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Hughes' sentiments were echoed by many Friday in Helms' hometown of Monroe, where Helms' father once served as police and fire chief.
While drawing national attention as a leader of the conservative movement, Helms was also known locally for helping people such as Hughes – a fact that helped him narrowly win re-election four times.
But others – often African Americans – said they were still angry, five years after he retired from the Senate.
Monroe was mostly closed Friday for the Fourth of July, and word of Helms' death hadn't swept through the community. At a Wendy's restaurant on U.S. 74, a group eating lunch was stunned when told the city's famous son was dead.
“He always spoke for what he believed in,” said Judy Aycoth, 59, a retired nurse. “He didn't bend to special interests, and he was proud to be from North Carolina.”
Aycoth's friend, Jane Helms, 67, agreed.
She said she's not related to the senator as far as she knows, and said “you never heard anyone say anything bad about him.”
But there are some Monroe residents who are critical of the man known as “Senator No.” Helms lambasted gays and liberals, and he often used race as a wedge issue to help win re-election.
“Jesse Helms didn't care about black people; I don't want to talk about him,” said one African American woman, who declined to give her name.
Added a black store owner in downtown Monroe: “They say he loved his country? Ask them about civil rights.”
Jimmy Williams, who is black, owns a beauty supply store in Monroe's Main Street. A Democrat and Monroe native, Williams, 61, said he never voted for Helms.
“But the one thing you can say is that he was steadfast in his beliefs,” Williams said. “Some people hate him, but I would say he was a fair man.”
Not all Monroe residents had a firm opinion on the senator. Now engulfed by the Charlotte metro area, the fast-changing city is home to a number of newly arrived Hispanics. Some younger residents said they didn't know anything about Helms, who was 86.
The Jesse Helms Center in nearby Wingate opened Friday, mostly for the media. John Dodd, the center's president, said he had been expecting Helms' death.
“Frankly, I'm pretty inspired,” Dodd said. “I think he's in the mold of our founding fathers, and for him to die on July Fourth – it's fitting.”
Helms attended Wingate Junior College, now Wingate University.
Randel Caldwell, 61, was split in his opinion of Helms. He admired his fiscal conservatism and that he was a “big-time conservative.”
“I supported him on a lot of his initiatives,” Caldwell said. “But among civil liberties, or civil rights, he was too slow to understand the need for change.”
Church group’s bus explodes on trip home from Texas summer camp, video shows
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An employee reporting for work at the time was confronted inside the business by Greene, who had kept his key to the business and used it to open the door and turn off the alarm, prosecutors said. He pulled the trigger on an AR-15-style rifle he had but the gun misfired.
The AR-15 assault rifle is commonly used in mass shootings in the United States. Here's a closer look at likely reasons why.
Greene fired a bullet into the floor of the business in front of his former coworker, according to the solicitor’s office. The victim texted another coworker and asked him to call 911.
Deputies arrested Greene minutes later when he tried to drive away from the business in his truck, in the back of which was the rifle, prosecutors said. Greene told deputies he was upset about leaving his job a month earlier.
“Quick thinking and the actions of the victim prevented a tragedy from occurring,” Solicitor Barry Barnette said in the release.
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Property market update – November 2016
Tags: Property Investment, Property Market
Home values continue to rise during October, albeit at a slower pace than those experienced during September.
The CoreLogic Home Value Index for October showed that capital city dwelling values rose just 0.5 per cent during the month, a drop from the previous growth results reported during August and September in which dwelling values rose 1.1 per cent and 1 per cent respectively.
Sydney’s prices increased by 0.6 per cent during October, resulting in an average median dwelling price of $800,000. However it was Melbourne and Brisbane which led the capital cities with the most growth in dwelling prices, both seeing a 0.8 per cent increase and resulting in a median of $600,000 for Melbourne and $470,000 for Brisbane.
Adelaide and Hobart were the only capital cities to see a fall in dwelling values. The
South Australian capital city fell by 2.4 per cent while the Tasmanian capital fell by 2.1 per cent. Hobart remains the cheapest capital city, with a median dwelling value of $343,500 while Adelaide’s median dwelling price sits at $415,000.
Rental vacancies
Rental vacancies rose again during September according to the latest figures reported by SQM Research.
Nationally the vacancy rate rose 2.4 per cent during September, up 2.3 per cent during August.
Perth continues to be troubled by properties which remain untenanted, recording the highest vacancy rate at 5 per cent. Meanwhile, Hobart’s rental market remained the nations tightest, with a vacancy rate of just 0.6 per cent.
Reflecting its high vacancy rates, the SQM Research report revealed that the city of Perth also recorded falls of 9.5 per cent and 11.1 per cent in asking rents for houses and units respectively over the past twelve months.
Yearly falls were also reported for Darwin, where asking rents for houses are down 4.8 per cent and for units down 3.5 per cent. Darwin is the second most expensive city to rent in Australia following Sydney. Weekly rents in the New South Wales capital for a house sit at $725 per week and $511 for units.
Of the capital cities, Hobart remains the most affordable for rental accommodation, with houses costing just $359 per week to rent and units averaging $287 per week.
CoreLogic also released a country-wide regional rental report towards the end of October which showed that outside the capital cities, rental property market conditions remain weak.
The CoreLogic report explained that Tasmania has recorded the strongest rental growth across the country over the past year, with a 2 per cent increase in rent for houses and 4.5 per cent for units. Meanwhile, asking rents in regional Northern Territory and regional Western Australia were down 6 per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively over the year.
A snapshot of the regions with the highest rental growth included West Moreton in Queensland which saw house rents increase 5 per cent over the last quarter to $318 per week and Wimmera in Victoria which saw house rents increase 3.3 per cent over the quarter to $318 per week and unit rents increase 2.5 per cent per week over the quarter to $205 per week.
South West Queensland unit rents also increased 11.8 per cent over the last quarter to $308 per week.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest building approvals data for September 2016 last week.
Total dwelling units approved continue to slow, with an 8.7 per cent drop when compared to last year in seasonally adjusted terms.
While there has been a 2.3 per cent rise in the number of approvals for new houses to 9,605, apartment and townhouse approvals fell 16.3 per cent to 9,166.
Although the value of residential building fell 0.1 per cent and has fallen for two months, the trend estimate of the value of total building approved rose 2.1 per cent in September and has risen for ten months.
Finance and interest rates
When the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) delivered their decision at the 1st of November 2016 board meeting, they decided to keep rates on hold at 1.5 per cent for the third straight month. It was also the fifth year in a row that there has not been an interest rate change on Melbourne Cup Day.
While interest rates remain at all-time lows, mortgage rates from major banks and other lenders could still increase due to rules which are part of the Basel III accord.
International banking regulators have told Australian banks to start relying more on Australian customer deposits to fund loans, rather than overseas money markets.
This means banks are left with two options; to cover the added cost they can increase interest rates or reduce the discount customers might be expecting to receive on their variable rate next year.
Auction clearance rates
The preliminary auction clearance rate rose to 77.5 per cent according to results reported by CoreLogic on Sunday the 6th of November.
There were 2,490 auctions scheduled for the week, up from the 2,253 reported for the previous week. However, the number of auctions is down on the same time last year, when 2,947 auctions were reported with a 61.4 per cent clearance rate.
Sydney continues to record a clearance rate above 80 per cent. Of the 1,063 auctions schedule, 82.1 per cent sold.
Perth, with only fifty one auctions schedule achieved only a 31.8 per cent clearance rate.
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Victoria Hills and her mum Tracey
Published: 09:54 Friday 12 July 2019
A visit from an international flute trio will help commemorate a Chichester student who died after complaining of an earache.
20-year-old Victoria Hills, from Chichester, went to bed at her halls of residence on the morning of Saturday, February 3 last year and tragically didn’t wake up. She was found a day later in her room at Bournemouth University.
The cause of death was an ENT infection called Lemierre’s Syndrome.
See Tracey's BBC interview
Her mum Tracey has got together with Chichester historian Ken Green to organise a concert from the Kenwenike Trio, who normally tour with the Metropolitan Flute Orchestra of Boston, USA.
“They are giving a special one-off performance called Music from a Summer Garden, at St George’s Church, Whyke, on Wednesday, July 17 at 7.30pm. The flute orchestra tours all over the world so it is a privilege to have them at St George’s.”
Half of the proceeds will go to the church and half of the proceeds will go to Rumboldswhyke School on behalf of Victoria’s Legacy, a not-for-profit organisation which Tracey hopes to turn into a charity “one day when I have the strength and energy.”
“It’s such a special concert for several reasons and will hopefully raise a good amount through donations, even though entry is free. We felt we didn’t want to exclude anyone from seeing such international musicians in a one-off performance, hence no entry charge, but we would appreciate the donations.
“I set up Victoria’s Legacy in order to raise awareness about Lemierre’s Syndrome because it’s a disease which is rare, but it’s making a comeback and Victoria was just the age it attacks. People need to know about it. They call it the forgotten disease.
“It’s a horrible disease. It kills so quickly. She just thought she had flu, and she also thought she had given herself food poisoning. She thought she had both at the same time. It turns out she had glandular fever which weakened her immune system and allowed this to happen.
“She was all I had. I just feel like I have lost everything. She lost everything and I lost everything when I lost her. She was my whole world. The last thing she sent me on Facebook was a virtual hug. I sent her a heart…”
Tracey admits she struggles: “But her friends have been really good. They have really rallied round and we are all good friends now. We look after each other and we help each other.”
Tracey has set up a Facebook page Victoria’s Legacy –”a page that I hope will create something positive and make sure that Victoria is always remembered and that she carries on making an impact.”
There is also a bench on Bournemouth sea front, Victoria’s favourite spot.
Mother and daughter Maggie and Helena Cochran offer Chichester art show
Norman knights weekend at Arundel Castle!
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eBooks „european union“
159 eBooks were found for the search term „european union“.
John D. Philbrick The American Union Speaker
John Dudley Philbrick (May 28, 1818 – Feb. 2, 1886) was a prominent American educator. After graduating in 1842 from Dartmouth College, where he was one of the founders of the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity, he was a schoolteacher for 11 years in Boston schools, including the Boston English High School, the Quincy School and Roxbury Latin. At the suggestion of Henry Barnard he was recruited in 1853 to become Barnard's successor as principal of the Connecticut State Normal School. This was followed by a term as Connecticut superintendent of common schools from 1855 to late 1856. In December 1856 he was elected superintendent of public schools in Boston, serving with one short interruption until March 1878. He was a frequent writer on educational topics and contributor to educational journals. He served as president of the National Educational Association and both the Connecticut and Massachusetts Teachers Associations, and was for ten years a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. His publicatrions include City School Systems in the United States (Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1885) [more][Less]
Allen Johnson Union and Democracy
Allen Kenneth Johnson (born March 1, 1971) is a retired American hurdling athlete and won the gold medal in the 110 metre hurdles at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a four-time world champion. [more][Less]
Allen Johnson (1870–1931) was an American historian, Professor of history at Yale University. His books include Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics (1908),[1] Readings in American Constitutional History, 1776–1876. (1912) [2] Union and Democracy (1915)[3] The Historian and Historical Evidence (1926), and Readings in Recent American Constitutional History, 1876–1926 (1927). [more][Less]
Oliver Optic Edward Stratemeyer An Undivided Union
"How many miles have we still to go, Deck?" "Not over seven by this road, Artie," replied Major Deck Lyon, commanding the first battalion, Riverlawn Cavalry, of Kentucky. "I should think the surroundings would begin to look familiar to you, even if we have been away from home for some time." [more][Less]
John Dudley Philbrick (May 28, 1818 – Feb. 2, 1886) was a prominent American educator. After graduating in 1842 from Dartmouth College, where he was one of the founders of the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity, he was a schoolteacher for 11 years in Boston schools, including the Boston English High School, the Quincy School and Roxbury Latin. At the suggestion of Henry Barnard he was recruited in 1853 to become Barnard's successor as principal of the Connecticut State Normal School. [more][Less]
Albertus Magnus On Union with God
Albertus Magnus, O.P. (before 1200 – November 15, 1280), also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a Catholic bishop. He was known during his lifetime as doctor universalis and doctor expertus and, late in his life, the term magnus was appended to his name.[1] Scholars such as James A. Weisheipl and Joachim R. Söder have referred to him as the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages. [more][Less]
Ronald McNeill Ulster's Stand For Union
Ronald John McNeill, 1st Baron Cushendun PC (30 April 1861 – 12 October 1934) was a British Conservative politician.McNeill was born in Ulster, the son of Edmund McNeill DL, JP and Sheriff of County Antrim, and his wife Mary (née Miller). He was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1886. After being called to the bar in 1888, he worked as editor of The St James's Gazette (1900–04) as well as assistant editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1906–10). [more][Less]
Charles W. Sanders Sanders' Union Fourth Reader
THIS FOURTH READER is designed to pass the pupil from the comparatively easy ground occupied by the THIRD to the more difficult course embraced in THE UNION FIFTH READER, which is next higher in the series. It is, therefore, carefully graded to this intermediate position. [more][Less]
Oliver Optic Stand By The Union
The Blue and the Gray--Afloat
William Taylor Adams (July 30, 1822 – March 27, 1897), pseudonym Oliver Optic, was a noted academic, author, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.Adams was born in Medway, Massachusetts in 1822 to Captain Laban Adams and Catherine Johnson Adams. Adams became a teacher in the Lower Road School in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1843,[7] he resigned from his position as master of the school in 1846 in order to assist his father and brother in the management of their new hotel in Boston, [more][Less]
Alice Henry The Trade Union Woman
Alice Henry (21 March 1857 – 14 February 1943)[1] was an Australian suffragist, journalist and trade unionist who also became prominent in the American trade union movement as a member of the Women's Trade Union League. A street in the Canberra suburb of Cook is named in her honour. [more][Less]
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Moulton compares Trump’s rise to election of Hitler in 1930s
By Travis Andersen Globe Staff,March 23, 2016, 7:57 p.m.
During a live political happy hour event at Suffolk University, Congressman Seth Moulton likened Donald Trump’s rise to Adolf Hitler’s.
During a live political happy hour event at Suffolk University, Congressman Seth Moulton likened Donald Trump's rise to Adolf Hitler's.
Representative Seth Moulton compared the rise of Republican presidential front-runner Donald J. Trump to the election of Adolf Hitler and said Wednesday that constituents should warn “that crazy uncle” against voting for the businessman if he wins the GOP nomination.
Moulton, a first-term Democrat who represents the North Shore, made the explosive remarks during an appearance on the Globe interview series “Political Happy Hour” at Suffolk University.
He said voters should read up on how the German people elected Hitler in the 1930s, to gain a better understanding of how an educated society “can elect a demagogue.”
“I’m not saying that Donald Trump is necessarily Hitler,” Moulton said. “I’m not saying that.”
But he did not answer directly when pressed by Globe reporter Joshua Miller, who asked whether he believed Trump would govern in the same authoritarian manner as the German dictator if elected president.
“I don’t know him,” Moulton said. “I don’t know if he would be, but he’s certainly talked about carpet bombing the Middle East” to fight terrorism, “which, by the way, is fundamentally stupid.”
A Trump spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Moulton’s remarks.
The 37-year-old congressman, who served four tours of duty in Iraq with the US Marine Corps, said he even told a group of high school students earlier Wednesday to steer Trump supporters away from the Republican, even though he normally avoids partisan rhetoric when meeting with young people.
“I said, ‘If you know anybody who plans to vote for Donald Trump, you’ve got to take that very seriously and try to do something about it,’ ” Moulton said. “If nothing else, just find that relative, that crazy uncle, whoever it is that actually thinks that Donald Trump is a good idea, and convince him not to vote for this guy.”
Trump, who won the GOP presidential primary in Massachusetts, has taken many controversial positions during his campaign, including indefinitely blocking all Muslims from entering the United States and conducting mass deportations of immigrants living in the country illegally.
Asked to explain Trump’s popularity with much of the electorate, Moulton said voters are “so frustrated that they’re willing to overlook the actual substance and just” support someone new. “It’s frightening.”
But Moulton, who in 2014 unseated longtime incumbent John Tierney in a Democratic congressional primary, also had criticism for his own party.
He lamented that the Obama administration pulled troops out of Iraq in 2011 without, he said, staying engaged diplomatically with that country. As a result, Moulton said, US troops had to return to the fractious nation when the security situation deteriorated.
In addition, he said, the administration has not worked to help Syrian opposition forces organize politically.
Political Happy Hour with Seth Moulton FULL
“I do think it’s fair to say that there are times when President Obama has not been engaged enough with the Middle East,” Moulton said, adding that Islamic State militants “would not be around today if we did not leave a vacuum in the Middle East.”
Moulton, who this week traveled with a congressional delegation that accompanied Obama on a historic trip to Cuba, also called for lifting a decades-old embargo on that communist country.
Other topics included the federal minimum wage, which Moulton supports increasing to $12 per hour while also indexing the figure to inflation; improving health care and housing for veterans; linking railway lines across the state; and reforming the tax code.
Noting that some of the largest American corporations effectively pay no taxes, Moulton asked, “How is that fair?”
But while he praised his colleagues in the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation for their commitment to service, he also jabbed the party leadership multiple times during the hourlong interview.
Moulton said Democratic powerbrokers strongly criticized him for running in the 2014 primary against Tierney, a veteran congressman who at the time was mired in scandal.
The establishment, he said, told him that “you don’t have a chance of winning and you’re doing a bad thing,” which he interpreted as a warning not to participate in a democracy he had risked his life defending in war.
And while he said that Senator Elizabeth Warren has done “a fantastic job” in office, he also conceded that “I don’t always take the same approach,” particularly on the question of a divisive trade proposal.
“Senator Warren’s been, just more from the get-go, completely opposed to it, and I don’t think that’s the right approach,” he said, adding that he feels the need to analyze the proposal thoroughly to determine how it would affect constituents.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.
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Extra £225k means no cut in Carrickfergus Library opening hours
A protest was held in June over the proposed cuts at Carrickfergus Library. INCT 27-725-CON
Published: 12:58 Thursday 04 August 2016
Extra funding will ensure a proposed reduction in Carrickfergus Library opening hours will not now go ahead.
The Joymount location was facing a cut in opening by five hours per week.
However, Communities Minister Paul Givan has announced he will be providing Libraries NI with an additional £225,000.
It follows a public consultation on reducing opening hours at 14 local libraries, including Carrickfergus, with more than 8,000 responses received.
Mr Givan said: “The views of people are important in any public consultation and the responses received during the Libraries NI consultation has been clearly heard, both by the organisation and by me as minister.
“People care deeply about this important resource based in their local communities which is why I am delighted to be in a position to announce this additional funding of £225,000.
“This money will allow Libraries NI to address some of the financial pressures that the organisation like so many others are currently facing.”
Welcoming this announcement, Irene Knox, chief executive of Libraries NI, said: “I am very grateful to the minister for his support for the public library service and his recognition of the important role of libraries in communities. This additional funding is most welcome and will mean that the reduction in opening hours, planned for November will not now be required.
“Among the responses to the public consultation there are many examples of the difference that libraries have made, and continue to make, to the lives of people of all ages. It is heartening to read their stories and within the resources that are available to us, we will continue to develop and deliver services that meet identified need.”
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Is the Pope purging conservatives?
By Phil Lawler (bio - articles - email) | Nov 05, 2014
“Does Pope Francis have an enemies list?” That’s the eye-catching headline on John Allen’s column for the Crux site. Allen notes that three bishops have recently placed under scrutiny by the Vatican: Bishops Rogelio Livieres Plano in Paraguay, Mario Oliveri in Italy, and Robert Finn in Kansas City. (He might have added Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who was denounced as the “bishop of bling” and hurried into resignation in Germany.) Is it a coincidence that the bishops who are under the gun are all distinctly conservative?
Add the disciplinary crackdown on the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, and the unmistakable loss of influence by two prominent prelates in the Roman Curia (Cardinals Mauro Piacenza and Raymond Burke), and an overall trend seems clear.
There are two logical explanations for this trend, Allen remarks. One is that the Vatican under Pope Francis is conducting a sort of purge of conservative bishops. The other is that the Pope is determined to carry out a program of reform, and “is responding to reported breakdowns as they occur without really paying attention to the politics of the people involved.” But if it’s the latter, Allen writes, the Holy Father might want to explain, and in the process reassure conservatives who now feel nervous about the Pope’s intentions.
The short essay on the Crux site concludes with a point that may remind readers of Ross Douthat’s challenging “Pope and the Precipice” column. But even without that comparison, Allen’s final sentence is striking enough by itself:
Otherwise, the risk is that a good chunk of the Church may conclude that if the pope sees them as the enemy, there’s no good reason they shouldn’t see him the same way.
Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.
Posted by: Flavian - Nov. 06, 2014 7:49 PM ET USA
John Allen certainly deserves the respect of all Catholics for his careful and thoughtful reporting. When he writes about ideological issues as reflected in the opinions of various "liberal" and "conservative" bishops, I wonder if he is influenced by the ideology of his formter employer, The National Catholic Reporter? He seems to quote that publication much more frequently than First Things or The National Catholic Register.
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Home Local Airport boss in conflicts row
Airport boss in conflicts row
James Whittaker
The chairman of Cayman Islands Airports Authority Board Richard Arch may have used his position to try to prevent a potential competitor of his ground-handling firm from expanding its business at the airport, minutes from the board’s meetings reveal.
In a 2010 memo, Mr. Arch, who at the time was a board director, argued against the granting of a permit to Cayman Dispatch Services to provide “unrestricted ground handling services” at the Owen Roberts International Airport.
Mr. Arch, who along with his wife owns Air Agencies Ltd, said in the memo that it was “government policy” that only Air Agencies and Cayman Airways would be responsible for unrestricted ground handling services at the airport.
The memo indicates that the CEO of the airports authority should dismiss the application and be “instructed” to advise Cayman Dispatch Services to “cease and desist” with ground handling activities.
The Airports Authority Law states that any director with a financial interest in proposed contracts or licenses under discussion is required to declare that interest and not to take part in discussions or votes on the matter.
Mr. Arch insisted this week that he had simply been drawing attention to a ministerial policy directive, which guided the CEO on the appropriate way to deal with the issue.
Minutes to the July 2010 meeting indicate that Mr. Arch did declare a conflict of interest and eventually left the meeting, but not before making a statement against the application.
The minutes to the agenda item titled Cayman Dispatch Services Ground Handling Permit note: “Mr. Arch declared that he is the owner with Air Agencies and a recommendation was made to have this item deleted from the agenda. Mr. Arch read a letter that he had prepared dated 6 July, 2010. Mr. Arch excused himself from the meeting.”
In a letter dated 6 July, obtained by the Compass, Mr. Arch argued that American Airlines and Cayman Dispatch Services were already overstepping their authority as licensed baggage handlers by providing full “unrestricted ground handling services”.
He said this had resulted in financial losses to Air Agencies and Cayman Airways and argued the application for a permit should be denied and the company should be forced to abide by the terms of its current permit, for baggage handling only.
Ground handling can involve any services an airline requires between landing and take-off, including aircraft towing, re-fuelling and cabin cleaning.
The letter notes: “The application as indicated as agenda item number nine for today’s meeting of the CIAA should be deleted from the agenda and the CEO instructed that directions are already in his possession that enables the proper handling of the application; and that he should ensure Cayman Dispatch Services should be so advised and that they should cease and desist their operation immediately, except for baggage handling which they are approved to provide.”
The letter also points out that by providing ground handling services without a permit, CDS was exposing government to potential lawsuits. In the minutes to the meeting of September, 2010, then-CEO Mr. Jackson points out that he was unable to find records of any ground handling licenses at all that were issued by the authority, other than for Island Air, which services smaller private planes.
Mr. Arch continued to insist this week that he had not acted inappropriately.
He told the Compass, “The minutes will confirm that I simply referred to the fact that the board was already in possession of ministerial policy directives as allowed by law and that the application was a matter to be actioned by the CEO.
“It was not a matter for the board as the application had been refused on numerous occasions going back many years before I was appointed. I have no intention of being brought into any sensational dialogue until the entire procedure is complete.”
Frank Flowers, another board director, who owns Flowers Air Dispatch Services, also made a submission on the CDS permit issue, despite declaring an interest.
The July, 2010 minutes note: “Mr. Flowers declared his interests and provided the board with an email from the premier (then McKeeva Bush) stating the government’s position that no more handlers are needed at ORIA, after which Mr. Flowers excused himself from the meeting.”
Mr. Flowers declined to comment this week.
Minutes for board meetings from 2010 and 2011 further suggest that Mr. Arch and Mr. Flowers declared interests and excused themselves from meetings on some occasions when issues relating to ground handling were discussed, but on others they did not.
An ongoing matter of discussion over that time period was the need for ground handling policies and regulations to be introduced, a point raised by then CEO Jeremy Jackson in May, 2010.
Mr. Jackson appears to have provided a draft policy to the directors, which went through several revisions.
The February 2011 minutes note that Mr. Arch and Mr. Flowers excused themselves from the discussions on airport fees and ground handling operations.
A decision is then taken to have Mr. Arch, along with Mr. Jackson, review the policy and work on a revised draft.
The minutes to the March, 2011, meeting note that their changes to the policy are approved by the board. There is no note of either Mr. Arch or Mr. Flowers having recused themselves from the vote.
The board directors appear to have been reminded of their duties in relation to conflicts of interests in the May 2011 meeting.
The minutes note that directors were reminded of section 12 of the Airports Authority Law and outline their responsibilities under the law, to disclose their interests and excuse themselves from discussions on matters relating to those interests.
In response Mr. Arch and Mr. Flowers said they had declared their interests on several occasions and pointed out that their business connections were well known to Cabinet ministers before their appointment.
Mr. Arch, who by that time had become chairman of the board, also seems to have pointed out that every other member of the board had conflicts of interest because, as Caymanians, they technically have a stake in Cayman Airways.
“Members were reminded by the chairman that every member of the board is a small (approximately 1/60,000th) shareholder in the national carrier which could considered as prejudicial at times,” the minutes note.
Mr. Arch has stated several times that he has never used his position to help his private business. He has insisted that he has retired from any operational role.
In an interview with the Compass earlier this month he claimed: “Our board members, including myself, have never participated in any discussions or considerations of any applications in which they may have benefitted.”
He was speaking in response to concerns of the Auditor General that the board’s decisions ran the risk of being “conflicted” or “corrupt”.
In a letter to the board, released to the Compass under the Freedom of Information Law, Alastair Swarbrick warned that it had overstepped its powers, He highlighted a series of concerns including regulations requiring board approval for all applications for business to operate at the airports.
He also warned that potential conflicts of interest of board members, including details of their own contracts with the airport, were not properly recorded in the CIAA’s financial statements.
Laying out how the board should be operating, the auditor writes:
“Beyond approving the operational policies for the organization, the hiring of the chief executive officer and setting out its expectations for performance, the development of a strategic direction and the approval of an annual operational plan, the board should
only be receiving reports and making decisions that are the purview of its mandate
“The separation of these key responsibilities between the board and management ensures what is known as a good corporate governance framework.”
CDS had applied for a licence to move from baggage handling into unrestricted ground handling. – PHOTO: File
Freedom of Information Law
McKeeva Bush
Owen Roberts International Airport
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EDITORIAL – No harm in an independent opposition
Jackson April 25, 2013 at 6:31 am
Goes to show how the rich got rich and remained rich! Why wasn’t it possible for CDS to get a piece of the pie and feed their families too? Politics in cayman stinks because no one overseas these guys.
Panama_Jack April 25, 2013 at 7:15 am
This is nothing new to Cayman but anywhere else it would be a scandal and heads would roll.
Conflict of interest is ignored here.
Hunter April 25, 2013 at 8:18 am
These things that are happening now with board members and their conflict of interest is nothing new to Cayman. You should have been around about 40 – 50 years ago.
Same old same old thing was happening; only it was even worse back then. If you check out the parents and grand parents of some of these men and women your eyes would roll in your head to know what poor Caymanians had to put up with under the hands of the so-called rich and famous of this Country. Caymanians were treated as slaves by their own people back then. They may not want to hear this but it is true. Only certain people could get a decent job, or get a good education; only certain people could get to eat meat or drink fresh milk; and the same old generation curse is here in the 3 4 generation. We are our biggest enemies.
catchandrelease April 25, 2013 at 9:06 am
As long as you have airport directors who are also airport contractors, you are going to have this kind of problem. Does anyone really think that declaring interests and leaving the room during contract discussions are effective solutions to the problem? The smarter ones don’t leave a paper trail.
antitrust April 25, 2013 at 9:36 am
If the Cayman Islands had an antitrust or competition law, then this case could have been taken up by a competition authority, as abuse of a dominant position in one market to exclude a competitor in a downstream market. In small economies, where there is inevitably a high concentration of capital in the hands of a few, competition law is a very important tool for ensuring that new entrants are not blocked by powerful incumbents, and that through fair competition, consumers welfare is protected.
Footsteps shifts gears, will reopen as school
Middleton Katz joins SMP Group
Legal practitioners elect association’s council
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Remender's Venomous Voyage to "Spider-Island"
Growing up in the Marvel Universe means you have plenty of heroes to idealize and emulate. For Flash Thompson, it's always been Spider-Man. Thompson has idolized the web-slinger ever since high school where, unbeknownst to him, he made life miserable for Spidey's alter-ego, his fellow classmate Peter Parker. It's safe to assume that over the years Flash wished for a life like Spidey's on several occasions.
These days Flash is starting to understand the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for" because, like his idol Spidey, he now has a super powered costumed alter ego -- and all the complications that come with it. Flash stars as the titular hero of Marvel's "Venom" series by writer Rick Remender and artists Tony Moore and Tom Fowler, which chronicles his adventures as host for the alien symbiote and super powered government agent.
In the current arc of the series, which concludes with tomorrow's "Venom" #4, Flash's costumed and personal lives are colliding with explosive results. Things won't get any simpler for Flash when this arc ends, because he'll soon find himself drawn into the chaos of the upcoming Spider-Man event, "Spider-Island." CBR News spoke with Remender about his current and future plans for "Venom."
In "Venom" #1 Remender and artist Tony Moore began a storyline where Flash Thompson was tasked with shutting down the arms supply of an enigmatic criminal mastermind who discovered a way to make bullets out of Antarctic Vibranium, an isotope capable of penetrating and destroying any metal, but things went south for Flash in a hurry. His adversary discovered his identity and kidnapped his girlfriend, Betty Brant. He then forced Flash to ensure the safety of his latest batch of Antarctic Vibranium. At the end of "Venom" #3, Flash had the opportunity to save Betty and blew it when the symbiote took control of his suit and forced him into a fight with Spider-Man. On the final page of the issue, Flash's commanding officer, General Dodge, makes the decision to activate the fail safe implanted in the Venom suit, which was designed kill Flash and shut the symbiote down.
"It sure looks like the status of this mission is F.U.B.A.R., doesn't it? I had a few conversations with some people that feel I pulled the trigger too early on some of the big beats with everything going so bad for Flash so quickly. I'm outlined up to about #25 though, and I had a wealth of ideas for this series. For me that stuff was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I wanted to do and it leads into more character-driven stuff in the next arc," Remender told CBR News. "In screenplay terms #3 was the end of act two and I like having so many complications at this point that things seem insurmountable and that there is no solution. Because the fun is seeing how your characters get out of all of that.
"The challenge of this arc for me was to establish Flash and the new Venom and also hit on who the symbiote is. Because the symbiote is also this black gooey alien that feeds on negative emotions and the psychic energy of its host, it holds a grudge. So Spider-Man comes around and things get complicated," Remender continued. "Then all of a sudden it's a classic Spider-Man versus Venom fight with Flash inside the suit and struggling to get control over it so he can deal with his real mission against Crime-Master and Jack O' Lantern. Then of course you have Dodge and everybody back at base ready to blow him up believing that he's out of control. I like complications."
The new Jack O' Lantern is the chief assassin of the man behind the Antarctic Vibranium pipeline and made his debut in #1. In "Venom" #3 Remender revealed that the pipeline mastermind is the latest criminal to adopt the identity of the Crime-Master; a villainous legacy that dates back to the first Crime-Master's appearance in 1965's "Amazing Spider-Man" #26.
"We're going to keep the true identity of the new Crime-Master a mystery for awhile. It does involve classic Lee-Ditko Spider-Man lore though," Remender explained. "[Amazing Spider-Man writer] Dan Slott and I were discussing which characters would be great to dust off and bring back into the Spidey-verse and Crime-Master is the only guy from that era who didn't really make it out. So for me that was a hell of an opportunity to take a classic Lee-Ditko villain and to try and make him pertinent. I also wanted to pair him with Jack O' Lantern, who is a Marvel villain from another era that I always thought was really cool, but I never really felt there had been a perfect version of him done. Not that I'm saying my version is perfect, but the idea was that there are two really cool villains out there that needed to be fixed up and dusted off."
Bringing a character like Crime-Master back into the Spider-Man universe can be a little difficult, because it's already home to another character who views himself as a master of crime, Wilson Fisk AKA the Kingpin of Crime. "Crime-Master is an incredibly formidable opponent, but he's not out to take over the Kingpin's job. Every time we see a character like The Rose show up they're trying to take over the Kingpin's job. You know Kingpin isn't going to be overthrown by someone like the Rose. I guess that did happen for a little bit in the '80s, but for the most part I wanted to give Crime-Master a different set of motives. He's more global thinking," Remender stated. "I like that there's not a lot of thought that went into the branding. He decides, 'I'm Crime-Master!' He has delusions of grandeur to call himself that and he does view himself as the Crime-Master of the World, not just of New York. So he's dealing in weapons and other large scale transactions of that nature."
Crime-Master and his global network are part of Remender's long term plans for "Venom" and will return to plague Flash Thompson in future arcs. "Everything just came together and felt right with this character. I even liked the cheesy aspect of his name, so I named his henchmen the Henchmen," Remender said. "We've got some really cool things coming up and who Crime-Master is and what he wants ties into our larger story."
Crime-Master's machinations have resulted in Flash being forced to face a foe he never expected or wanted to fight, his idol, the Amazing Spider-Man. "A big part of #4 is that Flash is now trapped inside a rampaging suit of gooey armor that's basically killing the guy who inspired him to become a soldier in the first place," Remender said. "There's a lot to be had there as well. Plus, thanks to Crime-Master and Jack O' Lantern, Betty is strapped to a ticking time bomb that's moments away from going off. Then of course Flash has his own bomb implanted in him by the army. There's a lot on Flash's mind at the beginning of #4."
Spider-Man and Betty Brant will also play large roles in "Venom" #5 which serves as a prelude of sorts to the series' "Spider-Island" tie-in arc. "We have a couple of interesting situations coming up. There's Flash inside the suit when he's out of control and fighting Spider-Man and then there's Flash dealing with the repercussions of their encounter, which are nuanced. Then we have Flash dealing with Peter Parker in a civilian setting and that really drives home the kind of potential this series has," Remender remarked. "When you see Peter and Flash together dealing with the repercussions of what goes on in #4 it's classic Spider-Man stuff because somebody close to Peter is now basically Venom. That's a story development that has a lot of meat on the bone.
"Then you of course have Betty, and when Jack O' Lantern kidnapped her he dropped Flash's name. So the relationship between Flash and Betty is going to be tumultuous going forward, but it's not going to be treated lightly. Flash is an addict and he's not drinking, but he is bonded to something that tends to make non addicts addicted," Remender continued. "So you've got somebody with an addictive personality who deals with dependency issues and when he wears this suit he becomes one of the most powerful people on the planet. So there's going to be some consequences in terms of his personal life and what he's up to. The role that Betty plays in that is obviously going to be a large one coming up."
Flash's father is another character that will figure prominently in upcoming issues of "Venom."Flash's father comes back into his life in a big way with #5 and he's going to be an important part of Flash's story. When I was getting caught up on Flash an important part of his character was that this kid was out there being a bully and picking on Peter Parker and smaller kids because back home he was being beaten by his drunken dad. It became cliche in the '80s, but it's not a cliche to me. It's a real thing that I think needs to be handled with care and addressed in a way where it's responsible," Remender said. "I've had some personal dealings with some similar situations so it struck as something that A) fed into the symbiote situation very well. And B) really helped define Flash as a character and his rage issues. That rage is passed down from generation to generation unless somebody stops it. So Flash has basically inherited his father's rage and his desire to medicate through alcohol. What we've seen recently in some issues of 'Amazing Spider-Man' is that Flash's dad has stopped drinking and they're relationship is starting to get patched up. Going into #5 some things are going to change."
In August, Remender kicks off the "Venom" tie-in arc to "Spider-Island." The writer welcomed the chance to be part of the epic Spider-Man event, but he wanted to make sure that the story he told was driven by and focused on his cast of characters.
"For me the trick about 'Spider-Island' or any of these big events and crossovers is figuring out what the context is for your character. If you're character has to do something like save a building from a giant threat then I don't really give a damn, you've lost me. But if it's the classic Stan Lee, 'I've got to go save that building, but across town my Aunt May is sick in a hospital and she might die before I get to say my final words to her' then you've got something interesting. The context should have heart and deal with your character, while the conflict should just be something that's in your character's way," Remender said. "It's great because all of the stuff I wanted to do fit into 'Spider-Island' and Dan Slott, [editor] Steve Wacker and I all worked together to make sure it played a large role in the story. I think 'Venom' plays the second biggest role in the 'Spider-Island' event in terms of moving the story forward, but at the same time all of the things I wanted to do with Flash personally, like dealing with some of the supporting cast, fit perfectly within the story. So I'm really excited about what's coming up with 'Spider-Island.'"
In Venom #6, Flash's personal problems start to boil over right as the government drops him into the chaos that is Manhattan during "Spider-Island." "He's one of the only government agents on the scene, but he's working for a very well connected project lead by General Dodge who is in direct contact with people like Reed Richards, so Flash gets a lot of interesting assignments. As he's getting these interesting assignments there are things going on in his personal life that he has to try and see to across town and family members that are in danger, so there's a ton of complications to be had there as well. For me, the focus of #6 was not only to tell a big piece of the 'Spider-Island' story, but to again focus on Flash and his cast. In the issue we spotlight General Dodge, Katherine and Aaron, the three supporting cast members at Project Rebirth as the ramifications of 'Spider-Island' spill over into their world."
The symbiote's past comes back to haunt Flash in "Venom" #7, where he'll be confronted by its former host, Eddie Brock AKA Anti-Venom. "In the Venom versus Anti-Venom face off Eddie Brock just tears Flash down. Eddie, who had worn the Venom suit for so long, sees it as the black demon from hell come to Earth," Remender remarked. "We really do get a chance to explore the psychology behind wearing the symbiote. 'Spider-Island' is more than just fisticuffs."
Anti-Venom won't be the only adversary making life miserable for Flash during the "Spider-Island" tie-in arc. "There are a lot of mutations and things going on and people might not be who they seem to be. So by the end of #6 there is a huge reveal. #7 is all Anti-Venom so that's pretty big. Flash's confrontation with Anti-Venom plays a huge role in the overall story," Remender explained. "Then that leads off into #8 where we get an even bigger adversary who I can't mention and a team up between Flash and another big A-List Marvel hero who is also somewhat of a hero to him."
The first two issues of "Venom" featured art by Remender's friend and "Fear Agent" collaborator Tony Moore, with Tom Fowler ("Mysterius," "Deadpool Team-Up") stepping in for #3. Moore returns to art duties with #4 and then Fowler will rotate with and assist Moore with the book's art duties for the next five issues. "Tom is terrific. I could work with him forever," Remender remarked. "He did a great job and when you see what he's done in #5, it's like Eisner and Mazzuccheli. It's beautiful work."
"Spider-Island" will be a big story for Flash Thompson, and once "Venom" wraps its tie-in arc, the character's presence in the Marvel Universe will continue to grow larger. "After our 'Spider-Island' tie-in arc we have a character arc for Flash that people won't see coming. There will be a lot of speculation by #8 or #9. Fortunately it's all going to be wrong. That's the challenge of doing one of these things and hopefully doing it right. You can keep people guessing and keep the book zigging and zagging. So Venom is going to be turned into a Frankenstein-like creature around #12. IF THEY LET ME!" Remender joked, a nod to to his "Frankencastle" run on "Punisher." "There's a really big event coming up next winter that Venom is headlining. We might be seeing him in some other big books too. The event storyline grew very nicely out of something Jason Aaron and I were putting together and Marvel got really excited about it. I can't say anything else about it, but if you're a fan of what we're doing and you like the character, he's not going anywhere. Flash Thomspon's role in the Marvel Universe just gets bigger and bigger in the next year."
Tags: marvel comics, spider-man, tony moore, rick remender, venom, spider-island, tom fowler, anti-venom
SDCC: Dan DiDio, Jim Lee Dish on the DC Universe
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Sheboygan father charged after two children fall out of van
By: Tori Bokios Facebook | Twitter
Posted: May 3, 2018 2:56 PM CDT
NOW: Sheboygan father charged after two children fall out of van
Police: Children fall out of moving van, dad later arrested in Sheboygan
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (CBS 58) -- The Sheboygan father whose two young children fell out of the van he was driving without him even noticing has now been officially charged.
Thursday in court it was revealed that Robert Horsch is a stay at home dad with six kids who used to be an attorney. Now he’s facing up to 22 years in prison.
Horsch was officially charged with child neglect and operating a motor vehicle with a revoked license. He could also be charged with OWI, but the court is still waiting for blood test results. The assistant DA says Horsch has been convicted of four OWIs since 2010.
At the time of the incident, the criminal complaint says Horsch was on anxiety and depression medication. The complaint says Horsch was driving Monday night when the kids' ages 1 and 3-years-old fell out of the van near South 8th Street and Indiana Avenue.
Both children suffered road rash. The 3-year-old got a chipped tooth and the 1-year-old was taken to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee for a broken skull bone. The 1-year-old was completely naked at the time of the incident without a diaper.
A third child was also in the car and the criminal complaint alleges Horsch noticed the children weren't buckled in before the kids flew out. When he got home he took care of the third child without realizing that the other two weren't there.
The assistant DA says their injuries could have been much worse if it wasn’t for bystanders who jumped in to help, "It’s extremely saddening that this could even happen that a father couldn’t even notice his own children falling out of the car. My first reaction is extreme gratefulness for the civilians involved in this case if it weren’t for their quick action these children could have been even more severely harmed or even killed," said Attorney Alexandra Smathers.
Horsch is now being held at the Sheboygan County Detention Center on a $10,000.
Police: 3-year-old killed by falling TV
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Professor Dave Griggs
Monash Science Centre,
Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Clayton
Email: dave.griggs@monash.edu
In September 2007 Dave moved to Australia to become Director of the Monash Sustainability Institute (MSI) which aims to deliver solutions to key sustainability challenges.
In November 2008 he also became CEO of the newly created organisation ClimateWorks Australia (CWA), focussed on action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Previous positions he has held include UK Met Office Deputy Chief Scientist, Director of the Hadley Centre for Climate Change, and Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific assessment unit.
Dave is a past vice-chair of the World Climate Research Programme and member of the Victorian Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), a member of the Australian Council of Environmental Deans and Directors and the Climate Institute Strategic Council. Dave was awarded the Vilho Vaisala award (World Meteorological Organization) in 1992.
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Report Examines Center of Excellence Model for Information S...
Home / 2015 / February / Report Examines Cent...
Report Examines Center of Excellence Model for Information Services
Contact: Kathlin Smith
Washington, DC, February 10, 2015-A new report from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) explores the efficacy of using the center of excellence model in a library setting to help address the increasing demands for support of information services.
In 2013, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded seven librarians from the Research Library Leadership Fellows program of the Association for Research Libraries a planning grant to examine this issue. Their investigation and findings are described in The Center of Excellence Model for Information Services.
“Centers of excellence are designed to attract the most talented researchers in a particular field, enhance collaboration, and improve access to the resources needed for their research,” note the authors. “The expectation was that libraries, like other organizations that have embraced CoEs, could benefit by pooling scarce knowledge about new information services and technologies in centers that would serve many libraries.”
The team’s investigation, however, led to a different conclusion. Research and interviews with staff at numerous academic centers of excellence and at funding agencies revealed that nearly all centers face issues of purpose, sustainability, assessment, leadership, succession planning, and, above all, funding. The report highlights these concerns as expressed by the interviewees.
Based on these findings, the authors suggest that librarians look at ways to work within existing organizations rather than trying to develop another structure. They offer a series of recommendations for developing “networks of expertise” as a way to implement and sustain new information services for research. “Rather than consolidating expertise in a separate center, this approach will keep experts at local institutions and rely instead on an active network to address issues across a wider spectrum of institutions,” note the authors.
The report authors are Joy Kirchner, of the University of Minnesota Libraries; José Diaz, of The Ohio State University; Geneva Henry, of The George Washington University; Susan Fliss, of Harvard University; John Culshaw, of the University of Iowa; Heather Gendron, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Jon E. Cawthorne, of West Virginia University.
The report is available as a PDF download free of charge at https://clir.wordpress.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub163
CLIR is an independent, nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. It aims to promote forward-looking collaborative solutions that transcend disciplinary, institutional, professional, and geographic boundaries in support of the public good.
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The New York Times’ Astonishing Series on Abortion
By Bill Donohue | January 4, 2019 | 10:29 AM EST
On December 28, an editorial in The New York Times broached an eight-part series on abortion rights that is positively astonishing. It is clearly the most rabid defense of abortion ever published by the mainstream media. The first installment was published on December 30; it will end on January 20. The entire series is now available online.
Why is the Times running this series? The best explanation is found in the first paragraph of the 8th installment. “Now that the Supreme Court has a conservative majority that appears inclined to overhaul Roe v. Wade, it is likely only a matter of time before women's reproductive rights are ratcheted back.” Its central fear is a ruling declaring the unborn child worthy of “personhood” rights.
The thesis of the series is that any attempt to recognize the humanity of the unborn baby threatens women's rights. According to the Times, laws that restrict abortion rights are ultimately about controlling women's sexuality, and no group is more preyed upon than brown and black women. Peppered with anecdotes, the series pays almost no attention to data: highly debatable assertions are routinely made without any supporting evidence.
Many defenders of abortion rights will at least acknowledge the competing right to life of children in utero, but not the authors of this series. Nascent human life is referred to as nothing more than “clusters of cells,” as if these human biological properties were mere stuff.
It is this mental block—the refusal to admit the obvious—that allows the Times to object to prosecuting a woman for murder after her attempted suicide resulted in killing her eight-month-old baby. Similarly, it cannot understand why a jury convicted a pregnant woman driver of killing three persons after she drove her car over a double-yellow lined road on Long Island, crashing into another car: the driver of the other car, his wife, and the woman's eight-month-old baby were killed (the reckless driver was under the influence of drugs and alcohol). The jury said she needlessly caused the death of her daughter (who died five days after the accident) because she was not wearing a seatbelt.
Those two babies would have lived had their mothers not acted irresponsibly, but that gets lost in the fog of abortion rights run amuck.
The contortions that the Times goes through trying to deny reality is remarkable. For example, it offers the account of a “visibly pregnant woman” seeking an abortion in another state having to deal with airport security officers. They wished her “a happy Mother's Day.” One of them “cheerily” asked, “Is this your first?” The Times branded her experience “a surreal journey.” What is truly surreal is the paper's interpretation.
What is really gnawing at the Times is the recent emergence of laws protecting the personhood of unborn babies. It calls them “an extreme legal argument with little precedence in American law before the 1970s.” However, the common law in Western civilization typically held that a pregnant woman convicted of a capital offense could not be executed, thus paying homage to the existence of an innocent human being. No matter, the newspaper is right to say that personhood legislation is of recent vintage.
There is a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with what the Times says: it attributes this to a move by Republicans in the 1970s to criminalize abortion. In point of fact, it was technology, not politics, that proved to be the key to protecting the personhood status of unborn children. To be exact, ultrasound made the difference. Invented in the 1950s, it was not used with any regularity in U.S. hospitals until the 1970s.
How did ultrasound change the debate? Consider what Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the nation's leading abortion-rights advocates in the 1960s and 1970s, said about the subject. [Note: This Jewish atheist later became a pro-life champion and converted to Catholicism.]
“By 1984, however, I had begun to ask myself more questions about abortion: what actually goes on in an abortion? I had done many, but abortion is a blind procedure. The doctor does not see what he is doing. He puts an instrument into a uterus and he turns on a motor, and the suction machine goes on and something is vacuumed out; it ends up as a little pile of meat in a gauze bag. I wanted to know what happened, so in 1984 I said to a friend of mine, who was doing 15 or maybe 20 abortions a day, ‘Look, do me a favor, Jay. Next Saturday, when you are doing all these abortions, put an ultrasound device on the mother and tape it for me.’
"He did, and when he looked at the tapes with me in an editing studio, he was so affected that he never did another abortion. I, though I had not done an abortion in five years, was shaken to the very roots of my soul by what I saw."
The precision of sonograms (the actual picture of an ultrasound) is much more advanced today. It would be instructive to learn what the editors of the New York Times might think of such images. Would they see “clusters of cells,” or small human beings?
The most controversial part of the series is found in the 4th and 5th installments, especially the 4th. It would be hard to find a more unpersuasive, and disturbing, attempt to discredit the damage done to unborn babies by their drug-ridden mothers. Moreover, this section of the series, while condemning racism, actually promotes it.
Part 4 condemns what it says is the “myth of the ‘crack baby.’” It criticizes the mainstream media (it includes the Times) for over- dramatizing the physical and psychological damage done to babies by their cocaine-using mothers. Reading this part of the series makes one wonder just how far radical pro-abortion reporters will go in their defense of the indefensible.
The idea of “crack babies,” the newspaper says, is a combination of “bad science and racist stereotypes.” These twin evils, we are told, were “debunked by the turn of the 2000s.” Really?
Somehow I must have missed this story. So I looked forward to reading why the “bad science” was wrong. But there was nothing there.
“The Legacy of the Myth” is the title of a section of Part 4 that led the reader to believe that the evidence would be forthcoming. It begins by saying, “Researchers debunked the ‘damage generation’ theory numerous times, finding no indication that children exposed to crack in the womb faced long-term debilitation and that the effects once tied to exposure were attributable to other drugs like alcohol and tobacco, or to factors associated with poverty, including homelessness and domestic violence.”
Let's break down that sentence. Which researchers? Who are they? Why didn't the article tell us? And even if other drugs can cause similar problems—which is nowhere proven—why is this proof that the “damage generation” theory of crack-using pregnant mothers has been debunked?
The underscored words are a link to a book, one which supposedly offers the evidence the Times says exists. I accessed a copy of it and nowhere does it offer any such evidence. The book, “Somebody's Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transactional Adoption,” by Laura Briggs, is more sociological than physiological. This makes sense: The author is not a professor of the natural sciences—she is a professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
The relevant chapter in this book, “‘Crack Babies,’ Race and Adoption Reform, 1975-2000,” does not attempt to debunk the “bad science.” Just as important, the fact that it covers “race and adoption reform” in the last century does nothing to show why babies born today of crack-using mothers are not seriously impaired.
No wonder the Times likes this book. The author trashes people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennett, and Charles Krauthammer—all of whom have expressed concerns about low-income black families (almost all headed by a single woman) and the evils of drug addiction. Such politics may make for a good read in the academy, but it does nothing to shine light on why any of them were wrong.
In 2016, the National Institute on Drug Abuse concluded that besides the damage done to the women who use crack, “Babies born to mothers who use cocaine during pregnancy are often prematurely delivered, have low birth weights and smaller head circumferences, and are shorter in length than babies born to mothers who do not use cocaine.”
It added that “scientists are now finding that exposure to cocaine during fetal development may lead to subtle, yet significant, later deficits in children. They include behavior problems (e.g., difficulties with self-regulation) and deficits in some aspects of cognitive performance, information processing, and sustained attention to tasks—abilities that are important for the realization of the child's full potential.”
Other studies describe learning disabilities that result from a damaged central nervous system and congenital heart diseases. Such children tend to do poorly in school, have social problems, and a host of other developmental disabilities.
Forget about the science for a moment. What responsible professor in a medical school would instruct students that crack-addicted mothers have little to worry about? What responsible professor in a medical school would engage students in a social analysis of racism, instead of warning about the damage being done to the physical and psychological well being of babies conceived by cocaine-using mothers?
The Times is right to note that racism has affected this issue, but it is looking in the wrong direction: It should look in the mirror. We would expect white supremacists to downplay the effects of crack on unborn black babies, not the alleged opponents of racism. The newspaper is so totally obsessed with abortion rights—it has reached a state of delirium—that it is willing to slight the harm being done to black children by their cocaine-addicted moms, all because of the necessity of denying them personhood.
It may take some time before the idea of granting personhood status to unborn babies catches on nationwide, but the vector of change is moving that way. This is why The New York Times sees this as such a frightening prospect.
Bill Donohue is President and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. He was awarded his Ph.D. in sociology from New York University and is the author of seven books and many articles.
Bill Donohue
More from Bill Donohue
The Poor’s Greatest Enemy? Those Who Champion Their Cause
Bill Donohue: Fiction Writer John Irving Can’t Stop Writing Fiction – His Latest Is on Abortion
The Left Hell Bent on Promoting Death to Innocents
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Published on CNS News (https://www.cnsnews.com)
Home > Celebrate and Emulate Bill Buckley
Celebrate and Emulate Bill Buckley
It’s been exactly a decade since William F. Buckley, Jr. died. Yet, surveying the ideological landscape, it feels more like a century.
Watch an episode of his program “Firing Line,” and you’ll see what I mean. There, Buckley – in his uniquely aristocratic way – would debate guests on the issues of the day. Not try to shout each other down, or trot out a quick soundbite before three or four different people cross-talked over you, but actually debate.
That may sound like a recipe for boredom, and perhaps by the cage-match mentality prevailing today, it was. But we’re talking about a program that racked up more than 1,500 episodes over nearly 35 years. People were watching, listening, and engaging in debates of their own across the country.
Buckley, of course, was no mere host, but an intellect of the first order who preached undiluted conservatism. Author, publisher, commentator, he bucked the liberal order by revealing the emptiness of its utopian promises.
He got off to an early start, putting himself on the political map right out of college in 1951 with a bestseller called God and Man at Yale. Only a few years later, he founded National Review.
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of National Review to the conservative movement. Great thinkers on the right, such as F.A. Hayek, Russell Kirk and James Burnham, were producing important books, but before Buckley’s magazine hit newsstands in 1955, no periodical was unapologetically applying conservative principles to current affairs, especially in such an urbane and witty way.
“Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view,” he wrote in Up From Liberalism. Another classic zinger: “Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other people’s money, except when it comes to questions of national survival, when they prefer to be generous with other people’s freedom and security.”
With good reason did his son Christopher describe his father as “the intellectual godfather” to the movement that gave us Ronald Reagan. “I’d be lost without National Review,” the future president wrote to Buckley in 1962, two years before his famous “A Time for Choosing” speech for Barry Goldwater put him on the political map.
Buckley was sui generis: master of the spoken and written word; founder of institutions that outlive him; unheralded supporter of many individuals and organizations; political trendsetter; and a congenital optimist who led the way for so many to follow, while remaining a man of deep personal faith and belief.
Imagine a world without Buckley’s presence for all those decades, and his continuing legacy. Not only no National Review, still America’s pre-eminent journal of sensible thought and analysis, but no institutions of the right, ranging from the Young America’s Foundation to The Philadelphia Society. None of the thousands of next-generation followers who have made their individual marks in myriad ways to promote freedom worldwide.
Ever the defender of what Russell Kirk called “the permanent things,” Buckley continually reminded us that real conservatism is based on tradition and the cumulative wisdom of those on whose shoulders we stand.
He was reluctant to provide a final definition of conservatism, but he offered himself as a definition, admitting he was dependent on human freedom, not as an end, but as a means -- to “live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.”
What a legacy William F. Buckley has left for us to celebrate -- and emulate.
Edwin J. Feulner’s 36 years of leadership as president of The Heritage Foundation transformed the think tank from a small policy shop into America’s powerhouse of conservative ideas.
Source URL: https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/ed-feulner/toasting-intellectual-godfather-conservative-movement-william-f-buckley-jr
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204-888-2873 info@collegeelectric.ca
PLANNED SERVICE
LICENSED GAS FITTERS
COMFORT CONTROL
HEAT UP MANITOBA
College Electric Ltd. has served the community since 1924. We offer quality services to meet your electrical, HVAC and hot water tank needs. Our friendly team of highly trained and dedicated employees is always willing to respond to your inquiries and guide you in making your home more comfortable and energy efficient. We highly value our customers by providing them the best service we can.
College Electric Ltd. is a long-standing accredited member of the Better Business Bureau with an A+ rating and has been a member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business for more than 25 years.
Harry Monk Sr., Founder of College Electric
Harry Monk Sr.’s mother and Harry Monk Jr.’s wife, Jean and their son Harry in front of the College Electric service vehicle circa 1949
Phyllis Monk and Harry Monk Jr. in front of College Electric when it was located at College St. and Portage Avenue circa 1935.
Harry Monk Jr. with a valued customer in the 1950s
Business location at Portage Avenue and Amherst St., 1919 Portage Avenue circa. 1950’s
Harry Jr. receiving Electric Service League award “Keep Pace Electrically” circa 1960’s
Harry Sr. circa 1963
1919 Portage Avenue, circa. 1970s
College Electric service van circa. 1970s
Harry and Jean with Dave Lennox, Lennox Dealer meeting, circa 1970’s
Harry Jr. receiving Commercial Dealer award from Dave Lennox, Lennox Dealer Meeting 1977
Lennox Territory Manager Kris Heskins presenting President Pam Gardiner with the D.W. Norris Award celebrating College Electric’s 60 years as a quality Lennox Dealer
The business was established in 1924 by Harry Monk Sr., a journeyman electrician with a vision to make electrical services available to the St. James community. The first location of the business was on College Street (which was later renamed to Collegiate Street) and Portage Avenue. The name “College” was incorporated into the business name. In the early years, Harry’s wife Phyllis assisted him in the managing the business.
Harry Monk Jr. joined his father in 1947 as an apprentice electrician and under his father’s mentorship he became a journeyman electrician.
In the mid 1950’s, the business relocated to 1919 Portage Avenue at Amherst Street. Harry Monk Jr.’s wife Jean became involved in the business at this time as the bookkeeper. In 1978, the business moved to its current location at 268 Albany St.
Throughout their many years of operating the business, Harry Jr. and Jean promoted and expanded residential and commercial electrical services in the community. Harry Jr. earned numerous electrical and illumination designations and awards throughout his career. One of the prestigious awards he received was in 1964 when he was the first recipient of The Electric Service League of Manitoba’s provincial award “Keep Pace Electrically”. He was honored for his dedication, leadership and outstanding achievement in the advancement of the electrical industry. He was credited with greatly strengthening the public image of the electrical contractor and bringing the merits of electrical modernization to the favorable attention of home and building owners.
Harry and Jean further expanded the business in the 1950’s when they began their long-time partnership with Lennox Industries and began offering their customers heating and air conditioning. In 2006, Lennox confirmed College Electric Ltd. as a Lennox Premier Dealer for providing exceptional service and commitment to total customer satisfaction.
In 2010, following their retirement, Harry and Jean’s daughter Pam assumed the role of President. This made it a third generation family business.
In 2017, the business was awarded the prestigious D.W. Norris Award celebrating 60 years as a Lennox Dealer.
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MU grad student union case before Court of Appeals
Roger McKinney @rmckinney9
KANSAS CITY — A Boone County judge went beyond his authority when he ruled graduate workers were employees and ordered the University of Missouri to recognize and bargain with their union, MU's attorney said during oral arguments Tuesday in the Western District Missouri Court of Appeals.
The university appealed a ruling by Boone County Circuit Judge Jeff Harris last June finding the Coalition of Graduate Workers were employees and directed the university to recognize them and bargain with them. Immediately upon the judge's ruling, MU System President Mun Choi announced the university would appeal. The appeal was filed in November, restating many of the arguments rejected by Harris.
James Layton, the university's contract attorney, said a court can order bargaining, but it can't order the UM System Board of Curators to develop a framework for a union election and bargaining.
"There is that limitation on judicial reach which is in the separation of powers," Layton said.
Loretta Haggard, attorney representing the Coalition of Graduate Workers, said that and other arguments presented by the university go beyond what was addressed in the trial court.
The appeals court hearing is one of the closing chapters in a university story that began in the fall of 2015. The coalition emerged from discontent among graduate assistants over the handling of their health insurance as the 2015-16 school year began. The university informed assistants the day before classes were to begin that their insurance, offered as an individual plan with the university paying the premium, would be eliminated and replaced with a cash amount intended to subsidize the purchase of insurance.
After protests, the university reversed the decision but graduate assistants continued to organize, first forming a group called the Forum on Graduate Rights. In response, the university tried to quiet the discontent by increasing the minimum stipends and promising to protect health insurance.
The union was formed as an affiliate of the Missouri National Education Association and sought recognition. When the university refused, the organization conducted the election, in which 84 percent of those voting cast ballots in favor of the union.
Layton said there was no basis on which to verify who voted in the graduate workers' election, or if it were meant to achieve a majority of all graduate workers or a majority of those who voted.
"The Circuit Court's decision is based purely on a set of stipulated facts," Layton said.
Layton said graduate workers can be teachers, who would be represented by a public union, or non-teachers, who would not be represented by a public union.
"It seems problematic that we have a bunch of graduate workers doing different things," Presiding Judge Victor Howard said.
"It seems very unlikely that the university would have a single bargaining unit for both," Layton said.
In questioning Layton's argument, Judge Gary Witt focused on when the university decided to raise issues in the courts.
"You all didn't raise a complaint about the validity of the election until the very end of the process," Witt said.
In her arguments, Haggard sought to focus the court on issues that were directly before Harris and to ignore any new issues injected during the appeal. Haggard said there was little in the university's filed briefs or Layton's oral argument of the main issue decided by Harris — that graduate workers are employees with the right to collectively bargain.
"For all relevant aspects, they are employees," Haggard said."They also are students."
She said Layton made points the university didn't make to the trial court at all.
"That was never presented to the trial court and it would be inappropriate for the appeals court to rule on it," Haggard said of one issue.
"It just seems like going forward, it could be really problematic," Howard said, referring to the teachers and non-teachers in the union.
That could become an issue in the future because of a new state law — currently stayed by an injunction — placing more requirements on public employee unions, but it was not an issue in the trial court ruling, she said.
Haggard said that may be the situation because of the new law that places more requirements on public unions, but that was not at issue in the trial court ruling.
Haggard also addressed if approval was meant to be a majority of graduate workers, or a majority of those who voted.
"That is a huge issues that ought not to be decided by this court" because it wasn't addressed in trial court, Haggard said. "The whole dispute below is whether they have a right to collectively bargain."
Layton asked in rebuttal what effect the circuits court remedy had for "the vast majority of graduate workers who did not vote."
"How do we as the Court of Appeals get there, though?" Howard responded.
The definition of an employee as someone who works for pay isn't adequate, Layton said.
"They may be paid, but that does not mean they're working for wages," Layton said. "They're working for a graduate degree."
Layton said after the hearing that the court typically issues rulings within two or three months.
rmckinney@columbiatribune.com
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Cards fans salute Pujols in return to St. Louis
By Joe HarrisThe Associated Press
ST. Louis — The cheers for Albert Pujols lasted much longer than his at-bat.
It had been almost eight years in the making, but Albert Pujols returned to the Busch Stadium on Friday night and was greeted by a raucous standing ovation that carried on for over a minute.
Pujols spent the first 11 years of his All-Star career with the Cardinals before signing with the Los Angeles Angels after the 2011 season. Due to inconsistent interleague scheduling, this was the first time the Angels have visited St. Louis since Pujols left.
During the ovation, Pujols and Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina — whom he refers to as his little brother — embraced in the first inning. Before stepping in, Pujols tipped his helmet, sending the crowd noise to another level.
The cheers faded as quickly as the at-bat, in which Pujols flied out to deep center field on Michael Wacha's first pitch. Wacha was drafted by the Cardinals as compensation for Pujols signing a $254 million, 10-year contract with the Angels as a free agent.
The 39-year-old Pujols was reflective as he prepared to take the field for the first time since celebrating the 2011 World Series championship after helping St. Louis defeat the Texas Rangers in seven games.
"The 11 years, the success I had here, nine playoffs, two World Series, best fans in baseball," Pujols said. "I use the term that I came here as a little boy and I left as a really strong and big man, a grown man."
Pujols will forever have a special place in the history-rich lore of the Cardinals.
He came out of nowhere, drafted in the 13th round in 1999, to become the 2001 NL Rookie of the Year. Pujols hit .328 with 455 doubles, 445 home runs and 1,329 RBI in 1705 games with the Cardinals.
Pujols was a three-time National League MVP, nine-time All-Star, a six-time Silver Slugger and a two-time Gold Glove winner. Pujols led the Cardinals to championships in 2006 and 2011 and to another World Series appearance in 2004.
"What Albert did for the city, he deserves it," Molina said of the ovation.
Cardinals manager Mike Shildt remembered his early days around Pujols as a minor league instructor during spring training in 2008.
"He'd just be stalking the opposing pitcher (in the dugout)," Shildt said. "I'd sit right beside him and you'd just feel like this radiation coming off of him coming into the competition and he's picking up something and that never wavered and that's a characteristic that few have."
Pujols credited former Cardinals greats like Lou Brock, who taught him to properly run the bases, and former teammates such as Jim Edmonds, Edgar Renteria, Fernando Vina, Darryl Kile, Woody Williams, Placido Polanco, Larry Walker, Mike Matheny and Molina for helping him grow as a player and as a person.
"You play this game for 20 years or whatever, and hopefully you leave longer than what you play and that's why you build great relationships because that is more important to me than anything that I have accomplished," Pujols said.
Pujols still maintains a home in St. Louis and his foundation, designed to help children with special needs, is still active in the community.
He didn't waver in his feelings about the city.
"What makes it special is just the support day in and day out," Pujols said. "It didn't matter if we were playing good or bad, I felt like if you played the game the right way and hustle, they just love their players. Not only in baseball, we saw that in football and in hockey with the Blues winning, it's just a great city to play sports in."
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Back to school for Mason
Striker meets with local college students to share his experiences
Joe Mason paid a visit to Canon Slade School prior to the conclusion of his recent loan deal to offer advice to a group of local students.
The 22-year-old striker attended a workshop with youngsters who are currently partaking in the club’s newly established BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Sport (Performance & Excellence Pathway).
A link between Bolton Wanderers and Canon Slade which was formed earlier this year, the pupils are currently undertaking units across sport science with a view to progressing onto Higher Education at university.
Mason himself spent time with the students, offering advice and providing an insight into the lifestyle of a footballer in regards to nutrition and how a player’s diet can affect sporting performance at an elite level.
Speaking following the visit, the course’s tutor Steven Rawes thanked the striker for his contributions and admitted that the experience of speaking with a figure with first-hand experience will prove to be invaluable for those involved.
“It was a pleasure to have Joe on board with one of our classes,” he said. “The session provided the students with a unique interactive experience with a well-respected first team footballer who was able to offer an insight into the life and workings of a professional player.
“The students and myself are very grateful for the support of Joe and Bolton Wanderers for the benefit of the students’ education here at Canon Slade.”
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vol12i2
Crystal Balls and Glass Bottles
RELEASE AS SANITIZED
No Foreign Dissern
Case histories showing how Soviet electronic R&D can point to future military systems.
William A. Gray
During the summer of 1952 American XXXXXX technical intelligence officers met near Frankfurt/Main with a German electronics engineer recently returned from Leningrad. This "Dragon" returnee1 described in some detail a costly development project then under way in the Svetlana Works engineering department, where he had been assigned by the Soviets.2 The project was to design a novel radar tube, unusually large, with a very high peak power output, operating at metric (VHF) wavelengths, and having a duty cycle (percentage of time active) several times higher than was then common practice for pulse radars. This first-hand report provided authoritative confirmation of information reported earlier by other returnees. The Germans thought the project quite ambitious, in view of the rather primitive technology then prevailing at Svetlana. It had a further meaning for us.
Scientific and technical intelligence officers have always clung to the belief that any early tip-off on future military systems can be found in appropriate aspects of selected R&D efforts, so that intelligence on adversary R&D can give our own planners and policy makers valuable lead time. Outside the field of national security, the validity of this concept has been demonstrated in the engineering industries, where competitive industrial intelligence has used it for several generations. Its potential in the U.S.-Soviet competition is perhaps best illustrated with respect to Soviet pulse power tube technology. The development of pulse power tubes is directly and uniquely related to radar evolution, since in general radar comprises the exclusive end use for these devices. And although military radars are subject to stringent security, the USSR is relatively free in publishing specifications for many classes of pulse tubes.
The Tall King
The importance of the story from Svetlana was the strong evidence it provided of a Soviet intention to continue with a major effort to develop and employ VHF radars—those with a wavelength on the order of one meter. The United States XXXXXXXX largely as a result of wartime priorities and acquired skills, were emphasizing the development of centimeter wave (UHF) radars, discounting the potential of VHF on the grounds of poor resolution. The Soviets, however, had used pulse triodes3 operating in the VHF bands in the majority of their wartime ground and naval radars, and now they were evidently being impelled by considerations of their own—perhaps their acquired know-how or the VHF's greater range capability and freedom from clutter—to mount a big development program in VHF radar technology.
The technical intelligence officers were thus aware at an early date of the continued Soviet interest in VHF radar. On top of these reports of the attempt at Svetlana to develop a superpower device for it came the introduction, between 1952 and 1954, of updated versions of earlier VHF air-defense radars, the P-8 and P-10. Then in 1954 a Soviet vacuum tube catalog (acquired with some difficulty) listed a pulse triode type GI-5B, the electrical and mechanical specifications for which corresponded almost exactly with the data provided by our Dragon source from Svetlana. Apparently the long and expensive development job there bad been successful, and the device was being put into production.
That surmise was confirmed by a team of East German electron tube specialists who visited Soviet facilities in 1956. A copy of their trip report revealed that the GI-5B pulse triode was in fact being produced in the Svetlana factory. Then a year or two later a team of American electronics specialists were invited to visit the USSR and, by coincidence, were able to examine in some detail the Svetlana production line for this tube. The important feature of their report was the observation that the production rate was extremely high for a specialized device of this nature; there seemed to be a crash program to meet a heavy immediate demand.
This accumulation of evidence now provided a firm basis for predicting that a new Soviet air-defense ground radar would be deployed shortly, that it would operate at a frequency between 150 and 200 MHz, and that its purpose would be the long-range detection of small, high-altitude aircraft targets. And so it was: in 1959, approximately five years after the GI-5B triode went into production and nearly ten years after its design project was started at Svetlana, the P-14 (Tall King) early-warning radar appeared in the Soviet air-defense network. As against published specifications for the tube's frequency, pulse length, and duty cycle-200 MHz maximum, 11 microseconds, and 0.0033 maximum-the measured values for the P-14 were 169-175 MHz, 8-12 microseconds, and 0.0025. The P-14 still remains the main extended-range early-warning sensor in the Soviet bloc air-defense system.
The Hen House
But Soviet R&D did not stop there. Abundant information acquired over the next two years, mainly from unclassified industry publications, showed that an extensive Soviet effort in product development had been established to provide still more advanced pulse power tubes for VHF radar service. In particular, two high-power triodes dating from 1958 and 1959 merited attention. These tubes, types GI-4A and GI-24A, had a close family resemblance to the Svetlana GI-5B, with a similar peak power and operating frequency. Both of them, however, were designed to operate at much greater average power, pulse length, and duty cycle and were water-cooled.
These features indicated intended application in systems which involved large fixed ground installations and sophisticated data-processing to cope with targets at very long ranges. By early 1963, accordingly, it was possible to foresee that Soviet defense system projects could be expected to include
large fixed ground VHF radar systems operating at frequencies between 150 and 200 MHz, employing high average powers and megawatt peak powers at high duty cycle, for use at extreme ranges against small high-altitude targets. At least two different projects appear probable, with parameters compatible with antimissile and antisatellite system requirements.
At this point the technical intelligence officers ran into a familiar occupational hazard of their craft—unsolicited advice from experts who knew better. U.S. tests in the Pacific had demonstrated that high-altitude nuclear explosions are likely to black out radio propagation in the lower frequency ranges. This was sufficient proof for the "experts" that extreme-range antimissile radars in the VHF band would not be practical and that the Soviets could therefore not be planning any such systems to operate at frequencies below 500 MHz.4
The Soviet decision-makers, however, not having the benefit of this advice, continued with their program; and in 1967 the now famous Hen House antimissile and antisatellite radars began transmissions from their operational sites. Their operating frequency lies between 154 and 162 MHz, compared with the published values of 150 and 177 MHz for the GI-4A and GI-24A triodes respectively. They use long pulses, pulse compression, and frequency scanning, with sophisticated data processing. The duty cycle of one group is 0.027 and that of the second 0.05, compared with published values of 0.03 and 0.05 for the two pulse triodes. Assuming that it is the GI-4A and GI-24A pulse power triodes they are using, these complex defensive systems first became operational approximately seven years after the introduction of their tubes.
Back Net
Although the USSR has been far less free in disseminating technical data on radar power tubes in the centimeter wavelength bands, useful intelligence information can be obtained. In 1964 a Czech electronics expert emigrated to the United States. Some years previously both he and his director at Tesla had made business trips to Soviet facilities working on magnetrons and klystrons. From him we learned specific details about some multi-megawatt pulse magnetrons designed for operation in the "18 centimeter" band that were in production by 1957 at a Moscow factory.5 He also described a multi-megawatt klystron amplifier development that had started in Moscow in 1957 and was well under way at Fryazino during 1961.
At the time of our discussions with this Czech engineer, only two relatively low-power Soviet radars were known to operate in this wavelength region. Neither was a likely candidate for the large magnetrons described. Clearly, a new Soviet high-power centimeter wave ground radar could be expected imminently. In 1965 the Back Net air defense radar was confirmed to be just that. Operating at several frequencies between 1700 and 2400 MHz, it is the newest unit deployed at Soviet Bloc ground-controlled intercept stations
`The "18 centimeter" band would cover approximately 1600 to 2400 MHz. In the United States this portion of the UHF frequency range, although used for communications services, has not been used for radar. and in addition is being installed as the target acquisition radar for the new Soviet long-range surface-to-air missiles.
As a final word, one must keep in mind that analyzing selected products of the Soviets' R&D is useful to give a broad index of their technological capabilities for designing new military systems. In the narrower sense of predicting their deployment of particular systems, the opportunities for this approach are limited and the batting average is bound to be low. In the field of pulse power tubes here discussed, two very significant trends in Soviet radar capabilities are apparent from what we have learned. First, centimeter wave radars employing frequency-controlled klystron power amplifiers rather than magnetrons can be expected; to date, no known Soviet radar makes use of this sophisticated design that is important both for defense against electronic countermeasures and for better accuracy in measurements. Second, the techniques for precise control of signal phase and frequency values which increase the flexibility and quantity of target information in the Hen House type of system may be used at any operating radar wavelength whenever military requirements justify the expensive complication.
1 During 1945 and 1946 several hundred German electrical engineers and scientists were taken to the USSR and used, with the support of a number of technically qualified POWs, for R&D on behalf of Soviet electronics technology. By 1951 Operation Dragon had been established as an organized effort to elicit intelligence information from these and other German specialists as they returned to Germany. (For the application of Dragon to the German atomic scientists, see Henry S. Lowenhaupt's "On The Soviet Nuclear Scent," Studies XI 4, p. 13 ff.) Most of the electrical engineer—proceeded without much delay to West Germany for employment in its rapidly growing electronics industry. Subsequently, attracted by the pay scale and other ideological features, quite a few participated in a third "brain drain," emigrating to the United States.
2 The Svetlana Works was, and still is, a prestige engineering-manufacturing enterprise for electron devices. In the late thirties Svetlana facilities and technology were modernized with American contract support. In the winter of 1941-42, with Leningrad under siege, most of the plant was evacuated to Novosibirsk. After the war it was slowly rebuilt to its former preeminent position, though for some years its facilities were in poor shape.
3 The triode is an electron tube with three elements-the cathode and anode, say filament and plate, between which the electrons flow and a third element, say a grid, which controls the flow. The amplification is achieved by other means, externally applied magnetic fields and el;: : tric potential, in UHF and microwave power tubes, the magnetron and the klystron amplifier.
4 For the effects of this long unresolved disagreement, see David S. Brandwein's "Interaction in Weapons R&D," Studies X11 1, p. 18 f.
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2012 Featured Story Archive
Expanded Energy Data Now in The World Factbook
For the first time since 1997, The World Factbook has added a major new category to each country’s entry: Energy.
The energy sector is a key pillar of the world economy, and The World Factbook entries already included several energy-related fields. Now, the new energy category will include 23 energy-related fields, helpfully located in one easy-to-find section of each country entry.
There are now five new measures for Installed Electricity Generating Capacity, the total amount of electricity that a country can produce. They include total capacity (measured in kilowatts) and a percentage breakdown of the four main sources of that capacity: fossil fuel plants, nuclear plants, hydroelectric plants, and renewable fuel sources, such as solar and wind.
In the oil sector, previously combined data is now broken out to show separate measures for crude oil (production, exports, imports, and proven reserves) and refined petroleum products (production, consumption, exports, and imports).
Finally, a new field for "Carbon dioxide emissions from consumption of energy" provides the total output of carbon dioxide from the consumption of all fuels. This provides insight into the environmental impact of energy use in a given country.
The World Factbook now has 10 categories of data for each country entry: Introduction, Geography, People and Society, Government, Economy, Energy, Communications, Transportation, Military and Transnational Issues.
Posted: Oct 19, 2012 08:09 AM
Last Updated: Apr 30, 2013 01:03 PM
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Tendon-To-Bone Healing Impeded By Cigarette Smoking
Orthopaedic surgery researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified yet another reason not to smoke. Studying rotator cuff injury in rats, the research team found exposure to nicotine delays tendon-to-bone healing, su
Orthopaedic surgery researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified yet another reason not to smoke. Studying rotator cuff injury in rats, the research team found exposure to nicotine delays tendon-to-bone healing, suggesting this could cause failure of rotator cuff repair following surgery in human patients. Smoking is implicated in a host of physical problems, from cardiovascular disease to lung disorders. Many of us probably don't think about smoking's effects on orthopaedic conditions, but several studies have shown that nicotine interferes with healing of bone fractures and also inhibits bone fusion processes -- many spine surgeons, for example, won't do certain operations on people who smoke because of the risk of failure. But little is known about the effects of cigarettes on tendon and ligament healing. There also are some gaps in medical knowledge about the prevalence of rotator cuff injuries. The rotator cuff is a group of four muscles and their tendons in the shoulder that provide rotation, elevate the arm and stabilize the shoulder joint. Rotator cuff tears involve one or more of the tendons. The injuries are more common as people age and more common in the dominant arm. The true incidence of the injuries is hard to determine because between 5 percent and 40 percent of people who may have a torn rotator cuff have no accompanying shoulder pain. What surgeons do know is that rotator cuff repairs can fail in the days and weeks after surgery. Some studies have reported short- to intermediate-term recurrence rates from 30 percent to 90 percent, depending on the size of the tear, chronic nature of the injury and the age of the patient, among other factors. "Especially during the first six weeks after surgery, tissue may be vulnerable to re-injury," says Leesa M. Galatz, M.D., first author of the study and assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Those early weeks are a time when there's a lot of tissue healing and remodeling occurring, and we're trying to learn whether there may be increased vulnerability to early failure in smokers." This study, the first to evaluate the effects of nicotine on rotator cuff repair, found that when rats were exposed to nicotine following rotator cuff repair, inflammation persisted for a longer time in the shoulder joint. That's detrimental to healing. The researchers also noted that there was less cellular proliferation in the rats' surgically repaired shoulders and decreased collagen production, leading to inferior healing. "When you have an injury and a repair, new cells come in and start to facilitate healing," Galatz says. "When the new cells arrive, they make proteins such as collagen to form the junction between tendon and bone. And in the rats exposed to nicotine, we saw lower cellular proliferation." The rats also made less type-I collagen and had different biomechanical properties in their shoulders following rotator cuff repair. Measuring properties called maximum stress and maximum force, the researchers found that shoulder joints in the nicotine-exposed rats were weaker. "Those changes were most apparent at earlier time points, and shoulder strength tended to equalize between the two groups about 8 weeks after surgery," Galatz says. "But certainly, the tissue was weaker early on and more vulnerable to re-injury." Galatz and colleagues studied healing in the shoulders of 72 rats following rotator cuff surgery. The researchers implanted tiny, osmotic pumps under the skin of the rats, and those pumps delivered either nicotine or an inactive saline solution. Saline pumps were implanted to ensure that any changes observed between groups of rats resulted from nicotine exposure rather than from having a pump implanted beneath the skin. In the rats that got nicotine, the pumps maintained nicotine levels in the bloodstream about equivalent to smoking a pack to a pack and a half of cigarettes per day. "So these would have been heavy smokers," Galatz says. "But another significant aspect about this study is that we did not account for other detrimental chemicals in cigarettes. Rats were not exposed to carbon monoxide, tar or the other substances that harm people who smoke. So if anything, we may have underestimated the negative effects of cigarette smoking on rotator cuff healing." Galatz says the study also may underestimate the harmful effects of smoking because rats tend to be better healers than humans and because they were exposed to nicotine for only a few weeks following surgery, whereas people may smoke for many years before surgery, as well as continue smoking following rotator cuff repair. "Certainly more study is necessary to definitively prove that cigarettes affect humans the same way," she admits. "But I think we have enough evidence to state that nicotine has a negative impact on healing in tendons as well as in bone." As to how nicotine works to interfere with healing, Galatz says it's still too early to tell. "We would have to look much more closely to learn exactly what the mechanism is, but blood supply is a potential culprit," she says. "Nicotine and cigarette smoking inhibit the formation of new blood vessels, and basically, all healing and all repair processes are aided by the formation of new blood vessels that bring in new cells. That process is assisted by increases in blood supply that may not happen as efficiently in smokers." ### Galatz LM, Silva MJ, Rothermich SY, Zaegel MA, Havlioglu N, Thomopoulos S. Nicotine delays tendon-to-bone healing in a rat shoulder model. The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery 2006 Sept;88:2027-2034. Washington University School of Medicine's full-time and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare. Contact: Jim Dryden
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'truth' at 24 Frames
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INDEPENDENT CINEMA IN WORCESTER, MA
The iconic French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard expressed in his 1963 film Le Petit Soldat that: "Photography is truth. And cinema is truth 24 frames a second." Obviously inspired by this quote, this blog will hopefully be a space to explore this enigmatic idea. While by no means intending to express my insights as being the "truth" of cinema, it is the goal of this project to seek to understand and explicate different aspects of art house cinema--its filmmakers, its movements, its theories, etc.
- Jared Wagner
A Monument to Humiliation
In The Hour of the Wolf (1968), Ingmar Bergman (with a debatably poignant cynicism) draws the viewer into the mad mind of artist Johan Borg (Max von Sydow). As with many Bergman films, the plot itself is fairly straightforward: Borg, with his pregnant wife Alma (Liv Ullmann), vacation on a remote Swedish island while he slowly loses his grip on reality.
Tags: bergman, ingmar bergman, existential, horror, humiliation, cinema worcester, liv ullmann, max von sydow, communication, self, reflexivity, reflexive
A Pinhole of Light
The next film in our “Communicating Bergman” series is his 1978 film, Autumn Sonata. Echoing back to his chamber films of the early 1960’s, this film takes place over a period of one night and consists almost entirely of performances in close up of the two powerhouses, Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann. These two devastatingly depict the fractured relationship between the famous concert pianist Charlotte (Bergman) and her oft-ignored daughter, Eva (Ullmann).
Tags: Ingmar Bergman, bergman, communicating bergman, truth at 24 frames, ingrid bergman, pinhole of light, light, swedish, norway, self, communication, existential, language, words, distrust of words, music, chopin, bach, cinema worcester, european cinema, arthouse
A Medieval Fresco Worked Out in Time
By the mid 1950’s Ingmar Bergman had become fairly well established and respected in the film world. The French Cahiers du Cinema critics were heavily influenced by Summer with Monika (1953) while his Shakespearean-like Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) was hailed at Cannes film festival winning the Jury Prize award. Interestingly, it was the success of the latter that convinced Bergman’s producer, Carl Anders Dymling, to approve the script for The Seventh Seal (1957). For years, he had rejected it as a result of its heavy and potentially alienating subject matter. This would prove to be quite a good business decision for the Svensk Filmindustri producer as the film would go on to receive extremely high praise internationally. French New Wave director and critic Eric Rohmer called it “one of the most beautiful films ever made” while American critic, Andrew Sarris, called it an “Existential masterpiece”.
Tags: Ingmar Bergman, existential, the seventh seal, antonius block, Death, cinema, swedish, the black plague, max von sydow, gunnar bjornstrand, gunnar fischer
Bach on a Foreign Radio
One of the disappointing and unfortunate inevitabilities of being an Ingmar Bergman fan is the fact that he gets pigeonholed as nothing but “the depressing director”. To be fair, his films bend towards the melancholic side of the cinematic spectrum. Despite this however, it is always confusing for me to hear this because when I think of his films I see a bright, poignant beauty rather than depression. He was a man with a complicated but deep, passionate love for humanity and it is this foundation which is necessary for such deep philosophical and psychological excavation. The contrast between light and dark is necessary to balance out and emphasize both sides: the darker the dark, the lighter the light.
Tags: Ingmar Bergman, existential, the silence, cries and whispers, the seventh seal, strawberries and milk, depressing, chiaroscuro, philosophical, psychological, communication, communicating bergman, bach, johan sebastian bach, scenes from a marriage, marc gervais, birgitta steene
Introduction to a Series: "Communicating Bergman"
The influence of Ingmar Bergman is pervasive. Though perhaps first praised internationally by many French critics and filmmakers--e.g. Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Eric Rohmer--his influence soon reach other international giants such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Satyajit Ray, Akira Kurosawa, and Federico Fellini. Additionally, one can find the influence in American filmmakers such as David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, and perhaps most explicitly Woody Allen.
Tags: cinema worcester, cries and whispers, cinema, film, existential, Swedish, art, communicating bergman, liv ullman, European cinema, local, arthouse, scenes from a marriage, max von sydow, the hour of the wolf, classic, series, communication, Ingmar Bergman, the seventh seal
Independent Cinema for Worcester
email: asgrigorov@gmail.com
Stay in touch with cinema-worcester!
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Climax of Sasikumar-Susienthiran's Kennedy Club to feature real-life Kabaddi players- Cinema express
Climax of Sasikumar-Susienthiran's Kennedy Club to feature real-life Kabaddi players
The climax of the film, which also stars Samuthirakani and Bharathiraja, will be shot in a set costing Rs 2 crore.
CE Features
Published: 11th March 2019
We had earlier reported that Susienthiran’s upcoming film Kennedy Club will feature Sasikumar as a kabbadi coach. The latest update is that the film’s climax, featuring a kabbadi match, will be shot in a set costing Rs 2 crore. To lend an authentic air to the same, actual players from across the country will compete in the match, which is scheduled to be held in Villupuram. The common public have also been invited to watch the match. The sequence will be canned over a ten-day schedule, after which only the songs will be left to shoot.
Apart from Sasikumar, Kennedy Club also stars Samuthirakani, Bharathiraja, Soori, Munishkanth, and real-life Kabbadi players. With music by D Imman, the film is slated to hit the screens on April 14. Notably, the Mandarin dubbing rights of the film have been acquired even before the completion of the shooting.
Kennedy Club Sasikumar Susienthiran Soori Munishkanth
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Why 6 Republican senators think you don't need faster broadband
Review: 5 prepaid mobile hotspots fire up business travel
Obama Outlines Broadband Boost via Executive Action
4 things CIOs need to know about the FCC, broadband and innovation
Consumer Tech Radar
By Bill Snyder, CIO | PT
Why AT&T's attempt to kill municipal broadband in Tenn. matters to all Americans
The city-owned broadband network in Chattanooga, Tenn., is one of the fastest in the United States, but AT&T is lobbying to block network expansion and ensure other cities throughout the country don't follow Chattanooga's lead.
REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
Chattanooga, Tenn., is more than 2,400 miles from Silicon Valley, but residents of the Southern city have access to broadband that's 50 times faster than the majority of Internet connections in technology's capital. Why, you ask? Chattanooga's municipally owned electric utility, EPB, provides its broadband Internet.
Chattanooga's neighbors would like to set up a similar arrangement, but AT&T, which delivers much slower broadband in the area — when it delivers at all — is trying to block the plan, saying the government should not compete with private enterprise.
Angry Tennessee consumers and legislators aren't backing down. "Don't fall for the argument that this is a free market versus government battle. It is not. AT&T is the villain here, and so are the other people and cable," said Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Tenn.) at a community rally, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
What AT&T's actions in Tenn. mean to U.S. consumers
If this were simply a local issue, few people outside of Tennessee would care. But it's not. The United States lags far behind most of the civilized world when it comes to high-speed broadband Internet deployments, in large part because so little competition exists in the market. Companies such as AT&T and Comcast have started to supply faster broadband in areas where rivals, including Google, set up shop and offered similar service for less money. However, in areas where big ISPs have the market to themselves, consumers often get stuck in the Web's slow lane.
AT&T's attempt to block a publicly owned company such as EPB from providing a service that it refuses to supply sure seems like an egregious abuse of corporate power. In fact, the FCC agrees, and it ruled that state laws that forbid municipalities from providing their own broadband are no longer legal. Not surprisingly, the big ISPs took issue with this ruling and then took the FCC to court, but the outcome won't be known for some time. Meanwhile, AT&T gets to play the bully.
You might think this is a partisan issue, but it is not — at least not in Tennessee. Gardenhire supports a bill (introduced by another Republican legislator) that would allow EPB to provide broadband outside of its immediate service area. The state legislature reviewed the issue a number of times already, but it never passed. It's unclear whether or not the bill has the support needed for approval this year.
[Related News Analysis: Why 6 Republican senators think you don't need faster broadband]
AT&T spokesperson Daniel Hayes commented on the issue in the Chatanooga Times Free Press. "Taxpayer money should not be used to over-build or compete with the private sector, which has a proven history of funding, building, operating, and upgrading broadband networks," Hayes said. "Policies that discourage private-sector investment put at risk the world-class broadband infrastructure American consumers deserve and enjoy today."
In an effort to quell additional related movements, AT&T and other ISPs make generous contributions to state legislators who oppose municipal broadband. Hopefully, the FCC wins its day in court, so big ISPs are forced to provide better service, or face serious competition from a new sort of rival.
San Francisco journalist Bill Snyder covers business and technology. He writes regularly for CIO.com, Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.
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Incredibly stupid questions of our time: No. 1 – Is immigration good or bad for Britain?
It is a well-known fact that over 99 per cent immigrants to Britain come from just one country called Immigrantland (this is why they are called immigrants). Moreover, Immigrantland is remarkable for the homogeneity of its population – any one of its citizens is culturally and economically indistinguishable from any other.
There’s no need to verify these facts, they can be deduced from the British debate over immigration, in which the leading participants have clearly dismissed the possibility that immigrants might actually come from different places and from different backgrounds, and thus have different impacts on the different communities in which they settle.
Having safely discarded this theory, the opposing sides on this issue are at one in viewing immigration as a single, undifferentiated phenomenon, with a uniform impact on the host population. The only thing they do disagree about is whether this impact is uniformly bad or uniformly good.
But, hang on, who’s this, with his outrageously nuanced views? It’s David Goodhart of Prospect magazine, who’s up to all sorts of mischief – like looking at the evidence:
“I have recently ploughed through a lot of the economic work on recent immigration to Britain… and the conclusion of almost all the analysis on wages, employment, fiscal benefit, economic growth and so on is that despite the very large numbers the impact on the existing population has been very small, except for some negative effect for those at the bottom.”
Of course, this is just the overall impact – the sum effect not only of the great variety of individual immigrants, but also of different scales and patterns of immigration:
“…many… pro-immigration economists… are insufficiently sensitive to scale, the obvious cultural and economic advantages of immigration on a small scale can quickly turn negative when numbers reach the levels experienced in Britain in recent years…”
Particularly important is the distinction between temporary and permanent immigration:
“On some estimates about 70 per cent of current immigrants… they are less likely to cluster residentially and less likely to make significant demands on the system.”
“By contrast those granted permanent residence are overwhelmingly from developing countries and tend to be poorer and make more demands. It is this group, intending to properly join British society, which attracts most anxiety from existing citizens and should be the focus of what passes for integration policy. Like the total net immigration number the number of those granted permanent residence has also been running at historically unprecedented levels in recent years… and it is this number that should be the main focus of reduction efforts.”
It should be obvious that there are many important distinctions to be made in immigration policy. The key question, however, is this: In whose interest should these distinctions be made?
For an intellectual figure of the centre-left, Mr Goodhart has a remarkably provocative answer:
“I would guess that it remains the common sense assumption of 90 per cent of British citizens that public policy should give preference to the interests of citizens before non-citizens should the two conflict: That does not mean you cannot be an internationalist, or believe that it is a valuable part of our tradition to offer a haven to refugees, or believe that all humans are of equal moral worth and if they are in British space are entitled to certain basic rights. But it does mean that the first call on our resources and sense of obligation begins with our fellow citizens.”
Britain’s immigration policy in the British interest? Well, you never know, it might just work!
David Goodhart Immigration Nationhood
Heresy of the week: Margaret Thatcher was wrong about “the enemy within”
The new PC is harming the people it’s supposed to protect
The routine harassment of women is a daily offence against liberty
How the cult of cool makes school miserable and ruins lives
There’s nothing strange about the death of New Labour
Heresy of the week: A richer Africa will mean more migration not less
More evidence that the vast majority of children are not being ‘hothoused’
The gap between wages and economic growth can’t be explained away
How much of a difference does the internet really make?
London must stay open to the world, but not its dirty money
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Willetts: It’s time to join up the research lab and the NHS ward
Calling Conservatives: New public appointments announced. Chair of the National Lottery Fund board – and more
Newslinks for Thursday 18th July 2019
By Joseph Willits
Follow Joseph on Twitter
Ahead of David Cameron's announcement later today that patients will be given the opportunity to trial pioneering new drugs before the end of clinical tests, David Willetts, Science and Universities Minister has spoken of the need for a "very clear route” from the research lab to NHS patient.
Joining up the health service and the life sciences industry, he said, was "a government role" – because of the sheer amounts of public money financing medical research in universities and the National Health Service. Whilst there are "excellent private businesses", Willetts said, "we haven’t done as well as we should have done in this country" in bridging the gap and developing "a very clear route from the idea in the publicly-supported research lab through to the application to a patient in the publicly-supported NHS". Having "a very clear route through", Willetts said, was the "way to get the businesses, the growth in the future" and "the best thing for patients as well".
Writing in the Times this morning, Willetts continued with Camilla Cavendish's "valley of death" analogy, that "so many great British discoveries in the perilous journey from the lab to the world outside" are set to face. Alluding to Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade , Willetts said the Medical Research Council had "identified 360 promising ideas developed under its auspices, 280 of which are awaiting commercialisation". The NHS, Willetts said, had to show it was "open to help and then to adopting them for UK patients if successful" in order to "persuade investors to fund these innovations… We need to make it much easier to show “proof of concept” in a hospital environment. Then the private sector will invest".
Willetts also warned of the UK being "left behind", since "new discoveries and technologies in biology and in e-health and telemedicine are making undreamt-of treatments possible":
"New competitors such as Singapore are fighting fiercely with more established research clusters such as Boston to become centres for early clinical stage trials. Unless the UK adjusts to this new reality by tackling cumbersome regulation and making the NHS more receptive to medical innovations, there is a serious risk that we will be left behind."
Reports of Cameron's speech today in the Daily Mail and the Sun, focused on the serious difficulties that the sharing of medical records with private companies would cause in relation to patient confidentiality. Later, the Prime Minister will announce adjustments to the NHS constitution so that researchers and drug companies are able to look through medical records to see who would benefit from clinical trials. Roger Goss of Patient Concern described it as "the death of patient confidentiality". Asked about this issue, Willetts said:
"There has to be absolute protection for the confidentiality of the individual patients data, and it shouldn't be possible to trace it back to the individual. This is above all in the interest of NHS patients."
The benefits from the proposals would only be achieved "if we can be absolutely confident of full protection of patient confidentiality" Willetts said.
Drugs Education Health
Henry Hill: Hunt and Johnson declare Backstop ‘dead’ and promise to protect Ulster veterans
From Reggie to Dessie: The colleagues are desperate to impress Johnson, B. But he doesn’t know who most of them are.
Garvan Walshe: By picking von der Leyen, the EU has ensured that Remain would lose a second referendum
Robert Halfon: Skills, social justice, standards, and support for teachers. A four-part manifesto for the new Prime Minister.
Andy Street: What’s needed to make the West Midlands the world centre for electric cars
Nicky Morgan: Our report on Alternative Arrangements holds the key to leaving the EU at last – and avoiding a general election
Iain Dale: It’s shocking to see some Conservative MPs doing the Left’s work by slagging off the front-runner.
Henry Hill: Westminster legislating for Northern Ireland sets a useful precedent for the DUP
Rachel Wolf: The Birmingham schools gay relationships row. Religious conservatives won’t like it, but government must take a stand.
Daniel Hannan: For Brexit to work, power must be stripped from the quangocrats – and returned to people we elect
17 comments for: Willetts: It’s time to join up the research lab and the NHS ward
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Hefferism
Peter Franklin: An alternate history of the Conservative Party, 2005-2018
Redwood returns
Andrew Marshall: There is a breaking-point for the pro-EU Tory Left as well as for the Tory Right
Stephen Tall: Cameron is doing his best to hold his party together, but it may not suffice
With Cameron under pressure, Tory MPs close ranks behind him
Have you watched Telegraph TV’s new politics programme, Right On? It’s well worth twelve minutes of your time. It’s perfect for the internet: lots of short, fast-moving segments, well presented and also, of course, right-of-centre.
The strongest segment of what is intended to be a weekly show is the Heffer Confronted feature. Iain Dale, who is a natural TV talent, gets the opportunity to challenge Mr Heffer about his most recent column. In this first edition Simon Heffer makes it clear that most MPs do not impress him. He tells us that…
There are very few MPs with a public service ethic…
Most go into politics because they couldn’t get a job elsewhere…
That they couldn’t get a job playing a piano in a brothel…
That the Tory Party wouldn’t have him as a candidate because it’s now full of SDP and neo-socialist views…
That he wouldn’t want to be bossed around by a bunch of "thickos"…
Ann Widdecombe describes Heffer’s performance as pig-ignorant. And, although within Heffer’s bluster there are some good underlying points about the emergence of a detached political class, he is a reminder of what the Conservative Party must never return to. He’s angry. He’s uncomfortable with modern Britain. He is ungenerous to his opponents – putting the worst possible spin on their views. He has no time for the need for a more balanced Conservative Party that takes social and international justice issues seriously.
David Cameron’s modernisation of the Conservative Party has occasionally made ConservativeHome uncomfortable, but if it was ever a choice between Hefferism and Cameronism we’d be 100% with Dave.
75 comments for: Hefferism
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Sherlock Holmes-inspired play heads to Portsmouth, Haslemere and Guildford
After Sherlock
Mike Grogan indulges his passion for Sherlock Holmes with a new play which tours to Portsmouth, Haslemere and Guildford.
Mike is both writer and director for Devil’s Drum Productions’ staging of Life After Sherlock – A Play In Two Parts.
Watson discovers that his late wife Mary Morstan may have passed away in circumstances that were not as originally thought and that other aspects of her life may not have been as they seemed.
With the help and support of old acquaintances such as Inspector Lestrade and Mrs Hudson, Watson uses his retired friend’s old deductive techniques to try to solve the mystery for himself.
As Mike promises, the story twists and turns and takes Watson from Baker Street to clandestine meetings across foggy London and also to a séance.”
For Mike, it all stems from being a complete Sherlock Holmes aficionado.
“I love that whole period,” says Mike.
“This particular play is set mid-Edwardian era, 1906, but I love that whole Victorian feel, and I also just love the characters. I have always had a passion for Sherlock Holmes. I think Holmes is such a complex character.
“Basil Rathbone as Holmes was absolutely fantastic in the part, but I sometimes think there was just a little bit too much arrogance. For me, I absolutely love Jeremy Brett as Holmes.
“He has got the swagger and the arrogance, but he has also got the vulnerability. He is the perfect Sherlock Holmes.
“When you think that David Suchet was able to do all the Poirots on TV, it would have been great if Jeremy Brett had been able to do all the Sherlock Holmes, but he was able only to do two-thirds of them, but he was brilliant.
“But I am just interested in the whole of Sherlock Holmes and everything around it. I am also a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society in London, and their angle is that Conan Doyle didn’t exist and that Sherlock Holmes was real. That’s the game.
“I wanted to do a Sherlock Holmes story, but I wanted to do a different angle, and the different angle I have taken is that it is not Sherlock Holmes’ mystery, but Dr Watson’s. Sherlock Holmes has now retired and is keeping bees on the Sussex Downs. Watson is still in London.
Nightlife in Chichester: The battle to bring more life into the city
“Watson has married Mary and she has died. But Conan Doyle leaves it open how she died. He just says that she has died and that Watson has remarried and that his second wife has also died.
“But what happens is that Watson finds out that all it not as it seems with Mary’s death. Watson delves into it, and people are saying that he should call on Sherlock Holmes, but Watson insists that he has got the skills to try to solve the mystery himself.
“I have got a terrific actor playing Sherlock Holmes, but Sherlock Holmes and Watson don’t meet each other, though they are sometimes on the stage at the same time. They don’t meet. They are just in their own respective mind palaces.”
The play tours to Portsmouth’s Guildhall Studio, Wednesday, May 29, Thursday May, 30; Haslemere Hall, Saturday, June 8; and Guildford’s Electric Theatre, Friday, June 14.
More details on http://www.devilsdrumproductions.com.
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Hurricane Florence batters the Carolina coast
By Sheetal Sukhija, China National News
The Category 2 hurricane hit the North Carolina coast
The storm is currently centered 85 miles from shore
Forecasters have warned that nearly 5 million people will be impacted by the heavy rain
NORTH CAROLINA, U.S. - With dire warnings being issued through the day and residents in several areas evacuating, forecasters declared on Thursday that Hurricane Florence had arrived, as the storm hit the North Carolina coast.
While the storm - that was formed off the African coast - was still centered miles from shore, it packed strong winds, heavy rainfall and brought with it fears of a deadly 11-foot storm surge.
With winds of 105 mph, Hurricane Florence - a dangerous Category 2 hurricane, brought rain and wind along the North Carolina Coast.
Forecasters are expecting the storm to make landfall near or along the coast of the Carolinas either overnight or on Friday.
Authorities tracking the storm's movement closely issued several dire warnings - the most dangerous one of them all was that Florence is threatening a deadly storm surge.
Fears of the store producing "inland rainfall flooding, life-threatening storm surge and destructive winds," along with hurricane-force winds, that could persist several hours after the landfall expected near Wilmington.
On Thursday evening, the eye of Florence was reportedly located about 85 miles east-southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina.
The storm was said to be crawling west-northwestward at just 5 mph.
However, later in the day, the National Hurricane Center said in an update, "Florence has strengthened a bit since late this afternoon, as winds have ticked up slightly from 100 mph to 105 mph."
It added, "Outer rainbands are pushing ashore in eastern North Carolina, only the beginning of what could be a record-wet siege from a tropical cyclone in parts of the Tar Heel State."
Meanwhile, Many waterfront towns experienced lashing winds, stinging rain that caused floods even before the deadly 11-foot surge arrives.
According to Duke Energy Corp., about 27,000 of its customers lost power untill early on Thursday evening and the service warned in a statement that as many as 3 million may eventually be in the dark for days or weeks.
Earlier in the day, Duke Energy said that it would close two nuclear power reactors at its Brunswick plant, which reportedly produce 1,870 megawatts.
Rita Sipe, a company spokeswoman said in a statement that the company's "procedures required closing the plants when facing a sustained period of 75 mph winds, even though the plants were designed to withstand winds of more than 200 mph."
Sipe added, "The units are 20 feet above sea level and were designed to withstand a storm surge of 22 feet."
The National Hurricane Center said in its update that a hurricane warning and storm surge warning continues to remain in place from the South Santee River, South Carolina, to Duck, North Carolina, including the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds.
The warnings reportedly include Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, and most of the Outer Banks.
Further, North Carolina cities such as Greenville, Goldsboro and Kinston have also been issued an extended Hurricane warning.
Meanwhile, with military bases set to be in the storm's path, the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army have been moving people, ships and aircrafts out of harm's way.
With the hurricane set to be a major test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
The U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Thursday that FEMA and first responders are "supplied and ready."
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https://www.chron.com/lifestyle/renew-houston/health/article/Retired-veteran-comes-out-finds-acceptance-at-14004871.php
Retired veteran comes out, finds acceptance at Orangetheory
By Jennifer Bolton, Correspondent
Published 9:00 am CDT, Monday, June 17, 2019
For 28 years, Leslie Bryant served in the U.S. Air Force. After coming out as gay in 2018, she moved from Amarillo to Houston in search of healing and acceptance, which she found in part at the West University site of Orangetheory Fitness.
For 28 years, Leslie Bryant served in the U.S. Air Force. After coming out as gay in 2018, she moved from Amarillo to Houston in search of healing and acceptance, which she found in part at the West University
Photo: Courtesy Of Leslie Bryant
For 28 years, Leslie Bryant served the United States of America in the Air Force. She served as a nurse, helping to heal the sick and injured. She served in both policing and forensics. She served in military advising, where she was part of a team which was fundamental in strengthening health care in Zambia during the AIDS epidemic from 2002 to 2005.
For nearly 30 years, Bryant did her best to serve America with integrity. And for her, part of that meant not coming out as gay until 2018, at the age of 58. Living with this secret for nearly six decades and serving in the USAF under “Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell” was an extreme source of depression and anxiety, she said, but now that she has come out, Bryant has found an outlet for some of those stressors in a place she didn’t expect: a West University gym.
“I grew up in Venezuela, Peru and Libya living under two military coups, and my family was extremely patriotic so I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be in the military,” she said. “I was still young; I was still trying to figure out if I was gay or not. After I knew, ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ came into play, and serving under that meant that the military couldn’t ask about your sexual orientation, but it also meant you couldn’t act on it either. It was an incredibly lonely life.”
Even though the policy maintained that officers couldn’t inquire about anyone’s preference, that didn’t mean LGBTQ service members were safe, she said.
“They were actively trying to identify and get rid of service members who were gay, and for that you would get a dishonorable discharge,” she said. “That really impacts the type of job you’re able to get after you leave the service. It makes you feel ashamed and it puts a stain on your family, so for 28 years, I had no relationship. I changed fields so many times from women-centered fields to fields that more men participated in just to get away from women so I wouldn’t put myself in danger. I was told ‘you can’t see someone of the same sex and you can’t engage in sexual activity with someone of the same sex,’ and I believed that, so I was celibate for 28 years.”
JOURNEY: After losing 100 pounds on a vegan diet, this dad opened plant-based restaurant. See how he did it, on ReNewHouston.com.
Bryant said she believes the law likely prevented progress in her military career and is happy the standard has changed.
“I think that the policy desperately needed to be changed,” she said. “I think gays have proven that they’re fit and qualified to serve in the military and have served honorably for many, many years, and I’m glad it’s changed. It’s really incredible that they allow us to be married and have families now. Personally, I think I could have achieved more, could have done better, if I had been married and had a support system. If you were gay in the military at that time, you were pretty much on your own.”
The effects of suppressing such a vital and salient part of her core personality took its toll. She suffered from severe anxiety and, at times, crippling depression.
“It was literally killing me,” she said.
It took retiring, moving to Amarillo to be closer to her parents and finally coming out in 2018, at 58 years old, to begin healing. Even though the people in Amarillo seemed ok with her being gay, Bryant said that it was still a small town, and that she would never completely be accepted, so she decided to move to Houston in January 2019, where she found Orangetheory Fitness in West University.
“Actually, my therapist in Oakland, Calif., knew of them and recommended them to me,” she said. “She wanted me to be in a structured environment around positive, supportive, like-minded people. And it was actually really intimidating at first, walking into the gym. It’s very easy to sign up, but very difficult to walk in. In fact, I signed up five times and I cancelled five times. But on that sixth try, I was able to get in there and talk with the staff and they are so good at helping people. They’re so good at helping people who are like me and are intimated by the gym. You look around and you’re like ‘these are all crossfitters,’ but you soon realize they’re not. They’re people from all different levels who are just trying to do the same thing I am - get healthy.”
Bryant said the support she’s gotten, not only from the staff, but also from the community within Orangetheory itself, has been instrumental in helping her get over some of the hurdles depression and anxiety set out in front of her.
“It’s been instrumental in improving my confidence,” she said. “They really work with you too. I have two bad knees and two herniated discs so I’m considered 40 percent disabled, and they modify all of my workouts so I don’t injure myself. It’s a clean, efficient gym where they change the way you work out. They set challenges for you and try to push you to do a 5k or a 10k or a marathon if they think you can. They have programs to test your endurance and stamina. The workouts they set for me have me burning calories for, sometimes, 36 hours after my workout, which is good to know.”
TRANSFORMATION: How one man discovered his self-confidence through Pilates
Bryant said she appreciates the wholistic approach trainers at Orangetheory take with clients.
“It’s not just about working out,” she said. “It’s about motivating you. It’s about your nutrition. It’s as much about your mental wellbeing as your physical wellbeing, and when those things fall into place, facing things like depression and anxiety become easier.”
Talking about the damage being forced to keep quiet about her personal life caused, including anxiety and depression, and how working out has positively influenced her life is important to Bryant.
“It’s not just a vet thing,” she said. “It’s not just a gay thing. If we all talked about anxiety and depression openly and honestly, it would help those who were afraid to talk about be more confident. Talking about it and taking care of yourself, especially with things like working out, is so important. Not only do the endorphins you build up help combat depression, but you have a better sense of health and wellbeing. You have improved confidence. Everyone deserves to feel that way.”
To contact Orangetheory Fitness, visit www.orangetheoryfitness.com.
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Lead paint suppliers settle California lawsuit for $305M
Sanders defends 'Medicare for All' after criticism by Biden
AP Explains: Why Ebola is now an international emergency
A timeline of Congo's latest deadly Ebola virus outbreak
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https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/High-winds-frequent-lightning-advisory-in-the-14001568.php
Flash flood watch for Houston and surrounding area until 7 a.m.
By R.A. Schuetz and Susan Carroll
Updated 9:34 pm CDT, Sunday, June 16, 2019
The National Weather Service has issued a significant weather advisory for the Houston area. Frequent lightning strikes are occurring with the thunderstor
Photo: NWS
STAY INFORMED: Get your Houston breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox
The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for the Houston area until 7 a.m., predicting widespread rainfall of about 1-2 inches overnight and totals of up to 4 inches in some stretches along Interstate 10.
"In areas that have already gotten rain, obviously this is going to make it much more worse," said Kent Prochazka, a meteorologist with the weather service in Houston.
Some portions of Montgomery County and northern Harris County already had taken on several inches of water Sunday night, leading to a warning for potential creek and street flooding.
There also was a big storm complex with strong winds and hail near the College Station and Brenham areas that headed southeast, Prochazka said, toward Fort Bend and Waller counties. That was expected to pass through overnight.
There may be some showers and thunderstorms on Monday, Prochazka said, but they likely will be more scattered.
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GMOs, Science And Nonsense: Retracting Seralini's Study
The biotech sector often yells for “peer review” when the anti-GMO movement refers to analyses or research-based findings to state its case. Despite Professor Seralini publishing his research findings (rats fed on GMOs) that were critical of the health impacts of GMOs in an internationally renowned peer-reviewed journal in 2012, his methodology and findings were nevertheless subjected to sustained attacks by the sector. Personal smears came his way too (1). Now he finds that his paper has been retracted by the journal.
Peer review or no peer review, it seems to matter little to the biotech sector when research findings have the potential to damage its interests. In any case, peer review is only for the sector's critics. It doesn't seem to apply much to it. For instance, in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists had continually warned regulators that GM crops could create unpredictable and hard to detect side effects, including allergies, toxin production, nutritional problems, and new diseases. They recommended that long-term studies were needed to fully assess the effect of GM foods on other crops, the ecosystem, and animal and human health, but these warnings were ignored (2).
Commercial interest, political strategy and lobbying, not science, is what really counts for this industry. Much of the research it uses to back up its claims is after all carried out by itself and is not fully open to outside scrutiny. Certain negative findings that would be detrimental to its interests are suppressed. According to Open Earth Source in a 2011 article in Huufington Post, this is certainly the case where glysophate (Round Up) has been concerned (3). It is therefore disconcerting that policy makers willingly accept the industry's claims and facilitate its aims, not least in the UK.
GeneWatch UK has revealed how Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, and BASF (all biotech companies) under the guise of the ‘Agricultural Biotechnology Council' held a meeting in June 2012 with government ministers and academics to formulate a ‘strategy' to promote GMO in schools, to ‘educate' the public and to ‘improve' the regulatory framework favouring GMOs, while encouraging farmers to change their farming methods to fully accommodate the GMO products the companies produce.
Dr Helen Wallace, Director of GeneWatch UK said that this shows breath-taking arrogance by these companies which seem to think that British farming must be destroyed to suit their own commercial interest and British children should be brainwashed to support their business strategies. She argues that ministers should not be pushing the GM sector's propaganda in British schools at taxpayers' expense (4). It begs the question: where is the role for independent science (not corporate/industry-backed science) in all of this? The sector seems able to secure political patronage or co-opt key players to its cause as and when necessary.
And the reason for this is clear. Writer Rich Murray highlights on Rense.com how top people from the GM sector have moved with ease to take up many top positions with various US government bodies, such as the FDA (5). William F Engdahl has described a similar effect in Europe (6). In both cases, the revolving door between government and biotech sector ensures the latter's interests are served.
Seralini's research team based its experiment on the same protocol as a previous Monsanto study but, importantly, were testing more parameters more frequently. And the GMO-fed rats were studied for much longer. The long time span proved critical. The first tumours only appeared four to seven months into the study. In the industry's earlier 90-day study on the same GMO maize Monsanto NK603, signs of toxicity were seen but were dismissed as “not biologically meaningful” by industry and the European Food Safety Agency. It seems they were indeed very biologically meaningful.
In his recent piece in The Ecologist, William F Engdahl argues Seralini's research is valid and that biotech pressure has led to the journal's decision to retract Seralini's paper (7). Engdahl notes that the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, where Seralini's paper appeared, has itself violated scientific standards by deciding to retract the paper.
It begs the questions: when does science become ‘non-science' and when can a journal decide to reinvent criteria for publication and retraction? On the Independent Science News website (8), Claire Robinson and Jonathan Latham note that in the run-up to the retraction, the journal's publisher, Elsevier, announced that it had created a new position, that of 'Associate Editor for Biotechnology'. The person they hired to fill it was Richard E Goodman, a former Monsanto employee. Six months after Goodman took control of GMO issues at the Journal, Dr A Wallace Hayes, the editor of the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, retracted the study by the team of Professor Séralini, citing the ‘inconclusiveness' of the research findings as the reason.
However, Claire Robinson on the GM Watch site (9) notes that inconclusiveness of findings is not a valid ground for retraction because numerous published scientific papers contain inconclusive findings, which are often mixed in with findings that can be presented with more certainty. She rightly states that it is for future researchers to build on the findings and refine scientific understanding of any uncertainties.
There is something highly suspicious about all of this.
The public is having GMO food pushed on it with no say in the matter thanks to deceit and various forms of institutionalised corruption. Unfortunately, argument stemming from independent scientific findings is too often sidelined in favour of other means of influence. Recall how Dr Arpad Pusztai in the UK was effectively silenced over his research and a campaign was set in motion to destroy his reputation some years ago because his research findings were unpalatable to the biotech sector. Then there is the infamous WikiLeaks cable highlighting how GMOs were being forced into European nations by the US ambassador to France who plotted with other US officials to create a ‘retaliatory target list' of anyone who tried to regulate GMOs.
In the meantime, evidence questioning the health impacts and efficacy or lack of agricultural benefits derived from GMOs mounts (10,11,12,13). But this is of little concern to the industry and its pressure tactics and global PR machine, which receives full and active support from the US State Department (14).
Is science to fall victim to outside pressures? Claire Robinson and Jonathan Latham argue that unless radical reform is achieved, peer-reviewed publication, which many hold to be the defining characteristic of science, will have undergone a remarkable inversion. From its origin as a safeguard of quality and independence, it will have become a tool through which one vision, that of corporate science, came to assert ultimate control. They argue that Richard Goodman now has the opportunity to throw down the stairs only those papers marked “industry approved.”
It's a valid point. As Don Huber, Professor of Plant Pathology at Purdue University, has indicated, getting research findings published that do not coincide with the aims of key commercial interests can be difficult and comes with certain risks (15). With some hugely powerful players involved, many of whom have influence over journal content and have successfully infiltrated important government and official bodies, much of the science and the debate is being manipulated and hijacked by vested interests for commercial gain.
1) http://www.countercurrents.org/todhunter301212.htm
2)http://www.nongmoreport.com/articles/october2011/FDAignoredscientistswarningsGMfoods.php
3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/roundup-scientists-birth-defects_n_883578.html
4) http://orderoftruth.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/uk-government-patterson-calls-gm-food-concerns-complete-nonsense-and-humbug-we-take-a-closer-look-at-his-lies-monsanto-gm/
5) http://rense.com/general33/fd.htm
6) http://www.globalresearch.ca/stench-of-eu-corruption-in-monsanto-gmo-whitewash
7)http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2185442/scientific_journal_retracts_study_exposing_gm_cancer_risk.html
8) http://www.independentsciencenews.org/science-media/the-goodman-affair-monsanto-targets-the-heart-of-science/
9) http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15184-journal-retraction-of-seralini-study-is-illicit-unscientific-and-unethical
10) http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/it-time-acknowledge-roundup-herbicide-contraceptive
11) http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers
12) http://vidarbhatimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/maharashtra-reports-btcotton-failure-in.html?m=1
13) http://www.globalresearch.ca/india-genetically-modified-seeds-agricultural-productivity-and-political-fraud/5328227
14) http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf
15) http://farmandranchfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/don-huber-may2011-acres.pdf
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Carla Carlisle on the US elections
Country Life November 16, 2010
carla carlisle thumb
The day begins with a hangover. Not the Morning After fog that follows a 14.5% New Zealand Pinot Noir from Mount Difficulty, but the dopey-sleepy feeling that comes from listening to the World Service all through the night. A Day After-the-Election hangover.
Despite all the predictions, I thought things would turn out better. Election night was spent with old friends from California. It’s a friendship that stretches back three generations. My husband’s grandfather and Ralph’s father were both plant collectors with a shared passion for camellia family. But, much as I love camellias, it’s the business begun by Ralph’s father that fascinates me. A pioneer in the field of music publishing, Ralph Sr was the sound engineer at the first recordings of Mamie Smith’s Crazy Blues and the earliest sessions by Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong.
He had a rare musical intelligence, recognising the importance of the blues, but also the value of the indigenous ‘country’ music. In the 1920s, he set up Southern Music Publishing, acquiring copyrights of classics such as Georgia on my Mind, Will the Circle be Unbroken and You are My Sunshine.
His son runs the business, now called Peer Music, with 32 offices in 28 countries. His world stretches far beyond the wheat fields of Suffolk, and he worries about my provincial optimism. Ralph and Liz aren’t yellow-dog Democrats, but intellectual liberals and fiscal conservatives, a category I’ve edged into over the years.
And, of course, Ralph is right. At the Morning-After breakfast, he never says ‘I told you so’, only that at least Harry Reid defeated the Tea Party favourite who believes that American cities are run by Sharia law and Hispanics look like Asians.
It feels weirdly familiar, what Joe DiMaggio called ‘Déjà vu all over again’. Only a few months ago, the General Election in Britain revealed a country ‘more divided than ever’, and resulted in a Coalition Government. Compared with a Republican Congress and a Democrat Senate, the Coalition feels like a civilised and intelligent utopia.
After Ralph and Liz drive off, I go online to see the full extent of the damage. It looks grim. The last email is from my friend Susie in Maine: ‘What a bummer. We got a Creationist Tea Party governor in Maine who won by a small margin-38% to 36%-over Eliot Cutler, an old friend running as an Independent.
A smart guy with a great and varied background-he helped draft the Clean Air Act back in the 1970s, worked in the office of the Budget during the Carter years and as a lawyer in DC, opening an office for his firm in Beijing three years ago. Instead of Eliot, we elected Paul LePage, the mayor of Waterville, Maine, who’s the general manager of a chain of discount stores.’
After cringing over the loss of the ‘one-of-us’ Mr Cutler, I Googled the Governor-elect. The eldest son of 18 children who grew up speaking French in bleak poverty, Mr LePage left home aged 11 to escape a violent father, and lived on the streets for two years. At 13, he got jobs washing dishes and loading trucks, somehow managed to get into college at 18, eventually earning an MBA from the University of Maine.
I’m not saying that I could vote for Mr LePage. I’m just saying that there are two sides to this story, and until we can admit that, we’ll never find a common humanity. Every election of our lives will be a stalemate.
A century ago, Emerson wrote that ‘there are always two parties: the Establishment and the movement’. Now that the Tea Party has joined the Establish-ment by getting supporters such as Mr LePage elected, I’d like to see a new movement emerge. We’ve endured this sunless
battleground too long and we need the sunlight of reconciliation. Meanwhile, You are my sunshine keeps ringing in my ears. And the refrain: ‘Please don’t take my sunshine away.’
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Gauguin In Tahiti
E History
Sorry, there are no upcoming session times for Gauguin In Tahiti at Dendy Newtown
Gauguin in Tahiti: Paradise Lost will take us on the trail of a story that has become myth. Through Tahiti and Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, we will experience the landscapes that inspired Gauguin, in the places where he built houses with bamboo and leaves, and discovered light and colours which changed his painting forever.
This stunning state-of-the-art cinema event will also bring us to Paris, Bretagne, Edinburgh, and to the most prestigious art museums of the United States, where most of his masterpieces are preserved: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; The National Gallery of Art in Washington; and The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Rating E
Cast Vincent Cassel, Tuheï Adams, Malik Zidi, Pua-Taï Hikutini
Director Édouard Deluc
Never Look Away tells the story of a young art student, Kurt who falls in love with fellow student, Ellie
PG Drama
The true story of technical troubles that scuttle the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1971, risking the lives of astronaut Jim Lovell and his crew, with the failed journey turning into a thrilling saga of heroism. Drifting more than 200,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts work furiously with the ground crew to avert tragedy.
Feel inspired by the remarkable untold true story of three women who served as the brains behind one of the greatest space operations in history.
The most dangerous mission in history.
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With free trade agreements with more than 40 countries, including being party to NAFTA, Mexico has a wealth of opportunity for business small and large. New legislation and economic reforms have expanded competition in ports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution and airports. The low manufacturing costs, strong macro-economic indicators and surge in consumption have added to the country's rapidly developing industrial and service sectors.
Tap into Mexico's dynamism and take advantage of Dentons' presence in two of Mexico's most important cities—Mexico City and Monterrey. Situated in the heart of the country and its seat of power, Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers throughout the Americas. Monterrey is a vital industrial and business center fueled by its close proximity to the United States and hosts an array of industries such as steel, cement, glass, auto parts and brewing.
We regularly assist clients in Mexico and across the world with complex legal matters across a wide range of disciplines in the automotive, energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, mining, natural resources, and real estate sectors, as well as other key industries.
Rely on our experienced team that regularly handles a wide range of practices including:
Büros und Standorte Kanada
Dentons enters GCR 100’s Global Elite rankings
For the first time, Dentons has been recognized in GCR 100’s Global Elite ranking, a definitive list of the top 25 firms practicing competition law internationally. The GCR has also placed our Firm in the Top 10 firms for Cartels.
GCR 100 ranks Dentons among leading firms for competition law
Dentons’ global Competition and Antitrust practice was ranked among the leading firms for competition law in the 2018 edition of the GCR 100. Dentons was recognized in 11 jurisdictions, including China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Turkey (BASEAK) and the United States (Illinois). The Polish team, led by partner Agnieszka Stefanowicz-Barańska, received the coveted “Elite” ranking for the tenth consecutive time.
A closer look at round seven of the NAFTA negotiations
Round seven of the NAFTA negotiations concluded in Mexico City on March 5, 2018. The talks ended with United States Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, indicating that the US is prepared to walk away from NAFTA and replace it with separate bilateral agreements.
Getting the Deal Through: Energy: Oil & Gas
The ‘Law & Practice’ sections provide easily accessible information on navigating the legal system when conducting business in the jurisdiction. Leading lawyers explain local law and practice at key transactional stages and for crucial aspects of doing business.
Competition/antitrust law
Competition authorities around the world continue to aggressively pursue illegal cartels and address conduct at the intersection of competition law on the one hand, and on the other, intellectual property, consumer protection and privacy.
View all insights for Mexico
Dentons deepens offerings in Mexico with new Monterrey office
Dentons, the world's largest law firm, today opened a new office in Monterrey, Mexico. It is the firm's second office in Mexico, following the launch of Dentons López Velarde in Mexico City last year.
Rogelio Lopez-Velarde
Rogelio Lopez-Velarde Partner, Mexico CityMexico CityD +52 55 3685 3334
rogelio.lopezvelarde@dentons.com
See the Full Team
Offices and locations in Mexico
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Death threats bring 7-year-old Afghan girl to US
By John Rogers
Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press
In this April 2, 2014, file photo, Afghan war victim Shah Bibi Tarakhail, left, takes a selfie with Ilaha Omar, a Children of War Foundation member, during a painting session at Galerie Michael in Beverly Hills, Calif. Seven-year-old Tarakhail whose love of painting won the hearts of U.S. doctors who fitted her with a prosthetic arm is returning to the United States after her newfound celebrity made her a subject of death threats in her homeland.
LOS ANGELES — A little Afghan girl whose love of painting won the hearts of U.S. doctors who fitted her with a prosthetic arm returned to the United States on Thursday, after the group that sponsored her first visit said it learned her newfound celebrity made her a subject of death threats at home.
Seven-year-old Shah Bibi Tarakhail arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday morning on the last leg of a journey from Kabul.
She has been granted a six-month visa, but Amel Najjar, executive director of the nonprofit Children of War Foundation, said her group is looking into permanent residency status for her, perhaps as a political refugee.
Najjar said all the attention has made her a target of insurgents in Afghanistan, who railed against her exposure to Western culture.
The father told the group that he and his daughter had been in hiding and separated from the rest of their family since her return to Afghanistan in April. Meanwhile, he said, the girl had grown so depressed that he had her hospitalized.
"Her father called us a week ago, said she'd been in a hospital near the Pakistani border and her life was in danger," Najjar said. "Her father said, 'I can't care for her anymore and it's at a point where she needs to be out of here sooner rather than later."
The little girl lost her right arm last year when she picked up a grenade following a firefight between U.S. and Taliban forces in her village near the Pakistan border. The explosion, which killed her brother, also destroyed her right eye.
After doctors at Shriners Hospital For Children fitted her with a prosthetic arm she quickly adapted to it and resumed painting, something she revealed was her favored pastime in Afghanistan.
Children of War arranged a lesson for her with prominent abstract expressionist Davyd Whaley, who praised her talent. After Galerie Michael in Beverly Hills showed her work around, she received an invitation to visit the Picasso Museum in Spain.
The foundation has found a host family that's agreed to take Shah Bibi in while the group works to keep her in the country permanently.
In the meantime, doctors at Shriners Hospital plan to fit her with a prosthetic eye and treat some of the scars she sustained when the grenade exploded.
U.S. & World 4 hours ago Trump slams congresswomen; crowd roars, 'Send her back!'
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California attorneys seek capital punishment for man charged with 13 murders
Devdiscourse News Desk California
Updated: 11-04-2019 07:46 IST Created: 11-04-2019 07:08 IST
In all, authorities have said DeAngelo is suspected of dozens of rapes and more than 120 burglaries in and around Sacramento, the eastern San Francisco Bay area and Southern California. Image Credit: Flickr
Four California district attorneys have jointly agreed to seek the death penalty if they win a conviction of an ex-policeman charged with 13 counts of murder attributed to a serial predator dubbed the "Golden State Killer," prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The decision disclosed during a court hearing for the suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 73, put the prosecutors at odds with a statewide moratorium on capital punishment declared last month by Governor Gavin Newsom. DeAngelo was arrested in April 2018, capping more than 40 years of investigation in a case that authorities said was finally solved by DNA evidence. The breakthrough came about two months after the case gained renewed national attention in the bestselling book: "I'll Be Gone in the Dark."
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert called it "probably the most notorious" series of rapes and killings in California history, a crime spree spanning 11 years from 1975 to 1986 across multiple jurisdictions. The defendant was an officer in two small-town California police departments during the 1970s.
Schubert and her counterparts from Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange counties "unanimously concluded to seek the death penalty in this case," her office said in a statement after Wednesday's hearing. DeAngelo is charged with 13 counts each of murder and kidnapping. Twelve murder counts accompany "special circumstance allegations" - such as rape of the victim - that make him eligible for capital punishment, the prosecutors said. The 13th murder count, in Tulare County, does not.
In all, authorities have said DeAngelo is suspected of dozens of rapes and more than 120 burglaries in and around Sacramento, the eastern San Francisco Bay area and Southern California. Four weeks ago, Newsom, a Democrat, said he was imposing an indefinite moratorium on executions for any of the 737 inmates now on death row, the most of any state.
Newsom said he took the action in part because he was deeply troubled by the possibility of putting an innocent person to death as the state moved to toward resumption of executions after developing a new protocol for lethal injections. The governor, whose moratorium angered victims' rights advocates, has since said he was considering a ban on future death sentences. California last carried out an execution in 2006.
Voters passed a 2016 ballot measure aimed at speeding up the process, but that initiative has failed to work, critics say, largely because it lacked additional funding needed to implement necessary reforms.
(With inputs from agencies.)
Southern California Gas Company
IT Authorities
Table of authorities
Bantu Authorities Act- 1951
Small office/home office
expoliceman
Anne Marie Schubert
Michael Jackson fans sue alleged abuse victims in French court
People News Roundup: Michael Jackson fans sue alleged abuse victims; Arte Johnson dies and more
Entertainment News Roundup: Michael Jackson fans sue alleged abuse victims in French court
WB governor greets people on Rathyatra
POLITICS-Former Rio de Janeiro governor tells judge he paid $2 mln bribe to host 2016 Olympics
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Homeland Security LIVE
Home > News > Blog > A Message from Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen on ICE Deputy Director Tom Homan
A Message from Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen on ICE Deputy Director Tom Homan
It is my distinct pleasure to congratulate Thomas D. Homan, Deputy Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), for receiving one of the law enforcement community’s most prestigious honors tonight– the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation’s “National Law Enforcement Leader of the Year” award, a well-deserved recognition of his achievements.
Tom’s career has spanned the lifecycle of the immigration system – beginning in 1984 in the Border Patrol in Campo, California; joining the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service as a special agent; and ultimately rising through the ranks of ICE to become the head of ERO prior to his current role. Tom’s depth of knowledge and experience with the entirety of the ICE mission have made him uniquely qualified to lead the agency – and the results speak for themselves.
Under his exceptional leadership, the men and women of ICE have made significant progress in restoring the rule of law to our immigration system. Consistent with the priorities set out by President Trump, the past year has seen arrests increase by 40 percent, interior removals increase by 30 percent, and the highest number of MS-13 arrests since 2008. But perhaps most important to Tom is that employee morale at ICE is the highest it has been since 2010, which I believe is due in large part to his passionate leadership.
Tom is a patriot and a true public servant who has consistently put service before self. He has made my predecessors and myself better secretaries, faithfully upholding the Constitution and executing ICE’s law enforcement mission. These efforts have not gone unnoticed. In recognition of the profound respect he has earned throughout his years of service under six different administrations, Tom was honored with the prestigious Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service in 2015.
This evening, Tom will also announce his decision to retire from federal service this summer after 34 years as a career federal law enforcement officer. When Tom informed me earlier this year of his plans to retire, I asked him to remain in his position to assist with transition planning. Once again, he selflessly agreed to extend his service, as he did last January when former Secretary John Kelly asked him to stay. True to his guiding principle of “mission first,” Tom made the difficult decision to forego an opportunity in the private sector and returned to work three days after retiring to assume leadership of the agency. That decision – made more than a year ago – came at great personal sacrifice, and I know Tom is looking forward to spending more time with his family, who made their own sacrifices in order for him to lead ICE. I thank them for sharing Tom with a grateful nation.
It has been a privilege and an honor to have served with such an inspiring leader over the past year. There is no advocate more passionate for the mission and men and women of ICE and I cannot imagine a more fitting capstone to his remarkable career than the award he received tonight.
I wish Tom and his family the very best in his retirement, and I know he will remain an experienced advocate of the men and women of ICE, and the entire DHS community. I am grateful for and proud of his tremendous service to our country.
Kirstjen M. Nielsen
Secretary of Homeland Security
Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
DHS Convenes Third Digital Forum on Terrorism Prevention with Southern California Stakeholders
DHS Leads the Implementation of Email Authentication Services Across the Federal Government
The Patch Factory: Global Infrastructure for Managing Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities
Toda la comunidad: personas con discapacidades en la respuesta ante desastres y recuperación
The Whole Community: Individuals with Disabilities in Disaster Response and Recovery
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Sex Reassignment Doesn’t Work. Here Is the Evidence.
Ryan T. Anderson / March 08, 2018
Sex “reassignment” doesn’t work. It’s impossible to “reassign” someone’s sex physically, and attempting to do so doesn’t produce good outcomes psychosocially.
As I demonstrate in my book, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” the medical evidence suggests that sex reassignment does not adequately address the psychosocial difficulties faced by people who identify as transgender. Even when the procedures are successful technically and cosmetically, and even in cultures that are relatively “trans-friendly,” transitioners still face poor outcomes.
Dr. Paul McHugh, the university distinguished service professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explains:
Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they ‘identify.’ In that lies their problematic future.
When ‘the tumult and shouting dies,’ it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb. The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over 30 years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered—documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers.
McHugh points to the reality that because sex change is physically impossible, it frequently does not provide the long-term wholeness and happiness that people seek.
Indeed, the best scientific research supports McHugh’s caution and concern.
Here’s how The Guardian summarized the results of a review of “more than 100 follow-up studies of post-operative transsexuals” by Birmingham University’s Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility:
[The Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility], which conducts reviews of health care treatments for the [National Health Service], concludes that none of the studies provides conclusive evidence that gender reassignment is beneficial for patients. It found that most research was poorly designed, which skewed the results in favor of physically changing sex. There was no evaluation of whether other treatments, such as long-term counseling, might help transsexuals, or whether their gender confusion might lessen over time.
“There is huge uncertainty over whether changing someone’s sex is a good or a bad thing,” said Chris Hyde, the director of the facility. Even if doctors are careful to perform these procedures only on “appropriate patients,” Hyde continued, “there’s still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatized—often to the point of committing suicide.”
Of particular concern are the people these studies “lost track of.” As The Guardian noted, “the results of many gender reassignment studies are unsound because researchers lost track of more than half of the participants.” Indeed, “Dr. Hyde said the high drop-out rate could reflect high levels of dissatisfaction or even suicide among post-operative transsexuals.”
Hyde concluded: “The bottom line is that although it’s clear that some people do well with gender reassignment surgery, the available research does little to reassure about how many patients do badly and, if so, how badly.”
The facility conducted its review back in 2004, so perhaps things have changed in the past decade?
Not so. In 2014, a new review of the scientific literature was done by Hayes, Inc., a research and consulting firm that evaluates the safety and health outcomes of medical technologies. Hayes found that the evidence on long-term results of sex reassignment was too sparse to support meaningful conclusions and gave these studies its lowest rating for quality:
Statistically significant improvements have not been consistently demonstrated by multiple studies for most outcomes. … Evidence regarding quality of life and function in male-to-female adults was very sparse. Evidence for less comprehensive measures of well-being in adult recipients of cross-sex hormone therapy was directly applicable to [gender dysphoric] patients but was sparse and/or conflicting. The study designs do not permit conclusions of causality and studies generally had weaknesses associated with study execution as well. There are potentially long-term safety risks associated with hormone therapy but none have been proven or conclusively ruled out.
The Obama administration came to similar conclusions. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revisited the question of whether sex reassignment surgery would have to be covered by Medicare plans. Despite receiving a request that its coverage be mandated, it refused, on the ground that we lack evidence that it benefits patients.
Here’s how the June 2016 “Proposed Decision Memo for Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery” put it:
Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria. There were conflicting (inconsistent) study results—of the best designed studies, some reported benefits while others reported harms. The quality and strength of evidence were low due to the mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, potential confounding, and small sample sizes. Many studies that reported positive outcomes were exploratory type studies (case-series and case-control) with no confirmatory follow-up.
The final August 2016 memo was even more blunt. It pointed out:
Overall, the quality and strength of evidence were low due to mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, subjective endpoints, potential confounding (a situation where the association between the intervention and outcome is influenced by another factor such as a co-intervention), small sample sizes, lack of validated assessment tools, and considerable lost to follow-up.
That “lost to follow-up,” remember, could be pointing to people who committed suicide.
And when it comes to the best studies, there is no evidence of “clinically significant changes” after sex reassignment:
The majority of studies were non-longitudinal, exploratory type studies (i.e., in a preliminary state of investigation or hypothesis generating), or did not include concurrent controls or testing prior to and after surgery. Several reported positive results but the potential issues noted above reduced strength and confidence. After careful assessment, we identified six studies that could provide useful information. Of these, the four best designed and conducted studies that assessed quality of life before and after surgery using validated (albeit non-specific) psychometric studies did not demonstrate clinically significant changes or differences in psychometric test results after [gender reassignment surgery].
In a discussion of the largest and most robust study—the study from Sweden that McHugh mentioned in the quote above—the Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pointed out the 19-times-greater likelihood for death by suicide, and a host of other poor outcomes:
The study identified increased mortality and psychiatric hospitalization compared to the matched controls. The mortality was primarily due to completed suicides (19.1-fold greater than in control Swedes), but death due to neoplasm and cardiovascular disease was increased 2 to 2.5 times as well. We note, mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years. The risk for psychiatric hospitalization was 2.8 times greater than in controls even after adjustment for prior psychiatric disease (18 percent). The risk for attempted suicide was greater in male-to-female patients regardless of the gender of the control. Further, we cannot exclude therapeutic interventions as a cause of the observed excess morbidity and mortality. The study, however, was not constructed to assess the impact of gender reassignment surgery per se.
These results are tragic. And they directly contradict the most popular media narratives, as well as many of the snapshot studies that do not track people over time. As the Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pointed out, “mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years.”
So when the media tout studies that only track outcomes for a few years, and claim that reassignment is a stunning success, there are good grounds for skepticism.
As I explain in my book, these outcomes should be enough to stop the headlong rush into sex reassignment procedures. They should prompt us to develop better therapies for helping people who struggle with their gender identity.
And none of this even begins to address the radical, entirely experimental therapies that are being directed at the bodies of children to transition them.
Sex Change Is Physically Impossible
We’ve seen some of the evidence that sex reassignment doesn’t produce good outcomes psychosocially. And as McHugh suggested above, part of the reason why is because sex change is impossible and “it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb.”
But what is the basis for the conclusion that sex change is impossible?
Contrary to the claims of activists, sex isn’t “assigned” at birth—and that’s why it can’t be “reassigned.” As I explain in “When Harry Became Sally,” sex is a bodily reality that can be recognized well before birth with ultrasound imaging. The sex of an organism is defined and identified by the way in which it (he or she) is organized for sexual reproduction.
This is just one manifestation of the fact that natural organization is “the defining feature of an organism,” as neuroscientist Maureen Condic and her philosopher brother Samuel Condic explain. In organisms, “the various parts … are organized to cooperatively interact for the welfare of the entity as a whole. Organisms can exist at various levels, from microscopic single cells to sperm whales weighing many tons, yet they are all characterized by the integrated function of parts for the sake of the whole.”
Male and female organisms have different parts that are functionally integrated for the sake of their whole, and for the sake of a larger whole—their sexual union and reproduction. So an organism’s sex—as male or female—is identified by its organization for sexually reproductive acts. Sex as a status—male or female—is a recognition of the organization of a body that can engage in sex as an act.
That organization isn’t just the best way to figure out which sex you are. It’s the only way to make sense of the concepts of male and female at all. What else could “maleness” or “femaleness” even refer to, if not your basic physical capacity for one of two functions in sexual reproduction?
The conceptual distinction between male and female based on reproductive organization provides the only coherent way to classify the two sexes. Apart from that, all we have are stereotypes.
This shouldn’t be controversial. Sex is understood this way across sexually reproducing species. No one finds it particularly difficult—let alone controversial—to identify male and female members of the bovine species or the canine species. Farmers and breeders rely on this easy distinction for their livelihoods. It’s only recently, and only with respect to the human species, that the very concept of sex has become controversial.
And yet, in an expert declaration to a federal district court in North Carolina concerning H.B. 2 (a state law governing access to sex-specific restrooms), Dr. Deanna Adkins stated, “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.” Adkins is a professor at Duke University School of Medicine and the director of the Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care (which opened in 2015).
Adkins argues that gender identity is not only the preferred basis for determining sex, but “the only medically supported determinant of sex.” Every other method is bad science, she claims: “It is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female.”
In her sworn declaration to the federal court, Adkins called the standard account of sex—an organism’s sexual organization—“an extremely outdated view of biological sex.”
Dr. Lawrence Mayer responded in his rebuttal declaration: “This statement is stunning. I have searched dozens of references in biology, medicine and genetics—even Wiki!—and can find no alternative scientific definition. In fact, the only references to a more fluid definition of biological sex are in the social policy literature.”
Just so. Mayer is a scholar in residence in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University.
Modern science shows that our sexual organization begins with our DNA and development in the womb, and that sex differences manifest themselves in many bodily systems and organs, all the way down to the molecular level. In other words, our physical organization for one of two functions in reproduction shapes us organically, from the beginning of life, at every level of our being.
Cosmetic surgery and cross-sex hormones can’t change us into the opposite sex. They can affect appearances. They can stunt or damage some outward expressions of our reproductive organization. But they can’t transform it. They can’t turn us from one sex into the other.
“Scientifically speaking, transgender men are not biological men and transgender women are not biological women. The claims to the contrary are not supported by a scintilla of scientific evidence,” explains Mayer.
Or, as Princeton philosopher Robert P. George put it, “Changing sexes is a metaphysical impossibility because it is a biological impossibility.”
The Purpose of Medicine, Emotions, and the Mind
Behind the debates over therapies for people with gender dysphoria are two related questions: How do we define mental health and human flourishing? And what is the purpose of medicine, particularly psychiatry?
Those general questions encompass more specific ones: If a man has an internal sense that he is a woman, is that just a variety of normal human functioning, or is it a psychopathology? Should we be concerned about the disconnection between feeling and reality, or only about the emotional distress or functional difficulties it may cause?
What is the best way to help people with gender dysphoria manage their symptoms: by accepting their insistence that they are the opposite sex and supporting a surgical transition, or by encouraging them to recognize that their feelings are out of line with reality and learn how to identify with their bodies?
All of these questions require philosophical analysis and worldview judgments about what “normal human functioning” looks like and what the purpose of medicine is.
Settling the debates over the proper response to gender dysphoria requires more than scientific and medical evidence. Medical science alone cannot tell us what the purpose of medicine is.
Science cannot answer questions about meaning or purpose in a moral sense. It can tell us about the function of this or that bodily system, but it can’t tell us what to do with that knowledge. It cannot tell us how human beings ought to act. Those are philosophical questions, as I explain in “When Harry Became Sally.”
While medical science does not answer philosophical questions, every medical practitioner has a philosophical worldview, explicit or not. Some doctors may regard feelings and beliefs that are disconnected from reality as a part of normal human functioning and not a source of concern unless they cause distress. Other doctors will regard those feelings and beliefs as dysfunctional in themselves, even if the patient does not find them distressing, because they indicate a defect in mental processes.
But the assumptions made by this or that psychiatrist for purposes of diagnosis and treatment cannot settle the philosophical questions: Is it good or bad or neutral to harbor feelings and beliefs that are at odds with reality? Should we accept them as the last word, or try to understand their causes and correct them, or at least mitigate their effects?
While the current findings of medical science, as shown above, reveal poor psychosocial outcomes for people who have had sex reassignment therapies, that conclusion should not be where we stop. We must also look deeper for philosophical wisdom, starting with some basic truths about human well-being and healthy functioning.
We should begin by recognizing that sex reassignment is physically impossible. Our minds and senses function properly when they reveal reality to us and lead us to knowledge of truth. And we flourish as human beings when we embrace the truth and live in accordance with it. A person might find some emotional relief in embracing a falsehood, but doing so would not make him or her objectively better off. Living by a falsehood keeps us from flourishing fully, whether or not it also causes distress.
This philosophical view of human well-being is the foundation of a sound medical practice. Dr. Michelle Cretella, the president of the American College of Pediatricians—a group of doctors who formed their own professional guild in response to the politicization of the American Academy of Pediatrics—emphasizes that mental health care should be guided by norms grounded in reality, including the reality of the bodily self.
“The norm for human development is for one’s thoughts to align with physical reality, and for one’s gender identity to align with one’s biologic sex,” she says. For human beings to flourish, they need to feel comfortable in their own bodies, readily identify with their sex, and believe that they are who they actually are. For children especially, normal development and functioning require accepting their physical being and understanding their embodied selves as male or female.
Unfortunately, many professionals now view health care—including mental health care—primarily as a means of fulfilling patients’ desires, whatever those are. In the words of Leon Kass, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, today a doctor is often seen as nothing more than “a highly competent hired syringe”:
The implicit (and sometimes explicit) model of the doctor-patient relationship is one of contract: the physician—a highly competent hired syringe, as it were—sells his services on demand, restrained only by the law (though he is free to refuse his services if the patient is unwilling or unable to meet his fee). Here’s the deal: for the patient, autonomy and service; for the doctor, money, graced by the pleasure of giving the patient what he wants. If a patient wants to fix her nose or change his gender, determine the sex of unborn children, or take euphoriant drugs just for kicks, the physician can and will go to work—provided that the price is right and that the contract is explicit about what happens if the customer isn’t satisfied.
This modern vision of medicine and medical professionals gets it wrong, says Kass. Professionals ought to profess their devotion to the purposes and ideals they serve. Teachers should be devoted to learning, lawyers to justice, clergy to things divine, and physicians to “healing the sick, looking up to health and wholeness.” Healing is “the central core of medicine,” Kass writes—“to heal, to make whole, is the doctor’s primary business.”
To provide the best possible care, serving the patient’s medical interests requires an understanding of human wholeness and well-being. Mental health care must be guided by a sound concept of human flourishing. The minimal standard of care should begin with a standard of normality. Cretella explains how this standard applies to mental health:
One of the chief functions of the brain is to perceive physical reality. Thoughts that are in accordance with physical reality are normal. Thoughts that deviate from physical reality are abnormal—as well as potentially harmful to the individual or to others. This is true whether or not the individual who possesses the abnormal thoughts feels distress.
Our brains and senses are designed to bring us into contact with reality, connecting us with the outside world and with the reality of ourselves. Thoughts that disguise or distort reality are misguided—and can cause harm. In “When Harry Became Sally,” I argue that we need to do a better job of helping people who face these struggles.
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DELIVERING A GREAT LOCAL SCHOOL FOR STRATHMORE
Strathmore families will get the world-class local school their kids deserve, with a re-elected Andrews Labor Government to deliver a massive upgrade to Strathmore Secondary College.
Labor will invest $7.3 million to construct a new arts, science and physics building.
This builds on the $13.8 million already provided by the Andrews Labor Government for upgrades at the school, including a new three-storey building with general-purpose classrooms and specialist facilities.
The Liberals didn’t spend a single cent on Strathmore Secondary College and slashed $1 billion out of our education system, leaving schools to crumble and decay across the state.
In contrast, the Labor Government has invested more than $3.8 billion to build 70 new schools and upgrade 1,300 schools across the state since coming to office four years ago.
That means thousands of Victorian kids now go to school every day and learn in new classrooms with better technology and facilities, like new gyms and science labs.
It has also helped create more than 5,000 construction jobs for Victorians right around our state.
A re-elected Labor Government will keep delivering for Victorians with more new schools and upgrades to existing schools across the state.
Quotes attributable to Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews
“We’ve made big improvements at Strathmore Secondary College – but when it comes to giving our kids the opportunities they deserve, there’s always more to do.”
“This investment sends a clear message to local kids if you want to become the next great scientist or innovator – we’re with you every step of the way.”
Quote attributable to Member for Essendon Danny Pearson
“We are already upgrading Strathmore Secondary College, but we know we have more to do. That’s why we will make sure the College has facilities that live up to the great teaching at the school.”
Quote attributable to Member for Pascoe Vale Lizzie Blandthorn
“Strathmore Secondary College is a great local school community and it deserves great facilities to match. Only Labor can be trusted to deliver the facilities that students and staff need.”
Education, Local SchoolsDan Andrews 2 November 2018 policy7
SUPPORTING NARRE WARREN’S NEXT GENERATION OF SCOUTS
FairnessDan Andrews 2 November 2018 policy7
DELIVERING A GREAT LOCAL SCHOOL FOR WHEELERS HILL
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Depression: Help is on the way for those who suffer
Depression is on the rise in the U.S., especially among young people, but healthcare professionals are encouraged by a wide range of new treatments.
Depression: Help is on the way for those who suffer Depression is on the rise in the U.S., especially among young people, but healthcare professionals are encouraged by a wide range of new treatments. Check out this story on delawareonline.com: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2019/05/06/new-depression-treatment/3566504002/
Cindy Schweich Handler, North Jersey Record Published 5:35 a.m. ET May 6, 2019 | Updated 9:44 a.m. ET May 6, 2019
Peter Scerbo, Executive Director at Comprehensive Behavioral Healthcare in Hackensack on Tuesday, January 29, 2019. Michael Karas, NorthJersey
The South Jersey teenager knew something was wrong.
She always felt sad, and instead of going out to movies and hanging out with friends, she napped all the time. When she broke up with her boyfriend, she wanted to kill herself. The hormonal changes brought on by puberty wreaked havoc with her moods, but when she told her mother that she wanted to see someone and get help, her mother refused because it would "reflect poorly" on her.
"My brother, who's a few years older than me, was a Marine stationed in California," says Kristin, now 41 (she asked that we omit her last name). "We were visiting him when I had a severe emotional reaction to something that happened, and I was crying and screaming." When her brother told their mother that Kristin needed help, she finally reached out to a therapist.
Depressed people don't feel pleasure in activities they used to enjoy. (Photo: Boonyachoat, Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The journey toward stability and mental health that began in high school continued well into adulthood, but today Kristin is a happily married research psychologist with two children. "I'll never be able to forget about it, but now I have a tool kit to handle stress," she says. "I study type 2 diabetes, which is a chronic disease you can live with if you change your lifestyle and take medication. Depression is like that."
A common cause of illness and disability
Like diabetes, unfortunately, depression is on the rise in the U.S. "We're seeing increasing rates of depression in the overall population, but especially in young adults," says Dr. Peter Bolo, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the Atlantic Health System's Overlook Medical Center, and an on-staff psychiatrist at Chilton Medical Center Pompton Plains.
Dr. Peter Bolo, chairman of the department of psychiatry at Atnatic health System's Overlook Medical Center and an on-staff psychiatrist at Chilton Medical Center in Pompton Plains (Photo: Courtesy of Chilton Medical Center)
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, major depression — which is different from the appropriate sadness a person feels after a setback or loss — is one of the most common mental disorders in the U.S., affecting about 17 million adults. When diagnosing depression, healthcare professionals want to know whether patients have suffered at least two weeks when they didn't experience pleasure in doing anything; they also ask about changes in weight, sleep, feelings of self-worth and ability to concentrate.
Though it's widespread and debilitating, the illness can still be hard for people to recognize in their loved ones, says Dr. Bolo. Teenagers, who may become easily angered, often have behavioral problems in school and isolate themselves from their families, "are more likely to report having periods of tearfulness," he says. "Millennials and women are more willing to talk about their feelings."
Men and geriatric patients, who are typically less likely to give voice to their emotions, tend to have more physical complaints, he says. These include low energy, aches and pains, headaches and difficulty with sleep and appetite. "The brain controls the body, and these physical discomforts are real," he says.
People who feel overwhelming anxiety also may meet the criteria for depression, he says, because their mood has changed dramatically, even if they say they don't feel sad. Inability to concentrate over a long period of time is another red flag.
Depression is a chronic, but treatable, illness. (Photo: asiseeit, Getty Images)
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Dr. Gabriel Kaplan, chief medical officer for the Behavioral Health Network at RWJBarnabas Health. (Photo: Courtesy of RWJBarnabas Health)
Depression clouds the sufferer's judgment and can even be hard to identify when you're the one living with it, says Dr. Gabriel Kaplan, chief medical officer for the Behavioral Health Network at RWJBarnabas Health in West Orange. "It's important for family and friends to say 'You're not yourself,' " he says, despite the affected person playing it down or denying being ill. "You can say, 'We're really concerned about you. There's no need to suffer. You can get relief.' "
Seeking help, staying with it
Once you suspect that you or a loved one is depressed, it's important to consult with a primary care doctor, who may make a referral to a specialist. "Don't sit on these symptoms because they can lead to self-harm," he warns. (People who talk about hurting themselves should immediately be taken to a nearby hospital emergency room.) According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, most people respond best to a combination of medication and psychotherapy, though individuals should discuss their treatment options with their mental health providers.
"Depression is treatable," says Dr. Kaplan, who is optimistic about promising new research into treating the one in four cases that don't respond to current therapies. "Recently, the FDA approved an inhaler form of the anesthetic ketamine for people with chronic depression, and that's opened the door to thinking about other mechanisms," he says. He's also excited about advances in understanding genetics that will eventually allow for the precise delivery of personalized medicine.
Another relatively new treatment is transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), when an electromagnetic coil is placed against the scalp to stimulate the part of the brain involved in mood control. And there's renewed interest in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which is a much safer and effective treatment today than it was in past decades.
Carol Kivler, professional mental health speaker and author (Photo: Courtesy of Carol Kivler)
Carol Kivler, a Lawrenceville resident, had more than 50 shock treatments over a 10-year period, after suffering a depression at age 40, losing touch with reality and planning to drive herself and her family off a bridge. "These days, they use a heart monitor, anesthesia and muscle relaxant," she says. "When neurons misfire, it reboots the brain."
At 69, Kivler says that for the past 19 years, she's been focusing on wellness, and feels much better. "I got sick of being sick, and decided to do everything I could to stay better," she says.
While still on medications, she walks long distances daily, keeps gratitude journals, prays, maintains a healthy diet and gets acupuncture. All have helped, she says.
She has also authored books on depression, including "Will I Ever be the Same Again? Transforming the Face of Depression & Anxiety" (Three Gem Pub/Kivler Communications, 2018) and speaks to groups across the country, including at hospitals in Bergen County.
"The minute you are quiet and live in shame and guilt, that in itself causes more anxiety," she says. "I like to say 'You have to reveal to heal.'"
More information and resources may be found at: National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) New Jersey: naminj.org; State of New Jersey Department of Human Services, Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services: state.nj.us/humanservices/dmhas/home; WebMD Mental Health Center: webmd.com/mental-health/default.htm; Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/treatment; American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: afsp.org; Comprehensive listing of telephone hotlines and helplines: psychcentral.com/lib/telephone-hotlines-and-help-lines; National Network of Depression Centers: nndc.org; The International Foundation for Research & Education on Depression: http://www.ifred.org/
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Read or Share this story: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2019/05/06/new-depression-treatment/3566504002/
State police investigating shooting inside Wilmington-area restaurant
Traffic on Del. 1 over canal bridge flowing normally after crash cleared
Plane crashes into Ocean City, Maryland beach, police say
Milford football legend killed in motorcycle crash
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Airman Missing From WWII Accounted For (Atkinson)
Release No: 14-021 Aug. 6, 2014
Staff Sgt. Gerald V. Atkinson
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, lost during World War II, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
U.S. Army Air Forces Staff Sgt. Gerald V. Atkinson, 21, of Ramer, Ala., will be buried Aug. 16 in Chattahoochee, Fla. On April 10, 1945, Atkinson and eight other crew members aboard a B-17G, were assigned to the 303rd Bombardment Group (Heavy). Atkinson was assigned as a spot jammer aboard the aircraft that departed Molesworth, England on a bombing mission over Oranienburg, Germany. During the mission the aircraft crashed and Atkinson was reported missing.
Atkinson’s aircraft, along with 38 other aircraft from the 303rd Bombardment Group, were flying in a formation as part of a major allied bombing operation against targets in Germany. After successfully dropping their ordnance, Atkinson’s aircraft was attacked by six to eight German ME- 262 jets. The aircraft crashed into the Groβ Glasow Lake near Groβ Schonebeck, Germany. Of the crew of nine, only one crewmember survived.
In 1946 and 1947, German nationals recovered remains from Groβ Glasow Lake believed to be the remains of American airmen and they were buried as unknowns in a local community cemetery. In August 1947, the remains were exhumed by the U.S. Army Graves Registration Command (AGRC) and reinterred as unknowns in Nueville en Condroz, Belgium.
In December 1948, the remains were again exhumed for possible identification and it was determined the remains were members of Atkinson’s crew; however, the AGRC could not conclusively establish individual identifications and the unidentified remains were reinterred as unknowns in the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial in St. James, France in November 1951.
In 2012, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) re-examined the AGRC’s records and concluded that the possibility of identification of the unknown remains now exist. To identify Atkinson’s remains, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) used circumstantial evidence and mitochondrial DNA, which matched Atkinson’s cousin.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans, who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPMO web site at www.dpaa.mil or call (703) 699-1169.
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BAPE’s Camo Drop Is いかす
BAPE has released a new drop which includes traditional Japanese getas and fans with the ABC CAMO print .
A Bathing Ape; better known as BAPE is a Japanese clothing brand founded by Tomoaki Nagao aka Nigo in Harajuku, Tokyo. Although no longer owned and designed by Nigo, the iconic brand still churns out some of the best streetwear pieces. This season, the brand pays homage to its Japanese roots by revealing a capsule collection of traditional fans and getas.
According to Nigo, the name derived from the 1968 film Planet of the Apes and references “A Bathing Ape in Lukewarm Water”, which recognises Japanese habits of taking daily baths in lukewarm water.
Ironically, Japan is known to be one of the world’s most hardworking countries, with some people even dying from over-exhaustion. Due to this, bathing in lukewarm water is interpreted as “complacently overindulge”. Nigo was essentially taking a nod to the brand’s own customers - young, rich and lazy.
Geta is a form of traditional Japanese footwear that looks like the lovechild of clogs and flip-flops. Unlike the traditional geta which has an elevated wooden base that is held at your feet with fabric (the OG platforms), the BAPE geta will see a green ABC CAMO style for men and a pink colourway for the ladies.
Included in this drop are traditional folding fans with the same ABC CAMO print in blue, green and pink variations - because what else are you going to be styling your getas with?
BAPE super fans can access the slick footwear and complementary fans in store as well as online now.
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Home Afghanistan Not just another ‘crisis’: Could the blocking of the Afghanistan investigation spell the end of the ICC? (Part II)
Not just another ‘crisis’: Could the blocking of the Afghanistan investigation spell the end of the ICC? (Part II)
Published on April 20, 2019 Author: Sergey Vasiliev
Part II of this post addresses the larger implications of the PTC’s decision. For part I discussing its treatment of the ‘interests of justice’, see here .
Justice and pragmatism
In my previous post, I argued that, as a result of the Pre-Trial Chamber’s incorrect interpretation of the ‘interests of justice’ standard, extra-legal considerations controlled the outcome of its determination. This part shows why this is problematic in terms of the legitimacy of the Court and of the broader project it symbolizes.
But first, is there no silver lining and nothing to defend in the PTC’s decision to deny authorization of the investigation in Afghanistan? As noted elsewhere, the ‘crises’ in international criminal justice tend to consolidate members of the epistemic and support communities around the institutions while also bringing the existing ideological and other fault lines into sharper relief. There is no uniform consensus on the PTC decision either.
Some (mostly US-based) commentators suggest that the PTC’s decision on the Afghanistan probe was overdetermined, understandable, and thus, in a way, justifiable. After all, it was a well-known fact—even prior to the unequivocal statements by John Bolton in September 2018 and Mike Pompeo in March 2019—that the US would not tolerate the prospect of the ICC Prosecutor investigating the conduct of its armed forces and CIA personnel. Most recently, the US government’s hostility towards the Court took the form of overt pressure and visa restrictions meant to dissuade the ICC staff from (and punish it for) pursuing that course of action. The judges’ blocking the investigation is not merely caving to pressure, the argument goes, but it is ‘caving to reality’: a prudent step towards de-escalation and much-needed institutional adjustment (see Bosco and Buchwald). This is what the triumph of pragmatism over the idealistic and over-reaching attempts to bring accountability for the alleged crimes in Afghanistan looks like. It is warranted by the need for the Court to better prioritize its work, focus on the more tangible goals, and direct its scarce resources to situations ‘where there exists some meaningful prospect of success’ (Whiting). This makes sense, particularly considering the Court’s poor track record in terms of securing convictions over the past years in situations seemingly less complex than that of Afghanistan.
It may well be that the Afghanistan investigation would not have led to prosecutorial success or even any cases at all. There is also no doubt that the opening of the investigation would have led to further escalation with the US and seriously complicated the situation for the Court and for its employees. It is also highly likely that the Prosecutor would continue facing serious difficulties obtaining cooperation of the relevant actors in the situation – the factor of some pertinence to the interests of justice. That said, this remains an assumption – and a questionable one at that when it comes to the investigation of the Taliban crimes.
The realist arguments are not patently misconceived or groundless (or at least, not all of them). The problem is that, even assuming arguendo that those concerns may be considered as validly falling within the ‘interests of justice’ (which they arguably may not), they are still hard to accept from a normative and legal policy angles. Importantly, as already noted in the debates, the non-authorization of the Afghanistan investigation effectively rewards non-cooperation and political pressure by states.Furthermore, while it might be more appropriate for those considerations to inform the discretionary decisions of the Prosecutor, it is disconcerting to see their trickling into the key paragraphs of the PTC Decision (paras 91-95). As the more diplomatic Alex Whiting put it, ‘[t]he ICC judges grappled with these realities more openly than we’re often accustomed’.
The implications of this are consequential and problematic.
The decision creates a distinct impression that the judges have succumbed to political pressure. Given the quality of reasoning and the charged context in which the decision was delivered, it might give rise to speculations about the political motives underlying the outcome. What else could a reasonable observer conclude when connecting the dots? To begin with, consider the inordinate and unprecedented amount of time it took the judges to consider the matter and to render this poorly-reasoned and badly-written decision: first four months before Pre-Trial Chamber III and, following its ‘curious’ dissolution and the reassignment of the situation to the newly-constituted bench in March 2018, an additional 14 months before PTC II. These irregularities have befallen the situation involving a major power which was not only vocal in its opposition to the investigation, but also went as far as to bully the Court and take punitive measures against its personnel. Moreover, difficulties in securing cooperation were also expected on other situations, where judicial authorization to investigate was nonetheless given (Georgia and Burundi).
The ICC’s Barayagwiza moment
Confrontations with recalcitrant states which refuse cooperation and render judicial functioning unfeasible are far from a novel situation for international criminal courts. In this connection, the Barayagwiza case comes to mind. In that case, the ICTR Appeals Chamber’s dismissed an indictment with prejudice to the Prosecutor and ordered the release of a defendant due to human rights violations. Following that, Rwanda ceased cooperating with the ICTR and, in a move that was perceived necessary yet was no less embarrassing for that, the Appeals Chamber urgently reconsidered the decision on the pretext of ‘new facts’. The tribunal watchers moved on since, but this episode was neither forgotten nor forgiven – the ICTR’s reputation and legacy remained tarnished.
The Afghanistan non-investigation decision may be the ICC’s first most obvious Barayagwiza moment. Except the legitimacy costs of being seen bending to politics are by far higher for the permanent Court two decades down the line than they were for an early specimen of ad hoc justice focusing on a single situation. Just like the ICTR Appeals Chamber twenty years ago, PTC II must have felt there was simply no other way than to surrender to the political realities. ‘Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus’ is easier said than done and between the law and pragmatism something got to give. However, by normatively accepting the inexorable practical and political constraints on their authority, the judges committed what Mettraux aptly called a ‘judicial suicide’. They did not have to do that though, nor need the world perish, because there was the other way. Instead of throwing the whole investigation overboard lest the US would remain displeased, the judges should have granted the request, leaving it to the Prosecutor to decide whether and when parts of it should be pursued or de-prioritized (as noted also by Whiting and de Vos).
It is possibly true that the US pressure and anticipated escalation were not the sole determinants; it is more complex and the ruling should be seen in a broader context. That said, the likely gains such as prosecutorial success, effective expenditure, etc. are not all there is to it either. The issue of the legitimacy of the ICC in the longer term is also at stake. The ‘reality’ is not what the Court is meant to accept; it is something that is shaped by the relevant actors, including the Court itself, even though to a limited degree. The ICC’s giving up on that opportunity of influence and reducing itself to the function of mere adjustment to that ‘reality’ is an abdication of its mandate. So much for the #justicematters hashtag the ICC uses to promote itself on the social media.
Afghanistan is exactly the kind of situations for which the ICC was created; it was the Court’s legitimacy test case. If the ICC had only been capable of approaching this situation in the same way as it would any other situation not overshadowed by the US’ involvement, it would have already vindicated itself and, in a symbolic yet important sense, ‘succeeded’. By not even trying, it fell victim to its own misguided politics, giving its self-professed foes a reason to celebrate (see reactions by the White House, Bolton, and Netanyahu). The ICC support community should muster the courage to acknowledge that in the moment of truth the Court did not rise to the occasion.
This should trigger a much-needed candid conversation on its independence as a judicial institution and the integrity of the Rome Statute system as whole. Regardless, the damage has been done and legitimacy costs will be high. Repairing that damage might take decades and the Afghanistan decision will come to haunt the Court in other situations. It will also have broader implications for the project the ICC symbolizes. The ruling will not only fuel the general public’s scepticism about international criminal justice but possibly also lead states in the Global South, civil society actors, and individuals working on international criminal and transitional justice issues to reappraise their commitment to, and any future engagement with, the project.
Where to from here? The end of faith
“Is this the end of the ICC as we know it?” and “Is it worth saving?”, are just some of the questions in the wake of the Afghanistan ruling. The institution will most definitely stay on. It has shown its occasional utility to the powers-that-be and also the resilience and flexibility, that are requisite for survival. But if one speaks of the ICC as the Court meant to deliver ‘justice for all’ and ‘speak truth to power’—the idea(l) which has held public imagination at least since 1998—it has proven unsustainable and disembodied from the actual institution.
Before the ICC supporters reel from their disappointment sufficiently to start brainstorming how the Court could be restored back to ‘factory settings’, they ought to linger for a moment to fully comprehend (and mourn?) what has happened. It is not possible to explain the Afghanistan non-investigation away as a one-off misstep, part of the maturing process, or a lesson to learn for the future – and move on as if nothing happened. The PTC decision has highlighted the (inherent) limits for the ICC as an institution occupying a certain niche in the global power politics, as an actor which—at least for now—is not only structurally unable to challenge major powers but also unwilling to just displease them. This amplifies the critical voices which question the emancipatory ambitions and impacts of international criminal justice. Those critiques ring truer and resonate more strongly than ever before.
The ICC will get further chances to redeem itself, the next serious test being the situation in Palestine. Nevertheless, the ICC’s historiographers will likely be using the Afghanistan decision as a sort of marker between the two eras. The former is the era of inextricable faith in an independent and impartial court doing its best to dispense justice, often doing so in impossible circumstances and (understandably) failing. The latter is the era when such view becomes hard to maintain even for believers who have supported the institution all along and interpreted all doubts in its favour.
Those who used to have faith in the Court’s counterhegemonic prowess will need to decide how to act further on whatever has remained of that faith. Post-Afghanistan, a commitment to the ideal of international criminal justice will grow ever more distinguishable and distanced from the commitment to the Institution. It would require one to monitor the Institution ever more vigilantly, calling out its biases and complicities, and keep it to account with far less complacency. Because in this line of business, ‘making international criminal justice expedient again’ seems to be the only alternative…
Filed under: Afghanistan, International Criminal Court, International Criminal Law
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Sergey Vasiliev
Sergey Vasiliev is is an Assistant Professor of International and Transnational Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam and a member of the Amsterdam Centre for International Law. Read Full
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Critical Writings
Reviews, Books
‘A Man Lies Dreaming’: Imagining Hitler as a low-rent private detective
Is the world ready for a hard-boiled Hitler? “A Man Lies Dreaming,” Lavie Tidhar’s stunning alternative take on the Holocaust, audaciously imagines the 20th-century demon as a middling private detective named Wolf.
It’s November 1939, six years after Germany’s Communist Party trounced Wolf’s National Socialists in the country’s election. The disgraced and debased Wolf (his name a nod to the German meaning of Adolf) has fled to England, like many other refugees. There he has hung out a shingle in London’s seedy Soho, among the whores and corrupt coppers, and a serial killer who is seeking to frame him. One day, a beautiful young Jewish woman comes to Wolf, asking for help finding her sister.
“I looked at her face. She was nothing but trouble and I knew it and she knew I knew,” Wolf writes in a voice icy as that of any classic gumshoe. “I had no business hunting for Jews in the year of our Lord 1939. I once had faith, and a destiny, but I had lost both and I guess I’d never recovered either. All I could see was the money. I was so cold, and it was going to be a cold winter.”
Wolf’s search quickly leads him to a slaver’s den run by Hermann Göring, once a fellow leader of the National Socialists, now a wealthy pimp. But before you can say Philip Marlowe, Tidhar’s narrative abruptly shifts.
Now we’re in Auschwitz, and a man named Shomer lies dreaming the noir novel we are reading. Before his imprisonment, Shomer was a successful writer of shund, pulp fiction. His wife and two young children have been exterminated in the camp. He spends his days digging graves and his nights lost “in that murky half-world which was once his novelist’s mind.” He fights against any memory of the world that’s been destroyed, as well as that murky half-world he inhabits when he sleeps.
“Stories, stories, he is sick to death of stories! Yet they are all he has.”
Tidhar, who was born in Israel and is now based in London, lost most of his family in Auschwitz. In this novel, as in earlier ones, he uses his impressive talent to create brilliantly subversive alternate histories. His 2011 novel “Osama” features Osama Bin Laden as the renegade antihero of a popular series of novels within a novel, and his 2013 novel “The Violent Century” imagines a world where superheroes are as common as soldiers and accountants.
Numerous historical figures appear in his new book: the British fascist Oswald Mosley, Diana Mitford and her sister Unity (the latter as besotted with Wolf as she was with Hitler in real life), Rudolf Hess, Ian Fleming, Christopher Isherwood, Evelyn Waugh. Shomer himself is inspired by a late 19th-century writer whose pen name was Shomer.
Despite its dark subject, “Man Lies Dreaming” can be very funny, as in a scene where Wolf runs into Leni Riefenstahl, who is starring in an unlikely sequel to “The Great Gatsby.” It is also remarkably poignant. Once Mosley’s Brownshirts come into power, the diminished, Jew-hating Wolf faces a Jew’s fate — and, ironically, perhaps an insight of what it means to be a Jew. He remains reprehensible, but Wolf is not a monster: frightened by the sight of rioting refugees, “he saw himself bared, ugly in the mirror of their suffering.”
Set during the election of a demagogue who battens on the fears of an underemployed populace threatened by thousands of foreign-born refugees, “A Man Lies Dreaming” feels disturbingly prescient. Tidhar holds up a mirror not just to Wolf, but to ourselves. In doing so, he reminds us that even — especially — under the most terrible of circumstances, stories are all we have. And in the right hands, they can be a formidable weapon.
Originally published on WashingtonPost.com.
Tagged: The Washington Post, Lavie Tidhar, A Man Lies Dreaming
Was glam any different from pop? Simon Reynolds has the answer in 'Shock and Awe'
'Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction' yields writing of strangeness and beauty
The Alienist meets Devil in the White City: Don’t miss Curious Toys, the transfixing new historical crime novel from Elizabeth Hand, coming October 15, 2019.
Curious Toys is wonderful. I stayed up late two nights in a row with it, transported to a Chicago I never experienced firsthand—it will be catnip for readers who love Chicago, circuses, cross-dressers, and early cinema.
— Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife
About Elizabeth Hand
© Elizabeth Hand 2019 | Website by Heather Vee | Privacy Notice
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Mexican president AMLO unleashes labor unrest at border maquiladora factories
A mass strike at Mexican border maquiladora factories in Matamoros is headed to victory, bringing raises for workers who make less than $1 an hour.
Mexican president AMLO unleashes labor unrest at border maquiladora factories A mass strike at Mexican border maquiladora factories in Matamoros is headed to victory, bringing raises for workers who make less than $1 an hour. Check out this story on ElPasoTimes.com: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/02/03/mexico-border-factories-maquiladora-strike-follows-minimum-wage-increase/2762912002/
Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Published 1:43 p.m. MT Feb. 3, 2019
In this March 21, 2017 photo, workers gather outside a "maquiladora" for car accessories in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Maquiladoras, as Mexican assembly plants are known, churn out everything from flat-screen televisions and washing machines to auto components that might cross borders a dozen times before a car comes off the assembly line in Michigan. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) (Photo: Rodrigo Abd, AP)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A mass strike at 48 "maquiladora," or manufacturer, plants in Mexico's border city of Matamoros is heading for victory, bringing pay raises for laborers who make less than $1 an hour, or about 100 pesos a day, assembling auto components and TV sets for export to the United States — and causing jitters for the business community.
The labor battle broke out in mid-January after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador decreed a doubling of the minimum wage in Mexico's border zones, apparently unaware that some union contracts at the maquiladora plants are indexed to minimum wage increases. The decree sparked a wave of walkouts involving about 25,000 workers.
The maquiladoras claim the strikes threaten the very existence of their industry, which has attracted over 5,000 mostly foreign-owned plants and 2 million jobs by paying very low wages. Union leaders say those worries are overblown, noting that workers at the border plants still earn far less than their counterparts in the United States.
Less than a week after the strike broke out, a majority of the export plants in Matamoros — 29 companies with a total of about 34 factories — have agreed to the union demands, a rare victory that owes a lot to something the president probably didn't intend to happen.
After taking office Dec. 1, Lopez Obrador doubled the minimum wage in communities along the U.S. border to 176.20 pesos a day, the equivalent of $9.28 at current exchange rates. With maquiladora pay averaging about 146 pesos ($7.70) a day, the Matamoros workers went on strike to demand the 20 percent raise be applied to everybody — even those making above the minimum — and a one-time bonus of about $1,685.
More: Mexican President AMLO launches plan to stimulate border economy during Juárez visit
"Perhaps he didn't take into account what was in the labor contracts," said Javier Zuniga, an activist with the Miners' Union who has helped coordinate the strike. "The president acted in good faith, but he didn't measure the impact that was going to have on union contracts, and the workers came out winners for once."
Since the 1990s, many companies in Matamoros, which is across the border from Brownsville, Texas, signed contracts indexed to minimum wage hikes. It was a way to keep wages down, given that in most previous years, annual increases were about equal to the inflation rate.
The U.S., Canada and Mexico signed the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on Friday. The new deal replaces NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement from the 1990s. (Nov. 30) AP
One such contract signed in March 2018 at the Kongsberg Interior Systems plant, which makes automotive cables, stipulates that "the company will reach an agreement with the union to increase wages by the same percent that minimum wages are increased."
In addition, many companies' annual bonuses are calculated by multiplying minimum wage increases by 365, a figure that in past years usually amounted to only about $100.
"They (the government) never thought there was a real union, or that there were (contract) clauses like that," said Cirila Quintero, a sociology professor at Colegio de la Frontera Norte who has studied the Matamoros union that has represented maquiladora workers for more than a quarter century.
The Industrial Workers and Laborers' Union of Matamoros, which was founded initially in 1932 to represent cotton workers, is unusual in Mexico because it has won gains for its members that don't exist in contracts anywhere else in the country. Far more common are pro-company "ghost" unions that sign contracts without consulting the workers they purportedly represent.
Then Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Morena party greets audience members before speaking at San Jacinto Plaza in El Paso on March 6, 2017. (Photo: MARK LAMBIE / EL PASO TIMES)
Lopez Obrador has been wary of antagonizing the business sector, and he appears to be an unwilling hero in opening the floodgates of labor discontent. Both Quintero and Luis Aguirre, the head of Mexico's association of maquiladora companies, said federal officials actively discouraged the Matamoros union from seeking the pay increases. The Labor Department refused to confirm that, saying only that it sent mediators to Matamoros to try to defuse the dispute.
Aguirre also claims federal officials agree that the union's interpretation of the contract clauses is erroneous, but he says the federal government has been unwilling to act.
"This will give rise to unemployment and cause at least 15 of these companies to flee," Aguirre warned. His group, the Maquiladora and Export Manufacturers Industry, said in a statement that the wage demands may spread to other areas along the border "where the industry is present and will project a very bad image for foreign direct investment."
Still, most of the Matamoros companies have quietly agreed to the workers' demands, and they would be hard-pressed to find any place near the U.S. market where they could pay less than $1 an hour.
Other Mexican border cities with assembly plants, like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, "don't have this point" in their contracts, Quintero noted. "But what is going to happen is that workers are going to demand their raises to 176 pesos," the new minimum, and probably across the board, he said.
More: NAFTA deal means business as usual on the border, El Paso leaders say
Trump era has maquiladora suppliers worried
Lopez Obrador has come under pressure from the business sector to rein in wage demands, but he is unlikely to do so.
The only thing he has promised Mexico's labor movement is to guarantee union freedom and stay out of unions' internal affairs. For workers, that is a big step forward in a country where the labor movement has been smothered for decades by old-guard union bosses and pro-company "protection" contracts often signed before factories even open.
Lopez Obrador also has shown a certain fondness for militant union bosses like Mine Workers' head Napoleon Gomez Urrutia and the head of the Electrical Workers Union, Martin Esparza, even though both have been accused of questionable financial deals and of holding more protests than negotiations.
But Zuniga brushes off suggestions that Lopez Obrador favors the miners' union, and he dismisses accusations that he and other strike organizers are helping President Donald Trump's campaign to bring manufacturing plants back to the United States.
"Unfortunately, people here in Matamoros live on very low salaries," Zuniga said. "There is no plot, no conspiracy, other than to protect and help the workers."
More news from the border: Mexico election: Lopez Obrador sweeps into power as president with huge mandate
Ex-Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo discusses NAFTA, 'failed' war on drugs in El Paso
Read or Share this story: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/02/03/mexico-border-factories-maquiladora-strike-follows-minimum-wage-increase/2762912002/
Inside the Migrant Detention Center in Clint, Texas
Feds seek $12.6 billion from 'El Chapo' Guzman
Most wanted fugitives for the week of July 8
Father-in-law aided, complicated O'Rourke's career
Artists protest migrant treatment at border sites
Nearly 200 pets collected by Animal Services
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El Paso Children's Museum: What you need to know on the now $60 million project
From how much it will cost to when to expect it, El Paso lays out its plans to create the best kids museum possible.
El Paso Children's Museum: What you need to know on the now $60 million project From how much it will cost to when to expect it, El Paso lays out its plans to create the best kids museum possible. Check out this story on ElPasoTimes.com: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/2018/07/27/el-paso-kids-museum-childrens-city-council-bond-project-debt-issued-60-million-budget/780956002/
Elida S. Perez, El Paso Times Published 6:30 a.m. MT July 27, 2018 | Updated 1:59 p.m. MT Aug. 1, 2018
El Paso Children's Museum Future SIte
The proposed El Paso Children's Museum received a $20 million boost from the city to ensure it offers a "world-class" educational experience. RUBEN R. RAMIREZ / EL PASO TIMES
The proposed El Paso Children's Museum received a $20 million boost from the city to ensure it offers a "world-class" educational experience. RUBEN R. RAMIREZ/EL PASO TIMES
From how much it will cost to when to expect it, the city lays out its plans to make its bond project the best kids museum possible.
The proposed El Paso Children's Museum received a $20 million boost from the city to ensure it offers a "world-class" educational experience.(Photo: RUBEN R. RAMIREZ / EL PASO TIMES)Buy Photo
The proposed El Paso Children's Museum received a $20 million boost from the city to ensure it offers a "world-class" educational experience, but at least one city representative believes even that won't be enough.
The $20 million the city voted to issue in debt through certificate of obligation bonds combined with about $20 million in additional funding from a nonprofit partner, EPC Museum, boosts the total project budget to about $60 million.
Voters approved $19.5 million in funding for the Children's Museum in 2012, as part of a $473 million quality of life bond package. The Children's Museum was one of three "signature" projects. The other two were a multipurpose arena and a Hispanic Cultural Center.
Officials said the city’s contractual agreement with the nonprofit will cap what the city spends on the construction and development of the project at the $40 million made up of the voter-approved quality of life bond funding and the nonvoter-approved certificate of obligation funding. That agreement was finalized Monday, July 23.
More: Downtown El Paso children's museum might get $31 million financial boost
More: Downtown arena, cultural center progress lags as city struggles with sites, costs
City Council approved funding 6-to-1
The City Council voted six to one to use of certificates of obligation for the additional funding. City Rep. Michiel Noe voted against it. City Rep. Cassandra Hernandez was not at the meeting.
Noe said that even though he had supported the proposed Children’s Museum, he is certain costs will continue to rise.
"Things just go through the roof on lots of projects and other projects get funding cut and that’s where I’m like, I’m out. I'm not supporting it," Noe said. "I don’t agree with how they are being done."
Noe feels other quality of life bond project are equally important but are not receiving the same amount of attention as the Children’s Museum.
Check out renderings of the proposed El Paso Children's Museum and photos of the site as it sits now. El Paso Times
Many bond projects underfunded
Mayor Dee Margo acknowledged that several of the projects approved in 2012 were underfunded, including the West Side natatorium that opened in April.
Originally, the quality of life bond allocated $8 million for the pool, but the cost and scope of the project grew after the community asked for amenities that would make it state-of-the-art and better able to accommodate tournaments.
In 2014, the price tag rose to about $13.6 million. The city eventually paid $15.5 million.
Margo said the city’s costs for Children’s Museum will not go above the agreed-upon $40 million, and he added that the city will only issue debt as it is necessary.
More: El Paso children's museum design concepts up for public vote
More: $60M needed for 'world class' children's museum, city's nonprofit partner says
Property taxes to increase
Chief Financial Officer Robert Cortinas said the $20 million in certificates of obligation would increase property taxes by an additional $3 per year on a $100,000 home. That increase would not occur until 2021, he said.
"We’re capped; we are not doing any more than what we have agreed," Margo said. "It’s a chance to have a world-class children’s museum to bring a benefit to this community that we do not have yet. It's like taking the old Insights (children's museum) and magnifying it by 1,000 times and it's just positive. It's very positive."
The agreement stipulates that any cost overruns for construction or design of the project will be covered by the nonprofit, but it also allows exceptions for city-requested and -approved changes.
Architectural rendering done by the TEN Arquitectos firm based in Mexico City and New York City. (Photo: RUBEN R. RAMIREZ/EL PASO TIMES)
Changes to the plans for the kids museum
The original $19.5 million budgeted in 2012 was expected to pay for the construction of the facility and some of the exhibits. The city anticipated a 30,000- to 35,000-square-foot project that would have been larger than the 20,000-square-foot Insights Center and smaller than the El Paso Museum of History.
By 2016, the city had made no movement on the project, said Eric Pearson, president of the El Paso Community Foundation. The nonprofit foundation proposed a public-private partnership to raise $10 million to add to the $19.5 million project.
Those discussions resulted in a preliminary agreement and the establishment of the EPC Museum nonprofit.
Pearson said the community foundation had served as the fiscal sponsor to the EPC Museum group until it received its 501(c)3 nonprofit status. EPC Museum still receives accounting and administrative support from the community foundation.
EPC Museum has eight board members, including Pearson. The other board members are Niko Tejeda, CEO of the Hospitals of Providence Transmountain Campus; Sam Rodriguez, city engineer and director of the Capital Improvement Department; Tracey Jerome, director of the city Museums and Cultural Affairs Department; Miguel Fernandez, president and CEO of Transtelco Inc., a binational telecommunications company; Josh Hunt, executive vice president of Hunt Cos. which is a national real estate development and management group based in El Paso; John McKee, who serves on the board of the Down Syndrome Coalition for El Paso; and Cita Sanders, who has served on the Mexican Federation of Health and Community Development, or FEMAP board.
"At that time, we pledged a layer of excellence to the budget," Pearson said. "What we were looking at is what the city was putting in, and we wanted to match it for 50 cents on the dollar. But outside of that, we knew the ($19.5 million) number was not real. We felt it was not enough."
The community foundation hired Gyroscope Inc., an architecture, museum planning and exhibit design firm based in Oakland, Calif., which produced a master plan that determined a state-of-the-art world-class museum would cost about $60 million.
In December, EPC Museum said it would raise its share of the funding to $20 million if the city would also agree to add $20 million to reach the new estimate.
Architectural rendering done by the Koning Eizenberg Architecture firm based in Santa Monica, California (Photo: RUBEN R. RAMIREZ/EL PASO TIMES)
World-class offerings
Pearson said the master plan for the museum, which cost about $125,000 and was paid for by the community foundation, relied heavily on input from the community and educational institutions in the area.
"They wanted it to be world class, to have a science center and that it be an integral part of the museum," Pearson said. "If the city wanted a world-class space, this is what it was going to cost."
The new museum will be approximately 80,000 square feet and will house a variety of interactive displays and exhibits, as well as features such as child learning centers with interactive sound and wind tunnels and a 40-foot climbing wall.
The Children’s Museum will be built at 201 W. Main Drive. which was the former Greyhound Lines Inc. maintenance facility, near Southwest University Park. The city purchased it in January 2016 for about $1.4 million.
Preliminary architectural designs for the building included additional land adjacent to the site. The city attempted to buy three adjacent properties, but scrapped the effort after the property owners declined to sell.
Paul Kortenaar, who was hired by the EPC Museum nonprofit about a year ago to be the founding director of the Children's Museum, said that even though the city was unable to purchase the other properties for the museum, the public-private partnership will still deliver an 80,000-square-foot building.
"The building plans were conceptual," Kortenaar said. "We will still deliver the same size, and still deliver the exhibits" that were proposed.
Architectural rendering done by the Snøhetta firm based in Oslo, Norway and New York City (Photo: RUBEN R. RAMIREZ/EL PASO TIMES)
Designed specifically for El Paso
Kortenaar added that the museum will be specifically designed for El Paso, down to the weather and to educational requirements.
"It's not going to be like any other Children's Museum in the country," Kortenaar said.
Kortenaar is confident the project will be delivered within a set time frame and within its new budget.
"If we spend more or overdesign, the city is not responsible; the contract will be held by us," Kortenaar said. "From Monday (when the agreement was signed), we are expecting approximately 43 months. It will take about three and a half years, which will take us through 2021. If the timing isn't perfect, then spring 2022."
Kortenaar said the EPC Museum nonprofit and the city will be protected from cost overruns through its contracting process, as well. The museum will be built under what is called a “construction manager-at-risk” contract. A construction manager is hired who then works with designers, builders and other companies to centralize responsibility for the project under a single contract at a guaranteed maximum cost and time frame.
"Any failure to meet the timeline or to meet the cost, they (contractors) are financially penalized," Kortenaar said. "So I can in fact say that the museum will be within the cost frame that that we described and will be delivered on time."
The agreement with the nonprofit establishes the responsibilities of each of the parties as the project is developed, constructed and operated.
Eric Pearson, president and CEO of the El Paso Community Foundation talks about the upcoming children's museum. Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times
According to the agreement, EPC Museum will raise $20 million over a 10-year period for the project. The nonprofit will develop and operate the museum once it is opened. The city will pay its $40 million, as well as funding for capital repairs and an annual stipend for salaries, operational expenses, exhibits and repairs.
Once the museum opens, the city will deposit $300,000 every year for a five-year term for capital repairs and facility improvements. After the sixth year, the nonprofit and city will split the costs for maintenance.
The stipend will equal 33 percent of the annual operating budget, which is estimated at about $2.5 million. The nonprofit will cover the difference.
At the other city museums in El Paso, the city pays 100 percent of operating costs.
Kortenaar said the preliminary budget is based on an estimated admission fee of about $5 and about 250,000 visitors per year. The visitor estimates are based on attendance at children's museums in cities of similar size to El Paso.
How the public-private partnership works
The city will own the site and lease it to the El Paso Children’s Museum Local Government Corp., which will then sublease it to the nonprofit. EPC Museum will pay $24,000 per year in rent. The rent payments will then be placed in an account that will be used for maintenance and repairs.
The El Paso Children’s Museum Local Government Corp. was established to act on behalf of the city regarding the development and construction of the Children’s Museum. The City Council will serve as its board for the corporation.
Local government corporations are separate and independent corporate entities that act on behalf of municipalities and are frequently established to manage public-private partnerships.
Southwest University Park similarities
The city created a similar entity for the Downtown ballpark. For that project, the city initially estimated the ballpark would cost $50 million. The city agreed to increase the budget to $64 million and MountainStar Sports Group, who partnered with the city for the development of the stadium and who leases Southwest University Park, also paid an additional $12 million.
The ballpark was also built using a construction manager at-risk contract and took just under 12 months to complete, El Paso Times archives show.
Kortenaar said the nonprofit is in the process of negotiating contracts for the construction manager-at-risk and architecture firm for the museum, and the groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for spring of next year.
Elida S. Perez may be reached at 546-6137; eperez@elpasotimes.com; @ElidaSPerezEPT on Twitter.
Read or Share this story: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/2018/07/27/el-paso-kids-museum-childrens-city-council-bond-project-debt-issued-60-million-budget/780956002/
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How Libya’s Savvy Women Entrepreneurs Are Building Businesses Amid Conflict
A Canadian nonprofit teams up with D2L to train women founders in Libya and beyond.
By Ainsley Harris 4 minute Read
Welcome to Libya, where life goes on amid political and economic turmoil.
“You might be standing on your balcony enjoying the view and—bam!—hear this explosion, but it’s not always like that,” says entrepreneur Amal Delawi, a cancer survivor and working mom who lives in Tripoli. Following the 2011 revolution, which toppled longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi, and her cancer treatment, which required travel to Egypt, she was broke and unemployed.
“I had to go back to becoming an independent again,” she says. Her solution was a confectionary business dubbed Tamara that puts a modern twist on traditional Libyan candies. In a city beset by conflict, constant blackouts, and currency fluctuations, customers have found comfort and delight in Delawi’s artfully rendered treats. Her signature: dates stuffed with Nutella and covered with dark chocolate.
“Generally I’m a very optimistic person, but to be honest, being optimistic right now is a waste of time,” Delawi says. “I have big dreams, but I just go day by day.”
Delawi is part of a community of women entrepreneurs that a Canadian nonprofit organization called MEDA has been equipping with business know-how through workshops and networking events over the last four years. Early on, MEDA’s programs took place in person and in major cities, drawing women with both early ideas and operational businesses. One ran a private elementary school; another aspired to launch a recycling facility. But given the ongoing security concerns associated with travel between regions, MEDA is now piloting an online program in collaboration with education technology company D2L that’s designed to reach to women in rural areas.
“There’s definitely a need for this,” says Adam Bramm, who oversees MEDA’s operations in North Africa and the Middle East. “Due to some of the violence and conflict that has been going on, a lot of the men have left. The women are starting to set up and fill in the gaps.”
Between now and September, MEDA hopes to have 300 women complete modules in the beta version of the online course, which includes lessons on accounting, marketing, and other business topics. If MEDA is able to secure additional funding, Bramm plans to expand and scale the program in Libya and beyond.
Ontario-based technology partner D2L is best known for its online platform Brightspace, an adaptive learning solution and curriculum repository. (Brightspace’s data-driven techniques earned it a spot on Fast Company‘s list of the most innovative companies in data science this year.)
“Being able to move sessions online and provide a high-quality experience I hope will help thousands of women,” says D2L CEO John Baker. His instructional designers and developers have been working with MEDA to adapt lessons for mobile and to think creatively about ways for participants to build meaningful relationships. “The community was really a big part of what was happening in Libya before,” he adds.
The project presented D2L with a number of design challenges. Some were specific to the cultural environment, such as the need to display content in Arabic, which reads from right to left. Others, such as providing users with ways to engage with content during network outages, spoke to current infrastructure limitations.
Intissar Rajabany, MEDA’s project manager for Libya, has been helping her instructors and entrepreneurs navigate the country’s unreliable communications networks and roads. To run a leadership training workshop in Gadamis— a city near where Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia meet—she needed to find an instructor willing to make the arduous journey from Tripoli by car with her father as her chaperone. What would have once been a short flight is now a daylong drive with dozens of security checkpoints and long stretches of desert without cell phone reception. Twenty women attended, most of whom were in their thirties and forties.
“For many women in Libya it’s a late start; they don’t have the same opportunities that we do in other countries for getting skills up to speed,” Rajabany says. “They want to do something and better their lives, and they don’t want to be dependent on a man or a government salary that may not come through.”
Former public-sector employee Entisar Attya attended a MEDA intensive program in Tripoli last January. She had experience managing distribution for a pharmaceutical company, and she saw an opportunity to work for herself distributing Argan oil to pharmacies and beauty stores. The product was a hit, but now she’s stuck: Because of inflation, her wholesale partner has stopped sending shipments to Libya.
“I’m trying to find an alternative product,” Attya says through a translator. “I’m looking forward to all this being resolved so we can have a brighter future.”
In the meantime, Rajabany says, “Life goes on.” Battles are sometimes under way, but there are still birthdays, weddings, and funerals to attend. Indeed, another MEDA participant has found success launching an event planning company called Velvet that provides brides and expectant parents with stylish invitations and decor—a reminder that Libya has historically had the highest GDP per capita in Africa, thanks to its oil wealth, and consumer tastes to match.
The changes, Rajabany observes, are in the details. “Before 2011, I would go to a wedding party, and coming home at 3 a.m. on my own would be normal—from another city, not just inside Tripoli,” she says. “Now I come home before dark.”
During a civil war, business as usual can happen by day, but after sundown there are no guarantees.
Senior Writer Ainsley Harris joined Fast Company in 2014. Follow her on Twitter at @ainsleyoc.
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The wild, improbable history of the phrase ‘If we can put a man on the Moon . . .’
How going to the Moon became the all-purpose yardstick not for accomplishment but for failure on Earth.
[Photo: Neil Armstrong/NASA]
By Charles Fishman 9 minute Read
This is the 24th in an exclusive series of 50 articles, one published each day until July 20, exploring the 50th anniversary of the first-ever Moon landing. You can check out 50 Days to the Moon here every day.
Going to the Moon fired the imaginations of Americans, whatever the support for the effort revealed by public opinion polls in the 1960s. One of the most revealing indicators of how appealing Americans found the quest is the quirky and charming history of the phrase, “If we can put a man on the Moon . . . .”
Almost immediately, we started using going to the Moon as a shorthand way of talking about what Americans were capable of in the transformative age of the 1960s.
Not even a year after President Kennedy’s speech calling for the Moon landing, the agriculture commissioner of Montana, Lowell Purdy, was angry about federal farm policy and the impact growing too much wheat was going to have on Montana farmers. Purdy invoked Kennedy’s Moon mission to criticize the president and his farm program. “Nothing is impossible in this age of miracles,” he said. “If we can put a man on the Moon, we surely are capable of seeing that our temporary surplus agricultural products are placed in many hungry stomachs of the world.”
Purdy was the first public official to be recorded using the phrase “If we can put a man on the Moon.” He said it on May 14, 1962. At that point the U.S. had managed to orbit a single man, John Glenn, alone in a tiny capsule, for three laps around the Earth. NASA hadn’t even figured out what a Moon rocket would look like.
But Purdy had perfectly captured his frustration with farm policy: If we can manage the logistics to fly to the Moon, surely we can figure out how to get surplus wheat, grown right here on planet Earth, to people who need it. The fact that we couldn’t yet go to the Moon didn’t spoil his metaphor.
The next use of the phrase came just three days later, at the opposite end of the country, in the St. Petersburg Times. Columnist Ann Waldron was writing about the immaculate homes presented in home design magazines, and how silly they look to anyone with a real family and real children. “I have to laugh when I look at those glorious, glossy color pictures in the fancy home magazines,” she wrote. One of Waldron’s fantasies for combining easy decor with realistic housekeeping turned out to be carpets made of paper that you could simply wad up and throw away. “If we can send a man to the moon,” she wrote, “why can’t we have paper rugs?” Waldron was using the idea of the Moon in a different way than Purdy: If we can create the technology to fly to the Moon, why can’t we do something down-to-Earth, like invent easy-to-clean carpets?
A year later, a well-known hero of late 1950s America was testifying before Congress. Captain William R. Anderson was the skipper of the first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, which had had been the first to sail underneath the North Pole in August 1958. Anderson had retired from the Navy and was asked by President Kennedy to lead an effort to create a domestic version of the Peace Corps, to put volunteers into the most impoverished parts of the United States. Testifying before a House subcommittee, Anderson said, “If we can send a man to the Moon, we can do something about the distress of people left to orbit helplessly in the vacuum of despair.” Congress didn’t fund Kennedy’s domestic Peace Corps, but that line from Anderson was widely quoted and reprinted.
Going to the Moon became the all-purpose yardstick not for accomplishment but for failure on Earth. A Massachusetts state representative complained in 1965, “We can send a man to the Moon but we can’t get rid of our garbage and rubbish.” After a mysterious and dramatic drop in the population of wild salmon in Idaho’s rivers in 1965, the state’s director of fish and game said, “If we can put a man on the Moon, we certainly can find out where the fish went.”
Going to the Moon was such an extraordinary leap that it created the space in which we surely ought to be able to perform every routine terrestrial task—even though we hadn’t gone to the Moon.
The phrase became a standard trope in the speeches of politicians. Ronald Reagan, then the governor of California, used it in 1968 to attack Democrats’ “dovishness” on law enforcement while campaigning for Richard Nixon’s law-and-order presidential campaign: “We can send a man to the Moon, but we cannot guarantee his safety in walking across the street.” Nixon’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, used the phrase in his standard stump speech: “If we can put a man on the Moon, certainly we can afford to put man on his feet on Earth.”
Sometimes people used the trip to the Moon in a simple burst of frustration. South Carolina State Senator James Waddell was furious at the inability of a federal program to provide basic sanitation for poor people in his district. “We can send a man to the Moon,” he declared on the floor of the South Carolina Senate, “but we can’t build an outhouse.”
The wide use and wildfire spread of the phrase isn’t just a curiosity or a bit of faddish 1960s slang. It shows the sheer power of the idea, which planted itself in Americans’ psychology so quickly that “going to the Moon” became a way of thinking about the world. It became a fresh way of saying “anything is possible.” When people were frustrated with a lack of progress, when they were reaching for inspiration, they immediately thought, If we can put a man on the Moon . . . .
The work necessary to go to the Moon was mostly invisible. But the phrase shows that Americans absorbed something critical about the journey: It was a stretch. Even for the country that won World War II, that invented the atom bomb, going to the Moon required us to harness every ounce of energy, imagination, and technological innovation at its disposal.
But the most revealing thing about the phrase is how Americans used it, from the beginning, as if we had already put a man on the Moon. In fact, the dozens of references from 1962 to the summer of 1969 make absolutely no rhetorical or rational sense, because we hadn’t actually shown that we could go to the Moon. Whether it’s being used flippantly by columnists or seriously by the vice president of the United States, the phrase is literally nonsensical. What is the point of comparing something we aren’t doing to something we haven’t done yet?
But no one ever makes that point. We knew we were going to make it. Embodied in the phrase—in the speed with which we adopted it and the way we used it—is the clear sense that Americans considered putting astronauts on the Moon to be simply the latest inspired form of manifest destiny. We had announced we were doing it, and it was as good as done. That attitude seems all the more remarkable as other things unraveled during the 60s—politics, cities, race relations, and our ability to figure out how to win in Vietnam.
One writer was wise to the “man on the Moon” construct in a way no one else seemed to be. Matt Weinstock wrote a daily column in the Los Angeles Times. In September 1967, he wrote a piece headlined “Found at Last—Flexible Cliché for All Occasions.”
“People wishing to show disdain for certain glaring flaws in our civilization appear to have settled on a cliché that could become the symbol of our era,” Weinstock wrote. He offered a handy list of his own comparisons, including, “We can put a man on the Moon but we can’t make hippies take a bath.”
Weinstock stayed on the “man on the Moon” beat. The frequency with which the expression was deployed clearly got under his skin.
About two years later, in another column, he concluded the situation had become intolerable. The phrase was being used not to inspire, said Weinstock, but “in a nagging tone.” Writing in what was then by far the largest newspaper west of the Mississippi River, Weinstock issued a call to boycott use of the phrase, which he said had become “obnoxious.” Sadly, he added, “perhaps it’s already too late.”
Weinstock’s second column on the “If we can put a man on the Moon” phenomenon was published on June 2, 1969. The lunar module wouldn’t land in the Sea of Tranquility for another seven weeks. In less time than it had taken to go to the Moon, talking about going to the Moon had gone from potent metaphor to boycott-worthy platitude.
Now, in the 2010s, we use the phrase “If we can put a man on the Moon” as often as we did in the 1980s and 1990s. Does using it 50 years after the fact give it more punch—or more irony?
It retains its power, in part, for a new reason: The leap to the Moon seems to represent the opposite of the bureaucratic delays we’ve come to expect. It also retains its power because going to the Moon remains one of the hardest things human beings have ever tackled.
Way back in 1986, the New York Times joined the Los Angeles Times in calling for a halt to the phrase. “We can send a man to the Moon,” the Times editorialist wrote, “but we cannot stop public speakers from saying, ‘We can send a man to the Moon, but we cannot. . . .’ So awesome was Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind,” the Times continued, “that it has created the cliché standard for a whole generation.”
On January 1, 2018, the Wall Street Journal used it in what should, rightly, be its final use ever, about NASA’s sluggish efforts to return to the Moon. The headline of that Wall Street Journal story: “If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?”
One Giant Leap by Charles Fishman
Charles Fishman, who has written for Fast Company since its inception, has spent the past four years researching and writing One Giant Leap, his New York Times best-selling book about how it took 400,000 people, 20,000 companies, and one federal government to get 27 people to the Moon. (You can order it here.)
For each of the next 50 days, we’ll be posting a new story from Fishman—one you’ve likely never heard before—about the first effort to get to the Moon that illuminates both the historical effort and the current ones. New posts will appear here daily as well as be distributed via Fast Company’s social media. (Follow along at #50DaysToTheMoon).
Charles Fishman, an award-winning Fast Company contributor, is the author of One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission that Flew Us to the Moon. His exclusive 50-part series, 50 Days to the Moon, will appear here between June 1 and July 20.
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Contemporary Drawing and Painting Courses
We're thrilled to announce the opening of our latest show at the Atrium Gallery this Saturday in Partridge Green. We'd love you to join us in celebrating the start of this stunning exhibition. There will be beautiful paintings, talented artists and delicious cakes!
Curated by Emily Ball and featuring the work of five artists, all of whom regularly attend courses at the Seawhite Studio, Figure, sensation & Memory is an exhibition that offers a beautiful and thought-provoking reinterpretation of the figure in paint. As the title suggests, the exhibition is more than just paintings about the human form. Each of the exhibiting artists has concerned themselves with the figure, but the way in which they engage and paint this subject is hugely varied:
Roger Adams’ work is centred on the solitary female figure and the idea that one image can contain many identities.
Sally Barnard was surprised to find wooden Madonnas as her muse, following a visit to St Agnes convent in Prague. After contemplating the women’s varied expressions, she started to paint them, sensing that each Madonna had a story that needed to be told.
Liz Crossfield’s paintings are influenced by her yoga practice and are concerned with capturing the breath in paint. For her, the figure is about a reconnection between body and breath and a reawakening of the senses.
Memory lies at the core of Netta Jennison’s paintings, inspired by a family heirloom, the Norwegian national dress that has been worn by four generations of women in her family. The figure she depicts wearing the dress tells a story of traces; of the past and of belonging.
Carolyn MacLeod uses her camera as a drawing tool to find images of people that intrigue her. She places equal emphasis on the figure as she does colour and pattern, each element becoming a means through which the process of painting can be explored.
Figure, Sensation & Memory is not only about taking a refreshing look at a timeless subject, it is also an opportunity to get up close with artworks that are about the process of painting itself. What motivates these artists is a delight in discovering how they can create their own visual language in paint. The passion and confidence with which they approach their work has resulted in paintings that are a visual treat bursting with energy and beauty.
Figure, Sensation & Memory opens tomorrow (10am -4pm) at the Atrium Gallery, Seawhite of Brighton, Star Road Trading Estate, Partridge Green, West Sussex RH13 8RY.
We look forward to welcoming you to the gallery on Saturday, but for a sneak preview, take a look at the online gallery at the studio website.
www.emilyballatseawhite.co.uk | contact |
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NORTH PHOENIX HOMES
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Systemic Diseases
What is Aneurysm: Causes, Types, Symptoms, Treatment, Survival Rate
What is Aneurysm?
An individual develops an Aneurysm when the walls of the artery become weak resulting in formation of an abnormally large bulge. The bulge may become so large that it can rupture and result in internal bleeding. Aneurysm can occur in any part of the body but it is mostly seen in brain, aorta, legs, and spleen. Rupture of an Aneurysm is quite dangerous and can lead to life threatening complications and prompt treatment is required in such cases.
What are the Causes of Aneurysm?
The exact etiology as to why an Aneurysm occurs is still not clear but there are certain factors which tend to contribute to the development of Aneurysm. A damaged tissue in the artery may play a role in the development of an Aneurysm. Fatty deposits blocking the arteries may also result in formation of an Aneurysm as these blockages require heart to pump in more harder than normal so that blood can pass through these blocked arteries and this can damage the arteries significantly. There are also certain medical conditions which can cause Aneurysm. These conditions are:
Aneurysm Caused Due to Atherosclerotic Disease: This is a condition in which there is a build up of plaque in the arteries which damages the arteries and can result in formation of an Aneurysm.
Hypertension: Persistent and untreated hypertension tends to weaken the vessels and arteries and thus with time may result in formation of an Aneurysm.
What are the Different Types of Aneurysm?
There are different types of Aneurysm depending on the location on where they are formed. These types of Aneurysm are:
Aortic Aneurysm: The aorta is the largest blood vessel in the body which begins in the left ventricle of the heart and traverses to the abdomen where it splits into both legs. Because of its sheer size, it is quite a common site for Aneurysm to occur. If an Aneurysm develops in the chest cavity then it is called as thoracic aortic aneurysms. Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms are the most common type of Aneurysms.
Brain or Cerebral Aneurysm: This is by far the most dangerous of all Aneurysms. The size of a brain aneurysm can be variable. These often form in the blood vessels which are located deep in the brain and are basically asymptomatic. An individual may not even know whether he or she has a brain aneurysm.
Splenic Aneurysm: When an Aneurysm is formed in the spleen then it is called as splenic aneurysm.
What are the Symptoms of Aneurysm?
The symptoms of Aneurysm are variable and depend on the location of the Aneurysm. Aneurysm basically remains asymptomatic until they grow large enough and rupture. Symptoms of a ruptured Aneurysm are:
Increased heart rate
Dizziness and lightheadedness.
How is Aneurysm Diagnosed?
The most common ways to diagnose an Aneurysm is through radiological studies in the form of a CT scan or an MRI. These images will clearly show blockages in the arteries where an Aneurysm is suspected.
How is Aneurysm Treated?
Treatment for Aneurysm depends on the location of the Aneurysm. An area of a vessel in the chest or abdomen where there is an Aneurysm might require a surgical procedure called endovascular stent graft. This is a minimally invasive procedure which repairs the damaged vessels and arteries and reduces the risk of infection, scarring, and other problems. Some of the other more conservative approaches to treating Aneurysm include medications to treat hypertension and hypercholesterolemia. If these things are controlled then the chances of the Aneurysm rupturing is very less.
How Can Aneurysm be Prevented?
Practicing a healthy lifestyle and eating a balanced diet is the key to prevent formation of any type of Aneurysm. Diet which is low in fat and cholesterol is also beneficial. You should exercise regularly or at least walk for 30 minutes daily and stay fit so that there is healthy blood circulation and the chances of plaques developing becomes less and less. Stay away from smoking and alcoholic beverages as much as possible.
What is the Survival Rate for Aneurysm?
An individual with an Aneurysm is safe as long as it does not rupture. The consequence of an Aneurysm rupturing is catastrophic, especially if the Aneurysm is in the brain which can be fatal. A ruptured Aneurysm in the brain can lead to severe mental damage, paralysis or even death. The prognosis for an individual with a ruptured aneurysm depends on several factors to include:
Age of the individual
The location and extent of the Aneurysm
Overall general health of the individual
Neurological status after rupture of the Aneurysm.
While some patients are not able to survive an Aneurysm rupture there are cases where individuals have recovered completely even after a rupture of an Aneurysm.
Last Modified On: April 6, 2018
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Aneurysm or Aneurism: Types, Pathophysiology, Causes, Symptoms, Treatment, Prognosis
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Vasculitis: Symptoms, Types, Causes, Treatment, Complications, Diagnosis
Cutaneous Vasculitis: Causes, Signs, Symptoms, Treatment, Prognosis, Epidemiology
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Taper & Floater Salary
in London, United Kingdom
£36,653 (GBP)
£18/hr
/ United Kingdom
/ London
The average pay for a Taper & Floater is £36,653 a year and £18 an hour in London, United Kingdom. The average salary range for a Taper & Floater is between £27,220 and £44,522. This compensation analysis is based on salary survey data collected directly from employers and anonymous employees in London, United Kingdom.
Seals joints between plasterboard or other wallboards to prepare wall surface for painting or papering.
Mixes sealing compound by hand or with portable electric mixer, and spreads compound over joints between boards, using trowel, broad knife, or spatula.
About London, United Kingdom
London Cost of Living Score:
Description: London is the capital of and largest city in England and the United Kingdom, with the largest municipal population in the European Union. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile (80 km) estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans. The City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles (2.9 km2) and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow closely its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is also an Inner London borough holding city status...
Taper & Floater Job Listings for London, United Kingdom
Taper & Floater
Baltimore, MD£46k Knoxville, TN£39k Québec City, Canada£48k
Sheetrock Taper£37k Drywall Installer£39k Acoustical Carpenter£44k
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The Miracle of John Updike
Esquire's heartbroken writer-at-large reconsiders the manliness and immortality of a literary icon.
Frank Capri/Getty Hulton Archive
I met my wife through John Updike. I was a freshman at a state college in upstate New York, and one night when I wandered into the study hall in my dormitory I saw a tall blonde reading a paperback book with a drawing of a man wearing a high-school letter jacket on the cover. He carried a basketball under his arm, and his back was to us, and he was sad. That's what I remember. I was a stoner jock who had read nothing except football and boxing magazines and the collected works of Carlos Castaneda, and who had never had any kind of luck with girls. But the sadness of the cover — and the elongated beauty of the girl, exotic in her Scandinavian purity, with winter in her eyes — drew me in, and helped me overcome my shyness. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the man in the letter jacket was sad because he was watching kids play a game he was too old to play himself, because his world had changed and he felt out of place in it. And so I asked my first purely literary question: "Uh, is that a book about basketball or something?" And she didn't laugh. The tall blonde explained that no, it was a book called Rabbit Redux and actually it was a novel by John Updike. But she didn't laugh, and she agreed that the cover was sad because the book was sad, and now, some 32 years later, she sleeps downstairs as I write this, and John Updike, at 76, is dead.
Of course, I read him, as I grew up. How could I not? At the moment I was afforded a glimpse of Rabbit Redux I was also afforded a glimpse of my future wife, and from that single and signal commingling of literary and erotic expectation the rest of my life was set. I began evolving into the kind of writer — and, just as importantly, the kind of reader — who would wind up writing for a men's magazine, and I was obligated to read John Updike just as I was obligated to read Norman Mailer and Philip Roth. I was obligated to read them, that is, not just as writers, but as men — as men who would determine, in turn, what it was possible for a writer to be. These were the men whom poor David Foster Wallace would call the Great Male Narcissists of postwar American fiction, and deride for their supposed phallocentrism, but as a matter of fact I read them for their narcissism, for their phallocentrism, and so did every other aspiring writer I knew. Narcissim? Phallocentrism? These were to writers as corruption was to politicians — these were the writer's due, the tokens of his freedom, what lured guys like me into the game. Indeed, if anything, it was because Updike wasn't narcissistic and phallocentrenic enough that the obligation to read him seemed the least pressing... well, that and the fact that he divvied out his genius in the New Yorker, and if you missed him there one week, surely you could catch him the next.
I remember the first time I read him, actually read him, rather than simply knowing who he was. It was in the late seventies or early eighties, and the New York Times Book Review was doing one of those roundups in which it asked writers to say what they were going to do over the summer. It was pure literary boilerplate, one of those exercises whereby writers deign to solicit the admiration and provoke the envy of mere readers, but it wasn't boilerplate for John Updike — nothing was. He wound up writing of going to the Vineyard, and the release he felt when his bare feet hit the warm sand, and I still remember how he distilled the essence of summer into its "pedal sensations." Pedal sensations! But that's how I wound up reading so much of my Updike, then and now — in those quicksilver moments in which he dignified the literary boilerplate, instead of violating it. Compare that to my first encounters with Mailer and Roth, both of which occurred when I was reading Playboy at a friend's apartment, and not for the articles, either. With Mailer, it was the first blunt and lovely and lonely paragraphs of The Executioner's Song; with Roth, it was a long excerpt from the second of the Zuckerman novels, Zuckerman Unbound, and both had the effect of undoing me, because I couldn't believe that what they were doing on the page could be done — that it was allowed, that it was permitted, that you could get away with it. And for a long time, that's what I thought of as the difference between Updike, the genteel Protestant from small-town Pennsylvania, and the two publicly and privately transgressive Jews to whom he was perhaps unfairly linked: with Updike, you couldn't believe his penetration of minutiae, his animation of the ordinary with the insertion of "pedal sensations"; with Mailer and Roth, you couldn't believe the audacity of the whole enterprise. There just seemed less at stake with Updike, because what was at stake with Mailer and Roth was nothing less than a transmutation of self, and what was at stake with Updike was his role as a celebrant — his ability to continue writing startlingly well-turned sentences on every aspect of American life. Sure, he wrote about cock and cunt; but he lavished lyricism on cock and cunt, and while Mailer inveighed against masturbation like an Old Testament prophet concerned about the dilution of the tribal essence, and Roth turned masturbation into the stuff of comic epic, Updike was the only great American writer whose writing on sex seemed intended as an occasion for masturbation. He was wanton, as a writer, without ever having to come off as wanton, as a man.
And so of the writers that men had to read because they were supposed to know something about being men, Updike, with his boyishly tousled air and boyishly twinkling eyes adorning a face that could have passed for the death mask of a Roman general, seemed the least manly. To be more precise, he seemed the least desperate, the least haunted, the least angry, the least confrontational, the most civilized, the most temperate, the most good-humored, the most healthily productive, and certainly the most interested in being a good citizen, literary and otherwise. There was nothing wrong with him, except for the trace of a stutter only he heard and a little psoriasis, which the sun could cure; if he was more interested in transmuting what he saw and heard and smelled out in the world than he was in transmuting the interiority of self, that's because his self seemed just fine as it was. He was definitely not an Esquire writer, in that respect; the last story I remember him writing for this magazine was published in a Summer Reading Issue at least twenty years ago, and it concerned a man goaded by false rumors of his homosexuality into an acceptance of his homosexuality's factual basis. No, his home was the New Yorker, and he was as chained to that magazine's ordained civilities as much as he was to his own overwhelming fluency. Unlike Mailer, whose increasingly uneven books were events only insofar as their publication forced the great man to go out and once again display himself in public, and unlike Roth, whose increasingly brilliant books became events without that great man having to add so much as another word, Updike's regular publication in the New Yorker was the main event of his writing life. You did not have to contend with the new Updike, the way you had to contend with the new Roth; your obligation to him came with the mail, and so it was less an obligation than an elective.
I had him wrong, though. I always held it against him that he seemed to argue against his own greatness; held it against him that he described himself — disingenuously, I thought — only as "professional writer" or as a "freelancer" of long standing; held it against him that he seemed to look most fondly on his craftsmanship and draftsmanship rather than on his heroic acts of imagination; held it against him until I found myself against all odds a professional writer, a freelancer of long standing, resigned to a certain measure of craftsmanship and draftsmanship. And that's when I resigned myself to the miracle of John Updike. It wasn't simply that he was incessant in his production of underrated poems, increasingly wintry and desolate and affecting short stories, and critical essays that brought to the text the same omnivorous and yet disinterested attention that his novels brought to the American supermarket and highway strip mall; it wasn't even that, for my money, his criticism in the New Yorker made him the literary critic of my lifetime, at least the equal of Edmund Wilson and at least as deserving of eventual canonization in the Library of America. It was that I finally understood how tough he had to be, how hungry and — OK, all right — how freaking manly he had to be to write all those "lyrical" and "filigreed" and "Mandarin" sentences that he was accused of writing. Those sentences were tungsten, man, and could bear an enormous amount of weight. I'd always figured that the writers who deserved immortality were the ones who claimed it most overtly; but Updike went at immortality the only way he knew how, sentence by sentence, and even when his reputation as an imaginative artist began to fade — even when David Foster Wallace, speaking for youth, and James Woods, speaking for standards, spoke of him as a kind of plumed failure; even when his efforts to stay au courant in such later novels as Terrorist earned him another go in the Michiko Kakutani meat-grinder, and an NPR critic's edict that he had written "an old man's novel, without an old man's wisdom"; even when it was clear that if any American writer was going to win the Nobel Prize, it wasn't going to be Updike, with his broad ecumenical interests, but rather Roth, with his narrow, obsessive ones — even then, immortality seemed to be his, because it seemed that he would never stop, so he would never have to worry if his books would outlast him. Somehow, he would outlast them.
I said, earlier on, that he struck me as a mere celebrant, insufficiently haunted. Of course, I have to revise that estimate too. His haunting was sufficient because his celebration was more than sufficient — because his celebration was expansive, all-encompassing, over the top, and carried out on his own lavish and precisely articulated terms. Mortality loomed even in his earliest work, and it wasn't just wistfulness; it was the reluctance of a man to leave the world his sentences brought into being, a man who knew the pleasure of pedal sensations and didn't want to leave them behind. In Rabbit At Rest, the fourth of the Rabbit novels, which came 15 years after I caught my wife in the act of reading the second, he gave us two set pieces of a mundane man facing the miraculous horror of his own end as indelible as any in our literature. In the first, Rabbit endures a heart attack swimming in the ocean with his granddaughter; in the second, he goes down doing something he knows he shouldn't do — playing basketball, natch — and Updike, never as kind to his characters as he was to his interviewers, finishes him off. The last sentence: "Enough." To which we, his grateful and heartbroken readers, can only add the word he'd led us to believe:
"Never."
BENJAMIN PERCY: Rabbit Remembered
UPDIKE'S LAST ESQUIRE STORY: "Oliver's Evolution," Now Available Online
LATE UPDIKE FICTION: "The Rumor," Now Available Online
DAILY ENDORSEMENT: Sex Writing that Makes Updike Read Like Updike
LIST: Rabbit, Run Makes Esquire's 75 Greatest Books
REVIEW: Villages
REVIEW: Terrorist
The Best New Restaurants 2013
The New Religion of Global Warming
The Man Who Literally Built 'Star Wars'
Style Don'ts On Display in New Dumb and Dumber To Movie Poster
Why Taylor Swift Welcomed You to New York
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Novel basic science tip sheet
Abstract 15898 (Hall A2, Core 2)
Diet high in flavonoids may help counteract pollution-related heart risk
A diet high in plant flavonoids may help people vulnerable to heart risk when they inhale fine particles in smoke and hazy polluted air, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.
Flavonoids are anti-inflammatory nutrients found in vegetables, fruits, chocolate and wine.
During an 11-year follow-up of 573 elderly men, heart rate variability -- a predictor of heart attacks and heart-related death -- worsened when average fine particle levels rose for 48 hours. The association was exacerbated in men with a stronger suppressive regulation of a protein, called toll-like receptor 2, which detects foreign substances and pass on signals to the immune system.
However, the association between heart rate variability and pollution levels and the immune response were far weaker in men who consumed high levels of flavonoids in their diets.
Flavonoids may help protect against pollution-related heart risk by helping regulate the body's immune system response, researchers said.
Jia Zhong, M.S., student at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
Actual presentation is 9:30 a.m. CT/10:30 a.m. ET, Monday, Nov. 17, 2014.
Low-cost vaccine lowers bad cholesterol in animal studies
A low-cost vaccine safely lowered levels of bad cholesterol in animal studies -- raising the possibility for an easier and more accessible way to control cholesterol in humans, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.
The vaccine targets PCSK9, an enzyme that degrades a receptor carrying low density lipoprotein (LDL, bad cholesterol) cholesterol. As receptor levels decrease, more LDL cholesterol circulates in the bloodstream. So a vaccine that inhibits the action of PCSK9 would lower levels of LDL cholesterol in the blood and its related heart disease risk.
Researchers used a virus-like-particle vaccine (VLP), a non-infectious, safe method to create a strong immune response -- in this case against the part of PCSK9 that attaches to the LDL cholesterol receptor. Researchers found:
In 20 mice, the vaccine reduced total cholesterol by more than 30 percent.
In three rhesus monkeys, vaccination lowered total cholesterol 14.2 percent and LDL cholesterol 28.4 percent by six weeks compared to controls vaccinated with VLPs not conjugated to a peptide.
No adverse effects occurred in either species.
Marcelo Amar, M.D., study lead author, staff clinician in the Lipoprotein Metabolism Section of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland;
Alan T. Remaley, M.D., Ph.D., study senior investigator, Lipoprotein Metabolism Section, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
Actual presentation is 9:30 a.m. CT/10:30 a.m. ET, Monday, November 17, 2014.
For more on PCSK9 research see:
ODYSSEY ALTERNATIVE, LBCT.02, Abstract 20758, Monday, November 17, 2014, 11:29 a.m. - 11:39 a.m.
Clinical Science: Special Reports Session 5: Results of ODYSSEY; Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 7:15 a.m. - 8:20 a.m.
Abstract 11789 (Room S102d, Core 3)
Stem cells may benefit infants after surgery for rare heart defect
It appears feasible and safe to give babies an infusion of their stem cells after surgery to correct an incompletely formed heart, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.
The study involved 14 children who had undergone two or three palliative surgeries for hypoplastic left heart syndrome to redirect blood flow and allow the right side of the heart to take over the pumping function of the left side.
One month after the procedures, seven of the participants received an infusion of their heart stem cells obtained from cardiac tissue during the operation and grown to cluster in spherical structures (cardiosphere-derived cells).
Children who received the infusions suffered no complications, deaths, abnormal heart rhythms or tumors during the 18-month follow-up. They also had greater improvement in the heart's pumping power, better weight gain and less heart failure than children treated with standard surgery alone.
A phase-2 clinical trial to test the efficacy of the treatment is underway.
Shuta Ishigami, M.D., Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Okayama University Hospital; Okayama, Japan
Actual presentation is 10 a.m. CT/11 a.m. ET, Monday, Nov. 17, 2014.
Available multimedia resources (photos/videos/graphics) are available on the right column of the release link http://newsroom.heart.org/news/novel-basic-science-tip-sheet-2775522?preview=6fa0146a3bba2a3cd2b6e7c4027f576e
For more news from AHA's Scientific Sessions, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #AHA14
Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at http://www.heart.org/corporatefunding.
AHA News Media in Dallas: (214) 706-1173
AHA News Media Office, Nov. 15-19,
at the McCormick Place Convention Center: (312) 949-3400
For Public Inquiries: (800) AHA-USA1 (242-8721)
heart.org and strokeassociation.org
Life is why we fund scientific breakthroughs that save and improve lives.
Karen Astle
karen.astle@heart.org
@HeartNews
American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014
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Me and my world: The human factor in space -- NASA 1-year mission video miniseries
NASA/Johnson Space Center
IMAGE: This is a view of crew quarters on the International Space Station. view more
The world around us is defined by how we interact with it. But what if our world was out of this world? As part of NASA's One-Year Mission, researchers are studying how astronauts interact with the "world" around them. To prepare for a future journey to Mars, it is important to understand the effects spaceflight can have on crewmembers' fine motor skills and how they interact with their habitat.
As missions go further from Earth, astronauts will depend less on mission control for real-time information. Interactions between crewmembers and their equipment will need to be simplified so they will be able to react quickly without constant help from Earth. A roundtrip journey to Mars that is millions of miles away from Earth could take about three years.
Two Human Research Program investigations are being conducted to learn more about microgravity effects on fine motor performance and how astronauts interact with the International Space Station environment. The study of human factors is an important component of NASA's One-Year Mission to ensure astronauts will have adequate working and living quarters on long-duration missions. As a part of that research, NASA is learning more about human-computer interaction, the use of touchscreens, and how being in space may affect one's ability to use these types of essential technologies. Fine motor skills are crucial for successfully landing a space vehicle on a planetary surface, repairing sensitive equipment, manipulating a robotic arm, providing medical treatment and a variety of other tasks.
The Fine Motor Skills investigation will determine the effects of long-duration weightlessness on fine motor performance by using a touchscreen tablet computer and software that measures fine motor function. The software utilizes a test battery of four tasks which examines speed/response time and accuracy. It evaluates pointing, dragging, pinch-rotating, and tracing.
Patients on Earth undergoing rehabilitation for conditions that impair fine motor control could benefit from the tasks developed for this investigation. The test battery could serve as a rehabilitation tool for people with fine motor deficits such as brain injuries and Parkinson's disease.
For crew members on long-duration space missions, a spacecraft is their only home and work space, so cabin designs must balance comfort and efficiency. By evaluating humans performing normal activities in a not-so-normal environment, data can be obtained to influence the design of future space vehicles, habitats, equipment, tools, tests and processes.
The Habitability investigation will determine how livable the space station is with crew members' observations in periodic questionnaires, crew-collected video footage and videos of key areas of the orbiting complex. Up to six crewmembers report observations using an iPad application called iSHORT (Space Habitability Observation Reporting Tool) which captures the ways crewmembers live and work in microgravity, and how their interactions with their environment might require different layouts, additional space, or other alterations to future manned space vehicles.
Habitability investigation results may also apply to workers on Earth who live and work in confined spaces over a long-duration with limited space and resources in remote locations such as ocean drilling rigs, polar research stations and mines. This investigation also could lead to better designs of automobiles, simpler exercise equipment, and other ways to make life less complicated.
NASA's Human Research Program enables space exploration beyond low Earth orbit by reducing the risks to human health and performance through a focused program of basic, applied and operational research. This leads to the development and delivery of: human health, performance, and habitability standards; countermeasures and risk mitigation solutions; and advanced habitability and medical support technologies for a more compatible world wherever we explore.
Amy Blanchett
amy.d.blanchett@nasa.gov
@NASA_Johnson
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home
DECISION-MAKING/PROBLEM SOLVING
MEMORY/COGNITIVE PROCESSES
SATELLITE MISSIONS/SHUTTLES
SPACE/PLANETARY SCIENCE
Me and My World: The Human Factor in Space (IMAGE)
http://www.nasa.gov/content/me-and-my-world-the-human-factor-in-space-one-year-mission-video-miniseries
More in Space & Planetary
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China's plans to solve the mysteries of the moon Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Red wine's resveratrol could help Mars explorers stay strong, says Harvard study Frontiers
Supernova observation first of its kind using NASA satellite Ohio State University
View all in Space & Planetary
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Apr 30, 2015 by Ingrid Evans | Share
Securities and Exchange Commission Announces $1.5 Million Whistleblower Award
The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced that it will pay an unidentified whistleblower, a compliance officer, an award of about $1.5 million. This is the second whistleblower award given to an employee with internal audit or compliance responsibilities, after $300,000 was awarded to a compliance officer in August 2014.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the compliance officer who received the award “had a reasonable basis to believe that disclosure to the SEC was necessary to prevent imminent misconduct from causing substantial financial harm to the company or investors.” Neither the whistleblower nor the company has been identified, in an effort to protect whistleblowers and encourage them to report fraudulent activity to the Securities and Exchange Commission. By law, the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot disclose the identity of the whistleblower or any identifying information.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Whistleblower Program was set up in 2011 with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Since then, the commission has paid upwards of $50 million to 16 different whistleblowers who provided the SEC with information that contributed to a successful enforcement action of securities law violations.
Whistleblower awards can range from 10 percent to 30 percent of the money collected in a successful enforcement action with sanctions exceeding $1 million. Awards are generally given only to the first whistleblower to file, and the amount is at the discretion of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The whistleblower must provide original information, which the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Law defines as “derived from the independent knowledge or analysis of a whistleblower,” “not known to the SEC other than by the whistleblower as the original source of the information,” and “not exclusively derived from an allegation made in a judicial or administrative hearing, in a government report, hearing, audit, or investigation, or from the news media, unless a whistleblower is the source of the information.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission encourages potential whistleblowers to retain an attorney to help evaluate the information in your possession, increase your chances of receiving and maximizing a whistleblower reward, help protect your anonymity, and aid in filing your claim.
Evans Law Firm, Inc. handles whistleblower and qui tam (False Claims Act) lawsuits, as well as securities fraud cases. If you have a potential whistleblower claim, please contact Evans Law Firm, Inc. at 415-441-8669 or via email at info@evanslaw.com.
"I highly recommend Ingrid Evans! She is whip-smart and aggressive, but still client-centered and compassionate."
By: Jackie Ravenscroft
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San Antonio police detective fired after he’s accused of making deadly threats to estranged girlfriend: ‘I will end you’
Emilie Eaton July 12, 2019 Updated: July 12, 2019 8:15 p.m.
San Antonio Police investigate a shooting at an East Side neighborhood on April 28, 2010. Police said Dominique Smith, 20, was shot by two San Antonio police officers after he refused to show his hands, which were tucked in the pockets of his sweatshirt. The officers were put on administrative leave, as per police department policy, and were later returned to the force. One of the two officers who shot Smith, Emanuel Keith Jr., was fired in June after he was accused of sending his estranged girlfriend a slew of profanity-laced text messages and voicemails, threatening to kill her.
Photo: San Antonio Express-News file photo
A San Antonio police detective who had been on the force for 25 years was fired after police say he sent his estranged girlfriend a slew of profanity-laced text messages and voicemails threatening to kill her, according to records released Friday.
Detective Emanuel Keith Jr., 51, denied the allegations and has appealed his indefinite suspension, which is tantamount to a firing. He has requested a hearing before an independent arbitrator, seeking to be reinstated to the force, likely with full back pay and benefits.
According to the suspension records from June, Keith sent a series of text messages and voicemails on May 18 to his estranged girlfriend, Frances Pittman-Gaytan. Police investigators became aware of the texts after Pittman-Gaytan reported them to the Special Victims Unit, which handles sexual assault and family violence cases.
“I’m so freaking pist (sic),” Keith wrote in one text, according to the records. “I’m going to end you.”
Later, police say he called Pittman-Gaytan and left several voicemails.
“Your whole world is going to blow apart,” he said, according to the records. “I could just string you up and shake the life out of you ... I could really choke the life out of you.”
On ExpressNews.com: Town hall focuses on increasing domestic violence in San Antonio
During the course of the investigation, Pittman-Gaytan decided not to pursue a complaint against Keith, but police still found he had violated administrative rules by bringing “reproach or discredit” on himself and the department.
His firing in June comes as city and county officials grapple with an uptick in family violence. Last year, at least 29 people in Bexar County died because of family violence, many of them women slain by their male partners.
The Texas Council on Family Violence, an advocacy group, estimates that Bexar County had the highest rate of intimate partner fatalities in Texas in 2017.
The San Antonio Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff’s Office have sought to weed out police officers accused of domestic violence.
In August, Police Chief William McManus fired a police officer accused of striking his then-fiance with a rock, fracturing her face in three places. Officer Justin Ayars, 29, denied the allegations and is seeking to be reinstated with full back pay and benefits.
In some cases, the accused police officers faced criminal charges.
Detective Daniel Pue, an 11-year veteran of the police department’s Repeat Offenders Unit, was arrested in January and charged with assault causing bodily injury after police say he punched his ex-girlfriend in the face, leaving her bleeding. Officer Nicole Muniz, a three-year veteran of the force, was arrested in April after she allegedly attacked her boyfriend’s lover. She was charged with assault — dating/family violence.
This is not the first time Keith has been in the public eye. At least five times, he has used force on suspects who were accused of endangering police officers — including one instance when he and another officer shot and killed an unarmed 20-year-old man.
The first incident occurred in September 2001 after police say a suspected car thief lunged at Keith with a screwdriver. Keith, who had been with the department for seven years at that point, fired at the man twice, hitting him in the chest and upper leg. He was transported to the hospital in critical condition. It is unknown whether the man survived.
On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio police kill man in East Side neghborhood
Most recently, in April 2010, Keith and another officer shot and killed 20-year-old Dominique Smith after police say he refused to show his hands, which were in the front pockets of his sweatshirt, and “aggressively charged” at officers.
After police did not find a weapon at the scene, Smith’s family questioned why Keith and the other officer needed to use force. Keith was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, as per normal departmental policy, and later returned to the force.
Karl Brehm, a union lawyer representing Keith, said Friday that the suspension records involving the domestic violence allegations provided by the police department are one-sided.
“The Chief’s letter paints an incomplete picture,” Brehm said. “Detective Keith was provoked into the response that led to his termination.”
Brehm said Keith, who was assigned to the Vice Unit, was a good officer who had only received minor discipline actions until he was fired in June. He said any prior discipline issues weren’t cited in Chief William McManus’ decision to fire Keith.
Keith was one of six San Antonio police officers who received some sort of suspension in June. Most were cited for minor administrative infractions. There are more than 2,000 police officers on the force.
Emilie Eaton is a criminal justice reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eeaton@express-news.net | Twitter: @emilieeaton
Emilie Eaton
Follow Emilie on:
emilieeaton
Emilie Eaton is a criminal justice enterprise reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, delving into homicides, police-community relations, officer-involved shootings, capital punishment and officer misconduct. Previously, Emilie worked for two years at The Cincinnati Enquirer covering child poverty, business and breaking news.
Her work has been honored in the Hearst National Journalism Awards and the Society of Professional Journalist’s Region 11 Awards, among others. In 2015, she was one of 30 students, out of 1,150 nationally, selected to participate in the Hearst 55th Annual National Journalism Awards Championship. Her work has been published by USA Today, NBCNews.com and The Center for Public Integrity, among others.
A native Californian, Emilie attended the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University, where she graduated magna cum laude and was the school's commencement speaker.
After discovery of skull and bones, friends of missing San Antonio woman express hope, shock
Bexar County will stop prosecuting some pot cases
Starting Monday, people caught with small amounts of pot in San Antonio won’t have to go to jail
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Tickets on sale to members only for Champions League quarter final against Atlético Madrid at Vicente Calderón
Applications for the 1,796 tickets allocated to FC Barcelona close on Tuesday 21 at 7.00pm CET – all tickets to be printed with holder’s name and are non-transferable
11:00PM Sunday 20 Mar
Members wishing to attend the Champions League quarter final between FC Barcelona and Atlético Madrid at the Vicente Calderón on April 13 can apply for tickets until tomorrow Tuesday at 7.00pm CET: Note that these tickets are personal and non-transferable and can only be purchased by club members.
The tickets will be printed with the holders name on them, and Atlético Madrid has confirmed that it will be checking the identity of supporters on entry. Supporters are advised to arrive at the stadium in good time to make allowances for these controls.
Members will find a ticket application form in the Members section of the official website (www.fcbarcelona.com). Only one ticket is allowed per person, but up to four members may apply on the same form to ensure that they can travel together.
FC Barcelona has been allocated 2,642 tickets for the game, all of which sell for 85 euros. As usual, 85% of these tickets are allocated to members (1,796) and supporters clubs (450), while the remainder are used by the club for institutional and sponsorship purposes.
If there are more applications than tickets, then a draw shall be held before a notary to determine the definitive distribution. FC Barcelona shall also be offering special-price transport options, the details of which will be announced on Tuesday.
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WhatsApp Confirms Cyber Attack Due To Security Flaw
Harold Mathews May 15, 2019
WhatsApp which is owned by Facebook and has more than 1.5 billion users globally said that there was a ‘targeted’ surveillance attack on some of its users. The company confirmed the attack and said that a ‘select number’ of users were targeted and was done by an ‘advanced cyber actor.’ WhatsApp has advised all its users to update the apps with the fix that they did as a precaution.
As per reports from a leading news source, the software was developed by an Israel company called the NSO group which is a security firm. The software which is called the Pegasus can capture location information, collect personal data from the phone’s camera and microphone. The company issued a statement saying that the NSO group’s technology is only used for fighting criminal activities and is an authorized agency with a proper license in place. It further added that only the law enforcement agencies operate it and cannot be used to target by the company on its own to target anyone. The statement also read that any misuse will be investigated and if needed the system will be shut down. But it has been seen that NSO’s spyware has been deployed on human right activists, lawyers, etc. and court cases are pending against the company in Israel court.
The WhatsApp calling function was used by the cyber attackers to call the target device, even if the phone call is not picked the app gets installed. Another interesting thing about the software is that the call does not appear in the logs which means that the target is completely unaware. WhatsApp which identified the flaw in their security said that it was due to a buffer overflow in its VOIP stack that allowed the remote execution of installation on the target phone.
WhatsApp said that the attacks were highly targeted and there have been reports that many users which include human rights organizations and a lawyer from the UK have been attacked exploiting the security flaw and attempt to hack the phone’s OS. A Citizen Lab at Toronto University said that an attack was made and was blocked. Amnesty International was another group which confirmed that the tools created by NSO group had targeted them and also said that the human right groups had been anticipating this for a while now.
US-China Trade Talks In A Stalemate: Asian Shares Fall
Adverse Effect Of Soda Tax In Philadelphia
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History / Culture
The Dictionary Wars
The American Fight over the English Language
Princeton University Press (May 28, 2019)
Nationalism and patriotism are not unfamiliar substances in America’s bloodstream. As Peter Martin’s The Dictionary Wars illustrates, such fervor extended into heated debates over English language usage.
In its infancy, the United States sought to establish its own identity separate from that of Great Britain, not only politically and philosophically but also philologically. Enter Noah Webster, a fiercely patriotic lexicographer determined to rid his fledgling nation’s language of all British influence. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary had been the standard for years, but Webster, perhaps egotistically, assumed the mantle of America’s lexicographical savior.
This mission proved to be difficult, and to Webster’s dismay, there was much resistance to the radical changes he wanted to institute. Rival American dictionaries and schoolroom spellers still leaned upon British orthography and pronunciation. American and British authors and scholars were particularly partial to Joseph E. Worcester—a quiet, Harvard-educated lexicographer who found himself embroiled in mudslinging he did not want. The entry of Charles and George Merriam into the fray only increased the newspaper-and-pamphlet-driven vitriol until, well after Webster’s death, the shrewd brothers finally emerged victorious, never mind the literary and academic carcasses in their wake.
The book’s potentially dry material is vivified by engaging, sometimes dramatic prose, and the complex tangle of rivalries and relationships is fascinating. Discussions on lexicography are technical without being abstruse, and they balance well with the biographical details. Historically informative, the book is also an opportunity for American self-reflection. Substitute “internet” or “social media” for “newspapers” or “pamphlets,” and several passages of The Dictionary Wars could have been pulled from some modern-day editorial or blog lamenting the destruction of public discourse. There is, after all, nothing new under the sun.
With an impressive breadth of research, The Dictionary Wars invites contemplation of the ways in which language itself can affect the soul of a nation.
Reviewed by Meagan Logsdon
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the author for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
The Bad Sixties
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Bike Share Program Begins in St. Pe...
Bike Share Program Begins in St. Petersburg: Is Our City Ready For This?
Staff | Accident and Injury | Nov 3, 2016
This week marks the beginning of St. Petersburg’s first bike share program. The Coast Bike Share Program, which also operates in Tampa, has launched a demo of 100 bikes in several hubs throughout the city with plans to expand if the demo is successful. But is St. Petersburg, a city known for its frequent car accidents involving cyclists, ready for this program?
Coast Bike Share Program’s Goals
Coast claims their bike share program will improve the quality of life for downtown St. Pete and surrounding neighborhoods, improve residents’ health, and stimulate economic development. The program is also part of an attempt by the city to alleviate Tampa Bay’s traffic.
St. Pete’s downtown culture is continuing to grow rapidly as more bars, coffee shops, and restaurants open up in the neighborhood. Bike sharing has been proposed as both a way for young people to get around downtown and frequent these businesses and a potential solution to growing traffic concerns, especially for those traveling between Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Can Bike Sharing Reduce Traffic and Accidents in Tampa?
A membership in Coast’s bike share program, which costs $79 annually or $8 per hour at a pay as you go rate, would apply both in St. Pete and in Tampa. And now that the new Tampa High Speed ferry runs between the two cities, a resident has the potential to enjoy both downtown areas without having to deal with rough Tampa Bay area traffic.
The traffic in the Tampa metro area is truly astounding during rush hour, and it can be partially attributed to the area’s unfortunate statistic of having one of the highest rates of fatal car accidents in the country, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By even partially reducing this heavy traffic in St. Petersburg and Tampa, there is the potential for injurious car accidents to be prevented and lives to be saved. And there is a precedent of bike sharing infrastructure reducing traffic. In a study by Resources for the Future that analyzed the impact of bike sharing on Washington D.C., a city that is known for its bad traffic, research showed that the the bike-share stations reduced congestion in the surrounding areas by two to three percent.
Critics of St. Pete’s Bike Share Program
But some in St. Petersburg are hesitant to engage in the bike share program, as they feel it does not safely fit with St. Petersburg infrastructure, which some consider hostile towards cyclists.
“You can’t just go to places like Martha’s Vineyard or Washington D.C. and enviously copy their ideas because they’re seem cool there,” said one commenter on a report by the Tampa Bay Times. Another commenter expressed their worries of getting run over by someone who was “texting and driving.”
St. Pete: Car-Centric or Bicyclist Friendly?
These concerns certainly have some basis, given Florida’s general reputation of having the highest rate of bicycling deaths in the nation — 0.57 per 100,000 people, more than double the nationwide rate of 0.23 per 100,000 — according to a 2015 report by the CDC. Worse yet, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties are two of the most dangerous counties in our state for cyclists, a fact that bicycle safety advocates desperately want to change.
“I am filled with fear and anxiety that I’m going to survive my bike ride”, said Christine Acosta, director of Walk Bike Tampa, to WTSP. “We live in a car-centric community. We need trails. We need protected bike lanes. A 4-inch wide strip of paint is not sufficient protection for humans.”
So is St. Petersburg, with its growing downtown culture, ready for this new bike share program? Or will the existing infrastructure, along with attitudes about whether a bicycle deserves space on the road, prove too dangerous for those who want to cycle St. Pete’s streets? That will have to be seen in the coming months as people try the Coast Bike Share Program.
Bike Accidents: A Serious Concern
Regardless of the success of St. Petersburg’s new bike share program, car accidents involving bicyclists will remain a concern in the Tampa Bay area. If you or someone you love has been hurt in a car accident caused by the negligence of another driver, whether you were traveling by foot, bike, or car, you don’t have to stand for it.
Read more to learn how our car accident attorneys in St. Petersburg can deal with the insurance company on your behalf and fight to get you the compensation you deserve following your accident. If you are ready to pursue a claim, fill out our free, no-risk case evaluation form today.
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by wpengine on February 14, 2015
Cobh – The Last Port Of Call For The Titanic
In August 2005 I visited Cork with the intention of photographing the City as well as the town of Cobh but it rained from the minute I arrived in Cork and it was so heavy that I could not use my camera so I gave up and went home after two days.
This week I decided to revisit Cork and Cobh and of course it rained from the minute that I arrived and it is still raining. Anyway I was better prepared this time and managed to take some photographs but some are a bit blurred (especially those taken on Fota Park) because of the constant rain. I also visited Midleton but upon my arrival in the town there was flash flooding.
Cobh is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour. Facing the town are Spike Island and Haulbowline Island. On a high point in the town stands Cobh (St Colman’s) Cathedral, one of the tallest buildings in Ireland and seat of the diocese of Cloyne.
One of the major transatlantic Irish ports, Cobh was the departure point for 2.5 million of the six million Irish people who emigrated to North America between 1848 and 1950. On 11 April 1912 Queenstown was the final port of call for the RMS Titanic as she set out across the Atlantic on her ill-fated maiden voyage. She was assisted by the PS America and PS Ireland, two aging White Star Line tenders, along with several other smaller boats delivering first-class luggage. Local lore has it that a Titanic crew member John Coffey, a native of Queenstown, jumped ship although there is no record of him on the crew list. 123 passengers boarded in all; only 44 survived the sinking.
Cobh was also a major embarkation port for men, women and children who were deported to penal colonies such as Australia. The records of such deportations can be found in the ship log books in the Cobh Museum, which since 1973 is housed in Scots church (Presbyterian church until 1969 closure) overlooking the harbour.
Due to its maritime advantages, a significant shipbuilding industry developed in Cobh and the remnants of the Verolme Shipyard today maintain many of the original cranes and hoists which now form part of the significant industrial and maritime heritage of Cobh which is considered to have major tourism potential.
The age of steam brought famous achievements to Cobh, most notably the first steam ship to sail from Ireland to England (1821) and the first steam ship to cross the Atlantic (Sirius 1838) which left from Passage West. In 1849 the name of the town was changed to Queenstown to honour Queen Victoria who visited Ireland in that year.
Several other notable ships are associated with the town, including:
The Cunard passenger liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat off the Old Head of Kinsale while en route to Liverpool on May 7, 1915. 1198 passengers died, while 700 were rescued. The survivors and victims were brought to the town of Cobh, and over one hundred lie buried in the Old Church Cemetery just north of the town. The Lusitania Peace memorial is located in Casement Square opposite the arched building housing the Cobh Library and Courthouse.
Filed Under: Cork City And County Tagged With: 'Titanic, call, Cobh, Last, Port
by wpengine on February 6, 2015
by wpengine on January 26, 2015
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Head to the Opera House for a Greatest Showman special
Hugh Jackman in The Greatest Showman
Published: 13:40 Monday 06 August 2018
It’s been the year’s break out movie success, and now Blackpool Opera House is aset to Come Alive with the sounds of The Greatest Showman.
The venue has announced The Greatest Showman Sing-A-Long for Saturday, August 25, with tickets on sale tomorrow.
With favourite tracks from the soundtrack including The Greatest Show, A Million Dreams, Never Enough and the smash hit This Is Me.
A spokesman said: “The world is singing along with the most entertaining movie of the year and now you can too with this special sing-a-long screening of The Greatest Showman, the Golden Globe winner for Best Original Song.
“The Greatest Showman is a bold and original musical that celebrates the birth of show business and the sense of wonder we feel when dreams come to life.
“Inspired by the ambition and imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman tells the story of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a mesmerizing spectacle.
“The Greatest Showman is directed by exciting new filmmaker, Michael Gracey, with songs by Academy Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin and starring Academy Award nominee Hugh Jackman. Jackman is joined by Zac Efron, Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson and Zendaya.
“It’s your time to shine – have fun, sing loud and ‘Come Alive’. It’s show time.”
Originally opened as a theatre and super cinema in 1939, the ability to screen films returned to the Opera House Blackpool in 2014 and now boasts one of the North West’s biggest screens.
Book online at www.wintergardensblack pool.co.uk from 11am.
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Games for Linux
by Martin Brinkmann on April 12, 2006 in Games - Last Update: May 04, 2013 - 1 comment
Linux has a bad image when it comes to gaming. Most games are developed for Windows, and Linux versions of games are rarely released even though it happens from time to time. The site games for linux lists many games that are available for free for the Linux operating system. Every game has a screenshot and some basic information like size and website of the creator included.
Games are rated by users of the site which can help you get a better first impression of the quality of games listed here. Unfortunately though, the website fails to mention how many users have voted for a game so that it may happen that a highly rated game is not as good as the rating makes it look like.
The site has indexed more than 150 games already and more are added on a regular basis. Make sure you check the site out if you are running Linux and like to play a game every now and then.
Update: The site has not been updated in the last years, but another site has come up to fill the void. Linux Games offers short reviews and news for Linux gamers, usually linking to the resource the game is offered on. You find your usual assortment of game videos, reviews and news on the site.
You can also check out the Linux game database, a site that aims to maintain a complete list of all native Linux games. The frontpage offers news, a top list, and new additions that have been added to the database. A click on All Games opens a listing of all games currently in the site's database. At the time of writing, 1039 games were listed.
Most games are listed with a screenshot, game name, last update time and some even with ratings. You can click on a game to get a detailed description, system requirements and a link to the developer website where the game can be downloaded.
Previous Post: « List of free MMORPG and MMO games
Next Post: Play Bust a Move online »
Games said on June 20, 2010 at 5:45 am
name some games that are specially designed for linux..
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Home > World Regions > Asia Pacific > Understanding choices, shaping citizens
Understanding choices, shaping citizens
How do governments help citizens make better choices? Behavioural insights can help, as Graham Scott discovers
If there’s one thing that can be said with certainty about human beings, it is that they are complex creatures. Yet various human sciences have tried for years to understand them better, and their insights have long been used to shape public policy.
One of the most recent examples of this process is associated with behavioural economics. This combines economics with psychology in an attempt to understand, and more significantly influence, human choices.
Shifting perceptions
Behavioural economics represents a massive shift in our understanding of the human mind. Whereas previously, we were assumed to be rational beings, capable of making well-reasoned choices, this new approach operates with a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which we decide how to act.
To give an example, according to the so-called rational choice theory, if you pointed out to people that smoking kills, they’d stop smoking. As it happens, the failure of this very strategy to reduce smoking is an indication of the limitations of traditional understandings of human behaviour.
In their place has come behavioural economics. Using its insights, government bodies have been able to explore other ways of discouraging people from smoking, such as increasing tax, highlighting the damage to health, or pointing out that it’s not glamorous to smoke.
The benefits of using behavioural economics include the ability to road test campaigns in order to see whether a particular slogan or approach yields the desired results. This means that governments can try a number of strategies out with users, then hone in on the one that proves to be most effective. It’s a much more dynamic approach to policy implementation, meaning that governments can flex in response to citizen behaviour.
Australia is one of many countries exploring this field, with public health as one of the largest battlegrounds.
For example, in a White Paper of February 2014, AIA Australia points to the costs of the country’s three most common Non Communicable Diseases. Obesity, smoking and harmful drinking cost the government around AUS$6bn a year. Moreover, as the 47 per cent rise in obesity between 1995 and 2012 indicates, they are problems that are worsening for the country.
The report points to the irrationality of many consumers who can’t make objective, weighted decisions about their wellbeing, such as stopping smoking or reducing their calorific intake for the sake of their health.
To counter this, the report suggests that “nudges” like financial incentives provide a way to change behaviour. This will be the case, the authors argue, particularly if the incentive is small, frequently provided and delivered soon after the activity the government is seeking to discourage.
These nudges can be taken further. In ‘Influencing Consumer Behaviour: Improving Regulatory Design’, the Australian Government’s Department of Finance and Deregulation gives three categories of intervention:
Pure Nudge: This often simple nudge changes the choice architecture facing decision makers, which can have a significant impact on their responses. An example is pre-filling Australian Tax Office forms, so that a citizen’s information is already partly in place when they receive it. That makes it easier, and quicker, for them to complete.
Assisted Nudge: This involves regulating firms to change their choice architecture, thus limiting the choices available to consumers. For example, a government might require businesses to disclose certain information in a certain way on packaging or in their advertising. This information would then influence consumers’ buying decisions, either to drive sales or discourage them.
Shove: As the name implies, this is more of a direct intervention, regulating both businesses and consumers. A high-profile example is banning smoking from both public and commercial premises.
Exploring the limits
At first glance nudge seems like a simple way to influence the public benignly, and there looks to be a strong case to make more widespread use of it in shaping and implementing policy.
While many governments have already started down this track, there is a note of caution to be sounded.
As Nick Chater, a psychologist at Warwick Business School, says: “The brain is the most rational thing in the universe. But the way it solves problems is ad hoc and very local.” In other words, any general laws of human behaviour can only be a rough guide, whether they are born from behavioural economics or some other human science.
A corollary of this insight is that legislators and behavioural economists carry their own prejudices and irrationalities, which influence the theories and policy recommendations they put forward. So the potential for bias needs to be factored in before any policy intervention is pursued on the basis of nudge or related understandings of human decision making – not least because the risk of bias is something that behavioural economics itself clearly identifies.
Ultimately, we’re all humans, and even behavioural economists are not immune from bouts of irrationality. To give an example, consider the Behavioural Exchange conference being held in Sydney this June. On the page where you can buy a ticket to the event it states ‘Tickets are selling fast, don’t miss out’.
That’s a classic example of nudge, in which social proof is being used to promote an event discussing, among other things, the role of social proof in shaping perceptions. But then again, who would expect anything less?
APACGlobal trendsPolicy & Governancewellbeing
From the rule of law to the ‘age of impunity’
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Afghanistan, The War is Not Over… US “Diplomacy” to Find New Allies
By Salman Rafi Sheikh
New Eastern Outlook 6 April 2018
Theme: Intelligence, Militarization and WMD, US NATO War Agenda
There is no gainsaying that Afghanistan’s road to peace after 17 years of war with the US is not going to be an easy one. For one thing, the war is not over yet. For another, the invader’s agenda is not finished yet, and therefore, it continues to use different means to deny peace.
While the US, the invader, has supposedly upped its efforts to engage in peace talks with the Afghan Taliban through the (US-backed) regime in Kabul, enough evidence exists to prove that these efforts are spurious and deceptive, hiding the US’ un-finished agenda of turning Afghanistan into a permanent strategic outpost in the region, watching over the Central Asia, Russia and China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI); hence, the US’ ‘game of accusations’ , a game that previously focused solely on Pakistan but now includes Russia as well. Whereas it appears to be a coincident that the US officials had started to accuse Russia of arming the Taliban just when Russia started participating in and inviting regional stake-holders to peace talks and conferences, the ‘game of accusations’ has intensified to an extent whereby even the US sponsored talks on Afghanistan have started to fall a prey to this game. This became pretty evident before and during the recently held conference in Tashkent.
As such, while the Tashkent conference, where a number of countries were participating, had been convened to build a sort of ‘regional consensus’ on the ways and means to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, the US, which was itself the primary mover behind the conference, had effectively blocked any possibility of developing such a consensus well before the Conference took place.
It was only few days before the conference that the head of the US forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, gave an interview to the BBC and blatantly accused—once again— Russia of ‘arming the Taliban’ to undermine the US efforts to control the insurgency and bring the war to an end.
“We know that the Russians are involved” and are smuggling weapons into Afghanistan through the border with Tajikistan, said Nicholson in his interview. And, just when diplomats from the regional countries, including Russia, were preparing for the conference to build consensus, Nicholson went to describe Afghanistan as a template of the new Cold War between the West and Russia, nipping effectively all hopes of consensus deep in the bud, and leaving the conference just another stand-alone event of no significance.
Linking Russia’s increasing involvement in Afghanistan, which, in reality, has been primarily motivated by its assessment of the increasing presence of ISIS in its backyard, Nicholson said that Russian “activity really picked up in the last 18 to 24 months. Prior to that we had not seen this kind of destabilizing activity by Russia here. When you look at the timing it roughly correlates to when things started to heat up in Syria. So it’s interesting to note the timing of the whole thing.”
With this level of accusations being leveled on Russia by the invader itself, there remains little to believe that the invader sincerely wants to offer peace. But the question still is: was the US, with this anti-Russia mindset, really going for peace when it convened the Tashkent conference? Or was it hoping to construct a kind of consensus in the region that would support ending the war but would equally support a long-term, open-ended, US military presence as well?
It is the open-ended military presence in Afghanistan that the US is after, a presence that it can no longer impose without support from key regional players. And, within the key regional players, there are hardly any states, except India, which might support the US; hence, the US efforts to shore it up its diplomatic activity in Central Asia to not only to find support for its presence in Afghanistan but also to establish an alternative route, not depending upon Pakistan and Russia, for its military supplies to Afghanistan.
This has been recently seen with regard to considerably upped co-operation between Central Asia and the European Union, and between Central Asia and the US with regard to sponsoring new regional groupings in what has been called a “5+1” format. And even before the Tashkent Conference on Afghanistan, the EU and Central Asian representative had a meeting, which had been held four months after the most recent formal EU-Central Asia Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Samarkand in November 2017, and two weeks after an informal meeting of Central Asian Heads of State in Astana. Unsurprisingly, one of the agenda of this most recent meeting was the “role” that these states could play in bringing “stability” to Afghanistan.
However, within the US calculation, it is Russia which is engaged in a destabilizing activity in Afghanistan. Therefore, if the US and EU are trying to up the Central Asian states’ role in Afghanistan to bring the US version of stability, it logically means that the US and EU are wooing the CAS into anti-Russian regional grouping and thus build the so-called regional consensus and find an alternative supply route as well. This, in turn, is a part of sustained US diplomatic effort to lure the CAS out of the Russian and Chinese orbit.
But the US is unlikely to achieve these objectives. For one thing, Russia has a very strong presence in CAS, and out of its frustration, the US has also accused Tajikistan of smuggling Russian weapons into Afghanistan, reflecting the difficulty of cracking Russia-CAS relations. For another, the CAS states are themselves weary of the increasing presence of ISIS in Afghanistan, known as Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), which, unlike the Taliban, does want to spread into Central Asia and has also established links with the CAS-based Islamist movements such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Thirdly, co-operation with the US would mean having to bear a long-term and open-ended military presence in Afghanistan and an un-ending conflict in their backyard, likely to have strong spill-over effects.
For Central Asia States, co-operation with the US is, therefore, likely to cost a lot more than co-operation with Russia and China in bringing the war to a negotiated end. The US doesn’t want such an end, which means that it wants to prolong the war and keep Russia and China at bay, and which also means the Central Asian states becoming a party to the conflict they should not be directly involved in.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Featured image is from the author.
Copyright © Salman Rafi Sheikh, New Eastern Outlook, 2018
Articles by: Salman Rafi Sheikh
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Statistical Archive
AU Volleyball Looks Forward To Challenging Weekend
ASHLAND, Ohio – From the first serve of the season, AU first-year volleyball coach Cass Dixon has preached progress and consistency. So far, she has to be pleased with her squad in both those areas.
Ashland enters this weekend with a 9-3 record and a 7-1 mark in the GLIAC. The Eagles are in second place in the GLIAC South, having won five matches in a row and seven of their last eight.
"We've been getting in the gym and not being satisfied with just winning," said Dixon. "Even though we're winning, we're not just taking the back seat, saying, 'we're going to win.' We need to keep pushing every day."
This weekend, the Eagles welcome three schools from the GLIAC North to Kates Gymnasium in what should be a pivotal three-match set.
On Friday, Grand Valley State comes in for a 7 p.m. match. The first 200 AU students in attendance will receive an AU rally towel and water bottle.
GLIAC North leader Ferris State, which is ranked 11th nationally, visits on Saturday at 2 p.m. On Sunday, the Eagles welcome Saginaw Valley State, which is third in the North Division. The Eagles are also encouraging fans to wear pink this weekend in support and awareness of breast cancer. Donations will be accepted and donated to the Ashland County Cancer Society.
"Between this weekend and next weekend, it's the hump of our season," said junior setter Crystal Elliott (Canal Winchester, Ohio). "If we do what we need to do, we will be in the right place for the postseason."
Following this home gauntlet, the Eagles are on the road for four weeks, starting with a three-match weekend at the GLIAC-GLVC Crossover in Aurora, Ill. Oct. 15-16.
"When I saw it I thought it was going to be a tough weekend, because they are three really strong opponents," Dixon said. "But as the season has played out, it's become more important as each week has gone by."
AU currently sits third in the 16-team GLIAC. A season ago, the Eagles finished eighth and their season ended in the first round of the GLIAC Tournament. This season, the Eagles have dreams greater than that and want to get a bigger taste of the postseason.
"We see the season not ending until December," Elliott said. "We see ourselves going farther than we've ever gone before. If we do what we know we can do, then our season will keep going."
That will all start with Friday's match against Grand Valley State, which has been a perennial power in the GLIAC and the Midwest Region.
"I would love to come out of the weekend 3-0, but I think Friday night is going to be the determining factor," said Dixon, who noted the strength of all three teams coming to Kates Gymnasium in the coming days. "If we can pull out a win against Grand Valley, that'd be great, but I want to play well and I want the team to compete. If we compete, hopefully the wins will come."
A lot of that competition will start with the Eagles to get the ball Elliott. She is fifth in the GLIAC with 9.68 assists per set and has 426 for the season. Elliott is fourth on AU's all-time assists list with 2,710 in her career.
The Eagles have five players averaging more than 1.6 kills per set, led by junior outside hitter Brittany Snider (Olmsted Falls, Ohio), who has 2.81 kills per set.
That offensive distribution is not happening by accident. Dixon said the players have been working well in a system that does not rely on one or two players to provide all the offense.
"That's been my focus all along, and we've been able to get that across to the team," she said. "It makes us well-rounded and will allow us to be more successful in the long run."
Said Elliott: "It's really cool. You don't just rely on one person. You can give the ball to anyone and they can do their job and get it done. There's no leaning on one person. We even have people on the bench that can come in and do the same exact thing."
Even Elliott has been actively involved in putting down kills at just under one kill per set this season. She already has a career-high 40 kills this season out of the setter position.
"I've always loved to attack, but I just didn't know how to utilize it before," said Elliott. "The coaches show a lot of confidence in me doing it. It keeps the other team on their toes and it gets our side excited too."
Dixon has also stressed the importance of keeping everyone involved, especially the middle blockers, who have played a huge role in the Eagles' success this season. Dixon has employed four different players in the middle this season and has rotated them in and out of the lineup with no decrease in production.
"We know that when she does make a change between the middles we understand it's for the better of the team," said sophomore middle blocker Susie Jonas (Harrison, Ohio), who has put down 1.82 kills per set and is the team leader with 23 total blocks.
It has helped to have a setter that is aware of the other players on the court and also reading the block on the opposite side of the net.
"Crystal is a huge leader on the court this year. She's connecting with us and she's trying to make us available for our hits," Jonas said.
Another part of the Eagles' winning run of late has been the play of its defense, both at the net and on the back row. The Eagles have allowed opponents to hit just .135 during their five-match winning streak.
"Our front row is working directly with our back row," said Dixon. "Our back row is being patient allowing the block to develop. They are playing around them instead of just playing behind them."
The back row is led by senior libero Arian Martin (Independence, Ohio), who has 185 digs. She ranks second all-time on AU's digs list with 1,527 and she has never missed a set in her four years at Ashland.
"Arian is that quiet worker that just does her job, day in and day out. She never gets super excited but she definitely stresses the hard work aspect," said Dixon.
The Eagles have also gotten huge production and experienced leadership from senior outside hitter Anesia Benton (Lima, Ohio/Lima Senior). She is third on the team with 89 kills and is hitting at a .237 clip.
"Anesia is the fire, she's very passionate about this game. The hard work from Arian and the passion from Anesia – the combination of the two really epitomize the team. We work hard and we get excited about it," said Dixon.
The Eagles will have their work cut out for them this weekend, but with one advantage that none of the teams coming in will have – the Eagles will have the home-court advantage and home-crowd support.
"To know that the fans are into it, it really makes the atmosphere powerful and gets us in the game even more," said Elliott. "We're excited they're cheering for us, it helps our mentality. If we lose one point, it's ok, everyone is there supporting us."
The action starts Friday night (Oct. 7) at Kates Gymnasium with Grand Valley State coming in as the visitor. The first 200 AU students in attendance will receive a rally towel and water bottle. First serve is scheduled to go up at 7 p.m.
VB/BB
Thu, 11/15 | Women's Volleyball vs. Ferris State L, 3-2 (Final) RC | BX
Wed, 11/07 | Women's Volleyball vs. Davenport L, 3-2 (Final) RC | BX
Sat, 11/03 | Women's Volleyball vs. Wayne State W, 3-0 (Final) RC | BX
Tue, 10/30 | Women's Volleyball vs. Tiffin W, 3-0 (Final) RC | BX | A | V
Sat, 10/27 | Women's Volleyball vs. Purdue Northwest W, 3-0 (Final) RC | BX | V
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School Meals in the Budget: Applause for Breakfast, Groans for Lunch
June 26, 2015 | by Zehra Rehman
Lunch 4 Learning at City Hall (photo: Zehra Rehman)
Supporters of expanding free school meals in New York City are expressing mixed reactions to the city budget agreement announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito on Monday night.
The fiscal year 2016 budget, at $78.5 billion of spending soon to be officially approved, satisfies one key demand of advocates – that of expanding "breakfast after the bell." The name refers to allowing students to eat free breakfast provided by the school in their classroom. The program will be funded for inclusion in 530 elementary schools. The budget also includes funding to continue universal free lunch in all of the city's standalone middle schools. But, this has disappointed advocates who were hoping the free lunch program would be expanded to elementary and high schools.
In New York City, where one in every four child does not have access to enough food, many students depend on schools to provide their only consistently available meals of the day. Members of the City Council, Public Advocate Letitia James, and advocates had led a strong push for the budget to include funding to make school lunches free for all students, regardless of grade level or family income, and for the expansion of 'breakfast after the bell.'
This year's preliminary and executive budgets did not include 'breakfast after the bell' or an expansion of universal free lunch but the final budget includes $17.9 million to expand the breakfast program to 530 elementary schools. City Council leadership considers the expansion of 'breakfast after the bell' and the continuation of the middle school free lunch pilot program successes. A continuation of the middle school program was not included by de Blasio when he unveiled his February preliminary budget, but the Council convinced him to restore it in his executive budget, released in May. At the time, Mark-Viverito said, "Bureaucratic hurdles are not an excuse for letting children go hungry."
In response to the budget deal, Council members focused on gains made, praising the 'breakfast after the bell' provision in the budget for reducing negativity around hunger for elementary school children. "Hungry kids will face less stigma at school because of $17.9 million for 'breakfast after the bell' for 339,000 children at 530 elementary schools, which I rallied for and introduced legislation supporting," said Council Member Ben Kallos in a post-budget statement. Kallos, a strong supporter of expanding free school meals, added that "New York City is now an important step away from being near last among big cities in public school breakfast participation."
Advocates for 'breakfast after the bell' also welcomed the announcement. "New York City students were big winners in last night's budget deal," chief strategy officer for Share Our Strength, Josh Wachs, said in a statement Tuesday. "No child should start the school day on an empty stomach. Thanks to leadership from the Mayor, Schools Chancellor, City Council, and partners in the Powered by Breakfast NYC coalition, they won't have to in NYC public elementary schools."
Through the budget, 'breakfast after the bell' will be expanded to include all of the city's elementary schools by fiscal year 2018. At the moment, it is an opt-in program in New York City with principals deciding if their schools participate. Over 300 of the city's schools have opted in so far, either serving breakfast in classrooms or providing "grab and go" carts for students to pick up food to take into class. At Monday night's press conference, de Blasio highlighted the role that the Council's insistence played and called breakfast an area where there was "opportunity for a major breakthrough" in fighting hunger and thus helping kids learn.
As the expansion of 'breakfast after the bell' was celebrated, supporters of universal free lunch for all city students were less than satisfied. "I'm a little disappointed that it [universal school lunch] wasn't expanded," Public Advocate Letitia James told Gotham Gazette, while expressing satisfaction with breakfast program gains. "New York City should be leading the national conversation on improving nutrition in public schools but instead we're falling further and further behind."
Other advocates echoed this sentiment. "We knew that the Council was championing this issue and that there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm," says Liz Accles of Lunch for Learning, a coalition-led campaign advocating for universal free lunch. "We're a little stunned that it wasn't in there."
Last year, the city introduced a pilot program under which standalone middle schools provided free lunch to all students. This increased school lunch participation by 10 percent in those schools. While the consensus among advocates was that these numbers were a success, Mayor de Blasio described the results as "mixed" at his executive budget presentation. The mayor reiterated that conclusion at Monday's budget announcement, saying, "The first year of the school lunch program didn't achieve what all of us had hoped." He added that the coming year would involve "a much stronger promotional effort and effort to engage parents and students."
It appears that if the middle school lunch program shows enough progress there may be room for expanding free lunch beyond those grades.
"It's an opportunity that's being passed up," says Accles. "The federal government wants us to do this," she said referring to federal reimbursements for meals served in public schools. Public Advocate James pointed out that because most expenditures would be covered by these reimbursements, it would only cost the city $20 million per year to provide free lunch to all of the city's public school students. This amounts to 0.1 percent of the Department of Education's annual budget.
The drive for universal free lunches and 'breakfast after the bell' has been in large part due to a poverty stigma associated with accepting free school meals, long-offered to students from the poorest households. Around three-fourth of New York City's public school students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches on the basis of a family income below 130 percent of the poverty level, or other criteria such as being food stamp recipients, homeless, or in foster care. Despite the great need, stigma and a fear of being mocked limits student participation in free meal programs. A third of the students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches don't eat those meals, with participation dropping below 40 percent in high schools. "Given those numbers, I'm really shocked that the mayor did not support expanding free lunch," says James.
Breakfast participation is even lower despite breakfast being free for all students in New York City public schools since 2003. Morning food has been offered before the start of school. Last school year only about 35 percent of the city's low-income students were eating breakfast in school, according to the latest annual report by the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit organization working to eliminate hunger and under-nutrition. A combination of factors, including the poverty stigma and logistical problems in getting to school much earlier than the start of the school day, drive down breakfast participation numbers.
Supporters of universal free school meals say that there would no longer be stigma attached to accepting a school lunch if schools provide free lunches to all students and family income is no longer a deciding factor. Similarly, if all students are allowed to eat 'breakfast after the bell' together in their classroom, it would not single out those students who have to arrive to school early just to eat a free breakfast in the cafeteria.
The budget decisions that will dictate spending beginning at the July 1 start of the next fiscal year come as this school year is coming to a close. On Wednesday, the Department of Education announced that its "2015 Summer Meals program, which provides free, healthy breakfast and lunch to children across New York City, will begin this Saturday, June 27, the first day of summer vacation." The program is aimed at students who are food insecure and rely on school meals throughout the year.
From the end of June through September 4, the program will provide free meals to "children 18 and younger" at "1,100 locations, including pools, school, libraries, parks, public housing sites, and community-based organization sites." Children don't have to prove New York City residency or be enrolled in summer school; no application or identification is needed to access food. The DOE said that "a record 8.1 million meals were served" last summer.
Advocates want to see something similar all year round. On Tuesday afternoon, students from Lunch for Learning coalition groups delivered a letter to the mayor and a photobook of 330 pictures from its selfie campaign. They were accompanied by advocates, Council Member Antonio Reynoso, and leaders from Local 372, a union of the city's Board of Education employees. Barbara Turk, the mayor's director of food policy, was at City Hall to receive the letter and photobook on the mayor's behalf.
The message of the student letter was clear: "We are disappointed that expansion of Universal Free School Lunch for all public schools was left out of the budget. We have been working very hard to make this happen and were surprised and upset when you said the middle school results are mixed."
"If I get on line, the rich students will say that I'm eating 'free-free,'" said 16-year-old Aminata, one of the students at City Hall representing Bushwick Campus Youth Food Policy Council. While she has to try to hide when she gets a free lunch at her high school, she says that her brothers in middle school do not have to worry about bullies in the cafeteria because everyone in their school eats free lunches. She often also has to share her free lunch with friends who don't qualify for reduced-price lunch but still cannot afford to buy food every day. "This is not a want, this is a need," said Shaun D. Francois I, president of Local 372.
Though they are disappointed by the budget, supporters of universal free meals, including the public advocate, plan to carry on their efforts to expand the program to all of the city's schools. "We're going to continue to campaign and we're going to continue to keep the pressure on, working with advocates to expand this program so that students will be better nourished ready for the school day," James told Gotham Gazette.
"We know it's the right thing to do," says Accles. "We're going to keep pushing until we get it done."
by Zehra Rehman, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Tags: New York City • Antonio Reynoso • Bill de Blasio • City Budget • City Council • Department of Education • Letitia James • Melissa Mark-Viverito • Public Advocate • public school system • City Council Speaker • DOE • Local 372
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Michigan Wolverines NCAA FB
Michigan Wolverines NCAA BK
Michigan State Spartans NCAA FB
Michigan State Spartans NCAA BK
After offseason stroke, Smith scores as MSU routs Bowling Green
Michigan State's Tyson Smith intercepts a pass and returns it 38 yards for a touchdown to make it 35-3 Spartans.
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Tyson Smith was experiencing headaches toward the end of November and found out he’d had a stroke.
Needless to say, his football future was in serious jeopardy.
“Around April, May, I got my memory back,” Smith said. “Around June — before I got cleared — I got my confidence back.”
Smith was not only cleared to play in Michigan State’s season opener Saturday, he scored a touchdown on an interception return in the most heartwarming moment of his team’s 35-10 victory over Bowling Green. Brian Lewerke threw three touchdown passes for the Spartans, who put the game away in the second half.
Smith, a junior, said he thought he had about a 30 percent chance of playing again after his health issues. Coach Mark Dantonio suggested the situation may have been even less promising.
“Here’s a guy that was basically ruled out,” Dantonio said. “Sort of just kept getting a little bit better, and finally found people that said, `OK, you can play.’ So he really never got back with us until August.”
Smith said one of the toughest parts of his recovery was his memory problems. He’d come up with ways to try to test it.
“I would just put my wallet here and see if I could remember it,” he said. “Or think of a color one day, put it in my phone a week, see if I can remember that color.”
With the Spartans comfortably ahead in the third quarter Saturday, Smith intercepted a pass and returned it 38 yards for a touchdown to make it 35-3. Quite a moment for somebody who was just happy to be playing.
“The feeling when I just stepped on the field was more than football, it was a blessing to see that I’m still me,” Smith said. “I felt normal — didn’t know for sure if I was normal.”
Lewerke, who has taken over as the starting quarterback as a sophomore, went 22 of 33 for 250 yards and also made some crucial plays with his legs, running for a team-high 69 yards.
Michigan State and Bowling Green are both trying to rebound from losing seasons in 2016. The Spartans went 3-9 and then had four players dismissed amid sexual assault allegations during a tumultuous offseason , so they entered this season with a lot of work to do to return to respectability both on and off the field.
Michigan State marched down the field on the first drive of the game, only for LJ Scott to fumble the ball away near the goal line. The Spartans lost another fumble near midfield later in the quarter, but they finally took a 7-3 lead early in the second on a 7-yard touchdown run by Madre London.
From there, it was smoother sailing. Lewerke threw two TD passes to Felton Davis — a 4-yarder in the final seconds of the half and an 8-yarder in the third quarter. His 13-yard touchdown pass to Matt Sokol made it 28-3.
Cameron Jefferies returned a fumble 46 yards for a touchdown in the fourth for Bowling Green.
Bowling Green: The Falcons won their last three games of 2016 after a 1-8 start, but they didn’t mount much of a threat against Michigan State. Bowling Green managed only 108 yards through the first three quarters.
“We didn’t play well offensively today. That was a key to the game,” Bowling Green coach Mike Jinks said. “The defense did everything that we asked them to do. I’m proud of that defensive unit.”
Michigan State: A lopsided win in the opener — plus a feel-good story in Smith — was what the Spartans needed, but they won’t be happy with their turnovers. Scott, one of the team’s most accomplished players, fumbled twice, and the Spartans lost three of their four fumbles in all.
Lewerke was coming off his own medical problem — a broken leg that ended his 2016 season. He completed passes to 10 different receivers.
Bowling Green’s James Morgan was 10 for 31 for 145 yards with an interception. Scott Miller dropped a fourth-down pass near the goal line in the first quarter, when the Falcons were up 3-0.
HARD HITS
Bowling Green’s Marcus Milton had a targeting penalty overturned by replay late in the second half, but the reprieve was only temporary for the Falcons. Fred Garth was ejected for targeting moments later.
Bowling Green: The Falcons should have an easier opponent Saturday night when they face South Dakota in their home opener.
Michigan State: The Spartans host an in-state rival in Western Michigan on Saturday, with the Broncos coming off last year’s stellar run to the Cotton Bowl.
FOX Sports Detroit - Michigan State
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Saint Marguerite d’Youville
Image: Portrait of Mère Marguerite d’Youville (1701-1771) | James Duncan
Saint of the Day for June 15
(October 15, 1701 – December 23, 1771)
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SODJun15.mp3
Saint Marguerite d’Youville’s Story
We learn compassion from allowing our lives to be influenced by compassionate people, by seeing life from their perspectives, and reconsidering our own values.
Born in Varennes, Canada, Marie Marguerite Dufrost de Lajemmerais had to interrupt her schooling at the age of 12 to help her widowed mother. Eight years later she married François d’Youville; they had six children, four of whom died young. Despite the fact that her husband gambled, sold liquor illegally to Native Americans, and treated her indifferently, she cared for him compassionately until his death in 1730.
Even though she was caring for two small children and running a store to help pay off her husband’s debts, Marguerite still helped the poor. Once her children were grown, she and several companions rescued a Quebec hospital that was in danger of failing. She called her community the Institute of the Sisters of Charity of Montreal; the people called them the “Grey Nuns” because of the color of their habits. In time, a proverb arose among the poor people of Montreal, “Go to the Grey Nuns; they never refuse to serve.” In time, five other religious communities traced their roots to the Grey Nuns.
The General Hospital in Montreal became known as the Hôtel Dieu (House of God) and set a standard for medical care and Christian compassion. When the hospital was destroyed by fire in 1766, Mère Marguerite knelt in the ashes, led the Te Deum—a hymn to God’s providence in all circumstances—and began the rebuilding process. She fought the attempts of government officials to restrain her charity, and established the first foundling home in North America.
Pope Saint John XXIII, who beatified Mère Marguerite in 1959, called her the “Mother of Universal Charity.” She was canonized in 1990. Her Liturgical Feast Day is October 16.
Saints deal with plenty of discouragement, plenty of reasons to say, “Life isn’t fair” and wonder where God is in the rubble of their lives. We honor saints like Marguerite because they show us that with God’s grace and our cooperation, suffering can lead to compassion rather than bitterness.
Other Saints of the Day for June 15 are Servant of God Orlando Catanii and Saint Vitus.
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New Orleans Lingo: A Few Words to Know
Photo courtesy of Dirty Coast on Facebook
New Orleans is often described as the most European city in the United States— or the northernmost Caribbean island. Settled by Native Americans, colonized by the Spanish, French and American governments, populated by Creoles, African slaves and European immigrants and surrounded by Acadian settlers (known as Cajuns), it’s no wonder the Crescent City’s residents have a way of speaking that doesn’t sound like anyone else’s.
The downside? This unique lexicon can make New Orleanians hard for outsiders to understand.
Here’s a list of key words to know before you go.
Alligator pear: Yat speak for an avocado (that skin DOES look like a gator’s tough hide).
Banquette: A sidewalk
Bo bo: A bruise, cut, scrape or other minor injury, usually sustained by a child. Never called a “boo-boo”.
Brake tag: An inspection sticker placed on a car’s windshield to indicate it is in good working order.
Cher: A Cajun term of affection derived from French and often pronounced “sha.”
E.g., “You’re looking good, sha!”
Chicory: A bitter, roasted root brewed in lieu of coffee during France’s 1808 Continental Blockage and the U.S. Civil War, which New Orleanians continue to add to coffee because of its strong flavor. Best enjoyed in sweetened café au lait.
Coffee milk: A treat for young children, it consists of a dash of chicory coffee mixed with a cup of warm milk and sugar.
Dressed: A po-boy served “dressed” comes with lettuce, pickles, tomato and mayonnaise.
Fixing to: Getting ready to do something. E.g., “I’m fixing to go to the store.” Also shorted to “fixina” or “finna.”
Gris gris: A Voodoo spell or charm, usually in the form of a small bag filled with rice, herbs, small stones, coins or other amulets.
Go-cup: Like a to-go box you’d get at a restaurant to carry your leftovers, a go-cup is any plastic cup used to transport your unfinished alcoholic drink when you’re ready to leave the bar.
Gumbo: A spicy stew made with a roux base and thickened with okra, gumbo comes in seafood, chicken, sausage and z’herbe (green) varieties, to name a few. Its name is derived from the African name for okra.
King cake: A delicious ring-shaped cake made of a cinnamon roll-like dough and topped with purple, green and gold sugar, with a tiny plastic baby inside. Whoever gets the baby has to buy the next king cake. Served only from Epiphany (January 6) until Mardi Gras.
Lagniappe: A little something extra, similar to a bakers’ dozen. E.g., when you dine at Brennan’s and get a free praline, that’s lagniappe.
Mais yeah: Cajun French saying that translates literally to “but yes,” it’s used to express excitement or agreement.
Make groceries: Yat speak for buying groceries, it’s derived from the French phrase “faire le marché” (make the market).
Merliton: A pale green squash-like gourd
Neutral ground: Known as a median in other locales, a neutral ground is the wide grassy strip between streets.
Parish: The equivalent of a county. “The Parish” (or “Da Parish”) specifically refers to Chalmette, a New Orleans suburb.
Pirogue: A flat-bottomed Cajun boat, pronounced PEE-row or PEE-rogue.
River side, lake side: New Orleans’ speak for north and south: River side refers to the Mississippi River, which borders the city to the south, and lake side refers to Lake Pontchartrain, which borders it to the north.
Shotgun house: A long, narrow, hall-less house common to New Orleans, which was named because if one fired a shotgun through the front door, the shot would go straight through the house without hitting a wall and exit through the back door.
Ward: Designations dividing New Orleans’ into 17 regions, or wards, which are subdivided into precincts.
Where y’at: Yat speak for “How are you?”
Wardies: People who live in your ward. Also pronounced “whoadies.”
« Vintage Shopping in the French Quarter
Must-See French Quarter Museums »
The Rundown of the Running of the Bulls in New Orleans
Tales of the Cocktail Returns to New Orleans This Summer
What to Do in July in New Orleans
Your French Quarter
Getaway Awaits
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Frontiers in Plant Science
Technical Advances in Plant Science
Advances in High-throughput Plant Phenotyping by Multi-platform Remote Sensing Technologies View all 31 Articles
Jose A. Jimenez-Berni
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
Young-Su Seo
Pusan National University, South Korea
Keisuke Nagai
Nagoya University, Japan
Crop Phenotypic Data Collection: Various Phenotyping Approaches for Crop Morphology, Structure, and Physiological Data From Cell to Whole-Plant
Crop Phenomics: From Phenotyping Extraction, Data Storage to Knowledge Analysis
Future Challenges and Prospects
Front. Plant Sci., 03 June 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.00714
Crop Phenomics: Current Status and Perspectives
Chunjiang Zhao*†, Ying Zhang†, Jianjun Du, Xinyu Guo, Weiliang Wen, Shenghao Gu, Jinglu Wang and Jiangchuan Fan
Beijing Key Lab of Digital Plant, Beijing Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Beijing, China
Reliable, automatic, multifunctional, and high-throughput phenotypic technologies are increasingly considered important tools for rapid advancement of genetic gain in breeding programs. With the rapid development in high-throughput phenotyping technologies, research in this area is entering a new era called ‘phenomics.’ The crop phenotyping community not only needs to build a multi-domain, multi-level, and multi-scale crop phenotyping big database, but also to research technical systems for phenotypic traits identification and develop bioinformatics technologies for information extraction from the overwhelming amounts of omics data. Here, we provide an overview of crop phenomics research, focusing on two parts, from phenotypic data collection through various sensors to phenomics analysis. Finally, we discussed the challenges and prospective of crop phenomics in order to provide suggestions to develop new methods of mining genes associated with important agronomic traits, and propose new intelligent solutions for precision breeding.
Persistent food and feed supply needs, resources shortages, climate change and energy use are some of the challenges we face in our dependence on plants. Until 2050, crop production will have to double to meet the projected production demands of the global population (Ray et al., 2013). Demand for crop production is expected to grow 2.4% a year, but the average rate of increase in crop yield is only 1.3%. Moreover, production yields have stagnated in up to 40% of land under cereal production (Fischer and Edmeades, 2010). Genetic improvements in crop performance remain the key role in improving crop productivity, but the current rate of improvement cannot meet the needs of sustainability and food security.
Molecular breeding strategies pay more attention to selections based on genotypic information, but phenotypic data are still needed (Jannick et al., 2010; Araus et al., 2014). Phenotyping is necessary to improve the selection efficiency and reproducibility of results in transgenic studies (Gaudin et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2014; Feng et al., 2017) (Table 1). Considering that molecular breeding populations can include a range from at least 200 to at most 10,000 lines, the ability to accurately and high-throughput characterize hundreds of lines at the same time is still challenging (Lorenz et al., 2011; Araus et al., 2014). Apparently, compared with the vast genetic information, there is a phenotyping bottleneck hampering progress in understanding the genetic basis of complex traits. To break this bottleneck and improve the efficiency of molecular breeding, reliable, automatic, and high-throughput phenotypic technologies were urgently needed to provide breeding scientists with new insights in selecting new species to adapt to the resources shortages and global climate change.
Table 1. The history of crop phenomics based on major advancement.
During the past decade, plant phenomics has evolved from an emerging niche to a thriving research field, which was defined as the gathering of multi-dimensional phenotypic data at multiple levels from cell level, organ level, plant level to population level (Houle et al., 2010; Dhondt et al., 2013; Lobos et al., 2017). Crop phenotypes are extremely complicated because they are the result of interaction between genotypes (G) and a multitude of envirotypes (E) (Xu, 2016). This interaction influences not only the growth and development process of crops measured by the structural traits on cellular, tissue, organ and plant level, but also the plant functioning measured by the physiological traits. These internal phenotypes in turn determine crop external phenotypes such as morphology, biomass and yield performance (Houle et al., 2010; Dhondt et al., 2013) (Figure 1). Crop phenomics research integrates agronomy, life sciences, information science, math and engineering sciences, and combines high-performance computing and artificial intelligence technology to explore multifarious phenotypic information of crop growth in a complex environment, of which the ultimate goal is to construct an effective technical system able to phenotype crops in a high-throughput, multi-dimensional, big-data, intelligent and automatically measuring manner, and create a tool comprehensively integrating big data achieved from a multi-modality, multi-scale, phenotypic + environmental + genotypic condition, in order to develop new methods of mining genes associated with important agronomic traits, and propose new intelligent solutions for precision breeding.
Figure 1. The schematic diagram of genotype–phenotype–envirotype (G-P-E) interactions.
Here, we provide an overview of crop phenomics research, focusing on two parts, from phenotypic data collection through various sensors to phenomics analysis. We systematically introduced the crop phenotyping approaches from cellular, tissue, organ, and plant level to field level, discussing application and practical problems in research. Based on overwhelming amounts of phenotypic data, we then discussed the phenotyping extraction, phenotype information analysis and knowledge storage. We emphasize Phenomics is entering the big-data era with multi-domain, multi-level, and multi-scale characteristics. We highlight necessity and importance of building multi-scale, multi-dimensional and trans-regional crop phenotyping big database, researching E-trait depth analysis schemas and technical systems for precise identification of crop phenotypes, realizing functional-structural plant modeling based on phenomics, and developing bioinformatics technologies that integrate genomes and phenotypes.
Currently, the plant phenotyping community seems some-what divided between high-throughput, low-resolution phenotyping and in-depth phenotyping at lower throughput and higher resolution (Dhondt et al., 2013). Phenotyping systems and tools applied in different scales are focused on different key characteristics –automated phenotyping platforms in controllable environment and high-throughput methodologies in field environment highlights high-throughput, while phenotyping covering the organ, tissue and cellular level emphasizes in-depth phenotyping and higher resolution. In this part, we systematically introduced the crop phenotyping approaches covering from cellular and tissue level to field level, and discussed the application and practical problems of which technologies in crop researches.
Alleviating the Micro-Phenotyping Bottleneck
Compared with the whole-plant phenotying technologies, phenotyping at higher spatial and temporal resolutions of tissue and cellar scales is more difficult (Hall et al., 2016). To reveal crop micro-phenotypes, the pre-treatment of plant or organ is usually destructive when sampled in a cumbersome and involves multi-step procedure, and the high resolution imaging of samples is also inefficient in view of the output in micron level. More challenging, automated image analysis techniques are urgently needed to quantify cell and tissue traits of crop from the larger high qualified image. In recent years, many emerging algorithms and tools have been proposed to handle with microscopic images from hand-cutting slices, micro-CT, fluorescent, laser, and paraffin sections imaging (Table 2).
Root anatomical traits have important effects on plant function, including acquisition of nutrients and water from the soil and transportation to the aboveground part. Over the last years, novel micro-image acquisition technologies and computer vision have been introduced to improve our understanding of anatomical structure and function of roots. In 2011, computer-aided calculation of wheat root vascular bundle phenotypic information extraction were introduced based on sequence images of paraffin sections (Wu et al., 2011). Burton et al. (2012) (Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences Roots Lab) have developed a high-throughput, high-resolution phenotyping platform, which combines laser optics and serial imaging with three-dimensional (3D) image reconstruction (RootSlice) and quantification to understand root anatomy by semi-auto RootScan (Chimungu et al., 2015). Chopin et al. (2015) developed a fully automated RootAnalyzer software for root microscopic phenotypic information extraction to further improve image segmentation efficiency and ensure high accuracy. Pan et al. (2018) (Beijing Key Laboratory of Digital Plant) introduced X-ray micro-CT into 3D imaging of maize root tissues and developed an image processing scheme for the 3D segmentation of metaxylem vessels. Compared with traditional manual measurement of vascular bundles of maize roots, the proposed protocols significantly improved the efficiency and accuracy of the micron-scale phenotypic quantification.
Different from the root system, crop stalks have a more complex microstructure. The complexity and diversity in microscopic image data poses greater challenges for developing suitable data analysis workflows in the detection and identification of microscopic phenotypes of stalk tissue. Zhang et al. (2013) and Legland et al. (2017) presented semi- automated and automated analysis method for the stained microscopic images of stalk sections. Legland et al. (2014) and Heckwolf et al. (2015) created an image analysis tool that could operate on images of hand-cut stalk transections to measure anatomical features in high throughput. Those tools have significantly improved the measurement efficiency of vascular bundle, but the anatomical traits corresponding to the rind and the detection accuracy remained a challenge. Du et al. (2016) (Beijing Key Laboratory of Digital Plant) introduced micro-computed tomography (CT) technology for stalk imaging and developed the VesselParser 1.0 algorithm, which made it possible to automatically and accurately analyze phenotypic traits of vascular bundles within entire maize stalk cross-sections. So far, Beijing Key Laboratory of Digital Plant has built a novel method to improve the X-ray absorption contrast of maize tissue suitable for ordinary micro-CT scanning. Based on CT images, they introduced a set of image processing workflows for maize root, stalk and leaf to effectively extract microscopic phenotypes of vascular bundles (Zhang et al., 2018).
Phenotyping at tissue and cellar scales still requires complex procedures. The need to simplify the sample preparation process and explore advanced imaging techniques is crucial to accelerate microscopic phenotyping studies. Moreover, image processing is another major bottleneck in micro-phenotyping researches. Due to the specific crop organ and cell phenotypic characteristics of the huge differences, most micro-image analysis algorithms have been developed for specific biological assays currently.
Three-Dimensional Phenotyping at the Organ Level
Most plant phenotyping platforms concentrated the high-throughput of individual plants (Chaivivatrakul et al., 2014; Cabrera-Bosquet et al., 2016). Hence the phenotypic accuracy of organs on the plants was always compromised (Dhondt et al., 2013). The most frequently used phenotyping index, such as leaf length, leaf area, and fruit volume, could be obtained in phenotyping platforms simply (Klukas et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2017). The smartphone app platform was developed for field phenotyping by taking pictures and image analysis at organ level (Confalonieri et al., 2017). It is very convenient to acquire leaf angles and leaf length using the app in a 2D view. The plants do not need to be destructively sampled indoors. 2D cameras are low cost and were integrated into most of the phenotyping platforms, which provided effective phenotypic solution for branch structured plants, especially for tracking the dynamic growth of organs on plants (Brichet et al., 2017). However, 2D images lost another dimension data in 3D space, and some of the estimated morphological traits still need to be calibrated (Zhang et al., 2017). Multi-view stereo (MVS) approach (Duan et al., 2016; Vazquez-Arellano et al., 2016; He et al., 2017; Hui et al., 2018) is another popular low-cost alternative for organ level phenotyping. 3D point clouds were reconstructed using multi-view images through structure from motion techniques (Wu, 2011), and then phenotypic traits were extracted through segmented organs of individual plants (Thapa et al., 2018). This cost-effective 3D reconstruction method depicts an alternative to an expensive laser scanner in the studied scenarios with potential for automated procedures (Rose et al., 2015; Yin et al., 2016; Gibbs et al., 2018). There are significant differences between these organ traits within various cultivars, thus tiny errors could be ignored in large scale omics analysis (Yang et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2017).
Table 2. Commonly used and developing approaches for crop micro-phenotypic traits analysis.
However, besides these measured length, area, and volume phenotypic parameters, there are lots of obvious differences that can be observed by humans of plant organs, such as blade profiles, blade folds, vein curves, and leaf colors, of which are difficult to obtain the morphological data and quantitatively describe their differences. A series of mathematical approaches (Li et al., 2018) need to be developed to quantitatively describe these differences in order to discover more detailed phenotyping traits with high precision phenotyping data of organ level. Researchers use high resolution 3D scanners to acquire the morphological structure of plant organs (Rist et al., 2018). High resolution 3D scanners are relatively expensive while the acquired morphological data are more accurate than MVS reconstructed organs, especially for non-planner surface plants. 2D LiDAR scanners (Thapa et al., 2018) and depth sensors (Hu et al., 2018) were also used, combined with turn table and translation devices to estimate phenotypic traits through 3D recovery of point clouds. Most 2D or 3D imaging could solve the 3D organ scale phenotyping data acquisition problems, except for tall plants for which it is difficult due to a limited field of vision. High resolution 3D point clouds of plant organs are quite complicated in order to extract more phenotypic traits, thus computer graphics algorithms, such as skeleton extraction (Huang et al., 2013), surface reconstruction (Yin et al., 2016; Gibbs et al., 2017), and feature-preserving remeshing (Wen et al., 2018), need to be applied to process the high-resolution morphological data for 3D phenotypic trait extraction. Because of the difficulty and complexity of detailed organ data acquisition and analysis, Wen et al. (2017) proposed a data acquisition standard and constructed a resource database of plant organs using measured in situ morphological data, to realize the integration and sharing of high quality data of plant organs.
Table 3. Summary of imaging techniques in high-throughput plant phenotyping platforms (HTPPs).
Automated Phenotyping Platforms in Controllable Environment
Automation and robotics, new sensors, and imaging technologies (hardware and software) have provided an opportunity for high-throughput plant phenotyping platforms (HTPPs) development (Gennaro et al., 2017). In the past 10 years, great improvements have been made in researching and developing HTPPs (Furbank et al., 2011; Fiorani and Schurr, 2013; Virlet et al., 2016). Depending on the overall design, HTPPs in a growth chamber or greenhouse can generally be classified as sensor-to-plant or plant-to-sensor based on whether the plants occupy a fixed position during a measurement routine and an imaging setup moves to each of those positions or the plants are transported to an imaging station, respectively. Collectively, the techniques used in HTPPs in the growth chamber or greenhouse mainly include (Table 3):
(1) RGB imaging, which obtains the phenotypes of plant morphology, color, and texture.
(2) Chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, which obtains photosynthetic phenotypes.
(3) Hyperspectral imaging, which obtains phenotypes such as pigment composition, biochemical composition, nitrogen content, and moisture content.
(4) Thermal imaging, which obtains the plant surface temperature distribution, stomatal conductance and transpiration phenotype.
(5) Lidar, which obtains the three-dimensional structure phenotype of plants.
Moreover, other advanced imaging techniques widely used in medicine, such as MRI, PET, and CT, have also been introduced into HTPPs in the growth chamber or greenhouse. The following table lists the major imaging techniques used in the HTPPs in the growth chamber or greenhouse.
Table 4. Exhaustive list of digital technologies and platform equipments for crop phenotyping in controllable environment.
After integration of information technology, digital technology and platform equipment with plant phenotyping, several HTPPs in growth chamber or greenhouse have been listed in Table 4. Such high-throughput phenotyping platforms are characterized by automation, high-throughput, and high precision, which greatly improve plant data collection efficiency and accuracy, in order to improve the efficiency of crop breeding.
However, most HTPPs still have high construction, operating, and maintenance costs, and most academic and research institutions do not have access to these techniques as a result (Kolukisaoglu and Thurow, 2010). For example, the number of fully automatic and high-throughput phenotyping platforms is limited in China: one was developed by the Crop Phenotyping Center (CPC), http://plantphenomics.hzau.edu.cn/, and the others were introduced by LemnaTec, such as http://bri.caas.net.cn/, http://www.kenfeng.com/, and http://www.zealquest.com/. Because of this, there has been increased research into developing affordable, small-scale plant phenotyping platforms and technology. In fact, affordable phenotypic acquisition techniques or platforms are constantly being updated, such as the imaging system developed by Tsaftaris and Noutsos (2009) that uses wireless-connected consumer digital cameras, and the low-cost Glyph phenotyping platform (Pereyra-Irujo et al., 2012). Lowering the cost of these platforms could, therefore, significantly increase the scope of phenotypic research and advance the rapid expansion of phenotypic–genotypes analysis for complex traits.
High-Throughput Methodologies for Crop Phenotyping in Field Environment
Field-based phenotyping (FBP) is a critical component of crop improvement through genetics, as it is the ultimate expression of the relative effects of genetic factors, environmental factors, and their interaction on critical production traits, such as yield potential and tolerance to abiotic/biotic stresses (Araus and Cairns, 2014; Neilson et al., 2015). Currently, the most commonly field-based phenotyping platforms (FBPPs) use ground wheeled, rigid motorized gantry or aerial vehicles, combined with a wide range of cameras, sensors and high-performance computing, to capture deep phenotyping data in time (throughout the crop cycle) and space (at the canopy level) in field environments (Fritsche-Neto and Borém, 2015) (Table 5). It cannot be denied that the efficiency of ground wheeled phenotyping system is quite low if the plot area is too large (White et al., 2012; Zhang and Kovacs, 2012). In 2016, FIELD SCANALYZERS, with rigid motorized gantry supporting a weather proof measuring platform that incorporates a wide range of cameras, sensors and illumination systems, were developed. The facility, equipped with high-resolution visible, chlorophyll fluorescence and thermal infrared camera, hyperspectral imager, and 3D laser scanner. Crops within a 10–20 m × 110–200 m area can be monitored, which realizes the continuous, automatic, and high-throughput detection of crop phenotyping detection in field (Virlet et al., 2016; Sadeghi-Tehran et al., 2017). Meanwhile, the cable-suspended field phenotyping platform covering an area of ∼1 ha was also developed for rapid and non-destructive monitoring of crop traits (Kirchgessner et al., 2016). However, these large ground-based field phenotyping platforms also have high construction, operating, and maintenance costs, and it has to be located at certain sites limiting the scale at which it can be used. Furthermore, the ground-based FBPPs are not very suitable for large crops, such as maize, except in the early stages (Montes et al., 2011).
In recent years, manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing platforms (UAV-RSPs) are becoming a high-throughput tool for crop phenotyping in the field environment (Berni et al., 2009; Liebisch et al., 2015), which meet the demands of spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions (Yang et al., 2017) (Table 5). For example, thermal sensors fitted to manned aircraft were used to measure canopy temperature (Deery et al., 2016; Rutkoski et al., 2016). The sensors that UAV-RSPs carried typically included digital cameras, infrared thermal imagers, light detection and ranging (LIDAR), multispectral cameras, and hyperspectral sensors, which are applied to: canopy surface modeling and crop biomass estimation based on visible imaging; crop physiological status monitor, such as chlorophyll fluorescence and N levels, based on visible–near-infrared spectroscopy and high-resolution hyperspectral imaging; plant water status detection based on thermal imaging; and crop fine-scale geometric traits analysis based on LIDAR point clouds (Sugiura et al., 2005; Overgaard et al., 2010; Swain et al., 2010; Wallace et al., 2012; Gonzalez-Dugo et al.; Gonzalez-Dugo et al., 2014; Mathews and Jensen, 2013; Diaz-Varela et al., 2014; Gonzalez-Dugo et al., 2015; Nigon et al., 2015; Gómez-Candón et al., 2016; Camino et al., 2018; Roitsch et al., 2019). There are definite advantages for UAV-RSPs, including portable, high monitoring efficiency, low-cost, and suitability for field environments. On the other hand, some limiting factors for UAV-RSPs also exist, including the lack of methods for fast and automatic data processing and modeling, the strict airspace regulations, and vulnerable to different weather conditions. Recently, combining ground-based platforms and aerial platforms for phenotyping offers flexibility. For example, the tractor-based proximal crop-sensing platform, combined with UAV-based platform, was used to target complex traits such as growth and RUE in sorghum (Potgieter et al., 2018; Furbank et al., 2019).
Table 5. Exhaustive list of characteristics and application of field phenotypic platforms.
Phenomic experiments are not directly reproducible because of the multi-model of sensors (structure, morphology, color, and physiology information), multi-scales phenotypic data (from cellular to population level), and variability of environmental conditions. Crop phenotypic data collection is only the first step in Phenomic research. How to extract phenotypic traits from raw data? How to realize phenotype data standardization and storage? How to make cross-scale, cross-dimensionality meta-analyses? Finally, based on the phenotypic big data, how to realize the model-assisted phenotyping and phenotypic-genomic selection? Hereby this part focuses on hot topics in crop phenomics analysis raised above. We then suggest that research in this area is entering a new stage of development using artificial intelligence technology, such as deep learning methods, in which can help researchers transform large numbers of omic-data into knowledge.
Phenotype Extraction
Image-based phenotyping, as an important and all-purpose technique, has been applied to measure and quantify vision-based and model-based traits of plant in the laboratory, greenhouse and field environments. So far, lots of image analysis methods and softwares have been developed to perform image-based plant phenotyping (Fahlgren et al., 2015b). From image analysis perspective, phenotypic traits of plant can be classified into 4 categories, i.e., quantity, geometry, color and texture, and are also classified into linear and non-linear features related to the pixel representation. Moreover, some valuable agronomic and physiological traits can be derived from image features. Generally, image techniques are specially designed according to specific crop varieties and phenotypic traits of interest, and always require with prior knowledge of research objects, as well as more or less man-machine interaction. Under highly controlled conditions, the classic image processing pipeline can provide acceptable phenotyping results, such as biomass (Leister et al., 1999), NDVI (Walter et al., 2015), chlorophyll responses (Walter et al., 2015), and compactness (Vylder et al., 2012) etc. However, the simple image processing pipeline is still very difficult to handle with non-linear, non-geometric phenotyping tasks (Pape and Klukas, 2015). Facing species and environment diversities, fully automated and intelligent image analysis will remain a long-term challenge.
Machine learning techniques, such as support vector machines, clustering algorithms, and neural networks, have been widely utilized to image-based phenotyping, which not only improve the robustness of image analysis tasks, also relieve tedious manual intervention (Singh et al., 2016). There is no doubt that machine learning techniques will have a prominent role in breaking through the bottlenecks of plant phenotyping (Tsaftaris et al., 2016). In a broad category of machine learning techniques (Ubbens and Stavness, 2017), deep learning demonstrates impressive advantages in many image-based tasks, such as object detection and localization, semantic segmentation, image classification, and others (Lecun et al., 2015). In essence, deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are well suited to many vision-based computer problems, e.g., recognition (Lecun, 1990), classification (He et al., 2015), and instance detection and segmentation (Girshick, 2015). Compared with the traditional image analysis methods, CNNs are simultaneously trained from end to end without image feature description and extraction procedures. As far as plant phenotyping, CNNs have been effectively applied to detect and diagnosis (Mohanty et al., 2016), classify fruits and flowers (Pawara et al., 2017), and count leaf number (Ubbens and Stavness, 2017). It is worth noting that those vision-based phenotyping tasks were driven by the massive captured and annotation plant images. From the view of machine vision perspective, deep learning has been a fundamental technique framework in image-based plant phenotyping (Tsaftaris et al., 2016).
Phenotype Data Standardization and Storage
A huge amount of complex data and the integration of a wide range of image, spectral and environmental data can be generated through by the above phenotypic technologies, usually up to GB or even petabytes, unstructured “Big Data.” Thus, the efficient storage, management and retrieval of phenotypic data have become the important issues to be considered (Wilkinson et al., 2016). The current universally accepted principle of information standardization includes three aspects: (i) the ‘minimum information’ (MI) approach is recommended to define the content of the data set, (ii) ontology terms is applied for the unique and repeatable annotation of data, and in the form of data sharing and meta-analyses (Krajewski et al., 2015; Coppens et al., 2017), (iii) and proper data formats, such as CSV, XML, RDF, MAGE-TAB, etc., are chosen for the construction of data sets. Up until now, a number of phenotyping resources have been built ranging from phenotypic data of one species to multi-data types (Coppens et al., 2017). In 2010, PODD was developed for capturing, managing, annotating and distributing the data to support both Australian and international biological research communities (Li et al., 2010); Fabre et al. (2011) built a PHENOPSIS DB information system for Arabidopsis thaliana phenotypic data acquired by the PHENOPSIS phenotyping platform; Bisque is the first web based, cross-platform, developed into a repository to store, visualize, organize and analyze images in the cloud (Kvilekval Das et al., 2010; Goff et al., 2011). In 2014, ClearedLeaves DB, an on open online database, was built to store, manage and access leaf images and phenotypic data (Das et al., 2014); AraPheno1 was the first comprehensive, central repository of population-scale phenotypes (it integrated more than 250 publicly available phenotypes from six independent studies) for A. thaliana inbred lines (Seren et al., 2017); PhenoFront was a publicly available dataset of above-ground plant tissue to the LemnaTec Phenotyper platform (Fahlgren et al., 2015a); in 2016, the plant genomics and phenomics research data repository (PGP) were developed by the Leibniz institute of plant genetics and crop plant research and the German plant phenotyping network to comprehensively publish plant phenotypic and genotypic data (Arend et al., 2016a). Obviously, from the perspective of database data standardization and storage, the storage scheme based on “cloud technology” is becoming the trend for the development of plant phenotype data storage. Cloud storage system can optimize the design of the system architecture, file structure, high-speed cache, etc., for the plant phenotype platform. At present, all kinds of phenotypic data collection platforms are still relatively independent, and have not been established at the level of regions, countries or continents. Through the advanced technology of artificial intelligence, establishing a typical crop phenotype database based on the multi-layer phenotypic information, for example GDB Human Genome Database, will of interest to a range of stakeholders.
Model-Assisted Phenotyping: Functional–Structural Plant Modeling
Plants are highly plastic to genotypes, environment and management via changing morphological traits and adjusting their physiological behavior. Complex interactions between genotypes, environment and managements at different scales determine the development of plants, but their separate contribution to the phenotype remains unclear. Dynamic models have been proven to be an efficient tool in dissection of abiotic and biotic effects on plant phenotypes (Tardieu and Tuberosa, 2010). Functional–structural plant (FSP) (Vos et al., 2010) models simulate plant growth and development in time and three-dimension (3D) space, and quantify complex interactions between architecture and physiological processes. The combination of FSP modeling and phenotyping have been used as a facile technique to address research questions in two ways.
Firstly, FSP models offer a tool to dissect phenotype governed by a set of mechanisms. For example, Zhu et al. (2015) used a FSP model to dissect net biodiversity effect into the effect induced by interspecific trait differences, and the effect induced by phenotypic plasticity by simulating whole-vegetation light capture for scenarios with and without phenotypic plasticity based on experimental plant trait data. The separate effect of each architectural trait (leaf angle, leaf curvature and internode length etc.) on dry mass production and light interception was quantified by simulating canopy growth using a dynamic FSP model for tomato (Chen T.W. et al., 2014). Radiation interception and radiation use efficiency were dissected into an environmental and a genetic term via conducting virtual multi-genotype canopies, in which the FSP model for maize was applied to calculate light interception for each plant (Chen et al., 2018). FSP modeling has proven to be highly effective for disentangling the relative contribution of each underlying process.
Secondly, high-throughput phenotyping techniques facilitate the automate and precise calibration of FSP models. Image-based analysis was performed daily to reconstruct individual maize architecture, in order to calculate light interception using a FSP model and to estimate leaf area and the fresh plant weight of individual plants (Cabrera-Bosquet et al., 2016). Terrestrial LiDAR scanning was used to reconstruct complex tree canopy for predicting three-dimensional distribution of microclimate-related quantities in terms of net radiation, surface temperature and evapotranspiration (Bailey et al., 2016). OPENSIMROOT integrated a root model that can simulate growth of a root system with 3D phenotyping techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) (Postma et al., 2017). Phenotyping techniques not only provide an efficient method to evaluate the ability of the model to simulate plant architecture and geometry but also help researchers to understand functional responses based on images.
Phenotype–Genotype Association Analysis
Although genomic data has a major role in crop genetic improvements and breeding programs, with the advent of the era of omics, considerable gain can only be achieved by tightly coupling genomic discovery to plant phenomics (Cobb et al., 2013; Bolger et al., 2017). In recent years, phenomic researches that combine genomic data with data on quantitative variation in phenotypes have been initiated in many species, which rapidly decoded the function of a mass of unknown genes and improved understanding the G-P map (Campbell et al., 2015, 2017; Neumann et al., 2017).
Many agronomic traits are complex and controlled by many genes, each with a small effect. Identifying the molecular basis of such complex traits requires genotyping and phenotyping of suitable mapping populations, enabling quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping and genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which have been widely carried out in crop plants (Salvi and Tuberosa, 2015; Muraya et al., 2017). Busemeyer et al. (2013) associated phenotypic traits of small grain cereals with genome information to dissect the genetic architecture of biomass accumulation. In 2014, based on 13 traditional agronomic traits and 2 newly defined traits of rice, Yang et al. (2014) identified 141 associated loci by GWAS. In 2015, Combining GWAS with 29 leaf traits at three growth stages using high-throughput leaf scoring (HLS), 73 new loci with leaf size, 123 of leaf color, and 177 of leaf shape were detected (Yang et al., 2015). In 2017, large-scale quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping was performed, combined with 106 agronomic traits of maize inbred line from seedling to tasselling stage, and a total of 988 QTLs were identified (Zhang et al., 2017). Also, plant sizes of 252 diverse maize inbred lines were monitored at 11 different developmental time points, and 12 main-effect marker-trait associations were identified (Muraya et al., 2017).
Obviously, combining the high-throughput phenotyping technology and large-scale QTL or GWAS analysis not only greatly expanded our knowledge of the crop dynamic development process but also provided a novel tool for studies of crop genomics, gene characterization and breeding. We believe that with a complete system of genetic information, combined with crop high-throughput phenotyping technology, phenotypic-genomic analysis will revolutionize how we deal with complex traits and underpin a new era of crop improvement.
Phenomics is entering the era of ‘Big Data,’ thus the crop science community need to combine artificial intelligence technology and collaborative research at the national and international levels, to build a new theory for analyzing crop phenotypic information, construct an effective technical system able to phenotype crops in a high-throughput, multi-dimensional, big-data, intelligent and automatically measuring manner, and create a tool comprehensively integrating big data achieved from a multi-modality, multi-scale, phenotypic + environmental + genotypic condition. There is no denying that there are many challenges that crop phenomics need to address in the next 5–10 years, such as:
(1) Phenomics is entering the big-data era with high-throughput, multi-dimensionality, and multi-scale. We emphasize various phenotyping approaches for crop morphology, structure, and physiological data with three multi- characteristics: multi-domain (phenomics, genomics etc.), multi-level (traditional small to medium scale up to large-scale omics), and multi-scale (crop morphology, structure, and physiological data from cell to whole-plant). The single and individual phenotypic information cannot satisfy the association analysis in the new era called ‘-omics,’ and the systematic and complete phenomics information will be the foundation of future research.
(2) In response to emerging challenges, new methods and techniques based on artificial intelligence shall be introduced to advance image-based phenotyping. An automated phenotyping system and platform result in lots of digital features, which need to prove their values throughout large sample statistics and relationship analysis with traditional agronomic traits. How to precisely and efficiently evaluate, understand and interpret these digital image-based features, and dig out valuable quantitative traits for functional genomes are key problems in the development and application of plant phenotyping.
(3) With the multi-domain, multi-level, and multi-scale phenotypic information, we urgently need to make use of the latest achievements of artificial intelligence in depth learning, data fusion, hybrid intelligence and swarm intelligence to develop big-data management producers for supporting data integration, interoperability, ontologies, shareability and globality.
(4) Modeling is a powerful tool to understand G × E × M interactions, identify key traits of interest for target environments. Nevertheless, several scientific and technical challenges need to be overcome. For example the validity and practicality of the models in terms of modeling processes and their interactions need further verification, and the interaction and feedbacks of multi-scale phenotypes between modeling processes also need to be solved. Only then will we be able to streamline and speed up the tortuous gene-to-phenotype journey through modeling to develop the required agricultural outputs and sustainable environments for everybody.
(5) Crop genotype (G) -phenotype (p) -envirotype (E) information comprehensive analysis and utilization. In short, as Coppens et al. (2017) said “the future of plant phenotyping lies in synergism at the national and international levels.” We need to seek novel solutions to the grand challenges of multi-omics data, such as intelligent data-mining analytics, which offers a powerful tool to unravel the biological processes governing plant growth and development, and to advance plant breeding for much-needed climate-resilient and high-yielding crops.
CZ, XG, and YZ conducted the literature survey and drafted the article. JD, WW, SG, JW, and JF provided the data and tables about the crop phenotyping researches by NERCITA. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
This study was supported by the Construction of Collaborative Innovation Center of Beijing Academy and Forestry Science (Collaborative Innovation Center of Crop Phenomics), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31801254 and 31671577), Research Development Program of China (No. 2016YFD0300605-01), and Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences Grant (Nos. KJCX20170404 and KJCK20180423).
^ https://arapheno.1001genomes.org
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Keywords: crop phenomics, phenotyping extraction, data storage, functional–structural plant modeling, phenotype–genotype association analysis
Citation: Zhao C, Zhang Y, Du J, Guo X, Wen W, Gu S, Wang J and Fan J (2019) Crop Phenomics: Current Status and Perspectives. Front. Plant Sci. 10:714. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.00714
Received: 30 October 2018; Accepted: 14 May 2019;
Jose Antonio Jimenez-Berni, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain
Young-Su Seo, Pusan National University, South Korea
Keisuke Nagai, Nagoya University, Japan
Copyright © 2019 Zhao, Zhang, Du, Guo, Wen, Gu, Wang and Fan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Chunjiang Zhao, zhaocj@nercita.org.cn
†Co-first authors
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Here's your personal E3 hype survival guide
By Connor Sheridan 2015-06-14T16:00:00.164Z Feature
Rise above the hype
On the Media's Breaking News Consumer's Handbook is a frank, concise set of guidelines to remember whenever you're trying to parse developing events from the modern diaspora of information sources. Of course, confusing, conflicting sources aren't nearly as common in video games, where much of the story proceeds in an orderly fashion based on whatever information game companies decide to dole out.
But that doesn't mean you should take everything you see at face value. Inspired by OTM, Ive decided to offer some tips to help you rise above the hype cycle, starting with its dubstep-throbbing heart: trailers. By the time you're done with this guide, you'll be ready to enjoy E3 - which is like Christmas, New Year's Eve, and a stock market opening ceremony rolled into one for hype - with high hopes and pragmatic expectations.
Drawing gameplay conclusions from a CGI trailer is folly
Pre-rendered trailers have been a fixture of video game marketing for decades, but up until recent years they've been more of a proof-of-concept than a potential source of confusion. Unfortunately, as gaming visuals creep closer and closer toward photo-realism, it's become easier to mix them up with actual scenes of gameplay, or at least to conclude that they're real parts of the game with an extra layer of post-production polish.
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That's not a safe assumption, and trying to draw any conclusions about a game beyond basic stuff like "this is what the protagonist looks like" and "she fights with a gun / sword" from a trailer produced by people otherwise uninvolved with the game is a bad idea. Watch this Blur Studio animation reel to get a better feel for what state-of-the-art CGI trailers can look like.
Don't get swept up in the little visual details
Even if you're certain that you're seeing a game in motion, don't assume it's the game you'll actually get to play. Much can change between an impressive reveal video and release, as was infamously demonstrated by Watch Dogs: the actual game, which released in May 2014, was notably less visually impressive than the live demonstration Ubisoft gave two years earlier.
It's unlikely that Ubisoft was actually trying to deceive anyone with that first gameplay demonstration. But the subtle elements that make those kinds of visuals so impressive, like soft, ambient lighting, are also the first to fall when developers need to wring more performance out of uncooperative hardware (Watch Dogs' gameplay debuted before new-gen hardware was even locked down). Those little touches can make a big difference to your gut reaction, but try to focus on the bigger concepts for a more accurate - and less potentially disappointing - impression of the final product.
If the trailer lasts more than 1:30, you can safely skip to the last minute
Marketers love to frontload trailers with scene-setting material: expository voiceovers, extreme close-ups on impressively rendered woodland creatures, slow panning shots of the hero's new and improved equipment. That's all fine if you're already invested in the game and are eager to see every little detail, but for everybody else, it means a lot of sitting around and hoping the interesting part will start soon.
Don't just wait for it to come to you! Instead, take hold of the scrub bar and skip to the last minute - that's where the actual game is likely to be hiding. At that point most trailers have gotten all their stylistic exposition out of their systems and are getting more into what's actually going to be in the box. The last minute is also where you'll find pertinent details like a release date or console exclusivity (or pre-order bonuses).
If it's not a yearly sequel, add six months to the release date
It might feel like every big game of this generation has missed its release date by at least a month, but that isn't the case. Series like Call of Duty, Madden, and Assassin's Creed have a strict yearly schedule to adhere to, and while they might shift a few weeks from time to time, you can usually count on them to release like clockwork - relatively speaking. But if the game in question isn't part of an annualized franchise, then, well, don't go planning important life events around its release date.
Many factors dictate whether a game will be delayed and how long it may be pushed back. But a delay of six months is a good, cautious estimate to keep in mind: it's long enough for the developer to apply plenty of polish, and for games that were meant to hit the holiday rush to ship in the increasingly competitive spring months, or vice versa. If no date is mentioned at all, don't anticipate a release within the year.
'Acclaim' can actually tell you a lot
Trailers will often throw out a few dozen quotes with positive-sounding phrases like 'breathtaking' or 'a must-play' in rapid succession, trying to give you the impression that the game has received unanimous praise from critics. But it's a good idea to apply some skepticism to whatever marketers tell you about their product, even when they quote a publication or person you trust to make their point.
Thankfully, you can still learn a lot from the 'acclaim', even if it's not quite what the marketers intended. Are the quotes mostly one or two words, or do they use a lot of ellipses? If so, the source of that quotation probably doesn't sound quite as congratulatory when read in full. On the other hand, if you don't recognize any of the sources - or perhaps you do, but not for their game coverage - you can conclude that the people cutting the trailer had to widen their search a bit to find positive snippets.
Just because a trailer has a great tone doesn't mean the game does, too
Rather than setting up important characters or events, some trailers are intended more to establish a certain tone. Dead Island's famed CGI trailer did little more than tell you that this is a game on an island with zombies in it, but its shocking imagery and reverse-spliced chronology did a phenomenal job portraying a bleak, hopeless atmosphere. Unfortunately, Dead Island's zombie-slaying loot-em-up action did little to follow through on that tone. That's an extreme example, but many other games have had their thematic ambition (or lack thereof) shown up by their own trailers.
On the other hand, if you find the video's tone immediately off-putting, you can go ahead and take it as a red flag. For instance, this Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z trailer, which (when it's not awkwardly cackling) talks about mixing hot sauce and testicles, was fairly faithful to the feel of the game itself. That is to say, pointlessly vulgar and lewd.
The mute button was made for unwanted music
Gears of War's "Mad World" production remains one of the most surprisingly impactful trailers ever made. It's attracted plenty of imitators since it first aired in 2006, many of whom took cues from how it introduced Marcus Fenix as both vulnerable and an ass-kicker, and the world of Sera as a place of broken beauty. Unfortunately, not every unlikely game-and-music pairing works equally well.
The good news is that, if a trailer's breathy cover of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" doesn't suit your musical tastes, you can pretty safely hit the mute button. Music video-styled trailers almost never include significant dialogue or sound effects, and when they do, it's easy to tell from the on-screen action, giving you plenty of time to unmute it.
Stage stunts are just there to get your attention
You can only watch so many gun-wielding characters wage a desperate war against a seemingly insurmountable enemy before they all start to blend together. No matter how well-made they are, trailers released in and around E3 all have a difficult task in holding on to your attention. Rather than distinguishing their games solely through unique gameplay snippets or impressive visuals, some companies choose to add a little something extra around the edges of their presentations.
That's why EA prefaced its introduction of NBA Live 14 with a minute-long slam poetry session about dribbling, and why the reveal trailer for The Division took several minutes to introduce Operation Dark Winter, a US government study that explored if and how society would break down in the event of a biological weapon attack. These attention-grabbing stunts are usually only tangentially related to the game itself, so feel free to grab a snack or check Twitter while you wait for the relevant part to begin.
Everything is subject to change
By their nature, work on big, fancy trailers has to begin many months before their planned debut. But since huge changes often come about in the span of weeks in game development, that means promotional materials may end up not being completely accurate to the current state of production. Unfortunately, you can't push back the release of an E3 trailer the same way you can push back the actual game (or else it wouldn't be much of an E3 trailer).
Thus, placeholder assets or other outdated material will frequently appear in promotional videos. That was likely at least part of the reason why Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Black Hand of Sauron was depicted as a tall, bald guy with a pointy face and a vaguely English accent in this trailer at E3 2014. But when the game launched in September, just a few months later, his nose and chin had receded a few inches, and he'd traded the orc-ney accent for the familiar voice of Nathan Drake, Desmond Miles, and The Penguin - Nolan North.
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The Lion King review: "Live-action remake is an astonishing spectacle that closely follows the original"
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In the last four years, GEMS has enjoyed some of the best university acceptance rates of any international school. Our students have been accepted into 1050 universities in 53 countries. We're proud to say that includes 66 of world's top 100 universities.
These days, there's a lot more to a university education than obtaining a world class qualification alone. Here's how we prepare our students for university and the world of work:
Development of employability skills: It's not just a degree employers look for. A GEMS student gains self-confidence, communication, initiative, team work and time management skills.
Interest and experience in their future study courses: Have a look at how we prepare our Alumni for their university courses before they leave school.
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Home » Bank hires SVP
Banking & Finance and Human Resources
Bank hires SVP
| By Rachel Watson |
Bank hires SVP of commercial banking
Bank appoints SVP of commercial banking
Bank names SVP and managing director
Trinity Senior Living Communities Hiring RNs and CENAs IMMEDIATE OPENINGS WITH SIGN-ON BONUS
Small Business GPS - Financial Awareness: Part 3
David Lee. Courtesy Bank of America Merrill Lynch
A global financial institution has hired a new local executive.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Merrill Lynch named David Lee as SVP and senior relationship manager of global commercial banking for Grand Rapids, according to the company last month.
Lee will serve middle-market companies with annual revenues of $50 million to $2 billon.
He will be responsible for delivering “the full capabilities of the bank” to current and prospective clients, helping them meet their financial goals.
“David’s vast experience with corporate operations, especially with consumer products companies, makes him an ideal match for this position,” said Renee Tabben, market president, Bank of America. “We are delighted David has rejoined the Bank of American Merrill Lynch team.”
Lee previously worked for the bank during the 2000s in the consumer and retail investment banking group in Chicago.
He relocated to Ada in 2011 after joining the corporate development team at Amway.
Most recently, he was a consultant to early-stage consumer products companies at Ada-based Mejury.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the marketing name for the global banking, global markets and institutional retirement businesses of Bank of America.
Rachel Watson is a Grand Rapids Business Journal staff reporter who covers food, manufacturing, small business, banking and finance, HR and diversity and sustainability. Email Rachel at rachelw at grbj dot com. Follow her on Twitter @RachelWatson86
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BOEM Announces Region-Wide Oil & Gas Lease Sale for Gulf of Mexico
In support of President Donald J. Trump’s America-First Offshore Energy Strategy, Department of Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Joe Balash and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Acting Director Walter Cruickshank announced that the Department will offer 77.3 million acres offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida for oil and gas exploration and development. The region-wide lease sale scheduled for Aug. 15, 2018, would include all available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Lease Sale 251, scheduled to be livestreamed from New Orleans, will be the third offshore sale under the National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022. Under this program, ten region-wide lease sales are scheduled for the Gulf, where resource potential and industry interest are high, and oil and gas infrastructure is well established. Two Gulf lease sales will be held each year and include all available blocks in the combined Western, Central, and Eastern Gulf of Mexico Planning Areas.
“Responsibly developing our energy resources in the OCS is important to our economy and energy security,” said Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Balash. “Striking the right balance between protecting the environment, powering America and achieving American energy dominance is our ultimate goal.”
Lease Sale 251 will include approximately 14,474 unleased blocks, located from three to 231 miles offshore, in the Gulf’s Western, Central and Eastern planning areas in water depths ranging from nine to more than 11,115 feet (three to 3,400 meters). Excluded from the lease sale are: blocks subject to the congressional moratorium established by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006; blocks that are adjacent to or beyond the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap; and whole blocks and partial blocks within the current boundary of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
The Gulf of Mexico OCS, covering about 160 million acres, contains about 48 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered technically recoverable gas.
“BOEM has a vital role in advancing responsible offshore energy development. Protecting the environment while providing for our energy needs is essential to our mission,” said Acting Director Cruickshank. “This lease sale is a just one piece of the Administration’s comprehensive effort to secure our Nation’s energy future and benefit the economy.”
Additionally, BOEM has included appropriate fiscal terms that take into account market conditions and ensure taxpayers receive a fair return for use of the OCS. These terms include a 12.5% royalty rate for leases in less than 200 meters of water depth, and a royalty rate of 18.75% for all other leases issued pursuant to the sale, in recognition of current hydrocarbon price conditions and the marginal nature of remaining Gulf of Mexico shallow water resources.
All terms and conditions for Gulf of Mexico Region-wide Sale 251 are detailed in the Proposed Notice of Sale (PNOS) information package, which will be available on Monday, April 2, 2018 at: http://www.boem.gov/Sale-251/. Copies of the PNOS maps can be requested from the Gulf of Mexico Region’s Public Information Unit at 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, LA 70123, or at 800-200-GULF (4853).
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On Palestinians, Elie Wiesel Had Nothing to Apologize For
Those rushing to tar the renowned Holocaust survivor for his lack of support for Palestinians are no different than those who during his life framed him as a money-grubbing Jew.
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Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel attending a symposium of Jewish-Hungarian solidarity in Budapest, December 9, 2009. Laszlo Balogh/Reuters
The saintliness of Elie Wiesel
Why Elie Wiesel never caught on in Israel
Remembering Elie Wiesel means recognizing Palestinian suffering – even if he never could
He had suffered unimaginably, persevered, fought incredible odds and won. But while he was regarded by most of the enlightened world as a hero, he also had a tendency to overlook the crimes of his allies and disregard those suffering under them.
This could describe Mohandas Gandhi, his “Dear Friend” letters to Adolf Hitler and attempts to build an alliance with the Axis nations against the British. It could be Nelson Mandela who, after becoming South Africa’s president, bestowed honors on tyrants who had supported him in the past such as Kadaffi, Castro and Suharto. How about Muhammad Ali, favored guest of African dictators, of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran? When Mandela died in 2013 and Ali last month, you heard nearly nothing about their unsavory friendships in the chorus of adulation for their greatness.
Compare that with the small but vocal corner of public opinion and punditry which over the last week since Elie Wiesel passed away, seems to be obsessed with the fact that he didn’t care much for the Palestinians. I’m no fan of the “don’t speak evil of the dead” school and there are enough examples of me trashing the reputations of the dearly departed in the archives of this newspaper, but why exactly are Wiesel’s views on the Israel-Palestine conflict even relevant to summing up his life’s work? I suppose if you were writing a 10,000-word obituary this might warrant a couple of sentences somewhere towards the end. But for a disturbing number of people, some of whom should at least know better, Wiesel’s views on Palestinian statehood were the litmus test by which they judged him.
But then, it was hardly surprising that there would be those who, in the immediate aftermath of his death, would seek to besmirch Wiesel’s record. For decades he was accused of being the showman of the Shoah business. Of hobnobbing with presidents and potentates. Of selling out to big money. Of being a fraud and a hypocrite. After all, he made too many people uncomfortable with his constant reminders that not long ago Jews were an endangered and hunted-down species. What was easier than using the ancient tactic of framing him as a money-grubbing Jew. And it was hard not to detect a tinge of schadenfreude in the reports that Wiesel’s own foundation was among those that had lost nearly all its millions investing in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Excoriating him for his perceived callousness towards the Palestinians is just another more fashionable way of taking that uppity dead Jew down a few pegs.
There were always those who would never forgive Wiesel for not remaining a young poor survivor on the wooden bunk in Buchenwald. Just as there are those who can’t accept that in the 70 years since over a third of the Jews were wiped out, the survivors and their children are now living prosperously in the comfortable communities in the West or in their homeland and sovereign state. But Wiesel had to pay the price for his success and for playing the role of the man who made the Holocaust real for millions who knew nothing about it.
Someone had to be the most famous Holocaust survivor in the world, the Shoah’s celebrity. It would have to be someone living in the United States, comfortable appearing alongside presidents and movie stars. He would have to be something of a showman, with a deft turn of phrase, a certain talent for public relations and the flexibility to adapt the trauma of his personal experiences, originally written in 900 pages of Yiddish, to a Hollywood script. It was inevitable that in becoming the face of his people’s genocide, one man representing six million dead men, women and children, as well as those who had survived, Wiesel was also setting himself on a pedestal from which some would try to knock him down.
In the decades that passed between the war and his transformation into Elie Wiesel, the writer and philosopher of the Holocaust, he was a journalist, writing mainly in Hebrew and French, neither his mother tongue. He was moderately successful as a journalist because he knew how to write both for his editors and his audience, which was not necessarily what he might have chosen to write for himself. He learned that a popular writer needs to make compromises. Wiesel was aware that he wasn’t the best survivor-writer. On a literary level he was nowhere near as good as fellow Auschwitz inmates Primo Levi and Imre Kertesz. This probably bothered him, but at least he sold many more books than they did and besides, they didn’t have the public role that had been thrust upon him. They didn’t have to act as a “voice of world’s conscience” and represent six million without a voice. Kertesz’s Nobel Prize was for literature; Wiesel’s was for peace. While you could argue whether his work advanced the cause of peace in the world, Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger also got Nobel Peace Prizes.
So Wiesel was not interested in speaking out against injustices done to Palestinians. After the Holocaust, he felt that Israel’s war for independence was his own. He feared, with good reason, that once again the Jews would lose and another genocide of 600,000 would take place should the Arab armies invading the new state succeed. He visited in 1949 while Israel was still barely hanging by a thread, while absorbing millions of survivors like him and Jewish refugees from Arab lands. His political conclusion was that Israel must never concede ground to its enemies. I expect younger Israeli politicians to adapt their views, but what right did we have to expect that of Wiesel?
It would have been wonderful if he had used his voice to urge Israelis and Israel’s supporters to seek a better way of solving the conflict with the Palestinians. But that wasn’t his role. Had Wiesel returned to live in Israel in his old age, I’m pretty certain we wouldn’t have been voting for the same party or the same candidates in the Knesset election. So what? He saw Israel as the haven that must be protected at all costs and though I and many others believe that Israel will be safer living aside a Palestinian people with rights and dignity, he thought otherwise. To blame him for holding this view is as churlish as insisting that Mandela should have shunned those dictatorships that supported him during his incarceration and long battle against apartheid. Blame the politicians who feted Wiesel and used him for their purposes, not the man who had seen his family and community destroyed and felt that Israel should take no risks in ensuring that Jews would have a place somewhere to ensure that it never happened again.
Wiesel played a role in giving both those who died in the Holocaust and those who lived through it a face and a voice. He enjoyed fame and fortune for doing so, but also had to pay a price by enduring ridicule and often unfair criticism for shedding his anonymity and putting himself up on the world stage. His goals were to make sure the Jews who had died were not forgotten and that those who lived could survive and prosper. He still found time to speak out on behalf of Cambodians, Bosnians, Rwandans and other victims of genocides. But he wouldn’t do so for those who he saw as endangering his own people. I think he was wrong in that but in no way does that invalidate his life’s work. Those who upon his death are rushing to tar him for that are no different than those who during his life criticized his financial success and fame. Elie Wiesel paid the price for his victory and had nothing to apologize for.
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Russia, China display burgeoning military ties at war games
By Sheetal Sukhija, Haiti News
MOSCOW, Russia - At its biggest ever war games, Russia has deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, several aircraft, tanks, combat vehicles and cruise missiles all coming together for week-long maneuvers known as Vostok 2018.
Dubbed as Russia's biggest-ever war games since 1981, Vostok is being held on the largest scale in almost four decades and has been defended by the country as a major test of military readiness.
This year, Russia is also fulfilling another agenda through the war games - displaying the country's burgeoning military ties with China at a time when both the countries are dealing with problems from the U.S.
Nearly 300,000 Russian troops along with 1,000 Russian planes, helicopters and drones and up to 36,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles, as well as up to 80 ships and other combat vehicles are part of Vostok 2018, which this year, also involves over 3,000 Chinese troops.
The week-long manoeuvres span vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East, the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans and officials in the country have stated that the exercise surpasses even the biggest Soviet maneuvers in 1981.
Officials have also stated that China has sent about 3,200 troops, 900 combat vehicles and 30 aircraft to join the drills at a Siberian firing range.
China's deployment was seen as a sign that the country is shifting towards a full-fledged military alliance with Russia and the emerging military alliance will send a strong signal to U.S. and Japan.
According to Chinese media reports, the People's Liberation Army involvement in the drills is being seen as the country's largest-ever dispatch of forces abroad for war games.
On Thursday, speaking at the Tsugol firing range, which is close to where Russian and Chinese troops are performing joint drills, the Russian President Vladimir Putin lauded the troops for their skills, saying they "demonstrated their capability to deflect potential military threats."
He further added, "Russia is a peaceful nation. We do not and cannot have any aggressive plans" but noted that the country needs to strengthen its military capability to "be ready to protect its sovereignty, security and national interests, and, if necessary, support our allies."
Earlier this week, China's official People's Liberation Army Daily said that the drills were aimed at maintaining regional peace, was not aimed at any third party and did not "have anything to do with the regional situation."
It said, "The Chinese officers and soldiers participating in the drills will demonstrate the determination and ability to maintain regional peace and stability with practical actions."
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The Icelandic fleet’s redfish fishery opened at midnight last night and as the clock rolled over there were twelve trawlers that shot away just after midnight. There is also a number of foreign trawlers working on the Reykjanes Ridge grounds and as usual, the fishing prospects look best at the start of the season around and just outside the 200 mile limit.
Four of HB Grandi’s trawlers, Therney, Örfirisey, Venus and Helga María are now fishing along or just outside the 200 mile limit, and according to Heimir Gudbjörnsson, skipper on Helga María for this trip, they hauled after their first tow just before four o’clock this afternoon.
‘We had around 20 tonnes of redfish for a twelve-hour tow, or around 1.50 tonnes per towing hour. A tonne an hour is reckoned to be good, so this was a very good haul,’ he said, commenting that there are fifteen Russian trawlers fishing there, as well as four or five from Spain and around the same number of Norwegian and Faroese trawlers fishing around the Icelandic territorial limit, according to what the Russian skippers report.
‘Things have changed and it’s certainly an improvement on last year. The Russian were allowed to start fishing on the 26th of April, but according to the regulations, they can only take 15% of their quota before the 10th of May. This appears to have been respected and while some of them went to Iceland to land their fish, another seven waited it out for two or three days until they could start fishing again at midnight last night.’
Heimir Gudbjörnsson said that when the Russian started again, the fishing was best around three miles outside the limit, but since then the redfish have shifted closer and in past the limit. There is now some good fishing on both sides of the limit and some trawlers have started towing north-west along the line, something that hasn’t been tried yet. He commented that the redfish they have caught so far has been good quality fish, and is mostly medium sized redfish, mixed with some smaller redfish.
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NAIBA Holiday Catalog
The Prince (Paperback)
By Niccolo Machiavelli, Richard S. Hartmetz (Editor)
There are books, just a few that are legendary and have changed the way the world sees itself, inspiring debate, dissent, or even war. Join us for one of those books, written by one of the world's greatest and most controversial thinkers, Machiavelli. Rejecting tradition and drawing on his own experiences, Machiavelli has created a disturbingly realistic and prophetic master plan for seizing and holding power, free of ordinary moral and ethical values and coldly logical. Published several years after his death, this provocative book ignited a debate that still rages today; an uncompromising picture of the true nature of political power and a call for fearless and effective action.
Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was born on May 3, 1469 in Florence, Italy, the third child in the family. Niccolo was educated in Latin, Grammar, Rhetoric, and was also a prolific Chef. At the age of 29, Machiavelli was elected as head of the second chancery and held other high-ranking political positions. From 1503 to 1506, he was in charge of the Florentine militia. When they were overthrown, he was imprisoned and tortured. Machiavelli's best-known work, "The Prince," was written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after he died. He died on June 21, 1527, at the age of 58, in Florence, Italy, and was buried at the Church of Santa Croce.
Publication Date: June 13th, 2013
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Kobo eBook (April 10th, 2015): $3.91
Paperback (September 2010): $8.95
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Share on …
Violin Sonata A major
Peter Jost (Editor)
Klaus Schilde (Fingering)
Yehudi Menuhin (Fingering and bowing for Violin)
Daniel Hope (Fingering and bowing for Violin)
with marked and unmarked string part
replaces HN 293
Pages 76 (VI+46+12+12), Size 23,5 x 31,0 cm
Version for Violoncello 36.95 € Digital (tablet)
Unlike other late works by Franck, the Violin Sonata of 1886 found a friendly reception among critics and public from the outset. It is dedicated to Eugène Ysaÿe, who was attracting much attention at the time with his flawless violin technique. Ysaÿe was so inspired by the Sonata that he promised “I will play this masterpiece wherever I can find an artistically-minded pianist”. Nothing has changed to the present day regarding the work’s continuing popularity, but it was time to revise Henle’s previous edition to reflect the latest research. In the intervening period it has been shown that Franck was actively involved in reading the proofs for the printed edition, meaning that the first edition, which contains many differences from the autograph, has become the basis for our new one. The markings of the violin part of our edition are by Yehudi Menuhin; Daniel Hope has undertaken the changes required by the revised musical text.
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A majority of the works by César Franck (1822 – 90) that have a firm place in today’s concert repertoire, such as his Piano Quintet, his String Quartet, the Variations symphoniques for piano and orchestra and the Symphony in d minor, were only written in the composer’s last years. His Violin Sonata in A major, composed in 1886, also belongs to their number, … more
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Critical Commentary
Open Commentary (PDF)
Famous organist and composer who exerted a lasting influence on French music of the fin-de-siècle both through his works and especially as a teacher.
1822 Born in Liège on December 10.
1831 Instruction in piano, organ, and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Liège.
1835 First stay in Paris, lessons with Reicha, among others.
1837–42 Studies at the Conservatoire de Paris.
1839–42 “3 Trios concertants,” Op. 1, in the first of which he employs the cyclic technique typical both of his later works and of French symphonic music of the 1880s.
1843 Concert tour through Belgium and Germany.
1845 Premiere of his oratorio “Ruth.”
1847 He becomes organist at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette
1852–70 He teaches at various institutions.
from 1857 Organist at Sainte-Clotilde, location of one of the famous Cavaillé Coll organs. Composition of sacred works; 1856–65, “6 Pièces” for organ.
1861 Member of the Société académique de musique sacrée (Academic Sacred Music Society).
1869–79 Composes oratorio “Les Béatitudes.”
1871 Founding member of the Société nationale de musique.
1872 Teaches an organ class at the Conservatoire. Among his most famous pupils are Duparc, Chausson, and d’Indy, whose Course in Musical Composition (1906) is based on Franck’s compositional and formal principles.
1881–88 Genesis of the symphonic poems “Le Chasseur maudit” (“The Accursed Huntsman”), “Les Djinns,” “Psyché.”
1878 Premiere of his “3 Pièces pour le Grand Orgue” in the monumental style.
1886 Violin Sonata in A major; president of the Société nationale de musique.
1886–88 Symphony in D minor, one of the most formative works of French symphonic music of the age.
1890 Death in Paris on November 8.
1894 Posthumous premiere in Monte Carlo of his opera “Hulda.”
Dr. Peter Jost, born in 1960 in Diefflen/Saar, read musicology, German and comparative studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken. He did his PhD in 1988 with a thesis on Robert Schumann’s Waldszenen.
From November 1991 to April 2009 he was a research associate at the Richard Wagner Complete Edition in Munich, and since May 2009 has been an editor at G. Henle Publishers. His Urtext editions comprise predominantly French music of the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by Lalo, Saint-Saëns and Ravel.
Prof. Klaus Schilde, born in 1926, spent his childhood in Dresden. There he was greatly influenced by Walter Engel, who taught him the piano (Kodaly method), composition and violin. From 1946–1948 he studied at the music conservatory in Leipzig with Hugo Steurer. After moving to the west in 1952 he studied with Walter Gieseking and Edwin Fischer, as well as with Marguerite Long, Lucette Descaves and Nadia Boulanger in Paris.
Schilde won numerous prizes. From 1947 onwards he gave concerts as a soloist and chamber musician on almost every single continent with renowned orchestras. He taught at the music conservatories in East Berlin Detmold, West Berlin, Munich, Tokyo (Geidai) and Weimar. From 1988–1991 he was President of the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, where he also taught for decades as a professor. There are numerous radio and television broadcasts with Klaus Schilde as well as CD recordings. Schilde has contributed fingerings to almost 100 Henle Urtext editions.
» Biography
Sonata in a minor for Violin and Basso continuo
Adagio and Allegro op. 70 for Piano and Horn
Pablo de Sarasate
Carmen Fantasy op. 25 for Violin and Piano
Chamber Music with Piano - 4 Volumes in a Slipcase
Clarinet Sonata op. 107
Concerto for two Violins d minor BWV 1043
Duos for Piano and Violin
Fairy-Tale Pictures op. 113, four pieces for Piano and Viola
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Trusted Cremation Services in Birch Island
Arranging Funeral Services with Birch Island(ME) Cremation Services
Cremation services in Birch Island(ME) are completed respectfully and diligently, which is exactly what you would expect from anyone involved with funeral services and providing a dignified end to a person's life.
Approximately 50% of people are cremated with cremation services in Birch Island(ME) with the other 50% making the choice to encompass a burial within a funeral service. The numbers of people being cremated is a much higher percentage than the majority of the US, but in every state the numbers are increasing annually. There are a number of reasons for this.
Why do People Choose Cremation Services in Birch Island(ME)?
Cremation services in Birch Island(ME) will almost certainly be less expensive than arranging a burial. For some people, relations have to travel a long way and perhaps arrive from abroad. Cremation allows for a memorial service to be held several weeks or even months after the deceased has passed on.
Some people suggest to cremation services in Birch Island(ME) that they do not like the idea of a person's body decaying in the ground and much prefer the quicker and cleaner method used within a crematorium.
As directed by Birch Island(ME) cremation services, the remains - the ashes - can be placed in an urn and be scattered at a most significant location, which might mean in a local cemetery for a religious person. Other people who are less religious may prefer the ashes to be scattered in a private area at home or perhaps over a favorite lake.
Where you choose to have the ashes scattered in a public area, you may have to seek permission from the owners of that area to allow a scattering to take place. Nevertheless, there are many places, like sports fields, that won't give permission in advance for ashes to be scattered across the field, but might be quite amenable to accept a small private service when the stadium is completely empty and quiet. Your cremation services in Birch Island(ME) will be to help you with these decisions.
Many people will prefer the option of agreeing to an environmentally friendly funeral service. Cremation services in Birch Island(ME) will be able to direct you to the correct locations to assist your requirements.
Where a burial is involved, Birch Island(ME) cremation services will make clear that it has been traditional that a formaldehyde-based embalming fluid is used for the body to be presented correctly. This is not essential when a cremation is your preferred decision. Some people are against land being used to bury a coffin and many large cities and towns have already run out of space within many churchyards.
Birch Island(ME) cremation services will explain that the scattering of the remains do not require any land to be used at all, as the ashes may be kept in an urn at your home or they may be scattered in a particular location of the person's choice. Some people still choose to have their ashes buried where a close family member is found, but this will not take up any more land space.
Cremation services in Birch Island(ME) will explain how a funeral service provides a social support system for all of the people involved. It also allows for all of the bereaved to finally accept that the death of the person cannot be reversed and that part of living is to know that you are going to die one day.
A funeral service offered by cremation services in Birch Island(ME) will help reintegrate the bereaved family back into local community, because they may have been set apart for a few days or more during the grieving process.
Birch Island(ME) cremation services will be able to help reaffirm everyone's relationship to the person who has recently died and the funeral service will provide a perfect opportunity to say goodbye properly and share the experience with close members of family and friends.
A cremation arranged by Birch Island(ME) cremation services can reflect a full funeral service with the only difference, from a burial, being the way a body is committed forwards. With Birch Island(ME) cremation services, this means the coffin will pass through curtains and that will be your final memory for that part of the process.
Worrying about whether you need to make different funeral arrangements because you have chosen a cremation is not necessary. Birch Island(ME) cremation services will explain how you can have a funeral service before cremation or perhaps you may wish to choose a memorial service along with the cremation. Some people will choose to have the funeral service after the cremation so that the urn may be present.
Many crematoriums have areas set aside purposely as a spot set out as a garden of remembrance. This can be a perfect area for you to scatter the cremation ashes. Many churches have similar areas where people who are more religious may be happier with the decision that the ashes are scattered on religious grounds. All of this can be explained carefully to you by Birch Island(ME) cremation services.
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11 of the Clearest Bodies of Water in the Entire World
In the Maldives, you can see the ocean floor from your hotel room.
By Lauren Smith
If you've ever said "pass" to jumping into a lake, because it was so murky you couldn't see your feet, you're no alone. The feeling can be, well, unsettling. But you'll never run into that problem at these lakes, bays or coastlines. They're the definition of crystal clear and should be considered for your next tropical destination.
Cala Macarelleta in Spain
The turquoise water and pristine white sand found in this cove is world famous, despite how challenging it is to visit. But don't worry, as you can see, the terrifying and windy road is well worth it.
Linapacan Island in the Philippines
White sand and crystalline water makes this remote and quiet destination (it has a population of only 14,180 people!) a must-see. Visitors often spend their days snorkeling, diving and even taking photos underwater.
To Sua Ocean Trench in Samoa
In the middle of the Lotofaga village is this sua, which means "big hole." A ladder was installed so visitors seeking out this pristine destination could swim in the almost 100-foot-deep waters.
Jenny Lake in Wyoming
Approximately 12,000 years ago, this lake was formed when glaciers pushed rock debris to the side and carved out a canyon. Today, it's the main attraction in Grand Teton National Park — for obvious reasons.
Koh Phi Phi Don in Thailand
People from all over travel to this island (the largest of the Phi Phi islands), even though it can only be accessed by ferry. But even if lines for these transit boats are long, it's a sight to behold even during the boat ride.
The Maldive Islands
You've probably heard of these beautiful atolls (a string of closely spaced small coral islands enclosed by a shallow lagoon) in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And the crystal clear water is basically the cherry on top.
Bodrum in Turkey
We're not surprised ancient Turkish people decided to set up a port city near such a beautiful body of water. Today, the town even has a Museum of Underwater Archaeology for people who want to learn more about the city's main attraction.
Dalmatian Coast in Croatia
The Adriatic Sea along this coast is part of the reason Croatia has become one of the hottest new destinations to visit in Europe. Dramatic limestone cliffs line the water and make it a totally unique experience.
Exuma in the Bahamas
This district is made up of over 636 small islands where the water and sand are so breathtaking, nature has been preserved (for the most part). However, there are a few exclusive resorts and homes for the rich and famous.
Lake Tahoe in California
This freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains is the largest alpine lake in the country. It was formed around 2 million years ago during the ice ages (brr) and is a an especially popular destination for people in California and Nevada.
Hanauma Bay in Hawaii
Located on the island of Oahu is this bay, which is full of shallow, clear water that makes it a popular destination for snorkelers. Even better: Swimmers are so common that the fish aren't even threatened by visitors anymore.
A Guide to Jane Austen's English Countryside
Lauren Smith Senior Editor Lauren is a senior editor for Redbookmag.com and WomansDay.com and was previously the home editor for GoodHousekeeping.com and HouseBeautiful.com.
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What Is a Meme (and How Did They Originate)?
Brady Gavin @bradyjgavin
September 30, 2018, 6:40am EDT
If you’ve used the internet for more than a few days, you’ve probably seen a meme. They’ve become an integral part of modern online life. But, where did they get their start? How have they evolved? And where did the word “meme” come from, anyway?
Where Did the Word “Meme” Come From?
The first published case of the word meme (pronounced “Meem,” not me-me), dates back to Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins referred to it as a “Mimeme”—a word derived from Greek that means “that which is imitated.” The word was then abbreviated to just “meme” due to its similarity to the word “gene.”
Dawkins coined the term because he was trying to figure out whether there was a measurable unit describing how ideas spread and propagated through generations. So, put simply, a meme is to an idea what a gene is to a physical trait. And much like how genes and physical traits evolve through natural selection, Dawkins believed that anything capable of undergoing evolution—like memes and ideas—also did so through natural selection.
This is where the modern form of the word “meme” is derived—the idea of the replication, selection, and evolution of ideas all working themselves out in the biggest proving ground of ideas ever—the internet.
Were There Memes Before The Internet?
Memes have been around since long before the internet existed. In fact, they have been around since before Dawkins coined the term, showing up as early as 79 AD in a Pompeii ruin and as late as the 1970s, in graffiti.
The Sator Square is a palindrome of the five words “SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS”—one on top of the next. You can read in any direction (assuming you read Latin), including upside down and backward. Although nobody knows for sure what it means, it has shown up over the centuries in different cultures all over the world, including France, England, Syria, and Italy.
Frodo Baggins, the fictional character of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, also became part of a meme. The phrase “Frodo Lives” was plastered all over in graffiti, buttons, and even bumper stickers on cars. It was frequently used by people who felt that Frodo, who was sent off to Mordor on a death mission by powerful people with their own agendas, was a good metaphor for being held down by “The Man.”
Another example of memes occurred on Usenet in the early 1990s: Godwin’s Law. Although it was initially conceived for a newsgroup discussion forum, it remains as applicable today as it did almost 30 years ago. Godwin’s Law states that “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” Once a thread would reach that point, it was traditionally considered over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis immediately lost any credibility in the argument.
RELATED: What is the Difference Between Usenet and the Internet?
What Were The First Internet Memes?
The first viral internet meme can be pinned back to a particular dancing baby that was spread around the internet, before finally appearing on an episode of Ally McBeal.
In 1996, graphic designer Michael Girard created software that showed how movement could be programmed and projected via computers. The final design was the model of a baby demonstrating different movements from the Cha-Cha-Cha. Girard’s employer then sent the demo out to developers to show off their software’s capabilities. One of the demos arrived in the inbox of a LucasArts employee, who then turned the video into a GIF and shared it (largely via forums and email, but also on the burgeoning web), sending it into a widespread viral sensation.
The Hampster Dance was another popular early internet meme. It was a website that featured rows of animated GIF hamsters dancing to a sped up version of “Whistle Stop”—a song used in the credits of Walt Disney’s Robin Hood. The site was created by a Canadian art student in a competition with her sister and a friend in 1998, to see who could generate the most web traffic online.
After only generating 600 views in 8 months, her website suddenly went viral. In just four days, her site saw over 600,000 views, gaining popularity through email, blogs, and even bumper stickers.
How Have Memes Evolved Since Then?
With the wide use of social media and sites like Reddit, 9GAG, and 4Chan, it has become increasingly easy for memes to gain popularity and go viral overnight, with millions of daily visitors looking to have a lol or two.
Before the internet came along, memes tended to have political or cultural significance, and their popularity lasted much longer than they do today. While some memes today can still show longevity, most go from viral to forgotten in a relatively short time. This is partly due to how fast the internet moves (there’s always something new to grab your attention) and partly because of how easy it is to create memes.
Memes have also moved away from political or cultural topics to focus more on pop-culture references and sarcastic life observations, making them relatable, funny, and easier for them to spread like wildfire across the web.
One significant case of evolution in a meme would have to be LOLCats and the whole language surrounding the meme itself. LOLCats use a creative style of spelling with their memes, called lolspeak, personifying cats depicted in images. Using spelling mistakes and improper tenses to make sentences in a common structure, where “Can I have a cheeseburger?” would translate to “i can has cheezberger.”
As of 2010, the LOLCat Bible Translation Project finished a translation of The Bible into lolspeak, even going as far as to translate The New Testament as well. But things don’t stop there: an esoteric programming language called LOLCode was born, using the very same format of speaking in LOLCats memes, to form an ever-evolving meme beyond a simple picture.
Want to learn more about specific memes? There’s no better place to explore than Know Your Meme—a veritable encyclopedia of all things meme.
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Brady Gavin
Brady Gavin has been immersed in technology for 15 years and has written over 150 detailed tutorials and explainers. He's covered everything from Windows 10 registry hacks to Chrome browser tips. Brady has a diploma in Computer Science from Camosun College in Victoria, BC.
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Christian Cook
Associate Professor of Management & Human Resources, Bissett School of Business, Mount Royal University
PChristian is an Associate Professor of Management & Human Resources in the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. Prior to a career transition to teaching and research, Christian worked for over twenty years across several large, international organizations and leverages that expertise to teach HR strategy, employee relations, and emerging topics in our field. She draws on a wide range of practitioner experiences and research foundations to provide a dynamic and engaging environment for participants in her university classes, professional workshops, and keynote presentations.
Christian earned her PhD (Leadership) from the University of Calgary, her MBA (HR) from Royal Roads University (Victoria, BC), and her undergraduate degree from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC). She is a chartered professional in HR (CPHR Canada) and is additionally recognized in the USA with the SHRM-SCP designation.
Key Media | Canadian Mortgage Awards | Insurance Business Awards | Top Investor Canada | WP Awards
HR Leaders Summit | HR Leaders Summit West | Insurance Business Masterclass
Copyright © 2018 Canadian HR Awards - All Rights Reserved.
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North Korea: Harsher Policies against Border-Crossers
보고서 다운로드 받기
China: Protect 15 Detained North Koreans
Halt Forced Returns of North Koreans to Prison, Torture, and Forced Labor
Legacy PDF:
The North Korean government has hardened its policy towards its citizens it catches crossing the border into China without state permission, or whom China has forcibly repatriated. Until around November 2004 those who crossed the border-often to find food-were typically released after questioning or served at most a few months in forced labor camps, a relatively light punishment by North Korean standards for what is considered an act of treason.[1] Recent interviews by Human Rights Watch show that this relative leniency is over: in late 2004 North Korea announced a new policy of harshly punishing border crossers with prison sentences of up to five years. Anyone imprisoned in North Korea is liable to face abusive conditions including beatings, forced labor, and starvation far worse than among the population at large.
The change of policy occurred after South Korea flew 468 North Korean refugees from Vietnam in the summer of 2004 for resettlement in South Korea. North Korea demanded their return, and cut off all dialogue with South Korea for 10 months afterwards. Immediately after the arrival of these North Koreans in South Korea, the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's official mouthpiece, called it "premeditated allurement, abduction and terrorism committed by the South Korean authorities against people in the North in broad daylight," quoting the (North Korean) Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, which handles ties with South Korea. The statement also accused South Korea of working with the United States Congress, which only a few days previously had passed the North Korean Human Rights Act, paving the way for the US to accept North Korean refugees for resettlement.[2] North Korea called the Act an attempt to topple the North Korean government under the pretext of promoting democracy and a market economy.[3]
In conjunction with the tougher punishment, since at least early 2006 the North Korean authorities have made concerted efforts to discourage people from leaving the country, through officially organized meetings, decrees and announcements, and warnings of severe consequences.
Meanwhile, some Chinese officials and residents in the border area told Human Rights Watch that they expected a new exodus of North Koreans in the winter of 2006-07 and onward amid continuing food shortages plaguing the country.[4] A widespread food shortage, made worse by a suspension of South Korea's food aid following North Korea's test firing of seven ballistic missiles in July 2006, could drive higher numbers of people to attempt to cross the border in search of food and other basic goods.[5]
The North Koreans discussed and cited in this briefing paper are generally referred to as "border crossers"[6] rather than refugees, asylum seekers, escapees, or other terms. Each of those terms describes some, but not all, North Koreans in China. There are anywhere between several tens of thousands and several hundreds of thousands of North Koreans in China, according to humanitarian aid workers who assist North Koreans. They include those fleeing political and religious persecution, women who are in de facto marriages with Chinese men, those who have fallen victim to human trafficking, family members who are temporarily visiting China to meet their relatives (mostly without official permission) but intending to return home, people who escaped because of the food shortage or other economic reasons, and merchants who regularly cross the border for business either secretly or by bribing border guards.
North Korea, which has been a member of the United Nations since September 1991 and a state party to the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) since December 1981,[7] has an international legal obligation to permit North Koreans to leave and re-enter their own country. This obligation also entails an imperative to stop punishing North Korean border crossers, who have committed no crime other than leaving the country without state permission.
China is obliged under international law not to return persons to a territory where their lives would be threatened, they would be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment, or subject to other grave human rights violations. This obligation, known as the principle of nonrefoulement, is articulated in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, both of which China has been a party to since 1982.[8] The Chinese authorities, however, categorically label North Koreans illegal economic migrants and routinely arrest and repatriate them, in complete disregard of China's international legal obligation to protect and shelter refugees and not to return anyone to torture or ill-treatment.[9]
In late November and early December 2006 Human Rights Watch interviewed 16 North Korean border crossers who arrived in China between mid-July and early December 2006. Although small in number, they were from eight different locations, and provided Human Rights Watch with consistent testimonies about the new policy of harsher punishment for those caught crossing the border or repatriated from China. To protect their identity and their families, all interviewees in this briefing paper are identified only by their gender, age, and place of origin.
The Chinese authorities harass and even imprison some aid workers and missionaries who assist North Koreans. Such policies and practices make it difficult to arrange meetings with North Koreans in China, as most of them live in hiding, fearful of being exposed to strangers. This means that Human Rights Watch cannot, at this writing, confirm whether the predicted new exodus of North Koreans into China in search of food is presently taking place.
Increasing Punishment for Border Crossers
According to recent border crossers, the North Korean government since late 2004 has warned citizens throughout the country that in the future even first-time border crossers would be sent to prison. The government has reportedly indicated various prison terms from one to five years. It appears that the North Korean authorities have made concerted efforts to prevent people from leaving the country by announcing the new policy through numerous gatherings and directly through police and intelligence officers.
This reflects a hardening of North Korea's policy in place since 2000, which had been relatively lenient towards border crossers. Those arrested between 2000 and late 2004 typically were either released after questioning or served a few months at labor re-education facilities, unless they were found to have had contact with South Koreans, missionaries, or aid workers. Such contact was a factor that would result in worse punishment and led to anything from a few months to an indefinite term in prison.[10]
Under the new policy, according to the North Koreans we interviewed, they were told that everyone was to be sent to prison, regardless of their reason for leaving, what they did outside the country, or whom they met in China. "I heard from people that border crossers are sent to regular prison for three years now. They used to be forgiven if they didn't do anything particularly bad while in China," a 32-year-old man from Samsoo told us.[11] It was not possible for Human Rights Watch to confirm whether this new policy was being strictly followed by all local officials, and whether such officials were given any kind of discretion in deciding sentences.
It appears that the authorities have primarily communicated the new policy through People's Committee Meetings, regular, compulsory gatherings at which North Koreans learn of new policies and regulations. "I heard at a People's Committee Meeting that border crossers will be punished heavily, especially if an entire family attempted it," a man from Musan told us. "Even first-time offenders get one to five years of prison term now."[12] Another man, from Hoeryong, said, "In October this year [2006] there was a state announcement that all border crossers will be sent to regular prison for at least three years. In the past, first-time offenders were sent to forced labor facilities for six months. I heard it from a People's Committee Meeting. I understand it's a nationwide instruction."[13]
In some instances, people have been made to sign statements promising not to leave without state permission. A young man from Pyongyang told Human Rights Watch,
I attended two days of People's Committee Meeting in Hoeryong City before crossing over. The authorities made people submit a written promise that they won't cross the border, and their entire families will be forcibly relocated should they break the promise. They said, starting in October this year [2006], even first-time offenders shall be sent to kyohwaso [regular prison] for five years.[14]
Different interviewees had heard of the new policy at different times: a woman in her fifties from Pyongyang told us that the policy was announced in an official degree in 2005, for example, not 2006 as one of the men quoted above declared.[15] It would appear, based on comments from other interviewees, that there have in fact been repeated warnings over the past couple of years, reflecting that the new policy was not a temporary but a long-term change. As an elderly woman from Chungjin recounted, "In February 2005 I heard that all border crossers will be sent to regular prison. By March or April 2006 I heard the same at a People's Committee Meeting."[16]
Another North Korean interviewee said such warnings were not only meant for the general public, but also border guards themselves, who help border crossers for money:
I heard from intelligence officials that there was a state instruction on November 27, 2004, to heavily punish border crossers, and send them all to regular prison, in reaction to the defection of North Koreans to South Korea in July 2004. In July 2006 there was another instruction to harshly punish those who even attempt to cross the border. They said border guards who help such crossing shall be tried by a military tribunal or dishonorably discharged.[17]
None of the interviewees offered details of military tribunals, but a South Korean online news media outlet, The Daily NK, reported on the execution in August 2006 of three soldiers belonging to a border unit after being charged with helping a man, believed to be a former prisoner of war from South Korea, cross the border.[18] Also using an anonymous source inside North Korea, The Daily NK reported recently that two other soldiers are to be executed after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's birthday on February 16, 2007, for having aided border crossers in return for money.[19]
Good Friends, a private humanitarian aid organization in South Korea, recently reported that the North Korean authorities have increased patrols along the border, replaced border guards suspected of having aided border crossers, and even arrested retired soldiers suspected of having crossed the border themselves last year [2006].[20] Citing an unidentified source inside North Korea, the Daily NK separately reported that the North Korean authorities conducted an inspection of the border security units to catch those assisting border crossers and replaced personnel.[21]
Continuing heavier punishments for contact with South Koreans or missionaries
The principle of heavier punishment for those who have had contact with missionaries or converted to Christianity while in China appears to have been retained under the new policy.
Since the foundation of the North Korean state, the government has persistently persecuted religiously active people, who were typically categorized as "hostile elements." Christians, in particular, were seen as tools of anti-North Korea counter-revolutionary imperialist aggression. One of the most important reasons for North Korea's repression of religious practice is its clash with the cult-like reverence of founder and former President Kim Il Sung and present leader Kim Jong Il, under the juche (roughly translated as "self-reliance") ideology.[22]
A woman from Saebyul explained to Human Rights Watch that this aspect of the new policy had been announced: "Before 2004, border crossers served two to three months at a forced labor facility, but now, first-time offenders serve one year in regular prison, second-time offenders three years. Those who went to church (while in China) go to kwanliso (political prison camp) for 10 years. I heard this new policy at a People's Committee Meeting in late 2004."[23] Another woman, from Musan, said, "By late 2005, there was a state instruction to treat border crossing the same as any other criminal offense. Those who converted to Christianity are sentenced to at least three years, and they are sent to a different facility. Nobody knows what happens to them. It's the same for those who were caught while trying to go to South Korea."[24]
Mistreatment at Detention Facilities[25]
North Korean authorities now consider the act of leaving the country without permission a more serious crime, several interviewees said that border crossers are now sent to regular prison (which has a harsher regime), instead of forced-labor facilities, which are usually reserved for people deemed to have committed relatively lighter crimes. But regardless of the type of detention facility, North Koreans have told Human Rights Watch that prisoners are subjected to strip searches, verbal abuse and threats, beatings, forced labor, and lack of food and medicine, among other abuses. Torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment appears widespread and can occur throughout the process of incarceration in North Korea-during arrest and interrogation through to when serving a sentence of imprisonment.
Some of our interviewees for this briefing paper had personal experience of detention. A woman who served a few months in 2006 in jipkyolso (a temporary detention center where people await sentencing) said,
Except for the time when we ate, washed ourselves or slept, we were ordered to sit up straight without moving. If we moved, we were punished. They would make us sit down and stand up repeatedly until we collapsed, or forced us to hang onto cell bars or bang our heads onto the cell bars. Sometimes they punished everyone if one of us couldn't keep up. Guards beat people all the time-they used sticks or belts. They also slapped or kicked inmates for disobedience."[26]
Another North Korean gave an account of mistreatment she witnessed at a forced labor camp in the first half of 2006. "I saw a woman forced to stand up and sit down about 100 times. She fell, with white foam in her mouth. They massaged her, and she came to."[27]
In North Korea, regardless of which type of detention facility one is sent , the difference between a few months' and a few years' incarceration could mean the difference between life and death, not least because of the chronic shortages of food and medicine. Several North Koreans who have been in detention facilities described a typical meal as a "fistful of powdered corn stalk" that often causes stomach ache and diarrhea. The elderly woman we interviewed told us, "It doesn't matter if it's a police detention center, forced labor camp, or regular prison. They all give you very little food. I received a fistful of corn powder for each meal when I was at a police detention center in February 2005. There was never enough food."[28]
"There were about 5,000 to 10,000 people at the camp. I saw a dead body being carried out almost every day," said another woman we spoke to, from Haeju. She continued, "Most of them died after eating the corn stalk powder they gave us, and suffered from diarrhea for about a week. So many inmates died that they wrapped the bodies in plastic and buried them in the mountain."[29] The man from Hoeryong said, "While I was at a forced labor camp I got a fistful of powdered corn stalks three times a day. It was too little. And it had little nutrition. Some people there were sent home for malnutrition."[30]
II. International Law Violations in North Korea's Treatment of Border Crossers
North Korea's policy of punishing border crossers is a clear violation of the fundamental right to leave one's own country. Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."[31] Article 12(2) of the ICCPR states, "everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own."
The beatings, stress positions, and other abusive physical punishment in detention described above violate some of the basic rights guaranteed in the ICCPR. Article 7 states, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Article 10 states, "All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person."
North Korea has been a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) since September 1981. Under the covenant, North Korea has an international legal obligation to provide adequate food to prisoners, who are under the direct control and care of the authorities. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights elaborated on states' obligations to provide access to adequate food in General Comment 1, "… whenever an individual or group is unable, for reasons beyond their control, to enjoy the right to adequate food by the means at their disposal, States have the obligation to fulfill (provide) that right directly."[32]
The Committee also says in its General Comment 3(10), "in order for a State party to be able to attribute its failure to meet at least its minimum core obligations to a lack of available resources, it must demonstrate that every effort has been made to use all resources that are at its disposition in an effort to satisfy, as a matter of priority, those minimum obligations."[33]
In November 2006 the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on North Korea to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, following multiple resolutions by the UN Commission on Human Rights. In North Korea, many basic rights are not guaranteed, including the freedom of thought, association, movement, organized political opposition, labor activism, or religion. Grave violations committed by the state include arbitrary arrests, torture, lack of due process and fair trials, and executions. International human rights organizations are not allowed access to North Korea to investigate violations. For three years, North Korea has refused to engage in dialogue with Vitit Muntarbhorn, the UN special rapporteur on North Korea.
III. Recommendations
The vast majority of North Koreans who cross the border to China do so simply to survive. Criminalizing the act of leaving one's own country and harshly punishing those repatriated are flagrant violations of a fundamental right – the right to leave one's own country. Such a violation is all the more egregious as many of the North Koreans cross the border to escape persecution or because the North Korean authorities are either unable or unwilling to feed their own people, despite their stated claims to provide all citizens with adequate food.
Human Rights Watch calls on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to
Allow North Korean citizens to travel freely in and out of the country, especially if they are doing so in order to avoid starvation.
Stop punishing North Koreans who are repatriated.
Stop mistreatment of criminal suspects and prisoners.
Allow access for international human rights monitors to assess the humanitarian and human rights conditions in the country.
Allow aid donors to monitor aid distribution at an internationally acceptable level and frequency, as employed by the World Food Programme.
Human Rights Watch also calls on the People's Republic of China to
Stop arresting and repatriating North Koreans.
Allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) unfettered access to the border area and throughout northeastern China to determine the status of North Koreans, and to facilitate the resettlement in third countries of those granted refugee status.
Grant North Korean women married to Chinese men legal resident status.
Human Rights Watch recommends that foreign governments, international agencies, and donors, including South Korea (which has in recent years been the largest donor to North Korea) to
Resume food aid to the most vulnerable population in North Korea, including young children, pregnant and nursing women, and the elderly.
While doing so, insist on being allowed to carry out an internationally acceptable level and frequency of monitoring of aid distribution, to make sure the food reaches the intended beneficiaries.
Continue to press the Chinese authorities to allow humanitarian aid workers along the border with North Korea to assist those in need.
[1] By a decree of Kim Jong Il promising leniency for people who left for food, penalties were lessened, effective February 16, 2000. Under the decree most border crossers were released after a few days, or a few months at most. See Human Rights Watch, The Invisible Exodus: North Koreans in the People's Republic of China, vol. 14, no. 8(C), November 2002, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/northkorea/, p. 21.
[2] "N.Korea accuses South of terror over refugee influx," Reuters, July 29, 2004.
[3] "NK Official Blasts US Human Rights Policy," KBS Global, November 5, 2005, http://english.kbs.co.kr/news/newsview_sub.php?menu=8&key=2005110501 (accessed February 13, 2007).
[4] A Chinese resident in the border area told Human Rights Watch that she received a phone call from a local official saying they expect a large number of North Korean border crossers this winter, and all residents are required to report them. Human Rights Watch interview with a resident of a Chinese town bordering North Korea, November 28, 2006.
[5] Jean-Pierre de Margerie, head of the World Food Programme in North Korea, says that ordinary people, especially children, are facing their hungriest winters since the famine of the mid-1990s. Geoffrey York, "Canadian fights to feed North Korea's hungry," Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 9, 2006.
[6] The North Korean authorities refer to them as "Dogangja," which literally means river crosser(s), but the word is often translated as border crosser(s). North Korea's borders with China and Russia are defined by two rivers, the Yalu and the Tumen. In the summer, right before a rainy season, the water is shallow enough in some parts for people to wade across. In the winter the rivers' surface freezes and people walk over the ice.
[7] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted December 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force March 23, 1976, art. 12(2).
[8]Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 U.N.T.S. 150, entered into force April 22, 1954.Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 606 U.N.T.S. 267, entered into force October 4, 1967.
[9] Human Rights Watch, North Korea - The Invisible Exodus: North Koreans in the People's Republic of China, Vol. 14, No. 8 (C), November 2002, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/northkorea/.
[10] Ibid. Pp. 21–22.
[11] Human Rights Watch interview with man from Samsoo, age 32, China, November 28, 2006.
[12] Human Rights Watch interview with man from Musan, in his thirties, China, November 28, 2006.
[13] Human Rights Watch interview with man from Hoeryong, age 38, China, November 27, 2006.
[14] Human Rights Watch interview with man from Pyongyang, age 27, China, November 30, 2006.
[15] Human Rights Watch interview with woman from Pyongyang, in her fifties, China, November 28, 2006.
[16] Human Rights Watch interview with woman from Chungjin, age 66, China, November 29, 2006.
[17] Human Rights Watch interview with woman from Wonsan, age 59, China, November 30, 2006.
[18] Ahn Yoon-suk, "North Korea executes three border guards in early August," The Daily NK, August 29, 2006.
[19] Han Young-jin, "Two border guards to be executed in late February for aiding border crossers," The Daily NK, February 1, 2007.
[20] Good Friends, North Korea Today, January 10, 2007. The report also said that, starting in late December 2006, the Chinese authorities increased inspection of inns and hotels in the border area to find North Koreans and criminal suspects.
[21] Shin Ju-hyun, "North Korea replaces 4,000 border security troops," The Daily NK, January 11, 2007.
[22] Out of North Korea's 9.16 million people in August 1945, about 2 million, or 22.2 percent, practiced a religion, including Catholics, Christians, Buddhists, and members of Chondogyo, a native Korean religion. About 400,000 religious practitioners are believed to have been executed or imprisoned through the 1970s. Many survivors were forced to recant their faith. In the 1970s North Korea created religious organizations, but they are believed to be tools for North Korea's external propaganda and for liaison with South Korean religious organizations that have donated food and other aid to North Korea, rather than genuine representatives of people with religious faith. Korea Institute for National Unification, "North Korea Human Rights White Paper 2006," March 2006, pp. 152–171.
[23] Human Rights Watch interview with woman from Saebyul, age 40, China, December 1, 2006.
[24] Human Rights Watch interview with woman from Musan, age 33, China, November 26, 2006.
[25] The major types of detention facility in North Korea include jipkyolso, rodong danryondae, kyohwaso, and kwanliso. Jipkyolso, which literally means a gathering center, is where people undergo interrogation, await verdict, or serve up to a year for a misdemeanor, such as skipping work. Rodong Danryondae, which means a place of re-education through labor, holds people who have committed relatively lighter, non-political crime. Kyohwaso is a detention facility for people who have committed serious, non-political crime. People who have committed political crime are sent to kwanliso. Korea Institute for National Unification, "North Korea Human Rights White Paper 2006," March 2006, pp. 45–57
[27] Human Rights Watch interview with woman from Saebyul, age 38, China, November 26, 2006.
[29] Human Rights Watch interview with woman from Haeju, age 42, China, December 2, 2006.
[31] Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted December 10, 1948, G.A. Res. 217A(III), U.N. Doc. A/810 at 71 (1948), art. 13(2).
[32] UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, "Substantive Issues Arising in the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," General Comment No. 12, The right to adequate food (Art. 11), E/C.12/1999/5 (1999), http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/3d02758c707031d58025677f003b73b9?Opendocument (accessed February 13, 2007).
[33] UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 3, The nature of States parties obligations (Art. 2, par.1), (1990), http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(symbol)/CESCR+General+comment+3.En?OpenDocument (accessed February 13, 2007).
China and Tibet
March 5, 2007 Report
The North Korean government has hardened its policy towards its citizens it catches crossing the border into China without state permission, or whom China has forcibly repatriated.
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Wisconsin will play North Carolina State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge for the second straight season
The Badgers will play the Wolfpack on Dec. 4 in Raleigh. UW beat N.C. State, 79-75, in the event last season at the Kohl Center.
Wisconsin will play North Carolina State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge for the second straight season The Badgers will play the Wolfpack on Dec. 4 in Raleigh. UW beat N.C. State, 79-75, in the event last season at the Kohl Center. Check out this story on htrnews.com: https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/college/uw/2019/06/06/wisconsin-face-north-carolina-state-acc-big-ten-challenge/1367540001/
Jeff Potrykus, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Published 11:26 a.m. CT June 6, 2019 | Updated 12:49 p.m. CT June 6, 2019
Aleem Ford (left) and D'Mitrik Trice (right) helped lead Wisconsin to a victory over North Carolina State last season. (Photo: Associated Press)
Wisconsin and North Carolina State are set to meet in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge men's basketball series for the second consecutive season.
UW will face the Wolfpack on Dec. 4 in Raleigh.
The pairings were announced Thursday.
UW rallied from second-half, double-digit deficit for a 79-75 victory over the Wolfpack last season in Madison.
Ethan Happ (19 points, 11 rebounds), D’Mitrik Trice (18 points), Brad Davison (12 points, four charges drawn) and Aleem Ford (12 points) combined for 61 of UW’s 79 points.
Trice hit 4 of 5 three-pointers, Ford hit 4 of 7 three-pointers and UW finished 11 of 21 overall from three-point range.
Brewers 5, Braves 4: First a strong start and then an escape
For subscribers: Where the Bucks stand after signings and what could be next
For subscribers: Smith: Alliance forms in an effort to keep lampreys out of the Lake Winnebago system
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India is a lively and innovative country
International Conference on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
Christine Beerli, the vice president of the ICRC, was in India 4–7 December 2017 to attend the International Conference on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), co-hosted by the Indian Society of International Law (ISIL) and the ICRC. The conference formed part of sustained efforts towards the implementation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). It brought together over 50 government representatives from 22 countries across the wider Asia, Gulf and East Africa regions. Experts from a number of international and regional organisations were also part of the international conference to discuss weapons regulated under the CCW and those currently on the CCW agenda.
The Vice President's inaugural speech at the CCW highlighted India's role in supporting countries facing humanitarian challenges and its status as one of the largest troop contributing countries to the UN peacekeeping operations and helping set global norms. Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, General V. K. Singh, stated that the conference would create an environment to ensure suffering can be reduced by implementing the IHL as laid down by the international community. Reinforcing the importance of these efforts, Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs, Ruchi Ghanashyam, stated that the CCW is a dynamic instrument that has continued to be relevant and India's extended assistance to international demining efforts and the special importance given to protocol 5 on explosive remnants of war reaffirms the country's commitment.
Reinforcing the partnership with Indian Red Cross Society
The ICRC in India works closely with the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS). Beerli took the opportunity to call on the Minister of Health and Family Welfare, J. P. Nadda, who is also the chairperson of the IRCS to congratulate him for his strong leadership under which the ICRC-IRCS partnership continues to grow. She congratulated Manish Choudhary, joint secretary, IRCS, for the strategic development plan 2030 and the National Society's desire to play an active leadership role globally. Underlining the existing collaboration, she stated that the ICRC was keen to grow and strengthen the relationship and support IRCS in first aid, youth, livelihood activities and share expertise in newer areas such as physical rehabilitation, social inclusion, communication, IHL, gender diversity, migration and innovation.
Interaction with Enable Makeathon teams
Christine Beerli travelled to Bengaluru to meet and interact with teams at the Enable Makeathon co-creation camp. She delivered the keynote address at a panel discussion organised by the ICRC on 'Humanitarian Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Inclusivity'. The panellists included some of the most active voices from the disability sector in India:
V. Shakthi, founder and owner of The Quill
Deepa Narasimhan, head of diversity and inclusion, Dell EMC
Mohan Sundaram, CEO and founding director of ARTILAB Foundation
Mahantesh G. K., founder managing trustee at Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled
Explaining what innovation means to the ICRC, Beerli stated that the core principles included listening to needs and involving persons with disabilities while co-creating solutions for them. Referring to the culture of frugal innovation in India, she said that India's enabling environment lend itself perfectly for creating new solutions for the rest of the world.
During the visit, Christine Beerli was also interviewed about the ICRC's work globally, specifically in Yemen and with the communities from the Rakhine state.
Christine Beerli's visit to India: Photo Feature and Full Coverage
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IHL treaties
Syria: A camp is filled with children
South Sudan: Gunshot injuries remain high despite peace deal
Operational update on Syria: More than 2,000 patients treated at new field hospital
Operational update on Mali: Food delivered to survivors of attack; psychological wounds being addressed
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Small Business and Self-Employed
Limited Liability Company LLC
Limited Liability Company (LLC)
Employer ID Numbers
Reporting Information Returns
Operating a Business
Closing a Business
Industries/Professions
A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a business structure allowed by state statute. Each state may use different regulations, you should check with your state if you are interested in starting a Limited Liability Company.
Owners of an LLC are called members. Most states do not restrict ownership, so members may include individuals, corporations, other LLCs and foreign entities. There is no maximum number of members. Most states also permit “single-member” LLCs, those having only one owner.
A few types of businesses generally cannot be LLCs, such as banks and insurance companies. Check your state’s requirements and the federal tax regulations for further information. There are special rules for foreign LLCs.
Depending on elections made by the LLC and the number of members, the IRS will treat an LLC as either a corporation, partnership, or as part of the LLC’s owner’s tax return (a “disregarded entity”). Specifically, a domestic LLC with at least two members is classified as a partnership for federal income tax purposes unless it files Form 8832 and affirmatively elects to be treated as a corporation. For income tax purposes, an LLC with only one member is treated as an entity disregarded as separate from its owner, unless it files Form 8832 and elects to be treated as a corporation. However, for purposes of employment tax and certain excise taxes, an LLC with only one member is still considered a separate entity.
Effective Date of Election
An LLC that does not want to accept its default federal tax classification, or that wishes to change its classification, uses Form 8832, Entity Classification Election (PDF), to elect how it will be classified for federal tax purposes. Generally, an election specifying an LLC’s classification cannot take effect more than 75 days prior to the date the election is filed, nor can it take effect later than 12 months after the date the election is filed. An LLC may be eligible for late election relief in certain circumstances. See About Form 8832, Entity Classification Election for more information.
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Single Member Limited Liability Companies
LLC Filing as a Corporation or Partnership
Limited Liability Company Possible Repercussions
Where to File Tax Returns Addresses Listed by Return Type
Powers of Attorney for LLCs
About Form 8832
About Publication 3402
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David Warner scores just 1 on return to competitive cricket
David Warner is serving a 12-month ban from Cricket Australia for his role in the incident during the third test against South Africa in Cape Town in March.
cricket Updated: Jun 30, 2018 15:27 IST
David Warner scored just one run on his return to competitive cricket on Saturday.(Reuters)
David Warner’s return to cricket lasted just two balls when the former Australia vice-captain was dismissed for one run in his first game since his country’s ball-tampering scandal.
Warner is serving a 12-month ban from Cricket Australia for his role in the incident during the third test against South Africa in Cape Town in March.
READ | Hardik Pandya has a new biggest fan - MS Dhoni’s daughter Ziva. See video
Warner and former Australia captain Steve Smith, who was also banned due to the scandal, are free to play in the Global T20 Canada, where Warner made his comeback on Friday.
Opening for the Winnipeg Hawks, Warner was clean-bowled by Lasith Malinga’s first ball of the second over.
Australian Ben McDermott top-scored with 68 runs as Winnipeg scored 203-4 to beat the Montreal Tigers (157 all out in 18.5 overs) by 46 runs.
Smith, who is playing for the Toronto Nationals, fared better than Warner on his return after making 61 off 41 balls on Thursday.
READ | Umesh Yadav feels two new balls system has killed reverse swing in ODIs
Smith said after his match that it had been a difficult few months, and Warner agreed.
“It definitely has been tough, not just for me but for my family, obviously the fans out there that support cricket and Australian cricket, so I’m responsible for that, that’s my fault and why I’ve had some tough times,” Warner said.
“I’ll keep continuing to move forward and making sure I’m doing the right things at the right times.”
more from cricket
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Jaipur art show vandalised: There must be a message against moral policing
One of the main reasons why such groups, which see such high-handedness as the easiest way to gain fame, feel encouraged is because of police inaction or the lack of a strong message from the government’s side. Quick and stern action should be taken against these self-styled culture guardians
opinion Updated: Dec 09, 2016 20:35 IST
Viju Cherian
(Photo from the Facebook page of Jaipur Art Summit)
English playwright George Bernard Shaw was spot on when he said, “Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”.
And this was on display in Jaipur on Thursday when members of two local outfits vandalised an art show and allegedly misbehaved with the artist. The groups were “protesting” against the depiction of semi-nude paintings at the summit.
Members of a women’s organisation Lal Sena and Rashtriya Hindu Ekta Manch, led by Hemlata Sharma and Vijay Shankar Pandey respectively, vandalised paintings at the Jaipur Art Summit because they found them to be “obscene”. They also had an altercation with the artist, Radha Binod Sharma.
Read | Selective nationalism: Self-proclaimed patriots seeking to bring about a change
According to a national daily, Sharma, who led the vandalism party, was quoted as saying that she was exercising her “freedom of expression” by taking down a painting she deemed “offensive”.
The hypersensitivity of people like Pandey and Sharma, which is the result of a blinkered and distorted view of “culture”, does not give them the right to attack another’s property or person. Unfortunately for them, that is the law of the land.
Our democracy provides ample space for dissent, but within the confines of the law — the protesting party could have filed a petition with the police. But then how would they get their 15 minutes of fame!
Read | Hindu Mahasabha activists vandalise Pakistan Airlines office in Delhi
Thankfully the likes of Pandey and Sharma are still a rarity in society — but as the proverb goes: A rotten apple can spoil the barrel. And it is precisely to avert such a danger that the law and order machinery should get cracking, and cracking hard. Some media reports said that the police have arrested Pandey, but Sharma was absconding.
Sadly, this is not the first time miscreants have disrupted art shows in the name of morality. Art shows displaying works of the late MF Husain were a constant target of the fringe and rabid Right-wing groups. Pakistani artists have been also been at the receiving end.
One of the main reasons why such groups, which see such high-handedness as the easiest way to gain fame, feel encouraged is because of police inaction or the lack of a strong message from the government’s side. Quick and stern action should be taken against these self-styled culture guardians.
Read | Sambhaji Brigade vandalises mall in Maharashtra for screening ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’
Such miscreants have no place in a society which, despite its several fault-lines and constraints, is inclusive.
Last checked, Sharma and Pandey were not appointed the custodians of morality — that position is left to citizens who believe in the rule of law and have a more accommodating view of life.
@VijuCherian
First Published: Dec 09, 2016 14:20 IST
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Helgi Tomasson
Since HELGI TOMASSON assumed the position of Artistic Director of San Francisco Ballet in July of 1985, the Company has evolved from a respected regional troupe to a national company praised for its broad repertoire, dancers, and uncommon range and skill, and a vision that continually sets the standard for the international dance world. Born in Reykjavik, Iceland, Tomasson began his early ballet training in Reykjavik and then joined the National Theatre’s affiliated school, which was led by Erik and Lisa Bidsted. At 15, the emerging dancer began his studies with the celebrated Pantomime Theatre in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens. Two years later, he was introduced to Jerome Robbins, who was so impressed by his dancing that he arranged a scholarship for him to study at the School of American Ballet in New York. Soon after, Tomasson began his professional career with the Joffrey Ballet and, two years later, joined the Harkness Ballet, where over the next six years he became one of the company’s most celebrated dancers. He later joined New York City Ballet as a principal dancer. He was one of the foremost interpreters of George Balanchine’s and Jerome Robbins’ ballets and both choreographers created several roles expressly for him. Since assuming his role with San Francisco Ballet, he has choreographed over 30 ballets, including stunning full-length productions of Giselle, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and Romeo and Juliet. His achievements have garnered him several awards and accolades, from the Dance Magazine Award to a Doctor of Humane Letters from Dominican College in California.
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Home Health $50k donated to Joe DiMaggio’s to aid families coping with child’s cancer...
HealthLocal Business
$50k donated to Joe DiMaggio’s to aid families coping with child’s cancer treatment
Nataly Santana remembers the struggle of caring for her daughter, Mackenzy Bowling, as she fought leukemia. Mackenzy,9, was treated at
Nataly Santana with Mackenzy Bowling. Mackenzy, who has leukemia, has been in remission for two years.
Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital and, now in remission for two years, she is enjoying life.
Santana is thankful for the Love Jen Cancer Fund, that helped sustain them at a crucial time. “The Love Jen Fund helped us pay our bills,” Santana said. “We had some long nights when Mackenzy was being treated and I had to take time off from work.”
The Love Jen Cancer Fund provides financial and emotional support to families that are struggling to pay their bills while they care for their children with cancer.
“We will help a family pay their mortgage, power bill, water bill and other bills,” said Kevin Janser, senior vice president and chief development officer for the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Foundation. “Often a family member will take time off from work to care for a child who is being treated at the Children’s Hospital. They may fall behind in their bills. We will write checks to help pay their bills.”
Mackenzy Bowling puts a painted handprint on Dr. Carmen Ballestas, a pediatric oncologist. The Love Jen Cancer Fund was a big help for Mackenzy’s family while she underwent treatment.
Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital is receiving support from Hyundai. During a recent ceremony, the hospital received $50,000 from Hyundai’s Hope on Wheels program to aid families coping with a child’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital is the only cancer program in South Florida to receive the ‘Impact Award’ and one of only 25 in the United States. The money will be awarded to the Love Jen Cancer Fund.
“We want to raise awareness and funds for research to end pediatric cancer,” said John Szymanski, the regional sales manager for Hyundai.
Carmen Ballestas, M.D., a pediatric oncologist said she loves being able to help heal sick children and believes in the Love Jen Cancer Fund program.
The Love Jen Cancer Fund was begun in 1990 by Drs. Wendy and Nick Masi to honor the memory of their daughter Jennifer and provides pediatric cancer patients and their families with an array of financial, social, emotional and educational services to help them as they fight cancer.
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Hollywood-based entrepreneurs and small companies now have a modern and collaborative workspace to call their own. Büro Group, one of South Florida's leading coworking companies,...
BCPS High School Graduation Rates Rise to Highest Level in Six Years
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Humana opens up $350,000 grant to Broward non-profits who foster health and well-being
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The Humana Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM), has selected Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Knoxville, Tenn., and New Orleans as the 2015 communities for the...
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Home ● About ● Director’s Message
Dr. H S Subramanya
Director IBAB & Biocon Chair
The institute has achieved several milestones since its inception. Some of its accomplishments include the implementation of well-recognized and novel postgraduate and doctoral research programmes. IBAB’s activities are driven by highly motivated faculty with excellent academic backgrounds, pursuing high quality research leading to publications in reputed international journals.
” IBAB was established following a recommendation by the Vision Group on Biotechnology, an advisory body to the Chief Minister headed by Ms. Kiran Mazumdar- Shaw. It is a unique initiative to support the biotech ecosystem in Karnataka and India and has been a tremendous success. Other states are now trying to emulate IBAB’s successful model.”
In a first for biological institutions in India, IBAB initiated the incubation of start-ups as early as 2002, and has supported 25 entrepreneurs to date. The institute was recognized as a Centre of Excellence for Research and Training in Bioinformatics in 2008 by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY). Subsequently, a Bio-IT centre was set up at IBAB in 2010 in partnership with the Government of Karnataka (GoK) and MeitY. More recently, IBAB has launched a synthetic biology programme with support from GoK. The institute has also initiated prestigious collaborative programmes such as B-Life and B-4 to promote education and research. The institute has a long term Vision and Mission to guide its activities. Its Governing Body and Scientific Advisory Board play a crucial role in enabling the institute to achieve its goals.
H.S. Subramanya,
Biotech Park, Electronic City Phase I,
Bengaluru 560100,
+9180 28528900
hosahalli_s@ibab.ac.in
http://ibab.ac.in/index.php/subramanya/
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Know Thy Opponent: UNC Wilmington
Alex Bozich
The Hoosiers will continue play in the Chicago Invitational Challenge tonight against the UNC Wilmington Seahawks. Indiana is 2-0 all-time against UNC-Wilmington and beat the Seahawks 76-67 on the road to the Final Four back in 2002.
Wilmington, a member of the Colonial Athletic Association, is 1-1 this season. They beat the College of Charleston in their season opener and lost on Sunday at Illinois State in the Chicago Invitational Challenge.
In the preseason coaches poll, Wilmington was picked to finish sixth in the CAA behind George Mason, VCU, Old Dominion, Drexel and Hofstra.
Benny Moss is in his second year as the head coach at Wilmington. Moss took over for Brad Brownell who left for Wright State after leading Wilmington to the 2006 NCAA Tournament. Before taking over at Wilmington, Moss was the top assistant for six seasons at UNC-Charlotte for Bobby Lutz.
Much of Wilmington’s success will be dependent on the play of T.J. Carter. The Seahawks were 7-22 a season ago as Carter missed the entire season with a hernia. Carter, the MVP of the 2006 CAA Conference Tournament, is now 100% and is averaging 16.5 points on the young season.
“As a player, T.J. has the ability to win a game when it’s on the line. That’s something we missed last year,” Moss said before the season. “A lot will fall on his shoulders, but everyone else has to step up also.”
Two other seniors, 6-10 Vladimir Kuljanin and 6-4 Daniel Fountain, will play prominent roles for Wilmington. Kuljanin was fourth in field goal percentage in the NCAA last season. Fountain is currently leading the team in scoring at 21.5 ppg.
Others Seahawks to key an eye on: Todd Hendley, Montez Downey, Chad Tomko and Dominique Lacy.
Filed to: Chicago Invitational Challenge, UNC Wilmington Seahawks
It’s Official: Mike White will redshirt
Indiana state rep proposes arbitration for BTN
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Morale high for #WorldCup, says Mohamed Salah as Egypt arrive in Russia
Soccer / 11 June 2018, 07:00am /
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi shakes hands with Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah at the Ittihadiya presidential palace in Cairo before travelling to Russia for the World Cup. Photo: Reuters
GROZNY, Russia – Liverpool star Mohamed Salah sat out Egypt training again on Sunday following the North Africans’ arrival in Grozny ahead of the World Cup in Russia.
Nursing a shoulder injury suffered in the Champions League final – which Liverpool lost 3-1 to Real Madrid – Salah did come out on to the pitch in Grozny, accompanied by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, to greet fans eager to catch a glimpse of the English Premier League player of the year.
Salah is facing a race against time to be fit to lead Egypt in Russia since injuring his shoulder when Sergio Ramos wrestled him to the ground on May 26.
After arriving from Cairo, Egypt’s players and Argentinian coach Hector Cuper made a beeline to the Akhmat-Arena stadium in Russia’s Chechen Republic.
The Pharaohs are set to play their first World Cup game on Friday against Uruguay in Ekaterinburg.
وصول المنتخب المصري إلي روسيا 🇪🇬🇷🇺#الفراعنة#ThePharaohs pic.twitter.com/ymh9WB0QcH
— Egypt National Football Team (@Pharaohs) June 10, 2018
“I’m excited. God-willing, I’m well prepared and things are going well, and my morale is high,” Salah told AFP. “I cannot say what we’re going to reach, but the players’ ambitions are high, and I hope we get a good result.”
At the stadium, some Egyptian medical students residing in Grozny were among 8 000 fans present to see Salah, who should be one of the top contenders for the Ballon d’Or this year, alongside Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar of Brazil.
📷⚽️ pic.twitter.com/GyZgKJ3ZEN
“The Egyptian team is to us like the (Russian Premier League) Akhmat team, and we are happy to welcome them,” Kadyrov, the president of this majority-Muslim region of Russia, told AFP. “Mohamed Salah is a good player, and he is among the best in the world.”
Team doctor Mohamed Abou al-Ela admitted Salah was unlikely to play in Egypt’s opening Group A match. “He still feels pain... this type of injury needs a recovery period of three weeks before going back to the field,” said Abou el-Ela.
He may yet be fit to face Russia on June 19 in Saint Petersburg, though, and then Saudi Arabia on June 25 in Volgograd.
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| ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.incomeinvestors.com/aon-plc-declares-quarterly-cash-dividend/34065/\tAon PLC (NYSE:AON) Declares Quarterly Cash Dividend\tJing Pan, B.Sc., MA Income Investors 2018-01-16T06:27:55Z 2018-01-17 00:33:11 aon plc aon stock NYSE AON AON dividend news dividend declarations quarterly dividend dividend announcement Aon PLC (NYSE:AON) is a global professional services company that declares a quarterly cash dividend of $0.36 per share. Here's the full story. Aon PLC Stock,Dividend Stocks,News https://www.incomeinvestors.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Aon-Stock-Declares-Quarterly-Dividend-150x150.jpg\nAon PLC (NYSE:AON) Declares Quarterly Cash Dividend\nBy Jing Pan, B.Sc., MA | January 16, 2018\niStock.com/stnazkul\nAon Stock Declares Quarterly Dividend\nAs we always say here at Income Investors, boring businesses can produce some very exciting returns.\nCase in point, Aon PLC (NYSE:AON) is a global professional services company that provides a wide range of risk, retirement, and health solutions. It is not in the business of making “the next big thing,” but its share price still soared 139% over the last five years.\nMoreover, the company also rewards shareholders with a rising stream of dividends.\nIn a press release on Monday, January 15, Aon announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.36 per share. The dividend will be paid on February 15, 2018 to shareholders of record on February 1, 2018. (Source: “Aon Declares Quarterly Dividend,” Aon PLC, January 15, 2018.)\nAt the current price, Aon stock offers an annual yield of 1.1%.\nThe yield itself may not look that impressive, but note that Aon’s payout has been consistently increasing. At the beginning of 2013, the company was paying quarterly dividends of $0.1575 apiece. So in just five years, Aon PLC’s per-share payout has grown by a whopping 129%.\n10 Undervalued Stocks Insiders Are Buying\nThose impressive dividend hikes are backed by a solid business. According to the company’s most recent earnings report, Aon’s revenue grew six percent year-over-year to $2.3 billion in the third quarter of 2017. Adjusted operating margin expanded 170 basis points to 20.3%. Excluding one-time items, the company generated adjusted earnings of $1.29 per share, representing an 18% increase from the year-ago period. (Source: “Aon Reports Third Quarter 2017 Results,” Aon PLC, October 27, 2017.)\nFor a company whose management is willing to return cash to investors, a growing business will likely translate to bigger payouts. So for investors of Aon PLC, more good news could be on the way.\nDaughter’s College Tuition Funded by Insurance Return Checks?"
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Major New Grant Program Will Help Prepare Black College Graduates for Careers
Filed in Grants and Gifts on December 12, 2016
The United Negro College Fund’s Career Pathways Initiative has announced that 24 historically Black or predominantly Black colleges and universities will receive five-year grants totaling $35.3 million to better prepare their students for careers after college. The grants are made possible through funds from the Lilly Endowment.
The 24 colleges and universities will receive funds for programs to strengthen career advising and mentoring, enhance curriculum focused on career readiness, and to support integrated co-curricular engagement activities. The HBCUs will used the funds to develop a range of academic programs, student internships, industry partnerships, specialty certification programs, and faculty development initiatives.
Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO of the UNCF, said that “these colleges and universities show promise in significantly addressing the urgent challenges facing African American college students and graduates. The Career Pathways Initiative will help ensure our graduates are prepared for and are hired into high-paying 21st-century jobs.”
A list of the colleges and universities receiving grants is available here.
Below is a video of Dr. Lomax discussing the Career Pathways Initiative.
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