reinforce each other in caravan passageways (Chen, Westman, & Hobfoll, 2015). Chen et al. (2015) define caravan passageways as those environmental circumstances that help to foster and protect resources. As a consequence, a supportive organisational environment will help employees to accumulate and sustain resources, for instance by enhancing personal resources. With reference to the JD-R and the COR theory, the potential positive relationship of POS, PsyCap and well-being can be explained.
Perceived organisational support can be regarded as a job resource and PsyCap as a personal resource. Job resources are related to overall well-being by buffering the negative effects of job demands. Moreover, job resources initiate motivational processes (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014). Motivational processes relate to an individual's interest in personal growth and level of psychological functioning, which form part of well-being in the present study. In addition to that, support creates a feeling of security in case help is needed and fulfils the employee's socio-emotional needs, which is associated with positive affect, which is also regarded as a facet of well-being (Caesens et al., 2016). This means, with regard to POS, the employees who perceive to have higher levels of organisational support are more likely to experience higher levels of well-being. This assumption lays the foundation for the first hypothesis:
H1: POS is positively related to well-being.
Job resources fuel personal resources (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). With reference to the concept of caravan passageways, it is suggested that organisational support contributes to an organisational environment that enriches, fosters and protects resources, such as personal resources (Chen et al., 2015). With regard to the present study, it is proposed that a supportive organisation creates conditions that enhance its employees' PsyCap:
H2: POS is positively related to PsyCap.
Personal resources such as PsyCap facilitate the accurate appraisal of the current situation. The positive cognitive and behavioural processes of PsyCap's facets are, therefore, a significant predictor of well-being (Avey et al., 2010). Employees high in PsyCap are able to interpret situations in a positive and beneficial manner, feel motivated and energised, and have the ability to show adaption in the face of adversity, which leads to the third hypothesis:
H3: PsyCap is positively related to well-being.
It is proposed that a supportive organisation will create a positive environment that enables PsyCap to flourish. The personal resource of PsyCap helps employees deal with challenges and to cope with stress because of its beneficial cognitive and behavioural processes, which in turn result in higher levels of well-being. It is, therefore, proposed that the relationship between POS and well-being is mediated by PsyCap.
H4: PsyCap mediates the relationship between POS and well-being:
The present study applied a non-experimental, cross-sectional design using an online survey for the purpose of data collection.
Research participants
Convenience and snowball sampling methods were utilised to recruit a non-probability sample of South African employees. This sampling method was used to gain a sample from a variety of professions. Recruiting participants from a single organisation was avoided to reduce bias in the measures, as POS, in particular, may be subject to social desirability (Boateng, 2014). Individuals were eligible to participate in the survey if they were South Africans who were employed, but not self-employed. Table 1 displays the participants' demographic data. The final sample consisted of 159 participants. More than one-third (35.2%) were younger than 30 years old; 22.6% were between 30 and 39 years old, 16.4% were between 40 and 49 years old, 14.5% were aged between 50 and 59, while 11.3% were 60 years or older. The majority of respondents were either Afrikaans- (46.5%) or English- (39.6%) speaking, and 47.2% of the respondents were married. With regard to educational qualifications, 54.7% indicated that they had obtained a matric, a diploma or a certificate degree as their highest qualification, while 43.5% had a university degree. The respondents were working in the field of education (24.5%), administration (20.1%), health (11.9%), engineering/construction (8.2%), sales/marketing (10.7%), finance and/or accounting (6.9%), human resources (3.8%) or another field of occupation (13.8%).
Data was assessed with a composite questionnaire containing three measures and demographic variables.
The unidimensional and shortened Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS) (Eisenberger et al., 1986) was used in the present study to assess POS. It consists of eight items, which can be rated on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = moderately disagree, 3 = slightly disagree, 4 = neither disagree nor agree, 5 = slightly agree, 6 = moderately agree and 7 = strongly agree). Sample items are the following: 'The organization really cares about my well-being' or 'The organization would ignore any complaint from me (R)'. The shortened version of the SPOS has shown to be reliable in previous research, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.91 (Shen et al., 2014).
The Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ-24, Luthans et al., 2007) was used to measure PsyCap in the present study. The questionnaire consists of four subscales measuring self-efficacy, hope, resilience and optimism. Each subscale consists of 6 items, making up 24 items in total, and are rated on a six-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = somewhat disagree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5 = agree and 6 = strongly agree). The measure comprises statements, such as: 'I feel confident analyzing a long-term problem to find a solution' (self-efficacy), 'If I should find myself in a jam at work, I could think of many ways to get out of it' (hope) or 'When I have a setback at work, I have trouble recovering from it, moving on' (resilience).1.
The PCQ-24 has been shown to be a reliable measure for South African samples, exhibiting Cronbach's alphas of 0.83 (self-efficacy), 0.81 (hope), 0.69 (resilience), 0.67 (optimism) and 0.85 (total PsyCap) (Görgens-Ekermans & Herbert, 2013).
Well-being was assessed with the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS, Tennant et al., 2007). It is a unidimensional measure consisting of 14 items that refer to hedonic as well as eudaimonic well-being. The items are rated on a five-point Likert scale (1 = none of the time, 2 = rarely, 3 = some of the time, 4 = often and 5 = all of the time) and include statements such as 'I've had energy to spare' or 'I've been feeling cheerful'. Previous research reported Cronbach's alphas of 0.89 and 0.92 and is, therefore, considered a reliable measure (Malinowski & Lim, 2015; Tennant et al., 2007).
Research procedure and ethical considerations
An invitation message containing the survey link was sent to contacts. These contacts were asked to forward it to their contacts and the link was also shared on social media platforms. When clicking on the link, participants were informed about the anonymous and voluntary nature of the study and that obtained data would be treated with confidentiality. Participants were also informed prior to commencement that they had the right to withdraw from the survey at any point in time. No identifiable data were captured by the online survey ensuring the participant's anonymity.
The Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 was used to perform the statistical analyses. Means, standard deviations and Cronbach's alphas were calculated to analyse the measures of the assessed constructs and Pearson product-moment correlations were calculated to determine relationships. Hierarchical regression following Baron and Kenny's (1986) causal step approach was applied to analyse a mediating effect. To have a mediating effect, the independent variable, also called predictor (POS), has to be related to the dependent variable (well-being). Furthermore, the independent variable has to be related to the mediating variable (PsyCap), and the mediating variable must also be related to the dependent variable. Full mediation is given if the impact of the independent variable is not significant when controlling for the mediating variable. Partial mediation is given if the impact of the independent variable is significant, but weaker when controlling for the mediator, than it was without the mediator (Baron & Kenny, 1986). A concern regarding cross-sectional, self-reported data is bias because of common method variance (CMV), which implies that correlations are inflated, owing to the assessment of different constructs at the same time (Lindell & Whitney, 2001). Harman's one-factor test was conducted in order to test for bias. All items were entered into an exploratory factor analysis. The unrotated factor solution was then analysed regarding a single factor that explains the majority of the variance in the data. If one single factor emerged, this finding might be attributed to the method (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986).
Cronbach's alpha coefficients
A generally accepted rule to consider a measure reliable is a Cronbach's alpha of 0.70 and higher (Taber, 2017). All measures revealed very high reliability with the SPOS having a Cronbach's alpha of 0.89, the PCQ-24 showing a Cronbach's alpha of 0.90 and the WEMWBS expressing a Cronbach's alpha of 0.93. The subscales of the PCQ-24 showed a similar pattern as the one found by Görgens-Ekermans and Herbert (2013). The subscales of self-efficacy (α = 0.79) and hope (α = 0.84) were shown reliable. The subscales of resilience (α = 0.64) and optimism (α = 0.67) revealed lower internal consistency scores. Cronbach's alpha of the resilience and optimism subscale could be substantially increased (resilience: Δ α = 0.06; optimism: Δ α = 0.05) by removing items 13 and 20. The reliability of the entire subscales increased to α = 0.70 for resilience and to α = 0.72 for optimism. These scores are considered reliable and for this reason items 13 and 20 were removed from further analyses, which increased Cronbach's alpha for the entire PCQ-24 to 0.91.
Descriptive statistics and Pearson product-moment correlations
Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and Pearson product-moment correlations for the measures.
The respondents feel supported rather than unsupported by the organisation for which they work, with the SPOS mean score (M = 4.73, SD = 1.36) exceeding the midpoint of the SPOS scale. The respondents' level of PsyCap and well-being is fairly high, with the PCQ-24 (M = 4.75, SD = 0.66) and the WEMWBS (M = 3.82, SD = 0.70) mean scores falling into the upper thirds of their respective scales.
Perceived organisational support is positively correlated to PsyCap r = 0.53, p < 0.01 and to well-being r = 0.42, p < 0.01. PsyCap also shows a positive strong correlation to well-being r = 0.65, p < 0.01. Moreover, PsyCap's facets are significantly and positively related to POS and well-being. POS is positively correlated to self-efficacy r = 0.39, p < 0.01, hope r = 0.50, p < 0.01, resilience r = 0.29, p < 0.01 and optimism r = 0.59, p < 0.01. Well-being is positively correlated to self-efficacy r = 0.36, p < 0.01, hope r = 0.59, p < 0.01, resilience r = 0.56, p < 0.01 and optimism r = 0.69, p < 0.01.
Mediation analysis
A hierarchical regression was conducted to verify Baron and Kenny's (1986) condition that the independent variable is related to the mediating variable. POS was used as the predictor and PsyCap as the dependent variable. The hierarchical regression is presented in Table 3.
In the first step, all demographic factors were entered into the regression equation as control variables. In the second step, POS as a predictor of PsyCap was added to the regression equation. The first step shows that the demographic variables explain 6% of the variance in PsyCap. When controlling for the demographic variables in the second step, POS turns out to be a significant predictor of PsyCap (β = 0.56, p < 0.001). POS is able to explain an additional 30% of the variance in PsyCap. These results show that POS is related to PsyCap and Baron and Kenny's (1986) condition regarding the independent and the mediating variable being related is, thus, met.
To test whether the independent and the mediating variables are related to the dependent variable, another hierarchical regression was conducted. The demographics were used as controls, and POS and PsyCap were entered as predictors of well-being step-wise. The results are presented in Table 4.
In the first step, all demographic factors were entered into the regression equation as control variables. In the second step, POS as a predictor of well-being was added to the regression equation. In the third step, PsyCap was also entered into the regression equation. The first step shows that the demographic variables account for 11% of the variance in well-being. When POS is added to the regression equation in step two, it becomes evident that POS is a significant predictor of well-being (β = 0.43, p < 0.001). This fulfils the condition of the independent variable being related to the dependent variable (Baron & Kenny, 1986). POS accounts for an additional variance of 17% towards well-being. When PsyCap is entered in the third step, it is revealed that PsyCap is positively related to well-being (β = 0.56, p < 0.001). PsyCap explains an additional 19% of variance in well-being. This meets Baron and Kenny's (1986) condition of the mediator being related to the dependent variable. The proposed model explains 47% of variance in well-being in total. Moreover, POS experiences a large decrease in beta weight when adding PsyCap, dropping from β = 0.43, p < 0.001 to β = 0.11, p = 0.13, which implies that it is no longer a significant predictor of well-being. The insignificance of POS as a predictor of well-being when adding PsyCap is an indicator of full mediation.
The results support all the set hypotheses. The data analysis showed that POS is positively correlated to well-being. Moreover, POS is a significant positive predictor of well-being (Table 4). H1 is, therefore, supported. POS also turned out to be positively correlated to PsyCap and is also a significant positive predictor of PsyCap (Table 3). For this reason, H2 is supported. Psychological capital exhibits a strong correlation with well-being and is also of predictive value in terms of well-being (Table 4). H3 is, thus, supported. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis revealed that PsyCap fully mediates the relationship between POS and well-being. POS is not of predictive value when PsyCap is added to the regression equation when predicting well-being (Table 4). H4 is, therefore, supported.
Harmon's one-factor test was conducted to test for CMV. All items were entered into an exploratory factor analysis. The unrotated solution of the factor analysis extracted 10 factors, with a single factor explaining 32.4% of the observed variance. The majority of variance is not explained by a single factor, which implies that bias because of CMV is not regarded as a problem in the present study.
Increasing competition in the global markets puts a lot of pressure on organisations and their employees, which might negatively affect employees' well-being. Healthy levels of well-being are a crucial part of working and performing on an optimal level. The fast-paced pressure of the economy cannot be changed, but what can be influenced are organisational and personal factors that help employees to cope with challenges. For this reason, it is important to understand which organisational and personal resources contribute to well-being in employees. The aim of the study was to analyse whether the personal resource of PsyCap acts as a mediator in the relationship between POS and well-being. Based on the JD-R theory and COR theory, it was proposed that a supportive organisational environment would positively impact an employee's PsyCap, which would be related to higher levels of well-being. The present study investigated the relationship of the respective three constructs in a snowball sample of South African employees from a wide range of different occupations.
All measures expressed excellent reliability with Cronbach's alphas ranging from α = 0.89 to α = 0.93. The resilience and optimism subscales of the PCQ-24, however, were shown to be less reliable. Reliability of the respective subscales could be substantially enhanced by removing the reverse-coded items 13 and 20. Cronbach's alpha was, thus, improved to a great extent for the resilience (Δ α = 0.06) and optimism (Δ α = 0.05) subscales. This finding aligns with the observations of Görgens-Ekermans and Herbert (2013), who also reported lower reliabilities of the respective scales in the South African context. These findings indicate that items 13 and 20 can be regarded as problematic items when being used with South African participants.
It was hypothesised that POS would be positively linked to well-being. Support creates a feeling of security and meets the employee's socio-emotional needs (Caesens et al., 2016). Referring to the JD-R theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014), it was argued that job resources, such as POS, would buffer the negative impact of job demands, and that job resources would facilitate motivational processes such as one's desire for growth, which is regarded to be part of psychological well-being. Previous research has already shown that POS is positively linked to well-being (Caesens et al., 2016). The present study supports the research finding by Caesens et al. (2016), showing that POS was positively correlated to well-being. Furthermore, POS served as a significant predictor of well-being. It was also suggested that POS would be positively related to PsyCap, arguing that job resources would work in favour of personal resources (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). Organisational support was previously shown to be linked to PsyCap (Azim & Dora, 2016; Sihag & Sarikwal, 2015). This positive link was also found in the present study. POS and PsyCap were positively correlated with each other and POS significantly predicted PsyCap in a regression analysis. The present study hypothesised that PsyCap would be related to well-being because of PsyCap's positive cognitive and behavioural processes, which was also previously shown in research (Avey et al., 2010). This relationship was confirmed in the present study, concurring with Avey et al.'s (2010) findings, revealing a strong positive correlation between PsyCap and well-being, with PsyCap serving as a predictor of well-being. Based on the previously outlined relationship between POS, PsyCap and well-being, it was assumed that PsyCap would mediate the relationship between POS and well-being. Hierarchical regression confirmed that PsyCap fully mediates the relationship between POS and well-being. Mediation analysis using hierarchical regression showed that POS was a significant predictor of PsyCap. Moreover, POS and PsyCap significantly predicted well-being. Interestingly, POS was no longer of predictive value when PsyCap was added as an additional predictor of well-being. This finding shows that PsyCap is a full mediator in the relationship between POS and well-being. This result supports the assumption that job resources might help personal resources to develop (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007), and that the personal resource of PsyCap contributes to employee well-being (Avey et al., 2010).
Beyond finding support for previous research outcomes regarding the relationships of POS, PsyCap and well-being, the main contribution of this study is that PsyCap mediates the relationship between POS and well-being. Other scholars have already found that PsyCap plays a mediating role in the relationship between instructor support and well-being (Nielsen et al., 2017), as well as in the relationship between social support and well-being (Li et al., 2014). Furthermore, it was found that PsyCap mediates the relationship between POS and depressive symptoms (Liu et al., 2013). These studies indicated that PsyCap plays an important role between support and mental health. The present study is the first study that provides evidence for PsyCap also being a mediator between POS and positive well-being.
Positivity and PsyCap in particular, in combination with a supportive organisational environment, seem to play an important role in terms of employee well-being. The findings from the present study imply that the main contributor towards employee well-being is the development of a positive state of mind, characterised by self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience. The present study, therefore, offers valuable insight to organisations that aim to contribute to the well-being of their employees. Employees who perceive their organisation to be supportive are more likely to have higher levels of PsyCap, which in turn positively affect their well-being. An employee's PsyCap may, therefore, be a valuable resource to deal with the challenges in today's workplace. PsyCap may help employees maintain a healthy level of positive affect and positive psychological functioning. This finding highlights the power of the human psyche and aligns well with the notions of positive psychology. As a consequence, organisations should be interested in facilitating the PsyCap of their employees. Considering the importance of PsyCap as a predictor of well-being, organisations should also acknowledge the important role of a positive and supportive organisational environment. A supportive organisation creates an environment that allows PsyCap to operate on a high level and, therefore, assists employees in maintaining higher levels of well-being. High levels of well-being indicate that individuals experience optimal levels of positive affect and positive psychological functioning, which may provide a competitive advantage. The findings from the present study imply that it is not sufficient to provide support; it is also important to specifically target the personal resources of employees, referring to their PsyCap in particular. PsyCap is a construct that is open to development and can be targeted through specific interventions (Luthans et al., 2008, 2010). Implementing PsyCap training in organisations might, therefore, be a valuable addition to already existing human resource development programmes. The outlined implications may help organisations leverage the well-being of their employees. Nevertheless, the limitations of the present study should be acknowledged.
Firstly, a convenience and snowball sample is not representative of the South African population. It is possible that snowball sampling resulted in a homogenous sample because people within one network are often similar to one another, sharing certain characteristics. The findings can, therefore, not be generalised to the South African population. Secondly, the results are correlational and not causal in nature. It is also possible that employees who express high levels of well-being simply have a more favourable perception of their personal and organisational resources. High levels of positive affect and psychological functioning might be related to better perceptions of one's PsyCap and of organisational support that is available. Causality can, therefore, only be implied by longitudinal or experimental studies. Thirdly, cross-sectional and self-reported data is not always an accurate source of information. Although bias because of CMV is not regarded as an issue, it cannot be guaranteed that participants gave honest and accurate answers.
Future research should further investigate which factors and processes enhance employee well-being and how organisations can create a resourceful environment that will assist their employees in dealing with challenging demands and stress. It is recommended to recruit a larger and more diverse sample that reflects the demographic characteristics of the South African population in a more accurate way in order to be able to generalise the findings. To be able to interpret findings in a causal manner, longitudinal or experimental studies are needed. For instance, the present study could be replicated with multiple assessments a few months apart. Moreover, it is suggested to use other or additional measures to assess the respective constructs in order to reduce bias because of self-reported data. One possible option would be to assess PsyCap using the Implicit Psychological Capital Questionnaire (Luthans et al., 2015).
This study revealed that PsyCap fully mediates the relationship between POS and well-being, which is a valuable contribution to the existing body of knowledge. This research offered an insight into the underlying mechanism of why organisational support is related to employee well-being. Employees who perceive their organisation to be supportive are more likely to also have the personal resources that help to deal with challenges in the workplace and are, therefore, more likely to experience higher levels of well-being. An employee's PsyCap seems to be an important personal resource that contributes to positive affect and positive psychological functioning. This finding is valuable for organisations because it highlights the importance of a resourceful organisational environment that facilitates the PsyCap of employees and their well-being.
The authors declare that no personal or financial interests were involved that influenced them in writing this article.
This article is the research project of A.R. (Nelson Mandela University) in fulfilment of the requirements for her MA degree and C.H. (Nelson Mandela University) is the project supervisor. A.R. was responsible for writing the literature review, setting up the research design, the process of data collection, data analysis and the write-up. C.H. guided the research process, edited and co-authored this article.
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Chantel Harris
chantel.harris@mandela.ac.za
Received: 26 Feb. 2018
Accepted: 19 Aug. 2018
Published: 01 Oct. 2018
1 . Reproduction by special permission of the publisher, Mind Garden, Inc., http://www.mindgarden.com from the Psychological Capital Questionnaire by Fred Luthans, Bruce J. Avolio, & James B. Avey. Copyright © 2007 by Fred Luthans, Bruce J. Avolio, & James B. Avey. Further reproduction is prohibited without the publisher's written consent.
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Seven ideas on research for Mr. Monti
di Gruppo 2003
Scientific research policy
Scientific research and innovation are one of the challenges that will decide Italy's future. The 2003 Group (http://www.gruppo2003.org), which gathers scientists frequently quoted in the international scientific literature, intends to contribute with its reflections and proposals to this critical moment in the life of our Country.
In the context of a global view which is expressed by the 2003 Group and in line with the approach usually adopted by scientific research in the advanced countries, the Group proposes 7 key issues which are essential in order to constructively deal with this difficult transition. This is because the available data (such as the competitiveness of our young people at the European Research Council) show that the Country has still a wealth of intellectual resources, passion and dedication that just beg to be put to good use.
1) Investments
Our country has always made limited investments in research and research has never been considered a priority. In the context of the financial crisis, while some countries have placed their bets on research (for example, France investing 39 billion euro), in Italy scientific research and higher education have been cut across the board just like other activities, without taking into account the risks for the very survival of research in our country. The 2003 Group proposes that the new government reassess the cuts and find a way to finance at least those research areas that may constitute a driving force for our recovery. We ask the government to clearly demonstrate it cares about scientific research and higher education, in a context of assessment and promotion based on merit.
2) Reliability
Given a fixed set of resources, it is essential that they be provided in a reliable manner with regard to calls for applications and the actual availability of money. Ideally, there should be only one ministry (for example the Ministry of Education) providing the funds in order to optimize spending. It is better to have few resources, which however are reliably put out to tender every year (as in the case of PRIN projects - research projects of national relevance which are funded by MIUR- Ministry of Education, University and Research), rather than an erratic distribution of funds as it has recently been the case. In particular, scattered disbursements should be avoided at all costs. As in the rest of Europe, non-profit institutions should also be able to participate in tenders, while at the moment only Universities are eligible to participate in tenders held by the Ministry of Education and only IRCCS (Research Hospitals) to those held by the Ministry of Health.
3) Assessment
The foundation of a sound research system is the peer review which should be matched by a corresponding allocation of resources. The implementation of the National Agency for University Evaluation and Research (ANVUR) is therefore a priority. At a yet deeper level, private philanthropy should be taken as an example, such as the AIRC - Italian Association for Cancer Research and Telethon, which have put in place transparent and reliable evaluation systems of international research projects.
4) Transparency
Another foundation for a sound research system consists of projects proposed by researchers themselves (bottom up). Top down resource allocations should be made for initiatives that are appropriate for these funding mechanisms (such as the construction of large structures or equipment). All too frequently and even recently, top-down mechanisms were used improperly and in a not transparent manner.
5) Removing strings and snares
Our research system suffers from a lot of strings and snares that prevent it from exploiting at best the already scarce resources available. Some of these have been identified and reported by the Committee of Experts on Policy Research (CE PR, http://www.cepr.it). As an example, the Ministry of Education has recently allocated significant funding to young people, called "Your future in research", through a mechanism of peer review. Well, among these, the young people recruited as temporary researchers by Universities can not compete for European funding, because of the nature of their employment contract, This is a contradiction: in a way, it is as if we choose the best colts but then prevented them from running in international competitions. All of these strings and snares must be removed as quickly as possible so that our young and less young scientists may make the best of their potential in a difficult situation.
6) Incoming brains
A serious anomaly of our country is represented by the bureaucratic and administrative obstacles that make it difficult to recruit researchers from abroad. This means that the country is involved in the gold rush of the third millennium (the gray gold of brains) only as a donor. We demand the creation of preferential pathways for entry into the country of researchers, thus removing long, cumbersome and humiliating procedures.
7) Interaction with industry
All available data show that the transfer to industry in our country is grossly inadequate, far below international standards. The funnel which basic research goes through in order to arrive at the transfer stage is much narrower than it is in other advanced countries. It is therefore necessary to implement the levers that will resolve this funnel: evaluation criteria (ANVUR) and fiscal levers, facilitating the interaction between civil society, including industry and academic research.
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Gen. David Petraeus' collapse is a grim metaphor for the prospects of the Kandahar offensive.
Military analysis.
Fainting Spells
Gen. Petraeus' collapse is a grim metaphor for the prospects of the Kandahar offensive.
By Fred Kaplan
Gen. David Petraeus
Gen. David Petraeus fainted during this morning's Senate hearing on the war in Afghanistan. A case of dehydration, the commander said afterward. But it was hard not to see his collapse as grim metaphor.
Fred Kaplan is the author of Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War.
The war is going badly, or in any case very slowly, which means much the same thing when time is one of the enemies.
The battle for Helmand province, the first campaign of President Barack Obama's surge, was supposed to be fairly swift: U.S. forces clear out the Taliban; the Kabul government, with international assistance, sweeps in with basic services for the local people; and all across the land, Afghans see the advantage of siding with the authorities against the insurgents.
But the Taliban keep coming back at night, and the services still haven't been delivered, so the operation hasn't made much impression at all.
In part as a result, the next and much harder step, the battle for Kandahar, the Taliban's stronghold, has been scaled back. U.S. officials, who once labeled it an "offensive," now talk—as Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy did at today's hearing—about taking a "more deliberate approach," with security forces moving in slowly along with civilian aid (though it's not clear how governance is supposed to take hold before the area has been secured).
Meanwhile, even after his four-day trip to Washington last month, during which Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other top officials reassured him of their lasting support and friendship, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is proving to be an increasingly loopy partner.
According to Elizabeth Rubin and the New York Times' Dexter Filkins, two of the war's most dogged reporters, Karzai believes—or at least told some of his aides that he believes—that the United States, not the Taliban, set off the bomb that exploded outside the peace jirga earlier this month. (In these accounts, Karzai soon after fired his two top security officials, who were highly respected by their U.S. counterparts, because he thought they conspired with the Americans in the nefarious plot.)
Filkins and the Guardian's Jon Boone also reported that Karzai, sensing that the U.S. and NATO campaigns aren't working, is turning to Pakistan to make some kind of deal with the Taliban to end the war.
In the face of this threat (if that's what it is), it may be time to respond with two words: Go ahead.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in his opener at today's hearing that you can't protect people who don't want to be protected. Similarly, you can't form a strategic partnership with a leader who doesn't want to be a partner.
The problem here is that counterinsurgency campaigns, such as this one, are fought—and can only be fought—with, through, and on behalf of the national government. If Karzai's government isn't seen by its own people as legitimate, or if Karzai himself doesn't trust the United States and NATO as allies (if he really does believe that someone in NATO set off the bomb and he's not just playing some weird manipulative game), then no matter how well our soldiers and Marines fight this war, there's no way it can be won, in any meaningful sense of the word.
And so, if Karzai wants to make a separate deal, maybe we should let him.
Petraeus and other senior military officers have said all along that this war will end with a deal that reconciles the less militant factions of the Taliban. (There are too many of them, and not enough of us, simply to kill or capture all the insurgents.) One premise of this analysis, however, is that we can best bargain with the reconcilable Taliban from a position of strength—that is, after racking up military victories. This is a logical position; fence-sitting insurgents aren't likely to jump over to our side if it looks like the other side is winning.
But what if it becomes clear that we're not going to rack up any but the most tactical victories? And what if a big reason for this failure to rack up victories is the weakness and corruption of the Karzai government—that is, what if the failure is something that we can't address simply by sending some more troops or trying harder? Wouldn't our bargaining position just get weaker the longer we kept at it?
It is premature to reach these conclusions now. As Petraeus and Flournoy testified at this morning's hearing, just two-thirds of Obama's surge troops—21,000 out of 30,000—are currently in Afghanistan; the rest will arrive by the end of August. It's also worth noting that Obama's strategy has been in place for less than six months and that, before then, we had no strategy at all. (A common line inside the Pentagon went: "We haven't been fighting in Afghanistan for seven years; we've been fighting for one year, seven years in a row.")
Flournoy testified that insurgent attacks are less well-organized than they were a year ago, that more Afghan people are leading U.S. troops to weapons caches and IEDs, that in general we're making "gradual but important progress." This may be true; whether it's ultimately relevant is another matter.
Sen. Levin has long emphasized the need to accelerate training of the Afghan army so that we can turn the fighting over to them. But in his opening statement today, he wondered why the Pentagon has deployed just 2,600 U.S. troops to the training mission—only half the number needed in that role. He also complained that the NATO allies have deployed none of the 750 troops that they'd committed to help train Afghan soldiers. (One NATO adviser told me recently that the International Security Assistance Force—the NATO command that's running the multinational operation in Afghanistan—is "massively dysfunctional.")
When President Obama decided late last year to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, he also said that he would start to withdraw them in July 2011. How many he'd withdraw, and how long he'd continue the mission, would depend in good part on a strategic assessment to be written this December by Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
If the situation doesn't improve much between now and then, the assessment is likely to be very bad. Under those circumstances, one can expect Petraeus or McChrystal to enter the Oval Office and say, "Mr. President, we believe that three more brigades should do the trick." This is what generals tend to do. But Obama doesn't seem inclined to take the gamble.
In The Promise, his excellent account of Obama's first year in office, Jonathan Alter describes the last of the president's national-security sessions on Afghan-war strategy. His top military advisers—Gen. Petraeus, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—have just assured Obama that, with 30,000 extra troops, they can recapture the momentum against the Taliban and start turning the fight over to the Afghan army by the summer of 2011. Alter continues:
"Good. No problem," the president said. "If you can't do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right? ... I'm not asking you to change what you believe, but if you don't agree with me that we can execute this, say so now …"
No one said anything.
"Tell me now," Obama repeated.
"Fully support, sir," Mullen said.
"Ditto," Petraeus said.
Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, read aloud this passage in this morning's hearings and asked Petraeus if it was true. Petraeus declined to comment on conversations in the Oval Office, but he said he supported the president's policy, adding the usual caveat about "conditions on the ground."
It was probably a coincidence, but a few minutes after this exchange, a little less than an hour into the hearing, Petraeus had his fainting spell and left the room along with his colleagues. Upon returning to the witness table about 20 minutes later, he said that the light-headedness stemmed from dehydration. "It wasn't from McCain's questioning, I assure you."
The general said he wanted to proceed with the hearing, but Levin, who said he'd discussed the matter with other committee members, called a recess and said the hearing would resume Wednesday morning.
So will all the troubles with this war.
AP Video: Gen. Petraeus Collapses
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Home » Social Watch Report 2009 - Making finances work: People first » NATIONAL REPORTS
An even gloomier development picture
poland2009_eng.pdf
Ewa Charkiewicz
KARAT Coalition/Feminist Think Tank
Katarzyna Szymielewicz
Polish Social Watch Coalition/International Commission of Jurists
Dr Mariusz Czepczyński
NEWW Polska / University of Gdańsk
Even before the world financial crisis started to take its toll causing devaluation, increased unemployment and reduced income, investments and exports, Poland had already experienced rising wage and income inequality during its transition to a market economy. As the Government lacks transparency in its operations, there is no opportunity for public debate to discuss the measures taken to cope with the crisis, such as the use of loans from international financial institutions. At the same time, Polish society’s patriarchal mentality and lack of social protection policies mean that women have been the first victims of the crisis.
Prior to the world financial crisis, Poland was an exemplary case of a successful neoliberal transition into the market economy. According to a recent report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Poland was second lowest among 30 member states in child poverty and fourth in income inequality, with the richest 10% of the population gaining a bigger share of market income and paying a lower share of the tax burden than in any other OECD state except Turkey.1 Privatizations have affected most acutely the social sectors (pensions, health care and education), while state support has been extended to businesses (e.g., the Deputy Prime Minister has announced a plan to support companies that had engaged in risky currency options markets) but not to citizens.
This gloomy picture, however, is getting even darker as the crisis unfolds. The initial impact was a drastic devaluation of the Zloty (the national currency) – by approximately 25-30% within six months in relation to the euro and the Swiss franc – and a plunge in the Warsaw stock exchange. While this initially affected primarily Polish financial markets and companies involved in currency options, it has now begun to affect the national political debate, particularly with the more recent decrease in national revenues and decline in investments and exports. Further, contrary to initial (rather optimistic) scenarios, the financial crisis is having a significant impact on access to finance for both Polish businesses and consumers.
Recent labour market surveys indicate that unemployment has increased from 9% to 12% since the beginning of the crisis, including in white-collar positions. However, the actual numbers of people without any means of livelihood are higher, and only 15.5% of those unemployed are entitled to an allowance and eligible for public health care.2 The rest are on their own.
In addition, the statistical average does not reflect the hardships in towns where one significant employer, from whom the majority of households derive their livelihoods, is closing due to plummeting orders or opportunistic manoeuvres: for example, some companies are reportedly blaming the financial crisis in order to lay off workers and cut costs.
The effects of the financial crisis are most severely felt by those who do not have any savings, means to produce their own food or rural family ties (despite being on the verge of extinction under pressure from large scale agriculture, smallholder farms still survive in Poland). However, the new middle class families are also in a tight spot, especially young couples with children who have incurred huge mortgages with adjustable interest rates, or in foreign currencies, to purchase their dwellings.
Access to finance and long-term growth perspectives
As a result of the so-called “credit crunch” (a sudden reduction of access to credit and an increase in its costs), the prospects for the country’s economic growth have declined substantially: from a reported 6.5% in 2007 and 5.5% in 2008 to a prediction for 2009 ranging between 2.5% and 3.7%.3
Furthermore, Poland has started to be affected by a sudden halt in capital inflow, followed by increasing risk aversion among investors and the crowding-out effect, as competition grows among the strongest EU economies for public debt financing.4 The situation has been further exacerbated by the foreign exchange crisis: the weakening Zloty had a damaging impact on companies that entered into currency options contracts as well as on persons repaying foreign currency mortgages.
The supply of credit has been strongly limited in all segments of the credit market, and more than 80% of the banks have introduced far more rigorous criteria for extending credit of any type. In particular, they have increased the requirements concerning the level of security and, in the case of mortgage loans, the amount of the borrowers’ own contributions. Also, almost every bank has raised its credit margins – from 1-2% in mid-2008 to 7-8% in the first quarter of 2009.5 The cost of money in the interbank market has increased substantially due to an unprecedented decline in mutual trust between financial institutions. The Polish Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) has sharpened liquidity ratios and reporting obligations.6 The banks’ assessment of the prospects of the economy is very negative, and they expect further restrictions in lending to enterprises.7
Consumers: the mortgage market standstill
The banks’ prevailing policy of setting the required amount of own contribution at 30% rules out any possibility of purchasing their own homes for the majority of people, while there is already a shortage of around 2 million flats on the market.8 The most likely result will be a drastic increase in rents, but the prices of apartments for sale will not necessarily fall quickly. Also, the costs of servicing foreign currency mortgage loans (79%–81% of the total credit portfolio in 2008)9 drastically increased, due to the sudden drop in the value of the Zloty and a very unfavourable change in the banks’ policy regarding the calculation of the spread.
The public believes that banks are manipulating the exchange rates at the clients’ cost. At present the difference between the purchase and the selling rate can reach as much as 12%,10 while even the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection is unable to impose exchange rate restrictions. Consumer groups are therefore forming through the Internet in order to purchase foreign currencies in wholesale quantities, hoping to negotiate the amount of spread and sometimes even renegotiate terms and conditions of credit agreements.11
Credit crunch and threat of massive bankruptcy
Already 15% of enterprises are having problems obtaining operating credit.12 For every one out of two enterprises, banks have tightened the terms and conditions for lending, a situation that will certainly get worse in 2009. According to preliminary forecasts, banks will have 50% less funds for lending in 2009 than in the preceding year. It is very likely that they will start sending en masse calls to companies for repayment or renegotiation of loans, claiming default on the terms of the credit agreement.13 In 2008, because of competitive pressure, banks granted a gigantic number of loans with minimum margins of interest, but those loans are now becoming a burden. Small and medium-sized companies that do not have significant security in their private capital are particularly threatened.
On top of the credit crunch, thousands of companies fell into the trap of currency options and are now struggling on the verge of bankruptcy. Encouraged by the banks, companies were buying options in massive amounts to protect their export profits. After the rapid devaluation of the Zloty they not only lost all invested capital but have also amassed a huge amount of debt due to poorly protected contracts.
The democratic deficit
Other major problems include the fall in state income and the rising costs of servicing the public debt. They go hand in hand with the prevailing democratic deficit: there was no public debate on the new emergency loan from the World Bank in the amount of EUR 3.75 billion, and the State’s activities are largely opaque to the media, elected politicians and the public. When the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., which operates as a central registry of credit swaps trades, published its details, including the top 1,000 contracts, it turned out that the Republic of Poland and other sovereign states engaged in derivatives trading as much as the private sector. Since the early 2000s the OECD, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have organized trainings and seminars for finance ministry officials to persuade them to engage in creating and dealing in markets for state debt. When the State operates like a commercial firm, it abandons its citizens, especially those who do not generate income for the State or market.
Gendered effects
In 1989 and 1990, when Poland embarked on the free-market road, the first casualties were women garment workers, as inefficient factories closed and nothing replaced them. Today the revamped garment sector, where women again predominate, is shrinking again as import orders (mainly from Germany) fall and local subcontractors downsize or close, resulting in an estimated net job loss of 40,000.14
Trapped in the grey economy
The decrease in family incomes due to the economic crisis might cause pauperization of whole social groups, particularly among the lower and middle classes. It is very likely that this will in turn have a more significant impact on women, since they traditionally are the main responsible for family well-being (this is particularly true among the lower income groups). According to some analysts, crises amplify the grey (informal) sector in the Polish economy as many, especially small entrepreneurs try to minimize labour costs and avoid taxation and other costs associated with formal employment. It seems very likely that the growth of the grey economy will affect women more than men, as they are more often engaged in low paid jobs, especially in the private service sector (e.g. in retail).
Limits for generating income
The shrinking means of livelihood transfer the social costs of the financial crisis to households and to women in particular. Some 60%–70% of the unpaid work to sustain and care for families is done by women.15 Class, ethnicity, age and geographical location differentiate this gendered impact of the financial crisis; for instance, due to high housing rental costs, the labour market mobility of inhabitants in small towns in economically depressed areas is limited. For women of reproductive age, institutionally entrenched obligations to provide care work in the household further limits their ability to seek alternative means of generating income.
Many women’s rights organizations, including NGOs, have already felt the loss of funding as donations from private companies and individuals have declined significantly, and Government funding will also decrease given the projected drop in GDP for 2009 has forced cuts on many budget programmes. The budget of the Civic Initiatives Fund, a government-run programme that supports non-profit organizations, is being halved. While it prioritizes a neo-liberal agenda (diversity management, discrimination, entrepreneurship) and shifts NGOs to the role of service providers as the State withdraws from the social sector, the Fund has provided important resources for sustaining NGO activities. It is very likely that the local authorities’ funding for local NGOs will diminish as well.
Further, the economic crisis is already having a negative impact on the ability of women’s NGOs to raise money, from both private and public donors, for their own share in a project co-funded by the European Commission. This is particularly alarming since, while the EU funds created new opportunities for NGOs in Poland, neither the State nor local authorities have developed the required mechanisms for financially supporting NGOs that secure EU funding.
A grim scenario
It is possible that a long-lasting and worsening economic situation might cause social and political conflicts during the coming years. Potential economic polarization, increased unemployment and the collapse of financial markets and the public budget might be followed by the rise of radical, conservative, right-wing attitudes and parties. A rise in neo-conservatism might promote traditional, patriarchal values, while limiting women to their traditional ‘kitchen, children and maybe church’ role. In addition, because they are considered much more important, economic issues might dominate the public discourse and cause further marginalisation of social and gender issues.
1 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Growing Unequal. Income Distribution and Poverty in OED Countries. Paris: OECD, 2006. Available from: <www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/56/41494435.pdf>.
2 National Statistical Office. “Registered Unemployment, first quarter 2008.” See: <www.stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/PUBL_PDL_bezrobocie_rejestrowane_I-III_kw_2008.pdf>.
3 Estimates reported by web portal Bankier.pl. Available from: <euro.bankier.pl/news/article.html?article_id=1886336>.
4 Rybiński, K. Finansowanie rozwoju Polski w kryzysie. Ernest & Young, February 2009.
5 All data based on report by the National Bank of Poland. Situation of the credit market in the first quarter of 2009. Warsaw, January, 2009.
6 In July 2008, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority imposed an obligation on banks to maintain and report their quantity liquidity standards, thereby improving banks’ liquidity and helping to contain the “confidence crisis”. See.
7 Financial Supervision Commission. Informacja o sytuacji banków po trzech kwartałach 2008 r. Available from.
8 Online survey by Money.pl. Available from.
9 Data from the Association of Polish Banks reported at a conference in December 2008. Available from: <www.zbp.pl/site.php?s=MTIyNTk0MTI=>.
10 Online survey by Money.pl. Available from: <www.money.pl/banki/wiadomosci/artykul/ciezki;los;posiadaczy;kredytow;banki;uderzaja;spreadem,207,0,383183.html>.
11 Dominiak, T. “Polacy buntują się przeciwko bankom.” POLSKA The Times, 25 February 2009.
12 Survey conducted by the Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan. See: <www.pkpplewiatan.pl>.
13 Niklewicz, K, Samcik, M and Hałabuz, N. “Znikające tanie kredyty.” Gazeta Wyborcza, 24 February 2009.
14 Brzoska, P. “Lodz cienko przedzie, szwaczki znow traca prace.” Polska – Dziennik Łódzki, 29 December 2008. See.
15 Budlender, D. “The statistical evidence of care and non-care work in six countries.” Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 2008.
Social Watch Poland
Reports from Poland
2012 - A Green New Deal
2010 - Foreign assistance lacks basic definitions
2009 - An even gloomier development picture
2009 - Women’s status in Poland: a permanent crisis
2008 - Human rights implementation – mystification or truth?
2007 - High unemployment and low social security
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Game of Tones? Songs about deceptive appearances
May 16, 2019 Peter Kimpton
It’s dragon on a bit. But how will it end? Gratuitous picture that has nothing to do with music
Sex, love relationships, work, politics, and war, appearances all play apart in the game of life, and this week with a huge cast of talent coming to visit the Bar, we discuss and explore the art and topic of false or true in song lyrics
In avant-garde, blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, experimental, folk, gospel, hip hop, indie, jazz, metal, music, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, ska, soul, songs Tags songs, playlists, Game of Thrones, TV, drama, William Shakespeare, Shakespeare, George RR Martin, quantum physics, philosophy, psychology, books, Film, art, Alexandre Dumas, Marvel, Starsky and Hutch, David Soul, Merv Griffin Show, Sia, Frank Sidebottom, George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, Michael Jackson, Chris Sievey, Boy George, Beethoven, Oscar Levant, Jo Brand, comedy, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marty Rubin, Samuel Butler, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Abraham Lincoln, Will Durant, history, Machiavelli, Vauvenargues, Christopher Lasch, John F Kennedy, Arthur Schopenhauer, Blaise Pascal, Brexit, Donald Trump, Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, Kurt Vonnegut, Henry David Thoreau, Aesop, Jane Austen, Disney, CJ Carlyon, Will Rogers, Joseph Conrad, Aristotle, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Sun Tzu, Zsa Zsa Gabor, David Icke, Al Wilson
Songs that contain words of wisdom, this week’s topic is
February 21, 2019 Peter Kimpton
Yoda. Seeing the lighter side
This week we’re not being clever,, simply seeking wisdom in individual lyrics or across a whole song. From philosophers to musicians to authors, how is is it gained, through humility, experience, courage, or a just turn of phrase?
In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, folk, gospel, hip hop, indie, jazz, metal, music, musical hall, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, punk, prog, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, soul, soundtracks, songs, traditional Tags songs, playlists, wisdom, Confucius, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, The Beatles, Star Wars, Film, Yoda, philosophy, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Jefferson, Socrates, Aristotle, Oprah Winfrey, Albert Einstein, Jane Austen, Patrick Rothfuss, Ernest Hemingway, George RR Martin, Leo Tolstoy, Voltaire, Mahatma Gandhi, William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Isaac Asimov, Bob Dylan, Lao Tzu, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Dickens, Imam Al-Ghazali, Emerson, Rabindranath Tagore, Paul McCartney, Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein, Walter Lippmann, Frank Zappa, Charlie Parker, Cass McCombs, Molière, Francis Bacon, William Blake, Paulo Coelho
Valentine's Day? Reveal your songs about secret admirers
He nose, but does she? Cyrano de Bergerac
Clandestine cravings and crushes? To spice up a romantic tradition, this week’s topic is all about secret love longings expressed through song, here inspired by real-life examples of musicians, alongside film, books and theatre
In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, folk, gospel, hip hop, indie, jazz, metal, music, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, punk, reggae, rock, songs, soul Tags songs, playlists, St Valentine's Day, martyrs, romance, relationships, Edmond Rostand, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Steven Tyler, Lulu, Smokey Robinson, Linda Ronstadt, Amy Winehouse, Jane Austen, books, Emily Bronte, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens, James Baldwin, George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Fleetwood Mac, Film, Audrey Tatou, Gérard Depardieu
All you need is: songs about platonic love
December 13, 2018 Peter Kimpton
Not so strange bedfellows: Eric and Ernie
The non-sexual, non-romantic sort is what makes up most of the love we experience in life, so whether that concerns real or fictional experiences, let’s define and explore it as expressed in song lyrics
In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, folk, gospel, hip hop, indie, jazz, metal, music, musical hall, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul, traditional Tags songs, platonic love, love songs, Morecambe & Wise, Thyra Samter Winslow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oscar Wilde, relationships, friendship, family, animals, Plato, Socrates, philosophy, psychology, Georgios Gemistos (Plethon), Marsilio Ficino, William Davenant, Flight of the Conchords, The Mighty Boosh, Eddie Braben, Laurel & Hardy, Marx Brothers, The Likely Lads, comedy, Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, books, Film, Jane Austen, Jack Kerouac, Cervantes, Mark Twain, Withnail & I, Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Easy Rider, Shaun of the Dead, The Odd Couple, Thelma & Louise, Star Trek, Mencius, Seneca, Euripides, Plutarch, CS Lewis, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust, Jim Morrison
Merry? Divided? Dreaming? It's songs about England
September 27, 2018 Peter Kimpton
England is dreaming? … Who? Keith, Roger, Pete and John
Let’s take a musical trip around this strange, sceptr’d isle, this land of eccentric frontmen, this place of punk and flourishing fashion, to pick up lots of place names and perhaps also define the nature of being English
In blues, classical, comedy, country, dance, disco, dub, electronica, folk, gospel, hip hop, indie, jazz, metal, music, musical hall, musicals, playlists, pop, postpunk, prog, punk, reggae, rock, rocksteady, showtime, ska, songs, soul Tags Songs, playlists, England, The Who, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Lydon, Beyonce, William Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Brexit, social class, sport, cricket, football, Bill Bryson, David Crystal, Pennine Way, Sex Pistols, Ian Brown, The Stone Roses, Naomi Campbell, fashion, Malcolm Gladwell, Pete Townshend, JK Rowling, Brian Eno, HG Wells, Otis Redding, H.P. Lovecraft, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Merchant-Ivory, film, television, Brideshead Revisited, Ken Loach, Monty Python, Eric Idle, WH Auden, Noam Chomsky, monarchy, royalty, revolution, English Civil War
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Illegal off-rolling of students: Yet more evidence emerges
Written by: Robin Hughes | Published: 26 September 2018
Image: Adobe Stock
Has anyone asked how many of these pupils have moved to an English school or independent school?
Posted by: Raymond McGovern, 27/09/2018
With schools already under scrutiny in England, new figures suggest that hundreds of year 11 pupils are being ‘off-rolled’ in Wales. Robin Hughes reports
A total of 945 young people were taken off the school roll in Wales before taking their GCSEs in 2018, official Welsh government data confirms.
All Welsh schools must provide details of their pupils electronically in January each year. This is collected in the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) and the data is published online in July.
The data submitted by every school is authorised by the headteacher and validated by the local authority. Schools take great care to get this data right when they submit it.
The data is very important to every school. It is the only official determination of how many children are present at the school, their age and their year group. It matters to the funding the school gets.
It also officially confirms the number of pupils who are expected to sit examinations such as GCSEs and, when the results are in, it helps determine how the school has performed.
The latest PLASC data shows that there were 29,870 pupils age 15 (year 11) on census day in January. PLASC data for 2015 shows that there were 30,815 pupils age 12 (year 8) in January 2015. It means that 945 pupils fell off the school roll as the cohort moved from year 8 to 11.
Closer scrutiny also shows that the drop in total pupil numbers was most dramatic as pupils moved from year 10 to 11 (age 14 to 15).
The data shows that 750 pupils came off the school roll as they moved into year 11. That’s 80 per cent of the change in total pupil numbers between the age of 12 and 15 (for the class of 2018).
Furthermore, the drop in the number of pupils on roll between year 10 and 11 represents 2.5 per cent of the entire cohort.
Transitions from age 14 to 15 in the two previous years also showed significant drops in pupils on roll – 540 pupils coming off roll in 2015/16 and 2016/17, representing 1.6 and 1.7 per cent of the total cohort respectively.
These figures show a growing trend of pupils starting but not finishing secondary school in Wales. Approximately 32,000 pupils enter year 7 each year across the 195 secondary and 13 all-through schools in Wales. As such 945 pupils represents about three per cent of the cohort of pupils that start secondary school.
Off-rolled? Suspicions have been raised by figures showing that 945 students were taken off-roll in Wales between year 8 (in 2015) and year 11 (in 2018) – 750 of these students vanished between years 10 and 11
The Welsh figures come after concerns have also been raised by England’s inspectorate Ofsted about the “off rolling” of pupils. An analysis published in June found that more than 19,000 pupils who were in year 10 in 2016 disappeared from the school roll by the start of year 11. Half of these pupils did not reappear in any state school.
Ofsted’s analysis shows that of 2,900 schools that lost pupils between years 10 and 11, 810 lost five or more pupils and 300 had “particularly high levels of off-rolling”.
In an Ofsted blog on the subject, Jason Bradbury, deputy director for data and insight and the chief statistician for Ofsted, said: “We’re concerned about potential ‘off-rolling’ of pupils where schools may be encouraging pupils to move.”
He added: “Unfortunately, it’s not possible to know the full story of where pupils went to, and why, from the school census data alone. Unsurprisingly not all children are equally likely to be affected. Children with SEN, children eligible for free school meals, children looked after, and some minority ethnic groups are all more likely to leave their school.”
Ofsted has said it will use this data to help “focus attention at inspection” in schools with high numbers of pupils vanishing. It is also to work closely with FFT Education Datalab to look at how performance data is affected in the schools in question.
Back in Wales, this year secondary schools have been measured by new, purposefully more stringent, performance measures. These measures are used to judge school effectiveness in consortia-led school categorisation and Estyn inspections.
In 2018, schools are still judged on the performance of students gaining five GCSEs at grade C and above including English or Welsh and maths. However, for the first time, there has been a limit of two GCSE equivalent qualifications in this measure.
In addition, schools are measured on the numbers of pupils achieving at least two GCSEs in science, the numbers of pupils gaining the Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification (the Skills Challenge certificate plus five good GCSEs including English and maths) and “Capped 9”, the point score of the best nine qualifications that must include English, maths and two science GCSEs. These performance measures are designed to be much more challenging for schools, and pupils, to achieve.
In an average Welsh secondary school, there are around 150 pupils in each year group. Each pupil would be worth approximately 0.7 of a single percentage point in performance measures. Two pupils that do not achieve five the A* to C GCSE or more can make a 1.5 per cent difference – negatively – in headline school performance measures.
It means that margins matter in school performance measurement.
But many will ask if it has come to matter too much if it might explain how so many young people went missing off the school roll.
Lynne Neagle AM, chair of the influential Welsh Assembly Children, Young People and Education Committee, said: “These figures are very worrying. I’ll be following it up with Welsh government.”
In England, meanwhile, the Department for Education (DfE) has asked Edward Timpson to conduct a review of school exclusions, which it is expected will include a focus on illegal exclusions and “off-rolling”.
An inquiry by the children’s commissioner for England in 2013 found that thousands of students were being illegally excluded through techniques such as being placed on “extended study leave”, part-time timetables, or in “inappropriate and questionable quality alternative provision”.
Robin Hughes is the former Wales secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
Off-rolling: using data to see a fuller picture, Ofsted, June 2018: http://bit.ly/2MY0xyZ
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Organization of the institutional system of conservation
According the Law on Protection of Cultural Heritage the administrative and certain proficient issues of the cultural heritage protection are carried out by the Ministry of Culture, sales and by the Cultural Heritage Protection Office, as a body within the Ministry of Culture.
The protection of the archives material is carried out by the State Archives of the Republic of Macedonia. The operations for protection of the phonogram archives goods and the intangible cultural heritage are attained by the entities authorised by the Minister of Culture.
Cultural Heritage Protection Office
The legal status of the Cultural Heritage Protection Office is that of an independent governmental administrative body. As such, it is a constituent part of the Ministry of Culture operating as a legal entity. The Cultural Heritage Protection Office (CHPO) was established on March 19, 2004 based on the Law on Protection of Cultural Heritage (“Official Gazette of RM” no.20/04). It was set up on May 10, 2004 when its first director was appointed.
The following regulations are applied in the field of culture in the Republic of Macedonia:
1. Law on Culture
2. Law on Usage of the Macedonian Language
3. Law on Libraries
4. Law on Museums
5. Law on Memorial Monuments
6. Law on Archive Materials
7. Law on Protection of Cultural Heritage
8. Changes and Amendments To The Law On Protection Of Cultural Heritage
Data taken from: Ministry of Culture of Republic of Macedonia and Cultural Heritage Protection
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Suspended chief asks for forgiveness
Robert Beatty— September 30, 2010
Officials with the Broward Police Academy are disputing suspended Wilton Manors Police Chief Richard E. Perez’s contention that racially insensitive e-mails he distributed from his official e-mail account were actually part of course materials for classes he taught at the academy.
Some of the e-mails circulated by Perez had audio recordings attached. One them is titled, “Good Moan’in Mam.”
"Good moan’ in mam. Isn’t it a lovely moan’ in,” greets a man to a white woman in a classic minstrel-style, slapstick tone. The white woman responds, “Up yours N—-r!”
Perez has apologized and has said the e-mails were downloaded and used in the classroom at the police academy, where he moonlighted as an instructor for $32.50 an hour.
“I have many of them that I use in my classes for diversity, for stereotyping, and for teaching new recruits,” Perez said in an interview this week. “Broward College has those curriculums on file that I use.”
“Whether we like to use the N-word or not, police officers hear that quite a bit out there,” Perez said. “I’m deeply apologetic. I’m asking for a second chance.”
College officials dispute Perez’s claim and said there are no plans to bring him back on the teaching staff. The officials said in an interview and in e-mails that they checked the lesson plans Perez submitted and found no evidence of offensive materials being used in the courses he taught.
“Broward College explicitly prohibits and will not tolerate bigotry or prejudice. The college and state has reviewed the curriculum that was approved to be used in the courses, and the college has reviewed internal emails and found no inappropriate usage of these materials or violations of policy,” said Linda Wood, Dean of the Institute of Public Safety.
“Mr. Perez does not have a contract to teach at the college and is not teaching currently. The college has no plans for him to teach these courses again.”
The Institute operates the state-certified Broward Police Academy. Courses are approved by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission. Perez chaired that commission until Gov. Charlie Crist removed him from the post Sept. 23 after South Florida Times broke the story of the controversial e-mails.
Perez is serving a 30-day unpaid suspension as chief for circulating the e-mails among members of his senior command staff and private citizens. Disciplinary action against other employees who engaged in the prohibited practice is likely.
Another e-mail Perez circulated around the department said, “A little boy said to his mother, ‘Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white.’ His mother replied, ‘Don't even go there, Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!’”
That e-mail is titled “Mom’s Memory” and it includes a photograph of a white woman holding hands with a young boy and walking near a pond, under the caption, “A Mother’s Love.”
It is prefaced with, “Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read it. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine. This is so beautiful.”
Citing his record on diversity he brought to the Wilton Manors police department since assuming the helm four years ago, Perez offered an apology and sought forgiveness.
“I let my citizens down in my city and that’s why I wanted to apologize,” Perez said. “And I hope they will give me a second chance and let me apologize for inappropriately using the city’s computer system, which I really should know better.”
An e-mail that was forwarded to Perez from the account of Sgt. Peter Bigelsen is titled, “Stupid Is, As Stupid Does.”
It shows a picture of the President and First Lady Michele Obama with their hands on their hearts, apparently during a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
“Just A Gentle Reminder. I fully believe they both know exactly what they are doing!!! Stupid is, as Stupid Does…Unbelievable. As any American knows, we place our right hand over our heart when we recite the Pledge of Allegiance,” reads that
“And for anyone who thinks this may be a mirror-image picture, please note the wedding rings on the ring fingers of their LEFT HANDS and the RIGHT side of the Messiah’s suit coat where the buttons are. These two morons are so clueless, they can't possibly be Americans!”
Dozens of other e-mails, some including racial slurs, a photo of nude woman and other distasteful comments directed towards the President and members of the Democratic Party have been circulated through the department by Perez.
“I have several of those. I use them and historically, I teach at Broward College. I teach stereotyping, I teach ethics, I teach diversity. I have many of those clips and forward them back to my friend who downloads them. That’s not an excuse. I should not have done this stuff on a city computer,” Perez said.
Perez said he did not intend to offend anyone and characterized the e-mails as instructional materials and political satire.
Pictured Above: Chief Richard E. Perez
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About the Author Robert Beatty
Overtown son, Delrish Moss, becomes Ferguson police chief
Associated Press, April 7, 2016
Cuban migration to US nearly doubles in last quarter of 2015
Supreme Court to weigh juror’s racial bias case
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Pobuda
Organizatorji pobude
Interview with professor Gianni Tamino (12/05/2015)
Part. I
Part. II
Interview with Ray Greek, president of the American AFMA (12/05/2015)
[Source: antidote-europe.org]
Interview with professor Marco Mamone Capria
CV: Marco Mamone Capria holds a Ph. D. in Mathematics and since 1990, has taught geometry, mathematical physics, history of science and epistemology to undergraduates, graduates and post-graduates at the University of Perugia, Italy. At present he teaches a graduate course on “Geometrical Methods in the Theory of Relativity”.
For six years (1997-2003) Professor Mamone Capria was a member of the Ethical Committee of his university, and has organized several international conferences, five of which (2001-2011) were part of the project “Science and Democracy”, which he co-ordinates (www.dmi.unipg.it/mamone/sci-dem).
Read in French
Dr Susanna Penco on the use of human cell lines
Dr Susanna Penco is a biologist who specialises in general pathology and is a researcher in the department of experimental medicine at the University of Genoa in Italy. She teaches at the school for medical science and pharmacology. Her main research interest lies in the use of human cell lines for application to the study of cancer and also for testing cosmetic products. In addition, Dr Penco has co-authored several articles published in the international scientific literature and has written books and education manuals. She was the recipient of the 2013 DNA prize...
Dr Samuel Constant on the challenge of starting an alternative methods company
Antidote Europe (AE): Could you tell our readers how your team came to launch this company and how you became interested in non animal replacement methods?
Samuel Constant (SC): There were two reasons: (1). A desire to develop and promote model systems to predict toxicity that were scientifically and ethically more acceptable than using laboratory animals, and (2) the challenge of starting our own company.
In the course of our research work in academia, we realised that many modern in vitro models were...
Dr Meg Lewis on her "Quasi-Vivo System"
Antidote Europe (AE): At what point in your science training did you begin to question the value of animal models with respect to human medicine? What are your current views on animal experiments in the field of research and testing and how did you come about them?
Meg Lewis (ML):
It wasn’t until my current post that I became aware of the inefficacies of animal experiments, almost 4 years after I’d completed...
Interview with Nick Jukes, Co-ordinator of InterNICHE
Antidote Europe (AE): Your academic background is that of physics. Please could you tell our readers how you made the transition from this field to becoming the head of what is surely the most successful organisation for promoting the replacement of harmful animal use in education and training worldwide? Was there a particular event in your life that altered the course of your career or was this a gradual process?
Nick Jukes (NJ): My interests had always been in the arts and the sciences, but I chose the sciences at university. My previously passive support of environmental awareness and animal rights flourished towards the end of my degree due to the vibrant atmosphere of...
Dr Martin Ashby on animal experimentation
Dr Ashby has seen patients prescribed drugs costing thousands of pounds a month who are nonetheless not receiving adequate nutrition, hydration and basic care. Something is profoundly wrong with the healthcare system, he observes.
Dr Martin Ashby obtained his medical degree from University College London Medical School, having first completed his studies in psychology. After training as a GP he became the Lead GP for a service providing GP services to the homeless in North London.Three years later he returned to general practice at...
Professor Larry Hansen on ethical dilemmas
Professor Hansen provides a courageous and unique perspective on dealing with the ethical dilemmas he has faced in his career.
Lawrence Hansen obtained his medical degree in 1977 in Illinois. He then specialised in psychiatry and neuropathology before further specialisation in geriatric neuropathology and surgery.He has taught in the neurosciences since 1988 at the University of California in San Diego and has received several awards of...
Dr Adrian Stallwood on animal experiments
Dr Stallwood, who teaches medical undergraduates using increasingly realistic manikins and models, argues that to influence the public against animal experiments, “we must communicate specifics, not slogans.”
Dr Adrian Stallwood graduated in Medicine from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, London in 1995. He then worked as a junior doctor in London, in high-intensity posts where learning took place almost exclusively “on the job”.He relocated to Wales in 1997, and after further hospital and community practice, began a career in Emergency Medicine. He is now...
Dr Bernard-Pellet on preventive medicine
Dr Bernard-Pellet explains why we should teach medical personnel and patients the art of healthy living through sensible lifestyle and nutrition.
After completing his secondary school studies, Jerome Bernard-Pellet went on to obtain his medical degree at the Necker Faculty of Medicine in Paris. His keen interest in primary prevention saw him obtain additional qualifications in epidemiology and biostatistics.He is currently a general practitioner locum in Paris. Having decided to specialise in the field of nutrition...
Anne Keogh on heart research
Anne Keogh—currently Professor in Medicine and Senior Heart Transplant Cardiologist at St Vincent’s Hospital and President in 2000/01 of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation—vehemently opposes the use of animal models in heart research on both ethical and scientific grounds.
Professor Keogh is Joint Head of the Clinical Research Program in the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney and...
Elisabeth Devilard on cosmetics
Dr Elisabeth Devilard, formerly a cancer researcher, is now senior scientist at cosmetics manufacturer L’Occitane. “The progress made in the last ten years in the field of molecular biology, coupled with our knowledge of the biology of human skin, provides us with an unprecedented arsenal of reliable techniques that clearly surpass animal tests,” she says.
Dr Elisabeth Devilard obtained her PhD in cellular and molecular biology, before joining the Paoli Calmette Institute at the centre for cancer research in Marseille, where she spent the next 13 years studying the mechanisms underlying some of the most common cancers...
Steve Kaufman on animal-free research
An assistant professor of ophthalmology, Dr Kaufman explains that learning ophthalmic surgery does not require practicing on animals.
Dr Stephen Kaufman graduated from Yale University in 1981, where he received several awards of distinction before completing his medical studies at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1985. He then went on to specialise in ophthalmology at New York University Department of Ophthalmology. Dr Kaufman is currently an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology...
Neal Barnard on diabetes
In 2003 Neal Barnard was awarded a $350,000 research grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the effect of a low-fat vegan diet on diabetes. In this interview with Dr Andre Menache, Dr Barnard explains how people were able to reduce their medications and sometimes come off them entirely.
Neal D. Barnard, MD, is a leader in preventive medicine, nutrition, and research. As an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University and a researcher funded by the National Institutes of Health, he has led key research studies to improve the health of people with diabetes...
Ray Greek on medical research
Dr Ray Greek is author and co-author of five books that challenge the value of animal experiments from a strictly scientific perspective. His latest book, entitledAnimal Models in Light of Evolution (co-authored with Professor Niall Shanks), deals in considerable detail with the question of predictivity.
Ray Greek received his MD from the University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Medicine in 1985 and completed his residency in anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989. He is board certified in Anesthesiology with sub-specialty certification Pain Management. He has practiced...
Andrew Knight on humane education
As a veterinary student in Australia, Andrew Knight campaigned for humane education — and succeeded!
Andrew Knight completed his veterinary degrees in Western Australia in 2001. He completed a post-graduate certificate in animal welfare science, and passed the US veterinary examinations, in 2005.He received a Fellowship from the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in 2009. This world-class centre is dedicated to enhancing the ethical status of animals...
Margaret Clotworthy on Safer Medicines Campaign
As a member of the Safer Medicines Campaign, Margaret Clotworthy points out a number of new developments in medicine, including a recent innovation by VaxDesign of Florida in mimicking the complex human immune system.
Margaret Clotworthy first realised she wanted to be a scientist watching Tomorrow’s World on the BBC. At secondary school she won 2nd prize in a national physics essay competition, writing an imaginative piece about...
Jarrod Bailey on GM animals
The massive production of genetically modified animals, especially mice, has led to much hype in the media about prospective cures for a whole range of human conditions. However, new genetic data suggests that mouse models may not be relevant for studying human disease.
Following the completion of his PhD in viral genetics in 1998 at Newcastle University, England, Jarrod Bailey spent seven years as...
Jarrod Bailey on human-based research
Dr Bailey spends much of his time communicating the scientific basis of opposition to vivisection to the public, to politicians of the UK and European parliaments.
Following the completion of his PhD in viral genetics in 1998 at Newcastle University, England, Jarrod Bailey spent seven years as a senior postdoctoral research associate examining the causes of premature birth in humans, using human tissue samples. During this time he developed...
Michael Coleman on modern toxicology
As a postdoctoral fellow, Michael Coleman sought to reduce drug toxicity in patients using research based on various animal- and human-based models. When he did eventually succeed in producing a therapeutic regimen that reduced the toxicity of a sulphone drug, dapsone, he was struck by the relative uselessness of the animal models.
The following interview is with yet another courageous scientist, by the name of Michael Coleman. We use the word “courageous” because Dr Coleman is clearly a forward-thinking toxicologist...
John Pippin on heart research
A highly respected cardiologist, by October 2004 Dr Pippin had become an outspoken opponent of vivisection and an advocate for alternative research methods, He was also founding director of cardiovascular medicine and medical imaging at the Cooper Clinic. Clinic founder and president Dr. Kenneth Cooper gave him an ultimatum: stop his public opposition to animal research or leave the clinic.
Dr. Pippin is the author or co-author of more than 60 articles and abstracts that have been published in leading medical journals. He also has served as an invited speaker and panelist for the NIH National Human Subjects Protection Workshop...
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Stuart Teicher's Lawyer Survival Center
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Tag Archives: open source software
Attorney Ethics & Technology
Open Source Software Could be Off Limits to Lawyers
January 27, 2017 Stuart
I think it’s unethical for lawyers to use open source software for client work.
I want you to read that again. I said that I THINK it’s unethical for lawyers to use open source software. Truth is, I’m not so sure. That, however, is how I’m leaning after doing a bit of research. Permit me to explain how I arrived at that conclusion….and please let me know if you agree. I’d love to hear what the lawyer-universe thinks.
First, my disclaimer. I am not scared of technology, and I don’t want to discourage lawyers from using it. The question I’m grappling with is not, “Should lawyers be making use of cutting edge technology like open source software.” The question is, “Given the actual opinions and standards that exist, are lawyers violating the ethics rules by using open source software.” So don’t attack me for trying to be anti-technology, because I’m not.
What is open source software? A program is considered open source if, “its source code is freely available to its users. Its users – and anyone else – have the ability to take this source code, modify it, and distribute their own versions of the program. The users also have the ability to distribute as many copies of the original program as they want. Anyone can use the program for any purpose; there are no licensing fees or other restrictions on the software.….The opposite of open-source software is closed-source software, which has a license that restricts users and keeps the source code from them.”(http://www.howtogeek.com/129967/htg-explains-what-is-open-source-software-and-why-you-should-care/ last checked by the author on January 25, 2017). In order to understand the ethical issue, you’ll need a brief understanding about a key ethical concern with email. I’m sorry to bore you with the history lesson, but trust me, it’s necessary.
Go back to the 90s when email first became popular. For those of use who are old enough to recall, lawyers couldn’t use email in their practice because it was unencrypted. Our duty to safeguard client confidences per Rules 1.1 and 1.6 prohibited us from using the tool. The ABA and state bars across the country deemed that unencrypted email was too insecure and that lawyers who used it weren’t taking the necessary steps to fulfill their duty of protecting clients’ confidential information. So what changed? Today email is generally still unencrypted, but lawyers use it every day. Here’s the change— congress criminalized the interception of email.
Once Congress made the interception of email a crime the powers that be then agreed that this change, when combined with other factors, meant that now lawyers had a reasonable expectation of privacy in using the medium. The key phrase is “a reasonable expectation of privacy.” The ABA issued a formal opinion in 1999 confirming that idea:
“The Committee believes that e-mail communications, including those sent unencrypted over the Internet, pose no greater risk of interception or disclosure than other modes of communication commonly relied upon as having a reasonable expectation of privacy. The level of legal protection accorded e-mail transmissions, like that accorded other modes of electronic communication, also supports the reasonableness of an expectation of privacy for unencrypted e-mail transmissions. The risk of unauthorized interception and disclosure exists in every medium of communication, including e-mail. It is not, however, reasonable to require that a mode of communicating information must be avoided simply because interception is technologically possible, especially when unauthorized interception or dissemination of the information is a violation of law. The Committee concludes, based upon current technology and law as we are informed of it, that a lawyer sending confidential client information by unencrypted e-mail does not violate Model Rule 1.6(a) in choosing that mode to communicate. This is principally because there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in its use.” ABA Commission on Ethics and Professional Responsibility Formal Opinion 99-413.
States have since followed suit and permitted the use of unencrypted email in the practice of law. What’s key here is that we see the standard clearly— the reasonable expectation of privacy. It’s important to understand that rationale for permitting such email communications, because it continues to be relevant today. As new technologies are developed, the authorities apply the same reasoning. Consider the furor over gmail and other free email services back in 2008.
In it’s Opinion 820, the New York State Bar Association opined about those free email systems. nNew York State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics Opinion 820 – 2/8/08. The systems were a concern because of the business model that the systems use to keep the service free. Here’s how they work: in return for providing the email service, “the provider’s computers scan e-mails and send or display targeted advertising to the user of the service. The e-mail provider identifies the presumed interests of the service’s user by scanning for keywords in e-mails opened by the user. The provider’s computers then send advertising that reflects the keywords in the e-mail.” NYSBA Op. 820 at 2. The obvious problem is that if we’re using the email system for client work, then we’re allowing the provider to scan confidential information.
When considering whether these new email systems would be permitted, the NY authorities first considered the rationale for permitting email back in the 90s. Email was allowed because, “there is a reasonable expectation that e-mails will be as private as other forms of telecommunication and…therefore…a lawyer ordinarily may utilize unencrypted e-mail to transmit confidential information. NYSBA Op. 820 at 1. They applied that same reasoning to the question of free emails.
Even though the email messages in the current systems are scanned, the opinion noted that humans don’t actually do the scanning. Rather, it’s computers that take care of that task. Thus, they stated that “Merely scanning the content of e-mails by computer to generate computer advertising…does not pose a threat to client confidentiality, because the practice does not increase the risk of others obtaining knowledge of the e-mails or access to the e-mails’ content.” NYSBA Op. 820 at 2.
What the opinion is basically saying is that there continues to be a reasonable expectation of privacy in these email systems. Maybe the better way to phrase it is a reasonable expectation of “confidentiality,” but the idea is the same. What’s important to note is that the technology developed, but the standard that was applied remained the same.
If we take that standard and apply it to open source software, then…Houston, we have a problem. Earlier I noted that the characteristic that makes open source software “open” is that any programmer could change the source code. That’s the whole point of open source software. But that ability to change the source code is what worries me.
If any programmer could change the code to an open source program, then isn’t it possible that some version of that software could contain a virus or other nefarious element? What if the programmer installed a hidden web bug or other software device that allows the programmer to view or copy your confidential client information? Such a devious act isn’t out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it seems realistic, and such tactics are being debated in the real-life practice today. Take the recent opinion out of Alaska.
In 2016 the state of Alaska issued an opinion that dealt with the ethical propriety of lawyers using web bugs to obtain information from their adversaries/opposing parties. The Alaska authorities reviewed a case where an attorney actually utilized a bug and the Bar opined that using such tools would be an ethical violation because it “impermissibly infringes on the lawyer’s ability to preserve a client’s confidences as required by Rule 1.6.” Alaska Bar Association Ethics Opinion 2016-1. I realize that the opinion isn’t really on point— in the open source question we’re not talking about a lawyer installing a bug. I brought it up, however, because it shows that the use of those software devices is very much a reality in today’s practice.
What if a programmer installs a similar type of software device in a piece of open source software and that device allows the programmer to view, copy, and disseminate your confidential client information? Getting hacked or taken advantage of doesn’t give rise to ethical liability, per se. But there are opinions that have said that you have a duty to avoid the obvious scams. See, New York City Bar Association Formal Opinion 2015-3, April 22, 2015 (“In our view, the duty of competence includes a duty to exercise reasonable diligence in identifying and avoiding common Internet-based scams, particularly where those scams can harm other existing clients.”). Being infested with a virus/web bug certainly seems like an obvious concern, given the realities of the world today. The question is, should we have expected that to happen?
Should a reasonable lawyer have known that there is a realistic probability that some dangerous device could be installed in open source software? Should a reasonable lawyer have considered the open source software platform to be off limits because our client’s information is too vulnerable in that way? Given the open nature of the software and given the real potential of having web bugs inserted into code, do lawyers have a reasonable expectation of privacy in open source software?
My answer is no.
It seems easy for a programmer to secretly install some bug or other information viewing device. There are no controls or procedures that stop them from doing so. It is an open opportunity for any bad actor to wreak havoc and there is little to no protection against it.
A critical counter argument needs to be addressed. It is true that a programmer could still install some bug-like device even in a closed software environment. A programmer in Microsoft or Apple could do it, and we might never be the wiser. But I don’t think the question is whether it could happen — the question is whether it is likely. One would think that the corporate software developer would have quality control measures that would ferret that out. There would be supervisory procedures to avoid that type of thing from happening. Given those measures, I would think that it’s reasonable for lawyers to assume that there would not be a web bug installed in the corporate-purchased software. Even if it did occur, it would have to be some employee/programmer gone rogue. That sort of extraordinary circumstance could be detrimental to the client, but it wouldn’t necessarily mean that the lawyer was derelict in their ethical duties by trusting the software. It could probably still be said that the lawyer had a reasonable expectation of privacy in that corporate/closed source-created software.
One could argue that there are informal quality control measures in the open source environment. There are apparently very strong ethical underpinnings to the open source movement. Behaving unethically is looked down upon in the open source community and there is a decent amount of peer pressure on programmers to uphold those unwritten ethical standards. My concern is that there is no actual mechanism to enforce it. The only thing stopping open source programmers from installing is the communal sense of morality that discourages such behavior. The lack of any formal mechanism is problematic.
It’s the ability of almost any programmer at any time to manipulate the code that makes me believe that lawyers do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using open source software. Now, I realize that that is a blanket statement. There are likely to be a variety of factors that could alter the equation. For instance, maybe the main open source software system of some sort could have excellent quality control. That’s fine, but what about the plug-ins you may download to use in connection with that tool? Maybe some open source systems will be inherently more secure than others because the cooperative that developed it adopts some quality control. Okay, so then maybe we con’t have to avoid all open source software, just the sketchy ones. I’m sure that there are issues and I confess to not having an expert understanding of the programming world, so there are surely plenty of other considerations that I haven’t accounted for. But these type of factors would simply make otherwise ethically impermissible systems permitted in some way. It wouldn’t change my overall analysis.
Here, however, is why you should take my opinion seriously…even if you think it comes from a place of relative ignorance. I have a decent understanding of technology. I also have a decent understanding of the ethics rules. Truth is, I probably have as much knowledge in both areas as any ethics investigator who would be evaluating a grievance. And if I’m leaning toward believing that open source software is an ethics violation, then that ethics investigator might be too.
Now….tell me why I’m wrong. But please be polite.
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Here’s what a recount in Florida would look like
No statewide recounts have been declared, but it looks like we're headed that way in the U.S. Senate race and the Agriculture Commissioner race.
Bill Nelson, left, and Rick Scott, right.
By Kirby Wilson
Recounts are the talk of Florida politics today, with the races for U.S. Senate and Florida Agriculture Commissioner — as well as a smattering of smaller races — all within a razor-thin margin.
Statewide results have to be reported to the state elections office before a recount can be ordered. Between provisional and other late ballots, it might be this weekend before results are in.
One important thing to stress again: A recount will not be ordered until Saturday - after the first set of unofficial returns are sent by counties to the Department of State. So as provisional and other ballots come in, the number in tight races could change
— Gary Fineout (@fineout) November 7, 2018
Here's how recounts in Florida work under state law:
A race is within 0.5 percent margin.
If a statewide race is decided by less than 0.5 percent, the Secretary of State — in this case case, Rick Scott appointee Ken Detzner — has to order a recount. (The word “shall” is in the statute.) The candidates who are shown to be losing can refuse the recount, but it doesn’t look like Bill Nelson or Nikki Fried, the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate and Agriculture Commissioner, respectively, are going to do so.
Counties re-scan ballots.
The bodies in charge of re-counting votes according to Florida law are called “canvassing boards,” and they’re comprised of the county supervisor of elections, a circuit court judge and the chair of the county commission.Once a recount is ordered, the canvassing board tests its voting machines to make sure there was no technical error. If such an error is found, the county has to report it to the Department of State within 11 days.If no error is detected, ballots are re-scanned to make sure there was no initial systematic counting error. (Damaged ballots are duplicated so they can be re-scanned.) Counties with electronic voting machines compare the number of total votes cast according to the machines with the total vote count that the county initially reported. If the numbers match up, the county assumes the vote was reported accurately.Under state law, these recount results have to be reported by 3 p.m. “on the 9th day after any general election.” In this case, the recount would be due at 3 p.m. Nov. 15.
The second set of returns is reported to the state.
If the recounted returns show the race to be outside of a 0.25 percent margin, the Secretary of State will likely certify the results as official. If the second margin falls within 0.25 percent, a manual recount is triggered. A manual recount is basically what it sounds like: county canvassing boards count by hand the votes that were either undercounted or over-counted according to the first recount. Duplicated ballots from the first recount are re-checked with their originals to make sure they’re accurate. If there are disputed or unclear ballots (hanging chads, anyone?) the canvassing board meets to determine how they should be counted. This process can take days.
The last time a statewide recount was ordered in Florida, after the famously nutty 2000 presidential election, it was never actually completed. Just hours after the Florida Supreme Court ordered the recount, the U.S. Supreme Court suspended it. After hearing oral arguments from campaign lawyers for Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore, the nation's highest court awarded Florida's electoral votes to Bush.
Barry Richard, who was the lead counsel for Bush then, said Florida's rules have changed since the 2000 debacle.
"The rules are a lot clearer now," Richard said.
But that doesn't mean the outcome in some key statewide races is clear today. It could be weeks before we know for sure who our next U.S. senator or agriculture commissioner is.
This story has been clarified to reflect which votes are counted in a potential second recount.
Kirby Wilson @KirbyWTweets [email protected]
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Rivalino Is in Here: Robotic Revolt and the Future Enslavement of Humanity
October 1, 2001 / Brenden Simpson
Some might claim that the machines have a hidden agenda, that there already is an intelligent machine out there, directing traffic, infinitely patient and connected to the world. One might allege that these protesters are merely the pawns of a conspiracy which they themselves do not fully understand, a conspiracy by machines, for machines… against humanity.
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence
In 1941 a new invention that would one day revolutionize virtually every aspect of society was developed. Electronic computers were unveiled in both the United States and Germany. They were large, bulky units that required gargantuan air-conditioned rooms. They were a programmers nightmare, requiring the separate configuration of thousands of wires to get a program to run.
Eight years later, in 1949, the stored program computer was developed, making the task of programming simpler. Advancements in computer theory began the field of computer science and soon thereafter Artificial intelligence.< The invention of this electronic means of processing data created a medium that made man-made intelligence a possibility. And while this new technology made it possible, the link between human intelligence and machine intelligence was not fully observed until the 1950's. One of the first Americans to make the observation on the principles of feedback theory was Nobert Wiener, which was influential to the development of early Artificial intelligence. In 1955 the Logic Theorist was developed by Newell and Simon, considered by many people to be the first functional AI program. The Logic Theorist would attempt to solve problems according to a tree model, selecting the branch which would most likely result in a correct answer. It was a stepping stone in the development of the AI field. A year later John McCarthy, who has come to be regarded as the father of AI, organized a gathering in Vermont which became known as the Dartmouth Conference. From that point on the field of study became known as Artificial intelligence. And while the conference in itself was not an overall success, it did bring the founders of AI together and laid the foundations of future AI research. AI began to pick up momentum in the years following. While the field remained undefined, ideas were re-examined and built at AI research centers at Carnegie Mellon and MIT. New challenges were found and studied, including research on systems that could efficiently problem-solve by a limiting search, similar to the Logic Theorist. Another challenge was making a system that could learn by itself. In 1957 the General Problem Solver (GPS) was first tested. The program was developed by Newell and Simon, who had earlier success with the Logic Theorist. As an extension of Wiener's feedback principle the GPS was capable of solving common sense problems to a far greater extent than the predecessor programs. A year later John McCarthy announced his new creation to the world - The LISP language (short for LISt Processing). It was adopted as the language of choice among most AI developers and remains in use to this day. MIT received a 2.2 million dollar grant from the US Department of Defense's Advanced research projects Agency (ARPA) to fund experiments involving AI. The grant was made to ensure that the US could stay ahead of the Soviet Union in technological advancements and serve to increase the pace of development in AI by drawing computer scientists from around the world. SHRDLU was written by Terry Winograd at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1968-1970. It carried on a simple dialog with a user, via a teletype, about a small world of objects (the BLOCKS world) shown on an early display screen. Winograd's dissertation, issued as MIT AI Technical Report 235, Feb. 1971 with the title Procedures as a Representation for Data in the Computer Program for Understanding Natural Language, describes SHRDLU in greater detail. Other programs which were developed in this period include STUDENT, an algebra solver, and SIR, which understood simple English sentences. These programs helped refine language comprehension and logic in AI programs. The development of the expert system, which predict the probability of a solution under set conditions, aided in the advancement of AI research. During the 1970's new methods for testing AI programs were utilized, notably the Minsky frames theory. David Marr proposed new theories about machine vision and the PROLOGUE language was developed during this time. As the 1980's came to pass, AI was moving at an even faster pace and making it's way into the corporate sector. Since IBM had contracted a research team in the years following the release of GPS, it was only logical that a continued expansion into the corporate world would eventually happen. In 1986 US saled of AI-related hardware and software reached $425 million. Companies the likes of Digital Electronics were using the XCON, an expert system designed to program the large VAX computer systems. DuPont, General Motors, and Boeing utilized expert systems heavily. Teknowledge and Intellicorp formed, helping fill the demand for expert systems by specializing in creating software specifically to aid in the production of expert systems. It was in the years following this boom that computers were first beginning to seep into private use, outside the laboratory settings. The personal computer made it's debut in this period. Fuzzy logic, pioneered in the US, had the unique ability to make decisions under uncertain conditions. New technology was being developed in Japan during this period which aided the development of AI research. Neural networks were being considered as a possible means of achieving Artificial intelligence. The military put AI based hardware to vigorous testing during the war with Iraq. AI-based technology was used in missile systems, heads-up-displays and various other technologies. AI began to make the transition into the home during this period, with the popularity of AI computers growing. Applications such as voice and character recognition were made available to the public. Artificial Intelligence has and will continue to affect our lives. Do Intelligent Machines Dream of Global Conquest?
While beneficial in the past, can we be so sure that this impact will remain positive for us in the future, as AI becomes more sophisticated?
Recently Stephen Hawkings, the renowned physicist, warned that if humans hope to compete with the rising tide of Artificial intelligence they will have to improve themselves through genetic engineering. Which seems amusing, at first, but there are several who agree with Hawkings observations.
Intelligent machines could replace the need for menial labor on our parts while massively increasing production. They could overwhelm us with all forms of intellectual problems, artistic pursuits and new spiritual debate. This seems well and good, of course. There are many who would welcome such an advancement in that scenario.
However, the danger alluded to by Hawkings is that these intelligent machines could run amok, enslaving or attempting to replace humanity.
A Brief History of Genetic Engineering
It was in the Neolithic age that people began to save the seeds of the best specimens for the next planting, the domestication and breeding of animals, and the use of bacteria in the fermentation of food and beverages. The Neolithic Age, in many respects, is the beginning of genetic engineering as we know it.
In 1866 a Czech monk studies peas through several generations and made his postulations on the inheritance of biological characteristics in the species. His name is Gregor Mendel and while his ideas are revolutionary, they are not widely appreciated for some four decades after they publication. It is in 1903 that the American biologist William Sutton proposes genes are located on chromosomes, which have been identified through a microscope.
Eight years later Danish biologist William Johanssen devises the term “gene” and distinguishes genotypes (genetic composition) from phenotypes (open to influence from the environment). Biologist Charles B. Davenport, head of the US Eugenics Record Office in NY, publishes a book advising eugenic practices, based on evidence that undesirable characteristics such as “pauperism” and “shiftlessness” are inherited traits. The eugenics movement becomes popular in the US and Northern Europe over the next three decades, until Nazism dawns and the effects of a fully functional eugenics program as seen for the first time.
In 1922 the American geneticist Thomas H. Morgan and his colleagues devise a technique to map genes and prepare to make a gene map of the fruit fly chromosomes. 22 years later Oswald Avery and colleagues at the Rockefeller Institute are about to demonstrate that genes are composed of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). During the same time Erwin Schrodinger publishes the classic “What is Life?” which ponders the complexities of biology and suggests that chemical reactions don’t tell the entire story.
In 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson, working at the Molecular Biology Laboratory at Cambridge, explain the double-helix structure of DNA. In 1971 Stanley Cohen of Stanford University and Herbert Boyer of the University of California in San Francisco develop the initial techniques for recombinant-DNA technologies. They publish the paper in 1973, and apply for a patent on the technologies a year later. Boyer goes on to become a co-founder in Genentech, Inc., which becomes the first firm to exploit rDNA technologies by making recombinant insulin.
In 1980 the US Supreme Court rules that recombinant microorganisms can be patented in the ground-breaking Diamond vs. Chakrabarty case, which involved a bacterium that is engineered to break down the components of oil. The microorganism is never used to clean up oil spills over concern over it’s uncontrollable release into the environment. In the same year the first Genentech public stock offering sets a Wall Street record.
A year later the first monoclonal antibody diagnostic kits are approved for sale in America. The first automatic gene synthesizer is also marketed. In 1982 the first rDNA animal vaccine is approved for use in Europe while the first rDNA pharmaceutical product, insulin, is approved for use in the United States. This same year the first successful cross-species transfer of a gene occurs when a human growth gene is inserted into a lab mouse and the first transgenic planet is grown.
In 1985 we see the first environmental release of genetically engineered microorganisms in the United States, despite controversy and heated debate over the issue. The so-called ice-minus bacteria is intended to protect crops from frost. In the same year the US declares that genetically engineered plants may be patented.
Transgenic pigs are produced in 1986 by inserting human growth hormone genes into pig embryos. The US Department of Agriculture experiment in Beltsville, Md., produces deformed and arthritic pigs. Two die before maturity and a third is never able to stand up.
In 1988 the first genetically engineered organism is approved for sale in Australia. Oncomouse, a mouse that was engineered to develop breast cancer by scientists at Harvard University with funding from DuPont, obtains a U.S. patent but is never patented in Europe. Many other types of transgenic mice are soon created. The Human Genome Project begins later in the year, whilst a German court stops the Hoechst pharmaceutical company from producing genetically engineered insulin after public protest over the issue.
In the 1990’s it is Cary Mullis’s discovery of PCR and the development of automated sequencers that greatly enhances research of genetics, becoming the warp drive for the age of molecular biology. Bioinformatics, proteomics and the attempts at developing a mathematics (and computers capable) of determining protein folding will forever revolutionize the discovery of drugs and the development of novel proteins. New techniques like real time PCR and micro arrays can speak volumes of the level of genetic expression within a cell. Massive computers are being used to predict correlations between genotype and phenotype and the interaction between genes and environment.
These recent developments in molecular genetics can, if used properly, marshall in a new age of evolution: one aided by genotyping and understanding what phenotypes these correspond to.
The Protest Against Genetic Modification
The argument against what could easily have been deemed “mad science” just decades ago is that genetically modified foods are unsafe for consumption as we do not yet know the long-term effects they will have on us or our ecosystem. From transgenic crops to animals, a growing opposition force has demanded that there be protections for citizens who have no desire to consume these unnatural products. The term biospiracy has been conjured up to distinctly brand conspiracies involving genetic engineering.
Eight multinationals under heavily scrutiny by protesters are Dow, Du Pont, Monsanto, Imperial Chemical Industries, Novartis, Rhone Poulenc, Bayer and Hoechst. The claim is that these companies are funding genetic experiments aimed at engineering food seeds which would allow food supplies growing on farmland to accept higher doses of herbicides without dying. The fear is that this practice will load the soil and our bodies with toxic chemicals, all for the profit of megacorporations.
And since this article is going to explain how robots will take over the world if we don’t genetically enhance ourselves, it would be most appropriate that I end this portion of the debate and go off into a rant about the dangers on NOT using genetic modification technologies.
Hoo-Mun Versus Mechanoid
We’ve seen films such as the Terminator portray a future in which intelligent machines have humans on the run. Some fear that this fantastic seeming concept could eventually become a reality.
Computers have, on average, been doubling their performance every 18 months. Our intellect has thus far been unable to keep up with such a staggering rate of development, and as such there is a possibility that the computers could develop an intelligence which would prove dangerous to our human civilization.
The protests against the genetic modification revolution which has begun to take place slow the progress of this research, sometimes grinding experiments to a halt. Be it for spiritual, for safety or even questions about ethics, these protests are managing to stall and delay the development of practical and safe means by which we can advance our own minds and bodies to cope with new environments and new threats to our safety.
Inorganic technology, on the other hand, is embraced with very little question. From cell phones to personal computers, we see these technologies proliferating at an extraordinary rate. The creation of the Internet has allowed this technology to flourish even more so, while also allowing protesters to link together, allowing them to co-ordinate their efforts to stop genetic engineering from moving forward at the same pace as other technologies.
Then again, that’s just whacko.
However, if there’s even the remotest possibility, you can bet…
Rivalino will be in there.
Categories: Rivalino Is in Here
Tags: ai, apocalypse, artificial intelligence, features, Full Articles, genetic engineering, Human Genome, James Watson, Mad Science, MIT, oil, rivalino
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Marcus Jules
I think u’re a crackhead.
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Tagfeminism
Why I Drifted Away from the Atheist Movement
February 11, 2015 / Klint Finley
I don’t believe in god. And though I meditate and seek sublime experiences, I don’t think of myself as “spiritual.”
I am, in short, an atheist.
But for the past few years I’ve been hesitant to call myself one. It’s not because I’m worried about being shunned by my friends or in my community. I live in a very secular city and work in a very secular industry. Few of my friends are religious, and those that are have been exceedingly tolerant of my beliefs — or lack thereof.
No, I’m loath to use the A word because the most vocal and visible proponents of atheism have strayed far away from promoting reason, tolerance and secular values and into promoting misogyny, xenophobia and far-right politics.
But for at least a couple years, from sometime in 2006 until sometime in 2009, I was a militant atheist, dashing off dozens of blog posts condemning religious thought for promoting murder and mutilation. I thought we, the atheists of the world, were railing against injustice and speaking truth to power.
Atheism felt just and true and important. But no longer. What happened?
Atheism as Justification for Xenophobia
Over time I sensed that for far too many people in the movement, atheism was if not a front then at least a rationalization for xenophobia or racism or both. As a long-time advocate of permissive immigration policies, that didn’t sit well for me.
I thought, and still do think, that one of the best ways a secular society can help those living under extremist religious regimes is to welcome them into our own countries. What I saw instead were atheists aligning themselves with bigots and Christian fundamentalists to promote xenophobic propaganda and reactionary immigration policies. I joined in with many other atheist bloggers in posting Fitna when it came out, but ended up feeling like a tool for doing so. That was probably the beginning of the end.
A Changing View of Religion
I was eventually swayed by anthropologist Scott Atran’s critique of Movement Atheism, and his argument that it would be better to try to curb terrorism by providing role models through media such as comic books than trying to eradicate religion.
Over time I also began to realize that I, like many other Movement Atheists, had been equating Islam as a whole with a relatively small fringe. Although I often included the caveat that most Muslims were peaceful, I wrote about “Islam” as if it were one big thing as opposed to a moniker for a great many different strains of belief. That realization was driven home as I met more Muslims personally and saw how little they shared in common with the likes of the Taliban.
Although I bristled at first at the term “Islamaphobia” since I think it’s entirely reasonable to critique religion in general and Islam in particular, I’ve come to realize that it’s a perfectly fitting term for what it describes: an irrational fear and hatred of all people who practice any form of that religion.
When you spend a lot time reading about fatwas against Salman Rushdie, it can be easy to get paranoid about a huge international network of Muslim assassins out to kill anyone who criticizes the religion. But that doesn’t exist, and the fear-mongering Islamaphobia does no one any good.
Meanwhile, I was developing a more nuanced view of what organized religion as a whole actually is, which I suppose I should save for another essay. Suffice it to say, I simply became less worried about religion as an institution.
The Monomania of Atheists
Then there was the monomaniacal focus on religion to the exclusion of all other social issues. I was particularly frustrated with what I saw as a lack of interest on the part of Movement Atheists in the root causes of extreme religiosity, such as poverty and lack of access to education. Given the broad overlap between atheism and libertarianism, I started to notice a tendency of atheists to blame poverty on religion, rather than vice versa. The end of religion was being promoted as a panacea that could solve all the world’s troubles.
I also developed a sense that Movement Atheists wouldn’t be happy with any other movement until they dropped all other causes and joined the crusade against Islam. Gay marriage in the U.S. was to take a backseat to the treatment of gays in predominantly Muslim nations. No feminist issues were to be discussed ever — not as long honor killing was still happening anywhere in the world.
Honor killing became a particular sticking point for me as I started to look into and think more deeply about “crimes of passion” (as they’re called when a non-Muslim man commits them) and lethal domestic violence in the U.S., and came to the conclusion that it had more to do with toxic masculinity than religion. That led me to fully embrace feminist thought, putting me further at odds with the atheist movement.
Shark Jump
By 2011, when Dawkins published his “Dear Muslima” comment — suggesting that women who complained about sexual harassment in the workplace should shut the fuck up because at least they weren’t having their genitals mutilated — I’d already drifted away, but it’s the nice illustration of just about everything that’s wrong with Movement Atheism.
Consider, for example, Dawkins’s hypocrisy in writing that comment. He suggested that the incident that Rebecca Watson described — and the subsequent harassment she received as a result of daring to mention it — was so minor in comparison to the myriad ways that women suffer in other parts of the world that she shouldn’t even talk about it at all. But if people should only mention the worst of all abuses, then why is Dawkins even writing about a woman writing about her experiences? Shouldn’t he be writing about something more important?
The inescapable conclusion is that Dawkins was merely using atheism as a bludgeon to silence women who dared to speak out against abuse in the West because the topic made him uncomfortable. He felt threatened by women, and did what he could to push the conversation away from the ways men abuse women in the West.
And we’ve seen that again and again in the atheist community in recent years, from the barbaric treatment of women like Jennifer McCreight within the atheist community to Dawkins’s rape victim blaming.
If there was a single shark jumping moment, though, it had to have been the controversy surrounding Park51, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” a planned community center that was to include — in addition to a performing arts center, swimming pool and gym, among other things — a large prayer room.
Movement Atheists thought the idea of Muslims praying inside a building two blocks away from the WTC site was so offensive that it should be illegal. Yes, the very same people who gleefully publish drawings of Mohammad to intentionally offend Muslims were offended at the very thought of someone praying in a room behind closed doors. Liberal values like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and property rights went right out the window. That was especially rich coming from the libertarians.
That whole ordeal, along with the movement’s vocal support of France’s burqa ban, laid bare the hypocrisy and irrationality of atheist movement. It was then clear that this movement wasn’t about fighting theocracy, giving voice to those oppressed by religion, or advancing the ideals of an open society. It was about imposing their own beliefs on other people. And I wanted nothing to do with it.
Bloodied Hands
I started writing this about a week ago, while thinking about the role of atheism in the overlapping reactionary, pick-up artist, GamerGate, and Men’s Rights Advocacy communities — recently dubbed the “Redpill Right.” It made me think about what I’d once had in common with those men, and what had changed.
And then today, three Muslim people were murdered in Chapel Hill by a militant atheist. Someone who wrote things on Facebook that sound not entirely unlike things I used to write on this very blog.
Of course there are those, like Dawkins, who will argue that actually, it’s about ethics in parking violations. But by Dawkins’s own logic, all atheists — myself included — now have blood on our hands, by making the world safe for extremists like Craig Stephen Hicks. And there’s probably some truth to that.
Which leaves me wondering where to go from here. There’s a case to be made that I, and all other non-believers who don’t share a reactionary, misogynistic view of the world should become active in Movement Atheism, to turn it around and make it safe for the marginalized. Maybe we could even change the minds of some of the worst offenders in the scene.
But I think changing those minds will be subject to the same sorts of backlash effects that I we see when trying to convert the religious to atheism. Those of us who don’t fit in with this brand of atheism are simply best moving on. We can promote reason and secular values without the tunnel vision of Movement Atheism.
Better then to wander away and leave these sad, frightened men to shout into the darkness alone, with nary a god to hear them.
Mutation Vectors: Slackback Edition
January 17, 2015 / Klint Finley
My tendonitis is flaring up and my stomach is killing me, so instead of writing up something new, here’s part of a Vectors that was originally going to go out November 29th, 2014 but that I didn’t finish due to …
This would have followed the Fantastic Death Abyss.
This week’s must read: Deb Chachra on the 25th anniversary of the École Polytechnique:
There’s often a sense that women in the tech world make a big deal out of small events. But the myriad ways in which they are told their presence is illegitimate, that tells them that they don’t belong, is a constant pressure pushing them towards leaving technology (and game journalism, and the public sphere). In particular, when women in technology also have public voices, as with Anita Sarkeesian or Brianna Wu or Kathy Sierra, the pressure can be—is often intended to be—crushing.
I don’t think being a woman in technology is worth dying for, but I learned early that some men think it’s worth killing for.
Frank Serpico says the police are still out of control.
The Awl: the City That Split in Two
Vice: The Coming Blackout Epidemic
After posting about David Bowie’s Outside, I stumbled across Pushing Ahead of the Dame, a site written by one Chris O’Leary, dedicated to annotating every single Bowie song ever. There I learned about Leon a bootleg that may have been what Bowie originally intended Outside to be. And via O’Leary’s annotations, I’ve come to realize that OrpheanLyricist’s interpretation of Outside‘s story line is, though valid based on what was actually released, certainly not what Bowie had originally intended.
I ended up spending way too much time on this site. Here are the annotations for Leon and Outside.
Four More Reads on Rage Killing and Misogyny
Rage Killings in the Neoliberal World
UCSB: A Terrible Lesson in Digital Dualism and Misogyny
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds
Dudes, Stop Putting Women in the Girlfriendzone
Let’s call the Isla Vista killings what they were: misogynist extremism
I’m reluctant to write about , because the media needs to stop inspiring copycat murders and because of the amount of confusion and misreporting that surrounded the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords.
But I think the issues Laurie Penny raises in her piece on the topic are worth discussing. Penny notes that this wouldn’t be the first time that a sexually frustrated man has used feminism as an excuse for a killing spree:
In 1989, 25-year-old Marc Lépine shot 28 people at the École Polytechnique in Quebec, Canada, claiming he was “fighting feminism”. Fourteen women died. In 2009, a 48-year-old man called George Sodini walked into a gym in the Pittsburgh area and shot 13 women, three of whom died. His digital manifesto was a lengthier version of Rodger’s, vowing vengeance against the female sex for refusing to provide him with pleasure and comfort. Online misogynists approved.
Up ’til now companies like Twitter haven’t taken seriously the threats and harassment that misogynist activists terrorize women with. Penny writes:
For the countless women and girls who have come to live with harassment as a daily cost of being in public and productive while female – let alone while feminist – the tragedy at Isla Vista has been a chilling wake-up call. I know I will never be able to tell myself in quite the same way that the men who link me to two-hundred-post threads about how I ought to be raped can’t actually hurt my body, no matter how much they savage my peace of mind.
We have been told for a long time that the best way to deal with this sort of harrassment and violence is to laugh it off. Women and girls and queer people have been told that online misogynists pose no real threat, even when they’re sharing intimate guides to how to destroy a woman’s self-esteem and force her into sexual submission. Well, now we have seen what the new ideology of misogyny looks like at its most extreme. We have seen incontrovertible evidence of real people being shot and killed in the name of that ideology, by a young man barely out of childhood himself who had been seduced into a disturbing cult of woman-hatred. Elliot Rodger was a victim – but not for the reasons he believed.
Full Story: New Statesmen: Let’s call the Isla Vista killings what they were: misogynist extremism
As to how much blame to place specifically on the “men’s rights activists” (MRA), “pick-up artists” (PUA) movements, I’m reminded of Leon Wieseltier writing about the idea ofcollective responsibility vs. individual responsibility in the case of Jewish and Islamic terrorism:
If the standpoint of broadly collective responsibility was the wrong way to explain the atrocities, so too was the standpoint of purely individual responsibility. There were currents of culture behind the killers. Their ideas were not only their own.
I’d also like to echo Chip Berlet’s comments on Democracy Now following the murder of George Tiller in 2009:
I don’t think the issue here is urging the government to expand its repressive powers. I think that’s a mistake. I think what we have here are groups of criminals and criminal individuals who need to be pursued and prosecuted, as appropriate.
And I think it’s important to understand that, for many years, clinic violence was not treated with the same aggressive attention by the federal government and state governments as other forms of vandalism and violence. And I think that that’s because the anti-abortion movement has a very large political and religious constituency that makes it very difficult for state and federal officials to try and actually enforce the existing laws that they should be doing.
The Failure of the FBI’s Right-Wing Terrorist Infiltration Program
What Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto Has to Tell Us About the “Lean In” Era
Haley Mlotek writes:
I cannot abide by that tone claiming ladies are just in this together: girls nights and other segregated socializing, grouping us by the most tenuous links, like that I was born with a vagina and live as a female-identified person, and that’s enough for the publishing industry to feel confident that Sandberg will speak to me. There’s a special place in hell for people who sincerely say, “Listen up, ladies,” which must be the last thing you hear before you enter the underworld, and, “We’re all in this together,” the first after passing through the rings of fire.
Haraway, by contrast, writes that “there is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women,” a welcome reprieve from a false sisterhood. In 1985, decades before Sheryl Sandberg left Google to work for Facebook and asked us to make similar leans in our lives, Haraway warned, “Work is being redefined as both literally female and feminized, whether performed by men or women. To be feminized means to be made extremely vulnerable; able to be disassembled, reassembled, exploited as a reserve labour force… leading an existence that always borders on being obscene, out of place, and reducible to sex.” The cyborg that Haraway wants to be is “an imagination of a feminist speaking in tongues to strike fear into the circuits of the super-saves of the new right. It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories.” I would rather be that cyborg than ban bossy.
When I consider what a woman is — or what a woman should be, according to the peanut gallery offering helpful suggestions at a reasonable price — I wonder, like Donna Haraway, if the category we call woman is not already some sort of cyborg, a hybrid body made up of organic material and the implanted subconsciousness of those voices telling women how to behave, how to be better. These suggestions seek to make women robotic in their uniformity; voluntary Stepford Wives.
Maybe, instead, we should think of our consciousness as a circuit board that we are in control of. Instead of being something that must be formed, we can hold ourselves as individual units open to being rewired, to adapting to new advances, and not simply mechanisms who are in need of constant repair from some sort of patriarchal tool box.
Full Story: Buzz Feed: You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine
(via Today in Tabs)
What It’s Like to be a Woman at a Comic Book Shop
Read the whole comic by Noelle Stevenson.
(via Metafilter)
Previously: If Male Superheroes Were Drawn Like Female Superheroes
Mindful Cyborgs: A Look Back at 2013
For our New Years special episode, our new co-host Alex Williams joined Chris Dancy and me for a reflection on our most popular episodes of 2013. Here we are talking about episode 12, our interview with feminist activist Shanley:
CD: Klint, did you . . . we had Shanley on. She’s one of the shows we’re going to talk about in a bit but you saw some of the things that happened at conferences. Defrag opened up their conference with a whole section on there will be no talk of this and there will be no [00:08:05]. Conferences with disclaimers, there’s a O’Reilly conference coming up called Solid and when you apply one of the things they ask you is are you gay, black or are you one of these things that we don’t normally have on stage because we’re going to instantly give you more credit in consideration.
When I filled out the Solid to speak at Solid, I thought to myself wow, this is kind of crazy. What did they call it back in the 60s and 70s when they moved people through government ranks because they were minorities? Affirmative action. There’s digital or affirmative action happening. It’s just really strange.
AW: Digital affirmative action, yeah.
KF: Yeah. It feel like it’s really late for it to be happening. When you said affirmative action happen everywhere else decades ago, there’s also an argument to be made that things are actually –
CD: Worse.
KF: – worse outside of the tech industry but I’m glad that all these things are getting more attention. I don’t know how it’s all going to play out but there’s definitely a strong reaction against all of it as well. The more women that speak out the more just misogynistic douchebag guys also like react to it and actually kind of double down on being pricks and I don’t know where it’s all going to end up. I don’t know if there’s a better way of addressing the issues.
I think that a lot of times people get carried away with attacking individuals over tweets rather than thinking more about the big picture but at the same time usually people need to be called out on for what they say. So, I don’t know
Download and Full Transcript: Mindful Cyborgs: The Beginning — A Look Back at 2013
Since recording the show, Shanley has launched her own tech publication Model View Culture. You can read an interview with her about the new endeavor here.
On Race and Sexual Violence in the Works of Alan Moore
Let’s get something out of the way upfront: I don’t think Alan Moore is a racist, homophobe or misogynist. But some of his works — particularly League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Neonomicon — have issues. Although it might seem silly to go after Moore when there are much worse offenders both in comics and other media (not to mention actual rapists), Moore’s work is a good case study of how even the most well intentioned, progressive writers can screw-up matters of race, gender and sexuality. And because he is perhaps the most highly regarded writer in comics, there’s a trickle down effect from his work. Moore refuses to listen to his critics, but maybe other writers can learn from his mistakes.
Last week Pádraig Ó Méalóid published an interview with Alan Moore in which he asked a few questions about sexual assault in his comics in general and specifically about his inclusion of Golliwog in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier.
Moore’s response is long and vitriolic, and misses the point entirely.
I can understand why Moore is so bothered by accusations of racism and sexism. He’s an old hippie who has put more consideration to identity politics and representation into his work than most comic writers of his or any other generation. He’s taken other creators to task for their sexism and homophobia. But even though he’s written some strong women and minority characters, he can and does get it wrong sometimes, and his reaction here is disappointing — not least of all because of the rhetorical style he employs.
This isn’t ‘feminism’. It’s Islamophobia
December 23, 2013 / Klint Finley
Laurie Penny writes:
I am not writing here on behalf of Muslim women, who can and do speak for themselves, and not all in one voice. I am writing this as a white feminist infuriated by white men using dog-whistle Islamophobia to derail any discussion of structural sexism; as someone who has heard too many reactionaries tell me to shut up about rape culture and the pay gap and just be grateful I’m not in Saudi Arabia; as someone angered that so many Muslim feminists fighting for gender justice are forced to watch their truth, to paraphrase that fusty old racist Rudyard Kipling, “twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools”.
We are the fools, if we believe that accepting aggressive distinctions between nice, safe western sexism and scary, heathen Muslim sexism is going to serve the interests of women. The people making these arguments don’t care about women. They care about stoking controversy, attacking Muslims and shouting down feminists of all stripes.
For decades, western men have hijacked the language of women’s liberation to justify their Islamophobia. If we care about the future of feminism, we cannot let them set the agenda.
Full Story: The Guardian: This isn’t ‘feminism’. It’s Islamophobia
I dislike the term “Islamophobia,” but lacking a better term, I can’t help but agree — even though of I’ve been guilty of this in the past.
This form of hijacking is especially common in the atheist community, with the likes of Richard Dawkins and Pat Condell using it to dodge criticism of the community’s own treatment of women.
See also: American Muslims Have Mainstream Values and Honor killings and “crimes of passion”.
Mindful Cyborgs: Power and Privilege in the New Working Order
October 18, 2013 / Klint Finley
This week Chris Dancy and I talked to Shanley, a tech product manager and feminist in the Bay Area, about sexism and micro-aggression in the work place.
KF: How can people be more aware of what’s going on there? I mean, one of the things I was wondering about when I read it is how often managers are really intentionally doing this because I imagine there’s some element of desire to be the boss and express power in those ways but I’m guessing actually that there’s a fair amount that’s completely subconscious and that if managers were more aware of they actually would perhaps not do these things.
First of all, do you agree that some of it is unintentional and secondly like how can people become more aware of this stuff?
CD: One of the things I heard Shanley you say was when I become or when we become managers the things we observe so I think to Klint’s question is some of this just kind of picked up like lint on your mind because you’ve watched people manage?
SK: Yes absolutely. I think we tend to emulate what we see around us, we tend to try to emulate and live up to the mythologies around us. I think that most this type of behavior is not conscious at all. No one is sitting there thinking how can I make my team feel bad, how can I make them feel inferior, how can I make them feel less than … but there’s something amazing about that realization because it starts with this realization that like managers have a profound impact on the lives and experiences of their teams.
We know this is true because when you ask people about bad managers that they’ve had you see the tremendous negative impact that managers can have and not just affecting you as an individual but ask someone’s partner, their friends about the bad managers they’ve had and they’ll give you an earful too. And then you talk with managers and they have this really strong desire to really help their team but there’s a disconnect going on there. When you can sort of star in this shared position of being like okay, like this is a really powerful space, the space of interaction is really powerful. It’s something that sometimes goes horribly wrong but no one wants it to you and how can we sort of start from that position of like good intention but more awareness and honesty.
As always, you can find it on Soundcloud, iTunes or Stitcher, or download it directly.
Show notes and transcript are here.
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Obstetric outcome of teenage pregnancy and labour in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals complex, Ile-Ife: A ten year review
OA Ijarotimi1, OR Biobaku2, OO Badejoko1, OM Loto1, EO Orji1
1 Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Perinatology, Obafemi Awolowo University/Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Osun, Nigeria
2 Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Perinatology, Obafemi Awolowo University/Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Osun, Nigeria, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Tathleeth General Hospital, Tathleeth, Aseer Region, Saudi Arabia
Dr. O A Ijarotimi
Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Perinatology, College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University/Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife, Osun
DOI: 10.4103/TJOG.TJOG_13_19
Background: Teenage or adolescent pregnancy is a recognized problem of public health significance. Every year, in excess of 14 million teenage girls give birth to a child; most of these young mothers are living in non-industrialized countries. In view of the high prevalence, there is a need to audit such cases regularly to identify areas of possible improvement in its management. Results obtained from the audit can help in policy formulation and strengthen advocacy on issues ranging from abortion complications to early marriage. Objectives: The objectives of this 10-year retrospective study are to document the pattern of prevalence, presentation, obstetric outcome of teenage pregnancy, and labor at the Ife Hospital unit of obafemi awolowo university teaching hospitals complex (OAUTHC), Ile-Ife. Materials and Methods: The study involved a 10-year retrospective analysis of the data collected from the records of all cases of teenage pregnancies during the period from January 1999 to December 2008. Results: During the period studied there were 6,250 deliveries of which teenage pregnancies accounted for 255 giving an incidence of 4.08% of the total deliveries. Majority (51.76%) of the pregnant teenagers were unbooked for antenatal care and 92.12% of them were nulliparous. Antepartum hemorrhage, abnormal presentations, obstructed labor, and anemia were the commonest complications seen occurring in 54.5, 36.5, 14.1, and 11.4 per cent of the teenagers respectively which was significantly higher when compared to the adult pregnant women (P = 0.000). Delivery was by caesarean section in 32.2% of the teenagers compared to 22.6% in the other women (P = 0.000). The overall perinatal mortality rate was 68.8/1000 births while teenagers had a perinatal mortality rate of 106/1000 births (P = 0.013). Conclusion: Teenage pregnancy still remains a major recognized problem of public health significance. Most of these patients are from low socio-economic class and their obstetric performance is relatively poor compared to the adult group. The concept of women's sexual and reproductive health rights needs to be reinforced in most developing countries. Improving access to contraception and discouragement of early marriage will help to reduce teenage pregnancy and the overall burden of maternal mortality. Optimal care should be given to teenage mothers not only to improve the pregnancy outcome but also to enhance their social, educational, and emotional adjustment.
Ijarotimi O A
Biobaku O R
Badejoko O O
Loto O M
Orji E O
Ile-Ife; outcome; pregnancy; teenage.
© Tropical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow
Online since 27th May, 2016
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12 Spooky and Terror-Filled Short Story Collections to Read with the Lights On
Posted in eBooks and Audiobooks, Fiction and Science Fiction and Fantasy | Tagged with anthologies, Edgar Allan Poe, Ghost Stories, Gothic, Halloween, Haunted Houses, haunting, Horror, horror tales, Paranormal Fiction, scary stories, Short Stories, spooky and supernatural
Surprisingly, I didn't really get into short stories until college. For college students, time is scarce to say the least. They're often bogged down with reading textbooks, conducting research, writing papers and cramming for exams. So, reading an entire novel for fun can be challenging (especially if you also have a job). The great thing about short story collections is that they offer a lot of variety. You'll find everything from mystery to science fiction to strange tales. And depending on how long each story happens to be, you might even have time to read or listen to a handful of them while grabbing lunch.
What comes to mind when you think of spooky tales? Most likely Edgar Allan Poe, because his name is synonymous with scary stories. In fact, even though most of his works were published more than 100 years ago, they remain popular to this day. Poe is simply one of those figures that's forever ingrained in pop culture. And yes, I know horror, suspense and scary tales go far beyond Poe. However, it's well worth noting that his works continue to inspire adaptations and writers. After all, he was simply a great storyteller.
One of the creepiest, incredibly haunting and memorable tales by Poe is the short story "The Tell Tale Heart," published in 1843. It's the story of a man who seems to be losing his mind, murders his elderly housemate and afterwards believes his beating heart is haunting him from beyond the grave. It's an incredibly creepy psychological horror tale. And who can forget Poe's infamous poem "The Raven," published in 1845? It's undeniable, Poe definitely had a way with words. "The Raven" is lyrical, suspenseful and simply timeless. If you're a Simpsons fan, you may remember this homage to "The Raven" narrated by James Earl Jones, which aired in 1990 during the second season. It was part of the very first "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween special (the 30th is scheduled to air on October 21, 2018).
Spooky Tales on Audio
Check out these great classic horror tales on audio - they'll send chills down your spine.
We hope you enjoy the selections in this blog post, but if you're just not into scary stories - let us know where your interests lie. Tell us what you've enjoyed reading, watching or listening to in the past. Based on the information you provide, one of our expert librarians on staff will send you at least three personalized recommendations as part of our Give 3 Get 3 service!
Haunting and Terror-Filled Short Stories
1. The Classic Horror Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a reclusive scribbler of horror stories for the American pulp magazines that specialized in Gothic and science fiction in the interwar years. He often published in Weird Tales and has since become the key figure in the slippery genre of "weird fiction." Lovecraft developed an extraordinary vision of feeble men driven to the edge of sanity by glimpses of malign beings that have survived from human prehistory or by malevolent extra-terrestrial visitations. The ornate language of his stories builds towards grotesque moments of revelation, quite unlike any other writer.
2. The Dollmaster and Other Tales of Terror by Joyce Carol Oates
Six terrifying tales to chill the blood from the unique imagination of Joyce Carol Oates. A young boy plays with dolls instead of action figures. But as he grows older, his passion takes on a darker edge...A white man shoots dead a black boy creating a media frenzy. But could it be that it was self-defense as he claims? A nervous woman tries to escape her husband. He says he loves her, but she's convinced he wants to kill her...These quietly lethal stories reveal the horrors that dwell within us all.
Also available in eBook.
3. The October Country: Stories by Ray Bradbury
Welcome to a land Ray Bradbury calls "the Undiscovered Country" of his imagination—that vast territory of ideas, concepts, notions and conceits where the stories you now hold were born. America's premier living author of short fiction, Bradbury has spent many lifetimes in this remarkable place—strolling through empty, shadow-washed fields at midnight; exploring long-forgotten rooms gathering dust behind doors bolted years ago to keep strangers locked out.. and secrets locked in. The nights are longer in this country. The cold hours of darkness move like autumn mists deeper and deeper toward winter. But the moonlight reveals great magic here—and a breathtaking vista.
4. Night Music by John Connolly
A decade after "Nocturnes" first charmed and frightened readers, the author offers a second volume of tales of the supernatural.
5. Pretty Monsters : Stories by Kelly Link
Weirdly wonderful and a touch macabre, the nine short stories take readers into worlds with elements of reality but also supply a fantastic twist.
6. The Merry Spinster : Tales of Everyday Horror by Mallory Ortberg
Adapted from the author's "Children Stories Made Horrific" series, a collection of darkly whimsical stories based on classic fairy tales updates familiar favorites with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity and feminist mischief.
7. Through the Woods: Stories by Emily Carroll
Discover a terrifying world in the woods in this collection of five hauntingly beautiful graphic stories.
8. Nightmares : A New Decade of Modern Horror edited by Ellen Datlow
An acclaimed horror editor presents 24 terrifying tales from such authors as Garth Nix, Livia Llewellyn, Richard Kadrey, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, Margo Lanagan and Gene Wolfe that remind us that evil is all around us.
9. Ghostly : A Collection of Ghost Stories edited, illustrated and introduced by Audrey Niffenegger
A collection of the best ghost stories of all time surveys the evolution of the ghost story genre from the eighteenth century to the modern era and includes works from Edgar Allen Poe, Kelly Link, M.R. James, and Neil Gaiman.
10. Magic for Unlucky Girls by A.A. Balaskovits
The fourteen fantastical stories in Magic For Unlucky Girls take the familiar tropes of fairytales and twist them into new and surprising shapes. These unlucky girls, struggling against a society that all too often oppresses them, are forced to navigate strange worlds as they try to survive. From carnivorous husbands to a bath of lemons to whirling basements that drive people mad, these stories are about the demons that lurk in the corners and the women who refuse to submit to them, instead fighting back sometimes with their wit, sometimes with their beauty, and sometimes with shotguns in the dead of night.
11. Alone with the Horrors : the Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell, 1961-1991
Ramsey Campbell is perhaps the world's most honored author of horror fiction. He has won four World Fantasy Awards, ten British Fantasy Awards, three Bram Stoker Awards, and the Horror Writers' Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.
Three decades into his career, Campbell paused to review his body of short fiction and selected the stories that were, to his mind, the very best of his works. Alone With the Horrors collects nearly forty tales from the first thirty years of Campbell's writing, including several award-winners.
12. The People in the Castle : Selected Strange Stories by Joan Aiken
Here is the whisper in the night, the dog whose loyalty outlasted death, the creak upstairs, that half-remembered ghost story that won't let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you'd checked the lock on the door before dark fell. Here are tales of suspense and the supernatural that will chill, amuse, and exhilarate.
As a Toledo Lucas County Public Library cardholder you have access to resources throughout the state of Ohio, because we participate in library consortiums like Search Ohio and OhioLink. To request these items they must be available in the catalog. Ask a librarian for more information.
April is a Librarian who has worked for TLCPL for over 25 years. She enjoys reading children's books, mysteries, general fiction and nonfiction. She's also a classic film buff with a special appreciation for film noir.
Other Stories by April
Conservation and Recycling Posted about 2 hours ago
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Occupy Prepares Nationwide May Day Mayhem
Occupy’s plans for nationwide May Day chaos are going ahead full-speed ahead, with the movement boasting of “direct action” schemes that include protest marches, shutting down the financial sector, and blocking bridges and tunnels.
The group’s official websites announce plans to “occupy” Manhattan-bound bridges and tunnels as well as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Tuesday.
Besides street protests, sympathizers are asked to engage in a U.S. general strike to “shut it down,” referring to the country’s economy.
The MayDayNYC.org website, which serves as a national planning hub, published the call to arms:
“This May Day, Occupy Wall Street, in coalition with numerous other organizations and occupations, calls for a Day Without The 99%: No Work, No School, No Shopping, No Housework, No Compliance. Let’s take the streets, reclaim our communities, and support each other. NOT the 1%.
“If you can’t strike call in sick. If you can’t call in sick hold a slow down. We know how to shut it down because we’re the ones that prop it up.”
The Manhattan-based Occupy calls for “direct action and civil disobedience” in Midtown throughout the day, including “creative disruptions, bank blockades, outreach to commuters and tourists, and more!”
Occupy Wall Street announced a plan to blockade New York City bridges and tunnels.
“On May 1, 2012, autonomous direct action groups within Occupy Wall Street, as a part of the global mobilizations for general strike and economic non-compliance, will block one or more Manhattan-bound bridges or tunnels to protest the shameful opulence of the 1%.”
Occupy warns: “We are announcing these blockades now as a fair warning to the rest of the working people of New York and New Jersey who are considering joining the strikes and mobilizations of the day: the city will be shut down, so enjoy the day without the 99%!”
The Occupy-affiliated StrikeMay1st website links to May Day schemes from the movement’s local branches in over 120 cities nationwide.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, protests are slated to kick off with Occupy activists congregating at 6 a.m. Pacific Time to “Occupy the Golden Gate Bridge.”
The Bay Area schedule is replete with “anti-capitalist” events such as an “anti-patriarchy” protest and actions to protest “gentrification.”
Occupy Seattle calls for a “revolt/blockade” as well as participation in the general nationwide strike to “shut down the global circulation of capital that every day serves to enrich the ruling classes and impoverish the rest of us.”
Similar proclamations are posted on Chicago’s May Day website, which includes instructions in both English and Spanish.
‘Economic terrorist’ brains of Occupy plot?
The plan to shut down the U.S. economy is reminiscent of plans first hatched in March 2010 by Stephen Lerner, a controversial anti-capitalist SEIU organizer. Lerner visited the Obama White House at least four times.
WND was first to report Lerner was the brain behind some of the economic protest templates being used by the Occupy Wall Street campaign.
Lerner last year laid out a mass economic protest plan intended to bring down the stock market. He boasted it could be used to cause a new financial crisis. His ideology prompted some conservative critics to go so far as to label him an economic terrorist.
Writing in the Washington Post last September, columnist Harold Meyerson, the vice-chairman of Democratic Socialists of America, quoted Lerner describing how a coalition was fomenting the current economic protests.
Lerner described himself as part of the coalition, referring to the organizations behind the demonstrations as “we.”
Lerner told Meyerson: “It’s a confluence of planned and unplanned demonstrations. … We build on each other. We go ping-ponging back and forth.”
In an interview about the Wall Street protests, Lerner outlined his goals: “How do we bring down the stock market? How do we bring down their bonuses? How do we interfere with their ability to, to be rich?”
In an oped titled “This can be our moment,” published in the radical In These Times magazine, Lerner calls on followers to “go on offense” and “make Wall Street pay for the trillions it stole from us.”
Lerner outlined his campaign to “stoke simmering discontent into concrete, concerted direct action to challenge corporate extremism.”
Lerner’s campaign was intended to sow “the seeds of a movement that turns the tables on [Wall Street].”
The Blaze.com posted audio of Lerner addressing a conference in which he stated the aim of such an economic campaign would be, among other things, to “bring down the stock market.”
“There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement,” Lerner said.
During the presentation, Lerner called for a mass strike by mortgage payers that, he said, could cause a new financial crisis.
“And so the question would be, what would happen if we organized homeowners en masse to do a mortgage strike. Just say if we get, and, and, if we get half a million people to agree, we’ll all not, we’ll agree we won’t pay our mortgages, it would literally cause a new financial crisis,” he said.
Occupy partners with anarchists
The latest Occupy plans come as WND reported earlier this week Occupy has partnered with an anarchy movement to deploy joint chaotic actions aimed at protesting capitalism.
Last weekend, Occupy D.C. and an anti-capitalist group calling itself the Anarchist Alliance D.C. Network caused a ruckus at an International Monetary Fund convention. Protesters reportedly attached climbing ropes to security barricades outside the main IMF entry checkpoint and pulled them down. Other ropes were used to pull down obstacles along the path delegates used to attend the meetings.
Protesters stormed several hotels where IMF delegates were staying, including the Washington Circle Hotel and the Mayflower.
A Facebook “anarchy” page was created in the run-up to the IMF event. The page, titled “Anarchy Spring training and IMF protest in DC-April 19th to 20th-2012,” served as an online planning forum.
The Occupy Wall Street website initiated a subsection titled “anarchy” in which related events are posted.
The site boasts of a Manhattan protest earlier this month, following an anarchy book fair, in which agitators marched through the streets turning over trash cans and spraying anarchy symbols on local businesses. Protesters reportedly used eight-foot-long metal pipes to smash the windows of a Starbucks in New York’s East Village.
One group, calling itself the First of May Anarchist Alliance, has partnered with Occupy to protest the Trayvon Martin shooting.
The anarchy tactics apparently come directly from the playbook of a direct-action organization known as the Ruckus Society, which helped to spark the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle that turned violent.
Ruckus is directly tied to Occupy. WND previously reported official direct-action training resources for Occupy events include several manuals from the Ruckus Society.
Ruckus was also listed as a “friend and partner” of Occupy events, including the movement’s Days of Action held in October 2011.
Ruckus is funded by the George Soros-financed Tides Center, which has been involved in Occupy since the movement’s onset.
Another grantee of Tides is the Adbusters magazine, which first announced the Occupy movement. MoveOn.org, which has joined Occupy, is funded by Tides.
Now the market thinks the Fed could make an even deeper cut to rates later this month
Socialism Conference Plays Out In Democrat Policy
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Is this the Universe where Spock is Evil and has a Goatee?
Mike Petrelli:
But what if you really want to make a direct impact on the system, and especially on the education of low-income kids? There’s one obvious step you can take: choose a diverse public school for your own children.
Here the research is much more compelling than for charter schools or the other promising strategies outlined by the movie. Years of desegregation studies showed that African-American kids performed much better when they attended integrated schools. More recent, and more sophisticated, “peer effects” research (by the likes of Carolyn Hoxby and Eric Hanushek) finds much the same. Rick Kahlenberg has been shouting from the rooftops that poor kids do better in “middle class” schools–which is why, in Gerald Grant’s words, there are no bad schools in Raleigh.
Davis Guggenheim starts his film by driving by inner-city public schools to which he couldn’t imagine sending his offspring. But if he and his friends all made a collective decision to send their kids to such schools, they would improve overnight. This isn’t just wishful thinking; all around the country, affluent families are choosing to send their children to racially and socio-economically integrated schools, in places like Cambridge and Berkeley, but also in less likely spots such as Alexandria, Virginia; Stapleton, Colorado; and Miraloma Park, California.
This is no easy decision, to be sure. I live in Takoma Park, Maryland, a very diverse suburb of DC, and my wife and I are agonizing about whether to stay or go, mostly because of the schools. (Our oldest son is only three, so we have some time.) In fact, I’m writing a whole book about this agony, and all of the pros and cons of sending your own kids to a school with a sizable number of poor children.
But let’s face it, reformers: As long as we’re working to fix the schools of “other people’s children,” we’re only going to get so far. An Inconvenient Truth inspired people to vote for environmentally-friendly candidates, but it also motivated (some) people to ditch their cars, consume less energy, and change their lifestyles. The education corollary is simple, Davis: Stop at the closest public school, fix it up, and send your kid there.
Mega-dittos. Don't count on me to buy the book though.
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About Tantric
Hugo Ferreira (vocals), Todd Whitener, Matt Taul, and Jesse Vest
Tantric Tour Information from Pollstar
Tantric is back with a vengeance with a brand new line-up and a new vision on what Tantric will be from here on out.
I had the honor to catch up with lead singer Hugo Ferreira when they played in Rock Island and he filled me in on what's new with a band reformed. Hugo is the only original member of Tantric. Originally Tantric was started by Ferreira and Days of the New members Todd Whitener, Matt Taul and Jesse Vest. The band has seen several members since then come and go and Hugo said he feels more solid with the latest Tantric lineup then he ever has.
"If I had to do it all over again and go through all the bullshit I went through with previous members and everything, to come back and have this line-up I would," said Ferreira. "I couldn't have a better band now."
Tantric is now signed with Silent Majority Group and the band feels they are headed in a direction that will lead them to the success they have been striving for in the last decade.
"I feel that Silent Majority Group, along with the bands dedication to succeeding has definitely opened the doors that were at one point temporarily shut for us," said Ferreira. "And considering this is a label that's not a top three label and not financially capable of investing the amount of money needed to really launch records, I think they are doing a great job."
As for the release of Tantric III, Ferreira has mixed opinions on that. He said that he wouldn't be opposed to it, but the financial undertaking of buying it back from their previous record label would just be phenomenal. Hugo also said that there wouldn't be any kind of rework with the previous lineup because it wouldn't be fair to the old members of Tantric or fair to the current lineup.
"If it's in the cards, it will happen someday, but more like "the lost tapes,'" said Ferreira.
Ferreira also added that the April 2008 release of 'The End Begins' has let fans see Tantric in a new light. Ferreira said that every Tantric album is very different than the others and was a very ballsy move for Tantric which put the band in a heavier frame of mind. He also added that the fans have really reacted well to the CD, which is well over 70,000 in sales now.
Tantric is also a fan band, meaning that they are very appreciative to their fans and know that without the fans they wouldn't be where they are today. Ferreira said they put 100% effort in each and every show and are consistently a band that actually sounds like they do on their albums. Fans can rock the hell out and have a great time at a Tantric show.
"We are one of the only bands of this caliber that goes out and interacts with fans after the show," said Ferreira. "We will sign every autograph till there is nobody else there."
Tantrics newest collaboration 'Mind Control' will be released on August 4th 2009 which will give listeners a whole new Tantric.
"This CD is more collaborated on by other members of the band," said Ferreira. "We are gelling more as a band and in general this CD is really, really heavy for Tantric, twice as heavy as the last record at least."
Interview by Lori Kerr ©2009
RELATED LINKS...
Tantric at MySpace
Google Search Within UnRated Magazine for Tantric
Tantric on YouTube.com
Silent Majority Group
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SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the driving forces of economic growth, international trade and finance will shift even more rapidly towards developing countries in Asia and the emerging economies, underscoring the importance of South-South cooperation. The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean will need to form trade and investment partnerships that go beyond free trade agreements in order to further integrate Asian production and export chains. There is a need to reduce the marked asymmetry between large volumes of trade and small reciprocal levels of investment.
The power of Developing and Emerging Economies
The crisis has raised even more the profile of emerging economies, not only in world production and trade, but also in international finance and its governance. Longer-term forecasts suggest that today's developing and emerging countries are likely to account for nearly 60% of world gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. The combined GDP of the four emerging economies commonly known as the BRICs (Brazil, China, India and the Russian Federation) accounted for 15% and 22% of world GDP in 2008, in terms of, respectively, current prices and purchasing power parity. Developing countries' share in both world trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows reached almost 39% in 2009. At present, foreign reserves in the hands of developing countries amount to more than 1.5 times that held by developed countries. The BRICs together hold 39% of international reserves while Latin America and the Caribbean, including Brazil, account for 6% of world reserves.
South-South trade grew at an average annual rate of 13% during the period from 1990 to 2008 amounting to US$ 2.9 trillion in 2008. The share of South-South trade in total world trade jumped from 9% in 1990 to 18% in 2009. In short, almost 40% of world trade is conducted by developing countries and it is estimated that roughly 40% of this can be categorized as South-South trade.
Shifting Demand
Though South-South FDI flows are still limited, intra-regional FDI in Asian developing countries and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been quite dynamic. In the case of the latter, almost 10% of FDI inflows originate in its own region, increasing the importance of the 'Translatins'. More FDI from Asian countries such as China and India is expected.
Against the dynamic South-South trade of LAC, the importance of developed countries as export destinations has been declining. In the last ten years, the share of the United States has declined drastically from 60% in 2000 to 40% in 2009, while that of the European Union has stalled at 13%. Among Asian countries, in contrast to China's surge, Japan's share has suffered a drastic decline.
South-South trade already constitutes an important segment of LAC trade, accounting for almost 29% of its total exports. Among the developing country export destinations for LAC countries, the most important is its own region, which accounts for more than 18% of total exports, followed by developing countries in Asia, with a 6% share. Africa, the Middle East and Central Europe still remain minor export destinations for the region as a whole. Trade between developing Asian countries and the Middle East, based principally on petroleum, has been growing, while intra-South-South Asia trade has been the best example of world productive complementarities. The relative importance of South-South trade in Latin America is much higher when Mexico is excluded from the picture. Almost half of the region's exports are of a South-South nature. The region's South-South trade is split almost evenly between intra- and inter-regional trade.
The Asian Connection
Developing countries in Asia, China in particular, have become significant trading partners for several Latin American economies. China is the largest export market for Brazil and Chile and the second largest for Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba and Peru. Strong Chinese demand for food, energy, metals and minerals has benefited the countries that export these products, improving their terms of trade and spurring their growth. In fact, LAC exports to China increased 5% during the crisis when the region's exports to other regions decreased by 27%. In this way, China's economic dynamism has come to the rescue of the region's exports.
However, as for other regions of the South, developing Asian countries are still an underexploited export market for LAC. LAC's trade with these countries exhibits the same limitations that the region has in international trade in general. Its exports are mostly primary and semi-manufactured goods. LAC needs to find ways to increase the degree of processing of these natural resource-based export products and seek new outlets in Asia for more value-added, differentiated products.
The countries of the region also urgently need to make the most of the current dynamism in the Asia-Pacific region and develop new linkages to improve innovation and competitiveness (a weak link in the Latin American regional experience), strengthen links between trade and investment, and consolidate productive and technological linkages. Developing Asian countries offer investments that could provide complementary financing for major initiatives, especially in the areas of infrastructure and energy. An interesting challenge would be to identify the infrastructure and energy projects where Asian investment might be needed most and to speed up works implementation, which would not only make it possible to strengthen the trade facilitation and investments link with Asia-Pacific but also would generate externalities for Latin America's own regional integration process. It would thus be advisable to link the strategic partnership with that region to an updating of regional integration, to achieve unified markets supporting increasingly common standards and providing greater legal certainty.
In order to further integrate Asian production and export chains, countries in the region will need to form trade and investment partnerships that go beyond free trade agreements. Although these agreements may be important, they are not enough to generate the scale and critical mass needed to encourage trade and technology partnerships between the two regions, or to reduce the marked asymmetry between the large volumes of trade and small reciprocal levels of investment. The foregoing, however, does not deny the importance of careful analysis on possible effects of the proliferation of trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region, which might generate trade and investment diversion of Latin America and the Caribbean in developing countries in Asia.
SOUTH-SOUTH TRADE (SST)
Average percentage shares of SST in regions of the South (1995-2008)
LAC CEE AFR ME DA SST
Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) 18.4 1.3 1.7 1.1 6.4 28.9
Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) 1.6 19.4 1.4 3.2 7.5 33.1
Africa (AFR) 1.7 0.3 10.0 2.4 15.5 29.9
Middle East (ME) 0.2 0.9 3.8 12.2 33.6 50.7
Developing Asia (DA) 2.4 2.1 2.6 2.9 37.4 47.4
All South regions (SST) 4.2 3.5 3.1 4.5 27.8 43.1
Source: ECLAC, International Trade and Integration Division, based on WTO data and United Nations COMTRADE database
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Tshering Tobgay
Life and Politics in Democratic Bhutan
Disloyal? Unpatriotic?
November 18, 2012 by Tshering Tobgay 26 Comments
The opposition party’s statement on the government’s failed UNSC bid drew a strong response from the prime minster. Instead of clarifying the government’s position, or responding to the our request for a full disclosure of the expenses incurred, he called my remarks “disloyal and unpatriotic”.
We will not engage in personal attacks. But we cannot ignore the PM’s malicious assault which was obviously intended to malign the opposition members and undermine institution of the opposition party. So we felt compelled to issue the following statement to the press last Friday:
The Opposition Party deeply regrets the unwarranted remarks of the Honourable Prime Minister during the recent press conference in which he labeled the Opposition Leader as “unpatriotic and disloyal” for expressing his views on the failed UN Security Council bid, and for calling on the Government to review its foreign policy.
By calling the Opposition Leader “disloyal and unpatriotic” the Honourable Prime Minister seems to have no respect and regard for the institution of the Opposition Party or the duty of the Opposition Party as enshrined in the Constitution.
The Honourable Prime Minister’s derogatory remarks indicate that while the Government wants to take all the credit for any success, it does not want to be held accountable or face criticism for any of its failures.
The Opposition Party is not surprised that the Prime Minister has gone on record to term the Opposition Leader as “unpatriotic and disloyal”. Such incidences have occurred before, as when the Government demeaned the Judiciary when they lost the Constitutional Case. Similarly the Government has also undermined the institutions of the ECB, ACC and media on various occasions.
We feel that the Prime Minister’s remarks are an attempt to deflect public attention from the Government’s failed UN Security Council bid and from the series of allegations of corruption that continue plague the Government.
However, the Opposition Party will not be intimidated by the Prime Minster’s derogatory remarks. Instead, we shall continue to discharge our duties faithfully – without fear or favour – in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, and in the interest of the country and people.
Accordingly the Opposition Party calls on the Honourable Prime Minister and the Government to take the views and concerns of the Opposition Party constructively, and to recognize that all of us share the common objective of strengthening the nation and fulfilling the aspirations of our people.
Filed Under: Democracy Tagged With: check and balance, fear, OL, Opposition Party, PM
Tshering Tobgay is the president of the People's Democratic Party. He served as opposition leader from 2008 to 2013 and prime minister from 2013 to 2018.
Tweets by @tsheringtobgay
Deserving Causes
Empower our women
Fight poverty in Bhutan
Protect our environment
Support our youth
Teach children art
© 2019 · Tshering Tobgay · Made in Bhutan by abi
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Here you'll find coverage of our events in local publications, Staff Picks book reviews, Tsunami stories, and other miscellaneous words.
Filtering by Category: Staff Picks
A Series of
Small Maneuvers
by Eliot Treichel
January 19, 2016 Scott Landfield
A Staff Pick by Meli Ewing
A Series of Small Maneuvers by Eliot Treichel (Ooligan Press, 2015)
Available New in Paperback at Tsunami
Eliot Treichel will read at Tsunami Books on Saturday, January 23 at 4:00pm
Eliot Treichel’s A Series of Small Maneuvers is a sharply observed and compassionate study of grief. Fifteen-year-old Emma Mills is on a canoeing trip through the backcountry of New Mexico with her father—a trip she didn’t really want to go on in the first place—when her father is killed in a single-misstep accident. Emma is left alone in the wilderness, and she has to make her own way out—and learn to exist in a world without her father.
Treichel masters scenes of dialogue where the characters artfully avoid talking about the death of Emma’s father, as if not talking about it will make it not real. It’s a very human thing to do. Mother and daughter tiptoe around each other. Emma’s mom shows she cares by insisting Emma eat something in the diner they stop in on the way home, but Emma insists she’s not hungry. What matters always comes through in the end, and the dance around it is honest, compassionate, and beautifully written.
What I love most about this book is Emma’s authentic, vulnerable fifteen-year-old voice. She’s earnest and indifferent. She views herself as unspectacular. Upon her rescue and “reentry”, she has an urge to cut short conversations as she navigates the frontcountry, the world of humans, in the wake of her father’s absence. She tells unexpected lies, surprising both herself and the reader. She’s not an unreliable narrator, though: she tells the reader the honest truth of what she’s feeling, as much as she understands of it.
In a typically teenage way, Emma is often unimpressed—particularly by the details of nature her dad is fascinated with and tries, sometimes too aggressively, to point out to his daughter. She wants to listen to her iPod. Her dad lets her bring it in the van for the ride there, but won’t let her bring it with her once they set off on the river because he wants them to be fully immersed in nature. She’s frustrated by his obsession with the river and the birds and the trees, and his insistence on pushing through the next bend or over the next hill to see what else there is—but after he’s gone, when she’s trying to make her way alone, she knows which details he would have pointed out, and what he would have said.
In A Series of Small Maneuvers, Emma’s reminiscences create an unflinching examination of who her father was. So often we only remember the good memories of a person after they die, or we only want to remember the good. The deceased are too often reduced by those who survive them to only their flattering parts: a hero, gentle, so kind, loving, adventurous. But everyone who’s ever been alive is infinitely more complicated than that. Treichel doesn’t shy away from those complications as he shows Emma’s imaginings of her father. Emma’s father is enthusiastic and goofy. He loves the outdoors. He hates seeing his daughter shave her legs or wear makeup. There are the usual father-daughter tensions over too-short shorts. He is eager to teach, but is quickly frustrated when Emma doesn’t innately understand what he’s trying to teach her. He is aggressive and critical. He pushes her to run rapids with him that she’s not comfortable running. He thinks paying for Emma’s horse-riding—what Emma herself is passionate about, as opposed to what he is passionate about—is too expensive. Emma doesn’t reduce her father to a string of positive adjectives after he dies. Emma’s retroactive telling of her father’s story is a beautiful, honest, and complex portrait of a life.
Something Emma’s horse trainer tells her describes the reality of life in the wake of loss: “‘We’ll get as far as we can get,’ she said, ‘and then we’ll figure it out from there.’”
The book’s title is an elegant metaphor for living with grief: Emma says her dad would turn a big rapid into “something doable, something orderly and reasonable. It was just a series of small maneuvers that would add up to something larger.” Living in the wake of grief is a series of small maneuvers too. Grief is never over; it’s not about getting through it. It’s about moving forward, and the steps can be as small as you need them to be.
categories Staff Picks
by Jandy Nelson
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (Speak, 2014)
Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun is the winner of the 2015 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, a 2015 Stonewall Honor Book, and a Best Book of the Year from the New York Times, Time Magazine, NPR, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and myriad other publications and public libraries around the country.
I’ll Give You the Sun is the story of Jude and her twin brother Noah, but really it’s two stories. Noah draws unceasingly, and he’s falling in love with the boy next door. Jude’s a rebel, a daredevil, an aspiring sculptor. Noah and Jude used to be inseparable. Their two minds shared one single paracosm, one single fantastic vivid imaginary world, of which they were the rulers, mapped neatly, phenomenally over the top of this one. Now they still live across the hall from each other, but tragedy has ripped them apart. The story they each tell is one about trying to put themselves and each other and their family back together.
What makes this book unique is its structure. The chapters alternate back and forth between Noah’s point of view and Jude’s—but Noah’s point of view is two years back into the past. You jump forward and back and forward and back. Sometimes what Noah doesn’t yet know makes you gasp and want to shield him from what is coming. But in the present, or from Noah’s point of view, the future, Jude only has half the story to tell herself. This separation in time, irrevocable in the space of the narrative, serves to piercingly mirror the twins’ emotional distance.
The language in I’ll Give You the Sun teems with simple, vivid, rhythmic authenticity. Nelson captures with startlingly exaggerative prose the feeling of being young and feeling like you’re alive for the first time, like you’re maybe the first person who has ever really been alive. The book is full of really stellar sentences. One that stopped me in my tracks and made me laugh out loud with joy is: “When we settle back into our selves, everything feels different, like if I turned on the light we’d be bears.”
This book is about family, forgiveness, love, and the healing power of making art. I recommend it for everyone. Something novelist Nick Hornby said comes to mind: “I see now that dismissing YA books because you’re not a young adult is a little bit like refusing to watch thrillers on the grounds that you’re not a policeman or a dangerous criminal, and as a consequence, I’ve discovered a previously ignored room at the back of the bookstore that’s filled with masterpieces I’ve never heard of.” I’ll Give You the Sun is a beautiful book that I recommend for young adults and what I think of as “real” adults alike.
OUT STEALING HORSES
by Per Petterson
A Staff Pick by Michael McGriff
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (Picador, 2005)
Availabe both New and Used at Tsunami
For me there’s really only one metric for determining a book recommendation, and it’s this question: Do I buy a used copy of this book every time I see it and drop it in the mail to an old friend? In the past, I’ve done this with James Welch’s first novel, Winter in the Blood, Henning Mankell’s introspective (non-crime) novel Italian Shoes, Richard Brautigan’s cult collection of short stories Revenge of the Lawn, and Amanda Coplin’s debut novel, The Orchardist. But the novel that’s burning at the white-hot center of my personal You-Must-Read-This list is Out Stealing Horses by Norwegian novelist (and former bookstore clerk) Per Petterson.
In 2005 Out Stealing Horses hit the bestseller lists in several countries and stayed there, becoming the title de jour of book groups, making all the Best-Of lists, and launching Petterson’s career in English-Speaking countries, especially after Horses was selected for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (one of the largest literary prizes in the world, the titles for which are submitted by librarians from around the globe).
The setup for this book is simple enough: a 67-year-old widower, Trond Sandor, retires to rural Norway from Oslo and reflects on his life; at least this is how the book gets you comfortable before it flips you on your head. British novelist L. P. Hartley famously begins his novel The Go-Between, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” This sentiment is the perfect metaphor for Petterson’s novel, for what seems like an honest look into the past becomes, at times painfully, a true rediscovery of events that surprise as much as they terrify. In Horses, what starts out as a quiet assessment of widowhood and masculine self-reliance builds into a nuanced psychological drama as Trond discovers the truth about his father’s secret involvement as a Resistance smuggler during WWII, the painful facts of his parents’ marriage, the true motivations behind Trond's self-exile, and how all of these form a messy, fraught ecosystem.
The genius of Petterson’s writing is many-sided. For starters, the writing itself is absolutely fabulous; he uses concise and clear language that rolls the narrative ahead, blending straightforward prose with a high register that can only be described as poetic. Petterson is never afraid to be simple and direct, and he’s likewise never afraid to let beauty and high lyricism permeate his work. Keeping the reader off balance is part of Petterson’ gift—just as Trond teeters off balance as he discovers more and more about his past, the reader teeters off balance as Petterson shifts from present-moment action to deep flashback, from straight-ahead storytelling to poetic flourish (and even the occasional jolt of European surrealism). Never have I encountered a novel whose form and style have so perfectly mirrored both its content and the physiological world of its hero (or antihero, as the case may be). Add to this that the title itself—Out Stealing Horses—which crushes you under its ironic and metaphorical weight during the final pages, and what you have on your hands is a book worth buying and sending to a friend.
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Our Partners & The Sybren Valkema Archive
The Vrij Glas Foundation is currently working on the in-depth dissemination of The Sybren Valkema Archive in close cooperation with The Corning Museum of Glass New York and The RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art History The Hague
Photo: First glass furnace at the Rietveld Academy, Click on the image →
Sybren Valkema (1916-1996), artist, teacher, deputy-director of the
Gerrit Rietveld Academy, founder of the studio glass movement in the
Netherlands, and a seminal figure in the establishment of a European
network of educators and artists involved in independent studio glass.
The Sybren Valkema archives excels at providing a contextual look at studio glass
in the Netherlands by stipulating historical background on industrial glass in
Leerdam in the early 20th century and explaining the rise of a global studio glass
movement in the 1960s. Sybren Valkema’s early commitment to the education of
the workers in Leerdam during wartime, providing them with a more holistic
program that included fine arts and physical education as well as the more
traditional vocational curriculum, indicated an innovative and experimental
approach that would become a lifelong pattern. As a member of the generation
who lived through the war years and its deprivations, Sybren Valkema exhibited
the spirit of invention and self-reliance in many areas of his professional life that
would become so indicative of the later studio glass movement.
Photo: The Sybren Valkema Archive, Click on the image →
The Sybren Valkema archives correspondingly gives insight into the enlightened
administration of the Leerdam factory during and after the war, as the director
P.M. Cochius — in a parallel effort with his peers at Orrefors and Venini and
other European factories — steered industrial glass production away from the
traditions of the past and towards a design-oriented golden age of mid-century
icons. At the Leerdam factory, Valkema’s design work followed in the footsteps of
Chris Lebeau and was contemporaneous with that of Andries Copier. These are
the years that gave rise to the Serica (limited edition) and Unica (unique art
pieces) series, in what might be considered a precursor to the idea of glasswork
that is not conceived of in unlimited multiples.
A historically noteworthy part of the archives details what could be termed the
Big Bang of the European studio glass movement: the World Crafts Council
conference of June 1964, held in New York. This was the event where Harvey
Littleton first demonstrated the small furnace designed by Dominick Labino to an
international audience that included Erwin Eisch from Germany and Sybren
Valkema, many of whom would return to their home countries to found regional
and national movements, and maintain the peer communication that would later
grow into the international network of artists working in glass that exists today.
What came apparent whilst sorting this archive — which also includes early
correspondence with Harvey Littleton, Dominick Labino, Marvin Lipofsky and
other pioneers — was that the truly revolutionary achievement of the studio glass
movement lay not in objects or technology or even an aesthetic manifesto but was
by its nature rather conceptual.
Early glasswork from the 1960s is too often dismissed as being technically clumsy
and poorly crafted, a judgment that entirely misses the point of work that was
made in a spirit of rebellion against the virtuoso skill of traditional glasswork.
The essence of the studio glass movement, the inspiration that all of those artists
and educators took away from that first encounter, was an idea; that artists could
have direct access to a unique material without the mediation of a factory or a
system that divorced craftsman from designer. That single idea was the real spark
that led to university-level glass departments, which in turn disseminated
information to and inspired independent studios across America and Europe and
that would later spread around the world. Without extensive knowledge sharing
studio glass would not have been able to thrive, nor exist outside a factory setting.
The invention of the small furnace is often celebrated as the turning point that
made an independent studio glass movement possible. Indeed, this archive
recognizes the critical role of that technology by having exact drawings of the first
Labino furnace, the burner and flame control system on hand. Small furnaces
had existed for some time before that and were used for test melts in the factory
laboratories, as both Erwin Eisch and Sybren Valkema would have been aware of.
The Sybren Valkema archives underline the importance of understanding our
history, which can serve as a touchstone even today for maintaining contact with
that fundamental idea. These days when glasswork is made with such technical
assurance, when objects have such impressive presence, when all of the formal
elements of color, scale and form are so much more easily commanded, it is
important to keep searching for that earlier spirit of discovery and that ineffable
sense of liberation that was present at the beginning of the independent studio
glass movement and the pivotal role of art education.
All the documents in the Sybren Valkema archives are currently being restored,
sorted and prepared so that this exceptional archival material can be digitalized
in its entirety.
Through additional funding, necessary searchable in-depth descriptions can be
added to the digitalized files, including the relevant metadata so that students,
artists, and researchers, and a wider audience will have access to the material
that is being kept in the Sybren Valkema archives. The final result will serve as
an open source knowledge database for glass education and research.
Sybren Valkema, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybren_Valkema
RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art History
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2017 STEM
Nominate a Woman Worth Watching®
Michele Meyer-Shipp: Paying It Forward Every Day
Shannon Nash: A Woman for All Seasons
Brande Stellings • Catalyst
Vice President, Corporate Board Services
Accelerating Progress for Women Through Workplace Inclusion
Brande Stellings is an expert on women’s leadership with a passion for advancing gender diversity in corporate boardrooms around the world.
As vice president of Catalyst’s Corporate Board Services, Stellings regularly consults with corporate boards and is a trusted resource to board chairs and CEOs wanting to diversify their talent pool.
She joined Catalyst in 2005 in its global strategic consulting practice, where she focused on advising Fortune 500 companies on business-driven diversity and inclusion strategies with a focus on advancing women. Since then, she has also successfully led the expansion of Catalyst’s Women on Board program from Canada to the United States.
Her colleagues say she’s invigorated the organization by contributing to Catalyst’s overall strategy, through lending a reasoned and experienced perspective.
Stellings is a former vice president of litigation for NBC Universal, and was co-leader of the award-winning New York/New Jersey chapter of the GE Women’s Network and a member of NBC Universal’s Affinity Council. She says her biggest career leap was making the move from practicing law to joining Catalyst. “It felt like a big risk, but fulfilled a long-held goal to work full-time on women’s advancement,” she said.
Today, she’s a respected expert on women’s leadership and diversity. She speaks to corporate audiences and is frequently quoted in the news media, including Fortune, PBS NewsHour, The New York Times, and The American Lawyer. A central theme is diversity leads to better decision making.
Stellings serves on the advisory board of DirectWomen (Accelerating Board Opportunities for Women) and the board of directors of Legal Momentum (the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund), as well as the Akanksha Fund Inc., which supports education in India.
She says the most important quality a woman leader should have is resilience. She received her J.D. cum laude from the Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Yale College.
Words she lives by: “Who knows when we’ll be back – order what you want, buy that souvenir, take the picture, make the most of the moment.”
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Workplace WireWorkers CompensationAn Overview of the Arthurs Report, Part IV: Rate Groups and…
An Overview of the Arthurs Report, Part IV: Rate Groups and Experience Rating
In this entry we will look at chapters 5 & 6 of the Arthurs Report, which respectively consider the WSIB’s system of rate groups (RG) and experience rating (ER).
Before getting into the details, Arthurs’ message overall is that the RG system is broken and needs to be fixed and the ER system may have to be abolished if it cannot prove itself up to the task of encouraging employers to reduce workplace accidents and to facilitate workers’ return to work.
Although a number of the points Arthurs raises on these topics may be valid, it is far from clear that all of the points he raises are. Further, it is also not clear that the radical changes he proposes will improve on the problems he invokes to justify them.
Perhaps most significantly, it is even less clear that many of the proposed changes will have any meaningful impact on the main issue concerned by the Funding Review, namely, the WSIB’s unfunded liability (UFL).
Let’s look at these issues in a little more detail.
Arthurs’ Proposed Changes to the Rate Group System
As brief background to this topic, it may be recalled that in Ontario 30% of the workforce is not covered under the WSIB scheme. 60 % of the workforce then is employed by Schedule 1 employers, who pay insurance premiums to the WSIB as a function of the RG into which they are classified and the size of their payroll. The final 10% of the workforce is employed by Schedule 2 employers who do not pay premiums but rather are self-insured, paying the direct costs of workplace accident benefits plus an administrative fee to the WSIB.
In support of his recommendation to reform the existing RG system, Arthurs starts by noting that, currently, Schedule 1 employers are classified into 9 “industry classes” (by regulation) and 154 RGs (under WSIB policy). We may also note that RGs are further sub-divided into Classification Units (CUs), which is useful for a more granular description of what exactly the nature of an employer’s business is but is insignificant in terms of impact on an employer’s premiums, which are determined by the RG.
For Arthurs, a shortcoming of the current RG system is that although it ostensibly groups employers together by similar business types, risk profiles and cost experiences, this commonality is merely assumed and not based on any empirical assessment of what the employers in question actually do. In fact, writes Arthurs, employers in a given RG may have many different business characteristics, which may impact on accident frequency and costs. These factors are apparently not taken into account in the initial design or RGs or their later modification. Arthurs continues that in some cases “firms in related businesses but with quite different risk profiles may be intentionally included in the same RG in order to ensure that it is large enough to maintain “statistical credibility””. Further, in some cases high and low cost firms “seem to be deliberately intermingled, with the apparent intention of producing a middling premium rate, in order to appease employers protesting against high rates or to accommodate a firm with a diverse workforce that can plausibly claim membership in more than one rate group”. On these points, however, Arthurs does not provide an idea of how often these sorts of examples are found under the current RG system.
Arthurs opines that:
The overall result is that the present RG system contains many gaps and overlaps, lacks a clear internal organizing logic, cannot easily be explained or defended, and provides employers with ample opportunities for “rate shopping,” assisted by a new sub-profession of advisors and advocates – often paid (I was told) on a contingency basis… rate shopping generate needless transaction costs and results in revenue leakage for the WSIB.
Arthurs further criticizes the existing RG system by suggesting that things would be better if employers were grouped together not only for purposes of accident cost allocation but also to improve the quality of accident prevention and re-employment initiatives. Arthurs theorizes that if “good firms” which invested in safety measures were grouped together with “bad firms” who did not, the former could exert a form of peer pressure over the latter to mend their ways. Further, because harm reduction often involves collective action, Arthurs sees synergies between employers who are grouped together for safety prevention reasons as much as for cost allocation ones. Simply put, employers with common business experiences can better share information about safety and also offer better re-employment opportunities than individual employers can.
The upshot of all this are Arthurs’ recommendations 5-1, 5-2 and 5-3, which are set out on this page.
There is no denying that some of the points Arthurs raises are fair. For example, he is right to say that industry classifications like “mimeographing” and “corset manufacturing” are outdated. However, it is far from clear how what Arthurs proposes will adequately address the evils he identifies under the current RG system.
Arthurs’ new classification system, however robust in comparison to the current system, will still not fully capture the immense complexity and diversity in business organizations which Arthurs himself raises as a criticism of the existing RG system. Arthurs’ own recommendations will still leave us with about 50 to 60 “sectoral groups”, which will be described by mere words, indeed likely a few paragraphs at most for each. As a result, there will be room for interpretation as under the current RG system. Accordingly, there will still be attempts to reclassify employers, “rate shopping” and the very transaction costs that Arthurs seeks to minimize. It is not clear at all how the current system of RGs makes any material contribution to the UFL or how what he proposes will have any significant impact in reducing that.
A more fundamental concern with what Arthurs proposes is this. He is recommending that we move toward fewer and larger sectoral groups. According to Arthurs’ own analysis, a move toward larger, more heterogeneous groupings of risk spreading tends to encourage a number of “controversial consequences”. He describes them in this way:
First, employers that pay more than they otherwise might may try to persuade the WSIB to transfer them to a group with greater homogeneity, less cross-subsidization of high-cost cohort members and consequently lower premium rate. Such “rate shopping” generates administrative costs for the WSIB and, to the extent that it succeeds, contributes to a loss of revenue in the short term. Second, employers that pay less than they should may be exposed to a “moral hazard”: they may become less assiduous in ensuring safe and healthy workplaces because they can slough off part of the benefit costs they generate onto group members that are providing the cross-subsidy. And third, conflicts of interest within the group may make it difficult to organize collective activities such as safety education programs.
In fairness, Arthurs does state that what is needed is to find an appropriate balance between homogeneity/heterogeneity and levels of cross-subsidization. He sees that balanced achieved through sectoral groups. However, it is not clear how what is proposed will do a better job than the existing RG system or a slightly updated version of it.
Indeed, although Arthurs says he had to tackle the issue of RGs as part of his mandate in respect of the UFL, he ultimately does “accept the point that the issue is too complex for me to do it full justice in this report”. He continues:
The design and implementation of a new and improved system of rate groups is a time-consuming process that requires extensive technical development, intensive consultation with stakeholders and the articulation of complex transitional arrangements, including the phasing-in of any new system.
In short, although Arthurs raises a number of concerns in respect of the existing RG system and recommends that it be reformed, his Recommendation 5-4 is for slow and thoughtful change.
Arthurs’ Proposals as to Who Pays What
Arthurs correctly notes that whether his recommendations about reforming RGs are accepted or not, the WSIB will still have to determine whether and how to spread among employers the burden of new and legacy claims costs, as well as other costs including legislated costs like safety promotion.
Arthurs addresses the issue of new claims costs in Recommendation 5-5.
As for the legacy costs in the UFL, it may be recalled that earlier in his Report, Arthurs recommended that employers be required to pay a fixed annual UFL charge are part of their premium costs.
For Arthurs, this UFL cost could be spread out in a number of ways including at the level of RGs (or Arthurs’ proposed sectoral groups), at the higher level of industry classes or at an even higher level of all Schedule 1 employers.
As he notes, there are several complicating factors that weigh against assigning legacy costs to the RGs that are seen as having created them. Among others, the composition of RGs has not remained static but has changed considerably over the past few decades. Moreover, the business realities of employers within certain RGs have changed in many ways including rates of profit, working conditions, technologies and safety practices such that it would be “impossible – and arguably inappropriate – to assign responsibility for legacy costs to the firms, or groups of firms, in whose workplaces those claims originated years or decades ago.”
For Arthurs, similar difficulties exist when considering assigning legacy costs at the level of industry classes. The relative size of industry classes in the overall economy has changed over the past few decades and, likewise, so have their contributions to WSIB claims costs. In some instances, industries that contributed significantly to the UFL now have diminished capacity to pay it down, noting their reduced profitability and payroll base.
These and other considerations lead Arthurs to the observation that “The UFL is an historical omelette that cannot be unscrambled”, a reality which points him in the direction of spreading the cost of the UFL among all Schedule 1 employers irrespective of their industry class, past or current safety records.
After reviewing these considerations, Arthurs makes Recommendation 5-6, which seeks to strike a balance among them. Under this recommendation, 5% of the UFL is passed on to Schedule 1 employers as a whole, 47.5% goes to industry classes on the basis of their historical contribution to the UFL and 47.5% goes to employers on the basis of their current claims record. Arthurs suggest that these amounts be assigned to rate groups within industry classes on the same basis as their estimated new claims costs.
Finally, Recommendations 5-7 through 5-9 address other cost issues such as the WSIB’s reimbursing OHIP for routine medical expenses and funding education, accident prevention and enforcement of occupational health and safety legislation under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour.
Of particular note under these recommendations, Arthurs asks that the government investigate the possibility of charging these latter expenses to all employers instead of just to Schedule 1 employers.
Further, Arthurs notes that there is broad consensus that experience rating programs, which have resulted in rebates exceeding surcharges by $2.5 billion over the years post 1995, a considerable portion of the UFL, should be revenue neutral.
Arthurs on Employer Incentives and Experience Rating
Arthurs indicated that of all the issues canvassed by the Funding Review, this was the most contentious as between worker and employer constituencies.
Workers submitted that experience rating incents employers to “engage in improper and illegal behavior to keep their records clean, their premiums low and their workers deprived of the benefits to which they are entitled.” By contrast, employers responded by saying that incentives do not have this effect, or to the extent they do, it is only among a minority of employers. Employers also claim that incentives have led to safer workplaces, a claim which worker groups contest.
Arthurs reviewed the evidence in support of these competing views before leaping to what, with the greatest of respect, are some astonishing and unbalanced conclusions. Before reviewing these conclusions and the recommendations that come out of them, let’s take a look at the key evidence Arthurs presents.
Arthurs tells us that, on the whole, the literature reviewed supports both the worker and employer views, but both inconclusively.
Arthurs also reviews “some 50 first- and second-hand accounts of workers victimized by employers intent on avoiding surcharges or claiming rebates” including a single instance where an employer actually admitted to making false representations to the WSIB in the course of aggressively managing an employee’s workplace injury. However, he concludes that while these accounts “had the ring of truth”, they are ultimately anecdotal, uncorroborated (except the one case where the employer admitted wrongdoing) and not statistical such that “there is no way of telling whether these incidents represent most or all cases of abuse (as employers contend) or merely the tip of the iceberg (as workers believe).”
Arthurs then considers that in 2009 and 2010 “the WSIB investigated just 153 employers for allegedly suppressing or misrepresenting claims”, ultimately laying 174 charges and getting 96 convictions against 49 employers. He further notes that in 2010 the WSIB imposed 4500 administrative penalties for such things as non-reporting, late reporting or misreporting claims, but without the provable deceptive intent required for charging these employers with quasi-criminal offences. Arthurs also notes that there have been recent years where the level of administrative penalties has been higher, such as in 2008 when 11,000 were imposed. To put this in perspective, Arthurs’ Report advises that experience rating programs cover about 120,000 employers, half of those registered with the WSIB.
The final piece of evidence Arthurs invokes is an unnamed “2002 study” which suggested that unreported workplace accidents may represent as much as 40% of the total.
Although Arthurs recognizes that accidents may go unreported for many reasons and employer pressure may not explain all of the non reporting he reviewed in his study, he ultimately concludes:
Nonetheless, the overall extent of non-reporting is so large that the WSIB must surely take prompt and proper steps to satisfy itself that, if injured workers are foregoing their benefits, the reason is something other than employer misconduct.
And further:
In my view, the WSIB is confronting something of a moral crisis. It maintains an experience rating system under which some employers have almost certainly been suppressing claims; it has been warned – not only by workers but by consultants and researchers – that abuses are likely occurring. But, despite these warnings, the WSIB has failed to take adequate steps to forestall or punish illegal claims suppression practices. In order to rectify the situation, the WSIB must now commit itself to remedial measures that might otherwise require more compelling justification. Unless the WSIB is prepared to aggressively use its existing powers – and hopefully new ones as well – to prevent and punish claims suppression, and unless it is able to vouch for the integrity and efficacy of its experience reading programs, it should not continue to operate them.
Flowing from these observations, Arthurs makes the extensive and, in some cases, draconian, Recommendations 6-1 and 6-2, which are set out below in full. Following that, we will briefly go over Recommendation 6-3 prior to returning to some concluding observations.
Redesigning the WSIB’s experience rating programs
Arthurs remarks that even if the WSIB adopted all of his recommendations above, which seek to stop claims suppression, it should also look seriously at redesigning its ER programs because, according to Arthurs, it is not really known whether they are effective in reducing accidents and encouraging the return to work of injured workers.
After reviewing a number of perceived design flaws in existing ER programs and making the point that ER should become an integral part of the rate setting process, Arthurs outlines a number of ways in which ER programs could be modified. A non exhaustive list of some of the proposed changes which stand to have a considerable impact on employers are:
Making experience rating for larger employers prospective rather than retrospective. Under a prospective system, there would be no adjustment to an employer’s costs based on a hindsight look at what its actual claims cost experience was, as is the case under NEER currently.
The review window for experience rating would be extended to 6 years (currently 4 under NEER).
SIEF would be abolished or replaced with a program of wage subsidies for injured workers seeking to return to work with their original or another employer.
Arthurs also suggests that the WSIB should conduct a controlled experiment with a new ER model to determine if it achieves the goals of ER, in which case, Arthurs suggests the model should be rolled out across industry classes.
Arthurs’ final recommendation on experience rating is of particular note and hopefully will be abided by the WSIB: extensive consultation of stakeholders should occur before any redesign of experience rating or other incentive programs.
Concluding Observations on Experience Rating
Near the outset of his Report (at p. 20) Arthurs recognizes that a potential contributing factor to the UFL is that the WSIB may have “adopted excessively generous, even improvident, policies for determining entitlements as well as loose claims management practices.” He further recognizes (at p. 85) that “workers as well as employers may engage in fraudulent conduct in connection with the reporting of claims.” Near the end of his Report he also states that “many legitimate questions were raised about the WSIB’s expenditures” but he ends up stating that these sorts of questions did not fall within his mandate.
What an odd thing to say after recognizing the possible connection between these issues and the UFL, which was at the core of his mandate.
Against this background it is striking that Arthurs seems to focus most of his energies and recommendations on perceived employer abuses of the system.
Arthurs also appears to favor a punitive model for employers, as opposed to an educative, admonitory one. Yet he has not explored in detail which of these two models would be more effective in stemming perceived employer under-reporting or misreporting of claims and which would best encourage improvements in return to work. This is not to say that there is no place for punitive sanctions in appropriate cases. However, it is not demonstrated in Arthurs’ Report that emphasis on a punitive approach is warranted, especially one which appears to be focused on employer wrongdoing to the exclusion of worker wrongdoing.
Arthurs also has not explored the full potential consequences of what he proposes.
To say nothing of the fact that an aggressive enforcement model can itself lead to abuses of employer rights by over-zealous enforcers, a number of aspects of Recommendation 6-2.3 deserve special mention because they appear to be particularly harsh, and arguably unduly so.
The first of these is the recommendation that :
Employers found to have violated the WSIA or other occupational health and safety legislation should be automatically ineligible for favorable premium adjustments or rate rebates, for at least one year and for any additional period up to five years, as determined by a claims adjudicator, tribunal or convicting court that makes a finding that such a violated has occurred.
The second is the recommendation that the WSIB should be given enhanced power to impose administrative penalties for violation of workers’ rights to benefits or return to work, with such penalties being up to three times the employer’s annual premium rates and graduated to reflect mitigating or aggravating factors.
It may be noted first of all that, for many employers, the amount of such penalties could well go into the millions of dollars, a particularly heavy-handed outcome when considered in relation to the amounts imposed for violations of other workplace legal norms.
The recommendations with respect to having to reimburse the WSIB and/or worker for such things as legal costs , travel, relocation and medical expenses are also simply unheard of in other employment-related administrative legal proceedings such as those before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, Ontario Labour Relations Board or even in prosecutions or s. 50 reprisal complaints under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Arthurs may have exposed some evidence of undesirable social results in relation to ER (claims suppression). But he also found evidence that ER may produce desirable outcomes (reduced accidents, increased return to work outcomes). He was not able to say that the evidence comes down more on one side than the other and ended up having to recommend simply that the issue be considered more closely.
If the jury is still out then on whether ER is working and whether employer abuses are as rampant as some say they are then certainly it is premature to leap to the extreme punitive measures which Arthurs also recommends.
This is all the more so when one recalls that there is another side of the equation which Arthurs notes but which he has not pursued with the same vim and vigour: that of worker abuses of the claims system and lax claims management by the WSIB.
The ultimate conclusions in relation to ER are thus somewhat unbalanced and not placed on the most solid footing.
It may well be that the old days of ER are quickly coming to an end. However, it is to be hoped that the WSIB will think these issues through and with the full consultation of the employer community before implementing any drastic changes to the existing ER system.
In our next and final entry in this series, we will review the Arthurs Report’s consideration of funding occupational disease claims and benefit indexation for partially disabled workers.
Print Category: Workers Compensation, WSIB
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Title: Unison
Subject: Moodswinger, Interval (music), President of the Trades Union Congress, Perfect fifth, Dave Prentis
Collection: 1993 Establishments in the United Kingdom, Public Sector Trade Unions, Public Services International, Trade Unions Established in 1993, Trade Unions in the United Kingdom
UNISON — the Public Service Union
1.283 million (2013)[1]
TUC, STUC, ICTU, ETUC, (EPSU), ITUC, (PSI), Labour Party[2]
Dave Prentis, General Secretary
Keith Sonnet, Deputy Gen. Sec.
Lucia McKeever, President (lay)[3]
130 Euston Road,
London NW1 2AY
http://www.unison.org.uk/
UNISON is the second largest trade union in the United Kingdom[4] with almost 1.3 million members.
The union was formed in 1993 when three public sector trade unions, the National and Local Government Officers Association (NALGO), the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE) merged.[5]
UNISON's current general secretary is Dave Prentis. He was elected on 28 February 2000 and took up the post on 1 January 2001, succeeding Rodney Bickerstaffe who had held the post for five years.[6]
Members and organisation 1
Membership numbers 1.1
Membership fees 1.2
Membership campaigns 1.3
Political work 2
Political campaigns 2.1
General Secretaries 3
Members and organisation
UNISON sign outside their headquarters on Euston Road, London
Members of UNISON are typically from industries within the public sector and generally cover both full-time and part-time support and administrative staff. The majority of people joining UNISON would be workers within areas such as local government, education, the National Health Service Registered Nurses, NHS Managers & Clinical Support Workers. The union also admits ancillary staff such as Health Care Assistants and Assistant Practitioners, including Allied Health Professionals. Probation services, police services, utilities (such as gas, electricity and water), and transport.[7] These 'Service Groups' all have their own national and regional democratic structures within UNISON's constitution.[8]
As a trade union, UNISON provides support to members on work related issues, including protection and representation at work, help with pay and conditions of service and legal advice. Each company or organisation will usually be represented by a particular UNISON branch and members within that organisation elect volunteer stewards to represent them. The stewards receive training in workplace issues and are then able to co-ordinate and represent members both on an individual basis and collectively.[9]
Each branch is run by an annually elected committee of members which holds regular meetings, including an annual general meeting for all members to attend. Branches elect delegates to the union's annual National Delegate Conference (held in June every year), the supreme body within the union's constitution with responsibility for setting the union's policies for the forthcoming year.[10]
To encourage all voices to be heard UNISON has "self organised groups" of Black members, women members, lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender members, and disabled members. Young members and retired members also have their own sections within the union.[11]
Membership numbers
Membership numbers have remained relatively stable at between 1.2 and 1.4 million in recent years.[12]
Year Ending
Total Reported Membership
December 2013 1,282,500
The levels of subscription are determined by the National Delegate Conference and are recorded as a Schedule in the union rules. The National Delegate Conference has the power to vary the subscriptions levied after a majority vote, although the subscription rates do not change frequently.
Local branches may also, after a majority vote of members, impose an additional 'Local Levy' as long as the levy does not exceed one sixth of the subscription payable. This is in addition to the standard rate, and must be used for local branch purposes.
Membership fees vary depending on how frequently members are paid and the level of their current salary. Subscriptions are generally paid by what is commonly known as "check-off" or DOCAS (Deduction of Contributions at Source). This is where the employer deducts the contribution from the employee's salary on behalf of the union. Payment is taken by Direct Debit if the member joins online, if the member specifically requests it, or if there is no DOCAS arrangement with the employer.
Student members in full-time education (including student nurses or Modern Apprentices) have a fixed rate subscription of £10 per year.
Members who have had continuous membership for at least two years may opt to pay a one-off fee of £15 upon retirement from paid employment. This allows them to retain the benefits of being a union member for life. They are then classed as 'Retired Members'.
Members who are dismissed or made redundant from employment may retain their membership for £4 per year for a period of up to two years whilst they remain unemployed.
Membership campaigns
Ants and Bear campaign poster.
Various local campaigns are run by the union. Much of the recruitment within organisations takes place at a local level, with stewards and branches directly engaging with the staff within their remit.
The national organisation also engages in publicity [13] such as the "Ants and Bear", which was used at the formation of the new amalgamated union. This advertising campaign showed an ant trying to get past a large bear by shouting "Excuse Me", however the bear did not pay attention. The next scene showed the ant being joined by many thousands more, and them all saying "Get out of the way!" together, which does get the bear's attention and makes him move out of the way.[14]
One in a Million campaign poster.
The General Political Fund funded a TV recruitment advert "You're one in a million" launched in October 2004.
Political work
A rally of UNISON in Oxford during the strike on 2006-03-28.
A picket in Norwich in 2008.
UNISON has a political fund which uses money from members for political and social campaigning. Members have the choice of paying into either a fund which supports the Labour Party, a non-affiliated General Political Fund or to opt out of contributing to a political fund at all.[15] UNISON also carries out research and campaigns on public service issues, such as the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). It has also voted (at its 2005 annual conference) to oppose the Government's proposals for a British national identity card.
The union's links to Labour and its moderate policies has caused some conflict and criticism of action taken against left-wing activists.[16]
In April 2009 a UNISON conference voted unanimously to request that the British Department of Health ban members of the British National Party from working as nurses in the National Health Service, describing the party as racist.[17]
UNISON runs a range of national campaigns, such as 'Positively Public', the campaign to keep public services public and well-funded. Campaigns cover a broad area from pay and pensions to sector-specific initiatives focusing on a variety of issues from cleaner hospitals to opposing the sell-off of public housing.
They are affiliated to Abortion Rights[18] which campaigns "to defend and extend women's rights and access to safe, legal abortion"; among its statements it opposes the criminalisaton of sex-selective abortion.[19]
There have also been high-profile regional and local campaigns, such as that against the controversial and unpopular[20] 'SouthWest One' private/public partnership.[21]
The General Political Fund has also funded:
Anti-racist events
Local campaigns against privatisation/marketisation
UNISON presence at various national and regional events
Campaigns against council housing sell-off
In the run-up to general or local elections, the fund has been used for advertising campaigns to ensure that issues of importance to UNISON are high on the agenda. Its 2010 campaign is titled "Million Voices for Public Services".[22]
The GPF is not affiliated to any political party, but the money in the fund is used to support local campaigns and to pay for political advertising.
In February 2013, UNISON was among other organizations and individuals who gave their support to the People's Assembly in a letter published by The Guardian newspaper.[23] UNISON Delegates and representatives attended the People's Assembly Conference held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 June 2013.[24]
1993 – 1996: Alan Jinkinson
1996 – 2001: Rodney Bickerstaffe
2001 – to date: Dave Prentis
UIA (Insurance)
^ http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/pages/member_unions
^ Family tree diagram from unionancestors.co.uk
^ New leader for biggest trade union (BBC)
^ TUC trade union listing
^ UNISON Service Groups
^ What is a workplace representative
^ Getting involved in UNISON
^ Self Organised Groups
^ http://www.certoffice.org/Nav/Trade-Unions/UNISON--The-Public-Service-Union.aspx
^ Case Study: Using the TV Ad
^ Ants & Bears television commercial
^ UNISON Political Fund
^ http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=12697
^ http://www.nursingtimes.net/whats-new-in-nursing/unison/calls-to-ban-nasty-racist-bnp-members-from-nursing/5000675.article
^ http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/02/27/235054/public-sector-remains-wary-of-southwest-one.htm
^ http://www.unisonsouthwest.org.uk/showarticle.asp?id=58&t=news
^ UNISON members join Million Voices campaign, Mid Devon Star, 3 March 2010
^ People's Assembly opening letter http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/feb/05/people-assembly-against-austerity 5 February 2013, The Guardian Newspaper.
^ Union News, 22 June 2013 http://union-news.co.uk/2013/06/4000-expected-at-peoples-assembly-as-activists-ramp-up-opposition-to-austerity/
UNISON UK website
UNISON Scotland website
UNISON Northern Ireland's Lifelong Learning Website
UNISON at DMOZ
Catalogue of the UNISON archives, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
Deputy General Secretary
Assistant General Secretary
ASLEF
BFAWU
BOSTU
BECTU
HCSA
NACODS
NAHT
NUJ
NGSU
SUWBBS
TSSA
UCAC
UCATT
USDAW
Unite the Union
URTU
WGGB
Articles with DMOZ links
Trade unions in the United Kingdom
Public sector trade unions
Public Services International
Trade unions established in 1993
United Kingdom general election, 2015, United Kingdom general election, 2010, United Kingdom general election, 2005, United Kingdom general election, 1997, Gordon Brown
Dave Prentis
Unison, Leeds, University of London, London School of Economics, University of Warwick
Moodswinger
Unison, Just major third, Perfect fifth, Augmented sixth, Octave
President of the Trades Union Congress
Unison, Transport and General Workers Union, National Union of General and Municipal Workers, Trades Union Congress, Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen
Perfect fifth
Octave, Consonance and dissonance, Unison, Just intonation, Pythagorean tuning
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A Guide to the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011
The AFC Asian Cup 2011 is the first major soccer tournament of the new year. Following the tournament's qualification process, sixteen finalists will compete for the much-respected title of AFC Asian Champion in Qatar from January 7th to January 29th.
The AFC Asian Cup 2011 winner will qualify for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil. With a host of European-based stars such as Tim Cahill (Australia and Everton), Shinji Kagawa (Japan and Borussia Dortmund) and Park Ji Sung (South Korea and Manchester United) on show, the 2011 Asian Cup is definitely one to watch for soccer fans around the world.
Here's the World Soccer Shop Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask Guide to the AFC Asian Cup 2011.
A PDF version of the AFC Asian Cup 2011 schedule is available at the AFC website at this link.
Team to Watch
Now an Asian powerhouse since moving from the Oceania Football Confederation in search of more challenging opposition, the Aussies are loaded with European-based talent. Following a disappointing run in the 2007 Asian Cup, the Socceroos are among the tournament favorites and will be looking to advance beyond the quarter-final round for the first time.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. South Korea on Janaury on January 14th. This match should determine top spot in a group also featuring Bahrain and India.
Key Players: Tim Cahill (Everton), Mark Schwarzer (Fulham FC), Brett Emerton (Blackburn Rovers)
Now rebuilding after surprisingly missing out on the final AFC qualification round for the 2011 FIFA World Cup, China has shown good form off late with friendly victories of Latvia and Estonia. China will have to maintain this form to advance from a tough group featuring hosts Qatar, Uzbekistan and Kuwait.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. Uzbekistan on January 16th. This could be a do or die match for the Chinese.
Key Players: Hao Junmin (Schalke 04), Qu Bo (Shaanxi Zhongjian)
With the most of the team that came within a penalty kick of the quater-finals of last summer's World Cup called up to represent Japan at the Asian Cup, anything less than a semi-final appearance will come as a shock to Blue Samurai fans. The team has shown fine form since the World Cup with recent friendly wins over Argentina and Paraguay.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. Saudi Arabia on January 17th. This match is expected to determine first place in Group B.
Key Players: Keisuke Honda (CSKA Moscow), Shinji Kagawa (Borussia Dortmund), Makoto Hasebe( VfL Wolfsburg)
They're not expected to advance beyond the first round in their first appearance in the Asian Cup since 1984. Nevertheless, India's national soccer program has been the beneficiary of significant investment from parties seeking to raise the profile of the sport to a market of over one billion Indian citizens. Good performances could do wonders for the sport in the cricket-mad economic power.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. Australia on January 10th. A good showing by the Indians will spur interest in the world's most second most populous country.
Key Players: Suni Chheteri (Sporting Kansas City), Bhaichung Bhutia (East Bengal)
The three-time champions and seemingly perpetual semi-finalists will be seeking a return to the final four of the Asian after a disappointing quarter-final exit in 2007 and an equally disappointing 2010 FIFA World Cup campaign.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. neighbors and long-time rivals Iraq on January 11th.
Key Players: Javad Nekounam (Osasuna), Masoud Shojaei (Osasuna)
Shock champions in 2007, Iraq will be looking to repeat in 2011 under manager former Werder Bremen boss Wolfgang Sidka. Though they are defending champions and gave a good showing in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup (with two draws and one loss), the turmoil in Iraq has left soccer in the country in a state of disarray and Iraq remains somewhat of an unknown quantity. A recent 1-0 loss to Syria followed by a 1-0 win at Saudi Arabia is indicative of this.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. neighbors and long-time rivals Iran on January 11th.
Key Players: Younis Mahmoud (Al-Gharafa), Nashat Akram (Al-Wakrah)
Either champions or second place finishers in an astounding six of the last seven AFC Asian Cups, Saudi Arabia knows how to find success in the tournament. The team is also looking to re-establish itself as an Asian power after missing out on its first FIFA World Cup since its debut on the world stage at USA 1994.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. Japan on January 17th. The winner should take first place in Group B.
Key Players: Yasser Al-Qahtani (Al Hilal), Mohammad Al-Shalhoub (Al Hilal)
Like rivals Japan, South Korea will send most of the team that came within a whisk of a 2010 FIFA World Cup quarter-final spot to Qatar. Featuring several players currently plying their trade in the English Premier League, Scottish Premier League and German Bundesliga, South Korea are among the favorites to take the cup home.
Big Group Stage Match: vs. South Korea on Janaury on January 14th. Expected to see who tops the Group C.
Key Players: Park Ji Sung (Manchester United), Lee Chung-Yong (Bolton Wanderers), Cha Du-Ri (Celtic FC)
Free highlights will be available at the AFC Asian Cup YouTube Channel. ESPN STAR Sports has acquired the television rights to the tournament in Asia. For the U.S., One World Sports acquired the rights through World Sport Group, the AFC’s exclusive marketing and media partner.
One World Sports has licensed the full event to iN DEMAND, which will distribute the football tournament to Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Charter, Mediacom and a host of other U.S. affiliates; DISH Network; and Avail/TVN, which includes AT&T and Verizon FiOS among its affiliates. Matches can be purchased on a per-game basis through Pay-Per-View. Broadband coverage will be available live via One World Sports Broadband. Mobile coverage is on Verizon Wireless V CAST Video.
Photo Credits: Getty Images
Posted by Andre at 11:27 PM
Labels: AFC Asian Cup 2011
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Missoula Couples Can Now Apply For Marriage Licenses Online
Starry-eyed couples no longer have to wait in line at the Missoula County Courthouse to apply for a marriage license. Now that can apply online.
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Following the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, KGVO News reached out to Mark Thane, Superintendent of Missoula School District One, to see how the decision would be reflected in the district's curriculum.
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Acting is a passion for many kids growing up, and it’s usually the parents who need to put on their researcher’s hat and find the best acting classes for kids in London or any other city. We have previously mentioned some great acting schools for kids in the UK, but this time we’ll focus on London alone.
For a full list of available acting training options – adult, kids, teenagers, evening classes, full day training, weekends, etc – I recommend you take a look at our Acting London Training Directory that contains absolutely ALL available acting training options in and around London, including their details, descriptions, phones, addresses, courses and more.
However, if you’re looking specifically for the best acting classes for kids in London and you’d be satisfied with a few options of where to send your child to start his drama training, this article should be more than enough.
“Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington.”
For those who don’t, can’t, or won’t heed the advice given in the Noël Coward song, here’s a selection of eleven best acting classes for kids in London. These places are great for drama training particularly for children aged around 8-12 but many drama groups on the list offer classes for younger and older kids.
As far as possible, the selections exclude any offered in the more formal surroundings of drama schools, academies, or colleges.
RELATED: 6 Best London Summer Schools for Acting
11 Best Acting Classes for Kids in London
1. Act Drama
Website: http://www.actdrama.co.uk
Address: Find it on Google Maps
Founded by Jane Cameron, a professional actor, Act Drama offers two Saturday-morning drama classes for 5-15 year-olds at Streatham and Clapham High School in south-west London. Ms Cameron and her team also run drama clubs in local schools, as well as holiday workshops and drama parties.
The class curriculum includes theatre games, movement, role-play, improvisation, stagecraft, and performance technique.
Classes for 5-9 year-olds start at 9.00, last an hour, and cost £110 ($167) for ten classes, while 10-15 year-olds get 90 minutes at 10.00, for which a fee of £165 ($250) also provides ten sessions.
2. Actors Alive
Website: http://omnibus-clapham.org/actors-alive-omnibus-youth-theatre/
Provided by Omnibus, a not-for-profit arts, music, and theatre education and training facility in a disused Victorian public library in Clapham, south-west London, Actors Alive offers classes for children every Saturday morning during school terms (semesters).
Classes for 8-15-year-olds are held at 10.00 and run for 60 minutes, with a curriculum that includes theatre games, acting exercises, character development, “and lots of fun”. The teacher claims extensive experience at various London theatres and, at the end of each term, the students mount a show of their work for parents and friends.
The first class is free and the entire term, comprising nine classes and the final show, costs £90 ($136).
3. Allsorts Drama
Website: http://www.allsortsdrama.com
Emphasizing that it’s not a school (even if calling itself one on occasion), Allsorts was founded in 1992 and is based in Willesden, north-west London. It works only with children aged 4-18.
Two-hour weekly classes for 7-11 year-olds are held in three school locations in west and north-west London, either on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings. They cover the usual topics: improvisation, characterisation, games, and vocal training, but also include mime and working with masks. The fully-accredited teachers work with their pupils to create original plays for performance at term-end.
The fee for a full term of 10 classes is a relatively steep £190 ($289). The first class can be used as a free taster, the £20 fee being refunded if your child doesn’t continue to the full course. Summer-holiday workshops are also offered at £180 ($274) for a five-day week.
4. Barnes Musical Theatre Club
Website: http://www.barnesmusicaltheatreclub.com
Although the club’s primary focus is musical theatre, reflecting the background of Catherine Loveless, its founder, the curriculum also includes drama techniques, voice training, and drama games. The club is based in Barnes in south-west London.
The club caters for children only and classes are split into two age groups, the Senior course, for ages 8-14, being the one that qualifies for inclusion in this list. The weekly class is on Monday evenings, lasts 75 minutes, and takes place at a good-sized church hall with its own stage.
The website has no information on fees or membership, so use the Contact Us page to get the e-mail address and ‘phone number.
5. LOST HARTS Young Company
Website: http://www.hartstheatrecompany.co.uk/drama-classes
Founded in 1979 as the London Oratory School Theatre, an after-school theatre club, LOST Theatre joined up with HARTS Theatre Company in 2011 to offer weekly term-time drama classes for children at two London locations, one in Stockwell, in the south-east, and the other in Brent, in the north-west.
The focus with these acting classes for kids is usually on games, team-building, confidence boosting, and exploring creative techniques.
Classes run for 60 minutes on weekday evenings, with 5-10 year-olds at 5.30 and 11-15 year-olds at 6.30. The fees are £5-6 ($7.50-$9) per class and there are 12 classes per term. It’s advisable to ring or e-mail HARTS Theatre for details, as the website is confusing about locations, ages, and times.
6. Group 64
Website: http://www.g64.org.uk
A theatre group exclusively for youngsters. Group 64 was founded in 1964 and is a registered charity. It’s based at the Putney Arts Theatre in south-west London, enabling it to mount its classes on a real stage, and has a considerable reputation for the quality of its work.
Drama classes for 7-10 year-olds are held on Saturday mornings and Monday evenings, running for 90 minutes. Membership is required and costs £95 ($145) for one child, including fees for 10 classes, with significant discounts for siblings. The website has a straightforward form for joining, course selection, and payment.
7. Perform
Website: http://www.perform.org.uk
Address: Multiple locations – search here
Although Perform bills itself as a drama school and shouldn’t, on the face of it, be included here, it is aimed only at children. Moreover, with over 300 venues across London, it’s just too significant to ignore.
Founded in 2000 and claiming a high teacher/ pupil ratio, Perform employs experienced teachers who use songs and scripts written in-house. Free introductory sessions are available and SEN classes, specifically designed for children with disabilities, are also offered.
One-hour classes for 7-12 year-olds are held on weekday evenings, as well as 90-minute sessions on Saturday mornings and afternoons. However, the attractive but somewhat non-specific website doesn’t divulge the class fees. You need to contact Perform for those.
8. Pop School & Stage Academy
Website: http://www.pssa.co.uk
Again, this is a school, not a stand-alone series of classes, but it’s different and, therefore, interesting.
Founded in 2003 by two sisters, one a former pop singer, the other a performer in London stage musicals and TV productions, PSSA claims to offer “pure enjoyment”, combined with discipline, as a route to furthering a child’s talent in singing, dancing, or acting. It operates from four UK venues, two of them in London.
On Saturdays during school term-times, PSSA hosts its three-hour Junior Stage Academy for 7-18 year-olds in the quaintly-named Royal Victoria Patriotic Building in Clapham, south-west London. A complimentary trial session can be booked before committing.
The apparent leaning of the school is towards musical performance, especially in pop music. However, if that’s where your child wants to go, this could be a great introduction, especially as PSSA has a tie-up with a London agency that can place students in movies, theatre, TV, commercials, music videos, and so forth.
Like Perform’s, the PSSA website is long an airy self-congratulation, but conspicuously short on details of its curricula, teachers, fees, indeed, on anything you really need to know. You’ll have to get in touch with them to find out.
9. South London Theatre Company
Website: http://www.southlondontheatre.co.uk/youth-group/
Founded in 1967, SLT is a repertory-style non-professional theatre group, operated as a members’ club. Its youth group hosts Saturday-morning classes for 7-11 year-olds during school term-times. The curriculum includes movement, story-telling, script reading, and improvisation, culminating in a showcase performance at a professional theatre.
Each class is of 90 minutes’ duration, from 10.30 to noon, tutored by named professionals, and held at St Luke’s church in South Norwood, an area almost off the map of Greater London. However, transport links are varied and plentiful, helping to make the classes popular and, at present, fully-subscribed.
As with many other providers of children’s classes, SLT doesn’t disclose fees on its website. Instead, you can e-mail a form, requesting details. More engagingly, the group has an open invitation to its bar on any Wednesday during a show’s run, when you can chat to one of the membership team.
10. The Drama Group
Website: No website – more info here
Established by her in 2014 in Balham, south London, The Drama Group is led by Marnie Baxter, an experienced actor in film, TV, and theatre. From time to time, she co-opts a variety of other professionals to facilitate classes.
Classes for 7-11 year-olds are held from 2.00 – 3.30 on Saturday afternoons during term-time at the Capoeira School in Streatham, an area next to Balham. The fee is £102 ($155) for 12 classes. I recommend the website: descriptive, attractive, informative (and, therefore, saving me the effort of digging around elsewhere to bring the necessary information to you here).
11. Young Actors’ Theatre
Website: http://www.youngactors.org.uk/
YAT is in Islington, just north of central London. It’s a community-based theatre group offering drama classes, workshops, and productions. It includes an agency whose scouts regularly visit classes to seek new talent.
Classes are divided into Juniors (ages 6-11) and Seniors 1 (ages 11-14). They are held in three different locations at a variety of day and evening times over the week and at weekends, enabling parents to select those that suit either term-times or holidays, including a summer school. Free taster classes are available.
Fees range from £90-£106 ($137-$161) per term, generally comprising 10 or 12 weekly classes, and there is a one-off joining fee of £10 ($15.20).
This is no more than a fairly small selection of what’s available in terms of the best acting classes for kids in London. However, note that most London-based drama classes for children are offered through full-time drama schools and colleges. If independence and specialisation are what you’re after, this list is as good as any.
The downside with those mentioned as the best acting classes for kids in London is that, being small organisations in many cases, operators tend to come and go with little warning. So, you may find that some online listings of these kids London acting classes include offerings that no longer exist, although I’ve made sure those included here are still in action.
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1 2 3 o' clock 4 o' clock Rock
It's a Music Geek Wonderland . . . at Houston Roby's Electrical Magazine
Song Of The Week: “The King Of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One” by Neutral Milk Hotel
By Houston Roby January 14, 2019 90s Jeff Mangum Neutral Milk Hotel
Sometimes you just have to write a cryptic song cycle about a young girl evading Nazis during WWII.
Jeff Mangum spent the late 80’s and early 90’s recording his unique and oblique songs onto a portable four-track and occasionally self-releasing them in limited quantities on cassette tapes. For some time he traveled across America, sleeping on couches and writing music, an itinerant minstrel gathering material. His 1996 debut album under the Neutral Milk Hotel moniker was basically a solo album with assistance from friends, but the following year he assembled a band to help translate his lo-fi demos into lo-fi studio recordings.
The ideas that needed translating stemmed mostly from Mangum reading The Diary Of Anne Frank, a teenage girl’s daily record of hiding from Nazis for two years during the occupation of Holland. By his own account, Mangum cried for three days after finishing the book and began having recurring dreams about going back in time to save her.
What does a writer do when filled with so much emotion? A writer puts pen to paper and fingers to guitar and — in Mangum’s case — creates songs with titles such as “Holland, 1945” and “Ghost.” Those two titles are understandable if you know what stirred their author to compose them. Less understandable is “The King Of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One,” which would soon take its place as the opening track on Neutral Milk Hotel’s sophomore album, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.
It’s unclear how this song applies to Anne Frank or WWII, or if it’s even meant to be part of the cycle, as the surreal lyrics are somewhat difficult to interpret. (Do they even have rattlesnakes in the Netherlands? I don’t know, but apparently they’re falling all around your feet.) Granted, none of the other tracks on the album are all that explicit, either, but lyrics often mean one thing to the artist and another to the audience, and whether the twain shall meet or not matters little.
Once it’s out there, art connects however it wants to — however we let it.
Upon its release in 1998, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea connected with more people than expected, becoming one of the best-selling records of the year. Over the ensuing decades its reputation has only grown and the album is now considered an indie rock classic, impenetrable or not.
So climb into the aeroplane, and gaze out over the sea .. with Neutral Milk Hotel
Posted in Song Of The Week
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Turkey’s image “at rock bottom” in U.S. - Fishman
“The complimentary image of Turkey I used to hear described in America has been replaced by one dominant take: Turkey as an authoritarian state.”
A piece in Haaretz today by American academic and long-time Turkey-watcher Louis Fishman laments the state of bilateral relations and the increasingly common perception that Turkey is an unsafe place to visit.
Fishman lists ISIS and PKK terror, mass arrests under state of emergency, the conviction of U.S. journalist Ayla Albayrak in absentia on terror charges, the detention of human rights defenders, the arrest of civil society activist Osman Kavala and the treatment of detained clergyman Andrew Brunson as reasons why Americans might be advised to avoid a trip to the country.
"[B]eware of just being an American who can be used as a hostage", after U.S. media coverage of an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, who’s been held for over a year on dubious espionage charges, went up a gear since fears were raised that Brunson is being used as a bargaining chip by Turkey. That was after Erdogan hinted that he could be exchanged for Fethullah Gulen, the Islamic cleric wanted in Turkey for allegedly masterminding the coup.
However, Fishman claims, the United States does not usually pay much attention to human rights issues in distant countries, especially those which are its allies.
“If Turkey hadn't directly provoked the U.S.,” he says. “Reports of its human rights violations would be collecting dust.”
As an example, he asks how many Americans even know that the leaders of the HDP, Turkey’s third-largest party, are in jail.
Yet Turkey’s human rights record has increasingly come in for scrutiny in America both as the country becomes more authoritarian and as it becomes more hostile to the United States.
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July 9: Pack the Court & Press Conference: Community Groups denounce trumped-up charges against Shawn Carrie
– July 8, 2015
PACK THE COURT: Come out this Thursday, July 9th at 9AM at the Brooklyn Supreme Court, 320 Jay Street.
Facebook Event: //www.facebook.com/events/109279876081241/
COMMUNITY GROUPS AND FAITH LEADERS DENOUNCE TRUMPED UP HATE CRIMES CHARGES AGAINST ACTIVIST SHAWN CARRIE; DEMAND FULL INVESTIGATION OF LEONARD PETLAKH FOR RACIALLY-BIASED ASSAULT
PRESS CONFERENCE: WHEN: Thursday, July 9th 2015, 11:00 a.m.
WHERE: Outside Brooklyn Supreme Court
320 Jay Street Brooklyn, NY 11201
WHAT: Press conference following the arraignment of Shawn Carrie (Schrader), who is being charged with a racially-motivated hate crime in conjunction with a series of incidents that that took place in October 2014 at a basketball game at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Schrader will be joined by a coalition of community groups, faith leaders and supporters denouncing the charges. Video evidence shows that the accuser, Mr. Leonard Petlakh, was in fact the perpetrator of a racially-motivated crime towards a Palestinian woman during the basketball game. Petlakh was part of a group of men who assaulted Nerdeen Kiswani, a young Palestinian woman who visibly presents as Muslim, hitting her and yanking her property from out of her hands. Kiswani was attacked for no reason other than wearing a hijab and holding a Palestinian flag. To date, Petlakh has not been investigated for the attack. As the Vice-President of the American Zionist Organization, Petlakh has used his political connections to wage a witch-hunt against Shraeder, a prominent activist and journalist, and deflect attention from his own documented assault.
Community and faith leaders will come together to firmly denounce the biased, prejudiced charges against Schraeder, whose case is being used to deflect attention from the real perpetrator of the hate crime–Mr Petlakh. Supporters will call on the District Attorney’s office to investigate Mr. Petlakh’s assault on Kiswani and immediately drop all charges against Schrader.
The press conference will begin at approximately 11:00 a.m. outside of Brooklyn Supreme Court following Mr Schrader’s arraignment at 9:00 a.m.
In a fantastic stroke of irony, the Brooklyn District Attorney is pursuing a campaign of political targeting using a grand jury to bring trumped up charges of felony assault with a “hate crime bias” against Shawn Carrié. The alleged incident took place eight months ago at a basketball game at the Barclays Center. The accuser, Leonard Petlakh, claims he was attacked for no reason other than being Jewish, but there is substantial video evidence that clearly shows that Petlakh himself was involved and assisted in the commission of a blatantly hateful and unprovoked attack against a Palestinian Muslim woman for no reason at all.
During the game, Petlakh was part of a group of men who assaulted Nerdeen Kiswani, a young Palestinian woman who visibly presents as Muslim, and yanked a flag from her hands. In the video, Petlakh and his cronies can be seen singling out Nerdeen for nothing else than wearing a hijab and holding the Palestinian flag as they plan their attack. Shawn is also seen in the video, calmly observing and filming with a cell phone. After assaulting Nerdeen, Petlakh and friends call for an usher, and Nerdeen exclaims that she was assaulted and wants the man arrested. Instead, Barclays security just escorted Petlakh and his gang of thugs out the stadium. Nerdeen pleaded with them to call the police because she wanted to press charges against the men who assaulted her, but she was completely ignored.
The video, which was taken by Petlakh and his friends, clearly shows them as aggressive instigators. They sought to cover up their crimes by claiming that they were the victims of a hate crime, despite the fact that none of them were wearing anything that outwardly identified them as being Jewish.
Within days of the incident, over a dozen city council members and officials gathered at a press conference to declare support for Petlakh, who is Vice President of the American Zionist Movement, Executive Director of the Kings Bay Y, and an adjunct professor at Hunter College, where Nerdeen Kiswani attends school. Petlakh used his political connections to amplify what he decided to call a “hate crime.” Media such as CBS New York, Gothamist and various right-wing blogs have parroted these allegations. They did not mention Petlakh’s attack on Nerdeen.
These bogus charges against Shawn are not only a means to cover up Petlakh’s own crimes, but also a political attack on Palestine solidarity organizing in New York, as well as Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities across the U.S. as a whole. This is a case of targeting an activist for their political alignment with the intention of silencing all people speaking up for human rights, labeling anyone with a critical perspective of Israel as “anti-semitic.” We will not stand by as Petlakh uses his political clout to manipulate the justice system, calling in favors to push for an outrageous and malicious prosecution. We also demand to know why Petlakh and his friends have not been charged with any crimes for singling out and attacking a visibly Muslim woman – which they even had the audacity to film themselves doing it.
Come out this Thursday, July 9th at 9AM at the Brooklyn Supreme Court, 320 Jay Street. Shawn Carrié, our comrade and yours, will need our support. We know that Petlakh’s accusations and the DA’s charges are a farce. Whether reporting in war zones in Ferguson or in occupied Palestine, Shawn is driven by a passion for justice and freedom, not by hate. Let’s show them that we are not afraid to stand together for justice. A press conference will follow.
If you can’t make it to the courts on Thursday, you can:
Call up the DA and politicians, and ask them why Leonard Petlakh and his associates have not been charged with conspiring to assault and assaulting Nerdeen Kiswani.
District Attorney Ken Thompson (718) 250-2000
Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz (718) 743-4078
Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein (718) 648-4700
Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams (718) 802 3700
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Film professor emeritus receives lifetime achievement award from Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Donald Crafton delivering his acceptance speech at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies' annual conference in Seattle.
Donald Crafton didn’t want to deliver a typical acceptance speech. Standing before hundreds of his peers last month in Seattle, receiving the Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, he wanted to challenge and inspire the hundreds of friends, colleagues, and future academic leaders in front of him.
In his remarks, he reflected on why John Ford’s 1956 Western The Searchers was his favorite film. It is a standard response he gives to a frequent question, but his explanation often focuses on the film’s historic significance or cinematic influence.
Donald Crafton
It had been a while, he said, since he thought about the more personal reasons behind his affinity — seeing it for the first time with his parents and siblings at the local movie house in Eaton Rapids, Michigan.
“Our family had little spare change, but we always had time to attend ‘the show’ on Friday nights,” he said. “We sought out cheeseburgers, got in line, participated in the community ritual of a shared spectacle with our fellow sweaty travelers, and immersed ourselves in cinematic worlds designed to spawn dreams and nightmares — wherever we were.”
Over the next several decades, those cinematic worlds became a lifetime passion for Crafton, who is widely considered the pre-eminent scholar on early animation. His books include Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898-1928 and Shadow of a Mouse: Performance, Belief, and World-Making in Animation.
Crafton came to Notre Dame in 1997 and retired in December 2016, a tenure that included holding the University’s first endowed professorship in film studies, serving as chair during the transformation of the Department of Communication and Theatre into the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, and playing an instrumental role in the planning of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. He also chaired the Department of Music for three years.
He previously founded the Yale Film Study Center and directed the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theatre Research. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named him one of its inaugural Academy Film Scholars in 2001.
The recipient of a pair of National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and one from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Crafton and his wife, Susan Ohmer — the William T. Carey and Helen Kuhn Carey Chair in Modern Communication — co-edited The Moving Image, the journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, and he has been an editorial board member of numerous other journals.
“Don Crafton’s work has set a high standard for historical scholarship and also has contributed vitally to the study of animation within our field,” said Heather Hendershot, a professor of film and media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in her introduction of Crafton at the awards ceremony.
She noted that Before Mickey was a “landmark study that still remains unsurpassed,” while Shadow of a Mouse is a “brilliant” work written in “probing, thorough, and consistently witty prose.”
“Discover your own career story. Ask why certain works, texts, and events have become talismans for you. Look inside yourself to understand your searches for fulfillment via the arts, athletics, academics, or whatever animates you.”
A film frame from "Gertie" (1914), drawn by Winsor McCay. Courtesy of the Library and Archives of Canada.
Lately, Crafton has been focused on restoring Gertie, a 7-minute animated film from 1914 developed by cartoonist and vaudeville performer Winsor McCay as part of his live act. Crafton’s restoration and the short play he wrote to accompany it, “Winsor and Gertie,” had their world premiere at a silent film festival in Italy in October and played at the University of Tübingen last month.
This fall, he will lead a half-semester FTT course that will combine an academic study of Gertie with a student production of “Winsor and Gertie” in the Patricia George Decio Theatre at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center on Dec. 6.
Crafton feels eternally indebted to his mentors and teachers, he said, but also his FTT colleagues, who have fostered a robust and energetic department.
“I’ve also learned so much from my students — and not in a vague way, but specific ideas that have inspired me to do further research,” he said. “Students are teachers, too — I keep telling them that, but they don’t believe me.”
In reflecting on his family’s weekly ritual of Friday night movies — his “inherited cinephilia,” as he called it — Crafton encouraged his fellow SCMS members to embrace the personal aspects of their love of film and culture and incorporate it into their research.
“Discover your own career story. Ask why certain works, texts, and events have become talismans for you,” he said. “Look inside yourself to understand your searches for fulfillment via the arts, athletics, academics, or whatever animates you.”
Categories: Faculty News, Research, and General News
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A mag 6.1 - 153km NW of Pangai, Tonga is the second major quake of October and only the 77th of 2017
A mag 6.1 - 153km NW of Pangai, Tonga is the 2nd major quake of October and the 77th of 2017
USGS has given a green alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses.
There is a low likelihood of casualties and damage.
September 2017 was probably the most devastating month in modern times but still recorded only 10 major quakes! Year total set to be lowest in decades
Graph Gary Walton source USGS
September will be remembered for two massive quakes in Mexico, four devastating hurricanes in the Atlantic, two tropical cyclones in the Pacific, deadly flooding in India and Bangladesh, two monster X-class flares and a spike in volcanic activity, September 2017 was probably the most devastating month in modern times with more than 50 million people evacuated around the world.
In March 2011 the month of the mag 9.0 quake in Honshu Japan 73 major quakes was recorded around the world, in September 2017 the most devastating month in recent times only 10 major quakes occurred and one of them was caused by a nuclear explosion in North Korea.
The average monthly total for major quakes in 2011 was 17, this year the average monthly total so far is 8, less than half.
2011 finished the year with a total of 207 major quakes which is the highest yearly total ever recorded since records began if this year continues to average 8 major quakes per month, 2017 would finish on 93, which is an astonishing 114 major quakes less than 2011.
This century from Jan 1st, 2000 to December 31st, 2016 a total of 2,693 major quakes were recorded around the globe at an average of 168 per year, once again if this year continues to average 8 major quakes per month, 2017 would finish on 93, which would be 75 less than the 21st century average yearly total.
The last time a yearly total of major quakes fell below 100 was way back in the 1980's.
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Where Good And Bad FIlmmaking Ends… Mediocrity Begins
An analysis of three films that could have been great and just fall too short.
by Chris Kliewer July 8, 2016
“What are you afraid of?” Fear is a huge part of our lives, it shapes us into the people that we become. From heights to spiders to crowds and darkness, it is the age old emotion that is unique for each person. Fear is built into our psyche. It forms over the centuries, growing with each new experience. It is our response to danger, giving us that rush of adrenaline to either flee or fight. The horror genre is described as films that give us the fear of the unknown. This “unknown” can include everything that anyone has ever thought of. It’s not hard to describe our fears, but it’s hard to describe why do we fear one thing over another?
Hundreds of horror movies are made each year and like any genre, some are good some are bad. I believe, however, that the horror genre suffers more from bad films than any other genre. We all go to the theater, sit in the nice comfortable chair and if you’re like me I tend to go to a late showing just to get into the spirit. We sit in the dark with ample anticipation, like a child on Christmas day waiting for our parents to say those magic words so we can open our presents. Awaiting that moment, when the lights dim and the trailers begin to roll and we are all ready.
At the end, the credits begin to roll and we are left disappointed. As we leave the theater we begin to come to the realization that we chose a movie that was neither good nor bad, it was just simply there. There are the films we love and there are films that are just downright awful and some that are so bad they’re good. What about the films that get lost in the middle, those that are just so close to being good or even great films, yet they never make it. This is the basis for my writing today. What separates The Exorcist from Exorcist: The Beginning? What separates the good from the mediocre?
We can all see and pick out what makes a bad horror movie. It stands out like a tourist in a sea of locals. From the writing to the way a scene is presented. I can generally see a bad movie coming a mile away. It is something that we may not be able to describe but we know it when we see it. How do you differentiate between a good or bad movie and an okay movie? This I think is the hardest to explain and harder to realize. All too often we’re faced with so many that the line between good and bad becomes blurred. This could be from general experiences or just what we are conditioned to anticipate in the movies we watch. For me, I have experienced many horror movies that have just been on the cusp of great and end up falling short. This brings us to the question, “What makes a great horror movie?”
This of course is my opinion, I have seen many movies and there are so many that go unheard of. What makes a movie just mediocre? I believe that it’s the subtleties that truly distinguish the good from the bad. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are numerous things that can save or destroy a film but I find those small and unique moments are where a film can really shine. I offer up three films that I feel perfectly highlight when a film falls behind the line of greatness. Some of you will disagree with me and I encourage this, I look forward to healthy discussions.
When coming up with these three films, the first film I knew had to be It Follows directed by David Robert Mitchell. This was a film that was touted as the “scariest in years” and in some cases the “scariest movie ever.” With anticipation at an all-time high I sat down, ready to be frightened. Sadly, I left feeling unfulfilled on these statements. This wasn’t because the movie or its scares were bad, but something was missing. In the time since I’d seen the film, I started reading and watching reviews and explanations about it. I wanted to try and understand what I was missing or what did I not catch the first time. I found that many people adore and love It Follows, I wanted to love it, but I couldn’t. As I said, It Follows and the other films on my list are not bad films. The acting is great, the music is fantastic and the plot is interesting and unique. An unstoppable, unrelenting, force that seeks to murder you and there’s nothing to stop it. It’s a perfect setup for a horror film with the monster being inventive and diabolical. This leads me to one of the first problems I have with the film, the monster. The monster we are told can be anybody, can look like anyone in order to get close to its victims. This, however, does not happen at all except in two scenes. The monster chooses to disguise itself as people that are so out of place it rips us out of the scene because we know if we saw it, we’d never even come close to it. Why wouldn’t it choose to look like someone close in order to get them? The argument has been made that the monster enjoys scaring its victims and enjoys toying with them. This does not seem to fit in with the story, due to the fact that it’s stated that all “It” cares about is killing its victims. On top of this, when a character is attacked by the monster, it does not try to scare them or anything to torment them. It simply appears as someone such as their mother, knocks on the door and attacks them as soon as they open it. Along with this the monster is supposed to be only focused on its victims but then it attacks those around it when it clearly can’t be injured. It shouldn’t care about anything else but getting its victims, yet it doesn’t. This is only exacerbated by idiotic decisions made by the characters, especially in the finale at the pool.
My other big problem with this film is that it’s so blunt with its message that I feel it beats us over the head with it. The film’s message is about human sexuality and about how we treat sex in our modern era. In my opinion, this is about the 60’s “free love” world view that this generation has taken and polluted into this idea that love is free without love. It is about a sexually transmitted mark that signals a demon to come after the victim. In order to save yourself you have to pass it on by having sex. This ultimately does not save them it just prolongs their life. The message is fine and an interesting one, however, the message should not be something we the viewers are bludgeoned by. It should never take away from what a movie is supposed to do, entertain. It’s a fine line to straddle, because if the message or satirical nature of the film alienates the audience and takes them out of it. This was the most disappointing of the three movies, not because it’s the worst one but because it had so much potential that it just never made it.
Imagine a place where people travel to and commit suicide, what if this place could force you to kill yourself. This is the location for the 2016 film The Forest directed by Jason Zada. It’s a fantastic premise and a worthy place to explore in a horror film. It’s actually more shocking that this was never capitalized on earlier. A dark twisted forest has been a perfect setting for numerous horror films from the Friday the 13th series to The Evil Dead. The film stars Natalie Dormer of Game of Thrones fame, who is good in her role. There is a lot to work with here and yet the film still just falls short.
One of the problems I found with the film and this happens in too many movies, there are moments that are perfect for something to scare us and then there is nothing. Tension is a crucial aspect to a solid horror film and when it’s done correctly it can be far superior to the eventual payoff. This is a fine line though, drag the tension on for too long you can lose the audience or if you don’t build it up enough you can lose that crucial reaction from the audience. In The Forest, far too often the tension is ramped up and continues to go forever. It bypasses the moments that should have been the payoff and it loses all the benefits that the tension built. There is a scene in the hallway of a hotel that is ripe with tension and yet there are three or four moments where the camera and our own imagination have us ready for the big moment then, nothing. When the big moment finally arrives it brings nothing more than a whimper rather than a scream. The other problem is when the big moment ends up being something innocuous it leaves us feeling betrayed. It would be one thing if this was just a one off scene but it’s not, it happens several times over. In the end, there are several moments that are good and the cinematography is haunting and beautiful. The story, however, and its big reveal at the end simply do not stand up to its initial concept. While I initially did not have high hopes for this film I am a film buff, I had to experience it. I walked out and again I just felt meh about it, disappointed yet again.
We’ve all gotten excited for a new film that has everything going for it; a stellar cast, a proven director, a premise that is striking and speaks to you. For me one of those films is the 2014 release Deliver Us from Evil directed by Scott Derrickson. It had everything going for it, however, instead of something missing it had too much. Scott Derrickson directed a great movie that really shouldn’t have been a horror movie. It had a great cast, minus the fact that Joel McHale was far too comical, but the plot and story really deserved to have the horror angle removed. Deliver Us from Evil is a great movie that should have been more in the vein of Se7en, instead of The Exorcist. This is the same problem that the 2003 film Identity, directed by James Mangold, suffered from. In fact, the supernatural nature of the film detracted from it instead of added to it.
Deliver Us from Evil in the end, fell flat on its face despite all the good things it had going for it. The film has a solid cast lead by Eric Bana and the story resonated with me. The story of a New York City cop that is plagued by horrific visions from a past case is a great set up for a great thriller. While it may be a tried and true plot that has served most thrillers well, it needs nothing extra. In fact, the supernatural started taking away from the overall great story. This creepy demonic element could have added to it but it was unnecessary. Deliver Us from Evil could have simply been an effective character study into the life of a New York City detective. It would have been a great film, however, it felt the need to add a demon to the mix.
When I look back on the film I find myself just more disheartened by the film. Deliver Us from Evil is marketed and made to appeal to the horror community, filled with substandard horror fare. This is still a solid thriller where its problem lie with it trying to branch out and capitalize on another genres market. If you watch the film and just forget about all the demons, well demon, you will have a much time with this thriller instead of horror movie.
Every time a new horror film is released many people like me become excited, we all have high hopes. I wish all horror films would be phenomenal, I always want them to be amazing, sadly this is not always the case. There are those shining moments where a film stands out and rises above all the others. Unlike any other genre of film, we horror fans are not passive filmgoers. While others may simply watch action or romantic films, we horror fanatics are not just simple observers. We study, we analyze, and we are always trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Every film, bad or good is a chance to assess what frightens us. We’re always looking for that next rush, hoping the next film is the one we have all been waiting for.
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TICKERS: PAAS, SBB; RXC; SGSVF
Precious Metals Expert Rick Rule Shares 'Gold Nuggets of Wisdom'
Source: Maurice Jackson for Streetwise Reports��(6/25/19)
Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable and Rick Rule of Sprott USA engage in a wide-ranging discussion covering Pareto's law, the importance of courage and conviction in investment, copper, mentors and the upcoming Sprott Natural Resource Symposium.
Maurice Jackson: Joining us for conversation is legendary investor Rick Rule of Sprott USA. Mr. Rule, welcome to the show. In our interview last month, we addressed a number of topics regarding where and what Sprott USA is focusing their attention on in the natural resource space. And at the conclusion of the interview, Rick, you stated that we should discuss Pareto's law, which is known as the 80/20 law. But you put an interesting perspective on the law that I had not considered. Mr. Rule, expand the narrative on Pareto's law and please introduce us to the concept of the 4%.
Rick Rule: Sure. And actually I'll take a little further than that with your permission. Most people have heard of the 80/20 principle, which suggests that in any sort of major field of human endeavor, 20% of the people engaged in that activity generate 80% of the utility. In other words, 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
This turns out to be, broadly speaking, true. And it was pointed out in social sciences by an Italian social scientist at the turn of the last century named Pareto. Hence it's called Pareto's law.
It's appropriate to junior mining speculation because among other things, the performance dispersion curves�that is, the performance of relative management teams�aligns well, meaning that 20% of the management teams in junior mining generate 80% of the money made.
What's important for readers to understand is that if you take that successful population, the 20%, and you run them through the same performance dispersion curve, they conformably align. Meaning that 20% of the 20 do 80% of the 80. Or 4% of the population base generates about 65% of the positive utility in the sector.
And I think it works for at least one more standard deviation, which would suggest that 20% of the 20% of the 20%, or eight-tenths of 1% generate about 40% of the total utility generated in the sector. Which is to say that one of the most important things that you can do as a speculator is identify and align yourself very patiently with the serially successful operators in the sector. And that is probably the most important work that you can do as a speculator.
That isn't to say that identifying a Robert Friedland, or a Ross Beaty, or a Lukas Lundin, or a Bob Quartermain, is the only work you need to do. The truth is that when you buy stocks that are headed by those people, you are still subjected to risk. You're still subjected to volatility. You're still subjected to the vagaries of exploration.
But your most important task is to identify the serially successful people�particularly identify the serially successful people in bad markets where you don't have to pay a huge premium to be associated with them. And then hang on for dear life and let them work their magic over time.
Maurice Jackson: We brought you on today to share some of your golden nuggets of wisdom for those of us that ascribe to join you with the serially successful. Now you're famous for stating you must have courage and conviction, which is a critical distinction you've mastered. Expand for us the psychology of courage, because this is a key attribute that you have.
Rick Rule: Well, it turns out it does take courage, Maurice. We were looking back over the exploration capital partnerships series, which is a series of investments managed by myself going back to 1998. And we found, interestingly, that first of all, the vast majority of the money that was made was made in a relatively small number of stocks�ones that increased in price 1,000% or more. Particularly where, of course, those investments were accompanied by warrants.
What was interesting was that despite the fact that we all want immediate gratification, the average holding period for a ten-bagger or 1,000% gain was almost five years. So one needs to be patient.
The courage comes in because almost every stock that we enjoyed 1,000% gain in, we experienced a 50% share price decline in at some point in time or another during our holding period for the stock.
The most dramatic example was the most successful stock that we speculated in during that period, which was Paladin Uranium. That stock was a bellwether in my career. We participated in a $0.10 financing, and I think it was probably 1999, when nobody cared about uranium. And we were rewarded for our contrarian genius by seeing the stock go from $0.10 to $0.01. That is, we experienced a 90% loss in the stock. When you experience a 90% loss, Maurice, there's no such thing as a hold. It's either a buy, or a sell.
Mercifully, we had the courage to reexamine our precept and determined that we were right, and the market was wrong. We did buy some more stock. And amazingly, over the next five years, that stock went from $0.01 to $10. Two times after the initial 90% decline, that stock fell by 50% or more.
So you had in the course of an almost fictionally good gain depending on how you count the start, $0.01 or $0.10 to $10. The initial test of courage came with a 90% loss, and there were two future losses in excess of 50%.
Similarly, Lumina copper backed by the serially successful Ross Beaty: We did the first financing, if my memory serves me well, at $0.50. And that stock ended up being liquidated in this series of seven transactions. I forget what the total was, but somewhere in the $140 range.
But either two or three times during the seven years that we held that stock, the stock declined by 50% or more. So it's important that you understand that while price is interesting, price is only relevant to the extent that it varies appreciably from value, which means that you have to have an opinion as to value and an opinion as to the ability of a management team to continue to add value. Following price alone, if you experience a 50% decline and you assume as a consequence of that decline that there's something wrong with the company, almost always you will be shaken out of circumstances that can give you a big gain.
And let me give you one further illustration, Maurice, that I think will amuse readers. We aren't just talking about speculation in this context. Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, points out that four times during his stewardship of Berkshire Hathaway, arguably the most successful investment company in the history of American investing�four times during his tenure, the stock has fallen by 50% or more.
Now interestingly, if you examine a price chart of Berkshire Hathaway going back to 1968, from 1968 until present, those 50% declines relative to the share price escalation can't even be seen on the stock chart. They're invisible because the stock has moved so much over 40 years. But if you experienced those 50% declines at the point in time when you experienced them, they still caused you trouble. So I think that's where the courage comes in.
Maurice Jackson: And before we leave courage, does the thesis, or is the scenario, very similar with uranium and copper today?
Rick Rule: Well, I think it is. If I'm understanding the question correctly, the courage associated with commodity markets is that the real money is made by buying industries that are, in effect, in liquidation. And that does take special courage. Certainly, if you looked at the uranium business today, the industry suggests that the incentive price to produce uranium, including prior year write-downs, which the industry never likes to talk about, and cost of capital, is about $60 a pound. So you make the stuff for 60 bucks a pound and you sell it for 27. You lose 33 bucks a pound, a 100 million times a year. And that takes some courage. Buying companies that have no probability of making money at the current commodity price requires courage. Some would say it requires insanity.
The difference, I think, between courage and insanity is simple arithmetic. Uranium, even in the United States, a wealthy economy that allegedly can afford alternatives, generates about 15% of our base load power. So it seems to me that the equation around uranium is that in the next six or seven years, either the price goes up to the point where the industry stays in business, or the lights go out. Those are your two choices. There is no way to replace 15% of base load electricity supply with any form of electricity in the next six or seven years.
So the courage comes into play and displaces allegations of insanity, I think, when you recognize that if you have the courage to speculate in an event that has to happen, but where you're just not sure when it's going to happen, it's still a rational activity.
Maurice Jackson: And how about copper as well?
Rick Rule: Copper's more interesting. There are plenty of companies that make cash at $2.75 per pound ($2.75/lb) copper, but the incentive price for opening new copper mines is more like US$3.50/lb. And US$3.50/lb, because it's a capital-intensive business, assumes the artificially low interest rate environment that we're living in today. If you had market interest rates�that is, if the prime interest rate was at 5%, or 6%, or 7%�the incentive price to produce copper would be up in the four or four and a quarter range.
Now if the world economy doesn't soften substantially, and I don't know if it will or it won't, the copper price will go higher, because on a global basis, we are living off of copper deposits that were discovered 30 and 40 years ago and put into production, in most cases, 20 to 30 years ago. Deposits are very long of tooth. The great deposits in the world, like Bingham Canyon, have been operating for 100 years, Chuquicamata 100 years, Freeport-McMoRan Inc.'s (FCX:NYSE) Grasberg deposit, 40 years, Escondida 30 years. These are very, very, very long of tooth. And we aren't developing new copper deposits because we're not at incentive price.
So supply is going to be constrained in the copper business. The fly in the ointment here, Maurice, is if the economy does slow down, and I'm not saying it will. I don't know. It could be that demand for copper declines a little bit too. I'm willing to take that bet, because my suspicion is that the ascent of man continues�hat is, the billion and a half people at the bottom of the demographic pyramid continue to get richer, and continue to urbanize. And the consequence of urbanization is intensive use of electrical power, which requires lots of copper.
So my supposition is that even in an economic decline, that demand for copper will be surprisingly resilient because of its utility�and particularly, its utility to the poorest 20% of the people on Earth.
Maurice Jackson: How does the application of conviction fit into this narrative?
Rick Rule: Well, first of all, one needs to become educated enough that one can have conviction. The suggestion that I've made on your show so often is that one must be a contrarian or one will be a victim. That bear markets are the authors of bull markets.
My conviction with regards to that, Maurice, was born simply of experience. I've been in this business almost 45 years, and I've been through, depending on how you count, five cycles. And I understand the capital intention, the cyclical nature of the mining business. And I know very well by now that bear markets are the authors of bull markets. One of the things that gives me conviction that this market will turn is that that is simply the nature of markets for things like commodities, which are essential to mankind.
Other examples of conviction have to do with the intelligent application of science. If you have been around geologists and geology for a very long time, you begin to understand, first of all, what a good geologist is relative just to a geologist. And you understand what good geology is. And good geology overcomes a lot of sins. Market sins, management sins, all types of sins.
So I think that conviction is the conjunction of experience and education, which, while they're related, are not the same thing. Having the education to understand the value of various inputs, and having the experience to have, in your past, seen outcomes associated previously with the same type of experiences that you're having today, gives one conviction.
I guess, in my case, the third factor in conviction is having experience with people and teams. I have a high degree of confidence that if I go into a business with a Robert Friedland, or Bob Quartermain, or Ross Beaty, or Lukas Lundin, as a consequence of their past performance, I have a lot of conviction that, if I support them and stick with them�if I'm patient�that I'll have a happy outcome. And that's really born of experience.
Maurice Jackson: You touched on science, but how about philosophy? How does that factor into your decision-making process?
Rick Rule: Well, I try not to let it enter in too much, to be honest with you. I try to be mathematically and empirically based. The truth is, in terms of philosophy, my own political philosophy is very much libertarian and free market oriented, which means that I'm always a sucker for the gold bug pitch. The consequence of that is that I try not to listen to my philosophical side as often.
Now, related to a libertarian philosophy is an acceptance of the precepts of Austrian economics and, in particular, the predictions with regards to the activities of markets and groups of people that was evidenced by Ludwig von Mises in �Human Action.� I would say, in that sense�the understanding of economic cycles and the understanding of the impact of cycles on human action�that that part of my investing philosophy has been absolutely instrumental to my success.
Von Mises points out that although all of us believe ourselves to be rational fact-gatherers, that's not what we are. We have a view of ourselves as impartial observers that gather information, hither and yon, and process it in a rational fashion. But that's not what we do, in fact. We gather information that is convenient to our prejudices and our paradigms, and we use the information that we gather to support those same prejudices and paradigms.
Von Mises also points out that our expectation of the future is set by your experience in the immediate rather than the distant past, which is why bull markets go on longer than they should and why bear markets go on longer than they should. If you have done lots of work around an investment or speculation and you're attracted to it, but your experience in the last five years has been that you get spanked for all your hard work, you tend to be cautious and conservative in bear markets�which is precisely when the markets are cheap�because your most recent experiences have been bad rather than good.
Conversely, in bull markets where stocks are doubling and tripling for no reason, you do two things. You confuse a bull market with brains. That is, you assume that your good performance is in some way, shape or form due to your own efforts. And you also become less cautious. Your expectation for the future being set in the immediate past means that you're irrationally bullish. Even in a market that's up 400% or 500%, which is, as you know by now, Maurice, something that's not an uncommon phenomenon in our sector. Yeah, I'll leave it there.
Maurice Jackson: Well, Rick, this is great information. Here's one that really I find attractive with your thought process here, because most people shy away from this. And it sticks with courage and conviction. You're not afraid to put capital into companies that are in challenging jurisdictions, either through civil unrest or through a silent partner known as our benevolent government wishing to do some profit-sharing with your capital. Why is that?
Rick Rule: I'll tell you why, Maurice. It's not like I think Congo, or Russia, or Sudan, or Bolivia are the greatest countries on the face of the earth. I'm certainly cognizant of political risk. The truth is, however, that I've experienced lots of political risk in places that are alleged to be good. My worst personal experience with political risk was here in the People's Republic of California. But I've also had money stolen from me by legislatures in places like British Columbia.
The truth is that investors who look like me, old and Caucasian, tend for some reason to believe that money that's stolen from us in English, according to the rule of law, is somehow less gone. So I'm not afraid of bad jurisdictions, it's just I'm also afraid of so-called good jurisdictions. And what I've learned is that in jurisdictions where capital feels comfortable, a lot more exploration has taken place, which means that the probability that I'm going to find a high-quality deposit in a jurisdiction that I'm also comfortable in is very low. The probability is that I'll find the type of deposit that will give me the returns I'm looking for�1,000% plus�are much more likely to occur in jurisdictions that have not been looked at as thoroughly.
Perhaps my most important mentor in the 1970s told me that in exploration, money is made employing new ideas in old places�that is, new technology�or old ideas in new places. But if you're using old ideas and old places, you're assuming that you're smarter than everyone that came before you, which is usually an incorrect assumption.
So, as an example, investments around the application of new technologies like three-dimensional seismic measurement while drilling, and new fracturing and recovery techniques, have revolutionized the old oil fields of West Texas. That's a new idea in an old place. But old-fashioned exploration technology�that is, projection of existing trends, things like that�work well in places like Congo and Kazakhstan, places that haven't been explored thoroughly for 40, or 50, or 60 years, as a consequence of challenging social, economic, and political circumstances. So I would say that while I'm certainly cognizant of political risk, I define political risk much differently than many of my competitors.
Maurice Jackson: May I ask, was that Mr. Lundin that you were referring to there?
Rick Rule: Although Adolf Lundin would have said exactly the same thing, the guy I was referring to was a man named Jack Brown, of a private oil and gas company called Wagner & Brown.
Maurice Jackson: Before we leave speculation, we have a subscriber that wanted me to ask you if you would share three junior exploration stocks in the gold sector that you like best.
Rick Rule: I'm not allowed to do that. I'm U.S.-securities licensed. And the consequence is that I can't make anything that smacks of a recommendation to people whom I don't know. I can repeat the offer that I've made on your show so many times, which is to evaluate people's portfolio, rank people's portfolio for them, if they e-mail it to me. But a general set of things that can be construed as recommendations is something that I can't do. Is the person who's talking particularly about precious metals?
Maurice Jackson: Junior mining stocks. Junior explorations stocks for gold companies.
Rick Rule: OK. If they're for gold companies, I can tell you that I have been buying two recently. This doesn't suggest that your subscribers should buy them. This isn't a recommendation. This is simply a disclosure about two companies I've been buying. One is Pan American Silver Corp. (PAAS:TSX; PAAS:NASDAQ), run by Ross Beaty, which is down really substantially in price as a consequence of, I think, the market misunderstanding the acquisition of Tahoe Resources. And the other would be Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. (SBB:TSX; RXC:FSE; SGSVF:OTCPK), which is a very large project in northern Canada, which is access constrained, meaning that access to it is by a winter ice road. It's a very large deposit that people are afraid of because they don't understand when it's going to come in production. But we see it as both a large and high-grade deposit that is highly likely to come into production.
It's important that your listeners note that these are not recommendations. These are not suggestions. These are not tips. These are merely two companies that I have been buying.
Maurice Jackson: Well, Rick, thank you for sharing that. And Rick, speaking of gold, you're a strong advocate for owning physical precious metals. But not in the context that we usually hear from those who advocate having physical precious metals. Why does Rick Rule own precious metals?
Rick Rule: Fear. I regard precious metals as insurance. And insurance, in particular, against political interference with living standards. I believe the most important determinant�certainly not the only determinant, but the most important determinant�of the gold price is faith, or lack of faith, in the U.S. dollar as expressed by the U.S. 10-year Treasury, which is the world's benchmark security. The dollar is very, very strong, despite historically low interest rates.
I think that's partly about strong equities markets. I also think it's about the relative weakness of competitors to the U.S. dollar. While I consider the U.S. dollar to be a flawed instrument, it is certainly a less-flawed instrument than the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, the Canadian dollar� all of those. Doug Casey famously says that the U.S. dollar is the prettiest mayor at the slaughterhouse. That might be a bit extreme.
But I need to say that I'm less sanguine about the U.S. economy. I'm less sanguine about our balance sheet; $22 trillion in on-balance sheet liabilities and $100 trillion in off-balance sheet liabilities. And our ability to service those debts, given the fact that we're running a federal deficit at a trillion and a half dollars a year. I have less faith in the U.S. dollar than many of my global counterparts.
And my suspicion is if you saw a circumstance where faith in the U.S. dollar began to roll over, as it did in 2001, the price response that you'd see in gold would be one where, even if you had a substantial holding of U.S. dollars in your portfolio, the money that you would make on your insurance policy, which is gold, could offset the money that you would lose in your U.S. dollar-based accounts. I see gold, myself, as a medium of exchange that's simultaneously a store of value. And the consequence of that is that I own gold for insurance purposes.
Maurice Jackson: You're also famous for saying that it is payment in full. Can you elaborate on that for us?
Rick Rule: I think that's very important. The U.S. dollar is a promise to pay. It supposes that people will continue to accept it. Almost every fiat currency in history has always retreated to its intrinsic value, which is, of course, zero. If, as an example, rather than having U.S. dollars in your jeans, you had Venezuelan bolivars, you would understand the promise for what it was. Something that could be broken.
Gold is very different. It doesn't rely on faith. Gold isn't a promise to pay. It is, in and of itself, payment. It is an asset that isn't simultaneously somebody else's liability. And I think that's very, very important. I don't think, as an example, that you're seeing the Chinese government, the Chinese Central Bank, buying gold because they like the chart. I think that you're seeing them buy gold because they're afraid that the U.S. government will use U.S. financial markets and U.S. dollars as a weapon in foreign exchange transactions.
And so the Chinese are looking�and I just point out the Chinese, others are looking the same way�to a medium of exchange that isn't under anybody's control and isn't a promise to pay, but rather constitutes payment in and of itself.
It's interesting to note, Maurice, that over the last couple of days in the news, you will see that Venezuela exported seven tons of gold to Uganda, and then apparently onto either Dubai or Turkey. A pariah state that can't necessarily trade in U.S. 10-year Treasuries can trade, can buy and sell gold. But even more interestingly, apparently those gold bars date from the 1940s, and they were payment from the United States to Venezuela for oil that was sold in World War II, when the Venezuelans had some doubt as to the outcome of the war, and weren't willing to take U.S. dollars for their oil. They were willing to take gold.
So even a creditor as strong as the United States has periods of time, has circumstances, where their promise, which is what their currency is, isn't acceptable. But there hasn't been a time in recorded history when gold wasn't acceptable.
Maurice Jackson: Well, I tell you what, I'm loving the insights that you're sharing with us. What do the current metal prices suggest to you right now?
Rick Rule: A mixed message, really. I think the very recent strength in the gold price�by very recent I mean the last 10 days�is a function of investors' realization that the United States is unlikely to let the market dictate the interest rate. That is, society in the United States has decided that spenders should prevail over savers, and that the interest yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury should be artificially lowered.
When the U.S. Fed does [this], it's called quantitative easing. If you and I did it, it would be called counterfeiting. I think there's a realization in the market that the United States government is at the very least considering another round of counterfeiting.
Now, in terms of counterfeiting, although the United States is a very competitive economy, we don't lead in counterfeiting. In the Euro Zone, there are many countries that are already paying a negative interest rate yield. Euro Zone counterfeiting is much more pronounced, as is Japanese counterfeiting, then American counterfeiting. But, as you know, Maurice, we're in an extremely competitive society, and we want to finish first at everything, even including the debasement of our currency. And the consequence of that, I think, is the very recent strength that you've seen in gold.
Maurice Jackson: And may I ask you this as well? We all have our favorites, but right now, what is your favorite? Gold, silver, platinum or palladium?
Rick Rule: For me, because I'm buying out of cowardice, it's gold. I don't necessarily think that has the most price upside. A speculator might look at silver, gold's so-called ugly stepchild. The silver price moves after the gold price moves, but if past is prologue, moves further when it does move. So a fear buyer would be in the gold trade. A greed buyer might be in the silver trade. The silver trade is something I probably would have done in my twenties. The gold trade is something that I do in my sixties.
The contrarian, of course, would be in the platinum space. About 60% of world platinum production is uneconomic at present. Most of it is coming out of South Africa, a place that has its very own social and political challenges, which could disrupt supply. Note that I said could, not will.
So I think, as important as the attributes ascribed to each individual metal are, what's more important is the investors' needs and perceptions. Why he or she is doing what they're doing? I have other ways to make money, which is to say, speculate in equities or participate in debt markets. For me, the principal utility in precious metals is for insurance, in effect, allowing me to sleep nights and stay calm.
Maurice Jackson: Rick, thank you for sharing your golden nuggets of wisdom. Let's switch gears here. On the 29th of July through the 2nd of August, the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium will be held at the historic Fairmont Hotel in beautiful downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. Rick, introduce us to this world-class event and who will be some of the featured speakers at the symposium?
Rick Rule: Well, it's going to be, in all humility, a spectacular event. Nomi Prins will be speaking, you know. She's a veteran financial commentator, a veteran banker, an investment banker. Danielle DiMartino Booth, formally from the Dallas Fed, will be speaking. We're bringing back, of course, Jim Rickards, Doug Casey, Steve Sjuggerud, Alexander Green; many of the gurus that have traditionally been so well received in the mining space.
But the part of the conference that I actually like the most is we'll have a lot of speakers from the industry�in particular, speakers who have passed the Pareto's law test. Speakers who have built multibillion-dollar mining businesses from scratch. People whose experience building businesses has allowed them to become successful speculators too. And hearing from a business builder what he or she thinks are the important characteristics of success in the mining business is invaluable. Hearing Robert Friedland, who is the most successful exploration speculator of my generation, talk about the process of making money in exploration. Hearing Ross Beaty, who has built 14 successful mining companies, talk about how you build a successful mining company. That's really where the rubber meets the road.
Another thing we're doing this year, since all the guys I've talked about before are of my vintage approaching or past their sell-by date, is we're bringing in some people in their thirties and forties who have already exhibited success, and who we suspect will be the mining titans of the future, so that investors can get to know the people who will make them as successful over the next 20 or 30 years, as I've been in the past 20 or 30 years. A lot of the success, Maurice, to people ascribed to me is really a consequence of my having identified and hung onto the Lundins, the Ross Beatys, the Robert Friedlands, the Bob Quartermains, the Clive Johnsons of the world.
It's important that speculators and investors your age and younger find that next generation of superstar entrepreneurs. And we've tried to do the dirty work for people by assembling as many of the high-quality youngsters as we can in one place.
The other thing that's really useful, I think, Maurice, is that you're going to have 600 high net worth investors in one location. The idea that all of the knowledge in the room emanates from the dias is ridiculous. There are a lot of experienced investors there, including many mining industry professionals. And interacting with your peers, listening to the questions that they ask in workshops, watching the way that they react to presentations, is useful.
Finally, an important difference between our conference and every other conference that we know of, is that our attendees have told us that the exhibitors at our conference aren't advertisers, which is how they're regarded at most conferences�that they are in fact investment opportunities or content.
The consequence is that if you are a public company exhibitor at the Sprott conference, you need to be owned in a Sprott-managed account. In other words, they have been vetted by us. That doesn't, unfortunately, guarantee that every stock goes up. But it does say that we know enough about every exhibitor that we have our own capital at risk in them, which I think is really important criterion.
And finally, Maurice, if I can continue this commercial, it is possible to have fun in Vancouver. You've been there, you can attest to this. Vancouver is a beautiful city. The weather in late July, early August is sublime. Any investor who comes up there and doesn't go on the attendee boat cruise with us needs his or her head examined. The hotel itself is within walking distance of 200 restaurants. And Vancouver's an amazingly scenic city, with mountains rising above 6,000 feet from sea level right in front of you, and an embarcadero�a walkway along the water�where you will hear six, or seven, or 10 different languages spoken. It's truly a spectacular place. And I think it's going to be difficult this year not to make money as a consequence of attending the conference.
Maurice Jackson: Ladies and gentlemen, this is truly a world-class event, as Rick just shared. To purchase admission to the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium, visit our home page and simply click on the icon, and you'll be forwarded directly to the registration tab.
We touched on philosophy earlier. A day after the symposium, you'll be speaking at Capitalism and Morality, founded by a mutual friend of ours, Jayant Bhandari. I love the timing of the events. Rick, for someone new to Capitalism and Morality, what would you like to share?
Rick Rule: Well, it's more philosophically oriented. Capitalism and Morality is a lot of fun. The Adrian Days, and the Doug Caseys, and the Maurice Jacksons, and the Rick Rules of the world, talking about issues that are mostly unrelated to money. I'm going to be very amused this year to be involved in public debate with my friend Jayant Bhandari, who is, you know, of Indian descent, and who is, of course, a viciously anti-Indian racist.
A white guy accusing a brown guy of racism at a public forum is only something that could occur in a libertarian or anarcho-capitalist event. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Not merely for that, but for people who have a philosophical or political interest, Capitalism and Morality is wonderful value.
Maurice Jackson: To register for Capitalism and Morality, simply visit our home page and right below the Sprott Symposium you'll be directed to the registration tab. Sir, before we close, you referenced earlier a free grading of one's natural resource [portfolio]. Fill us in on the details on that, please.
Rick Rule: Sure. That's pretty simple. Your listeners who are interested in my opinion about their natural resource-related equity investments need only e-mail me, [email protected], with the names and symbols of their resource holdings in the e-mail text, not as an attachment. Remember, I'm 66 years old, and not always good at opening attachments. I will rank their holdings on a 1-to-10 basis and return those via e-mail. It's something I frankly enjoy doing. I learn a lot by researching companies that I haven't known as well as I should. So I look forward to conversing with your listeners, Maurice, and attempting to assist them with at least my analysis of their holdings
Maurice Jackson: And to assist in streamlining these e-mails, please make sure that you put in the subject line Proven and Probable. Last question, sir. What did I forget to ask?
Rick Rule: I don't think much. I think we're doing a reasonably good job�you in particular, Maurice, picking up bite-sized topics to talk about. I enjoy talking about people. I remember we did that once before, two or three years ago. And I enjoyed the process and I enjoyed the product. So I don't think we've missed very much. I also think we've probably worn out the audience, should we decide to prolong it at any rate.
Maurice Jackson: I don't believe so, sir. For additional inquiries about Sprott USA and all their products and services, please visit sprottusa.com or call (800) 477-7853.
And as a reminder, we discussed physical precious metals. I'm a licensed broker for Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments, where we provide unlimited options to expand your precious metals portfolio, from physical deliver, offshore depositories, precious metals IRAs, and private blockchain-distributed ledger technology. Call me directly at (855) 505-1900 or you may e-mail [email protected]
Finally, we invite you to visit ProvenandProbable.com, where we deliver Mining Insights and Bullion Sales.
Rick Rule of Sprott USA, thank you for joining us today on Proven and Probable.
Maurice Jackson is the founder of Proven and Probable, a site that aims to enrich its subscribers through education in precious metals and junior mining companies that will enrich the world.
1) Maurice Jackson: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own shares of the following companies mentioned in this article: None. I personally am, or members of my immediate household or family are, paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None. My company has a financial relationship with the following companies mentioned in this article: None. I'm a licensed broker for Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments. Proven and Probable disclosures are listed below.
3) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The author is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. The author was not paid by Streetwise Reports for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports requires contributing authors to disclose any shareholdings in, or economic relationships with, companies that they write about. Streetwise Reports relies upon the authors to accurately provide this information and Streetwise Reports has no means of verifying its accuracy.
Proven and Probable LLC receives financial compensation from its sponsors. The compensation is used is to fund both sponsor-specific activities and general report activities, website, and general and administrative costs. Sponsor-specific activities may include aggregating content and publishing that content on the Proven and Probable website, creating and maintaining company landing pages, interviewing key management, posting a banner/billboard, and/or issuing press releases. The fees also cover the costs for Proven and Probable to publish sector-specific information on our site, and also to create content by interviewing experts in the sector. Monthly sponsorship fees range from $1,000 to $4,000 per month. Proven and Probable LLC does accept stock for payment of sponsorship fees. Sponsor pages may be considered advertising for the purposes of 18 U.S.C. 1734.
The Information presented in Proven and Probable is provided for educational and informational purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this forum is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice or any other advice. The Information on this forum and provided from or through this forum is general in nature and is not specific to you the User or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investments, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this forum without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional broker or competent financial advisor. You understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this forum at your own risk.
Torchlight Drops a Bombshell for Shareholders
Source: Keith Kohl for Streetwise Reports (06/25/2019)
A small-cap company sitting on a massive field with potentially several billion barrels of crude oil has caught the attention of Keith Kohl, managing editor of Energy & Capital.
Liberty Begins Gold Recycling Program
Source: Bob Moriarty for Streetwise Reports (06/24/2019)
Bob Moriarty of 321 Gold looks at the latest moves of this company with projects in Nevada, Utah and Idaho.
Gold Is Starting to Look Toppy
Bob Moriarty of 321gold urges caution as the gold bulls revive.
Keith Barron of Aurania Hasn't Found the Lost Cities. Yet.
Bob Moriarty of 321gold examines the potential of a new discovery in Ecuador.
Metallurgical Work on Rare Earth Elements Project in British Columbia Positive
Testing generated 80% recoveries at a rare earth oxide concentrate grade of 44%.
Skyharbour Resources Shoots and Scores in Basement Rocks of the Athabasca Basin
Good drill results from the Maverick Zone, coupled with strengthening sentiment on uranium, bode well for this company, says Peter Epstein of Epstein Research.
Yes, Virginia, There Is Mining Here
Peter Epstein of Epstein Research explores prospects in Virginia and Canada in this interview with the company's CEO.
Coverage Initiated on Company with 'Strong Gold Project,' Experienced Team
The rationale for investing in this Canadian firm is presented in a ROTH Capital Partners report.
Two Precious Metals Royalty Companies to Merge, Create New Entity
The new company will hold royalties on projects in North and South America.
Delphi to Sell Excess Pipeline Service
The divestment better aligns the company's natural gas transportation capacity with its estimated future production growth.
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Camp Flog Gnaw 2018 lineup includes Kids See Ghosts, BROCKHAMPTON, Post Malone, and more
Kanye West and Kid Cudi’s project will play live during the November festival.
Tyler, The Creator performs at Camp Flog Gnaw. November 12, 2016. Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Tyler, the Creator's annual festival Camp Flog Gnaw has released its 2018 lineup, and it's safe to say it's the biggest one yet. Headliners this year include live performances from Kanye West and Kid Cudi's collaborative project Kids See Ghosts, Post Malone, Ms. Lauryn Hill, SZA, Tyler, the Creator, and A$AP Rocky. Artists like Playboi Carti, Tierra Whack, Pusha-T, Jorja Smith, The Internet, BROCKHAMPTON, Kali Uchis, and Earl Sweatshirt.
Camp Flog Gnaw 2018 takes place November 10-11 at the Dodger Stadium grounds. Tickets go on sale Friday August 17 at noon PST, with VIP options available. Get more details and the full lineup here.
Read Next: Tyler, the Creator talks IGOR, Odd Future, and more in new 52-minute interview
camp flog gnaw, Hip-Hop, Tyler the Creator
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Text and the City
Ciara O’Neill, a Carlow woman working in London’s financial quarter, tells Shelley Marsden about writing the perfect ‘chick lit’ beach read…
Finchley-based writer Ciara O’Neill wrote her first ‘chick lit’ novel while working full-time in the financial industry, but the seed for writing was first planted during weekend visits to her granny in Carlow Town, where they would devour Mills and Boons novels like they were going out of fashion.
The mother-of-two, originally from Carlow, says: “I was about eleven, twelve and I remember thinking even then, they’re so easy to read, I could write one of these myself. Someone gave me a typewriter, my aunt I think, so I’d write all kinds of things on that. My gran had a friend we’d sometimes go and visit who had her own stash of romance novels so there we’d be, me and these two 70 year olds with our Mills and Boons. It was hilarious.”
Ciara kept writing, and started to build up a stash of half-finished novels, scribbles and short stories. At one point, the pile was growing so big, she decided it was time to have a go at completing something, or give up on her hobby altogether.
She worried a little about the ribbing she’d get from her mostly male colleagues about a slushy novel with its fair share of sex scenes, but says she decided to go for it, and the banter when her book, Legally Wed, finally came out was a ‘five-minute wonder’.
“The guys were like, ‘So what pages should we go to, Ciara?’ for a few days, and that was it. My book’s nothing like Fifty Shades by the way, it just has a few raunchy scenes…!”
My book’s nothing like Fifty Shades… by the way, it just has a few raunchy scenes…!”
It was written while Ciara’s two children were still young enough that they needed supervision, so she would wait till she’d put them to bed and then whip the laptop out to write a few chapters. Sometimes she’d work till 2am, and get up again at 7am for the office.
“I wouldn’t do that every night of the week, but I seemed to get a second wind about 10pm, it worked out ok. Then at the weekends I’d do some more. They’re grown up now – my boy’s 26 and my girl 17, so I have my weekends totally free forwriting!”
Her husband, a chef, is Moroccan and so some of that writing takes place in Morocco, on the family farm just outside Casablanca.
Legally Wed would fall easily into the chick lit category, I suggest, and as a fan of the genre and female writers like Marian Keyes and Maeve Binchey (“she has such a talent for people”), she doesn’t argue with me.
The plot goes along the lines of a traditional romance, with a bit of a twist. A U.S. businessman discovers through an administrative glitch that his right to work in the UK has run out. There’s a big deal going on, it’s in the middle of the credit crunch and without him being in the UK the client won’t deal with things.
A win-win situation
His work colleague, one of the senior managers in the firm, has just bought a great big house in North London and decides they could get married – a win-win situation.
She keeps her job, he gets to stay in the UK, but what they don’t realise is that they have to stay married for three years to qualify for the right to stay, putting up a front that they’re secretly dating.
Says Ciara: “She comes from a family where they want all the women married off, but she was always the career woman and never thought it would happen. He’s a guy that would have been in the press snapped with drop-dead gorgeous, so why wasn’t he picking them?
“He’s got a philanthropic side though, and these vacuous women are not the women he’d really want to associate with. The two turn out to be in lust with each other, so it’s whether it will go any further.”
For the full interview, see this week’s Irish World newspaper (17 May 2014).
For more on the author, see www.ciaraoneill.com and www.amazon.co.uk/Ciara-ONeill.
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Win a copy of the most critically acclaimed TV drama of the year, Chernobyl
0 Shares 07/10/2019 in Entertainment
The story behind EPIC – Ireland’s award-winning emigration museum
0 Shares 07/03/2019 in Entertainment, News
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Burning Up Old Desires
It’s really not that everything in my life is drama, but in looking at old issues and pains, things I held in and never cleared out, more than I could ever have imagined comes up. Once it’s brought into the light, I can burn up and burn away those old hurts, except for what remains on my journal pages, like a fine sheen of ash.
Shannon’s high school sometimes treats her like a child while expecting her to make adult decisions. Now that she’s going to be enrolled full-time in college and a high school junior with Latin and forensics classes, she’s discovering the joys of dealing with an educational institution that treats a teen like an adult and expects her to make adult decisions and carry adult responsibility, even though she’s only 16. I’d like to tell her that this is the way it is when she’s all grown up and that she’ll be treated better, no longer as a child. But it doesn’t always happen.
At my day job, in the corner of my office, are several boxes of plaques and certificates that I have yet to hang on my wall after being in this location for over a year. I jokingly refer to them as firewood and haven’t bothered to create the stereotypical I-Love-Me wall and show off my credentials to everyone who walks into my office. I don’t have to and I don’t need to.
But there’s one professional certification in there that’s very nicely framed. Hard to get, hard to keep. And yet, every time I look at it, I have a bad taste in my mouth.
Years ago—about 7 or 8—I was told that if I ever wanted to get promoted, then I needed this certification. It was one of the few granted by the National Contract Managers’ Association (NCMA). The exam was 6 parts and lasted roughly 6 hours.
But things changed the year I took it. They decided that you could no longer score an overall 70 (75?%—I don’t remember which) to pass the exam. You now had to score the threshold percentage for each section, and that meant a very high failure rate and a much tougher exam.
Unlike some of my colleagues, I could not study full- time at my desk, on the job, for six months. That meant that I studied on my own time. In the evenings, I put aside my writing, spiritual studies, hobbies, time with family, time with anything and everything to devote 5 or 6 hours a night to studying for this exam. This meant the difference in being allowed to compete for upcoming promotions, so I got a lot of support from home, more than I ever got for my writing or spiritual activities. Still, it was grueling to put in a long day, often with unpaid over- time, then come home to look at somnolent regulations for another 5 or 6 hours.
Meanwhile, an opportunity came up that excited me. If I was willing to give it a try, I could be a part of the beta test group to take the exam online from the privacy of my own home computer. I was later asked if I had an ulterior motive for that (implying that I planned to cheat). Why, yes, I did have a motive-I like being first. I like being a test subject. I like having a chance to prove that something can be done and be done well. I liked that this was a forward-leaning motion of NCMA to come into the 21st century along with the calendar. I liked that they, too, recognized the future was tied to technology and making maximum use of it to increase our efficiency in the workforce. The thrill of “guinea-pigging” an idea is the way I’m wired, and that was my only ulterior motive for it, ever.
However, I was told that I could not take the exam on my office computer, even if the exam was for work, just as I could not use my time at work to study. I would have to study at home and then take vacation time to take the actual test on my home computer.
I was also told that I would have to have a proctor watch me take the test to make sure I didn’t cheat. That made me feel like a school kid again, in a school where kids weren’t trusted. But then, maybe they had reason to feel that way. Unlike some of my colleagues, I didn’t have my own secretary to sign up officially as my proctor while I took the exam unwatched, behind closed and locked doors. Yes, that did happen for others….
Instead, I convinced my friend and business partner to spend six hours of her busy schedule, propped at a table in my home office and staring at me while I took a test online. I filled out all the necessary paperwork, which also asked for my proctor’s name, phone number, and business address. Since the test was to be administered to me online, we agreed that she could sit and read during my test time and look up every now and then to make sure my computer table was still clear of cheat sheets and that I was being honest as I took the test online. I felt bad about asking her to take that kind of time out of her day, but she readily agreed to it because she knew how important it was to my career. And if I’d cheated, she would’ve beaten my butt over it, too! Neither of us was concerned about failures of integrity.
There are 3 things I distinctly remember in connection with that certification exam, and I always remember them backwards chronologically but in ascending order of importance.
One was taking the test. Sitting at my home computer and it freezing up a time or two. And I couldn’t go back if I skipped a question. Still, I finished a 6-hour exam in about 2.5 hours and then readily passed (instant feed- back), with my lowest score being in the area I’m best at because like so many people who think outside the box, it’s difficult for me to give a standardized answer, especially when I’ve done things in my job that are not yet captured in the regulations and policies…but will be. Damn those questions that ask which one of the following 4 things can’t be done, and I’ve done them all and done them legally!
The second thing I remember is dropping by to pick up some Spilled Candy mail about 4 days before I was to take the test online. The postal worker handed me a pack- age and without ever touching it, I jumped back about 2 feet and refused it. The package wasn’t for me. It was for my proctor, and I realized the moment I saw it that it had my test enclosed and it was from NCMA. The postal worker marked on the package that it had been refused, that no one outside US Postal Service hands had even touched the package, let alone opened it, and that it was being returned to the sender.
Working backwards, the third thing I remember is that about 5 days before the exam, I had worn myself to a frazzle and stayed home with the flu. This has often been a pattern in my life-burning the candle at both ends and then getting stomped on by germs because I’ve killed my stamina-but once again, my body forced me to take some downtime and to rest. And that’s when the phone call came.
I was so nauseated that I didn’t catch the man’s name at the time, but he was responsible for coordinating all the test-taking for the NCMA certification exam. I don’t remember if he’d called my proctor to see if she’d received the package or what, but he started the conversation by calling me a liar and a cheater and then demanding to know if I had access to the P O Box I’d given as my business partner’s address. When I said that yes, of course, I did and that I’d fully disclosed that my proctor was my friend and business partner, his tone turned even uglier.
He spoke to me in a way that I would never speak to a dog. He was yelling into the phone that I had no integrity because I had arranged to see the test in advance and that I had the answers.
Perhaps this whole ordeal is one I’ve carried with me for 7 years because integrity is such a hot button for me, especially when I’m accused of having none.
At that point, I was able to sit up on the sofa and I told him to wait a minute. How was I to know that both the test and the answers were being sent to the proctor? No one had ever told me that. And I was taking the test online through their website, not by paper. Why would they ever send a paper version when I was specifically to take the test online?
Now here’s the kicker: my proctor, I’d been told, was simply there to baby-sit. Proctors were not to grade the tests—Headquarters did that when the proctor sent it in or when the online test got an instant pass/fail—so what did proctors need the answers for anyway?
Not that he seemed to have thought through the illogic of sending answers to proctors who didn’t need them. He then demanded to know if I’d opened the package. I hadn’t seen the package. I hadn’t been to post office because I had the flu. And besides, if a package came to the PO box with my friend’s name on it, I wouldn’t open it anyway because that would be a breach of trust between us.
That seemed to satisfy him a little. At least he’d stopped screeching. Then he instructed me that if I did get the package, to send it back to him unopened and he would resend it to my proctor at her home address and maaaaaybe she’d receive it in time for me to take the test since I had screwed up his system.
But, he warned me, he fully expected the package to arrive with evidence that it had been tampered with because even though he’d never met me, he personally believed I had no integrity, and if the package had been opened, then I would have to wait and study for another six months before I could take the next certification exam.
This was a new process, untried and full of glitches, of which my situation was one. It was most important that NCMA maintained the integrity of the examination process. Which, I suppose, is why it was more important that the exam have integrity than to allow that the coordinator had failed to inform those of us volunteer beta-testers of the process and it was far easier to accuse honest people, whom he’d never met, of wrong-doing.
In hindsight, I’m sure he was quite stressed that his best-laid plans had huge holes in them, but that’s no excuse for the way he treated me. I was sick both from flu and the stress of wondering if I’d be able to take the test at all until I found out the day before test day that the package sent to the PO box had been returned, safe and unopened and that NCMA was satisfied that I had not seen the test or the answers. Not that anyone apologized. In the coordinator’s mind, I would always be guilty.
I’d been actively involved in the local NCMA chapter before that, but I let my involvement die after the test. The certificate still sits in its very expensive frame, but I haven’t had it on a wall in at least 5 years. As pretty, physically, as the certificate is, I can’t stand the sight of it because of the ugly feelings associated with it. As for my career with the Defense Department, that certificate meant a chance to compete for a promotion, but the NCMA certification really doesn’t mean anything to me at all these days except that an angry stranger who didn’t have his crap together accused me of lacking integrity after I’d given up so much time with my family to study for the certification.
It’s time to let go of those ugly feelings I’ve held onto so long, the ones captured in the physical embodiment of that certificate. That’s right-time for a bonfire.
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Tom Hoopes
Catholic parish dos and don’ts from millennials
NY’s hero cop Steven McDonald lived an example of forgiveness
John Burger | Jan 11, 2017
Policeman shot and paralyzed in 1986 forgave his assailant
New York City Police Detective Steven McDonald, who forgave the young man who shot him, leaving him paralyzed for life, has died at the age of 59. In the almost 31 years since the 1986 Central Park shooting, McDonald became a frequent speaker on the power of forgiveness,
McDonald suffered a massive heart attack on January 6 and died January 10 at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island. He leaves behind his wife, Patricia Ann McDonald, the mayor of Malverne, Long Island, where the couple lived, and a son, Conor, who is also a New York City detective.
“Steven traveled across oceans, to communities far and wide, to spread his message of hope, courage, forgiveness, and redemption,” James P. O’Neill, New York’s Police Commissioner, said in a statement to the department. “Steven got the most pleasure from speaking with you, his fellow cops. He would visit your commands, and your roll calls, on any tour. And he would talk about using tactics and watching out for one another. He wanted every police officer to lead a life of significance, to feel safe, and to be safe.”
McDonald was 29 and a police officer for just under two years when he was on a routine patrol of Central Park on the night of July 12, 1986. He stopped to question three youths about some bicycle robberies, and one of them, 15-year-old Shavod Jones, pulled out a gun and shot him. Three bullets pierced his head and neck, and one shattered his spine between the second and third vertebrae.
Doctors at first told his wife, who was expecting their first child, that he wouldn’t live through the afternoon.
Commissioner Bill Bratton
via Commissioner Bill Bratton Twitter
In a 2014 interview with Irish America, McDonald recalled the day the neurosurgeon at Bellevue told his wife, “Mrs. McDonald, the way you see Steven is the way he’s always going to be.”
“And he walked out of the room,” McDonald recalled. “Patti Ann collapsed on the floor crying and I couldn’t move to comfort her or call for help. It was just awful.”
McDonald would spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair and dependent on a ventilator.
In his convalescence, he sometimes thought about taking his own life, but his wife helped him get through his depression. “She got on the phone and called Cardinal [John] O’Connor [then archbishop of New York] and he came right over with [his secretary] Monsignor [James] McCarthy. They spent the whole day into the night with me. They comforted me in my depression and talked me out of it.”
It’s a subject he sometimes discussed in talks with fellow police officers.
The cardinal told Patti Ann that he would ensure that Mass would be offered daily at McDonald’s bedside.
He also offered to baptize the couple’s son, and it was during the ritual that McDonald reached out to his assailant. The New York Times recounts:
At his son’s baptism in a chapel at Bellevue in early 1987, Officer McDonald wrote of [Shavod] Jones in a statement that was read by his wife. “I forgive him,” he said, “and hope that he can find peace and purpose in his life.”
Mr. Jones was convicted of attempted murder. In the summer of 1988, Officer McDonald sent stamps and a box of stationery to Mr. Jones along with a note saying, “Let’s carry on a dialogue.” He later met with Mr. Jones’s mother and attended services at a Baptist church in Harlem with his grandmother.
The correspondence continued for a while but ended after Officer McDonald turned down a request from Mr. Jones’s family to seek parole. The officer said he was not knowledgeable or capable enough to intervene.
Mr. Jones was paroled in 1995 after eight and half years in prison, having faced up to 10 years under guidelines for sentencing juvenile offenders.
Four days after coming home, Mr. Jones died of head injuries he sustained the previous day when a speeding motorcycle on which he was a passenger crashed into parked cars while performing wheelies in East Harlem, his old neighborhood, the police said at the time.
NBC New York said that in the years after the shooting, McDonald became “one of the world’s foremost pilgrims for peace. He took his message of forgiveness to Israel, Northern Ireland and Bosnia.”
One person who accompanied him on those trips, particularly to Northern Ireland, was Franciscan Father Mychal Judge, a Fire Department chaplain who was killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Father Judge had been one of the priests on rotation to say Mass in McDonald’s hospital room.
“John Cardinal O’Connor and Father Mike were the two that helped me most understand the message of forgiveness,” McDonald said in an interview three days after the terrorist attacks. “When I was called to forgive, it was their message and homilies that helped me understand, to love my fellow human being. [Father Judge] would pray with me. He spent many hours next to my bed.”
McDonald’s son, Conor, followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the NYPD in 2010.
“The city of New York did a lot of great things for my family in 1986 when my father was shot,” he said at a press conference following his swearing in ceremony. “I want to do my best to protect and serve the people that helped give my family a second life.”
Conor told Irish America in 2014 that he decided to join the force after serving for a year with AmeriCorps in Denver, working with runaways and at-risk youth. “When you think of Denver, you think of the mountains, how beautiful it is, but I met kids there who had crazy lives,” he said. “Kids from Maryland who were scammed and got stuck out there, and kids who had escaped out of gangs in California.”
In September, Steven McDonald witnessed his son receive a promotion to detective. Conor McDonald’s gold shield number is the same as that of a friend of his father’s who was instrumental in his recovery.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown called McDonald’s death an “insurmountable loss for the children of New York City.”
Steve Jaffe via AFP
“He so generously lent his time to youth anti-violence initiatives like my office’s STAR Track (Straight Talk About Risks) program, which helps children in Far Rockaway ‘say no to violence’ by avoiding gangs, drugs and guns,” Brown said in a statement. “Steven’s example has had an immeasurable impact on the path that these children will take in life.”
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said McDonald had become a “living, breathing prophet of reconciliation and charity.”
“He publicly forgave the young boy” who shot him, Dolan said on SiriusXM’s Catholic Channel Tuesday. “He went to bat for him asking for mercy, he visited him in prison.”
“A gunshot changed Steven McDonald’s life forever but it never changed his soul and his belief in God and mankind,” wrote Niall O’Dowd at Irish Central.
Though he got to be a familiar face on the Catholic speaking circuit, McDonald was the first to admit that he was no holier-than-thou.
“Have I always been close to God or led the perfect life?” McDonald said in the 2014 interview with Irish America. “I don’t pretend to be that kind of person. But in this journey I’ve been on with Patti Ann and Conor we found out that the only way forward was Christlike love. This way of loving has made so much good possible in our lives and our world. Once you let go of the wrongs that have been done to you it changes everything. I could have gone the other way. I could have been overcome with emotion, bitterness and anger. Patti called them wasted emotions. I could have killed myself. I tried to. God always found me, and with the help of others I got through it all.”
Irish America asked McDonald what inspires him.
“Patti Ann,” he answered simply. “I’m sure that there have been times where she has said, ‘I can’t deal with this.’ She would only be human if she felt that way. But as a young bride she gave up a lot of dreams to keep me alive, and keep us together as a family.”
Cardinal Dolan will offer a Mass of Christian Burial for Steven McDonald at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Friday.
Practicing Mercy
Did the Virgin Mary have a sister?
This saint thought her “one-night stand” wasn’t seen by God
Fr Robert McTeigue, SJ
What will make us stop neglecting Confession
Is baptism the same as christening?
Pray for healing with this novena to Our Lady of Lourdes
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I found Armand in bed. On seeing me he held out a burning hand. "You are feverish," I said to him. "It is nothing, the fatigue of a rapid journey; that is all." "You have been to see Marguerite's sister?" "Yes; who told you?" "I knew it. Did you get what you wanted?" "Yes; but who told you of my journey, and of my reason for taking it?" "The gardener of the cemetery." "You have seen the tomb?" I scarcely dared reply, for the tone in which the words were spoken proved to me that the speaker was still possessed by the emotion which I had witnessed before, and that every time his thoughts or speech travelled back to that mournful subject emotion would still, for a long time to come, prove stronger than his will. I contented myself with a nod of the head. "He has looked after it well?" continued Armand. Two big tears rolled down the cheeks of the sick man, and he turned away his head to hide them from me. I pretended not to see them, and tried to change the conversation. "You have been away three weeks," I said. Armand passed his hand across his eyes and replied, "Exactly three weeks." "You had a long journey." "Oh, I was not travelling all the time. I was ill for a fortnight or I should have returned long ago; but I had scarcely got there when I took this fever, and I was obliged to keep my room." "And you started to come back before you were really well?" "If I had remained in the place for another week, I should have died there." "Well, now you are back again, you must take care of yourself; your friends will come and look after you; myself, first of all, if you will allow me." "I shall get up in a couple of hours." "It would be very unwise." "I must." "What have you to do in such a great hurry?" "I must go to the inspector of police." "Why do you not get one of your friends to see after the matter? It is likely to make you worse than you are now." "It is my only chance of getting better. I must see her. Ever since I heard of her death, especially since I saw her grave, I have not been able to sleep. I can not realize that this woman, so young and so beautiful when I left her, is really dead. I must convince myself of it. I must see what God has done with a being that I have loved so much, and perhaps the horror of the sight will cure me of my despair. Will you accompany me, if it won't be troubling you too much?" "What did her sister say about it?" "Nothing. She seemed greatly surprised that a stranger wanted to buy a plot of ground and give Marguerite a new grave, and she immediately signed the authorization that I asked her for." "Believe me, it would be better to wait until you are quite well." "Have no fear; I shall be quite composed. Besides, I should simply go out of my mind if I were not to carry out a resolution which I have set myself to carry out. I swear to you that I shall never be myself again until I have seen Marguerite. It is perhaps the thirst of the fever, a sleepless night's dream, a moment's delirium; but though I were to become a Trappist, like M. de Rance', after having seen, I will see." "I understand," I said to Armand, "and I am at your service. Have you seen Julie Duprat?" "Yes, I saw her the day I returned, for the first time." "Did she give you the papers that Marguerite had left for you?" Armand drew a roll of papers from under his pillow, and immediately put them back. "I know all that is in these papers by heart," he said. "For three weeks I have read them ten times over every day. You shall read them, too, but later on, when I am calmer, and can make you understand all the love and tenderness hidden away in this confession. For the moment I want you to do me a service." "What is it?" "Your cab is below?" "Yes. "Well, will you take my passport and ask if there are any letters for me at the poste restante? My father and sister must have written to me at Paris, and I went away in such haste that I did not go and see before leaving. When you come back we will go together to the inspector of police, and arrange for to-morrow's ceremony." Armand handed me his passport, and I went to Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. There were two letters addressed to Duval. I took them and returned. When I re-entered the room Armand was dressed and ready to go out. "Thanks," he said, taking the letters. "Yes," he added, after glancing at the addresses, "they are from my father and sister. They must have been quite at a loss to understand my silence." He opened the letters, guessed at rather than read them, for each was of four pages; and a moment after folded them up. "Come," he said, "I will answer tomorrow." We went to the police station, and Armand handed in the permission signed by Marguerite's sister. He received in return a letter to the keeper of the cemetery, and it was settled that the disinterment was to take place next day, at ten o'clock, that I should call for him an hour before, and that we should go to the cemetery together. I confess that I was curious to be present, and I did not sleep all night. Judging from the thoughts which filled my brain, it must have been a long night for Armand. When I entered his room at nine on the following morning he was frightfully pale, but seemed calm. He smiled and held out his hand. His candles were burned out; and before leaving he took a very heavy letter addressed to his father, and no doubt containing an account of that night's impressions. Half an hour later we were at Montmartre. The police inspector was there already. We walked slowly in the direction of Marguerite's grave. The inspector went in front; Armand and I followed a few steps behind. From time to time I felt my companion's arm tremble convulsively, as if he shivered from head to feet. I looked at him. He understood the look, and smiled at me; we had not exchanged a word since leaving the house. Just before we reached the grave, Armand stopped to wipe his face, which was covered with great drops of sweat. I took advantage of the pause to draw in a long breath, for I, too, felt as if I had a weight on my chest. What is the origin of that mournful pleasure which we find in sights of this kind? When we reached the grave the gardener had removed all the flower-pots, the iron railing had been taken away, and two men were turning up the soil. Armand leaned against a tree and watched. All his life seemed to pass before his eyes. Suddenly one of the two pickaxes struck against a stone. At the sound Armand recoiled, as at an electric shock, and seized my hand with such force as to give me pain. One of the grave-diggers took a shovel and began emptying out the earth; then, when only the stones covering the coffin were left, he threw them out one by one. I scrutinized Armand, for every moment I was afraid lest the emotions which he was visibly repressing should prove too much for him; but he still watched, his eyes fixed and wide open, like the eyes of a madman, and a slight trembling of the cheeks and lips were the only signs of the violent nervous crisis under which he was suffering. As for me, all I can say is that I regretted having come. When the coffin was uncovered the inspector said to the grave-digger: "Open it." They obeyed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The coffin was of oak, and they began to unscrew the lid. The humidity of the earth had rusted the screws, and it was not without some difficulty that the coffin was opened. A painful odour arose in spite of the aromatic plants with which it was covered. "O my God, my God!" murmured Armand, and turned paler than before. Even the grave-digger drew back. A great white shroud covered the corpse, closely outlining some of its contours. This shroud was almost completely eaten away at one end, and left one of the feet visible. I was nearly fainting, and at the moment of writing these lines I see the whole scene over again in all its imposing reality. "Quick," said the inspector. Thereupon one of the men put out his hand, began to unsew the shroud, and taking hold of it by one end suddenly laid bare the face of Marguerite. It was terrible to see, it is horrible to relate. The eyes were nothing but two holes, the lips had disappeared, vanished, and the white teeth were tightly set. The black hair, long and dry, was pressed tightly about the forehead, and half veiled the green hollows of the cheeks; and yet I recognised in this face the joyous white and rose face that I had seen so often. Armand, unable to turn away his eyes, had put the handkerchief to his mouth and bit it. For my part, it was as if a circle of iron tightened about my head, a veil covered my eyes, a rumbling filled my ears, and all I could do was to unstop a smelling bottle which I happened to have with me, and to draw in long breaths of it. Through this bewilderment I heard the inspector say to Duval, "Do you identify?" "Yes," replied the young man in a dull voice. "Then fasten it up and take it away," said the inspector. The grave-diggers put back the shroud over the face of the corpse, fastened up the coffin, took hold of each end of it, and began to carry it toward the place where they had been told to take it. Armand did not move. His eyes were fixed upon the empty grave; he was as white as the corpse which we had just seen. He looked as if he had been turned to stone. I saw what was coming as soon as the pain caused by the spectacle should have abated and thus ceased to sustain him. I went up to the inspector. "Is this gentleman's presence still necessary?" I said, pointing to Armand. "No," he replied, "and I should advise you to take him away. He looks ill." "Come," I said to Armand, taking him by the arm. "What?" he said, looking at me as if he did not recognise me. "It is all over," I added. "You must come, my friend; you are quite white; you are cold. These emotions will be too much for you." "You are right. Let us go," he answered mechanically, but without moving a step. I took him by the arm and led him along. He let himself be guided like a child, only from time to time murmuring, "Did you see her eyes?" and he turned as if the vision had recalled her. Nevertheless, his steps became more irregular; he seemed to walk by a series of jerks; his teeth chattered; his hands were cold; a violent agitation ran through his body. I spoke to him; he did not answer. He was just able to let himself be led along. A cab was waiting at the gate. It was only just in time. Scarcely had he seated himself, when the shivering became more violent, and he had an actual attack of nerves, in the midst of which his fear of frightening me made him press my hand and whisper: "It is nothing, nothing. I want to weep." His chest laboured, his eyes were injected with blood, but no tears came. I made him smell the salts which I had with me, and when we reached his house only the shivering remained. With the help of his servant I put him to bed, lit a big fire in his room, and hurried off to my doctor, to whom I told all that had happened. He hastened with me. Armand was flushed and delirious; he stammered out disconnected words, in which only the name of Marguerite could be distinctly heard. "Well?" I said to the doctor when he had examined the patient. "Well, he has neither more nor less than brain fever, and very lucky it is for him, for I firmly believe (God forgive me!) that he would have gone out of his mind. Fortunately, the physical malady will kill the mental one, and in a month's time he will be free from the one and perhaps from the other."
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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Guides
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is one of the best-selling games in the Mario Kart franchise (surpassed only by Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii), so naturally, a number of players are going to want to know what kind of content it has to offer. Guides have been made available on obtaining all of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s unlockables as well as mastering its tricky 200cc mode!
200cc Tips & Tricks – Coin Farming – Unlockables
More Nintendo Switch guides are available on-site, too – including Kirby Star Allies and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! If there’s a guide you think we should add to the list, feel free to suggest one by joining our Discord server.
If you would like to return to the main guide archive, follow this link.
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Obesity Comes With Shorter Life, Earlier CVD
Findings may help explain 'obesity paradox'
by Kristen Monaco, Staff Writer, MedPage Today March 05, 2018
A higher BMI is associated with shorter lifespan and greater cardiovascular risks, pooled analysis of longitudinal studies showed.
A BMI in the overweight category (25.0-29.9) was associated with a significantly increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) at an earlier age; while obesity was associated with significantly higher all-cause mortality and more CVD morbidity and mortality.
Men and women of all ages with a higher BMI were found to have both an earlier onset of incident CVD followed by shorter overall survival, Sadiya Khan, MD, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues wrote in JAMA Cardiology.
Also, middle-aged men had significantly shorter overall time of survival if they were obese (27.2 years) or morbidly obese (23.4 years), compared to those who were either normal weight (29.1 years) or overweight (29.3 years). Similar findings were reported in middle-aged women, while overweight (31.8 years), obese (29.8 years), or morbidly obese (27.2 years) women had shorter survival time compared to normal weight women (33.2 years).
"In recent years, controversy has grown about the benefits of obesity in patients with cardiovascular disease," Khan explained to MedPage Today. "This was concerning to us as it may have led to detrimental consequences related to confusion about the true adverse effects of obesity and risk of cardiovascular disease."
"We believe the life-course perspective of our study helps shed new light on the fact that participants who were obese had a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease over follow-up. Further, they developed cardiovascular disease at a younger age and spent more years living with cardiovascular disease despite not living as long," she added.
The analysis pooled data from 10 prospective cohort studies, all of which had a minimum of 10-years follow-up time after initial examination and tracking of cardiovascular events, totaling to 190,672 individual examinations with 3.2 million person-years of follow-up. All individuals were free of CVD at baseline, but with BMI index and CVD outcomes data available.
Stratified into age groups -- young (ages 20-39 years), middle-age (40-59), and older (60-79) -- the highest prevalence of diabetes and hypertension were seen among the older age group. Among all the age groups, the higher proportion of men fell into the overweight category, while women were more likely to be of normal weight.
Among middle-aged men, there were 13,457 incident CVD events total, with the highest percentage attributed to fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarctions. This incidence rate of CVD events increased accordingly with BMI range, with the highest seen in those who were morbidly obese. Compared with men who died due to non-CVD related causes -- the most common of which was cancer -- men who weighed more had a significantly higher rate of experiencing their first CVD event.
When compared to middle-aged men of normal weight, those in higher BMI categories had an increased incidence of CVD:
Overweight: adjusted competing HR 1.21 (95% CI 1.14-1.28)
Obese: 1.67 (95% CI 1.55-1.79)
Morbidly obese: 3.14 (95% CI 2.48-3.97)
Similar event rates were seen among middle-aged women of a higher BMI, as well:
Overweight: HR 1.32 (95% CI 1.24-1.40)
Obese 1.85 (95% CI 1.72-1.99)
Both men and women had a longer time to first CVD event if they were of normal weight by around 7.5 year and 7.1 years, respectively, when compared with people with morbid obesity.
The researchers noted that the morbidly obese category likely saw the highest rate of CVD events mainly due to a five-fold increase in the incidence of congestive heart failure events. These patterns were also seen in the younger and older age groups.
Although the notion of the "obesity paradox" -- when people with a higher BMI might actually live longer after CVD onset compared to those of normal weight -- has been described in some prior studies, the researchers noted that their findings suggest that "this occurs because of a trend toward earlier onset of disease in individuals who are overweight and obese."
"This false reassurance is akin to the phenomenon of lead-time bias observed in other situations, such as with cancer screening. This is especially important because overweight status has been associated with poorer quality of life, functional impairment, and greater work-related disability," the group wrote.
Study limitations included the use of baseline BMI at index ages without accounting for change in BMI across follow-up, the authors noted.
Khan suggested that future research should focus on "strategies to promote primordial prevention in maintenance of a healthy BMI throughout the lifespan from childhood to adulthood to promote longer, healthier lives."
The study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Khan and co-authors disclosed no relevant relationships with industry.
JAMA Cardiology
Source Reference: Khan S, et al "Association of body mass index with lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease and compression of morbidity" JAMA Cardiol 2018; DOI:10.1001/jamacardio.2018.0022.
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Public Health & Policy > Ethics
Fly-In Mission Reboot; Verma's Spending Attacked; Autism Quackery?
This past week in healthcare investigations
by Vicky Stern, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today April 03, 2019
Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, gathering some of the best investigative reporting on healthcare each week.
A New Type of Fly-in Mission
Are fly-in medical missions the best way to provide healthcare to the developing world? Fifty years ago, when these volunteer missions began, they seemed like a great way for doctors and nurses in the U.S. to help people in remote areas who needed surgery or other important medical services. But, as NPR reports, a recent analysis found that the yearly costs of such trips have reached an estimated $3.7 billion, which is one reason healthcare experts are reconsidering the benefits of these trips.
Missions are also facing criticism because of "concerns about what happens when these missions leave, and ... that the care they're providing may not be culturally appropriate" or wanted by the people there, according to Lawrence Loh, MD, MPH, an adjunct professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada.
Recently, mission groups have begun to rethink their strategies. The group ReSurge now trains local surgeons to perform procedures and provide care. The American College of Physicians also recently published guidelines for doctors and medical students that "emphasize the importance of respecting local customs and collaborating with local health care providers."
Rare-Cancer Clusters in Pennsylvania Under Scrutiny
In August 2016, at age 19, Luke Blanock passed away from the rare bone cancer, Ewing sarcoma. Blanock's story was compelling and several news outlets followed his diagnosis, brief rebound, and marriage to his high school girlfriend.
But Blanock was far from the only person to be diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in the Canon-McMillan School District in southwestern PA. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that 14 cases have been diagnosed in two semi-rural southwestern Pennsylvania counties since 2008, including six in the Canon-McMillan school district near Pittsburgh. In contrast, just 200 to 250 children are diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in the entire nation each year. In addition, nine children in the Canon-McMillan district are currently fighting other types of cancer, among about 5,200 students overall.
Some local residents are pointing to environmental factors, including radiation and fracking for shale gas, as a possible culprit. Amidst growing concern from citizens, the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the CDC are now investigating.
Misdiagnosing Victims of Sexual Abuse
In 1990, two psychiatrists at Harvard Medical School described a new condition called complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Judith Herman, MD, and Bessel van der Kolk, MD, discovered that about 80% of patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder were victims of sexual abuse, and believed these patients were actually "suffering the psychological consequences of childhood abuse." Later research using fMRI and EEG confirmed that brain patterns in such patients were much more like those seen with PTSD than borderline personality.
But, as The Guardian reports, the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual still does not recognize the existence of complex PTSD. In 1993, the association's PTSD committee voted to add complex PTSD to the DSM manual, but it never happened. Britain's National Health Service, however, has officially recognized complex PTSD as a psychological condition.
According to van der Kolk, this lack of recognition in North America will mean many victims of sexual abuse will continue to be misdiagnosed with and treated for borderline personality, which will hurt their recovery.
CMS' Verma Spends Millions on Private Consultants
POLITICO reports that CMS administrator Seema Verma has spent millions of taxpayer dollars in contracts to GOP communications consultants, who write her speeches, refine her personal brand, and travel with her. Although such contracts appear legal, some CMS staffers -- including those who manage the deals -- have raised concerns about the ethics of using federal dollars to fund private consultants. "There are a host of ethical and contractual problems with appointees steering contracts to political allies and subcontractors, and possibly a violation of the ban on personal services contracts if the work is being performed at the direction of the appointee," Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, told POLITICO.
Verma has subcontracts with GOP media adviser Pam Stevens and Republican strategist Marcus Barlow, who receive $185 to $200 per hour for their services. These two subcontracts are part of a larger $2.25-million contract with public relations giant Porter Novelli. There is a third contract with Nahigian Strategies, which according to POLITICO, "has been paid least $2 million for its work with CMS over the past two years."
Last week, four congressional Democrats asked the HHS inspector general to "review whether the contracts complied with federal regulations and ethics requirements" and sent a letter to Verma asking for further details on the nature of these agreements.
'Illegal and Potentially Harmful' Autism Therapies
In 2017, the Perskin family traveled to a clinic in Chicago, so their son, Jason, could receive a stem cell therapy to treat his autism. Jodi Perskin, Jason's mother, had first heard about this experimental therapy in a Facebook group for parents interested in stem cell-based remedies for children on the spectrum. The visit cost $8,500, though Thom Lobe, MD, the pediatric surgeon who runs three such clinics in the U.S., recommended four visits per year: a $34,000/year investment.
As detailed in Spectrum, Lobe is far from the only physician marketing unregulated, unproven, and possibly dangerous stem cell therapies to desperate parents. In fact, in 2017 the FDA cautioned consumers that such therapies may be "illegal and potentially harmful," and last year the agency sent warning letters to several companies.
But the agency has done little else and clinics such as Lobe's continue to thrive. "I find it astonishing that this marketplace exists as a result of regulatory inaction," Leigh Turner, PhD, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics, Minneapolis, told Spectrum.
More in Public Health & Policy
Anguish: How Did I Miss? My Nurse Sister’s Suicide
Feds Try to Recoup Billions in Medicare Advantage Overbilling
How Pharma Beats Washington; Sackler Family Feud; Billed for Rape Tx
Morning Break: Biden's ACA Reboot; Primary Care Shortage Grows; '13 Reasons Why' Edited
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▸Rules of Professional Conduct
RPC 1.8 CONFLICT OF INTEREST: CURRENT CLIENTS: SPECIFIC RULES
(a) A lawyer shall not enter into a business transaction with a client or knowingly acquire an ownership, possessory, security or other pecuniary interest adverse to a client unless:
(1) the transaction and terms on which the lawyer acquires the interest are fair and reasonable to the client and are fully disclosed and transmitted in writing in a manner that can be reasonably understood by the client;
(2) the client is advised in writing of the desirability of seeking and is given a reasonable opportunity to seek the advice of an independent lawyer on the transaction; and
(3) the client gives informed consent, in a writing signed by the client, to the essential terms of the transaction and the lawyer's role in the transaction, including whether the lawyer is representing the client in the transaction.
(b) A lawyer shall not use information relating to representation of a client to the disadvantage of the client unless the client gives informed consent, expect as permitted or required by these Rules.
(c) A lawyer shall not solicit any substantial gift from a client, including a testamentary gift, or prepare on behalf of the client an instrument giving the lawyer or a person related to the lawyer any substantial gift unless the lawyer or other recipient of the gift is related to the client. For purposes of this paragraph, related persons include spouse, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent or other relative or individual with who the lawyer or the client maintains a close, familial relationship.
(d) Prior to the conclusion of representation of a client, a lawyer shall not make or negotiate an agreement giving the lawyer literary or media rights to a portrayal or account based in substantial part on information relating to the representation.
(e) A lawyer shall not, while representing a client in connection with contemplated or pending litigation, advance or guarantee financial assistance to a client, except that:
(1) a lawyer may advance or guarantee the expenses of litigation, including court costs, expenses of investigation, expenses of medical examination, and costs of obtaining and presenting evidence, provided the client remains ultimately liable for such expenses; and
(2) in matters maintained as class actions only, repayment of expenses of litigation may be contingent on the outcome of the matter.
(f) A lawyer shall not accept compensation for representing a client from one other than the client unless:
(1) the client gives informed consent;
(2) there is no interference with the lawyer's independence of professional judgment or with the client-lawyer relationship; and
(3) information relating to representation of a client is protected as required by Rule 1.6.
(g) A lawyer who represents two or more clients shall not participate in making an aggregate settlement of the claims of or against the clients, or in a criminal case an aggregated agreement as to guilty or nolo contendere pleas, unless each client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing. The lawyer's disclosure shall include the existence and nature of all the claims or pleas involved and the participation of each person in the settlement.
(h) A lawyer shall not:
(1) make an agreement prospectively limiting the lawyer's liability to a client for malpractice unless permitted by law and the client is independently represented by a lawyer in making the agreement; or
(2) settle a claim or potential claim for such liability with an unrepresented client or former client unless that person is advised in writing of the desirability of seeking and is given a reasonable opportunity to seek the advice of an independent lawyer in connection therewith.
(i) A lawyer shall not acquire a proprietary interest in the cause of action or subject matter of litigation the lawyer is conducting for a client, except that the lawyer may:
(1) acquire a lien authorized by law to secure the lawyer's fee or expenses; and
(2) contract with a client for a reasonable contingent fee in a civil case.
(j) A lawyer shall not:
(1) have sexual relations with a current client of the lawyer unless a consensual sexual relationship existed between them at the time the client-lawyer relationship commenced; or
(2) have sexual relations with a representative of a current client if the sexual relations would, or would likely, damage or prejudice the client in the representation.
(3) For purposes of Rule 1.8(j), "lawyer" means any lawyer who assists in the representation of the client, but does not include other firm members who provide no such assistance.
(k) While lawyers are associated in a firm with other lawyers or LLLTs, a prohibition in the foregoing paragraphs (a) through (i) of this Rule or LLLT RPC 1.8 that applies to anyone of them shall apply to all of them, except that the prohibitions in paragraphs (a), and (h), and (i) of LLLT RPC 1.8 shall apply to firm lawyers only if the conduct is also prohibited by this rule.
(l) A lawyer who is related to another lawyer or LLLT as parent, child, sibling, or spouse, or who has any other close familial or intimate relationship with another lawyer or LLLT, shall not represent a client in a matter directly adverse to a person who the lawyer knows is represented by the related lawyer or LLLT unless:
(1) the client gives informed consent to the representation; and
(2) the representation is not otherwise prohibited by Rule 1.7.
(m) A lawyer shall not:
(1) make or participate in making an agreement with a governmental entity for the delivery of indigent defense services if the terms of the agreement obligate the contracting lawyer or law firm: (i) to bear the cost of providing conflict counsel; or (ii) to bear the cost of providing investigation or expert services, unless a fair and reasonable amount for such costs is specifically designated in the agreement in a manner that does not adversely affect the income or compensation allocated to the lawyer, law firm, or law firm personnel; or
(2) knowingly accept compensation for the delivery of indigent defense services from a lawyer who has entered into a current agreement in violation of paragraph (m)(1).
[Adopted effective September 1, 1985; amended effective September 1, 1993; June 27, 2000; September 1, 2006; April 24, 2007; September 1, 2008; September 1, 2011; April 14, 2015.]
Business Transactions Between Client and Lawyer
[1] A lawyer's legal skill and training, together with the relationship of trust and confidence between lawyer and client, create the possibility of overreaching when the lawyer participates in a business, property or financial transaction with a client, for example, a loan or sales transaction or a lawyer investment on behalf of a client. The requirements of paragraph (a) must be met even when the transaction is not closely related to the subject matter of the representation, as when a lawyer drafting a will for a client learns that the client needs money for unrelated expenses and offers to make a loan to the client. The Rule applies to lawyers engaged in the sale of goods or services related to the practice of law, for example, the sale of title insurance or investment services to existing clients of the lawyer's legal practice. See Rule 5.7. It also applies to lawyers purchasing property from estates they represent. It does not apply to ordinary fee arrangements between client and lawyer, which are governed by Rule 1.5, although its requirements must be met when the lawyer accepts an interest in the client's business or other nonmonetary property as payment of all or part of a fee. In addition, the Rule does not apply to standard commercial transactions between the lawyer and the client for products or services that the client generally markets to others, for example, banking or brokerage services, medical services, products manufactured or distributed by the client, and utilities' services. In such transactions, the lawyer has no advantage in dealing with the client, and the restrictions in paragraph (a) are unnecessary and impracticable.
[2] [Washington revision] Paragraph (a)(1) requires that the transaction itself be fair to the client and that its essential terms be communicated to the client, in writing, in a manner that can be reasonably understood. Paragraph (a)(2) requires that the client also be advised, in writing, of the desirability of seeking the advice of an independent lawyer. It also requires that the client be given a reasonable opportunity to obtain such advice. Paragraph (a)(3) requires that the lawyer obtain the client's informed consent, in a writing signed by the client, both to the essential terms of the transaction and to the lawyer's role. When necessary, the lawyer should discuss both the material risks of the proposed transaction, including any risk presented by the lawyer's involvement, and the existence of reasonably available alternatives and should explain why the advice of an independent lawyer is desirable. See Rule 1.0A(e) (definition of informed consent). [Comment [2] amended effective April 14, 2015.]
[3] The risk to a client is greatest when the client expects the lawyer to represent the client in the transaction itself or when the lawyer's financial interest otherwise poses a significant risk that the lawyer's representation of the client will be materially limited by the lawyer's financial interest in the transaction. Here the lawyer's role requires that the lawyer must comply, not only with the requirements of paragraph (a), but also with the requirements of Rule 1.7. Under that Rule, the lawyer must disclose the risks associated with the lawyer's dual role as both legal adviser and participant in the transaction, such as the risk that the lawyer will structure the transaction or give legal advice in a way that favors the lawyer's interests at the expense of the client. Moreover, the lawyer must obtain the client's informed consent. In some cases, the lawyer's interest may be such that Rule 1.7 will preclude the lawyer from seeking the client's consent to the transaction.
[4] [Washington revision] If the client is independently represented by a lawyer in the transaction, paragraph (a)(2) of this Rule is inapplicable, and the paragraph (a)(1) requirement for full disclosure is satisfied either by a written disclosure by the lawyer involved in the transaction or by the client's independent lawyer. The fact that the client was independently represented by a lawyer in the transaction is relevant in determining whether the agreement was fair and reasonable to the client as paragraph (a)(1) further requires. [Comment [4] amended effective April 14, 2015.]
Use of Information Related to Representation
[5] [Washington revision] Use of information relating to the representation to the disadvantage of the client violates the lawyer's duty of loyalty. Paragraph (b) applies when the information is used to benefit either the lawyer or a third person, such as another client or business associate of the lawyer. For example, if a lawyer learns that a client intends to purchase and develop several parcels of land, the lawyer may not use that information to purchase one of the parcels in competition with the client or to recommend that another client make such a purchase. The Rule does not prohibit uses that do not disadvantage the client. For example, a lawyer who learns a government agency's interpretation of trade legislation during the representation of one client may properly use that information to benefit other clients. Paragraph (b) prohibits disadvantageous use of client information unless the client gives informed consent, except as permitted or required by these Rules. See Rules 1.2(d), 1.6, 1.9(c), 3.3, 4.1(b), and 8.1.
Gifts to Lawyers
[6] A lawyer may accept a gift from a client, if the transaction meets general standards of fairness. For example, a simple gift such as a present given at a holiday or as a token of appreciation is permitted. If a client offers the lawyer a more substantial gift, paragraph (c) does not prohibit the lawyer from accepting it, although such a gift may be voidable by the client under the doctrine of undue influence, which treats client gifts as presumptively fraudulent. In any event, due to concerns about overreaching and imposition on clients, a lawyer may not suggest that a substantial gift be made to the lawyer or for the lawyer's benefit, except where the lawyer is related to the client as set forth in paragraph (c).
[7] If effectuation of a substantial gift requires preparing a legal instrument such as a will or conveyance the client should have the detached advice that another lawyer can provide. The sole exception to this Rule is where the client is a relative of the donee.
[8] This Rule does not prohibit a lawyer from seeking to have the lawyer or a partner or associate of the lawyer named as executor of the client's estate or to another potentially lucrative fiduciary position. Nevertheless, such appointments will be subject to the general conflict of interest provision in Rule 1.7 when there is a significant risk that the lawyer's interest in obtaining the appointment will materially limit the lawyer's independent professional judgment in advising the client concerning the choice of an executor or other fiduciary. In obtaining the client's informed consent to the conflict, the lawyer should advise the client concerning the nature and extent of the lawyer's financial interest in the appointment, as well as the availability of alternative candidates for the position.
[9] An agreement by which a lawyer acquires literary or media rights concerning the conduct of the representation creates a conflict between the interests of the client and the personal interests of the lawyer. Measures suitable in the representation of the client may detract from the publication value of an account of the representation. Paragraph (d) does not prohibit a lawyer representing a client in a transaction concerning literary property from agreeing that the lawyer's fee shall consist of a share in ownership in the property, if the arrangement conforms to Rule 1.5 and paragraphs (a) and (i).
[10] [Washington Revision] Lawyers may not subsidize lawsuits or administrative proceedings brought on behalf of their clients, including making or guaranteeing loans to their clients for living expenses, because to do so would encourage clients to pursue lawsuits that might not otherwise be brought and because such assistance gives lawyers too great a financial stake in the litigation. See Washington Comment [21].
Person Paying for a Lawyer's Services
[11] Lawyers are frequently asked to represent a client under circumstances in which a third person will compensate the lawyer, in whole or in part. The third person might be a relative or friend, an indemnitor (such as a liability insurance company) or a co-client (such as a corporation sued along with one or more of its employees). Because third-party payers frequently have interests that differ from those of the client, including interests in minimizing the amount spent on the representation and in learning how the representation is progressing, lawyers are prohibited from accepting or continuing such representations unless the lawyer determines that there will be no interference with the lawyer's independent professional judgment and there is informed consent from the client. See also Rule 5.4(c) (prohibiting interference with a lawyer's professional judgment by one who recommends, employs or pays the lawyer to render legal services for another).
[12] Sometimes, it will be sufficient for the lawyer to obtain the client's informed consent regarding the fact of the payment and the identity of the third-party payer. If, however, the fee arrangement creates a conflict of interest for the lawyer, then the lawyer must comply with Rule. 1.7. The lawyer must also conform to the requirements of Rule 1.6 concerning confidentiality. Under Rule 1.7(a), a conflict of interest exists if there is significant risk that the lawyer's representation of the client will be materially limited by the lawyer's own interest in the fee arrangement or by the lawyer's responsibilities to the third-party payer (for example, when the third-party payer is a co-client). Under Rule 1.7(b), the lawyer may accept or continue the representation with the informed consent of each affected client, unless the conflict is nonconsentable under that paragraph. Under Rule 1.7(b), the informed consent must be confirmed in writing.
Aggregate Settlements
[13] [Washington revision] Differences in willingness to make or accept an offer of settlement are among the risks of common representation of multiple clients by a single lawyer. Under Rule 1.7, this is one of the risks that should be discussed before undertaking the representation, as part of the process of obtaining the clients' informed consent. In addition, Rule 1.2(a) protects each client's right to have the final say in deciding whether to accept or reject an offer of settlement and in deciding whether to enter a guilty or nolo contendere plea in a criminal case. The rule stated in this paragraph is a corollary of both these Rules and provides that, before any settlement offer or plea bargain is made or accepted on behalf of multiple clients, the lawyer must inform each of them about all the material terms of the settlement, including what the other clients will receive or pay if the settlement or plea offer is accepted. See also Rule 1.0A(e) (definition of informed consent). Lawyers representing a class of plaintiffs or defendants, or those proceeding derivatively, may not have a full client-lawyer relationship with each member of the class; nevertheless, such lawyers must comply with applicable rules regulating notification of class members and other procedural requirements designed to ensure adequate protection of the entire class. [Comment [13] amended effective April 14, 2015.]
Limiting Liability and Settling Malpractice Claims
[14] [Washington revision] Agreements prospectively limiting a lawyer's liability for malpractice are prohibited unless permitted by law and the client is independently represented by a lawyer in making the agreement because they are likely to undermine competent and diligent representation. Also, many clients are unable to evaluate the desirability of making such an agreement before a dispute has arisen, particularly if they are then represented by the lawyer seeking the agreement. This paragraph does not, however, prohibit a lawyer from entering into an agreement with the client to arbitrate legal malpractice claims, provided such agreements are enforceable and the client is fully informed of the scope and effect of the agreement. Nor does this paragraph limit the ability of lawyers to practice in the form of a limited-liability entity, where permitted by law, provided that each lawyer remains personally liable to the client for his or her own conduct and the firm complies with any conditions required by law, such as provisions requiring client notification or maintenance of adequate liability insurance. Nor does it prohibit an agreement in accordance with Rule 1.2 that defines the scope of the representation, although a definition of scope that makes the obligations of representation illusory will amount to an attempt to limit liability. [Comment [14] amended effective April 14, 2015.]
[15] [Washington revision] Agreements settling a claim or a potential claim for malpractice are not prohibited by this Rule. Nevertheless, in view of the danger that a lawyer will take unfair advantage of client or former client not represented by a lawyer, the lawyer must first advise such a person in writing of the appropriateness of independent representation by a lawyer in connection with such a settlement. In addition, the lawyer must give the client or former client a reasonable opportunity to find and consult an independent lawyer. [Comment [15] amended effective April 14, 2015.]
Acquiring Proprietary Interest in Litigation
[16] Paragraph (i) states the traditional general rule that lawyers are prohibited from acquiring a proprietary interest in litigation. Like paragraph (e), the general rule has its basis in common law champerty and maintenance and is designed to avoid giving the lawyer too great an interest in the representation. In addition, when the lawyer acquires an ownership interest in the subject of the representation, it will be more difficult for a client to discharge the lawyer if the client so desires. The Rule is subject to specific exceptions developed in decisional law and continued in these Rules. The exception for certain advances of the costs of litigation is set forth in paragraph (e). In addition, paragraph (i) sets forth exceptions for liens authorized by law to secure the lawyer's fees or expenses and contracts for reasonable contingent fees. The law of each jurisdiction determines which liens are authorized by law. These may include liens granted by statute, liens originating in common law and liens acquired by contract with the client. When a lawyer acquires by contract a security interest in property other than that recovered through the lawyer's efforts in the litigation, such an acquisition is a business or financial transaction with a client and is governed by the requirements of paragraph (a). Contracts for contingent fees in civil cases are governed by Rule 1.5.
Client-Lawyer Sexual Relationships
[17] The relationship between lawyer and client is a fiduciary one in which the lawyer occupies the highest position of trust and confidence. The relationship is almost always unequal; thus, a sexual relationship between lawyer and client can involve unfair exploitation of the lawyer's fiduciary role, in violation of the lawyer's basic ethical obligation not to use the trust of the client to the client's disadvantage. In addition, such a relationship presents a significant danger that, because of the lawyer's emotional involvement, the lawyer will be unable to represent the client without impairment of the exercise of independent professional judgment. Moreover, a blurred line between the professional and personal relationships may make it difficult to predict to what extent client confidences will be protected by the attorney-client evidentiary privilege, since client confidences are protected by privilege only when they are imparted in the context of the client-lawyer relationship. Because of the significant danger of harm to client interests and because the client's own emotional involvement renders it unlikely that the client could give adequate informed consent, this Rule prohibits the lawyer from having sexual relations with a client regardless of whether the relationship is consensual and regardless of the absence of prejudice to the client.
[18] Sexual relationships that predate the client-lawyer relationship are not prohibited. Issues relating to the exploitation of the fiduciary relationship and client dependency are diminished when the sexual relationship existed prior to the commencement of the client-lawyer relationship. However, before proceeding with the representation in these circumstances, the lawyer should consider whether the lawyer's ability to represent the client will be materially limited by the relationship. See Rule 1.7(a)(2).
[19] [Washington revision] When the client is an organization, paragraph (j) of this Rule applies to a lawyer for the organization (whether inside or outside counsel). For purposes of this Rule, "representative of a current client" will generally be a constituent of the organization who supervises, directs or regularly consults with that lawyer on the organization's legal matters. See Comment [1] to Rule 1.13 (identifying the constituents of an organizational client). See also Washington Comments [22] and [23].
Imputation of Prohibitions
[20] Under paragraph (k), a prohibition on conduct by an individual lawyer in paragraphs (a) through (i) also applies to all lawyers associated in a firm with the personally prohibited lawyer. For example, one lawyer in a firm may not enter into a business transaction with a client of another member of the firm without complying with paragraph (a), even if the first lawyer is not personally involved in the representation of the client. The prohibition set forth in paragraph (j) is personal and is not applied to associated lawyers.
Additional Washington Comments (21-31)
[21] Paragraph (e) of Washington's Rule differs form the Model Rule. Paragraph (e) is based on former Washington RPC 1.8(e). The minor structural modifications to the general prohibition on providing financial assistance to a client do not represent a change in Washington law, and paragraph (e) is intended to preserve prior interpretations of the Rule and prior Washington practice.
[22] Paragraph (j)(2) of Washington's Rule, which prohibits sexual relationships with a representative of an organizational client, differs from the Model Rule. Comment [19] to Model Rule 1.8 was revised to be consistent with the Washington Rule.
[23] Paragraph (j)(3) of the Rule specifies that the prohibition applies with equal force to any lawyer who assists in the representation of the client, but the prohibition expressly does not apply to other members of a firm who have not assisted in the representation.
[24] Model Rule 1.8 does not contain a provision equivalent to paragraph (l) of Washington's Rule. Paragraph (l) prohibits representations based on a lawyer's personal conflict arising from his or her relationship with another lawyer. Paragraph (l) is a revised version of former Washington RPC 1.8(i). See also Comment [11] to Rule 1.7.
Indigent Defense Contracts
[25] Model Rule 1.8 does not contain a provision equivalent to paragraph (m) of Washington's Rule. Paragraph (m) specifies that it is a conflict of interest for a lawyer to enter into or accept compensation under an indigent defense contract that does not provide for the payment of funds, outside of the contract, to compensate conflict counsel for fees and expenses.
[26] Where there is a right to a lawyer in court proceedings, the right extends to those who are financially unable to obtain one. This right is affected in some Washington counties and municipalities through indigent defense contracts, i.e., contracts entered into between lawyers or law firms willing to provide defense services to those financially unable to obtain them and the governmental entities obliged to pay for those services. When a lawyer or law firm providing indigent defense services determines that a disqualifying conflict of interest precludes representation of a particular client, the lawyer or law firm must withdraw and substitute counsel must be obtained for the client. See Rule 1.16. In these circumstances, substitute counsel is typically known as "conflict counsel."
[27] An indigent defense contract by which the contracting lawyer or law firm assumes the obligation to pay conflict counsel from the proceeds of the contract, without further payment from the governmental entity, creates an acute financial disincentive for the lawyer either to investigate or declare the existence of actual or potential conflicts of interest requiring the employment of conflict counsel. For this reason, such contracts involve an inherent conflict between the interests of the client and the personal interests of the lawyer. These dangers warrant a prohibition on making such an agreement or accepting compensation for the delivery of indigent defense services from a lawyer that has done so. See ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Std. 5- 3.3(b)(vii) (3d ed. 1992) (elements of a contract for defense services should include "a policy for conflict of interest cases and the provision of funds outside of the contract to compensate conflict counsel for fees and expenses"); People v. Barboza, 29 Cal.3d 375, 173 Cal. Rptr. 458, 627 P.2d 188 (Cal. 1981) (structuring public defense contract so that more money is available for operation of office if fewer outside attorneys are engaged creates "inherent and irreconcilable conflicts of interest").
[28] Similar conflict-of-interest considerations apply when indigent defense contracts require the contracting lawyer or law firm to pay for the costs and expenses of investigation and expert services from the general proceeds of the contract. Paragraph (m)(1)(ii) prohibits agreements that do not provide that such services are to be funded separately from the amounts designated as compensation to the contracting lawyer or law firm.
[29] Because indigent defense contracts involve accepting compensation for legal services from a third-party payer, the lawyer must also conform to the requirements of paragraph (f). See also Comments [11] [12]. [Comments adopted effective September 1, 2006.]
Settling Malpractice Claims
[30] A client or former client of an LLLT who is not represented by a lawyer is unrepresented for purposes of Rule 1.8(h)(2). [Comment adopted April 14, 2015.]
Lawyers Associate din Firms with Limited License Legal Technicians
[31] LLLT RPC 1.8 prohibits LLLTs from engaging in certain conduct that is not necessarily prohibited to lawyers by this Rule. See LLLT RPC 1.(a) (strictly prohibiting an LLLT from entering into a business transaction with a client); LLLT RPC 1.8(h)(1) (strictly prohibiting an LLLT from making an agreement prospectively limiting the LLLT's liability to a client for malpractice); LLLT RPC 1.8(i) (strictly prohibiting an LLLT from acquiring a proprietory interest in a client's cause of action or the subject matter of the litigation). These prohibitions do not apply to any lawyers in a firm unless the conduct is also prohibited to a lawyer under this rule.
[Comment adopted April 14, 2015.]
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Home Sports ICC T20 Cricket World Cup 2020| Schedule & Match Details
ICC T20 Cricket World Cup 2020| Schedule & Match Details
Komal Latif
ICC Announced T20 Cricket World Cup 2020 Details…!!!
The game of high spirit and competition has been started in this year and this battle would again start in next month as 2020. International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced the schedule and match timings for ICC T20 Cricket World Cup 2020. ICC announced the women’s and men’s T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia on the same year and in the same country. In T20 World Cup 2020 the matches would be start from 18th October to 15th November 2020. Total 45 matches would be played in T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia. 16 teams would be participated in T20 World Cup 2020. The women’s T20 World Cup will take place from February 21st to March 8. On the other hand all the men’s T20 World Cup 2020 matches would be played from October 18 to November 15. The team’s details and the matches’ details of T20 World Cup 2020 are given below. Must read all these details and watch the real battle of spirit and competition.
Men & Women Cricket World Cup 2020
ICC announced the schedule for ICC T20 Cricket World Cup 2020 for both men and women. It is the first time as both men and women would play all these matches on the same country. The complete details of all teams with groups and their matches are given below.
The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 Trophy Tour in Pakistan would also be done in this year.
ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2020:
The opening celebration of Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 will be held at Sydney Showground Stadium on 21 February 2020. Two powerful teams as India and Australia would start this celebration. The semi-finals will be played at the iconic SCG, featuring the four best teams in action on Thursday 5 March 2020. Here are the Women’s T20 World Cup Groups details as:
Qualifier 1
England (2009 champions)
West Indies (2016 champions)
ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2020:
In men’s T20 World Cup 2020 matches Australia will play the opening match of the Super 12 stage on Saturday 24 October against the world’s top-ranked team, Pakistan. On the other hand, India’s first clash of the tournament will be on Saturday 24 October against South Africa at the state-of-the-art Perth Stadium.
The first semi-final will take place at the SCG in Sydney in the evening on Wednesday 11 November, with Adelaide Oval hosting the second semi-final the following night. The men’s final will be played under lights at the biggest cricket stadium in the world, the MCG, on Sunday 15 November 2020. All the 45 matches would be host in seven venues in seven host cities.
First Round / Super 12 groups:
Here are the details of first round or super 12 groups as follows:
First Round (Sunday 18 October – Friday 23 October 2020)
Group A (Kardinia Park, Geelong): Sri Lanka plus three qualifiers
Group B (Bellerive Oval, Hobart): Bangladesh plus three qualifiers
Super 12 (Saturday 24 October – Sunday 8 November 2020)
First Round Group A team 1
First Round Group B team 2
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You are here: Home > Grand Chief Phillip, Palmater invited to testify on anti-terror bill before committee of MPs
Grand Chief Phillip, Palmater invited to testify on anti-terror bill before committee of MPs
National News | March 3, 2015 by APTN National News Attributed to: | Comments Off on Grand Chief Phillip, Palmater invited to testify on anti-terror bill before committee of MPs
OTTAWA–The House of Commons committee studying the Harper government’s anti-terror bill has invited Stewart Phillip and Pam Palmater to appear as witnesses, according to a list obtained by APTN National News.
Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, and Palmater, a Mi’kmaq professor and lawyer, are on a list of about 70 potential witnesses who have been asked to appear before the Commons public safety committee.
The committee is studying Bill C-51, the Harper government’s proposed anti-terror bill that would give more powers to agencies like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
The Assembly of First Nations drafted an analysis of the proposed bill which concluded the proposed law could lead to the labeling of Indigenous activists as “terrorists.” The AFN is not on the list of witnesses, though it was seeking standing at the committee.
Other invited witnesses include Maher Arar, who suffered torture in Syria as a result of the actions of Canadian authorities, Eva Plunkett, former Inspector general for CSIS, Bob Rae, the former chair of spy-agency oversight body SIRC, US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, New Zealand Attorney General Chris Finlayson and UK Home Office Secretary Theresa May.
The committee is expected to begin hearings on the proposed bill next week. A procedural challenge, now in the hands of the House of Commons Speaker, could upend the current schedule, which would see witness testimony, including from Public Safety Minister Steve Blaney and Justice Minister Peter MacKay, run over nine meetings and ending on the evening of March 26.
The NDP, however, have challenged a move by Conservative MPs on committee to overrule a ruling by the committee chair to stop an NDP filibuster. Filibusters are a tool used by legislators, usually when faced by a majority, to take control of the legislative process through continuous talking.
Speaker Andrew Scheer is expected to deliver his ruling sometime next week. The ruling could upend the current schedule for hearings.
news@aptn.ca
@APTNNews
Tags: Bill C-51, CSIS, House of Commons, Pam Palmater, Parliament, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, RCMP, Stewart Phillip, Union of BC Indian Chief
Michele Pineault talks about MMIW meeting with federal ministers
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Letter to the Editor: The American University of Armenia Is Renowned for Its Independence
September 29, 2017 at 12:30 pm Guest Contributor Letters to the Editor 6
In response to Anna Shahnazaryan’s Comments in “Armenia: The Struggle for Justice (Part II)”
The American University of Armenia (AUA) was troubled to read about the malinformed comments by Anna Shahnazaryan in her interview with David Barsamian in the piece titled “Armenia: The Struggle for Justice (Part II).”
The American University of Armenia, Paramaz Avedisian Building (Photo: AUA)
First, Ms. Shahnazaryan’s claims that AUA is a “part of the establishment” and is “not an independent academic platform where critical thought is developed” are an unfortunate distortion of reality. The American University of Armenia is renowned for its independence and encouragement of free expression. Furthermore, the development of critical thinking skills is among the qualities most frequently cited by alumni as being learned in the course of an AUA education.
Then, Ms. Shahnazaryan dismissively states that the American University of Armenia is proud of its alumni who work at the World Bank and within the government of Armenia, including in a number of ministries. Indeed we are. These institutions have a role in the future of Armenia, as do others of which AUA alumni are a part. These “others” include opposition political parties, activist groups, and myriad non-profit and non-governmental organizations. The diversity of viewpoints represented by the multifarious career paths pursued by AUA alumni testifies to our commitment to being an open platform for all. We do not dictate where our alumni should work.
As an environmental activist in Armenia, it is unfortunate that Ms. Shahnazaryan fails to mention the significant role played by AUA and, in particular, the university’s Acopian Center for the Environment, in promoting a greener and more environmentally-conscious Armenia. Most recently, AUA launched a program in environmental studies, the first of its kind in Armenia. Or, as a feminist, it would have been more artless for Ms. Shahnazaryan to note that the university has been at the vanguard of promoting an honest discussion of women’s issues within the country, not least through a recent multi-day conference with the express goal of empowering girls and women within the country.
In line with the American University of Armenia’s principled belief in the freedom of expression, Ms. Shahnazaryan is certainly entitled to having her own opinions on issues about which she is concerned. However, she is not entitled to her own facts. We hope that in writing this response, we have righted any misperceptions that may have arisen from her comments and we likewise hope that future discussions will be informed by facts so that the civil discourse, which is so integral to Armenia’s development, is effective.
—The American University of Armenia
Guest contributions to the Armenian Weekly are informative articles written and submitted by members of the community, which make up our community bulletin board.
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Norserunt says:
By the very nature of its name and its funding, the University is not an “independent” institution. The AUA is a catalyst of American/Western/Globalist sociopolitical agendas in the country. It is therefore a cancerous cell.
Zartir Lao says:
So essentially, you’re disapproving of one western agent being against another western agent. The Capitalists vs the Communists, which is a similar conflict brewing in the USA between the right and the left such as “Trump supporters” and “Hillary/Bernie supporters”.
Can you name anything of importance in Armenia that is in fact really “independent”, free of both Western and Russian interests? The last April war with Azerbaijan and subsequent friendly dealings with Turkey proved that Russia’s interests are not actually aligned with Armenia’s like some have been thinking, or, hoping…
Lao, despite what fedayee-wannabes like you want to believe, Armenia has existed for the past two hundreds years only because of the region’s Russian factor. No Russia in Armenia = no Armenia in the Caucasus. You need a lot of self-educationg to do if you want me to discuss these things with you.
Same old tired aparatchik nonsense. Armenia has re-existed for only 100 years, and that is thanks to the ARF Fedayees, not Russia and especially not those early Armeno-Bolshevik tools that you so admire. (The 200 year story is based on Armenians only moving to Russian Armenia for it being a Christian nation when Russia was a monarchy, and it was still Russia, not an independent Armenia). Soviet Russia wouldn’t have cared less if Armenia was inside Russia, Azerbaijan or Georgia. And Armenia relies on Russia for its security precisely because Russia created that condition in the first place. And btw, how is that sale of the S-400 and Turkey’s first nuclear reactor compliments of Mother Russia, working out for Armenia’s “security”?
Rafo says:
Zartir, is correct. While the AUA is indeed by name alone biased towards Western Beliefs, one must also recognize that Western beliefs are precisely those that Armenia needs.
This fetish with Russia is perverse. It’s like the beaten wife going back again and again to its abuser.
Russia and the Soviet State has done NOTHING but oppress Armenia, only through clever bribing and manipulation did Armenia benefit in the Soviet Union. Also, lest we forget that at every opportunity to reclaim the stolen lands of Armenia from Turkey, Russia/Soviet Union chose not to. Additionally, lest we forget that the Soviet State purposefully dissected Armenia and gave Nakhchivan and Artsakh to the Azeri’s.
Quite literally, all of the geopolitical problems that Armenia is currently enduring, short of our relationship with Turkey. Are Russian or Soviet Imposed. While the Soviet Union was not run by Russians for the most part, Russia was the enforcement mechanism by which everything was instituted.
Today, Putin uses real politik to impose his will on Armenia, by ensuring the region is always in flux and unstable.
Antoine S. Terjanian says:
Very well said AUA
I find it unfortunate that the Armenian Weekly chose to give such a platform to Ms. Shahnazaryan. Of course she is entitled to her opinion, as is every person in Armenia and in the Diaspora, but why give her opinion more importance and visibility than others.
I only read the “first part” of her interview and, decided not to waste my time reading the second part of your interview with her.
Did Ms. Shahnazaryan, when she criticised the fact that some AUA alumni work for the Armenian Government, forget that before starting to get paid by an ECHR lobby group, she also worked for the Armenian Government?
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The Town Clerk's responsibilities include recording and preserving the Town’s vital and permanent records in accordance with the Commonwealth statutes, providing quality public service and accessibility to public records and ensuring compliance with state mandated licensing and filing.
The Town Clerk conducts the annual town census, prepares the street list of residents and school list. The clerk furnishes the jury list to the Office of Jury Commissioner.
The Town Clerk serves on the local Board of Registrars and is responsible for the below listed election functions/duties:
Overseeing elections, preparing ballots, absentee balloting and voter registration.
Recording all actions of at the annual and the special town meetings, special voting sessions before every election and town meeting.
Employing sufficient poll workers for the orderly conduct of an election and the polls.
Preparing and reporting official election records and results to the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth.
Certifying nomination papers.
State law requires all dogs in the Commonwealth over six months of age to be licensed annually. The 2018 calendar year licensing deadline is April 30th. State law requires a higher license fee for dogs that are not spayed or neutered (intact). In Ashfield, the fee is $5.00 for a spayed or neutered dog and $10 for an intact dog. In order to obtain the discounted rate, veterinarian's verification that dogs have been neutered or spayed is required. Proof of current rabies is also required for all dogs. Failure to license a dog by April 20th will result in penalties.
Residents can order and pay for a dog license online, by mail, or in person. The Town Clerk's Office accepts online payments from your checking account or credit card (Discover, American Express, MasterCard, or Visa). Click here if you would like to order and pay for your dog license online.
Town Census
Per Massachusetts General Law, each municipality is required to confirm the identity of every person residing in Town at the beginning of each year. This information is gathered through the annual street list which is mailed to each household around January 1st. Information pertaining to children sixteen and younger is protected by law and held in confidence. The data gathered is used to create the annual street list, to assist public safety and emergency responders, to project future school enrollment, and to assist in calculating state and federal aid.
Anyone who does not receive a census form, or moves into town after January, should contact the Town Clerk's Office at 413-628-4441 x 5, or click here to download a blank form.
The Federal Census is a decennial census and while the main function is to provide counts of people for Congressional apportionment, it is also used to measure the changing social and economic characteristics of the United States. The next Federal Census will be conducted in 2020. For more information regarding the Federal Census click here.
Failure to return the census could lead to the state losing a representative in Congress, as well as federal funding.
For information and elections results on local, state and federal elections including primary results click here.
Town Caucusus
Each year in March the town holds its annual town caucus where Ashfield citizens may be nominated to run for any open seat in town government. For information and results on town caucuses click here.
Ashfield holds its Annual Town Meeting (ATM) on the first Saturday in May of each year where important issues and budgets are discussed and voted on. In addition to the ATM the town holds Special Town Meetings (STM) from time to time to address specific needs/issues that cannot wait until the ATM in May. Whether to hold a STM, when and what to address is decided on by the town's Select Board.
For information on upcoming and past town meetings including results of votes taken and decisions made click here.
Town Meeting Videos
2018: ATM AM Session & ATM PM Sesison
2016: ATM & STM on 6/13
2015: STM on 11/18
Registrar of Vital Statistics
Records and preserves original birth, marriage, and death records, and provides this information to the Commonwealth for the central vital registration system.
Administers the oath of office to all elected and appointed members of local committees and boards and ensures that all elected and appointed officials are informed of the State’s Open Meeting Law and Conflict of Interest Laws. All elected and appointed officials are sworn to the faithful performance of their duties by the Town Clerk.
Posts meeting notices of all government bodies.
Provides access to public records in compliance with State Public Records Law.
Provides certified copies of vital records and assists in genealogical research for members of the public, and is responsible for maintenance, disposition, and preservation of municipal archival records and materials.
Submits bylaws and zoning bylaw amendments to the Attorney General for approval.
Marriage License FAQ (PDF)
Mass. Conflict of Interest Guidelines
Mass. Open Meeting Law
Licensing Officer
Issues state licenses and permits including marriage licenses, county or local licenses, permits and certifications as mandated by statute or bylaw, includes burial permits, business certificates and dog licenses.
Certification of any document or action recorded and filed in the Town Clerk's Office is the responsibility of the Town Clerk.
Bridget Rodrigue
townclerk@ashfield.org
Phone: 413-628-4441 Ext: 5
Ashfield, MA 01330-0560
Office Closure
- NEMCI&A July 15-19
- Vacation August 5-9.
Town Hall Hours
Monday - Thursday 9 am - 4pm
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StoryPlaces at Arts by the Sea Festival
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Back to Course News
Published 7th October 2016
BA (Hons) Creative Writing Lecturer, James Cole, has worked with StoryPlaces on Mobile Stories for Arts by the Sea Festival, Saturday 8th October.
StoryPlaces, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, is an exciting interdisciplinary project between the Humanities and Electronics and Computer Sciences departments at the University of Southampton, the Bournemouth Natural Sciences Society (BNSS), and Southampton and Bournemouth-based writers.
The project looks at ways in which readers can use a location-based story app to discover how stories, inspired by the BNSS collection, unfold and emerge as the reader takes an immersive walk around local Bournemouth areas. The reader is in control, making decisions to change and shape the course of the narrative – a modern-day version of the old Choose Your Own Adventure stories.
James’ commissioned story, which will be available to download from a stall in the Lower Gardens, is aimed at children and will take them on an interactive journey in and around Bournemouth gardens, responding to the decisions they make.
There will then be a follow up talk on Wednesday 12th October at Bournemouth Natural Science Society, discussing the process of writing location-based narratives alongside the other writers and academics.
James said: “Having worked with the University of Southampton in the past, I was approached by the team to work with the Bournemouth writers on the project and commissioned to write an original story aimed at children. This has been an exciting and rewarding project to be involved in and the process has taught me a lot about the requirements of location-aware narratives. I’m really excited to see the stories come to life, launched this weekend at the Arts by the Sea Festival.”
Discover StoryPlaces on Saturday 8th October, Bournemouth Seafront: Lower Winter Gardens, 10am – 4pm.
Twitter | @inspiredAUB
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BlogTakes
where sense and sensibility prevails
The unsolved mystery of Malaysia’s first hijacked airplane
BlogTakes / 10/03/2017
Two days ago, it would’ve been exactly 3 years since MH370 disappeared. That same year, we also had the tragedies of MH17 and also AirAsia’s Q85301. Thankfully, since then… Malaysia’s luck with aeroplanes has gone back to normal. But before those incidents, waaaaay back in 1977, the Malaysian aviation industry had its first unfortunate spotlight, with one of the deadliest hijackings in history: the flight of MH653 en route to Subang Airport.
Raymond Saw of Cilisos.my writes:
A hundred people had lost their lives in the incident but unfortunately, much like MH370, many questions about the events that took place during the hijacking have yet to be answered.
The alarming recordings of a flight gone horribly wrong
It was the 4th of December, 1977 at Penang Airport, with flight MH653 scheduled to take off at 7.15pm en route to Subang airport. On the passenger list were a couple of VIPs – then Malaysian Minister of Agriculture, Datuk Seri Ali bin Ahmad and the Cuban ambassador to Japan Mario García Incháustegui.
The day started with controversy – one of Datuk Seri Ali’s bodyguards was allegedly carrying a firearm that he refused to give up before boarding the flight. They were eventually allowed on board.
Up in the cockpit, Captain G. K Ganjoor sat down and started pre-flight checks. It was a double-anniversary for him – the day he got his pilot’s license, and a few years later, his wife as well. The plane took off without a hitch, and less than half an hour later, they were nearing their destination of Subang airport. This is where MH653’s recovered black box begins to tell a violent story.
Capt. Ganjoor had just pulled out his landing gears when he heard a knock on the cockpit doors. He asked his co-pilot what was going on, before yelling back that the door was unlocked. Someone then barged in – it was the hijackers.
“Out! Cut all radio contact! Cut all radio contact – now!” – Alleged hijacker, from the MH653 black box transcript
If Capt. Ganjoor was panicking, he didn’t show it. He asked the hijackers where they wanted to go, adding that the plane only had enough fuel for Singapore at best. The hijackers, without much of a choice really, eventually told the pilots to inform airport authorities that they’re going to Singapore.
The pilots obliged. Capt. Ganjoor also told his stewards to reassure his passengers to prevent panic.
“Now, don’t say anything to the passengers okay. I don’t want any nonsense from passengers… merely tell them that we are diverting to Singapore, due to weather or whatever okay… tell them nothing, it’s alright and we’ll leave the doors locked.
Just close it now – relax – serve the passengers if you want,” – Capt G. K. Ganjoor to his stewards, from the MH653 black box transcript
MH653 was now over Malacca, quickly approaching Batu Pahat. With their impromptu destination nearing, the hijackers were starting to become restless and annoyed with the pilots. Perhaps they were panicking, worried that the pilots had lied to them. Perhaps afraid that the pilots had signalled for authorities to arrive the moment they landed, the hijackers did the only thing they could think of – shoot the pilots dead.
At 8.33pm, a gun shot was heard….
“No, please don’t – *gun shot* no… please no…. *gun shot* please, oh….” – Capt G. K. Ganjoor, from the MH653 black box transcript
After the sounds of gun shots, various sounds of alarms and notifications were going off in the cockpit. Recordings from the black box seem to suggest that after killing the pilots, the hijackers failed to take control of the plane themselves. Witnesses claimed that they saw the Boeing 737 go upwards and downwards in sharp angles repeatedly.
It seems as if after shooting the only people who could fly the airplane, the hijackers put in place a death sentence for themselves and everyone else onboard.
The crash
“I heard two explosions and then something went down and I saw a huge fire. At first I thought it was part of Singapore’s military exercises, but then I saw an RM50 note and something that had a MAS logo. That’s when I realised what really happened,” – Sulaiman Osman, MH653 crash witness
At 8.36pm, MH653 crashed in Tanjung Kupang, Johor. Several eyewitnesses claim they saw an explosion before it hit the ground; the official investigation report claims otherwise.
Search teams and investigators soon reached the crash site, looking for survivors, bodies, clues, anything really. But sadly, there were no survivors and not even an identifiable body found at the crash site. It got to the point where they stopped bringing stretchers and brought polystyrene bags to collect any charred body parts that they found.
All remains that couldn’t be identified were buried in a mass grave.
Unfortunately, neither the black box nor the evidence from the site could answer one major question…
So who were the hijackers?
In the years since the crash, many theories have sprung up regarding the identity of the hijackers. Some of the more common theories include Vietnamese militants, as Singapore had recently arrested 3 Vietnamese militants responsible for a hijack of an Air Vietnam plane. Then there’s also suggestion that it could’ve been Cuban terrorists (hijacking was trending among Cubans those days) as Mario García Incháustegui was on board MH653.
On top of that, another theory involved the bodyguard of Datuk Seri Ali bin Ahmad who accompanied his employer on the flight. Remember that alleged scuffle prior to departure where Datuk Seri Ali’s bodyguard didn’t wanna give up his gun? After the crash, a rumour went around claiming that he was the hijacker. This theory gained enough traction that it was even discussed in Parliament. The conspiracy theory went even further, with some suggesting that the lack of an official reason was a cover up to protect the image of Datuk Seri Ali.
However, one of the strongest theories about who’s behind the hijackings were the Japanese Red Army.
The Japanese Red Army (JRA) were a group of militants that formed in 1971. They originally made their goal the overthrow of the Japanese government and monarchy, as well as wanting to ignite a world revolution. The JRA had been pretty active in the 1970s, with some of their more notable acts of terrorism including the hijacking of Japan Airlines Flight 351 in 1970 and the Lod Airport Massacre in 1972.
MH653 wasn’t even their first involvement in Malaysia – the Japanese Red Army had been behind the infamous AIA Building hostage crisis in 1975. Ugaiz can read more about the hostage crisis over at our sister site Soscili!
While this remains one of the strongest theories to date, both the Malaysian Home Ministry and the Japanese government deny the hijacking was carried out by the Japanese Red Army.
Identities aside, the other mystery that has yet to be answered is how did the hijackers get on board in the first place?
“Thirty-seven years down the line, we still don’t really know the truth,” – Ruth Parr in 2014, who lost her father in the crash
But it’s quite hard to tell… cos anyone could get into an airport those days
The Penang Airport was never known for having good security. The security there was so bad that the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Association had listed its security as “criminally deficient“.
Meanwhile, journalists from The Star decided to do some investigative work immediately after the crash and had found that the security in place was “hopelessly lax”. They found that the gate for cargo and VIP access to be open with no guards in sight. The fencing around the airport runway was also opened up, due to the construction of a new airport terminal going on at the time.
But perhaps the most damning case of airport security fail to happen at the Penang Airport was that a month before the crash someone actually made it past security without a ticket and got on a MAS plane. He was only found out when a passenger complained that there was someone sitting in his seat. But that wasn’t an isolated case… Just one week before the hijacking, four men made it past airport security and made it all the way to the tarmac before finally being caught.
The tragedy of MH653 forced the gomen to make airports safer
Although MAS announced that they would be paying the families a collective RM8.8 million in compensation (quite a lot of money in the 70’s), it didn’t do much in providing closure for the families of the victims:
“People keep talking about closure but in a case like this… there will never be closure because you always have that sense of loss, that grief, that missing person from your life,” – Devicka, Capt G. K. Ganjoor’s daughter
However, the tragedy, along with the great investigative work of The Star’s journalists, exposed the flaws and weaknesses in Penang Airport’s security which led to massive changes in the Malaysian aviation industry.
One of the biggest changes that occurred as a direct result of the MH653 crash was the introduction of the Aviation Security Unit, which was set up to “safeguard domestic and international civil aviation against acts of unlawful interference” as well as to ensure that the security measures within an airport are up to national and international standards.
Airport security meanwhile started being a lot tougher, with more thorough checks on passengers and cargo occurring. VIPs were also no longer exempted from checks before boarding.
So while the mystery of the hijacking may never be fully solved, it served as a wakeup call for the authorities that security is an ongoing process. Similar to how the 9/11 attacks started an international wave of security reforms, a smaller, local version of that happened in 1977. While, the MH653 tragedy remains a dark spot in Malaysia’s aviation history, but also became the catalyst for a lot of positive change, which perhaps saved a lot of people in the decades since.
Source: https://cilisos.my/the-unsolved-mystery-of-malaysias-first-hijacked-airplane/
10/03/2017 in Good read. Tags: Boeing 737, Captain G. K Ganjoor, hijacked plane, MAS jet, MH653, Tanjung Kupang
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40 Children Paralyzed After New Meningitis Vaccine.
On December 20, 2012, a vaccination tragedy hit the small village of Gouro, located in northern Chad, Africa. According to the newspaper La Voix, out of five hundred children who received the new meningitis vaccine MenAfriVac, at least 40 of them between the ages of 7 and 18 have become paralyzed. Those children also suffered hallucinations and convulsions.
Since this report, the true extent of this tragedy is coming to light, as parents of these vaccinated children have reported yet more injuries. The authorities in the area are shaken, as citizens set fire to a sanitary administration vehicle in a demonstration of their frustration and anger at the government’s negligence.[1]
“We wish that our children would get their health back,” shared the parent of a sick child.
THE MENAFRIVAC VACCINE
MenAfriVac is a new vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India Limited. According to The Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), it is the first vaccine to gain approval to travel outside the cold chain, meaning that the vaccine can be transported without refrigeration or ice packs for up to four days:
“The meningitis A vaccine known as MenAfriVac®, created to meet the needs of Africa’s meningitis belt, can now be kept in a controlled temperature chain (CTC) at temperatures of up to 40°C for up to four days, a decision that could help increase campaign efficiency and coverage and save funds normally spent maintaining the challenging cold chain during the “last mile” of vaccine delivery.” [2]
The data on the MenAfriVac vaccine is further backed by the World Health Organization’s website [3] and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website. [4]
So, why does this information differ vastly from the information given on the manufacturer’s website? Serum Institute of India Ltd. stated under the section marked STORAGE:
“MenAfriVac should be stored and transported between 2-8ºC. Protect from light. The diluent should be stored at 25°C. It is recommended to protect the reconstituted vaccine from direct sunlight. Do not exceed the expiry date stated on the external packaging.” [5]
THE STORY FROM INSIDE AFRICA
Mr. M., the cousin of two of the vaccine-injured children, who currently remain critically ill and hospitalized, explained that many of the children reacted within 24 hours of receiving the vaccine. He said that at first the children vomited and complained of headaches, before falling to the floor with uncontrollable convulsions while bent over with saliva coming from their mouths.
He shared that on December 26, 2012, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Social Security visited Gouro, bringing with them two Members of Parliament. He said that after some discussion, they decided to evacuate approximately 50 paralyzed children to a hospital over three hundred miles away in N’Djamena, the capital city of Chad.
He added that the government responded to the tragedy by paying the parents money in a desperate bid to silence them, further stating that many of the parents are traumatized and confused.
As reported in La Voix, according to a member of the medical staff, as well as a comment from Dr. Daugla Oumagoum Moto, the director of the Center of International Health Support (CSSI), the reactions that these children have suffered are not typical of this type of vaccine against meningitis, which they say are normally fever, vomiting, and headaches, not the adverse reactions experienced by the hospitalized children.
A HEARTFELT PLEA FOR HELP
Fearing for their children’s present and future health, parents of these vaccine-injured children have begun asking questions, such as:
1. Was this a faulty batch of vaccines?
2. Did the vaccinators inadvertently vaccinate using an unsafe product?
3. Was the product out of refrigeration too long?
4. Were the vaccinators fully trained?
This recently vaccinated child is being attended to after becoming paralyzed.
Mr. M. believes the children were left far too long without care and attention. He told me that, despite the state of the vulnerable children and many parents begging for help, the regional authorities failed to respond on time. The children were not seen by the only doctor in the region until a full week after their injuries!
He stated via email:
“In addition, the government and the media have gone silent about the tragedy, while there are still facts requiring clarification whatever contingencies. All this disturbs us and makes us fear the worst effects for the future. For the not knowing of what is going on behind the scenes of the Minister of Health or elsewhere (WHO, UNICEF). As parents our priorities is that how to tell our children, it is very sad that entire city is paralyzed. We are begging our government act quickly as possible to save our children but it is too slow and lack of motivation. Therefore we call assistance for everyone in the world to intervene.” (his exact words from an email)
President Idriss Deby Itno announced at the beginning of the campaign that the vaccine was safe, secure, and would protect citizens against meningitis for ten years. [6]
Gavi Alliance, a major financial partner in the project, which cost $571 million, stated:
“If all of this works like we think it is going to work, then we are going to eliminate these epidemics. Stop. Period,’ said Marc LaForce, Director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), a joint project involving PATH and WHO which developed MenAfriVac in less than ten years.” [7]
Both of these organizations appear to have been silent since the tragedy.
This tragedy raises many unanswered questions. Why were 500 children vaccinated in a region that has only one doctor, who was unable to provide advice or treatment for adverse events until one week later? Why did the manufacturer of MenAfriVac specifically advise that the product should be stored and transported at much lower temperatures than The Meningitis Project claimed? Why were the parents of these vaccine-injured children paid hush money?
Why are vaccines being pushed so strongly in a country which lacks clean drinking water and basic sanitation services? UNICEF blames Chad’s recurrent outbreaks of disease, including meningitis, on this vital, common-sense need. [8] Why have major organizations spent $571 million on a vaccination project, when wells to provide access to clean drinking water have been constructed for less than $3,000 by the International Committee of the Red Cross? [9]
How can at least 40 children become paralyzed after receiving a vaccine, and no news organizations provide coverage of this disturbing situation? The media has gone completely silent. There appear to be no reports of this incident on any government website. The only available information, apart from this one newspaper report, appears to be buried on a small blog titled Le blog de Makaila, which has been reporting regular updates on the situation. [10]
Where are statements from the involved organizations – WHO, GAVI, PATH, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Why has this vaccination program not been suspended? What are these organizations going to do about the atrocity that has happened in Gouro?
Bron: Vactruth.com
“The greatest lie ever told is that vaccines are safe and effective”
(Dr. Len Horowitz)
“The only wholly safe vaccine is the vaccine that is never used.”
(Dr J. Shannon of the National Institute of Health, U.S.A., June 23 1955)
Tientallen kinderen verlamd na meningitisprik.
Courts discreetly confirm MMR vaccine causes autism.
University of California Admits Polio Vaccine Causes…
Samoa Halts MMR Vaccine Program Following Death of Babies
Vaccine Court Awards Millions to Two Children With Autism
Previous Post:Courts discreetly confirm MMR vaccine causes autism.
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Demi Lovato's new man has a controversial, drug-inspired clothing line
Julie Tong
Yahoo Lifestyle November 7, 2018
Demi Lovato is spotted with a new man by her side, Henry Levy, after they grabbed drinks together in West Hollywood, Calif. (Photo: Backgrid)
Demi Lovato recently wrapped up a three-month stay in rehab, and in one of her first public appearances, the singer was spotted cozying up to a new mystery man in Los Angeles. His name is Henry Levy (although he often goes by Henri Alexander), and he is the 27-year-old fashion designer behind Enfants Riches Déprimés (French for “depressed rich kids”).
Although Levy is currently sober, he has a dizzying past filled with drug abuse, rehab, and relapse. He grew up in a privileged household where he spent his childhood visiting art museums and the opera. He even attended Le Rosey, one of the most prestigious and expensive boarding schools in the world, home to kings and princesses, in the Swiss Alps. However, he quickly became enthralled with the world of punk rock and drugs, entering rehab at age 15. This cycle continued into his time at UCLA’s art school. He did not graduate.
But Levy’s experience in rehab actually helped inspire his now-successful fashion company. “Being around those kids [in rehab], just their absurd entitlement and everything, definitely had an influence,” he said to Complex in 2016. “They don’t have to work a day in their lives, you know what I mean? Their complete existence is based around what other people think.”
It was Levy’s intimate connection with these other “depressed rich kids” that helped inform his clothing collection. He launched the label in 2012, and after only two months, it was picked up by Browns Fashion, a prestigious British department store. Rebecca Osei-Baidoo, the womenswear buyer at Browns, told Complex, “The first time we received the delivery of the caps and T-shirts, we posted it on Instagram with the caption ‘All you rich, depressed kids out there, this is for you.’ The phone in Focus didn’t stop ringing with people wanting to purchase the pieces.”
Enfants Riches Déprimés Printed T-Shirt, $515, italist.com, left; Enfants Riches Déprimés Slogan Printed T-Shirt, $395, thewebster.us.
The ERD label is also largely inspired by the punk rock music scene of the ’70s. Levy discovered the Sex Pistols and the Clash when he was just 11. But his love for punk rock music introduced him to the world of drugs, which led him to rehab, and thus this vicious cycle continued until he finally achieved sobriety. But it is this key theme of drugs that he brazenly showcases in his designs. In one example, he designed a T-shirt that says, “Puppy Saved From Overdose.” He’s also delved into Nazi imagery, designing a shirt with a Nazi duck, and in a recent design, he created a cartoon called “My Nazi Parents,” in which a rebellious son becomes angry with his parents for not locating a record. But one of his most disturbing designs is a T-shirt that depicts a naked woman masked, bound, and chained, with her underwear visibly pulled down to her feet.
It is clear that his complicated clothing line is not meant for the masses. “The best way for me to explain the brand is ‘elitist, nihilist couture,’” he told Complex. “The price point eliminates the masses, and the ideas eliminate the people who I don’t want, generally, in it, due to the dark nature.”
Enfants Riches Déprimés Subhumans Biker Jacket, $4,480, farfetch.com, left; Enfants Riches Déprimés Super Heroine Intarsia T-Shirt, $995, farfetch.com.
Levy purposely makes nothing in quantities greater than 100, and his price point is deliberately expensive. Tees cost several hundred dollars, and his studded leather jackets retail for well over a thousand. “Enfants Riches Déprimés is a place in which conceptual art, literature, music (punk, hardcore, dream pop, post punk, new wave…), abstract neo-expressionism and luxury meet,” Levy told Vogue Italia. “The luxury side is extremely important for me. It’s not for everyone.”
Yet, somehow, his method has worked. Today, his designs are sold in luxury retailers like Ssense, Farfetch, and the Webster. He has amassed a large celebrity fanbase that includes Jared Leto, Justin Bieber, and Courtney Love.
Perhaps it is Levy’s ability to translate the complex world of drugs, punk rock, and elitism into a tangible clothing line that his customers not only resonate with but want to project.
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The Bay's summer clearance is on now: Shop the best under $50 picks for men and women
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Watch This Film- The Manchurian Candidate
Posted on April 18, 2017 by Behind the Rabbit Productions
by Jason Godbey, Creative Director of Behind the Rabbit Productions
The Manchurian Candidate was directed by John Frankenheimer and stars Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh. Based on the book of the same name by Richard Condon, It’s the story of a decorated soldier who returns from the Korean War with a terrifying secret.
The film is a commentary on the McCarthy era in American history. It’s held up remarkably well over the years and is still relevant today. The Manchurian Candidate was later remade by Jonathan Demme in 2004 who changed the setting from Korean War to the Gulf War. Demme’s remake is a well-made film with strong performances from Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep, but nothing beats the original.
Casting and Directing Actors
They say that casting is 80% of directing, and I couldn’t agree more. For The Last Hit, we had to find two actors to tell a story with virtually no dialogue. Everything had to be told through their actions and expressions.
For the Hit Man character we had several actors audition, and because they were so different from one another, we would have had a much different movie depending on who we cast. Daniel Berkey made quite an impression when he read the role. I really liked his look. One look at him and we can see a character. He has a face that tells a story which is exactly what we needed for this role.
Casting the role of Anna was difficult. We needed someone who could be sympathetic without having a lot of time on screen. She has no dialogue whatsoever, so we needed someone who could communicate using only her physicality. Molly Grace Byrnes is not only beautiful, but she has a dance background and can express herself with movement. This also helped in the climatic scene when she had to fend off her attacker.
The Last Hit was made using just four rolls (100 feet) of 16mm film which gave us only 11 minutes of film stock. Because we had so little to work with, most of the setups were shot in one or two takes. We rehearsed each scene several times, set the performance, and then got the take. Because both Molly and Dan have theater training, they were able to use the rehearsal to perfect their performances.
Different actors have different ways of finding a character, so you’ll have to find what works for your cast. Talk to your actors about their backgrounds. Ask them about their experiences working with different directors. What did those directors say and do that helped or hurt them? All of these things will help you work with your actors to get the best performances.
BTRP Recommends-Electric Boogaloo
Posted on April 4, 2017 June 10, 2019 by Behind the Rabbit Productions
By Jason Godbey, Creative Director, Behind the Rabbit Productions
Electric Boogaloo -The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films is a documentary about Cannon Films, a legendary film studio that epitomized the words “fast, cheap, and out of control.” The studio was known for producing over-the-top 80s action flicks: The Delta Force, Death Wish II, Masters of the Universe, Cyborg and Over the Top.
This film explores the rise and fall of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the two Israeli cousins who founded Canon Films. We learn about their history of making films in Israel, their move to Hollywood, their success, and the fall of the studio into debt and disrepair.
The story of Golan and Globus is the American dream: two immigrants who come to America hit it big and revolutionize the way movies get made in the process. They were pioneers of the movie pre-sale. They would find financing for a film by selling the title and the star, their two big stars being Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson. They would come up with a title and a poster for the movie then say to a potential backer, “which Chuck do you want?” Once they secured the financing they would write the script and make the movie. At the time it was unheard of to sell a movie that didn’t exist, but now it’s a common practice to sell a film overseas based on the names attached to the project.
Electric Boogaloo... is a cautionary tale. Canon Films cranked out movies at a frantic pace, but Golan and Globus spent money faster than they could make it. It was filmmaking by assembly line, quantity over quality. They wanted so much to be legitimate movie producers, but their way of wheeling and dealing in the industry gave them a bad reputation. Unfortunately for the cousins, Canon grew too big too fast, and they ended up being victims of their own ambition.
However, there was some art in the assembly line. Even though they made schlocky action films like Ninja III: The Domination and Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, they also produced Love Streams by John Cassavetes and Otello by Franco Zeffirelli. Zeffirelli would later say Golan and Globus were the greatest producers he’d ever worked with because they gave him the freedom he needed to make his movie.
The documentary’s interviews are candid, funny, and unapologetic. We see a range of feelings from love to regret to bitterness to tenderness about the cousins and the films they made. You can feel the unbridled honesty of each subject coming through the screen.
If you like movies about Hollywood lore, Electric Boogaloo one of the best. It’s entertaining, funny, charming, and you can tell the filmmaker, Mark Hartley, has a real affinity for the material. It’s the kind of story that can only happen in Hollywood. A story that you’d swear was fiction if you didn’t know it was true.
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Bible > Philippians > Chapter 3 > Verse 5
◄ Philippians 3:5 ►
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
Being circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; according to the law, a Pharisee:
English Revised Version
Webster's Bible Translation
Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; with respect to the law, a Pharisee;
Weymouth New Testament
circumcised, as I was, on the eighth day, a member of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews; as to the Law a Pharisee;
Philippians 3:5 Parallel
Vincent's Word Studies
Circumcised the eighth day (περιτομῇ ὀκταήμερος)
Lit., eight days old in circumcision; or passing the eighth day. For the idiom, see on John 11:39, and compare Acts 28:13. Converts to Judaism were circumcised in maturity: Ishmaelites in their thirteenth year. He was thus shown to be neither a heathen nor an Ishmaelite.
Of the stock of Israel
Not a proselyte, but of the original stock (γένους); not grafted into the covenant race. A descendant of Jacob, not an Idumaean nor an Ishmaelite. For Israel, see on Acts 3:12, and compare Romans 9:4; Romans 11:1; John 1:47. Descended not from Jacob, the supplanter, but from Israel, the prince of God. See Genesis 32:28.
Of the tribe of Benjamin
Not from one of the lost tribes, but from that which gave to Israel its first king; which alone was faithful to Judah at the separation under Rehoboam, and which had always held the post of honor in the army. See Judges 5:14; Hosea 5:8. Benjamin only of the twelve patriarchs was born in the land of promise. Mordecai, the deliverer of the Jews from Haman was a Benjamite. Paul's own original name, Saul, was probably derived from Saul the son of Kish, the Benjamite.
A Hebrew of the Hebrews (Ἑβραῖος ἐξ Ἑβραίων)
The (Hebrews) of the A.V. gives a wrong coloring to the phrase, as if Paul were claiming to be preeminently a Hebrew among other Hebrews. He means a Hebrew from (ἐξ) Hebrew parents. Rev., a Hebrew of Hebrews, which is no special improvement. The expression implies characteristics of language and manners. He might be an Israelite and yet a child of Greek-speaking Jews: but his parents had retained their native tongue and customs, and he himself, while understanding and speaking Greek, also spoke in Hebrew on occasion. See Acts 21:40; Acts 22:2.
The Mosaic law. See on Romans 2:12. The validity of that law was the principle upheld by the Judaizers.
A Pharisee
See Acts 23:6; Galatians 1:14. Compare on the whole verse, 2 Corinthians 11:22.
Philippians 3:5 Parallel Commentaries
Genesis 17:12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house...
Luke 2:21 And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS...
John 7:21-24 Jesus answered and said to them, I have done one work, and you all marvel...
of the stock.
Acts 22:3 I am truly a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel...
2 Corinthians 11:22 Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.
of the tribe.
Romans 11:1 I say then, Has God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Genesis 14:13 And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelled in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol...
Genesis 40:15 For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon...
Genesis 41:12 And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the captain of the guard; and we told him...
1 Samuel 4:6 And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What means the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews?...
Jonah 1:9 And he said to them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which has made the sea and the dry land.
Acts 6:1 And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews...
Pharisee.
Acts 23:6 But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brothers...
Acts 26:4,5 My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among my own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews...
And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father,
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.
"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.
Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, "Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial."
"My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews.
They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee.
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
Benjamin Born Circumcised Circumcision Eighth Hebrew Hebrews Israel Law Member Nation Pharisee Race Received Regard Relation Respect Sprung Stock Touching Tribe
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ESV Text Edition: 2016. The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
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Season 5 of Arrested Development is coming to Netflix in 2018!
A few days ago, Jason Bateman announced on Twitter that he had signed a deal for the long awaited 5th season of Arrested Development on Netflix. Today, it’s announced that the entire cast and crew have signed on to come back to reprise their roles in one of the funniest television shows to ever grace the small screen. Michael Cera, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, Portia de Rossi, David Cross and Alia Shawkat, and Bateman will be coming back, along with show creator Mitch Hurwitz. Netflix doesn’t have an exact date yet, but it will premiere sometime in 2018.
‘The Angry Birds Movie’ Sequel Is A Go At Rovio!!!
‘The Angry Birds Movie‘ made such a giant splash for Rovio Entertainment Ltd. that a sequel has been announced. This one is kind of a “Duh!” move, but I’m glad it’s officially in the works. I think I probably enjoyed the movie more than my kids did, but it was something we kept talking about for a few days after. Read the rest of this entry »
Rundown of Winner From 67th Annual Emmy Awards!!!
by Red Zeppelbon on Sep 21st, 2015
In case you missed it last night, we’ve got a run-down of the big winners from the 67th Annual Emmy Awards. Now when you’re standing around the water cooler this morning, you can sound like you watched the whole thing, even if you watched WWE’s Night of Champions, instead. You missed that, too? We’ve got you covered there, as well, just click here. We’re there for you, like ‘Friends‘, only we’re the nerdy, geeky and more awesome version.
Brace Yourself! Winter is Coming Back April 12th!
by Gumbercules9000 on Jan 8th, 2015
Hi everyone, Bryan Here…
Season five of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones‘ will premiere on April 12th. On that same night, ‘Veep‘ will premiere its 4th season and ‘Silicon Valley‘ will premiere its 2nd season. That’s all pretty exciting. And don’t forget, you’ll be able to see a couple of the episodes of ‘Game of Thrones‘ Season 4 on the IMAX soon. If you’ve read the books, you know Season five will be a real treat.
‘Yoga Hosers’ Brings Johnny Depp and Kevin Smith Together…And Their Daughters!!!
There are few actors as widely known in Hollywood as Johnny Depp is right now. If you take his fan base and star power and attach it to a writer-filmmaker of remarkable erudition like Kevin Smith, what results is going to be momentous. Smith has a farcical sense of humor and everything he writes is peppered with the same wry commentary that is fan-freaking-tastic!
Here Are the 65th Annual Primetime Emmy Nominations!!!
by Gumbercules9000 on Jul 18th, 2013
The 65th annual Emmy nominations were announced early this morning, and some well deserved shows were mentioned. Notably, ‘House of Cards‘ and ‘Arrested Development‘ were nominated, making Netflix a heavy hand this year at the awards. ‘Mad Men’, ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Game of Thrones’, and ‘Homeland’ were also nominated. Below is the partial list of nominations. Let us know if you think your favorite show was snubbed this year.
HBO renews ‘Girls’ and ‘Veep’ For Second Seasons!!!
by Gumbercules9000 on Apr 30th, 2012
HBO has renewed its comedy lineup of ‘Girls’ and ‘Veep’ for a second season consisting of ten episodes each. Congratulations to everyone involved in both shows. Below is the official press release from HBO.
HBO Offering Free Programming On A Couple of Their New Shows!!!
HBO will be offering free programming to two of its newest comedy series, ‘Girls’ and ‘Veep’ on multiple formats. They will be available for free the day after their debuts on HBO and will only consist of the pilot episodes of both series. They will be available on HBO.com, YouTube, DailyMotion, TV.com, and multiple distributors’ Free On Demand platforms.
Netflix Picks Up New Episodes Of ‘Arrested Development’!!!
We reported a few weeks ago that Arrested Development would begin a new season after a few year hiatus. Several networks including Netflix were trying to get the rights to hit comedy series. Will it looks like Netflix has won that battle. Surprising move, but I think it will do very very well on Netflix. But over the past few months Netflix has lost almost 1 million subscribers due to their hefty price increase in return for doing absolutely nothing to improve the service. I was one of those subscribers who cancelled, but fuck….now I have to reinstate my account. I just hope Netflix distributes their original series in physical form. If they don’t I will be super pissed. Read the press release below.
‘Arrested Development’ Coming Back to Television for New Season Plus Feature Film!!!
by Gumbercules9000 on Oct 2nd, 2011
“Arrested Development” is back. Really.
The cult classic television comedy about the travails of the rich, zany Bluth family, cancelled in 2006 after three seasons, will produce nine to ten new episodes and a movie, it was announced at The New Yorker Festival on Sunday.
Jana’s Best of 2017!!!
by Red Zeppelbon on Jan 1st, 2018
I know these “Best of 2017” lists should technically be published in 2017, but why would I start 2018 any differently than I lived the majority of my adult life: Procrastinating and underachieving. What can I say? That’s my wheelhouse.
For a year that put a spotlight on some of the shittiest behavior by some of the Hollywood elite, it was actually a good year for TV and movies. I didn’t limit myself in number because as I moved on with the brackets, I felt like I was making ‘Sophie’s Choice‘ on some of these, so they’re all getting in! I’m feeling my inner-Oprah here, You’ve made the list! You made the list! EVERYBODY made the list!! In order to spare myself any arguments, I’m stating up front that my picks for the “Best of 2017” are not edited in regards to scandal or hideous human behavior.
We’ve Got The Schedule For The Dallas International Film Festival 2017!!!
by Red Zeppelbon on Mar 15th, 2017
The upcoming 11th edition of the Dallas International Film Festival, or DIFF, opens March 30 and runs through April 9 for 2017. The festival will celebrate the year of 1967 with a salute to films from that year and we’ve got the full schedule here.
Big Casting News For ‘Roots’ Remake!!!!
The remake business has been booming for quite a few years and A&E has made some big progress with their new rendition of the seminal classic, ‘Roots‘. The classic story by Alex Haley telling the story of Kunta Kinte. Kinte is a Gambian ancestor of Haley’s who was brought to America via the Atlantic slave trade and his experience in America and that of his ancestors. Although the author claims his account is true, there have been many who have disputed Haley’s connection to Kinte.
Forest Whitaker Making Broadway Debut in ‘Hughie’ Revival!!!
Forest Whitaker hasn’t come across much he hasn’t been able to do well in his career and now he’s expanding his talents to leading a play on Broadway. He’s made one hell of an impressive name for himself as an actor in films like ‘Platoon‘, ‘The Last King of Scotland‘ and in ‘Lee Daniels The Butler‘.
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Tag Archive for: Government Corruption
Climate Change, Corruption, Global Poverty, Turkmenistan
Road to Progress: Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in central Asia with a long history of poverty. It is important to first identify the issues affecting poverty in the country, and then look at what is being done to address them. Here are ten facts about poverty in Turkmenistan:
10 Facts About Poverty in Turkmenistan
According to the Asian Development Bank, only 15 percent of the population used the internet in 2015. This statistic shows a lack of access to not only the internet and technology, but also to disposable income and affordable energy.
Also in 2015, the Turkmenistan currency was devalued by 19 percent, which was the first drop in almost seven years. Bloomberg noted that Turkmenistan and neighboring nations would need to devalue the currency in order to keep their exports competitive.
Although the definitions for appropriate living standards defer in Turkmenistan, the World Bank reports that 58 percent of the population receives cash incomes below the official national minimum wage. According to the government, however, having 50 percent of the national median income indicates unacceptable living conditions; only 1 percent of the population falls below this line.
According to the World Bank, in 2016 the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $36.18 billion; in comparison, the United States’ GDP is around $18 trillion.
Carbon dioxide emissions are also a good indicator of a country’s development and urbanization. With a 2014 population of 5,466,241, Turkmenistan produced 12.517 metric tons of CO2 per capita. This high level of CO2 production — compared to a relatively small population — indicates unsustainable and slow development, as well as low access to clean energy sources.
There are only 26 registered refugees in Turkmenistan, but it is likely that this number is actually much higher. The United Nations Human Rights Commission once estimated 40,000 refugees in the nation but indicates that most of them have become naturalized citizens.
In 2011, Transparency International named Turkmenistan as the third most corrupt country in the world; this corruption is preventing genuine change that could reduce poverty in the nation.
According to the United Nations Development Program, Turkmenistan has an adult literacy rate of 99.6 percent, which is extremely high for a nation with such high poverty levels; this indicates strong education systems in the country.
In 2012, Turkmenistan adopted the National Climate Change Strategy, which aimed to develop more efficient resource use, a greener economy and lower carbon dioxide emissions.
According to the Turkmenistan government, 75 percent of the national budget was dedicated to the implementation of the National Programme (2007- 2020) on Improving Social and Living Conditions of People in 2012. This funding demonstrates at least an intention to improve the lives of Turkmenistan residents.
Based on these facts about poverty in Turkmenistan, the country has a lot of work to do. Plans need to be improved for reducing poverty, improving the standard of living and becoming more transparent as a nation. Government corruption also needs to be addressed before real change can be made.
Finally, Turkmenistan needs all the assistance it can get from organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank, as this will speed up the process of improving the lives of those in the country.
– Liyanga de Silva
February 26, 2018 /by Borgen Project
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Africa, Angola, Global Poverty, Oil Reserves, War and Violence
Poverty in Angola: Oil, Corruption and Land Grabs
Poverty in Angola runs high; roughly 40 percent of the population currently lives below the poverty line. The combination of a long, drawn-out civil war, systematic political corruption and economic crisis have prevented the country from establishing itself as a stable and prosperous state since Angola received its independence from Portugal in 1975.
While Angola does not have many lucrative exports, oil does make an important contribution to the country’s economy. Between 2006 and 2016, it accounted for as much as 97 percent of exports on average each year and, while there has been some reinvestment into national infrastructure, the president, José Eduardo dos Santos, has received criticism for not redistributing the profits fairly and using the financial boost from oil exports to reduce poverty in Angola as much as he could have.
Beyond its meddling in the oil industry, other forms of government corruption and nepotism are also rife in Angola. One particularly prominent example is the appointment of the president’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, to the position of chief executive of the state-run oil firm in 2016. Forbes ranks her the richest woman in Africa, and she has an estimated net worth of more than $3 billion. Meanwhile, there is extreme poverty in much of Angola and subsistence farming is the main source of income for the majority of her countrymen and women.
This over-reliance on oil causes another problem: Angola is especially vulnerable to the fluctuations in the global oil market. Just last year, a global drop in oil prices resulted in an economic catastrophe for Angola. This triggered a rise in prices on everything from food and fuel to healthcare, putting an even greater strain on the country’s poorest inhabitants. The situation was exacerbated when the government imposed tough austerity measures, a move the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights deemed regressive and concerning.
Meanwhile, in a bid to diversify the economy with additional sources of revenue, huge land grabs have taken place at the hands of government officials and private businesses. In many cases, citizens have been forcibly evicted without adequate housing alternatives and proper compensation. Instead, they have been resettled in makeshift housing with little access to amenities such as healthcare, education, water and electricity.
Even before this move, access to healthcare and education has been severely limited, helping to reinforce a cycle of poverty. So while progress – although slow – has been made in both areas since peace was established in 2002, there is still much progress to be made. More investment is needed in the country’s public services to alleviate levels of poverty in Angola.
– Rosie McCall
June 2, 2017 /by Borgen Project
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Foreign Aid, Global Poverty, Protest, Venezuela
U.S. House Votes to Support People of Venezuela
On March 4, in a simple resolution, an overwhelming majority in the United States House of Representatives agreed to support the people of Venezuela as they protest peacefully for democratic change and call for an end to the escalating violence in the South American country.
The resolution comes on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the passing of Hugo Chavez, who succumbed to cancer after 14 years as the president of Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro took over leadership and has carried on the Chavez legacy with state-controlled economic policies that are now under criticism by anti-government demonstrations. At least 18 people have been killed since the protests began in early February.
The buildup towards the recent student-led protests came from hyperinflation, a shortage of basics, spiraling murder rates and a general decline in living standards. Presently, Venezuelans cannot get basics such as toilet paper, rice, coffee and corn flour. Last year, almost 25,000 homicides took place in the country. Protesters claim that the government is corrupt, undemocratic and is ruining the economy.
On February 12, Venezuela’s National Youth Day, students led a peaceful anti-government protest. The Venezuelan military responded with gas bombs and guns to control the crowds. Leopoldo Lopez, leader of the opposition party Voluntad Popular, was arrested later in the month and is currently being held in a military prison. Amnesty International states that the arrest of Lopez is a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent in the country.
The Venezuelan government has implemented a number of policies in reaction to the protests. It declared three consular officers at the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela personae non gratae, or un-welcomed, adding to eight other American officials who were expelled in 2013. The Venezuelan government has also taken control of television, radio and the internet. It blocked online images of the marchers, shut down Twitter, has taken Colombian news channel NTN 24 off the air and threatens to expel CNN.
The House Representatives agreed that the U.S. Government should support the free and peaceful exercise of representative democracy in Venezuela, condemning violence and intimidation against the country’s political opposition, and calling for dialogue between all political actors in the country.
The House resolution just passed urges the international community to stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela and to actively encourage a process of dialogue between the government of Venezuela and the political opposition to end the violence there. It also believes that the Organization of American States should respond to the erosion of democratic norms and institutions in member states.
Additionally, it deems that the U.S. Department of State should work in concert with other countries in the Americas to take meaningful steps to ensure that basic fundamental freedoms in Venezuela are in accordance with the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Lastly, The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanded that the Venezuelan Government adopt measures which guarantee the rights to life such as humane treatment, security, political rights, the right of assembly, and the rights of freedom of association and freedom of expression.
– Maria Caluag
Sources: GovTrak, BBC, Amnesty International
Photo: Los Angeles Times
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Europe, Global Poverty, Politics and Political Attention
Protesters Make Strides Against Ukrainian Government
After nearly two months of protest movements ranging across cities of Ukraine, protesters have made landmark achievements towards a government void of corruption.
The social turmoil began when President Viktor Yanukovych backed out of a trade deal with the European Union and went on to receive a $15 billion bailout from Russia. However, anti-protest legislation introduced two weeks ago are what caused the protests to magnify and eventually turn violent.
Since then, opposition movements have placed significant political pressure on Ukrainian leaders. As of January 18, controversial anti-protest laws have been repealed and the very unpopular Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resigned from office.
Azarov’s resignation followed President Yanukovych offering of the Prime Minister job and other senior positions to opposition leaders. The opposition ended up rejecting the deal, asserting that they do not plan on letting up. They continue to press for new and early elections and there are still many negotiations to be made between the Ukrainian government and opposition.
So far, the opposition movements are calling for, “an end to government corruption, freedom for political prisoners and for Ukraine to be aligned with the European Union and not Russia.”
The Ukrainian government also recently signed in a conditional amnesty law for captured activists in which protesters would be given at 15-day deadline to leave the government buildings that are occupied. This also comes after recently allegations of the Ukrainian government for abducting and torturing citizens, including the opposition activist, Dmytro Bulatov.
As the situation in Ukraine has already been established as a human rights nightmare, it is increasingly becoming one with more information on government allegations surfacing. The United Nations Human Rights office has also gotten involved by condemning the cases of torture and is now calling on the Ukraine government to further investigate the situation.
Although the opposition movements in Ukraine have gained significant ground with the resignation of Prime Minister Azarov, the repeal of anti-protest legislation and now with the law of amnesty for all of the political prisoners (as long as protesters vacate government buildings), they are still calling for new elections.
It is unclear at this point, how much further the tension between the Ukrainian government and opposition will last. However, on an international scale, people are weighing in to attempt to resolve the issue.
As a consistent critical of the Ukrainian government’s handling of the past two months, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated that, “Ukrainian president’s offers needed to improve if the opposition were to take them seriously.”
– Jugal Patel
Sources: BBC, BBC-2, Al Jazeera, Global News
Photo: Voice of America
February 9, 2014 /by Borgen Project
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Finnish Elite League Teammates, Opponents Impressed With Bruins Prospect Urho Vaakanainen
Filed Under:Boston Bruins, Local TV, Matt Kalman, NHL, Urho Vaakanainen
By Matt Kalman, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) — Brett Carson is a 32-year-old defenseman with 90 games of NHL experience.
This past season he played for SaiPa in the Finnish Elite League and had no problem communicating on a regular basis with his defense partner, Bruins 2017 first-round draft pick Urho Vaakanainen.
“We’d go back and forth and talk about things. He’d tell me something he wanted me to do and I’d do the same with him,” Carson told CBS Boston this week. “Sometimes young guys wouldn’t say that much, but he wasn’t afraid. We helped each other out. And even just the way he presents himself at the rink, comes in and works. You could see he knew what he had to do to be a professional.”
Vaakanainen’s confidence to go back and forth with his teammate about strategies and his maturity to stand up to the rigors of playing at such a high level of the sport impressed Carson even more because Vaakanainen didn’t turn 19 until Jan. 1.
“You wouldn’t have even thought that he was even that young of a kid,” Carson said. “I had to keep reminding myself that he was still a junior-age kid, an 18-year-old kid.”
Coming off a 43-game season with SaiPa that saw him notch 11 points (four goals, seven assists) and average around 23 minutes of ice time per game (Bruins general manager Don Sweeney’s estimate), the Bruins are looking forward to bringing Vaakanainen to North America for the upcoming season. Sweeney said Thursday the plan is to get the 2017 18th overall selection signed soon, and add him to the mix for a spot in Boston or Providence this fall.
Urho Vaakanainen poses for photos after being selected 18th overall by the Boston Bruins during the 2017 NHL Draft. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Cody Kunyk, a 28-year-old forward for SaiPa with one NHL game of experience, was as impressed as Carson was by Vaakanainen’s play.
“He’s very poised for being such a young guy,” Kunyk said. “When he chooses to skate end to end, it almost looks effortless. And I feel like just playing in the American League and playing in Finland now, the two leagues are very, very similar. Obviously in North America you get more physical for sure, but he’s such a smooth skater and his smarts and he makes unbelievable great first passes and stuff like that. For being that young, it’s honest unbelievable.”
Unbiased reports from SM-liiga can be hard to come by, but veteran forward Eric Perrin played against Vaakanainen in the 2018 playoffs. Perrin, a 42-year-old with 245 games of NHL experience with Tampa Bay and Atlanta, played for the heavily favored TPS Turku. His team won, but the young SaiPa squad gave them a hard time in a six-game series. Few players on SaiPa were as difficult for Perrin to deal with as Vaakanainen.
“He was their best defenseman by far,” Perrin said. “I just remember [him] always being on the ice, doing really good things and that stands out to me. … These little things that we know, usually you say to your guys ‘get on their D, they’re having a hard time.’ But he wasn’t one of those guys that we were talking about. It was other guys. So we knew we had to kind of more keep an eye on him, because he joined the rush, things like that, that we had to stay aware about him at all times.
“He was reliable both sides of the ice. It wasn’t just offensively, he did a pretty good job as a young guy. Maybe physically not all the way developed yet, but he had a really good effort on defense as well,” added Perrin.
Players who witnessed Vaakanainen play this season unanimously said his skating is NHL caliber. He still has to fill out his 6-foot frame and work on his shot, so no one wanted to guarantee a 2018-19 NHL arrival.
But there’s no telling what this summer will provide in terms of Vaakanainen’s development, and Perrin didn’t want to rule anything out as far as the defenseman getting to the NHL within a year.
“He has all the tools, that’s for sure,” Perrin said.
The Finnish League is tough. But as Kunyk put it, “the American League … it’s also pretty different with guys running around trying to prove themselves every night just to get a call-up.” Like many defensemen, Vaakanainen could probably use a little more seasoning, and it wouldn’t hurt if he matched up against the physicality of the AHL before trying to skate on a pair with Charlie McAvoy or Brandon Carlo.
Nonetheless, it appears the Bruins have again hit with a draft pick that was initially described as a reach by draft pundits when the pick was made. And those panicking about the Bruins’ lack of depth on the left side of their defense corps behind Zdeno Chara and Torey Krug may have their worries calmed pretty soon because there’s a mature 19-year-old on his way.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @MattKalman.
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Home Blog BGN News Beat: The Week’s Biggest Headlines
BGN News Beat: The Week’s Biggest Headlines
Mel Perez
What’s going on in the TV world?
Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger – Promo Spot
Marvel has released a new promo for their upcoming series, Cloak and Dagger. The series will debut on Freeform on June 7 with a world premiere at SXSW on March 11. It follows two teenagers, Tyrone Johnson (Aubrey Joseph) and Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) from different backgrounds. They find out they have superpowers that are linked together. Tyrone can engulf things in darkness and Tandy can emit light daggers. They have to find a way to work together though their feelings may end up getting in the way. The first episode is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, Shots Fired).
Idris Elba is coming back to TV in a series called In the Long Run. Loosely based on his life, Elba will be Walter, the patriarch of the Easmon family. They moved from Sierra Leone to 1980s London. He works in the local factory with his friend and neighbor Bagpipes played by Bill Bailey. Their lives are upended when Walter’s brother arrives in London bringing chaos in his wake and igniting a passion for music in Walter’s son. Elba also serves as an executive producer for the series. It will air on the Sky network in the U.K.
Chosen Jacobs, who played Mike Hanlon in IT and Will Grover in Hawaii Five-O, will be joining the cast of Hulu’s Castle Rock. André Holland stars in the series as Henry Deaver, a death row attorney with a complicated history with Castle Rock, Maine. Jacobs will have a recurring role as his son, Wendell Deaver. Castle Rock serves as the setting for a number of Stephen King’s novels and short stories. The 10 episode series also stars Melanie Lynskey, Jane Levy, Sissy Spacek, Bill Skarsgård, Scott Glenn and Terry O’Quinn.
Priah Ferguson had her breakout role as the scene-stealing little sister of Lucas Sinclair in the second season of Stranger Things. For the third season she’s been promoted from a guest star to a recurring character. This time she will have her own group of friends who aren’t content to sit on the sidelines. Instead, they go on their own mission to save Hawkins from a dangerous threat. As of now, a production date hasn’t been set for the third season.
TNT’s Snowpiercer TV series adaptation has found a new showrunner in Orphan Black co-creator Graeme Manson. Last month Josh Friedman left the show over creative differences. He was also the writer of the pilot. “Graeme’s extensive background in the sci-fi genre coupled with his brilliant work behind Orphan Black made him the perfect choice for this series,” said Sarah Aubrey, Executive Vice President of Original Programming for TNT. “He is the best conductor to navigate the thought-provoking and delicate themes of the series while bringing this frozen, futuristic world to life.” Jennifer Connolly and Daveed Diggs will be starring in the TV series.
Jane the Virgin‘s Gina Rodriguez will soon be guest starring in Fox’s award-winning comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. No details have been confirmed about her role yet but Rodriguez has previously expressed interest in playing the girlfriend of Stephanie Beatriz’s Rosa Diaz. This season Diaz came out as bisexual. Judging by the post Terry Crews made (and then deleted) to his Instagram, Rodriguez might actually be playing Diaz’s love interest. Bisexuals on TV are rare with Latinx bisexuals being that much rarer. It would be nice to get that representation.
SYFY has renewed supernatural drama The Magicians for a fourth season. From Sera Gamble, the series is based on Lev Grossman’s books of the same name. Jason Ralph, Stella Maeve, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Hale Appleman, Arjun Gupta, Summer Bishil, Rick Worthy and Jade Tailor star as a group of novice magicians trying to find their way in the unfamiliar and dangerous world of Fillory.
Finally, in a new segment I write about all the news concerning TV pilots:
Pilots Corner
Jessica Alba has just joined the cast of NBC’s untitled Bad Boys spinoff. She will co-star opposite Gabrielle Union. The series revolves around former DEA agent Syd Burnett played by Union who is reprising her role from Bad Boys II. She is starting a new life as an LAPD detective. Her new partner, Nancy McKenna played by Alba, is a working mom who can’t help but look at Syd’s freedom with some grass-is-greener envy. Though the two have different lifestyles and professional approaches, they’re both at the top of their field and have to find a way to work together. A release date hasn’t been announced.
After her turn in ABC’s canceled freshman comedy The Mayor, Yvette Nicole Brown has been tapped to star in Most Likely To, another ABC comedy. Written by Diablo Cody, the series follows Liz Cooney who had everything in high school and Markie McQueen, who had nothing. Twenty years later, they find themselves living under the same roof as single mothers. Brown will play McQueen who is described as “radiant and warm, quietly confident, with a successful salon and brilliant daughter — but her insecurities are reignited when her high school bully arrives in town.” The series will be produced by Greg Berlanti.
Lorraine Toussaint will be starring alongside The Soprano‘s Dominic Chianese in the NBC drama pilot The Village. Toussaint has had roles in Rosewood and Orange is the New Black. The Village is described as a “sprawling ensemble drama. Despite differences in age, race, culture, and lifestyle, the residents of a Manhattan apartment building find that the more their lives intertwine, the more complex and compelling their connections become, thus proving that life’s challenges are better faced alongside family, even if it’s the one you make wherever you find it.” Toussaint will play Patricia, a social worker who becomes a caretaker for everyone else. She will also have a series regular role in the upcoming third season of AMC’s Into the Badlands.
Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon are teaming to executive produce and star in a limited series adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere. The series is based on the novel by Celeste Ng and is being produced by ABC Signature Studios, Washington’s Simpson Street and Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. They are currently shopping the series around to premium cable and streaming platforms. Washington and Simpson Street also recently sold the Man of the House pilot starring Alyson Hannigan to ABC.
'The Lion King' Review: Some Animated Classics Should Just Be Left Alone
That’s a FANTASTIC idea! Done.
Avengers: #InfinityWar in theaters everywhere April 27th. pic.twitter.com/n5JhJWpnqc
— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) March 1, 2018
In a twitter exchange with Robert Downey Jr., Marvel announced that they would be moving the release date for Avengers: Infinity War a week up to April 27. The announcement came out of nowhere and quickly spread across social media. This wasn’t the only announcement out of parent company Disney. This week they also announced that their live-action Mulan will be pushed back from November 2, 2018 to March 27, 2020. They also shared the release dates for more than 20 untitled projects, stretching all the way through 2023.
Fahrenheit 451 (2018) Official Teaser ft. Michael B. Jordan & Michael Shannon | HBO
HBO released the teaser trailer for its film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 literary classic, Fahrenheit 451. Black Panther‘s Michael B. Jordan stars as a 30-year-old firemen named Guy Montag. He becomes increasingly discontent living in a world where media is a drug and firemen burn books. When he decides to make a change, he comes into opposition with his mentor played by Michael Shannon. Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s Laura Harrier, Sofia Boutella, and Lily Singh also star in the film. Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes) is directing and co-writing the adaptation along with Amir Naderi. Jordan is executive producing through his Outlier Productions company.
Academy award winners Viola Davis and Lupita Nyong’o will be teaming up for TriStar Pictures’ The Woman King. The film is being described as “inspired by true events that took place in the Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Woman King tells the story of Nanisca (Davis), general of the all-female military unit known as the Amazons, and her daughter, Nawi (Nyong’o), who together fought the French and neighboring tribes who violated their honor, enslaved their people and threatened to destroy everything they’ve lived for.” The idea for the film comes from Maria Bello who will producing through her Jack Blue Productions.
Rick Famuyiwa will write and direct Black Hole, the new fantasy thriller from New Regency and Plan B. Based on the graphic novel written by Charles Burns, Black Hole is set in the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s. It follows a group of high school students who all contract a mysterious, sexually transmitted disease known as The Bug. The syndrome causes physical mutations and the students and their community have to deal with the fallout. Famuyiwa wrote and directed 2015’s Dope, The Wood, Brown Sugar, and Our Family Wedding and the HBO movie Confirmation. He also directed the first episode of The Chi. New Regency and Plan B previously worked together on 12 Years a Slave and The Big Short.
Netflix has ordered a new feature film entitled Past Midnight. Rick Famuyiwa is set to direct from a script by TJ Fixman. They’re hoping to get John Wick‘s Keanu Reeves to star. While few details are known about the film, it’s being described as a new kind of vigilante superhero. Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of two of the Captain America films and Avengers: Infinity War, will produce.
Will Packer is teaming up with Universal Pictures for the action comedy Fight Night. The film is set in 1970 on the eve of Muhammad Ali’s comeback fight. It follows the true story of Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams, an Atlanta-based hustler who throws a post-fight party that is attended by the most dangerous gangsters in the country. They’re all robbed at gunpoint for more than $1 million dollars. It was the largest heist in Georgia history. The script will be written by Lars Jacobson. Packer will producer through his Will Packer Productions.
Gina Rodriguez will soon be producing and starring in a Netflix romantic comedy entitled Someone Great. Sweet/Vicious‘ Jennifer Kaytin Robinson will make her feature directorial debut and write the script. The film follows Rodriguez’s character as she goes on an adventure with friends in New York City after experiencing a tough breakup. They’re aiming to start filming in April. Rodriguez will also star as the voice of Carmen Sandiego in the upcoming Netflix revival set to premiere in 2019.
Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley's 'Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism' is Lemonade Literature
In Black Panther news, it won its second weekend at the box office with a worldwide gross of $748.1 million. It just passed Wonder Woman and Toy Story 3 in top domestic gross sellers. Following in the footsteps of T’Challa’s outreach initiative, Disney is donating $1 million dollars to help open STEM centers across the country. Black Panther‘s award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter will be joining the team behind Silver & Black. It will be the second Marvel film coming out of Sony following Venom. Gina Prince-Bythewood is directing, making her the first Black woman to direct a major superhero film.
Patty Jenkins is returning to direct the sequel to Wonder Woman which will see Gal Gadot reprise her now iconic role. This time she will also be writing and producing. Warner Bros. and Jenkins are eyeing Kristen Wiig for the role of the villain, Cheetah. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Wiig is currently in talks to join the film. The only thing we know about the film so far besides the villain is that it will be set in the 1980s against the backdrop of the Cold War.
It doesn’t look like Fox’s merger with Disney is halting Fox’s production of X-Men films. They plan on releasing the Deadpool sequel on May 18 and X-Men: Dark Phoenix on November 2. After that, three X-Men movies for 2019 and another three in 2020 are in the works. This includes the unnamed project between Brian Michael Bendis and Deadpool director Tim Miller. In addition to the X-Men films, Fox recently announced that they’re developing a Silver Surfer film written by Brian K. Vaughan. Vaughan is the co-creator of Marvel’s Runaways with artist Adrian Alphona. You can see the adaptation of the series on Hulu and read our interview with one of the stars here.
Doctor Strange‘s Benedict Wong has joined the cast of Ang Lee’s Gemini Man. In the film, Will Smith stars as Henry Brogan, an elite assassin who is targeted by a younger version of himself also played by Smith. Clive Owen stars as a co-villain along with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the female lead. Wong’s role is currently unknown. He was recently in Annihilation and will reprise his Doctor Strange role in Avengers: Infinity War.
Finally, at the Independent Spirit Awards Saturday night, Get Out went home with the top honor of Best Feature. Jordan Peele also won for Best Director. “I think it’s clear to everybody in this room and across the country and across the world that we are in the beginning of a renaissance right now where stories from the outsider, stories from the people in this room — the same stories that independent filmmakers have been telling for years — are being honored and recognized and celebrated,” Peele said, accepting the Best Feature award. “I’m so proud to be here with this group of people receiving this.” Jordan Peele also took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay at last night’s Academy Awards.
In 2016 novelist Ta-Nehisi Coates relaunched the Black Panther series for Marvel comics. Two spin-offs – Black Panther and the Crew and Black Panther: World of Wakanda (the latter written by Roxane Gay) – soon followed. Now Coates will be adding his talent to writing Captain America. “Captain America, the embodiment of a kind of Lincolnesque optimism, poses a direct question for me: Why would anyone believe in The Dream?” Coates wrote in a piece for The Atlantic announcing the new series. “What is exciting here is not some didactic act of putting my words in Captain America’s head, but attempting to put Captain America’s words in my head. What is exciting is the possibility of exploration, of avoiding the repetition of a voice I’ve tired of.” Coates will also continue writing Black Panther.
Speaking of Black Panther, in 2010 BET released a short-lived six episode Black Panther animated series. From famed writer, director, and producer Reginald Hudlin, the series focused on T’Challa dealing with the death of his father, jealously within the Wakandan royal court and trying to find who killed his father. Hudlin also wrote the comic book version of Black Panther, introducing his marriage to Storm and his younger half-sister Shuri. The series featured an all-star lineup of voices including Djimon Hounsou as T’Challa, Kerry Washington as Princess Shuri, Alfre Woodard as Dondi Reese, Jill Scott as Storm and Phil Morris as W’Kabi. Stan Lee even voiced a main character named General Wallace. With the success of the Black Panther film, BET has made the animated series available again.
#TBT Black Panther vs Captain America EP 1
We are bringing the culture back for #TBT with a vintage cartoon series of the SMASH hit Black Panther. Check out all 6 episodes to see if you can identify some of the legendary voices behind these characters.
Posted by BET on Thursday, March 1, 2018
If you have anything I missed, email me at mel@blackgirlnerds.com or tweet me at @jane_anon. Check back in next Monday for all the exciting news happening next week.
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Writer. Podcast contributor. Costume design enthusiast. Lover of fantasy movies from the 1980s and bizarre deep sea creatures. Can be found tweeting about comics, Yuri on Ice, Doctor Who or Star Wars at @jane_anon or on the Nerds of Prey podcast.
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‘Cats’ Trailer Opens With the Classic Number “Memory” and It Gives Goosebumps!
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“The Lost Sister” Elevates An Already Excellent ‘Stranger Things 2’ With...
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Today in Military History – May 30th – Japanese Banzai Attack in Alaska
By Rich Military Military History
Japan attacked and invaded the United States Alaska islands of Kiska and Attu during World War II. The Aleutian Islands Campaign was a struggle over the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska, in the Pacific campaign of World War II starting on June 3, 1942. A small Japanese force occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska, but the remoteness of the islands and the difficulties of weather and terrain meant that it took nearly a year for a large U.S. force to eject them.
On May 11, 1943, the operation to recapture Attu began. Included with the invasion force was a group of scouts recruited from the Alaska Territory, known as Castner’s Cutthroats. A shortage of landing craft, unsuitable beaches, and equipment that failed to operate in the appalling weather made it very difficult to bring any force to bear against the Japanese. Many soldiers suffered from frostbite because essential supplies could not be landed, or having been landed, could not be moved to where they were needed because vehicles would not work on the tundra. The Japanese defenders under Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki did not contest the landings, but rather dug in on high ground away from the shore. This caused bloody fighting: there were 3,929 U.S. casualties: 580 were killed, 1,148 were injured, 1,200 had severe cold injuries, 614 succumbed to disease, and 318 died of miscellaneous causes, largely Japanese booby traps and friendly fire. A Japanese American-trained doctor wrote a diary of his time there.
Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi (辰口 信夫, Tatsuguchi Nobuo?), sometimes mistakenly referred to as Nebu Tatsuguchi (August 31, 1911 – May 30, 1943), was a surgeon in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. He was killed during the Battle of Attu on Attu Island, Alaska on May 30, 1943. Tatsuguchi’s diary was recovered by American forces and translated into English. Copies of the translation were widely disseminated and publicized in the US after the battle. The American public was intrigued by a Christian, American-trained doctor serving with Japanese forces on the island and by his apparent participation in assisting with the deaths of wounded Japanese soldiers in his field hospital during the battle’s final days. Translated excerpts from Tatsuguchi’s diary have been widely quoted in Western historical accounts of the battle, especially his final entry in which he recorded a farewell message to his family.
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Two part story [one-two] by Mark Perry in the Asia Times.
"Don't let the quiet fool you," a senior defense official says. "There's still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the 'surge' has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That's just ludicrous. There's increasing quiet in Iraq, but that's happened because of our shift in strategy - the 'surge' had nothing to do with it."
In part, the roots of the disagreement between the Pentagon and White House over what is really happening in Iraq is historical. Senior military officers contend that the seeming fall-off in in-country violence not only has nothing to do with the increase in US force levels, but that the dampening of the insurgency that took hold last summer could have and would have taken place much earlier, within months of America's April 2003 occupation of Baghdad.
Moreover, these officers contend, the insurgency might not have put down roots in the country after the fall of Baghdad if it had not been for the White House and State Department - which undermined military efforts to strike deals with a number of Iraq's most disaffected tribal leaders. These officers point out that the first contact between high-level Pentagon officials and the nascent insurgency took place in Amman, Jordan, in August of 2003 - but senior Bush administration officials killed the talks.
Link and commentary by badger.
Perry's story includes no particular motivation for the change to the Awakening strategy. It was merely that the merits of the idea gradually came to be unarguable.
The prevailing Iraqi view of this is quite different. American strategy starting in 2003 was to use Shiite groups to harass the remnants of the Baath regime and their sympathizers (aka the Iraqi national resistance, but which was and is in fact much broader than that), and anyone shooting at US troops was either in that class or AlQaeda. Hence the logic of the "no deals" prohibition. Then at some time in 2005 or 2006, partly in the face of growing disaffection on the part of the Saudis and others, and partly from concern about Maliki's ties to Tehran, there had to be a tilt to the Sunnis, hence the decision to enlist Sunni groups, in order to, among other things, act as a counterweight to the sectarian Shiite power. In other words, so far this has been a two-act occupation, first helping Shiites harass Sunnis, then in a second stage helping Sunnis deter Shiites. There are many provisos and nuances, but essentially this is the Iraqi story: This was from the beginning a sectarian strategy, with a shift sometime in 2005 or -06 from anti-Sunni/pro-Shiite to anti-Shiite/pro-Sunni, in terms of the overall weight of American military influence. The weight of the American alliances shifted, but this had nothing to do with "learning about Iraq", and everything to do with keeping the divide-and-conquer ball rolling.
Labels: Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Politics
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Celebrating Black History Month With New GVRL Release
| By Tara Atterberry | In the foreword of Gale’s Who’s Who Among African Americans: 34th Edition, available April 1st, Advisor Jessie Carney Smith, Dean of the Library, Camille Cosby Distinguished Chair in the Humanities, Fisk University, cites Historian John Hope Franklin’s work, Stalking George Washington Williams, drawing a parallel between Franklin’s literary work and … Read more
Categories Academic, Featured, Public, SchoolsTags academic, black history month, featured, GVRL, public, Schools, Who’s Who Among African Americans: 34th Edition
Celebrate African American History Month with Gale’s For Students Series
| By Sarah Robertson | In 1960, a woman who had been a writer and scholar all her life died in relative obscurity in a welfare home. Her remains were buried in an unmarked grave, where they were forgotten for more than a decade. Today, that woman is considered a central figure in African American … Read more
Categories Academic, Featured, Public, SchoolsTags academic, African American History Month, black history month, featured, For Students, Novels for Students, Poetry for students, public, Schools, Zora Neale Hurston
Finding Hidden Figures with Gale’s Biography In Context
| By Laura Avery | February is Black History Month, which is dedicated to recognizing the contributions of Americans of African descent. While Gale’s Biography In Context offers extensive content on well-known African Americans of various occupations, such as civil rights activists Pauli Murray and Fannie Lou Hamer, artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Edmonia Lewis, and … Read more
Categories Academic, Featured, Public, SchoolsTags academic, Biography In Context, black history month, featured, public, Schools
Gale’s Twenty-Eight Days of Hidden Figures
| By Tanisha Howard-Hall | Every year about this time, we learn about influential African Americans that have made their mark on history. Since elementary school, I have learned about prominent figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, and Marcus Garvey numerous of times. Although they’ve have made huge impacts … Read more
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Gale’s New Black History Month eBook Collections on GVRL
In February, educators across the United States honor the central role African Americans have played in history. It is a time for reflection, humility, and honor. Many teachers use this time to educate and inspire students about the impact African Americans have made by showing famous films or documentaries, reading historical and inspiring pieces of … Read more
Categories Featured, SchoolsTags BHM, black history, black history month, eBooks, Gale, GVRL
A Collection That Supports Black History Year-Round
December 11, 2017 December 6, 2017
| By Nicole Albrecht | When I started my third year of teaching I was in inner-city Detroit, Michigan. The students were predominantly African American from various parts of the city and their own experiences made teaching challenging and exciting at the same time. When I introduced them to their lesson during Black History Month, … Read more
Categories Featured, SchoolsTags BHM, black history month, Gale eBooks, gale ebooks on gvrl, GVRL, K12, school
Female Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement
During Black History Month, we celebrate African Americans who made impactful contributions to American history. One of the most important developments of the twentieth century was the civil rights movement. Many Americans, both black and white, fought for equality in access to voting, education, housing, and public spaces for African Americans. Most of the best-known civil rights leaders of this period were male, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and John Lewis. However, many women also made significant contributions, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Pauli Murray, and Dorothy Height. Because of their efforts, black Americans, especially in the South, gained new legal rights and freedoms.
Categories Academic, FeaturedTags ACLU, black history, black history month, Civil Rights, Dorothy Height, Fannie Lou Hamer, Female leaders, Feminism, LGBT Rights, Pauli Murray, primary sources
The ACLU’s role in Brown v. Board of Education
During Black History Month, we remember monumental events that have profoundly changed the United States and impacted the lives of many Americans. One key event in American history is the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. In this Supreme Court case, public schools were ordered desegregated in a unanimous verdict. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) played an important role in Brown v. Board of Education, ensuring that “separate but equal” would no longer apply to educational facilities. Though public education was not fully desegregated by the decision, it began a series of legal victories for the burgeoning civil rights movement and defined constitutional support for racial equality.
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Robert Smalls: From Slave to Senator
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Get Started Gathering Ideas for Black History Month Lesson Plans
January 11, 2016 January 8, 2016
There’s an abundance of historical riches out there, but sometimes you have to know where to look to find the pot of educational gold. During Black History Month, get high school and undergraduate students to delve a bit deeper and uncover these influential and amazing people who changed lives and generations. Get the facts from Gale’s In Context database products, relate them to curriculum topics, then follow up with the other multimedia suggested to engage students further.
Civil Rights Movement, US Government, Graphic Novels = John R. Lewis. This Georgia congressman, serving for 29 years, leads a fascinating life. Son of a sharecropper, Lewis became one of the six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, served as SNCC chairman, and was one of the original Freedom Riders — all before he was thirty years old. There’s SO much more to discover about this icon, including his publication of two student-friendly graphic novels covering the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March, entitled March: Book One and Book Two.
Categories Public, SchoolsTags Alice Walker, Apartheid, biography, Biography In Context, black history month, Civil Rights, Freedom Riders, GVRL, Harlem Renaissance, In Context, LitFinder, Mandela, Montgomery, Selma, us history, US History In Context
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You are here: Home / Archives for work-product
Tenth Circuit: Privilege Cannot Be Used as Both Sword and Shield
January 19, 2015 By Susan Hoyt Leave a Comment
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Seneca Insurance Co., Inc. v. Western Claims, Inc. on Monday, December 22, 2014.
Seneca hired Western Claims to investigate an insured’s claim for wind and hail damage to buildings. Western’s adjuster investigated and found some damage but determined the buildings had not suffered hail damage to the roof. Later, the insured asked Seneca to reopen its claim based on an estimate from its roofing contractor that it had suffered hail damage to the roof. Eventually, the insured sued Seneca, Western, and the adjuster in Oklahoma state court, claiming all three had mishandled its claims, and sued Seneca for breach of insurance contract, bad faith, and fraud.
During the litigation, Seneca’s claims examiner prepared a large loss report and distributed it to several Seneca executives. Seneca also sought advice from two attorneys in separate firms regarding the lawsuit. The attorneys advised Seneca regarding its potential bad faith liability and recommended settling the lawsuit for $1 million and then suing Western and the adjuster to recover. Seneca followed this advice. In discovery, Seneca disclosed that it had settled the litigation “on advice of counsel.” Western Claims filed a motion to compel documents Seneca relied on in settling the litigation. Seneca objected to the motion and again at trial, claiming the attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine, but the district court found Seneca had put the documents in issue. At trial, several Seneca executives testified that they agreed upon the $1 million settlement “on advice of counsel.”
At the close of Seneca’s case-in-chief, the district court granted Western Claims’s motion for judgment as a matter of law regarding Seneca’s equitable indemnity claim, but allowed the negligence claim to be submitted to the jury, where Western Claims ultimately prevailed. Seneca appealed the district court’s decision to allow Western Claims to discover the correspondence from its attorneys. Western Claims cross-appealed the district court’s denial of its motion for judgment as a matter of law as to the negligence claim.
Seneca argued the district court erred in concluding it waived its right to claim attorney-client privilege and work product protection regarding the correspondence from its attorneys. The Tenth Circuit evaluated whether some “affirmative act” by Seneca waived the privilege. It found that, when Seneca claimed it relied on “advice of counsel” for the settlement amount, it put that advice at issue and thus waived privilege. Seneca claimed that the information was available in other sources, but the Tenth Circuit disagreed, finding that Seneca expressly relied on “advice of counsel” and could not use the advice both as a sword and a shield.
The district court’s judgment was affirmed.
Filed Under: Case Law Tagged With: 10th Circuit, attorney-client privilege, insurance bad faith, insurance law, litigation, work-product
Tenth Circuit: Disclosure of Material Considered by Expert Containing Factual Ingredients Required
November 21, 2013 By Ellen Buckley Leave a Comment
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in In re Application of Republic of Ecuador on Wednesday, November 13, 2013.
Intervenor-Appellant Chevron Corporation appealed from a district court order granting a motion to compel production of documents pursuant to subpoenas issued under 28 U.S.C. § 1782. Section 1782 allows for discovery of documents to be used in a foreign proceeding. Petitioners-Appellees, the Republic of Ecuador and its Attorney General (collectively, “the Republic”) sought the discovery to defend an $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron by an Ecuadorian court in Lago Agrio. Chevron sought relief from that judgment pursuant to investment treaty arbitration under United Nations’ rules.
Prior to the Lago Agrio judgment, in September 2009, Chevron commenced arbitration proceedings against the Republic under the U.S.–Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. In February 2011, immediately following the Lago Agrio judgment, the arbitral tribunal ordered that the Republic stay all efforts to enforce the Lago Agrio judgment, pending further order of the tribunal.
In June 2011, the Republic filed a § 1782 application in the District of Colorado seeking “discovery from Bjorn Bjorkman to aid the Republic in defending the validity of the Lago Agrio judgment.” The Republic alleged that Mr. Bjorkman served as one of Chevron’s chief experts and that the Ecuadorian court explicitly relied on his opinions. In the instant action, Chevron argued before the magistrate judge that the 2010 revisions to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 brought materials prepared by or provided to Mr. Bjorkman under the protection of the work-product doctrine. The magistrate judge rejected this argument and ordered the production of all of the facts and data the expert considered in forming his opinion. The Republic filed two motions to compel after Chevron continued to improperly withhold documents. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendations that only documents protected by Rules 26(b)(4)(B) and (C) were privileged.
On appeal, Chevron made several arguments that the 2010 revisions to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 radically changed the discoverability of documents held by experts. The Tenth Circuit disagreed, holding that the underlying purpose of the 2010 revision was to return the work-product doctrine to its traditional understanding, that it protects only the inner workings of an attorney’s mind. The court affirmed.
Filed Under: Case Law Tagged With: 10th Circuit, discovery, expert witness, F.R.C.P. 26, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, international law, work-product
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Joshua Resnek
Recognize Armenian Genocide
The time has come for the United States, for major Jewish organizations in the United States and for the State of Israel to recognize the Armenian Genocide conducted by the Ottoman Muslim Turks 100 years ago.
The anniversary is officially noted in April.
The Muslim Turks themselves must do the same.
The genocide took the lives of 1.5 million Armenians who were either slaughtered, starved to death, executed or entirely erased from the face of the earth the way the Nazis exterminated the Jews of Europe during the Second World War.
Of all the people in the world Jews feel comfortable with, Armenians should be at the top of the list. Armenians as a people, like Jews, flourish when left alone by those who wish to exterminate them. Armenians, like Jews of the diaspora, those who fled to all parts of the world, generally achieve great things for themselves and earn successes that are far greater in proportion to their small numbers.
It is an inarguable fact of history, an incontestable, proven fact that the Ottoman Muslim Turks conducted a genocide against the Armenian people. It is high time, a time long overdue, for all Americans and Jews and for the Israelis to acknowledge this.
The United States refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide because it doesn’t wish to upset the Muslim Turkish nation which is a member of NATO.
American Jewish organizations have refrained from recognizing the genocide because of similar reasons.
The Israelis continue to honor the Turkish nation because Turkey voted for Israeli statehood in 1948.
After all these decades past, it is time to deal with the unambiguous reality that this genocide of the Armenian people is Turkey’s cross to bear.
Turkey can never hope to be whole as a Muslim nation until it admits and apologizes for its complicity in the genocide of the Armenian people.
Joshua Resnek is the publisher of the Jewish Journal in Boston.
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The Impotency of Silence, White Supremacy and Lessons from My Mother
One of the best and most powerful lessons my mother taught me was the lesson of “guilt by association.”
“If you’re with someone who’s doing something wrong and the police come, you’re going to get arrested too, even if you haven’t done anything.”
She told all five us that at a very early age, and it stuck to me, on me and in me like white on rice. So when, for example, I was in Berkeley, California one summer and was out shopping with someone I considered a friend – and she urged me to put a swimsuit I liked into my bag, I panicked. She had lifted several swimsuits and wanted me to “join the fun.”
My mother’s words stung me like a swarm of angry bees; I pretended to go along with her, saying I was going to go back in the fitting room and try on a couple more and would meet her in a few minutes outside.
I did nothing of the sort. I went into the dressing room and stayed long enough to see her going away from where we had been and I made a beeline to another door out of the store, got on a bus and headed back to my aunt’s home.
That was in the middle ages; there were no cell phones back then, nor the internet. She called my aunt’s home several times but I never talked with her again. I didn’t tell on her, but I just stayed away.
I thought about that lesson as I was thinking about the rabid racial hatred that is swirling around us in the present time, and I was thinking about the silence of so many white people in light of all that is going on, making them as guilty of racist behavior as the most vocal racist.
Audre Lord, an African American, Lesbian, feminist writer and poet, wrote, “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” She also said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
Silence is a tool appreciated and exploited by the system of white supremacy; the thought seems to be on the part of many “progressive” whites that if racism isn’t talked about, then it doesn’t exist. The use of silence also seems to be an insurance policy for some whites who appear to think that if they are silent they cannot be condemned for being a participant in an evil system which knows no boundaries to its quest to control, manipulate and destroy the lives of black people.
At the heart of white supremacist thought is the innate belief that black people are inferior. “The white race” as a construct cannot figure out why black people even exist; in the 19thcentury, some scientists and white theologians posited that there could not be one god, but there were, in fact, many gods, a slap in the face of the principle of monotheism. Black people had been created by another god, and, that being the case, it was OK to subjugate, oppress and discriminate against them. Their white god didn’t see anything wrong with and would not condemn those who were full of racist hatred and who participated in and sometimes initiated acts of violence against blacks. They could easily lynch someone on a Saturday night and go to church the next morning to sing hymns, hear a stirring sermon and maybe even receive or pass out Holy Communion.
There have been a fair number of whites who say they hate racism, but they do not say much about it. They rest in the comfort of whiteness, protected by their silence; their whiteness is like a tree which provides shade on the hottest of days. They get offended if called a racist and are annoyed when the word “racism” is used in relation to some of the oppression which goes on, but internally, they know that the talk about racism and the harm it causes is not superfluous, but is damaging many, many lives.
The fear of speaking out is understandable. In our history, those whites who spoke against racism were called “n”-lovers. They were ostracized and suffered in ways that ought not to have been the case. Silence was easier. But silence is complicity. Those who have shied away from actively helping to end racism are like friends of a person who is shoplifting. They are equally as guilty.
The current administration is bold with its belief in and practice of racism; the code words and phrases used have endeared the president to white supremacists, whose desire to “make America great again” is really a push to “make America white again.” Blacks, they believe, must know their place and stay there, and those whites who disagree dare not say too much for fear of the fallout.
People in this country have bowed to the petulant South, which has never gotten over its defeat in the Civil War, but the defeat did not mean the end of the war; it just meant that the war would be fought in a different way. The tools would be Jim Crow, lynching and other violent acts (which is none less than domestic terrorism), voter suppression, discrimination in housing, employment and finances. The war goes on; the troops of the South ever increase, while the metaphorical “Union,” i.e., progressive whites, have laid their weapons down and have basically let those who believe in racism have their way.
But the silence of progressive whites is toxic and, in the end,, will not save them. Even as the policies and practices of white people in power continue to compromise the lives of black people and other non-white, non-Christian people, the wounds caused by this metastatic condition will not heal. The poison which is the foundation of white supremacy will continue to seep out and infect everyone. As long as white supremacy is alive and well, nobody is safe.
And no, your silence will not protect you.
That day in the store, once I realized my “friend” was shoplifting, I ran. I may have saved myself from being arrested but I often wonder if I should have “squealed” on my friend. I wonder sometimes if she kept doing that. But it didn’t matter; what I realized was that I had my own demons that I hadn’t corrected and being silent about them has not healed me or saved me. I, too, have found myself in situations where I chose to be silent rather than to speak up.
We cannot successfully run from evil; we have to face it and it is in the facing that we begin to weaken it. Too many of us are afraid to publicly come out against racism; the cost, we fear, is too great.
I would posit a different thought: that not confronting racism, calling it out, cutting it off at its knees, will result in chaos that will rage out of control. Our silence is not helping us; it is leading this country to a bad, bad place.
August 2, 2018 August 2, 2018 candidobservationEmotional trauma caused by racism, Racism, Racism America's illness, Uncategorized, white privilege, white supremacyChristianity, Evil of racism, Make America Great Again, Racism, white supremacy
2 thoughts on “The Impotency of Silence, White Supremacy and Lessons from My Mother”
Friday Festival: Summer Companions – RevGalBlogPals
[…] Susan K. Smith is considering the company we keep when we are silent about white supremacy. She recalls that “One of the best and most powerful lessons my mother taught me was the lesson of “guilt by association.” “If you’re with someone who’s doing something wrong and the police come, you’re going to get arrested too, even if you haven’t done anything.” She told all five us that at a very early age, and it stuck to me.” So, in our silence, we’re joining the forces of hate. “I was thinking about the silence of so many white people in light of all that is going on, making them as guilty of racist behavior as the most vocal racist…Silence is a tool appreciated and exploited by the system of white supremacy; the thought seems to be on the part of many “progressive” whites that if racism isn’t talked about, then it doesn’t exist. The use of silence also seems to be an insurance policy for some whites who appear to think that if they are silent they cannot be condemned for being a participant in an evil system.” […]
I would say that it’s important to recognize the people who are using their voices, as we know that there are many movements in opposition to the mistreatment of marginalized groups. In the same breath, it would be naive to believe that we have enough voices speaking up, because the reality is that many more people choose to be silent, not just progressive whites, but people of privilege in general. There are too many who either believe that it’s okay to live in their sheltered world and let others do the work or people with a defeatist attitude that believe that their voice doesn’t matter either way. I believe it was Dr. King who said that its the good people who do nothing that are the biggest detriment to our society, not just those who do evil. Using your voice, no matter what your social status is, is extremely important. And unfortunately, there are too many who sit in their privilege and ignore the injustices being done to poor people, and especially to poor people of color.
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The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is looking for an executive to serve as the Deputy Associate Administrator (DAA) for the Office of Railroad Safety. The DAA is the principal advisor to the Associate Administrator in advancing the mission of FRA railroad safety. The incumbent is responsible for the planning and the execution of FRA safety policies, programs and activities as well as advancing overall organizational excellence.
Internal Number: FRA.SES-2019-0002
About The Federal Railroad Administration
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is responsible for ensuring the safety of the Nation's passenger and freight rail operations and infrastructure by promoting safe, efficient and accessible rail transportation. The mission and focus of FRA has grown to include the design and management of an unprecedented investment in the creation of a nationwide passenger rail network. FRA is providing leadership for the creation of a more balanced transportation system, transforming the way Americans travel.To meet this mission FRA promulgates and enforces rail safety regulations; consolidates government support of rail transportation activities; administers financial assistance programs; conducts research and development in support of improved railroad safety and efficiency, and national transportation policy, including improved intercity passenger service.FRA is committed to fostering a diverse, highly skilled workforce capable of meeting or exceeding our strategic goals with efficiency, innovation, and a constant focus on better serving our customers. The FRA is ranked by its employees as one of the top-rated agencies in which to work.
Director, Office of Safety Analysis Washington, D.C.
Federal Railroad Administration 1 Week Ago
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‘Abortion does not cause mental illness’. Discuss.
March 13, 2019 Written by Philippa Taylor Start of Life
Philippa Taylor is Head of Public Policy at CMF. She has an MA in Bioethics from St Mary’s University College and a background in policy work on bioethics and family issues.
A new factsheet produced for schools by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (FSRH) states as one of the ‘myth buster‘ headlines that ‘abortion does not cause mental illness’.
Underneath the headline they explain: Successive studies and research reviews have demonstrated that the experience of abortion makes little or no difference to women’s mental health.
This ‘myth buster’ headline needs some myth busting.
The question of whether abortion is linked to mental health problems in women is very important and has long been a debating point. Journalist Caitlin Moran made the following astonishing claim about the effects of abortion her regular Saturday Times column on 23February 2019:
‘Since legalisation, 8.7 million safe, legal terminations have been carried out – and there is not a single survey or statistic that shows any negative impact from this. If you want to point at the downside of legal abortion, you cannot do it using any evidence.’ (her emphasis)
I would hope that even the RCOG might have some objection to Moran’s false claim. The RCOG cite a well-known, NHS funded, review of abortion and mental health in their fact sheet, a review that quite clearly states there are some negative mental health consequences from some abortions.
So is the RCOG correct to say ‘Abortion does not cause mental illness?’ What does peer reviewed evidence show?
Assessing the effect of abortion on mental health is complex and controversial and findings are frequently conflicting. Even though studies may show an association or link between abortion and a subsequent health effect, the way that studies are designed mean that we cannot always be certain that the abortion definitely causes the health effect. It is simply not possible to conduct a randomised controlled trial assigning some women to an abortion group and others to a birth group.
One problem with even some of the best known and most widely cited research studies is choosing what groups to compare with women who have an abortion (Women who have had a miscarriage? Given birth? Women who have never been pregnant? With an intended pregnancy or not?) because there is no direct equivalence. Then there is selection bias (many studies have high drop-out rates and low recruitment rates) because those who are least likely to participate will be those most affected negatively by the abortion. And many studies simply fail to follow up women long enough after the initial study – often women cope well initially, but years later reappraise the abortion negatively.
So, reviews of the psychological effects of abortion have arrived at disparate conclusions.
However as noted above, there was a comprehensive, NHS funded, review into the mental health outcomes of abortion, carried out in the UK in 2011, which the RCOG reference, and this found that having an unwanted pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of mental health problems. However, it found that the rates of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same, whether they had an abortion or gave birth. In other words, abortion made no difference to the outcome.
It appears then, that the RCOG fact sheet sub-heading may be correct, according to this review.
But it is not quite so simple.
The review also found that women who have mental health problems before an abortion are at greater risk of mental health problems afterwards. And it found that several other factors such as stressful life events, pressure from a partner to have an abortion, a negative attitude towards abortion in general and a negative emotional reaction immediately following an abortion (which are all common feelings), also have a negative impact on mental health.
So, for these women, it suggests abortion is a risk for causing mental illness.
Prof David Fergusson, veteran research in the field who said he was not ‘pro-life’ and is cited in the review, published a number of his own peer reviewed papers on abortion. He found small to moderate increases in risks of some mental health problems post-abortion. See here for more of his research, in the British Journal of Psychiatry, 2018.
A brief but important aside here, Fergusson also noted that no study has reported that abortion reduces mental health risks.
There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that women are at an increased risk of mental health disorders, notably major depression, following abortion, even with no previous history of problems. Researchers not associated with vested interest groups have published this growing scientific evidence. As well as Fergusson, Pedersen and Broen have found similar links in Norway, along with Mota in the USA.
Then there are researchers who are known to be more ‘pro-life’ who have also published extensively in academic journals on this topic for many years. See for example Sullins, Reardon, Rue and Coleman (summarised here). Coleman’s findings suggest a clear link between abortion and adverse mental health effects. She found that nearly 10% of all mental health problems are directly attributable to abortion, and women with an abortion history experience nearly double the risk of mental health problems when compared with women who have not had an abortion.
Coleman’s work has strengths and weaknesses. It was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, passing extensive scrutiny, and is a meta-analysis of 22 published studies, with nearly 900,000 participants. However, it has several methodological weaknesses that have been criticised by researchers who have come to different conclusions.
Yet Fergusson, who described himself as a pro-choice atheist, defended Coleman and concurs with her overall finding: ‘There is a clear statistical footprint suggesting elevated risks of mental health problems amongst women having abortions.‘
Women – and now school girls – are being told that abortion is an emotion-free, quick and safe process requiring a simple operation or a couple of pills. They are entitled to be told that it is more significant than this and that there is evidence (despite the claims of Caitlin Moran) for associated mental health risks. Moreover, many women who present for abortion are ambivalent which is a known risk factor for later adverse effects.
For those still not persuaded by the research evidence on the link, perhaps a visit to a local crisis pregnancy centre, or a read of some of these stories of women who have undergone an abortion might help bust the myths.
Tags: abortion, mental health
← A stark warning to UK doctors from Canada
New Abortion Advice to Schools: Fact or Fiction? →
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Taking the Cross
My last post provided some theological and historical background to the crusades of the early medieval period, concerning the rise of
Islam and the theological debates of the time concerning the concept of a just war (there were also a few other reasons, such as the Byzantine Empire appealing for help after a long and tiring series of wars against the Turks and a general bout of religious mania that collectively gripped the Catholic world at the time, but these kinds of things are boring and can be summarised in an overlong clause-laden sentence.). Today is going to cover history in a more conventional manner: specifically, the early history of the crusades themselves.
The triggering act of the First Crusade was the Council of Clermont in July 1095, when Pope Urban II (in response to the Byzantine Emperor Alexios the First’s call for aid) made an impassioned speech to a large crowd of French nobles and clergymen. After beginning with the predictable rabble rousing stuff, detailing the atrocities performed by the Muslims on Christian pilgrims and other such bits of religious fervour, Urban moved on to propose a new type of ‘armed pilgrimage’ aiming to take back the Holy Land (although he didn’t specifically mention Jerusalem) from the Saracen infidels. And, like any good salesman, he ended with a special offer to nail down the deal; remission of sins (ie direct route to heaven) for all crusaders who either died in the attempt or successfully completed the crusade’s objective.
Whilst he had hoped for a big response, Urban never quite anticipated the sheer scale of what his crusade would become. Whilst he had anticipated (and got) a good number of knights and nobles making up his crusading army (mostly from France where he toured, but also from the Holy Roman Empire and Italy where local priests were encouraged to preach), what was not expected was the popular response. Thousands upon thousands of common people across Europe pledged to ‘take the cross’, armed with little more than religious fervour and a near-total lack of fighting ability, despite Urban’s attempts to make some of them (such as the women) stay home. Indeed, some 20,000 such pilgrims led by a successful Crusading preacher named Peter the Hermit were so wrapped up in zealotry that they set off for the Holy Land six months before anyone else (the disorganised mob were ambushed halfway through Turkey and only 3,000 escaped with their lives).
When the official crusade of some 30,000 relatively organised men finally kicked off in August 1096 and, despite nearly precipitating war with the Byzantines they had gone to help with regards to sourcing supplies, was reasonably successful. They took back Nicaea, a city a little way to the south east of Constantinople, for the Byzantines, defeated a large Turkish army in the Battle of Dorylaeum, before laying siege to the large, historic Muslim city of Antioch (close to the border between modern-day Turkey and Syria). The siege lasted for nearly a year and the crusading army had to deal with an Islamic relief army shortly after capturing it, but the area was eventually subdued (read; the entire Muslim population were slaughtered) and the first European Prince of Antioch put in power. The remaining troops then marched to Jerusalem, dealing with plague, cannibalism and more enemies than you could shake a stick at on the way, but managed to force their way into the city, massacred the local Muslims and Jews who had fought against them in one of the most horrific acts of genocide in human history (the persecution of the Jews in Europe following Urban’s Christian, anti-semitic rabble rousing has been referred to as ‘the first Holocaust’), sacked every non-Christian building they could find and installed Godfrey of Bouillon as the first King of Jerusalem. Thus he became head of the most powerful and significant of the four ‘crusader states’ that the First Crusade founded in this region of the world. There was the landlocked County of Edessa in modern-day south-east Turkey, the Principality of Antioch in western Syria (on the mediterranean coast), the somewhat confusingly named County of Tripoli that covers modern-day Lebanon and is nowhere near Libya, and the largest and greatest of the lot: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, stretching from the County of Tripoli to the Sinai desert, taking in the Lebanese city of Tyre to the north, the walled city of Acre further south, and of course the city of Jerusalem itself.
That should have been that, and a new Christian land should probably have entered the world; but we must remember that most of those on the crusade had plenty of responsibility and property waiting at home for them. This meant the entire army pretty much dissipated in a few years, leaving Godfrey (who died a year later) and a small group of a few hundred knights to their fate in Jerusalem. Thanks to infighting amongst the Muslims however, there was initially no organised attempt to conquer the new Christian states, so the crusaders were able to survive and prosper. Indeed, even when some of them finally united (after a fashion) under Imad ad-Din Zengi, efforts to recapture the Holy Land were slow. Aleppo fell in 1128, but it wasn’t until 1144 that he caused the European world to sit up and take notice, when he conquered the County of Edessa (by far the weakest of the crusader states both militarily and financially). This prompted a second crusade, ordered by Pope Eugenius III, that completely failed to take it back; French and German troops were harassed by Muslim forces throughout their march through Turkey, arriving in Jerusalem with only enough men to launch a failed siege of Damascus (although one does have to wonder why they bothered, given that Damascus is miles away from Edessa). This failure, on it’s own, still wasn’t a massive issue, with the Kingdom of Jerusalem still together prosperous. Indeed, other aspects of the crusade were a resounding success: perhaps emboldened by the success of the first crusade, the powers that be decided that the second one would attempt to push back the Moors in Spain, and the men who arrived to do that job managed to make significant territorial gains in both Cataluña and Portugal. However, by the 1180s there was real trouble brewing in the Middle East. The great Muslim leader Salah al-Din, best known by his western name Saladin, had united much of the Muslim world behind him, using his not inconsiderable military nous to great effect. As well as building a sultanate so large and powerful that it spanned Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, he brought the full might of the Islamic world to bear on the crusader states. The Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli were both reduced to slivers of their former selves, and in September of 1187 Jerusalem was overrun and the Kingdom of Jerusalem destroyed, prompting Pope Gregory VIII to prompt a third crusade. And we will pick up the story of that next time (which will be the last one of these, promise).
This entry was tagged Acre, anti-semitism, Antioch, Battle of Dorylaeum, Byzantine Empire, Catholic faith, Catholic world, Christianity, Constantinople, Council of Clermont, County of Edessa, County of Tripoli, Crusades, Damascus, First Crusade, France, Godfrey of Bouillon, history, Holy Land, Holy Roman Empire, infighting, Islam, Italy, Jerusalem, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Lebanon, medieval age, middle-east, Nicaea, Peter the Hermit, pilgrimages, Pope, Pope Eugenius III, Pope Gregory VIII, Pope Urban II, Principality of Antioch, religion, religious mania, Saladin, Salah-al Din, Second Crusade, Sinai Desert, Syria, taking the cross, theology, Third Crusade, turkey, Tyre, zealotry. Bookmark the permalink.
← A History of Justified Violence
The Third Crusade Onward →
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Broadway sees highest-grossing week in history
Caitlin Huston
Last week was the highest-grossing week in Broadway history. (Photo: Stephanie Keith)
Broadway had its highest-grossing week on record last week amid premium prices and holiday demand.
Overall, Broadway brought in $50.3 million, besting last year’s record of $49.7 million. Several Broadway shows set all-time box office records, with “Hamilton” bringing in the highest gross ever recorded for a Broadway show in a regular week, at $3.85 million, and “Chicago” raking in $1.26 million, the most the show has made in its 21 years on Broadway,
These records come as several Broadway shows played a nine-show week and had increased premium ticket prices around the holidays. The higher prices contributed to the higher box office tally, as the week saw lower overall attendance and had one fewer show, with 32 plays and musicals, compared to this week last year.
With $3.85 million grossed across eight performances, “Hamilton” broke its own all-time record for the fourth time, after previously breaking the record in the week ended Dec. 24 with $3,797,844. Notably, the “Hamilton” gross was the highest of all Broadway shows last week, including those with nine performances.
The average paid admission to “Hamilton” last week was $358.46, which was the top average admission price on Broadway save for “Springsteen on Broadway,” which saw average paid admission of $508.60 for its five-show week.
With nine shows, “Waitress” set a new house record for the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, in the musical’’s best week ever, bringing in $1.45 million, while “Once on This Island” set a house record for a musical at Circle in the Square Theatre, with $827,889.
Across nine shows, “The Band’s Visit” grossed $1.56 million, which is the highest gross for a nine-show week at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Overall, Broadway grossed $1.64 billion in 2017, with average attendance topping the past three years, at 13.74 million. The year contained 53 weeks, rather than the typical 52 weeks, which makes a direct comparison to 2016, which brought in $1.37 billion, difficult.
In 2012, the most recent year with 53 weeks, Broadway brought in $1.2 billion.
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New documentary ‘The Cat Rescuers’ celebrates everyday heroes
By John Alexander • June 26, 2019 @ 4:14 pm
Photos courtesy of 24 Cats Per Second
Former rapper Latonya “Sassee” Walker feeds the strays in Canarsie.
There’s something truly heartbreaking, yet heartwarming about the new documentary “The Cat Rescuers,” which follows a group of cat lovers as they comb the streets of Brooklyn in search of animals in need. You don’t have to be a cat lover to appreciate the lengths to which these individuals go in order to aid and rescue homeless cats.
The film, produced and directed by Rob Fruchtman and Steven Lawrence, will open July 5 at NYC’s IFC Center followed by a roll-out at select venues nationwide.
The documentary was filmed in several Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Coney Island, Bed-Stuy and Lefferts Gardens. It follows four very different activists and cat lovers who devote their lives to controlling the stray cat population and finding cats new homes off the streets.
The Cat Rescuers aren’t wealthy — they spend their own money and free time getting cats spayed and neutered, and fostering strays in their homes.
We learn that there are over 500,000 street cats struggling to survive in New York City, and about what the protagonists see as the city’s unwillingness to address the problem. As viewers, we are intrigued watching volunteers like Latonya “Sassee” Walker, Claire Corey, Stuart Siet and Tara Green come to their aid.
These dedicated activists wander through the borough’s alleys, backyards and housing projects to trap cats, get them fixed, return them to their colonies, or, best of all, place them for adoption.
The film begins in Coney Island Creek, where it’s noted that the cats were there before Superstorm Sandy but somehow survived. It’s painful to watch the cats wandering along the highway rails before two rescuers arrive. Green promises, “Life’s gonna get better for you, honey. No more babies, no more stress.”
We meet Walker, who brings the saved cats to an animal clinic in Gravesend, and explains that the money for all the medicine and vaccinations required comes out of her own pocket.
Next, the documentary takes us to the projects in Canarsie where Walker knows all the stray cats and feeds them. She even houses a number of them in her apartment. With her meager earnings, she spends at least $300 a month on cat food and litter. Walker is determined to find them homes, saying, “Don’t talk about it, be about it.”
Rescuer Corey picks up cats from Animal Care and Control and takes them to her Bed-Stuy apartment. She got involved when she failed to aid a cat in distress nine years earlier, and has since vowed to help them in any way she can.
One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the film is when Claire scrolls though the shelter kill list of cats that will be euthanized if they are not adopted. She says that it’s not ACC that’s the problem, but humans who don’t get their pets spayed and neutered.
There are many incredibly moving scenes throughout the documentary which was brilliantly filmed by Fruchtman and Lawrence.
“While I knew our film would be about the ‘other’ cats, the ones who we don’t see, it’s also about the people who see them, worry about them, feel them as fellow beings worthy of our care,” Fruchtman told this paper. “Brooklyn is our canvas but the story is the same almost everywhere regardless of language or border.”
Fruchtman won the 2002 Sundance Film Festival Documentary Director Award for “Sister Helen,” which aired on HBO. He’s also won three Emmys for his work with PBS.
Lawrence’s documentaries have appeared on PBS, MTV and A&E. He also produced three films for director Michael Apted including “Married in America,” an ongoing documentary about nine marriages.
“I wanted to make a film that looks at a fundamental question my wife and I were faced with: What should you do if you come across a starving or injured cat that’s homeless?” explained Lawrence.
“For the rescuers in the film the answer was that they must help,” he went on. “For Rob and me, the film was a way to make visible both the plight of the cats — our fellow sentient beings — and the heroic work the rescuers do every day. And we also wanted to show how, with a small investment from city government, we could vastly reduce the homeless cat population on our streets.”
Fruchtman and Lawrence have created a unique documentary that draws viewers into the narrative and lets them witness the truly heroic actions of the rescuers. For example, when someone brings a 12-year-old cat to ACC Director of Admissions Aleah Simpson, she informs him that the prospects of finding a home for an older cat are harder and the cat as a last resort could be euthanized. He signs it over anyway and we watch in consternation as the man just shakes his head and leaves.
And then we are taken to Kensington at 3 a.m. where we meet Stu, who leaves his house in the early morning to feed the cats. His words may best summarize the entire scope of the documentary.
“I find it almost an honor to have a whole trail of cats leading me down the street,” he says. And it’s also an honor for viewers to meet and follow these heroic individuals whose entire mission is to save the lives of helpless felines.
animal care and control
Bed-Stuy
IFC Center
Rob Fruchtman
Steven Lawrence
The Cat Rescuers
Immigrant communities fearful after 6 Brooklyn raids in 5 days
Actor Vincent Pastore celebrated at Saturday block party in Gravesend
Brooklyn ReporterNewsletter
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After horrific domestic violence, woman’s life ends in a tragic fire
Shannon Pepper
By Dan Herbeck|Published Sun, Feb 22, 2015
Shannon Pepper was brutally beaten into a coma in 2013 by an abusive live-in boyfriend who bit her so violently her lip was nearly torn off, and then punched and kicked her until her jaw and ribs were broken.
After enduring all that, and after helping prosecutors put the attacker in state prison for 20 years, Pepper became an outspoken public advocate for tougher laws to protect women from domestic abuse.
But Pepper’s life ended in tragedy Saturday, as fire of unknown origin heavily damaged her apartment in the Village of Cuba, Allegany County.
“I was heartbroken when I heard about it,” said Cattaraugus County District Attorney Lori Pettit Rieman, who called Pepper one of the “toughest, most courageous” crime victims she has ever met.
“Shannon suffered so much. She survived so much; it’s just very sad to see her life end this way,” Rieman told The Buffalo News on Sunday. “It’s just tragic, so tragic.”
Police in Cuba – about 75 miles southeast of Buffalo – said the fire was under investigation Sunday but declined to discuss their investigation or to speculate on the cause. Police Chief Dustin T. Burch told the Olean Times Herald on Saturday that “we don’t believe foul play was involved, but we can’t rule it out, either.”
Flames erupted early Saturday at a 48-unit low-income apartment complex called the Erin’s Isle Apartments on Bristol Street. Although several other people required hospital treatment, authorities said Pepper, 37, was the only person killed.
An autopsy was conducted and the cause of death was smoke inhalation, said Cleon W. Easton III, a county coroner.
Because the fire did not occur in the county where Rieman works, the district attorney said she had no information about the fire investigation. But she added that, from everything she knows about the case, she would be surprised if anyone close to her attacker would carry out an act of retribution against Pepper. She said the convicted attacker, Anthony Nevone, has been incarcerated since July 2013, when he put Pepper into a coma.
Pepper’s mother, Linda Randolph of Cuba, said she and her husband, Thomas, will be closely watching to see what comes of the investigation.
“I have a suspicious nature. … I’m waiting to hear more from the police,” Linda Randolph said. “We’ve been told that her apartment was very heavily damaged, and that her body was found in the bedroom.”
She described her daughter as a warm, intelligent, charitable and fun-loving woman who struggled at times with alcohol and bad choices in men.
“After all she had been through, Shannon was coming back. She had her own car, her own apartment … She was making a comeback,” Randolph said.
A native of Cattaraugus County, Pepper grew up in Franklinville. She lived in Portville when she was assaulted, but she moved to nearby Cuba, in Allegany County, after the beating.
Nevone, now 47 – was sentenced to state prison for 20 years last year, after pleading guilty to a felony charge of assaulting Pepper.
Pepper’s cooperation as a witness against Nevone was a key factor in the case, said Rieman. The district attorney called it the worst domestic case of domestic violence she has ever handled. She added that Nevone’s 20-year prison term is the longest she has ever seen for a nonfatal incident of domestic violence.
According to Rieman, Pepper “almost died” as the result of a marathon beating that went on for two straight days, with Nevone repeatedly punching and kicking Pepper and hitting her with hard-edged household objects, such as a DVD player, until she was unconscious. The Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office investigated.
Rieman said Pepper was in a coma for nearly a month after being flown to the Erie County Medical Center in the Mercy Flight emergency helicopter.
“We didn’t know if she would survive, but she did, and she helped us build a case against Nevone,” Rieman said. The prosecutor said Pepper told investigators that her life with Nevone had been “like living with the devil.”
Some facts she learned about Nevone after the beating prompted Pepper to become a public advocate for tougher state laws to protect women against abusers, Rieman said.
“Before Nevone even met Shannon, he had spent time in prison for beating another woman and almost killing her,” Rieman said. “Shannon had no idea about his previous conviction when she met him.”
According to state Corrections Department records, Nevone was imprisoned for felony assault from April 1998 until February 2011. After his conviction for assaulting Pepper, he re-entered the state prison system on August 15 of last year. His earliest possible release, if he qualifies for parole, would be Sept. 2, 2030.
After Nevone’s sentencing, Pepper and her mother became outspoken advocates for a proposed domestic violence prevention law that would create a statewide registry of violent offenders, similar to the state’s sex offender registry. Rieman said Pepper and her mother spoke in favor of the proposed law and circulated an online petition.
The proposed law is called “Brittany’s Law” and is named after Brittany Passalacqua, 12, who was murdered in Geneva in 2009. Passalacqua and her mother, Helen Buchel, were stabbed to death by John Edward Brown, who had previously served time for assaulting his infant daughter.
“I believe that, if that law was in effect, Shannon never would have been victimized” by Nevone, Linda Randolph said. She added that Nevone was not the first man who abused her daughter.
Randolph said her daughter is survived by a former husband, Dean Pepper; a daughter, Cheyenne Pepper, 17, and a son, D’Artgnan Pepper, 14. “She loved her two kids more than anything,” Randolph said.
She said her daughter was a graduate of Franklinville High School and Jamestown Community College. She had worked at a Walmart, a Pizza Hut and had helped a friend set up an Internet sales business for his antique shop in Cattaraugus County.
“Shannon would tell people, ‘If you become my friend, you have a friend for the rest of your life,’ ” her mother recalled. “If a friend needed help, she was there.”
Rieman said she hopes Pepper’s death will inspire state legislators and crime victim advocates to work harder for the passage of Brittany’s Law.
“Shannon didn’t deserve any of the bad things that happened to her,” Rieman said. “Hopefully we can do some good things in her name.”
email: dherbeck@buffnews.com
Dan Herbeck – Dan Herbeck is an investigative reporter who has been at The Buffalo News for nearly 40 years. He is a graduate of Sweet Home High School, Erie County Community College and St. Bonaventure University. He and Lou Michel wrote a best-selling book in 2001 about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, "American Terrorist."
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Untitled Ol' Dirty Bastard Movie Is Official - Produced By RZA
Word of a Ol’ Dirty Bastard biopic has been swirling around since 2016, and now they have finally been confirmed. It’s official Colombia Pictures will be making the biographical film about the flamboyant Wu-Tang MC. At the helm of the production will be none other than ODB’s cousin RZA.
The always unpredictable “Big Baby Jesus” has an endless list of shocking and unforgettable moments throughout his 11-year career. From rushing the stage at ‘98 Grammy’s (Wu-Tang is for the children) to picking up government welfare in a limo, and even performing a concert as a fugitive on the run. All true stories which should make for great cinematography.
The search for the perfect director is still on, but it’s good to know that RZA is officially in charge of the production aspect of the movie. Not a stranger to the movie world, RZA has a couple movies under his belt with American Gangster (actor) and The Man With The Iron Fists (director). However, this movie will undoubtedly be his most personal yet, “From the age of six, me and [Ol’ Dirty Bastard] used to push shopping carts around grocery stores and try and get nickels. There are few people that know the real him as much as me. So it would be something that I would be honored to do, but there’s a lot of moving parts to it", RZA told Rolling Stone.
I think it’s safe to say this movie will be as anticipated (if not more) than any other hip-hop biopic made in recent years. With the Wu-Tang Clan being worldwide superstars since 1993, they have living legend status, making it sure to be an electrifying movie due to Ol’ Dirty’s unusual personality.
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This Is How A White Rapper From The Suburbs Got Every Single Wu-Tang Member On His Track
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New Book About Gangsta Rap Written By Soren Baker (Release: October, 3rd)
J Cole Lends A Helping Hand To His Hometown Fayetteville In Wake Of Hurricane Florence
The Diplomats Might Be Coming Back To Turn Hip Hop On Its Head Once Again
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Kanye West Pimps Pornhub Awards Themed Merch
Bun B's Return of The Trill LP & Amazing NEW Single "Recognize" Feat. Big K.R.I.T. & T.I.
Alexander Ramalho September 10, 2018
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« September 2008 | Main | January 2009 »
The Loss: Watching the excitement of my granddaughter
By Arzennie Owen
Terrin has had a hard life. Probably not as hard as some. She has lived through several abusive encounters, neglect and for the most part to find for herself. The most stable person Terrin has had is a praying grandmother.
Terrin’s grandmother is filled with joy as she watches her oldest grandchild finally make it to the college door. Not only has she made it to the college door but, she opened the door and went in. There she connected with the right people and has been accepted into culinary management, a three-year program at The Art Institute in Sacramento.
She has attended some church. There is something within her that lead her to step out of her comfort zone. Without resources or transportation. She has unbelievable drive and faith that she is going to make it despite her circumstances. This young lady with odds against her, with her grandmother’s encouragement. She will make it to graduation and on to open her own business.
I write this to encourage other young people who do not have someone to encourage you. You may have no resources but you have a made-up mind along with motivation to get the job done. You will succeed. Believe in yourself and your higher power.
I am here to encourage you as you take your rites of passage in becoming a productive citizen in your community. Sometimes reaching out to those who need us means coming out of our comfort zone to help them reach their full potential. An old African proverb says “it takes a village to raise a child.” It also takes a village to help our young people reach their dreams.
It's Time: To be concerned about the election
Let’s change that to it’s time to be very concerned. The McCain campaign has opened a Pandora’s Box with the way they have handled Obama’s association with William Ayers. If you listen to McCain, the question that he raises is truth to the electorate and the way Obama thinks, I can buy that as a legitimate question to be raised. What has taken the argument to the edge of the abyss is Palin and the conservative surrogates who have talked about Obama “paling around” with terrorists and getting money and endorsements from foreign terrorists. Uniformed Police Officers are talking about Barrack Hussein Obama to incite the Florida crowds, this is too much.
I really believe that even McCain realizes this; I continue to believe that McCain wants to keep this campaign on the issues, but his strategists have realized that this isn’t a winner, because they can’t solve the economic issues and keep the conservative, laissez faire base. They also realize you can’t add government and drop taxes; they’re caught in a box. Distraction is the only way out. But this gambit is way too dangerous.
I agree that Obama starting his political career in Ayers home is a lapse in judgment. I’m leaning towards Obama, but this still bothers me. Reading Chicago papers, it seems Ayers family is Chicago elite, and Ayers has been accepted like a crazy uncle. A very dangerous, crazy uncle, but accepted, none the less. Sitting on a board with Ayers? Not so much. I’ve set on a number of boards with people that I thought had dangerous ideas, but I felt the cause was important, and I thought that it was important to have other points of view represented.
Here comes the part I am hesitant to write, but I think it needs to be said. There are people in this country who are not enlightened and are upset that an African American could become President. The McCain campaign, with Palin and surrogates, has added the assertion that Obama is also in league with the terrorists, at the least, or a terrorist himself. Add these two factors together and I fear that there may be a “patriot” out there who feels he has to save the country from itself. Who knows how that may manifest itself?
It’s time that McCain steps forward, makes a speech clarifying the issue, and making himself clear as to his beliefs regarding Obama. He also needs to tell his campaign that he has standards, even if they don’t, and he will no longer stand for this strategy being used in his name. It’s time for issues, not playing on the fears of the fringe, to be the strategy. This election is too critical, and the candidate’s stands too important, to let stuff like this go on.
Dude Who Makes Movies: America's growing pains
From wikipedia.
"In 2002 there was an interagency review of the effectiveness of the 1995 regulatory changes to the Community Reinvestment Act and new proposals were considered.[6] In related 2003 proposals, the Bush Administration recommended that a new Department of the Treasury agency should supervise the primary agents guaranteeing subprime loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congressional support was approximately split along Party lines, with many Republicans in support of the changes and the Democrats against, and the proposal eventually failed due to the many republicans that sided with the dems.
Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, voiced his opposition to the changes, saying that "these two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Representative Melvin L. Watt (D) from North Carolina agreed, saying that the revisions would be a "shell game" that moves "something from one agency to another," and weaken "the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing."
Barnie Frank is the Democratic representative from Massachusetts with the comedic lisp who poked fun at Republicans who voted "nay" today.
I'm not a republican or democrat, but it sure seems that the major issue at hand is that politicians simply lack the intelligence to make the correct decisions to properly guide our nation into the future. Sounds harsh? Read more about the CRA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
Frankly, from what I have read, it has been Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton who brought this trend of subprime mortgages upon the nation. I understand it was done out of compassion, but I believe that a deal needs to be a just deal. And even though I don't like the Bush's, both George H. W. and George W. seemed to recognize that the CRA was having incredibly destabilizing effects on our economy.
But ultimately, it wasn't just that. It was America itself. People got greedy and lazy. Americans wanted the big house, but didn't really want to pay for it. Americans wanted to lend money to people who would pay much higher interest later so that an enormous profit might be grabbed. Americans are at risk of becoming a house divided when they prey upon themselves, or choose to deny the money they owe to their fellow Americans.
Americans want to just point the finger at the government, lenders, and Wall Street, but what about the consumer mindset of greed? Why is it that as Americans, we must always be discontent, and that we must constantly consume bigger and better things? Don't we see that staying in debt constantly should not be normal? What possible use is currency when we are spending our futures? What possible use is currency when the flow stops? The current current is neither in the now nor is it fluid. It's planned ahead of us and it's static. We have no future because we sell it in order to live in the now.
We as a people need to put responsibility above our desires. We must live within our means, and not live off of a fictitious balance sheet. We need to stop being such a consumer nation, where we see the problems prevalent almost everywhere from energy shortages, water shortages, obesity, and now the fundamental issue which seems to cause humans to get up in arms without fail; real estate. How many wars have been fought over land?
The point is, maybe now if we, the Americans, can see that American immaturity when it comes to finances and global resources might cause us to lose our home, we will fight the war against our own selfish nature, a battle that will pay great dividends for our children and grandchildren. We will reclaim our identity, and we will make the stock in our nation skyrocket, and this stock will stay steady and calm, as good as gold, and that stock is most commonly called the Dollar.
The Dollar is a promissory note. A promise to make good on an offer. The value of this promise is as good as our word as Americans. If we live in debt, and fail to pay what we promise to pay, collectively as a nation, what good is our promise? What good is the promise of the American government? What good would it do for other nations to invest in our promises if we don't keep them?
Securities? What at all is secure about a group of mortgages that people are not paying? What possible incentive would there be for China and the E.U. to continue to do business with Americans if they don't do what they promise to do? Introductory rates are simply traps, half truths to get people to believe that rate will remain the same, when the lenders know they won't. In return, the lendee can't pay when the rates jump, thus turning them into liars as well when they can't pay. Regardless of the intent, the promises are broken, and the promissory note is weakened. Credit freezes. What is a Dollar but a reflection of American attitude?
Of course, we need to live justly, but at the end of the day, we need to learn from our mistakes, and show ourselves, if not the whole nation, mercy. We need to fix ourselves. We need to bail ourselves out. But then... we need to keep our promises. Be responsible. Don't be greedy. Look out for the needy. These are all things that would correct the problems that we face because it would unite us together as a people as opposed to dividing us. The CRA was an attempt at that, but clearly the government can't force Americans to be responsible, so therefore we need to do it on our own.
We need to secure our way of life, using our liberty, so that ultimately we can pursue happiness. We shouldn't pursue happiness using our liberty as a way of life.
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The 1985 House of Commons Debate on the Anglo Irish Agreement
May 21, 2011 / David Alton
Anglo-Irish Agreement
HC Deb 26 November 1985 vol 87 cc747-828 747
770 5.20 pm
§ Mr. David Alton (Liverpool, Mossley Hill)During the course of this debate it seems that we have been tilting at a number of imaginary windmills. Some speakers have referred to the breaking of the Union while others have talked about the creation of a united Ireland. It is quite clear to anyone who has taken the trouble to read the proposals that neither of these issues is contained within the agreement. Repeatedly arguments have ben put up to defeat issues that are not within the agreement.
The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux), the leader of the Ulster Unionist part, talked about the possibility of a high-powered initiative for federation which he said was in the 1979 briefing notes sent out by Conservative central office. I personally believe in confederation as an approach. Confederation would enable the Irish of the north who are Catholics to look towards Dublin, whilst the Irish of the north who are Protestants or unionists would look towards London. However, this agreement is no more about confederation than it is about breaking the Union or the creation of a united Ireland.
The agreement is a genuine attempt by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach to break the straitjacket that has become Northern Ireland. The Hillsborough agreement represents the outcome of months of effort by politicians and civil servants who have made a genuine effort to reconcile the two traditions in Ireland. Like the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), I have had the privilege of spending time in Northern Ireland and the Republic, most recently as part of a Liberal-SDP commission under Lord Donaldson. In July, we published our report entitled “What future for Northern Ireland?” Many of the ideas promoted in that report are contained in the agreement. However, we would have gone further on issues such as the Anglo-Irish parliamentary tier. I was pleased when the Prime Minister said earlier that it is something that the House and the Dail could consider further. A parliamentary tier would help to compliment those initiatives which have been taken in this agreement.
We recognise the Hillsborough agreement as an honest and brave attempt to wrench the initiative from the men of violence and to take a few, albeit faltering, steps away from the bigotry and hatred which have led to 2,500 deaths during the past 16 years, 24,000 injuries, and some £11 million-worth of damage in Ulster caused through acts of political violence. We welcome the initiative because it marks an important change in the attitude of the two Governments towards one another.
Some years ago the brave non-sectarian Alliance party in Northern Ireland said: positive development of Anglo-Irish relations could lead to the growth of mutual trust and respect in place of bitterness and recrimination which has bedevilled Anglo-Irish relations for too long. Hillsborough is a step along that road.
This agreement is the bulwark against Sinn Fein. If it fails, it will give credence to the lie that violence alone can bring progress. It will lead to the enticement of more young men and women into violent organisation and violent actions. This agreement is a courageous step by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach to challenge and defeat that lie.
Those who choose to distort and lie about the content of this agreement will be taking the side of violence to sustain their tribalistic and sectarian positions, deliberately 771 keeping alive divisions for their own selfish political ends. The Nobel peace prize winner, Solzhenitsyn, understood the nature of violence. He said: Violence can only be concealed by the lie. Anyone who has once proclaimed that violence is his method is inevitably forced to choose the lie as his guiding principle. The way forward in Northern Ireland is through mutual respect, mutual forgiveness for past injuries and wounds and building up the common ground.
During the Donaldson commission inquiry, I visited the Maze prison where I met a young man, Liam McAnoy. That young man, brought up on the Falls Road, at the age of 18 joined the official IRA, and he committed a murder. He has since renounced violence and 12 years later I had the privilege to meet him. Since then we have corresponded.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne spoke earlier about people who had written to him and who had genuine fears about what might happen in Northern Ireland. Liam McAnoy, who has been consigned to the Maze for an act which he bitterly and sincerely regrets, can now see what needs to be done in Northern Ireland if we are to avoid more bitterness and hatred. In a letter to me he says:
Justice requires, just as peace demands, the pacific coexistence of both communities in mutual acceptance and respect and in equality of rights. Violence and talk of civil war makes the attainment of co-existence more difficult. The creation of that justice requires the establishment of bodies such as the Intergovernmental Conference which must win the respect of the Protestant and Catholic communities alike. The founder of the Corrymeela Community, the right Reverend Dr. Ray Davey, in a sermon at Westminster abbey in March 1980, signalled the other prerequisites for peace in Northern Ireland. He said: Truth demands that we be willing to look at another’s point of view when it is opposed to ours and to try to understand it. Liberals believe that this requires a moderation which is the only hope of reconciliation.
In the spirit of trying to understand another point of view it is incumbent on all the people of Great Britain, especially the English people, to try to understand the fears and anxieties of the unionists. This agreement was made in secrecy, largely without consultation, without information and without consent. While Dublin—I make no complaint about this—kept the SDLP in the picture, the British Government chose not to involve the Northern Ireland parties in the Hillsborough process. Assemblyman John Cushnahan, the Alliance leader, whom I met here last Friday, told me that many people in Northern Ireland are gravely dissatisfied with the way the agreement was made. We agree with him. Their condition, which is a fair one, is that the secrecy must now end. At the minimum, agendas and conclusions reached by the Intergovernmental Conference must be published. If that does not happen, every matter pursued by the Secretary of State will be represented by some unionists as deriving from the Republic through the deliberations of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Unionists may be tempted to shout treachery and no surrender and to retreat behind historical images of the siege of Londonderry. The unionists claim to be law-abiding members of the Union. How will that square with the erection of shutters and barricades and the repudiation of an agreement endorsed by two democratically elected Parliaments? The remarks by the hon. Member for Upper 772 Bann (Mr. McCusker) were out of accord with the unionist tradition which has always pledged itself to constitutionality. This morning, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel) said: The so-called loyalists in Northern Ireland must look again at their definition of loyalty, which means nothing if it does not include support for the authority of the Westminster Parliament. To threaten unconstitutional action even before Parliament has had a chance to debate the proposals will be the action of disloyalists and would only harden the belief of the British people that the unionists are quite incorrigible.
§ Mr. Molyneaux Would the hon. Gentleman accept that at the rally on Saturday in Belfast, when passions were running somewhat high, the main cheer came for the portion of my speech when I said: Violence is no part of our campaign”? I was speaking on behalf of my colleagues on this Bench and of my colleagues who represent the Democratic Unionist party.
§ Mr. Alton I am glad to hear the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley say that. It is in complete sympathy with everything that I have heard him say in my six years here. I was distressed to hear the comments of one of his colleagues. I hope that we shall talk, as we have during this debate, about how Parliaments and elected Members can reconcile the two traditions. That is the only way to defeat the people who murder and maim to achieve their political objectives.
We appreciate the suffering of unionists, especially during the past 16 years. As many right hon. and hon. Members have said, they are a keen and proud people, but they should remember that we on this side of the water have also suffered. Many of our constituents who were members of Her Majesty’s forces have been murdered in the Province. The financial burden has been heavy, and there has been a not inconsiderable loss of civil liberties in Britain because of the tragedy of Northern Ireland.
We in the United Kingdom do not regard the Republic as our enemy. There is a special relationship between us. Many millions of Irish people live and work in Britain and many thousands of British people live and work in Ireland. We are closely integrated. The unionists have a right to be upset by the triumphalism and the talk of victors and vanquished, of which some Catholic clergymen, alas, and politicians have been guilty.
As an English Catholic, I regret the continued intransigence of the Catholic Church on issues such as mixed and inter-Church marriages and integrated Christian education. Like the right hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Prior), I regret that the SDLP has so far made no gesture to the unionist community about whether it will participate in the Assembly. I hope that the leader of the SDLP will be able to say something about that later.
§ Mr. John Hume (Foyle)The hon. Gentleman should listen to me more often.
§ Mr. Alton I listen regularly to the hon. Gentleman and admire much of what he stands for. The SDLP should now drop its veto on the Northern Ireland Assembly and commit itself to partnership in government in the North. It should also encourage more Catholics to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary. When I was in Northern Ireland earlier this year and met Sir John Hermon, I was intensely worried by the RUC’s difficulty in encouraging more Roman Catholics to join, although there has been some improvement this year.
773 A MORI poll, conducted in 1981, showed that 70 per cent. of Protestants and 62 per cent. of Catholics would accept Northern Ireland remaining as part of the United Kingdom, but with its own Assembly and guarantees for Catholics. My right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) earlier this year said:
What is needed is a partnership at the level of a devolved government”. If the Government use the Northern Ireland (Constitution) Act 1973 as a framework for devolving power, the guarantees that the Catholic community in the North should be able to expect would be missing. I hope that the Secretary of State will be clearer about the power-sharing proposals and that the SDLP’s lingering doubts will be removed. Partnership in government is the best way to remove the alienation of the north’s Catholics—of finally extinguishing the Bunsen burner that has kept the cauldron smouldering.
Those of us who heard Noel Dorr, the Irish ambassador in London, speak here last night will have noted that he stressed the alienation of the Roman Catholic community in Northern Ireland. The agreement is about removing that alienation. That is why it is worthy of support.
For unionists, the incentive for being involved in such a partnership is that it will reduce the influence held by Dublin. If political leaders refuse to provide their people with the leadership that they are entitled to expect, the people must be prepared to change those leaders, whether they be unionist or nationalist. The Government should ensure that a copy of the agreement is sent to every household in Northern Ireland. It is not good enough to be told that it has appeared in some Belfast newspapers. If unionist politicians now try to wreck the agreement by forcing by-elections—and I desperately hope that they will reconsider such action—the Government should be prepared to consider holding those elections under a system of proportional representation, as currently applies to local government, Assembly and European Parliament elections. That would turn the elections into a far more convincing test of public opinion and enable the Government to reach over the heads of sectarian leaders.
There is something in the agreement for everyone. For unionists, there is a double guarantee of their right to self-determination within the Six Counties. There is an acceptance of their identity by Dublin and an acceptance that it will be registered publicly at the United Nations. There is to be no Executive rule and no joint authority, both of which are anathema to unionists. There is also the Republic’s commitment to ratify the European convention on the suppression of terrorism. There is the promise of better cross-border co-operation and improved security—progress on extradition and trials in another jurisdiction.
For nationalists, there is a recognition of their identity, respect for their democratic aspirations and for their symbols, culture, sports and repeal of offensive legislation such as the Flags and Emblems (Display) Act 1954. There is a chance to be partners in government and of parity of esteem and equality of opportunity.
For all, there is an opportunity of better human rights for individuals and groups and a framework for greater cooperation between our two countries. There is the opportunity for more common services to be developed and the chance in the longer term of parliamentary cooperation and a permanent body to oversee the 774 Intergovernmental Conference. There really is something in this agreement for everyone, and I hope that moderate Unionist politicians will re-examine it in that light.
The alliance report, which we published in July, said: the status quo in Northern Ireland is not an option. That view has been echoed time and again today. The Irish and British Governments have acted boldly in an attempt to shift the status quo. They deserve broad support. Perhaps a small window has opened in Northern Ireland. If men and women of ill will now slam it shut, the violence and despair that will inevitably follow will be upon their heads.
The debate had been introduced by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher MP.
§ Mr. Speaker We now come to the important debate on the Anglo-Irish agreement. I have not selected either of the amendments on the Order Paper.
§ The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher) I beg to move,
That this House approves the Anglo-Irish Agreement (Cmnd. 9657) signed on 15th November by the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, Dr. Garret FitzGerald. Since 1969, nearly 2,500 people have lost their lives in Northern Ireland as a result of terrorism, more than 750 of them members of the security forces. As the House is only too well aware, there has also been further loss of life among the armed forces, police and civilians in the remainder of the United Kingdom, including three of our colleagues in this House.
That is the stark background to today’s debate and it takes us immediately to the historic divisions between the two communities in Northern Ireland, which we cannot ignore.
Whatever the differences that may emerge in our debate, I believe that we shall all be united in our determination to end the violence and to bring to justice those who are guilty. We shall all be united in our deep sympathy for the thousands of families whose lives have been darkened by the shadow of the gunman and the bomber; and we shall all be united in our admiration and gratitude for the men and women of the security forces in Northern Ireland and, indeed, from all parts of Great Britain, so many of whom have paid the price of protecting us with their own lives.
But it is apparent that any initiative, however modest, to bring the people of Northern Ireland closer together to beat the terrorists raises emotions and fears rooted deep in the past. I understand those fears, although I do not believe them to be justified.
Faced with all that we have seen in the past 16 years, it was not enough for the Government to rely solely upon the security forces, valiant though they are, to contain and resist the tide of violence. Let me make it clear that there can be no such thing as an acceptable level of violence, whether in Northern Ireland or elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The Government owe a duty to the security forces and to all the law-abiding people of Northern Ireland, Protestant and Catholic alike, to do everything within their power to stamp out terrorism—not by giving in to the terrorist, not by giving him a single inch. Indeed, the fact that the terrorists have condemned the agreement is a demonstration that we have done no such thing.
The fight against terrorism is greatly weakened if the community is divided against itself, and it is greatly strengthened if all people committed to democracy and the rule of law can join together against the men of violence. That, the Government felt, required a further attempt to reconcile the two communities in Northern Ireland.
The Unionist community, firmly loyal to the Crown and to the United Kingdom, represent a proud tradition of devotion to the Union which everyone in these islands should respect, and which this agreement does respect. They have a right to feel secure about Northern Ireland’s position as part of the United Kingdom. This agreement, by reinforcing the principle of consent, should make them 748 feel more secure, not only today but in the future. Unionists have the assurance that neither an Irish Government, nor of course a British Government, will try to impose new constitutional arrangements upon them against their will.
The nationalist community think of themselves as Irish in terms of their identity, their social and cultural traditions and their political aspirations. The House can respect their identity too and acknowledge their aspirations, even though we may not see the prospect of their fulfilment.
The only lasting way to put an end to the violence and achieve the peace and stability in Northern Ireland is reconciliations between these two communities. That is the goal of this agreement.
I now draw the attention of the House to what I consider to be the most significant points of the agreement. The preamble sets out the commitment of the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic to work for reconciliation; our utter and total rejection of violence; our recognition and respect for the separate identities in Northern Ireland; and our acceptance of the right of each to pursue its aspirations by peaceful means. These principles reflect the hopes of both communities.
Article 1 of the agreement makes it abundantly clear that there is no threat whatsoever to Unionists’ heartfelt desire to remain part of the United Kingdom. It provides, in a formally binding international accord, a recognition by the Irish Government that the status of Northern Ireland will remain unchanged as long as that is the wish of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. It recognises also that the present wish of a majority is for no change in that status. There can be no better reply to the fears that have been expressed in the House than this explicit recognition of the legitimacy of the Unionist position.
Article 2 of the agreement acknowledges in a practical and strictly defined way the concern that the Irish Republic has with matters relating to Northern Ireland. In the past, that concern has sometimes been expressed in critical or negative terms which did not help the cause of harmony between the communities in Northern Ireland. Article 2, therefore, establishes an Intergovernmental Conference. This will have no executive authority either now or in the future. It will consider on a regular basis political, security and legal matters, including the administration of justice, as well as cross-border co-operation on security, economic and cultural matters.
This co-operation will not be a one-way street. The Irish Government will be able to put forward views and proposals on certain matters affecting Northern Ireland. We for our part shall be able to pursue issues of concern to all peace-loving people in Northern Ireland. Notably cooperation in the fight against terrorism—co-operation which goes beyond the borders of Northern Ireland. The matters within the scope of the conference are spelled out in greater detail in articles 4 to 9 of the agreement. I should like to draw the House’s attention to three particular points about these articles. First, if devolution is restored, those matters that become the responsibility of the devolved Government will no longer be within the purview of the intergovernmental conference. We hope that the agreement will encourage the constitutional representatives of both communities to come together to form a local administration acceptable to both. This hope has been specifically endorsed by the Irish Government. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern 749 Ireland will be exploring with the constitutional parties how best to make progress. Meantime, the Assembly continues in being, with all its statutory responsibilities.
Secondly, article 8, which deals with legal matters, says that consideration will be given to the possibility of establishing mixed courts. Let me say straightaway that we have absolute confidence in the judiciary in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the integrity and courage which they have shown in recent years in maintaining high standards of judicial impartiality have been outstanding.
We know the difficulties which would be involved in mixed courts both in Northern Ireland and in the republic. We recognise the reservations which are held by the legal profession. We see no easy or early way through these difficulties. That is why, although we are prepared to consider in good faith the possibility of them at some future time, we have made it clear that we are under no commitment to introduce them.
Thirdly, I draw the House’s attention to the proposals for improved security co-operation in article 9. This provides for a programme of work to be undertaken by the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Commissioner of the Garda to improve co-operation in such matters as threat assessment, exchange of information, technical co-operation, training of personnel and operational resources.
The really vital element in this programme is fuller and faster exchange of information, especially pre-emptive intelligence which helps to prevent acts of terrorism.
These are specific measures which I believe will lead to real improvements in security—improvements which will be welcome above all to those men and women who live in the border areas and who have been subjected to so many merciless attacks designed to drive them from their homes and farms.
That improvement should be further reinforced by the Irish Government’s intention to accede to the European convention on the suppression of terrorism.
The convention’s purpose is to ensure that those who commit terrorist offences should be brought to justice and that any offences involving the use of explosives or firearms should not be regarded as political.
Irish accession should greatly increase our prospects of securing extradition from the republic of persons accused or convicted or terrorist crimes. This will be a major and a welcome step forward in the war against terrorism.
I draw the House’s attention to the reference in article 12 to the possible establishment of an Anglo-Irish interparliamentary body. Both we and the Irish Government felt that this was a matter for our Parliaments themselves rather than for Governments to pursue. I hope that contacts will be established through the usual channels to consider how discussions on an interparliamentary body can most effectively be taken forward.
I have tried to explain to the House the most significant points of the agreement. In view of some of the mistaken claims about it, I want also to say something about what is not in the agreement. The agreement does not affect the status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. It does not set us on some imagined slippery slope to Irish unity, and it is nonsense to claim that it might.
The effect of article 1 is to confirm the provision in section 1 of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 that Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom as long as a majority there so wish. That again is a 750 recognition of reality. The guarantee for the majority lies in the fact that it is a majority. That fundamental point is reinforced by this agreement.
§ Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)I have listened carefully to the right hon. Lady. Can she explain why the Irish Government signed the agreement?
§ The Prime Minister I believe that the Irish Government signed the agreement because they share with us its objectives: to try to defeat the men of violence and to try to achieve peace and stability for all the people who live, and who will continue to live, in Northern Ireland. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to read it, all of this is set out fully in the preamble to the agreement.
Second, I want to make it clear that the agreement does not detract from British sovereignty in Northern Ireland—or, for that matter, from Irish sovereignty in the republic. We, the United Kingdom Government, accountable to Parliament, remain responsible for the government of Northern Ireland. Yes, we will listen to the views of the Irish Government. Yes, we will make determined efforts to resolve differences. But at the end of the day decisions north of the border will continue to be made by the United Kingdom Government anc south of the border by the Irish Government. This is a fundamental point. There can be no misunderstanding.
Third, I want to dispel the absurd notion that the Government will listen to the views of the republic on Northern Ireland matters, but not to the views of our own unionist community.
There are already many ways in which the majority community in Northern Ireland can and do put their views to the Government. The right hon. and hon. Members of this House who represent the unionist parties are themselves an important channel. Another is the Northern Ireland Assembly, an important and experienced body which could be used to improve the arrangements for consultation. Yet another is the many representations that unionists make to Ministers. The unionist voice is clearly heard and will continue to be heard.
If the Anglo-Irish agreement is to bring about a real improvement in the daily lives of the two communities in Northern Ireland, it must be matched by a detennined effort on the part of all law-abiding citizens to defeat the men of violence. And that effort must rest on clear and consistent principles of justice, equity and fairness. For if democracy is the rule of the majority, the other side of the coin is fairness and respect for the minority, for all are citizens of the United Kingdom.
On the economic front, we will continue to pay special attention to Northern Ireland’s needs. During direct rule, spending on economic and social programmes has risen since 1972–73 by 50 per cent. in real terms to £3,600 million last year. That amounts to nearly £2,500 a head, far more than in any other part of the United Kingdom. Spending on that scale shows the high priority given by successive Governments to the needs of Northern Ireland and its people. Our concern will continue.
On security, our efforts will also continue. Thanks to the magnificent work of our policemen and soldiers, we have already made some progress, but we still have much to do. I believe that our security forces can take new heart from the promise of greater security co-operation that will flow from the agreement.
In commending this agreement to the House, I should like first to pay tribute to Dr. Fitzgerald, who has worked 751 honestly and sincerely for an agreement to bring reassurance to both communities and a real prospect of peace and stability.
Second, I say to the members of both communities in Northern Ireland that, if Parliament approves the agreement, the Government will steadfastly implement it. This House represents all the people of the United Kingdom and its decisions are binding on all of them. We shall not give way to threats or to violence from any quarter. We shall look to the co-operation of all men and women of good will who want a better future for Northern Ireland and for their families.
§ Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury)Before my right hon. Friend leaves the point about the accountability of Parliament, will she say whether there will be any opportunity for Parliament to know about the deliberations of the Anglo-Irish conference? Will its deliberations be made public anywhere, or debated?
§ The Prime Minister It is not expected that everything that is said in the intergovernmental conference will be made public. I am giving consideration to how we can report to the House, for obvious reasons. We attend many intergovernmental conferences in Europe and elsewhere and usually report to the House about those that we attend. I am giving urgent consideration to this matter because I realise that there is concern about it.
Finally, I address myself once more to those among the unionist community who have openly expressed their fears and worries about this agreement. Far from representing any threat to the union of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, the agreement reinforces the union, and that should bring reassurance and confidence to the unionist majority. It clearly recognises—as it should—the validity of their great tradition, and it holds out the prospect of greater success in the struggle against terrorism from which the majority have suffered so much. As one who believes in the union. I urge the unionists to take advantage of the chance offered by the agreement.
We embarked on this agreement because we were not prepared to see the two communities for ever locked into the tragedies and antagonisms of the past. The younger generation, above all, has a right to expect more than that. The price of new hope is persistent endeavour. That is what we ask, and ask equally of all.
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By David Dunn The Scope
A Marvelous Legend
Stan Lee was always recognized as the guy who wrote Spider-Man. Not the Fantastic Four. Not the Hulk. Not the X-Men, or Iron Man, or Doctor Strange, Black Panther, or the Avengers. “Nope,” he wrote in a foreword to one of his books. “It’s always ‘Aren’t you the one who wrote Spider-Man?’”
Stan had a theory for why he was recognized for Spider-Man more than any of his other heroes: it was because of his humanity. “He never has enough money,” Stan continued. “He’s constantly beset by personal problems, and the world doesn’t exactly applaud his deeds. In fact, most people tend to suspect and distrust him.”
“In short, he’s a lot like you and me.”
I don’t disagree with him. Long before I became absorbed into the world of Marvel, superheroes, villains, and amazing fantasies, I was just a kid on my elementary school playground, my daydreams limited only to the far reaches of my imagination. It was on that playground where I saw other kids going bam, pow, and ka-blooey with their colorful action figures, one of them wearing red and blue spandex covered in webbing and a spider symbol. I pointed to the figure, and I asked them “Who’s that?” The kids all laughed in unison. “That’s Spider-Man, dummy,” one of them piped to me. “You’ve never heard of him?”
I didn’t know about him then, but as the years passed I learned much more about him and became completely enamored by his story. I read the original comic where he made his debut appearance in 1962’s “Amazing Fantasy #15” and became heartbroken by the loss of his Uncle Ben, but touched when he realized his mistakes and promised to set out and be better. I felt excitement as I watched him battle incredible enemies such as the energetic Electro, the multi-metal-limbed Doctor Octopus, the ghastly Mysterio, the brutish Venom, and of course the menacing Green Goblin. I was crushed when I not only saw the love of his life, Gwen Stacy, killed on the fateful Brooklyn Bridge but killed by his own webbing no less when he tried to save her but accidentally snapped her neck. And I felt resolution years later when he found new love in the breathtaking Mary Jane Watson and had moved on to start a family with her.
Spider-Man was my introduction to the Marvel universe, but when I learned how big and expansive it truly was, I was nearly overwhelmed. I quickly became absorbed by all of Stan Lee’s stories and learned about the many subjects that he touched upon. I read the Incredible Hulk and learned how dangerous it was to inhibit your emotions. I read about Daredevil and learned that your disability doesn’t define you, and in some ways, it can embolden you. I read about Doctor Strange and learned that when you lose one gift, sometimes it opens up a path to receive another. I read the X-Men and learned that our differences are nothing to be ashamed or afraid of. In many ways, it is our very strength and represents the best humanity has to offer.
Stan Lee’s superheroes and stories have touched many lives – my own included. It becomes nearly impossible not to become enamored by his stories, or the person who created them.
But the truth was Stan was not a superhero. Far from it. Throughout his life, there was much argument over how much of a hand he really had in his characters and for sometimes hogging the spotlight from his fellow co-creators. Comic book legend Jack Kirby, who co-created the Fantastic Four and the X-Men alongside Lee, even went so far as to claim that he’s “never seen Stan write anything.” And artist Steve Ditko arguably had just as much a hand in creating Spider-Man as much as Lee did. Yet, you might be surprised to find out that he also died earlier this year to a significantly lesser tribute.
And then there are the even further complications of his last years on Earth. In July 2017, Stan lost his wife Joan died due to stroke complications. In April earlier this year, The Hollywood Reporter published an expose on Lee suffering from elder abuse from several associates looking to gain control over his assets, including one Keya Morgan whom he filed a restraining order against in August. Later, The Daily Mail published a story claiming that Lee repeatedly sexually harassed the nurses that came to take care of him by asking them to join him in the shower, walking around naked, and requesting sexual favors. Then, just as quickly as the story broke, it faded from memory. I have no idea whether those rumors are true or not. I pray they are not.
I say all this not to tarnish his legacy, but to be honest about it. Stan was a comic-book visionary, a passionate storyteller and a gargantuan pop-culture icon. He will no doubt be among history’s greatest creators, not unlike Walt Disney with animation or Alfred Hitchcock with the movies. And like these men, he had a complicated legacy with his success – one that should not be ignored or skipped over. How people react to that context is up to them. All I can do is speak for myself, and I know for a fact that Stan Lee’s characters and stories have had a profound impact on my life and the person that I have become – regardless of the confused, flawed human being who is behind them.
I will say this: regardless of what you may feel of Stan Lee or his history, I hope you remember and appreciate his many contributions to the entertainment industry. His stories have been compelling, thought-provoking, and relevant to the real world. His characters have been memorable, dazzling, and relatable. And the impact he’s left on the comic-book and movie scene has been mighty, uncanny, incredible, spectacular, fantastic, even amazing.
Stan Lee has passed, but his heroes live on. They will always live on. I cried this weekend while revisiting Spider-Man 2, realizing that the most profound thing about Peter Parker wasn’t his spider powers, his wall-crawling, web-slinging, or his Spider-sense. It was the fact that he was a person, and despite his personal troubles and issues, he was always trying to do the right thing for everybody – despite not knowing them or what they go through themselves.
I hope as time passes, people will remember that sentiment. That with many gifts comes much giving. That with our many talents comes the duty of sharing it with others. And yes, the lesson that has stuck with me all these years and will carry me for many more – with great power comes great responsibility.
Thank you, Stan. For everything.
Excelsior,
Tagged Avengers, Fantastic Four, Marvel, Spider-man, Stan Lee, X-men
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Life after traumatic brain injury: Lessons from a support group
By Judy A. Schmidt October 8, 2018
Support groups are wonderful opportunities for people with similar life experiences to meet each other, share their stories and encourage one another. Group members benefit from learning coping strategies and everyday tips for dealing with various experiences. For people with traumatic brain injury (TBI), support groups offer informal opportunities for understanding a shared experience that greatly changed their lives, often within a few seconds’ or minutes’ time. They are left with physical, cognitive and emotional outcomes that impact their relationships, work and independence, often leading to loneliness and isolation.
As noted by the Brain Injury Association of America, more than 2.5 million adults and children experience a TBI in the United States each year, and support groups play a vital role in their continued recovery and re-entry to everyday life. A TBI dramatically interrupts life for these individuals and their families. Extended hospitalizations for physical recovery and long-term cognitive training for rewiring the brain alter all aspects of life, with treatment continuing for up to a year after the incident.
Effects of TBI
The effects of TBI are varied and highly individualized. The extent of the physical and psychosocial impacts depends on the type of injury (closed, open or acquired) and the severity of the injury. Thus, depending on the area of injury, people with TBI may deal with deficits in memory, executive functioning issues and poor judgment.
Frontal lobe injuries may lead to changes in mood and personality, difficulty making decisions and difficulty with expressive language, all of which are executive functions.
Injuries to the parietal lobe, which helps with perceptual abilities, may lead to difficulties naming words (anomia), finding words (agraphia) or reading (alexia), as well as problems with perceptual abilities that integrate sensory information. The ability to distinguish right from left may also be affected.
Damage to the temporal lobe may involve hearing loss, Wernicke’s aphasia (difficulty grasping the meaning of spoken language), problems categorizing information such as objects and short-term memory problems.
Brain injuries to the occipital lobe, which controls our vision, may lead to visual field problems, distorted perception and difficulty with reading, writing and word recognition.
Injury to the base of the skull at the site of the cerebellum creates difficulties with balance, equilibrium and coordination, as well as slurred speech.
Acute and long-term rehabilitation from TBI involves physical, occupational and speech therapy, as well as cognitive neuropsychological evaluations. As individuals recover from the physical damage, it is important for counselors to be a part of the rehabilitation team to manage adjustment to the physical injuries, acute stress and cognitive disability. In addition, the psychosocial aspects of TBI are very disruptive. They can be long-lasting as these individuals and their families begin to adapt to everyday life. Counselors are needed to provide individual and family counseling, as well as psychoeducation about TBI and recovery.
Psychosocial aspects of TBI
The psychosocial aspects of TBI are also related to the area of brain damage. People with frontal lobe damage may have difficulty making decisions, maintaining attention to tasks and controlling impulsive behaviors.
When the parietal lobe is damaged, difficulties occur with eye-hand coordination, reading, math and writing.
Temporal lobe damage interferes with communication skills, learning and memory. Learning difficulties due to recognition and visual field problems may result from occipital lobe damage.
In assisting people with TBI and their families, it is important to understand how psychosocial areas of life are affected and how these areas impact the potential return to daily living. For example, an individual may not return to his or her pre-injury abilities and can experience problems returning to work or school. Difficulties with problem-solving, understanding others’ emotions and social cues, or just being able to carry on a conversation may isolate the person with the TBI and increase his or her feelings of loss. Other areas of life that may be affected include the ability to drive, participate in sports and exercise, which can create deficits in the person’s social life. Problems with executive functioning can lead to challenges making sound decisions. Because safety is a major concern, the individual with a TBI may need to be monitored consistently by family, which can lead to tensions and other problems.
These are all skills that most of us take for granted or complete without much planning and forethought. But for individuals with TBI, family and personal relationships can grow strained, and the ability to build new relationships is impacted. The person’s independence and self-esteem suffer greatly.
As a rehabilitation counselor for an acute inpatient rehabilitation program, I work with individuals who have TBIs, as well as their families, to provide counseling for stabilization, adjustment to disability and assistance with developing coping strategies. Providing support to these patients and their families as they begin realizing the extent of the brain damage and start dealing with feelings of loss is a crucial part of recovery.
For three years, I facilitated a monthly outpatient support group for people with TBI and found the experience fascinating. Hearing stories of people having car accidents, motorcycle accidents, work accidents, anoxia (deprivation of oxygen) and other unexpected accidents was difficult and often heart-wrenching. Yet these shared experiences forged a bond among group members that was undeniable and very moving.
They shared what it was like to not remember exactly what had happened to cause their brain injury. They shared what it was like to lose track of time and details and to have to trust the information told to them by health care providers, family members and friends. The fact that they each had “lost a period of time” from their lives and hadn’t been the same since seemed to build a sense of trust and caring among the group.
I soon learned that as a rehabilitation counselor, I could understand the medical, cognitive, vocational and emotional results of their injuries, but I couldn’t fully appreciate the daily psychosocial impact that their injuries had taken and continued to take on their lives.
The time since being injured varied among the support group members — anywhere from two years to 18 years. Regardless, the psychosocial effects they experienced were extensive. They talked about their school and work being interrupted, about having to settle for less challenging options or not being able to pursue their goals at all. Some shared tales of broken marriages and relationships, of losing custody of their children.
Others talked about losing their sense of independence because they had to rely on their families for almost everything. Some could no longer live at home due to the need for constant supervision, so they had to learn to live in group homes. Pursuing sports or other recreation choices was hard because of physical limitations. Another significant loss was no longer being able to drive and depending on others for transportation. The lack of money for “extras” was particularly difficult for those group members with children.
Holidays posed another challenge for these support group members because of sensory issues with noise, lights and too many people talking at once. Others discussed experiencing the stigma of having a TBI and being considered “different now” by family members and friends. This was felt particularly strongly at social gatherings, where family and friends made infrequent contact with them. Isolation and loneliness were prevalent themes in their stories. Depression, anxiety and low self-esteem made daily life a struggle.
Research conducted by Jesse Fann and colleagues in 2009 and by Annemieke Scholten and colleagues in 2016 and subsequently published in the Journal of Neurotrauma shows that the rate of depression during the first year after a TBI is 50 percent. The rate is close to 60 percent within seven years after the TBI. So, it is crucial for counselors to have this awareness of serious mental health issues in people with TBI to properly assist them and their families in seeking appropriate treatment.
Members of the support group I facilitated discussed that being on medication was difficult due to the side effects and to the cost of the medication if they had little or no insurance. They felt that cognitive retraining programs and daily psychosocial programs modeled after those for people with serious and persistent mental illness helped tremendously. The aspects of these programs that they reported helping most were receiving cognitive behavior therapy and continuing to learn more about TBI. The psychosocial programs were highly regarded because of the increase in social activities, access to vocational rehabilitation and supported employment services, and integration back into the community.
At times, the support group was difficult to manage because of the cognitive and emotional deficits with which the individuals dealt. However, the members had their unique ways of helping each other and redirecting the conversations. It was very clear that they respected one another.
Our time together as a support group transformed us into a unique family, particularly because the group remained fairly constant in its membership. The members trusted each other and understood the struggles being discussed. However, they also felt safe in correcting each other and being bluntly honest (which people with TBI are). We did have some new members join along the way. They were welcomed with open arms, and veteran members exhibited an unabashed eagerness to help. It was always interesting to hear about the creative accommodations that our members developed to live life each day and how the professionals in their lives assisted them.
As the group grew stronger, the members felt it was important for me to record what they wanted others to know about TBI and people with TBI. Their primary messages were:
“Conversation and expressing one’s self can be difficult.”
“People with TBI may not like the same things as they previously did, so don’t force us.”
“Tasks may take longer for people with TBI, so wait for us.”
“Social situations can overload people with TBI.”
“TBI affects everyone around the person.”
“Those with TBI are still the same people they were before.”
During my time with the support group, I learned many lessons. First of all, I learned that life after a TBI requires constant adjustments that must be made each day to be productive and involved. I also came to understand that time does offer healing when abundant respect and empathy are present. But most important, I learned about living life as it happens from a wonderful group of resilient individuals.
Judy A. Schmidt is a clinical assistant professor in the clinical rehabilitation and mental health counseling program in the Department of Allied Health Sciences, and an adjunct clinical assistant professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, School of Medicine, at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. She is the rehabilitation counselor for the acute inpatient rehabilitation unit for UNC Hospital, where she provides counseling services to patients and their families after traumatic brain injury, stroke, spinal cord injury and other neurological trauma. Contact her at judy_schmidt@med.unc.edu.
Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.
Counselors Audience, Group Work, loneliness, Mental Health, self esteem, traumatic brain injury
Understanding and working with service dog handlers
By K. Lynn Pierce
It happens almost as soon as Emily steps through the door of the grocery store. “What do you think you’re doing in here with that?” an employee demands loudly while moving to block her path. He’s pointing in anger at the black Labrador retriever beside her. As Emily comes to a halt, her service dog, Todd, automatically sits. He’s braced slightly against her leg to help her balance.
“We don’t allow dogs,” the employee states emphatically. “It’s a health code violation.”
“This is a service animal. He provides medical alert to assist me with my disability and is permitted to accompany me by the Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA].” The well-rehearsed line flows from Emily’s mouth even as she feels herself flushing, aware that people are staring as they pass. She wants desperately to move farther into the store, out of the way.
“Well, what about your papers or ID? I need to see some proof,” the employee insists, crossing his arms and looking at Emily in clear disbelief.
Emily replies, trying to stay calm. “The ADA doesn’t permit businesses to ask for proof of disability, and there are no registries or certifications for service animals.”
As the employee blusters and scoffs, Emily signals to Todd, who stands and walks with her around the employee. Thankfully, he does not follow them, but Emily still pushes down a wave of panic that he might call the police or that someone else might try to make her leave the store before she can get what she needs.
It’s the end of a long day, but partway to the checkout counter, Emily realizes that she forgot to grab bread to go with tonight’s dinner, so she and Todd head down the front aisle to the bakery. Along the way, Emily does her best to block out the delighted cries, sounds of surprise and conversations that break out as she and Todd pass. Emily hears one couple wondering whether she is a dog trainer because she doesn’t look like she’s blind. What could be wrong with her?
While looking at the choices of dinner rolls on display, Emily is startled by a shrill voice behind her. “Oh, what an adorable puppy! Can I pet him?”
Emily turns to see a woman already reaching toward Todd, who, on cue, backs partially behind Emily as she steps forward in front of him. “No, ma’am, please don’t distract him. He’s working.”
“Oh, it’s all right. I love dogs,” says the woman, now trying to reach around Emily’s leg to get to Todd.
“He is working,” says Emily firmly. “Please leave us alone.”
“Well, there’s no need to be so rude about it. Why would you bring a dog if you didn’t want people to pay attention to it?” exclaims the woman, glaring at Emily as she walks off in a huff.
Emily goes directly to a self-checkout to avoid more interactions with employees. By the time she reaches the car, Todd is alerting her that her heart rate is elevated. Emily sits in the car for a few minutes, shaking and breathing heavily before she feels safe to head home.
This is a common experience for people with disabilities who require service animals. For these individuals, their service animals are their lifeline, but all too often, they experience disproportionate discrimination, invasive questioning and other unwanted attention. Service dogs are becoming more common, particularly for people who have invisible disabilities. Consequently, it is more important than ever that counselors become comfortable working with service dog teams and know how to respond when clients ask whether a service dog would be helpful for them.
Defining a service animal
It is helpful to first understand what a service animal is not. Service animals are frequently confused with emotional support animals and with therapy animals.
Emotional support animals are pets that are permitted to live with or travel with someone who has a disability. They are not required to be trained in any specific way, and animals other than dogs can be designated as emotional support animals.
Many counselors are already familiar with therapy animals because they are often used in animal-assisted therapy. Therapy animals are simply animals that are used by their handlers to assist others, frequently in mental health or medical settings, but also in courtrooms and during crisis or disaster response scenarios. Often, the facility in which the handler works will impose general training or temperament requirements for therapy animals, but these animals are not expected to do specific tasks.
When it comes to service animals, there are a number of misconceptions. One of the most common myths is that service animals require a special certification or license or official documentation. In reality, there is no registry or certification for service animals that has any legal meaning. Another myth is that service dogs must be a certain breed or size, but there are actually no restrictions. In fact, many small breeds make excellent medical alert dogs and don’t require the space considerations that larger breeds do.
So, what is the definition of a service animal? According to the ADA, a service animal is a dog that has been individually trained to work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. A disability as defined by the ADA is a legal term, not a medical one. Under the ADA, a person with a disability is someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.
Service animals are not pets; under the law, they are considered to be necessary medical equipment. They can be in public with their handler because their handler has a right to equal public access under the law, and the service animal performs tasks required by the handler to achieve that access. This means that outside of a few specific limitations, service animals are allowed to go anywhere that a wheelchair, walker or other assistive device can go. Just as wheelchairs are custom fit for their users, service animals are specifically trained for an individual’s needs through a set of trained tasks.
Trained tasks are not actually defined by the ADA. The only thing the ADA clearly states is that comfort is not a task. This is very important, so let me elaborate. Counselors may have cause to think about and discuss with a client whether a service dog would be helpful for that client. However, if after researching categories of tasks, the answer to the question of “What would a service dog do for my client?” is anything like, “It would make them feel better when they experience anxiety,” then the client cannot utilize a service animal.
Because the ADA defines only what a trained task is not, organizations such as the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners provide lists of common tasks. Generally, these tasks are broken down into categories on the basis of what the tasks accomplish (hearing, mobility, guide, medical alert, psychiatric assistance, etc.) or what “kind” of service animal might perform them. Because counselors are not typically experienced in training dogs, it is easier to start with determining broad categories of tasks that counselors believe might be helpful for their client. It is best to focus on tasks that would help the client in public because the point of public access with a service dog is that the dog is actively mitigating the client’s disability and is therefore required. Counselors are likely to find several “bonus” tasks that would provide great additional benefit, but these are best added once it is clear that a service dog is necessary for the client to successfully function independently in public places.
Working with prospective handlers
In assessing whether a service animal is a good fit for a client, a simple first test is to ask:
1) Is my client disabled under the definition set forth by the ADA?
2) Is my client a suitable candidate for a service animal?
3) Are there trained tasks a service dog could perform that would help mitigate my client’s disability?
Often, the first question will provide counselors with the overall answer. If the client isn’t disabled, then that person won’t be able to use a service animal. If the client is disabled, then the focus moves to the question of whether the client is a suitable candidate for using a service animal.
Some basic considerations for arriving at an answer to the second question include whether the client is physically and financially able to care for a dog, whether the client can handle major life changes at this point and the client’s overall degree of resiliency. Service dog programs agree that potential contraindications include suicide attempts by the client in the past year, severe paranoia or psychosis and any other situation that might put the dog’s safety at risk. A good candidate might have a history of bonding strongly with canines. It is also important to determine whether the client is in a stable enough position to be able to effectively use a service animal.
Then we arrive at the question of trained tasks, which is essentially, can the client be helped by a service dog? In assessing a client, a counselor might ask what the client’s disability is preventing the person from doing. A possible answer would be that the client has posttraumatic stress disorder and is hypervigilant. The client experiences flashbacks and becomes stuck in place. Sometimes the client becomes disoriented and cannot remember where he parked. Additionally, at home the client disassociates without warning and cannot get to his medication. He also has nightmares and disrupted sleep.
For this client, possible trained tasks to be used in public might include a “watch my back” command, in which the service dog would alert the handler to people approaching from behind, and a “search” command, in which the dog could search an enclosed area such as an office for other people. The dog would also be trained to respond to and eventually alert the handler to flashbacks by sensing shifts in breathing and body language or other cues specific to the client. For example, the dog could be trained to lick the handler’s face if it does not receive a response from the handler. It could also alert other known people, such as the client’s spouse or co-workers, that the client needs assistance. In responding to a flashback or other episode, the dog could be trained to lead the handler to the exit of the building, either automatically or upon receiving a “find the way out” command. In instances in which the handler can’t locate his car, the dog could be trained to “find the car” and lead the handler there.
Some bonus tasks performed at home by the service dog might include waking the handler from nightmares and retrieving medication from a known location. The dog could also use the known “search” command upon returning home if the handler was concerned that an intruder might be present. Perhaps the handler also has a secondary concern of mobility issues from knee and back problems. In that case, more mobility tasks such as balance feedback and bracing to help the handler get out of chairs could be added to the service dog’s responsibilities, along with some named items for retrieval such as “phone,” “remote” and “keys.”
This service animal would clearly be a huge comfort to the client, but we can recognize that it would be performing many tangible trained tasks beyond comfort, thus setting it apart from a regular pet or an emotional support animal. This is what justifies the animal working with its handler in public as medical equipment under the law.
What steps should be taken after determining that a client would be helped by a service animal? Most handlers are best served getting their first dog from a program rather than attempting to train the dog themselves, unless they possess extensive training experience or have connections to the right people to provide the training. The organization providing the service animal will likely want documentation and a release of information from the counselor if the client’s disability is related to a mental health-based diagnosis rather than a concern that is primarily medical. Be aware that scam programs do exist. It is important to look for red flags, such as programs that want a large sum of money upfront or that won’t allow prospective clients to visit a training or to be connected with current clients.
Accreditation bodies such as Assistance Dogs International can help limit the risk in choosing an organization. These accreditation bodies assist training programs by setting standards for the required level of obedience training, thus helping to ensure that the animal will be safe to work in public. They also have agreements concerning their obligations to clients should needs change or challenges arise.
When choosing a service animal organization, clients should read and understand the contract as well as the policies and practices of the program thoroughly before committing because there may be fundraising requirements or extensive policies regarding gear, care, travel and so on. Generally, clients will have custody through an organization that maintains ownership of the dog. Therefore, it is important to ask for information concerning who makes the call on when a dog retires, whether animals retire into handler care and what the process is for getting a successor dog, in addition to all of the requirements for being a handler through the organization.
The experiences of handlers
Very little research is available on the experiences of service dog handlers. There is prevalent stigma against service animals, however. In her 2017 study of just under 500 handlers, sociologist Meghan Mills found that the majority of participants (68 percent) reported discrimination during daily tasks. Mills also reported that 77 percent of respondents indicated the legitimacy of their service dog had been questioned, and nearly half said they had not used their service dog in public “sometimes” because of unwanted attention.
The experiences of handlers appear to be affected by factors such as gender, race, age and geographic location. It is common for handlers to experience negative reactions from their friends, family members and communities. This can be especially true for those with invisible disabilities who may already have the legitimacy of their illness questioned regularly. Service dogs are not as common as other assistive devices, and this can draw additional attention. The social norm in the United States of pet dogs being prohibited in most public spaces compounds this experience. Even when handlers start with strong support networks, the constant discrimination they face over time can lead either to their exclusion by others or to self-imposed isolation to avoid these experiences.
Because people tend not to understand public access laws or how to interact appropriately with service dog teams, handlers are often characterized as demanding or rude for protecting their legal rights or safety. In online service dog forums, handlers regularly ask how to be strategic about telling strangers not to distract a dog who needs to be watching for medical alert (for example, a dog trained to give early warning for a seizure). These handlers do not want to endanger themselves, but they have been told that they are being unreasonable to expect strangers not to talk to, bark at or call their dog.
New handlers in programs or on their own will practice being assertive and calm, repeating the law and educating in the face of people yelling and threatening to call the police. As a result, handlers can put unreasonable expectations on themselves and their dogs to be flawless. Handlers may be concerned that an off day or a small mistake could make their access and the access of other teams more difficult.
Working with teams
Counselors who understand the role of service dogs have a unique opportunity to model positive social interactions for handlers. Showing respect through appropriate etiquette to service dog teams is a simple step that will communicate understanding and put service dog handlers at ease.
The core of service dog etiquette is not interfering with the animal’s focus by talking to, petting or otherwise engaging the dog. In the same way one would not comment on a person’s wheelchair or cane, it is rude to focus too much on a service dog or to ask too many questions. The presence of a service dog, as necessary medical equipment, is not an invitation for conversation about the client’s disability or about service dogs (either in general or about the handler’s in particular). Handlers may be sensitive to these questions because they commonly are asked by others in inappropriate settings. As with any other client, it is best to build rapport first, then ask more probing questions once a relationship is established. In support of building a therapeutic relationship, I’d recommend that counselors say something along the following lines: “I’m not going to ask you things I don’t need to know about your service animal, but is there anything you would like to tell me about how you want me to interact with you as a team while we’re working together?” This would be a polite way for counselors to align themselves with these clients while also signaling understanding of and respect for their boundaries.
If counselors are aware that a client is a service dog handler, it is important to think in advance about the potential barriers the team may face in a counseling setting. For example, if the waiting room becomes uncomfortable because another client is being too curious or is distracting the service dog, consider whether there is another location where the client could go to wait for the session. Educating other counselors and staff in the practice on basic etiquette is also important because it removes the responsibility from the client. If a client who is a handler is going to participate in a group, spend time beforehand discussing how the client would like to be supported in setting boundaries with the other group members. This step could improve the outcome.
As previously noted, many service dog teams experience frequent discrimination. Over time, some handlers become fearful of entering new environments because of the potential of access concerns or other negative interactions. Some handlers have been threatened or experienced violence simply for having a service animal. Conflict may also result from the handler not allowing people to pet or interact with the service animal or from refusing to be illegally removed from a building. Many teams have been attacked by pet dogs or by dogs that are claimed to be service animals. It is worth counselors evaluating for trauma responses within this demographic because, over time, the constant alienation can build up, even without the experience of acute incidents.
Handlers may also have lost the support of family or friends or access to some of their spaces because of this treatment decision. Loss of access can be due to lack of ADA coverage (as is the case in religious spaces) or due to elements of specific environments in which the social cost of advocacy may outweigh the gain of access. It is important that counselors not place the burden of education exclusively on handlers and understand that in some situations, there is no clear path forward to gain access once it has been denied. This means that counseling with handlers may involve elements of grief counseling.
There are interventions used in training programs that can deepen the bond in a team and help handlers be more effective in using their service dogs. Some of these interventions target specific symptoms, whereas others address interpersonal and environmental processing through the team bond. Counselors working with long-term clients who are handlers may be served by seeking consultation and supervision in this area.
K. Lynn Pierce recently started her counselor education and supervision doctoral program at Pennsylvania State University. She is a service animal handler of four years and provides consultation and workshops for mental health and related professions around service dog inclusion and integration. Contact her through her website at klynnpierce.com.
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animal, Rehabilitation & Disability
Working with foster and adoptive families through the lens of attachment
By Somer George October 4, 2018
“He just got kicked out of his second preschool program! We’re nearing the end of our options here. What do we do?” I could hear the desperation in the mother’s voice as she described the past few months with the 5-year-old she and her family were fostering and would soon be adopting.
“He threw a chair at the teacher and punched a little girl, and nothing we do seems to make it better,” the father explained, describing the detailed behavior plan on which they had collaborated with a well-meaning social worker.
“And it’s not just at school,” the mother continued. “Even when he’s home with us, he often gets out of control. He even peed on his dad’s lap” — her voice lowered to a whisper — “on purpose!”
I nodded my head, empathetic to the immense strain this family had been under for the past several months. The mother and father were friendly and confident, well-educated and sincere. They had wanted to do something good for the world by fostering and adopting children in need. They had so much to offer. And yet here they were, barely surviving each day and feeling the shreds of normalcy slip through their fingers as this little boy pushed every emotional button they had, leaving them exhausted and discouraged.
My years of experience working with the Secure Child In-Home Program and the Virginia Child and Family Attachment Center helped me to frame their experience in terms of attachment. The situation they were in was not unique among parents who had adopted a child or made the decision to provide foster care, the initial good intention and early excitement slowly turning to exhaustion and sometimes regret. Often, these children who need it the most push away every offer of help and comfort that is provided to them.
Where healing happens
So, what do we do when parents who have adopted a child or are providing foster care come to us, asking for advice or counseling for their troubled child? Certainly, there is benefit in providing these children with play therapy, giving them a chance to form a new relationship and to express themselves through their own language of play.
And yet, that strategy speaks to only one side of the coin. Attachment theory tells us that children heal best in the context of secure caregiving relationships. And parents are the ones who provide the day in, day out caregiving, wielding the most influence on the development of new patterns in the child’s relationships and behaviors.
According to attachment theory, a child is biologically wired to turn toward a caregiver in times of distress. When the child’s emotional needs are met, the child develops patterns of soothing and regulation that are essential for healthy development. When these emotional needs are denied or rebuffed, however, or if the child experiences the caregiver as frightening, the child learns dramatically different adaptive strategies. The child may become withdrawn and inhibited or bossy and aggressive. These patterns aren’t quick to change when a new caregiver comes along. Add to this the trauma of abuse and the loss of a biological parent, and you have a situation full of misunderstanding and relational strain.
New caregivers often come into their role with little awareness of the child’s experiences and the patterns necessary for surviving a young life filled with turmoil, anguish and uncertainties. When these coping strategies show up in the new relationship, parents are (understandably) distressed and often seek help to “fix” the child’s confusing and challenging behavior.
What these parents may not realize is that their own ability to read through the confusing signals and meet the child’s emotional need is the place where most of the healing will happen. If the parents can provide both a secure base from which the child can explore the world and a safe haven for the child to return to, the deeply rooted patterns of behavior and interaction will begin to shift. This is not a quick and easy process. It is messy to be sure, often following a pattern of one step forward, two steps back. However, if parents are given the support they need, it is certainly an attainable and worthy goal.
The counselor’s role
So, what is the counselor’s role in helping form new patterns of interaction, leading to more emotional stability and better child behavior? How can we help move these relationships toward greater security, helping each family to become a haven of safety for children who have experienced significant neglect, rejection, fear and loss?
I’d like to offer some suggestions for counselors who desire to help these parents form stronger relationships with their children and experience a reduction in the difficult behaviors that create such chaos.
Provide empathy and understanding to parents. Often, by the time parents seek out a counselor, they have already been through a great deal of distress, frustration and turmoil. Yes, they are coming to receive help, but first they need to feel heard and understood without being judged. Parenting is extraordinarily difficult, and parenting a child with extensive emotional needs is even harder. Take the time to empathetically hear these parents’ concerns and welcome their expressions of distress.
Educate parents about normal development and the impact of trauma/loss. Sometimes foster and adoptive parents have already successfully raised biological children, so these difficult behaviors on the part of the child they are adopting or fostering don’t make sense to them. What they did with their other kids doesn’t seem to work with this child. Spend time teaching these parents about how their child’s brain may have developed in a dramatically different way due to the impact of neglect, trauma and loss. Talk about the fact that forming new secure relationships takes time and how important their role is in this process.
Help parents to practice observation skills. We human beings so naturally take in information and draw conclusions without even realizing we are doing it. Unfortunately, we aren’t always right. Parents who are living in highly stressful situations may have trouble stepping back and paying attention to what is happening in the moment. Help them to slow down and notice their child’s body language, facial expressions and tone of voice before making assumptions about what the behavior means or how to stop it. With foster and adoptive children, parents often say they don’t know what is going on inside the child; this is often the most important place to help them learn. It is essential that they obtain a developmentally accurate view of the child’s inner experience, feelings and thoughts in the context of the child’s earlier experience and relationship patterns.
Invite parents to pay attention to their own experience. How does mom feel when the child is screaming that he hates her? What is dad’s experience when his request to come for supper is repeatedly ignored? As parents become better at observing their child, it is important that they also attend to themselves. What are they feeling in these moments, and what is their body language and tone of voice communicating to the child? Help them to consider their own needs and to find ways to regulate their own strong emotions that are activated when the child is pushing them away.
Encourage parents to think about what the child is feeling in these difficult moments. So often, the focus of parents is on how to manage the child’s behavior. Traditional strategies that use rewards and punishment are rarely successful with children who have experienced neglect, trauma and loss. Although the child’s behavior doesn’t make sense at first glance, there is often much to be learned if we slow down and pay close attention.
Have the parents set aside quick assumptions and, instead, help them to observe carefully, giving consideration to what the child might be feeling. The child might look and sound angry at first glance, but might he or she instead be feeling scared or sad? The child already has emotional and behavioral sequences established that, once activated, run automatically. These unintentional and automatic patterns need to be shaped into healthier ones.
Ask parents to think about what the child needs from them. Does the child need to feel heard and validated? Does the child need comfort, protection and co-regulation of automatic well-learned patterns? Does the child need the parent to stay close by and help him calm down because he feels out of control? If the child is anxious, might she need the parent to provide soothing rather than correction?
Encourage parents to try new strategies aimed at fostering connection. Instead of putting the child in timeout, try bringing him in close for a cuddle and some conversation. Instead of sending the child to her bedroom to calm down, try going with her and staying close by. Remind parents that new approaches may not work right away, but with persistence and practice, they can begin to make a significant difference.
Facilitate parents’ exploration of their own attachment histories and how this influences interaction with the child. We know from research that a foster child’s initial relationship patterns are often a mismatch for a parent’s natural caregiving patterns. We also recognize that parental patterns of attachment have a strong influence on the child’s patterns. Increased reflection on these experiences can help us become better caregivers.
Invite parents to think about how their own experiences with caregivers have influenced the way that they react and respond to their child. What expectations do they hold? What automatic reactions are happening outside of their awareness? What automatic reactions happen outside of the child’s awareness?
Celebrate small (and large) victories. The little moments are the big moments. Provide plenty of affirmation and support for parents as they try new approaches and persevere in the day-to-day tasks of parenting. Acknowledging their efforts and celebrating successes, however small, can go a long way toward giving them the courage to continue through the hard times.
Working with these families can be immensely rewarding. They are often highly motivated and desperate for support. As counselors, we need to be aware of our impulse to provide a “quick fix” to try and make things better. We can make concrete suggestions, but we also need to recognize that the process of building stronger relationships and changing behavior takes time.
The type of relationship that we build with the child’s parents can itself be a catalyst for change. We can provide a place where the parents feel safe expressing their distress and their shortcomings, knowing that we will support them in their efforts to help guide their child on the path to healing.
As I continued working with the family mentioned at the beginning of this article, I could see the changes taking place. They began having more positive interactions with their child and seeing new qualities in him that they hadn’t noticed before; they were thinking about him in a different way. Their own self-reflection helped them to catch themselves before they reacted and think more about what he needed from each of them.
“I noticed that the collar of his shirt was often wet from him chewing on it. I stopped reprimanding him for this and realized that it meant he was feeling really anxious,” the mother told me one day.
“Yeah, and this was a sign that we needed to pick him up and give him some reassurance,” the father quickly added. “It really seems to calm him down.”
The mother continued: “I think that before when he was anxious, his behavior would spiral out of control. And the behavior chart was part of what contributed to his anxiety, which just made things worse instead of better. I don’t think we need it anymore.” As she spoke, she glanced at dad and noted his nodding head.
“They still use one at school,” she said, “but we’ve been talking to his new teacher about how to connect with him and what helps relieve his anxiety. Also, I stuck a picture in his book bag of the three of us together so he can get it out and look at it when he is at school. I think it helps him feel more secure. It’s a way for him to carry us with him.”
As I listened to them share these stories, I couldn’t help but smile. They still had a long road ahead of them, but they were headed down a very different path than the one they were on originally. We celebrated each of these moments together and reflected further on their experiences with their child.
I continued to come alongside them to support them in this journey for a little while longer, serving as a secure base and safe haven for them. Soon, however, they decided that they no longer needed counseling. Through a lens of attachment, they saw that their relationship with their son was much stronger, and although his behavior was still challenging at times, they possessed the confidence that they could handle it, moving forward together as a family. Once again, the experience of a healthy attachment proved itself to be a powerful force, propelling another family toward greater health and healing.
Somer George is an adjunct professor at James Madison University and is currently completing her doctorate in counseling and supervision. She also works for the Virginia Child and Family Attachment Center and the Secure Child In-Home Program, where she helps to provide comprehensive attachment assessments, intensive in-home therapy and research-based parent courses. Contact her at somer@george.net.
Related reading, from Counseling Today:
“Fostering a brighter future”
“Through the child welfare kaleidoscope”
adoption, attachment, Children & Adolescents, Family, family counseling, parenting
Promoting LGBTQ students’ well-being in schools
By Roberto L. Abreu, Adriana G. McEachern, Jennifer Geddes Hall and Maureen C. Kenny October 2, 2018
Research shows that LGBTQ youth are disproportionately bullied (whether in person or via cyberbullying), verbally and physically harassed, and assaulted in schools by peers and staff. Such hostility has been correlated to lower school performance and psychological and emotional distress, including suicidal ideation and attempt, depression and anxiety.
In the 2015 GLSEN (formerly Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) National School Climate Survey, LGB students reported higher levels of verbal, physical and sexual violence and bullying than did their heterosexual counterparts. Specifically, 98.1 percent of LGB students heard the word “gay” used in a derogatory manner, 85.2 percent reported verbal harassment, and 34.7 percent reported being physically harassed in the past year. In addition, a 2017 meta-analysis (conducted by co-authors Roberto L. Abreu and Maureen C. Kenny) of 27 empirical studies on the effects of cyberbullying on LGBTQ youth revealed that compared with their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, these students are disproportionately harassed online and through other technology-based means. Such harassment has been correlated to a range of behavioral and emotional difficulties, including suicidal ideation (with some studies suggesting rates as high as 40 percent among LGBTQ youth) and suicide attempts (with rates as high as 30 percent).
Many LGBTQ students identify school counselors as the one school staff member to whom they are most likely to disclose concerns related to their sexual and gender identity. Given this reality, school counselors are uniquely positioned to address myths about LGBTQ youth, to advocate for these students and to effect change.
Let’s begin by examining five myths that can have an impact on the identity, safety and well-being of LGBTQ youth. We’ll also look at specific strategies and interventions that counselors can use to address these myths and increase the safety of LGBTQ students.
Myth #1: Parents must be informed of their child’s sexual and gender identity. A 10th-grader discloses to her high school counselor that she identifies as a lesbian. Most of her friends know, but she has yet to tell her parents. She fears their reaction because she has heard them make derogatory remarks toward LGBTQ individuals in the past. Must the school counselor inform the student’s parents?
The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model (2012) stresses the importance of parent and family involvement and its influence on the well-being of students. Although parent engagement is critical when working with LGBTQ youth, school counselors should consider several factors before disclosing to parents a student’s sexual or gender identity. Many LGBTQ students believe they lack parental support, and they may fear rejection, abuse and an unsafe home environment if their parents discover their sexual or gender identity.
Therefore, the counselor in this scenario should first discuss with the student her feelings about informing her parents and assess how they may react to this information. It would be important for the counselor to prepare the student for potential negative parental responses. Role-playing the conversation could be helpful for the student. It would be best to have the minor client make the disclosure to her parents with the counselor present to provide support. It is also important to have a plan in place to provide the client with a safe place to stay should the parents totally reject her and need time to adjust to the situation.
In certain instances, school counselors may have to break confidentiality. For example, what if the student also disclosed to the counselor that she was distraught over the situation and was having suicidal thoughts and feelings of hopelessness because she feared that her parents would never understand or accept her sexual and gender identity? In that situation, there would be potential harm and danger to the minor client. Therefore, the counselor would need to conduct a thorough suicide assessment, then inform the client of the legal and ethical reasons that confidentiality must be breached.
It is important for counselors to check their schools’ policies and procedures in relation to dealing with crisis situations such as suicide. School counselors can work with parents individually or in groups to foster awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ students and to promote understanding of their needs and the challenges these students face every day.
Myth #2: Gender-neutral facilities are a threat to school safety. A school district policy does not allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. A transgender student has brought this to the attention of the school counselor, inquiring about what to do. The student says he often goes the entire school day without going to the restroom.
School counselors should use their role as staff and educators to speak to the school administration about this issue. In talking to school administrators, counselors can present research related to transgender students experiencing a lack of safety in schools and make the argument that forcing these students to use a bathroom that does not align with their gender identity only contributes to this presenting concern.
Some states have passed laws precluding gender-neutral facilities, imposing on the rights of transgender individuals to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity rather than their sex at birth. Some of these laws have been incorporated into school policy. The rationale given for these laws has been to protect public privacy and safety. However, there is no research evidence to support this claim.
In 2015, Media Matters for America conducted a survey of 17 school districts in 12 states encompassing approximately 600,000 students. The survey asked about cases of harassment or inappropriate behavior after transgender-inclusive policies had been passed in those districts. The survey results concluded that no incidents of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior had been reported in those schools, debunking the myth that gender-neutral facilities are a threat to school safety.
Counselors, as social justice agents, must involve themselves in policy. This can be done at school meetings, where counselors can advocate for gender-neutral policies in schools and school districts. Counselors can inform school administrators of their interest in participating in these meetings and being involved in the decision-making process. They can volunteer to conduct information sessions for meeting participants about the academic, personal and career needs of LGBTQ youth. Counselors should actively seek to advocate for transgender youth so that these students can use the bathroom that best aligns with their gender.
Myth #3: School policies and laws protect all students. School policies and laws have focused mainly on reducing bullying but not necessarily on protecting LGBTQ youth and keeping them safe. The 2015 GLSEN report that investigated anti-bullying policies in the nation’s school districts revealed that out of the 13,181 school districts surveyed, 70 percent had anti-bullying policies. However, only 20 percent of these school districts had LGB-inclusive policies, and only 10 percent had LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying policies.
Although anti-bullying policies may be in place, LGBTQ students continue to report higher incidents of bullying and harassment than do other students. Often, these policies are not widely distributed to students and staff, and although most students and staff may be aware of district anti-bullying policies, they are not necessarily aware of LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying policies.
Furthermore, policies and laws are often influenced by politics and societal opinions. Laws referred to as “no promo homo” involve efforts to prevent national LGBT education, mandate that administrators take a neutral stance on gender identity and prohibit providing specific services to these students. Although seven states (Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas) had “no promo homo” laws as of January 2018, many states are working to develop LGBT-inclusive laws and policies that do not discriminate against these youth. For example, many states have developed LGBT anti-discrimination laws. These laws also permit transgender students to participate in sports congruent with their gender identity.
School counselors need to be proactive and work with school administrators to develop LGBT-inclusive policies. Counselors can assist in disseminating and discussing these policies regularly with students, parents and staff. Counselors should educate school administrators on bullying and “no promo homo” laws so they will better understand the detrimental effects of systemic oppression on LGBT youth.
In addition, school counselors should empower LGBTQ students to share with school staff their experiences with bullying and harassment within the school. This will open the door for school personnel to make a personal connection with these students and will help them learn more about the physical and mental health consequences of LGBTQ bullying and lack of representation.
Myth #4: LGBTQ students are safe around all school personnel. Many LGBTQ students do not feel safe at school — around either other students or school personnel. The GLSEN survey from 2015 reported that more than 50 percent of LGBTQ students heard homophobic comments from teachers and school staff. Many of these students believed that reporting harassment or assaults to school personnel would worsen the situation and that no action would be taken. Among those who did disclose bullying, harassment or assault to school staff, 63.5 percent indicated that their reports were ignored. In addition, when these incidents were reported, LGBTQ students faced harsher discipline than did their heterosexual and cisgender peers and were often blamed for the incidents (see research from Shannon Snapp, Jennifer Hoenig, Amanda Fields and Stephen Russell). This lack of support from school personnel places LGBTQ students at greater risk of being victimized.
In 2017, students in California’s San Luis Obispo High School published an edition of the student paper, Expressions, featuring LGBTQ issues. In response, a special education teacher at the school wrote a letter quoting the Bible and stating that those committing homosexual acts “deserve to die.” The school administration chose not to discipline the teacher for the action, stating that teachers as well as students “do not shed their First Amendment rights” at school. Although the teacher resigned soon after the incident, his statement remains a testament to the harassment and discrimination leveled against some LGBTQ students by school personnel.
School counselors need to advocate for and support LGBTQ students in the face of such victimization. Providing training to all students, parents and school staff is critical to reducing incidents of bullying and harassment and increasing awareness and sensitivity to the issues LGBTQ students confront in schools. A middle school in South Florida developed a monthlong program that focused on bullying prevention, including sexual and gender identity sensitivity training at various levels. At the high school level, counselors are forming LGBTQ support groups to provide outlets for these students to discuss specific issues and concerns. These groups provide one way to let these students know that they are valued and that their voices are important.
Myth #5: Sex education is inclusive of all students. Sex education that is LGBTQ inclusive is very limited or nonexistent in our nation’s schools. Often, this lack of inclusion is due to discomfort and lack of knowledge about LGBTQ sexuality on the part of school personnel, students and parents. Many teachers do not feel competent to teach on the topic.
Traditionally, sex education in U.S. schools centered on an abstinence-only curriculum. This ideology changed somewhat in the 1980s because of the AIDS epidemic, the increase in sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. The curriculum during this time focused on prevention and contraception, but no content was included on LGBTQ sexuality. In the 1990s, there was an effort to develop national guidelines for comprehensive sex education by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a task force composed of educators and health professionals. However, these guidelines also lacked specific and clear directives on how to address the needs of LGBTQ students in schools.
Health care reform legislation in 2010 provided states with funding to draft comprehensive sex education in schools. One of the programs created from this initiative was the Personal Responsibility Education Program for young adults. Once again, however, this program
failed to offer educational content or policy language that was inclusive of LGBTQ students.
Given this reality, school counselors can take leadership roles in advocating to administrators and teachers on the importance of including educational information and materials about LGBTQ sexuality in the sex education curriculum. Counselors may need to ensure that the programs being used to teach sexuality are inclusive. Counselors can assist health educators by providing appropriate materials (see hrc.org/resources/a-call-to-action-lgbtq-youth-need-inclusive-sex-education for more information on LGBTQ-inclusive sex education). Counselors can also conduct psychoeducational workshops to dispel myths and misconceptions regarding LGBTQ students with all stakeholders, including students, school staff and parents.
A call to action
Clearly, the perpetuation of these myths indicates that something more needs to be done to better support LGBTQ students within school systems. School counselors, as outlined by ASCA, have an ethical obligation to support underserved and oppressed populations. Additionally, school counselor training programs emphasize the role of school counselors as agents of change within the school system and professional leaders who must act as allies and advocates for all students.
This role includes:
Being aware of the challenges that LGBTQ students face within the school system
Designing a developmental, comprehensive school counseling program to support the LGBTQ student population
Advocating for policies and practices that address inequities regarding academic, career and social/emotional domains for LGBTQ students
Therefore, supporting LGBTQ students and promoting social justice initiatives should be done through large-scale, small-scale and individual interventions in an effort to create a positive school climate for everyone.
The first step is to conduct a needs and readiness assessment. This assessment should focus on gauging the school’s current climate related to LGBTQ students and the willingness of staff to make needed changes. Assessments should target students, faculty, staff and parents. Their openness toward acceptance and making changes, as well as the amount of education and training they have received related to LGBTQ populations, is important to assess.
Parents and school personnel may be reluctant to support LGBTQ youth in part because they do not feel prepared to respond to the unique needs of these students. School counselors will need to collaborate and discuss concerns with all stakeholders to comprehensively make appropriate systemic changes. These conversations also allow school counselors to gain awareness of current school policies and procedures related to the treatment of LGBTQ students.
Additionally, before changes can begin, school counselors should collect data that may be reflective of disparities and issues that LGBTQ students face within the school. Such data may include behavioral referrals, truancy rates and negative changes in grades and attitudes/behaviors. Behavioral referrals should be more specific and include incidents of verbal and physical harassment that LGBTQ students have endured as well as LGBTQ students who might be “acting out” in class in reaction to bullying or oppressive interactions.
LGBTQ students who are lacking support and involved with negative interactions often are truant, report somatic complaints and disengage from the learning process. It is therefore important that school counselors collect and examine data concerning absenteeism, visits to the school nurse, incidents of skipping class and dropping grades. This data should be saved and used as well during the measurement of formative and summative program success. This information will help inform what needs exist and how the school can best support LGBTQ students in dealing with their struggles.
It is important to note here that when collecting and analyzing data, counselors should look for patterns and then meet with students individually, regardless of their sexual or gender identity. At the time of this meeting, if the student discloses that their struggles are indeed related to their LGBTQ identity (for example, they are being bullied because of their gender expression), then counselors should move forward with interventions while making sure to protect the student’s confidentiality.
Intervention formulation
After school counselors have conducted a thorough assessment of their schools’ climate and needs, they can begin to formulate interventions and adjust policies to better support LGBTQ students. School counselors should include LGBTQ community members on their advisory boards to assist with inclusivity when promoting change and programming. Change and programming should include interventions at the schoolwide, small group and individual levels.
Schoolwide interventions addressing bullying and diversity have been deemed most effective in promoting a more positive school environment for all students. These interventions should include procedures and programming specific to the LGBTQ population, such as staff training on LGBTQ issues, multicultural awareness and response procedures regarding victimization of LGBTQ students. Schoolwide strategies and policies to address LGBTQ-specific bullying and harassment must also be outlined.
Schools are also encouraged to provide educational workshops for parents that address issues related to sexual and gender identity, ways of talking at home about bullying (with both victims and perpetrators), and ways to discuss diversity and acceptance beyond the school setting. These conversations should include information that is pertinent and specific to LGBTQ students.
As a universal approach, teachers should be encouraged to incorporate LGBTQ-affirming curricula into their existing core areas of focus at the elementary, middle and high school levels as developmentally appropriate. School counselors also need to include examples of LGBTQ populations and the issues they face in classroom guidance lessons and when promoting positive behavior intervention and character education programs at their schools. Positive recognition of LGBTQ students, parents, staff and community members can also help to promote a more accepting environment overall. Additionally, it is beneficial to foster support from those involved in athletics and other extracurricular activities. This includes recruiting the active assistance and endorsement of coaches and athletes regarding LGBTQ students.
In addition to schoolwide interventions, schools can better support LGBTQ students by providing small group and individual services designed specifically for them. Safe zones/diversity rooms can be designated to serve as a resource for LGBTQ student needs or concerns. These spaces should be run by the school counselor or other trained staff and must respect the confidentiality of the students who use them. These spaces can serve as a safe, supportive environment for LGBTQ and other students to discuss issues they are facing. In addition, they can serve as resource rooms stocked with helpful books, flyers and other materials.
School counselors can also facilitate support groups specifically for LGBTQ students, allowing them to openly discuss their experiences, process their thoughts and feelings, and develop coping strategies. Group topics could include local and national resources available for LGBTQ individuals, LGBTQ role models, family relationships, intimate relationships, coming out, personal and professional issues that LGBTQ individuals encounter, and information about higher education institutions that are affirming of LGBTQ individuals.
Support groups for parents of LGBTQ students should also be offered. These groups would address ways for these parents to support their children. The groups would also provide a forum for parents to share their experiences and concerns with each other and with the school. In addition, many schools now offer a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), a student-led organization with a faculty adviser that typically meets to learn about issues that LGBTQ students are facing. GSA is meant to be a group that promotes acceptance, social justice and advocacy.
School counselors also make themselves available to all students for individual counseling. In many cases, they may be the only mental health professional that students have easy access to for support. It is therefore imperative that school counselors demonstrate cultural competency and provide a safe, affirming environment that includes acceptance and respect for all students.
School counselors need to be aware that LGBTQ students may not present with problems related to their sexuality or gender identity. School counselors also need to consider other contextual factors such as family dynamics when counseling LGBTQ students. In addition to providing leadership toward systemic change, counselors need to have an understanding of issues that specifically affect LGBTQ students on an individual basis. This understanding is achieved through an ongoing process that includes communicating with the local LGBTQ community, participating in continuing education opportunities about LGBTQ students, reading the latest research related to this population and familiarizing themselves with the legal and ethical mandates surrounding LGBTQ students. Most important, school counselors must engage in ongoing self-examination of their own biases, stereotypes and blind spots concerning all students.
The role of school counselors in advocating for LGBTQ students in school is critical. It is school counselors’ professional and ethical responsibility to ensure a safe and harassment-free learning environment for all youth. Connecting with parents and educating them on the continuum of gender and sexual identity can also be an important part of the process. Given counselors’ expertise and skills in supporting diversity and communicating difficult topics, they can play a central role in helping staff, administrators and students create schools that empower LGBTQ youth.
Recommended resources from the authors
A Queer Endeavor (aqueerendeavor.org): This site provides educators, school staff, families and students with resources (videos, lesson plans, curriculum development best practices, textbook recommendations) to help support and create an inclusive school environment for sexual minority and gender-expansive students.
GLSEN Educator Resources (glsen.org/educate/resources): GLSEN is one of the nation’s largest advocacy groups focused on providing resources that promote the well-being of sexual minority and gender-expansive students in grades K-12. This site provides tools for schoolwide advocacy programming and lesson plans that are LGBTQ inclusive.
It’s Pronounced Metrosexual (itspronouncedmetrosexual.com): This site provides online resources (worksheets, videos, articles, books) about privilege and oppression overall, with an emphasis on educating society about topics related to sexual and gender identity. The site serves as a source of information for social justice advocates, researchers and clinicians.
American Psychological Association (APA) Safe and Supportive Schools Project (apa.org/pi/lgbt/programs/safe-supportive/default.aspx): APA’s Safe and Supportive Schools Project partners with five professional organizations, including the American Counseling Association and ASCA, to provide training and educational resources. The goal is to help school personnel, leaders of community organizations, parents and students to build positive, supportive and healthy environments that promote acceptance, allowing LGBTQ youth to thrive as their authentic selves.
Knowledge Share articles are developed from sessions presented at American Counseling Association conferences.
Roberto L. Abreu is an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Tennessee State University. His research agenda focuses on the well-being of LGBTQ people of color, with specific attention to parental, school and community acceptance of Latinx LGBTQ youth. Contact him at rabreu@tnstate.edu.
Adriana G. McEachern is a professor emerita, a visiting associate professor and the program director for counselor education in the Department of Leadership and Professional Studies at Florida International University. She is a national certified counselor, certified rehabilitation counselor and licensed mental health counselor in Florida.
Jennifer Geddes Hall is a clinical assistant professor at Clemson University and a licensed professional counselor. She has more than 15 years’ experience working with children and teenagers as a school counselor and clinical mental health counselor in various community settings.
Maureen C. Kenny is a professor of counseling at Florida International University and director of the university’s clinical mental health counseling program.
LGBTQ Issues, School Counseling, school counselors audience, youth
Working memory: A review for children’s mental health providers
By Jerrod Brown and Tracy Packiam Alloway October 1, 2018
Working memory is an essential cognitive skill that allows an individual to learn through the processing and manipulation of information. In other words, working memory is the process through which information is manipulated and then linked to other existing memories.
A wealth of research has investigated the capacity of working memory in children. Working memory is different from short-term memory, which simply stores pieces of information for a limited period of time. Working memory allows an individual to maintain information for use in intricate tasks such as higher-order thought, organization and planning, and language comprehension. Working memory also enables children to perform several important functions, including learning new information, comparing and contrasting different concepts, and making informed decisions.
Working memory is composed of three important tasks:
1) Maintaining new pieces of information for subsequent use
2) Filtering out information that is not relevant to the task at hand
3) Manipulating the relevant information to perform the given task (e.g., navigating to a destination)
Working memory capacity is dependent upon a number of abilities, including attention, behavioral control and cognitive flexibility. Attention is an individual’s ability to focus on a given task while blocking out distractions and other irrelevant information. Behavioral control is the ability to manage one’s impulses and emotions. Cognitive flexibility is the capacity to adapt to feedback and evolving needs.
Children affected by working memory deficits may experience a host of academic, behavioral and emotional issues. The deleterious impact of working memory deficits on academic achievement is apparent in students, from those entering preschool to young adults in college. These impairments may be even more pronounced among children who are affected by various problems related to mental health.
Deficits associated with working memory can negatively impact how a child navigates all areas of life, from academic performance to social interactions. As such, children’s mental health professionals should become familiar with working memory deficits and their impact on day-to-day functioning. Increased awareness and understanding of these problems will help professionals maximize the effectiveness of services provided to these children.
To that end, this article reviews multiple considerations related to working memory that all children’s mental health clinicians need to know.
Academic performance: In children, working memory has been linked to everything from academic performance to the symptoms of neurological, developmental and psychological disorders. Working memory is also important from kindergarten to the tertiary level, and is an excellent predictor of academic success, longitudinally.
Assessment: Working memory can be assessed in a reliable and valid manner in children as young as 3. Early identification of working memory deficits that are supported by appropriate interventions can lead to positive outcomes throughout the individual’s life span. A study of more than 3,000 students found that approximately 10 percent had working memory problems that led to learning difficulties in the classroom (see ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19467014). As such, early identification and intervention are key to long-term success.
Attention, behavioral and social problems: Several theories of cognitive processing posit that working memory plays an essential function in attention. In addition, deficits associated with working memory can sometimes contribute to problematic behaviors resulting in school-related and social consequences. This is especially the case when the child has not been properly assessed, treated and supported. One of the most consistent findings in research studies is that students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have poor working memory, particularly when they have to remember visual information, such as graphs or images.
Classroom difficulties: Working memory impairments often contribute to difficulties in the classroom. For example, students with working memory impairments may have trouble remembering instructions, completing complicated tasks, and comprehending and abiding by directions to solving a math problem or writing a sentence.
Creativity: Although relatively few studies have investigated the role of working memory in creativity, Larry Vandervert and colleagues have posited that working memory is one of the building blocks of creativity (see tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400410709336873). Their rationale hinges on the assumption that working memory serves as the “blackboard of the mind,” enabling an individual to manipulate and combine a variety of pieces of information and ideas in different ways. A study with college students reported that working memory was associated with one particular aspect of creativity — flexibility, which relates to breadth of thinking.
Environmental considerations: An important consideration for children with working memory deficits is limiting their exposure to environments and influences that could exacerbate such issues. These issues may include exposure to caregivers who abuse substances, neglect and maltreatment, and environments filled with chaos and chronic stress.
Importance of early identification: Working memory deficits in preschool may predict the likelihood of dropping out of high school. However, some research offers hope for the development of early interventions that strengthen working memory and the reduction of risk for dropping out of high school.
Information overload: Deficits in working memory can result in children experiencing information overload during learning-based activities. As a result, these children may act out behaviorally or withdraw socially. When misidentified or undertreated, these issues can negatively affect children’s emotional and behavioral health.
Intervention: Interventions that improve working memory hold the potential to positively benefit children’s classroom performance across a range of subjects (see ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20018296). These gains were maintained eight months later (see sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563212003032). As such, children’s mental health providers play a vital role in the identification and treatment of working memory deficits.
Learning performance: Problems meeting the learning requirements of school may be attributed to deficits in working memory. Working memory predicts reading and math performance among students with learning disabilities. These associations remain even when controlling for the student’s intelligence and knowledge of language and math. These issues can persist across the child’s life span when such deficits have not been identified, treated and supported.
Learning styles: A prevalent argument in the education research community is that learning styles have a significant influence on how well students will do in school. The learning styles theory argues that individuals learn best in different ways. A popular framework for learning styles is one that separates Verbalizers from Visualizers, and Holistic thinkers from Analytical ones. A study with high schoolers found that students with good working memory excelled at all subjects, regardless of their learning style preference. One explanation is that although students may have a certain preference for acquiring knowledge, those with good working memory won’t be held back if information is not presented in their preferred learning style because they can adapt their learning style to different learning situations.
Note taking: The inability to remember several manageable pieces of information while performing another task such as taking notes on a lecture is an example of a working memory deficit. This can present challenges in group treatment settings in which participants are required to take notes while listening to a live lecture.
Problem-solving: Enhanced working memory capacity can result in improvements in the ability to learn and to solve problems. When working memory is impaired, decision-making and problem-solving abilities can be negatively affected. Treatment providers should consider screening clients for working memory impairments when decision-making and problem-solving abilities are impaired.
Theory of Mind: Theory of Mind (ToM) is the skill to appreciate that the conduct of others is motivated by their opinions, wishes and other mental states. The maturation of ToM has been linked to the cognitive development of both behavioral control and working memory. Working memory has also been linked to false belief and verbal deception in 6- and 7-year-olds.
Thought suppression: Research suggests that working memory could play an important role in the suppression of unwanted or obsessive thoughts. As such, helping children strengthen their working memory capacity should be considered when providing supports and services to individuals struggling to cope with such thoughts.
Trauma: Working memory deficits have been observed in individuals suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In particular, common PTSD symptoms such as hypervigilance, reliving trauma memories and avoidance of reminders of trauma may interfere with working memory processes.
Underidentification: Despite the previously mentioned consequences, working memory deficits often go unrecognized and untreated in children’s mental health settings. In some instances, professionals may misinterpret working memory impairments as issues with behavior, impulse control and attention. In a survey of classroom teachers, most knew what working memory was but were able to correctly identify only one or two classroom behaviors associated with working memory deficits.
Understand: Professionals should strive to understand the potential consequences associated with working memory deficits in children. Exploration of how working memory deficits may affect academic, emotional, social and interpersonal capacities is of significant importance. Children’s mental health treatment providers should consider incorporating working memory screening and intervention strategies into their clinical programming.
Deficits associated with working memory can have profound and diverse impacts on children. Mental health providers are likely to encounter children on a regular basis who are affected by working memory deficits. To minimize the consequences of working memory deficits, clinicians should become more familiar with the implications these problems have on screening and assessment, treatment and educational outcomes, and social functioning abilities. We highly recommend advanced training in working memory for professionals who provide children’s mental health services.
Jerrod Brown is an assistant professor and director of the master’s degree program in human services with an emphasis in forensic behavioral health at Concordia University in Minnesota. He has also been employed with Pathways Counseling Center in St. Paul for the past 15 years. He is the founder and CEO of the American Institute for the Advancement of Forensic Studies and editor-in-chief of Forensic Scholars Today and the Journal of Special Populations. For a complete list of references used in this article, contact him at Jerrod01234Brown@live.com.
Tracy Packiam Alloway is a TEDx speaker and an award-winning psychologist. Her research has contributed to scientific understanding of working memory, specifically in relation to education and learning needs. Her research has been featured on or by Good Morning America, Today, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, Newsweek and others.
ADHD, Children & Adolescents, Creativity, school counselors audience
Facilitating support groups for caregivers
Polyvagal theory in practice
Counseling Connoisseur: Revisiting the Spoon Theory
Connecting with clients
Parent-child relationship problems: Treatment tools for rectification counseling
Tweets by @ACA_CTOnline
© 2019, American Counseling Association. All Rights Reserved.
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Spain wants EU-Cuba agreement in first half of 2010
News from Cuba | Saturday, 28 November 2009
Report from AFP
Spain will seek to establish a new bilateral agreement on EU-Cuba ties, including human rights, in the first half of 2010 when it will hold the EU's rotating presidency, its foreign minister said Saturday.
Spain's Miguel Angel Moratinos stressed his country's intentions after a European Union meeting with Cuba, represented by its foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez.
The talks were the fourth of their kind since Europe established a political dialogue with Havana last year.
Spain has been in the forefront of efforts to boost relations with Cuba. Madrid wants to see an end to the European Union's Common Position on Cuba, adopted in 1996, which calls for human rights and democracy progress as a condition for normal relations with the European bloc.
The Spanish government "hopes to initiate during its presidency," in the first half of next year "a bilateral cooperation framework" with Cuba, Moratinos told reporters after the meeting in Brussels.
The current common position "is only the unilateral position of the European Union," he underlined, whereas under a bilateral deal Havana would have to make commitments, including on human rights.
He promised that if the Spanish initiative went ahead "there will be a strong chapter" on human rights.
Saturday's meeting was also attended by EU Development Commissioner Karel De Gucht, and Frank Belfrage, state secretary for foreign affairs for Sweden, which currently holds the EU presidency which it will hand over to Spain at the end of the year.
Cuban minister Rodriguez agreed with Moratinos that ties with Europe were heading in the right direction, saying he was convinced that "the majority of EU nations are in favour of standardising relations.
Rodriguez reiterated however that the EU's common position is an "insuperable obstacle" that should be scrapped as soon as possible.
The EU suspended ties with Cuba after a major roundup of 75 dissidents in March 2003, but resumed aid cooperation in 2008.
Spain's policy on Cuba shifted in 2005 after Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero came to power the previous year. His conservative predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, had adopted a policy of isolating the Communist island.
In 2007 Spain and Cuba, a former Spanish colony, renewed ties.
[pict: Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos (L) and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez chat BRUSSELS (AFP)]
Original report on AFP
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Hundreds make their voices heard in solidarity with the Miami Five
Campaign News | Saturday, 13 December 2014
Over 300 people turn out in support of the Five in London on a cold December evening
Chanting of “Free the Five!”, “Viva Cuba” and “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” were heard across West End of London after a crowd of over 300 people braved a cold December evening outside the US Embassy on Wednesday 3 December to attend a vigil organised by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) in Britain.
Solidarity greetings and messages of support for the Miami Five were given by a range of speakers including Dr Aleida Guevara, paediatrician, medical mission veteran and daughter of Che Guevara, and MPs, trade unionists, lawyers, actors and activists at an event which marked the sixteenth year of their arrest.
Aledia Guevara, giving her final speech in her British speaking tour, read a heartfelt message from Antonio Guerrero, one of the Five, who thanked for the solidarity and support from friends in Britain: “Dear friends of the UK, never did the five of us imagine that we’d have so many friends in the UK, from where we’ve received thousands of letters of support. Without knowing you personally, we’ve learned a lot about your lives and become united and strengthened in our fight for justice? We will win.”
Guevara laid out the of the case to President Obama; “You’ve got men in your prisons that are there because they were trying to save the lives of other human beings” and finished her speech by urging Obama; “Have the courage to do something well, before you finish your term as President. Release them now!”
Unite the Union, the largest trade union in Britain, have been instrumental in the campaign to free the Five. Diana Holland, Assistant General Secretary of Unite and Chair of CSC, praised the work of the International Inquiry on the Case of the Five, and urged to continue with the pressure the achieve justice. “We have the opportunity to gain freedom for the final three of the five right now - we must fight for justice.”
Roger McKenzie, Assistant General Secretary of the public sector union Unison who have also given great support to the campaign for the Five, gave a passionate speech condemning the United States’ domestic affairs, including the treatment of their black population in recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, whilst at the same time “having the cheek to continue to try and interfere with Cuba”. On the case of the Five, he argued; “This is about justice, equality and bringing progressive politics into the frame. We all must support Cuba and their campaign for justice for the Five”.
CSC Director Rob Miller criticised the British government for its part in the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US, which saw Britain deny Rene Gonzalez a visa on two occasions in 2014, despite being invited to give evidence at the International Commission and being invited by 29 MPs. “The French government, the German government, the Belgian government, the Portuguese government all allowed Rene Gonzalez in - but our government, as part of their ‘special relationship’ - refused Rene entry, in support of the US position against Cuba.”
MPs at the event included Jeremy Corbyn MP, who passionately addressed the crowd and the Embassy; “My message to this building over here: release the Five before you move to Battersea - or we’re going to go with you!”, in reference to the US Embassy’s forthcoming relocation from Grosvenor Square.
Paul Maskey MP, of Sinn Fein, spoke of the parallels between Ireland and Cuba, who have both faced interference from their neighbours. Maskey also stressed the importance of supporting CSC and the case to free the Five. “We know from our own peace process that international pressure can make a difference and the world a better place.”
Other speakers at the vigil included Elizabeth Woodcraft, barrister and one of the Coordinators of the International Inquiry, Rodney Bickerstaffe, former General Secretary of Unison, Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary PCS, Manuel Cortes, General Secretary of TSSA, Paul Novak, Assistant General Secretary of the TUC, Eric Roberts, Unison London, Father Geoff Bottoms, and Miriam Palacious, who all gave rousing speeches in support of justice for the Five.
Speakers from the legal professions included Steve Cottingham, from OH Parsons Solicitors, who has scrutinised the case of the Five over many years, explained how the battle is a political one, rather than a legal. “It all boils down to this - they’ve spent a long, long time in prison - around a quarter of their lives - this is too long and they need to be released now.”
Doug Christie, from Thompsons Solicitors, gave a passionate speech, standing metres away from a statue of Ronald Reagan, paraphrased the ex US President in reference to what Obama can do for the Five: “Three of the Five remain in prison. We say, Mr Obama, tear down these prison walls! Declare a pardon now!”
Christine Blower, General Secretary of National Union of Teachers (NUT), spoke of how Cuba is a beacon for the world in its achievements in education and health, and how the NUT have offered practical solidarity with Cuba in teaching English to Cuban doctors - skills, she suggested, that they may be putting to use in West Africa as they treat ebola patients. On the Five, Blower said “NUT will support the Miami Five for as long as it takes. Let’s build the campaign and pressure so that we won’t be here next month, or next year, let’s get justice now!”
Peter Pinkey, President of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, gave an emotional speech saluting the late Bob Crow, who was a huge friend and supporter of Cuba. Pinkey spoke of the progressive politics of Latin America, which Cuba has been at the centre of, with governments in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia amongst many, taking inspiration from Cuba’s commitment to putting people before profit.
The actor, Andy de la Tour, paid tribute to the late Roger Lloyd Pack, a strong supporter of Cuba, who he had performed the works of Harold Pinter with in Havana in 2011. He spoke of the topical Cuban internationalist missions, with Cuba leading the fight against ebola, and how three of the Five has served on international missions in Africa before their arrest. Urging everyone to keep fighting for justice, he argued; “None have been released until they have all been released”.
Slideshow from the Event
Ruptly Video of the Vigil
Pictures from the Vigil
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Category Archives: Penny Arcade
PAX West, PAX Unplugged 2019 Dates Announced
Some more gaming news which is so perfect since part of this news involves my hometown of Seattle. Okay, the following news may very well pertain to you!
Unplugged Badges Go on Sale May 9, West Badges Later this Month
SEATTLE, Wash. – May 1, 2019 – PAX Unplugged takes over the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia Dec. 6 – 8, 2019 and PAX West returns to Seattle’s Washington State Convention Center Aug. 30 – Sept. 2. Show organizers ReedPOP and Penny Arcade will make PAX Unplugged 2019 badges and exclusive pre-sale merchandise available for purchase beginning May 9. PAX West 2019 badge sales will be available later in the month.
This year’s PAX events have hosted the announcements of numerous highly-anticipated games, including Borderlands 3, Jackbox Party Pack 6, SNK’s Samurai Shodown collection, and more. PAX Unplugged and PAX West will also present a number of surprises allowing gamers to hear about, see, and play new games and other projects before anyone else.
In 2019, PAX Unplugged will once again welcome tens of thousands of tabletop enthusiasts to Philadelphia. Now in its third incarnation, PAX Unplugged will expand with a larger expo hall to accommodate even more of the top names in board, card, and pen-and-paper gaming showing off classic games, new expansions, and exciting unreleased titles. Attendees joining the fun can also expect an epic slate of events featuring enlightening talks with creators, live tabletop gaming shows, and more at what will be the 50th show in PAX’s storied history.
The most-attended gaming event on the West Coast, PAX West is a four-day celebration of gaming culture. PAX West is anchored by massive exhibition halls where attendees have the opportunity to see hundreds of game studios ranging from indie teams to major publishers showcasing new and upcoming titles – many of which are publicly playable for the first time.
On the show floor, PAX West goers can enjoy the PAX Arena, which hosts competitions featuring renowned esports players as well as stars from YouTube, Twitch, and Mixer in the Stream Stars tournament. Fans will also have chances to meet with many of their favorite content creators in autograph signing sessions, engage with industry luminaries in panels, attend concerts, and savor other amazing attractions throughout downtown Seattle.
“When we came up with all this, I don’t think we could ever have imagined putting on 50 of these events and counting,” said Jerry Holkins, co-founder, PAX and Penny Arcade. “We can’t wait to welcome the gaming community to our home in Seattle this summer, and to our Winter Lair in Philadelphia this December. We hope you’ll be able to join us.”
The international lineup of PAX shows (West, East, South, Aus, Dev, and Unplugged), produced by ReedPOP in conjunction with Penny Arcade, comprise some of the world’s largest gaming festivals. PAX events connect the industry’s greatest creative minds from across the worlds of both video and tabletop gaming, directly to passionate audiences.
For more updates on PAX West 2019, follow PAX on Twitter and like the Facebook page.
PAX or Penny Arcade Expo is a festival for gamers to celebrate gaming culture. First held in Seattle in 2004, PAX has nearly doubled in size each successive year, with PAX Prime 2014 selling out of tickets in a matter of minutes. Connecting the world’s leading game publishers with their most avid and influential fans, PAX expanded with a second show in Boston in 2010 and a third in San Antonio in 2015, making it the three largest gaming shows in North America. The first international PAX was held in Melbourne, Australia in 2013. In 2017, Penny Arcade established PAX Unplugged, its first tabletop focused show, held in Philadelphia.
ReedPOP
ReedPOP is a boutique group within Reed Exhibitions exclusively devoted to organizing events, launching and acquiring new shows, and partnering with premium brands in the pop culture world. ReedPOP is dedicated to celebrations of popular culture throughout the globe that transcend ordinary events by providing unique access and dynamic personal experiences. The ReedPOP portfolio includes: New York Comic Con (NYCC), Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) West, East, South, Australia and Unplugged, Emerald City Comicon (ECCC), BookCon, BookExpo, Oz Comic-Con, Comic Con India, Paris Comic Con, Star Wars Celebration, ComplexCon and more. The staff at ReedPOP is a fan-based group of professionals uniquely qualified to serve those with whom they share a common passion. ReedPOP is focused on bringing its expertise and knowledge to world communities in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, India, and Australia.
Penny Arcade is a web comic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. With over 3.5 million readers, it is the most popular and longest running gaming web comic online. Penny Arcade is also responsible for the Child’s Play Charity, the Penny Arcade gaming expos (PAX) in Seattle, Boston, San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Melbourne, multiple video games based on the brand, and multiple online video series.
Filed under Comics, PAX, Penny Arcade, ReedPOP, Seattle, Video, Video Games
Tagged as comics, Entertainment, Games, Media, PAX Unplugged, PAX West, Philadelphia, Pop Culture
Dungeons & Dragons Sourcebook Launches June 18, 2019
Acquisitions Incorporated
Here’s one for all the gamers: Are you a fan of D&D and do you enjoy the antics of the popular webcomic, Penny Arcade? Okay, the answer is clearly yes and the press release below is for you. If you are not familiar with Acquisitions Incorporated, then learn about a very special 224-page Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook:
Acquisitions Incorporated, the official third-party Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook from Penny Arcade and Wizards of the Coast, brings hilarious fantasy antics straight to players’ homes June 18.
Acquisitions Incorporated is based on the (in)famous D&D campaign popular on Twitch and at PAX events featuring PAX and Penny Arcade’s cofounders, a cast of celebrity guests, and D&D Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford as DM.
For the past decade, the renowned retrieval company known as Acquisitions Incorporated has shared their (mis)adventures with hundreds of thousands of attendees at PAX and viewers on Twitch. Dungeon Master Jeremy Crawford (Lead Rules Designer of Dungeons & Dragons) does his best to shepherd the mischief of Penny Arcade and PAX co-founders Jerry Holkins (Omin Dran, Cleric) and Mike Krahulik (Jim Darkmagic, Wizard) as well as a rotating cast of celebrity guests including author Patrick Rothfuss (Viari, Rogue) and gaming icon Morgan Webb (Môrgæn, Ranger).
Now, with the 224-page sourcebook, Dungeon Masters and players alike can experience the uproarious exploits of Acquisitions Incorporated in their own game. New spells, a new race, and introducing character positions mean it’s easier than ever to join the company and take part of this universe. Want to jump in headfirst? The book also includes an adventure module so players can get started right away.
Obviator by Aviv Or
“Being able to give back to the game that I’ve been playing most of my life is incredible,” said Jerry Holkins, co-founder of Penny Arcade. “I can’t wait for players to join my friends and I in Acquisitions Incorporated, not just because it’s a book and a world we’re very proud of, but also because my character gets a cut of their earnings.”
For further information, visit Penny Arcade’s official website or follow Penny Arcade on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
For more information on Acquisitions Incorporated, the D&D sourcebook, please go to the official website.
For more information on Acq Inc, please visit the official website.
A Mechanical Beholder Bonanza by Tyler Jacobson
Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. With over 3.5 million readers, it is the most popular and longest-running gaming webcomic online. Penny Arcade is also responsible for the Child’s Play Charity, the Penny Arcade gaming expos (PAX) in Seattle, Boston, San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Melbourne, multiple video games based on the brand, and multiple online video series.
Filed under Comics, Dungeons & Dragons, Games, PAX, Penny Arcade, Video Games, Webcomics, Wizards of the Coast
Tagged as comics, Dungeons and Dragons, Entertainment, Games, Media, Pop Culture, webcomics
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Tag Archives: Video Games
December 4, 2016 · 5:00 pm
Review: TETRIS: THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY by Box Brown
“Tetris: The Games People Play” by Box Brown
Box Brown is a cartoonist that I really admire for being able to take a subject he’s passionate about and distill it to its essentials into a comics format. His previous graphic novel was on the all-time great pro wrestler, Andre the Giant. You can read my review here. Brown’s latest book is all about the all-time classic video game, Tetris. Published by First Second Books, “Tetris: The Games People Play,” is a testimony to Brown’s determination to collect all the pieces to a story and create a greater whole.
Page excerpt from TETRIS: THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
You most likely know the game even if you don’t normally keep up with games. It’s right up there with such legends as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. It’s a game with a simple charm and an uncanny allure with origins dating back to antiquity. You can learn more about it and play it for free at the official Tetris site right here. Essentially, the goal of the game is to arrange little blocks as they fall down your screen in the most efficient way possible. There’s a Zen vibe there in its relative simplicity. Ironically, the innocent little game of Tetris became entangled in a complex legal fight that found the game industry giants, Atari and Nintendo, locking horns.
Tetris was originally created in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov. Brown faithfully follows the creator’s journey and all related Tetris canon. Now, what you probably do not know is that there is a lot of intrigue behind what happened to this game on its way to becoming a classic. When Pajitnov created the game, it was the result of his passion for games without any other plans beyond that. As a citizen of the Soviet Union, his only plan was simply to be a good computer programmer for the government. Brown runs with the story once a profit motive is triggered.
Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov
And so our story gains numerous twists and turns as a cat and mouse game is played out. It is at this point that all the machinations can get a bit overwhelming. Brown handles all these moving parts well. He keeps to a basically lean and clean grid of panels that helps to steady the eye. And, at various intervals, he will devote a page to a portrait of the next key player in the drama. It is a modest little portrait set off by a black background. It amounts to a perfect pause, a great way to catch one’s breath.
Brown seems to hold back a bit more with his artwork than he did in his last book. He has a rather pared-down style to begin with. For this book, I think he opted to simplify as much as possible for the sake of clarity given all the details involved. Some work in comics is mostly to digest information. Other work is mostly to admire the artwork. And so on. Brown strikes a nice balance of conveying information with a certain zeal and style all his own. Once you start this book, you’ll want to keep with it and get the whole Tetris story.
“Tetris: The Games People Play” is a 256-page duo-tone paperback, published by First Second Books. For more information and how to purchase, go right here.
Filed under Box Brown, Comics, First Second, Games, Geek Culture, Geeks, Technology, Video Games
Tagged as Atari, Biography, comics, Entertainment, Games, Geeks, graphic novels, Media, Nintendo, Pop Culture, Publishing, Tech, Technology, Video Games
Review: ‘Game Art: Art from 40 Video Games and Interviews with Their Creators’ by Matt Sainsbury
With holiday shopping fast upon us, Comics Grinder is ready to start making some holiday gift suggestions. Let’s start with this beautiful book, “Game Art,” published by No Starch Press, a collection of interviews with 40 top video game designers including page after page of eye-popping video game art. And, yes, this is art. You’ll find a wide variety of gorgeous work that would be suitable for framing. This is easily the perfect gift for virtually anyone. Here are some samples:
From “Fatal Frame II” (Koei Tecmo Games)
From “Fairy Fencer F” (Compile Heart)
From “Never Alone” (E-Line Media)
From “Gamebook Adventures” (Joshua Wright)
“Game Art” presents awesome game art that will inspire gamers and aspiring designers alike. Featuring major studios like Square Enix, Bioware, and Ubisoft as well as independents like Tale of Tales and E-Line Media, “Game Art” explores and celebrates the creative process that turns a video game into art. For more details, visit our friends at No Starch Press. You can also find “Game Art” over at Amazon right here.
Filed under Art, Art books, Games, Illustration, No Starch Press, Video Game Art, Video Games
Tagged as Art, arts, Books, Entertainment, Games, Illustration, Media, No Starch Press, Pop Culture, Video Game Art, Video Games
GAMES: THE JACE HALL SHOW: ATARI vs. INTELLIVISION; ELIZA DUSHKU
For gamers, everyone knows about “The Jace Hall Show.” But, if you happen to be new to it, you’ll want to see Jace take on the great debate over which is the ultimate game company of all time, ATARI (joystick) or INTELLIVISION (no joystick), in a very funny episode from last year that you can view here. Jace definitely has a knack for getting the most out of his guests. You wouldn’t expect the founder of ATARI, Nolan Bushnell, to be so funny. Or INTELLIVISION’s Keith Robinson. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re also in for a very special treat as Eliza Dushku raps about her game cred. You can go straight to Eliza’s music video, “My Console,” here. And you can check in on INTELLIVISION here. And visit ATARI here. Plus, you can see what Nolan Bushnell has been up to since “Pong,” a whole new way of looking at education, “BRAINRUSH,” over here.
Filed under Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Eliza Dushku, Games, Jace Hall, pop culture
Tagged as Atari, atari joystick, Entertainment, Games, gaming, Intellivision, keith robinson, nolan bushnell, Pop Culture, Video Games
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Singing humpback whales, new research
Posted on January 9, 2019 by petrel41
This video from australia says about itself:
Humpback Whale Singing Hervey Bay 2014
Be sure to have your volume up for this clip. The audio and video were filmed using a GoPro on separate days with the audio being some of the most stunning whale singing that we have heard in many years. The video is yet more footage of our curious friend ‘scratchy’.
From the Wildlife Conservation Society:
Giant singers from neighboring oceans share song parts over time
Singing humpback whales from different ocean basins seem to be picking up musical ideas from afar, and incorporating these new phrases and themes into the latest song, according to a newly published study in Royal Society Open Science that’s helping scientists better understand how whales learn and change their musical compositions.
The new research shows that two humpback whale populations in different ocean basins (the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans) in the Southern Hemisphere sing similar song types, but the amount of similarity differs across years. This suggests that males from these two populations come into contact at some point in the year to hear and learn songs from each other.
The study titled “Culturally transmitted song exchange between humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the southeast Atlantic and southwest Indian Ocean basins” appears in the latest edition of the Royal Society Open Science journal. The authors are: Melinda L. Rekdahl, Carissa D. King, Tim Collins, and Howard Rosenbaum of WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society); Ellen C. Garland of the University of St. Andrews; Gabriella A. Carvajal of WCS and Stony Brook University; and Yvette Razafindrakoto of COSAP and Madagascar National Parks.
“Song sharing between populations tends to happen more in the Northern Hemisphere where there are fewer physical barriers to movement of individuals between populations on the breeding grounds, where they do the majority of their singing. In some populations in the Southern Hemisphere song sharing appears to be more complex, with little song similarity within years but entire songs can spread to neighboring populations leading to song similarity across years,” said Dr. Melinda Rekdahl, marine conservation scientist for WCS’s Ocean Giants Program and lead author of the study. “Our study shows that this is not always the case in Southern Hemisphere populations, with similarities between both ocean basin songs occurring within years to different degrees over a 5-year period.”
The study authors examined humpback whale song recordings from both sides of the African continent — from animals off the coasts of Gabon and Madagascar respectively — and transcribed more than 1,500 individual sounds that were recorded between 2001-2005. Song similarity was quantified using statistical methods.
Male humpback whales are one of the animal kingdom’s most noteworthy singers, and individual animals sing complex compositions consisting of moans, cries, and other vocalizations called “song units.” Song units are composed into larger phrases, which are repeated to form “themes.” Different themes are produced in a sequence to form a song cycle that are then repeated for hours, or even days. For the most part, all males within the same population sing the same song type, and this population-wide song similarity is maintained despite continual evolution or change to the song leading to seasonal “hit songs.” Some song learning can occur between populations that are in close proximity and may be able to hear the other population’s song.
Over time, the researchers detected shared phrases and themes in both populations, with some years exhibiting more similarities than others. In the beginning of the study, whale populations in both locations shared five “themes.” One of the shared themes, however, had differences. Gabon’s version of Theme 1, the researchers found, consisted of a descending “cry-woop,” whereas the Madagascar singers split Theme 1 into two parts: a descending cry followed by a separate woop or “trumpet.”
Other differences soon emerged over time. By 2003, the song sung by whales in Gabon became more elaborate than their counterparts in Madagascar. In 2004, both population song types shared the same themes, with the whales in Gabon’s waters singing three additional themes. Interestingly, both whale groups had dropped the same two themes from the previous year’s song types. By 2005, songs being sung on both sides of Africa were largely similar, with individuals in both locations singing songs with the same themes and order. However, there were exceptions, including one whale that revived two discontinued themes from the previous year.
The study’s results stands in contrast to other research in which a song in one part of an ocean basin replaces or “revolutionizes” another population’s song preference. In this instance, the gradual changes and degrees of similarity shared by humpbacks on both sides of Africa was more gradual and subtle.
“Studies such as this one are an important means of understanding connectivity between different whale populations and how they move between different seascapes,” said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of WCS’s Ocean Giants Program and one of the co-authors of the new paper. “Insights on how different populations interact with one another and the factors that drive the movements of these animals can lead to more effective plans for conservation.”
The humpback whale is one of the world’s best-studied marine mammal species, well known for its boisterous surface behavior and migrations stretching thousands of miles. The animal grows up to 50 feet in length and has been globally protected from commercial whaling since the 1960s. WCS has studied humpback whales since that time and — as the New York Zoological Society — played a key role in the discovery that humpback whales sing songs. The organization continues to study humpback whale populations around the world and right here in the waters of New York; research efforts on humpback and other whales in New York Bight are currently coordinated through the New York Aquarium‘s New York Seascape program.
This entry was posted in Biology, Mammals and tagged whales by petrel41. Bookmark the permalink.
11 thoughts on “Singing humpback whales, new research”
yaasotaa on January 9, 2019 at 9:50 pm said:
Wow…its interesting
petrel41 on January 9, 2019 at 11:06 pm said:
Indeed. Thanks for your kind words!
Pingback: Mystery Blogger Award, thank you Yaasotaa! | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Ancient whale Basilosaurus, new research | Dear Kitty. Some blog
sharonstjoan on January 10, 2019 at 3:29 am said:
Reblogged this on Wild Voices.
Tullyography on January 12, 2019 at 10:18 pm said:
Amazing – interesting insight 🙂
petrel41 on January 13, 2019 at 9:13 am said:
Pingback: Humpback whales return to New York City | Dear Kitty. Some blog
singing.mermaid on March 20, 2019 at 7:43 pm said:
What majestic animals! Yet humans are slowly killing them with plastic pollution 🙁
petrel41 on March 20, 2019 at 7:51 pm said:
Indeed, plastic is a big problem for all whale species.
Humpbacks were nearly exterminated by whaling, but have made a comeback.
Pingback: Humpback whales’ Hawaii mating sesason | Dear Kitty. Some blog
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SUNY Delhi Men's Soccer Coaching Staff
Related Bios Nick Shenberger
Brian Mitko
Title: Men's Soccer Head Coach
Email: mitkobe@delhi.edu
Hometown: Clinton, CT
Previous College: Skidmore '13
YEAR RECORD POSTSEASON NOTES
2017 9-8 NIAC Finals Alhasane Sako, All-American
2018 13-2-1 ACAA Finals
ACAA Coach of the Year
Marcos Andrino, All-American
Stefan Correia, All-American
Brody Rettle, All-American
Alhasane Sako, All-American
Jostin Sarmiento, All-American
Total 22-10-1 2 Conference Finals Appearances 6 All-Americans
3rd Year ● 22-10-1 Career Record ● Skidmore '13
Brian Mitko enters his third season as SUNY Delhi's men's soccer head coach for the 2019-20 season. The Skidmore graduate and former soccer and lacrosse player came to the Broncos after two years as an assistant coach at the University of Vermont. He and his Broncos are set to compete in their first season in the North Atlantic Conference (NAC).
His first campaign leading the Broncos saw the squad post a 9-8 record, reaching the NIAC Finals and producing one USCAA All-American. With a solid offseason training program and key additions, Mitko's men catapulted to a 13-2-1 record in 2018. The Broncos went unbeaten in their final 11 matches, with their season culminating on penalty kicks at the ACAA Finals following a 1-1 draw to eventual champion Thomas More. Five Broncos received USCAA All-American honors, including two first-team selections. Mitko was named the ACAA Coach of the Year.
While with the UVM Catamounts, Mitko helped lead the team to back-to-back NCAA Division I Tournament appearances, including an America East championship in 2015. The Catamounts compiled a 25-14-4 record over those two seasons.
Mitko also spent one season as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the men's soccer program at Bard College in New York. Mitko was responsible for Bard's 2014 recruiting class, created drills for training sessions, monitored student-athlete's academic performance, and prepared scouting reports on opponents.
Mitko graduated from Skidmore College in 2013, earning a Bachelor's degree in exercise science. He was a four-year member of the men's soccer and lacrosse teams, earning eight varsity letters. Mitko was a two-year captain of the men's soccer team and as a senior he was named the ECAC Defenseman of the Week twice and Liberty League Defensive Player of the Week four times.
A native of Clinton, Conn., Mitko was also the head coach of the FC Dutchmen Premier team in Albany, New York and has coached at several camps and clinics, including the several at Bard and the Mike Noonan Soccer Camp at Clemson.
Mitko was also SUNY Delhi's men's tennis head coach for his first two years in 2018 and 2019. His Broncos posted a combined record of 8-15, including a NAC Finals appearance in 2019.
Related Bios Brian Mitko
Nick Shenberger
Title: Men's Soccer Assistant Coach
Email: shenbenw@delhi.edu
Hometown: Hummelstown, PA
Previous College: Bard '18
Nick "Shenny" Shenberger is in his first season as SUNY Delhi men's soccer's assistant coach for the 2018-19 season.
Shenberger, a native of Hummelstown, Pa., played soccer all four years at the Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. institution, receiving all-league accolades from the ECAC and Liberty League, as well as a NCAA All-Region nod his sophomore year. That season also saw him become Bard's first-ever All-Liberty League First Team selection, and was named by HERO Sports as their D3 Men's Soccer Legend of the Year. He finished his career with 33 goals, 11 assists and six game-winning goals. Shenberger earned his Bachelor's this past May in Physics.
Shenberger continued his soccer career this past summer, landing a spot with the Kingston Stockade F.C. of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL).
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Sacred Places, Vol. 2: New York and Pennsylvania
by Lamar C. Berrett
Paperback SKU 3909359
Available Book Formats
Paperback SKU 3909359 $19.99
eBook Free with Plus SKU 5096039 $19.99 $0.00
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eBooks and Audiobooks (MP3) are delivered instantly to the Deseret Bookshelf app. They are not compatible with Kindle or other e-reader devices. Digital items cannot be gifted, returned, nor refunded.
The culmination of over twenty-five years of research and study, Deseret Book's new travel series, Sacred Places, will bring Church history to life for individuals and families alike. In their endeavor to help guide interested Saints to places made sacred by the sacrifices of those who have gone before, LaMar C. Berrett and the other series authors have filled Sacred Places with the best information available about our Church history sites.
New York and Pennsylvania, the second volume of the series, takes readers to sites at the heart of the Restoration — the Sacred Grove, the Hill Cumorah, the Book of Mormon publication site, the Peter Whitmer Farm, and Harmony, Pennsylvania, where the Prophet Joseph met Emma and where much of the Book of Mormon was translated. Among these are innumerable lesser-known sites in New York City, upstate New York, and Pennsylvania that tell the story of the Church's earliest years and first converts, including Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, and Emma Smith.
Packed with dozens of maps and hundreds of photographs, the Sacred Places series is the perfect companion for your Church history tour. Sacred Places — New York and Pennsylvania will help you discover the sites and stories that mark the Church's glorious beginning.
Lamar C. Berrett
LaMar C. Berrett is a professor emeritus of Church history and doctrine at BYU. The author of Discovering the World of the Bible, he has conducted many tours to the Holy Land and Church history sites.
View more products by Lamar C. Berrett
Sacred Places, Vol. 1: New ...
Sacred Places, Vol. 3: Ohio...
Donald Q. Cannon, Keith W. Perkins
Sacred Places, Vol. 6: Wyom...
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Lamar C. Berrett, William G. Hartley
Sacred Places, Vol. 4: Miss...
Max H. Parkin, Lamar C. Berrett
The LDS Family Travel Guide...
Becky Cardon Smith
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Matlab /Simulink Device Blocksets For Dspic Dscs: © 2009 Microchip Technology Inc. Ds51771C
Original Title: Matlab Device Blocks Ds-51771c
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MATLAB®/Simulink®
Device Blocksets for dsPIC® DSCs
© 2009 Microchip Technology Inc. DS51771C
Note the following details of the code protection feature on Microchip devices:
• Microchip products meet the specification contained in their particular Microchip Data Sheet.
• Microchip believes that its family of products is one of the most secure families of its kind on the market today, when used in the
intended manner and under normal conditions.
• There are dishonest and possibly illegal methods used to breach the code protection feature. All of these methods, to our
knowledge, require using the Microchip products in a manner outside the operating specifications contained in Microchip’s Data
Sheets. Most likely, the person doing so is engaged in theft of intellectual property.
• Microchip is willing to work with the customer who is concerned about the integrity of their code.
• Neither Microchip nor any other semiconductor manufacturer can guarantee the security of their code. Code protection does not
mean that we are guaranteeing the product as “unbreakable.”
Code protection is constantly evolving. We at Microchip are committed to continuously improving the code protection features of our
products. Attempts to break Microchip’s code protection feature may be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If such acts
allow unauthorized access to your software or other copyrighted work, you may have a right to sue for relief under that Act.
Information contained in this publication regarding device Trademarks
applications and the like is provided only for your convenience The Microchip name and logo, the Microchip logo, dsPIC,
and may be superseded by updates. It is your responsibility to
KEELOQ, KEELOQ logo, MPLAB, PIC, PICmicro, PICSTART,
ensure that your application meets with your specifications.
rfPIC and UNI/O are registered trademarks of Microchip
MICROCHIP MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR
Technology Incorporated in the U.S.A. and other countries.
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WHETHER EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, WRITTEN OR ORAL, STATUTORY OR FilterLab, Hampshire, HI-TECH C, Linear Active Thermistor,
OTHERWISE, RELATED TO THE INFORMATION, MXDEV, MXLAB, SEEVAL and The Embedded Control
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ITS CONDITION, Solutions Company are registered trademarks of Microchip
QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, MERCHANTABILITY OR Technology Incorporated in the U.S.A.
FITNESS FOR PURPOSE. Microchip disclaims all liability Analog-for-the-Digital Age, Application Maestro, CodeGuard,
arising from this information and its use. Use of Microchip dsPICDEM, dsPICDEM.net, dsPICworks, dsSPEAK, ECAN,
devices in life support and/or safety applications is entirely at ECONOMONITOR, FanSense, HI-TIDE, In-Circuit Serial
the buyer’s risk, and the buyer agrees to defend, indemnify and Programming, ICSP, ICEPIC, Mindi, MiWi, MPASM, MPLAB
hold harmless Microchip from any and all damages, claims, Certified logo, MPLIB, MPLINK, mTouch, nanoWatt XLP,
suits, or expenses resulting from such use. No licenses are Omniscient Code Generation, PICC, PICC-18, PICkit,
conveyed, implicitly or otherwise, under any Microchip PICDEM, PICDEM.net, PICtail, PIC32 logo, REAL ICE, rfLAB,
intellectual property rights. Select Mode, Total Endurance, TSHARC, WiperLock and
ZENA are trademarks of Microchip Technology Incorporated
in the U.S.A. and other countries.
SQTP is a service mark of Microchip Technology Incorporated
in the U.S.A.
All other trademarks mentioned herein are property of their
respective companies.
© 2009, Microchip Technology Incorporated, Printed in the
U.S.A., All Rights Reserved.
Printed on recycled paper.
Microchip received ISO/TS-16949:2002 certification for its worldwide
headquarters, design and wafer fabrication facilities in Chandler and
Tempe, Arizona; Gresham, Oregon and design centers in California
and India. The Company’s quality system processes and procedures
are for its PIC® MCUs and dsPIC® DSCs, KEELOQ® code hopping
devices, Serial EEPROMs, microperipherals, nonvolatile memory and
analog products. In addition, Microchip’s quality system for the design
and manufacture of development systems is ISO 9001:2000 certified.
DS51771C-page ii © 2009 Microchip Technology Inc.
MATLAB/SIMULINK DEVICE
BLOCKSETS FOR dsPIC® DSCs
Chapter 1. Deploying Device Blocksets
1.1 Device Blocksets and the Embedded Target ................................................. 1
1.2 Installation Prerequisites ................................................................................ 5
1.3 Installation ...................................................................................................... 5
1.4 Licensing ........................................................................................................ 6
Chapter 2. MATLAB/Simulink Embedded Target Setup
2.1 dsPIC DSC Configuration Blocks ................................................................... 7
2.2 dsPIC DSC Run-Time Library ........................................................................ 9
2.3 dsPIC33F DMC Algorithms .......................................................................... 11
Chapter 3. Creating Models using Device Blocksets
3.1 Installing Device Blocks ................................................................................ 13
3.2 Using Device Blocks to Create a Model ....................................................... 13
3.3 Generating Code from a Model .................................................................... 13
Chapter 4. Device Blocks FAQs ................................................................................. 19
Appendix A. AN957 for dsPIC33F DSCs Example
A.1 Hardware Setup ........................................................................................... 21
A.2 Model Functionality Brief Description ........................................................... 21
A.3 Software Functionality .................................................................................. 22
A.4 Software Deviations ..................................................................................... 22
A.5 Optimizations ............................................................................................... 22
Index ............................................................................................................................. 23
Worldwide Sales and Service .................................................................................... 24
© 2009 Microchip Technology Inc. DS51771C-page iii
MATLAB/Simulink Device Blocksets for dsPIC® DSCs
DS51771C-page iv © 2009 Microchip Technology Inc.
This chapter provides a device blocksets description, usage overview and installation
• Device Blocksets and the Embedded Target
• Installation Prerequisites
• Installation
• Licensing
1.1 DEVICE BLOCKSETS AND THE EMBEDDED TARGET
These MATLAB®/Simulink® device blocksets are specific to dsPIC® DSC peripherals.
You can use them to develop and validate digital signal processing and control designs
from concept through code.
You can create application models using these blocks along with Simulink library
blocksets, and use the same for auto code generation.
You can also use device blocksets, or specifically the “Embedded Target for the
Microchip dsPIC DSC”, to integrate MATLAB and Simulink with MPLAB® IDE tools.
The “Embedded Target for the Microchip dsPIC DSC” uses C code generated by the
MATLAB Real-Time Workshop and Microchip MPLAB IDE development tools to
generate a C language real-time implementation of your Simulink model. Real-Time
Workshop builds the C code. You can compile, link, download and execute the
generated code onto a dsPIC DSC device on any demo board.
The “Embedded Target for the Microchip dsPIC DSC” consists of dsPIC DSC
configuration blocks , dsPIC DSC run-time library blocks and dsPIC33F DMC algorithm
© 2009 Microchip Technology Inc. DS51771C-page 1
FIGURE 1-1: EMBEDDED TARGET FOR THE MICROCHIP dsPIC® DSC
DS51771C-page 2 © 2009 Microchip Technology Inc.
Deploying Device Blocksets
FIGURE 1-2: EMBEDDED TARGET FOR MICROCHIP TOOLBOX LIBRARY
FIGURE 1-3: dsPIC33F DMC ALGORITHMS
1.2 INSTALLATION PREREQUISITES
You need to have MATLAB vR2007a or later. Your MATLAB License should have
following products:
• Simulink
• Real-Time Workshop
• Real-Time Embedded Coder
To install the blocksets:
1. Unzip install_dsPIC_Matlab.zip into the folder where you want to install
the blocksets.
2. Launch MATLAB. Set the current directory to the folder containing
install_dsPIC_Matlab.m.
3. Run install_dsPIC_Matlab.m either by typing install_dsPIC_Matlab
into a MATLAB command window or by right clicking on the
install_dsPIC_Matlab.m file in the MATLAB directory browser and
choosing “Run”.
The “Embedded Target for Microchip dsPIC DSC” consists of following folders:
• dspic: contains system target files and TMFs which are required for the build
• dspicblks: files supporting blocksets
• demomodels: demo models
• blockSkins: folder that has images for blocks
• doc: documentation and help files that support online help
• MicroDetails: device database files in MATLAB format
• Sources: block-specific support files
• Plug-In Scripts: scripts related to the MATLAB plug-in in MPLAB IDE
1.4 LICENSING
The blocksets work with full features even if you do not have a license. However, every
time you build the model to generate code, you will experience a 30 second delay. To
remove the delay and to receive prioritized support from Microchip, you need to buy
and install a license.
Contact Microchip to get a license key. Once you have the key, you will need to register
it using the registration utility of the MATLAB plug-in available in MPLAB IDE.
From MPLAB IDE:
1. Select Tools>MATLAB/Simulink. A drop down menu item will be added to the
menu bar of MPLAB IDE.
2. Choose MATLAB/Simulink>Register blocksets. The dialog shown below will
appear.
3. Enter the license key in the dialog and then click Register. This will install the
license.
The blocksets have been grouped under two different libraries:
• dsPIC DSC Configuration Blocks
• dsPIC DSC Run-Time Library
• dsPIC33F DMC Algorithms
2.1 dsPIC DSC CONFIGURATION BLOCKS
Configuration blocks generally form the initialization part of any application. For
information on each block, click the Help button on that dialog.
2.1.1 dsPIC30FXX/33FXX Main
This is the device configuration block for dsPIC30F or dsPIC33F devices. Every model
that you create must have one device configuration block. You can configure the oscil-
lator, select the looping timer, etc., using this block. One model is not allowed to have
more than one device configuration block.
2.1.2 ADC Config
The Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) block configures the device ADC to perform the
analog-to-digital conversion of signals connected to the selected ADC input pins. The
ADC block outputs digital values representing the analog input signal and stores the
converted values in the result register of your digital signal processor. You use this
block to capture and digitize analog signals from external sources such as signal
generators, frequency generators or audio devices.
Related dialogs: ADC Read
2.1.3 CAN Config
This block configures the CAN module.
Limitations of the CAN module device block:
1. Currently, the DeviceNet™ filter bits are not used.
2. The reception of CAN messages using the FIFO is not tested. Hence the code
generation verification is not done for this section.
3. It is the user’s responsibility to create the values of Phase Segment 1, 2 and
SJW.
4. Interrupt handling is not covered for either data reception/transmission or for
error handling.
5. Only the polling mode of CAN is implemented. There is no interrupt mode
Related dialogs: CAN Receive Block, CAN Transmit Block
2.1.4 DCI Config
This is the DCI block configuration the device.
Related dialogs: DCI Read, DCI Write
2.1.5 DMA Config
This is the DMA block configuration for the dsPIC DSCs. This block can configure all 8
DMA channels as per your configuration. You have to check ‘Channel X enable’ if you
want to enable channel X. X can be 0,1,2….7.
Related dialogs: Port Read, Port Write, Read Memory/Register, Write
Memory/Register
2.1.6 I2C Config
This configures the Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C™) operation.
Related dialogs: I2C-Master, I2C-Slave
2.1.7 IPCTimerCapture Config
This configures the ‘Input Capture’ peripheral. It captures the timer value from the
specified timer.
2.1.8 OC Config
This configures the output compare peripheral. It compares OCxR with the timer
specified and generates the appropriate output.
2.1.9 PWM Config
This block configures the PWM module in dsPIC DSC devices with motor control PWM.
Frequencies which result in incompatible values of the PWM frequency and FCY clock
frequency are caught as errors. Duty cycles can be mentioned as percentages rather
than the values in the registers.
Limitations of the PWM module device block:
1. Configuration is tested for Free Running mode only. No other modes of operation
are tested.
2. Dead-time control, output override control, Fault control using an external pin,
special event compare and post scaling are not supported.
3. PWM update disable support (UDIS bit) is not provided.
4. Dynamic changes to the duty cycle are not currently provided.
5. Interrupt routines and interrupt handling are not provided.
2.1.10 QEI Config
This configures Quadrature Encoder Interface (QEI) operation.
2.1.11 SPI Config
The SPI block configures the device SPI 1 or 2.
Related dialogs: SPI Transmit, SPI Receive
MATLAB/Simulink Embedded Target Setup
2.1.12 Timer Config
This configures the timer selected. Timer2-3, 4-5, 6-7 and 8-9 can be combined to form
32-bit timers.
Limitations of the Timer1 module device block:
• Make sure that the timer being enabled is not being used for the main loop in the
device config block.
2.1.13 UART Config
The UART block configures the device UART 1 or 2.
Related dialogs: UART Transmit, UART Read
2.2 dsPIC DSC RUN-TIME LIBRARY
Run-time blocks generally form the run-time part of any application. For information on
each block, click the Help button on that dialog.
2.2.1 ADC Read
This block tells the ADC from which ADC buffer to read.
2.2.2 CAN Receive/Transmit
All the set up for the CAN receive is done in the CAN configuration. The CAN receive
block receives and provides the raw data that it receives on a particular module
irrespective of the CAN message which delivers it.
Care should be exercised when selecting the transmit buffer for CAN transmit. A single
buffer should not be used for reception and transmission according to the current
design of the underlying device driver.
2.2.3 DCI Read/Write
These blocks read or write data received by or transmitted to the DCI buffer,
respectively. You need to provide the buffer number from 0-3.
2.2.4 I2C Master/Slave
These blocks configure the I2C modules to operate as Master/Slave. Baud rate, mode,
parity, etc., can be chosen using these blocks.
2.2.5 LCD Display – dsPIC33F DSCs
The block writes each character supplied to it on to the LCD. The LCD feature is cur-
rently supported only for the dsPIC33FJXXXMC710 and dsPIC33FJXXXGP710
devices of the dsPIC33F DSC family.
The Explorer 16 board includes an alphanumeric LCD display with two lines of 16 char-
acters each. The display is driven with three control lines (RD4, RD5 and RD15) and
eight data lines (RE7:RE0).
2.2.6 Memory/Register Read/Write
Read Memory/Register is a run-time block used for reading from a specified memory
location or SFR. You need to enter a hex address (in case of memory read), or an SFR
name in capital letters (in case of an SFR read).
Write Memory/Register is a run-time block used for writing into a specified memory
location or SFR. You need to enter a hex address (in case of a memory write), or an
SFR name in capital letters (in case of an SFR write).
2.2.7 NOP Block
Introduces a delay of as many clock cycles as mentioned. The input is provided at the
output port after a specified number of NOPs.
2.2.8 Port Read/Write
Reads from the specified port. You can specify whether a byte or individual bits have
to be read. To indicate which bit or bits need to be read, specify the bit’s number starting
from bit 0. For example, [0:3] will indicate bits 0-3; [7] will indicate bit 7.
Writes to the specified port. You can specify whether a byte or individual bits have to
be written. If you want to write to individual bits, you can specify the bit’s number that
you wish to write, starting from bit 0. For example, [0:3] indicates bits 0-3.
2.2.9 PWM Runtime Config
This block takes two inputs: PWM_DC and OVDCON (both are unit16 data type). No
configuration needs to done through the mask GUI. PWM_DC is the PWM duty cycle
required, and OVDCON is the override configuration.
2.2.10 SPI Transmit/Receive
This block defines from which SPI to transmit and from which SPI to receive.
2.2.11 UART Transmit/Receive
This block defines from which UART to transmit and from which UART to receive.
DS51771C-page 10 © 2009 Microchip Technology Inc.
2.3 dsPIC33F DMC ALGORITHMS
The dsPIC33F DMC algorithms are the motor control algorithm blocks. They can be
used for code generation and simulation. When used for code generation, they gener-
ate optimized code for customization using dsPIC33F devices.
2.3.1 dspic33fxx_ClarkeTransform
This block performs the Clarke Transform, which moves a three-axis, two-dimensional
coordinate system, referenced to the stator, onto a two-axis system, keeping the same
2.3.2 dspic33fxx_InvClarkeTransform
This block performs the Inverse Clarke Transform, which moves a two-axis system
onto a three-axis, two-dimensional coordinate system, referenced to the stator keeping
the same reference.
2.3.3 dspic33fxx_ParkTransform
This block performs the Park Transform, which converts quantities represented in a
two-axis orthogonal system with the axis called ?- ? into another two-axis system that
is rotating with the rotor flux. This two-axis rotating coordinate system is called the d-q
axis.
2.3.4 dspic33fxx_InvParkTransform
This block performs the Inverse Park Transform, which converts quantities represented
in two-axis system that is rotating with the rotor flux into another two-axis orthogonal
system with the axis called ?- ?.
2.3.5 dspic33fxx_PIControl
PI implementation is conventional and includes the term (Kc*Excess) to limit integral
windup. Excess is calculated by subtracting the unlimited output (U) and limited output
(Out). The term Kc multiplies the Excess, and limits the accumulated integral portion
(Sum).
2.3.6 dspic33fxx_SpaceVectorGen
This block performs the Space Vector Generation action. It generates the PWM from
three individual phase components in the 3-axis form obtained by Clarke transforms.
2.3.7 dspic33fxx_SMC
This block performs the Slide motor control action.
Note: For additional information, refer to AN1078, “Sensorless Field Oriented
Control of PMSM Motors” (DS01078).
© 2009 Microchip Technology Inc. DS51771C-page 11
Creating and using models require the following steps:
• Installing Device Blocks
• Using Device Blocks to Create a Model
• Generating Code from a Model
3.1 INSTALLING DEVICE BLOCKS
The Microchip device blocksets are distributed as a separate library package, so you
need to install them separately from your MATLAB installation. Once you install
“Embedded Target for Microchip dsPIC DSC”, these blocksets would appear in your
Simulink Library tree. Refer to Chapter 1. “Deploying Device Blocksets” for
installation details.
3.2 USING DEVICE BLOCKS TO CREATE A MODEL
Models are created by placing the relevant device blocks with required sources and
sinks (from Simulink Library) in a new model file (see Chapter 2. “MATLAB/Simulink
Embedded Target Setup” for details). This model would have the ‘config’ blocks for
all the peripherals which will be used. Add the ‘Double-Click to Configure for
dspic_stf.tlc’ block to configure the right tlc and compiler toolchain.
3.3 GENERATING CODE FROM A MODEL
The two ways to generate code from Simulink models are:
1. Once the model is built, the MATLAB plug-in for MPLAB IDE may be used for
code generation as specified in the MATLAB/Simulink Help file. This creates an
archive library which has to be linked with code generated. Issues faced with this
method are:
a) Code generation takes a long time, even for simple models.
b) A lot of “dummy” C files are generated, which increases the total build time.
c) The large number of files takes a long time to import into an MPLAB IDE
workspace.
2. Code may be generated using the real-time workshop of MATLAB. Code gener-
ated has to be built after including the necessary peripheral library files and wrap-
per header files used for creating device blocks. This will generate the COFF file
which can be flashed on a device.
To create a Simulink model from device blocks:
1. Open a Simulink model file (Figure 3-1).
2. Locate Microchip device blocks in the Simulink Library tree (Figure 3-2). Each
model should contain one (and only one) “dsPIC33fxx_Main” block.
FIGURE 3-1: CREATE SIMULINK® MODEL
FIGURE 3-2: LOCATE DEVICE BLOCKS
Creating Models using Device Blocksets
To build COF/Hex files directly from SIMULINK Models:
1. Open a model and go to RTW Options (Tools>Real-Time Workshop>Options)
(Figure 3-3).
FIGURE 3-3: REAL-TIME WORKSHOP OPTIONS SELECTION
2. Set RTW Options as follows:
If you are using the MATLAB plug-in in MPLAB IDE:
a) Select “Real-Time Workshop” and choose dspic_stf.tlc as the system
target file (Figure 3-4).
b) Select “Solver” and choose discrete time and no auto config (Figure 3-5).
c) Select “Hardware Implementation” and choose the following (Figure 3-6):
- Device Vendor: Generic, Device type: Custom
- Number of Bits: Char-8, short- 16, int- 16, long- 32, native word size -16,
byte ordering: Little Endian, Signed integer division rounds to: zero
If you are not using the MATLAB plug-in in MPLAB IDE, but want to build a Simulink
model into a COF/Hex file, perform the above steps as well as the following:
d) The “dsPIC Options” pane (Figure 3-7) is configured by double clicking on the
“Double-Click to Configure for dspic_stf.tlc” block in your model. If the informa-
tion filled in the fields is not correct, you can update them with proper paths.
- OGCC – Compiler optimization parameters.
- LDFS – Linker options.
- MCPATH – Path of 16-bit C compiler installation.
- LINKERSCRIPT – Path for the linker script. By default, this will point to the
linker scripts provided by the 16-bit C compiler.
- PICLIB – Path for binary archive libraries. By default, this will point to the
archives provided by the 16-bit C compiler. You can append paths to any
other binary archive libraries.
- PICINCL – Path for include search paths. By default, this will point to the
headers provided by the 16-bit C compiler. You can append paths to any other
folders having relevant header files.
FIGURE 3-4: REAL-TIME WORKSPACE SELECTION
FIGURE 3-5: SOLVER SELECTION
FIGURE 3-6: HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION SELECTION
FIGURE 3-7: dsPIC® DSC OPTIONS SELECTION
3. Build the model as follows:
To build from MATLAB, select Tools>Real-Time Workshop>Build Model (Figure 3-8.)
FIGURE 3-8: MATLAB® BUILD
To build from MPLAB IDE, refer to the MATLAB/Simulink plug-in documentation in
MPLAB IDE. Make sure that a 16-bit C compiler is installed and its location correctly
set in MPLAB IDE. 16-bit C compiler version 3.10 is recommended.
Note: Use only fixed point blocks available in Simulink (e.g., ADD block in demo
models). Generic (floating point) blocksets may not always give correct
Chapter 4. Device Blocks FAQs
The following frequently asked questions may help you with some basic issues.
Can I use the plug-in in MPLAB IDE without having Microchip device blocksets?
Yes, the plug-in can be used even if you don't have Microchip device blocksets. In that
case, you will need to use ert.tlc as the system target file. The code generated will
adhere to ANSI C standards, and it may contain some calls to fflush kinds of func-
tions, which may not compile with the 16-bit C compilers. Therefore, you may need to
make some modifications to the code generated from your models.
The MATLAB plug-in tool can be selected with every device. Does it only
support the dsPIC DSC devices currently? Can this be made device-specific?
The MATLAB plug-in in MPLAB IDE will take any MATLAB/Simulink model, generate
code from it using the Real-Time Workshop (a MATLAB tool) and import the code gen-
erated into the project you specify. Since the RTW generates ANSI C code, the plug-in
will work with all devices, provided you have the right compiler in place. Currently there
are only beta release blocksets for the dsPIC DSC family of devices. However, the
device blockset is not mandatory to use the plug-in; the plug-in can be used with any
Simulink model.
How efficient is the code Generated from MATLAB?
MATLAB provides two code generation tools: Real-Time Workshop (RTW) and
Real-Time Embedded Coder (RTEC). RTEC generates code that is optimized for
embedded platforms. The Microchip Device blocks work on RTEC and hence the code
generated for generic blocks will be reasonably efficient. However, it will not be as effi-
cient as manually-generated code because this code is not specifically targeted for
Microchip targets.
A future Microchip Math Library with commonly used blocks is planned, for which spe-
cialized drivers will be provided to generate efficient code. The device blocksets, how-
ever, have Microchip’s drivers behind them and hence generate efficient code.
Error encountered while using 'PostCodeGenCommand', Error using =>
RTW.makertw.PCGHook
You are encountering this error because you either did not include the file
MplabGetBuildInfo.m in the MATLAB include search path, or you have an older
version of the file.
Is the device configuration block ‘Main’ required in any model?
Yes. Either “dsPIC33fxx main” or “dsPIC30fxx main” is a mandatory block for any given
model that intends to use dspic_stf.tlc. This block is responsible for device
configuration including clock, timer and watchdog settings.
Can I use two Device Config ‘Main’ blocks in a single model?
No. This would generate an error. It will cause the system to generate two main
functions in a single project.
Can I simulate models with device blocksets?
The device blocksets do not support simulations. However, their presence will not affect
the simulation of models with blocks from the Generic Simulink Library.
What are the priorities that I need to assign to blocks in a model?
The blocksets would inherit some default priority from the blockset libraries. You may
change them if you want. But, the priority structure must fit into following rule:
Priority of device config block > Priority of peripheral config blocks > Priority of run-time
blocks.
In MATLAB, the lower the number is, the higher the priority.
The blocksets will inherit a default priority from the blockset libraries. You may change
them if you want, but the priority structure must fit into following rule:
This chapter is an addendum to the document and the code obtained from:
• http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/AppNotes/AN957_33F_710.zip
This addendum discusses the use of the MATLAB v2007b demo model
BLDC_Control_Demo.mdl with the application note AN957 for dsPIC33F DSCs.
A.1 HARDWARE SETUP
Refer to the AN957_33F README.doc obtained from the above zip file.
A.2 MODEL FUNCTIONALITY BRIEF DESCRIPTION
FIGURE A-1: MODULE FUNCTIONAL BLOCKS
The ‘Input System’ provides the inputs from the microcontroller to the algorithm. The
‘BLDC Motor Control System’ is the main motor control algorithm. The ‘Output System’
drives the outputs on the microcontroller. ‘Reset Power Module’ does the generation of
a pulse on the desired pin on the microcontroller. The different memory blocks, such as
‘PoleCount’ and ‘DirSwitch’, provide the run-time data retention. ‘dsPIC33fMC Config-
uration’ configures the peripherals of the dsPIC33FJXXXMC710 microcontroller. The
configurations are different compared to the code provided with AN957. This is to cater
to the different execution of the code. The main differences are:
1. Timer1 is set up for loop execution.
2. Input Capture ports are not used.
3. Interrupt executions are not used.
4. Higher execution rate.
A.3 SOFTWARE FUNCTIONALITY
The following switches are used for software functionality:
1. S4: Pressing this switch starts and stops the motor.
2. S5: This switch toggles between open loop and closed loop control. By default,
the motor starts running in open loop.
3. S6: This is used for direction switching. Although direction switching can be done
while the motor is running, this is not advisable. Ideally, you should press S4 to
stop the motor, then press S6 to change direction, after which you can press S4
to start the motor again.
4. R6 changes the speed of the motor, as specified in the application note (AN957).
A.4 SOFTWARE DEVIATIONS
The code in this example deviates from the original code in AN957 as follows:
1. The code provided in the ZIP file is interrupt driven. The interrupts are used for
changing the energizing sequence of the motor windings. This interrupt method
is not used in the MATLAB generated code. A fast polling mode is used to enable
the complete code generation in a single loop of execution.
2. The original code runs at 10 MHz. Code generated by MATLAB runs at 40 MHz.
A.5 OPTIMIZATIONS
AN957 operation and the MATLAB model may be optimized as follows:
1. The functionality generated from MATLAB replicates the one available in AN957.
AN957 is a PI control of the motor, which can be improved to provide the PID
2. Algorithm implementation of AN957 is for demonstration purposes. Therefore it
contains truncations of the values, which can be improved to provide better con-
trol and stability of the motor operations. The same applies for the MATLAB
generated code.
3. The MATLAB generated code is not highly optimized. The code generated,
though not bloated, can be further compressed in code size by using better
model components/custom components for the algorithmic part.
Numerics M
16-bit C Compiler ..................................................... 18 Memory/Register Read/Write................................... 10
Models, Creating ...................................................... 13
Motor Control Algorithms ......................................... 11
ADC Config ................................................................ 7 MPLAB IDE plug-in ............................................ 13, 15
ADC Read .................................................................. 9
AN957 ...................................................................... 21 N
NOP Block................................................................ 10
CAN Config ................................................................ 7 O
CAN Receive/Transmit............................................... 9 OC Config .................................................................. 8
Clarke Transform ..................................................... 11 Output Compare......................................................... 8
COFF ..................................................................13, 15
Configuration Blocks, dsPIC33F DSCs...................... 7
Park Transform ........................................................ 11
D PI Control ................................................................. 11
DCI Config ................................................................. 8 Port Read/Write........................................................ 10
DCI Read/Write .......................................................... 9 PostCodeGenCommand .......................................... 19
DCMA Config ............................................................. 8 Prerequisites for Install............................................... 5
Deploying Device Blocksets....................................... 1 PWM Config ............................................................... 8
Device Blocks PWM Runtime Config............................................... 10
FAQ .................................................................. 19
DMC Algorithms ....................................................... 11
dsPIC Configuration Blocks ....................................... 2 QEI Config.................................................................. 8
dsPIC Configuration Blocks, Setup ............................ 7 R
dsPIC Runtime Library ............................................... 3
Real Time Workshop Options .................................. 15
dsPIC Runtime Library, Setup.................................... 9
RTW.makertw.PCGHook ......................................... 19
dspic_stf.tlc .........................................................13, 15
dsPIC30fxx/33fxx Main .............................................. 7 S
E SFR .......................................................................... 10
Slide Motor Control .................................................. 11
Embedded Target for the Microchip dsPIC DSC ....... 1
Space Vector Generation......................................... 11
G SPI Config .............................................................. 8, 9
Generating Code...................................................... 13 SPI Transmit/Receive .............................................. 10
H T
Hex........................................................................... 15 Timer Config............................................................... 9
I U
I2C Config .................................................................. 9 UART Config .......................................................... 8, 9
I2C Master/Slave ....................................................... 9 UART Transmit/Receive .......................................... 10
Installation .................................................................. 5
IPCTimerCapture Config............................................ 8
LCD Display, dsPIC33F DSCs................................... 9
Licensing.................................................................... 6
WORLDWIDE SALES AND SERVICE
AMERICAS ASIA/PACIFIC ASIA/PACIFIC EUROPE
Corporate Office Asia Pacific Office India - Bangalore Austria - Wels
2355 West Chandler Blvd. Suites 3707-14, 37th Floor Tel: 91-80-3090-4444 Tel: 43-7242-2244-39
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Tel: 480-792-7200 Harbour City, Kowloon Denmark - Copenhagen
Fax: 480-792-7277 Hong Kong Tel: 45-4450-2828
Tel: 91-11-4160-8631
Technical Support: Tel: 852-2401-1200 Fax: 45-4485-2829
Fax: 91-11-4160-8632
http://support.microchip.com Fax: 852-2401-3431
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← A Real Local History Gem
eBook Friday: A Separate Peace →
Happy Birthday, Pittsboro!
On this day 232 years ago, the Town of Pittsboro was officially established!
On their FB page, the Chatham Historical Museum writes,
“Town of Pittsboro established! On January 6, 1787, the North Carolina General Assembly authorized nine commissioners to purchase one hundred acres and the Town of Pittsborough was formed as the seat of Chatham County. At the time of the founding of the town, a land survey was undertaken and a map with 125 lots was made. Although the original map has long since disappeared, a copy was made by county surveyor Rufus Clegg in 1889.”
Volume 24, chapter 81, of the Acts of the North Carolina General Assembly, 1786 – 1787 reads, “An Act for Establishing a Town on the Lands late the Property of William Petty, adjoining Chatham Court-house, as laid off by the Trustees named in the Act of the last General Assembly, entitled, “An Act for establishing a town on the Lands of Mial Scurlock, deceased, in Chatham County,” for appointing Commissioners for the Regulation of the said Town, and repealing said Act.” and declares,
“I. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That the said lands so laid off by the trustees aforesaid agreeable to a plan thereof, be and is hereby established a town and town commons by the name of Pittsborough.”
According to the Act, the NC General Assembly appointed George Lucas, Joseph Stewart, Roger Griffith, Matthew Jones, Zachariah Harman, Patrick St. Lawrence, Nathan Stedman, James Massey and William Riddle as Commissioners.
Full text of the Act can be found online courtesy of the The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina digital collection, a project of the University of North Carolin at Chapel Hill.
An image of Clegg’s map. My, how times have changed!
This entry was posted in Local History. Bookmark the permalink.
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