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“Technology changes but people stay the same”
The hierarchy of needs is real, let me tell you.
As mentioned in the second point of Andrew Chen’s investment framework, his sentiment on companies that taps into an existing consumer motivation is pretty bullish. While the invention of the telefone took a while to be adopted by consumers as a new technology, the technology still met the consumer need of communication. As a new technology, consumer had to be educated about the telefone, which is why it took five decades for the technology to become mainstream. In comparison to the adoption of the telefone, the adoption of the cellphone was much quicker due to the fact that the new communication technology met the same consumer need and the technology was built on top of the existing telefone technology.
The fact of it all is that we, as humans, have been the same throughout time. We continue to make purchases based of our underlying motivations, which can be understood under the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs framework. Technology changes, but our needs stay the same.
Tags Consumer Behavior, Technology
Fumigations suck.
My apartment building’s being fumigated for termites this week. I’m not one to make excuses for myself, but (ok, you can cue in the violins here…) because of the necessary preparations for the fumigation, I wasn’t able to write this week’s post. I know that life gets in the way sometimes, but I can’t help to feel a little guilty of not following through with my goal of creating a weekly post. That being the case, instead of promising a post once a week on my blog, I’ll be posting once every two weeks from here on out.
This extra week will also give me a bit more time to write up more fleshed out posts. I have a couple interesting posts in the pipeline covering topics from the UX of Amazon Alexa to Deezer, but again, I need a little more time to produce better content, instead of spewing the content out for the sake of having a post for the week.
Source: Digital Economy Compass 2018
All this being said, I thought I’d leave you guys with some thought-provoking figures I came across in Statista’s Digital Economy Compass 2018 report that was published early this year.
When it comes to biometric technology, I would have expected wearables to outpace smartphones until the market’s saturated. However, according to Statista, smartphones will outpace wearables in 2019 in terms of the share of the technology that will include biometric sensors of some sort.
What are the implications for health and fitness related companies? Clearly there’ll be more consumer data to collect, but, when looking at the evolving digital landscape from the music industry perspective, this type of data provides further opportunities to contextualize music/playlists - a obvious unique selling proposition for major music streaming players like Spotify and fitness-related startups like Studio, which are working towards building “exciting digital experience far beyond what a traditional treadmill offers”.
Tags Market Research, Consumer Behavior, Market Intelligence, Fitness, music
Source: Music Business Worldwide
In a recent write-up from Music Business Worldwide, the consumption of the album versus singles was discussed. An idea was pointed out about fans being encouraged to develop a less-committed relationship with new artists due to the nature of music streaming platforms. It’s clear that in today’s attention economy, consumer behavior is shifting to consume singles as opposed to entire albums. When looking at the consumption of the streaming consumption of Drake’s 25 track long album Scorpion from earlier this year, 63% of global streams from Spotify came from three songs: “God’s Plan”, “In My Feelings” and “Nice for What”.
This brought up an internal debate within myself on the topic of how artists can establish a more committed relationships with consumers, turning them into superfans. I hypothesized that the underlying idea to driving fandom is through emotion.
The Artist As A Brand
Through academic studies on branding like one conducted by Robert Heath, David Brandt, Agnes Nairn, and Eivi Lyon, we’ve come to understand that it’s the emotional creativity, and not the rational message in advertising that builds brand relationships. How does this idea apply to the consumer and the relationship to an artist?
When we look at communication appeal through the lens of Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, an emotionally-driven form of communication makes a quicker and greater impact on the System 1 part of our brain, which is capable of making quick decisions based on very little information. Emotions and feelings will always be formed pre-cognitively and pre-attentively before any information processing takes place, as argued by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. As a result, we can establish that emotions influence us in ways we don’t even realize.
Furthermore, not only is mental engagement greater when there’s a greater level of emotion in the message, but emotion helps drive long-term memory encoding. According to Peter Pynta, “what’s key to turning [a recent memory] into [a] long-term memory is how intensely emotion is experienced. The more intense, the more likely it is to be remembered.”
So, emotions influence us on an unconscious level AND emotions help drive long-term memory encoding? Sounds like emotion-based communication is the way to go for brands…
Source: Google Trends
Being that artists are essentially brands, it’s pretty fascinating to think about the implications of emotional communication to potentially consuming audiences. Let’s take Drake and his long-standing rap beef with Pusha-T earlier this year as an example. Whether or not you think Drake won the rap feud with King Push (imho, Drake got bodied), the novelty of the rap battle and lyrical jabs thrown by both artists drew attention and made us feel some type of way. These emotions not only captured our attention to the feud at hand, but also helped embed this as a long-term memory for many rap fans. At the end of the day, whether it was concerning the lyrical abilities of each of the rappers or the dirt thrown around, the rap battle was also a well-played means to a marketing end, considering that Pusha-T dropped his album DAYTONA a few days before the beef reached its peak with “The Story of Adidon”.
Where the Album comes into play
In our “attention economy”, we face constant cognitive overload from brands in our everyday lives. When it comes to music consumption, things are no different. It’s overwhelming to think about the insurmountable amount of music when we log onto our go-to music streaming platforms. Due to the cognitive overload, most of the times the artist selected is the one that’s top of mind.
So, how to artists/brands become top of mind? Well, as mentioned above, it’s through emotion-based communication that we come to recall brands, not only in the short-term, but also years from now since the emotionally-charged message that we recall down the line. Artists can use emotional narratives to not only draw attention and engagement with frontline repertoire (a new album release), but also leverage emotion to help encode their brand in the consumers mind for catalogue engagement years from now.
An album as a body of work, as opposed to releasing solely singles, could serve as a tactic to continue to build the brand narrative of the artist and thus drive fans up the fan pyramid. One album that does a great job on building an artist narrative is Kendrick Lamar’s chart-topping, conceptual album Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. Within the album, Lamar “chronicles [his] experiences in his native Compton and its harsh realities, in a nonlinear narrative. The songs address issues such as economic disenfranchisement, retributive gang violence and downtrodden women, while analyzing their residual effects on individuals and families.” If you’ve gone through any of the the experiences narrated by Lamar at any level, the storytelling hits home and you get the feels. Could this level of story-telling have been achieve by solely releasing singles?
While I’m aware that some artists are album artists, while others are singles artists, my key message is that an album gives the chance to further build the narrative for the artist. While artists have the ability to relay emotionally-charged messages to potential audiences through marketing-related stunts, an album gives the chance to further nurture the narrative sonically through the music of the artists.
Tags Music, Consumer Behavior, Brand Strategy, Branding, Emotion
In my later days of being a Visual Artist (I normally go with the title of “Photographer” for the sake of simplicity, but photography was only one of the mediums I used for conceptual projects), I was pretty fascinated with the concept of synesthesia, which ultimately led to studying binaural beats for a video project. Since then, I’ve been using these tones to help me focus when reading or writing. While the science behind the cognitive effects of listening to binaural beats seems to be far from complete, there’s a chance that listening to binaural beats might not have an actual effect on my cognitive processing, but I chose to continuing listening to them even if it’s just the placebo effect I might be experiencing during mentally-demanding tasks.
On a day when I have to write, I usually hop on youtube to listen to this specific “beat”, but my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check if there were any binaural beats on Spotify. It turns out there’s handful of Spotify-curated ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) playlists, one with over 125k followers containing binaural beats.
Source: Statista
A criticism frequently brought up on Spotify’s business model is the operating expense that comes in the form of royalties they have to dish out royalties to the three major record label companies for the act of licensing out their IP on the Spotify platform. In order to decrease market share from the record labels, which held 79% of the share of listening on Spotify in 2017, and as a result decrease operating expenses, the streaming company has been launching strategic initiatives that included the suspected low-royalty ‘fake artists’ fiasco earlier this year.
I would think that binaural beats would potentially provide higher-margin revenue for Spotify. It looks as if there are actual people (artists) that upload these tracks, as seen by the artist of the first track on the ASMR Sleep Sounds playlist, Creative Calm ASMR. However, who’s to say that some of these beats aren’t coming from Spotify themselves? I mean, they’re just tonal frequencies so how difficult would it be to export these frequencies and upload them onto the platform?
Most of the tracks are 2-3 minutes in length and, in my own consumption behavior, I normally listen to binaural beats on YouTube an average of 1-2 hours. That would mean that if I’m listening to a binaural tone for 2 hours on Spotify, I would be looping a track 40 times. What about people that use binaural tones as a sleeping aid? If someone sleeping about 7 hours a night, a track would be looped 140 times! With the potential of stealing share of listening via binaural tones, I’m not quite sure why binaural tones on Spotify aren’t advertised.
Tags Consumer Behavior, spotify
As I had mentioned in a previous post, humans are creatures of habit. Being that I feel invested in my premium Spotify account due to the the fact that I have the comfort of navigating a user interface I’m familiar with, I figured I’d step out of my comfort zone and give YouTube’s paid music streaming service a try. I was also going into the experience pretty curious about the music recommendations from the streaming service. Being that the Google-owned platform has their own proprietary recommendation algorithm and understanding its potential for new music discovery for consumers, my curiosity was getting the best of me.
The on-boarding was fairly fluid. Upon staling the app, I was asking to log in using my existing YouTube account information. Resourceful on behalf of the YouTube Music app since this applies already established consumption behaviors from your existing YouTube account. The app also had me to select artists that I liked, further collecting more data on my listening preference. After setting up, the app presented the main screen (mind you, I usually stream when I’m at the gym, hence the slew of rap artists and hip-hop recommendations). Two things struck me on the main page: the endless personalized “Your Mixtape” playlist and the simplistic approach to the total number of tabs shown at the bottom of the screen. The bottom bar is extremely similar to Spotify’s latest app redesign for users in their paid premium tier, which rolled out the redesign after I started my YouTube Music trial run. The main difference is that while YouTube Music has a Hotlist button, Spotify has a Search button in the same middle positioning. YouTube has a search button in the upper right corner of the screen.
The hotlist shows a selection of new and trending videos. What I found really convenient was the option of selecting whether you wanted to play the video or just the audio version of the track. Being that I primarily stream music in the gym, I’ve been finding the Spotify vertical videos a bit of a nuisance. It’s great content, I don’t necessarily want to sift through videos to find the right track for the moment.
When it came to the Search function, one thing I found limiting was the lack of searching through a voice query. Knowing how much voice interfaces are going to play a pivotal role in the years to come, I was pretty surprised to not find this option available. Other than that, the Search function was easier to navigate than Spotify’s. In similar fashion to Spotify, you scroll down the screen to see the results, whether it was a song you were looking for, an album, a music video, or a playlist featuring the artist of interest. However, what I found convenient were the buttons underneath the search text box, in order to jump to the section of interest, instead of having to endlessly scroll down the search results.
The last thing found a little annoying with YouTube Music was the lack of an option to add a track to the queue. One could drag and drop a track to position the song to be played next, but that a lot of dragging and dropping if you want to customize an existing playlist.
Now this might be subjective (in fact, I know it is) with a hint of confirmation bias, but I thought the suggested tracks from YouTube Music streaming service was much more in line with my personal taste, was fitting to the playlist being listened to, and most importantly consistently included new artists in the mix. While Spotify hits the first two of the three points above, it’s not very successful in introducing me to new artists (at least in my experience). Due to all of the music consumption data YouTube/Google’s been collecting from me for years, in addition to the slew of artist- and user-generated content they have on their platform, they might have the leg up on new artist discovery for consumers.
Tags Market Research, Consumer Behavior, YouTube, Music, UX, UI, Design
Smart Speakers and The Consumption of Music
In a previous post, in which I announced my new position as Insights Strategist for Universal Music Group, I expressed an interest in the evolving media consumption behavior as a result of connected devices.
Source: Edison Research
With the dawn of the internet of things came the introduction of smart cars, connected home automation devices, and wearable technologies among other nifty connected devices. While these gadgets are all fascinating smart technologies, none have taken hold in US households as much as smart speakers. In January 2018, smart speakers were being used by consumers that fell within the “Early Adopters” and “Early Majority” stages of the innovation curve. According to an Adobe Analytics study, almost 50% of US consumers will own a smart speaker after the 2018 holiday season.
The smart speaker revolution is undeniable.
What does this mean for the consumption of music?
In the same Adobe study mentioned above, 70% of the respondents reported using their smart speakers for music consumption, which makes it the primary activity followed by weather forecasting (64%), and alarms/reminder (46%).
In my personal experience, using a smart speaker seems to remove the friction when wanting to listen to music. When I want to listen to music, I don’t need to manually look up an artist, album, song, genre, etc. There’s a clear consumer pain point that was being addressed. However, since most smart speakers don’t have a screen, that means the results for voice queries for music have to be much accurate. If we were to look up an artist on a search engine or music streaming platform, we’re given several songs or albums to to choose from. With the lack of a screen to refer to, consumers are given the one algorithmic-driven result deemed most appropriate by smart speakers. That means that these smart devices have one shot to get the customer experience right and pull up the “right” song.
Keeping in mind choice paralysis (there are times when I want to listen to music, but feel a little overwhelmed by the vast catalogue of music out in the world) and as consumers interact with smart speakers in much more intuitive and natural ways (as opposed to written queries) the dependence on genre or mood queries will play a key role in music consumption. But, with the melting pot of music genres, how does one categorize the genre-bending band Gorillaz, for example? In an ethnographic study that Edision Research conducted, we can see the toddler asks Alexa to play “Elsa” and “Frozen”. Besides the fact that pronunciation is an essential factor for smart speakers to deal with (think about how many consumers might be mispronouncing an artist name or lyrics), the smart speaker device should comprehend that the “Elsa” and “Frozen” prompt means to play “Let It Go”. But doesn’t this change if there’s an artist named “Elsa”?
All this means that there’s going to be a lazer-like focus on getting the music metadata right to serve up the right music at the right moment.
This is an extremely fascinating time to be alive. Voice is here and seems to be the future.
P.S. While there might be some apprehension from digital immigrants to use smart speakers, isn’t it fascinating to think that the same toddler from above is going to grow up naturally accepting Alexa as a digital assistant?
Tags Consumer Behavior, Technology, Tech, Smart Speakers, Voice, Music, Market Research, Market Intelligence
Assessing Consumer Needs for Platform Marketing Success
“… marketing as a function in itself has dramatically transformed and has to keep dramatically transforming in order to even have a chance to win that consumer who now has so much power, so much access, so much choice and so on…
… Marketing is no longer about marketing. In fact, that’s the biggest barrier. How do you enable marketing to stop marketing, to start understanding, to start conversing? Which cannot be done by marketing alone. That’s why ever marketer has to now be a data analyst, they have to be a technologist, they have to think “product”, they have to think cross-functionally…
Marketing is now an always-on engine. It can no longer just have a start and end of a campaign. Marketing has to continuously listen and interpret the user needs, the consumer need, the consumer demand. The way I summarize the purpose of marketing now is the ability to predict what the user need is even before she knows she needs it. That’s the magic of data.”
Sounds a lot like he’s stressing the underlying importance of market research to understand consumers in order to know how to create value for them, leading to an increase in the user base and retention. Enlightening conversation between Mayur Gupta, VP of Growth & Marketing of Spotify, and Erich Joachimsthaler, the CEO and Founder of Vivald, in the “Business of Platforms” video podcast series.
Tags Spotify, Marketing, Market Research, Consumer Behavior, Business Strategy
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997A Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, New York
106 Patchen Ave, Brooklyn, New York
283 Cornelia St, Brooklyn, New York
219 Lexington Ave, Brooklyn, New York
88 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
75 Monitor Street, Brooklyn, New York
96 Steuben Street, Brooklyn, New York
1120 71st Street, Brooklyn, New York
260 Sherman Street, Brooklyn, New York
139 Emerson Place, Brooklyn, New York
391 1st Street, Brooklyn, New York
12 Arlington Place, Brooklyn, New York
33 Bond Street, Brooklyn, New York
69 South 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
1255 Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York
9304 Avenue B, Brooklyn, New York
3507 Snyder Ave, Brooklyn, New York
(Address not available) MLS# 3132199, Brooklyn, New York
259 New York Ave, Brooklyn, New York
942 Glenmore Ave, Brooklyn, New York
1323 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, New York
158 Withers Street, Brooklyn, New York
110 Warren Street, Brooklyn, New York
582 Throop Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
252 East 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
2902 Beverley Road, Brooklyn, New York
38 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, New York
145 Borinquen Place, Brooklyn, New York
1102 East 31st Street, Brooklyn, New York
99 Gold Street, Brooklyn, New York
300 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, New York
214 North 11th Street, Brooklyn, New York
62 Grand Street, Brooklyn, New York
220 Water Street, Brooklyn, New York
77 Dikeman Street, Brooklyn, New York
716 Avenue C, Brooklyn, New York
276 Suydam Street, Brooklyn, New York
1664 Hendrickson Street, Brooklyn, New York
69 Pineapple Street, Brooklyn, New York
9026 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
339 Adelphi Street, Brooklyn, New York
2212 Plumb 1st Street, Brooklyn, New York
1286 New York Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
67 Huron Street, Brooklyn, New York
16 Herkimer Court, Brooklyn, New York
201 Marion Street, Brooklyn, New York
303 Stanhope St, Brooklyn, New York
774 59 St, Brooklyn, New York
248 Duffield Street, Brooklyn, New York
72 Box Street, Brooklyn, New York
2020 Avenue V, Brooklyn, New York
38 Cumberland Street, Brooklyn, New York
206 Washington Park, Brooklyn, New York
946 Bushwick Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
2132 62nd Street, Brooklyn, New York
142 North 1st Street, Brooklyn, New York
372 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn, New York
810 Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
571 Midwood Street, Brooklyn, New York
1115 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
2045 73rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
55 E Oceana Dr, Brooklyn, New York
166 Ridgewood Ave, Brooklyn, New York
5410 Avenue N, Brooklyn, New York
470-480 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
99 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn, New York
107 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, New York
357 Dahill Road, Brooklyn, New York
208 Howard Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
10 Saint Marks, Brooklyn, New York
138 Beadel Street, Brooklyn, New York
2422 Snyder Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
289 Evergreen Ave, Brooklyn, New York
195 Autumn Ave, Brooklyn, New York
571 Evergreen, Brooklyn, New York
206 Hoyt St, Brooklyn, New York
142-144 Decatur Street, Brooklyn, New York
1 Northside Piers, Brooklyn, New York
172 Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
261 Devoe Street, Brooklyn, New York
84 Crystal St, Brooklyn, New York
304 E 92nd St, Brooklyn, New York
175 Skillman Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
98 Gelston Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
2453 Stuart Street, Brooklyn, New York
94 3rd Place, Brooklyn, New York
621 Westminster Road, Brooklyn, New York
383 Parkside Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
6803 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
687 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
272 Knickerbocker Ave, Brooklyn, New York
2519 Clarendon Rd, Brooklyn, New York
25 Monroe Place, Brooklyn, New York
135 Conselyea Street, Brooklyn, New York
209 Cornelia Street, Brooklyn, New York
39 Argyle Road, Brooklyn, New York
2812 Kings, Brooklyn, New York
5601 2nd Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
212 Lewis Ave, Brooklyn, New York
457 Chauncey St, Brooklyn, New York
568 Utica Ave, Brooklyn, New York
266 Leonard Street, Brooklyn, New York
120 Garfield, Brooklyn, New York
497 Park, Brooklyn, New York
52 State Street, Brooklyn, New York
79A Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1708 East New York Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
331 Kosciuszko Street, Brooklyn, New York
345 Herzl Street, Brooklyn, New York
141 Dupont Street, Brooklyn, New York
190 Stuyvesant Ave, Brooklyn, New York
337 Lenox Rd, Brooklyn, New York
449 Graham Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
671 Evergreen Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
49 Willow Street, Brooklyn, New York
37 Powers Street, Brooklyn, New York
42 Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1165 Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
45 Putnam Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
257 Ainslie Street, Brooklyn, New York
479 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
46 Fort Greene Place, Brooklyn, New York
125 Vermont Street, Brooklyn, New York
1497 Prospect Place, Brooklyn, New York
57 Montgomery Place, Brooklyn, New York
1384 Madison Street, Brooklyn, New York
1461 Ovington Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
359 Rugby Road, Brooklyn, New York
33 2nd Place, Brooklyn, New York
284 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
18 Sherman Street, Brooklyn, New York
213 Columbia Street, Brooklyn, New York
1 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, New York
177 Concord Street, Brooklyn, New York
76 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, New York
736 Schenck Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
187 Clifton Place, Brooklyn, New York
103 Hull Street, Brooklyn, New York
113 1st Place, Brooklyn, New York
141A Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
767 Hart Street, Brooklyn, New York
1075 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
9 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York
80 Green Street, Brooklyn, New York
42 Maspeth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
117-119 Thomas S Boyland Street, Brooklyn, New York
20 Columbia Place, Brooklyn, New York
139 Montague Street, Brooklyn, New York
532 Ovington Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
330 Lewis Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
66 Sharon Street, Brooklyn, New York
184 Noll Street, Brooklyn, New York
1068 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, New York
160 Wyckoff Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
211 Johnson Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
19 Grace Court Alley, Brooklyn, New York
159 Engert Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
15 West 18th Street, Brooklyn, New York
242 Putnam, Brooklyn, New York
12- a Monroe Street, Brooklyn, New York
762 Lincoln, Brooklyn, New York
8 Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
267 Powers Street, Brooklyn, New York
257 Cooper St, Brooklyn, New York
74 Ralph Ave, Brooklyn, New York
53 Milford St, Brooklyn, New York
845 Knickerbocker, Brooklyn, New York
505 Albany Ave, Brooklyn, New York
13-16 Rogers Ave, Brooklyn, New York
86-83 BAY Pky, Brooklyn, New York
2 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, New York
1 Main Street, Brooklyn, New York
645 Belmont Ave, Brooklyn, New York
42 Washington Ave, Brooklyn, New York
160 Irving Ave, Brooklyn, New York
1670 Bath Ave, Brooklyn, New York
870 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, New York
6801 4th Ave, Brooklyn, New York
41 Madison Street, Brooklyn, New York
4 Downing Street, Brooklyn, New York
3 Essex Street, Brooklyn, New York
3 Pierrepont Place, Brooklyn, New York
75 Henry Street, Brooklyn, New York
494 Hendrix Street, Brooklyn, New York
191 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1123 Broadway, Brooklyn, New York
633 Alabama Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
39 Granite Street, Brooklyn, New York
239 Utica Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
3105 Brighton 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
229 Verona Place, Brooklyn, New York
547 Bay Ridge Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
1612 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
75 Manhattan Court, Brooklyn, New York
2694 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York
2826 Bragg Street, Brooklyn, New York
581 Van Siclen Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
104 Fort Greene Place, Brooklyn, New York
242 Montrose Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
116 Saint Nicholas Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
227- a Nassau Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
479 Prospect, Brooklyn, New York
406 Tompkins Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1465 Gates Ave, Brooklyn, New York
102A Sumpter St, Brooklyn, New York
3703 Church Ave, Brooklyn, New York
931 Dean St, Brooklyn, New York
9265 Shore Rd, Brooklyn, New York
63 Malcolm X Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York
1366 East 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
625 Caton Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
245 Montauk Ave, Brooklyn, New York
180 Sumpter St, Brooklyn, New York
9710 Flatlands Ave, Brooklyn, New York
9124 L Ave, Brooklyn, New York
54 E 95th St, Brooklyn, New York
175 Atkins Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
257 Grand St, Brooklyn, New York
167 E 8th St, Brooklyn, New York
621 Hegeman Ave, Brooklyn, New York
988 Sutter Ave, Brooklyn, New York
864 New Lots Ave, Brooklyn, New York
630 Park Pl, Brooklyn, New York
678-682 Prospect Place, Brooklyn, New York
59 Rapelye Street, Brooklyn, New York
151 Frost Street, Brooklyn, New York
185 York Street, Brooklyn, New York
377A Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
8 Hancock Street, Brooklyn, New York
43 Dahill Road, Brooklyn, New York
176 Lefferts Place, Brooklyn, New York
50 Plaza Street East, Brooklyn, New York
43 Underhill Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
423 Ashford St, Brooklyn, New York
2105 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, New York
465 53rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
63 North 3rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
1207 Bay Ridge Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
92 Butler Street, Brooklyn, New York
57 Front Street, Brooklyn, New York
25 Marlborough Road, Brooklyn, New York
82 Irving Place, Brooklyn, New York
53 Boerum Place, Brooklyn, New York
9935 Shore Road, Brooklyn, New York
30 Main Street, Brooklyn, New York
1684 Dean St, Brooklyn, New York
1814 Burnett Street, Brooklyn, New York
9214 Ridge Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York
917 Fulton St, Brooklyn, New York
42 Broadway Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1468 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
1165 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
12 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn, New York
69 Eldert Street, Brooklyn, New York
55 Hope Street, Brooklyn, New York
414 Elmwood Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
22 Hart Street, Brooklyn, New York
1234 Stanley Ave, Brooklyn, New York
2528 West St, Brooklyn, New York
17 Williams Ave, Brooklyn, New York
728 Driggs Ave, Brooklyn, New York
6112 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1587 E 19 St, Brooklyn, New York
97 Grand Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
51 Jay Street, Brooklyn, New York
239 Euclid Ave, Brooklyn, New York
708 Fenimore Street, Brooklyn, New York
20 Bushwick Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
63 Rockaway Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
1651 West 1st Street, Brooklyn, New York
474 East New York Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
312 101st Street, Brooklyn, New York
20 SPRING Street, Brooklyn, New York
219 Malcolm X Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York
2010 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, New York
100 Crystal St, Brooklyn, New York
70 Howard Ave, Brooklyn, New York
359 Central Ave, Brooklyn, New York
594 Lincoln Pl, Brooklyn, New York
2072 Pearson St, Brooklyn, New York
82 Irving, Brooklyn, New York
96 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, New York
119 Roebling Street, Brooklyn, New York
69 Kermit, Brooklyn, New York
6820 Avenue L, Brooklyn, New York
321 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
410 Linden Street, Brooklyn, New York
378 Rutland Road, Brooklyn, New York
345 Montgomery Street, Brooklyn, New York
767A Bergen Street, Brooklyn, New York
633 Grand Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
769 Saratoga Ave, Brooklyn, New York
11 Maple Street, Brooklyn, New York
56 Jewel Street, Brooklyn, New York
120 4th Place, Brooklyn, New York
16 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, New York
28 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, New York
1278 Halsey Street, Brooklyn, New York
684B Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
81 Monroe Street, Brooklyn, New York
78 Linden Street, Brooklyn, New York
117 Thomas S Boyland Street, Brooklyn, New York
37 Schaefer Street, Brooklyn, New York
92-94 Decatur Street, Brooklyn, New York
332 43rd St, Brooklyn, New York
274 Sumpter Street, Brooklyn, New York
15 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
80 East 2nd Street, Brooklyn, New York
145 E 91st St, Brooklyn, New York
38 Prospect Park South West, Brooklyn, New York
583A Macon Street, Brooklyn, New York
98 Troy Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
172 Huntington Street, Brooklyn, New York
326A President Street, Brooklyn, New York
682 Rockaway Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
26-34 Butler Place, Brooklyn, New York
69 Kermit Place, Brooklyn, New York
28 Saint Marks Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
106 Cambridge Place, Brooklyn, New York
114 Calyer Street, Brooklyn, New York
189 Norman Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
208 Starr Street, Brooklyn, New York
80 Brighton Court, Brooklyn, New York
60 Oceana Drive West, Brooklyn, New York
40 Brighton 1st Road, Brooklyn, New York
50 Starr Street, Brooklyn, New York
209A Wyckoff Street, Brooklyn, New York
3668 Shore Parkway, Brooklyn, New York
135 Oceana Drive East, Brooklyn, New York
46 South 2nd Street, Brooklyn, New York
201 Huron Street, Brooklyn, New York
378 Harman Street, Brooklyn, New York
690 Vermont St, Brooklyn, New York
25 101st Ave, Brooklyn, New York
1263 East 72nd Street, Brooklyn, New York
30 Cheever Place, Brooklyn, New York
84 Pulaski Street, Brooklyn, New York
12 1st Place, Brooklyn, New York
385 Douglass Street, Brooklyn, New York
368 Saratoga Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
99-101 Kingsland Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
79 Woodruff Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
206 Hampton Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
171 Congress Street, Brooklyn, New York
15 Oliver Street, Brooklyn, New York
20 Terrace Place, Brooklyn, New York
204 Tapscott Street, Brooklyn, New York
209 Skillman Street, Brooklyn, New York
925 Utica, Brooklyn, New York
717 Howard Ave, Brooklyn, New York
67.5 6th Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
153 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
155 East 91 Street, Brooklyn, New York
58-21 83rd Street, Brooklyn, New York
1381 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
19 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, New York
169 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, New York
81 Second Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1629 Bath Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
1065 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
12A Monroe Street, Brooklyn, New York
446 Kingston Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
88 Withers Street, Brooklyn, New York
86 Visitation Place, Brooklyn, New York
630 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, New York
44 Aberdeen St, Brooklyn, New York
850 Clarkson Ave, Brooklyn, New York
247 Covert St, Brooklyn, New York
84 Windsor Pl, Brooklyn, New York
29 A Carroll Street, Brooklyn, New York
100 Sterling, Brooklyn, New York
455- a Sackett Street, Brooklyn, New York
5022 Avenue D, Brooklyn, New York
107 Berry Street, Brooklyn, New York
27 Roosevelt Place, Brooklyn, New York
2021 Lexington, Brooklyn, New York
140 Berkeley, Brooklyn, New York
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International round-up: Iraqi anchor killed; more journalists in exile
On the international front this week: An Iraqi television anchor was shot and killed; the Pentagon cleared itself in the slaying…
On the international front this week: An Iraqi television anchor was shot and killed; the Pentagon cleared itself in the slaying of a Reuters journalist in a Baghdad gun battle; and the Committee to Protect Journalists says the average rate of exiled reporters has doubled since 2001.
Muhieddin Abdul-Hamid, 50, a state TV anchor in Mosul, was heading to work Tuesday when a car pulled up near his home and gunmen stepped out, opening fire. According to news reports, his safety had been threatened repeatedly before.
Iraqiya station officials called Abdul-Hamid a martyr, according to The Associated Press, and said the shooting was a "cowardly criminal act targeting freedom of speech."
Further to the south in Baghdad, Reuters journalist Waleed Khaled died in August 2005 when he and a cameraman, while covering the aftermath of an attack on Iraqi police, came under U.S. fire. In a report released Monday, the Pentagon’s inspector general criticized the Army’s initial investigation into the shooting, but cleared the military of wrongdoing.
U.S. troops shot at the reporters’ car after mistaking a camera sticking out of a window for a weapon. The cameraman, Haider Kadhem, was wounded.
The Pentagon report cites Reuters for not requiring its reporters to identify themselves by marking "Press" on their cars. The news agency said it was disappointed that the shooting was deemed justified.
Finally, CPJ’s latest survey of exiled journalists worldwide found that more are seeking shelter in the United States than any other country. More than 80 reporters fled their home countries in the past year — most often Iraqis and Somalis — by turn escaping assault, death threats, police surveillance and periodic detentions.
CPJ noted the disruption to the reporters’ lives, and the anemic state of journalism they can leave behind.
“CPJ is concerned when threats, imprisonment, and harassment force any journalist from his or her home," Joel Simon, executive director of the non-profit organization, said. "But when the media are driven out en masse as in Iraq and Somalia, a vital piece of those societies is being lost.”
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Common Ways of Holding Title
How Should I Take Ownership of the Property I am Buying?
Real property can be incredibly valuable and the question of how parties can take ownership of their property is important. The form of ownership taken -- the vesting of title -- will determine who may sign various documents involving the property and future rights of the parties to the transaction. These rights involve such matters as: real property taxes, income taxes, inheritance and gift taxes, transferability of title and exposure to creditor’s claims. Also, how title is vested can have significant probate implications in the event of death.
The Land Title Association (LTA) advises those purchasing real property to give careful consideration to the manner in which title will be held. Buyers may wish to consult legal counsel to determine the most advantageous form of ownership for their particular situation, especially in cases of multiple owners of a single property.
The LTA has provided the following definitions of common vesting as an informational overview. Consumers should not rely on these as legal definitions. The Association urges real property purchasers to carefully consider their titling decision prior to closing, and to seek counsel should they be unfamiliar with the most suitable ownership choice for their particular situation.
Common Methods of Holding Title
Sole ownership may be described as ownership by an individual or other entity capable of acquiring title. Examples of common vesting in cases of sole ownership are:
A Single Man/Woman:
A man or woman who has not been legally married. For example: Bruce Buyer, a single man.
An Unmarried Man/Woman:
A man or woman who was previously married and is now legally divorced. For example: Sally Seller, an unmarried woman.
A Married Man/Woman as His/Her Sole and Separate Property:
A married man or woman who wishes to acquire title in his or her name alone.
The title company insuring title will require the spouse of the married man or woman acquiring title to specifically disclaim or relinquish his or her right, title and interest to the property. This establishes that it is the desire of both spouses that title to the property be granted to one spouse as that spouse’s sole and separate property. For example: Bruce Buyer, a married man, as his sole and separate property.
CO-OWNERSHIP
Title to property owned by two or more persons may be vested in the following forms:
Community Property:
A form of vesting title to property owned by husband and wife during their marriage, which they intend to own together. Community property is distinguished from separate property, which is property acquired before marriage, by separate gift or bequest, after legal separation, or which is agreed to be owned only by one spouse.
Real property conveyed to a married man or woman is presumed to be community property, unless otherwise stated. Since all such property is owned equally, husband and wife must sign all agreements and documents of transfer. Under community property, either spouse has the right to dispose of one half of the community property, including transfers by will. For example: Bruce Buyer and Barbara Buyer, husband and wife as community property.
A form of vesting title to property owned by two or more persons, who may or may not be married, in equal interest, subject to the right of survivorship in the surviving joint tenant(s). Title must have been acquired at the same time, by the same conveyance, and the document must expressly declare the intention to create a joint tenancy estate. When a joint tenant dies, title to the property is automatically conveyed by operation of law to the surviving joint tenant(s). Therefore, joint tenancy property is not subject to disposition by will. For example: Bruce Buyer and Barbara Buyer, husband and wife as joint tenants.
Tenancy in Common:
A form of vesting title to property owned by any two or more individuals in undivided fractional interests. These fractional interests may be unequal in quantity or duration and may arise at different times. Each tenant in common owns a share of the property, is entitled to a comparable portion of the income from the property and must bear an equivalent share of expenses. Each co-tenant may sell, lease or will to his/her heir that share of the property belonging to him/her. For example: Bruce Buyer, a single man, as to an undivided 3/4 interest and Penny Purchaser, a single woman, as to an undivided 1/4 interest, as tenants in common.
Other ways of vesting title include:
A Corporation*:
A corporation is a legal entity, created under state law, consisting of one or more shareholders but regarded under law as having an existence and personality separate from such shareholders.
A Partnership*:
A partnership is an association of two or more persons who can carry on business for profit as co-owners, as governed by the Uniform Partnership Act. A partnership may hold title to real property in the name of the partnership.
As Trustees of A Trust*:
A trust is an arrangement whereby legal title to a property is transferred by the grantor to a person called a trustee, to be held and managed by that person for the benefit of the people specified in the trust agreement, called the beneficiaries.
Limited Liability Companies (L.L.C.)
This form of ownership is a legal entity and is similar to both the corporation and the partnership. The operating agreement will determine how the L.L.C. functions and is taxed. Like the corporation its existence is separate from its owners.
*In cases of corporate, partnership, L.L.C. or trust ownership - required documents may include corporate articles and bylaws, partnership agreements, L.L.C. operating agreement and trust agreements and/or certificates.
How title is vested has important legal consequences. You may wish to consult an attorney to determine the most advantageous form of ownership for your particular situation.
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By Orthodontics for Children and Adults
Tags: celebrity smiles cosmetic dentistry
On his way to the top of the urban contemporary charts, the musician, actor and entrepreneur known as 50 Cent (born Curtis James Jackson III) earned his street credibility the hard way; his rise from youthful poverty to present-day stardom is chronicled in many of his rhymes. So when it came time for the rapper to have cosmetic work performed on his teeth, he insisted on doing it in his own way.
“I told [the dentist] to leave [my front teeth] a little bigger than the other ones, because I need to still see me when I look in the mirror,” he told his co-host on the New York radio station Power 105.1. “Don't give me no whole ’noter guy — I like me!”
We understand how 50 Cent feels — in fact, we think it's a perfectly reasonable request.
Cosmetic dentistry has come a long way in recent years, as we strive to meet the increasing expectations of our patients. We realize that different people have different perceptions of what makes a smile attractive — and that in dental aesthetics, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. That's why, before we begin cosmetic work, we want to hear what you like and don't like about your smile as it is now. In addition, we can also perform what is called a “smile analysis.”
This procedure doesn't cause any discomfort — but it's a crucial part of cosmetic enhancement. In doing the analysis, we look at the various parts of an individual's smile: the spacing, size and alignment of the teeth; the health and position of the gum line; the relationship of the upper and lower jaws; and the relative shape and size of the face. All of these features combine to make a person's smile unique. By looking at them closely, we can help determine the best way for you to improve your smile.
But how can you tell if the cosmetic changes you're contemplating will end up being just right for you? Fortunately, with today's technology, it's easier than ever. Computer imaging offers a chance to visualize the final outcome before we start working on your teeth; it's even possible to offer previews of different treatment options. If you want to go a bit further, we may be able to show you a full-scale model of your new smile.
In some situations, we can even perform a provisional restoration — that is, a trial version of the new smile, made with less permanent materials. If the “temporary” smile looks, feels, and functions just right, then the permanent one will too. If not, it's still possible to make changes that will make it work even better.
Whether you're thinking about having teeth whitening, cosmetic bonding, porcelain veneers, or dental implants to improve your smile, you probably have a picture in your mind of how the end result should look. Will your teeth be perfectly even and “Hollywood white” — or more “natural,” with slight variations in size, spacing and color allowed? Either way, we can help you get the smile you've always wanted.
If you would like more information about smile makeovers and options in cosmetic dentistry, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can learn more by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Cosmetic Dentistry.”
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The Tall Guy's Gear Guide
Sartorial support, supplies, musings and strategy for the reader of discerning taste and temperament.
Echo Park Lake: A New Lease on Life
Since 1896, one of Los Angeles' iconic outdoor areas, Echo Park Lake, has served as a haven for all type of Angelenos: young, old, rich, and poor, as well as a picturesque example of nature in the city. Over the last few years, the Park had unfortunately fallen into a state of disrepair and disregard, resulting in Echo Park Lake being shut down for two years in order to bring the facility back to acceptable standards.
The Echo Park Lake rehab in its early stages.
(Above) The new Echo Park Lake
Echo Park Lake is less than 10 minutes from downtown. I've been spending the last few Sunday mornings taking Raj for a walk around the park. It's a wonderful way to get a Sunday started. Families are out, couples are cruising the lake in paddle boats, yoga classes are going on and all manner of ducks and geese stroll around the lake, easily sharing the space with their human neighbors.
Many people complain about the lack of (fill in the blank) when you live in Los Angeles. There's a lot to see and do, if you only get out there. One of the easiest, cheapest, most pleasant ways to experience the best of Los Angeles is to turn off your cel, grab your favorite person and take a stroll around Echo Lake Park.
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I can't remember a time when comic books weren't a part of my life. My interest has ebbed and flowed over the years, but the fantastic world for visual, printed fiction has always captured my imagination. As a kid, I was happy to occassionally see 'Spider-Man' in animated form, or even black and white reruns of the 'Superman' tv series from the fifties, grateful to see my favorite super heroes spring to life from the printed page.
For years, there were feeble attempts to translate comic books to movies and television. Once in a great while, shows like 'The Incredible Hulk' would offer a fairly faithful adaptation on television, but that would be offset by painful bad follow ups, like the thankfully short lived 'Spider-Man' live action television series.
(Spider-Man 1997 tv series. Hopefully you never saw it.)
Movies didn't fare much better. While 'Superman: The Movie' became an instant classic, the films that came in its wake ('Superman 3' with Richard Pryor, Cannon Films' low budget 'Captain America' and the literally unreleasable 'Fantastic Four', for example) suggested that comic books were unlikely to garner the same care that their more respectable cousin (novels) enjoyed repeatedly. One might point to Tim Burton's 1989 'Batman', both a commercial and critical triumph, but the sequels fell short and the filmmakers seemed to be embarrassed about making 'comic book movies'.
('Batman & Robin', 1997. It's a miracle the franchise survived.)
But in 1998, a change occurred. Rarely getting the credit it deserves for kickstarting a new respect for comic book based films, and more importantly, getting Marvel Comics seriously in the movie business, Wesley Snipes' action horror film 'Blade', based on the second tier comic book character, was an unexpected hit.
(Wesley Snipes is 'Blade' 1998)
As the half human vampire hunter, the leather clad Snipes brought style, humor and legitimate martial arts ability to a tortured character who protected humans from the undead. 'Blade' spawned two lesser sequels, but it was successful enough to get the major studios interested in seeing what else was available. Shortly thereafter in your multiplex, you had so many choices of super hero, like the X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil, a reboot of Batman and many more.
Flashforward a decade or so, and Marvel Studios has the super hero genre on lockdown. They've released 9 films, and all have been hits. Iron Man is the most noteworthy, making a superstar out of Robert Downey, jr. and lighting the fuse for what would be the biggest superhero movie of all time, 'The Avengers'.
It's still difficult for me to believe that these films exist at all, let alone with the consistent quality across the bulk of the films. With the advent of advanced technology, almost anything that can be imagined can be put on film. That puts the onus on the story, now more than ever. Since visually anything is possible, it's important to have a story that pulls you coupled with characters that you care about.
With that in mind, Marvel's latest triumph, 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' succeeds on all levels. Unlike the bombastic 'Avengers', 'X-Men' or 'Iron Man' films, Captain America's world is a bit more grounded. An action packed tale, heavily inspired by seventies era political thrillers like '3 Days of the Condor' and 'The Parallax View', 'CA:TWS' turns a lens on the growing trust issues that exist between citizens and government.
My two favorite origin stories have always been Batman and Captain America's. Batman, because he has no powers, just an unquenchable need to avenge the murder of his parents, and to prevent anyone from going through the pain he suffered from that tragic loss. Captain America's origin spoke to me because he's a guy who just wants to do the right thing: tell the truth, defend his country and embody the American dream. The few panels that illustrate his origin from scrawny Steve Rogers to the first and best Super Soldier, is one of the classic sequences in comic book history.
As a fan of 40s flicks, the original 'Captain America; The First Avenger' hit the sweet spot for me. Directed by Joe Johnston, who also helmed the overlooked but beloved 30s era superhero flick, 'The Rocketeer', 'The First Avenger' gave us the ideal origin story, set during WWII. It was an old fashioned romp that had an admirable hero, a treacherous villain and arguably Marvel's most adult love story. The film ends with Captain America waking up 70 years after WWII in a new America that he doesn't recognize or understand.
In 'The Avengers', a little time is spent showing Steve Rogers' struggle to fit into the new century. Jokes are made at his expense and he wears an awful costume, but the film was high entertainment and set the course of the next set of sequels of Marvel films.
(the unfortunate uniform from 'The Avengers')
I didn't care for either 'Iron Man' sequel, and I liked the characters of 'Thor' and 'Loki' more than I did the two 'Thor' films currently in circulation. Chris Hemsworth as the God of Thunder and Tom Hiddleston as his evil half brother nearly make up for the deficiencies of the screenplays.
But for me, it all came together in 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'. We meet Steve Rogers, now living in Washington, adjusting to his new life, with a sense of humor and resignation that he can't go home again. In short order, he finds that SHIELD, the government security organization that he works for is riddled with corruption and threatens Rogers personal belief system. Teaming up with a perfectly cast Anthony Mackie as the high flying 'Falcon', and Scarlett Johansson returning as the 'Black Widow', Cap sets out to take SHIELD apart before it can destroy the fragile fabric of the state of the Union.
Above, the Black Widow's on the run; below, Captain America meets the Falcon.
On top of that, Cap also has to face the deadly and mysterious assassin, the 'Winter Soldier', who has a connection to Steve Rogers that turns his world upside down.
Chris Evans owns the role of a man out of time. Clearly more comfortable in the role, he's funny, a leader of men, who carries a low key but hard to miss melancholy throughout the film. He's rocking a great uniform this time around, is also still awkward around women and more deadly than ever, as evidenced repeatedly by best action sequences of any Marvel flick by far. The hand to hand fight scenes have a tough, ragged style that rarely looks or feels like choreography. The car chases are exciting and the way the action is shot allows you to easily follow what's going on, and what's going on will put you on the edge of your seat.
If you aren't a fan of superhero movies, there's still a good chance that you'll enjoy 'CA:TWS'. It's a smart thriller and really aren't any super powers in it. You'll care about the characters, and the acting is uniformly solid. Even Samuel L. Jackson seems totally engaged when he's onscreen.
The film has made over 300 million dollars worldwide already and is being heralded by many as Marvel's best film. It's already made the summer complete for me. This was the film I was most looking forward to, and it exceeded my expectations by a landslide. The Russo Brothers, masterminds of this film, are already locked up for 'Captain America 3', due out in 2016. I can't wait to see what they come up with next. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Posted at 12:00 AM in Comics, Film, Movies | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Spring and summer usher in a great variety of live entertainment options. Here's a quick look at a calendar of events that I'll be checking out. Maybe I'll see you around.
4/15- Bryan Ferry @ Club Nokia
4/17- Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday in 'Lady Day at Emerson's Grill', Circle in the Square, New York
4/19- 'Satchmo at the Waldorf', The Mandel Theater, New York
5/10- Chic featuring Nile Rodgers @ Hollywood Bowl
5/22- Ledisi @ Club Nokia
6/4- Barry Gibb @ The Hollywood Bowl
6/8- James Taylor @ The Hollywood Bowl
6/27- Maxwell & Jill Scott @ The Staples Center
And we haven't even gotten to July yet! It's a time for live entertainment. More to follow.
Posted at 12:00 AM in Concerts, Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Anita Hill: Speaking Truth to Power
In 1991, I was vaguely aware of the controversy surrounding the nomination of eventual Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At the time, I was newly married, on a rollercoaster career ride, programming a radio station in Los Angeles and enjoying a new start in an exciting city. Politics weren't high on my priority list, for better or worse.
I do remember hearing about Anita Hill, and her testimony against Thomas, in lieu of his alleged unprofessional behavior when she was his assistant in the early 80s. It was probably one of the first times the term 'sexual harrassment' ever reached my ears. Once again, I didn't look closely into it, assuming the government hearing could figure it out better than I could.
Now, over 20 years later, sexual harrassment is, unfortunately, still a part of our culture, but thanks in no small part to the bravery and determination of Anita Hill, the youngest of 13 children, it is no longer swept under the carpet and can no longer be written off as a woman 'overreacting' to the behavior of an employer, friend or lover.
'Anita Hill: Speaking Truth to Power' is an excellent, new documentary that sheds light on the story of a woman who never wanted the spotlight, only sought to tell the truth, and the incredibly unfair treatment she received for exercising her right to free speech while doing what she believed was in the best interest of her country.
Ms. Hill participates via new interviews, interspersed with archival footage of the hearing, with Joe Biden presiding, alongside Teddy Kennedy, Orrin Hatch and other Republicans and Democrats, as they fumbled awkwardly trying to break Anita Hill's resolve. They were unsuccessful, to say the least. I have to admit, I was disappointed to find out that ('Uncle') Joe Biden refused to call other women to the stand who also claimed to have been harrassed by Clarence Thomas, wanting to close the book on an uncomfortable chapter in America history as quickly as possible.
It's apropo that while Clarence Thomas has been one of our least effective judges, often silent on most issues excluding shooting down the afffirmative action programs that were in part beneficial to his career path, Anita Hill has become a well regarded, well respected voice for women's rights and gender equality, with nary a blemish on her record.
(Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas today)
Looking at the women she has and continues to inspire, the film offers a hopeful and positive message about the way young women can see themselves, their opportunities and their choices. If you have a daughter, granddaughter, wife or sister, taking them to see 'Anita Hill: Speaking Truth to Power' is a nice way to demonstrate what you think of them.
The film is in limited release, check the website for cities and theaters. https://www.facebook.com/anitahillmovie
Posted at 12:00 AM in Current Affairs, Film, Movies | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Music: New and Old
Here are a few albums that I'm enjoying and wanted to pass on.
George Michael- Symphonica
While he may be better known now for his mishaps with the law over the last few years, George Michael remains one of our most potent pop artists. George has cleaned up his act, left the cannibis alone, reclaimed his health and returns with a live album of some of his biggest hits and a selection of standards, backed by a full orchestra. Hopefully the studio album he's been working on isn't too far away. Below is a sample of 'Praying for Time' from the Symphonica tour in Europe.
Ledisi- The Truth
One of the best female vocalists of the last twenty years, Ledisi is finally getting her due after spending too much of her career as the classic 'best kept secret'. Her brand new album 'The Truth' showcases a more upbeat Ledisi, singing grown folks songs with bright, crackling grooves. Always a tasteful singer with an incredible range, Ledisi makes the drive down the I-10 freeway a bit more tolerable. This is the first single 'I Blame You', performed on the David Letterman show. She managed to get Dave worked up, so you know she's into something.
Ed Motta- AOR
As a student at the University of Toledo, I used to frequent Boogie Records, a really cool independent record store that sold all kinds of music, but was known for having a great selection of import albums and 12" singles. Pete Michaels was one of the clerks in the store, and we wound up bonding over music (and women), resulting in a friendship that has lasted over 30 years.
(with Pete Michaels in LA circa 2012)
We're always turning each other on to music, sometimes reissues, sometimes new stuff. Pete sent me Ed Motta's 'AOR' cd, with a note that informed me that this guy was heavy into Boz Scaggs, Steely Dan and other blue eyed soul brothers of the 70s. I'm glad he told me, because looking at the album cover, I would have never made the connection. Motta is a Brazilian, but he's definitely got a feel for those classic artists from back in the day. The album always plays straight through when it's cued up in the Jeep. This is 'Dondi', featuring the legendary David T. Walker.
Finally, I've been on David Bowie's Soul Man tip for the past few weeks. His album 'Young Americans', has always been one of my favorites. It was recorded in Philadelphia when Bowie was a dope fiend and in his 'Plastic Soul' phase. Eschewing his glitter persona, Bowie stripped it down and brought in top notch players to help him find his groove. In addition to the title track, 'Fame' (the result of a drunken recording session with John Lennon) was birthed, as well as great soul songs like 'Win', 'Right' and 'Can You Hear Me'. These songs were aided in no small part by Luther Vandross, who did both background vocals and vocal arrangements for the album. One of the best albums Bowie ever recorded.
(Luther Vandross with David Bowie, 1974)
Here's Bowie doing 'Young Americans' on The Dick Cavett Show. Look closely, you'll see Luther Vandross and Ava Cherry in the background, while David Sanborn stretches out on sax.
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Concert Photography Through the Years
(Frankie Beverly, Nokia Theater, LA 2012)
This spring is shaping up to be a busy one for a guy who loves live entertainment. In April, the return of Bryan Ferry, Audra McDonald as Billie Holliday on Broadway, Ledisi and Chic (!) in May, then June tops it off with Barry Gibb's first ever US solo tour, followed by James Taylor, both at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Bryan Ferry, Greek Theater LA 2011)
I've been going to concerts since my mother took me to my maiden voyage in 1972 at the 10,000 seat Public Hall in Cleveland, Ohio. I was scared to death, never having been in a venue anywhere near that size, and not knowing what to expect. When the lights went down and The Dramatics took the stage, I was immediately hooked. After an exciting 30 minute set, they made way for The Stylistics, who, while not as polished and flashy as the opening act, had an impressive lead tenor, Russell Thompkins, jr., whose floating falsetto on 'People Make the World Go 'Round', 'Stop, Look, Listen' and other hits, resulted in a satisfying experience.
Joe Simon followed with his then current hit, 'Drowning In the Sea of Love'. The headliners, however, showed that they were in that spot for a reason. Riding the top of the R&B and Pop charts that week with the classic 'I'll Take You There', The Staple Singers brought the church, soul and funk to Cleveland that night. Women climbed onstage to hug and kiss senior citizen, vocalist and lead guitarist Roebuck 'Pops' Staple, while his daughter Mavis demonstrated that she possessed one of most stirring voices in all of popular music. The Staple Singers took me 'there'.
Ever since then, going to concerts has been in my blood. There's something about the immediacy, spontaneity and connection between artist and audience that can be like church to me when it's coming from a real place. Now, hundreds of shows later, I still get excited like a kid when walking through the doors of a venue, bristling with anticipation of (hopefully) an evening that I'll never forget.
(Prince with Andre Cymone- Sports Arena, Toledo 1979)
In my early concert going days, it was easy to take a professional camera to a venue and shoot a concert without fear of reprisal. These days, only point and shoots are allowed in most venues without incident (unless you're at a Prince concert). However, I have a couple of good point and shoot cameras that have served me well over the last few years.
(Rihanna- Staples Center, LA 2011)
As I got fired up for the shows to come, I went through my photo archives and am pleased to offer a few shots that I have taken from unforgettable shows. I hope you find them interesting.
(Maze, Featuring Frankie Beverly, Cincinnati- 1982)
(Prince- opening night of the Purple Rain Tour. Joe Louis Arena, Detroit- 1984)
(Marvin Gaye- Cobo Hall, Datroit 1983)
(Luther Vandross- Masonic Temple, Detroit 1983)
(Donald Fagen- Dukes of September tour, Gibson Amphitheater 2012)
(Eminem and Rihanna, Staples Center LA 2010)
(Chic, Front Row Theater- Cleveland 1980)
(Michael Jackson- opening night of the Bad tour, Kansas City 1987)
(Lenny Kravitz- Nokia Theater, LA 2012)
(Sting- Wiltern Theater, LA 2011)
(Gino Vannelli- Saban Theater, LA 2013)
(Janet Jackson- Gibson Amphitheater LA, 2011)
(Justin Timberlake- Rose Bowl, LA 2013)
(Sade- Staples Center, LA 2011)
(Seal- LA Live, LA 2010)
(Beyonce' Staples Center, LA 2013)
Posted at 12:00 AM in Concerts | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Christopher Hargadon: The Man in HANNIBAL's Closet, part 2
Last Friday kicked off the second season of 'Hannibal' in high style. I'm all in and looking forward to seeing how it all plays out over the next 12 weeks.
Also featured last week was part one of my conversation with 'Hannibal' costume designer Christopher Hargadon. In part two, Christopher begins by talking about having more room 'to play' in season two, when it comes to dressing Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelson). The conversation continues immediately following this photo.
Christopher Hargadon: I'm kind of surprised to see that in season two that my interest has actually increased in the costuming of this show rather than the opposite, which is what I kind of expected. I feel like we can play around a little bit now. He (Hannibal)'s got this kind of determined look...I'm looking at the suits in his closet. He's got about 50, all different patterns and colors.
Last week I was pulling clothes for the next day and accidentally I pulled out a jacket from one suit and a vest from another suit. I thought they were part of the same suit. I put them together, then I put a shirt with it and I realized it was two different patterns. I kept on going with it and finished putting together the look. And I thought, 'this guy, he probably walks into this closet of suits and once in awhile he starts playing around with them.' So I offered that (idea) up to Bryan Fuller and he said 'if it works, it works'. When I showed it to Mads, I asked him what he thought and he said, 'I like it. It's cheeky!'
In season one, was there any particular look that made you say, 'we got it, this is Hannibal'? You know, everytime I'd see him in person, I felt that way. I don't even recognize what he has on. I just see the whole of him. That's what every costume designer strives for: to highlight the person and not necessarily the clothes.
There is one suit that we did this year that I really, really, really love. It was sad because I planned it for a short scene so that I could repeat it. But Mads liked it so much that he wound up wearing it for 25 consecutive scenes! Unfortunately I could never play that suit again. It's a charcoal gray with a red graphic grid pattern in it. It was just an awesome looking suit. Bryan Fuller loved it so much I made one for him.
(one of costume designer Christopher Hargadon's favorite outfits from season 2)
Were there any outfits from last season that were particularly memorable to you? I really liked him in a velvet jacket that I thought looked terrific on him. He used to host his dinner parties in it sometimes. He had a couple of suits that I call his 'Easter Bunny' suits, because they're a lighter weight wool, one was a buttery yellow, the other was a very soft blue. I loved those suits because the weather was warm enough to wear them and they looked so fresh. Unfortunately they can't play very long because we plunge into fall quickly, the way the season runs.
My great heartbreak is I had this one beautiful, beautiful blue Easter Bunny suit. We ended up not playing it because it needed a coat with it and there really wasn't a coat that went with it, for an exterior. In the end they didn't shoot the exterior, so I could have put it on him anyway! It's sitting in his closet now, I hope someday I get to use it.
How do you find the amazingly unique fabric for his suits? I found a couple of sources and depleted them, then I kept looking. I started to have to find suppliers so that I could get fabric from Europe. As time progresses, that's going to be a costume designer's greatest challenge: finding fabric. If you can't find the fabric, you have to find one that will work.
It's interesting to see how you dress Mads, because while it's cutting edge, it's also timeless and won't date. That said, I can't imagine a scenario where he would ever own a pair of jeans. Can you? No (laughs). Unless he's on the run. He could be in leather, jeans, God knows what. I hope we do it (laughs)!
Thanks to Christopher Hargadon, Martha De Laurentiis and Adrienne Kakoullis.
'Hannibal' airs Friday night at 10pm on NBC.
Posted at 12:00 AM in Fashion, Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This Friday at 10pm marks the return of 'Hannibal', the creepiest and most stylish series on all of television, including cable. NBC's brave journey into the life of the world's most popular serial killer (sorry 'Dexter') begins its second season picking up where the first concluded, with FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) behind bars, framed by one Doctor Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelson), who now consults for the FBI, as Will did before him.
(FBI agent Will Graham [Hugh Dancy] and Dr. Hannibal Lector [Mads Mikkelson])
Showrunner Bryan Fuller continues to paint a vivid story using imaginative visuals, rich, evocative characters and a deeply disturbing storyline, brought to life by an impressive team of creators. Costume designer Christopher Hargadon talked with me recently about the challenges of styling a well dressed cannibal and how his work fits into the overall vision of the show. This is the first part of a two part post, the second will run the Monday following this Friday's season premiere.
(Hannibal costume designer Christopher Hargadon)
Thanks so much for making the time to talk. Thank you so much for your interest. And thanks for noticing the clothes! It's not always the case with the work that we do. It's kind of gratifying. I don't think of it as anything out of the ordinary, as you kind of develop things as you have to, but I'm glad that the look that we went for has been pleasing to people.
Is your approach to Hannibal similar to the way you've worked on other shows? Everytime we start up a project, it's like a new book. I think there's a process that a costume designer has to engage in that's sort of theoretically similar: you start off by visually researching whatever area applies to your project. In this case, it's contemporary, but in the very beginning I had a discussion with (showrunner) Bryan Fuller about how specifically this was not the Hannibal that had been seen before, he was something new, with a different person playing the part. His background, a kind of indeterminate European heritage, with an awareness of history and culture; personally, very erudite and cultivated. I wanted him to have a cutting edge look, very modern, but I wanted to integrate almost a historical feel into his clothing as well. So that he was very distinct and different from the people around him. Aspects of his clothing are almost Edwardian, the nipped waist, the narrow leg of the trouser, showcases the physique well. I don't think I've ever dressed anyone even remotely like this. I don't go for spread collars, I'm kind of a traditionalist, but I wanted him to have strong shoulders, bold ties; I like the peak lapels because it has an authority to it.
The checked pattern woolens is also something I've never really done before. He's also got a lot of color, but they don't quite read that way. The colors change in the lighting and the post production, but I'm quite happy with the overall effect, it blends into the overall harmony between all of the elements of the show. It gets subdued in a certain way. It's an interesting thing for me to observe.
Mads Mikkeson has a unique physical presence, one whose charisma and bearing allow him to wear those cutting edge clothes like a second skin. How did you approach dressing him as Hannibal? I knew of Mads, but didn't know a lot about him. He was unreachable, shooting in some remote place in Europe. I couldn't really speak with him and I like to speak with actors about the direction I want to go in, to get their input. They're going to wear the clothes and I want them to give me feedback and their ideas. I couldn't really have that discussion with Mads, until the day he arrived, which was a week to camera, I think. When I saw the clothes on him, they came to life; up until that point they were theoretical. We're just really fortunate to have somebody who has a dynamic physicality. He has a dancing background, and was a gymnast for years. I can't say that I've met a lot of people who can wear clothes the way that he can. He brings 80% to the thing, I believe.
And from what I understand, in real life he's a very casual dresser? Oh yeah, he's just wearing sneakers, training pants. (But as Hannibal) he inhabits the character. It's always heartening for me to think that actors do really benefit from the clothing to really be in the character. It's very rare that he's ever said that something wouldn't work, but he knows if it doesn't. If he's happy with it, it's instantaneous, if he's not, he'll just say it doesn't feel right for the scene or whatever.
In the second season, has Hannibal's style changed or evolved? I sort of go scene by scene. The odd time, after a fresh kill, I put him in something bright or happy, something shiny or proud. I've never gone to black (with anyone on this show). That was one of the requests that Bryan had very early on in the show, not to do him as an apparent bad guy. In subtle ways there have been evolutions, but honestly if I had an endless budget, I'd probably be doing grades of color differently, darkening it as we've gone along. But I haven't really ventured along that path specifically because there's a limit to how much I have to spend on this stuff (laughs)!
Part two of my conversation with Christopher Hargadon will be available on Monday, March 3rd.
'Hannibal' returns Friday, February 28th at 10pm on NBC.
Movies You May Have Missed: Capers and Heists
I'm in the process of transitioning my DVD movies to digital, making them easier to view, transport and share. While sorting out what makes the cut, I continue to run across movies that I haven't screened at in a long time, that still have great appeal. Some were once popular but now largely forgotten, others are totally obscure, but totally deserving of an audience.
With that in mind, from time to time, I'm going to post trailer links to a few of these films that I think you'll enjoy. If you haven't seen them before, it could be a nice discovery. If you have seen them, but not in a long while, you may have a good time getting reacquainted with them. Ideally, this will be a helpful list when you're roaming around Netflix or iTunes, trying to find something that catches your attention.
I'm going to start by listing films by genre. Heist/Caper films are sweet spots for me. Something about the high wire act of executing well thought out (or not so well thought out) plans with colorful masterminds consistently makes for exciting, often humorous films. Below is a handful of films that will entertainingly take you through the ups and downs of the high minded criminal. Click on the title to see each respective trailer.
The Bank Job- while primarily known as an action guy, Jason Statham has good acting chops that he brings to the fore, in this fact-based British heist caper, set in the seventies. Taut suspense, a few laughs and one brief fight scene, The Bank Job successfully showcases Statham's thespian abilities as well his raw charisma.
Lassiter- 'Magnum PI' made Tom Selleck one of the most in demand television actors of his day. He tried to parlay that popularity into motion pictures, with mixed results. But he did a sort of tribute to Cary Grant in 'Lassister', where he plays an American jewel thief transplanted to London in the late thirties, just prior to WWII. The US government blackmails him into stealing 10 million dollars in jewels from the German Embassy or go to jail for good. Great clothes, nicely done action and a fine star turn from Selleck make 'Lassiter' a real find.
Out of Sight- I didn't get George Clooney when he was blowing up on 'ER'. He just seemed like a sleepy eyed guy who couldn't keep his head from bobbing up and down. But his turn as Jack Foley, an unlucky bank robber who breaks out of jail, in Steven Soderbergh's 'Out of Sight', served him up as a movie star. Charming, funny and completely relaxed, Clooney is everything you want a leading man to be. Jennifer Lopez, as the US Marshall out to arrest Clooney if she can keep from falling in love with him, has never been better and the supporting cast is A+: Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, Dennis Farina, Michael Keaton, Albert Brooks and Steve Zahn make 'Out of Sight' one of my favorite films..ever. Unfortunately released in the summer of 1998 and ineffectually marketed, 'Out of Sight' garnered huge critical acclaim, but not much box office. Happily, it is available on almost every video format and only gets better with time.
Ripley's Game- John Malkovich is one of those actors whose personal style often informs, but rarely intrudes on the role that he's playing. Like Jack Nicholson or Christopher Walken, Malkovich has a persona that is uniquely his own, and when cast correctly, he provides the moviegoer with a refreshing and entertaining experience. 'Ripley's Game' may be the perfect fit for him. As the adult Tom Ripley, Malkovich picks up years after Matt Damon's 'Talented Mr. Ripley' left off. Malkovich's Ripley is a more refined, understated criminal based in Italy, where he puts a deadly game in motion against a local picture framer who has casually insulted him. Beautifully photographed, with a fey, witty Malkovich in top form, 'Ripley's Game' came and went quickly from your local theater, but I'll pay your rental if you watch it and don't love it. It's that good.
Thief- Michael Mann's debut film is a character study of 'Frank', a longtime jewel thief, expertly played by James Caan. Going after the fabled 'one last job' in order to provide for himself and his makeshift family, Frank finds that things aren't destined to go as smoothly as he would like. Caan looks like a million in sharp Armani suits, but is as hard and cold as the Chicago skyline that the film is set in. Even in 1981, Michael Mann had an impressive visual style, an affinity for shooting at night on rain wet big city streets and most importantly, getting deeply under the skin of the criminal at large.
To Catch A Thief- Finally, THE Hollywood jewel thief flick of all time. Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock, The French Riviera, what else is there to say? If you've never seen it, do it now!
If you're still not sated, try 'Cool Breeze' a Blaxploitation version of 'The Asphalt Jungle', or a trio of outstanding french caper flicks: 'Rififi' (which contains one of the most admired heists in all of moviedom: a 20 minute robbery with no dialogue, tension personified!), 'Grisbi' and 'Bob LeFlambeur'.
If there's a genre you'd like me to put together a list for, just post in the 'reply' section at the bottom of this post.
Posted at 04:25 PM in Film, Movies | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Inspiration 2014/RRL AfterParty
This past weekend Inspiration LA returned to Los Angeles. A 'ComicCon of vintage clothing, put on by Japanese Americana afficionado Rin Tanaka, Inspiration LA celebrates vintage America style, ranging from clothes, to leather goods to hand made bicycles.
The last two years the event was held at the dank, dark, gigantic Queen Mary. This year, it moved to LA Mart, just east of downtown. While a much better, more user friendly space, it was overwhelming, with literally hundreds of vendors selling their wares old and new. Below are a few shots from the day.
After Inspiration LA closed its doors until next year, RRL, opened theirs for the annual official after party. With Kogi Tacos and free beer, RRL was a gracious host, keeping the store open until 10pm for partygoers to eat, drink and shop, staying warm in the cool winter night by the heat of good vibes (and great Mexican food).
Next week, the first installment of 'Movies You Might Have Missed'.
Posted at 12:01 AM in Current Affairs, Fashion | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
A Continous Lean
A Suitable Wardrobe
Al's Attire
Almost Darwyn Cooke's Blog (but not quite)
Archival Clothing
Brooklyn Circus
Frank Cho's Art blog
Hero Complex
Mister Crew
Soulbounce
Street Etiquette
The Art of Vintage Leather Jackets
The Gentleman's Standard
The Rugged Museum
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Risk in losing athletics
Scott Barboza, Staff Writer
Sports and politics simply don’t mix.
Unless you live in the Commonwealth.
Through the recent cavalcade of override votes, touchdowns and runs easily can be confused with dollars and cents. The specter of Proposition 2 1/2 hangs with considerable weight over Greater Taunton and its respective athletic programs. And it has forced — by no small part — the citizenry to choose between raised taxes and our student athletes.
In Taunton, the vox populi called out in favor of borrowing $18 million that will not only go toward refurbishing the aging high school, but providing long overdue improvements to Tiger Aleixo Stadium and its track and field facilities.
Bridgewater residents put down a proposed $2.8 million hike in their town. The school system’s physical education program is a likely casualty, being cut down to the state minimum without the funding, along with the high school boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams.
Raynham goes to the polls later this week. Last night, Norton had its date with the big “O” word.
While no community in Greater Taunton faces the sweeping changes as were brought upon in Stoneham — where high school athletics were cut entirely due to financial constraints — sports, along with other extracurricular activities are feeling the pinch.
“I couldn’t picture high school without sports,” Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School graduate Adam Houghton said. “Any community that doesn’t value sports doesn’t have their priorities set in line. It’s a shame, because they’re cutting off kids from a great thing.”
Some might argue athletics are not intrinsic to a student’s educational experience.
However, Houghton and fellow Class of 2007 members Stacey Allen, of Norton, and Charlie Boyer, of Bridgewater-Raynham, are model examples to the contrary.
All three finished in the top two of their respective senior class and were multiple-time Taunton Daily Gazette All-Scholastics. Beyond their contributions to their schools’ athletic programs, they were leaders in the community. All served on student council.
They and countless others are bona fide proof to the integrity of the student athletes in our schools.
“It provides a sense of town pride and community,” Allen said of her career in high school athletics, which covered 12 full seasons’ worth in her four years. “It teaches you how to spend time wisely. It gives some people a reason to go to school, to keep up grades so they can play. It’s something to focus on.”
Boyer, who will study business and math at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in the fall, said there were still more elements to consider.
“As a freshman or sophomore, athletics are a great way to meet people and socialize. It introduces you to different people, some of whom you might become friends with and remain friends with. That alone is a great experience.”
The Trojans’ No. 1 golfer saw many of his friends choose to attend private high schools instead of heading to B-R. Allen, who will attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared a similar circumstance in Norton.
Both maintained they wouldn’t have changed a thing during the last four years.
“I know a good number of kids, or their younger siblings, who’ve gone to other schools,” said Allen, who pitched the Lancers to a Division II State softball title in 2006 and was a standout in cross country and into the distance events in winter and spring track. “I think that would’ve been a huge mistake for me. The teachers at Norton were unbelievable. I know I wouldn’t be where I am without those educators and everyone else at the school.”
Some future students, however, might not be afforded the same overall experience.
Pat Coleman enjoyed a good measure of success as the head coach of Norton’s wrestling team in its inaugural varsity season last winter. After starting 0-8, Coleman led the Lancers back to win 11 of their final 18 matches. Coleman also has helped to build a youth wrestling program in Norton that will only perpetuate the sport’s link to the town.
While grappling may have found a home in Norton for now, Coleman is worried for the future.
“The possibility of higher user fees do not help the long-term success of any program,” said Coleman, who has 14 years of coaching experience. “Everybody operates on very tight budgets these days and every school is trying to pare down expenses. I just hope we don’t get to the point where a family with three or four children in a school system has to decide which ones can play sports and which ones cannot.”
After Tuesday’s “No” vote in Norton, things will only get more hairy. Bus fees and athletic user fees are likely to increase in coming days and it will come at the student athlete’s expense.
“Athletics is such an integral part of education,” Coleman summed up. “Music and the arts and all extracurricular activities are vitally important. That’s where students find their soulmates, the people they feel close to, sharing that common experience, the commitment and the discipline — all of which are critical. There’s no better place to learn those things than in athletics. All of us like to play and coach on a successful team, but more than that it’s daily exercise and the commitment to team which are most important.”
The kids have done their part and more so.
Many like Allen, Boyer and Houghton — who was part of the electrical shop at B-P — have juggled school, athletics and work obligations and yielded top-notch results in all.
“In a vocational school, it’s much the same as anywhere else,” said Houghton, who for the past two seasons was Mayflower League and Massachusetts Vocational School champion in the 800 meters in addition to being named a Mayflower All-Star in football. “It’s tough to do. It can be overwhelming trying to do it all. But it depends on how much you’re into it. I played football, because I love the sport. That’s what matters.”
While the athletes may have left an indelible mark on their friends, towns and schools, they don’t want their legacies to go in vain.
“A lot of my friends and I have talked about going to B-R and what it’s been like. We’re all going to remember it well,” Boyer added. “These years form you for the rest of your life and you don’t want to miss out on anything.”
So let them play.
Taunton kept up its part of bargain and the kids surely will keep up theirs.
Now it’s time for others to step to the plate.
sbarboza@tauntongazette.com
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The Insider - Business Bulletins
Your Business Bulletin from Thanet & East Kent Chamber
Thanet & East Kent Insider 7th February 2018
Thanet & East Kent Insider
7th February 2018 Issue No.: 217
Royal Harbour History Festival 2nd March 2018
David Gower, Henry Blofeld and other celebrities will be among the many well-known faces attracted to Ramsgate next June. Chairman of RHHF 2018, Victoria Nielson, will be joined at our Chamber Business Networking Breakfast by the owner of the Royal Harbour Hotel, James Thomas, to outline the benefits of heritage tourism to East Kent; a sector that adds over £20 billion a year to the UK economy. They will focus on the plans for the Royal Harbour History Festival, but Chamber members from across the region will find much of interest to help them promote their products and services in the next few years. The price of £15 for Chamber members includes a hot drink on arrival and a full English breakfast with a vegetarian option. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “RHHF 8 March 2018”. Full details of the venue near Ramsgate will follow with confirmation.
Healthy Workers, Healthy Profits 22nd March 2018
The Chamber is delighted to welcome Andy Scott-Clark as a speaker at our Chamber Business Networking Breakfast on Thursday, 22nd March 2018. As Director of Public Health at Kent County Council, Andy has a strategic and community leadership role in promoting good health. His job description includes the need for him to “understand the link between economic success and good health”. He does. Chamber members will find the evidence he presents to be of significant value in their commercial and personal lives. Although ultimately accountable to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Andy is mercifully free of any active political role and is widely respected as a trustworthy and independent professional dedicated to improving the lives of all workers and residents in Kent. The price of £15 for Chamber members includes a hot drink on arrival and a full English breakfast with a vegetarian option. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “Healthy Workers Healthy Profits 22 March 2018” Full details of the venue near Sandwich will follow with confirmation. There will be plenty of time available to promote your products and services to other delegates.
Chamber Question Time 8th Match 2018
The ever-popular Chamber Question Time will take place at 1800 hrs in Dover on Thursday, 8th March 2018. Open to everyone with links to Dover, the panel of business experts will answer questions on a variety of pre-submitted questions. Organised along the lines of the BBC Question Time, it is expected that business rates and transport issues will be among the many topics given an airing. Entry is free of charge but reserving your place is recommended. Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line “Dover Question Time” to receive a prompt response with confirmation of the venue in central Dover. Questions should be submitted to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line “CQT Question 8 March 2018”.
As any Doncaster Rovers supporter will know, one of the great joys of being near the bottom of the league is that any win is greeted with delight. The marked year-on-year increase in registered unemployed in East Kent must foreshadow an improvement in the twelve months to December 2018. The lamentable figure of +37.5% for the Dover District is likely to reduce significantly before the end of the year. The opening of a large Lidl store in Whitfield should more than offset any redundancies by Tesco and of course the significant number of new jobs at the St James development will feed into the figures before 2019. Discovery Park, formerly occupied exclusively by Pfizer, now supports over 3,000 jobs in Sandwich and is set to attract more skilled employees as the dynamic new owners implement their plans to make these premises, “a global leader for science and enterprise”. Similarly, following an announcement last week, it is now official that the East Kent College Group will be the main and official provider of Further Education in Dover, Thanet, Shepway, Swale and Thanet. Building on East Kent College’s outstanding success in responding to the needs of companies across the area, we can now expect a coordinated approach to skills training that will serve to boost employment as the college leavers become better prepared for a more successful transition to the workplace. Medway outperformed Kent last year with the jobless total falling by 80, whereas every district of Kent increased its registered jobless in the year to December 2017; Maidstone suffering the least with just a 0.8% gain. Whether last month’s announcement by Shepway District Council that from April this year it will be rebranded as “Folkestone & Hythe District Council” [BBC News, 19 Jan 2018] will make any significant contribution to employment rates is open to speculation, but it will certainly help to attract inward investors. There is little doubt that Shepway is sometimes confused with Sheppey. The change will allow the local authority to sit neatly alongside other councils named after their principal population centres, as is the case with Dover, Canterbury, Maidstone and Ashford. Two areas remain a mystery to many from outside Kent. There are some who need to be convinced that Swale has nothing to do with a 1976 film featuring Clint Eastwood and that Thanet is not spelt with an initial “F”.
Give Us The Facts
Change since Dec 2016
% of workforce
Dover District
Thanet District
Based on the claimant count of jobseekers aged 16 – 64 years. Office for National Statistics (ONS) Jan 2017. See www.nomisweb.co.uk
High Speed May Be Medium Speed, But It's Ours
We are informed by Chamber members in East Kent that the High Speed railway line to London St Pancras has been a great asset, not only for fast rail travel to and from London, but as a unique selling point. Any company with a base near a High Speed station can justly claim to be accessible by train “via the UK’s only high speed train service”. With the delays to the construction of HS2 that advantage may persist for longer than was previously anticipated. Critics may complain that the HS1 domestic service did not become operational until 2009 and is High Speed in name only: the Shinkansen service was introduced to Japan in 1964 and the latest test version of JR Central’s Superconducting Maglev train has clocked 375 miles per hour while pulling seven carriages. If the SCMaglev were to replace the current Class 395 Javelin trains, such a service from the East Kent coast to London would barely leave time for passengers to read the headlines of a newspaper. As the position stands now, Chamber members tell us that they are most interested in the fastest HS1 times to bring them to London between 0800 hrs and 0900 hrs on weekdays. As always, the Chamber is happy to oblige, see below.
Fastest HS1 Weekday Journey Times To London Arriving 0800 hrs - 0900 hrs
Birchington-on-Sea
Folkestone West
Canterbury West
Dover Priory
High Speed Timetable 31 Dec 2017 to 19 May 2018
The Chamber welcomes opportunities to bring the views and interests of Chamber members to a wider public. We are often asked by printed and broadcast media for statements and interviews that have a bearing on the business climate of East Kent. Our good friends at the BBC South East and ITV Meridian are not alone in seeking to find out what is happening in the offices, warehouses and factories of our area. Although steadfastly apolitical in every aspect of our operations, the Chamber is inevitably asked to comment on matters such as Brexit, transport infrastructure and national policies. We do our best to support the local economy as a way of serving the best interests of our members. Comments on Tesco, Manston Airport, cross-channel bridge plans and corporate funding for charities can be found on the KMTV website at http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kmtv/video/chris-co-wednesday-24th-january-2018-11364/ With such a large trade imbalance with Germany, it is not surprising that the German national broadcaster should wish to access the thoughts of companies closest to the EU border. Das Ertse’s broadcast is available to view at http://www.daserste.de/information/politik-weltgeschehen/morgenmagazin/videos/brexit_2610nl_8000-100.html Chamber members can make up their own mind if the interviewer’s questions on BBC Radio Kent were answered fairly on matters related to Dover retailers by listening to the broadcast of 27 January 2018. (Right click and save as to download)
Water and Business Stream
Many Chamber members will recall the presentation by Business Stream at our Chamber Business Networking Breakfast in February last year giving all those present notice of the imminent changes in the supply of water to commercial users in East Kent. Although the commercial water market in England was not fully opened to competition until April 2017, Business Stream has been operating in the deregulated water industry in Scotland since 2008 and can therefore claim more specialist knowledge and capability than any other UK water provider. The Chamber has been happy to introduce large users to key decision-makers at Business Stream who are able to offer competitive rates as well as advise on the significant savings that can be made by monitoring usage in greater detail. Sometimes the mere presence of Automated Meter Reading (AMR) meters can led to lower bills as well making leakages much quicker to spot and stop. Companies of all sizes can find more information on the website at https://www.business-stream.co.uk or contact the chamber by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for contact details of the appropriate Business Stream contact for your location.
Water and Southern Water
The Chamber enjoys excellent relations with Southern Water and has been more than happy to represent the views of local companies at Southern Water Stakeholder workshops during the past year. Although its headquarters are firmly rooted in Worthing, Southern Water has made extensive efforts to forge closer links with East Kent firms and has reacted positively and quickly to matters raised by this Chamber. Extensive investment in new equipment at the Palm Bay Pumping Station has sharply reduced the risk of a repeat of the sewage dumping on the beaches that drew so much ire in the past from coastal hoteliers and retailers. As well as a concentrated focus on developing short and long-term plans for our area with a projected £6 million earmarked for investment in the main Thanet pumping station, Southern Water has also introduced many business-friendly initiatives designed to make it easier for developers and builders to work with them. A prime example is the fixed cost schedule just introduced for charges to connect new homes to the existing network. For your copy of the new charges that come into effect later this year, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line “Southern Water New Connection Charges”. For a copy of Southern Water’s latest plans to the year 2050, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line “SW Water Futures”. We will respond promptly.
Thanet Earth
We have often celebrated the successes of Thanet Earth and its contribution to domestic food production. At a time when companies throughout UK are calling for more workers with STEM skills, i.e. skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, we have in East Kent an outstanding example of excellence in Thanet Earth. Another greenhouse at this country’s largest hydroponic facility is expected to harvest its first crop of cucumbers this month, doubling the production on the Birchington site and significantly reducing our dependency on cucumber imports. At the sharp end of technological innovation in food production, A&A Growers at Thanet Earth has equipped the 6.1ha greenhouse with sodium lights and diffuse glass, a UK first in large scale salad production. As well as A&A, Thanet Earth is home to Kaaij Greenhouses, Rainbow Growers and the Fresca Group. Thanet Earth can teach a few companies about productivity too. Tomato production has now reached 15% of the UK planted tomato area but, such is the efficiency of its growing system, that the percentage of UK tomatoes grown is just under 25%. These technologically advanced companies on site have each made significant investments in East Kent and provide a beacon of enlightenment for every school leaver with an interest in STEM subjects who resists the temptation to believe that a lottery ticket or an appearance on a Simon Cowell talent show are the best routes to success.
The provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) scheduled to enter law in the UK on 25th May 2018 stipulate some frightening fines, up to 20 million Euros in some cases, for companies that fail to abide by the new legislation. Chamber members who attended the ‘Love Your Data’ Chamber Business Networking Breakfast just before Christmas were treated to a bravura presentation by Colin Smith of Brachers LLP. In the best BBC traditions that would have delighted John Reith himself, Colin proceeded to inform educate and entertain chamber members on a difficult subject that should be of vital interest to public and private sector bodies alike. The Information Commissioner’s Office has yet to provide detailed guidance which complicates the matter further. The ICO currently states that: “In the future, standard contract clauses may be provided by the European Commission or the ICO, and may form part of certification schemes. However at the moment no standard clauses have been drafted”. [https://ico.org.uk] With this in mind, Chamber members will be keen to seek professional guidance before 25th May 2018 this year. Colin can be reached by telephone at Brachers LLP, tel: 01622 776451. Other law firms able to provide expert legal advice are Mowll & Mowll in Dover tel: 01304 873344; Cripps LLP in Sandwich tel: 01732 224006; Boys & Maughan in Margate tel: 01843 234000; Barnes Marsland in Broadstairs tel: 01843 861595; Anderson Law LLP in Shilligford tel: 07970 627439 and Chatalkoy Arbitration Litigation Mediation in Deal tel: 07778 067749.
East Kent Business Directory
The East Kent Business Directory and Chamber Diary 2018 features a detailed list of leading companies trading in East Kent together with a classified section making it easy to find a supplier in nearly every sector of our local economy. Published by the Thanet & East Kent and Dover District Chambers of Commerce, all registered Chamber members are entitled to a free copy. If you did not attend any of our events at the end of last year or for some reason have not received a copy, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will respond promptly. Handsomely bound with brass corners and a commentary on the previous year’s trading conditions, the 2018 publication has a wealth of useful information to make it an attractive and useful resource on your office desk.
More On Manston
No matter on which side of the great Manston debate your views lie, aviation or mixed development, you will surely find a wry smile to greet the following account for which we must thank Alan Saunders. Of all the pilots who have escaped from the elements and landed their aeroplane safely at Manston in the last 100 years, there is one who has more reason than most to regret his decision. Uffz Heinz Ehrhardt was cruising home happily enough on his flight back to Germany when he ran into dense fog over the Thames estuary. The date was 20 May 1943. The aeroplane was a Focke Wulf 190. With fuel running low, he mistook the north Kent coast for the Pas-de-Calais coast line. Landing at what he thought was the Luftwaffe aerodrome at St Omer, he was somewhat startled when he came to a halt in front of a Hillman staff car and was then summarily escorted to the dispersal hut of RAF 609 squadron. A photograph of a distinctly sheepish Ehrhardt flanked by his RAF Typhoon pilot captors appears on page 147 of Alan Saunders excellent book “Arrival of Eagles: Luftwaffe Landings in Britain 1939-1945”.
Boys & Maughan
After more than two centuries of serving the population of East Kent, you could think that an accumulation of dusty documents could restrict the space available at Boys & Maughan. After winning five accolades at the ESTAS Conveyancing Awards, new display cabinets might be required at their offices in Margate, Birchington, Broadstairs, Canterbury or Ramsgate. Winners of the prestigious titles of Best Solicitors in Kent 2017 and best firm with two to five offices in the country, Boys & Maughan benefited from a survey of over 500 of their customers which revealed that 99% would be happy to recommend the conveyancing team to any family or friends moving home. We have not heard if Phil Spencer, the Channel 4 Property celebrity presenting the awards, advised on the location, location, location where the awards should be displayed, but we can be sure that Robert Moulsdale, Andrew Baker and the other 100 or so staff at Boys & Maughan will be up for the challenge to beat the record haul of 2017. What is the reason for such a successful year? Conveyancing Partner Richard Durrant puts it down to: “… the incredible hard work that everyone puts in day after day”.
All Drivers Take Note
Many chamber members are engaged in the transport industry. We are always grateful to the Road Haulage Association for its regular updates. A recent notice will be of interest to anyone with a driving licence. “From March, drivers who ignore smart motorway lane closures face a £100 fine and three penalty points on their licence.”. Our good friends at the RHA have some pointed comments on the Foreign Secretary’s plan to build a bridge over the English Channel and note: “A similar proposal was rejected by the Government in 1981, and we think that we’re better off spending smaller amounts of money on improving our crumbling roads as well as opening more lorry parks. The Channel Tunnel and the ferry routes are working well within capacity, so it makes no sense to commit huge amounts of taxpayers’ money in an uncertain economic climate to a costly bridge project that we don’t need.” And so say all of us.
A Maritime Story
As established Chamber members will be aware, we end our business bulletins with a narrative which we are not always able to verify to the standards you have every right to expect from the leading business support body in the East Kent coastal business community. Although we are not able to confirm the following account from one of our distinguished Chamber members, you may well be curious about what we heard at our last Chamber business breakfast. “It was my great grandfather who was the musician. He took up the violin as a teenager and from the age of about 16, he was able to earn a few pennies playing popular tunes outside the North Western Hotel in Liverpool. He must have been about 18 when a gentleman emerged from the nearby Lime Street Station and paused to listen. That man was Frederic Cowen, the conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic, who was so impressed he subsequently sponsored my great grandfather to study music seriously and he thus became a double bass player in the junior section of the orchestra. That must have been around 1910. Anyway, the White Star Line was based in Liverpool and one of its directors had a passion for the double bass and arranged for my great grandfather to join the orchestra of the RMS Olympic which was due to arrive in Liverpool on 31 May 2011. I don’t really know what happened immediately after that except that my great grandfather was on excellent terms with the captain of the Olympic who took him to Southampton in April 2012. It was there that he joined the musicians of the Titanic for its fateful maiden voyage. Of course, we all know what happened next. As to whether my great grandfather was a great player, all I know is that my great grandmother always said he was very popular and went down well with the other members of the orchestra.”
© David Foley 7th February 2018
Published in The Insider - Business Bulletins
Thanet & East Kent Insider 12th June 2017
12th June 2017 Issue No.: 216
1. General Election Hustings
After chairing three hustings during the previous general election campaign just two years ago followed by the Chamber Question Time “European Union: In or Out?” event featured on ITV Meridian last June, the Chamber detected a somewhat diminished appetite for intensive political debate. But, at the request of our membership and at short notice the Chamber arranged an East Kent hustings on Friday, 2 June 2017. On the panel were representatives from the four main political parties; Craig Mackinlay MP (Con), Del Goddard (Lab), Martyn Pennington (Lib Dem) and Cllr Rev Stuart Piper (UKIP). Organised by popular demand as a BBC-style Question Time, it is worth noting that none of the panel had previously seen the questions. The issues debated included the NHS, fishing rights, the Manston Airport site, the Unique Selling Points of our coastal towns, Section 40 of the Crimes and Courts Act 2013, unemployment, the East Kent skills deficit and a final two personal questions which did not feature in party manifestos. Registered Chamber members will find a full list attached.
2. Who Won The Debate?
Chamber members in attendance will judge who fared best in the lively debates that followed nearly every question. The issue of the future of the Manston Airport site produced the most responses from the floor with incisive, but entirely civilised insults accompanying some of the exchanges. Heckling changed to mirth when each member of the panel was asked to name his favourite meal. Readers who were not present must ask someone who was there in order to match the panellist with the dishes nominated which were “Any dish with fish”, “Steak, definitely steak”, “Curry, I love a curry” and “Barbecued barracuda with parmesan”. Pictures from the morning and all recent Chamber events can be found on our official image website at http://antonimages.co.uk/events/chamber-of-commerce/
3. Manston and RiverOak
RiverOak Strategic Partners (RSP) has confirmed the dates of its six-week consultation on its plans to reopen Manston Airport as an air freight hub. As detailed in RSP’s Statement of Community Consultation, a series of free events have been arranged in East Kent where members of the public are invited to scrutinise and comment on the proposals. With the objective of encouraging as many as possible to respond, RSP is hosting sessions in Broadstairs, Cliffsend, Margate, Sandwich, Canterbury and Ramsgate. The dates times and places of the consultations are as follows: Wednesday, 14th June 2017 at The King’s Hall, Beacon Hill, Herne Bay CT6 6BA from 1400 hrs to 2000 hrs; Thursday, 15th June 2017 at The Pavilion Harbour Street, Broadstairs CT10 1EU from 1400 hrs to 2000 hrs; Friday, 16th June 2017 at Cliffsend Village Hall, Foads Lane, Cliffsend CT12 5JH from 1400 hrs to 2000 hrs; Saturday, 17th June 2017 at Sands Hotel, 16 Marine Drive, Margate CT9 1DH from 1000 hrs to 1400 hrs; Tuesday, 20th June 2017 at The Guildhall, Cattle Market, Sandwich CT13 9AH from 1400 hrs to 2000 hrs; Thursday, 22nd June 2017 at ABode Hotel, 30-33 High Street, Canterbury CT1 2RX from 1400 hrs to 2000 hrs and Saturday, 24th June 2017 at Comfort Inn, Victoria Parade, Ramsgate CT11 8DT from 1000 hrs to 1400 hrs.
4. Are These Consultations Important?
RSP Director George Yerrall says: “The consultation is very important to us as it allows the local community to scrutinise our proposals and share their views and thoughts with us. This, in turn, will enable us to refine our proposals further before submitting the Development Consent Order application to the Planning Inspectorate, later this year.” Copies of consultation documents will be available from 12th June 2017 at www.rsp.co.uk and at public libraries during normal opening hours in Birchington, Broadstairs, Cliftonville, Deal, Herne Bay, Margate, Minster-in-Thanet, Newington, Ramsgate, Sandwich and Westgate. There will be two business-only briefings on Wednesday, 14th June at The King’s Hall in Herne Bay and on Thursday, 15th June 2017 in Broadstairs at The Pavilion. Businesses wishing to attend are invited to email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to book a place. The consultation period ends on Sunday, 23rd July 2017.
5. Jaguar Land Rover
The Chamber is delighted to announce that the Chamber Golf Day 2017 at Royal St George’s Golf Club Sandwich on 24th October 2017 will be sponsored by Barretts Jaguar Land Rover and will feature as top prize a new Jaguar XE. In addition, the leading individual player will win a weekend with a Jaguar or Land Rover. As in previous years, Chamber members are invited to submit a team of four players. Many companies take advantage of the opportunity to invite some of their key customers to join their team. Played under the Stableford scoring system, enthusiastic occasional golfers have just as much chance of scoring points for their team as the dedicated club golfer who ventures out three times a week. The joy of playing this prestigious course, regularly ranked as the best in England, is enhanced in the knowledge that past winners at Royal St George’s have included Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Henry Cotton, Walter Hagen and Tony Jacklin. Ian Fleming was Captain-elect of Royal St George’s at the time of his early demise in 1964. It is no coincidence that the most celebrated golf match in world fiction took place at the thinly disguised “Royal St Mark’s” when James Bond triumphed over Auric Goldfinger. The book “Goldfinger” was of course written before the film of the same name and before Shirley Bassey had added her five pennyworth. For more details of how to enter your team, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject “Chamber Golf Day 2017”.
6. Events So Far This Year
Chamber members were treated to expert guidance on marketing on 10th February at our “Market Hard, Sell Easy” Chamber Business Networking Breakfast. The expert speakers were Jean-François Chodecki of Corporate Creations and Alison Wilby of Maximus Marketing. On 25th February, James Cardwell-Moore, Commercial Director at Business Stream, explained how East Kent companies could take full advantage of the new deals available following his company’s acquisition of Southern Water’s business customers. On 9th March, the Project Manager of GEN² Property Limited, David Mounter, outlined the latest news on the plans to construct a High Speed railway station at Cliffsend, between Manston and Ramsgate. Chamber members heard of the likely transformative effect on the economic development of our East Kent economy and were given the opportunity to give their input on this project which is due to be completed in early 2020. The meeting on 6th April entitled “Property, Property, Property” was appropriately blessed with three speakers. Mike Williams, Senior Geoenvironmental Engineer at the MLM Group, showed why his firm was working on 9,000 live projects with a value in excess of £1.5 billion. Michael Whittaker, a chartered accountant at McCabe Ford Williams, gave a professional overview of the costs, profits and pitfalls of the Buy-To-Let market. Robert Najem, Commercial Director at Barnard Systems, outlined the 40% savings that can be made by building new homes and commercial edifices using modern steel modular construction methods. On 19th May at our “Lean. Mean & Keen” meeting, Gary Burgess gave a well-received account of how to maximise efficiency, reduce waste and keep customers happy. As the Continuous Improvement Manager at FujiFilm Speciality Ink Systems Ltd, Gary drew on his 29 years of industrial experience to give Chamber members some practical suggestions on how they could boost productivity and increase their profits. Start-ups and established companies found that they could benefit significantly from adopting some of the processes espoused and encouraged by Gary’s parent firm of FujiFilm, the world’s largest photographic and imaging company.
7. Ronnie Philpott and Barry Coppock
East Kent has lost two supremely community-minded public servants with the passing of Veronica “Ronnie” Philpott last month and Barry Coppock before Easter. Ronnie gave unstintingly to the town of Dover, as a councillor, as mayor and as a keen supporter of the town’s many cultural, educational and charitable organisations. Her unfailing commitment and sunny disposition will be much missed in the business community. Barry Coppock was the Leader and Chairman of Thanet District Council and a busy TDC councillor from 1991 to 2003. Barry had a unique way of expressing his impatience at anybody who wasted his time in meetings. He claimed that his favourite word in the English dictionary began with ‘boll’ and ended with ‘cks”. A supporter and advisor to China Gateway plc in later years, Barry leaves many people in Thanet sharing the grief of his wife Jackie, a former Mayor of Ramsgate, and his great friend Frank Thorley. In 2004, Coppock Close in Newington, was named in honour of Barry and Jackie and provides a permanent memorial.
8. Dover Counselling Centre
Founded in the wake of the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster in 1987, Dover Counselling Centre (DCC) is respected throughout the world for its pioneering approach to addressing mental health issues. The increasing demands nationwide for its counselling services means that DCC has outgrown its building in St James Street, Dover. As a result, the charity is moving its administration headquarters to new premises in Gordon Road, Whitfield. An official opening of the new building, now named Horizon House, is scheduled for next week. The Chamber understands that a mystery guest, billed as “a star of television, film and theatre”, will be making the keynote speech and it is expected that there will be considerable media interest in the event. It is interesting to note that the positive results of professional mental health counselling, defined by DCC from its inception as “To be there and care”, are at last being recognised more widely. There is now common agreement on the parity of esteem for mental health and physical health. After answering more than a quarter of a million telephone calls since 1987, DCC has more than played its part in bringing about this welcome change.
9. C. G. Hibbert
The Chamber is delighted to join in the celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of one of Kent’s most respected companies, C. G. Hibbert of Dover. Cruise ships, ferry operators, airlines, airport shops, duty-free outlets, oil rigs, ships chandlers, the diplomatic service and the UK military are among the long-standing clients who have benefited from the logistics and storage expertise provided by this preeminent company. The portfolio of brands it supplies covers market leaders throughout the drinks and tobacco industry. Less well-known to businesses outside the sector is that C. G. Hibbert also offers Bonded Warehousing, Consolidation of Bonded Stores, General Warehousing and Storage, Transport and Delivery of Goods in the UK and Europe, HMRC Documentation, Duty Management, Containerization to Ports Worldwide and Travel Retail Distribution. The company welcomes enquiries from interested parties which can be addressed direct by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
10. New Members
The Chamber is pleased to welcome the following new members to the Chamber: Pettit Recruitment Solutions of Sandwich, Maximus Marketing of Ramsgate, Town and Country Cleaners of Canterbury, Business Stream of Edinburgh, Venture Telecommunications of Broadstairs, Artemis Recruitment Consultants of Margate, Clover House of Whitstable, Unitemps of Canterbury, Paul J Mahoney (Inspiring Safety) of Garlinge, Hartwell Architects of Dover, Maximus Green Ltd of Ramsgate, Victoria Gayle Interiors of Ramsgate, Matilda Hays Flowers of Ramsgate, KES Light Haulage of Dover, RiverOak Strategic Partners of London, Domestic Butler of Ramsgate, Quinn Estates of Canterbury and Transworld Business Advisors of Tonbridge.
11. Fact Or Fiction
A chamber member recently called our research office in Sandwich and related a tale of his experience the previous weekend. We have our doubts about this story, but we leave it to our readers to judge for themselves. As he put it; “It was a warm afternoon last Saturday and while my dear wife was at the gym, I was sitting in the back garden wondering if I should get on with the DIY jobs I had promised or have another glass of cool chardonnay. Suddenly, a strange face peered over the garden wall and asked: ‘Got any odd jobs to do?’. Realising that this was a heaven-sent opportunity, I said: ‘Well, yes actually. Could you paint the porch out front? If so, how much would it cost?’ ‘Oh about £40 if you supply the paint’, came the friendly reply. ‘Fair enough and not bad for the whole porch’, I thought. ‘That would allow me to finish the bottle and listen to the cricket on the radio’. ‘Agreed’, I said rather too loudly and went to the shed at the bottom of the garden to find a tin of white Dulux one-coat gloss, a medium brush and a pack of sandpaper which I duly handed over with the cheery words: ‘Come back when you’ve finished and I’ll give you your cash’. Settling back comfortably into the garden lounger with the rest of the wine, I must have dozed off as the sun had gone in when the handyman reappeared. ‘All done’, he said and passed the brush and empty paint tin over the back wall. Congratulating myself on the best value deal I had ever done, I gladly handed over two crisp £20 notes and made ready to inspect the work. As I was moving around to the front of the house, our friendly handyman waved goodbye and said; ‘You had me fooled for a moment with your little joke. But I knew it was a Toyota and not a Porsche. Looks nice in white, doesn’t it?’”
© David Foley 11th June 2017
Thanet & East Kent Insider 31st January 2017
31st January 2017 Issue No.: 215
1. Market Hard, Sell Easy; Marketing With A Difference: 10 Feb 2017
The Thanet and Dover Chambers of Commerce will be hosting a Chamber Business Networking Breakfast on Friday, 10th February 2017 from 0730 hrs to 0859 hrs. Targeted at Chamber members wishing to boost their turnover for the year, the presenters will focus on innovative methods to bring customers to your door, to your website or to your registered agents at home or overseas. This is not just another plea to promote social media. Whatever the size of your company, you will be happy to hear a fresh approach on how to make it more profitable. Good marketing makes for easy selling. Even if you have not been dreaming of rewarding yourself with a new Jaguar 3.0 V6 340PS, you should still attend this Chamber business networking breakfast. Confirmed cyclists will also find plenty of interest. After all, a Trek Yoshitomo Nara bicycle costs three times more than the Jaguar. By contrast, the cost to Chamber members of attending our breakfast meeting is a modest £15 and includes coffee on arrival and a full English breakfast with a vegetarian option. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “Market Hard, Sell Easy Breakfast”. Full details of the venue near Sandwich will follow with confirmation.
2. Be Wise About Water: 24 February 2016
Of all the standing charges that businesses are obliged to pay, the price of your water supply is often the least considered. That is all about to change with potentially significant benefits to businesses, charities and public sector organisations. To stay ahead of the competition, Chamber members are invited to attend our Be Wise About Water Chamber business networking breakfast to hear what market deregulation means for your company and for your costs. The Commercial Director of one of the UK’s leading water retailers will explain what will happen when Business Stream enters the East Kent market next April and Southern Water will no longer be responsible for your non-household water bill. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “Be Wise About Water Breakfast”. Full details of the venue near Sandwich will follow with confirmation.
3. New Funding for Education and the Arts
We have been asked to find educational and arts organisation looking for financial backing for projects that test different cultural learning strategies. A fund of as much as £2.5 million has been earmarked for research into the impact on academic attainment of different cultural learning strategies. The funders are looking at the effects on resilience, self-confidence and creativity though activities that involve arts and cultural activities, particularly in areas of high deprivation. A wide range of artistic practice may qualify including visits to venues and exhibitions as well as classroom-based endeavours. Applications from arts and cultural organisations, schools, universities and other non-profit organisations should be submitted before 15th February 2017. Chamber members are invited to email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line “Arts Funding Info” for more details and full information on how to apply.
4. Thanet Parkway Station: 9th March 2017
Offering a huge boost the local economy, the construction of Thanet Parkway Station promises to bring a dramatic cut in the journey times between Cliffsend and London. Whatever the future of the Manston Airport/Stone Hill Park site, the arrival of an adjacent high speed train service to the nation’s capital will undoubtedly encourage inward investment and stimulate economic growth. The Chamber has accepted an offer by the Thanet Parkway Station project management company to brief Chamber members on the latest developments and schedules. You will be invited to give your feedback to help shape the project prior to submission of a planning application. Chamber members wishing to attend this business breakfast on Thursday, 9th March 2017 from 0730 hrs to 0859 hrs should email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line “Thanet Parkway Station”. The fee of £15 for Chamber members includes coffee on arrival and a full English breakfast with a vegetarian option. Booking is essential. Full details of the venue near the station site will follow with confirmation.
5. Dates For Your Diary
In response to requests from Chamber members, the following dates have been booked for breakfast meetings: 6 April 2017 on the theme of Property, Commercial & Residential and 19 May 2017 for Manufacturing. Another Chamber cross-channel day trip is provisionally booked for 23rd June 2017. Members can also expect another great Chamber Golf Day at Royal St George’s Golf Club Sandwich on 24 October 2017. Images from a selection of recent past events are available to view on our official Chamber Photographer website at http://www.rosieantonphotography.co.uk/menu/clients/dover-thanet-and-east-kent-chamber
6. Thanet Draft Local Plan
Chamber members have until 17th March 2017 to comment on their preferred options in the Draft Local Plan for Thanet and to propose any changes to the Local Plan Preferred Options 2015. Not everyone is enamored of the opportunity to analyse their reaction to “mutual proximity, accessibility and supporting amenity infrastructure” or feels obliged to be enthused by “the need to clearly demonstrate how the SPA mitigation strategy as set out in Policy SP25 is being met”. But, before you reject the dense technical prose of the economic planners, you should be aware that the main issues at stake will probably have a considerable bearing on your business and the commercial future of the district. The changes in focus include the re-designation of the former Manston airport site for mixed use development with 2,500 new dwellings and up to 85,000sqm of employment and leisure floorspace, as well as suggestions for Local Greenspace Designations. Full details are available on the website at https://consult.thanet.gov.uk/consult.ti/TLPPOR/consultationHome. Before you submit your comments, you might like to read the useful Frequently Asked Questions listed under the heading Consultation Documents.
7. East Kent College And Gary Rhodes
Such is the success of East Kent College these days with its growing status as the official Further Education provider in the Dover, Thanet, Shepway and Canterbury districts that it is easy to forget that before the impetus generated by an invigorated senior management team that followed the appointment of Graham Razey as Principal, it was called simply Thanet College and tended to be described somewhat disparagingly as “That catering college in Broadstairs”. One Chamber member has reminded us of its most famous graduate, Gary Rhodes, and relates: “At a time when all the TV chefs were trying to outdo each other with ever more fanciful French sauces, Gary Rhodes was one of the first to celebrate British cooking and he owes it all to Thanet College”. Whether Thanet College can claim all the credit is perhaps a matter of conjecture, but there is no doubt in the minds of many celebrated chefs that Gary Rhodes made a major contribution to raising the status of British food, as confirmed in the This Is Your Life episode of September 1996. Gary’s spikey hair may have surprised Albert Roux of Le Gavroche, but Peter Barratt, Gary’s tutor at Thanet College, prefers to recall the Queen Mother’s mayonnaise when he joins Michael Aspel on stage after 11 minutes of the programme. The friendly banter of a teacher with his former student will bring joy to anyone who has ever taught a class of any description, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2lGXolCW60.
8. Are Heavy Goods Vehicles Dangerous On Our Roads?
As many chamber members are involved in transport and logistics in one form or another, we are always grateful for updates from the Road Haulage Association. Apart from the odd unfortunate split infinitive as in “The RHA strives to proactively lobby issues on behalf of its members”, see https://www.rha.uk.net/policy-campaigning/top-industry-issues, it must be acknowledged that the RHA is a highly effective body that campaigns vigorously on issues such as fuel prices and road improvements from which every local company can benefit. We are grateful to the RHA for an update on the safety statistics for Heavy Goods Vehicles which will bring some comfort to transport operators in East Kent who are repeatedly hounded by ill-informed criticism of their vehicles and drivers. The RHA tells us: “HGVs have fewer killed-or-serious-injury accidents (KSIs) than the national average for all vehicles and have greatly improved their safety performance, new statistics from the Department for Transport show. HGVs were involved in 78 KSIs/billion miles 2015. This compares with: 117 KSIs per billion miles for all vehicles, 50% higher; and 118KSIs/billion miles for HGVs in 2004, showing a one-third improvement in HGV involvement in KSIs. Trucks do a high proportion of mileage on motorways, the safest of the UK’s roads.” In other words, lorries are safer than cars.
9. East Kent Councils Merger
Chamber members know that Thanet & East Kent Chamber and the Dover District Chamber of Commerce have deep roots in the commercial life of East Kent. The archives of the Dover Chamber reveal that there have been many attempts since the year 1850 to harmonise the activities of councils across the east of the county. Now it seems that the pressing need to reduce standing costs may indeed lead to a merger. Chamber members have been invited to comment on whether they agree with the conclusion that: “a single new district comprising the four East Kent coastal districts makes sense.” Transition costs of £6.8 million are projected to be more than covered in the savings that will be made over the six-year period from 2019/20 to 2024/25. Another factor to consider is that if the four district councils in Dover, Thanet, Shepway and Canterbury cannot agree on a merger, it could be imposed on them by central government. There are therefore some powerful reasons why your views should be taken into account. Details can be downloaded from the website at https://www.thanet.gov.uk/media/3689570/A-business-case-for-the-potential-creation-of-a-single-new-council-from-.pdf.
10. New Chamber Manager
We are delighted to announce the arrival of a new member of staff, Mary Campbell. Known to many in East Kent in her previous position with Adecco, the world’s largest HR company, Mary has extensive experience of the strengths and challenges facing local companies. Her in-depth knowledge of HR issues and a close familiarity with the property and maritime sectors serve to extend the range of direct support available to Chamber members and ensure that the Chamber’s back office operations should keep pace with the rapid growth of the Chamber’s activities. Mary welcomes enquiries from current and new members alike and can be reached by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by telephone to 01843 609289 or 01304 892484.
11. How Are We Doing?
Year-on-year unemployment data seems to indicate a sad picture for our county with the latest figures posted for December 2016 showing an increase of 11.1% in unemployment benefit claimants. The steepest annual rise has been in the Canterbury district which has seen an increase of almost 24% since December 2015. Thanet has the highest overall percentage of claimants at 3.4%, nearly five times higher than in Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells and three times the average for South East England. However, the annual comparison masks a substantial decrease in unemployment over the last four years. Since December 2012, the four districts of Shepway, Canterbury, Dover and Thanet have seen a fall in benefit claimants of between 50% and 57%. The unemployment rate is a significant guide to economic health. East Kent may be currently suffering from a winter cold, but it has definitively recovered from a serious illness. The family doctor is hopeful that the medicine produced by manufacturing, property and infrastructure development will ensure a restoration to full health before the end of the year.
12. Give Us The Facts
13. Minimum Wage
The Chamber always welcomes the opportunity to represent the views of East Kent companies to government. We would like to thank Chamber members in the sectors of our local economy in focus who have responded to our requests to give their views and have accepted an invitation to meet the key decision-makers at the Low Pay Commission who advise the government. Chamber members may be aware that the 18th Low Pay Commission (LPC) report confirmed the government’s plans to “move away from a low age, high tax, high welfare society and encourage a model of higher pay and higher productivity” (BIS, 2016b). Of course, this is set against two major changes in wage policy due to the UK’s vote to leave the European Union and the introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW) which is applicable to workers aged 25 and over. Chamber members may not be aware that the NLW is subject to a target level. The government’s stated ambition is that by the year 2020 the NLW will be around £9. The panel of commissioners who advise the government tend to be unanimous in their recommendations and so it is important that your Chamber of Commerce ensures that the trading position of East Kent companies and the particular strengths and challenges that we face in this part of the UK are reflected in their recommendation to government.
14. What Wages Must I Pay?
Your wages and salary rates are a matter for you, your accountant, your HR Manager, HMRC, your staff and your business plans for the next five years. What the Chamber can confirm is that if you wish to avoid spending time at Her Majesty’s pleasure in a small room with full board, a restricted menu and strictly limited opportunities to watch your favourite soaps, you should read the table below. A point to ponder is that although the economic cycle has fluctuated considerably since 2010, minimum wages have inexorably risen. Despite what your mum and dad may have told you, what goes up, does not always come down.
15. Spotting A Winner
The Chamber is always pleased to celebrate the successes of members. We hear with great delight that SACO AEI Polymers UK achieved record results at the end of the 2016. Part of a resurgent manufacturing sector in East Kent, AEI is a technology driven company in Sandwich which develops and manufactures thermoplastic & thermoset compounds, additives and catalyst master-batches for the wire & cable, pipe & tubing, building & construction and specialty markets. Also thriving in the building market is Barnard Systems of Dover with its steel modular construction operations. An increasingly buoyant property sector has produced excellent results at Eurocell Building Plastics in Ramsgate where turnover is at the top of the local leagues for the product, which is more than can stated for Mansfield Town, the favourite football team of Eurocell’s manager, Dave Ashley. After all, when Doncaster Rovers is ahead of you in the table, it must be a matter of concern. If Professor Rama Thirunamachandran, Principal of Canterbury Christ Church, ever wishes to trade in the futures market at the London Stock Exchange, he will certainly have every right to claim he knows how to spot a winner. His invitation to Dr Ted Malloch to speak at the North Holmes Campus in September 2015 on the theme of “A Responsible Way to Reorient Global Business” will surely pay dividends. It is not only the middle name of “Roosevelt” that equips Dr Malloch to succeed, he is widely tipped to be the new US Ambassador to European Union with concomitant responsibilities over trade and security. Gareth Doodes, Head of Dover College, is another innovator in education who believes in bringing the real world into his school. Detective Inspector Bill Thornton of Kent Police was the guest speaker at the Headmaster’s Lecture last week. Dover College students and local dignitaries were treated to a fascinating insight into the emergency service that keeps us safe in our beds at night. Dover’s member of parliament Charlie Elphicke is one of many who have praised Kent Police for its performance last April when ‘mindless louts’ came to Dover and received a prompt and appropriate response from Bill Thornton and his team. As Charlie Elphicke put it: “More than 60 people have been charged and several jailed. This is exactly the sort of no-nonsense response the people of Dover and Deal demand.” Could DI Thornton be a future Chief of Kent Police? Chamber members will follow his career with interest.
16. Don’t Waste Your Time On Soaps
We have received some stern words about the frivolous behaviour of some workers who spend time watching inane television dramas instead of devoting their free hours to devising how to improve the profits of their company. A Chamber member whom we shall call Keith clearly feels angry that so much entrepreneurial drive and corporate progress is being blunted by the obsession some employees have with soap operas and the like. As he put it: “Why do people spend so much time watching Coronation Street? Personally, I have no interest at all in why Kevin Webster and his business partner Tyrone sacked Kev’s daughter after the arson attack. As for East Enders, why should anyone care if the reunion between sisters Denise and Kim Fox never takes place, especially after Kim was left so angry by Denise’s decision not to attend the family meal she had organised to say goodbye to Emerald.” Keith continued his diatribe by dismissing The Archers: “I can’t understand why people listen to this outdated programme. Frankly, why anyone in Ambridge put up with Rob Titchener for so long is beyond me. It was clear from the moment he met Helen, that he was a dangerous psychopath. But you have to feel sorry for Henry”. Keith concluded his criticisms by singling out the amount of time wasted by devotees of the BBC’s Casualty. “Alright, it is probably right for Charlie to marry Duffy at long last, but you would think he would have realised much sooner that a simple wedding day was what she wanted and when Louise stormed into Noel’s job interview, she may have saved his bacon, but her impetuosity will count against her in the long run”. Clearly, Kevin is not one to shirk his duty to his shareholders and his determination not to spend any time following television and radio dramas is very much to his credit.
© David Foley 31st January 2017
Thanet & East Kent Insider 14th August 2016
14th August 2016 Issue No.: 214
1. Resilience: Chamber Business Networking Breakfast 8th September 2016
The Chamber has often written about the benefits of Predict & Prevent in preference to Find & Fix. The speaker at our Chamber Business Networking breakfast next month is a world-class specialist on the subject much in demand in Australia, New Zealand, UAE, Germany, Belgium, China, France and USA. Formerly Head of Safety for Virgin Atlantic and founder of the Tall Buildings Fire Safety Network, Russ Timpson advises companies of all sizes on business continuity. In December 2015, he was awarded the title of International Fire Professional of the Year at Fire Magazine’s annual Excellence in Fire & Emergency Awards. His expertise extends to advising on a wide range of measures companies can put in place to stop a disaster before it happens and to mitigate the effects when it does. The price of £15 for Chamber members includes coffee on arrival and a full English breakfast with a vegetarian option. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “Resilience Breakfast 8 September 2016”. Full details of the venue near Ramsgate will follow with confirmation. There will be plenty of time available to promote your products and services to other delegates.
2. Trade Delegation To Ostend: 14 – 15th October 2016
Supported by its sister body the Dover District Chamber of Commerce, the Thanet & East Kent Chamber is organising a Trade Delegation to visit Ostend on 14th – 15th October 2016. In liaison with our good friends at DFDS Seaways, the visit will bring Chamber members from East Kent to meet companies in the EU interested in establishing post-Brexit commercial links. Arriving on the afternoon of Friday, 14th October 2016, Chamber members will enjoy an informal meeting with a selection of local companies interested in their products and services followed by a formal dinner and presentations. Overnight accommodation at a central hotel will allow for some time on Saturday, 15th October for follow up meetings or leisure before returning on the Dunkirk – Dover Ferry in the afternoon. Further details will be available exclusively to Chamber members later this month so that the next time people ask you “What can be done about Brexit?”, you can tell them “New business opportunities for East Kent companies.”
3. Chamber Golf Day 25th October 2016
The Chamber is delighted to confirm that the Chamber Golf Day will again take place at Royal St George’s Golf Club Sandwich which has hosted 14 Open Championships and is the course featured as “Royal St Mark’s” in Ian Fleming’s book Goldfinger where James Bond plays the most famous golf match in the history of fiction. The 2016 Chamber Golf Day on 25th October 2016 will feature a glittering array of prizes. Companies are invited to submit teams of 4 players, see attached booking form. Sponsorship opportunities are available on each hole of the course and the prize table will again feature significant contributions from Chamber members keen to benefit from East Kent’s leading corporate golf tournament. For more details, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line “Golf Day 2016”.
4. Suggestion To Avoid Congestion
Severe congestion blocking the main roads leading to Dover during the first weekend of the school holidays last month provoked the wrath of Dover District Chamber President Charlie Elphicke MP who described the traffic queues as “completely unacceptable” and called on the UK government to apologise. There was little relief available from public services during a wait of up to 16 hours for families, coach passengers and lorry drivers stranded on the main roads leading to the port. Our President’s views were echoed by the much respected head of the Port of Calais, Jean-Marc Puissesseau, who confessed to being ashamed of the effect on British people heading for France. Directing his ire towards French officials he said: “When we know that there will be big traffic, as it was yesterday because it was starting holidays, it should be organised.” Many Chamber members will recall Jean-Marc Puissesseau’s statement of 2013 that: “All that is good for Calais is good for Dover” and it follows that the reverse is true as well. What is bad for Dover is bad for Calais and is bad for every local company trading over that weekend, especially for restaurants, shops and businesses expecting deliveries. One hotel manager told the Chamber: “Some of the guests booked into our hotel never arrived and we now have the thankless task of arranging refunds with little chance of recovering the loss of income.” Chief Executive of your Chamber, David Foley, made these points to reporter Tom Savvides in a live broadcast on ITV Meridian News stating: “This was a situation that was predictable, it was preventable, it took a long time to find and we have yet to discover if it has been fixed”. Calling for a more effective liaison with the authorities by Dover Harbour Board, he listed the difficulties faced by many companies in the East Kent coastal business community: “Not everyone works nine to five, Monday to Friday. Deliveries could not be made, staff could not get to work and most importantly the customers were simply not there.” The Chamber will be working with public bodies to avoid a repeat of the nightmare traffic conditions that impacted so badly on so many of our Chamber members.
5. Past Events
Images from a selection of past events can be viewed on the official Chamber photographer’s website at www.rosieantonphotography.co.uk/menu/clients/dover-thanet-and-east-kent-chamber. Recent contributions include pictures from the visit of the Danish Ambassador His Excellency Claus Grube, Chamber Question Time, Make Business Rates Your Business and Ebbsfleet Garden City: Growing Opportunities For You.
6. Conference Report
First on the podium at the Chamber’s Managing Change conference was Tim Checketts, formerly Chief of Staff at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and the current secretary of the Royal St George’s Golf Club. He gave a pithy account of the usefulness of having a clear understanding of acceptable success criteria before embarking on any large scale radical changes. He suggested that in some circumstances a company may be serving the best interests of its staff, customers and shareholders by accepting an 85% success rate with a particular initiative and moving on rather than wasting energy and resources in striving for an unachievable complete compliance.
7. What About Thanet Earth?
The UK’s leading hydroponics facility at Thanet Earth was represented by its Managing Director Des Kingsley who gave an insight into a possible route to food self-sufficiency in the UK. It would require significant changes to our inherited view of what constitutes good agricultural management to repeat the Thanet Earth complex across the country, but it is worth noting that the UK now imports over half of its food supplies. The recent problems at the Port of Dover have illustrated all too clearly that there are security risks attached to an over-dependency on the goodwill of remote suppliers. The resounding success of Thanet Earth remains an inspiration to young scientists throughout East Kent. Combined Heat & Power technology ensures that tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are grown in ideal conditions that not only ensure a low carbon footprint but contribute electricity to the National Grid as well.
8. Chief Cashier of Bank of England
The keynote speaker at the Chamber conference was Victoria Cleland, Chief Cashier of the Bank of England. Her convincing arguments about the advantages of polymer banknotes also show that changes to our most familiar objects and behaviour can be generally accepted if presented fairly and accurately. The new £5 note is made of thin flexible plastic, will be introduced on 13th September 2016 and will feature a picture of Winston Churchill. Expected to last 2.5 times longer than the paper version it will replace, Victoria assured Chamber members that “You can spill red wine on it and it will wipe away cleanly”. More surprising to her audience was the revelation that the largest denomination note issued by the bank is not for the sum of £50, as often assumed, but for £100 million. Not available from supermarket cashpoints, these special notes are kept in secure storage and play an important role in backing the value of notes from Scottish and Northern Irish banks.
9. Other Speakers
Additional insights on successful change management were provided by the Head of Planning at Southern Water, Dr Alison Hoyle, the Managing Director of Europe’s largest manufacturer of leisure hovercraft, Emma Pullen, the Chairman of Ramsgate Ferry, Dr Bill Moses and the Head of Policy & Briefing at the Post Office, Mike Granville. The largest retailer in the UK with nearly 11,800 outlets, the Post Office has just undergone the most radical transformation ever experienced since its establishment in 1660. Heading resolutely towards non-subsidised sustainability, the new Post Office prides itself on being a commercial multichannel business with a public purpose. It is a remarkable fact that 99.7% of the UK population lives within three miles of a Post Office. Throughout the day’s presentations and during those valuable discussions at lunchtime and breaks, it was apparent just what a huge task is involved in implementing successful change in established organisations. From the examples provided, successful change management seems to require strong leadership from senior directors who share with all staff a common strategy that fully recognises the needs of its customers, is not fixated on imposed targets and yet manages to maintain and promote genuine two-way communication with workers and suppliers. Does that describe your company?
The latest unemployment figures list the total number of people claiming either Jobseekers Allowance or Universal Credit, as reported in July 2016 by the Office for National Statistics with selected extracts published by the ever-excellent department of Strategic Business Development & Intelligence at Kent County Council. These figures portray a snapshot of our local economy and provide an impartial measure of business activity in East Kent. Thanet remains the unemployment blackspot in Kent with the highest number (2,645) of registered unemployment benefit claimants. Year-on-year unemployment has grown 13.3%. In June 2013, the number of claimants in Thanet was 4,578. Thus, over a period of three years, unemployment has in fact fallen by 42%. The Dover district has also seen a rise in unemployment in the year to June 2016 of 5.4%, but in June 2013, 2,293 adults were registered claimants indicating a three-year fall of 45%. Similarly, the three-year figures for Kent show a reduction in the jobless total from 31,869 to 14,040, a fall of 56%. South East England has reduced claimants from 119,382 in June 2013 to 56,365 in June 2016, a fall of 53%. However, no matter which rose-tinted prism is used to view the data, it is glaringly apparent that the East Kent coastal business community has continued to lag behind the rest of the county and indeed the South East region in its recovery over the last three years. More worrying still perhaps are the figures for the last 12 months which show that Kent as a whole has increased its registered unemployed by 6.3% in stark contrast to the South East region which has reduced its jobless figures by 2.9% and Great Britain by 4.0%. After a period of recovery since 2008, Kent has suffered a challenging 12 months to June 2016. Some will claim that Brexit is the reason for the pronounced downturn and will probably claim the same for many other unpleasant facts as well. This is of course a wholly false conclusion as regards the unemployment numbers which largely relate to a period before the referendum of 23rd June 2016 when the expectation was that the UK would vote to remain in the EU. But, as any sharp operator will tell you: “You should never let a good crisis go to waste”.
12. Keep It Clear
As part of its community engagement programme, Southern Water has launched a campaign called “Keep it clear”. Targeted at preventing blockages and interruptions to wastewater disposal, the initiative calls on commercial and residential users to flush the “The Three Ps” and nothing more. One of the Ps stands for Paper. We have sufficient faith in the practical skills and extensive knowledge of our Chamber members not to need to explain the composition of the other two words beginning with P. Apparently, cleansing wipes, nappies, ear buds, dental floss, plastic razors, industrial waste, gravel and a whole list of unsavoury items cause unnecessary blockages in our drains. We learn that such items should be bagged and binned. Southern Water has offered residents the chance to win a prize. If you can answer a few simple questions about waste disposal, you could win a handsome waste bin, described by the utility as “A designer Wesco Bin in the colour of your choice worth £130”. Enthusiastic quizzers lacking a designer waste bin should click on www.southernwater.co.uk/winabin.
13. Brexit & East Kent
A few Chamber members have expressed their concerns about the effects of Brexit on their balance sheets. For some companies, these anxieties are due to an alleged government failure to prepare for a majority voting in favour of leaving the European Union. For others, it is the result of the vote itself. The early intervention of the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, was a significant factor in calming the markets which in the first three days after the vote saw a trade-weighted fall in the value of the pound sterling of 9% and a 14% fall in the FTSE 250. One Chamber member wrote about a fall of over £800,000 in the year end income which his company is obliged to post to its overseas parent; this is compounded by an additional sharp increase in the costs of its raw materials. There will doubtlessly be winners and losers in the fluctuations of the exchange rate since 23rd June 2016, but many more Chamber members will wonder why more attention had not been given to planning for the effects of an anti-EU vote. Chamber members will have some sympathy for the heartfelt plea at the end of the same letter: “I am totally disillusioned with the lack of a credible plan to take our nation forward since the referendum. …. I can only hope stability returns sooner rather than later, before we need to take action to protect our business”. Thankfully, some stability has returned to the financial markets since that letter dated 6th July 2016. Also, that particular East Kent company, a significant employer with over 100 staff, benefits from a far-sighted Managing Director who is well-equipped to manage change and will doubtlessly make the best of the challenges he faces.
14. KPMG and Bank of England On Brexit
The Vice Chair of KPMG UK, Melanie Richards, has described a 2-2-2 Plan which she says relates to “The first two weeks, the first two months and then the first two years”. She adds that: “There is no magic in that last two years bit because you are always planning. But, I think the first two weeks and the first two months are pretty important to make sure you have got yourself in gear”. That is sound advice, you may think, but likely to be expensive if you want specific guidance on your own company’s prospects. The Dover District Chamber of Commerce has been liaising with the Bank of England for the last 165 years but can find little cheer in the dispassionate data collected by the bank’s experts in the latest Agents’ Summary of August 2016 which forecasts “a negative effect, overall, on capital spending, hiring and turnover over the coming year”, although manufacturing fares a little better. Wellington boot and umbrella manufacturers may be the only ones to find some comfort in the revelation that: “Consumer spending growth had also slowed, although that appeared to have partly reflected the effects of unusually wet weather.”
15. Reduce Your Energy Bills
Chamber member Zero Trace Procurement warns of rises in energy bills due to possible changes unrelated to wholesale prices. As Procurement Director at the ZTP Canterbury Office, Martyn Young is able to utilize a unique trace management system to facilitate the tender process for each new corporate client, reducing energy bills and contributing to enhanced profit margins. If that is not good enough for you, take note that Martyn trained as a Chartered Management Accountant and can even make the uses of data cubes in forecasting models linked to multi-disciplinary profit optimization sound interesting. To bring a smile to your face when calculating your savings on energy costs, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or telephone 01227 203109.
16. Ramsgate Ferry
A recent report in the Thanet Gazette quoted a Thanet District Council spokesman as saying: “Arrangements for the commencement of sailings to Ramsgate Port are still ongoing. Although timings have changed, positive negotiations are still ongoing." This was greeted with some mirth by one local businessman who contacted the Chamber. “They have been on-going since Sally Line withdrew in 1999”, he said, “The problem is nothing is going on.” Of course there has been some activity with the arrival of car imports, but as another Chamber member noted last week: “As far as I know, no parked car has ever spent the night at a local hotel or bought a meal in a restaurant”. The Chamber notes the progress of Ramsgate Ferry which is campaigning to restore passenger ferries from Ramsgate. With an estimated economic impact of £6,000,000 a year from a revived cross-channel operation, there is no doubt that retailers, hoteliers, attractions and suppliers will be following progress closely. On 4th August 2016, Ramsgate Ferry presented its 14th Roadshow to an audience of travel and tourism professionals at The Dorchester Hotel in London’s Park Lane. For more details, see www.ramsgateferry.com.
The Chamber is pleased to welcome the following new members to the Chamber: Town & Country Housing of Tunbridge Wells, tel: 01892 501426; MLM Consulting Engineers of Ashford tel: 01233 610530; Total Jobs Contacts of Ramsgate tel: 07803 163051; Princes Leisure Group of Sandwich tel: 01304 613022; Ash Civil Construction of Ramsgate tel: 01843 593268; Simply Auto Enrolment Solutions of Bury tel: 0800 00 96299; Wade Business Solutions of Broadstairs tel: 03333 660721; Café Rouge of Westwood Cross tel: 01843 808943; Cummins Power Systems of Manston Park tel: 01843 255000; Jonathan Viner Gallery of Margate tel: 07968 548764; Southern Water of Worthing tel: 01634 824201; Myspace Self Storage of Broadstairs tel: 01843 602020; The Freedman of Walmer tel: 07793 321126; The Retreat of Sandwich tel: 07951 057730; Tammet Systems of Aylesham tel: 01227 711072; Brilliant Hotels of Dover tel: 01304 821230; Beautiville Salon of Cliftonville tel: 01843296870.
18. Robert Maxwell
Finally, here is an account related by a Chamber member that may be of interest to us all and in particular to any of the 30,000 Mirror Group pensioners who discovered to their horror that the funds set aside to support their comfortable old age had been plundered by Robert Maxwell. His demise in November 1991 provoked a series of enquiries into his business affairs that revealed some unsavoury practices and led directly to the 1995 Pensions Act. Known to his sternest critics at Private Eye as Cap’n Bob, Maxwell was prone to emotional outbursts and instant decision-making that increasingly impacted on his financial acumen. Proffered by a distinguished Chamber member, we have some doubts about this story but we leave it to our good-looking readers to judge for themselves. “What happened was Maxwell saw a dishevelled worker, tie undone, shirt hanging out, passing his open office door and he shouted at him to halt. When the individual replied: ‘I’m sorry, I can’t, I’m in a hurry’, Maxwell stormed out of his office and blasted the beleaguered employee with the words: ‘In that case you are sacked. I can’t have workers like you in my company’. Calling for his cashier to attend immediately, he bellowed at the worker: ‘What is your monthly salary, tell me now, come on, come on, I’m a busy man.’. ‘I don’t know’, came the hesitant reply, ‘it depends, each month is different.’ Grabbing £2,000 from his cashier, he handed the cash over to the worker and said in front of the astonished staff now accumulating around the scene: ‘Do you see how generous I am? This man is sacked, but I am sweetening the pill. Now make sure he is never allowed in this building again.’” As our Chamber member relates: “The worker was in fact a courier delivering a parcel who had never worked for the Daily Mirror in his life. That summer he took his family on a splendid holiday, all courtesy of an angry Robert Maxwell.” The message for fellow Chamber members and bull-headed company owners alike is that if you really want the pleasure of sacking particular individuals you dislike, you have to make sure you employ them first.
© David Foley 14th August 2016
Thanet & East Kent Insider 13th September 2015
13th September 2015 Issue No.: 213
1. Chamber Business Networking Breakfast: 18th September 2015
Most Chamber members will have already received news of our Chamber Business Networking Breakfast scheduled for 0730 – 0900 hrs on Friday, 18th September 2015. The main speakers will be Rebecca Smith, Senior Editor at Kent Regional News, and Graham Cooke, late of Radio Caroline and an established presenter for the BBC. Understanding how the printed and broadcast media operates can be of immense value to any ambitious company wishing to manage its media profile across all formats. The huge worldwide growth of social media has made the top social platforms of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn household names with Pinterest, Tumbir, Badoo and Myspace not far behind. In response, it has also stimulated the traditional media outlets of newspapers, radio and television to work more closely with Internet users in order to secure an audience for their output. Chamber members attending the networking breakfast will hear what pleases editors and how their company can make the most of the opportunities to showcase their products and services to current and potential customers. The price of £15 for Chamber members includes coffee on arrival and a full English breakfast with a vegetarian option. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “Chamber Breakfast 18th June 2015”. Full details of the venue near Sandwich will follow with confirmation.
2. Chamber Conference 6th October 2015: Managing Change
Our 2015 conference on 6th October 2015 will feature as keynote speaker, the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, Victoria Cleland. Her presentation will interest anyone who handles cash or wants to know about the changes to our banknotes and coins. The 32nd person to occupy this prestigious post since John Kendrick took office in 1694, Victoria says: “My role covers far more than signing the banknotes.” Indeed, it certainly does and she works in close liaison with retailers, financial institutions, Cash in Transit (CiT) firms and UK companies of all sizes. Victoria will brief members on changes in our currency planned for the next three years, including the introduction of polymer banknotes featuring Sir Winston Churchill and Jane Austen. Following extensive public consultation, the new notes will have enhanced counterfeit resilience and be 15% smaller than the current size. If you are interested in money, you should book a place, see item 6 below.
3. More About Our Conference Speakers
Also speaking from the podium on 6th October 2015 will be Des Kingsley, Managing Director of the UK’s largest greenhouse complex at Thanet Earth. At a time when UK scientific research is under close scrutiny, Thanet Earth offers a shining example of commercial success in hydroponics in a highly competitive market. Chamber members may recall Des Kingsley’s predecessor, Ian Craig, now Chief Executive of the parent company the Fresca Group, which has combined annual sales of more than £500 million. Thanet Earth is a great East Kent success story from which we can all learn some valuable lessons. Its proven methodology and practice may also offer a glimpse of a route towards the UK being self-sufficient in food and vegetables, a sector in which this country currently has a £7.8 billion trade deficit. [Food Statistics Pocketbook 2014, DEFRA].
4. Yet More About Our Conference Speakers
Last year, Emma Pullen joined Stella McCartney and Elisabeth Murdoch as one of the Management Today magazine's Top 35 Businesswomen Under 35. Emma runs the British Hovercraft Company (BHC). As a hands-on Director, she is fully involved in every aspect of the manufacture, marketing, sales and administration of Europe’s largest manufacturer of leisure hovercraft. BHC is very much a family business and Chamber members will hear how Emma benefits from the support of fellow board members, husband Russ Pullen and father-in-law Ivan Pullen. Chamber members at the conference will also witness a demonstration of a BHC hovercraft so that they can see for themselves how this enterprising company has developed a great British invention and transformed it into a commercial product currently sold to individuals and firms around the world from its base in Sandwich.
5. Even More About Our Conference Speakers
Thanks to close liaison with Post Office Communications Director Mark Davies, the Post Office will be represented at our conference to give us details of the most radical root and branch reforms that have ever taken place at this beloved institution which has served the British public faithfully since 1660. Promoting a future as a multi-channel business that can satisfy the needs of SMEs across a wide range of services, the Post Office is changing rapidly as a commercial business with a public purpose. It will surprise many that 99.7% of the population lives within three miles of Post Office and that a third of all small businesses visit every week. It may also surprise Chamber members that the Post Office is not reducing the number of its branches; with almost 11,800 outlets, the Post Office has the largest retail network in the UK. Under its inspiring Chief Executive, Paula Vennells, the Post Office is becoming much more than a challenger bank. Many chamber members will appreciate the wisdom in Paula’s dictum that “Retail is Detail” and there is much to be learned from the way the Post Office is directing the future of its £1 billion a year business.
6. Chamber Conference of 6th October 2015: Booking Your Place
Chamber members attending the Chamber Business Conference “Managing Change” will receive refreshments on arrival and a cooked meal during the lunchtime break; a vegetarian option is available. Doors will open at 1015 hrs and the formal sessions will end at 1420 hrs with informal networking on-site until 1530 hrs. Chamber members qualify for a discounted ticket price of £30 inclusive. Full details of the venue near Sandwich will follow with confirmation. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “Chamber Conference 2015”.
7. Now Is The Summer Of Our Discontent
The interruption to East Kent business caused by Operation Stack has been significant. Losses to the UK of an estimated £250 million a day during this summer of discontent have been felt most sharply by the owners of companies in East Kent who have had extreme difficulties in securing supplies, making deliveries to their customers and getting staff to and from the workplace. One haulier with a depot a few miles from Dover found that one of his trucks was prevented from taking the two-mile journey to Dover Western Docks when his driver was told to join the queue of lorries on the M20 west of Maidstone where he faced a two-day wait before he could join a cross-channel ferry. Our Chamber member understandably returned his truck to the depot and faced a difficult explanation to his valued customer who was less sympathetic to the actions of strikers at Calais than the French authorities appeared to be. Increasingly desperate pleas from the Road Haulage Association Chief Executive Richard Burnett included demands for the French military to intervene to protect “the thousands of British drivers whose lives are now being put at risk on a regular basis”. [RHA Press Release, 7 July 2015]. Although the main issues causing the French ferry workers to strike have now been resolved, the long term effects to Dover and its environs from being branded a no-go trading area have yet to be assessed. It is simply unacceptable that Kent County Council, Kent Police and Dover coastguard should have to pay upfront the costs of illegal actions in Calais with no compensation payments seemingly available for those businesses which have suffered the most.
8. Is Disruption by Ferry Workers at Calais Over?
The strike action by dissident ferry workers at Calais is over for the time being. Reports in the French press differ in their conclusions. Notre Temps lists the deal that has been signed by Scop, representing the ferry workers, by Eurotunnel the former owner of the My FerryLink ferries, by DFDS the new owner and by Alan Vidalies, the Secretary of State for transport who hosted the negotiations. We are informed that 402 out of 487 Scop workers made redundant last July will be reemployed. DFDS will accept 202, Eurotunnel will take on 150 directly, 130 of these with the freight ferry Nord-Pas-De-Calais and the other 20 to be absorbed in its other activities, and one of the subcontractors will employ the remaining 50 staff for its security operations. Other French publications are not so sure. Libération, the centre-left daily now owned by Édouard de Rothschild, which has had its own staff problems in recent years, is a little more sanguine about the resolution of the strike. In an article written on 7th September 2015, Libération’s special Calais envoy, Stéphanie Maurice, states: “Many remain sceptical about this last project: it can only happen if the British Competition and Markets Authority gives a green light and nobody sees how the arrangement could be viable”. She ends her long article with a quotation from a source close to the action who suspects that the whole sad affair will resurface in two years. The Dover Chamber President, Charlie Elphiicke MP, is adamant that EU legislative reform is urgently required as “It’s increasingly clear the Schengen Agreement is not working.” [Charlie Elphicke MP: This Calais chaos must end, 8 Sep 2015]. The Chamber will be working with all our elected representatives to promote the interests of our East Kent members on this critical issue.
9. Port Of Ramsgate
A lot of nonsense is broadcast about the Port of Ramsgate ranging from proposals that its future as an O&M base for super yachts is assured to widely over-optimistic assessments of its capacity to accommodate all the cross-channel commercial traffic diverted from Dover. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion whatever their expertise in the highly competitive ferry industry, but there is little excuse for perpetuating obvious errors of fact. Here is one of the worst offenders from a source that describes itself as ‘The World’s Leading Ferry Website’. The text may have been corrected if you are reading this after September 2015, but this is what is currently stated: “Ramsgate has been a port for many thousand years. Indeed, the Christian missionary St Augustine of Canterbury, widely considered the founder of the Church in England, entered England through Ramsgate in the late 4th Century”, see http://www.aferry.co.uk/ramsgate-ferries.htm. Wrong by 200 years. We trust that any ferry passengers booking via the website might find a more punctual schedule, although if Operation Stack is in force, they may be in for a long wait, but perhaps not two centuries. For some accurate information about the Port of Ramsgate, see below.
10. Port of Ramsgate: the Facts
In the last year of Sally Line’s cross-channel ferry service from the Port of Ramsgate in 1998, Thanet District Council benefited from receipts of around £1 million in harbour dues. This is in sharp contrast to the disastrous results of the last few years when the council-owned port has received damming indictments in the national media. The princely sum of £3.4 million was lost in uncollected harbour dues from the failed TransEuropa Ferries followed by the announcement last month of £2.3 million to be paid in compensation for banning live animal exports without the legal authority to do so. Financial mismanagement on such a scale inevitably imposes considerable costs on every business and ratepayer in the district. Chamber members will understand why the Thanet & East Kent Chamber has orchestrated a series of meetings in the House of Commons, at Kent Council HQ and with the new regime at Thanet District Council to discuss a series of practical measures to revive Ramsgate as a cross-channel ferry port. If the support from our central, regional and local government in the UK could match that already offered at many meetings across the channel, there is every hope that 500,000 passengers could be flowing through the Port of Ramsgate in its second full year of operations. It was not that long ago when five Kent ports provided a cross-channel ferry service; Sheerness, Dartford, Ramsgate, Dover and Folkestone. It is surely not fanciful to suggest that the fastest growing economy of the G7 nations requires more than one short sea route to protect our £100 billion a year trade route.
11. HR Support In Shepway
Chamber member QBH Solutions is offering free advice to companies in Shepway with fewer than 50 employees. In an expanding local economy, there will be many firms looking to recruit staff and perhaps not entirely sure of compliance issues. Chamber members looking to supply to large companies at home and overseas may be seeking ISO 9001 status or to join the Investors in People scheme which is now offering a sixth generation management standard. If you are simply keen to update your Human Resource skills and ensure your spreadsheets and databases do support all your staffing needs, David Burton and his team will be pleased to see you on 16th October 2015 at Basepoint Business Park in Folkestone. Published comments from satisfied customers include the words ‘down to earth helpful and friendly professional’, ‘very skilled at building a rapport’, ‘brilliant, they provided us with Job Descriptions, Contracts and an HR policy pack’, ‘easy to understand terms with no jargon’ and ‘loyal, committed and determined’ as well as intriguing insights on David Burton himself such as ‘We also become good friends and continue to be so. He and his wife came to see me in Scotland a few months ago’. To book your free place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. More information is available on the website at www.qbhsolutions.co.uk. If you want to speak to Mr Burton direct or just want to know if his trip to Scotland was to secure supplies of the best single malt whisky, Chamber members are invited to call his mobile, tel: 07795 564089.
12. Paying the Right Tax
Geoff Smith of MHA MacIntyre Hudson has contacted the Chamber with news of significant changes in allowances for Buy To Let investors as a result of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Summer Budget. Despite the increased burdens, Geoff maintains that there is still the opportunity for ‘tax efficient remuneration’. With Corporation Tax scheduled to fall to 18% in April 2020, the UK should become an increasingly attractive country in which to do business. Jon Cleverdon of Cleverdons Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors tells us that “Among the many surprise announcements made by the chancellor during the summer budget, it was the changes to dividends taxation that caught the wider business community off guard”. Jon also notes that “the average person in the UK has £38.19 a week in spare cash to spend however they want”. Of course not one of our Chamber members is average and, as Jon knows better than most of us, averages can be misleading. After all, if Bill Gates walked into your office tomorrow, the chances are that on average everyone in the room would be a millionaire.
13. Minimum Wage and Tax Avoidance Schemes
Harry Kemp of Kemps Chartered Accountants informs us that 285 employers have been named and shamed since October 2013 for failing to pay their employees the minimum wage. He quotes Nick Boles MP, the Minister of State for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills: “From October 2015 the National Minimum Wage will increase to £6.70. Employers should be well aware of the different rates for the National Minimum Wage depending on the circumstances of their workers.” Following a uniformly favourable High Court judgment over Accelerated Payments Notices there is also a sober warning too from HMRC’s David Richardson that “Those who use tax avoidance schemes need to know they can no longer hold on to the money while their affairs are investigated. They have to pay their tax up front like everybody else.” This judgment is expected to bring forward £5.5 billion in payments to the Exchequer by March 2020. Surely there is enough in the pot to compensate companies who have suffered the slings and arrows of an outrageous Operation Stack. What about a few pennies Mr Chancellor for our East Kent Business Advice Clinic? After all, a success rate of over 95% must be better than Business Link ever managed.
14. What Can I Do About Managing My Money?
Just as the management of the Port of Ramsgate should be in the hands of professionals, the same applies to maximising your income, managing your accounts and presenting them each year to Companies House. If your accountant or advisor is not on the following list, you might ask yourself if you could do better and give one of the experts a call: MacIntyre Hudson LLP, Mr Adrian Dante 01622 754033; Cleverdons Chartered Accountants, Mr Jon Cleverdon 01843 866599; Kemps Accounting Solutions Ltd, Mr Harry Kemp 01843 861188; JHL Accountants Ltd, Mr John Humphrey 01304 216296; Levicks Chartered Accountants, Mr Mark Hurdman 01843 862716; McCabe Ford Williams, Mr Michael Whittaker 01227 373271; Michael Martin Partnership Ltd, Mr Ian Curtis 01227 770500; Neville Weston, Mr Christopher Weston 01843 594571; Wilkins Kennedy, Mr Derek Read 01304 897650; JW Accountancy Services, Ms Julia Westbrook, 01304 830229. Financial advice and wealth management guidance is available from the following: Regency Independent Financial Advisers, Mr Barry Williams, 01304 213902; Rift Research & Development, Ms Norma Thomas, 01233 653002; St. James' Place Wealth Management, Mr Paul Baldwin, 01959 561606, Lloyds Commercial, Mr Simon Mount, 07725 068956.
15. Wages & Salaries in Kent
As noted above, the National Minimum Wage for workers aged 21 years and over will £6.70 an hour from 1st October 2015. From 1st October 2016, the National Living Wage will be £7.20 an hour for workers aged 25 years and older. But whatever the legal obligations, every responsible employer will want to know how much to pay to guarantee a loyal staff, encourage a motivated workforce and promote a sustainable, profitable business. Accepting that remuneration is just one of many reasons to attract and retain good employees, a look through job vacancies currently published in the press and on employment websites will act as some guide. Of course, there are geographical variations which can take into account travel costs and local conditions such as competitor behaviour and living costs. We are grateful to the ever-excellent Research & Evaluation Department of Kent County Council for its clear analysis of the median earnings for residents of East Kent. The latest figures from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings relate to last year, 2014. They provide a useful guide to staff costs and salaries for full-time workers. The median full-time weekly earnings for workers living in Kent in 2014 was £541.40, above the national average of £520.80 but below the South East regional figure of £567.00. Residents of Thanet have the lowest median weekly full-time earnings, assessed at £450.90. Dover district resident earnings of £532.9 are a little under the Kent figure but comfortably over the GB rate by £12.10 a week.
The table below shows the ranked resident based weekly earnings for the districts of Kent. Also added are the percentages of the population in each district with an education of NVQ4 and above as rated in February 2014 in the Annual Population Survey. For our purposes, NVQ4 can be described as the level above 2 A levels. The rankings are roughly as you might expect with the more educated earning a higher salary, although Canterbury and Ashford both show a marked difference of 5 places in their earnings and NVQ rankings.
Earnings Rank District Amount NVQ4+ NVQ Rank
1 Tunbridge Wells £646.40 40.1 % 3
2 Sevenoaks £628.10 41.0 % 2
3 Canterbury £574.40 29.4 % 8
4 Tonbridge & Malling £569.50 43.1 % 1
5 Dartford £562.80 30.0 % 7
6 Gravesham £536.60 37.8 % 4
7 Swale £534.70 27.9 % 11
8 Dover £532.90 28.6 % 10
9 Maidstone £515.40 31.2 % 6
10 Ashford £506.30 35.0 % 5
11 Shepway £481.40 28.7 % 9
12 Thanet £450.90 22.1 % 12
17. Public Lecture In Canterbury
Canterbury Christ Church University is offering Chamber members free admission to a public lecture at Old Sessions House, Canterbury on the evening of Wednesday, 30th September 2015. Dr Ted Malloch will be offering insights on modern business practices under the title of ‘A Responsible Way to Reorient Global Business’. After four years at Yale University where he directed the Spiritual Capital Initiative, Ted Roosevelt Malloch is now a Fellow in Management Practice at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. While in a previous post of President of the CNN World Economic Development Congress, he was described by Margaret Thatcher as “a global Sherpa”. His time negotiating the commercial heights of Wall Street with Saloman Brothers and the diplomatic niceties in Geneva at the United Nations suggest that he will have some pertinent comments to make on the recent banking crisis, the prevailing attitudes to economic migrants and the duties of company directors. To reserve your place, find the website http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/about-us/public-lectures/public-lectures.aspx and click on the box marked ‘DETAILS’
18. Ship or Bust
Chamber Chairman, Dr Bill Moses MBE, a renowned authority on all issues connected to the successful commercial operation of ports and ferries, offers his professional comments on the issues facing the Port of Ramsgate. He writes: “Talk of a freight ferry service pursued by the council leads us to ask whether resultant port activity handling unaccompanied trailers, nominal local employment, minimal income and inevitable road congestion would create anything more than a very small tick in the ‘port activity’ box? But is there an alternative and if so what could it be? It has been said many times before that councils should not be allowed to run businesses and the port of Ramsgate might be considered no exception. That stated, if the activity were to be properly structured, the benefit not only for the port but the local community could be very considerable. Take for example a passenger ferry service that if appropriately conceived and marketed could generate significant stimulus for local hotels, guest houses, restaurants, retailers and attractions. As well as generating reasonable port revenue, the exponential benefit of a relatively small percentage of passengers staying and spending money in East Kent could be very considerable; revitalizing high streets and creating direct and indirect employment on a large scale. In the meantime, turning the ferry terminal into a Sheerness overspill car park does little to convince anyone that fortunes are improving, least of all council tax payers. The terminal appears sadly neglected and by all accounts it is. But, while some aspects of deterioration are clearly visible, the increase in siltation, exacerbated by a lack of scouring caused by ships coming and going, is less obvious. Dredging is an unavoidable legacy which will cost a considerable amount to rectify. A few ships entering the harbour from time to time is not the answer and certainly cannot compare with the benefits to us all of a professionally managed ferry passenger service.
19. Chamber Golf Day
The Chamber is pleased to report that 27 of the 30 places available to corporate teams of four players at our annual Chamber Golf Day have been booked or reserved. With just three team places left, Chamber member companies wishing to participate are asked to email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as soon as possible. The Chamber Golf Day will again take place at Royal St George’s Golf Club Sandwich which has hosted 14 Open Championships and is the course featured as “Royal St Mark’s” in Ian Fleming’s book Goldfinger where James Bond plays the most famous golf match in the history of fiction. The 2015 Chamber Golf Day will feature a glittering array of prizes including a new Jaguar XE. We understand that unlike James Bond’s car in the film Goldfinger, the cars supplied by Barretts Jaguar of Canterbury should not give front seat passengers undue cause for concern; they do not have an exploding ejector seat. For more news about Jaguar’s local partnerships and business contract hire offers, see http://www.barretts.canterbury.jaguar.co.uk/jaguar-for-business/business-partnerships.
20. Newcomer Of The Year
Chamber member Corporate Creations beat all the other newbies to be accorded the title of Newcomer of the Year at the British Promotional Merchandise Association 2015 awards. A regular at Chamber events, Corporate Creations Director Jean-François Chodecki has made a flying start to his new division following the early successes of Hot Craze, a self-confessed ‘supplier of gadgets and gizmos’. Corporate Creations offers to “design, create and procure the perfect unusual bespoke promotional gadget or product to represent your brand and get you noticed” and adds the enticing promise “All these value added services come at no extra cost to you.” More information can be seen on the company website at http://www.corporate-creations.co.uk/ and Jean-François’s beaming smile is available to view, also as a free service, at https://bpma.co.uk/bpma-conference-2015-winners.
21. Maritime Gaff
This edition of your chamber’s business bulletin has had a definite maritime theme; understandable perhaps from the largest business support body in the East Kent coastal business community after a challenging summer when our resurgent local economy has been unfairly restricted through congestion beyond our control. It was therefore refreshing to hear of the positive experiences of one Chamber member who returned from a reportedly wonderful cruise around the Caribbean, despite an unfortunate start to his vacation which he relates to us here. We have some doubts about this story, but we leave it to our good-looking and intelligent readers to judge for themselves. As our Chamber member put it: “This was the first time I had ever been on a cruise. My wife and I had always been happy enough with Butlins and why not? Billy Butlin had a hotel in Cliftonville, you know, but we always went to Minehead. It used to flood sometimes which could be a little awkward, but the redcoats were marvellous and our children always had a great time when they were young. An uncle passed away last year and much to our surprise, as we were not that close, he left us a tidy sum and so we thought, we’ll buy some fancy clothes, get ourselves a passport and go on a cruise. On the first evening away from Miami, there was a formal dinner. Whether or not it was because we were first timers I have no idea, but we were invited to the captain’s table. Anxious not to make fools of ourselves, my wife and I put on our new evening outfits and arrived bang on time to be sat down either side of the captain. There he was in all his finery with an aperitif in his hand and there was me more used to a boiler suit and an adjustable spanner in mine. Keen to get the evening off to a friendly start, by way of conversation I said tentatively: ‘Captain, please tell me, do ships like yours sink often?’ He looked at me with a cold stare and replied. ‘No, sir, only once’”.
© David Foley 13th September 2015
Thanet & East Kent Insider 22nd June 2015
22nd June 2015 Issue No.: 212
1. Craig Mackinlay MP Speaks: Chamber Breakfast 26th June 2015
The vast majority of our Chamber members will have already received news of our Chamber Business Networking Breakfast scheduled for 0730 – 0900 hrs on Friday, 26th June 2015. The main speaker will be Craig Mackinlay MP whose constituency includes areas with maritime, rural and urban businesses in the districts of Dover and Thanet. A chartered accountant, chartered tax advisor, Justice of the Peace and charity trustee, Craig is also a keen sailor with his own ideas for stimulating the economy of East Kent. As a Chamber President working alongside Charlie Elphicke MP and Sir Roger Gale MP, Craig will be happy to answer questions at the end of his presentation and warmly welcomes close links with the business community. The price of £15 includes coffee on arrival and a full English breakfast with a vegetarian option. Booking is essential. To reserve your place, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line: “Chamber Breakfast 26th June 2015”. Full details of the venue near Sandwich will follow with confirmation.
2. Did You Get a Share of £40 Million?
Last month’s Chamber Business Networking Breakfast entitled “Get a Share of £40 Million” showcased the latest plans for Betteshanger Sustainable Parks. Chamber members from a wide variety of sectors heard how they could become a supplier to this landmark development which promises to combine the latest advances in sustainable technology with a respectful celebration of its previous heritage at the heart of the East Kent mining community; a UK first. In a brilliantly succinct presentation, Director Richard Morsley outlined how local companies could benefit from the £40 million project at every stage of its construction. On completion, there will be attractive opportunities for green technology companies and firms in the food and drink industry. Betteshanger Business and Commercial Park will provide 6,700 square metres of internal space in separate units with a mix of serviced accommodation and units for start-ups. A focus on B1 (a) and B1 (b) accommodation will accompany tenancy agreements based on an “easy-in, easy-out” formula. The Food Hub Centre is expected to attract owners of food businesses with pioneering objectives who are keen to develop and bring new products to market with the support of display areas for B2C and B2B promotions. All buildings will conform to BREEAM standards, the world's foremost environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings. Private sector investors expecting a median 5% return from year six rising to 8% have received some assurance from the wholehearted backing from local and national government. With Hadlow College managing the education campus,the only college in Kent to be both Ofsted ‘outstanding’ and an LSIS Beacon provider, tenants there will have fully committed professional expertise on site.
3. Contract Law Seminar
As promised in our previous business bulletin, Chamber Members attending last week’s seminar, ‘Introduction to Contract Law’ were treated to a rich diet of legal insights that will inevitably give them a significant advantage in future negotiations and correspondence with customers and suppliers. Commercial advice and insights of the highest quality flowed from Irfan Baluch, contract law specialist at Cripps LLP which has offices in London, Tunbridge Wells, Kings Hill and Sandwich. Breach of contract, agency agreements, non-disclosure agreements, memoranda of understanding, heads of terms, ‘the battle of the forms’, what you should and, of equal importance, what you should not put on your invoice were all featured in a veritable tour de force of professional advice that proved conclusively the contention that “If you do not understand the basics of contract law, you do not understand modern business and you are vulnerable to those that do.” Inspired by how to protect their company and increase its profitable trading, chamber members were full of praise for the seminar and its presenter. There is little doubt of the demand for it to be repeated before too long. Irfan can be reached by telephone to Cripps, tel: 01892 515 121, or via the website at www.cripps.co.uk.
4. Lord Digby Jones
The Chamber was the guest of Wilkins Kennedy for an evening at Leeds Castle with Lord Digby Jones. For six and a half years, he was the outspoken Director General of the Confederation of British Industry. One of his predecessors was Sir Howard Davies, the current Chairman of the UK Airports Commission and John Banham who later served as Chairman of Tarmac, Kingfisher plc and Johnson Matthey. Determined to be his own man and refusing to join any political party, he used his experience as a senior partner at Edge & Ellison, a Birmingham-based firm of lawyers, to flummox Jeremy Paxman soon after his appointment by telling him that he had never been interviewed on television before. Indeed, he was brought up as the son of the owner of a corner shop in Alvechurch, near Birmingham and claims that this is where he learned the fundamentals of his business creed. It obviously served him well as he progressed through the ranks to be successively a student, a Probation Officer and Assistant Physiotherapist followed by three years in the Royal Navy. After graduating from University College London, somewhat unkindly dubbed by the local rival King’s College as “that Godless institution in Gower Street", he spent 20 years advancing from being an articled clerk to a senior partner. A fierce critic of protectionism, his many appearances in the media saw him berate the public sector for its inefficiencies. A knighthood in the 2005 New Year’s Honours list was followed a few years later by his appointment as Minister of State for UK Trade & Investment and elevation to the peerage as Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham Kb. Now with a string of executive and non-executive posts to his name, he makes regular appearances on the BBC as a business trouble-shooter or commentator on the day’s newspapers. Many Chamber members will agree with his much quoted lines that: “if fundamental reform does not take place, from working practices right through to pension provision, we will end up with an ever-diminishing private sector trying to pay for, and provide pensions for, an ever increasing and inefficient, unproductive, self-interested public sector” and yet most will surely take issue with his unreasoned support for Aston Villa FC, now to be found languishing in the lower reaches of the Premier League; surely a misjudgement and one that he shares with our current Prime Minister, another Villa fan who has yet to appreciate the qualities of our East Kent teams.
5. Who Pays The Ferryman?
We are grateful to Dr Bill Moses MBE for his comments submitted to the Chamber on an issue at the heart of East Kent ferry industry. Of appeal to anyone with the best interests of our local economy at heart, here is what he wrote. “For those connected with cross-Channel business there has been a rather long, some would say arduous debate to observe in slow motion. I refer of course to the authorities’ analysis of the MyFerryLink, a company born from the ashes of SeaFrance with ships funded by Eurotunnel and yet leased, manned and operated by a workers’ société coopérative et participative, or SCOP. It was arguably anyone’s guess whether it was reasonable for Eurotunnel to be associated with a surface operation as well as a fixed link but it was a brave move at least and one with logic; part insurance policy for those occasions where traffic diversion is required, an opportunity to cater for freight operators who have always preferred to spread their favours and in addition a way to accommodate hazardous cargo, a no-no for the fixed link. Alas, it was not to last despite a last-minute reprieve. The ships were instead consigned to DFDS, a move that results in a rare two-operator service from Dover, a port that has been more used to three players almost since the advent of the roll-on, roll-off ferry services in the early 50s. Earlier cries from those who monitor and legislated on competition put the customer first in an earnest effort to ensure that he or she was not disadvantaged. In truth MyFerryLink has provided a valuable, service-oriented and competitive operation with no evidence that passenger and/or freight clients have been deprived. The story is of course not over yet. DFDS will become the prominent if not largest surface operator and with two more likely to rationalise capacity than three, it is difficult to imagine that frequency will increase. And on those occasions when Operation Stack becomes a necessity the challenge posed by increased post-recession freight volumes and capacity more accurately tuned to demand may lead to a greatly increased test for Kent County Council.”
6. Broadstairs Folk Week
Famous far beyond its town boundaries, Broadstairs Folk Week has become the jewel in the crown of Kent Festivals. Celebrating its 50th year this summer, the festival makes a huge impact on businesses in a wide variety of sectors. A 2012 independent survey by Kent County Council calculated that the business impact of Broadstairs Folk Week was £2.3 million and the sum will surely have risen since then. Festival Director Jo Tuffs reminds the Chamber that it all began through the efforts of the Folk pioneer Jack Hamilton who: “… arrived in Broadstairs and knew at once this was the perfect place. Funding came from the Council who provided a £100 deficit guarantee. The English Folk Dance and Song Society provided a £50 grant.” It has grown somewhat since then. The 50th Anniversary Festival from 7th to 14th August 2015 will offer over 500 events including concerts, dances, parades, a craft fair, a children's festival, morris dancers in venues ranging from the 600-seater concert marquee in the town’s park to the more intimate Sailing Club on the seafront. Almost every aspect of folk culture will be represented, both a massed Ukelele Band and English clog-dancing with the Demon Barbers. Jo has unstinting praise for “an amazing army of volunteers without whom Folk Week would not happen” and adds: “There are now over 230 of them and there are still a few vacancies for anyone who would like to join for 2015.” If you already know the difference between your Broonzies and your Belshazzar’s Feast or would just like to get more involved as a volunteer, spectator or supporter, give Jo a call, tel: 01843 604080, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. More details are available on the website at www.broadstairsfolkweek.org.uk
7. Dredging Up The Truth In Ramsgate
Observant Chamber members with an interest in all things maritime may well have seen a grab dredger working in Ramsgate harbour recently in preparation for the installation of pontoons for small boat owners in the Western gulley of the outer harbour and latterly a near never ending attempt to influence the mountain of sand alongside the end of the East pier. But there is a misconception about this energetic little dredger. For the uninitiated onlooker, the Mannin bears such an uncanny resemblance to the dredger Ramsgate that served the port for many years, that many believe it is actually her. Alas, it is not the Ramsgate, pensioned off by the Council in 2008 for the princely sum of £66,000, a mere bagatelle and a tiny fraction of what the Council is now obliged to spend on third-party dredgers. The absence of ‘natural scouring’ by regular arrivals and departures of a ferry means that the silt is increasing; yet despite this the major part of the ports dredging needs have been struck from the budget. The result is that if a ferry service is attracted to the port, ‘catch-up’ dredging could result in a very costly inauguration. And what news you may ask of the often maligned, life-expired, Ramsgate? She’s as active as ever, renamed Helle SAJ and doing sterling work in the Baltic. Shame she’s not the Mannin after all you may ask, we do.
8. Best Warehousing
The Chamber will be a hosting a workshop focussing on best practice in warehousing. In an expanding economy and a burgeoning logistics sector in the Dover district and elsewhere in East Kent, commercial storage space is under increasing pressure. It is particularly important for warehouse owners and managers to ensure that they are making the best possible use of their assets. An informal session will take place on Tuesday, 21st July 2015 from 1000 hrs and will focus on sharing ideas for increasing efficacy in shipping, receiving, putaway and picking as well as recent developments in WMS (warehouse management system) software. For more details email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or telephone 01843 609289.
9. Term Time Holiday
One senior Chamber member at a long established but fast growing company in the IT sector has contacted the Chamber with some heartfelt concerns “for small and medium businesses in complying with the restrictions on term time holidays.” He adds: “For many small businesses the employer is faced with a stark choice of either allowing a significant number of personnel to be absent at the same time or denying their employee’s children a family holiday. The problem is compounded as employees try to coordinate their leave not only with their own colleagues, but with that of their partners and their colleagues who are often working for similar sized organisations with the same problems. The value of education and the work of teachers should not be underestimated, it is essential for the success of business to have a supply of intelligent, educated school leavers, however the implication that allowing an eight year old a few days holiday in June 2015 is going to have a detrimental impact on that person’s skills in 2025 is unsubstantiated; however denying that child a holiday does put heavy strains on relationships between employers and staff, families and finances.” We welcome further comments from businesses across East Kent and will pass these to our Chamber Presidents who represent your interests in the House of Commons.
10. How Do We Measure Unemployment?
The Chamber traditionally quotes the Claimant Count as a reliable guide to the evolution of our local economy. It is based on the exact number of people registered for benefits at our UK Job Centres each month and therefore provides accurate data from which meaningful comparisons can be made. The other main measure of unemployment is the Labour Force Survey (LFS); a statutory requirement of membership of the European Union that also allows for cross-border analysis on an equal basis. Although traditionally quoted in the media as our official unemployment rate, the LFS is at best a good guess based on a quarterly sample survey without a lot of detail. If we accept that the three main UK economic indicators are the exchange rate, the interest rate and the unemployment rate, the only measure available every month for every geographical area, from the village in which you live to Great Britain as a whole, is the unemployment rate expressed in the Claimant Count. The Chamber has been monitoring these figures in East Kent closely for more than 8 years. A comparison of the latest data compared to the same period for the last two years is a reliable guide to our progress in the East Kent coastal business community.
Number of Unemployed
The figures clearly show that unemployment for 16 – 64 year olds has more or less halved in the last two years, an encouraging picture for us all.
11. What About Youth Unemployment?
Although youth unemployment in Thanet is still the highest in the South East and remains an especial concern for 18 – 24 year olds at its current level of 5.6%, there has been a dramatic fall since May 2013 when 12.5% was the figure quoted by the Office for National Statistics and it had been 14.0% in September 2012. Similarly, there has been a sharp fall since May 2013 in Dover from 8.2% to 3.7%, Shepway from 7.0% to 3.4% and Swale from 8.6% to 3.8%.
12. Have We Never Had It So Good?
Harold Macmillan is still remembered today for his 1957 speech when he claimed: “Let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good". That is not yet true of East Kent, but there is no doubt that we have made a good start with a sustained improvement in the business climate. National economic recovery policies have been a significant element; more money for investment, increased confidence in our institutions, positive fiscal reforms and confidence from consistent results that have outperformed other G7 nations. Nevertheless, most commentators are agreed that this country has a systemic weakness in skills. Perhaps we have been fortunate in East Kent to benefit from the revival of East Kent College in Thanet, Dover and Shepway and many good and outstanding schools throughout the area. But skilled school-leavers, improving Further Education and more money available from the banks do not in themselves explain why unemployment has fallen across our region by nearly 50% in the last two years. For this we must thank the key decision-makers who generate the wealth. These are the owners and managers of our established companies, the brave entrepreneurs who start new companies here and the inward investors who chose East Kent rather than any other part of the world. Lord Digby Jones, see above, is one of many who remind us all on a regular basis that the government has no money of its own except for what it confiscates in taxes from those who generate the wealth. If our strong upward growth is to continue and if we wish to maintain and improve our schools, hospitals and the fundamental infrastructure of East Kent, we should be nice to these wealth-creators or they might go somewhere else where a warmer welcome is on offer. Our message to key decision-makers at all levels of government in every political party is surely something along the lines of “You may wish to hug a hoodie from time to time, but do not forget to back our businesses in East Kent.” In our popular television soap operas like East Enders and Coronation Street, company owners are often portrayed as unattractive characters with unsavoury habits, but without the money private companies generate, there would be no ITV and probably no BBC either. Mike Baldwin did have his good points.
13. Manston Update
Last Wednesday in a marquee located next to the runway, the Chamber joined BBC South East, ITV Meridian and Heart Radio to hear the latest news about the development of the Manston Airport site. On the platform were Ray Mallon, Chris Musgrave and Trevor Cartner. Their plans have a number of key features. Firstly, the site has been renamed Stone Hill Park with the name Manston dropped from future descriptions. With 200 acres designed to be attractive to advanced manufacturing companies, the owners envisage creating 4,000 jobs over a 20 year period in “a cluster of industries that work well together”. The plans include the provision of an East Kent Sports Village with an Olympic-sized 50 metre swimming pool, supplemented by a training pool of 25 metres in length. Continuing the sporting theme, an outdoor surfing facility is promised which is reported to be sadly lacking in the South East of England. Safeguarding the future of the Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial Museum has been achieved through gifting the freehold to the trustees and the Stone Hill Park owners expect to undertake a similar donation to the RAF Museum next door. Respect for the heritage of the airfield has provoked the allocation of 200 acres as a greenfield site where vintage aircraft may land on a grass strip, as was the case in the early days of the airport. Chris Musgrave and Trevor Cartner have noted the interest shown by film producers acutely short of space at Pinewood Studios. The prospect of the interior shots of a James Bond film taking place in a purpose-built film studio was not viewed as fanciful, although Ray Mallon’s suggestion that Trevor Cartner might play the lead role did not receive much response from the audience or indeed the would-be actor. The final piece in the jigsaw is the residential part of the site which is expected to accommodate 2,500 homes. Trevor Cartner predicted that these would bring an annual income to Thanet District Council of £4 million. Added to a new homes bonus of £24 million, Trevor is confident that the plans will be accepted and that a Compulsory Purchase Order will be successfully rejected. As for the prospects of a revived airport, he said: “What would it do for the social and economic fabric of the area- not a lot.” He added later: “The CPO is in pieces now. I know that people aren’t stupid” and “A CPO will fail. It will not see the light of day.” Ray Mallon and Trevor Cartner reserved some harsh words for those people supporting the return of mainline aviation activity to the site stating that any CPO or similar would require a huge sum in financial backing: “£76 million or no game on”. Local politicians objecting to the Stone Hill Park scheme were labelled as “Irresponsible in the extreme”, operating from misguided principles and “all because we had elections in May”. There were several references to what was perceived as a succession of past failures at Manston: “Previous passenger airlines, more comebacks than Frank Sinatra”. When questioned on how achievable the project is, Trevor Cartner expressed himself as being certain of delivering the scheme, echoing Ray Mallon’s words earlier that: “We can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the scheme is deliverable”.
14. Sporting Life
With so much construction taking place in East Kent, one Chamber member, whom we shall call John, felt compelled to join in and build an extension to his house. We have our doubts about this story, but we leave it to Chamber members to judge for themselves. “It was a few weeks ago and I thought it is about time I had a clear out of the garage before converting it into part of a two-bedroom annex. As always with a new supplier, I turned to the classified section of my Chamber diary. There was a long list of telephone numbers under the heading ‘Building Services & Construction’. I picked the nearest and dialled the number. ‘Hello’, said a female voice, ‘Can I help you?’. ‘Yes please’, I said, ‘I want a skip outside my garage door’. She paused for a moment and then answered sharply, ‘Well, we won’t stop you’ and promptly put the phone down. Can you believe it?” No John, but thank you anyway.
© David Foley 22nd June 2015
Copyright © 2019 Thanet & East Kent Chamber Limited. All Rights Reserved.
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Nick Kyrgios on Acapulco Open title: 'I was really down and out but you have a week like this and things change'
Nick Kyrgios admitted to riding a jet ski hours before the final Credit: Reuters
Simon Briggs, Tennis Correspondent
3 March 2019 • 9:37pm
Simon Briggs
After claiming the biggest title of his career in Acapulco on Saturday night, the controversial Australian Nick Kyrgios admitted that he had been out jet-skiing just a couple of hours before his final against world No. 3 Alexander Zverev.
In his post-match interviews, Kyrgios acknowledged that he needs to show more consistent discipline. But he also suggested that people facing mental challenges might take inspiration from his latest feat, in a comment that some have compared to Tyson Fury’s press conference after his draw with Deontay Wilder in December.
"It's hopefully an example for people who are struggling and getting in some places you don't think you can get out of," said Kyrgios. "If I can do it, you can do it. I was really down and out and didn't know what I was going to do, but you have a week like this and things can change."
Kyrgios’s week in Acapulco was as riveting as it was controversial, featuring a storm over an underarm serve and victories over a pair of grand-slam champions. He ended it in style, roundly beating Zverev by a 6-3, 6-4 margin.
On Wednesday night, Kyrgios had received a stern ticking off from Rafael Nadal, who told reporters that “He lacks respect for the public, the rival and towards himself.” Yet it was Kyrgios who finished the tournament carrying Acapulco’s distinctive trophy – a gigantic silver pear with a golden tennis ball embedded in its centre – and wearing a giant sombrero hat.
Kyrgios was defiant as the crowd often went against him Credit: Getty Images
No-one on planet tennis would have predicted this result after Kyrgios had arrived in Mexico with just two victories – both by the narrowest of margins – to show for his 2019 season. In fact, he had not won more than two matches at any tournament since Queen’s last year, partly as a result of ongoing issues with his hip.
In Acapulco, though, he overcame a star-studded cast: not only Zverev and Nadal but Stan Wawrinka and John Isner to boot. The results underlined the theory that Kyrgios plays up or down to the level of his opponent, performing far better against the strongest opposition than he does against the lesser names.
"I need to be way more disciplined, way better professionally and do the right things," said Kyrgios, who will more than halve his ranking to reach No. 31 in the world today. “I don't even have a coach, so maybe I start there.
"I'm different, Rafa's different, he doesn't know the journey I've been through."@NickKyrgios isn't phased by Rafa's post match comments#AMT2019 #ATP #Nadal #kyrgios pic.twitter.com/Y5hzaFa1u7
— Tennis Channel (@TennisChannel) February 28, 2019
"It's an amazing feeling,” added Kyrgios. “He's an incredible player and doesn't have many weaknesses, so I knew I had to play my style of tennis.”
Zverev, who had beaten Britain’s Cameron Norrie in the semi-final, might have played an indifferent match, but he was on form at the presentation ceremony.
“Now would be the moment to say well done to your team but, uh, you had two people there but I don’t know,” Zverev said. “First of all they left and second of all I don’t know what their actual job is, to be honest. So well done to them as well.”
Meanwhile British No. 1 Kyle Edmund won his eighth Challenger title last night in Indian Wells, where the far more prestigious ATP Masters 1000 event is due to begin this week. At No. 28 in the world, Edmund was much higher ranked than anyone else in the draw, but then he has lacked tennis in recent months owing to a knee injury. He also had to beat an opponent of note – former world No. 31 Andrey Rublev – in the final, which he did by a comfortable 6-3, 6-2 scoreline.
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All About Xp
In: Computers and Technology
Submitted By mithun429
20 things you do not know about Windows XP
Now it's time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP's secrets.
1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).
2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type ' gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care -- some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).
3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.
4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your…...
All About Cat (Philippines)
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All About Southwest
...Integrating Culture and Diversity in Decision Making: The CEO and Organizational Culture Profile Jalisa Williams Dr. Erica Gamble BUS 520 Leadership and Organizational Behavior November 6, 2013 All about Southwest Southwest Airlines (SWA) was founded by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher in 1967. Southwest got its start in Texas and has since become one of America’s most admired companies. The road of establishing Southwest was not an easy one. The company who first wanted to service within the state of Texas had to fight for 3 years against 3 other airlines in the area for rights. After a judgment by the Texas Supreme Court in 1970, Southwest was cleared to take the air. Southwest lives by their mission statement of its dedication to the highest quality of customer service to be delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride and company spirit (Southwest.com). With the idea of good customer service will make you money, Southwest Airlines is by far the most profitable airline even in this trying time. Southwest’s Culture Happy Employees=Happy Customers At Southwest, they believe that a happy employee equal happy customers. They strive to make every customer experience a great one and by doing this they know the employees play a huge role in customer satisfaction. The core of their being consists of having a warrior spirit, leading with a servant’s heart and having a fun-luving attitude. These three components are what Southwest......
...BRIDGIT MENDLER LYRICS"Ready Or Not" -Hey H-Hey H-H-Hey (H-Hey) Oooooooooooooo I'm the kinda girl who doesn't say a word, Who sits at the curb and waits for the world But I'm about to break out, about to break out I'm like a crook tonight I caught you staring at me and I was thinking clearly Now I'm like a bee and I'm huntin' for the honey And I'm kinda shy but you're super fly yeah I could be your kryptonite Like ohh ohh ohh Light my heart up baby like a match stick Ohh ohh ohh And hit the gas quick Ready or not Here I come Where you at? The night is young In the crowd the music's loud but I will find you Ready or not Here I come I like your face Do you like my song? Just sing it la la la la la la and I'll find you Ready or not (Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh) Ready or not (Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh) Hello my name is... (Bridgit) Nice to meet you I think you're famous Where have I seen you? You'll be my William, I'll be your Kate Livin' like a fairytale We could have a palace right next to Oprah 37 cars and a yacht down in Boca Take me away wherever you say Yeah we could be setting sail Like ohh ohh ohh Light my heart up baby like a matchstick Ohh ohh ohh And hit the gas quick Ready or not Here I come Where you at? The night is young In the crowd the music's loud but I will find you Ready or not Here I come I like your face Do you like my song? Just sing it la la la la la la and I'll find you Ready or not (Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh) Ready or not, not......
...By far, my favorite application essay to write was Fuqua’s “25 Random Things About Me.” However, I was surprised to talk to other applicants and hear how difficult many found the essay to write. My advice for those of you struggling with this non-traditional essay is to just have fun! This is a great and unique opportunity to show your interests, personality, and what sets you apart as a person. I’m pretty confident that after reading my first blog (The Top 10 Reasons Why I Chose Fuqua), you thought to yourself, “Wow, this Trevor McKinnon sounds like an awesome guy. I wish I could get to know him better.” Well, it’s your lucky day! Below are some random things about me, and although this is not the same list I submitted as part of my application, it should give you the gist: 1. I was born in the US, raised in the UK, and have citizenship in both countries. 2. I played alto saxophone in a jazz nightclub in Prague. 3. My daughter’s name is Surrey. No, not because of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter (Suri) and not because of the iPhone app (Siri), but because Surrey is where I grew up in England. And yes, people ask me those 2 questions all the time. 4. Surrey is spoiled: she had been to Disneyland more than 10 times before the age of 18 months, even though she’s never lived in California. My wife is from Orange County, so we would visit her family frequently while living in Utah, which always included multiple trips to Disneyland to get the most out of our......
All About Psychology
...------------------------------------------------- “Hey Mom, What’s on Your Facebook? Comparing Facebook Disclosure and Privacy in Adolescents and Adults “ Abstract: People of all ages are increasingly exposed to online environments that encourage them to share and connect with others. However, there is a perception that adolescents are particularly susceptible to these cues and share more online than do other age groups. With a group of 288 adolescents and 285 adults, we explored differences and similarities in use of Facebook for information sharing and use of the controls to protect their privacy. Adolescents reported disclosing more information on Facebook and using the privacy settings less than adults. Despite these differences, the results indicated that adolescents and adults were more similar than different in the factors that predicted information disclosure and control. Adolescents spent more time on Facebook, which partially mediated the relationship between group (adolescents vs. adults) and disclosure. Self-esteem partially mediated the relationship between group and information control, with adults having higher self-esteem than adolescents. Readings: Keywords privacy, self-disclosure, social media, online communication The news is filled with stories about the dangers of sharing personal information online, the difficulties in protecting personal privacy, and the privacy challenges of websites such as Google and Facebook.......
Words: 11724 - Pages: 47
...Alec Tejeda Shcmidt “All Abound Eve” All about Eve is a dramatic film in the fifties, that got many academy awards nominations, and won six of the fourteen nominations. I have always enjoyed, the slow transition of changing a character during a film or TV series, I am fully aware it is no easy task, and the character with the most settle, yet enormous change during this film has definitely have to be Anne Baxter. The beginning of the movie was very dull for her character, there was nothing really outstanding about it, and made me question why this actress was nominated for an academy award. Her counterpart, Bette Davis would easily catch my attention because of her cockiness, and Anne Baxter's fascination with Bette Davis's character certainly made Bette Davis a lot more interesting. However during the course of this film, it was all about Eve. So, the film starts with a ceremony, introducing pretty much all the characters, and making sure you notice how Eve receives the award, then the film proceeds with a flash back, explaining how all these characters got together in this same room. As for now Eve is introduced as a humble and respectful character, her fascination for Margo and her plays drive her to meeting Margo one day. When she does Eve tells Margo and her friends about her sad story, but since the character is so dull, up to this point, it didn't affect me one bit, She eventually becomes her secretary/maid which proceeds doing anything she can to please her......
It's All About the Literature
...It’s all about the Literature Heather Henegar Grand Canyon University: RDG-514 July 2, 2015 It’s All About the Literature As with any area in curriculum and instruction, teachers should not be fully dependent on one source, but rather use a variety of resources to help students understand content. The same can be said with the use of textbooks. Teachers should supplement core curriculum with quality trade books (GCU, 2012). Trade books can offer a wealth of information such as a means to expand vocabulary, clarify concepts, explore real-world situations, and entertain (GCU, 2012). Furthermore, Johnson & Small, (2008) stated, “In contrast to textbooks, nonfiction trade books can support instruction in nearly every subject…which allows a teacher to front-load experiences with a concept” (p. 132). The following table lists trade books that can be used to enhance and supplement instruction in Math, Science, Social Studies, and Reading within a fourth-grade classroom. Book Title | Content Area | Summary | Appropriateness | Standards | Millions, Billions & Trillions by David A. Adler & Edward Miller (2013) | Math | In this book, Adler helps students to connect large numbers to other things they already know. There are also hands-on activities that can be done, such as using one-fourth cup of sugar to illustrate what a million might look like. This book also tells students how long it would take to count to a million, billion, and trillion (Adler &......
All About Computer
...------------------------------------------------- Who is the father of the computer? There are hundreds of people who have major contributions to the field of computing. The following sections detail the primary founding fathers of computing, the computer, and the personal computer we all know and use today. Father of computing Charles Babbage was considered to be the father of computing after his invention and concept of the Analytical Engine in 1837. The Analytical Engine contained an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), basic flow control, and integrated memory; hailed as the first general-purpose computer concept. Unfortunately, because of funding issues this computer was never built while Charles Babbage was alive. However, in 1910 Henry Babbage, Charles Babbage's youngest son was able to complete a portion of the machine that could perform basic calculations. In 1991, the London Science Museum completed a working version of the Analytical Engine No 2. This version incorporated Babbage's refinements developed during the creation of the Analytical Engine. Although Babbage never completed his invention in his lifetime, his radical ideas and concepts of the computer are what make him the father of computing. Father of the computer There are several people who could be considered as the father of the computer including Alan Turing, John Atanasoff, and John von Neumann. However, for the purpose of this document we're going to be considering Konrad Zuse as the father of......
All About Cameroon
...All About Cameroon Background Cameroon, a West African country whose coastline is part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean, is the world’s 53rd largest country in terms of physical size with an area of 183,569 square miles. Comparison wise, it is slightly larger than Sweden, comparable in size to Papua New Guinea, or slightly larger than the state of California. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Cameroon). The word “Cameroon” originated from the Portuguese explorers who reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camaroes (or River of Prawns), which eventually evolved into the English name Cameroon (Pondi, 1997). The Cameroon flag has three equal vertical bands of green (for vegetation), red (for independence), and yellow (for sunshine), with a yellow 5-pointed star in the centered in the red band (http://www.10-facts-about.com/Cameroon/id/84). The Lonely Planet travel guide describes Cameroon as “Africa’s throbbing heart, a crazed, sultry mosaic of active volcanoes, white sand beaches, thick rainforest and magnificent parched landscapes broken up by the bizarre rock formations of the Sahel” (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/cameroon). Cameroon enjoys relatively high political and social stability. Cameroon doesn’t have the notoriety of the history of ethnic violence between......
All About Home Insurance
...Word count – 831 All about Home Insurance Home is where the heart stays. In the world of inflation and recession, owning a dream house becomes next to impossible, but the financial institutions lend a helping hand in providing the required loan to acquire the property. With many difficulties after relentless survey, the loan approval process, credit score clearance, the much awaited home comes to hand. Now, this home contains the hard earned money, precious possessions and immense memories. It becomes important to save the home from various calamities by insuring appropriately. An insurance cover for the home alone is not adequate; instead an accurate home insurance which covers all the possible liabilities is required. Very few Indians are aware of the home insurance policy that covers fire disasters and other hazards. Unfortunately, the majority of the home owners are ignorant of the benefits. Approximations of the National Disaster Management Authority, according to which about 60% of the Indian land mass, are prone to earthquakes, while 8% of the country is vulnerable to cyclones and especially Southeast Asia is more susceptible to disasters. Advantages: The benefits of home insurance are immense. - Can be applied and obtained online. Home insurance is easy to apply either online or at the nearest branch office. Applying online reduces the hassle of visiting the bank, thus reduces the time. - Comes at an affordable premium package......
All About Race
...t Ra All About Race – Checkpoint: Tracee Sigler According to the textbook there is not clear and scientific way to classify races because the genetic pool has been diluted from years past. IQ is the short name for the Intelligence Quotient. This is the ratio of a person’s mental age calculated by a test that is geared toward his or her age and multiplied by 100. From what the textbook states the issues of culture between Blacks and Whites in reference to IQ testing is biased and remains an unresolved concern. This test has been biased in stating that on average Whites has a higher IQ than Blacks. This is eliminated when looking and applying a curve within social and economical factors or rather characteristics. Race is a social construction that presumes benefits for the people who are oppressing minority groups or rather the privileged and those who are not privileged. It only supports the dominant race or races. Again, according to the textbook, racism is a doctrine that one race is more superior to the other. I am and have been a constant victim of racism. I moved to Oregon several years ago and had to fight for my own personal freedoms. I was constantly stopped by police and everywhere I looked there were police officers following me and my family. I organized a chapter of the NAACP in the community where I lived. The locals were highly offended by this. They were of the dominate race, White. After organizing this group and getting laws passed......
Pfizer-All About the Company
...biotherapeutics company specializing in preclinical oncology and metabolic research Table of Contents 1. Mission 2. Strategy 3. Operation 4. Marketing 5. Human Resources 6. Financials 7. Team Self Analysis 8. Group Member Evaluation Mission Pfizer is very much concern with good health for all and finding sustainable solutions to the health care challenges of our changing world cannot be overemphasized. That’s why Pfizer are committed to be a global leader in health care and to helping change millions of lives for the better through providing access to safe, effective, and affordable medicines and related health care services to the people who need them. We have a leading portfolio of medicines that prevent, treat, and cure diseases across a broad range of therapeutic areas, and an industry-leading pipeline of new products in areas such as oncology, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In our efforts to ensure that we deliver the value our patients and customers need and our shareholders deserve, we are focused on continually improving the way we do business by listening to the views of all of the people involved in health care decisions. We can best ensure that people everywhere have access to innovative medicines and quality health care through working in partnership with everyone from patients to health care providers, managed care organizations to world governments and non-governmental organizations. We......
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Queensland launches green state-owned energy company
By Cole Latimer & Peter Hannam
August 30, 2018 — 4.50pm
Queensland has launched a state-owned, 100 per cent renewable energy generator which the state government hoped would help cut annual power bills.
The company, dubbed CleanCo, is a change in tack for Queensland, whose two other state-owned generators – CS Energy and Stanwell Corporation – are coal and gas companies.
Queensland plans to build 1000 megawatts of renewable generation. Credit:Andrew Burke
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the new energy company will cut household’s power bills by $70 a year.
“Preliminary analysis indicates that CleanCo should reduce wholesale electricity prices on average by around $7 a megawatt hour, which is expected to translate to an estimated $70 per annum saving for the average Queensland household,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
The state government-owned company will be launched with an initial $250 million grant to develop 1000 megawatts of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, and will begin trading electricity mid-next year.
The creation of a third generator in Queensland was one of the key recommendations in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's report into the electricity sector.
"Having two companies [in Queensland] with control of 70 per cent of the market doesn't work," ACCC chairman Rod Sims said.
Queensland Natural Resources Minister Anthony Lynham said CleanCo would help the state achieve its goal of 50 per cent renewable generation by 2030.
Annastacia Palaszczuk and Anthony Lynham say power bills will fall by around $70 thanks to the new investment. Credit:Dave Hunt
“CleanCo will become Queensland's third publicly owned energy generation company and is expected to have a positive impact on the NEM and drive more competition in the energy sector," Dr Lynham said.
Dr Lynham also used the launch of the new generator to slam the newly installed federal energy minister Angus Taylor and ongoing policy uncertainty.
Mr Lynham blasted what he called “the chaos and confusion in Canberra”, saying there was “an absolute vacuum of policy” on energy.
He said new federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s speech on Thursday was “nothing new” and simply “a rehash” of the ACCC’s recommendations. He said he had written to Mr Taylor’s predecessor, Josh Frydenberg, about the status of the National Energy Guarantee but had heard nothing back.
“I’m asking them to pick up the phone, give me a call, and tell me what’s happening with the NEG,” he said. “Is it dead and buried? Come on, make the call.”
Queensland is not alone. Another jurisdiction said it too had heard nothing from the new energy minister. Policy advisors said it was impossible to make decisions on what should happen next.
The public submission period for the draft state legislation runs to September 12, and it was uncertain what if anything would happen as a result of the feedback. “It’s just not very clear,” an official with the jurisdiction said.
Dr Lynham said new so-called high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power plants would cost $130-140 per megawatt of capacity compared with $44 for wind and $50 for solar energy, with further falls in clean energy costs expected.
“The best way to bring down power prices for all Queensland families is by investing in renewable resources,” he said.
Cole Latimer
Covering energy and policy at Fairfax Media.
Most Viewed in National
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Bush's Landgrab—and The New York Times'
In The New York Times the other day, columnist Nicholas D. Kristof took George W. Bush to task for "grabbing land for a new baseball stadium in Arlington for his Texas Rangers baseball team." Actually, "took to task" is a bit of an understatement. Kristof described Bush's activities as "a sordid tale of cronyism, of misuse of power, of cozy backroom money-grubbing—a more pressing threat to American business than outright criminality." He called Bush's dealings appalling. "Even Kazakhstan," he said, "would blush at such practices."
What sort of offense, exactly, did Bush commit? "Mr. Bush and the Rangers' owners conspired with city officials to seize private property that would be handed over to the Bush group." The seized property included not only the stadium site but also nearby land that the Rangers planned to sell or develop at a tidy profit.
Such cronyism is indeed "a more pressing threat to American business than outright criminality" because it clouds the very concept of private property. It's a scandal, all right—the scandal being not that Bush and friends broke the rules but that they played by them. The scandal, in other words, is the rules.
From time immemorial, governments have wielded the power of eminent domain, by which they can take private property for public use, so long as they compensate the owners. Traditionally, "public use" has meant use for roads, airports, bridges, military bases, and other public facilities or services. Toward the middle decades of the last century, however, civic authorities won from the courts the power to condemn land that was "blighted": so rundown or neglected as to amount to a public nuisance. Cities used this power to designate old tenement neighborhoods as "slums," raze them, and build public housing—one of the great urban-policy blunders of the last century, but that's another story. The Bush-Rangers-Arlington type of landgrab represents a newer sort of phenomenon.
In the last decade or so, it has become common for city leaders to define "blighted" as: "Not developed as nicely as we'd prefer." Or: "Not developed by the people we'd prefer." With that as their rationale, state and local officials take from one owner to give to another. "The condemnation of people's property for the benefit of another private party is a major, nationwide problem," says Dana Berliner of the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law fim that contests what it regards as eminent-domain abuse.
State officials in Mississippi were understandably eager to attract jobs when they offered a variety of inducements and subsidies to Nissan for a big new truck factory. The state also offered Nissan 1,500 acres of rural land. The trouble was that two of the families who lived there—black families of modest means, who had been on the land for 60 years—refused to sell. When the state asserted eminent domain, officials offered what have recently become standard rationales.
"If you make a promise to a company like Nissan, you have to be able to follow through," an official with the Mississippi Development Authority told The Times last year. Are such promises necessary? Absolutely. "If we're going to improve the quality of life for Mississippians, we've got to bring good jobs that are meaningful jobs," Gov. Ronnie Musgrove told ABCNews.com in April. And are new jobs in the public interest? Of course. "Acquiring property for the use of economic development purposes is in fact a public use," a lawyer for the state told ABCNews.com. So if public officials are doing their job, using eminent domain to help developers shop for land isn't so much forbidden as required.
In New London—Connecticut's fourth-poorest city—authorities sought to condemn a long-established neighborhood and turn it over to developers. "No one contends that the Fort Trumbull neighborhood is blighted," The Times reported last year. "Rather, the city contends that the area, which had half a dozen residential streets and much bigger swaths of abandoned or vacant land, should support greater development." That was why Susette Kelo, a homeowner who turned down the city's offers to buy her house, came home the day before Thanksgiving two years ago and found a condemnation notice nailed to her front door. "She said she was told that for as long as she remained in the house, she would have to pay rent."
Officials who stretch the term "public use" to encompass "better private use" often mean well. Presumably the Arlington, Texas, officials who helped out George W. and his stadium pals thought they were doing the city a big favor. So, perhaps, do the officials in Mesa, Ariz., who seek to condemn Randy Bailey's brake shop as part of a deal to attract a bright new Ace Hardware store to the site. (Bailey, with the Institute for Justice's help, is fighting.)
In a better-planned world, something other than Bailey's 27-year-old shop might indeed be located on Mesa's busiest corner. But property is held sacrosanct in America not to protect the rich and powerful, who always make out all right, but to protect the poor from the predations of the rich and powerful: from people like George W. Bush, and also from businesses like ... The New York Times.
The Times is planning to build a new corporate headquarters. The building will be a marvel of contemporary architecture, with 52 stories, dual skins of glass and white ceramic rods, and a small grove of maples outside a rooftop conference room at the summit. Casting about for a location, The Times and its partner, a developer called Forest City Ratner Companies, lit upon Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets, in the somewhat grubby neighborhood of the Port Authority bus terminal. The Empire State Development Corp.—New York's economic-development agency—promptly condemned the whole site.
Various critics and outside observers say that The Times will get the property for substantially less than its market value. The Village Voice recently quoted a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of real estate finance as saying that the developers were getting "at least a 25 percent discount." The developers dispute the point. Not in dispute is that taxpayers will shoulder several tens of millions of dollars of the project's ultimate cost, and that dozens of businesses, firms, and other denizens will be displaced.
Why is the government stepping in? "This will be an important final piece of the puzzle to revitalize the entire Times Square area," a spokesman for the development corporation told me. A smaller puzzle piece is Sidney Orbach. He and his two brothers own a 16-story office building on the condemned block.
"I would have said this couldn't happen in the United States," Orbach told me recently in a phone interview. He said of his building, "It used to be a factory building, and we totally converted it to an office building. It became a very, very desirable place. We just want to keep the building. We've put a lot of money, energy, and sweat into this." Meanwhile, "I am now sitting with a tremendous amount of vacancy because no one wants to rent space that has a good chance of being condemned."
Around the corner, on Eighth Avenue, is Arnold Hatters. The shop has been on the block since 1960, when Arnold Rubin opened it. His 30-year-old son Mark grew up with the store and is now its general manager. "Having to move is scaring the hell out of me," Mark Rubin says. "This is a gold mine location," near the bus terminal, Pennsylvania Station, and the hat-intensive theatrical industry. Rubin doubts he could afford as large a store elsewhere, and he fears that many of his customers may not move with him.
"As far as I can remember, this has always been our family's breadbasket," Rubin says. "I think it's atrocious that for the sake of a private corporation like The New York Times, somebody has the right to take it away from us." He might understand if the block were being condemned for a city road or hospital. "But no one has explained to me why they have to do this so The New York Times can have a big new skyscraper here."
The Orbachs and two other groups of property owners are challenging the condemnation under both the U.S. Constitution and the New York state constitution. Their chances are considered slim. New York has a long tradition of using eminent domain aggressively (remember Robert Moses?), and in this case the landowners are arrayed against the combined forces of City Hall, a leading developer, and the country's most powerful newspaper.
It all looks like a sordid tale of cronyism, of misuse of power, of cozy backroom money-grubbing—a more pressing threat to American business than outright criminality. Even Kazakhstan would blush at such practices. Some crusading liberal newspaper in New York really ought to run an editorial. Or at least a column.
Jonathan Rauch is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and National Journal and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
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Blanca New Album 'Shattered' To Release September 14
Blanca,
Curb | Word Entertainment’s powerhouse vocalist Blanca will unveil her highly anticipated sophomore album Shattered on September 14, 2018. Fans can pre-order the project now via all digital platforms here.
Following the release of the album, Blanca will be touring the country with friend and fellow artist Mandisa on Mandisa’s Girls Night Live Tour, which also features Jasmine Murray and Candace Payne (viral sensation “Chewbacca Mom”). The extraordinary night is aimed at strengthening female community. Visit www.officialblanca.com for a full list of tour dates.
Shattered is produced by Jason Ingram and Paul Mabury (Lauren Daigle), Tedd T (for KING & COUNTRY), COBRA (Lecrae, KB, Hollyn), Bernie Herms (Natalie Grant, Danny Gokey), Jordan Sapp (Tauren Wells, Jordan Feliz, Aaron Cole), Jeff Sojka, Josh Zegan (Stars Go Dim, Mat Kearney), Tommee Profitt (NF, Fleurie) and features artists Redimi2 and Tye Tribbett. The upcoming album has 14 tracks including the Latin songstress' current single "What If". The pop track is impacting Hot AC/CHR radio.
A second generation Puerto Rican, the native New Yorker's next album focuses on moving forward and healing one's heart after losing her mother last year to breast cancer.
"My main focus with this new album was honesty," shares Blanca. "I want people to be drawn in through the emotion and sincerity of the lyrics, and feel as if they are right there with me. Though we are all on different journeys in life, the music is what connects us. Their healing is my healing and my pain is their pain."
Shattered is the follow-up to the former Group 1 Crew member's explosive self-titled debut in 2015, which garnered two #1 radio singles, "Who I Am" and "Not Backing Down (feat. Tedashii)," the latter of which was featured on ESPN. Blanca's EP Real Love added a third #1 single to her name to go along with her 25.7 million streams and more than 16.2 million views on YouTube. Most recently, the critically-acclaimed singer performed at the Expolit conference in Florida, a faith-based event where people from all over the world come together in order to unify efforts, learn, teach and create effective alliances for the sole purpose of "Expanding the Kingdom". Blanca connected with her fellow Puerto Rican comrades and other Latin communities, sharing her music, her faith and spiritual journey.
Shattered Track Listing:
1. Remind Me
2. What If
3. Real Love
4. Best Part of Me
5. Steady
6. All In
7. Heaven
8. Run To The River
9. How Much More
10. Shattered
11. Undeniable
12. Numb
13. Give It All
14. Feel It
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Tamaris Higham
People of the Hangar Tamaris Higham
Meet Tamaris: a dedicated Hangarite, despite the fact that she now lives in Italy. She works for the International Federation of Sport Climbing and she mainly climbs purples.
From Tinder to Tokyo 2020
When she was a child, Tamaris loved the climbing walls at Center Parcs, but she wasn’t officially introduced to climbing until she came to the Hangar on a Tinder date. Unfortunately, after a few dates, that relationship fizzled out, but because of it, Tamaris had discovered one that would become extremely important to the rest of her life.
The same year as the fateful Tinder date, Tamaris started studying Marketing and PR at Edge Hill University, where she joined their mountaineering club. During her time at university, Tamaris made as many projects as she could about climbing. She completed a case study about the Women’s Climbing Symposium when learning about events. As part of a brand study, she created a climbing shoe brand – and filmed their advert at The Hangar.
When she graduated she applied for one job only, at the British Mountaineering Council, and got it. As the Marketing and Events Co-ordinator, she planned marketing campaigns and attended events all over the country. This, she says, was her favourite part about the job; getting to meet the same people at different events, and enjoy the family feel that the climbing community has. The job, however, was only maternity cover, and soon, she was moving on to even better things.
In November, Tamaris started her new job as Communications Assistant at the International Federation of Sport Climbing. Over the next few years, she and her team will be pivotal in the rolling out of climbing’s debut at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The Olympics will show climbing to an audience like never before, and Tamaris, for one, is excited to share it with the world.
From Tinder, to shaping the future of her sport. The date may not have worked out, but Tamaris discovered a passion that will last her a lifetime.
Dane Argomandkhah
Meet Dane, a complete climbing convert. He climbs yellows.
Liverpool People
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HomeSportAthleticsDCU claims IUAA outdoor crown
DCU claims IUAA outdoor crown
April 22, 2015 Athletics, Sport
For the tenth successive year, DCU Athletics Academy won the IUAA outdoor track and field championships.
DCU were comfortable winners of the event that took place in the University of Ulster’s Mary Peters track on April 10th and 11th with the University of Limerick coming in second place and UCD in third.
The two-day event saw DCU come home with a total of 46 medals; 21 gold, 20 silver and five bronze. Male athletes accounted for 20 of these medals while female athletes came home with 26 medals in total.
DCU also led the points table by some distance on 325 points, with second placed UL on 119 points. The points were awarded as follows: seven for 1st, five for 2nd, four for 3rd etc. for individual events and ten for 1st, eight for 2nd, six for 3rd etc. for relay events.
As well as winning the overall competition, DCU were winners of Middle Distance trophy, Sprints trophy, Throws trophy and Jumps trophy while Michael Bowler in combined events and Sarah McCarthy in the long jump set new IUAA outdoor track and field records.
One of the stars for DCU was Stephanie Creaner, who won both the the 100m and 200m races as well as being part of the 4x100m relay team with Sarah McCarthy, Bronywn Keogh and Sarah Murray that won gold for DCU for the second successive year.
Creaner, a final year Psychology student, expressed her delight with DCU’s performance when she spoke to The College View. “Winning an IUAA title is a huge achievement, but winning it 10 years in a row is really something special and it’s a testament to all the hard work and dedication of the talented DCU athletics squad”
Reflecting on her personal performance, Creaner added, “I was really happy with my performances. [I won] three events and three golds so I can’t complain. Timewise, my performances were quicker than expected as I want to peak later in the season, so I actually didn’t have any speed work done and I only did one block session, so to think to run as fast as I did was a surprise.
“Going into it, I knew I was in good shape and I wanted to perform well for the college, so I had a goal and I achieved that so I’m happy.”
Having been champions for nine consecutive years, DCU were heavily favoured in the competition but Creaner doesn’t take anything for granted and believes the standard of competition is as high as ever;
“Yes, this has been the case for the last ten years, but let me tell you, this is no easy feat. In order to achieve such a record, it requires the coming together of hard-working and dedicated individuals.
“At Varsity level, in my opinion, the standard is always high. You can only compete against those who show up.”
Creaner was also full of praise for both the training in DCU and the facilities at their disposal: “In DCU, there are specific coaches for different disciplines including John Shields and Leona Byrne for sprints and Dave Sweeney for throws, to name a few. Every good athlete has a fantastic team around them.
“The University has provided the athletes with adequate support, facilities and the means to fulfill their potential. Look at the sporting facility we have over in St Clare’s; if it’s good enough for IRFU, it must be up to standard.”
Creaner herself is trained by both Ken Robinson and John Shields and praised them for their hard work throughout the year.
There are over 100 members of the DCU Athletics Academy and Creaner believes they have an abundance of talent in their ranks: “There is huge depth of talent in DCU and has been for many years but I think as a unit we’re just getting stronger and stronger, so I expect the winning streak will continue, here’s to the next decade.”
Up next for Stephanie Creaner is the World Relay Championships in the Bahamas in May, but the Irish team will travel to Florida first for a training camp before jetting out to the Caribbean a week later.
That will be followed by the World Student University Games in South Korea, for which she expects to qualify. “My personal best is only 0.02 [seconds] off the standard so fingers crossed.”
DCU Atheltics
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Home00 NEWS DRAFTCancer becomes most common cause of death in Ireland
Cancer becomes most common cause of death in Ireland
Leona Kenny
December 12, 2018 00 NEWS DRAFT, National News, News
Cancer has overtaken heart disease for the first time as the most common cause of death among Irish people, a new report has shown.
More than 41,000 people were diagnosed with cancer last year, according to the National Cancer Registry. One in five of these cases was non-invasive tumours, and a further one in four was non-melanoma skin cancer, which equates to an average of 112 patients being diagnosed every day.
Tumours and invasive cases can cause an average of 8,875 deaths per year – the equivalent to one person dying from the disease every hour. Breast cancer, prostate cancer and skin cancer were among the most commonly diagnosed.
However, survival rates for cancer are now better than ever before – an estimated 170,000 people are living with cancer in Ireland. New treatments and advanced detection has meant figures for male patients increased significantly from 40 to 62 per cent in the last 20 years, and from 48 to 60 per cent for women in the same period.
The report also showed that the number of people diagnosed with cancer could double in size by 2045 if recent rates apply to the estimated future population.
Chief Executive of the Irish Cancer Society, Averil Power, described the figures as a ‘’wake-up call’’ which should prompt immediate action.
‘’While these projections are stark, they need not become a reality. By improving our lifestyles and availing of free screenings, each of us can dramatically reduce our risk of getting cancer.’’
‘’Four in 10 cancers are preventable. We can all reduce our risk of getting cancer by eating healthily, exercising regularly and limiting our alcohol intake.’’
Ms Power also called on the Government to ensure that the cancer prevention recommendations in the National Cancer Strategy were followed.
More information regarding symptoms, services available and types of cancer can be found on www.cancer.ie.
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10 Things Every Christian Should Know About Islam
July 4, 2013 | Zane Pratt
Photo by Ali Arif Soydaş on Unsplash
Islam is a fast-growing religion, especially in the Western world. Christians increasingly need to be aware of Islam and, most importantly, how to engage its adherents with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here are 10 things I learned about Islam during my 20 years as a missionary in a Muslim-majority country.
1. “Muslim” and “Arab” are not the same thing.
“Muslim” is a religious term. A Muslim is someone who adheres to the religion of Islam. “Arab,” on the contrary, is an ethno-linguistic term. An Arab is a member of the people group who speak the Arabic language. It is true that Islam originated among the Arabs, and the Qur’an was written in Arabic. However, some Arabs have historically been part of the ancient orthodox Christian churches. On the other hand, Islam spread far beyond the Arab world, and today most Muslims are not Arabs. This includes the Turks, the Kurds, the Iranians, the Pakistanis, other South Asian Muslims, the Malaysians and the Indonesians, almost all of whom are Muslim but none of whom is Arab.
2. The word “Islam” means submission.
A Muslim is someone who submits to God. The Islamic conception of who God is, and how he is to be worshiped and served, is based on the teaching of Muhammad. Thus the Islamic creed is: “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.”
3. There are two major denominations of Muslims.
The two major denominations of Muslims are Sunni and Shi’a. Sunnis are the vast majority, at 85 percent of all Muslims. The split occurred in the first generation after Muhammad’s death and was based on a dispute over who should succeed him as leader of the Islamic community.
4. Islamic theology could be summarized as belief in one God, his prophets, his books, his angels, his decrees, and the final judgment.
Islam teaches that humans are born spiritually neutral, perfectly capable of obeying God’s requirements completely, and that they remain this way even after they’ve personally sinned. The need of humanity, therefore, is not salvation but instruction; hence Islam has prophets, but no savior.
5. Islam teaches that Jesus was a great prophet.
Islam affirms that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he lived a sinless life, that he performed mighty miracles, and that he will come again at the end of history. It even calls him a word from God. However, it explicitly denies the deity of Christ and repudiates the title “Son of God” as blasphemous. It also (according to the majority view) denies he died on the cross, claiming that Jesus’ visage was imposed on someone else, who was then crucified, and that Jesus was taken up into heaven without tasting death. Islam explicitly denies the possibility of substitutionary atonement.
6. Islamic practice can be summarized by the Five Pillars of Islam.
These are composed of the confession of faith (“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet”), prayer (the ritual prayers said in Arabic five times a day while facing Mecca and performing the prescribed set of bowings, kneeling, and prostrations), alms (taken as a tax in some officially Islamic countries), fasting (the lunar month of Ramadan, during which Muslim believers fast during daylight hours but can eat while it’s dark), and pilgrimage (the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, which every Muslim believer should make once in his or her lifetime).
7. The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.
In fact, normal Islamic religious law forbids the intentional killing of non-combatants in battle. It also forbids suicide. It’s a small minority view that allows these things, and it’s a small minority who engage in terrorist activities.
8. Muslims can be some of the friendliest, most hospitable people on earth.
They make great neighbors and great friends. No Christian should be afraid to build a relationship with a Muslim.
9. Muslims need salvation through Jesus Christ.
They are lost exactly like any other non-Christian—neither more nor less than anyone else. Furthermore, Muslims do come to faith in Jesus Christ. It usually takes time, and extended exposure to the Word of God and the lives of Christians, but more Muslims are coming to faith today than at any other point in history.
10. God loves Muslims, and so should we—even those few who are our enemies.
We should love them enough to befriend them, love them enough to make them welcome in our homes, and love them enough to share the gospel with them.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2013 issue of Southern Seminary Magazine.
Zane Pratt serves as vice president for global training for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Islam • World Religions
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TGC Podcast
Answering Jihad
April 19, 2016 |
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Box office analysis: UK
Despicable Me 3 overtakes Transformers and Baby Driver at UK box office
Blockbuster animation sequel easily knocks Transformers: The Last Knight off the top spot, earning the biggest opening for an animation since Minions
Charles Gant
Tue 4 Jul 2017 10.04 EDT Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 16.08 EST
High flying … Despicable Me 3. Photograph: AP
The winner: Despicable Me 3
With a sturdy debut of £11.15m, Despicable Me 3 had no problem knocking Transformers: The Last Knight off the top spot at the UK box office chart. It scored the third biggest opening of the year, behind Beauty and the Beast (£19.7m) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (£13.09m), and is the biggest animation debut of the year so far, ahead of Sing (£6.29m plus £4.2m in previews) and The Lego Batman Movie (£5.46m plus £2.45m in previews). It is also bigger than last year’s top animated openings for Finding Dory (£8.12m) and The Secret Life of Pets (£9.58m). The Jungle Book, which was significantly animated, began last year with £9.9m.
The Despicable Me 3 figure is slightly down on the debut salvo of Minions, which began in June 2015 with £11.59m, setting a record opening for an animation, if previews are excluded from consideration for competitor releases. Despicable Me 2 kicked off with £9.95m in June 2013, with previews taking that total to £14.82m. The original Despicable Me, which opened for the October half-term holiday in 2010, was much more modest, beginning with £3.66m, including £205,000 in previews. It’s notable that, beginning with Despicable Me 2, all films in this franchise (including Minions) have landed the same last-Friday-in-June release date in the UK – clearly a winner for distributor Universal.
The runner-up: Baby Driver
Speedy start … Jamie Foxx and Ansel Elgort in Baby Driver. Photograph: Allstar/Sony Pictures
With a debut of £2.39m and £3.61m including Wednesday/Thursday previews, Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver has got off to a speedy start. Relevant comparisons are tricky, because Wright’s last film was The World’s End, which benefited from being the last part of his “Cornetto” trilogy (following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), featuring regular collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. In any case, Baby Driver has opened a little ahead of The World’s End, which kicked off with £2.12m in July 2013.
Wright’s US-set Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a more apt comparison for Baby Driver. That film began in August 2010 with £1.6m including £532,000 in previews. Baby Driver has so far achieved a high IMDb user rating of 8.4/10 and a MetaCritic score of 86/100, suggesting it could enjoy some decent box office longevity.
The niche hit: All Eyez on Me
Watch the trailer for All Eyes on Me on YouTube
Released into a tight 270 cinemas (compared with 608 for Despicable Me 3 and 543 for Baby Driver), Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me has achieved a creditable site average of £3,380 from an opening gross of £913,000. While that’s below the debut frame of 2015’s NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton (£2.5m from 429 cinemas), distributor Lionsgate will be encouraged. The film’s director Benny Boom is best known for directing music videos (50 Cent, Nelly, Nicki Minaj), while star Demetrius Shipp Jr was unknown to audiences, so it was really only All Eyez on Me’s subject and soundtrack that provided strong marketable elements.
The flop: The House
Will Ferrell is hit and miss at the UK box office. His last lead role was in Daddy’s Home, which proved a big commercial winner, but his new comedy The House is very much in the miss category, with a debut of £488,000 from 407 cinemas. Ferrell stars as a man who convinces his friends to start an illegal casino in his basement after he and his wife (Amy Poehler) spend their daughter’s college fund.
House poor … Will Ferrell Amy Poehler and Jason Mantzoukas. Photograph: Allstar/New Line Cinema
The wipeout: American Hero
The latest film to suffer the ignominy of being buried in one cinema far from the UK’s capital is American Hero, the latest by Football Factory director Nick Love. Stephen Dorff stars as a reluctant superhero in this action-comedy-drama, which premiered at the Busan film festival in South Korea in October 2015, and enjoyed a limited US release in December that year. American Hero played the Edinburgh film festival last June.
Now it opens only at the Belfast Odyssey cinema, grossing the alarming sum of £20, according to the official data. This is the worst result for a film since Shia LaBeouf vehicle Man Down, which took £7 on its opening in March this year.
Thanks to the arrival of Despicable Me 3 and Baby Driver, overall takings are up 98% on the previous frame and 28% up on the equivalent weekend from 2016, when Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie was the top new release. Arriving tomorrow: the well-reviewed Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Third place face … Transformers: The Last Knight. Photograph: Bay Films/AP
Top 10 films June 30 – July 2
1. Despicable Me 3, £11,154,904 from 608 sites (new)
2. Baby Driver, £3,605,705 from 543 sites (new)
3. Transformers: The Last Knight, £1,601,971 from 573 sites. Total: £7,942,613 (two weeks)
4. All Eyez on Me, £912,662 from 270 sites (new)
5. Wonder Woman, £911,311 from 525 sites. Total: £20,731,916 (five weeks)
6. The House, £487,542 from 407 sites (new)
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, £325,732 from 365 sites. Total: £19,177,195 (six weeks)
8. The Mummy, £306,435 from 337 sites. Total: £8,398,244 (four weeks)
9. Baywatch, £175,955 from 254 sites. Total: £9,374,650 (five weeks)
10. Hampstead, £148,120 from 392 sites. Total: £1,098,311 (two weeks)
Other openers
Alone in Berlin, £108,047 (including £54,003 previews) from 38 sites
Yalghaar, £52,287 from 48 sites
In This Corner of the World, £35,061 (including £27,912 previews) from 15 sites
A Man Called Ove, £34,389 from 26 sites
Kedi, £32,964 (including £6,614 previews) from 16 sites
Risk, £12,181 (including £3,480 previews) from 19 sites
Halal Daddy, £8,953 from 11 sites
Chubby Funny, £2,554 from two sites
Great Sardaar, £1,658 from five sites
Revolutions, £1,080 from one site
Jatra, £864 from 11 sites
Saving Dreams, £420 from eight sites
American Hero, £20 from one site
• Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (aka Salazar's Revenge)
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First human-pig 'chimera' created in milestone study
Prospect of growing human organs for transplantation raised by creation of first ever embryos combining two large, distantly related species
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
@hannahdev
Thu 26 Jan 2017 12.00 EST Last modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018 16.34 EST
Scientists from the Salk Institute discuss the breakthrough.
Scientists have created a human-pig hybrid in a milestone study that raises the prospect of being able to grow human organs inside animals for use in transplants.
It marks the first time that embryos combining two large, distantly-related species have been produced. The creation of this so-called chimera – named after the cross-species beast of Greek mythology – has been hailed as a significant first step towards generating human hearts, livers and kidneys from scratch.
Human-pig embryos Q&A: how would 'chimeras' make transplant organs?
Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, who led the work on the part-pig, part-human embryos at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, said: “The ultimate goal is to grow functional and transplantable tissue or organs, but we are far away from that. This is an important first step.”
The study has reignited ethical concerns that have threatened to overshadow the field’s clinical promise. The work inevitably raises the spectre of intelligent animals with humanised brains and also the potential for bizarre hybrid creatures to be accidentally released into the wild. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) placed a moratorium on funding for the controversial experiments last year while these risks were considered.
Izpisua Belmonte said that fears around chimeras were inspired largely by mythology rather than the realities of meticulously controlled experiments. But he acknowledged: “The idea of having an animal being born composing of human cells creates some feelings that need to be addressed.”
Creating human-pig chimera embryos
The paper, published in the journal Cell, outlines how human stem cells were injected into early-stage pig embryos, resulting in more than 2,000 hybrids that were transferred to surrogate sows. More than 150 of the embryos developed into chimeras that were mostly pig, but with a tiny human contribution of around one in 10,000 cells.
The pig-human embryos were allowed to develop to 28 days (the first trimester of a pig pregnancy) before being removed.
“This is long enough for us to try to understand how the human and pig cells mix together early on without raising ethical concerns about mature chimeric animals,” said Izpisua Belmonte.
The team believe that in future the approach could pave the way for incubating human organs, genetically matched to a patient, for use in transplants or for testing new medicines more safely and effectively.
Professor Daniel Garry, a cardiologist and head of a different chimera project at the University of Minnesota, said: “This is a significant advance that raises opportunities and ethical questions as well.”
Human-pig chimeras and the history of xenotransplantation
Garry said that the rapid progress in chimera research had prompted a range of troubling questions, including whether the progeny would look more human or more pig, what would happen if a chimera had a human thought and whether it was possible for the human cells to cannibalise the pig embryo, resulting in a mostly-human, slightly-pig offspring.
“These more fantastical possibilities are not a problem in reality,” he said, adding that Izpisua Belmonte’s group had taken a “responsible approach”.
Scientists created the first rat-mouse chimeras a decade ago, but until now have struggled to combine human cells with those of a large mammal.
Professor Bruce Whitelaw, interim director of the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, where Dolly the sheep was created, said: “The 10 years between these two studies is a testament of how difficult it has been to achieve the human-pig result.”
One challenge is that the pig pregnancy lasts about 112 days, compared to nine months in humans, meaning that the embryonic cells are developing at completely different rates. Izpisua Belmonte’s team found that the human stem cells need to be injected at exactly the right stage in their own development for them to survive and become part of the growing animal – although even then, the efficiency was low.
Jun Wu, the paper’s lead author and a scientist at Salk, said: “It’s like if you’re going onto a highway where the cars are travelling three times faster than you are, you need to choose the right timing, otherwise you cause an accident.”
The team is hoping to boost the human contribution by switching off specific genes in the pig embryos that would prevent the pig cells from contributing to target organs, such as the heart, potentially giving the human cells a competitive advantage.
'Chimera' monkeys created in lab by combining several embryos into one
Similarly, the human cells could be engineered to prevent them contributing to the chimera brain. This safeguard was not in place in the current study, since the embryos were only allowed to reach an early stage of development and the human contribution was minimal.
“We didn’t see any human cells in the brain region, but we cannot exclude the possibility that they may have gone to the brain,” said Izpisua Belmonte.
In a separate experiment, the team also created a host of mouse-rat chimeras and showed that rat cells could develop into a gall bladder – even though rats stopped developing this organ themselves at some point in the 18 million years since rats and mice separated evolutionarily.
This reveals that our genetic code retains the instructions to turn our cells into ancestral forms that have been lost over the course of evolution, raising the intriguing question of which ancient traits might be unlocked from human DNA.
“Many animals have this extraordinary ability to regenerate,” said Izpisua Belmonte. “Humans don’t have that. [This field of work] could provide a platform for human cells to do that.”
Animal experimentation
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Home > Life Style > Health
Quitting alcohol can improve mental health in women
ANI | 9 July 2019 9:41 AM GMT
Studies reveal that giving up alcohol can improve mental well-being.
Washington: Quitting alcohol may improve women's mental well-being besides their health-related quality of life. "More evidence suggests caution in recommending moderate drinking as part of a healthy diet," said Dr Michael Ni, School of Public Health and The State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, University of Hong Kong (HKU).
The study published in the journal 'CMAJ' included 10386 people cohort who were nondrinkers or moderate drinkers (14 drinks or less per week for men and 7 drinks or less per week for women) between 2009 and 2013.
The researchers compared their findings with data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a representative survey of 31079 people conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the United States.
The mean age of participants in the cohort was 49 years and 56 per cent were women. About 64 per cent of men were nondrinkers (abstainers and former drinkers) and almost 88 per cent of women were nondrinkers.
Men and women who were lifetime abstainers had the highest level of mental well-being at the start of the study (baseline). For women who were moderate drinkers and quit drinking, quitting was linked to a favourable change in mental well-being in both Chinese and American study populations.
These results were apparent after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, body mass index, smoking status, and other factors. "Global alcohol consumption is expected to continue to increase unless effective strategies are employed," says Dr Ni.
"Our findings suggest caution in recommendations that moderate drinking could improve health-related quality of life. Instead, quitting drinking may be associated with a more favourable change in mental well-being, approaching the level of lifetime abstainers," Dr Ni said.
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Table Talk: #Baonanas
Photo: Pardalis Media on location at Ahri's Kitchen
Work hard towards what you want to do, there’s nothing that can stop you.
— Patricia Villanueva, co-founder, #Baonanas
Name(s): Lloyd Ortuoste and Patricia Villanueva
Company: #Baonanas
How did you meet and how did you come up with the idea for #Baonanas?
Lloyd: I'm lucky enough to call Trisha my girlfriend. We've been dating for five years now, and how we started this business was pretty crazy. It basically involves two broke college kids, a busted yellow car, and just a bunch of friends and strangers on Instagram that decided to help us out.
My car was hit in front of my house. It was the only way I could get to school so a friend of mine suggested we sell our homemade banana pudding. It was always a hit at family parties. It's a recipe that Trisha created. I then messed it up but made it better somehow.
Trisha: When we first started dating, we called each other "Bao". It's Mandarin and often means to be full in the stomach and in the heart, so we thought it went really well when we were thinking of names for our company.
After you made enough money to fix your car, when did you decide that #Baonanas was a "real" business?
Lloyd: I don't even remember the exact moment. It was just another hobby for us. We got to hang out all the time. We both really like to bake and we both love food.
Trisha: And then we started making new flavors and it kind of just picked up momentum on its own.
What did you do next? What was the process?
Lloyd: We kind of just figured it out as we went along, but we were very lucky to have a lot of really talented and supportive friends. Since we started out on Instagram, we really felt that it had to be visually appealing and we had to make something that people would think of as cute or fun or something that they could relate to. So we decided to work with our friend, who's a graphic designer and artist to create our logo.
When did you start selling at farmer's markets?
Lloyd: Our first event was actually the Filipino Parade at Lincoln Park in Jersey City. I had a friend who asked if we were interested in selling #Baonanas. And that's when we realized all of the stuff you've got to do to become a vendor. Google was our best friend.
Trisha: The New Jersey Small Business Development Center is one of the first places that we visited. They were so nice. We really wished there was an incubator around here, because the research was the most difficult part of getting started along with looking for kitchen space.
Lloyd: When we couldn't find kitchen space, our friend, who was a chef at Ahri's Kitchen, suggested that we ask them to their kitchen, since they're closed on Tuesdays. Anna and Andy of Ahri's Kitchen are some of the nicest people that we know. They're so supportive of us.
There are around 14 #Baonanas flavors, is there a bestseller?
Lloyd: The OG is probably the strongest, then Oreo, strawberry and matcha green tea. The s'mores and the chocolate were real underdogs in the beginning, but now they're just flying off the shelves.
Did your wholesale partners come to you? Or did you seek them out?
Lloyd: We've had businesses inquire, and we have a nice list of restaurants and cafes that we targeted because we feel that they give something different to the community.
Have you collaborated with any other businesses?
Lloyd: Yes, we've collaborated with Ahri's Kitchen on a custom sweet potato flavor. And the door is always open. We're always trying to link up with like-minded businesses.
What's the most challenging thing about running your business?
Lloyd: The hardest thing when we first started out was time management…especially with school. Thank God Trisha bought me a Passion Planner. It's really saved my life. I bring that thing everywhere.
What lessons have you learn since starting this #Baonanas in 2014?
Lloyd: Well, one of the biggest things that I learned is just like food; you are what you digest, information-wise. All I do is I read books. I listen to podcasts to try and gain as much knowledge as I can about running this business. Also, utilizing your network is definitely important. We have a lot of great friends that have helped us out.
What's the best piece of advice you've been given since you started?
Trisha: I think it's that you shouldn't be afraid of pursuing your dreams. Work hard towards what you want to do, there's nothing that can stop you. That's something that we always ask people, "What are you #Baonanas for? What are you passionate for? What drives you?"
For more information about #Baonanas and to find out where you can purchase these delicious treats, visit baonanas.com.
← Table Talk: A & I NutreatsTable Talk: Miss Molly's Honey →
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Home » FBI official: Time needed to know if phone can be unlocked
FBI official: Time needed to know if phone can be unlocked
KEYWORDS Terrorism / FBI / Technology / Government / Courts / neglect
Apple to fight order to help FBI unlock shooter's iPhone
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It will take at least two weeks to know whether an alternate method will unlock an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers, the head of the FBI's Los Angeles office said Tuesday, adding that federal investigators think they have "a good shot."
Government officials were asked to file a status report in court about the alternate method by April 5 because that's how long they think it will take to know if the method will unlock the phone without compromising the data it contains, said David Bowdich, an assistant FBI director in charge of the office in Los Angeles.
At the government's request, a judge canceled a court hearing in the matter that had been set for Tuesday.
The government was "very ready" to try to force Apple to help unlock the phone when a third party emerged with an alternate method Sunday, Bowdich said.
"For us to seek a continuance, we felt it was a good shot," Bowdich said. "I'll leave it there because we just don't know."
The publicity around the case generated a number of proposed solutions, but none was deemed potentially usable until Sunday's demonstration, according to two law enforcement officials close to the case who are not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The unexpected new method is going to be tested on other phones before it's perfected — to avoid deleting the data on the target device, one of the law enforcement officials said.
One official said FBI Director James Comey testified in good faith about the FBI exhausting options to get into the iPhone, but investigators had not canvassed every possible option that could exist because of the urgency factor in terrorism investigations.
The longer the government waited, the more its arguments of urgency would be negated.
Speculation about the source of the new method has centered on a little-known but thriving industry of computer forensics in which firms work with the FBI and other police agencies around the world.
While it could be an independent hacker, several experts said the proposed solution most likely came from one of those firms, possibly one that already works for the government.
"The FBI contracts out a lot of work, like every other government agency, and a lot of stuff gets shipped off to data-recovery contractors," said Jonathan Zdziarski, an independent iPhone forensics researcher.
He said the most straightforward possibility is that the FBI described the problem to a variety of contractors and one of them came forward with a proposed solution.
Other experts mentioned an Israeli company, Cellebrite Inc., that's a leader among several firms selling smartphone forensics services and software tools to U.S. police agencies. The programs can extract data from iPhones running older versions of Apple's operating system, but they have been stymied by the latest version, known as iOS 9. That's the version running on the San Bernardino iPhone.
Cellebrite hasn't announced any new product that works with iOS 9, but it's likely working on developing one, said Darren Hayes, a computer scientist and cybersecurity expert at Pace University in New York.
Cellebrite representatives couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday. The company did not respond to an email and phone message left at its U.S. offices in New Jersey.
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Category of manifestation:
Pre-orders for Sarah Hennies' 'Gather & Release' are Now Available
Sarah Hennies is releasing a new album on Coppice's label, Category of manifestation:. The album is entitled Gather & Release and will be out on in April. You can listen to excerpts from the album's two tracks above. The press release for Gather & Release is as follows:
Gather & Release is the result of years worth of composer Sarah Hennies’ exploration of the vibraphone in synthesis with her experiences of identity, obsession, anxiety, tension, grief, and loss.
Over the course of an hour, Hennies entangles highly focused percussion playing with field recordings, sine waves, signifiers from her personal & family history (including a 20+ year old recording of her grandfather reciting poetry), and bilateral stimulation, a tool for anxiety release and a major component of EMDR therapy (a branch of psychotherapy that focuses on relieving the patient of disturbing memories as a treatment for psychopathology).
The limited edition CD will come in hand-sewn packaging. You can find more information about Gather & Release, as well as pre-order it on the label website here.
Tagged: Sarah Hennies, Category of manifestation:
Coppice Release New Album Matches
The ever-prolific duo Coppice have just released a new album called Matches. It's out on their own label 'Category of manifestation:' and described as a "story with many holes". This marks the fourth album they've released this year, the others being Cores/Eruct, Spans: Three Perspectival Accounts, and Bypass Ideal. Matches was composed between 2009-2015 and was recorded primarily in Chicago and Reykjavík. The Saga Edition of the CD is limited to 100 copies and comes in a jewel case with metal mesh, colored thread, and transparencies. You can listen to a teaser of the album which has excerpts from all seven tracks here. The tracklist and a video for album closer "Caper" are below. You can purchase Matches here.
1. Held Cascade (1:24)
2. Bromine (6:14)
3. Labile Form (3:41)
4. Discharge Form (4:48)
5. Subparallel Episode (0:31)
6. Bramble (10:04)
7. Caper (7:15)
Tagged: Coppice, Category of manifestation:
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EditorialCareer Builder: Willison Traces Career To Outdoor Interests
Career Builder: Willison Traces Career To Outdoor Interests
Josh Willison made all the right moves as a young Missouri wastewater operator, learning the treatment business, serving the community and winning a prestigious award.
Appeared in print as "Career Builder"
By Jack Powell
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Missouri Alliance Water Resources Sewer Equipment Co. of America Jetter Sulzer Pumps, Inc. Grinder Pump
Josh Willison, holder of a Class C operator’s license, is responsible for six small treatment plants in capacities from 5,000 to 60,000 gpd, serving about 4,000 customers in several subdivisions.
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With barely eight years in the wastewater industry, operator Joshua “Josh” Willison is a young man with a bright future. Serving the Franklin County (Missouri) Water & Sewer District, Willison is focused on advancing his career — and already has an award to show for his commitment to clean water.
Last September, Willison, 30, received the Young Professional of the Year award from the Missouri Water and Wastewater Conference. The award recognizes top performing members who go the extra mile to complete jobs efficiently and to the highest of standards.
That description fits Willison perfectly, according to senior executives at Alliance Water Resources, which provides contract water and wastewater services to Franklin County. “Josh is very proficient, constantly striving to improve our operations to see that our facilities have the best performance possible,” says Mike Dougherty, Alliance division manager. “We are glad Josh is part of our team and appreciate the good work he does for us and our customers.”
Self-effacing, Willison sees the recognition as just another step forward in his career: “I was really surprised that I won the award. I knew I’d been nominated, but it came as quite a shock when I got it at the MWWC dinner in Jefferson City, with all those other water and wastewater professionals there.”
From college to career
Willison’s career traces its roots to his lifelong interest in the outdoors, including hunting and fishing. He was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, but during his sophomore year of high school, his father got a job transfer and moved the family to Liberty, Missouri, a city of 29,000 near Kansas City. After high school, Willison went to the University of Missouri, where in 2007 he earned a bachelor’s degree in fish and wildlife.
His first job out of college was as an operator at a wastewater treatment plant in California — not the state, but a small city by that name in central Missouri. “I was attracted to wastewater because it offered steady work, a chance to use my background in science, and the opportunity to improve the environment and make the community a better place to live,” Willison recalls.
He stayed there until December 2010, when he joined the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in Jefferson City as an environmental specialist I and made himself a valuable resource to the agency’s Water Protection Program. “Josh was very helpful to me in getting started with the Compliance and Enforcement Section,” says John Fraga, unit chief for the program, who nominated Willison for the Young Professional award. “Josh did a lot of things to help us maintain clean drinking water. That included looking after the state’s 2,700 water systems, which required heavy data entry as well as tracking and lots of enforcement activities.”
Enforcement support
At the DNR, Willison helped Fraga and his team implement the U.S. EPA’s 2011 Enforcement Response Policy (ERP), aimed at ensuring consistency and fairness in setting priorities for enforcement actions against public water systems. The policy emphasized compliance rather than addressing violations, helping to increase the EPA’s effectiveness in protecting public health. Willison did everything from recording data to tracking the results of water-assessment sampling some communities were required to perform monthly to ensure that they met clean-water standards.
With the ERP came an Enforcement Targeting Tool (ETT), a calculation system states use to help identify and prioritize public water systems for enforcement. As part of the ETT, Fraga’s group got quarterly reports from the EPA that ranked Missouri drinking water systems that were in noncompliance. The DNR unit was required to evaluate those reports and then take formal enforcement action to return the systems to compliance.
Willison’s drive and knack for data entry made a big difference. “Before we hired Josh, we’d been floundering around with the ETT, but once he got on board he really helped us sort things out,” says Fraga. “We had to analyze about 250 systems each quarter, all their violations, and check to see if EPA had a method for returning them to compliance.
“We also worked with the Safe Water Information System, in which each state enters its drinking water systems so the EPA can track them. Josh had a pretty big role in all this. He became instrumental in creating a database, making it a whole lot easier to analyze those lists. In working with Josh, I found him eager to jump in and help, very supportive of new ideas and always willing to do whatever it took to get the job done.”
In July 2014, after his wife, Rebecca, got her master’s degree in statistics from the University of Missouri, the couple moved to Chesterfield, a second-ring suburb of 47,000 west of St. Louis.
Willison, by this time an environmental specialist III, left the DNR and went to work for Alliance Water Resources, which provides contract operations and management services for municipal and community water, wastewater and public works systems in Missouri, Iowa and Tennessee.
Alliance manages 19 small extended-aeration package wastewater treatment plants scattered over 150 square miles of Franklin County (population more than 100,000) on the outskirts of St. Louis. The package plants work in a manner similar to septic systems and sewage lagoons: Solids settle out of the water, the remaining organic matter is broken down by microorganisms and treated water is discharged to creeks. Sludge is pumped out of the systems and hauled off.
Willison, who has a Class C wastewater operator’s license, is responsible for six of those plants, in capacities from 5,000 to 60,000 gpd serving some 4,000 customers in several subdivisions. He also works on some of the 30 miles of county sewer lines Alliance maintains, using a high-pressure water jetter (Sewer Equipment Company of America) to clean the lines of grease, soil and ice buildup.
Alliance, which has managed the Franklin County water and wastewater operations since 1994, staffs the plants from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Operators rotate on-call duty during off hours and weekends; Willison is usually available to come in when needed.
“During a typical day, I’ll check on all the plants to make sure they’re running properly,” Willison says. “Then I’ll do my pH and BOD tests and work on the pumps to make sure they’re OK. We have ABS grinder pumps (Sulzer Pumps Solutions Inc.) at most of the sites we serve. They’re basically small pumps with an opening much like a garbage disposal. When the pump kicks on, it grinds the larger sewage and pumps the ground material up and out. If there are any problems, we’re responsible for fixing them or sending them out for repair.”
Eager to help
Although he hasn’t had any floods or other disasters to deal with, Willison has encountered heavy summer rainfall that has caused inflow and infiltration (I&I) issues, creating spikes in flow at the treatment plants. He takes such occurrences in stride: “The biggest problem with heavy rain is making sure you’re processing the wastewater and not having it washed back into the creeks untreated.”
Such a strong work ethic hasn’t escaped the notice of Willison’s co-workers and boss: They admire his eagerness to pitch in and help, regardless of the task on the water or wastewater side. Fellow wastewater operator, Lonnie Madole, who operates five plants, calls Willison, “A real good guy, easy to work with and ready to do anything. You have to be prepared to get your hands dirty in this job, and Josh is willing to do that on a daily basis.”
Bob Hathcock, project manager, who supervises 11 water and wastewater operators, observes, “Josh is easy to get along with and the kind of worker every boss likes. He’s not afraid to do the dirty jobs or take the lead when the situation requires it.”
With an award under his belt, plenty of on-the-job training, and encouragement from colleagues and supervisors, Willison has his eyes set on moving up in the wastewater industry. He continues to take classes as part of the state’s continuing education requirement of 30 hours of annual coursework. By the end of 2015, he expects to take the exam for his Class B license.
“I really like serving the public, and I want to continue in the field and grow in my career,” says Willison. “So far, wastewater has been a great fit.”
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Focusing on technology education worldwide
Newspoint > News > Features > 2019 > June > Focusing on technology education worldwide
In Conferences
The Department of Technology and Entrepreneurship Education, at the Faculty of Education, University of Malta, hosted the Pupils' Attitude Towards Technology (PATT) international conference, which was held from 3 to 6 June.
PATT is a series of conferences focusing on technology education worldwide. Pupils in school are the future generation of citizens living in a technological world. Therefore it is important that they are technologically literate. Pupils need to get a good image of technological professions for them to become realistic options for a career choice later in life. Educational research in this area focuses on investigating the type of education that can best be developed, taught and assessed.
The opening of the Conference, by conference organiser Dr Sarah Pulé, was followed by a the speech of the Minister for Education and Employment, the Hon. Evarist Bartolo. He emphasised the importance of good education in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education for the future of all countries, including Malta. The Minister's speech was followed by that of UM Rector, Professor Alfred Vella and then by the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Dr Colin Calleja. They, too, stressed the need for technology education for all pupils, including those pupils who prefer hands-on learning.
More than 40 research studies were presented at the Conference. These presentations dealt with various aspects of technology education and a variety of questions were addressed: how pupils can get to know the true nature of technology, how curricula can be developed to reflect that true nature, how technology can become attractive to different genders, how creativity is stimulated through technology education.
The programme included a number of presentations on technology education in Malta. The international participants greatly appreciated the efforts made here to develop education in Technical Design & Technology. The exhibition of students' design, set up at the Conference, gave the participants the opportunity to go through some of the learning outcomes of students in the teacher education programme at UM. Educating teachers for technical design and technology is crucial for the well-functioning of the subject taught in schools.
During the closing session of the conference, Dr Marc de Vries, Chairperson of the Foundation responsible for the international series of PATT conferences, recommended that the University should cherish the small group providing Design & Technology teacher education and to strengthen its position; this is currently rather vulnerable due to the low staff numbers. The Conference was attended by researchers and teacher educators from the USA, Canada, Australia, South-Africa, India, Israel and a range of European countries (Finland, Sweden, Estonia, the UK, the Netherlands, to mention a few).
This event once more was indicative of technology education as a mature field of education and educational research; it has stepped out of the shadow of science education and become an educational domain in its own right, though still closely related to science and mathematics. Particularly, the design of new products and processes, that is so important for the prosperity of nations, needs to be taught by teachers who specialise in such fields and who know that this requires far more than just sound factual knowledge in science and mathematics.
The international PATT Conference, held at the University of Malta, was definitely an important event in bringing to the fore the development of Design and Technology education, both in Malta and around the globe.
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Home » News » Bell gives 505 JetRanger X update
Bell gives 505 JetRanger X update
Posted on July 21, 2014 by Guy R Maher
Draw it, build it, and test it. That’s the immediate process for the brand new Bell 505 JetRanger X.
It’s a similar story for the brand new manufacturing facility that’s being created to build the aircraft in Lafayette, La. The concurrent development is an ambitious, but necessary, undertaking given the short timeframe the company has given itself to achieve first flight (by end of this year), and certification (by end of 2015).
The 505 marks Bell’s return to the light single engine game, following the company’s decision to discontinue production on the 206B JetRanger in 2009.
Powered by the 504 shaft-horsepower Turbomeca Arrius 2R engine with dual channel full authority digital engine control (FADEC), the 505 promises a useful load of 1,500 pounds, a cruise speed of 125 knots, and a range of 360 to 420 nautical miles. It will also meet IATA Stage 4 noise targets.
“From the time of dropping the 206B until the 505 launch, we did a lot of learning about what the market wanted,” said Paul Watts, Bell 505 program director. “We took a step back. Our strong customer base wanted us back in the game, but with much more than just a III version of the 206B. The specially formed customer advisory council [CAC] desires included a flat floor, open cabin, and a glass panel.”
To that end, the 505 will sport a high visibility cockpit and a fully flat, 22-square-foot cabin floor with five forward-facing seats. (The 505 design also includes an 18 cubic foot baggage compartment.) The aircraft’s glass panel will be the Garmin G1000H integrated avionics suite, a fully-integrated flight deck that was first introduced by the manufacturer on the Bell 407GX.
Another retention from the Bell light legacy is the 206L-4 rotor system. Not only was integrating a proven rotor system a smart move for design costs, but in doing so the 505 also retains the renowned Bell two-bladed auto-rotational characteristics. However, some changes will be made from the 206L-4 including improved torsion-tension straps and a redesigned system for mounting the rotor and dampening vibrations.
The CAC also wanted the price point to be competitive with other entry level turbine helicopters. “The focus is on cost,” said Watts. “Our engineers are watching parts being built — watching the entire process. For example, how many men are needed for the tail boom — can we design it differently so as to take only one man instead of two?”
A recent tour of the 505 design facility at the Bell plant in Hurst, Texas, revealed a unique combination of old and new school. The design work was being done on computers, including a systems integration lab working on G1000H to Turbomeca engine communication software. But right next to that station was a good old fashioned wooden full-size initial cabin mock-up, to provide a first look and feel of the new open-floor cabin design. Subsequent mock-ups show the evolution of the design.
Initial assembly and flight testing will be done at Bell’s Mirabel, Que., facility. The project will take concurrent critical paths to certification, with the first type certificate coming from Transport Canada before the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Although a strange-sounding path for other U.S.-based design-build companies, it is a typical process for Bell. “We have familiarity with the process, we can draw on [206] L-4 experience in Mirabel, and there is no overload on the FAA in Fort Worth — who is heavily involved in the 525,” stated Watts.
But when it comes to actually building the production aircraft, this will be handled in Bell’s new plant in Lafayette, La., which is at the Lafayette Regional Airport. Paul Watts has accepted the position of general manager of the facility, but will also maintain his current position as Bell 505 program manager through the end of the year.
Bell will lease the 82,300-square-foot facility from the airport. Construction will begin on the 14.5-acre site this month, with aircraft assembly operations expected to start by 2016 following certification of the facility and the aircraft.
As for the aircraft itself, the first engine test has already been accomplished. Bell, Turbomeca, and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) are all working diligently to have the engine released in time for the first flight schedule.
“Our supply partners are on schedule,” said Watts. “Plus the design is already accounting for popular kits — like the hook for example. The keel beams will be prepped, as well as the skin panels. We plan to have the necessary STC’s [supplemental type certificates] for various kits ready shortly after certification, and our delivery schedules for specific aircraft will factor in STC time.”
As far as production rate, Bell wouldn’t share their detailed projection. However, Watts did say the manufacturer is working with its suppliers to support a schedule that exceeds the historical ramp-up demonstrated by Robinson Helicopters. Indeed, the latter’s highly popular R66 Turbine is clearly in the gun sight of the 505.
“Our ramp up will be more aggressive than when the 407 first entered service in 1996,” said Watts. The 505 production schedule better be aggressive. Because with over 200 heavily deposited letters of intent — most of them being from small operators and former 206 owners — the SLS 505 JetRanger X is the most widely anticipated helicopter to come from Bell in quite a long time.
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What Is a Pathologic Fracture?
More in Orthopedics
Fractures & Broken Bones
Sprains & Strains
Leg, Foot & Ankle
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Medication & Injections
By Jonathan Cluett, MD
paolomartinezphotography / Getty Images
A pathologic fracture occurs when a bone breaks in an area that was already weakened by another disease. When the bone is weakened by some underlying medical condition, the individual becomes more susceptible to fracture. Causes of weakened bone include osteoporosis, tumors, infection, and certain inherited bone disorders. And these are just a few causes; there are dozens of diseases and conditions that can lead to a pathologic fracture.
When a fracture of the bone occurs, there may have been an injury such as a fall that normally wouldn't cause a fracture, but in the weakened bone did lead to fracture. Or, when the bone is severely weakened, a fracture can occur with no obvious event taking place. Simply walking or getting up from a chair can lead to fracture when the bone is severely weakened.
Fractures of the bone come in many shapes and types. The reason a fracture is called pathologic is that the bone was weakened even before an injury occurred. Sometimes pathologic fractures are obvious, and other times it is not as clear that there was a problem preceding the injury.
How They Usually Occur
Typically, when a person breaks a bone, it's due to an aggressive act that involves a sudden impact. For instance, it's not uncommon for a bone to break during an intense contact sport like football or hockey, during a car accident, or when falling accidentally.
A pathologic fracture is different in that it usually occurs during a normal, routine activity. For example, it might happen while you're brushing your teeth, taking a shower, or going to the grocery store. A bone cyst might grow to a significant size and eat away a major portion of bone so that the bone can no longer support normal bodily function.
How to Know Whether You Have a Pathological Fracture
Since you often can't see what's going on underneath the skin when you experience an injury, it can be hard to know whether a bone break is what's causing you pain, and if so, which kind of bone break it is. So go see your doctor for an evaluation to find out.
Symptoms of any kind of fracture might include pain that's mild to severe, a limb that looks out of place, bruising, swelling, tenderness, numbness or tingling, and/or difficulty moving a limb. Your physician may recommend an X-ray to determine whether or not a bone is broken.
But how do you know whether the fracture is pathological or not? The bottom line: Any patient who experiences a fracture without an injury that would normally cause the bone the break should be suspected to have a pathologic fracture.
Figuring Out the Underlying Cause
Many tests can be performed to help determine the cause of a pathologic fracture. Some of these include:
Laboratory tests (including blood count analysis and calcium levels)
Imaging tests (including bone scans and MRIs)
Bone biopsy (a sample of the bone is obtained, either at the time of fracture repair or before—this test can be helpful especially when a tumor or infection is suspected as a cause)
To treat the fracture, itself, you may need to wear a cast or splint. Sometimes you might need surgery to put in plates, pins, or screws to keep the bone in place. You may need to rest for a certain period of time and try to avoid doing certain activities that involve that particular part of the body.
If the fracture is pathological in nature, your doctor will also want to treat the underlying cause of the bone break to help prevent it from happening again. Treatment of a pathologic fracture is highly dependent on the cause of the weakened bone. Some causes of a pathologic fracture may weaken the bone, but not alter the healing properties of the bone. On the other hand, some causes of a pathologic fracture may prevent normal healing of the bone. As a result, some pathologic fractures require the same treatment as a normal fracture, while others may require highly specialized care.
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Scolaro JA, Lackman RD. "Surgical management of metastatic long bone fractures: principles and techniques" J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2014 Feb;22(2):90-100.
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More in PCOS
Symptoms & Causes
Everything You Need to Know About the Endocrine System
By Nicole Galan, RN
CHRISTIAN DARKIN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images
The endocrine system consists of several glands located throughout the body. These glands secrete hormones -- chemical messengers that signal the body to perform essential functions, usually related to growth and metabolism.
There are two types of glands within the endocrine system.
Endocrine glands include the pancreas, thyroid, pituitary and adrenal glands. They secrete their hormones directly into the bloodstream, where they are carried to the site of action.
Exocrine glands secrete their hormones directly into ducts. Examples of exocrine glands include sebaceous, mammary, salivary and digestive glands.
How Do Hormones Work?
Many endocrine glands are sensitive to the concentration of either the hormone they produce or the substance that activates them. If the concentration of the hormone or substance is lower then normal, it will typically activate the gland. If the concentration is high, it will stop production of the hormone. This is what is referred to as a negative feedback system. Endocrine glands can also be activated directly by nervous stimulation.
When receptors on the cell membranes of an endocrine gland are activated by a particular hormone, a cascade of chemical events is triggered within the cell. Receptors and hormones are very specific. Only one type of hormone will fit in a given receptor. If the incorrect hormone tries to fit into a receptor, no reaction will occur.
Endocrine Glands and the Hormones They Produce
Pituitary Gland – This is often called the “master gland” because of its large number of functions related to metabolism and maintenance of homeostasis. There are two lobes of the pituitary: the anterior and posterior.
The anterior lobe produces many hormones including:
Follicle stimulating hormone
Thyroid stimulating hormone
Adrenocorticotropin hormone
The posterior lobe secretes:
Anti-diuretic hormone
Hypothalamus – The hypothalamus is a small portion of the brain that is in very close proximity to the pituitary gland. It controls the pituitary hormones by releasing hormones that stimulate or inhibit their release. For example, the hypothalamus secretes gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which causes the production of gonadotropins (follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone) by the pituitary. It also produces corticotrophin releasing hormone, thyrotropin releasing hormone, and growth hormone-releasing hormone.
Thymus – A gland used primarily in childhood, the thymus secretes hormones that help the immune system develop. Around the time of puberty, its tissue becomes replaced with fat and is no longer necessary for normal immune function.
Pineal Gland – This is a small gland located within the brain that secretes melatonin. Melatonin has been found to regulate the wake-sleep cycle.
Thyroid – The thyroid is a gland found on the windpipe in the front of the throat. It produces thyroxin (T4) and tri-iodothyronine (T3), known to regulate metabolism. It also secretes calcitonin, which helps regulate calcium levels.
Parathyroid – Four tiny glands located on the thyroid make up the parathyroid. They produce parathyroid hormone. Its secretion controls levels of calcium and phosphorus in the body.
Adrenal Glands – There are two adrenal glands, one located on top of each kidney. Each of the glands is divided into two regions, the cortex and medulla, which have very different functions.
The hormones produced by the cortex are vital for life and include the glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids and some of the sex hormones, like androgens and small amounts of estrogen.
The adrenal medulla secretes hormones that are not essential to life and include both epinephrine and norepinephrine.
Pancreas – The pancreas is a large gland in the abdomen that secretes insulin and glucagon. These two hormones are essential in the regulation and maintenance of normal blood sugar levels. Glucagon stimulates the liver to release more glucose into the body, while insulin causes the body cells to take more glucose.
Ovaries – Found only in women, these two small glands produce estrogen, progesterone, and inhibin. Estrogen and progesterone are the primary sex hormones responsible for many of the female secondary sex characteristics. Inhibin is a hormone that controls levels of follicle stimulating hormone, which regulates egg development.
Testes – A pair of glands found only in men, the testicles secrete testosterone, the primary hormone responsible for the male secondary sex characteristics.
What Happens With Endocrine Disorders?
Any time one of these hormones is out of balance, many other systems, glands, and hormones can be affected. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome, for example, may show alterations in follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, androgens (testosterone) and insulin, which can, in turn, affect her estrogen levels. Alterations of any of these hormones can cause changes in weight, metabolism and energy levels.
SEER Training Modules, The Endocrine System. U. S. National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute.
The Endocrine System: Diseases, Types of Hormones & More. The Hormone Foundation.
The Function and Role of the Ovaries
Causes of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
What Lab Tests Do I Need When My Doctor Suspects PCOS?
PCOS and Hypothyroidism: Is There a Link?
Why Women With PCOS Have Estrogen Dominance
How Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) Helps Fertility Treatments
How Hyperprolactinemia Affects Both Women and Men
How to Know If You Are Ovulating With PCOS
What's the Link Between Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH) and PCOS?
Why Doctors Need to Rule out Other Causes Before Diagnosing PCOS
Learn How Doctors Diagnose PCOS
Cushing's Syndrome and How to Treat It
An Overview of PCOS & Infertility
Symptoms and Screening of Insulin Resistance With PCOS
Talking to Your Partner About PCOS
What to Know About Using Ovulation Kits If You Have PCOS
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B U S I N E S S
New Delhi seeks Chinese investment in infra sector
New Delhi, October 8
Even as it opposes the Chinese involvement in infrastructure projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), New Delhi is said to be keen to obtain Chinese investments in the fast-growing infrastructure sector in India.
Aviation Notes
Hospitality gets a boost at IGIA
Worldwide, an international airport is considered as a mini township, wholly equipped to cater to the needs of passengers in adverse eventualities.
Railways’ earnings up 10.4 pc in Apr-Sept
Indian Railways’ earnings have jumped 10.40 per cent during April-September this year to reach Rs 48,947.17 crore as compared to Rs 44,337.86 crore during the same period last year.
Draft ICT policy aims at raising revenues to $300 bn
RBI eases norms on small money transfers
SBI downgrade may affect India’s banking system: Ficci
Pressure on cos’ profitability, credit ratings set to rise
22 cos cancel IPOs this fiscal
Stock market losses make savings account returns look attractive
Hyundai, Tata look up; Honda, Maruti slip
Deficit surges nearly two-fold in Apr-Aug
TRAI warns customers of fraudulent SMSes
Sugar industry wants to export; govt apprehensive of price spurt
Investor Guidance
No tax on gift from grandparents
Ashok Tuteja
“We would like China to play a role in infrastructure development in India,” informed sources said, emphasising that the Indian infrastructure sector would require at least $1 trillion worth of investment in 2012-2017.
The sources said China’s top honchos have shown interest in undertaking infrastructure projects in India. India needs huge foreign investments in critical infrastructure sectors like rail, road, port and communication.
The two countries have also held preliminary discussions on cooperation in railway construction, which is one of India’s most urgent infrastructure needs. Another area in which India needs foreign assistance is its massive National Highways Development Programme under which it proposes to construct 7,000 km of national highways every year over the next few years.
The proposal for Chinese investments in the Indian infrastructure sector is also understood to have figured during the first India-China strategic economic dialogue held in Beijing on September 26-27.
In 2010, China emerged as India’s biggest trading partner with a trade volume of $61.7 billion, which is nearly 20 times of what it was almost 10 years ago. In the first eight months of 2011, the volume of trade between the two countries grew by 17 per cent. The two countries hope to achieve the two-way trade target of $100 billion much before the 2015 deadline.
New Delhi, is, however, concerned that the trade balance is heavily tilted in favour of China. It has impressed upon Beijing the need to address the issue of trade imbalance on a priority basis.
“The Chinese do appreciate our concern in the matter…we have asked them to provide greater market access to India is sectors like pharmaceuticals and IT-enabled services to correct the situation. The Chinese seem to be looking positively at our proposal,” the sources said.
Nur Bekri, Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, will visit India from November 3-6, accompanied by a high-level business delegation, to explore the possibility of further enhancing trade and economic ties between the two countries.
India-China economic dialogue
Indian infrastructure sector requires investment worth at least $1 trillion in 2012-2017
India needs foreign assistance in its massive National Highways Development Programme under which it proposes to construct 7,000 km of national highways every year over the next few years
In 2010, China emerged as India’s biggest trading partner with a trade volume of $61.7 billion
The two countries hope to achieve the two-way trade target of $100 billion much before the 2015 deadline
by KR Wadhwaney
True to this concept, the GMR’s Delhi International Airport Limited has raised an excellent facility in the form of Eaton Smart Transit Hotel inside Terminal-III of the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) to help passengers in transit to recreate themselves.
Claimed to be first in the sub-continent and one of the few in the East, the 93-room hotel has been split into two sections - international wing with 57 rooms and domestic with 36 rooms.
“The rooms are cosy and facilities enormous,” said a leader of the group from the US, adding: “Aqua Pods”, a unique wash and change facility, and also freshen-up are mighty satisfying”. Also, both sections of the hotel have gymnasium, spa and free availability of Internet.
Many regular flyers are said to have suggested that the authorities should raise a putting hole for golf-addicts. They said: “The area for the hole is available and it will be an ideal avenue to keep guests in transit suitably occupied”
Decades ago, when the terminal-II came up at the IGIA, Air India’s subsidiary, Centaur, was the hub of passengers, particularly those preferring national carrier.
by A.N. Shanbhag
Q: I am an avid reader of your columns for quite some time and have found them really very practical and useful.
My son is 17 years old and will be major on 12th February 2012. He already has a PPF account for the past 15 years and is due to mature on 01.04.2012. The amount in the account is around Rs 5 lakh. He has some mutual fund investments of about Rs 1 lakh - basically children gift funds gifted by his grandparents and granduncles all of whom are senior citizens. My questions are:
1. Will he be a major in this financial year or the next one?
2. Should the amount in the PPF account be transferred for investment in equity market say in a mutual fund?
3. Can he still continue to receive gifts from his grandparents and parents towards building a corpus fund?
4. He has joined an engineering course where the total expenses can easily be borne by me. I avail of the Sec 80C benefit for his college fees. Should he still take an education loan to get additional benefit in income tax deductions?
— Vinit C. D.
A: Sec. 80D as well as Sec. 80DDB defines a senior citizen as an individual who is 65 years of age or more at any time during the previous year. The recent Finance Act 2011, has reduced this age from 65 years to 60 years only for computing the tax payable. It has not lowered the ages in the case of the above-mentioned sections. Similarly, for the purpose of Professional Tax, the age has not been reduced. Hope that the authors of the legislation will carry out the correction when the Bill gets passed by Parliament.
Unfortunately, there is no such section(s) that specifies that a minor will be considered a major for the entire financial year if he/she were to be 18 years of age anytime during the financial year. We are sure that this is an act of omission and the authorities would correct it in due course. In the mean time, you will do well by assuming that he becomes a major on 13th February 2012. The income earned by him after he attains majority will not be clubbed in your hands.
The gifts received from grandparents are not taxable in his hands.
Please note that the total contribution to your own PPF account and the PPF account of your minor son should not exceed Rs 70,000 irrespective of who contributes to the PPF account of your minor son.
The PPF account should be extended for 5 years from 1.4.2012 and extended after the maturity of the extended period and so on. The decision to transfer some of the PPF amount to MFs depends on your appetite for risk.
The decision to take education loan should not be based on tax deduction per se but instead on the necessity to do so. In other words, if the family has the funds to finance the education, then there is no need to take the loan. If not, then a loan would be required - the tax benefit thereon is just the byproduct.
The author may be contacted at wonderlandconsultants@yahoo.com
There has been a similar over 10 per cent jump in the earnings from transporting freight. The total goods earnings have gone up from Rs 29,448.55 crore during April-September 2010 to Rs 32,439.00 crore during the same period this year, seeing an increase of 10.15 per cent.
The total passenger earnings during first six months of the current financial year were Rs 14,017.69 crore as compared to Rs 12,688.79 crore during the same period last year, registering an increase of 10.47%.
The revenue earnings from other coaching amounted to Rs 1,377.76 crore during April-September 2011 as against Rs 1,234.56 crore during the same period last year, an increase of 11.60 per cent, the railways said.
The total number of passengers booked during April-September 2011 was 4,120.75 million compared to 3,906.95 million during the same period last year, showing an increase of 5.47 per cent.
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Ronald S. Lauder
Internationally-prominent businessman, philanthropist, community and civic leader, Ronald S. Lauder maintains a deep commitment to his Judaic heritage within a mosaic of charitable and professional endeavors that reach around the world.
Mr. Lauder was appointed United States Ambassador to Austria by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He brought to this position an extensive knowledge of European history; fluency in European languages; and solid experience gained from his Pentagon position in the early 80’s as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy.
He is the President of the World Jewish Congress, former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and President of the Jewish National Fund. He is a trustee and/or member of the board of: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Anti-Defamation League Foundation, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Brandeis University, and the Abraham Fund. He is a member of the International Society for Yad Vashem and the International Board of Governors of the Tel Aviv Museum. As Chairman of the Jewish Heritage Program of the World Monuments Fund, he is involved in stimulating the restoration of landmark synagogues across the globe.
To build better understanding between individuals living in different cultures, Mr. Lauder has created a non-sectarian International Student Exchange Program linking New York City high school students with their counterparts in Vienna, Budapest, Warsaw, Prague, St. Petersburg, Berlin and Sofia. Now in its 12th year of operation, the program is an integral part of The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation.
The son of Estee Lauder and the late Joseph Lauder, founders of Estee Lauder, Inc., Mr. Lauder was born on February 26, 1944. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and holds a Bachelors degree in International Business from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He studied at the University of Paris, and received a Certificate in International Business from the University of Brussels.
Mr. Lauder married the former Jo Carole Knopf in July of 1967. They have two children, Aerin and Jane. The family resides in New York City.
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Andrew R. Barnosky DO, MPH
Emergency Medicine, Hospitalist, Hospice & Palliative Medicine (Emergency Medicine)
IM Hospital Medicine
Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, 1978
Dr. Andrew Barnosky is an attending physician in the Emergency Department at the University of Michigan. Within the Medical School, he is a professor in the Departments of Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine, the Division of Anatomical Sciences and the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine. He joined the faculty in 1998, having spent the early part of his career in the Henry Ford Health System.
Dr. Barnosky is a graduate of the A. T. Still University of Health Sciences – College of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) and the Harvard School of Public Health (M.P.H.). His postgraduate training was at Riverside Hospital in Trenton, Michigan. He has been a visiting professor of anatomy at the University of Oxford Medical School, and a visiting clinical scholar in hospice and palliative medicine at the Sir Michael Sobell House Hospice in the Oxford University Hospital system. Dr. Barnosky is board-certified in emergency medicine and hospice/palliative care by the American Board of Emergency Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine.
Dr. Barnosky is active in medical student and resident education. His teaching and scholarship are in the areas of clinical ethics, professionalism, humanism, spirituality in medicine and gross anatomy. In the Medical School’s learning community (M-Home) he is the House Director of the Dr. Jonas Salk House. He serves in a variety of Medical School administrative roles including the Chapter Advisor of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, the Co-lead of the White Coat Ceremony, the Co-director of the Healer’s Art Course, Director of the M3 Seminars in Medicine course, and a core faculty member in the Path of Excellence in Bioethics. In the Doctoring Course, he has been active in developing curriculum in medical ethics and social and behavioral issues in medicine. He is a volunteer physician at the University of Michigan Student Run Free Clinic, an ambulatory clinic which provides free health care to underserved individuals in Livingston and Washtenaw Counties. For sixteen years Dr. Barnosky served as the Director of the Clinical Ethics Consultation Service and the Chair of the Adult Ethics Committee for the University of Michigan Health System. He is currently the President of the Washtenaw County Medical Society.
Michigan Research Experts Website
Emergency and Trauma
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Sherri Shepherd says diabetes may have saved her life
Co-host of "The View" details her struggle with diabetes and how she lives with the disease.
Sherri Shepherd says diabetes may have saved her life Co-host of "The View" details her struggle with diabetes and how she lives with the disease. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: http://usat.ly/11vv5dG
Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY Published 6:00 a.m. ET April 29, 2013
Sherri Shepherd, of 'The View,' shares her struggle with diabetes in a new book.(Photo: Handout)
The star of 'The View' has a family history of type 2 diabetes
After Shepherd was diagnosed with the disease, she was in denial
Now she tries to eat right and exercise regularly
Comedian Sherri Shepherd, co-host of The View, says type 2 diabetes could have killed her, but instead it saved her life.
"If I didn't have diabetes, I would probably be at the International House of Pancakes eating a stack of pancakes with butter and syrup," says Shepherd, 46. "I would probably be 250 pounds. I would not be going to the doctor. I probably wouldn't be married to my husband, Lamar Sally. I wouldn't be healthy for my son, Jeffrey."
At 5-foot-1, she now weighs 157 pounds, down from 197 pounds several years ago. Once she was taking three medications for diabetes, but now that she's eating healthier, exercising regularly and keeping her blood sugar in the right range, the doctor has taken her off all medications for the disease.
Shepherd details her struggles with diabetes and the changes she made in her life in her new book, Plan D: How to Lose Weight and Beat Diabetes (Even If You Don't Have It), written with Billie Fitzpatrick.
STORY: Sugar availability linked to type 2 diabetes
STORY: Double up on diet and exercise
STORY: Family drops 113 pounds
Almost 26 million U.S. adults and children have diabetes, in which the body does not make enough of the hormone insulin, or doesn't use it properly. Insulin helps glucose (sugar) get into cells, where it is used for energy. If there's an insulin problem, sugar builds up in the blood, damaging nerves and blood vessels. There are two major forms: type 1 and type 2. In adults, type 2 diabetes accounts for 90% to 95% of all diagnosed cases.
Symptoms of type 2 diabetes include thirst, hunger, tiredness, blurry vision, tingling and numbness in the hands and feet, healing problems and frequent urination. The disease may lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, foot and leg amputations and blindness.
Shepherd has a family history of type 2 diabetes — both of her sisters have it and her mother died at age 41 from complications of the disease.
Shepherd says she was in denial after she was diagnosed with pre-diabetes. "That said to me I'm not diabetic so I can eat the way I want" including barbecue, mac and cheese, pasta, pancakes and waffles, she says.
But then in 2007, she was formally diagnosed. At the time, she says, she had no energy, had numbness in her feet, had blurred vision, was thirsty all the time and had to go to the bathroom frequently. Her blood sugar was way too high.
Sherri Shepherd wrote the book "Plan D: How to Lose Weight and Beat Diabetes, Even If You Don't Have It." (Photo: Handout)
She says her doctor was blunt. "She said, 'Sherri, you love wearing those shoes, don't you?' I said, 'Yes, I do'. She said, 'You won't be wearing them with your foot cut off, because if you keep eating the way you are eating, that's where you're headed.' "
But even after she was diagnosed with what she calls "the big D," Shepherd went out and had a stack of pancakes and enough "pesto pasta to feed a family of four people. I can down some food. I love food. Girl, it was complete denial. I figured if I didn't talk about it, it was going to go away."
The doctor put Shepherd on medication. "I was scared," she says.
Then she realized that she had to turn her life around or she might not live to raise her son. "I was going through a nasty divorce at the time, and I thought, I'll be damned if my husband's girlfriend is going to raise my son."
A friend, the Oscar-winning actress and comedian Mo'Nique, said to her, "We keep saying we would die for the people we love. Are you willing to live for the people you love?"
She says she remade her eating and exercise habits and changed her relationship with food. "I learned how to eat. I learned how to get rid of the white foods — the pasta, pancakes, cereal, anything loaded with sugar."
She began to enjoy grilled fish and chicken, instead of fried. She started reading food labels. She started eating more vegetables — those "green, yellow and red lovelies" that make your body happy.
"I never liked vegetables before. Now I'm a kale freak because one day we got kale and my husband sauteed it with green peppers, olive oil and garlic." Her husband does most of the cooking, she says: "He's my personal chef, but I gotta sleep with him."
Sherri Shepherd, pictured in 2007, lost weight after lifestyle changes. (Photo: Family photo)
Shepherd exercises regularly, going to a boot-camp workout classes (intense cardio and weight training) three days a week and then to the gym a couple of times a week, often working out on the elliptical.
"I do have a trainer who teaches me stuff that I can do on my own at home. And when I have the time, I will go work out with her to have someone hold me accountable, but for the most part I do it on my own."
She also works exercise into her everyday life. "I have learned to turn my house into a gym. I do lunges when going to the laundry with my basket. When cooking, I do push-ups against the kitchen counter. I do toilet squats. My behind has not touched a toilet seat in years. I am an Olympic squatter."
She says she runs races with her son and even climbs the monkey bars with him. She loves dancing and does the salsa at home with her husband or son.
"I feel really healthy," she says. "I have so much energy. I want to live and I'm going to beat this thing. I feel so blessed."
MORE: CDC diabetes fact sheet
Risk factors for diabetes:
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with the following risk factors are more likely to develop prediabetes and type 2 diabetes:
• 45 years of age or older.
• Overweight.
• Have a parent with diabetes.
• Have a sister or brother with diabetes.
• Family background is African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian, Asian American or Pacific Islander.
• Developed diabetes while pregnant (gestational diabetes), or gave birth to a baby weighing 9 pounds or more.
• Physically active less than three times a week.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/11vv5dG
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Student Ambassador
JOHNSTON BASEBALL AIMING FOR ANOTHER STATE TITLE
Johnston's baseball team is one the best in the state with a #1 ranking in Class 4A with a 19-3 record and playing in one of the toughest conferences in the state, the CIML. After missing the repeat of the 2017 championship team, they're focusing on getting back to the top this season. They attribute their success this season to the work they put in the offseason and the daily decisions they make as a team to improve.
As far as conference play goes, Johnston knows that every game is a battle and every team has 1 or 2 players that can dominate the mound in any given game. The focus is is not taking the day off on any given game and to keep focused on the end goal.
This team doesn't need any extra motivation according to Johnston's coach, Michael Barta. "They have a clear goal and understand what it takes to get it done".
Johnston currently ranks 2nd in the state in home runs with 22, 6th with 230 hits and 4 in RBIs with 206. The strength of this team is veteran leadership - particularly Peyton Williams and Andrew Nord. Both of these guys have experience at the highest level with 3 state tourney appearances and 1 state championship. Another competitive advantage Johnston possesses is a strong competitive mindset and desire to compete on a daily basis.
Coach Barta sets the mindset for the team to "outwork everyone on our schedule, bring energy to the ballpark, and represent our school and town in a way previous players would be proud of".
Be sure to check out Johnston's team page to learn more - Johnston Baseball Team Page
© 2018 The Roster Monster. All rights reserved.
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Analytical Boundaries as Ethical Boundaries?
rivke jaffe
tsr annual lecture
By Mario Trifuoggi
Qualitative researchers are often confronted by rather elusive ethical issues, for they usually study human subjects in natural settings where limited control can be exerted over the research process. Moreover, they are more likely to expose vulnerable or deviant groups and people who are potential targets for public contempt. Thereby, when it comes to urban studies, the politics of representation stand out as a particularly sensitive problem to the reflexive researcher who is ethically committed not to exploit or reproduce territorial stigma and other forms of place-based stereotypes that might harm his or her informants. As an urban ethnographer researching informality in central Naples, I face these dilemmas on a daily basis. I was thus delighted to discuss the subject matter with other eighteen young scholars participating in a one-day seminar organised by The Sociological Review Foundation. This Early Career Researchers event preceded The Sociological Review Annual Lecture 2017, which was hosted at the Manchester Museum on April 28.
The seminar started with a morning session convened by Michaela Benson, Editor of The Sociological Review, and Tom Dark, Senior Commissioning Editor of Manchester University Press, who advised the participants about the strategies and practicalities of academic publishing. They provided some useful insights into the process that leads from PhD chapters and theses to articles and books. For ethnographers, coping with different publishing formats primarily involves breaching the gap between the holistic approach of the fieldwork and the analytical scope of specific editorial products. Books, of course, are best suited to accommodate deep community studies, and yet raise a few ethical concerns peculiar to representation of the object of study, for the allure of certain topics can easily lead to exploitative sensationalism, especially when writing for a wider audience. This relates to the second part of the seminar, which was centred on the politics of representation in sensitive research contexts.
The afternoon session was convened by Rivke Jaffe, Professor of Cities, Politics and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. As an urban scholar with an interest in organised crime and informality, she has produced outstanding research on the insurgence and legitimation of the ‘don’ system in Kingston, Jamaica, whereby territorial control is often apanage of criminal leaders called ‘dons’. The testimony of her struggle to decentre the narrative of ‘donmanship’ from the exoticness of street violence, focussing instead on institutional functions such as the provision of social welfare and public order, served as a valuable touchstone for the seminar participants to assess their positions of researchers in relation to the process of knowledge production. For my part, having conceptualised the role of Naples’ criminal leaders in very similar terms, I share the same concern for representing subjects of this kind as governance actors entangled in the (informal) political economy of the city, rather than having recourse to culturalist frameworks of honour and shame often employed to account for the mafia phenomenon in southern Italy. By doing so, I basically subsume the issue of the politics of representation into the issue of choosing the most appropriate analytical framework, for the latter is (also) a rhetorical device crucial to the social construction of the object of study.
However, taking analytical boundaries as ethical boundaries might not be sufficient to tackle the politics of representation altogether, especially in cross-disciplinary fields like urban studies that bring multiple levels of analysis into play at once. What about, for instance, controversial events accountable for the social reproduction of the actors who concretely uphold Kingston’s and Naples’ informal systems of urban governance? Should street violence – or any other allegedly exotic form of social and cultural expression – be overlooked, if analytically relevant to the scope of one’s research? Drawing on practice theory, I personally contend that the illustration of certain behaviours, particularly those enacted by young people, is critical to understanding the reproduction of informality in central Naples (or elsewhere). Nonetheless, I am aware that graphic descriptions are difficult to handle analytically, and might involuntary reinforce the stigma suffered by the informants. These ethical tensions have been also acknowledged by Rivke in the course of her research on the ‘don’ system, and partly informed the lecture that she gave in front of a broader audience at the end of the seminar.
Rivke’s Annual Lecture on Cities and the Political Imagination explored the imaginative potential of cultural studies in relation to everyday urban politics. Setting out from her current research on the coproduction of the ‘don’ system and popular culture of illegality, she argued in favour of working at the boundaries between different disciplines, reclaiming the value of cultural analysis for social scientists. Interestingly, a similar case had been made just in Manchester two weeks before by Ben Carrington during his opening speech for the BSA Annual Conference. While appreciating this seemingly more and more popular stance about interdisciplinary, I also regard it (given all of the above) as more problematic vis-à-vis the ethics of qualitative research. Hence, my modest piece of advice would be to keep taking disciplinary boundaries very seriously before cutting across them, for the quest for analytical rigour in cross-disciplinary research, which is directly implicated in that one for high (and reflexive) ethical standards in social sciences, requires a solid conceptualisation of one’s object of study before anything else.
Mario Trifuoggi is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. He earned an MSc in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK; he had started his Doctoral Training at the University of Trento, Italy, before moving to his current position. His PhD project consists in an urban ethnography focussed on the informal organisation of public space in the historic centre of Naples. Besides urban sociology, his area of interest includes social theory and the philosophy of social science. Mario can be contacted at: mtrif001@gold.ac.uk
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Compare the Speeches
Hear The Readings
The Sojourner Truth Project
Compare the Speeches Hear The Readings
Why is there more than one version of Sojourner Truth’s famous 1851, “Ain’t I a Woman” speech?
Most people are familiar with the 1863 popular version of Sojourner Truth's famous, “Ain’t I a woman” speech but they have no idea that this popular version, while based off of Sojourner’s original 1851 speech, is not Sojourner's speech and is vastly different from Sojourner’s original 1851 speech. I must acknowledge Nell Irvin Painter, a professor at Princeton University, specializing in American historian notable for her works on southern history of the nineteenth century. Professor Painter was the scholar who first rang the bell on this historical mistake.
This popular but inaccurate version was written and published in 1863, (12 years after Sojourner gave the "Ain't I a woman" speech), by a white abolitionist named Frances Dana Barker Gage. Curiously, Gage not only changed all of Sojourner’s words but chose to represent Sojourner speaking in a stereotypical 'southern black slave accent', rather than in Sojourner’s distinct upper New York State low-Dutch accent. Frances Gage’s actions were well intended and served the suffrage and women's rights movement at the time; however, by today’s standards of ethical journalism, her actions were a gross misrepresentation of Sojourner Truth’s words and identity. By changing Truth's words and her dialect to that of a stereotypical southern slave, Frances Gage effectively erased Sojourner’s Dutch heritage and her authentic voice. As well as unintentionally adding to the oversimplification of the American slave culture and furthering the eradication of our nations Northern slave history. Frances Gage admitted that her amended version had “given but a faint sketch” of Sojourner's original speech but she felt justified and believed her version stronger and more palatable to the American public then Sojourner's original version.
The most authentic version of Sojourner Truth's, "Ain't I a woman," speech was first published in 1851 by Truth's good friend Rev. Marius Robinson in the Anti-Slavery Bugle and was titled, “On Woman’s Rights”. This website is dedicated to re-introducing this original transcription of the speech and Sojourner's authentic voice.
Sojourner's Speech, Transcribed by Marius Robinson; Anti-slavery bugle. volume (New-Lisbon, Ohio), 21 June 1851. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. Click here to Zoom in >
Why it's important to hear both speeches?
The question of why there is more than one version of Sojourner’s speech is a fascinating story. It is also one that underlies our nation’s multiple perspectives; connecting the issues of gender and race addressed in the speech to contemporary social issues and the politics of language.
For many reasons Gage’s “faint sketch of the truth” version of the speech persists as Truth’s “truth” while the more authentic version, by Marius Robinson, is largely unknown. I believe Marius Robinson’s transcription of Sojourner Truth’s speech should be heard along side of Frances Gage’s version. If you are going to teach one version you must also present the other. They both have a place in American history.
The purpose of this website is:
(1) to provide a platform for the original 1851 Marius Robinson transcription of Sojourner Truth’s “On Woman’s Rights” speech".
(2) to rectify this historical injustice and to dispel the many misconceptions due to Francis Gage's inaccurate portrayal of Sojourner.
(3) to offer a more truthful picture of Sojourner's words, her accent, her heritage and her distinct voice.
How can we honor Sojourner Truth's heritage?
In an 1851 issue of the Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, an article states that Truth prided herself on “fairly correct English, which is in all senses a foreign tongue to her. . .. People who report her often exaggerate her expressions, putting in to her mouth the most marked southern dialect, which Sojourner feels is rather taking an unfair advantage of her”. (qtd. in Fitch and Mandziuk 1997: 129)
In 1851the technology to record sound had not yet been invented and speeches were transcribed by reporters who did their best to record accurately. Thus, we will never know exactly what Sojourner said on that day in 1851 or exactly what her dialect sounded like, but the videos on this site help us move in the direction of truth. Truth, unable to read or write, could not offer her own rhetoric in the written form. Her words (as we read them today) are not her words, but a representation of her words by people who transcribed them.
It is important to note Sojourner’s specific Dutch dialect is officially lost and is not rediscovered. Because of this, I have chosen to represent the speech in many different contemporary Afro-Dutch dialects. These women and their readings do not claim to embody Sojourner in any way, in fact, none of them may be correct, but all of them are a nod to Sojourner’s authentic voice and her heritage. The intent of these videos is to counter the hundreds of popular but inaccurate Gage versions of Sojourner's speech on the internet that portray Sojourner with a southern slave dialect. Gage's version effectively erases Sojourner's identity and heritage, adding to the oversimplification of American slave culture and furthers the eradication of our nations Northern slave history.
Sojourners signature
Why we should care?
I hope these speeches will become a reference point for people researching Sojourner Truth; and, that they will offer a more historically correct and dignified perspective that will pay long overdue respect to the author of these profound words.
How can we honor Sojourner Truth's legacy?
Sojourner’s story is the ultimate American story and deserves a more in-depth exploration then this site offers. The more we examine her life with all its complexities, the more we understand our nation’s history. Sojourner Truth exists today in many forms; as a person, as a symbol and as a myth. The preference for the Gage version of Truth's speech speaks to our nations need for symbolism and mythology in our historical narrative. However, to only see Sojourner through this lense is an oversimplification of her identity and minimizes her real life struggles and hard won human accomplishments. It is important to see her as a real person who, despite starting life enslaved, rose-up and fought tirelessly with incredible conviction, faith and courage for human rights and personal freedoms.
Throughout her adult life, she worked against a society that thought of her as less than human. Sojourner’s struggle to establish her identity is reflected in the efforts by others to control her. And she is still struggling. Her struggle to define herself as a person, a woman, a woman of color, and a citizen did not end with her speech in Akron. At a time when we are fighting for the principles of liberty and justice around the world it is fitting that we honor the memory of one who fought her whole life for the realization of personal freedoms and human rights. Sojourner Truth's bold assertion of her own identity, “I am a woman’s rights,” serves as a timely reminder that the fight for equality has always been, and will continue to be, a constant challenge and an ongoing rhetorical and physical process within our democratic society.
"TRUTH IS POWERFUL AND IT PREVAILS"
~ Sojourner Truth
The Sojourner Truth Project is brought to you by Leslie Podell. The project was born out of a translation/transcription assignment for her “Documents as Objects” class at California College of the Arts.
Leslie is a student at The California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California and is matriculated in the furniture making and design program at CCA.
This is an open source project, please connect with us.
thesojournertruthproject@gmail.com
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https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/article/news-444234-12659223.php
news-444234
Published 12:00 am CDT, Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Eva Warner
Eva L. Warner, 85, formerly of Alton, passed away Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, at Bethalto Care Center.
She was born Aug. 31, 1928, in Litchfield, the daughter of Virgil and Carry (Evans) Hubbard. She grew up in Glen Carbon.
She married Donald L. Warner on Aug. 1, 1947, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Alton, and he preceded her in death Jan. 15, 2010.
Mrs. Warner was a very busy gal, who enjoyed a life totally devoted to her family. She had boundless devotion to her five grandchildren. She took pleasure in her many sewing projects throughout most of her life. She was a member of Faith Lutheran Church in Godfrey.
She is survived by two daughters, Clair Smiley and her husband Alex, of Roxana, and Carolyn Mahan, and her boyfriend, Randy Glover, of Wood River; two sons, Paul Warner and his partner, Tim Kisabeth, of Godfrey, and Keith Warner of Alton; and five grandchildren, Ann Norris Bell, Steven Rodgers, Timothy Rodgers, Nicholas Warner, and Donald Rodgers.
In addition to her husband, Donald, she is preceded in death by her parents; three sisters, Vida, Florence and Rosemary; and two brothers, Lawrence and Jacob.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013, at Faith Lutheran Church in Godfrey with Pastor Kelly Mitteis officiating.
A private family burial will be held at a later date.
Memorials may be given to the charity of one’s choice.
Elias, Kallal & Schaaf Funeral Home in Godfrey is in charge of arrangements.
Online condolences and guest book may be found at www.eliaskallalsndschaaf.com.
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Patrols to stop drivers racing 500 route
Marc Horne
July 5 2019, 12:01am, The Times
The North Coast 500 route has drawn tourists but raised road safety issuesGetty Images
Police are to send out “unprecedented” numbers of traffic officers this summer due to fears that speeding drivers are turning tourist routes into race tracks.
The North Coast 500 route, a 516-mile circuit through the Highlands, has proved hugely popular since it was opened in 2015. However, concerns have been raised about drivers breaking the speed limit to try to complete the route in less than 24 hours.
Inspector Neil Lumsden, a road policing officer, said that additional patrols had already been carried out, with more planned.
“The North Coast 500 has undoubtedly led to a welcome increase in visitors to the area and we want to ensure that people — both tourists and locals alike — can enjoy these roads safely,” he said.
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INSIDE THE CITY
March 10 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Peer inside the NHS records goldmine
Sabah Meddings
The NHS is an inefficient beast that, in England, guzzles £127bn of taxpayers’ money every year. It also holds the medical records of 65m patients — data that could be priceless to drug manufacturers.
One company hoping to put a price on the data — and reap rewards — is Sensyne Health, led by former science minister Paul Drayson, who is also co-founder of the vaccine maker PowderJect (and an amateur racing driver).
Sensyne floated on London’s junior AIM market last August at 175p a share, valuing it at £225m. As part of the listing, NHS trusts were handed shares. Lord Drayson — who owns £70.9m of shares with his wife Elspeth — has promised to sign three more deals with NHS trusts before the end of…
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Cricket | Jos Buttler interview
Jos Buttler: I spoke to a guy about my golf yips and it helped my batting
Manchester United Football Club
Buttler was at his devastating best when he scored 150 from 77 balls against West Indies last monthGARETH COPLEY/GETTY IMAGES
Here’s a prediction. Well, a dream anyway. England will win the ICC World Cup in July and after his match-winning innings in the final, as well as some decisive innings in the Ashes, Jos Buttler will win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2019, making him only the fifth cricketer after Jim Laker, David Steele, Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff to win the award. Actually, it is not so far-fetched. Buttler has been comfortably England’s best multi-format cricketer in the past 12 months and is certainly one of the most feared, and watchable, batsmen in the world. He is en route to the Indian Premier League this week. They adore him in India.
When Buttler first played for Somerset a decade ago he…
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Meatloaf Live Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Opening
Michael Lee Aday (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947), known professionally as Meat Loaf, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor.He is noted for his wide-ranging operatic voice and theatrical live shows. His Bat Out of Hell trilogy of albums—Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose—have sold more than 50.
Gerard Schwarz All Star Orchestra Russian Treasures Chicago Symphony Orchestra: Simone Young – Wagner & Brahms. Jun 11, 2019. Tue 7:. All Star Amy Winehouse Birthday Tribute · All Star. Gerard Schwarz · Gerardo. Russia's Greatest Hits · Russian. Treasures for Wind Quintet. a aa aaa aaaa aaacn aaah aaai aaas aab aabb aac aacc aace aachen aacom aacs aacsb aad aadvantage
More than 85% of Australians live within. held in Melbourne, means ‘up your bum’ in many Aboriginal languages. 61. No native Australian animals have hooves. 62. The performance by the Sydney.
Sapporo, Japan; Islamabad, Pakistan; Suez, Egypt; Surat Thani, Thailand; Iseyin, Nigeria; Ath-Thuqbah, Saudi Arabia; Boksburg, South Africa; Nacala, Mozambique
One of the works we played was Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique which is on the programme of the opening concert in this extraordinary Melbourne Proms week. All through the ‘90s, when I was Chief.
Chris Campion met him at home in California Inside the garage of Meat Loaf’s California home. with the release of a live album and concert DVD on which he is accompanied by the Melbourne Symphony.
Career (1993 – 2013) Patti Russo is featured as Meat Loaf’s duet partner on numerous albums, singles and videos. Patti has also been featured as Meat Loaf’s opening act, debuting her own original material.
How Can I Watch Fleetwood Macs Tribute Music Cares the results can shed new light on a piece of music you already adore. Since singer Lauren Mayberry has just added Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” to her repertoire, here we count down the 10 cover. You can watch fan-shot video. the Brooklyn Bowl and by paying tribute to the artists who’ve inspired them.
Tickets, priced €59.50, will go on sale on Friday 21 January from outlets nationwide. Meat Loaf released his new album, ‘Bat Out of Hell – Live with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’, last year.
Harry Hall II SHARON —Harry Hall II died peacefully in his sleep on May 7, 2019. He was 92 years old. Born in Mount Kisco, N.Y., to Elizabeth (Hubbard) and Perciful Arden Hall, he grew up in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Harry was raised on a farm with fond memories which he carried into his later years as a gentleman farmer in Sharon.
NATURA : AMORE: ARTE: ANIMALI: CITTÀ: NATALIZI: RICORRENZE: PAESAGGI: FIORI: VARIE: Per impostare come sfondo desktop: Cliccare sull’immagine con il tasto destro del mouse e seleziona "Imposta come sfondo"
When Georgie obliged and played him a Mozart concerto she was practising for the Sydney Eisteddfod, he sat alone in the church, legs open. Orchestra, which Georgie flew to Sydney for, but could not.
There will also be a live reading of Orwell’s book. s seminal 1975 album Horses. Photograph: Melbourne festival Fellow Melbourne musos Flight Facilities will square up with the Melbourne Symphony.
ONJ: I really love performing with an orchestra and am very excited to do so with the Kalamazoo Symphony. of this decade is the opening of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in my.
I believe that when "Do It Again," Röyksopp’s mini-album with Robyn, debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200 (June 14. John’s "Candle in the Wind," from his album "Live in Australia With the.
BARBARA FULTON Diane & others Originally from Nova Scotia, Barbara is beyond delighted to be part of the Canadian company of Come From Away. Most recently appearing in Life After at Canadian Stage. 22 seasons with the Stratford Festival, selected credits include, A Little Night Music, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Sound of Music, Romeo and Juliet, Fiddler on the Roof, The Taming of.
Comments and Observations The Spaceship Stage: One of the biggest stars of the show was the stage itself. Conceived by ELO’s manager, Don Arden, this was a gigantic metal hamburger-shaped spaceship that opened up at the beginning of the show with lasers, fog machines and taped music of an excerpt of Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 (as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Before the artist established his Meat Loaf musical persona, he joined the Los Angeles production of the musical, Hair.That exposure got him an invitation from Motown Records to record with one his cast-mates, Stoney Murphy. The resulting album, Stoney and Meatloaf (notice Meat Loaf was identified as Meatloaf) were released in 1971, and Meat Loaf found himself on tour promoting the album, and.
Switzerland: Berne
CLASSICAL The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra presents Beethoven. ART Head to the Yarra Ranges for the TarraWarra Museum of Art’s Open Weekend. There will be live painting by Melbourne artist Ash.
Melbourne. Symphony Orchestra managing director Trevor Green confirmed on Friday that the 2000 opening ceremony performance had been prerecorded by both the Sydney and Melbourne orchestras, saying.
Universal Brand Development and Film Concerts Live! have announced the world premiere of Jurassic World in Concert, featuring the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), led. in HD onto a massive screen.
biggest bang for the buck is going to be to take those orchestral movements and record them live. Above: This is a screenshot of the game’s soundtrack. What? Leave me alone. I was lucky to have a.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Il Barbiere Di Siviglia Last season at HGO, he performed Baron Douphol in Verdi’s La Traviata, Fiorello in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Officer Krupke. baritone soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the. Dr. John Silantien. San Antonio Mastersingers. San Antonio Symphony Mastersingers conductor Dr. John Silantien has taught and conducted choirs on the secondary and collegiate levels in
The film was recently screened in Berlin to the live. Symphony Orchestra. Setan Jawa celebrated its world premiere in February 2017 to great success on the opening night of the Asia Pacific.
There will be a range of events in Melbourne’s CBD on the official opening day of the New Year festival including. and win prizes in special themed competitions. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s.
Eight years after Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympics, officials with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra acknowledged their stirring performance at the opening. Melbourne orchestras, saying that.
King Center: King Center director looks back on 30 years of shows at Melbourne. Is Right Live! (Friday), Brevard Symphony Orchestra (Saturday), and Hotel California: A Salute to the Eagles (Sunday).
When Victor Borge arrives in Melbourne to open the Civic Music Association’s 38th concert. with the Foundation House of Brevard Community College and the Brevard Symphony Orchestra. "In talking to.
An accomplished didgeridoo player, Boori has played with the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra at the Melbourne Wurundjeri Welcome to Michael. you must feel happy about the place you live in. To feel.
Moody Blues Days Of Future Past 50th Anniversary Cd Latin Percussion®. We are Rhythm™. For over half a century, LP has crafted classic percussion instruments as well as patented hundreds of improvements and new designs for musical instruments that meet the exacting standards of professional musicians. Latin Percussion instruments have been featured in thousands of the world’s most famous, chart-topping recordings – from classic
Taylor Mac on stage. ‘There will be a line of sequins a. a cinematic trip through the history of the universe, accompanied live by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. And Bangsokol: A Requiem for.
NATURA : AMORE: ARTE: ANIMALI: CITTÀ: NATALIZI: RICORRENZE: PAESAGGI: FIORI: VARIE: Dipinto di Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí, Olio su Tela "Noia alla finestra.
has featured in films like Donnie Darko and was even performed at the opening of the 2006 Commonwealth Games by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The tour kicks off at Anita’s Theatre on November 23.
Author adminPosted on June 12, 2019 June 12, 2019 Categories Music Lovers
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Guest Post: A Libertarian’s View on Economics - The Ghost of Money
Today's guest post is shared with us by regular reader and commenter King's Bishop, a self-described libertarian with a disdain for Keynesian economics and a strong interest in financial and political issues. Whether you agree or disagree King's Bishop brings a fresh perspective and certainly one worth investigating. Please enjoy today's post and give your feedback in the comments.
The Ghost of Money
What is money? It’s not what you probably think it is.
As civilized societies around the world evolved, market forces moved people to specialize in what they did best and trade the fruits of their labor. The most skillful shoemaker in town would exchange shoes for tools with the most skillful blacksmith. The most skillful seamstress would produce clothing for the shoemaker and blacksmith in exchange for shoes and tools respectively. Specialization led to more efficient production, and more efficient production led to a more prosperous society. However, this direct exchange of goods and services was cumbersome. What happened when the blacksmith had all of the shoes he wanted when the shoemaker was in need of tools? The shoemaker might have had to involve a third party, who produced something the blacksmith wanted, and exchange shoes for the good produced by the third party, then exchange that good for tools. This was an inefficient process. As markets continued to evolve, exchange became more efficient with the utilization of money.
The earliest forms of money were certainly not rectangular pieces of paper. Merchants of the time would have thought it ridiculous to exchange consumer goods for paper that was good for little more than kindling. Commodities, like salt and cattle, were utilized. One reason is that these commodities had real, or intrinsic, value. Another reason was uniformity. For the most part, one pinch of salt was as good as another. Utilizing this type of commodity as money was more convenient than the direct exchange of goods and services, but the perishable nature of these commodities was an issue.
As the evolution of the free market continued, gold and silver were settled upon, by societies around the world, as the best forms of money. The properties of gold were ideal. To a lesser extent silver shared these properties. Gold was rare, but not scarce. Gold was pleasing to the eye, and a trained eye could distinguish gold from other metals. Gold did not rust; it seemed to last forever. Gold was relatively easy to purify, and one ounce of pure gold was as good as another. Once gold was settled upon as the best form of money, it remained that way.
“Paper is poverty. It is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Thousands of years after the first gold coin was struck, gold remained the dominant form of money. In 1964, people in the United States traded Federal Reserve notes, otherwise known as U.S. dollars. These notes were not money. Each one of these notes was a promise to pay money, in the form of gold, upon request. Dimes, quarters and half-dollars were made of 90% silver. These coins were not Federal Reserve notes. These coins were stand-alone money. In 1971, under President Richard Nixon, it was declared that the United States government would no longer make good on the promise to pay gold upon request for U.S dollars. The U.S. dollar would be a fiat currency. The word fiat is derived from Latin and means something to the effect of, “So it shall be.” In other words, the U.S. dollar would no longer have intrinsic value. It would have value only because the government had declared it to have value.
Why would a government want to take the intrinsic value from its currency? There is plenty of pseudoscience surrounding the topic, but the truth is that politicians want the power to levy hidden taxes and to monetize debt. To monetize debt is to increase the money supply, also known as inflation, so that debts are repaid with a devalued currency. The government makes good on its debts in nominal terms, but the currency creditors are repaid is worth less than the currency the government borrowed. Each increase in the money supply serves as a hidden tax, as it allows for an increase in the spending power of government due to a decrease in the purchasing power held by the people. The U.S. dollar serves as the reserve currency of the world. So, in the case of the U.S. dollar, fiat currency allows for the exportation of inflation, but that is a topic for another article. There is no honorable reason for utilizing fiat currency. Fiat currency is dishonest and unstable.
What is money? The basic definition of money is a medium of exchange. Gold had been established as the best medium of exchange throughout history. The value of gold is backed by thousands of years of tradition, history, culture and even religion. The Quran says that those who believe and work righteousness will be adorned with bracelets of gold. The Ark of the Covenant, considered sacred by both Jews and Christians, was overlaid with gold, both inside and out. Kings have adorned themselves with gold. Many have died in an effort to keep it or obtain it. It has been said that gold is just a shiny metal, and it holds no special value in modern society. Would you accompany a marriage proposal with a ring made of stainless steel? The libertarian view is that the best exchange is an honest exchange. The modern use of fiat currency is unfortunate, as it serves to corrupt the honesty of exchange through the constant manipulation of the money supply. Gold served as sound money for time immemorial, and when sound money died we were left only with the ghost of money.
Should the US go back to the gold standard?
Labels: constitutional rights, Economy, Guest Post, Libertarian, Money
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Home » 10 Bad Movies That Lost Millions Of Dollars
10 Bad Movies That Lost Millions Of Dollars
Lately, there has been no cutting corners on big Hollywood movies. Producers take a leap of faith each time they want to make a new blockbuster and don’t shy away from allotting $100+ million budgets. While the figures might seem staggering to us, they don’t scare directors one bit. But what happens when the movie fails to raise enough hype and subsequently enough money? Disaster is just around the corner. Not all big budget movies succeed in making up for their investments. True, some exceed it by far, but there are plenty who find themselves in the red when the cinema screening ends and the final counting begins. What do you think about the following 10 bad movies that lost millions of dollars? Were they underrated or did the (lack of an) audience did them justice?
5. The Lone Ranger: $94 -$119 million
This is the proof that a movie needs more than Johnny Depp in it to go big. Verbinski’s attempt at a blockbuster wasn’t well received by the critics who quickly dismissed “The Lone Ranger” as pretentious and very disappointing. Wondering how much money went into its making? The estimations were set around a whopping $375 million. In the end, the total losses amounted to $119 million. Yikes! If previous failed attempts at a Western world (“Wild Wild West’, “Cowboys and Aliens”, “Jonah Hex”) didn’t prepare Disney for the Lone Ranger’s “success”, now they know what topics to avoid.
4. The 13th Warrior: $101 million
For a 1999 movie, “The 13th Warrior” starring Antonio Banderas enjoyed a big budget: $160 million. The test audiences weren’t swept off their feet by it, which accurately captured the worldwide audience’s feelings towards Crichton’s movie. With only $61 million grossed in cinemas around the world, it embarrassed Omar Shariff so bad that he decided to retire shortly after. He didn’t hold back and said the script was awful and the director had no idea what he was doing.
3. Sahara: $119 million
With production costs reaching $160 million and starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, no one could predict Paramount would lose so much money. I’m guessing having twenty script writers and producers involved didn’t really help with the movie’s homogenous feel. Also, shooting in Morocco included location bribes which set the film’s budget back by $200,000. “Sahara” didn’t stand a chance from the beginning and was doomed to fail worldwide.
2. Mars Needs Moms: $130 million
This movie was so bad it holds the record for the worst box office Disney movie reception. Ever. In the history of everything! Some of the clues why it might have failed point at the plot. “Young mother is kidnaped from her kid” does not really translate into the ideal Sunday family movie And with “Battle: Los Angeles” screening “next door”, it’s understandable why “Mars Needs Moms” only made $6,825,000 on the opening weekend. Considering it opened in more than three thousand theatres world wide at once, the figures weren’t very satisfying.
1. Ronin: $149 million
Opening in 2013 and starring Keanu Reeves, “47 Ronin” grosses around $1.3 million. It first opened in Japan in 753 cinema theaters. Judging by how the Japanese people received a film with many Japanese actors and a well-known story, this should’ve been a red flag as to how Ronin would perform worldwide. Even though the Japanese weren’t hooked on the remake, claiming it didn’t resemble the famous historical epic, it still stood a chance in other countries. But it turned out to be a box office bomb, with poor sales revenues in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Leaving advertising and distribution costs aside, “47 Ronin”‘s budget was $175 million while the estimated losses were $149 million. Rinsch’s movie might’ve failed in the box office, but at least it holds the title for the number one box office bomb ever.
Image sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Filed Under: movies Tagged With: ronin, sahara, the lone ranger
About Anne Burwell
Daughter, sister, wife, mother and writer. I spend half of my free time writing and the other half reading contemporary literature. I like to start my day with half an hour of yoga and then I head over to my desk with a cup of green tea to start working on my sci fi novel. On weekends I like to head over to the country side for a breath of fresh air and to catch up with my mom.
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'Manchester by the Sea,' 'Moonlight,' 'Fences' Dominate SAG Nominations
«کیسی افلک» و «میشل ویلیامز» در فیلم «منچستر ساحلی» (c) Roadside Attractions / Amazon Studios
Manchester by the Sea led the Screen Actors Guild award nominations Wednesday, pitting the gritty drama against Moonlight, Fences, Hidden Figures and Captain Fantastic for best film cast ensemble, the group's top prize.
Manchester by the Sea, about a working-class family dealing with multiple tragedies, got four nominations, including for lead actor Casey Affleck and supporting stars Michelle Williams and Lucas Hedges.
Independent drama Moonlight, about an impoverished black boy grappling with his sexuality, and Fences, a tense drama about an African-American family in the 1950s, scored three nominations each.
The cast of Moonlight, winners of the Jury Award f
FILE - The cast of "Moonlight," winners of the Jury Award for Ensemble Performance, pose for a photo at the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards at Cipriani Wall Street in New York, Nov. 28, 2016.
Captain Fantastic, a comedy about an unorthodox family, and Hidden Figures, about three black female mathematicians helping the U.S. government in the 1960s space race, also received nods in the best ensemble category.
Musical romance La La Land, the current front-runner in Hollywood's awards season, was shut out of SAG's best ensemble category, which favors large casts, but it scored nominations for Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling and writer/director Damie
FILE - Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling and writer/director Damien Chazelle seen at the Los Angeles Premiere of "La La Land" afterparty at Village Theatre in Los Angeles, Dec. 6, 2016.
Other notable omissions Wednesday included comedy 20th Century Women, which stars Annette Bening as a free-spirited single mother in the 1970s, and Loving, the real-life story of a couple who changed interracial marriage laws in Virginia.
The SAG list followed Monday's Golden Globe nominations, where La La Land and Moonlight led the race, and precedes January's Oscar nods.
The top SAG winners often go on to win Academy Awards.
Spotlight, which took the best ensemble award earlier this year, was named best picture at the Oscars.
More than 100,000 actors vote on the annual SAG awards. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Jan. 29.
Affleck and Gosling will face Andrew Garfield for Hacksaw Ridge, Viggo Mortensen for Captain Fantastic and Fences star Denzel Washington for best actor.
Stone will vie for best actress alongside Amy Adams for Arrival, surprise nominee Emily Blunt for The Girl on the Train, front-runner Natalie Portman for Jackie and Meryl Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins.
In the television best drama race, HBO's hit medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones and sci-fi western Westworld will compete against the final season of British period drama Downton Abbey and new Netflix shows The Crown, a British royal period drama, and 1980s sci-fi mystery Stranger Things.
In the best comedy series, CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory faces ABC's Modern Family and black-ish, Netflix's Orange is the New Black and HBO's Veep.
Key Film Nominees for 2017 Golden Globe Awards
Nominations were announced on Monday for the 2017 Golden Globe awards for movies and television. The Golden Globes, organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, will be handed out at a gala dinner hosted by Jimmy Fallon in Beverly Hills on Jan. 8. Following is a list of key film nominations. BEST DRAMA "Hacksaw Ridge" "Hell or High…
'La La Land,' 'Moonlight' Among AFI's Best Films of 2016
Modern musical "La La Land," independent drama "Moonlight" and sci-fi movie "Arrival" were among the diverse genres selected as the year's best films by the American Film Institute (AFI) on Thursday. AFI's top 10 films and television shows of the year were announced ahead of next week's Golden Globe nominations and Screen Actors Guild nominations, and help shape the contenders in Hollywood's annual awards season. The…
'Moonlight,' 'La La Land' Separate From Award Season Pack
In Hollywood's early but rapidly solidifying awards season, two films - radically different in tone and tune - have separated themselves from the pack: "Moonlight'' and "La La Land.'' "Moonlight,'' Barry Jenkins' lyrical coming-of-age tale, added to its already hefty haul on Sunday, taking best picture from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The group also gave best director to Jenkins, best supporting actor to Mahershala Ali and best cinematography to James…
'La La Land' Leads Critics' Choice Field, Wins Over NY Film Critics
La La Land, a modern-day musical love story of two struggling artists in Los Angeles, cemented its Hollywood awards season front-runner status on Thursday by simultaneously leading the nominees for Critics' Choice Awards and being named best picture by New York film critics.La La Land scored 12 Critics Choice nominations, including best picture, best actress for Emma Stone, best actor for Ryan Gosling and best director and screenplay for Damien Chazelle.
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Zoe Friedman: A Place in Time
November 6, 2018 by Modella Art Gallery
(STILLWATER, Oklahoma / November 6, 2018) - Modella Art Gallery is pleased to present A Place in Time, an exhibition of recent and new work by Zoe Friedman, curated by Cassidy Petrazzi. Through the mediums of collage, hand-drawn stop-motion animation, prints, sound, and sculpture, Friedman directly engages the viewer’s holistic body through immersive installation. Friedman’s work explores the wild and domestic, the strange and familiar, uniting faraway places with the objects that surround us in our daily life. Through collage and ornamental design, Friedman’s lighthearted and intricate work evokes moments that center the mind on the beauty of nature and our connection to it. Animals and fauna are a prominent theme in her work, inhabiting imagined landscapes and kaleidoscopic environments.
A Place in Time showcases several recent works including a new two-channel video work titled, Idle Hour (2018). The piece is a collaged narrative of layered time and place made by combining photographs with paper cut-outs and hand-drawn imagery, enlivened through rhythmic sequence and repetition. At times the two channels create a single panorama, at other points they mirror one another or show different perspectives entirely. The shifting viewpoints, as well as the movement between cut-outs and realistic photographic imagery, blurs the boundaries between flat and three-dimensional space, and real or illusory landscapes.
Also exhibited is a suite of five works by the artist titled, Primavera I-V (2013). The works are large scale hand-cut panels based off the canonical work of the same name, painted by Sandro Botticelli in 1482. Botticelli’s work is broken down by Friedman into five sections, each corresponding to their own panel, which depict the allegory of spring. The panels, which can be hung in front of a window or along a wall, cast shadows of the garden and graceful dancing figures. Shadows and light are an integral part of Friedman’s work, as the light changes throughout the day, Primavera, along with a selection of hanging mobiles seen throughout the space, cast shadows and meander across the walls and floor—they are dynamic works that engage time, light, and space.
Zoe Friedman earned her MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at MICA in 2012. She is a recipient of the Henry Walters Traveling Fellowship (2012), and a Fulbright ETA Fellowship to Malaysia (2007). She has exhibited her work in solo shows across the country in Baltimore, Maryland, Washington DC, Oakland, California, Arlington Virginia, and Brooklyn, New York. In 2019 she will complete a large permanent installation in the Enoch Pratt Public Library in Baltimore, and she has an upcoming solo exhibition in Copenhagen Denmark. Friedman teaches art at Towson University in Maryland.
Please join us at the gallery with Friedman on Friday, November 30th at 5:00 pm for an artist talk and exhibition walkthrough along with an artist demonstration. Modella Art Gallery is a non-profit art space dedicated to bringing contemporary art to Stillwater, Oklahoma. Established in 2017, the gallery presents a continuing program of art exhibitions by local and national artists, music and performance events, film screenings, poetry readings, and other special events. The gallery is open Thursday – Sunday and by appointment. For questions about the exhibition, please contact Cassidy Petrazzi (914) 275-5445.
Author: Modella Art Gallery
Modella Gallery, a non-profit art gallery, is dedicated to bringing contemporary arts to Stillwater, Oklahoma. These works include, but are not limited to, the visual and preforming arts. The gallery presents a continuing program of art exhibitions by local and national artists. Music and performance events, screenings, and special projects are also featured.
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Bill Owens: Confounding And Confusing Events 5/6/19
By BIll Owens • May 6, 2019
Mexico became our top trading partner in February of 2019 with 15%, followed by Canada with 14.2% and China with 13.9%. It is not clear what these statistics evidence, but it is a trend which has been increasing over the last several years. The impact of the USMCA (new NAFTA) will be negligible in terms of US GDP and jobs as reported by the International Trade Commission. Mexico, nonetheless, continues to be a low-cost jurisdiction for manufacturing. Even with Mexico increasing its labor costs, or at least it’s minimum hourly wage in certain industries, it seems quite likely this trend will continue, and the entire purpose of renegotiating NAFTA in the USMCA will be largely defeated.
In Vermont, 28,000 jobs are related to Canada/Mexico trade, while in New York the number of jobs is 680,900. The measurement of these numbers is also a bit tricky. Let me give you an example. Goods coming into the United States pass through US Customs, typically are handled by a Custom’s House broker and freight forwarder, are delivered by a trucker or a train, may pass through a warehouse or go directly to the customer, or the imported goods will be “picked and packed” at the warehouse for shipment to a customer, the goods will then be placed on the shelves and sold. All of those jobs ( I estimate minimally 7) are trade related, but many of those jobs will be delivering, handling or selling simultaneously none-NAFTA/USMCA goods, so it is always good to look at how those statistics are derived. Not that I am saying you should be cynical.
There are approximately 7 million jobs that have gone unfilled throughout the United States. Mr. Trump is threatening to deliver illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities, which in large measure means California, both from the number of sanctuary cities and the logistics being somewhat easier. It may well be that those sanctuary cities will welcome those immigrants with open arms. Why? Because they have jobs for them, (some of those 7 million) and Mr. Trump runs a dangerous risk legally of sending people to those cities, presumably not to a detention center, and allowing them to live and work there. This entire process is frought with all kinds of potential unintended consequences. Will judges deport people who have been delivered to cities and are working in jobs that are necessary for the economy when the administration has put no constraints on what they do in those sanctuary cities; will Mr. Trump simply deliver these immigrants to sanctuary cities with limitations on where they can work and what they can do, if so, that in its self will engender litigation.
Mr. Trump in his speech before the NRA (which is suffering its own turmoil) indicated he was pulling the U.S. from the Arm’s Trade Treaty. This is another major departure from virtually every previous administration going back to Truman, where the US was working to control arms sales and the proliferation of arms in an effort to bring the world to a less hostile and combative place. I suspect the words “less combative” and “hostile” are actually the reverse description of Mr. Trump and his style and attitude.
On a more positive note, a young man by the name of Dakota Johnson who was suffering from a terminal illness in Johnson City, Tennessee, received his high school diploma at a special graduation ceremony at his hospital bed, granting him what became his final wish. This was largely driven by his family and a special teacher who worked hard to make this happen. Teachers do many good works, let’s remember that.
In another bizarre Trumpian moment. Mr. Trump ignored the Number 1 pick in the NFL draft, Tyler Murray, and instead congratulated the Number 2 pick, Nick Bossa, and ended his congratulatory tweet with “Make America Great Again”. I will let you draw your own conclusions about Mr. Trump’s actions, but it is important to note that Mr. Bossa has himself tweeted and posted on Instagram racist and homophobic slurs. He is an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump at least on social media, and while everyone is entitled to their own politics, the President should have a broader perspective, particularly when he is tweeting on my dime.
Vodafone of Italy recently disclosed that they found hidden backdoors in Huawei equipment. Apparently, the work done by Vodafone Group, PLC, discovered these vulnerabilities going back years with equipment supplied by Huawei. These backdoors are essentially embedded in the software to give Huawei unauthorized access to Vodafone’s fixed line network in Italy. This, of course, comes on top of the allegations which have been discussed for months regarding other illegal activity of Huawei. In my view, this simply indicates that no matter what Mr. Trump negotiates, the Chinese are not likely to walk away from their very successful business, espionage.
George Will in a recent commentary about deficits and spending in general noted “Under a Republican President and until four month ago, with Republican’s in control of both Houses of Congress, the nation is about to run trillion dollar budget deficits with the economy expanding, employment more than full: The unemployment rate is at 3.8%, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 7.1 million jobs “unfilled”. I have commented a number of times as to where the Republicans are on spending, deficits and debt. Obviously, Mr. Trump blew the abandon ship whistle.
Attorney General Barr’s testimony before the House will not go forward without a subpoena, but he did testify in the Senate on Wednesday, May 1, 2019. The introduction of Mr. Mueller’s letter to the Attorney General voicing concern about the Attorney General’s characterization of the Mueller report was something of a surprise and clearly casts the Attorney General in an even dimmer light. Mr. Mueller’s testimony could be the most revealing and troublesome of any thus far. Mr. Barr appears to languish below the bar and should be disbarred.
Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has advised President Trump that his failure to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum will severely limit or eliminate the chance of passage of the USMCA in the Senate. Recent announcements by the House would indicate that the agreement is in substantial trouble there, as well. I would reiterate that the International Trade Commission’s analysis of the USMCA is probably not helping, and it is quite likely that if the President fails to get the USMCA passed and attempts to terminate NAFTA, that Congress will intervene, potentially overriding a termination of NAFTA, which would be a serious defeat for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford Owens in Plattsburgh, NY and a Senior Advisor to Dentons to Washington, DC.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
Bill Owens: Confounding And Confusing Events 4/29/19
By Bill Owens • Apr 29, 2019
As a Trade Deal nears with China, tensions are rising on many other fronts. One of the big giveaways by the Administration is that the fact that the US will be bound to its commitments which China can enforce. I suspect that the ability of the Chinese to enforce their rights versus the ability of the US to enforce its will be substantially weighted in favor of the Chinese. Left and right objected to the enforcement provisions of NAFTA. So our policy is?
By Bill Owens • Apr 8, 2019
Interest rates are entering into what is known as inversion territory which means long term rates are lower than short rates. This event has been a precursor to prior recessions and many economists see this as one of the key indicators. This could very well begin to take shape in 2020 and have a dramatic impact on the Presidential Election.
Bill Owens: Confusing And Confounding Events 4/1/19
Mr. Trump announced that he was revoking sanctions that the Treasury Department was imposing on North Korea. This is really confusing because the Treasury Department had not announced them before Mr. Trump revoked them. It also appears that it was a surprise to the Treasury Department, including the Secretary as the revocation had not been discussed with them before it was announced.
Bill Owens: Confusing And Confounding Events 3/25/19
By Bill Owens • Mar 25, 2019
On the tariff question, the Wall Street Journal recently concluded, “Government can always help a politically connected few at the expense of the many. But on every other measure the steel tariffs have been a bust.” This concluded an analysis of the impact tariffs had on deficits, steel pricing in the US, and wages in the US steel industry.
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Liberty University students say they were required to attend Ted Cruz speech
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks at Liberty University, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Monday, March 23, 2015 in Lynchburg, Va., to announce his campaign for president. Cruz is the first major candidate in the 2016 race for president. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Republican Sen Ted Cruz appeared earlier this week at Liberty University in Virginia to announce that he was running for president in 2016, becoming the first major candidate in the Democratic or Republican parties to formally declare. Cruz delivered the news at Liberty — the largest Christian university in the world — before a gathering of students. What you might not know about that gathering was that the students were required to attend. This post explains what happened and why. It was written by Alexandra Markovich, a 19-year-old student at Princeton University who is a member of the University Press Club, a selective group of undergraduate students who freelance for regional and national publications. Markovich is an intended major in the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs with a focus in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
By Alexandra Markovich
Ted Cruz became the first Republican candidate to officially announce his 2016 presidential campaign in front of an audience of 11,000 college students on March 23, 2015. The catch: they had to be there. Cruz made his announcement on Monday morning at Liberty University, where Convocation is mandatory to students living on campus at risk of a $10 fine for failing to attend.
As sophomore Luke Wittel walked through the doors of the Vines Center, home to Liberty’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, he was offered an American Flag, the first thing that made Wittel realize this was going to be more political rally than spiritual gathering. The American flags blended patriotism and support for Ted Cruz, Wittel said, in a way that made him nervous.
All Wittel could do to show his disagreement was not to take the flag. Wittel said that when he asked his RA if he could be excused and not be forced into apparent political association, he was sternly reminded of school policy. Throughout the hour-long Convocation, Wittel said he was not allowed to leave.
Liberty University is an evangelical university in Lynchburg, Virginia founded by the late pastor Jerry Falwell in 1971. A recent Washington Post article called Liberty “the symbolic center of the GOP political-religious universe in recent years.” The social conservative youth ticket will be an important card to punch in the GOP campaign.
Seeing the American flags handed out left Wittel with bitter feelings of political exploitation. “Nothing makes you feel more like a pawn than being told to hold this and sit down,” he said. But, Wittel sees logic behind holding the announcement at Liberty.
“It was a smart move. Liberty is probably one of the only places you have the guaranteed attendance of such a substantial number of young people, and that seemed like the clear purpose,” Wittel said. The university calls Convocation — where students come and hear speakers on different topics — “North America’s largest weekly gathering of Christian students,” according to its website.
“By leaving out the mandatory element of the event, the media gave the illusion that [Cruz] had the support of all the students there,” Wittel said. Ultimately, he resorted to social media for protest, posting about his dissatisfaction on Facebook during the event.
In his Facebook post, Wittle wrote about the strange mix of religion and politics at the speech. “I don’t know if this is more or less offensive than the fact that the introduction to a POLITICAL candidate is being prefaced by worship through music,” Wittel wrote.
According to Wittel, Convocation had been optional at least once before, noting that it would not have been out of the ordinary to break the mandatory nature of Convocation and allow students to be dismissed if they chose. But Cruz’s speech remained mandatory throughout the hour.
Other Liberty students expressed their discontent on social media as well, including Facebook, Twitter, and Yik Yak, a mobile application that allows users to post anonymously by location and is popular on college campuses. Though Liberty students are used to mandatory Convocation, some squirmed at what felt like, to some, political exploitation and even a violation of rights.
“I felt very acutely that I was being used as political bait today” sophomore Emily Foreman said on Monday. “I think our freedom of speech was hampered today when we weren’t allowed to leave.”
Despite the particularly public nature of a presidential campaign announcement, some students did not perceive Cruz’s speech any differently than they would another Convocation speaker.
“I think students felt blindsided, but they know coming into Liberty that they’re going to have to attend Convocation,” said Grace Hargraves, another sophomore. “I don’t always agree with the speakers, but it doesn’t matter if you sat at a rally for someone you don’t agree with. What matters is who you vote for.”
In a statement released by the university, President Jerry Falwell Jr. took care to point out that “standing ovations are not required,” but Cruz received many of them at Convocation. What some students have a problem with, however, is that the crowd was not packed by choice. In the same statement, the university president defended Liberty’s mandatory Convocation, arguing that the university meeting exposes students to a diverse range of opinions.
“A fundamental part of the college experience is being exposed to a variety of viewpoints so students can better understand why they hold their own beliefs and be better prepared to defend them,” he said in the statement. He added that the presence of T-shirts supporting other potential candidates, referencing the “I Stand with Rand” t-shirts at the event, shows that the university does not indoctrinate its students.
Foreman said, however, that Convocation, a space generally reserved for spirituality, felt violated. “Any time you have worship and prayer, you’re going to have a spiritual atmosphere,” she said. In response to general concern on this topic, the university president said in statement that “Convocation is not a worship service,” but a forum for diverse opinions.
By having worship proceed both political speeches and sermons, politicians are given the same status as spiritual leaders, Wittel said. He said that Cruz’s announcement got students talking about the blend of worship and politics at Liberty, and he hopes that it could bring a change in Convocation policy.
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Since 2015, WHO, UNICEF, and other partners have been working together to improve WASH in health care facilities.
In 2018 the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres issued a Global Call to Action on WASH in all health care facilities. He states, “Water, sanitation and hygiene are fundamental to respecting the dignity and human rights of every person who seeks health care and of health workers themselves. I call on people everywhere to support action for WASH in all health care facilities. This is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Notable progress has been made to embed WASH standards in global health documents and to document and advocate for eight practical steps at the national and sub-national level.
Thousands of communities, and millions of health workers globally are taking steps to improve WASH services and practices.
Working with over 35 commited partners, WHO and UNICEF have established a global network to exchange latest evidence and tools, share learning and collaboratively provide technical support to countries and regions.
An advisory group provides strategic direction and reviews progress against the established indicators, and includes representatives from: government, implementing partners, donors, policy think-tanks and academic organizations.
This knowledge portal is for all involved to exchange the latest standards, tools, approaches, achievements and learnings. It is also for making and tracking commitments.
Hundreds of millions of people face an increased risk of infection by seeking care in health facilities that lack basic necessities, including water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) and health care waste services.
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3 ways to reboot globalization
Flying the flag: What can the U.N. learn from the world of start-ups?
Image: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse - RTSP5AU
Andrew Chakhoyan Founder and Managing Partner, Strategic Narrative Consulting
Last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced “Facebook's plan to bring the global community together.” A few months earlier, a Swedish billionaire, László Szombatfalvy, established the Global Challenges Foundation and announced a $5-million-dollar prize to solicit ideas for remodeling global cooperation. The timing couldn’t be more symbolic, as many pundits are alarmed by what they see as an unraveling of the international system, exemplified by Brexit and a surge of anti-establishment political movements.
Globalization is vehemently disparaged by a number of prominent politicians, and Francis Fukuyama who, at one point, declared the ‘end of history,’ is now wondering how prepared our institutions really are to withstand a strong backlash. In this context, one could wonder, ‘Do we even need a system for global cooperation’? For me, the answer is a resounding Yes.
Global and regional institutions, such as the U.N. Security Council or the EU, are widely criticized for their shortcomings. Yet, it’s terrifying to imagine what the world would look like without them. When an unexpected event happens, be it an attack or a provocation aimed at testing the international system, the affected country, in the absence of a coordination mechanism, has no option but to escalate or accept its fate. Either response will likely invite more aggression. If the parties have access to impartial platforms for dialogue, as imperfect as they may be, cycles of violence can be pre-empted and stemmed.
Image: Andrew Stroehlein via Twitter
Even if we look at matters beyond the realm of security – such as climate change – without strong international cooperation, this quintessential tragedy of the commons cannot be solved. Each individual country is better off on the sidelines, waiting for others to address the issue. So the climate will continue to deteriorate, and everyone will be worse off, until and unless various stakeholders come together, show leadership, and begin cooperation in the spirit of mutual trust. For that, a robust global governance mechanism is truly indispensable.
László Szombatfalvy is nevertheless convinced that the system is due for an upgrade. I agree. Here are a few principles worth considering:
1. Draw legitimacy directly from the people, using modern tools
Today, we have a proxy-based system where a person is represented in the U.N. via her nation-state. That has to change. Here, the international institutions need to learn from Facebook, WeChat, and Twitter to deploy technology and connect directly to the people. Firstly, they need to adopt, embrace and internalize the “user experience” style of thinking, leverage the existing social-network infrastructure to connect to individuals from every corner of the world, engage with them, learn about their issues, and develop a response mechanism.
Surely, the digital divide poses a problem, but addressing it is already one of the topics the U.N. is working on. It is better positioned and incentivized to find the remedies than any commercial enterprise alone. And perhaps the U.N. should consider developing an alternative, non-commercial social network with an app in every language and a functionality to help people worldwide to connect and get engaged in global affairs.
Switzerland – the most competitive economy in the world, as assessed by the World Economic Forum – is able to keep its citizens politically with a form of direct democracy. Can modern technology be used to replicate this on a global scale? Can the U.N. make it possible for every person on the planet to get directly engaged in its decision-making process and influence world affairs? It is a question worth exploring.
As the U.N. learns to draw legitimacy from the people, it should involve those very same people in implementing the agenda they help to define. The network of global institutions needs to find a way to raise funds from actors other than nation states. That will help create more accountability in the system and foster greater inclusivity. When Warren Buffett “signed papers that give $31 billion to the Gates Foundation,” did it cross his mind that the U.N. could deploy those resources to advance public interest as well, if not better? If the answer is no, it’s time for a serious self-evaluation. By attracting funders other than Nation States, be it major gifts from philanthropists and corporations or micro-contributions from general public, the U.N. will not just secure financial resources – it will gain stakeholders vested in its success.
2: Learn from tech start-ups - be a platform, not an agency
To start with, the U.N. should learn from László Szombatfalvy and become comfortable crowd-sourcing solutions. The way to overcome the agency problem is to reduce agency. The U.N., the World Bank, and others should make use of the “pay for performance” methodology – one that is agnostic to the type of solution an entrepreneurial venture offers, as long as it addresses the problem.
For example, if the societal value of improving 5th grade reading in Sub-Saharan Africa by 30% happens to be $100M, this figure should just be announced. Whoever is creative enough to raise funds and deliver on this goal for less, can be compensated when the goal is achieved. Such an approach assures results at a capped cost, and it helps foster innovation and outsources risk to third parties – if no one is able to meet the goal, no one gets paid.
To become agile, the U.N. needs to learn from tech startups. Perhaps by partnering with them to test machine learning or other new solutions to global problems. In such partnerships, everybody wins: startups make a contribution and boost their credentials by working on the hairiest of problems and the U.N. gets energy and fresh ideas from startups.
3: Be proactive, not reactive
From the dawn of civilization, human beings have been expanding their circle of affiliation from a family unit, to a tribe, to a city-state, to a nation. The admittedly philosophical problem with the founding of the modern global governance system is that it wasn’t set up with an aspirational goal of expanding this circle of affiliation to include all of humanity. Such a mandate and a clearly defined positive vision for the global cooperation, as opposed to conflict-prevention, is what’s missing from the genesis story of this international system. And, consequently, it stifles proactive agenda setting, which the critics and detractors unvaryingly dismiss and oppose as mission-creep.
To overcome this impediment, the U.N. must learn to boldly set a forward-looking agenda. Take the debate on artificial intelligence (AI), for instance. Some argue that it presents the biggest existential risk to human civilization since the invention of the nuclear weapons. Others forecast that it will make us all better off. Global cooperation on the safe development of AI is vital, and addressing this challenge proactively presents an opportunity for the U.N. to demonstrate leadership.
Through modern technology, international institutions must find a way to tailor communication to each individual stakeholder and explain how her or his life is impacted by global issues, broadening the scope of civic duty beyond the community, nation, and all the way to global political awareness.
Those ideas may or may not be immediately implementable, but what’s important is the initiative taken by the Global Challenges Foundation to stimulate blue-sky thinking. The marginal improvements to the global cooperation system will no longer suffice. My hope is, for the sake of humanity’s common future, that our international institutions will embrace change and commit to a fundamental transformation.
Andrew Chakhoyan, Founder and Managing Partner, Strategic Narrative Consulting
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Parking warning: Pay to park, still get ticket
Posted: 10:31 PM, Aug 16, 2016
By: John Matarese
Planning to park in a lot with a credit card machine anytime soon? Then you need to see what happened to one woman who paid to park at one of the new automated machines, yet still ended up with a big parking ticket.
Susie Johnson was furious. She parked in a downtown lot, and paid for it at the lot's credit card machine.
"I paid the $10 in the automatic thing," Johnson said. "And you get this little ticket and it says place up on dashboard."
She says she dropped the little piece of paper in her car before she walked off. So she was stunned to come back to find a bright green enveloped under her wiper.
"We saw this and it was wrapped in plastic, and it was a ticket for $60," she said.
Accused of Not Paying
The ticket accused her of not paying, something she couldn't comprehend. "I said there's no way, there's no way I can get a ticket for paying to park there," she said.
We called the parking company, ABM Parking, the nation's second largest parking company and the operator of the lot, which quickly found the problem.
The company sent a photo of Johnson's car's windshield, with the time and date hidden, because the ticket had slid down too low. Only the top was visible.
Johnson says they should still have realized she had paid. "You can still see that its a paper parking slip," she said.
Lesson for Everyone
But an ABM spokesman said "attendants are instructed to issue tickets if they can't read the date and time," because people are always trying to scam the system.
However, they agreed to drop the $60 fine.
But it's a reminder to everyone who parks downtown to make sure that paper slip is visible, so you don't waste your money.
Don't Waste Your Money is a registered trademark of the EW Scripps Co.
"Like" John Matarese on Facebook
Follow John on Twitter ( @JohnMatarese )
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Is Your Floor Made from Illegal Tropical Wood? | National Geographic
The Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea is home to the world's third-largest rainforest, but a new report suggests that its government allows illegal exploitation of that resource. Some of that timber ends up in the flooring sold to the U.S.
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The components of a finished American home can take a long journey on the way to the building site. A new report by the watchdog organization Global Witness suggests that in at least some U.S. houses, the floor could be made made of tropical wood stolen from the other side of the world. A complex international chain involving Malaysian logging companies, the government of Papua New Guinea, Chinese manufacturers, and retailers in the U.S. may together be threatening the world's third-largest rainforest. Papua New Guinea is home to both biological and human cultural diversity. Some of its indigenous peoples live off the land, depending upon forests for food, water, and shelter. Industrial logging, sometimes with no legal permit, lays waste to these resources. Because the wood is then shipped overseas for milling, and then shipped again for sale, it's almost impossible for buyers to determine if tropical wood flooring imported from China was harvested sustainably, or illegally.
Read more about illegal logging.
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The Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea is home to the world's third-largest rainforest, but a new report suggests that its government allows il...
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Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM)
Status quo and agenda 2019
The conclusion of the trilogue negotiations constitutes the lead negotiators’ agreement on the structure of the EU banking package, the reform package for regulating the European banking sector. A core component of the banking package is to revise the BRRD. BRRD II will also continue to focus on the loss absorbing and recapitalisation capacity of banks and the handling of unsecured liabilities in the event of insolvency. In addition, efforts to implement and harmonise the MREL regulation will also be addressed. At a national level, BaFin is also making significant progress with restructuring and resolution by publishing two consultations at the beginning of the year.
During the financial crisis from 2007 onwards, various countries, including Germany, had to bail out failing banks. In some cases, they had to inject huge quantities of taxpayers’ money, so as not to jeopardise the stability of the financial sector. Due to this experience, governments wanted and realised the need to preserve financial stability in future crises without having to spend such vast quantities of public money.
Bail-outs, bail-ins and resolution
Germany determinedly pursued this objective from the outside. Consequently, 2013 saw the passing of the Bank Separation Act whose regulations on minimum requirements for the design of recovery plans (MaSan) were fleshed out in the BaFin (Germany’s financial supervisory authority) 3/2014 circular.
At a European level, the 2014/59/EU bank recovery and resolution directive (BRRD I) and the 806/2014/EU regulation (SRMR) were adopted in 2014. At the beginning of 2016, the newly created European single resolution board (SRB), spearheaded by Dr Elke König (formerly of BaFin), took over the baton. The SRB’s responsibility is to trigger resolution of all banks under the direct supervision of the European Central Bank and of banks with subsidiaries in other member states participating in the single supervisory mechanism. The SRB’s task is to restructure and/or resolve failing systemically important banks. In addition to the single supervisory mechanism (SSM), the single resolution mechanism (SRM) is the second pillar in the European banking union and was agreed on by the EU Council in June 2012.
In Germany, appropriate regulations based on the BRRD I directive and SRM regulation (SRMR) were also incorporated in the German Act on the Recovery and Resolution of Banks (SAG) in 2014. Following extensions in the interim, SoFFin (special fund for financial market stabilisation) has been closed for good since the beginning of 2016. Therefore, it’s no longer possible to approach it for new funds or safeguards (more). In Germany, SoFFin was the body that provided the bail-out funds required after 2007. Since 1 January 2018, BaFin has acted as the national resolution authority (NRA) and administrator of the restructuring fund. As the national resolution authority, BaFin bears key responsibility for resolution planning of banks that don’t fall under the primary responsibility of the single resolution board (SRB) as systemically important banks. With regard to the systemically important banks, BaFin also exerts direct influence via the internal resolution teams (IRTs) and extended executive sessions. As the resolution authority, it’s also responsible for the resolution of all German banks and financial groups whose cross-border resolution is carried out in conjunction with resolution colleges.
Resolution under the German Act on the Recovery and Resolution of Banks doesn’t replace but complements the insolvency proceedings concept and can only be applied where a threat to financial stability in the event of a crisis is plain, e.g. due to the size, complexity, risk profile and/or interconnectedness of the bank.
BRRD II, 2019
The conclusion of the trilogue negotiations constituted the agreement by the lead negotiators from the EU Council, Parliament and the Commission on the structure of the EU banking package, the reform package for the regulation of the European banking sector.
A core element of this agreement is the revision of the bank recovery and resolution directive called BRRD II. The aim of the original BRRD was to make European banks resilient and, in particular, capable of being resolvable in order to avoid further “too big to fail” problems. Similarly to the first BRRD, BRRD II also focuses on the loss absorbing and recapitalisation capacity of banks and the handling of unsecured liabilities in the event of insolvency. The main amendments to BRRD II include the possibility of imposing a temporary moratorium, even before a resolution measure is triggered, provided that certain conditions are met. In addition, the MREL regulations (the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities) will be amended as follows.
The future MREL framework
A key revision involves the new directive harmonising the calculation of the MREL ratio with the internationally applicable total loss absorbing capacity (TLAC) requirements. Organisations with a balance sheet total of more than €100 billion – known as top tier banks – must also meet a certain subordination ratio in relation to their total liabilities and own funds (TLOFs) with regard to their MREL requirement. In addition, a minimum level for the MREL ratio set individually for each bank is to apply to these organisations. Furthermore, a safeguard clause for retail investors has been included in line with the European Parliament’s proposal.
A further milestone in the implementation of the MREL rules and regulations was the extension of the liability cascade to include a new class of unsecured debt instruments. At a national level, this step had already been fast-tracked out of BRRD II and implemented in article 46f of the German Banking Act in July 2018.
The SRB’s work programme for 2019
At the same time as developments were moving ahead at trilogue level, the single resolution board (SRB) also published its work programme for 2019 in November 2018. In line with the single resolution mechanism (SRM), the focus is once again on ensuring and improving the proper resolution of failing banks so that there is the least possible impact on the real economy and public budgets, whereby the body wants to be proactive. For 2019, the SRB will be concentrating on five strategic areas. First of all, it wants to make significant progress in establishing MREL by pressing ahead with defining the minimum requirements for further banks. In this context, the SRB is planning to define around 100 minimum requirements for groups of banks and 530 for individual banks. In 2019, it also wants to continue to add more detail to and strengthen the resolution framework by publishing further directives. With a view to possible critical developments in the financial system, the SRB plans to develop its crisis response capability with regard to the necessary crisis management processes. In addition, the SRB wants the single resolution fund (SRF) to be fully up and running in 2019. Finally, the SRB will be focusing on the one hand on optimising effective internal crisis management processes. On the other hand, it will concentrate on streamlining its own organisational structure and making it more efficient.
BaFin agenda in 2019
Efforts to create regulations are also occurring at a national level. As the national resolution authority, BaFin is also making significant progress on restructuring and resolution with the publication of two consultations at the beginning of the year. On 1 February 2019, it published a consultation on the minimum requirements banks must meet to use the bail-in instrument in the event of resolution regarding the data availability of the information to be provided and its technical and organisational structure. A few days later, on 5 February, another consultation followed with the draft circular on reporting information for resolution planning (MIA). The consultation concerns BaFin’s handling and administrative practice under the 2018/1624 implementing regulation, which specifies the procedures for forwarding information and the reporting requirements for banks. Therefore, it’s a key instrument used in drawing up resolution plans and assessing resolvability.
Due to the new legal situation, minimum requirements for the design of recovery plans (MaSan) are currently being revised as part of the 09/2017 consultation and drafted into an implementing decree on the minimum requirements for restructuring planning for banks and investment firms and a draft of a leaflet [BaFin notice] on reorganisation planning (MaSanV).
Similarly to the SRB’s work programme, BaFin’s agenda will focus on resolution in 2019. In addition to the previously mentioned minimum bail-in requirements, BaFin’s concentrating on three further core areas to ensure the resolvability of German banks. Initially, it will continue to push ahead with identifying and eradicating impediments standing in the way of resolvability on the German banking market. In addition, BaFin aims to improve the flow of information and data transmission on the part of banks with better technical and operational approaches. Finally, crisis processes and crisis infrastructure are to be strengthened in future.
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Philipp von Websky
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Ulrich Lotz (WP/StB/CPA) ist Partner und seit 1990 bei Deloitte in der Prüfung und Beratung von Kreditinstituten tätig. Seit Mitte 2001 leitet er die Service Line Credit & Securitisation Advisory, die... Mehr
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You are here: Home / News and Events / Events / 2018 / march / BREXIT: Challenges and Opportunities for Trade in the Midlands
BREXIT: Challenges and Opportunities for Trade in the Midlands
BREXIT Forum
Mr Chris Hobson (Director of Policy and External Affairs, East Midlands Chamber of Commerce) Professor Erika Szyszczak (Professor of Law, University of Sussex and UK Trade Policy Observatory) Mr Ian Thomson (Partner and Head of Commercial, Spearing Waite
14 Mar 2018, 04:00PM - 06:00PM
Woodhouse Room, Charles Wilson Building (4th Floor)
For Bookings Contact
Spaces are limited, email brexitforum@le.ac.uk to reserve your place
An event organised by the Center for European law and internationalisation (Leicester Law School) that will look into the implications of Brexit for trade and commerce in the Midlands.
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Encapsulated Lives: The Aims of Racial Segregation
People are universally required to rationalize the relationship between the foreground and background of life so that they can go about dealing with their activities as a set of purposes not too often interrupted by items in the background of life, as happens when, let us say, people step into dog do-do when they are emerging, elegantly dressed, from a limo. One way to do that to create a stable equilibrium whereby the arena of background matters is put on hold by segregating them from the foreground events, though this may be at the cost of a heightened anxiety about the ability to maintain the truce. The lives of one group is encapsulated so that the members of that group can keep in the foreground what matters to them. An easy example of this is a retirement community. It provides physical security and other amenities that will appeal to old people who are becoming fragile so that they can go on with what seems to them a more or less normal set of activities even if these are somewhat more restricted than the lives that were led when people were living in “normal” communities. There are vans to take you from one place to another, to concerts and to downtown; there are walking trails so one can follow one’s doctor’s orders to exercise; there are small supermarkets so that one does not have to deal with the hustle and bustle of the outside world to get one’s shopping done. Political lectures and folk singers are brought “on campus”. All this is done so as to make life as stable for as long as possible before a resident is moved into the even more secure area of a nursing home.
The logic of encapsulating one’s life in a residence or village for seniors is that one enters such a community when one does not need all its features as of yet in the prospect of having to use more and more of these features for keeping the intrusion of frailty at bay and that one exits the community when even the amenities are not enough to allow a person to continue with a normal seeming round of life. You attend a book club until you no longer have the ability to attend to reading or engage in discussions. But while it lasts, that is one substitute for having a job or a set of obligations that must be met.
Age segregated communities are not the only examples of gated communities, most of which do not actually need gates to keep them secure for their residents. An ethnic neighborhood has similar characteristics, though it is not a matter of age but a putatively shared ancestry and set of customs having to do with religion, diet and courtship and child raising. People in an ethnic community share a notion of what a fulfilling life would be, whether that means joining the fire department or heading off to college to become an accountant or a doctor. They know what it means to court a respectable girl, however one has sowed one’s wild oats. They share a sense of what to be proud of in the lives of their children, or where to set the bar: for some ethnic communities only a professional class career will spell success and in others keeping mostly out of jail. People in working class communities try to drown out the background of gunshots and crime and ne’er do well relatives. They keep their eyes on the main prize, whatever that might be in that milieu. Upton Sinclair shows, in “The Jungle”, what it would be like if the rest of the world intruded enough to interrupt a wedding by not making the customary cash gifts that would pay for the wedding and so leave the newly married couple in the hole, their lives now set on a trajectory for failure because they had counted on their world to hold itself together so that just a few cheapskates would not ruin their lives, only be sources of some resentment in the future. Inadvertent lapses are held to a minimum in a segregated community.
The most significant example of encapsulation as a way to sustain a community’s way of life is racial segregation as that was practiced in the American South from the beginning of the Seventeenth Century to the middle of the Twentieth Century, a period of some 350 years. That is a long enough time to belie the idea that racial segregation was the temporary imposition of a more powerful people upon a subservient people and sure to crack up before too much time had passed. Indeed, the encapsulation was not even ended by the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War. Segregation was soon enough reimposed by Jim Crow laws that came into effect a mere twenty years after the end of the Civil War.
Encapsulation does not work simply for the purposes of keeping the subservient population from gaining political power or rebelling. It has those consequences too, and indeed Ante-Bellum Southerners were continually worrying about slave rebellions. More centrally, it was the basis for making sure that the white community would be able to continue on with its own purposes while its servant class remained not just subservient but also “invisible” in the sense of being thrust into the background of consciousness. The point of having Black people get off the sidewalk into the gutter when a white man passed was not just to symbolize subservience but to make the Black person not as obtrusive as would be the case if the Black person shared the sidewalk. Only in such fashion might white people keep out of their minds the perception that, in fact, there were more Blacks in their communities than there were white people. That was alright so long as the Black folk counted no more than dogs in the street. Mary Chesnut, writing at the time of the Civil War, makes the at the time common observation that some of the light skinned slaves looked very much like their masters and like the master’s white children, but that was to be disregarded as not a topic for polite conversation.
As Freehling observes, a main tool for keeping the slaves in their place was cuffing them about sufficiently so that they would look and sound complacent about their lives, and so no threat to rebel. But the cost was perpetual mistrust because there was no getting around the fact that the apparent acceptance of their slavery was only the result of them being cuffed and so nothing to rely on. Yet the appearance of compliance was all the master class could be sure of.
Theorists, however, made quite a point out of this function of slavery as providing the manpower that allowed a democratic white society to go about its business, to pursue commerce, the arts, courtship and politics. Without slavery, Fitzhugh’s “Sociology for the South” argued in 1854, there could be no white commonwealth. This was a permanent feature of the social landscape, the slaves the enablers of white life every bit as much if not more so than the servant class in England were the enablers of aristocratic life. Both societies existed without the availability of other than human labor saving devices. The vacuum cleaner ended the need for the subservient class every bit as much as the invention of the cotton picking machine.
The key question about encapsulation therefore becomes what were the mechanisms for insuring that the dross which was Black life was kept from intruding upon white consciousness, how it was kept in the background. This was done through a disdain for Blacks and Black life, by distinguishing respectable customs from those practiced by a “degenerate” race, and by enforcing the division between Blacks and whites through repeated uses of terror. It would be a mistake, therefore, to regard a regime of white superiority as the result of “prejudice”, which is an attitude of disdain, even though that is the concept which has been rolled out to explain race relations ever since the Forties. Prejudice, however, is the result rather than the cause of the structure for making black lives recede in the awareness of whites. The slaveholders and the segregationists who followed were prejudiced but only in that they thought that the natural order separated out Blacks as inevitably a subservient class. They would deny they held animosity towards Blacks, only a sense that the world was divided into two types of people and any attempts to overthrow that were forbidden by natural law or by the Bible. It may be difficult to recreate the mindset whereby the separation of the races was inevitable even if it could to some extent be modified so that it was less cruel, though it should be remembered that a reform of slavery or Jim Crow was never on the agenda of white Southerners until they were pressed in the Forties to build some more schools for Black students so as to justify the continued segregation of those students.
The real issue is whether subjugation so as to provide servants who are servile is so important that all other values are to be put aside. What would happen to social life if Blacks moved to the foreground? It is like asking what one would do without charity wards where young doctors could hone their skills before dealing with patients who could pay. It took a revolution in how medical treatment was paid for, through insurance rather than out of pocket, for charity wards to no longer be required to perform their function. It took the Civil Rights Movement to make the South realize that it could function and indeed prosper if it were deprived of the crutch of Jim Crow. Race was not needed as a supplement to social class to keep people in their place.
In ROLES Tags race, segragation
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Here is a problem in human behavior whose solution might seem obvious but which turns out to be a sociological problem of great significance. Some people admire people who do things they can’t do, like playing the violin, while other people are dismissive or jealous of people who can do things that they can’t, such as dance or do statistics. When is it one rather than the other, and is it a matter of the personality of the person involved, in which case the explanation is psychological, or something to do with their circumstances, which is the sociological explanation? Let us look at some cases before getting on to my thesis, which is that we are in the presence of the conflict between competition and equality, something that is universal and very deep in social structure and has been going on since, I presume, cave man days or before, but is certainly visible throughout recorded history. Cain was, it seems, jealous of Abel, while Agamemnon admired and made use of the cunning of Odysseus.
In EVERYDAY LIFE Tags envy; jealousy; admiration; competition; equality
Roland Fryer is a MacArthur Grant winning behavioral economist at Harvard University where, at the age of thirty, he was the youngest person ever awarded tenure, though he is now temporarily in eclipse because of sexual harassment charges. Fryer takes on as his major field of inquiry a major policy issue that has plagued social science ever since Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954: why is it that the achievement scores of African American students continue to lag significantly far behind the achievement scores of white students and that nothing much seems to be able to close the difference? Various theories have been offered. These include the idea that African American students are anti-intellectual, or that there are no books in their households, or that African American students need teachers of their own race to motivate them and act as role models, or that the conditions of poverty make it difficult for African American students to focus on schoolwork or that the socio-economic status of a family overdetermines the likelihood of academic success, people of lower SES always getting lower scores than the children of a higher SES. Fryer pursues this issue possibly because he was a poor Black kid who somehow made it and wants to open the gates for others. He uses some very sophisticated statistical analysis to make his cases in his studies of the matter but, I am sorry to say, is somewhat rickety in his reasoning. His studies are very valuable, however, because they open a window onto the present state of social scientific thinking on this matter.
In SOCIAL STRUCTURE Tags educational policy; Roland Fryer; Black student achievement; "going for white"; small group tutoring
Agitprop is art directed at getting audiences to take one side or another in a political conflict. It is usually straightforward in its emotional and political message so that audience can at a glance get a sense of what they are supposed to think and feel. We need look no farther back than John Turnbull’s pictures of battles in the American Revolution to see this process at work even if we prefer to think of these paintings as monumental, as evoking personal emotions like bravery as well as the terror of war. But the painting “Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton” is supposed to make you think of the sacrifices that were made in the cause of liberty and so subsequent citizens should live up to their heritage, to feel patriotism towards the government that now presides. One kind of agitprop, therefore, looks back so as to encourage allegiances in the present. Another kind of agitprop looks forward to when the oppressed will be freed of their shackles. Such forward looking agitprop is found in the Soviet agitprop of the Twenties, where the recently downtrodden and those still not free unite in solidarity, their faces stern and handsome, eyes aligned to the future, so as to create the brave new world to which they are committed. To make things even more clear, Soviet agitprop includes words to spell out its messages, this technique borrowed from the poster art that had become popular in late Nineteenth Century France.
In ART CRITICISM Tags Eastman Johnson; John Turnbull; Soviet agitprop; agitprop; "A Ride for Liberty-The Fugitive Slaves"
People come into life as if into the midst of a movie, trying to catch up with what has gone before as the story continues to follow its course, except that people in their real lives, or so I claim, are so taken up with the decade or two when they entered the scene, and maybe even a little bit with the times before that, that those are the times that continue to transfix and inspire them, that being when they got their bearings and those being what their bearings continue to be, while in movies we forget that we learned the beginning only through inference and cared about when we came in not at all but just want to get on with the story now that one knows what is going on. Let’s go over present, past and future of the moment you came into your own story in more detail.
In SOCIAL STRUCTURE Tags movies; "Casablanca"; cosmopolitanism; time; social space
Some paintings and painters are noisy and some are quiet, as paradoxical as that sounds because paintings do not have audio boxes attached. They just sit there in their frames and the viewer provides the sound effects when that is appropriate. Poussin is a particularly noisy painter. You can hear the screams of the Sabine women as they are being abducted; you can hear the moans of suffering but also the silences surrounding dead bodies and deserted streets in “The Plague of Ashdod” You can hear the crash of blind Orion’s feet as he lumbers down the steep path in the painting “Blind Orion”. How the painter evokes sound is a good question. Perhaps Poussin does it with Orion by having people close to him gawking up at him, or maybe it is because the grade of the path is just right for encouraging a viewer to see the giant rushing down it by crashing one foot in front of another. However the painter does it, it gets done. It is part of his art. There are also quiet painters. The Hudson River School is known for its silence, whether Thomas Cole’s “The Oxbow”, where the countryside below suffers no sound, there maybe being some birds chirping on the hill where the painter who is observing the scene has his seat, or Bierstadt’s “Yosemite Valley-The Landing”, where the distance from the camp site means that the sounds of the Indian settlement will not be heard, while a close up, as in Homer’s “Snapping the Whip” allows an audience to hear the chatter of children. Sounds are therefore created as an inference from the information of the painting and the painter is accountable for the inferences that are to be drawn. That is part of his art.
A painting where the inferences to be drawn as those inform the meaning of the painting and are directly opposite from the meaning a viewer might expect is in John Singleton Copley’s “Watson and the Shark”, first exhibited in 1778, which is sometimes interpreted as an allegory of the rise of the American Republic, the people in the boat representing the various strands of the American community, while the boy in the water is America and the shark is Great Britain, out to destroy the Republic. Or else, as is more usually the case and was so seen when it was first shown, the picture is a tribute to religious salvation: difficulties are overcome by courage and solidarity. But listen to the silences of the painting. The people in the boat are agape with wonder or horror but are not shouting, because there are no such expressions on their faces or mouths wide open. The shark seems dead in the water and so makes no sound and the boy appears to be unconscious and so also makes no sound. So what is being conveyed is a mood where great danger is over, the figures in the picture in the aftermath of some dramatic moment, trying to absorb it, each one within their own solitude. This is the opposite of what Lessing will say is the heart of sculpture, which is the moment before something awful happens, but rather is the moment after a disaster, when its impact is being communicated to the people who observed it, this moment of a drama also caught by Poussin in his noisy way in “The Parting of the Red Sea”, where Egyptian charioteers are washed up on the beach by still noisy waves while some Hebrews are still making their way onto the beach with, presumably, their heavy breathing and clattering steps accompanying the waves breaking upon them.
So what is the significance of “Watson and the Shark” other than that it intrudes upon the timeline in its own way, portraying the moment after rather than the moment before the climactic event? It is, I think, a point that is not political, however easy it is to see the little dingy as the ship of state. It is a sense of the deeps, even here in Havana Harbor, where the event that inspired the painting took place: the shark is one of the demons of the deep, the boy one of the victims of the deep, a victim of circumstance because the shark had found him. All onus belongs to fate. So the people in the boat are looking at their own destiny, whether they are black or white, and of whatever profession. They too will be dragged down into the sea. That is their eventual doom. I therefore read the painting as not about the Enlightenment or religion but about the nature of life and think there is no reason to think the artist has been documenting the political moment rather than what is always the moment, a modern version of a dance of death painting, the grim reaper coming for all of us.
Some great painters are noisy and that explains what they are up to. Brueghel was particularly noisy. You can hear the laughter and music and bustle in his “The Wedding Dance” just as you can hear the crunch of the snow under the feet of the hunters returning to their town in “The Hunters in the Snow” and you can hear the rustling of the sheaves and the buzz of the flies in “The Harvesters” as the farmer who is taking a post lunch snooze under a tree, even down to his snores. Brueghel provides these sound effects via the viewer’s association of these picture elements with sounds, because Brueghel is giving a realistic account of the fullness of everyday life, even if some of his figures are exaggerated, that snoozing farmer a bit oversized, but not much more so than his fellow harvesters would notice.
Then again, there are great painters who are very silent. I count Rembrandt as one of these even though he also did some loud paintings, such as “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” where you can hear the roar of the waves against the boat. Some of his greatest works are very silent, notably “The Sampling Officials of the Amsterdam Drapers’ Guild”, a picture of the solemn burgers who rule Amsterdam’s commerce out of their dour black clothing and unsmiling faces. They say nothing, not caught in the midst of chitchat or great events, as are the Founding Fathers who are caught by Turnbull as they are signing the Declaration of Independence, they perhaps silent for a moment in tribute to how profound is their action. Rather, the sense in the Rembrandt is that these men are known for their decisiveness rather than for their eloquence. They are solid burgers, which is what makes their republic great.
A modern great painter, David Hockney, is also a silent painter and has been so throughout his career. His early creation of a Los Angeles office building, “Savings and Loan Building”, is not set amidst the bustle of street traffic either human or vehicular, as is the case in the Ashcan School paintings of John Sloan and others. Only a few palm trees stand in front of the building. His late creation, “A Bigger Interior with Blue Terrace and Garden” experiments with space in that he shows the wings of a terrace without distorting space to get it all in, but the painting is true to Hockney’s silent world in that nothing rustles. The same is true of his greatest paintings. “Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool” shows a nude man getting out of a swimming pool, his bare buttocks at the center of the picture, but he is not disturbing the water, the indications of ripples in the water not suggesting the splash of wavers, no more than the dashes on the blinds behind the emergent swimmer suggest only the soundless play of the sun on the blinds. Similarly, “Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy” is without a soundtrack, no crescendo of music to accompany the very self assured quality of a couple standing amidst their still incomplete living room, the plush rug softening footsteps, Percy the cat saying nothing, and the phone, still not set on a table, not ringing. What is striking is Mr. Clark’s angular and faintly sinister face, it not needing to say anything to be worthy of notice. What the silence provides to the painting, I infer, is the artist’s characteristic combination of serenity and unworldly eeriness.
Whether or not there is a soundtrack is, I fully grant, sometimes an inference drawn from the sense of what the painting is up to rather than to be garnered from some clue in the painting, as is the case with some of the paintings I mentioned earlier, which give reason to associate sounds with them. But the question of a soundtrack is raised by the nature of painting as a form, one that is largely without words, however much that is not true of pamphlets and paintings in Luther’s time, or in Cy Twombly’s graphical comments on the environment, or in one or another poster that serves as agitprop. It is a form that is also devoid of ideas in that it does not state any directly, that being an abstracted verbal activity, even as many painters represent in their paintings the thoughts that lie behind their paintings. All art forms reach beyond themselves. The novel uses drama and a prosaic poetry. The drama uses spectacle, which is a painterly thing. Poems portray scenes as if they are being painted and music sometimes claims to be programmatic in that it is telling a story rather than being “pure” music. So there are no end of precedents for claiming that painting too drifts off into being noisy or silent, even as, within its own confines, it can be more colorful, as is the case with the Impressionists, or less so, as in the case of Rembrandt. Don’t shortchange the painter’s use of his resources.
In ART CRITICISM Tags Poussin; Rembrandt; Hockney; Copley; sound and painting
A long time ago, Marxist social theorists thought that advertising was the new opiate of the masses, up there along with religion and drugs. In making people think they were happy in a society in which they were exploited or at least not dealt with fairly, the rich able to continue in their money grubbing ways by lulling most people into a sense that they were both in control of their lives and also satisfied with those lives. Automobiles let people think they were free because you could get into your Chevrolet and tour the American countryside, going where you wanted when you wanted, when, in fact, people were tied down to their boring and unsatisfying manufacturing and white collar jobs, prisoners of the wage/salary system. People could improve their love life if they wore the right lipstick and deodorant, and that would make up for the unpleasantness of work life, sex another opiate of the masses. Cigarettes would relax them and appliances and dishwasher detergent would make the life of the harried housewife so much easier that she had time to indulge her fantasies of romance. There was nothing that advertising couldn’t fix.
In SOCIAL STRUCTURE Tags advertisements; Marxian opiates; health care ads; automobile ads; ads for "Crest"
According to MSNBC and network news, the most significant fallout of the two night Democratic debate was that Kamala Harris took on Joe Biden about bussing. Yes, commentators correctly point out, he was not as sharp as he needs to be or as he once was. Earlier in his career, he would have pinned her ears back by saying she didn’t know what she was talking about, but here he seemed to be struggling just not to give in to uhs and pauses, even to the point of saying he had run out of time to cover up the fact that he may have lost his train of thought. His voice was also weak. But on the merits of the issue, he was absolutely right. Back in the early Seventies, bussing was not a way to enforce Brown v. Board of Education but one alternative being tried out to improve the education of black children by integrating them with white children and Biden was a voice that told the simple truth: that bussing would not work as a way to integrate the schools, even if it should be used to end de jure segregation, and bussing would therefore needlessly inflame the passions of whites who were opposed to it even if whites had been perfectly willing to have blacks bussed long distances to attend schools in the previous segregated system.
In POLITICS Tags Democratic debates; Joe Biden; Kamala Harris; bussing; integrating schools
Thomas Cole’s “The Course of Empire” is so well known that there would seem to be little cause to comment on it except that it is easily misread, as when it is treated by the art historian Ross Barrett as a reaction to the Jacksonian democracy of the period, when there is nothing in the series of five paintings about the rise and fall of civilizations that is even remotely concerned with the politics of Cole’s time. The series is, however, of interest to a follower of intellectual history because, aside from its artistic accomplishments, the series marks out Cole’s conception of human history and this stands on the cusp of two very different ways of understanding human history-- as if we are not always on the cusp of something or other. In his case, on the one cliff lies a theory of history dominant in the late Eighteenth Century that had been so influenced by Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, which depicts mankind as going from some glorious level of civilization to a decrepit form of that because of some set of circumstantial events, such as a succession of bad emperors or else because of some fatal poison introduced into the society, such as Gibbon imagined the case to be with a Rome that had become Christian. On the other side of the chasm lies an evolutionary theory of society, where people went from being primitive to ever more civilized, and that mediated by the way they made their livings rather than because of political machinations. Cole works hard to find images to fill out his understanding and, in that early period in the study of pre-literate societies, those are not easy to come by.
In ART CRITICISM Tags Thomis Cole; Lewis Morgan'; Edward Gibbon; hunter gatherer societies; pastoral societies; ruins
If, following the line of inquiry of the last essay, which is that the New Testament is to be regarded as an example of epic comedy, why isn’t it also funny? That is because it has to carry the weight of the supernatural and the archetypical, so that every event is an example of the type of thing it is and that means we are forever reliving the inevitable, such as being a Martha, or having a role like John the Baptist, rather than creating new roles and beings out of history and circumstances. Everything is portentous rather than free, and comedy, whether in sitcoms or in standup, has to at least appear to be free, all a matter of the timing that makes a surprise into a joke. Seeing the comedy in the New Testament is therefore a difficult task that is perhaps best left to Rubens, who peoples the sky just above us with cherubs and other humanized abstract notions as if these figures made up a family scene that is endearing rather than ravaging.
In THE BIBLE Tags forms and genres; Jesus as an unusal hero; the individuality of Jesus; literary qualities of the Gospels
Elizabeth Warren has risen to be in a virtual dead heat with Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg for second place behind Joe Biden in the Democratic race for the 2020 nomination and commentators attribute that to her claim “I have a plan for that” in every area of public policy. That is her defining personae: she is a policy wonk. So let’s test that out by examining some of her policy proposals and see if they bear the weight of analysis or are more like the policy proposals of Paul Ryan, which made no sense if you looked into them. Well, Warren’s proposals do bear up under some scrutiny, but only if you also adopt her general view of things, which is to soak the rich for the sake of doing that, which is an ideological rather than a policy matter.
In POLITICS Tags Elizabeth Warren; wealth tax; forgiving student debt; improving education; black pregnancy mortality rates
A political scandal occurs when a person or set of people who have either power or influence are uncovered to have engaged in pernicious conduct that puts a nation at risk. McCarthyism was an attempt to point out that people in high places had been Communists and that they continued to hold their positions of influence until they were uncovered by McCarthy. Watergate was a scandal because it was uncovered that President Nixon and his men had tried to undermine the American electoral system. Sometimes the evidence of a scandal is unclear, as when McCarthy just flashed sheets of paper proclaiming them to be lists of traitors working in the State Department, and sometimes the details are elaborately spelled out, which happened with the Senate Watergate Committee.
In POLITICS Tags Linda Fairstein; Ava DuVernay; the Central Park Five; the fallout from scandals
Mark Van Doren taught me a long time ago that an epic was episodic in that there were many events that filled in the space between the initial action and the final action. These events did not so much move the action forward as take place within the environment created by the story’s parameters. From that I conclude, upon many years reflection, that epics are different from novels in this respect (as well as many other ways) because while there may be digressions and subplots in novels, much of the plot in novels is used to move the story forward. By these lights, I also conclude, “Exodus” is not an epic. It is too tightly plotted for that. It is more of what Vico would call sacred history, which means that it shows what had to happen rather than what might have happened or what in fact did happen. The Gospels are another sacred history because there too the narrators are recounting what had to have happened and did while the narrator of a novel is just along for the ride, for the telling of the tale, rather than the authoritative voice that commands belief in the inevitability of what is unfolded by a story or set of stories.
In THE BIBLE Tags comedy, epic, gospels, the novel; irony; the literary qualities of the Gospels
A woman is seated with her preteen daughter having lunch. At an adjourning table is a man having lunch with his two preteen daughters. The adults exchange pleasantries about how they will both remember back to how fleeting was the time they had raising their children. The father says something about his daughter. The woman says to him that his daughter could remind him that she was sitting there. The daughter scrunches her shoulder to indicate she had heard both her father’s remark and the woman’s remark. The father says “She knows”, which indicates that his daughter both knows that what he was saying was innocuous and that she knows the rule of social behavior that says you do not talk about people as if they were not there. So I was in the presence of what can be considered a very strange yet necessary custom or social construction, which is that we do not engage in talk about people as if they were not there because, in general, we do not reveal what other people say to us about third parties to those third parties. Sometimes there are exceptions. You can confide in a close friend what a girl said about him because you think he is entitled to know that she dissed him and that loyalty overcomes the general rule. On the other hand, you convey what a third party said about someone even if it is insulting because you yourself are so angry with the person you are talking to that you will let out the information. What is most interesting about this custom, rule, or social construction, or whatever else you choose to call it, is not its exceptions but how it contributes to our understanding of how people manage to deal with one another by setting up limits to behavior so as to cope with the fact that people are inherently unknowable to one another except through words and so have to simplify what might otherwise be a kaleidoscope of information coming at them in any number of directions. People are rational and so they protect themselves so that they can each individually prosper as conscious entities.
In EVERYDAY LIFE Tags telling tales about others; spousal exceptionalism; Freud; what you can say to friends
William Merritt Chase was a American Nineteenth Century artist not even all that well known in his time, recognized late in life for his general accomplishments. He was neither original in his subject matters nor in his treatment of them, and so is a suitable subject for letting us know just how much can be garnered anyway from his paintings about the social life of his period, which is the Victorian Era on the East Coast of the United States. He gives us a sense of architecture and interiors, of leisure time, and even of the relation between men and women, each of which could also be documented from other sources including other artists but is also documented here, in the specialized point of view of this particular artist, which traditional sociologists would not trust as a reliable source of information about a period in that the artist reflects what he perceives and not what is generally true. But that is not true in that even Andy Warhol tells the truth about what preoccupies people so much that they will not easily report what he can notice as their preoccupations: soup cans and Marilyn Monroe.
In ART CRITICISM Tags Victorian decoration; Victorian leisure time; the Victorian nude; Manet; William Merritt Chase
To understand St. Paul’s view of freedom, we have to begin by understanding that Christianity is deeply indebted to Judaic literalism. The important events in Old Testament history taken to have really happened, and so subject to the falsifiability principle, in that one can conceive of them as not having happened and so having opened up for ages to come a lively debate about whether the remains of Noah’s Ark lie on top of Mt. Ararat, or whether Joshua could have indeed kept the sun from setting. This has to do with the ways in which human individuality is a kind of freedom, that rediscovered in the Renaissance, but also traceable back from Luther to St. Augustine and to St. Paul himself. The thing is, though, that this is not only an evolution of doctrine but of emotions that are granted by religious experience that can be summarized in doctrine but have a life of their own apart from doctrine. Ideas are the elaborations of what they are sensed to be and that what they are sensed to be is learned intellectually and not just from the unconscious mind or a preternatural sense of the world. Moreover, consciously wrought or acquired ideas also become experiences that are transmitted through their tags or imagistic associations rather than through thought.
In THE BIBLE Tags St. Paul; "The Letter to the Galatians"; the idea of freedom; gentiles and judaizers; the elements of freedom
The only one who seems to be satisfied with the Mueller Report is Donald Trump, who was all prepared to release numerous memos challenging its findings until the Report exonerated him and now that is what he says the report did. He must be very relieved because he knows what he is hiding and he seems to have gotten away with hiding it. So is his 2020 campaign going to be built on the slogan “At least I wasn’t a traitor”? The rest of us found the Mueller Report unsatisfying because it didn’t answer the key question of what Trump and his people had been doing with the Russians, there having been significant events to prompt the inquiry in the first place. But Mueller, in the Report and in his follow up “clarifying” statement of last week, seems to have further muddied the waters by engaging in the mind boggling legal proceduralism that is the bane of that profession but does not bedevil the rest of us who are, God be thanked, not lawyers. Let’s look at the knots into which Mueller has tied himself.
In POLITICS Tags Robert Mueller, Donald Trump; impeachment; legal rhetoric; political rhetoric
Conservatives after World War II came after FDR by saying that he had meddled too much in military affairs and that he was a terrible administrator, never letting his subordinates know what he wanted from them. Liberals defended the legacy of FDR by saying he meddled in military affairs only very rarely, such as when he decided to delay the invasion of France for, at first, one year, and then for two, even though his top military advisors wanted him to invade France in 1942. He also intervened when, to the surprise of Churchill, sitting beside him, he announced at the Tehran Conference in 1943, that he was demanding the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis forces, everyone knowing that the Axis would therefore fight the war to its bitter end. And FDR proved not such a bad administrator. What he did was just appoint one new commision after another, with new leadership, to compete with the other governmental agencies, and just see which one was the more successful. He turned over war production to the captains of industry he had for so long excoriated, and they delivered vast quantities of armament and so the Allies won the battle of the Atlantic because they were producing more new tonnage of ships every month than the Nazi U-boats were able to sink.
St. Paul’s “Letter to the Galatians” must have come from an early part of his ministry when he was still establishing his authority as an interpreter of Jesus. St. Paul gives this away by defending himself at the beginning of the letter from the accusation that he had been untrue to his view that circumcision was not essential for someone who had come over from the Gentile community to become a Christian. In the course of his discussion of that sacramental and ritualistic issue, he comes to clarify his view of what is very distinctive about Christianity: that it is an allegiance to a belief that Jesus, as a matter of historical fact, that He had arisen from the dead and had by His crucifixion atoned for the sins of mankind. Christianity is a matter of belief rather than a matter of group identity or ritual or law or ecstatic experience, which is what other religions had been. He also explains how the nature of a religion of belief provides its adherents with kinds of freedom they would not otherwise experience and that far transcends the social categories of master and slave. Explaining these two ideas requires St. Paul to delve into topics that would seem too philosophical for someone not professionally trained, but we really don’t know enough about St. Paul’s background to speculate on what kind of learning he had. What St. Paul does in this letter and elsewhere, regardless of his intellectual training, is elaborate on the idea of what a proposition is and requires and so is his own way of introducing what will serve, somewhat down the road, as the basis for the scientific revolution: the assertion that propositions are either true or false and not merely having some grain of truth within what is largely a metaphor. Down the road will also be found the doctrine of freedom that is, when it becomes shorn of its religious associations, a crowning achievement of the early modern world: freedom means voluntary choice.
In THE BIBLE Tags St. Paul; Christian faith; faith as belief in a proposition; faith and morality; the meaning of "ought"
I have been asked by a reader to comment on the recent spate of anti-abortion legislation in Southern states. I am reluctant to do so because, as appalling as I find the anti-abortion legislation, I think the abortion issue is more complicated than either side is willing to admit. The nation is at an impasse, some half century after Roe v. Wade, the issues surrounding the beginnings of life and what to do about it no closer to resolution than they were then.
In POLITICS Tags Roe v. Wade; Southern politics; the nature of the foetus; "safe, legal and rare"; abortion
Both life and literature are usually understood in terms of drama. People make choices which alter them and their circumstances and it is problematic what will come next. That is especially true of courtship, where people know that life with this person will be different and somehow unexpected, and so our romances, which means potential marriages, makes each of us a hero or heroine within our own lives, and that is even true of arranged marriages, where at least the woman is going to live with a new family and put up with a man whom she may barely know. It is also true of the years one spends in college, transforming oneself into a different person, each person the hero of his or her own bildungsroman. So everyone is either young Werther, or the young artist portrayed by James Joyce. Prince Hal became a different person when he became Henry V and Hamlet became a different person we find out only when he returned from college to a home he found passing strange. This dramatic texture of life continues throughout the life cycle, though often, in its later stages, because of changes not of one’s choosing: the death of a spouse leading a person to alter their sense of their place in the world as well as possibly their living arrangements. Even retirement can lead to life alterations if for no other reason than that a person has to find out what they want to do with their time, which is a matter of choices not previously thought possible. Are their hobbies to be expanded into new vocations? Is it time for something different: a bucket list rather than an intensification of an already established side of one’s personality?
In SOCIAL STRUCTURE Tags Heroic life; stable life; Talcott Parsons; "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit"
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Fans of the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson are now getting a new installation (book#4) to add to this international best selling saga by Swedish journalist and author David Lagercrantz. A big set of shoes to fill by Mr. Lagercrantz, I think. Early reviews of the book are looking kind of on the fence some stating we won't be disappointed (Amazon Reviewers) by the newest addition in the series, others more harshly criticizing the attempt (Goodreads reviewers) The New York Times review also seems to be a bit of a lukewarm reception.
There seems to be speculation of an unfinished manuscript...
So my question is...
I would like to know if there is an unfinished unpublished manuscript, when it will be published if at all and who will be worthy of the task? Stieg Larsson has been gone for more than 10 years now...I'm just saying
When will it be available to us regular folks?...
With staggered release dates, some as early as Aug 27 it looks like US book patrons will be able to purchase the book on September 1st. Pricing will range between $11-$16
Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist return as the sometimes unconventional and not so dynamic duo once again as they take on a new case in the fourth installment written by Swedish journalist David Lagercrantz.
Genre: Crime thriller
She is the girl with the dragon tattoo—a genius hacker and uncompromising misfit. He is a crusading journalist whose championing of the truth often brings him to the brink of prosecution.
Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female super hacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Salander for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. The secret they are both chasing is at the center of a tangled web of spies, cyber criminals, and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it . . .
The duo who captivated millions of readers in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest join forces again in this adrenaline-charged, uniquely of-the-moment thriller.
I highly suggest that you read the previous books or at least watch/ read the movies on Netflix in the foreign films sections so you have a good understanding and feel for the story. Pack a lunch and your reading glasses because it is translated so there will be reading involved... I just lost some of you didn't I...and the movies are about 2.5-3 hours long. I have personally never watch the US adaption as I just felt it would be wrong and probably just piss me off and somehow tarnish the effort and subsequent badge of honor of eyestrain from reading/watching the movies for hours.
Just in case you have no clue about the series...
There are very violent scenes of rape and violence. I was not forewarned so I am doing you a solid here. Trust me.
Perhaps it will read well as a stand alone...
Trust me, Lisbeth and Blomkvist are two characters who you really want to immerse yourself in their dark and bloody past to appreciate where this newest caper will take you. Get the trilogy that started the international phenomenon:
This is definitely going on my #TBR list. I will be stalking Goodreads to see what my She Readers think about this newest book .
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British Journalist Killed By Crocodile During Beach Holiday In Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan police on Friday said they found the body of a 24-year-old British journalist, Paul McClean, who is suspected to have been killed by a crocodile during a beach holiday in Sri Lanka.
Divers found McClean’s corpse in the mud of a lagoon in the coastal village of Panama, 360 kilometres (225 miles) east of the capital Colombo by road, a police spokesman said.
“There were six or seven wounds on his right leg,” a police official. “The body was stuck in mud at about the same place where he was seen last by some others who were with him.”
A crocodile is believed to have dragged McClean away on Thursday afternoon, the officer said, but a post-mortem examination later Friday would formally establish the cause of death.
McClean, who worked for the Financial Times, was holidaying in Sri Lanka with friends. He was on a beach and had wandered away to find a toilet then was his hands when he stumbled into an area known to be infested with crocodiles.
Other holidaymakers in the area alerted police after McClean disappeared and a search was mounted with the help of navy divers.
McClean, joined the Financial Times two years ago as a graduate trainee, has died during a beach holiday in Sri Lanka.
"McClean’s body has been identified by friends with whom he was travelling and officials who have spoken to them said he is believed to have been attacked by a crocodile," writes FT.
"The final cause of death has yet to be established. We are liaising closely with his family and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and offering the FT's assistance,” said James Lamont, the FT’s managing editor. “Our thoughts are with his family, friends and loved ones. We are in touch with them, doing all we can to help during this difficult time.”
Mr Lamont described McClean, who was just a month shy of his 25th birthday, as “a talented, energetic and dedicated young journalist” who had “a great career ahead of him at the FT”.
At the time of his death he was a member of the fastFT team in London. In his previous posting to Brussels, McClean established a reputation as a rising star with in-depth exclusives including his revelation that Britain would have to renegotiate no fewer than 759 treaties with 168 countries after its vote to leave the EU.
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ABOUT US | Wrong Kind of Green | the NGOs & conservation groups that are bargaining away our future
“Wrong Kind of Green is indispensable, indeed, a cutting edge tool of resistance.”
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Environmentalism is Dead – Welcome to the Age of Anthropocentrism [McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street: Part XIV of an Investigative Report]
by Cory Morningstar
Part fourteen of an investigative series
[Part I of this series, McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street, can be found here. Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII]
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.” — Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Prologue: A Coup d’état of Nature – Led by the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
It is somewhat ironic that anti-REDD climate activists, faux green organizations (in contrast to legitimate grassroots organizations that do exist, although few and far between) and self-proclaimed environmentalists, who consider themselves progressive will speak out against the commodification of nature’s natural resources while simultaneously promoting the toothless divestment campaign promoted by the useless mainstream groups allegedly on the left. It’s ironic because the divestment campaign will result (succeed) in a colossal injection of money shifting over to the very portfolios heavily invested in, thus dependent upon, the intense commodification and privatization of Earth’s last remaining forests, (via REDD, environmental “markets” and the like). This tour de force will be executed with cunning precision under the guise of environmental stewardship and “internalizing negative externalities through appropriate pricing.” Thus, ironically (if in appearances only), the greatest surge in the ultimate corporate capture of Earth’s final remaining resources is being led, and will be accomplished, by the very environmentalists and environmental groups that claim to oppose such corporate domination and capture.
Beyond shelling out billions of tax-exempt dollars (i.e., investments) to those institutions most accommodating in the non-profit industrial complex (otherwise known as foundations), the corporations need not lift a finger to sell this pseudo green agenda to the people in the environmental movement; the feat is being carried out by a tag team comprised of the legitimate and the faux environmentalists. As the public is wholly ignorant and gullible, it almost has no comprehension of the following:
the magnitude of our ecological crisis
the root causes of the planetary crisis, or
the non-profit industrial complex as an instrument of hegemony.
The commodification of the commons will represent the greatest, and most cunning, coup d’état in the history of corporate dominance – an extraordinary fait accompli of unparalleled scale, with unimaginable repercussions for humanity and all life.
Further, it matters little whether or not the money is moved from direct investments in fossil fuel corporations to so-called “socially responsible investments.” The fact of the matter is that all corporations on the planet (and therefore by extension, all investments on the planet) are dependent upon and will continue to require massive amounts of fossil fuels to continue to grow and expand ad infinitum – as required by the industrialized capitalist economic system.
The windmills and solar panels serve as beautiful (marketing) imagery and a panacea for our energy issues, yet they are illusory – the fake veneer for the commodification of the commons, which is the fundamental objective of Wall Street, the very advisers of the divestment campaign.
Thus we find ourselves unwilling to acknowledge the necessity to dismantle the industrialized capitalist economic system, choosing instead to embrace an illusion designed by corporate power.
Divestment Launch Goes Global
“The creation of value continues to drive capitalism, yet the meaning of ‘value’ shifts and is reimagined within the context of neoliberal capitalism—Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times”— Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times, 2012
On September 18, 2014, three days prior to the Peoples Climate March, a press release shared by the website Look to the Stars, The World of Celebrity Giving, announced:
“A coalition of endowments and individuals committed to divesting from fossil fuels and investing in clean energy will announce pledges totaling $50 billion in assets and growing at a press conference in New York City on Monday, Sept. 22. The coalition, first launched in January, will announce scores of new domestic and international foundations, hundreds of high-net worth individuals as well as major NGOs, faith groups and health organizations. The next day, commitments will be presented at the UN Climate Summit with many world leaders in attendance including President Obama. Taking part in the press conference will be: Archbishop Desmond Tutu (by video), Mark Ruffalo, actor, Stephen Heintz, President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, David Blood, formerly Goldman Sachs, co-founder Generation Investment, Agnes Abuom, principal at the World Council of Churches and Ellen Dorsey, Executive Director Wallace Global Fund (moderating)” [Emphasis added]
Three days later on September 21, 2014, the People’s Climate March took place in New York City. This spectacle was overseen/managed in part by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The members only “State of Play on the People’s Climate March” event listed by the Environmental Grantmakers Association Website (posted 08/20/2014 – 1:00pm) stated the following:
“An unprecedented 550 organizations from labor, faith, environment and justice movements are coming together to make the September 21st People’s Climate March the largest ever public mobilization on climate. Join us to learn why such a huge diversity of organizations, networks, and individuals are mobilizing at this key moment, just days before the Climate Leaders Summit hosted by Ban Ki-moon. We’ll discuss how organizations are working together to bridge movements, as this effort not only seeks to raise awareness for climate impacts, but also open a significant political narrative about economic and environmental justice.
Irene Krarup, Executive Director, V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation (moderator)
• Emma Ruby-Sachs, Campaigns Manager, Avaaz
• Jamie Henn, Political and Communications Director, 350.org
• Eddie Bautista, Executive Director, NYCEJA”
“This will be the first of a series of two calls – the second will be a funder-only conversation during the first week of September. If you are unable to make either call and still want to learn more, please feel free to contact Stephanie Bencivenga of Rockefeller Brothers Fund (sbencivenga[at]rbf.org) or Irene Krarup of V.K. Rasmussen Foundation (ikrarup[at]vkrf.org).” [Emphasis added]
One would be naïve to believe that there was not (and continues to be) an intense amount of coordination and concerted effort functioning behind the scenes. A unification of all players woven within the non-profit industrial complex, united in one strategic purpose: To expand, further capture and create new capital markets, with a supportive public under the guise of a “new economy” to which the divestment plays a pivotal role.
[Here it must be noted that the media circus surrounding the Peoples Climate March effectively eclipsed the first UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples which took place on September 22-23, 2014, planned years in advance.]
Although it is comforting to most (for reasons difficult to comprehend) that the now global climate marches appear to be led by Rockefeller’s multi-million “scruffy little outfit” 350.org [1], the NGO at the helm of all these machinations is still Global Call for Climate Action (TckTckTck) – an NGO with a slightly damaged patina – damage extensive enough that they obscure their clout from the glare of the public spectacle. This is a simple sleight of hand considering 350.org is a founding partner of GCCA.
“GCCA worked behind the scenes for over a year to prepare for the biggest date in 2014, leveraging every possible asset and contact to rally around the historic Peoples’ Climate March in the run-up to the UN Climate Leaders Summit…. In the preceding months, GCCA convened weekly calls with key partners 350.org, Avaaz, USCAN and Climate Nexus to catalyse activities and identify gaps…. Everything came together on the day as we bore witness to the world’s biggest ever climate march, and inspiring events across the globe, with world leaders, business people, activists, parents and artists walking shoulder-to-shoulder.” — GCCA Annual Report 2014
GCCA, an initiative that began in Bali (2007) with a $300,000 funding commitment from the Quebec government, is a “coalition of twenty key international organizations” including Avaaz, 350.org, Greenpeace , Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Forum, OXFAM, WWF, World Council of Churches, Union of Concerned Scientists, Equiterre, Global Call to Action against Poverty (also co-chaired by Kumi Naidoo), and the Pew Environment Group. [Source]
On February 19, 2015, the co-opted CJN! listserv shared a communiqué in regard to the divestment campaign with the following subject line: “Fossil fuel divestment seems to frighten London financial bourgeoisie.”
This “observation” amounts to willful blindness at its best.
The first question to ask of any campaign is this: What do the oligarchs wish to gain via the financing of this campaign? Aside from the shaping, managing and over-seeing/controlling of (and even the creation of) “movements” – while simultaneously possessing the ability to effectively enforce self-censorship via what amounts to an unspoken, agreed upon alibi – oligarchs are primarily interested in not only maintaining power, but also expanding it. (A quick glimpse into the demise of real movements since foundation funding started flowing like the River Nile in the sixties confirms this to be true, with a prime example being the funding used to counteract and destroy the powerful and revolutionary Black Power movement while using its largess to appropriate any remaining shards after its demise.) The capitalist’s way to expand power is via the pursuit, expansion and capture of capital, furthering profits and market share. Thus, when we ask what oligarchs wish to gain via the financing of particular campaigns, one must always consider not only how the campaign could/will affect capital but also the ideologies surrounding capital.
Using the Keystone XL (KXL) campaign as an example, the billionaire Warren Buffett (financial advisor and close confidant to Barack Obama) legally funneled over 26 million dollars (as of 2011) into the Tides foundation. In turn, Tides doled out the money to NGOs that would campaign against the tar sands pipelines, including the KXL, which became the focal point of not only all tar sands campaigns, but the primary focal point of the “environmental movement” in North America. Hence, while all eyes were on a single pipeline (KXL) for years, Buffet built a billion dollar rail dynasty with zero dissent. Today, more oil is being produced in North America than ever before. In 2013, rail delivered 407,761 carloads of crude (approx. 300 million barrels of oil). This amounts to more than a 4,000% increase from 9,500 carloads in 2008. [Source: The Association of American Railroads.] No one blinked an eye when on July 6, 2013 a train carrying Bakken Formation crude annihilated downtown Lac-Mégantic, Quebec killing 47, 5 of whom were literally vapourized. Many more environmental disasters and explosions due to crude-via-rail derailments would follow, as would more deaths.
Both framing and language is paramount in the social engineering of a global populace. Consider the media headlines for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) Divestment announcement that strategically coincided with the aforementioned “People’s Climate March” and the United Nations climate summit that followed in NYC on September 23, 2014. The words “Rockefellers”, “divest”, “$860 million”, and “$50 billion” flooded the media and social networks. The rash of announcements were met with admiration by many. Yet upon closer inspection, the RBF (the smaller Rockefeller foundation founded in 1940) divested a portion (7%) of its 860 million-dollar fund, which is the equivalent of $60 million (within a 5-year period). The “50 billion” repeatedly cited was a reference to the multiple “philanthropies and high-wealth individuals” which/whom together owned $50 billion in assets and had pledged to divest from fossil fuels over five years “using a variety of approaches” since the campaign was launched in 2011 – with the RBF comprising part of the 50-group coalition (Global Divest-Invest Coalition) who made the announcement. One question which does not arise is this: why are “philanthropies and high-wealth individuals” (including 650 individuals and 180 institutions) who/which hoard/control/own $50 billion dollars, tolerated by society at all? Considering the divestment campaign sells itself as a “moral” issue, it is revealing that the ethics behind so few people controlling so much monetary wealth never comes into question.
In 2014, global fossil fuel assets (oil, gas and coal) were valued at approx. $US 5-trillion. In comparison, assets belonging to Rockefeller Brothers Fund amount to approximately $US 860-million while the Rockefeller Foundation (founded in 1913) has assets of approximately $$US 4.2-billion (2014). And although the divestment campaign boasts that hundreds of institutions, local governments and individuals, (which represents over $US 50-billion in assets as of September 2014) have pledged to divest from fossil fuels, one must note that the Rockefeller Foundation— has shown no such desire. Nor have other powerful institutions/foundations such as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (with $US 9-billion in assets) or the David & Lucile Packard Foundation (with $US 7-billion in assets).
The heirs of the Rockefeller Family Fund (founded in 1967) maintain ties to the RFB. They also retained their personal stock in Exxon Mobil which made gains in 2014 of approx. 11%. While many believed that Exxon’s rejection of divestment was based upon fear of big money moving against it (i.e. “stranded assets“) – the Rockefeller Foundation and the RFF’s decision to hold onto their Exxon shares (along with the Rockefeller heirs) demonstrated that this premise was largely false.
Fast forward to 2015. How quickly things can change. November 13, 2015, Bloomberg: “OPEC reports the biggest oil glut in a decade.” As oil prices drop, demand/consumption continues to climb (globally by 1.8 million barrels per day to 94.6 million in 2015), while growth for the world economy continues to stand still. On October 1, 2015 it was reported that the according to the International Energy Agency, global oil demand was climbing at the fastest rate in five years. By December 2, 2016, committed pledges to divest from fossil fuels would reach $3.4 trillion. Floating oil storage (tankers), rolling oil storage (rail cars) and oil storage terminals became sought after commodities. On December 2, 2015, Bloomberg reported that the US is ploughing billions into infrastructure (with the various projects well underway) to pump the oil back underground into massive salt calverns, as well as additional storage facilities/terminals. Each calvern will hold 3.5 million barrels of oil.
Why? Not because of the divestment campaign, but rather because of a rare occurrence with a far greater significance. The global economy has become stagnant. Capitalism has reached it’s limits. And under the capitalist economic system, if the economy does not grow, it will collapse. Hence the need for new markets. Hence the need for a third industrial revolution. Hence the need for the global financialization of nature.
The Global Economy is Flying Close to Stall Speed
Oct 22, 2015:
“We are flying at close to stall speed,” Dr Summers said at the Center for American Progress business and economic policy conference.”
Rarely in our history does such a situation – to dismantle capitalism – present itself. Which begs the question – why are “movements” focused on saving the fledgling economic system rather than destroying it? The answer can be found in one word: privilege.
“The expanding crisis is a symptom of capitalism in an advanced state of disintegration…. All of these crises are surface manifestations of something more profound: the crisis of the world capitalist system itself. This crisis brings with it the danger of world war and a descent into barbarism. At the same time, it creates the objective basis for the overthrow of the capitalist system—the radicalization of the working class internationally.” [Source]
So much for Naomi Klein’s primary thesis of “Capitalism vs. the Climate“. Those of you who believed the intent of Klein’s book project (financed by the elites) was to actually dismantle the capitalist system must be sorely disappointed. With the industrialised economy now essentially on life support, the NPIC, in which Klein is embedded, is doing everything in its power to keep it alive.
Public relations knocks. On March 23, 2016 the RFF (130 million in holdings, 6% of the portfolio in fossil-fuel investments) announced it would withdraw all investments in fossil fuel companies “as quickly as possible” while publicly highlighting concerns/criticisms of Exxon Mobil. Exxon Mobil became engulfed in a PR nightmare when in September of 2016, the corporation was internationally exposed for deliberately covering up critical climate documents decades ago.
The effective (and well-deserved) slandering of Exxon timed with an historical global oil glut, served as a key opportunity for the insignificant RFF to bask the Rockefeller brand in the bright green spot light of divestment that 350.org et al. would bestow with zeal. A promise to divest “as quickly as possible” (allowing for up to 5 years) painted the ruthless and apathetic Rockefeller brand with one high-gloss, broad, green stroke.
Divest, Invest but Don’t Contest
Intermingled investment portfolios and limited partnerships are not required by law to disclose their investments and trading activities, thus, even large institutions that may oblige to take divestment as an undertaking, will more often than not, have no comprehension, on any given day whether they are invested in fossil fuels or not. Further still, for an institution to rid itself of all fossil fuel holdings (keeping in mind the reality that most every traded commodity on Earth is carbon based, carbon dependent or both, from cradle to grave), this would entail great caution presiding over a painfully slow process that ensures board members do not breach their fiduciary trust to keep the said fund solvent. In essence, this legal provision dictates that those who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders first and foremost – a duty to maximize wealth (at every quarter) – infinitely. Not doing so can leave board directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders. It is telling that although the NPIC spends billions on environmental and climate campaigns, it does not seek/obtain legal council to abolish this outdated, ludicrous (and dangerous) law once and for all.
And while the atrocious act of corporations (protected by law) maximizing their profits for their shareholders, first and foremost, has been completely accepted and normalized, the racket of “interest” (money generating money; which was best described as the “fetishism of capital” by the economist Karl Marx, whose words are becoming more prescient everyday) has been firmly established in western society as an irrefutable fact of life – akin to breathing. And although it is understood by most that the payment of interest causes much hardship, stress and misery for the grossly exploited working class, the collective acclimatization to paying interest (to the rich) is so ingrained, it is difficult to imagine a society without it. And yet this exists in many societies throughout the Middle East (such as Libyan society before it’s grotesque annihilation led by the NATO States) via Islamic Banking Principles. Most American’s are likely unaware that Islam’s prohibition of interest and usury was not unprecedented. Renowned Greek philosopher, Aristotle, condemned acquiring of wealth by the practice of charging interest on money: “Money was intended to be a means of exchange; interest represents an increase in the money itself. Hence of all ways of getting wealth, this is the most contrary to nature.” Aristotle, The Politics, tr. Sinclair, pg. 46, Penguin [Source]
Clean Energy Infrastructure as Stranded Assets
To revisit the concept of stranded assets in regard to conventional fossil fuels, this notion is based upon the premise that conventional infrastructure and the associated commodity will become stranded following governments soon/eventual implementation of specific climate legislation [2] and/or increasingly stringent climate policies that would result in the commodity no longer being able to turn a profit– thus it would become stranded. Yet a stronger argument could be made for “clean” energy” infrastructure becoming stranded since it is also carbon based/dependent although this inconvenient truth remains unacknowledged in environmental circles. Consider the fact that climate science aside, humans are rapidly exhausting all Earth’s natural resources. (October, 2010: “…our demand on natural resources has doubled since 1966 and we’re using the equivalent of 1.5 planets to support our activities. If we continue living beyond the Earth’s limits, by 2030 we’ll need the equivalent of two planets’ productive capacity to meet our annual demands.”) And although this sounds ludicrous to the privileged who take most every aspect of the Earth’s life sources for granted, the warning is taken very seriously by the heads of NASA. Consider the response by Administrator of NASA, Charles Bolden speaking at the Humans to Mars summit:
“If this species is to survive indefinitely we need to become a multi-planet species. We need to go to Mars, and Mars is a stepping stone to other solar systems.” (Note that the quest to place greenhouses on and colonize Mars is well underway.
Thus, let us assume that to start, by 2020, just 4 short years away, the 60 trillion (needed for “clean” infrastructure alone) is raised. The task then becomes the companies creating this infrastructure fulfilling the promise of return on these investments by now building/creating the new global infrastructure. Unparalleled quantities of rare earth metals must be mined (by machines dependent on crude). The steel, copper, glass, as well as the energy required (and fossil fuels) to build infrastructure of this scale will be unprecedented. And it will generate massive growth as our Earth continues to be plundered.
But what of the Earth’s resources being completely depleted by 2030 as predicted by scientists – what then of the sixty trillion dollar investment – with monetary returns no longer insight? These uncompleted infrastructures, due to depleted resources, will be, without doubt, stranded assets. It’s hard to believe we are going to use what little of Earth’s finite resources that remain to fulfil the promise of climate wealth, by building a new “clean energy” infrastructure, rather than radically conserving and attempting to nourish, what remains. Consider that a mere half of 1% of the total energy consumed in the U.S. is generated by wind, solar, biofuels, or geothermal heat. Despite much touted efforts in Germany, Spain, and China, globally, in 2013, 1.1% of the world’s total energy was provided by wind with only 0.2% by solar.[Source | Source] Thus, imagine the magnitude of infrastructure required to increase the world’s total energy from renewables up to even 50%. It is unfathomable. It is this promise of unparalleled growth (under the guise of sustainability) that has the insatiable capitalists circling the climate crisis like voracious vultures. Rubbing salt in the wound is the fact that this new infrastructure will serve the same people that have always had the energy – the same 1% (anyone who can afford to get on a plane) responsible for 50% of the global GHG emissions. To put this into perspective, consider that only 5% of the world’s population has ever flown. [Source]
While many scientists, including NASA, note that the prospect that “global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution”, the fact that sought after renewable systems such as solar thermal panels will not only push us towards this collapse but also, cannot exist outside of an industrialized civilization, appear to non-existent. The proverbial 8000 lb. elephant in the room is documented in a 2009 paper by professor of Atmospheric Studies at the University of Utah, Tim Garrett. Nov. 22, 2009: “In a provocative new study, a University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions – the major cause of global warming – cannot be stabilized unless the world’s economy collapses….”
“But most centrally, alternative energy spectacles protect us from considering our own growth, in consumption and population, which could not otherwise come to a peaceful end within the logic of the current expansionist milieu.” — Conjuring Clean Energy: Exposing Green Assumptions in Media and Academia, February 13, 2015
But let’s pretend that Earth’s resources are infinite. It is assumed (foolishly) that fossil fuel power plants will be shut down once adequate solar and wind energy infrastructure is established. To date, there appears to be not a single example of a fossil fuel power plant that has closed, due to solar and wind. Under the industrialized capitalist system, logic conveys that this fact will not change in the future. In real life (not foundation financed campaigns that pander to public) the energy producers understand that all/any additional energy that may be produced via “renewables” will result in more energy to use/sell/waste and feed the engine of industrialized growth. This is the naked truth, which speaks to the very inconvenient truth upheld by the capitalist system. In a world built upon both denial and fantasy, techno-fetish made vogue, is the preferred choice.
Post-closure coal mine AMD (acid mining drainage) treatment on the East Rand, South Africa (Source: Future Terrains)
All non-ambient energy creates pollution and destruction, including renewables which are carbon based and dependent on carbon resources from cradle to grave – coupled with built-in obsolescence by design. Even when small or local in scale, renewable energy aids and abets growth, accelerates global warming, and contributes to further ecological destruction. Further ecological damage is caused by rare earth mining, as well as the acid drainage type mining for the necessary materials and special metals such as copper and lead. Added to this ecological devastation are the fossil fuels required/used for the mining and manufacturing of the renewable products and infrastructure. After the manufacturing they are transported using large-scale industrial equipment also dependent on crude. Finally, all these same resources are non-renewable. These very inconvenient facts are ignored. In a perfect world, in another time, perhaps renewable energies will be made of butterfly kisses and rare, precious Earth minerals will fall from the sky.
Acid mine drainage in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
University of California physics professor Tom Murphy has calculated that “the batteries required to store this electricity in the U.S. alone (otherwise no electricity at night or during cloudy or windless spells) would require about three times as much lead as geologists estimate may exist in all reserves, most of which remain unknown. If you count only the lead that we’ve actually discovered, Murphy explains, we only have 2% of the lead available for our national battery project. The number are even more disheartening if you try to substitute lithium ion or other systems now only in the research phase.” [Source]
Cyanide Leach Mining and Acid Mine Drainage imperils the Futaleufu River Valley. Mine Tailings, Sudbury Ontario, Canada, photo: Edward Burtnyski
To not consider renewable energy infrastructures, global in scale, as equally contributing to growth, ecological destruction and climate change is willful blindness. Such willful blindness is sought after and fervently embraced by the same 1% of the population that creates 50% of all global greenhouse gas emissions today. Considering the magnitude of the task before us, it is little wonder we prefer stories, in which we write the script with a storyline of our liking. Our frail egos do not accept there are consequences to having plundered our planet in which the outcome will be dictated by nature.
La Ventana Drilling Results, Sonora Lithium Project Mexico
The brine pools and processing areas of the Soquimich lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat. This is the planet’s second largest salt flat, located in the Atacama desert of northern Chile
Bingham Canyon Copper Mine | © 2005 Mark Gulbrandsen
Chuquicamata copper mine, Chile
“Debord wrote that “the society which rests on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectaclist.” Perhaps he could have spoken similarly about modern energy or modern environmentalism. Debord’s spectacle is a divine deity around which duty-bound citizens gravitate to chant objectives without reflecting upon fundamental goals. It’s all too easy for us to miss the limitations of alternative energy, Debord might say, as we drop to our knees at the foot of the clean energy spectacle, gasping in rapture. This oracle delivers a ready-made creed of ideals and objectives that are convenient to recite and that bear the authority of science. These handy notions of clean energy reflexively work into environmental discourse. And as we have seen here, productivist environmentalists enroll media to tattoo wind, solar and biofuels into the subcutaneous flesh of the environmental movement. In fact, these novelties come to define what it means to be an environmentalist. And environmentalist’s aren’t the only ones lining up for ink.” — Conjuring Clean Energy: Exposing Green Assumptions in Media and Academia
Through the Lens of Deception – Burning Trees & Injecting C02 into Seas
The Sleipner project: The injection rate of almost one million tons per year makes the project one of the largest demonstrations of CCS in the world to date.
Aerial view of clearcut. Small clumps of trees left during clearcutting for biomass, in compliance with Nova Scotia’s Wildlife Habitat and Watercourse Protection Regulation © ECELAW- jamie Simpson
Divesting from fossil fuels and investing into a “clean economy” (for the wealthy) is predicated on market solutions. One such example is the pursuit of “clean coal”, which translates into the illusory carbon capture and storage technology and therefore ultimately translates into business as usual. The terminology “green energy” is equated with environmental stewardship and sustainability. Yet, behind closed doors, a large proportion of what corporations and states constitute as society’s perception of “green” energy is all but lost. A green energy plan or portfolio, as viewed by industry, investors, states, etc. is predominantly comprised of biomass and bio-fuel—by far two of the most damaging sources of energy. Yet under the guise of “clean energy” and the “new economy”, plans to expand these two deadly sources of energy continue to proliferate with the International Energy Agency (IEA) expecting a five-fold increase in wood-burning power plants and a threefold increase in biofuels by 2035. Another form of “clean energy” already taking place, unbeknownst to most all global citizens is the injection of CO2 into the ocean. Industry is already injecting CO2 on an industrial scale in the sandstone, in the North Sea and also in the Bering Sea in greater water depths. [Source]
Environmentalism is Dead – Replaced by Anthropocentrism
The acquiescence to the burning of billions of trees under the guise of environmental stewardship is both particularly disturbing—and revealing. Consider that bio-fuel, that is the growing of crops/grains/plants for fuel rather than food, was challenged by many environmentalists in the past. Yet the same argument, with the same key issues when applied to growing grain for direct human consumption, rather than growing grain for industrialized livestock, which is then brought to the market for human consumption, is avoided at all costs. Two questions must be asked. When did “environmentalists” stop caring about sentient beings, and, when did “environmentalists” stop caring about trees? The answer is 1) long ago, and 2) disturbing. Collectively, postmodern Western society has been acclimatized to believe/accept that anthropocentrism is environmentalism and anthropocentrists are environmental activists. This is an anthropocentrism that believes in, and caters to white supremacy, even if this belief is subconscious or subtle (aversive racism). This must be considered one of the best examples of successful social engineering to date, as financed by the world’s most powerful oligarchs.
A modern day “radical” movement such as Black Lives Matter™ is a “movement” that would (and perhaps has) make a past revolutionary such as Stokley Carmichael roll over in his grave. Naomi Klein™ has never been and never will be a Marilyn Buck – to even write the two names together in the same sentence feels sacrilege. The fierce revolutionaries that still exist, such as Omali Yeshitela are a rare, endangered species. Largely invisible behind the blinding light the oligarchs bask upon their chosen “leaders” such as McKibben™, Klein™ et al. The genocide being carried out against Indigenous leaders of warrior/matriarchal Indigenous tribes continues under the global dome of patriarchy. Euro-Americans who identify with those chosen by our oligarchs are more than happy to ignore the revolutionaries on the front lines of the struggle, ” demanding” (clicking) justice for those who toil in mines, while simultaneously demanding a new global infrastructure of “clean” energy absolutely dependent on steel, copper, lithium, rare Earth/precious minerals acquired only by land theft/displacement and the expansion of mining. The fact that the miners use essentially none of what is mined for their own lives, that all is captured and used for the west, for luxury/lifestyle, doesn’t even cross the mind of the audience targeted by the NPIC. Critical thinking is a largely dead concept.
“If we had as many people fighting for the revolution as we have fighting for useless voting rights and re-enfranchisement we might actually have something going on here. That’s bourgeois democracy in a nutshell: people fighting for the right to be equally fucked by the system, as long as it’s not so flagrant as being denied one’s right to vote.” — Jeff Weinberger
The Sell
The simple answer is that the 1% creating 50% of the all global greenhouse gas emissions must use a radically less amount of everything. Of course this reality is far less exciting than the dream of a consumerist green utopia. Impressing this green utopia as delusional upon the masses is even more difficult when collectively, your target audience has been spoon-fed entitlement, narcissism and privilege, since birth. The necessity to radically and drastically cut back all forms of consumption (which by default reduces demand for energy) flies in the face of a global economy intermarried and dependent upon infinite growth. Under the industrialized capitalist economy – no solutions outside of market solutions will be pursued or campaigned upon. Thus society, with youth as the sacrificial lambs of the 21st century at the forefront, is fed a lie – which is voraciously consumed. The path to “sustainability” is to follow the oligarchs yellow brick road to the “new” economy— paved in foundation dollars. The necessity for a radical contraction of consumption by the privileged is replaced with “solutions” comprised of more infrastructures, more technology, “green” consumption, more mining, more burning of fossil fuels, more growth—all of which will benefit (only in the short-term) the same 1% who have created and continue to accelerate the nightmare. Ask us for the moon. Even for Mars. But don’t ask us to change.
Bearing Witness. The Foundation is Laid. Assigning Monetary Value to Nature.
“Those who have been raised in the world of conservation may find it hard to adjust to a future where ecosystem assets and services are priced, invested in and traded, but this is an experiment that the world is now embarked upon—and must energetically pursue.” — The Biosphere Economy, 2010
On October 3, 1937 US President Franklyn D. Roosevelt, wrote that he found an editorial published by a “Great Falls Paper” on the “balancing the budget of our resources”, most compelling. Of course it is extremely doubtful (but not impossible) that Roosevelt’s interest was of pathological intent as is the case today. In the same vein as the funding/development of genetically engineered Golden Rice having commenced decades ago, the economic system/infrastructure for the commodification of all nature is not a new idea.
The concept of an ecosystem was first used in 1935. The term ecosystem was coined by British botanist Arthur Roy Clapham, at the bequest of British ecologist Arthur Tansley. In 1953 leading ecosystem ecologists Eugene P. Odum and Howard T. Odum (brothers ) published Fundamentals of Ecology. This publication (one of the most successful ecology textbooks ever published) made the ecosystem concept the central organizing principle of ecology. In 1970 Merton Love, agronomist and range scientist at the University of California, Davis, argued that “in time we would be able to manage wilderness much as we had learned to manage our agricultural systems. His vision was of total human control over ecosystems.” [Source]
The concept/theory of ecosystem services was not fully utilized until the 1980s and 1990s. A milestone in the monetization of ecosystem services (ES) was reached in 1997 when Costanza et al. published a dollar estimate of the value of the ES of the entire planet. [Source: Have Ecosystem Services Been Oversold?] The theory was formalized in 2005 upon the publication of UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report. While the original definition put forward by Gretchen Daily (co-founder of the Natural Capital Project) distinguished ecosystem goods from ecosystem services, Robert Costanza and colleagues’ later work and that of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment lumped all of these together as ecosystem services. [3]
As an adjunct to more easily enable people to accept this lunacy being pawned off as fact, the NPIC is most adept at co-opting and sanitizing civil rights leaders such as MLK in order to further their brand. They steal the legitimacy and credibility of those now deceased to facilitate the present credibility and legitimacy of their efforts they cannot achieve on their own. Simply because they can truly possess neither by any rationale, unbiased analysis. How grotesque it is to destroy someone’s work, reputation and legacy when they are not even here to defend themselves. Perhaps nowhere has such gross co-optation occurred as what is now underway with the work of E.F. Schumacher. The very thing he strongly opposed – assigning monetary value to nature, is now being pushed forward and implemented by institutions who affiliate themselves with his name and work.
The term ‘natural capital’ was first used by in 1973 by economist and author E.F. Schumacher. There is irony in the fact that Schumacher was very critical of the ideology behind reducing everything in life to a monetary value within a market-based framework, stating that:
“In the market place, for practical reasons, innumerable qualitative distinctions which are of vital importance for man and society are suppressed; they are not allowed to surface. Thus the reign of quantity celebrates its greatest triumphs in ‘The Market’. Everything is equated with everything else. To equate things means to give them a price and thus to make them exchangeable. To the extent that economic thinking is based on the market, it takes the sacredness out of life, because there can be nothing sacred in something that has a price. Not surprisingly, therefore, if economic thinking pervades the whole of society. even simple non-economic values like beauty, health, or cleanliness can survive only if they prove to be ‘economic’.
To press non-economic values into the framework of the economic calculus, economists use the method of cost/benefit analysis. This is generally thought to be an enlightened and progressive development, as it is at least an attempt to take account of costs and benefits which might otherwise be disregarded al- together. In fact, however, it is a procedure by which the higher is reduced to the level of the lower and the priceless is given a price, It can therefore never serve to clarify the situation and lead to an enlightened decision. All it can do is lead to self-deception or the deception of others; for to undertake to measure the immeasurable is absurd and constitutes but an elaborate method of moving from preconceived notions to foregone conclusions; all one has to do to obtain the desired results is to impute suitable values to the immeasurable costs and benefits. The logical absurdity, however, is not the greatest fault of the undertaking: what is worse, and destructive of civilisation, is the pretence that everything has a price or, in other words, that money is the highest of all values.” [Source: Small is Beautiful, 1973]
Further irony arises with Schumacher’s name being co-opted by the NPIC as a key tool to build acquiescence for the assigning of monetary value to nature, with key players assigned to this task such as Bill McKibben (The Next System) who wrote a new forward for the 2010 edition of Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful first published in 1973. In the decade that followed, the recently “killed” (“we’re going to have to kill green,” Jeremy Heimans) term “green economy” was coined in the Blueprint for a Green Economy (paper by Pearce, Markandya, and Barbier (1989). Today the term “natural capital” is identified as the Natural Capitalism economic model of “climate wealth” proponents Paul Hawken [676], Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins who in 1999 released their book: Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Hawken claimed that the term natural capitalism was misinterpreted adding that while he endorses “the spirit” of commerce and entrepreneurship, he does not endorse the “pathological” qualities inherent in “pure” capitalism.” The Natural Capitalism website states “it seems proper to declare that interest by listing our personal and institutional private-sector clienteles (omitting our larger public-sector and non-profit clienteles) during the past decade, which dates the (public) commencement of the project back to 1989—27 years ago.
“…we’ll build the green economy, but we just won’t talk about it and we won’t say that we’re doing it.” —Jeremy Heimans (Avaaz/Purpose co-founder, B Team), 2012
Natural Capitalism, Creating the Next Industrial Revolution Website:
“Our research and work were partly supported by grants from the Surdna, Columbia, Geraldine R. Dodge, MacArthur, Energy, Joyce, Aria, William and Flora Hewlett, Sun Hill, Charles Stewart Mott, Turner, and Goldman foundations, as well as the Educational Foundation of America, Environmental Protection Agency, G.A.G. Charitable Corporation, Merck Family Fund, J. M. Kaplan Fund, and Wallace Global Fund. Our appreciation for this support extends far beyond the publication of this book. These and other funders are investing in the preservation and restoration of the life on this planet, and are leaders all.”
It must be noted here that many of these same foundations are today at the forefront of the now global divestment campaign with Wallace Global Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the John Merck Fund, and at the forefront.
The full list of those involved/associated with the development of Natural Capitalism is both immense and incomplete. Personal and institutional private-sector clienteles (not including larger public-sector and non-profit clienteles):
Aerovironment, American Development Group, Arthur D. Little, Ashland Chemical, Aspen Ski Co., Atlantic Electric, AT&T, Baxter, Bayernwerk, Bechtel, Ben & Jerry’s, Bosal, Boston Consulting Group, Boston Edison, BP, Calvert, Carrier div. of UTC, Cesar Pelli, CH2M Hill, Ciba-Geigy, Citicorp, Collins & Aikman, ComEd, Continental Office, Daimler-Chrysler, Datafusion, Delphi, Diamonex, Dow Chemical, Emmett Realty, Esprit de Corps, First Chicago Building, Florida P&L, General Mills, GM, Gensler, Global Business Network, Grand Wailea Resort, Herman Miller, Hexcel, Hines, Honda, Hong Kong Electric, HP, IBM, Imagine Foods, Interface, Landis & Gyr, Levi Strauss & Co., Lockheed Martin, Michelin, Minnesota Power, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Motor Sales America, Monsanto, Motorola, Nike, Nissan, Nokia, Norsk Hydro, Northface, NYSE&G, Odwalla, Ontario Hydro, OG&E, Osaka Gas, Patagonia, PG&E, PGE, Phillips Petroleum, Prince div. of Johnson Controls, Rieter, Royal Dutch/Shell, Sage J.B. Goodman Properties, Schott Glas, Schweizer, SDG&E, Searle, Shearson Lehmann Amex, STMicroelectronics, Stonyfield Farms, Sun Microsystems, Sun [Oil], Swiss Bank Corp./UBS, UniDev, Unipart, US West, Volvo, VW, Xerox, and Zoltek.
Prior to the formation and development of Natural Capitalism as an economic model, Natural Capitalism authors Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins, co-founded Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in 1982. In December of 2014 RMI merged with Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room. [“RMI now has approximately 75 full-time staff, an annual budget of $12 million, and a global reach and reputation. RMI advances market-based solutions, engaging businesses, communities, and institutions to cost-effectively shift to efficiency and renewables. We employ rigorous research, analysis, and whole-systems expertise to develop breakthrough insights. We then convene and collaborate with diverse partners—business, government, academic, nonprofit, philanthropic, and military—to accelerate and scale solutions.”]
The predominant terminology that appears today, “ecosystem services”, “natural capital”, the “biosphere economy”, “The Next System“, “regenerative capitalism”, “new economy”, etc. can be viewed as the decided-upon, politically correct terms identified by marketing executives as the terminology most palpable (and non-alarming) to global citizens – ready for public consumption after 27 years of meticulous finesse.
Note that the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) contains the internationally agreed upon standard concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules and tables for producing internationally comparable statistics on the environment and its relationship with the economy. Coordination of the implementation of the SEEA and on-going work on new methodological developments is managed and supervised by the UN Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNCEEA). The final, official version of the SEEA Central Framework was published in February 2014. [“The UNCEEA is a body composed of senior representatives from national statistical offices and international organizations. The SEEA Central Framework was released jointly by the UN, European Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.”] Other key organizations behind the commodification of the commons include the Natural Capital Coalition and the Natural Capital Declaration and Roadmap, Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), World Bank’s Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVE) and scores of others (many to be discussed further in this report). Many organizations/institutions/NGOs serve as instrumental in the development and implementation of the financialization of nature/payments for ecosystem services (PES)while most all environmental NGOS serve the over-all goal by providing simple distraction, silence and discourse.
The steadfast work in the goal to commodify the commons is not far off in the future. It is well underway. The ties and organizations to manifest this goal into a global reality are complex and convoluted hidden behind a marketed narrative. A narrative that global citizens will unite behind in the demand for a “new economy”.
Never has the phrase “be careful what you wish for’ been so apt and prophetic.
“The NPIC’S networked hegemony is propagated with a perversion of bio-mimicry. The complexity of the tangled and institutionalised tendrils make it virtually incomprehensible.” — activist/journalist Michael Swifte
The goal to capture the commons has been heavily financed and under development for at minimum 27 years (the “gradual strategy”). As previously stated, the schemes, campaigns and ideologies that foundations support via finance (i.e. investment), are always systematic, never haphazard. Thus, it stands to logic that a long-term strategy may well be the complete and total capture/control of the Earth’s remaining water (via privatization), food (via genetic engineering), forests (via REDD), all life (via privatization/financialization of nature/PES), and the Earths remaining fossil fuels (via divestment). Divestment could well be the ultimate long con. The elite give the windmills, solar panels and the “clean energy” portfolios to the liberals and the 1% status quo, (note that this encompasses 90 trillion between now and 2030 that is required for planned mega-infrastructure projects, which is up from initial estimates of $60-70 trillion as of 2015) while behind private investments, hedge funds and closed doors, the global super elite will invest/capture and control the planets most valuable remaining natural resources (all required for the “third industrial revolution”) as we spin into climate chaos.
Although such a hypothesis may seem a bit far-fetched to some, it is not inconceivable considering foundations and think-tanks lead in the intense study of, and shaping of, behavioural change. These same foundations/institutions have not only shaped whole societies, they have designed, thus altered the history of modern man. We are a socially-engineered species; a product of social engineering rather than a process of having evolved naturally. The time involved in commercializing all aspects of society until saturation was achieved amongst the populace (ensuring tomorrow’s ‘consumers’ would submissively acquiesce to an ideology of mass-commodification and privatization) would have been well-understood by foundations and think-tanks alike. Considering the 21st century explosion of land and water grabs that has gone hand in hand with little public interest shown (let alone dissent) in the race to privatize and commodify the Earth’s remaining commons, such a hypothesis is deserving of both consideration and further investigation. One thing is certain: there is nothing in progress today that has not been tactically designed and deployed to quench the desires and expectations of the elite establishment.
To illustrate and give credence to this hypothesis, it is somewhat fascinating to note the following occurrence. In 1996, Public Good uncovered legal papers linking Fortuna Alliance (previously Whole Earth Alliance) to the Constitutionalist movement. The resultant action by the Federal Trade Commission was the largest ever taken involving fraud on the Internet. The white supremacist Christian Patriot pyramid scheme at the time was raking in millions from gullible New Agers who thought they were building “a new world economy“. [Source] The point being, language and framing have long been perhaps the most critical of efficacious strategies exploited by the elites. Media, employing the right language and repetition, can effectively and effortlessly seduce and manipulate an entire populace.
Divestment Timeline:
350.org “Do The Math Tour” (lays the foundation for a illusory carbon budget and divestment campaign)
McKibben and Klein (350.org board member) create/develop the divestment campaign based on the 2011 Carbon Tracker report (Financial Times)
Those inside the 350.org organization, state that the divestment campaign was developed in consultation with their “friends on Wall Street”
Divestment campaign launched November 7, 2012
Establish framing and language: carbon budget, carbon bubble (coined by Carbon Tracker), stranded assets,
Saturate media with carbon bubble/stranded assets and carbon budget articles [Example: The Guardian: Countries most exposed to the carbon bubble – map, April 19, 2013 – The term carbon bubble on The Guardian website generates “about 16,300 results” accessed March 17, 2015
The term stranded assets on The Guardian website generates “about 1,890 results” accessed March 17, 2015
The term carbon budget on The Guardian website generates “about 8,530 results” accessed March 17, 2015
Hype notion that conventional fossil fuels will lose all value in near future despite the fact that the sought-after “clean energy economy” is infinitely carbon based and fossil fuel dependent
Ignore fact the fact that 1% of the world are creating 50% of all global GHG emissions (the target audience)
Institutions endorse carbon bubble/ stranded assets and carbon budget ideologies
The final, official version of the SEEA Central Framework published (February 2014)
International media announcement/hype on divestment follows Peoples Climate March (September 2014)
Coincides with 350.org’s Klein’s book release This Changes Everything (September 2014)
The IMF and World Bank Group, identify a reduction in the growth of the global economy as a primary risk to the world (October 10, 2014)
Can long-term global growth be saved? (January 2015, McKinsey and Company)
Naomi Klein (350.org) and documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis partner with The Guardian (March 10, 2015)
The United Nations endorses the now global divestment campaign (March 15, 2015)
350.org partners with The Guardian (March 16, 2015)
Media-industrial complex manufactures super-star influential celebrity status for both McKibben and Klein
“The global economy is in serious trouble as emerging markets have basically taken a major turn down. We are flying at close to stall speed.” (Larry Summers, Financial Review, October 22, 2015)
[1] 350.org, now international in scope which continues to be referred to as a “grassroots” movement, despite the injection of millions from its nefarious silent partner, the Clinton Foundation (via 1Sky) at its inception and ongoing funding from the oligarchs in the millions.
[2] (by way of an internationally agreed upon carbon price or other policies such as increased regulations and associated costs/fees on issues such as pollution/environment, water consumption, public health, energy efficiency and mandates for renewable energy.)
[3] Brown, Thomas C.; John C. Bergstrom; John B. Loomis (2007). “Defining, valuing and providing ecosystem goods and services” (PDF). Natural Resources Journal 47 (2): 329–376
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Foundations, Rockefeller Foundation
Bill McKibben Ford Foundation GE GMO Grist Rockefeller Brothers Tides Foundation
Grinding Grist
Public Good Project
by Jay Taber
In case you were wondering why Grist magazine, based in Seattle, is pro-GMO and pro-Nukes (as is Bill Gates), following the money is probably a good place to start. Funders of Grist include Tides Foundation (an oil industry money laundry), Ford Foundation (a partner of the World Bank in ethnic cleansing of Indigenous peoples worldwide), and the Rockefeller Brothers (inheritors of the Standard Oil fortune).
Ford Foundation, Foundations, Pacifism as Pathology, Rockefeller Foundation, Social Engineering, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
#BlackLivesMatter Activism Civil Rights Ferguson Malcolm X nonviolence Revolution riots Selma
The Strategy of Malcolm X
Tactical Diversity
by Lorenzo Raymond
Last month many of us celebrated the 90th birthday of the one of America’s greatest revolutionaries, El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, also known as Malcolm X. That his birthday follows his assassination date (February 21) on the calendar seems appropriate this year, as Malcolm could be said to be resurrected these days: from condemnations of US racism at the United Nations, to self-defense against cops in NYC, to Black rifle clubs in Texas, to mass rebellion in Baltimore, to a growing disillusionment with the two-party system and doctrinaire nonviolence in America, he has seldom seemed more relevant.
This is all the more remarkable given that the representation of Malcolm in popular media is more distorted than ever. 2015 opened with the Martin Luther King biopic Selma giving us the most forgettable (perhaps the only forgettable) portrayal of Malcolm X in cinema history. In some ways, the muting of Malcolm was inevitable; an accurate depiction of the Muslim leader presented a danger of upstaging King in the movie the same way that he often upstaged King in real life. But that isn’t any excuse for the distortion of Malcolm X’s politics and the role he played in the Black freedom struggle.
In the short scene in which he appears, Malcolm comes literally hat in hand to Coretta Scott King begging to address the protesters and be a part of the movement. He appears to have arrived uninvited, crashing a party he has no real place in. As he offers to scare the segregationists with an “alternative” to MLK’s nonviolence, he hints that this is actually just a bluff because his “eyes see in a new way.” Everything about this scene is fundamentally wrong: Malcolm explained himself to Mrs. King after, not before, he gave his speech—a speech which he was invited to give by the director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s Selma Project.1 And when Malcolm spoke of offering an alternative to King’s pacifism, it was anything but a bluff.
Black Revolution, Whitewashed
The lodestar for recent portrayals of Malcolm is Manning Marable’s book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. While universally lauded by mainstream white critics, most responses from the Black Left were derisive. This must be the only historical book of recent years to inspire not one, but two entire anthologies of hostile rebuttal: A Lie of Reinvention, edited by Jared Ball, and By Any Means Necessary, edited by a collective headed by Herb Boyd . Some academic assessments were skeptical as well. Joe Street observed in The Journal of American Studies that Marable’s version of Malcolm was “a more centrist, liberal figure” than had ever been depicted before, acting out the “palliative theme” of a Black nationalist who moved “beyond race,” and also beyond militancy. Street noted that Marable was oddly “content to position Malcolm X as a far less revolutionary figure than his reputation might suggest.” 2
Ever since his death, liberals have attempted portray Malcolm as an ineffectual figure in the Black Freedom Movement. In his 1965 review of The Autobiography of Malcom X, Bayard Rustin (once a radical, but by that time a Democratic Party operative), wrote that Malcolm was of primary interest as a “tragic victim of the ghetto,” who made for an inspiring study in self-improvement, yet “had no program for attacking” racism.3 More recently this line manifests with Reverend James Cone who says that while “[Dr.] King was a political revolutionary…Malcolm was a cultural revolutionary. He did not change the social or political structures, but he changed how black people thought about themselves.” 4
As Angela Davis has noted, the ruling class could never hope to completely suppress Black nationalism in America, so it has settled for accepting cultural consciousness while burying revolutionary nationalism. By the same token, accomodationists will celebrate Shabazz as a purely cultural figure, while marginalizing him as a political one. In reality, Malcolm X was one of the most influential and effective political activists in US history. The strategy of “by any means necessary” transcended the crude categories of nonviolence and violence, integration and separatism, pragmatism and revolution. Considering that this paradigm was subsequently applied by the American Indian Movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the early LGBT movement, it should be acknowledged that Malcolm X popularized the strategy by which most American liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s advanced themselves.
Grassroots to the Messenger
One of the most bizarre charges leveled against Malcolm–repeated yet again in the Selma film–is that he never organized anything. The Nation of Islam has many faults, but being disorganized isn’t one of them. Even Marable’s biography of Malcolm acknowledges that he was largely responsible for the unprecedented (“more than tenfold”) growth of the NOI in the 1950s. Marable also acknowledges that “Malcolm’s career as a national civil rights leader began late on the afternoon of April 26, 1957” when he led thousands of Harlemites to the 28th police precinct house to obtain medical treatment for a member of the NOI who’d been clubbed unconscious by officers. It had been years since any black organization had the audacity to lead major protests against police brutality, and the Muslim leader immediately captured the imagination of African-Americans throughout the country. 5 He swiftly paid a personal price: less than a year later, while Malcolm was out of town, the NYPD attempted to invade his Queens residence under dubious pretenses. One of the building’s occupants (it isn’t known who) injured a detective with a thrown bottle, and Betty Shabazz, along with several others, was charged with assaulting an officer. Malcolm proceeded to coordinate a defiant and publicity-savvy legal defense that lead to the longest trial in Queens history, and saw his wife and neighbors exonerated. Moments after the acquittal he stood on the courthouse steps and told his followers that “Any policeman who abuses you belongs in the cemetery.” 6
Before the 1960s had even arrived, Malcolm X’s militant stance was beginning to have a profound impact on the civil rights movement. “King’s philosophy of non-violence in the cause of a largely undefined integrated society was being seriously challenged,” recalled one of MLK’s own advisors, Vincent Harding. “In the north the deepest, broadest questions seemed to be coming from…the growing Nation of Islam and in its increasingly popular national representative, Malcolm X. In the south, the message of non-violent resistance was challenged by the action of Robert F. Williams and his armed self-defense group in Monroe, North Carolina in 1959.” 7
In the wake of Selma there’s been a popular trend of praising King as a strategist, a characterization that calls for serious qualification; King consolidated the efforts of a network of activists that ranged from bold direct actionists such as James Bevel, Diane Nash and John Lewis (all recruited from the pacifist wing of SNCC), to cool-headed managers like Bayard Rustin; it was these people who drafted and initiated what is now marketed as Kingian strategy. Likewise, Malcolm X’s political significance was to consolidate another spectrum of more militant grassroots organizers burning across the country in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These included Mae Mallory, Robert F. Williams, Albert Cleage, Ethel Azalea Johnson, and a nationwide network of students known as the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM).
Even as Marable belittled Malcolm’s strategic contributions in his book, he acknowledged that “[Robert F.] Williams and other militants pushed organizations like the NAACP toward greater activism, pressuring both major political parties to adopt new legislation.” Marable doesn’t tell us what Rob Williams’ biographer, Timothy Tyson does: Williams was dependent on support provided by Black radicals centered in Harlem, and “the most notable of Williams’ contacts among the Harlem nationalists was Malcolm X.” Malcolm featured the visiting Monroe leader regularly at his mosque, telling his congregation that “our brother here…is the only fighting man that we got and we have to help him.” This wasn’t just moral support: Malcolm raised “money to buy military carbines, machine guns, and dynamite for the Monroe NAACP.” 8
Another organizer who inspired and collaborated in Malcolm’s strategy was Mae Mallory, a single mother who protested the de facto segregation of New York City public schools. In 1958, she led Harlemites in a 162-day school boycott involving 10,000 parents, and won an open transfer program. An avowed revolutionary, Mallory visited Monroe to assist Rob Williams in defending a SNCC freedom ride, and wound up involved in an armed conflict with the Ku Klux Klan and local police. Framed on kidnapping charges after this incident, Mallory was in prison during 1964, when another school boycott took place in New York City; Malcolm took up her mantle by acting as a spokesperson for the walk-out (Mallory was later exonerated of the kidnapping). 9
Malcolm at NYC school boycott, 1964
The first major Black Christian leader to partner with Malcolm X was the Congregationalist Reverend Albert Cleage. In the aftermath of the Birmingham campaign, Cleage helped organize Detroit’s Great Walk to Freedom—the largest civil rights demonstration prior to the March on Washington. But as historian Thomas Sugrue notes, after the spectacle of such marches was shattered by the massacring of four Black girls in Birmingham in September 1963, “Cleage came out forcefully against what he considered the polite and ultimately ineffective nonviolent tactics of civil rights protest.” At an October 1963 meeting he denounced moral suasion and called for a “strategy of chaos” which would include acts of retaliation if necessary. Soon Cleage organized pickets demanding inclusion of Blacks in apprentice training programs, where protesters carried signs reading “SCHOOL FOR ALL OR SCHOOL FOR NONE” and “EQUALITY OR CHAOS.” Cleage also planned a national conference of Black militants for that November and invited Malcolm to give the keynote address—the speech now known as “Message to the Grassroots.” 10
Cleage’s “strategy of chaos” (“We’ll get what we’re after or we’ll tear it up!”) was partly inspired by the escalation of the Birmingham campaign, which in turn was partly inspired by Malcolm X. MLK confidant Vincent Harding recalled that the lifeblood of the spring campaign was
young men and women who had heard the powerful voice and seen the piercing eyes of Malcolm X on their television screens…[Dr. King] realized that now they were at least potentially the children of Malcolm as well…they taunted the police, they broke out of the marching lines when faced with barricades of police and firemen; they did their own speedy end runs downtown…
By mid-May, white repression had “goaded an enraged group of blacks into a burning, car-smashing, police-battling response. In a sense,” Harding tells us, “this was the first of the period’s urban rebellions.” Rather than this deviation from nonviolence being a setback to the movement, it was the greatest breakthrough since the Montgomery Bus Boycott seven years earlier.
Young activists weren’t just listening to Malcolm X in the early sixties; some were also coordinating with him. Max Stanford, a student militant associated with SNCC and SDS, met with Malcolm in 1962 and asked him if he should join the NOI. The Muslim leader was already privately frustrated with the conservatism of the sect and told Stanford he could do more for Black nationalism by organizing outside the Nation. Stanford joined with fellow students Wanda Marshall and Donald Freeman, as well as veteran organizer Ethel Azalea Johnson (a close comrade of Robert F. Williams) to form the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). While the group involved itself in reform movements, Stanford states that “RAM as an organization advocated guerilla warfare, mass rebellion and national black strikes…to create an independent black republic through socialist revolution.” By the time of the Birmingham breakthrough, RAM had developed a partnership with maverick NAACP leader Cecil Moore and helped organize protests in North Philadelphia for African-American job opportunities. “RAM members circulated throughout the community with leaflets and bull horns, going door to door, talking to street gangs,” Stanford recalled. At a May 1963 protest against racial discrimination in the building trade sponsored by the Philadelphia NAACP, Stanford and RAM leader Stan Daniels organized militant pickets, which
blocked the workers, all whites, from entering the construction site. Within minutes the Philadelphia police formed a flying wedge and attacked the picket line. Singling out Daniels and Stanford, twenty police jumped them and they fought back until [beaten] unconscious.
Arrested for incitement to riot, Stanford called Malcolm for help. The Muslim leader immediately began mobilizing people down the entire Northeast to support the Philadelphia movement “Within a week, 50,000 to 100,000 people participated in demonstrations that often turned into violent clashes between the masses and the police,” recalled Stanford. 11 On June 22, President Kennedy signed Executive Order 11114 mandating affirmative action in federally-funded construction projects. White House sources admitted to the press that the president’s initiative was “partly in response to violence in Philadelphia.” Kennedy’s order was the prototype of the “Philadelphia Plan” which in turn became the foundation of all federal affirmative action on employment. 12
In March of 1964, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and publicly expressed his solidarity with the general goals of the civil rights movement. This was a pivotal moment in his life, and arguably, a pivotal moment in the history of the United States. Discussing this “reinvention,” Manning Marable focuses on Malcolm’s desperation to obtain allies to protect himself from Elijah Muhammed, as well as Malcolm’s yearning to participate in a movement which he was supposedly estranged from. But Marable fails to acknowledge the yearnings which the movement felt for Malcolm X, as well as its increasing disillusionment—even in 1963—with Kingian nonviolence and liberalism. In July of that year, Martin Luther King was bombarded with eggs in Harlem; King blamed the attack on Malcolm, but it was later revealed to have been organized by Black Christians outraged by King’s sacrifice of children’s safety in Birmingham.13 In November 1963, the rank-and-file of SNCC voted down a proposal to hold a memorial vigil for the assassinated President Kennedy, noting that JFK was not a genuine friend to the movement—a position echoing Malcolm’s argument that Kennedy’s neglect of human rights in the US contributed to an atmosphere of terror that led to his own death. 14 Perhaps most significantly, in February of 1964, Medgar Evers’ brother, Charles, took over the slain leader’s position as field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP, and made some of the most inflammatory declarations ever heard from a mainstream Black leader. In a speech before an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet in Nashville, Evers went beyond self-defense to retaliatory violence:
I have the greatest respect for Martin Luther King, but non-violence won’t work in Mississippi…we made up our minds…that if a white man shoots at a Negro in Mississippi, we will shoot back…If they bomb a Negro church and kill our children, then we are going to bomb a white church and kill some of their children. We have served notice in Mississippi…that before we’ll be slaves anymore we’ll die and go to our graves. 15
Journalist Charles Silberman wrote at the time: “the widespread admiration for Dr. King is mixed…with a good deal of resentment. Lower-class Negroes do not want to be represented to the whites as nonviolent.” Silberman also noted that Malcolm X’s popularity was growing, yet was ultimately “limited by the cultish restraints of the Black Muslim religion: Many Negroes who agreed with Malcolm’s attacks on whites were unwilling to join the Muslims.” 16 Malik el-Shabazz made his move toward the civil rights mainstream not out of crude desperation, but because he knew that Black America was ready for him. (There is evidence that much of the white Left was ready for him too: In December 1963, Bob Dylan publicly praised the militant wing of SNCC, contrasting them with the “respectable Negroes” who dominated the March on Washington. Dylan then said—in his own version of Malcolm’s “chickens coming home to roost” remarks—that he could understand why a leftist would want to shoot President Kennedy. 17 Immediately after Malcolm’s death in 1965, another white protest singer, Phil Ochs, wrote the satire “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” where he chided moderates for not recognizing Malcolm’s heroism). Two weeks after his transition out of the NOI, Malcolm staged his famous handshake with Martin Luther King. This photo is sometimes presented as evidence of Malcolm capitulating to King’s nonviolent and (at the time) assimilationist path; in reality, it showed King, who had previously spurned the Muslim minister, being forced to accept Malcolm’s growing stature in the movement.
“Strategy of Chaos”
There is, needless to say, much that could be said about Malcolm X’s strategy in the final year of his life—his efforts toward a pan-African network, his proposals for the UN, his embrace of anti-capitalism, his dialogue with white radicals—but here we will focus on the three most misunderstood aspects: his attitude towards electoral politics, his attitude towards collective self-defense (“violence”), and his strategy towards other leaders in the freedom movement.
Marable’s book repeatedly claimed that “Malcolm came to believe that blacks could work within the system to improve their lives” He based this argument upon the way in which the older Malcolm would closely observe government events, as well as the support he lent to the struggle for the vote in the South. But the younger Malcolm, who edited the NOI’s newspaper, had also closely observed American political events for years, and had been friendly with select Black politicians—even as he was advocating that Blacks permanently separate from the United States. On the matter of voting rights, Malcolm made clear that this was a strategy of involving himself in reform only in order to raise Black people’s awareness of the system’s failures—not because he thought the system was particularly redeemable. Indeed, Malcolm stated in March 1964 that he only supported reform because “every campaign for specific objectives can only heighten the political consciousness of the Negroes and intensify their identification against white society.” [emphasis added] 18 Supporting people’s right to vote is similar to supporting people’s right to eat greasy lunch counter food—it doesn’t mean you think it’s a good idea, much less the path to liberation. Just as Ella Baker noted that her support of luncheonette sit-ins was about “more than a hamburger,” Malcolm’s support of ballot access was about much more than elections. “Your dumb vote, your ignorant vote, your wasted vote,” Malcolm seethed in “The Ballot or the Bullet,” (the very speech Marable and co. claim shows el-Shabazz as an electioneer) –
Don’t be throwing out any ballots…keep your ballot in your pocket…always remember, if it doesn’t take senators and congressmen and presidential proclamations to give freedom to the white man, it is not necessary for legislation or proclamation or Supreme Court decisions to give freedom to the Black man.
Malcolm’s heart never changed on that issue; he wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that two years after his death, his one friend in the federal system, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., would be unconstitutionally stripped of his Congressional seat just at the point when he was in a position to initiate radical reform. And though LBJ helped push the Civil Rights Act through three months after “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm still declined to encourage Blacks to vote in 1964 because he didn’t see any consistent enforcement of the new law. 19 While Malcolm saw symbolic and contingent value in the franchise, he had no illusions that there was anything worth voting for. Indeed, this is the major point about the ballot made in the speech—which left the bullet, by default, as the primary tactic. (Harold Cruse, writing in The New York Review of Books in 1969, noted that the true heir to Malcolm’s finalized strategy was Eldridge Cleaver, who was then openly supporting armed insurrection yet also keeping one foot in independent electoral politics, running as a protest candidate with the Peace and Freedom Party). 20
Malcolm’s agenda for 1964
Similar games are played when Marable and other liberals talk of Malcolm’s changing attitude toward armed resistance. Once again, a selective reading of “The Ballot and the Bullet” is used, noting that Shabazz backs away from earlier remarks which seemed to imply that Blacks should form rifle clubs to seek retaliation against random whites. But in the same speech, Malcolm also gives Blacks “a little briefing on guerrilla warfare because, before you know it” that strategy may have to be exercised against the government. Malcolm believed the Black rebellions of 1964 might foreshadow such a war:
There’s new strategy coming in. It’ll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It’ll be ballots, or it’ll be bullets. It’ll be liberty, or it will be death.
This wasn’t mere sound and fury, it was conscious political pressure. In this passage, Malcolm is referring specifically to a Black riot in Jacksonville, Florida which erupted out of the violent white repression of a sit-in campaign in March 1964. That uprising, where the freedom movement did indeed first use Molotov cocktails, is known to have captured the White House’s attention at a time when the civil rights bill was facing the largest filibuster in US history. Malcolm concludes the speech with an armed demand for reform:
You talk about a march on Washington in 1963, you haven’t seen anything. There’s some more going down in ’64. And this time they’re not going like they went last year…They’re not going with round-trip tickets. They’re going with one way tickets. And if they don’t want that non-nonviolent army going down there, tell them to bring the filibuster to a halt.
Tellingly, Martin Luther King began to faintly echo Malcolm’s rhetoric that spring. Visions of violence now arose whenever King spoke of failure to enact the civil rights bill; If the legislation did not pass, King said in a Detroit speech, “I’m afraid our many pleas of nonviolence in fighting segregation will fall on deaf ears.” Speaking during the filibuster, King warned that should the bill die, America would see a “dark night of social disruption.” 21
Mainstream scholars often try to paint Malcolm as a paper tiger in regards to the guerilla warfare proposal—a general without an army. But in 1964 Malcolm quietly accepted the position of International Spokesperson in the Revolutionary Action Movement. Robin DG Kelly notes that in this same year RAM established its definitive militant program:
The twelve-point program created by RAM called for the development of freedom schools…rifle clubs, black farmer cooperatives (not just for economic development but to keep “community and guerrilla forces going for a while”), and a liberation guerrilla army made up of youth and the unemployed. 22
RAM began implementing its program by actively promoting armed resistance within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As Malcolm was delivering “The Ballot or the Bullet,” in Northern cities, Max Stanford and others in RAM headed to Greenwood, Mississippi to join the preparations for Freedom Summer. RAM members taught African history in freedom schools and helped organize voter registration, but their main goal was, in the words of Georgia State University historian Akinyele Umoja, “to wage ideological struggle within the ranks of the SNCC field staff.” In this mission, they were essentially coming to support working-class Southern Blacks of SNCC’s rank-and-file who were already beginning to organize an armed self-defense system for the Freedom Houses. As Mississippi-born SNCC activist MacArthur Cotton recalled, ‘‘the majority of the local SNCC people didn’t have a problem with RAM,” adding that most of them believed ‘‘that other philosophy [nonviolence] was foreign.’’
Pacifists in SNCC eventually succeeded in purging the Malcolmites from the Mississippi project before the summer began, but the damage was done: the seeds of revolutionary armed defense and Black nationalism were planted in the organization. In the face of right-wing terror and liberal inaction, the pragmatism of Malcolm and RAM’s strategy grew increasingly clear and kept many armed activists alive during Freedom Summer (in contrast to the murdered pacifists James Chaney, Andrew Goodwin, Michael Schwermer). 23 When the campaign ended and the Democratic National Convention continued to appease the Jim Crow delegation from Mississippi, making a mockery of the progressive SNCC delegates, few field workers saw any value in nonviolent martyrdom and liberal compromise at all. By the fall, SNCC leaders were collaborating with Malcolm X on fundraising events, and cheering as he called for an American equivalent to the fearsome “Mau Mau” guerilla fighters of Kenya.24
Malcolm X addressing SNCC and the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party- December 24, 1964
Meanwhile, RAM continued to quietly work with street gangs across the country. Years before the Black Panther Party emerged, RAM promoted the idea of Black youth as the “potential warriors of Black America.” Working from a detailed strategy by Robert F. Williams, RAM considered the cities “ripe for sabotage.” Max Stanford (known today as Muhammed Ahmed) recounted:
While Malcolm was in Africa, Harlem exploded. The para-military in Malcolm’s organization decided to join the rebellion and participated in armed self-defense actions against racist oppressive forces. Masses of our people exploded in Rochester, New York. The revolutionary Muslims (Malcolmites) engaged in armed struggle against the repressive forces there. Brooklyn CORE held a demonstration to protest police brutality. The demonstration precipitated a mass rebellion. The Brooklyn RAM cadre went into revolutionary action.
Stanford wrote that by the time of the Watts Rebellion, “the theory of Robert F. Williams and Malcolm X had become materialist reality.” Malcolm was the spokesperson for a very real force of insurrection, not a paper tiger. Indeed, its momentum was so unstoppable that even his assassination couldn’t slow it down. 25
No Sell Out
Finally, the relationships Malcolm sought with moderate civil rights organizations at the end of his life need to be clarified. While Malcolm backed away from his previous habit of naming King and other mainstream leaders personally as Uncle Toms, tempering his critique with diplomacy, he still drew sharp lines between them and himself. “[Martin Luther King, Jr.] is the foremost exponent of love who gets his head bashed in while he is preaching brotherhood,” he said in his last speech, “I go for that retaliation type of brotherhood.” 26 Sometimes if pushed a bit he would lose his decorum: heckled by a pacifist in 1965, Malcolm at first said, “I’m not criticizing you or condemning you, but I’m questioning your tactics.” But as the heckler turned nasty, Malcolm said what he really thought: “I think people who tell our people to be nonviolent are almost agents of the Ku Klux Klan.” 27
Whenever Malcolm engaged with moderates, he let it be understood that his militancy was non-negotiable. Contrary to Manning Marable’s characterization, Malcolm did not praise nonviolence in his speech at Selma, but instead ridiculed passive “house negroes” who were bought off by white favors. In a contemporaneous interview, the Muslim leader elaborated “I don’t go for any organization — be it civil-rights or any other kind — that has to compromise with the power structure and has to rely on certain elements within the power structure for their financing, which puts them in a position to be influenced and controlled all over again by the power structure itself.” 28 This seemed to be a stab at, among others, Dr. King’s organizations, which were financed by foundations overseen by the Rockefeller, Ford, and RJ Reynolds families. 29
Malcolm in Selma, Feb 4, 1964
Malcolm’s call for a “Black united front” was a call for militants to unite together on militant terms, not to compromise unconditionally with moderates. It was also an effort to establish a permanent peace among armed Black groups, and thereby prevent the kind of fratricidal warfare which, with the help of the FBI, contributed to his assassination (as well as to the ultimate dissolution of the Black Power movement in the early 1970s). Manning Marable’s book wove a bizarre and Orientalist theory that Malcolm told his guards to stand down on the day of his murder because he had a death wish inspired by the martyrdom of the Shi’ite imam, Husayn ibn Ali, in 680. 30 But Malcolm’s aide Earl Grant spelled out years ago that the minister disarmed his bodyguards because he did not want “Black people killing Black people.” 31 Black people criticizing certain Black people, however, along with anyone else who held them back, was always a key part of Malcolm X’s strategy.
Malcolm X, c. 1964 “Anyone who stands in the way of your freedom is your enemy”
Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-1965, p. 578-579
“Roundtable: Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” Journal of American Studies / Volume 47 / Issue 01 / February 2013, pp 23-47 (Cambridge University Press 2013) – http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021875812002605
George Breitman, The Last Year of Malcolm X, p. 83-91
Chris Hedges “Turning King’s Dream Into a Nightmare” – http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/turning_kings_dream_into_a_nightmare_20100117
Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, p. 123-128
Marable, A Life of Reinvention, p. 150-153
Vincent Harding, “So Much History, So Much Future: Martin Luther King and the Second Coming of America” – https://is.cuni.cz/studium/predmety/index.php?do=download&did=77732&kod=JMM606
Timothy Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, p. 145 – https://books.google.com/books?id=kg_DEcj04ycC&q=malcolm+x#v=snippet&q=malcolm%20x&f=false
Melissa F. Weiner, Power, Protest, and the Public Schools: Jewish and African American Struggles in New York City (Rutgers University Press, 2010) p. 51-66
Thomas Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Civil Rights Movement in the North, p. 299-302
Maxell C. Stanford, “Revolutionary Action Movement: A Case Study of an Urban Revolutionary Movement in Western Capitalist Society” (A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Atlanta University, May, 1986) – http://www.ulib.csuohio.edu/research/portals/blackpower/stanford.pdf
Thomas J. Sugrue “Affirmative Action from Below: Civil Rights, the Building Trades, and the Politics of Inequality in the Urban North 1945-1969” Journal of American History, Vol. 91, No. 1, Jun., 2004 – http://africanamericanhistorysp2014.voices.wooster.edu/files/2014/03/Thomas_Sugrue_Affirmative_Action_from_Below.pdf
Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire, p. 115
Akinyele Umoja, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement (NYU Press, 2013), 126
Charles E. Silberman, Crisis in Black and White (Random House, 1964), p. 160
http://folkmusic.about.com/od/bobdylan/a/Bob-Dylan-Quits-Politics.htm
William W. Sale, From Civil Rights to Black Liberation (South End Press, 1994), p. 81
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html
Harold Cruse, “The Fire This Time?” NYRB, May 8, 1969
Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., And the Laws That Changed America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), 126-130
Robin DG Kelly and Betsy Esche, “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution” Souls Vol. 1 #4 – http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/souls/vol1no4/vol1num4art1.pdf
Akinyele Umoja, “From One Generation to the Next: Armed Self-Defense, Revolutionary Nationalism, and the Southern Black Freedom Struggle” Souls, Volume 15, Issue 3, 2013 – http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10999949.2013.838857#.VVtNZvlViko
George Breitman, ed., Malcolm X Speaks; Selected Speeches and Statements, p. 107.
Maxwell C. Stanford, “Revolutionary Action Movement: A Case Study of an Urban Revolutionary Movement in Western Capitalist Society” (A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Atlanta University, May, 1986) – http://www.ulib.csuohio.edu/research/portals/blackpower/stanford.pdf
Barnard Bulletin, Feb 25, 1965 – https://digitalcollections.barnard.edu/object/bulletin-19650225/barnard-bulletin-february-25-1965
George Breitman, ed., Malcolm X Speaks; Selected Speeches and Statements, p. 209
Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, p. 222
MLK was friends not only with Rockefeller, but with Libby Holman, heiress to the RJ Reynolds fortune. Holman financed King’s first trip to India to study nonviolence in 1959 – https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225538/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol5/10Mar1959_JamesE.BristolToCorinneB.Johnson.pdf
“The Covert War on Malcolm X” An episode of Like It Is with Gil Noble – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExQjM82uMiU
350.org / 1Sky, Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation
350.org Capitalism Ceres Divestment financialization of nature
AT A GLANCE: Why the Oligarchs Have United in Pushing the Divestment Campaign
The following is an excerpt from McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street [Part XIII of an Investigative Report] [The Increasing Vogue for Capitalist-Friendly Climate Discourse]
The economic models of the 20th century are now hitting the limits of what is possible
Ecosystem services/payment for ecosystem services: assigning nature’s resources as monetary assets visible in national accounts and economic strategies is the key to growth in the twenty-first century
The most vital pillar (of 3) as identified under “new economy” is the valuing and mainstreaming nature’s services (biodiversity) into national and international accounts
Financial markets and business will be assigned as the new “stewards of ‘national natural capital”
Global growth has become stagnant as identified by global institutions such as McKinsey: Can long-term global growth be saved? (January 2015, McKinsey and Company)
The IMF and World Bank Group, identify a reduction in the growth of the global economy as a primary risk to the world. October 10, 2014
The “greening of economies” as recognized by the UN, is not a reduction in global economic growth, rather, it is considered a new engine of growth.”
Changing the capitalist system is not to be considered (Generation Investment)
Financial markets and business, based on their role as stewards of ‘national natural capital’”
The three key dates are 2015 (international agreement), 2020 (sustainable capitalism and ecosystem services accounting in place) and 2050 (the Earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity to be fully commodified)
The mainstreaming of “sustainable capitalism” is to be in place by 2020 (Generation Investment)
Economists have been “preparing to include a value for ‘natural capital’ in Britain’s GDP calculations by 2020”
The ideologies/concept behind the commodification of the commons began in earnest at least 25 years ago and likely far earlier than that
$60-70 trillion over the next decade-and-a-half is required for planned mega-infrastructure projects [Source]
The biggest market is for carbon, with the world market growing from $11 billion in 2005 and being forecast to reach $3.1 trillion dollars in 2020, with $1 trillion of that value relating to the USA.
A steady flow of new investment firms are expanding to exploit the emerging eco-systems market
Financing (of renewable energy) must double by 2020 and double again to $1 trillion by 2030: the quadrupling investment from its current state is the stated goal
Metropolis, Germany, 1927. Directed by Fritz Lang. “In the year 2026, society in the great city of Metropolis is ruthlessly divided into two groups. The idle rich live in towers high in the sky, their playthings powered by great machines deep underground, where the workers live and toil….”
From Part XI: 2 Degrees of Credendum | In Summary, Divestment as symbolism:
The Do the Math tour, as the precursor to the global Divestment campaign, established and reinforced the false premise that the world retains a “carbon budget” that enables us to safely keep burning for decades to come
Like 1Sky/350, the campaign is top-down, not grassroots up as presented. Not only has this global “movement” been sanctioned by the elites, it has been developed in consultation with Wall Street and financed from inception by the world’s most powerful oligarchs and institutions
The campaign successfully invokes a certain naiveté and innocence due to the said premise (a moral divestment imperative) of the campaign
It provides a moral alibi and evokes illusions of white saviour/moral superiority of those that divest/divest-invest while the very people divesting are those that comprise the 1% creating 50% of all global GHG emissions (anyone who can afford to board an airplane). Shuffling their investments does not change this fact or alleviate/absolve one’s role in accelerating climate change and ecological destruction
Protesting fossil fuels cannot and will not have any effect on fossil fuel consumption, production or destruction without legitimately and radically addressing Annex 1 consumption, economic growth under the capitalist system, human population (specifically in Annex 1 nations), the military industrial complex and industrial factory farming
The chosen campaign of divestment rather than the boycott of fossil fuels in combination with proposed sanctions on fossil fuel corporations demonstrates the insincerity of the campaign and its true intentions as sought (and developed) by its funders
Divestment effectively constructs the moral acceptance of “green” consumption. The global divestment campaign confirms that the “market” can be and is the solution
The campaign constructs and further reinforces the falsehood that there is no need to change either the economic system (beyond reforming capitalism) or dismantle the power structures that comprise it; nor is it necessary to address the underlying values, worldviews, classism, racism, colonialism and imperialism that are driving this physical and psychic
It diverts attention away from the proliferation of private investments, hedge funds and privatization – key mechanisms in the “new economy.”
It provides a critical discourse to divert attention away from the most critical issue of the 21st century: the commodification of the commons (in similar fashion to how the Stop the KeystoneXL! campaign was instrumental in enabling Buffett’s rail dynasty, only far more critical in significance)
It builds on the 21st century corporate pathology “Who Cares Wins,” whereby “kindness is becoming the nation’s newest currency.” The pathology behind this intent is the corporate capture of “millennials” by manipulation via branding, advertising and social media
Direct contact with “millennials” in colleges and universities around the world invokes pre-determined and pre-approved ideologies as sought after/controlled by hegemony while building loyalties: future NGO “members” / supporters, future “prosumers,” future “investors.”
The campaign draws attention to the statistic that “just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made emissions” while making no mention that a mere 1% of people are creating 50% of all the global GHG emissions – the very people that comprise their target audience
Although highlighting the fact that “just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made emissions” is critical, this information is being conveyed and utilized only to implement the financialization of nature
The campaign stigmatizes fossil fuel investments which, by default, protect the 1% creating 50% of the global GHG emissions from similar stigmatization
Success is measured by the number of institutions divesting-investing, and “shares/likes” on social media, ignoring the fact that divestment does nothing to reduce emissions as the world burns
The divestment campaign presents a capitalist solution to climate change, presenting, repackaging and marketing the very problem as our new solution. Thus, the global power structures that oppress us are effectively and strategically insulated from potential outside threats
Clive Spash, 2008:
There is, of course, something contradictory in calculating a price for something you do not wish to trade. Perhaps realising this, one ecological advocate of ecosystems valuation has tried to claim that: ‘Valuing ecosystem services is not identical to commodifying them for trade in private markets.’ (Costanza, 2006: 749). That there is no commoditisation, or market-like exchange, implicit in ecosystem services valuation is plainly wrong. As the NRC report states: ‘The use of a dollar metric for quantifying values is based on the assumption that individuals are willing to trade the ecological service being valued for more of other goods and services represented by the metric (more dollars).’ This requires converting ecosystems functions into goods and services, and is clearly identical in approach to a model for trading commodities in a market. [Source]
Akin to those of privilege pretending their screen addicted children are actually gifted computer geniuses, such are the lies we tell ourselves in order to believe in a system whereby we “benefit” at the expense of others and the destruction of nature.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Ford Foundation, Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Rockefeller Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, United Nations, USAID, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Bank of America Bill Gates Bono Buffett Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Credit Suisse Department for International Development of the Government of the UK (DFID) European Commission Exxon Mobile Goldman Sachs. Shell United Nations USAID
Who Shapes the United Nations Agenda?
“The global institutional machinery of the so-called United Nations is designed to destroy the sovereign will of the peoples. That is where a bureaucracy works in the service of capital and imperialism. We, the peoples of the world, do not accept that international organizations should appropriate to themselves the right of invasion and intervention. The UN has no morality to impose. We, the peoples of the world, do not accept this elitist institutionality of the bureaucrats of the empire.
It was in the bowels of the UN that the privatizing green economy originated, which we understand as the black economy of death; from those entrails originate the recipes for privatization and interventionism. The UN seems to be the Organization for the Rich and Powerful Countries; perhaps it should be named the INO, Imperialist Nations Organization. That UN we do not want, we disown it.
That neoliberal bureaucracy, the bureaucracy of the green economy and privatization, the bureaucracy that promotes structural adjustments, those functionaries of capital and ideologists of domination and poverty, act with the patriarchal and colonial conviction that the peoples and developing countries are incapable and stupid and that to emerge from poverty we must faithfully follow their development recipes.” — Evo Morales’ historic speech at the Isla del Sol
“Premier of the Republic of the Congo at Press Conference Premier Patrice Lumumba, of the Republic of the Congo, photographed at a press conference he held at U.N. Headquarters earlier today. Conferring briefly with the Premier is Ambassador Mongi Slim, of Tunisia.” 25 July 1960, United Nations, New York (UN Archives)
Aachen/Berlin/Bonn/New York, November 2015
Excerpts from the paper Philanthropic Power and Development – Who shapes the agenda? by authors Jens Martens and Karolin Seitz
Photo:”President Salvador Allende of Chile paid an official visit to United Nations Headquarters and addressed the General Assembly. He conferred with the Assembly President and the Secretary-General, and also held a press conference. Here, President Allende is seen at his press conference. Seated next to him are Colodomiro Almeyda (left), Minister for Foreign Affairs of Chile, and Genichi Akatani (right), Assistant Secretary-General, UN Office of Public Information. 04 December 1972, United Nations, New York (UN Archives)
“On 5 June 2013 a remarkable event took place in the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations (UN) in New York City. Over 150 invited guests met for the second annual Forbes 400 Philanthropy Summit. The event was opened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, attended by celebrated philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, Bono and Warren Buffett, and sponsored by Credit Suisse. According to Forbes magazine the attendees, who represented “close to half a trillion of the world’s wealth, discussed how they can use their wealth, fame and entrepreneurial talent to eradicate poverty.” As follow up to this summit Forbes released a Special Philanthropy Issue under the headline “Entrepreneurs can save the world.” The event at UN Headquarters was a symbol for the rapidly growing role of philanthropists and their foundations in global development policy and practice.”
“A large share of the UN Foundation’s revenues from other donors came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Between 1999 and 2014 Gates gave US$231 million in grants to the UN Foundation, mainly for projects in the areas of health and agriculture.”
In order to broaden its funding base, the UN Foundation has actively explored ways to raise funds directly from governments.In the last decade the UN Foundation received direct funding from a number of governments or governmental agencies, inter alia the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Department for International Development of the Government of the UK (DFID), the European Commission, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
In addition to individual governments, the UN Foundation is now actively exploring opportunities for building so-called “anchor partnerships” with multinational corporations and corporate philanthropic foundations as an important element of its longterm sustainability strategy. This intention caused concerns in some parts of the UN because of the potential reputation risk involved. The UN Foundation lists currently (July 2015) 23 corporate partners, such as Exxon Mobile, Shell, Goldman Sachs, and the Bank of America.
According to the UN Secretary-General the relationship agreement between the UN and the UN Foundation has been reviewed and amended to ensure that it reflects this evolution of the Foundation’s mission and approach. The new agreement was signed in October 2014. But instead of providing a solid basis for effective and transparent governance, the new agreement seems to reinforce the exclusivity of this relationship and the preferential treatment of the UN Foundation by the UN Secretariat. The drafting of the most recent agreement took place behind closed doors without any intergovernmental oversight or transparency, and in contrast to the two earlier agreements, has not been made public.
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Philanthropic Power and Development – Who shapes the agenda?
350.org / 1Sky, Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Social Engineering
350.org COP21 Klein McKibben Wall Street
Climate Evangelism
A Culture of Imbeciles
June 8, 1988: Overhead portrait of disgraced PTL evangelist Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye, surrounded by members of the Bring Bakkers Back (BBB) group, outside the HQ of the New Covenant Ministries, the latest Bakker movement, at the Carousel shopping center. Photo credit: Will McIntyre
November 15, 2012, Boston, MA: Do The Math tour
True to form, Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein — the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of climate evangelism — are exhorting their mindless followers to double down on ‘activist’ charades in the wake of COP21. Unlike the disgraced televangelists, however, the climate opportunists probably won’t face a Federal grand jury probe or do any time for fraud. As the loyal ‘opposition’ of the financial elite, they will stick with the Wall Street script, keeping their devotees busy whining but ineffective in confronting the power politics of their billionaire paymasters.
Susan Rockefeller, Co-Executive Producer of the “This Changes Everything” documentary film and founding partner of Louverture Films, LLC. Louverture is the production company for the documentary film “This Changes Everything” (with The Message Productions, LLC / Klein Lewis Productions ). Photo: Rockefeller at her home on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York, on Sept. 8, 2015. Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times) Further reading: Financing “The Message” Behind Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’ Project
[Jay Taber is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, a correspondent to Forum for Global Exchange, and a contributing editor of Fourth World Journal. Since 1994, he has served as communications director at Public Good Project, a volunteer network of researchers, analysts and activists engaged in defending democracy. As a consultant, he has assisted indigenous peoples in the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations. Email: tbarj [at] yahoo.com Website: www.jaytaber.com ]
350.org / 1Sky, Foundations, Neo-Liberalism and the Defanging of Feminism, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Social Engineering
350.org Branding Capitalism Celebrity Fetish Discourses of Celebrity Naomi Klein Oprah Winfrey Social Engineering Spectacle
A Madame of Mediocrity
“Naomi Klein is the Oprah Winfrey of the Toy Che Brigades–another vapid luminary on the cover of Vogue.” — Poet Garcia Madero, Visceral Realist
Further reading: The Increasing Vogue for Capitalist-Friendly Climate Discourse
Amnesty International, Avaaz, Foundations, Human Rights Watch, Humanitarian Agencies, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Rockefeller Foundation, The International Campaign to Destabilize Syria, The Soros Network | OSI, The War on Libya - There Was No Evidence
#RefugeesWelcome Amnesty International Avaaz European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) European Union George Soros Germany) Human Rights Watch Open Society Foundations Rockefeller Suzanne Nossel Syria US State Department
Soros Plays Both Ends in Syria Refugee Chaos
Since John D. Rockefeller was advised to protect his wealth from government taxation by creating a tax-exempt philanthropic foundation in 1913, foundations have been used by American oligarchs to disguise a world of dirty deeds under the cover “doing good for mankind,” known by the moniker “philanthropy” for mankind-loving. No less the case is that of George Soros who likely has more tax-exempt foundations under his belt than anyone around. His Open Society foundations are in every country where Washington wants to put ‘their man’ in, or at least get someone out who doesn’t know how to read their music. They played a key role in regime change in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe after 1989. Now his foundations are up to their eyeballs in promoting propaganda serving the US-UK war agenda for destroying stability in Syria as they did in Libya three years ago, creating the current EU refugee crisis.
We should take a closer look at the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis wreaking such havoc and unrest across the EU, especially in Germany, the favored goal of most asylum seekers today. George Soros, today a naturalized American citizen, has just authored a six-point proposal telling the European Union on what they must do to manage the situation. It’s worth looking at in detail.
He begins by stating, “The EU needs a comprehensive plan to respond to the crisis, one that reasserts effective governance over the flows of asylum-seekers so that they take place in a safe, orderly way…” He then says that, “First, the EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future.”
Soros does not elaborate where he pulled that figure from, nor does he discuss the role of other of his Soros-financed NGOs in Syria and elsewhere which manufacture faked propaganda to build a public sympathy lobby for a US and UK “No Fly Zone” in Syria as was done to destroy Libya.
The American hedge fund speculator then adds, among his points to be implemented, a series of proposals that would consolidate a de facto supranational EU state apparatus under control of the faceless, unelected bureaucrats of the European Commission. The Soros proposals call for creating what amount to EU-issued refugee bonds. He states, “The EU should provide €15,000 ($16,800) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health care, and education costs – and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states. It can raise these funds by issuing long-term bonds using its largely untapped AAA borrowing capacity…”
That issuing comes to 30 billion euros at a time when most EU member states are struggling to deal with domestic economic crises. Soros is generous with other peoples’ money. The mention of the AAA bond rating is the rating of the legal entity named the European Union. Soros has maneuvered for years to try to get a centralized Brussels independent financial power that would take the last vestiges of national financial sovereignty away from Berlin, Paris, Rome and other EU states, part of a scheme to destroy the remains of the national borders and of the nation-state principles established at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years’ War.
George Soros has more ideas how to spend European citizens’ tax euros. He calls on the EU to cough up an added annual commitment to “frontline countries” (Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan) of at least €8-10 billion annually. Then, insidiously, Soros declares, “Safe channels must be established for asylum-seekers, starting with getting them from Greece and Italy to their destination countries. This is very urgent in order to calm the panic.”
‘Destination Countries’
His use of the term “destination countries” is very interesting. Today, by a huge margin that means the Federal Republic of Germany. Soros strategy is obviously to target Germany, especially, with a refugee flood.
It has gradually come out into the open that many of the refugees or asylum-seekers flooding into the EU since summer of 2015 have come in response to reading Twitter or Facebook social media portraying especially Germany as an arms-open, refugee-loving paradise where all their needs will be met.
How did word get out that Germany was the “in place” for those in flight from Syria and other conflict areas? Vladimir Shalak at the Russian Academy of Sciences developed the Internet Content-Analysis System for Twitter (Scai4Twi). He made a study of over 19,000 refugees-related original tweets (retweets discounted). His study showed that the vast majority of the tweets name Germany as the most refugee-welcoming country in Europe.
Shalak’s study discovered that 93% of all tweets about Germany contained positive references to German hospitality and its refugee policy. Some samples of the Tweets:
• Germany Yes! Leftists spray a graffiti on a train sayin “Welcome, refugees” in Arabic
• Lovely people – video of Germans welcoming Syrian refugees to their community
• Respect! Football fans saying “Welcome Refugees” across stadiums in Germany. _ • This Arabic Graffiti train is running in Dresden welcoming refugees: (ahlan wa sahlan – a warm welcome).
• ‘We love Germany!,’ cry relieved refugees at Munich railway station
• Thousands welcome refugees to Germany – Sky News Australia
• Wherever this German town is that welcomed a coach of Syrian refugees with welcome signs and flowers –thank you.
Now comes the real hammer. The vast majority of these “Germany welcomes refugee” Tweets come not from Germany, but from the United States and from the UK, the two countries up to their necks in the bloody deeds of ISIS and Al Qaeda and countless other terror gangs rampaging across Syria the past four years.
Shalak analyzed 5,704 original tweets containing a “#RefugeesWelcome” hashtag and a country name which welcomes them. It showed almost 80% of all Tweets claimed that Germany was the most-welcoming country in Europe. The second most welcoming country found was Austria with 12%. However, the study also found that those “Germany welcomes you” Tweets did not originate from inside Germany. Over 40% of all the Tweets originated from the USA, UK or Australia. Only 6.4% originated inside Germany.
George Soros is also the Daddy Warbucks financing a new EU think-tank with the name European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). On the website of the ECFR is an editorial titled, “If Europe wants people to stop drowning it needs to let them fly.” The Soros Think-Tank argues that the main reason migrants choose boats is EU Directive 51/2001/EC: “The EU directive was passed in 2001. Put simply, it states that carrier companies—whether airlines or ship lines—are responsible for ensuring that foreign nationals wishing to travel to the European Union have valid travel documents for their destination. If such travelers arrive in the EU and are turned away, the airlines are obligated to foot the bill for flying them home.” In other words, “open the gates of heaven wider, dear Lord.”
Soros’ Syria NGOs Beat War Drums
The cynicism of the Soros call for the EU taxpayers to step up to the plate and accept millions of new refugees, to fly them in without papers, and more, is clear when we look at the same Soros-financed network of NGOs active in Syria trying to create the propaganda background to get acceptance of yet another US “No Fly Zone” over Syria as was done against Iraq after 1991 and against Libya in 2012 to bomb those countries back to the stone age.
Illustration by Mark Gould
One of the key online advocates for a US-UK “No Fly Zone” over Syria, something the Russian intervention since September 30 has de facto blocked, is an organization known as Avaaz. Avaaz was given initial financial support by Soros’ foundation in 2007 to promote key policies suitable to the US State Department. They cite Soros’ Open Society foundation as their foundation partner. Avaaz played a key role promoting the 2011 No Fly Zone in Libya that introduced a regime of terror and chaos in that once prosperous and stable African nation. Avaaz is now very actively promoting the same treatment for Syria.
Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth (L) with George Soros
Another Soros-financed NGO active demonizing the Assad government as cause of all atrocities in Syria and helping build public support for a war in Syria from the US and EU is Amnesty International. Suzanne Nossel, until 2013 the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, came to the job from the US State Department where she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, not exactly an unbiased agency in regard to Syria. As well, the Soros-financed Human Rights Watch has played a major role in falsely portraying ISIS and Al Qaeda civilian bombings and other atrocities as the work of the Assad regime, building support for military action from the US and EU.
The Middle East and other wars today including Ukraine are the product of the foreign policy doctrine set out in 1992 by then Defense Assistant Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the infamous Wolfowitz Doctrine that justifies “pre-emptive” war, free from any oversight from the UN Security Council, against any nation or group of nations which threaten US “Sole Superpower” domination. George Soros, the hedge fund speculator turned self-proclaimed philanthropist, and his tax-exempt foundations, are an integral part of that pre-emptive war machine. Now Soros lectures the EU countries, above all Germany, on how they should receive the human fallout from the wars he and his cronies in the US State Department have created. That’s real Chutzpah, or perhaps it is really hubris.
[F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.]
Foundations, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Rockefeller Foundation, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
Achuar Assimilation colonization Ecuador Kapawi MAF International Pachamama Alliance Rockefeller Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) Waorni warriors
Fundacion Pachamama is Dead – Long Live ALBA [Part V of an Investigative Report]
The Art of Annihilation
Part five of an investigative report by Cory Morningstar
Fundación Pachamama Investigative Report Series [Further Reading]: Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Part VIII [Final Segment]
The Conceptualization of Kapawi
The Kapawi Ecolodge, although marketed as a vision first conceptualized by the Achuar, was, in reality, first conceptualized by entrepreneur newspaper mogul Carlos Pérez Perasso and Dan Kouperman, an experienced adventure tour guide. [“The newspaper The Universe was founded in 1921 in the coastal city of Guayaquil, by Ismael Pérez Pazmiño. Management has historically remained in the hands of heirs Pérez. Carlos Pérez Perasso, also a Galapagos Islands tour operator, raised the prestige of the newspaper until it became the largest daily national newspaper in Ecuador, and one of the most influential.” [Source] [See part I of this investigation for further background on El Universo and how the ideologies upheld by this powerful family have undoubtedly influenced/impacted isolated Achuar communities.)
“There were always passengers on board [occupancy rates were high], and as it was a good business. So, the directors began to wonder, why not expand?” — Arnaldo Rodriguez
“It was the early 1990s, and Canodros had become a well-known tour operator in the Galapagos by then, doing well with their ship Explorer. ‘There were always passengers on board [occupancy rates were high], and as it was a good business. So, the directors began to wonder, why not expand?’ Rodriguez remembered. ‘We had originally picked an area in the highlands, and started looking for people to associate with.’ The directors and Koupermann were intrigued by the idea of exploring the lowlands, especially because visitor interest in the rainforest seemed to be on the rise. In fact, they hoped that 40% (2,800 passengers per year) from the Galapagos operation might have an interest in visiting the Amazon, and they began imagining an Achuar ecolodge as an add-on to Galapagos.” [1]
“When we approached them in 1993 for the first time they lived in communities and had contact with the state via military detachments, the ministries of health and education, and the Silesian missions, Dominicans, and Evangelicals,” says Kouperman, who is also quick to caution how an outsider should perceive the Achuar.” [Source]
Kouperman was and is not overly sentimental, his ambitions strikingly clear: “To assume that primitive and isolated cultures with little contact with the western world are not going to change is a utopia[n] [idea]. These cultures are dynamic and always adapt to the times.” [Source]
In Kouperman’s world, the Achuar’s “adapting to the times” is a good thing.
One could argue that the Achuar people have simply undergone a natural and internal evolution toward capitalism that would have evolved even without the influence of Pachamama Alliance and their business alliances – but who would have the audacity?
As Euro-Americans who have destroyed an entire planet (i.e., the uncivilized), it is somewhat incredible that we have the audacity to bring “our knowledge” to the remaining few who have successfully survived (legitimately sustainable, in the most real sense of the word) for centuries outside of the industrialized civilization (i.e., the civilized).
And yet we need to believe that they somehow need us. Perhaps this lie assists in denying the fact that we are a culturally and emotionally starved people – a commodity culture that cannot yet admit that our choice for material wealth, which supersedes our (gutted) instinct to protect our children from harm at all costs, is collectively pathological. Emotionally malnourished, we have perhaps produced an entire populace drowning in subconscious self-loathing and self-hatred. Anorexia nervosa pales in comparison to the distorted self-image of Euro-Americans.
“The Third World has thus become not just a playground for Western fantasies (Maoz, 2005:223), but also the world producer of ‘natural’ resources such as authenticity, nativity, exoticism, sensuality, the picturesque, adventurism, spectacle, and even catastrophe and destruction (see post-Tsunami tourism).” [Source]
Revolution and enslavement do not always comes by way of a gun; likewise colonialism. Prior to the NGOs of the non-profit industrial complex becoming the missionaries of the 21st century, we had the “founding fathers” of colonialism, 19th and 20th century missionaries of the church:
“Between 1968 and 1970, Catholics and Evangelicals began to enter Achuar territory with an evangelizing intent. Although the missionaries met with limited success in their quest for souls they did initiate a process of increasing intercultural contact that would slowly begin to change the Achuars’ way of living. For example, it was the Catholic missionaries who suggested to the Achuar that there might be some advantage to living in small villages, which is how many Achuar live today.” — Kapawi Ecolodge Website | The Achuar Community of Ecuador’s Recent History
The Kapawi website states “[Y]our official Amazon Jungle excursion begins in Shell, near the Amazonian frontier town of Puyo. This is the headquarters for the Achuar people outside of their rainforest territory. Shell can be reached overland from Quito in about four and one-half hours by public bus, or by private car, van or motor coach.”
GeoPolitics | The Missionary Hub of Quito
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” ? Aldous Huxley
Past: Historical photo of MAF in the early years, distributing bibles in Guatemala.
Present: Photo: MAF International, the ‘mobile ministry’: “The project has grown from putting a few Christmas videos on the cards, to adding Christmas carols, images, audio, the ‘JESUS Film’ series and an audio Bible. A Christmas message recorded by an MAF staff member is also included. The message encourages people to remember Jesus this Christmas, and discusses how to become a Christian. December 18, 2013, Source
Above: MAF utilizing social media to “share the love of Jesus Christ through aviation and technology so that isolated people may be physically and spiritually transformed.”
Above: From MAF Africa website: “Our vision is to see isolated people physically and spiritually transformed in the Name of Jesus Christ and for all people to have access to both the Gospel and resources that advance God’s Kingdom.” [Source]
Not found on the Kapawi website is the history of Shell, which is significant. The town named Shell (also La Shell, or Shell-Mera) is named after the Royal Dutch Shell Company and the smaller town of Mera, which is 5 miles (8 km) to the northwest. It was established in 1937 as a Shell Oil Company base. Around 1949, Shell became reoccupied by the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), founded in 1945.
On January 8, 1956, MAF-US pilot Nate Saint and four other missionaries who had been attempting to make contact with the Huaorani tribe under the auspices of Operation Auca were killed by the Huaorani when they landed (via plane) in Huaorani territory. Key political forces leading up to and beyond “Operation Auca” included, but were not limited to, the CIA, Nelson Rockefeller, President Eisenhower, Ecuadorian President Galo Plaza and William Cameron Townsend (founder of Summer Institute of Linguistics).
1952: When the first Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) (founded by William “Cam” Townsend) team arrived in Ecuador, the Huaorani (also known as Waorani, Waodani and Waos) had been reduced to approximately 400 due to enslavement and massacres by rubber barons. The Quichuans, who lived in the area, were said to be terrified of the Huaorani, giving them the derogatory name Auca. Auca is a modification of the Quechua word awqa – which translates to “savage.” “No one in the SIL party entertained any illusion about conquering the Aucas for Christ. No one volunteered. They all accepted the wisdom of other missionaries that the hundred Auca spearmen who had held up civilization’s advance would have no compunction sending white foreigners quickly to their God of Love.” [Source] That is until SIL’s Rachel Saint stepped forward. It was through her brother, MAF-US pilot Nate Saint, that Rachel Saint learned of the Huaorani’s existence. She became enamoured with a vision that she had been chosen by God to “save” the “brown tribe in the green forest.” While this was unfolding, Shell’s Director, General James Doolittle, was conducting a secret investigation of the CIA’s covert operations in Ecuador at US President Eisenhower’s request (Doolittle would befriend Nate Saint in 1954). Upon receiving the findings (in 1954) Eisenhower gave the report to CIA’s Allen Dulles.
“Two months later, he appointed a new special assistant on Cold War strategy and psychological warfare. As the president’s personal representative on the National Security Council, this man would oversee the global escalation of CIA covert warfare. A Planning Coordination Group, which came to be called simply the “Special Group,” was established. In a position of authority over policy second only to the president himself and actually exercising much more power than he did, three men –CIA director Allen Dulles, Undersecretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr., and Undersecretary of Defense Roger Kyes – would be in command, chaired by the president’s new special assistant: Nelson Rockefeller”. — Rachel Saint vs. The Huaorani
On a bitterly cold winter day in Chicago (December 17, 1955), one week prior to Rockefeller’s resignation as the presidential assistant for psychological warfare and Cold War strategy, one of the Cold War’s least-known but most significant events took place outside an airport hangar. Amidst a crowd and the press, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley dedicated a plane (a CIA assett named the Helio Courier) [2] that would transport Wycliffe Bible Translators into the depths of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Present was the notorius Ecuadorian ambassador Jose Chiriboga, “sanctioning the penetration of Ecuador’s remaining Amazonian lands by a well-connected American missionary organization.” [3] “This day marked the beginning of the Inter-American Friendship Fleet [4] [that] he [William Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators and Summer Institute of Linguistics] was promoting in Washington’s corridors and of the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS) as an important instrument of the Cold War.” The dedication of the Helio Courier, to be operated by SIL, spelled out that MAF’s Nate Saint’s reign over the Ecuadorian Oriente skies was coming to a close. [Source]
Cam had spent most of his furlough year in the United States in a fruitless effort to convince the oilmen of Tulsa that JAARS was the answer to their prayers, not just his. He needed a publicity coup to win them over and to persuade businessmen in other cities to buy the Helios he had ordered.” — Rachel Saint vs. The Huaorani
The foreign/corporate control and plunder of oil and natural resources within pristine, untouched third-world countries was difficult if not impossible due to tribal people who would stop at nothing to protect their lands and people. Consider that Shell’s work crews had fallen to Indian spears and poisoned darts from blow guns. [Source] Ultimately, subjugation, allowing access, was won utilizing missionaries, bibles and “gifts.” “Planes were becoming the most important means for governments involved in ‘nation-building’ in the Third World to secure, penetrate, and colonize frontiers with landless peasants.”
Cam needed more money to buy more planes but the recognition of JAARS’s “unique potential” was not enough to convince the establishment to part with their money.
Then, as the Akha Heritage Foundation [5] has documented, “as if from the Hand of God, lightning struck in the glint of spears.” [6]
The spear struck on January 8, 1956, when MAF’s Nate Saint and four other missionaries killed in Operation Auca were transformed into martyrs by American television. (“Life magazine published a gripping account of Christian martyrdom, which caused a worldwide sensation. The doors of nationally known politicians, such as Vice President Nixon and former president Harry Truman, now opened to Cam’s Helio promotions.”) Via American television, Rachel Saint was made into the most famous missionary in the United States. (“Overnight 30 million Americans could recognize the woman with intense eyes who had dedicated her life to converting her brother’s killers.”)
Although it appeared Operation Auca was now over, it had, in fact, only just begun.
“I speak of the Christian religion, and no one need be astonished. The Church in the colonies is the white people’s Church, the foreigner’s Church. She does not call the native to God’s ways but to the ways of the white man, of the master, of the oppressor. And as we know, in this matter many are called but few chosen.” ? Frantz Fanon, Concerning Violence (Chapter 1 in The Wretched of the Earth, 1961)
Two years later, in 1958, the Hospital Vozandes del Oriente (the dream of Nate Saint) was established as the first hospital in that region of Ecuador. In August 1964, Nate Saint Memorial School opened in Shell for missionary children. In 1985, a new Hospital Vozandes was opened on the other side of the Motolo River. [“Hospital Vozandes-Shell was borne of the late missionary Nate Saint’s passion to see the people of Ecuador’s rainforest hear the gospel of Christ. It was dedicated in 1958 as Epp Memorial Hospital in Shell, known in Ecuador as Hospital Vozandes del Oriente HVO).”][Source]
In 1949, Dr. Catherine Peeke joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and worked in Mexico, Peru and Ecuador as a linguist and translator. Peeke then began two years of language study of the Waorani people in Ecuador. For 14 years, Dr. Peeke worked closely with SIL staff member Ms. Rosi Jung (from Germany) and with several Waorani to complete the translation of the New Testament in the native language. After the dedication of the Waorani New Testament in 1992, Peeke retired but returned to Ecuador several times as a volunteer. Both Peeke and Jung traveled to jungle villages to teach the Waorani in the use of the translated Scriptures. In retirement, Peeke completed a bilingual dictionary in Waorani and Spanish. She passed away in 2014, a lifelong member of First Presbyterian Church, Weaverville, North Carolina. [Source and source]
Ecuador, Texaco, and missionaries from the SIL/WBT collaborated to pacify the Huaorani and end their way of life.
It was during this period, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that most Huaorani were “contacted” by “cowode” (strangers) for the first time. The missionaries who worked with Texaco had their own converging interests. SIL/WBT described the “Aucas” as “murderers at heart” and its operation to convert them as “one of the most extraordinary missionary endeavors” of the twentieth century, “living proof of miracles brought to pass through God’s word.” [Source]
Jaime Roldós Aguilera (November 5, 1940 to May 24, 1981) was President of Ecuador from 10 August 1979 until his death on 24 May 1981. In his book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Pachamama co-founder John Perkins tells us that Rondo accused the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) (the evangelical missionary group from the US) of sinister collusion with the oil companies: “SIL had been working extensively with the Huaorani tribe in the Amazon basin area, during the early years of oil exploration, when a disturbing pattern emerged. Whenever seismologists reported to corporate headquarters that a certain region had characteristics indicating a high probability of oil beneath the surface, SIL went in and encouraged the indigenous people to move from that land, onto missionary reservations; there they would receive free food, shelter, clothes, medical treatment, and missionary-style education. The condition was that they had to deed their lands to the oil companies.”
And while Perkins reveals Rockefeller connections that threatened Roldós (it is apparent that Perkins admires Roldós greatly), he fails to comprehend the imperial ties/interests within his own organization – including grants and Rockefeller financing:
“Rachel Saint, the sister of one of the murdered men, toured the United States, appearing on national television in order to raise money and support for SIL and the oil companies, who she claimed were helping the ‘savages’ become civilized and educated. SIL received funding from the Rockefeller charities. Jaime Roldós claimed that these Rockefeller connections proved that SIL was really a front for stealing indigenous lands and promoting oil exploration; family scion John D. Rockefeller had founded Standard Oil – which later divested into the majors, including Chevron, Exxon, and Mobil. […]
“But Roldós would not cave in to intimidation. He responded by denouncing the conspiracy between politics and oil – and religion. He openly accused the Summer Institute of Linguistics of colluding with the oil companies and then, in an extremely bold – perhaps reckless – move, he ordered SIL out of the country. Only weeks after sending his legislative package to Congress and a couple of days after expelling the SIL missionaries, Roldós warned all foreign interests, including but not limited to oil companies, that unless they implemented plans that would help Ecuador’s people, they would be forced to leave his country. He delivered a major speech at the Atahualpa Olympic Stadium in Quito and then headed off to a small community in southern Ecuador.”
Is history repeating itself? It is no secret that those in charge of psy-ops simply “rinse, lather and repeat” the same tried and true destabilization strategies that dupe the masses over and over again. Today, substitute environmental markets for oil corporations, NGOs for religious missionaries. Rondós’s speech is echoed through both Educador’s President Correa and President Morales of Bolivia today.
Roldós died there in a fiery airplane crash, on May 24, 1981 with all the markings of a CIA-orchestrated assassination.
“Osvaldo Hurtado took over as Ecuador’s president. He reinstated the Summer Institute of Linguistics and their oil company sponsors. By the end of the year, he had launched an ambitious program to increase oil drilling by Texaco and other foreign companies in the Gulf of Guayaquil and the Amazon basin…. Omar Torrijos (president of Panama), in eulogizing Roldós, referred to him as ‘brother.’ He also confessed to having nightmares about his own assassination; he saw himself dropping from the sky in a gigantic fireball. It was prophetic. […] But Torrijos was not buckling. Like Roldos, he refused to be intimidated. He, too, expelled the Summer Institute of Linguistics, and he adamantly refused to give in to the Reagan administration’s demands to renegotiate the Canal Treaty. Two months after Roldós’s death, Omar Torrijos’s nightmare came true; he died in a plane crash. It was July 31, 1981.” [Source]
Everything changes. Everything stays the same.
Hallefuckinglujah
“I must confess, I hadn’t been to Mass in 10 years or something, and suddenly I’m going to meet Mother Teresa. I cancelled all the meetings I had with the IMF, the World Bank, UNICEF, and everything that day. I went straight to a church. I went to confession. I did the rosary about a 100,000 times. I did everything I could to prepare myself.” — Lynne Twist (Pachamama co-founder) interview, 2009
Today, we have what constitutes a full-blown orgy or even a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah of 19th/20th century missionaries – infused with the modern day 21st century missionaries, the NGOs.
“In Ecuador, there is Catholicism, Mormonism, animism and paganism…. There is a need for the truth and for discipling people in the truth and all they are getting is lies from Catholicism and Mormonism. We have a responsibility to go all nations, tribes, tongues and peoples and we need to go back to places where we have been before and take the gospel there again.” — The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Experiencing the culture firsthand, February 23, 2006
It is imperative to note that while missionary Nate Saint with the four other missionaries are today considered heroic martyrs (killed by the Waodani people), there is no such martyrdom for the millions of Indigenous peoples slaughtered and enslaved by the Europeans for centuries.
Unlike stealth NGOs within the non-profit industrial complex, the Hospital Vozandes-Shell makes no attempt to tone down nor disguise colonization efforts:
“The lives of Waorni warriors and their families were saved and the gospel went forth among these jungle people…. Here we have the privilege of helping some 20 patients find personal faith in Christ each month.” [Source]
Today Shell is a much larger town, brimming with Spanish-speaking churches, hangars, a hospital, schools, hotels, and missionary guest houses. Nate Saint’s house still stands. The airport is also still a major base of operations for the Mission Aviation Fellowship.
The feature-length documentary film, Beyond Gates of Splendor, released in 2004, surmises the “success” of the missionaries as follows: “And now they are no longer the Auca, the savage…” [http://youtu.be/BD8LZFht9i4] The documentary closes with the showing of the former “killers” – now transformed into “God Followers.”
Today’s 21st century missionaries/NGOs have traded in the baggy hemp trousers and the long tunics of their predecessors for Bagir EcoGir all-organic suits. Espresso-coloured bamboo fibres avec buttons made from dried nuts of tagua palm ecologically harvested from the rainforest. Made exclusively for white male privilege – made possible by those exploited and paid next to nothing in the harvesting of the resources, by those exploited in sweatshops producing clothing they will never be able to afford in their lifetime. On the left, we have male, blond, blue-eyed Jesus. On the right, we have economic growth, and markets as sacrosanct.
“The only way we’ll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba – yes Cuba too.” ? Malcolm X
The occupation of Shell commenced in 1937 with the Shell Corporation, recommenced in 1949 by Mission Aviation Fellowship, and expanded at the end of the 20th century with the presence/onslaught of non-profits/NGOs financed from abroad. The occupation continues to this day.
Occupations need not exist only in the form of military force; they can also be the result of compliance via psychological methods and soft power.
The definition of colonize is to “settle among and establish control over”; “the act of setting up a colony away from one’s place of origin.” Human colonization refers strictly to migration, for example, to settler colonies, trading posts, and plantations, while colonialism deals with this, along with ruling the existing indigenous peoples of styled “new territories.” The definition of an occupation is the “control of a country by a foreign military power”; “the seizure and control of an area by military forces, especially foreign territory and/or the term of control of a territory by foreign military forces.” Then how to define psychological/soft-power occupation as successfully practised by the former missionaries and 21st century missionaries/NGOs?
We can safely define soft-power occupation (the act of occupying; the state of being occupied) as 1) enculturation: the process by which a person adapts to and assimilates the culture in which he lives, 2) social control: control exerted (actively or passively) by group action and norms, 3) socialization: the adoption of the behaviour patterns of the surrounding culture, 4) cultivation: socialization through training and education to develop one’s mind or manners, 5) auto limitation: social control achieved as a manifestation of self-will or general consent, 6) acculturation: the process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group, especially a dominant one, 7) psychology: the scientific study of all forms of human and animal behaviour, sometimes concerned with the methods through which behaviour can be modified.
Next: Part VI
[1] Source: Case study: THE KAPAWI INDIGENOUS-CORPORATE PARTNERSHIP FOR ECOTOURISM IN ECUADOR
[2] “Six months before, another unusually long-winged airplane had zoomed into the stratosphere before startled onlookers, but it would be another half year before the CIA’s U-2 would make its secret maiden voyage into Soviet skies. This plane, however, was ready now, and although its design came out of the same aeronautical origins as did the U-2, the Helio Courier was no secret. It could not be, for it was designed to be flown at low altitudes and low speeds, not in the heavens beyond sight and sound. Both planes would make history for the CIA. But the U-2’s mission would be exposed to the world within five years while the Helio’s use as a CIA asset would remain virtually unknown for three more decades.” Helio is the Greek word for “sun,” and courier is the Latin word for “messenger. [Source]
[3] “Richard J. Daley, looking the model of the stocky Irish American big-city politician, was a conservative but devout Roman Catholic. The newly elected mayor of Chicago was absolute ruler of arguably the most powerful Democratic machine in the United States. Daley had not risen to power championing the ambition of Fundamentalist Protestants in Catholic countries like Ecuador. Yet here he was, officially welcoming the crowd, including members of the press, to the dedication of an airplane that would bring the Wycliffe Bible Translators into the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Standing beside Daley was Ecuador’s ambassador Jose Chiriboga, who had earned a reputation for shrewdness as mayor of Quito equal to Daley’s in Chicago. Only twelve years before, he had confounded his countrymen by signing over half of Ecuador’s Amazon to Peru at Washington’s behest. Pearl Harbor had made hemispheric unity essential, Chiriboga had explained, and the war between Ecuador and Peru had to end, even if that meant that Ecuador would lose land rumored to be coveted by Standard Oil’s Peruvian subsidiary, International Petroleum Company. And now here was Chiriboga again, as ambassador of a self-described radical nationalist government, sanctioning the penetration of Ecuador’s remaining Amazonian lands by a well-connected American missionary organization.” [Source]
[4] “To ‘strengthen the Good Neighbor feeling even more,’ Townsend suggested, the planes should be referred to as the ‘Inter American Friendship Fleet.'” — The Development of the Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1934-1982
[5] “We are strongly opposed to mission organizations which would remove Akha Children and destroy Akha language, literature, culture and identity. We believe that the defense of land rights and other human rights is at the heart of any just system, and we would oppose those who remain silent while these abuses continue.” [Source]
[6] “In September 1955, the same month that Ambassador Chiriboga announced that the Ecuadorian government no longer recognized the Oriente concessions of a Canadian-owned company, Peruvian Oils and Minerals Company, Nate suddenly launched Operation Auca.” [Source]
[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]
Edited with Forrest Palmer, Wrong Kind of Green.
350.org / 1Sky, Avaaz, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carbon Markets | REDD, Foundations, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation
350.org Avaaz Breakthrough Energy Coalition Climate Action Network COP21 Gates Greenpeace Havas privatization Social Engineering Wall Street WBCSD
New World Order—Same Old Crimes
Wrong Kind of Green Op-Ed
November 2015: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with Mary Robinson and Ricken Patel, Executive Director of Avaaz at “One Heart One Tree: Lighting of the Eiffel Tower”. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas
In terms of relevance to the indigenous nations often referred to as the Fourth World, the rollouts from the COP21 gathering of UN member states, Wall Street-funded NGOs, and the global financial elite resemble colonial initiatives undertaken as a result of similar 19th Century gatherings to carve up the world for capitalism. Then, as now, indigenous territories and resources were targeted for expropriation through coercion, with Africa being a prime target.
Photo: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (fourth from left) and Christiana Figueres (centre), Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), meet with “Civil Society Leaders” at the Le Bourget-Paris exhibition site, for Cop21. From left: Jagoda Munic, Chairperson, Friends of the Earth International; Ricken Patel, President and Executive Director, Avaaz; Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation; Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director, Greenpeace International; May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org; Wael Hmaidan, Director, Climate Action Network International; and Bridget Burns, Administrator on Climate, Global Gender and Climate Alliance.
As statements emanating from COP21 by Wall Street-driven entities like the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Breakthrough Energy Coalition were tailored to seduce the naïve into believing that First World consumption of indigenous territories and resources for luxury goods could continue unabated under the pretext of saving the planet, the agenda of the financial elite at Paris was to subsume human rights to the all-encompassing ‘clean energy’/New Economy regime.
A look at the ‘clean energy’ Ponzi scheme — led by magnate Bill Gates, and promoted by Havas – reveals two key attributes of the plan are 1. Expanding nuclear power development and 2. Privatizing public process and policy. Indeed, privatization of the planet, which led to the indigenous revolution in Bolivia and elsewhere, is a core component of the Natural Infrastructure for Business launched at COP21.
“Clean” energy: Lithium mining in Mexico
“Clean” energy: Lithium mining in Chile
While the allure of the ‘clean energy’ chimera is appealing to First World consumers of electronics and energy storage devices such as electric car batteries, the Fourth World reality in Africa, Asia and South America – where resources for these technologies are mined — is one of utter devastation. Indeed, it has been convincingly argued that the recent misadventures of AFRICOM, NATO, and the UN in Libya, Mali and the Great Lakes region of Africa are aimed at securing these minerals for the US and the EU.
COP15, 2009: Bill McKibben of 350.org, Ambassador Antonio Lima of Cape Verde (Vice-President of AOSIS), and Ricken Patel, Avaaz Executive Director
The NGOs and PR firms behind the social engineering used to drum up support for Wall Street’s privatization plan — Avaaz, Havas, Purpose and 350 — are key to saving the planet for the financial elite. While their choreography of the climate drama has resulted in lots of moral theatrics, the failure of 21 years of lobbying and protesting suggests something more serious is needed. Organizing for political power requires challenging these Wall Street-funded fronts. ‘Civil society’ does not equal NGO.
BREAKTHROUGH BOONDOGGLE
CLEAN ENERGY PONZI SCHEME
COP21: SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE
MARCHING FOR MONSANTO
PRIVATIZATION STRATEGY
RAVE NEW WORLD
WANTED FOR DESTROYING OUR FUTURE: AVAAZ
© Unless otherwise indicated, all materials published are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
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The Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam
Directors: Prof. Dr. Frank Bösch, Prof. Dr. Martin Sabrow
The Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung – ZZF) is a research institute for German and European contemporary history in the 20th century and its impact on the present. As a member of the Leibniz Association, half of its basic endowment is funded by the Federal Government and half by the states. In addition, the institute raises third-party funds for research projects.
The ZZF collaborates with numerous universities and other research institutes in Germany and abroad, and has an international visiting-scholar program. It is linked to the University of Potsdam and Humboldt University in Berlin by joint professorships, and cooperates with a range of other institutes of higher learning in research, teaching and training a new generation of scholars.
The institute is currently divided into four research departments plus the institute’s directorship focusing on the following subject areas:
Communism and Society,
Economic Thought and Practice,
Contemporary History of Media and Information Societies,
Regimes of the Social Sphere.
Alongside basic research, the provision of research infrastructures and knowledge transfer are central tasks of the ZZF.
ZZF flyer for download (PDF, January 2016)
Main building Am Neuen Markt 1/Schwertfegerstraße 8
Location Am Neuen Markt 9 D with offices,a library and conference rooms
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ADNOC signs two deals with OMV and one deal with Boreali
HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces (back R) and HE Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor of Austria (back L), witness an MOU signing ceremony pertaining to the petrochemical sector, at Emirates Palace. Seen signing on behalf of the UAE is HE Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State, Chairman of Masdar and CEO of ADNOC Group (R) and for Austria, Dr Rainer Seele, Chairman and CEO of OMV (L)
Published: 24 March 2019 - 5 a.m.
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has signed two MoUs with OMV and one MoU with Borealis to explore new opportunities for collaboration in the downstream sector.
The signing of the agreements was witnessed by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and His Excellency Sebastian Kurz, Federal Chancellor of Austria.
The agreements with OMV were signed by His Excellency Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO, and Dr. Rainer Seele, Chairman of the OMV Executive Board and CEO. The agreement with Borealis was signed by H.E. Dr. Al Jaber and Alfred Stern, Borealis CEO.
Under the terms of the first MoU, ADNOC and OMV will evaluate new opportunities in petrochemical projects as a potential extension to their existing partnerships, and exchange knowledge and experience in refinery-petrochemical integration and optimization. The two companies will also assess opportunities for petrochemicals marketing support.
The second MoU will see ADNOC and OMV jointly explore the potential of OMV’s ReOil technology in Ruwais, ADNOC’s integrated refining and petrochemicals hub in the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi. OMV’s ReOil recycling process produces synthetic crude oil from used plastics.
The third MoU will see ADNOC and Borealis jointly explore potential growth opportunities within the integrated polyolefin industry in key geographical markets. They will partner to build on their strength which has successfully contributed to the growth of Borouge over the last 20 years to support the growth of customers in key markets through value creation and innovation.
H.E. Dr. Al Jaber said: “The agreements with OMV build on, and further strengthen, our long-term partnership across the full oil and gas value chain. OMV brings world-class expertise and advanced technology that will enable us to further stretch the value of our crude and secure greater returns from the global growth in demand for petrochemicals as we accelerate delivery of our 2030 smart growth strategy. This is yet another stepping stone in our journey to grow ADNOC’s downstream portfolio and establish Ruwais as a global refining and petrochemicals hub.”
“In line with our downstream expansion strategy, ADNOC is pursuing investments that will maximize value from our existing resources and secure more effective market access for our expanding portfolio of products. The proposed agreement with Borealis, an existing strategic partner will potentially create growth opportunities for our mutual benefit, and ensure we are well positioned to meet the growing demand for a variety of high-value refined and petrochemical products.
Dr. Seele said: “These agreements underline our commitment to the strategic partnership with ADNOC and our readiness to bring expertise and add value to this collaboration. Moreover we are following our strategy of expanding the value chain and further strengthening our petrochemical business, as well as contributing to CO2 reduction through the circular economy concept of our ReOil process.”
Alfred Stern said: “We want to build on our joint success in Borouge and continue to deliver ‘value creation through innovation’. A sustainable development in Asia and the Middle East will show an increasing need and demand for high value, innovative polyolefin solutions. Borealis’ proprietary technologies and market expertise can make significant contributions to the successful development of our partnership with ADNOC. As a committed, long-term partner to the UAE, Borealis and ADNOC have successfully built our joint venture Borouge. Building on our fruitful collaboration, we look forward to discovering value-add opportunities in the polyolefin industry with our trusted partner ADNOC, servicing our customers around the globe.”
ADNOC and OMV collaborate in several areas across the full value chain from upstream to downstream. In January, OMV acquired a 15 percent share in ADNOC refinery in a transaction that values ADNOC Refining at an enterprise value of US$ 19.3 billion. This followed an award by ADNOC to OMV in December 2018 of a 5 percent stake in the Ghasha ultra-sour gas concession for 40 years and 20 percent stakes in the SARB and Umm Lulu oil fields offshore concessions in April 2018.
Since 1998, ADNOC and Borealis have collaborated as joint venture partners in Borouge. Borouge is a leading petrochemicals company that provides innovative plastics solutions for several industries. With 4.5 million tonnes of annual capacity, Borouge is the world’s largest integrated polyolefin complex.
As part of its 2030 smart growth strategy, ADNOC has recently embarked on a significant expansion of its downstream business. At the center of its new downstream strategy is a $45 billion investment plan aimed at creating the world’s largest integrated refining and petrochemicals complex in Ruwais, which will see the company triple production of petrochemicals to 14.4. million tons per annum by 2025. Ruwais’ appeal as a unique feedstock engine, capable of producing the full range of essential building blocks along the petrochemical value chain will see the Ruwais Derivatives and Conversion Parks become a global destination of choice for investors and manufacturers wishing to establish a presence in the UAE.
ADNOC’s expansion and new investment in the downstream will accelerate the delivery of its 2030 strategy and create a more flexible, resilient and diverse energy business, optimizing its performance and stretching the dollar from every barrel of oil it produces. Furthermore, the downstream strategy will also act as another catalyst for Abu Dhabi’s economic growth and diversification plans, attracting new foreign and domestic investment, creating numerous specialized employment and career opportunities, and significantly boosting ADNOC’s in-country value creation initiatives.
Metito to construct drinking water filtration system in India
McDermott wins offshore EPCI project worth up to $750mn
Arsenal FC players fly into Dubai on branded Emirates A380
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Davide Balliano.
I work in a very repetitive and monastic way.
9 Questions to Davide Balliano.
Italian artist, living and working in New York.
I’m not sure I can be an authority on the meaning of my research, as I often think it has its own identity. I’ll always be in the process of understanding it myself. That said, I think that my research lately seems to be focused on the power struggle between labor as human identity and the ferocious efficacy of technology, passing through time and its perception and ending with the contemplation of the sublime. I find much inspiration in the thoughts and writings of philosophers like Umberto Galimberti and Carlo Sini, specially in their considerations about nihilism in the age of technology.
Please tell us more about your working process, routine, your studio set up and the way you approach new artworks.
I work in a very repetitive and monastic way. I come to the studio every day, pretty early in the morning, and I work until evening. My practice is very time consuming and labour intense but it can be quite meditative so I enjoy it very much. New works come exclusively from the work itself and from my progress in understanding it. Lately, I’m trying to break up the constructions that I’ve been working on in the past three years. I feel at a turning point, where my work morphs into something new and different, yet remaining the same. It’s an exciting moment.
All the usual I would say… I read (or listen to audio) a lot and that’s probably my main income for new thoughts. Then I’m an avid consumer of cinema and I consume a great amount of art. Living in New York, the daily interaction with architecture is a massive influence on my practice. Nature would be the second part of the equation but, in this city, I have mainly to rely on memories of it.
Even if I’ve seen it already on video, I recently attended a performance of The Rite of Spring by the company of Pina Bausch at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and it left me literally speechless. It was one of the most impressive, powerful, meaningful and monumental piece of art I’ve ever seen. The crude physicality of it and the visceral representation of the burden of nature on human kind (mainly on women actually…) left me absolutely astonished. Even the preparation of the stage was an amazing performance. Truly incredible. Hard to imagine something so majestic can be achieved.
Luc Tuymans. I think he’s one of the most relevant thinker of our time, and an incredible artist. His work had and still has a great influence over my practice, even if visually I operate very differently.
What’s your favourite city and why?
I deeply love New York, the city that I live in, even if it’s often a love and hate relationship. I love its energy and the capacity of making you feel part of a small band of mad adventurers. It’s often a really awful place, and the effect it has on the psyche of its citizens it’s clear to anybody that uses the subway system.
But every time you are ready to fully hate this place it has a way of picking you up and making you feel that no matter what, you are doing well, you are putting up a fight and that you might as well succeed. Also, the cultural life it’s really good, and Central Park can make you feel better about anything.
After New York my favorite place in the world is probably Venice. It’s just so decadently beautiful.
What’s your favourite restaurant and why?
For special occasions, Il Gattopardo on 54th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue. The food and wine selection are great, the stuff is competent and discreet and the location is elegant yet intimate, never too loud.
For every day Diviera Drive, on North 7th St & Berry in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We are there at least once a week, often more during the summer. The food is great, the location is spacious and with a large outside area that allows smoking. Oliver Stumm, the owner, is a close friend and the stuff knows us well. We got our wedding party at Diviera. It’s the closes thing to home when we are out.
Depending from the time of the day and where I am, but I would probably get a little drink or buy a newspaper and a cup of coffee.
Do you have any dream projects in mind that you would like to do in the future?
In my own practice, I think the closest thing to a dream is large architectural sculptures/installations, but I would probably try one day, so it’s just a matter of time and logistics.
Out of my own practice, I’d love one day to open or be involved in the running of a project space… A place that can become the center of a community. Somewhere to organize shows, talks, concerts, screenings, publish books, make dinners, have a little bar and whatever else comes to mind.
UNTITLED_0055
Plaster, gesso & lacquer on wood board
80×64” – 203.2×162.5 cm
Studio View
Copper oxide on ceramic
Various dimensions
Solo show / Luce gallery 2015, Turin IT
120×96” – 304.8×243.8 Cm
www.davideballiano.com
All images © Davide Balliano and MariaSprowls
Jens Kothe. My work examines the „bodyness“ and sensuality of materials... Nicolò Baraggioli. I am interested in investigating the concept of space, boundary...
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website-pace.net
APCE
Rules of Procedure of the Assembly (July 2019)
(Resolution 1202 (1999) adopted on 4 November 1999) with subsequent modifications of the Rules of Procedure*
Rules of Procedure of the Assembly
Parts: I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII.
Complementary texts
Parts: I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII.
Committees Retour au sommaire Atteindre l'élement suivant Atteindre l'élement précédent
Rule 44 - Appointment of committees
44.1. At the beginning of each ordinary session, the Assembly shall set up the following general committees:
1. Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy (85 seats),
2. Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights (85 seats),
3. Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development (85 seats),
4. Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons (85 seats),
5. Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media (85 seats),
6. Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination (85 seats),
7. Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee) (85 seats),
8. Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs (32 seats),
9. Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights (20 seats).
44.2. France, Germany, Italy, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United Kingdom shall have four seats in each of the first six committees.
Poland, Romania, Spain and Ukraine shall have three seats in each of the first six committees.
Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland shall have two seats in each of the first six committees.
Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Republic of Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” shall have one seat in each of the first six committees.
44.3.a. On the basis of the candidatures presented by the political groups and taking into account gender balance and regional balance, the Bureau shall appoint 85 of the 94 members of the Monitoring Committee, 30 of the 39 members of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs and 20 of the 22 members (and their alternates) of the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights by applying the apportionment ratio based on the so-called ‘D’Hondt principle’.
44.3.b. The Bureau shall appoint two additional members to the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs from among the representatives and substitutes of the Assembly who do not belong to any political group. The political groups shall nominate the members with a view to ensuring a fair representation of national delegations where applicable.
44.3.c. Not more than two members of a national delegation from a state under monitoring procedure or involved in a post-monitoring dialogue may sit on the Monitoring Committee.
44.3.d. These nominations shall be submitted to the Assembly or the Standing Committee for ratification. In the event of objection, the matter shall be referred back to the Bureau, which may submit revised nominations to the Assembly.
44.4.a. The Assembly may also set up ad hoc committees for specific purposes. A motion to set up an ad hoc committee is considered by the Bureau. If the Bureau approves it, it refers the proposal to the committee concerned by the proposal’s subject matter, for report, and to the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs, for opinion.
44.4.b. An ad hoc committee shall cease to exist after its report has been considered by the Assembly.
44.4.c. Subject to ratification by the Assembly or the Standing Committee, the Bureau of the Assembly may also set up ad hoc committees reporting to it, in which case it shall prescribe their duration, terms of reference and composition. An account of their work shall be given to the Assembly as part of the Progress Report of the Bureau and the Standing Committee.
44.5. Substitutes, like representatives, may be appointed members of a committee. Besides the full members, an equal number of alternates of the same nationality shall be appointed for each committee except for the Monitoring Committee and the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs.
44.6. No member of the Assembly can be a full member of more than two committees, with the exception of committees whose members are nominated by the political groups.
44.7. Without prejudice to Rule 44.3.a. , candidatures for membership of the committees shall be addressed to the President of the Assembly, who shall submit to the Assembly, the Standing Committee or, failing that, the Bureau proposals for their composition. Any disputed nominations shall be forwarded by the President of the Assembly to the national delegation concerned. If confirmed proposals or new proposals are disputed, the Assembly or the Standing Committee shall decide.
44.8. If, without prejudice to Rule 44.3.a. , no candidatures for membership of a committee are submitted by a national delegation by the end of the June part-session of a parliamentary year, the President of the Assembly shall bring this to the attention of the chairperson of the national delegation concerned.
44.9. Where a seat is vacant on a committee other than the Monitoring Committee, the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs and the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights, it may be provisionally occupied by a representative or substitute from the national delegation to which the seat is allotted, the representative or substitute being appointed by the chairperson of that delegation.
44.10. If, without prejudice to Rule 44.3.a. , in the course of a parliamentary year the average level of participation of a national delegation in the meetings of a committee is below 33%, the Secretary General of the Parliamentary Assembly shall inform the President of the Assembly, the chairperson of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs and the chairperson of the national delegation concerned. The President of the Assembly shall bring this to the attention of the speaker of the national parliament concerned and the Bureau of the Assembly.
Rule 45 - Competence of committees
45.1. Committees shall examine documents referred to them under Rule 26 and questions otherwise referred to them by the Assembly or the Standing Committee. They may draw up a report, or an information report, for presentation to the Assembly or to the Standing Committee in accordance with Rule 50 , merge references, or take no action on a reference. In the last two cases, they shall inform the Bureau accordingly. They may examine any other matter within their terms of reference.
45.2. Committees shall examine the action taken on texts adopted by the Assembly on the basis of their reports.
45.3. Should a committee declare a question to be outside its terms of reference, or should a conflict arise over the competence of two or more committees, the question shall be submitted to the Bureau for decision which may refer it to the Assembly.
45.4. A committee requested to give an opinion on a matter which has been referred to another committee for report may table amendments to the draft text tabled by the latter committee, in the manner specified in Rule 34 .
Rule 46 - Bureaux of committees
46.1. The Bureau of each committee shall consist of the chairperson and the three vice-chairpersons, normally elected at the first committee meeting of each ordinary session, while taking into account the principle of gender equality.
46.2. Until the chairperson of the committee is elected or, in the absence of agreement among the political groups or of any candidate put forward for the position of chair, until the vice-chairpersons are elected, the meeting shall be chaired by the oldest member present, under whose chairpersonship no subject other than the election of the bureau of the committee may be considered.
46.3. Committee members who have been members for at least one year may be candidates for the office of chairperson or vice-chairperson and must belong to the political group to which the Chair or a Vice-Chair has been allocated on the basis of an agreement reached among the political groups within the Presidential Committee. A single candidate put forward for any office shall be declared elected without proceeding to a vote.
46.4. No chairperson or vice-chairperson of a committee or sub-committee may be chairperson or vice-chairperson of another Assembly committee or sub-committee. This does not apply to ad hoc committees and ad hoc sub-committees.
46.5. Elections shall be held by secret ballot. Two tellers chosen by lot shall count the votes, assisted by the Secretariat.
46.6. A candidate who obtains an absolute majority of the votes cast on the first ballot shall be declared elected. On the second ballot the election shall be by relative majority . In the event of a tie, there shall be a third ballot; in the event of a further tie, the older candidate shall be declared elected.
46.7. The chairperson and the vice-chairpersons of a committee shall remain in office until the opening of the next ordinary session of the Assembly. They may be re-elected for one further term, consecutive or not. A committee chairperson or vice-chairperson elected in the course of a session for an incomplete term may be re-elected for two further terms. A former chairperson of a committee may stand for the office of chairperson or vice-chairperson of the same committee on expiry of a period of four years, for two further terms, consecutive or not. The outgoing chairperson of a committee may stand for the office of chairperson or vice-chairperson of another committee on expiry of a period of two years. A chairperson or vice-chairperson of a committee who has been dismissed from office pursuant to Rule 55 may not be a candidate for the office of chairperson or vice-chairperson of a committee or a sub-committee.
Rule 47 - Procedure in committee
47.1. Except as otherwise provided, procedure in committee shall follow that in the Assembly.
47.2. Voting shall be by a majority of the votes cast. A committee shall vote by show of hands. For decisions relating to persons, voting shall take place by secret ballot. Except on procedural matters, a vote shall be by roll call if so requested by at least two members. The roll shall be called alphabetically beginning with the letter “A”.
47.3. A committee may deliberate and take decisions when one third of its members are present; however, if so requested by one sixth of its members before voting begins on a draft opinion, recommendation or resolution as a whole, or on the election or dismissal of the chairperson or vice-chairpersons, the vote may be taken only if a majority of committee members are present.
47.4. If no quorum exists when a committee begins a meeting which is taking place at the date, time and place which was notified to its members, the chairperson shall have the power to close the meeting and forthwith open a subsequent one during which the committee may deliberate and vote, irrespective of the number of members present. During such a meeting, the agenda sent out to committee members beforehand shall not be changed. The provisions on roll call contained in paragraph 2 above shall not be applicable during such a meeting.
47.5. Except during part-sessions, documents relating to items on the agenda of a committee meeting shall be despatched to the members at least one week before the date of that meeting. If they are not, and if five or more members object, the items concerned shall be postponed to a later meeting. The objection may be overruled by the committee by a two-thirds majority.
47.6. The chairperson shall open, suspend and close the meeting and shall direct the committee's debates. He or she may take part in the committee's debates. He or she does not participate in a vote except in the case of a tie. He or she shall ensure observance of the Rules and maintain order.
47.7. A full member of a committee who is prevented from attending a meeting shall arrange to be replaced by his or her alternate. Failing that, the full member may inform the chairperson of the committee which other member of his or her national delegation is authorised to take his or her place.
47.8. The alternate replacing a full member shall have the same rights in committee as the member.
47.9. Unless the committee decides otherwise, the only texts which shall be made public shall be the reports approved by the committee and statements issued on the responsibility of the chairperson.
Rule 48 - Meetings of committees
48.1. A committee shall meet when convened by its chairperson on his or her own initiative, at the request of one third of the committee members or at the request of the President of the Assembly. Except during part-sessions, the convocation to the meeting shall be sent to members at least seven days before the meeting.
48.2. Any two or more committees may hold a joint meeting for the examination of subjects coming within their competence, but may not reach a joint decision, except if it is unanimous or on procedural matters. The Chair shall be taken in turns by the chairpersons of each of the participating committees, starting with the longest-serving chairperson or, in the case of equal length of service, the elder.
48.3. Unless a committee decides otherwise, committee meetings shall be held in private. The Monitoring Committee and the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights meet in camera.
48.4. Members of the Assembly may attend meetings of committees of which they are not members but without the right to speak or vote. However, only members of the Monitoring Committee and members of the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights may attend meetings of their respective committees.
48.5. Subject to paragraph 6 below, members of special guest, observer and partner for democracy delegations appointed to a committee may participate in its meetings and speak if called by the committee chairperson; they shall not have the right to vote. However, a committee may decide in advance that members of such delegations may not attend a meeting or part of a meeting.
48.6. Meetings of the Joint Committee, the Monitoring Committee, the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs and the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights shall not be open to members of special guest, observer and partner for democracy delegations.
48.7. The conditions on which any person who is not covered by sub-paragraphs 4 to 6 above may be heard by a committee shall be decided by that committee.
48.8. Secretaries of national delegations and secretaries of political groups may attend the meetings of committees of the Assembly, except for those of the Monitoring Committee and the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights.
48.9. The draft minutes of each committee meeting shall be distributed to all the members of the committee, under the conditions stipulated in Rule 47.5. , and shall be presented for the committee’s approval at the opening of the next meeting.
Rule 49 - Sub-committees
49.1. Except as otherwise provided in this Rule, procedure in sub-committee shall follow that in committee.
49.2. A committee may appoint standing or ad hoc sub-committees, whose exact composition and competence it shall determine at the time of appointment. National delegations and political parties or groups shall be fairly represented.
49.3. A committee of 85, 90, 91 or 93 seats may not appoint more than three standing sub-committees, and a committee of 38 or 22 seats may not appoint more than two, unless authorised by the Bureau of the Assembly with a two-thirds majority.
49.4. An ad hoc sub-committee shall cease to exist once the committee has considered its report.
49.5. A standing or ad hoc sub-committee not re-appointed during the first part of an ordinary session shall cease to exist.
49.6. The number of members of a sub-committee may not exceed one third of the full membership of the committee. An alternate from the same national delegation may be appointed for each full member. In addition, the chairperson of the committee shall ex officio be a full member of any of its sub-committees. No member of the committee may be a member of more than two of its sub-committees.
49.7. The Bureau of a sub-committee shall include the chairperson and the vice-chairperson. Elections shall be held in accordance with the procedures laid down in paragraphs 2, 4 to 6 of Rule 46 while taking into account the principle of gender equality. Full members of the sub-committee who have been members of the sub-committee for at least one year may be candidates for the office of chairperson or vice-chairperson of the sub-committee. A single candidate put forward for any office shall be declared elected without a vote. The chairperson and the vice-chairperson of a sub-committee may be re-elected for one further term, consecutive or not. On expiry of a period of four years, they may be again elected for two new consecutive or non-consecutive terms. A chairperson or vice-chairperson of a sub-committee elected in the course of a session for an incomplete term to replace the chairperson or the vice-chairperson previously elected during the session may be re-elected for two further terms.
49.8. A sub-committee shall inform the appointing committee of its work, which shall approve its decisions.
Rule 50 - Reports of committees
50.1. A committee shall appoint one rapporteur for each subject, who shall be responsible for the preparation of the report of the committee and for presenting it to the Assembly. The Monitoring Committee shall appoint two co-rapporteurs. For the appointment of rapporteurs, the committees shall take into consideration the following criteria by order of priority: competence and availability, fair representation of political groups (based on the d’Hondt system), gender-balanced representation, geographical and national balance. A member of the Assembly who is simultaneously rapporteur for five reports or opinions under preparation, on behalf of one or more committees, may not be appointed rapporteur. In the exercise of their duties, the rapporteurs shall comply with the rules set forth in the code of conduct for rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly. A rapporteur shall remain in charge of the follow-up to his or her report for a term of one year after the adoption of the text by the Assembly.
50.2. The report of a committee shall normally contain one or more draft texts:
- recommendations or opinions addressed to the Committee of Ministers;
- resolutions.
Only these texts may be voted upon in committee, and the results of such votes shall be included in the report. Only these texts may be voted upon by the Assembly or the Standing Committee.
50.3. A committee seized for an opinion on the report of another committee may submit its opinion in writing or orally. If in writing it should contain a chapter at the beginning entitled “Conclusions of the committee”, and an explanatory memorandum by the rapporteur.
50.4. The report of a committee shall also contain an explanatory memorandum by the rapporteur. The committee shall take note of it. Any dissenting opinions expressed in the committee shall be included therein at the request of their authors, preferably in the body of the explanatory memorandum, but otherwise in an appendix or footnote.
50.5. The adoption of the draft text and taking note of the explanatory memorandum shall constitute the committee’s approval of the report as a whole. Any report thus approved shall be tabled and published as an official Assembly document. If, after the tabling of a report, important developments occur, the committee may approve an addendum to it.
50.6. Committees may table information reports, which shall not be subject to a vote in the Assembly.
50.7. Committees may appoint one or more general rapporteurs whose terms of reference and term of office they shall determine beforehand. The terms of reference shall be submitted to the Bureau for approval and its decision shall be subject to ratification by the Assembly.
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The exact settings on your camera will depend on your model, but there's likely an auto option, a bunch of presets (daylight, cloudy, tungsten, etc.), and custom. Avoid auto white balance at all costs and opt for a preset or custom instead. If you have a top-of-the-line DSLR, there may also be an option to manually set the color temperature of the room, measured in Kelvin.
When it comes time to shoot, clear out unnecessary people from the room and turn off the overhead lights. With your three-point lighting setup, there will be no need for those harsh fluorescents. When — and only when — everything is set up, call in your talent. There's nothing worse than being nervous, and then having to anxiously watch as lights are turned on and the camera is tested.
By using Internet platforms, businesses can create competitive advantage through various means. To reach the maximum potential of digital marketing, firms use social media as its main tool to create a channel of information. Through this a business can create a system in which they are able to pinpoint behavioral patterns of clients and feedback on their needs.[30] This means of content has shown to have a larger impingement on those who have a long-standing relationship with the firm and with consumers who are relatively active social media users. Relative to this, creating a social media page will further increase relation quality between new consumers and existing consumers as well as consistent brand reinforcement therefore improving brand awareness resulting in a possible rise for consumers up the Brand Awareness Pyramid.[31] Although there may be inconstancy with product images;[32] maintaining a successful social media presence requires a business to be consistent in interactions through creating a two way feed of information; firms consider their content based on the feedback received through this channel, this is a result of the environment being dynamic due to the global nature of the internet.[29] Effective use of digital marketing can result in relatively lowered costs in relation to traditional means of marketing; Lowered external service costs, advertising costs, promotion costs, processing costs, interface design costs and control costs.[32]
If you’re new to internet marketing and wish to get online as quickly and inexpensively as possible you can start with a social media platform like Facebook - you can create a business Facebook page in less than an hour. However, if you want more control over your online presence, a customized website is more appropriate. Ideally you should have both a website and a social media presence, with each linking to the other.
A key objective is engaging digital marketing customers and allowing them to interact with the brand through servicing and delivery of digital media. Information is easy to access at a fast rate through the use of digital communications. Users with access to the Internet can use many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc. Through Digital communications it creates a multi-communication channel where information can be quickly shared around the world by anyone without any regard to who they are.[28] Social segregation plays no part through social mediums due to lack of face to face communication and information being wide spread instead to a selective audience. This interactive nature allows consumers create conversation in which the targeted audience is able to ask questions about the brand and get familiar with it which traditional forms of Marketing may not offer.[29]
Disney/Pixar's Monsters University: Created a Tumblr account, MUGrumblr, saying that the account is maintained by a 'Monstropolis transplant' and 'self-diagnosed coffee addict' who is currently a sophomore at Monsters University.[73] A "student" from Monsters University uploaded memes, animated GIFs, and Instagram-like photos that are related to the sequel movie.
He is the co-founder of Neil Patel Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
8. Better Search Engine Rankings. SEO is the best way to capture relevant traffic from search engines, but the requirements for success are always changing. It’s no longer enough to regularly update your blog, ensure optimized title tags and meta descriptions, and distribute links pointing back to your site. Google and other search engines may be calculating their rankings using social media presence as a significant factor, because of the fact that strong brands almost always use social media. As such, being active on social media could act as a “brand signal” to search engines that your brand is legitimate, credible, and trustworthy. That means, if you want to rank for a given set of keywords, having a strong social media presence could be almost mandatory.
Social networking websites are based on building virtual communities that allow consumers to express their needs, wants and values, online. Social media marketing then connects these consumers and audiences to businesses that share the same needs, wants, and values. Through social networking sites, companies can keep in touch with individual followers. This personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers. Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target audience.[4] Social networking sites also include much information about what products and services prospective clients might be interested in. Through the use of new semantic analysis technologies, marketers can detect buying signals, such as content shared by people and questions posted online. An understanding of buying signals can help sales people target relevant prospects and marketers run micro-targeted campaigns.
Unplanned content is an 'in the moment' idea, "a spontaneous, tactical reaction." (Cramer, 2014, p. 6). The content could be trending and not have the time to take the planned content route. The unplanned content is posted sporadically and is not calendar/date/time arranged (Deshpande, 2014).[88][89] Issues with unplanned content revolve around legal issues and whether the message being sent out represents the business/brand accordingly. If a company sends out a Tweet or Facebook message too hurriedly, the company may unintentionally use insensitive language or messaging that could alienate some consumers. For example, celebrity chef Paula Deen was criticized after she made a social media post commenting about HIV-AIDS and South Africa; her message was deemed to be offensive by many observers. The main difference between planned and unplanned is the time to approve the content. Unplanned content must still be approved by marketing managers, but in a much more rapid manner e.g. 1–2 hours or less. Sectors may miss errors because of being hurried. When using unplanned content Brito (2013) says, "be prepared to be reactive and respond to issues when they arise."[87] Brito (2013) writes about having a, "crisis escalation plan", because, "It will happen". The plan involves breaking down the issue into topics and classifying the issue into groups. Colour coding the potential risk "identify and flag potential risks" also helps to organise an issue. The problem can then be handled by the correct team and dissolved more effectively rather than any person at hand trying to solve the situation.[87]
Sponsored radar – Radar picks up exceptional posts from the whole Tumblr community based on their originality and creativity. It is placed on the right side next to the Dashboard, and it typically earns 120 million daily impressions. Sponsored radar allows advertisers to place their posts there to have an opportunity to earn new followers, reblogs, and likes.
If your company is business-to-business (B2B), your digital marketing efforts are likely to be centered around online lead generation, with the end goal being for someone to speak to a salesperson. For that reason, the role of your marketing strategy is to attract and convert the highest quality leads for your salespeople via your website and supporting digital channels.
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Terms & Conditions of Use | Image Credits
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR THE SUPPLY OF WEB MARKETING SERVICES BY 856 WEB, A DIVISION OF BIG THIMBLE MEDIA. 856 WEB, BIG THIMBLE AND BIG THIMBLE MEDIA ARE INTERCHANGEABLY.
In these terms and conditions the following definitions apply unless otherwise stated:
‘Business Day’ means a day (other than a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday) when banks in New Jersey and/or the United States are open for business.
‘Contract’ means the contract between the Company and the Client for the supply of Services governed by these Terms and the Order.
‘Client’ means the individual or business entity who purchases Services from the Company and whose details are set out in the Order.
‘Force Majeure Event’ means an event beyond the reasonable control of either party, including but not limited to strikes, lock-outs or other industrial disputes, failure of a utility service or transport network, act of God, war, riot, civil commotion, malicious damage, compliance with any law or governmental order, rule, regulation or direction, accident, breakdown of plant or machinery, fire, flood, storm or default of suppliers or subcontractors.
‘Group Company’ means a company which is a subsidiary or holding company of the Company, as defined in section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006.
‘Intellectual Property Rights’ means all patents, rights to inventions, utility models, copyright and related rights, trade marks, service marks, trade, business and domain names, rights in trade dress or get-up, rights in goodwill or to sue for passing off, unfair competition rights, rights in designs, rights in computer software, database right, topography rights, moral rights, rights in confidential information (including know-how and trade secrets) and any other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications for and renewals or extensions of such rights, and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection in any part of the world.
‘Order’ means the order placed by the Client through counter-signing the Company’s Quotation form.
‘Order Form’ means a Quotation form counter-signed by the Client which together with these terms and conditions shall form a binding contract.
‘Quotation’ means the written quotation prepared by the Company which contains its proposals for providing Services to the Clients.
‘Services’ means the services the Company will provide to the Client as specified in the Order.
‘Specification’ means the description or specification of the Services in the Order.
‘Terms’ means these terms and conditions as updated from time to time by the Company.
‘TAX’ OF ‘VAT’ means value added tax, OR ANY TAX, chargeable under UNITED STATES FEDERAL AND NEW JERSEY STATE law for the time being and any similar additional tax.
‘White Label Work’ means Services provided by the Company to a Client who re-brands these services as their own for the benefit of their client.
Where these Terms use words in their singular form, they shall also be read to include the plural form of the word and vice versa. Where these Conditions use words which denote a particular gender, they shall be also read to include all genders and vice versa.
The headings in this document are inserted for convenience only and shall not affect the construction or interpretation of these Terms.
A reference to a statute or statutory provision is a reference to such statute or statutory provision as amended or re-enacted. A reference to a statute or statutory provision includes any subordinate legislation made under that statute or statutory provision, as amended or re-enacted.
These Terms shall apply to all agreements concluded between the Company and the Client to the exclusion of any other terms that the Client seeks to impose or incorporate, or which are implied by trade, custom, practice or course of dealing.
These Terms and the Order may only be varied by express written agreement between the Company and the Client.
The Order constitutes an offer by the Client to purchase the Services in accordance with these Terms. The Client shall ensure that the terms of the Order and any relevant Specification are complete and accurate.
The Order shall only be deemed to be accepted when the Company issues a written acceptance of the Order, or when the Company has started to provide the Services having received the Order, whichever happens first, at which point the Contract shall come into existence.
The Contract constitutes the entire agreement between the Company to provide the Services to the Client and for the Client to purchase those Services, in accordance with these Terms.
The Client acknowledges that it has not relied on any statement, promise or representation made or given by or on behalf of the Company which is not set out in the Contract. Any samples, drawings, descriptive matter, or advertising issued by the Company and any descriptions or illustrations contained in the Company’s catalogues or brochures are issued or published for the sole purpose of giving an approximate idea of the Services described in them. They shall not form part of the Contract or any other contract between the Company and the Client for the supply of Services.
A Quotation for the supply of Services given by the Company shall not constitute an offer. A Quotation shall only be valid for a period of 14 Business Days from its date of issue.
For any White Label Work the Client understands and agrees that the Company have no contractual relationship and therefore no liability in respect of the ultimate client with whom the Client agrees to perform the White Label Work for.
COMPANY OBLIGATIONS AND WARRANTIES
The Company warrants that it will provide the Services as stipulated in the Order using reasonable care and skill to conform in all material respects with the Specification.
The Company shall use all reasonable endeavours to meet any performance dates specified in the Order but any such dates shall be estimates only and time shall not be of the essence for the provision of the Services. The Company shall not be liable for any delay in delivery of the Services caused by a Force Majeure event or the Client’s failure to provide the Company with adequate delivery instructions or any other instructions relevant to the supply of the Services.
The Company shall have the right to make any changes to the Services which are necessary to comply with any applicable law.
The Company shall be entitled to use a Group Company or other subcontractors for the provision of the Services provided always that the Company shall remain liable to the Client for the performance of the Services as if it had carried them out itself.
CLIENT’S OBLIGATIONS AND INDEMNITIES
The Client shall provide assistance and technical information to the Company, as reasonably required by the Company in sufficient time to facilitate the execution of an Order in accordance with any estimated delivery dates or milestones. The Client shall have sole responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of all information provided to the Company and warrants and undertakes to the Company that the Client’s employees assisting in the execution of an Order have the necessary skills and authority.
The Client shall be obliged as quickly as possible and within the agreed deadline to comment on and or approve materials provided under the Services, including (without limitation) advertising copy, search terms and graphic material submitted by the Company. In addition, the Client shall be obliged as quickly as possible and within the agreed deadline to implement changes on websites, in IT systems or where it may otherwise be required by the Company.
The Client shall be obliged to inform the Company immediately of changes of domain names, websites, technical setup and any other material information regarding the technical infrastructure which may affect the Services delivered by the Company.
In the event that the Client fails to undertake those acts or provide those materials required under this clause 5 within any agreed deadline (and at least within 15 Business Days of the date requested by the Company) the Company shall be entitled to invoice for the Services that it has supplied and the remaining Services specified in the Order whether or not the Company has been able to deliver them.
The Client shall indemnify and keep the Company indemnified fully against all liabilities, costs and expenses whatsoever and howsoever incurred by the Company in respect of any third parties as a result of the provision of the Services in accordance with the Order, Specification, or the content of the Client’s advertising or web pages which result in claims or proceedings against the Company for infringement of any Intellectual Property Rights or other proprietary rights of third parties, or for breach of confidentiality or contract or for defamation.
The Client undertakes to comply with all applicable rules, regulations, codes of practice and laws relating to its use of the Services and to keep the Company indemnified in respect of any and all costs, claims or proceedings whatsoever brought against the Company by any third party in connection with any breach of the same by the Client.
As standard across the Services and unless otherwise notified, the Client shall be exclusively responsible for implementing the optimisation changes recommended by the Company. As notified by the Company, in certain cases for amendments to existing optimisations, the Client shall allow the Company use of the site’s FTP or content management system’s username and password in order to gain access to add in keywords.
The Company requires that prior notice be given for any alterations relating to the Client’s website(s) that may affect the services supplied by the Company. If alterations are made by the Client or a third party to the Client’s site(s) search engine placements may be affected and the Company cannot be held responsible.
The Company advises that regular, fresh content added to the site will help to improve the stability of rankings within search engines and the Client understands that regular, unique content plays an important part in the success of a website and failure to add unique content will lessen the impact of SEO services.
In respect of all White Label Work the Client shall indemnify the Company against all liabilities, costs, expenses, damages and losses (including any direct, indirect or consequential losses, loss of profit, loss of reputation and all interest, penalties and legal and other professional costs and expenses) suffered or incurred by the Company arising out of or in connection with the contract between the Client and their client for the White Label Work.
Unless otherwise expressly stated, all prices shall be in US Dollars and shall be exclusive of taxes and other duties. In the event that duties are introduced or changed after the conclusion of an Order, the Company shall be entitled to adjust the agreed prices accordingly.
The Client acknowledges that certain Services may involve the licensing of third party Intellectual Property Rights and that the Client may be required to enter into a licence directly with such third party. Unless otherwise expressly stated, all prices shall be exclusive of costs for the acquisition of Intellectual Property Rights for materials to be included in marketing materials, including if relevant (but without limitation) pictures and licences from third party owners and licensors.
The price stated in the Order shall be a an estimate based on a qualified estimate of the number of hours required to provide the Services. This is an estimate only and Services shall be invoiced in accordance with the actual number of hours spent in accordance with the price set out in the Order or Quotation and in the event that the price is not so stipulated, the Client shall be charged at the hourly rate specified in the Company’s then current price list. the Company shall be obliged to update the estimate and budgets on an ongoing basis following, among other things, changes made to an Order.
Whilst every effort is made to ensure that costing estimates are accurate, the Company reserves the right to amend any estimate, should an error or omission have been made.
The Company shall invoice the Client monthly, either in advance or following Services delivered. Before the Company carry out any work Clients are usually asked to provide a non-refundable fees deposit. This deposit is like a rent deposit. It is kept securely and will be offset against the Client’s last invoice(s) when the work detailed in an Order has been completed. Also, if the Client does not pay a monthly invoice when it is due the Company shall use the deposit to pay the invoice and will not do any further work until the deposit is replaced.
The Client shall pay each invoice submitted by the Company within 14 Business Days of the date of the invoice and in cleared funds in accordance with clause 7.3 below. The invoice number shall be stated on all invoices.
The Client shall pay all amounts due under the Contract in full without any deduction or withholding except as required by law and the Client shall not be entitled to assert any credit, set-off or counterclaim against the Company in order to justify withholding payment of any such amount in whole or in part. the Company may, without limiting its other rights or remedies, set off any amount owing to it by the Client against any amount payable by the Company to the Client.
In the event of overdue payment, interest shall accrue on the invoice amount at the statutory rate prescribed. At the Company’s discretion, a fee of $10 (to cover administrative expenses and not as a penalty) shall be charged per reminder for overdue payment submitted to the Client. the Company shall be entitled to submit such reminders on a weekly basis once the fees have become overdue. the Company expressly reserves all rights at all times to bring any legal action it considers appropriate to recover any unpaid sums.
Late payment shall be considered as constituting a material breach of the Contract entitling the Company (at its discretion) to cancel the Contract or to affirm the Contract and assert the usual remedies for breach.
In the event that the Services cannot be delivered either in full or in part due to the Client’s failure to assist or delay in assisting in the execution of the Order, the Company shall be entitled to charge to the Client an estimated amount, corresponding to the amount that would have been due had the Services been rendered in accordance with the Order. the Company shall be entitled to payment on the basis of the Company’s price list applicable from time to time for any additional work required because of the Client’s failure to assist or delay in assisting.
If the Client subsequently requires the Company to complete the work within a shorter time frame than specified in the Order the Company reserves the right to charge additional monies to prioritise such projects ahead of pre-planned work.
DELAYS AND COMPLAINTS
In the event that the Client proves that the Services are delayed or not in accordance with the Contract, the Company shall be obliged to remedy or redeliver, at its own discretion, without undue delay. In the event that the Services continue to be not in accordance with the Contract after reasonable attempts have been made to remedy this, the Client shall be entitled to cancel the Order in accordance with clause 13.2 a), provided that the breach is material.
Complaints concerning delays or breach of Contract shall be submitted immediately after the time when the Client became or should have become aware of the matter. If the Client fails to bring the defect (unless by its very nature it is impossible to ascertain within such a period) to the attention of the Company within 48 hours the Client shall be deemed to have accepted the Services and shall not be entitled to assert remedies based on delays or breach of Contract.
The Client hereby acknowledges that certain Services rely upon goods and/or services being provided by third parties (‘Third Party Services’). The Client acknowledges that the Third Party Services will be governed by that third parties’ terms and conditions and that the Company cannot provide any warranties in respect of the Third Party’s Services and will not be liable to the Client for any delays and/or failings in respect of the same. Providers of Third Party Services may provide their own warranties to the Client and the Client must satisfy itself whether or not such warranties (where given) are acceptable for the Client’s business purposes or risk management policies.
the Company’s only responsibility in respect of the Third Party Services is to take reasonable care and skill when selecting the providers of the same.
The Client’s exclusive remedies for late delivery or Services not conforming with the Contract are as specified in this clause 8 and, if the remedies set out in these Terms have been exhausted, the Client’s final remedy is limited to cancellation of the Contract and the Company’s sole liability is to refund any payments for Services not conforming with the Contract, subject to the limitations set out in clause 9 below.
Except as expressly stated in this Clause 9, the Company shall have no liability to the Client for any loss or damage whatsoever arising from or in connection with the provision of the Services or for any claim made against the Client by any third party.
Without prejudice to the generality of Clause 9.1 above, the Company shall have no liability for any losses or damages which may be suffered by the Client whether the same are suffered directly or indirectly or are immediate or consequential which fall into the following categories:
Any indirect or consequential loss arising under or in relation to the Contract even though the Company was aware of the circumstances in which such loss could arise;
Loss of profits; loss of anticipated savings; loss of business opportunity or goodwill;
Loss of data; and
Fraudulent clicks on any of the Client’s accounts managed by the Company.
To the extent such liability is not excluded by sub-clauses 9.1, 9.2 and clause 10 below, the Company’s total liability (whether in contract, tort (including negligence or otherwise)) under or in connection with the Contract or based on any claim for indemnity or contribution (including for damage to tangible property) or otherwise will not in any event exceed the total sum invoiced for the Services.
OTHER LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY
The Company shall not be liable for downtimes, interference in the form of hacking, virus, disruptions, interruptions, faulty third-party software, search engines or websites on which a service is dependent or other deliveries from a third party. the Company shall use its reasonable efforts to assist in remedial efforts if so requested by the Client. Any work connected with remedial efforts as described above shall be charged to the Client separately in accordance with these Terms or (at the Company’s discretion) the Company’s price list applicable from time to time.
The Company shall not be liable for any changes made without notice by the Client or a third party employed by the Client to domain names, websites, links, technical setup etc. and affecting the Services delivered by the Company. Preceding or subsequent work connected with any adjustments required as a result of such changes shall be charged to the Client in accordance with these Terms or on the basis of the Company’s price list applicable from time to time at the Company’s discretion.
The Company shall use all reasonable endeavours to deliver Services relating to search engine optimisation, links, advertisements, banners, pay per click and google analytics in accordance with the guidelines applicable to the relevant search engines. However, the Company shall not be liable for delayed or non-conforming performance due to changes made to standard terms, assessment algorithms, search criteria, viewing policy, prices and campaign offers or other matters beyond the Company’s control and reserves the right to make changes to Services as a result of the same. In addition, the Company shall not be liable for other changes or discontinuation of search engines.
The Company shall not be liable for Services relating to search engine optimisation, link building, advertisements, banners or sponsorships leading to a minimum number of views, position or frequency in searches on relevant words or otherwise. In addition, the Company shall not be liable for ensuring that such Services lead to a certain volume of traffic, number of clicks, registrations, purchases or the like.
The Company shall not be responsible for URLs dropped or excluded by a search engine for any reason.
If the Client does not implement some or all of the Company’s recommendations, the Company shall not bear any liability for any lack of success experienced by the Client relating to the Services.
It is the responsibility of the Client to ensure that they have the right to use any Intellectual Property Rights when they provide any text, image or representation (“Materials”) to the Company for incorporation into the Services and the Client hereby grants or agrees to procure the grant of (as applicable) an irrevocable licence to the Company to use such Materials for the purposes of providing the Services for the duration of the Contract.
The Client shall be responsible for ensuring that the contents of Materials which the Client has contributed or approved are not in contravention of legislation, decency, marketing rules or any other third-party rights. the Company shall be entitled to reject and delete such material without incurring any liability. In addition, the Company shall be entitled to cancel the Order.
The Client shall indemnify the Company against all damages, losses and expenses suffered or incurred by the Company as a result of the Materials which the Client has contributed or approved being in contravention of legislation, decency, marketing rules or any action that any such Materials infringe any Intellectual Property Rights of a third party.
The parties shall be obliged to notify the other party without undue delay of any claims raised against a party as described above.
Unless expressly stated otherwise in these Terms or in an Order, the Intellectual Property Rights created, developed, subsisting or used in connection with the Services and whether in existence at the date hereof or created in the future shall vest in and be the property of the Company or the relevant third party from whom the Company has acquired a right of use with a view to executing the Order. The Client agrees to execute and deliver such documents and perform such acts as may be necessary from time to time to ensure such Intellectual Property Rights vest in the Company.
The Intellectual Property Rights as mentioned in Clause 11.2 shall not be used, assigned, distributed, copied, forwarded to online or offline activities by the Client without a separate, express written agreement.
If the Company makes software, scripts, ASP services etc. available to the Client as part of the execution of an Order, the Client shall only acquire a non-exclusive personal non transferable license to use such material until the Services under this agreement cease.
The Client hereby irrevocably licenses the Company to use and display the Client’s name, figure, logo etc. as a reference on the Company’s website, other marketing materials or types of media whilst they are a Client of the Company and for 18 months after the Contract terminates. The Client agrees to send the Company it’s most recent logo or figure as and when it is amended from time to time.
CONFIDENTIALITY AND PERSONAL DATA
A party (Receiving Party) shall keep in strict confidence all technical or commercial know-how, specifications, inventions, processes or initiatives which are of a confidential nature and have been disclosed to the Receiving Party by the other party (Disclosing Party), its employees, agents or subcontractors, and any other confidential information concerning the Disclosing Party’s business or its products or its services which the Receiving Party may obtain. The Receiving Party shall restrict disclosure of such confidential information to such of its employees, agents or subcontractors as need to know it for the purpose of discharging the Receiving Party’s obligations under the Contract, and shall ensure that such employees, agents or subcontractors are subject to obligations of confidentiality corresponding to those which bind the Receiving Party. This clause shall survive termination of the Contract.
During the term of the Contract and for a period ending 5 years from the date of its conclusion, the Company shall take the same care as the Company uses with it own confidential information, to avoid, without the Client’s consent, the disclosure to any third party (except a subcontractor working on the Services who is subject to similar undertakings of confidentiality) of any of the Client’s business or operational information which the Client has designated as confidential.
The obligation in Clause 12.2 shall not apply to any information which is or becomes publicly available otherwise than through a breach of this agreement, is already or rightly comes into the Company’s possession without an accompanying obligation of confidence, is independently developed by the Company, or which the Company is required to disclose by law.
During the term of the Contract and for a period ending 5 years from termination thereof, the Client will not disclose to any persons within its organisation that do not have a need to know, or to any third party, any information and non Client materials provided by the Company concerning the method or approach the Company uses in providing the Services.
Each party agrees to comply with its respective obligations under all applicable US laws.
The Client shall be obliged to indemnify the Company for any loss, including costs incidental to legal proceedings, suffered by the Company as a result of the processing of personal data which the Client has contributed being in contravention of the Data Protection Act 1998 or marketing law. The parties shall be obliged to notify the other party without undue delay of any claims raised against a party as described in the present clause.
TERM, TERMINATION AND ASSIGNMENT
The Contract shall renew automatically for a further term of one year at the end of each year unless and until either party notifies the other of its wish to terminate the Contract at the expiry of the current year by giving the other party at least 30 days’ written notice to expire at the end of that Contract term.
Without limiting its other rights or remedies, each party may terminate the Contract with immediate effect by giving written notice to the other party if the other party:
commits a material breach of the Contract and (if such breach is remediable) fails to remedy that breach within 30 days of that party being notified in writing of the breach; or
becomes or is insolvent or is unable to pay its debts or the party or the defaulting party enters into liquidation whether compulsorily or voluntarily or compounds with its creditors generally or has a receiver, administrator, or administrative receiver appointed over all or any part of its assets or the defaulting party ceases to carry on all or a substantial part of its business.
The Company shall, in addition to all other rights and remedies under these Terms be entitled to terminate this Contract without notice in the event that any of its charges for the Services are not paid in accordance with these Terms.
Upon termination, for whatever reason, the parties shall be obliged to return all materials received from the other pursuant to the Contract without undue delay. If relevant, the Client shall be obliged to remove codes, etc, from websites without undue delay. If the Client fails to do so, the Company shall be entitled to invoice the Client in line with its then current terms and conditions for subsequent Services without such invoicing amounting to a waiver of the Company’s right to terminate the Contract.
The Client shall not be permitted to assign or transfer all or any part of its rights or obligations under the Contract and these Terms without the prior written consent of the Company.
The Company shall be entitled to assign or subcontract any of its rights or obligations under the Contract and these Terms and the Client acknowledges that certain elements of the Services will be provided by third parties.
Neither party shall be held liable for a Force Majeure Event.
If a party believes that a Force Majeure Event has occurred, such party shall immediately inform the other party of the start and end of the Force Majeure Event.
Notwithstanding the other provisions of the present Terms, each party shall be entitled to terminate the Contract without liability to the other by written notice to the other party in the event that the performance of the Contract is impeded for more than 6 months due to a Force Majeure Event.
The Company reserves the right to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Services with or without notice to the Client and the Company shall not be liable to the Client or any third party for any modification to or discontinuance of these Services save for the return of any prepaid sums in connection with the provision of the Services which are subsequently not provided.
The Company shall be free to provide its Services to third parties whether during or following the provision of the Services to the Client.
During the term of the Contract and for a period of 12 months thereafter, the Client agrees not to employ or engage or offer to employ or engage anyone designated by the Company to work on the Services.
The failure of either party to enforce or to exercise at any time or for any period of time any right pursuant to these Terms does not constitute, and shall not be construed as, a waiver of such terms or rights and shall in no way affect that party’s right later to enforce or to exercise it.
If any term of these Terms is found illegal, invalid or unenforceable under any applicable law, such term shall, insofar as it is severable from the remaining Terms, be deemed omitted from these Terms and shall in no way affect the legality, validity or enforceability of the remaining Terms which shall continue in full force and effect and be binding on the parties to the Contract.
Any valid alteration to or variation of these Terms must be in writing signed on behalf of each of the parties by duly authorised officers.
A person who is not a party to the Contract shall not have any rights under or in connection with it.
All notices must be in writing to [INSERT COMPANY NAME], [INSERT ADDRESS], or such address as is advised by the Company.
The parties acknowledge and agree that the Contract supersedes any prior agreement, understanding or arrangement between the parties, whether made orally or in writing and constitute the entire agreement between the Company and the Client relating to these Services. Therefore, except as expressly provided, all other conditions and warranties (implied, statutory or otherwise) are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.
The Company and the Client shall be obliged to attempt to settle any disputes arising between them including disputes relating to the existence or validity of the Contract through negotiation provided always that either party shall be entitled at all times to exercise any of its other remedies including through taking legal action.
The Contract shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and the parties hereby agree to submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts
Credits: Some images are credited to FREEPIK.COM and their respective creators, more specifically:
Designed by peoplecreations / Freepik
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856 Web is a division of Big Thimble Media | Phone: 888-474-5757 | sales@856web.com | © Copyright 2018 Terms & Credits
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14 Amazing Dances in Music Videos
Bandar Walla
February isn’t just the month for romancing and butterflies. It’s time to get in shape for summer and of course, wearing our tees! So dance your way into shape with these 14 (see what we did there) tracks that are sure to make you smile like our monkey!
1) “Sacre Cool”- Young Montana.
Young Montana isn’t from Montana. Neither is he that young. This little- known artist builds a baroque architecture of stray chords, chopped vocals and vaguely familiar groove,along with the usual worship of the 8-bit world and J Dilla’s three-track soul. The video itself a tribute of sorts to retro chic dancing, and one segment of the dance is starkly similar to the dance form film director Anurag Kashyap had used for the bar dancers troupe that he depicted in his runaway hit back in ‘09, Dev D. Enjoy!
2) “Weapon of Choice”- Fatboy Slim.
This blast from the past is a total must watch- if you don’t smile at some point after watching this, we might possibly remove the smile from our monkey. What?? Who is Fatboy Slim you ask? That British DJ, musician and producer who specializes in dropping old school beats in electronic dance music of course! Popular right from the 90’s! Think his name was Norman Cook if we aren’t mistaken. You wouldn’t be naïve enough to believe Fatboy Slim was his ACTUAL name…right?
3) “Turn up the music”- Chris Brown.
Born on May 5, 1989, in Tappahannock, Virginia, Chris Brown became a teen heartthrob, landing R&B and pop hits that included “Run It!,” “Kiss Kiss” and “Forever.” The man definitely shows off his fancy footwork in this hit sensation. We want a one on one punching duel with him. Pretty sure that Rihanna would be on the sidelines playing cheerleader.(#burranabolo)
4) “Drop the Game”- Flume VS Chet Faker.
Harley Edward Streten better known by stage name Flume was born on 5 November 1991 and grew up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, where he still resides. He began creating music at about the age of thirteen, with a basic production disc that was packaged in a box of cereal. Fast forwarding to the present, flume created Australian Ocean like waves, not just ripples ,in the electronic-pop music scene with a couple of number ones like Holdin’ On. Collaborating with fellow Australian artist Chet Faker, the duo released a much needed soul-soothing track earlier this year. Here at Bandar HQ, we loved the video and if you truly appreciate dance as an art form, you’ll go bananas over this one too.
5 ) Here it goes again- OK GO.
OK Go is an American alternative rock band originally from Chicago, Illinois, but now residing in Los Angeles, California. The band is composed of Damian Kulash (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and vocals), Dan Konopka (drums and percussion) and Andy Ross (guitar, keyboards and vocals), who joined them in 2005, replacing Andy Duncan. They are known for their often elaborate and quirky music videos, and this is the one that they shot to fame with.
We urge you to try this at home/at your local gym. Or maybe not.
6) “The way you make me feel” – Michael Jackson.
Step aside all ya pretenders. Real deal coming right through. No one has rocked the dance scene like this legend who needs no introduction. Gliding through with his apparent anti-friction shoes, he rolls out moves which are bound to charm any woman.
Step up your game this February boys.
7) “Lotus flower”- Radiohead
No one questioned it when Radiohead, the band from Oxfordshire, England, opted for a full-on dance extravaganza from frontman Thom Yorke instead one of their usual cinematic videos, and you can see why. The man’s got moves. Formed in 1985- this band till date never disappointed anyone who appreciated alternative/ experimental rock. Plug in and enjoy.
8) “Demons”- Zed’s dead.
Toronto-based dubstep/house act Zeds Dead — named after a line from Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction — are a production duo consisting of DC and Hooks. The two first formed the hip-hop-oriented Mass Productions in 2004 and released an independent album, Fresh Beetz, three years later, but they switched to Zeds Dead in 2009, embracing house and the direct, physical side of dubstep. Throughout 2010 and 2011, they were increasingly active. They released material on a number of labels, including Kissy Sell Out’s San City High, Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak, and Diplo’s Mad Decent; remixed tracks by Blue Foundation and the Electric, and they also toured extensively throughout the U.S. Their first release of 2012 was Adrenaline, an EP issued on Inspected that balanced blitzing dubstep tracks with lower-key breakbeat workouts.
Enjoy the slickest dance moves to this brain shattering track performed in zombie-like mode!
9)”Loose Control”- Missy Elliott.
Missy Elliott was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, on July 1, 1971. Elliott worked as a songwriter and producer before getting her own record label. Her inventive style and ability to transcend hip-hop’s ideas about women gave her five platinum albums in a row—including her debut album, Supa Dupa Fly—and numerous honors, including five Grammy Awards. With success as a performer, songwriter and producer, Elliott became hip-hop’s first female mogul.
In this video she collaborates with Ciara and a troop of dancers to show us that she can shake that biscuit like a red-butted baboon.
10) “What does the fox say”- Ylvis.
Speaking of dance steps that nailed it(does this one count?)…to the video of yesteryear that needs no introduction- we give you ‘what does the fox say’. As expected, we love our fellow animals who make appearances in this epic video. As for what the fox ACTUALLY says.. if you really really want to know, buy a few products from us bandars, and we might just spill the beans.
11) “Days go by”- Dirty Vegas
Dirty Vegas is a Grammy Award-winning British house music trio made up of Ben Harris and Paul Harris (no relation) on instruments and production and Steve Smith on vocals. The groups formed in 2001, then broke up in 2005 before reforming in December 2008 to record new material and continue to churn out new releases till date.
The music video for the song is unusual in that it largely consists of two dancers representing one character performing a routine of popping, locking, the robot and break dancing. The performance occurs in front of Chroni’s Famous Sandwich Shop in East Los Angeles, California, and tells the story of a dancer who shows up once a year and dances all day from sunrise to sunset. He dances in hopes of bringing back a lost love, who left him because he couldn’t stop dancing. We understand that V-day isn’t quite the same for everyone, and that some hardened souls may prefer to be blissfully ignorant of all that is happening around them. Dance your blues away with this one and always remember to express yourself.
12) “It’s like that”- Run DMC vs. Jason Nevas.
Are old school beats and dance face off’s what you secretly crave returns to trend?.. Umm.. Unfortunately (we hate bursting your bubble here) we fear that may not happen again. So we bring back to you Run DMC’s hit sensation from the day, now all you need is 6 by 6 feet to show that skill we know you possess. Oh, almost forgot, this happens to be a classic boys vs. girls face off. It couldn’t get any more vintage than that now, could it?.
13) “Tune yards”- Bizness.
One of the most creative dance videos we’ve come across recently, where dance and music fuse beautifully into a cohesive ying-yang , this video is bound to make you smile and is highly watchable. Dressed in colorful outfits, the choreography here is all about group coordination, and from a bird’s eye view, you can see her dancers create different formations with their bodies.
14) Bollywood on Ice- US Ice skating team.
This one is basically your standard wedding set playlist consisting of a decent bit of Shreya Ghoshal which is performed…err.. on ice. US national dance champions Meryl Davies and Charlie White can take it away from here, just like they did when they won the 2010 Olympic silver.
Though not officially on the list, we couldn’t resist putting this one up. Our bonus track includes bollywood “street dancer” and comedy king Govinda’s epic compilation of moves that will blow you away, trust us on this one!
We guess you’re tired after all that hip-shaking/pelvic thrusting. We urge you to re-energize yourself with a kela. Till next time fellow humans.
chet fakerfatboy slimchris browndanceflumemichael jacksonok goradioheadyoung montana
← Bollywood Villains – Forces of Evil
History lesson 101 from us monkeys: Nelson Mandela →
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Yankees release Oliver Perez
Brandon Lamando· 1 year ago
Earlier today, the Yankees released LHP Oliver Perez from his Minor League contract. MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch was the first to report the transaction.
The Yankees have released LHP Oliver Perez.
— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) June 1, 2018
Perez was originally signed to a Minor League Deal by the Yankees in late March, but never appeared in a ballgame for the Big League club.
In fifteen appearances for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Perez went 1-0 with a respectable 2.92 ERA.
Over the course of 12.1 innings pitched, the lefty struck out thirteen batters, but surrendered fourteen hits and three walks in his time with the RailRiders.
Perez sports a career ERA of 4.64 to go along with a record of 69-84.
The well-traveled lefty specialist has played for seven Major League teams throughout his fifteen years in the Show, and will look to latch on to another club in hopes of earning a spot on a Major League roster.
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Change in Registration
Student Services and Organizations
As an integral part of the University’s educational process, the Division of Student Services is committed to the belief that education extends outside the formal classroom setting. The Division implements programs and services designed to complement classroom experience, preparing students to be educated and productive members of society. Student Services seeks to do this by offering opportunities for social, intellectual, physical, spiritual, and emotional growth, by encouraging students to become actively involved in campus life, by serving as an advocate for student concerns to the University community, and by creating an environment responsive to individual differences and representative of the University’s diverse population. Through these services and programs, students will develop a mature sense of value and responsibility, as well as a sound intellectual competence.
Research conducted nationally indicates that on-campus residence is one of the strongest influences on the student’s successful completion of an undergraduate degree. Those who live on campus are at the center of University life and are thus able to make the most of academic and co-curricular opportunities. They become part of a vital living-learning community, making friendships that last a lifetime.
Nearly 600 students make their homes in MUW’s six residence halls. While each facility is unique, all of them offer a community supportive of academic excellence. Staff and student leaders live and work in the halls, coordinating services and programs that facilitate student success both in and out of the classroom. Availability of academic support and computing services, opportunities for student leadership training, participation in recreational activities, and availability of a sympathetic ear are just a few of the services available to students living in the residence halls. Because a living-learning environment is so conducive to student success, we strongly encourage all students to live in university residence halls.
When a student is admitted to the University, he/she does not receive a room automatically. Rooms may be reserved only by filing an application with the Department of Community Living. Moreover, those who elect to live in residence halls are required to participate in a meal plan. Charges for living expenses, which are payable during registration, can be found in the Tuition and Expenses section of this Bulletin.
Facilities/Furnishings
A variety of living spaces are available to students residing in the residence halls, and students can choose based upon their personal preference and availability. These facilities include suites, deluxe suites (with kitchenettes), and individual rooms. Each of the residence halls has a study room with computers and a lounge equipped with televisions, and other recreational materials. Laundry rooms are located in each facility with free laundry for residents. Room furnishings include desks, chairs, single beds, microfridge, and dressers. Students are expected to furnish their own bed linens, blankets, pillows, curtains, towels, and any other articles for personal use or room decoration.
High speed internet access is available in each room; however, if residents wish to benefit from this convenience, they must provide their own computer. Also, each residence hall has wireless connection available to all students. For those who do not have a personal computer, there are computer labs located in the study rooms of each residence hall.
Custodial and facilities staff are responsible for routine repair and cleaning in common areas such as: lounges, lobby bathrooms, corridors, and walkways.
Procedures and Policies Governing Student Housing
As a condition of residence, students who live in university facilities are required to obey the laws of Mississippi, the policies of Mississippi University for Women, and the regulations of the current MUW Student Handbook.
Students are responsible for the physical condition of their rooms and for their conduct and that of those who visit them. Individuals who occupy rooms in the University’s residential facilities will be held responsible for any damage to the room itself or to the furniture and equipment in the room. No firearms, fireworks, extension cords (except multi-outlets with circuit breakers), alcoholic beverages, or pets (other than guide dogs supporting sight impaired persons or fish in an aquarium) are allowed in residence halls. All MUW residence halls are smoke-free environments.
The University is not responsible for loss of or damage to personal property. Large sums of money or items of substantial value should not be left unsecured in the rooms. Students are encouraged to carry appropriate insurance for their personal property.
The administration reserves the right to refuse admission, to relocate, or to evict any student in any hall at any time.
Residence halls will be closed between fall and spring semesters, between spring and summer semesters, and between summer and fall semesters. Halls may close during other university holidays. On-campus accommodations for residence hall students may be available at additional cost during these periods. Between semesters, students are expected to check out of their residence halls immediately following their last examination or class. Those who find it necessary to remain on campus after the completion of their academic work must notify the Department of Community Living.
Students are expected to be economical in the use of water, light, and heat and to keep their rooms in good condition.
Residential students may, within guidelines, personalize their rooms. Personalization includes hanging posters, bringing pictures from home, additional lighting, etc.
Application for Housing
To apply for campus housing, students must send a completed housing application to the Office of Community Living, 1100 College Street MUW-1626, Columbus, MS 39701-5800. Signed applications indicate the student’s acceptance of the terms and conditions outlined therein including a $100 deposit. $75.00 of this deposit will be credited towards the student’s room and is refundable prior to June 1, in writing to Community Living, 1100 College Street MUW-1626, Columbus, MS 39701-5800, requesting such a refund. Please be aware that the agreement is for the full academic year, including both fall and spring semesters.
Room Assignments
Housing assignments are based on the date of application. Students can request specific roommates in accordance with the housing policy; however, those who do not indicate a preference will be assigned a roommate. Should the designated co-habitant request a change in assignment or fail to enroll, the remaining student has three options: (1) secure a new roommate, (2) move to another room where there is a vacancy, or (3) pay the established rate for a private room (if available as deemed by the Department of Community Living). Further information on this policy may be obtained from the hall staff, the Department of Community Living, or the Student Handbook.
Commuting Students
Limited overnight and weekend accommodations are available in the residence halls for commuting students. The conference housing policy outlines the stipulations for temporary accommodations. Contact the Department of Community Living for further information by calling (662) 329-7127.
Campus Health Services
Ambulatory care and health education are goals of the Campus Health Center. All students are eligible to use the Health Center. No fee is charged for routine visits though there is a nominal charge for medications, supplies, and complete physical exams.
The Health Center is administered by the Dean of the College of Nursing and Speech Language Pathology, and it is staffed by nurse practitioners, registered nurses with Master’s degrees, who, in their expanded role, are licensed to diagnose and treat many common conditions. The protocols for treatment are developed in conjunction with the Mississippi Board of Nursing and a collaborating physician, who is available at all times for consultation and/or referral.
The Health Center is open from 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Monday-Friday during the academic year. The Center is closed on Saturday and Sunday and during regularly scheduled student holidays.
Student health insurance may be obtained through a commercial carrier.
Campus Recreation strives to provide quality recreation opportunities for the MUW community and to create a safe environment that fosters development of the mind, body, and soul. We offer programming that is tailored to the needs and desires of our students. Six program areas (Aquatics, Intramural Sports, Open Recreation, Outdoor Adventure, Special Events, and Wellness) provide excitement and diversity to everyday, campus life.
In addition to quality programming, Campus Recreation manages the Pohl-Stark Complex, which includes the Pohl Academic Building and the Stark Recreation Center. The complex, which opened in April of 2007, houses a 5,000 square foot strength and conditioning room, 3 basketball/volleyball courts, an elevated 3 lane indoor track, 2 racquetball courts, 2 aerobic studios, locker rooms, and an indoor 6 lane swimming pool. This dynamic facility features space for all your recreation and fitness needs in addition to classrooms, lounge space, meeting rooms, and a state of the art Exercise Science lab.
Campus Recreation employs a large number of students each year to manage the Pohl-Stark Complex and coordinate programming. Students find employment ranging from Intramural officials and scorekeepers to facility staff, personal trainers, lifeguards, and office assistants.
The services and facilities provided by Campus Recreation are free for any registered MUW student. Supplementary membership opportunities are available for an additional fee. For questions or information concerning Campus Recreation programs, membership, or employment please call us at (662) 241-7494, stop by the Stark Recreation Center Office, Rm. 101 or email us at campusrecreation@sa.muw.edu .
The Office of Career Services, located in Cochran Hall Room 405, provides students and alumni with resources to facilitate career planning and job hunting, as well as opportunities to assess their interests, skills, and abilities. The Career Services library provides a variety of professional development publications, along with internship and job announcements. Students can also benefit from computerized assessments that assist them in selecting a major and/or minor and researching career opportunities.
The Office of Career Services hosts local job fairs for specific majors and/or for the entire student body. MUW also participates in regional career fairs, and informs students of similar opportunities at the national level. The Office of Career Services offers a variety of free workshops each semester. These include, but are not limited to, seminars on self-assessment, selection of a major, employment correspondence, interview strategies, business etiquette, dining etiquette, and portfolio development. Students can also benefit from many other resources, including videos and/or flyers that provide information about majors, careers, jobs, internships, portfolio development, and self-presentation.
Community Living provides free and confidential counseling to students on an individual basis. The department also provides campus programming on various mental health issues such as stress management, test anxiety, self-esteem, alcohol awareness, depression, and eating disorders. Students who wish to engage any of these services are urged to contact the Department of Community Living.
Sodexo Campus Services Inc. provides food services for the University. A student must participate in a meal plan if the student resides in university housing. Computer programmed, picture I.D.’s are used by residential students to gain entrance to the Dining Center. Non-residents and guests may purchase meals with cash. Students requiring special diets must have a physician’s dietary prescription sent to the Health Center, which will in turn contact the Food Service provider. The MUW Food Service Advisory Board, composed of students and food service staff, meet regularly to evaluate and recommend changes to food service programs. The MUW Food Services are located in the following areas:
Nancy Hogarth Dining Center: Cafeteria-style service is provided seven days a week while school is in session. The cafeteria-style service offers unlimited servings of a wide selection of salads, entrees, vegetables, desserts, and beverages. The facility also includes a grill.
Catering: The Dining Center provides a full range of catering services for the University community.
The Subway Cafè: A licensed franchise of the Subway brand, operated by Sodexo, is located in the Hogarth Student Center.
Hearin Leadership Program
The mission of the Hearin Leadership Program is to teach students basic leadership skills and, thereby, to facilitate their meaningful participation in contemporary society. Students learn to collaborate and cooperate with others as well as to think critically and creatively.
The Hearin Leadership Program creates experiential educational opportunities for student leaders. Students have the opportunity to direct various campus groups and thus gain firsthand leadership experience. The Hearin Program also sponsors a variety of educational opportunities open to all students, including exciting and interactive speakers, leadership workshops, and leadership activities on and off campus. Located in Cochran Hall, the Hearin library houses valuable resources, including contemporary books on leadership theory and thought.
Recipients of Hearin Scholarships must fulfill annual requirements for renewal of their award. Additional information is available at http://www.muw.edu/hearin.
MUW’s student orientation program familiarizes new students with academic requirements, campus activities, services, traditions, and fellow students. In addition, orientation offers new students academic advising and opportunities to register for courses. Sessions for transfer students and freshmen are held each summer. For more information concerning orientation, visit www.muw.edu/orientation.
A wide and varied program of experiences is necessary to develop the many facets of the well-rounded personality; therefore, MUW sponsors organizational, social, recreational, cultural, and leisure activities.
Participation in campus organizations helps students develop interpersonal, organizational, problem solving, and leadership skills and familiarizes them with their personal capabilities and limitations.
The Office of Student Life, in conjunction with other offices and organizations, coordinates a variety of events throughout the year. From comedians and concerts, to fine art shows and theatre productions, there is always something to do on campus.
The Student Government Association (SGA) at MUW represents the mechanism through which students are able to participate in University governance, ensuring an exchange of ideas and opinions between the student body and the administration. The Student Government was created in 1910 with the adoption of the SGA Constitution. It is patterned on our national government, including executive, legislative, and judicial branches. SGA acts as the official voice of the student body and as mediator between that body and the local, state, and federal governments. The association strives to promote the welfare and to maximize the personal, social, and political development of all students at Mississippi University for Women. Students are encouraged to become involved in SGA activities and to contact the SGA Office with any concerns arising from their enrollment at MUW.
Involvement in organizations helps students develop leadership skills, meet people with similar interests, gain professional contacts, and become well-rounded individuals. The Office of Student Life registers over 75 student organizations each year, and the Student Life staff can assist those interested in either forming new organizations or joining current ones. A complete list of registered student clubs, societies, and associations follows. The list is subject to change.
Departmental Organizations are associated with academic colleges and departments or with specific majors. Departmental Organizations include Art Students League, Health and Kinesiology Club, Institute of Management Accountants, Minority Student Nurses Association, Mississippi Organization of Associate Degree Student Nurses, Mississippi Association of Student Nurses, National Student Speech Language Hearing Association, Phi Beta Lambda, Professional Association of Family and Consumer Science, Psychology Club, Society of Professional Journalists, Spanish Club, Mississippi Association of Educators, and Student Nurses Association.
Honorary Organizations select members on the basis of academic achievement, leadership, and/or service. Students should contact the organization’s current president or advisor to obtain criteria for membership. Honorary organizations include Accounting Honorary, Alpha Epsilon Delta, Beta Beta Beta, Hottentots Leadership Honorary, Kappa Delta Epsilon, Kappa Mu Epsilon, Lambda Tau: Chi Chapter, Lantern Honor Society, Mortar Board, Phi Alpha Theta, Phi Epsilon Kappa, Phi Theta Kappa: Epsilon of MS, Phi Upsilon Omicron, Psi Chi, Sigma Tau Delta, Sigma Theta Tau, and Aristos.
Religious Organizations meet the needs of students with similar spiritual values. They are open to all students regardless of denomination. Religious organizations include Baptist Student Union, Catholic Student Association, Ecumenical Council, United Harmony Ministries, and Wesley Foundation.
Service Organizations provide a specific service to the entire campus community. The mission of these organizations includes the improvement of campus life. This category includes all governing bodies. Service organizations include Class Council, Student Government Association, Residence Hall Association, Interclub, International Student Association, National PanHellenic Council, Student Alumni Ambassadors, Student Government Association, Orientation Leaders , Student Programming Board, and W-Reps.
Social Organizations offer social support, leadership development, and community service. Please contact the Office of Student Life for information. Social organizations include Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Beta Kappa Tau Fraternity, Blacklist Honorary Social Club, Coretta Social Club, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, D’Belle Social Club, Highlander Social Club, Jester Honorary Social Club, Lockheart Social Club, Mam’selle Social Club, Masker Honorary Social Club, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Reveler Social Club, Rogue Social Club, Silhouette Social Club, Troubadour Social Club, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, and Xi Delta Omega Fraternity.
Special Interest Organizations serve students with similar extracurricular interests. Special interest organizations include College Republicans, College Democrats, Hearin Leadership Society, Modeling Squad, Older Wiser Learning Students (O.W.L.S.), Society of Professional Journalists, Student Culinary Association, TVA Investment Club, Buk Worms, and Midnight Writers.
Various performing groups are coordinated through the Department of Music and Theatre. Please contact the department office at (662) 329-7341 for audition schedules and other requirements. Performing groups include Chorale, Jazz Ensemble, Madrigals, New Horizons, and United Harmony Gospel Choir.
Student Programming Board
Each Fall semester the Student Programming Board (SPB) recruits new members who are committed to providing valuable educational and fun experiences outside the classroom and who strive to serve the cultural, educational, recreational, and social interests of MUW students. Students directly involved in planning and production of these events have a unique opportunity to develop valuable skills in leadership, management, public relations, decision making, and creative thinking.
All students are invited to participate in the Student Programming Board. The Student Life staff will be glad to discuss membership and answer any questions about programming. For more information visit the Office of Student Life on the 2nd floor of Cochran Hall or call (662) 329-7416.
The University publishes the Spectator (the campus newspaper) and Dilettanti (the annual literary magazine). These publications are staffed by students who get valuable experience in writing, editing, design, photography, advertising, and public relations. All students are encouraged to join the staffs.
The Spectator is available via the internet weekly during the fall and spring semesters. A new editor is chosen each spring for the following year.
The Dilettanti cultivates creativity of various types. Published yearly, the magazine includes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, as well as student produced original art and photography. Literary and art editors are chosen in the spring and serve for one year. Staff members may receive a small stipend or academic credit for their work on the publications.
The Residual ACT, and Praxis exams are administered on campus by a representative from the Office of Student Life. Testing times, locations, and schedules are regularly posted in the Office of Student Life. Call 662-241-7619 for further information.
Students at Mississippi University for Women are members of an academic community that encourages honesty, integrity, and excellence. The same students are also citizens within the state, local, and national communities and are expected to observe the acceptable standards of conduct for each. In most instances, students are adults, having reached the legal age of majority, and are thus expected to take personal responsibility for their conduct. The University does not assume responsibility for the actions of students.
Notwithstanding the above, enrollment in an institution of higher education carries with it special privileges and imposes special responsibilities. The University reserves the right to take such action as may be necessary to maintain campus conditions and preserve the integrity of the institution and its educational mission and environment.
MUW has developed a student judicial system that emphasizes personal accountability for misconduct, but is also fair and respectful of the student’s right to due process. More detailed information with regard to student conduct may be found in the MUW Student Handbook, which may be found online at http://www.muw.edu.
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Alan W. Lee Meghan Paladino 2019-03-28T23:18:27-05:00
Alan W. Lee
Founding Partner of Capstone Advancement Partners
As well as being a founding partner of this firm, Alan was a loved team member. We will miss his leadership, sense of humor, professionalism, and great instincts. Although the loss is great, we will work to honor Alan’s legacy through our continued commitment to clients and philanthropy!
—Capstone Team (February 2013)
Alan was a proud graduate of Charlotte Country Day School and of Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where he earned a B.A. in English. He continued his education at The University of North Carolina–Charlotte, where he earned an M.A.T. Alan taught English and coached football at both Christ School in Arden, NC and at Charlotte Country Day School, where he also served as a development officer, a career he went on to pursue at Davidson College and eventually as Vice President of Development at Queens University. Alan was most recently a founding partner of Capstone Advancement Partners.
Alan touched many lives and will be greatly missed by those who knew and loved him. He had a surgical wit, a quiet charm, and a penchant for mischief. He was as astute a reader of fiction as he was a follower of sports. That he could often be an enigma, even to family and close friends was, paradoxically, one of his more endearing qualities.
—Written by Alan’s sons, Chris and Zach Lee (January 2013)
© 2016 Capstone Advancement Partners, LLC | All rights reserved
PO Box 18993 | Atlanta, GA 31126 | T (800) 766-1930
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WHO WOULDN'T ENJOY FIRING THESE PEOPLE?
http://www.anncoulter.com/
Earlier this week, Mitt Romney got into trouble for saying, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." To comprehend why the political class reacted as if Romney had just praised Hitler, you must understand that his critics live in a world in which no one can ever be fired -- a world known as "the government."
(And a tip for you Washington types: Just because a person became rich without working for government doesn't mean he is "Wall Street." A venture capital firm in Boston that tries to rescue businesses headed for bankruptcy, for example, is not "Wall Street.")
Romney's statement about being able to fire people was an arrow directed straight to the heart of Obamacare. (By the way, arrows to the heart are not covered by Obamacare.)
Talking about insurance providers, he said:
"I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn't give me a good service that I need, I want to say I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me."
Obamacare, you will recall, will be administered by the same people who run the Department of Motor Vehicles. They will operate under the same self-paced, self-evaluated work rules that have made government offices the envy of efficiency specialists everywhere.
And no one will be able to fire them -- unless they're caught doing something truly vile and criminal, such as stealing from patients in nursing homes.
Oops, I take that back: Government employees who rob the elderly also can't be fired.
The Los Angeles Times recently reported that, after a spate of burglaries at a veterans hospital in California several years ago, authorities set up video cameras to catch the perpetrators. In short order, nurse's aide Linda Riccitelli was videotaped sneaking into the room of 93-year-old Raymond Germain as he slept, sticking her hand into his dresser drawer and stealing the bait money that had been left there.
Riccitelli was fired and a burglary prosecution initiated. A few years later, the California Personnel Board rescinded her firing and awarded her three-years back pay. The board dismissed the videotape of Riccitelli stealing the money as "circumstantial." (The criminal prosecution was also dropped after Germain died.)
But surely we'll be able to fire a government employee who commits a physical assault on a mentally disturbed patient? No, wrong again.
Psychiatric technician Gregory Powell was working at a government center for the mentally retarded when he hit a severely disturbed individual with a shoe so hard that the impression of the shoe's sole was visible on the victim three hours later. A psychologist who witnessed the attack said the patient was cowering on the couch before being struck.
Powell was fired, but, again, the California Personnel Board ordered him rehired.
Now, let's turn to New York City and look for any clues about why it might be the highest-taxed city in the nation.
For years, the New York City school budget included $35 million to $65 million a year to place hundreds of teachers in "rubber rooms," after they had committed such serious offenses that they were barred from classrooms. Teachers accused of raping students sat in rooms doing no work all day, still collecting government paychecks because they couldn't be fired.
After an uproar over the rubber rooms a few years ago, Michael Bloomberg got rid of the rooms. But the teachers still can't be fired.
Wherever there is government, there is malfeasance and criminality -- and government employees who can never be fired.
In 2010, 33 employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission -- half making $100,000 to $200,000 per year -- were found to have spent most of their workdays downloading Internet pornography over a five-year period. (Thank goodness there were no financial shenanigans going on then, so the SEC guys had plenty of time on their hands.)
One, a senior lawyer at SEC headquarters in Washington, D.C., admitted to spending eight hours a day looking at Internet pornography, sometimes even "working" through his lunch hour. Another admitted watching up to five hours a day of pornography in his office. (Would that Bernie Madoff had posted naked photos of himself online!)
Not one of the porn-surfing employees of the SEC was fired.
In 2009, the inspector general of the National Science Foundation was forced to abandon an investigation of grant fraud when he stumbled across dozens of NSF employees, including senior management, surfing pornographic websites on government computers during working hours.
A senior official who had spent 331 workdays talking to fully or partially nude women online was allowed to resign (but was not fired). I hope they gave him his computer as a parting gift.
The others kept their jobs -- including an NSF employee who had downloaded hundreds of pornographic videos and pictures and even developed pornographic PowerPoint slide shows. (And you thought PowerPoint presentations were always boring.)
They weren't fired or even embarrassed. One appealed his 10-day suspension, complaining that it was too severe. The government refused to release any of their names.
These are the people who are going to be controlling your access to medical services if Obamacare isn't repealed. There will be only one insurance provider, and you won't be able to switch, even if the service is lousy (and it will be).
Obamacare employees will spend their days surfing pornography, instead of approving your heart operation. They can steal from you and even physically assault you. And they can never be fired.
That's one gargantuan difference with "Romneycare" right there: If you don't like what your insurer is doing in Massachusetts, you can get a new one.
Now, wouldn't you like to be able to fire people who provide services to you?
COPYRIGHT 2012 ANN COULTER
Labels: Ann Coulter
From the Ranch to the Vatican
Ron Paul beckons GOP to Fortress America
Today's Tune: The Horrible Crowes - Joey
Defined by a Smile and a Drawl
Terror in Tampa
Gehry’s Ghastly Eisenhower Memorial
Billy Joe Shaver returns to Tulsa’s Cain’s Ballroo...
Government: The redistributionist behemoth
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Her ser du listen med NAG modeller. Vælg en model for at se alle årgangene.
Nag or NAG may refer to:
Nagaland is a state in northeastern India. It borders the state of Assam to the west, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam to the north, Myanmar to the east, and Manipur to the south.
Nagpur (formerly Nagpore) is the third largest city and winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra.
Nagoya (名古屋) is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is Japan's fourth-largest incorporated city and the third-most-populous urban area.
Nagorno-Karabakh War
The Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place in the late 1980s to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by the Republic of Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Nagasaki (Japanese: 長崎市, Hepburn: Nagasaki-shi, pronounced [naɡaꜜsaki] (listen); meaning "long cape") is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
Nagorno-Karabakh ( nə-GOR-noh kar-ə-BAHK; Russian: Нагорно-Карабах, lit. 'mountainous Karabakh'; Armenian: Լեռնային Ղարաբաղ; Azerbaijani: Dağlıq Qarabağ), also known as Artsakh (Armenian: Արցախ), is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, within the mountainous range of Karabakh, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur, and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains.
Naga people
The Naga people are an various individuals or ethnic groups associated to the North Eastern part of India and northwestern Myanmar.
Naga, Camarines Sur
Naga, officially the City of Naga (Central Bikol: Ciudad nin Naga; Rinconada Bikol: Syudad ka Naga; Tagalog: Lungsod ng Naga; Spanish: Ciudad de Naga), or simply Naga City, is a 2nd class independent component city in the Bicol Region, Philippines.
Naga Chaitanya
Naga Chaitanya Akkineni is an Indian film actor known for his work in Telugu cinema. He debuted in the 2009 film Josh, directed by newcomer Vasu Varma and produced by Dil Raju.
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City of Ghosts ARC Review
By Book Hugger on September 18, 2018 in Fantasy, Middle Grade
Summary: “Cassidy Blake’s parents are The Inspectres, a (somewhat inept) ghost-hunting team. But Cass herself can REALLY see ghosts. In fact, her best friend, Jacob, just happens to be one.
When The Inspectres head to ultra-haunted Edinburgh, Scotland, for their new TV show, Cass—and Jacob—come along. In Scotland, Cass is surrounded by ghosts, not all of them friendly. Then she meets Lara, a girl who can also see the dead. But Lara tells Cassidy that as an In-betweener, their job is to send ghosts permanently beyond the Veil. Cass isn’t sure about her new mission, but she does know the sinister Red Raven haunting the city doesn’t belong in her world. Cassidy’s powers will draw her into an epic fight that stretches through the worlds of the living and the dead, in order to save herself” (Goodreads).
Hi, welcome to another episode of, I am so behind on reviews and don’t remember a thing about the books I’ve read.
Actually, in the case of City of Ghosts I remember Scotland, vividly, because it’s my favorite place in the entire world. While this book wasn’t as Scotland-based as I had hoped, considering I live so far away from Scotland, it still gave me my “fix.”
While this definitely isn’t Victoria Schwab’s best book (a little biased because I’m not the target age for middle-grade literature), it still had Schwab character. Her writing vividly expressed Cassidy’s ghost world, gave me a deep understanding of the different facets of the world, and put out a character that didn’t quite understand nor want her powers without making her seem weak for feeling that way. There’s something so utterly and wonderfully feminist about Schwab’s books. The female characters always stand on their own, never falter in the presence of anyone else, and aren’t ridiculed for having characteristics that would make a male character endearing. Cassidy isn’t a strong character in the sense that she fights a lot of bad guys on her own, but in the sense that she is on her own. She is immensely stubborn, naive, but still interested in learning more.
To be fair, I was expecting the book to be a lot darker because Schwab marked it as being a kind of a dark middle-grade book, but it’s really just plain-old middle-grade antics. Sure, ghosts could be scary to kids, but these ghosts aren’t all that threatening. I think it’s something kids of all ages can enjoy, just maybe with the lights on if they’re easily scared.
This wouldn’t be the first Schwab book I’d recommend, but I still loved it nonetheless. It’s a beautiful story about friendship and Scotland and ghosts and Scotland and a girl trying to find her way in the world and Scotland. (I love Scotland).
I definitely recommend this, but if you’re looking for a more mature Schwab book, I’d pick up A Darker Shade of Magic, Vicious, or This Savage Song first.
Loose September TBR 2018
Grace and Fury ARC Review
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Labor Day Weekend Poster Sale for the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, Blood Drive Signup, Saturday Evening Filming
A post in three parts about what's going on this Labor Day weekend at Boswell.
1. So many of you ask us what we do with our blown-up book jackets which decorate Boswell. The truth is that we keep a lot of them a long time, but some do get discarded. By popular demand, we're offering you the opportunity to purchase a select assortment of these posters during Labor Day weekend. Fifty posters and blow-ups will be included in this program - we'll be donating 100% of our proceeds from these purchases to the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, the preferred charity of our Texas bookstore friends, in the wake of this tragedy.
This sale runs from Friday, September 1 through Monday, September 4. Because we're raising money for charity with this program, we're using an auction system. Each poster will have a form where you can pay whatever you want, with bids starting at one dollar. After Labor Day, we'll contact the person with the highest bid, and they'll have a week to purchase the item. If the purchase isn't made, we'll contact the person with the second highest bid. And so forth. Decorate your home, your office, your classroom, or your dorm space.
Most are foam core posters. We've also got cardboard blowups for Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy, Nick Offerman's Gumption, and Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid #8: Hard Luck. A few of the cardboard pieces are a bit shopworn, but all will be available to review before bidding to determine whether it's worth the purchase. Please note that you're purchasing from us and we're donating the money, so all sales are taxable. If this is successful, we'll do this again. If not, we won't!
Here's the complete list, not in any order:
1. Bad Monkey, Carl Hiaasen
2. Binge, Tyler Oakley
3. Absolutely on Music, Haruki Murakami
4. Your Fathers, Where Are They? Dave Eggers
5. Buried Giant, The Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson (Rory)
7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Jeff Kinney (cardboard)
8. Day the Crayon Came Home, Drew Daywalt
9. What the Dog Knows, Cat Warren
10. And Again, Jessica Chiarella
11. Barbara the Slut, Lauren Holmes
12. Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
13. Thickety Well of Wishes, J.A. White
14. The Painter, Peter Heller
15. Becoming Wise Krista Tippett
16. A Lowcountry Christmas, Mary Alice Monroe
17. Herbert Hoover, Glen Jeansonne
18. Searching for Howard Hughes, Jason Diamond
19. Will it Waffle, Daniel Shumski
20. Bream Gives me Hiccups, Jesse Eisenberg (small)
21. Little Bee, Chris Cleave (smaller)
22. The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion (also smaller)
23. Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Dave Hill
24. Avenue of Mysteries, John Irving
25. Life on Mars, Jon Agee (cardboard)
26. Gumption, Nick Offerman (the lifesize blowup)
27. Second Life of Nick Mason, Steve Hamilton
28. Daredevils, Sean Vestal
29. Calling, David Isay
30. The Confessions of Young Nero, Margaret George
31. Reunion, Hannah Pittard
32. Books for Living, Will Schwalbe
33. Ruby, Cynthia Bond
34. The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse, Brian Farrey
35. Mr Wuffles, David Wiesner
36. Church of Marvels, Leslie Parry
37. In the Unlikely Event, Judy Blume
38. Glow, Ned Beaumann
39. Super Freakonomics, Steven Levitt
40. Of Noble Family, Mary Robinette Kowal
41. California, Eden Lepucki
42. Girls from Corona Del Mar, The Rufi Thrope
43. On the Move, Oliver Sacks
44. Water Knife, The Paolo Bacigalupi
45. Zero Zero Zero, Roberto Saviano
46. Automobile Club of Egypt, The Alaa Al Asany
47. Modern Romance, Aziz Ansarai
48. White Collar Girl, Renée Rosen
49. Here, Richard McGuire
50. The Happiness of Pursuit, Chris Guillebeau
51. The Black Country, Alex Grecian
52. Dream Big with BFG, Roald Dahl (cardboard)
53. This Is Your Life Harriet Chance, Jonathan Evison
54. The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood
55. The Kindness Diaries, Leon Logothetis
56. And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini
57. The Great Jumperee, Julia Donaldson/Helen Oxenbury
58. Not My Father's Son, Alan Cumming
59. God Help the Child, Toni Morrison
60. Evergreen, Rebecca Rasmussen
61. Presence, Amy Cuddy
62. The Infatuations, Javier Marias
63. Doomed, Chuck Palahniuk
64. Cheever, Blake Bailey
65. Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
66. South of Broad, Pat Conroy
67. The Drifter, Nick Petrie (don't worry, Nick. We kept one for the store)
68. Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon
69. The Orenda, Joseph Boyden
70. The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri
Please note that you are purchasing the item, so alas, we have to add tax onto your bid. Please take that into account.
2. On Saturday evening, a crew will be shooting a film scene at the store. It's happening around 7:30 pm. Most likely, we'll be open a little later than normal to accomodate the crew. If you sign a release, you might be able to be an extra.
3. On Sunday, we'll have a signup for a 9-11 blood drive in front of the store. The blood drive itself will be from 3 to 7 pm at the War Memorial Veterans Center on Monday, September 11 (obviously).
4. Don't forget, we're open Labor Day. We open at 10 am (regular time) and close at 5 pm (irregular time).
Why you can't miss Bill Goldstein's "The World Broke in Two," and why, because I am biased, it's a good thing lots of other booksellers at Boswell are loving it.
Being that there are no events at Boswell this week, I thought I'd use the time to talk about a special program coming in mid September. It's an event over thirty years in the making!
Our featured author is Bill Goldstein and the book is The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster and the Year That Changed Literature. It was published on August 15 and it's gotten all sorts of great attention:
--Glen Weldon on NPR wrote: "The ingenious conceit of Goldstein's book is to follow, using excerpts from both their correspondence and their diaries, the intertwined personal and literary lives of four writers — Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and Eliot himself — as the three seismic shocks of those publications ripple through their lives, and their work. To do so, he narrows the focus and imposes strict parameters. Very strict, as it turns out: Apart from some contextualizing commentary, The World Broke in Two rigorously limits itself to the span of days from January 1st to December 31st, 1922.
And later he notes: "The book comes alive in the ceaseless churn of these intersecting egos, as they turn their withering writerly gazes upon one another — and, less eagerly, upon themselves. Their professional and personal jealousy, spite, anxiety and outrage — the familiar hallmarks of the writer's personality — become a kind of humanizing background noise, drawing us in and allowing us to see them more fully."
--Eric Bennett writes in The New York Times Book Review: "In his fresh account of four modernists, Bill Goldstein, a former editor of the books section of this newspaper’s website and an interviewer for NBC New York, does not tell this story. Instead The World Broke in Two chronicles Morgan (Forster), David (Lawrence), Tom (Eliot) and Virginia (Woolf) as they wage personal battle in tremendous earnest against blank sheets of paper to create important new works from the inner recesses of their genius. Goldstein offers a snapshot history of their careers in deference to the American now, embracing not only the chatty familiarity of first names but also, and more significant, the biographical details of authorship that most 21st-century interest in literature seems to depend upon."
--And just one more, Tom Zellman in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Goldstein’s insightful and graceful prose reveals four authors during troubled moments of their careers, and he is fortunate in having a trove of writings from which to draw. Forster, Woolf and Eliot knew each other very well, read one another’s writings with an eye to what might be artistically useful, and reviewed one another’s work in journals. This year-in-the-life chronicle gives us a remarkable look at the gestation of literature."
I could list all the amazing advance quotes that the book received, and I assure you, we've been using them as we promote our event. But there's another interesting story here that connects Goldstein, not just to these authors, but to Boswell.
So I have known Bill forever, or so it seems at this point in my life. We actually met when we were both in college, in New York, between our freshman and sophomore years. We met at a youth group, where coordinators would bring us together to, well, in the language of the times, rap. I met a lot of other kids at this program, but Bill and I clicked and remained close friends. And as an aside, my friend from college who dragged me to the group also wrote a book, about managing global health through innovative solutions in the developing world. So apparently I've always found good company with writers, even when I didn't know they were writers at the time.
I remember two things about Bill from his college years. He was obsessed with Publishers Weekly and had been reading it since he was a kid. And he was obsessed with Proust, the subject of his senior thesis in college. (editor's note: No, he wasn't! His senior thesis was on George Eliot. His close friend Scott was the Proustian. He didn't read all of Proust until grad school.) One has to put this in perspective - the book he went on to write is about a bunch of people obsessing over Proust. I find that fascinating. And yet I haven't written a book about the failed marriage of James Taylor and Carly Simon, so apparently not all teenage obsessions play out in the rest of our lives.
One of the things that we bonded over was our shared love of the written word. I will always be grateful to Bill for recommending Barbara Pym to me. And can you believe it? The New York Times did yet another story about her continuing influence in "The Enthusiast" column. I was very happy to read Matthew Schneier's essay, particularly because it singled out A Glass of Blessings, which is my favorite, but partly because it was the first Pym I read. And you know how it is about firsts.
We kept in touch. We wrote letters to each other. Remember letters? And then we graduated. I was desperately scrambling for a job. I toyed with the idea of the music industry (Bill's obsession with Publishers Weekly was paralleled by mine with Billboard), but for practical reasons, I focused on trying to get a job in advertising and, because I had a math degree, market research. I had a few interviews, but nothing was coming together. At this point, Bill, who to no one's surprise, was now working at Publishers Weekly, told me about an opening at Warner Books, a mass market house. Because their publicity department was structured as part of an in-house ad agency (for tax purposes, I assume), it would look great on my resume. And because they owned not one, but three record companies, I might have an in to transfer. It made sense.
I was offered the job. And after a time, I decided I liked the book part more than the advertising part. And a few lunches with friends who had similar entry-level jobs at the record companies (yes, that's what we called them in those days) confirmed that much as I loved music, I was more of a book person. So that's how my life in the book world began. And I really think that if it were not for Bill Goldstein, I might not be here today, at Boswell.
So that's only one of the reasons why I want to have a really great event with Bill when he comes to Boswell on Monday, September 11. But the other reason is because I know how enjoyable this evening is going to be and you're going to be sad if you miss out. So many of you tell us how much you love the classics, and Goldstein's book brings the authors behind several of the classics you most love to vibrant life.
Here's my recommendation: "Bill Goldstein’s history of this period, is an intensely researched, beautifully woven literary history, or perhaps it might be fairer to call it a group biography, focusing on a moment when everything changed, and modernism began to pervade the cultural consciousness. It’s an intimate and personal journey, and at the same time, a light into the creative minds of the day, sort of a nonfiction version of Colm Toibin’s The Master. The World Broke in Two made me want to drop everything and read each of the authors highlighted in the story." (Daniel Goldin)
But you're probably thinking, now that we know about Daniel's long-time friendship with Bill, how can we trust him? So here's one from Boswellian Conrad Silverberg: "Some years mark a stark division, separating what comes before from what comes after in uncompromising and irreversible terms: 1776, 1865, 1945 are obvious examples. For literature, 1922 is such a year. Bookended by the February publishing of James Joyce's Ulysses, considered by many to be the single greatest novel in the English language, and the translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time in the Fall, the year marks a clean break from traditional forms of linear narrative storytelling, and plunges us deep into the psychological explorations and innovative structures of modernist writing. As Willa Cather reflected in 1936, "The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts". Goldstein's book is a lively, nuanced, and utterly enthralling tale of how this break affected four writers in particular: Virginia Wolff, TS Eliot, EM Forester and DH Lawrence, who all struggled with and found renewed inspiration from this new world."
Or why not take the advice of Jane Glaser, another Boswell bookseller?: "I am so impressed with the research and detail that author Bill Goldstein put into The World Broke in Two that I feel as though I've been transported back to 1922 on a literary journey where I'm sitting at a roundtable discussion with Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence as they share the intense struggles they're having in trying to break out of writer's ‘inanition’ and meet the war weary readership whose world has been changed forever. This is an engaging and enlightening view into the birth of modernism in literature and is the best nonfiction I've read this year."
We have two more booksellers reading The World Broke in Two. No quotes from them yet, but maybe soon. So now it feels like time for an ending to this post. How about "If you love classic literature, you've got to read The World Broke in Two?" Eh, sort of sells the whole thing short, but endings are tough. Ask any writer. Hope to see you on September 11, which I just learned is D.H. Lawrence's birthday!"
Annotated Boswell bestsellers, week ending August 26, 2017: Sometimes a prize nominee is a big deal, and other times, winning it is not as good as a book club discussion. Plus, "Put an Eiffel Tower on it, part 700." Plus the Journal Sentinel TapBooks page.
Presenting the annotated Boswell Bestsellers for the week ending August 26, 2017
1. Y Is for Yesterday, by Sue Grafton (and what after Z?)
2. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
3. The Readymade Thief, by Augustus Rose
4. Mrs. Fletcher, by Tom Perrotta
5. Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero
6. Home Fire, by Kamila Shamsie
7. Sulfur Springs, by William Kent Krueger
8. Stay with Me, by Ayobami Adebayo
9. Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders
10. Hum if You Don't Know the Words, by Bianca Marais
Kamila Shamsie's latest, Home Fire, is already longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Rick Simonson from Elliot Bay in Seattle wrote for his Indie Next review: "One of the finest writers at work in English today, Kamila Shamsie has written her most heartbreaking, beautiful, necessary book yet.” And Vanessa Thorpe writes in The Guardian: "Inspired by the conflict between love and moral duty in Sophocles’s play Antigone, it tells of a tightly knit trio of orphaned siblings, sensible elder sister Isma and the headstrong twins Aneeka and Parvaiz, who are divided by romance, sex and the vampiric forces of Islamist fundamentalism."
Once again, I'm a big fan of this Riverhead book jacket.
1. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan (Egan at On the Issues Wed Sep 6 at Noon. May be room left)
2. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken
3. Theft by Finding, by David Sedaris (Sedaris was on Paula Poundstone's podcast Aug 5)
4. Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance
5. Why Buddhism Is True, by Robert Wright
6. When Breath Becomes Air, by Paula Kalanithi
7. Surfaces and Essences, by Douglas Hofstadter
8. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
9. Wisconsin Supper Clubs: Another Round, by Ron Faiola
10. The World Broke in Two, by Bill Goldstein (event Mon Sep 11, 7 pm, at Boswell)
Here's a recommendation for Bill Goldstein's The World Broke in Two from Boswell's Conrad Silverberg: "Some years mark a stark division, separating what comes before from what comes after in uncompromising and irreversible terms: 1776, 1865, 1945 are obvious examples. For literature, 1922 is such a year. Bookended by the February publishing of James Joyce's Ulysses, considered by many to be the single greatest novel in the English language, and the translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time in the fall, the year marks a clean break from traditional forms of linear narrative storytelling, and plunges us deep into the psychological explorations and innovative structures of modernist writing. As Willa Cather reflected in 1936, 'The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts.' Goldstein's book is a lively, nuanced, and utterly enthralling tale of how this break affected four writers in particular: Virginia Wolff, TS Eliot, EM Forester and DH Lawrence, who all struggled with and found renewed inspiration from this new world."
1. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
2. Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett
3. Do Not Bring Him Water, by Caitlin Scarano
4. Funhouse, by Robert Vaughan
5. Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly
6. News of the World, by Paulette Jiles
7. Still Life, by Louise Penny (two formats)
8. Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue (more below)
9. Karolina's Twins, by Ronald H. Balson (Two events Tue Oct 24 at Ovation Chai Point 3 pm, and Boswell 7 pm)
10. The Sarbonne Affair, by Mark Pryor
You know the old saying: "Put an Eiffel Tower on the jacket and it twice as likely to sell at Boswell." And so I call attention to The Sorbonne Affair, the first mystery novel featuring Hugo Marston since The Bookseller, Pryor's debut, to feature the edifice, and the first in my knowledge to hit our top ten for the week. The series hook is that Hugo Marston is head of security for the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Several of the plots reviolve around authors, bookstores, and libraries - the previous book in the series is The Paris Librarian. David Hendricks in The San Antonio Express-News wrote "Pryor’s easygoing prose style and the witty, smart dialogue makes the story compelling and entertaining."
1. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
2. The Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee, by Thomas H. Fehring
3. Against Everything, by Mark Greif
4. Stop Anxiety from Stopping You, by Helen Odessky (event with REDgen Sun Sep 17, 3 pm)
5. Blood in the Water, by Heather Ann Thompson (event at Turner Hall Mon Nov 6, 7 pm)
6. At the Existentialist Cafe, by Sara Bakewell
7. Writers Market 2018: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published, by Writers Digest
8. A Crowded Hour, Kevin Abing
9. Preservation, by Christina Ward
10. Live and Let Live, by Evelyn M. Perry
After a nice hardcover run, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others has a nice pop in sales for the paperback. Bakewell also wrote How to Live, a book about Montaigne we're featuring for Michael Perry's event for his Montaigne in Barn Boots on November 14, 7 pm, at Boswell. Janet Maslin in The New York Times called Bakewell's work "a bracingly fresh look at once-antiquated ideas and the milieu in which they flourished" and it went on to be one of their ten best books of 2016.
1. Such a Pretty Face, by Ann Angel
2. The Book of Dares for Lost Friends, by Jane Kelley
3. Things I'll Never Say, by Ann Angel
4. The Desperate Adventures of Zeno and Alya, by Jane Kelley
5. Nature Girl, by Jane Kelley
6. The Girl Behind the Glass, by Jane Kelley
7. The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
8. Octo-Man and the Headless Monster, by Jane Kelley
9. Sol-Ray Man and the Freaky Flood, by Jane Kelley
10. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo
Milwaukee-raised author Jane Kelley had a new early chapter book series from Grosset and Dunlap this spring called The Escapades of Clint McCool. The first two in the series are Octo-Man and the Headless Monster and Sol-Ray Man and the Freaky Flood. This week we had an order for the library binding (effectively hardcover) editions of the books for a school, but that's a great opportunity to give a shout out for the paperbacks, which I've linked to above. In the first book, Clint McCool runs into Octo-Man on the set of his new movie and has lot of ideas to improve the project, but gets a valuable lesson in processing one idea at a time.
Here's what's happening on the TapBooks page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Book editor Jim Higgins is a fan of the young adult edition of Far From the Tree: How Children and Their Parent Learn to Accept One Another...Our Differences Unite Us. Higgins writes: "Published in 2012, Far From the Tree won a National Book Critics Circle award and other honors for its seriously researched exploration of how families raised children with disabilities and differences, including deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome and autism. Now Simon and Schuster has published a young-adult edition of Solomon's valuable book. Working with adapter Laurie Calkhoven, an experienced writer for children, Solomon has slimmed the text and moved the extensive footnotes and bibliography sections online." Read this enthusiastic recommendation for this new edition of Solomon's book.
Charisse Jones writes about Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat, the memoir of comedian Patricia Williams written with Jeannine Amber. In this review that was originalliy published in USA Today, Jones writes "With deadpan humor and more than a little profanity, Williams introduces us to the cast of characters that peopled her itinerant childhood in Atlanta." The message is to aim for the stars: "No matter what kind of hard times you face, remember you can do anything and be anything you want in life. All you have to do is dream."
And finally, here is Laurie Hertzel interviewing Imbolo Mbue about her novel, Behold the Dreamers, which is not just an Oprah's Book Club Pick, but the winner of the Pen/Faulkner Prize (which, by the way, was knocked off the front of the jacket once Oprah came a calling). Here's Mbue talking about how her image of America has changed: "My view of America before coming here was fairly naive, largely informed by movies and TV shows. It didn’t take long after I arrived here to learn that most people did not have the kind of wealth I saw on Dallas or Dynasty. That said, I still very much believe that this is a country of tremendous opportunity — that is the reason why millions around the world aspire to someday arrive here to achieve their dreams." To me, the most interesting aspect of the article, originally from the Star Tribune, is learning that Barnes and Noble, at least in Edina, is now doing true ticket-with-book events. I've seen "must by ticket to get on the signing line" but not this. Did they close the store for the event? Must find out!
One last post on "The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue" and how it connects to our store's namesake
Last week I was at Boswell talking to a YA library about what books he'd liked this year. #1 on his list, as it's been for many, was The Hate U Give. But almost immediately after that he mentioned The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. And while we were talking, one of our other customers, who teaches high school English, joined in on the conversation. The ears perk up when you discuss an 18th century novel about two boys who are maybe in love and a girl who is secretly studying medicine.
You've heard me talking about The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue this season already, mostly because we hosted an event with author Mackenzi Lee in June, when she appeared with Brittany Cavallaro, author of A Study in Charlotte and The Last of August. Fans of Cavallaro's will be excited to know that the final book in the trilogy, The Case for Jamie, releases March 6, 2018. Lee, who also wrote This Monstrous Thing, also has a book coming out in March 2018, but it's completely different; Bygone Badass Broads: 52 Forgotten Women Who Changed the World is based on her social media series. Pub date is March 13!
Our sales rep Jenny Sheridan (whom you last met touting Orphan Island, and I'm sure you've noticed it keeps popping up on our bestseller list) offered this fascinating insight into selling the book: "We have seen a plethora of retellings for middle grade and teen readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but have yet to see someone attempt to translate the delightful P G Wodehouse hero Bertie Wooster. Monty Montague is the closest I've seen. When the novel opens, Monty is totally psyched to begin his months-long tour of 18th century Europe with his life-long bestie/secret crush, the delicious coffee-colored Percy. Visions of debauchery dance in his pretty head. Then he learns that his father has other plans for the trip and all fun bets are off. When the boys set out, with a humorless chaperone and a sullen younger sister in tow, there seem to be no adventures on the horizon. Fast forward to sympathetic pirates and a sinking island and lots more crazy stuff and a sincerely sweet romance between the boys and you have a wonderful read that YA fans will really dig. This struck me as one of those rare books that effectively uses middle-grade plot techniques to advance a YA plot." I love this last insight!
And how about this starred Booklist?: "Tongue-in-cheek, wildly entertaining, and anachronistic in only the most delightful ways, this is a gleeful romp through history. Monty is a hero worthy of Oscar Wilde ( What's the use of temptations if we don't yield to them? ), his sister Felicity is a practical, science-inclined wonder, and his relationship with Percy sings. Modern-minded as this may be, Lee has clearly done invaluable research on society, politics, and the reality of same-sex relationships in the eighteenth century. Add in a handful of pirates and a touch of alchemy for an adventure that's an undeniable joy."
The truth of the matter is that I never read the Lee's book. By the time we'd scheduled the event, all our advance reading copioes had disappeared, and with my to-be-read table piled high, and me not being the best advocate for YA novels, I sort of let it go. But then a funny thing happened. I was spending the day in Boston, on my way to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law to go back to Worcester, and I decided to go to Trident Booksellers and Cafe, the store in Boston where Mackenzi (or rather, Mackenzie) works.
The store, on Newbury Street in Boston's Back Bay, is bustling, due to its reputation not just as a bookstore, but as an eatery. There's another Trident Booksellers and Cafe in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but I don't think they are related. There's another one in Boulder on Pearl Street. I usually think of Boulder Book Store when I think of bookstores in Boulder, but I noted in the forthcoming Nick Petrie novel (Light It Up) that the bookstore he referenced had a cafe and was too small to be the store I thought it was. I guess this solves that question. This begs the question, why are there three Tridents in North America and why do all of them have cafes? Yes, there are other Boswells too, but I our name is a direct literary reference, though the one in Massachusetts did tell me it was actually the name of the original cat in the store.
After browsing the shelves, I wound up being drawn to their pile of The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, and I couldn't help but support a bookseller-author and bought my copy. I spent the next couple of days reading the book. I can only imagine what it would have been like for me to read a book like this when I was a teenager.
But here's the really crazy thing. As I was reading Lee's novel, I saw a reference to Boswell, and I thought, could this be our Boswell? And then later in the notes, Lee wrote about the Grand Tour: "In its simplest definition, the Grand Tour was a journey through the prominent cities of Europe, undertaken by upper-middle- and upper-class young men, usually after completing their formal education. The traditiona flourished from the 1660s to the 1840s, and is often credted as the birth of modern tourism." And later on she recommended "one of the most through primary accounts of the life of a young man on his Grand Tour, the journals of James Boswell (who Monty anachronistically impersonates - the real James Boswell wasn't born until 1740, but I couldn't resist playing homage to my favorite source."
I feel so silly! How did I miss mentioning that not only are we named after James Boswell, but that we have a display case featuring works by and about the author, including several works that cover his Grand Tour? Well, better late than never to acknowledge the connection. And as soon as I read Boswell's Life of Johnson, I'll get started on Boswell's journals.
By the way, if you want to know whether there's a sequel to The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, you'll be thrilled to know that The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy is said to be scheduled for 2018.
Event Alert: All the Great Books (Abridged) talk and scene preview on Wednesday, Augustus Rose with his Duchamp-inspired thriller on Tuesday, plus Robert Vaughan, Ben Tanzer, Caitlin Scarano, and Lee L. Krecklow tonight for "Mircro & Memoir, Poetry & Prose"
Monday, August 21, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Micro & Memoir, Poetry & Prose: Robert Vaughan, author of Funhouse, Ben Tanzer, author of Be Cool, Caitlin Scarano, author of Do Not Bring Him Water, and Lee L. Krecklow, author of The Expanse Between
Micro: Robert Vaughan leads roundtables at Red Oak Writing in Milwaukee. He also teaches workshops in hybrid writing, dialogue, and playwriting at places like The Clearing in Door County. He was the co-founder of Flash Fiction Fridays, a radio program on WUWM, where he premiered local flash fiction writers, and also featured writers from America and abroad. His new collection Funhouse is a delightful creative take on the form of short stories. Kirkus Reviews calls Funhouse “a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read.”
Memoir: Chicago-based Ben Tanzer is the author of Orphans, which won the 24th Annual Midwest Book Award, Lost in Space, and The New York Stories. He has also contributed to Punk Planet, Clamor, and Men's Health, serves as Senior Director, Acquisitions for Curbside Spendor. Tanzer’s Be Cool turns the microscope on the human phenomenon of being cool. With snapshot looks and comical insights into why humans are always stressing their cool factor, Tanzer explores his own experiences in a work that Wendy Ortiz calls “fresh, deep, funny, and unexpected.”
Poetry: Caitlin Scarano is from Milwaukee, at least for now, where she is completing a PhD in poetry. She has an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was the winner of the 2015 Indiana Review Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in the Best New Poets 2016 and The Best Small Fictions 2016 anthologies. Her forthcoming collection, Do Not Bring Him Water, focuses on the lines that separate life’s clashing dualities and how delicious and dangerous it can be to walk them.
Prose: Milwaukee-area writer Lee L. Krecklow’s debut novel is The Expanse Between. Krecklow earned the 2016 South Million Writers Award for his short story “The Son of Summer and Eli.” Other stories have appeared in Oxford Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and The Madison. His new novel tells the story of a reclusive writer desperate for inspiration. The writer obsessively begins to watch his neighbor for details of her life, but when her life takes a turn he doesn’t like he’ll take matters into his own hands to keep the story on track.
Tuesday, August 22, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Augustus Rose, author of The Readymade Thief
A thriller inspired by the works of Marcel Duchamp? Why not? Duchamp changed the course of modern art by submitting a urinal to an influential art show. While rejected, that urinal was then photographed by Alfred Stieglitz, helping make the said urinal a cause celebre. You can read the whole story here.
So it's not hard to imagine that one of Duchamp's other artworks might contain untold secrest. Augustus Rose tellst the story in The Readymade Thief, which was named an Indies Introduce title for summer/fall 2017. Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, 17-year-old Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the facade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all.
We’ve had four great reads on The Readymade Thief, with our buyer Jason calling it “such a great journey!” and Boswellian Kay praising it as “a very unusual, totally engaging thriller.” In addition, Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore wrote: "The Readymade Thief is my favorite kind of book: an improbable one. The novel is a map of things - urban exploration, secret societies, the city of Philadelphia, Marcel Duchamp, very possibly the Home Alone movies - and if those things don't seem to fit together, well, that's the magic of the improbable book, and the transmutation of obsessions, by energy and intellect, into something wholly new: a novel that's unexpected, uncategorizable, unputdownable."
About the Author: Augustus Rose is a novelist and screenwriter who teaches fiction writing at the University of Chicago.
Wednesday, August 23, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
In Tandem Theatre prevents a talk about and scene preview of All the Great Books (Abridged)
After hosting two playwrights this summer, it's time to get serious about fall theater. Here's a little more about a particularly bookish production.
Join us for a scene preview from In Tandem Theatre as they present All the Great Books! (Abridged). An English class eagerly awaits graduation until they realize they haven’t passed their final exam! The drama professor, student teacher, and gym coach team up to get them through all the great works of literature – in 90 minutes flat - as the literary canon explodes in this hilarious, high-energy comedy!
All the Great Books (Abridged) opens at the Tenth Street Theatre on Thursday October 5th 2017. The play is directed by Chris Flieller and features actors: Ryan Schabach (professor), Chris Goode (student teacher), and Doug Jarecki (coach). Purchase tickets for the play here.
In Tandem Theatre partnering with Literacy Services of Wisconsin (LSW) to collect books during the production's run. Illiteracy is no laughing matter, but donating great books can be a fun way to help support non-readers in our community.
Annotated Boswell bestsellers (including one that isn't quite out yet), week ending August 19, 2017
Here's what's been selling at Boswell this past week.
1. Girl on the Leeside, by Kathleen Anne Kenney
3. House of Spies, by Daniel Silva
4. The Readymade Thief, by Augustus Rose (event at Boswell Tue Aug 22, 7 pm)
5. Sleeping in the Ground, by Peter Robinson
7. The Late Show, by Michael Connelly
8. The Store, by James Patterson
9. The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry
10. Girl in Snow, by Danya Kukafka
Danya Kukafka's day job is assistant editor at Riverhead Books, which can help if you're looking for folks to read your book early. Among her champions are Brit Bennett, Owen King, and Lee Child, who calls Girl in Snow "A sensational debut--great characters, mysteries within mysteries, and page-turning pace. Highly recommended." The story chronicles the death of a Colorado teen from the perspective of two fellow students and the policeman investigating the case. Boswellian Todd Wellman noted that this book is a great YA crossover, and Kakafka notes that her earlier work was even more YA focused, per this piece in Shelf Awareness.
1. The Long Haul, by Finn Murphy
5. The World Broke in Two, by Bill Goldstein (event at Boswell Mon Sept 11, 7 pm)
6. We Have No Idea, by Jorge Cham
7. Caesar's Last Breath, by Sam Kean
8. Everybody Lies, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
9. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
10. We Thought This Was a Good Idea, by Alyssa Mastromonaco
From the award-winning science writer andauthor of The Disappearing Spoon comes Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us. Of this latest, Kirkus Reviews call this "a witty book that turns the science of the stuff we breathe into a delightful romp through history." Finally, someone writing for chemistry majors - why should physics and biology folks have all the fun?
2. The Trespasser, by Tana French
3. All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
4. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
5. The Stone Sky, by Nik Jemisin
8. Underground Airlines, by Ben Winters
9. Man of Shadows, by Jeff Noon (SF Book Club, Mon Nov 13, 7 pm)
10. Escapology, by Ren Warom (SF Book Club, Mon Sep 11, 7 pm)
Like Louise Penny, it sometimes appears that Tana French's reviews get better than better. The Trespasser hit many best-of lists for the year, and we're not talking about "best mystery" but "best novel" here. Among its champions are Maureen Corrigan and Stephen King. Boswellian Sharon Nagel had the Indie Next quote for this one, which you can read in full on our link. Janet Maslin noted in The New York Times: "When you read Ms. French — and she has become required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting — make only one assumption: All of your initial assumptions are wrong."
1. Beer Lover's Wisconsin, by Kathy Flanigan
3. Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X Kendi
4. Stop Anxiety from Stopping You, by Helen Odessky (event at Boswell Sun Sep 17, 3 pm, with REDgen)
5. Thousand-Miler, by Melanie Radzicki McManus
6. Rand McNally Road Altas 2018
7. Cream City Chronicles, by John Gurda
9. Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski
10. Optimism Over Despair, by Noam Chomsky
Beer Lovers Wisconsin is not quite out yet but we took advance orders. Usually I unsell these into an advance sale item code and release the sales when the book comes out, but in this case, I did not. The point is that we're taking preorders.
Speaking of great reviews, Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America got many of them, and also recieved the National Book Award for nonfiction. Among his admirers is David Olusoga, who cautions in The Guardian that Kendi's work does not hesitate to call out racial thinking in abolitionists and even Civil Rights heroes: "Perhaps what is most disturbing about Kendi’s work is that it shows how the same racial ideas, dressed in different period costumes, have been repeatedly used to explain away the deaths of generations of African Americans, slaves, victims of Jim Crow lynchings and, in the 21st-century, casualties of police shootings."
1. Handbook of Mortals, by Lani Sarem
2. The Absolutely Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
3. Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick
4. Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan
5. Piecing Me Together, by Renee Watson
6. Empty, by Suzanne Weyne
7. The Crossover, by Kwame Alexander
8. Orphan Island, by Laurel Snyder
9. The Gauntlet, by Karuna Riazi
10. Prisoner 88, by Leah Pileggi
Wonderstruck is releasing to the general public on October 20. Here's what Variety noted: "Haynes’s film stars Julianne Moore in the story of two children — one in the 1970s, one in the 1920s — whose stories overlap on separate journeys to Manhattan. The New York Film Festival is considered a key launchpad for films that become a part of the awards-season conversation, and the high profile slot for Wonderstruck there could boost the title as it hits the campaign trail. Hayne’s last film, Carol, screened at NYFF in 2015 and was nominated for six Oscars. Wonderstruck is based on a 2011 novel by Brian Selznick, whose previous book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s 2011 movie Hugo, which got its first public showcase as a secret screening at NYFF that year."
The lead review in the Journal Sentinel TAPbooks section is for a beloved Nobel Prize winner. Critic Mike Fischer writes: "On the surface, Orhan Pamuk's latest - a fable masquerading as a novel entitled The Red-Haired Woman - is an explorationn of 'the enigma of fathers and sons' that has always tangled love-hate relationship that Freud, in an essay referenced here, viewed as mysterious." Later on Fischer notes that "Turkey's slide toward dictatorship under Recep Tayyip Erdogan's nominally democratic regine is very much on Pamuk's mind..."
Bill Daley looks at What She Ate: Six Remarkable Woman and the Food That Tells Their Stories. The Daley details: "Learning Larua Shapiro's new book on women and food includes the stories of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was marked by some of the worst White House meals ever; Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's mistress; and Helen Gurley Brown...left me startled. It's sort of like klaudinng the Lucrezia Borgia of poisonous legent for a deft hand with seasoning." But he notes the book turns out to be quite fun. This review originally appeared in Chicago Tribune.
And finally, Marion Winik called Tom Perrotta "the Jane Austen of 21st-century sexual mores" in her review: "I loved the characters of Tom Perrotta’s new novel, Mrs. Fletcher, but I was worried about them. After all, they’re in a social satire by the author of The Leftovers, Little Children, and Election, and they’re making mistakes and misbehaving right and left — surely they’d have to pay. So convinced was I that comeuppance was at hand that the surprise happy ending almost brought me to tears." Likewise, this review kind of brought me to tears. Originally published in Newsday.
Bookstore road trip: A visit to Seminary Coop and Robie House
This summer my niece Jocelyn was in Chicago for some field training. What a great opportunity to meet up! If I were able to convince her to do a bookstore visit, so much the better.
Being that her program was at the Illinois Institute of Technology, she thought it might be fun to go to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, especially as we’ve already done some Frank Lloyd Wright tourism together, coordinating a trip to the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio in Oak Park, and another to Fallingwater outside Pittsburgh.
Since we were already close, we decided to head to Seminary Coop first, and then figure out how to get to Robie House afterwards. I had been to the Coop in their old location underground, but this was my first visit to the now-not-so-new store. We wound up having a little tea and a snack in the café, where we almost immediately ran into Jeff, the director. And then we started looking for Robie House, only to realize it was right next door. We were actually staring at it.
There are lots of great bookstores in Chicago that are worth a side visit, but Seminary is a bookstore where I could see many a book lover planning a trip to Chicago and a side-trip to Chicago to see everything else. They continue to have great depth in their academic sections. If you like history, philosophy, theology—any number of disciplines—you will likely find a number of gems in your field of interest that you didn’t previously know about. While we spent a lot of time browsing, I spent extra time looking at urban planning (or maybe it was studies), mathematics, and foodways (which I think is the academic way of saying cooking literature). We spotted this copy of The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters, a University of Chicago Press book from 2004, which we had to highlight, being that Jocelyn and her family have a lot of connections to China.
One thing I loved about their fiction was their attention to series. Their Library of America case was quite imposing; it was something we had at Harry W. Schwartz back in the 1980s, but I think I understand more the importance of the series. In these days of disposability, the Library of American hardcovers are printed with high quality paper that will last when other books’ pages yellow and crumble.
Similarly, I have admired the P.G. Wodehouse hardcover titles from Overlook, and while I passed on them when I was a buyer, I am thinking about them differently, and wonder if they might just work as a collectible. I was just as surprised to see a very nice assortment of David Lodge’s novels, these being in paperback. I wondered how well they were selling to a book friend and he considered Lodge is the probably the favorite writer of academics of a certain age. Nobody really captured the quirks of the profession better.
The store was doing major section moves over the summer. There were very nice notes explaining where the sections were moving, and sometimes why.
We enjoyed browsing the tables of their bargain books and finally settled on two for Jocelyn – Eugenia Cheng’s How to Bake Pi and Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman. And then it was off the fifty feet or so to Robie House. The tour is great, filled with lots of history. Unlike some tours of this sort, the work is in progress with the room sometimes a bit bare. Philosophical guessed there is some hesitancy of using reproductions, but more practically, the space might still be used for university functions and needs to be regularly cleared out. Tickets are $18, with discounts for students. Can you imagine there was a time when you could rent a Robie House apartment?
Back at Boswell the next week, I was chatting a customer (Steve) who had just special ordered a Loeb Modern Classic. I asked if this was his first, and said no, he’d completely fallen in love with the series after studying Greek. I asked if he’d been to Seminary Coop. He said no. I showed him a photo of the store, specifically the case of Loeb titles. He said, “I’m going tomorrow.” And you know what? I haven’t seen him since; I think he moved in under the floorboards.
Rick Riordan tickets on sale today, plus a reminder about tickets for Nancy Pearl with Kathleen Dunn, Kate DiCamillo, and Alexander McCall Smith
If you don't subscribe to our email newsletter or read the Journal Sentinel or follow social media or keep up with Rick Riordan's website, you may not have caught that tickets for Rick Riordan go on sale today for our event with Riordan on Sunday, October 8, 4 pm.
That's 12 Noon CDT. Today.
Right now, there are four ticketed events up and running that are not sold out, as of Noon.
Saturday, September 9, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Nancy Pearl, author of George & Lizzie, in conversation with Kathleen Dunn
Tickets are $29 and include tax and ticketing fees.
This event is cosponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio.
There are no signing restrictions for this event.
Sunday, October 8, 4 pm, at the Italian Community Center:
Rick Riodan, author of Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Ship of the Dead
This event is presented with the help of Bartolotta Catering and Events at the Italian Community Center.
There is no post-event signing or meet-and-greet for this event. There are also no signed copy requests for this book.
Sunday, October 29, 2 pm, at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts
Kate DiCamillo, author of La La La
This event is presented with Books & Company of Oconomowoc and the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center.
This event has signing restrictions.
Thursday, November 16, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Alexander McCall Smith, author of The House of Unexpected Sisters
This event is presented by Friends of the Milwaukee Public Library and is the launch of the Fill the Shelves progam.
Alas, Stephen King and Owen King in conversation on September 30 is sold out. If you don't want to miss out on our events, you might want to make sure you are signed up for our email newsletter. And one other piece of advice - don't forget to open them. We just had a customer who is signed up for our newsletter who asked us when we might host Daniel Silva. And the answer was...2015! And it was quite successful.
We have at least two more large events to announce, plus a really great calendar of free events for fall. Plus August hasn't been too shabby either. What a great time we had with Finn Murphy, author of The Long Haul, last night!
Boswell event preview: Trucking wtih Finn Murphy Tuesday, Kathleen Anne Kenney's Irish tale on Wednesday, Kathy Flanigan's Wisconsin beer tales on Thursday, plus previews for events next Monday and Tuesday
Finn Murphy, author of The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road
Boswell is pleased to host the 45’ Wrapped Truck Tour. Finn Murphy offers up a long-haul mover's rollicking account of life out on the Big Slab. Since the time Murphy dropped out of college thirty years ago, he’s covered more than a million miles packing, loading, and hauling people's belongings all over America. And boy has he got some stories!
Murphy offers a trucker's eye view of America on the move. Going far beyond the myth of the American road trip, he whisks readers down the I-95 Powerlane, across the Florida Everglades, in and out of the truck stops of the Midwest, and through the steep grades of the Rocky Mountains. As he crisscrosses the country, Murphy recounts with wit, candor, and charm the America he has seen change over the decades, from the hollowing-out of small towns to changing tastes in culture and home furnishings.
Michael Perry, author of Population 485, Truck: A Love Story, and the forthcoming Montaigne in Barn Boots, offers this recommendation: “Finn Murphy is my kind of intelligent roughneck. He deploys a keen eye, frank tongue, and muscular thought to show us how the upper class and the working class are acting when they think no one is watching.”
Jim Higgins offered his take on The Long Haul in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
An Irish Fest Literary Corner preview with Kathleen Anne Kenney, author of Girl on the Leeside
The Irish Fest Literary Corner always offers a great selection of Irish and Irish-American authors. This year’s lineup features Tony Macaulay, author of the memoir Paper Boy; Rex Owens, with Out of Darkness, a thriller set during the troubles; Valerie Biel with a YA trilogy based on Celtic mythology; John Sexton and his memoir Big Yank; and Michael McCarthy, with a saga about the Irish immigrant experience. Tonight we’re featuring one of those authors, Kathleen Anne Kenney, with a special preview event.
Siobhan Doyle grew up with her Uncle Kee at their family pub, the Leeside, in rural Ireland. Kee has been staunchly overprotective of Siobhan ever since her mother's death, but now that she's an adult, it's clear that in protecting her, Kee has unwittingly kept her in a state of arrested development. The pair are content to remain forever in their quiet haven, reading and discussing Irish poetry, but for both Siobhan and Kee, fate intervenes. A visiting American literary scholar awakens Siobhan to the possibility of a fulfilling life away from the Leeside. In the face of these changes, Siobhan reaches a surprising decision about her future.
Edward Rutherfurd says, "In its hauntingly evocative Irish setting, this is a book suffused with poetry--real poetry. It is a book of awakenings of every kind, and of moving surprises. Like all good stories, as this local tale unfolds it becomes universal."
And Katie Noah writes in Shelf Awareness: "Quiet, lyrical and sprinkled with verses of the Irish poetry Siobhan loves, Girl on the Leeside is a slim, beautiful debut about one woman taking her place in the world."
Former Wauwatosa resident Kathleen Anne Kenney is an author, freelance writer, and playwright. Her writing has appeared in Big River, Coulee Region Women, and Ireland of the Welcomes. Her play New Menu was a winner in the 2012 Rochester Repertory Theatre's national short-play competition. She is currently at work on a novel based on her 2014 stage play, The Bootleg Blues.
Thursday, August 17, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Kathy Flanigan, author of Beer Lover's Wisconsin: Best Breweries, Brewpubs and Beer Bars
It looks like we're cutting it very close for Beer Lover's Wisconsin. The books may not arrive in time, but we're going to host the program anyway.
Quality beer producers are popping up all over the nation, but you don't have to travel far to taste great beer. Some of the best stuff is brewing right in your home state. Beer Lover's Wisconsin features breweries, brewpubs, and beer bars statewide for those seeking the best beers the Badger State has to offer - from bitter, citrusy IPAs to rich, complex stouts.
Written by a beer expert, Beer Lover's Wisconsin covers the entire beer experience for the local enthusiast and the traveling drinker alike, including information on breweries and beer profiles with tasting notes, must-visit brewpubs and beer bars, top annual festivals and events, and city pub crawl itineraries with maps.
Kathy Flanigan is a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and TapMilwaukee.com, for which she covers the region’s craft-beer community.
Monday, August 21, 7:00 pm, at Boswell: Micro & Memoir, Poetry & Prose: Robert Vaughan, author of Funhouse, Ben Tanzer, author of Be Cool, Caitlin Scarano, author of Do Not Bring Him Water, and Lee L. Krecklow, author of The Expanse Between
Poetry: Caitlin Scarano is from Milwaukee, at least for now, where she is completing a PhD in poetry. She has an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was the winner of the 2015 Indiana Review Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in the Best New Poets 2016 and The Best Small Fictions 2016 anthologies. Her new collection, Do Not Bring Him Water, focuses on the lines that separate life’s clashing dualities and how delicious and dangerous it can be to walk them.
Boswell presents an evening with Augustus Rose, the first novelist whose debut was named an Indies Introduce title by the American Booksellers Association. Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, 17-year-old Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the facade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all.
We’ve had four great reads on The Readymade Thief, with our buyer Jason calling it “such a great journey!” and Boswellian Kay praising it as “a very unusual, totally engaging thriller.” In addition, Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore wrote: "The Readymade Thief is my favorite kind of book: an improbable one. The novel is a map of things--urban exploration, secret societies, the city of Philadelphia, Marcel Duchamp, very possibly the Home Alone movies--and if those things don't seem to fit together, well, that's the magic of the improbable book, and the transmutation of obsessions, by energy and intellect, into something wholly new: a novel that's unexpected, uncategorizable, unputdownable."
Adam Morgan writes in Chicago Magazine that The Readymade Thief is one of the best novels of the year from a Chicago writer. From his profile: "Augustus Rose has seen a lot of weird stuff. Driven by an obsession with hidden secrets, the University of Chicago professor has climbed through city drainage tunnels, snuck into Roman necropolises, and explored abandoned islands off the coast of Maine. But the strangest thing he’s ever seen hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: a giant, inexplicable sculpture called The Large Glass by the father of 'readymade' art, Marcel Duchamp."
Augustus Rose is a novelist and screenwriter. He was born in the northern California coastal town of Bolinas, and grew up there and in San Francisco. Rose teaches fiction writing at the University of Chicago.
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← Exploring Mallorca — Magaluf
How to Kill Fear For Life : Try A Bungy Jump From Macau Tower! →
In this article I will continue describing Mallorca. Today is time for capital of the island, Palma de Mallorca. The previous article was about the major holiday resort Magaluf.
Palma de Mallorca is the major city and port on the island of Mallorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. Its airport, Son Sant Joan, serves over 22 million passengers each year. The major touristic attraction is La Seu,also known as the Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma :
It is a Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral, built on the site of a pre-existing Arab mosque. It is 121 metres long, 55 metres wide and its nave is 44 metres tall. Designed in the Catalan Gothic style but with Northern European influences, it was begun by King James I of Aragon in 1229 but finished only in 1601. It sits within the old city of Palma atop the former citadel of the Roman city, between the Royal Palace of La Almudaina and the episcopal palace. It also overlooks the Parc de la Mar and the Mediterranean Sea.
Another famous historical place is Royal Palace of La Almudaina :
Having been built as an Arabian Fort, it was claimed as official royal residence in the early 14th century. Inside it has many empty rooms, however, when King James II began restoration, his design plan included the encompassing of the small, romanesque Chapel of Saint Anne. It stands opposite the dramatic Palma Cathedral with commanding views over the Bay of Palma. Nowadays the King uses it as official residence for ceremonies and State receptions.
Shortly about Palma :
Area (total) : 213,55 km²
Population (2012) : 407.648
Official languages : Mallorcan ( similar to the Catalan), Spanish
Enjoy the large gallery from Palma de Mallorca, which covers deeply the Cathedral, the Royal Palace of La Almudaina and city center.
Запись опубликована в рубрике Mallorca, Spain, Travelling с метками Capilla de Santa Ana, La Seu, Mallorca, Palma Cathedral, Palma de Mallorca, Royal Palace of La Almudaina, Spain, Travelling. Добавьте в закладки постоянную ссылку.
http://www.kartinka.net Alexander Shapalov
Отличный обзор! Спасибо!
http://twitter.com/Ipatov_Chess Alexander Ipatov
Стараюсь,Сань!
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← Before the Interstates
Submitted without correction →
Today in earth science
Saturday, 06 July 2019 09:40:02 CDT David-Braverman General, Geography, Weather (0)
We woke up in the US to two major stories about the planet, one with a short-term effect and the other with a long-term effect.
The acute problem: a 7.1 mw earthquake in central California caused only minor damage and no fatalities because it happened in the middle of nowhere. But people reported feeling it from Phoenix to Sacramento:
Southern California was jolted by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake at 8:19 p.m. on Friday one day after the region was hit by a 6.4 quake, the USGS reports.
The epicenter was 10.5 miles away from Ridgecrest, Calif., and there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. According to the USGS, the quake was felt as far north as San Jose and as far south as parts of Mexico.
Thursday's quake struck at 10:33 a.m., and was the largest temblor to strike the region in 20 years, until Friday night. According to the USGS, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake is 11 times stronger than the 6.4 earthquake.
Meanwhile, parts of Alaska got up to 32°C Thursday, breaking records and (probably) allowing methane to leak from melting permafrost farther north:
At 5 p.m. local time Thursday, Anchorage reached 32°C for the first time in the state’s recorded history, topping the previous record set at Anchorage International Airport of 29°C on June 14, 1969.
Kenai and King Salmon, Alaska, both hit a new all-time high temperature record of 31.7°C, according to the National Weather Service. The previous high in Kenai was 30.6°C on June 26, 1953 and June 18, 1903. Palmer, Alaska, reached 31°C, matching its previous record of 31°C on May 27, 2011.
The state has been battling several wildfires, with a dense smoke advisory in effect until noon local time on Saturday for the interior Kenai Peninsula, including the cities of Kenai, Soldotna, Homer,and Cooper Landing, the National Weather Service said. Smoke from the Swan Lake fire will reduce visibility to a quarter mile or less at times, the weather service said, with the worst conditions taking place overnight through the morning hours.
Wildfires, particulates, subliming methane gas...yeah, even though the earthquake has gotten more press today, the heat in Alaska actually matters more.
Tags : Science, Climate change, Summer
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We woke up in the US to two major stories about the planet, one with a short-term effect and th
Earth's rotation slowed and earthquakes are expected
Scientists have found a correlation (but, crucially, not a causation) between the earth's rotation s
Bias in science?
Two stories today about science, one implicitly about how money influences reported outcomes, and an
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A Painting of the Carboniferous Period
The Carboniferous Period of 345 Million Years Ago is the subject of this painting, by renowned paleo-artist, Josef Moravec, whose oil paintings of ancient sea life and dinosaur pictures are recognized as some of the finest representations of prehistoric life by Museums of Natural History throughout Europe and the United States. Prints of this painting, a vivid depiction of the shark-like Xenacantus decheni and other denizens of the ancient seas during the Carboniferous Period are available, along with many more prints and dinosaur pictures by this artist. Josef Moravec’s love and extensive study of prehistoric life and paleontology led to his creation of accurate and beautiful dinosaur paintings and drawings of the time when dinosaurs ruled the unspoiled Earth and enormous prehistoric sea creatures dominated the oceans and inland seas.
The name Carboniferous means coal bearing, and it is named that because that is when the major coal beds were formed across the globe. In regards to North America, the early Carboniferous Period is sometimes divided into two geological periods; the earlier part called the Mississippian, the latter referred to as the Pennsylvanian.
In the oceans, marine life was becoming more sophisticated; the sharks and their relatives like Xenacantus decheni were the predominant fish of these ancient seas, and are the primary subject of this accurate oil painting. Some of the sharks had piercing teeth, while others had crushing teeth that they used to eat shellfish and crustaceans of the time. Fresh water fish were abundant as well. Marine invertebrates were widespread and varied.
Life was becoming well established on land at this point in time, with the arthropod’s development continuing. Today, members of the arthropods that we are familiar with would include insects, spiders and crustaceans, the word itself meaning “jointed leg”. Essentially, they are invertebrates with jointed limbs, segmented bodies and exoskeletons. The closest animal to the ancient, extinct ones that we would see today would be the horseshoe crab. It is estimated that arthropods make up over 80% of today’s known living animal species.
Four legged amphibians (tetrapods) were quite common by the middle of the Carboniferous period. Some were as large as 6 meters (over 19 feet), and had scaly skin, while it was more common for the various amphibians to be smaller, probably about 6 inches long and to be smooth skinned. Towards the end of this period, the huge rain forests that had dominated the earth suddenly collapsed, because of a major shift in climate to a cooler, drier climate, which slowed the development of amphibians to a great degree and favored the development of strictly land dwelling reptiles, whose eggs were better suited to this less humid world. As for the terrestrial plant life, they were primitive, but huge members of the fern and moss families, along with early coniferous trees that appeared in the drier, later part of this period.
As for the earth itself, the Carboniferous period was a time of continental shifting, collision and mountain building. The climate changed several times, glaciers formed and receded, and sea levels rose and fell.
Because of the authenticity of the images and colors of these paintings, the impact of them is quite striking. Not only are they decorative - they are also educational.
By Dinosaur Corporation @ 2:48 PM
Dinosaur Party Decorations
For people with have small children, they will know that birthday parties can be difficult and stressful. Many people could find themselves scratching their heads trying to think of something unique and different to do for their child. Picking a party theme can be a great way to excite the children and make organizing a party easier on the parents.
Dinosaurs are a big favorite among many children, particularly younger children, and so picking a dinosaur theme could be a great idea for a birthday party. Stocking up on dinosaur party decorations can make this job so much easier. Parents could make a list of decorations that they might need for their child's dinosaur birthday party. This makes it easier to plan and execute the best themed childrens birthday party.
For a proper themed birthday party for children, you can get all the dinosaur party decorations you might need. The devil is in the detail and so parents should make sure that they have all the small supplies for their party. The very first thing any parent considering this idea is going to have to think about is invitations. Party invitations with a dinosaur theme are a great way to enhance the anticipation of the children before the event.
Once the invitations are sent out, parents can start thinking about decorating the house or party venue and turning it into a dinosaur paradise. It's a good idea to cover the party table with a dinosaur themed tablecloth, and then comes the art of decorating the table. Dinosaur party decorations are available that include dinosaur napkins, cups, plates and colorful plastic cutlery. For a final finishing touch to the dinosaur party table, a dinosaur centerpiece could be included. This would be a small display including miniature models of dinosaurs, possibly in a scenario.
There are even dinosaur shaped candles to liven up any birthday cake.
Now that the main party table is set, what about the rest of the room? There are plenty of big dinosaur shaped balloons available to spice up any dinosaur party. Perhaps the most exciting party thing you could add to your party are life-size, realistic cardboard cut-outs of some of the most famous dinosaurs in history, such as the velociraptor and the T-Rex. Why not include pictures of the party goers with these fun cut-outs in some matching dinosaur thank-you notes?
To add a final touch to the preparations, dinosaur party hats are available. Not to mention, dinosaur masks, drinking straws, cake molds and much more. Sticking to the dinosaur theme doesn't need to stop at the decorations. Also available is dinosaur shaped candy that is sure to make those kids very happy.
By Dinosaur Corporation @ 11:39 PM
Dinosaur Birthday Party Favors
If a child wants a dinosaur themed birthday party, what are their parents to do? Where do they find dinosaur party favors? What party favors do they get?
A dinosaur themed birthday party is quite popular with children; therefore, there are many different options available for planning such a party. A parent can find many different dinosaur party favors online or at many different department stores. But keep in mind that one can save time, gasoline and trouble by doing their shopping for this big event. Another big plus to shopping online is that all of the decor items can be chosen from one design, so that all of it will match perfectly.
A great way to start the event off is to send out dinosaur themed party invitations. These can be handmade with the help of the birthday child, or they can be store-bought. Dinosaur invitations come in many different styles, so the parent can plan the invitation any way they or their child would like. A dinosaur invitation is also great to let the children invited know what the party is going to be like and what they can expect.
For the party itself, parents can go all out with everything dinosaur, or they can do a partially themed party. Parents can get plates, napkins, plastic ware, cups, table clothes and the cake, among other things, all with a dinosaur theme. They can decorate their home with dinosaur balloons, banners, even stand ups shaped like different dinosaurs to make their home feel like it is in the age of dinosaurs. The cutout stand ups are also great for taking pictures of the children who attended, posing with the lifelike dinosaurs, to enclose in the dinosaur thank you notes.
Now what to do once the children get there? There are dinosaur-themed games the children can play. These are great in that it will entertain the children while being educational, too. The parents, along with the child can make little dinosaur themed gift bags for the children to take home, which can include coloring books, crayons, tattoos, stickers, erasers among other things, all dinosaur themed. Parents can also give out prizes to the winners of the dinosaur games such as dinosaur masks, dinosaur kites or the dinosaur stand ups that were used for decoration. The children can wear masks of their favorite dinosaur; another idea is placing a dinosaur toy on top of cupcakes served at the party.
As mentioned, there are many, many different options and ideas a parent can do in planning a dinosaur themed birthday party, and many different dinosaur party favors available for whatever the parent plans, from every little detail being dinosaur themed to just the cake being dinosaur themed. There are party favors available that are suitable for however extravagant the parent and child want to make the party, and to be entertaining and memorable for everyone involved.
Dig Those Crazy Dinosaur Bones
Dinosaurs are some of the oldest known animals to ever walk the earth. Some were very massive creatures that towered over treetops but ate only plants, and others were predators that were not quite as huge, but were fierce and able hunters. They became extinct millions of years ago, but their fossil remains are left to testify that they were real. Just knowing how important these creatures were, and the importance of learning about their extinction can fascinate your kids for a lifetime. There is no better way to teach small children about dinosaurs than to throw a dinosaur dig party that is fun and educational.
Do you have children that just love dinosaurs? You should try finding dinosaur dig party supplies that show your children just how exciting being a paleontologist on their very first dig would be. Toy dinosaurs, replicas of real dinosaur bones, books about dinosaurs, and even dinosaur party supplies will make an exciting, full-of-fun dinosaur party for your child; one they will love and never forget. There are companies on the Internet that specialize in childrens dinosaur education material. Finding an on-line company that sells dinosaur-related supplies for a child’s party can save you time, gasoline and frustration. Not only will all the party cups, plates, napkins match and coordinate perfectly, but in all likelihood, you will save money by ordering online. Some companies even offer free gifts with your purchase, depending on the amount of your order. One company even offered a free piñata that coordinated with their dino party supplies!
Your dinosaur party will benefit the other children who are invited. Your child's friends will be excited about having a chance to learn about dinosaurs and to experience a dinosaur dig party. They are taught in school about dinosaurs from a very young age, and there are so many movies and television shows that include dinosaurs as main characters.
To set up one of these digs is a fairly easy thing, and even easier if you already have a sandbox in your backyard. But if you don’t, play sand is readily available at any home improvement store, usually in 40 lb. bags. If you don’t want to border the sand with landscape timbers to keep as a sandbox, place it in an area of your yard where it can just be raked into the lawn after the party.
There is a wealth of things available as dinosaur dig party supplies that you can bury in the sand for your budding paleontologists to discover, that the kids can keep as party favors. There are many different kinds of dinosaur and ice age mammal skeletons made of resin or plastic, some all in one piece and others that consist of separate bones that can be reassembled when found, as part of the game, which would be great if the children were a bit older, though you might want to stick with the whole ones if younger children are present. You might also want to get some polished gemstones or pieces of iron pyrite (fool’s gold) that would be thrilling for the children to uncover. You could either buy or make excavation kits for each child, that consist of a bag to store their discoveries, a small shovel and a brush to uncover the delicate fossils.
Children will remember these special parties. It’s never too early to awaken the love of learning, especially when you can turn it into fun.
Evolution Comes to Life with Cambrian Period Paintings and Illustrations
Dinosaurs have fascinated people of all ages for generations. These gigantic reptiles have been the focus of some of Hollywood's best loved films. From “Jurassic Park” to the slew of “Godzilla and King Kong” feature films, from the “Pete's Dragon” children's film to the ever loveable “Land Before Time” animated movie series, there is no lack of hunger to know more about these giant beasts that roamed the earth long ago. In addition, there are a host of wonderful theme books of so many children's stories that swirl with dragons and large lizard beasts such as “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Puff the Magic Dragon”. While there were many years of preliminary discoveries of the dinosaurs, recent discoveries now paint a much clearer picture of the phases of early life on earth.
With the advancement of Paleontology and the scientific discoveries of the last three decades, the understanding as well as the fascination about dinosaurs and the forms of life that preceded them has increased significantly. No longer are dinosaurs just the stuff of fantasy and fiction; the many newly found fossils have become a window into the history of life on the planet. But before the dinosaurs ruled the planet, life had to evolve in the sea to the point where it could exist on dry land. That is why the Cambrian Period is such an interesting time for paleontologists.
With the more recent discoveries, scientists now have good collections of fossils from different time periods, and great knowledge of the forms of life that preceded the dinosaurs. The Cambrian period pictures of fossil life show the beginning of defined life and the first forms of life that eventually evolved into those that could leave the seas and venture onto solid ground. The Cambrian Period, as it is known, occurred between 540 million years ago and 490 million years ago according to scientific radiocarbon dating. The Cambrian Period was a time of great evolutionary change on the planet. This geological time period has three stages and was the very beginning of substantive life on earth. The three stages are known as: the Early Cambrian period, the Middle Cambrian Period, and the Late Cambrian Period. It is during these 50 million years of the Cambrian Period that a great explosion of life occurred on the planet; much of it was smaller life forms. The larger life that evolved during this time were the beginnings of what are known as marine dinosaurs. In fact, life was teeming in the seas and the oceans all over the earth during the Cambrian Period.
Today, many science museums, science-oriented retail outlets, libraries and colleges have a wealth of information about this wonderfully exciting time on earth. In addition to their wealth of data, they also have wonderful paintings and illustrations of the living things on earth during the Cambrian period explosion. One of the better-known painters, Joseph Moravic has a series of classic Cambrian Period pictures that can be found in a variety of museums, colleges and libraries across the country. These paintings are great illustrations of living creatures of the time period, painted in a way that gives depth and concept to the fossils that have been discovered. The world has always been a fascinating place, and having windows to the past like Joseph Moravic’s paintings and illustrations help us connect with the wonderful history of our planet earth.
Dinosaur Corporation has an amazing selection of these magnificent and scientifically accurate works of art, like this Cambrian period art, and can supply you with all things prehistoric, from fossil replicas to cuddly woolly mammoth stuffed animals, not to mention everything you would need to throw a world class Jurassic birthday party.
An Artist’s View of the Ordovician Period
The Ordovician period represents a time in which primitive plant species and sea creatures multiplied and marine life became abundant. It was one of the stages of the Paleozoic era which was an era broken down into six different periods. The period also marks the end of the Cambrian era, which is called the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction.
The life that flourished is depicted through Ordovician period pictures, and many artists of today create these illustrations so that the world to see different aspects of that era. One of the animals that are commonly featured in Ordovician drawings are the nautiloids, which were squid-like creatures. Marine life was diverse during that period and most paintings capture the range of marine invertebrates that lived in the seas. Some of those invertebrates were brachiopods, graptolites and trilobites. Vertebrates are also drawn, which included the conodonts. Most of the pictures also capture the moisture and warmth that defined the atmosphere during that time.
Different kinds of stones can also be seen in paleontology art. Sandstone, shale, dolostone and limestone are carefully illustrated in an array of colors. Fossil imprints are engraved in most of these stones. Even though there was a lot of sea life in the Ordovician period, the waters started to become shallow as the era came to its end. This is why the stones and some land are depicted in paintings of this ancient time. Since the fossils are the only evidence of their existence, paleoartists strive to keep the memory of the animals mentioned alive.
Josef Moravec was captivated by the prehistoric era since his childhood, and his interest started with visits to museums, which had reassembled fossils and dioramas on display. The rarity of this era and part of nature, which is considered a world that existed before time, drove Moravec to start illustrating his imagined version of that world. He aimed to create depictions that would embody the true essence of the prehistoric world through a paleontologist's point of view. This can account for why he drew most of his inspiration from Zdenek Burian. Burian was also a paleoartist, and strove to depict such images with the same accuracy. Natural History Museums hold Moravec's works in great respect, and he has won awards throughout North America and Europe.
Moravec’s Ordovician period pictures are featured by museums across the world. Paleontology is a richer study from having these accurate, lifelike illustrations to refer to. Even though artists are known for having the gift of vivid imagination, these paintings on paleontology are backed by extensive research and a passion to present those findings to the world.
Dinosaur Corporation has an amazing selection of these magnificent and scientifically accurate works of art, and can supply you with all things prehistoric, from fossil replicas to cuddly woolly mammoth stuffed animals, not to mention everything you would need to throw a world class Jurassic birthday party.
Decorating With Dinosaurs
Decorating a child’s bedroom or playroom with colorful murals gives the room a beautiful design and also stimulates the child’s creativity and imagination. There are many different types of murals out there including some that are designed to be purchased and placed on a wall as easily as if they were wallpaper. Children love all sorts of designs, but perhaps none is more popular and timeless than dinosaurs.
Dinosaur wall murals can make your child’s room seem as wild and free as ancient times before humans roamed the earth. Kids love these prehistoric creatures and having them on their walls will make children want to stay and play in their room all day.
Josef Moravec is an artist who focuses primarily on creating art depicting these prehistoric creatures in a realistic and scientifically accurate manner. He has created a serious of dinosaur wall murals that will lighten up any playroom or bedroom. The murals depict various different species of dinosaurs in a variety of scenes so you will be sure to find ones that complement the room you are decorating. They are incredibly detailed murals so you can rest assured that you won’t be posting something cheap and tacky in your home. Best of all, these dinosaur murals are designed in such a way that you can reuse them again and again. They are easy to peel off walls if you decide to move them or when your little child grows up. Some of the murals you can choose include just a single dinosaur so if there is a particular species that your child likes you can select that particular one. These murals are large enough so that a single dinosaur will take up a room’s door, for example. You can also choose scenes with many different types of dinosaurs present.
The murals are available in a wide array of different shapes and sizes as well. There are murals that are basically strips. You can use these to border the walls or accent the doorways. Some the murals are designed in such a way so that they appear to be optical allusions. One mural shows a tyrannosaurus rex breaking through the walls of the room. Any fearless child would love it. Other murals make it appear as if the dinosaurs are outside the child’s windows. This has a neat effect and will definitely stimulate a child’s imagination. You can also get a mural that can be divided into several different pieces. You will then be able to place these around the room for maximum effect.
To see more about these wonderful murals, click here. Dinosaur Corporation is a fantastic site for all things prehistoric, from fossil replicas and fine art to a complete line of Jurassic party supplies
Great Ideas for Dinosaur Birthday Cakes & Treats
While store bought cakes are convenient, and the decorations on them may be showy, let’s face it; Mom’s cake and icing ALWAYS tastes a whole lot better. You’re probably thinking “Oh, sure, fine for you to say, but I’m no great cake decorator, and I want this to look pretty!”
Making a beautiful cake your self for a “Jurassic” birthday party has gotten a whole lot easier. Take a look at the Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus and T-Rex pans that are offered at Dinosaur Corporation. Making the cake your self would be very little challenge, and they give you the perfect shape and outline to make a great dinosaur shaped cake on your own, and since you’ll own the pan, making dino shaped cakes in the future will be a breeze and a real treat to your dino birthday boy or girl in days to come. There are even cake toppers that would make it simple to decorate your homemade sheet cake with an easy-to-duplicate design pictured on their page. These dinosaur cake toppers are 5-6” dino skeletons and would make a nice addition to a dinosaur collection after the party is done. Other sets of brightly colored dinosaur cake toppers are also available in sets of six. Don’t overlook the dinosaur-shaped candles in primary colors that would just need a curvy blue river and maybe a palm tree as company to make a colorful, attractive and exciting cake.
And if you’re thinking of going with the recent trend of birthday cupcakes instead of one big cake, Dinosaur Corporation has you covered! Check out their dinosaur party page – they have cupcake toppers and baking cups. That would make having cupcakes instead of cake an easy option. You might also think about using some of the smaller plastic party favor dinos as decorations for the cupcakes that the party goers can keep as gifts when they’re done eating their cupcakes.
Dinosaur Corporation also offers an 11” flexible silicone mold with eight different dinosaur figures that would make great little dino-shaped cakes or even be good for making those Jell-O Jigglers that kids love so much. There is also a very cool set of dinosaur shaped cookie cutters that would make other luscious Jurassic birthday treats. Get the whole family involved decorating them before the big event!
There are so many exciting party ideas here at Dinosaur Corporation. The selection of items to make your Jurassic birthday party unforgettable is absolutely amazing. In articles to come, look for some awesome tips on dinosaur party decorations. They have everything from piñatas to party favors to huge lifelike cardboard cutouts your party goers can pose with for cool pictures that would be great to enclose with the Jurassic thank you notes.
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The Idealogical Immune System : Resistance to New Ideas in Science
The following is from an article published by Sceptic Magazine and authored by Jay Stuart Snelson. I couldn't find a link but the original was published in Sceptic magazine, volume 1, number 4 so I am pasting it here verbatim so that I can link to it because I think it is such an important article.
The Ideological Immune System:
Resistance to New Ideas in Science
by Jay Stuart Snelson
As our biological immune system protects our bodies from an invasion of foreign agents and pathogens, so does our ideological immune system protect our minds from an invasion of foreign ideas and doctrines. The history of the creation and disclosure of scientific ideas shows us that the more important, profound, and revolutionary a new idea, the more likely educated, intelligent, successful adults will resist understanding and accepting those new ideas. All of us have one: Our ideological immune system resists acceptance of any new ideas that would overturn any of our old basic ideas. Science is forever forging outrageous heresies that rock the boat of convention. It is the nature of science to give birth to foreign ideas that are alien to our sheltered ways of thinking. Should we allow our ideological immune systems to protect us? Or can we somehow suppress our ideological immune systems and embrace those ideas that are new and revolutionary. Do we have a choice, and if so, can science guide our choice?
For more than three centuries, the scientific method has been a peerless engine of discovery and invention. But no matter how profound the discovery or useful the invention, such advances are powerless to enrich humanity until their worth can be demonstrated to an influential audience. The history of science and technology is a record of the futility of new discovery and new invention without an influential backer to herald their worth. People are prone to value those things they are taught to value: the conventional and the familiar. Thus, new discovery needs a defender; new invention needs a champion.
Discovery and invention are often greeted as unwelcome intruders because they inaugurate new truth through new explanations of causality. A new truth may be seen as a new threat. Those threatened by new truth may ignore the truth, hide the truth, distort the truth, destroy the truth, or reject the truth to gain some perceived or real advantage. Those who attack, however, the most confirmed and verified truths, may not always do so out of fear. Their assault upon truth may be motivated by high ideals and a zeal for the preservation of some — as they perceive it — greater truth.
As the methods of science reward us with better explanations of causality, they give birth to new paradigms built on new validated truths. We are not surprised when these new truths are attacked by those who fear the advance of science or who, for an array reasons, may hold the scientist and his science in contempt. But we are stunned when those who honor science and its achievements (who may even earn their bread within the realm of science) attack the most verified and confirmed scientific truths. This is a curious aberration that demands an explanation.
The #1 Killer of Man
The short history of microbiology has given science an amazing account of an epic quest for truth that reveals the weakness of truth when it is without a successful champion. This pursuit of truth was aimed at discovering the causal factors that for thousands of years had given lethal vitality to the number-one killer of man. The search for the greatest mystery killer and the deadliest destroyer of human life since the Middle Ages, ended at the beginning of the 20th Century. And when the number-one killer of man was finally identified, no one would believe it.
The men who finally solved this profound mystery made a salient claim: this mysterious killer is a flying insect. The male is harmless, but the female bites into her victim to drink her victim’s blood. At the same time she injects her victim with “venom,” inducing a fever so agonizing that the victim craves only death. At the turn of the century, this explanation of causality sounded so bizarre that no one took it seriously. Indeed, if you replace the flying insect with a flying bat, it echoes Bram Stoker’s gory tale of the blood sucking vampire in his 1897 mystery novel, Dracula.
(the yellow-fever mosquito)
Today these flying insects are taken seriously. They are identified in biology as Aedes aegypti (the yellow-fever mosquito) and her lethal cousin Anopheles (the malaria mosquito) As recently as the 1940s and 1950s, the Anopheles mosquito, by injecting her victims with malaria, caused the deaths of some three million people each year for 20 years. This adds up to a staggering sixty million deaths from malaria during just two decades (Nielsen 1979, pp. 428, 436). This grave statistic does not even include the millions of deaths caused by mosquito transmitted yellow fever.
“That Can’t be the Cause”
As essential as it is to scientific progress to apply scientific methods to identify causality, finding the correct identification alone is not enough to convince others that a new and superior explanation of causality has been found. Even when we have turned to science to understand the causes of those effects we most like and dislike, the struggle to understand causality and, thereby, optimize scientific progress has come in two steps. Each step involves solving an entirely different problem.
OPTIMIZING SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS (STEP ONE):
The true cause of any physical, biological, or social effect that we like or dislike must be correctly (scientifically) identified.
Where the aim is to optimize scientific progress, the importance of step one cannot be overstated. Grasping the correct understanding of causality is crucial, and yet, it is commonly overlooked, disregarded, or simply not taken into consideration in the first place. But even when step onehas been taken and the scientific evidence is overwhelming that the cause of a certain effect has been correctly identified, that is only part of the solution. In general, this new knowledge cannot be applied for the benefit of society untilstep twohas been taken:
OPTIMIZING SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS (STEP TWO):
Once the true cause of any effect that we like or dislike has been correctly identified, the identifier must convince others of its correctness when nearly everyone believes something else is the cause (usually the conventional explanation).
This second step toward the optimization of scientific progress is always a formidable problem to solve. It is often a step that must be taken along a path that is strewn with more hazards and pitfalls than the first step. Whenever the methods of science are applied to discover a new explanation of the causes of a certain effect, this implies there is now some old explanation of the causes of that effect. Those who have believed in the correctness of this older explanation of causality will not be quick to give up their belief. It is not merely some of them or many of them who will cling to the older explanation of causality — it is almost all of them, especially if they perceive themselves to be educated, intelligent, or successful. The central question to be answered here is why are people (especially, if they are educated, intelligent, and successful) inclined to cling to old and unsupported ideas of causality, when they could embrace new and supported ideas of causality? The answer is important. In this regard, here are three questions for the reader to consider:
How would you rate your ability to accept any new minor idea that has a preponderance of scientific evidence to support it?
(1) below average, (2) average, (3) above average.
How would you rate your ability to accept any new major idea that has a preponderance of scientific evidence to support it?
How would you rate your ability to accept any new revolutionary idea that has a preponderance of scientific evidence to support it?
Throughout four centuries of modern science, when scientific investigators have put forth new explanations of causality — especially if they were revolutionary explanations of causality — the most common response has been: “That can’t be the cause!” This is not to say that every new explanation of causality has been, ipso facto, a better explanation of causality than the old explanation. Novelty is not the guarantor of a better idea. But more often than not, the new correct explanations of causality have been opposed with greater passion and vitriol than have been the new incorrect explanations of causality.
Carlos Finlay
This can be explained, in part, by examining the source of almost everyone’s fundamental beliefs on the causes of physical, biological, and social effects. What is the origin of the basic presuppositions, assumptions, and premises on causality (cause and effect) held by those people who perceive themselves to be educated, intelligent, or successful? When most people, upon hearing of a new scientific explanation of causality, have declared, “That can’t be the cause,” how did they arrive at this assertion? If all of the inputs that led to their respective assertions could be traced back to their sources, most commonly they would include: The book said, “That can’t be the cause.” My professor professed, “That can’t be the cause.” The authorities ruled, “That can’t be the cause.” Everyone says, “That can’t be the cause.” The experts agree, “That can’t be the cause.” Common sense tells me, “That can’t be the cause.” My intuition tells me, “That can’t be the cause.” I have a strong feeling, “That can’t be the cause.” Or some combination of these.
When new scientific explanations of causality have been observationally confirmed and verified, most people who have rejected these new explanations of causality have done so for no other reason than they differed with the old explanations. In general, people accept either what the old authorities claim are the correct explanations of causality or what their intuition tells them are the correct explanations. This common approach to understanding causality causes much misunderstanding. When the individual’s only means of identifying causality is based upon either authority or intuition, then a common effect is the acceptance of many misidentifications of causality. All misidentifications of causality present distortions of reality that lead to miseducation.
The misidentification of causality can be catastrophic. The incredible difficulty of tracking down the greatest mystery killer of all time — the mosquito — illustrates the awesome magnitude of such catastrophes.
Mosquitoes Attack Rome
Some historians claim the scourge of malaria was one of the factors leading to the collapse of the Roman Empire (Walker, 1955, p. 261). From the northern coast of Africa to the British Isles, malaria exacted its deadly toll across the expanse of the Empire. The Romans believed malaria was caused by the foul, gaseous, air that hovered around marshes, especially during warm weather. Our English word malaria is a contraction of the Italian mala aria meaning “bad air.” After the fall of pagan Rome, Christian Rome was no more secure from attack by malarian epidemics. During a conference of cardinals held at the Vatican Palace in 1623, eight cardinals and 30 secretaries were among many who were struck down and died of malaria (Walker, p. 262).
Malaria and yellow fever mosquitoes are tireless in their search for the blood of mammals and humans. Only the females suck blood, and the yellow fever mosquito has a special thirst for human blood to nourish her eggs. In their relentless search for human prey, the ever resourceful mosquitoes have flown aboard sailing ships to reach new lands and new victims. By this means, epidemics have quickly spread from port to port. (Until they arrived by ship in 1827, for example, there were no mosquitoes in the Hawaiian Islands.) The city of Philadelphia was hit with a yellow fever epidemic in 1793 that was reminiscent of a medieval plague. By the time the winter chill had throttled the epidemic, 4,044 Philadelphians were dead from yellow fever — one-tenth of the city’s population. Between 1793 and 1900, there were over a half million deaths from yellow fever recorded in the United States (Clark, 1961, p. 46). The effects of these epidemics were devastating, but what caused them? An army of experts were convinced they knew.
In the 19th century, medical experts believed yellow fever spread through the air from its source in sewage and the putrefaction of dead animals. In a similar way, experts believed that malaria spread through the air from poisonous marsh gas. By the beginning of the 20th century, this explanation of causality (for malaria) had been popular for several thousand years — since the time of the Romans and even earlier.
After thousands of years of misidentifying causality, an important step toward understanding this cause and effect relationship was taken by an American physician Josiah Clark Nott (1804–1873) who had a general practice in Mobile, Alabama. In 1848, Dr. Nott published a paper in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal in which he named various insects including mosquitoes as the probable carrier of both malaria and yellow fever. A major point of his argument was there were no known physical laws of gases that could account for the prevailing explanation for the spread of these diseases: by means of the transmission of poisonous vapors (“miasma”) rising from swamps (McCullough, 1977, p. 142). Nott reasoned, “…the morbific cause of Yellow Fever is not amenable to any of the laws of gases, vapors, emanations, etc., but has an inherent power to propagation, independent of the motions of the atmosphere, and which accords in many respects with the peculiar habits and instincts of Insects” (Chernin, 1983, p. 792). Nott’s biographer explains: “The main purpose of Nott’s article was to argue that the prevailing theory regarding malaria — that it arose from an emanation produced from the earth’s surface by decaying matter — was wholly inadequate to explain the propagation of yellow fever” (Horsman, 1987, l44). Today we know Nott was correct, but his novel explanation of the transmission of yellow fever and malaria was such a revolutionary departure from the old and accepted explanation that the important physicians of the time considered his explanation absurd (Walker, p. 269).
Nott’s conclusions were based upon years of scientific observation, but he did not offer controlled experimental evidence to prove that malaria and yellow fever are carried by infected mosquitoes. Nott presented his 1848 article on disease transmission a decade before Pasteur disclosed his germ theory. Nott’s novel conclusions might have been more influential if Pasteur’s germ theory had already gained acceptance. But revolutionary ideas are forever greeted as foreign ideas. When Pasteur introduced his revolutionary theories of disease transmission, they were backed by the full weight of experimental confirmation. Nevertheless, Pasteur’s irrefutable conclusions were callously ridiculed by physicians and scientists of his time. (Keim and Lumet, 1914, p. 114).
After Josiah Nott’s 1848 publication, thirty-three years marched by while the mosquitoes continued killing more victims. Then, in 1881, another important discovery was announced. A physician and epidemiologist, Dr. Carlos J. Finlay (1833–1915), had been conducting experiments in Havana, Cuba, aimed at identifying the cause of yellow fever. Every year since the founding of Havana more than three centuries earlier, the city had been hit with an epidemic of yellow fever.
Finlay reached the conclusion that the transmission of the deadly yellow fever is caused by the bite of a mosquito. Significantly, he held that it was not the bite of just any mosquito. This was an important breakthrough. There are some 3,000 different species and subspecies of mosquitoes (800 species were known in Finlay’s time), but only one of the 3,000 can transmit yellow fever from old victim to new victim. Dr. Finlay identified the specific killer mosquito as the female of the species Aedes aegypti. (It was not learned until many years later that “jungle yellow fever” is carried by certain other mosquito species.)
Finlay accomplished step one toward scientific progress. He correctly (scientifically) identified the true cause of the effect. The effect he identified the cause of is the vector or means of transmission of yellow fever. A superlative beginning, but if Finlay remained the only one who knew the true cause of the transmission of yellow fever, then the epidemics would continue to devastate the populace.
Step one, understanding causality, is an essential element of progress, but alone it’s power to advance progress is like that of an engine without fuel. The power is only potential; and potential power moves nothing. The missing element was step two: the identifier of causality must convince others of its correctness when nearly everyone believes something else is the cause.
Dr. Finlay would have to tell someone else of his discovery. His problem was how to convince the medical and health professionals that the mosquito transmitted yellow fever from old victim to new victim when everyone believed something else transmitted yellow fever. With this important goal in mind, Carlos Finlay journeyed to Washington, D.C. to attend the 1881 meeting of the International Sanitary Conference to disclose his findings. What presuppositions and premises did the physicians and health professionals at this conference hold on the transmission of disease?
The Germ Theory Delay
A decade earlier during the Franco-Prussian war, (1870–1871), the French chemist, Louis Pasteur, used his influence to encourage military surgeons to boil their scalpels and instruments and steam their bandages to kill germs as a practical means of preventing the spread of disease. The surgeons were skeptical. Germs can’t be the cause of disease, they said. Of the 13,173 amputations of arms, legs, fingers, and toes performed by the French Army during the war, 10,006 — more than three quarters — of these proved fatal to the amputees (Nuland, 1988, p. 373). Those few physicians, however, who did follow Pasteur’s advice obtained remarkable results that saved many lives. Gradually, over decades, the physicians (especially the younger ones) accepted Pasteur’s germ theory. One of Pasteur’s biographers relates: “When he [Pasteur] despaired at convincing his colleagues at the Academy [of Medicine], he would address, over their heads, the young physicians and students who attended the meetings” (Dubos, p. 74).
A central conclusion of the germ theory is that disease is a “contagion” (from the Latin contagionem meaning “a touching”) transmitted, directly or indirectly, by “touching” the diseased victim. The great Scottish surgeon, Joseph Lister (182–1912), after reading in 1865 Pasteur’s Memoire sur las fermentation apelee lactique (“Memorandum upon so called lactic fermentation,” 1857) got the idea of eliminating germs during surgery by applying carbolic acid to surgical instruments, dressings, and the surgeon’s hands. Between 1867 and 1869, Lister applied his new antiseptic techniques during 40 amputations. The results were startling: 34 of these amputees survived. Before Lister’s use of antiseptic surgery, most of his amputees died of postoperative infection. A high death rate had been the unhappy experience of other surgeons after performing amputations (Wood, 1948, p. 130). Lister’s development of antiseptic surgery was itself a revolution. In his February 13, 1874 letter to Pasteur, Lister showed his deep gratitude to his French colleague: “It would afford me the highest gratification to show you how greatly surgery is indebted to you.” In the same year, Pasteur was still trying to convince the surgeons at the French Academy of Medicine to sterilize their instruments with flame before using them in surgery (Vallery-Radot, 1920, pp. 238–240). Gradually the germ theory gained new adherents as it was embraced by younger students while its older detractors died out.
At the 1881 sanitary conference, Dr. Carlos J. Finlay read a scientific paper to the learned men of medicine and biology. His paper was entitled: “The Mosquito Hypothetically Considered as the Agent of the Transmission of Yellow Fever.” Because Finlay was speaking before the International Sanitary Conference, he was confronted with an immediate problem. To these conference members, sanitary meant the absence of all agents of infectious disease. The conference members had come to believe (or had been schooled to believe) that yellow fever is an infectious disease that is transmitted by one thing: POOR SANITATION!
Finlay explained that yellow fever is not a contagious or infectious disease. It is not transmitted by poor sanitation. It is not even transmitted by direct contact with the victim. Yellow fever, he said, is transmitted by the bite of a female Aedes aegypti (at this time named Stegomyia fasciata) mosquito. Finlay emphasized that you can be living in a completely sanitary environment, but if you are bitten by a mosquito infected with yellow fever, you will contract the disease (if you are not immune from an earlier attack). The learned gentlemen attending the sanitary conference agreed: The mosquito can’t be the carrier of yellow fever.
In 1881, this was a revolutionary idea on the cause of disease transmission. A revolutionary idea (both then and now) is an idea that is a great turnaround from an established idea. The history of scientific revolutions reveals that the greater the intellectual revolution, the greater the opposition to that revolution. Dr. Finlay was successful by 1881 with step one: He achieved a correct identification of causality. But at step two, when he tried to convince others, his explanation of causality was rejected. How serious was this rejection? For those who lived where yellow fever epidemics were routine, it was very serious. These medical experts rejected as absurd the scientifically precise identification of the true cause (vector) of the number-one killer of man. These experts were prevented by their ideological immune systems from accepting Finlay’s revolutionary explanation of causality just as the experts of a generation earlier were prevented from accepting Pasteur’s revolutionary explanations of causality.
The Mosquito Men
Meanwhile seventeen more years elapsed while the ubiquitous mosquitoes continued to torment more victims with lethal injections of yellow fever. In 1898, the American politicians pushed the American citizens into a war with Spain. The United States Army was ordered to invade the Spanish-held island of Cuba. During the invasion most of the Americans “killed in action” were not killed by Spanish bullets; they were killed by Cuban-based mosquitoes. Even the generals behind the lines were not safe. During the Cuban campaign, one third of the U.S. Army’s general staff died of yellow fever.
The loss of so many high ranking officers caught the attention of the generals in Washington. In 1900, the U.S. Army sent a commission to Havana to solve the yellow fever problem. Heading the Yellow Fever Commission was an army surgeon and bacteriologist, Major Walter Reed. His orders from the Surgeon General, George Sternberg, were: “Wipe it out, Major, before it destroys all of the American occupation force in Cuba, wipe it out if you can” (Dolan, 1962, p. 8).
Reed began the search for a solution with this fundamental question: What is the cause of this effect (yellow fever) that we dislike? In Havana, there was a European-trained physician who claimed he already had an answer to this question. Dr. Carlos Finlay explained to Dr. Walter Reed how the mosquito carries yellow fever from old victim to new victim. Finlay even gave Reed some tiny black eggs of Aedes aegypti and exclaimed to Major Reed, “these are the eggs of the criminal.” Reed’s response, in so many words, was the mosquito can’t be the cause.
The accepted medical wisdom of the time was that yellow fever is a contagious disease transmitted by direct contact with the victim or his clothing, bedding, or eating utensils. During epidemics, health authorities imposed rigid quarantines. Mail and freight were disinfected before delivery. Frightened people flung the clothing and bedding of victims into the streets where they were quickly consumed by great bonfires. Sometimes even the victims’ houses were incinerated in a futile effort to destroy what was thought to be the contagious agents (Nielsen, 1979, p. 436).
In 1898, the U.S. Army set up a yellow fever camp at the Cuban town of Siboney. Soon the yellow fever epidemic was spreading so rapidly throughout Siboney that in desperation the medical officer in charge of the camp, Major William Gorgas, ordered the entire village burned to the ground along with the valuable cache of medical supplies (McCullough, p. 413). All these frantic efforts to contain the spread of yellow fever failed because (as would be proven later) yellow fever is not contagious.
Walter Reed began his search for the cause of yellow fever with the presupposition that yellow fever is contagious. Reed and his staff of skilled researchers probed for a microbe that could be the contagious killer. Their microscopes revealed nothing capable of causing yellow fever. Reed made an exhaustive investigation of every possible causal factor he could think of, but the search was futile. He had pursued every avenue of inquiry except one: Test this novel and absurd idea of the Havana physician and epidemiologist, Carlos Finlay, that yellow fever is transmitted from old victim to new victim by the mere bite of a mosquito.
By this time, Reed and his staff had concluded that the carrier of yellow fever could be an insect. If it was an insect, it could be any one of thousands, the pursuit of which might elude them forever. Instead of taking on this immense task, Reed agreed to first test Finlay’s theory that the carrier of yellow fever was not only a specific insect the mosquito, but a specific species of mosquito: Aedes aegypti.
The testing of Finlay’s theory presented a formidable problem. It could not be tested with animals because animals cannot be given yellow fever. (Not until 1927 did researchers discover the rhesus monkey can contract yellow fever from the bite of an infected mosquito, Dolan, 1962, p. 190.) This meant experiments would have to be conducted to deliberately transmit yellow fever to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito. If Finlay had identified the true cause of the transmission of yellow fever, then these would be risky and dangerous experiments. Just how risky and dangerous? The statistical probability of surviving a yellow fever attack was not good. In 1898, two years before Reed’s investigations in Havana, a yellow fever epidemic struck Rio de Janeiro. The death rate of those stricken with yellow fever was 94.5%. Nearly every fever victim perished. In other yellow fever epidemics, a mortality rate of 85% was common. (During the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee, for example, people died faster than they could be buried. Those who were not too sick, fled the city in panic only to be refused help from their armed neighbors in the countryside. Ignoring the risk, an army of looters descended upon the deserted city. They ransacked businesses and dwellings from one end of Memphis to the other in search of riches that by then were guarded only by the dead and dying. Meanwhile, the promiscuous mosquitoes in search of fresh blood struck the looters as they had the townspeople. Many looters were felled by the fever and many died in agony still clutching their sacks of plunder [Dolan, pp. 28–29] ).
With full knowledge of the mortality rate of yellow fever victims, Reed conducted experiments designed to give his volunteers yellow fever. Fortunately, most of those who contracted yellow fever from the systematic bites of infected mosquitoes survived the ordeal. One who did not survive was a member of Reed’s own Yellow Fever Commission: Dr. Jesse William Lazear (1866–1900). (It is not known whether the lethal bite that killed Lazear was accidental or intentional.) Ironically, Dr. Lazear was the first member of the Yellow Fever Commission to believe in Finlay’s theory of mosquito transmission. His own death confirmed the truth of the theory that he had implored Reed to consider testing.
Walter Reed
Walter Reed’s carefully controlled and brilliantly conceived experiments proved conclusively that the carrier and transmitter of yellow fever was Aedes aegypti. In so doing, Reed also proved that Dr. Carlos Finlay (disparagingly named “the mosquito man” by his medical peers) was not a self-deluded crackpot after all. With this new understanding of causality, Reed tried to develop a safe vaccine for yellow fever. He tested his new vaccines on more volunteers, but the vaccines were not safe. Reed was not as fortunate with these last volunteers as he had been previously. Three of the seven volunteers who contracted yellow fever from these vaccines died of their fevers. Discouraged by these disastrous experimental failures, Reed gave up the search for a safe vaccine. There was only one apparent defense against yellow fever: kill Aedes aegypti before she launched another epidemic. This was no small task in 1900 before the development of effective chemical pesticides. This seemingly impossible assignment was given to Major William Crawford Gorgas (1854–1920). During the U.S. Army occupation of Cuba, Gorgas was the Chief Sanitary Officer. The difficulties were so formidable, even Reed is said to have told Gorgas, “It can’t be done” (McCullough, p. 415). With suggestions from Reed and Finlay along with ingenious inventions of his own, Gorgas, in just 90 days, led his men on a successful purge of Aedes aegypti throughout the city of Havana. The result was sensational. For the first time in three centuries, there was not one new case of yellow fever recorded in the city of Havana. The scientific evidence was now overwhelming: The mosquito was, without question, the carrier of yellow fever. Gorgas was given much attention for his victory over Aedes aegypti and the consequent defeat of yellow fever in Havana. By special act of Congress, he was promoted to Assistant Surgeon General of the United States.
In 1904, William Gorgas, now a colonel, was sent to Panama to become the Chief Sanitary Officer for the construction of the new American project to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. His assignment: Rid the Canal Zone of yellow fever and malaria.
Earlier a French company had spent six frustrating years attempting to build a sea level canal (without locks) across the Isthmus. From the very beginning there were so many deaths among workers and engineers from yellow fever and malaria that this became a major factor forcing the French to abandon their monumental project.
With the knowledge he had gained earlier, Gorgas formulated a plan to protect the canal employees from the deadly mosquitoes. He ordered protective screens to cover the windows of the worker’s living quarters. He requested men and equipment to drain swamps and dry up mosquito breeding grounds. Where swamps could not be drained, Gorgas ordered kerosene to be sprayed on the water’s surface to smother the mosquito larva. (American entomologist, Leland O. Howard, first suggested using this method of mosquito extermination in 1892.) Gorgas sent all these requests for the necessary men and supplies to the Isthmian Canal Commission in charge of building the canal. To his great dismay, something went wrong. The Canal Commissioners responded to Gorgas by ignoring his requests, or by rejecting his requests, or by drastically limiting the quantities of materials sent. In short, the Canal Commissioners refused to cooperate with Gorgas and his plans for mosquito control. The question for us to consider is why.
From the beginning of his assignment, Gorgas told the Commissioners that the men, equipment, and supplies he had requested were necessary to kill off the deadly mosquitoes. The Commissioners believed differently. They were certain Colonel Gorgas was wasting his time and government funds by chasing mosquitoes across the Isthmus when he should be attending to the sick and dying workers. Gorgas explained that the mosquitoes were the cause of the disease and the deaths. The Commissioners answered with confidence: Yellow fever and malaria are caused by men who live and work in filthy, unsanitary, conditions. They were positive the mosquitoes had nothing to do with the growing epidemics of yellow fever and malaria.
Ironically, there was one item requisitioned by Gorgas the canal commissioner filled without complaint: coffins! The commissioner supplied Gorgas with every coffin he ordered. They even sent him extras. He needed them (Dolan and Silver, 1968, p. 142).
Gorgas warned the Commissioners that if they refused to give him the men and supplies necessary to exterminate the mosquitoes, the canal workers would be vulnerable to an irrepressible epidemic. The Commissioners continued to ignore Gorgas and his warnings with devastating results. A raging epidemic of yellow fever and malaria hit the canal workers and engineers. Mosquitoes were killing workers faster than they could be replaced. The frightening number of deaths caused workers to quit in panic. Three quarters of the American workers fled the canal.
Once the Canal Commissioners finally realized the entire canal project was in jeopardy of floundering, they acted quickly. The Commissioners sent urgent appeals to Washington to fire Gorgas. In their communications, they accused Gorgas of being an incompetent health officer, and blamed him for the ruinous spread of yellow fever and malaria.
In Washington, President Theodore Roosevelt was advised by the Secretary of War and other important officials to dismiss Gorgas. Roosevelt hesitated. The canal was his cherished project and he wanted to make the right decision. He wrote for advice to Dr. William H. Welch, Dean of Johns Hopkins Medical School. Welch advised that “no one else is as well qualified to conduct this work as the present incumbent, Dr. Gorgas.” Still hesitant, Roosevelt sought guidance from a close personal friend, Dr. Alexander Lambert, who told him, “Mr. President, upon what you decide depends whether or not you are going to get your canal. If you fall back upon the old methods of sanitation, you will fail, just as the French failed. If you back up Gorgas and his ideas and let him make his campaign against mosquitoes, then you get your canal” (Gorgas and Hendrick, 1924, pp. 198–201).
Roosevelt issued an immediate order to the Canal Commission to give their complete cooperation to Colonel Gorgas in the execution of his duties as Chief Sanitary Officer (Dolan and Silver, 1968, p. 168). Under orders from the President — but still with great reluctance — the Canal Commissioners provided Gorgas with all of the men, equipment, and supplies he had requested in the first place. Gorgas, understanding causality, wasted no time in marshaling his men, equipment, and supplies for the successful purge of malaria and yellow fever mosquitoes throughout the working and living areas of the Canal Zone. No surprise to Gorgas, the fatal epidemics ended and the Canal Commissioners built their grand monument to science and engineering: the Panama Canal.
There are important lessons to be learned from the sequence of problems that had to be solved that led ultimately to the identification of the true causes of yellow fever and malaria, and the effective utilization of this new knowledge. Whether the realm of knowledge concerns physical action, biological action, or human action, when the goal is to optimize some major positive goal or to optimize the solution, then five sequential problems must be solved.
The first problem was identified two thousand years ago by the Roman poet Ovid, when he proclaimed: “The cause is hidden, but the effect is known.” Our fellow humans show exceptional ability when they are asked to identify all of the myriad physical, biological, and social effects they either like or dislike. They like good health and dislike disease. They like prosperity and dislike poverty. They like peace and dislike war. They like freedom and dislike slavery. The growing tally of effects that good people like and dislike is endless. As Ovid says, the effects are known. But what about their respective causes? Can they be easily identified?
UNDERSTANDING CAUSALITY, PROBLEM ONE: The true causes of the physical, biological, and social effects people most like and dislike are almost always hidden from view.
The cause of malaria remained hidden from view for thousands of years after that disliked effect was first observed. The cause of yellow fever remained hidden from view for hundreds of years after that even more feared and disliked effect was first noticed in the 15th Century. After Reed’s research proved the mosquito was the carrier of yellow fever, the actual infective agent that enters the blood stream of the victim through the bite of the mosquito was still hidden from view. Reed and his staff made a relentless microscopic search for the specific agent, but they never found it. As it turned out, they never could have observed it. Their optical microscopes (the best available at the time) were not powerful enough to see the causal agent. It was not until the development of the electron microscope in the 1930s by Vladimir Zworykin, James Hillier and others that the yellow fever virus was finally observed.
UNDERSTANDING CAUSALITY, PROBLEM TWO: Humans almost always misidentify the causes of the physical, biological, and social effects they most like and dislike.
There are few biological effects in history that have been more disliked than yellow fever and malaria. Before the rise of modern science, the “wrath of God” took the brunt of the blame. The Greek physician Hippocrates (460?–377? B.C.), author of the oath of fidelity (Hippocratic oath) still affirmed by modern physicians, claimed that malaria was caused by the drinking of stagnant water (Walker, p. 262). The French word for malaria, paludisme, means “marsh fever.” The belief that poisonous marsh gases and vapors caused malaria prevailed for thousands of years. Yellow fever, it was believed, was caused by putrefaction, and after the popularization of Pasteur’s germ theory in the second half of the 19th Century, that it was caused by poor sanitation. Others were convinced yellow fever and malaria were visited upon those with loose morals. Those who gambled in casinos, frolicked in brothels, or swilled sauce in saloons were believed to be the most vulnerable due to their moral decay.
UNDERSTANDING CAUSALITY, PROBLEM THREE: Because progress is built upon a correct (scientific) identification of the causes of physical, biological, and social effects, the problem is how to attain a correct identification of the causes of these effects.
Walter Reed employed the methods of science to identify and prove that the Aedes aegypti mosquito is the causal factor in the transmission of yellow fever. Two years earlier the British physician, Ronald Ross (1857–1932), employed the same methods of science to identify and prove that the Anopheles mosquito was the causal factor in the transmission of malaria. The grand solution to problem three is to apply a scientific approach to the identification of causality.
Significant progress toward the protection of men, women, and children from the effects of yellow fever and malaria could not (and did not) take place until the cause of the transmission of these diseases was correctly identified.
UNDERSTANDING CAUSALITY, PROBLEM FOUR: There must be someone with the resolve to continue pursuing the correct identification of the causes of the physical, biological, and social effects they like or dislike until the correct identification is attained.
Walter Reed possessed the will to continue in pursuit of a difficult goal (the identification of the yellow fever vector) and to overcome much failure and great discouragement until success was achieved. Before Reed, Dr. Finlay had the same resolve. Finlay failed to prove the correctness of his own mosquito theory, in part, because he was experimenting with animals all of which were immune to yellow fever. When Finlay experimented with mosquitoes biting yellow fever victims and then healthy persons, he was unable to confirm the transmission of the disease experimentally. Reed also experimented with humans. After many initial failures, he was finally successful in getting mosquitoes to transmit yellow fever from old victim to new victim, proving the correctness of Finlay’s theory. Reed, with important inputs from Dr. Henry Rose Carter, had determined the time pattern of infection that Finlay had missed (Gibson, 1950, pp. 65–68). A mosquito only becomes infected when it bites a fever victim between the third and the sixth days of infection, and only becomes dangerous after it has been infected for an “extrinsic incubation” period of at least 12 days before it bites a new victim (Clark, p. 61).
Carlos Finlay presented his theory of mosquito transmission to an international audience at Washington, D.C., in 1881, and to the Royal Academy of Havana in the same year. His theory was opposed and ridiculed by his medical peers (Clark, p. 53). It is important to note, however, that Finlay did not give up his experimental attempts to prove his theory during the next 19 years. In the end, his relentless determination enabled him to finally get the attention of Walter Reed who, like everyone else in medicine at the time (1900) who had heard of Finlay’s mosquito idea (including William Gorgas), thought the whole idea absurd.
UNDERSTANDING CAUSALITY, PROBLEM FIVE: There must be someone with the will to promulgate the new identification of causality until there is general acceptance of it by those who perceive themselves to be educated, intelligent, or successful.
William Gorgas proved the correctness of the mosquito transmission theory in a dramatic way with his successful campaign to eliminate yellow fever in Havana. He continued to promulgate this new explanation of causality with his important work in Panama. Because he refused to give up in the face of great opposition, his ultimate success made it possible for a growing number of educated, intelligent, and successful people to accept the revolutionary ideas of Finlay and Reed on the transmission of yellow fever by the mosquito.
The general acceptance of a new basic idea on causality may take decades, centuries, or millenniums. Nearly 1,500 years ago a physician from India wrote a paper on malaria and its cause. He identified the carrier of malaria to be a tiny flying insect — the mosquito. The physician was Susruta, who flourished in the 5th Century (Walker, p. 261). At the time his idea of causality did not make a sufficient impact and was soon forgotten.
More than 13 centuries later the American physician, Josiah Nott, published several papers in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal. He claimed that malaria and yellow fever are two different diseases and that they are not transmitted by poisonous marsh vapors but by insects and possibly mosquitoes. The learned men of medicine who read the paper agreed: That can’t be the cause of transmission. Thirty-three years later the Cuban physician, Carlos Finlay, who never heard of Susruta or Nott, published a paper naming a specific mosquito species as the carrier of yellow fever. Finlay was ridiculed by the professionals in medicine for the absurdity of his idea.
After the experimental achievements of Reed and his staff, the scientific evidence corroborating Finlay’s mosquito theory was indisputable. In spite of the overwhelming evidence, the experts, along with those they influenced, rejected the correct explanation of the cause of the number-one killer of man. Meanwhile millions of mosquitoes continued to inject millions of victims with their deadly venom of malaria and yellow fever. Many deaths from yellow fever and malaria could have been avoided, but the experts, the authorities, the educated, all agreed: The mosquito can’t be the cause of these frightful epidemics. Their rejection of demonstrable truth remains one of the great catastrophes in the history of human action. Their actions give rise to this paramount question: Why do most people refuse to accept new revolutionary explanations of causality, especially when these explanations are supported by a preponderance of scientific evidence?
The Canal Commissioners were immune to acceptance of the revolutionary and foreign theory of disease communication developed by Carlos Finlay and Walter Reed and confirmed by Reed, Gorgas, and others. Like the commissioners, each of us has an ideological immune system:
Our ideological immune system resists acceptance of any new ideas that would overturn any of our old basic ideas.
In other words, our ideological immune system repels any new ideas that do not agree with our previously accepted premises, presuppositions, and preconceptions (old ideas). When someone offers a new explanation of causality, usually our first reaction is to think: That can’t be the cause. Why? Because we were taught earlier that something else is the cause.
None of us like to give up our basic premises. If the truth of one of our fundamental premises is challenged, we tend to think and act as though we are under personal attack. When this happens, the goal is seldom to find truth. The goal is to defend our premises. When the primary goal becomes defense of our premises, whether they are true or false is not even a factor of consideration. Our goal becomes defense for the sake of defense.
The Isthmian Canal Commissioners refused to cooperate with Colonel Gorgas and his request for the men, equipment, and supplies necessary to protect the workers from the deadly mosquitoes. As a result, the mosquitoes caused a raging epidemic of yellow fever and malaria. The Commissioners responded to this catastrophe by blaming Gorgas for the epidemics. Their failure to understand causality was complete.
What went wrong? Were the engineers who sat on the Canal Commission dull, stupid, men? It is compelling to conclude they were merely dense blockheads, but that conclusion alone prevents us from learning the causes of their blunder. Stupid men lack intelligence and reason. Stupid they were not. Nonetheless, in spite of their intelligence and their reasoning ability, they got stuck defending false premises and false doctrines.
Scientific Skepticism
It is important to note the chronology of events before the appointment of Gorgas to the post of Chief Sanitary Officer for the Panama Canal project. On February 6, 1901, Dr. Walter Reed presented the results of the Yellow Fever Commission to the Pan American Medical Congress in Havana. The proof was incontrovertible: the mosquito transmits yellow fever and, therefore, yellow fever is not a contagious disease. In the same year William Gorgas was successful in purging the yellow fever mosquitoes from Havana. The result was spectacular: There was not one case of yellow fever in Havana in 1902. This brought to an end the annual yellow fever epidemics for the first time since the city’s founding over three centuries earlier. In the same year (1902), Ronald Ross was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in medicine for his brilliant detective work that led to his identification in 1898 of the Anopheles mosquito as the carrier of malaria. Gorgas was then honored by Congress for his eradication of yellow fever in Havana with his appointment to Assistant Surgeon General. Then in 1904, he was appointed Chief Sanitary Officer, Isthmian Canal Commission. In spite of his great prestige by 1904, and the overwhelming evidence verifying the mosquito theory of transmission, Gorgas could not convince the Canal Commissioners that the mosquito is the cause of the transmission of yellow fever and malaria. The Commissioners clung to their belief that yellow fever and malaria are caused by human exposure to filthy conditions of sanitation. They all agreed: The mosquito can’t be the cause. The President of the Canal Commission, John G. Walker, arrogantly dismissed the entire theory of mosquito caused disease in a word - “balderdash!” (McCullough, p. 422). Canal Commissioner and Governor of the Canal Zone, George W. Davis, was no more receptive when he chided Gorgas: “I’m your friend, Gorgas, and I’m trying to set you right. On the mosquito you are simply wild. All who agree with you are wild. Get the idea out of your head. Yellow fever, as we all know, is caused by filth” (Sullivan, 1927, p. 460).
The Canal Commissioners were overwhelmed by their ideological immune systems. These systems protected them from their acceptance of a revolutionary explanation of causality. And while the Commissioners were blocking the success of Gorgas in destroying mosquitoes, at the same time they were blocking their own success at building the canal. For them, their ideological immune systems become a cause of self-defeat. If the Commissioners had not been ordered by President Roosevelt to cooperate with Gorgas, the mosquitoes might have defeated the Americans in Panama as they did the French a decade and a half earlier.
Planck’s Maxim
In Germany during 1900, the same year Reed was sent to Havana, Max Planck (1858–1947) was introducing a revolution in physics known today as the quantum theory. His new theory explored this question: In the realm of physical action, how can we understand the causes of microcosmic effects in the very small world of subatomic particles? After 36 years of attempting to explain the quantum theory to his peers and fellow scientists, in his Philosophy of Physics, Planck reached a conclusion that deserves “maxim” status. (p. 97):
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.
Fortunately for Max Planck, he lived 47 years after his 1900 disclosure of quantum physics. During this time he saw the majority of the opponents to his quantum theory “gradually die out.” Their ideological immune systems guarded them throughout their adult lives from Planck’s revolutionary ideas. But before his death at the age of 89, Planck had the satisfaction of witnessing several generations of young physicists embrace his quantum theory. The history of human action confirms Planck’s conclusion, restated as Planck’s Maxim:Educated, intelligent, successful adults rarely change their most fundamental premises.
The causes of this human phenomenon are manifold, but here are three principal causes for the reader to consider. The first involves a principle of human action:
(1) PRINCIPLE OF INTELLECTUAL INDOLENCE: It always takes more time and effort to embrace a new idea and less time and effort to cling to an old idea.
Our English noun “indolence” is derived from the Latin indolentia meaning “freedom from pain.” The indolent person prefers freedom from physical exertion, effort, unpleasantness, or pain. He also avoids mental exertion because that, too, is painful. By the time an individual is an adult, most (if not all) of his fundamental premises have had an authoritarian origin. The intellectual authorities in his life are the familiar teachers, professors, theologians, textbook writers, historians, journalists, physicists, biologists, et al. Once his fundamental premises have been accumulated through indoctrination during his formative years, he does not like to give them up. To do so, he must overcome the tendency to be intellectually indolent. This is always “painful.”
Medical historian and physician, Sherwin B. Nuland, has described the indifference and the hostility among established surgeons to Lister’s revolutionary development of antiseptic surgery: “Books have been written about why it was that the entire surgical world did not immediately embrace Lister’s teachings. One of the reasons is obvious: it was a great deal easier not to believe in them” (1988, p. 369).
Pasteur had little success converting his fellow members at the French Academy of Medicine to accept his germ theory. When success finally came, it was achieved with the young medical students who did not have to be convinced to give up their old ideas of disease transmission in favor of Pasteur’s new ideas. As the new generation of medical students accepted Pasteur’s germ theory, the older generation of physicians who had rejected Pasteur’s revolutionary ideas gradually died out. By the time these young students themselves matured into senior physicians, most of them would come to reject the new theory of mosquito transmission of disease. There were few conversions: these educated intelligent, successful adults did not change their most fundamental ideas on causality. To avoid intellectual exertion is natural, thus, the adult tends to cling to old basic ideas rather than give them up for new basic ideas. No exertion is required to maintain the ideological status quo. The principle of intellectual indolence is the foundation of the ideological immune system.
(2) FEAR OF REPUTATIONAL LOSS: When an individual�s reputation is built upon a foundation of certain basic premises, if the truth of these premises is challenged, his reputation is also challenged.
To defend his good reputation (a precious asset in most societies) the individual will defend his premises. To fail in the defense of his basic premises — as the defender usually sees it — is to lose his reputation. A loss of reputation means a loss of prestige and standing in those communities he deems important. Many people value their reputational status over their economic status.
Nuland gives another reason for the antagonism among surgeons to Lister’s great advances in surgical technology: “Imagine what it must have felt like for a surgeon to accept a theory that confronts him with the intolerable fact that for the previous fifteen years of his career he has been killing his patients by allowing into their wounds microbes which he should have been destroying” (p. 370).
(3) FEAR OF ECONOMIC LOSS: If the truth of an individual�s basic premises is inextricably tied to his economic well being, he will feel compelled to defend his premises as a means of defending his income.
If a scientist’s funding is based upon a hypothesis that cannot be confirmed — where a growing amount of observational data contradicts his hypothesis — he may be highly motivated to defend his hypothesis as the most expedient means of defending his funding. In such cases the quest for scientific funding may very well take priority over the quest for scientific truth.
Ideological Immunity
The magnitude and direction — the vector — of scientific progress is determined by the accumulation of better explanations of the fundamental causes of physical, biological, and social effects. Across the span of four centuries we have applied scientific methods to strengthen our understanding of causality. In so doing we have been steadily evolving Western society from a static society to a dynamic society. The prime feature of a dynamic society is the rapid acceleration of better explanations of causality. These advances in understanding produce rapid change across the entire fabric of social institutions. In a dynamic society those who maintain their immunity to new ideas — merely because they are new or revolutionary ideas — will pay a heavy price for their intractable rigidity. Those who are unable or unwilling to adapt to rapid changes will be left behind by the march of progress.
On the other hand, every student of the history of ideas knows that a new idea is not necessarily a better idea. To replace a superior old idea with an inferior new idea is never a good idea and is always intellectually and culturally regressive. The individual who prizes his intellectual integrity may want to strengthen his immunity to new bad ideas and weaken or suppress his immunity to new good ideas. This presumes, however, that a scientific standard of good idea versus bad idea can be found. How might the scientific skeptic in a dynamic society avoid being overwhelmed by his ideological immune system as were the Panama Canal Commissioners?
Defense from the indiscriminate protection of our own ideological immune system begins with the recognition that everyone has an ideological immune system that protects him or her from new ideas: new good ideas and new bad ideas. For the scientific skeptic who would avoid being overwhelmed by his ideological immune system, there is a scientific guideline to follow:
THE PRINCIPLE OF SCIENTIFIC SKEPTICISM: The less scientific verification for an explanation of causality, the more skeptical one can afford to be; and the more scientific verification the less skeptical one can afford to be.
If a new explanation of causality has been independently verified, confirmed, and corroborated with a growing amount of indisputable evidence to support it, you may want to give serious consideration to suppressing your immunity to its acceptance as a better explanation of causality.
In a dynamic society there will be a growing array of scientific disciplines generating new explanations of causality. No one will have the time or knowledge to test every new explanation of causality to determine if it is better than the old explanation. But the dynamic skeptic can make an effort to determine if those who have proposed and tested a new explanation of causality have applied the testing methodology known as the scientific method. The dynamic skeptic governs his ideological immune system. The static skeptic is governed by his ideological immune system. The choice is ours: to govern or be governed.
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Clark, P. F. 1961. Pioneer Microbiologists of America. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Dolan, Jr. E. F. and H. T. Silver, 1968. William Crawford Gorgas: Warrior in White. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
Dolan, Jr. E. F. 1962. Vanquishing Yellow Fever: Walter Reed. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Press.
Dubos, R. J. 1950. Louis Pasteur Free Lance of Science Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
Gibson, J. M. 1950. Physician to the World: The Life of General William C. Gorgas. Durham: Duke University Press.
Gorgas, M. D. and H. Burton. 1924. William Crawford Gorgas: His Life and Work. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co.
Keim, A. and L. Lumet. 1914. Louis Pasteur. New York: Frederick A. Stokes.
Horsman, R. 1987. Josiah Nott of Molbile: Southerner, Physician, and Racial Theorist. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press.
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Nielsen, L. T. 1979. “Mosquitoes, the Mighty Killers.” National Geographic, Sept., Vol. 156, No. 3, 427–440.
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Labels: Philosophy
I had not been looking forward to the long trip back to home but it went by relatively uneventfully and we arrived home a bit tired but otherwise none the worse for wear.
The morning started in a pedestrian enough fashion and we all woke up quite late, I am going to miss these 07:30 starts to the day, and finished packing, had breakfast from the remains of the food and were out of the apartment at 10:00.
We dumped all the bags in the waiting lounge before heading down but because there were signs absolutely all over the place to not leave ones' luggage unattended, Caron happily agreed to remain behind. Ostensibly it was to read but I think it was as much a matter of fortifying herself for the travel ahead.
The rest of us went down to the town for some last minute shopping and to bid farewell to what had become familiar places to us, the medical centre in particular!
The taxi arrived on time at 12:00 and we had a very easy trip down to Moutiers, Kirsten just couldn't stop remarking on how much better this was than having to take two buses. She tried to stop but, in the end, just couldn't quite crack it.
There was a slight delay in the departure of the TGV and one of the carriages was missing, not ours thankfully, which I managed to understand from the announcements. Maybe my French lessons were not all quite in vain. The TGV proved to be a wonderful trip, we spent most of our time on the upper level in the dining area watching the countryside rush past; it really is a spectacularly beautiful country.
We arrived in Gare de Lyon and took two trains out to the airport where we spent quite a bit of time waiting for the aircraft which only took off at around midnight. Negotiating the trains was a bit of a hit and miss affair and my clearly not knowing where exactly we should go next didn't stop Caron continually asking where we should be going which didn't enhance my mood at all. While we were waiting Carl and I spied a duty-free shop where we replenished our supplies of Aberlour and Balvenie Double-Wood since they had been devastated by Kim. The two of us has nothing at all to do with the consumption of whisky of course.
As soon as we boarded I took a melatonin pill (mild sleeping pill) and then hung on desperately trying to stay awake until supper arrived. With supper out of the way, the next thing I knew it was 08:30 and two hours later we were on the ground. An unexpected minus to travelling on the A380 is that everything just takes ages, loading the aircraft, disembarking, waiting for luggage - it all takes just that much longer just because of the sheer number of people.
Baggage collected we headed out to the Gautrain which we missed by a couple of minutes because Caron had to feed her nicotine addiction so we had to wait 25 minutes for the next one. Kirsten and Carl had my parents meet them at the airport but all of us couldn't fit into the cars so we took the sensible option and used the public transport. This worked quite well until I tried to get out of the station at Sandton and there wasn't enough money on my gautrain card which was really annoying. I later realised that there wasn't a system malfunction, there really wasn't enough money there since I had used the buses a couple of times and it just took the balance available to me under what I needed.
That sorted out, I walked to my offices in the pouring rain using the umbrella I had carried to europe and back but never used until this point.
That is pretty much it! Landing back in South Africa, the first thing that struck me was that we really have become the land of the fatties but, it's still home!
Labels: Skiing 2010/11
Ag nee, the last day skiing
Glorious sunshine greeted us for a change, still very cold but it was much nicer to be in the sunshine than the mist. We had decided to head up to Val Thorens to do some of the runs which I had really enjoyed previously.
Today has got to be the best skiing I think I have ever had, conditions were just perfect. Blue skies overhead, nice and cold but no so much that you are freezing, great pistes and perfect snow to ski on. Still scrunchy below one's feet. I can't think how the conditions could get any better.
We took the following route in the morning
Up mont de la chambre lift and then down the mont de la chambre into Val Thorens
Up the peclet lift and then down tete ronde
Up moraine lift and down moraine
Up moraine lift and then up the col lift, down the red col run and then down genepi.
Up the portette lift and then down fond, plateau, altiport and lagopede and gentiane
Up boismint lift and then down blanchot, tetras and bd cummin back to Les Menuires
The view from the col was awesome and we could look out over the glacier de chaviere and watch some people climbing up it. I'm not sure what they were actually doing because they had both climbing equipment and ski's; they looked like ants on the glacier.
The red run was very steep at the top but the snow was reasonable so it wasn't too much of a problem. After we negotiated the red we took a break at the restaurant half way down genepi with some pretty fair chocolat chaud and crepe nutella. The view from this restaurant out over Val Thorens is just awesome, definitely aided by the fact that we could actually see Val Thorens today.
Skiing down tetras gave a whole new meaning to ice, the entire run is north facing and is low enough to have been rained on. I think there was a conspiracy and we didn't get the memo because we were the only people on the run and not once on the whole run was there anything even vaguely powdery, even piles that looked nice and soft were just frozen solid. My knees by the time we finished were quite sore, the run was challenging after two weeks of skiing and if we had done this run when we had just arrived I think disaster would have ensued.
Had the usual for lunch before heading out for the last time to Grand Lac, pezolet and 3 marches which were all nice but a bit more icy than yesterday. We were on our very last run when Carl was mowed by a moron in a red bobble headed devil suite who was flying straight down the slope. I think he was racing his friends and I caught it on video, he didn't even try and swerve at all. My first thought was whether Carl had hurt his shoulder because he was lying very still in the middle of the piste. My second thought was to catch the perpetrator and rugby tackle him, see how he likes that, but by the time we had gathered our wits he was long gone - unfortunately.
Well, that's it. Skiing is over and we are all more or less intact. Kirsten and Carl were going out for an anniversary dinner so we took Megan and Alistair down to the market for some more nutella crepe's while I took some photographs. The proprietors were very co-operative and I think I my have a keeper of one of the store owners looking very proud of himself. It must be quite a life doing the market and moving the entire thing every day to a different town. It sounds like the move between Val Thorens, Les Menuires, Meribel and Coucheval every day of the week.
Once the kids had retired to bed I retired to the balcony with a big glass of red wine and my last cigar to see the holiday out in the peace and quit of the mountains at night.
Tomorrow is travelling day, ughh!
Posted by Roland Elferink at 9:49 AM No comments:
After yesterday, everyone needed some cheering up but when the day dawned, it looked absolutely miserable; all misty and worst of all, it looked like it had rained overnight which didn't bode at all well for the days skiing.
We were all wondering what we were going to do because skiing in the mist for the whole day wasn't high on anyone's agenda. Fortunately for us, Carl happened to open the front door and lo and behold, there was blue sky on that side of the house so before it could vanish we kitted up and were out the door. Unfortunately I think the whole of Les Menuires had the same idea and the queues at the lifts were pretty bad. Not as bad as we've had at Avoriaz or on new years eve in Paris but by the standards set during our two weeks here, pretty bad. It turned out that most of the lifts up to high points weren't yet running due to ice so we had to slosh around in the mush left by the rain until we found a reasonably high one (sunny express) from where we skied over to the becca lift from where we could actually start the days skiing.
The rain that we had had in Les Menuires hadn't fallen on the higher pistes so these were absolutely fantastic to ski on but as we dropped down in altitude we would be in and out of the cloud that was lurking in the valley and rising and dissipating sporadically. We tried skiing pelozet but by the time we got to the bottom lift we were in really thick cloud which doesn't make for the most enjoyable skiing. A piste marker would loom out of the mist and one isn't sure which side of the marker one should be and what direction one should be skiing; it's very disorientating.
Once we figured out which runs were okay we had a great time skiing on Grand Lac and 3 Marches which both had really good snow and good sunlight. One can't have too much of a good thing so we stopped for chocolat chaud and nutella waffles at our favourite restaurant who tried to seat us in the entrance hall way which we refused and fortunately for us, a table opened up in the 'drinking only' section which we quickly nabbed. The chocolat chaud was good but not quite as good as the on from the restaurant on tete ronde. We eventually headed home for a late lunch of cheese, tomato and lettuce on baguette which, just like yesterday and every day before that, was scrumptious. Carl commented on how, when he was sick and stayed home for the day, he was thinking how ordinary the fare was; today however, he was in full agreement as to just how tasty it was.
After lunch, with much trepidation, we decided to do 'Roc'n Bob' which is a toboggan run. The instigator was, of course, Alistair but with yesterdays escapades in BK Park fresh in our mind all the adults were a little anxious. We needn't have been, it was great fun and even if you have a really good spill there wasn't any way that you could seriously injure yourself. The following photo's were by Kirsten because I was having way too good a time flying down the run while taking a video of the proceedings.
Alistair showing how it should be done after collecting yet another piste marker which had to be put back into the snow.
Megan the maniac after showing us all how to ride the edge of the wave. Carl had visions of her going of the back and doing a little off-piste in a toboggan.
Carl being closely shadowed by Roland who is filming. I was hoping for a close up of a whoopsy right in front of me. Carl was being very uncooperative, possibly due to not wanting three GT stripes from the runners of my toboggan on his noggin.
All of us very happy to have finished, it was great fun.
The next order of the day was to go and watch the 'Russian Christmas' which meant we all dressed up warmly and padded down the icy path to bruyere which is one of the village-lets within Les Menuires. Just next to the place that the the demonstration took place was an open air swimming pool.
People would swim and then get out and have a roll in the snow on the edge of the pool before getting back in. It must be fun, if you enjoy that sort of thing, or if you are really trying too hard to impress a girl. The 'Russian Christmas' consisted of a torchlight descent by the ESF (Ecole de Ski Francaise) instructors followed by fireworks.
My new camera is performing spectacularly well with the monopod that I bought in Paris. I was busy photographing the fireworks and this woman came and stood in front of me to take photographs so I moved but she followed me. By move number three when she arrived, enough was enough and I politely pointed out that she was getting in the way.
The fireworks were very pretty but over quite quickly at which point the 'Russian Christmas' started to become an open air discoteque which only served to confirm my strongly held belief that white people (in general) really just can't dance.
Heading home we had these great views of the Cathedral which Megan has been nagging me to take pictures of so now she can stop moaning.
Caron and I took the bus home like civilised people while the van der Riets trudged up the hill in the darkness. Thereafter it was supper before we all collapsed into bed, exhausted.
A piece of trivia, when we arrived we found this dessicated frozen frog on the roof just outside our front door and it has been there ever since. That was until a couple of days ago he was mistakenly rolled up into a snowball and hurled at someone. We don't know who did the hurling and who was the recipient of snowball frog but he is now safely back in the snow on top of the roof out of the reach of Alistair.
Thrills, spills and Dentists bills
The title is courtesy of Carl and Megan. The day started well but by the end we all, other than Caron, had had enough of the day. Caron, on the other hand seemed to have had an almost perfect day other than having had some moron skiing across the front of her ski's.
Caron and I started the day by extending her pass into the Val Thorens ski area for 21 euro, we had started out earlier than the van der Riets since Caron is slower that they are and sure enough, they caught us before the Bruyere lift. Just after that Megan took a wrong turn and had to walk back up a slope and by the time they caught us again we were right next to the Caron lift.
On the way down into Val Thorens the pistes were just perfect, there had been another 5-10cm of snow and with the pistes recently groomed it was great to ski on. The following photo is only of interest to someone who ski's, those are my tracks in the foreground and I'm quite proud of them even though the slope was minimal. It's not so easy to get one's tracks to look like railway lines.
Once the van der Riets had caught us we immediately separated again, I went up the Caron lift to do gentiane with Caron once before heading for the snow park to catch up with the van der Riets. This is the time when the day started to go pear shaped. I caught up to them and it was quite obvious that something was wrong, Megan had done a little off-piste in the new snow and the fronts of her ski's sank and during the wipe out she broke her front tooth on the ski pole. Fortunately there wasn't any blood, just an exposed nerve which at -9 deg C must have been quite painful. Carl had this very stoic resigned look on his face, his last three days have consisted of skiing while feeling terrible, taking the day off to recover and now most of the day is going to involve sitting in dentist rooms.
So while the van der Riets headed back to incur more medical bills, I ventured forth into the valley below the Renod and Bouchet glaciers which proved to be very hard work. The day after snow is definitely the most beautiful day to be out but, from a skiing point of view, it's really hard work. Lots of moguls and uneven and soft pistes to negotiate. My route was
Up the grand fond lift and down gentianes (not the same one Caron is doing)
Up the peyron lift and down peyron
Back up the peyron lift and down peyron again
Up the rosael lift and down chamois, eteriou and the end of fond and back down to the Caron lift.
The wind at the top of the col between the valleys was something else, you had to actively walk downhill, skiing was not an option and even managing the ski poles was a mission. The best method was to drag them forward on the ground before planting them, actually lifting them up like one normally does just results in a plant next to one's boot which isn't very useful when trying to move forward. I tried to stop in front of a piste map but before I knew it, the wind had blown me past it and trying to manage a paper map would have been completely impossible so I didn't even try. Peyron was quite hard work but I think that tomorrow when the snow has compacted a little it would be a very nice run.
I met up with Caron at Chalet de Caron pictured below, she had been going up and down gentiane the whole time. She says that she did it 7 times so I think that I am safe to say that she really enjoyed it. This is just as well considering the effort and trauma not to mention expense experienced in getting her here.
I just had to take a photograph with Caron under the sign at the entrance, I just couldn't get a break when there wasn't anyone else on the steps.
We both headed back down and met the van der Riets at home for some lunch. After lunch we headed out in the gloom to BK park at Alistairs instigation which was definitely a mistake. The park is like a toboggan run but done on ski's and snowboards and in the gloom it was really difficult to see the bumps and drops not to mention the camber and, most importantly, the edges. As a result I skied into thin air and down a small drop of 3 or 4 metres, nothing damaged but not enjoying the ride at all. Caught up with Kirsten and Carl and Alistair and started again but now there were skiers and snowboarders shouldering their way past because we were obviously going too slow. As a result, Kirsten was forced too close to some netting and when she turned her ski's caught and she did a backwards somersault down another 3 or 4 metre embankment. I'm not sure whether I was watching Kirsten backflip or the guy behind caught my ski's but I also went down and then the whole queue of people behind ploughed into me. Again, nothing really damaged but by now we had all had enough and decided to call it a day. Even Carl fell while trying to avoid running over Alistair although compared with a backwards somersault down a 4 metre embankment it barely rates a mention.
We gingerly threaded our way home and Kirsten and Carl took Megan off to have her tooth fixed and we, almost all, had a running snow ball fight the whole way down the path until Alistair fell and hurt his broken hand. Caron resolutely refused to join the in the childish festivities no matter how many snow balls she was peppered with. While Kirsten and Carl went to the dentists Caron and I did some shopping at the market for a new fleece and bought some t-shirts to commemorate the trip which in our current frame of mind mostly consisted of "I survived" themed t-shirts. The dentist was taking a bit long so we headed up taking Alistair with us and an hour later got a phone call to come and rescue Kirsten and Carl. The dentist only accepted cash and they didn't have enough and the ATM was being snoep about dispensing more cash. I walked down and was able to draw some cash because, although my standard bank card was refused just like Carls, I also have a nedbank one which worked.
Finally, we all made it home for supper which would be Megans first meal with her new dentures. Between Megan's tooth and the adventures at BK park we had all had enough of the day.
A rest day, sort of
Carl was still feeling very much under the weather and decided to stay in bed for at least the morning while the rest of us went to play on the slopes. I wanted to check out a new route to Val Thorens which would't involve any hair raising descents that Caron would freak out on.
The route I followed was as follows:
Up doron lift and down boyes
Up bruyeres 1 and down the lower half of paturage
Up montaulever and then down into Val Thorens
Up the funitel peclet lift and down tete ronde and then 2 combes.
Up moraine lift and down genepi
Up morain lift and down moraine
Up portette and down fond and then plateau to the top of Caron.
Down getiane and bd cummins all the way home.
The weather had started out fine but by the time we were coming down tete ronde it had started to snow lightly again. We stopped at the intersection of tete ronde and 2 combes for more hot chocolate at the same expensive restaurant which was just as good as before. While I was waiting for Kirsten and the kids to emerge I watched 3 british girls putting their skis on, very funny, the one was pointing straight downhill and took off immediately straight into a whole pile of nicely stacked skis, poles and snowboards. Carnage ensued with lots of shrieks and laughter.
By the time we got onto the Moraine lift the snow was coming down quite hard and it was nearly impossible to see the slope that one was skiing on so the kids decided that enough was enough and that they were going home. Kirsten reluctantly following them. It was a real pity because both moraine and genepi are fantastic slopes, they're steep enough to really go on but not so steep that one has to be worried about not being able to stop if things get out of hand. I loved the feeling of carving down the slope while the snow is falling even though not being able to see where one is skiing, other than the piste markers that is, is a little disconcerting. I must admit that the chair lifts in the driving snow and wind was less than comfortable but definitely worth it.
I was meant to head straight home after moraine but I couldn't resist another run and ended up going down gentiane. I was just thinking how Caron would enjoy the run as I noticed the name and now that I have found an easy way into Val Thorens for Caron, this is a real possibility.
I arrived back home about 45 minutes after Kirsten and the kids just in time for lunch. By this time it had really started snowing quit hard so we all decided to have an afternoon off and rest up a bit. I spent most of the afternoon resolving a problem with my notebook because it had run out of disk space and computers, in general, really don't work well with 0 bytes available, hence my late post of yesterday.
At about 16:00 it was still snowing hard but we needed supplies so Kirsten and I went down to carrefour to do the necessary. The plan was to take the bus down but after waiting for 15 minutes and no bus, we walked and arrived in town just as the bus finally overtook us. We finished the shopping and went and stood in the bus shelter but again, after about 10 minutes, we decided to walk. This was a big mistake, not only had we been walking for only about 2 minutes when the bus arrived but by the time we made it back to the apartment my arms felt like they had been pulled from their sockets by the groceries and we were both bathed in sweat. Thankfully Kirsten helped with the bags for some of the way. I think that waiting patiently for the public transport is something we are not culturally equipped for. Since both of us were sweating profusely from the walk up the hill we both dived for the shower at the same time and, just like at home, this was not a good idea because there is only enough pressure for one shower at a time. I ended up standing in the shower waiting for Kirsten to finish so I could turn the water back on. The cold water here is not just cold water, it is freezing. Fortunately Kirsten showered quite quickly so I wasn't going hypothermic by the time I could continue my shower.
The snow continued to pour out of the sky and Megan and Alistair spent some time on the balcony trying to catch snow flakes on their tongues.
As darkness fell Carl and I had a cigar and whisky on the patio which was just fantastic. Carl was commenting on how the whisky tastes stronger here as he realised that ice cubes don't melt in the glass here. I was half tempted to just put the ice blocks back into the ice tray to use tomorrow.
We finished the day with a chicken and chips from the restaurant over the road before a quiet evening reading and watching movies.
Ski poles and Doggie doo!
It is rumoured that there are more dogs than children in Paris which, judging from the amount of doggie droppings on the pavements could well be true. It's difficult to judge since french children, unlike their poodles, have made the evolutionary leap to porcelain. Thankfully!
When we arrived at Les Menuires we walked into a beautiful, clean apartment with white snow drifts on the balcony. Enchanting but little did we know that beneath the drifts lurked the evidence of untrained french poodles. It was very disconcerting to have the frozen turds slowly appear from the depths as the drifts melted away in the warm weather of a few days ago, it just takes some of the magic out of the snow drifts.
Skiing entails a fair amount of time spent on ski lifts watching the scenery go by and one of the games we play is spot the ski pole or, if you're lucky, a ski that some unhappy ex-owner dropped. The snow, like with the turds, covers these up with time so the number that we see is only a fraction of those dropped which means that some poor, keeping in the scatalogical allegory, turd has to walk all the ski-lift lines during the spring to pick up all the detritus of the skiing fraternity. I guess it could be worse, thankfully dogs are not welcome on the ski lifts!
Posted by Roland Elferink at 10:13 PM No comments:
The day to Courcheval and back ...
Our hopes for a decent snowfall have been realised, we had 9cm of snow as measured by Kirsten using a ruler on the snow that collected on the balcony handrail. The snow arrived just in time for Kim and Sage to see it before they left on the bus for the 24 hour journey home. It is quite amazing what the snow actually collects on, even the top edges of signs are not immune to catching a frosting of the white stuff. Megan got all creative with the snow that adorned the patio furniture.
Across the road from us someone made this snowman complete with ski's and a scarf which was awesome but it was destroyed soon after the photograph was taken by persons unknown. We think that there is a snowman assassin on the prowl in Les Menuires because no sooner has someone finished a beautiful snowman/woman than the creation is destroyed. The reason for destroying a snowman eludes me so I am going to chalk it up to creative envy.
Carl wasn't feeling so well but we had a big day planned to take the kids all the way over to Courcheval which is two valleys over from us so he literally sucked it up and gritted his teeth while ignoring the sinus headache. The photo below is taken just below our apartment and note the snow encrusted pine trees and the arrangement of the triangles in the composition. I read somewhere that this is a good composition technique but I'm not so sure.
The weather was quite unsettled today, one moment you are in bright sushine and the next one is in heavy cloud which makes for great photographic opportunities because the light is always changing. I had the video attached to my goggle straps which has been great for footage taken during the actual skiing although I find it quit difficult to keep my head pointed exactly down the slope, it is so instinctive to want to watch where one is going rather than some point far down the slope.
Going across the Col de la Loze we had great fun because we were able to do a little bit of off-piste skiing, it is quite disconcerting to look down at where there should be skiis and only seeing snow or small mounds generated by the ski's. There is something very satisfying which I can't explain in looking back at a patch of virgin snow and seeing only two ski tracks through it, yours!
The route for the day, for the record was:
up menuires lift and then down boyes
up sunny expess lift and then down an unknown slope
up roc de 3 marches 2 lift and then down grand lac pelozet
up st martin 2 lift and then down cretes, choucas and gelinotte
up saulire 1 lift and down an unknown piste to lunch (70 euro for five of us) at the bottom of loze
up the loze lift and then down lac bleu
up the biollay lift and then down pralong
up the pralong lift and down biollay
up the pralog lift and down biollay verdons
up coqs lift and then col del la loze lift and then down boulevard de la loze and marmottes followed by charon
up tougnettes 1 and then toughnettes 2 and then gros tougne and la violette all the way home.
I embarassed myself down the pralong slope by taking a really good spill while the video was going, all one could see was ski's and sky, a combination which should not by juxtaposed against each other. I had been trying to avoid a beginner and picked up too much speed and that along with moguls was the undoing of me. The skiing today was really hard on the knees because the snow from last night soon formed moguls which are tough to ski on if you are not used to them. Even Megan and Alistair were complaining of sore knees which made me feel somewhat better.
Even worse, I took yet another spill, this time while I was completely stationery and just overbalanced and the video captured an expletive that is going to have to be edited out of the footage.
The Courcheval valley is visually and from a skiing point of view just fantastic. I'm not sure if it is a true reflection of Meribel but it doesn't seem to be as great a skiing area. While the snow in Les Menuires and Courcheval was firm and good to ski on, the snow in Meribel was distinctly slushy. I'll try and get back to Meribel to try some of the routes that aren't just transit routes from Les Menuires/Val Thorens to Courcheval and back before we leave.
Alistair distinguished himself on the way back while descending into the Meribel valley by demolishing one of the piste marker poles even while handicapped by having his broken hand wrapped up in a cut-up glove and plastic bag.
It was quite a day, all in all, and I think Carl was particularly happy to get home so he could get into bed. He had been getting quieter and quieter all afternoon and his nose had been getting redder and redder. I think a much quieter day for all of us is in order for tomorrow.
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regulatory innovation
Why Reform?
The End of Net Neutrality: What Does It Mean?
As of this week, the repeal of net neutrality is officially in effect. The issue has become quite polarized since the FCC announced plans to change the Obama-era policy, with both sides engaging heavily via social media and on Capitol Hill to make their case. Silicon Valley giants like Netflix, Google and Facebook argue that net neutrality is necessary to regulate a fair and equal internet while telecom companies like Verizon and Comcast argue that doing away with the policy will lead to increased investment and innovation. With the future of the internet at stake, here’s what you need to know about net neutrality:
In 2010, the FCC approved the Open Internet Order with a 3-2 vote, which guaranteed equal access to the web and set into motion the rules pertaining to net neutrality.
In 2011 Verizon sued the FCC after it issued the FCC Open Internet Order in 2010, a set of regulations that Verizon felt unfairly imposed neutrality rules on broadband carriers.
In 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the FCC Open Internet Order 2010 would only apply to common carriers, providers of a service that is open to everyone and subject to regulation.
Since Verizon and other similar telecommunications companies were considered ‘information services,’ it was exempt from the obligations of common carriage and excluded from the FCC Open Internet Order of 2010.
In 2015, the FCC reclassified internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communication’s Act, imposing net neutrality on companies like Verizon and Comcast and nullifying the 2014 decision in Verizon’s favor.
In 2017, the FCC voted to reverse the Title II classification of internet service providers and restore their classification as information services with no neutrality obligations.
On June 11, 2018 internet service providers will officially be reclassified as internet service providers and net-neutrality regulations will expire.
Net neutrality is a regulation enacted in 2015 during the Obama administration, founded in the belief that internet service providers (ISPs) are responsible for providing equal access to all applications and content, indiscriminately. The philosophy being that the internet is a public good and that it should be treated like a utility. In particular, it prohibits ISPs from blocking, favoring or slowing access to websites and products. The regulations mean that all websites and content must be provided equal access, and ISPs cannot prioritize some content over others. So, even though Comcast owns NBC Universal, it can’t make NBC’s videos stream faster than its competitors.
Arguments in favor of net neutrality:
Those in favor of net neutrality argue that the Comcasts, AT&Ts and Verizons of the world will have the ability to censor content or give certain content priority over others when it comes to access or speed. Another concern is that now that net neutrality is no longer in effect, ISPs will be open to charging more for different internet bundles, in the same vein that we now see cable bundles for those cutting the cord. For instance, you can pay more to ensure your Netflix shows stream without interruption, while other websites may encounter slower connections. There is another concern that, if ISPs can charge more for higher speeds, or what some call an internet “fast-lane,” it would benefit large companies and the wealthy at the expense of small businesses, start-ups, freelancers and those in lower economic strata.
In a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Subcommittees on Communications and Technology, several high profile “internet pioneers,” academics and business leaders wrote:
“The proposed Order would also repeal oversight over other unreasonable discrimination and unreasonable practices, and over interconnection with last-mile Internet access providers. The proposed Order removes long-standing FCC oversight over Internet access providers without an adequate replacement to protect consumers, free markets and online innovation.
Arguments against net neutrality, and pro repeal:
While those on the content side worry about prioritization and new fees, the infrastructure providers say that repealing these rules will lead to a “free and open internet.” The FCC has argued that net neutrality rules have held companies back and deterred increased investment in broadband infrastructure. This is an especially important flashpoint, since we are currently on the cusp of adopting 5G, the next generation of broadband technology. 5G will provide for additional bandwidth to allow for faster browsing and streaming over mobile. As CRI has pointed out, the telecommunication industry is working on building out this infrastructure, but are running into roadblocks when it comes to the regulatory process. The development of 5G has been likened to an “arms race,” while the country successful in gaining the upper hand stands at a distinct economic advantage.
The USTelecom Broadband Association estimates that investment in domestic broadband networks decreased by billions of dollars after the net neutrality rules went into effect in 2015. Meanwhile, preceding the net neutrality rules, we saw the rise of internet giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google, while investment topped $1.6 trillion. With the repeal of net neutrality, the FCC will be handing over the reigns of oversight to the FTC. This will transition the nature of government intervention from that of pre-emptive regulation to the less burdensome monitoring for anti-competitive practices—not exactly ushering in a new world of lawlessness as others have claimed.
The FCC also argues that the repeal of net neutrality will benefit small ISPs that reach more rural and low-income populations. In a recent op-ed defending the FCC’s decision to repeal net neutrality, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says resources that these providers were forced to put toward regulatory compliance could instead be invested in building out broadband networks to reach more of the lesser-served populations.
Regulatory questions at hand
What is the mandate of the FCC?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was formed with the intention of it being an independent agency of the U.S. Government by the Communications Act of 1934. The Commission is directed by five commissioners, including one Chairman, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms. At the time of its conception, the FCC was tasked with regulating radio and wire communications. Since then, new technology has emerged and altered the breadth of the organization. Now, the FCC’s power to regulate extends over radio, TV, wire and satellite communications and it is responsible for maintaining standards amid ever-evolving types of media and communication while also protecting the interests of both consumers and business.
How does the internet fit into the FCC’s mandate?
Under net neutrality rules, the FCC reclassified broadband as a utility—giving the agency the ability to regulate the broadband infrastructure much like a telephone network. As Pai put it,
“Rules designed for the Ma Bell monopoly during the era of rotary phones were a poor fit for the greatest innovation of our time, the internet.”
With the repeal of net neutrality, the FCC no longer has the authority to regulate broadband. Instead, the oversight will be transferred to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which oversees consumer protection issues and questions of competition. As Pai wrote:
“Our approach includes strong consumer protections. For example, we empower the Federal Trade Commission to police internet service providers for anticompetitive acts and unfair or deceptive practices. In 2015, the FCC stripped the FTC — the nation’s premier consumer protection agency — of its authority over internet service providers. This was a loss for consumers and a mistake we have reversed. Starting Monday, the FTC will once again be able to protect Americans consistently across the internet economy, and the FCC will work hand-in-hand with our partners at the FTC to do just that.”
So, according to Pai, instead of having the FCC pre-emptively regulating ISPs, the FTC will oversee their operations and monitor for anti-competitive behavior or actions that harm consumers.
Though the net neutrality rules have officially been repealed as of June 11, 2018, we can expect a long legal and political battle ahead. Since these are regulations and not law, a different administration will be able to reverse the FCC’s decision and reinstate a net neutrality policy, after it navigates through the same rulemaking process. It’s also possible for Congress to reverse the decision under provisions in the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows for the legislative body to overrule action taken by an agency. The Senate recently passed a CRA “resolution of disapproval,” but in order to nullify the rule, the House will also have to pass its own–but as of now, Republican leadership is not likely to put such a resolution up for a floor vote. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA.) has launched a discharge petition in the House, which could force a vote on the issue, but that petition requires a majority of House members to sign on in support, and he is about 50 votes shy of the necessary tally.
The politicization of an independent agency has led to an extreme whiplash effect, that cultivates a poor investment environment. CNET points out that states have already begun pursuing their own legislation to maintain net neutrality rules within their own borders, while in other states, governors have signed executive actions to the same effect.
Whatever the impact, we are not likely to see changes in our internet experiences immediately, but rather over the course of several years as companies adapt to the new regulatory scheme.
Regulatory 101
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info@coalitionforregulatoryinnovation.com
Copyright © 2019 Coalition for Regulatory Innovation
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Tax and Spend 1
The Politics of Tax and Spend 1
Raising the money!
Every modern society has taxes, because every Government needs money to provide goods and services that are better provided communally.
Our Armed Forces need forward planning and resource allocation, which would be very difficult if one had to negotiate with hundreds or thousands of part funders.
Roads, bridges, railways, hospitals, schools and airports have been provided by private enterprise in the past, by public enterprise in the past, and nowadays are normally built by private enterprise commissioned by public monies.
Where does the money come from?
Central Government and local government spend. Where does the money come from?
Much of the income of the Roman Empire came from agricultural land, mines, and businesses owned by the government (Emperor or Republic). In England the King was expected to live “of his own”, on his income from the Crown lands.
It was the strains caused by the constant need for additional taxation that led to the English Civil War and the gradual transference of the King’s powers to the taxpayers.
The American War of Independence was in part sparked by the financial troubles of the British Government, which forced it to impose new taxes and to increase existing taxes.
The easiest taxes to collect are on international trade in goods, because that can be channeled through a few locations and tax can be demanded on the spot. If the Government raises taxes too much, there is usually a reduction in trade because the profits of trade are eaten into too much. There is also a greater temptation to evade taxation by smuggling. Both these reactions reduce the total tax income.
A government can encourage or discourage particular exports and imports by the tax regime it charges. Britain helped its wool industry develop into a cloth industry by its use of taxation. Increasing the overall value of British exports and reducing imports of foreign cloth doubly helping the balance of payments.
“Protectionism” can help to protect industries at home, reducing the stresses of economic collapse and unemployment.
Today, Pakistan has a very high import tax on cars, because it is relatively easy to collect. As Pakistan does not make cars or car components, the economy of Pakistan is not obviously damaged. One effect of this tax is that cars stay on the roads for years because it is cheaper to keep repairing them than to import replacements.
The General Agreement on Taxes and Tariffs (GATT) is reducing the use of import and export taxes in the belief that increased international trade is more valuable to society than import and export taxes.
Internal trade can be taxed along rivers and along major roads. However, if taxes are too high there is a reduction in trade and increased use of other routes, reducing the tax income.
Expenditure Taxes
The advantage of a tax on expenditure is that it is relatively hidden. Much of the administration costs are borne by business rather than Government, and the tax can be targeted to protect vulnerable groups or targeted at certain spending.
Excise duty on alcohol, taxes on “bad” goods like cigarettes, or on luxury goods like perfume are relatively cheap to collect and may influence the behavior of your citizens. If the taxes are raised too high, they may encourage smuggling or even revolt such as the American Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s. If raised too high they may reduce use of the product and reduce total tax income. Significant reduction of cigarette consumption reduces current income but hopefully reduces future expense. It may be the right thing to do.
Most modern societies have developed taxes on expenditure, called sales tax or value added tax. The tax is paid by the customer as part of the price of the goods, and the merchant pays the tax to the Government.
The Government can have a universal sales tax on everything, or it can discriminate. In Britain for instance biscuits and cakes are regarded as food and have nil rate VAT. Chocolate biscuits are a luxury, and are subject to full VAT. In 1999 the European Court of Justice (the EU court) ruled that Jaffa Cakes are VAT free cake and are not VAT liable chocolate biscuits.
Children’s clothes do not carry VAT, but adult clothes carry VAT. Small women quite often buy clothes intended for teenagers! It would be legally possible, but politically difficult, to tax food and children’s clothes. VAT is charged on meals but not on take away or delivered food.
Income Tax was introduced as a temporary measure in 1799 to help pay for the Napoleonic Wars. It was only charged to people earning relatively high incomes.
Income Tax was abolished in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo but came back in 1842.
The Pay As You Earn (PAYE) scheme was introduced in 1944. By the 1960s income tax was so high in England that in the financial year 1966-67 the marginal rate of income tax on investment income for very high earners was 136% ( income tax 41.25% plus surtax 50% plus a special one year special levy of 45%). In other years the marginal rate of tax was “only” 91.25%. An industry and culture of tax avoidance and tax evasion grew up. Although tax levels are lower now, the tax avoidance industry and culture are still with us.
National Insurance is not strictly speaking a tax. It is a contribution towards old age pensions, unemployment pay, and invalidity benefit. The worker pays based on income, the employer pays, and the balance of these costs comes from other taxation. If you have paid National Insurance for enough full years you will be entitled to the full pension on retirement. If you have not paid enough full years your pension is reduced.
National Insurance is collected through the PAYE system, to avoid having two systems dipping into the same wage. As Shakespeare said, “That which we call a rose, would by any other name smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet).
One of the innovations of William the Conqueror was that when he dished out land to his supporters, they held it “of the Crown”. The land was subject to a requirement to provide so many knights in armour with horses for so many days a year.
Towns were required to supply so many arrows a year, which were stored in the Tower of London and at other strategic locations.
Villages had to supply bowmen. In many areas there was a requirement for weekly bow practice, to ensure a ready supply of bowmen. Many lords sponsored archery competitions on their estates, to make sure they had good bowmen to take to war.
People who lived on the lord’s estates were required to provide so many days paid labour each year, provide a share of the crop, and go off to war with the lord when required. They also had to pay fees to the lord when they inherited land. Those living on the King’s estates also had to pay.
Over time, many of these obligations were changed into annual money payments. For a large one off sum you could become free hold, or as we now call it “freehold”.
One of the complaints in Magna Carta was that the King’s servants were rapacious in their demands. Sometimes the servant demanded that a bridge be built, then took a big bribe to forget about it, and then came back next year for another big bribe.
Justice was another source of profit, because quite often both sides had to pay fees just to be allowed to take part in the case.
Criminal justice was also good, because of fines and the possibility of confiscating land.
When a big landowner died the heir had to pay tax to come into his inheritance.
If the heir was a child, the estate would be “looked after” by a trustee who would have all the income from the estate. Often he would harvest and sell all the wood just before the heir came of age. The trustee could also arrange the marriage of the child, effectively selling the child and the estate to the highest bidder. People paid the King to become a trustee.
Prisoners sentenced to transportation could be sold as slaves to the American colonies or to the West Indian colonies. Children from workhouses could be “apprenticed” to the industrial mills in the North of England. The mill paid the workhouse or the workhouse manager.
Is there some way that prisoners could earn their way to freedom?
Land Tax and Head Tax
Land tax in different forms existed in Saxon times, and at times has been part of the general taxation system. For much of English history local government was financed by a property tax. Now there is also a subsidy from central government.
In some of our colonies we had a “head tax” where every adult male had to pay the annual tax. If he could not pay it he was imprisoned or he was made to do forced labour.
Mrs Thatcher abolished “the rates” – the local taxation based on property values. She replaced it with a “head tax”, “the community charge” known as the Poll Tax. This caused riots and was one of the main reasons for her downfall. Many youngsters disappeared from the electoral roll, and some are still not on the electoral roll many years later because they are afraid of being imprisoned for back taxes. In the short term it reduced the number of anti – Conservative voters, but it galvanised many normally uninterested youngsters (and their families) to vote against the Conservatives.
We are now on “Council Tax”, a tax based on the value of property.
Much wealth now is in assets rather than land. It seems illogical that someone with £2,000,000 in land might have to pay tax on his land even if it does not generate income, but if he has shares or paintings they are not subject to wealth tax. The practical difficulty is that if there was a wealth tax these assets would evaporate or be held offshore.
We have a Capital Gains Tax which applies to profits realised on the sale of assets. There are ways to avoid paying it or to put off paying it for decades.
The government can make “one off” raids on the banks, but the banks are already reorganising themselves to minimise the tax they pay.
There is a well established tax on inheritance, but it is particularly unpopular with the Conservative Government, because it tends to be paid by the rich rather than by the poor.
There have been “hypothecated” taxes, where the money is taken for a particular purpose. The Road Tax is a tax on the ownership of vehicles, which supposedly is used for road maintenance. That link was broken many years ago.
Arguably National Insurance is a hypothecated tax.
Taxes on fuel, “green” taxes, special levies and so forth can be adjusted to meet social ends.
The government can influence social policy by taxation and by exemptions from taxation.
There used to be a Construction Industry Training Levy where a tax based on payroll was collected from all employers, but if they trained apprentices they could claim against the levy fund. Mrs Thatcher abolished that.
Apprenticeships in the construction industry reduced dramatically, and now we have to import our joiners and plumbers from Poland!
The production of children can be encouraged by exemptions from tax (and by payment of benefits – see Part 2 “Spending the Money”).
We can encourage thrift by not taxing investment income, not taxing it at such a high rate, or giving tax incentives to save. This is in practice a subsidy to those who can afford to save from working people who cannot afford to save.
A number of the famous schools – Eton Harrow etc. are run by charities and so are exempt from tax on any profit they make, and their investment income is also protected. Given that these are fee paying schools, and the fees are very high, the education of many children of rich people is subsidised by the working poor. On the positive side the state is not having to pay to educate these children.
Although mortgage relief has gone, the people currently paying mortgages when I first wrote this in 2010 are benefiting substantially from the current low interest rates. There seems to be no desire in any political party to tax this “windfall” benefit. At a recent Labour Party social occasion, I mentioned that my mortgage is £500 a month less than it used to be. The person I was speaking to said that her £500 a month rent has not changed. There is no obvious reason why my windfall should not be taxed, except that to do it would be political suicide.
The National Lottery is sometimes called “a tax on stupidity”. It is generating considerable sums for sport and the arts and for education and for social issues which otherwise would come from taxes.
We tax property transactions through Stamp Duty.
We have Capital Transfer Tax on inheritance and gifts. We could tax financial transactions or certain financial transactions.
We tax air travel and travel using petrol and diesel. Provided we can monitor it we can tax it.
We tax sanitary towels.If we wished to we could tax contraceptives or Viagra.
Taxation and exemptions from taxation, personal allowances and differential rates such as the 10p tax rate all allow the Government to influence how people behave and how society works. For our own good of course.
Could the NRA really object to a tax on any weapon more powerful than currently used by an American Army sniper?
Sell Honours and assets?
The King used to sell honours like knighthoods, baronetcies and peerages.
I suspect the UK Government could raise a considerable sum by selling the Earl of New York (a village in North Yorkshire) or the Duke of Boston (a town in Lincolnshire). Of course when the heir inherited there would be a payment to make before admission to the title. Or it could just be a Life Peerage available for sale by the Government after each death.
The Government can sell assets, in England called “privatisation”. The Railways have been nationalised, privatised, and the track nationalised again.
Privatisation gives the Government cash. The investment the business needs is provided by the purchaser, who often has appropriate skills and experience.
There was a problem with the sale and rent back of all the Inland Revenue local offices across the country when it was discovered that the purchaser is an offshore company that does not pay UK tax.
If the sold off company does extremely well there is a complaint that it was sold off too cheap. The problem with selling assets is that you eventually run out of things to sell.
The Government earns money from bridge and tunnel tolls, renting out agricultural land, and using its assets in an intelligent way. A joke about our crack Special Forces unit, the SAS, is that it makes a profit for the government because some Middle East countries use it as a palace guard or for dealing with rebellions.
The Government can borrow. There are circumstances where this can be the right thing to do – to fund capital expenditure for example.
When the Government is borrowing to meet money shortfalls every year it is headed for trouble.
How a government chooses to raise money or not to raise money says much about its values and its wisdom. Social engineering is inevitable, so let us look at each measure to see who it helps and who it hurts and by how much.
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Brief Account of Current Chinese Urban Church Charismatic Movement
By CCD contributor: Wang Zengming, March 15, 2019 15:03 PM
People worship in the church.
Most Chinese people have the impression that the mainstream Chinese house church is full of extreme Calvinists because these churches often appear in preaching events in public squares and on the Internet they are more active in giving comments on WeChat and Weibo. In addition to that, a large amount of their literature is translated from foreign languages and their works are more widely available and frequently quoted.
However, based on my observation, I think a fact that cannot be ignored is that at least over half of the believers within the Chinese church belong to the charismatic movement, especially in the newly established urban churches. This article describes the Charismatic movement in urban churches in China. First, it is necessary to distinguish it from the traditional churches that have charismatic characteristics. Such churches are more frequent in the rural areas where their members believe in miracles and in the continuous revelation from God. They seldom read books other than the Bible. Also, they practice praying for healing. Yet this not all but only a part of their spiritual faith life. For instance, the number of people who speak in tongues is not many. The pastors neither encourage nor discourage speaking in tongues. They pray for the sick to bring about God's healing.
These new churches with charismatic "leanings" have the following characteristics:
1. Pastors teach and encourage all believers to pursue tongues and spiritual gifts. Although pastors insist that these gifts are not a must, in such churches, it is widely perceived that speaking in tongues is a privilege, a sign of loving the Lord more, and a deeper spiritual experience.
2. Healing and driving out evil spirits are the norm. During each service the congregation will practice casting out demons from the sick and the poor. And there are believers who have all kinds of symptoms who approach their pastors for healing and deliverance. The usual process is through speaking in tongues, and in the name of Jesus, believers will fall on the ground rolling around with twisted contortion.
3. Such churches believe that inner healing is necessary because the soul of an individual has been fragmented due to some experience in the past especially a childhood experiences which has created the hindrance in their cognitive thinking and character. Therefore inner healing is needed.
4. Worship and praise has a more contemporary style. Every such church is equipped with a keyboard and other musical instruments as well as worship bands. The leading vocalists are all attractive females who make the worship experience exciting and energetic. Songs chosen are more contemporary and upbeat with catchy melodies.
5. These churches usually rent open rooms in upscale neighborhoods with modern amenities.
6. They are not interested in politics and never talk or care about controversial topics yet they pray for national leaders and expect their country to improve.
7. They are active in evangelism. They hope to win many souls to the Lord and are deeply concerned about evangelism, looking for evangelism opportunities particularly in Central and Southeast Asia. They are fond of topics regarding bringing the Gospel back to Jerusalem.
8. These churches are passionate about preaching the Gospel. In cities, believers carry Gospel tracts with them to share the Gospel and pray for passers-by. They are happy to hear of decisions to follow Jesus.
9. The majority of these believers are white-collar students and working-class folks. They have a fixed schedule so as to be able to take a break on Sunday. They have no friends and enjoy going to church.
10. They participate in a wide range of social media activities and frequently hold special cross-church charismatic events. Each pastor has charismatic characteristics, but many churches involve a few pastors who are empowered and anointed to hold special events and carry them out on a regular basis.
11. They urge new apostolic movements and think that the New Testament apostolic era extends until now. They seek that each believer be open to and pray for the power of God manifested through miracles.
A pastor from Xiping, Henan province, by the name of WANG Li also having the spiritual name "New Mission", has now established a church on the outskirts of Beijing. By describing the process of how he built the church, I will analyze why the modern charismatic church attracts the urban working class.
The parents of WANG are local Christians. Having been raised in the Three-Self Church, WANG has been passionate about God's word and listening to His voice. He had a small business in Xiping and got to know a non-Christian woman. She was pretty and fashionable and he insisted on marrying her. This woman was not opposed to his faith, but his parents were against their marriage because the rule of the church then was that both parties had to be Christians in order to hold a Chrisitan wedding in the church and have it performed by a pastor. The woman wore a mini-skirt and high heel shoes and the parents' son must not have been able to resist the temptation so that it became easier for them to have sex before marriage.
However, this time the "obedient" WANG chose to be his own master and made up his mind to marry her. His parents were considerate and understanding and paid for their son's wedding. However, in their mind, they still had regrets that their son did not marry a Christian woman and so could not have a wedding in a church in accordance with Christian custom.
After the wedding, WANG stopped going to church because the church had refused to hold the wedding for him. The couple opened a cosmetic shop and enjoyed a happy life. Later on, WANG expanded his business, spending most of his time building business links and management and having increasingly less time to see his wife. Eventually, he found out his wife was unfaithful to him and so chose to divorce her, resulting in him having nothing.
After the divorce, with seemingly everything against him, WANG was in no mood for working. At that time the local Three-Self church held a camp and WANG attended it so as to get to know a new coming pastor who was of ethnic Korean descent. The pastor introduced him to a Beijing seminary.
On the outskirts of Beijing in a residential area, the seminary rented out 14 apartments to students of different levels and from different places to live and study. The seminary was established by a charismatic church from South Korean.
All his teachers were from South Korea and had a very significant pastoral experience. One of them, pastor Li, left a deep impression upon him. Pastor Li, who had graduated with a Ph.D. from Yonsei University in Seoul, made WANG feel optimistic and have positive theological energy. WANG learned to compliment and appreciate others. Another teacher, pastor Quan, a retired army chaplain, had a resonant voice when praying to and praising God. His prayers were deep and very moving. WANG was impressed by this. This pastor told WANG that his prayer should be imaginative and that a broken spirit because of the hardships of life would result in a profound and passionate love for the Lord and empathy for others. In addition, prayer should be crafted so as to be contemplative, to be descriptive of the scenery in its overwhelming grandeur. He should also consider his vocal range and tone of voice in choosing the wording and length of sentences. Moreover, although one should be empathetic, one cannot be too deeply empathetic as it should be known that self, God, and others are in a tripartite relationship. When he prays he should leave an impression of the three parties being present together.
The seminary was formed through co-funding by a church group. Once, an elder named JIN Yongkui from a church in Seoul came to visit the seminary. He was able to speak a dozen different languages and taught in Beijing for three days on predestination. WANG thought he was very weird. Yet WANG's began recognizing that elder JIN had surpassed all the other pastors.
Three years later, WANG graduated from the seminary. He chose to stay in Beijing to establish a church on the outskirts of the city because, while seminary, he had met a beautiful Uyghur woman who eventually became his second wife. A pastor from Chunchuan helped WANG rent an apartment near the North China Institute of Science and Technology in Hebei province. It was for building a church. By this time WANG's mind was set on truly reforming himself for the Lord.
In the very beginning, the bookshelves in his church were full of translated books from more traditional sources, particularly books such as The Christian's Reasonable Service and Our Reasonable Faith. WANG thought that his church was not a traditional, anti-intellectual one but one that was directly connected with the mainstream and most significant reformed churches, a church with historical heritage. However, the earliest believers in his church were stubbornly simple. They preferred the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Catechism, being zealous about recognizing true or false churches and thereby became increasingly more extreme. It was very often suggested that the organ in the church be removed, Psalms should be chanted without any music and there should be no air conditioning in the summer. A microphone should not be used as they thought that the words of the Lord needed no modification and distortion occurred because of modern technology. His church was apparently stuck on literal meanings in the Bible and became more and more extreme.
As time went by his church did not increase in numbers except for a few elderly ladies who were looking for a nearby place to worship. Other believers left either because they felt his church was too extreme or that it was not authentic, not truly a reformed church in spirit.
WANG started to be anxious since his mother-in-law chose to go to another church out of a sense of God being with her at this other church. The church she attended was charismatic and begun by South Korean evangelists. The atmosphere and quality there seemed strong. WANG decided to make the church more charismatic in its theology and practice as he was facing great pressure and needed quick success. He felt that after his success his church might turn into a God-centred reformed one, but the present believers were of low quality simply enjoying the message of the Gospel and charismatic experience.
He purchased drum kits, guitars, a bass and high-end musical equipment. By cooperating with other nearby churches, he trained his worshipping teams. He recruited students from the nearby university and gave them free instrument lessons and practice time during the Sunday services. As a result, two dozens of students came with the purpose of learning to play an instrument. In the end, one third of them became Christians and took charge of leading worship.
WANG provided two Jinbei mini-buses for commuters from the Beijing CBD coming to his church on the outskirts, shuttling working people several times every day for a small fee. In this way, there were a dozen people who would have a chance to hear the Gospel at his church every week. Finally, the church had over a hundred people attending. No matter what the situation, WANG encouraged and praised these white-collar folk, never blaming them or being negative. He helped them with their daily lives as well. WANG began praying for and seeing healing as well doing deliverance amongst believers. His words began to become known.
At the time of this writing, WANG told me that he had changed his name to New Mission pastor. He said, for pastors, the charismatic churches are the simplest and their sermons the most well organized. For more liberal churches, they needed continued study. For the Charismatics, however, only a consensus was needed between the pastor and the congregation. Most white-collar folks needed relief from their stresses, a chance to make friends, and an expectation of not being made to feel guilty. Only the Charismatics do this.
My findings from the interviews and observations are that there is a large portion of charismatic Christians within the Chinese Church. It is not the traditional reformed nor Liberal tradition, but rather the Charismatic that the younger generation prefers. They may be satisfied and feel valued during the services as well as not feel criticized when fellowshipping with other believers who are all positive. Pastors in such churches may become authoritative. Many believers who remain are willing to be loyal to their pastors, reveal their inner thoughts to them, and feel excited and fulfilled.
Since Charismatics are not interested in current affairs, according to the Internet, it is hard to know how much influence they have. However, in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, nearly all Chinese churches have become charismatic in order to best connect with the larger mainstream society. It may also help a church to quickly become popular and successful. The target group of Charismatics is mostly the white-collar and middle class. This is also a reason why the development of the Charismatic Church cannot be ignored.
- Translated by Charlie Li
Brief Account of Self-Nominated Evangelical Chinese Grass-Roots Preacher
Be Alert to False Revival of Urban Church
[Feature] God Still Reigns: Testimonies of Urban Christians in China
Rural Church Pastor: My View On Urban Church
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Five Interesting Album Covers
3 months ago Darshak Chudasama
Ever heard “don’t judge a book by its cover”? Well I guess in this case, I should be questioning the phrase, “don’t judge an album by its cover.” And to some degree, sure, I agree. However, cover art plays an essential role on my first impression. If you’re like me, you like to kill time in record stores and wander around as if you’re at an art gallery. Albums that visually appeal to my eyes are always the ones I grab first. That’s not to say that albums with bland covers are inferior or that they shouldn’t be loved (#UglyAlbumCoversDeserveLoveToo); I’m simply stating I find it impressive when album covers have enough appeal for me to actually want to listen to those albums. It’s even more impressive when the cover art ties to or in some way foreshadows the music that’s to be revealed inside it. Down below I’ve chosen five unique album covers with interesting backgrounds. It was very difficult for me not to go off in tangents about how great these albums are, so bear with me as I attempt to stay on topic, and explain the origins and the artists behind each piece. In no specific order, we’ll be starting with…
Death Grips: The Money Store (2012)
If you were to search Sua Yoo on Google, all you’re likely to find are scattered anime drawings and maybe a few Death Grips-related Reddit threads. Her website links you to her email and that’s about it. An artist from Chicago, she’s well known to have co-founded Rozliubit, a young company that specializes in elegant, handcrafted weaponry and armor. The Money Store cover art is an alteration of an illustration done by Yoo that was initially published in a zine. Death Grips explained in an interview with Pitchfork:
“On the cover you have an androgynous masochist on the leash of a feminist sadist who’s smoking. The sadist has carved Death Grips into her bitch’s chest. There is an overly confident quality to the woman smoking and a calmness to the androgynous masochist.”
The black and white backdrop stress even more of a separation between the sadist and masochist, contrary to the connecting effect of the chain. Ironically (or expectedly), the band has quite a similar relationship with their fans. The cover art remains an instant reminder of Death Grips: provocative (in this case through the near-nude figures) and progressive in its essence and forethought.
The artwork was supposedly inspired by a photograph, which you can find here.
King Crimson: In the Court of King Crimson (1969)
At first glance, any normal person might be a bit spooked by this artwork. However, as odd as it may be, no one can deny its gripping visual appeal. Whether it be the giant, cave-like nostrils or maybe the raw flesh-colored skin, the artist achieved the goal of any painter by provoking the viewer’s curiosity. What the hell is the man so terrified of? Well…the painting depicts Barry Godber’s perception of the “21st Century Schizoid Man.” Godber was an old friend of Peter Sinfield’s, who just so happened to be the co-founder and lyricist of King Crimson. Apparently, Sinfield played him a few tracks from their upcoming debut album and out came this masterpiece. The soft shades of blue alleviate the up-close, dire facial expression, while the hints of white seem to intensify his feelings of fear and overall tension. Progressive rock has had many eye-grabbing album covers, but few of them are as haunting as this.
In the Court of King Crimson was the only album cover Godber had ever done as he shortly passed away in 1970 from a heart attack – he was only 24.
The Clash – London Calling (1979)
On September 21, 1979, Pennie Smith captured the ethos of punk rock in a blurry but powerful shot. Near the end of their gig at New York City’s Palladium, bassist Paul Simonon stacked up enough anger towards a meek crowd to lift his bass by the fretboard and smash it into the floor. Funnily enough, it makes the track “I’m so Bored With the USA” from their debut album all the more appropriate. His feet are parted a meter wide and his torso may as well be non-existent. What I would pay to go back in time and watch this happen live is more than I earn, I’ll leave it at that. The cover was inspired by Elvis Presley’s debut album, using the same coloring and format. Some see the picture as a representation of The Clash putting an end to the old rock and roll ways and marking the start of a new era. To me, it’s a pissed-off punk rocker looking to electrify the audience. It was a miracle Smith was there to capture such an iconic moment, but to the same degree, The Clash were a miracle band. They were young, dynamic, and ready to defy. Nothing says that better than this photo.
If you’re interested, more on the event can be found here and more of Smith’s photography can be found here.
GZA – Liquid Swords (1995)
Ah, such an amazing album, one of my favorites. The eccentric cover art makes Liquid Swords one of the most recognizable hip-hop albums of all time. In 1995, GZA released such a game-changing album that I could literally rant about its originality, influence, and all around cohesiveness for hours and hours. But before listening to a single track, the cover art itself was enough to reel me in. As the story goes, one day GZA and fellow rapper Masta Killa were playing chess matches, one game after another. If that’s not mentally strenuous enough, they were also baked. The marijuana caused GZA to have personified visions of the chess pieces, such as knights battling with weapons from swords to handy guillotines. The vivid thoughts were beautifully implemented onto the album cover with each fighter resembling a chess piece on a chessboard. On the the left hand side, we have what seems like a weak emcee getting brutally attacked. On the right hand side, we have the attacker, the genius himself GZA, slashing his opponent with his sword in his right hand and a tense left hand ready for any surprise attacks. A little further down, we have what seems like a faceless Wu-Tang member slaying another weak opponent. Never was Wu-Tang Clan one to back down from any challenge. GZA’s cover art on Liquid Swords creates a scenario where a crew foolishly attempts to usurp their throne, and it’s like watching one of those sad clips of a pride of lions mauling their prey.
Fun fact: GZA is a strong advocate for science education and co-created a program called Science Genius for high school students to engage in science through the art of emceeing.
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970)
Here we have an unnamed actress being photographed for arguably the first heavy metal album to ever be created. A British photographer under the pseudonym Marcus Keef took this mysterious photo in front of a 15th century watermill in Oxford, England. Using infrared film, Keef created a false-colour effect to match the grim appeal of the music. The actual site of the photograph is a beautiful landscape with saturated greenery, and the watermill is built of aged red bricks. However, Keef used a proper technique that suits the aesthetic of Sabbath. The actress is dressed in an all black, witch-like robe and is rumored to be holding a black cat, though it’s pretty much impossible to see. What’s scariest to me is that she doesn’t seem inviting nor threatening, just ghostly. Her positioning is also ideal. Any closer to the tree and she’d seem withdrawn, and any further to the left, she’d mask the view of the hoary mill that seems to have been vacant for decades. Everything about the cover spits out metal, but the fact this was photographed and released in 1970 makes this is even more revolutionary.
Mysterious fact: Black Sabbath themselves never knew the person being photographed (allegedly named Louise), but years after the release of the album, someone dressed in a similar attire approached the band claiming to be her.
If that wasn’t enough, check out the gallery below!
Darshak Chudasama
Tags: Black Sabbath, Death Grips, feature friday, GZA, Paul Simonon, Sua Yoo, The Clash, wu-tang clan
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Review: 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (Microsoft Xbox 360)
Christopher Bowen | May 17, 2010 | Archive, Top Story, Video Game Reviews, Xbox 360 | 1 Comment
Publisher: EA Sports
Genre: Realistic Sports
Release Date: 4/27/2010 (NA)
I was very, very nice to FIFA ’10 when I reviewed it. I gave it a good score, pointed out that it was a better football game than Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, and said that it was the “perfect evolution” of the series. I still stand by that review. Then, I gave some demo impressions of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (henceforth known as World Cup ’10 or WC ’10) in a PSN wrap-up, and noted that I wasn’t sure, based on the demo, that the game was worth $50. Electronic Arts addressed my issues in a way that only EA and maybe Activision can do:
They raised the price and made it a full $60 purchase.
This puts football players in a bind. Assuming you’re a huge fan like I am, that means you’ve already spent $110 for both EA’s and Konami’s football titles, before even getting into DLC such as the Ultimate Team add-on for the main FIFA game. FIFA ’10 was $60 in itself, and FIFA ’11 will also be $60, plus the obligatory extra cost for people that buy used. Therefore, even considering the actions made to make this a more casual-friendly experience to bring in new gamers in time for the World Cup, did EA give people that spent $60 on FIFA ’10 enough reason to blow another $60 on World Cup ’10, before blowing a third $60 on FIFA ’11?
As soon as you boot the game up, after loading everything, the voice of Clive Tyldesley (if you’re playing in English) informs you about the Battle of Nations. EA has done an interesting thing: they’ve brought the World Cup online, and they keep track of scores. Players can enter into World Cup format tournaments, and it’s done in an interesting way; you can play a match whenever you want, and pair up with someone random; you do this two more times, and if you’re good enough, you advance to the round of 16, against someone else that made that round. The plan was to make a World Cup where people from various countries could play against each other. It’s a great idea, but there’s only one problem: most people don’t represent honestly. I went in honestly, and played as Canada. The problem is that they’re a mediocre three star team, but I can’t remember how many times I’ve played against Spain, England or Brazil. In short, if you want to be competitive, you pretty much have to lie. “Oh? Yeah, I’m from Spain! Yes, I mean, uh, SÃÂ, senior!”. All of these count in the Battle of Nations. You’re asked, when you first connect online, to determine what country you want to affiliate with. This is unchangeable, so think twice before having a drunken moment and going “I’ll represent American Samoa! *snicker*”. From there, your stats count for your country. Despite some anomalies at the top – Mexico is currently the best country in the world, and Scotland is third – for the most part, the rankings fall in line with FIFA’s rankings, so it’s not bad.
All of this is in addition to the almost unadvertised divisional structure. In this, you play a ten game “season”, and depending on how you do, you’re either promoted or relegated; you start in division 10, and if you get enough points in division 1, you win a championship. It’s an awesome setup that not only reflects true ability, but adds a nice little ladder to climb up/fall down, just like league football. Again, expect to see a lot of Spain and France, but it’s not EA’s fault that most players are cowards. I love what EA did with the online modes in this game. If you’re a heavy online gamer, this might be worth the price of admission itself.
When it comes to offline modes, the main draw is the World Cup itself, which includes all qualification modes. Depending on what country you pick, you can start out with either qualification in whatever one of the six continental FIFA groups there are, or just start with the World Cup tournament itself. It can be determined at this point if you want your country to have the real fixtures the actual country had (for example, Canada getting Mexico, Honduras and Jamaica in the third round) or if you want to customize things, and if you want to play friendlies or not. It works well for what it is, and it’s nice to be able to extend gameplay for people that desire the full qualification. This is most useful for people wanting to challenge themselves by getting small countries to qualify for the World Cup, such as people that want to try to get Lichtenstein into the World Cup out of Europe, or trying to get in out of one-bid Oceana as anyone other than New Zealand. The qualification rounds are all accurately done, with the proper rules in place, but unfortunately, not everyone can qualify for the World Cup. Though there are 199 teams (nine teams are missing because FIFA had them pulled for not meeting qualification deadlines or withdrawing), qualification starts in 2008, so some teams that didn’t make certain rounds of their qualification tournaments – for example, anyone knocked out of the first two rounds of CONCACAF, or who didn’t make the OFC Nations Cup – can’t qualify for the World Cup unless they’re placed into the qualifications via customization. It would have been nice to have set qualification back a bit so we could play all rounds of qualification, because only being able to play a four team tournament in Oceana sticks out. To be fair, this isn’t as big a problem in large groups like Europe or CONMEBOL.
There’s also the ability to Captain Your Country, this game’s Be a Pro mode. In this, you create a player (or import one from FIFA ’10), and start off with qualification for your team. If you played Be A Pro: Seasons in FIFA ’10, bin it, because unfortunately, they didn’t put nearly as much work into this. No matter how good your pro was in FIFA ’10, he’s going to have to start from scratch this time around. In FIFA ’10, your player got better based on certain landmarks; score your first goal, play X amount of games, run Y miles, etc. The goals are pitifully simple this time around, and the rewards are less, but to compensate, your player will automatically get better as the campaign moves along. It takes a lot of the immersion that existed in FIFA ’10 out of the mode. Worse, the whole goal of the mode is to captain your country, but that’s done with a silly, arbitrary ranking system. The system works for showing your progress – from the B team all the way up to the starting eleven – but once it comes to being the captain, it’s flawed because the game goes by the mantra “you’re only as good as your last game”. You could have three great games in a row, earning the captaincy, only to have a mediocre game for whatever reason and lose the armband. It’s a matter of timing it right so that your best games are near the end, when in reality, teams that changed their captain so frequently are so poorly run that they’re either completely destroyed, or run by Diego Maradona. I hate game-like elements to what is supposed to be a simulation, and when you combine that with the fact that there is virtually nothing setting apart the Captain your Country mode from standard qualification, the reason for going through it, for me, ended up being the potential for a 100 point achievement.
The last big mode is the Story of Qualifying mode, which most of us know as a situation mode. This is just like a situation mode in any other sports game: you’re given a situation that happened in real life, and your goal is to change the end result, for example, having the Irish come back after the French handballed their way into the World Cup. Getting the main goal is worth 200 points, and the minor goals are 100 points. Ultimately, this is just a diversion, though 10,000 points will allow you to unlock situations from the 2006 World Cup, and during the actual 2010 World Cup, situations will be available as free DLC, so that’s a plus.
I’ve spent a lot of time talking about modes, both online (yay!) and offline (meh). Those alone don’t make a $60 game. The gameplay is key in that. So, saying that, how does the gameplay match up to FIFA’s, which I called “sublime”? Ultimately, it depends on what your idea of football is.
One of the complaints I had about FIFA ’10‘s on-pitch action was that it was too physical. EA took those complaints, and decided to one-up themselves. This is the most physical brand of football I’ve ever seen in a videogame, to the point where I have to wonder if a few of the Madden developers got mixed into the FIFA team and got their sports mixed up. If you get on a run, especially if you have a lower tier team, you can almost guarantee that a defender will catch up to you, hold your arm for a few seconds, and then bluntly shoulder you off the ball. I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were playing Aussie rules! This means that on higher levels of the game, the best ways to score are to either blindly throw crossing balls into the box and hope to get a good header, or bomb away from 30 yards and hope to get lucky, because anything else is going to result in your striker becoming roadkill somewhere around the six yard spot. I find it funny that football fans freaked out when Pro Evolution Soccer incorporated a diving mechanic – and the risk/reward element that goes with flopping around like Didier Drogba – but continue to tolerate football that looks like the Football League’s worst day come to life.
Another complaint I have is that to get truly realistic football, the difficulty has to be spiked way up. There’s a bit of Mortal Kombat Syndrome in place, where lower levels will do a lot of things well, then do something absolutely stupid to make up for it. When I dropped the difficulty down for a few matches, I would watch the computer make some brilliant passes, get a run set up, then watch as their striker ran directly into my goaltender without so much as flinching. They also had a curious way of coughing the ball up with the last man back. Due to this, I actually found it *easier* to play on a higher difficulty setting; playing lower than my defaults reminded me of what Albert Einstein must have felt like in basic maths because of how dumb it played. Of course, moving up in difficulty is compensated by defenders skipping all pretences and simply eviscerating anyone with the ball, so it all evens out.
If there’s one improvement, it’s that goaltenders aren’t quite as retarded as they have been in previous years. They react much better to shots, and play much better angles than before. They also tip a lot more crosses over the bar, whereas before, they would catch everything. They still charge out at weird moments, but there is improvement there. Another area that’s at least more realistic is that there’s a palpable difference in ball movement and passing precision between the haves and the have-nots, moreso than in FIFA ’10. More pressured passes go wayward here, depending on player ability, and lesser players make more mistakes. While it doesn’t make low-level international players resemble something out of the first half hour of a Disney movie, there’s a difference between watching New Zealand and Vanautu, and watching Spain and England, as it should be. Still, the change in physicality on defence makes this a more plodding game of football than other recent efforts, and even in the best of cases, this is nothing more than a patch masquerading as a full priced game.
EA Sports did make a play to the casual fans with the addition of a two button control scheme, with one button being for passing and another being for shooting. While this is somewhat admirable in its intent, it’s ultimately fruitless. Even the very first FIFA game for the Sega Genesis used all three buttons on those controllers. When using this scheme, the game assumes which kind of pass you want and how you want to tackle, but that means that by default, anyone using the two-button scheme is going to have to play on the lowest difficulty setting because otherwise, they won’t stand a chance. Using the two button scheme on even Semi-Pro is like going into a gun fight with a kazoo, and anyone using it as anything more than training wheels for people with *no* football or videogame experience whatsoever is doing themselves or their friends a disservice.
Ultimately, football fans have to ask themselves how much the World Cup means to them. Is it really worth $60 to have a timely football game commemorating the World Cup? There’s no Project Ten Dollar crap with this game; anyone renting or buying it used is going to get the same package as anyone who bought it new, which is probably the last time we’re going to see that with an EA Sports release. If you’re one of those people that get into the World Cup experience, then this is a much easier purchase. The presentation is outstanding for the most part, and the wide-angle views of the stadiums – especially during the actual World Cup matches – are astounding. My problem with the presentation comes when they try to show individual fans getting into the action, either before or during the game. The game will often show about four different fans either dancing, celebrating or being angry, depending on the game’s situation, but the only real difference between fans of different countries is the way they’re dressed and the paint on their faces. For me, these cutaways broke the flow of the game, and had me wishing for a real-time option like the one in MLB ’10 The Show. Despite that, the atmosphere for the World Cup matches is amazing, and I can make the following statement without hyperbole: winning the World Cup brings up the most amazing trophy celebration in videogame history. I’m dead serious. Before this, the best trophy celebration ever was NHL ’04’s. Watch that, and then realize that what you see in WC ’10 blows it out of the water. It’s especially sweet if you’re controlling a big team that’s in the World Cup. When I won with England, they talked about England’s history, and how nice it must have been for Fabio Capello to cap off his career in that fashion. Compared to that, the celebration for when I won with Canada feels somewhat generic, but no less amazing.
Modes: Mediocre
Graphics: Very Good
Sound: Very Good
Control and Gameplay: Very Good
Replayability: Great
Balance: Above Average
Originality: Poor
Addictiveness: Very Good
Appeal Factor: Great
Miscellaneous: Mediocre
FINAL SCORE: ABOVE AVERAGE GAME
Short Attention Span Summary
Let’s get this out of the way: 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is a great game of football. To me, that’s indisputable.
With that said, gaming budgets are tighter than they have been in the past, and the bar set by FIFA ’10 is a high one. I have to judge each game against its peers and there isn’t enough separating FIFA ’10 and World Cup ’10 for me to really separate them except on frivolous items such as presentation. Furthermore, there simply were not nearly enough improvements to the football engine to justify a $60 price tag. I’d be nicer on this package if it was even $10 cheaper.
Huge football fans, or those that only care about the World Cup, should give this a look. Everyone else should either rent it or wait until after the World Cup to pick it up on a discount.
Tags: ea sports
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Superbus
Christopher Bowen is the News Editor at Diehard GameFAN. He has also written for Talking About Games, Daily Games News and Not A True Ending in his six years of working as a journalist in the industry, and is a frequent guest on the Post Game Report podcast. He specializes in issues relating to industry business, politics and law. Prior to joining the games industry, Christopher worked in IT as a Network Security Engineer and spent four years in the United States Navy, fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom before separating in 2004. He is engaged to Associate Editor Aileen Coe.
og original kicksta May 18, 2010 Reply
yes, i believe it is a great game but not worth the 60 dollar price. YA DIG?
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Maltese War Memorial 1994
CHESTER, Max
Maltese War Memorial
Erected by the governments of Australia and Malta, the City of Melbourne and the Maltese community of Melbourne, 1994
Maltese War Memorial, Shelter of Peace, 1994, George Cross, World War II, WWII
Location: Birdwood Ave, Kings Domain
Designed by Max Chester and also known as 'Shelter of Peace', the Maltese War Memorial is an open timber structure across a pathway, with wooden panels either side. It pays tribute to the people of Malta and to those who served in defence of the country during World War II.
It was erected with the support of the Maltese and Australian governments, the City of Melbourne, ANPAS Group (Frank R. Gatt), Calleja Transport, Econo Mix, Mid Med Bank, Olex Cables, Plamer Tube Mills, Sims Metal, Smorgon Arc, Chasmic PTY LTD and the Maltese Australian Association.
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Stone Hunger
— by N. K. Jemisin, read by Kate Baker —
Our second piece of audio fiction for July is “Stone Hunger” written by N. K. Jemisin and read by Kate Baker.
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 94 - Stone Hunger by N. K. Jemisin [53:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (38802)
Subscribe to our podcast.
JC wrote on July 21st, 2014 at 12:57 pm:
This story was very interesting and dark. I really liked it. I listened to it twice. It was also read well. Thank you.
ISSUE 94, July 2014
N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn author whose short fiction and novels have been multiply nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula, shortlisted for the Crawford and the Tiptree, and have won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her speculative works range from fantasy to science fiction to the undefinable; her themes include the intersections of race and gender, resistance to oppression, and the coolness of Stuff Blowing Up. She is a member of the Altered Fluid writing group, and a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop. Her latest novel, The Shadowed Sun, was published in June 2012 from Orbit Books, and she's hard at work on a new series due to begin in 2014.
nkjemisin.com
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The Cuckoo
— by Sean Williams —
April 1st, 2075, 9:15-9:23am
More than one thousand commuters traveling via d-mat arrive at their destinations wearing red clown noses; they weren’t wearing them when they left. The global matter-transmission network is rebooted, source of the glitch unknown. All the clown noses are destroyed except for three retained by private collectors.
April 1st, 2076, 10pm precisely
One year later, every d-mat booth in the world opens at exactly the same moment, releasing a powerful scent of roses. Peacekeepers analyzing the fumes find no evidence of toxicity. People begin to talk about the existence of a new, anonymous art-prankster in the vein of Bekhisisa Uteku or Banksy, who turns 100 this year.
At random times throughout the day, eight hundred and sixty nine booths each deliver a single page on which are typed twenty three different words from William S. Burroughs’ cut up novel The Soft Machine.
Professor Eme Marburg, 53, of New Leiden University begins investigating the activities of “The Fool,” as she dubs the prankster on her blog. She is a teacher of complexity theory and author of several abstruse textbooks on the subject, but it is her interest in mid-Twentieth Century literature that initially piques her interest. What happened to the remaining pages of The Soft Machine? Private collectors again, she is forced to assume.
Two hundred and seventy-one children are redirected in-transit to a location in Macau, where they arrive wearing the costumes of popular fantasy adventure series Super Awesome Ninja Ponies. They play without adult supervision for sixteen minutes before being rescued. No serious injuries are reported.
April 2nd, 2079, 12:03am
Following the attack on children the previous year, PKs worldwide are on high alert for any sign of The Fool. There are no incidents for twenty-four hours. After declaring the operation a complete success, outspoken octogenarian lawmaker Kieran Defrain is redirected in-transit and dumped in Times Square, wearing nothing but a cloth diaper and a tag tied around his left big toe, inscribed “Gotcha!”
Anggoon Montri, 32, from the Thai Protectorate, confesses to being The Fool. After eight hours of intense interrogation he recants, claiming he simply wanted to publicize his own original artwork and leaving The Fool’s true name and motives a matter of keen speculation. Some say that he or she is a disgruntled employee intent on exposing the flaws in the d-mat network, others that “The Fool” is actually a collaboration of many people dedicated to Eris, the ancient Greek Goddess of chaos. Still others believe that each incident is perpetrated by copycats, and that the original Fool went to ground long ago. No evidence exists to confirm any of these theories.
Despite a vigorous, yearlong search, The Fool remains at large. Embarrassed by their failure, PKs instruct the general public to avoid using d-mat except in the case of dire emergencies. No incidents are recorded involving d-mat booths. Instead, every networked fabricator in the world makes a unique piece of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, each approximately one cubic centimeter in size, which, if assembled, would form a sculpture of an upraised middle finger twenty-five meters high.
Professor Marburg of New Leiden University publishes a paper in the journal Complexity and Organization entitled “Manifest Meaninglessness: The Fool and his Meme are Easily Imparted.” She notes that six weeks before The Fool’s first known incident (clown noses), a major Peacekeeper initiative was launched to curb youthful misuse of d-mat booths, called “Quit Clowning Around.” Similarly, the following year’s incident (the smell of roses) was preceded by the “It Stinks” meme, instigated by a celebrity complaining that she didn’t receive a red nose. The cut up novel allegory is obvious. That The Fool is a playing a game at everyone’s expense was a notion widely discussed prior to the mass-kidnap of children in 2078; “Gotcha” in turn connects with the PKs’ determination to apprehend and punish the prankster, while the disassembled, statuesque obscenity clearly relates to a growing worldwide amusement at official impotence.
Professor Marburg concludes that this series of correlations is evidence of an emerging, powerful memeplex, or complex of memes, focused on The Fool. Whoever he or she originally was, he or she is here to stay.
Ignoring stern Peacekeeper warnings, the “Fool’s Tools,” a loosely organized movement of everyday citizens travel en masse continuously for twenty-four hours, awaiting, perhaps inviting, the latest prank from their hero. None is forthcoming, although over the course of the day six copycat stunts are easily detected and reversed, their perpetrators taken into custody. The only work ascribed to The Fool is a maze of d-mat addresses that, once entered, cannot be exited. The technician who stumbled across the artifact is never seen again, prompting another global manhunt. The Fool is now a wanted murderer . . . but remains no easier to catch.
April 2081-March 2082
The longer The Fool remains at large, the higher his or her public profile rises. Numerous organizations form to honor the prankster’s artistry, including the Fool’s Brigade, the Tomfoolerists, and the First Church of the Foolhardy. No matter how vigorously Peacekeepers crack down on publicly disruptive initiation rites, the number of disciples, prophets and self-proclaimed messiahs mounts. A monument to the Unknown Fool is erected in Berlin. A popular genre of erotic fan fiction, known as Foolfic, explores the motives and secret emotional life of the men and women supposedly behind the meme. In a series of increasingly obscure articles and blog posts, Professor Marburg, now 57, continues her examination of the phenomenon, placing the latest stunt in the context of a memeplex that seems on the one hand healthy to the point of profligacy and on the other verging on implosion.
She suggests that The Fool never existed at all, in any sense that matters--not as a person, or as a series of people copying each other, or as a group of people acting in concert. “The Fool” might very well be an emergent property of the world’s memeverse, in the same way that magnificent dunes form out of the simple interaction of sand grains and the wind, without conscious control or intent. Hence, she says, we have organizations that mimic The Fool, inferior to the original in some eyes but nevertheless an authentic part of the phenomenon. If that is so, she speculates, it is entirely possible that the sealed maze--cause of The Fool’s one and only direct fatality--might be a sign that the original Fool, whoever or whatever that might be, is now turning on itself, strangling itself in a knot of memetic transmutation that can only conclude one way.
She recants her previous prediction, and issues a new one: The Fool is dead. The knot has been tied off. All that remains is aftershock.
Few people read the theories of obscure professors. Huge celebrations greet the latest Fool’s Day and no one is immune to the party atmosphere--not even those who, led by a masked figure called “Straight-Face,” mount theatrical mock-protests against the rising tide of foolishness. Pranks of all kinds are performed, ranging from the harmless to the extremely dangerous. One hundred and seventeen people are killed in accidents; many more are injured. None of these tragedies are connected to The Fool. The world waits in anticipation to see what this year’s “official” prank will be, without release.
The Fool’s absence does nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the Foolish. After all, “Gotcha!” happened the day after April 1st. The Fool’s fans assume that the prank, when eventually revealed, will be unmatched in subtlety and explosiveness. Plans for next year’s celebrations begin early. “Best ever,” the world is promised.
In New Leiden University, Professor Marburg is troubled by the deaths. Not a day doesn’t go by that she doesn’t wish the world would put aside “The Fool” and the troubling visions he, she, or it inspires in her. As the memeplex grows larger than ever, The Fool as an active participant in its own perpetuation is made conspicuous by its absence. The Fool is dead; long live The Fool. How can that be possible?
The growing memeplex, as mapped out by other colleagues in the field, is already a fiendishly convoluted web of popular culture. Only she is fixated on its connection to d-mat, the means of mass-transit for ninety-nine percent of the world’s population. It’s no accident, she has always understood, that The Fool manifests this way, for that network contains--and symbolizes--vast complexity. She herself is part of this complex whether she wants to be or not, both by traveling via d-mat and by publicly posting her speculations. She cannot help but wonder what role she has played in the evolution of The Fool. Did she inadvertently name it, for starters? Did she shape its evolution by noting its past connections and predicting its disappearance? What if her musings are the butterfly wings that created a storm that is still unfolding, albeit invisible to her, now?
Still no prank has been found. The world awaits as it did the previous year, with identical results. “Perhaps we are the prank,” Straight-Face declares. “You, me, all of us. His work is done. And the joke is on us.” Nobody listens to him, either. Fool’s Day celebrations achieve outrageous heights. There are more injuries, more deaths. All festive promises are met, no matter how extravagant.
Professor Marburg of New Leiden University reads a paper by a colleague in Spain who declares that the memeplex is now so complicated that its extent can no longer be accurately measured. This prompts a highly unnerving thought, one she keeps entirely to herself.
At what point does one seriously consider the possibility that the memplex is alive? Perhaps not in the same way as a human; perhaps it possesses little more than reflexive self-awareness, like that of a puppy or a small child. But still, alive. What could that mean? What happens when it wakes up?
Professor Marburg, 59, has a dream about running down a tunnel full of people, all shouting at once. She wakes in a cold sweat. The image haunts her for days, leading her to a new and entirely chilling notion concerning the interaction between d-mat and the memeplex.
At any given moment the network contains millions of people, crisscrossing the earth from end to end. All their atoms, all their molecules, all their cells, pass relentlessly from one node to another as data. Data that is in theory available. And nature never leaves anything lying around unused. With such a great resource in existence, what are the odds that so many moving brain cells would never achieve spontaneous life? Life that might evolve in fits and starts, depending on the environment around it? Feeding on all the crazy things that humans believe? A thriving memeplex, for example . . .
Professor Marburg doesn’t know whether to laugh or weep. If a mind has been accidentally created by the movement of people through the d-mat network, then Straight-Face may well be right, albeit for the wrong reasons. The Fool is all of us, and we are The Fool.
She has just remembered that, in Scotland, someone who has been tricked on April Fool’s Day is known as a gowk, which is an old word for cuckoo.
Professor Marburg of New Leiden University writes her final blog post. In it she explains her theory and elaborates on the almost godlike potential of this emergent organism. We are as tiny compared to it as our cells are to us, she says. But we are not entirely insignificant, not in a chaotic system: butterfly wings, remember? Her work comprises just one cell in that vast creature, and it made a significant difference. She provided a necessary piece of the puzzle for the creature to become aware of itself, via the memeplex. She could even claim to be its midwife, if she wanted to.
She does not want to claim anything of the sort. All she wants is to stop worrying about the consequences for the entire human race of what she has inadvertently done.
Professor Marburg, 60, composes another note, which she leaves in an obvious place, and then she goes to sleep.
Fool’s Day has supplanted Halloween as the most popular holiday celebration in the world, behind only New Year’s Day. Straight-Face’s annual Sober Address is watched by millions. The death rate is the highest so far, but The Fool is not directly implicated in any way. Next year, The Fool will turn 10, if the phenomenon continues unchecked.
Few hear about the death of an obscure academic in a small European city, even fewer the typo in her suicide note. However, the coroner makes a note of it in his report, an electronic document readily available to anyone who cares to read it.
In the suicide note, instead of “I have cancer,” Professor Marburg wrote, “I am cancer.”
Careless, the coroner observes, for a woman of such impressive intellect.
Derek C. F. Pegritz wrote on April 2nd, 2014 at 11:10 pm:
This is exactly like something my friends and I would do: hack the planetary transmat grid and use it to do totally stupid, innocuous things. Like the clown noses!
akira wrote on April 21st, 2014 at 7:19 pm:
My favorite story out of April's bunch!
ISSUE 91, April 2014
#1 New York Times bestselling Sean Williams lives with his family in Adelaide, South Australia. He's written some books--forty at last count--including the Philip K. Dick-nominated Saturn Returns, several Star Wars novels and the Troubletwisters series with Garth Nix. Twinmaker is the first in a new series that takes his love affair with the matter transmitter to a whole new level (he just received a PhD on the subject so don't get him started). "The Cuckoo" is part of that universe.
twinmakerbooks.com
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José Martí and his Integration Dream for Latin America
Written by Radio Rebelde
Published in Culture
The figure about José Martí sums up the best of the political and social thought of this continent. His ideas are still valid and are representatives of the nature, idiosyncrasy and culture of our region.
José Marti’s project for the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico is not linked to another bigger one: the Latin American unity and integration.
It is from that historic perspective that the most recent initiatives of that continental integration such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas and the Trade Treaty with the Peoples (ALBA-TCP), the Association of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American States (CELAC), along with their different characteristic and also many coincidences, are the most important step that has been carried out during the last decades through the path for the long-awaited Latin American integration.
The pro-independence and anti-imperialist ideas of unity, which José Martí vehemently defended, mark the new guidelines in the Latin American mainland by awaking the people´s awareness.
In Cuba, José Martí found in Fidel Castro his best disciple. The journalist Marta Rojas who was awarded the National Journalism Prize and she said that it was an order and not a coincidence that Fidel Castro was photographed before a picture of José Martí in Santiago de Cuba province, after the attack against the Moncada Garrison. It is an emblematic image which has been not only in books of history but also in the life of Cubans.
After that and during his speech of defense in the trial for the events which took place on July 26th of the year 1953, the young lawyer expressed:
“I bring in my heart José Marti’s ideals.”
Fidel Castro was José Marti's best disciple and his legacy as a leader of the Cuban Revolution make the local people to think about José Martí´s validity through Fidel Castro´s thought whose knowledge on José Marti’s revolutionary project allowed him to understand the Cuban and world reality and the creating his struggle's program.
Fidel Castro with his word and work was teaching José Marti's entire human, ethical, political, ideological, military, patriotic, Latin American, internationalist and anti-imperialist dimension. Fidel Castro had Jose Martí present through his daily behavior and doctrine on humanism.
In the book entitled 'Cien Horas con Fidel' (A hundred Hours with Fidel), when he was then interviewed by the intellectual, Ignacio Ramonet, Fidel Castro describes himself as a Socialist, Marxist and Lenin's ideals follower, although he was a follower of Jose Marti’s ideals firstly.
José Martí and Fidel Castro are two outstanding revolutionaries and men of actions with a universal thought. The unity is José Martí´s essential word and as Fidel Castro did himself, he called for internationalism and friendship among the peoples: “the trees must stand in a row so that the seven- mile giant cannot pass through! It is the time of remembering and the united march.
Through seven centuries since the publication of the book entitled 'Nuestra America' it has been created the dream about a united mainland. The second declaration of Havana showed that it was possible to create a different society before the United States. Those two emblematic texts summarize the evolution of the emancipation project that was written by José Martí in the XIX century.
In the current regional context, the Latin American nations should strengthen their unity about their common values and interests to be able to preserve the independence, sovereignty of Latin America.
As Jose Martí taught to the local people and Fidel Castro also instilled in us, only the alliance of all the progressive forces will enable to set an integration regional plan based on the solidarity, reciprocity, social justice and the preservation of culture and peace.
The Latin American left-wing movement is experiencing a crucial hour. The challenge is not easy and without unity the Latin America would not able to build its future.
By Angélica Paredes López
Cuba to Announce 420-Athlete Delegation to PANAM Lima-2019
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Acosta Danza Company Announces New Season in Cuba
Cubans Remember Poet Nicolas Guillen after 30 Years of his Death
Cuba Reaffirms Commitment to Non-Aligned Countries
More in this category: « Cuba Pays Tribute to U.S. Dancer Lorna Burdsall Mexicans Will Exhibit Cuban Work on Perez Prado »
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Answered by Amelie Saintonge
Short version: Earth's average orbital speed is about 30 kilometers per second. In other units, that's about 19 miles per second, or 67,000 miles per hour, or 110,000 kilometers per hour (110 million meters per hour).
In more detail:
Let's calculate that. First of all we know that in general, the distance you travel equals the speed at which you travel multiplied by the time (duration) of travel. If we reverse that, we get that the average speed is equal to the distance traveled over the time taken.
We also know that the time it takes for the Earth to go once around the Sun is one year. So, in order to know the speed, we just have to figure out the distance traveled by the Earth when it goes once around the Sun. To do that we will assume that the orbit of the Earth is circular (which is not exactly right, it is more like an ellipse, but for our purpose a circle is close enough). So the distance traveled in one year is just the circumference of the circle. (Remember, the circumference of a circle is equal to 2×π×radius.)
The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is about 149,600,000 km. (Astronomers call this an astronomical unit, or AU for short.) Therefore, in one year, the Earth travels a distance of 2×π×(149,600,000 km). This means that the speed is about:
speed = 2×π×(149,600,000 km)/(1 year)
and if we convert that to more meaningful units (knowing that there are, on average, about 365.25 days in a year, and 24 hours per day) we get:
speed = 107,000 km/h (or, if you prefer, 67,000 miles per hour)
So the Earth moves at about 110,000 km/h around the Sun (which is about one thousand times faster than the typical speed of a car on a highway!)
Thanks for your explanation, but I was hoping for an explanation a little more precise, since I already knew the one you gave.
In the case of your question about the speed of the Earth around the Sun, there isn't really a more 'precise' answer. The only approximation I did in the calculation I sent you is assuming that the orbit of the Earth is circular. This is in fact a very good approximation. One of Kepler's laws describing planetary motions states that all orbits are ellipses. This is the case for Earth's orbit. But not all ellipses come in the same shape. They are described by their 'eccentricity', which tells us how flattened they are. The eccentricity of an ellipse is a number that varies between 0 and 1, 0 being a perfect circle, and close to 1 being a very flattened ellipse. It turns out that the orbit of the Earth right now has an eccentricity of about 0.017. This means it is almost a circle, making our approximation valid. So under the one approximation that was made, the calculation couldn't really be more 'precise'. And as for the average Earth-Sun distance, the true value changes slightly over time due to gravitational perturbations from the other planets, so there really isn't much point in using a more precise value than the one given above.
Now if you want to calculate the speed of the Earth on its orbit without assuming it is a circle, it is another ball game! First of all, I cannot give you a precise answer, because the speed of the Earth changes all the time as the Earth moves around the Sun. This is because Kepler's second law says that on its orbit, a planet will sweep equal areas in equal amounts of time. This means that when the Earth is closer to the Sun (which happens in early January, about two weeks after the northern winter solstice) it's moving faster than when it is farther away. (For more information on how the Earth's orbital speed varies over the course of a year, please see this answer.) Unless you specified a certain date, this means I cannot give you a precise value for the speed of the Earth assuming its orbit is an ellipse. We are better off to stick with the first number we got - the average speed.
I hope this answers your question now!
This page was last updated on February 28, 2016.
Kepler's Laws
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How fast does the Earth go at perihelion and aphelion? (Intermediate)
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John D. Rockefeller And The Monopoly Of Standard Oil
WORLD HISTORY | April 29, 2019
2/8/1924-Moravia, NY: The boyhood home of John D. Rockefeller, Near Moravia, is now being used as a domicile by convicts from Auburn Prison, NY, who are employed in repairing the "Rockefeller Highway." Source: (gettyimages.com)
John D. Rockefeller began his life much like any other average American of that day. But he did not remain just another average American. He began what became a very wealthy family fortune for not only him and his immediate family but those that would come after him.
He was born on July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York. His father, William Avery Rockefeller was a traveling physician and snake-oil salesman. In 1851, he and his family moved to Moravia, New York where he attended Oswego Academy. Two years later, in 1853, they moved again to Cleveland, Ohio where he attended high school until he dropped out and went to Folsom Mercantile College to take a business class. His first meaningful job was as an assistant bookkeeper at the age of 16. By the time he turned 20, he was working with a business partner as a commission merchant in goods like hay, meats, and grains. He had a gross income of $450,000 the very first year.
John D. Rockefeller. Source: (w1nnersclub.com)
The Oil Business
John D. Rockefeller was no foolish businessman. He did not take unnecessary risks but he had a good eye for a good opportunity. Such was the case when he saw a golden opportunity to get into the oil business. It was during the beginning of the 1860s when the production of oil was taking off in Western Pennsylvania. He built an oil refinery near Cleveland as part of his strategy, taking only two years to become the largest in the area.
With a few associates, he incorporated what was known as the Standard Oil Company in Ohio. In just a couple of years, they began buying out their competitors until they controlled almost all of the refineries in Cleveland. Their next move was to make profitable deals with the railroads to ship the oil, while at the same time, buying equipment to set up their own transportation. In that way, they were able to control every part of the oil business themselves. This caused competitors extreme distress.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Source: (respuestas.tips)
New Laws Enacted
By 1881, they had become so big that they expanded to other states and established a board of nine trustees. This became the first major United States trust and led the way for others to follow in the game of monopoly. In one year, they had pretty much monopolized the entire oil business.
Because of the ruthless tactics begun by Rockefeller and others, new laws were put into place by the U.S. Congress. Many antitrust laws, such as the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, were established that made it illegal to use the tactics they were using. Rockefeller dissolved the trust and split up the properties, but the same nine men still controlled those companies. In 1899, the companies came back together in a holding company that lasted until 1911, when the Supreme Court declared that they were in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
John D. Rockefeller's Mansion. Source: (Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
The Latter Years
Rockefeller became one of the wealthiest men in the world. Ruthless or not, he had created a family legacy. By the time of his death, he was worth a fortune. He had given away over $500 million in his later years.
This was his final home at the time of his death -- much different from the humble childhood home of his youth. His children and grandchildren followed his lead and have continued the legacy that he started.
The Rockefeller Family Tree. Source: (taarifa.rw)
After he retired, Rockefeller dedicated his time as a philanthropist. He began giving money to charitable organizations and founded the University of Chicago in 1892. With the help of his son John, he established the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City, the General Education Board, and the Rockefeller Foundation. After he passed away in 1937, his son continued what he started by giving to various foundations. He helped establish the USO (United Service Organizations) and donated $5 million to the Lincoln Center in New York City as well as other much-needed projects.
Tags: john d. rockefeller
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Ed Sheeran Surprises Fan At the Mall With a Spontaneous Duet
Thought a Claire's clearance or Wet Seal sample sale meant the mall gods were looking down on you favorably? Well, 13-year-old Sydney Bourbeau's recent trip to the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada amounted to some good fortune that's typically unheard of around the Best Buy and Auntie Anne's Pretzels.
On Sunday, the Canadian teen was singing Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" as part of her music school's fundraiser. Sheeran, who happened to be browsing in the mall's HMV (huh? what? we know), suddenly rushed the stage for a spontaneous duet and left the teen nearly speechless. We've got to give Sydney credit for finishing her set and, you know, not passing out.
"I was like, 'Should I stop?' I didn’t want to stop, but I wanted to talk to him,” Bourbeau told the Edmonton Journal, and added that she originally thought Sheeran was a technician who'd joined her on stage to fix her microphone. “This is, like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
The Journal reported that Sheeran's manager followed up on the performance by offering Bourbeau two tickets to Sheeran's show at nearby Rexall Place, and that the superfan decided to take her mom.
"Crying this was the best moment in my life," Bourbeau tweeted after all had been said and done and she finally caught a clip of the small-scale show.
Ever heard of anything like Sheeran's show-stopping drop-in, and can you believe Bourbeau's lucky timing? Check out the clip, and remember: No gig is beneath you!
Take a closer look at some celeb tattoos:
Next: Ed Sheeran Insists It's Cool To Be A Weirdo
Source: Ed Sheeran Surprises Fan At the Mall With a Spontaneous Duet
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Cholera Continues to Spread After Hurricane Sandy
Written by CEPR
Hurricane Sandy dumped up to 20 inches of rain of parts of Haiti last month and, in addition to the immediate devastation on crops, people, roads and homes, it has led to an increase in the number of cholera cases throughout the country. On November 16, the International Organization for Migration confirmed that 3,593 new cholera cases had been counted since the hurricane. These numbers, however, lag far behind what the Haitian Ministry of Health (MSPP) has recorded since Sandy. There are now three weeks of data post hurricane, and as can be seen in Table 1, there have been over 9,000 new cases recorded by the MSPP.
Table I.
As can be seen, the increase has been dramatic; both in terms of the number of cases recorded (a 46 percent increase) as well the number of deaths (an 85 percent increase). In fact, since the passage of Hurricane Sandy, the death rate has increased as well, from 0.7 percent to 1 percent. While still much lower than the death rate in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of cholera, this is nevertheless a worrying sign. As Dr. Juan Carlos Gustavo Alonso of the Pan American Health Organization noted after Sandy, the west department, which includes most of the remaining 370,000 IDPs, has seen the greatest increase in cases. In fact, according to MSPP data, since Sandy, over 37 percent of all cases were in Port-au-Prince, which includes Carrefour, Cité Soleil, Delmas, Kenscoff, Petion Ville, Port-au-Prince, and Tabarre. Given the declining humanitarian services in the camps, and the fact that funding for cholera is now running out, the increase in the capital is especially worrisome. Additionally, Sandy crippled the cholera response infrastructure in the country, destroying 61 cholera treatment units.
Since its introduction into Haiti by UN troops in October 2010, cholera has now killed at least 7,699 people and sickened over 615,000 more. Last year, Haiti recorded more cholera cases than the rest of the world combined. As has been pointed out previously, these are likely underestimates, as the MSPP cholera data is often lacking reports from many areas.
In recent weeks, a number of op-eds and editorials have been written calling on the UN to take responsibility for the introduction of the disease. Last week CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot wrote in The Guardian:
If Haiti were any other country in this hemisphere, a human-created disaster of this proportion would be a big international scandal and everyone would know about it. Not to mention the institution responsible for inflicting this damage – in this case, the UN – would be held accountable. At the very least, they would have to get rid of the epidemic.
In this case, getting rid of the epidemic could be easily accomplished. Cholera is transmitted mainly through drinking water that is contaminated by the deadly bacteria. To get rid of it, you need to create an infrastructure where people have clean drinking water and adequate sanitation. The Pan American Health Organization estimates that this would cost about $1bn for Haiti. In fact, that is close to what the UN has been spending in just one year to keep its 10,000 troops in the country.
The UN is still denying its responsibility, despite studies published by the New England Journal of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and even by the UN itself (pdf) tracking the origin of Haiti's cholera bacteria to UN soldiers. A study by a team of 15 scientists last year produced even more conclusive evidence, using whole genome sequence typing and two other methods that matched the cholera strain in Haiti to a sample from Nepal that was taken at the time that the Nepalese UN troops arrived in the country.
In short, there is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the UN mission is responsible for bringing this disease to Haiti.
Adding their voices to the growing chorus calling for the UN to take responsibility was the Boston Globe editorial board and the Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Western New England University School of Law, Lauren Carasik.
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The Top 10 Bleakest Billy Joel Songs
Dan S. / April 1, 2012
“Every one of Joel’s songs — including the happy ones — are ultimately about loneliness.” – Chuck Klosterman
For a singer known best as a Tin Pan Alley-inspired, Broadway-loving, pop balladeer, Billy Joel has a pretty big dark streak. You may not hear it in “Just the Way You Are” or “Uptown Girl,” but Joel’s catalog is flecked with songs that reveal his unhappy side — the part of him that attempted suicide in 1970.
So many of Joel’s songs are about relationships ending, or relationships doomed to fail, that you could find a hundred that touch on his lingering sadness and loneliness. Listed below, though, are the ones that are downright bleak — the ones that depict a desperation or meaningless that surpasses his usual melancholy.
Counting down to his darkest moments, here are Billy Joel’s ten bleakest compositions.
10. Pressure (from The Nylon Curtain, 1982)
You will come to a place / Where the only thing you feel / Are loaded guns in your face
In a writer’s block, his marriage falling apart, and attempting to create a “sonic masterpiece” as a tribute to a recently assassinated musical inspiration (John Lennon), Billy Joel was coming apart at the seams in the early eighties. The Nylon Curtain was his darkest album since 1973’s Piano Man, and its most intense and bitter song was “Pressure.”
Joel addresses someone younger and unfazed who has a more positive look on life, claiming that insatiable demands from all around eventually catch up with everyone, whether or not they’re ready (“Here you are with your faith / And your Peter Pan advice / You have no scars on your face / And you cannot handle pressure”).
9. Souvenir (from Streetlife Serenade, 1974)
Every year’s a souvenir / That slowly fades away
It’s Joel’s shortest song, both in play time (1:59) and in word count. In just ten lines, Joel characterizes memories and experiences as “souvenirs” that “turn to dust” — his nonstop struggle to find enduring meaning is a common theme of his darkest work.
A plaintive (but beautiful) arrangement of Joel’s singing accompanied by only piano match the sparse lyrics capturing the void in Joel’s life. For many years, he closed every show with this number.
8. Running on Ice (from The Bridge, 1986)
I’m carrying the weight of all the useless junk / A modern man accumulates / I’m a statistic in a system
The lone truly and completely happy album in Joel’s discography, An Innocent Man, came out in 1983 after Billy Joel fell in love for the first times after divorcing his first wife. Three years later, though he was happily married to Christie Brinkley, his sense of aching and longing — that he doesn’t belong and can’t keep up with the world — had returned.
Whatever the reason, there’s “a new disaster every time I turn around” and “as soon as I get one fire put out / there’s another building burning down.” No matter what he tries or what he does, he’s “running on ice,” failing to gain any traction in moving forward and settling down just when things were supposed to be going his way. From his perspective, the world is constantly moving faster and colder, and he’s increasingly disconnected. His whole life is “a bad waste, a sad case, a rat race / it’s breaking me.”
7. Close to the Borderline (from Glass Houses, 1980)
It isn’t new what I’m going through / But everybody knows you have to break some time
Joel felt like he had been pigeonholed through his late-70s breakout as a crooner and balladeer. Anyone who had been paying close attention would’ve known his uptempo numbers were just as consistently strong as his ballads. Still, he put together Glass Houses, an (excellent) attempt at an all-rock album.
The second last track on the album, “Close to the Borderline” was written as a response to the snark of new wave artists like Elvis Costello. But Joel’s take on dark, brutally honest humor reveals that his interior persona is just as bitter and broken as his darkest songs make you think. He casually jokes about bums dropping dead, drug addiction, and teenage suicide. It’s not a pretty picture.
His inability to adapt to a fast-paced, modern life (a recurring theme of his music) is evident here. He laments his dependence on his doctor, lawyer, and banker, rejects the sensationalist bad news-focused media, and describes how none of it provides any value. Worst of all, he has to endure pressure and heavy responsibility: “Life is tough, but it’s just enough / to hold back the tears until closing time.”
6. Falling of the Rain (from Cold Spring Harbor, 1971)
It seems time has brought things to an end / And nothing’s changed / ‘Cause you can’t stop the falling of the rain
In “Falling of the Rain” off of his first solo album, Joel tells a story of a painter who “is a fool” and whose “mind is filled with hopeless dreams.” There’s also a “girl in braids,” and the two seem destined to fall in love. But they never do. He remains obsessed with painting, and she moves on with her life.
Assuming the painter is a stand-in for Joel, this song shows him struggling with his obsession with his art, using it as an explanation for his isolation from the world. He can’t face “the falling of the rain” — or, the trials and challenges of the real world.
5. Somewhere Along the Line (from Piano Man, 1973)
You pay for your satisfaction / somewhere along the line
The central thesis of “Somewhere Along the Line” is that there’s a hefty and inevitable price tag to happiness, that all good things ultimately sour and destroy us. He singles out the fact that his “belly’s full of fancy wine,” and thus “in the morning there’ll be hell to pay.” He also calls out his “sweet Virginia cigarette” which is “eating up inside of me.”
But Joel’s concerns are deeper-seated than a simple, finger-wagging “indulgence is bad” message. He concludes the song by stating “a young man is a king” but “there’s an old and feeble man” not so far behind. He can’t enjoy even his fleeting moments of happiness. He just waits for it to eventually come crashing down on him, whether it’s the sharp pain of a hangover or the gradual futility of old age. “Somewhere Along the Line” suggests that not only is Joel devoid of happiness, he’s somewhat terrified of finding it in the first place.
4. Where’s the Orchestra? (from The Nylon Curtain, 1982)
I assumed that the show would have a song / So I was wrong
In 1982, Billy Joel was a multi-millionaire. He was coming off a six year span in which he released five albums, each of which was masterpiece or darn close (in my eyes, at least). He was a self-made man and an international celebrity. Through hard work, great craft, and good luck, he had achieved virtually every career goal he had ever dreamed of, all by the age of 31.
So, to use his thinly veiled metaphor, where was the orchestra? Where was satisfaction and pleasure and meaning of it all? He’d made it to the big leagues. This was his “big night on the town,” where every thing is supposed to start making sense. He’s not sure if he’s “missed the overture,” but nothing in his life made any more sense than when he drank a bottle of furniture polish twelve years earlier. Night after night, the “curtain falls on empty chairs” — the gaping hole of loneliness that is life.
The whole production of living remained a mystery to him, an almost-pointless endeavor. “Where’s the Orchestra?” captures Joel’s absence of meaning and cohesion with a simple, heartbreaking analogy.
3. A Minor Variation (from River of Dreams, 1993)
When troubles want to find me / I ain’t hard to find / They know where I am / Like a hungry pack of wolves
Age, an ever-growing fortune, and a steady marriage to a supermodel did a lot to temper Billy Joel as he passed the age where it was acceptable for him to be a pop star. In 1993, he was 43.
But some things never change, and that’s the point of “A Minor Variation.” No matter how long he weathers them, his demons never disappear (“ain’t no way to fight them / ain’t no way around them”), and they still strike hard. He sounds here like a seasoned vet, one who has accepted the that even his fleeting pleasures are slipping away.
For one, his multi-decade high of relevance and popularity was diminishing, and it hurt just as much as he predicted it would in 1973 in “Somewhere Along the Line”: There’s “no way to win when you’ve already been forgotten” and “it’s all a part of a pattern” of rise and fall.
He’s so fully given up hope that he’ll ever escape his occasionally-crippling depression and loneliness that he’s “getting to the point where I don’t feel the pain.”
“A Minor Variation” is the song of a man who spent his whole career struggling to find personal hope and meaning, and failed. Twenty-one years after his debut, he said goodbye just as broken and defeated as ever.
2. Captain Jack (from Piano Man, 1973)
You can’t understand why your world is so dead
I think of “Captain Jack” as Billy Joel’s version of Dante’s “Inferno,” a spiraling, eight-stanza descent into his darkest demons and addictions. But, unlike Dante, Joel refuses to fully reject the sin and temptation he observes.
Joel’s cover story for the song is that he used to observe teens buying hits from a drug dealer known as Captain Jack, and he wanted to write a song about these kids as a warning against drugs. But it takes little more than a cursory listen to sense that there’s something deeper going on here, that the protagonist is a stand-in for the hurting songwriter with a history of alcoholism and an inability to adjust.
Captain Jack becomes not strictly a drug dealer but any means of easy, temporary escape from the tragic, senseless world: drugs, sex, even art. Rather than show a light at the end of the tunnel, Joel depicts a numb and broken young man who “can’t understand why [his] world is so dead,” a persona he never fully grew out of.
1. Tomorrow is Today (from Cold Spring Harbor, 1971)
I’ve seen a lot of life / And I’m damn sick of living it
“Tomorrow is Today” is adapted from a suicide note that Joel wrote in 1970 when he drank a bottle of furniture polish in an attempt to kill himself. It’s an explanation of his frame of mind, why a twenty year-old decided that “soon enough it will all be over.”
The title of the song has two meanings. The first is that “tomorrow” — the great beyond, the big sleep — would be coming “today,” plenty early. The second meaning of the title, and the one explored by the words of the suicide note/lyrics, is that each passing day had become identical for the musician. “I don’t need to know the hour / because it’s passing anyways.” With no sense of efficacy or esteem, living each moment bereft of meaning, Joel has no need or interest in seeing what the next day brings.
The best efforts of the people around him, who tell him “life is sweeter,” make no impact. He submits to his suicidal impulses. In the centerpiece verse of the song, descends to “the river,” where he says his farewell: “Made my bed / I’m gonna lie in it / If you don’t come / I’m sure gonna die in it.”
The song ends with perhaps the most haunting, conclusive words Joel ever wrote: “Though I’m living and I’m singing / And although my hands still play / Soon enough it will all be over / ‘Cause tomorrow is today”
Of course, Joel survived his suicide attempt and went on to a personally tumultuous but commercially successful career. It’s strange to think how much the world would have lost if his attempt had worked. Though he was rescued from poison, he was never fully rescued from the melancholy and demons that made him drink it. And we witness that pain linger for decades, speckling his albums with the loneliest, most disheartened, and bleakest songs you’ll ever hear dismissed as “adult alternative.”
I want to thank Joel for sharing this part of his world with us and giving us a better insight into the darkest depths of the man behind the great music.
Dan is the editor of Earn This. He co-founded the site in 2009.
April 1, 2012 in Music. Tags: Billy Joel, dan, list
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11 thoughts on “The Top 10 Bleakest Billy Joel Songs”
Thank you for this. Some of his best songs.
Nice article! The bums in Close To The Borderline is not really a reference to vagabonds, but rather what President Ford said to NYC!
Mandzy Vinzweig says:
Maybe you’re not familiar with it, but I think that “So it Goes” deserves to have made this list.
Milk K Harvey says:
Awesome analysis Dan, thanks.
Thanks, Milk K Harvey!
That is great analysis. I am a big Joel fan so I enjoyed your piece. But I must say, I think “And So It Goes” should rank in the top 10 don’t you? Maybe number 2 to me.
I definitely think it could have a spot on this list. I’m not sure what I’d bump off, but you’re right that it would fit in here.
I am seeing him tonight. I’m surprised to not see a lot more feed back. He is one of the greats.
Sooner or later everyone reaches this point. Life is pain, plain and simple. As soon as you are born you are in the traffic jam of life. In so many ways I am going through the similar kind of depression that Joel has struggled with. It feels like there is no escape from the hell depression is. Drugs and alcohol at least provide temporary relief. But that is a dark road too.
Thanks for reading and sharing, Lar. I’m sorry to hear that you’re in a rough place right now. I hope you come out on the other side strong and thoughtful and creative, like Billy.
Nate White says:
I also find lot of relief and companionship in these songs, having been in a similar depression for so much of my life. I hope you’re doing better these days ❤️
Song of the Day: "San Diego Super Chargers" by Q.B. and the Big Boys
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Family’s tragedy is reminder to text less and live more
by Emanuel County Live | August 27, 2014 10:18 am
by DICK YARBROUGH
It is a potential killer whose numbers rival the deadly Ebola virus and it doesn’t get near the attention it should. Unlike the dreaded illness currently ravaging West Africa this is one with a quick cure.
This killer? Texting while driving. The cure? Don’t do it. There is no text so urgent as to distract you in a machine weighing two tons that takes half a football field to stop if you are driving only 55 mph. And who drives 55 mph anymore?
Studies from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, the Center for Disease Control and the Information Institute for Highway Safety put the number of annual deaths from texting while driving at somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000. Do the math. That’s roughly 10 or more deaths per day in the United States.
Georgia has had a law on the books since 2010 that prohibits texting while driving. It is known as Caleb Law, named for Caleb Sorohan, of Rutledge, a young man who lost his life a few days before Christmas in 2009. It was determined that texting while driving was the cause. Caleb’s family was a prime force in the passage of the law.
But, sadly, it is a tough law to enforce. Law enforcement officers pretty much have to catch someone in the act. The result is that too many times they are dealing with the tragic aftermath of someone’s poor decision to text and drive.
Harris Blackwood, the director of the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, says of texting while driving, “Trying to convince teens, who think they are invincible, that this could kill them, is tough. Someone who is engaged in texting is just as dangerous as a driver who is legally drunk.” Blackwood adds, “But don’t think this is only a ‘teen thing’. Many teens do this because they have seen their parents do it.”
Merritt Levitan, of Boston, was a vivacious 18-year-old scholar-athlete soon to enter Colgate University. Her life ended July 3 last year while on a cross-country cycling trip from Charleston, S.C. to California with a group of friends. In Arkansas, they were struck from behind by a 21-year-old man in a pickup truck who was — you guessed it — texting. Six of the young riders were seriously injured. Merritt Levitan died from brain injuries.
Merritt’s parents, Anna and Richard Levitan, have recently moved to Saint Simons Island from the Boston area and like the Sorohans are doing their part to turn their personal tragedy into an opportunity to save other young lives — and ours — from similar tragedies.
Following her death, a group of Merritt’s classmates at Milton Academy in Massachusetts founded the “TextLess Live More” campaign in her honor. Their mission is to decrease excessive phone use and organize “text-free” phone days. One of the young organizers said, “We want to change behavior. We want people to start texting less in their daily lives.” On the first TextLess day in October 2013, 500 individuals signed up.
They’ve also distributed more than 10,000 blue “TextLess Live More for Merritt” bracelets, along with kits explaining their mission. In addition, Giancarlo Esposito, who played Gus on the AMC hit show, “Breaking Bad” has filmed two excellent public service announcements for the campaign. You can check them out at Textlesslivemore.org.
The “TextLess Live More” movement is beginning to spread throughout the country. I am hoping it makes its way into Georgia’s high schools and colleges. It couldn’t come soon enough.
Anna Levitan says the campaign is not meant to discourage people from using their cellphones but to encourage them to step outside their virtual world and spend time helping others — as Merritt did.
As for Teagan Martin, of Newport, Ark., a student at the University of Arkansas, and the driver of the pickup truck that took the life of their daughter, he was recently sentenced to community service. Ms. Levitan says they have forgiven him. “We are encouraging him to rebuild his life,” she states,” and we are hoping he will join us in our efforts.” I hope he does, too.
There is nothing so important in our lives that we have to text while we drive. It is a stupid, undisciplined habit and it needs to stop. We may never find a cure for Ebola, but we can damned sure cure this idiotic obsession with texting while behind the wheel of a car. The world is dangerous enough as it is. It is time we text less and live more.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at yarb2400@bellsouth.net; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb
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Existing Use Rights – Sustainability or a hazardous future
Guests: Helen Beaumont, Head of Strategic Planning, Christchurch City Council
Councillor David East, Chair of the Regulation and Consents Committee, Christchurch City Council
Audience: 23 residents
Part A: Council has been applying Existing Use Right inappropriately, without following the process set out in the Resource Management Act, ignoring its own recommended procedure, ignoring MBIE guidelines on floor levels with EURs, and ignoring legal advice about development in high hazard areas.
Summary Part B
Council has been working against ratepayers in the interests of insurance companies and very few houses have been rebuilt to the correct height or repaired to the correct standard. However, Council’s role is irrelevant in terms of the relationship between claimants and insurer and claimants and EQC. Homeowners should get expert advice and insist on their entitlement under their insurance policy and/or the EQC Act.
Summary Part C (includes presentation)
CERA promised that houses would be rebuilt to the correct, safe heights.
900 properties in Christchurch are at high risk of flooding. The tidally influenced area extends much further than Council has admitted and rising groundwater and constant erosion poses a huge problem that has not been addressed.
Séamus welcomed everyone, introduced the speakers, and began with the background to the meeting. A meeting had been held with the Mayor on Council premises on 6 April 2016 to discuss various issues, including existing use rights, stop banks, and the old and vulnerable in the community. On that occasion, the Mayor had argued that Council had no legal basis for blocking the use of existing use rights. Another meeting with a Council team followed on 26 April, following the discovery of the discrepancy in flood modelling for the area north of Bridge Street in South Brighton. The explanation given at that time was that the 50 cm difference in floor levels between the two areas was a “revised assumption”, rather than a colossal mistake. Council originally estimated that only seven or eight houses were affected, and has subsequently revised the number downwards to five. As an outcome from the meeting, Council undertook to contact the people involved, to revise the incorrect PIMs, and to notify the insurance companies.
Empowered Christchurch established that it did not contact one of the people involved for almost a week, and none of three insurance companies that were contacted a week later had heard anything on the subject, either from Council or from ICNZ (the Insurance Council New Zealand). Following the meeting, Council then reneged on its commitment to a follow-up meeting, and instead told Empowered Christchurch to direct any future enquiries to an e-mail address that was not active (and is still not active). They also said that any further enquiries would be treated as local government official information act (LGOIMA) enquiries, exhibiting signs of a cover-up in progress. (The council web page on floor levels was hurriedly edited in the same week, and now advises homeowners to build at higher levels. A video with a similar message was posted featuring Mr Peter Sparrow, Council’s GM Consenting and Compliance.)
The two pieces of legislation that are important in the context of EURs were explained:
The Resource Management Act and the Building Act. The minimum floor level under the latter is 11.8 m, and 12.3 m under the former. [1]
Existing use rights is only defined under the Resource Management Act (RMA). An application procedure is set out that leads to the issue of an existing use rights certificate. Certain criteria must also be met for a property to qualify for existing use rights. Over the last five years, council has unilaterally declared EUR to apply to properties, with no reference to the RMA, and with no evidence requested or provided. In all of the cases that Empowered Christchurch is aware of, no existing use rights certificate has been issued.
Séamus then quoted from five examples that specified the process and requirements for EUR and advised against development in high hazard areas, some of which dated from as far back as 2010:
1) A Council senior planner (Kent Wilson) had detailed the 2 options for re-establishing a building in February 2012 (“either by demonstrating that existing use rights apply, or obtaining a resource consent”)
2) Legal advice[2] advising that development in hazardous areas should be prevented or restricted
3) A Council newsletter advising that the higher floor level (12.3 m) be applied for filling in flood management areas (FMAs)[3]
4) A Council newsletter acknowledging that the higher floor level was needed in more flood prone areas and that the one-in-50 year floor height under the Building Act was “not adequate”[4]
5) MBIE Guidance stating that, if existing use rights were applied, levels had to be at or above the Building Act 2004 level (11.8 m).[5]
In the vast majority of EUR cases, Council has wilfully ignored these guidelines and advice, and allowed building at substantially lower levels that benefit insurance companies and leave homeowners with a high risk of flooding.
Séamus concluded with a quote from Lianne Dalziel MP, writing to Tony Marriot in 2011, and detailing the risk of leaving residents with homes that were uninsurable against flooding. This underlines the fact that all these risks were already known and were being discussed in 2011, yet the decision was then made to transfer both risks and liability to residents.
Adrian Cowie then discussed the relationship between policyholders and their insurer, and between policyholders and the EQC. He pointed out the difference between a homeowner voluntarily requesting the application of existing use rights, where there is personal, individual control, and the way it has been used under insurance policy relationships. He emphasised that Christchurch City Council had no role to play in these relationships, which were governed by the specific insurance policy on the one hand, and by the EQC Act on the other. Under the Building Act, no action is required for a building damaged by an earthquake. However, this is not the case pursuant to the Earthquake Commission Act. When introduced, MBIE guidelines proposed repair standards that were well below what was required under the EQC Act and most insurance contracts.
He argued that Council has nothing to do with whether a building needs to be lifted because of settlement from the earthquakes. Adrian had requested Peter Sparrow to withdraw the video mentioned above, where the Council’s General Manager, Consenting and Compliance, had claimed that only five houses were affected. This is because floor levels and building height are crucial factors in every insurance policy claim (as new/as when new). Despite multiple requests for Council to issue a statement that they have no role in setting the standard for insurance policies, it has consistently refused to do so. This, he felt, was quite a shocking approach from an elected City Council. MBIE agreed to publish a statement of this kind on its website, explaining that its guidance does not apply for insurance policies.
As regards existing use rights, insurers have been saying “we don’t need to lift your house because we have existing use rights”. They have also used MBIE guidelines as an excuse not to lift, but only to repair foundations. This is incorrect. If a building was not flood-prone when new, and has settled in height and been damaged, it must be restored to a non-flood prone status after the damage has occurred. So Adrian’s advice was to ignore anything from Council and focus on the claimant’s individual entitlement under the insurance policy or pursuant to the EQC Act. The respective standards in each are what is definitive, not what the Council says.
At a recent surveyors’ conference here in Christchurch, UN Margareta Wahlström, the head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk reduction (UNISDR) singled out urban flooding as the greatest global risk to communities over coming years. This is very relevant to the Christchurch situation, where there has been significant land settlement and areas are now exposed to extreme flood risk. Despite this, CCC, EQC and Council are claiming that everything is fine and that buildings do not need to be lifted. Adrian reminded listeners that many New Zealand insurance policies (before the earthquakes) had no limit to the cost of reinstating buildings (no limit to the sum insured). Yet in the South Brighton area, almost no buildings have been raised to the 11.8 m, never mind the 12.3 m floor level. Of the properties in the South Brighton area that have been recently surveyed, and presumably rebuilt, almost every single one now has a hazard notice. This transfers the risk of flooding and erosion from insurers and Council to the homeowner. This is happening in Christchurch, which is ironically a member of the so-called “100 resilient cities” group.
Council has also been holding what appear to be secret meetings with insurers and PMOs since the earthquakes. There has been absolutely no evidence of Council actively trying to help ratepayers.
Land claims and diminution of value:
From the declaratory judgement, it appears the High Court allowed EQC to use the Diminution of Value in the absence of any evidence to the contrary provided by the owner.
So if your land has sunk and you can prove the fact, Adrian argued that EQC was obliged to lift it to at least its pre-earthquake height. In almost every case, the cost of this would be significantly more than the DoV payment. A further complication is that, in the future, if we have another earthquake, EQC cover could be refused because you did not spend an earlier DoV settlement to remediate your land.
In conclusion, Adrian recommended obtaining expert advice on land settlement to oblige EQC to restore it to the original height.
Similarly with house claims, he advised getting expert advice, expensive though it may be EQC is reimbursing owners their expert fees where these have shown EQC’s assessments to be in error. Under the EQC Act, the standard of repair is extremely high, and in most cases, it has not been met or assessed to the correct standard.
Likewise, many private insurance assessments have assessed to the wrong standard, so it generally pays to obtain your own, expert advice.
In summary, existing use rights in relation to floor levels and minimum flood heights are irrelevant in terms of an insurance policy. You cannot have existing use rights to rebuild a house lower and in a flood-prone or more flood-prone condition than it was when new, since this contradicts the “as new/as when new” definition in the insurance policy. Council’s rules or exemptions have no role to play in this.
In the third presentation, Hugo displayed a series of documents and maps, contrasting the original intentions with the “recovery” and what was actually implemented in practice.
In the first brochure, CERA stated that 11.8 m as a minimum floor height was insufficient in the flood-prone areas in Christchurch and that 12.3 was more appropriate. CERA also stated that it was working with the insurance companies to ensure houses would be raised to the correct level.
A CCC newsletter stated that existing use rights might apply for a rebuild on exactly the same footprint “so long as this was at or above the Building Act height” (1-in 50-year flood event = 11.8 m).
In a tidally influenced area, the higher RMA floor height should apply (12.3 m).
A CCC document from October 2012 showed houses before and after the earthquakes, with the new houses having been raised to a safe level. This comforting scenario did not eventuate. He reminded the audience that the current minimum floor heights are 11.8 m under the Building Act, and 12.3 m under the Resource Management Act.
On the subject of land:
Maps were presented showing the area of land with groundwater at less than a metre below the surface. This covered a substantial area (including both red and green zones to the east and west of the lower Avon. Under these conditions, land has started to erode from underneath.
An EQC map highlighted the houses that were below the high tide mark. Hugo had questioned Gerry Brownlee on this subject at the Earthquake Forum back in 2013, but the Minister had then denied that any houses were below the high tide mark and repeated this assertion later on RNZ. The map shown was published with the IFV documentation from EQC and can be found on the EQC website. 11.2 m is the elevation given for the high tide (10.8 m plus 40 cm freeboard).
A further LiDAR map showed much the same area for houses situated below the high tide mark. The original map colours had been adjusted to show differences in elevation more clearly.
A member of the audience asked for an explanation of the high tide mark. Hugo explained that the term generally used was “mean high water spring”, which is the average level for successive spring tides[6]. A follow-up question asked if the property would flood if it was below that mark. Hugo explained that several different factors came into play, such as groundwater and tidal influence. While some risks were gradual and could be lived with, others were more problematical.
The next map was published by Dr Jan Wright, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. This identified properties at high risk of flooding, the most immediate risk that New Zealand will have to face from climate change. Once again, the same contours in the lower Avon were visible as on the previous maps. The Commissioner estimated that there were 900 properties in Christchurch at the 11.2 m level or lower, and which were therefore at risk of flooding. Such houses, especially those close to the river, will have a very short lifetime in the face of rising sea levels.
A recent Council map identified the red zone area, and also the low-lying green zones, some of which have also extremely high groundwater. This map also defined the tidally influenced area, yet the City Council has asserted that only an area as far as Admiral’s Way in New Brighton, but not beyond, is tidally influenced. This is patently incorrect, since a lake appears much further into the City on Avonside Drive at high tide and disappears at low tide. This demonstrates that the tidally influenced area extends much further upriver. Even six years after the earthquakes, Council has made no plans for this fact. The latest information suggests that this situation may drag on until 2021. Most of Christchurch is tidally influenced, and not only the coastal area. Given that a large part of the city has sunk, the incoming and outgoing tide is also removing a large quantity of land each day.
The next maps, a set of three, showed groundwater boreholes at 20 m, 70 m and 100+ m from the river. The closer to the river, the greater the fluctuation in groundwater between low and high tide. In the light of rising sea levels, groundwater will eventually come to the surface, and sooner rather than later in the areas closer to the river. One way to address this problem, as recommended in the coastal policy statement, is to build relocatable houses, plan to remain for a short period, and then move elsewhere.
The next slide was a statement from Martin Manning, an expert on groundwater and climate change. Studies show that coastal groundwater is directly connected with sea level rise. In Florida, groundwater has now reached the surface in some low-lying areas. A rise in the water table, which we have had here because of the loss of land height, automatically increases the flood risk. According to Civil Defence, the risk of flooding is currently much higher than the risk of earthquakes. With such high groundwater, there is no additional storage available in an extreme weather event.
A further point was that, bizarrely, EQC’s flood modelling for increased flooding vulnerability (IFV) uses a bathtub model, which makes no allowance for storm surge (freeboard) and has no margin for error. Hugo reminded listeners of the massive erosion that followed last week’s storm in Australia as an illustration of how foolish such an approach is.
A conference of New Zealand planners earlier this year asked the following questions:
Can we plan for a change?
Protect, accommodate or retreat?
Will the poor inherit the shore?
Closed groups of authorities have been planning for our future, without any involvement of the communities and without any dialogue process.
Further manoeuvring on the part of the authorities:
The natural hazards chapter in the Replacement District Plan was removed in September 2015. According to the latest information, Hugo believed that some of the authority of the Independent Hearings Panel for the Replacement District Plan would be transferred to Christchurch City Council to pass using the Resource Management Act. There has been no information about what changes are planned or when they will take place. Six years after the natural disaster, there is absolutely no excuse for further delay.
The next slide was from a senior council planner, who stated the following:
“There will be a level of trust between us, as a public body, and the community that we serve that says they are trying to do the right thing. We’ve got a point where there is a problem. We haven’t nailed the social impact of what it means to take away what, at the moment, is 17,000 households’ biggest asset. And the societal impacts are pretty huge.”
So the new hazard notices on properties basically constitute a removal of assets. Hugo called on the audience to make a careful and educated decision when deciding on their future.
The planner concluded by saying: “So it’s easier to put a rule in the plan that says you can’t live here any more. That might help someone, if they’ve got somewhere else to live. But I don’t believe that any rule is going to take away someone’s home unless we can provide them with viable alternative options to live somewhere.”
The final slide was sent to CCC by Hugo in 2012. It pointed out that inaccurate flood modelling and EUR have created this situation where housing is being made uninsurable.
A Q&A session then followed. A question was asked about the Empowered Christchurch template letter to Council, stating that the homeowner would not accept existing use rights requested by a third party. Hugo said that while this had been effective, promotion of the declaration on the part of Council would have been more welcome. The representatives from Council were asked if this could be done. Councillor David East stated that he was Chair of the Regulation and Consents Committee at Council, but that “we don’t get involved in the day-to-day work of building consents”. He also said that he was not aware of any houses that had been built below the 11.8 Building Act level. He added shortly afterwards that, according to the information he had been given, not more than 5 houses had been built below the correct level.
Helen Beaumont “freely admitted” that Council had “got it wrong” in its flood modelling for the South Brighton area. [Despite this, the 79-year-old lady in Bridge Street interviewed last month by RNZ’s Checkpoint programme has recently been told by Council that it considers her floor level of 11.27 m above the Christchurch City Datum is adequate to protect her against flooding. This follows the Mayor stating at a press conference that no compensation would be paid to the affected homeowners, followed by the Deputy Mayor claiming in an interview on Newstalk ZB that this report of what the Mayor had said was not, in fact, correct.]
The discussion continued for some time, but with little new information coming from the Council representatives.
Two additional slides were added to the presentation following the event, before the presentation was forwarded to elected members of Council.
REF: https://blog.johnrchildress.com/2014/05/04/king-canute-and-culture-change/
[1] (Séamus incorrectly stated that the 11.8 m under the Building Act applied for all of New Zealand, but of course, different areas will have different elevation and different tidal influences, so there are variations. 11.8 m is the minimum floor level in Christchurch pursuant to the Building Act. This inaccuracy was later corrected by Helen Beaumont.)
[2] Simpson Grierson legal advice to Local Government New Zealand in June 2010 (“The RMA provides councils with a comprehensive mandate to prevent or restrict both new developments and the extension of existing development in hazardous areas.”)
[4] “In most, but not all cases, it will be obvious which of these two levels [EC: 11.8 or 12.3] is the higher level, and therefore the dominant criteria (sic). These are not rules but effectively default positions.”
[5] “If a house is to be rebuilt on exactly the same footprint as before, existing use rights under the Resource Management Act to rebuild at the original floor level are likely to apply, so long as this is at or above the Building Act 2004 – one in 50 year flood level plus freeboard.”
[6] Popularly known as “king” tides, which occur every 14 days or so
This entry was posted in Maps, Meetings & events, Publications & guides and tagged Building consents, Category 8, Cateogry 9, Existing Use Rights, Floor Levels, Foundations, Jack and pack, TC3. Bookmark the permalink.
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Tag: Harrison Ford
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Home / News / ESC - Max Mückl – ESC Honorary Member
Max Mückl – ESC Honorary Member
26 May 2014 — Views: 19
Mr. Max Mückl from Germany became the ESC Honorary Member.
He is the seventh individual since the foundation of the ESC in 1969 to be awarded with such a rare distinction for outstanding services to the European Shooting Confederation. Among the first six were former Presidents of the ESC – Gavrila Barani (1969-1989), Björn Schullström (1989 – 1993), Gianpiero Armani (1993-2001) and Unni Nikolaysen (2001 – 2009), Tomislav Sepec, Vice-President (2001-2009) and Presidium/Committees member for a total period of 24 years as well as Werner Hirt - Presidium member for 20 years (1993-2013) and before that Chairman of the Press and Promotion Committee (1985-1993).
Formally, the distinction of Max Mückl was the result of the approval by the ESC Presidium of certain amendments to the Guidelines for Honorary Membership and the voting that followed. However, personal and moral qualities, exceptional sustained contribution and loyalty to the ESC, continuous dedication to the shooting sport in Europe are still regarded as the main criteria for granting individual Honorary Membership. The period of service within the ESC Presidium and/or as an ESC Committee member also counts and as a minimum period one of the following must apply:
• 8 years as a President;
• 12 years as a Presidium Member;
• 20 years in total as a Presidium or/and Committee Member.
Mr. Max Mückl was member of the ESC Presidium from 2001 till 2013, thus fulfilling one of the mandatory requirements of the ESC Guidelines for Honorary Membership. His continuous dedication to the shooting sport is well known far beyond our continent. He was a judge at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Athens and Beijing and since the year 2000 – member and then Chairman of the ISSF Technical Committee. As far as he, without doubt, satisfy the main criteria and according to the decision of the XXIV ESC General Assembly in Moscow, Max Mückl has been granted the title of the ESC Honorary Member.
Congratulations from the ESC and the entire European shooting community!
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Journal of Sensor Technology
Vol.1 No.4(2011), Article ID:8949,7 pages DOI:10.4236/jst.2011.14013
A Lightweight Data Aggregation Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks for the Protection of Ancient Sites
Xiaojiang Chen1,4, Dingyi Fang1, Xueqing Huang1, Baoying Liu2, Xiaoqiong Gong1, Wenbo Wang1, Alessio Perrone3*
1College of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi’an, China
2Shaanxi Provincial Professional and Technical Institute, Xi’an, China
3Physics Department and INFN, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy
4Key Laboratory of Culture Heritage Research and Conservation, Ministry of Education, Northwest University, Xi’an, China
E-mail: *alessio.perrone@unisalento.it
Received September 1, 2011; revised October 14, 2011; accepted October 28, 2011
Keywords: Wireless Sensor Networks, Ancient Sites, Network Lifetime, Data Aggregation
In the application of large-scale ancient site protection, it is necessary to continuously monitor the ambient light, temperature, humidity and so on. However, it is impractical to frequently replace the nodes’ battery in the protected areas. So, the key methods to prolong the network lifetime are to aggregate the collected data and reduce the number of transferring messages. In this paper a Lightweight Data Aggregation Protocol (LDAP) based on the characteristics of the environmental changes in ancient sites is proposed. It has been implemented in the Lab with a dozen of MICAz motes and deployed in the real ancient sites. The result shows that LDAP is effective in reducing the number of transferring packets and satisfies the real application requirements.
Large-scale ancient site is an important component of China’s precious cultural heritage, such as the worldrenowned Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Dynasty. In the application of Ancient Site protection, it is necessary to monitor the ambient environment continuously and to research the impact of environmental factors on soil erosion, the damage of natural factor to ancient site, the destruction mechanism and how to explore and protect the ancient sites. Therefore, the long-term environment monitoring is an important job of studying protection of ancient sites. It requires to collect and to analyze the environmental data in a real-time and long-term way so as to get the best environmental parameters of ancient site protection. The Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN’s) become the prevalent way for environmental monitoring of Ancient Sites because they are usually landed in the wild region and man-made destruction behaviors, such as drilling and wiring. As a result, it is very important to extend the whole lifetime of WSN’s as long as possible, because it is impractical to replace the node’s battery frequently in the protected areas. Furthermoresensor networks consume energy mainly in the wireless data transmitting and receiving [1], so the key point to prolong the network lifetime is to reduce the number of transferring redundant messages.
Data fusion is defined as to collect information from a raw data source, and extract the raw data using the flexible, programmable components, and transmit data timely after the extraction [1]. It extracts large amounts of data and reduces the number of transmission messages in order to extend the network lifetime. In this paper a lightweight data aggregation protocol based on the characteristics of the environmental changes in the ancient site is proposed. It has been implemented in TinyOS-2.0 and deployed in the simulation soil pit of historical and cultural heritage protection Research Center in Shaanxi Province, using the Crossbow’s MICAz mote (Figure 1). Here, the LDAP performance is analyzed based on a long period of the network operation.
2. Related Work
In recent years, data fusion has been utilized in a variety of environmental monitoring applications. Crowley K. et al.
Figure 1. Simulation real ancient site.
[2] monitored the ambient temperature of the storage and transportation of fish products using wireless sensor networks to ensure food safety. Barrenetxea G. et al. [3] deployed nodes in Grand Saint Bernard Mountains between Switzerland and Italy to monitor the environment; in a 900m-long line, 17 nodes have been deployed to prevent the avalanche and accident. Jeon Chan-Sik et al. [4] implemented a campus environmental information monitoring system based on wireless sensor networks. Environmental data are saved to the database and the user can view them by the wireless Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Lee M. et al. [5] deployed wireless sensor networks in a greenhouse to monitor the greenhouse environment, and it can adjust the ambient temperature and humidity automatically. Sung J. et al. [6] deployed wireless sensor networks in Bul-guk-sa temple in South Korea to collect environmental data, wood structures change and forest fires periodically. Cho S. et al. [7] proposed a two-way query and response mechanisms for data fusion, which aggregates data on the both uplink and downlink to reduce data redundancy effectively, but cannot express the environmental characteristics in the soil environment precisely using a simple maximum or minimum value. Akcan H. et al. [8] proposed a mechanism based on the Weight Tree, which is the first sampling algorithm based on the Weight Tree. This device plays a very good performance compared with the previous random sampling algorithm.
The algorithms dynamically adjust the sampling weights in order to be applied in any network topology. However, the accuracy of data depends on the tree location of nodes, which would result in the uneven expression of the environmental characteristics. Aquino A. L. L. et al. [9] proposed a network data stream compression algorithm OGK according to the requirements of real-time data collection OGK runs in the routing phase and chooses the compression algorithm according to network traffic. Besides, OGK data can reach before the deadline without loss of data, so it has high reliability. However OGK depends on network layer and cannot be independent of the application layer. Chen H. et al. [10] proposed a clustering network adaptive data fusion mechanism ADA, which ensures the reliability of the incident monitoring and adjusts the sample frequency according to the reliability of observation to reduce time relativity of data collection; however, the algorithm mainly implemented in the SINK node. Li X. et al. [11] used TDMA time schedule for each node to collect and report data, deducing the relationship between the time schedule and the ratio of data aggregation theoretically, and the algorithm aggregates internal and external data of the clusters to reduce redundant data transmission; however in the small-scale ancient site environment, the particle size is large to express the environmental characteristics in units of cluster. Liao W. H. et al. [12] used the ant colony algorithm into data fusion, reducing the duplication of redundant data effectively; however, the complexity of the data fusion algorithm should be as light as possible, because the purpose of data fusion is to reduce their energy consumption. Obviously, the complexity of ant colony algorithm is high, which increases the energy consumption of nodes.
3. Protocol Design
LDAP protocol is between the network layer and data link layer, network layer data enter in the data queue, and the aggregated data packets enter in the input queue of Media Access Control (MAC) layer waiting to be sent. Through aggregating the data from the network layer, the number of data transferring on the MAC layer is reduced so that energy consumption of each node is reduced effectively.
3.1. LDAP Protocol Design
As shown in Figure 2, LDAP is divided into aggregation and restore, receiving the data from the MAC layer and restoring the data that is aggregated. The network layer packets and the restored data packets of the other nodes are transmitted after aggregation, thereby reducing the number of data transferring messages, and it is transparency above the network layer, achieving the independent data fusion layer. The workflow of this protocol is as follows: considering a number of sensor nodes, the network layer data enter in the data queue by different data types, and access into the send queue of MAC layer after data fusion. For the MAC layer, it does not know the data types and whether to aggregate the data, which is transparent for the data fusion; the node restore data packets
Figure 2. Framework of data aggregation protocol.
in the received data queue of MAC layer after receiving packets, the restored data is sent into the corresponding data queue; one node may receive transmitting data from multiple nodes. Thus, during transmitting, the data will access into data queue of MAC layer after aggregating the data of itself and other nodes in order to achieve the multi-node data fusion to reduce the number of data transferring messages, and compared with the raw data transmitted directly, it optimizes the energy balance of data source nodes and relay nodes. Based on the framework of this protocol, combined with the environmental characteristics of ancient site, a lightweight data compression and decompression algorithm is proposed in the section of 3.2 and 3.3.
3.2. Time-Related Data Compression Algorithm
The environment factors of ancient site (such as temperature, light) change over time slowly and continuously. It will lead to a lot of data redundancy if the raw data is sent directly to the base station each sample cycle. Here, is the sampling cycle, is the data collected by node i at time t. Since the environmental factors change slowly, the data collected by node i from time 0 and time t meet the changing:
where , , , and is datum collected in the first cycle, ε is the threshold， is limited time.
The process of this Algorithm is as follows: the data collected in the first two cycles are the initialization value for value0 and valuelast, count indicates that the number has been saved; if variation of the data during next cycle does not exceed the threshold , then valuelast is changed as the current collecting data, the counter counts plus one; until a sample cycle when the collected data changes beyond , a data packet contains the node ID, data type, the first data, the last data, as well as the count and time stamp is constructed. The algorithm depends on the changes of environmental characteristics, if the environment always changes and the change has uncertain pace, each compressed packet contains a smaller amount of raw data, resulting in inefficiency; if the environment changes slowly or the pace of change is relatively stable, each compressed packet contains a relatively large amount of raw data, thus data compression rate and transferring efficiency are improved. The compression ratio of this algorithm is controlled by . When is larger, more raw data are compressed into a packet, in particular, when = 0 it is the lossless compression. The pseudocode of this algorithm is shown in Figure 3.
The packet loss rate is an important performance index, and the high loss rate will impact system greatly. In the experiment, we found that the algorithm has a lower packet loss rate. In order to prevent a lower packet loss rate, ACK-based mechanisms require a lot of system overhead, while the NACK mechanisms need to set aside buffer to store the packet which is not acknowledgment, so it is inappropriate for the low memory sensor node. Therefore, when the number of raw data contained in LDAP data packet beyond a certain threshold value, the packet need to be resent to reduce the probability of packet loss.
3.3. Time-Related Data Decompression Algorithm
Nodes decompress the data packets and extract the original data after receiving the MAC layer data packet. For the data packets in which the value of count is greater
Figure 3. Data compression algorithm.
than the threshold value, the algorithm checks whetherhas been received and neglects duplicate packets. When decompressing the raw data, the timestamp contained in compressed data packet is used to compute the original timestamp. Here, Tperiod is the data collection cycle. At last, the nodes forward the data after compressing and aggregating its own data and those of other nodes. The pseudo-code of this algorithm is shown in Figure 4.
3.4. Time-Related Data Energy Consumption Model
To analyse and calculate equally the difference between the energy consumption of decompression algorithm and no data aggregation and to realize the energy consumption of nodes in different positions.we use a first-order radio model to indicate the deliver energy consumption: the and express energy consumption of transmitter and channel transmission respectively. For convenience ,we set the average packet size as "a" bit and the space between adjacent node as “d”.
The energy consumption without data aggregation can be describe as below: . After using the data decompression algorithm, the number of packets of node is , in which the indicate the number of data be saved in i-th cycle. Then the energy consumption with data aggregation as below:
4. Selection of Algorithm Parameter and Analysis of Experimental Results
This section mainly researches the test and selection of LDAP parameters in a lab environment, and then analyzes the LDAP data traffic, packet loss rate and energy consumption in a real environment.
4.1. Comparison of Algorithm Parameters
Threshold value has a direct impact on compression ratio of LDAP. We deployed 6 MICAz nodes which collect light, temperature and voltage once every two minutes for 24-hour in the laboratory, and compared the impact of compression rates and network data traffic with the different thresholds. In order to observe the changes between the data after aggregation and the raw data (take light data as an example), the node 1 sends the raw data back to Gateway directly, nodes 2-6 took 2,6,10,14,18 as light threshold respectively; Figure 5(a) shows light raw data from the node 1. Figure 5(b) shows light raw data from nodes 2-6 that were decompressed in the base station. As the light threshold value increases, the data curve waves so little that it can be seen approximately as a straight line.
Figure 5(b) shows that the time of node 2 is a longer extension because when at the end of experiment, the other nodes are compressing data, and do not send the last compression packet back.
When the threshold value is smaller, it is more
Figure 4. Data decompression algorithm.
(a) (b)
Figure 5. (a) No compressed raw light data; (b) Light data for different compression thresholds.
sensitive to environmental change, and the number of compressed data packets may be even greater than the number of raw data. As shown in Figures 6 and 7, the number of compressed data packets of node 2 is greater than the number of raw data of node 1, and the number of compressed packets decreased with the increasing of the threshold. As Figure 7 shows, the compression ratio has reached to 60% when the threshold of light is greater than 3 and the threshold of temperature is greater than 4.
4.2. Performance Analysis of Algorithm in Real Environment
The simulation soil pit of historical and cultural heritage protection Research Center in Shaanxi Province (Figure 1) is 18 m long, 17 m wide, 8 m deep, which is a three-tier structure. In order to study the best environment to the protection of ancient sites, it is required to monitor the temperature and light of the soil wall in the pit. Based on the experimental analysis proposed in Subsection 3.1, we selected 10 and 0.4 as the light and temperature thresh-old, and deployed eight nodes collecting light and tem-
Figure 6. Number of light and temperature packets.
Figure 7. Data compression ratio, temperature compression ratio, light compression ratio.
perature data every five minutes in the actual environment.
In order to analyze how the battery and the hardware impact on the algorithm, each node used batteries with different remaining electricity. As shown in Figure 8, different batteries have different energy consumption rate. Even though the initial capacity in node 2 and node 4 is the same, the energy consumption rates are different. Nodes run in no data aggregation algorithm regime and in data aggregation algorithms regime for 14 and 10 days, respectively. Figure 8 demonstrate that the voltage decay rate with data aggregation (Figure 8(b)) is far less than the one of no data aggregation (Figure 8(a)). At 4/14 we replaced all the nodes’ battery, in order to get a fair comparison, and put our algorithm into nodes’ program.
Eight nodes use the same compression threshold, and the decompressed light data of node 2 that was selected randomly are shown in Figure 9 indicating a smaller difference between the data after decompression and the raw data. Because using the resend mechanism when Count is greater than the threshold, the packet loss rate is
Figure 8. (a) Voltage decay rate with no data aggregation ratio; (b) Voltage decay rate of LDAP with data aggregation.
reduced effectively, and packet loss as shown in Figure 10. With the same compression threshold, the number of compressed data packets received by base station just reflects the environmental changes extent at different positions. The smaller change range of light and tempreraturea are, the more time point data could be aggregated. As shown in Figure 11, the high number of packet per day indicates that the changes scope and speed of light and temperature of node 2 and node 3 are larger. That because they are close to the door; therefore when the door is open or closed, the sensor data change more than other nodes and more packets will be sent.
LDAP reduces the amount of data sent by nodes, as shown in Figure 11, the average number of packets sent by LDAP per day is less than 57% of the raw data; com-
Figure 9. (a) Raw light data; (b) LDAP light data.
Figure 10. LDAP number of loss packet.
Figure 11. Raw data & average no. of packets/day.
pared with no data fusion algorithm, it reduces the node’s energy consumption obviously, as shown in Figure 8, the remaining electricity of node 1 down to 2.98 V from 3.18 V during the first 14 days, and down to 2.96 V from 2.98 V during the next 10 days; the remaining electricity of node 7 down to 2.66 V from 2.77 V during the first 14 days, and down to 2.67 V from 2.68 V during the next 10 days.
4.3. Evaluation of Energy Consumption and Network Lifetime for a Long-Term Deployment
The network has been running for 4 months, and data were collected once every 15 minutes, the battery voltage down to 2.63 V from 2.82 V. As shown in Figure 12, with the drops of battery voltage, the speed of voltage drop accelerates. The operating voltage range of MICAz is 2.4 V - 3.3 V, but in the actual scene, when the voltage is as low as 2.1 V, the node communication only began to become unstable, so we estimate the network can continuously work 4 more months without replacing the batteries. As shown in Figure 13, there is no influence on the temperature data.
If the initial battery voltage is 3.2 V, according to the energy consumption in the actual scene, the lifetime of sensor network will reach 18 months. So, it becomes a reality site to continuously monitor ancient site environment in a long-term.
The Figure 14 shows the total energy consumption with LDAP in a whole year. The curves of 8 nodes can show clearly that in the period of April to May and September to October, due to seasonal changes in temperature increasing the rate of change, the data packets increased then the energy consumption increases obviously.
In this paper a lightweight data aggregation protocol LDAP has been designed and implemented. A time-re-
Figure 12. LDAP voltage decay of node battery.
Figure 13. LDAP temperature data.
lated datacompression and decompression algorithms have been also implemented, reducing the data redundancy which can reduce the number of data transferring packets, reaching the final purpose of saving node’s energy. Using the sensor network with LDAP deployed in the real environment and run for two weeks, we obtained a number of valuable testing data. Data packets traffic and the relationship between packet loss rate and energy consumption have been also analyzed. The experimental results show that it is possible to monitor ancient sites environment with the heuristic data aggregation mechanism proposed in this paper.
In this paper, we only compress the time-related data, but we do not consider the space-related data. In the future work we will study the spatial relativity of actual environmental data collection; furthermore we shall eliminate the redundancy of space-related data attaining a data aggregation framework combined with time and space.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61070176,61170218); 2010 Sino-Italian Inter Governmental Cooperation Project (the 13th Science and Technology Joint Committee Protocol, No.16, Annex 4); the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (201061011100 180); the Key Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (211181); the Scientific and Technological Project in Shaanxi Province (2011K06-07, 2011K06-09); the Department of Education research project of Shaanxi province, China (2010JK854, 09JK736, 2010JC25); Opening Foundation of Key Laboratory of Culture Heritage Research and Conservation (Northwest University); Ministry of Education; Opening Foundation of Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China (Northwest University), Ministry of Education.
[1] E. F. Nakamura, A. A. F. Loureiro and A. C. Frery, “Information Fusion for Wireless Sensor Networks: Methods, Models, and Classifications,” ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2007, pp. 1-55.
[2] K. Crowley, J. Frisby, S. Edwards, S. Murphy, M. Roantree and D. Diamond, “Web-Based Real-Time Temperature Monitoring of Shellfish Catches Using a Wireless Sensor Network,” Sensors & Actuators A: Physical, Vol. 122, No. 2, 2005, pp. 222-230. doi:10.1016/j.sna.2005.05.011
[3] G. Barrenetxea, F. Ingelrest, G. Schaefer and M. Vetterli, “Wireless Sensor Networks for Environmental Monitoring: The SensorScope Experience,” 2008 IEEE International Zurich Seminar on Communications, Zurich, 12-14 March 2008, pp. 98-101.
[4] J. Chan-Sik, L. Min-Jae and O. Seung-Hyun, “A Design and Implementation of Ubiquitous Campus Environment Information Service,” International Conference on Advanced Language Processing and Web Information Technology (ALPIT 2008), Dalian, 23-25 July 2008, pp. 362-366.
[5] M. H. Lee, K.-B. Eom, H. J. Kang, C. S. Shin and H. Yoe, “Design and Implementation Wireless Sensor Network for Ubiquitous Glass Houses,” Seventh IEEE/ACIS International Conference, 2008 Computer and Information Science, Portland, 14-16 May 2008, pp. 397-400.
[6] J. Sung, S. Ahn, T. Park, S. Jang, D. Yun, J. Kang, S. E. Yoo, P. Chong and D. Kim, “Wireless Sensor Networks for Cultural Property Protection,” 22nd International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications—Aina Workshops, Okinawa, 25-28 March 2008, pp. 615-620.
[7] S. Cho, “Bidirectional Data Aggregation Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks,” Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, 2006.
[8] H. Akcan and H. Brönnimann, “A New Deterministic Data Aggregation Method for Wireless Sensor Networks,” Signal Processing, Vol. 87, No. 12, 2007, pp. 2965-2977. doi:10.1016/j.sigpro.2007.05.007
[9] A. L. L. Aquino, A. A. F. Loureiro, A. O. Fernandes and R. A. F. Mini, “An in-Network Reduction Algorithm for Real-Time Wireless Sensor Network Applications,” Proceedings of the 4th ACM Workshop on Wireless Multimedia Networking and Performance Modeling, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2008.
[10] H. Chen, H. Mineno and T. Mizuno, “Adaptive Data Aggregation Scheme in Clustered Wireless Sensor Networks,” Computer Communications, Vol. 31, No. 15, 2008, pp. 3579-3585. doi:10.1016/j.comcom.2008.06.011
[11] X. Li, H. Kang and J. Cao, “Coordinated Workload Scheduling in Hierarchical Sensor Networks for Data Fusion Applications,” Journal of Computer Science and Technology, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2008, pp. 355-364. doi:10.1007/s11390-008-9138-7
[12] W. H. Liao, Y. Kao and C.-M. Fan, “Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Ant Colony Algorithm,” Journal of Network and Computer Applications, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2008, pp.387-401. doi:10.1016/j.jnca.2008.02.006
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KERALA TRAGEDY: DELUGE AND AFTER
Written by Hiranmay Karlekar
The unprecedented floods in Kerala send out a single message: The world will have to pay a terrible price for disrespecting the environment
The unprecedented floods in Kerala, and the massive grief and loss of life and property it has caused, send out a single message: The world will have to pay a terrible price for undermining the environment. The environmental causes are both transnational and regional. The foremost, and perhaps the most relevant, is, of course, climate change. This becomes clear if one views the Kerala floods, the primary cause of which has been very heavy rainfall, unprecedented in decades, in the context of extreme weather conditions that have brought misery to many parts of the world. Consider events in the US. Hurricane Harvey ravaged Texas in August, 2017, matching the damage caused to New Orleans by hurricane Katrina in August, 2005. Hurricane Irma, caused massive damage in the Caribbean and Florida Keys in September, 2017, followed by hurricane Maria which devastated Dominica and Puerto Rico in the same month.
Flash floods had hit Baltimore in June, following unprecedented rainfall, and Virginia and New Jersey in August, 2018, the month in which flood waters submerged roads in Wisconsin, and storms and torrential rains flooded parts of Toronto in Canada. Forest fires continue to rage in California, consuming houses and towns and forcing thousands out of their homes. Havoc has also been caused by snow. Blizzard Jonas, which had deposited snow, as much as three-feet high at some places, had paralysed travel in north-eastern and some parts of central, Atlantic coastline, of the US, for several days in January, 2016
Outside the US, flash floods had hit the German city of Wuppertal in May, 2018, following heavy rains. In the following month, there was flooding in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. In June this year, again, Lausanne and other parts of the Lake Geneva region in Switzerland experienced flash floods following heavy thunderstorms and a record downpour. Roads in the town of Rosita, east of Turin came to resemble canals following torrential rainfall in upstream rivers. In Britain, parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire were submerged in May, 2018, as heavy rainfall caused flash floods. France has also suffered floods. In fact, the frequency of floods has increased significantly in Europe since 2014. Outside Europe, heavy downpours in southwestern Japan in June and July caused flash floods, landslips and the deaths of over 200 persons.
These instances have been cited to underline the fact that extreme weather conditions, caused by climate change, is a worldwide phenomenon. India, cannot counter the process on its own and the Trump administration’s disregard for it and the US’ withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Accord, portend ill for the future of transnational efforts to cope with global warming. India can only do its best to contain the impact of the phenomenon on itself. The need for this is all the greater because, according to a World Bank report, temperatures are rising — and rainfall becoming erratic — throughout South-East Asia and the trend will continue for decades. Cities such as Kolkata, Mumbai. Dhaka and Karachi would be under a substantial risk of suffering from flood-related damages in the next century.
India has been trying but its efforts have not been enough. It is not just a question of money but also of administrative efficiency, alertness and anticipation. The Kerala Government ought to have taken cognizance of the fact that rainfall has been steadily increasing in the region since 2015 and prepared itself to cope with a severe calamity with a clear plan of action,
An area which should certainly have received attention was the release of water from dams to prevent the pressure of water accumulating inside from causing breaches in their walls. In the present instance, Kerala was forced to release water from 35 out of its 39 dams. The impact below was made worse by the fact that the adjacent States had also to release water from their dams as the pressure within swelled. Regulated release in smaller quantities would have made the impact of each surge much less lethal. This did not happen. An example is the Idamalayar dam operated by the Kerala State Electricity Board. The authorities waited for the water level to rise to its full height of 169 feet and then opened all the four gates simultaneously when they should have started releasing water in smaller quantities earlier.
It is, of course, easy to be wise in hindsight. People under pressure while dealing with extraordinary crises are vulnerable to making mistakes. One, however, cannot ignore the violation of environmental norms like deforestation, illegal stone quarrying, constructions in the flood plains of rivers, and illegal changes in the character of forests, which have made things worse. Deforestation, for example, has led to soil erosion and increased the silt content of river waters which, in turn, has reduced the holding capacity of dams through silt deposits on dam floors. Stone quarrying and deforestation have together led to landslips with horrific results.
This, of course, is not the time for a blame game. The focus has to be on relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation, Kerala would need help, and the whole of India has to stand by it.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
Mumbai: Stray dog with private parts cut found in Vile Parle, hospitalised
Written by DailyHunt
https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/my+medical+mantra+english-epaper-medmanen/mumbai+stray+dog+with+private+parts+cut+found+in+vile+parle+hospitalised-newsid-96246001
The act, what can be termed as barbaric and inhuman, an unidentified man slit the private parts of a stray dog in Mumbai's Vile Parle. A passersby woman spotted the dog lying in the pool of blood. It was then admitted to the hospital.
While speaking to My Medical Mantra, Dr Mayur Dangar, Hospital Manager, Mumbai's Bai Sakerbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital, said, 'On Monday, the dog was admitted to the hospital in a serious condition. A woman found him lying in a pool of blood and brought him to the hospital. His private parts were cut off. For the past two days, he lost an excessive amount of blood. He was not eating as well.'
Dr Mayur further added, 'We are waiting for the wound to heal. If the wound doesn't heal, then we have to perform a surgery. The next 5-10 days, he will stay in the hospital. Fortunately, we managed to stop the blood flow, and now his condition is improving.'
Unfortunately, it is not the first time that a dog is attacked in this barbaric manner. A few months ago, a stray dog from Mira Road was also found lying in a pool of blood. His private parts and paws were slashed as well.
DISGUSTING! Drunkard bites off dog’s ear in West Bengal’s Hooghly district!
Written by TimesNow
Well they call them animals...so...who really are the beasts?
https://www.timesnownews.com/mirror-now/civic-issues/article/disgusting-drunkard-bites-off-dog-s-ear-in-west-bengal-s-hooghly-district/279803
n a shocking case of animal cruelty, a man bit off an ear of a stray dog in West Begal's Hooghly district. He was caught by locals and handed over to the police when they hear the painful cries of the dog.
The accused, Sambhunath Dhali, aged 35, was booked on charges of animal cruelty for the shocking act. (Representative image) |Photo Credit: Thinkstock
Kolkata: In a bizarre turn of events, a drunkard in Hooghly district of West Bengal bit off the ear of a stray dog. The accused, Sambhunath Dhali, aged 35, was booked on charges of animal cruelty for the shocking act after his neighbours handed him over to the police for the ghastly act.
According to a report in Times of India, Dhali was employed as a construction worker and was known to be an alcoholic. He was a constant source of discord in the neighbourhood and would often pick fights after getting drunk at night.
Dhali often slept on the pavements and street dogs would bark at him. On one night when the dogs were barking at him, an inebriated Dhali did the unthinkable - he grabbed one of the dogs and ripped off its ear with his teeth.
Also Read: Inhuman! Drunkard beheads 5 puppies, skins 1 beyond recognition
Upon this, the other dogs of the street attacked him as the canine whose ear had been bitten off writhed in pain. The drunkard managed to shoo the dogs away but the commotion by the time woke up the people in the neighbourhood.
They beat him up before handing him over to the authorities who produced him in the court. He was subsequently ordered to stay in jail pending a judgement.
Shocking incidents of animal cruelty have been reported from all over the country in the recent past. A few weeks earlier, seven puppies were found murdered in a posh Delhi locality. In August, five puppies were found beheaded and thrown in a dumpster in Hyderabad.
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Thanks to all of you that check out my blog. With the comming new year, I will continue to work harder to make this a better blog. Thanks again, and have a safe and happy new year! 1Teamster.
Trucking faces some challenges in 2006
Driver shortages, high fuel prices, changes in diesel fuel formulation, an impending switch to more expensive exhaust emission control technology top the list as the biggest challenges to the trucking industry, transportation experts say. "We need to get out there and find drivers,” said Barry Pottle, CEO of Maine-based Pottle Transportation and the new chairman of the Truckload Carriers Assn. “We were 20,000 short this year [2005] alone. So focusing on driver lifestyle changes is going to be critical to our recruiting and retention efforts in the future. We can’t get drivers if they can’t make a decent living.” Full story here........http://fleetowner.com/news/topstory/truck_industry_2006_forecast_driver_shortage_fuel_diesel_engine_epa_emission_ulsd_122705/
Executives Gone Wild: It's Not a Pretty Sight
There is a scene in the old gangster movie "Murder, Inc." in which a prominent member of that entity, a certain Abe "Kid Twist" Reles—ably portrayed by Peter Falk—is asked why he always wants more when he already has so much. "Don't ask questions," he shouts in response. "What've you got hands for, huh? Take!"
Then there was a scene I recall from my childhood during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. After Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin said some nasty thing about a young attorney working for Joseph N. Welch, the canny Boston lawyer representing the Army, Mr. Welch asked Mr. McCarthy: "Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no sense of decency?" Full story here............http://www.hoffa2006.com/mediacenter/article.php?id=127
Santa's helpers feeling boxed in
FedEx, workers battle over vote to organize first drivers' union
In December, when Santa contracts out some of his package-delivery work, drivers at FedEx fly down the highways, typically starting before sunrise and finishing long after dark.
But this year, some of the reindeer are so unhappy that they have voted to unionize.
About two dozen South Jersey drivers are poised to become the first to form a collective-bargaining unit at the ground-delivery division of FedEx Corp., the package-delivery company based in Memphis that had revenue last year of $29.4 billion.
Their efforts continue even with FedEx in its busiest season, moving as many as 8.5 million packages daily.
The drivers' hours are long, their pay is low, they say, and some who work or have worked at the FedEx Ground depot in Barrington, Camden County, complain that their managers routinely threaten to take away their routes. Full story here........http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/13431145.htm
Teamsters take aim at FedEx
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is turning up the heat on non-unionized express carrier FedEx with the launch of a new website and a series of weeklong actions at FedEx Express facilities.
“FedEx has built much of its empire on low-cost business models and other unsavory practices,” said Jim Hoffa, the Teamsters’ general president.
“In addition, many FedEx Express workers do not qualify for company health care or retirement benefits,” he added. “In contrast to their counterparts at FedEx, UPS workers are represented by the Teamsters and benefit from a collective bargaining agreement that provides medical care, pensions and a 401(k).”
To support its actions, the Teamsters created FedExWatch.com to highlight legal actions against the Memphis, TN-based express giant. This includes details of Satchell v. FedEx, a case that established class-action status for African-American and Latino workers in Sept. 2005 for their lawsuit against FedEx alleging discrimination in pay, promotions and disciplinary action.
The Teamsters also plan to conduct a leafleting campaign at FedEx Express facilities in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Arizona.
DHL says a strike won't stop deliveries
A spokesman for a DHL shipping contractor said Thursday the company does not plan to let holiday package deliveries be disrupted, even if a Teamsters local follows through with a threat to strike.
"We will do everything we can do to make sure packages are delivered normally," said Sean Howard, president of American Commercial Finance Freight Services.
Plymouth-based American Commercial delivers packages for shipping giant DHL - including those in the Lansing area. Teamsters Local 580, which represents about 60 workers at a Dimondale facility who deliver packages locally, is threatening to strike American Commercial, though no date has been set.
The disagreement stems from the status of a contract union members ratified in October. It includes a pay raise of nearly $5 an hour to about $15 an hour. The union said the contract hasn't been implemented. Howard said he never agreed to the contract.
"They took a contract that was not signed for a vote," he said.
The union says the contract is valid. Mike Parker, business agent for the union, said contracts aren't formally signed until after a ratification vote and a strike was in the planning stages. The union also has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
"These members bar-- -gained fairly with their employer and properly ratified a contract," Parker said. "Our members are extremely upset with the fact that their legal rights can be so blatantly walked on."
The union is urging people to use another shipping company to send and receive holiday gifts.
A spokesman at DHL, which is owned by Germany's Deutsche Post AG and has a U.S. base in Florida, said it has no dealings with the union.
Unions get stricter oversight
The government says it's about improving accountability. The labor movement says it may be revenge for backing Bush's opponents.
Joseph Dougherty, president of Ironworkers Local 401, finds himself suddenly awash in paperwork.
The federal government has stepped up enforcement of 46-year-old union-finance-reporting laws, and Dougherty, who heads a 1,050-member union in Northeast Philadelphia, is swamped with receipts and time sheets.
"It's a nightmare," he said.
The U.S. Labor Department says its heightened efforts are about increasing union financial accountability and transparency, but Dougherty and others in the labor movement have other ideas about the administration's motivations. Full story here..............http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/13377899.htm
Teamster Leaders Laud Driving Training Decision
The Teamsters National Training Director is applauding a federal court decision ordering the federal government to rewrite its rule setting the standards for driving training programs.
“It is long past the time for our country to seriously consider education and training for CMV (commercial motor vehicle) operators,” said Mark Johnson, the Teamsters National Training Director. “With a nationwide driver shortage, alarming driver turnover in the nonunion sector and retirements in the union sector, quality training of new drivers becomes critical to public safety and driver supply.”
In 2004, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a rule requiring CMV operators to be trained in only four specific areas—hours of service, health and wellness, medical qualifications and whistleblower protections. None of these have anything to do with the skills necessary to safely operate a CMV.
A coalition of highway and auto safety organizations sued the agency arguing the federal government should have including CMV driver education and training as part of its requirements using curriculum based on its many years of research and the standards set by the industry.
On December 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that FMCSA “abandons the recommendations of the Model Curriculum.” The court did not overturn the current rule, but did send it back to FMCSA for “further rulemaking,” indicating that it must include over-the-road training as part of any new regulation.
The “Model Curriculum,” developed by the Department of Transportation in 1985, addressed CMV driver education and training topics directly related to driving skills, with a heavy emphasis on skills and techniques necessary to safely operate a heavy truck.
Shortly after the Model Curriculum was published, groups representing the motor carrier, truck-driver training, and insurance industries, including the Teamsters Union, formed the Professional Truck-Driver Training Institute (PTDI). The Institute develops standards for training truck drivers, and it certifies private training organizations that meet or exceed its recommendations. None of these criteria was contained in FMCSA’s current rule.
The court also said the FMCSA “completely ignores the study’s emphasis on practical, on-the-road training” in the rule. This comment refers to the government’s 1995 study entitled “Assessing the Adequacy of Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Training.” The study found that the heavy truck, motorcoach, and school bus sectors were not providing adequate driver training. It also confirmed in the study a general agreement that the Model Curriculum represents an adequate content and approach for training truck drivers and used the Model Curriculum as the starting point in defining “adequate training” for heavy truck drivers.
Miami DHL Gateway Teamsters Approve First Contract
Teamsters at the Miami International Airport (MIA) DHL gateway facility overwhelmingly approved a four-year contract yesterday, gaining wage increases, a pension plan and job security language.
By ratifying the contract, the 130 workers at MIA became the third DHL gateway location to be protected by a Teamster agreement this year. Miami gateway workers are joining 300 DHL Teamsters at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and 150 gateway workers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
"We are ecstatic that we have completed these negotiations after 17 months," said Alex Saumell, an 18-year worker at the DHL Miami Gateway facility. "All the credit goes to Mike Scott, Don Marr and all the workers here at the gateway who stood strong through this entire process."
The agreement secures excellent wage increases, lowers the cost of health insurance for the workers, includes job security language and guarantees a minimum of 40-hours per week for fulltime employees. The contract also includes strong language that provides the members with an outstanding grievance procedure and seniority requirements.
"These workers were so excited about becoming Teamsters," Michael Scott, President, Teamsters Local 769 in Miami, Florida. "This is an exceptional first contract that will provide improvements across the board for these workers."
Yellow Roadway unit selects new president
YRC Regional Transportation, a subsidiary of Yellow Roadway Corp., today said T.J. O’Connor has been selected as president and chief executive officer of USF Bestway.
The move was effective Dec. 1.
O’Connor has served in a variety of executive positions at Roadway Express for the last 23 years. Most recently, he has been vice president of the company’s Western Division.
YRC Regional Transportation is comprised of the USF companies and New Penn Motor Express.
Bush urges companies to pay pension obligations
President Bush called on American businesses on Monday to live up to their pension promises, saying too many companies are not putting away enough money to protect the retirement benefits of their workers. Full story here.......http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-05-bushpensions_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
Yellow Roadway sees 2005 profit at $5.18 to $5.23 a share
Yellow Roadway Corp. affirmed Monday its 2005 earnings outlook of $5.18 to $5.23 a share and its fourth-quarter profit expectations of $1.30 to $1.35 a share. "We continue to see a good economy across the board," Yellow Chief Executive Bill Zollars said in a statement. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call forecast earnings, on average, of $5.23 a share in 2005 and $1.36 a share in the fourth quarter. The shares fell 66 cents Friday to $46.45.
BusinessWeek: The Ground War At FedEx
Drivers are Suing to Protest Their Status as Contractors— and Gaining Traction
Back in 1996, when Roy Mason landed work as a delivery driver with Roadway Package System Inc., he liked the idea of being an independent contractor, instead of an employee. Although he drove exclusively for RPS out of its Arcadia (Calif.) terminal, Mason felt the company gave him wide latitude to manage his routes.
Two years later, FedEx Corp. acquired RPS, and Mason says that's when things changed. He says a new management team set out strict rules dictating everything from how he dresses to how he holds his truck keys as he approaches a customer's door. And the company imposes fines on drivers who don't meet its strict standards. A few weeks ago, Mason says, managers shadowed him on his route, then slapped him with a citation for leaving his truck door open as he sprinted to drop off a package on a customer's front porch. "They are absolutely controlling everything I do," says Mason, 49. Full story here.......http://www.teamster.org/05news/hn_051123_4.htm
Zollars sells $5.6M in Yellow stock
Yellow Roadway Corp.CEO Bill Zollars last week sold 117,860 shares of company stock for more than $5.6 million, a federal filing shows.
Zollars exercised options to acquire the shares on Nov. 22 at a price of $17.21 a share, or a total of more than $2 million, the Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed. He then sold the stock throughout the day at a price of about $48 a share, according to the filing, which was filed late Friday.
The transactions left Zollars with a profit of more than $3.6 million.
In a Nov. 21 news release, Yellow Roadway Corp. announced that Zollars had adopted a plan to sell the stock in accordance with an SEC trading plan.
"Zollars' plan is a component of his overall tax and financial planning strategy that is designed to provide enhanced diversification and liquidity," the news release said.
Zollars retains 154,465 stock options, according to the news release, meaning he exercised about 43 percent of his available stock options with last week's transactions. He also continues to own 134,234 shares of Yellow Roadway stock, the federal filing indicated.
LABOR’S DRIVE VS. BUSH AGENCY’S
Labor’s campaign against GOP President George W. Bush’s Defense Department personnel rules–rules that strip 800,000 workers of their union rights, collective bargaining, whistleblower protection, fairness in pay, job protections and more–accelerated in mid-November in Congress and in court. Labor got a win, at least temporarily, when federal workers’ unions and the Bush Justice Department–acting for DOD–agreed to delay the starting implementation of the new rules until at least Feb. 1. A court hearing on them may occur at about the same time. And unions got sympathetic comments from senators of both parties when they took their complaints to Capitol Hill on Nov. 17. Full story here.......http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2676&mode=thread∨der=0&thold=0
Zollars adopts trading plan for Yellow options
Yellow Roadway Corp. today said Bill Zollars, chairman, president and CEO, has adopted a stock trading plan.
Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities Act of 1934 enables corporate officers and directors to establish stock trading plans for the orderly sale of predetermined amounts of securities..
Overland Park-based Yellow said Zollars’ plan is a component of his overall tax and financial planning strategy that is designed to provide enhanced diversification and liquidity. The plan is effective for approximately three months.
Under the provisions of the plan up to 117,860 of the 272,325 stock options Zollars currently holds may be exercised and sold. Zollars’s ownership of 134,360 shares of Yellow Roadway common stock is unaffected.
At midday, Yellow Roadway shares were up 22 cents at $49.20. Shares have traded in a 52-week range of $38.81 to $64.47.
Yellow Roadway Corp. to Expand Facility in Buffalo, New York
Yellow Roadway Corp. plans to invest over $1.5 million to lease, build out and equip an approximately 18,000 square foot, 83 person credit collection facility in Cheektowaga, NY. The project is expected to retain 264 existing jobs and create 83 new jobs.
Yellow Roadway Corp., founded in 1924, has grown to annual sales of over $8 billion with locations throughout the US, Canada and Mexico. The company employs over 2,000 in 29 locations across New York State.
"Yellow Roadway's decision to expand in Cheektowaga re-confirms the strength of one of Buffalo Niagara's greatest assets, its highly qualified and available work force," said Thomas A. Kucharski, President and CEO of Buffalo Niagara Enterprise. "Our work force, training incentives and strong transportation and logistics infrastructure combine to make the region a natural location for the company's long term growth."
In consideration of its commitment to New York State, Yellow Roadway Corporation is eligible to apply to Empire State Development for a Capital Grant of up to $150,000 to assist with lease costs, build out, furniture fixtures and equipment associated with set up of the facility.
Teamsters Host International Summit of Unions in Package Delivery Industry
The Teamsters Union this week will host union leaders from around the world who represent workers at the Big Four global package delivery and logistics companies, called integrators -- UPS, DHL, FedEx and TNT.
Officials attending the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) meeting are discussing ways their unions can work together to convert common interests into power in organizing and at the bargaining table of the Big Four global integrators.
"In this global economy, labor unions must see, think and plan beyond borders if we are to help gain strength and power for workers," said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. "The Teamsters are dedicated to this mission."
The Teamsters Union has created a new Office of Global Strategies to focus resources on building alliances with workers around the world as its dominance grows in the integrator industry.
The integrators' meeting includes union leaders from Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Australia, India, China, South Africa, Canada, Belgium and Spain. The ITF represents 624 transport unions with 4.5 million transport workers from 142 countries. The Teamsters Union is the largest ITF affiliate in North America.
"Our members from these international unions are linked by the actions of corporations whose global executives make decisions that affect workers around the world," said C. Thomas Keegel, Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer. "These multinational corporations have a global strategy. We must build a global strategy as well."
Cipriani re-elected president of local Teamsters union
GREENSBORO - Jack Cipriani has been re-elected to a three-year term as president of the Teamsters Local 391 union, Rob Black, a union spokesman, said yesterday.
Local 391, based in Greensboro, has members in the Triad and eastern North Carolina. The election was held last week, Black said. With 7,000 members, it is the largest labor union in the state.
FedEx to pay $500,000 to settle racial-bias claim
FedEx Freight East will pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over allegations the company discriminated against black dockworkers in St. Louis, the EEOC said last week.
FedEx Freight East is a subsidiary of Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx Corp., which acquired American Freightways in 2001. A spokesman for Fedex Freight East declined to comment immediately.
The EEOC sued in 2003 on behalf of 20 blacks who worked for American Freightways Inc. at the time of the alleged bias. The EEOC said blacks were denied promotions from part-time to full-time jobs at the company’s trucking terminal in St. Louis. Another was denied promotion to a supervisory position.
When the suit was filed in September 2003, attorney Jerome Dobson said the lapses had significant effects on black workers who were seeking more hours, better routes and pay, and promotion opportunities. Meanwhile, he said, white workers “leapfrogged” over the black workers.
Six black dockworkers joined in the lawsuit and the settlement. In addition to the $500,000 settlement, which must still be approved by the U.S. District Court, FedEx will be required to report on promotions to full-time dockworker positions and to dock supervisor positions.
LAX DHL Gateway Teamsters Approve First Contract
150 Workers Secure Strong Three-Year Contract
Teamsters at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) DHL gateway facility overwhelmingly approved a three-year contract last week, gaining wage increases, a pension plan and job security language. Full story here.......http://sev.prnewswire.com/airlines-aviation/20051025/DCTU03425102005-1.html
Diesel dilemma
We hate to burst your bubble, all you folks out there who have been celebrating the 40-cent drop in gas prices in the past month.
But there’s something else going on at the pumps.And it’s no cause for celebration.While gas prices have dropped in the past month, diesel prices have remained persistently high. In fact, the price has risen slightly since September. Full story here........http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/18122
Posted by 1Teamster at 11:25 AM 2 comments:
Yellow Roadway 3Q Profit Jumps 53 Percent
Trucking and logistics company Yellow Roadway Corp. on Thursday reported third-quarter profit jumped 53 percent, driven by revenue growth at the company's core businesses. Net income grew to $85.3 million, or $1.42 per share, from $55.9 million, or $1.15 per share, in the prior-year quarter. Excluding one-time charges, the company said it earned $1.53 in the quarter versus $1.38 in the comparable period last year. Revenue rose 41 percent to $2.49 billion. The results for the latest quarter included sales for regional trucker USF Corp., which Yellow Roadway acquired for $1.5 billion in May. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected earnings excluding items of $1.43 per share and sales of $2.42 billion. In September, the company lowered its earnings guidance for the quarter to between $1.40 and $1.45 from its earlier prediction of $1.60 to $1.65. Yellow officials blamed disruptions caused by Hurricane Katrina and operational troubles in the two-year-old combination of Yellow Corp. and Roadway Corp. Revenue at the company's Yellow Transportation business increased 8 percent to $892.5 million, while sales at Roadway Express edged up 6 percent to $858.4 million. Although a smaller segment, Yellow's Meridian IQ unit saw revenue more than double to $142 million. The company said it took $11 million worth of charges to cover executive severance, disposing property and acquisition costs. Yellow Roadway forecast fourth-quarter earnings of $1.30 to $1.35 per share, compared with the consensus estimate of $1.34 per share. The company predicts full-year income in a range of $5.18 to $5.23 on $8.7 billion in sales. Analysts project 2005 earnings of $5.12 per share on $8.58 billion in sales. Shares of Yellow Roadway fell $1.21, or 2.8 percent, to close at $42.25 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock was down an additional 10 cents at $42.15 in after-hours trading. The stock has traded between $38.81 and $64.47 over the past 52 weeks.
Local Teamsters set for a strike vote over DHL contract
A strike vote has been set for Sunday against a subcontractor of DHL Solutions Inc., a package and freight delivery service that serves Tallahassee and has a $2.5million annual contract with the state, a union official said Monday.
"The primary issue for the employees has been compensation," said Jim Gookins, principle officer and secretary/treasurer of Teamsters Local 991, which is headquartered in Mobile, Ala. If called, the strike would only affect the Tallahassee office, he said.
Gookins said Tallahassee members of the Teamsters Union would vote Sunday on whether to ratify a contract offer or to set a strike date. He said the drivers were seeking an hourly wage and benefits instead of being paid a salary with no benefits.
Gookins said drivers now receive a salary of about $1,800 every two weeks but must pay Commercial Cargo Inc. to lease the vans bearing the DHL logo, pay for their own gasoline and maintenance and also pay for cargo insurance.
After paying their own expenses, Gookins said, drivers make from $800 to $1,000 every two weeks.
Gookins said about 25 drivers - all independent contractors - deliver packages for DHL in the Tallahassee area. They were hired by Commercial, which is headquartered in Tyrone, Ga.
Colleen Englert, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Management Services, said DHL has a $2.5million annual contract with the state but added Tallahassee DHL revenues were only part of that total.
DHL officials could not be reached for comment. The company's headquarters is in Plantation, and Hurricane Wilma, which hit South Florida on Monday, interrupted phone service to the area.
Fred Grub, the lead negotiator for Commercial, declined to discuss specifics but said he thought the talks "have gone very well" and that "Commercial Cargo and the Teamsters have agreed on a lot of things that are very beneficial to employees and employer."
Grub said DHL has similar arrangements with independent contractors in other states.
FedEx uses independent contractors for its ground deliveries, but uses company employees for its air service deliveries, said company spokesman Howard Clabo.
UPS deliveries all are made by company employees, said company spokesman Norman Black.
ABF’s third quarter rises to 25-year best
ABF Freight System Inc., the main operating division of Arkansas Best Corp., reported Monday that its third quarter was the best in more than 25 years.
Arkansas Best, whose two primary operating subsidiaries are ABF and Clipper Group, said increased prices, controlled costs and a one-time gain contributed to its overall strong performance. Full story here........http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=Business&storyid=134331
Execs line pockets, humiliate employees
Bankruptcy tactics prove Congress must protect livelihoods of workers
By James P. Hoffa
The double threat that U.S. workers face from cheap labor overseas and greedy executives here at home made headlines when Troy-based Delphi Corp. -- the world's second largest auto parts manufacturer -- announced Saturday it was filing for bankruptcy.
Prior to that, Delphi sought concessions from the United Auto Workers, including a wage cut of up to 63 percent and sharp increases in employee-paid health care. The company plans to use bankruptcy laws to close plants and impose lower wages and benefits on workers. Full story here..........http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0510/14/A13-347947.htm
Teamster truck talk
Al Maxey had heard the rumors.
The retired Dover Township resident had known for a while that his previous employer was in financial difficulties.
So, Maxey was not too surprised when Consolidated Freightways suspended its York County operations Sept. 3, 2002, days after the 74-year-old company had filed for bankruptcy. Full story here.......http://ydr.com/story/meeting-room/89660/
ABF Again Named Best in Both Claims/Loss Prevention and Security
FORT SMITH, Ark., -- ABF Freight System,Inc.(R), has been recognized by the American Trucking Associations (ATA) asthe top motor carrier in both claims/loss prevention and security. ABF(R) isthe only carrier to earn both the Excellence in Claims/Loss Prevention Awardand the Excellence in Security Award in the same year. This marks the 30th time since 1971 that ABF has earned recognition fromthe Safety and Loss Prevention Management Council. In addition to the 2005awards, ABF also won the Excellence in Claims/Loss Prevention Award in 2001and 2002 and the Excellence in Security Award in 2001 and 2004. The ATA Safety and Loss Prevention Management Council presented the twoawards to ABF on October 4th in Miami, Fla., at the group's annual conference.In presenting the Security Award, the ATA called ABF "a company thatconstantly evaluates and improves its security measures, personnel trainingand experience record." When presenting the Claims/Loss Prevention Award, theATA noted the "magnitude of this achievement and the significant work thatgoes into reaching this standard," adding that the company "has excelled" indeveloping "a comprehensive loss prevention plan." "Receiving the Excellence in Claims/Loss Prevention Award three times inthe past five years demonstrates ABF's commitment to proper cargo handling. Werecognize that each pallet, carton or box is a critical part of our customers'business and that loss, damage or delay harms that business," said ABFPresident and Chief Executive Officer Bob Davidson. "The low turnover amongour conscientious, experienced employees, coupled with management emphasis andtraining, results in the best claims experience in our industry. When specificproblem areas are uncovered, we use focus groups and the ABF Quality Processto address the root causes; we typically involve our customers and dockemployees in this effective problem resolution process. This approach haspositioned ABF as the premiere LTL carrier when it comes to deliveringshipments on time, intact, and damage free." Davidson added, "In addition, we are pleased to receive the Excellence inSecurity Award again. Due to concerns regarding terrorism, our customers,especially those involved with foodstuffs and personal products, arerightfully conscious of the importance of security in the supply chain. It istruly gratifying to see the hard work and ingenuity of ABF's employees beingrecognized with dual awards in the same year, a feat that no other LTL carrierhas ever accomplished."
Teamsters fight new rules on truckers’ hours
The Teamsters union and public safety groups are challenging the federal government’s new rules on the number of hours truck drivers can work.
The so-called “hours-of-service” rule went into effect on Saturday. But the Transportation Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it will delay enforcing the new rules in most instances while trucking companies adapt to the changes through year’s end. The federal agency has encouraged states to do the same. Full story here........http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/12810319.htm
500 independent truckers sign up with Teamsters
“Join the union,” Wilfredo González, a new Teamster member, shouted as he gave a flyer to truckers entering the Port of Miami the morning of September 26.
Daily prounion rallies are being organized at the port’s entrance as part of the Teamsters effort to organize some 1,700 independent truckers in the area. A week into the organizing campaign, 500 drivers have signed with the union, according to the Teamsters. Full story here........http://www.themilitant.com/2005/6939/693902.html
Carriers group announces reorganization
The Motor Freight Carriers Association (MFCA) has announced a reorganization plan for the trade association that better re-flects the changes that have occurred in the less-than-truckload (LTL) segment of the industry. Full story here........http://www.thetrucker.com/showstory.aspx?id=10199
DHL drivers strike to 'stay union'
About 20 DHL Express delivery drivers picketed the West Kelso station Wednesday, saying they are striking to retain their Teamsters-negotiated wages and resist becoming lower-paid independent contractors."We want to stay union," said driver Toni Hiles. Full story here.......http://www.tdn.com/articles/2005/09/22/area_news/news05.txt
Hoffa swings through Bay Area
TEAMSTERS leader Jim Hoffa kicked off his campaign for national re-election here over the weekend with a call to rebuild the U.S. labor movement by organizing more workers and making unions stronger.
In July, Hoffa and a dissident group of labor leaders led a dramatic split from the AFL-CIO, labor's national governing body, and are expected today to announce the start of a new national labor federation called the Change to Win federation. Full story here.......http://www.insidebayarea.com/businessnews/ci_3066120
Yellow Roadway Corporation Names Michael Rapken Senior Vice President
Yellow RoadwayCorporation announced today that it has named Michael Rapkensenior vice president and chief information officer. Rapken will be responsible for the development of a strategic technology roadmap. He will also focus on the advancement of the Yellow RoadwayTechnologies organization team and build upon existing capabilities to supportfuture growth. Rapken will report directly to Bill Zollars, chairman, president and chiefexecutive officer of Yellow Roadway Corporation. "Michael is an excellent addition to our leadership team," said Zollars."He has the proven skills to lead the Technologies organization inimplementing systems solutions to enhance the customer experience and driveour productivity and synergy initiatives." Rapken will join Yellow Roadway Corporation from Sprint Nextel where he served as vice-president-applications development. Rapken holds a Bachelor ofScience degree in Computer Science from Illinois State University.
Teamsters Wants Drivers Unionized
The Teamsters Union launches an effort to organize South Florida truck drivers today in Miami, a move that could change the way truckers get work at local ports and railyards. Full story here...http://www.teamster.org/05news/hn_050919._1.htm
Yellow Roadway buys into China firm
Transportation firm Yellow Roadway Corp. said Thursday that it had finalized its deal to buy half of the second-largest air freight importer in China.
Yellow also said its Meridian IQ logistics subsidiary has entered an agreement with Yellow's Chinese partner, JHJ International Transportation Co., to form a joint logistics company in China.
The Overland Park, Kan., company announced in June that it had paid $45 million to buy out all or part of four other partners in JHJ. Yellow will have 50 percent ownership of JHJ with Shanghai Jin Jiang International Industrial Investment Co.
JHJ, which also provides ocean freight forwarding and logistics services, has 22 locations in China and has annual revenue of $330 million.
Yellow said the acquisition will add slightly to annual earnings this year.
DHL to New Yorkers: Have a Hot Dog on Us
DHL is kicking off a new $50 million integrated ad campaign in New York with "random acts of kindness" to prove its commitment to customer service, B to B writes. DHL staffers will be found handing out free copies of the Wall Street Journal to commuters, offering free taxi and rickshaw rides, and giving away free hot dogs, umbrellas, and bottled water. Full story here....http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/2005/09/12/dhl_to_new_yorkers_have_a_hot/index.php
Posted by 1Teamster at 8:13 PM 1 comment:
Kroger and Teamsters Team Up to Deliver 20 Refrigerated Trailers to American Red Cross Kitchens in Louisiana
The Kroger Co. and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) are teaming up to donate and deliver 20 refrigerated trailers to American Red Cross kitchens in Louisiana to support Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
The trucks are filled with bagged ice and will be used for temporary storage. The trucks, which are being loaded by associates at Kroger distribution centers in southern California, Colorado, Kentucky and Tennessee, are scheduled to arrive in Louisiana over the next several days. The trailers will remain in Louisiana for at least six weeks.
The IBT is providing transportation, while Kroger is picking up the cost for the trailers and ice.
"As the hurricane relief and recovery efforts continue, we are proud to partner with the Teamsters to answer the Red Cross' need for refrigerated storage equipment and supplies," said Kevin Dougherty, Kroger group vice president of logistics.
Added Jim Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters: "We are pleased to be able to work with The Kroger Co. and to form a joint effort to assist with the hurricane relief effort and special needs of the Red Cross."
Kroger expects to help raise more than $5 million for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. All of the Company's 3,300+ supermarkets, multi-department stores and convenience stores are accepting donations for the Red Cross.
Roadway Predicts More Akron Jobs
Despite a discouraging earnings forecast that sent Yellow Roadway stock tumbling, the trucking company's chief executive said Friday that he remains committed to maintaining jobs in Akron.
"Our focus will be in growing the business and so our focus would be in increasing the jobs in Akron," William Zollars said a day after announcing the need for better business practices at Akron-based Roadway Express.
The biggest part of the problem came from the installation of a new way to manage Roadway Express distribution terminals, he said. Productivity dropped at about 24 of 30 centers where products are consolidated and placed in trucks or taken off trucks and sorted for new destinations, he said.
"It went real well in five or six (terminals), one of which was in Akron, where productivity got better and efficiency went up," Zollars said. "But unfortunately for about two-thirds of the distribution centers, productivity actually dropped and the efficiency went down and that resulted in a shortfall in earnings for Roadway Express for the third quarter."
The Roadway unit posted record quarterly profit before interest and taxes of $52.2 million in the second quarter.
The company also announced Thursday that Michael J. Smid was promoted to president of Roadway Express, replacing Robert L. Stull. Smid was president of YRC Enterprise Services and chief integration officer.
Yellow Roadway said after the markets closed on Thursday that profit will be as little as $1.40 a share, compared with the $1.60 to $1.65 predicted in July.
Also contributing to about 5 cents per share of the reduced outlook is damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Zollars said about 50 facilities in the gulf region were affected, but most are back up and running. Seven remain hindered, with three shut down, he said.
Yellow Roadway stock on Friday lost $3.20 or nearly 7 percent to close at $42.81.
Since the companies merged about two years ago, Yellow, based in Overland Park, Kan., and Roadway have operated as separate, competing entities with different trucks, different staffs and different rate schedules.
A lingering concern has been that Yellow Roadway would do what many other merged companies have done -- eliminate duplication and a lot of jobs. But Zollars said addition of jobs is more likely than cuts.
"We're still really focused on growing Roadway Express," he said. "Over time I think that we are going to continue to have more employees in Akron and not fewer."
Yellow Roadway cuts guidance on Katrina damage
Transportation company Yellow Roadway Corp. lowered its guidance for the quarter on Thursday, blaming disruptions caused by Hurricane Katrina and problems integrating new procedures at its Roadway Express division.
The Overland Park-based company said third quarter earnings would range from $1.40 to $1.45 per share, well below the company's earlier expectations of $1.60 to $1.65 per share. Yellow said it would update its annual earnings figures when it releases the earnings next month.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected quarterly earnings of $1.63 per share, and a full-year profit of $5.44.
Yellow estimated disruptions from Katrina would have a 5 cent per share effect on earnings, although the company added "the situation continues to unfold."
The bulk of the setback, however, was blamed on the company putting new operational procedures in place at Roadway Express and "the associated learning curve that negatively affected efficiency."
The company also announced that Roadway President Robert L. Stull was retiring after 28 years at Yellow and would be replaced immediately with Michael J. Smid, who has held several positions at the company.
Yellow released the new guidance after the markets closed Thursday. Its shares fell 5.2 percent, or $2.41 in after-hours trading after ending regular trading 55 cents lower at $46.01 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Yellow shares have traded between $43.31 and $64.47 over the past year.
New trucker safety rules are bad policy for everyone
The Bush administration's decision to keep rules that allow, or force, truckers to stay on the road 11 hours a day, six days a week, is bad policy for truckers and the motorists who share the roads with them. Full story here.....http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/view/columns/1894157.shtml
Posted by 1Teamster at 5:18 PM 3 comments:
Trade Unions Going Global
“GLOBAL companies need global unions,” says Noel Howell, a spokesman for the Union Network International (UNI), a federation of 900 trades unions from 150 countries. It is hard to think of a single global firm that would agree. Certainly not Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer with 1.6m workers, 1.2m of them in America. It says that unionisation is not “right” for Wal-Mart, at least in America, and that unions “do not want us to succeed”. Full story here....http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4324954
Yellow Transportation Drivers Capture Top Two Awards at National Truck Driving Championship
Yellow Transportation is proud to announce that Yellow Transportation professional drivers captured the two highest honors at the 2005 National Truck Driving Championships (NTDC). Rick Herbert, a driver at the Yellow Transportation service center in Chicago Ridge, Illinois, was named the National Grand Champion after competing with over 360 other drivers from across the United States. Full story here...http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050822/cgm023.html?.v=20
U.S. keeps 11-hour truck rule
WASHINGTON — Truck drivers can stay behind the wheel for 11 hours straight without taking a rest, the government said Friday — leaving intact a rule that truckers and safety advocates alike say is dangerous. Full story here.....http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=Business&storyid=125465
What Teamsters Should Know About Pension Legislation
A Question and Answer Session with Mike Mathis, Director of Government AffairsQ: What is Congress doing to address the problems facing multi-employer pensions?
A: On June 9, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) introduced a pension bill in the House. The bill, H.R. 2830, is comprehensive pension legislation that addresses the funding problems facing both single- and multi-employer pensions. Congressman Boehner is the Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, which deals with private pension issues for the House of Representatives.
Q: Does the Teamsters Union support this legislation?
A: The Teamsters Union did not endorse this bill as introduced. The bill represents a positive step because Congress finally appears to be willing to address problems faced by multi-employer pension plans. However, the bill that was introduced falls short of the protections and the relief we are seeking for multi-employer plans. But we are at the beginning of a long legislative process with multiple opportunities to make changes to the bill.
Q: Who are the Teamsters working with to get positive legislation passed?
A: The Teamsters are part of a broad-based coalition of more than 50 unions, employers and associations that are members of the Multi-employer Pension Plan Coalition (MPPC). The Coalition’s members are involved in a range of industries, from construction and trucking to the grocery and entertainment industries.
Q: You mentioned a long legislative process. What is the process and how does legislation get enacted?
A: Typically, a committee with oversight of an issue will start by holding a public hearing. Then, a subcommittee usually will debate and vote on a bill. If the bill passes, it gets sent to the full committee for consideration. The committee then will debate and vote on the bill before it can go to the House or Senate floor for full debate and a vote. Sometimes, a bill will go to several committees for consideration before it gets to the full House or Senate. At each level, a bill can be changed—or amended. Both the House and the Senate must pass the bill before it is sent to the president to be signed into law or vetoed. Often, the House and Senate pass different bills, and a committee must be appointed for the two sides to work out their differences.
Q: What is the status of H.R. 2830?
A: A subcommittee of the House Education and Workforce Committee amended and voted on the bill on June 22. The full committee then amended the bill again and passed it on June 30. The bill will now be sent to the House Ways and Means Committee for consideration. This committee has jurisdiction over some tax issues in the bill, as well as some pension provisions. When Ways and Means passes the bill, it will go to the Rules Committee and then to the full House for consideration.
Q: What is the status of pension legislation in the Senate?
A: The Senate Finance Committee considered and voted on a pension bill just prior to the August recess. As with the House, jurisdiction over pension legislation is shared with another committee, in this case the Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The HELP committee plans to move forward on pension legislation after the August recess. We, and our coalition partners, have been meeting with House and Senate committee members and staff, both Republicans and Democrats, to push for strong multi-employer pension provisions.
Q: Can this legislation be fixed so that we can support it?
A: We believe it can, and there are several opportunities to make changes. We are working hard, along with our coalition partners, to educate and persuade members of Congress, particularly committee members, to adopt the changes we believe are important to maintaining viable multi-employer plans and protecting core pension benefits. The committee level is where we have the first opportunities to impact the bill.
Q: What happens if Congress does not complete action on pension legislation this year?
A: This is the first year of a new, two-year congressional session. If Congress does not complete action on a bill this year, it would pick up next year where it left off in the process. However, we expect Congress to act this year to produce a good bill that protects core benefits and ensures viable multi-employer pension plans in the future.
Q: What happens if the legislation is bad?
A: At some point near the end of the legislative process, the Teamsters Union may determine that the pension bill will actually harm multi-employer pension plans and the 750,000 Teamsters who participate in them. If that’s the case, General President Hoffa has committed every available resource to ensuring that we defeat that bill and begin to work again at promoting our proposal in a different piece of legislation.
Posted by 1Teamster at 6:41 PM
CIO Magazine: ABF Among World's Top 100 Companies
For the second consecutive year, ABF Freight System Inc. of Fort Smith is among the winners of CIO magazine's annual CIO 100 awards competition.
The magazine said the annual award program honors organizations that "exemplify the highest level of operational and strategic excellence" in information technology. The magazine said it chose the company based on ABF's use of IT to expand and enhance accessibility and usability of its shipping solutions for one-time or infrequent freight shippers.
"A growing number of consumers have an occasional need for larger-than-parcel service," ABF President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Davidson said. "When they buy or sell an item at an online auction site or when they need to send items to a friend or relative, shipping them can seem overwhelming. ABF has simplified the process for getting a competitive rate quotation for moving the freight, completing a bill of lading, scheduling the freight pickup, and tracking the shipment during transport."
Trucking company to settle for $7 million
Trucking company Yellow Roadway has agreed to pay $7 million to settle a class-action suit brought last year by 1,900 employees.Yellow Roadway will pay the claims on behalf of USF Corp., which it acquired in May. Workers brought the case against USF, the former parent company of unionized USF Red Star, because it closed 26 freight terminals, including one in Allentown, and laid off the workers without advance notice. Full story here..http://www.mcall.com/business/local/all-truckingaug09,0,6526240.story?coll=all-businesslocal-hed
NC unions on both sides of labor fight see need for change
Events in Chicago last week sent a ripple through central North Carolina Piedmont union halls as a Teamster local president in Greensboro sought to explain to rank-and-file union members why his union walked out of the AFL-CIO, and a small-town mayor in Randolph County looked upon Teamsters’ defection as a knife blade cutting through the heart of the labor movement. Full story here....http://www.yesweekly.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=421&TM=72670.25
2005 National Truck Driving Championships
Each year the ATA Safety and Loss Prevention Management Council hosts the National Truck Driving Championships, one of ATA's largest programs, known to many as the "Super Bowl of Safety." The 2005 NTDC will be ATA's 68th annual Championship competition. It is at NTDC that the best professional truck drivers in the country gather to vie for national titles in various classifications and for the top honor of NTDC Grand Champion. Full story here...http://www.truckline.com/aboutata/councils/slpmc/ntdc/
Double Victory for DHL Workers in Oklahoma
Within 24 hours of each other, workers at J&K and A-1—two DHL independent cartage contractors (ICCs) in Oklahoma City—voted to join Local 886. The J&K drivers voted on July 25 by a margin of nearly 4-1, and the drivers at A-1 voted July 26 by nearly a 2-1 margin in favor of Teamsters representation.These recent victories are part of a national campaign to organize drivers at DHL ICCs. Local 886 spearheaded the organizing efforts with assistance from the International Organizing Department.“We have won three out of three campaigns in the past month using the organizing model,” said John Howry, President of Local 886 in Oklahoma City. “The model that the International has set out with house visits was very instrumental in winning these victories.”Drivers at J&K and A-1, who work long hours with no overtime pay and no paid sick leave, wanted a strong voice at work.“The number one reason I wanted to join a union was for respect,” said Angela Miller, a driver at A-1. “The election came out exactly the way I thought it was going to, and I am very happy to be union.”
ABF Receives National Safety Council Award
ABF Freight System, Inc.(R), is the recipient of the 2005 Fleet Contest Division Leader Award from the National Safety Council (NSC). Presented during the Annual NSC Safety Awards Banquet June 30 in Los Angeles, the award recognizes outstanding performance in transportation safety.
"ABF professional drivers contribute daily to safe and secure freight transportation throughout North America," said ABF Safety and Security Director Jim McFarlin, who accepted the award on behalf of the 7,000 professional drivers employed by ABF. "Safety is always a top priority at ABF, and it's an honor to have our safety efforts recognized with this prestigious award from the NSC."
Founded in 1913 and chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1953, the NSC is an international nonprofit public service organization providing programs, products and services to 30 million people employed at 48,000 member facilities worldwide. Based in Itasca, Illinois, the NSC offers occupational safety, driver improvement and emergency care training to protect employees and businesses.
Established in 1923, ABF(R) is one of North America's oldest and most reputable motor carriers. It continues to be recognized as a benchmark for safety, security, technology and freight-handling standards. Last year, the ATA awarded ABF the Excellence in Security Award, the 28th time the organization has recognized ABF since 1971.
Profit up sharply at Yellow Roadway
Yellow Roadway Corp. continued rolling along in the second quarter, posting sharp gains in earnings and revenues. Full story here http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/companies/12250126.htm
Union emphasizing roots
Staff writer Karin Rives spoke with Jack Cipriani, president of Teamsters Local 391, about how the split will affect his union. Local 391 has offices in Greensboro, Raleigh and Reidsville and 12,000 members at more than 100 businesses and school systems statewide. It's the largest union in the state. Full story here http://newsobserver.com/business/story/2643604p-9080509c.html
Yellow boosts presence in China
It has yet to put trucks on the road in China, but Yellow Roadway Corp. has taken a major step toward raising its profile in that country. Last month, the carrier announced that it was investing in a Chinese freight-forwarding business. Yellow Roadway will spend $45 million to buy a 50-percent stake in JHJ International Transportation Co Ltd., the freightforwarding subsidiary of Shanghai Jin Jiang International Industrial Investment Co. Ltd.
Based in Shanghai, JHJ is the second largest airfreight forwarder in China. JHJ also offers ocean freight forwarding and logistics services through a domestic network of 22 locations, including five customs warehouses adjacent to the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. JHJ,which employs more than 1,000 people, reported 2004 revenue of $330 million.
"Our objective is to provide seamless, end-to-end global transportation solutions to our customers," says Bill Zollars, chairman, president and CEO of Yellow Roadway Corp. "The joint venture with Jin Jiang advances this objective by significantly expanding our scale and capabilities in China." The deal, which is subject to the Chinese government's approval, is expected to close this fall.
PARADE Readying Second Attack on Trucking and Drivers
Despite new studies confirming that truck drivers are operating safer and that loading docks are being run more efficiently, PARADE, the tabloid-style Sunday newspaper insert is “revisiting” the trucking industry and the Hours-of-Service issue. The article is expected to run by September 2005. Full story here.....http://www.truckline.com/NR/exeres/2B2D1C1F-B7DA-45C7-9787-FDE5F4C9B130.htm
USF Reddaway Contract Boosts Wages, Benefits
Workers Ratify Four-Year Pact
By a 2-1 margin, freight Teamsters at USF Reddaway have ratified a new four-year contract that raises wages and benefits, boosts job security and contains other improvements.
“In addition to providing increased wages and benefits, the contract calls for an expedited election process for the unorganized terminals at USF Reddaway,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President. “This will help more USF Reddaway workers get a strong voice at work. It will benefit all the Teamsters who work at Reddaway.” Full story here.....http://www.teamster.org/05news/hn_050706_4.htm
Truckers to honor strike at Asarco
A national company that moves freight for Asarco LLC confirmed Wednesday that its drivers won't cross picket lines at the Tucson-based company's operations in Arizona and Texas.
"Our drivers are Teamsters, and they're honoring the strike, so we do not have any that are willing to cross the lines," said Zachary Lacombe, Tucson branch manager for ABF Freight System Inc., 2943 E. Wieding Road.
The local center has 12 drivers who would normally be hauling supplies in and out of Asarco's Mission Mine near Sahuarita and Silver Bell Mine near Marana, Lacombe said. Drivers for the company's Phoenix service center, which serves Asarco's Hayden Mill and Smelter and Ray Mine, were also declining to haul freight, he said.
"It's a tough situation that we'll have to kind of play by ear, because if the strike lasts long enough, we'll have to contract some of the company's shipments out," Lacombe said.
ABF is one of many local suppliers and contractors for Asarco that are grappling with the 6-day-old strike. About 1,500 workers have walked out of the company's Amarillo, Texas, refinery and all its Arizona operations: a mill and a smelter in Hayden and the Ray, Mission and Silver Bell mines.
While the strike will affect local businesses that supply and service Asarco operations and equipment, most of those businesses should have enough other customers to weather it, said Randy Walker, general manager of Sonoran Process Equipment Co., 1687 W. Grant Road, which repairs components for Asarco's mills.
"They're probably about 10 percent of our business, but we pretty much position ourselves so we can't get hit too hard with strikes or other problems like this," Walker said. "But we don't want to lose them as a customer and we want to get this strike solved as soon as possible."
Another local company that services equipment at Asarco's operations at the Mission and Ray mines and the Hayden Smelter may actually see more business due to the strike, its owner said.
"It could be that since they're running at lower manpower that they're going to have to sub (subcontract) more stuff out," said Ralph Scaramella, owner of Hydraulic Systems Inc., 4617 S. Contractors Way.
Despite a possible uptick in his company's business, Scaramella said he was hoping for a quick resolution to the strike.
"I really hope it ends soon, because it makes it tough not only for small companies that service the mines but on all these small towns that rely so much on them," he said.
Yellow Roadway Corporation Schedules Second Quarter Conference Call for July 29, 2005
-- Yellow Roadway Corporation will host a conference call for shareholders and the investment community on Friday, July 29, 2005, beginning at 9:30 am ET, 8:30 am CT. Second quarter earnings will be released after the market close on Thursday, July 28, 2005.
Hosting the teleconference will be: Bill Zollars-Chairman, President and CEO, Yellow Roadway Corporation; Don Barger-Sr. Vice President and CFO, Yellow Roadway Corporation; Jim Staley-President, YRC Regional Transportation; James Welch-President, Yellow Transportation; Bob Stull-President, Roadway Express; and Jim Ritchie-President, Meridian IQ.
Investors and analysts should dial 1.888.609.3912 at least 10 minutes prior to the start of the call.
The conference call will be open to listeners through a live webcast via StreetEvents at streetevents.com and via the Yellow Roadway Corporation Internet site yellowroadway.com.
An audio playback will be available beginning two hours after the call ends until midnight on August 12, 2005, by calling 1.800.642.1687 and then entering the access code 7535342. An audio playback also will be available for 30 days after the call via the StreetEvents and Yellow Roadway Corporation web sites.
Yellow Roadway Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest transportation service providers in the world. Through its subsidiaries including Yellow Transportation, Roadway Express, Reimer Express, USF, New Penn Motor Express, Meridian IQ and Yellow Roadway Technologies, Yellow Roadway provides a wide range of asset and non-asset based transportation services integrated by technology. The portfolio of brands provided through Yellow Roadway Corporation subsidiaries represents a comprehensive array of services for the shipment of industrial, commercial and retail goods domestically and internationally. Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, Yellow Roadway Corporation employs over 70,000 people.
The incredible shrinking trucking industry
FOR SOME TRUCKERS, IT'S THE BEST OF TIMES, A GOLDEN AGE IN WHICH they find their trucks packed, their revenues solid and their profits at record levels. For others, it's the worst of times, a nightmarish period in which they scarcely emerge from one crisis before being battered by the next round of fuel price hikes or staffing shortages. Full story here.....http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20050701/news.cfm
Building a Stronger Labor Movement
Change To Win Coalition http://www.changetowin.org/index.asp?Type=NONE&SEC={E6AF9F22-F1A2-4609-A447-50073D1BF928}}
DHL drivers return to work, but conflict endures
A dozen drivers who deliver packages on behalf of DHL on Monday morning returned to their jobs with an independent contractor accused of violating their labor rights.It may be a few months, however, before the Teamsters labor union and Rydbom Express iron out an employment contract for the drivers, who had been out of work since March, according to Teamsters officials.Union leaders and a few politicians stood by outside Rydbom Express' offices on Parkway South as the 12 drivers, half of whom were wearing yellow DHL shirts, reported to work at 8:30 a.m.The federal National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against Rydbom Express, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based company accused of violating labor laws when it was given a contract earlier this year to handle DHL's local operations. The drivers had worked for Black Bear Courier of Orono, which lost its Brewer and Presque Isle contracts with DHL after its employees voted in January to join the Teamsters. DHL has denied that the vote had anything to do with the contract.According to an amended charge filed earlier this month with the NLRB, Rydbom Express is accused of having "interrogated prospective employees regarding their union activity, threatened prospective employees, made statements to the effect that unionization is futile, and created an impression of surveillance."Kathleen McCarthy of NLRB's Boston office said Monday a hearing on the complaint has been scheduled to take place in front of a judge on Aug. 2. A location for the public proceeding has not yet been selected, she said."We'll schedule it someplace in the Bangor area," McCarthy said. No complaint is being pursued against Granite State Express, the Portsmouth, N.H., company that took over DHL's deliveries out of Presque Isle, because all but one of the 25 former Black Bear Courier drivers there have been rehired or found jobs elsewhere, Teamsters officials have said.James Carson, president of Teamsters Local 340 in South Portland, said Monday that though the drivers have returned to work, it likely will take several months of negotiations for Rydbom and the Teamsters to agree on an employment contract. One issue likely to be discussed is back pay that Rydbom allegedly owes the union drivers, he indicated."Stayed tuned, because this is a long way from over," Carson said. "It's quite a game, I tell you, and it's being played nationally."
Roadway plans to consolidate billing in Toledo
Trucking company Roadway Express Inc. plans to consolidate its national billing operations in Toledo, bringing at least 75 jobs that pay about $20 an hour.
The firm, in its notice this month to the Teamsters who represent the affected workers now in 18 states, said it hopes to complete the move in August. Employees would be permitted to transfer, but the plan could mean some would not, creating employment locally.
Where the office would be is uncertain, but the firm has a trucking terminal at 6180 Hagman Rd.
The company did not return calls yesterday seeking comment. Bill Lichtenwald, president of Teamsters Local 20 in Toledo, said the proposal is far from a done deal, because each of the affected Teamsters locals and the union's top executives would have to agree to it.
"There's always that possibility it could not go through," he said.
However, the company said the consolidated office would mean 78 union jobs in Toledo, including three already here.
Those jobs would pay $20 an hour through the end of the labor contract in May, 2009.
It was unclear whether additional non-union jobs also would be part of the consolidation.
Mr. Litchenwald said Teamsters locals in 17 states that would lose jobs to Toledo have a right to protest.
Each site with the clerical operation typically has one to three employees, but the largest operation is in Atlanta, with 11 jobs, according to the Roadway notice.
Roadway, of Akron, said in its June 7 letter to the Teamsters that the move complies with the National Master Freight Agreement between the company and union. It would allow the company to enhance its competitive advantage, a key item for obtaining approval, by reducing costs, improving shipping accuracy, and permitting more flexibility.
The company now performs the billing operations at many of its terminals, which "creates disruption of freight movement, lower productivity, and reduced quality," the firm said in its letter.
The trucking firm plans to centralize its customer-billing calculation operation in Toledo and to set up a centralized collection department in Los Angeles, with 14 jobs.
The company, in its notice to the union, has proposed an Aug. 22 transfer of affected employees, but Mr. Lichtenwald said the union's hearing process could take two months and a decision is unlikely until September.
Yellow's $45M deal puts plan for China into a higher gear
Yellow Roadway Corp. will spend $45 million to buy a 50 percent stake in a Chinese freight-forwarding business.
Overland Park-based Yellow said June 17 that it and Shanghai Jin Jiang International Industrial Investment Co. Ltd. would be equal partners in Shanghai-based freight-forwarding company JHJ International Transportation Co.
The joint venture is subject to approval by the government and is expected to close in the fall. It will include equal board membership from Jin Jiang and Yellow Roadway.
Although excited about the JHJ venture, Yellow Roadway CEO Bill Zollars said the company would continue to look for a Chinese trucking company to add to its portfolio, as well.
"Part of our strategy will still be to look for an opportunity in the ground transportation area in China," he said. "But what this (JHJ venture) does for us is it raises our profile there and gives us more scale and a chance to learn as we go."
He said he did not have a timeline for adding wheels on the ground in China, adding that "we're trying to be careful with every step we take in China."
Zollars said in May that he wanted to acquire a trucking company in China this year. The plan, he said then, was to start small in the Shanghai region, supporting big customers that Yellow serves in the States.
In March, Yellow Roadway cracked into the booming Asian market when its logistics subsidiary, Meridian IQ, bought Shanghai-based GPS Logistics Group.
JHJ is the second-largest air-freight forwarder in China and also offers ocean freight-forwarding and logistics services through a network of 22 locations. JHJ employs more than 1,000 people and reported 2004 revenue of $330 million.
Shanghai Jin Jiang, a publicly traded subsidiary of conglomerate Jin Jiang International Holding Co., also engages in the passenger transportation and logistics industries in China.
"Jin Jiang is one of the most recognized brand names in China," Yellow Roadway said in a release
Yellow Roadway plans to close regional carrier
Yellow Roadway Corp. said Monday that it would close USF Dugan, one of its recently acquired regional carriers, beginning July 8.
The Wichita-based unit’s area of operations will be filled by other regional carriers operated by YRC Regional Transportation, which was formed when Overland Park-based Yellow Roadway completed its acquisition of USF Corp. for $1.37 billion last month.
Dugan was one of four regional carriers operated by Chicago-based USF, which was struggling before being bought by Yellow Roadway. One of USF’s operational problems had been that Dugan overlapped its service territory with other USF trucking firms, according to transportation analysts.
Dugan has about 2,300 employees, including about 1,900 drivers and dock workers, said Jim Staley, president of YRC Regional, which is based in Akron, Ohio. The company does not know how many employees will remain with the company. He said all Dugan employees have been encouraged to apply for jobs with the carrier moving into their area.
They are USF Holland, USF Bestway and USF Reddaway. Some of Dugan’s service areas are served by Holland and Bestway. The company hopes customers will transfer business to the other carriers.
“We’re hoping to retain a large part of that group, but it will depend on how successful we are in keeping our customer base,” he said.
Holland will move into Dugan’s service area in Missouri and northeastern Kansas. Dugan has a terminal in Kansas City, Kan., that will be acquired by Holland, according to USF’s Web site. Dugan has more than 150 employees there.
Holland will also acquire Dugan’s Missouri terminals in Joplin and Springfield. Other Missouri terminals operated by Dugan, such as in St. Louis and Columbia, will be shut down.
Most of Dugan’s other terminals throughout Kansas will be acquired by Bestway. The terminal in Topeka will close.
Staley said there was no final assessment yet on the cost of closing Dugan. However, the company noted that its previous 2005 earnings-per-share forecast of $5.35 to $5.50 includes the closing of Dugan.
The hourly employees of Holland, USF’s biggest operating unit, are represented by the Teamsters union. The Teamsters were trying to organize Dugan before the buyout by Yellow Roadway, and workers at a few terminals had voted in favor of the union.
California drivers file class action lawsuit against DHL
Three drivers for DHL have filed a class action lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court against the company, challenging the illegal classification of many of its drivers as independent contractors, which has allowed the company to avoid paying overtime wages and to require workers to bankroll the cost of their delivery vehicles, including running costs, and many other expenses.
The Sacramento drivers are among hundreds of DHL workers nationwide who have chosen Teamster union representation in the past several months.
Under California law, employers are required to pay all necessary employee expenses. They are also required to pay non-exempt employees a rate of time-and-a-half for work exceeding eight hours a day and forty hours a week.
“DHL ads say their drivers are 'lean and hungry,' and it's quite literally true,” said Pilar Barton, organizing director for Teamsters Local 150. “DHL drivers average between $7 and $9 per hour with no medical benefits, no retirement and no paid sick leave, vacation or holidays. DHL's business plan to compete with UPS is poverty wages, high turnover, and vicious Union-busting.”
The lawsuit demands payment of back wages and employee expenses going back four years. It is filed as a class action on behalf of all current and former DHL drivers throughout California who were improperly classified as independent contractors.
DHL does not hire its drivers directly, but uses contractor companies to retain them. The lawsuit also names one such contractor, DNM Delivery Solutions, and its owner, Dewey McDaniel.
More deliveries for Teamsters
Workers at a DHL contractor in St. Joseph have voted to form a bargaining unit, the second delivery firm in the region to join a union as part of a nationwide Teamsters effort.
An election May 20 resulted in 15 employees voting in favor of the union and nine voting against the union at Mid-Continent Transport, said Dan Hubbel, assistant regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in Overland Park. Thirty-one hourly employees will join Teamsters Local 955.
No objections over the election were filed by Friday, according to Hubbel, and this most likely will mean that the results will be certified.
The owner of Mid-Continent Transport declined to comment.
Cairo Potts, Local 955 business representative, said workers at Mid-Continent were concerned with wages, benefits and seniority.
“They definitely needed this,” he said.
The vote in St. Joseph was the second time this month that area Teamsters officials successfully organized a company making deliveries for DHL, the express-delivery company owned by Deutsche Post. Earlier, more than 30 employees at Great Plains Transportation Inc. in Kansas City voted in favor of joining Teamsters Local 41.
The Teamsters said more than 1,300 U.S. employees at ground-delivery subcontractors for DHL had voted to join the union. The union overall represents about 10,000 DHL workers.
However, the union said nearly 400 workers around the country had lost their jobs after DHL severed their contractor agreements with local delivery firms following the decision to organize. A Teamsters delegation went to Cologne, Germany, earlier this month to meet with German and other union officials over these moves by the U.S. DHL subsidiary. The meetings coincided with Deutsche Post's annual meeting.
ATA: there is a better way to screen hazmat drivers
As of May 31 every hazardous materials hauler, even those who have hauled hazmat loads for as many as 30 years, must undergo a fingerprint-based background check. However, officials at the American Trucking Associations said the program needs “immediate attention.” Full story here............http://www.thetrucker.com/showstory.aspx?id=9678
ABF Freight System, Inc. Premium Service Change of Operations
Affecting Locals 29, 110, 118, 170, 171, 182, 191, 251, 264, 294, 312, 317, 340, 355, 375, 384, 391, 397, 401, 429, 443, 445, 449 (Information Only), 470, 493, 529, 557, 560, 592, 597, 633, 653, 671, 687, 693, 707, 771, 773, 776, 822, and 992
ABF Freight System, Inc. Multi-Region Premium Service Change of Operations -MR-PS-CO-03-05/2005
The following is the decision from the ABF Freight System Premium Service Change of Operations MR-PS-CO-03-05/2005, which was heard at a special hearing May 17, 2005, at the Myrtle Beach Marriott at the Grande Dunes, Myrtle Beach, SC.
DECISION: The Company’s proposed Premium Service Employee Workday/Workweek Agreement (PSE) Change of Operations is approved as modified and clarified by the parties on the record with the following provisions:
1. The request of the New York State Local unions to have functioning air conditioners in all PSE equipment is approved.
2. Based on the request of the various Local Unions for the Company to provide PSE sign-in and sign-out sheets at touch terminals is approved.
3. The request of Local 776 to have all PSE hostling performed by Local 776 employees is specifically denied. However, this provision is not intended to allow a PSE employee to perform any hostling of core business equipment, and there shall be no reduction of present hostler bids.
4. There shall be no interlining of PSE business with a nonunion carrier.
5. The issues relative to layoffs that were raised by the New England Local Unions must be resolved prior to implementation, and a copy of the resolution is to be provided to the Co-Chairmen.
6. The document entitled “ABF Freight System, Inc. Premium Service Employee Workday/Workweek Agreement” executed by the Company and the Union on behalf of TNFINC and the Eastern Region Local Unions is incorporated in this decision by reference.
7. Approval of this PSE Change of Operations is not intended to violate any provision of the NMFA and the Letter of Understanding relative to Article 18 and the applicable supplemental agreements.
8. Implementation shall not be sooner than May 29, 2005.
Shippers learn to live in interesting times
SHIPPERS MAY NOT BE ENJOYING THE TURBULENT TIMES THEY'VE been thrust into, but they're learning to deal with them. After nearly 25 years of calling the shots in what basically amounted to a buyer's market for trucking service, they're having to adjust to a new reality. In recent months, industry consolidation and a severe driver shortage have conspired to limit, if not shrink, truck capacity nationwide. As a result, shippers report that it's not only getting tougher to find a truck, but if they do find one, it's costing them a lot more to hire it. More here......http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20050601/news.cfm
Yellow boss says to expect more LTL consolidation
Yellow Roadway Corp. chairman and chief executive William Zollars in an interview with Marketwatch this week that he predicted further LTL consolidation in North America. Zollars said that four or five big companies would eventually handle most regional, second-day and other LTL business. See full story here..........http://www.todaystrucking.com/displayarticle.cfm?ID=4063
YRC Regional Corp
Trucking company Yellow Roadway Corp. will open a subsidiary in the Akron area that will add about 30 jobs here.
The subsidiary, YRC Regional Corp., will begin operating out of leased space June 1 at 3517 Embassy Parkway, on the Fairlawn and Bath Township line. The newly established subsidiary will include companies New Penn Motor Express, USF Holland, USF Reddaway, USF Dugan, USF Bestway and USF Glen Moore. Yellow Roadway closed on its acquisition of USF Corp. on Tuesday.
Some personnel will relocate from Chicago, some will transfer from the Roadway Express Akron facility, and others will be new hires, the Kansas-based trucking company said.
Yellow Roadway closes USF acquisition, increases guidance
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Yellow Roadway Corp. said Tuesday it was increasing its quarterly and annual earnings estimates as it closed its acquisition of regional trucking company USF Corp. Full story here......http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/business/11726250.htm
USF shareholders approve Yellow Roadway deal
Trucking company USF Corp. said Monday that a majority of its shareholders approved selling the company to Yellow Roadway Corp. for $1.37 billion in cash and stock.
The deal is expected to be closed on Tuesday, USF said in a news release. A telephone conference call featuring Yellow chairman and CEO Bill Zollars is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
USF, based in Chicago, said that 99.5 percent of votes cast favored the acquisition and 61.5 percent of shareholders voted. Following the closing, USF shareholders will receive for each of their shares $29.25 in cash and the right to receive 0.31584 shares of Yellow stock.
The deal originally involved a 50/50 split in stock and cash, but Yellow executives three weeks ago changing it to a 65/35 cash-stock split. The change brought the level of new Yellow stock below the 20 percent threshold that would have required a vote of the company's shareholders.
Zollars has said the combination will strengthen the Overland Park, Kan.-based company's position in the less-than-truckload business, which transports freight from several customers in the same vehicle, as well as give Yellow a presence in the next-day delivery business.
He said he expects Yellow can wring $40 million in savings from USF in the first year and $150 million long-term. However, trucking analysts said they remain skeptical that Yellow can achieve those numbers during a period of smaller loads and higher fuel costs.
Yellow shares were up 32 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $53.36 in midday trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The company's stock has traded in a 52-week range of $32.99 to $64.47 per share. USF shares were up 13 cents, or 0.28 percent, to $46.12 in midday trading on the Nasdaq. The company's stock has traded in a 52-week range of $27.51 to $50.91.
Yellow Transportation and Sprint Announce Sponsorship of the Kansas Busch Series Race on Behalf of United Way
In an unprecedented event, twoleading Kansas City area corporations -- Yellow Transportation and Sprint --today announced that they would sponsor this year's NASCAR Busch Series raceat Kansas Speedway on behalf of the Greater Kansas City United Ways. Therace, to be run on October 8, 2005 and televised nationally on NBC, will beknown as "United Way 300 Presented by Yellow Transportation and Sprint." Full story here..........http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-20-2005/0003642983&EDATE=
Teamsters Deliver Message to DHL: Respect Workers' Rights to Organize
Thousands of Teamsters Tell Company to Stop Thwarting Union Campaigns; Delegation Meets With German Union at DPWN Shareholder Meeting. Full story here...http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-18-2005/0003636446&EDATE=
Yellow Roadway seeks $250 million
Yellow Roadway Corp. is seeking $250 million from a private offering of senior floating rate notes to help finance the cash portion of its pending acquisition of USF Corp.
In a filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Overland Park-based Yellow Roadway said the proceeds from the note offering would be used in addition to borrowings under a $450 million receivables financing facility, a $500 million senior unsecured revolving credit facility and cash on hand.
Shareholders of Chicago-based USF vote May 23 on whether to accept Yellow Roadway’s merger offer. If approved, the deal is expected to be completed May 24.
Yellow Roadway shares closed up 33 cents at $50.43. USF shares were down 9 cents at $44.99.
Posted by 1Teamster at 11:39 PM 1 comment:
DHL reins in its ambitions in US market
DHL, the package delivery arm of Deutsche Post, has said it does not want to chase US market share from UPS and FedEx, signalling a reining in of the company's ambitions in North America. Full story here.......http://news.ft.com/cms/s/22be7828-c73b-11d9-a700-00000e2511c8.html
Teamsters to Closely Monitor Acquisition to Insure Members' Jobs are Protected
(Washington, DC) - Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa said today that the Teamsters Union will closely monitor UPS’ purchase of trucking company Overnite Corporation to make sure members’ jobs are not adversely impacted by the purchase. Full story here........http://www.teamster.org/05news/nr_050516_1.htm
UPS to Buy Overnite for $1.25 Billion
Package-delivery company UPS Inc. on Monday said it is acquiring trucking firm Overnite Corp. for about $1.25 billion in cash, expanding its portfolio of ground-transportation services. Full story here........http://www.forbes.com/business/energy/feeds/ap/2005/05/16/ap2029128.html
Posted by 1Teamster at 8:45 AM 2 comments:
US trucking co Yellow Roadway in talks with Chinese freight firms - report
Yellow Roadway Corp is poised to become the first US trucking company to operate in China, responding to growing demand from importers overseas for reliable freight services, the Financial Times reported. Full story here.....http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?cat=USMARKET&src=704&feed=dji§ion=news&news_id=dji-00014920050515&date=20050515&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw
John Alden Joins the Board of Directors of Arkansas Best Corporation
Arkansas Best Corporation today announced that John W. Alden, former Vice Chairman of United Parcel Service of America, Inc. (UPS), has been appointed to the Arkansas Best Corporation Board of Directors, effective May 12, 2005. Full story here http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-13-2005/0003600142&EDATE=
Teamsters Head to the Hill to Fight for Drivers' Rights
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters took a stand for drivers' rights at a hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives Highways, Transit and Pipelines Subcommittee on May 11, to discuss the current process for hazardous material endorsement background checks. Full story here............http://www.teamster.org/05news/nr_050512_1.htm
Bill Zollars
Yellow Reports Doubling of Profits in 1Q
Yellow Roadway Corp. on Thursday said it more than doubled first-quarter profits, beating Wall Street predictions, as it saw record revenues in all of its trucking and logistics divisions. For the three months ending March 31, the Overland Park, Kan.-based company reported earnings of $48.89 million, or 96 cents per share, compared with $18.16 million, or 38 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Excluding money it made from disposing of property, Yellow Roadway had earnings of 92 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 91 cents per share. Revenues for the quarter increased 8 percent to $1.68 billion. "Our first quarter results reflect the strong and sustained performance of all of our operating compani! es supported by a good economy, cost synergies and firm pricing," Bill Zollars, Yellow's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a written statement. Results were released after the market closed Thursday, but Yellow shares closed up $1.95, or 3.9 percent, to $51.81 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. They fell $1.41 cents, or 2.7 percent, in after-hours trading. Yellow shares have been trading at a 52-week range of $32.01 to $64.47. The results came against a backdrop of fuel price hikes and slowing shipping demand, which have tripped up other freight haulers, including USF Corp., the company Yellow plans to acquire later this year. Chicago-based USF said two weeks ago that a slowdown in the auto industry and competition elsewhere in the country would push earnings to between 12 cents and 16 cents a share, far below analysts' estimates of 38 cents per share. USF will report first quarter results Friday. Yellow's three trucking divisions showed strong growth from the prior year. Yellow Transportation earnings increased 71.7 percent to $46.2 million on revenues of $791.2 million; Roadway Express profits more than doubled to $36.5 million on revenues of $766 million; New Penn Express earnings increased 39.6 percent to $8 million on revenues of $65 million; and the company's Meridian IQ logistics business reported earnings of $1.03 million on revenues of $56.4 million. The company said it continued to expect annual earnings between $5.10 and $5.30 per share, including a 29-cent dilution from convertible securities, and second quarter earnings between $1.25 and $1.35. Those expectations don't include any impact from the USF merger.
Roadway's sponsorship of “Times of Greatness”
The legends of Negro League baseball, most of them long gone, came alive inside a posh moving van-turned traveling museum that rolled up outside the stadium parking lot for a one-night visit.
The van, custom-fitted with touch-screen displays, vintage movie clips and dazzling uniform display cases, was on the third stop of a nationwide tour to rekindle the history of the old Negro Leagues, which were founded in 1920 and began to fade after World War II when Major League Baseball finally allowed Blacks to play."For a lot of folks, particularly for our young people, this will be their first introduction to the fact that there was even a Negro League," said Bob Kendrick, marketing director for the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, which is co-sponsoring the tour with Roadway Express Inc.Titled "Times of Greatness," the exhibit reminds fans that Robinson played in the Negro Leagues long before he became the majors' first Black player. It highlights the legendary career of Paige, the Hall of Fame pitcher who spent 21 years in the Negro Leagues before making his major league debut at age 42, and chronicles Doby, the first Black to play in the American League. It tells the story of Manley, one of the first female owner-managers of a professional sports team, who fought for better schedules, better travel and better salaries for her players."When we make these stops, the common reaction is: 'I didn't know that,' " Kendrick said. "What Roadway has done (is) wet (fans') appetite so they will want to make plans to come to Kansas City." For more information, check http://www.roadway.com/baseball/times_of_greatness.html
DHL contractor's workers will join Teamsters
Workers at Great Plains Transportation Inc., an area contractor for express delivery firm DHL, voted to unionize last week.
Great Plains becomes the first area company to be touched by the Teamsters' national campaign to organize firms that contract with DHL, the giant delivery company owned by Deutsche Post. Another election is scheduled on May 20 at Mid-Continent Transport, a DHL contractor in St. Joseph.
With 32 eligible employees at Great Plains, 23 voted in favor of joining Teamsters Local 41 and three voted against, according to Dan Hubbel, assistant to the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board.
Alonzo White, owner of Great Plains, could not be reached for comment Friday. A union official said he did not expect the company to contest the election, which was conducted by the NLRB.
“I don't think there will be any objections,” said Mike Corns, a Teamsters national organizer. “I think this one was pretty clean.”
Corns said the margin of victory was indicative of employees who are frustrated by low wages, unaffordable health benefits and excessive overtime.
“It sent a clear message that their workers want to make a change,” he said. “Hopefully, negotiations on a contract will start right away. The local will be pursuing that pretty aggressively.”
Hubbel said the NLRB is continuing to investigate the union's charge that a Great Plains employee was fired for engaging in union activity. A ruling should be forthcoming, he said.
Corns said the results at Great Plains gave the union hope about the upcoming vote in St. Joseph. Mid-Continent Transport has about 30 drivers and dock workers who will be deciding whether to join Teamsters Local 955.
Corns said management at the St. Joseph firm has been aggressive in trying to persuade its employees to vote against the union.
The Teamsters have said more than 1,300 workers at DHL contractor firms around the country have voted to join the union. In late April, 66 employees at three delivery companies in the Miami area voted in favor of forming a bargaining unit.
High Tech Tracking in LTL Trucking
Looks like to be a main player in LTL your tracking technology must be current and real time. Seems tracking is as important as pickup and delivery. New Penn Introduces NP-Connex.........http://www.newpenn.com/npweb/frame.txt/input?location=http://npweb1.newpenn.com/pr.nsf/view?OpenForm
ABF President’s Quality Awards winners named
ABF Freight Systems has selected four North American customer service centers to receive its President’s Quality Award, the highest internal recognition available to ABF service centers. Presented annually by ABF to facilities that best exemplify the ABF Quality Process, this year’s award-winning facilities are located in Carlisle and Chester, PA; Fargo, ND; and South Bend, IN.
The winning facilities were among 286 ABF service centers that competed in the rigorous selection process, which gauges resource management, damage/loss prevention, customer satisfaction and other key performance indicators.
“Quality is a subject we take very seriously at ABF,” said Bob Davidson, president & CEO. “Highly motivated employees in our customer service centers use the ABF Quality Process to achieve quantifiable results that include satisfied customers and significant cost savings. The customer service teams in Fargo, South Bend, Chester and Carlisle are the best of the best. Their versatility, attention to detail and conscientious approach to customer service is a benchmark for best practices in the transportation industry.”
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Saving Earth
Paul J. Achter
McCarthyism, name given to the period of time in American history that saw Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy produce a series of investigations and hearings during the 1950s in an effort to expose supposed communist infiltration of various areas of the U.S. government. The term has since become a byname for defamation of character or reputation by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations, especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges.
What is McCarthyism?
McCarthyism is part of the Red Scare period of American history in the late 1940s and 1950s. During that time, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy produced a series of investigations and hearings to expose supposed communist infiltration of various areas of the U.S. government. Other aspects of the Red Scare included the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood blacklist. The term McCarthyism has since become a byname for defamation of character or reputation by indiscriminate allegations on the basis of unsubstantiated charges.
Read more about Joseph McCarthy.
What led to McCarthyism?
The idea that it was necessary to guard against people seeking to overthrow the U.S. government took root early in the 20th century. Advances made by the Soviet Union following World War II, coupled with the victory in 1949 of the Chinese Communist Party in establishing the People’s Republic of China and the apparent inability of the United States to prevent the spread of communism, were among the factors causing fear of communist infiltration in the United States.
Learn more about communism.
How did McCarthyism begin?
In 1950, Joseph McCarthy, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate in 1946, made a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in which he stated that the U.S. was engaged in a “battle between communistic atheism and Christianity” and declared that he had “here in my hand” a list of a large number of communists working in the State Department—a number that he gave at various times as 205, 81, and 57. The accusations triggered investigations and kept McCarthy and his search for communist subversion within the U.S. government in the spotlight.
When and how did McCarthyism end?
Joseph McCarthy’s accusations of communist infiltration into the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the army’s charge that McCarthy had sought preferential treatment for a recently drafted associate led to 36 days of televised Senate hearings, known as the McCarthy hearings, that began in April 1954. The event showcased McCarthy’s bullying tactics and culminated when, after McCarthy charged that the army’s lawyer, Joseph N. Welch, employed a man who had once belonged to a communist front group, Welch responded, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” Also in 1954, journalist Edward R. Morrow produced an exposé of McCarthy on his news program See It Now. The public turned against McCarthy, and the Senate censured him.
What were the results of McCarthyism?
Joseph McCarthy’s charges that various government entities were infested with communists or communist sympathizers were mostly undocumented, and he was unable to make plausible charges against any person or institution. Nonetheless, his accusations resulted in some people losing their jobs and others facing popular condemnation. The persecution of innocent persons on the charge of being communist and the forced conformity that the practice engendered in public life came to be called McCarthyism.
McCarthy was elected to the Senate in 1946 and rose to prominence in 1950 when he claimed in a speech that 205 communists had infiltrated the State Department. McCarthy’s subsequent search for communists in the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and elsewhere made him an incredibly polarizing figure. After McCarthy’s reelection in 1952, he obtained the chairmanship of the Committee on Government Operations of the Senate and of its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. For the next two years he was constantly in the spotlight, investigating various government departments and questioning innumerable witnesses about their suspected communist affiliations. Although he failed to make a plausible case against anyone, his colourful and cleverly presented accusations drove some persons out of their jobs and brought popular condemnation to others.
McCarthyism both reached its peak and began its decline during the “McCarthy hearings”: 36 days of televised investigative hearings led by McCarthy in 1954. After first calling hearings to investigate possible espionage at the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, the junior senator turned his communist-chasing committee’s attention to an altogether different matter, the question of whether the Army had promoted a dentist who had refused to answer questions for the Loyalty Security Screening Board. The hearings reached their climax when McCarthy suggested that the Army’s lawyer, Joseph Welch, had employed a man who at one time had belonged to a communist front group. Welch’s rebuke to the senator—“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”—discredited McCarthy and helped to turn the tide of public opinion against him. Moreover, McCarthy was also eventually undermined significantly by the incisive and skillful criticism of a journalist, Edward R. Murrow. Murrow’s devastating television editorial about McCarthy, carried out on his show, See It Now, cemented him as the premier journalist of the time. McCarthy was censured for his conduct by the Senate, and in 1957 he died. While McCarthyism proper ended with the Senator’s downfall, the term still has currency in modern political discourse.
Paul J. Achter The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
United States: The Red Scare
” In February 1950 McCarthy claimed that he had a list (whose number varied) of State Department employees who were loyal only to the Soviet Union. McCarthy offered no evidence to support his charges and revealed only a single name, that of Owen Lattimore, who was not in the…
20th-century international relations: The Chinese civil war
…bequeathed the charge of “McCarthyism” as an impregnable defense to be used by all manner of leftists.…
…his name to the term McCarthyism. McCarthy dominated the U.S. political climate in the early 1950s through his sensational but unproven charges of communist subversion in high government circles. In 1954, in a rare move, his Senate colleagues officially censured him for unbecoming conduct.…
…reinvigorate American intellectual opposition to McCarthyism at home and Stalinism and other forms of totalitarianism abroad. The founding editorial board included Lewis Coser, Emanuel Geltman, Irving Howe, Norman Mailer, Harold Orlans, Simone Plastrik, Stanley Plastrik, Bernard Rosenberg, and Meyer Schapiro. Howe, a literary critic, edited Dissent until his…
U.S. Department of State, executive division of the U.S. federal government responsible for carrying out U.S. foreign policy. Established in 1789, it is the oldest of the federal departments and the president’s principal means of conducting treaty negotiations and forging agreements with foreign countries. Under its…
More About McCarthyism
4 references found in Britannica articles
Assorted References
In 20th-century international relations: The Chinese civil war
In Dissent
In Joseph McCarthy
In United States: The Red Scare
Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback.
Along with government workers, artists and actors were often accused of communist sympathies.
Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" was written during McCarthyism to draw parallels between it and the Salem witch trials.
"I will not get into the gutter with this guy," said President Eisenhower to his aides about McCarthy.
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Investigating Power - Timelines: McCarthyism
Miller Center - McCarthyism and the Red Scare
McCarthyism - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
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Anthony Smith Tells Doubters You’re “Doing Yourself a Disservice”
After recording a pivotal win over Alexander Gustafsson at UFC Stockholm, Anthony Smith had a message for observers who still don’t believe “Lionheart” is a legitimate contender at 205.
Smith was competing for the first time since he faced Jon Jones in March, and lost to the champion via unanimous decision. When Smith was booked for a title shot, some people, like Luke Rockhold, argued the veteran wasn’t a real force in the division.
Well, on Saturday, the former middleweight returned to the win column, by submitting Gustafsson with a fourth round, rear-naked-choke. While talking to the press after the victory, Smith had this to say about the win and his future (quotes via MMA Junkie):
“I think it’s absolutely the biggest (win) of my career, probably the one I’m most proud of, just because of what happened in my last fight,” he said. “Typically, guys that come off of title losses don’t bounce back like that.”
“…I just put my head down and I just grind. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now: I’m going to be a world champion, or I’m going to die trying. I’m not going to stop. So all these people that keep talking about me being a fluke, or being a flash in the pan, you guys are doing yourself a disservice, because I’m coming. And I’m not going anywhere.”
The 30-year-old Smith has gone 4-1 now since he moved up to the light-heavyweight division last year.
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