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Expect to see a men's make-up counter next time you go shopping
Katie Morley
Tom Ford has released a highly succesful line of male oriented products including concealers and bronzers. Photo: Supplied
Men's make-up counters could be a reality within five years, the UK boss of L'Oreal has said, as it is no longer a taboo for the "selfie generation".
Vismay Sharma, the cosmetics giant's UK managing director, says that demand for make-up was growing fast among men.
One thing everyone is secretly judging you on
How to look after your skin at any age
Time to get busy in the bathroom
He said male-targeted counters in department stores and chemists could be a reality in "five to seven years".
According to the experts, men's make-up is about to become a booming industry. Photo: iStock
Goodbye to old taboos
According to Mr Sharma, taboos are changing and make-up is becoming more accepted for men among what he describes as the "selfie generation".
He said: "Today you have a very small proportion of men who want to use make-up products, but that proportion is growing and it will continue to grow.
"I think its just awareness – two things are happening: men know they can use make-up, and they know what it does when you use it. The second thing is that the taboos are going, so between my generation and my son's generation the taboos are very different.
"Is the trend going to go towards bold colours or more subtle? I don't know. But what I do know is we are listening very carefully to consumers and what they want."
Achieving a personal best
Online retailer ASOS last week launched a male-only beauty range from MMUK, which includes a concealer, a beard and brow filler and mascara. Alex Dalley, co-founder of MMUK, said, "We hope that this move places make-up for men on the radars of thousands of guys out there who simply want to look their best every day." At the higher end of the market, Tom Ford has launched a small collection of male grooming products, including an eyebrow maintenance kit and a concealer set.
Make-up artists who usually only cater for women are also starting to post tutorials specifically for men on their websites. Charlotte Tilbury's website reads: "I get so many requests from men asking how they too can benefit from the power of skin care and make-up products."
"It doesn't have to be extreme"
Last year, Gary Thompson, a 26-year-old beauty blogger, became the first man to star in a make-up advert – for L'Oreal's True Match Foundation.
At the time, he said: "I think we've come far with accepting men wearing make-up. If you look at it five years ago, if you thought of men wearing make-up you'd think of extreme sparkly eyeshadow, but today it doesn't have to be like that. You could wear a good foundation, a good contour, a natural base and it doesn't have to be extreme."
The Telegraph, London
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Shaun Fuchs is an educationalist, entrepreneur and the Managing Director: Reddam House Gauteng and New Schools – part of Inspired – a co-educational, non-denominational, independent school group designed to inspire students to achieve their maximum potential in a nurturing, progressive academic environment from ages 1 to 18. He is also a much-requested speaker at corporate South African and international conventions on the subject of education.
Shaun graduated from the Johannesburg College of Education (WITS) with a Higher Diploma in Education in 1989. In 2006, he completed an MBA from the Business School Netherlands (BSN) where he was awarded the Top Achiever Award for his dissertation: “Strategic Management in a Private School”.
He started his teaching career as a teacher at Fourways High School in January 1990 and in 1993 was promoted to the position of Head of Department. Shaun joined Crawford College Lonehill in 1999 as a History teacher, Sports Administrator and Grade Tutor. Through hard work and dedication Shaun became a Deputy Principal and then Senior Deputy Principal at the College. In 2009 Shaun was promoted to the role of Principal. After 25 years in the school environment, Shaun left to take up the position of General Manager of Crawford Schools™ and later General Manager of Centurus Colleges.
Mr. Fuchs has been involved in all aspects of the running of schools from grass roots upwards and has valuable management experience. He is passionate about Education, and works tirelessly to inspire and effect change within Education in adapting to the ever-changing environment. He loves working with the students and staff and applies a student-focused approached in all that he does.
With his wealth of experience in education and business, Shaun is ideally suited to add enormous value to the further development and management of Reddam House and Inspired.
Shaun will be a key member of the Inspired Africa Executive team and report to the Inspired Board of Directors.
He has an MBA through the Business School of the Netherlands and was awarded the Top Achiever Award at the graduation ceremony.
CHECK FOR Shaun Fuchs
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Philippe Rahm
Lars Müller Publishers, 2018
Philippe Rahm architectes
Lars Müller Publishers
Philippe Rahm architectes, mosbach paysagistes, Ricky Liu & Associates, Meteorological Garden of the Central Park, Taichung, Taiwan, 2012–18. Courtesy of Philippe Rahm architectes.
Climate change is forcing us to rethink architecture. Climates, a monograph on the work by Philippe Rahm architectes, encourages a focus shift away from a purely visual and functional approach towards one that considers meteorology as a new tool of architectural design. It explores the atmospheric and poetic potential of new construction techniques and defines a new architectural language with climate in mind. At the same time the book calls for a more sensual exchange between body and space in order to change the way we inhabit buildings today. Redefining the aesthetic, the social, and the political value of architecture at the age of climate change, this book increases scientific knowledge and extends the imaginary world. Climates strives to engage a broad audience, and to do so by meeting the highest standards of editing, production, and design.
Philippe Rahm is a Swiss architect, principal in the office of Philippe Rahm architectes, based in Paris, France. His work, which extends the field of architecture from the physiological to the meteorological, has received an international audience in the context of sustainability. He has taught architecture design at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Princeton, and Columbia. In 2002, Rahm was chosen to represent Switzerland at the 8th Architecture Biennale in Venice. His most recent work includes the 67 hectares Taiwan Taichung Central Park and its facilities buildings, opening in August 2018.
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Assassin’s Creed III: Liberations
System Requirements: Intel Core i3 2105 @ 3.1 GHz or AMD Phenom 2 X4 955 @ 3.2GHz, 2GB RAM, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8 / 8.1 / 10, Nvidia GeForce 8800GT or AMD Radeon HD4870 (512MB VRAM & Shader Model 4.0), 4 GB Hard Disk Space
Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation retains the “franchise’s trademark open world and gameplay”, while making use of the PlayStation Vita’s touchscreen and rear touch pad, cameras, and gyroscope. These include Chain Kill combat, and the ability to pickpocket people. By linking the game to Assassin’s Creed III, the player receives an in-game version of Connor’s tomahawk, an exclusive character skin, a multiplayer character and a complete upgrade of all ammunition pouches. The game uses the same engine that runs Assassin’s Creed III, allowing for the same gameplay experience as a console release. Aveline also has her own new set of animations as well as have the ability to dual-wield weapons, such as the new blowpipe as well as the familiar swords, knives, pistols and hidden blade.
The multiplayer, exclusive to the original Vita version, consists of players tapping nodes on a map, using characters (represented with static portraits) to capture bases and collect supplies, among other things. This differs from the series usual competitive multiplayer which had players assassinating each other for sport.
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Hitman 4 – Blood Money
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Book Review, Golden Age Article, Nero Wolfe
Book Review: Death Times Thee
This posthumous collection of Wolfe novellas featured one story that rewrote a Tecumseh Fox novel as a Nero Wolfe novella and two alternate version of Wolfe stories that are part of the corpus.
Bitter End:
This was a reworking of Bad for Business, a novel for Rex Stout’s other Detective Tecumseh Fox. necessitated by Stout’s desire to make money to support him while he waged his battle against Hitler. I read the original novel but that’s hardly necessary. The reworking here is seemless. The plot begins when Wolfe gets a spiked candy from Tingley’s Tidbits. While the poison’s not deadly, it’s bitter and this is enough to get Wolfe on the warpath and make him more than willing to help the niece of the hated CEO of Tingley’s. Of course, the case takes on a whole new complexity when the CEO is murdered and the niece finds herself unconscious at the scence of the crime. The story is one of the best in the corpus and Archie really shines.
Rating: Very Satisfactory
Frame Up for Murder:
An expansion of the story, “Murder Is No Joke.” Differences are kind of subtle and to be honest, listening to the audiobook, I didn’t notice any major changes. “Murder is No Joke” is a solid Wolfe story, so it wouldn’t hurt any fan to enjoy this second telling of this story which has Wolfe and Archie seeming to be ear witnesses to murder.
Rating: Satisfactory
Assault on a Brownstone:
This was an early draft of, “Counterfeit for Murder” and may be a case for great writers to destroy early drafts of their works. However, for fans of Wolfe, it’s interesting to see how Stout took the story of counterfeitting and murder. In both versions, Hattie Annis comes to Archie after finding counterfeit money in her home due to her hatred of police. In this version, rather than a tennant whose an undercover t-woman being murderered, Hattie Annis herself is. I definitely prefer the published version as Annis was one of Stout’s most memorable characters and the T-woman who survived was one of those stock Nero Wolfe story women. That’s not to say the story didn’t have features. In this version, Archie butts heads with the Treasury Department and the results are hilarious. Still, the ending was bizarrely atypical. However, it’s hard to lay too much criticism on the story. It was never met to be published, rather it gave us a look at how Stout originally thought of doing the story. Thankfully he thought better of it.
Outside of “Bitter End,” the book would be for Wolfe completists only as there’s not a lot new if you’ve read the over novella collections. However, “Bitter End” makes the book worth picking up from the library at the very least.
You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.
If you enjoyed this post, you can have new posts about Detective stories and the golden age of radio and television delivered automatically to your Kindle.
CBS, Podcast, Procedural, The Line Up
EP0992: The Line Up: The Keenly Clipped Kenovak Case
Guthrie is called in by the boyfriend of a missing woman and all the evidence points to foul play.
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Click here to download, click here to add this podcast to your Itunes, click here to subscribe.
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Guns N Roses Tickets for University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, AZ on August 15, 2016. Tickets Now On Sale At TicketProcess.com.
“Guns N Roses concert tickets are now on sale at TicketProcess.com.”
Guns N Roses will be having a show on August 15, 2016 in Glendale, AZ at University of Phoenix Stadium. TicketProcess has an abundance of cheap Guns N Roses tickets that are now on sale
November Rain is just one of many hit spongs by the high octane rock band, Guns N’ Roses. With the combination of a beautiful piano intro and excellent lyrics that gets your blood racing and puts a smile on your face at the same time.
Watch the band reunited on August 15, 2016 (Monday) at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, AZ. TicketProcess.com has an abundance tickets on sale now. Be there and rock with the bands all time favorite songs that encapsulate a lot of emotions together. Find tickets now at TicketProcess.com.
Additionally, TicketProcess.com has no affiliation with any of the venues listed on the site. Names and titles used in this press release are solely for descriptive purposes and do not imply, suggest or indicate that any type of endorsement or partnership is in place.
Since early in 2010, TicketProcess.com has been a secondary ticket exchange for both brokers and consumers. By offering a large selection of inventory to an array of the most exclusive sports, live concerts, theater events and other live entertainment, they have established their place as a reputable source of quality, guaranteed tickets for fans around the United States and beyond.
CategoriesArts & Entertainment, Business, Marketing & Sales, Services, Shopping & Deal
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Tumor Ablation Market Is Anticipated To Reach $1.5 Billion By 2022 : Radiant Insights,Inc
“Radiant Insights”
According to Tumor Ablation Market forecast for 2022, North America is expected to dominate the market and Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness the fastest growth.
Global tumor ablation market is expected to reach USD 1.5 billion by 2022, according to a new study by Grand View Research Inc. Rising prevalence of different forms of cancer and increasing technological advancements in the field of thermal ablation techniques are the most prominent drivers of the market.
Browse Full Report With TOC @ http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/tumor-ablation-market
Besides the use of thermal ablation, techniques such as laser ablation, irreversible electroporation, High Intensity Focused Ultrasonography (HIFU) are also clinically growing, concurrently propelling the tumor ablation industry.
Occurrence of lung, breast, and liver cancer is on the rise globally. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and other organizations, currently, about 210,828 cases of lung cancer, 2.9 million cases of breast cancer, and over 2.7 million cases of prostate cancer are reported in the U.S. alone.
In terms of technological advancement, companies such as SonaCare Medical are coupling ablation techniques with other technologies to improve accuracy, performance, and level of care. SonaLink, a remote patient monitoring platform, was put to use along with Sonatherm ablation system to enable physicians to enhance patient care experience, thereby promoting market growth.
The industry is also anticipated to witness mergers and joint collaborations as a tool to curb rising competition. For instance, Boston Scientific Corporation acquired C.R. Bard Electrophysiology, which led to a 48.0% hike in profit for the former company.
See More Reports of This Category by Radiant Insights: http://www.radiantinsights.com/catalog/medical-devices
Further key findings from the study suggest:
Microwave ablation technology is expected to be the fastest growing segment over the forecast period at a CAGR of over 15.0%. Reduction in the procedure time and low cost for treatment are some of the attributes favoring growth.
In terms of treatment, surgical ablation is predicted to form the largest market by 2022 with about 35.0% share. Liver and lung cancer ablation require surgical procedures, and since these form the largest and fastest growing segments, they concomitantly propel surgical ablation growth.
Lung cancer forms the most lucrative market and is anticipated to be the fastest growing segment over the forecast period. By 2022, it is expected to contribute about 15.0% of the revenue share owing to its rising prevalence rate across the globe.
According to market forecast for 2022, North America is expected to dominate the market and Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness the fastest growth. Augmenting growth in the cancer prevalence and rising healthcare expenditure in regions such as China, Korea, and India are factors responsible for this rapid growth.
Major players of the market include HealthTronics, Galil Medical Inc., Angiodynamics, Medtronic Plc. (Covidien), Boston Scientific Corporation, SonaCare Medical, Misonix Inc., EDAP TMS S.A., and Neuwave Medical Inc. To retain market leadership, players such as Medtronic are working towards acquiring other companies and expanding their portfolio. For instance, in January 2016, Medtronic acquired the OsteoCool RF Ablation System from Baylis Medical.
Explore Other Reports By Radiant Insights,Inc at
Drug Discovery Informatics Market –
http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/drug-discovery-informatics-market
Flexitanks Market –
http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/flexitanks-market
Ceric Ammonium Nitrate Market –
http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/ceric-ammonium-nitrate-market
About Radiant Insight
Radiant Insights is a market research and consulting company offering syndicated research studies, customized reports, and consulting services. Our market research studies are designed to facilitate strategic decision making, on the basis of extensive and in-depth quantitative information, supported by extensive analysis and industry insights. Using a patented and robust research methodology, we publish exhaustive research reports covering a host of industries such as Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. Radiant Insights has a strong base of analysts, consultants and domain experts, with global experience helping us deliver excellence in all research projects we undertake.
Email: sales@radiantinsights.com
Address:28 2nd Street, Suite 3036
Website: http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/tumor-ablation-market
CategoriesBusiness, Media & Communications, News & Current Affairs, Pharmaceuticals & Biotech
Previous PostPrevious U.S. Solar PV Market Will Witness To Grow Rapidly Owing To Huge Demand In Commercial And Residential Sectors Till 2022: Grand View Research, Inc.
Next PostNext Engineering Services Outsourcing (ESO) Market Will Witness To Grow Swiftly, To Be Worth $415.74 Billion By 2020 : Grand View Research, Inc.
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Excerpt from A Rich and Fruitful Land
Hard-Rock Mining
Thirty years after the gold rushes of the 1860s British Columbia was again in the throes of gold fever. However, this time the precious metal was to be won by lode mining rather than placer mining. Between 1885 and 1900 the Camp Hewitt Mining and Development Company along with others was searching for gold deposits in the area between Trepanier and Deep Creeks (between modern Peachland and Westbank). In 1893 J.M. Robinson of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba responded to the publicity the area was being given. Being already in Rossland, looking for gold properties, he decided to ride by horseback from Rossland to what is now Peachland, where he acquired ownership of several claims. However, the Kathleen Mine established by Robinson and his associates was disappointing and the Manitoban decided that the subdivision of land into orchard properties offered a more secure investment.
In the South Okanagan mining prospects proved much more profitable, In her article "Further Fairview Osoyoos Chronicles" Katie Lacey quotes from the first edition of a paper which started publication August 27, 1892 in Oro (now Oroville), Washington:
"Another promising camp in the Okanagan country is Fairview Camp, in British Columbia, eighteen miles north of Oro, close to the Okanagan River. Gold was discovered there first about four years ago but little was done towards development.
The first mine to bring the Camp into prominence was the Rattler, discovered by Hank Mankin, and for a long time the only means of support he had was to take the quartz and grind it to pulp between two large stones, and then wash the gold out in a pan."
Was Mankin using the horse-powered arrastre to mill his ore? The paper goes on to state that some Spokane investors put in a stamp mill but a dispute among the partners put an end to the operation. Fortunately some English capitalists arrived from London looking for likely mining property and bought the Rattler, and were examining other properties. The paper says of them:
"They left London May 4th, and have been all through the Slocan and Kootenai districts before coming here and are very favorably impressed with this country.
They have unlimited means at their command for legitimate mining investments and intend to make further purchases."
Lode mining was expensive. Machinery had to be purchased-stamp mills, compressors, pipes, flumes, concentrators, etc. Wages had to be paid and the product, whether in the form of gold bars or concentrate, had to be transported. Capital was essential and in the South Okanagan this came from either the United States or from England. Until train and boat service were established through the Okanagan in 1892 all equipment and supplies had to be brought in from south of the boundary.
Other claims that had been recorded by the summer of 1892 included the Wide West, Brown Bear, Silver Crown, Joe Dandy, Wynn M., Ontario, and Stem Winder. Later claims that developed into mines were: Morning Star, Evening Star, August, Tin Horn, Smuggler, Black Diamond, and Wild Horse. In some mines, silver as well as gold was recovered.
Soon a thriving town grew up on the bench high above the valley floor, about three miles west of the present town of Oliver. Estimates of its population vary. Some think that at its peak three thousand people lived there and that Fairview was, for a time, the largest settlement in the Interior of British Columbia. As transportation improved, access became easier. Dorothy Amor tells us that her father, Arthur D. Hardie, in November 1902 brought her mother as a bride to Fairview. Having come down Okanagan Lake to Penticton on a sternwheeler, they travelled in an open freight wagon south to Fairview, a trip of twelve hours?
Two of the valley's pioneer doctors, Dr. B.de F. Boyce and Dr. R.B. White, founded their first practices at Fairview having been encouraged to settle there by mining companies. Because this was where the action was, in 1898 the government agent C.A.R. Lambly was instructed to move his government office from Osoyoos to Fairview. One. can imagine the throbbing life of the town which had sprung up so suddenly-the hotels, the bars, the livery stables, stores, offices, a school, churches. Rev. William Irwin, known to the miners as Father Pat, had his Anglican congregation. But the town was not without its tragedies. The grandest hotel, known as the Big Teepee, burned to the ground with the loss of at least one life. A diphtheria outbreak took the lives of the children of another family.
But veins of ore run out and miners turn to better prospects. By 1910 Fairview was a ghost town.
Today only one house from the great mining era remains and the passerby would not recognize the townsite were it not for the two lots which once belonged to the Presbyterian Church and are now the property of the Okanagan Historical Society. The church building was moved to Okanagan Falls, where it serves the United Church congregation. Its dismantling before its removal from Fairview bears testimony to the skilled use of explosives developed by mining men. A charge of dynamite was hung from the ceiling of the church. When the dynamite was exploded the walls were blown out momentarily and then returned to their original position but with all the nails loosened. The boards could then be removed without damaging them.
The Great Gold Robbery
While some prospectors were staking claims in the mountains to the west of Fairview others were searching for promising properties in the mountains across the Okanagan Valley. The Victoria claim was located in 1884 by A. Goericke, possibly acting for J.C. Haynes. But it was not until 1887 when A McKinney and his associates, Rice, Burnam and Le Fevre, staked the Cariboo Amelia that any great interest was shown in the area. Robert Iverson in his booklet Camp McKinney tells us:
"The rich ore exposed on the Cariboo Amelia claims over a distance of some seventy feet with a width of some forty to fifty inches brought about another gold rush of sorts . . . Mickey Monahan and a group from Spokane, hearing of the rich strike were soon on the scene. Organized as a private company, they bought out Al McKinney and his associates. The Cariboo Amelia first organized as Cariboo Mining and Milling in 1888 and it was shortly after to become a public company known as Cariboo Mining, Milling and Smelting. Capitalization was at 800,000 shares with a par value of one dollar."
When Camp McKinney first came into being the only access to it was through Sidley. However, in 1893 the Government of British Columbia undertook to build a road from Okanagan Falls up past McCuddy and through Camp McKinney to Midway and on to Grand Forks. This was the only Canadian route from the Okanagan into the Boundary Country until 1911 when a road was built up Anarchist Mountain east of Osoyoos.
The camp, with a population of about 250 at its height, had six hotels, stores and other businesses, but no bank. The nearest bank in British Columbia was at Vernon. The Cariboo was Camp McKinney's major mine. When it ran out of high-grade ore it closed down in 1903 and Camp McKinney with it. However, the company had the distinction of being the first mining company in British Columbia to pay dividends which, by 1900, had amounted to $459,000.
For most people looking back to the turn of the century Camp McKinney's most exciting event was the great gold robbery. We are fortunate in having an account of the event from a man who was a storekeeper in the camp at the time.
The Gold Brick Robbery at Camp McKinney by Arthur K. W. Cosens
The Cariboo Mine at Camp McKinney of which Robert Jaffray was president, George B. McAulay, managing director, and Joseph P. Keane, superintendent, was a paying proposition from the grass roots down. James Monahan of Spokane was also a director of the Company and very instrumental in getting it under way after purchasing the property from the first owners, McKinney and Rice.
Monahan brought in the first unit of the stamp mill from the State of Washington, hauling it in with teams, and passing the customs at Osoyoos . . . In the year 1896 the Camp was running very smoothly. The stamp mill was pounding away incessantly day and night with only a cessation of the noise from the falling stamps for a short time twice a month during the time the "clean up" was in progress. After the amalgam had been retorted, the quicksilver being retained, the gold bricks of an approximate value of $30,000 per month were ready for shipment to the mint at San Francisco by express from the nearest railway which was at Marcus at one time, and later at Midway, after the advent of the railway to that point.
A certain amount of caution was usually taken when the bricks left Camp. Sometimes I have known them thrown into the jockey box of one of the wagons hauling concentrates or tailing to the railhead for shipment to the smelter at Tacoma. In this case the wagon would be met at its destination by one of the officials or trusted employees of the Company, the brick extracted and shipped, sometimes without the driver of the wagon knowing that he had been its custodian at all.
At other times it would be hidden in a sack of concentrates and the same procedure followed.
Then again it would be taken by the Superintendent on horseback, or driving a buckboard and followed by an armed employee a hundred yards or so behind.
The morning of the robbery, in August 1896, Geo. B. McAulay, who had been spending a few days in Camp and was returning to Spokane, left Camp at 7 a.m., driving a buckboard and had the proceeds of the last clean-up with him, some $14,000 in the form of three bricks, the value of the smallest brick being $1,600. About two miles from Camp on the road to Rock Creek he was ordered by a masked man who stepped from the woods with levelled rifle to throw out the bullion and "keep going." McAulay obeyed until he reached the ranch of C.W. Hozier some eight or ten miles farther on. Here he enlisted the services of Hozier's son, Leonard, a boy of some twelve years of age, to ride to McKinney and notify us of the happening. Leonard reached the Camp store which was in charge of the writer about ten o'clock - no time was lost in informing Superintendent J.P. Keane of the occurrence.
There was one person in the store besides the writer when Leonard arrived with the news - standing with his back to the stove - one Matt Roderick. It seemed to the writer that a slight smile passed over Roderick's face when Leonard imparted his message.
Camp McKinney at that time was what was known as a "One Man Camp," that is to say that the Cariboo McKinney Mining and Milling Co., Ltd. was the only company operating and the only employer of labour - therefore a miner who worked for wages, or a labourer had really no chance there unless he was acceptable to the management of the Company. The rest of the population was composed of claim owners and old time prospectors with interests or a stake in the country.
There was, besides the boarding house and store which was quite a popular place for the men to hang around when not on shift - especially those who did not drink - a saloon run by Hughie Cameron. The Camp later boasted no less than five saloons.
On being informed of the hold-up the Superintendent called out a number of the men and a thorough search of the woods in the vicinity was made, however, without result, nor was at that time the slightest suspicion attached to anyone. Local amateur Pinkertons were entirely at a loss and that the robbery had been committed by one of their own men was certainly farthest from their thoughts.
Matt Roderick, who hailed from Tacoma, Wash., had been employed by the Company as a miner for some time. He was a very reticent, quiet man, very well built, of medium height, and neither drank nor smoked, but he was an inveterate gambler. Every pay day he would get his cheque cashed, pay his bills at the store and immediately get into a poker game where he would usually stay until broke - sometimes over a period of two or three days - ignoring the time he was due to go on shift. He lived in a cabin on the outskirts of the Camp and at the time of the robbery was laid off - ostensibly being sick. The writer remembers that he was looking extremely pale, and owing to his indisposition there was nothing unusual for him to be in the store at 10 a.m. on the morning of the robbery. Some days later he stated that he had better go home to Tacoma and would return when he felt better-he had had the usual gambling reverses and I believe was assisted financially by some of the boys to enable him to go home.
The stage left at 7 a.m. Roderick climbed aboard sitting next to the driver in the front seat. He had with him a roll of blankets (it was customary, and I might say a sign of respectability, for a man to travel with his own blankets in those days). Just as the stage was leaving Keane appeared, and Roderick said to him, "Will it be alright for me to come back to work when I feel better, Joe?" Keane replied, "You needn't bother coming back, Matt." Hearing this conversation I took it that Roderick's work had not been satisfactory and that Keane did not want him again for that reason. Being a "One Man Camp" this prevented Roderick returning in the ordinary way, and accounts for the way in which he eventually did return. But there was not the slightest suspicion attached to Roderick at that time.
The management enlisted the services of a detective agency in the State of Washington. First thing they did was to check up on the movements of the few individuals who had left Camp since the robbery - among them Matt Roderick. They found that shortly after his return home he was paying up taxes on some property which had been considerably in arrears, and generally spending money freely. This naturally threw suspicion upon him and his movements were continually watched.
Soon it became apparent that he was preparing for a journey. The supposition was that he had brought out the small $1,600 brick with him, concealed in his blankets, and disposed of it and intended to return for the two larger bricks which he would probably have cached in the vicinity of his cabin. The Camp was notified that Roderick was headed north and instructed to keep a close lookout for him. It was also ascertained that he had purchased a fine iron grey saddle horse from the Sheriff in Conconelly, Wash., and that it would be his means of transportation.
There were two roads leading into Camp McKinney from the south and southwest, one from Anarchist Mountain, known as the Sidley Road, the other, from the Okanagan known as the Fairview Road. These roads converged about two miles from Camp. At this point of vantage an Indian, one Alexine from Inkanip [sic], selected for his intelligence and woodcraft, was stationed with instructions to notify the Superintendent of the approach of anyone unknown to him coming toward the Camp after dark.
On the evening of October 26, 1896, at about ten o'clock, the writer had just closed the store and adjourned to Hughie Cameron's saloon, and was watching the various card games. Two provincial constables, Louis V. Cuppage and Deane were present, also J.P. Keane, when a knock came at the door. It was Alexine with a request to speak to J.P. Keane. The message was, "He is coming." We left the saloon hurriedly for the store where the writer at their request provided the constables with six-shooters. The store always had quite an arsenal as many of the miners from the States often carried guns and in Canada left them with the storekeepers for safe keeping. It was an absolutely pitch black, dark night. Keane, who was a very alert man of very quick action was on his way, followed by Thomas Graham, before the constables had finished selecting their weapons.
Less than a mile from Camp, Keane overtook Roderick walking in the same direction leading his horse. As he was upon him almost before he realized it owing to the darkness, he accosted him, "Is that you, Matt?" Roderick whirled around. Involuntarily the muzzle of the rifle which Roderick was carrying in the crook of his arm was raised. Keane thought he intended to shoot and quick as a flash discharged his own gun. Roderick fell dead, shot through the heart. Upon examination Roderick's rifle was found to have a piece of rag in the muzzle and the six-shooter found in his pocket was quite rusty. He had evidently just taken them from their hiding place and was proceeding towards the place where the bricks were hidden. The body was removed to the Company office. The following day Dr. Jakes from Greenwood, coroner for the district, arrived and held an inquest, the following jury being empaneled: Henry Nicholson, foreman; A. Alwood, W.H. Blick, George Bennett, V.R. Swanson, and A. Cosens.
The bullet from Keane's gun had entered Roderick's body just below the left nipple and was just under the unbroken skin in the back. Dr. Jakes removed the bullet with a hair pin.
Roderick had left the Camp broke, but on the body about $100 in cash was found, and under his coat a canvas harness with two pockets, one under each armpit, of just the right size to accommodate the two larger gold bricks. The Jury's verdict was "justifiable homicide." There was not the slightest doubt as to the guilt of Roderick. It was most unfortunate that Keane's precipitate action prevented the capture of Roderick as he might easily have been trailed to the hiding place of the bricks and been taken together with the swag. As it is the bricks were never found-they still await someone to stumble upon them in the jackpines at Camp McKinney.
Keane was tried for manslaughter at the Spring Assizes the following year in Vernon, Monday, June 14, 1897, with Chief Justice McCall presiding. A.G. Smith, Deputy Attorney-General prosecuted. The defense was conducted by Mr. Cassidy and J.P. McLeod of Greenwood. The sentence was one day's imprisonment, which had already been served.
(OHS, 1937)
From Hester White we have an addendum to the above account. At the time of the robbery Hester (nee Haynes) was married to C.A.R. Lambly, government agent and registrar of mining claims. The couple had moved from Camp McKinney down to Osoyoos. Mrs. White writes:
"I can add to Mr. Cosens' story the information supplied by Tom Graham who was at Camp Fairview not long after the event. He had brought the gold brick there to ship by stage, and was about to leave for Camp McKinney, when an unknown woman, who had posed as a clairvoyant and water diviner during her short stay in Fairview, asked him if he would give her a lift. He took her there, and she remained a few days. Only after she had left Camp McKinney did suspicion grow that she was Mrs. Matt Roderick. It is supposed that she found the bricks and took them to Spokane. It is known that she had money and that she went to the Yukon later."
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Helicobacter pylori Infection
Basics of Helicobacter Pylori Infection
Helicobacter Pylori Infection Overview
Helicobacter Pylori Infection Prevention
Helicobacter Pylori Infection Diagnosis
Helicobacter Pylori Infection Follow-up
Helicobacter Pylori Infection Causes and Risk Factors
Helicobacter Pylori Infection Signs and Symptoms
Helicobacter Pylori Infection Treatment
Diagnosis of Helicobacter Pylori Infection
A medical history and physical examination are beginning steps in diagnosing H. pylori infection. Information about any family history of stomach cancer or related illnesses and about the frequency and severity of symptoms is important.
During physical examination, the physician feels the abdomen to detect an obvious mass. Results of the medical history and physical exam, as well as the age and overall health of the patient, help to determine whether noninvasive or invasive diagnostic tests are performed to confirm the diagnosis.
Laboratory tests include blood tests, stool antigen tests, and breath tests. A blood test, often involving a finger stick, is the most common test for Helicobacter pylori infection. This test is used to detect antibodies to H. pylori bacteria in the blood.
Stool antigen tests may be performed to detect proteins called antigens in the stool. The presence of antigens indicates infection in the GI tract.
Breath tests can be more accurate than blood tests to diagnose H. pylori infection, but they must be conducted in a hospital. In this test, the patient drinks a solution that includes radioactive carbon atoms along with a chemical called urea. If H. pylori bacteria are present in the digestive tract, they break down the urea and release carbon, which is then carried to the lungs through the blood. When the patient exhales, a medical device is used to detect the carbon. This test usually takes about a half hour to administer and has a 96–98 percent accuracy rate.
Imaging Tests to Diagnose Helicobacter Pylori Infection
Patients who have severe symptoms, are over the age of 55, or have a family history of stomach cancer may require more invasive tests to diagnose H. pylori infection.
Because it allows for tissue samples (biopsy), a procedure called endoscopy is usually the preferred imaging test for diagnosing H. pylori infection. This test allows the physician to examine the digestive tract directly using a long tube with a camera attached at the end (called an endoscope). In this test, the endoscope is passed through the throat and into the esophagus, stomach, and intestines.
During endoscopy, tissue samples can be removed for microscopic analysis using instruments passed through the endoscope. Common tissue tests include the following:
Rapid urease test (used to detect and an enzyme called urease, which indicates the presence of H. pylori bacteria)
Histology test (used to detect H. pylori bacteria themselves)
Culture test (used to grow bacteria in the tissue sample for further study)
X-rays also may be used to examine the abdomen. In a barium upper gastrointestinal (GI) series, also called an upper GI, the patient drinks an oral contrast solution (barium) that coats the stomach lining, making it easier to locate damage or infection. Another x-ray procedure involves ingesting a substance that produces gas and causes the stomach to stretch, flattening the lining. Air contrast can help the physician examine the stomach lining more closely.
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Honorary citizenship of Voiron for Jürgen Witte
Jürgen Witte was made honorary citizen of Voiron by the deputy mayor of Voiron, Mrs Dolores Zambon, at the 10th November 2015 dinner celebrating the twinning partnerships of Voiron, in the presence of the delegations of Bassano del Grappa (headed by Giovanna Ciccotti, Deputy mayor for Culture), of Droitwich Spa (headed by Roy Murphy, deputy mayor) and of the Kreis Herford (headed by Rolf Heemeier, Kreisdirektor).
Mr Jürgen Witte has been an active member of the exchanges between Herford and Voiron for many years. In 1985, he was invited by the then mayor of Voiron, Philippe Vial, to participate in the St Martin's Fair with his gastronomic products. Until 2013, he used to come every year to the Fair with his team and the Herforder sausages and beer, which are still the delight of the people from Voiron and surroundings.
This entry was posted in Allemagne, Angleterre, Événements, France, Italie, news, Voiron on 20 November 2015 by Dieter Gold.
Inauguration of the updated twinning plaque
On the Place de l'Europe at Voiron, a plaque is a tribute to the European Union and shows the towns twinned with Voiron. This plaque is a gift from the stonecutter company Prévieux and was engraved as courtesy by Mr Roger Pilot. It was inaugurated in October 2004. Since then, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia have joined the European Union and Droitwich Spa was twinned with Voiron.
To take these changes into account, the plaque was completed and the updated version was inaugurated on 10th November 2015 by the mayor of Voiron, Julien Polat, in the presence of the delegations of Bassano del Grappa (headed by Giovanna Ciccotti, Deputy mayor for Culture), of Droitwich Spa (headed by Roy Murphy, deputy mayor) and of the Kreis Herford (headed by Rolf Heemeier, Kreisdirektor).
This entry was posted in Allemagne, Angleterre, Croatie, Événements, France, Italie, news, Voiron on 20 November 2015 by Dieter Gold.
Solidarity and compassion by citizens from our twinned towns
Following the terrorist attacks at Paris and Saint Denis Friday 13th November 2015, representatives of Bassano del Grappa, Droitwich Spa and Herford expressed their sympathy towards the Comité de Jumelage de Voiron (Twinning Committee of Voiron).
Citizens of Herford and Löhne observed a moment of silence in front of their townhalls - see the press articles attached.
Schweigen20151117HerforderZeitung
Schweigen20151117LoehnerrZeitung
This entry was posted in Allemagne, Angleterre, France, Italie, news on 17 November 2015 by Dieter Gold.
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Bishop calls on UK Government to sign and ratify Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Categories: Articles:Nuclear Weapons, Articles:Peacemaking | Published: 25/05/2018 | Views: 1331
Bishop William Nolan, Bishop of Galloway and President of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Bishops Conference of Scotland, will tomorrow (Saturday 26 May) at 12 noon join other Church leaders and campaigners in calling for the Secretary of State to sign and ratify the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Taking part in the Pentecost Witness at Faslane Naval Base alongside representatives of the Church of Scotland and Scottish Episcopal Church, Bishop Nolan will call on the Secretary of State to urgently develop and publish a transition plan so that the UK is ready to sign and ratify the Treaty.
Commenting ahead of the event tomorrow, Bishop Nolan said,“We believe in the dignity and right to life of every human being. The threat of nuclear arms poisons the soul of humanity, and their use by any state or leader would be an immoral act against humanity and against God’s creation.”
The Treaty opened for signature at the United Nations on 20 September 2017. Once ratified, it will make the possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal under international law.
Full text of the letter
Dear Secretary of State,
As you are aware, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons opened for signature at the UN on 20 September 2017. Once ratified, this treaty will make the possession use and threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal under international law.
We believe in the dignity and right to life of every human being and that nuclear weapons violate that dignity and threaten that life. It is evident that the use of nuclear weapons would have indiscriminate and devastating humanitarian consequences that would extend beyond the borders of any single nation state. The World Council of Churches has stated ‘that as long as such weapons exist, they pose a threat to humanity and to creation’. Pope Francis has condemned not just the threat of use, but the possession of nuclear arms as they serve to create a culture of fear for all humankind and consume vast amounts of human and financial resources that could be better used for human development.
The threat of nuclear arms poisons the soul of humanity, and their use by any state or leader would be an immoral act against humanity and against creation.
Those signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons agreed not to develop, test, produce, manufacture, acquire, possess, stockpile, transfer or receive nuclear weapons. The 122 governments so far who have signed the Treaty recognise along with countless numbers of people throughout the world that we have lived with these weapons for far too long and that they must now be outlawed and eliminated.
Successive governments of both major parties have affirmed their commitment to multilateral disarmament for the last 50 years, however the decision by Parliament to spend billions of pounds renewing the UK’s arsenal of mass destruction in times of austerity is not a commitment to peacebuilding and is contrary to our commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The British Government, by signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, would be taking a positive step towards fulfilling those commitments.
We, the undersigned, ask you to urgently develop and publish a transition plan so that the UK is ready to sign and ratify the treaty at the earliest opportunity. We pledge to continue to do our part to realise a world without nuclear weapons.
Bishop William Nolan
President of the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission
RT. Rev. Susan Brown
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
Rev Dr Richard Frazer
Convener of the Church & Society Council of the Church of Scotland
RT Rev Mark Strange
Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church
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Fox Valley Girls Coding Club looking to break stereotypes
By AL LAGATTOLLA alagattolla@shawmedia.com
Sandy Bressner – sbressner@shawmedia.com
Skylar Nafziger, 15, of Elgin works on her laptop during a meeting of the Fox Valley Girls Coding Club, the XX Coders, at 25N Coworking in Geneva.
Grace Gugel, 15, of South Elgin works on her laptop during a meeting of the Fox Valley Girls Coding Club, the XX Coders, at 25N Coworking in Geneva.
(Left to right) Rosie McNamee, 16, of St. Charles, Dominika Szeliga, 15, of Campton Hills, and Skylar Nafziger, 15, of Elgin, attend a meeting of the Fox Valley Girls Coding Club, the XX Coders, at 25N Coworking in Geneva.
GENEVA – Robin Schroeder said she was taking a tour of 25N Coworking in Geneva when she heard about a club that was preparing to start meeting there, the Fox Valley Girls Coding Club, also known as the XX Coders.
The club, aimed at high school girls, was created to provide opportunities for young females hoping to learn about software development. On its website, www.foxvalleygirlscodingclub.com, it mentions “a long-standing imbalance in the ratio of men/women in technology.” Schroeder, who works in the field, said she can verify that.
“A lot of times, I’m the only one,” Schroeder said of the lack of females in the industry. She said she wanted to get involved, and she left her business card.
The Fox Valley Girls Coding Club meets on Friday nights at 25N Coworking, at 25 N. Third St. in Geneva. The student founder is Isabella Maki, a sophomore at St. Charles North High School. Her mother, Mary Ann Maki, said her daughter would have preferred to join an existing club but didn’t find any options. So far, there are about 12 girls in the club, Isabella Maki said.
The instructors are Schroeder and Dottie Lee, who has worked more than 16 years as a software developer. Schroeder and Lee said they are committed to helping girls embrace the opportunities the club can offer. The first club project will be working on the Geneva Film Festival’s website, www.genevafilmfestival.org.
Isabella Maki said she wanted to learn more about coding after hearing about the Girls Who Code organization while watching “Project Runway.” When she decided to start her own club, she said she was nervous at first about whether she would have enough participants, but several friends and others jumped right in.
“I do think there is a lot more interest than you would think,” she said. “A lot of girls would be interested, but they don’t really know enough about it. … A lot of people I’ve talked to didn’t even know what it was.”
‘Creative problem solving’
Schroeder said females who might be interested in a career using software development might be scared off. Some might be intimidated and think it might be impossible to do. Others might think it is a field dominated by men who don’t have good social skills. She said she recently went to an event that drew 57 men. Schroeder said she was the only woman there.
“When you think of IT people, they are introverted and non-social,” she said. “It’s not [necessarily true]. … I comb my hair. I wear makeup. My office is clean. It’s kind of breaking that mold. It doesn’t have to be the guy from ‘Jurassic Park.’ ”
Lee said all it’s really about is “creative problem solving.” She called it “a fun thing to do.” Schroeder said computer programmers are “professional problem solvers.”
Schroeder and Lee said it’s a challenging field, but they said it’s not one that is extraordinarily difficult to grasp. Lee said she first broke into the field at age 49, and she stressed that those interested – male or female, younger or older – should give it a try.
“You don’t have to be a mathematician,” she said, adding that “a lot of people can do it. I don’t know that I would say everybody can. … To me, it’s not that hard to do a good job on it. You have to be an intelligent person, but you don’t have to be a genius.”
Isabella Maki said those in the club have improved after the first few meetings.
“It is difficult at first to grasp some of the concepts,” she said. “As you learn more and more … it becomes easier for you to figure it out.”
Mary Ann Maki said those interested in joining the club can visit www.foxvalleygirlscodingclub.com or send an email to fvgcc12@gmail.com. She said 25N Coworking has been an ideal location for the meetings. And now, the club has its first big project.
Club members will be working on the Geneva Film Festival’s website. Lee called it “a big project.”
Kelsey Rankin, the communications chair for the Geneva Film Festival, said the volunteer organization was looking to freshen up its website. The festival takes place from March 10 to 12.
“Nothing major, but we did ask them for a couple of projects to help us,” she said. She added that the website will move over to a new platform.
“It will give them some experience on a real-life website,” Rankin said.
That can be beneficial for those hoping for a career in the field, but Schroeder said even those who aren’t interested in pursuing it as a potential job would benefit from the program.
“There is no career on planet Earth that they will ever have, even as a stay-at-home mom, that doesn’t involve a computer,” Schroeder said, adding, “If they have more patience and understanding of how a computer works, they will be better off.”
Those interested in joining the Fox Valley Girls Coding Club can visit www.foxvalleygirlscodingclub.com or send an email to fvgcc12@gmail.com.
Superintendents organize to push for state budget
Aurora University’s Schingoethe Center named a Smithsonian Affiliate
State board replaces PARCC with SAT for high school juniors
'A drive like no other': Fuel Up to Play 60 program at Haines Middle School wraps up successful first year
Mid-Valley, businesses prepare students with special needs for workforce
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Keith Nerdin
Advocate of a Calm, Creative Life
Jim Nerdin Stories
Jim Nerdin’s Life Sketch
Jim Nerdin’s Eulogy
Jim Nerdin’s Final 5 Months
(Written and shared at his funeral by his son Robb Nerdin)
James Thomas Nerdin was born on April 30, 1939 in Salt Lake City, UT to Garth and Violet Nerdin. He was named after his two grandfathers, James Nerdin and Thomas Gray. He passed away peacefully, in his sleep, on November 22, 2017. He was preceded in death by both his parents, his sister Nancy, and his grandson, Riley J. He is survived by his beloved wife, Connie, of nearly 54 years, his eight children – Eric (Kari), Julie (Doug), Laurie, Jeff (Michelle), Robb (Stacey), Matt (Karen), Keith (Carley), and Jamee (David), his sister Garthia (Niel), his brother Ray (Kathy), 32 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren.
As a young boy, he moved with his parents to the Puget Sound area of Washington State. Most of his childhood years were spent in Port Orchard, WA on the family farm. It was here that my dad learned the meaning of hard work. He spent his days helping to split firewood, tending to the garden, and taking care of the animals (they had cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs, and sometimes turkeys. Dad tells the story of the one time that one of the turkeys broke a leg right around Thanksgiving time, so they butchered it and cooked it up for Thanksgiving dinner. They had company over for dinner and everyone was commenting on how good the turkey was…until Dad asked Grandpa “Is this the turkey that got sick and died?” Everyone turned green until it was explained that it was just a broken leg. Dad was very popular with the company for a while.
After he graduated from South Kitsap High School, he attended the University of Washington and studied mathematics. During his years at the university, he took a two year break to serve a full-time mission in Helsinki, Finland from 1960-1962. He brought back a pair of cross country skis from Finland and I remember him letting us boys use them. The problem was that there was only one set of skis and five boys. After he returned from Finland, he earned his BS in mathematics.
Dad’s family was very close friends with the Dewey family in Port Orchard (it is very special to see 6 of the Dewey siblings here today). The oldest of the Dewey children was a beautiful young woman named Connie. When Jim was 18 and Connie was 13, Dad didn’t have anyone else to take for a date, so he asked her to go to the Green & Gold Ball. They danced all night long. Connie was in love and could hardly wait to go to church the next Sunday to sit with Jim at church. When she got to church Jim was sitting with Judy Kemp and didn’t pay any attention to her. She was devastated and was bawling her eyes out after church. Connie’s mom comforted her and said, “Don’t worry, honey, let him have his girlfriends. You’ll marry him in the end.” After the 1963 football season, the University of Washington Huskies had earned a trip to the Rose Bowl and Jim and Connie were dating at the time and thought that it would be fun to go to the game in Pasadena. The day they went to buy tickets, they didn’t have any student tickets left. They only had tickets for married couples. While Connie waited in the car, Jim bought two tickets. Connie looked at him kinda funny and so right in front of the Butterworth Mortuary sign, on the freeway, Jim turned to her and said, “Oh, by the way, will you marry me?” She said yes, and Jim and Connie were married on December 28, 1963. They raised their eight children together in Washington, North Dakota, Utah, and Oregon.
After earning his teaching certificate from Brigham Young University in 1969, Jim and Connie (and their four oldest children) moved to Crane, Oregon in 1971 where Jim began his career as an educator. He taught math and chemistry there and was also the vice-principal at Crane Union High School. Jim and Connie’s four youngest children were born during their seven years in Crane. This is where he also began his coaching career as he was the very first girls’ basketball coach. He told us of going to coaching seminars taught by John Wooden and Bobby Knight. Also during this time, he attended summer school at the University of Oregon and earned his master’s degree in Computer Science. From that time forward, he was a very loyal fan of the Oregon Ducks. This may be the only aspect of my relationship with my father that was ever strained, as I received my degree from Oregon State University. I remember having many heated conversations regarding Beavers and Ducks. In his final months, I bought him a fleece Oregon Ducks blanket in an attempt to bring in a little color into his otherwise sterile hospital rooms. I’m happy to say that he has that blanket tucked around him in his casket. This way, I am burying any evidence that I ever purchased anything affiliated with the Oregon Ducks. Jim began his tenure as a full-time school administrator as the principal of Wheeler Country High School. After a year in Fossil, OR, Jim accepted a position as principal of Sherman County High School in Moro, OR. He continued coaching basketball here, and even coached his son Eric’s JV team. From there, he moved the family to Helix, OR where he was the superintendent of the Helix School District. He also reached the pinnacle of his coaching career when he coached the 1988 girls’ basketball team to the State Championship game. Although they lost the game, it was an accomplishment that meant a lot to him and to the members of that team (some of which are in attendance today). I remember when I was in 8th grade, he coached Matt’s and my junior high team. One game in Stanfield, I missed almost every shot I took, usually coming up short and hitting the bottom of the rim. As the team went into the locker room, Dad pulled me aside and asked, “You been playing on the dunk hoop again, haven’t you?” When I admitted that I had been playing on the 8 foot hoop, he said, “Well, no halftime break for you. You stay out here and shoot layups during all of halftime. When we come back out, you better be making a lot more shots!” I did as I was told, corrected the problem, and made almost all of my shots in the second half. His methods weren’t always traditional, but they usually produced the results he was looking for.
I didn’t ever have a class with Dad when he was a full-time teacher, but once when he couldn’t find a substitute math teacher, he filled in. Jeff and I were in the same class, and Jeff didn’t want to treat the substitute teacher any different than our regular teacher, so he leaned his chair up against the back wall and promptly fell asleep. This did not sit well with Dad, and when he had had enough, he took a piece of chalk and threw it at Jeff. Dad’s aim was not true and the piece of chalk shattered on the wall next to Jeff’s head. Jeff just barely woke up and gave Dad this, “What?!” look. Dad pointed to the door and said, “Get out! Go home! I’m kicking you out of school!!” Jeff walked the few blocks home and Mom asked him why he was home. He told her Dad had kicked him out of school. Mom told him, “You go back to school and you tell your father that you are NOT kicked out of school!” Jeff made it back to school even before that class period was over, so he strolled back into class. Dad was incredulous and asked, “What are you doing here?” Jeff said Mom told him to tell that he wasn’t kicked out of school. Needless to say, Jeff stayed at school for the rest of the day. After 21 years in small Eastern Oregon towns, Dad accepted a superintendent positions in the Willamette Valley in Harrisburg and Sheridan. He retired from public education in 2001. Apart from his service in public education, Jim was a dedicated member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After retirement, he served full-time missions with his wife in Ibaden, Nigeria, Tucson, Arizona, and Palmyra, New York. Most recently, he served as a member of the High Priest Group Leadership in the Walla Walla Second Ward of the LDS Church.
Jim will be remembered as a master teacher. From youth to adults, Jim loved to share the knowledge he gained through study, work, and by simply having a willingness and desire to try new things. It’s impossible to list all the ways he taught or the number of lives he influenced through his teaching. He was a math teacher at school, but his teachings extended far beyond math to things such as wood-working and furniture building, basketball, camping, tennis, construction, yard work, chopping wood, public speaking, fulfilling priesthood duties, how to make dinner from random leftovers, and above all, hard work.
Jim had a witty sense of humor and was a big jokester, even through his last months struggling with his health. He always seemed to have a funny song or silly saying for almost anything, like:
• Little Bunny Foo Foo
• Something about “Homemade bread takes longer to toast:
• John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt
• Pretty much anything was better than poke in the eye with a sharp stick
• If you ever lost anything, (say a shoe) it could be found in the “Shoe Locker under ‘S’”
• Sticking your head in a little skunk’s hole
• Good enough for government work
• There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count, and those who can’t.
• Just to name a few…
Dad’s legacy lives on through his kids, grandkids, and now great-grandkids. We love you Dad, we miss you, and look forward to the day when we can be together again. To quote one of you favorite movies, The Princess Bride, “Have fun storming the castle!”
© Copyright 2019 by Hobo Ventures, LLC.
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Kelly Gaughan for Judge
Attorney Kelly Gaughan, who is running for Judge of the Pike County Court of Common Pleas, would bring two decades of experience, impartiality and dedication to the bench. As Vice President of the law firm of Levy, Stieh, Gaughan & Baron, she has handled a broad array of legal matters, including family law, civil, criminal, residential and estate cases – a breadth of experience that makes her a perfect choice for the Court of Common Pleas. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Scranton and a Law Degree from Seton Hall School of Law.
PLEASE SUPPORT MY CAMPAIGN
Gaughan Announces Run for Judge
Attorney Kelly Gaughan of Milford has announced her candidacy for the open seat of Judge on the Pike County Court of Common Pleas.
Campaign Kickoff and Petition Signing
Attorney Kelly Gaughan will hold her official Campaign Kickoff and Petition-Signing Event Thursday, Feb. 21, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Silver Birches, 205 Route 507, Hawley. The event is free and open to the public. Light fare will be served.
Gaughan Schedules Spaghetti Dinner
Attorney Kelly Gaughan will hold a Spaghetti Dinner and Petition-Signing on Sunday, Feb. 24, from noon to 3 p.m. at the Milford American Legion Post 139, 103 County Road 2001, Milford. The event is free and open to the public.
Dingmans Ferry, PA 18328
Paid for by Kelly Gaughan for Judge
Copyright © Kelly Gaughan for Judge, All Rights Reserved | Website by: Design Done Right
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英语专业毕业论文摘要撰写模板 发布时间：2019-07-07 15:35:11
英语专业毕业论文摘要撰写模板
性别是第二语言习得和外语学习中学习者差异的重要因素之一，因此，语言性别差异的研究已经越来越受到重视。该论文通过对七十二名以英语为外语的大学生的调查问卷进行分析，研究性别差异对英语学习者的学习动机，策略运用，以及学习观念的影响，基于调查结果对英语教学提出建议。分析结果表明英语学习者在学习动机，策略运用，以及学习观念方面的确存在不同程度的性别差异。根据分析结果，
该研究建议教师通过各种课堂活动激发学生对英语国家文化的兴趣，针对男、女生性格差异，对其学习策略采取重点不同的培养和训练，并通过相互沟通的方式鼓励学生树立积极的学习态度，拓展适合于自己的学习方法。
关键词：性别差异，学习动机，策略运用，学习观念
Gender Differences in Foreign Language Learning
English 02-1 ×××
四号Times New Roman体加粗居中，段前段后各设为0.5行
Supervisor ××× Abstract
Gender is one of the learner variables that may play an important role in second language acquisition and foreign language learning, so that research on gender differences related to language has attracted more and more attention. This paper examines the self-reported study of 72 university students learning English as a foreign language in China, and focuses on the effects of gender differences on motivation, the use of language learning strategies and beliefs, and teaching implications are provided based on the result of the survey. The analysis reveals that gender differences do exist in motivation of learning language, the use of language learning strategies as well as beliefs about language learning.
Based on the result of the analysis, the study suggests that the teachers should try to arouse the interests of the students learning the culture of English-speaking countries, carry out the strategy training according to the differences of the characters of male and female students, and through communication with the students encourage them to develop positive attitude towards their study and explore the methods suitable to their own characteristics.
Key Words: Gender differences, motivation, learning strategies, learners’ beliefs
（内容省略）
Abstract (Chinese) ……………………………………………….…….……….... i
Abstract (English)………………………….……………….……………………..ii
Acknowledgements…………………………………….……………………….....iii
Chapter One Introduction……..……………………..…………………………1
Chapter Two Theoretical Foundations…………………………………………3
2.1 Motivation.......................................…….……………….................................3
2.1.1 Definition….…………………..…...…………………………………….3
2.1.2 Taxonomies……………………………………………………………….4
2.2 Learning Strategies…………………………………………………………...5
2.2.1 Definitions…………………………….……..……….…………………..5
2.2.2 Taxonomies………………………..…………………………………..…5
2.3 Learners’ Beliefs………….………………………………………………......6
References………………………………………………………………………....21
Appendix……………………………………………………………..……………23
Chapter One Introduction
Language is at the center of human life. Language learning and language teaching are vital to the everyday lives of millions. All forms of language teaching could be greatly improved if we had a better understanding of the language learner and of the language learning process itself. In fact, many studies on English learners have been conducted in China, which indeed provide teachers and researchers with a deep understanding of the actuality of English learning in this country. However, while individual differences have attracted more and more attention, the factors that contribute to the relationship between gender and motivation, language learning strategies, and learners’ beliefs have not received adequate recognition.
It is at the beginning of the 20th century that scholars started to pay attention to the relationship between gender and language. Research on gender differences related to language has focused on cognitive functions. For example, studies have been conducted on a variety of differences among young school children (Robinson, 1996), college students (Stumpf and Stanley, 1996), and adults (Halpern and Wright, 1996) as well as subjects with affective or communicative disorder. And other studies are related to language production as in conversation and addressed gender differences in spoken and written language output. Examples include Mulac and Lundell (1994) – written discourse.
In China, researches on gender language date back to the 1980’s, which are mainly about differences in men and women language forms. Most scholars put the focus on language form as related to gender, either by introducing achievements made by researches abroad or by exploring gender and language according to their own experience. And later, some researchers brought the study of gender and language to a broader scope. From then on, there was an obvious shift from examining language form to exploring communication strategies and speech style (e.g. Xu Lisheng, 2000). ……
（下略）
Chapter Two Theoretical Foundations
2.1 Motivation
The important involvement of motivation in learning English as a foreign language has been established for some time. There can be little doubt that motivation is a powerful factor in foreign language learning: most studies investigating the effect of motivation have found a relatively strong correlation between motivation and language learning success, with many finding motivation to be the most significant predictor of achievement (e.g. Oxford, 1993). Motivation has also been found to affect the use of language learning strategies, with highly motivated students generally employing strategies more frequently than less motivated students in many types of foreign language programs (Ehrman and Oxford, 1989).
2.1.1 Definitions
Although motivation is a term frequently used in both educational and research contexts, there is little agreement as to the exact meaning of this concept. The term has a number of different interpretations, and it has come to be used in different ways by different people.
A simple definition is provided by Keller (1983) in current psychology: “motivation refers to the choices people make as to what experiences or goals they will approach or avoid, and the degree of effort they will exert in that respect” (Crookes and Schmidt, 1991: 481). This definition gives readers an initial idea about what motivation is. By this definition, motivation includes making choices and exerting efforts.
Kanfer (1992) developed the definition of motivation by indicating that motivation refers to “the direction of attentional effort, the proportion of total attentional effort directed to the task (intensity), and the extent to which attentional effort toward the task is maintained over time (persistence)”.
如使用尾注的方式，注释必须放在参考文献前面，另起一页。模式如下：
[1] 楼夷，“中美知识产权报告交锋”，《财经》 2006年第5期, p.31。
[2] E. G. Hinkelman, Dictionary of International Trade: Handbook of the Global Trade Community. Economic Science Press, 2002, p.58-p.59 .
[3] 姚欢庆，郝学功，“中美知识产权保护的冲突和解决办法的探讨”，《知识产权》1998年第5期, p.18。
[4] N. G. Mankiw, Principles of Economics (the Second Edition). Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2004, p.102.
[5] Ibid
[6] 杨叔进，“中美知识产权争端和新贸易协定及其影响”， 《当代中国研究》1995年第3期，p.48。
[8] Ibid. p.72.
[9]China’s Action Plan on IPR Protection 2006 (I).
http://english.enorth.com.cn/system/2006/04/30/001294808.shtml. Retrieved 2 June 2006.
Bacon, S. M. & M. D. Finneman. Sex differences in self-reported beliefs about foreign language learning and authentic oral and written input. Language Learning. 1992, 4: 471-495.
Boyle, J.P. Sex differences in listening vocabulary. Language Learning. 1985. 2: 273-284.
Brown, H.D. Breaking the Language Barrier. Intercultural Press, Inc. 1991.
Deci, E. L. & R. M. Ryan. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. New York: Plenum. 1985.
Ellis, R. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1985.
Halpern, D. F. & T. M. Wright. A process-oriented model of cognitive sex differences. Learning and Individual Differences. 1996, 1: 3-24.
胡文仲，《跨文化交际与英语学习》。上海:上海译文出版社，1988。
李长忠，语篇衔接、连贯与大学英语写作，《外语与外语教学》2002 (11): 25-28。
刘润清，吴一安，俞涓，高校英语教育调查报告（四），《外语教学与研究》1990 (3): 54-60。
束定芳，《现代外语教学——理论、实践与方法》。上海：上海外语教育出版，1996。
赵俊华，《中学生英语学习观念的发展特点及性别差异研究》。 广西：广西师范大学出版社，2003。
上一篇：北京林业大学外语学院英语专业毕业论文撰写规范
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FM Static: My Brain Says Stop, But My Heart Says Go Review
The anticipated follow up to FM Static's 2009 release Dear Diary is finally here with My Brain Says Stop, But My Heart Says Go. Featuring the radio pop single "Last Train Home," and nine other punk/pop tracks, Fm Static only proves to the world that they are getting better with each record.
The upbeat title track gets things rocking, with almost rap-like lyrics and great lyrics: "I'm here to let ya know/ can't trust what you think you know/ don't follow that yellow brick road/ when your brain says stop but your heart says go." Overall, I believe that the title track was the best track on FM Static's new record. The rocker "F.M.S.T.A.T.I.C" was cool, talking about FM Static's mission as a band, although I didn't particularly care for the cheerleaders section of this track.
"(Hey) I Want It" is sure to get stuck in your head, and you will almost definitely find yourself singing the simple lyrics of the track along. "Lost In You," seemed a bit lame, but the lyrics of how good God is and how we are lost in His love was very encouraging.
"U Don't Know Me Like That" was unarguably one of the best tracks on FM Static's new album, a totally upbeat punk track with tons of very enjoyable fill-ins. It challenges those who look down on us judgmentally, and is definitely one track that fans will be singing along with.
"Cinnamon and Lipstick" was a bit odd lyrically, speaking to someone (possibly a girlfriend) that the writer hasn't seen in a while, but I very much loved the poppy tempo sure to make you move. "Black Tattoo" sounds very similar to Thousand Foot Krutch's "Forward Motion" (no surprise), and tells the story of a girl who ran away from home and needs to forget about the past. I enjoyed the slower, Skillet-like tempo to this song.
The radio single "Last Train Home," speaks of repairing broken relationships and is a very enjoyable piano pop track, while "Breaking Me Again" was a little too similar to "Black Tattoo," even though I really enjoyed the bridge filled with a long strand of "oooohs." "Inside Out" finished the album on a bit of a slower note, speaking of the challenges of being a junior high student.
I really enjoyed FM Static's new project My Brain Says Stop, But My Heart Says Go. I've always been more of a fan of Thousand Foot Krutch than FM Static, but My Brain Says Stop, But My Heart Says Go is full of catchy pop tracks as well as slower ballads, and was just altogether a very fun album. Be sure to check out this album today!
Release date: April 5, 2011
1. My Brain Says Stop, But My Heart Says Go
2. F.M.S.T.A.T.I.C.
3. (Hey) I Want It
4. Lost In You
5. U Don't Know Me Like That
6. Cinnamon and Lipstick
7. Black Tattoo
8. Last Train Home
9. Breaking Me Again
10. Inside Out
Labels: FM Static, punk, Thousand Foot Krutch
dajaun April 5, 2011 at 4:21 PM
Nice review,was never really a fan of Fm Static,but I guess I will have to check them out
CoUrTnEy April 5, 2011 at 5:50 PM
Good review! :)
Josh April 6, 2011 at 2:54 AM
Good album review I enjoyed it ;) I love this album from FM Static and I hope to get it as soon as I can :)
Christian A. April 6, 2011 at 8:12 AM
I like their music, but they never seem to be too outspoken about their Christianity. TFK is better about that, but not much. I wish they'd sing more for the glory of God than for the glory of the world. But hey, at least they're not Family Force 5. ;)
cicak360 April 6, 2011 at 8:32 AM
Awesome review, check my blog if you have the time. http://summeranddusk.blogspot.com/ :)
I review about bands. happy to share and exchange informations with you.
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Google's New Slogan
Published June 5,2018
The original slogan of Google was "Don't be evil." When Google changed its corporate name to Alphabet in 2015, it changed the slogan to "Do the right thing."
If it were to be true to its values, Google should have changed its slogan from "Don't be evil" to "Don't fight evil."
Here is The New York Times report from this past Friday: "Google, hoping to head off a rebellion by employees upset that the technology they were working on could be used for lethal purposes, will not renew a contract with the Pentagon for artificial intelligence work ...
"Google's work with the Defense Department on the Maven program, which uses artificial intelligence to interpret video images and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes, roiled the internet giant's work force. Many of the company's top A.I. researchers, in particular, worried that the contract was the first step toward using the nascent technology in advanced weapons. ...
"About 4,000 Google employees signed a petition demanding 'a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.'"
CBS News reported that the petition also said, "We believe that Google should not be in the business of war."
In other words, to the heads of Google and thousands of its elite employees, it is immoral to aid in the defense of their country, and all war is immoral.
Google and these 4,000 employees embody two terrible traits: moral idiocy and ingratitude.
Moral idiocy is the ability to be brilliant in any area of life except the single most important area of life, morality. With regard to morality, such people are fools.
The United States has been the greatest force for liberty and goodness in world history. It has been so by modeling a free society and through the power of the idea of freedom, and even more so by force — brute physical force.
Through force of arms, America and its allies defeated Germany in World War I and World War II.
Through force of arms, America imposed democracy and liberty on West Germany and led to the dissolution of East Germany.
Through force of arms, the Holocaust — the genocide of Europe's Jews and millions of others in Nazi concentration and death camps — ended. If Google existed then, would its employees have demanded Google "not be in the business of war"?
Through force of arms, America was able to impose democracy and liberty on Japan.
Through force of arms, America liberated Asian countries from the Nazi-like Japanese imperialists.
Through force of arms, America enabled the majority of Koreans to live free rather than under the most totalitarian regime in modern history, North Korea.
Through force of arms, Israel has survived 70 years of Arab, and now Iranian, attempts to annihilate it. Arms ended the Holocaust in Europe, and arms prevent a second Holocaust of Jews in the Middle East.
Only a moral idiot does not understand the moral necessity of weapons of war being in the hands of decent countries.
Which brings us to the second trait of Google and its employees: ingratitude.
Google and its employees live better than almost any human beings in the world. They do so because they live in the freest and most opportunity-giving country in the world, the United States of America.
That Google and its employees refuse to work on the military defense of their country is an expression of ingratitude (not to mention absence of patriotism) that is simply breathtaking.
How did we produce such foolish and ungrateful people?
They are the products of left-wing education and the left-wing media, and of living in the left-wing cocoon of Northern California and its tech industry.
Google should be true to its convictions and change just one word of its original slogan from "Don't be evil" to "Don't fight evil."
JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles.
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DNA replication occurs during S-phase in spermatogonia and preleptotene spermatocytes during
DNA replication occurs during S-phase in spermatogonia and preleptotene spermatocytes during spermatogenesis. 90 min at room heat in terms of the quality of subsequent PNA-lectin histochemistry with double IHC for BrdU and an appropriate stage marker protein. With this method, we identified BrdU-labeled spermatogenic cells during mouse spermatogenesis as A1 spermatogonia through to preleptotene spermatocytes. Keywords: 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine, DNA replication, spermatogenesis, heat-induced antigen retrieval, immunohistochemistry, lectin histochemistry Introduction Spermatogenesis is usually a complex process consisting of the mitosis of spermatogonia, meiosis of spermatocytes, and transformation of spermatids (spermiogenesis), and occurs within the seminiferous tubules (Kerr et al. 2006). Spermatogenic cells FLJ31945 represent well-defined cell associations called stages during spermatogenesis, of which there are 12 in the mouse (Oakberg 1956). Spermatogenic cells in the seminiferous tubules of the adult testis and some of the interstitial cells have the potential to proliferate. The spermatogenic cells that are capable of replicating DNA are spermatogonia and preleptotene spermatocytes, which are located in the basal compartment of the seminiferous tubules. Collectively, spermatogonia comprise undifferentiated and differentiated spermatogonia, with the former made up of A-single (As), A-paired (Apr) and A-aligned (Aal) types of spermatogonia and the latter, A1, A2, A3, A4, intermediate, and W spermatogonia types (de Rooij 2001). Some undifferentiated spermatogonia are believed to constitute the stem cell populace. Spermatogonia enter the S-phase of the cell cycle during mitosis whereas preleptotene spermatocytes do so during meiosis. Undifferentiated spermatogonia, i.at the., AsCAal, randomly proliferate during stages XCII, stop proliferation thereafter, and Aal spermatogonia finally differentiate without dividing into A1 spermatogonia in stages VIICVIII (de Rooij 2001). Differentiated spermatogonia, i.at the., A1-W, divide in a highly synchronized manner in particular spermatogenic stages; for example, A1 spermatogonia in stages VIIICIX and W spermatogonia in stages VCVI (Grasso et al. 2012). In order to classify the stages of mouse spermatogenesis, it is usually important to identify the actions of spermiogenesis, which are defined by the morphological features of spermatids based on the acrosomal formation and shape of the nucleus (Oakberg 1956). Periodic acid Schiff (PAS)-hematoxylin staining of paraffin-embedded testis sections has been commonly used for this purpose (Meistrich and Hess 2013). The use of fluorescent dye-conjugated lectins, such as peanut agglutinin (PNA), which is usually derived from Arachis hypogaea (peanut) and reacts specifically with acrosomal components, has recently been established to visualize acrosomal formation during spermiogenesis under fluorescence microscopy (Aviles et al. 1997; Szsz et al. 2000). Determining the specific stages of spermatogenesis in histological sections with lectin histochemistry (LHC) allows specific types of spermatogenic cells, which are known to be present in each 59092-91-0 IC50 stage, to be recognized in the seminiferous tubules. In addition, the visualization of numerous marker protein with 59092-91-0 IC50 immunohistochemistry (IHC) also helps identify the specific types of spermatogenic and somatic cells in the seminiferous tubules. For example, GFRA1 (Glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor receptor alpha 1) is usually a membrane receptor that is usually expressed in undifferentiated A spermatogonia (Meng et al. 2000; Yomogida et al. 2003). Promyelocytic leukemia zinc-finger (PLZF) (recognized designation ZBTB16: zinc finger and BTB domain name made up of 16) is usually a transcription factor that is usually localized in the nuclei of undifferentiated and differentiated A spermatogonia (Buaas et al. 2004). cKIT is usually a membrane receptor that is usually expressed in differentiating spermatogonia (Yoshinaga et al. 1991). Cell adhesion molecule-1 (CADM1) is usually a cell adhesion 59092-91-0 IC50 molecule of the immunoglobulin superfamily that is usually localized in the plasma membranes of intermediate spermatogonia through to early pachytene spermatocytes as well as in step 7 to step 16 spermatids (Wakayama et al. 2003, 2007; Nakata et al. 2012). Synaptonemal complex protein 3 (SCP3).
Posted on: February 11, 2018, by : blogadmin
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Ubuntu Desktop Business Remix
The Ubuntu Desktop Business Remix (Figure 9-9), which launched during the 12.04 release cycle to be a starting point for large-scale corporate desktop deployments, was inspired by a review of common changes made by IT departments deploying Ubuntu on that scale. As a result of that review, a common set of standards was formed and became the basis for this remix.
Figure 9-9. Ubuntu Cloud infrastructure
The remix retains all the goodness of Ubuntu and is compatible with all Ubuntu-certified hardware, apps, and tools. What is different is the addition of business-focused tools from the standard Ubuntu and partner archives and removal of the home-user-oriented apps. The remix contains no modified or enhanced package, and it gets its security updates from the same place as standard Ubuntu. The remix is meant to be a convenient starting point that includes many of the common changes made by IT administrators who deploy Ubuntu in a corporate setting.
The first release of this remix contains the Adobe Flash plug-in, VMware View, and the OpenJDK 6 Java runtime environment. The social networking and file-sharing applications, games, and development/sysadmin tools have been removed.
At the time of publication, this remix is for 32-bit x86 machines, English-only, and installation images are available now for free download with registration at www.ubuntu.com/business/desktop/remix.
Tip: Ubuntu Desktop Business Remix
Ubuntu Desktop Business Remix can be found at www.ubuntu.com/business/desktop/remix.
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23rd November 2018 - 19th January 2019
Lumen Travo is proud to present the first gallery show of Indonesian artist Ade Darmawan (1974) in the Netherlands.
Darmawan’s own art explores his country, Indonesia, its history and, most importantly, its people. His installations are based on a study of the life cycle of everyday objects, collected from, both, home and industrial consumption. Embedded in these found objects and collages are narratives about national ideologies and aspirations, as well as parallels with similar capitalist ambitions.
Ade often turns the spotlight on what he calls “minor histories”— events that in themselves may not possess historic relevance but, in the aggregate, make up a community’s past.
For the special occasion of the exhibition Doing business with the Dutch,
Darmawan has been looking into how a society comes to an agreement as a nation and works together to sell itself as human capital, by consciously constructing a national identity and by presenting it as a value for economic trade. The act of this structured trade created trends and produced certain objects and stories, that are often re-intrepreted and misintrepreted.
The installation presented in the show is inspired by books and images -strictly produced by the Dutch about Indonesia from the 1800-1900 and by the contemporary trading culture in the Netherlands- and presented as a design of a domestic interior.
Ade Darmawan lives and works in Jakarta as an artist, curator and director of ruangrupa.
He studied at Indonesia Art Institute (I.S.I), in Graphic Art Department. In 1998, a year after his first solo exhibition at the Cemeti Contemporary Art Gallery, Yogyakarta (now Cemeti Art House), he stay in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for a two years residency at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten.
In 2015 he had the solo exhibition “Magic Centre”, Portikus in Frankfurt, Germany and in 2016 in Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. In the same year he was one of the participating artists of Gwangju Biennial and Singapore Biennale. He was also a contributor of the collaborative curatorial project Riverscape in-flux (2012), Media Art Kitchen (2013), and Condition Report (2017) with several South East Asia curators and artists.
Since 2000, he is the co-founder and director of the Jakarta-based initiative ruangrupa, which focuses on visual arts and its relation with the social and cultural context especially in Indonesian urban environment.
With ruangrupa as an artists’ collective platform he also have participated in Gwangju Biennale (2002), Istanbul Biennale (2005), Asia Pacific Triennial Brisbane (2012), Sao Paulo Biennal (2014) and in 2016 he curated Sonsbeek International in the Netherlands. From 2006-2009 he was a member of Jakarta Arts Council, in 2009 he became the artistic director of Jakarta Biennale, and since 2013 he is the executive director of Jakarta Biennale.
Lumen Travo gallery would like to thank Bert Steevensz for his important contribution to this show.
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Home » Departments » Parks and Recreation » Military Squares » J. Roger Raymond (1921-1943)
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WW2 Casualty: Joseph Roger Raymond (1921-1943)
Photograph of J. Roger Raymond recognition plaque, located in Manchester NH at the southeast corner of Queen City Ave and Second Street.
One of several Military Squares added following World War 2, by an ordinance passed on 16 December 1947 and signed by Mayor Joseph T. Benoit as follows:
” That the westerly approach to the Queen City Bridge, where Queen City Avenue and Second Street intersects, be officially designated … as “Roger F.J. Raymond Square.” A ceremony was held on 16 December 1947, installing the plaque that reads: ROGER RAYMOND, A/C U.S.A. BORN JANUARY 2, 1921. DIED AUGUST 17, 1943. NORTHWEST CROSS PLAINS, TEXAS
Joseph Roger Raymond was born on 2 January 1921 in Manchester, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, the youngest of 5 children born to Joseph Alfred & Lydia (Dubois) Raymond. His parents were Canadian immigrants who came to Manchester seeking jobs, and his father worked as cobbler [repaired shoes]. Roger grew up in a house at 475 Second Street, on the west side, and graduated from the local schools, including Sacred Heart Grammar School, and West High (Class of 1939). He was active in sports and played on several local base ball teams. The Manchester (NH) City Directory of 1941 shows his occupation as a shoe worker, and that he still lived with his parents. The next year (1942) the directory shows him in the military.
Death record of Roger Raymond.
Roger Raymond was sent to Coleman Municipal Airport in Coleman Texas, as part of the 304th Flying Training Detachment there, a cadet at the AAF Contract Pilot School. Although documents are scarce, it appears that on the 17 August 1943 he was a member of a 3-person crew who left the airfield in a PT-19A airplane with Lew M. Patton as pilot, for training. The records state that an accidental plane crash occurred 30 miles north of Coleman TX (the northwest section of Cross Plains, Texas). Roger was one of three casualties of that crash, from injuries he sustained. [see photo of death record]
Roger’s body was send home for burial, which was performed with full military honor on 23 August 1943 at Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Manchester NH.
Posted on 13 May, 2014 by Janice Brown
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In The Mix: Baltra in The Lab
The last two weeks have been filled with new music coming from an array of different genres. Post Malone’s new album was expected to drop before the new year, however, fans have only received two singles from the new project. With additions from several R&B and rap, EDM, and Latin artists this week has given fans plenty to listen to.
Single of the Week: Post Malone and Ty Dolla $ign -"Psycho": Adding to the suspense of his new album, Beerbongs and Bentleys, Post Malone released a single this past weekend in which he teamed up with fellow hip-hop artist Ty Dolla $ign. The single, titled “Psycho”, follows Post’s previous single “Rockstar” featuring 21 Savage which gives fans hope that the album will be filled with features to accompany the rhythmic vocals of Post Malone. The song reiterates what we’ve heard in Post Malone’s previous work, detailing his lavish lifestyle after leaving Texas. The relaxed instrumental coupled with Post and Ty Dolla $ign’s soothing vocals make this single another classic from Post Malone.
Music Videos of the Week
Drake - "God's Plan": Sticking in the genre of rap and hip-hop, Canadian artist Drake has followed up his hit single “God’s Plan” with a stunning music video. Set both in the streets of Miami and at city’s university, Drake is seen handing out money to ordinary citizens. Making it clear from the start, the budget for the video was $996,631.90. After announcing the video’s budget, Drake makes it clear that he and the label gave the entirety of the budget out which is seen throughout the video. The video for “God’s Plan” has gained a significant amount of media attention for its purpose of giving back to the community and showing that he can enjoy himself without all this money. Incorporating both the people and students in Miami, Drake has created a video matching the catchy hook and positive feel of the song.
Zedd, Maren Morris, Grey - "The Middle": The next track comes from EDM superstar Zedd who teams up with country singer Maren Morris and pop group Grey to give fans “The Middle”. Although Morris’ vocals dominate the song, they are complimented perfectly by the collaborative electronic beat of Zedd and Grey. The video is a live action performance of the track, with Morris remaining in the middle of the stage for the duration of the song. Occasionally we get a glimpse of Zedd working his magic with a large group of dancers around Morris making the beat come alive. The video is simple yet captures the energetic tone of the song and Morris’ singing beautifully compliments the work of Zedd and Grey.
Bad Bunny, Prince Royce and J Balvin - "Sensualidad": Coming from Peurto Rico, Bad Bunny has been gaining popularity in the United States and abroad since his emergence in 2017. At the end of 2017, he teamed up with Bronx singer Prince Royce and Columbian reggae artist J Balvin to produce “Sensualidad”. The song details the three artist’s desire for their dream girl. In the song’s video, the trio team up to show us a day in their lavish life, vibing in private jets and on prestigious golf courses surrounded by a group of beautiful women. The feel of the video matches the upbeat positive tempo of the track depicting the artist's enjoyment being with these women. The track found itself at number one on the Hot Latin Songs chart soon after its release, adding to the booming success of rising artist Bad Bunny.
DJ and producer Michael Baltra, or BALTRA, took to the “The Lab” nightclub for Mixmag to showcase his skills for a crowd of eager listeners. Baltra, a native of New York City has been making music since 2009, and for the most part, has created independent tracks despite a few team-ups with fellow DJs like DJ Seinfeld and Slav. Baltra has showcased his talents before in EDM and dance destinations such as The Boiler Room to play tracks in a setting similar to his set for Mixmag.
Baltra begins his set for Mixmag sampling a variety of different tracks based around drum beats with a heavy emphasis on the cymbals and bass of the drums. The tunes follow his traditional house/EDM style, staying with a very upbeat tempo to get the crowd moving. The samples in which he lays these drum beats over are all consistently tranquil, opposing the fast-paced nature of the beat. However, this contradiction of beat and rhythm creates a pop-like dance tune that keeps the crowd engaged and dancing.
As the set progresses, the samples Baltra uses become increasingly higher tempo, eventually matching that same tempo of the drum beats. Consistently through the opening and middle parts of his set, Baltra sticks with samples that contain very little vocals. As the set moves on, there are samples that feature looped vocals, but still nothing full of true lyrics. Keeping to the mood of the club he performs at, Baltra’s sound throughout the middle portion of the set has the crowd vibing to the dance music he regularly produces.
As the set moves from the middle portion to the latter half, Baltra’s sound becomes more and more electronic with each sample he utilizes. Keeping the crowd dancing, Baltra switches to use more samples that incorporate primarily female vocals. Alternating between house and EDM style beats, Baltra increases the crowd’s involvement by speeding up the tempo of his songs by speeding up the pace of his drum beats. By mixing traditional house and EDM type samples with fast-paced drum beats dominated by their use of bass and cymbals, Baltra keeps everyone dancing for the entirety of his set.
Since breaking into the house and EDM scene, Baltra has made a big splash in the world of underground dance clubs. A large portion of his music involves samples very similar to the ones he uses in the opening part of his set for The Lab. Through soothing samples matched with high tempo drum beats, Balta is able to infect the audience with a desire to move which has made him one of the top aspiring artists in the industry.
In The MixMax Nason March 2, 2018 Post Malone, Ty Dollar $ign, Drake, Zedd, EDM, Hip-Hop, Bad Bunny, Maren Morris, Grey, Dance music, Baltra, Mixmag
Headphones: Andrew W.K. Parties In A New Light
HeadphonesMax Nason March 8, 2018 Piano, Metal, Guitar, Andrew W.K., Rock, Pop
Headphones: Kendrick Lamar - The King of Wakanda
HeadphonesMax Nason February 27, 2018 Kendrick Lamar, Black Panther, Rap, Hip-Hop, TDE, SZA, Future, The Weeknd, Jay Rock, SOBxRBE, SchoolBoy Q, 2 Chainz
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©Mapics from iStockphoto
I <3 London Cabs
I was recently in London for a very brief ~68 hours, but it reminded me that I love London cabs. The still-ubiquitous hackney carriage seems to be alive and well on the labyrinthine streets of this awesome city, and I, for one, am glad that it is.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of modern personal transportation services like Uber and Lyft. I used to rent cars for most of my business trips until about two years ago, and now I use these services because they're more convenient, faster, and are often cheaper than renting. Just not having to worry about parking reduces my stress level immensely.
Even as these services are destroying the taxi industry as we know it, I find that the London taxi can still provide a user experience that isn't as easy to replace. When I arrived in London, I took the Heathrow Express rail service to Paddington Station and then took a cab from there to my hotel. Other than having to ask for one that took credit cards, which was a little annoying, it was all pretty easy and much faster than waiting for an Uber.
Sitting in my cab, watching traffic go the wrong way and training myself to not freak out, I greatly appreciated two unique things about the London cab: the purpose-built design of the cab itself and the cabbie's encyclopedic knowledge of the streets of London.
London cabs have a unique look. They are traditionally black and look somewhat old-fashioned, but I personally find them quite charming. However, what I appreciate about them has less to do with their exterior design and more with their interior which, from a passenger's point of view, is great.
The doors are large and open wide for easy entry and exit. Instead of struggling with lifting large bags into the trunk (or boot, as the Brits call it), you can just use the large space and same door to lay them on the floor. The interior space is flexible – if you don't need the space for hauling stuff, you can fold two seats down to fit more people.
It's a relatively uncluttered interior with ergonomic handles and tactile switches. It's not particularly beautiful, but its simple, straightforward aesthetic is a reflection of its utility and usability.
If they could nail the payment thing down, it would be almost perfect.
These cabbies know the streets of London. To become a licensed black-cab driver in London, they must prove that they have "The Knowledge." This is described by the New York Times' T Magazine better than I could:
The guidebook issued to prospective cabbies by London Taxi and Private Hire (LTPH), which oversees the test, summarizes the task like this:
To achieve the required standard to be licensed as an “All London” taxi driver you will need a thorough knowledge, primarily, of the area within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross. You will need to know: all the streets; housing estates; parks and open spaces; government offices and departments; financial and commercial centres; diplomatic premises; town halls; registry offices; hospitals; places of worship; sports stadiums and leisure centres; airline offices; stations; hotels; clubs; theatres; cinemas; museums; art galleries; schools; colleges and universities; police stations and headquarters buildings; civil, criminal and coroner’s courts; prisons; and places of interest to tourists. In fact, anywhere a taxi passenger might ask to be taken.
If anything, this description understates the case. The six-mile radius from Charing Cross, the putative center-point of London marked by an equestrian statue of King Charles I, takes in some 25,000 streets. London cabbies need to know all of those streets, and how to drive them — the direction they run, which are one-way, which are dead ends, where to enter and exit traffic circles, and so on. But cabbies also need to know everything on the streets. Examiners may ask a would-be cabbie to identify the location of any restaurant in London. Any pub, any shop, any landmark, no matter how small or obscure — all are fair game. Test-takers have been asked to name the whereabouts of flower stands, of laundromats, of commemorative plaques. One taxi driver told me that he was asked the location of a statue, just a foot tall, depicting two mice sharing a piece of cheese. It’s on the facade of a building in Philpot Lane, on the corner of Eastcheap, not far from London Bridge.
It's a great story which I highly recommend reading. What it describes is an immense amount of specialized learning, specifically spatial memory.
Prospective cabbies' preparation for "The Knowledge" became the subject of scientific study that proved the human brain's plasticity, in other words, its ability to change, even well into adulthood. The study, led by Eleanor Maguire of the University College London, was able to compare three groups of people: those who prepared for the test and eventually passed, those who prepared and either failed or otherwise didn't complete the preparations, and a control group who never prepared for the test. They found that those who got "The Knowledge" had significant changes in their brains. You can read the study here.
Beyond the living proof of thousands of licensed cabbies, brain plasticity weighs in on the debate around the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset, an idea which Carol Dweck, a psychologist from Stanford University, identifies in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.
— Carol Dweck
This idea strongly resonates with me as I've long believed that we, as humans, are little more than amazing learning machines, and we continue to be that throughout our lives. I've approached my own personal development, both personal and professional, with this idea. Very few things are as satisfying to me as learning something new and improving myself in some way, however small, even as I settle into middle age.
If you find yourself in London, take the opportunity to hail a classic black London cab before they disappear. You might appreciate the unique experience and marvel at how the brain works, and get inspired to learn something new.
In Cars, Design, Education, Travel, UX Tags London, Trav, Design, Psychology, Learning
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ICSU and ISSC Members Vote to Create New Merged Organization: The 'International Science Council'
World’s leading bodies of Social and Natural Sciences agree to merge in 2018, becoming the International Science Council to serve as the global voice for science.
At a historic joint meeting in Taipei, members of world's two leading international science councils voted today to merge, launching a process that will see the formation of a single global entity—the International Science Council—that unites the scientific community under the vision 'to advance all sciences as a global public good'.
Members of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) voted overwhelmingly to form a new organization that provides a strong foundation for advancing science across the disciplinary spectrum and in all parts of the world, and promoting its vital role in shaping humanity’s future on planet Earth.
The organization will be launched at a founding General Assembly to be held in 2018 in Paris, France. Its mission will be to serve as the global voice of science, providing leadership in catalyzing, incubating, and coordinating international action on issues of major public concern. To mark the occasion, the Council will inaugurate a new interdisciplinary international science summit, which will be a flagship event.
Alberto Martinelli, President of ISSC, said: 'This vote comes at a crucial moment for science. Now more than ever before, a powerful and credible voice is needed to advocate the value and values of all science to society. The challenge of living sustainably and equitably in a rapidly changing world means that the need for scientific understanding has never been greater. The unified science council will champion all the sciences and their role in responding to today’s global challenges.'
Gordon McBean, President of ICSU, said: 'ICSU has been a pioneer in the 20th century for interdisciplinary science programmes and policy impact. I am immensely proud that our members have voted to endorse this historic merger, which carves out a new space for our proud historic legacy: to be the global voice of all sciences in a digitally connected world.'
The full statement from ICSU and ISSC can be found here.
Further background information on the merger is available on a dedicated Gitbook page and on the ICSU and ISSC websites.
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Joe McNamee
Executive Director, European Digital Rights (EDRi)
Joe McNamee is Executive Director of European Digital Rights (EDRi), an association of privacy and digital civil rights organisations from across Europe. He has worked on internet-related topics since 1995, having started his online career as a technical support advisor for an internet provider in 1995. He was responsible for three independent studies for the European Commission on local loop unbundling, on convergence and on telecommunications and the information society in eight former Soviet states.
Mr McNamee led EDRi’s work on the data protection package and worked on various international data protection initiatives. He has a particular interest in the trend to devolve online law enforcement to internet intermediaries and its effect on privacy, legal certainty and free speech.
Mr McNamee studied Modern Languages at the University of the West of England at Bristol (UWE) (BA), European Politics (MA) in Swansea and International Law (LLM) at the Brussels Schools of International Studies.
TMF Asean 2018
Workshop: Online Video Classifications, Codes and Content Rules: A productive way forward
IIC Thai Chapter - Building a Safe Online Environment for Children
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Home > Members > Founding Members
MESIA has over 100 local and international members including ABB, ACWA Power, ALSA Solar, ALSA Solar, Covington & Burling, Enviromena, Eversheds and Sutherland, Eversheds and Sutherland, Huawei, Microtron Technologies, SkyPower, Synergy Consulting Inc, Value Addition. Member companies are from all segments of the value chain, such as finance, engineering, professional services, manufacturing, and
contracting companies.
Any company that is involved in the Middle East and Northern Africa solar industry is welcome to join MESIA.
ABB Management Services LTD
Power and productivity for a better world ABB is a leading global technology company in power and automation that enables utility, industry, and transport and infrastructure customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact.
ACWA Power
ACWA Power is a developer, investor, co-owner and operator of a portfolio of power generation and desalinated water production plants currently with operations in 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Southern Africa and South East Asia regions. ACWA Power’s portfolio, with an investment value in excess of USD 26 billion, can generate 16.9 GW of power and produce 2.5 million m3 /day of desalinated water to be delivered on a bulk basis to state utilities and industrial majors on long term off-take contracts under Public-Private-Partnership, Concession and Utility Services Outsourcing models. ACWA Power, registered and head-quartered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is owned by eight Saudi conglomerates, Sanabil Direct Investment Company (owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia), the Saudi Public Pensions Agency and the International Finance Corporation (a member of the World Bank Group). ACWA Power pursues a mission to reliably deliver electricity and desalinated water at the lowest possible cost while seeking to maximize local content and local employment creation, thereby contributing to the social and economic development of the communities and countries it invests in and serves. ACWA Power strives to achieve success by adhering to the values of Diversity, Rigor, Ingenuity, Fairness and Integrity in operating its business.
Alsa Solar Systems LLC
ALSA Solar, part of ALSA Technical Services & Supplies & the esteemed Al Sayegh Brothers Group, is a reputed UAE based Solar EPCM with offices in Abu Dhabi (Masdar City) and Dubai (TECOM). Apart from being the master distributor for various quality Solar components, our focus is to offer cost effective solar powered system integrated solutions for Commercial On-Grid Rooftop Solar and Hybrid Systems. ALSA Solar has installed over 60 solar projects in the UAE and MENA region, including Dubai International Airport Concourse C4 and Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC).
Enviromena Power Systems
Founded in Abu Dhabi in 2007 to serve the Middle East and North African solar market, Enviromena became a pioneer in building the first grid connected utility scale photovoltaic plant in the Middle East. Enviromena has attracted a broad base of local and international investors, including some of the world’s leading venture capital firms. Enviromena remains committed to delivering clean energy throughout the MENA region. Enviromena develops and constructs solar photovoltaic power plants for applications including utility scale, rooftop and autonomous power production.
Synergy Consulting
Synergy Consulting is an independent international Financial Advisory Services Company with experience in projects across 36 Countries spanning across Six Continents providing services in the areas of Investment Advisory, Project Finance, Financial Analysis, Financial Modeling, Mergers & Acquisitions, Commercial and Financial Due Diligence, Project Restructuring and Policy Reform for the infrastructure sector with focus on Energy, Water and Transport. Synergy has successfully achieved Financial Close of projects worth more than US$ 12 Billion, a number of them being competitively tendered bids. With offices in the USA and India, Synergy has built international reputation for providing a comprehensive range of financial advisory services for Infrastructure Projects. Synergy, after acquiring a thorough understanding of the client’s objectives, strives to facilitate a successful execution of the engagement; through efficient, effective and cost competitive support.
Covington & Burling is an international law firm. Our distinctively collaborative culture allows us to be truly one team globally, drawing on the diverse experience of lawyers and advisors across the firm by seamlessly sharing insight and expertise. This enables us to create novel solutions to our clients’ toughest problems, successfully try their toughest cases and deliver commercially practical advice of the highest quality. Covington’s international Project Development and Finance practice represents clients on the acquisition, development, financing, restructuring, and divestiture of projects in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa, and Asia. Our global team advises energy companies, independent power producers, developers, sponsors, joint ventures, equity investors, government entities, and lenders in all aspects of project development and project finance. Our broad array of experience spans several industries, including oil and gas (upstream, midstream, and downstream), power generation and renewables, infrastructure (roads, bridges, ports, airports, parking, sewers, and water), mining and metals, sports and entertainment, and transportation, among others.
Eversheds-Sutherland
A leading international law firm recognised by Acritas as a Global Elite Law Firm, we regularly advise on billion dollar deals and high profile cases on behalf of the world’s most powerful corporations and financial institutions. We are committed to promoting the conservation of natural resources, preventing environmental pollution and continuously improving our environmental performance. We have identified our significant aspects as energy and paper usage, travel, and waste production. We regard environmental regulations, laws and codes of practice as the minimum standard that we should aim for and actively work towards exceeding these benchmarks. We raise awareness of this policy through guidelines, internal communications and staff training and will ensure it is regularly reviewed and updated where necessary.
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Home » Claims » CapitalSource Inc.
CapitalSource Inc.
Posted by admin on Sep 2, 2016 in Claims
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CapitalSource Inc. Securities Settlement
The lawsuit was settled for additional disclosures in the proxy statement mailed to shareholders. The following is a summary of the proceedings in the lawsuit: ‘On July 22, 2013, CapitalSource and PacWest announced the execution of an agreement and plan of merger (the Merger Agreement) pursuant to which CapitalSource would merge with and into PacWest, with PacWest continuing as the surviving entity (the Merger) and, immediately following the Merger, CapitalSource Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of CapitalSource, would merge with and into Pacific Western Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of PacWest, with Pacific Western Bank continuing as the surviving bank (the Bank Merger), with each share of CapitalSource common stock (other than treasury and dissenting shares) converted into the right to receive $2.47 in cash and 0.2837 of a share of PacWest common stock (together with the Merger and the Bank Merger, the Proposed Transaction). Following the announcement of the Proposed Transaction, several putative class action lawsuits challenging the Merger were filed in state courts in Delaware and California: Fosket v. Byrnes et al., C.A. No. 8765-CS (filed August 1, 2013); Bennett v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., C.A. No. 8770-CS (filed August 2, 2013); Chalfant v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., C.A. No. 8777-CS (filed August 6, 2013); Oliveira v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., C.A. No. 8779-CS (filed August 7, 2013); Desai v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., C.A. No. 8804-CS (filed August 13, 2013); Fattore v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., C.A. No. 8927-CS (filed Sep. 19, 2013); William Engel v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., Case No. BC516267 (filed July 24, 2013), Russell Miller v. Fremder et al., Case No. BC516590 (filed July 29, 2013); Sudheer Basu v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., Case No. BC516775 (filed July 31, 2013); Joseph Holliday v. PacWest Bancorp et al., Case No. BC517209 (filed August 5, 2013); and Iron Workers Mid-South Pension Fund v. CapitalSource Inc. et al., Case No. BC517698 (filed August 8, 2013). These putative class actions generally alleged, among other things, that the members of the CapitalSource board of directors (the Board) breached their fiduciary duties owed to CapitalSource stockholders in connection with the Proposed Transaction, and that CapitalSource and PacWest aided and abetted such breaches. Among other things, the class actions alleged that the Proposed Transaction included an unreasonably prohibitive deal protection device in the form of an option agreement (the CapitalSource Stock Option Agreement) that would have allowed PacWest to buy additional shares of CapitalSource equivalent to up to 19.9% of CapitalSourceâ outstanding share count, in the event that a third party made a superior offer. The class actions alleged that the CapitalSource Stock Option Agreement would have effectively precluded other parties from making superior offers for CapitalSource, since any such offer would trigger the CapitalSource Stock Option Agreement, requiring a superior bidder not only to offer more money per share, but to purchase additional shares of the CapitalSource equivalent to as much as 19.9% of CapitalSource share count, which plaintiffs contended would increase any such bidder costs. Further, the class actions alleged that the triggering of the CapitalSource Stock Option Agreement would have given PacWest a significant blocking position against any other bidder in the form of a large voting stake. On August 15, 2013, the Court consolidated the Delaware Stockholder Actions (except for Fattore v. CapitalSource Inc., which had not yet been filed); appointed Block & Leviton LLP as Plaintiffs Lead Counsel for the Delaware Plaintiffs; appointed Rigrodsky & Long, P.A., Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP and Levi & Korsinsky, LLP to Plaintiffs Executive Committee for the Delaware Plaintiffs; and ordered that the actions thereafter proceed under the caption In re CapitalSource Inc. Stockholder Litigation, Consolidated C.A. No. 8765-CS. On August 20, 2013, plaintiffs in the Delaware Stockholder Actions served the Defendants with document requests. On September 12, 2013, PacWest filed a preliminary registration statement on Form S-4 (the Preliminary S-4) with the SEC under the issuer name PacWest Bancorp, which, among other things, summarized the Merger Agreement; described the events leading up to the execution of the Merger Agreement; and summarized the valuation analyses conducted by J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (JPMorgan), the financial advisor to the CapitalSource board of directors and Jefferies LLC (Jefferies), the financial advisor to the PacWest board of directors. On September 17, 2013, the California Court consolidated the California Stockholder Actions, appointed Robbins Arroyo LLP and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP as Co-Lead Counsel for the California Plaintiffs, appointed Glancy Binkow Goldberg LLP as Liaison Counsel for the California Plaintiffs, and ordered that the actions thereafter proceed under the caption In re CapitalSource Inc. Shareholder Litigation, Lead Case No. BC516267. On September 25, 2013, the Court consolidated Fattore v. CapitalSource Inc. et al. into In re CapitalSource Inc. Stockholder Litigation, Consolidated C.A. No. 8765-CS, and appointed Block & Leviton LLP and Wolf Popper LLP as Plaintiffs Co-Lead Counsel for the Delaware Plaintiffs. On September 25, 2013, the Delaware Plaintiffs filed a Verified Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint alleging that, among other things, the Individual Defendants breached their fiduciary duties owed to the public stockholders of the Company in connection with the Proposed Transaction and that CapitalSource and PacWest aided and abetted these alleged breaches. On October 2, 2013, the California Plaintiffs filed an Amended Consolidated Complaint containing allegations and claims substantially similar to those in the Verified Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint in the Delaware Action. On October 7, 2013, the Court entered a stipulation and order governing the production and exchange of confidential discovery materials among the Delaware Plaintiffs and Defendants; and, thereafter, the Delaware Plaintiffs and CapitalSource negotiated expedited discovery parameters concerning, among other things, email search terms, document custodians, and deponents. On October 23, 2013, the Court held a telephonic status conference regarding the Delaware Actions and California Actions during which the parties agreed that documentary and deposition discovery would proceed in the Delaware Action, with the California Plaintiffs participating, subject to certain terms and conditions. On October 28, 2013, PacWest filed a first amendment to the Preliminary S-4 with the SEC, which, among other things, summarized the Merger Agreement, described the events leading up the execution of the Merger Agreement, and summarized the valuation analyses conducted by JPMorgan and Jefferies. On November 20, 2013, PacWest filed a second amendment to the Preliminary S-4 with the SEC, which, among other things, summarized the Merger Agreement, described the event leading up the execution of the Merger Agreement, and summarized the valuation analyses conducted by JPMorgan and Jefferies. On or about December 6, 2013, PacWest filed a definitive proxy statement/prospectus under Rule 424(b)(3), and CapitalSource filed a definitive proxy statement on Schedule 14A (the Definitive Proxy Statement) with the SEC which, among other things, summarized the Merger Agreement, described the events leading up to the execution of the Merger Agreement, and summarized the valuation analyses conducted by JPMorgan and Jefferies. The Plaintiffs reviewed over forty thousand pages of documents produced by Defendants on a confidential basis, including electronic communications, Board meeting minutes, and Board presentations, and took the depositions of a representative of JPMorgan, a director of the Company, and the CEO of the Company. Following such negotiations, on December 20, 2013, the Parties, by and through their counsel, executed a memorandum of understanding (the MOU) containing the terms for the Parties agreement-in-principle to resolve the Stockholder Actions. Among other things, the MOU set forth the Parties agreement-in-principle that, in consideration for the full and final settlement and dismissal with prejudice of the Stockholder Actions and the release of any and all Released Claims, Defendants agreed: to terminate the CapitalSource Stock Option Agreement dated as of July 22, 2013, and the PacWest Stock Option Agreement, dated as of July 22, 2013; to amend the Merger Agreement to provide for a $91 million termination fee payable by CapitalSource to PacWest, and a $59 million termination fee payable by PacWest to CapitalSource, each payable upon the occurrence of certain events; and to provide in a Form 8-K filing with the SEC and mailing to CapitalSource stockholders the additional disclosures. Plaintiffs concluded that the $91 million termination fee represented a substantially reduced barrier to the possibility of a third party bidder making a superior offer, as compared with the CapitalSource Stock Option Agreement, which plaintiffs believe created the equivalent of a termination fee of at least $460 million. The MOU also provided that Plaintiffs would have the opportunity to conduct additional discovery to confirm the fairness, adequacy and reasonableness of the Settlement. That discovery has now been completed and Plaintiffs have confirmed the fairness, adequacy, and reasonableness of the Settlement. On January 13, 2014, at a special meeting, the CapitalSource stockholders approved the Transaction. Following additional confirmatory discovery undertaken by the Plaintiffs, the Plaintiffs and their counsel confirmed the fairness of the proposed Settlement, and the parties set forth the terms and details of the Settlement in a Stipulation of Settlement and Release executed on June 12, 2014 (the Stipulation).’
© copyright 2015, Liquid Claims. All Rights Reserved. www.liquidclaims.com
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A.U.T.O.F.A.C.
Classification: Terrestrial technology
Creator: Unrevealed, possibly Tony Stark
Users/Possessors: Laura Brown, Nick Fury
First Appearance: Strange Tales I#154 (March, 1967)
Powers/Abilities/Functions: A.U.T.O.F.A.C. (Analytical Unit for Tabulation of Origin Factors And Computation) was a computer able to process and calculate information (in that over-sized super-computer sort of way).
History: (Strange Tales I#155) - Seeking to learn the identity of HYDRA's new Supreme Hydra, Nick Fury had his men poured all of the data they had on the Supreme Hydra into A.U.T.O.F.A.C.'s systems. Laura Brown, daughter of the Imperial Hydra, suspected that the man posing as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Bronson was the real Supreme Hydra, and that he was really Baron Strucker. Afraid to share this knowledge without confirmation, Laura visited A.U.T.O.F.A.C. herself to see the results. A.U.T.O.F.A.C. had indeed identified the Supreme Hydra, but he was already in the A.U.T.O.F.A.C. chamber as Agent Bronson, and knocked Laura out from behind. He then planted false information into A.U.T.O.F.A.C. so that they would think Laura was the new Supreme Hydra.
(Strange Tales I#155) - The Supreme Hydra then directed Annihil-Agent 47, posing as Dr. Anton Trojak, to destroy A.U.T.O.F.A.C. and Nick Fury. Trojak sabotaged the panels in front of A.U.T.O.F.A.C. so that when Fury stepped on them, he was jolted with electricity. Trojak then tied Fury to his Aphonic Bomb to destroy him and A.U.T.O.F.A.C. Although the bomb succeeded in destroying A.U.T.O.F.A.C., Fury escaped.
Comments: Created by Roy Thomas and Jim Steranko.
Snood isn't all that fond of adding the periods to acronyms, but what can I say? I'm an acronymaniac!
by Prime Eternal
A.U.T.O.F.A.C. should not be confused with:
Autobots, the heroic Transformers, @ Transformers I#1
Auto-Boxers, remote-controlled robots used by the Eternals, @ Eternals I#5
Autocrons, extra-terrestrial race, robot-like species, @ Machine Man I#3
Autolycus, member of the Universal Church of Truth, @ Strange Tales I#179
Automatoids, "Baldies," robots used by Quasimodo, @ Marvel Team-Up I#22
Automaton, Q7 Strike Force, @ Gene Dogs#1
Images taken from:
Strange Tales I#154, page 1
Strange Tales I#155 (April, 1967) - Jim Steranko (writer/artist), Stan Lee (editor)
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and � 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
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From Eastern Europe With Love Drs. Irene Blaess and Stan Zebrowski Provide Top-Tier Dental Care
Dental Health, Men's, Women's
Gender Puts Women More at Risk for Stroke
Uncategorized, Women's
By: Bettina Piotrowski
Strokes kill more women than men annually, making it the #3 leading cause of death in women.
It was more than six years ago when Laura Trammell took the day off from work in the human resources department at Corpus Christi City Hall for her son’s birthday. It was a day that changed her life.
After returning home from delivering cupcakes to her son’s school, she had an event that left her unable to speak or walk. Trammell suffered a brain aneurysm and a stroke.
In the battle of the sexes, here’s one that women – often unknowingly – take the lead in: About 55,000 more women than men have strokes every year. Strokes kill more women than men annually, making it the #3 leading cause of death in women.
“To say I was surprised about having a stroke is an understatement,” Trammell says. “I always thought a man would be more likely to have stroke than me. I found out the hard way that’s not true.”
This gender misconception about strokes is common, according to Dr. Michael Fuentes, Medical Director of Corpus Christi Rehabilitation Hospital. “Most people don’t realize that women suffer strokes more frequently than men,” he says. “If you’re a woman, you share a lot of the same risk factors for strokes as a man, but a woman’s risk also is influenced by hormones, reproductive health, pregnancy, child-birth and other gender-related factors.”
For example, birth control pills may double the risk of stroke, especially in women with high blood pressure or who smoke. And, according to the American Heart Association, hormone replacement therapy – once thought to reduce stroke risk – in fact, actually increases it.
A recent study shared through the National Stroke Association listed these factors that have been found to increase stroke risk in women:
Menstruation before the age of 10
Menopause before age 45
Low levels of the hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEAS)
Taking oral estrogen or combined oral contraceptives
The study also showed a history of pregnancy complications can also indicate higher stroke risk.
These problems include gestational diabetes and high blood pressure during or immediately after pregnancy.
“Add this to other general risk factors for stroke like family history, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking, lack of exercise, and being overweight –and it becomes clearer as to why women can be more at risk for stroke than men,” Fuentes says.
Trammell was treated at a local hospital for initial care before being transferred to Corpus Christi Rehabilitation Hospital. She spent more than two months receiving rehabilitation to help her recover, which included daily physical, occupational, and speech therapy.
“Everyone there was just so wonderful,” she says. “I went into the rehabilitation hospital not able to talk or walk, and I’m able to do those things now. My words are hard to come by, but I can speak clearly. My hand and foot on the right side of my body don’t work well, but my arms and legs move. I’m so grateful that I’ve recovered this far.”
“Whatever stage of life a woman is in, it’s important that she be aware of all the risk factors of stroke,” Fuentes says. “As it’s often said, ‘knowledge is power.’ And in this case, the more knowledgeable a woman is about her stroke risk factors, the more she’ll be able to understand how she can be affected and work with her physician or healthcare provider as appropriate to reduce them.”
birth controlCorpus Christi Rehabilitation HospitaldehydroepiandrosteroneDr. Michael FuentesestrogenHealthhealth and wellnesshigh blood pressureMd MonthlyNational Stroke AssociationstrokeswellnesswomenWomen's Health
A Guide to Find the Best Head and Surgery Doctor
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Perspectives • Sci - Tech
There is nothing like complete online privacy
Published Time: May 16, 2019, 12:00 am
Updated Time: May 16, 2019 at 12:56 pm
Zeynep Tufekci/ Gulf News
People concerned about privacy often try to be “careful” online. They stay off social media, or if they’re on it, they post cautiously. They don’t share information about their religious beliefs, personal life, health status or political views. By doing so, they think they are protecting their privacy.
But they are wrong. Because of technological advances and the sheer amount of data now available about billions of people, discretion no longer suffices to protect your privacy. Computer algorithms and network analyses can now infer, with a sufficiently high degree of accuracy, a wide range of things about you that you may have never disclosed, including your moods, your political beliefs, your sexual orientation and your health. There is no longer such a thing as individually “opting out” of our privacy-compromised world.The basic idea of data inference is not new. Magazine subscriber lists have long been purchased by retailers, charities and politicians because they provide useful hints about people’s views. A subscriber to The Wall Street Journal is more likely to be a Republican voter than is a subscriber to The Nation, and so on.But today’s technology works at a far higher level. Consider an example involving Facebook. In 2017, the newspaper The Australian published an article, based on a leaked document from Facebook, revealing that the company had told advertisers that it could predict when younger users, including teenagers, were feeling “insecure,” “worthless” or otherwise in need of a “confidence boost.” Facebook was apparently able to draw these inferences by monitoring photos, posts and other social media data.
A lot to worry
Facebook denied letting advertisers target people based on those characteristics, but it’s almost certainly true that it has that capacity. Indeed, academic researchers demonstrated last year that they were able to predict depression in Facebook users by analysing their social media data — and they had access to far less data than Facebook does. Even if Facebook does not now market its ability to glean your present or future mental health from your social media activity, the fact that it (and any number of other, less visible actors) can do this should worry you.It is worth stressing that today’s computational inference does not merely check to see if Facebook users posted phrases like “I’m depressed” or “I feel terrible.” The technology is more sophisticated than that: Machine-learning algorithms are fed huge amounts of data, and the computer program itself categorises who is more likely to become depressed.Consider another example. In 2017, academic researchers, armed with data from more than 40,000 Instagram photos, used machine-learning tools to accurately identify signs of depression in a group of 166 Instagram users. Their computer models turned out to be better predictors of depression than humans who were asked to rate whether photos were happy or sad and so forth.Used for honourable purposes, computational inference can be a wonderful thing. Predicting depression before the onset of clinical symptoms would be a boon for public health, which is why academics are researching these tools; they dream of early screening and prevention.
Nayeemul Islam khan
9666401,09617175105
ENA SHAKUR'S EMARAT 19/3 Bir Uttam Qazi Nuruzzaman Sarak. West Panthapath (Beside Square Hospital)Dhaka.
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Château de Reignac
Stalking the Marquis de Lafayette
I've got a confession to make. Not only have I been stalking the beloved chef Julia Child, but I've also been hot on the trail of the Marquis de Lafayette for the past couple of years. With all of the Fourth of July celebrations last week, Lafayette once again returned to the forefront of my mind because many historians believe that the colonies would not have been able to win their struggle for independence from Britain without the fervent support of the French aristocrat.
My obsession with Lafayette dates back to a visit to Boston in June 2011 when I enquired about historical links between the United States and France at the tourist information office. After mentioning the Chevalier de Saint-Sauveur, a French nobleman who was killed during a brawl over some baguettes in 1778, the officer added that he had heard that Lafayette was buried at Picpus Cemetery in Paris in soil that was purportedly collected from Bunker Hill during the Frenchman's last trip to the United States in 1825. Unable to visit Bunker Hill and confirm the veracity of the story because we were scheduled to leave for Annapolis, I filed the information away in my brain for future reference.
The plot thickened when we traveled to Annapolis and discovered that Lafayette had already left his mark on the city.
Lafayette, who became impassioned by the American rebels' cause when he learned that they were protesting an unfair system of taxation, volunteered to serve with General Washington at his own expense. In return, the 19 year old nobleman received a commission of major general in the Continental Army. After Lafayette was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine, he briefly returned to France where he worked to secure aid from his government. So insistent were his arguments that the Count de Maurepas said in the royal council: "It is fortunate for the King that Lafayette does not take it into his head to strip Versailles of its furniture to send to his dear Americans as his Majesty would be unable to refuse it."
When Lafayette returned to America in April 1780, he delivered the welcome news that King Louis XVI had agreed to send a French Expeditionary Force of 6,000 elite troops, artillery pieces, munitions, ships and money. The arrival of the French troops in July brought fresh hope. As a result of the combined efforts of the American and French forces, the British surrendered on October 19, 1781. Washington credited Lafayette's unselfish devotion to the American cause and the assistance from France for turning the tide of war towards an American victory.
Before Lafayette sailed back to France on the American ship the "Alliance", he wrote a letter to Washington that said: "Adieu, my dear General; I know your heart so well that I am sure that no distance can alter your attachment to me. With the same candour I assure that my love, respect, my gratitude for you, are above expression; that, at the moment of leaving you, I felt more than ever the strength of those friendly ties that forever bind me to you."
Paying my respects to the Frenchman who ardently supported the American Revolution has long been on my "must do" list. When I finally get around to going to Picpus Cemetery, it shouldn't be a problem finding the Marquis de Lafayette's grave because an American flag has flown over his tomb ever since an American minister placed it there six weeks after his death in 1834. Lafayette was posthumously made an honorary citizen of the United States in 2002.
Myth buster: Even though there are rumors that the Marquis de Lafayette is buried in soil gathered from the twenty four states that he visited during his final tour of the United States in 1824-25, it isn't true. Lafayette's plan was foiled when the steamship carrying the soil that he had collected sunk in the Ohio River. Lafayette had to resort to his Plan B: he's buried in soil from Bunker Hill.
What's named after Lafayette? Many streets, cities, parks, counties, townships, schools and colleges have been named after the Marquis de Lafayette, including Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and Lafayette, Louisiana. There was even a luxury automobile company named LaFayette Motors Corporation that had a cameo of the Marquis as their logo.
In a roundabout way, I think that Galeries Lafayette may also have been named in the Marquis' honor because the famous Parisian department store is located near the street that bears his name. I'm still trying to find a document that supports this idea. If you come across anything, please let me know!
A monument at honoring the French soldiers and sailors who lost their lives during the struggle for American independence at St. John's College in Annapolis, MD .
One of these days, I hope to be able to spend a night at the Château de Reignac, the former home of the Marquis de Lafayette in the Loire Valley. As it was fully booked when we were there in May 2011, I only got to take a quick peak inside.
Labels: American history Annapolis Boston Château de Reignac Lafayette Marquis de Lafayette
What a wonderful post! I've always held a fondness in my heart for the Marquis also. Perhaps because I was a francophile from an early age and he was the only real symbol of France that we studied in elementary school. Due to his role in the American Revolutionary War no doubt. (God forbid we would have studied about France itself!) When everyone was up in arms after 9-11 and belittling the French and re-naming "freedom fries", and when people make reference to the fact that the French owe so much to the U.S. for saving them in WWII, I always want to tell them to please take one more step backwards in time and remember that without the French, the U.S. might not exist at all! Oh how I wish people would read or remember their history. Perhaps they would all be a bit kinder to each other.
Not sure if you have seen this but at number 8, Rue d'Anjou, is the house where he died. I just happened upon it one day during yet another stroll around the city. : ) I love finding the historical plaques in such unexpected places!
Regarding your other post. You are young! I always wondered how you had all that energy to run around town posting like mad! Hee, hee, hee! Hope you had a great birthday!
Anonymous make a good point, "Oh how I wish people would read or remember their history. Perhaps they would all be a bit kinder to each other. " So true.
I enjoyed re-learning some of the things I knew, and also learning some new stuff.
And I can't wait for you to get to the Chateau.
jxg
Donna Morris July 8, 2013 at 6:01 PM
Great post as always Miss Out and About. I have been to Picpus - you could write a very interesting story about that cemetery all by itself! I think the Galeries Lafayette are probably named that because of the proximity to the street bearing his name but not necessarily because they were paying tribute to him. http://haussmann.galerieslafayette.com/culture-et-patrimoine/. Hope to see you soon out and about in Paris :-). Donna
Ellen July 8, 2013 at 6:34 PM
There was also the Esquadrille Lafayette during WW1, American pilots fighting in the French army before the US joined the allies.
suzanne sanborn July 8, 2013 at 10:46 PM
What a surprise to see the sign from Annapolis. I am from Annapolis and used live right off of Lafayette St in Annapolis. I recognized the sign right away, hope you enjoyed your stay.
There is a town in north Georgia near Chattanooga named after Lafayette, only they pronounce it la-FAY-et, leave it to southerners to butcher a french pronunciation. I haven't lived in Chattanooga for 6 years but I still have a hard time pronouncing Lafayette correctly, ha! I really have to think about it.
Joanne C July 9, 2013 at 7:48 AM
It would have taken the Marquis to help the French Canadians against the British troops in 1759. Canada would have been a French country ! Love your blog !
The Kale Project July 9, 2013 at 3:39 PM
As always so interesting MK! And it sunk in the Ohio River? Perhaps at the start of the river in Pittsburgh near Fort Duquesne (another French general I think that did a lot!)
Carolyn July 9, 2013 at 3:50 PM
I hope you do go back soon to that area. A short drive upstream along the Indre from Reignac is Azay-sur-Indre, where the Marquis had other properties. There is a chateau there on two sides of the road. Both sides are unfortunately walled so we couldn't see in. Perhaps someday it will be open for the Journees du Patrimoine.
In that area, the village of Chedigny is not to be missed! Flowers galore in a tiny, totally charming village. (Forgive me if I've mentioned this before when you were planning your last trip to this area. I'm a big Chedigny fan.)
There are very few honorary U. S. citizens, 6 at this point (though for some reason William and Hannah Penn are counted as one). Lafayette is the only French one.
I am a graduate from Lafayette College and truly admire the Marquis de Lafayette for all his amazing contributions to America during the Revolutionary War. My wife and I are celebrating our 20th anniversary in the Loire Valley this October. Did Lafayette and his wife actually live in the Chateau de Reignac?
I have visited Picpus Cemetary. Went there purposely to pay my respects to Lafayette , and offer my thanks as a Free American!
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Home » Timelines by Topic » Topics » Governance » Politics » US Domestic Terrorism
US Domestic Terrorism
Project: US Domestic Terrorism
Open-Content project managed by mtuck
Page 1 of 13 (1216 events)
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1844: Mormon Leader, Brother Murdered by Mob in Illinois Jail
Joseph and Hyrum Smith. [Source: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church, more commonly known as the Mormon Church), is murdered in an Illinois jail along with his brother Hyrum. The Smiths have been unpopular since the founding of the Mormon Church in the late 1820s. In 1832, a Christian mob tarred and feathered Joseph Smith. In 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs ordered all Mormons expelled from his state; three days later, rogue militiamen massacred 17 Mormons, including children, at the Mormon settlement of Haun’s Mill. In 1844, Joseph and his brother Hyrum were charged with treason and jailed in Carthage, Illinois. A mob breaks into the prison and murders both men. Though five are charged with the murders, none are ever convicted. [Smithsonian Magazine, 10/2010]
Entity Tags: Lilburn Boggs, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith, Jr, Hyrum Smith
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties, Domestic Propaganda
Category Tags: Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Beatings/Mobs
1844: Philadelphia ‘Bible Riots’ Pit Irish Catholics against ‘Nativist’ Protestants, Energize Irish as Political and Labor Force
A portion of a painting illustrating the street violence surrounding the ‘Bible Riots.’ [Source: Granger Collection / Smithsonian]Philadelphia is rocked by a series of conflicts that will become known as the “Bible Riots of 1844.” In the 1830s, Philadelphia, a large factory town, began simmering with conflicts and issues between a large and disparate number of groups, roughly divided into two: Irish and German immigrants, mostly Catholics, who are fighting for better working conditions and better treatments both through the Church and through the burgeoning labor movement; and “nativists,” a loose movement that has arisen in something of a backlash against the large influx of immigrants. Many of the Irish and German immigrants have become identified with urban Democratic political machines, sparking resentment among non-Democratic “native” Americans. The Irish in particular become targets of the “nativist” movement. In 1844, Catholics begin mounting complaints that their children are being forced to read from the Protestant King James Bible in public school every day. That version of the Bible (often abbreviated KJV) is required reading in Philadelphia public schools, in part because of the efforts of Pennsylvania legislator James Buchanan, who pushed through some of the country’s first legislation requiring public schools; however, the Pennsylvania legislature inserted language into the bill requiring daily Bible reading. Catholics see the mandated daily Bible readings as an attempt to undermine their religion, a view given credence when their requests that the KJV be substituted with Catholic Bibles are ignored. The complaints spark a series of riots that target Irish Catholic churches (no German Catholic churches are burned or vandalized, in part because Irish Catholics, a larger and more prominent group than the Germans, tend to be more vocal and are more closely identified with the “problem”). In response, groups of Irish Catholics target Protestant churches. The Philadelphia city government does little if anything to protect either group. Both sides accuse the other of vandalism and duplicity; the “nativists” insist that the Catholics want to install the Pope as the leader of the US government, and the Catholics accuse city officials of letting the “nativists” attack them at will. The riots result in a number of churches being partially or completely burned, at least 20 people dead, and the Irish Catholics becoming more forceful and more organized, taking a more aggressive part in politics and the labor movement. [Smithsonian Magazine, 10/2010; Patrick J. O'Hara, 2011]
Entity Tags: James Buchanan
Category Tags: Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions
January 31, 1933: Neo-Nazi Group Founded in North Carolina
The masthead for the March 7, 1939 issue of ‘Liberation,’ a magazine published by the ‘Silver Shirts.’ [Source: Georgetown Bookshop]White supremacist and ardent Nazi follower William Dudley Pelley, a New England native of what he calls “uncontaminated English stock,” founds the Silver Shirts, a neo-Nazi organization, in Asheville, North Carolina, the same day that Adolf Hitler ascends to power in Germany. Apparently Pelley funds the organization through the proceeds of a best-selling book, Seven Minutes in Eternity, in which he claimed to have died and gone to “the beyond” for a seven-minute period. Pelley and his followers, including Henry Lamont “Mike” Beach (see 1969), dress themselves in silver shirts emblazoned with a large cursive “L,” blue corduroy knickers, and gold stockings. Pelley considers himself a Republican, though he is not politically active in the usual sense.
Anti-Semitic, Anti-Government - His efforts attract members from pro-Nazi groups, Ku Klux Klan chapters, and others sympathetic to his anti-Semitic views. In August 1933, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) will warn: “The Silver Shirts came into existence the early part of this year. They are enrolling white Protestant Christians as members of a Christian militia, through a plan of State encampments that are reported to extend into various states of the Union, with posts in every community.” According to Silver Shirt documents obtained by the AJC, the group intends to bring about the establishment of a strictly Christian government in the US; accuses President Roosevelt of being a “dictator” and “set[ting] aside the Constitution, which they desire to restore”; intends to “save [the] United States from a state of Sovietism into which… the Jews are leading the country”; accuses Jews of being a “money power” bent on destroying the nation’s economy via their “control” of the Federal Reserve; and says that “a people who constitute only 2.5 per cent of the population [Jews] to be held down to a 2.5 per cent influence in the American government, and we propose to see that it is brought about, race prejudice or no!” The group also advocates a form of direct democracy, in which citizens mail in their votes for or against pending legislation, and proposes the reorganization of America into what it calls a “colossus corporation,” where “[e]very citizen shall be both a common and a preferred stockholder.”
Psychic Messages - Pelley claims to receive psychic messages from “the vastness of cosmos,” including two sets of documents, the “Esoteric Doctrines of the Liberation Enlightenment” and the “Liberation Scripts,” which set forth the “Christ government” he intends to establish. In a Silver Shirt newsletter, Pelley writes: “It is the order of things that those wicked and malignant spirits who have incarnated in certain sections of the Hebrew race trying to bring the downfall of the Christ Peoples, should meet a fearful fate in this closing of the Cycle of Cosmic Event. That contest is on-the-make and Hitler’s job it has been to do the advance work. But Hitler is not going to finish that work. THE FINISH OF IT COMES RIGHT HERE IN AMERICA!” Pelley writes that “the Jew” is possessed of a “nomadic character, making him an internationalist whose ultimate objectives may well mean the destruction and disappearance of the United States.” [American Jewish Committee, 8/24/1933; Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; David Neiwert, 6/17/2003]
Spike in Membership Will Dwindle - Pelley’s group will enjoy its largest membership of some 15,000 in 1934; four years later, the group will dwindle to around 5,000 members. [The Holocaust Chronicle, 2009] Pelley will be convicted of sedition in 1942, and by the time he emerges from prison in 1950, his Silver Shirts will have long since disappeared.
'Christian Fascist' - In the early 1980s, graduate student Karen Hoppes will write extensively about Pelley. She will write of his Christian fundamentalism: “[T]he link with fundamental Christianity establishes the uniqueness of American fascism. The majority of fascist groups justified their existence by their desire to change the United States into a Christian society.… The relationship between the religious identity of these groups and their political demands can be shown by a careful survey of their rhetoric. The Christian fascist does not distinguish between the application of the terms anti-Christ, Jew, and Communist. Neither does he distinguish between Gentile and Christian.” [David Neiwert, 6/17/2003]
Entity Tags: William Dudley Pelley, Karen Hoppes, Henry L. Beach, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, American Jewish Committee, Ku Klux Klan, Silver Shirts
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Other Militias, Separatists, Rhetorical Violence, Ku Klux Klan
February 20, 1939: Pro-Nazi German-American Bund Holds Large Rally in New York City
A photo of the February 1939 Bund rally in Madison Square Garden. The backdrop depicts President George Washington. [Source: US Holocaust Museum]The German-American Bund, the most influential pro-Nazi movement in the US prior to World War II, holds a rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden that attracts some 20,000 participants. The rally is to protest for the rights of white Gentiles, whom the organization calls the “true patriots” of America. The Bund is led by Fritz Kuhn, an outspoken anti-Semite; at its height, the organization boasts some 25,000 members along with 8,000 “Storm Troopers.” Although the group portrays itself as patriotic Americans, even combining images of George Washington and the Nazi swastika, almost all of the members are German immigrants with ties and/or allegiances to Hitler’s Nazi movement. Public opinion polls show Kuhn is considered the most prominent anti-Semite in the nation. The party has little support outside of a few large cities. Shortly after the rally, Kuhn is investigated, found to have close ties to Germany’s Nazi Party, and eventually jailed for embezzling funds from the organization, causing many members to depart. In December 1941, the US government will outlaw the organization. [The Holocaust Chronicle, 2009; US Holocaust Museum, 2010; US Holocaust Museum, 2010]
Entity Tags: Fritz Kuhn, German-American Bund
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Other Militias, Separatists, Rhetorical Violence
August 27, 1949: Left-Wing Activist Concert Featuring African-American Singer Disrupted by Orchestrated Attacks
Paul Robeson. [Source: Paul Robeson Community Center]A concert organized by various left-wing organizations and slated to take place at a picnic ground near Peekskill, New York (see Mid-August - August 27, 1949) never happens. Instead, the organizers and audience members are attacked by an angry, violent mob.
Mob Attacks - Novelist Howard Fast, who is slated to emcee the concert, arrives at the grounds, and, hearing reports of a mob gathering under the rubric of a “parade,” organizes some 40 “men and boys,” both white and African-American, to defend the women and children coming together in the hollow for the concert. Fast’s fears are quickly realized: a large mob of American Legion members and local citizens, and largely fueled by alcohol, as evidenced by the hundreds of liquor bottles later found strewn throughout the grounds, moves to attack Fast’s group with billy clubs, broken bottles, fence posts, and knives. More by chance than by strategy, Fast’s group finds itself in a defensible position, where it cannot be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Its members manage to beat back three separate assaults; Fast hears screams from the mob: “We’re Hitler’s boys—Hitler’s boys!” “We’ll finish his job!” “God bless Hitler and f___ you n_____ b_stards and Jew b_stards!” “Lynch Robeson! Give us Robeson! We’ll string that big n_____ up! Give him to us, you b_stards!” “We’ll kill every commie b_stard in America!” “You’re never going out!” “Every n_____ b_stard dies here tonight! Every Jew b_stard dies here tonight!” (Singer and activist Paul Robeson, the concert headliner, is unable to approach the concert venue, and is never in any real danger.) During the assaults, state and local police stand by and do nothing to intervene; local and national reporters jot down notes and take photographs. Late in the evening, someone sets a cross ablaze, prompting Fast’s group to link arms and sing “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Later inquiries by the concert organizers will show that at least three different times during the violence, individuals were able to escape the riots and phone the local and state police, the state attorney general’s office, and the office of the New York governor, “all without result.” No arrests are made and no one is held for questioning, even though, the organizers will find, “14 cars were overturned and at least 13 people were hurt seriously enough to require medical attention.” [Fast, 1951; White Plains Reporter Dispatch, 9/5/1982]
Book Burnings - The fourth and final assault of the night comes in the form of a barrage of rocks and other missiles. Fast’s group runs for the concert venue, where its members mount the platform and once again link arms. Fast and others see some members of the mob find the books and pamphlets brought by the concert organizers; the mob members make a huge pile and set it ablaze. Fast later writes: “[T]o crown our evening, there was re-enacted the monstrous performance of the Nuremberg book burning which had become a world symbol of fascism. Perhaps the nature of fascism is so precise, perhaps its results on human beings are so consistently diseased, that the same symbols must of necessity arise; for standing there, arms linked, we watched the Nuremberg memory come alive again. The fire roared up and the defenders of the ‘American’ way of life seized piles of our books and danced around the blaze, flinging the books into the fire as they danced.” (Upon revisiting the site two days later, Fast will note “at least 40” flashbulbs in and around the ashes, indicating that many photographs were taken of the book burning, but in 1951, he will write that he has yet to see any of those photographs.) [Fast, 1951]
Law Enforcement Intervenes - Three of the most severely wounded of Fast’s group are escorted to safety by federal law enforcement officials, who had watched the proceedings without intervening. The rest are forced to sit while local law enforcement officials investigate the stabbing of one of the mob members, William Secor. (Evidence will show that Secor had been accidentally cut by one of his fellows.) Later, state police escort members of Fast’s group to their vehicles and allow them to drive away. No arrests are made and no one is held for questioning, even though, the organizers will find, “14 cars were overturned and at least 13 people were hurt seriously enough to require medical attention.” The head of the Peekskill American Legion, Milton Flynt, says after the riot, “Our objective was to prevent the Paul Robeson concert, and I think our objective was reached.” [Fast, 1951; White Plains Reporter Dispatch, 9/5/1982] Author Roger Williams will later write of Fast’s descriptions, “Fast’s account, although marred by exaggeration and Marxist rhetoric, is substantially supported by other participants and eyewitnesses.” [American Heritage, 3/1976]
Initial Media Responses Relatively Favorable to Mob - The first media reports and commentary about the concert are far more supportive of the mob (see August 28, 1949, and After) than later examples (see Mid-September 1949).
Second Attempt - Within hours, Fast and the concert organizers decide to reschedule a second concert, this time to be protected by large numbers of burly union workers (see September 4, 1949, and After).
Entity Tags: William Secor, Paul Robeson, American Legion, Milton Flynt, Howard Fast, Roger Williams
Category Tags: Anti-Communist Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Beatings/Mobs, 1949 Peekskill Riots
September 4, 1949, and After: Second Peekskill Riots Ensue, over 100 Injured
Eugene Bullard being beaten by police officers and rioters. [Source: Howard Fast]The second Peekskill concert, organized by left-wing activists and featuring African-American singer Paul Robeson (see September 4, 1949), takes place successfully after the first was disrupted by a large, angry mob (see August 27, 1949). But another mob has gathered, and though they are unsuccessful in stopping the concert from taking place, they are ready for the audience and participants at the concert’s end.
Rock Attacks, Roadblocks - The audience members, with many women and children in their ranks, attempt to leave, mostly by car, and are told by security guards to roll up their windows as they are driving out, as the mob is apparently throwing rocks and other missiles. (A New York Times reporter later writes of the large piles of stones piled up about every 20 feet down one road, apparently placed their ahead of time for use as missiles.) However, the long, slow procession of cars attempting to leave the venue is halted when a small group of police officers attack the cars, including the vehicle bearing Robeson. None of the cars’ occupants are injured, though many windshields are smashed and fenders beaten in. Novelist and concert organizer Howard Fast, driving his own car, turns onto a secondary road to attempt to leave the venue, but his car is assaulted by a knot of six or seven rock throwers, accompanied by two police officers who do not throw rocks. Fast believes the police officers are there to protect the assailants if any of the cars stops to launch a counterattack. Fast will later learn that all of the secondary roads have similar knots of rock-throwing people in place to inflict damage on cars; some are blocked by piles of logs and boulders. He drives through several such ambushes, but he and the people with him escape injury.
145 Reported Injuries - Others are not so lucky; many people, including women and children, are seriously injured by rocks and broken glass. One concert goer, Eugene Bullard, is spat upon by a veteran and spits back; he is thrown to the ground and badly beaten by a group of police officers. Afterwards, Fast will report, the area hospitals quickly fill up with victims of the barrages, “the blinded, the bleeding and the wounded, the cut, lacerated faces, the fractured skulls, the infants with glass in their eyes, the men and women trampled and beaten, the Negroes beaten and mutilated, all the terribly hurt who had come to listen to music.” A union trademan, Sidney Marcus, is wounded so badly by a rock to the face that he requires weeks of reconstructive surgery. Fast later learns that approximately a thousand union workers had chosen to stay behind as something of a “rear guard” to protect the last of the audience members; they were assaulted by a combination of mob members and police officers, badly beaten, and threatened with incarceration. (Twenty-five were indeed arrested and taken away.) For Fast, the night ends when he returns to the area to look for a group of stranded audience members, and is shot at. He does not find the stranded people. The final tally is 145 concert-goers injured. [Fast, 1951; White Plains Reporter Dispatch, 9/5/1982; National Public Radio, 9/5/1999]
Arrests and Lawsuits - Twelve protesters are arrested; five later plead guilty to minor offenses. No one among the concert-goers and “Robesonites” is arrested. Author Roger Williams will later write: “As the victims of the violence they were hardly subject to arrest, except that the prevailing local attitude held them guilty of provoking the attacks made upon them. As the Peekskill mayor, John N. Schneider, put it, the responsibility ‘rests solely on the Robesonites, as they insisted on coming to a community where they weren’t wanted.’” Numerous civil lawsuits will be filed on behalf of groups of victims; none will be successful.
History Professor: Peekskill Becomes an 'Endorsement of ... Persecution' - Much later, history professor James Shenton will say, “Peekskill opened up what was to become extensive public endorsement of the prosecution and persecution of so-called Communists.”
Trying to Forget - Years later, the memory of the riots still haunts the area and intimidates many residents, according to Williams’s 1976 report. Residents refuse to discuss the riots, some for fear of reprisals even decades later. Williams will recount the story of one high school teacher, Anne Plunkett, who was amazed that her children knew nothing of the riots, even though some of them were the children of participants. But when she assigns her students the riots as an optional class project, as Plunkett will recall: “The first time, librarians wouldn’t give the kids access to the back newspapers. The next time, I was called to the principal’s office and told that parents had been telephoning to complain about my ‘upsetting and exciting the children unnecessarily.’” [American Heritage, 3/1976]
Entity Tags: Roger Williams, Sidney Marcus, John N. Schneider, James Shenton, Howard Fast, Eugene Bullard, Anne Plunkett, Paul Robeson
Late 1949: ACLU Finds Peekskill Riots Caused by Anti-Communist Rioters, Also Fueled by Anti-Semitism
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) releases the findings of its investigation into the Peekskill riots (see August 27, 1949 and September 4, 1949, and After). The report concludes, in part:
“There is no evidence whatever of Communist provocation… on either occasion.”
“While the demonstrations were organized to protest against and express hatred of Communism, the unprovoked rioting which resulted was fostered largely by anti-Semitism, growing out of local resentment against the increasing influx of Jewish summer residents from New York.” Some of the violence was triggered, the ACLU finds, by resentment left over from earlier attacks on a local Ku Klux Klan chapter. One of the buses used by the rioters carried a bumper sticker that read: “COMMUNISM IS TREASON. BEHIND COMMUNISM STANDS—THE JEW! THEREFORE, FOR MY COUNTRY—AGAINST THE JEWS.”
“The local press bears the main responsibility for inflaming, possibly through sheer irresponsibility, Peekskill residents to a mood of violence.”
“[Leftist activist and singer Paul] Robeson’s concerts were not an intrusion into Peekskill but were private gatherings held five miles outside of Peekskill, which were disrupted deliberately by invading gangs from nearby localities.”
“Terrorism was general against all who advocated freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and preservation of constitutional rights.”
“The evidence proves beyond question that the veterans intended to prevent the concerts from being held.”
“Effective police protection at the first concert was deliberately withheld.”
“Preparations to police the second concert appeared adequate; therefore, there was reason to believe that the concert-goers would be protected.… These preparations were largely a sham insofar as the Westchester County police were concerned and left the concert-goers undefended.”
“The wounding of William Secor, rioting veteran, occurred while he was assisting in the commission of a crime.” Secor, one of the rioters who attacked the concert-goers, was apparently the victim of an accidental knifing by one of his own colleagues.
“The evidence indicates that at least some of the state troopers honestly tried to preserve law and order while county police fraternized with the rioters.”
“There is strong indication that the initial violence was planned and was carried out according to plan.” The report details eyewitness accounts of veterans and locals filling the trunks of their cars with rocks. “The wide extent of the stoning indicates careful planning on the part of some person or persons. It can hardly be coincidence that, as cars with broken windows streamed down the county towards New York, they were met with volleys of stones in community after community through which they passed.”
“Terrorism spread over the whole area and included threats against private individuals, against their safety, lives, property, and business.”
“National condemnation has been the chief factor causing residents of the Peekskill area to question this action. The local clergy have joined in this denunciation.… Sentiment in the area is now sharply divided and there is evidence that the legal authorities are moving toward restriction of freedom of speech and assembly, presumably in violation of the Constitution.” [Atkinson et al., 1949 ; Fast, 1951]
Entity Tags: American Civil Liberties Union, William Secor, Paul Robeson
Category Tags: Anti-Communist Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, 1949 Peekskill Riots, Ku Klux Klan
1951-1967: Building Contractor Becomes Anti-Tax Protester, Hero to ‘Tax Protest Movement’
Arthur Porth, a Wichita, Kansas, building contractor, files a claim in a Kansas court to recover his income tax payment of $151. Porth argues that the 16th Amendment is unconstitutional because it places the taxpayer in a position of involuntary servitude contrary to the 13th Amendment. The court rules against Porth, but the defeat does not stop him. For 16 years Porth continues battling the income tax requirement, finding new and inventive challenges to the practice. He claims that the 16th Amendment “put[s] Americans into economic bondage to the international bankers,” a claim that the Southern Poverty Law Center will call “a thinly veiled anti-Semitic reference to the supposed ‘international Jewish banking conspiracy.’” He also argues that because paper money is not backed by gold or silver, taxpayers are not obligated to pay their taxes because “Federal Reserve notes are not dollars.” In 1961, Porth files an income tax return that is blank except for a statement declaring that he is pleading the Fifth Amendment, essentially claiming that filling out a tax return violates his right of protection from self-incrimination, a scheme that quickly becomes popular among anti-tax protesters. Porth becomes an activist and garners something of a following among right-wing audiences, traveling around the country distributing tax protest literature that includes a book, A Manual for Those Who Think That They Must Pay an Income Tax. He even issues his own “arrest warrants” against “bureaucrats” whom, in his view, violate the Constitution. In 1967, Porth is convicted of a number of tax evasion charges, but, as the Anti-Defamation League will later write, “he had already become a grass-roots hero to the nascent tax protest movement.” His cause is championed by, among others, William Potter Gale, who will go on to found the racist, anti-government Posse Comitatus movement (see 1969). Gale uses the newsletter of his Ministry of Christ Church, a church espousing the racist and anti-Semitic theology of Christian Identity (see 1960s and After), to promote Porth and the early tax rebellion movement. Porth exhausts his appeals and goes to jail; though sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, he only serves 77 days. One of Porth’s most active followers is his lawyer, Jerome Daly, whose activism eventually leads to his disbarment (see December 9, 1968 and After). Daly meets Porth in 1965 and files his own “protest” tax return just days before Porth is indicted by a grand jury. Daly is also convicted of tax evasion; in 1969, a federal appeals court will issue a ruling invalidating what has by then become known as the “Porth-Daly Fifth Amendment Return.” Porth receives the support of several far-right organizations, many of whom tie their racist views into his anti-tax protests. In a 1967 article for the far-right American Mercury magazine, tax protester and editor Martin A. Larson writes, “The negroes in the United States are increasing at a rate at least twice as great as the rest of the population,” and warns that the tax burden posed by blacks “unquestionably doomed… the American way of life.” Larson will later write regular columns for the white supremacist magazine The Spotlight, in which he will call black women prostitutes whose “offspring run wild in the streets, free to forage their food in garbage cans, and grow up to become permanent reliefers, criminals, rioters, looters, and, in turn, breeders of huge litters of additional human beings belonging to the same category.” He will also write several books promoting Porth’s anti-tax protest strategies. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]
Entity Tags: William Potter Gale, Arthur Porth, Jerome Daly, Martin A. Larson, Southern Poverty Law Center, US Federal Reserve
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
November 27, 1955 and After: Westboro Baptist Church Begins Operations
Part of the Westboro Baptist Church as it appears in recent years. The URL “godhatesamerica.com” is written on a banner hanging in front of the church. [Source: Ask (.com)]The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) in Topeka, Kansas, holds its first services under the auspices of Pastor Fred Waldron Phelps. Phelps, his wife, nine of his 13 children, and their spouses and children make up the core of the WBC’s small congregation. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will describe the church as a virtual cult led by Phelps. Phelps and his extended family members live in houses on the WBC compound in Topeka, with the houses arranged in a box formation and sharing a central backyard. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] The congregation will quickly begin shedding members because of Phelps’s vitriolic preaching, and for a time Phelps will attempt to support the church by selling vacuum cleaners and baby carriages door-to-door. For years, much of the church’s income comes from Phelps’s children, who regularly sell candy door-to-door. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2001]
Atmosphere of Fear, Abuse Alleged - According to one of Phelps’s estranged children, Nathan Phelps, Phelps uses violence and abuse to keep the members in line; in the SPLC’s words, “cultivating an atmosphere of fear to maintain his authority.” Nathan and his two siblings, Mark Phelps, and Dortha Bird, will later leave the church and family, and all three will allege physical and psychological abuse in multiple newspaper and television interviews. Fred Phelps will dismiss all the allegations as “a sea of fag lies.” Nathan will allege that his father beat him with a leather strap and a mattock handle until he “couldn’t lie down or sit down for a week.” They will also allege that Phelps beat his wife, forced his children to fast, and other charges. No child abuse charges brought against Phelps will ever result in convictions, usually because the children will refuse to testify out of what Nathan Phelps will call fear of reprisal. Children in the Phelps family are kept close to the church, and, the SPLC will write, “their upbringing offers them few opportunities to integrate into mainstream society. It is common to see young children from the Phelps family at WBC pickets, often holding the group’s hateful signs. These children casually use the words ‘fag’ and ‘dyke’ in interviews, and the older children report having no close friends at school. The Phelps family raises its children to hold hateful and upsetting views, and to believe that all people not in WBC will go to hell.… The children quickly grow alienated in school and in society, leading them to build relationships almost exclusively within the family. This helps to explain why nine of Fred Phelps’ 13 children have remained members of the church.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2001; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] Phelps, who dropped out of the fundamentalist religious Bob Jones University, was ordained as a Baptist minister at the age of 17. He met his future wife Marge Phelps after his California street ministry against dirty jokes and sexual petting was the subject of a Time magazine profile. Between 1952 and 1968 the couple will have 13 children. Phelps will go on to earn a law degree from Washburn University in 1962, though he has some difficulty being admitted to the Kansas bar because no judge will be willing to vouch for his good character. Between 1951 and 2010, Phelps will be arrested multiple times for assault, battery, threats, trespassing, disorderly conduct, and contempt of court. He will be convicted four times, but will successfully avoid prison. He will decorate his WBC compound with an enormous upside-down American flag. He will go on to vilify both liberal and conservative lawmakers, including future President Ronald Reagan, and will praise enemies of the nation such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2001; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] Mark Phelps will later call his father “a small, pathetic old man” who “behaves with a viciousness the likes of which I have never seen.” All three estranged children say that Phelps routinely refers to African-Americans as “dumb n_ggers.” Bird later says, “He only started picketing in 1991, but I want people to understand that nothing’s changed, he’s been like this all along.” She will change her last name to Bird to celebrate her new-found freedom away from the family, though she will continue to live in the Topeka area. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2001]
Fundamentalist Doctrine - Phelps teaches a fundamentalist version of Calvinist doctrine called “Primitive Baptist,” in which members believe that God only chooses a select few to be saved, and everyone else is doomed to burn in hell. The WBC Web site will later explain: “Your best hope is that you are among those he has chosen. Your prayer every day should be that you might be. And if you are not, nothing you say or do will serve as a substitute.”
Successful Lawsuits Help Fund Church - In 1964, Phelps will found a law firm specifically for defending the church against civil suits; the firm employs five attorneys, all children of Phelps. Phelps himself is a lawyer, but he will be disbarred in 1979 by the Kansas Supreme Court, which will find that he shows “little regard for the ethics of his profession.” The church does not solicit or accept outside donations; much of its funding comes from successful lawsuits against the Topeka city government and other organizations and individuals. The SPLC will explain, “Because the Phelps family represents WBC in court, they can put the fees they win towards supporting the church.” As of 2007, many Phelps family members will work for the state government, bringing additional revenue to the church. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] Nathan Phelps will later say that his father routinely files frivolous lawsuits in the hope that his targets will settle out of court rather than face the expenditures of a bench trial. (One extreme example is a 1974 class action suit demanding $50 million from Sears over the alleged delay in delivering a television set. In 1980, Sears will settle the suit by paying Phelps $126. Another, more lucrative example is a 1978 civil rights case that earns Phelps almost $10,000 in legal fees as part of the settlement of a discrimination case.) [Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2001]
Reviling Homosexuality - One of the central tenets of the church’s practices is the vilification of homosexuality, which the church will use to propel itself into the public eye (see June 1991 and After, 1996, June 2005 and After, September 8, 2006, October 2-3, 2006, and April 2009). The church’s official slogan is “God Hates Fags.” The church will begin its anti-gay crusade in the late 1980s with the picketing of a Topeka park allegedly frequented by homosexuals. In the early 1990s, WBC will launch its nationwide anti-gay picketing crusade. The church will win international notoriety with its picketing of the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay student brutally murdered in Wyoming (see October 14, 1998 and October 3, 2003). After the 9/11 attacks, the church will begin claiming that God brought about the attacks to punish America for its tolerance of homosexuality (see September 8, 2006). The church will also begin picketing the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005, claiming that God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality and persecuting the WBC (see June 2005 and After). The church will win notable victories in court regarding its right to protest at funerals (see March 10, 2006 and After and June 5, 2007 and After). Nations such as Canada and the United Kingdom will ban WBC members from entering their borders to engage in protest and picketing activities (see August 2008 and February 2009). [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] Phelps will write in an undated pamphlet detailing the “message” of the WBC: “America is doomed for its acceptance of homosexuality. If God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for going after fornication and homosexuality then why wouldn’t God destroy America for the same thing?” In 2001, a Topeka resident will tell an SPLC researcher: “I’m so tired of people calling him an ‘anti-gay activist.’ He’s not an anti-gay activist. He’s a human abuse machine.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL): “Though the group’s specific focus may shift over time, they believe that nearly all Americans and American institutions are ‘sinful,’ so nearly any individual or organization can be targeted. In fact, WBC members say that ‘God’s hatred is one of His holy attributes’ and that their picketing is a form of preaching to a ‘doomed’ country unable to hear their message in any other way.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2012]
Entity Tags: Fred Waldron Phelps, Matthew Shepard, Kansas Supreme Court, Mark Phelps, Dortha Bird, Marge Phelps, Anti-Defamation League, Nathan Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church, Southern Poverty Law Center
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Gender-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Westboro Baptist Church, Rhetorical Violence
1960s and After: Racist, Separatist ‘Christian Identity’ Theology Spreads across US
One of a number of semi-official ‘Christian Identity’ logos. [Source: KingIdentity (.com)]The “Christian Identity” theology, formerly a fairly benign expression of what is known as “British-Israelism” or “Anglo-Israelism,” begins to spread throughout the US and Canada, particularly on the west coasts of these nations. This belief holds that white Americans and Canadians are the real descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel. In 2003, author Nicole Nichols, an expert on far-right racist and religious groups in America, will define the concept of “Christian Identity” as practiced by many white supremacist and separatist groups. Christian Identity is not an organization, she will write, but an ideology that many organizations have adopted in some form or fashion. Christian Identity “elevates white supremacy and separatism to a Godly ideal,” she will write, calling it “the ideological fuel that fires much of the activity of the racist far right.” According to Christian Identity theology, Jews are neither the “true Israelites” nor the true “chosen people” of God; instead, Christian Identity proponents claim, Jews are descended from an Asiatic people known as the Khazars, who settled near the Black Sea during the Middle Ages. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005; Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006] In 2005, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance will write, “Followers tend to be involved in political movements opposing gun control, equal rights to gays and lesbians, and militia movements,” and quote Michael Barkun, an expert on radical-right groups, as saying, “This virulent racist and anti-Semitic theology… is prevalent among many right-wing extremist groups and has been called the ‘glue’ of the racist right.” [Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006]
Beginnings; 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' - In the 1920s, William J. Cameron, editor of the Dearborn Independent weekly newspaper, popularized the anti-Semitic hoax manuscript called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which purported to detail the “secret teachings” of Judaism, including the planned takeover of the world’s governments, the subjugation of non-Semitic races, and the bizarre, cannibalistic rituals supposedly practiced by Jews. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Wesley Swift and 'Mud People' - In the 1940s, a former Methodist minister, Wesley Swift, started his own church, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Swift had deep ties to a number of radical right-wing groups including the Ku Klux Klan; Swift and his associates set the stage for the mutation of the Christian Identity into a loosely organized set of virulently anti-Semitic, racist belief systems that will come to be grouped together under the “Christian Identity” rubric. Swift himself taught that only the white race was created in the form of God, while Asian and African races were created from the “beasts of the fields,” and thusly are subhuman creations. In Swift’s version of Genesis, Eve, the wife of the first “true” man Adam, was seduced by The Serpent, who masqeueraded as a white man. Eve bore a son, Cain, who is the actual father of the Jewish people. This reinterpretation, sometimes called the “two-seed” or “seedliner” theory, supports the Christian Identity propensity to demonize Jews, whom Swift and others labeled the “spawn of Satan.” Today’s white Europeans and their American and Canadian descendants, Swift taught, are descended from the “true son” of Adam and Eve, Abel, and are the actual “chosen people” of God. Some Christian Identity adherents go even farther, claiming that subhuman “pre-Adamic” races existed and “spawned” the non-white races of the world, which they label “mud people.” [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Permeates Racist, Far-Right Groups - By the 1960s, a new group of Christian Identity leaders emerges to spread the Identity theology through the radical, racist right in America and Canada, popularizing the once-obscure ideology. Most prominent among them are three disciples of Swift: James K. Warner, William Potter Gale, and Richard Butler. Warner, who will move to Louisiana and play a leading role in the fight against civil rights, founds the Christian Defense League and the New Christian Crusade Church. Gale, an early leader of the Christian Defense League and its paramilitary arm, the California Rangers, goes on to found the Posse Comitatus (see 1969), the group that will help bring about the sovereign citizen movement. Gale will later found the Committee of the States and serve as the “chief of staff” of its “unorganized militia.” Butler moves Swift’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian to Idaho and recasts it as the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). Under the leadership of Butler, Gale, Warner, and others, Christian Identity soon permeates most of the major far-right movements, including the Klan and a racist “skinhead” organization known as the Hammerskins. It also penetrates many extreme anti-government activist groups. The Anti-Defamation League will write, “The resurgence of right-wing extremism in the 1990s following the Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992) and Waco standoffs (see April 19, 1993) further spread Identity beliefs.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] Nichols will write: “Christian Identity enclaves provide a trail of safe havens for movement activists, stretching from Hayden Lake in northern Idaho (the Aryan Nations stronghold) to Elohim City on the Oklahoma/Arkansas border (see 1973 and After). Many white supremacists on the run from federal authorities have found shelter and support from Christian Identity followers.” Some organizations such as the Montana Militia are headed by Identity adherents, but do not as a group promote the theology. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Bringing Forth the Apocalypse - Many Christian Identity adherents believe that the Biblical Apocalypse—the end of the world as it is currently known and the final ascendancy of select Christians over all others—is coming soon. Unlike some Christians, Identity adherents do not generally believe in the “rapture,” or the ascendancy of “saved” Christians to Heaven before the Apocalypse ensues; instead, Identity followers believe Jesus Christ will return to Earth only after the time of the “Tribulation,” a great battle between good and evil, which will set the stage for the return of Christ and the final transformation of the world. Identity followers believe it is their duty to prepare for the Apocalypse, and some believe it is their duty to help bring it about. They tend to cast the Apocalypse in racial terms—whites vs. nonwhites. Identity adherents believe that worldly institutions will collapse during the “end times,” and therefore tend to distrust such institutions, making Identity theology appealing to anti-government ideologies of groups such as militia, “Patriot,” and sovereign citizens groups. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
21st Century Identity - In the 21st century, Christian Identity groups are strongest in the Pacific Northwest of America and Canada, and the US Midwest, though Identity churches can be found throughout the US and in other parts of Canada. Identity churches also exist in, among other nations, Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, and South Africa (see June 25, 2003). The Anti-Defamation League will write: “Yet while spread far it is also spread thin. Estimates of the total number of believers in North America vary from a low of 25,000 to a high of 50,000; the true number is probably closer to the low end of the scale. Given this relatively small following, its extensive penetration of the far right is all the more remarkable.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Identity Violence - Identity adherents commit a number of violent acts, often against government and/or financial institutions, in an outsized proportion to their small numbers. In 1983, Identity adherent Gordon Kahl kills two US Marshals who attempt to arrest him on a parole violation, and kills an Arkansas sheriff before finally being gunned down by authorities (see February 13, 1983 and After). The white supremacist terrorist group The Order (see Late September 1983) contains a number of Identity members, including David Tate, who kills a Missouri Highway Patrol officer while attempting to flee to an Identity survivalist compound (see April 15, 1985). During the 1980s, small Identity groups such as The New Order (or The Order II) and the Arizona Patriots commit bombings and armored car robberies. After the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), Identity minister Willie Ray Lampley attempts a number of bombings (see November 9, 1995). In 1996, the Montana Freeman, led by Identity members, “stands off” federal authorities for 81 days (see March 25, 1996). Between 1996 and 1998, Eric Robert Rudolph, who has connections to Identity ministers such as Nord Davis and Dan Gayman, bombs an Atlanta gay bar (see February 21, 1997), several abortion clinics (see October 14, 1998), and the Atlanta Summer Olympics (see July 27, 1996 and After). In 1999, Identity member and former Aryan Nations security guard Buford Furrow goes on a shooting spree at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles (see August 10, 1999). [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Entity Tags: Eric Robert Rudolph, David Charles Tate, Willie Ray Lampley, William Potter Gale, Committee of the States, Church of Jesus Christ Christian, Christian Defense League, California Rangers, Anti-Defamation League, William J. Cameron, Arizona Patriots, Buford Furrow, Aryan Nations, Wesley Swift, New Christian Crusade Church, The New Order, Nord Davis, Nicole Nichols, Ku Klux Klan, The Order, Michael Barkun, Montana Militia, James K. Warner, Hammerskins, Richard Girnt Butler, Posse Comitatus, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, Gordon Kahl, Dan Gayman, Freemen
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Gender-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Law Enforcement Actions, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, Elohim City, Ku Klux Klan, Montana Freemen, Montana Militia, Other Militias, Separatists, Posse Comitatus, The Order, 1992 Ruby Ridge Standoff, 1993 Branch Davidian Siege, 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, Death of Robert Jay Mathews, Eric Rudolph Bombings, Bombs and Explosives, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc., Shooting/Guns
1967 - 1973: Anti-Semitic Mechanic, Oilfield Worker Joins Posse Comitatus
Farmer and mechanic Gordon Kahl, a World War II veteran who earned two Purple Hearts while flying bombing missions and a convert to the Christian Identity “religion” (see 1960s and After), now embraces the burgeoning anti-tax protest ideology (see 1951-1967). He writes a letter to the IRS telling it that he will never again “give aid and comfort to the enemies of Christ” by paying income taxes, which he calls tithing to “the synagogue of Satan.” Kahl is a virulent anti-Semite who believes that World War II was engineered by Jewish bankers who had “created” and backed Adolf Hitler in order to subjugate “the feisty German people.” Kahl denies that the Holocaust ever occurred, calling the concentration camps “mostly work camps” where less than 50,000 Jews died. Communism, he writes, is a “smoke screen” for “world Jewry,” which uses every means at its disposal—including the Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs—to deceive and undermine Christians. To his friends and family, Kahl is a loving father and husband and a scrupulously honest businessman, but as author Daniel Levitas will write in 2003: “These virtuous aspects of his character did not extend beyond his small Anglo-Saxon circle, however. Kahl’s world was divided strictly into opposites and he felt only murderous contempt for those who fell on the other side of the line—satanic Jews, nonwhites, and the Christian lackeys of the International Jewish Conspiracy.” Kahl is a firm believer in ZOG, the “Zionist Occupied Government” of the United States, and he believes that most law enforcement officials are either unwitting dupes of this “conspiracy” or knowing members. Kahl leaves California for the West Texas oilfields, and in 1973 joins the anti-tax, anti-government Posse Comitatus (see 1969). [Levitas, 2002, pp. 193] Kahl will be convicted of tax evasion (see 1975 - 1981) and, fleeing incarceration, will kill two police officers in a shootout and later die himself after killing a third (see February 13, 1983 and After and March 13 - June 3, 1983).
Entity Tags: Internal Revenue Service, Daniel Levitas, Gordon Kahl, Posse Comitatus
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Rhetorical Violence, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
December 9, 1968 and After: Anti-Tax Lawyer Successfully Has Bank Seizure Set Aside, Contending that Bank Loans Have No ‘Tangible Value’; Judge Rules Paper Money Has No Value
Minnesota attorney Jerome Daly defends himself in a lawsuit filed by the First National Bank of Montgomery, in a case later cited as First National Bank of Montgomery v. Daly. The bank sues Daly in Credit River Township, Minnesota, after foreclosing on his property for nonpayment of his mortgage, and seeks to evict Daly. Daly, a well-known anti-tax protester who has filed “protest” tax returns in the past (see 1951-1967), argues that the bank never actually loaned him any money, but merely created credit on its books. Since the bank did not give him anything of tangible value, he argues, the bank has no right to his property. Both the jury and the Justice of the Peace presiding over the case, Martin V. Mahoney, agree, and declare the mortgage “null and void.” In his ruling, Mahoney admits that the verdict runs counter to provisions in the Minnesota Constitution and some Minnesota statutes, but contends that such provisions are “repugnant” to the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights in the Minnesota Constitution. Mahoney finds in his ruling that all Federal Reserve paper money has no intrinsic value. Initially, Daly retains his right to the property and has his mortgage revoked, but the bank appeals the case and the verdict favoring Daly is reversed, as is a similar lawsuit brought by Daly against another bank. The Minnesota Supreme Court begins proceedings against Mahoney and Daly for “constructive contempt” of the law. Mahoney’s death in 1969 voids the proceedings against him, but Daly is subsequently disbarred for his arguments, which the Minnesota Supreme Court finds entirely fraudulent, “unprofessional,” and “reprehensible.” The case and its reasoning will be frequently cited in lawsuits challenging the US banking system, particularly the practice of “fractional reserve banking.” The case has no value as precedent, but will often be cited by groups supporting a government-owned central bank or opposing the Federal Reserve system. [State of Minnesota, County of Scott, First National Bank of Montgomery v. Daly, 12/9/1968 ; State of Minnesota, County of Scott, First National Bank of Montgomery v. Daly, 1/12/1969 ; US District Court for the District of Utah, 10/28/2008; Minnesota State Law Library, 5/27/2010]
Entity Tags: Minnesota Supreme Court, First National Bank of Montgomery, Jerome Daly, US Federal Reserve, Martin V. Mahoney
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1969: Anti-Semitic Posse Comitatus Gains Following among Michigan Farmers
The logo of the Posse Comitatus. [Source: Underground News Network]The Posse Comitatus, an anti-Semitic, right-wing “Christian Identity” organization (see 1960s and After), is founded by retired dry-cleaning executive Henry L. Beach in Portland, Oregon, who calls his organization the Sherriff’s Posse Comitatus (SPC) or Citizen’s Law Enforcement Research Committee (CLERC). Beach has supported Nazism since the 1930s, and formerly led a neo-Nazi organization called the Silver Shirts (see January 31, 1933). The Posse Comitatus is quickly taken over by William Potter Gale, a retired Army colonel who founded a similar organization called the US Christian Posse Association in Glendale, California, and manages to roll the two groups, and a few other loosely organized entities, into one. The Posse Comitatus dedicates itself to survivalism, vigilantism, and anti-government activities; its bylaws state that no federal or state governmental entity has any legal standing, and only county and town governments are legitimate. Furthermore, the organization believes that the entire federal government is controlled by Jews, and as such has no authority over whites. Beach’s original Posse manual states, “[O]fficials of government who commit criminal acts or who violate their oath of office… shall be removed by the posse to the most populated intersection of streets in the township and, at high noon, be hung by the neck, the body remaining until sundown as an example to those who would subvert the law.” According to a 1986 advisory published by the IRS, “members associated with some of the Posse groups wear tiny gold hangmen’s nooses on their lapels.” Posse members refuse to pay taxes whenever they can get away with it, and ignore laws that they feel cannot be enforced by “the enemy.” Instead, they claim to abide by a “common law,” defined as a set of principles that they themselves create and change at will. The organization begins making inroads into the farm communities of the Northwest and Upper Midwest after federal mismanagement of agricultural policies threatens the livelihood of many area farmers; the Posse tells them, “Farmers are victims of a Jewish-controlled government and banking system, federal taxes are illegal and loans need not be repaid.” Some area farmers embrace the message, and the Posse begins heavily recruiting in Michigan. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Nicole Nichols, 2003]
Anti-Government, Anti-Tax Ideology - The Posse Comitatus believes that the federal and state governments are inherently illegal and have no authority whatsoever; the highest elected official of the land, it says, is the county sheriff, who can form juries and call out “posses” of citizens to enforce the law as necessary. The movement strongly opposes paying taxes, particularly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and considers money issued by the Federal Reserve System as illegal. It says that the Constitution’s 16th Amendment, which gave Congress the right to tax citizens’ incomes, was illegally ratified and therefore unconstitutional; moreover, it says, careful examination of federal law tells it that income taxes are entirely voluntary. The Federal Reserve System is, as one Posse publication puts it, “a private monopoly which neither the people nor the states authorized in the Constitution.” The Federal Reserve’s printed money violates the Constitution. Some, but not all, Posse Comitatus members also express racist and separatist views similar to those of Christian Identity believers (see 1960s and After); these members say that the Federal Reserve is controlled by a small cabal of international Jewish bankers who intend to destroy the American economy. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996; US Constitution: Sixteenth Amendment, 2011; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Posse Comitatus members use the threat of violence, and sometimes actual violence, to express their anti-tax and anti-government ideologies (see 1972 and 1974).
Township Movement - The Posse spawns a directly related ideology, the “township movement,” led in part by Utah resident Walt P. Mann. Township advocates advocate setting up small sovereign communities that are answerable only to themselves. The Posse will set up a “constitutional township” on a 1,400-acre plot in Wisconsin and name it “Tigerton Dells,” posting signs that say, “Federal Agents Keep out; Survivors will be Prosecuted.” Tigerton Dells will appoint its own judges and foreign ambassadors before federal authorities seize the property (see 1984).
Movement Spreads throughout Northwest, Plains States - By 1976, an FBI report says that the Posse Comitatus movement will consist of up to 50,000 adherents throughout the Northwest and Great Plains states. The center of the movement is at Tigerton Dells; Posse members there will disrupt local government meetings and assault public officials. The farm crisis of the early 1980s will allow the Posse to begin converting angry, frightened farmers throughout the region. In 1996, the Anti-Defamation League’s Mark Pitcavage will write, “The Posse offered up targets for people to blame: the courts, the money system, the federal government, the Jews.”
Waging Legal Battles - While some Posse members offer violence to law enforcement and public officials (see February 13, 1983 and After), most of their battles with the government take place in court. Posse members most frequently use two common legal strategems: filing frivolous liens on the properties of public officials who oppose or anger them, particularly IRS agents, and flooding the courts with a barrage of legal documents, filings, motions, and appeals. The liens carry no legal weight but sometimes damage the recipients’ credit scores and interfere with the recipients’ ability to buy or sell property. The court documents, often written in arcane, archaic, and contradictory legal language, clog the court system and frustate judges and prosecutors. A related tactic is the establishment of “common law courts,” vigilante courts that often threaten public officials. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996]
Inspiration to Other Groups - The Posse Comitatus’s ideology will inspire other anti-government groups, such as the Montana Freemen (see 1993-1994).
Entity Tags: US Federal Reserve, William Potter Gale, Walt P. Mann, Internal Revenue Service, Posse Comitatus, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Henry L. Beach, Mark Pitcavage, Sherriff’s Posse Comitatus, US Christian Posse Association
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Rhetorical Violence, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1970s: ’Ecoterrorist’ Groups Begin Operations in US
A number of small, loosely affiliated “ecoterrorist” groups begin to form, mostly in California and West Coast areas of the United States, though their operations are evident throughout the nation. Some of the more prominent groups include: the Animal Liberation Front (ALF—see 1976); Earth Liberation Front (ELF—see 1997); and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC—see 1998). Generally, the groups’ ideology embraces the concept of using property damage to hinder or stop the exploitation of animals and the destruction of the environment. These organizations usually target the operations of companies in related industries, or sometimes terrorize executives and employees of these firms. The companies usually targeted include automobile dealerships, housing developments, forestry companies, corporate and university-based medical research laboratories, restaurants, and fur farms. As of 2005, no one will have been injured in these attacks, though the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) will predict that the steady escalation of violence from the groups may result in injury or even death. The groups will cause millions of dollars in damage to property and items, usually through arson, bombings, and vandalism. The “ecoterrorist” groups tend to be small, and made up of environmental and animal rights activists on the “fringes” of the mainstream movements who have become frustrated with the slow pace of change. Some members are also affiliated with one or another of the various “anarchist” groups. The ADL will contrast the typical “ecoterrorist” group with racist and white supremacist groups, noting that their organizational structure tends to be extremely egalitarian and sometimes almost nonexistent: “Unlike racial hate groups with established hierarchies and membership requirements, for example, an activist can become a member of the ecoterror movement simply by carrying out an illegal action on its behalf.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] The term “ecoterrorism” does not gain widespread usage until after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will note that “members of Congress, conservative commentators, and the FBI [will join] in a chorus decrying the acts as ‘ecoterrorism.’” Charles Muscoplat, the dean of agriculture at the University of Minnesota—a targeted site—says: “These are clearly terroristic acts. Someone could get hurt or killed in a big fire like we had.” ALF spokesman David Barbarash (see 1998) says in response: “I mean, what was the Boston Tea Party if not a massive act of property destruction?… Property damage is a legitimate political tool called economic sabotage, and it’s meant to attack businesses and corporations who are profiting from the exploitation, murder, and torture of either humans or animals, or the planet.… [T]o call those acts terrorism is ludicrous.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2002]
Entity Tags: David Barbarash, Animal Liberation Front, Anti-Defamation League, Charles Muscoplat, Southern Poverty Law Center, Earth Liberation Front, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Category Tags: Environmental Activism, Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, SHAC, Arson, Bombs and Explosives, Harassment and Threats, Vandalism
1970-1972: Tax Protester Writes Popular Book, Jailed for Tax Evasion
Arizona tax protester Marvin Cooley writes a best-selling book, The Big Bluff, documenting the struggles of his fellow anti-tax protester, W. Vaughn Ellsworth. Cooley, whose gruff tirades against the IRS and the federal government make him popular on the far-right speaking circuit—in 1971, he wrote to the IRS: “I will no longer pay for the destruction of my country, family, and self. Damn tyranny! Damn the Federal Reserve liars and thieves! Damn all pettifogging, oath-breaking US attorneys and judges.… I will see you all in Hell and shed my blood before I will be robbed of one more dollar to finance a national policy of treason, plunder, and corruption”—includes sample letters and copies of his own tax returns in his book. Among Cooley’s adherents is Robert Jay Mathews, who will go on to found the violent neo-Nazi group The Order (see Late September 1983). In 1970, the 17-year-old Mathews, still living with his parents in Phoenix, becomes a sergeant-at-arms for some of Cooley’s meetings. In 1973, Mathews will use Cooley’s income tax theories to fraudulently list 10 dependents on his W-4 tax form, a common protest tactic that winds up with Mathews convicted of tax fraud (see 1973). Cooley, a vocal proponent of tax protester Arthur Porth (see 1951-1967)‘s “Fifth Amendment Return” strategy (refusing to pay taxes on Fifth Amendment grounds) will go to jail for tax evasion in 1973 and again in 1989. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]
Entity Tags: Marvin Cooley, Arthur Porth, Internal Revenue Service, W. Vaughn Ellsworth, Robert Jay Mathews, US Federal Reserve
1970-1974: White Supremacist Leaves Nazi Party, Founds National Alliance
William Pierce. [Source: Qbitblog (.com)]William Pierce, a white supremacist and a senior research scientist at Pratt and Whitney Advanced Materials Research and Development Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, quits the National Socialist White People’s Party (NSWPP), the remnants of the American Nazi Party (ANP), which had begun to collapse after the August 1967 assassination of its leader, George Lincoln Rockwell, Pierce’s mentor. Pierce leaves the organization after a violent argument with its leadership and joins the National Youth Alliance (NYA). This group formed from what was Youth for Wallace, a 1968 organization founded by Willis Carto to garner support on college campuses for segregationist George Wallace (D-AL)‘s third-party presidential campaign (see 1964 and May 15, 1972). After the 1968 election, the group renamed itself and continued its work on university campuses. In 1974, after a bitter power struggle between Carto and Pierce, the organization splinters. Pierce calls his burgeoning organization the National Alliance, incorporating it in February 1974. In 2002, Carto will tell a reporter: “I started the Youth for Wallace. After the election, the Youth for Wallace head Louis Byers, he took the mailing list and went to Pierce and made a deal. That’s where the National Youth Alliance came from, then Pierce changed the name.” Carto will form the Liberty Lobby, which will publish a prominent white supremacist tabloid, The Spotlight, and will found the Institute for Historical Review, which will specialize in “proving” the Holocaust never happened. Pierce and Carto will remain bitter rivals. Pierce will write The Turner Diaries, an inflammatory “future history” of a white revolution in America that leads to the overthrow of the government and the extermination of minorities (see 1978), which Pierce will serialize in the Alliance’s newsletter, “Attack!” (later renamed “National Vanguard”). [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ] Pierce is joined in creating the National Alliance by former John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011) co-founder Revilo P. Oliver. Pierce and Oliver will soon name Adolf Hitler “the greatest man of our era.” [NewsOne, 2/24/2010]
Entity Tags: William Luther Pierce, Revilo P. Oliver, Willis Carto, National Youth Alliance, Louis Byers, National Alliance, George Lincoln Rockwell, George C. Wallace, John Birch Society, Liberty Lobby, American Nazi Party, National Socialist White People’s Party, Institute for Historical Review
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, National Alliance
Early 1970s: Idaho Racist Founds Aryan Nations
The Aryan Nations logo. [Source: Southern Poverty Law Center]Aerospace engineer and white racist Richard Butler, who departed California in the early 1970s and moved into a rural farmhouse in Hayden Lake, Idaho, founds and develops one of the nation’s most notorious and violent white separatist groups, the Aryan Nations. Butler’s 20-acre farmhouse becomes the compound for the group and its affiliated church, the Church of Jesus Christ Christian; Butler and his nascent organization envision a “whites-only” “homeland” in the Pacific Northwest. At age 11, Butler read a serialized novel in Liberty Magazine, depicting the takeover of the US by “race-mixing Bolsheviks” that deeply impressed him. As a young man, he worked as an aeronautical engineer in India, where he was fascinated by the Indian caste structure and the concept of racial purity. In 1941 he left a Los Angeles church after concluding that the preacher was spreading Communist doctrine. During World War II, as an Army engineer, he became fascinated by the German military, and later recalls that he “was thrilled to see the movies of the marching Germans.… In those days, all we knew was that Hitler hated communists, and so did my folks—as we did as teenagers.” In the 1950s, Butler was enthralled by radio broadcasts of then-Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) and his “Red scare” accusations, and sent money to support McCarthy’s political campaigns. During that time, Butler met William Potter Gale, another white supremacist who went on to found the Posse Comitatus (see 1969). Butler held a high position in the Christian Defense League, an organization founded by the Reverend Wesley Swift and described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as “virulently anti-Semitic,” until 1965, and shortly thereafter became a mail-order “ordained minister” of Christian Identity, a white supremacist offshoot of the Christian church (see 1960s and After). Butler buys the farmhouse in Hayden Lake and founds his own “Christian Posse Comitatus,” and thereafter founds the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. The two groups merge into what later becomes known as Aryan Nations. [Washington Post, 6/2/2003; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]
Entity Tags: William Potter Gale, Wesley Swift, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Girnt Butler, Church of Jesus Christ Christian, Posse Comitatus, Christian Defense League, Aryan Nations, Southern Poverty Law Center
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, Rhetorical Violence
May 2, 1970: Ohio Governor: Kent State Protesters ‘Worse than’ Nazis and Klansmen, Promises to ‘Eradicate the Problem’
James A. Rhodes. [Source: Ohio History Central (.org)]James A. Rhodes (R-OH), the governor of Ohio, says of student protesters at Kent State University: “They’re worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes (see 1970). They’re the worst kind of people we harbor in America. I think that we’re up against the strongest, well-trained, militant revolutionary group that has ever assembled in Ameica.… We’re going to eradicate the problem, we’re not going to treat the symptoms.” Two days later, National Guardsmen following Rhodes’s orders kill four unarmed students on the Kent State campus and wound nine others (see May 4-5, 1970). [Hunt, 9/1/2009, pp. 19]
Entity Tags: James A. Rhodes, Kent State University, Ohio National Guard
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Rhetoric from National Figures
May 5, 1970: Reagan on Kent State: ‘If It Takes a Bloodbath, Then Let’s Get It Over With’
Governor Ronald Reagan listens to a statement by an antiwar protester, 1970. [Source: Not in Kansas (.com)]Speaking in support of the Kent State shootings, in which National Guardsmen slew four unarmed students and wounded nine others (see May 2, 1970 and May 4-5, 1970), Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA) says of efforts to stop student protests on university campuses, “If it takes a bloodbath, then let’s get it over with.” [Hunt, 9/1/2009, pp. 19]
Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan
Category Tags: Rhetoric from National Figures, Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action
1972: Posse Comitatus Group Threatens Michigan Law Enforcement Officials over Anti-Tax Protester
A Posse Comitatus group (see 1969) in Michigan sends threatening notices to local law enforcement agencies about the agencies’ enforcement of state tax laws against tax protester George Kindred. [Anti-Defamation League, 2011]
Entity Tags: Posse Comitatus
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Law Enforcement Actions, Posse Comitatus, Harassment and Threats
December 31, 1972 - January 8, 1973: Navy Veteran Goes on Racially Motivated Shooting Spree in New Orleans, Kills Nine
A Navy photo of Mark Essex. [Source: US Navy / Crime Magazine]Mark James “Jimmy” Robert Essex, a 23-year-old African-American who served as a dental technician in the US Navy (and was stationed in California while many of his fellow soldiers were serving in Vietnam), launches a killing spree in New Orleans that results in nine dead and 13 wounded.
History of Racial Complaints, Membership of Extremist Group - Essex is apparently driven by racism and anger over what he considers to be personal and historical slights; while stationed in San Diego, he filed numerous complaints about being treated unfairly due to his race, and was disciplined several times for engaging in fights with white sailors. While in the Navy, Essex became interested in the Black Panthers, and befriended a fellow recruit, a Black Muslim who had a record of violent crime before entering the service. A friend of Essex’s in the Navy later recalls Essex changing drastically, “in a matter of weeks,” after meeting his new friend. Essex was court-martialed for going AWOL (absent without leave), and told the court during the proceedings, “I had begun to hate all white people.” He was discharged with a diagnosis of “character and behavior disorders,” and went to New York City for a time, where he immersed himself in a chapter of the Black Panthers and the members’ revolutionary, violent rhetoric. He rejoined his Navy friend in New Orleans in August 1972, where he has lived until now.
Spree Begins - In preparation for the spree, Essex carries a .38 revolver with the serial number removed, a Ruger .44 Magnum carbine rifle, a gas mask, firecrackers, lighter fluid, and ammunition. Essex begins his spree by hiding in a parking lot close to the New Orleans Police Department, and with the Ruger shoots two police officers, Cadet Alfred Harrell and Lieutenant Horace Perez. Harrell, an African-American, dies, while Perez survives his wounds. Essex misses his intended target, Cadet Bruce Weatherford. Harrell is the only African-American Essex shoots. It is impossible to know if Essex deliberately fires on a fellow African-American or simply does not recognize Harrell’s race. As the police respond to the shooting, Essex sets off diversionary firecrackers, jumps a chain-link fence, and flees, accidentally dropping the revolver, the gas mask, and some ammunition. He then breaks into a warehouse, setting off a silent alarm. Essex waits quietly for the police to respond to the break-in. Two officers respond. One, Edwin Hosli, receives a Ruger bullet in the back as he steps out of his car. His partner returns fire and calls for backup. The police swarm over the warehouse, but Essex has already fled. Hosli will die of his wounds two months later. Evidence shows that Essex may have been wounded by gunfire, or had cut himself on broken glass. The police discover clothing, a filter canister for a gas mask, 50 .38-caliber shells, and three unfired .44 magnum cartridges. The hunt for Essex leads into a poor, predominantly African-American area of the city known as Gert Town. Some of the officers theorize that the shooter deliberately dropped the three .44 cartridges to lead them into Gert Town, a theory bolstered by their subsequent discovery of a “trail” of cartridges. They follow the trail to the deserted Saint Mark Baptist Church. Detective Emmett Dupas later tells a writer: “It was clear that it was a trap, that we were being set up. The bullets were always in pairs and always pointed in the same direction.” [Crime Magazine, 7/11/2011; New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12/16/2011; TruTV, 2012]
Dodging the Police - While planning how best to enter the church without exposing themselves to the shooter’s fire, the officers learn that Chief of Police Clarence Giarrusso has called off the search. Throughout the night and the early morning, Giarrusso’s office has received numerous complaints from residents about the heavy police presence in Gert Town, and the sometimes-harsh search methods being used, with officers kicking in doors and searching homes without warrants. That evening the church pastor spots Essex inside the church and runs to a neighbor’s house to call the police. By the time police arrive, Essex is gone. On January 2, about 6 p.m., Essex enters a grocery store near the church, wearing a bloodied bandage on his left hand. He buys lipstick and makeup and departs; the store owner, suspicious because of the number of news reports about the escaped shooter, alerts the police. The police are unable to find Essex. During the evening of January 3, the police respond to a tip that the shooter is hiding inside another church in Gert Town. The police fail to find Essex, but they do find a bag of .38-caliber cartridges and a note, later proven to have been written by Essex, apologizing to the pastor for breaking into the church. On the morning of January 7, Essex returns to the store, shoots the owner, and flees in a stolen car.
Howard Johnson's - Essex hides in a parking garage adjacent to a Howard Johnson’s Hotel near City Hall and other government buildings, and gains access to the hotel’s 18th floor through a door that has been propped open. He frightens three black housekeepers, but tells them not to worry, that he is only hunting whites. He runs across Dr. Robert Steagall and Steagall’s wife Betty; Steagall attempts to stop Essex, but after a brief struggle for the weapon, Essex shoots Dr. Steagall in the chest and then Mrs. Steagall in the back of the head, killing them both. He uses his lighter fluid to set the Steagalls’ room on fire, and drops a black, green, and red African flag on the floor beside the two. He then breaks into the 11th floor via the stairwell, and sets fires in empty rooms all along the corridor. Essex kills assistant manager Frank Schneider on the 11th floor. As smoke billows out of the hotel window and the switchboard lights up with calls about an armed man in the hallway, Essex goes to the 10th floor, where he shoots and kills hotel general manager Walter Collins. As police and firemen respond to the reports, Essex, now on the 8th floor, shoots hotel guest Robert Beamish while Beamish is standing next to the pool far below. Beamish survives the gunshot. Essex, setting more fires on the 8th floor, spots fireman Tim Ursin climbing a ladder to the 11th floor, and shoots him in the forearm. Policeman Bill Trapagnier, climbing behind Ursin, returns fire. New Orleans police surround the hotel, many of them carrying personal weaponry. (TruTV writer Chuck Hustmyre will later explain that the New Orleans Police Department, like most urban police departments, has not yet implemented what will come to be known as SWAT teams, so the police lack high-powered weaponry and body armor.) Essex fires at the officers from his perch on the 8th floor, earning cheers from some of the onlookers when he shoots. Essex wounds Officer Ken Solis in the shoulder and Sergeant Emanuel Palmisano in the arm and back while Palmisano tries to help Solis. He kills Officer Philip Coleman with another head shot while Coleman is also attempting to help Palmisano and Solis. And, after climbing to the 16th floor, he shoots Officer Paul Persigo in the head, killing him instantly. He also wounds an ambulance driver and a fire chief.
Command Post - Giarrusso, now on site, sets up his command post in the Howard Johnson’s lobby, forcing his officers to run a “gauntlet” of police and sniper gunfire to enter and exit the post. Deputy Police Chief Louis Sirgo assembles a team of five volunteers to rescue two officers trapped in an elevator near the top of the hotel. Essex is waiting on the 16th floor for them. When they arrive, Essex kills Sirgo with a shot to the spine and flees to the hallway. He mounts the roof. Police in the command post are beside themselves, and many think they are facing a team of assailants, not a single lone gunman. Erroneous reports flood the police airwaves, some claiming that as many as three shooters are in the hotel and that they have hostages. Giarrusso orders another group of officers up the stairwells, to locate and isolate the shooter(s) and, if possible, to force him or them onto the roof. One group of officers reaches the rooftop, and smashes its way through the locked door. Essex is waiting. He shoots Officer Larry Arthur in the stomach; Arthur manages to return fire before collapsing, though his shotgun blast misses Essex. More officers rush the roof. Giarrusso wants to secure the roof before nightfall if possible, but twilight is already coming.
Helicopter - Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Pitman volunteers to fly a Coast Guard helicopter into the area. Pitman, a Vietnam veteran recuperating from a leg wound suffered in combat, takes two Marine sergeants armed with M-14 rifles with him for protection. By the time they are airborne, it is entirely dark and the hotel shrouded in fog. Giarrusso sends a group of armed volunteers with Pitman into the helicopter. By this time, Essex is somewhat pinned down by Officer Antoine Saacks, an ex-Marine who has brought an M-16 with a thousand rounds of ammunition and has trapped Essex behind the protection of a cinderblock cubicle wall. Saacks asks permission to go up with Pitman and drop onto the roof, but Giarrusso refuses to allow him to drop out of the copter. Instead, Pitman and the heavily-armed police officers, including Saacks, ascend beside the roof. Pitman uses a spotlight to search the roof, while Saacks and the other sharpshooters rake the roof with gunfire. They lay down so much fire that Saacks actually expends all one thousand rounds of ammunition, and they are forced to return for more ammunition before going up a second time and them a third time. Meanwhile, Essex is returning fire, accurately; the helicopter takes several hits. Finally Saacks determines that the sniper is using a metal water pipe to move back and forth from the protection of the cinderblock alcove to another spot on the roof where he can shoot. Saacks and the other police officers pour fire into the water pipe, causing it to split open.
Killed by a Hail of Gunfire - The gunfire flushes Essex onto the roof, where the searchlight spots him as he snaps off return fire at the helicopter. “I saw him come out of the dark,” Pitman later recalls. Essex fires a bullet directly at Pitman, but strikes the transmission housing instead. The helicopter hovers 10 feet off the roof and less than 50 feet from Essex as Saacks reloads for the final exchange. “I just walked the bullets right into him,” Saacks later recalls. Saacks’s gunfire is joined by fire from other officers, including a group that has reached the roof. Essex is killed by the onslaught of gunfire; over 200 bullet wounds are later counted. One sniper later recalls that the medical team had to use “a scooper” to remove Essex’s remains.
'Shrine' of Racial Hatred - Police continue to hunt into the next day for Essex’s presumed cohorts, but find nothing. Police eventually identify Essex, and break into his apartment, to find what Hustmyre later terms “a shrine dedicated to his hatred.” Racist graffiti covers his wall space, with the words “hate” and “kill” repeated over and over again. Police find Muslim and Black Panthers newsletters, a copy of the book Black Rage, and a map with the locations of the police department and the Howard Johnson’s Hotel circled. Trapagnier will be one of a number of officers still unsure that Essex operated on his own. He later tells a Times-Picayune reporter, “My gut feeling is, I shot at two different people.”
Warning Letter - The New Orleans television station WWL turns over a handwritten note Essex had sent it sometime in late December. Station personnel had not opened the letter until January 6, the day before Essex’s spree, and had not realized the note was connected with the shootings until afterwards. The police crime lab later proves the note was written by Essex. It reads in its entirety: “Africa greets you. On Dec. 31, 1972, aprx. 11 p.m., the downtown New Orleans Police Department will be attacked. Reason—many, but the death of two innocent brothers will be avenged. And many others. P.S. Tell pig Giarrusso the felony action squad ain’t sh_t.” He signed the note “Mata’.” The 900-page police report later concludes with the following statement concerning Essex’s motive: “What he intended to achieve will probably remain in the grave with him.” The New York office of the Black Panther Party will send a note of condolence to Essex’s parents, calling Essex a “warrior and revolutionary.” The New Orleans Times-Picayune will state that Essex harbored “an insane hatred of the police.” [New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12/16/2011; TruTV, 2012]
Entity Tags: Bruce Weatherford, Robert Beamish, Bill Trapagnier, Robert Steagall, US Department of the Navy, WWL-TV, Black Panthers, Alfred Harrell, Antoine Saacks, Betty Steagall, Paul Persigo, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Walter Collins, Mark James (“Jimmy”) Robert Essex, Clarence Giarrusso, Chuck Pitman, Chuck Hustmyre, Edwin Hosli, New Orleans Police Department, Philip Coleman, Horace Perez, Emmett Dupas, Ken Solis, Emanuel Palmisano, Louis Sirgo, Larry Arthur
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Other Militias, Separatists, Shooting/Guns
1973: Florida Legislator Founds White Supremacist Church
Ben Klassen. [Source: Creativity Movement (.com)]Former Florida state legislator Benhardt “Ben” Klassen, who served as Florida chair of the 1968 presidential campaign of George Wallace (D-AL), forms the Church of the Creator (COTC) in Lighthouse Point, Florida. Klassen was born in the Ukraine in 1918, and later lived in Mexico and Canada before moving to California as an adult. He is a former elementary school teacher and an inventor, earning a patent for an electric can opener in 1954. He moved to Florida in 1958, where he became a successful real estate agent. He became a Republican representative to the Florida House of Representatives in 1965, where he campaigned against desegregation and the federal government. He is a lifetime member of the far-right John Birch Society (see March 10, 1961 and December 2011), though he has denounced the group as a “smokescreen for the Jews” and accused Wallace of “betraying” his supporters by intentionally courting African-American support. Klassen explains his race-based religion in his church’s 511-page holy book, Nature’s Eternal Religion. Among its “16 commandments”: “It is our sacred goal to populate the lands of this earth with White people exclusively.” Klassen popularizes the war cry “Rahowa,” which stands for RAcial HOly WAr. [Anti-Defamation League, 1993; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999] Members of the COTC, according to Klassen’s writings, see “every issue, whether religious, political, or racial, [a]s viewed through the eyes of the White Man and exclusively from the point of view of the White race as a whole.… We completely reject the Judeo-democratic-Marxist values of today and supplant them with new and basic values, of which race is the foundation.” While most right-wing extremist groups use Christianity to justify their racism, Klassen and the COTC attack Christianity as a “tremendous weapon in the worldwide Jewish drive of race-mixing.” Klassen writes that Jews “concocted” Christianity “for the very purpose of mongrelizing and destroying the White Race.” According to Klassen, Jews are “parasites” who “control and manipulate the finances, the propaganda, the media, and the governments of the world.” [Anti-Defamation League, 7/6/1999] In 2004, author Chip Berlet will write that Klassen’s religion, “Creativity,” claims that whites are destined “to rule the world and thus fulfill the purpose of the universe. To attain this destiny, it is necessary to destroy the enemies and race traitors who prevent this from happening. The primary enemies are Jews, blacks, and other ‘mud people,’ and white race traitors, including most Christians. Klassen credits the influence of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the development of his views.… What Klassen did was to pick up ideas from the theories of [German philosopher Friedrich] Nietzsche, pantheisim, Odinism, and Celtic paganism as filtered through German Nazi retelling of the Norse heroic warrior myths, to create a religion of Aryanist white supremacy. Discarding the details, he created a form of cosmotheism in which the supreme power is the collective will of the Aryan race. The duty of every member of the Aryan race is to reflect the ideals of the heroic warrior and do battle with the enemies of the race.… Like other forms of fascism, the idea of action is central to the philosophy, as is the celebration of violence and the spilling of blood as part of a rite of passage to full adulthood.” [Chip Berlet, 2004]
Entity Tags: John Birch Society, World Church of the Creator, Benhardt (“Ben”) Klassen, Chip Berlet
Category Tags: Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, WCOTC
1973: Anti-Government Organizer Convicted of Tax Fraud
Robert Jay Mathews, a young conservative and resistance-movement organizer living in Phoenix, Arizona, is arrested for submitting fraudulent income tax returns. Mathews, who has read a recently published book, The Big Bluff by anti-tax protester Marvin Cooley (see 1970-1972) and served as sergeant-at arms for some of Cooley’s meetings in Phoenix, does not believe the US government has the right to compel him to pay taxes. Mathews uses Cooley’s income-tax theories to fraudulently list ten dependents on his W-4 tax form, a common protest tactic that backfires when tax assessors realize that a 20-year old unmarried man is unlikely to have so many dependents. Mathews is convicted of misdemeanor tax fraud; he is given six months’ probation and warned if he commits tax fraud again, he will be charged with felony tax evasion. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Mathews will go on to found The Order, one of the most violent anti-government organizations in modern US history (see Late September 1983). He will die during a 1984 standoff with FBI agents (see December 8, 1984).
Entity Tags: Marvin Cooley, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, The Order
1973 and After: White Supremacist Compound ‘Elohim City’ Founded; Becomes Center of Plotting, Violence
Andreas Strassmeir, a frequent Elohim City resident and arms expert. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Millar, a former Mennonite who left Canada for the US in the early 1950s, moves to the Ozark Mountain region of eastern Oklahoma and founds what he calls “Elohim City,” a small compound populated by his four sons and 12 other followers. Elohim City grows to become a 400-acre compound populated with 70 to 100 “Christian Identity” white supremacists and religious extremists, who believe that whites are the only true people and all others are subhuman “mud people” (see 1960s and After). Elohim is a Hebrew word for God. Elohim City, accessible only via a rocky road and a single steel bridge, soon becomes a haven for violent right-wing extremists, including Timothy McVeigh, who will call the compound two weeks before bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and Andreas “Andy the German” Strassmeir, a German weapons buff with ties to neo-Nazi groups and an alleged co-conspirator of McVeigh’s (see August 1994 - March 1995). The residents receive intensive paramilitary training, often led by Strassmeir, and the compound contains a large arsenal of weapons. Elohim City becomes the headquarters of the Aryan Republican Army (see 1992 - 1995), an organization that has Strassmeir as its “chief of security.” Some of the Elohim City residents such as ARA member Dennis Mahon come to believe that Strassmeir is a government informant. Author Nicole Nichols, an expert on right-wing hate groups, will later say she believes Strassmeir is the infamous “John Doe #2” of the Oklahoma City bombing (see April 20, 1995). [Associated Press, 2/23/1997; Time, 2/24/1997; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003] A 2002 report by the Anti-Defamation League says that after the Oklahoma City bombing, Elohim City changes to become a less militant settlement, populated largely by white separatists and religious fundamentalists seeking to withdraw from the world. Before his death in 2001, Millar says: “Somebody said, ‘You’re not a racist, you’re a purist.’ I sort of liked that.” John Millar, who becomes the community leader after his father’s death, says: “[W]e consider ourselves survivalists in the sense that we want to survive the best way we can.… We have weapons, but any person within 15 miles of us has more weapons per household than we do. We don’t make a big thing about weapons. We don’t think we can keep the National Guard away with a few weapons.” An unnamed government informer tells a New York Post reporter in June 2001: “McVeigh is a hero inside Elohim City. They look upon him ‘as a martyr to their cause.’” [Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002]
Entity Tags: Nicole Nichols, Dennis Mahon, Aryan Republican Army, Anti-Defamation League, Andreas Strassmeir, Elohim City, John Millar, Timothy James McVeigh, Robert Millar
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Christian Identity, Elohim City
October 20, 1973 - May 1, 1974: Racially Motivated ‘Zebra’ Killings Sweep through San Francisco
Anthony Cornelius Harris. [Source: Corbis / TruTV]A wave of politically motivated murders takes place in San Francisco, claiming the lives of 15 people. Eight others are wounded. Most of the victims are shot to death; the first two victims, Richard Hague and his wife Quita, are attacked with machete blows. Quita Hague is also sexually molested. She is nearly decapitated, but Hague, though suffering terrible wounds, survives. Shopkeeper Saleem “Sammy” Erakat, a Jordanian Arab, is murdered, apparently for appearing “too white.” College student Angela Roselli, who survives an attack, remembers her assailant as having “this zombie look” as he shot her. “It was like he was in a trance. He was looking at me, but he was looking through me,” she says. The killings, called the “Zebra murders,” are later found to be racially motivated. “It was a very frightening time for the people of this city because of the random nature of the shootings,” future San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos will recall; Agnos is gravely wounded by one of the killers in December 1973, shot twice in the back. The killings are perpetrated by a small number of black extremists, members of the “Death Angels,” a splinter group from the Nation of Islam, which officially repudiates violence in its name. Mayor Joseph Alioto tells reporters that the “Death Angels” are a group “dedicated to the murder and mutilation of whites and dissident blacks.” Local press accounts falsely report that the killings are “initiation rituals” for membership in the Nation of Islam, and local African-American leaders take umbrage at Alioto’s implication that members of that organization are responsible for the murders. The name “Zebra” does not come from the black-against-white nature of the murders, but from the special radio band, “Z for Zebra,” used by police during their seven-month hunt for the killers. During the intensive police investigation, Alioto orders sweeping stop-and-search patrols that target many black males over six feet tall. After some 600 black men are detained, US District Judge Alphonso Zirpoli rules the dragnet is unconstitutional, calling it racial “profiling.” Agnos will recall: “The whole city was just in the grip of terror. But it was an ugly thing, a time when we failed our test on our commitment to civil liberties. When we are fearful, we tend to compromise that commitment too quickly.” Robert Brooks, a security guard detained and questioned by police, tells a reporter: “I think the mayor is persecuting the black community for the acts of a few crazy dudes. If the killings continue, some other people are talking about retaliation against blacks. That will be too bad. The thing is bad enough now.” Anthony Cornelius Harris, an accomplice in the murders, eventually gives information that leads to the arrest and conviction of four men: Manuel Moore, J.C. Simon, Larry C. Green, and Jessie Lee Cooks. All of the four are later convicted of 74 counts of murder, conspiracy, and assault. Moore, Simon, and Green will insist they are innocent of the charges; Cooks has already pled guilty to the murder of one of the victims, physical therapist Frances Rose. Another participant, Leroy Decker, who attempted to kill a gas company clerk, Robert Stoeckmann, is later convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Five others are arrested and charged with participation in the murders, but are later released for lack of evidence. [San Francisco Chronicle, 10/13/2002; TruTV, 2010]
Entity Tags: J.C. Simon, Art Agnos, Anthony Cornelius Harris, Angela Roselli, Alphonso Zirpoli, Frances Rose, Robert Stoeckmann, Saleem (“Sammy”) Erakat, Quita Hague, Larry C. Green, Joseph Alioto, Jessie Lee Cooks, Leroy Decker, Death Angels, Manuel Moore, Nation of Islam, Richard Hague
Category Tags: Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Shooting/Guns
1974: British Animal Rights Activists Jailed for Firebombing Research Center
Two British animal rights activists, Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman of the “Band of Mercy,” are jailed for firebombing a British vivisection research center. Following the attack, Lee issues a statement saying that the firebombing was intended to “prevent the torture and murder of our animal brothers and sisters.” [Animal Liberation Front, 2002 ; Anti-Defamation League, 2005] After being released from jail, Lee and other Band of Mercy members will form the Animal Liberation Front (see 1976).
Entity Tags: Band of Mercy, Ronnie Lee, Cliff Goodman, Animal Liberation Front
Category Tags: Environmental Activism, Animal Liberation Front, Arson
1974: Anti-Tax Protester Founds Group Opposing 16th Amendment, OSHA, Gun Control Laws
Tax protester Ardie McBrearty founds the United States Taxpayers Union (USTU), an organization dedicated to abolishing the 16th Amendment (see 1951-1967 and 1970-1972), and also the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), consumer protection statutes, gun control laws, and other “unconstitutional” legislation. McBrearty, an avowed Christian Identity follower (see 1960s and After), will abandon tax protest in favor of armed white supremacist militancy, joining The Order (see Late September 1983 and August 1984 and After). He will eventually earn 40 years in prison for his role in The Order’s violent actions. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001] In a 1982 lawsuit, McBrearty will argue that a 1977 agreement with UTSU mandated that the group should pay “all necessary personal and family obligations of said individual [and] all costs incurred in the defense of a client member.” McBrearty will be convicted for tax law violations in 1979 and will sue the UTSU shortly thereafter. The courts will dismiss the lawsuit because such an agreement “contravene[s] public policy and [i]s therefore unenforceable.” [OpenJurist, 1/18/1982] It is unclear whether McBrearty’s loss of the lawsuit triggers his desire to join a more actively violent organization, such as The Order.
Entity Tags: The Order, Ardie McBrearty, United States Taxpayers Union
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, The Order, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1974: Wisconsin Posse Comitatus Members Assault IRS Agent
Wisconsin Posse Comitatus (see 1969) activist Thomas Stockheimer, who founded the Wisconsin chapter in 1970 from his own organization, the “Little People’s Tax Advisory Committee,” and several of his followers lure IRS agent Fred Chicken to a farm in Abbotsford, Wisconsin, and assault him. Stockheimer is later convicted of felony assault against Chicken, and after losing an appeal, becomes a fugitive. During his appeals process, Stockheimer introduces future Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom to the Posse Comitatus (see February 14-21, 1983 and 1984). Stockheimer’s anti-Semitism, racism, and anti-tax philophophy are what attracts Wickstrom to the group. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]
Entity Tags: Posse Comitatus, Fred Chicken, James Wickstrom, Thomas Stockheimer
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Federal Government Actions, Law Enforcement Actions, Posse Comitatus, Beatings/Mobs
1975: Aryan Nations Head Faces Criminal Charges
Richard Butler, the head of the white separatist and neo-Nazi organization Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s), is arrested after he and several of his followers attempt to “arrest” a police officer who is preparing to testify against a Butler ally accused of assault. Shortly thereafter, Butler is charged in connection with an incident in which he points a gun outside the home of a movement rival, a Posse Comitatus newspaper publisher. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]
Entity Tags: Posse Comitatus, Richard Girnt Butler, Aryan Nations
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Aryan Nations, Posse Comitatus, Harassment and Threats, Other Violence
1975 - 1981: Anti-Tax Protester Convicted of Failure to Pay Taxes, Jailed, Cited for Further Failure to Pay
Anti-tax protester and Posse Comitatus member Gordon Kahl (see 1967 - 1973), after two years spent preaching the virtues of Christian Identity and anti-tax ideology to his fellow West Texas oilfield workers, joins five fellow protesters in giving a television interview in Midland, Texas. They declare their opposition to income taxation and encourage viewers to do the same. The television interview brings Kahl to the attention of the IRS, and in December he is arrested for failing to file income tax returns for 1973 and 1974. Asked by the judge if he understands the nature of the proceedings being brought against him, Kahl replies, “I understand God’s law but I’m not too good on Satan’s law,” echoing his belief that the federal income tax laws were written by what he calls “satanic Jews.” He tells the judge that he had not forgotten to file his taxes, he refused to file them out of religious conviction. The judge and jury refuse to countenance his Posse arguments, and he is convicted, sentenced to a year in prison, five years’ probation, and a psychiatric evaluation. He is also ordered to pay his back taxes. Kahl is released after several months, but loses his appeal and spends eight more months in prison before being released in August 1979. Instead of obeying court orders to file his returns and pay his back taxes, Kahl defies his court orders and begins mounting up a steady debt to the IRS. In November 1980, the government puts a lien on his property, and seizes it for non-payment in 1981. A warrant for Kahl’s arrest is issued in North Dakota, his last known place of residence. [Levitas, 2002, pp. 193-194] Kahl flees the warrant and will later kill two police officers outside Medina, North Dakota, when they try to apprehend him (see February 13, 1983 and After).
Entity Tags: Posse Comitatus, Gordon Kahl
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Federal Government Actions, Law Enforcement Actions, Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1975 - 1978: Anti-Semitic, Racist Salesman Joins Posse Comitatus, Founds Christian Identity Church
James Wickstrom. [Source: Southern Poverty Law Center]James Wickstrom, a tool salesman and former mill worker angered by what he saw as less-qualified African-American workers bypassing him in receiving raises and promotions, meets Thomas Stockheimer (see 1974), a member of the violent anti-tax, racist, and anti-Semitic organization Posse Comitatus (see 1969). Wickstrom walks by Stockheimer’s “Little People’s Tax Party” office in Racine, Wisconsin, each week, and is accosted by Stockheimer, who asks him: “Do you know who you are? Do you really know who you are? Do you know that you’re an Israelite?” Initially Wickstrom is offended at being called, he believes, a Jew, but after a discussion, leaves with two audiotapes of sermons by Posse founder William Potter Gale that tell him he is a member of God’s chosen people, a member of the “true” Israelite tribe; Jews are the offspring of Satan and are unworthy of being called Israelites. Blacks, Gale preaches, are subhuman, no better than beasts of the field, and merely tools of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy white Western society. Wickstrom finds Gale’s message appealing, and he joins Stockheimer in setting up a Bible study group. Wickstrom follows in Gale’s footsteps and becomes an adherent of the Christian Identity ideology (see 1960s and After). Stockheimer flees Racine ahead of the police, who intend to have him complete his jail sentence for assaulting an IRS agent, and Wickstrom quits his job and moves to Schell City, Missouri; he will later explain the move, saying, “I wanted to be with like-minded people.” He buys property near Identity minister Dan Gayman, becomes a teacher at a small private school operated by Gayman and another Identity minister, Loren Kallstrom, and in 1977 founds his own church, Mission of Jesus the Christ Church, living off tithes and donations. After a falling out with Gayman, in 1978 Wickstrom moves back to Wisconsin, at the invitation of Posse member Donald Minniecheske, who wants him to take part in the establishment of a Posse compound on the shores of the Embarrass River (see 1978 - 1983). [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004]
Entity Tags: William Potter Gale, Dan Gayman, Donald Minniecheske, Loren Kallstrom, Posse Comitatus, Thomas Stockheimer, James Wickstrom
1976: Animal Liberation Front Founded in Britain, Crosses to US
A semiofficial logo for the Animal Liberation Front. [Source: Animal Liberation Front]The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) forms. It is widely considered the US’s most active “ecoterrorist” movement (see 1970s) and focuses primarily on attacking companies that perpetuate cruelty to animals, often in the form of animal experimentation. It is very loosely organized, and composed of anonymous underground cells that mount operations to rescue animals from what it calls “places of abuse” and, it says, to “inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals.” ALF traces its origins to a group of British activists in the late 1960s called the Hunt Saboteurs Association, whose prime goal was to disrupt fox hunts. In 1972, according to the anonymously published “ALF Primer,” “after effectively ending a number of traditional hunting events across England, members of the Hunt Saboteurs decided more militant action was needed, and thus began the Band of Mercy.” The Band of Mercy went farther than its parent organization, and in 1974 two of its members, Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman, were jailed for firebombing a vivisection research center in Great Britain (see 1974). When Lee is released from prison in 1976, he and some of his Band of Mercy colleagues found the ALF. The organization first begins operations in Great Britain, but quickly moves to America and begins escalating events. Its first known operation will be in 1979, when ALF activists break into a medical school and release animals being used for research (see 1979). Before it establishes a small press office in 1991, ALF’s activities will be publicized and praised by a somewhat more mainstream animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] The ALF primer explains the “leaderless resistance” model followed by the group: “Due to the illegal nature of ALF activities, activists work anonymously, and there is no formal organization to the ALF. There is no office, no leaders, no newsletter, and no official membership. Anyone who carries out direct action according to ALF guidelines is a member of the ALF.” The primer states the following as ALF guidelines:
To liberate animals from places of abuse, i.e. fur farms, laboratories, factory farms, etc. and place them in good homes where they may live out their natural lives free from suffering.
To inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals.
To reveal the horror and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors by performing nonviolent direct actions and liberations.
To take all necessary precautions against hurting any animal, human and nonhuman.
The primer states: “In the third section it is important to note the ALF does not, in any way, condone violence against any animal, human or non-human. Any action involving violence is by its definition not an ALF action, any person involved not an ALF member. The fourth section must be strictly adhered to. In over 20 years, and thousands of actions, nobody has ever been injured or killed in an ALF action.” [Animal Liberation Front, 2002 ]
Entity Tags: Hunt Saboteurs Association, Cliff Goodman, Band of Mercy, Ronnie Lee, Animal Liberation Front, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Category Tags: Environmental Activism, Animal Liberation Front, Arson, Bombs and Explosives, Harassment and Threats, Rhetorical Violence, Vandalism
1976-1978: Anti-Tax Protester Writes Popular Anti-Tax Treatise
Financial and insurance consultant Irwin Schiff uses the anti-tax arguments of Arthur Porth (see 1951-1967) and Marvin Cooley (see 1970-1972) to bring the anti-tax protest message to a much more mainstream audience than Porth, whose appeal was largely confined to right-wing and racist audiences. Schiff, who bills himself as “America’s leading untax expert,” will appear on national television for more than 25 years before eventually going to jail for tax evasion. His biggest impact comes with his 1976 book, The Biggest Con: How the Government is Fleecing You. His second book, published six years later, is called How Anyone Can Stop Paying Income Taxes. The Biggest Con earns him $135,000 in royalties over the two years that follow its publication, and $85,000 in royalties for the decade following. In 1978, Schiff is charged for failing to file tax returns, and eventually convicted; he will be convicted of similar charges in 1985 and again in 2005. He tells one judge: “I only received federal reserve units, not dollars. I received no lawful money upon which a tax can be collected.” The US government says Schiff owes over $2.6 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Tax Protester Dossiers, 10/23/2010] In 1996, Schiff will be a candidate for the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president. [C-SPAN, 7/5/1996]
Entity Tags: Libertarian Party, Arthur Porth, Irwin Schiff, Marvin Cooley
February 1977 or 1978: Anti-Abortion Activist Sets Fire to Women’s Clinic
An anti-abortion activist enters the Concern Women’s Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. The activist throws flammable liquid in the face of the receptionist and sets fire to the interior of the building. According to author Harvey Kushner, this occurs in February 1977. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38] In its extensive listings of clinic attacks, the National Abortion Federation will not list a women’s clinic bombing for February 1977, but it will list an attack very similar to the Concern Clinic attack for February 1978. The organization will describe the bombing as follows: “Man entered clinic, blinded a technician by throwing chemicals, and set center on fire, destroying it. Clinic was full of patients at the time; they escaped without injury.” The monetary damage to the clinic is around $100,000. [National Abortion Federation, 2010]
Entity Tags: Concern Women’s Clinic, National Abortion Federation
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Arson
1978: Neo-Nazi Group Founder Begins White Supremacist Church
William Pierce, the founder of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974) and the author of the inflammatory and highly influential white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), begins holding weekly meetings of the Cosmotheist Community Church (CCC), a religion of his own creation that promotes white supremacy. Pierce, who was turned down by the IRS in his 1977 attempts to persuade it to classify the Alliance as a tax-exempt “educational” organization, will succeed in getting the IRS to classify the CCC as a religious tax-exempt organization in 1983, though that status will be largely revoked in 1986. [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ]
Entity Tags: Cosmotheist Community Church, Internal Revenue Service, William Luther Pierce, National Alliance
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, National Alliance, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1978: ’Turner Diaries’ Published; Will Influence Violent Far-Right Organizations and Individuals
Cover of ‘The Turner Diaries.’ [Source: Associated Content]White supremacist and separatist William Pierce, a leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974), publishes a novel called The Turner Diaries under the pseudonym “Andrew Macdonald.”
Former College Professor - Pierce has a doctorate in physics from the University of Colorado, and taught at Oregon State University for three years before joining the American Nazi Party, taking over leadership of the group after its head, George Lincoln Rockwell, was assassinated. In 1970, Pierce and others left that organization and joined the National Youth Alliance, later renamed the National Alliance. He will later say that the violence and disruption of the civil rights movement prompted his decision to join Nazi and white supremacist organizations. “I became concerned with the general abandonment of standards and long-accepted values,” he will write. “The standards of excellence that had prevailed at most universities were becoming abandoned ideas that were in the way of social progress for people of color. The old-fogey standards had to go, and now we had to judge students and professors by the new standards of social relevance and performance. That concerned me a lot.”
Genocidal 'Future History' - The novel is a “future history” of the US after the nation, and eventually the world, is “purged” of “inferior” races via an Aryan revolution that overthrows the US government and puts white “Aryans” in charge. Pierce actually began the book as a series of installments for the racist tabloid “Attack!” a publication of the National Youth Alliance. The Anti-Defamation League will term the book “[l]urid, violent, apocalyptic, misogynistic, racist, and anti-Semitic.” The book is privately printed through the National Alliance’s National Vanguard Press, but in 1998, independent publisher Barricade Books will begin publishing it as well. From 1975 through 1978, Pierce serialized the novel in the Alliance’s newsletter, “Attack!” (later renamed “National Vanguard”). In March 1997, he will explain his rationale for writing the novel, saying: “In 1975, when I began writing The Turner Diaries… I wanted to take all of the feminist agitators and propagandists and all of the race-mixing fanatics and all of the media bosses and all of the bureaucrats and politicians who were collaborating with them, and I wanted to put them up against a wall, in batches of a thousand or so at a time, and machine-gun them. And I still want to do that. I am convinced that one day we will have to do that before we can get our civilization back on track, and I look forward to the day.”
Fictional Story Inspires Oklahoma City Bombing - The story hinges on the experiences and “recollections” of Earl Turner, an Aryan separatist who chronicles the extermination of minorities, Jews, and other “undesirables” via an armed insurrection. The book will become highly influential in far-right circles. One of the most notable scenes in it is that of Turner’s guerrilla unit detonating a homemade “fertilizer bomb” at FBI headquarters, killing hundreds; the ADL will note it as “a passage that came to be seen as foreshadowing, and as an inspiration to, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh” (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The white supremacist guerrilla army of the book is called “The Organization”; its vocabulary and methodologies will be adopted to one extend or another by a number of white supremacist and separatist organizations. The novel begins by stating: “If the White nations of the world had not allowed themselves to become subject to the Jew, to Jewish ideas, to the Jewish spirit, this war would not be necessary. We can hardly consider ourselves blameless. We can hardly say we had no choice, no chance to avoid the Jew’s snare. We can hardly say we were not warned.… The people had finally had their fill of the Jews and their tricks.… If the Organization survives this contest, no Jew will—anywhere. We’ll go to the Uttermost ends of the earth to hunt down the last of Satan’s spawn.” The revolution of the “Organization” is triggered by the passage of the “Cohen Act,” legislation which effectively bans Americans from owning weapons. Pierce writes that the forcible disarming of the citizenry results in anarchy: “Robberies of this sort had become all too common since the Cohen Act, with groups of Blacks forcing their way into White homes to rob and rape, knowing that even if their victims had guns they would probably not dare use them.” The book depicts scenes of violence in gory, graphic detail (including torture and racially-motivated lynchings), and gives detailed explanations of how the characters construct a variety of explosive devices. The book gives the rationale for its fictional murder of hundreds at the FBI building: “It is a heavy burden of responsibility for us to bear, since most of the victims of our bomb were only pawns who were no more committed to the sick philosophy or the racially destructive goals of the System than we are. But there is no way we can destroy the System without hurting many thousands of innocent people.… And if we don’t destroy the System before it destroys us… our whole race will die.” In the novel, Turner dies during a successful suicide mission, when he detonates a nuclear weapon over the Pentagon. White domination of the planet is ultimately achieved by the massive deployment of nuclear weapons. Organizations such as The Order (which will carry out the murder of progressive talk show host Alan Berg—see June 18, 1984 and After), The New Order, and the Aryan Republican Army (see 1992 - 1995) will cite the novel as inspiration for their efforts. [New York Times, 7/5/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 99; Center for New Community, 8/2002 ; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2004; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Inspiration for Texas Murder - In Texas in 1998, when African-American James Byrd Jr. is beaten and dragged to his death behind a pickup truck (see June 7, 1998 and After), one of his assailants, John King, will say, “We’re starting The Turner Diaries early.”
Sparks Many Imitators - The novel will spark a number of imitations, including 2003’s Angle Iron, about a right-wing attack on the US power grid; 2001’s Dark Millennium, depicting a white supremacist president presiding over the extermination of African-Americans; 2004’s Deep Blue, which transports the racial themes into a science-fictional presentation; 2001’s Hold Back This Day, in which whites establish an Aryan colony on Mars; 1999’s One in a Million, in which a white separatist declares war on the IRS; 2001’s The Outsider, whose white hero goes on a murderous spree among African-Americans; and 1991’s Serpent’s Walk, in which a resurgent Nazi underground claims the planet for its own. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2004]
Wide Influence - Both Pierce and his novel will become highly influential in white supremacist and anti-government circles. Jerry Dale, a West Virginia sheriff who monitors Pierce for years, says: “He’s become a spiritual leader. He’s not a nut. Looking at him and talking to him, you don’t get a feeling he’s crazy. He’s not violent. But the way he incites people, to me, that is frightening.” Pierce will go on to write a number of books (including comic books) and periodicals, and host a radio show that will be broadcast in a dozen states. However, he always publicly states that he does not advocate actual violence. [New York Times, 7/5/1995]
Second Novel - Ten years later, Pierce will publish a second novel, Hunter, which depicts a lone assassin targeting Jews and African-Americans. Both this book and a reprint of The Turner Diaries will be released by a publishing house affiliated with the National Alliance, the National Vanguard Press (see 1988).
Entity Tags: William Luther Pierce, The Order, John William (“Bill”) King, National Youth Alliance, American Nazi Party, Anti-Defamation League, Aryan Republican Army, Barricade Books, George Lincoln Rockwell, The New Order, National Alliance, James Byrd Jr., Timothy James McVeigh
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Gender-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, National Alliance, The Order, Rhetorical Violence
1978 - 1983: Posse Comitatus Leaders Found ‘Tigerton Dells’ ‘Township’
James Wickstrom (see 1975 - 1978), a self-styled “minister” of the racist, anti-Semitic Christian Identity ideology (see 1960s and After) and a member of the anti-government Posse Comitatus (see 1969), moves back to his childhood state of Wisconsin from his home in Missouri, at the invitation of Donald Minniecheske, who owns 570 acres of land on the shores of the Embarrass River and wants to create a “township” for the Posse that would be run without recognition of federal, state, or local law. Minniecheske wants Wickstrom to be part of the new “township” and what Minniecheske calls the “rejuvenation” of the Posse. He begins by naming himself “national director of counter insurgency” of the organization. After building a bar and moving a few trailers onto the land, Wickstrom and Minniecheske name the property the Constitutional Township of Tigerton Dells. Wickstrom names himself the township’s judge and municipal clerk, and grants Minniecheske a new liquor license (he had lost his previous license two years before). Wickstrom also begins traveling through the Midwestern farm belt, appearing at meeting halls, in basements, and at farm shows. “I knew that something had to be done. I knew that the ranchers and the farmers were being meticulously destroyed by the Jew banking system in America,” Wickstrom will later say. Wickstrom preaches the gospel of anti-tax protest and refusal to pay income taxes (see 1951-1967). He tells his listeners that since taxation and the federal government are both illegitimate, and since they are “sovereign citizens” of the US, they can pay their tax debts with fictitious money orders. Driver’s licenses and ZIP codes are equally illegitimate, Wickstrom says, and tells his listeners they are the victims of a widespread Jewish conspiracy that works through tax collectors, law enforcement officials, judges, and the like to oppress them. Jews and tax collectors should be lynched, Wickstrom advises. Dairy farmer Floyd Cochran will later recall listening to Wickstrom, saying: “In the ‘70s and ‘80s farming went through a drastic change. A lot of people I’d known a good part of my life went out of business. Wickstrom was organizing farmers out West, appearing at farm shows and things of that nature, telling farmers you are losing your place not because of something you did but because the Jews want to take away your farms.” By 1980, Tigerton Dells becomes the center of Posse-led paramilitary training; Wickstrom will later claim that Posse seminars draw thousands of participants who are taught survival skills and covert military operations by high-ranking Vietnam veterans. That same year, Wickstrom runs for the US Senate on the far-right Constitution Party ticket. In 1982, a local radio station begins broadcasting his speeches, and he runs for governor of Wisconsin. He continues preaching, and tells his listeners, falsely, that “his” Posse has over two million members. When North Dakota Posse member Gordon Kahl kills two US Marshals and flees (see February 13, 1983 and After), Wickstrom uses the incident to vault to national prominence and establish himself as a Posse leader (see February 14-21, 1983), moderating his usual virulently racist rhetoric, emphasizing his patriotism and strong Christian beliefs, and presenting himself as a champion of ordinary farmers and working people. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004]
Entity Tags: Floyd Cochran, Donald Minniecheske, Gordon Kahl, James Wickstrom, Posse Comitatus
February 1978: Ohio Experiences Multiple Clinic Bombings
Ohio experiences a spate of arson and bomb attacks of women’s clinics, presumably by anti-abortion activists. While the best-documented attack takes place at a Cleveland clinic (see February 1977 or 1978), at least three others take place during the month of February, including one attack that does around $200,000 in damage to a clinic. The attacks are preceded by a clinic firebombing in November 1977, and followed up by a clinic bombing in June 1978. All of the attacks will go unredressed, with the statute of limitations expiring on each before an assailant can be identified and charged. [National Abortion Federation, 2010]
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Arson, Beatings/Mobs
May 25-26, 1978: Northwestern Security Guard Injured by ‘Unabomber’ Exploding Package
A photograph of Theodore ‘Ted’ Kaczynski, taken in 1968 while Kaczynski was a young faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley. [Source: George M. Bergman / Wikimedia]An unmailed package is found in a car park at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and brought to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, because of its return address; the addressee now teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Buckley Crist, the material sciences professor named in the return address on the package cannot identify it, and turns it over to campus security. When Northwestern police officer Terry Marker opens it, it explodes, injuring him slightly. The package contains a pipe bomb packed in a carved wooden box. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 4/14/1996; Washington Post, 1998] The bomb is made of a nine-inch pipe filled with explosive powders and triggered by a nail held by rubber bands that strikes and ignites match heads when the box is opened. [World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] The package contains 10 $1 commemorative Eugene O’Neill stamps on its outer wrapper. Authorities will later speculate that the bomber may have chosen the O’Neill stamps because the playwright was an ardent supporter of anarchists. [Knight Ridder, 5/28/1995] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). It is believed to be Kaczynski’s first bomb. [New York Times, 4/7/1996]
Entity Tags: Terry Marker, Northwestern University, Theodore J. (“Ted”) Kaczynski, Buckley Crist
Category Tags: 'Unabomber' Attacks, Bombs and Explosives
September 2-3, 1978: Neo-Nazi Convention Held in Virginia, Features National Alliance Leader
The First General Convention of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974) is held in Arlington, Virginia. The speakers for the event are Alliance leader William Pierce, Ted O’Keefe, and Mark Weber. O’Keefe and Weber will go on to head the Institute for Historical Review, an Alliance-funded think tank that specializes in denying the Holocaust. [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ]
Entity Tags: Mark Weber, Institute for Historical Review, William Luther Pierce, National Alliance, Ted O’Keefe
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, National Alliance
1979: Racist Church Founder Alleges Federal Reserve Board Controlled by ‘Jewish Jackals’
Ben Klassen, the founder and leader of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973), mails unsolicited copies of his booklet, “The Brutal Truth About Inflation and Financial Enslavement—The Federal Reserve Board—The Most Gigantic Counterfeiting Ring in the World,” to people and organizations he feels might be interested in his views. The essay alleges that “the Federal Reserve banks are owned, lock, stock, and barrel, by a criminal gang of ‘International Bankers,’” and claims, “The Federal Reserve owns the US government and manipulates it like a puppet, solely for the interests of this avaricious international gang of Jewish jackals, who control the world, its money, and its economy.” The essay concludes, “Now that you understand the Jewish program of piracy, looting, and enslavement by means of the Federal Reserve and money manipulations, now get the rest of the story and the program of the Church of the Creator by reading their White Man’s Bible: Nature’s Eternal Religion” (see 1981). [Anti-Defamation League, 1993]
Entity Tags: Benhardt (“Ben”) Klassen, US Federal Reserve, World Church of the Creator
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, WCOTC, Rhetorical Violence
1979: Animal Rights Activists Break into Medical School, Release Animals
A small group of animal rights activists from the Animal Liberation Front (ALF-see 1976) break into the New York University Medical School and release five animals being used for research. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Entity Tags: New York University Medical School, Animal Liberation Front
Category Tags: Environmental Activism, Animal Liberation Front, Vandalism
1979: Anti-Abortion Activist Threatens Doctor with Flaming Torch
An anti-abortion activist named Peter Burkin enters a women’s health clinic in Hempstead, New York, bearing a two-foot flaming torch. Burkin threatens to “cleanse the soul” of the clinic’s abortion provider, Dr. Bill Baird. Baird is well known as a litigant in a 1972 Supreme Court case that legalized the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples. Burkin, who is himself injured in the fire, will be acquitted of attempted murder and arson charges, and found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of arson and reckless endangerment. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38; National Abortion Federation, 2010]
Entity Tags: Peter Burkin, Bill Baird
Timeline Tags: US Health Care
1979-1993: Over 313 Instances of Vandalism, ‘Animal Releases’ Reported
In 1993, the Departments of Justice and Agriculture report to Congress that over 313 “animal release” incidents have occurred, usually involving activists breaking into university or private research facilities and releasing animals being used for research and vivisection (see 1979 and 1992). The most active group behind these releases, or “liberations” as the activists term them, is the Animal Liberation Front (ALF—see 1976). Investigators call the ALF the most significant “radical fringe” animal rights group currently operating in the US. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Entity Tags: Animal Liberation Front, US Department of Justice, US Department of Agriculture
May 9, 1979: ’Unabomber’ Targets Northwestern University with Second Bombing
A graduate student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, John Harris, is injured when he opens a box left at the University’s Technological Institute. The box contains a bomb that explodes when opened. Harris suffers minor cuts and burns. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] Authorities recognize fundamental similarities between this and a previous Northwestern University bombing (see May 25-26, 1978). This bomb is quite similar in construction to that one, though more sophisticated in construction and design. It consists of a cigar box and a pipe bomb, triggered by a battery-operated filament that ignites explosive powders. [World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] However, the package contains a number of small, finger-sized pieces of wood glued to its outer container. [Knight Ridder, 5/28/1995] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see May 25-26, 1978 and April 3, 1996).
Entity Tags: Theodore J. (“Ted”) Kaczynski, Northwestern University, John Harris
November 15, 1979: ’Unabomber’ Explosive on Plane Fails to Detonate, Catches Fire Instead
A parcel mailed from Chicago catches fire in a mailbag aboard American Airlines Flight 444 from Chicago to Washington, DC. The package contains a bomb which was apparently constructed to explode inside the cargo hold. Twelve passengers are treated for smoke inhalation; the flight conducts an emergency landing at Dulles Airport near Washington. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] The bomb does not ignite because instead of explosive powder, it contains barium nitrate, a powder often used to create green smoke in fireworks. [World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] The bombing is later shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). After the airline bombing and the subsequent bombing of a United Airlines executive (see June 10, 1980), the FBI ties the previous bombings (see May 25-26, 1978 and May 9, 1979) to this one and code-names the file UNABOM, for “UNiversity and Airline BOMber.” The media will soon dub the unknown assailant the “Unabomber.” [Washington Post, 4/4/1996; World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] Kaczynski will later express regret for trying to bomb the plane (see April 24, 1995).
Entity Tags: Washington Dulles International Airport, Theodore J. (“Ted”) Kaczynski, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Law Enforcement Actions, 'Unabomber' Attacks, Bombs and Explosives
1980: Avowed Racist, Anti-Semite Convicted of Murder in Killing Spree
Joseph Paul Franklin. [Source: Jackson Clarion Ledger]Joseph Paul Franklin, a resident of Memphis, Tennessee, confesses to attempting to kill Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. Franklin’s motives are, according to his own statements, frankly racist. He admits to having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, a former believer in the Christian Identity theology (see 1960s and After), and for a long time considered himself a Nazi. On March 6, 1978, he shot Flynt outside a Georgia courtroom, paralyzing the publisher for life. On May 29, 1980, he shot and severely injured Jordan outside a Fort Wayne, Indiana, Marriott hotel. Franklin says he tried to kill Flynt because he published photographs of a racially mixed couple having simulated sex. He says he shot Jordan, an African-American, because he saw him with a white woman. From 1977 through 1980, Franklin says, he embarked on a “mission” to rid America of blacks, Jews, and whites who like minorities. He claims the credit for robbing a number of banks, bombing a Tennessee synagogue, killing two black men in Utah who were jogging with white women, and shooting a black man and white woman as they left a Tennessee restaurant. In total, Franklin says he may have killed 20 people in a 10-state, racially motivated shooting spree; when asked how many he’d killed, he says, “Not nearly enough.” Franklin explains why he shot so many people: “I was trying to start a race war at the time.… I figured other whites would do it, too, and eventually we’d have a full-fledged race war.” He says that in 1977 he went on the “warpath. I decided to cut loose in 1977. I was working these dead-end jobs. I thought, ‘I’m just going to go out and kill some Jews.’” Franklin says he was inspired in part by convicted serial killer Charles Manson. He is convicted of a number of crimes, including the 1977 murder of Missouri resident Gerald Gordon, and sentenced to death for Gordon’s murder. During his murder trial, Franklin calmly explains the length he went to to avoid detection: buying a rifle in Dallas through a classified ad, filing off the serial number, and carrying it in a guitar case; finding synagogues in the Yellow Pages, using a bicycle to approach and leave the scenes of his crimes quickly and without detection; and using a police scanner to keep abreast of law enforcement activities. He tells the court that he has no regrets regarding any of his crimes: asked if he feels remorse for any of his actions, he says: “I can’t say that I do. The only thing I’m sorry about is that it’s not legal.” Asked, “What’s not legal?” he replies, “Killing Jews.” Psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis, who has interviewed a large number of serial killers and spree killers, testifies that Franklin is a paranoid schizophrenic, details the brutal physical abuse he suffered as a child, and details a number of bizarre beliefs he seems to hold. Franklin denies being “stark raving mad,” but admits to a few “minor neuroses.” As to Lewis’s contention that he was unable to stop himself from committing his crimes, Franklin says: “I think it is hogwash, to tell you the truth. I knew exactly what I was doing.” Lewis later says she believes all serial and spree killers are mentally or emotionally dysfunctional and not directly responsible for their actions. [Time, 11/16/1980; New Yorker, 2/24/1997; Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010] The 1989 novel Hunter, by William Pierce, the author of the infamous Turner Diaries (see 1978), will be dedicated to Franklin. The main character of the novel kills interracial couples in an attempt to foment a race war. [New York Times, 7/24/2002] The racist, white supremacist group Aryan Nations will give Franklin a medal for his actions. [Jackson Clarion Ledger, 2/25/2010]
Entity Tags: William Luther Pierce, Aryan Nations, Larry Flynt, Ku Klux Klan, Vernon Jordan, Dorothy Otnow Lewis, Gerald Gordon, Joseph Paul Franklin
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Court Actions and Lawsuits, Law Enforcement Actions, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, Ku Klux Klan, Rhetorical Violence, Shooting/Guns
1980: Anti-Tax Evader Creates Phony ‘Money Certificates’ to Avoid Tax Payments, Defraud Government
A portion of the cover of ‘Mirache on Main Street.’ [Source: Book Covers (.com)]Nashville musician Frederick “Tupper” Saussy III, who makes a living writing advertising jingles, writes a popular anti-tax protest book, Miracle on Main Street. Along with claiming that taxation is illegal (see 1951-1967, 1970-1972, and 1976-1978), Saussy concocts a fraudulent kind of “checkbook” money he calls “Public Office Money Certificates,” and says tax protesters can use them to pay their debts. The “certificates,” he claims, are “redeemable in dollars of the money of account of the United States upon an official determination of the substance of the money of account.” The idea will be copied by Posse Comitatus protesters (see 1969) and, later, by the Montana Freemen (see 1993-1994). In 1985, Saussy will be convicted of tax evasion and will become a federal fugitive. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001]
Entity Tags: Frederick (“Tupper”) Saussy III, Posse Comitatus, Montana Freemen
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Montana Freemen, Posse Comitatus, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1980-1982: Anti-Government Organizer Joins White Supremacist, Separatist Groups
Young anti-government organizer Robert Jay Mathews, currently living on a rural property in Metaline Falls, Washington, joins the National Alliance, a white-supremacist group founded by author and activist William Pierce (see 1970-1974). Mathews is profoundly affected by Pierce’s book The Turner Diaries (see 1978) and other books, including Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, Louis Beam’s Essays of a Klansman, and William Simpson’s Which Way Western Man? which tells of a plot by Jews to destroy “the White Christian race.” In early 1982, Mathews joins the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, located in the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and also joins the Aryan Nations. Both the church and the organization advocate the necessity of creating a “white homeland” in northern Idaho. Mathews then founds the White American Bastion, a splinter group designed to bring Christian families to the Northwest. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 222; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Mathews will go on to found The Order, one of the most violent anti-government organizations in modern US history (see Late September 1983). He will die during a 1984 standoff with FBI agents (see December 8, 1984).
Entity Tags: White American Bastion, The Order, Aryan Nations, Church of Jesus Christ Christian, National Alliance, William Luther Pierce, Robert Jay Mathews
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Aryan Nations, National Alliance, The Order
1980s-1994: Montana Farming Family Joins Montana Freemen
The Clark ranch. [Source: Billings Gazette]The Clark family of Jordan, Montana, led by Ralph Clark and including his brother Emmett, Emmett’s wife Rosie, Ralph’s son Edwin, his nephew Richard, his grandson Casey, and Richard’s wife Kay, begin exhibiting radical anti-government views. The Clarks, who work a 960-acre wheat farm, are not averse to accepting over $700,000 in government assistance, but due to poor planning and overextensions due to land and machinery purchases, they find themselves deeply in debt. In 1981, they stop paying their federal farm loans. By 1995, they owe $1.8 million in missed payments. By that time, the Clarks have begun listening to the tax-resister, anti-government rhetoric of the “Montana Freemen” in Roundup, Montana, some 150 miles away (see 1983-1995 and 1993-1994). Alven Clark, Ralph and Emmett’s brother who refuses to join them in their increasingly extremist views, will later say: “This thing just kept building every time I talked to them. They just listened to these prophets.” After their farm is foreclosed and sold at a sheriff’s auction for $493,000, the Clarks take a central part in one of the Freemen’s first major assaults on the local judiciary (see January 1994). [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996] In 1996, Ralph Clark’s grand-nephew Dean Clark will say: “My grandfather worked hard all his life, but his brother is another story. Ralph Clark has always been into one get-rich-quick scheme after the next. But he hasn’t done any real work. He hasn’t done a damn thing for the past 15 years but drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and look out the window and daydream.” [New York Times, 6/10/1996]
Entity Tags: Ralph Clark, Dean Clark, Casey Clark, Alven Clark, Edwin Clark, Montana Freemen, Emmett Clark, Rosie Clark, Kay Clark, Richard Clark
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Montana Freemen, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions
1980 and After: Earth First! Formed
Original Earth First! logo, featuring a crossed tomahawk and wrench. [Source: Feelnumb (.com)]Dave Foreman, a former lobbyist for the Wilderness Society, and several other environmental activists form Earth First!, an organization established, in its words, “in response to a lethargic, compromising, and increasingly corporate environmental community.” Earth First! combines environmental activism with a form of spirituality called “deep ecology.” Activists for the group carry out such actions as tree-sitting (sitting in or near a tree to prevent loggers from cutting it down) and tree spiking, which involves hammering a long nail that can create shrapnel injuries when cut by logging tools such as a chainsaw. In his 1985 book Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, Foreman describes in detail a number of sabotage methodologies, from disabling logging and earthmoving equipment to the proper way to spike a tree. (“Monkeywrenching” is a term borrowed from the 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, which depicts characters destroying machinery and burning billboards across the Southwest; Abbey will contribute an introduction to a later edition of Foreman’s book.) Foreman leaves the group in 1989 after being arrested for conspiracy to sabotage a nuclear plant. As of 2005, Earth First! is still active, but operates mainly through its publication, the Earth First! Journal, which publicizes other radical environmental and animal rights groups. After the group begins using more moderate actions to protest environmental depredations, activists who prefer more direct action will gravitate to the Earth Liberation Front (see 1997). [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2002; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]
Entity Tags: Earth First!, Dave Foreman, Wilderness Society, Edward Abbey, Earth Liberation Front
Category Tags: Environmental Activism, Earth Liberation Front, Vandalism
Early 1980s: ’Army of God’ Anti-Abortion Organization Produces Manual Advocating Violence against Clinics, Providers
One of a number of semi-official logos for the Army of God. The logo depicts the organization’s slogan: ‘Get Ready to Fight for Holiness and Righteousness.’ [Source: ilovejesusforever (.com)]An anonymous member (or members) of the Army of God (see 1982, August 1982, and July 1988) produces the “Army of God Manual,” a privately printed, closely guarded “how-to” manual for activists, showing how to harass, attack, and even kill abortion providers. Years after its initial printing, the apparent leader of the movement, the Reverend Donald Spitz, will post on the Army of God Web site: “I first became aware of the Army of God Manual in the early ‘80s, when I was given a copy by another anti-abortionist. Apparently, it had been circulated among anti-abortionists throughout the country; unknown to the government, pro-aborts, or the media, for some time. Just how long it had been in circulation prior to my receiving a copy, I do not know.” [Army of God, 1999]
Donald Spitz - Government documents will describe Spitz as the “webmaster” of the Army of God Web site, and the spiritual advisor to former minister Paul Hill, who will later be convicted of murdering a physician and his bodyguard (see July 29, 1994). Spitz will post running correspondence on the AOG site from anti-abortion activist Clayton Waagner, who will confess to sending over 550 letters containing fake anthrax to abortion clinics (see 1997-December 2001). He will also post numerous racist and homophobic diatribes on the AOG site. Spitz will be ejected from Operation Rescue, another anti-abortion group, in 1993 after the murder of Dr. David Gunn (see March 10, 1993); abortion doctor murderer John Salvi (see December 30, 1994 and After) will be found to have Spitz’s unlisted phone number after his arrest. A copy of the AOG manual will be found in 1993, buried in the backyard of an AOG member who will have attempted to murder an abortion provider (see August 19, 1993). [Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006]
Methods of Disrupting, Bombing Clinics - Initially, the manual details a number ways of disrupting or closing down abortion clinics, from gluing locks and using butyric acid against clinic machinery to arson and bomb threats. The manual contains instructions for making bombs using plastic explosive. A November 1992 epilogue will advocate the murder of abortion providers. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38]
Interview - The manual also contains an undated interview with an anonymous member of the Army of God, conducted by an interviewer calling himself “The Mad Gluer.” The person interviewed says their intention is to “[d]rive the abortion industry underground with or without the sanction of government law,” using “[e]xplosives, predominantly.” The bombs are designed to “disarm… the murder weapons,” referring to the equipment used in abortion clinics, and “by disarming the persons perpetrating the crimes by removing their hands, or at least their thumbs below the second digit.” The interviewer says that such violence is not actually violence, because it “caus[es] my neighbor no longer to be able to murder innocent citizens.… No, don’t misunderstand me! The only rational way to respond to the knowledge of an imminent and brutal murder is direct action.” Told by the interviewer that “nobody can live” in a constant state of violence against abortion providers, the interview subject responds: “That’s the point. We must die in order that others might live.” The interviewer rejects the notion that Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr. practiced non-violence to force social change. They say that “executing abortionists” is not the proper way to combat the practice of abortion, though “it [is] easily justified” by Biblical teaching. Rather, the Army of God “adheres to the principle of minimum force. Mercy, rather than justice is the driving force behind our actions. Or, to say it another way, we are merciful in our pursuit of justice, in our pursuit of peace.” The interview subject recommends that anyone who opposes abortion “should commit to destroying at least one death camp, or disarming at least one baby killer. The former is a relatively easy task—the latter could be quite difficult to accomplish. The preferred method for the novice would be gasoline and matches. Straight and easy. No tracks. You’ve kind of got to pour and light and leave real fast because of the flammability factor. Kerosene is great, but a little more traceable, so you will not want to buy it and use it in the same day.” Explosives using time-delay fuses are “my personal favorite,” the interviewer says. Asked about “chemical warfare,” the interviewer says, “I think that should remain classified information at this time.” In conclusion, the interviewer says: “We desperately need single lone rangers out there, who will commit to destroy one abortuary before they die. Most genuine pro-lifers praise and worship God when an abortuary is destroyed. It matters little what stripe of activist you are talking about. Rescuers, political activists, or covert operators are all thankful. And it’s common knowledge what the insurance costs are like after a good bombing.” [Army of God, 1999]
Entity Tags: John Salvi, Clayton Waagner, Army of God, Paul Hill, David Gunn, Donald Spitz
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Bombs and Explosives, Vandalism, Army of God
Early 1980s: Disbarred Lawyers Jailed for Marketing ‘Churches’ Designed as Tax-Fraud Organizations
Former lawyers Jerome Daly and William Drexler, disbarred for their actions as anti-tax protesters in Minnesota (see December 9, 1968 and After), are sentenced to lengthy prison terms for founding and marketing fake churches (the Basic Bible Church and the Life Science Church) for the purpose of allowing people to avoid paying income taxes. Daly and Drexler are proponents of the popular “Fifth Amendment Return” that features citizens refusing to pay federal income taxes on Fifth Amendment grounds (see 1951-1967) and the idea that Federal Reserve paper notes are not legitimate currency because they cannot be redeemed “in specie”—a citizen cannot go to a bank and redeem a paper note for the note’s value in gold or silver. [Anti-Defamation League, 2011]
Entity Tags: William Drexler, Basic Bible Church, Life Science Church, Jerome Daly
June 10, 1980: ’Unabomber’ Package Injures United Airlines President
In his Lake Forest, Illinois, home, United Airlines president Percy Wood opens a package that apparently contains a book. It contains both a book and a bomb in the book’s hollowed-out pages. It explodes, causing Wood to suffer cuts and bruises. The initials “FC” are found etched on, or punched into, a piece of pipe from the bomb. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998; World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). “FC” will later be found to stand for “Freedom Club.” [Washington Post, 1/23/1998; World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] Authorities will later speculate that Wood may have been targeted in part because of Kaczynski’s strange fascination with wood; he often uses wood in the construction of his bombs. The hollowed-out book, Ice Brothers, is published by Arbor House, whose symbol is a tree leaf. [Associated Press, 4/25/1995] The package contains a note asking Wood to read the enclosed book, and noting, “You will find it of great social significance.” The author of Ice Brothers, Sloan Wilson, also wrote The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which, according to a 1959 biography of Wilson, “was the definitive epithet for the commuting suburbanite, the status-hungry conformist from Madison Avenue.” Like an earlier bomb (see May 25-26, 1978), this bomb’s package is mailed using postage stamps commemorating the playwright Eugene O’Neill; authorities will speculate that Kaczynski may have chosen the stamps because of O’Neill’s ardent support of anarchists. [Knight Ridder, 5/28/1995]
Entity Tags: Percy Wood, Theodore J. (“Ted”) Kaczynski
1981: Aryan Nations Church Firebombed
The Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho, owned by organization leader Richard Butler (see Early 1970s), is bombed. The church suffers $80,000 in damages. The bombing is never solved. Butler blames the Jewish Defense League for the attack, and responds by building a two-story guard tower on the property along with posting armed guards and dogs around the perimeter. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]
Entity Tags: Jewish Defense League, Aryan Nations, Richard Girnt Butler
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Aryan Nations, Arson
1981: White Supremacist Church Founder Publishes ‘White Man’s Bible’
’White Man’s Bible,’ by Ben Klassen. [Source: PublicEye (.org)]Ben Klassen, the founder and leader of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973), publishes a second book, The White Man’s Bible, which he markets as a “program for the survival, expansion, and advancement of the white race.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999] In his book, Klassen writes: “The n_ggers is [sic] the vital means of b_stardizing the White Race.… The Jews are therefore madly pushing a program of upgrading the n_ggers and pulling down the White.” Klassen writes that the only solution to this issue is for whites to ship African-Americans back to Africa, “drive the Jews from power and render them harmless,” and “hang the traitors of our own race.” He continues his attack on non-whites by writing: “Today’s Black Plague is spelled n_ggers.… We regard them as subhuman or humanoid.… The most deadly threat the White Race faces is the tremendous expansion of the mud races led by the arch-enemy—the treacherous Jew.… We… declare everlasting war on the Jews, a war to the finish, until we have expelled them from all the lands inhabited by the white race.” [Anti-Defamation League, 1993; Chip Berlet, 2004]
Entity Tags: World Church of the Creator, Benhardt (“Ben”) Klassen
Category Tags: Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, WCOTC, Rhetorical Violence
1981 and After: White Supremacist Holds Influential Gathering
Richard Butler, the head of the white separatist and neo-Nazi organization Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s), hosts the first Aryan World Congress at the Nations compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho. The event attracts many of the area’s racist leaders. Butler begins holding more gatherings in subsequent years and begins appointing state leaders of Aryan Nations chapters. One of the brightest young leaders in Butler’s coterie is Robert Jay Mathews, who will go on to found the violent white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983). Other prominent Nations members at the conferences include: Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance; Louis Beam, a former Klansman who will promote the concept of “leaderless resistance” (see February 1992); Don Black, a former Klansman who will create Stormfront, the largest white separatist forum on the Internet; and Kirk Lyons, a well-known lawyer who will represent a number of extremists facing criminal charges. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]
Entity Tags: White Aryan Resistance, Louis R. Beam, Jr, The Order, Kirk Lyons, Don Black, Aryan Nations, Tom Metzger, Richard Girnt Butler, Stormfront (.org), Robert Jay Mathews
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Aryan Nations, Ku Klux Klan, Other Militias, Separatists, The Order, Rhetorical Violence, Stormfront
June 21, 1981: Two Members of ‘Operation Red Dog,’ White Supremacist-Led Plan to Overthrow Government of Caribbean Island Nation, Convicted of Conspiracy, Violation of Neutrality Act
Douglas Bay, Dominica. [Source: Happy Tellus (.com)]Two of three mercenaries accused of plotting to overthrow the government of the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica are found guilty of conspiracy and violation of the Neutrality Act. Stephen Don Black, a prominent Alabama Ku Klux Klan leader, and Joe Daniel Hawkins, a Klansman from Mississippi, are found guilty of the charges. Both are found not guilty of violating five firearms statutes. The plot began in 1979, when the neighboring island country of Grenada was taken over by a socialist regime with ties to the Communist government of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Mike Perdue, a former Marine and prominent white supremacist, discussed retaking Grenada with ousted former Prime Minister Eric Gairy. Perdue sought out Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke, who put him in touch with white supremacist Donald Clarke Andrews, then living in Canada. Andrews had led the white supremacist group Western Guard, and after serving a jail sentence for neo-Nazi activities, founded a new pro-Aryan group, the Nationalist Party of Canada. Andrews convinced Perdue that Dominica might be a good place from which to stage a coup in Grenada. Dominica was in the grip of grinding poverty, having been devastated by a hurricane in 1979 and plagued with racial violence from a splinter group of Rastafarians called the Dreads. The island’s government was unstable and, Perdue and Andrews believed, ripe for overthrow. Perdue partnered with another supremacist, Wolfgang Droege, and began planning to stage a coup that would place former Prime Minister Patrick John back in power. Even though John was something of a leftist, and wanted to displace the much more right-wing and pro-American Prime Minister, Eugenia Charles, in September 1980 Perdue and John agreed in writing to commence what they called “Operation Red Dog,” a violent coup with the goal of placing John back in charge of the government. The Washington Times will later report: “The coup forged some odd alliances. [It] united right-wing North Americans and Caribbean leftists, white nationalists and black revolutionaries; First World capitalists and Third World Socialists.” Canadian writer Stewart Bell later describes Perdue as a man of no real political convictions and a lust for money who routinely lies about his Vietnam experience (he never served in Southeast Asia, and did not tell his companions that he was a homosexual), and Droege as a German-Canadian high school dropout with neo-Nazi sympathies. Others involved in the putative coup are nightclub owner and white supremacist Charles Yanover, gunrunner Sydney Burnett-Alleyne (who supplied the initial connection to John), Black, Hawkins, and a small number of others. The mercenaries’ plan was to put John back in power; in return, John would give them license to use the island as a haven for casinos, drug smuggling, and money laundering. Almost from the outset, the conspiracy was infiltrated by two agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), John Osburg and Wally Grafton, who were alerted to the planned coup by charter boat captain Mike Howell. Perdue had tried to hire Howell to take the mercenaries to Dominica, and told Howell that his was a CIA operation. Members of the operation also talked to others about it; one even gave a “secret” interview to a radio reporter in Hamilton. Osburg and Grafton alerted law enforcement authorities; on the night of the raid, federal authorities overwhelmed the small band of mercenaries, arrested them all, and confiscated a large number of firearms, 10 pounds of dynamite, over 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and a large red-and-black Nazi flag. The operation was later derisively termed the “Bayou of Pigs,” a joking reference to the 1961 attempt by right-wing American mercenaries to overthrow Castro’s government. John was arrested in Dominica. Perdue and six other participants have already pled guilty to violating the Neutrality Act. Before his sentencing of three years in prison, Black says, “What we were doing was in the best interests of the United States and its security in the hemisphere, and we feel betrayed by our own government.” [Time, 5/11/1981; United Press International, 6/21/1981; New Times, 2/19/1998; Washington Times, 10/5/2008; Winnipeg Free Press, 11/2/2008] After serving his jail term, Black will go on to found the influential white supremacist organization Stormfront (see March 1995 and June 22, 2008).
Entity Tags: Eugenia Charles, Washington Times, Eric Gairy, Don Black, David Duke, Charles Yanover, Wally Grafton, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Wolfgang Droege, Stormfront, Ku Klux Klan, John Osburg, Joe Daniel Hawkins, Mike Howell, Sydney Burnett-Alleyne, Mike Perdue, Donald Clarke Andrews, Stewart Bell, Patrick John
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Ku Klux Klan, Other Militias, Separatists, Stormfront, Bombs and Explosives, Other Violence, Shooting/Guns
October 8, 1981: ’Unabomber’ Device Found in Utah Classroom
A maintenance worker at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City finds a bomb in a business classroom. The device is defused by the local bomb squad and no one is injured. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] The bomb will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996).
Entity Tags: Theodore J. (“Ted”) Kaczynski, University of Utah
1982: Violent Anti-Abortion ‘Army of God’ Forms, Advocates Bombings and Murder
The “Army of God” (AOG), an underground anti-abortion extremist group, forms, according to government documents. The Army of God advocates violence towards abortion providers and clinics, and will even recommend murder and assassination of abortion providers (see Early 1980s); later it will also advocate violence against homosexuals in order to end what it calls the “homosexual agenda.” Current and future leaders and prominent members will include Don Benny Anderson (see August 1982), Michael Bray (see September 1994), James Kopp (see October 23, 1998), Neal Horsley (see January 1997), and Eric Robert Rudolph (see January 29, 1998). It is unclear how large the group is. The group advocates “whatever means are necessary” to stop abortions, which it calls “baby-killing.” According to government documents, the AOG manual “explicitly states that this is a ‘real’ army, with the stated mission of choosing violent means both to permanently end the ability of medical personnel to perform abortions and to draw media attention to their opposition to women’s right to choose to have abortions.” The AOG advocates the use of glue, acid, firebombs, and explosives against clinics and clinic personnel, and later advocates shooting abortion providers and clinic staff. A government document says, “It is explicitly stated in the manual that violence is the preferred means to the desired end, and there are references to ‘execution’ of abortion clinic staff.” The manual states that the local members of the Army of God are not told of the identities of other members, in order to make certain that “the feds will never stop us.” AOG documents will also threaten the US government and the United Nations, calling the UN an “ungodly Communist regime” supported by its “legislative-bureaucratic lackeys in Washington.” A letter apparently written by AOG leader Donald Spitz will claim of the US government and the UN: “It is you who are responsible and preside over the murder of children and issue the policy of ungodly perversion that’s destroying our people.… Death to the New World Order.” The AOG will openly declare itself a terrorist organization in responses to media articles. It will maintain that a state of undeclared war has existed in the US since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion (see January 22, 1973), and it carries out terrorist attacks against abortion clinics and providers in order to “defend God’s children” against state-sponsored “slaughter.” The AOG will repeatedly state that it intends to continue its violent, deadly attacks against abortion clinics and providers until all laws legalizing abortion are repealed. After 2001, the AOG will begin rhetorically attacking homosexuals as well as abortion providers (see 2002). It will also proclaim its solidarity with Muslim extremist groups over such incidents as the September 11 attacks. AOG members will publicly profess their enthusiasm for mounting chemical and biological attacks. [Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006]
Entity Tags: Michael Bray, Army of God, Don Benny Anderson, Neal Horsley, Donald Spitz, James Kopp, Eric Robert Rudolph, United Nations
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Army of God, Arson, Bombs and Explosives, Other Violence, Rhetorical Violence, Gender-Based Rhetoric and Actions
1982-1983: White Supremacist Church Moves to North Carolina, Gains Tax-Exempt Status
Ben Klassen, the founder and leader of the Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973), moves the church from Florida to a large lot in Mulberry, North Carolina, opening a post office box in nearby Otto. He chooses the site because he believes Florida is too dangerous to live in. “I think South Florida is due for a lot of turmoil when bloody fighting breaks out,” he says. “Actually, I expect the financial collapse of the entire country, and blood will be flowing in the streets.” He and fellow COTC members build a personal residence, a three-story church, a small warehouse, and a “school for gifted boys.” Klassen begins calling himself “Pontifex Maximus” of the church, a Latin term meaning “high priest,” and begins writing a newsletter, “Racial Loyalty.” Later in the year, COTC is granted an exemption from state taxes based on its status as a church. [Anti-Defamation League, 1993; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999] In the years to come, the Mulberry site will become a full-fledged “compound.” A September 1992 article in Mirabella magazine will observe that the “seventeen-acre landscaped compound… includes small-arms firing ranges, paramilitary barracks, and other buildings.… Inside a large converted barn that serves as headquarters, church founder and leader, Ben Klassen… sits beneath a large painted portrait of Adolf Hitler, ‘The greatest leader the white race ever had,’ says Klassen.… Since 1990 groups of committed young men have traveled here for extensive political mining under Klassen’s tutelage. The recruits wear white berets or cowboy hats, live in the barracks, and practice shooting with automatic weapons on the firing range. Many are older teenagers. ‘Exceptional boys,’ Klassen calls them.” [Anti-Defamation League, 1993]
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, WCOTC
January 1982: Illinois Women’s Clinic Destroyed by Fire
The Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois, is gutted by fire, presumably as a result of arson by anti-abortion activists. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38]
Entity Tags: Hope Clinic for Women
May 1982: Anti-Abortion Activist Sets Fire to Florida Women’s Clinics
Anti-abortion activist Don Benny Anderson tries to burn down two women’s clinics in Florida. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38]
Entity Tags: Don Benny Anderson
May 5, 1982: Unabomber Package Explodes, Injuring Vanderbilt University Official
A parcel addressed to the head of the Vanderbilt University computer science department, Patrick Fischer, explodes, injuring Fischer’s secretary, Janet Smith. The package was originally sent to Fischer at Pennsylvania State University but was later forwarded to Nashville, Tennessee, where Vanderbilt University is located and where Fischer now teaches. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] Fischer will later describe Smith’s injuries as “nasty lacerations,” and will say, “She made a full recovery, but it was very traumatic for her.” The bomb itself consists of smokeless powder and a large number of match heads. The package has a false return address, stating it comes from LeRoy Bearnson, a professor of electrical engineering at Utah’s Brigham Young University. Bearnson will later say, “I suppose the guy didn’t care which way it went or who got blown up.” FBI agent Oliver “Buck” Revell, who takes part in early phases of the bomb investigation, will later say: “He might pick out an individual, but the person was still a symbolic target to him. I suspect that once he targeted the university research system, it didn’t matter that much who received it. I suspect he felt the country would pick up the symbolism.” The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). When Fischer, along with the rest of the country, learns of Kaczynski’s identity, he will try to find connections between himself and Kaczynski, and come up with only the most tenuous of relationships: Fischer studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while Kaczynski studied at nearby Harvard, and Fischer may have shared a Harvard math class with Kaczynski. He also spent time in Salt Lake City, a city with which Kaczynski is familiar. “The agents made it very clear that I was the target,” Fischer will later say. “I still have no idea why, except my feeling is that he chose names at random with certain associations.” [Washington Post, 4/14/1996]
Entity Tags: Theodore J. (“Ted”) Kaczynski, Janet Smith, LeRoy Bearnson, Patrick Fischer, Vanderbilt University, Oliver (“Buck”) Revell
July 2, 1982: ’Unabomber’ Device Seriously Injures Berkeley Professor
An electrical engineering and computer science professor with the University of California at Berkeley, Diogenes Angelakos, picks up what he believes is a turpentine can, left in a common room in the computer science building during construction work. The can, a green, gallon-sized container, has wires dangling from it and a clock-dial attached to the wires. The device is a pipe bomb. It explodes, temporarily blinding Angelakos and severely burning his right hand. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 11/27/1993; Washington Post, 4/14/1996; Washington Post, 1998] The injuries to his hand and arm prevent him from effectively caring for his wife Helen in her final days; she will die a month later of terminal cancer. “I went to her funeral with my arm in a sling,” Angelakos will later recall. [Washington Post, 11/27/1993] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). Kaczynski once worked as a professor at UC-Berkeley.
Entity Tags: Diogenes Angelakos, Theodore J. (“Ted”) Kaczynski, University of California at Berkeley, Helen Angelakos
August 1982: Anti-Abortion Activists Kidnap, Hold Doctor and Wife; First Appearance of ‘Army of God’?
Anti-abortion activists Don Benny Anderson (see May 1982), Matthew Moore, and Wayne Moore kidnap Dr. Hector Zevallos of the Hope Clinic for Women (see January 1982) and his wife. The activists hold the Zevalloses for eight days, during which time they force Zevallos to make an anti-abortion speech that is to be videotaped and sent to President Reagan in support of legislation designed to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion (see January 22, 1973). Threatened with the murder of himself and his wife, Zevallos agrees. According to government documents, this is the first action of the “Army of God,” a violent anti-abortion group (see 1982, Early 1980s, and July 1988). [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38; Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006] Anderson and Matthew Moore will plead guilty to multiple felonies in regards to the incident; Anderson will tell the court that he has been told by God to “wage war on abortion.” The three will also be convicted of kidnapping Zevallos and his wife. Anderson will receive 30 years for the kidnapping, and 30 additional years for firebombing two Florida abortion clinics. [Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006; National Abortion Federation, 2010]
Entity Tags: Matthew Moore, Don Benny Anderson, Army of God, Wayne Moore, Hector Zevallos
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Kidnapping, Army of God
1983: White Supremacists Plot to Blow Up Oklahoma City Federal Building
CSA members outside their Arkansas compound. Some CSA members also belong to the Elohim City community. [Source: GifS (.com)]Three white supremacists living in the Elohim City, Oklahoma, compound (see 1973 and After) visit Oklahoma City and make plans to blow up the Murrah Federal Building there. The three are: James Ellison, the leader of the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA) who will be arrested in 1985 after a four-day standoff with federal authorities; Kerry Noble; and Richard Wayne Snell, who will be executed for murdering a black police officer and a businessman he erroneously believed to be Jewish (see 9:00 p.m. April 19, 1995). All three men have close ties to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). The evidence of their plan is released during the investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and is collated by former US prosecutor Steven N. Snyder, who once worked out of the Fort Smith, Arkansas District Attorney’s office. The plan involves parking a van or trailer in front of the building and exploding it with rockets detonated by a timer. Snyder will come across the information on the bombing plot while preparing for the trial of a sedition case against a 14-man group of white supremacists, 10 of whom are charged with planning to overthrow the government. (All 14 will be acquitted in a 1988 trial—see Late 1987 - April 8, 1998.) Snyder will get the information from Ellison, who provides information to him as part of his role as chief witness for the prosecution. The other defendants in the trial, many of whom are believed to have had some connection to the bombing plot, will be Richard Butler, the head of Aryan Nations; Robert E. Miles, a former Klansman who heads the Mountain Church of Jesus Christ the Saviour in Cohoctah, Michigan; and Louis R. Beam Jr., a former grand dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan and “ambassador at large” of the Aryan Nations. Ellison will tell Snyder that in July 1983, he attends a meeting of extremist groups in Hayden Lake, Idaho, the location of the Aryan Nations headquarters, where he informs them of the death of fellow white supremacist Gordon Kahl in a gun battle with law enforcement agents in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983). Snyder’s notes of Ellison’s statement read, “Kahl was the catalyst that made everyone come forth and change the organizations from thinkers to doers.” According to Ellison, the leaders of the various supremacist groups discuss how to overthrow the federal government, using as a sourcebook the novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), which tells of a successful move by white supremacists to overthrow the government and then commit genocide against Jews and blacks. Ellison will tell Snyder that he volunteers to assassinate federal officials in Arkansas as part of the plot. The leaders discuss blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, other federal buildings, and the Dallas office of a Jewish organization. According to Ellison’s trial testimony, in October 1983 Snell and another participant, Steve Scott, “asked me to design a rocket launcher that could be used to destroy these buildings from a distance.” Of Snell, Ellison will testify: “On one of the trips when I was with Wayne, he took me to some of the buildings and asked me to go in the building and check the building out. This kind of thing.” Ellison will tell Snyder that at Snell’s request, he surveills the Murrah Building to assess what it would take to damage and destroy it. He makes preliminary sketches and drawings. According to the preliminary plans, rocket launchers are to be “placed in a trailer or a van so that it could be driven up to a given spot, parked there, and a timed detonating device could be triggered so that the driver could walk away and leave the vehicle set in position, and he would have time to clear the area before any of the rockets launched.… And I was asked to make it so it would fit in either a trailer or a van or a panel truck.” Synder will later say that Snell is embittered towards the government because of the IRS, which took him to court and seized property from him for failure to pay taxes. But, Snyder will add, “you can’t be sure about any of this, because a federal raid, to a lot of these people, is any time the postman brings the mail.” Ellison will be taken into custody after a four-day standoff with state and federal authorities in 1985, only convinced to surrender after white supremacist Robert Millar talks him into giving up (see 1973 and After). Ellison will be convicted of racketeering charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He will enter the federal witness protection program until completing his parole and leaving the program on April 21, 1995, two days after the Oklahoma City bombing. [New York Times, 5/20/1995; Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002; Nicole Nichols, 2003]
Entity Tags: Louis R. Beam, Jr, James Ellison, Gordon Kahl, Elohim City, Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord, Aryan Nations, Kerry Noble, Murrah Federal Building, Richard Girnt Butler, Robert Millar, Steve Scott, Steven N. Snyder, Richard Wayne Snell, Robert E. Miles
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Law Enforcement Actions, Elohim City, Other Militias, Separatists, 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, Bombs and Explosives
1983: Anti-Government Activists Arrested for Plotting to Kill Judges, Blow Up Federal Building
Seven members of the anti-Semitic, anti-government organization Posse Comitatus (see 1969 and February 13, 1983 and After) are arrested. They are part of a scheme to assassinate two federal judges and to blow up the IRS headquarters in Denver, Colorado. [Nicole Nichols, 2003]
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Law Enforcement Actions, Posse Comitatus, Bombs and Explosives, Shooting/Guns
1983: Posse Comitatus Leader Imprisoned for Impersonating a Public Official
Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) preacher and Posse Comitatus (see 1969) leader James Wickstrom (see 1975 - 1978) is charged with two counts of impersonating a public official. Wickstrom had named himself chief judge and municipal clerk of the “Tigerton Dells Township,” a Posse compound on the banks of the Embarrass River (see 1978 - 1983). Though Wickstrom defends himself as a “sovereign citizen” who is not obligated to obey the laws of the federal, state, and local government, prosecutor Douglas Haag counters: “[T]he question is whether or not a man with even marginal intelligence who can read and write the English language believes that he can put a fence around his back yard, set up a separate government, and call himself a public official.… [I]f [Wickstrom] has a sincere belief that he is a public officer within the laws of the state of Wisconsin, I’m the Easter Bunny.” Wickstrom is convicted and sentenced to the maximum of 13 and one-half months in jail. He will be released in 1985 and forbidden from any contact with Posse Comitatus activities for two years afterwards. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004] Wickstrom is also charged with running an illegal guerrilla training camp (see 1984). The Tigerton Dells debacle has a negative effect on the Posse Comitatus (see 1984).
Entity Tags: Douglas Haag, James Wickstrom, Posse Comitatus
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Court Actions and Lawsuits, Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1983-1995: Anti-Government Tax Resisters Begin Forming ‘Montana Freemen’
An undated photo of LeRoy Schweitzer. [Source: WorldNews]LeRoy Schweitzer, a crop duster in Montana and Idaho, becomes increasingly frustrated and resentful at what he considers interference by the government. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Schweitzer moves toward becoming an anti-government tax resister. He becomes fascinated by the legal ideology of the Posse Comitatus (see 1969), attends numerous Posse meetings, and has some contacts with members of The Order (see Late September 1983). Schweitzer, well-liked by his neighbors and friends, begins to worry them with his increasing extremism. He helps a friend, Bernard Kuennan, mount a legal defense against charges of letting his dog roam unvaccinated, and the two hammer the judge with questions about the differences between “admiralty” and “common law” (see Fall 2010). He defies police officers who stop him for traffic violations. He moves to Montana, where he refuses to get a license to fly his Cessna crop duster, resulting in federal arrest warrants. His refusal to pay federal taxes causes the IRS to seize his plane in November 1992, his Bozeman, Montana home, and other equipment, and sell it all to pay his $389,000 delinquent tax bill, dating back to the 1970s. Thoroughly radicalized, Schweitzer meets Rodney Owen Skurdal, another legal manipulator. Skurdal is an ex-Marine and Posse Comitatus advocate who, during litigation of a worker’s compensation suit in the 1980s, tells the judge that the federal government lacks the authority to print paper money and demands, fruitlessly, to be paid his compensation in gold bullion. One Wyoming newspaper claims that Skurdal’s extremism begins after he suffers a fractured skull in 1983, the source of the compensation claim; Skurdal’s former wife says after the injury that Skurdal refuses to use a Social Security number or driver’s license. Skurdal, like many in the Posse, is an adherent to the virulently racist Christian Identity belief system (see 1960s and After), and in court filings claims non-whites are “beasts,” and Jews “the children of Satan.” Skurdal routinely intertwines Identity, Posse Comitatus, Biblical, and Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) tenets in his court filings (see 1994). In 1993, the IRS seizes his farm near Roundup, Montana, for back taxes; Skurdal continues to occupy the farm and no local official dares to evict him. In late 1994, Skurdal invites Schweitzer to move in with him; they are joined by Daniel Petersen in early 1995. The three become the nucleus of what will become the Montana Freemen. Skurdal’s farm becomes a headquarters for the nascent organization, with computers, fax machines, laser printers, and satellite dishes going round the clock. The inhabitants post a sign on the edge of the property, reading: “Do Not Enter Private Land of the Sovereign.… The right of Personal Liberty is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed to every citizen, and any unlawful interference with it may be resisted.” Local authorities want to curb the group, but do not want to risk violence and bloodshed. Musselshell County Sheriff G. Paul Smith says: “These people want to be martyrs. I don’t know how far they are willing to carry that.” Moreover, Smith and his small sheriff’s department are outnammed and outgunned. [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996]
Entity Tags: The Order, Bernard Kuennan, Daniel Petersen, Posse Comitatus, G. Paul Smith, Montana Freemen, LeRoy Schweitzer, Rodney Owen Skurdal
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Montana Freemen, Rhetorical Violence, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Christian Identity
February 13, 1983 and After: Anti-Government Activist Kills Two US Marshals in Deadly Confrontation
Gordon Kahl. [Source: Anti-Defamation League]Posse Comitatus (see 1969 and 1983) member and anti-tax protester Gordon Kahl (see 1967 - 1973) and three Posse members gun down two US marshals who are attempting to arrest Kahl in a confrontation near Medina, North Dakota. The two marshals are among a group of six attempting to apprehend Kahl in a 1977 income tax case after he violated his probation by refusing to file a tax return (see 1975 - 1981); he has been a fugitive since 1981.
Initial Attempts to Negotiate Peaceful Surrender Fail - In that year, Kahl refused to turn himself over to North Dakota federal marshal Harold “Bud” Warren after a number of telephone conversations in which Kahl insisted that he had been “illegally” convicted by the “forces of Satan.” Warren decided that Kahl’s probation violation was “hardly a serious crime” and decided not to pursue it, partially because he knew Kahl was a crack shot and feared he would lose officers in any attempt to arrest him.
Increasing Involvement in Posse Activities - Kahl moved to Arkansas, where he visited the compound of the white supremacist Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord organization. A member of that organization, Leonard Ginter, hid Kahl from federal authorities. Kahl’s wife, under tremendous stress from the situation, tried and failed to negotiate a settlement with the IRS, resulting in her excoriation by her 23-year-old son Yorie, who accused her of cooperating with “the tithing collectors of the Jewish-Masonic Synogogue [sic] of Satan.” Kahl became more and more involved in Posse Comitatus activities, traveling to Kansas and Colorado.
Return to North Dakota, Confrontation with Police - In January 1983 he and Yorie Kahl returned to North Dakota with the intention of setting up a Posse “township” near Medina, which they envisioned as being free from state and government control. Kahl’s station wagon is observed by Stutsman County deputy sheriff Bradley Kapp, who informs the Marshal Service in Bismarck. Warren’s successor, Kenneth Muir, authorizes Kahl’s arrest, and drives to Medina with Deputy Marshal Carl Wigglesworth to join two other deputy marshals, Robert Cheshire Jr. and James Hopson Jr. Kapp is spotted by some of his Posse colleagues, who quickly join him in planning to forcibly resist any arrest attempt. Reportedly, they receive the assistance of Medina police chief Darrell Graf, who is allegedly a Posse sympathizer. Kahl, Yorie Kahl, and Posse members David Broer and Scott Faul flee Medina in two Posse members’ cars, but the ruse only briefly confuses the marshals, and two police cars with flashing lights quickly apprehend Kahl and Broer. One car is driven by deputy police chief Steve Schnabel; the other by Muir and Wigglesworth. Kapp, Cheshire, and Hopson are close behind in a third vehicle. Kahl and Broer turn off the road into a driveway, and Kahl, armed with a modified Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle, prepares to open fire on the approaching police officers. The others leap out of their cars and, armed with Mini-14s, take up positions in a ditch. When the marshals arrive moments later, they get out of their cars and order the Posse members to lay down their weapons. One of the Posse members opens fire, and in the 30-second volley that ensues, Kahl and his fellow Posse members lay down a deadly fire that inflicts heavy damage on the outgunned marshals. Kahl wounds Kapp and Schnabel with two shots, and kills Muir with a shot to the heart. Muir fires off a single shot that gravely wounds Yorie. Hopson is struck in the head by a ricocheting bullet that causes permanent brain damage. Rifle fire from Yorie and Faul fatally wounds Cheshire. Kapp, severely injured, manages to shoot Yorie three more times, then takes cover. Kahl executes the dying Cheshire with a shot to the head, then points his rifle at the downed Schnabel, but chooses not to kill him, instead taking his police cruiser and fleeing the scene. He takes the injured Yorie to a Posse member, Dr. Clarence Martin; Yorie and Kahl’s wife Joan are arrested later that night at the hospital, and Yorie tells FBI agents some details of the confrontation. Faul, Broer, and Posse member Vernon Wegner are also arrested; Faul refuses to tell police or FBI investigators where Kahl might have fled to. Police find Schnabel’s abandoned police cruiser. Two days later, police surround Kahl’s farmhouse and bombard it with tear gas, only to find it abandoned. They do find a store of weapons and ammunition, and a collection of Posse Comitatus pamphlets and related documents. Kahl’s family insists that law enforcement efforts to apprehend Kahl are unfair, and complain that he is being “hunted like a dog.” Joan Kahl appears on television and tearfully pleads with her husband to surrender, to no avail. FBI and US Marshals descend on the local Posse Comitatus headquarters, and offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, but Kahl has disappeared into the shadows of the far-right militia network. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 194-200; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2011] Kahl’s murder of the marshals will be used by Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom to promote the anti-tax movement (see February 14-21, 1983). Four months later, Kahl will die in a bloody standoff with police officers in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983).
Entity Tags: Robert Cheshire Jr, Steve Schnabel, Scott Faul, Yorie Kahl, Posse Comitatus, Vernon Wegner, Leonard Ginter, Kenneth Muir, Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord, Carl Wigglesworth, Bradley Kapp, Joan Kahl, Darrell Graf, Clarence Martin, Gordon Kahl, James Hopson Jr, James Wickstrom, Harold (“Bud”) Warren, David Broer
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Law Enforcement Actions, Posse Comitatus, Shooting/Guns
February 14-21, 1983: Posse Comitatus Member Uses Murder of US Marshals by Fellow Member to Promote Anti-Tax Ideology
Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), quickly gains national prominence as the media begins reporting on the fatal confrontation. Most media reports only identify him as a “tax protester,” failing to mention his Posse Comitatus membership and often leaving out the involvement of his son, Yorie Kahl, and two other Posse members who helped kill the marshals and wound three others. CBS news anchor Dan Rather goes farther than most of his colleagues, describing Kahl as “a radical survivalist, a fanatic, [and] an ultraright-wing tax protester” whom authorities describe as “a killer.” It does not take long for Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom (see 1984) to begin contacting the media himself, proudly announcing Kahl’s Posse connections and announcing: “The Posse in Wisconsin is on standby alert. All communications are locked in.” The government has, in pursuing Kahl, “declared war on the people of this country,” Wickstrom tells reporters. He adds that his organization has some three million members, though the FBI estimates its membership at closer to a few thousand; the number is hard to pin down, as many anti-tax protesters (see 1951-1967, December 9, 1968 and After, 1970-1972, 1974, 1976-1978, 1980, and Early 1980s) have at least some affiliation with the loosely organized group. As the FBI and local law enforcement officials mount a nationwide manhunt, Wickstrom, with some success, tries to turn the story away from Kahl’s murder of the two marshals and towards the story of the Posse’s anti-tax beliefs. “What we have here is a gentleman who is now being pursued in North Dakota on a setup to shut his mouth because the American people are waking up by the tens of thousands across this country, realizing that we have been duped by a private central bank,” he declares to a Milwaukee reporter. He makes an appearance on the nationally televised Phil Donahue Show, where he claims that his “heart really goes out to the US Marshals and the children of those marshals and their families.” Asked by Donahue if he would join Kahl’s wife in asking Kahl to turn himself in, Wickstrom changes the subject, arguing that Kahl’s civil rights have been violated and the real issues are farm foreclosures, corrupt courts, the income tax, the Federal Reserve, unemployment, foreign workers, and Jews. In 2002, author Daniel Levitas will write, “Phil Donahue’s dialogue with Wickstrom was oftentimes inane, and though he clearly didn’t agree with his guest, he gave Wickstrom a tremendous platform to spread his ideas.” Wickstrom will use his media appearances to mount a longshot candidacy for governor of Wisconsin. [Levitas, 2002, pp. 201-204] Four months later, Kahl will die in a bloody standoff with police officers in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983).
Entity Tags: Yorie Kahl, Dan Rather, Daniel Levitas, Posse Comitatus, Gordon Kahl, Phil Donahue, James Wickstrom
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Posse Comitatus, Rhetorical Violence
March 13 - June 3, 1983: Anti-Tax Activist Kills Sheriff, Is Killed in Fatal Shootout in Arkansas
Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), arrives at a farm in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The farm owner, Arthur Russell, is a member of another white supremacist organization, the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA), and willingly hides Kahl, who is facing a second warrant for his arrest issued March 11. Kahl spends two months hiding at Russell’s farmhouse, studying the Bible, watching television, and spending time with Russell’s daughter Karen. While Kahl is in hiding, his family and colleagues in the Posse who were involved in the shootout are tried in May 1983; his son Yorie Kahl and colleague Scott Faul are convicted of second-degree murder and six other related charges; David Broer is convicted of conspiracy and of harboring a fugitive; and his wife Joan Kahl is acquitted of conspiracy and harboring a fugitive.
FBI Learns of Kahl's Whereabouts - In late May, after the convictions, Kahl leaves the Russell farm with his CSA friend Leonard Ginter and Ginter’s wife Norma. Ginter, an unemployed carpenter, belongs to a small anti-government group called Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, but is not too ideologically rigid not to accept food stamps for himself and his wife. Kahl and the Ginters drive to Smithville, Arkansas, a tiny Ozark town where the Ginters have a concrete house with a vegetable patch and a chicken pen. After Kahl leaves, Karen Russell calls the FBI and informs them of his whereabouts.
Final Confrontation - On June 3, FBI agent James Blasingame organizes a group of US Marshals and local lawmen at the Lawrence County courthouse to plan how best to apprehend Kahl and the Ginters. Twenty-eight law enforcement officials, including 15 US Marshals, six FBI agents, three state police officers, and four county lawmen descend on the Ginter home. While en route, they encounter Ginter, driving away from the house in a car with a rifle in the backseat; he has a cocked and loaded pistol in his lap. Ginter is apprehended without incident, but lies to the police, saying Kahl is not at the house. Unfortunately, the officials believe his story. At the officials’ request, Ginter drives back to the house, with five officials behind. Ginter parks his car, as do the officials; Ginter gets out and shouts: “Norma, come out. The FBI wants to talk to you.” He emphasizes the word “FBI” as loudly as possible, alerting Kahl to their presence. Norma Ginter comes out and is escorted away. Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews, departing from the plan, enters the house through a utility room off the garage, with US Marshal James Hall and Arkansas State Police investigator Ed Fitzpatrick following him. Kahl is waiting in the kitchen, armed with a formidable Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle. When Matthews enters the kitchen, the two men see each other and open fire simultaneously; Kahl wounds Matthews fatally with two shots to the chest and Matthews kills Kahl with a bullet to the head. Hall and Fitzpatrick, unsure of what has happened, begin firing wildly, striking Matthews with buckshot. Matthews manages to get to a police cruiser before collapsing, and gasps, “I got him.” But the other officials are unsure if Kahl is actually dead, and if others may be in the house as well. They open fire on the house and let loose a barrage of tear gas. They then set the house afire with a can of diesel fuel; the fire ignites several thousand rounds of ammunition stored inside the house and the house is all but gutted by the conflagration. Eventually, officials are able to enter the house and find what remains of Kahl’s body in the kitchen. Posse Comitatus leader William Potter Gale, asked by a reporter about Kahl’s death, says that Kahl was murdered for helping farmers and belonging to the group. Another Posse member, Richard Wayne Snell, will later claim that Matthews had been killed by FBI agents after interrupting them during their torture of Kahl. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]
Episode Destabilizes Posse Comitatus - The Kahl episode receives national attention and helps destabilize the Posse Comitatus (see 1984). The media quickly learns of Kahl’s racist and anti-Semitic past, and reprints a letter he wrote the same night he killed the marshals and later sent to reporters. In his letter, Kahl announced that it was time to begin killing Jews: “We are engaged in a struggle to the death between the people of the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Satan. We are a conquered and occupied nation; conquered and occupied by the Jews, and their hundreds or maybe thousands of front organizations doing their un-Godly work. They have two objectives in their goal of ruling the world. Destroy Christianity and the White race. Neither can be accomplished by itself, they stand or fall together.” In an attempt to exonerate his son and Faul, Kahl took credit for all the fatal shots. Kahl’s espousal of violence and anti-Semitism causes a backlash when some Posse Comitatus members attempt to portray him as a martyr. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220]
Entity Tags: Ed Fitzpatrick, Scott Faul, William Potter Gale, David Broer, Arthur Russell, Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, Richard Wayne Snell, Posse Comitatus, Yorie Kahl, Leonard Ginter, James Blasingame, Gordon Kahl, Gene Matthews, Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord, Norma Ginter, James Hall, Karen Russell, Joan Kahl
September 1983: White Supremacist Receives Standing Ovation at National Alliance Convention
Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982), gives a speech at the National Alliance convention in Arlington, Virginia, reporting on his efforts to recruit farmers and ranchers into the “white racialist” movement (see 1969). Mathews receives the only standing ovation of the convention. He also renews his acquaintance with Thomas Martinez, a former Ku Klux Klansman from Philadelphia, and becomes close friends with him. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Mathews will go on to found The Order, one of the most violent anti-government organizations in modern US history (see Late September 1983). He will die during a 1984 standoff with FBI agents (see December 8, 1984).
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, National Alliance, The Order, Thomas Martinez
Category Tags: Anti-Communist Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, National Alliance, The Order
Late September 1983: Nine White Supremacists Found Violent Guerrilla Group ‘The Order’
The logo of ‘The Order.’ [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Jay Mathews, a white supremacist and activist (see 1980-1982 and September 1983), invites eight men to his property in Metaline Falls, Washington: neighbor and best friend Kenneth Loft; former Ku Klux Klansman David Edan Lane; Daniel Bauer; Denver Daw Parmenter; Randolph George Duey and Bruce Carroll Pierce of the Aryan Nations; and National Alliance recruits Richard Harold Kemp and William Soderquist. Mathews and his eight guests found a new organization called, variously, “The Order,” “The Silent Brotherhood” or “Bruder Schweigen,” and “The White American Bastion.” The group uses the story depicted in the novel The Turner Diaries as its framework, determining to use violence and crime to destabilize the US government and establish a whites-only society. In the novel, “The Organization” finances its revolution by armed robberies, counterfeiting, and other crimes designed to disrupt the US economy. Mathews decides his group will use the same plan. Mathews is also inspired by real crimes, such as a failed 1981 armored car heist by the Black Liberation Army. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 222-223; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: The Order, Daniel Bauer, Bruce Carroll Pierce, David Edan Lane, Denver Daw Parmenter, Kenneth Loft, Randolph George Duey, William Soderquist, Robert Jay Mathews, Richard Harold Kemp
October 28, 1983: ’Order’ Robs Adult Video Store to Finance Insurrection
Bruce Pierce. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Four members of the newly founded white supremacist guerrilla group The Order (see Late September 1983), Robert Jay Mathews, Bruce Pierce, Randolph Duey, and Daniel Bauer, carry out the group’s first armed robbery to finance their plans for armed insurrection. They rob an adult video store in Spokane, Washington, and escape with $369. Mathews, the group leader, decides to strike next at an armored car. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, Bruce Carroll Pierce, Randolph George Duey, The Order, Daniel Bauer
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, The Order, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
December 3-23, 1983: Order Member Arrested for Passing Counterfeit Bills; Colleague Robs Bank for Bail Money
Bruce Pierce, a member of the white supremacist guerrilla group The Order (see Late September 1983), is arrested in Yakima, Washington, for passing counterfeit $50 bills at a local mall. Pierce obtained his counterfeit bills from an operation coordinated with the Aryan Nations in western Idaho. Pierce is interviewed by a Secret Service agent, but refuses to give him any real information. Order leader Robert Jay Mathews (see Late September 1983), worried that Pierce might talk to police or another prisoner, tries to finance Pierce’s bail by robbing a bank north of Seattle. Mathews escapes with over $26,000, but most of the money is ruined when an exploding dye pack stains the bills. Pierce eventually posts a $250 bond and is released. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Pierce will later murder Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, Alan Berg, Aryan Nations, Bruce Carroll Pierce, The Order
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Aryan Nations, The Order, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
1984: Posse Comitatus Begins to Disband
Members of the white separatist, anti-Semitic group Posse Comitatus (see 1969) begin to drift away from the group after federal and state authorities seize the “township” of Tigerton Dells, Wisconsin, which the group has created as part of its “breakaway” nation. The organization is also destabilized by negative media attention after one of its members, Gordon Kahl, killed two US marshals and was later killed himself in a violent confrontation with federal and state officials in Arkansas (see February 13, 1983 and After). Some of the Posse members will take up membership in other white supremacist Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) groups such as Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). The organization will not entirely dissipate, but quickly loses influence and membership (from a height of some 50,000) to newer groups. [Ian Geldard, 2/19/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]
Entity Tags: Aryan Nations, Posse Comitatus, Gordon Kahl
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Federal Government Actions, Law Enforcement Actions, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus
1984: Florida Women’s Clinic Firebombed by Anti-Abortion Activists
The Pensacola Ladies Center, in Pensacola, Florida, is twice firebombed by anti-abortion activists in what author and researcher Harvey Kushner will call “part of a well-coordinated attack that include[s] two private physicians’ offices.” [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38]
Entity Tags: Harvey Kushner, Pensacola Ladies Center
1984: ’Army of God’ Firebombs Two Abortion Clinics
Two abortion clinics, one in Norfolk, Virginia, and one in Washington, DC, are firebombed. A man representing himself as a member of the “Army of God” (see 1982 and August 1982) contacts the media to claim responsibility for the Washington bombing; the acronym “AoG” is written on a wall of the Norfolk clinic. [Extremist Groups: Information for Students, 1/1/2006]
Entity Tags: Army of God
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Arson, Army of God
1984: Posse Comitatus Leader Escapes Federal Custody
James Wickstrom, the counterinsurgency director of the anti-Semitic, anti-government group Posse Comitatus (see 1969), escapes from federal custody after being convicted of running an illegal guerrilla training camp in the Posse’s “planned community” of Tigerton Dells, Wisconsin. Wickstrom, a former tool salesman who protested the Vietnam War on the grounds that it was being fought for “Jew bankers,” and who has successfully recruited Michigan farmers for his group, promises the Posse’s enemies—primarily federal agents and Jews—“the biggest bloodbath you can imagine” before his capture. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010] Wickstrom is captured and will spend a year in prison; Tigerton Dells is seized and many Posse members arrested (see 1984). In 1990, Wickstrom will be sentenced to over three years in prison for counterfeiting currency and illegally possessing firearms. After his second and final release, he will become a popular speaker at neo-Nazi gatherings, where he will tell listeners that he lives “for the day I can walk down the road and see heads on fence posts.” Wickstrom will become chaplain of the Christian Identity separatist group Aryan Nations, and will go on to broadcast a weekly Internet radio program called “Yahweh’s Truth.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]
Entity Tags: Posse Comitatus, James Wickstrom, Aryan Nations
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, Law Enforcement Actions, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, Posse Comitatus, Other Violence
March 16, 1984: White Supremacist Group Robs Armored Truck
The white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983) carries out its second armed robbery (see October 28, 1983). Its members rob the guard of an armored truck and escape with over $43,000. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: The Order
Category Tags: The Order, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
April 3-26, 1984: White Supremacist Refuses to Report to Prison, Becomes Fugitive
Bruce Pierce, a member of the secretive white supremacist organization The Order (see Late September 1983), pleads guilty to passing counterfeit currency (see December 3-23, 1983). He believes he will receive a light sentence as this is his first criminal offense, but because he shows no remorse for his actions and refuses to divulge information about his connections to the Aryan Nations, he is sentenced to two years in federal prison. Instead of reporting to prison, Pierce holes up with Order leader Robert Jay Mathews and becomes a federal fugitive. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Pierce will later murder Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: The Order, Aryan Nations, Robert Jay Mathews, Bruce Carroll Pierce
Category Tags: Court Actions and Lawsuits, Aryan Nations, The Order
April 19-23, 1984: White Supremacist Group Robs Second Armored Truck
Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the violent white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), journeys to Seattle, Washington, with six of his followers to rob a second armored car (see March 16, 1984). Mathews has new recruit Gary Lee Yarborough manufacture small bombs to be used as diversions. On April 19, Yarborough sets off a bomb in an adult theater near the mall where the truck will be; on April 23, Mathews calls in another bomb threat to divert police. The same day, the group successfully robs the armored truck, securing $536,000, though over $300,000 of this money is in checks, which the group destroys. Mathews and another colleague go to Missoula, Montana, where they buy firearms, ammunition, other weapons, and a state-of-the-art computer to give The Order access to the Internet. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Gary Lee Yarborough, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order
Category Tags: The Order, Bombs and Explosives, Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc.
April 29, 1984: White Supremacist Group Bombs Synagogue
Two members of the white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), Bruce Pierce and Richard Kemp, bomb the Congregation Ahavath Israel Synagogue in Boise, Idaho. They use the first bomb Pierce has assembled, and it does little damage. Order leader Robert Jay Mathews is angry over the bombing, not because he disapproves, but because he feels the bomb should have destroyed the building. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Pierce will later murder Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: Congregation Ahavath Israel Synagogue, Alan Berg, Bruce Carroll Pierce, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order, Richard Harold Kemp
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, The Order, Bombs and Explosives
May 17, 1984: White Supremacist Scouts Denver Talk Show Host for Upcoming Murder
Robert Jay Mathews, the founder and leader of the secretive white-supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), has decided the group should murder Denver radio host Alan Berg. Berg, a Jewish liberal with a confrontational style, has frequently sparred with white supremacists and neo-Nazis on the air, and for this reason Mathews has decided he must die. Mathews sends Order member Jean Margaret Craig to Denver to observe Berg’s movements and determine if he is a viable target. Mathews decides that the “hit” on Berg will take place in June. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] Mathews and three Order members will kill Berg a month later (see June 18, 1984 and After).
Entity Tags: Jean Margaret Craig, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order, Alan Berg
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Shooting/Guns, Murder of Alan Berg
May 27, 1984: White Supremacist Group Murders Colleague for Talking about Group’s Activities
Four members of the secretive white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), Randolph Duey, Richard Kemp, and new recruits David Charles Tate and James Dye, murder an Aryan Nations member, Walter Edwards West. Order founder Robert Jay Mathews ordered West’s murder after learning that West had been getting drunk in bars around Hayden Lake, Idaho—the location of the Aryan Nations’ compound—and bragging about The Order’s recent exploits (see April 19-23, 1984 and April 29, 1984). Duey and Kemp kidnap West from his home and drive him into the woods, where the four kill him with hammer blows to the head and a rifle shot to the face. They then dump his body into a previously prepared grave. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: David Charles Tate, Aryan Nations, James Dye, Randolph George Duey, The Order, Richard Harold Kemp, Robert Jay Mathews, Walter Edwards West
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Aryan Nations, The Order, Shooting/Guns
June 18, 1984 and After: Jewish Radio Host Murdered by Neo-Nazis
Alan Berg. [Source: Denver Post]Alan Berg, a Jewish, progressive talk show host for Denver’s KOA 850 AM Radio, is gunned down in his driveway as he is stepping out of his car. The murder is carried out by members of the violent white-supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), a splinter group of the Aryan Nations white nationalist movement. Berg, who was described as often harsh and abrasive, regularly confronted right-wing and militia members on his show. Federal investigators learn that The Order’s “hit list” includes Berg, television producer Norman Lear, a Kansas federal judge, and Morris Dees, a civil rights lawyer and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Radio producer Anath White later says that some of Berg’s last shows were particularly rancorous, involving confrontational exchanges with anti-Semitic members of the Christian Identity movement (see 1960s and After). “That got him on the list and got him moved up the list to be assassinated,” White will say. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006; Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; Denver Post, 6/18/2009]
Preparing for the Murder - Order leader Robert Jay Mathews had already sent a colleague to Denver to determine if Berg was a viable target (see May 17, 1984). The four members of the assassination team—Mathews, Bruce Pierce, David Lane, and Richard Scutari—assemble at a local Motel 6 to review their plans. Pierce, the assassin, has brought a .45 caliber Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun for the job. All four men begin to surveill Berg’s townhouse.
Gunned Down - At 9:21 p.m., Berg drives his Volkswagen Beetle into his driveway. Lane, the driver, pulls up behind him. Mathews leaps out of the car and opens the rear door for Pierce, who jumps out and runs up the driveway. Berg exits his vehicle with a bag of groceries. Pierce immediately opens fire with his submachine gun, pumping either 12 or 13 bullets into Berg’s face and body before the gun jams. (Sources claim both figures of bullet wounds in Berg as accurate.) Pierce and Mathews get back into their car, rush back to the Motel 6, gather their belongings, and leave town. Three of the four members of the “hit squad” will soon be apprehended, charged, and convicted. Pierce is sentenced to 252 years in prison, including time for non-related robberies, and will die in prison in 2010; Lane is given 150 years, and will die in prison in 2007. Neither man is prosecuted for murder, as the evidence will be determined to be inconclusive; rather, they will be charged with violating Berg’s civil rights. Scutari, accused of serving as a lookout for Pierce, and Jean Craig, accused of collecting information on Berg for the murder, will both be acquitted of culpability in the case, but will be convicted of other unrelated crimes. Mathews will not be charged due to lack of evidence of his participation; months later, he will die in a confrontation with law enforcement officials (see December 8, 1984). [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; Denver Post, 6/18/2009; Denver Post, 8/17/2010] In sentencing Pierce to prison, Judge Richard Matsch will say of the murder, “The man [Berg] was killed for who he was, what he believed in, and what he said and did, and that crime strikes at the very core of the Constitution.” [Denver Post, 8/17/2010]
Re-Enacting a Fictional Murder? - Some will come to believe that the assassins may have attempted to re-enact the fictional murder of a Jewish talk-show host depicted in The Turner Diaries (see 1978). [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007; The Moderate Voice, 11/30/2007]
'Opening Shot ... of a Truly Revolutionary Radical Right' - Mark Potok of the SPLC will characterize Berg’s murder as an early event leading to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). “In a sense, it was one of the opening shots of a truly revolutionary radical right,” Potok will say, “perfectly willing to countenance the mass murder of American civilians for their cause.” [Denver Post, 6/18/2009] Berg’s ex-wife, Judith Berg, will travel around the country in the years after her ex-husband’s murder, speaking about what she calls the “disease and anatomy of hate,” a sickness that can infect people so strongly that they commit horrible crimes. In 2007, she will tell a reporter that Berg’s murder was a watershed event that inspired more hate-movement violence. “What happened to Alan in the grown-up world has reached into the youth culture,” she will say. “It opened the door to an acceptance of violence as a means of acting on hate.… While our backs are turned toward overseas, hate groups are having a heyday. People are very unhappy; they’re out of work and jobs are scarce. They’re ripe for joining extremist groups. We need to understand what happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” [Rocky Mountain News, 5/1/2007] White later says of Pierce, Lane, and their fellows: “It’s left me to wonder what makes somebody like this. I think these people didn’t have much opportunity in their lives and scapegoat. They blame others for not making it.” [Denver Post, 8/17/2010]
Entity Tags: Norman Lear, Robert Jay Mathews, Richard Scutari, Morris Dees, Richard P. Matsch, Mark Potok, Jean Margaret Craig, Judith Berg, Alan Berg, Anath White, Aryan Nations, Bruce Carroll Pierce, David Edan Lane, KOA 850 AM Radio, The Order
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Christian Identity, The Order, Murder of Alan Berg, Shooting/Guns
June 24-28, 1984: White Supremacist Associate Arrested for Passing Counterfeit Bills
David Lane, a member of the secretive white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983) and one of the group members responsible for murdering Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After), gives $30,000 in counterfeit bills (see December 3-23, 1983) to Thomas Martinez in Philadelphia. Martinez is not a member of The Order, but has reluctantly agreed to pass on the bills on the group’s behalf. Martinez ignores Lane’s advice to pass on the bills in New Jersey and not his own neighborhood, and passes over $1,500 in neighborhood stores. On June 28, he is arrested after a liquor store owner alerts authorities about the fake bills. Martinez is questioned by the Secret Service, but though he is fully aware of The Order’s array of crimes, tells his questioners nothing. He telephones Order leader Robert Jay Mathews, asking that he give him $1,600 for an attorney. Mathews tells Martinez to be patient, that the group is planning another robbery (see March 16, 1984 and April 19-23, 1984), and he will then send him the money. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: David Edan Lane, Alan Berg, Robert Jay Mathews, US Secret Service, Thomas Martinez, The Order
July 19, 1984: White Supremacist Group Commits Multi-Million Dollar Robbery
Robert Jay Mathews, the head of the secretive white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983), has the group pull a third armored car robbery (see March 16, 1984 and April 19-23, 1984). Mathews has a contact in San Francisco, Charles Ostrout, a supervisor at the Brink’s Armored Car Service depot in that city. In 1982, Ostrout visited Mathews’s White American Bastion (see 1980-1982), complaining that minorities were getting all the jobs and promotions at his company. Mathews and Ostrout decided that the Brink’s run to Eureka, California, at a location north of Ukiah, is the best target. Mathews and six Order colleagues stop the Brink’s armored truck on Highway 101 and rob the guards of over $3.6 million. During the robbery, Mathews loses a 9mm Smith and Wesson pistol registered to one of his fellow robbers, Andrew Barnhill; the gun will give the FBI its first solid lead in the string of robberies, and the FBI will quickly learn of the group’s existence and of Mathews’s identity as its leader. The seven escape and, driving several cars, go to Boise, Idaho, where they split the money between them. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Andrew Barnhill, Charles Ostrout, Robert Jay Mathews, Brink’s, The Order, White American Bastion
August 1984 and After: FBI Begins Tracking ‘Order’ Members
The members of the secretive white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983) discover that the FBI has learned of their group’s existence and has compiled a list of many of its members, including leader Robert Jay Mathews. The FBI is investigating the group for a string of armored car robberies (see March 16, 1984, April 19-23, 1984, and July 19, 1984). The group abandons plans for a fourth robbery and splits up. Mathews and other members move from one cheap hotel and “safe house” to another, while others roam the Northwest in campers and travel trailers. The FBI observes one Order member, Gary Yarborough, moving to a remote mountain cabin near Samules, Idaho. Mathews asks an associate, Ardie McBrearty (see 1974), to establish a telephone message center where group members can leave and receive messages. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Gary Lee Yarborough, Robert Jay Mathews, Ardie McBrearty, The Order, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Law Enforcement Actions, The Order
October 1, 1984: White Supremacist Group Associate Cooperates with FBI
Thomas Martinez, an associate of the secretive white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983) who is facing charges of passing counterfeit bills on the group’s behalf (see June 24-28, 1984), decides to become an FBI informant. Martinez’s lawyer has told him that the FBI knows of his links to the group, and he could face charges as a co-conspirator in any future prosecutions. To hopefully avoid any such charges, Martinez gives detailed information on The Order and his knowledge of its crimes. He also agrees to collect more information about the group’s activities (see August 1984 and After). [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Thomas Martinez, The Order
October 18, 1984: FBI Finds Key Evidence of White Supremacist Group’s Crimes
Three FBI agents in a green US Forest Service truck drive onto the wooded Idaho property of Gary Yarborough, a member of the white supremacist group The Order (see August 1984 and After). They are met with gunfire and retreat. They return in the evening with a search warrant. Yarborough has fled into the woods (and will escape to join leader Robert Jay Mathews), but in his cabin the agents find a large collection of evidence of The Order’s crimes, including documents, explosives, gas grenades, cases of ammunition, pistols, shotguns, rifles, two Ingram MAC-10 submachine guns with silencers, gas masks, knives, crossbows, assault vests, radio frequency scanners, and other equipment. Among the cache of weapons is the MAC-10 used to kill Denver radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After). Based on the evidence found in Yarborough’s cabin, the FBI decides to begin arresting members of The Order. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, Alan Berg, Gary Lee Yarborough, The Order, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Law Enforcement Actions, The Order, Shooting/Guns, Murder of Alan Berg
November 23-24, 1984: White Supremacists Flushed by FBI, Flee to Washington State
Gary Lee Yarborough. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the white supremacist group The Order (see August 1984 and After), Order member Gary Yarborough (see October 18, 1984), and a number of their fellow members have rented five houses in small rural communities near Mount Hood, east of Portland, Oregon, in which to hide from the FBI (see August 1984 and After). George Duey and several Order members moved on to the Puget Sound region, where they rented three secluded vacation homes on Smuggler’s Cove near Greenbank on Whidbey Island. On November 23, Mathews contacts Order associate Thomas Martinez and asks him to fly to Portland for a brief meeting. Mathews is unaware that Martinez is now an FBI informant (see October 1, 1984). Mathews and Yarborough meet Martinez at the Capri Hotel in Portland. The FBI had planned on following Mathews back to his new safe house after the meeting, but when they see Yarborough, the agents on site change the plan. The morning of November 24, the agents surround the hotel, waiting for the two fugitives to leave. Mathews leaves his room, spots the surveillance, shouts a warning to Yarborough, and flees across the parking lot. Mathews and an FBI agent exchange gunfire; the agent is wounded in the leg and Mathews suffers a minor wound to his right hand. Mathews manages to escape on foot. Yarborough attempts to flee through the bathroom window at the end of the building, but falls into a tangle of bushes and is captured. The agents secure Mathews’s car, which contains a number of weapons (including a silenced MAC-10 submachine gun and a hand grenade), $30,000 in cash from a recent Order robbery (see July 19, 1984), and documents, including rental agreements for the Mount Hood homes and a book of encoded names and phone numbers. Mathews hitches rides to his Mount Hood hideout, telling anyone who asks that he hurt his hand while working on his car. He tells his followers to leave the Mount Hood homes and flee to Whidbey Island. It is at a Whidbey Island house that Mathews will be killed during a standoff with the FBI (see December 8, 1984). [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Robert Jay Mathews, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gary Lee Yarborough, Randolph George Duey, Thomas Martinez, The Order
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Law Enforcement Actions, The Order, Shooting/Guns
Late November-Early December, 1984: White Supremacist Leader Writes Manifesto Declaring War on US Government
Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the white supremacist group The Order (see August 1984 and After) and a fugitive from justice, pens a four-page “Declaration of War” while recuperating from a minor gunshot wound (see November 23-24, 1984). The letter accuses the FBI of trying to force him to leave his job as an electrician in Metaline Falls, Washington (see 1980-1982), and blames the FBI’s interest in him on his “involvement in the Tax Rebellion Movement from the time I was 15 to 20 years old” (see 1973). Mathews writes of his “thorough disgust… with the American people,” whom he says have “devolved into some of the most cowardly, sheepish, degenerates that have ever littered the face of this planet.” He writes that once he realized “White men” or “Aryans” are the only proper leaders and inhabitants of the US, he determined to take action to “cleanse” the nation of “Mexicans, mulattoes, blacks, and Asians.” Mathews writes of his belief that “a small, cohesive alien group within this nation” with “an iron grip on both major political parties, on Congress, on the media, on the publishing houses, and on most of the major Christian denominations in this nation” are working to ensure that whites become an oppressed and subservient minority in America. Now, he says, the US government “seems determined to force the issue, so we have no choice left but to stand and fight back. Hail Victory!” Mathews denies that his colleague Gary Yarborough fired at FBI agents during those agents’ attempts to secure evidence at Yarborough’s mountain cabin (see October 18, 1984), falsely claims that during the incident, FBI agents “used Gary’s wife as a shield and a hostage and went into the house,” and claims that Yarborough chose not to kill a number of agents, but instead to flee without further violence. He claims that the FBI attempted to “ambush” him at a Portland motel (see November 23-24, 1984), and that FBI agents accidentally gunned down the motel manager in an attempt to shoot Mathews in the back. He also claims that he could have easily killed the FBI agent he shot at the motel, but chose to spare his life, shooting him in the leg instead. Mathews further asserts that FBI agents threatened his two-year-old son and his 63-year-old mother in their attempts to locate him. He declares that he is not going into hiding, but instead “will press the FBI and let them know what it is like to become the hunted.” He writes that he may well die soon, and concludes: “I will leave knowing that I have made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the future of my children. As always, for blood, soil, honor, for faith, and for race.” The letter “declares war” against the “Zionist Occupation Government of North America,” and calls for the murder of politicians, judges, and any other authority figures who interfere with The Order’s attempt to overthrow the government and exterminate other races. It concludes, “Let the battle begin.” [Robert Jay Mathews, 12/1984; HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Gary Lee Yarborough, Federal Bureau of Investigation, The Order, Robert Jay Mathews
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, The Order, Rhetorical Violence, Death of Robert Jay Mathews, Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions
December 1984: FBI Director: Clinic Attacks Do Not Conform to Definition of Terrorism
Despite a well-documented pattern of escalating violence (see February 1977 or 1978, February 1978, 1979, January 1982, May 1982, August 1982, 1984, and 1984), FBI Director William Webster declares that the spate of clinic bombings and attacks by anti-abortionists does not conform to the federal definition of terrorism, and therefore is not a priority for federal investigation. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 38-39]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, William H. Webster
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, Federal Government Actions
December 8, 1984: Neo-Nazi Leader Dies in Standoff with FBI
Robert Jay Mathews. [Source: Wikimedia]Robert Jay Mathews, the leader of the neo-Nazi, white supremacist group The Order (see Late September 1983 and June 18, 1984 and After), is killed during a standoff with federal authorities at a rented vacation home near Smugger’s Cove on Whidbey Island, Washington State. Mathews has been on the run after escaping from federal custody in November 1984 and in the process wounding an FBI agent in the leg (see November 23-24, 1984). On December 3, the FBI’s Seattle office received an anonymous tip that Mathews and other Order members were hiding in three hideouts on Whidbey Island, and were heavily armed. The FBI dispatched 150 agents to the island to ensure none of the members escaped. By December 7, the FBI had all three hideouts located and surrounded. Four members of the group surrender without incident, but Mathews refuses, instead firing repeatedly at agents from inside the Smuggler’s Cove house. After 35 hours of fruitless negotiations, agents fire three M-79 Starburst illumination flares into the home, hoping that the house will catch fire and drive Mathews out. Instead, Mathews either chooses to remain inside the house, or is unable to leave. He dies in the flames. The FBI recovers his charred body the next morning. News reports about the siege are the first many Americans hear of The Order and its war against what it calls the “ZOG,” or Zionist Occupation Government, which Mathews and others characterize as a “Jewish cabal” running the US government. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006] In 2003, researcher Harvey Kushner will write of Mathews, “For many on the racist right, he died a martyr.” [Kushner, 2003, pp. 223]
Entity Tags: Harvey Kushner, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert Jay Mathews, The Order
Category Tags: Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action, Law Enforcement Actions, The Order, Shooting/Guns, Death of Robert Jay Mathews
Late December 1984 - April 1985: Justice Department Decides to ‘Roll Up’ White Supremacist Group
After the death of Robert Jay Mathews, the founder and leader of the white supremacist group The Order (see December 8, 1984), federal authorities decide to “roll up” the group. Federal prosecutors from six states meet secretly in Seattle and decide to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against Order members. Under RICO statutes, all defendants are considered co-conspirators and are jointly responsible for all the crimes committed by the group (see October 28, 1983, December 3-23, 1983, March 16, 1984, April 19-23, 1984, April 29, 1984, May 27, 1984, June 18, 1984 and After, June 24-28, 1984, July 19, 1984, and November 23-24, 1984). The RICO Act also allows the government to seize and forfeit all property and assets used by the criminal organization to further its goals. Between December 1984 and March 1985, the Justice Department builds a massive conspiracy case against The Order. On April 15, 1985, a grand jury in Washington State returns a 20-count indictment against 23 members of The Order with racketeering, conspiracy, and 67 separate offenses. By this time, 17 members of The Order are in custody; by the month’s end, all but one member, Richard Scutari (see March 19, 1986), are in custody. [HistoryLink, 12/6/2006]
Entity Tags: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Richard Scutari, Robert Jay Mathews, US Department of Justice, The Order
Category Tags: Federal Government Actions, Law Enforcement Actions, The Order, Death of Robert Jay Mathews
1985: Anti-Abortion Activists Gather to Celebrate Clinic Bombings
Anti-abortion activists with the Pro-Life Action Network (PLAN) gather at a motel in Appleton, Wisconsin, to celebrate their successes and plan further actions. The PLAN members apparently count a wave of abortion clinic bombings and arsons as successes; the motel’s marquee reads, “Welcome Pro-Life Activists—Have a Blast,” and some PLAN members wear firecrackers on their name badges. One of the featured events of the gathering is the reading of a letter from imprisoned clinic arsonist Curt Beseda. In 2002, author and journalist Frederick Clarkson will write: “This small but seminal meeting in many ways epitomized the brazen yet banal nature of organized antiabortion extremism—a rah-rah atmosphere, like some perverse parody of a pep rally, in which threats of future violence were cloaked as free speech, and past criminal acts were celebrated as valid tools for intimidating fellow citizens. A fringe culture was coalescing.” [Ms. Magazine, 12/2002] At this and other PLAN meetings, PLAN president Joseph Scheidler vows to stop abortion “by any means necessary.” He has previously called PLAN a “pro-life mafia.” The organization proclaims “a year of pain and fear” for anyone seeking or providing abortion. [National Organization for Women, 9/2002; Ms. Magazine, 12/2002]
Entity Tags: Joseph Scheidler, Frederick Clarkson, Pro-Life Action League, Curt Beseda
Category Tags: Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions, PLAL
1985: Neo-Nazi Leader Buys Farm in West Virginia, Transforms It into Organization Compound, HQ
William Pierce, the founder of the neo-Nazi National Alliance (see 1970-1974) and the author of the inflammatory and highly influential white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), purchases a large farm near Mill Point, West Virginia, for $95,000. Some will suggest that the money Pierce uses to buy the farm comes from armed robberies carried out by The Order (see Late September 1983), but those suggestions will remain unproven. Pierce and his followers will transform the farm into a large, fortified compound that serves as the Alliance’s national headquarters. [Center for New Community, 8/2002 ]
Entity Tags: National Alliance, The Order, William Luther Pierce
Category Tags: Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions, Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric, National Alliance, The Order
Abortion-Based Rhetoric and Actions (109)Anti-Communist Rhetoric and Actions (5)Anti-Government Rhetoric and Action (548)Anti-Health Care Reform (24)Anti-Semitic Rhetoric and Actions (83)Anti-Tax Rhetoric and Actions (42)Environmental Activism (63)Faith-Based Rhetoric and Actions (102)Gender-Based Rhetoric and Actions (67)Other (6)Race and Ethnic-Based Rhetoric (158)
Court Actions and Lawsuits (279)Federal Government Actions (56)Law Enforcement Actions (212)
Animal Liberation Front (27)Army of God (21)Aryan Nations (38)Christian Identity (31)Earth Liberation Front (30)Elohim City (24)Ku Klux Klan (16)Michigan Militia (11)Montana Freemen (76)Montana Militia (14)National Alliance (30)Oath Keepers (5)Operation Rescue (18)Other Anti-Abortion Groups (6)Other Environmental Activists (5)Other Militias, Separatists (128)PLAL (6)Posse Comitatus (25)SHAC (10)Stormfront (12)The Order (34)WCOTC (49)Westboro Baptist Church (50)
Specific Events
'Unabomber' Attacks (43)1949 Peekskill Riots (3)1992 Ruby Ridge Standoff (5)1993 Branch Davidian Siege (7)1995 Oklahoma City Bombing (442)2001 Anthrax Attacks (39)2009 Health Care Protests (23)2009 Holocaust Museum Shooting (4)Death of Robert Jay Mathews (5)Eric Rudolph Bombings (15)FACE Law (3)Freemen/FBI Standoff (37)Killing Spree by John Salvi (3)Murder of Alan Berg (3)Murder of Dr. Barnard Slepian (6)Murder of Dr. David Gunn (2)Murder of Dr. George Tiller (17)Murder of Dr. John Britton (4)Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Act (7)
Types of Violence
Arson (62)Beatings/Mobs (36)Bioweapon Attacks (43)Bombs and Explosives (328)Harassment and Threats (95)Kidnapping (5)Other Violence (41)Rhetoric from National Figures (45)Rhetorical Violence (218)Robberies, Larcenies, Fraud, Etc. (71)Shooting/Guns (115)Vandalism (19)
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Home » Timelines by Topic » Topics » Health » Public Health Policy » US Health Care
US Health Care System
Project: US Health Care System
Open-Content project managed by kuhan, mtuck
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August 11-18, 2009: Eight-Day Free Health Care Event in California Attracts Thousands of Uninsured, Underinsured Patients
Hundreds wait in line for dental care at the Remote Area Medical clinic at The Forum. [Source: UPI / Jim Ruymen]The New York Times cites an eight-day health care event in Inglewood, California, as evidence of the overwhelming need for health care reform. Thousands of residents, who either lack any health insurance at all or are underinsured, line up every day outside The Forum, where the Los Angeles Lakers used to play professional basketball, to see a doctor, dentist, or nurse. The event serves 1,500 people per day; hundreds more are unable to get in to be seen. “It looked as if it was happening in an underdeveloped country, where villagers might assemble days in advance for care from a visiting medical mission,” the Times writes. “But it was happening in a major American metropolitan area. This vast, palpable need for help is a shameful indictment of our health care system—one that politicians opposed to reform insist is the world’s best.” The event is run by an organization called Remote Area Medical, originally formed to provide critical care to natives living in the Amazon basin. But the group realized that tremendous need exists within America itself, and began delivering free services in rural areas of the country. It has now expanded into urban areas. The first day, the group sees around 1,000 patients, and asks hundreds more to return the next day. By August 13, it has all available slots for the eight-day event committed. The Times writes: “The clinics are an inspiring example of what dedicated volunteers can do. But they are temporary events and come nowhere near to meeting the nation’s needs. Health care reforms under consideration in Congress could make big strides toward filling the gaps: by offering less costly insurance on new exchanges; by expanding Medicaid to cover more poor people and reaching out more vigorously to enroll them; by subsidizing coverage for low-income people; by helping increase the supply of primary care doctors; by requiring insurers to offer essential benefits and preventing them from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.… Americans deserve to know all of the facts, including that tens of millions of their neighbors and friends have no health insurance coverage at all or insurance that is grossly inadequate. If they still have doubts about why reform is so necessary, they should take another look at those lines in Inglewood.” [Guardian, 8/12/2009; New York Times, 8/15/2009; United Press International, 8/15/2009]
Entity Tags: New York Times, Remote Area Medical
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, US Health Insurers, Medicaid
August 11, 2009: Republican Warns that Obama, Other ‘Socialists’ Intend to Use Health Care Reform to Declare Martial Law’
Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) holds a “town hall” forum to discuss the Democrats’ health care reform efforts in the North Georgia Technical College auditorium. The audience is primarily white, elderly, and supportive of Broun’s opposition to reform. He begins by displaying three white binders to the audience and declaring: “Folks, this is Obamacare. Let me start this by telling you what I think of this bill and Obamacare.” He then raises the binders over his head and slams them to the ground. “This is a stinking, rotten fish, and they don’t want you to smell it, and they want to shove it down your throat and make you eat it before you smell how rotten and stinky it is,” he says, and promises to vote against the reform bill no matter how it is changed. Broun has made headlines by claiming the health care reform proposal “is gonna kill people” (see July 10, 2009) and comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler. During the forum, he calls Latin American socialist leaders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez Obama’s “good buddy” (sic).
Reform an Excuse for Martial Law - Going even farther, Broun claims that a “socialist elite” made up of Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) intends to use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law. “They’re trying to develop an environment where they can take over,” he says. “We’ve seen that historically.”
Killing Old People - Broun feeds into his elderly audience’s concerns over the debunked claims that the reform proposal would lead to the euthanization or untimely death of American seniors (see July 23, 2009 and July 23, 2009). Obama “is going to let the old folks die, and I don’t like that at all,” one audience member says. Broun agrees, telling the audience that younger citizens would get preferential treatment over elderly patients. “Eventually, mama will be lying in bed until she gets pneumonia and dies,” he says. Citing a study by the Lewin Group, which has not only been debunked but shown to have been propagated by health insurance company UnitedHealth (see July 27, 2009), Broun tells his audience that under the reform bill, 114 million Americans will be forced off their employers’ insurance plans and onto a competing government-run plan because small businesses will not be able to pay for the mandated insurance. The reform proposal will lead to a government-only “single payer” system, he asserts. “They want to take away your insurance and dictate what kind of health care you’re going to get,” he warns. Furthermore, the government will end Medicare and other federal health care programs.
Broun's Alternative: 'Letting the Market Work' - Broun says his Republicans have an alternative: allowing groups of citizens to form private insurer groups and thusly enjoy group rates and other cost reductions. His other ideas include expanding Medicare’s stable of private providers, strictly capping malpractice lawsuits, making health care expenses tax-deductible, and relaxing some state insurers’ restrictions on pre-existing conditions. “We can lower the cost of health care markedly by giving people more options and letting the market work,” he says.
Supportive Crowd - The crowd is almost uniformly made up of Broun supporters, but one woman attempts to ask a question about covering the uninsured while Broun is speaking. Uniformed deputies remove her from the auditorium for a time before allowing her to return. When she asks another question during the question-and-answer period, audience menbers demand that the facilitators “cut her mic.” Broun conducts two sessions, the first containing some 400 participants and the second 150. The auditorium seats 250. [Think Progress, 8/12/2009; Atlanta Banner-Herald, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: UnitedHealth Group, Obama administration, Lewin Group, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Paul Broun
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, 2010 Elections
Category Tags: Medicare, Obama Health Care Reform
August 11, 2009: Democratic Senator Faces Second Unruly Town Hall
Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), fresh from a contentious “town hall” meeting on health care reform, holds another such forum in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Though the Lebanon auditorium seats only 250, over 1,000 show up for the forum. Those who arrive first get in first, and therefore many anti-reform protesters enter the auditorium to grill Specter, while many union members and pro-reformers are left to mill about in the parking lot outside. Many of the protesters come in response to e-mail alerts sent from local and national anti-tax, anti-reform, and “tea party” organizations, along with Specter’s own mailings. The New York Times reports that many protesters repeat slogans and questions recently aired on conservative talk radio shows, though when asked about their propensity to parrot material from such sources, the reporters receive indignant protestations of the protesters’ independence. Many shout that they are not mob members or puppets, though the chants seem orchestrated, and some of the protesters were bused in by the lobbying organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see May 29, 2009). Many of the protesters, according to the Times, are there to protest about issues other than health care. One protester says health care reform is just one aspect of the Obama administration’s plans for “the dismantling of this country,” a line which draws loud applause. “We don’t want this country to turn into Russia.” One local “tea party” organizer, John Stahl, says the issues debated at the forum go well beyond health care. “We believe there are several issues out there that leave the existence of the Republic at risk,” he says, “not the least of which is this Obamacare.” Many want to talk about enforced euthanasia of elderly citizens (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009), immigration policy, and other concerns. In an attempt to impose some order on the forum, Specter imposes a rigid format, allowing only the first 30 people who wish to speak to submit cards with their questions. He also stands face-to-face with questioners, and allows them to speak fully before giving answers. The auditorium is patrolled by three uniformed Capitol Police officers from Washington as well as local law enforcement. One protester, Craig Miller, becomes involved with the police when he stands close to Specter and bellows, “You are trampling our Constitution!” The officers move in to restrain him but Specter asks them to give Miller his space and allow him to leave the venue under his own power. Miller refuses to leave, and instead shouts, “One day, God is going to stand before you, and he’s going to judge you!” Specter then informs the rowdy, cheering protesters that anyone who disrupts the proceedings will be removed. [New York Times, 8/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Arlen Specter, Americans for Prosperity, New York Times, Obama administration, John Stahl, Craig Miller
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform
August 11, 2009: CNBC Contacts Anti-Reform Activisits Looking for ‘Angry’ Protests to Cover
CNBC, a cable business news outlet, contacts “tea party” activisits looking for anti-health care reform protests that will be confrontational and violent enough to make good television. Jenny Beth Martin, the national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots organization, sends an e-mail to a “tea party” Google group that reads: “We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC.… So, where are the big events this week and where can TPP best be represented on the news?” A group member, Pat Wayman, responds with a suggestion that CNBC sends crews to a health fair hosted by Representative David Scott (D-GA), where uninsured people can receive free medical care. “This one should be a riot! literally,” Wayman writes, and notes, “This is the congressman who got a swastika painted on his office sign last night” (see August 11, 2009). Wayman also includes a link to a right-wing Web site listing the Scott event. Martin will later deny recommending the Scott event or any others to CNBC for coverage, saying her group “does not endorse anything that incites violence of any kind.” She also notes that the e-mail list is unmoderated, and says, “I can’t moderate every single comment.” She will confirm that CNBC solicited an event with “lots of energy and lots of anger,” saying, “That was the impression that I received from them.” Later, Martin informs her organization that it will not become involved in Scott’s health fair. In an e-mail, she will write: “I have thought about this more and think it would be best to send a press release saying how we think the health fair is a perfect example of free market events. That we support free markets and the fact that in America we are compassionate and take care of the uninsured. Look at these businesses who are doing this without the government taking over our health care. I think TPP does not need to have a presence there. If the other groups want to do it, that is their prerogative. Right now Tea Party Patriots is under a ton of scrutiny and we need to make sure our methods are above reproach.” [TPM Muckraker, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Tea Party Patriots, Jenny Beth Martin, Pat Wayman, CNBC, David Scott
August 11, 2009: Congressman Explains Health Care Reform to Constituent with Disabled Son
Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) writes a letter to Michigan resident Mike Sola, who was removed from a riotous health care forum hosted by Dingell days before (see August 6, 2009). Sola had accused Dingell and the Obama administration of wanting to kill his son, afflicted with cerebral palsy, with their health care reform initiative, currently labeled HR 3200: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act. Dingell writes to Sola: “I know you left last week’s health care reform town hall in Romulus without answers to your question about what the bill does to help people with disabilities. I attempted to explain an amendment which was adopted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but sadly before I was able to give the details of that amendment, the crowd became disruptive.” Dingell details one element of the House bill, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, “which would create a new, voluntary national insurance program for adults who become functionally disabled.… The CLASS Act is widely supported by many disability groups including United Cerebral Palsy, American Association of People with Disabilities, Assisted Living Federation of America, National Council on Aging, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, and the Catholic Health Association of the United States.… The legislation is based on the principles of independence, choice, and empowerment, and creates a framework to help individuals gain access to the care they need to live independently.… Beyond the CLASS Act amendment, there are other parts of HR 3200 that will guarantee care for your son. First, this bill ends the insurance practice of denying coverage due to a pre-existing condition or charging higher premiums based on health status and gender. If your son ever had to buy insurance on his own, he would be guaranteed coverage. In addition, the bill ends lifetime limits on benefits. With the status quo, no such guarantee exists. Also, HR 3200 will ensure that no one will ever again go bankrupt because of medical bills. The bill ends lifetime limits on benefits, which should bring a particular comfort to all families who have a loved one with a disability because they often need a lot of costly medical care.” Dingell outlines a number of elements of the bill, and concludes: “Finally, your son will have a range of options when it comes to insurance plans. He will be able to keep his current plan, if so desired. No one will force him into any plan against his will.” [US House of Representatives, 8/11/2009]
Entity Tags: National Multiple Sclerosis Society, National Council on Aging, United Cerebral Palsy, Obama administration, Mike Sola, Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, American Association of People with Disabilities, John Dingell, Assisted Living Federation of America, Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, US House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Catholic Health Association of the United States
August 11, 2009: Anti-Reform Group Sends ‘Brutal’ Mailer Claiming Government Would Deny Seniors Needed Care
Header from the mailer sent out by 60+, depicting four senior citizens apparently suffering from lack of health care. [Source: 60+ / Plum Line]The “60 Plus Association” (60+), a conservative anti-health care reform organization, sends out what Washington Post commentator Greg Sargent calls a “brutal” mailer to Nebraska residents, depicting photos of senior citizens apparently suffering from various untreated ailments and making the questionable claim that health care reform would be funded by $500 million in Medicare cuts. 60+ is leading a media push against the Democrats’ reform package by claiming that the government would institute so-called “death panels” (see Shortly Before August 10, 2009). Sargent writes: “This is kind of a new frontier in the scare campaign targeting old folks: It links the prediction of drastic Medicare cuts to the widely-debunked claim that health care reform will lead to mass government euthanasia of the elderly” (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, and August 11, 2009). The mailer repeats the widely discredited claim that the government could deny you treatment even if “you and your doctor insist on them,” and quotes President Obama as saying during one “town hall” forum, “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” Sargent notes: “Taken out of context, the comment sounds like a callous declaration to a patient that he or she should suck it up and forget about getting needed care. In fact, Obama was actually discussing the difficulties inherent in helping the elderly make good medical decisions.” [Plum Line, 8/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Medicare, Barack Obama, Greg Sargent, 60 Plus Association
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, Medicare
August 11, 2009: Senator Who Called ‘Death Panels’ ‘Nuts’ Denounces White House Claims of His Support for Health Care Reform
Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) denounces comments by President Obama (see August 11, 2009) and press secretary Robert Gibbs that, he says, implies he supports some version of the Democrats’ health care reform legislation. The day before, Isakson had told reporters that claims by former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) and others about so-called “death panels” were “nuts” (see August 10, 2009). Isakson says he “vehemently opposes” both the House and Senate versions of reform legislation, and denies that he drafted language in the bill calling for the government to expand Medicare and provide for “end-of-life counseling.” In a statement, he says: “I categorically oppose the House bill and find it incredulous that the White House and others would use my amendment as a scapegoat for their misguided policies. My Senate amendment simply puts health care choices back in the hands of the individual and allows them to consider if they so choose a living will or durable power of attorney. The House provision is merely another ill-advised attempt at more government mandates, more government intrusion, and more government involvement in what should be an individual choice.” [US Senate, 8/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama, Johnny Isakson
August 11, 2009: Top Conservative, ‘Tea Party’ Organizers Plan to Block All Health Care Reform
Top “tea party” and other conservative organizers, taking part in a private conference call, discuss their primary goal for health care reform: blocking any kind of compromise entirely, and ensuring that no health care reform package of any kind is passed. An AFL-CIO organizer manages to get involved in the call, and his notes are provided to, first, the union itself, and then to the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent. The call consists of representatives of powerful lobbying and “grassroots” organizations (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6-7, 2009) such as the American Liberty Alliance, the “Tea Party Patriots,” and RecessRally.com (see August 5, 2009). [Plum Line, 8/11/2009] The conference call is sponsored by the “Tea Party Patriots,” which labels itself the “official grassroots American movement.” The group is sponsored and organized by, among other organizations, FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009). When the “Tea Party Patriots” organized a trip to Washington in July, FreedomWorks provided the members with prepared packets of information and briefed them on how a visit to Capitol Hill works. [MSNBC, 8/12/2009] Sargent writes: “It’s certain to be seized on by [Democrats] to argue that organized tea party opposition to [President] Obama has no constructive intentions and is fomenting public ‘concern’ about Obama’s plan solely to prevent any reform from ever taking place. GOP officials would argue that they don’t share these goals.” The moderator on the call tells participants that bipartisan compromise on the Senate Finance Committee, where senators are holding talks, must be stopped at all costs. Organizers are told to pressure Republican senators seen as likely to compromise with Senate Democrats, including Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), to stop the negotiating. “The goal is not compromise, and any bill coming out this year would be a failure for us,” the moderator says. He adds that “the Democrats will turn even a weak bill from the Senate Finance Committee into Canadian-style single-payer through underhanded implementation.” Single-payer, or a system of government-only health care, is not in any versions of the legislation in either house of Congress. Another organizer says, “The purpose of tea parties is not to find a solution to the health care crisis—it is to stop what is not the solution: Obamacare.” A spokeswoman for the American Liberty Alliance later acknowledges that comments like the ones noted by the AFL-CIO source were likely made, and that the organization’s specific goal is to prevent the current legislation in Congress from becoming law. No audio of the call exists, she claims. A “tea party” organizer later denies that his organization has any intention of “politically ‘accepting’ or denying legislation.” [Plum Line, 8/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Greg Sargent, American Liberty Alliance, AFL-CIO, Barack Obama, FreedomWorks, Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, Olympia Snowe, Mike Enzi, Tea Party Patriots, Recess Rally
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, US Health Care Polls
August 11, 2009: Swastika Painted on African-American Congressman’s Office Sign
A swastika painted by an unknown party on the office sign of a Democratic supporter of health care reform. [Source: Associated Press]A swastika is found spray-painted on a sign outside the district office of Representative David Scott (D-GA), an African-American Democrat and health care reform supporter. Scott says the swastika reflects an increasingly hateful and racist debate over health care; he hopes it may shock people into toning down their rhetoric. Scott’s staff found the Nazi graffiti sprayed on a sign outside his Smyrna, Georgia, office upon arriving to work. On August 1, Scott had been involved in a contentious debate over health care reform at a community meeting that was intended to be about plans for a new highway in the district. Scott says he has received mail and e-mails calling him “n_gger,” terming President Obama a Marxist, and photos of Obama with swastikas painted on his forehead. Scott reads one of the letters on the air to CNN’s Carlos Watson: “They address it to n_gger David Scott,” he says, and reads, “‘You were, you are, and you shall forever be, a n_gger.’ I got this in the mail today. Somewhere underneath this, bubbling up, is the ugly viscissitudes of racism. We should be proud we have an African-American president and celebrating him willing to take on the difficult issue of health care, an issue that reflects 19 percent of our economy. Here we are in Congress trying to grapple with an almost impossible task—almost two improbables together, bring the cost of health care down while expanding the coverage of it. That is a difficult assignment and it should not be relegated to these mobs of people who will come and hijack a meeting.… We have got to make sure that the symbol of the swastika does not win, that the racial hatred that’s bubbling up does not win this debate. There’s so much hatred out there for President Obama.… We must not allow it to intimidate us.” The Smyrna Police Department, along with the US Capitol Police and the FBI, are investigating the vandalism of the sign. [Associated Press, 8/11/2009; WXIA-TV, 8/11/2009; Huffington Post, 8/12/2009]
Targeted by Fox News Talk Show Host - Liberal news and advocacy Web site Think Progress notes that the day before the vandalism, Fox News host Glenn Beck had targeted Scott in a tirade against health care reform, saying in part: “Congressman, how many Americans… have called and called and called, only to be treated like swine? You know what? I’m not sure, Congressman, if you are aware that not everybody has access to a brand new Gulfstream G550 [luxury jet]. I mean, it might be tough for the average Joe, who makes $129,000 less than you do to swing by the office for a meeting in Washington, DC. We hope you understand and accept our offer instead to use a common alternative to private jets that are so much better for the environment called the telephone. America, you call your congressman. You call just—the congressman that represents you. You call your senator right now.” [Think Progress, 8/11/2009]
'Liberal Conspiracy' - Within minutes of the story becoming news, right-wing commentators and bloggers begin stating their belief that the swastika was painted by liberals to stir up controversy. The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack writes: “It’s possible that a neo-Nazi actually vandalized Rep. Scott’s offices. But given the fact that the Nazi imagery so neatly dovetails with the left’s smearing of health care protesters as fascists (see August 10-11, 2009), isn’t it more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters?” The next day, conservative blogger John Hawkins writes that “a liberal” probably painted the swastika on Scott’s sign. “Let’s see, you have a congressman who loves to play the race card and a controversial health care debate that the Left is losing,” he writes. “If you’re a liberal, painting a swastika on his door might look like a pretty good idea.” [Weekly Standard, 8/11/2009; John Hawkins, 8/12/2009] Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners: “I don’t buy this. This is too politically convenient.… I think the Democrats are doing this themselves.” [Media Matters, 8/11/2009]
'Frightening Display of Bigotry and Ignorance' - Scott’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Wright, says she believes the accusations that Scott sympathizers painted the swastika are “funny.” Bill Nigut, the Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, says the swastika is a “frightening display of bigotry and ignorance that should not be tolerated by a democratic society.” [Think Progress, 8/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Fox News, Glenn Beck, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Carlos Watson, Bill Nigut, Jennifer Wright, Barack Obama, Smyrna Police Department, John Hawkins, US Capitol Police, David Scott, Rush Limbaugh, John McCormack
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, US Domestic Terrorism
August 11-12, 2009: Conservatives Accuse 11-Year-Old Girl of Being an ‘Obama Plant’
11-year-old Julia Hall asking her question during the Portsmouth town hall. [Source: Puma By Design (.com)]Conservatives attack an 11-year old girl who asks President Obama a question at a “town hall” rally held in New Hampshire (see August 11, 2009). Julia Hall, a sixth-grader from Malden, Massachusetts, asks: “As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care. How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that can—that help more of us?” Obama gives a long response about the false rumors surrounding health care reform, including the debunked idea of “death panels” (see August 7, 2009). In their own responses, conservative pundits attack Hall for being an “Obama plant.” Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners that the entire town hall was “a stacked deck. That thing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was totally phony. The little girl that asked a question is the daughter of a huge Obama supporter.” One blogger makes the unsubstantiated claim that he could see a “mysterious” woman mouthing the girl’s question as she spoke, and shows a video of a woman saying something during Hall’s question, though it is unclear exactly what she is saying or whether she is speaking to the girl. Hall’s mother, Kathleen Manning Hall, later tells a Boston reporter that she had her daughter write down her question beforehand, and was “shocked” that her daughter had decided to try to ask a question of Obama. A Boston blogger notes, correctly, that Manning Hall is an Obama supporter, and adds that the White House said “that audience members are selected randomly.” Conservative author and pundit Michelle Malkin claims that Manning Hall “has donated thousands of dollars to Obama, as has her law firm,” and adds: “Now, look for Dems to play the kiddie human shield card to the hilt. Anyone who mentions Hall’s political pedigree will be attacked as a vicious meanie stalker.” The Washington Times adds its own criticism, misidentifying the girl’s age as 13 and stating, “It’s a sad commentary on the health care debate that the president has to resort to this kind of stunt to attempt to insulate his plan from criticism.” Hall herself later says she was thrilled to have been part of the debate, saying, “It was like a once in a lifetime experience.” She says she would like to “work in politics” when she gets older. [Raw Story, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Barack Obama, Julia Hall, Kathleen Manning Hall, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Washington Times
August 12, 2009: Representative Asserts that Health Care Reform Would Provide for ‘Death Counselors’
Representative John Mica (R-FL) tells listeners of Florida’s WDBO-AM that the idea of “death counselors” actually exists in the Democrats’ health care reform package. “They create a whole new category,” Mica says. “There are death counselors. There is authorization for reimbursement for those counselors for Medicare. You have a whole new cottage industry.” Mica’s idea, apparently sparked by debunked claims by former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) and health care industry lobbyist Betsy McCaughey, among others (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 12, 2009), actually refers to the legislation’s provision that Medicare would pay for “advanced care planning consultations” for elderly and seriously ill patients (see July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009). [WDBO, 8/12/2009; Think Progress, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Sarah Palin, Elizabeth (“Betsy”) McCaughey, WDBO-AM, John Mica, Medicare
August 12, 2009: Health Care Industry Whistleblower Says Anti-Reform Protests Fomented by Industry
Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive with CIGNA who has now become a whistleblower against the industry (see July 10, 2009 and August 10, 2009), says that the raucous and contentious protests at health care “town halls” are the result of what he calls “covert,” or “stealth” efforts by health insurance companies. Potter says he lacks the specifics for the current campaign, but he witnessed and actually took part in similar efforts in earlier years. This year’s efforts follow similar patterns to the ones he was familiar with, he says. “The industry is up to the same dirty tricks this year,” Potter says after meeting with House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY), who supports the Democrats’ health care reform initiative. “When you hear someone complaining about traveling down a ‘slippery slope to socialism,’ some insurance flack, like I used to be, wrote that,” Potter says. He notes that during his 20 years in the industry, he watched—and participated in—the industry’s funneling money to large public firms who would create “Astroturf,” or fake grassroots, organizations (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, and August 10, 2009) and use friendly conservative media voices. Slaughter says, “[T]he notion that this is going to be something devilish comes from the people who would lose money on it.” [The Hill, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Wendell Potter, Louise Slaughter
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, US Health Insurers
August 12, 2009: Folk Singer Defuses Potential Confrontation at Idaho Health Care Reform Rally
Folk singer Joan Baez discusses health care reform with a reform opponent. [Source: Dutch Shots]Folk singer Joan Baez, who made a reputation as a staunch progressive anti-war protester in the Vietnam War era, confronts angry health care reform opponents at a pro-reform concert and rally in Idaho Falls, Idaho, with composure, successfully defusing what could have been a potentially harsh situation. According to a writer who attends the forum and later posts his account on the liberal blog Daily Kos, Baez conducts herself “according to [her] unshakeable ideals of non-violence and compassion.” Some of the protesters bear signs accusing Baez of supporting killing children and accusing her of committing treason during the Vietnam War era. Before the concert, she approaches the protesters, who themselves are more reasonable than their signs may indicate; one of the first things said to her is, “We appreciate the work you did on civil rights and women’s rights.” Baez listens as the protesters, many of them Vietnam veterans, express their feelings of betrayal by anti-war protesters, and assures them that she stood by the veterans then and now. Baez is supported by her merchandise salesman, Jim Stewart, himself a Vietnam veteran. Though some rather heated words are exchanged, as the writer notes, “Joan’s continuing acceptance of their stories and her willingness to hear them out began to melt their anger.” Some even ask her to autograph the posters that vilify her; she says she will sign the back but not the front of “those horrible things.” One protester, carrying a sign accusing her of killing babies, says he will remove her name from the poster if she signs it, which she does. During the concert, Baez dedicates a song to the protesters, and says: “You know, they just wanted to be heard. Everyone wants to be heard. I feel like I made four new friends tonight.” The writer concludes: “She took the high road, as always. It wasn’t my name on those signs, yet I gave in to anger. She never did. As we deal with tea parties and increasingly violent right-wing protests it would do us all good to remember the example of non-violence and compassion that Ms Baez has exemplified for the 50-plus years of her career.” [Daily Kos, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Joan Baez, Daily Kos, Jim Stewart
August 12, 2009: Progressive TV Host Worries that Health Care Reform Opposition May Result in Political Assassinations
Progressive MSNBC host Rachel Maddow worries on the air about the possibility of physical violence, and perhaps even political assassinations, being perpetrated as a result of the escalating violent rhetoric surrounding the health care reform debate. In recent days, at least one Democratic lawmaker has been threatened with death (see August 11, 2009), an African-American congressman has been vilified with swastikas and racial slurs (see August 11, 2009 and August 12, 2009), and guns have been brought both openly and surreptitiously to town halls (see August 5, 2009), some with President Obama in attendance (see August 11, 2009). Maddow tells her listeners: “[O]pponents of health care reform have chosen to fight at this time with force and with threats of force. Not just fringe talk show hosts, but members of Congress telling their constituents that Barack Obama is like Hitler; members of the United States senate telling their constituents that they are right to be afraid, that health care reform really is a plot to kill the elderly (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009). Corporate funded conservative PR operations promoting those lines of attack and then telling their activists to go put the fear of God into members of Congress (see August 6, 2009). Are we now operating in a political environment which is not just politics as usual, which is not just a rowdy debate? Has enough kerosene been poured on the flames that the possibility of violence—even assassination—is being posited as a real political tactic in the United States? It’s not a rhetorical question. It’s not even a question about rhetoric. Because there are people in this country—people in the health care field, in fact—who have faced the actual threat of assassination as a political tactic (see May 31, 2009).… As the anti-health reform protestors flirt with the same exultation of violence, that same excuses and purported justifications of violence, that echo in the extreme anti-abortion movement in this country, it is worth remembering that the possibility of American politics turning to violence and terrorism—at the fringe—is not all theoretical.” Maddow’s guest, abortion provider Dr. Warren Hern, himself a target of political assassins, tells her: “They have—the anti-abortion movement decided, more than 15 years ago, to use political assassination as a tactic, as a method of not only political expression but a way of organizing their followers and getting support and that’s what they’ve been doing. They’ve been assassinating doctors. And the question I have pointed out when they get through assassinating abortion doctors: who’s next?… [I]t’s very clear that there’s been a progression of violence increasingly toward individuals. And this is one of the frightening trends. And so, we have to be very concerned because the violent and the aggressive rhetoric and action or statements lead to more violent action and to assassination.” [MSNBC, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Barack Obama, Warren Hern, Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
August 12, 2009: Republican Senator: Health Care Reform Must Not Lead to ‘Pull[ing] the Plug on Grandma’
Senator Grassley’s signature on the flyleaf of the book ‘Glenn Beck’s Common Sense.’ [Source: Think Progress (.org)]Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), one of the Republicans whom the Obama administration is looking to for help in making the health care reform legislation a bipartisan effort, tells a “town hall” audience that it should be frightened of the legislation because it will allow the government to “pull the plug on Grandma.” To a crowd of some 300 listeners in Winterset, Iowa, Grassley says: “In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life. You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government-run plan to decide when to pull the plug on Grandma.” Grassley is echoing “deather” claims that the reform package will give the government power to pressure doctors to prematurely force elderly or terminally ill patients to die in order to save money (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 12, 2009), an idea former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) dubbed “death panels” (see August 7, 2009). Grassley’s fellow Republican, Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who helped write that portion of the House bill, has called the idea “nuts” (see August 10, 2009). After the event, state senator Joe Bolkom (D-Iowa City) calls on Grassley to repudiate those who spread lies and disinformation about health care reform. Bolkom notes that a measure similar to that in the House bill has already been passed in Iowa by “large bipartisan majorities.” Grassley has previously said that terminally ill Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), dying of brain cancer, would not receive care for his illness under the Democrats’ reform proposal because care would be preferentially given to younger patients who can “contribute more to the economy” (see August 5, 2009). Grassley’s town hall, unlike many others (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-8, 2009, August 8, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009), remains calm and peaceful. [Think Progress, 8/12/2009; Iowa Independent, 8/12/2009] During the event, Grassley hands a reporter a copy of conservative Fox News host Glenn Beck’s book Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, after autographing it for him. Grassley tells the recipient, “it’s something you gotta read a couple times.” [Think Progress, 8/14/2009] Beck has claimed that the Democrats’ health care reform package constitutes Nazi-like “eugenics” (see May 13, 2009 and August 11, 2009), has used his “9-12” organization to coordinate confrontational and violent protests at Congressional town halls (see June 30, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 10, 2009), and has said that he believes in so-called “death panels” (see August 10, 2009).
Entity Tags: Charles Grassley, Joe Bolkom, Johnny Isakson, Glenn Beck, Obama administration
August 12, 2009: Republican Lawmaker Denounces Polarizing Health Care Debates, Hands Out ‘Inflammatory’ Flier
Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL) denounces the raucous and polarizing debates surrounding health care reform that have led to what she calls “circus” town hall meetings around the nation (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-8, 2009, August 8, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009). At the same time, she hands out a flier warning that the Democrats’ health care reform proposal would “encourage” senior citizens to “give up,” rather than seek treatment for serious illnesses. Biggert’s flyer says that the reform legislation “requires end-of-life counseling for seniors that might encourage them to give up when facing a serious illness.” It also asserts that the plan would “force” 114 million citizens onto government health care, and remove “millions of seniors” from Medicare. She concedes that the flier is “a little inflammatory,” and explains, “I probably wrote it when I was mad.” Biggert denies knowing that her staff would place the flyers on the chairs of scores of attendees at a Naperville Chamber of Commerce panel on health care reform. The flier promotes Biggert’s own reform ideas and attacks the Democratic plan. Biggert’s assertions have been roundly debunked (see July 23, 2009 and July 23, 2009). Biggert, 71, says that she understands why seniors are frightened of reform. “I picture myself going out into the forest and sitting there like the tribes used to do or getting on an iceberg and floating away.” As for the admittedly inflammatory flier, she says: “I think that is something that is between me and whoever… whether it is my doctor or my conscience or whatever.… I’m not talking that there is euthanasia or anything, but it is a concern particularly for seniors and a lot of seniors are upset about that. I’m not trying to upset them. This is what I have heard from them.” She denies handing the fliers out in the senior centers she has visited recently. [Chicago Daily Herald, 8/13/2009; Think Progress, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Medicare, Judy Biggert
August 12, 2009: White House Health Care Adviser Rebuts ‘Deadly Doctor’ Claims
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a senior health care adviser in the Obama administration, rebuts claims that he is a “deadly doctor” who advocates wholesale euthanasia for America’s senior citizens (see July 23-24, 2009, July 28, 2009, and August 7, 2009). Emanuel, a medical ethicist, does not own a television or have an Internet connection and so remained unaware of the accusations about his medical beliefs for weeks. “I couldn’t believe this was happening to me,” he says. Both Emanuel and Time reporter Michael Scherer point out that Emanuel has worked throughout his career to oppose euthanasia and increase care for dying patients. “It is incredible how much one’s reputation can be besmirched and taken out of context,” Emanuel says. Scherer notes that the New York Post op-ed by Betsy McCaughey (see July 23-24, 2009) used “selective and misleading quotes from Emanuel’s 200 or so published academic papers,” and soon “went viral” on the Internet and among conservative opponents of health care reform. Scherer writes: “The attacks on Emanuel are a reminder that there is a narrow slice of Americans who not only don’t trust government, but also have come to regard it as a dark conspirator in their lives. This peculiar brand of distrust helps create the conditions for fast-moving fear-mongering, especially on complex and emotionally charged topics like the life and death of the elderly and infirm.” Scherer notes that throughout his career, Emanuel has wrestled with the ethics of medical care, often wading into horrific hypothetical situations such as how to choose who gets a single kidney if there are three dying patients in need of it and no way to procure two others. “No one who has read what I have done for 25 years would come to the conclusions that have been put out there,” says Emanuel. [Time, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Ezekiel Emanuel, Michael Scherer, Elizabeth (“Betsy”) McCaughey
August 12, 2009: Fox Analyst Reverses Previous Statements, Says ‘No One’ Believes Health Care Reform Will Kill Elderly
Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson, commenting on the Democrats’ health care reform legislation on the morning show Fox and Friends, claims “no one is saying” that the reform package would kill old people (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009). “The president’s reform plan is a redistribution of health care,” Johnson says. “And what he’s saying is, I want to reduce hospital costs by $220 billion from Medicare. I want to cut out Medicare Advantage that affects 10 million people. I want to reduce imaging studies. I want to reduce electric wheelchairs. I want to reduce advanced nursing care in facilities. So no one is saying that the president wants to kill old people.” Unfortunately, on the very same program, Johnson said two weeks before that the reform package would indeed kill old people: “Some people are saying, well, this is a health care reform, other people say—maybe me—that this is a subtle form of euthanasia. And when you start looking at the proposals, you say, ‘God, what’s happening?’” Johnson has made similar accusations in the recent past, and said that under the reform proposals, America would become a “kind of 2009 ‘Brave New World,’ ‘Soylent Green,’ ‘1984,’ Aldous Huxley kind of world” where doctors will advise you to end your life rather than continue your care. [Media Matters, 7/28/2009; Media Matters, 7/31/2009; Media Matters, 8/3/2009; Think Progress, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Peter Johnson, Medicare, Fox News
August 12, 2009: Pollster: Anti-Reform Protests Succeeding in ‘Perpetuat[ing] Misinformation’
Pollster Nate Silver writes on his Web site, FiveThirtyEight, that “the real upside to the [anti-health care reform] protests is that they perpetuate misinformation about the Democrats’ bills.… Ultimately, the message that Democrats need to be getting across is not that the protesters are protesting in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons, but that they’re protesting, in some substantial measure, about the wrong things: that what they seem to think is contained in the health care package doesn’t necessarily match the reality.” [FiveThirtyEight (.com), 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Nate Silver
August 12-13, 2009: Reports Show Seven Republicans Supported End-of-Life Care before Denouncing ‘Death Panels’
Investigative journalists find that at least seven prominent Republicans who now denounce what they call “death panels” and claim that the Democrats’ health care legislation will lead to the untimely deaths of US senior citizens (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, and August 13, 2009) actually supported proposals similar to the legislation’s provision for government-funded “end-of-life counseling.”
Palin, Gingrich Supported 'Advance Directives' - In August 2008, Sarah Palin (R-AK), then the governor of Alaska, proclaimed “Healthcare Decisions Day.” She urged public health care facilities to provide more information about so-called “advance directives,” and said that seniors must be informed of all their options as the end of their lives draw near. The proclamation has recently been deleted from the Alaska governor’s Web site. Reporter Matt Taibbi notes that in late 2008 and early 2009, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) endorsed an aggressive “end of life” program from a Wisconsin health care provider, Gundersen Lutheran Health System, and wrote, “If Gundersen’s approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.” Taibbi accuses Gingrich of “lying [about death panels] in order to scare a bunch of old people.” [Matt Taibbi, 8/12/2009; Think Progress, 8/13/2009]
Five Others Voted for End-of-Life Counseling - In 2003, five Republicans who now oppose the supposed “death panels” voted in favor of an almost-identical provision in that year’s Medicare reform legislation. Representatives John Boehner (R-OH), Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and John Mica (R-FL), and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) all voted for the bill, which provided coverage for “counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.” Boehner, McCotter, and Mica have claimed that the current attempt at health care reform would lead to “government-encouraged euthanasia.” Isakson opposes the House legislation because it allows the “government to incentivize doctors by offering them money to conduct end-of-life counseling.” And Grassley told constituents that they are “right to fear” that government could “decide when to pull the plug on Grandma” (see August 12, 2009). [Plum Line, 8/14/2009]
Widespread Republican Support in 2003 - In all, 202 House Republicans and 42 Republican Senators voted for the Medicare bill. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will say: “And there was not a peep about then-President Bush having a secret plan to kill old people. Bottom line? Either Republicans like Chuck Grassley and John Boehner and John Mica have totally changed their minds about whether living wills are really a secret plot to kill old people, or they voted for something just a few years ago that they actually thought was a secret plot to kill old people. Take your choice.” [MSNBC, 8/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Matt Taibbi, Gundersen Lutheran Health System, Charles Grassley, John Boehner, Johnny Isakson, Thaddeus McCotter, John Mica, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Medicare, Rachel Maddow
August 13, 2009: Clinton: GOP Using Fear to Oppose Health Care Reform
Former President Bill Clinton accuses Republicans of trying to terrify Americans into opposing health care reform, and says the GOP is using those tactics because it lacks the political clout to fight it. Clinton, whose own health care reform efforts were derailed in 1994 (see December 2, 1993 and Mid-January - February 4, 1994), says the big difference between then and now is that Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate as well as control of the House of Representatives. He calls allegations that the Democrats’ reform proposals include so-called “death panels” (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 13, 2009, August 12-13, 2009, and August 13, 2009) “crazy.” [Associated Press, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton
August 13, 2009: Two Republicans Denounce Nazi Comparisons in Health Care Debate
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) denounces the comparisons of President Obama and Congressional Democrats to Nazis, comparisons made by conservative op-eds, radio and television hosts, bloggers, and anti-health care reform protesters (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 11, 2009, May 13, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 8, 2009, August 10-11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 13, 2009). Without naming names, McMorris Rodgers, the fifth-ranking Republican in the House, says: “I think the purpose of the town halls is for people to be able to express their views in an orderly and respectful manner, and that needs to take place on both sides. I certainly don’t condone violence, I don’t condone calling President Obama Hitler and painting swastikas on signs at town halls.” McMorris Rodgers is the first Congressional Republican to publicly decry the Nazi comparisons. [The Hill, 8/13/2009; Think Progress, 8/14/2009] Another Republican, Joseph Cao (R-LA), joins McMorris Rodgers in condemning the Nazi comparisons. He says: “I believe—you know, I respect the Constitution protecting our right of free speech, our right of expression. But I believe that when we go to extremes like that, it disrupts dialogue and it causes conflicts which, at the end of the day, impede us from reaching a solution to a pressing problem.” [MSNBC, 8/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Barack Obama, Joseph Cao
August 13, 2009: Former Bush Speechwriter Warns against Anti-Reform Violence
David Frum. [Source: Public Radio (.org)]David Frum, a conservative pundit and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, says that the potential for violence from anti-health care reformer protesters is too high, and protesters must restrain themselves. After noting the instances of protesters bringing guns to health care debates (see August 5, 2009 August 11, 2009) and the threats of gun violence against health care supporters (see August 7, 2009 and August 10, 2009), Frum notes: “[F]irearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.… All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.” Frum goes farther, accusing “some conservative broadcasters” of “lovingly anticipating just such an outcome,” citing instances of Fox News hosts Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity openly advocating violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama (see August 8, 2009). Frum says: “Hyperbolic accusation and fantasy murder may well serve a talk radio industry facing a collapse in advertising revenues.… As revenues dwindle, hosts feel compelled to intensify the talk radio experience, hoping to win larger audience share with more extreme talk. It’s like the early days of the pornography industry: At first a naked woman is thrilling enough, but soon a jaded audience is demanding more and more, wilder and wilder. For the radio hosts, it’s all mostly a cynical marketing exercise. But the audience? Not all of them know better.… The guns are coming out. The risks are real.” Frum then gives his solution: “It’s not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric. If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic—if he were those things, somebody should shoot him. But he is not. He is an ambitious, liberal president who is spending too much money and emitting too much debt. His health care ideas are too over-reaching and his climate plans are too interventionist. The president can be met and bested on the field of reason—but only by people who are themselves reasonable.” [New Majority, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Sean Hannity, David Frum, Glenn Beck, Barack Obama
August 13, 2009: Conservative Group Says Health Care Reform Will Lead to Gay, Transgendered Takeover of US Health Care
A conservative, anti-health care reform group called “The Pray In Jesus Name Project” e-mails a petition to members and others saying that the Democrats’ health care reform legislation will not only result in the death of American senior citizens (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, and August 13, 2009), but also a takeover of the US health care system by gay and transgendered people. The petition claims in part: “Your tax dollars will pay for preferential hiring of homosexual hospital administrators, who distribute $50,000 grants to gender-confused activists for unneeded elective surgery to mutilate their own genitals (and force Christian doctors to perform it).” Apparently the organization is following up on specious claims by other groups that have claimed the reform proposal would mandate free sex-change operations (see August 4, 2009). The New Republic says that many of these claims originated with the Liberty Counsel, a group affiliated with the late Christian evangelist Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. The New Republic also notes that the section of the Senate bill cited by the organization requires the “participation in the institutions’ programs of individuals and groups from… different genders and sexual orientations,” and refers to government grants awarded to students doing research in mental and behavioral health. [New Republic, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: The Pray In Jesus Name Project, Liberty Counsel, The New Republic, Liberty University
August 13, 2009: Health Insurer Urges Employees to Protest Health Care Reform, Provides Information to Use in Protesting
UnitedHealth Group (UHG), the nation’s second largest health insurer, sends a letter to its employees urging them to become involved in protesting health care reform. UHG asks its employees to call its “United for Health Reform Advocacy Hotline” to learn about ways they can engage in protesting health care reform, and specifically the so-called “public option.” Some of their options include getting hotline help in writing “personalized” letters to lawmakers, receiving “talking points” designed to refute the arguments for the public option during town halls meetings and forums, and receiving an events list hosted by the conservative “America’s Independent Party.” [Group, 8/13/2009; TPMDC, 8/19/2009]
Entity Tags: UnitedHealth Group, America’s Independent Party
August 13, 2009: Palin Repeats Debunked ‘Death Panel’ Claims on Facebook Page
After briefly backing away (see August 10, 2009) from her earlier claim that the Democrats’ health care reform legislation would mandate so-called “death panels” (see August 7, 2009), former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) reiterates her claim. In a post on her Facebook page, Palin writes: “Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care (see August 11, 2009); that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system, these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care. The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled ‘Advance Care Planning Consultation.’ With all due respect, it’s misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients.… Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often ‘if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual… or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility… or a hospice program.‘… President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government-authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisers are clear enough (see July 23-24, 2009). It’s all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform.” Members of Palin’s own party have called her claims inaccurate (see August 11, 2009) and “nuts” (see August 10, 2009), White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has identified Palin as one of the persons responsible for spreading “wrong” information about health care reform, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is using her claims in a fundraising plea to supporters, calling her statement “disgusting” and “outrageous.” [Politico, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Medicare, Robert Gibbs
August 13, 2009: Anti-Health Care Protester: Obama, Like Hitler, Will ‘Get Rid’ of Elderly ‘Undesirables’
An elderly protester outside the Raleigh, North Carolina, office of Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) ties together two popular claims of the anti-health care reform movement: the reform proposal will kill senior citizens, and the reformers are like Nazis. The unidentified protester tells a television interviewer: “Hitler got rid of his undesirable citizens through ovens. [President] Obama wants to get rid of people like me through hospice.… If [people] are a certain age, grim reapers calling themselves as counselors will go and tell them to take a pill and just die.” [New York Times, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Brad Miller, Barack Obama
August 13, 2009: House Minority Leader Falsely Claims that GOP Does Not Condone Disruptions at Health Care Forums
In an op-ed for USA Today, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) takes the White House to task for “letting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] and Congress run health care reform into the ground,” and says that Republicans have always “stood ready to work with him to pass bipartisan health care reforms that reflect the priorities of struggling American families and small businesses.” Boehner says Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats have crafted a bill that “puts Washington in control of Americans’ health care—something most Americans staunchly oppose.” He then accuses President Obama of trying to “spin the American people” about what he calls the “hopelessly flawed bill.” He terms the bill “radical,” and claims, falsely, that Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer labeled opponents of the bill “un-American” (see August 10, 2009—Pelosi and Hoyer wrote that “[d]rowning out opposing views is simply un-American”). Boehner says that neither Republicans nor anyone else “condone… the actions of those who disrupt public events,” but decries those who claim the dissent against the bill is in any way “manufactured” (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, and August 12, 2009). He says Obama is lying about the portion of the bill that would allow Americans to keep their present health care, and cites the debunked study by the Lewin Group (see July 27, 2009) as evidence. He says the bill would add $239 billion to the deficit over the next decade, says Obama is lying about not cutting Medicare benefits, and says Obama is lying when he says the bill would not lead to health care “rationing.” Boehner concludes by claiming that “Republicans are offering better solutions that would make quality health care more affordable and accessible for every American,” and calls on Obama to “scrap this costly plan, start over, and work with Republicans on reforms that reflect the priorities of the American people.” [USA Today, 8/13/2009] Liberal news and advocacy Web site Think Progress notes that Boehner’s office has sent out messages promoting the town hall disruptions, and notes that Boehner’s claims of “rationing” are wrong. [Think Progress, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Think Progress (.org), Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Steny Hoyer, John Boehner, Medicare
August 13, 2009: Journalist Draws Parallels between Health Care Anti-Reform Efforts and Propaganda Efforts for Iraq War
Investigative journalist Robert Parry draws direct connections between the strategies being used by Republicans and conservative organizations in opposing health care reform, and the effort to mislead and terrify the US public into supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the run-up to that war, Parry cites “fear-mongering” about attacks on US soil by Iraqi WMDs, “wildly exaggerated (indeed, false) alarms” about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities and its willingness to provide al-Qaeda with a nuclear device, Iraq’s responsibility for 9/11, and other equally false claims that drove the hysteria level past the point where rational discourse could take place. “There is a direct lineage from the Iraq War hysteria to the current madness surrounding the health care fight,” he writes. “In both cases, the hysteria was stoked by leading Republicans and their right-wing media allies. Both involved disseminating far-fetched, nightmare scenarios to a gullible (if not paranoid) segment of the population, which was then whipped into a frenzy that spilled over into intimidation and silencing voices of disagreement.” Then and now, dissenters were publicly vilified and smeared as “traitors” and “Nazis,” Parry notes. Parry also cites his belief that while the truth of the matter may eventually win out, if history is any judge, it will happen far too late to affect the outcome of the health care reform debate. “Truth is a battle, much as democracy is,” he writes. “Bringing truth to light requires resources and infrastructure, as well as personal honesty and courage. That is especially true when the other side in the battle has opted for a strategy of falsehoods and exaggerations—and has assembled both powerful artillery and well-trained mercenaries to carry out what it calls ‘information warfare.’ In such a conflict, there is no guarantee or even a likelihood that the ‘truth will out,’ at least not on its own. Nor is there any reason to believe some mythical pendulum will restore a normal order. What I have seen during more than three decades in Washington is that many truths remain effectively hidden, even if technically they have been revealed. A rare moment of truth-telling can be easily overwhelmed by a steady barrage of falsehoods and an infusion of well-calibrated doubts. Before long, it is the oft-repeated faux reality that is remembered. It becomes Washington’s conventional wisdom and then the official history.” As happened seven years before, Parry writes, “a similar phenomenon is playing out on health care reform. A well-funded and well-organized right-wing infrastructure is pouring out deceptive talking points and hitting emotional hot buttons. Like during the run-up to the Iraq War, the opposing forces seeking to make rational arguments and counter the hysteria find themselves out-gunned and out-maneuvered.” [Consortium News, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Robert Parry
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda
August 13, 2009: Giuliani: Health Care Reform Will Result in ‘Death Panels’
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani tells a group of Republican state legislators in Illinois that “it is natural” to assume that the Democratic health care reform plan will lead to “death panels” making end-of-life decisions for seniors. “This is a real concern not made up by radio talk show hosts,” Giuliani claims. In recent weeks, the claim of so-called “death panels” has energized the conservative anti-reform movement even as it has been roundly debunked (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 13, 2009, and August 12-13, 2009). Giuliani admits that there are no provisions for “death panels” in the Democratic legislation pending in Congress, but says that “simple economics” tells him the panels will happen. “President Obama says he will cover 30 to 40 to 50 million people who are not covered now—without it costing any money,” he says. “This is absurd. Health care—in case the Obama administration hasn’t noticed, is very expensive. They will have to cut other services, cut programs. They will have to be making decisions about people who are elderly.” He goes on to blame Obama and Congressional Democrats for creating the worry about “death panels” because of “the ambiguity of the legislation.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Rudolph (“Rudy”) Giuliani, Barack Obama
August 14, 2009: Six Lobbyists for Every Lawmaker Attempt to Shape Health Care Reform Policy
Bloomberg News counts up the number of lobbyists the health care industry is funding to pressure lawmakers to oppose or support the reform legislation proposed by Congressional Democrats and the White House. It finds that some 3,300 lobbyists—six for each of the 535 representatives and senators weighing the issue—are working to convince lawmakers to take their clients’ position on the health care reform package. Over 1,500 organizations, from pharmaceutical firms and medical providers to “grassroots” organizations and citizens’ groups, employ the lobbyists, with three new organizations signing up each day, and each of the 10 largest Washington lobbying firms is involved in the effort. The groups spent a combined amount of $263.4 million on lobbying Congress during the first six months of 2009, exceeding the $241.1 million spent during the same period in 2008. The Sunlight Foundation’s Bill Allison says, “Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for K Street,” referring to the Washington street where many lobbying firms have offices. “There’s a lot of money at stake and there are a lot of special interests who don’t want their ox gored.” Most lobbyists assume that health care reform is going to happen in some form or fashion, says John Jonas of the lobbying firm Patton Boggs LLP. “They assume health care reform is going to happen and they want to be protected,” he says. Jonas’s firm has three dozen clients in the debate, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Wal-Mart. Many lawmakers, such as Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), the Senate Finance Committee chairman, see lobbyists every day. Baucus’s office rotates between different schools of lobbyists, seeing representatives of health care providers one week, purchasers the second, and consumers the third. Larry McNeely of the US Public Interest Research Group says, “The sheer quantity of money that’s sloshed around Washington is drowning out the voices of citizens and the groups that speak up for them.” [Bloomberg, 8/14/2009]
Entity Tags: Max Baucus, Bloomberg News, Bill Allison, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Larry McNeely, Senate Finance Committee, John Jonas, Wal-Mart, Sunlight Foundation, US Public Interest Research Group, Patton Boggs LLP
August 14, 2009: CBS Evening News Anchor Denounces ‘Fear,’ ‘Ignorance’ Fueling Anti-Health Care Reform Protests
Katie Couric. [Source: Stylelist (.com)]CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric denounces what she calls the “fear and frustration” being tapped in the sometimes-riotous demonstrations against health care reform. The anti-reform efforts have “stirred [up] a hornets nest,” she writes, and are uncovering “disturbing attitudes and emotions that have nothing to do with policy.” What, she asks, does bringing a handgun to a church where President Obama is speaking have to do with health care policy (see August 11, 2009)? “How does a swastika spray-painted on a congressman’s office further a discussion about Medicare (see August 11, 2009)?” Couric warns her readers that “we can’t let fear and frankly ignorance drown out the serious debate that needs to take place about an issue that affects the lives of millions of people. It’s time for everyone to take a deep breath and to focus on the task at hand before this sideshow drowns out the main event.” [CBS News, 8/14/2009]
Entity Tags: Katie Couric, Barack Obama
August 14, 2009: ABC Reporter to Moderate Health Care Forums Held by Lobbying Organization
John Stossel. [Source: Nashville Scene]The lobbying firm Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which is heavily involved in so-called “Astroturf” protests against health care reform (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, and August 12, 2009), announces it will hold three town-hall style meetings in Wisconsin on August 26 and 27. The meetings will take place in the districts of three House members, David Obey (D-WI), Ron Kind (D-WI), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), all of whom AFP feels might be open to pressure. ABC reporter John Stossel will moderate the sessions for AFP. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/14/2009] Progressive news watchdog Web site Media Matters questions the propriety of Stossel, a supposedly nonpartisan member of the media, moderating the sessions for AFP, an avowedly partisan organization. [Media Matters, 8/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Ron Kind, Americans for Prosperity, David Obey, Tammy Baldwin, John Stossel, Media Matters
August 14, 2009: Schiavo Lawyer: ‘Legitimate Fears and Concerns’ about End-of-Life Counseling ‘Exploited for Political and Ideological Reasons’
Attorney George Felos, who represented Michael Schiavo in the Terri Schiavo end-of-life case, says it is ironic to have the same politicians who insisted on becoming involved in the Schiavo decision in 2005 now saying it is not politicians’ place to become involved in end-of-life decisions as part of their opposition to health care reform (see July 10, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 13, 2009, August 12-13, 2009, and August 13, 2009). (Terri Schiavo had been in a coma for years; her husband wanted to have her feeding tube removed and allow her to die. Republican politicians, including then-President George W. Bush, attempted to block the move.) MSNBC host Rachel Maddow notes: “When Terri Schiavo’s next of kin, her husband, Michael Schiavo, tried to carry out what he said were his wife’s end-of-life wishes, it was the Republican Party who decided that actually the government knew better—actually the politicians understood this better than that family and the government should intervene. And now, many of the very same people who interfered in Michael and Terri Schiavo’s health care decisions at the end of Terri Schiavo’s life, the politicians who brought that end-of-life decisions to floor of the US Capitol, they are arguing against health care reform now on the grounds that they don’t want the government to interfere an end-of-life decisions.” One of the Republicans involved in the Schiavo case, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), says that the health care reform legislation pending in the House will no longer include a provision for government funding of end-of-life counseling. Felos tells Maddow that there are “some similarities” to the Schiavo case: “[E]nd-of-life decision-making for patients is a very sensitive issue. People have legitimate fears. They have legitimate concerns about that. And in the Schiavo case, those legitimate fears and concerns were exploited for political and ideological reasons. And I think that’s what we’re seeing now done in an opposite way.” [MSNBC, 8/14/2009]
Entity Tags: George Felos, Charles Grassley, Terri Schiavo, Michael Schiavo, Rachel Maddow
August 14, 2009: Obama Addresses Health Care Concerns at Montana Town Hall; Critics Largely Absent
President Obama appears at a “town hall” forum in Belgrade, Montana, where he promises to protect US citizens against health care insurers, and says those without health care insurance will benefit from his plans to reform the health care system. Unlike many other town halls (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-8, 2009, August 8, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009), no one heckles or attempts to shout down Obama during his speech and the subsequent question-and-answer period. Around 1,300 audience members take part in the rally, held at an airplane hanger; only two questioners ask anything remotely confrontational. Later, White House officials confirm that they had hoped Obama would get the chance to answer some difficult questions. One questioner accuses Obama of planning to raise taxes to pay for the reforms, and another says he is guilty of “vilifying” insurance companies. Obama gives detailed answers to both questioners, promising not to tax the middle class for his reforms, and saying that although some insurance companies have been “constructive,” others have fought against “any kind of reform proposals.” John Weaver, who helped Republican presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ) organize often-confrontational town hall meetings, says Obama would do well to face more criticism. “He needs a confrontation to end some of this information,” Weaver says of the raft of false accusations and allegations surrounding the debate. “We don’t know if that’s his strength. But that’s his opportunity right now. If he really wants to turn the tide of the debate, he has to engage.” White House officials say that they are not attempting to “stack” the president’s crowds with supporters. [Washington Post, 8/15/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Barack Obama, John Weaver
August 14, 2009: GOP Claim That Health Care Reform ‘Harms Veterans’ Quickly Disproven
Representative Steve Buyer (R-IN), the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, issues a press release claiming that the proposed health care reform legislation would hurt veterans’ health care. In his statement, Buyer says, “The current Democrat bill harms veterans.” He claims that under the legislation some veterans would be subjected to “penalty” taxes for failing to have “acceptable” health coverage. The White House Director of Veterans and Wounded Warrior Policy, Matt Flavin, himself a veteran of Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, quickly counters with a statement contradicting Buyer’s claims: “I’m here to tell you quite simply that if you are eligible for VA [Veterans Adminstration] health care, you will remain eligible. There is no impact on VA health care. So veterans, please be comforted in the fact that your health care will not change under health reform efforts. There is no effect.” Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA), a former Navy rear admiral, confirms Flavin’s rebuttal, and goes further, noting that the Obama administration’s budget restores VA care for some 500,000 veterans kicked out of the system during the Bush administration. “President Obama’s budget is going to also restore what we call the Priority 8 veterans to the VA system,” he says. “Back in 2003, the Bush administration kicked out over 265,000 veterans out of the Veterans Administration who happened to earn a bit over $34,000 for a family of two. Now, it’s 500,000 that are denied. And President Obama’s budget in the next four years brings them all back in. Not only does it preserve the system for our veterans, it enhances the system for our veterans.” Sestak adds: “I can absolutely confirm and the exact words are that the VA healthcare plan meets the minimal, acceptable requirements, which means it’s exempt from that 2.5 percent tax that they’re talking about. It states it just like that.” [US House of Representatives, 8/14/2009; MSNBC, 8/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Bush administration (43), House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Steve Buyer, Joe Sestak, Veterans Adminstration, Matt Flavin
Timeline Tags: US Military, Domestic Propaganda
August 15, 2009: Obama Cites Grandmother’s Death in Refuting Idea of ‘Death Panels’
A 1983 photo of Madelyn Dunham hugging her grandson, Barack Obama, on the occasion of his graduation from college. [Source: Daily Telegraph]Speaking to a crowd of largely pro-health care reform supporters in Colorado, President Obama cites the death of his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, to debunk the widespread idea that his ideas for reform would include so-called “death panels” (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 13, 2009, August 12-13, 2009, August 13, 2009). “I just lost my grandmother last year,” he says. “I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that.” He disputes “the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma.… When you start making arguments like that, that’s simply dishonest—especially when I hear the arguments coming from members of Congress in the other party who, turns out, sponsored similar provisions” (see August 12-13, 2009). Dunham died of cancer at the age of 86 (see November 10, 2008). “Health care is really hard,” Obama tells the crowd. “This is not easy. I’m a reasonably dedicated student to this issue. I’ve got a lot of really smart people around me who’ve been working on this for months now. There is no perfect painless silver bullet out there that solves every problem, gives everybody health care for free. There isn’t. I wish there was.” Continuing his push on his weekly Internet and radio address, Obama says, “I know there’s plenty of real concern and skepticism out there. I know that in a time of economic upheaval, the idea of change can be unsettling, and I know that there are folks who believe that government should have no role at all in solving our problems.” He says it is imperative for everyone to “lower our voices, listen to one another, and talk about differences that really exist.” [Associated Press, 8/15/2009]
Entity Tags: Madelyn Dunham, Barack Obama
August 15, 2009: Democrats Say Riotous Anti-Health Care Reform Protests Should Not be ‘Glorified’
Two Democratic House members say that the media should not “glorify” the contentious, sometimes-riotous anti-reform protests that have recently occurred at health care debates (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-8, 2009, August 8, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, and August 11, 2009). Alan Grayson (D-FL) cites the violence that occurred at a debate featuring Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL—see August 6, 2009), saying that the “disrepect” shown at the debate reflects badly not on Castor, but “on the people who show the disrespect for the democratic process.” He adds: “I think in any society, you’re always going to have a certain percentage of people who are nuts. But these are not people who deserve any special recognition, much less glorification. You don’t treat people the way those people treated Kathy Castor. It’s wrong.… I look for intelligent, well-founded criticism of any bill because that’s how you make the bill better. But if you have people running around saying this bill is going to kill every old person in the country (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 13, 2009, August 12-13, 2009, and August 13, 2009), how could you possibly show any respect for that silly point of view? It makes no sense to me.” Patrick Murphy (D-PA) says that the contention that the reform proposal threatens Americans’ freedoms is simply wrong: “I had a guy yesterday try to say to me, ‘You know, I’m worried about my freedoms.’ I say, ‘Sir, I fought for your freedoms [Murphy is a veteran of the Iraq war]. I’m going to protect those freedoms. I took an oath to support and defend those freedoms. And I take that responsibility very seriously. But, you know, we need to understand that the current path for small business, for everday families, for seniors, is unsustainable.” [US House of Representatives, 2009; Think Progress, 8/15/2009]
Entity Tags: Kathy Castor, Patrick Murphy, Alan Grayson
August 16, 2009: Leader of House Republican Health Care Group Caught in Specious Claims, Promises to Moderate Rhetoric
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch corrects a statement made to its reporters by Roy Blunt (R-MO), the chairman of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group. Recently, Blunt told Post-Dispatch reporters and editors that he couldn’t get hip replacement surgery in Canada or Great Britain—two havens of socialized medicine—because of his age. “I’m 59,” Blunt said. “In either Canada or Great Britain, if I broke my hip, I couldn’t get it replaced.” The Post-Dispatch checked his claim, and found: “At least 63 percent of hip replacements performed in Canada last year and two-thirds of those done in England were on patients age 65 or older. More than 1,200 in Canada were done on people older than 85.” Blunt promises to modify his rhetoric when confronted by the Post-Dispatch’s findings. “I didn’t just pull that number out of thin air,” he says. The figure came from testimony given to the House Subcommittee on Health by, Blunt notes, “some people who are supposed to be experts on Canadian health care.” He adds: “I had been given that example. I was told that 59 is the cutoff. I’m glad you pointed that out to me. I won’t use that example any more.” The Post-Dispatch writes that it takes Blunt at his word, but notes that he is “not the only Republican leader who has his facts wrong about British and Canadian health care. And some of his colleagues are a bit less contrite” (see August 5, 2009). Blunt has made other false claims, including the assertion that an uninsured American could get a hip replacement through emergency care: “If they go to the emergency room, I think they can get that done.” The Post-Dispatch corrects him, writing: “Emergency rooms don’t do hip replacements, which require both hospital care and weeks of rehabilitation. They do emergency surgery, necessary to save a life. St. Louis hospitals offer discounts to patients who are poor and uninsured. But patients often are asked to make substantial down payments before surgery; they don’t hobble through the ER door and get them done for free.” Blunt has also made untenable claims about the number of Americans without health insurance by falsely saying that nearly 12 million of the 45 million uninsured Americans are illegal immigrants, a claim disproven by research by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which, according to the Post-Dispatch, “puts the number of uninsured who are immigrants—both legal and illegal—at about 9 million.” Blunt later reduces the number of illegal immigrants in his claims, though the Post-Dispatch notes he still inflates his figures. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/16/2009; Plum Line, 8/17/2009]
Entity Tags: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Roy Blunt, House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, House Subcommittee on Health
August 16, 2009: Historian: Conservative Anti-Reform Outrage Similar to Protests of 1950s and 1960s, More Effective
Author and historian Rick Perlstein reminds Washington Post readers that the kind of conservative-based outrage against health care reform is nothing new in American history. Asking whether the protests are orchestrated or spontaneous, Perlstein says they are both. “The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair (see August 6, 2009), the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president (see August 11, 2009)—too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters’ signs—too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don’t understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.”
Charges of Soviet-Inspired Treason - In the 1950s, Perlstein writes, Republicans referred to the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as “20 years of treason,” and accused the two of deliberately surrendering the world to communism. Some conservatives leveled the accusation that a new Bible translation was the work of Soviet agents. Then-Vice President Richard Nixon claimed, without proof, that Republicans entering the White House at the beginning of the Eisenhower administration “found in the files a blueprint for socializing America.” When President Kennedy proposed using intercontinental ballistic missiles to form the basis of America’s nuclear defense instead of the traditional long-range bombers, and floated the idea of opening relations with Eastern Bloc nations such as Yugoslavia, conservatives accused him of trying to disarm the US in secret collusion with the USSR.
'National Indignation Convention' - In 1961, thousands of angry conservatives packed a National Indignation Convention in Dallas, where the keynote speaker shouted that he wanted to hang Chief Justice Earl Warren. A Kennedy proposal to expand mental health services included a new facility in Alaska; right-wingers claimed it was actually an internment camp for political dissidents. During the Johnson administration, conservatives claimed that the civil rights movement was conceived and orchestrated in the Soviet Union; many of them claimed that the 1964 Civil Rights Act would “enslave” white Americans.
'Uncanny' Similarities between Then and Now - Perstein notes that the similarities between the protests then and now are “uncanny,” writing: “The various elements—the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won’t hold sway; the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint; and, most of all, their mutual incomprehension—sound as fresh as yesterday’s news. (Internment camps for conservatives? That’s the latest theory of tea party favorite Michael Savage.) The orchestration of incivility happens, too, and it is evil. Liberal power of all sorts induces an organic and crazy-making panic in a considerable number of Americans, while people with no particular susceptibility to existential terror—powerful elites—find reason to stoke and exploit that fear.”
Now, More Success at Manipulating Media, Shaping Policy - Perlstein cites examples of fake “grassroots” letters to newspaper editors written by Nixon administration aides that defended the then-president from Watergate-related charges, and how successful they were in manipulating the discussion. Now, he writes, the “Conservatives have become adept at playing the media for suckers, getting inside the heads of editors and reporters, haunting them with the thought that maybe they are out-of-touch cosmopolitans and that their duty as tribunes of the people’s voices means they should treat Obama’s creation of ‘death panels’ as just another justiciable political claim.” In the 1960s, news anchors such as Walter Cronkite didn’t bother debunking claims about internment facilities for conservative critics, he writes. “The media didn’t adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of ‘conservative claims’ to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as ‘extremist’—out of bounds. The tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America’s flora. Only now, it’s being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting and taking over the forest. Latest word is that the enlightened and mild provision in the draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills—the one hysterics turned into the ‘death panel’ canard—is losing favor, according to the Wall Street Journal, because of ‘complaints over the provision.’ Good thing our leaders weren’t so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill—because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites.” [Washington Post, 8/16/2009]
Entity Tags: Rick Perlstein, Michael Savage
Category Tags: History of US Health Care System, Obama Health Care Reform
August 16-17, 2009: House Speaker: Idea that US Citizens Would be Forced into Government-Run Health Care ‘a Myth’
The Office of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), releases a fact sheet contradicting what it calls “a myth opponents of health insurance reform have been spreading: that people would be ‘forced’ to choose a public health insurance option, and falsely attributes it to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).” The claim has circulated throughout the media, Pelosi’s office notes, and says, “In fact, the public option in America’s Affordable Health Choices Act simply provides those using the Health Insurance Exchange a choice between various private plans and a public plan—with the choice being made by the individual, never an employer.” The fact sheet notes four instances of the claim being made on August 16 alone:
Representative Tom Price (R-GA) tells an Associated Press reporter that the Democrats’ reform bill would force citizens to abandon their private health care plans in favor of a government-run plan, and says the CBO supports his claim.
ABC reporter Jake Tapper, on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, asks, “How can the administration make the promise that if you like your insurance plan you can keep it, when CBO and other analysts estimate that some people will be switched from private to public?”
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, on Fox News Sunday, tells his listeners of “a study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which found that by 2016, 9 million people will no longer have their employer-based plan under health care reform because businesses would decide in many cases that it’s cheaper simply to pay the penalty and push people into a public plan.”
David Gregory, the anchor of NBC’s flagship Sunday talk show Meet the Press, asks, “Does he [President Obama] undermine his credibility when he makes some claims like, if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance, when a lot of people have said not really; employers could drop people from insurance if they wanted to move people into a public plan, if that existed?”
Pelosi’s office states that, unlike the claims and questions advanced by Price, Tapper, Wallace, and Gregory, the CBO has noted that under all versions of reform legislation, US citizens would retain the choice of whether to keep their existing insurance or join the “public option” government program. [Speaker of the House, 8/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Chris Wallace, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, Jake Tapper, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Price, Office of the Speaker of the House, David Gregory, Congressional Budget Office
August 17, 2009: FreedomWorks Chief: Obama Will Use False ‘Swine Flu’ Epidemic Claim to Frighten ‘Bed-Wetters’ into Supporting Health Care Reform
Dick Armey (R-TX), the former House Majority Leader who now heads the conservative lobbying firm FreedomWorks, predicts that the Obama administration will try to counter the “grassroots” protests with what he calls a “fear campaign” designed to frighten wavering lawmakers, whom he terms “bed-wetters.” The administration will use false claims of a “swine flu” epidemic in its efforts, Armey says in an interview with the Financial Times: “In September or October there will be a hyped-up outbreak of the swine flu which they’ll say is as bad as the bubonic plague to scare the bed-wetters to vote for health care reform. That is the only way they can push something on to the American people that the American people don’t want.” FreedomWorks reprints the original article, published in London’s Financial Times, on its Web site. [Financial Times, 8/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Dick Armey, FreedomWorks
August 18, 2009: Democrat Answers Accusations of ‘Nazi’ Health Care Reform: ‘On What Planet Do You Spend Most of Your Time?’
A member of the LaRouche Youth Movement compares the Obama health care reform proposal to Nazi policies. [Source: Darren McCollester / Getty Images]A testy Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) loses patience with a raucous, shouting crowd of angry protesters at a two-hour town hall meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Frank, who strongly supports the Democrats’ health care reform proposals, attempts to answer the shouted questions and accusations from protesters, who often attempt to shout him down before he can complete his answers, and boo him from the moment he is introduced. Frank repeatedly asks, “You want me to talk about it or do you want to yell?” and asks, “Which one of you wants to yell next?” He also says frequently: “Disruption never helps your cause. It just looks like you’re afraid to have rational discussion.” Frank finally loses patience when Rachel Brown of the LaRouche Youth Movement tells him that President Obama’s health care policies are comparable to those of Nazi Germany, meanwhile waving a pamphlet depicting Obama with a Hitler mustache. “This policy is actually already on its way out,” Brown says. “It already has been defeated by LaRouche. My question to you is, why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it?” Frank, a Jew, retorts: “When you ask me that question, I’m going to revert to my ethnic heritage and ask you a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time? You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis.” He says her ability to deface an image of the president and express her views “is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated,” and concludes: “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.” During less contentious moments, Frank rebuts claims that the reform proposal would mandate free health care for illegal immigrants, and attempts to read the pertinent section of the bill through the shouts and catcalls. He asks why protesters demand for him to answer and then scream through his answers: “What’s the matter with you all? I don’t know if you get angrier when I answer the questions, or when you don’t think I do.” [Associated Press, 8/19/2009; CNN, 8/19/2009; Think Progress, 8/19/2009; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8/19/2009; Boston Globe, 8/20/2009]
'Look for the Mustache' - A representative of the Massachusetts Republican Party later says Brown and other LaRouche supporters were at the forum “to cause problems,” and denies any Republican involvement in the shouting or pamphleteering. A LaRouche spokeswoman, Nancy Spannaus, says, “LaRouche PAC members are giving leadership to these town hall meetings all around the country so we are being at any one that we possibly can.” The Obama “mustache poster” “symbolizes the fact that the president is attempting to implement a Hitler health care policy,” she adds. “At any town hall, you’ll know LaRouche people are there if you just look for the mustache.” [Washington Post, 8/20/2009]
Fox News: Frank's Remarks Proof that Democrats are 'Alienating Voters' - Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity and a Fox reporter, Griff Jenkins, say that Frank’s retorts to the protesters are proof that Democrats are “alienating voters” with their reform policies. Jenkins tells Hannity that Frank “talked down” to the protesters. Hannity calls Frank’s comments full of “arrogance [and] condescension.” Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Hannity’s guest, praises the LaRouche questioner and other protesters as evidence of American “democracy in action.” [Fox News, 8/18/2009]
Entity Tags: Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Griff Jenkins, Michele Bachmann, LaRouche Youth Movement, Sean Hannity, Massachusetts Republican Party, Nancy Spannaus, Rachel Brown
August 18, 2009: Republican Lawmaker Praises Constituent Who Describes Himself as a ‘Right-Wing Terrorist’
Representative Wally Herger (R-CA) praises a constituent who describes himself as a “right-wing terrorist,” and tells listeners, “Our democracy has never been threatened as much as it is today” by the Obama administration’s policies. Herger holds a “town hall” meeting to discuss health care reform in Redding, California. The audience is largely made up of reform opponents who cheer when Herger calls the “public option” an “unacceptable” provision of reform. A local reporter writes, “Although Herger called several times for the audience to ‘respect each other’s opinions,’ those opposed to President Obama’s health care were greeted with cheers while the few in favor were interrupted with catcalls.” Two audience members are escorted out by police officers during the event, after arguing over the health care plan. One audience member says, “I am a proud right wing terrorist”; the audience largely cheers his declaration, and Herger beams: “Amen, God bless you. There is a great American.” Most of the audience members who ask questions denounce health care reform as a “socialist” idea. [Mount Shasta Herald, 8/21/2009; Think Progress, 8/22/2009; Daily Kos, 8/26/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Wally Herger
August 18, 2009: Republican Representative Says Federal Government Lacks Power to Reform Health Care; Progressive News Site Debunks Claim
Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) tells Fox News viewers that health care reform is unconstitutional. She says: “It is not within our power as members of Congress, it’s not within the enumerated powers of the Constitution, for us to design and create a national takeover of health care. Nor is it within our ability to be able to delegate that responsibility to the executive.” Ian Millhiser of the progressive news and advocacy Web site Think Progress takes issue with Bachmann’s statement, writing that she “is wrong about both the contents of the health care plan and the requirements of the Constitution.” None of the versions of health care legislation being considered in Congress make any provision for a “national takeover of health care.” Bachmann may be referring to the “public option,” which would create a government-run health care plan that citizens could choose to participate in. Millhiser notes that Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,” and to “provide for… the general welfare of the United States.” Millhiser writes, “Rather than itemizing specific subject matters, such as health care, which Congress is allowed to spend money on, the framers chose instead to give Congress a broad mandate to spend money in ways that promote the ‘general welfare.’” Millhiser writes that it is unclear what Bachmann means by “delegat[ing] that responsibility to the executive,” but notes that no one has proposed giving the White House anything approaching the authority to run or reconfigure the US health care system. He calls Bachmann’s view of the Constitution “radical,” and writes: “If Congress does not have the power to create a modest public option which competes with private health plans in the marketplace, then it certainly does not have the authority to create Medicare. Similarly, Congress’ power to spend money to benefit the general welfare is the basis for Social Security, federal education funding, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits such as the VA health system and the GI Bill. All of these programs would cease to exist in Michele Bachmann’s America.” [Think Progress, 8/19/2009]
Entity Tags: Michele Bachmann, Ian Millhiser, Social Security Administration, Medicaid, US Veterans Administration, Medicare
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, Medicare, Medicaid
August 19, 2009: Grassley: Obama Should Abandon ‘Public Option’ If He Wants a Bipartisan Bill
Charles Grassley (R-IA), a Republican senator considered a key element in the Obama administration’s push for bipartisan health care reform, says that the recent outpouring of anger and resistance at “town hall” forums has “fundamentally altered the nature of the debate and convinced him that lawmakers should consider drastically scaling back the scope of the effort.” Grassley says he believes the public is strongly against the Democrats’ ideas for health care reform, and considers the ideas a run-up to what he calls “a government takeover of health care.” Grassley is a member of the so-called “Gang of Six,” a group of three Republican and three conservative Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee primarily responsible for writing the committee’s reform proposal. In recent days, some Democrats have accused him of attempting to suborn any bipartisanship in the process by his advocacy of “death panels” (see August 12, 2009) and his misleading use of Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA)‘s terminal illness (see August 5, 2009) in his arguments against reform.
Obama Should Prove Commitment to Bipartisanship by Abandoning Public Option - Grassley says that if President Obama is serious about a bipartisan approach to reform, he should abandon his support for the so-called “public option” entirely. Such a statement, he says, is “pretty important… if you’re really interested in a bipartisan bill.” Grassley also says that a reform bill would not be truly bipartisan unless it received far more than a 51-vote majority, or even a 60-vote “supermajority,” enough votes to defeat a filibuster attempt. “It’s not about getting a lot of Republicans. It’s about getting a lot of Democrats and Republicans,” he says. “We ought to be focusing on getting 80 votes.” [Washington Post, 8/20/2009] Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent contrasts Grassley’s contentious position with the more accomodating overtures from the White House. He writes: “Grassley knows the White House is under tremendous pressure to contain a revolt on the left over the public option. It’s hard to imagine any reason for demanding Obama renounce the public option right now, before there’s even a bill out of the finance committee, other than to make life politically difficult for the president. How does that compare with the White House’s treatment of Grassley? When the Senator endorsed the ‘death panel’ claim, the White House reaffirmed its commitment to working with him. Dems quietly let Grassley claim a big victory by dropping the public option from the Senate bill he’s negotiating. And when Rahm Emanuel questioned the sincerity of GOP leaders yesterday, an apparent shot at Grassley, the White House rapidly walked it back. Grassley, meanwhile, has now raised the bar yet again for what will constitute true bipartisanship on the White House’s part. Pretty telling.” [Plum Line, 8/20/2009]
Bipartisanship Not Universally Desired - Other Republicans are less interested in bipartisanship. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) blames Obama for the increasingly strident tone of the debate, and accuses Obama officials of “reject[ing] our efforts to work together.” Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), considered a likely 2012 candidate for president, says flatly: “The Republicans should kill the bill. It’s a bad idea.” House Member James Clyburn (D-SC) says Democrats might do well to abandon any idea of bipartisanship and work on a bill without Republican input, especially since it is unlikely that Republicans will vote for any reform bill at all. But Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says he remains committed to the idea of bipartisanship. [Washington Post, 8/20/2009]
Entity Tags: Charles Grassley, Barack Obama, Max Baucus, James Clyburn, Tim Pawlenty, John Boehner, Obama administration, Rahm Emanuel, Greg Sargent
August 19, 2009: Former House Majority Leader Tells Unverifiable Tale of ‘Quadriplegics Dumped on Floor’ at Earlier Health Care Protests
On MSNBC’s Hardball, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) tells a harrowing tale of health care protests he weathered in the 1980s in which protesters “dumped” quadriplegics “on the floor” in front of him to make their point. Asked by host Chris Matthews about the “tea party” agitation and town hall disruptions surrounding the current health care debate, DeLay answers: “Chris, you shouldn’t be surprised about this. This has been going on forever. When I did my town hall meetings, I’ll never forget one back in the ‘80s—on health care, by the way. They brought in quadriplegics on gurneys and dumped them on the floor in front of my podium. I mean, this is not new. What’s new is, the people that came into disrupt my town meetings, we just let them go on because it usually turned off the people that were there. What’s happening here is the American people are on their side.” However, no sources can be found to validate DeLay’s claims. The progressive news Web site TPM Muckraker probes through a variety of news archives and finds a May 1996 article from the Houston Chronicle that reported on a number of protests by the disabilities advocacy group ADAPT. According to the Chronicle: “Groups of protesters, most of them in wheelchairs, barricaded two local political offices Tuesday to demand changes in the way disabled people receive care in America.… A second group of about 150 ADAPT supporters blockaded and occupied US Rep. Tom DeLay’s office in Sugar Land [Texas], until DeLay agreed to meet with them.… Tuesday’s protesters narrowly escaped arrest by Stafford police when DeLay, who is in Washington, DC, agreed to meet with them next month.” TPM Muckraker reporter Justin Elliott writes: “Is it possible that DeLay is thinking of the ADAPT episode—and just replacing ‘90s with ‘80s, district office with health care town hall, protesters in wheelchairs with quadriplegics dumped from gurneys, and not having been there at all with seeing it unfold in front of his podium?” Elliott also notes that “[t]wo reporters who’ve covered DeLay extensively over the years say the quadriplegic story is new to them.” [TPM Muckraker, 8/20/2009]
Entity Tags: Justin Elliott, ADAPT, TPM Muckraker, Chris Matthews, Tom DeLay, Houston Chronicle
August 19, 2009: Poll: Fox News Viewers Disproportionately Misinformed about Health Care Reform
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that the misinformation permeating the debate over health care reform is having an effect. Forty-five percent believe that the reform legislation pending in Congress includes “death panels” (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 13, 2009, August 12-13, 2009, August 13, 2009, and August 15, 2009), and 55 percent believe that illegal immigrants will receive government-funded coverage. These numbers are disproportionately higher among Fox News viewers: 72 percent believe the government will fund coverage of illegal immigrants, 75 percent believe in “death panels,” and 79 percent believe the reform bill will lead to a government takeover of the US health care system. Large minorities of other network viewers believe these same examples of misinformation. MSNBC’s Domenico Montanaro writes: “This is about credible messengers using the media to get some of this misinformation out there, not as much about the filter itself. These numbers should worry Democratic operatives, as well as the news media that have been covering this story.” [MSNBC, 8/19/2009; Think Progress, 8/19/2009] Another poll, from Public Policy Polling, shows that 39 percent of Americans want the government to “stay out of Medicare,” apparently unaware that the government funds, administers, and operates Medicare. The same poll shows that 38 percent of respondents do not believe President Obama is a natural-born American citizen; six percent don’t believe that Hawaii, Obama’s birth state, is part of the United States. The poll does not differentiate between Fox viewers and others. [Think Progress, 8/19/2009]
Entity Tags: Domenico Montanaro, Barack Obama, Public Policy Polling, Medicare, Wall Street Journal, NBC, Fox News
August 19, 2009: Grassley Regrets Using Kennedy’s Name in False Health Care Claims
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) says he regrets using Senator Edward Kennedy’s name in recent statements he made criticizing Democrats’ attempts to reform health care. Grassley had asserted, falsely, that Kennedy, who suffers from terminal brain cancer, would have been denied care under Great Britain’s national health care system (see August 5, 2009). “I regret using Sen. Kennedy’s name,” Grassley says. But he adds that he has no regrets about vilifying the British health care system, or about more recent remarks he made accusing Democrats of wanting to prematurely end the lives of senior citizens (see August 12, 2009). [National Public Radio, 8/20/2009]
Entity Tags: Edward M. (“Ted”) Kennedy, Charles Grassley
August 19, 2009: Republican Senators Call for 75-80 Vote ‘Supermajority’ to Pass Health Care Legislation
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) says the Senate should not pass a health care reform bill unless it garners “bipartisan” support. Hatch goes on to say that such a bill would not be bipartisan unless it could win “somewhere between 75 and 80 votes.” Two of Hatch’s colleagues, Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), have made similar statements, with Enzi demanding “a bill that 75 or 80 senators can support.” Progressive news and advocacy Web site Think Progress notes that all three senators have made very different claims in the past:
In 2001, all three boasted that then-President Bush’s $1.35 trillion tax-cut bill was “built upon bipartisanship” after it passed the Senate with 58 votes.
In November 2003, after the Senate passed a prescription drug plan for seniors that was heavily favored by pharmaceutical firms, Grassley praised himself as the “lead Senate architect of the bipartisan legislation.” The bill passed with 54 votes.
In 2005, Senate Republicans harshly criticized Senate Democrats for filibustering seven of President Bush’s 205 nominees to the federal judiciary. Hatch and Grassley argued strongly against those nominees needing to be confirmed by a 60-vote “supermajority.” Hatch called the filubuster “unconstitutional,” and Grassley described judicial filibusters as “an abuse of our function under the Constitution.” [Fox News, 8/20/2009; Think Progress, 8/20/2009]
Entity Tags: Orrin Hatch, George W. Bush, Charles Grassley, Mike Enzi, Think Progress (.org)
August 19, 2009: ’Non-Profit’ Organization Charges Groups $10,000 to Participate in Anti-Reform Rallies
MSNBC reports that FreedomWorks, the non-profit “grassroots” lobbying organization that has spearheaded anti-health care reform efforts (see April 14, 2009, June 26, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 14, 2009, and August 17, 2009), has recently raised the amount of money it charges organizations to take part in anti-reform protests. FreedomWorks used to charge groups $2,500 to distribute their materials at FreedomWorks-sponsored events; now the price is $10,000. However, the new price includes the opportunity for a group to have a speaker at a FreedomWorks rally. FreedomWorks says it is trying to offset costs for stages, equipment, and other operating costs. [MSNBC, 8/20/2009]
Entity Tags: FreedomWorks
August 20, 2009: Republican Lawmaker: Health Care Reform Unconstitutional
Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), during a “telephone town hall” discussion of health care reform, reiterates her opposition to Democratic reform initiatives. Foxx, who has previously claimed that elderly Americans will be “put to death” under Democratic reform proposals (see July 28, 2009), says that any reform attempts by the federal government would be unconstitutional. Moreover, discussions about government reform issues are little more than “distractions” from more important issues. Foxx says: “The Constitution doesn’t grant a right to health care, and most of us are living as much by the Constitution as we can. It also doesn’t give the federal government the authority to deal with health care. As you may know, the 10th amendment, it says if it isn’t mentioned in the Constitution to be done by the federal government, it’s left to the states or the people.… I think one of the problems we have in this country right now is the fact that the federal government is trying to do too much. We need to leave things to the states and the localities.… And unfortunately, we are distracting ourselves from looking after the defense of this nation because we are dealing with issues that should, by right, be the state and individual’s.” Foxx has also claimed that every American has access to health care (see September 17, 2009), and has supported Medicare in past votes. [Think Progress, 8/21/2009]
Entity Tags: Virginia Foxx
August 20, 2009: Key Senate Democrat Committed to Bipartisan Health Care Reform Bill, Says Republican Leadership ‘Doing Its Utmost to Kill This Bill’
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a key player in the Democrats’ health care reform process, defends his insistence on a bipartisan process that will produce reform supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Yet Baucus admits that Senate Republicans are almost uniformly committed to killing reform outright. Baucus is a member of the Finance Committee’s “Gang of Six,” a group of three conservative Democrats and three Republicans who are working to craft a reform proposal. “I just think if it is bipartisan, it’s more sustainable, it’s more durable, long-lasting,” Baucus says. “There will be more buy-in around the country. We’re going to make some mistakes. If it’s bipartisan, it will be easier to fix the mistakes, work together to fix the mistakes. It’s just better for the country.” However, he says: “The Republican leadership in the Senate and in the House is doing its utmost to kill this bill. They are putting intense political pressure on Chuck Grassley, Olympia Snowe, and Mike Enzi [the three Republican members of the “Gang of Six”], to bow out, because they want to kill it. So I’ve got a challenge ahead of me to work out all this on policy as we go through these meetings. The other thing is the politics of it: ‘People, this is the right thing to do for America. I know you’re under intense political pressure, but do the right thing. I know it’s easy for me to say right now, because I’m getting beat up by both sides, but not nearly as much as you are by the Republican hierarchy.’” Baucus says it is important to craft a bill that can garner the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster, which the Republicans will almost certainly invoke to try to delay or kill any reform bill. He does not support the reconciliation process that would allow the bill to pass with a 51-vote majority. [Think Progress, 8/21/2009; Helena Independent, 8/21/2009]
Entity Tags: Olympia Snowe, Charles Grassley, Max Baucus, Mike Enzi, Senate Finance Committee, Republican Party
August 20, 2009: Health Care Opponent’s Arguments about ‘Death Panels’ Refuted on Satirical News Show
Betsy McCaughey is interviewed by Jon Stewart of ‘The Daily Show.’ [Source: Media Matters]Health care reform opponent Betsy McCaughey (see February 9, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 23, 2009, and July 23-24, 2009) appears on Comedy Central’s satirical news/comedy broadcast, The Daily Show. Host Jon Stewart devotes twice the usual amount of air time to interviewing McCaughey, and even then the interview is not broadcast in its entirety; Comedy Central posts the entire interview on its Web site. Stewart’s main interview tactic is to challenge McCaughey to prove one claim or another, such as her assertion that the health care reform legislation pending in the House would mandate “death panels” or “end-of-life” review committees; McCaughey then tries and fails to find language in the bill itself, and Stewart chastises her for spreading falsehoods. Late in the interview, Stewart calls McCaughey’s rhetoric “hyperbolic” and “dangerous.” [Comedy Central, 8/20/2009; Comedy Central, 8/20/2009; Media Matters, 8/21/2009; Huffington Post, 8/21/2009] He concludes by telling her, “I like you—but I don’t understand how your brain works.” [Salon, 8/21/2009] In an analysis of the interview, The Atlantic’s James Fallows, who lambasted McCaughey’s 1994 arguments against the Clinton administration’s health care reform efforts (see Mid-January - February 4, 1994), says he realizes after watching the interview that “I have been far too soft on Betsy McCaughey. Even when conferring on her the title of ‘most destructive effect on public discourse by a single person’ for the 1990s. She is way less responsible and tethered to the world of ‘normal’ facts and discourse than I had imagined.” Fallows writes that McCaughey succeeds as well as she does in the interview by ignoring Stewart’s points and rebuttals, and echoing her assertions even after Stewart effectively rebuts or mocks them. [Atlantic Monthly, 8/21/2009] Days later, McCaughey will be removed from her position as a director of Cantel Medical Corporation, in part apparently due to her performance on Stewart’s show (see August 20-21, 2009).
Entity Tags: Comedy Central, Jon Stewart, Elizabeth (“Betsy”) McCaughey, Cantel Medical Corporation, James Fallows
August 20-21, 2009: Health Care Opponent Resigns or Is Fired from Medical Board Position
Health care opponent Betsy McCaughey either resigns, or is fired, from her post as a director of Cantel Medical Corporation. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow announces that McCaughey is fired; other sources report that she resigned voluntarily. Many media observers believe that part of the reason behind her departure is her poor performance on a recent interview with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart (see August 20, 2009). McCaughey retains her position as an adjunct fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, where she has consistently lobbied against health care reform and promoted issues favorable to health care and health insurance firms. In a press statement, Cantel says that “on August 20, 2009 it received a letter of resignation from Ms. Elizabeth McCaughey as a director of the company. Ms. McCaughey, who had served as a director since 2005, stated that she was resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over health care reform.” [Yahoo! Finance, 8/21/2009; Stock Market Today, 8/22/2009]
Entity Tags: Rachel Maddow, Hudson Institute, Cantel Medical Corporation, Elizabeth (“Betsy”) McCaughey
August 22-23, 2009: Anti-Abortion Protester Stabs Baby Dolls, Pretends to Murder Elderly Woman
Health reform organizer Randall Terry pretends to stab an elderly lady in the neck as part of an anti-reform protest. A fellow protester wearing a Barack Obama mask looks on. [Source: Feministe (.us)]Randall Terry, the former head of the extremist anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, gleans headlines during health care protests in the Southeast. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, Terry is nearly arrested while standing outside the federal courthouse stabbing baby dolls. In Nashville, one of Terry’s supporters dons an Obama mask and pretends to assault passers-by. One Nashville resident who witnesses the activities tells a local reporter: “It’s an angry white man in a black man’s mask. They’re just trying to shock people. They’re trying to say, ‘Barack Obama doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care about your kids, because he’s black.’” During the same protest, Terry and an elderly supporter put on a bit of street theater: the elderly lady mimes seeking medical advice from Terry, who is dressed in a doctor’s jacket, and he pretends to stab her in the neck with a needle and kill her. According to Salon reporter Alex Koppelman, Terry’s twin messages in the protests are his opposition to abortion and to euthanasia—neither of which are supported in any health care reform bills before Congress. Before the protests, Terry wrote his supporters an e-mail: “It is refreshing to see the rage expressed at ‘town hall meetings.’ However, much of this anger is not about child-killing. It’s about the cost of the bill, or rationing, or if we can keep our current plan, or about treatments for the elderly. Our goal is to keep child-killing and euthanasia in the center of this debate until any vestige of taxpayers paying for murder is gone.” [Salon, 8/24/2009] At a Virginia rally soon after, Terry’s group re-enacts slave beatings (see August 24, 2009).
Entity Tags: Barack Obama, Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, Alex Koppelman
Category Tags: Abortion controversy & violence, Obama Health Care Reform
August 23, 2009: Grassley Blames Obama for His Claim that Health Care Reform Will Prematurely End Seniors’ Lives
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), a key player in the Senate battle over health reform, tries to explain his earlier statements that Iowans were right to “fear” that the federal government would “pull the plug on Grandma” by encouraging American senior citizens to end their lives prematurely (see August 12, 2009). During his explanation, Grassley blames President Obama for his words. On CBS’s Face the Nation, he tells host Bob Schieffer that even though he is aware the House health reform bill “doesn’t intend to” kill senior citizens, he feels he has a responsibility to make such statements: “I said that because—two reasons. Number one, I was responding to a question at my town meetings. I let my constituents set the agenda. A person that asked me that question was reading from language that they got off of the Internet. It scared my constituents. And the specific language I used was language that the president had used at Portsmouth (see August 11, 2009), and I thought that it was—if he used the language, then if I responded exactly the same way, that I had an opposite concern about not using end-of-life counseling for saving money, then I was answering.… You would get into the issue of saving money, and put these three things together and you are scaring a lot of people when I know the Pelosi bill doesn’t intend to do that, but that’s where it leads people to.” Schieffer asks Grassley directly if the House legislation “would pull the plug on Grandma.” Grassley responds, “It won’t do that,” but then goes on to say that such claims are effective: “It just scares the devil out of people. So that [provision for end-of-life counseling] ought to be dropped.” The progressive news and advocacy Web site Think Progress notes that Obama did indeed use the phrase “pull the plug on Grandma,” but he “used it as an example of the lies his opponents were pushing around to scare the American public.” [Think Progress, 8/23/2009]
Entity Tags: Think Progress (.org), Bob Schieffer, Charles Grassley, Barack Obama
August 23-24, 2009: Fox News: VA Using ‘Death Book’ to Urge Veterans to Commit Suicide
The cover of the VA booklet ‘Your Life, Your Choices.’ The cover text reads: ‘Planning for Future Medical Decisions’ and ‘How to Prepare a Personalized Living Will.’ [Source: American Veteran Magazine]Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace tells his viewers that the Veterans Administration (VA) has a secret “death book” that urges veterans to “pull the plug” and commit suicide. The 51-page booklet is called “Your Life, Your Choices,” and, Wallace says, was pulled for rewriting and reissuance in 2007, yet the VA under President Obama is still using it. In his Fox News blog, Wallace writes: “What makes the book controversial is that—according to critics—it seems to push veterans in the direction of ‘pulling the plug.’ For instance—page 21 is a worksheet in which the veteran is asked to consider various situations and then check—whether in each case, life would be ‘difficult, but acceptable’—‘worth living, but just barely’—or ‘not worth living.’ You might think that the scenarios would involve irreversible comas and the like. But no—they include: ‘I can no longer walk but get around in a wheelchair’—‘I live in a nursing home’—‘I am a severe financial burden on my family’—and ‘I cannot seem to “shake the blues”’.” Wallace’s guest, Wall Street Journal columnist James Towey, whom Wallace describes as helping to “end use of the book under President Bush, and was shocked to see it has now been reinstated,” tells viewers that the message of the book is simple: “hurry up and die.” (Wallace notes that he learned of the VA’s “death book” from Towey’s August 18 Journal column.) And, Wallace writes, quoting Towey, “he says—when government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude that life is not worth living—‘who needs death panels?’” Wallace briefly notes that he also interviewed VA’s Assistant Secretary, Tammy Duckworth, who noted that the book is “just one of many reference tools the VA makes available—and that it is currently being revised.” [Veterans Administration, 1997 ; Wall Street Journal, 8/18/2009; Fox News, 8/23/2009]
Debunking the Claim - The story of the “death book” is quickly debunked. Richard Allen Smith of the veterans’ organization VetVoice notes that the VA booklet is actually aimed at helping veterans choose not to commit suicide, and provides them with methods and resources to battle depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other conditions which lead veterans to consider prematurely ending their lives. [Richard Allen Smith, 8/23/2009] Progressive media watchdog Web site Media Matters notes that the claim that the Bush administration “rescinded” the booklet in 2007 is false. While it was reviewed in 2007, the Bush administration actively promoted the use of the booklet throughout its tenure; an online document on the VA’s Web site labeled “Reviewed/Updated Date: December 29, 2008,” states, “To learn about a living will, read ‘Your Life, Your Choices.’” Wallace’s claim that the VA mandates all veterans receive the booklet is also false; it is considered an optional reference, not mandatory. [Media Matters, 8/24/2009]
Hidden Agenda? - Smith notes that Towey may have another reason for opposing the VA booklet. In 1996, Towey founded an organization called “Aging with Dignity.” In 1997, the organization released a 12-page pamphlet, “Five Wishes,” that it says does the same job as the VA’s booklet. It gives the ailing veteran a list of five questions that, it claims, when answered will guide your life decisions. For years, Towey has been trying to get the VA to stop distributing its own booklet and instead buy “Five Choices” to use with its veterans. In 2007, Towey did help force the VA to reassess and revise its booklet after complaining that it was biased against the anti-abortion viewpoint. Smith writes bluntly: “Astonishing. Jim Towey is one sick mother f_cker to argue that veterans should be presented with LESS information, not MORE, when it comes to making a living will, all so he can make a profit from peddling his end-of-life pamphlet that is shorter than the books my two-and-a-half-year-old reads.” [Huffington Post, 8/22/2009; Richard Allen Smith, 8/23/2009]
Claim Spread by Conservative Media - Even before Wallace’s August 23 broadcast, some conservative media outlets, having read Towey’s August 18 Wall Street Journal editorial, began spreading the story of the VA’s “death book.” The National Review printed editorials denouncing the booklet, and Fox News host Sean Hannity called it “the equivalent of a death panel.” Former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) used her Facebook blog to accuse the VA of “encourag[ing] veterans to forego care as they make end-of-life decisions.” And radio host Rush Limbaugh told his listeners: “This thing is obsessed with death. It’s obsessed with you deciding—or with some—maybe some influence—that your life isn’t worth living. It’s—there’s nothing positive in this.” [Media Matters, 8/24/2009]
Entity Tags: Chris Wallace, Media Matters, National Review, James Towey, Fox News, Obama administration, Bush administration (43), Tammy Duckworth, Richard Allen Smith, Rush Limbaugh, US Veterans Administration, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity
August 24, 2009: Republican Senator and ‘Gang of Six’ Member Says If Not for Him, ‘You Would Already Have National Health Care’
Opponents of health care reform lead the debate during a speech and followup session by Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), one of the so-called “Gang of Six” who are helping to write the Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform proposal. Around 500 people attend the event, held in a high school gym in Gillette, Wyoming. Enzi lambasts Senate Democrats and the White House for not engaging in what he calls “bipartisan collaboration” on reform, and calls for “market-based” health care solutions. Enzi says he has no use for a so-called “public option,” which would mandate a government-run alternative to private health care. “A government option is a monopoly, and it’s no option,” Enzi says, earning a strong round of applause. State Representative Timothy Hallinan, a Gillette Republican, earns more applause when he urges Enzi to pull out of negotiations with Senate Democrats and oppose any reform bill. When urged to do so by an audience member who identifies himself as a Republican, Enzi claims: “If I hadn’t been involved in this process as long as I have and to the depth as I have, you would already have national health care.… Someone has to be at the table asking questions. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.… It’s not where I get them to compromise, it’s what I get them to leave out.” Some pro-reform members of the audience note the large amounts of campaign contributions Enzi has taken, and argue for the public option. Enzi retorts by claiming two government-run medical programs, Medicare and Medicaid, are “going broke,” and a public option program would suffer the same fate. [Associated Press, 8/25/2009]
Entity Tags: Mike Enzi, Timothy Hallinan, Senate Finance Committee, Obama administration
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, US Health Care Polls, Medicare, Medicaid
August 24, 2009: Health Insurers Sending 50,000 Employees to Speak at Town Halls
BlueCross BlueShield logo. [Source: TopNews (.us)]Health insurers have mobilized tens of thousands of employees to fight against the Democrats’ health care reform initiative, according to reports by the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. The insurance industry’s primary motive seems to be financial gain, according to the Times reporters. Many of the nation’s largest insurers, including UnitedHealth, have urged their employees to become involved in protesting health care reform, and provided advocacy “hot line” telephone numbers, printed “talking points,” sample “letters to the editor,” and other materials in almost every Congressional district throughout the nation. And many insurers, including BlueCross Blue Shield, have sponsored anti-reform television ads targeting conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats, many of whom are considered vulnerable to pressure from the industry. The insurance industry is paying for over 900 lobbyists, spending $35 million in the first half of 2009 lobbying Congress and the White House. AFL-CIO spokesman Gerald Shea says: “They have beaten us six ways to Sunday. Any time we want to make a small change to provide cost relief, they find a way to make it more profitable.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/24/2009; Wall Street Journal, 8/24/2009]
Jamming the 'Town Halls' - Insurers like UnitedHealth and others are sending their employees to “town hall” meetings to protest against reform. The Journal reports, “[T]he industry employees come armed with talking points about the need for bipartisan legislation and the unintended consequences of a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers.” But they are instructed not to become contentious and argumentative, according to a “Town Hall Tips” memo provided by the industry’s chief lobbying organization, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP—see Before August 6, 2009). The memo warns those attending the meetings to expect criticism, and to stay calm. “It is important not to take the bait,” the memo cautions. AHIP president Karen Ignagni says the town hall meetings are an opportunity “to strongly push back against charges that we have very high profits. It’s very important that our men and women… calmly provide the facts and for members of Congress to hear what these people do every day.” Larry Loew, who works for the insurance administration firm Cornerstone Group, says he attended a recent town hall meeting hosted by Representative Alan Mollohan (D-WV) because “my whole industry is being threatened.” Loew claims he was not coached by AHIP, but admits to preparing for the meeting by gathering talking points from hospital and insurance company Web sites. AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach says about 50,000 employees have been engaged in writing letters and making phone calls to politicians or attending town hall meetings. [Wall Street Journal, 8/24/2009]
'Hallelujah!' - One industry proposal that is gaining traction among some in Congress is the so-called “individual mandate,” which would require all citizens to buy some form of health insurance. That provision would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers—many of which would receive government subsidies to help pay the premiums. Robert Laszewski, a former health insurance executive who now heads the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates, says of the provision, “It’s a bonanza.” The industry’s reaction to early negotiations can, Laszewski says, be summed up in a single word: “Hallelujah!” Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, says, “The insurers are going to do quite well” with health care reform. “They are going to have this very stable pool, they’re going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy coverage, and… they will be paid the full costs of the benefits that they provide—plus their administrative costs.” Aetna’s chief executive, Ron Williams, says: “We have to get everyone into the insurance market. That is a huge, big deal [and] everyone has coalesced around that.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/24/2009; Wall Street Journal, 8/24/2009]
Battling the Public Option, - Insurers have fought most strongly against the so-called “public option,” which would create a government-run, non-profit alternative to private health insurance. Some polls are showing public support for the public option has declined, and stock prices for the insurance corporations have tracked upwards. Other insurance industry proposals are gaining ground. The Senate Finance Committee is considering a proposal to lower the proposed mandatory reimbursement rate for insurers to policyholders from 76 percent to 65 percent, and the industry is pressuring Congress to lower the limit that insurers must meet to cover a policyholder’s medical bills, leaving more of the money it gleans from premiums as profits. “These are a bad deal for consumers,” says J. Robert Hunter, a former Texas insurance commissioner who works with the Consumer Federation of America. Insurance companies would reap huge profits by providing less insurance “per premium dollar,” he says. Former Cigna executive Wendell Potter says, “It would be quite a windfall” for the insurance industry. [Los Angeles Times, 8/24/2009]
Entity Tags: Consumer Federation of America, UnitedHealth Group, Urban Institute, Wall Street Journal, BlueCross Blue Shield, Alan Mollohan, Senate Finance Committee, AFL-CIO, Aetna, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Wendell Potter, Robert Laszewski, Health Policy and Strategy Associates, Gerald Shea, Cornerstone Group, J. Robert Hunter, Robert Zirkelbach, Ron Williams, Linda Blumberg, Karen Ignagni, Larry Loew, Los Angeles Times
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, US Health Care Problems, US Health Insurers
August 24, 2009: Former DNC Chair Packs Pro-Reform Audience in Virginia Forums
Health care reform supporters pack a 2,700-seat high school gymnasium in Reston, Virginia, to hear former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean and Representative James Moran (D-VA) discuss the Democrats’ reform proposals. Two pro-health care groups, Organizing for America and Change that Works, helped turn out the crowd, gathered signatures, and passed out signs, some of which resembled campaign signs for President Obama’s campaign, and some that were drawn in magic marker to appear homemade. One supporter says she goes because “I’ve heard these town hall meetings have been rude and out of control. I wanted to lend my support to the side that supports health care reform. I’m here to show my presence, wave my sign, and show that a good portion of Northern Virginia supports health care reform.”
Violent Street Theater - Anti-reform protesters gather outside the gym, and former Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry entertains the crowd with some street theater similar to what he has performed in recent days (see August 22-23, 2009). Terry and his supporters put on a skit with a man in an Obama mask pretending to whip a bloodied woman, who repeats the line: “Massa, don’t hit me no more. I got the money to kill the babies.” Terry also re-enacts his previous performance of a doctor pretending to stab an elderly woman to death. He explains his performance, saying, “There’s no way to pay for this thing without killing granny.” Two other protesters heckle supporters as they enter the gym; they wave signs and wear large flags around their shoulders adorned with a large machine gun and the words, “Come and take it.” (Guns are forbidden at the event because it takes place on school property.)
Police Remove Protesters - Inside, a small number of protesters try to shout down the rabbi who gives a preliminary invocation, but reform supporters drown out their boos and screams with cheers. Moran accepts only pre-screened questions, in an attempt to forestall raucous outbursts, but this process is disrupted when one protester pretends to be someone else who had been called upon to ask their question, and shouts out his objections to health care reform. In general, Moran is able to speak over the top of the near-constant heckling by using an amplifier and ignoring the taunts and jeers. However, when Dean takes the podium, the protesters erupt, and Moran orders some of them to leave. Police escort Terry and at least one other person out of the gym as the majority of the crowd chants, “Kick him out!” Although Dean is known as a fiery supporter of the government-run “public option,” his presentation is low-key and somewhat technical. [The Hill, 8/25/2009]
Entity Tags: Randall Terry, Barack Obama, Change that Works, Organizing for America, Howard Dean, James Moran
August 24-27, 2009: Limbaugh Claims Obama Wants to Mandate Circumcision; Claim Disproven
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh tells his audience in two separate broadcasts that President Obama “wants to mandate circumcision” as part of the Democrats’ health care reform proposal. On August 24, Limbaugh says: “Not that I’m against circumcision, but it’s a family’s decision. Leave our penises alone, too, Obama!” On August 25, he says: “[I]t is President Obama who wants to mandate circumcision. We had that story yesterday; and that means if we need to save our penises from anybody, it’s Obama.” Limbaugh cites as his source a Fox News story based on an upcoming report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that may recommend circumcision for newborn boys in order to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS (the procedure can, later in life, reduce transmission of the disease from women to men). The CDC has not yet decided whether to make the recommendation. It is also considering whether to recommend circumcision for adult men who are at high risk for HIV infection. CDC spokesman Scott Bryan tells the St. Petersburg Times that any such recommendations “will be completely voluntary,” both for parents and for adult males. The St. Petersburg Times’s PolitiFact investigative team researches what involvement Obama may have had in the CDC’s potential recommendation, and finds none. “From what we found, Obama has not used the word ‘circumcision’ in any public statement as a candidate or as president,” the reporters note. “We also found no evidence that he has recommended circumcusion to the CDC. The only link—and it’s an indirect one—that we could find between Obama and the CDC’s efforts was a press release on the White House Web site announcing a series of HIV/AIDS community discussions, the first one being held in conjunction with the National HIV Prevention Conference we mentioned earlier. But the release did not mention circumcision. It turns out that circumcision recommendations have been under discussion since 2007, when George W. Bush was president. Given the fact the CDC was pondering the idea back then, it is no more accurate to say Obama wants to mandate circumcision than to say Bush did.” The Times calls Limbaugh’s assertions “ridiculous.” [St. Petersburg Times, 8/27/2009]
Entity Tags: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Barack Obama, Scott Bryan, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, HIV/AIDS Epidemic
August 27, 2009: RNC Survey Implies Democrats’ Health Care Reform Would Discriminate against Republicans
The question from the RNC survey asking about possible discrimination against Republicans. [Source: Washington Independent]The Republican National Committee (RNC) mails a survey to thousands of recipients that implies the Democrats’ health care reform efforts will use voter registration information to ration health care, and to deny care to Republicans. A question in the survey asks: “It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person’s political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?”
'Inartfully' Worded - Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine retorts, “Even we can’t believe the latest in the RNC’s effort to scare voters, lie to the public, and ‘kill’ health insurance reform.” RNC spokeswoman Katie Wright says the question might have been “inartfully” written, but reflects legitimate concerns about confidentiality: “Americans have reason to be concerned about the failure of the Democrats’ health care experiment to adequately protect the privacy of Americans’ personal information.” Politico’s Glenn Thrush says of Wright’s wording, “‘Inartfully’ seems to fall short of a loaded question which seems to have little basis in reality.” He notes that though the House bill gives the government the right to glean “point of service” data about someone’s health care payments or remittances through the use of an electronic benefits card, “nowhere in the proposed bill is any reference to tapping voter registration information.” [Politico, 8/27/2009; Republican National Committee, 8/27/2009 ]
AMA Criticizes Survey - The American Medical Association (AMA) denounces the survey’s implication, writing, “Patients should rest assured that the health care legislation under consideration in the House does not ration medical care or discriminate based on political affiliation.” [TPMDC, 8/27/2009] Progressive television host Rachel Maddow says of the survey, “In the horrible Hobbesian, no rules, no shame, free-for-all of lies, overstatements, and outrageous mischaracterizations that has been the health care debate this summer thus far, this one—this health reform is a secret plot to kill Republicans lie offered up by the Republican Party itself—was so bad that the Republican Party actually had to apologize for it today.” [MSNBC, 8/28/2009]
'Fundraising Appeal' Designed to 'Inflam[e] the Republican Base' - Retired insurance underwriter Raymond Denny, who received the survey, equates the question to the classic “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” He says: “It’s so blatantly lopsided. I called them [the RNC] up and said, ‘This is ridiculous!’ They just said, ‘All right.’” Denny tells a reporter he is concerned that such baseless insinuations—that the Obama administration would deny health care to Republicans—would become yet another talking point for anti-reform proponents. Another question asks: “Rationing of health care in countries with socialized medicine has led to patients dying because they were forced to wait too long for treatment.… Are you concerned that this would be inevitable in the US under the Democrats’ plan?” Denny says: “I wrote insurance policies. I know how words can be used to make people do what you want them to do. The law allows a lot of latitude with politicians. That I understand. Some of these techniques are used by both parties. But this to me seems way over the edge of normal politics.” Pollster Mike Riley says the survey is not, apparently, a legitimate information-gathering device, but rather a means of inflaming the Republican base and garnering donations. Such “surveys” are standard practice, he notes. “It’s common, trying to stir the pot to see what kinds of issues get attention. Both parties do that. They are using some of the hot-button issues to see what activates the voters. It’s politics as usual within the party faithful. No one that I know puts any credibility in these types of polls.” Another pollster, Bob Moore, calls the “survey” little more than “a fundraising appeal.” If such tactics “weren’t effective, they wouldn’t be using them,” he says. [The Columbian, 8/27/2009; Washington Independent, 8/27/2009; Washington Independent, 8/27/2009]
Entity Tags: American Medical Association, Bob Moore, Brandi Hoffine, Democratic National Committee, Glenn Thrush, Katie Wright, Republican National Committee, Mike Riley, Rachel Maddow, Raymond Denny, Republican Party
August 27, 2009: RNC Chairman Tries to Support Medicare and Attack Government-Run Health Care in Same Interview
In an interview with NPR, Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), finds it difficult to both support Medicare and attack government-run health care. Steele is interviewed by Steve Inskeep, and tells him that government-run health care is never a good option, but simultaneously demands that health care reformers protect Medicare and retain its funding.
Says Democrats Want to Cut Medicare, Then Advocates Cutting Medicare - Steele calls Medicare “a valuable program” that is “the last line of opportunity” for elderly Americans to receive health care. He accuses Democrats of wanting to “raid” the program to fund health care reform, and says accusations that he wants to cut Medicare spending is “a wonderful interpretation by the left” that he wants to reduce such funding. However, in response to the next question, Steele says he supports cutting Medicare spending; Inskeep asks, “[Y]ou would be in favor of certain Medicare cuts?” and Steele says: “Absolutely. You want to maximize the efficiencies of the program. I mean, anyone who’s in the program would want you to do that, and certainly those who manage it want you to that.”
Protecting and Attacking Medicare Simultaneously - Inskeep pins Steele down on the dichotomy by noting that he has previously written about the need to protect Medicare while attacking the idea of President Obama’s “plan for a government-run health care system.” Inskeep observes, “You’re aware that Medicare is a government-run health care program,” and Steele retorts: “Yeah, look how it’s run. And that’s my point. Take Medicare and make it writ large across the country, because here we’re now—how many times have we been to the precipice of bankruptcy for a government-run health care program?” In the following exchange, Steele, according to Think Progress reporter Amanda Terkel, “tie[s] himself into knots”:
Inskeep: “It sounds like you don’t like Medicare very much at all.”
Steele: “No, I’m not saying that. No, Medicare…”
Inskeep: “… But you write in this [Washington Post] op-ed that you want to protect Medicare because it’s politically popular. People like Medicare.”
Steele: “No, no, no, no, no. Please, don’t…”
Inskeep: “That’s why you’re writing to protect Medicare.”
Steele: “Well, people may like Medicare, and liking a program and having it run efficiently is sometimes two different things. And the reality of it is simply this: I’m not saying I like or dislike Medicare.… My only point is that, okay, Medicare is what it is. It’s not going anywhere. So let’s focus on fixing it so that we don’t every three, five, 10 years have discussions about bankruptcy and running out of money.”
'You're Doing a Wonderful Little Dance' - Inskeep continues to drill into Steele’s support for Medicare and his simultaneous opposition to government-run health care, leading Steele to note, “I want to protect something that’s already in place and make it run better and run efficiently for the senior citizens that are in that system does not mean that I want to automatically support, you know, nationalizing or creating a similar system for everybody else in the country who currently isn’t on Medicare.” When Steele says the government could regulate the private industry to make sure that private insurers don’t make decisions for citizens’ health care based on profit, Inskeep asks: “Wait a minute, wait, wait. You would trust the government to look into that?” After a brief, spluttering exchange, Steele says, “I’m talking about those who—well, who regulates the insurance markets?” Inskeep notes, “That would be the government, I believe.” Steele then accuses Inskeep of trying to manipulate the conversation: “Well, and so it—wait a minute, hold up. You know, you’re doing a wonderful little dance here and you’re trying to be cute, but the reality of this is very simple. I’m not saying the government doesn’t have a role to play. I’ve never said that. The government does have a role to play. The government has a very limited role to play.”
Insists that 'No One's Trying to Scare' Americans about Reform - Towards the end of the interview, Inskeep asks whether it is difficult to explain health care to Americans in a way that “doesn’t just kind of scare people with soundbites.” Steele replies: “No one’s trying to scare people with soundbites. I have not done that, and I don’t know any leaders in the House and the Senate that have done that.” [National Public Radio, 8/27/2009; Think Progress, 8/27/2009] Steele has called the Democrats’ health care reform plan “socialism” and accused Congressional Democrats of being in a “cabal” to enact government-controlled health care over the objections of the American populace (see July 20, 2009). And his RNC has sent out a survey suggesting that the Democrats’ reform proposal would discriminate against Republicans (see August 27, 2009).
Entity Tags: Steve Inskeep, Michael Steele, Medicare, Republican National Committee
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, US Health Care Costs, Medicare
August 29, 2009: Newsweek Debunks ‘Five Biggest Lies’ in Health Care Debate
Newsweek publishes an extensive article detailing what it calls “the five biggest lies in the health care debate.” Despite the title, the article actually debunks seven.
The government will have electronic access to your bank accounts and steal citizens’ money (see (July 30, 2009) and After). The bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee indeed calls for electronic fund transfers, but only from insurers to doctors and other providers. Patients are not involved in such transactions.
You’ll have no choice in what health benefits you receive. This story seems to originate from a blog, Flecks of Life, which features a picture of President Obama made up as the Joker from the Batman films. The House bill provides for a “health care exchange,” including a list of private insurers and a single government plan, allowing people without health insurance to choose from the list. The government will prevent insurers from refusing clients with “preexisting conditions,” and require them to offer at least minimum coverage. However, Newsweek observes, “The requirements will be floors, not ceilings, however, in that the feds will have no say in how generous private insurance can be.”
No chemo for older Medicare patients. Newsweek calls this a “vicious” rumor coming from the so-called “deather” camp (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 13, 2009, August 12-13, 2009, August 13, 2009, August 15, 2009, August 18, 2009, and August 23-24, 2009). The claim is that Medicare will refuse cancer patients over 70 years of age anything other than end-of-life counseling, including chemotherapy and other life-extending treatments. The claim, Newsweek says, “has zero basis in fact. It’s just a vicious form of the rationing scare.”
[H]ealth-care reform will be financed through $500 billion in Medicare cuts. Again, nothing in the House bill or anything being considered in the Senate exists to back this claim. There are proposed decreases to increases in future Medicare funding, essentially reducing Medicare expenditures from the forecast of $803 billion by 2019. $560 billion would be removed from future Medicare increases over the next 10 years, and would not come from funds slated to provide actual care to seniors. And the House bill proposes increasing Medicare funding by $340 billion over the next 10 years. According to Medicare expert Tricia Newman of the Kaiser Family Foundation, the money would pay for office visits, eliminate copays and deductibles, and close the so-called “donut hole” in Medicare drug benefits.
Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance. While a 1986 law allows illegal immigrants to receive free emergency care through emergency room clinics like everyone else in America, the House bill does not give anyone free health care. Illegal immigrants will not be eligible for subsidies to buy health insurance. In July, the House defeated a Republican-sponsored amendment to require anyone enrolling in a public plan or seeking subsidies to purchase health insurance to provide proof of citizenship. After the amemdment was defeated, Representative Steve King (R-IA) began spreading the false claims that since proof of citizenship would not be mandated, illegal immigrants would indeed be able to obtain government-funded health insurance. Newsweek writes: “Can we say that none of the estimated 11.9 million illegal immigrants will ever wangle insurance subsidies through identity fraud, pretending to be a citizen? You can’t prove a negative, but experts say that Medicare—the closest thing to the proposals in the House bill—has no such problem.”
Death panels will decide who lives. So-called “death panels” form the heart of the “deather” claims that the government would mandate “end of life counseling sessions” that would encourage elderly and seriously ill patients to allow themselves to die. Newsweek calls the claim a “lie” that “springs from a provision in the House bill to have Medicare cover optional counseling on end-of-life care for any senior who requests it. This means that any patient, terminally ill or not, can request a special consultation with his or her physician about ventilators, feeding tubes, and other measures. Thus the House bill expands Medicare coverage, but without forcing anyone into end-of-life counseling.”
The government will set doctors’ wages. This is another claim that seems to have originated on the Flecks of Life blog. Like the earlier claim, it is false. The House bill, according to Newsweek, “says that physicians who choose to accept patients in the public insurance plan would receive five percent more than Medicare pays for a given service, [but] doctors can refuse to accept such patients, and, even if they participate in a public plan, they are not salaried employees of it any more than your doctor today is an employee of, say, Aetna.” Amitabh Chandra of Harvard University says, “Nobody is saying we want the doctors working for the government; that’s completely false.” [Newsweek, 8/29/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Barack Obama, House Ways and Means Committee, Amitabh Chandra, Medicare, Tricia Newman, Steve King, Newsweek
August 31, 2009: Republican Senators Hold Health Care Forums, Refuse to Allow Public to Participate
Three Senate Republicans—Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), former presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ), and Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO)—hold a “Health Care Reform Forum” at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. The event is closed to the public. The attendees were invited either by the senators or the hospital administration. McConnell tells the audience that he believes it is time to “step back and start over” on health care reform. McConnell and McCain intend to take part in two more health care forums, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Hialeah, Florida, but both events will also be closed to the public. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who has taken part in several contentious town hall audiences (see July 27, 2009 and August 11, 2009), criticizes the Republican senators for not allowing citizens to take part in the discussions, saying: “I’m disappointed that the Republican leader of the Senate is coming to Kansas City on Monday and participating in a forum, but they’re not opening it up to the public. It’s invitation-only. I think it might be helpful for the leadership in the Republican Party to have some of the experiences I’ve had over the last week, where some of the meetings are wildly in favor of reform, and other meetings are wildly against it. I think having that pulse is important, and I think the Republican leader would benefit from that.” [Think Progress, 8/31/2009; Charlotte Observer, 8/31/2009]
Entity Tags: Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Christopher (“Kit”) Bond, Claire McCaskill
August 31, 2009: Republican Representative: ‘We [Must] Slit Our Wrists, Be Blood Brothers’ to Defeat Health Care Reform
Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gives a speech to an audience at the conservative Independence Institute in Denver, Colorado. Bachmann tells the audience that “we… have to make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers” to defeat health care reform. Bachmann, whose speech is frequently punctuated by cheers, says health care reform has “the strength to destroy this country forever.… Right now, we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom. And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on.” She continues: “Something is way crazy out there.… This cannot pass.… What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.… You’re either for us or against us on this issue.” Calling her speech a “personal legislative briefing,” Bachmann tells the audience that many Americans pay half of their incomes in taxes, and thusly, “This is slavery. It’s nothing more than slavery.” The Colorado Independent characterizes Bachmann’s speech as “filled with urgent and violent rhetoric.” She proudly calls herself the nation’s “second-most hated Republican woman,” behind only former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), and calls herself first on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)‘s list of “top targets,” presumably for defeat in the 2010 elections. Bachmann provides her own proposal for health care reform: “Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care,” enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines; increase the use of health savings accounts and allow everyone to “take full deductibility of all medical expenses,” including insurance premiums; include tort reform; and, she concludes: “Do a few other tweaks and you’re there. Your whole crisis is gone.” [Colorado Independent, 8/31/2009; Think Progress, 9/1/2009]
Entity Tags: Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Colorado Independent, Michele Bachmann
Fall 2009: Operation Save America Uses ‘Wanted’ Posters to Target Abortion Providers
A ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ poster featuring the name of a Charlotte-area abortion provider. [Source: Women's Rights (Change.org)]A women’s clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Family Reproductive Health Clinic, is targeted with a series of “Wanted” posters naming the clinic’s doctors, and claiming they are “Wanted Dead or Alive” for the “crime” of abortion. The posters read in part: “We would like to introduce you to [two named doctors]. Their specialties are obstetrics, gynecology, and murder. Not only do these two men assist women and deliver babies, but they also harm women and kill babies.… You may contact them at their office or the clinic in which they perform the abortions.” The posters list the addresses of the named doctors’ private practices. The practice of anti-abortion organizations using such posters began as early as 1995 (see 1995 and After) and was ruled an illegal threat in 2002 (see May 16, 2002). The practice has allegedly resulted in the murders of three abortion doctors (see March 10, 1993, December 30, 1994 and After, and October 23, 1998), who were all named in similar “Wanted”-style posters. The practice has continued in spite of the court verdict (see January - April 2003). The clinic has been targeted for closure since 2002, when the Reverend Flip Benham, the head of Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue—see 1986), moved to the Charlotte area and vowed to shut it down. Since then, Benham and his group’s members have harassed and intimidated the clinic’s staffers and patrons; Benham has been videotaped screaming at patients that “Satan will drink the blood of your babies” and that the women will “go to your deaths” if they have abortions. Benham and his followers often use microphones amplified to what a clinic official calls “deafening levels” to speak to the patients, “swarm” patients’ cars as they enter the parking lot, and follow them up to the doors of the clinic, often stepping within inches of the patients as they harangue them. The clinic official says of the patients, “We try to prepare them for this when they make their appointment, but until you go through something like this, you can’t imagine what it’s like.” The police do little to curb the protesters’ actions, the official says. [Ms. Magazine, 9/2009]
Entity Tags: Philip (“Flip”) Benham, Family Reproductive Health Clinic, Operation Rescue
Timeline Tags: US Domestic Terrorism
Category Tags: Abortion controversy & violence
September 1, 2009: CNBC Commentator Asks 45-Year Old Public Option Proponent Why He Is Not on Medicare
Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY), a vocal supporter of health care reform and an advocate of universal health care for all Americans (see July 30, 2009), engages in a contentious on-air debate on MSNBC with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo. Weiner extolls the virtues of Medicare, a US-run health care system for all citizens 65 or older: “The United States of America, 40 percent of all tax dollars go through a public plan. Ask your parent or grandparent, ask your neighbor whether they’re satisfied with Medicare. Now, there’s a funding problem, but the quality of care is terrific. You get complete choice and go anywhere you want. Don’t look at—” Bartiromo interrupts Weiner by snapping: “How come you don’t use it? You don’t have it. How come you don’t have it?” Weiner replies: “Because I’m not 65. I would love it.” Bartiromo, seemingly unaware that Medicare is only for those aged 65 or older, and also that Weiner is 20 years too young for the system, retorts, “Yeah, come on.” Weiner says: “Medicare for someone age 45? I would take it in a heartbeat.” [Washington Post, 9/1/2009; Huffington Post, 9/1/2009]
Entity Tags: Medicare, Maria Bartiromo, Anthony D. Weiner
September 1, 2009: RNC Chairman Congratulates Critic Whose Mother Died of Cancer, Congratulates Her on ‘Mak[ing It on] TV’
Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), speaks to an audience of around 150 at Howard University in Washington. Steele’s speech is part of his outreach to historically African-American colleges and universities. Unfortunately for his outreach program, the first few rows in the auditorium are reserved for local Young Republicans; all of the attendees from that organization are white. Steele’s dialogue has few moments for the audience to contribute, as he delivers a long speech about providing for your own future, with all questions submitted in writing while he speaks. However, the dynamic changes when 23-year-old Amanda Duzak, a Towson University graduate, stands up against the rules of engagement and speaks out of turn. Steele had finished criticizing the idea of the “public option,” the proposed government-run alternative to private health insurance. Duzak says: “My mother died of cancer six months ago because she could only afford three of her six prescription chemotherapy medications. There are 50 million people in this country who could end up like my mom, suffering or dying because they do not have adequate health care (see September 17, 2009). Everyone in this room and everyone in this country should have access to good health care.” Duzak receives a solid round of applause, and Steele answers her. After saying he believes in mature, honest discussion, he says, “People are coming to these town meetings and they’re like [he then shakes].” Gesturing directly at Duzak, he adds: “It makes for great TV. You’ll probably make it tonight, enjoy it.” Steele then turns his back on Duzak as the crowd continues to applaud her. [Think Progress, 9/2/2009; Huffington Post, 9/2/2009; Washington Independent, 9/2/2009]
Entity Tags: Michael Steele, Republican National Committee, Amanda Duzak
September 8, 2009: Health Insurers Defend Unpopular Practice of ‘Rescissions’
Health insurance corporations defend their use of “rescissions,” or denials of care due to what they term “pre-existing conditions” among their customers. Washington Post reporters interview Los Angeles businesswoman Sally Marrari, who in 2006 had her coverage canceled by Blue Cross & Blue Shield after the firm claimed she had withheld information from them about a back problem. Marrari was undergoing treatment for a thyroid disorder, a heart problem, and lupus. After her coverage was canceled, Marrari was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and quickly racked up over $200,000 in medical bills. She says she had no idea at the time that she had any back issues. She is currently suing the company, and is getting health care by trading office visits for work on her doctor’s 1969 Porsche at the garage she owns with her husband. Marrari’s tale is one of many cited by the Post as illustrative of the insurance industry’s unpopular practice. The Post writes, “Tales of cancellations have fueled outrage among regulators, analysts, doctors, and, not least, plaintiffs’ lawyers, who describe insurers as too eager to shed patients to widen profits.” Insurance company spokespersons claim to have little knowledge of just how and why particular patients are subjected to rescission, and Congressional investigators point to a patchwork of state laws and policies which lead to confusion. Since 2008, California’s five largest insurers have paid almost $19 million in fines for unfairly canceling policyholders’ insurance after those clients filed claims. One insurer, Health Net, has admitted to offering bonuses to employees for finding reasons to cancel policies. Gerald Kominski of the Center for Health Policy says: “This is probably the most egregious of examples of health insurers using their power and their resources to deny benefits to people who are most in need of care. It’s really a horrendous activity on the part of the insurers.” But insurers say the rescissions are necessary to combat fraud among policyholders. An Anthem Blue Cross spokeswoman says: “We do not rescind a policyholder’s coverage because someone on the policy gets sick. We have put in place a thorough process with multiple steps to ensure that we are as fair and as accurate as we can be in making these difficult decisions.” Blue Cross has been fined $11 million over the last two years by California state overseers, and required to reinstate dozens of canceled policies. Officials from three insurance companies recently told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee they had saved $300 million by canceling about 20,000 policies over five years. [Washington Post, 9/8/2009]
Entity Tags: BlueCross Blue Shield, Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Sally Marrari, Gerald Kominski, Health Net
Category Tags: US Health Insurers, US Health Care Problems
September 9, 2009: Armed Man Tries to Get into Capitol Grounds during President’s Speech
Joshua Bowman, a resident of Falls Church, Virginia, is arrested by US Capitol Police after attempting to gain access to the Capitol grounds as President Obama begins addressing a joint session of Congress on health care reform (see September 9, 2009). Bowman attempts to bypass a barricade impeding access to the Capitol building, asking officers if he can park in a secure lot. The lot requires a permit and a vehicle search. The officers, suspicious of Bowman’s timing, search his Honda Civic, and find a shotgun, a rifle, and ammunition in the trunk. Bowman is arrested for carrying two unregistered firearms. His intentions are unclear, according to police spokeswoman Sergeant Kimberly Schneider. The Capitol Police and Secret Service are on high alert during Obama’s speech, which features several members of the White House and almost the entire body of Congress present in a single location. [The Hill, 9/10/2009; Associated Press, 9/10/2009]
Entity Tags: Barack Obama, Kimberly Schneider, US Capitol Police, Joshua Bowman
September 9, 2009: Obama Addresses Joint Session of Congress on Health Care; Republican Lawmaker Shouts, ‘You Lie!’ During Speech
Joe Wilson attempting to shout down President Obama. [Source: Politics Daily]President Obama gives a speech touting his administration’s health care reform efforts to a joint session of Congress. The speech, at times forceful and other times attempting to reach across party lines for a bipartisan reform effort, is primarly designed to unify Democrats against a near-unified Republican opposition. Obama denounces some of the most egregious misrepresentations about the health care reform effort, including the so-called “death panel” claim (see August 7, 2009, August 15, 2009, and August 23-24, 2009), in which he calls the people who spread the tale “liars.” He warns Republicans that he will brook no more gamesmanship from them in the effort to craft a reform bill. “What we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government,” he says. “Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned. Well, the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed.” Democrats roundly cheer Obama’s words; Republicans generally do not. [Politico, 9/9/2009; Washington Post, 9/9/2009; Salon, 9/9/2009] The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza later notes that the speech is stronger on rhetoric than it is on specifics. [Washington Post, 9/9/2009] Salon’s Joan Walsh, an avowed progressive, calls the speech “great” and writes: “What was most important about Obama’s address was his declaration that he won’t tolerate any more ‘lies’ or ‘bogus claims’ from the GOP. Yes, he used those terms.… My only real criticism is I wish he’d found a way to do this two months ago. Obama has never before been so lucid in explaining why reform is crucial.” [Salon, 9/9/2009]
Health Care an Economic Issue - Obama insists that reforming health care is critical to managing America’s continuing economic crisis, and key to shrinking the huge deficit. He says: “Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.” However, as Walsh writes: “I was not crazy about his firm promise, ‘I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficit.’ I’m not sure he can keep that promise, for one thing, and it’s not a pledge he makes when asking for more money for Afghanistan, or for the not terribly stimulative tax cut he included in the stimulus bill.” [Salon, 9/9/2009; Salon, 9/9/2009]
No Commitment to the Public Option - While Obama’s rhetoric is at times tough, he does not directly embrace the idea of a “public option,” the proposed government-run, non-profit alternative to private health insurance. Many Democrats, particularly those in the progressive wing of the party, are strongly in favor of such a measure. “It is only one part of my plan,” Obama says of the option. “To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end—and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.” [Politico, 9/9/2009; Salon, 9/9/2009] He notes that he has no interest in punishing the health care insurance industry, saying, “I don’t want to put insurance companies out of business, I just want to hold them accountable.” [Salon, 9/9/2009]
Evoking Senator Kennedy - Near the end of the speech, Obama evokes the memory of former Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who died recently of brain cancer. Kennedy characterized health care reform as the centerpiece of his political agenda, and fought for it throughout his lengthy stay in the Senate. Obama reveals that Kennedy sent the White House a letter in his last days (see May 12, 2009), asking Obama and his fellow members of Congress to keep fighting for health care reform for the betterment of all Americans. Referring to Kennedy’s message, Obama closes with the line: “We did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it.” [Washington Post, 9/9/2009] Walsh says of the letter, “It let Obama return to his theme that health care in this wealthy nation is a moral issue and a matter of social justice.” [Washington Post, 9/9/2009]
'You Lie!' - During the speech, when Obama says that the health care legislation being crafted by Congressional Democrats does not offer free health care to illegal immigrants, Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouts, “You lie!” Many lawmakers gasp at Wilson’s outburst, but Obama merely points an admonishing finger in the direction of the shout and continues his address. (It takes some time to identify Wilson as the shouter, as he quickly sinks back into his seat among his fellow Republican House members.) The Associated Press writes, “The nastiness of August reached from the nation’s town halls” in Wilson’s outburst; Politico’s Glenn Thrush later calls Wilson’s shout “boorish,” and notes that his outburst “enraged audience members on both sides of the aisle.” Wilson’s disruptive behavior is only one of a number of displays of disagreement from Republicans during the address; many spend time during the speech texting on their Blackberries or waving copies of GOP reform proposals. After the speech, Wilson is chastised by, among others, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), and he offers an apology to Obama through the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel (see September 9-10, 2009). [Politico, 9/9/2009; Associated Press, 9/9/2009] Cillizza later writes that the image of Republicans shouting at the president or showing their contempt for his message by texting during the speech gives a poor impression of them. “The more Republicans look like they are opposing the Democratic plan for partisan reasons, the more danger they are in politically,” he writes. [Washington Post, 9/9/2009]
Responses - Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), considered a possible opponent to many reform provisions, says he came away from the speech impressed. “I think it was a bit of a game-changer,” he says. Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says, “The speech galvanized support along the Democratic Caucus across the political spectrum, from the progressive caucus to the Blue Dogs, and everybody left determined to get something done this year.” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has a different response, ignoring the behavior of his own party members to accuse Obama of behaving in an undignified manner. “I was incredibly disappointed in the tone of his speech,” he says. “At times, I found his tone to be overly combative and believe he behaved in a manner beneath the dignity of the office. I fear his speech tonight has made it more difficult—not less—to find common ground. He appeared to be angry at his critics and disappointed the American people were not buying the proposals he has been selling.… If the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats go down this path and push a bill on the American people they do not want, it could be the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency.” Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL), who is running for the Illinois Senate seat once occupied by Obama, says: “He talked at us. He didn’t listen to us.… It was a missed opportunity.” However, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the Obama administration’s most consistent critics, calls the speech “good,” and says: “I’m willing to compromise to get things fixed. But I’m not willing to put the government in charge because we don’t have a good track record.” [Politico, 9/9/2009] Political scientist Morris Fiorina calls Wilson’s outburst “a new low for the contemporary era,” and adds, “Some politicians seem to be adopting radio talk show hosts and cable TV commentators as their role models.” [USA Today, 9/10/2009]
Armed Man Attempted to Get to Capitol before Speech - Shortly before Obama’s speech, Capitol Police arrested a man trying to enter the Capitol grounds with a shotgun and a rifle (see September 9, 2009).
Entity Tags: Glenn Thrush, Tom Coburn, Barack Obama, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Cillizza, Rahm Emanuel, Ben Nelson, Mark Steven Kirk, Joan Walsh, Morris Fiorina, Joe Wilson, Edward M. (“Ted”) Kennedy, John McCain, Lindsey Graham
September 9, 2009: Republican Rebuttal to Obama Given by Lawmaker with Large Campaign Donations from Health Care Firms
Charles Boustany. [Source: US House of Representatives / Wonkette (.com)]Representative Charles Boustany (R-LA), a cardiac surgeon, gives the Republican rebuttal to President Obama’s speech on health care reform (see September 9, 2009). [Politico, 9/9/2009] Boustany tells his listeners that Americans “want health care reform,” but wanted to hear Obama “tell Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, Majority Leader [Harry] Reid and the rest of Congress that it’s time to start over on a common-sense, bipartisan plan focused on lowering the cost of health care while improving quality.” Boustany acknowledged in an interview that the Republicans had done almost nothing themselves to address the health care crisis, but says in his speech that the Democrats’ reform proposals are too big, too expensive, and too ineffective. [Wall Street Journal, 9/9/2009]
Large Campaign Donations from Health Care Corporations - Boustany is an unusual choice for the response, as the Center for Responsive Politics notes that he has received $1,256,056 from health and health insurance interests in his five-year political career. Such donations make up over 20 percent of his total fundraising. David Donnelly of Public Campaign Actions Fund notes: “There is a conflict of interest when members of Congress stand before the public and recite the same talking points put forth by lobbyists and the heads of insurance and HMO giants opposing health care legislation. Rep. Boustany has taken more than $160,000 in campaign contributions from insurance and HMO interests alone. Do you think he’ll disclose that to his national audience tonight?” Boustany makes no such mention during his response. [US Newswire, 10/9/2009]
Voted against Children's Health Care, Flu Vaccination Funding - The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) notes that Boustany voted against the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), did not support a supplemental appropriations bill that included an increase in flu vaccination funding, and voted against an expansion of COBRA funding, a government program designed to supplement working Americans’ health coverage. DCCC spokeswoman Jessica Santillo says: “Congressman Boustany’s no votes on issues ranging from providing health insurance for children, to fighting pandemic flu, to keeping the doors open at community health centers makes him a credible voice for special interests, but not for hardworking Louisianians who struggle with health insurance companies.” Boustany has explained that his vote against S-CHIP funding was to encourage a different way to expand the program: “I proudly support S-CHIP, so we must ensure our children are getting the quality health care they need. A massive increase of S-CHIP further neglects those children who already slipped through the cracks. These children need to see a doctor to receive care.” [The Hill, 9/9/2009]
Other Details of Boustany's Life and Career Brought Up - Politico notes that Boustany had three malpractice suits filed against him while he was a practicing doctor. Two of the cases were ruled against Boustany, and the third was settled out of court for an undisclosed monetary amount. [Politico, 9/9/2009] Boustany has previously indicated his doubts that Obama is actually an American citizen, aligning him with the “birther” movement [Daily Kingfish, 9/9/2009] , a position he later recanted. [Huffington Post, 9/9/2009] And several progressive blogs delight in recounting his 2004 attempt to purchase an English lordship from a British con artist. [Daily Kos, 9/9/2009]
Entity Tags: Center for Responsive Politics, Harry Reid, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Charles Boustany, Barack Obama, David Donnelly, Nancy Pelosi, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Jessica Santillo
September 9-10, 2009: Republican Apologizes for Shouting at President during Joint Congressional Address, Uses Outburst to Raise Campaign Money
A T-shirt being marketed in support of Joe Wilson’s re-election campaign. [Source: Palmetto Scoop]Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), who shouted “You lie!” at President Obama during his speech to a joint session of Congress earlier in the evening (see September 9, 2009), apologizes publicly for his behavior during the speech. In an e-mail to reporters, he writes: “This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.” He also apologizes to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. [Politico, 9/9/2009; Politico, 9/9/2009]
Slammed by Republicans and Democrats - Before Wilson makes his apologies, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) calls his actions “totally disrespectful,” and adds, “There is no place for it in that setting, or any other, and he should apologize for it immediately.” Vice President Joe Biden, a longtime senator, says the next morning: “I was embarrassed for the chamber and a Congress I love. It demeaned the institution.” Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) says after the speech: “Obviously, the president of the United States is always welcome on Capitol Hill. He deserves respect and decorum. I know that Congressman Wilson has issued an apology and made his thoughts known to the White House, which was the appropriate thing to do.” Cantor spent much of the speech ostentatiously texting on his Blackberry, and later claimed to be taking notes on the proceedings. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) says angrily upon leaving the House chambers: “I’ve been here for 35 years. I’ve been here for seven presidents. I’ve never heard anything like that.… It strengthens the president, because it demonstrates what he is facing. Most people have respect for the president.” Wilson’s fellow South Carolinian James Clyburn (D-SC) says the outburst is just another in a long line of political attacks by Wilson. “Joe Wilson took our state’s reputation to a new low,” he says. “I thought [Governor] Mark Sanford had taken it as low as it could go, but this is beyond the pale.” (Sanford is under fire for having a long-term affair and spending state tax monies on visiting his paramour in Argentina.) “To heckle is bad enough, but to use that one word, the one three-letter word that was not allowed to be used in my house while I was growing up, is beyond the pale.” Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) says of Wilson’s outburst: “It was just something that nobody had ever witnessed before. We all felt embarrassed.” Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) predicts Wilson’s outburst will have political consequences: “The person who said it will pay a price. I think the average American thinks that the president and the office deserve respect, and that was a disrespectful comment. They’ll pay a price in the court of public opinion.” [Politico, 9/9/2009; Associated Press, 9/10/2009; Associated Press, 9/10/2009; Time, 9/10/2009]
Acceptance - The White House quickly accepts Wilson’s apology. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agrees, saying, “It’s time for us to talk about health care, not Mr. Wilson.” [USA Today, 9/10/2009]
Resolution of Disapproval - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) says the House may call for a rebuke of some sort against Wilson. “There’ll be time enough to consider whether or not we ought to make it clear that that action is unacceptable in the House of Representatives,” he says after the speech. “I’ve talked to Republican members who share that view.” [Associated Press, 9/10/2009] On September 15, the House will pass a “resolution of disapproval” against Wilson, with only six Republicans voting for the resolution. [McClatchy News, 10/4/2009] The resolution is brought in part due to Wilson’s refusal to apologize to either Obama or to the House of Representatives on the floor of the House. [USA Today, 9/10/2009]
Using Wilson's Outburst against the GOP - The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent writes that Democratic strategists will use Wilson’s outburst to portray the Republican opposition to reform “as obstinate, angry, and irrevocally hostile towards Obama and his agenda.” [Plum Line, 9/10/2009] In the weeks after the speech, the Republican Party will use Wilson’s outburst as the centerpiece of a fundraising effort around the nation. The National Republican Congressional Committee will call Wilson a “national figure” who is raising important concerns about health care reform. The House Democratic campaign organization will respond, saying of Wilson and his Republican supporters, “[T]he very liars who heckled President Obama for calling them out are raising millions of dollars off of their rude, dishonest attack.” [Fox News, 9/26/2009] Salon’s Joan Walsh asks: “How is it that Obama hasn’t faced a single heckler in his own health care town halls, but he’s not safe from the angry, uninformed mob when he speaks to Congress? The next time you see an important Republican leader claim the town-hell hecklers are just fringe elements and bad apples, remind them of Rep. Wilson.” [Salon, 9/9/2009]
Raising Millions - In the days after the speech, Wilson will send e-mails to his supporters claiming to be the target of “liberals who want to give health care to illegals” for his outburst, and asking for donations. Wilson’s campaign will claim that it raises over $1 million in donations in the first 48 hours after the speech. [CNN, 9/12/2009] By the time the September 30 deadline passes, Wilson and the challenger for his House seat, Rob Miller (D-SC), a retired Marine, will have raised over $4 million between them. Wilson will attend fundraisers as far afield as Michigan and Missouri. When Wilson boasts of being given “hundreds of invitations” to appear with Republicans in other states, Miller will retort: “He’s out there on his ‘thank you tour.’ He should be doing an apology tour. He should be apologizing to every teacher, every law enforcement official, every man, woman, and child in South Carolina for being disrespectful to the president.” [McClatchy News, 10/4/2009]
Entity Tags: Steny Hoyer, Barack Obama, Rob Miller, Eric Cantor, James Clyburn, Joan Walsh, Greg Sargent, Richard (“Dick”) Durbin, Joe Wilson, Patrick J. Leahy, John McCain, Rahm Emanuel, Marshall Clement (“Mark”) Sanford, Jr, Joseph Biden, Nancy Pelosi, National Republican Congressional Committee, Maxine Waters
September 10, 2009: Limbaugh: Wilson Was Right to Shout at Obama, Should Not Have Apologized
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh applauds Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) for shouting “You lie!” at President Obama during the president’s address to Congress (see September 9, 2009), and tells his listeners he wished Wilson had not apologized for his outburst (see September 9-10, 2009). Limbaugh calls Obama’s assertion that health care reform would not include free care for illegal immigrants “a blatant lie,” and says he is disgusted that so many Republicans called on Wilson to apologize for his behavior. The Obama administration, Limbaugh claims, “is trying to totally tear down the institutions and traditions that have made this country great,” and he says Wilson is merely speaking the truth. Obama “is lying… from the moment he opens his mouth until he ends the speech. I was shouting ‘You’re lying!’ throughout the speech, at the television. ‘You’re lying!’ ‘That’s a lie!’ Joe Wilson simply articulated what millions of Americans were saying.” [Media Matters, 9/10/2009] Time’s Michael Scherer notes that the Senate Finance Committee’s working draft contains the line, “No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health care tax credits.” HR 3200, the House reform bill, contains Section 246, which is titled “NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.” [Time, 9/10/2009]
Entity Tags: Rush Limbaugh, Barack Obama, Joe Wilson, Michael Scherer, Senate Finance Committee
September 11, 2009: Republican Political Strategist Says GOP Lawmaker Who Shouted at Obama Should Be Voted out of Office
Mark McKinnon. [Source: Houston Chronicle]Mark McKinnon, a Republican political strategist who worked on both the George W. Bush and John McCain presidential campaigns, says Republican Joe Wilson (R-SC), who shouted at President Obama during his recent speech (see September 9, 2009), should pay by being voted out of office. “Make Joe Wilson pay,” McKinnon writes for the online news source The Daily Beast. “And by pay, I mean beat his sorry _ss at the polls and send him to the private sector. That is the only way to change the political discourse in America today. Because as long as louts like Joe Wilson can spout off and call the president a liar and get rewarded with re-election, then louts will continue to spout off. And we [the Republican Party] will continue to claw our way to the very bottom of the political swamp.” McKinnon says the Republican Party will never rebuild itself and become a serious contender for national leadership until it “get[s] rid of the partisans like Joe Wilson.” He finds Wilson’s shout reprehensible, both because of the blatant disrespect it showed to the president and to Congress and because of his error—Wilson wrongly asserts that Obama is lying about the Democrats’ health care reform not funding free health care for illegal immigrants. McKinnon says Wilson’s apology to Obama (see September 9-10, 2009) lacks “class,” and writes: “He made it clear he was saying ‘sorry’ only because he’d been forced to by the Republican House leadership: ‘Well, I, uh, last night I heard from the leadership that they wanted me to contact the White House and, uh, say that, uh, my statements, uh, were inappropriate. I did.’ Apologies should extract some moral or material cost.… Now, proving he has no real remorse or character, Wilson has created a YouTube video and is trying to raise money off his transgression.” McKinnon concludes: “There’s only one way we’re going to change our political climate and ensure we establish some respect in our discourse. And that is to show there is a real price to pay for being a disrespectful partisan idiot.” [Daily Beast, 9/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Republican Party, Joe Wilson, Mark McKinnon, Barack Obama
September 12, 2009: ’Tea Party’ Rally Draws 60-70,000, but Claims up to 2 Million
One of many signs held by protesters at the 9/12 rally in Washington. [Source: Daily Kos]An organization called the “9/12 Project” (see March 13, 2009 and After), sponsored by Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck, holds a protest rally on the Capitol Mall in Washington. Other sponsors include lobbying firm FreedomWorks (see February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 2, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, and April 15, 2009), ResistNet (see August 10, 2009) and Tea Party Patriots (see July 17, 2009 and Late July, 2009). Many protesters credit Beck for inspiring them to come to the protest, though Beck himself does not attend. [Talking Points Memo, 9/12/2009; Washington Post, 9/12/2009] Many of the signs praise Beck and Fox News, while others celebrate former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), and other conservative figures. Still others further the claim that health care reform will “kill Grandma” (see August 12, 2009) and “kill babies.” One sign, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), reads, “I need my health care… Pelosi makes me sick!” Many signs depict President Obama as a Communist or socialist; one claims, “I work hard so Obama voters don’t have to!” and another refers to “Comrade Obama.” One sign, declaring “Yes! We are a Christian nation!” is signed by one of the rally speakers, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC). [John Lewandowski, 9/12/2009]
Inflating the Numbers - Reports by local police and fire officials estimate the crowd at between 60,000 and 70,000, which columnist Josh Marshall calls “smallish by big DC protest/event standards but definitely respectable.” The Washington Post reports, “Tens of thousands protest Obama initiatives and government spending.” However, estimates by conservative radio hosts, bloggers, and media commentators put the numbers far higher, at up to two million. (TPMDC’s Brian Beutler notes that expectations were inflated the day before by a Democratic House staffer, who sent out an e-mail predicting a turnout “ranging from hundreds of thousands to two million people.” Beutler writes: “For reference, two million is just a hair under four times the total population of Washington, DC, and approximately the number of people who showed up to the history-making inauguration of President Barack Obama. Sound like a bit of an exaggeration? It probably is.” He also notes, “A source at a major liberal organization in Washington says, ‘one of the things we decided to do was try to raise expectations for turnout.’” When the initial figures are published in the media, protest organizers and various participants begin claiming that the actual turnout was somewhere between one and two million, but the numbers are being suppressed by pro-Obama media outlets. [TPMDC, 9/11/2009; Talking Points Memo, 9/12/2009] One conservative blogger writes: “‘Media’ estimates range from 60,000 to 500,000 to around two million (yes, 2,000,000). Those estimates, the language employed, and the visuals chosen for use in reporting the rally and representing the people gathered, vary greatly based solely on bias.” [St. Petersburg Times, 9/14/2009] Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin initially reports third-hand claims that ABC News is reporting turnouts between 1.2 and two million, then updates her report to note ABC denies making any such claim. She quotes another conservative blogger who writes, “However big it was, it was bigger than expected.” By day’s end, Malkin notes an ABC report that the wildly inflated crowd estimate came from FreedomWorks: “Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally Saturday that ABC News was reporting that one million to 1.5 million people were in attendance. At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, DC, fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as ‘tens of thousands.’ Brendan Steinhauser, spokesman for FreedomWorks, said he did not know why Kibbe cited ABC News as a source.” Malkin then writes, “The Left, of course, has seized on the error to discredit the undeniably massive turnout today.” [Michelle Malkin, 9/12/2009; ABC News, 9/13/2009] The next day, unidentified people circulate a photo from 1997 to ‘prove’ that the rally actually attracted over a million protesters (see September 13-14, 2009). Two days after the event, London’s Daily Mail reports “up to two million” at the rally. [London Daily Mail, 9/14/2009]
Fears of Socialism - The Post reports that many protesters wave signs and tell reporters about their fears of a “socialist America” under Obama, and warn that the Democrats’ attempts to reform US health care are undermining the Constitution. One protester bellows into a bullhorn: “You want socialism? Go to Russia!” “Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored,” Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, tells the crowd, which responds with lusty cheers. One speaker, Representative Tom Price (R-GA), tells the crowd: “You will not spend the money of our children and our grandchildren to feed an overstuffed government. Our history is decorated by those who endured the burden of defending freedom. Now a new generation of patriots has emerged. You are those patriots.” Many of the signs support Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), who days before accused Obama of lying during the president’s appearance before Congress (see September 9, 2009). [Washington Post, 9/12/2009]
Exhortations to Violence? - Some of the signs and slogans chanted by the protesters strike observers as perhaps calling for violence against elected officials or citizens who disagree with the protesters’ views, or are racist and/or personally slanderous. One sign depicts an assault rifle and the words, “We came unarmed from Montana and Utah… this time!” Another reads, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time… Pennsylvanians are armed and ready!” Another, referencing proposed “triggers” that would launch a government program to provide health insurance, depicts a rifle with the caption, “I got your ‘trigger’ right here… it’s called the Second Amendment!” A number of protesters hold professionally printed signs referencing the recent death of Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), reading, “Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy.” Another, referencing the Cleveland Zoo and the discredited “birther” theory, asks: “What’s the difference between Cleveland and the White House? One has an African lion and another a lyin’ African!” A related sign calls Obama the “president of Kenya.” Another, purporting to speak in “ghetto slang,” asks, “Where my white privilege males at?” A protester waves a sign reading, “Fascist are [sic] now in control they [sic] are like a cancer slowly killing America WAKE UP.” The now-familiar signs of Obama with a Hitler mustache, and of “socialist” Obama made up like the Joker from Batman comics and movies, are also in evidence. One speaker calls Obama the “parasite-in-chief.” [Washington Post, 9/12/2009; London Daily Mail, 9/14/2009]
Reaction from Democrats - The reaction from Congressional Democrats is tepid. Doug Thornell, an adviser to Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), tells reporters, “There is a lot of intensity on the far right to defeat the president’s agenda, but I am not sure that holding up signs that say we have to bury health reform with Senator Kennedy will go over well with moderates and independent voters.” [Washington Post, 9/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Michelle Malkin, Matt Kibbe, Nancy Pelosi, Joshua Micah Marshall, Tom Price, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Washington Post, Tea Party Patriots, Joe Wilson, National Taxpayers Union, Jim DeMint, ResistNet, FreedomWorks, 9/12 Project, ABC News, Barack Obama, Andrew Moylan, Brian Beutler, Brendan Steinhauser, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Doug Thornell
September 12, 2009 and After: Obama, Senate Democrat Work with Pharmaceutical Organization to Remove Key Medicare Provision from Health Care Reform
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) acknowledges it has funded a series of television advertisements in support of legislation primarily written by Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to reform US health care. The television ads are part of an agreement between the Obama administration, Baucus, and PhRMA in June, where the organization agreed to various givebacks and discounts designed to reduce America’s pharmaceutical spending by $80 billion over 10 years. PhRMA then set aside $150 million for advertising to support health care legislation. More progressive House Democrats such as Henry Waxman (D-CA) are pushing for stiffer drug industry givebacks than covered in the deal. PhRMA is led by Billy Tauzin, a former Republican congressman. Until recently, the organization spent some $12 million on ads by an offshoot coalition called Americans for Stable Quality Care, and aired television ads such as “Eight Ways Reform Matters to You.” PhRMA’s new ads will specifically support the Baucus bill. Many are critical of the deal, with James Love of the progressive research group Knowledge Ecology charging, “Essentially what the US got was not $80 billion, but $150 million in Obama campaign contributions.” [New York Times, 9/12/2009] Investigative reporter Matt Taibbi agrees with Love, accusing the White House of colluding with Baucus and Tauzin’s PhRMA to orchestrate a “big bribe” in exchange for the Democrats’ dropping of drug-pricing reform in the Baucus bill. Taibbi writes that in June, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel met with representatives from PhRMA and drug companies such as Abbott Laboratories, Merck, and Pfizer to cut their deal. Tauzer later told reporters that the White House had “blessed” a plan involving the $150 million in return for the White House’s agreement to no longer back government negotiations for bulk-rate pharmaceuticals for Medicare, and to no longer support the importation of inexpensive drugs from Canada. Taibbi writes that the White House worked with Baucus and PhRMA to undercut Waxman’s attempts to give the government the ability to negotiate lower rates for Medicare drugs. PhRMA’s ads are being aired primarily in the districts of freshmen Democrats who are expected to face tough re-election campaigns, and in the districts of conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats, who have sided with Baucus, Obama, and PhRMA to oppose the Waxman provision in favor of PhRMA’s own provision, which would ban the government from negotiating lower rates for Medicare recipients. [True/Slant, 9/14/2009]
Entity Tags: James Love, Henry A. Waxman, Americans for Stable Quality Care, Abbott Laboratories, Rahm Emanuel, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Senate Finance Committee, Obama administration, Medicare, Max Baucus, Matt Taibbi, Pfizer, Merck, W.J. (“Billy”) Tauzin
Category Tags: Marketing, Defense of corporate interests, US Health Insurers, Obama Health Care Reform, Medicare
September 13-14, 2009: Conservative Bloggers Circulate 1997 Photo to Bolster Claim that 2009 Rally Had Millions in Attendance
This 1997 photograph was circulated as ‘proof’ that the September 12, 2009 rally had millions in attendance. [Source: St. Petersburg Times]Conservative bloggers attempting to give credence to discredited claims that the “9/12 rally” held in Washington attracted up to two million participants (see September 12, 2009) circulate a photo which they say proves the size of the crowd. The photo shows a crowd packing the National Mall and spilling into the streets beyond. Unfortunately, the photo is quickly shown to have been taken at least five years before the rally took place. The St. Petersburg Times asks Pete Piringer, public affairs officer for the DC Fire and Emergency Department, if the rally had been big enough to fill that area. Piringer says it had not, and notes that the photo being circulated could not have been taken in 2009. He says the crowd “only filled the Capitol grounds, maybe up to Third Street.” Moreover, the photo does not include the National Museum of the American Indian, a building located at the corner of Fourth Street and Independence Avenue that opened on September 14, 2004. The museum should be in the upper right corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum. The Times says the photo was likely taken in 1997. A Democratic media strategist says of the false photo: “I’ve seen bigger crowds at Montreal Expos games, but I still wouldn’t fake a photo just to justify your predictions of millions descending on Washington. This is grade-A stupid and just plays into the argument that these were astroturf protests to begin with. They’ve always brought the noise, but the question that was supposed to be answered this weekend was, could they bring the numbers? In that respect this was an unmitigated disaster.” By September 14, many of the conservative blogs that had originally posted the photo have taken them down, though some are claiming that the picture is a result of a liberal conspiracy to discredit the event. Many conservatives still argue that over a million people attended the rally. [Huffington Post, 9/14/2009; St. Petersburg Times, 9/14/2009]
Entity Tags: St. Petersburg Times, Pete Piringer, 9/12 Project, District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department
September 15, 2009: Campaign Finance Watchdog: Health Care Industry, Affiliates Spending $1.4 Million a Day to Defeat Reform Efforts
The Public Campaign Action Fund (PCAF), a campaign finance watchdog organization, finds that insurance and health management organizations (HMOs) have spent over $700,000 a day during the first half of 2009 to defeat health care reform. It also notes that health care and insurance interests, which include organizations outside of the HMOs and insurance companies, have spent roughly $1.4 million a day during the first quarter of 2009 to defeat reform efforts. During the first six months of 2009, the companies spent $126,430,438, mostly on hired lobbyists, to oppose the health care reform legislation working its way through Congress. Since 2007, the companies have spent around $585 million to defeat health care reform. “The insurance and HMO interests are fighting health care reform with hundreds of millions of dollars,” says PCAF’s David Donnelly. “Why are so many in Congress willing to listen to an industry that is spending tens of millions every month on politics rather than on lowering their premiums or helping to address the costs of health care? They need the cash to pay for their campaigns.” The HMO and insurance companies have 1,795 lobbyists registered in Washington to represent their concerns to Congress and members of the Obama administration; the same firms hired almost 2,000 lobbyists in 2008. PCAF says it compiled its data from information provided by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Senate lobbying disclosure Web sites. [Public Campaign Action Fund, 9/15/2009]
Entity Tags: Center for Responsive Politics, Public Campaign Action Fund, David Donnelly
Category Tags: Marketing, Defense of corporate interests, Obama Health Care Reform
September 16-17, 2009: Senate Finance Committee Releases Final Draft of Health Care Bill; Many Republican Provisions Included
Max Baucus (D-MT), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, releases his committee’s final version of health care reform, a version known as the “chairman’s mark.” None of the Republicans on the committee support the bill (known as the “America’s Healthy Future Act,” or AHFA), and some Democrats, including John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), have serious questions about it as well. Baucus says: “The $856 billion dollar package will not add to the federal deficit. The Finance Committee will meet to begin voting on the chairman’s mark next week.” An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that the bill will actually “result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $49 billion over the 2010-2019 period.” Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Mike Enzi (D-WY) have said that they want a much smaller bill that imposes no fees on health insurance companies, prevents legal immigrants from gaining coverage for five years, and bans any federal coverage for abortions. The Baucus bill does not allow for federal monies to be used for abortions, as Republicans have insisted upon, with the exception of situations involving rape or incest. Illegal immigrants are not provided coverage through the bill; legal immigrants cannot get government subsidies and must wait five years before qualifying for Medicaid. Immigrants’ citizenship status will be verified, as Republicans have requested. Another Republican provision, “tort reform” (efforts to reduce legal claims against doctors and HMOs), is part of the bill. There is no “public option” for government-financed health care for uninsured citizens, as Republicans and conservative Democrats have demanded. The bill allows for the purchasing of insurance across state lines, for “high-deductible” policies, and for so-called “high-risk pools,” three provisions Republicans have demanded. And, beginning in 2014, federal monies will be made available “to all states to defray the costs of covering newly-eligible beneficiaries.” [111th Congress, 1st Session, 9/16/2009; Think Progress, 9/16/2009; Think Progress, 9/17/2009] Even after seeing a bill with so many inclusions they have asked for, Senate Republicans continue to insist that there is nothing in the bill they can support. [Think Progress, 9/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Senate Finance Committee, Congressional Budget Office, Charles Grassley, Max Baucus, John D. Rockefeller, Mike Enzi
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, Medicaid
September 17, 2009: Study: 45,000 Americans a Year Die from Lack of Health Care Coverage
Researchers for Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance release a report that shows approximately 45,000 Americans a year—122 a day or one every 12 minutes—die as a result of a lack of health insurance and a subsequent inability to receive medical care. The study’s co-author, Harvard medicine professor Dr. David Himmelstein, tells a reporter, “We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction… than drunk driving and homicide combined.” Lead author Dr. Andrew Wilper, a medical professor at the University of Washington, says: “The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health. We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease—but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.” The study also shows that Americans aged 64 and below have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage. The study is published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health, and released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or “single-payer” health insurance. In 1993, a similar study showed those lacking insurance had a 25 percent higher risk of death. In 2002, the Institute of Medicine estimated that around 18,000 Americans a year died because they lacked coverage. Himmelstein says the sharp rise in risk is due to the swelling ranks of the uninsured. Around 46.3 million people in the United States lacked coverage in 2008, according to the US Census Bureau, an increase over the 45.7 million figure from 2007. Another factor is the dwindling resources where the uninsured can receive care. Public hospitals across the country are either denying uninsured people any care at all, or restricting the care they offer. Co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler says the findings show that without proper care, uninsured people are more likely to die from complications associated with preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. The National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank, calls the study flawed; a spokesman for the Center says: “I think you can’t trust the results. Having said that, we ought to do something for the uninsured.” Woolhandler says the study followed similar protocols to those used by earlier government and private studies. “For any doctor… it’s completely a no-brainer that people who can’t get health care are going to die more from the kinds of things that health care is supposed to prevent,” she says. “Historically, every other developed nation has achieved universal health care through some form of nonprofit national health insurance. Our failure to do so means that all Americans pay higher health care costs, and 45,000 pay with their lives.” [Reuters, 9/17/2009; Harvard Science, 9/17/2009; CBS News, 9/17/2009]
Entity Tags: David Himmelstein, American Journal of Public Health, Cambridge Health Alliance, Steffie Woolhandler, National Center for Policy Analysis, Andrew Wilper, Harvard Medical School, Institute of Medicine, Physicians for a National Health Program
September 18-19, 2009: Obama Appears on News and Talk Programs to Tout Health Care Reform, Snubs Fox News
President Obama makes the rounds of the Sunday morning network news talk shows to discuss health care reform, in what ABC News calls “an unprecedented presidential blitz of media appearances.” Obama appears for interviews on Sunday morning shows from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Univision. In recent days, he has also appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes, and will soon appear on CBS’s Late Night with David Letterman. However, the White House refuses to include Fox News in Obama’s appearances. When asked about the apparent snub, White House spokesman Josh Earnest replies, “We figured Fox would rather show ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform,” referring to the Fox network’s decision not to air Obama’s September 9 speech to a joint session of Congress on its regular broadcasting stations (see September 9, 2009). Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace says of the Obama White House, “They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.” Earnest responds that Wallace’s Fox News is not a legitimate news outlet, saying: “Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again. Not that the whining particularly strengthens their case for participation any time soon.” [Media Matters, 9/18/2009; ABC News, 9/19/2009]
Entity Tags: Fox News, Barack Obama, ABC News, CBS News, Chris Wallace, Josh Earnest, NBC News, Univision, CNN
September 22, 2009: Baucus Submits Changes to ‘Chairman’s Mark’ Health Care Bill
Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, makes several revisions to the “final” draft of the Chairman’s Mark of the America’s Healthy Future Act (AHFA, the name for health care reform legislation—see September 16-17, 2009). The “chairman’s mark” is a recommendation by a committee or subcommittee chair of measures to be considered in a markup, and is usually drafted as a bill. Baucus says in a statement: “The modifications focus largely on making care more affordable for low and middle income Americans by increasing the Health Care Affordability Tax Credit, lowering the penalties for people who fail to meet the individual requirement to have health insurance, and increasing the High Cost Insurance Excise Tax threshold for people whose basic health care is more expensive… and effectively slows the growth of skyrocketing health care costs.… This modification incorporates important ideas from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.” According to Baucus, AHFA as it now stands will make it easier for families and small businesses to buy health care coverage, ensure Americans can choose to keep the health care coverage they have if they like, and slow the growth of health care costs over time. “It will bar insurance companies from discriminating against people based on health status, denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or imposing annual caps or lifetime limits on coverage.” Baucus continues to assert that AHFA will not add to the federal deficit. Some of the new provisions include:
Lowering the amount that insurance companies can vary premiums based on age, ensuring that these companies cannot charge elderly clients far more than younger ones. The provision was first submitted by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
Providing $5 billion in additional assistance to small businesses attempting to provide coverage for their workers. The provision was first submitted by Senators Kerry and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
Including more senior citizens in the Medicare Advantage program.
Making prescription drugs more affordable for senior citizens by reducing co-payments. This provision was first submitted by Senators John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Ben Nelson (D-NE).
Improving Medicare beneficiary access to bone density tests, a provision first submitted by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR).
Creation of a three-year Medicare Hospice Concurrent Care (HCC) demonstration program that would provide Medicare patients eligible for hospice care with all other Medicare-covered services during the same period of time. This provision was first submitted by Senator Wyden.
Improving access to Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) for low income individuals in Medicaid who are in need of long-term care, a provision first submitted by Senator Kerry.
Creating nursing home alternatives for patients in need of long-term care, a provision first submitted by Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
Provide alternatives to nursing home care for disabled individuals on Medicaid, a provision first submitted by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY).
Improving access to mental health care for Medicaid patients, a provision first submitted by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
Financial assistance for “high-need” states having difficulty paying for their Medicaid obligations, and use of surplus Medicaid funds to improve the program.
Create an exemption to encourage health care beneficiaries to use generic prescription drugs by waiving co-payments, a provision first submitted by Senator Stabenow.
Remove the mandate that would require states to cover all prescription drugs for Medicaid beneficiaries.
Direct the secretary of health and human services to implement programs to reduce waste in the way drugs are dispensed to seniors in long term care facilities. [Senior Journal, 9/22/2009; New York Times, 9/22/2009; The Capitol (.net), 2011]
Entity Tags: Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Debbie Stabenow, Jeff Bingaman, Charles Schumer, John D. Rockefeller, America’s Healthy Future Act, Maria Cantwell, Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe, Ron Wyden, Senate Finance Committee, John Kerry
September 30, 2009: Conservative Representative Claims Health Care Reform Will Lead to School-Based ‘Sex Clinics’ That Could Offer Abortions; Claim Debunked
Peter Fleckenstein, a conservative blogger whose claims are used by Representative Bachmann. [Source: Peter Fleckenstein / Denver Post]Representatative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) issues a warning from the floor of the House: If the Democrats’ health care package passes, US public schools will be forced to host “sex clinics” that provide abortions and condoms on demand. Bachmann tells the nation: “There’s something that hasn’t been talked about much, and it’s the whole idea of school-based clinics in schools all across America, and that’s in HR 3200. Now this would raise the hackles on the necks of school parents all across this country. When they understand that Section 2511 of HR 3200, the House government takeover of health care, has a section—it’s called school-based health clinics, and it would allow a nonprofit health agency—just say Planned Parenthood because that’s what this is written for. Again, we need to be serious. Planned Parenthood is an organization that is the largest abortion provider in United States. And written in this bill is a provision whereby Planned Parenthood could become a proprietor for school-based clinics in every school across United States.”
'Sex Clinics' - Bachmann continues: “These have been more accurately called school sex clinics.… Now the federal government is going the final step, and they’re saying, ‘Let’s put sex clinics in our schools.’ Can you believe this, Mr. Speaker? Let’s put sex clinics in our school. And let’s put Planned Parenthood in charge of our sex clinics because the bill that the school—under this provision, Planned Parenthood would be authorized to serve as a sponsoring facility for the nation’s schools. As a matter of fact, the bulk of this health care bill is scheduled to go into effect in 2013. Remember, all the taxes will start this coming January, Mr. Speaker. Right away, at the time we can least afford it, the taxes will go into place, but the provisions of this bill actually go into effect in 2013. Not the school-based sex clinics. The sex clinics actually would go into effect next summer so that these clinics would appear in public schools next fall. And it would require that the school-based sex clinic would provide on-site access during the school day when school is in session and have an established network of support and access to services with backup health providers when the school is closed. … But parents are going to excluded from Planned Parenthood as they write these clinics because the bill orders that these clinics protect patient privacy and student records. What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving.”
School-Based Abortions? - Bachmann says: “And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what’s going to go on—comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care—is that abortion? Does that mean that someone’s 13-year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back, and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.” [Media Matters, 9/30/2009; Salon, 10/1/2009]
Claim Debunked - The claim was pronouced false by the St. Petersburg Times’s PolitiFact investigative team in August, which noted that the claim apparently originated from statements made by conservative blogger Peter Fleckenstein and a later adaptation by the American Family Association and the Liberty Counsel, who in July warned that the bill “will establish school-based ‘health’ clinics. Your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may be aborted!” PolitiFact found that the bill provides for the same kinds of school-based health clinics that have been in place for 30 years or more. None would be authorized to perform abortions or any other intrusive procedures. All versions of the House bills would, PolitiFact wrote: “provide grants so the clinics can continue providing ‘comprehensive health assessments, diagnosis, and treatment of minor, acute, and chronic medical conditions and referrals to, and follow-up for, specialty care.’ The money could also be used to provide ‘mental health assessments, crisis interventions, counseling, treatment, and referral to a continuum of services including emergency psychiatric care, community support programs, inpatient care, and outpatient care.’ The clinics would have the option to provide, ‘oral health, social and age-appropriate health education services including nutritional counseling.’ Clinics getting federal dollars must act in accordance with federal, state, and local law, according to the bills. For example, clinics in Louisiana are not even allowed to counsel students on abortion, according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.” [St. Petersburg Times, 8/7/2009; Politico, 10/1/2009] Politico notes that the claim has been made in right-wing evangelical and social Christian circles for well over a month. [Politico, 10/1/2009]
Entity Tags: Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Politico, Michele Bachmann, Liberty Counsel, Peter Fleckenstein, American Family Association, St. Petersburg Times, Planned Parenthood
October 5, 2009: Polls: Americans Foregoing Medical Procedures, Skimping on Meds Due to Health Care Costs
A poll by the nonpartisan Consumers Union finds that many Americans are having so much difficulty affording their medical care that they routinely put off doctors’ visits, forego medical tests, forego medical procedures, skip filling prescriptions, and take expired medications to save money and limit expenses. According to the poll, 51 percent of Americans have “faced difficult health care choices in the past year,” and 25 percent cannot afford their medical bills or their medications. Another poll, by Ipsos and McClatchy News, finds that 53 percent of Americans favor a public health insurance plan “to make sure all Americans have access to quality health care,” and 42 percent believe that sufficient changes could occur without a public plan. The Consumers Union poll finds that 28 percent of Americans have either endured cutbacks in their medical coverage or lost their coverage entirely in 2008 alone, with the trend widespread among differing income groups. Around 66 percent of respondents who make below $50,000 a year say they have cut back on their health care due to costs. [Consumers Union, 10/5/2009; McClatchy News, 10/7/2009]
Entity Tags: Ipsos, McClatchy News, Consumers Union
Category Tags: US Health Care Costs
October 8, 2009: House Democrat to Fellows on Health Care Reform: ‘Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way’
Alan Grayson. [Source: Infowars (.com)]Freshman House Democrat Alan Grayson (D-FL) takes to the floor of the House to lambast both Democrats and Republicans for not being active proponents of health care reform. Grayson’s tirade begins by criticizing his fellow Democrats for spending six months trying to persuade a single Republican, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), to vote “yes” on the reform legislation in the Senate Finance Committee. “We as a party have spent the last six months, the greatest minds in our party, dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote on health care reform,” Grayson says. “I want to remind us all that Olympia Snowe was not elected president last year. Olympia Snowe has no veto power in the Senate. Olympia Snowe represents a state with one half of one percent of America’s population. What America wants is health care reform. America doesn’t care if it gets 51 votes in the Senate or 60 votes in the Senate or 83 votes in the Senate, in fact America doesn’t even care about that, it doesn’t care about that at all. What America cares about is this; there are over one million Americans who go broke every single year trying to pay their health care bills. America cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that there are 44,780 Americans who die every single year on account of not having health care, that’s 122 every day. America sure cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that if you have a pre-existing condition, even if you have health insurance, it’s not covered. America cares about that a lot. America cares about the fact that you can get all the health care you need as long as you don’t need any. America cares about that a lot. But America does not care about procedures, processes, personalities, America doesn’t care about that at all.” Grayson then turns to his “Republican friends” and says: “[L]ast week I held up this report here and I pointed out that in America there are 44,789 Americans that die every year according to this Harvard report… because they have no health insurance (see September 17, 2009). That’s an extra 44,789 Americans who die whose lives could be saved, and their [Republicans’] response was to ask me for an apology. To ask me for an apology? That’s right. To ask me for an apology! Well, I’m telling you this; I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize for a simple reason; America doesn’t care about your feelings. I violated no rules by pulling this report to America’s attention, I think a lot of people didn’t know about it beforehand. But America does care about health care in America. And if you’re against it, then get out of the way. Just get out of the way. You can lead, you can follow, or you can get out of the way. And I’m telling you now to get out of the way. America understands that there is one party in this country that is favor of health care reform and one party that is against it, and they know why. They understand that if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation. They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace they would blame him for destroying the defense industry. In fact, they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tomorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon. But that’s not what America wants, America wants solutions to it’s problems and that begins with health care, and that’s what I’m speaking for tonight.” [Crooks and Liars, 10/9/2009]
Entity Tags: Barack Obama, Alan Grayson, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Olympia Snowe
October 11, 2009: Health Insurer Lobbying Firm Releases Study Claiming Health Care Reform Would Drive Up Costs
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the health insurance industry’s largest lobbying organization, releases a study that claims the Democrats’ health care reform initiative would send health insurance costs sharply upward. The study is released the day before the Senate Finance Committee votes on its version of the reform proposal. [The Week, 10/12/2009] AHIP says it intends to circulate the study among lawmakers on Capitol Hill and use it as the basis for new advertisements attacking the health care reform proposals. [Washington Post, 10/12/2009] NBC Washington calls the study “a surgical strike against Democrats’ best hope for passing health reform,” specifically targeting the Finance Committee’s legislative efforts, which it calls the “Baucus bill” for committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). Until now, AHIP has operated largely behind the scenes to delay or terminate Congressional efforts to reform US health care; the study marks its most public and overt effort to influence the discussion. According to the study, which was carried out by accounting and services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and paid for by AHIP, the average cost increase would be $1,700 per family per year by 2013. “[T]he cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy… will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system,” the report claims. “[T]he cost of coverage for both single and family policies in the individual, small group, large group, and self-funded insurance markets” will rise dramatically. AHIP official Karen Ignagni says private insurers would almost certainly pass cost increases to consumers for a number of reasons, including her claim that too many people with pre-existing conditions would sign up for insurance. “The report makes clear that several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system,” she writes. Baucus calls the study “seriously flawed.” A spokesman for the Finance Committee, Scott Mulhauser, says: “Now that health care reform grows ever closer, these health insurers are breaking out the same, tired playbook of deception to prevent millions of Americans from getting the affordable, accessible care they need. It’s a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple.” [America's Health Insurance Plans, 10/11/2009; NBC Washington, 10/12/2009; Washington Post, 10/12/2009] An analysis of the committee’s proposal by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that while some people’s premiums would go up, the subsidies to be provided by the government would make health insurance considerably less expensive for most consumers. According to the CBO, premiums under the government “exchange” option proposed in the Baucus bill would cost consumers $14,400 per year in 2016, while the average private insurer would charge their customers $21,300 by 2016. [Think Progress, 10/12/2009] Nancy-Anne DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, says PWC is not the firm to have carried out such a study. “Those guys specialize in tax shelters,” she says. “Clearly this is not their area of expertise.” [Washington Post, 10/12/2009] Almost immediately after the study’s release, critics begin attacking it, calling it deeply flawed and an “industry hit job” (see October 11-12, 2009). And PWC itself will back away from the study’s central claims (see October 12, 2009).
Entity Tags: Scott Mulhauser, Max Baucus, Karen Ignagni, Nancy-Anne DeParle, Senate Finance Committee, Congressional Budget Office, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, America’s Health Insurance Plans
Category Tags: Obama Health Care Reform, US Health Care Costs
October 11-12, 2009: Critics Lambast Industry Study Claiming Health Care Prices Will Rise Sharply if Reform Proposals Become Law
Within minutes of the release of a new study by health insurance lobbying firm America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that claims health care reform would drastically raise costs to American families (see October 11, 2009), critics from different sides of the political divide dispute the study’s accuracy and question its impartiality.
White House: Study Ignores Key Elements of Reform - White House assistant press secretary Reid Cherlin says the study “conveniently ignores critical policies that will lower costs for those who have insurance, expand coverage, and provide affordable health insurance options to millions of Americans who are priced out of today’s health insurance market or are locked out by unfair insurance company practices.” [MSNBC, 10/12/2009]
'Blowback' from Study Possible - White House and Senate officials say that the insurance industry may suffer “blowback” over the report. Democrats may well close ranks behind either the Senate Finance Committee (SFC) bill or another version of the legislation, and liberal lawmakers may go after the insurance companies, maybe by proposing a cap on premiums or solidifying support for the government insurance plan. “They have opened themselves up,” says a senior Senate Democratic aide. “It is an incredibly stupid strategic blunder. If you are going to fire a shot like this, you fire a good shot.” Former industry executive Wendell Potter, who has become an industry whistleblower (see July 10, 2009), says AHIP is responding to critical analyses from Wall Street that the legislation will hurt private insurers. “Karen [AHIP official Karen Ignagni] had no alternative because the CEOs were so determined to do something to try to sway the committee to back off the reductions,” he says. “She didn’t have an alternative. They are obviously doing this on the eve of the vote in the Senate Finance Committee, hoping enough members of the committee would be concerned, to restore it. I think the strategy will backfire.” [Politico, 10/12/2009]
Economist: Study Fundamentally Flawed - MIT economist Jonathan Gruber analyzes the PWC study and concludes that it is fundamentally flawed. He writes: “The nonpartisan analysis based on information from the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] shows clearly that for those facing purchase in the non-group market, the SFC bill will deliver savings ranging from several hundred dollars for the youngest consumers to over $8,500 for families. This is in addition to all the other benefits that this legislation will deliver to those consumers—in particular the guarantee, unavailable in most states, that prices would not be raised or the policy revoked if they became ill.” On MSNBC, Gruber notes: “If the report had came out and said, ‘look we need stronger penalties, or premiums will go up,’ that’s a very valid point to make. But what the report says is that it went too far. It said with the current structure, premiums will be much higher than they are today. And that’s just wrong. I mean, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has came out and said that for this bill, premiums in the exchange will be lower than they are in the none group market today. So they just drew the wrong comparison.” [Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 10/12/2009; Think Progress, 10/13/2009]
Democrats: Proof that Industry Needs Further Regulation - Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) says, “[T]he health insurance lobby today fired the most important salvo in weeks for the public option,” and adds that the study proves the industry needs further regulations imposed on it by Congress: “If you have the health care industry complaining that we’re going to raise costs because of these changes, it is them putting us on notice that we haven’t put enough cost containment in the bill. You know, the health care industry themselves is putting out a whole report saying that. That should be a tell to the [Senate Finance Committee] that you know what, maybe it’s time for them to go back and revisit the public option. In a strange way, and look, obviously they didn’t mean this, the health insurance lobby today fired the most important salvo in weeks for the public option, because they have said, as clear as day, left to their own devices, according to their own number crunchers, they’re going to raise rates 111 percent.” [Think Progress, 10/12/2009] Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) charges the insurance industry with releasing a false study for political purposes. “The misleading and harmful claims made by the profit-driven insurance companies are politicking for corporate gain at its worst,” he says. “Their recent statements only further highlight that our focus here in Congress must be on the inclusion of a public health insurance option in the marketplace to protect families and put more money back in their wallets by creating greater competition and driving down costs.” [Politico, 10/12/2009]
Washington Post: 'Industry Hit Job' - The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein calls the report “deceptive” and “a predictable industry hit job,” and notes that the study was produced by accounting and services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which in the 1990s was commissioned by the tobacco industry to do a study on the economic catastrophe that would result from taxing tobacco products. That study was found to be unreliable, and, perhaps not surprisingly, made all of its errors in favor of the tobacco industry. Klein writes that the same effect can be observed in this report on health care. He concludes: “But if the [study] doesn’t offer much in the way of trustworthy policy analysis, it is an interesting looking at the changing politics of the issue. In short, the insurance industry is getting scared. After many months of quiet constructiveness, they’re launching a broadside on the week of the Senate Finance Committee’s vote. The White House, which had a pleasant meeting with the industry’s leadership last week, was shocked by the report, and so too was the Senate Finance Committee. The era of cooperation seems to be over, and they weren’t given much advance warning. But the report might have another impact, too: The evident anger and fear of the insurance industry might do a bit to reassure liberals that this plan is worth supporting, after all.” [Washington Post, 10/12/2009]
New Republic: 'Questionable Assumptions' - The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn chastizes PriceWaterhouse for deliberately, and explictly, choosing to believe that all the new factors included in the study will raise costs, when other analyses show that many of those factors will actually drive costs down. Cohn writes that the study is based on a plethora of “strange [and] questionable assumptions.” [New Republic, 10/11/2009]
Progressive Columnist: 'This Is News?' - Progressive columnist Josh Marshall wrote before the study was released: “Let me get this right. The big news tomorrow is that ‘America’s Health Insurance Plans’ (AHIP, aka the health insurance lobby) has commissioned a study by PriceWaterHouseCoopers that comes to the conclusion that the Senate Finance Committee bill is a bad, bad thing and would lead to health care costs going up even faster than they are under the current system. This is news?” [Talking Points Memo, 10/12/2009]
Washington Times: Defending the Study, Attacking the CBO - The conservative Washington Times defends the study as essentially accurate, and instead attacks the Congressional Budget Office, whose own figures differ dramatically from the PWC study. The Times editorial board calls the CBO’s estimates “fanciful” and “grandly overoptimistic,” and accuses the Democrats of adding opportunities for consumers to “game the system”—“It’s a mystery how the CBO can make its evaluation without once mentioning that individuals easily will be able to go without insurance while they are healthy and then buy insurance after they get sick.” The entire proposal allows Democrats to “avoid electoral accountability over the urgent health care needs of the people they say they’re trying to help but won’t.” [Washington Times, 10/12/2009]
AHIP Defends Study - Ignagni defends the study and says the lobbying firm did not release it to undermine the Finance Committee’s attempt to craft an acceptable reform bill. She says the industry’s main concern is getting everyone involved in health care to work together to bring costs down. There is a strong need, she says, to “encourage all the other stakeholders to participate in a broader effort so that they can too lend a hand and get costs under control in a much more effective way than we would.… We don’t see comprehensive cost control in any legislation.” [MSNBC, 10/12/2009]
PWC Backs Off from Study - Late in the evening, PWC issues a statement noting that the study only examined “a small slice” of the health care reform initiative, and saying that if other provisions in the reform package succeed in lowering costs, then the estimates of cost increases claimed in the study would be inaccurate (see October 12, 2009).
Entity Tags: America’s Health Insurance Plans, Anthony D. Weiner, Jonathan Gruber, Congressional Budget Office, Ezra Klein, Jonathan Cohn, Wendell Potter, John D. Rockefeller, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Karen Ignagni, Washington Times, Obama administration, Joshua Micah Marshall, Reid Cherlin, Senate Finance Committee
October 12, 2009: Firm Backs Away from Own Insurance Impact Study
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the services and accounting firm that recently released a controversial study funded by the health care insurance lobbying firm America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP—see October 11, 2009 and October 11-12, 2009), backs away from claims that the report is comprehensive. Politico’s Chris Frates writes that the statement “basically sa[ys], ‘Hey, we weren’t paid to evaluate the effects of the entire bill, but rather a small slice of it.’ The statement only seems to reinforce critics’ view that the report is skewed precisely because it doesn’t take into account the totality of reform.” PWC’s statement concludes, “If other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated.” Frates explains, “In other words, PWC is saying if reform’s cost containment measures work, their estimate could be wrong.” [Politico, 10/13/2009]
Entity Tags: PriceWaterhouseCoopers, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Chris Frates
October 13, 2009: Republican Lawmaker: Health Care Reform Will Cause ‘Soviet-Style Gulags’ for Americans
Victims of Stalin’s gulags. [Source: Answering Christianity (.com)]Representative John Shadegg (R-AZ) tells his House colleagues that health care reform will result in “Soviet-style gulag(s)” for Americans. Shadegg says: “You know, it occurs to me, and I’ll go through these other scandals very quickly, but what we’re really getting here is we’re not just getting single-payer care. We’re getting full on Russian gulag, Soviet-style gulag health care.… It appeared in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal. You can Google it. You can pick up the phone and call Kim Strassel [a Wall Street Journal columnist who wrote about the “hidden costs” of the Senate Finance Committee’s reform legislation on October 9]. You can ask her about Soviet-style gulag health care in America, where powerful politicians protect their constituents.” Progressive news and advocacy Web site Think Progress calls Shadegg’s statement a “new low” in anti-reform rhetoric, and tells its readers: “The Soviet gulags were a network of prisons and forced labor camps that held as many as 20 million people during Stalin’s reign of terror. It is estimated 1.5 million died in the camps.” [Think Progress, 10/14/2009]
Entity Tags: Think Progress (.org), Wall Street Journal, John Shadegg, Kim Strassel, Senate Finance Committee
October 14, 2009: Key Senator Says Health Reform’s Individual Mandate Proposals Might Be Unconstitutional
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), one of the key Republicans in the health care debate (see August 12, 2009 and August 19, 2009), now says that any attempt by Congress to incorporate the so-called “individual mandate” might be unconstitutional. An individual mandate provision, under consideration by Grassley’s Finance Committee, would require Americans to purchase some form of health insurance. “[T]his is the first time in the 225-year history of our country that we have forced you as a constituent, any of our constituents, to buy a product,” he says. “You know, you’ve been free to buy or not buy. But now for the first time you’re going to have to buy health insurance. If you don’t buy it, IRS is going to tax a family $1,500.” Asked, “[I]s that constitutional, forcing somebody to buy it and punishing them through the IRS if they don’t?” Grassley replies: “I’m not a lawyer, but let me tell you, I’ve listened to some lawyers speak on this. And you know, it’s a relatively new issue. I don’t think we’ve ever had this issue before of having to buy something. And a lot of constitutional lawyers, saying it is unconstitutional or at least in violation of the 10th Amendment. Now maybe states can do this, but can the federal government? So, I have my doubts.” Progressive news and advocacy Web site Think Progress notes that in June 2009, Grassley said “there isn’t anything wrong with” mandates and that he believed there was “a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates.” The site also notes that the US Constitution provides for the federal government’s right to enact wide-ranging regulatory programs, a power generally upheld by the Supreme Court. [NewsMax, 10/14/2009; Think Progress, 10/15/2009]
Entity Tags: Charles Grassley, Senate Finance Committee, Think Progress (.org)
November 1, 2009: Oklahoma Law Requires Posting Abortion Information Online
An Oklahoma law requiring that information about abortions be made public goes into effect. The law requires the collection of personal details about the women who have abortions, and mandates that the information be posted on a public Web site. The information includes:
Date of abortion;
County in which abortion performed;
Age of mother;
Marital status of mother (married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married);
Race of mother;
Years of education of mother (specify highest year completed);
State or foreign country of residence of mother;
Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother, including live births, miscarriages, and induced abortions.
The law does not collect names, addresses, or “any information specifically identifying the patient.” However, pro-choice group Feminists for Choice notes that the information that is collected can easily be used to identify a woman, especially in a smaller community. “They’re really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions,” says Keri Parks of Planned Parenthood. The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law. [Think Progress, 10/8/2009] Salon columnist Lynn Harris writes: “According to proponents of the law, this extensive abortion data—which will include the reason the procedure was sought—will help health officials prevent future abortions. Yeah, I can see that. Because the requirement itself would scare the sh_t out of me.” Harris continues: “It isn’t unique for a state to post health data on its Web site. However, Oklahoma’s requirements are by far the most extensive as such. The law’s supporters claim they want this information to be made public so it can be used for ‘academic research,’ but according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, its collection method makes it useless for that purpose.” [Salon, 10/7/2009]
Entity Tags: Feminists for Choice, Center for Reproductive Rights, Lynn Harris, Keri Parks
December 16, 2009: Congress Bans Funding of Abortions for Military Personnel
The American Civil Liberties Union reports that recent changes to Congressional funding of military services now denies abortions to servicewomen in any instance except in the case of a threat to the mother’s life. The newly enacted ban denies funds for abortions to any woman on active or reserve duty. It also bans abortions from being performed in military treatment facilities, even if the woman is willing to pay for the procedure herself, except in the case of rape or incest. [American Civil Liberties Union, 12/16/2009]
Entity Tags: American Civil Liberties Union
Timeline Tags: US Military
January 2010: Iowa Mother Jailed for Alleged Attempted ‘Feticide,’ Charge Triggered by Fall Down Stairs
Christine Taylor, an expectant mother in Iowa, has a distressing phone conversation with her husband, becomes light-headed, and falls down a flight of stairs. Paramedics respond quickly and determine that Taylor is relatively unhurt. However, since she is pregnant with her third child, Taylor decides to go to the hospital to make sure her unborn baby is not harmed. While in the emergency room, Taylor tells a nurse that she had not always been sure that she wanted to keep the baby, that she had considered adoption and abortion before deciding to keep the child. The nurse summons a doctor, who questions her further about her thoughts on ending the pregnancy. Minutes later, police arrest Taylor for attempted feticide, which is defined in Iowa as an attempt “to intentionally terminate a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy.” The doctor and nurse apparently conclude that Taylor had thrown herself down the stairs in an attempt to abort her pregnancy. Initial police reports say that “Taylor told police she intentionally fell down stairs at her home because she wanted to end the pregnancy.” Taylor later denies ever telling anyone that she did not want her baby. She spends two days in jail before being released; three weeks later, the district attorney decides not to prosecute, because the hospital staff erred in judging the length of her pregnancy—Taylor was in her second trimester, not her third, as the doctor initially believed; feticide can only be applied to pregnancies terminated during the third trimester. Robert Rigg of Drake University Law School wonders about the apparent violation of Taylor’s privacy, asking, “How in the heck did the police get a statement made by a patient to a medical person during the course of treatment?” [Roxann MtJoy, 2/12/2010; CBS News, 3/2/2010] Local health providers will soon band together to help Taylor, whose apartment is burgled while she is in jail and her tax return money stolen. Monica Brasile, one of the leaders of the “Help Christine Taylor” group and Web site, tells a reporter: “I was moved to set up this donation site for Christine after I’d spent time talking with her and became aware of just how little support she has in the aftermath of this recent injustice. She was robbed shortly after her release from jail and she is really struggling as a single parent. I want to do what I can to help her move forward with her life, and with the birth of her third child, in dignity.” [Arnie Newman, 2/25/2010]
Entity Tags: Monica Brasile, Christine Taylor, Robert Rigg
January 3, 2010: Catholic Pro-Choice Leader Calls for Repeal of Amendment Banning Federal Funding of Abortions
Frances Kissling. [Source: University of Pennsylvania]Frances Kissling, the former head of pro-choice organization Catholics for a Free Choice, writes that the pro-choice movement made a grievous mistake in not successfully opposing the so-called “Hyde Amendment,” which since 1976 has denied federal funding for abortions in most instances (see September 30, 1976). Kissling is spurred to write in part by President Obama’s recent characterization of the Hyde Amendment as an “American tradition.” She writes: “It seems that pro-choice legislators, following the president’s lead, now explicitly consider that throwing women who cannot afford to pay for their own abortions under the bus is a reasonable compromise between those who favor and those who oppose legal abortion and a sensible concession to those who think abortion is immoral. The compromise is the logical outcome of one of Roe’s essential weaknesses: the fact that the constitutional right to abortion was based on the principle of privacy rather than non-discrimination. A private right, even a fundamental one, did not, according to the Supreme Court, require the state to pay for its implementation.” Kissling notes that in the years when Hyde was under consideration, the nascent pro-choice movement, in a decision “[b]ased substantially on the advice of direct-mail and political consultants,” decided to let Hyde go through without serious opposition, and focused instead on the “less real” threat of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment. Kissling writes: “The advice was clear and classist. It accepted the racism that lay buried in middle class hostility to poor women, ‘welfare queens,’ and the ‘sexually promiscuous’—all those who might be expected to look to Medicaid to pay for abortions—whom the rest of us should not support.” In hindsight, Kissling writes: “[n]ot concentrating on overturning Hyde was arguably the worst decision the mainstream choice movement made.… [T]he largely unchallenged Hyde Amendment emboldened anti-abortion groups to pick off powerless constituencies one at a time.” Instead of working to restore federal funding for abortions for women unable to pay for their own procedures, the pro-choice movement has, Kissling writes, taken on far more unpopular issues such as so-called “partial-birth” abortions (see April 1996 and November 5, 2003), but has never mounted a clear and unified challenge to Hyde. Kissling calls on the pro-choice movement to mount just such a challenge, and to continue to do so until Hyde is overturned. [Women's Media Center, 1/3/2010]
Entity Tags: Frances Kissling, Barack Obama
Category Tags: Abortion controversy & violence, US Health Care Costs, US Health Care Problems, Medicaid
January 10, 2010: Nevada Court Throws Out ‘Personhood’ Ballot Measure That Would Effectively End Abortion, Contraception, Stem-Cell Research
Nevada District Court Judge James Russell throws out a proposed “personhood” state ballot measure that attempted to extend constitutional rights of citizenship—“personhood”—to fertilized eggs. The measure would effectively ban all abortions in Nevada. Russell rules that the language of the proposed statute is “too general in nature,” and is far too sweeping in its implications for reproductive health care and rights. The proposal reads in full, “In the great state of Nevada, the term ‘person’ applies to every human being.” Critics have charged that the proposal’s broad language is intended to ban abortion, contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and embryonic stem cell research. Michael Brooks, an attorney for Personhood Nevada, counters that the language and intent is perfectly clear, and says: “This is far beyond the isolated issue of abortion. Just because it’s broad doesn’t mean it’s vague. We’re not trying to hide the ball.” The intent, Brooks says, is to protect the “dignity” of human life from techniques such as those practiced on concentration camp prisoners by the Nazis, and that any rulings as to how the amendment effected other areas of law would be up to future courts to decide. The proposal was challenged by the Nevada branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Nevada Advocates of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. Similar proposals have been thwarted in Montana and Colorado. [RH Reality Check, 1/11/2010]
Entity Tags: Personhood Nevada, Michael Brooks, Nevada Advocates of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, American Civil Liberties Union, James Russell
January 20, 2010: Video Clips of Slain Doctor Show Rationale for Providing Abortions
The pro-choice organization Physicians for Reproductive Choice releases two video clips featuring Dr. George Tiller, the abortion provider murdered by an anti-abortion activist (see May 31, 2009). The clips show Tiller explaining why he chose to provide abortions as part of his work. In the clips, Tiller, who called himself a “woman-educated physician,” harked back to his father, a doctor who during his practice offered then-illegal abortions. Tiller said: “The women in my father’s practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is not about babies, it’s not about families. Abortion is about women’s hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives. Abortion is a matter of survival for women.” By looking through his father’s medical records, Tiller learned that his father denied an abortion to one patient in the 1940s; the woman, a mother of two, told his father, “I can’t take it, can you help me?” Tiller’s father refused. The woman then sought out an unsafe “back-alley” abortion and died in the process. “There are all sorts of dangers [for] postal workers, firemen, police officers,” Tiller said; “everything has a risk to it. I would prefer, personally, to have a challenging, stimulating, and emotionally and spiritually rewarding career that is short, rather than having a long one that is filled with ho-hum, mundane mediocrity—feeling as if you don’t make any difference to people.” [Salon, 1/20/2010; Alex DiBranco, 1/21/2010]
Entity Tags: Physicians for Reproductive Choice, George Tiller
January 29, 2010: Anti-Abortion Activist Convicted of Murdering Abortion Doctor
A Wichita, Kansas, jury convicts Scott Roeder of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions (see May 31, 2009 and May 31, 2009). The jury only deliberates for 37 minutes before handing down its verdict. Roeder admitted shooting Tiller during the trial, said he felt no remorse whatsoever for his actions, and instead justified them by saying he saw no other way to prevent abortions. Roeder will receive a sentence of life in prison; prosecutors say they hope to add restrictions to his sentence that will prevent him from coming up for parole for 50 years. Dr. Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller, says in a statement, “At this time, we hope that George can be remembered for his legacy of service to women (see January 20, 2010), the help he provided for those who needed it, and the love and happiness he provided us as a husband, father, and grandfather.” [New York Times, 1/29/2010; AlterNet, 1/29/2010]
Roeder Traced Belief to Conservative Televangelist - During the trial, Roeder said that he became a fervent Christian in 1992 after watching televangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. He said he fell to his knees at the end of the show, during the customary appeal to viewers to “commit your life to Christ.” From then on, Roeder said, his Christian views went “hand in hand” with his opposition to abortion. Reporter Adele Stan writes, “The interesting thing in all this is not that Roeder converted to Christianity, but that he did so via a ministry whose definition of Christianity is the demonization of those who oppose the views of those who embrace one particular theological strain of Christianity.” [AlterNet, 1/29/2010]
Abortion Rights Organizations Say Roeder's Conviction Sends Powerful Message to Perpetrators of Violence - Abortion-rights organizations applaud Roeder’s conviction, saying it sends a clear and powerful message to those who would commit violence against abortion providers, and add that it also points up the need for more intensive law enforcement and investigations into those conspiring to commit such violence (see May 31, 2009). “They need to take this investigation to the next stage,” says Katherine Spillar of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “We don’t have rigorous enough enforcement.”
Anti-Abortion Organizations Split on Verdict - Some anti-abortion organizations call the trial unfair, and say that the guilty verdict will breed more violence. Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue (OR—see 1986), denounces Roeder as a “cold, calculated, and despicable” killer, and says Roeder does not represent the anti-abortion movement. However, Randall Terry, the former head of OR, calls the trial a “scam” and contends that Roeder had never been allowed to “really tell his side of the story.” Terry, who now leads a far-right anti-abortion organization called Insurrecta Nex, says Roeder should have been allowed to use descriptions and images of aborted fetuses to help jurors understand why he felt compelled to kill Tiller. Others take Terry’s position even further. “People had said if he were acquitted it would be open season on doctors,” says convicted clinic bomber Michael Bray (see September 1994). “But if you want to see what’s going to stimulate people to do something, you’re inviting more of the same by not giving him a fair trial.” Bray and other abortion opponents say Judge Warren Wilbert erred in not allowing the jury to consider a charge of voluntary manslaughter if it decided that, under Kansas law, “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.” The judge refused to allow that charge to be considered. [New York Times, 1/29/2010; AlterNet, 1/29/2010]
Entity Tags: Adele M. Stan, George Tiller, Michael Bray, Pat Robertson, Katherine Spillar, Warren Wilbert, Randall Terry, Scott Roeder, Troy Newman, Jeanne Tiller
Abortion controversy & violence (161)
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Hrad Sloup
Skalní hrad a poustevna, Sloup v Čechách
As we can assume, sometime after 1680 has been maturing the idea of the new earl Ferdinand Hroznata, baron of Kokorov, converting the abandoned and neglected rock core into a significant place of pilgrimage administered by Cistercian monks and creating thus a “sacre rappresentazioni” in the architectural pursuit of that time.
Unfortunately, we don’t know the real reasons which made the earl decide so. However, we know for sure that the Kokorovec family held St. Francis of Assisi in high regard and supported missionary activities. Additionally, we can’t exclude the influence of a terrible plague haunting the surrounding area at that time and the cult of ancient hermit St. Rosalia, praying to the Lord for help in ending this misery. Very likely is also inspiration from significant monuments and places in other parts of the world.
Unlike the latter ones, very certain is the spell of the place itself. The rock formation awakened surprise and looks of astonishment as though it was already a Baroque monument before any work began. It is picturesque and yet monumental, its vertical dimension stands in contrast with the flat valley bottom, and the eroded scraggy rock faces’ dynamics oppose the smooth water surface. We can suppose that before the disappearing in the reconstruction, the original local medieval rock interior, though not being very numerous, brought inspiration and stimulation to careful observers. Fascinating is the presence of two concepts: the lonely rock is a peculiar natural demonstration which plays out before the background of the surrounding landscape. Yet, at the same time, the rock – especially its top part – is the background for the finite architectonic demonstration. In the eyes of observers these two concepts visually melt into each other. .
The building operations meant significant changes for the rock’s appearance. Today’s visitor should clearly distinguish between the Middle Ages being represented by few relicts and the Baroque which formed the rock into its present character and is represented by the most established rooms. At that time were established not only the reclusion core with the church and cloister (with a courtyard) but also southern terraces with the depiction of the Stations of the Cross, with gardens and a vineyard to be added later. All these rooms and many more have a sense of spirituality and tell us about the admirable art of Baroque artists to connect a piece of work created by men with the environment created by nature – harmonious linking of opposites: a rational plan with amorphous matter .
The architectonic conception and the building operations are believed to have been led by the first monk, Konstatnin the master builder. After his death, painter Václav Rincolin became another monk on Sloup. Unfortunately, in 1708 the earl Ferdinand Hroznata died and his vision was never fully carried out. In 1710, earl Václav Norbert Oktavián Kinský, the highest emperor’s chancellor, the lord of Kamenice and Chlumec, the possessor of many estates in eastern and central Bohemia, bought the Sloup estate. Apparently, he did not share much of his predecessor’s spirituality and he hardly cared about completing the sacred place. Therefore, Václav Rincolin moved away, the construction work stopped, the bell and statue of the Virgin Mary the Painful were taken from the church “On the Rock” and placed in the new St. Catherine’s Church in the village. The conversion went on until Norbert Oktavián’s death in 1719, although in a different spirit. As a result of the period idealization of ancient rural simplicity and asceticism of early Christianity, a rather artificially arranged and religiously romantic hermitage with picturesque or even odd details gradually came into being. Until 1782, 4 hermits lived here, sometimes alone, sometimes two at the same time: Jakub Borovanský, Antonín Hölzel, gardener and optician Samuel Görner and weaver Antonín Müller. The aristocratic eremitage became already at that time a social attraction. Many an important visitor staying at the Sloup château (finished in 1733) has also visited the hermitage, and has climbed it either for the meditation’s sake or more likely as a distraction. The hermitage was abolished in 1782 by the Joseph II act, Holy Roman Emperor, as a part of extensive social and economic reforms.
The former hermitage became more and more a tourist attraction. The dwelling of the last hermit has been altered into a “visitor’s house” and has undergone other conversions caused by the aesthetics of the early Romanticism or the practical need because of the tourists’ presence (e.g. reconstruction of the eastern entrance resulting in its present form or building a fence). However, this reconstruction has not changed its Baroque character that has remained up to the present time.
Below the F.K. Wolf’s rock castle illustration from 1797, there is the name Alt Birgstein, reminding us of the sight’s medieval origin. Artists, scholars and enthusiasts have started to point their attention toward the Middle Ages, however, their perspective was considerably idealized. The very common and widespread myth of passed knight times had hardly anything to do with reality.
The noble family of Kinský, who owned the estate from 1710 until 1940, have greatly contributed to its significant development and flourishing. Concerning this matter, the most important personality was Jan Josef Maxmilián Kinský. After August František Kinský’s death, the estate was passed on his son-in-law, German noble man Emanuel Preysing. In 1945, the estate was nationalized and the rock castle was later declared a cultural site.
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Cyprus PIO: Turkish Cypriot and Turkish Media Review, 13-03-14
Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next Article
From: The Republic of Cyprus Press and Information Office Server at <http://www.pio.gov.cy/>
TURKISH CYPRIOT AND TURKISH MEDIA REVIEW No. 5213 14/3/13
[A] TURKISH CYPRIOT / TURKISH PRESS
[01] Eroglu received a replying letter from Anastasiades
[02] Kilicdaroglu: the target in Cyprus is the recognition of the "TRNC"
[03] Izcan: "The negotiations should be launched as soon as possible"
[04] Bozer accused the Greek Cypriot side for showing an "insatiable" stance on the issue of oil and natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean
[05] Tanker leaks fuel oil into sea off occupied Gastria village
[06] Smuggling of fuel oil is also held through the occupied area of Cyprus
[07] Efforts McDonalds and similar international chain food restaurants to be operating in illegal Tymvou airport
[08] Danish tourists to visit occupied Cyprus
[09] Davutoglu held a phone conversation with Kerry
[10] Gul addressed the Swedish Parliament; "It will be a strategic myopia for Europe to distance itself from Turkey"
[11] Erdogan to visit Denmark and the Netherlands
[12] US Congress members urge Erdogan to retract Zionism remarks
[13] Study shows that 193 thousand Turkish migrants return back to Turkey from Germany in the last four years
[14] Alcohol consumption was banned in open places in Isparta province in Turkey
Turkish Cypriot daily Vatan (14..03.13) reports that the office of the Turkish Cypriot leader DervisEroglu, in a written statement yesterday, said that Eroglu received the expected reply letter from newly-elected Cyprus President Anastasiades while he was in a meeting with the UN Secretary-General's special adviser for Cyprus Alexander Downer.
According to the statement, the details of the letter's content would not be announced due to the principle of confidentiality, but it was a kind of a thank you letter, adding that they know that Anastasiades has trouble now with the financial situation and they hope that once he gets through these financial troubles in a short period of time, they will come together and discuss the road map and how they can proceed on the Cyprus problem.
According to the announcement, the Turkish Cypriot side will continue today and as always its concrete and proactive stance in consultation with motherland Turkey in order to be able to reach a just and lasting understanding without wasting time.
Commenting on the meeting of Eroglu with Downer, the announcement said that during the meeting they discussed how the process of the negotiations can be re-launched from the point that they have stopped some time ago and how the road map that they have proposed on this issue can be carried out, as well as related topics on the Cyprus problem.
Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis newspaper (14.03.13) reports that Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chairman of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), has said that the Turkish side's target on the Cyprus problem is the recognition of the "TRNC", breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus. He noted that they should proceed towards this target pursuing a determined and consistent policy.
In an interview with Havadis' journalists Mete Tumerkan, BasaranDuzgun and SeldaIcer at his office in the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA), Kilicdaroglu was asked whether there were approaches in Turkey in the direction of solving both the Kurdish and the Cyprus problem.
Kilicdaroglu replied the following on the Cyprus problem: "There is a target regarding the Cyprus problem. The recognition of the TRNC, and the TRNC governments should follow a determined, consistent policy together with the governments of Turkey in the direction of this target".
Asked about his views on the Cyprus problem and how he sees the election of the new President of the Republic of Cyprus, Kilicdaroglu alleged that the field of freedoms in "TRNC" is wider than the one in Turkey and that the quality of democracy and the human rights is also higher in the occupied area of Cyprus. He referred to the referendum on the Annan Plan and reiterated the Turkish view that the promises given by the EU to the Turkish Cypriots have not been fulfilled after their "yes" vote in the referendum. He said that every time they meet with European officials they ask them why they do not keep their promises and why they do not put the "Direct Trade Regulation" into effect.
Referring to the reactions of their interlocutors when they tell them this, Kilicdaroglu said that the Europeans reply that they are working on this issue and that they have transferred it to committees. He went on and said: "There is the following tradition in the bureaucracy in Turkey: when you do not want to do something, you transfer it to a committee? I hope that there is no such a thing now in the EU?"
Referring to Turkey's role in the Middle East, Kilicdaroglu noted that it had been said that Turkey was a "play maker" in the area, but "it has been revealed that this is not correct". He added the following: "If Turkey had really undertaken the role of the play maker in the Middle East, many of these countries would have recognized the TRNC today and significant progress would have been made there".
Kilicdaroglu said also that per capita income in the occupied area of Cyprus is higher than the one in Turkey, but comparing to per capita income in the government-controlled area of the island, the situation is "not very bright". He argued that the illegal universities could promote the breakaway regime in the whole world.
Asked to comment on the way by which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) sees Cyprus, Kilicdaroglu said that all political parties in Turkey see Cyprus as their "national cause" and alleged that the "TRNC" is an "independent country", which they have to respect. He went on and argued the following: "Turkey should not implement on the TRNC the conditions and the pressures, which had once been implemented by the IMF on Turkey. This should be made in a different, better, diplomatic manner. The style of esteemed Prime Minister regarding the citizens living in the TRNC, is not a kind of style which we could bear".
Replying to a question as to whether they consider Cyprus and the Kurdish issue as a fetter for Turkey, Kilicdaroglu said that they never see Cyprus as fetter. "We see it as mutual solidarity of two countries, because a country seeing another country as fetter could not be accepted. However, the Kurdish problem is also a very big problem for Turkey and should be solved", he argued.
(I/Ts.)
Turkish Cypriot daily Volkan (14.03.13) reports that the General Secretary of the United Cyprus Party IzzetIzcan, in a written statement, said that the process of the Cyprus talks should be launched as soon as possible.
Noting that it is necessary to make a good preliminary preparation in order to re-launch the negotiations, Izcan added that however time should not be lost. He also said that the time that has gone without a solution on the Cyprus problem is against to all Cypriots, asking that the resumption of the negotiations for a comprehensive solution should be done from the point that were left off.
Izcan also said that the ground of the negotiations is "a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation based on the political equality, which is a single sovereignty, a single citizenship and a single international personality" as defined in the resolutions of the UN Security Council. He called on both leaders, Anastasiades and Eroglu, to stick to this basis for a solution and to the already agreed ?upon issues of the negotiators before them.
According to illegal Bayrak television (13.03.13) the "speaker" of the so-called assembly Hasan Bozer held yesterday a meeting with the "Cyprus Turkish Culture Association"
In statements during the meeting, Bozer accused the international community of turning a blind eye to the usurping of the Turkish Cypriot "people's" rights.
Informing Bozer over the works being carried out by the "association", Ahmet Goksan, chairman of the "association" said that they have agreed with the "Eastern Mediterranean University" for organizing the 4th International Cyprus Symposium next year.
Bozer also pointed to the importance of the symposium which will be held under the title of 'Cyprus Turkish People's Place In the International Law'.
Alleging that the partnership state which was established in 1960 was destroyed by Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots were excluded, Bozer said that the world has turned a blind eye to the usurping of the Turkish Cypriot people's rights.
"Although we are the side which is in favor of a solution in Cyprus, Greek Cypriots have refrained from reaching a solution", Bozer said and called on the international community to give rights to the Turkish Cypriots.
Reporting on the issue, Turkish Cypriot daily Volkan (14.03.13) reports that Bozer, in statements during the meeting, referred, inter alia, to the issue of the oil exploration activities in the Mediterranean, alleging that the Greek Cypriot side stance is "insatiable".
Under the title "1200litres of petrol leak into the sea", Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis newspaper (14.03.13) reports that 1200 litres of petrol leaked into the sea last night at occupied Gastria village, as a result of negligence. According to the paper, the ship belongs to Alpet Company and was carrying the cargo to Alpet's storage installation at occupied Gastria.
The "district officer" of occupied Trikomo, Bunyamin Merhametsiz said the "officials" of the "department of environment" estimate that the leakage is around 1200 litres and that its dimensions were not as big as to cause pollution to the environment.
Dogan Sahir, chairman of the initiative No to the Fuel Oil Storage Installation, said that the gulf of occupied Gastria is from time to time polluted with small spills, and added that their fears have become true and tons of petrol leaked into the sea last night. He noted that the "authorities" had been informed about the accident 12 hours after it had happened and added that this shows that those who caused the accident do not care and are insensitive. He said that delaying to act in such incidents causes great damages and especially when the oil reaches the shore. He argued that the accident proved that they are right when they oppose to the construction of an oil storage installation in the occupied area of Cyprus.
Under the title "Great swindle", Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (14.03.13) reports that foreign gangs, which use the "TRNC", breakaway regime in the occupied area of Cyprus, because it is not recognized, carry out trade of fuel oil in parallel to the smuggling of cigarettes, which exceeds the amount of three billion Turkish liras (TL) per year. The paper recalls that the captains of two ships were arrested last week on the grounds that they have been conducting smuggling of cigarettes in the open sea of occupied Famagusta.
According information obtained by Kibris, ships under foreign flags are used by smugglers for selling a lot of products in the open see by false manifests. It is understood that they mainly sell cigarettes and fuel oil, writes the paper, adding that the two ships which are currently under detention are the ships "Flamingo", under the flag of Sierra Leone, and "Sirena", under the flag of Togo. The paper notes that 66 million 500 cigarettes carried by these ships have been destroyed. In this manner the regime has saved a loss higher than 13 million TL.
An "official' told Kibris that almost every week one ship under foreign flag and loaded with cigarettes, come to the occupied port of Famagusta and departs after giving the information that it will go to another country. The "official" noted that because the regime is an unrecognized "country", it has no right to ask for information in the international field.
A ship, notes Kibris, said it would go to a port in Montenegro, but the authorities of Turkey found out that this information was not true. Another time, a ship asked for 50 thousand tons tax free fuel oil from occupied Famagusta's so-called customs' directorate in order to go to Senegal, but afterwards it was understood that it never went there.
Turkish daily Milliyet newspaper (14.03.13) reports that the general director of the Tasyapi Constructions GokselBodur, which is the company that won the 25-year management of the illegal Tymvou airport, stated that they started efforts aiming to bring in the breakaway regime American fast food chains like McDonalds.
Bodur, who stated that Gloria Jean's coffee shops will be operating in the illegal Tymvou airport, stated that upon a request by the "Turkish Cypriot people" they will try to have McDonalds restaurants and similar international chains in the illegal airport. Commenting on how difficult this can be, Dodur said that they work in cooperation with "the state and the nation" adding that a "high ranked official" supports Tasyapi Constructions' efforts towards this direction.
He went on and said that due to the efforts made by the Republic of Cyprus, franchises or distributions are not given to the breakaway regime and he gave the example of Vodafone which cannot use its trade mark in occupied Cyprus and uses the name Telsim. In the same framework Burger King fast food chain, became Burger City.
Bodur went on and stated that investments in the breakaway regime continue and said that they are making plans regarding investments in hotels.
Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (14.03.13) reports that Akmina Travel Club, which according to the paper is known for transferring tourists with charter flights to the breakaway regime, will bring tourists from Denmark for the first time in occupied Cyprus in 2013.
According to the paper, Akmina Travel Club participated in the Herning tourism fair which is the biggest tourism fair in Scandinavia and which was organized by Turistrejser firm.
The chairman of Akmina management board Ismail Abidin claimed that they managed to participate in the fair despite efforts by the Republic of Cyprus which tried to prevent them from attending.
Ankara Anatolia news agency (13.03.13) reported that the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held on Wednesday a phone conversation with his US counterpart John Kerry.
Diplomatic sources said that the phone conversation took place at the request of John Kerry.
Kerry conveyed his thoughts to Davutoglu on his recent tour in the Middle East. The two officials discussed the latest developments in the region.
Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (14.03.13) reports that Turkish President Abdullah Gul addressing the Swedish parliamentarians, has said that an open and transparent debate on a "multi-speed EU" is required to overcome differences of opinion across the 27-member bloc, adding that it would be a strategic myopia for Europe to distance itself from Turkey.
"Allowing Turkey to successfully complete membership negotiations without permitting any artificial delays is, first and foremost, a prerequisite of "pacta sunt servanda" [Latin for 'agreements must be kept']. The eventual membership shall, of course, be shaped around the decision of the peoples of the European Union and Turkey," Gul told members of the Swedish Parliament yesterday.
"At a time when democracy is expanding in the Middle East and North Africa and the center of gravity in the global economy is shifting toward Asia, it would be a strategic myopia for Europe to distance itself from Turkey as this would have serious strategic ramifications in the long term," the President said, adding that Ankara was closely following the debate around a "differentiated Europe" within the European Union, with which it has a longstanding association.
"It is obvious that not all members of the European Union are in favor of more integration, especially on fiscal policy. The fundamental issue here is how the EU, as a 'project for peace and prosperity,' shall overcome differences of opinion," Gul told the Parliament on the last day of his landmark trip to Sweden.
"I find the open and transparent debate in the context of a 'multi-speed EU' very appropriate. This debate shall result in a formula reflecting the collective wisdom because the EU project has always moved forward after World War II and never regressed despite grounding to a halt at times," he said.
"Multi-speed" Europe is the term used to describe the idea of a method of differentiated integration even as common objectives are pursued by a group of member states.
"It is also important for these issues to be discussed not only by member states, but also by countries such as Turkey, which is negotiating for membership, because the future of Europe concerns us all," Gul said.
The President also thanked Sweden for its sincere and strong support for Turkey's accession to the bloc.
According to Ankara Anatolia news agency (13.03.13) the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make formal visits in Denmark and the Netherlands on March 19 to 21, 2013.
According to a statement released by the Turkish Prime Ministry, Erdogan will travel to Denmark and the Netherlands upon an invitation of his counterparts.
The first stop of Erdogan's formal visit will be the Danish capital of Copenhagen where Erdogan will meet with Queen of Denmark Margrethe II and Prime Minister Thorning Schmidt, make official contacts and attend round table discussions.
Erdogan will then travel to the Netherlands where he will meet with Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on Thursday. Erdogan will also meet with the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and will attend a meeting with Turkish and Dutch company representatives in Rotterdam.
"These visits will contribute to our bilateral relations as well as Turkey's EU accession process and discussion of international matters," the statement said.
Turkish daily Today's Zaman (13.03.13) reported that a group of US Congress members have urged Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to retract his earlier remarks on Zionism, in which the Turkish Prime Minister defined the Zionism as a crime against humanity along with ideologies such as anti-Semitism and fascism.
Eighty-nine members of the US Congress signed a letter urging Turkish Prime Minister to backpedal on his remarks over Zionism in a speech in Vienna last month.
Speaking at the UN Alliance of Civilizations conference in Vienna in late February, Erdogan complained of prejudices against Muslims and said Islamophobia should be considered a crime against humanity "just like Zionism, like anti-Semitism and like fascism."
The remarks received a barrage of criticism from the White House, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Israel, after a video recording of the speech was published by a Geneva-based nongovernmental organization, UN Watch. "Our grave disappointment with the statement you made at the United Nations-sponsored conference in Vienna last month equating Zionism -- the foundation of the Jewish state and the movement for Jewish self-determination -- with fascism and anti-Semitism, and labeling it a 'crime against humanity,' the members of the US Congress said in the letter.
Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (14.03.13) reports that according to a study conducted by the Germany-based Turkish European Foundation for Education and Scientific Studies (TAVAK), some 193,000 Turks living in Germany, returned permanently to Turkey between 2007 and 2011.
"Young Turkish origin migrants are increasingly returning to Turkey due to high unemployment, discrimination and better economic chances", said Professor Faruk Sen, the President of the board of TAVAK. He added that the figures indicated that Europe should not be concerned about a population flock from Turkey if visas restrictions are lifted.
"Returns from Germany to Turkey among young migrants increased considerably between 2007 and 2011. Even young Turks who have a profession and own property in Germany are returning. The biggest reasons cited are discrimination and unemployment," Sen said in a phone interview with the Hurriyet Daily News yesterday.
According to the study, there are currently 2,950,000 people of Turkish origin living in Germany, of whom only 1,020,000 are in possession of German citizenship. Some 1,930,000 people keep their Turkish passports and hold foreigner status.
Individuals of Turkish origin make up 31% of the nearly 9 million immigrants in Germany. Around 720,000 of these are tenants while 230,000 own their houses. Average household size is 3.9 and average income is 2,020 euro, meaning that the total income of Turks in the country amounts to 16.5 billion euro.
The unemployment rate among Turks in Germany is 30% according to TAVAK figures, compared with the overall unemployment rate of 5.90%. However these statistics do not tell the whole story, according to Sen.
"Nearly 2 million short term workers are not counted among the unemployed. In addition, nearly 1.5 million people taking vocational courses and the nearly 1.6 million women who have remained jobless for over 15 months do not have unemployed status," he said, suggesting that the real overall unemployment rate in Germany was 14.5%.
The paranoia that Turks may flock to EU if Turkey becomes a member of the bloc and visas are lifted is unjustified, Sen also said, adding that Turkish citizens would not leave Turkey if unable to "find a job suitable to their skills and education."
Sen also claimed that excluding Turks from professional life was a regular practice in Germany. "Firms do not want Turks or other outsiders that are suggested for their positions by the Labor-Employment Exchange Institute," he said, adding his opinion that the reason behind this, is rising "Islamophobia" and "Turkophobia," especially in Germany. He said that the neo-Nazi attacks against Turks, were concrete results of discrimination.
Some 44% of the Turkish migrant population lives below the national poverty line (372 euro per month) in the country, according to Sen. "These people do not know what to do, where to go. They are not considering returning to Turkey as they are afraid of not finding any jobs there either," Sen said .
However, Sen said some 55,000 or 65,000 people per year are expected to return to Turkey in the future, if equal employment requirements are not met.
Turkey and Germany do not have a double citizenship agreement, which forces youngsters to make a choice between the two before the age of 23.
Turkish daily Hurriyet newspaper (14.03.13) reports that consumption of alcohol in public places has been banned in the Turkish province of Isparta.
A corresponding decision has been made by the province's governor, MemduhOguz.
A similar regulation was recently implemented in the province of Afyonkarahisar. TURKISH AFFAIRS SECTION
http://www.moi.gov.cy/pio
/EI
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Home / Substance Abuse
Vital Strategies initiative aimed at Quit Big Tobacco
By : arnav anand / Mon, May 6th 2019
CVS Health, a US based premier health innovation company as well as the 7th largest company in the United States in terms of revenue, has pledged not to work with advertising or public relations agencies who work with tobacco and e-cigarette companies, following its decision to remove tobacco from its stores five years ago. They are the first major corporate brand to join the Quit Big Tobacco campaign created by Vital Strategies, an international public health organization headquartered in New York.
The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year on cigarette and e-cigarette marketing, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Marketing tactics, such as kid-friendly flavors and promotion by social media influencers, have contributed to the nearly 80% rise in vaping among U.S. high school students between 2017 and 2018. A National Health Institute survey found that 40 percent of young adults who use e-cigarettes every day or some days were never smokers before trying e-cigarettes.
“This is what corporate leadership looks like,” said José Luis Castro, President and CEO of Vital Strategies. “CVS Health’s pledge builds on their 2014 forward-thinking decision to stop selling tobacco products in their stores, thus depriving the tobacco industry from the creative talent it needs to target youth in the United States and around the world. It’s a game changer. We hope this bold decision will encourage other health-minded companies to follow suit. We congratulate CVS Health and thank them for taking the Quit Big Tobacco pledge.”
“Five years ago, we quit selling all tobacco products and made a commitment to help people lead tobacco-free lives, including investing in youth tobacco prevention programs in order to support the first tobacco-free generation,” said Norman de Greve, Chief Marketing Officer for CVS Health. “Big tobacco is increasingly using new channels to directly target our youth – including leveraging social media and influencers. We unequivocally take the Quit Big Tobacco pledge, meaning we will not work with any marketing and public relations agencies that have ties with the tobacco industry, and we urge other companies to join us in this critically important fight.”
CVS Health is the first major corporate brand to pledge to Quit Big Tobacco, joining more than 200 organizations that have signed on to the campaign. Vital Strategies promotes its Tobacco-Free Agencies list so that companies can make sure the ad or public relations agencies they work with have no ties to the tobacco industry. Vital Strategies also unveiled the Quit Big Tobacco badge, which may be displayed by pledgers to convey their involvement in the campaign. CVS Health is working to add language outlining the requirement to contracts for both current and future partnerships with all marketing agencies.
"CVS Health's leadership as the first major brand to sign the Quit Tobacco Pledge sends a powerful message to the advertising, marketing and public relations communities that engaging with an industry that makes billions by harming millions will cost you,” said Robin Koval, CEO and President of Truth Initiative. “We have no doubt more companies will follow CVS Health and sign the pledge, especially given the urgency surrounding the growing e-cigarette epidemic addicting a new generation to nicotine and putting youth at greater risk of smoking deadly cigarettes.”
“Tobacco companies claim that all their lying and deception is behind them, but they’re reaching out to their old advertising friends under new pretenses,” said Alex Bogusky, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of advertising agency Crispin Porter Bogusky. “At CPB, we know agency reputation and new business suffers when a client’s goal is selling addiction. CVS Health’s pledge to Quit Big Tobacco is a strong signal to our industry that cutting ties with the tobacco industry isn’t just good practice- it’s good business.”
Quit Big Tobacco, an initiative of Vital Strategies, unites leading advertising agencies, public relations firms, and health-oriented organizations and brands to pledge not to work with the tobacco industry or agencies that do. Ad and PR agencies that pledge to Quit Big Tobacco join a list of Tobacco-Free Agencies committed not to work with tobacco or vaping clients. Organizations and brands that value health pledge not to work with agencies that have tobacco clients. By taking talent and expertise away from Big Tobacco, Quit Big Tobacco aims to reduce the uptake of tobacco use and its health harms so that people can live longer, healthier lives.
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Syria needs a No-Fly Zone
Protect Civilians • Enforce UN Security Council Resolution 2139
‘Happy ever after’ is not a realistic standard for any policy
My recent post, Syria (still) needs a No-Fly Zone, has been republished at Left Foot Forward where it has attracted a few comments, which is gratifying even if they were all in disagreement with the argument. Below is a very slightly edited version of my responses to comments so far.
On the idea that NATO exceeded UNSC Resolution 1973 on Libya: this is a distortion of history. The resolution authorised UN member states “to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians… excluding a foreign occupation force…” It wasn’t limited to a No-Fly Zone, and didn’t exclude actions liable to end the regime. All UNSC members knew that the US and allies wanted a resolution that went beyond a No-Fly Zone, and that they identified Gadafi’s rule as the primary threat to civilians. This was made clear publicly prior to the vote by Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN at the time. If any Permanent Member really didn’t want this outcome, they should have voted accordingly.
Therefore we have to doubt that Russian and Chinese Government objections to a Chapter 7 Resolution for Syria are genuinely based on legalistic concerns about the implementation of Resolution 1973 in Libya. I’m against allowing Putin’s obstruction to be the last word, and wrote in the post that I believe a No-Fly Zone “requires making the case that defence of collective security requires and justifies this military action even in the absence of a Security Council resolution.”
The British Parliament is another matter. I believe MPs need to reconsider military action based on evidence of outcomes as explained in the post. Similarly the US Congress, though I note that their approval is not needed in advance for the President to conduct military action.
On whether Libya was a successful intervention: To be precise, I’m arguing that fewer were killed or maimed thanks to the Libya intervention than otherwise would be the case. Remember that the Libyan protests began over a month before the intervention. In the time prior to the intervention hundreds had been killed, fighting was ongoing, and Benghazi and other areas were under opposition control or were contested. So that’s your “before” picture. For all the problems today, the “after” is much less violent, and Libya is of course incomparably better off compared to the counter-example of Syria.
On whether the size of Assad’s forces makes a Syria intervention less likely to succeed: Back in August, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey made clear that the US could destroy Assad’s air force, even as he argued that doing so wouldn’t serve US interests. I accept his assessment of US military capacity, but reject his political and moral judgement on the issue. As to the size of Assad’s ground forces, he has needed external reinforcements in a way not seen in Libya, and reports are that these reinforcements, particularly from Hezbollah, are suffering heavy losses.
On whether the benefits of removing Assad justify the risks of intervening: The argument I’ve laid out for a No-Fly Zone is on the basis of saving lives, not to hasten the demise of Assad. There is no guarantee it would do so (see Iraq’s No-Fly Zone history) but it would limit his regime’s ability to kill to a degree, particularly in areas out of the control of his ground forces.
On the suggestion from Shuggy “that ‘save lives, create a failed state’ (overstating but you know what I mean) isn’t a sellable strategy”: ‘Save lives, create a failed state’ doesn’t just overstate the Libya story, it wholly misrepresents it. A violent failed state was the start point, and a less violent failing/struggling state was the endpoint – endpoint of the military intervention at least, though not of Libya’s story.
Similarly in Syria, there’s no question of an intervention creating a failed state, as it’s here already. Even if you hold a cynical view that rule by Assad is better than the alternative (not that there is only one single alternative) that option is unavailable as the regime has shown itself unable to control the territory even with help from Iran, from Iraqi militias recruited by Iran, and from Hezbollah. Government services have collapsed or been withdrawn. The scale of displacement and impoverishment of the population is enormous. It is indisputably a failed state. And aerial bombardment of civilian areas is one of the reasons for that.
On whether material support to Assad from external allies would accelerate rather than diminish following an intervention: I don’t know the degree to which Assad’s allies would be able to accelerate material support in the face of a No-Fly Zone. Much reporting indicates they’re giving all they’ve got now, and it would make sense for them to do so as the chances of an intervention are greater in the long term than the short term. A No-Fly Zone would greatly complicate foreign support for Assad as it would interrupt air transport from abroad as well as internally.
On whether a No-Fly Zone would help extremist Jihadis spread in the Middle East and eventually to Europe: Anyone worried about Syria exporting Jihadis should read an article published yesterday in The National by Mohammed Habash, former member of the Syrian parliament. The headline is Radicals are Assad’s best friends. In it he writes of how in 2003 the Syrian regime encouraged the radicalisation of young men and bussed them to fight in Iraq. Survivors who inconveniently returned were jailed. And then after the protests began in 2011, Assad opened the jails, declaring an amnesty on 31 May. Assad’s survival would do nothing to protect Europe from terrorism.
Anyone still clinging to the belief that Assad’s forces are busy fighting terrorists should listen to Eddie Mair’s BBC Radio 4 interview with surgeon Dr David Nott on his experiences treating wounded in Syria. Dr Nott describes treating untold numbers of civilians who were deliberately targeted by regime snipers. He saw hardly any actual fighters hit by snipers. To him it was clear: the regime’s primary target was not terrorists, it was the civilian population.
On whether Libya is like Albania used to be and whether it risks becoming another Somalia: The further we go into speculating about Libya’s future, the further removed we are from the issue of the direct effects of the intervention. The fact remains that nothing since the intervention has matched what we saw in the month prior, both in the degree of state collapse during that month, and the level of violence directed at civilians by the regime in that month.
The idea that Libya would now be ‘happy ever after’ land if only Gadafi had been given free rein is unconvincing. Syria demonstrates how dubious that notion is. If anything Libya would likely have been bloodier and more chaotic than Syria had there been no intervention, as prior to the intervention Gadafi had lost control of territory and of elements of government much more rapidly than was the case with the Syrian regime.
‘Happy ever after’ is not a realistic standard for any policy. We have to make a judgement on better or worse likely outcomes based on the best evidence available.
Posted by kellie at 02:14
@NFZSyria
www.facebook.com/NFZSyria
95% of people killed by Assad’s air attacks are civilians.
• Protect Civilians
• Enforce UN Security Council Resolutions
• Syria needs a No-Fly Zone
Use force to stop the barrel bombs
Morality, legality, and practicality of intervention, and responsibility to act.
No-Fly Zone options
Reasons for favouring a limited strike option
Obama’s Syria menu: Where’s the No-Fly Zone?
Allowing Assad to continue bombing civilians undermines Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy.
Strategic Horizons: For Syria No-Fly Zone, Less Is...
No-Fly Zone options: Reasons for favouring a limit...
“They can’t aim very well”
NFZ reading list
‘Happy ever after’ is not a realistic standard for...
Tweets by @NFZSyria @NFZSyria Archived Tweets
Links to research, journalism, and advocacy.
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LDZ, NHI Programs
Posted: July 7, 2019 at 7:25 am / by nhimagazine / comments (0)
This 2019 edition of the National LDZ — traditionally one of the largest programs on the National Hispanic Institute summer schedule — did not disappoint, with more than 160 students converging on the University of St. Francis last week. It was the first time that the university, located in Joliet, hosted NHI’s annual Chicago-area youth legislative session.
Two pieces of legislation were passed in this session — the first, from Mariana Meza of Coronado High School in El Paso, Texas, called for collaborative investment involving educated individuals and Latino-owned businesses collaborating, and Gabriel Kauachi from Saint Joseph Academy in Brownsville, Texas (a member of this year’s cabinet) called for the launch of a “Latino small business week.”
“The program began with students articulating the leadership qualities they hoped to find in their cohorts elected officials, and quickly finding that values of cooperation, collaboration, and inclusivity were more difficult to practice than they imagined,” recalled Samantha Sevilla Chill, Education Director for the 2019 National LDZ. “This was an important lesson for the students, who approached each subsequent task with these experiences in mind, being able to question their political parties and elected officials in a way that demanded accountability.”
“Our students also experienced the difficulties of building constituencies, communicating proposals, and developing platforms,” she continued. “Throughout the program, they learned to navigate each to eventually elect individuals who thrived to emulate the values of the 2019 cohort in both their words and actions.”
Sevilla Chill singled out the host institution for special recognition, noting, “Having a university partner like the University of St. Francis welcome the parents of our students, be present to greet and speak with students each meal and create activities for the students to build relationship also contributed to their overall development. It showed the students the importance of building partnerships, and gave a first-hand example of the impact that such a partnership can have on the community, which they reflected in their written proposals. This summers students left the program with an experience in governance and community building in a way that, as the top-elected officials expressed during their closing remarks, was more complex and fulfilling than they could have ever imagined from a school setting.”
NHI Senior Vice President Julio Cotto, who addressed the students during the week, noted, “As always, the delegation of the National LDZ was incredibly competitive with top Great Debaters from the 2018 Texas, Midwest, and Northeast programs. The President laid out a clear three-part agenda and relentlessly pursued it, even if it meant a closing and reopening the session midweek to regain focus. In addressing a new approach to commit to governance, they focused on discussing and evaluating old and existing value systems that inform decisions. They also discussed expanding investments in cultural learning and educational experiences beyond classroom instruction as vital to the development of future asset-based leaders.”
Top officers for the event, drawing significant contingents from both Texas and the Midwest, included:
President: Jose Tomas Marin-Lee, Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas
Vice-President: Campbell King, IB at Lamar Academy, McAllen, Texas
Speaker of the House: Julian Salaberry, Energy Institute High School, Houston, Texas
Justices: Christopher Ochoa, IB at Lamar Academy, McAllen, Texas (Chief Justice); Claudio Del Rio, Sharyland High School, Mission, Texas; Isabella Douglas, Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas; Damari Esqueda, IB at Lamar Academy, McAllen, Texas; Brianna Fonseca, Lyons Township High School, LaGrange and Western Springs, Illinois; Linda Garcia, Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas; Ximena Solis, South Texas Academy of Medical Professions, San Benito, Texas; Sean Teo Ong, Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas; Matthew Worthington, Sharyland High School, Mission, Texas
Cabinet: Gabriella Alba, Warren Township High School, Gurnee, Illinois ; Pablo De La Garza, Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas; Eduardo Esquivel, Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas; Gabriel Kauachi, Saint Joseph Academy, Brownsville, Texas; Natalia Madrigal, Lyons Township High School, LaGrange and Western Springs, Illinois; Montserrat Nieto, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, Austin, Texas
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Lettuce Brain - Cranial Workouts for Thinkers
Politics, philosophy, theoretical physics, logic puzzles! If it gives you brain-aches it's fair game. So scoop your fried brainjuice into a bucket and start thinking!
3/14/15 9:26
The Pi day that happens once every hundred years. (unless you are using the Japanese calendar, when it happens more often)
Pi is an irrational number, which means that it cannot be expressed as a decimal number, nor can it be expressed as a fraction. Pi is the ratio of a circle's diameter and circumference. It is an important and significant number for many calculations, yet it cannot be calculated fully. The circle is one of the basic and important geometric shapes, and is used in many ways. The circle is the most efficient use of border for internal area, and the closer something gets to a circle, the more internal area it has for the same border distance. Pi is how
many times longer the circumference of a circle is than the diameter, and Pi is used to calculate the area of a circle, as well as the volume of a cylinder, sphere, or cone, which are common shapes used in our world, such as with plumbing. Pi can be visualised with physical things, yet can only be approximated for calculations.
Because the decimal numbers of Pi go on forever without a repeating pattern, it is impossible to ever express Pi numerically, so the number is rounded off to an approximation.
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971
Therefore, Pi day is March (3) 14th, 2015 (15), 9:26, Saturday (S, or 5), to form the numbers 3.14159265
(Saturday can also be abbreviated as Sa, which can also be represented as 54 [because 5 looks like S and 4 looks like a], and Pi rounded off to 9 decimal places is 3.141592654)
Happy Pi Day!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day
Posted by Lynn Belvedere at 09:26 No comments: Links to this post
Labels: Math, Numbers, Pi
Fire, Ice, and Feuds: an examination of the Medieval Icelandic legal system
Early Medieval Icelandic society was an interesting form of republic. It was not a kingdom and was more of a big village than a nation. Disputes were common, and Iceland had a legal system effectively structured for conflict resolution in the culture and society of its time.
In many respects Iceland can be seen as an extension of mainland Scandinavian society, and should be considered in a way as part of Scandinavia, even if it was only culturally and not geographically attached. (It is superior to use the term Scandinavian than the term Viking, for viking is a verb, and more properly describes an occupation than a people; although many people did choose to be vikings full-time, it was usually a seasonal activity.) Although part of Scandinavia sociologically, Iceland possessed independence and some variations, similar to the independence and variations among the three western Baltic nations. Finland was distinct from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, being a different culture with an ethnic and linguistical heritage that was eastern and non-Germanic. Iceland, although more distant from Scandinavia than Finland, was more Scandinavian than Finland. As a part of Scandinavia culturally, Iceland must be understood with an examination of the mainland.
Much like Scandinavia, Iceland is a cold, harsh climate. People needed each other to live. Survival was difficult, but the Icelanders were hardy people who came mostly from Norway, another harsh and frigid climate, with a selection from Sweden, Denmark and the British Isles. The survival techniques usable in Iceland would have been known from experience in Norway, Sweden, and the Faeroes Islands. The people of Iceland were quite familiar with sea travel, cold weather survival, and land travel in harsh northerly areas. Roads were rare in Early Medieval Scandinavia. Mainland Europe had old Roman roads, but they did not go very far north and were mainly around the Mediterranean and the Island of Britain. The only significant road in the Baltic area was the Army Road in Denmark. Towns were also scarce in Scandinavia; often the towns were seasonal trading villages set up temporarily and then abandoned for the winter. At the time of Icelandic settlement, Europe had recently been comprised of semi-nomadic tribes, which lead to a mentality of localisation; this, combined with the difficulty of winter travel, created an environment in which strong control of larger regions was impractical.
The society and mentality of Scandinavia at the time of Icelandic settlement was centred around the family and farm, not the greater community, reminiscent of the settlement era American plantations. The travelling mentality of the Migration Era still lingered and the economy of pillaging was very much alive. Norway and Denmark raided each other prolifically, and also raided the west of Europe. Denmark tended to pillage the mainland and Norway piratouslly visited the British Isles, both sharing the English Channel, creating an expansion trend with the places attended corresponding relevant to the land's placement cartographically; this is not a hard set rule of behaviour, but a tendency reflecting the relative geographic locations of the lands being raided and the host territories launching the wealth-collecting expeditions. Trading and pillaging were both common, and peaceful expeditions were also quite present within the same geographic locations, traders being vastly more welcome to over-winter than the pillagers, although both occupations often made themselves guests of the land during the colder months. Continuing the geographic collation trend of Norway and Denmark, Sweden went east. The distance that must be travelled and the political stability of the East made viking expeditions too expensive and pessimistic to be practical, causing peaceful ventures to be the norm. These peaceful eastern ventures from Sweden often took the form of trading, but not always. Travelling abroad to live and work temporarily was a common practice of Scandinavians. Many served as huscarles in England or obtained military contracts with the local officials in the British Isles (the same occupational activity was also performed in Scandinavia when the ambitious for employment were not ambitious for travel). Swedes, often called Varangians in the East, would spend months or years serving as warriors in the lands they travelled to. Constantinople, called Mikligarth by the Scandinavians, was the capital of the Byzantine Empire and also a choice environment for Swedish warriors, although Swedes were not the only Scandinavians to travel east or serve in the Byzantine army, and the regions farther north were utilised by Scandinavians for trade and employment, particularly the region of Russia around Kiev. The Byzantine emperors hired the aforementioned and used them as mercenaries and as Palace Guards. The emperors elite bodyguard, called the Varangian Guard, was composed mostly of Swedes but other Scandinavians were involved from time to time, and was even given the right of plundering the palace after an emperor died according to one Saga. After fleeing Norway, Harald Sigurdsson (later Harald Hardradi, king of Norway) spent much of his life in a successful military career in Byzantium before returning to claim his kingdom in western Scandinavia. The Scandinavian lands required expansion as a result of demographic pressure, and each of the three nations needed places to emigrate to. Sweden had Eastern Europe, Denmark had Western Europe with Normandy and the eastern side of the British Isles with the Danelaw, and Norway had the western side of the British Isles with the Orkneys and the North Atlantic with Iceland.
The origins of Icelandic people influenced the development of Icelandic legal and social formation. Iceland was discovered by Irish monks who were seeking hermithood, but their numbers were small. The actual settlement of Iceland began around 870 and the major influx of residents continued until around 930; most of the settlers came from Norway and the Scottish Isles. It has been said that the reasons for emigration came from the activities of King Harald Hárfagri of Norway, but scholars speculate this assertion to be dubious; one reason for the doubt is the missynchronisation of dates. A Scandinavian was blown off course around 860 and the adventurous northerly peoples, always interested in new lands, attempted settlement in the 860s but did not succeed in permanent settlement until Floki Vigerdarsson's expedition in 870 or 874 (there is disagreement among sources). Harald Hárfagri did not become a king in Norway until c.880, and his ambition to unify all of Norway under his crown did not succeed until his victory in the Battle of Hafrsfjord, which is difficult to place on a timeline but is most likely to fall somewhere in the area of 885-890. Harald's activities that would drive people into the North Atlantic (including changing laws, being harsh to his opposers, invading the Scottish Isles, and removing landowner rights) occurred after Hafrsfjord, and so therefore it is chronologically inconsistent for the settlement of Iceland to have been driven by the regal Norwegian. The majority of Icelanders were of Western Scandinavian descent, but settlement reasons were probably no different from the reasons for general Scandinavian expansion at that time, with people seeking new land for personal reasons or because of crowding at home, and the mentality of migration still lingered from earlier times. Although Iceland was a separate country, it maintained many adaptations of the mainland systems and connexions therewith.
Scandinavian society was primarily organised locally, with free-men valuing their individuality as hereditary landowners (not to be confused with modern individuality, which is the ideology of charting one's own course and being different from others; Medieval Scandinavian individuality was the ideology of local rule and family freedom from royal management). The Scandinavian lands, as well as the British Isles and Mainland Europe, were divided into tribal lands and local kingdoms; the Early Medieval Era saw many unification efforts in all the European areas, but their effects were fleeting and success fluctuational. Unification of what would eventually be the countries of today did eventually happen, and the groundwork had been laid by the late medieval period, but the spirit of localisation was influential in the mentality of the lower classes for many years. This is evident in the way that Scandinavian legal affairs were handled. Most cases were handled at local things (assemblies of freemen), and district things handled cases that the local things were incapable of resolving satisfactorily. Districts desired local independence from regal micro-management, and would not always honour the ordinances of the royal court; indeed in some times there were legal stipulations for district counsels to be capable of denying the king's new laws admittance into local legislative tradition. Laws varied from area to area, and lands were divided and sub-divided into jurisdictions and regions. The land of Norway was divided into four districts, with each region subdivided into local communities. The majority of Icelandic law was borrowed from the Western Norwegian district, which is not surprising considering the geographic translation behaviour of Scandinavians (those in the west of Scandinavia travelling west, those south going south, and so on, a trend of radial expansion correlating geographically). The difference between Icelandic legal structure and mainland Scandinavian legal structure is that Scandinavia had kings and Iceland did not, but, in the stead of a king, the Icelandic Commonwealth (c.930-1271) invented a new presidential office, that of the Lawspeaker; the lawspeaker did not have the power of a king but had the duty of presiding over the Althing (the annual assembly of the Icelandic Commonwealth) and possessed the chair in the legislative assembly. He was elected to a three-year term and had the duty of reciting one third of the law from memory each year (Icelandic law was codified in 1117-1118, before which it was recorded mentally and transmitted orally).
The organisation of Scandinavian society was based in the medieval style of local and personal allegiance rather than the modern style of nationalism. There were no police or standing armies. Fighting forces were raised when needed, and powerful people maintained personal retinues of warriors as a "hearth guard", but this private foce was a small household security comradeship and not an army. Friendship and kinship were the binding factors for building military forces, and armies were amassed for purposes and not for the sake of possessing a national military. Regional defence forces were sometimes maintained in coastal areas to prevent the district from falling victim to the favoured economic pastime of pillaging, but the soldiers were typically fighting farmers and rarely full-time professional warriors. The captains of military units came from the nobility, but the bulk of Medieval armies were drawn from the peasants who were commoners and not soldiers, spending most of their time farming, and fighting for their lords only in a very small portion of the year. Laws were for order and used as social governors, but enforcement was the task of the litigant and not the state. Support from chieftains and powerful individuals was essential for litigation and retribution. The legal system was based on compensating the victim and not punishing the crime. This system was made possible by the economy of Early Medieval Europe.
The Early Medieval Scandinavian economic system used silver as the standard monetary unit, but cloth, cattle, and gold were also valued and used as trade commodities. The Scandinavian term for "wealth" is most accurately translated as "cattle", which displays the concept that wealth is more than money. Wealth is power for flourishing. Wealth is not simply tradable value, but includes provision for survival and continuation: the difference between "an income" and "a living". The economy was a gift-economy involving barter and trade. Honour was a commodity that ran the society and economy. Gifts were given, honouring the individuals and families involved, and therefore bartering for support and friendship. Simple economic transactions were done by trading, but the real power was gained by trading gifts for loyalty. The poem "Beowulf" applauds the value of a generous king, and abrades stinginess. The gift economy is lubricated by prestige and fuelled by honour. It is because of this social system of honour that compensation as crime punishment was possible. The crime being punished effectively punished the criminal by hurting pride, but the criminal's honour was not harmed because, when punishment was carried out legally through the system, the honour of all was satisfied. This being understood, it is important to also understand that punishment was not the primary goal of criminal litigation. The primary goal was compensation, compensating the victim to satisfy the honour of those harmed and undo the injury caused by the crime. The crime was considered an offence against the individuals and family harmed, not against society in general as modern thought imagines. The concept of justice was a practical repair of damaged wealth and honour, not an ethereal ideology of righteousness. Honour was the most important issue in law and culture.
Silver was valued in Scandinavian society, and was the most prolifically preferred medium of exchange (there are instances in which livestock or cloth were the preferred, but silver was preferred in more places over longer periods of time more often, and often the values of the others were put in terms of their silver equivalent). Many fines were imposed in silver, although were not always paid with the metal specifically but rather the metal was used as a standard of value. Silver being the more common and preferred monetary unit has lead some to mistakenly postulate that silver was more valued than gold, which is preposterous; silver was a standard but not the most valuable substance. Silver from England was greatly valued because the English had a system of minting pennies that had a consistently pure content, and so could be trusted and were valued highly everywhere. Arabic silver coins were also highly valued and usually came from Afghanistan. Gold was more valued, and has always been more rare and valued in all societies in all times. There are times and places where something was valued more than gold (desert people fight over water, but still use gold and silver as their money, valuing gold higher than silver, and some rare times, such as in Egypt, when iron was newly discovered, gold was second to the new, rare and highly prized iron because of its unique strength), but gold was always valued higher than silver. For the Scandinavians, silver was the favourite, but that does not mean that it was the most prized. Codified Icelandic law gives legal fines and requirements, usually denoted in silver, one of the standard monetary systems, but also gives exchange rates which fluctuated across times and regions; these exchange rates include the ratio of gold and silver values, in the which case gold is always more valued than silver, usually in an eight to one comparison. Iceland has a better record of codified law and legal activities, and has the literary tradition of the sagas which gives us an understanding of their society, and other Scandinavian countries are mentioned in the Icelandic sagas, but do not receive as large a space in the historical records as domestic Iceland. Iceland is, therefore, better documented for our study, but mainland Scandinavian culture is not going to be so radically different from the rest of the world, and especially from Iceland, which was comprised of people primarily from Norway and was a spin-off of mainland Scandinavian culture and society, as to have a reversal of precious metal values. Historical accounts and legal records describe transactions and settlements in which gold is valued higher than silver. Artefacts from the time show that silver was more common, and gold was less common; this shows that gold was more rare and so should be more valued. If the manner in which the precious metals are used in the artefacts is examined, it becomes apparent that gold was more greatly prised. Often when gold is used to decorate an item, it is not solid gold but rather gold plated bronze because gold was so expensive; gold usually decorates smaller portions of an item than silver, and this ratio changes with the wealth of the item's owner, with some high-class and regal items being solid gold. Gold is displayed in more prestigious locations on artefacts, composes or decorates more prestigious items, and is found belonging to the higher ranks of society. The archaeological evidence suggests that gold was the favoured metal, even though silver was the more common. Silver was the favoured metal for exchange, but gold was more prestigious and more valuable.
The value of gold is further illustrated by an historical account. In Laxdæla Saga, chapter 26, the story of an inheritance allotment is found. This record describes an event in which the father of two sons also has a third, illegitimate son (an illegitimate son is a son born out of the primary marriage, and was called a bastard, meaning of impure linage or mixed blood, and was usually the result of polygamy; the Medieval Scandinavians were not a Christian society until later, and even then the transition took time, and the pagan roots caused different views on marriage than commonly held in civilized society today). In Iceland at that time, there was a law that forbade arfskot, or the cheating of heirs; the father was the head of the family in which the sons were members, and their birthrights could not be annulled by the father, for he was a caretaker of the family's dynastic wealth rather than the sole owner. Each legitimate son had a right to a portion of the family estate, and so in this case each son could claim one half of the wealth. Icelandic law also stipulated that an illegitimate son could be given up to 12 ounces without permission of the legitimate sons; the legal standard was in silver ounces as the unit of value. In the aforedescribed historical account, the father asked his sons if the illegitimate son could inherit equally with them; one son approved but the other refused, and so the father could not give the illegitimate son more than legally allowed. The interesting turn in this tale is that the father consequently asked the son who disapproved of sharing his inheritance with the bastard if he would permit the giving of twelve ounces to the third man, but failed to specify that it was ounces of silver. The son consented, and the father gave the illegitimate son a gold bracelet weighing eight ounces and a sword worth four ounces of gold; the value of the gift totalled twelve ounces of gold. The son who objected to the bastard's inheritance was greatly displeased, for the father had given gold instead of silver, and gold was worth eight times as much as silver, but he had given permission for the bequeathal of twelve ounces and so could not contest the result of the transaction. This event occurred in the latter half of the tenth century. The saga was written by an unknown author in the middle of the thirteenth century. The events described above clearly indicate that, although silver was the standard, gold was the more valued.
The Icelandic political organisation was a form of feudalistic republic, based on the gift economy. Feudalism originally was not a form of slavery and oppression (as understood by people of today, mostly influenced by France and very late Medieval and Renaissance times as viewed through the chronological bias lens of later eras trying to make their own time look better by changing the image of earlier years, a form of propaganda generated by Enlightenment persons) but was a system designed to protect people by forming a syndicate; the peasants were given land and protection from the lord, and the lord was given labour and military service from the peasants. The term "lord" comes from "hlāfweard" meaning "loaf-ward", or the keeper of the bread; the meaning of "lord" displays the concept of provision and generosity being the defining attributes and honour of rulers. This feudal system provided for the vital needs of the people and supplied protection, and protection was an important concern in a violent age with many marauding tribes pillaging and plundering and exacting treasures from their neighbours. Feudalism originated from freemen voluntarily becoming peasants under more powerful local chieftains (voluntary is a loose term, for circumstances and the land possessions of the chieftains, coupled with the political instability and violent hazards, gave them no other option). This feudal system continued in Iceland, but with a different form. The lords, called chieftains, did not function under kings and their "serfs", called thingmen, were free to transfer their allegiance to other chieftains at their free choice. The chieftains gained their power from the thingmen whom they could call upon for aid, and the thingmen had support from the chieftains. Both forms of feudalism were systems of mutual aid and support, helping everyone in the agreement, a co-operative union functioning off the principle of strength in numbers. These forms of feudalism were based on giving, an exchange of gifts of land, service, support, assistance, loyalty, and trade commodities, with honour binding it all together, a blend of honour and practicality for survival in a dangerous age.
In the beginning, Iceland had 36 chieftains (called Gođar, they originally held the office of a priest as well and served as both religious and civil leaders), more were added to make the total 39 in 965 and 48 in 1005. Iceland was divided into quarters, reminiscent of Norway's division into four districts. Each quarter had thing assemblies for it, and there was an annual assembly, called the Althing, for all of Iceland established in 930. The government of Iceland was not centralised, but was ruled locally by the leadership of chieftains, who were political and not geographical leaders. Rule was done by the people, mostly influential, honourable, and prominent aristocrats, but those leaders required support from the freemen to hold their position, and their position was only that of respected leaders. The government was an organised leadership and not a system of rulers, and people's prestige and military might based on supporters is what enforced legal requirements, and settlements were reached by agreement without imposed laws, with laws being established by agreement among leaders. The leaders established laws, and these laws governed Icelandic legal society, but people could choose to be unlawful at will, but so choosing would result in shame and outlawry, which meant no protection from anyone but the closest of friends (who often tried to keep their assistance of the legal outcast to a minimum and typically it only went so far as to facilitate escape into exile) and resulted in either self-imposed banishment or death (sometimes both, as enraged vengeance-seeking people tracked down enemies in foreign lands and even killed them in public). Laws guided honour rather than forcing compliance, for crimes were defined as offenses against persons rather than violations of edicts, and honour was the life force of society. Chieftains would support their thingmen, but only if they abided legally (submitting to the legal system, not necessarily doing everything right in the first place). An individual without the support of a chieftain was on his own and consequently helpless.
The legal system of Iceland was designed to encourage peace, peace being a term that must be understood relative to the days in which Early Medieval Icelanders lived, being fraught with conflict and violence in the midst of a culture that honoured valour in combat. Icelandic leaders desired to avoid large destructive feuds. Civil war was dangerous and would tear the land apart, destroying the society and dropping the population to levels below the minimum natural requirement for a settlement to survive in North Atlantic climates. Sagas describe countless events of simple transactions, conversations, sports, games, feasts, and daily activities igniting brawls. Many times, violence was the answer. People travelled armed, and Havamal, the Viking poem of wisdom, instructs to always have a spear nearby. Peace was not freedom from danger, but an avoidance of excessive lethal combat.
Iceland was divided into districts (all of Iceland was also divided into quarters around 965), thing assemblies were gatherings of regions, and they were paramount aspects of society. Although legislative assemblies, they were more than legal. Things were places of social and economic meetings, providing a substrate for culture; news was exchanged, games were played, friendship and kinship ties were formed and sometimes broken , and conflicts were resolved, born, or furthered. All thingmen were required to attend their springtime district thing, but the things were organised and maintained by the chieftains, and the districts were divided by the areas closest to the chieftains with thingmen attending the assemblies of their chosen chieftains. It was at these assemblies that most courts were held. Autumn things were not as important and were not legally required nor did they facilitate courts. After the Althing was established, the trials that could not be satisfactorily resolved in springtime things were referred to the Althing, where chieftains gathered but thingmen were not legally required to attend. Most legal proceedings occurred in the district things, displaying the early medieval preference for localised organisation.
Some courts were held at locations where they were needed. Eyrbyggja Saga describes a door court that was held to accuse someone of theft and procure the required search warrant. The court was convened on the spot, with six men appointed as a jury (less than required for more serious legal action) but the court was interrupted by an attack from the farm to be searched, and a battle and a feud began. The practice of courts being held outside of things was an early legal behaviour that fell out of usage, and is not described in codified Icelandic law. Its existence is present in saga evidence, but sparse. Things were better suited for litigation than the scene of conflict, for unwatched land containing naught but argument and lacking third party mediation is a breeding ground for feuds.
Courts were held in the open air, and, except for the early tradition of on-site courts mentioned above, a tradition to quickly exit the realm of the acceptable, were held at designated things. The trial was to be held at the thing geographically closest to the crime, but after some legal reforms in the 960s a dissatisfied litigant could arrange a redo at the Althing, and courts were established for this purpose, with quarter courts dedicated to the four divisions of Iceland. Cases that were not satisfactorily dealt with locally were transferred to the quarter courts, and suits could be taken directly to the quarter court initially without holding trial in a local tribunal if the implications of the dispute were significant and serious enough to warrant such action. Later a fifth court was created in c.1005 for cases that were deadlocked or otherwise impeded from continuing in the quarter courts. Both parties in a lawsuit must be satisfied by the court's decision or the settlement would not be upheld. If an agreement could not be reached, or if there were legal issues, such as technicalities, preventing the case from progressing, the court could become deadlocked and unable to proceed without moving to a higher court or the regrettable but common acts of violence that shook things up and changed the aspects and ingredients of the dispute. The courts were to settle and avoid violent feuds, not cause or exacerbate them.
Chieftains were responsible for managing and maintaining things and the courts therein. Chieftains did not serve as judges, but appointed judges from among respected freemen. This enabled chieftains to participate in the legal system without special interest problems, and so they could bring lawsuits to court on behalf of themselves or their thingmen. Jury members were appointed by the person bringing the case to be tried and were selected based upon legal status and proximity to the crime. A jury member must be a legally free adult man, landed (owning enough land or cattle to qualify as a householder and not a dependant) and of sufficient age (at least twelve years old), and not related to the plaintiff. Jury members must also be the eligible persons closest to the scene, and if there was someone who would be better appointed to the jury than a jury member, the jury member could be removed from the case. The number of jury members varied depending on current law, sometimes being nine and sometimes twelve. There were thirty-six judges in a court, and at least thirty-one judges had to be in agreement about the verdict for a case to be settled. The fifth court had four dozen judges in the beginning of the case, and one dozen were removed by the litigating parties to reduce the number to three dozen; the reasons for removal were not legal but solely based on the preference of the litigants. The judges were appointed by the selection of chieftains. The jury did not decide the case, but decided if there was a case to decide, and if the case was not a legal issue they would state that it was so. The judges decided the verdict and the sentence, but sentences were usually forms of fines, banishment, and outlawry.
Typically, a fine would be imposed for a crime. The fine was not, however, imposed to punish the crime but rather an allotment of compensation to be paid to the victim to satisfy the honour of the family that was offended. Compensation money was even the solution to a killing, except in rare cases. The law stated that if a killing was done, the body must be covered and someone informed of the event. This law, when obeyed, did not prevent retaliation on the part of the friends and family of the violently deceased, but assisted the killer in maintaining legal standing and the ability to acquire support. Typically, killing was the result of a previous conflict that escalated, or an outburst of fighting caused by some trigger or antagonisation, and was not isolated; rarely was a killing not matched by a body of offences enacted by the opposing party simultaneous or previous to the aforementioned killing. In extreme cases, compensation was not the retribution, but rather banishment or outlawry was verdicted. In outlawry, the person's possessions were forfeited, half to the prosecutor and half to people in the area who are lawfully entitled to receive the confiscated property. Outlawed people were not to be helped nor harboured, fed nor forwarded. Outlawry enabled the offended to exact revenge without fear of retaliation, for anyone could lawfully kill an outlawed man, and an outlawed man was abandoned by everyone and consequently became extremely vulnerable, being reduced to a legal status beneath than that of a rabbit. Banishment was less severe, but if the banished one returned, outlawry was automatically imposed. Both banishment and outlawry were not always for the entirety of a person's existence, for there were two versions of each; there existed both full and partial outlawry and banishment. Full was for the rest of the convict's life, partial endured a duration of three years. Two sentences of partial translated into full. Although it may seem simplistic, the Icelandic court system included many complexities.
Precise verbology was required in legal proceedings. The wording and sequence of litigation actions were important; cases could be lost because of procedural errors. When both sides of a dispute had grievances (as was often the case) the first to publicly accuse had an advantage. If a case went to court before another, the accused could lose legal standing and so be unable to prosecute; the danger of early summoning (summoning to court, delivering a subpoena) was that the more time an enemy had to ruminate forthcoming litigation, the better prepared the enemy would be. It was wise to subpoena an enemy before being summoned oneself, but also wise to delay the summoning as long as possible. The accuser had until two weeks before a district thing assembly and four weeks before the Althing assembly to summon the accused to court, and at the Althing was required to declare the accusations from the Law Rock (a large stone on the grounds of the Althing with judicial significance). The case must be prepared properly. An improperly cited jury member would be removed from the case, and the case could be lost because of a lack of a jury. If the majority of the jury members were cited legally, the case could be maintained but the prosecutor would be fined heavily (three marks for each unlawfully cited juror), except this fine would be imposed as a separate accusation and so formed another layer in the dispute. Strategy in law was important, and so was knowledge.
There was no one presiding over the court cases. The judges decided the case, the jury filtered the case, and the complainants pleaded the case. If a law was not known, it would not come into play. Lawyers were important; lawyers were not people of that profession but were simply people educated in law, therefore they knew the law and could strategise cases. Many people knew laws, and most chieftains knew the laws, but there were laws that people forgot. The Lawspeaker was required to have the entire body of laws memorised, and people would go to him with legal questions. He did not provide advice, he merely answered whether or not a specific law existed, and it was the responsibility of the one asking to formulate the question. The Lawspeaker told if something was the law, not what laws applied to a situation. Cases could be lost or salvaged because of a knowledge or lack of knowledge of law.
The legal system of Iceland appears to have been designed to prevent feuds and encourage arbitration. The court system was complicated, difficult, and harsh. People could become outlawed, people could be fined heavily, people could lose cases because of technicalities, people could be sentenced without their grievances being addressed, people could loose the ability to bring their grievances to law. Procedural errors could do more damage than simply a lost case; errors could bring charges of unlawful proceedings and incur acidulous penalties. The courts decision was made by three dozen judges, and their verdict must be unanimous or nearly so, and the judges were merely freemen appointed by chieftains; cases could become deadlocked because of an inability for the judges to agree. It was often better to solve conflict outside of court, and many disputes were resolved by arbitration. Some disputes were dealt with by arbitration entirely, which prevented private matters from becoming public knowledge; sometimes they began in the courts and were moved to the arbiter's realm after the issues were revealed to the public arena, which made private matters public but publicity also prevented unfair dealings; sometimes resolutions were attempted by arbitration first, and moved to the courts if things were unsatisfactory for one of the parties.
When disputes were addressed outside the court system, the arbiters followed the legal system, but as a governor to guide rather than to be strictly adhered to. Often the arbiters were chieftains, but sometimes they were powerful and influential people without chieftainships; those who served as arbiters were much more respected and prominent than the freemen appointed as judges, and were also known by the complainants. Although judges were impartial, they were also uninterested and uninvolved. Arbiters knew the case and were involved in the dispute as advisers and supporters, sometimes restrainers, and sometimes even participants; although they would have interests and would rarely be completely impartial, the arbitration was usually performed by multiple people who came from both sides of the dispute, but this was not without exceptions, as sometimes a single person was selected to resolve the issue. Often arbiters had interests in both sides, rather than one side only. Arbiters desired and worked towards settlement, and they were usually people who were striving in that direction before the case came before public law, if indeed they failed to prevent the dispute from progressing far enough to enter formal adjudication. The Scandinavian form of arbitration did not use a third party as today, but used a counsel comprised of people from the two parties; this system of primary party arbitration kept private disputes as private matters. Arbiters were respected and trusted by both parties, and their wisdom and honour was known by the contestants. They knew law and functioned well in and out of court, and were moderate. Lawful and unlawful action was taken into consideration, and the standard legal penalties were often imposed, but the stringent court proceedings were not relevant. The courts had to follow law strictly, but arbitration could make alterations to the norm out of expediency for the sake of reaching a settlement. Disputes were personal, and arbitration served the personal needs better than the courts. A return to peace, with the honour of all satisfied, was the goal and purpose.
Arbitration was a more moderate approach to conflict resolution, and moderation was important. Although vengeance and valiance were honoured, and not being bested was honourable, exercising restraint gave honour. An overbearing and excessive individual was despised by everyone. When things were in proper balance a person was more respected. The balance of power between chieftains was particularly important, and if one chieftain became too powerful, or was gaining too great of control, the other chieftains would band together and address the issue to restore national balance. A person could loose support because of unruliness or immoderation.
The honour of individuals took a higher place than the law. The law was grounded in the honour of the men who made and used it. People rose to prominence because of their quality, and their prominence is what granted them position. The wisdom of prominent people, chieftain or not, was what honoured them and made them prominent. It is these people who were arbiters and who's counsel was sought. It is because these people were respected that the Icelandic Commonwealth functioned with the honour system and gift economy. The law gave structure to society, and the legal system was for practical functionality and organisation of the honour economy. Valour and restraint in proper moderation was maintained by prominent persons and is what maintained the balance of the Icelandic nation. All the parts of Scandinavian culture and society functioned together for the effectiveness of the machine that was the Icelandic Commonwealth. This mechanism is well displayed by the peaceful conversion to Christianity.
Iceland received multiple missionaries over the years. The conversion attempts were not successful, but converts were made, and slowly the number of Christians in Iceland increased. Some Christians were people of the faith who came from other lands, but some also were converted in Iceland from the old religion to Christianity. The Norwegian King, Olaf Tryggvason, who ruled from 995 to 1000, took a militant approach to missionary work. King Olaf made a career of converting all of Norway, and also turned his ambitions outside his borders. Tryggvason sent missionaries to Iceland and put pressure towards conversion. Iceland became divided between two camps, the old faith and the new faith. The division escalated and there was talk of dividing Iceland into two law systems, one Christian and one Pagan. This division threatened civil war, and so peace had to be arranged. The dispute, which began small but quickly grew into a major national problem, was essentially a feud not unlike the kind Iceland had experienced for many decades before. The two parties gathered in force at the Althing in c.1000 and disputed heatedly, but not violently. It was apparent that the land needed to be united under one law and one faith, and so each side selected a representative for arbitration. The Christian representative deferred to the Pagan, who was Lawspeaker. The Lawspeaker, although pagan, had sympathies in the other camp, and so was a good selection for a mediator. He spent an entire day in solitude, then declared that Iceland should be Christian after making everyone swear to abide by his decision. Although many people were displeased with the loss of the old faith, the conversion was upheld. A conversion that, in Norway did not last and divided the land in war, was peacefully successful in Iceland.
The peaceful conversion of Iceland to Christianity was a triumph of Iceland's legal system that displays conflict resolution on an issue that reaches far deeper than blood feuds; religion is connected to the very soul of someone's being, and has always been the most dividing conflict across times, as belief holds the mind with roots that go deeper than any other personal issue. In a time when most of Europe was ruled by kings and suffered wars, Iceland was a relatively peaceful republic. Iceland had feuds, but never to the point of civil war, and the Icelandic Commonwealth endured free of international war. Early Medieval Iceland had a system of law and conflict resolution that was very effective in the Scandinavian honour society. Geography and the topography of Icelandic culture created a society in which vassalage was impractical. The relationship between chieftains and farmers was a form of mutual dependency similar to early feudalism, but lacking servitude and requiring the freedom of those involved. When other nations were moving towards centralised governments, Iceland remained decentralised with the power in the hands of people following local authority because of respect and not imposed control. Icelandic legal structure is a gem of history that warrants further study.
Batey, Colleen, Helen Clarke, R.I. Page, and Neil S. Price. Cultural Atlas of the Viking World. Edited by James Graham-Campbell. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1994.
Byock, Jesse L.. Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
Byock, Jesse L.. The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Byock, Jesse L.. The Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.
Byock, Jesse. Viking Age Iceland. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.
Cohat, Yves. The Vikings: Lords of the Seas. Translated by Ruth Daniel. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, 1992.
Dersin, Denise, ed. What Life Was Like In The Age of Chivalry: Medieval Europe AD 800-1500. Richmond: Time Life Inc., 1997.
Dersin, Denise, ed. What Life Was Like When Longships Sailed: Vikings AD 800-1100. Richmond: Time Life Inc., 1998.
Douglasson, Hrolf. Wirral Vikings: The Wider Context. Wirral: Countyvise Limited, 2005.
Fitzhugh, William W. and Elisabeth I. Ward, ed. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.
Gravett, Christopher. Hastings 1066: The Fall of Saxon England. London: Reed International Books Ltd., 1992.
Griffith, Paddy. The Viking Art of War. London: Greenhill Books, 1995.
Harrison, Mark. Anglo-Saxon Thegn: 449-1066AD. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1993.
Harrison, Mark. Viking Hersir: 793-1066AD. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1993.
Haywood, John. Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age. New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2000.
Haywood, John. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
Heath, Ian. Byzantine Armies: 886-1118. London: Reed International Books Limited, 1979.
Heath, Ian. The Vikings. London: Reed International Books, 1985.
Hieatt, Constance B. and A. Kent. Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, 2nd ed. New York: Bantam Books, 1967.
Larrington, Carolyne. The Poetic Edda. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Magnusson, Magnus and Hermann Pálsson. Laxdæla Saga. New York, Penguin Books, 1969.
Magnusson, Magnus and Hermann Pálsson. Njal's Saga. New York: Penguin Books, 1960.
Magnusson, Magnus and Hermann Pálsson. The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America. New York: Penguin Books, 1965.
Page, R.I.. Reading the Past: Runes. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987.
Pálsson, Hermann and Paul Edwards. Egil's Saga. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
Pálsson, Hermann and Paul Edwards. Eyrbyggja Saga. New York: Penguin Books, 1972, 1989.
Pálsson, Hermann and Paul Edwards. Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney. New York: Penguin Books, 1978
Pollington, Stephen. Rudiments of Runelore. Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1995.
Regia Anglorum. J.K. Siddorn. 9 Durleigh Close, Headley Park, Bristol, BS13 7NQ, United Kingdom. www.regia.org
Sawyer, Peter, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Siddorn, J. Kim. Viking Weapons & Warfare. Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2000.
Sturlason, Snorre. Heimskringla: or The Lives of the Norse Kings. Translated by A. H. Smith. Edited by Erling Monsen. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990.
Sturluson, Snorri. King Harald's Saga: Harald Hardradi of Norway. Translated by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson. New York: Penguin Books, 1966.
Wise, Terence. Saxon, Viking and Norman. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1979.
Labels: community, cooperative, economics, ethics, europe, family problems, feudalism, freedom, History, Iceland, Law, Medieval society, morality, police, relationship
Everyone treats other people like dirt
Although everyone treats other people like dirt, not everyone treats dirt the same way.
There are those who ignore dirt, those who don't notice it, and those who fear it. Some people avoid dirt, wearing dust masks, filtering dirt out of their lives. Others stay indoors and shut dirt out all together. There are street sweepers, who sweep up dirt to throw it away. Cleaners scrub dirt off and wash it down the drain. Some people pick up dirt in a vacuum and trash it. Some are hikers, and walk all over dirt, then wipe it off on a doormat before going home. Others are diggers and ground formers, forcing dirt to conform to their will. Some people hate dirt, and keep their houses clean. Some people tolerate dirt, and clean occasionally. Some people are filthy, and don't care about dirt.
Some people are gardeners.
A gardener treasures dirt. Dirt is the life of the plant, and gardeners value it. Gardeners understand dirt, and cultivate it. They work with dirt, seeing it for what it can be and tending to what it needs. A gardener knows about the differences in dirt, and what to add to each to give it life. A gardener helps dirt so that it can grow something special, be something wonderful, and thrive in life. The gardener seeks enrichment to fulfil potential to bring out beauty and health. A gardener sees the beauty and potential in something when most people despise.
How we view something controls how we treat it. The value we place on someone and the potential we see in them influences our attitudes towards them and ultimately what impact we have on each other's lives. See what could be good instead of what is bad.
Labels: community, ethics, morality, relationship
I'll be sharing some more poetry in the future. I try to give credit if another poets style shines through my work, or if they inspire a line.
"Untitled 1" by Kevin
We live in a homogenized world of valley girls and bros.
Like this, buy this, act like this. Prescribing identity like pills.
Gone are the great thinkers of the past, no more Kants will be born,
and Plato will have the cave beaten out of him until he daren't see shadows on
the walls.
Creativity is a crime, thou shalt NOT think.
Insincerity and feigned politeness have replaced human connection, or what's left,
humans made machines making humans in their own image.
Now WE are the machine, and you will perform within specifications.
Language, once a fountain of creation gurgling forth metaphor creating new understanding,
has degraded into decorative syntax for the most
primal of human needs,
more easily expressed using grunts.
Once a tool for expanding the mind, it is now a means of controlling it.
The children of prosperity are poor indeed!
Lobotomized by luxury, the Id, fed on a never ending stream of unachievable images of what it should want,
hunger increasing with every bite.
Music videos inspiring lifestyle envy, and no one sees the hologram.
Cars and watches break and beauty fades like old photographs.
But ideas cannot be killed, ideals are bulletproof,
and humanity will live on, if only on the shelves of libraries.
Posted by kkschmidt at 00:51 No comments: Links to this post
Labels: ideas, insight, language, metaphor, philosophy, poet, poetry, understanding
"Hi" and "Hello", although slowly going out of use in some circles, still remain some of the most used words in our daily lives, yet what do they mean and where do they come from? Here is some information gained from old style dictionary reading.
On the origins of "Hi" and "Hello".
According to Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary, "Hi" is an interjection "used especially as a greeting", Middle English "Hy", 15th century.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists "hi" (a parallel form to "hey") as an exclamation used to call attention, and dates it to 1475. "Hey" is a call to attract attention; also, an exclamation expressing exultation, incitement, surprise, etc. dating to 1225.
"Hey" in the Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, by Walter W. Skeat, Oxford University Press, is an interjection; from Middle English "hei", and is a natural exclamation and interjection, i.e. "hei", "hey", and "ho". Historically used in literature in 1445.
The Webster's 1828 dictionary lists "hey" as an exclamation of joy or mutual exhortation.
Webster's Third New International Dictionary, unabridged, seconds the Merriam-Webster's 11th, and lists "hello" and "hi" as greetings.
According to the Kindle Oxford Dictionary of English, "Hello", also "hallo" or "hullo", is of late 19th century origin, and a variant of earlier "hollo", and related to "holla". "Holla" is an archaic exclamation used to call attention to something; originating in the early 16th century and used as an order to stop, cease, or "hold", from French "holà", from "ho" + "là", "là" meaning "there".
According to Webster's 1828 dictionary, "holla" and "hollo" is an exclamation, used among seamen in answer to one who hails, equivalent to "I hear, and am ready". It is also related to "halloo". "Holla" and "hollo" is related to Saxon "ahlowan". "Halloo" seems to be related to the family of "call", French "haler". "Halloo" means to cry out; to exclaim with a loud voice; also to call or invite attention, or to encourage with shouts.
An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, by Walter W. Skeat, Oxford University Press, lists "halloo, hallow": to shout; Middle English "halowen", to chase with shouts; from Old French "halloer", meaning to pursue with shouts. Of imitative origin, derived from "haller", or encourage dogs with hallowing.
The listing for "hello" in the Oxford English Dictionary states that it is a variant of "hallo" and is an exclamation to call attention; also expressing some degree of surprise, as on meeting anyone unexpectedly.
"Hallo, halloa", a later form of "hollo", German "hallo, halloh", also Old High German "halâ, holâ", emphatic imperative of "halân, holân": to fetch, used especially in hailing a ferryman. "Halloo" (perhaps a varied form of "hollo" and suited to a prolonged cry intended to be heard at a distance) is an exclamation to incite dogs to chase, to call attention at a distance, to express surprise, etc. "Hello" dates back to 1883; "hallo" dates back to 1781; and "halloo" dates back to 1605, and, as a variant of "hallew", and meaning "to urge or incite with shouts", dates back to 1568.
"Hello" appears to have started with mimicking the sound of a dog's howl, or as a natural expression that is a result of exhaling with intention to express notice. "Hi" also seems to have started as a natural expression of surprise, similar to "oy".
"Hi" and "hello" are apparently unrelated to each other etymologically, and also do not appear to be related to "hail" or "ahoy", but all are likely independently sourced in natural exclamations, similar to "ow", "ah", "huh", "wow", and "aaargh".
The beginnings of "hi" and "hello" are probably from the natural sound of breathing out ("H" sound) and vowel sounds that occur when raising the voice when heightened mental alertness responds to an external stimulus. Pain and surprise often cause vowel sounds naturally. Originally "hello" had an "o" sound that included raised, rather than lowered, tone. Lowering the tone at the end of a word often accompanies cold declaration or calm puzzlement, while raising the tone often accompanies curiosity or surprise.
It is interesting to note that one of the earliest written record of the use of the greeting interjection (hey) is the early 13th century, which is also the time when our records show many stories being transformed from oral traditions to documented literature. Writing from earlier times is not necessarily missing due to illiteracy, but probably from damaged libraries and lost records. The organic materials that early books were made of often do not survive time and its company. Creatures, rot, political unrest, fire, and pilfering often terminate documentation.
Labels: communication, etymology, greeting, History
On Job Creation and Economic Growth
It seems to me, that people are oftentimes confused when it comes to issues of job creation and economic growth. They applaud business owners for making simple tasks difficult and adding additional, often unpleasant, positions in order to create more demand for employment. Let us take for example an argument I have heard on more than one occasion against the installation of self checkout machines in grocery stores. The argument asserts that because it eliminates the need for cashiers, the installation of self checkout machines is an economically undesirable circumstance. It is undeniably true that less personal are required to man and maintain this system, but what really happens to the labour? The machines decrease the need for labour while fulfilling the same function the cashiers previously did without any noticeable decline in efficiency or service quality. The same amount of money is collected from customers, and the same amount of merchandise is sold, but less labour is required. In the western world we have this idea of individualism that pits every man against every other man, but by working cooperatively, all employees of this grocery store can collectively cut down on the amount of labour they must perform, while maintaining their previous level of income. Since no one is required to man the registers, this labour has been freed up and may now be applied to other areas of the store, perhaps produce clerk or bagger. Suddenly these workers are only required to work thirty hours a week because the additional ten hours has been taken over by the displaced cashiers. Nevertheless, there is still enough payroll left to pay both the cashiers and the produce clerks their previous wage. Unfortunately, this is not what usually happens in our individualist society. Rather than working collectively to reduce their shared workload, the cashiers are often cast aside and forced to pursue other employment while management keeps the payroll savings for themselves. A small contingent of workers benefits, while the plight of the rest remains unchanged. This is wrong. Not only does this lead to public dislike of technologies that could reduce the common workload, but it forces displaced workers to create additional, often unneeded jobs in the economy creating products or offering services that are wholly and completely unnecessary. This may be economic growth, but the gain to human happiness is negligible. Work hours, for the average worker are not decreased, resources are needlessly consumed, and societies focus on material acquisition rather than cultural and moral evolution is reinforced. If we were to adopt fully, all technology available to us, with the goal of minimizing labour while maximising time for the individual to pursue his or her own education, free expression and personal betterment I predict we would see an explosion of invention and adaptation equal to that which moved us from the realm of simple-minded cave dwellers to civilized society. Man, by nature, is industrious. If you place an individual in an empty room with nothing but a crate of building blocks, that individual will eventually assign meaning and purpose to those blocks, even if it is merely asthetic. In the same way, if a person is given free reign, to construct things and utilize his or her surroundings in whatever manner he sees fit it is inevitable that we should see unparalleled leaps in technology and art, the likes of which have never been seen before.
Posted by Kevin at 18:20 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: co-op, cooperative, economics, economy, labor, labour, slavery, wage
God, Humans, and Community: a few thoughts
God is infinite, and completely self-sufficient. God is in need of nothing. He is. He is and called Himself "I Am that I Am". He told Moses to tell the people "I Am has sent you". He is Jehovah. God is. God is one, but also three. Although one God, there are three persons in the trinitary Godhead. God sometimes refers to Himself as Elohim, a plural word, but used in the Tanakh in a grammatically singular context, showing that God is one trinity. The Holy Trinity consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In John chapter 5, Jesus explains that the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing, but also that the Son does as He wills and has life in Himself, as the Father has life in Himself, and all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father. In John chapter 14 Jesus explains that if you have seen the Son you have seen the Father, and if you know the Son you know the Father. God has perfect community in Himself. God is tri-communal.
God has perfect community and fellowship within Himself. In Eden, the garden before sin, when everything was perfect, God and man had perfect community and fellowship. When God made the world, He looked upon it and said that it was good. In the beginning of the book of Genesis, God said that His creation was good, complete, whole, proper, as it should be; but after He made Adam, the first man, He said it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 3:18). In Eden, the garden of perfection, heaven on earth, when God and man were in harmony, God said it was not good for man to be alone. God, by design and decree, made mankind for community and marriage. Mankind needs fellowship and community because of God's design and decree.
God made His creation to function with certain needs. Humans have need of food, water, shelter from harmful atmospheric conditions, protection from radiation, and a breathable oxygenated ambience. Humans not only have physical nutritional needs and physical protection needs, but also have emotional needs. God created humans as relational beings. God created man and women for each-other and designed them to need and desire each other. God created and designed family, and it is important and necessary. Mankind needs community, fellowship, and relationship. Monasticism and hermithood are unbiblical practices that lead to problems. Christians are not to forsake the assembling of themselves together (Hebrews 10:25). Christians are to encourage and edify each other, building up the Body of Christ. As believers, Christians have Jesus, but God says they also need other believers. God is a god of community and fellowship, and designed His creation to also be a creation of community and fellowship. Relationships are an essential ingredient of God's creation.
Relationships and marriage are God's making. Needing and desiring it is how God made humans, and it is obedience to possess such needs and desires. God said that from the beginning He made them male and female, and they are to leave their parents and be joined together (Mark 10:5-9). What God has joined together do not separate. Romans 1 describes evil people and their sins, including rebellion against and perversion of the natural design of marriage. 1 Corinthians 7 says that it is better to marry than to burn. God has designed humans for relationship. It is unbiblical and wrong to belittle the need for intimate relationship. Division between men and woman is a form of attacking God's design, attempting to separate what God has decreed is to go together. One can serve God and follow Him best when one is obeying the intention and design of the Almighty, and therefore one who is not called to singleness does not reach full potential, nor pursues God best, when single. God intended man and women to work together in a romantic relationship, and humans function best and pursue God best when following God and His design.
When a communal, relational being is forced to be alone, it rends the soul and mind. Loneliness will drive you insane.
(A little note of interest.: The Bible says that a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife. In Hebrew culture, the man stayed at his father's estate and added to the family house, therefore leaving his parents to join his wife is important, for the family is still residing in close proximity. The woman left her family estate to live with her husband on his dynastic estate, and so was naturally distanced from her parents by the physical geography. The man did not have the same physical distancing, and so needed to make sure that his new family unit was distinct from his old.)
Labels: community, loneliness, relationship, religion, romance
Lynn Belvedere
freakinwacko
kkschmidt
Fire, Ice, and Feuds: an examination of the Mediev...
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Announcing 76th Annual Peabody Awards Finalists
Margaret Blanchard - 4/5/2017
The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors have selected 60 finalists that represent the most compelling and empowering stories released in electronic media during 2016. As part of a new distinction introduced last year, jurors chose 60 finalists out of 1,200 entries from television, radio and the web. The Peabody Awards are based at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
Over the next several weeks, the winning Peabody 30 programs will be revealed in a succession of announcements by category: Individual/Institutional on April 12; Documentary on April 18; Entertainment on April 20; and News/Radio/Public Service/Web/Education programming on April 25.
Peabody Award winners and finalists will be celebrated at a gala event on Saturday, May 20 at Cipriani in New York. The event will be taped for a television special to air on both PBS and FUSION networks on Friday, June 2 (9 p.m. ET/PT). Rashida Jones, a previous Peabody Award winner for “Parks and Recreation” and current star of “Angie Tribeca,” will serve as host.
Entertainment Weekly has been named official media partner for the 76th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony and a contributing sponsor of the FUSION After Party. The deal includes exclusive content in the print magazine and on EW.com. Supporting sponsors of the 76th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony include the Emerson Collective, an organization focused on education, immigration reform, the environment and other social justice initiatives, and The Coca-Cola Co.
The 60 Peabody Awards Finalists, listed by category and in alpha order (network/platform in parentheses) are:
“Ask the StoryBots” JibJab Bros. Studios (Netflix)
An animated television series based on the StoryBots educational apps and videos.
“Tumble Leaf” Amazon Studios and Bix Pix Entertainment (Amazon)
Nature-filled adventures of a delightfully curious blue fox and his best friend, a caterpillar.
“A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” HBO Documentary Films and SOC Films (HBO)
The chronicle of one young Pakistani woman who lives to tell of her attempted honor killing by her own family.
“Audrie & Daisy” AfterImage Public Media in association with Actual Films (Netflix)
Real-life stories examining the ripple effect of sexual crimes against two teen girls within the new world of social media bullying.
“4.1 Miles” The New York Times Op-Docs (NYTimes.com)
A coast guard captain on a small Greek island is suddenly charged with saving thousands of refugees from drowning at sea.
“FRONTLINE: Chasing Heroin” FRONTLINE (PBS/WGBH)
A look at America’s opioid crisis, how the epidemic came to be, and why the public health system has failed to turn things around.
“FRONTLINE: Confronting ISIS” FRONTLINE (PBS/WGBH)
An examination of the successes, failures and challenges in America’s ongoing war against Islamist extremists.
“FRONTLINE: Exodus” FRONTLINE (PBS/WGBH)
An intimate take on the refugee and migrant crisis.
“Great Performances: Hamilton’s America” A RadicalMedia Production in association with THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for WNET (PBS)
History and the creative process behind Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway phenomenon, “Hamilton.”
“Hip-Hop Evolution” Banger Films (Netflix, HBO Canada)
Series tracing hip hop’s evolution from the 1970s through the 1990s.
“Independent Lens: The Armor of Light” Purple Mickey Productions, in association with Fork Films (PBS)
A conservative, Evangelical minister questions his long-held assumptions about guns and gun ownership.
“Independent Lens: The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” Firelight Films, Inc. and the Independent Television Service (ITVS) (PBS)
A history of The Black Panthers and the socioeconomic and racial justice issues the group tackled.
“Independent Lens: Trapped” Trilogy Films LLC Bigmouth Productions, Cedar Creek Productions and the Independent Television Service (ITVS) (PBS)
A look at the motivation and politics surrounding “TRAP” laws, specifically designed to restrict access to abortion providers.
“Islamic State’s Most Wanted” BBC World Service (BBC News Online)
Four young men take on the Islamic State with risky undercover reporting.
“Last Chance U” A Netflix production in association with Conde Nast Entertainment, Endgame Entertainment and One Potato Productions (Netflix)
Character-driven, behind-the-scenes look at the world of college football.
“Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing” HBO Documentary Films and Break Thru Films in association with The Boston Globe (HBO)
A recounting of the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks through the experiences of individuals whose lives were forever changed on April 15, 2013.
“MAVIS!” Film First and HBO Documentary Films (HBO)
A celebration of the gospel and soul music legend and civil rights icon Mavis Staples.
“O.J.: Made in America” ESPN Films and Laylow Films (ESPN)
A biography of O.J. Simpson and a definitive story of 20th century America.
“POV: Hooligan Sparrow” POV | American Documentary (PBS)
A small group of women’s rights activists stand together to protest sexual assault in schools in Hainan, China.
“POV: The Look of Silence” POV | American Documentary (PBS)
The story of an Indonesian man confronting his brother’s killers and demanding they accept responsibility for their crimes.
“POV: The Return” POV | American Documentary (PBS)
An examination of California prisoners suddenly freed and their adjustment to life on the outside.
“POV: What Tomorrow Brings” POV | American Documentary (PBS)
A film about girls coming of age and struggling to find their way in a violent, uncertain Afghanistan.
“Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four” Deborah S. Esquenazi Productions, LLC (Investigation Discovery)
An excavation of the persecution of four Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted of gang-rape.
“The Forger” The New York Times (Video)
The story of Adolfo Kaminsky, who helped save thousands of lives by making false passports and other documents for children to flee the Nazis.
“The Secret Life of Muslims” Seftel Productions (Vox, The USA Today Network, PRI’s The World, CBS Sunday Morning)
A series of short films featuring a diverse set of American Muslims speaking from their own respective experiences.
“13th” Forward Movement LLC and Kandoo Films (Netflix)
An exploration of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and its relation to the criminalization and imprisonment of African-Americans.
“Zero Days” Magnolia Pictures and Participant Media, in association with Showtime Documentary Films, Global Produce/Jigsaw Productions (Showtime)
An exploration of cyber warfare and its potential impact on global peace.
“American Crime” ABC Studios (ABC)
Issues of sexual orientation and socioeconomic disparity come to a roil when lurid photos of a high school boy are posted on social media after a party.
“Atlanta” FX Productions (FX Networks)
Two cousins work through the Atlanta music scene in order to better their lives and the lives of their families.
“Better Things” FX Productions (FX Networks)
The life of a single, working mom and actor raising three daughters in Los Angeles.
“Cleverman” Goalpost Pictures and Pukeko Pictures for ABC-TV Australia in co-production with SundanceTV and Red Arrow International, with the assistance of Screen Australia, Screen NSW and The New Zealand Screen Production Grant (SundanceTV)
A young man in denial of his culture and estranged from his family becomes an unexpected hero with the power to unite two disparate worlds.
“Happy Valley” Red Production Company and BBC (BBC One, Netflix)
Yorkshire police sergeant Catherine Cawood pursues the man who assaulted her late daughter.
“Horace and Pete” Pig Newton, Inc. (louisck.net)
A story of a family and the struggles and laughs that go into running a bar for generations.
“Lemonade” HBO Entertainment in association with Parkwood Entertainment (HBO)
A visual album about a journey in personal healing as well as a collective purge.
“Marvel’s Luke Cage” Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios for Netflix (Netflix)
A sabotaged experiment leaves Luke Cage with super strength and unbreakable skin in modern-day Harlem.
“National Treasure” The Forge (Channel 4, Hulu)
A look at the disturbing prevalence of sexual abuse at the hands of privileged public figures told from multiple perspectives.
“Stranger Things” 21 Laps for Netflix (Netflix)
The search for a young boy who seemingly vanishes into thin air in Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s.
“This Is Us” Rhode Island Ave. Productions, Zaftig Films, 20th Century Fox Television (NBC)
A modern dramedy that challenges everyday presumptions and stereotypes.
“The Night Of” HBO Entertainment in association with BBC, Bad Wolf Productions and Film Rites (HBO)
Series that delves into the intricacies of a murder case in New York City and what happens to suspects before they are ever found guilty or innocent.
“VEEP” HBO Entertainment (HBO)
An alternative, intelligent and funny interpretation of the business of government.
“Arrested at School: Criminalizing Classroom Misbehavior” KNTV Bay Area (NBC)
Investigation into how certain school districts misuse law enforcement to discipline students.
“Battle for Mosul” (CNN)
Experienced field teams embedded with military units bring insight and depth from the frontline.
“Big Buses, Bigger Problems: Investigating DCS” KXAS-TV Dallas-Fort Worth (NBC)
Investigation uncovered serious safety concerns inside Dallas County Schools (DCS).
“CBS News 60 Minutes: The White Helmets” (CBS)
A report on Syria’s volunteer search and rescue teams pulling life out of bombed out buildings.
“Charity Caught on Camera” WTHR-TV Indianapolis (NBC)
Undercover investigation exposed stunning mismanagement at an Indiana charity.
“Dangerous Exposure” WTHR-TV Indianapolis (NBC)
Major findings include contaminated water wells, asbestos blowing into the air and toxic chemicals inching towards a city’s water supply.
“Heart of an Epidemic, West Virginia’s Opioid Addiction” The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley (CBS)
A drilling down into the layers of opioid addiction and its effect on one state.
“ISIS in Iraq and Syria” (CNN)
Reports from the frontlines offer insight into the terror group, its tactics, and the lingering costs of the ISIS occupation in both countries.
“Student Debt” HBO Entertainment in association with Vice and Bill Maher Productions (HBO)
Student loan coverage revealed conflict of interests and systematic wrongdoing.
“Undercover in Syria” (CNN)
Reporters go deep undercover to see the impact of Russia’s involvement in the Syrian civil war.
”#MoreThanMean-Women in Sports ‘Face’ Harassment” Just Not Sports & One Tree Forest Films (YouTube/Twitter/Facebook)
A short video about the harassment of women in sports puts a face on the issue.
“100 Women” BBC World Service (BBC World Network)
Multimedia, multilingual content aims to shine a light on challenges that face many women around the globe.
“A Life Sentence: Victims, Offenders, Justice, and My Mother” Transom.org
One woman’s exploration of a violent crime that resonated throughout political and correctional systems.
“Homecoming” Gimlet Media
A story centered around a caseworker at an experimental facility, her ambitious supervisor, and a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life.
“How to Be a Girl” Marlo Mack, in partnership with KUOW Seattle
An attempt to make sense of the unanticipated parenting challenge of raising a transgender child.
“In The Dark” APM Reports
An investigation into the investigation of a kidnapping victim reveals a larger story about a systemic failure of law enforcement agencies nationwide.
“The Heart: Silent Evidence Series” The Heart
A journalist and documentarian grapples with being sexually abused and chooses to break her silence.
“This American Life: Anatomy of Doubt” This American Life, PBC in collaboration with The Marshall Project and ProPublica (Multiple stations/platforms)
A story that deconstructs skepticism in a rape victim’s case and how it spread.
“The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel” Mars Patel LLC (Panoply)
A serialized, scripted podcast designed for ages 8-12, performed by middle grade children.
“Unprisoned” WWNO and AIR
Based in New Orleans, stories behind families, communities and notions of justice in the age of mass incarceration.
“Wells Fargo Hurts Whistleblowers” (NPR)
On the heels of one of the biggest banking scandals in U.S. history, former Wells Fargo workers describe a boiler-room sales culture that pervaded bank branches across the country.
“Hell and High Water” ProPublica and The Texas Tribune
A combination of science journalism, on-the-ground reporting and cutting-edge technology.
About Peabody Awards
The Peabody Awards honor the most powerful, enlightening and invigorating stories in television, radio and digital media. Each year, Peabody Awards are bestowed upon a curated collection of 30 stories that capture society’s most important issues—known as the Peabody 30. Honorees must be unanimously chosen by the Peabody Board of Jurors, a diverse assembly of industry professionals, media scholars, critics, and journalists who each bring a unique perspective of what constitutes a story that matters. From major Hollywood productions to local journalism, the network of Peabody Awards winners is a definitive collection of society’s most important stories and storytellers, including winners that have ranged from Edward R. Murrow, Carol Burnett, and David Letterman to “The Sopranos,” “Sesame Street,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Serial.” The Peabody Awards were founded in 1940 at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia and are still based in Athens today.
tv radio web documentary entertainment news children's program education 2016
An Annual Celebration of Stories That Matter
PBS and FUSION Named Broadcast Partners
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Penrod & George
Penrod & George is one of the leading firms in the area. By combining our expertise, experience and the team mentality of our staff, we assure that every client receives the close analysis and attention they deserve. Our dedication to high standards, hiring of seasoned tax professionals, and work ethic is the reason our client base returns year after year.
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For years, Penrod & George has been providing quality, personalized financial guidance to local individuals and businesses. Penrod & George's expertise ranges from basic tax management and accounting services to more in-depth services such as audits, financial statements, and financial planning.
Penrod & George is one of the leading firms in Northwest Ohio. By combining our expertise, experience and the expertise of our staff, we assure that every client receives the close analysis and attention they deserve. Our dedication to high standards, hiring of seasoned professionals, and focus on work ethic is the reason our client base returns year after year.
Our mission is to help clients maintain financial viability in the present, while taking a proactive approach to achieve future goals. This requires open communication to reach an understanding of our clients' needs through research and sound analysis. Penrod & George is dedicated to meeting these goals with high standards of excellence and professionalism. We have been a staple of Northwest Ohio's business community since 1948, and pride ourselves on the level of esteem we have earned.
Our dedication to hard work has earned the respect of the business and financial community in and around the Ohio, Michigan and Indiana areas. We believe this to be a direct derivative of our talent and responsiveness to our client base. Whether you are a current or prospective client, rest assured that individuals and businesses who choose Penrod & George receive competent and timely advice.
David A. Reiser, CPA, CPMA, Managing Partner
Email: dreiser@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-636-5633
Dave serves as the firm’s Managing Partner and oversees the strategic direction of the firm. He is responsible for practice administration, firm growth decisions and other areas. His expertise includes 25 years of accounting experience dealing with all size of clients and various services. Dave specializes in the accounting and auditing field and consults with clients on various tax issues. He also has expertise in strategic planning, business valuations and internal control improvements. He has performed numerous consulting projects for clients pertaining to the above specialties. Dave has a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Bowling Green State University and has received certification as a Certified Professional Management Advisor. Dave is a member of the AICPA and the Ohio Society of CPAs. He is also an active member of the Bryan Rotary Club, New Hope Community Church, and board member of Bryan Chamber of Commerce and Williams County Family YMCA. He has served on the board of Sarah's Friends, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Napoleon/Henry County Chamber of Commerce, Bryan Soccer Association and Northwest Ohio Emmaus Community.
Thomas F. Moriarty, CPA, Tax Partner
Email: tmoriarty@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-599-8045
A native of Napoleon, Tom graduated from Bowling Green State University and returned to Napoleon to work and raise a family. Relying on 35 years of experience, Tom, as the Tax Partner provides high level tax planning for our clients, allowing them to better plan for their future. Tom is also in charge of the tax related practice along with overseeing all tax-specific professional education for the firm, monitoring all legislative changes, and evaluating their impact on our client base. Tom is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Napoleon Rotary Club. An active member of his community, Tom serves on the Henry County Hospital Foundation and the Henry County Metropolitan Housing Authority Boards of Directors. He is also the Treasurer for the Henry County Chamber of Commerce. Tom has also served on the Napoleon Area City School and Four County Career Center Boards of Education and the Napoleon High School Alumni Association and the Henry County CASA/GAL Boards of Directors.
Brant C. Darnell, CPA, A&A Partner
Email: bdarnell@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-599-8045
Brant joined Penrod & George in 1999 after working several years for a private manufacturing company. Brant graduated from Baylor University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He is responsible for overseeing the accounting & audit area of the practice. As the A&A Partner, Brant serves many of our larger clients and has focused his time in the manufacturing and non-profit areas of our firm. He also has expertise in business interruption claims and tax planning. He serves as a trusted advisor to many of our clients and is actively involved with helping them with many different business issues. Brant is a member of the AICPA and the Ohio Society of CPAs and is involved in the Wauseon Rotary Club, Wauseon Athletic Boosters, Wauseon Area Foundation, the Church on Strayer, and the Greater Toledo chapter of Truth@Work. Brant strives to provide high level attestation services to client and to communicate with client management and their governing boards about relevant, high impact information
Carma Rupp, Senior Staff Accounant
Email: crupp@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-599-8045
Carma has been with Penrod & George for over 50 years. During that time, she has worked on many different clients providing many different levels of services. Currently, she focuses on monthly compilations, monthly and quarterly payroll taxes and specialty tax areas. She also prepares many of the year-end tax returns for our clients. Carma graduated from International Business College with an Associates degree in Accounting. Carma also has achieved the title and maintains the training needed for the Registered Tax Return Preparer status with the IRS. Carma’s mission is to serve clients as accurately as possible.
Tari Hockman, Staff Accountant
Email: thockman@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-599-8045
Tari has been with Penrod & George for almost 40 years. She is well versed in QuickBooks and Peachtree and often works very closely with our clients in their efforts to better utilize these softwares. She is also responsible for payroll, payroll taxes and monthly compilations for several of our clients as well as year-end financial statements and tax returns. Tari graduated from Northwest State Community College with an Associates degree in Accounting. Tari is an active member in the Patrick Henry Athletic Boosters and Immanuel Lutheran Church.
Jennifer Becker, Staff Accountant
Email: jbecker@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-636-5633
For over 16 years, Jennifer has been working for Penrod & George in the areas of payroll, monthly compilations, and specialty taxes. She works directly with clients using QuickBooks and Peachtree as well as specialty softwares. Jennifer also does the year-end financial statements and tax returns for many of our clients. Jennifer’s coursework at the International Business College and Tri-State University (Fort Wayne Campus) gained her a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. Jennifer is an active member of St. John Lutheran Church in Sherwood, is on the board for Fairview Music Boosters, and coaches for the Fairview Summer Ball Association.
Novell Meyer, Firm Administrator
Email: nmeyer@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-599-8045
As the Firm Administrator, Novell’s role covers many facets, including: all Human Resource functions, all internal accounting and bookkeeping functions; staffing and workflow monitoring; budgeting and efficiency tracking; process efficiencies; and general functionality of the offices. With more than 26 years of experience in the Accounting field, Novell brings a variety of experiences and levels of knowledge to her role. She has been with Penrod & George for over 15 years. Novell graduated from Bowling Green State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with dual areas of specialization in Accounting and Administrative Management. Novell is an active member of the St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church including currently holding the position of Finance Council President. Novell has also been a Defiance County Master Gardener and Board member of the Defiance County Board of Developmental Disabilities including a member of the Board’s Ethics Council. She currently is very active with fundraising activities at Holy Cross Catholic School in Defiance, OH, where her three children attend elementary school.
Natalie Smith, CPA, Staff Accountant
Email: nsmith@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-636-5633
Natalie has over 15 years of experience in the accounting industry and has spent the last 7 years with Penrod & George. Natalie’s focus is in the preparation of year-end reviews and compilations. She also assists on audits and prepares several corporate and individual returns for our clients. Natalie graduated from Bowling Green State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a specialization in Accounting. Natalie also graduated from the University of Toledo with a Master’s of Science in Accountancy prior to sitting for and passing the CPA exam. Natalie is a member of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants. She is also a member of New Hope Community Church and Power in the Purse (PIP). Natalie also serves on the board of Sarah's Friends and Bryan Soccer Association.
Sara Weasel, CPA, Staff Accountant
Email: sweasel@penrodcpa.com Phone: 41-523-3434
Sara has been working in the accounting industry for over 35 years. Prior to joining Donald A. Hohenbrink, CPA’s firm, Sara was the CFO for a non-profit organization and had prior accounting experience in the retail industry. Sara has been working in the Penrod & George Ottawa office for nearly 5 years. Sara works on a variety of clients from both the tax and accounting perspectives. She prepares all levels of tax and income tax returns and well as prepares all levels of financial statement and accounting reports. Sara graduated from Owens Community College, Heidelberg University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Business Administration. Sara is a member of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Carmen Cape, Staff Accountant
Email: ccape@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-636-5633
Carmen started with Penrod & George in 2017. With over 14 years of accounting experience, Carmen brings a great deal of expertise to the job. Although in her prior employment, she worked on various aspects of accounting, at Penrod & George, she specializes in payroll and payroll tax preparation. Carmen graduated from the University of Toledo with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and a minor in Business.
Barbara Geren, Staff Accountant
Email: bgeren@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-636-5633
Barbara started with Penrod & George in 2017. She brings 5 years of accounting experience, specifically in the areas of payroll, payroll taxes, and personal tax returns. She is going to be expanding her expertise to include business returns and financial statement preparation in the near future with Penrod & George. Barbara earned her Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Trine University in Angola, IN.
Josh Niese, Staff Accountant
Email: jniese@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-523-3434
Josh has been with Penrod & George for 4 years. He specializes in preparing payroll, payroll taxes, and trust and estate taxes, as well as preparing personal and partnership income tax preparation. Although Josh is primarily in Ottawa, he works with a variety of clients from all three of our office locations. Josh graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a specialization in Accounting. Josh is currently studying and testing for the CPA exam. Josh is a member of the Miller City Sportsmen Club and the Ottawa Fraternal Order of Eagles. When he’s not working, Josh enjoys golfing and farming.
Beth Rosendaul, Administrative Assistant
Email: brosendaul@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-636-5633
Beth joined Penrod & George in October 2017. Since then she has assisted the Napoleon and Bryan offices in many capacities including administrative tasks like answering phones, assisting clients who stop in, filing and processing. She has also helped with client payrolls and payroll taxes, payables and bank reconciliations. Beth has a Business Management/Banking and Finance degree from Northwest State Community College. In her spare time, Beth enjoys making crafts and selling at craft shows. She is a member of New Hope Community Church.
Benjamin Frey, Staff Accountant
Email: bfrey@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-599-8045
Ben joined Penrod & George in January 2018. He splits his time between our Ottawa and Napoleon offices and specializes in farm returns and manufacturing and construction accounting and tax returns. Ben has over 16 years of experience in the manufacturing industry. Ben gained his MBA from Defiance College where he was also an undergraduate and received a Bachelor's of Science in Accounting. Ben is very active in his community including being a Henry County 4-H Advisor and a member of the Ridgeville Township Fire Department. He works on the family farm and is an avid Cleveland sports and Ohio State fan!
Sarah Sunderhaus
Email: ssunderhaus@penrodcpa.com Phone: 419-523-3434
Sarah joined Penrod & George in November 2018. She brings over six years of tax preparation and four years of bookkeeping experience to the Ottawa office. Sarah earned her Bachelor of Science in Accounting and her Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Northwestern Ohio. While working in her previous position, Sarah achieved the designation of Registered Tax Return Preparer. She is currently working in our Ottawa office, focusing on individual tax returns during tax season, and payroll and bookkeeping services the rest of the year. Sarah and her family are members of Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church; her children attend Saints Peter & Paul Catholic School, as well. Sarah is also an active member of the American Legion Auxiliary.
© 2019 Penrod & George All Rights Reserved.
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Farmyard - Farmyard (1970) [New Zealand, Progressive Rock/Country Rock]
Artist: Farmyard
Album: Farmyard
Genre: Progressive Rock, Country Rock
01. Those Days Are Gone (Paul Curtis, Rick White) — 4:23
02. Through My Window (Milton Parker) — 7:46
03. Which Way Confusion (Part 1) (Rick White) — 3:48
05. Learning ‘Bout Living (Paul Curtis) — 3:14
06. Da Woirks (Rick White, Milton Parker, Andrew Stevens, Tom Swainson) — 2:52
07. I Sit Alone (Andrew Stevens) — 9:37
- Paul Curtis — lead vocals (01, 02, 04, 05, 07), harmony vocals (03), congas (07)
- Milton Parker — nylon string guitar (01), electric guitar (01, 02, 06), congas (02), bass guitar (03, 04), guitars (05, 07)
- Andrew Stevens — flute (01-04, 06, 07), tenor saxophone (02, 06), baritone saxophone (02), piccolo (05), woodblock (07)
- Rick White — bass guitar (01, 02, 05-07), maracas (01, 07), lead vocals (03), acoustic guitar (03), vibes (03), electric guitar (04), handclaps (05)
- Tom Swainson — drums (01, 02, 04-07), maracas (01), harmony vocals (01, 05), woodblock (02), Indian bells (07), percussion (07)
-Terry Condon — handclaps (05)
- Peter Dawkins — congas (03), tambourine (05), handclaps (05), producer
Download: Cloud Mail Ru
1970 Country Rock Farmyard New Zealand Progressive Rock
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Chapter 11: Unity and Diversity in Islam by Mohammad Rasjidi
Islam -- The Straight Path: Islam Interpreted by Muslims
by Kenneth W. Morgan
(Mohammad Rasjidi is Ambassador to Pakistan from the Republic of Indonesia, Karachi, Pakistan)
No one can claim to speak with final authority concerning the diversity found among the more than five hundred million Muslims who seek to follow the straight path of Islam. One can only record some observations concerning the variations in practices among the Muslims from Morocco and the Balkans to China and Indonesia. It is possible, however, to be much more explicit about the basic unity of Islam, for throughout the Muslim world there is general agreement concerning the sources of Islam, the fundamentals of the faith, and the particular requirements which are the obligations of all believers.
The Sources of Islam
There is general agreement that the sources of Islam are the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and reasoning about them. Of these, the primary source is the Qur’an. Concerning matters not explicitly clear in the Qur’an, the Sunnah is the secondary, supplementary source; and when the answer to questions needs further clarification the third source for Muslims is reasoning about the intent of the Qur’an and Sunnah by those men who are recognized as having the training and experience which qualifies them to reason properly.
The miraculous revelation of the Qur’an has been fully discussed in earlier chapters of this book. It is the final revelation, the Word of God given through His Prophet as a guide to all men everywhere, regardless of race, or color, or nationality. Within two years of the death of the Prophet it was compiled in book form and has been the primary source of Islam for almost fourteen centuries, without question and without variant versions. Since it was revealed in Arabic it has necessitated knowledge of Arabic, and this has been a unifying cultural factor throughout the Muslim world. It was recognized, however, that the people in the various countries often read the Qur’an in Arabic without understanding its meaning. The uneducated people even thought that it was sufficient to pronounce the words correctly, and that such repetition -- even without understanding the meaning -- would bring them blessings from God and save their souls. Some even used verses of the Qur’an as amulets against dangers and diseases! Half a century ago the orthodox Muslims believed that it was forbidden to translate the Qur’an, fearing that translations would supplant the original Arabic version and that versions in different languages would cause disagreements and misinterpretations of the revelation of God. While it is true that because of its very high literary style it is difficult, if not impossible, to translate the Qur’an into any other language without losing the beauty and vigor of the original, translations in the languages of the people are necessary in order that they may understand the meaning of this book which is the source of Islam. Today the Qur’an is available in translation in most of the languages of the world.
Sometimes people ask why the Qur’an was revealed in Arabic if it is intended to be the Holy Book for all human beings. This question cannot be answered definitely, for if the Qur’an had been revealed in any other language -- for example, in English -- the question would still remain as to why that one language was chosen. Thus we have to content ourselves with the fact that, regardless of any possible reasons, the Qur’an was revealed in Arabic.
The second source for Islam is the Sunnah. During Muhammad’s lifetime, Muslims could ask him to guide them in solving any problem when they did not find a clear answer in the Qur’an. For instance, once a man asked him if it would be proper to perform a pilgrimage on behalf of his deceased mother. The Prophet replied that it would be proper since such an act could be compared to a debt which she owed and the son was obligated to pay. When the Prophet was dying, and knew that he would not be present to give such advice, he told the people that they would not go astray so long as they held to the two guides he was leaving for them -- the Qur’an, the Book of God, and the example of his own way of life, the Sunnah. The Qur’an, in Surah XXXIII, verse 21, establishes the Sunnah as the second source of Islam:
"There is a good example in the Apostle of Allah for those who wish to meet God and the Day of Judgment, and to remember God much."
The Sunnah is made up of the deeds, speech, and approbation of the Prophet. His deeds include the way he prayed, or washed his hands, or took a bath, and the like. His words have been preserved for us, as for example when he said, "I am sent to perfect high morality." By approbation is meant that when Muhammad saw something done, or heard words uttered in his presence and did not object, such actions or words are approved. Approbation was applied chiefly to customs of the Arab society which were not in contradiction to the spirit of Islam. For example, when Muhammad saw a man dancing with a sword he smiled and showed his pleasure, so later jurists concluded that dancing with the sword is permitted. Such approval has been applied to customary practices and laws in all Islamic countries where such customs do not contradict the spirit of Islamic laws -- for example, in the marriage ceremonies.
The codification of the Sunnah, the Traditions, began a century and a half after the Prophet when Malik Ibn Anas wrote a compilation of the Traditions concerning Islamic laws. The compilation of the Traditions took final form at the hands of Bukhari and Muslim in the third century (ninth century A.D.), and today most Muslims recognize their work as the two correct books on Traditions. Those two compilers established conditions for determining which Traditions would be accepted as authentic, conditions which related only to the persons who narrated the Traditions. Such persons must be of good moral character, pious, honest, of sound discretion, and blessed with a good memory; and the series of such transmitters must be continuous from generation to generation. The first generation was called the Companions, the second was known as the followers, and the third as the followers of the followers. Thus a tradition narrated by the followers only would not be accepted by Bukhari because there would be a gap of a generation from the time of the Prophet.
It must be explained, however, that those conditions for the correctness of a Tradition did not touch the subject matter, for internal criticism was unknown at the time. Consequently we find in the two compilations some Traditions, such as those about the signs of the approaching of the Day of Judgment, which we do not understand even yet. The lapse of two and a half centuries between the death of the Prophet and the compilation of the Sunnah has resulted in many differences between Muslims which continue in our time. In the civil war and struggle for power in the time of Uthman, the third Caliph, irreligious elements among the Muslim people did not refrain from fabricating traditions concerning the merits of some political figures. Accurate judgments concerning the narrators of Traditions became difficult because the political feuds sometimes made the judgments far from objective. A knowledge of the way in which the Traditions were compiled and transmitted facilitates an understanding of the various attitudes toward the Traditions which are found in Muslim countries today.
The Qur’an, which was revealed almost fourteen centuries ago, and the Traditions concerning the Prophet who lived that long ago exclusively in a desert society cannot serve as explicit guides for every situation which might arise centuries later, and especially in the complex societies of the present day. This was recognized by the Prophet himself. Once when he was sending one of his Companions to Yemen to serve as governor, he tested the man by asking him what principles he would follow in his new position. He answered that he would hold to the teachings of the Qur’an. The Prophet asked, "And if you do not find a particular guide in the Qur’an?" He replied, "I shall look for it in the Sunnah." Then the Prophet asked, "Well, what if you do not find it in the Sunnah either?" He replied, "In such a case, I shall make use of my own opinion." The Prophet was very pleased with that answer and said, "Thanks to God who has guided the messenger of the Messenger of Allah."
Thus a third basis for Islam became established, the basis of reasoning. We find in the Qur’an many verses which mention reasoning, or thinking, or knowing -- verses which exhort us to make use of our brains instead of following blindly the traditions which our ancestors followed. Concerning the Unbelievers of old, the Qur’an says, "Nay, for they say only: Lo we found our fathers following a religion, and we are guided by their footprints" (Surah XLIII, 22). While exhorting us to contemplate nature, the Qur’an says, "In the creation of skies and the earth, the difference between night and day, the ships which run at sea carrying that which is useful for mankind, the rain water which Allah sends down from the sky to revive the earth after its death, and to spread animals on it, and the arrangement of winds and clouds between sky and earth, in all those things there are evidences (for the existence of God) for those who make use of their brains" (Surah II, 164). There is even a verse which says that once upon a time the people of Hell said to one another, "If we had made use of our ears or our brains we would not have been the inhabitants of this Hell" (Surah LXVII, 10).
Originally the word used for reasoning, qiyas, meant measure, used in the sense of thinking by comparing one thing with another -- reasoning by analogy. As the third source of Islamic law it means determining the proper course of action by reasoning from the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Some men, however, speak of a fourth source of the law of Islam -- consensus of opinion, or the agreement of capable men in their judgment on a specific question. This concept was introduced by al Shafi‘i, the founder of one of the schools of law. Some people have misunderstood consensus to mean simply public opinion, and have asserted that if public opinion approves an action it is therefore acceptable to Islam. For Muslim legislators, consensus is the agreement reached among qualified religious leaders in one place at one time. There has never been a means by which such agreement might be found for all Muslims everywhere. True consensus, ijma, was possible only during the time of the first two Caliphs and part of the rule of the third Caliph. Ijma now only means that some agreement has been found in some places concerning the interpretation of certain verses of the Qur’an. As a basic source for Islam, it is reasoning, not consensus which is the third source. The Qur’an, the Sunnah, and reasoning are the generally accepted sources of Islam.
There are, as has been seen, some exceptions to the position that these are the three sources of Islam, for some people hold that only the Qur’an and Sunnah can give us a solid foundation for Islam. Their attitude, however, is easily refuted for it must be admitted that the problems of the world today are very different from those of the time of Muhammad, and their attitude would make Islam a dead religion. Actually, Islam is a dynamic religion, based on the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and reasoning.
Some people confuse ijtihad with reasoning, but if used in the sense of a personal preference it is obviously not the same thing. In the sense of careful reasoning as to the implications of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, it is the same as reasoning. Unchecked, ijtihad might even lead to disagreement concerning such basic ideas as right and wrong, good and bad!
To understand the unity and diversity in Islam it is necessary to understand these three sources of Islamic law: the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the proper use of reason.
The Creed of Islam
The unity in Islam is shown in the acceptance of the six articles of belief, the fundamentals of Islam -- belief in God, Angels, revealed scriptures, prophets, the Day of Judgment, and the destiny of man for good or evil. These beliefs are held by all Muslims.
The proof for the existence of God is found in the Qur’an through meditation on the beauty and order of nature. The harmony of the natural world shows that there is one benevolent Allah who created the universe and all human beings. The oneness of God is His most distinctive characteristic, as is shown in Surah CXII of the Qur’an, "He is One. He it is to whom we address our demands. He never gives birth and He was never born, nothing is similar to Him." In addition, all good qualities can be ascribed to God, He is the Merciful, the Generous, the Lover, the Great, the High. Some traditions mention ninety-nine names of God, but it is probable that the number is to be understood, not literally, but only as a very great number. Thus a Muslim may choose among those names of God the one which is psychologically relevant in the circumstances, a practice which is common throughout the Muslim world.
Theological treatises mention that there are twenty attributes of God, usually listed in four divisions. The first division includes only the essential attribute of existence. The second division is made up of the five negative attributes -- no beginning, no end (eternity), difference from contingent things, independence of existence, unity (uniqueness). The third division includes the seven abstract attributes of power, will, knowledge, life, and the ability to hear, see, and speak. The fourth division, which is called the correlative of the abstract attributes, is made up of present participles of the abstract attributes of the third division -- powerful (overpowering), willing, knowing, living, hearing, seeing, speaking. The theologians stressed that the attributes of God are not separate from the essence of God. This division of attributes is arbitrary and not clear, but most of the people consider it to be an essential element of belief. The series of attributes is clearly an artificial reflection of a reaction to Greek philosophy; it is not found in this form in the Qur’an or the Hadith, and has made people think in an unhealthy way. It is more appropriate to understand the existence of God through contemplating nature, as is revealed in the Qur’an. The differences of opinion among Muslims as to whether or not God resembles human beings, and the opinion of some common people that God resembles a medieval absolute king, arise only from different patterns of education; they are not fundamental to Islam.
Angels are creatures who serve as liaison between God the Almighty and His apostles, bringing the Godly messages and revelations to them. Some Traditions speak of Angels who guard Hell, some who guard Paradise, some who ask dead people about their beliefs, and some who record all of a man s actions; there is also an Angel who will blow the trumpet to awaken all human beings on the Day of Judgment. Common people tend to understand such Traditions literally, while educated people prefer to understand them figuratively with an interpretation more or less acceptable to reason.
The Qur’an, the holy revealed Book of Islam, mentions three former revealed books -- the Book of David, the Book of Moses, and the Book of Jesus. This does not necessarily mean that there were no other revealed books, but only that we do not know whether or not any other books were revealed. Most people believe that there were no other revealed books than those three and the Qur’an.
The names of twenty-five apostles are found in the Qur’an, beginning with Adam. Muslims depend entirely on the text of the Qur’an for information concerning those prophets since the Qur’an is the only source about which there is not the slightest doubt. It is fortunate that the career of Muhammad is well-known, that there is nothing vague in the records of his life. The Traditions picture him in a very human way. -- dealing in commerce, getting married, having children, losing his wife and his sons, sharing all common experiences -- in no sense a supernatural being. The only difference between Muhammad and the rest of mankind is that he received the revelations of God. All Muslims recognize Muhammad as a Prophet, and the last of the prophets. They see that the proof of his revelation lies not in external miracles but in the nature of the revelation itself. When the question is asked as to whether or not the teachers of other religions, such as the Buddha or Confucius, were prophets, no clear answer can be given. The Qur’an is not explicit on that point, for it says, "I have sent many apostles before you (Muhammad). I have told you about some of them, and I have not told you about some others" (Surah XL, 78). Some people conclude that the teachers of other religions are included in the "some others" that God has not told about, but other people say that only by studying the spirit and fundamentals of those religions can one determine whether or not they are of the same spirit as Islam, and their founders might be considered to have been prophets.
The Day of Judgment is mentioned in many verses in the Qur’an. When the sky is split, when the stars collide, when the mountains are like cotton, when the earth quakes -- that is the Day of Judgment. On that day all people are awakened and their deeds are weighed; those having a heavy weight of good records will live happily in Paradise and those who have light weights will go to a Hell full of fire. The descriptions of Paradise are in such beautiful language that they make a deep impression on anyone who listens to the recital of the parts of the Qur’an which refer to it. On the other hand, Hell is described in a horrible way in many passages in the Qur’an. Although the common people are inclined to understand the descriptive passages in a literal sense, educated people recognize them as figurative. When the passages which describe Paradise and Hell are meditated upon it is easy to understand what great power they have to motivate people toward good actions.
The sixth fundamental belief of Islam is the belief in destiny for good or for evil. There has been much misunderstanding of the meaning of the word destiny. Many people have thought that a belief in destiny implies that everything will happen by itself, whether we wish it or not, and that such a belief will make people apathetic and indifferent toward all progress. The real meaning of belief in destiny, however, is that one believes that God created an orderly world and one should act according to the nature of that world. Thus a man with a sense of destiny will be active in doing anything which he judges to be good, knowing that if anything bad happens in spite of all precautionary measures, then there will be no reason for regret or for blaming oneself. Then he would say that it was the destiny of Allah. This meaning was illustrated by the Caliph Umar Ibn al-Khattab when he decided not to visit Palestine while there was an epidemic there. A companion asked him, "Are you evading the destiny of God?" He answered, "Yes. I run from the destiny of God to another destiny of God."
There is no difference among Muslims concerning these six fundamental beliefs of Islam. Every Muslim believes in God, in Angels, in revealed scriptures, in apostles, in the Day of Judgment, and in destiny. The differences are only in the interpretations, as mentioned above, and these differences result primarily from the differences in standards of education.
The Pillars of Islam
The fundamental beliefs of Islam have their practical consequences in everyday life. The writers of the other chapters in this book have referred to the practical side of Islam as the consequences of religion, the particular requirements of Islam, or as worship and dealings. Tradition says that the worship obligations, or requirements, of Islam are known as the Pillars of Islam; and the guide for dealings, for the responsibilities of human beings in society, are covered by fiqh, Islamic law.
According to Tradition, Islam is based on five foundations: the confession that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah; prayer; almsgiving; fasting during Ramadan; and pilgrimage to Mecca by those who are able to go. Of these five pillars, concerning the first one there is no variation anywhere in the Islamic world. All Muslims know the Word of Witness, the confession of faith in Allah and the recognition of Muhammad as His Messenger, and all Muslims repeat it as their confession of faith.
The prayers are of two kinds, obligatory and optional. The five daily prayers are obligatory, including the obligation to attend the congregational prayer on Friday in the mosque. It is impossible to estimate what proportion of the people perform the five daily prayers regularly, since women usually say their prayers in the home and men may perform the salat at the mosque, at work, or at home. There is no religious superior who checks on the performance of the prayers. It is possible, however, to observe the attendance at the Friday noon prayers in the mosque. Large number of people will be seen at the mosque on Friday in Indonesia, in Turkey, Egypt, and parts of the Maghrib, and in the Shi’a mosques of Iran, to mention only the most obvious places. The smallest attendance at the Friday service would be found in China, and in the Soviet Union.
The optional, or facultative, prayers are of many kinds, such as the additional prayers before and after the obligatory prayers, prayers on the holiday after the month of fasting, prayers at the festival which marks the end of the pilgrimage, and prayers in times of need -- which are offered by anyone at any time or place when the help of God is sought. Prayer for a person who died is necessary, since the spirit of such a person continues to live. Optional prayers can be performed at any time because a Muslim is in constant relation with God.
There are minor differences from country to country in the manner of praying, differences of no importance which have grown up through varying interpretations in the schools of jurisprudence. Some people emphasize the performance of optional prayers after the Friday prayers, while others do not. There are slight differences in posture; for example, in some countries, while standing, the people put their hands one upon the other in front of the lower part of the chest, while others who follow the school of Malik or of the Shi’as bend their hands down. Such differences are of no importance, and the unity is shown by the complete harmony among Muslims as to the times of prayer, the ablutions which must be performed before prayer, and the facing toward the Ka’ba in Mecca.
The mosques are the centers for prayer, teaching, and service in the Muslim world and are recognized as the distinctive symbol of Islam even though they differ considerably from country to country. Originally the mosque was very simple, for any ground can be made a place for prayer. The first mosque built by Muhammad in Medina was a simple plot of ground with clay walls on all sides and a roof of palm branches. As Islam spread to other countries the mosques adopted the architecture of those countries. In China, for example, we find mosques which resemble pagodas in many ways; in Indonesia most mosques are built near streams which the people can use for ablutions; in Arab countries the big mosques have one section roofed for winter use and an open area for use in summer. In recent years the greatest activity in building new mosques has been in Turkey and Indonesia.
There is great variety in the minarets which are used for the call to prayer. They may be simple square or round towers, as in the Levant; or elaborate architectural designs as in Egypt; or the slender, pencil-shaped minarets of Turkey; in Iraq and Iran the minarets in Shi’a mosques are often beautifully decorated with colorful ceramic tiles; in Indonesia they stand as separate towers, or in the villages may even be a chair in a high tree; and in China the government did not permit the building of minarets. Indonesia is unique in using drums for the call to prayer.
It is generally agreed that a Muslim should give alms which amount to a tenth of the agricultural yield immediately after harvest, and a fortieth part of his wealth of goods, or of gold after a lapse of one year if it reaches the quantity of thirty.-eight grams -- and about the same proportion of wealth in animals. The Qur’an specifies that such alms are to be given to the poor, the needy, the collectors of zakat, those whose hearts are to be appeased, slaves, travelers, debtors, and those who are on the path of God. While the source and the recipients of zakat are generally agreed upon, there are variations in the practice of distribution, largely because most Islamic countries do not have official collectors or an official organization for administering almsgiving. Turkey has a ministry of waqfs, as a part of the government; some of the Arab countries have governmental departments which are concerned with the administration of religious endowments; but in most countries almsgiving in goods or money is a voluntary gift either to individuals or to pious foundations. In Arabia they still give animals as alms since they have official collectors, but there is no almsgiving of goods or gold. In Indonesia people pay zakat on agricultural products to the religious men in the Islamic country reaches the proportion imposed by religion.
Pilgrimage remains a very important force making for unity in the Muslim world. Each year Muslims from all over the world, Muslims of every color and race, gather in the Holy Land to fulfill their obligation to make the pilgrimage. After almost fourteen centuries the pilgrimage retains its importance for Islam in spite of the development of new means of communication, for there Muslims from all over the world, religious leaders and common folk, meet and exchange views. Such personal contact is necessary to keep the spirit of universal brotherhood alive. The minor details in practices associated with the pilgrimage are only variations which developed in the different schools of law and are not significant. In modern times the improvement in travel facilities has made it possible for large numbers of people to make the pilgrimage even from distant lands, an important factor in bringing the Muslims of the Far East into closer relations with their brothers of the Turkish and Arab areas of Islam. In recent years the major obstacles to the pilgrimage, other than the ever-present difficulty of being able to afford the expense, have been currency restrictions and the limitations imposed by the governments of the Soviet Union and China. Pilgrimage remains one of the vital pillars of Islam, wisely instituted by the Qur’an and Sunnah as a form of worship which brings Muslims closer to God and to each other.
As we have seen, the practical consequences of the six fundamentals of Islam include both worship, as outlined under the five Pillars of Islam, and dealings, or the responsibilities of Muslims in their everyday life. These practical consequences, the particular requirements of religion, have been codified in the four schools of law which exist amicably side by side in the Muslim world. The Maliki school which was founded during the second century after Muhammad shows preference for the Traditions and practices of Medina where the Prophet lived for thirteen years; it is found today chiefly in North Africa, some parts of Egypt, and in the Sudan. Also in the second century there lived in Baghdad a silk merchant named Abu Hanifah, a rationalist who based his teachings concerning the consequences of religion on the Qur’an and the Traditions. He wrote no book himself, but his disciples spread his liberal teachings and founded the Hanaifi school of jurisprudence which is found in Turkey, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Pakistan, India, and Egypt. Another of Abu Hanifah’s disciples, Muhammad Ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i, founded the Shafi’i school in the third century; he was a great systematic jurist who took an Intermediate position between extreme legalism and traditionalism. The school of Shafi’i interpretation is predominant in South Arabia, South India, Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The fourth school of law was also founded in the third century after the Prophet by Ahmad Hanbal, a resident in Baghdad; he stressed the Traditions and distrusted the use of reason. The Hanbalis arc found in Central Arabia, Syria, and some parts of Africa.
These four schools of law -- covering the four divisions of rites, contracts, matrimonial law, the penal codes -- were worked out so completely by their founders over a thousand years ago that those who came after them found fully adequate systems of law which met all the requirements of their times. A Muslim was free to choose any one of the four systems for his personal guidance, but the prevailing practice was to choose the school of law which was followed in the place of a man’s birth. Thus a man born in Indonesia is usually a follower of Shafi’i law, while a man born in Turkey will be a Hanafite.
The influence of birth was so great that many Muslims later became convinced that one did not need to look back to the original sources of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, for they believed wrongly that no one in these Later days has a capacity for reasoning equal to that of the founders of the schools of law. They became imitators of their predecessors on the basis of a belief that every period since the time of the Prophet has been inferior to the earlier days. While it might be true that those who lived in the time of the Prophet could understand religion better than the people of today who must study Islam by means of documents only, we cannot ignore the considerable change in the social situation and world conditions during the past fourteen centuries. The insistence on imitating the predecessors reflects a loss of self-confidence which was at one time widespread in Islamic communities. The texts of the Qur’an are still and will always be valid, but we should understand them in the light of present knowledge. One of the great tasks facing religious scholars in our time is the re-examination of the jurisprudence of Islam in the light of reason and modern knowledge. Since Islam does not make a distinction between the secular and the religious, and since a large part of the Muslim world has but recently attained political independence and is now playing a significant role in world affairs, this re-examination of Islamic law is all the more urgently needed.
The relation between Islamic law and the law of the government is a pressing issue in modern times. In Turkey the national law is avowedly secular and even the waqf funds are administered by secular authorities. In Egypt, Pakistan, and India the problem of the relation of Islamic and national law is the subject of frequent public discussion, and in Indonesia several political parties have grown up around this issue. Another problem is the relation between Islamic law and the customary law of a country, as has been noted in China and Indonesia in particular. This will inevitably continue to be a problem as Islam spreads throughout the rest of the world.
Sects in Islam
From the beginning, the basic sources of Islam have been the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Muslims have always looked to the Qur’an as their guide and have prayed and fasted and made pilgrimages as the Prophet did. For the details governing their lives, Muslims have relied upon their reason in applying the principles of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and this has been the cause of the different schools of law, the various tendencies, and the sects which are found in Islam.
Followers of the Hanafi school of law tend toward rationalism, such as is found among the Mu’tazilities; the Shafi’i school follows the moderate theology of the Ash’arites; the Malikites are predestinationist; and the Hanbalites tend to be literal in their interpretation of theology. These are theological tendencies, but not sectarian differences.
The two major sects in Islam are the Sunnis and the Shi’as, whose distinctive characteristics have been discussed at length in earlier chapters in this book. Among the Shi’as the three leading sects are the Ithna Ashariya, the Sab’iya, and the Zaidis. The Ithna Ashariya is the major group among the Shi’as, found primarily in Iraq and Iran; they accept the twelve Imams. The Sab’iya, sometimes called the Seveners because they broke away over the claim that Isma’il was the seventh Imam, are also known as the Isma’ilis. They have divided into several sects, of which the best known is the group which follows the Agha Khan, found in Pakistan, India, Iran, Syria, and East Africa. The Zaidis, now found in Yemen, are a small Shi’a sect which has drawn closer to the Sunnis over the years.
The Kharijites, who rebelled against Ali, were originally Shi’a and have been somewhat influenced by Sunni thought. They are found in Oman and Muscat, and in North Africa where they are known as Ibadis.
More than ninety per cent of the Muslims of the world are Sunnis, followers of the Sunnah. The only sects of any importance among the Sunnis are the Wahhabis, the reformist sect of Arabia, and the Qadiani sect of Pakistan which is generally looked upon as somewhat heretical -- although its Lahori branch is not always so regarded. The various tendencies among the Sunnis have often led to differences in point of view, but not to the creation of new sects. The most widely accepted theological position is that of the Ash’arites. The rationalism of the Mu’tazilites at one time almost led to the formation of a recognizable sect, but today the rationalist point of view is only one of several tendencies among the Sunnis. Differences between the firmly orthodox and the modern reformist have not created a sectarian division.
The numerous Sufi orders cannot be classed as separate sects because they are made up of people who consider themselves to be Sunnis or Shi’as as well as Sufis. Sufi orders have been banned by the government of Turkey, but Sufism continues there as a powerful factor in the Islamic life of the country; both intellectuals and common people study the writings of their famous Sufis and continue their personal Sufi disciplines. The Sufi orders continue to be an important factor in Africa, though their influence in Egypt is declining. There is still, however, a strong interest in Sufi writings among the intellectuals in Egypt. The Shi’as have pronounced Sufi tendencies which have influenced the devotional life in Iran and Iraq as well as Pakistan and India. The Sufism of Pakistan and India has sometimes been influenced by the mysticism of Hinduism, leading on occasion to pantheistic tendencies there. In Indonesia, as we have seen, Sufism plays a major role in the devotional life of the Muslims, both as organized orders among the common people and as a study and discipline among the intellectuals. Only in China do we find that Sufism has not been an important factor in the Muslim community.
Sufism has been especially susceptible to the influences of Greek, Iranian, and Indian thought which have sometimes led it to excesses and fanaticism which were contrary to the real spirit of Islam. Some Sufis even denounced the Pillars of Islam and taught that union with God is the aim of Islam, a pantheistic doctrine which is heretical. Other Sufis have followed the teachings of Ghazali, combining the rituals of Islam with deep religious feeling. Such Sufis have made, and are making today, a valuable contribution to the religious life of the Muslim world.
Characteristic Islamic Practices
Muslims are exhorted to follow the straight path of Islam in every detail of their daily lives, guided by the Qur’an, by the example of the life of the Prophet, and by the Hadith. The life of a Muslim should illustrate the teachings and example of the Prophet.
When a Muslim baby is born, it is recommended that some one should whisper the call to prayer in his ear, "God is Most Great. . there is no God other than Allah . . Muhammad is the Messenger of God ... Welcome prayer. . Welcome good fortune. . . God is Most Great When the baby is one week old it is suggested that the parents sacrifice a sheep -- one sheep for a girl and two for a boy -- and distribute the meat among the poor. A baby should be given a good name on the seventh day. It is also recommended that boys should be circumcised, and girls also, for the sake of cleanliness. The parents are urged to teach the children how to pray so that by the age of nine they should know everything about the prayers, including the proper ablutions to be done before prayers.
The ablutions before prayer simply require the washing of the hands up to the wrist, washing the face and the head -- a part of it is sufficient -- and washing the feet up to the ankle. After any pollution or sexual intercourse, a Muslim must take an obligatory bath; in case there is no water, a symbolic action is necessary.
Muslims are required to pray five times a day, with two prostrations in the early morning before sunrise, four a little before midday, four in the afternoon when the shadow of a thing is as tall as the thing itself, three after sunset, and four about one hour later. Each prayer takes not more than five minutes, though it may be lengthened with optional prayers. It is recommended that the prayers be performed collectively, or at least with one companion. In case a person is traveling, two prayers can be performed together and shortened by half. Shi‘as customarily carry a small tablet made of the clay from Karbala which they place on the ground and touch with their forehead as they prostrate themselves in prayer.
All Muslims should attend the Friday midday prayer in the mosque and listen attentively to the address given by an Imam. Women may also go to the mosque, but they must pray behind the men. In practice, women either gather at a separate place in the mosque or do not attend the collective prayers at all. At the two major festivals, the Id al-Fitr at the end of the Ramadan fast and the Id al-Adha -- or Id al-Qurban -- at the end of the pilgrimage, Muslims are urged to perform additional congregational prayers, preferably in the open air, and to listen to the special address by the Imam. Before the prayers at the end of Ramadan they are urged to contribute food to the needy so no one may be hungry that day, and after the pilgrimage prayers they are exhorted to sacrifice a sheep, a cow, or a camel and distribute the meat to the needy.
There is no restriction on association between men and women in the Islamic community, the only reservation in the instructions being that there must be no occasion for misconduct. Thus, a woman must not meet a man alone, nor should a woman travel alone. She must protect her body decently but her face need not be covered. The practice of purdah, of veiling the face in public, which is followed in many Islamic countries, is only an exaggeration of the instructions enjoining modesty which has been deeprooted in Islamic communities by long centuries of ignorance.
When a young man wishes to marry he is allowed to see his prospective wife in order to assure the success of the marriage. The girl is protected by her parents, but they must ask her consent before giving her in marriage. If she is a widow, the consent must be explicit, and if she is a virgin tacit consent by silence is suffiecent. The bridegroom must pay a dowry to the bride, which may be only a token. Two male witnesses are necessary for the marriage contract. A celebration after the marriage is recommended, but it should not be extravagant.
The husband must provide maintenance for the wife and children. Divorce is permitted only as a last resort. In case differences arise between a husband and his wife, relatives of both parties should serve as a committee of arbitration. Since divorce is a serious event "by which the throne of God is shaken," in the words of the Prophet, it must be delayed by two stages before it becomes final, and during that time the wife must receive maintenance. A wife can also ask for a divorce on the grounds of cruel treatment, sexual defect, contagious disease, and like conditions which make the marriage intolerable.
Polygamy is neither forbidden nor required. It may be called a necessary evil. If a man needs a son and his wife does not give birth to a male, for example, he might take a second wife. The question is still a subject of controversy among Muslim jurists, but there is general agreement that more than one wife is not permitted for the purpose of satisfying one’s lust. Mut‘a, a temporary marriage which may be terminated after even one day upon payment of a gift, is permitted among the Shi’as. It was originally permitted by the Prophet, but later the permission was abrogated, according to the Sunnis. The Shi’a still maintain that there was no abrogation, but even those who claim that the permission continues are against the prevalent practice, which does not differ much from prostitution. Adultery is forbidden; if the evidence is sufficient, the prescribed penalty is flogging with eighty lashes or stoning to death if the offender is married.
In case of death a man inherits from his wife or a wife inherits from her husband. The laws of inheritance are given in considerable detail but they follow the general principle that a man inherits twice as much as a woman. This is because the man must bear the responsibility for maintenance of his wife and must provide dowry for the marriage, while a woman who marries will receive both dowry and maintenance.
A dead person must be bathed and given ablution before burial and the community must pray for him. The prayer for a dead person is an obligation of the whole community. If it is neglected, the whole community is sinful, but if one person performs the prayer, the community is considered to have performed its duty. It is recommended that neighbors of the bereaved family should prepare food to be offered to the mourners and their visitors. It is also recommended that relatives should visit the grave from time to time to put flowers on it and to pray for the departed soul. Women, however, are urged not to go to the graveyard to pray for the deceased, since they are too sensitive.
Concerning food, Muslims are permitted to eat anything that is not explicitly forbidden. It is related that the Prophet said, "What God permits in His Book is permitted, and what He forbids is forbidden, and what is not mentioned is in favor, therefore take His favor. God does not forget." According to the Qur’an, Muslims are forbidden to eat a corpse, blood, pork, a pagan sacrifice, suffocated animals, animals killed other than by slaughtering, animals which died from a fall, animals killed by other animals, remnants of food eaten by a beast, food offered as a sacrifice to idols. All fish which live in the sea may be eaten, according to the ninety-sixth verse of the fifth Surah. All animals which live in the water and on land, such as frogs, crocodiles, turtles, and the like, are forbidden as food. Of land animals, it is permitted to eat camels, cows, sheep, horses, and the like. It is forbidden to eat donkeys; beasts with claws such as lions, tigers, wolves, and bears; birds with talons, such as hawks and falcons; animals which the Prophet ordered killed, such as snakes, mice, crows; creatures which the Prophet forbade killing, such as ants and bees; animals judged to be dirty, and animals which live on dirt. In deciding what food can be eaten and what is forbidden Muslim jurisprudence accepts as guides the Qur’an, the Hadith, what the Prophet ordered to be killed and what he forbade killing, and the foods which are abhorrent to human feeling.
The verses of the Qur’an make it clear that all kinds of drinks are permitted except wine. Wine is forbidden because it is intoxicating. On this point the Holy Qur’an is so clear that no other interpretation is possible. Thus, however small the quantity may be, the drinking of wine is absolutely forbidden. By wine is meant the fermented juice of grapes. As to other fermented drinks, there is a difference of opinion among Muslim jurists. Some maintain that juices extracted from fruits other than grapes, such as apples or dates, are permitted. They base their opinion on some Traditions which say that Muhammad sometimes fermented dates for one or two days.
A Muslim is forbidden to steal, and if he steals a certain amount deliberately the punishment prescribed is the cutting off of the hands. A Muslim must not gamble nor participate in lotteries. He must not deceive concerning measures or weights; he must not break a promise or go back on his word. He is forbidden to pay or receive interest when borrowing or lending money, but a debtor may present a token of gratitude to the creditor.
These requirements and prohibitions, mentioned here only in general outline, are representative of the rules found in the Qur’an and Traditions which govern the lives of all Muslims.
To understand the role of Islam in society one must first realize that Islam is a universal religion in which all Muslims are brothers, regardless of differences in homeland, race, color, or rank. This brotherhood does not divide the world into Muslims and non-Muslims, for Muslims must be friendly toward non-Muslims so long as they are friendly, so long as they do not attack Islam. Islam has retained its unity and universal characteristics in the midst of such diverse cultures as those of Arabia, Greece, Rome, and Iran in ancient times, and later in the cultures of Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Central Asia, India, China, and Southeast Asia. Once more the universalism of Islam is being shown as it comes into contact with the new culture of the W/est.
In this interplay between Islam and the various cultures of the world it should be remembered that Islam has no master organization which requires conformity or organizes missionary programs. The interplay is a spontaneous movement on the part of individual Muslims who seek to follow the straight path of Islam. These Muslims recognize no distinction between the religious and the secular; they try to follow in their social life the rules revealed to them in the Qur’an and the Sunnah and interpreted in Islamic law. For Islam, the present world is but a transitory existence to be followed by the Eternal World which is better by far, "And verily the latter portion will be better for thee than the former" (Surah XCIII, 4). This does not mean that we must neglect this world; on the contrary, Islam warns us against neglecting it, for the Qur’an says, "But seek the abode of the Hereafter in that which Allah hath given thee and neglect not thy portion of the world, and be thou kind even as Allah hath been kind to thee, and seek not corruption in the earth; lo! Allah loveth not corrupters" (Surah XXVIII, 77). Islam recognizes the importance of life in the community in this world, but it warns the Muslim against considering this world as the end of existence. Moral and religious values must be seen to be higher than material values.
The importance of social justice is constantly emphasized in Islam through the obligation of zakat and the distribution of gifts at the times of the great festivals. In the older Islamic countries this has been the origin of waqfs for all kinds of service to the community. The teachings concerning zakat stress the principle that the ownership of wealth is a privilege, not a right, and one which imposes obligations to the community. In the Traditions the Prophet exhorts us to give our servants the same food we eat and the same clothes we wear.
In Islam the merit of a person depends upon his deeds, not upon his words, nor his ancestors, nor his rank in the community. The Qur’an says, "there is nothing for the person but what he has done" (Surah LIII, 39) and again, "The highest among you is the most pious" (Surah XLIX, 13). The only recognized difference in rank in Islam is that which is merited by religious devotion and insight. Such recognition is accorded on the basis of deeds, not on the basis of office. Islam has no ordained clergy, no religious hierarchy with authority over their fellow Muslims. The ulama, the Shaikh, Mullah, Imam, Ahund, Mufti, Mujtahid, Hatib -- all are only men like the others in the Muslim community, men who perform special services and are respected and elevated only on the basis of the Quranic principle that the highest is the most pious.
Slavery was customary at the time that Islam was revealed, but Islam prepared the grounds for its elimination. It encourages the emancipation of slaves by giving them the possibility of purchasing their freedom, it urges that part of zakat be given to slaves to help them free themselves, and it offers the possibility of atonement for certain sins, such as having sexual intercourse during fasting days, by releasing slaves.
Women are given equality with men, in principle, for the Qur’an says, "Whoever, male or female, who is a believer, performs good actions, they will enter into Paradise" (Surah IV, 124), and again, "Men have reward for what they do, and women have reward for what they do" (Surah IV, 32). But we cannot deny that in general men are superior to women and consequently men have authority over women. The Qur’an says, "Men have authority over women" (Surah IV, 14).
With the rise of nationalism in the modern world, the relation of nationalism to Islam has become a problem which is frequently discussed. Many people think that since Islam is universal it must be against nationalism, but this is not the case. Universalism can begin with national loyalty, for nationalism is simply the result of the organization of a group of people in one political body, regardless of their differences in religion. Islam does not prohibit such political organizations so long as they do not jeopardize the essentials of Islamic teachings. Nationalism can unite or divide, and when it is guided by the universal principles of Islam it can lead men to unity rather than to divisions. In this regard it should be noted that the demand for the Caliphate, in the political sense, has greatly lessened in modern times. Pan-Islamism in our day is not a movement for one super-government over all Muslims, but for cooperation between Islamic nations.
Jihad, holy war, has sometimes been misunderstood as meaning that Muslims must declare war on non-Muslims until they accept Islam. This mistake arises from a misreading of the Qur’an without knowing the context of the verses and the circumstances in which they were revealed. The verses which call for war against unbelievers were revealed when pagans were still putting obstacles in the way of the activities of Muhammad even after opportunities for reconciliation had been given. War in Islam is only legitimate when it is declared in defense of religion, property, and prestige. The Qur’an says, ‘Fight in the way of God those who wage war on you, and do not commit aggression. God does not like aggressors" (Surah II, 190).
Islam does not approve of hostility toward other religions. Rather, it proclaims freedom of religion and forbids coercion in religion. During his lifetime, Muhammad himself was very kind toward his neighbors and friends of other beliefs, Jews as well as Christians. He even married a Jewish woman, Safijah, and a Christian slave, Marie, who was given him by the ruler of Egypt. When the Emperor of Abyssinia died, Muhammad prayed for him in recognition of his help given to the Muslims who took refuge there in the early days of Islam.
Islamic society has been greatly influenced, and the spread of Islam has been aided, by the educational opportunities offered through the mosques and religious leaders. The Prophet encouraged education by appointing many of his Companions as teachers in Arabia when Islam spread thoughout the country. It was ruled that a poor man could marry a woman with a dowry of teaching her a chapter of the Qur’an. As Islam spread to other lands, centers of study grew up at Baghdad, Kufa, and many other cities of the Muslim world. The system of education was simple, without organized program or ceremony. Any pupil could approach a teacher and stay with him as long as he’ continued to learn; then he might go on to other teachers, or receive a license to be a teacher himself. In the family the parents educated their children. The teachers did not form a special class but were at the same time landowners, merchants, or government officials. This system continues today in most Muslim countries.
In addition, there have been in most countries the madrasas associated with the mosques, and special schools of higher learning. The oldest Islamic university is the Al Azhar in Cairo, founded in the fourth century (tenth century A.D.). Other centers for higher Islamic studies today are found at Fez in Morocco, at Zaitouna University in Tunisia, at Medina, at Istanbul and Ankara in Turkey, at Baghdad and Karbala in Iraq, at Tehran in Iran, at Lahore in Pakistan, at Lucknow and at Alighar and Usmania Universities in India, and at Jogjakarta in Indonesia. In some of these centers the Islamic studies are associated with government-supported universities; there are also government universities in other countries which offer special courses in Islam, as is the case on Taiwan. Instruction in Islam is given in local languages at the lower levels, but for higher studies a good knowledge of Arabic is necessary and mastery of Persian and Turkish is required for any extensive research.
Since art and music flourish in times of peace and prospenty, there was little time for them in the early days of the Prophet. Muhammad, however, approved of the music known in his day. He forbade the art which was prevalent in his time, consisting chiefly of human figures, since it was symbolic of idols and would have spread paganism. Because of that, the literal-minded jurists deduced that Islam opposed art and music, which is not correct. The better deduction would have been that we must be careful of the consequences of any kind of art. Art for art’s sake is unknown in Islam. As long as art is useful as a means of heightening religion and morality, it is permitted; but if it leads to immorality, it is forbidden.
Latest Developments in Islam
When the Mu’tazilite, or rational, movement was suppressed and the political organization of the Muslim world disintegrated, the Muslim people lost their vitality. They neglected the study of the Qur’an and the Traditions which are the original sources of Islam and instead adopted the teachings of the scholars. They thought that ijtihad was forbidden and that they must only imitate the four schools of law. Instead of making use of reason, they accepted the four schools of law as complete and unchanging and turned to mysticism and belief in the supernatural powers of saints, dead and alive. That gave rise to the worship of the graves of saints which is found today in all Islamic countries from North Africa to Indonesia.
The Wahhabi movement in Arabia was a reaction against the worship of saints, but it made use of force rather than arguments, and failed to establish a general reform. After the French occupied Egypt many scholars studied in Europe and a renaissance was started which culminated in the work of the great scholar, Muhammad Abduh, who brought new ideas to the people of Egypt. At about the same time the Muslims of India, led by such men as Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who founded Alighar University, became conscious of their cultural importance and their national existence. Within the past half-century the greater ease of communication and travel has brought the peoples of the Muslim world into closer contact with each other and with the cultures of the rest of the world and made them aware of the need for a new evaluation of the ideas of the jurists and thinkers of the middle ages. This is the period in which much of the Muslim world has attained political independence and the people have been preoccupied with political and international problems.
Today the Muslims of Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, the Levant, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia are vitally concerned with problems associated with the establishment of their new, independent governments. At the same time, the Muslims of Algeria and much of Africa, of the Soviet Union and of China, are struggling with political controls which are not encouraging to Islam and are often inimical. These political problems have been faced at the time when the impact of Western culture in the Muslim world has been most pronounced. More than anything else, Islam today needs a period of peace in order that favorable conditions may develop for the growth of Islamic thought. Since the time of Ibn Khaldun, more than five centuries ago, no great thinker has arisen in the Muslim world. Now more than ever there is a need for a time of peace and intellectual freedom in which devout thinkers can interpret the Qur’an in the light of the progress of human knowledge. The rituals will remain as they are, the fundamentals will remain unchanged, but the understanding of Islam will be illuminated anew for our time.
At the present time, there are four major tendencies in the Islamic world -- orthodoxy, reform, Sufism, and Shi’a. The increase in commumcation and in education is bringing to the followers of each tendency a better understanding of the others. Significant progress is being made in Cairo in encouraging better understanding and reconciliation between Shi’a and Sunni. Orthodoxy is becoming less reactionary and the reformers less intolerant. The Sufi orders are declining in influence at the same time that the devotional and mystical teachings of the Sufi masters are being studied more sympathetically by intellectuals. In Turkey, Egypt, and Indonesia in particular there are many evidences of a new vitality and interest in Islamic thought. Many books are being published, many students are engaged in Islamic studies, new mosques are being built.
Islam spread originally along the trade routes through North Africa, Iran, Central Asia, Indonesia, and China. As Muslim traders settled along those routes they married and established families which often became the nucleus for a new Muslim community. In spite of the diversities of cultures, they maintained the unity of Islam through the centuries. Today, with trade routes easily followed around the world, it is inevitable that the same process will be repeated and Islam will spread to new regions where it has not been known.
In this discussion of the unity and variety of Islam we have seen that divergences from the essential unity of Islam have occurred only when there is ignorance among the common people -- a low level of education. It is the task of the present generation to provide training in the essentials of Islam, to know Islam deeply, for out of that knowledge of the straight path of Islam will come the unity of belief and practice which has been revealed to mankind in the Qur’an and the Sunnah.
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A design evinced
Can one imagine how difficult it was for America's founders to actually make the decision to separate from Great Britain? England was the Motherland. The Crown was the central government. For all of their lives, the government of Great Britain was the only government they had ever known. The history of England was their history. Not only that, these men had never experienced any other system of government. Neither was there history to guide them. A monarchical form of government was all they knew. The "divine right of kings" was inculcated into their hearts and minds via virtually every established institution, including the Church, from the time they were born.
The Magna Carta had paved the highway of philosophy for the acceptance of self-government and individual liberty, but it was hardly practiced. King John signed the charter under extreme duress and then spent the rest of his reign in bloody retaliation against those who had pressed him to accept it. For over five hundred years, the Magna Carta lay as a noble idea but with little practical application. The Enlightenment philosophers wrote and theorized much about the principles contained in the Great Charter, but, again, until America's founding generation came on the scene, nothing much of substance had been achieved. It was America's Founding Fathers and founding generation that took the principles of the Magna Carta and the Enlightenment philosophers and actually used those principles to birth a new nation.
But how did they come to such a decision? Imagine the consternation. Imagine the inner conflicts. Communities were divided. Friends were divided. Families were divided. Brothers were divided. Parents and children and husbands and wives were divided. Yet, make the decision, they did. They pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause. They obtained liberty and independence for their posterity – at great cost.
Granted, the decision to separate from the British Crown was not made overnight. Thomas Jefferson explained the process of reasoning behind the separation in the Declaration of Independence. Hear him:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."
How could Jefferson have been any clearer? He and the rest of America's founders were convinced of "a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism."
Noah Webster's Dictionary Of The English Language (1828) defines "design" as verb: "To project; to form in idea, as a scheme." And as noun: "A scheme or plan in the mind." And, "Purpose; intention; aim; implying a scheme or plan in the mind."
Hence, America's founders were convinced of a scheme, a plan, and an intention in the minds of those within the British Crown to "reduce them under absolute Despotism." Yes, friends, America's founders were convinced there was a CONSPIRACY within the hearts and minds of the British government to enslave them. Hear Jefferson again:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design..."
When abuses and usurpations which pursue invariably the "same Object" continue unabated over a long period of time, this is NOT an act of happenstance; it is by "design." Somewhere along the line, the eyes of America's founders were opened to the conspiracy within the British government to enslave them. Once their eyes were opened to the conspiracy, the rest, as we say, is history.
I submit that what we have in America today are basically two groups of people: those whose eyes are opened to conspiracy, and those who eyes are blind to conspiracy. This is exactly as it was in 1775 and 1776. Christian or unchurched, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, if one is blind to the conspiracy to "reduce [us] under absolute Despotism," one cannot truly comprehend the real danger or the real war.
And, sadly, it appears that most people today do NOT see the CONSPIRACY. All they see is Republican and Democrat; conservative and liberal; right and left; Christian and Muslim; religious and secular; FOX News and CNN, etc. Until Americans awaken to the same "design" that our founders awakened to, they will not be able to obtain a solution to our country's malaise, as they are blind to the real enemy.
Mind you, not everyone in the British government in 1775 had it in mind to enslave the Colonists. Not every British soldier, not every British magistrate, not every British agent had a personal goal to enslave the colonies. They were just following orders; their eyes were blind to the plans and objects of those who were orchestrating the conspiracy. And, of course, those within the colonies who supported the British Crown were, likewise, blind to the conspiracy. Thank God, enough of our forebears were enlightened to the design of the Crown to be willing to cast it off.
I will say it plainly: there is a design (conspiracy) within Washington, D.C., and its allies to reduce us under absolute despotism.
Come on, folks, think: when has it mattered to a tinker's dam which party controlled the White House or Congress? No matter which party is in charge, the central government in D.C. continues to get bigger and bigger and more and more oppressive. Regardless of whether the President is a Democrat or Republican, NOTHING changes in regards to America's foreign policies or our economic policies. Regardless of party, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) dominates our foreign policies and the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) dominates our economic policies. Regardless of party, an American Police State and surveillance society continue to mushroom, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) continue to exert more and more control over the American citizenry, and states and communities continue to fall under the heel of federal overreach.
Both parties in Washington, D.C., are led by warmongering zealots who use war, not only to enrich themselves, but also to carry out their preconceived plans of perpetual war for the purpose of paving the way for international bankers to control the world's economies and for the purpose of subjecting the American citizenry to greater and greater infringements of their liberties.
In this regard, militant Islam is but a tool of the globalists. As long as Americans think that Islam is our enemy, they are blind to who the real enemy is. Our enemy is NOT Islam; our enemy is the cabal of globalists who are manipulating militant Islamists. The same people (the CFR and their fellow travelers) who took one of our strongest allies in the Middle East (Iran) and turned it into one our (supposed) greatest enemies are the same ones who are manipulating all of the wars of the Middle East, as well as bringing Russia and China to the brink of global conflict.
I submit the conspiracy of the British Crown has returned; and what used to be an indefatigable, recalcitrant, and vigilant independent republic (the United States) has become little more than a puppet of the old European monarchy. What the Crown could not accomplish through military force, it has accomplished through international banking.
The Federal Reserve wields absolute control over U.S. economic policy, and yet, no one really knows exactly who all of the members of the FRB even are. One thing is known, many (if not most) of them are NOT even U.S. citizens. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, foreign bankers have been controlling U.S. financial policy for the better part of a century.
In like fashion, the CFR virtually controls U.S. foreign policy. And the goal of the CFR is the reduction of national sovereignty and the rise of global government. Listen to Admiral Chester Ward.
Rear Admiral Chester Ward, who was the Judge Advocate General of the Navy from 1956-1960 and a former member of the CFR, but withdrew from the organization after realizing what they were all about, warned the American people about the dangers of this and similar organizations (such as the Trilateral Commission). He said, "The most powerful clique in these elitist groups have one objective in common – they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the United States. A second clique of international members in the CFR . . . comprises the Wall Street international bankers and their key agents. Primarily, they want the world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in the control of global government."
Admiral Ward also said, "The main purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations is promoting the disarmament of U.S. sovereignty and national independence and submergence into an all-powerful, one world government."
Now, observe that the administrations of both Republican and Democrat presidents are littered with CFR members. Under President George H.W. Bush, CFR members comprised 20% of his cabinet; under President Bill Clinton, CFR members comprised 34% of his cabinet; under President G.W. Bush, CFR members comprised 22% of his cabinet; and under President Barack Obama, CFR members comprise 36% of his cabinet. And these figures do not take into account how many CFR members are scattered throughout the national news media.
Can one imagine how people would react if twenty or thirty percent of a given presidential administration's cabinet members were from, say, the Christian Coalition – or, even the ACLU. If the Christian Coalition had that many members in a presidential administration, people on the left would be screaming bloody murder. And if the ACLU had that many members in a presidential administration, people on the right would be screaming bloody murder. As it is, the CFR DOES have that many members in EVERY presidential administration and no one from the right or the left even says "boo." It's because they (from both left and right) are blind to the conspiracy.
These international conspirators can be found in London, Brussels, Washington, D.C., New York City, Tel Aviv, etc. In terms of U.S. foreign policy, these conspirators completely control the neocon agenda. That doesn't mean that every politician who embraces the neocon foreign policy agenda is him or herself aware of the conspiracy. In the same way, not every federal officer within the DHS is aware of the conspiracy. Not every soldier who is fighting these perpetual wars of aggression is aware of the conspiracy. But as with many in the old British monarchy, they are the pawns of the conspirators.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, et al., were only able to declare and fight for independence and liberty after they understood that they were dealing with "a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism."
Until the American people, including our State legislators, governors, city mayors, councilmen, county sheriffs, district attorneys, congressmen, senators, pastors, educators, journalists, etc., awaken to the conspiracy that seeks to enslave us, we will never have the sagacity and strength of will to properly resist it. This means that many of the current battles in which good people are engaged merely play into the designs of those who seek our enslavement. We can't win the war until we know who the real enemy is.
P.S. On Sunday, April 19 of this year, I delivered the famous sermon of Pastor Jonas Clark that was originally delivered on April 19, 1776, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. Pastor Clark was the pastor of the men who fought that historic battle, which began America's War for Independence. Obviously, this message was delivered just a couple of months before our Declaration of Independence was signed. I preached this message word-for-word. And I tried to deliver it with the same zeal and passion in which it was originally preached.
The vast majority of today's Christians NEVER hear a message that remotely resembles the kind of sermons that the pastors of Colonial America delivered. And since April 19 fell on Sunday this year, I delivered Jonas Clark's powerful message regarding the Battle of Lexington and American liberty so people could listen to the kind of preaching that Christians in Colonial America heard routinely. Pastor Clark entitled his message, "The Fate of Blood-Thirsty Oppressors and God's Tender Care of His Distressed People."
My delivery of this awesome message is on DVD. I offer this DVD to my readers in the hope that many of you will purchase copies of the DVD and let your friends, relatives, fellow Christians, pastor, etc., hear true Colonial American preaching. Again, this is word-for-word the message of Jonas Clark delivered on April 19, 1776, concerning the Battle of Lexington Green and America's fight for liberty.
I have never heard anyone deliver Rev. Clark's famous message. As far as I know, this is the only verbatim recording of this historic message in existence – preached with the same kind of passion and fervor as it was said Pastor Clark delivered it.
To order my delivery of Jonas Clark's message, go here:
Jonas Clark's Famous Message Of April 19, 1776
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My interview with a USS Liberty survivor
Today is the 50th anniversary of the unprovoked attack of the USS Liberty by the State of Israel, which killed 34 American sailors and Marines and wounded 174. To this day, the State of Israel has never been held accountable for this despicable and dastardly attack against the people of the United States. In fact, the U.S. government and news media have covered up this horrific attack for all of these decades. On this, the 50th anniversary of Israel's attack against the USS Liberty, I am doing something I have never done in over 15 years of writing this column: I am using my column to print a recorded interview – my interview with a USS Liberty survivor. His name is Ron Kukal.
Ron was born in 1939. He grew up in Rushville, Nebraska, and now lives in Sheridan, Wyoming. He joined the Navy at the age of 20. He served 8 years in the Navy and had served 7 years when he was assigned to the Liberty. He was a first class petty officer and a communications supervisor on board the Liberty. Here is my interview with Ron Kukal (edited for space):
[Begin interview]
CB: So Ron, why was the USS Liberty where it was in the Mediterranean Sea on June 8, 1967? Why was it there?
RK: We were first assigned to sail up and down the coast of Africa. We all know that the USS Liberty is a spy ship. That's no secret anymore. We were gathering the intelligence that we were supposed to gather. And in the middle of our tour over there, we got a call (I think in the middle of the night) that we were needed to go to the Med. And none of us really knew what it was all about. Although I think the Six-Day War had already been in progress about three days, if I remember correctly. And so we knew we were going there; we just didn't know why.
CB: Obviously, your ship was not designed for combat.
RK: Absolutely not.
CB: And you were not there for the purpose of any aggressive action.
CB: So the ship was pretty much by itself? You didn't have protective ships around you or anything like that?
RK: The only thing we were told [is] that if something would happen to us, the 6th Fleet was only about a half an hour away by jet plane. I believe our captain did request some protection, but it was refused. And they just said, "You keep yourself in international waters, and don't worry about it. Fly the American flag, and don't worry about it." And that's kinda what we were left with.
CB: And that's what the captain did? You were in international waters, and your ship was clearly identified as a United States vessel flying the U.S. flag very clearly, right?
RK: Yes. All morning long we had reconnaissance planes, which were Israeli, flying around us. The flag was definitely up there, and we were well marked: large lettering on the bow and "USS Liberty" on the fantail. Very very clearly marked.
CB: And, of course, Israel is supposedly a U.S. ally, so I assume that the captain and the officers on the ship did not perceive a threat from the State of Israel before the attack.
RK: At breakfast that morning, some of the guys who were working for me had come to me; they were all excited because of the reconnaissance planes that we were experiencing topside. And I told them, "There's really nothing to worry about. If they are Israeli, we're flying the flag, and they're friendly. So don't let it bother you. Let's just go to work, and don't let it occupy your mind." And that's the way almost everybody – I think everybody – felt about the whole thing.
CB: So at what time of day was it when the attack actually began?
RK: The exact time was 14:01. 2:01 in the afternoon.
CB: Ok. And how long had you been in those waters where you were? How long had the ship been there?
RK: Oh let's see. That's really a good question. I think we'd been there a couple or three days anyway. I'm pretty sure that we got there about the third day of the Six-Day War. And I think we were there a day or two before the attack began.
CB: How far out was the ship?
RK: We were out 12 miles – a little over 12 miles.
CB: Ok. Thank you. Where were you on the ship when the attack began?
RK: I was two decks down below the main deck. About right at the water line is about where I was at, in my own compartment and in my own spaces.
CB: Did anybody on the ship have any reason to believe or suspect that they were going to be or might be attacked?
RK: No. We did have a General Quarters drill that day, which, as you know, gets everyone prepared for attacks which we might experience. We had just finished that General Quarters drill. We were just getting back to our own work spaces when the attack occurred. Pretty good time to attack somebody, I guess you might say. They are just all settled down after having a drill like that. So it was a good time, whoever ordered it. A great time. Everybody was pretty relaxed. There were guys on the top deck that were off duty sunbathing. And one of them, I think, was the executive officer, Philip Armstrong. And no, you wouldn't say that anybody was expecting anything.
CB: And the drill you described would have been a routine matter, I would assume.
RK: This was probably a little bit more than routine. We did them routinely, but the captain – his words to us on the intercom, I think, were: "We are in a war zone, and we will do these General Quarters drills as much as possible."
CB: But that would have been precautionary, right? He didn't have any indication or reason to believe that an attack was imminent.
RK: No. None whatsoever. Yes, precautionary is a good way to put it. It's just part of shipboard routine.
CB: So how many officers and crew were on board the USS Liberty when it was attacked?
RK: Well, the total was 294.
CB: How many were killed and wounded?
RK: Well, 34 were killed: 25 down below where I was at and 9 topside. The wounded was, I'd have to guess at that. I think it was 174. The ship itself – we have spoken about this as the most decorated crew for a single action in the United States Navy. And we said that to officials in the Navy, and nobody has argued with it. It's not an official thing, but we said it, and we're going to keep on saying it because it's the truth.
CB: So the men had finished a precautionary drill and had just settled in. They were relaxing. Some of the men were sunbathing on deck. Everybody was pretty much calm and going about their normal routine. You were two decks down. Now, the attack occurred. So start there, and just tell me how you and the other crew – when you first realized that you were under attack, did you realize that it was from the State of Israel? Did you realize it was Israel that was attacking you when the attacks began?
RK: Oh no. No, we didn't know that. The planes that attacked us were unmarked.
CB: So they were unmarked. And what kind of aircraft were attacking you?
RK: They were a French Mirage jet. They were the main ones that did the attacking as far as the strafing of the deck, killing 9 men topside.
CB: So when the attack occurred, it was machine gun fire. Were there bombs dropped?
RK: Well, when the planes attacked, it was limited to machine gun fire, cannon fire, rocket fire, and they tossed some napalm at us too.
CB: And then were the aircraft reinforced with watercraft in the attack?
RK: Yeah, and I can't tell you how far into the attack; I can only make it a guess. But I think it would be a half an hour to forty-five minutes into the attack [that] the torpedo boats showed up. They fired five torpedoes at us and hit us with one.
CB: At what point did you realize that you were being attacked by the State of Israel?
RK: Shortly after the attack, the Israeli Ambassador, or maybe it was the Prime Minister at the time, called on the hotline and told them [Washington] they had made a mistake and attacked the ship. So, it was shortly after the attack that everybody really knew about it, because they took responsibility and said that it was an accident.
CB: But the attack continued after they acknowledged that it was a mistake, I assume. If they went on the air that quickly, and the attack lasted like an hour and a half . . .
RK: I think during that time – somehow a phone call on the hotline – I think it was the very first phone call ever made on the hotline if I remember correctly – it called and the President got word that it was the Israelis that had done it. And the USS America was going to send help for us, and they [the U.S. government] turned those pilots around. I believe LBJ did that personally. I guess once he found out who was doing the attacking [Israel], he turned our help around.
CB: Do you believe that the Israelis fully intended to sink the ship? Do you believe that that was their goal?
RK: I certainly do! Yes. As a matter of fact, one of the Israeli pilots actually radioed back to – I don't know if it was Ashdod or Tel Aviv or where it was – but said that he would not participate in this attack because it was an American ship. And those transcriptions and that voice has been on TV a couple of times where he literally said that he wouldn't attack, and he turned back. They told him to turn around [to pursue the attack], but he flew back to their headquarters. He was jailed for several years, and when he got out of jail he came over to this country. And he actually went straight to former Congressman Pete McCloskey, and told him his story: that he would not attack an American ship.
CB: And what did the congressman do with that story?
RK: Pete McCloskey was one of the very few congressmen or senators that showed up for the dedication of the USS Liberty Memorial [Public] Library in Grafton, Wisconsin. Pete flew all the way from California and stood by us. Heck of a man.
CB: Wow. Okay. So take us through (as much as you can) the sequence of the attack, so that we can have a feel for all they did during this hour and a half. This was 90 minutes of intense, aggressive action by sea and air, with the purpose of sinking an American ship. So kinda take us through the attack process and the different ways in which they attacked the ship.
RK: Well, as I said, being two decks down, it's kinda hard for me to say how many planes there were. I think there were 3 or 4 that circled around and strafed us several times. What happened to me is, at my desk I was just getting ready to sit down, and the first strafing run went by. And, actually, I didn't know what it was. I had no clue what that was that was hitting the deck above me. What I didn't know was that it was killing these guys just above my head about 20 foot, I guess. The strafing was pretty constant. There would be strafing, then there would be a lull for a while, and then the planes would circle around and strafe again and again. I'm guessing it was 30 to 45 minutes of constant strafing. And they did also fire napalm at us, because I am very close friends with one of the guys that was trying to put all of those fires out. So we ended up actually with the machine gun and cannon fire, rocket fire, and napalm until the torpedo boats got there.
CB: Okay. So the torpedo boats showed up; then they launched torpedoes. One of them hit the Liberty, and what else took place? I remember reading somewhere about some of the fellows on the Liberty trying to escape – trying to get a lifeboat or something. Walk me through that. Was there actually fire on the men who were trying to get off the ship? Am I remembering that correctly?
RK: You are. It would be Lieutenant Lloyd Peters that could tell that story about as well as anyone. Because he literally was going to testify at the court of inquiry that they fired on our lifeboats, and they literally did not want any lifeboats out there for anybody. They wanted us all dead. And so they had to get rid of those [lifeboats].
The torpedo hit I'm guessing about 30 feet from me, maybe 40. And then you do know the story. As soon as I got done with my prayers, the audible voice came to me (maybe it wasn't audible – maybe just to me). "Get down, and get down now!" is all I remember of it. And then from that point to the point of me being either pushed – or somehow I ended up on the steel deck with my nose right on the steel – and the torpedo exploded, and the shrapnel was flying through the air. It took a while for the water to get in there. Not very long, but you could hear the shrapnel flying through the air. Killed all the men around me. There was only myself and two or three other guys that escaped from down in that area.
CB: You said 25 men died down in that area?
RK: 25 in that area. That would have been the second deck down, the third deck, and the fourth deck down. That torpedo took – I think the height of that hole was something like 30-some foot. And so it encompassed a lot of decks. And it took all of the security group personnel; that was most of the men that died down there. Well, that was all of the security people – naval security people – that I served with died in that area. The other guys topside were ship's company, I guess you'd call them.
CB: So, after the torpedo hit and you were still alive (you and a couple of others), then what happened?
RK: Well, like I said, I heard the shrapnel flying through the air, and then the whole compartment became an instant swimming pool. I got up off the deck, and I think the water was probably to my shoulders (somewhere through that area) and still rising. And a battle lantern (which all ships have on them that automatically come on when you lose power) was shining over the hatchway to the ladder that led to the deck above. I knew I had to get through that hatch and get to the ladder and get to the deck above to keep from drowning. And there were a lot of guys trying to get up the same ladder, of course. But several of us got up through there, and the only way we got through the hatchway was – they have what they call a scuttle hole in there. It's just big enough for a man to slip through; a small hole in the middle of the hatch. And most of the guys who were up on the top deck (on the main deck) came down to help out. And they were helping pull us through that hole.
I immediately headed towards the main deck. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible just like everybody else. [I was] slipping and sliding in the passageways. What I was slipping and sliding in was mainly water and blood. And when I got topside, Lieutenant George Golden gave me an order to turn around and go back down below and make sure everybody got out. And so I went back down below and hollered down in that dark hole – you could hear the water sloshing around and stuff like that – trying to get some answers from somebody, and nobody answered.
CB: So I would assume by what you said that many of the men and the captain thought the ship was going to sink. Was that a concern of the captain and the crew?
RK: Yes. And that whole night we were in danger of sinking. The following morning when the sun just came over the horizon, the destroyer USS Davis came over the horizon and came up alongside of us and brought some men over. Those men went down below where the torpedo had hit and shored up those bulkheads to keep us from going to the bottom. According to the officers and the commanders, the captain, everybody else, it was never a question of were we going to sink; the question was "when?" So yes, had the USS Davis not come alongside and sent their men over to help us, we probably wouldn't be here today.
CB: And that was at dawn the following morning?
RK: Yeah. The sun was coming over the horizon. I suppose it was 6:30 or 7:00.
CB: But you said that during the attack that U.S. aircraft were launched to come to your assistance from a U.S. aircraft carrier?
RK: USS America, yeah. That's the aircraft carrier. I believe also the USS Saratoga launched some, and they were turned around.
CB: So those planes never arrived at your location to help you. Somebody ordered those planes to go back to the ship and to not come to your assistance?
RK: That's correct. It was either McNamara or Johnson; I'm not sure which one it was.
CB: So either President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara?
RK: That's right.
CB: Do you believe that it was an act of God that the ship stayed afloat?
RK: There's no question in my mind. If you take into consideration the firepower that they had compared to what we had. I don't think that we ever fired a shot that I can remember.
CB: So after everything happened and it was after the fact, what happened from the U.S. government? Do you believe there was a concerted effort by the White House and members of Congress to cover up that attack?
RK: Yes. Matter of fact, if you were to talk with this fellow Phil Turney, he will tell you that he and several other of the Liberty crewmen were called into a room and told that if they ever talked about this, they would be imprisoned and fined a huge amount of money.
CB: They were told that by a Navy officer?
RK: Yes. An admiral.
CB: An admiral. So when you say that there was a cover-up, that must have involved a lot of different people. So you are talking about a chain of command starting from the White House and going all the way down the command structure of the Navy? How far would this go? How far would this cover-up go?
RK: I guess if I could make it short and concise, I could tell you that Captain Ward Boston (who conducted the Board of Inquiry) before he died left his testimony that he was told to make the outcome of that Board that the attack was an accident. He said he had no choice. That's written down in black and white. He was forced.
CB: So the official story from Washington – they finally did acknowledge that it was Israel that launched this attack, but then they claimed it was an accident. Was that the official story?
RK: That was the official story. Captain Boston told me, and he wrote some handwritten letters to me about this stuff. And he literally said that he was forced to make the outcome what the administration wanted – I guess what LBJ wanted.
CB: So the survivors of the Liberty, how have they been treated by the Department of the Navy and the US government since this took place? Has there ever been any due recognition for the men of the Liberty? The men that died and that survived? You mentioned decorations.
RK: Decorations and medals were given to us, such as the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Navy Cross, the Purple Heart, and even the Congressional Medal of Honor – those that had earned them. The cover-up was still well in place. The problem is that, as I understand it, medals like what we have earned are only earned if you are attacked by an enemy state. You don't get them for friendly fire. They come from being attacked by an enemy. That's never ever been straightened out. I've asked about it a lot of times.
CB: That's a very good point.
And given the nature of the cover-up, the media was also obviously complicit in the cover-up. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the American people do not even really know what happened to the USS Liberty, that the vast majority of people have never studied it in school, and that they haven't heard it from the press. So it seems that the cover-up has been far more extensive than we might would like to think. Because unless you know somebody or you happen to hear about it from somebody like yourself in some small ceremony or something of that nature, one wouldn't even know about it. It just seems to me to have been a cover-up that extended all the way from the highest levels of government to the media and so forth. Would you agree with that?
RK: I certainly would.
CB: What is your feeling about the State of Israel now? Do you consider the State of Israel an ally of the United States?
RK: No, I think that they – I'm talking mainly about the leadership in Israel – are Zionists. And from a Biblical standpoint, Pastor, I'll be really truthful on this. I've been involved with the church for many many years. I played the piano for a church several times; I was on worship teams several times. And one of my biggest mistakes at a church right here in my hometown of Sheridan, Wyoming, was I told the story about the Liberty, and I told it truthfully. And I've got to tell you, things got pretty cold there at that church for me.
CB: Amazing. So you perceive that this infatuation that most Christians have with the State of Israel is misplaced? Unfounded?
RK: I certainly do! I really don't believe that physical Israel has a thing to do with Biblical Israel at all.
CB: I totally agree with you, Ron.
Has there ever been any of the crew that you've talked with – survivors of this attack – have you guys ever put your minds together and come up with anything that you could figure why Israel attacked you like they did? Have you come to any hypothesis on that? We know it was not an accident. We know it was deliberate. We know that it was not only deliberate but they intended to sink the ship and kill the entire crew.
RK: And people have said that in very high positions. The [deputy] director of the National Security Agency back then – I think his name was Louis Tordella – he knew it was no accident. I can quote Dean Rusk who said in his book "As I Saw It," "[I] didn't believe the Israelis then, and I don't believe them now." That's in his book. And people in very high places, including Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, said it was no accident. Could not have been.
I believe it was the intent of Israel to sink the Liberty [and] blame it on Cairo, which would draw the U.S. into the war. And a lot of people have thought that's exactly what they were trying to do.
CB: Ron, your story is a testament to God's sovereign power and grace in your life and the lives of all of those crew members that survived. But I think it's also a story that needs to be told in regard to what Israel did. And that there has been not only no accountability for what they did but not even an acknowledgement for what they did. Which says that there is an evil nature in this that transcends politics. This is something far greater than Democrat/Republican or Liberal/Conservative.
RK: Oh absolutely. I think I've said a couple of times in a couple of interviews that I believe on June 8, 1967, we looked Satan in the eye and lived to tell about it.
CB: Yep. I believe that's true. And I think that the cover-up proves the serious nature of the offenders. I equate the story of the USS Liberty to the assassination of President Kennedy. I'm personally convinced that there was a massive cover-up of what really happened in Dallas in 1963. I don't think the American people have ever been told the truth about it, at least not by the mainstream media or by our government. Which means (if that's true in any stretch) you're talking about an evil that is extraordinary.
RK: Oh I believe that implicitly. To the hilt.
CB: Well, anyway, I just really appreciate what you're doing. I know you're going to have a busy week this week. I can imagine you're going to be telling your story. I hope God gives you great audiences and widespread coverage.
RK: My wife and I are going to try to make it up there to Kalispell sometime this summer and sit back and listen to one of your sermons.
CB: Well, we'd love to have you. And we'd certainly be glad to introduce you to not only our audience here in Montana but also the audience that we have nationwide. So you come any time.
RK: I'll do that. Certainly will.
CB: Ron, is there a website or Facebook page people can go to in order to learn more about the attack on the USS Liberty or to participate in helping to spread the word?
RK: Yes. I recommend that people go to this Facebook page:
USS Liberty Facebook Page
CB: Thank you, Ron. I'm sure this interview will help a lot of people.
[End interview]
Ladies and gentleman, can you imagine what the reaction of the U.S. government would have been if the USS Liberty had been attacked by Iraq, Iran, or Syria? Yet the U.S. government not only did NOTHING to protect the officers and crew of the USS Liberty as it was being attacked by the State of Israel but also ordered the American fighter aircraft that were enroute to protect the Liberty to turn around. And then the government LIED about the attack and ordered a massive cover-up of the attack so as to cast no blame on the attacking country: Israel. There is not another country in the world that would be given this kind of favorable partiality by our government. None! Ask yourself, "Why?"
And as you heard Ron say, when Christians are confronted with the horrific evil that the State of Israel perpetrated against a virtually defenseless U.S. Navy ship, they react with utter indifference, unbelief, or even anger that anyone would dare suggest that modern Israel is capable of such an atrocity. The reason is, most Christians have been taught that Rothschild Israel created in 1948 is the rebirth of Biblical Israel. They have been indoctrinated in the egregiously erroneous belief system that the modern State of Israel is the physical home of "God's Chosen People." Christian Zionists such as John Hagee and countless others have told Christians for almost 70 years that in order to have God's blessing, America must "bless" this modern Zionist State of Israel. But NOTHING could be further from the truth.
I have an 8-message, 2-DVD series that sets the record straight regarding the truth about the Biblical teaching regarding Israel – including the modern Zionist State of Israel. The message series is entitled "The Church And Israel." Here are the message titles:
The Presentation and Rejection Of The King
"An High Priest Forever After The Order Of Melchisedec"
Jesus: The Seed Of David, The Seed Of Abraham
Christ's Last Words To Israel
"Not Of Works"
"Is He The God Of The Jews Only?"
"The Children Of Promise"
A Counterfeit Temple; A Counterfeit Israel
I invite readers to order this 8-message, 2-DVD series and share it with your friends and loved ones. Learn how a preacher (me) who believed that modern Israel was Biblical Israel for over 30 years came to see the truth that modern Israel is actually Satan's counterfeit Israel.
Order "The Church And Israel," 8-message, 2-DVD series here:
The Church And Israel Combo
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ACLU and Civil Rights Groups Release Report on Gov. Carcieri’s Civil Rights Record
Posted: August 12, 2003|Category: Civil Rights Discrimination Racial/Ethnic Discrimination Immigration Police Practices
The ACLU of Rhode Island and over 20 civil rights and community organizations joined today in the release of a report sharply critical of Governor Donald Carcieri’s civil rights record in his first six months in office. The 16-page report, “Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs in the Governor’s Office,” focuses on five major issues the Governor has dealt with during his term. The report calls his response to them “cause for considerable alarm,” and says they demonstrate “a pattern of ignoring the people with something to say about discrimination when an issue directly affecting them” arises. The report, prepared by the ACLU and two civil rights organizations, concludes with a series of twenty recommendations for the Governor to implement to address the concerns outlined in the report.
The five issues addressed in the report are: Governor Carcieri’s decision not to appoint Superior Court Judge Rogeriee Thompson to a vacancy on the Rhode Island Supreme Court; his failure to demonstrate any leadership at all on the problem of racial profiling by police; his refusal to veto legislation giving the Town of North Smithfield an unprecedented exemption from the state’s Fair Employment Practices Act; his decision to raid the Narragansett Indian smoke shop ; and his unilateral reversal of DMV policies on the granting of driver’s licenses to immigrants without Social Security Numbers.
Judicial Appointments: Governor Carcieri’s decision not to appoint Superior Court Judge Rogeriee Thompson to a vacancy on the Rhode Island Supreme Court was a lost opportunity of tremendous magnitude and meaning to communities of color, women and all others concerned about a diverse judiciary. Further, the reasons given by the Governor for bypassing her nomination were, to put it mildly, less than compelling.
Racial Profiling: The Governor has failed to demonstrate any leadership at all – indeed, appears to have done or said absolutely nothing whatsoever – on one of the most pressing race issues of our time, the problem of racial profiling by police.
North Smithfield and the Fair Employment Practices Act: Perhaps nothing better demonstrates the Governor’s attitude towards civil rights than his decision not to veto a bill opposed by his own anti-discrimination agency and by fourteen other organizations concerned with civil rights. By approving unprecedented legislation allowing a Town a free ride from discrimination lawsuits, the Governor not only ignored the views of civil rights groups, he actively participated in a “compromise” that supported a town’s ability to discriminate so long as the state wouldn’t have to pay for it.
The Narragansett Indian Smoke Shop Raid: The Governor’s decision to raid the Narragansett Indian smoke shop – and the attendant consequences caught on videotape – has rightly led to widespread national condemnation as well the call for a federal investigation. Unfortunately, it is but the latest example of the Governor acting first, and considering the consequences later, when it comes to interaction involving people of color. The Governor’s further refusal to address questions raised by an internal review of the raid, which he had commissioned from the State Police, only underscores the problems with his involvement in, and response to, this controversial episode.
Immigrants and Drivers’ Licenses: Ignoring three years of collaborative negotiations between the state and groups representing the state’s burgeoning immigrant community, the Governor unilaterally revised DMV policies on the granting of driver’s licenses to people without Social Security Numbers, a decision of enormous consequence to that community. Both the action he took and the way he took it demonstrate, at best, a bland indifference to the needs and lives of people in the immigrant community.
The report emphasizes that it is not just the Governor’s decisions on these issues that have troubled the minority community, but the way he has made them. In addition to providing details about the Governor’s troubling actions on these issues, the report contains 20 recommendations that the Governor is asked to implement “to address the concerns that this report has raised about his record on civil rights.”
The report was prepared by the R.I. Civil Rights Roundtable, the R.I. Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and R.I. Affirmative Action Professionals (RIAAP). Groups joining in support of the report include the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy; International Institute of R.I.; Progreso Latino; DARE; the Cambodian Society of Rhode Island; NAACP, Providence Chapter; and the Rhode Island National Organization for Women.
Category: Civil RightsDiscriminationRacial/Ethnic DiscriminationImmigrationPolice Practices
ACLU Settles Lawsuit Over Smithfield Anti-Medical Marijuana Ordinance July 02, 2019 - Read more >
ACLU Appeals Ruling in Providence Student Housing Case June 14, 2019 - Read more >
Groups Applaud Commissioner of Ed Ruling Barring Schools from Charging for Field Trips April 24, 2019 - Read more >
ACLU and R.I. Legal Services Appeal Decision Undermining Rights of English Language Learners April 11, 2019 - Read more >
Court Denies ACLU Motion Seeking Access to Pawtucket Police Misconduct Records March 18, 2019 - Read more >
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Spotlight careers in fashion; fashion law
14th May 2015 Charlotte Lanning1 Comment on Spotlight careers in fashion; fashion law
What is “fashion law”?
Over the past few years, a lot of people have been talking about “fashion law.” In my view, this term is really just a shorthand way of referring to the legal/business issues that recur in fashion-related matters. In many ways, this comes as no surprise: a “medical device lawyer,” for example, should understand patent law, products liability, administrative law, and the unique characteristics of the industry in question. In the same way, attorneys representing fashion clients should be knowledgeable about trademark law and the right of publicity, design-protection regimes, advertising and labeling law, statutes and regulations related to sourcing and distribution, issues concerning employees versus independent contractors, the corporate structures most commonly used in the industry, etc. (Of course, attorneys tend to cultivate expertise in particular area of the law, especially as their careers progress, but it’s dangerous to lose sight of the broader legal landscape.) It’s also crucial to have a certain level of familiarity with the mechanics of the fashion industry itself. In my view, “fashion law” doesn’t represent a new discovery as much as an emerging understanding that attorneys who regularly handle fashion-related matters should have a certain level of appreciation of, and sensitivity to, these legal and business issues — before the client ever walks into the room.
How did you get to where you are now?
I’ve been a musician for a long time; perhaps unsurprisingly, I gravitated toward courses in copyright while in law school. I found myself especially intrigued by subject matter that did not fit comfortably into the traditional American copyright regime, like fashion design. (I have a couple of articles coming out in the coming months analyzing how the U.S. IP landscape for fashion design came to be.) I was also drawn to trademark law, perhaps because of its focus on symbols and communication. (My college major was linguistics.) Once I was in practice, fashion caught my eye as an industry in which the issues that interested me most arose quite frequently.
Initially, my focus on fashion was primarily on the legal and business aspects of the industry. But I found myself increasingly fascinated by the sociological aspects of fashion — I came to see it as a sort of paradigm for understanding countless aspects of contemporary culture. I educated myself about fashion theory, design history, and visual-culture studies, and have been fortunate to have the opportunity to explore issues at the nexus of the fashion and law through both my academic research and my teaching positions at NYU. I was thrilled to create a course on fashion history and theory for graduate students in NYU’s “Visual Culture: Costume Studies” program. In short, my focus has gradually expanded from “fashion law” to “fashion and law” — that is, I’m now equally interested in the practical and theoretical ways in which these two components of culture speak to each other.
Is an interest in fashion crucial to work in this area?
To be an effective lawyer, you have to understand the mechanics of your client’s industry. This is true of lawyering in general. When it comes to fashion, you don’t have to maintain a comprehensive mental database of who showed what in what season, but you do have to know who the major players are, what the conventional practices and latest trends are, how common business strategies can be facilitated by — or are in tension with — the law, and the ethos of the segment of the industry in which a client is working. It’s much easier (not to mention more fun) to acquire an understanding of these things if you’re interested in fashion. But it’s also important to remember that your clients are coming to you because they need a lawyer, not another designer. I have enormous respect for fashion designers and great appreciation of beautiful design, but my clients care most about whether I know the law — and how it pertains to their situation. I’ve never had a client ask me if I love fashion.
Do you see the sector expanding or do you think it will remain a fairly niche area of practice?
I’ve said this before, but I think the recognition of “fashion law” as a field has less to do with the number of employment opportunities available, or the nature of those employment opportunities, and more to do with client expectations. Now that more attorneys are advertising their experience with the fashion industry, designers expect greater familiarity with the nuances of the industry than they might have in the past. I doubt most designers would have walked into an attorney’s office twenty years ago and referred to a “diffusion line,” “factoring,” or a “pavé setting,” for example, without immediately providing more information. These days, there is a critical mass of attorneys focusing on fashion, so this level of knowledge has arguably evolved from a “plus” to a requirement for attracting and retaining top fashion clients. Knowing the relevant law remains crucial, of course, but that’s not enough anymore.
Tagged Fashion fashion law featured interview law
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January 31, 2018 By Parkaman Magazine Leave a Comment
Alavaro Castillo
Alavaro Rafael Castillo was 18 years old when he murdered his father and planned a massacre at the Orange High School in North Carolina. Castillo had a YouTube channel and a handful of vlog-style videos in which he ranted and yelled about things that annoyed him. He also maintained journals in which he compiled a list of mass murders and school shootings, listing his own name as the final entry.
Castillo was obsessed with the Columbine High School shooting, but was also keenly interested in other mass murders. He also had a history of mental illness, with psychologists saying he suffered from major depressive disorder, as well as schizotypal and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
In his testimony, Castillo admitted to ‘putting his father out of his misery’. In reality, he shot his 65-year-old father seven times in the face and neck while he sat on the lounge.
He then drove the family’s minivan to the Orange High School in North Carolina, where he set off a cherry bomb and opened fire on the students with his semi-automatic rifle. He injured two people before his gun jammed and he was taken into custody.
Castillo was charged with the first-degree murder of his father and multiple assault and weapons offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.
Jared Lee Loughner was a prolific poster of his views on the government and terrorism on his very active YouTube channel and Myspace account under the pen-name Classitup10. He also maintained a previous channel under the username “Starhitshnaz”.
In 2010, the year before his killing spree, he was actively abusing alcohol and drugs, including cannabis, LSD, psychedelic mushrooms and cocaine. People who knew him said his personality and behavior had changed dramatically.
In the early hours of the morning of the shooting, Loughner published a post to his Myspace page, saying “Goodbye friends. Please don’t be mad at me. The literacy rate is below 5%. I haven’t talked to one person who is literate. I want to make it out alive. The longest war in the history of the United States. Goodbye. I’m saddened with the current currency and job employment. I had a bully at school. Thank you.”
On January 8, 2011 Loughner made his way to a Safeway supermarket in La Toscana Village mall in Casas Abodes, where a constituent meeting was being held by US Representative Gabrielle Giffords. He shot Giffords in the head, critically wounding her and leaving her permanently paralyzed on her right side.
He then fired randomly into the crowd, killing 6 people, including a 9-year-old bystander. Thirteen other people were injured by gunfire. One other person was also injured while trying to club the back of Loughner’s head with a folding chair.
After his arrest, Loughner was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial for the mass murders. However, a judge overturned the decision in 2012 and judged him as being competent to stand trial. He pleaded guilty to 19 charges, including murder and attempted murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment, plus 140 years in federal prison.
Anthony Powell was a 28-year-old man who was studying at the Henry Ford Community College. In his spare time, he was an avid poster of pro-creationist videos on YouTube. His most prominent online pen-name was Tony48219 and he was well-known for ranting about atheists, his hatred of black women or his beliefs on evolution. He was also known for using other screen-names that included TheLegendTony48219 and Tony48075.
Over time, his video rants became more fervent, often revealing how unhinged his mental state had become. He is attributed to saying “We have these fuckin Muslims, these atheists, these Jehovah’s Witnesses, these tools of Satan, these troopers of Satan, these monsters, these demons, these subhuman black persons that’s tryin’ to destroy the Christian religion.”
He also developed a dangerous obsession with fellow classmate and YouTuber, 20-year-old Asia McGowan, an aspiring actress and dancer. She was also an overt Christianity critic.
Powell shared one class with McGowan, which had met early in the day on April 10, 2009. It was Good Friday. He shot McGowan dead with a shotgun in an empty classroom in the college they both attended. Sometime later when police arrived on the scene, they reported hearing one further gunshot. Powell’s final shot was the one he fired into his own head.
Trey Eric Sesler
Trey Eric Sesler was just 22 years old when he was arrested for the cold-blooded murder of his father Lawton, mother Ronda and brother Mark. At around 1 a.m. in the early hours of Monday, March 20, 2012, Sesler murdered his family.
The YouTuber used various alter egos online, including Mr. Anime and Mr. Bryko. He was the producer and star of several of his own short films, but he was also a prolific reviewer of Japanese animation. He also often discussed guns and video games. His YouTube channel, Lenscap Productions had more 4,000 subscribers and more than one million video views.
As time went on, his videos and reviews showed hints that his sanity was declining. He developed an obsession with serial killers and the Columbine High School massacre. He then began planning his own massacre at Waller Junior High School. His intention was to kill at least 70 people.
Yet, before carrying out his plan of attack on innocent students at the local school, he chose to first murder his mother, his older brother and his father in the family home. In his testimony, Sesler admitted that he killed his family to spare them from knowing what he planned to do next.
Trey Sesler was arrested for the murder of his parents and his brother while he was at a friend’s home the day following the murders. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and remains incarcerated in the McConnell Unit in Texas Prison.
Elliot Oliver Robertson Rodger was born in London, England, but relocated to Los Angeles, California, when he was still young. Rodger had been visiting therapists and psychiatrists since he was 8 years old, receiving treatment and medication for a range of mental illnesses. Yet, he often refused to take his medication.
He maintained a personal YouTube account and online blog, in which he would frequently lament his extreme loneliness and how he felt rejected by others. He was also bullied at school and felt unable to make any friends.
Rodger planned his deadly attack, uploading a video to his YouTube channel titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution”. The video gave details of his planned attack and the reasons behind his actions. He wanted to exact punishment on women for making him feel rejected, but he also wanted to punish sexually active men for being what he wasn’t.
He also wrote a manifesto, titled “My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger”, which described the life of a lonely boy who had been bullied to the point of developing a hatred of women and a deep contempt for couples.
On May 23, 2014, Rodger used a knife to stab three people to death in his apartment, slashing and stabbing them repeatedly in a violent frenzy. He then headed towards a nearby sorority house near the University of California in his car, shooting people at random along the way. He used his guns to shoot many more people and continued his violent rampage by running people down in his BMW car.
By the end of his killing spree, Rodger had killed 6 people and injured 22 others. He was still in his car when he turned his gun on himself and fired one shot into his head.
Parkaman Magazine
Parkaman Magazine is an online Law & Order and Crime Magazine which features articles and stories about law & order, lawyers, legal guides, (serial) killers, (un)solved murders and crime mysteries and endangered disappearances. Feel free to contact us, if you can help with anything related to this subject.
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Javascript does not appear to be enabled. This view of the Official Report has been optimised to use Javascript. Click here to view a non-javascript version.
Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee 25 November 2015
Convener
*Jim Eadie (Edinburgh Southern) (SNP)
Deputy convener
*Adam Ingram (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP)
*Clare Adamson (Central Scotland) (SNP)
*Alex Johnstone (North East Scotland) (Con)
*Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)
Siobhan McMahon (Central Scotland) (Lab)
David Stewart (Highlands and Islands) (Lab)
*attended
The following also participated:
Professor Jan Bebbington (University of St Andrews)
Teresa Bray (Existing Homes Alliance Scotland)
Dr Sam Gardner (WWF Scotland)
John Lauder (Sustrans)
Sara Thiam (Low-carbon Infrastructure Task Force)
Clerk to the committee
Steve Farrell
The Adam Smith Room (CR5)
Draft Budget 2016-17
The Convener (Jim Eadie):
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 24th meeting in 2015 of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee. I remind everyone to switch off mobile phones, as they affect the broadcasting system. As meeting papers are provided in digital format, tablets may be used during the meeting. Apologies for absence have been received from David Stewart and Siobhan McMahon.
Our only agenda item today is the taking of oral evidence in advance of the publication of the Scottish Government’s draft budget for 2016-17. The committee has agreed to use this year’s budget scrutiny as an opportunity to focus on identifying what further action is necessary within its remit to help to meet the climate change targets. Although we do not expect the draft budget to be published until 16 December, this evidence session will provide an opportunity for witnesses to comment on the outcomes of the current year’s spending and suggest what more might need to be done, both in this financial year and beyond, to meet the targets. The session will also help to inform the questions for the committee’s second and final evidence session, on 6 January, with the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities.
I welcome Professor Jan Bebbington, professor of accounting and sustainable development at the University of St Andrews; Teresa Bray, chief executive of Changeworks, who is representing the Existing Homes Alliance Scotland; Dr Sam Gardner, head of policy at WWF Scotland; John Lauder, a regular attender of the committee who is the national director of Sustrans; and—last but not least—Sara Thiam, director of the Institute of Civil Engineers Scotland, who is representing the low-carbon infrastructure task force. I invite our witnesses to make some short introductory remarks.
Professor Jan Bebbington (University of St Andrews):
I will focus on a carbon accounting methodology that highlights the need to take a whole-system approach in deciding whether something is low carbon. I will not comment on the infrastructure itself—other witnesses on the panel are better qualified than I am to do that. I will draw on a Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council study of the University of St Andrews, where we are putting together a bioheat plant. Partly to proof that investment and understand what we are doing, we have invested in some research alongside that. I will also draw extensively on expertise from the University of Edinburgh’s carbon accounting unit.
My first key observation—I will be happy to talk more about this—is that, if we are going to opt for low-carbon infrastructure, we will need to take a whole-system approach. Rather than a bit-by-bit approach, we have to consider how the whole system morphs and changes together. My second key observation is that, although there is a great deal of uncertainty in that planning process, methodologies are starting to emerge that can help to inform the process and remove the uncertainty.
Teresa Bray (Existing Homes Alliance Scotland):
I welcome the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of the Existing Homes Alliance Scotland. We are pleased that the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee recognises the importance of the energy efficiency of existing homes.
Energy efficiency is key to tackling climate change, but it also has much wider social and economic benefits. The Scottish Government has made a commitment to energy efficiency by making it a national infrastructure priority, and it is important that that is followed through with financial commitments and the ambition to make a real difference in terms of both the reduction of carbon emissions and tackling fuel poverty—the targets for both of which have been missed in recent years.
The Government needs to commit to a national infrastructure priority that has the objective that all homes will reach energy performance certificate level C or higher by 2025. That would be ambitious, but 61 per cent of Scotland’s homes—1.4 million homes—need to be improved. The alliance estimates that £140 million a year for the next 10 years would be required, but it is important that the Scottish Government reaches its own evaluation of the funding that would be required. We recognise that, given the funding constraints, £140 million will not be available in the coming year; therefore, it should be seen as a transitional year leading to years of greater funding.
Not all of the funding would come from Scottish Government grants. Homeowners should be required to make a contribution when they could afford to do so. There would be challenges in spending such large amounts of money in the short term, and delivery plans would need to be developed, as would the supply chain. There is, however, an established delivery programme for the area-based schemes that are already funded by the Scottish Government and the warmer homes Scotland scheme, and we want to ensure that the momentum is continued in order to tackle the issue of poor-quality homes.
For the coming year, we wish the current budget to be maintained, but we recognise that, because the funding from the energy company obligation will fall, extra resources will need to be committed to maintain the level of activity. The Scottish Government is making difficult decisions with regard to the comprehensive spending review. Spending on energy efficiency has so many benefits for climate change, fuel poverty, householder finance, jobs and health that financial support for it must be provided.
Dr Sam Gardner (WWF Scotland):
I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to it.
Every year since the passage of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, WWF has submitted evidence to the Parliament during its scrutiny of the finance budget. Each year we have asked whether the budget is aligned with the requirements of the 2009 act, and each year our assessment has failed to reassure us that the budget fulfils the expectations that were set by that legislation.
If this year is to be any different, the draft budget will need to do a number of things as a minimum. First, it will need to set out in a clear and transparent way the proposed expenditure alongside the policies in the RPP—the report on proposals and policies—in order to give confidence to all stakeholders that the budget fulfils the commitment of the Cabinet to embed climate change in the autumn budget process. That has never happened in the past, which has always meant that committees such as the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee have been frustrated in their efforts to establish the extent to which the budget is aligned with the 2009 act.
Secondly, funding for energy efficiency should reflect the commitment to designate it as a national infrastructure priority. In particular, the draft budget should provide the clear goal of ensuring that all homes reach an energy performance certificate rating of C by 2025. As we approach the 2016 deadline, 1 million homes remain trapped in fuel poverty—that is 39 per cent of Scotland’s households. Since 1990, emissions from the housing sector have fallen by less than 13 per cent, and emissions fluctuate widely from year to year. A sufficiently funded national retrofit programme for Scotland’s homes could generate nearly 10,000 jobs, save households up to £500 a year, save the national health service between £48 million and £80 million per year, and reduce dependence on and the cost of fuel imports.
Thirdly, the draft budget should clearly signal a significant shift in the focus of the capital budget towards low-carbon infrastructure. The infrastructure decisions that we make in the next few years will determine how we live in 2050. The future will be decided in the next decade, and the budget must be consistent with supporting low-carbon technologies and behaviours.
John Lauder (Sustrans):
I thank the committee for inviting Sustrans to come along. I will discuss active travel, which covers walking and cycling. Those are key elements in reducing carbon emissions, particularly in the urban context. In particular, I will look at allowing Scots to choose to not use cars for every trip that they make. The vast majority of car trips remain very short and very repetitive. That has not changed in a number of years, and it is not helping transport to reduce its carbon emissions.
From that point of view, I am pleased to appear before the committee, because there are good, positive signs of growth in certain areas in Scotland and, where leadership is being shown by local authorities and by Transport Scotland, there are some positive signs that more people are beginning to opt to cycle and a good number of people are continuing to walk for everyday short trips. That is very positive, and I will cover that in my evidence.
However, I will conclude that the increased funding for active travel is at a very vulnerable stage. It needs to be kept at the same level and grown over the next few years if we are to realise the Scottish Government’s very good ambitions of growing the number of people who walk and of growing significantly the number of people who cycle for short trips.
Sara Thiam (Low-carbon Infrastructure Task Force):
Thank you for inviting us to share the work of the low-carbon infrastructure task force. The task force brings together key figures from the infrastructure life cycle across the public, private and academic sectors with expertise in construction and finance.
The outputs from the Scotland’s way ahead project, which is led by the task force, include the case for low-carbon infrastructure, a long list of 10 low-carbon project examples that could help to drive the required step change in coming years, and a shortlist of two to three projects.
The research that has been undertaken on behalf of the task force highlights the benefits for Scotland of investing in low-carbon infrastructure. In addition to meeting climate change targets, low-carbon infrastructure has the potential to deliver considerable economic and social benefits. Failure to invest in low-carbon infrastructure will lock us into high emissions and vulnerability to the multiple impacts of climate change, and it will leave a legacy of buildings, roads, transport infrastructure, energy generation and more that will be expensive to adapt in the future.
We believe that the shortlist of low-carbon projects that will emerge from our work is worthy of consideration and inclusion in Scotland’s future infrastructure investment plans. We also believe that the Scottish Government has a unique role to play in directing infrastructure priorities and as an investor.
The case for low-carbon infrastructure that has been commissioned by the task force shows that around half of the current infrastructure investment in Scotland could be described as low carbon. However, international comparators suggest that a significant increase will be required to enable delivery of the ambitious targets that we have.
The Scottish Government’s next spending review provides an opportunity to shift capital spending towards low-carbon projects, and the 2016-17 Scottish budget is a good starting point for that transition. The Scottish Government’s commitment to making the improvement of energy efficiency in buildings a national infrastructure priority has significant potential to deliver social justice and economic benefits.
In summary, we believe that progress has been made on reducing carbon emissions that provides a good foundation on which to build, but a step change in pace and scale is required.
The Convener:
I thank Miss Thiam and the other witnesses for their introductory remarks. I will kick off by asking about the ambitious climate change targets. The Scottish Government has acknowledged that meeting the targets set by the Parliament has been challenging. Do you have any insight into what difference changing the baseline has made to meeting that target? Dr Gardner, do you want to kick off?
Dr Gardner:
I can have a stab at answering that.
It is certainly true that every year the greenhouse gas inventory is revised as a result of improved understanding of where our emissions come from and, as a consequence, our understanding of our emissions and what they were in 1990 is different from what it was when the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 was passed. That makes the emissions reduction that is required to hit those annual targets harder than we envisaged when we first set the targets in the act.
That is not to say that we could not have hit the target last year if we had seen greater policy effort. We missed it only by a small fraction. If we had seen effort in other sectors—particularly transport, as at the moment there is only one policy in the RPP that is targeted at reducing emissions from the transport sector—we could have hit the targets.
To say that we have missed the targets simply as a result of the greenhouse gas inventory revisions is incorrect. Those revisions have certainly had a negative impact on meeting the targets but greater policy effort would have had an impact in counteracting that.
Sticking with that issue for the moment, the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Aileen McLeod, has stated:
“It will take time to produce a credible package of proposals and policies to make up the shortfall from previous annual targets, which totals 17.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent”.—[Official Report, Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, 11 November 2015; c 16.]
Do you agree with that statement or do you see it as being in opposition to what you have just said?
I agree that making up the shortfall will take time; how much time it needs to take is, I think, the area of discussion. We have missed four annual targets and, as I understand it, the section 36 report that is required by the 2009 act to say what steps the Scottish Government will take in order to compensate for those emissions has not been produced. In the first instance, that was captured by the first RPP. The next RPP—the third one—is not likely to be out until the very end of next year and, given how long it will take, may indeed run into 2017. We are waiting for that in order to compensate for emissions reductions that were excessive in 2013.
There is a need for greater urgency in how we address our overshoot on emissions, and the fact that 17.5 million tonnes of excess emissions have been generated means that it will be an increasingly hard challenge to get that under control unless we see concerted policy efforts, which the minister has committed to, saying that the Government will introduce new policies. Our best hope would certainly be that we see those efforts in the immediate future, and this budget is an opportunity to reflect greater emphasis on certain areas such as energy efficiency and transport.
Perhaps the other witnesses could say what concerted policy effort is required to make further progress. Where do you wish the Government to place that effort?
Teresa Bray:
There are certainly opportunities in relation to energy efficiency. We do not require huge technological changes to make that happen; we have existing programmes that could be ramped up relatively easily. The issue is difficult because it covers so many homes, but the measures have already proven to give carbon reductions. Linked to the physical measures, there is a need to support behaviour change so that people take advantage of the improved efficiency.
There is certainly opportunity in the housing sector. Taking those opportunities will make a much greater difference to people’s lives, as well as meeting the climate change targets.
John Lauder:
In the transport sector, good policies are already available, but they are not being put together into a package with enough emphasis and drive. We still have an ambitious programme of road construction. With transport, I do not get the sense that there is a real drive to reduce emissions, particularly from vehicles. Although the policies are there, we are not pushing them as hard as we should be.
The heat sector needs far greater attention. The committee will be familiar with the fact that more than 50 per cent of our energy demand is for heat and about 50 per cent of our emissions come from it, yet currently less than 4 per cent of that heat demand is being met by renewable sources and only 1 per cent is being met through community or district heating networks.
If we are to decarbonise heat, as the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 requires us to do, and make significant progress by 2030, heat will need ever greater concerted action. District heating is an opportunity for the Scottish Government to align its capital budget with investment that will help to create jobs, tackle fuel poverty and drive down emissions. We hope that in future budgets, including the forthcoming one, there is a signal of greater support for district heating in particular.
There is a need to continue the district heating loan fund, which has been very competitive and well used. The Scottish Government also needs to explore how it can underwrite or mitigate the risks that are associated with the oversizing of district heating pipework to allow for networks to be expanded. It is the type of infrastructure where there is a long return but a high up-front cost. Where such developments have taken place across Scandinavia and elsewhere in northern Europe, they have always in the first instance been facilitated by the state in some way, with a return over time.
Sara Thiam:
To add to that, three of the 10 projects on the long list of low-carbon infrastructure projects are around district heating and a fourth is on energy efficiency retrofit. Earlier this week, the 10 projects went through a peer review process. The regulatory, contractual and ownership issues that are coming into play and could be addressed, as well as some of the barriers that could be removed, are becoming increasingly apparent.
Mike MacKenzie (Highlands and Islands) (SNP):
My question is principally for Dr Gardner. I recall—as I am sure you will—that WWF Scotland did an analysis a few months ago that suggested that it would be possible to have all power generation from renewable sources by 2030. You were looking for MSPs to endorse and sign that analysis, which I was keen to do. I had my quill pen sharpened, my bottle of ink and my blotting paper, and my pen was hovering over the paper, but then I thought, “No, I can’t sign this.” I wanted to sign it, but I could not, because the Scottish Government has almost no powers over energy.
I realised that, if only the United Kingdom Government would do the right thing, we could easily do what you suggest. It occurs to me from what you have said this morning that it is a problem that a significant amount of the power that is required to go down the lower-carbon route resides not in this place but in Westminster.
You mentioned the district heating loan fund, but the projects on the ground require complementary funding, so they require energy company obligation funding, green deal funding and funding from the district heating loan fund. You will know that it is sometimes incredibly difficult to get projects to stack up without all the complementary funding from each Government playing its part. To what extent do the UK Government’s actions impede us in taking forward the aims that you have all outlined?
Changes that are made at UK Government level clearly have an impact on energy policy; we saw changes over the summer that have had an impact on the deployment of onshore wind and solar facilities. It would be completely wrong to dismiss those changes as having no consequences for Scotland’s ability to pursue the low-carbon agenda. However, that is not to say that the changes should prevent us from continuing to strive to fulfil that ambition, and I see concerted efforts in various parts of the Scottish Government’s agenda to do that.
It would be wrong to point to the changes that are being made at Westminster and say that, as a consequence, we cannot do all that we could have done to hit the targets. In certain areas, the Scottish Government should continue to make strides to secure the low-carbon agenda. Regulation is one such area.
The Scottish Government has convened a sub-group to work on regulation for district heating, to facilitate the growth of an industry that is struggling to make headway because it is not confident that there will be a market to deploy to and because the consumer does not have the protection that would be required. The Scottish Government could take steps to support investment in district heating.
In the power sector, the Scottish Government has used very well the powers that it has to support low-carbon technologies and it should continue to do that. There is a certain inevitability to the 2030 scenario that WWF commissioned from Garrad Hassan, which suggested that we would have an entirely renewable power sector by then. We are looking for political parties to align themselves with that scenario so that we reap the benefits of aligning our policies strategically with the direction of travel in Scotland. Benefits will be enjoyed from doing that.
We have the opportunity to better align the capital budget to deliver on energy efficiency. Teresa Bray talked about—and the committee will be familiar with—the broad support that there is across civic Scotland for greater efforts on energy efficiency. More than 50 organisations, which ranged from Barnardo’s Scotland to Shelter Scotland and Age Scotland, signed the commitment to ask the Scottish Government to support all homes achieving an EPC rating of C by 2025 and having the funding that is required to get there.
The consequences of UK Government policy changes can be significant, but they do not come at the expense of the Scottish Government being able to do all that it can to fulfil its potential.
A number of measures are certainly more difficult in areas that are not devolved, but the Scottish Government has been good at ensuring that we can access a greater proportion of things such as the energy company obligation. Solid wall insulation has very much been supported by the Scottish Government under the area-based schemes. Under the most recent obligation, which started in April, 27 per cent of the solid wall insulation measures have been installed in Scotland, in comparison with the rest of the UK. There are similar figures for the renewable heat incentive—a greater proportion of the measures that have been installed are in Scotland. That is partly because we have more rural properties, but it is also because of the support that the Scottish Government provides by way of information and advice, whether it is through the resource efficient Scotland programme or through home energy Scotland. How much money we can access from something such as that, which is not under the Scottish Government’s direct control, makes a difference.
The submission from the existing homes alliance Scotland states that
“2016/17 is a transitional year and the budget should be sufficient to allow for current programmes to continue, compensate for cuts in UK programmes, and piloting new programmes on behaviour change and loans.”
You say that there is sufficient budget to
“compensate for cuts in UK programmes”.
Do you have a figure?
One difficulty with ECO is that there are never any figures associated with it. We get from the energy companies only what the number of measures is. We know that, for solid wall insulation, 80 per cent of the two-year allocation has already been committed, so far less ECO funding will be coming through.
Initially, we saw rates of around £90 per tonne for the energy company obligation, but the figure has come down to much closer to £30 per tonne in some areas and even down as low as £15 per tonne. The rate has come down and availability is becoming much more difficult. A number of smaller installers and installers that operate outwith the central belt simply cannot access the energy company obligation at all, and that is having an impact on programmes.
What is the shortfall that you are asking the Scottish Government to make up?
When the programme was initially announced, it was going to be worth £200 million. I think that the Scottish Government has produced funding of £103 million this year, so the figure is coming down. If we look at the £200 million, we are talking about an additional £97 million. The ECO level that is being levered into Scotland is probably around half the maximum of £90 million—around £50 million—and I expect that to fall even further in the coming year.
What would the total figure be?
The total figure to maintain the level of overall spending that was set is approximately £200 million.
Right, but what about the shortfall that the Scottish Government has to make up?
The shortfall as a result of ECO is around £70 million.
That is helpful.
From what we have heard so far, and if I have understood our witnesses correctly, I think that they believe that spending needs to be realigned from current priorities to investments that will have the biggest impact on reducing our climate change emissions. I will ask Mr Lauder about active travel. In its submission, Sustrans said that it believes that the Government should commit 10 per cent of the transport budget to active travel. That is a significant increase on what the Government currently allocates, notwithstanding the fact that there is a record level of investment in active travel.
Do Sustrans and other cycling organisations have a responsibility to say where that investment should come from? Can transport projects to which the Government is committed be postponed or have their level of investment reduced in order to release the funding that you would like to see?
The call for 10 per cent of the transport budget is a long-standing one that came from the Association of Directors of Public Health. The model in Scotland has been set by the City of Edinburgh Council, which has gradually increased its budget year on year so that 8 per cent of its transport budget is spent on cycling. As a result, 12 per cent of trips to work in its area are now by bicycle, which is four times the national average.
We are talking about a gradual process within Transport Scotland, and I do not necessarily see that projects need to be postponed. Leadership from Transport Scotland is needed to achieve the figure. The obvious budget to address is the trunk road budget. Spend on that could be switched to active travel, which is a new element that Transport Scotland needs to do more about. Currently, 2 per cent of Transport Scotland’s budget goes on active travel, as has been said, and around three staff in Transport Scotland look after walking and cycling. In a sense, that 2 per cent spend achieves quite a reasonable return on the investment when we consider the health and other benefits that come from more people opting to walk and cycle.
By putting together a gradual budget and gradual growth, we will begin to change how we see transport. We have seen walking and cycling as nice things to do on a summer’s day, whereas other small northern European countries see them as a legitimate part of the transport orthodoxy. That is where walking and cycling need to move to.
With that level of leadership, local authorities will react and follow; indeed, they are already doing that. Local authorities already outbid the funds that Transport Scotland gives Sustrans to manage. The proposal is not necessarily about cancelling entire schemes; it is about realigning budgets.
How would the money be found in the trunk road budget? That is where you have identified that savings could be made.
Alex Johnstone (North East Scotland) (Con):
Is John Lauder talking about capital or revenue funding?
Will you say a bit more about where you would find the money in the trunk road budget? You said that existing projects would not need to be postponed or cancelled, so how could funding from the trunk road budget be released to bring about the reallocation of funds to active travel?
I do not have the access to the Transport Scotland budget or the people who set it that would enable me to have that conversation but, like anyone else, I would look at where savings and reallocations could be made to gradually increase the money.
My answer to Mr Johnstone’s question is that I would look at the capital infrastructure spend.
Clare Adamson (Central Scotland) (SNP):
Good morning. To turn things a wee bit on their head, I ask the panel members whether they consider that any planned infrastructure expenditure is likely to increase rather than reduce carbon emissions.
I will have a stab at answering that. The carbon assessment of the strategic transport projects review, which the Scottish Government publishes annually, shows that the collective impact of the projects will be an increase in emissions. That applies to projects across the board from the Borders railway—that is looking to the past—to the A9 dualling, the Aberdeen western peripheral route and the improvements to the rail network between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Taken in the round, all those things will result in a collective increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Clare Adamson:
Does anyone else have a comment?
I do not know that I could add to that.
I have been round the Haudagain roundabout in Aberdeen many times and I have been stuck in traffic there. Is the peripheral route expected to reduce some of the other problems, or has that been balanced out in the calculations that the Government has done?
All the evidence throughout the world is that, where more roads are built, there will be more emissions and more transport. We in Scotland have not necessarily tackled much the fact that, as we have mentioned many times at the committee, the vast bulk of car trips are short journeys. The average distance is 3km, and that applies across Scotland—even in the most remote and rural areas, the bulk of the trips that are made are short and repeated.
The issue is not so much the movement of goods and services on the trunk road network as how we can give people better options so that they do not have to use their cars, notwithstanding that a third of Scots have no access to a car. How can we give people better information and much better facilities for cycling and walking, which will reduce emissions?
Do we have an analysis of the trips that are log jamming the Haudagain roundabout in the morning? Do we know how many of those people are making short journeys? I am not criticising them. It is their right to make those journeys, but do we have an analysis of the extent to which the roundabout is being log jammed by people making short trips that could be made by cycle or public transport? Are people making journeys by car because that is the best option that they have?
We should consider the role that the report on proposals and policies indicates that the transport sector has to play. The figures in that report show that an increase of almost 300 per cent in the annual emissions reductions from the transport sector will be required between 2014 and 2017, so something has to change. There has to be a signal through either infrastructure—which will bring a return later—or policy and investment to support greater active travel. A 300 per cent increase in emissions reductions from the transport sector is required by the action plan that the Government has set, but there is just one policy for the transport sector in the RPP.
We have heard comments on the use of renewable energy and the challenges in that sector. The Scottish Government announced in July that the local energy challenge fund would support 23 projects across Scotland, which would share £500,000 between them. The fund is for demonstrator projects that are designed to encourage the use and local ownership of renewable energy facilities. Do you have any comments on how that might inform decision making?
The local energy challenge fund is looking to solve problems, whether they are to do with the intermittency of renewables or the need for grid connections—particularly in remote areas, where there is extra capacity. A lot of innovative approaches are being adopted to demand reduction and energy storage, producing a systems approach.
Scotland is taking the lead because we do not have the controls over other levers. In the future, the challenge projects will be important. Only a small number of them will go through to completion because there are issues about the scale of funding and timescales. Because we are adopting new technologies and approaches, some projects will fail. However, being prepared to take the risk to invest in projects that might fail is important, because otherwise we will not make a step change in delivery.
The approach is about producing innovation, which often leads to innovation on the community scale, because we cannot control things on the national scale. That might be the solution for energy systems in the long term; whether we are talking about energy security or local ownership of energy, that would make a big difference.
The projects are in their infancy and none of them has gone through to completion. However, they add a valuable tool to the toolkit in starting to ensure that renewables can provide the 100 per cent delivery in the future that we have talked about, as that is not possible on its own.
If no one else wants to come in, that is fine.
Mike MacKenzie has a supplementary question.
Mike MacKenzie:
Last weekend, I was in Orkney, where there are now quite a number of electric cars, as there are on the island of Mull. I have read that over 30 per cent of cars in Norway are now electric. What opportunity to decarbonise transport is there through the use of electric vehicles? We should bear it in mind that the uptake of even the most successful new technologies does not tend to be linear; it tends to be a hyperbolic curve. It seems to me that we could be on the cusp of larger-scale electrification of vehicles. I live in and represent a very rural area, so I can assure you that it is just not credible for me to walk to work; and no matter how fit I get, I am never going to be able to cycle to work. Are electric vehicles an opportunity? Do you welcome what the Scottish Government is trying to do to promote their use?
I would be much happier with the Scottish Government emphasising electric vehicles for last-mile delivery of goods and services, particularly given the growth in carbon emissions from light goods vehicles. That curve goes up at a dramatic angle, which I am sure is the result of internet shopping and that type of thing, which is fine. I would be keen to see how we can get commercial vehicles electrified, so that we can move from diesel-powered engines for light goods vehicles to electric ones.
I take your point about the rural context for electric cars, but the Scottish transport statistics are very clear that the vast majority of car trips, even in rural local authority areas, are short ones. My concern about electric cars in our towns in rural areas is that we will simply move the fuel source and the roads will remain congested, and we will not be giving people the option to get out and walk or cycle, which improves their health. In a rural town or urban context, I am much more cautious about electric cars, but I am enthusiastic about electric goods vehicles, which I would like to see the Government do much more on.
We very much support the Scottish Government’s action plan for electric vehicles. All the work that we have done and any other work that I have read about that tries to paint a picture of what the world will look like in 2050 has a large role for electric vehicles in it.
One of the key findings of a piece of work that we commissioned from Element Energy was that the number of electric vehicles that we need in order to fulfil our climate change requirements will depend on the extent to which we have complemented those with wider sustainable transport measures. We would need 350,000 electric vehicles by 2030 in Scotland if we stabilised traffic levels at 2010 levels—I hope that I have got that right. Basically, if we stabilise our traffic growth, we will need considerably fewer electric vehicles; otherwise, 1.5 million electric vehicles will be needed to achieve the same emissions reduction. If the Scottish Government sees a role for itself in supporting the deployment of new technology and wants to ensure that that investment delivers the best return, it must be matched by complementary measures in the wider transport system to reduce demand.
Norway, which you mentioned, is a great example of a country with very rapid uptake in electric vehicles, partly because of the tax incentives that the Norwegians have been able to introduce, which are not available to the Scottish Government, and partly because of the exemptions from congestion charging that are afforded to such vehicles. Major Norwegian cities make it very attractive to drive your electric vehicle in. Of course, that will rub up against congestion issues, but the Norwegians also happen to have better infrastructure for active travel—cycling, walking and so on. Electric vehicles can be part of an urban transport system, but we need a holistic approach if we are going to support them in the right way.
One very sensible area of investment at the moment can be seen around Edinburgh, with the introduction of City of Edinburgh Council electric vans and fleet cars, and I believe that Dundee is doing some interesting work on using electric vehicles as taxis. There are areas where one can target impact and do an awful lot to mitigate the emissions that are associated with those types of vehicle use and those transport journeys.
Adam Ingram is next. [Interruption.] My apologies—it is Alex Johnstone.
Alex Johnstone:
Have we got that far already?
I want to look at the quality of information that we are being given and our ability to evaluate expenditure on infrastructure effectively. First of all, do you believe that we are being given the right information to evaluate the effectiveness of policies?
I will take a first stab at that.
I think that sometimes we get the right information but at the wrong time. For instance, when the budget is published, we typically get level 4 figures, which are useful if you are interested in understanding the extent to which the budget matches the requirements of the report on proposals and policies. However, they typically come out anything up to four weeks after the publication of the draft budget and quite often after the committees have taken evidence and finished their scrutiny. That is a real issue but, although it has been repeatedly raised by us and other witnesses and picked up by various committees such as this one and the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, we are still seeing a delay between the publication of the budget and the publication of the figures that relate specifically to the RPP.
A bigger challenge with the climate change action plan—the RPP—lies in understanding the effectiveness of its policies. It attributes emission savings to different policy lines but, as far as I am aware, we do not have a very rich and accurate monitoring system that lets us know whether the RPP’s assumptions are being borne out. Organisations such as WWF Scotland will continue to advocate support for what the RPP says, but as far as many of these policy areas are concerned, we are now at a stage of delivery where we need a more reflective understanding of what is being effective, what is hitting barriers and where the challenges are in order to understand just how effective the RPP assumptions are.
Professor Bebbington:
I want to comment on carbon accounting in particular. In the very early days, the carbon accounts that were created for, say, the strategic transport assessment were quite simple, but at the time they were state of the art. The key issue with some of the information is partly timing, as Dr Gardner has said, and partly innovation and the need to pick up and apply new methodologies and techniques for working out what is happening as a result of various decisions. I guess that one of the messages that I want to give you today is that there are tools and techniques that at the moment are innovative and are being tried by only a few people but which, as they become more refined, will provide an opportunity to do some quite sophisticated accounting and, in particular, to start matching up the different activities and see what the carbon account, taken as a whole, looks like.
With that in mind, I should say that, when our institution tried to understand whether a bio heat plant was the best thing for a low-carbon piece of infrastructure, we found it much more complicated than we had ever imagined. That has not stopped our work, because we still believe that it is the right thing for us as an institution to do, but it has led us to be much more nuanced about how we influence the broader system and make it the right decision for the whole carbon system for Scotland and beyond.
This brings me back to Mr MacKenzie’s point about electric vehicles. If you have the infrastructure to put something sound such as electric cars in place, the evaluation will change as indeed the electric cars in that example changed and as our ability to account for them changes. Those two things need to move alongside each other.
Are the carbon accounting methods that are being used by the Scottish Government to evaluate its policies as up to date and cutting edge as they could be or as they need to be in order to assess policy effectively?
No, they are not yet, but I guess that that is another reason to give evidence. They are probably as up to date as they can be, given the understanding of how to do carbon accounting that there was four or five years ago, but there is an opportunity for the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government to leap forward and get to the cutting edge of it, which is emerging slowly but surely.
Another problem with the carbon accounts within the Scottish system is that there are many different ones, each of which does different things. It is quite important to have more clarity about what the carbon accounts do. I will illustrate that with a clear example from the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. There is a requirement to reduce production carbon—the carbon that is emitted in this country—while, at the same time, the act requires a consumption carbon figure to be produced each year. Although the production carbon figure is drawing back, the consumption carbon figure is increasing, and the control that Scotland might have over those two modes, if you like, is different. Having the conversation about how the different accounts look when and they reflect on each other is by far the most important thing, because that is where the learning comes from.
What are the limitations of the current carbon accounting methods that are being used by the Scottish Government? As well as limitations, are there any areas in which inaccuracies are creeping in that we should be aware of?
There are three areas where there might be limitations that could be addressed. The first of those, which has been spoken about already, is the extent to which the infrastructure plans and the RPP are not fully integrated. If those policy aspects could be better fitted together, the carbon accounts that are associated with them could also be better fitted together. Our contribution as accountants is in putting information behind better-quality decisions and joined-up consideration of transport, heating and all the other elements.
The second limitation is that, particularly in previous sessions, the carbon account of the budget has been produced but does not seem to have informed any decisions. The accounting decision nexus is often missing, and I would say that that is a limitation. That is not the case for all forms of carbon accounting, though, as the production accounts and what we might need to do under section 36 of the 2009 act are joined up to decisions, even if the timing might be delayed.
The third limitation is in the understanding of what the carbon accounting might be telling us. We all share that limitation—
We can all interpret the figures.
Exactly. That is where a partnership approach is necessary between the folk who are very good in that field and the people who are making the decisions on the ground. It is like most new forms of accounting—we have some idea of how they operate, but we cannot truly know until we test them in real decision-making contexts. Accounting information is a sort of technology, and the innovation relies on people experimenting with it.
The three limitations are the underlying joined-upness, the joined-upness of the carbon account and the decisions and the joined-upness of ideas about how to do this well and the practice of doing it.
Notwithstanding what I said a moment ago about interpretation, are there any elements of the accounting process that are now producing—or are in danger of producing in future—errors or inaccuracies in the figures that we interpret?
Some of the carbon accounting is pretty tight and clear. Those are the national level accounts to which the 2009 act ties us and that the RPP looks at. The areas where there is a range of estimates—you will see, from the paperwork that I have presented, that there are huge ranges of estimates—are more the “what if?” questions. For example, “If we did this, what might be the broader effect and what might be the dimensions of that broader effect?” The error bars are enormous. It is not so much the singular figure that is important; probably the most valuable thing is knowing that it is highly uncertain.
Again, the levels of accuracy, usefulness and reliability of different forms of carbon accounting are different, too. Some of them are extremely tight and robust. Others—particularly the “what if?” questions—are much looser. In that regard, knowing how big your ranges are is probably more important than knowing the actual numbers at each end.
So these types of figures or interpretations would be more useful to us on a one, two, three or five-year scale than on a 2050 scale.
For example, yes. However—this is where the issue relates to what others have said about infrastructure—even my university’s glimpse of how negative our positive choice to go for biomass might be, in terms of the broader system, alerts us to the need to say something about land-use policy and forestry policy as a way of supporting a micro-level good choice to be a bigger good choice, too. It is not purely a three-to-five-year scale; quite long-term views can be informed by that, as well.
On the micro level, it is important that we evaluate Scottish Government programmes as they are under way. For example, the energy efficiency programme will repeat the installation measures in 1.6 million homes and there must be lessons that we can learn during that process about ways in which we can do things smarter through, for example, off-site construction. We are probably not doing enough to evaluate the effectiveness of our programmes to ensure that we are getting the benefits of the measures, are minimising the rebound effect and are ensuring that people are using their heating systems efficiently. Some 32 local authorities are delivering area-based schemes. How much are we doing to co-ordinate shared learning from that so that we can get the best from it?
Scotland also has different housing from the rest of the UK. A lot of the overall approaches to energy efficiency are based on the UK level, rather than taking into account the amount of traditional build that we have in Scotland, the number of tenements and the much more exposed locations. There is a need for research and development to ensure that we have the best approaches to improving our housing and can feed our practical experience into theoretical models to ensure that we make the best use of the large amounts of funding that are required to improve energy efficiency.
We mentioned Norway earlier. Professor Bebbington, given that we have already changed the methodology for carbon accounting in Scotland, are any other countries ahead of us in this area? How do we compare ourselves internationally if there are different levels of accounting across Europe and the world?
I do not have a full view of all the carbon accounting that is going on, but the views that I have into individual countries suggest that they are tending to do carbon accounting in association with the things that they do either well or badly. The other place that I follow with a bit of depth of knowledge is New Zealand. Its carbon accounting for animal and agriculture-produced CO2 is sophisticated, for obvious reasons—it has lots of ruminants and 50 per cent of its carbon impact is agriculture based.
In the areas in which Scotland is best in the world, it is because of the early innovation with the 2009 act, because of the RPP and because the joined-upness and size of the country means that a great potential lies in the integrating of accounts—that is not fully realised, but that is where the excellence is.
There is nowhere that is doing the whole thing better than here, but there are parts of the world that are dealing with their problematic carbon better—the nitrogen, carbon, land and water flux, for example, is modelled superbly in New Zealand, on an agriculture model basis, but that is because that is that country’s problem, which is quite different from ours.
Adam Ingram (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP):
Can the witnesses define the intrinsic social, environmental and economic benefits of low-carbon infrastructure? Are those benefits taken account of in the current budgetary system? Should they be?
Who wants to go first?
I will have a first stab. There is partial recognition of the broader benefits in the capital investment infrastructure decisions that the Scottish Government makes. The benefits of low-carbon infrastructure are acknowledged, but that is not necessarily borne out in the decision making. We see language that reflects the value of low-carbon infrastructure, but as Sara Thiam alluded to, only 50 per cent of our capital investment is aligned with low-carbon infrastructure.
The Green Alliance task force looked at the public sector’s roles in catalysing investment in low-carbon infrastructure and at its benefits. It identified particular attributes of the public sector’s contribution to that type of infrastructure through, for instance, supporting enabling infrastructures. One example would be district heating networks to connect isolated district heating communities so that we get greater benefits of scale. The public sector also needs to support emerging infrastructure, such as energy storage—there is a need to support that market and reduce the risk.
Teresa Bray provided an example of how the Scottish Government’s energy challenge fund is supporting innovative low-carbon activities, which is another role. In addition, there is evidence that public sector investment can lever in significant private sector investment to the energy efficiency sector. Another role is addressing market failures, which is what the issue is all about. The climate change problem is the biggest market failure. The public sector needs to correct that, either through investment or regulation.
Those are the particular roles that the public sector has to play in instigating or supporting greater deployment of low-carbon infrastructure. Others might want to speak to the wider benefits that that will bring.
I am happy to have a stab at the transport benefits of emphasising greater low carbon. We talked about electric vehicles. We have a major bus manufacturer in Scotland and switching to more electric buses would have a benefit for that manufacturer straight away. In addition, if we see fewer short trips being made by car in an urban context, as we see in northern European cities, air quality will improve. At the moment we have an issue with air quality in our towns and cities, which has health implications and means that local authorities face fines from Europe.
All the evidence from towns and cities in northern Europe that have emphasised greater movement by low-carbon methods such as walking or cycling, or buses or trams in public transport, shows that people enjoy living in those cities more, spend more time shopping in them and spend more time on recreation in them. Those towns and cities are more prosperous—there are lots of good examples of that. I would see those as associated benefits of emphasising a greater level of low-carbon transport.
Adam Ingram:
We heard mention of the strategic transport projects review, which is conducted on an on-going basis. When we think of which projects we should be prioritising, should low-carbon infrastructure projects score higher or lower? In my constituency there is a project to bypass Maybole, for which people have been campaigning for about 50 years on the grounds of road safety, congestion and economics. That is not a low-carbon infrastructure project, but I would score it very highly. Why should a low-carbon infrastructure project be scored higher than that one?
Why should a low-carbon—Ah, I see; you are asking why something else should be funded rather than the bypass.
Yes. Well—I would rather that that did not happen.
I understand. On the scoring, my understanding is that time savings are a big driver for assessment in the Scottish transport appraisal guidance. I do not think that it takes everything in the round.
Everything has to be seen in the context of where a transport project is and the effect that it has. There is not one rule that will fix it all. I do not want to deny you your bypass—there might be lots of benefits. As you say, there will be health and other benefits to Maybole, as well as time-saving benefits in terms of goods vehicles getting through. However, low-carbon capital infrastructure investment does not score very highly at the moment, so it does not really feature in the strategic transport projects review.
I would like to make an observation that supports Ms Bray’s point about behaviour change in households. It relates to research that we are trying to track at the institution where I work. We are trying to reduce our energy bills in-house, which will have an economic benefit. Given that we are working on a variable but fairly fixed income, we will be able to spend more money on our core purpose as opposed to on electricity. There is an economic benefit for us as an institution as we invest in low-carbon infrastructure. It takes a lot of investment but it will pay back.
We are identifying further spillover effects through a series of other research projects, one of which is how the people who work for us view their energy-saving behaviours at home and at work. That follows very much an “I will if you will” ethos; if we, as an institution, are seen to be trying to reduce our carbon footprint, staff feel much more motivated to be part of the behaviour change that is required of people working for us—behaviour change that will support our efforts. If behaviour change is being ignored at work, many of our staff are not motivated to change their behaviour in their home life. The fact that we are trying as an organisation to innovate in low-carbon infrastructure is really enthusing staff. They see themselves as part of bigger efforts to address the issues at work and at home.
We are also using ourselves as a case study for a lot of our teaching with our students. This is where different forms of carbon become quite important. We have a large international cohort of students and the footprint that is caused by their coming and going from us for their education is quite large—we have a sense of what that is. Even though it is their footprint, our behaviour induces it. Indeed, the wish for a world-class education system will induce transport carbon. However, at the same time we think that there is something to be said for bringing students, particularly from countries that may be not so advanced in thinking about climate change, to a country that is innovating in a series of ways. For us, a big spillover effect of our own innovation, but also the innovation in Scotland, is the ability to teach and communicate and send that back with the students.
For example, our Russian students are always amazed by recycling—they have never seen it before. We may occasionally beat ourselves up for being not very good at most things, but we are really good at lots of things. Likewise, there is the whole idea of starting to build low-carbon infrastructure. There are charging points for electric vehicles outside various parts of the university. The spillover effects of being an exemplar and seeking to articulate what we are doing as a nation or as an organisation are important in knowledge terms.
The energy efficiency programme is very different from any other capital programme. You are looking at carrying out works to the 60 per cent of the housing stock in Scotland that is below the required standard. That is affecting millions of people. It is not an issue that affects them when they occasionally drive down the A9 or whatever. Every day of their lives they will benefit from the improvement in the energy efficiency of their homes.
That leads to a number of things. The programme is Scotland-wide, so we are looking at jobs across Scotland. We are looking at long-term jobs, too. There are not enough people with the skills to do those jobs, so there will have to be a big training up of people to do those jobs and ensure that they remain in Scotland. If we have a long-term programme, people will see that as something to invest in for the future.
There are also health benefits. A number of people are underheating their homes, which results in respiratory issues, particularly among the elderly population and young children. Improving that situation has direct benefits for the health service. People also make savings on what they spend on energy, which allows them to invest in other things in the local economy.
The programme is labour intensive in comparison with high-tech approaches, which means that the money stays in Scotland. It is very different because it is widespread. It does not involve spending very much on any individual home; at the scale that we propose, the individual amounts are not large.
Are those other effects taken into account when budgetary decisions are made?
I do not have detailed knowledge of how such matters are taken into account, but I think that they are unlikely to be considered, because such a programme is so different from any of the other big infrastructure programmes. Evaluating the benefits of building a new Forth road bridge is much easier than evaluating the benefits of doing huge works across all our housing stock.
That begs the question whether all those factors should be taken into account when we make capital investment decisions.
They should be—absolutely.
How do we gather the information and put it into the system?
Explicit recognition is needed of the longer-term benefits and costs that are associated with decision making about our infrastructure, and a greater effort needs to be made to account for the preventative spend consequences of infrastructure decisions that we make. A big thrust of the low-carbon infrastructure task force’s work is to highlight that we will be living in 2050 with the decisions that we make now. If we make the wrong decisions now and lock ourselves into high-carbon infrastructure that contradicts the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, we will have to spend considerably more money on retrofitting to fix the situation. The longer-term perspective needs to be brought to bear on infrastructure decisions.
I do not know whether I am right in observing that the policy decisions in the RPP are often considered in the context of the 2009 act, but the capital budget does not make the same explicit acknowledgement, and the infrastructure budget is not as closely aligned with delivering on the 2009 act—it does not have the same read-across or make the same effort to match with that act. We could do things, such as ensuring that our transport projects have a carbon price, which would go a long way towards recognising the long-term costs of road-building programmes and what is associated with them and which would elevate active travel investments. Such investments would also be brought to the top if we accounted for the improvement in air quality that we would experience in our urban environments.
The issue is where the boundaries are drawn around the consequences of infrastructure decisions. I fear that we draw them too narrowly, so we prioritise short-term investments in big bits of kit over distributed investments across Scotland that would have long-term benefits. Analysis has shown that energy efficiency offers a return on investment of 2:1, so it is very competitive when stacked against traditional infrastructure investments.
Does the low-carbon infrastructure task force have any views on the issue?
Sam Gardner has eloquently expressed the views. The committee is putting its finger on the nub of the problem. The Scottish Government is trying to mainstream climate change considerations, but it is also trying to balance them with economic considerations—you referred to your bypass.
Economic considerations do not necessarily sit naturally with a low-carbon pathway when we consider investment in new roads infrastructure, for example. As Jan Bebbington said, we should have a better read-across between the infrastructure investment plan and the RPP. The impact on social infrastructure spend should be thought about. We have all touched on spending that will happen down the line because a low-carbon infrastructure decision has not been taken. If we got better at capturing and counting that and building it into our infrastructure decision making, that would be extremely valuable. Does Jan Bebbington have thoughts on how that might be achieved?
There are social accounting techniques. It occurs to me that, particularly around energy efficiency, you could put a social account alongside that. For example, what is the human benefit of increasing warmth and wellbeing? Should you wish to do so, you could model that and make a guess not only on the reduced health costs that are borne economically, but on the health costs that maybe do not present on the economic system and are borne by people. It may be interesting to set up a case study on a programme that realises the multitude of benefits that come from low carbon, including on low carbon being pro-social.
Will you be pitching for that? [Laughter.]
Oh no—I am pitching for Teresa Bray, because she is the expert.
My first question is probably directed largely to Teresa Bray. The Scottish Government has made a commitment to making energy efficiency an infrastructure priority. The panel probably knows that the First Minister has announced a significant part of our manifesto, which is a commitment to build 50,000 affordable homes over the next session of Parliament. Given that those new homes will have to comply with part 6 of the energy efficiency part of the buildings standards, they really will be more energy efficient compared with older housing from a previous era. To what extent can we reduce the carbon output through the new housing?
We have made significant progress along the lines that you suggest of increasing, over the past few years, the number of energy performance certificates at C or above. Will you confirm that that is the case?
We are reaching a problem area with the existing housing stock. We have picked much of the low-hanging fruit—more than 60 per cent of accessible lofts and cavities have been insulated. Given that perhaps 800,000 or more of our homes—or about 30 per cent—are in the hard-to-treat category, how much more yield in carbon and energy efficiency terms can we realistically get from the older housing stock?
On the same theme, the committee is dealing with the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Bill. Responsible landlords who spend a lot of money insulating their properties do not get a penny more in rent for doing so, nor do social housing landlords get higher rents for well-insulated properties, despite the tenants making significant savings on fuel bills. Houses that are well insulated do not necessarily command higher prices, despite the energy performance certificates. To what extent are market forces—in not being aligned and sensitive to energy efficiency—unhelpful? How can they be made to help?
I appreciate that I am touching on a lot of areas. I will move on to other territory with my next question, but will Teresa Bray—and any other panellists—address those points?
I do not dispute the need for new housing. New housing is not replacing existing housing, except in exceptional cases, but we need it because of population growth and changes in household size. There is a desperate need for new housing for everybody to live in, but the vast majority of the stock that will be here in 2050 has been built—more than 80 per cent of that stock exists.
You referred to low-hanging fruit, but probably only the lowest of the low-hanging fruit has been addressed. The figures are probably slightly better than you say for lofts and cavities, but we need to consider how to overcome the issues with lofts. A lot of the issues with hard-to-treat lofts are not actually that difficult and are to do with access. Many tenement lofts still have not been insulated, but that is not because of technological difficulties; the issue is engaging with multiple householders. We should make use of the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 to get that done. There are lots of practical things that can be done, but we need organising of the market as much as anything to make those things happen.
We have done very little on our pre-1919 stock, but that does not mean that things cannot be done on that stock. The vast majority of tenements and older houses are good housing and there are things that can be done. Historic Environment Scotland is looking at new approaches. There are issues with ventilation in such houses and there are things that prevent double glazing from being put in historic properties, but there are ways of overcoming those issues.
Things can be done that are not all that difficult to do, although they are not quite as easy as insulation of standard lofts or cavities. Those things would not involve a step change in the level of expenditure that is required. Some properties are in such poor condition that we should not consider insulating them and they should not continue to be lived in. That is a very small proportion of houses, but there are some. In particular, some houses have been extended numerous times and have never had proper work done to them. There are things that need to be done.
On your question about valuing energy efficiency, one of the reasons why energy efficiency is not valued and so does not add to the price is that there is so little housing. That is the real difficulty. With rental properties, people just need a house or a flat to rent, and so they cannot put a value on energy efficiency. There are also issues about house prices, which are very much driven by location. If someone could choose between two houses with all the same factors, energy efficiency might come into it but, because of the way that the market currently operates, there are too many conflicting demands and there is not enough supply to allow people to make such choices.
Some of the housing in the private rented sector is in the worst condition. There are real issues about the return that private sector landlords are making from letting substandard housing. We need minimum standards to ensure that, at the point of rent or sale, those properties are brought up to what should be considered as an acceptable level of housing for people to live in. Unless we introduce minimum standards, that is not going to happen. It is not just about energy efficiency. There are issues about disrepair in a lot of our private rented stock. It is the worst stock in Scotland and there is a need to improve it. Given the returns to private landlords and the low interest rates, there is little justification for them to say that they would have to charge higher rents to support that improvement. They can afford to do it and there is a need to ensure that that happens.
I want to tease out another issue that is allied to what we have been discussing. Recently, an energy expert advised a constituent of mine who has an older traditional home just to knock it down and build a new one, on the basis that the home was in the hard-to-treat category. When I talked about hard-to-treat homes, I was not talking just about loft spaces, accessible or otherwise; I was talking about the whole home. I am sure that you will agree that it is important to insulate the complete envelope of the building and not just the loft space. What concerns me, and I think what that energy expert was getting at, is that, given the achievable U-values, as measured in watts per square metre per degree kelvin, it just was not good value to treat that home. It just did not make sense, in economic terms or in energy terms, to increase its insulation when compared with building the equivalent new home. Is there merit in that argument?
It is always difficult to say that somebody’s home is no longer fit for purpose. The UK has some of the oldest stock in the world. In a remote rural area, you are often talking about a small but and ben that has had an extension added for a kitchen and a loft conversion and lots things that are just making do. Some housing is just not fit for the 21st century. It might also not meet accessibility standards as people get older. Can those houses be adapted so that people can continue to live in them? Should we spend £30,000 doing up a house that might well be in the wrong location and which does not meet accessibility standards?
Not all homes will be able to benefit, but we are talking about a very small minority. Only 2 per cent of homes in Scotland have a G rating, which is the lowest energy efficiency rating. Sometimes it is possible to do things to such homes, but in a few cases it might be better to build a new, high-quality energy-efficient home that provides accessibility to other services and other people, instead of being 2 miles outside the local hamlet. Occasionally, we need to question whether we should be rebuilding all homes. We have accepted that some housing stock—for example, some of the pre-war housing and some of the tower blocks—is no longer acceptable, and at times we might have to do that with other housing.
Thank you. That was very useful, because—
Can we hear from some of the other witnesses on that?
Certainly, convener.
In the housing context, I would like to mention transport connections, particularly to a new estate or a new group of houses. If we build new houses in a location that means that we lock in the need to use the car for every trip and do not provide people with at least some option for getting to a transport hub, or if we do not ensure that the estate is designed in such a way that a bus route could go through it, we might undo the energy efficiency of the housing stock. People might feel that the only option is to take the car, no matter how short the journey is. We need to give a bit of thought to that.
It strikes me that the Scandinavian experience seems to be that transport links are the first thing to be considered and that housing is designed around them. That means that new build in those countries is as accessible and well linked as it can be to the local area.
That is a very interesting point. I am very grateful to you for mentioning that, because we are undertaking a root-and-branch review of the planning system at the moment. Do you think that, potentially, there is quite a high yield—or a lot to be gained—in this area? In planning the next 50 years of built environment and infrastructure, perhaps we should go back to and learn lessons from our forefathers, who primarily walked to work because their housing was close to their place of work. If we took account of that and of the need to be close to a transport hub, do you think that we could make some real gains without much expenditure at all?
Yes, I do. The “Designing Streets” planning policy that we have in Scotland is an exemplary policy. If we delivered all new build to that design, we would have linear builds on a grid pattern that would allow people to access transport. I totally appreciate that, in the modern world, people do not necessarily live near where they work. We have built commuting—and sometimes long-distance commuting—into our housing developments. An opportunity has been missed. When we create new public transport links, such as reopened rail lines and new roads, we do not do enough to ensure that we build links from the new housing stock to those transport links to allow people to use public transport for the onward journey.
That takes us on to another point: how joined up is public transport? Is it possible to enable people to have a more seamless journey by walking or cycling to a transport hub? I am a frequent visitor to Switzerland, where it is very easy, even in quite small towns, to make a very well-joined-up journey. People can walk and get a bus or walk and get a train, and they know that the whole thing will be joined up. I do not think that we have designed that into our housing planning, but perhaps “Designing Streets” will help with that.
In addition, perhaps the planning system could do more to encourage more building on brownfield sites in urban settings instead of allowing developers to build outside the town, with the result that the town continually grows, we compromise the green belt and the distances become greater. It might be possible for us to make the distances much shorter.
I want to return to energy efficiency. The real value of the designation of energy efficiency as a national infrastructure priority, which is a particularly welcome commitment, is in how it changes the nature of the approach to energy efficiency and moves us away from an annual cycle of uncertainty around what the budget might be and the absence of any clear goal to the provision by the Scottish Government of a very clear outcome.
We would urge the Scottish Government to set that goal as being a minimum of C by 2025. By establishing that goal-orientated approach, we would put the energy efficiency programme on the same standing as other infrastructure projects. We would never envisage pursuing a bridge development without knowing where it was going to end. We should take the same approach to our energy efficiency structure. We need to know what that goal is, which will in turn provide a clear market signal that will help to ensure that we get that training and upskilling, because a market is being created as a consequence of that level of ambition.
I reinforce the value of that designation but add that it needs to be complemented by a clear outcome so that everyone knows what we are working towards.
I will add to John Lauder’s comments. A low-carbon transport hubs project is included in our longlist of 10 projects, as well as the re-engineering of city centres. On housing, the location of public transport is vital but, equally, water supply and energy supply need to be put into the mix when we look at planning policy.
Thank you. I will move on, because that ties in quite neatly with my next question. What infrastructure areas do you feel should be priority areas for the Government not only with regard to spending but with regard to other Government policies? We have touched on planning. Are there other spending areas and complementary policy areas where we can achieve greater effect?
The 10 longlist projects divide roughly into three categories. One is transport; the second is energy, looking at district heating and so on; and the third is energy efficiency, looking at energy from waste water, growing local energy economies and so on.
From taking evidence and looking at the peer reviews of the 10 projects, we have begun to realise that, in narrowing them down to a list of three from 10, our shortlist is probably not going to end up how we thought it would. In a way, the projects are straw men, but looking at them in the round has enabled us to understand the systems approach. It is exactly what Jan Bebbington is saying about the systems approach: we cannot take a decision on one of those projects without that impacting on one of the others. The shortlist that we end up with could look very different from how we envisaged it. We may have a transport project and energy projects on energy storage and efficiency.
To take the discussion back to where the emissions are coming from, I said earlier that 50 per cent of our emissions are from the heat sector. It is an area that is crying out for leadership and investment—there is an absence of private sector investment and a lack of confidence about the future development of that sector.
Obviously, there are uncertainties that come from Westminster and we may hear this afternoon about the future of things such as the renewable heat incentive. However, I think that there is a clear case to be made for the Scottish Government to combine its planning and regulatory powers with targeted investment of its capital infrastructure in order to bring together isolated district heating pockets.
Edinburgh is an example of an area where there are a number bits of district heating infrastructure that, if they were combined, would offer the potential for other heat loads to connect to them. I suspect that that will not happen in the absence of support from the public sector to provide the necessary pipework.
My other point will sound a little repetitive, I suspect, but I want to highlight that the emissions from the transport sector are pretty much the same now as they were in 1990, despite the fact that we have had growth in car kilometres. They are the same as they were largely because of efficiencies that have been driven by European Union directives.
If we are to drive down those emissions, we need to start planning our infrastructure to ensure that it supports low-carbon behaviours. I refer back to the RPP’s expectation of a 300 per cent increase in emissions savings in the forthcoming years. Of course, that will be secured not by infrastructure decisions but by policy decisions, but it is, in the longer term, an indication of the level of change that will have to take place in our transport infrastructure.
One of the infrastructure projects that the low-carbon infrastructure task force identified—and I point out that it was not us who identified those projects; we commissioned Jacobs to canvass opinion among different stakeholders—was the upgrading and improvement of our existing rail network. For example, the Perth to Inverness line is, as everyone who has to travel on it knows, subject to any number of problems. For a start, because the line is, at various points, single track, you can get held up by other trains. Clearly, looking at opportunities to increase the capacity of our rail network is also about finding ways of making the alternative to cars more attractive, and that is an area where the Scottish Government’s infrastructure budget could be well targeted.
At the risk of repeating an earlier point—and forgive me if I do—I think that transport works in isolation: for example, we do not look at health implications. By that, I mean not just air pollution, which is definitely having an effect—a figure of £2 billion has been cited as the cost to the economy of failing to tackle it—but congestion. As I understand it, the chief medical officer has said that we are now looking at 10 per cent of the national health service budget being spent on treating symptoms of obesity, a big driver of which is inactivity, or people’s inability to walk, cycle or whatever every day to and from the places that they need to get to and their using their cars instead. There are major implications for transport in helping to hit health targets and reducing the burden on that budget. Those two things could be combined much more closely, and I do not think that that is necessarily happening at the moment.
I wanted to make this point earlier, convener, but I note that the World Health Organization has produced the very helpful health economic assessment tool, or HEAT. I am not sure that that is being used in the appraisal of transport projects, particularly small local ones, but we use it in our evidence to the sustainable and active travel team, whose funds we manage. There is talk of benefit to cost ratios of £13 for every pound spent, which is a pretty good return on investment. That tool could be used more widely and could bring health and transport together, which would result in a complementary benefit from greater investment in active travel modes such as walking and cycling.
I have a final question, convener.
Could you be brief, please?
Has the Scottish Government already undertaken any investment programmes that have been effective and which we can perhaps magnify, expand and roll out across Scotland?
For five years now, we have been running the community links project, which is a match-funded partnership involving local authorities, Transport Scotland and other stakeholders. The funds that we manage grow every year—we act as the budget holder, if you like—and every year we are oversubscribed with ideas. I mentioned benefit to cost ratios, and I think that they show the success of the project.
The project itself has been pivotal in helping Edinburgh, for example, get to where it is now; in addition, evidence from other towns and cities is growing to show that the programme is beginning to have an effect. It is still early days—the project has been running for only five years—and the data set is not substantial enough for us to make a big assessment of it, but I think that it is going well and has been seen as a success throughout the UK.
I should also flag up the competitive process for district heating loans, as a consequence of which we have seen investments in district heating across Scotland. However, those projects need to be brought together and, where possible, enlarged to ensure that they are not too isolated and that networks develop. Nevertheless, it would great if that fund could continue.
Finally, although we would say that the funding for the energy efficiency programme has not been adequate, it is beginning to show its benefits, and we are beginning to see the number of properties that need loft or cavity-wall insulation come down year on year. That said, although we are beginning to see the programme’s impact, it is not yet at a scale that reaps the transformative benefits that it could offer. However, there is a lot that can be learned from it. A lot of benefits have been enjoyed as a consequence of existing energy efficiency programmes.
What is the converse of that? What infrastructure investment should be avoided in the future if we are concerned about achieving our climate change targets?
We should avoid infrastructure that supports high-carbon behaviours. For example, a road-building programme that envisages all the roads being low carbon because electric vehicles will be driven on them is not a coherent vision of the 2050 future that we are heading towards. We cannot replicate the existing level of car use with electric cars, so a road-building programme that is dependent on the mass deployment of EVs on the same scale as that of today’s internal combustion engine does not square with the 2050 vision.
We have to see a greater realignment of our trunk road investment with those bits of infrastructure that, as we have said throughout this evidence session, offer wider benefits—not just low-carbon benefits but wider health benefits. In that regard, John Lauder talked about the obesity challenge that Scotland and the UK face. We need to step back from the perspective that we often bring to our infrastructure decisions and try to see them more in the round. If we did that, we would begin to be a lot more critical of some of the decisions that we have made in the past 10 years or so and would see the benefits of the alternatives.
Maybe I could just reinforce that point. I do not think that there is a list of things that we would never seek to do, because infrastructure has multiple aspects, including social and economic ones. I think that Dr Gardner’s point is that we need to look very carefully at design and not take normal design for granted. Perhaps we are partly hesitant to say what we would stop doing because it would be invidious to make such a choice. If I may sum up where we are at, I would say that anything that we have to do has to be done much better.
In that vein, it has been suggested that an independent Scottish infrastructure commission should be set up in order to more effectively direct infrastructure investments—both public and private—towards a low-carbon Scotland. Do you agree that we should have such an initiative? Could you explain how it might work?
That suggestion was in our written evidence, so perhaps I should have a go at explaining it. I believe that it is a sensible suggestion. Behind a lot of what we have talked about today is a point around governance, decision making, integration and being able to see the whole when making decisions. The low- carbon infrastructure task force came about partly because we were not observing the existence of a pipeline of low-carbon infrastructure projects. The task force was a response to what we regarded as the need to identify such projects.
There is a need for that infrastructure development and plan to be taken forward in a way that ensures that we are confident that it is consistent with the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. That requires some scrutiny, but it is open to debate whether that should be done by an independent commission or through a separate governance process that the Scottish Government establishes. However, I think that it would be advantageous to bring into the room expert opinion that understands the infrastructure challenges that we are facing as we make the transition to a low-carbon economy and can see where the need is most pressing and where the Scottish Government has a role to play to catalyse change.
Our president, Sir John Armitt, who is in town later on today, is a commissioner on the National Infrastructure Commission, so it will not surprise the committee to learn that the Institution of Civil Engineers, at any rate, thinks that infrastructure commissions are a good idea. That is largely because the life cycle of infrastructure, as this committee understands only too well, runs beyond parliamentary terms and requires cross-party support if it is to be designed, planned and delivered effectively. Equally, a commission would look very carefully at the why and at whether to maintain existing infrastructure rather than build new infrastructure, and make decisions about when not to build new infrastructure.
The extent to which or how the Scottish Government will relate to the National Infrastructure Commission and exactly what that commission means remains to be seen. Is it a UK-wide infrastructure commission, or should there be a separate Scottish infrastructure commission? The types of issues that the National Infrastructure Commission is looking at in the first year perhaps do not seem at first sight to be particularly relevant to Scotland—it is looking at the northern powerhouse and cross-Pennine transport, for example—but issues to do with energy and energy storage are certainly of keen interest to us in Scotland, particularly as we have a great deal of expertise in that area. Indeed, much of the energy storage in the UK is in Scotland. Cross-border rail is of particular interest to us, as are high-speed rail and other such transport issues.
What would be the benefits of having the commission? How much would it cost to establish a commission in Scotland?
I would certainly be happy to come back to the committee on how much that might cost. I am not clear what costs are associated with the National Infrastructure Commission, but I do not think that they are of any great order of magnitude, as it largely comprises external experts who give their time. The Institution of Civil Engineers will support the commission in some of its national needs assessment work.
A body at arm’s-length from Government that can give a clear sense of direction, try to get cross-party support for particular issues—especially when those issues are perhaps politically difficult—and advise the Government, can make a very valuable contribution. That approach has worked particularly well in countries such as Australia and Canada, which have had infrastructure commissions.
How will we avoid the well-known situation in which we set up a commission that establishes a list of priorities, but the Government simply picks from that list based on its own political priorities?
It is interesting that the initial work on the National Infrastructure Commission was done by Sir John Armitt on behalf of the Labour Party. In fact, that has been adopted more or less wholesale by the existing Government in Scotland. However, you have certainly identified a risk and I am not quite sure how we can overcome it. That is politics, I guess.
Scotland has sought to be a leading country in the climate change arena. We have certainly been acknowledged by the United Nations as “a shining example”, for instance, although we have a way to go to fulfil our ambition, of course. Can you suggest innovative ways that can put us at the forefront in that field?
I cannot offer members an innovative way from my sector. What we have seen in other small northern European countries is the way to go and it is not terribly innovative, although we might find it innovative to follow the Swedish model.
Perhaps one innovation would be the Swedish model of aiming to have no fatalities on the roads, which is called vision zero in Sweden. That has meant a radical redesign of roads, streets, residential and shopping areas, of how speed limits are set and enforced, and of how roads are built and maintained. That would be innovative, I think, so it might be a model to follow. The rest of it is just good practice from other countries that are not so different to us.
I echo that, but it is really not innovation that is required; it is leadership. We have world-leading climate legislation but other countries around northern Europe have world-leading climate policies. In many cases, they are the norm and we could do an awful lot to learn from them, whether it be from district heating in Copenhagen or whatever. That is not to say that such policies can be transferred and applied wholesale but there is learning that can be enjoyed. Similarly, on transport, plenty European cities can demonstrate thriving, productive and enjoyable places to be that have high levels of active travel. They have attractive cities that are good to be in.
I therefore caution against a search for innovation. There will be examples, particularly in the power sector, where there is a need for new technologies but, more often than not, it is about the need to apply what we know is necessary. Demand management measures in the transport sector have been highlighted by the Committee on Climate Change and by this Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, and they were in the very first draft of the RPP, but they have never come to the fore. It is perverse to think that we can achieve the climate change targets and a low-carbon economy, and enjoy the benefits of a cleaner urban environment without matching our investment in public transport with demand management measures to encourage people to get onto that public transport.
One of the difficulties is that we are not looking at a huge project that we can put our stickers on to show that it will be a low-carbon solution to all our needs. A lot of the things that we want to do will not be visible to anybody in the long term. If you improve energy efficiency, nobody sees it. The form of heating that we have, whether it be district heating or individual boilers, is not seen.
We should be looking to be proud of having a culture that embraces low-carbon approaches. We value an increase in house prices, but that is not necessarily good for society. Having a culture that values the role that we are playing in society, that values the fact that individuals can enjoy the cities in which they live because of their low-carbon approach and active travel, that they can live in houses that they enjoy living in, and that they can enjoy their public spaces, will make the place much better to live in. It might not be easy to assess, but it will make the people who live there happier. That is what we should be looking to value, not having a large infrastructure project that we can put a sticker on.
One of the great joys of being called as a witness to this kind of committee is that I find out a huge amount about what is going on from my co-witnesses. I envy the committee its position, in many ways.
To go back to Dr Gardner’s point, one of the innovations that is available to Scotland, especially given the passage of time since the passing of the act, is that we can learn from ourselves. There is no silver bullet of innovation out there, but there must be multiple innovations around active travel, infrastructure and all sorts of things. That knowledge and learning is probably dispersed across our whole community so we need some way of drawing it together to find out what has really worked well in the past seven years, and what we might learn from it and take forward. That might be a convening role that the Parliament and the Government could exercise.
Who wants the final word?
The setting of ambitious targets shows great leadership and the Scottish Government must be congratulated on that because it sets the bar.
As there are no further questions and no more points, it remains only for me to thank the witnesses for their evidence and their patience: we have been going for almost two hours. Thank you for your time.
That concludes today’s committee business.
Meeting closed at 11:49.
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About Steve Childers
Founding President of Pathway Learning
Steve Childers is the founder and president of Pathway Learning with the mission to help underserved church leaders develop churches that transform lives and communities.
He has been a resident professor of practical theology for 22 years at Reformed Theological Seminary, in Orlando, Florida, teaching courses in church planting, church renewal, evangelism, spiritual formation (discipleship), leadership, and missions.
He planted and pastored two churches (urban and suburban) in the 80’s and 90’s. Since then Steve has written church leadership training curriculum and helped train thousands of church leaders from more than 300 denominations representing over 50 countries in 7 languages on 5 continents.
He is a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary* in St. Louis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, and Reformed Theological Seminary* in Orlando. Steve has also done doctoral studies in global mission at Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Mission.
Steve and his wife Becky live in Orlando, Florida, have three adult daughters and three grandchildren.
*Steve wrote his masters thesis, under Dr. George Knight at Covenant Seminary, on "An Exegetical Methodology for Expository Preaching and Teaching, " and his doctoral dissertation, under Dr. Roger Nicole at Reformed Seminary, on "Interpreting the Pauline and Puritan Gospel for Christian Growth."
Stay in touch with Steve and Pathway Learning on Social Media by clicking the links below:
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Shareholders Foundation, Inc.
Brightpoint, Inc. (NASDAQ:CELL) Stockholder Sued Directors to Block Buyout by Ingram Micro
A lawsuit was filed on behalf of investors in shares of Brightpoint, Inc. (NASDAQ:CELL) in effort to stop the proposed takeover and NASDAQ:CELL stockholders should contact the Shareholders Foundation.
San Diego, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/31/2012 -- An investor in NASDAQ:CELL shares filed a lawsuit in effort to stop the proposed takeover of Brightpoint, Inc. by Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE:IM) at $9.00 per NASDAQ:CELL share.
Investors who purchased shares of Brightpoint, Inc. (NASDAQ:CELL) prior to July 2, 2012, and currently hold any of those NASDAQ:CELL shares have certain options and should contact the Shareholders Foundation at mail(at)shareholdersfoundation.com or call +1(858) 779 - 1554.
The plaintiff alleges that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties owed NASDAQ:CELL investors by agreeing to sell the company too cheaply at an unfair process to Ingram Micro.
On July 2, 2012, Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE:IM) and Brightpoint, Inc. (Nasdaq:CELL), announced that they have entered into an agreement under which, subject to customary closing conditions, Ingram Micro will acquire all of the outstanding shares of BrightPoint common stock for $9.00 per share in cash.
However, the plaintiff says that the $9offer is unfair to NASDAQ:CELL stockholders and undervalues the company. Indeed, shares of Brightpoint, Inc. (NASDAQ:CELL) traded in February at $11.99 per share, thus well above the current offer. In addition, at least one analyst has set the High Target Price for NASDAQ:CELL shares at $12.00 per share.
Furthermore, so the lawsuit, BrightPoint Inc violated SEC rules by leaving pivotal information out of a proxy statement ahead of its proposed sale. The plaintiff alleges that the proxy statement BrightPoint Inc delivered to its shareholders July 19, 2012 was replete with material omissions and misstatements.
Those who are current investors in Brightpoint, Inc. (NASDAQ:CELL) and purchased their Brightpoint, Inc. shares prior to the announcement, have certain options and should contact the Shareholders Foundation.
Joelle Day
3111 Camino Del Rio North - Suite 423
92108 San Diego
Phone: +1-(858)-779-1554
Fax: +1-(858)-605-5739
mail@shareholdersfoundation.com
Media and Client Relations Manager
Follow Shareholders Foundation, Inc.
Shareholders Foundation, Inc. - Logo
Source: Shareholders Foundation, Inc.
Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 6:15 AM CDT - Permalink
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IN THE KNICK OF TIME?
Home /Sports/IN THE KNICK OF TIME?
Written By Anthony Iannizzi
The New York Knicks didn’t have many expectations going into the 2017-2018 season. It was supposed to be a “rebuilding year.” After the Knicks got out to a 10-7 start, expectations started to change amongst the fans, and the players. The Knicks were playing meaningful, and competitive games, which is all was asked. The heart and soul of the Knicks, Enes Kanter, leaves it out on the floor every night, and plays as if he’s been a Knick his whole career. Kristaps Porzingis was questioned for spending his summer in Latvia, why not train in the U.S. with the rest of the pros? Through twenty games, Porzingis, is averaging close to 30 a game. That will shut all those critics up. Tim Hardaway Jr, back for his second stint with the Knicks, has shown he can play at a high level, after receiving a big pay day. Frank Ntilikina, the rookie from France, has shown spurts, but he’s only 19.
This group, coached by Jeff Hornacek are just playing basketball. It’s a young group that will take time to grow together as a unit. One thing that you can say about this Knicks team, is that they are resilient. They’ve come back from deficits of ten plus in fourth quarter.
“This team just wants it more. We want to fight for our fans night in, and night out. We got that New York grit.” Enes Kanter embraces what it truly means to be a New Yorker. Grit, loyalty, hard working.
Just like any other team, The Knicks have woes. They give up the most three point shots per game, and still have a lot of work to do on the defensive end. Defense is not something that can be taught, you have to want to play defense. When you have five guys out on the floor that work together defensively, the offense will come.
It’s a young team that is playing exciting basketball. The only thing you can hope for as a Knicks fan is to keep this up, and make a playoff push. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
What Happened to the New York Football Giants?
THE SAME OLD JETS
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Tag Archives: Ivy Pepper (Poison Ivy)
Monday, October, 20, 2014
Gotham – The Pilot Episode
The pilot episode (titled only “Pilot”) of Gotham premiered on UK television (Channel 5) last Monday, 13th October at 9pm. It’s been getting some good reviews on the internet, and I was really looking forward to seeing the first episode. So what did I think of it?
Overall, not bad. Not bad at all. I’d give it a 7/10. I liked it enough that I’m really looking forward to the second episode tonight. The series is developed and written by Bruno Heller, the same guy behind hit series The Mentalist and Rome, so it certainly has some good pedigree behind it. I like Heller’s other shows, so this bodes well for Gotham, and it is definitely in good hands.
The interesting thing about Gotham is that it is set in the Batman Universe, but it’s not actually about Batman, although it does focus on the events, characters and background that lead up to the later Batman Universe which we’re all familiar with. You’d expect to see heroes and villains from the comic books and earlier television series and films, but Gotham is actually a (fairly) straightforward cop/crime series (at least so far), with no Batman or other comic book fantasy characters in sight. But we do see signs of things to come, with much younger versions of characters who will later become the hero and villains that we recognize from the familiar Batman Universe – the young pre-Batman Bruce Wayne and his butler, Alfred Pennyworth, Oswald Cobblepot/the Penguin, Edward Nygma/the Riddler, Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Selina Kyle/Catwoman and Ivy Pepper/Poison Ivy.
The Pilot episode opens up with the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, Thomas and Martha, and the attempts of central characters Detectives James Gordon and Harvey Bullock to track down the killer. We also meet many of the individuals who would’ve featured more as background characters in other tellings of the beginning of the Bruce Wayne/Batman story. As such, I was pleased to see many of the everyday/non fantasy characters from the pre-Batman Gotham universe taking centre stage and becoming the primary focus of the series. To be honest, I’ve always been a far greater fan of the Marvel Universe rather than DC, and I’ve never exactly been a huge fan of Batman in the comics (although I do enjoy the films). But I got a nice kick recognizing background characters from Batman: Year One and the various other comic book stories and films, such as Mafia Don Carmine Falcone, Renee Montoya and a few others.
The stand-out roles for me in this first episode were Ben McKenzie, as the rookie Detective James Gordon, and Donal Logue as his senior partner, Detective Harvey Bullock. Logue, in particular, really shines as the world-weary, cynical and corrupt, bordering on amoral older detective. Sean Pertwee also promises to be a real gas as Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred Pennyworth, and Jada Pinkett Smith excels as the sadistic, vicious and near-psychotic Fish Mooney, Falcone’s treacherous subordinate, who plans to make a move on him.
But, to my surprise, another one of my favourite characters in the episode was Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot. He’s a real psycho, and I look forward to watching him develop, and maybe even get around to exacting his revenge on Mooney and the others who turned on him. I find my liking for this particular character quite ironic, as I could never stand the Penguin as a character in either the comics or the films.
Anyway, roll on 9pm tonight, and the second episode, “Selina Kyle”. I hope it’s as good as the pilot episode.
Posted in Telefantasy
Tagged Alfred Pennyworth, Batman (comic US), Batman: Year One (comic US), Bruce Wayne (Batman), Carmine Falcone, Edward Nygma (the Riddler), Fish Mooney, Gotham, Harvey Bullock, Harvey Dent (Two-Face), Ivy Pepper (Poison Ivy), James Gordon, Oswald Cobblepot (the Penguin), Renee Montoya, Selina Kyle (Catwoman)
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The New Improved Racing Queensland 2015 - ? - Qld Gallops - Racehorse TALK
Pages: 1 ... 72 73 74 75 Go Down
Author Topic: The New Improved Racing Queensland 2015 - ? (Read 328119 times)
« 2019-May-15, 12:27 AM Reply #1825 »
My eyes re open and I see nothing,
That is not unusual with punters -- we get mesmerized with cant-lose favourites and do not smell the smoke.
I am not alone.
Tipsters appearing to have, on Sunday, exceptional skill are more likely the beneficiary of a insider letting something slip.
The great need is for analysts like 'wily' and 'fours' to be recruited to a media tipping panel.
pegasyber
Moved to applicable thread.
« Last Edit: 2019-May-16, 03:40 AM by pegasyber »
« 2019-May-15, 05:39 PM Reply #1827 »
State Parliament is sitting at present for three days from 14th May there's a question on notice from John -Paul Langbroek to the Hon Hinchy under standing orders the minister has until 13th June to respond by email to the Table Office @ parliament.qld.gov.au.....this is the question:-
MR J LANGBROEK ASKED MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT, MINISTER FOR RACING AND MINISTER FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS (HON S HINCHLIFFE)—
With reference to the 15 recommendations made in the final report of the Queensland Greyhound Racing Industry Commission of Inquiry aimed at improving integrity and animal welfare in the racing industry and the Queensland Government’s official response to initiate 75 activities to address these recommendations—
Will the Minister advise (a) the recommendations that are yet to be completed and (b) the government initiated activities yet to be completed?
From what I've seen so far up to lunch today it has been a pretty tame session .....not so tame back in 1985 when The Hon. Hinze was Racing minister introducing The Racing and Betting Act amendment bill ...lots of fire and robust debate from both sides of the House.....I'll post some highlights when I get a chance.
............pega ...there is no point posting 'insights' on Sunday ............... tell us on Friday!
Well Peter The Computer certainly knew, and knew that there was more than just one:
The computer is only human, after all, but it did take just 1.3 seconds to work the above out!
In any event pega you pale into irrelevance against analysts like 'wily' and 'fours' who can tell us (on Sunday) that they backed the long priced winners without any help from you (or anyone else).
Peter Mair,
Stop being a falsehood idiot!
Wily and I gave before the race tips.
I gave a whole thread of them.
Parliament's Notice paper todaty reveals that Mr Langbroek has asked another question on notice to The Hon Hinchy ....who has until 14th June to reply.
MR J LANGBROEK ASKED MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT, MINISTER FOR RACING
AND MINISTER FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS (HON S HINCHLIFFE)—
Will the Minister advise for 2017-18 to 2018-19 to date (reported separately by financial year) the
number of (a) animal samples tested for prohibited substances and (b) animal samples that reported
positive for prohibited substances?
At last Racing Queensland have some sort of a win v Currie in the courts
Racing Queensland notes that the Supreme Court of Queensland today dismissed an application by Mr Ben Currie in which he sought to restrain future rejections of nominations by Racing Queensland.
The Court ordered Mr Currie to pay Racing Queensland’s costs of the application.
Racing Queensland will not be commenting further on this matter.
TRAINER BEN CURRIE LOSES APPLICATION
Mark Oberhardt
The Queensland Supreme Court has ruled RQ can refuse trainer Ben Currie's nominations.
Toowoomba trainer Ben Currie has failed in an application to the Supreme Court for a temporary order preventing Racing Queensland from refusing his nominations.
RQ invoked a recently revamped Australian Racing rule AR55 which it says allows it to refuse Currie's nominations.
It meant a large number of horses have been transferred from Currie's stables to other trainers so they can continue racing.
Currie sought an interlocutory injunction which would have prevented RQ implementing the rule until a full hearing and determination of the use of the rule.
After hearing several hours of legal argument, Supreme Court Justice Jean Dalton refused the application on Thursday.
Currie is listed to appear in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Friday seeking a stay of a four-year disqualification.
Stewards imposed the disqualification after finding Currie guilty on two charges involving text messages which allegedly involved use of jiggers.
Currie's solicitor Michael O'Connor said his client was now considering his position in regards both applications.
The trainer still faces other charges yet to be heard by the Queensland Racing Integrity Commission arising from a raid on his stables in early April last year.
Obi has been busy reporting on the QCAT case involving Mark Currie as well as the above.
Way back in April 1985 the Racing Minister The Hon,.Hinze introduced The Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill this was a time when the Fine Cotton ring in had been discovered ......the wide spread caffeine doping crisis due to contaminated testing sticks had not yet been resolved and the state opposition was calling for a Racing Commission to be established to replace the Principal Club the QTC to control the racing industry ..at the time Harness Racing was administered by a board the QHRB which I think took over from the Trotting Control League....the governments reaction to doping was to provide that registered vets should only administer treatments...a fine of $20K was proposed for anyone caught ....5 police officers were to be appointed under the racing portfolio after allegations criminals had infiltrated the racing industry and it was claimed by one honourable member that some bookies and jockeys had departed Brisbane for other more secure lodgings.... there were serious allegations against the TAB chairman Sir Edward Lyons aka "Top Level Ted".....Russ Hinze hisself who owned a string of pacers was also caught in the net when one of his returned a positive to caffeine......the problem of all the positives to this substance was eventually discovered by Dr Ken Donald.......Tom Burns paid a tribute to the late Jack Greig QRHB chief steward who I knew personally a throughly competent and very appraochable official who was responsible for solving the Glendale Rex ring in at Rocklea some years before...Jack had a prodigious memory and it's a sad loss to harness racing that he didn't produce a memoire on his retirement.
https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/hansard/1985/1985_04_09.pdf
Here are some extracts from Hansard on the debate on the Bill:-
RACING AND BETTING ACT AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) Second Reading—Resumption of Debate Debate resumed from 2 April (see p. 4810) on Mr Hinze's motion— "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Mr SHAW (Wynnum) (3.27 p.m.): : What else could go wrong with racing in Queensland? It has been the subject of very serious charges and has been linked with organised crime. Such suggestions were made in "The Age" tapes. Allegations have been made of jockeys rigging races and of threats being made to jockeys who would not take part. It was suggested that racing has been used for the purpose of laundering money from dmg activities or major crimes. Following the Fine Cotton ring-in, a great upsurge has occurred in the preference that Queensland horses have developed for coffee. I refer to the caffeine problem.
On an examination of the racing industry in Queensland, all of the facts lead to the conclusion that the industry is in a very unfortunate position. I think the Minister would have difficulty in denying that the racing industry has been beset of a great many, wide-ranging problems, and that indicates that a very serious inquiry should be made into changing the methods of administration in Queensland.
The Minister has an undisputed knowledge of the industry, and it must therefore be a fair question to ask him why he has not moved towards establishing a racing commission. Is it the fact that the Minister has been nobbled by the back-room boys of the National Party, or does the Minister have a legitimate reason for not supporting the establishment of a racing commission?
Mr Hinze: The principal racing clubs argued very strongly against it, as the honourable member would know. Mr SHAW: That may very well be so, and officials of racing clubs may have a great deal of expertise. I am not arguing against that. However, the fact remains that events over the last 12 months strongly indicate that a change is necessary, and the suggestion that a racing commission be established has been very widely supported.
I welcome the Minister's announcement that five full-time police will be attached to his department. That is something that the Opposition has publicly supported in the past. A great deal of good could come from that. I hope that the police will be able to build up contracts. Mr Hinze interjected. Mr SHAW: I am pleased to hear the Minister say that. That is the sort of thing that the Opposition has been seeking. That could be one of the major ways in which to attack the problems that are presently being created by criminal activities throughout the racing industry. The police would need to gain the confidence of certain people. Whether honourable members like it or not, that is the way in which investigations have always been carried out with the greatest effectiveness. People should be able to go to the police and tell them things in confidence. That is the way in which many of the problems in the racing industry could be overcome. The Opposition welcomes that move.
Mr PRICE: Yes. They are trying to get Daybreak Lover back into Queensland racing. He is still having a trot down south. Even before the Fine Cotton episode, some of the bookies in Brisbane were frightened even to field.
The Holloways, the Ogilvies and the Christensons flew off to Sydney to back their set-ups here in Brisbane. What has happened to the Fine Cotton episode? I have tried to follow that in the newspapers. It went a couple of mns in the court and all of a sudden it disappeared. It seems to me that the intent of the QTC is to avoid scmtiny at any cost.
What has happened to the top hoops? What about Cookie and Palmer and the others? What has happened to them? At the moment, apprentices are doing aU the mnning in Brisbane. Where have the top jockeys disappeared to? They were all round when this was going on. Obviously the scare has been put into them and they have gone into limbo or gone to Hong Kong or other places overseas.
Somebody has tried to get them out of the industry. Obviously the public are deserting racecourses in droves. They do not have any confidence in the industry. Very shortly, the country areas will not have a racing industry at all. I sympathise with the Minister, because he feels deeply about the industry, but he has no answer at all. I cannot lay the blame at his feet, because I do not think even Dr Ken Donald knows anything about it. I come now to the issue of dmgs in the racing industry.
Mr PRICE: I point also to his impeccable record. This is the first time he has ever had a positive swab. Would I be right in saying that?
Mr Hinze: I would be feeling uncomfortable if it hadn't happened. Everybody else has had one. I would have to go and ask for one.
Mr PRICE: It must be terribly lonely up there. I meant the Minister's horse, of course.
It is my honest belief that the thmst of reform measures is aimed at the wrong end of the operation. The Government is taking action against the wrong people. Govemment action will mean that the costs involved in racing will rise and will adversely affect the small operator, who is the grassroots participant of the industry, the person who holds the industry together.
Instead of aiming at such people, the Minister should aim at the Lyonses and the Gallaghers who have been enjoying the benefit of such practices for the last 30 years. I invite the Minister to disagree with me on that statement. I now tum to the power given to authorise officers to enter racing venues, etc. In my view, it promotes the image of their being bully-boys knocking on doors saying, "Let me in."
Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) 9 April 1985 4955 I also refer to the appointment of five police officers who will be required to work in the racing industry to assist in investigations. That provision is particularly difficult for me to accept, especially when I am battling to have policemen appointed to the north-westem area of Queensland to service communities that presently are without police representation. In contrast to that, with a stroke of the pen, the Minister has been able to whip these officers out of a politicised arm of the Government and employ them at will.
Mr VEIVERS: I just mentioned that, Mr Speaker, because I believe it is very important from the Minister's point of view that he should clear the air. After all, one of his pacers has been caught in the caffeine problem. Those things are not good for the industry. Finally, is the Minister really in charge of racing in this State? He ought to be. His intentions are good, but he is not being given a fair go. I congratulate the Minister on the Bill, but I would like to hear him refute some of the allegations that have been circulated about him.
The Minister should let people know who is the boss. The industry would then be well and tmly re-established and the return of the confidence of the public would be seen through the turnstiles and through the TAB
Hon. N. E. LEE (Yeronga) (4.57 p.m.): It gives me great pleasure to take part in this debate and congratulate the Minister for Local Govemment, Main Roads and Racing Mr Shaw: You don't have to do that. Mr LEE: I know that I do not have to do it, but it is a pleasure for me to do it.
1 believe, and I will say it again once more, that Mr Hinze is the best Minister for Racing Queensland has ever had. That includes Dr Edwards and even Sir Gordon Chalk, my former leader for whom I had a great deal of admiration. Therefore the Minister must be top class. He did not have to do much to do better than Dr Edwards; nevertheless, he has done a lot for the industry and I sincerely congratulate him. Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) 9 April 1985 4963 The Minister has the positive support of the Queensland Racehorse Trainers Association. I have here a letter from the association that was delivered to the Minister and to other Cabinet Ministers only a few days ago. The association gives the Minister its total support.
It has confidence in him. I will read part of the letter that sums it up— "We realise that Mr. Hinze may have some shortcomings in some areas—" that is fair enough; it is prepared to say that it will chastise him when it is necessary— "but his desire to bring Queensland Racing into the 20th Century and his own enthusiastic drive is nothing but spectacular and needs all government. Race Club and licencee support and gratitude." That puts it in a nutshell. The trainers' association supports the Minister, who is doing a very wise thing by bringing in this Bill, even though it has some shortcomings.
Although some people say that the renewed success of the racing industry has a lot to do with the administration of the TAB by Sir Edward Lyons, most of the congratulations can be directed to the Minister. Sir Edward Lyons has had nothing to do with the administration of racing in Queensland.
If the Minister had not taken money from the TAB and put it into the Racing Development Fund, racing in Queensland would have been a dead duck. He was game enough to take on Sir Edward Lyons. He took money from the TAB and stopped Sir Edward Lyons from investing it in Rothwells Ltd.
The Minister put the money into the racing industry to increase prize-money and to provide facilities for the public. As a result, more money has flowed 4964 9 April 1985 Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) A Racing Codes Advisory Board is to be established. I suppose that that will be the start of a racing commission, although I hope that it is not. The board will comprise three members. To date, we do not know who those members will be, but we know that Dr Donald wUl be the chairman. It is important that the members who are appointed to the board should know something about racing. I appeal to the Minister not to appoint to the board anybody who may be a good friend of Sir Edward Lyons or somebody else. I doubt that he would do that.
Nevertheless, I appeal to him not to appoint to the board somebody who may be a good friend but who may know nothing about racing. It is important that the three appointees understand and have a great knowledge of the racing industry.
I am sure that, before the day is out, the Racing Minister will tell the House who those three members are, because it is very important. I am very pleased that he has just acknowledged that he will do so.
Not only should the board advise the Minister, but it should also advise the Queensland Turf Club stewards of the findings, because it is important that they are made aware of them. If the board discovers that a new dmg is being administered, it is important that the Minister and the QTC stewards should know of that dmg, because the stewards will be responsible for much of the testing. Although many people bear a gmdge against the QTC, I feel that it has done a very good job. Only recently has the equipment been upgraded, and that may be one of the reasons why this dmg has been found, even though most of the positive swabs are returned in the country.
The Bill provides that only a veterinary surgeon can treat a horse when it is in training. A horse or greyhound is deemed to be in training if, at the relevant time, it has been nominated for a particular race or races.
That provision is very unjust. If an owner or trainer wishes to nominate, for the Golden Slipper, the Oaks, the Derby or the Sires Produce a horse sired by, say. Copper Kingdom, which is the Minister's stallion, he may have to do so before the horse is broken in as a yearling. For the Golden Slipper, the horse must be nominated 12 months in advance. For many other races, including the Oaks and the Derby, the Prime Minister's Cup, the Elders, the Brisbane Cup and the Castlemaine Stakes—others are listed in this month's racing journal—horses must be nominated months before they are in training.
A horse could be in a paddock when it is nominated for a race. If an accident occurs to the horse, even if it is not in training, it cannot be treated. Many owners send their horses to good trainers because they use dmgs to cure illnesses, such as colic. I do not mean that caffeine or those sorts of dmgs are used. Trainers may apply poultices and administer dmgs, such as penicillin. Although those dmgs are not listed, it would still be very costly for the owners particularly and also trainers if only a vet can treat a horse after it has been nominated for a particular race.
Until I spoke to the Minister, it had been my intention to move an amendment to this clause on behalf of the Liberal Party so that treatment could not be administered within seven days of a horse being nominated for a race. The clause at present is unjust, especially when a horse is nominated for the Golden Slipper. That must be done 12 months in advance, which could be the maximum period. As Opposition members have said, the imposition of a fine of $20,000 or imprisonment for two years or both is pretty steep. The amount is not chickenfeed. I would like to know if a dmg is administered to a horse within the seven days, who in fact is fined— the owner, the strapper or the trainer? Is it the person who is found administering the dmg, or is it the responsibility of the trainer, who in turn passes it back to the owner? If it is the responsibility of the trainer only, there will not be many trainers left in Queensland.
I cannot be convinced that the Minister's trainer would administer a dmg. I assure the House that my trainer, Jimmy Atkins, and others such as Roy Dawson, Tommy Dawson and Eric Kirwan are not stupid enough to administer dmgs, even before the introduction of this penalty. People such as that have a great pride in what they have done for racing. I am sure they are not the types of men to lower their standards and Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) 9 April 1985 4965 principles and administer dmgs just for the lousy few bob that they might get from a bet on the side or from additional prize-money.
Mr Innes: Is it tme that you gave up punting when the bookies refused to accept the Ic coin? Mr DAVIS: That is very good. I will just pause and wait for the laughter. The honourable member for Yeronga stated also—and I must agree—that the computerisation of the TAB has made a difference to betting. The telephone accounts and agency betting now close two minutes prior to starting-time. 1 recall that, in the early days of the TAB, one of the great claims by the anti-gambling Government was that Queensland would not have TAB agencies anywhere near hotels.
I notice now that even down at the Hacienda in the Valley
Mr Hinze: You don't go to the Hacienda, do you? Mr DAVIS: I go past the Hacienda. It happens to adjoin my electorate. I notice that a TAB agency has been established there. Mr Burns: What about the pub down at Oxenford? Mr DAVIS: I am told that the same thing applies. The ALP supported the policy of locating TAB agencies away from hotels. However, this pro-gambling Government, as it now is, has changed its tune and put agencies in hotel bars.
Mr Hinze: What do you prefer? Mr DAVIS: I prefer to have agencies in close proximity to the patrons. If my memory serves me correctly, the $20,000 penalties highlighted in the Bill have been available under the Act. If that is so, why have they not been acted upon? 4968 9 April 1985 Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) Last Saturday, I attended the races in my old home town of Toowoomba. I congratulate the Toowopmba Turf Club on its amenities, which have improved considerably over the last 18 months. They are first-class amenities. The computer tote operates up to one minute before the start of Brisbane and interstate races. That is a marvellous facility for the people of Toowoomba. It is amazing that similar facilities are not made available locally.
I refer to the Rocklea trots. The former member for Archerfield, Kev Hooper, repeatedly sought support from various Racing Ministers for such a facility. I cannot remember which Liberal Minister stopped betting at Rocklea on Brisbane races. If it was not the member for Nundah (Sir William Knox) who bowed to pressure from the QTC it would have been Sir Llewellyn Edwards. What a trifling, piffling attitude on the part of the QTC, which did not receive one jot of additional support as a result! I was at Rocklea on the day that the late Ted Walsh, as Treasurer, opened the facility that permitted betting on Brisbane and interstate races.
The reason was to reduce the amount of SP betting on the south side of Brisbane. The QTC, which thought it may benefit from additional patrons, exerted pressure on the Government to stop betting at Rocklea on local races. On the last occasion that I mentioned this, the Minister said that a TAB agency would be set up. How can that be compared with the facUities at Toowoomba, Callaghan Park and Townsville? There is no comparison. The name of the game is to encourage people to race-tracks. I am sure that the Minister would agree. Poor attendances are of concern to the industry. Members on both sides of the House have said that the doping scandal and the Fine Cotton affair have damaged the racing industry.
On each occasion that t
Members on both sides of the House have said that the doping scandal and the Fine Cotton affair have damaged the racing industry. On each occasion that the Racing and Betting Act has been debated, I have said that the handling of the Fine Cotton incident by the QTC stewards was pathetic. There is absolutely no comparison between their action and the inquiry conducted in Sydney. That illustrated the difference between the two administrations.
Mr R. J. Gibbs: It is an absolute indictment on Queensland's administrators. Mr DAVIS: That is so.
The Minister has not answered questions asked by our spokesman (Mr Shaw), by the member for Port Curtis (Mr Prest) and by me. When did the stewards know about the ring-in of that horse? They must have known about a minute after the race. Mr Shaw: Someone told me that they found out when a fellow in the crowd yelled it out.
Mr DAVIS: They probably did. The Minister would know that time and time again a minute after a race, the stewards have conducted strip searches of jockeys in case a jigger has been used. Time and time again, the stewards have prevented horses from starting in a race, yet a mmour was rife that there was a ring-in on that day and the stewards allowed the horse to start. By doing so, they provided a bonanza for practically every book-maker in Queensland and Australia.
The Sydney stewards did not muck about. They did not conduct a prolonged inquiry, as occurred in Queensland. The Sydney stewards conducted an investigation into the Fine Cotton ring-in and, in a short time, they ascertained who the culprits were. The offenders are no longer enjoying the sport of racing as they have been warned off courses in Australia.
The Minister has asked for a royal commission, and the Opposition spokesman supported the holding of such an inquiry. I believe that holding a royal commission is the only way in which to clean up the racing industry—not merely the Fine Cotton scandal but also the incidence of doping. As I previously mentioned, the legislation already provides for a penalty of $20,000, and that penalty has not yet been acted upon. 1 ask the Minister why the same monetary penalty and the same period of imprisonment would now constitute a deterrent?
Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) 9 April 1985 4969 Mr Eaton: The Govemment is waiting for a couple more ring-in scandals. Mr DAVIS: That could be the case. However, the question that must be asked is why these illegal practices do not occur in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia—the three other main States involved in racing?
Mr Hinze: You tell us. Mr DAVIS: I am asking the Minister why. It is certain that the Minister is on the right track, and I cannot understand why he did not go ahead and hold a royal commission. The problems that I have mentioned affect not only the gallops but also trotting.
The problems have spread throughout the industry, and the Minister has been involved. I would have thought that the best course to follow would be for the Minister to conduct a royal commission if he is fair dinkum. I am certain that the Minister's statements in relation to the original instance were tme and correct, and the Opposition supported the Minister's suggestion of a royal commission.
A royal commission is the appropriate way to deal with these problems because, if the problems are allowed to continue—and the honourable member for Port Curtis has already referred to the Picnic in the Park incident, and anybody who is associated with racing would know that a horse that is 20/1 on to 40/1 on and is given a hit benefits no-one—it will obviously be a serious and sinister situation. I make those points whilst, at the same time, acknowledging that the Minister is doing an extremely good job with the racing industry. However, the cold facts of life are that, until proper answers are given in Parliament about the Fine Cotton scandal, the Opposition will regard the performance of the Minister as less than that of a top administrator.
Mr BURNS (Lytton) (5.33 p.m.): Following the remarks made by the honourable member for Brisbane Central, I must say that I, too, was surprised at the lack of action on the part of racing stewards in the Fine Cotton affair.
I was surprised because, over a period, I have spent some time with Mr Jack Greig, Mr Arty Belford and Mr Jack Haggarty and other people associated with trotting. I have been pleasantly surprised, not only at their expertise which was known to me, but also by the fair and impartial way that they administered trotting. The system of identification used in trotting, which is first class, is a system of handing out papers on which the horse is clearly identified by any mark that it may have had not only at birth but also gained over a lifetime of racing.
Of course, many horses do develop saddle-sores and other marks, and they are recorded on the card, but freeze-branding is a clear and easy method of identification of a horse. Mr Lee: Where did you leam about that? I have accused you wrongly. Mr BURNS: I know that the honourable member for Yeronga accused me wrongly but for some time at Royal National Association shows I have had an opportunity of working with Mr Jack Greig, who would be one of the best stewards ever produced in Australia.
Many of the top stewards who presently work in Hong Kong, Western Australia and the south were trained by him. He was the first person involved when trotting was established in Queensland. Mr Greig was the only fellow who, at that stage, could have been selected as a trotting steward. He taught himself to be a steward and taught his helpers to be stewards along with him. It was an education to work with some of those fellows and watch them work. For the benefit of the honourable member, I will tell him a story about Jack Greig.
One night at the Exhibition we were listening to the caU of a race at the trots and he said to me, "The third horse is dead." Late that night there was an announcement of a steward's inquiry, and the driver concemed got himself into a little bit of trouble over 4970 9 April 1985 Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) his handling of that horse. Jack Greig was so smart that he was able to listen to the call of a race and say, "That horse is not getting a fair go." Back in the days when they were both involved in racing. Jack Greig and Arty Belford were involved in one of the most successful prosecutions of a ring-in case ever. Arty Belford was very much responsible for the success of the Metropolitan Trotting Club at Rocklea.
The Minister now intends to set up a Racing Codes Advisory Board. It seems to me that the Minister is building another little empire. Queensland has a Commissioner of Main Roads (Eric Finger) and a Director of Local Govemment (Harold Jacobs), and I would not be surprised if, before very much longer, it has a full-scale department of racing no longer an appendage of the Department of Local Government. The racing industry is a massive State-wide operation. Perhaps the Minister is building a place for himself in the future. Mr Lee: Do you believe the Minister would make a good commissioner for racing? Mr BURNS: I would not mind seeing him in that position; it would get him out of our hair in this place.
Mr Hinze: Why don't you recommend it? Mr BURNS: I will, but, quite tmthfuUy, I do not think that Ted Lyons would accept the Minister. Ted Lyons has the ear of the Premier, and the Minister mns second on that score. So whatever recommendation I make will have to be approved by Ted Lyons before the vacancy is filled. The Bill provides that the Racing Codes Advisory Board may initiate consideration of and inform the Minister on matters touching the administration of racing and betting in this State.
I want to raise a matter conceming the TAB, which is very much under the Minister's control and something which he should investigate. Is the Minister aware of the concern in racing circles that $6,000 and then $10,000 has been taken from the TAB—I think it was punting money—and used contrary to the express policies of the board?
I am asking the Minister these questions now because his advisers are here. Is it tme that the TAB carries a substantial sum of cash so that, on request, it can provide holders of telephone betting accounts with money credited to their accounts? In other words, if I have two or tbf ee grand in my telephone betting account and I go along and ask the TAB to give me $1,500 or $2,000, my telephone betting account is checked and if I have sufficient in credit I am entitled to get the money by cash or cheque.
I want to know whether on a number of occasions a senior board member directed the manager to order those who operate the telephone betting accounts system at TAB headquarters to pay out sums, the largest of which was $10,000, against the board member's telephone account?
Is it tme that that action was taken after those who ran the telephone betting accounts system had said that the board member's account carried a virtual nil balance? Is an internal audit carried out each moming to ensure that all cash and other securities are credited to the TAB?
I understand that each moming there is an internal audit and that the people who hold up to $40,000 in cash have to justify that amount and show that they have it on hand or have paid it out. Was it necessary on at least one occasion for the manager to send a driver to this senior board member seeking the return of money drawn in that fashion prior to the intemal audit?
I understand that on that occasion—it was a Wednesday during the holding of the national TAB conference in Brisbane—the board member took ten grand of the TAB's money to the races. However, the money did not front up before the internal audit was conducted the next moming. I understand that a driver had to go out and chase the money up, and the money was finally retumed.
Who authorised the system that would allow that particular person to take money from the TAB, use it that day and overnight, and retum it the next moming? Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) 9 April 1985 4971
If those allegations are denied, will the Minister ask the manager and the people who mn the TAB telephone betting section to table in this House affidavits setting out the facts? Will he at the same time check and table the computer print-outs of the TAB telephone betting accounts on the days that the board member directed that that cash be withdrawn for his personal use?
It is important that the Minister get to the bottom of those allegations, because the TAB is the punter's area; it is where we put our money. As the Minister and most members know, I bet regularly. I like a punt. I like to punt with the bookies if I can. Most of us are not able to attend racecourses and we bet with the TAB. We argue that the percentages that the TAB takes from the pool are too high, and we like to think that the money that we invest with the TAB goes either into the racing industry or is honestly handled by the TAB management. It is important that the questions that I have asked are answered. Mr Shaw: If a bank teller did that, he would go to gaol.
Mr BURNS: It is suggested that those people are doing exactly what the little bank teller generally ends up in gaol for—taking a little money out of an account on Wednesday, going to the races and hoping that he can replace the money on Thursday morning and be able to keep a little for himself He can get away with it for a while, but anyone who has punted for any time knows that a person cannot continue to do that.
One of my friends told me to back one of his horses in the first race last Saturday. I must say that I am substantially poorer for the friendship. Mr Hinze: It was not Tristram's Edition? Mr BURNS: Yes, it was Tristram's Edition. Mr Hinze: Your friend is not sitting in the House now?
Mr BURNS: I will not go any further with that matter. That is a lesson for anyone who punts on the advice of owners. Every owner thinks that he owns a "Phar Lap" From listening to the advice of owners, I have left a lot of money in book-makers' bags.
I agree with what the honourable member for Yeronga (Mr Lee) said about hobby trainers.
When things get big in this State we tend to push the little bloke out. Some of the most honest trainers that I have met in racing have been those who train one or two horses. They have been highly successful, particularly in country areas.
I remember years ago attending a race-meeting in the bush. A horse was winning many six-furlong races round St George. One day the horse's trainer said to me, "Come home and have a beer with me." He lived in the poorest house in the town. While he was raising that horse, he worked in the meatworks and at all sorts of jobs round the town. It was a locally bred horse. He would not have made a fortune out of the horse. The Govemment is saying that every time a trainer such as the one to whom I have referred wants to give a horse a needle he will have to get a vet. I do not know the availability of vets in all country towns, and I do not know what they charge.
Mr Lee: They are very expensive. Mr R. J. Gibbs: You should watch "A Country Practice" Mr BURNS: My friend the honourable member for Wolston says that I should watch "A Country Practice" I think that I would rather take the interjection from the honourable member for Yeronga, who assures me that vets are very expensive. That provision has been put in the Bill by a man who has a lot of money and who sees the answer to the problem in employing someone at a high price. Most farmers and people who own pony-club horses know that it costs a lot of money to bring in a vet. Many trainers would administer a needle and handle a horse as well as any vet. An Honourable Member: Or better. 4972 9 April 1985 Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) Mr BURNS: Or better, as an honourable member interjects. I cannot see the reason for the inclusion of that provision in the Bill. I rose to ask particular questions about the TAB, and I would like some answers.
Hon. R. J. HINZE (South Coast—Minister for Local Government, Main Roads and Racing) (5.44 p.m.), in reply: I thank those honourable members who have made a contribution to the debate. Perhaps I should try to answer the last speaker first. The honourable member for Lytton (Mr Bums) made a number of serious accusations. Obviously I am not in a position to answer them at this time. I do not know where the information came from.
They have to be regarded as serious accusations and obviously answers will have to be provided at an appropriate time. I have been Minister for Racing for four and a half years and I am sure that honourable members would agree that I have tried, through the Racing and Betting Act, to transform and upgrade the industry State-wide. Over the last few months, a sad series of events has occurred and, over the last eight or nine weeks, my many public comments show clearly that the problems are of great concem to me.
Today I have not heard any honourable member say that he knows the answer. Many proposals have been put forward and much time has gone into trying to resolve the problems. I join with all honourable members in giving Ken Donald the highest commendation that can be awarded to a public servant in the State at this time. I am sure that the root of the problem will eventuaUy be reached, but it has certainly not been reached yet.
It is tme to say that all honourable members who have contributed to the debate have been generally supportive of the measures contained in the Bill and I am grateful that they have acknowledged my interest in the industry. I thank the Opposition spokesman, the honourable member for Wynnum, for his comments. He cited as one example a vague reference to Hayden Haitana, who, according to media reports, told pohce that he would be looked after by me. Obviously, that allegation is too stupid to be answered. Along with three other people, Mr Haitana has been charged in the Queensland courts and, according to the State's laws, they have been remanded for a further month or so. That is not to say that they have been successful or that they have been let off in any way. It simply means that the law is taking its ordinary course.
I want to see an end to the Fine Cotton affair as quickly as everybody else in Queensland. In a very vague and non-specific way, the honourable member for Wynnum raised suggestions that racing in Queensland is linked with organised crime and that evidence for that allegation was contained within "The Age" tapes.
My simple comment to that is that I have never resisted in any way a full investigation by appropriate authorities into those allegations. I dispute very strongly the aUegation raised during the debate that the doping problem is exclusively a Queensland problem or that my counterparts in chaise of racing interstate have sought to dismiss the problem by saying that it is a Queensland problem only. As honourable members would be aware, I have written to all Ministers in charge of racing initially seeking their support in tracking down the sources of the doping of horses and generally urging their support for the adoption of a broad national strategy to address the problem. I have been most heartened by their response, and I pay a particular tribute to my Victorian colleague, the Honourable Neil "Nipper" Trezise, who sent the senior officer of the Victorian Police Racing Squad to Queensland to help in our inquiries.
Other Ministers interstate have expressed their concern to me and, in response to my letter, they have indicated their full co-operation. The honourable member for Wynnum raised two further matters, namely, the administering of dmgs within a specific period by veterinarians and the exclusion of the Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) 9 April 1985 4973 public and media from inquiries. As I indicated during his speech, amendments will be introduced to address those problems.
The honourable member for Mount Isa raised the question that the definition of "dmg" may not cover newly developed synthetic dmgs. I draw the attention of the honourable member to the Bill, which defines illegal dmgs and adds the important rider of including any further dmgs that can be added from time to time by regulation of the Govemor in Council.
The honourable member for Mount Isa also asked why caffeine did not appear in the blood of horses. In fact, few blood samples are collected and the testing laboratory is still developing blood-sampling techniques. Urine is by far the best substance for analysis. Saliva swabs are of little value and will be abandoned entirely in the future. The honourable member also asked why no metabolites had been detected. I am advised that metabolites take between four and six hours on average to be formed in measureable quantities following the administration of caffeine.
That technical answer should answer his query. The honourable member suggested that split samples should be taken for the protection of trainers and that up to six samples could be used. I agree that split samples with Govemment seals are necessary, although two samples are a practical proposition, given the amount of urine available for any test.
The honourable member for Mount Isa also asked what a dmg is compared with a treatment. I assure him that "dmg" will be defined by the Act and regulations. My advice is that quantitative caffeine levels are unscientific and that the law throughout the world in racing jurisdictions makes any level of dmg illegal. When the honourable member described fentanyl as a relaxant for horses, he seemed to be confused. In fact, along with other narcotics, it is a major stimulant for horses and its effect is increased fourfold by small doses of caffeine administered with it.
As a final remark on the contribution of the honourable member for Mount Isa— I took him to task on this—might I tell him and the House that, when the new Racing and Betting Act came into effect in July 1981, the tmstees of the Mount Isa racecourse reserve, which caters for horse-racing and greyhound-racing, were forgiven repayment of $254,563 and have subsequently received, on my approval, $148,492. Of that total grant, $30,240 was for repairs to track and fencing for horse-racing and the balance—by far the great majority—was for greyhound facilities. I hope that I have been able to clear up the matter of funding. That club has not been entirely without funds from the Racing Development Fund.
The member for Port Curtis expressed concem that veterinarians would be required to administer all treatments as well as dmgs. I again assure the House and the honourable member that "dmgs" will be defined by the Act and regulations.
The member for Ashgrove asked for advice about findings of my committee of inquiry into the doping scandal. When I nodded at the time, I was thinking that he wanted the names of the members of that committee. They are Dr Ken Donald, Mr Fred Manahan and Mr Mark Vilgan, who is a solicitor with Walsh, Fitzgerald and Halligan. Progress is being made by eliminating various possibilities, and some material gathered by the committee is already being considered by my colleague the Attomey- General and Minister for Justice.
Perhaps I should also say that today it has been necessary for me to discuss a certain matter with the Attomey-General and Minister for Justice, and I believe that summonses will be issued on some people within the next day or two.
As usual, the honourable member for Yeronga made an excellent contribution to the debate, as might be expected from someone whose interest in the industry is as intimate and, in terms of winners, possibly more distinguished than mine. The honourable member said that the House had the right to know the findings of my committee of 4974 9 April 1985 Racing and Betting Act Amendment Bill (No. 2) inquiry. I can only repeat what I said in reply to the honourable member for Ashgrove— that any detailed comment at this stage could prejudice those inquiries, which are both active and continuing. I assure the honourable member for Yeronga that I am giving very careful consideration to his comments, and I take on board the most important of them.
The member for Brisbane Central (Mr Davis) is an old racing man. He referred to Rocklea, a place that some of us like to go to. Many people like to experience the atmosphere of the type of racing conducted there. I have had many an enjoyable day out there, the last one being only a few weeks ago. Mr Innes: Leave it at Rocklea. Don't take it away.
Mr HINZE: I assure the honourable member for Sherwood that the facility will be left at Rocklea, but I will try to allocate some funds in an endeavour to tidy up the grounds. However, I do not believe that the show society should remain in control of that land; it should come under the control of the racing industry. Under those circumstances some funds could be allocated to Rocklea. Mr Innes: Not the DPI farm. Mr HINZE: No, the Racing Branch does not want to go over to the DPI land. The DPI has made a request for something like $lm for that land. The Racing Development Fund cannot stand that sort of expenditure for the purchase of land. Therefore, racing will remain at Rocklea, but I will try to have some developmental work done on the site as it exists.
Mr Davis: Make sure they can bet on races in Brisbane. Mr HINZE: The honourable member for Brisbane Central suggested that the punters at Rocklea be allowed to bet on races in Brisbane.
He quite rightly said that the objection came from the principal club. The members of the principal club said, "You spent so much money on our track. Perhaps the people should come to Eagle Farm." I know that the honourable member will use the argument that they still will not go to Eagle Farm. He will say that the person who goes to Rocklea wants to go to Rocklea and nowhere else.
It has solved the problem of SP betting in that area. I have already indicated to the House during this debate that I intend to move some minor amendments to the Bill, and I am sure that all honourable members will agree with the amendments when I introduce them shortly. I think that it will be possible to overcome some of the problem areas in the Bill that were referred to by honourable members. I thank all honourable members for their contribution to the debate.
I make no apology for the fact that I will introduce a number of amendments to the Bill. I see nothing wrong with that. I accept the amendments, and I am prepared to include them. It is not tme that the Bill has been mshed through the House. It was introduced last week. Mr Lee: That makes you a good Minister; you accept an amendment. Mr HINZE: The honourable member is a good bloke, too. As the racing industry itself faces the demands and the challenges of the future, so must the Act reflect positive responses to those demands and challenges. While it is my privilege to be Minister in charge of racing, I will ensure that the Act reflects the best ways of ensuring the integrity—I emphasise the word "integrity"—of the racing industry. Motion (Mr Hinze) agreed to. Racing and Betting Act Amendment BUI (No. 2) 9 April 1985 4975 Sitting suspended from 5.57 to 7.15 p.m.
« Last Edit: 2019-May-17, 01:54 PM by Arsenal »
The funniest line in all of this is how someone could possibly mention Russ Hinze and Integrity in the same sentence.
« 2019-Jun-02, 04:50 PM Reply #1835 »
INSURANCE WIN FOR QUEENSLAND TRAINERS
Sunday 02 June, 2019
All Queensland trainers have been urged to join their association after it successfully negotiated a new insurance policy with Racing Queensland.
The Queensland secretary of the Australian Trainers Association, Cameron Partington, said in simple terms the average cost to trainers a year for insurance was approximately $8000.
Partington said RQ had now agreed to totally fund the premium.
"This is a very significant and direct saving to every Queensland trainer. We should embrace this initiative, which intends on being ongoing, and acknowledge this very positive industry assistance by Racing Queensland through the continual consultation and negotiations by the ATA," Partington said.
He said trainers who were ATA members, who paid their fees and support the viability of the ATA , should encourage all non-member trainers share the load and become members.
"There are approximately 700 trainers throughout Queensland who are not members who continually benefit from the work of the ATA paid for by other trainers," Partington said.
"This comes on the back of the huge prize money injections of last year - and the further cost savings and prize money increases expected in coming months."
Trainers who aren't members get the benefit of the ATA's representations......700 non members is a target worth recruiting adding strength to the ATA.
Compares to a large percentage of the workforce who don't join a union but enjoy the conditions and benefits from the efforts of the unions ...there are free loaders everywhere.
I have no idea what membership benefits the ATA provides but establishing a legal defence fund would be a good starting point in any recruitment drive and whatever other benefits membership offers to members as an incentive to attract new members...... all trainers contact details are publicly available....it just requires some effort to put the ATA case to them.
A couple of extracts from Peter Glesson's column in the CM today
Industries are digging deep to effect change
AS IF the premier didn’t have enough on her plate. The mining and racing industries are actively pulling together “war chests’’ to remove Labor from office in October next year. Both industries are talking about significant campaign funds. So too is the anti-abortion lobby.
Labor should stay on track
THE new greyhound track earmarked for southeast Queensland is locked and loaded and ready to go but the final impediment is State Government sign-off. This is seen as a mere formality although there are some on the Left of the Labor Party who are unsure. The LNP have made it clear it will sign off on the new track within weeks of its being elected.
Gleeson claims there's some political fund raising going on in the racing industry to defeat the current ALP guvment which if true it has been a closely guarded secret... that's if it exists or is just wishful thinking ....based on the LNP's record for racing ..they will be pushing it IMO on racing issues ..... Labor has mostly been good for racing with increased prizemoney and once it fixes the current appeals process eliminating QCAT or the delays which are well documented the LNP won't have anything better to offer ......although for the true blue supporters of the LNP who are still in a state of euphoria since federal election where they wiped the floor with Labor...where there's life there's hope.
Arsenal , I am surprised that you read anything Gleeson writes. He gets paid by a bloke who will go down in history as one of the grubbiest individuals who ever took his first breath in this wonderful land. Our World would be a lot better place if the Gleesons , the Bolts and those who have a documented fascination with the goings on in London toilets joined their mentor in the place he now calls home. And this is from someone who is apolitical.
Why would any state politician in Queensland pander to a local racing lobby unwilling to contract the industry to a basic metropolitan racing focus where it might salvage some national relevance.
« 2019-Jun-07, 08:59 AM Reply #1839 »
It turns out RQ is leaving HQ at Deagon signed a lease from 1May to share space with Alan MacSporran's CCC at 515 St Pauls Terrace a hop step and a jump from Fortitude Valley CM political editor Steve Wardill dropped the news today in the CM.....
IT seems the horse has bolted on Racing Minister Stirling Hinchliffe. Racing Queensland is apparently about to take up new digs at 515 St Paul’s Terrace for the princely sum of $575 per square metre.
They’ll share the building with the Crime and Corruption Commission.
The racing mandarins have decamped their Deagon home despite explicit instructions from Hinchliffe to find a use for the site first. Racing figures are rightly questioning why RQ wouldn’t find a trackside location and feed the rent money back into the industry."
In an earlier comment posted by my goodself on or about 3May Steve Wardill had a swipe at the Hon.Hinchy... a refresher follows:-
Courier Mail Political editor Steve Wardill had a swipe at the Hon. Hinchy today writing ..........
Has Hinchliffe lost the race?
STIRLING Hinchliffe (pictured), who sacked himself last term only to be rebirthed as the state’s Local Government and Racing Minister, just can’t take a trick.
As he sorts out the crook Logan Council, rumours are swirling that another part of his portfolio has gone rogue. I hear Racing Queensland has signed an “Intention to Lease” deal for flash new digs along King St at Bowen Hills. They started paying rent on May 1. This is despite Hinchliffe explicitly telling RQ mandarins that they can’t dump their Deagon digs until he’s signed off on an alternative use for the facility.
To make matters worse, Deagon is in Hinchliffe’s electorate and the racing body is a sizeable contributor to the local economy.
Hinchliffe’s office adopted a three monkeys’ approach and professed not to know anything about RQ’s move. “Nah mate, that’s it,” says his erstwhile spokesman. RQ didn’t respond.
Don’t bet on high horses."
If this is correct ; you just shake your heads at the morons running Queensland Racing. Why would you go about paying no rent to $575 per square metre allegedly. The reason is because it is our money , not theirs. Hinchcliffe, Parnell and co are simply confirming what most of us already know ; they are so far out of their depth it really is sad. The other possibility is that they have back on the agenda a move to flog off Deagon like some of their like minded incompetents tried a few years ago.
FURTHER BOOST FOR QLD RACING INDUSTRY
Racing Queensland will abolish starters' fees and increase prize money in selected areas as part of the latest measure in a state government boost for the industry.
Key Queensland racing participants went on strike last year which led to a government commitment to help the industry.
The government announced it would fund a $26 million prize money increase for the thoroughbred code to be delivered in two stages.
The first stage was an immediate $18 million increase from November and $8 million from June following the implementation of reform measures.
In all across the three codes, $34 million will be delivered to address industry viability and long-term sustainability with the latest funding increase to begin from June 17.
"Racing Queensland remains extremely grateful to the Queensland government for their funding support," RQ chairman Steve Wilson said.
"Over the past six months, significant progress has been achieved, and while more work still needs to take place, I look forward to further progress as we deliver on our strategic and commercial priorities."
He said as part of the additional $8 million in thoroughbred funding, RQ would abolish starters' fees to significantly reduce the cost of racing in Queensland.
There will also be elevated mid-week metropolitan prize money, and the metropolitan Saturday restricted races will increase from $45,000 to $50,000.
Metropolitan mid-week prize money is raised from $30,000 to $35,000.
There will also be a feature $30,000 race programmed at south east Queensland provincial meetings on a weekly basis.
This will likely put the spanner in the works of those supposed to be getting a "War Chest " together to oppose the Labor guvment at next years elections.......the LNP will need to come up with a better offer to convince stakeholders to change horses
QUEENSLAND JOCKEYS GET RIDING FEE INCREASE
Queensland jockeys will get a pay increase which will mean their base rate for a ride will rise by $40 over three years.
Jockey fees were increased from $180 to $200 per ride in 2018.
From July this year they it will go to $205 followed by an increase to $212 in July 2020 and to $220 the following year..
In addition, Racing Queensland will also lift the maximum weekly benefit applicable under the workers' compensation insurance policy.
"The agreement is the culmination of a positive and collaborative approach to negotiations between Racing Queensland and the QJA," RQ's chief operating officer Adam Wallish said.
"Not only does it provide certainty and surety to both parties over the next three years, it acknowledges the outstanding service provided by our jockeys across the state on a weekly basis."
In recent times, RQ has delivered a raft of initiatives including $18 million in additional prize money - a further $8 million was announced by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the weekend - as well as the introduction of prize money distribution down to 10th at TAB meetings.
QJA president Glen Prentice welcomed the agreement on behalf of his members.
"We're pleased to have reached a positive outcome with this three-year agreement with Racing Queensland on riding fees and other benefits payable to our 210 members," Prentice said
"We believe the agreement appropriately recognises the contribution made by jockeys to racing in this state."
Seems a reasonable proposition 2.5% then another 3% or so up to $220 when it'll be time to renegotiate.
Prizemoney increases form core of $8m funding package
NATHAN EXELBY
MIDWEEK metropolitan prizemoney will rise to $35,000 and starters’ fees will be abolished as part of Racing Queensland’s implementation of the additional $8 million state funding package announced at the weekend.
Thoroughbred racing has been boosted by $26 million in total, while greyhound and harness have been boosted by $8 million, with the final $2.5 million of that figure also confirmed at the weekend.
Abolishing starters’ fees will save participants $2.5 million a year, while RQ has committed to introducing a $30,000 feature race weekly at provincial meetings held at the Gold Coast, Ipswich and Caloundra.
The restricted Saturday metropolitan races will increase to $50,000, while Northern Provincial midweek meetings will have a minimum of $17,000.
Greyhound highlights include prizemoney increases of up to 25 per cent, appearance fees boosted to $60 per starter and the Ipswich Cup and Flying Amy boosted to $110,000.
All standard Friday harness races will increase to $6500 and Tuesdays to $8000, while Redcliffe Wednesday and Thursday are up to $4000.
It follows RQ striking a deal with the state jockeys association to boost riding fees to $220 per ride by 2021.
The fee will rise to $205 from next season, $212 in 2020 and $220 by 2021.
In addition, RQ will also lift the maximum weekly benefit applicable under the workers’ compensation insurance policy over the term of the agreement from $1800 per week to $2000 by next year.
More information in this story than that posted previously ...what the dishlickers and harness codes will receive.
Party train rolls on
Minister’s intervention puts Ipswich project on track
AMID a construction zone, the party will rage on at Ipswich on Saturday as the club toasts an off-the-cuff intervention from Racing Minister Stirling Hinchliffe yesterday.
After Racing Queensland last month put itself at odds with Ipswich Turf Club by announcing the course proper reconstruction would take precedence over previously discussed works at the track, Hinchliffe ensured he would be given a warm welcome by ITC officials after overruling the control body.
In a statement to Ipswich’s Queensland Times, Minister Hinchliffe (pictured) said he was “pleased to confirm the redevelopment of Ipswich Turf Club will be delivered as originally proposed, in full, including the tie-up stalls”.
He went on to say “Racing Queensland has been working collaboratively with the Ipswich Turf Club to deliver, in full, its commitments to them”.
This is in stark contrast to an RQ statement on May 3 which said as a result of a commitment for an additional $6 million to fix the Ipswich course proper, “the planned relocation of the club’s tie-up stalls would not be proceeding”.
When asked by The Courier-Mail what had changed between May 3 and yesterday and how the project would be funded, the Minister’s office replied: “It has always been the Government’s intention for the project to be delivered in full, as originally proposed, including the tie-up stalls. The scope of the funding for the project is a matter for Racing Queensland.”
The ITC is in the first phase of redevelopment, with work continuing on the new building between the old Members Grandstand and the raceday stalls.
Despite the racecourse being a construction zone, ITC general manager Brett Kitching said he expected Saturday’s crowd to be a similar number to the 20,000 it had attracted in recent years, with 14,000 tickets already pre-sold.
“There’s been some difficulty in setting up but the people of Ipswich don’t seem to care. They’re just wanting to come out to their party,” Kitching said.
The Kevin Kemp-trained Fighting Teo was posted the early Cup favourite yesterday ($3.40 with Ladbrokes).
Kemp’s sprinter Mr Marbellouz is a $7 third pick for the Eye Liner, behind Godolphin’s Gaulois ($5.50) and Chapter And Verse ($6).
.............. remember ........ standalones ........ mean stand well clear!
In state parliament yesterday Mr J-P Langbroek LNP Surfers Paradise outlined his thoughts on the guvment's handling of racing ...an extract from his contribution to the Appropriation Bill:-
"Labor has let down the racing industry time and time again. It was on the eve of the last budget
that Labor snuck in a 15 per cent point-of-consumption tax, which is amongst the highest in the country,
with no plan to reinvest in the industry it is taking from.
In an unprecedented move, we saw statewide strikes on Cox Plate day, with participants willing to also extend the strikes to Melbourne Cup Day if
Labor continued to bleed the industry dry. Any attempt to fix this is just about saving face for Labor. Ihas proven that it does not understand or care about this vital industry.
With a 10 per cent tax in New South Wales and eight per cent in Victoria, Queensland has been
falling further and further behind when it comes to competing with other states. This budget’s Budget
Paper No. 2 has these wagering taxes raising $417 million, up from $370 million last year.
The Gold Coast has particularly felt the effects on the industry, with some trainers travelling over the border to
get a better deal in prize money in northern New South Wales in places like Murwillumbah, Lismore
and Ballina.
The situation in Queensland is so bad that Queensland’s biggest single investor in racing,
Aquis Farm, announced for some time that it was bowing out of racing in this state due to ongoing
integrity issues. This was unprecedented in Australian racing and just goes to show that Labor has no
idea when it comes to this important $1.2 billion industry.
The Gold Coast Turf Club, sponsored by Aquis, supported this move by Aquis Farm, reinforcing
the importance of integrity and a level playing field which has been compromised under Queensland
Labor’s watch due to the issue of the justice system in racing, which is also a shambles. We have had
matters referred to QCAT, the Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which was not set up to handle matters
relating to racing. In fact, recently it was given jurisdiction over things like dodgy cars. That is an issue
for the members of QCAT because they do not have the experience when it comes to racing matters.
Labor has blackened the names of racing participants who are facing charges, which were
subsequently dropped, with no attempt to correct the record. Labor must do more to ensure that integrity
is restored in Queensland after it ambushed the industry with this point-of-consumption tax on the eve
of the last election."
Some parliamentary licence in that it's just politics
Governments do understand racing
--- they have pulled the plug in SA and QLD -- take the POC tax et al and do nothing.
How about letting Gerry Harvey run it -- just Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
In QLD Parliament on the last sitting day of the current session this is an excerpt from the statement made by Mr Tim Nicholls LNP Clayfield on the PoC tax
Budget, Taxes Mr NICHOLLS (Clayfield—LNP) (11.26 pm):
Continuing the theme of the week, I want to talk about the effect of this Labor government’s taxes, charges, levies and increases of all sorts, making life harder for the residents in my electorate. The first of those I might deal with that affects my electorate is the wagering tax. The wagering tax has a significant impact on my electorate. I have Eagle Farm, Doomben racetrack and Albion Park racetrack in my electorate. Three of the major racetracks in Queensland are located in my electorate. Many people employed in the racing industry live in my electorate. In fact, they live in the suburb that I live in—Hendra—and will be affected by it.
14 Jun 2019 Adjournment 2239 Wagering taxes go from $9 million in 2017-18 to over $100 million in 2019-20—a tenfold increase in two years. Ordinary punters are being slugged by this Labor government and only a fraction goes to industry. None of it is going back, for example, into upgrading Albion Park—not even to replacing the starter’s box, which has been surrounded by scaffolding for years. While the Premier is happy to turn up and drink champers and have canapes at Stradbroke Day, like Marie Antoinette, she looks over the crowd at ordinary racegoers, punters, racehorse trainers, racehorse owners and jockeys and says, ‘Let them eat cake.’
This was followed by a statement by Mrs Jo-Anne Miller ALP Bundamba on the delay in finalising the Ipswich TC improvements
Ipswich Turf Club, Redevelopment; Riverview Neighbourhood House Mrs MILLER (Bundamba—ALP) (11.29 pm):
I rise to speak about Racing Queensland, which is a basket case. Following on from the previous member, we have had major issues in relation to the Ipswich Turf Club redevelopment. In my view, Racing Queensland needs a boot right up the backside for its mismanagement and maladministration of the club redevelopment at Ipswich.
It has wasted huge amounts of money on various activities, hiring consultants that have been completely unnecessary. Then it had the hide to come to our turf club and tell us that we are not getting what we were promised years ago. This all happened at the Labour Day race day, so honourable members can imagine that all of us workers were extremely unimpressed.
After quite a lot of manoeuvring between the turf club and me—because it is my home track—we were eventually able to talk to the Minister for Racing and get some common-sense outcomes so that the whole of the project will be approved.
The issue with the Ipswich Turf Club is that it is not just a track; it is our family history over generations. In my particular case, five generations of family on my mother’s side have been racing followers—the Kitching family—and for us it is not just a track; it is our family heritage.
That is why we are so passionate about it. I say to Racing Queensland: holy mackerel, you had better deliver because, if not, I will be watching and there will be hell to pay. I wish everyone a very happy Ipswich Cup day tomorrow.
« Last Edit: 2019-Jun-23, 11:13 AM by Arsenal »
Plenty at stake in RQ-Tabcorp dispute
Sunday Mail Nathan Exelby reports
The legal dispute between Racing Queensland and Tabcorp lays bare cracks that have opened in the relationship, which is only a short time into being.
The legal action is understood to be a complex matter regarding the calculation of the deduction Tabcorp gets from Racing Queensland as part of the Point of Consumption tax.
The State Government committed to a “make good” when the tax was introduced in October last year, which was meant to assure RQ would not be worse off under its product agreement with Tabcorp as a result of the POC.
But it seems there has been discrepancies in the way RQ and Tabcorp are calculating the deduction.
A source said the amount at stake was “significant” when you extrapolate it over the length of the 30-year Product Agreement.
How long it takes to be settled or who ‘wins’ remains to be seen, but from an industry point of view, it’s a poor look when the control body is locked in battle with the company that provides 75 per cent of its wagering revenue.
There are other factors at play in the uneasy relationship between the two parties.
Tabcorp and RQ struck a deed of understanding before the merger with Tattersall’s went ahead.
The assumption was the switch to TAB would swiftly turn around the fortunes of the ailing Tattersall’s wagering arm (UBET), but it is taking longer than expected to do so.
Within the deed of understanding, RQ has a safety mechanism for the first three years where Tabcorp makes up any shortfall in agreed projected revenue returns to the industry.
This figure was $5 million last year, but this was for only a sixmonth period. It will be at least $10 million and potentially a lot higher for the next 12 months.
There is only 18 months to run (December 2020) before that safety blanket is taken away.
The ramifications for the industry of a seven-figure shortfall after that time will be significant if there isn’t change before then.
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Justice Politics
politics, SCOTUS, sexual abuse, women's rights
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has been getting praise heaped upon him for “doing the moral thing,” for “taking a step back,” for “acting on his conscience,” and for “working across the aisle” by figuring out a way to delay Brett Kavanaugh’s SCOTUS confirmation vote, pending further investigation by the FBI. But you don’t have to scratch too deeply into Flake’s sugar-coated surface to become cynical about his tactics and his motives.
Flake’s heralded rebellious behavior arrives against a backdrop of his previous history of pontificating against Trump and his policies and positions, followed almost immediately by his consistently voting in favor of Trump’s policies and positions. The stakes here, however, are far greater than whether or not Flake agrees with Trump on any single policy matter.
If Flake had truly wanted to act morally and ethically, he had a less flimsy option available: he could have voted no in committee in order to allow sufficient time for a thorough FBI investigation of all pending allegations. He would have been able to use the power of one committee member’s vote to ensure the result would be aligned with his purported position of morality.
Instead, he used a different strategy: vote affirmatively in committee to proceed to a floor vote, with a pledge to vote no when the nomination went to the full Senate. He agreed to a delay of a single week instead of letting the investigation take the amount of time that would actually be necessary. This cursory delay gives Flake and the Republicans cover to pretend they looked deeply enough into Kavanaugh’s questionable past. Flake can go home to Arizona and continue his public hand-wringing without truly having done anything genuine to get to the truth of Kavanaugh’s potential crimes through a robust, unconstrained investigation.
We’ve already seen Trump put limitations around the FBI investigation, including excluding any accusations by the third accuser and preventing the FBI from interviewing those folks from Kavanaugh’s college years who have stated that they regularly witnessed him drinking to excess and exhibiting belligerent behavior.
If Kavanaugh is confirmed (as many Republicans have promised that he will be, despite not having a clue what the FBI might uncover), three of the nine SCOTUS justices – a full third of the court – will be under a lifetime dark cloud. Clarence Thomas, despite his confirmation years ago, is under renewed scrutiny and criticism in the era of #MeToo; Neil Gorsuch’s seat rightfully belongs to Merrick Garland; and Brett Kavanaugh, who will perpetually be mistrusted as the result of Thursday’s riveting and credible testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, along with a whole host of unexamined or under-examined allegations from additional accusers and witnesses.
On a couple of occasions, I’ve listened to people support Flake by saying that he’s done more than any other Republican has done to try to make this debacle better. That, sadly, is probably true. But there is still a gigantic chasm between Flake’s actions and a truly moral and ethical solution. Flake may have been able to give Republicans a pretense to hide behind and he may momentarily assuage his own sense of guilt. But it does little to get to the actual truth of Kavanaugh’s history to determine whether he is morally suited for a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court.
We note the passing today of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, champion of all things conservative and a self-proclaimed “strict constructionist” when it came to interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. O.K. Now that that’s out of the way...
Mike Pence’s Fugue State
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Mon 27 May 2013
The mysteries of words, birds, and the NRA
Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, West Marin nature
We humans sometimes don’t know what we’re seeing and often don’t know what we’re hearing and saying.
Abandoned by its mother.
A couple of weeks ago, this bird’s egg suddenly appeared on the railing outside the dining-room window at Mitchell cabin. Although Lynn was sitting at the dining-room table, she didn’t see the bird that laid it, but the egg couldn’t have been on the railing very long. The day was windy, and shortly after I snapped this picture, the egg was blown off the railing and broke.
I later showed this photo to Dave DeSante, president of the Institute for Bird Populations in Point Reyes Station, but he couldn’t identify it. “Too many birds have white eggs like that,” he said.
Nor would he hazard a guess as to what the egg had been doing on my railing. My own SWAG (military parlance for “scientific wild-ass guess”) is that some bird went into labor before she could make it back to her nest.
Another mystery: Why is the National Rifle Association, which is dominated by southern white men, now fighting against federal gun-control legislation.
People need to be armed, they claim, to protect themselves from not only criminals but also from oppressive government.
The NRA seems to forget that in the 1960s, it helped draft some of the early gun-control laws. What has changed?
During the Civil Rights Movement, armed Black Panthers began patrolling the streets of various cities to protect blacks — sometimes from abuse by police.
On May 2, 1967, when Ronald Reagan was governor of California, he chanced upon a group of armed Black Panthers at the state capitol. Reagan became so frightened that he took off running and despite his political conservatism immediately began advocating gun-control legislation and garnered support from the NRA.
It sounds to me as if the way to get gun-control legislation passed is to bring back the Black Panthers.
Here’s an expression we hear all the time, but few people know its origin: “Leave no stone unturned.”
The expression, according to the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, “goes back to a battle between forces led by the Persian general Mardonius and the Theban general Polycrates in 477 BC.
“The Persian was supposed to have hidden a great treasure under his tent, but after he was defeated, the victorious Polycrates couldn’t find the valuables. So he put the question to the oracle at Delphi (above left) and was told to return and leave no stone unturned. He did — and found the treasure.”
A “girl” in the Middle Ages: is the child really male or a female? Hard to tell. And, no, the kid’s not a hermaphrodite.
As the Morris Dictionary explains: “It seems hard to believe that in the Middle Ages [the 5th to the 15 century] a girl could be a young child of either sex.
“Indeed, such phrases as knave girl to designate a boy child were common. In Middle English the word had various spellings: gerle, girle, and gurle.”
By the way, there is no such thing as a true hemaphrodite, according to the Intersex Society of North America.
That would require a person to be both fully male and fully female. At most, some people are born with — or develop at puberty — ambiguous genitalia. Other people may look female on the outside but have typical male anatomy on the inside (or vice versa), but that doesn’t mean they are of both sexes, the Society says. Indeed, it adds, one percent of all human “bodies differ from standard male or female.”
We’ll close with a one last surprise from the Morris Dictionary. The term “filibuster was originally a Dutch term and had nothing to do with government. Indeed, it originally meant ‘freebooting’ — private citizens’ engaging in warfare against a state with whom their country was at peace, usually for personal gain.
“The Dutch word vribuiter literally meant ‘freebooter or pirate.’ And its derivative filibuster was first used in this country during the 1850s to describe adventurers who were running guns to revolutionists in Cuba and other Central and South American countries.
“However, the term filibustering has become so completely identified with delaying tactics in the Senate that the word is not used for gun-running or piracy anymore.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) filibusters for eight hours to block a vote on an Obama tax bill in 2010.
“The first use of filibuster to describe obstruction of legislation by invoking parliamentary delays and resorting to prolonged speechmaking appeared in 1853, when one member of Congress sharply criticized the tactics of his rivals as ‘filibustering against the United States.'”
So the next time some Senator resorts to a filibuster to forestall a vote, just remind yourself that he/she is tacitly behaving like a 19th century gunrunner.
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No Responses to “ The mysteries of words, birds, and the NRA ”
Monday, May 27th, 2013 at 6:24 pm
General News and West Marin nature
Black Panthers, etymology, filibuster, hemaphrodites, Intersex Society of North America, NRA
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Seminar – Topological spintronics
Spintec > Seminar > Seminar – Topological spintronics
Seminar, THEORY / SIMULATION
On november 28, We have the pleasure to welcome Bertrand Dupé from INSPIRE Group, Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. He will give us a seminar at 11:00, CEA/Spintec, Bat. 1005, room 434A entitled :
Topological spintronics
Surfaces and interfaces can host a wide range of physical phenomena: changes of chemical potential or hybridization can induce large spin orbit coupling, the breaking of inversion symmetry allows the emergence of new transport properties or new interactions. One of these interactions is the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DMI) interaction. The DMI stabilizes chiral non-collinear magnetic textures such as domain-walls or skyrmions which can be manipulated efficiently by electrical currents [1].
Due to their unique dynamic properties, skyrmions offer attractive perspectives for future spintronic applications [1]. Skyrmions can be stabilized at surfaces, interfaces [2,3] and in multilayers at room temperature [4,5].
Here, we show that density functional theory can be used to accurately describe the stability and the dynamics of skyrmions. We explore the different stabilization mechanism of skyrmions in ultra-thin-film and multilayers [3,4]. In particular, we show that the competition between the Heisenberg exchange beyond first nearest neighbor and the DM interactions are crucial to describe equilibrium and dynamic properties of skyrmions. Like in a spin glass, such competition results in a frustrated ground state [6,7] which may exhibit higher order skyrmionic states [8,9].
Finally, we focus on the dynamics of skyrmions and antiskyrmions under spin orbit torque. Conterintuitively, we show that their dynamics are not driven by their respective topological charge but rather by the symmetry of the DMI as well as the deformation of their core [10].
[1] A. Fert, et al., Nature Nano. 8, 152 (2013).
[2] N. Romming, et al., Science 341, 636 (2013).
[3] B. Dupé, et al., Nature Comm. 5, 4030 (2014).
[4] B. Dupé, et al., Nature Comm. 7, 11779 (2016).
[5] C. Moreau-Luchaire, et al., Nature Nano. 11, 444 (2016).
[6] M. Böttcher, et al., New Journ. Phys. 20, 103014 (2018).
[7] I. Lemesh, et al., Advanced Mater. doi.org/10.022/adma.201805461 (2018)
[8] B. Dupé, et al., New Journal of Physics 18, 055015 (2016).
[9] S. von Malottki, et al. Scientific Reports 7, 12299 (2017).
[10] U. Ritzmann, et al. Nature Electro. 1, 451 (2018).
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Guthrie Theater's current production covers stage in 12,500-pound pool of water
A Guthrie newcomer supervised the installation of a 6-ton pool for the Tony Award-winning "Metamorphoses."
By Chris Hewitt Star Tribune
Video (00:52) : For the play Metamorphoses the Guthrie Theater had to construct a 6-ton, onstage pool. Watch the action in this timelapse.
It’s one of Rebecca Cribbin’s first projects as the Guthrie Theater’s new director of production. And she’s being thrown into a pool.
It’s not hazing; it’s “Metamorphoses.” Based on ancient fables by the Roman poet Ovid — including the stories of Narcissus and Orpheus and Eurydice — “Metamorphoses” is set in and around the pool of water that currently covers the Guthrie’s entire thrust stage. Created by theater artist Mary Zimmerman in 1996 before making its way to Broadway in 2002 (Zimmerman won a Tony Award for directing), “Metamorphoses” opened Thursday, with a production that was coproduced with California’s Berkeley Repertory Theatre (where it ran this year).
The Guthrie has used water features in the past. But an onstage pool where actors hop in and out, their clothes and hair wringing wet? That’s a new one.
“The minute you mention to any theater technician something like this, their interest will be piqued,” said Cribbin, who joined the Minneapolis theater in November. “It was one of those things that felt challenging. And I do love a challenge.”
At the Guthrie, the entire stage essentially has become a giant trap door filled with water. And the work of supporting 1,500 gallons of water that weighs about 12,500 pounds is done by a wooden structure the audience will never see. Guthrie crews constructed an enormous network of braces that stands on the concrete substructure beneath the thrust part of the stage.
That’s where they’re keeping a stash of buckets, just in case. “Water has a mind of its own, so I’m sure we will have leaks,” said Cribbin, whose aqua-theatrical history includes the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Penelopiad” (which featured a small pool) and the double-bill of “Wolf Hall” and ”Bring Up the Bodies” (which featured rainfall and was conceived with its own version of the River Thames).
ANTHONY SOUFFLÉ • Star Tribune
Actors rehearsed a scene in the pool on the set of “Metamorphoses” at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
But Ginny Mulvaney, owner of Custom Pools and Spas, insists the buckets won’t be necessary. “The only thing that would cause a problem would be if you put something sharp in there,” said Mulvaney, whose Hopkins-based firm installed a custom-made plastic liner in the 23-by-20-foot pool — larger than the one at Berkeley Rep. “We cut in all of the fittings. There were a couple of leaks on the equipment they got from the Berkeley people, but all of those got fixed.”
Mulvaney was impressed by the Guthrie staff’s work on the pool framework, built under the leadership of technical director Jim Gängl, especially since pools are not exactly the theater’s specialty.
“It’s holding together great so far,” she said of the Gängl team’s reinforcements. “So I’d say they did a perfect job.”
Entering the ‘Splash Zone’
As with any pool, installation was only the beginning of the work.
Actors will be pleased to know the pool is heated. The plan is to keep water temperature just above 100 degrees, roughly the equivalent of a warm bath. But that requires two noisy heaters, which must be shut off before each 90-minute performance. Gängl figures the pool will cool about 2 degrees during each show, which should still be comfortable for the actors.
What won’t be so comfortable is leaving the pool and milling about in wet costumes backstage, where air temperature runs in the low 70s. That’s where the crew took its cues from ice fishermen.
“For when the actors go backstage, we’re building little warming huts,” Cribbin said, noting that heaters will run in the huts during performances. “Obviously, their clothes will be wet, but they can stay somewhat comfortable if they’re at least kept warm.”
Crews also will test the water twice a day to monitor alkalinity and levels of bromine, the chemical that prevents the development of harmful bacteria (bromine maintains its integrity better at high temperatures than chlorine and won’t leave the theater smelling like a public pool).
“We want to see what happens when we have a couple performances a day and we can’t have the floater in the pool, bobbing around and dispensing sanitizer, because there are people in it, using it,” Gängl said. “You have to keep track because, especially with the water being so hot, it’s a breeding ground for bacteria if the chemistry gets a little off.”
Cribbin and her staff stand ready to address any other problems that might arise.
“The thing I’m most nervous about is that the actors have been doing it for many weeks in Berkeley and they’re used to the way it worked there,” she said. “So we want to be sure to re-create that comfort level.”
That’s why the Guthrie installed a layer of foam beneath the pool liner, to make navigating in bare feet more secure.
They also added extra waterproofing, to help the production avoid the fate of a Minneapolis play that was shut down in 2017 when actors spotted an electrical circuit near the stage pool.
“Water and electricity don’t mix,” Cribbin said. “There are a couple of footlights that will be shielded from having any water fall on them, and we just need to be mindful that there isn’t anything electrical going anywhere near the water.”
“Metamorphoses” is not the Guthrie’s first time at the water park, but it is its most ambitious use of H2O to date. A giant wall supposedly held back water throughout the run of “The Good Hope” (1993). Virtually all of “Nice Fish” (2016) took place on frozen (fake) ice. There were rainstorms in “The Bluest Eye” (2017) and “Indecent” (2018). “Other Desert Cities” (2013) was set in a Palm Springs home with a 50-foot-long water feature.
New Guthrie Theater production director Rebecca Cribbin says of the onstage pool in “Metamorphoses,” top, “It was one of those things that felt challenging. And I do love a challenge.”
But for these shows, audiences took in the effects at a remove. “Metamorphoses” is different. It has a Splash Zone.
“We are putting in seven seats in a little recess” at the front of the thrust stage, Cribbin said. “That’s the Splash Zone, and we have ordered towels for the seven members of the public who are sitting there so if they get wet, which they invariably will, they can dry themselves off.” (Splash Zone tickets can be purchased via the Guthrie box office by phone or in-person.)
Guthrie staffers, too, hope to get close to the water. The stage area remains strictly off-limits to nonactors (off the record, several employees admitted it may be hard to resist slipping into the theater for a relaxing foot bath) but that may not matter now that their eyes are open to the wonders of having a pool.
“I’ve never had one,” Gängl said. “But I want one now.”
Theater critic Chris Hewitt previously worked at the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, where he covered movies and then theater. Also, he occasionally gets to write book reviews.
chris.hewitt@startribune.com 612-673-4367 hewittstrib
A Utah boy has earned widespread social media attention for his neighborhood soda stand thanks to a sign he holds that reads, "Ice Cold Beer" with "root" above the word beer in tiny print.
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REVIEW: Shrek Forever After
One of the greatest pleasures movies give me is when a film turns out to be much better than I had expected. Shrek Forever After rates as the year's most pleasant surprise.
As I wrote earlier in the month, I had not been looking forward to the movie. I had always found the series overrated. I wasn't even planning on seeing the fourth film. However, when a friend I don't get to see very often suggested it, I changed my mind - and I'm very glad I did.
As Shrek the Third had made woefully clear, DreamWorks had run out of ideas when it came to their cash cow ogre. Really, the only thing left to do was to start over - a fact the filmmakers recognized when they came up with the idea for this story - basically, Shrek's version of It's a Wonderful Life.
Feeling stifled by the monotony of domesticity, Shrek misses the days when the populace feared him - when he was free to growl and grouse. That the writers used this storyline, I think, is a canny recognition of the fact that Shrek was always more interesting when he was more of an ogre.
Shrek's feelings make him live bait for the devious Rumpelstiltskin, who wants to rule Far Far Away - and the only way he can do so is by making sure Shrek never rescues Fiona from the tower. So Rumpelstiltskin tells Shrek the ogre can have one day of his old life back in exchange for one day of his early life. However, the day Rumpelstiltskin takes is the day Shrek was born - leaving Shrek truly friendless. Nothing is as he remembers it. The only way to break the curse, is of course, true love's kiss - and that's never as easy as it sounds.
Thus wiping the slate clean, the filmmakers are free to reinvent Shrek's world, and they have a lot of fun doing so, breathing life back into the franchise. It's especially heartening to see Shrek trying to make Fiona fall for him all over again, and that's the key to this movie's success. The Shrek/Fiona romance has always been the heart of these movies, and having them start from scratch gives this movie an emotional pull that had faded from the series.
Not everything works. Donkey is given too little to do, and DreamWorks still falls back on its lazy, tired habit of making their soundtracks into a K-Tel record. But the pros outweigh the cons. Rumpelstiltskin, terrifically voiced by DreamWorks story artist Walt Dohrn, makes for a great villain, plus it's fun to see Puss in Boots as a lethargic blob - and darn it all, that "big sad eyes" gag still works.
Perhaps the film worked for me because I went in with such low expectations. Maybe it worked because director Mike Mitchell has a way of taking stale material and making it fresh, as he did with Disney's Sky High. Whatever the reasons, Shrek Forever After allows the series to go out on a high note. To say it's better than the lifeless third movie is to damn it with faint praise - but is is the best film in the series since the first.
NOTE: I saw the film in 3D and liked the effects but didn't find them integral to movie, as I did with How to Train Your Dragon. If you can swing the 3D, great - if you can't, no great loss.
Posted by Sir Critic at 1:21 PM 2 comments
Labels: Reviews: In theaters
DVD Catch-Up/What I've been watching
Since the theatrical slate is about as exciting as a bowl of bran flakes, I've taken to watching mostly the small screen lately. Here's a rundown of DVDs of movies I've seen, and other titles I've seen via the cathode ray tube (Yeah, I still have one of those.)
Edge of Darkness - Very solid police procedural that I believe was unfairly tainted by the cloud that hovers around Mel Gibson. Point blank, the man still holds the screen and does so very well here as a vengeful cop investigating the murder of his daughter. Solidly directed, as usual, by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) and well written by William Monahan (The Departed). GRADE: B+
Invictus: Decent yet somewhat lacking sports melodrama from Clint Eastwood. It suffers a bit from over-earnestness, and Eastwood errs in the sports sequences by playing too many shots in slow motion. The film benefits, as expected, from strong performances by Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. GRADE: B
Leap Year: Well, of course I liked it. It's Amy Adams. And no, had any other actress been in the lead I probably wouldn't have forgiven the extremely predictable plot, but my bias is my bias, so there ya go. Full review - GRADE: B
The Messenger: This drama focuses on a side of the military that is too little thought about, because to think about it too much is unbearable. The leads are two Army officers who have the grave mission of telling families their loved one has died in the line of duty. The performances are so poweful I wish the drama hadn't gone somewhat muted by the end, but it's well worth seeking out. GRADE: B+
Nine: When I saw this in December, I enjoyed the energy of the musical numbers, and - that was about it. The songs are well sung, but I didn't connect with the drama of Daniel Day-Lewis' tortured director at all. Hence, the film faded quickly from my memory. GRADE: C+
Small-screen viewing
Annie Oakley: No, no one sings "There's No Business Like Show Business" in this version, and to be honest, I didn't miss it all that much. George Stevens' 1935 drama about the Ohio sharpshooter. Stevens' comedy rhythms are a bit awkward, and the plot is certainly hokey/dated, but it gets a ton of charm from its performances, most especially that of Barbara Stanwyck in the title role. GRADE: B+
Broken Embraces: Pedro Almodovar's latest, about the melodrama surrounding a blinded movie director doesn't live up to its early intrigue, with the third act being a bit rote, but there's enough fascination to make it highly watchable. I would have much rather seen Penelope Cruz Oscar nominated for this film than her unsurprising work in Nine. GRADE: B+
A Foreign Affair: Well of course I liked it, it's Billy Wilder. And I haven't met a Wilder movie yet that wasn't at least decent. This one, about a love triangle in post-war Germany isn't as fresh as the best Wilder, but the sharp performances by the ever-sultry Marlene Dietrich and the always delightful Jean Arthur make it hold up quite well all the same. Fun character actor recognition: the commanding officer in the film is Millard Mitchell, who would later play the somewhat dotty studio head in Singin' in the Rain. GRADE: A-
Red Cliff (extended version): John Woo's return to foreign language film isn't quite the return to form I hoped it would be. As expected, it's filled with dazzling camerawork, with exciting battle scenes, but Woo stacks the deck too much with the sprawling story. The drama, though solid, never leaves the conflict in enough doubt. GRADE: B
Seconds: Underrated, thoroughly engrossing and eerie paranoid thriller about a man who changes identities so completely that he gets a whole new face and, indeed a whole new life. Striking direction by John Frankenheimer and innovative camerawork by James Wong Howe power this movie, which dilutes only a little at the end with a somewhat abrupt denouement. GRADE: A-
Summertime: This David Lean film isn't as strong as his early British movies (e.g. Great Expectations) or his later massive epics (e.g. Lawrence of Arabia), but it's kinda hard to miss with a romance fronted by Kate Hepburn, isn't it? GRADE: B+
Targets: I saved the best for last. Peter Bogdanovich's 1968 thriller at first seems to be two completely different movies. One is about an aged star (Boris Karloff0 who is disillusioned with the movie business, and the other is about a crazed gunman who goes on Charles Whitman-like shooting sprees. Bogdanovich cleverly and chillingly dovetails the two plots; this is his second-best film, after The Last Picture Show. GRADE: A
Posted by Sir Critic at 1:02 AM 1 comments
Labels: Reviews: Catalog titles, Reviews: DVD
Shrek is over? I'm over Shrek.
There was a time when I would be excited to see a new animated film, even if it wasn't by Disney or Pixar.
That time has passed. Shrek Forever After comes out today, and I just ... don't really care.
I think a lot of people feel similarly after Shrek the Third played so flatly. Truth be told, however, I've thought this series was overrated from the beginning.
I enjoyed the original Shrek quite a bit but found much of its anti-Disney humor overly harsh and mean-spirited. It wasn't surprising, considering the main creative force behind DreamWorks Animation, Jeffrey Katzenberg, has, um - mixed feelings about the Mouse House. More importantly, the meanness felt out of place because the main core of characters - Shrek, Donkey and Fiona - was quite strong and endearing.
Still, DreamWorks' penchant for pop culture riffing was already starting to rear its ugly head. The film opened with the overplayed song "All Star," which immediately dated it, even in 2001. When the first Oscar for Best Animated Film was handed out the next year, Shrek expectedly won, but I think many would agree in hindsight that Pixar's Monsters Inc. would have been a better choice.
Three years later, Shrek 2 came along, and at first, I liked the sequel a little better than the original because some of the meanness had dissipated. However, the rampant pop culture riffing was still in place. The movie spoofs Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings and The Little Mermaid - and that's just within the first 5 minutes. DreamWorks seemed to think those gags were what made people fall in love with the first film, when it was, in fact, the characters. Puss in Boots was a great addition, but time hasn't been kind to the sequel, and it galls me to no end that it's the most financially successful animated film of all time.
Then came Shrek the Third, and even ardent fans of the series were disappointed. It wasn't terrible, it was strictly blah. The movie just sat there. I laughed out loud only once or twice. Sure, it made tons of money, but people often forget that how well a sequel performs at the box office greatly depends on how much people loved its predecessor. Shrek 2 made as much as it did because people loved the first film. Shrek the Third managed to cross $300 million because it had enough goodwill from Shrek 2.
I'm not at all convinced Shrek Forever After (or Shrek: The Final Chapter, whatever they want to call it) will get close to $300 million. Even if it's better than the third film, I think its momentum will stall because Shrek the Third was so underwhelming.
Alas, the reviews are not encouraging so far. At this time of writing, it has a mediocre 57 score on Metacritic - about even with Shrek the Third. That's not nearly enough to convince me to see it. Even if I do, it will be more out of a sense of obligation (or boredom) than anticipation.
It goes without saying that I'm all over Toy Story 3 next month. But I'm also more interested in Despicable Me. Heck, even Legend of the Guardians, the Happy Feet-like movie with the owls, looks more intriguing to me, especially since Zack Snyder (yes, same guy who made 300) directed it. Even if the owls don't mingle with zombies or burly Spartans, we might be in for a treat.
Posted by Sir Critic at 12:26 AM 3 comments
Labels: Coming Attractions
The classic movie series closer to home - Victoria!
The Ultra Cool Film Series in Dayton has unveiled its lineup of classic films for the summer, and as ever, the lineup is quite good, with one particular eyebrow-raiser.
The Music Man, July 2-4: This is playing Columbus' classic series too, and I already cracked the obvious Beatle joke in my post about it. So this time I shall merely say it will be fun to see a musical whose set I toured, on the Warner Bros.' lot in Burbank several years ago.
Psycho, July 9-11: The first time Victoria played this years ago, it was one of the few films that didn't get applause at the end. I like to think that's because it still creeps people out.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, July 16-18: Very fun film, although I think it's a touch overrated. The best thing about it, aside from the two leads, is the terrific cinematography by Conrad L. Hall, who also shot American Beauty and In Cold Blood, among many others.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, July 23-25: So it seems Victoria is on a Paul Newman kick. I saw this for the first time recently and liked it quite a lot. It's no Streetcar Named Desire, but it's still fine.
My Fair Lady, July 30-31, Aug. 1: Not seeing it in Columbus. Not seeing it in Dayton. Unless I need a plush place to take a nap.
Animal House, Aug. 6-8.: I find this booking terribly funny for two reasons. First, I'm sure it's a complete coincidence and all, but the timing is more than a little ironic, what the news of the Miami University sororities lately. And this may be the first time in many years that this theater has played a film that has the word "tits" in it. I say "may be" because Victoria used to play cult films in the 70s.
Raiders of the Lost Ark Aug. 13, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Aug. 14, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Aug. 15: So it seems that Victoria is on a Karen Allen kick. She was in Animal House and of course, she is in Raiders too.
Casablanca: Aug. 20-22: "I've often speculated why you don't return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a senator's wife? I like to think you killed a man. It's the Romantic in me." Bogie and Ingrid Bergman are great, but Claude Rains has all the funniest lines.
Fiddler on the Roof, Aug. 27-29: Oscar trivia time: John Williams' first win was NOT for a Steven Spielberg film, but for his adaptation of this score.
Labels: Classic movies
Jim Henson left us 20 years ago, but ....
... are the Muppets coming back? All the signs say they are. And that's something wonderful to ponder this week of all weeks. It was 20 years ago on May 16 that Jim Henson passed away suddenly from respiratory illness.
It was the celebrity death that staggered me the most. Yes, even more so than John Lennon's or George Harrison's. Much as I may not have wanted to admit it, George's death from cancer was sadly inevitable. And John Lennon's death, though surprising, didn't floor me in 1980 - for better or worse, that was what truly launched my Beatlemania.
Jim Henson's passing, on the other hand, stunned everyone. Not only was it a bolt from the blue, but it felt like a piece of my childhood had fallen away. I was crestfallen. When Fred Rogers died several years later, one tribute used a powerful pair of sentences: "Some people should simply not be allowed to die. Fred Rogers is one of them." I thought that would have applied equally well to Jim Henson.
And while few seriously believed the Muppets would die with Henson, for awhile, the decline in quality after his death was alarming. Consider this recap of all the Muppet theatrical films pre- and post-Henson. (This list does not take into account the two fun Sesame Street movies, or side projects like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.)
The Muppet Movie: The first, and by far the best of the Muppet pictures. It earns a place in immortality on the strength of "Rainbow Connection " alone. GRADE: A+
The Great Muppet Caper: It's not really a sequel to The Muppet Movie, but it felt like one, in that the second time just wasn't as funny or as inspired as the first. GRADE: B
The Muppets Take Manhattan: A rebound - not quite up to Muppet Movie, but still greatly entertaining. That doesn't seem so surprising now, considering it was Frank Oz's solo directing debut, and he went on to have an impressive directorial career. GRADE: A-
The Muppet Christmas Carol: This was the first movie made after Jim's death, and it seemed the Muppets were still in great shape. This is my second-favorite Muppet movie, aided greatly by Michael Caine's Oscar-quality (no, really) work as Scrooge. GRADE: A
Muppet Treasure Island: The decline begins. It was fun overall, and Tim Curry made an ideal long John Silver, but the movie simply wasn't that amusing. Fozzie in particular is wasted. GRADE: B
Muppets from Space: An inspired idea (is Gonzo really an alien) gets fairly lackluster treatment. It's watchable enough, but there's one comedic misfire after another. The Muppets performing against the Commodores' original recording of "Brick House" felt wrong, and I remain mystified as to why they failed to crack the obvious Pigs in Space joke. The DVD commentary is much funnier than the film itself. GRADE: C+
Some TV specials followed, some better than others, but the absolute nadir of the Muppets was their profoundly misguided Wizard of Oz, filled with dull tunes and lame jokes that not even Fozzie would crack on his worst day. The state of the Muppets looked quite dire.
And then, slowly but surely, the Muppets began making a comeback through a series of very clever and funny web videos, culminating in the mega-popular take on "Bohemian Rhapsody."
And later this year, a new theatrical film is slated to go into production. Cheekily called The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever (and I hope that title sticks) it's being written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, who co-wrote Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That may sound surprising, but it makes complete sense if you recall that movie ends with a puppet show.
My favorite quote of Hensons's was always this: "When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope still is to leave the world a little bit better for my having been here."
I feel more confident than I have in a long time that the Muppets will once again hold true to that.
Labels: Oeuvres, Tributes
Oeuvres: Ridley Scott (including Robin Hood)
Few would dispute Ridley Scott's eyes. It has often been said, and justly so, that he has one of the best eyes in the business. When he's on his game, he's one of our greatest directors. But too often lately, he's been somewhat off - resulting in frustratingly inconsistent, sometimes dissatisfying movies - including his latest.
ALIEN: It's really more of a horror film than a sci-fi movie, but whatever genre you place it in, it's a classic. GRADE: A+
BLADE RUNNER: And so begins the phenomenon that has salvaged and dogged Scott throughout his career: the director's cut. The original cut of this film still holds up because the overall though behind, and look of the movie, are so enthralling. However, the re-cuts thoroughly trump it because they lose the dull narration and the dopey "happy ending." ORIGINAL: B+ RECUT: A
LEGEND: To be honest, it's been so long since I've seen this film, that I remember very little about it. What I do recall is that it was cool visually and ... not much else. GRADE: Incomplete
THELMA & LOUISE: The first film that truly proved Scott could work on a more intimate scale, even while maintaining his penchant for eye-filling vistas. GRADE: A
G.I. JANE: Features a tough performance by Demi Moore and some decent action scenes, but a story barely worth remembering. GRADE: C
GLADIATOR: Fun? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Magnetic performance in the lead? Indeed. Great visuals? As always. Best picture of the year? NO! GRADE: B+
HANNIBAL: No, it isn't Silence of the Lambs, and that just as often works for the picture as it does against it. The story is awfully absurd and overstated, but it has emotional pull regardless. It's fascinating in both the ways it does and doesn't work. GRADE: B
BLACK HAWK DOWN: Taken strictly as a piece of you-are-there verisimilitude, there simply isn't a better combat picture. GRADE: A
MATCHSTICK MEN: Scott's best small-scale film benefits from sharp writing and an outstanding performance from Alison Lohman, even if it does feel a touch gimmicky in the end. GRADE: B+
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN: Never has a directors cut helped a film more than this one. The theatrical cut was ambitious but emotionally hollow; the director's cut restores entire plotlines and fleshes out characters, making it twice the epic Gladiator ever was. THEATRICAL CUT: C+ DIRECTORS CUT: A
A GOOD YEAR: Scott is a great director - but not of comedy. One could be forgiven for thinking that he and Russel Crowe indulged too much in wine country while making this less than memorable puff -piece. GRADE: C
AMERICAN GANGSTER: Directed by Scott and starring Crowe and Denzel Washington and written by Oscar Winner Steven Zaillian, this should have been a home run - but it takes way too long to get going. Double at best. GRADE: B+
BODY OF LIES: Directed by Scott and starring Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, and written by William Monahan (The Departed) , this should have been a home run - but too much of a been there.done that feel made it a single at best. GRADE: B-
ROBIN HOOD: That I have relegated Scott's latest film to a brief summation in a career retrospective speaks volumes about how little impact it had on me. Individually, the performances are fine, but Crowe and Cate Blanchett never truly spark. Scott's visual command produces decent action scenes throughout, but the storytelling wavers, with the screenplay being a hopeless muddle. The project started out as a version of the Robin Hood tale told from the sheriff of Nottingham's point of view - then morphed into a Robin Hood origin story along the way. The focus got lost in the translation. GRADE: C+
Posted by Sir Critic at 11:03 PM 0 comments
Labels: Oeuvres, Reviews: In theaters
DVDs - Confirm/Ignore
Hmm. Considering the title, one wonders if I've been spending TOO much time on Facebook of late. Probably have.
But I'm only a few sentences into the post and already I'm digressing. I had gotten away from doing DVD posts largely because I'd found them a bit of a chore. And last month was pretty dull for releases. However, I did want to alert you to/remind you of titles I think are worth checking out - or not.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: The script never quite takes hold the way it should because the crime Nicolas Cage's titular lieutenant is investigating never really registers. Perhaps it's too much of a McGuffin that way. Still, it remains compulsively watchable, thanks to Cage's live-wire performance and director Werner Herzog's excellent atmospherics. GRADE: B
An Education: Find out why Carey Mulligan would have an Oscar if I were the only one voting. Full review: GRADE: A
It's Complicated: Pretty decent at male/female relationships. not as deft with fall-down comedy. Pretty typical Nancy Meyers, really. Entertaining, if not exceptional. Full review: GRADE: B
The Imaginarium of Doctor Paranassus: It's not QUITE a return to form for director Terry Gilliam; the sequences in the "real world" tend to fall flat. But when it goes into the imaginarium, and Gilliam lets rip with his visual flair, the movie is a feast for the eyes. Full review: GRADE: B
The Lovely Bones: Not the excellent film it could have been, but not the grave misfire some made it out to be *cough* Ebert * cough*. The tone is too inconsistent for the film to hold together very well, but Saoirse Ronan's haunting work in the lead, plus some imaginative direction, make it a fascinating mess. Full review: GRADE: B+
Avatar: Some might be surprised to find this hear. After all, I did put it on my ten best list, and I'm really tired of all those glib Dances with Wolves/Ferngully put-downs. I still love the film - but I do not love movie-only discs. I'm waiting for the deluxe set. BTW, I was meaning to ask - how does this play in normal 2D? I never saw it that way.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel: OK. this is a little unfair. I haven't actually seen this movie, but I'm still putting it here because I cannot stand that STUPID title!
Sherlock Holmes: It's a mystery fit for the great detective: A movie that's faintly entertaining, yet fairly forgettable at the same time. It was decent enough while I watched it, but it hardly stayed with me at all. Guy Ritchie's typical sensory overload couldn't mask the fact that neither the story nor the characters were particularly compelling. Full review: GRADE: C+
The director non-grata list: new member Noah Baumbach
If I seem to be surly when writing this post, you would be correct. There are a number of reasons, but one of them is movie-related.
I had the misfortune of seeing Greenberg this past weekend. Usually, I'm proud to be of a (sir) critical bent, but there is at least one film every year for which critics go bananas, and then I end up slipping on their peels. This year, it's the well-reviewed Greenberg.
I shouldn't have been surprised at this. In fact, I wasn't really surprised at all. I had seen a previous film by writer-director Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale - which I hated. That movie was filled with pretentious, condescending, holier-than-thou twits whose company I could not wait to leave. That's the title character of Greenberg (Ben Stiller) in a nutshell.
Most critics disagree with me. They loved The Squid and the Whale, and they loved Greenberg as well. And in a small sense, I could see why - these are the sort of self-consciously hip films filled with intense emotions that pass for emotional authenticity in a landscape dominated by Bigger, Dumber movies. Baumbach's dramatic and visual styles also echo American filmmaking of the 70s, for which so many critics carry a torch.
Hey, I wish American movies had more depth of feeling too - just as long as the feeling isn't one of arrogant self-righteousness, like most of Baumbach's characters. Baumbach knows this - he makes a joke out of it by having Greenberg be a serial complaint writer. He grouses to everyone from Starbucks to a pet cab conpany for daring not to make everything JUST as it should be for him.
Problem is, Greenberg spends the entire movie moaning and groaning about this, that and the other with precious little indication he's ever going to change. Spending a couple hours with this schmuck is akin to being Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade and having to listen to M. Emmet Walsh's BS all day long. I can understand why a number of Greenberg screenings have seen walk-outs.
And yet, I wasn't totally down on Greenberg, and the reason for that is Greta Gerwig. She's a very charming and skilled actress who plays a much younger woman that Greenberg fancies, but - surprise, surprise - Greenberg can't commit. Gerwig conveyed empathy. vulnerability, winsomeness - basically the antithesis of everything Greenberg conveys. Had the movie been more about her, I might have actually liked it. Because of her, I consider this movie marginally more tolerable than The Squid and the Whale.
That may sound like faint praise in this context, but still, Grenberg sealed this deal: If a film is written and directed by Noah Baumbach, I'm not buying a ticket. He joins Stephen Daldry in the Directors Whose Movies I Will No Longer See Club. After that suffocating overdose of self-importance called The Reader sucked the life out of the theater, I vowed never again for any of Daldry's movies. The double whammy of that film and of The Decades ...er, I mean The Hours made him dead to me. My best friend Scott Copeland offered the best slam on The Reader by writing that "it managed to make copious amounts of Kate Winslet's nudity boring."
I remember at the end of The Reader there was a dedication to producers/filmmakers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella - and I remember adding in my head " ... either of whom would have made a much better film than the one I just watched."
Neither Buambach nor Daldry has made a film as wretched as Bad Boys II, but loathe as I am to give any credence to my favorite whipping boy, Monsieur Bay, at least his frenzied incompetence keeps me alert and awake!
Not that I'm going to go see Transformers 3 now that I don't have to do so!
Labels: Etc. Etc. Etc.
REVIEW: Iron Man 2
I'll cut right to the chase. Iron Man 2 delivers. Not as much as the first Iron Man did, granted, but it delivers more than some critics and irritable fanboys might have you believe.
I was not quite as high on Iron Man as so many people were. I thought the movie suffered from a weak villain, which led to a draggy third act. This time, the villains are still weak, and this time the story problems have shifted to the second act. Iron Man 2 is not unlike Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that way - good beginning, mediocre middle, great ending.
Many sequels often move faster than their predecessors, because they don't have to worry so much the exposition of setting up the hero's world. Since Marvel is bent on making their Avengers movie, that means extra setup creeps into this film, which is part of what slows down the second act.
What truly bogs down the mid-section, though, is this series' persistent inability to find a truly compelling villain. This movie offers two nemeses: Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) the disgruntled son of a former Stark partner who helped invent the Iron Man techology, but got no credit. The other is Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a smarmy suit who is the chief of a rival weapons company that wants to create rival Iron Mans.
That neither villlian works very well is not the fault of the actors. They play what writer Justin Theroux wrote, and they play it well. The problems are, that Rourke is given too little to do, and Rockwell too much to do. When Whiplash is introduced, he is a genuinely threatening presence. Then the movie makes the mistake of locking him down in a lab for most of the movie, forcing Hammer to the center. But Hammer is more sniveling and annoying than he is intimidating. He's basically your classic wuss who thinks he's a bad-ass, and not even an actor as skilled as Rockwell can make that tired characterization work.
Most of the good guys redeem the cast. As expected, Robert Downey Jr. is once again aces in the lead role, playing it with more gravitas this time because Tony has found that the technology that makes him Iron Man is also killing him, leaking toxins into his blood. Alas, Gwyneth Paltrow is a bit misused this time as lovestruck PA Pepper Pots, because the back-and-forth between her and Tony is more bickering than bantering.
Scarlett Johansson makes up for that with the addition of her character. I'd rather not give too much away, so let's just say she's fun to watch in a fight. And I'm rather glad that things didn't work out for Terrence Howard to return to the role of Stark's best bud/fellow hero James Rhodes - Don Cheadle plays the part with much more energy.
Jon Favreau returns as director, and he indulges a little too much, with some pointless POV shots and an overly enlarged role for himself as one of Stark's lackeys. But he handles most of the action with his usual aplomb.
So Iron Man 2 isn't a film for the ages. But that's OK, Reaction to comic book movies tends to dwell in abssolutes: they either RULE! or they SUCK! Iron Man 2 does neither. Inevitably, the sense of discovery that came with the first film is mostly gone. But the sense of fun is still there, even if it is a bit diluted. After all, it IS a sequel.
August Summer Movie Preview: Cooling down, wrapping up
August doesn't exactly end the summer with a whimper, but it doesn't end with a real bang either.
THE OTHER GUYS: I have long made my feelings about Will Ferrell clear in my writings. He's not just nails on the blackboard, he's a meat thermometer through the ear. His frequent collaborator/director Adam McKay is more talented than Dennis Dugan, for instance, but that's a bit like saying Wendy's is better than McDonald's. They're both still junk. PROSPECT: C
STEP UP 3D: Ya know, I could be a real smart-aleck here, but that's just too easy. Classic fish in a barrel. Suffice it to say I won't be seeing any new movies in the theater this weekend. PROSPECT: D
EAT, PRAY, LOVE: Three things make this particularly interesting to me - in descending order of obviousness: 1) Julia Roberts, 2) Writer-director Ryan Murphy, the force behind my new favorite show, Glee and C) Murphy had the good taste to hire the best American cinematographer, Robert Richardson, who most recently shot Shutter Island and Inglorious Basterds - meaning this will look several cuts above your average "chick flick." Sold. PROSPECT: A
THE EXPENDABLES: Good Sylvester Stallone movies come along once in a couple blue moons. Given the cast alone, this just might be one of the blue moons. PROSPECT: B
SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD: From the director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. That's enough to sell me right there. Then there's the trailer.
Double sold. PROSPECT: A
AUGU ... ah, ya know what? The last two weeks of August are rarely worth it, I'm just gonna stop now. If you really wanna know the rest of the roster, or you need a substitute for Nyquil, click here.
July Summer Movie preview: Inception and Schmucks
If this lackluster summer movie season has a best month to it, it has to be July. The last week aside, most of the offerings sound halfway decent - or even better.
THE LAST AIRBENDER: Many people absolutely swear by the Nickelodeon show (which has another A-word that couldn't be used because some one else *ahem* co-opted it). And it's not just kids. Adults quite like it as well. I am not familiar with the show, but I am willing to give the film a shot. Yes, the quality of M. Night Shyamalan's movies has been in freefall - but I have a feeling he'll bounce back. Could just be that I'm really hopeful I'll see it with my favorite young artist. PROSPECT: B
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE: Shoot, I never even got around to New Moon. But I guess I gotta catch up, now that they've handed Breaking Dawn to a quality director, Bill Condon (Dreamgirls). This one is directed by David Slade, who has a mixed resume. Hard Candy, Ellen Page's breakout movie, has a good reputation. His previous vampire flick, 30 Days of Night? Not so much. PROSPECT: C
DESPICABLE ME: Universal has been very smart in selling this movie, not really revealing exactly what it's about - which only makes the picture seem more tantalizing. Take this teaser, for instance.
Now that piques my interest. PROSPECT: B
PREDATORS: Ordinarily I would dismiss this project out of hand, considering what schlock Alien vs. Predator was. (Never even bothered with the sequel.) Since Robert Rodriguez is at least producing, however, I will give it the benefit of the doubt. PROSPECT: B
INCEPTION: Not only has Christopher Nolan not missed yet, he hasn't made anything less than a Grade-A film. (That's without seeing his debut, Following). I have a very strong sense this movie will blow people's minds and be bigger than anyone expects. This is the summer film I most want to see yesterday. PROSPECT: A+
THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE: On the one hand, part of me is curious as to just what the hell this movie is; it's hard to gauge the tone by the trailer. And on the other hand, a larger part of me is discouraged that a generation of kids will know the Sorcerer's Apprentice not as a classic Mickey Mouse short, but as a noisy adventure flick. Between this and Prince of Persia, ol' Jerry Bruckheimer's judgement seems a bit foggy these days. PROSPECT: C
DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS: The premise and the cast of Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell seem promising, yet for reasons I can't define, this seems like a movie other people will find hilarious, while I find it merely amusing. Perhaps I'm wary of leery of humiliation-based comedy. We shall see. PROSPECT: B
RAMONA AND BEEZUS: One of Beverly Cleary's books makes it to the big screen for the first time, I believe. I just hope it's more Bridge to Terabithia and less Diary of a Wimpy Kid. PROSPECT: B
SALT: I want to like this picture. The director, Phillip Noyce, has done good work, and I'm curious to see how Angelina Jolie fares in a role once set for Tom Cruise. Yet every time Jolie goes the action route (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Wanted, etc.) I find the results lacking. Jury's out on this one. PROSPECT: B
BEASTLY: This new take on the "Beauty and the Beast" mythos could be good, but I have to agree with IMDB's buzz: "looks like a super-sized episode of Gossip Girl and Smallville." Meh. PROSPECT: C
CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE: The original was OK, but an overly juvenile approach kept it from being the riot it could have been. I don't expect better from the sequel. PROSPECT: C
CHARLIE ST. CLOUD: Zac Efron reteams with his 17 Again director in a story about Efron working in the cemetery where his younger brother is buried. Sounds just ... odd. No read. PROSPECT: C
June Summer Movie Preview: Anything 'sides the Toys?
June is usually a little hotter than May, but not at the movie theaters this year. In fact, it's second verse, same as the first. Only one-must see movie, a few decent attractions, and a whole lotta meh - or worse.
GET HIM TO THE GREEK: Jonah Hill and Russel Brand star in a movie by the same guys who made Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I quite liked. Good enough for me. PROSPECT: B
KILLERS: The good news: Katherine Heigl can be a winning screen presence. The bad news: Her last movie was the cliche machine The Ugly Truth, which was directed by Robert Luketic - just like this movie. One can only hope Luketic is in Legally Blonde mode. PROSPECT: C
MARMADUKE: A CGI dog movie based on a lame comic strip and directed by Tom Dey, the man who badly made the likes of Shanghai Noon, Showtime (so I've heard) and the aptly titled Failure to Launch? Oh HELL no! Put this movie into the CONE OF SHAME! PROSPECT: F
SPLICE: When I saw the trailer for this, I thought it looked like a remake of It's Alive. Then I realized it had Sarah Polley in it. Last time she was in a horror flick, it turned out pretty well: The Dawn of the Dead remake. PROSPECT: B
THE A-TEAM: I thought the original show was stupid (not in a good way), and this is directed by Joe Carnahan, who made the repugnant Smokin' Aces. Only Liam Neeson's presence saves this from an F. Unless Carnahan shows massive improvement, the only reason this movie will succeed is because of people's misguided nostalgia for the 1980s. PROSPECT: D
THE KARATE KID: Now here's something from the 80s I liked. Jackie Chan is a great performer, and Jaden Smith (son of Will) has screen presence. But behind the camera is (drum roll please) ... Harald Zwart! (Insert puzzled utterings of "Who?") HIs last credit was the sequel to the Pink Panther remake. Woo fricken' hoo. Directors matter, folks. PROSPECT: C
JONAH HEX: Ladies and Gentlemen, the movie no one is going to care about because it's competition is going to KILL it. Ironically enough, the director, Jimmy Hayward, was a Pixar animator, but the movie went in for reshoots under Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend). Uh-oh. PROSPECT: C
TOY STORY 3: I trust no explanation is necessary. PROSPECT: A+
GROWN-UPS: So last year Adam Sandler makes a movie that actually has a brain in its head (Funny People), but the masses don't like smart Adam Sandler movies, so it's back to the same ol' Dennis Dugan- directed dreck. D'oh. PROSPECT: D
KNIGHT AND DAY: Now here's the summer's real curio. A lot of people are still leery of Tom Cruise. I am not one of those people. Sure, the guy's nutty sometimes, but he never became a bad actor - And I think people lost sight of his talent more than Cruise lost sight of himself. The one thing that does bother me a little here is, it has the air of Mission Impossible - With Jokes! But again, directors matter. The helmer is James Mangold. He's not an auteur, and he's had only one really big hit, Walk the Line. But he's a good actor's director, and he has good action chops too, as 3:10 to Yuma showed. I'm cautiously optimistic. PROSPECT: B
May Summer movie preview: Iron Man, Shrek, Prince of zzzz.
Is it just me or does summer seem a little chilly this year?
Oh, sure, this summer offers some tantalizing prospects at the cinema, but 2010's slate is rather lacking in "Wow, my life depends upon seeing that" attractions. May is a good example of this.
I'll be previewing summer movies throughout the week, essentially doing one day a month. I cannot do advanced screenings anymore, but I will see Iron Man 2 at the first available opportunity and hope to review that over the weekend.
Note: I may not cover every single title coming out. If I can't find much to say about a particular movie, why waste my energy and your time?
As usual, every movie gets a prospect grade.
A: I will die if I don't see it.
B: I will see it, but will not die if I don't.
C: Not dying to see it, won't kill me if I do.
D: This movie may be hazardous to my health.
F: This movie will kill me.
BABIES: Cute-looking documentary about, well, ya know. Looking to be the March of the Penguins of the infantile set. PROSPECT: B
IRON MAN 2: I covered this in this post last week. I'm excited to see it like everyone else, but I'm going in with tempered expectations. Just as it's ill-advised to go in to a film prepared to hate it, it can also be dangerous going in prepared to love it. PROSPECT: A-
JUST WRIGHT: Sports romance with Common and Queen Latifah seems appealing enough, but I'm not getting much of a buzz from it. PROSPECT: C
LETTERS TO JULIET: The presence of Amanda Seyfried in the lead automatically makes this interesting to me. She's a talent who is increasingly landing on people's radars. Note of caution: The director, Gary Winick, has made movies as winning as 13 Going on 30 and as allegedly awful as Bride Wars. PROSPECT: B
ROBIN HOOD: Normally I would be thrilled at seeing a new Ridley Scott movie, yet I can't escape the feeling this is just Gladiator in the forest.. And I wasn't that big a fan of Gladiator. Good movie, but if that film deserved Best Picture, I'm Friar Tuck. PROSPECT: B
SHREK FOREVER AFTER: I have a feeling this will be better than the tepid third movie, and yet will be the least successful movie of the series. Why? Well, can you think of anyone above the age of 6 who really LIKED Shrek the Third? This will be much like what happened to Back to the Future III - people who saw it liked it better than the second, but the second turned so many people off, they lost interest. This movie had jolly well better improve upon the last one. I'm thinking my B- review was charitable. PROSPECT: B-
MACGRUBER: I just don't get the buzz for this movie, largely because I just don't get SNL these days. By my reckoning, that show hasn't been funny since the mid 90s. As is so often the case, the show has talented players, but saddles them with lame shtick. PROSPECT: D
SEX AND THE CITY 2: I liked the first one well enough, but since journalistic obligations no longer require me to see this,I think I'll pass this time, thanks. PROSPECT: C (Opens Thursday, May 27)
PRINCE OF PERSIA: Maybe it's my aversion to video games, but I just cannot muster up interest in this hyperactive-looking thing, which really looks rather ridiculous, right down to the choice of director. Because when I think of big, sprawling action, I think the of director of Four Weddings and a Funeral. (Yes, I know, he did Potter 4 and did it rather well, but that don't make him an action director) PROSPECT: C
The classic movie series closer to home - Victori...
The director non-grata list: new member Noah Baumb...
August Summer Movie Preview: Cooling down, wrappin...
June Summer Movie Preview: Anything 'sides the Toy...
May Summer movie preview: Iron Man, Shrek, Prince ...
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Signature programmes
The School of Computer Science goes to Africa
Tue, 25 Apr 2017 09:36:00 BST
In an exciting new development, the School of Computer Science is extending its support for computing in schools to sub-Saharan Africa. Through co-operation with an African charity (Ripple Africa), we will be bringing computing education to schools in a remote area of Malawi. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. We will be using the highly successful model of teaching teachers, and bringing exciting activities to schoolchildren. The project involves at least three Secondary schools, and we expect other local schools, especially Primary schools, to be involved. We also intend to visit Malawian universities to help foster links with schools. The outreach team involves our Computing At School staff, other university staff, Computer Science students, and UK schoolteachers. This is planned as a long-term collaboration, with a pilot running in this summer (2017).
This outreach to Malawi is run as a charitable activity, and we are seeking crowdfunding to enable it to get off the ground and to support the educational charity in Africa which is hosting us. If you would like to contribute, visit the our crowdfunding site. We would very much appreciate contributions as some aspects of this initiative are proving difficult to fund.
For more details please contact the Project Malawi co-ordinator, Karen Corless or David Rydeheard.
186 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road, University of Manchester, M13 9PL
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Angkor, Seat of the Khmer Empire
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William I, The Conqueror
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Wujing Zongyao, 1st Record Gunpowder
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Battle of Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire
The Battle of Stamford Bridge took place at the village of Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire, in England on 25 September 1066, between an English army under King Harold Godwinson and an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Ha...
Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror
William took seven months to prepare his invasion force, using some 600 transport ships to carry around 7,000 men (including 2,000-3,000 cavalry) across the Channel. On 28 September 1066, with a favourable wind, William landed unopposed at...
The Domesday Book, Land Survey
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Siege of Jerusalem, 1st Crusade
In the early 11th century, the Egyptian Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of all churches and synagogues in Jerusalem. Reports of this were one cause of the First Crusade, which marched off from Europe to the area...
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Today In Mormon History
Several curious tidbits that happened on this day in Mormon History
150 years ago today - 150 years ago - Oct 6, 1868 (Tuesday)
The general conference was commenced in Salt Lake City. It was continued three days. For the first time in Utah, a full quorum of the Twelve Apostles was present at conference. A number of missionaries were called to strengthen the southern settlements. On the 6th Geo. A. Smith was chosen as First Counselor to Pres. Brigham Young, in place of the late Heber C. Kimball, and Brigham Young, jun., was called to fill the vacancy caused thereby in the Council of Twelve Apostles.
[Jenson, Andrew, Church Chronology]
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5 years ago today - Oct 31, 2013
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120 years ago today - Oct 30, 1898 (Sunday)
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120 years ago today - Oct 14, 1898; Friday
180 years ago today - 14-Oct 15, 1838
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Endangered White Rhino Forced To Perform In Russian Circus
Footage of an endangered white rhino trained to perform in a circus has prompted an outpouring of anger and calls to boycott shows featuring live animals.
Social-media users were furious at the videos taken in Russia showing a rhino being forced to parade or carry a man on its back in a circus ring, while the trainer holds whips at the ready. Rhinos are rarely seen in circuses, although elephants have long been used – and are being phased out following years of protests about cruel training and the unnatural conditions they are kept in.
In a clip circulating online taken at the Russian State Circus, the rhino is made to sit and let the trainer clamber onto his back before setting off to tour the ring. A couple of times the animal also appears to turn away quickly from the trainer as he approaches with a whip.
In another clip, suspected of having been shot at the Safari Circus in Moscow, what is thought to be the same rhino is seen on a circular platform under a bright spotlight, hesitating several times before stepping off.
Experts in wild-animal welfare said using a white rhino - which can weigh up to 2,300kg - in public show was extremely risky for the trainer and spectators. “It could quickly cause injury to the trainer, and if there isn’t a substantial barrier, to the public,” said Chris Draper, of the Born Free wildlife charity. “However well trained it is, rhinos are naturally nervous and impulsive.”
The animal, probably hired out from one circus to another, would have been trained using cruel, painful methods behind the scenes to perform as instructed, he said.
“To see the animal in this circumstance when you’ve seen one in the wild is utterly incongruent,” he said. “Not only is it being exposed to substantial noise, but the use of the whip is wrong. They would say it doesn’t hurt, but if that’s the case why use it at all?”
Transporting the rhino around would also inflict stress and strain on him, Dr Draper added.
In a separate video, the rhino, Mafa, is filmed away from the ring, being fed by the trainer, Sergey Nesterov, who says: “I put a bed next to it, and I left it only when I had to eat, in order to spend more time with it. This way it got used to people.”
Mr Nesterov says it took a year to arrange the paperwork to transport Mafa from South Africa.
The Safari Circus’s website states that it uses exotic animals, and said that in 1996 Sergei Nesterov and Elena Fedotova decided to create a new attraction with exotic animals based on an older one created by Elena's parents.
Safari’s site features photos of the rhino, as well as shots of a kangaroo with a chain around its neck and boxing gloves on, apparently sparring with a human. There are also photos of five white tigers in the ring with the trainer. Facebook and Twitter users condemned the use of the rhino, saying the animal belonged in the wild and had not been domesticated like a cat or dog.
The behind the scenes of the white Rhino of the Russian circus. Outrageous!!!! pic.twitter.com/buXw4k1Q8J
— Ale Zapata (@AleZ2016) August 13, 2018
Responses to "Endangered White Rhino Forced To Perform In Russian Circus"
Brigitte Cavanagh says:
This is disgusting and cruel, this animal need to be in his natural habitat.
ANIMAL ABUSE........DISGUSTING!
TIME TO EVOLVE.......
Shame on you disrespectful brutes......find a moral and ethical way to make a living instead!
These magnificent animals should be left in their natural habitat giving the opportunity to educate future generations on the wonder of nature and its inhabitants........
Teach your children well!!!
Wyn says:
karen lyons kalmenson says:
how f*cking cruel and stupid are these people
WHY is this still going on ?????????
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The Pacifism of Islam
By Harun Yahya
According to the Koran, war represents an "unwanted obligation" which has to be absolutely carried out with strict observance of particular humane and moral values and resorted only when it is inevitable.
In a verse, it is explained that those who start wars are the disbelievers and that God does not approve wars:
…Each time they kindle the fire of war, Allah extinguishes it. They rush about the earth corrupting it. Allah does not love corrupters. (Surat al-Ma'ida: 64)
A closer examination of Prophet Muhammad's life reveals that war is a method resorted for defensive purposes only in unavoidable situations.
The revelation of the Koran to Prophet Muhammad lasted for 23 years. During the first 13 years of this period, Muslims lived as a minority under a pagan rule in Mecca and faced much oppression. Many Muslims were harassed, abused, tortured, and even murdered, their houses and possessions were plundered. Despite this however, Muslims led their lives without resorting to any violence and always called pagans to peace.
When the oppression of pagans escalated unbearably, Muslims emigrated to the town of Yathrib, which was later to be renamed Medina, where they could establish their own order in a more friendly and free environment. Even establishing their own political system did not prompt them to take up weapons against aggressive pagans of Mecca. Only after the following revelation, the Prophet commanded his people to get prepared for war:
Permission to fight is given to those who are fought against because they have been wronged - truly God has the power to come to their support - those who were expelled from their homes without any right, merely for saying, 'Our Lord is God'… (Surat al-Hajj: 39-40)
In brief, Muslims were allowed to wage war only because they were oppressed and subjected to violence. To put it in another way, God granted permission for war only for defensive purposes. In other verses, Muslims are warned against use of unnecessary provocation or unnecessary violence:
Fight in the Way of God against those who fight you, but do not go beyond the limits. God does not love those who go beyond the limits. (Surat al-Baqara: 190)
After the revelations of these verses, wars occurred between Muslims and pagan Arabs. In none of these wars, however, were the Muslims the inciting party. Furthermore, Prophet Muhammad established a secure and peaceful social environment for Muslims and pagans alike by signing a peace agreement (Hudaybiya) which conceded to the pagans most of their requests. The party who violated the terms of the agreement and started a new war was again the pagans. However, with rapid conversions into Islam, the Islamic armies attained great power against the pagan Arabs and Prophet Muhammad conquered Mecca without bloodshed and in a spirit of tolerance. If he willed, he could have taken revenge on pagan leaders in the city. Yet, he did not do harm to any one of them, forgave them and treated them with the utmost tolerance. Pagans, who would later convert to Islam by their own will, could not help admiring such noble character of the Prophet.
The Islamic principles God proclaims in the Koran account for this peaceful and temperate policy of Prophet Muhammad. In the Koran, God commands believers to treat even the non-Muslims kindly and justly:
...God does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you over religion or driven you from your homes, or from being just towards them. God loves those who are just. God merely forbids you from taking as friends those who have fought you over religion and driven you from your homes and who supported your expulsion... (Surat al-Mumtahana: 8-9)
The verses above specify the outlook of a Muslim on non-Muslims: A Muslim should treat all non-Muslims kindly and avoid making friends only with those who show enmity to Islam. In case this enmity causes violent attacks against the existence of Muslims, that is, in case they wage a war against them, then Muslims should respond them justly by considering the humane dimensions of the situation. All forms of barbarism, unnecessary acts of violence and unjust aggression are forbidden by Islam. In another verse, God warns Muslims against this and explains that rage felt for enemies should not cause them to drift them into injustice:
You who believe! Show integrity for the sake of God, bearing witness with justice. Do not let hatred for a people incite you into not being just. Be just. That is closer to heedfulness. Heed God (alone). God is aware of what you do. (Surat al-Ma'ida: 8)
The Meaning of the Concept of "Jihad"
Another concept that deserves clarification due to the content of this article is the concept of "jihad".
The exact meaning of "Jihad" is "effort". That is, in Islam, "to carry out jihad" is "to show efforts, to struggle". Prophet Muhammad explained that "the greatest jihad is the one a person carries out against his lower soul". What is meant by "lower soul" here is the selfish desires and ambitions. A struggle given on intellectual grounds against anti-religious, atheist views is also a form of jihad in its complete sense.
Apart from these ideological and spiritual meanings, struggle in the physical sense is also considered as "jihad". However, as explained above, this has to be a struggle carried out solely for defensive purposes. The use of the concept of "jihad" for acts of aggression against innocent people, that is for terror, would be unjust and a great distortion.
Compassion, Tolerance and Pacifism in Islam
To state briefly, the Islamic political doctrine is extremely peaceful and moderate. This fact is also confirmed by many non-Muslim historians and theologians. One of these is the British historian, Karen Armstrong, a former nun and a renowned expert on Middle East history. In her book, Holy War, in which she examines the history of the three great divine religions, she comments:
... The word Islam comes from the same Arabic root as the word peace and the Koran condemns war as an abnormal state of affairs opposed to God's will: "When the enemies of the Muslims kindle a fire for war, Allah extinguishes it. They strive to create disorder in earth, and Allah loves not those who create disorder." (Koran 28:78). Islam does not justify a total aggressive war or extermination, as the Torah does in the first five books of the Bible. A more realistic religion than Christianity, Islam recognizes that war is inevitable and sometimes a positive duty in order to and oppressions and suffering. The Koran teaches that war must be limited and be conducted in as humane a way of possible. Mohammed had to fight not only the Meccans but also the Jewish tribes in the area and Christian tribes in Syria who planned on offensive against him in alliance with the Jews. Yet this did not make Mohammed denounce the People of the Book. His Muslims were forced to defend themselves but they were not fighting a holy war against the religion of their enemies. When Mohammed sent his freedman Zaid against the Christians at the head of a Muslim army, he told them to fight in the cause of God bravely but humanely. They must not molest priests, monks and nuns nor the weak and helpless people who were unable to fight. There must be no massacre of civilians nor should they cut down a single tree nor pull down any building. This was very different from the wars of Joshua. [1]
Following the death of Prophet Muhammad, Muslims continued to treat the members of other religions with tolerance and respect. Islamic states became the secure and free home of both Jews and Christians. After the conquest of Jerusalem, Caliph Omar calmed the Christians who were in fear of a massacre and explained to them that they were secure. Furthermore, he visited their churches and declared that they could continue to practise their worship freely.
In 1099, 4 centuries after the conquest of Jerusalem by Muslims, Crusaders invaded Jerusalem and put all Muslims inhabitants to the sword. Again, contrary to the fears of Christians, Saladin, the Muslim general who captured Jerusalem and saved the city from invasion in 1187, did not touch even a single civilian and did not allow a single soldier to plunder. Moreover, he allowed the invading Christians to take all their possessions and leave the city in security.
The periods of Seljuk Turks and the Ottoman Empire were also marked by the tolerance and justice of Islam. As is known, Jews who were expelled from Catholic Spain found the peace they sought on the lands of Ottoman Empire, where they took refuge in 1492. Sultan Mehmed, the conqueror of Istanbul, also allowed Jews and Christians religious freedom. Regarding the tolerant and just practises of Muslims, historian A. Miquel states the following:
The Christians were ruled by a very well administered state which was something that did not exist in the Byzantium or Latin sovereignty. They were never subjected to a systematized oppression. On the contrary, the Empire, and foremost Istanbul, became a refuge for the much tortured Spanish Jews. They were never forced to accept Islam. [2]
John L. Esposito, a professor of Religion and International Politics at the Georgetown University, makes a similar comment:
For many non-Muslim populations in Byzantine and Persian territories already subjugated to foreign rulers, Islamic rule meant an exchange of rulers, the new ones often more flexible and tolerant, rather than a loss of independence. Many of these populations now enjoyed greater local autonomy and often paid lower taxes... Religiously, Islam proved a more tolerant religion, providing greater religious freedom for Jews and indigenous Christians. [3]
As is clarified in these words, history never witnessed Muslims as "makers of mischief". On the contrary, they brought security and peace to the people from all nations and beliefs inhabiting the large territory over which they reigned. (For further reference, see Justice and Tolerance in the Koran, by Harun Yahya, 2000)
In brief, compassion, peace and tolerance constitute the very basis of the values of the Koran and Islam aims to wipe mischief out of the earth. The commands of the Koran and the ways Muslims practised them throughout history are so clear as to leave no room for dispute.
1- Karen Armstrong, Holy War, MacMillian London Limited, 1988, p. 25
2- Feridun Emecen, Kemal Beydilli, Mehmet Ýpþirli, Mehmet Akif Aydýn, Ýlber Ortaylý, Abdülkadir Özcan, Bahaeddin Yediyýldýz, Mübahat Kütükoðlu, Osmanlý Devleti Medeniyeti Tarihi, (The History of the Ottoman State), Istanbul: 1994, Ýslam Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araþtýrma Merkezi, p. 467
3- John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 39
Source: www.harunyahya.com
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Face of the Flow
Lights Camera Re-Action
Flow Sports
Battleboyz
Flow Music
FlowTV
Story and Interview by Matthew Shack
((( Audio Interview Below )))
Houston, Texas has two Hall Of Famers named, "Hakeem".
Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon is one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players.
Hakeem "Chamillionaire" Seriki is one of the greatest lyricists not just in the Dirty-Dirty but... in the WHOLE Rap Game.
Both attended, The University of Houston.
One teamed with Clyde Drexler...The other, with Paul Wall.
Both are champions in their perspective occupations.
Both of their names are commonly mispronounced. ("Ka-millionaire" not "SHA-millionaire")
Chamillionaire's mixtape group, "The Color Changin' Click" with his former best friend, Paul Wall is legendary...
Their break up was the equivalent of "SHAQ & KOBE" in the "H-O-U".
But, that was then...THIS IS NOW!! It's all about "CHAMILLITARY" and Universal Records in '06.
Chamillionaire: AKA "The Mixtape Messiah" AKA "King Koopa" chops it up with The Flow's own, Matthew Shack.
TFM: You've been dubbed "The Mixtape Messiah", that's a big blessing to called something like that.
Chamillionaire: That came about by me being on a whole bunch of mixtapes. It started off that I use to just rap on other peoples mixtapes, that was kind of my entrance in the game. In Houston and in Texas, the biggest thing that was going on was the "chopped and screwed" mixtapes...for a while people hadn't heard my normal voice which was nothing but "screwed and chopped" freestyles of Chamillionaire.
So, it's kind of like this "mystery" of who Chamillionaire was. And over the years, I started graduating to a point where I would put out my own mixtapes and I started being real successful with that. So, a lot of people knew about Chamillionaire just from the mixtapes.
TFM: You've got your new album, "Sound of Revenge" in stores, what should your fans expect from you this time?
Chamillionaire: We shipped 500,000 copies, so we shipped gold on the album...I think people can expect a different side of Houston, basically. I know that people are familiar with the whole "chopped and screwed" movement but this a whole different thing coming out of Texas because it's catering to the lyrical aspect of the South.
A lot people look at the South like, "We're just simple and there's not any true lyrical content in the South." I think that my album, "Sound of Revenge" shows a different side of it. Even with the features, I got SCARFACE, BUN B., KILLA MIKE, PASTOR TROY,LIL' WAYNE, CRAZY BONE, and then the single with LIL' FLIP, it's a lot of variety coming out the South.
TFM: Who do you got on production for the album?
Chamillionaire: The single, "Turn It Up" was produced bySCOTT STORCH and it's making a lot of noise right now. BET, MTV and the radio spins are going crazy on that song right now. Also I got THE BEAT BULLIES, from Atlanta, GA. They're on BIG BOI from OUTKAST'S label, they did the majority of the album. I also got PLAY N' SKILLS they produced LIL' FLIP'S last album. I got COOL AND DRE from Miami who produced "Hate It or Love It" from 50 and GAME. I got MANNIE FRESH, he produced a track for me and LIL' WAYNE and my brother. (RASAQ) I got HAPPY T, who's from Texas also. It's a real bangin' album.
TFM: You got some real heavy hitters, dog. You ain't playin'... You smackin' cats across the jaw, huh?
Chamillionaire: Definitely...we're just trying to show them a different side of Texas. It's to the point that people know about Texas now but, I'm here to be a "career artist". With the album, I try to walk the line between street and commercial. It's not TOO street and it's not TOO commercial. I tend to lean toward the "street" side but a lot of times, those albums don't go anywhere, you know what I mean?
TFM: Definitely, man. That's a slippery slope right there, folks ...Some people don't know that you left the University Of Houston to conquer this rap game. How did you make that tough decision to leave school and persue your career in Hip Hop?
Chamillionaire: With me, it was a situation that my family understood. Even when I was real young, I was the kind of person who helped to support my family. At a young age, I was living the life of a 30 year old in my teen-aged years. When I made the decision, my family understood that we would be able to eat better right now if I do this. Because the rap thing started making money for me, it got to a situation that I had to start taking it seriously. Some people try to rap and go to school at the same time but if you go 50% at one and 50% at the other, you'll probably will fail at both.
I like to focus on one thing and go at it 100% . I had a lot of things that were in my favor. I had a big buzz that was building, major labels coming at me with deals and stuff so I had to take that route. I still plan on going back and get a degree in business. But, everything ended up being really successful for me.
TFM: Tell us about the "Chamillitary Movement"...y'all about to take over, huh?
Chamillionaire: Yeah, man! It starts in the streets. I always say that people think that when they get on TV or they get a deal, they think that everything is just gonna blow up ...With me, everything starts on the ground level. Every rapper and every artist needs to have a core fan base. Fans that want to be like you, know what your wearing, looking out for your next mixtape not just your last song.Those type of fans come from the streets.
It's all about building up within "the mixtape world" my main artist my brother, RASAQ ...he's on a song with me and LIL' WAYNEand people are starting to bite on him because of that song. I got my DJ, OG RON C who is a real big "chopped and screwed" DJ in the South..he won "Dirty South DJ Of The Year", two years in a row..he's doing a lot in the mixtape world, you know?
TFM: Your situation with PAUL WALL is well documented. There's a lot of people who wanna know, is there any chance of you and him "burying the hatchet" and going back to making that "good southern music" that you guys did in the past?
Chamillionaire: The "hatchet is already buried", like we're not beefin' but, I don't think that there's gonna be a point where we'll be making the same music that we did in the past. He went his way and I went my way and we kind of agreed to disagree, it's as simple as that.
I think that alot of people are looking forward to seeing us get back together and making some music but to me, I think that it was meant to be this way, you know what I'm sayin'? It's like who's to say that just because we get back together it gonna even be that same marriage like it was back in the day.
He's grown into a completely different person, who I feel like I don't know and it might be vice versa...I might have grown into a completely different person who, he doesn't know.We havent hung out in a long time..like we don't even know each other anymore really. So, how do you get back into the studio and create a chemistry like that?
I feel it's just meant to be this way, you know? We don't both rap the same the same way we use to rap . We were younger,we use to rap about a lot of punch lines a lot of stuff with no purpose and I think that both of us have grown out of that a lil' bit...So, I think it was meant to be this way, you know?
TFM: The NBA All-Star Game is in Houston this season, I'm coming down there to hang with you. What you got crackin, man?
Chamillionaire: Man, it's goin' down! We're gonna do it big, man!...As we speak, I'm working on some stuff for the All-Star Game..every one in Houston is HOT right now..it gonna be crazy...real crazy, man.
TFM: I ain't playin', man...I'm coming down!!
Chamillionaire: Come all down, man! I already told everybody...I'm not trying to perform all night...I'm trying to go to PUFFY'S party, too.
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Revell Leopard 2 A6M in 1/35 scale
Time to build some modern German heavy metal!
Is there a better choice than a Leopard 2 A6M tank from Revell in 1/35 scale? I don´t think so!
The kits from Tamiya may be slightly better, but the Revell kit is nicely detailed aswell and shows one of the latest versions of this tank. The assembly was straightforward, the only thing i did not like about the kit were the rubber tracks. The paint does not stick to it very well.
I used acrylic colours from Revell to paint the model.
MIG pigments were used for the weathering. Overall i applied only some mud splashes on the tank, chipping and rust seems a bit to much for such a modern vehicle.
The Leopard 2 is a main battle tank developed by Krauss-Maffei in the early 1970s for the West German Army. The tank first entered service in 1979 and succeeded the earlier Leopard 1 as the main battle tank of the German Army. Various versions have served in the armed forces of Germany and twelve other European countries, as well as several non-European nations. More than 3,480 Leopard 2s have been manufactured. The Leopard 2 first saw combat in Kosovo with the German Army and has also seen action in Afghanistan with the Danish and Canadian contributions to the International Security Assistance Force.
The Leopard 2A6M is a version of the 2A6 with enhanced mine protection under the chassis, and a number of internal enhancements to improve crew survivability. Canada has borrowed 20 A6Ms from Germany for deployment to Afghanistan in late summer 2007. The new tanks all have turret electric drive.
I don´t own the rights for the music in this video.
Music: «Manhattan» from the game «Arma 2″
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Microsoft, Minecraft, and PS Vita (Update)
UPDATE: So the rumors were true: Microsoft bought Minecraft for $2.5 billion. However, the good news, at least for now, is that the Vita version appears to be safe. A rep for Mojang said:
There's no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions of Minecraft to stop.
That's encouraging! I'd love to hear a more official confirmation, and there are still lots of questions to be answered, but I'll keep hope alive for now.
Original story follows:
Reports and rumors have been flying this week that Microsoft is in talks to acquire Minecraft studio Mojang to the tune of $2.5 billion. That's a lot of money, and Minecraft is an enormous property in the gaming world. If this acquisition happens, it will be really interesting for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it may impact the availability of this currently platform-agnostic title.
The most concerning thing, though, is that it may impact the fate of the yet-to-be-released PlayStation Vita port of Minecraft, which many have looked to as the perfect portable version of the game.
The Vita is a system powerful enough to run a PS3-compatible version of the game (the PS4 version, for example, supports larger worlds that can't be transferred back to the PS3 edition). Additionally, the Vita has a leg up on the mobile version of the game, since those devices lack the thumbsticks and buttons that make the Vita such an attractive piece of portable gaming hardware.
Let's back up a moment and remember Microsoft's most recent exclusivity deal: at Gamescom, Microsoft announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider, sequel to the very popular–and multiplatform–Tomb Raider reboot, would be an Xbox exclusive title (at least for holiday 2014). A lot of gamers, myself included, didn't take kindly to the news. And that deal didn't involve owning the studio that makes the game.
So what happens if Microsoft does buy Mojang? Will they gradually stop supporting non-Xbox/non-PC versions of the title? Or will they, as with Skype, allow competitive platforms to continue playing host to the game?
Mojang just released Minecraft on PlayStation 4 this week (to great reviews), but I've really been waiting for the portable Vita version to dive into this game. It just seems like the perfect way to experience the game as I settle in for bed at night or while I'm in airport or hotel. Yes, remote play, blah blah blah, but I want a really portable version of the game.
It seems that, although it got delayed, the Vita port is still trucking along and may be sent soon to certification–both good reports that it may still see the light of day. But, although there are hopefully contracts in place that would assure a release no matter what, it's still frightening to think that Microsoft could swoop in and pull the plug on this version before it breathes first life on the PlayStation Network.
Of course, it's possible that Microsoft has no intentions of shaking things up with the current version of Minecraft. It's already out in the wild, and cutting off potential sources of revenue seems like a bad business move. However, a sequel to the game could be an entirely different story.
Just like the Tomb Raider exclusivity deal, it seems pretty clear that Microsoft is not happy about being unseated as the top-selling console in North America, with Forbes reporting that Sony is outselling Microsoft's consoles 3:1. They've already created a Kinect-less, $399 Xbox One bundle, they've got Tomb Raider, and you can bet they'd love to have Xbox as the place to play the next iteration of Minecraft (I'm just assuming that this is inevitable).
What about the mobile front? Windows Phone has been leveraging a pretty nasty set of attack ads against the iPhone, contrasting the voice commands between Cortana and Siri. It's no secret that the iOS version of Minecraft has done gangbusters numbers; could Microsoft sway Apple devotees to join the Windows Phone world with Minecraft: Pocket Edition exclusive to Windows Phone? Hard to say, but it would certainly be one of the few games out there to even have a shot at it.
Ultimately, it's hard to say what changes this acquisition, should it come to fruition, will have on the wildly-popular franchise. And there's also the question of longevity: is it worth the huge price tag to buy the rights to a game that may not last forever? Sure, it's a major force in gaming now, but it's not like Mojang has a slew of other titles as part of a proven track record.
What do you think? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments!
Also: Watch 3DS Smash Bros!
Posted in Opinions, News
tagged with PlayStation, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Xbox, Microsoft, Minecraft, Handheld Gaming
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Pennsylvania game commission news
BOARD APPROVES LAND EXCHANGE FOR INTERSTATE 99 PROJECT
HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners today approved a land exchange with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) involving 69 acres of State Game Lands 278 in Blair County. In exchange for the land, which will enable PennDOT to proceed with construction of Interstate 99, the Game Commission will receive $508,000 to be used for future land acquisitions.
In addition, PennDOT will acquire for the Game Commission a 36-acre tract that is an indenture to SGL 278, which will improve access to the remainder of the larger portion of the SGL. Should its attempts to acquire this tract be unsuccessful, PennDOT will provide an extra $50,000 to the escrow account for the Game Commission. The agency will continue to seek access to the 94-acre section of SGL 278 that will be landlocked due to the I-99 corridor.
Under the land exchange agreement approved by the Board, the Game Commission and PennDOT will drop all pending legal actions resulting from PennDOT’s condemnation of SGL 278.
“This project has been a difficult and challenging one for the Game Commission,” said Vern Ross, agency executive director. “The agency was torn between protecting this portion of State Game Lands 278 or agreeing to stand aside so that a vital transportation link for southcentral Pennsylvania could move forward.
“After months of negotiations and discussions, we believe that the land exchange approved by the Board today represents the best possible outcome for the hunters and trappers of Pennsylvania. I would like to thank Sen. Robert Jubelirer and his staff for playing a significant role in negotiating this agreement between PennDOT and the Game Commission, as well as the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs for its support.”
The negotiations were conducted in accordance with a Board-approved resolution adopted in October of 2000. As a result of these efforts, PennDOT’s original offer of compensation and mitigation was greatly improved.
SGL 278 currently consists of 1,947 acres in Blair and Huntingdon counties.
BOARD ACTS TO ADD NEARLY 310 ACRES TO STATE GAME LANDS SYSTEM
The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners today unanimously approved five land options that will increase the State Game Lands system by nearly 310 acres.
“The Game Commission’s ability to purchase and preserve lands for wildlife and for public hunting and trapping has always been limited by rising property values and, during certain tight financial times, the limited availability of agency funds,” said Vern Ross, agency executive director. “However, with the license increase approved in 1998, and with the commitment of the Board of Game Commissioners to maximize land acquisition efforts, the agency has worked closely with conservation partners, such as the Seneca Highlands Conservancy, the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy and The Wildlands Conservancy, to preserve additional wildlife habitats.”
The Game Commission has been purchasing State Game Lands since 1920. The State Game Lands system currently contains about 1.4 million acres. Under state law, the Game Commission is authorized to purchase property for no more than $400 per acre, with certain exceptions regarding interior holdings or critical wildlife habitats. Any purchase that exceeds $300,000 must be authorized by the General Assembly and Governor through the capital budget appropriation process, as well as by the Board of Game Commissioners.
Including today’s actions, the Board has approved the acquisition of more than 40,100 acres of State Game Lands since July 1, 1999, when the last license fee increase went into effect.
“State Game Lands represent a tangible asset that hunters and trappers of this state can literally point to as a product of their license fees,” Ross said. “In addition to the bountiful game and wildlife in our state, this is one more reason to view the price of a Pennsylvania hunting or furtaking license as a bargain.”
Following is a county-by-county breakdown of the transactions unanimously approved by the Board.
BERKS COUNTY: The Board accepted a donation of 4.4 acres in Albany Township from Rangers Inc., a division of the Civil Air Patrol. The donation connects two parcels of SGL 106, which currently contains 9,602 acres in Berks, Schuylkill and Lehigh counties. The parcel also helps eliminate potential safety zone encroachments on SGL 106 by preventing development of this parcel.
MCKEAN COUNTY: The Board approved the purchase of 161.1 acres in Eldred Township, adjacent to SGL 301, from Seneca Highlands Conservancy Inc. for $35,000, which represents a purchase price of $217.25 per acre. The parcel provides one mile of frontage along the Allegheny River and improved public access to SGL 301 from Route 155. The parcel, which includes 65 acres of wetlands, also resolves a boundary dispute and connects three separate parcels of SGL 301.
MCKEAN COUNTY: The Board approved the purchase of three acres in Eldred Township, near SGL 301, from Thomas and Mary Wilcox for $900. The parcel provides access to the Allegheny River for hunting, trapping and fishing, and is an excellent wetland used by a variety of wildlife.
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY: The Board approved the purchase of 30.95 acres in Lehigh Township, adjacent to SGL 168, from Wildlands Conservancy Inc. for $12,380. The parcel helps to eliminate potential safety zone encroachments on SGL 168, and is an excellent price for land in an area that is being impacted by sprawling human development. SGL 168 currently contains 5,793 acres in Northampton, Carbon and Monroe counties.
PERRY COUNTY: The Board approved the purchase of 110 acres in Watts Township, adjacent to SGL 254, from the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy for $44,000. While the agency is paying $400 per acre, the Conservancy originally paid $2,145 per acre. To cover the remainder of its costs, the Conservancy is planning to raise funds through private donations from local residents concerned about preserving wildlife habitats in an area that is being impacted by suburban sprawl. There is a one-year timber reservation on the 110-acre parcel. SGL 254 currently contains 945 acres in Dauphin and Perry counties
MINING LEASE TO RECLAIM PORTION OF SGL 262
The Board of Game Commissioners today approved a surface mining coal lease and land exchange with P&N Coal Co., of Punxsutawney, to remove nearly 60,000 tons of coal from a 56.5-acre portion of State Game Lands 262 in Indiana County. The Commission does not own the coal in question, but does own the surface support rights.
The total operation will have a surface impact on 23.5 acres for the actual mining operation and 33 acres for erosion and sedimentation control. The project will involve P&N Coal reworking an estimated 209,730 cubic yards of material to reclaim nearly 1,700 linear feet of existing highwalls and 4.5 acres of abandoned coal spoil piles.
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March 02, 2015 / Manu Smith
Episode #111 of Hey Mister Jesse is now available to download and enjoy. March's show features an 8-Count Swing tribute to Clark Terry, new music from Benoit Viellefon & His Orchestra and The Rhythm Baby Makers, and tons of international audience feedback.(91 minutes)
01:00 Welcome to episode #111 of Hey Mister Jesse for March 2015.
01:52 News: DJ Chrisbe's FINAL Song of the Week
DJ Chrisbe's Song of the Week #260: I've Found A New Baby [End of the Series].
04:13 News: New Episode of the From The Top Podcast
From The Top Episode #2.
05:37 News: Kickstarter Corner
- Ron Sunshine is making a new record…FINALLY! (Goal: $18,000 / Deadline: March 20th)
- Tin Pan - American Roots Music Volume Six (Goal: $7,500 / Deadline: March 12th)
11:39 News: Spotify + Shazam = Spazam?
- Save All Your Best Music Moments.
13:48 News: New Releases
- "Gimme Song" by The Dancing and Drinking Society - Remember The Days
- "Delta Bound" by Hippocampus Jass Gang - Baltimore Oriole
- "Ferme La Bouche" by Benoit Viellefon & His Orchestra - Mon Amor (available on AmazonMp3 and iTunes Plus)
26:40 8-Count Swing: Clark Terry
RIP Clark Terry (1920 - 2015) - Read his obituary from the New York Times.
After going through his extensive discography of 902 recording sessions, I present 8 of my favorite swinging songs by the legendary Clark Terry!
- "Some Of This 'N' Some Of That (live)" by Joe Williams - At Newport '63 (available on AmazonMp3 and iTunes Plus) (1963)
8. "Billy's Bounce" by Clark Terry & His Section-Eights - V-Disc Era 1943-1949 (available on AmazonMp3 and iTunes Plus) (1947)
7. "Jones" by Duke Ellington's Spacemen - The Cosmic Scene (available on AmazonMp3 and eMusic) (1958)
6. "Just Squeeze Me (duet with Vanessa Rubin)" by Clark Terry - Live on the QE 2 (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus and eMusic!!!) (1999)
5. "Mornin', Noon And Night" by Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Clark Terry & Big Joe Turner - The Trumpet Kings Meet Joe Turner (available on AmazonMp3 and iTunes Plus) (1974)
4. "Echoes Of Harlem" by The Clark Terry Five - A Celebration Of Duke (available on AmazonMp3 and iTunes Plus ) (1980)
3. "For Dancers Only" by The Clark Terry Spacemen - For Dancers Only (originally from the album Squeeze Me) (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus) (1989)
2. "You're My Baby, You (Vocal)" by The Count Basie Octet - 1950-1951 (available on AmazonMp3 in the UK and throughout Europe) (1950)
1. "Blues For Smedley" by The Oscar Peterson Trio with Clark Terry - Oscar Peterson Trio + One (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus and song, not album, on eMusic!!!) (1965)
- "Mumbles Returns" by Clark Terry & the SWR Big Band - Jazz Matinee (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus and eMusic!!!) (2001)
- "Tain't What You Do" by George Wein And The Newport All Stars - Swing That Music (1992). (Side note: George Wein honored with 2015 Grammy Special Merit Award)
To learn more about Clark Terry, visit www.clarkterry.com and read this great interview from www.jazzinchicago.org (parts one and two).
- Shawn Younghwi Kim (Seoul, South Korea) recommends "Shout Sister Shout" by Jumpin' Up - Swing it Again (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus and eMusic!!!).
- Yulai Liu (Washington, DC) recommends "On The Sunny Side Of The Street (Alt 1)" by Illinois Jacquet - Bottoms Up (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus and eMusic!!!).
- Jose Tello (Seattle, Washington) recommends "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" by Kid Ory and His Creole Jazz Band - In the Forties (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus and eMusic!!!).
- Heidi van der Wijk (Rotterdam, Netherlands) recommends "Hokin'" by 44 Shakedown (Facebook) - Honkers! (available on AmazonMp3 and iTunes Plus).
- David Afonso (Lisbon, Portugal) recommends "Gliss me Again" by Johnny Guarnieri - Walla Walla (available on AmazonMp3, iTunes Plus and eMusic!!!).
- Morgan Day (San Diego, CA) recommends "The Sheik of Araby" by Lloyd Glenn - 1951-1952 (available on AmazonMp3 in the UK and throughout Europe). Be sure to check out Morgan's great blog, Ickeroo.com.
- Henrik Eriksson (Uppsala, Sweden) recommends "I've Found A New Baby" by The Rhythm Baby Makers - Recorded live at Sodra Teatern, Stockholm, 2014-12-18. Many of the band members are crazy talented lindy hoppers as well. Watch Gustav the trombone player throws Marielle the banjo player around. Be sure to check out Henrik's great blog, Swing, Jazz and Blues - Dance To The Music and become a fan of his blog on Facebook.
Note: Our phone number has now been retired.
March 02, 2015 / Manu Smith/ Comment
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MLB seasons >
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About Yesterday's Game
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Other websites that provide a wealth of information on Shea Stadium.
Download pictures of Shea Stadium as well as special packages and backgrounds for games.
Notice to all users: Yesterday's Game is a fan website, not affiliated with Major League Baseball, or the National football league. Images posted to the site are not the property of this website. They are a collection of images either available elsewhere on the internet at the same size and resolution displayed here, or in some cases part of the contributors personal collections. Many images displayed on the website are copyrighted to their respective owners. Those wishing to use any image found on Yesterday's Game for commercial use must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Yesterday's Game will publish photo credits whenever the creator of an image is known. It is not the intent of this site to violate any copyright agreement. If the copyright holder of any image displayed here believes that display of their image on a fan site would violate their copyright, they should contact the webmaster of Yesterday's Game to request its removal.
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zach vinson
Behind the Song: Our Love Is Whatever
By Zach | April 15, 2019
Hello, my people. In case you haven’t heard it yet, the 3rd single from And Yet is now out. It’s called “Our Love Is Whatever,” and it’s the last single we’re releasing before the full album comes out on 4/26.
Ground Sounds premiered it, calling it “a deeply touching Americana-style showcase of stunning vocals and personal lyricism.”
If you missed the story behind the song for either of the first two singles, you can find them here (“Better Man”) and here (“Hold My Son”).
Stream/download “Our Love Is Whatever
Behind the Song: Hold My Son
By Zach | March 12, 2019
Last Friday, the second single from the new album came out. It’s called “Hold My Son,” and it might be my favorite song on the record.
I started writing it the morning of the presidential inauguration back in 2017. I can already hear some of you squirming in your seat, wondering where this is going. I don’t want to get too deep into the political weeds here if I can help it, so I’ll attempt to summarize rather than adding one more rant into the abyss of the internet. Continue reading →
Behind the Song (and First Single): Better Man
By Zach | February 14, 2019
It’s been a long time coming, this record. I think I wrote the first song for it back in 2015 or 2016. Planned to record it in 2017, ended up recording it in 2018.
And here we are now, with our calendars/planners/online widgets saying February 2019, and the first single of the record is finally getting to see the light of day.
In the grand scheme of the universe, or even in the mid-sized scheme of pop music in America, that probably won’t raise many ripples. But in the tiny scheme of my own journey, it feels worth celebrating. (Celebrating is, perhaps, a relative term. Tomorrow it looks like watching old Mr. Rogers episodes with my 2-year-old who is stuck at home with some version of pink eye.)
listen to “better man” now
I’ve always had mixed feelings about artists who over-explain their songs, but if you’ll humor me, I’ll share some of the backstory on these new tracks.
“Better Man” is not only the first single, it’s also the first track on the record. And if you’ve listened to any of my stuff before, you’ll notice pretty quickly that we’re not in Kansas anymore, so to speak. There isn’t a single note of acoustic piano on the record, and that space has been filled with rhodes and wurlitzer (i.e. old electric pianos), and layer after layer of analog synths.
As for the lyrics, well, here goes a rambling attempt to unpack this one. Continue reading →
Kickstarter for New Album Is Now Live!
Good evening friends. It’s with excitement (and a little bit of terror) that I’m launching the Kickstarter for my upcoming album!
To learn more about these songs, the recording process, and hear a clip of a new song, check out the video below. For more info and to join in this adventure, head to my Kickstarter campaign.
Making Friends with the Library
By Zach | October 25, 2017
Most days, I’m more comfortable interacting with characters in a book than actual humans. Some people call it introversion. Other people call it being a nerd, I suppose.
Contrary to what you may hear, there are a lot of pros to being an introvert/nerd. But one of the cons is that it can be difficult to make a new friend. So a lot of my friends are books.
But you know what’s even better than being friends with a book? Being friends with a library. And that’s just what happened to me recently.
Quote of the Day: The Deepest, Dearest Thing
By Zach | March 8, 2017
“…they were accepting each other back, and that feeling, that feeling of being accepted back again and again, of someone’s affection for you expanding to encompass whatever new flawed thing had just manifested in you, that was the deepest, dearest thing.”
—Eber in George Saunders’s “Tenth of December”
Christmas Pants
By Zach | January 5, 2017
I used to have a pair of blue corduroy pants that didn’t fit right. During the years I owned them, they went from being too tight to be fashionable to being too baggy to be fashionable. Some days during college, if I felt like I was getting overly concerned with how I looked, I would make myself wear those funny pants. Forced humility through a little self-humiliation, I guess. We humans are odd.
A Poem for Whatever Day This Is
By Zach | June 9, 2016
It’s a Friday afternoon
Or maybe a Thursday
Sometimes it’s hard to say
I’ve felt a fog throughout
However many days
Have happened so far this week
We are small town people
Living in bigger towns,
Pretending we’ve always been.
ZV Radio on Pandora
By Zach | May 11, 2016
Good Wednesday to you, friends.
If you happen to be new to the Internet, there’s a thing called Pandora that’s kind of like radio, except that it plays songs you like instead of playing “Pillowtalk” by Zayn again and again.
Will You Be My House? (Video)
Good Wednesday, friends.
I’ve been thinking a bit about houses. Most of us rent one or own one or sleep on the couch of a friend who does. And in most cases, these houses have funny little quirks about them, things that don’t quite work the way they’re supposed to. Maybe you have to lean your shoulder into the door to get the lock to catch, or maybe you can’t use the microwave and the hairdryer at the same time without blowing a fuse, or maybe you get a lot of ladybugs in your upstairs every spring.
No gigs are currently scheduled.
Better Man Zach Vinson 4:30
Hold My Son Zach Vinson 3:53
Our Love Is Whatever Zach Vinson 4:43
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by Lucas Murtinho May 17, 2007
“Paul Auster is getting old”, my wife wrote on the first page of Travels in the Scriptorium. She’s right, as always; I’d only add he’s also really scared of it. Mr. Blank, Travels’ protagonist, has trouble walking and bending down, shakes so much he can’t feed himself, pees his pants. Add to these problems the facts that they are not attributed to old age alone — the shaking is a side effect of Mr. Blank’s medication, the urinary incident comes about from muscle relaxation due to a fall — and that Blank is clearly a fictional Auster, and the author’s feelings about getting old become more pungent still.
On the other hand, Travels in the Scriptorium is more related to Auster’s early novels — particularly Ghosts and The Locked Room, the second and third volumes of the New York Trilogy — than to his late ones. In the course of his career, Auster has followed a path that started on the symbolic and strange and slowly but surely approached the real and quotidian. It’s not by accident if one of the hallmarks of Auster’s late work (ever since, at least, 1992’s Leviathan) is the use of coincidences, these moments when reality becomes symbolic, to drive the plot. But in 1987’s In the Country of Last Things, for instance, there were no meaningful coincidences, just an imaginary country from where people couldn’t leave. And in Travels in the Scriptorium Mr. Blank can’t leave the room he’s in.
Auster’s intentions are clear from the start: Blank represents Auster himself, and those who visit Blank in his room are characters from his previous novels — some important, such as In the Country of Last Things’ protagonist Anna Blume, others peripheral to the point of inexistence, such as the detective of a book quickly mentioned in The Locked Room. Blank’s memory is failing him (another age-related torment) but he can remember he’s done a terrible thing to these people, sent them to dangerous missions just so he could write reports about what they went through. At the same time, he defends himself by repeatedly saying that “the reports needed to be written”, and some of his visitors accept this argument and excuse his attitude. Others don’t, and seek revenge.
An effortlessly constructed atmosphere of mystery and angst.
To wonder about the impact a narrative makes on its characters is not exactly new (for some reason, Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World is the first thing that comes to my mind, but I’m sure there are other examples) but challengingly paradoxical: readers are used to worrying about fictional problems of fictional people, but when the main problem stems from these peoples’ own unreality the suspension of disbelief becomes tightropingly unstable. It’s hard not to think, at one point or another, that such exercise is not only paradoxical but also quite silly, and that’s why enjoying Travels in the Scriptorium is ultimately a matter not only of taste but also of choice. Those who fully accept the premise of the book will get of it what Auster always has to offer: simple and elegant prose, an effortlessly constructed atmosphere of mystery and angst and also a merciless, even if sometimes naive or pompous, judgment of its author. Those who don’t will find the exercise self-important and void of content, an amusing but helpless waste of time. And both groups will have good reasons for feeling the way they do. I happen to belong to the first one.
It does help, though, if you know and love Auster’s previous work. Not only because the characters will make more sense to you, but also because the novel’s themes — the potential role of obsessions in life, the tension that rises from artistic creation, even the subtle analysis of an inglorious episode of American history — will have more meaning in light of what the author has written about them before. And only Auster fans will be able to sense in this book a kind of conclusion, a literary testament of sorts, as if by returning to his symbolic beginnings Auster were coming full circle and finally saying his last word about the subjects to which he’s been returning over and over during the whole of his career as a novelist. I suppose it’s a misleading feeling, and Auster’s next novel will present another variation on the same themes — which is more than fine by me; but I wouldn’t be much surprised if he went for some deep change after this curious, though imperfect, little book.
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Portal of the STF
Brasília, July 18th, 2019 - 18:26
Compared Case Law
Federal Supreme Court Activity Report - 2017
Agenda of Events 2015 *
Events 2014 *
Teixeira de Freitas legal and academic exchange program within Mercosur and Associate States
The Teixeira de Freitas Exchange Program encourages cooperation towards the creation of a regional legal and cultural dialogue between the countries of Mercosur and Associates.
Its intention is to build and expand a common understanding to help strengthen the economic integration efforts and to promote training of teaching staff and students, as well as to stimulate the development of research and extension in the legal field within Mercosur and associate States.
Cooperation in the academic level is intended to promote mutual understanding of the legal realities of Mercosur countries and to support the development of legal research and to facilitate the creation of a space for reflection on issues which are central to the strengthening of the regional legal sphere.
To this end, the mobility of undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers and researchers in the field of law among countries in the region becomes reality through the Teixeira de Freitas Exchange Program, which usually provides eight openings for students from MERCOSUR countries a semester, for the academic period of August 15 until December 2. In addition to attending morning courses in law school at the University of Brasilia - UnB, exchange students follow an internship in the Supreme Court in the afternoon.
Joaquim Nabuco
The Joaquim Nabuco Exchange Program is an incentive for cooperation within MERCOSUR countries towards the creation of a regional dialogue on legal issues among the Member- and Associate-States.
This Exchange Program aims at making the Brazilian judiciary in all its instances known to visiting judges and judicial servants, thus contributing to the expansion of the basis for judicial cooperation, the strengthening of MERCOSUR and the promotion of legal security in the region, as a factor of political stability and economic and social development. Planned activities include assistance to hearings and sessions of trial courts, exposure to the functioning of national justice, monitoring of the routine work of judges of both the first and second instance, legal education in local universities, among others things. In the case of servants, they also get to know the administrative structure of the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil (STF) and they go through a period of internship in one of the Court’s Departments.
The Supreme Court (STF) provides twice a year,eight openings for judges and judicial servants of MERCOSUR Member- and Associate-States. In addition, the Supreme Court also sends its servants to know the functioning of the neighboring courts. There, the work schedule is determined according to the particularities of each judiciary system and court in particular. Each semester a selection process is conducted to determine the eight servers that will have the privilege to know on site how works the Judiciary of the countries participating in the program - currently Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Praça dos Três Poderes - Brasília - DF - Brazil - Zip Code 70175-900 Phone: 55.61.3217.3000
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St-Ts
Historically, societies have always located near water, due partly to the fact that water enables more efficient travel compared to going over land. Waterways are critically important to the transportation of people and goods throughout the world. The complex network of connections between coastal ports, inland ports, rail, air, and truck routes forms a foundation of material economic wealth worldwide.
Within the United States, waterways have been developed and integrated into a world-class transportation system that has been instrumental in the country's economic development. Today, there are more than 17,700 kilometers of commercially important navigation channels in the lower 48 states.
Early History of Water-based Transportation
The historical development of water-based transportation is connected to the importance of domestic and international trade. Early exploration of North America identified large amounts of natural resources such as fisheries, timber, and furs. Trade centers were established along the east coast of North America where goods could be gathered together and ocean vessels could transport them to consumers in Europe and other foreign areas. The success of commercial trading companies spurred the introduction of
Waterways in developing countries are critical avenues for local and regional commerce. Fruit and vegetable vendors flock to floating markets on rivers and canals, such as this one in Bangkok, Thailand.
more colonial settlements that in turn resulted in additional increases in population, economic activity, and trade.
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, small subsistence farms were prevalent among the American colonies. Eventually larger farms emerged and produced crops such as wheat, tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton that were commercially marketable in Europe. Ocean vessels transported the bulk, low-value goods from the colonies to Europe and returned with high-value, low-density goods such as inks, linens, and finished products that had a much higher return on the investment per vessel trip.
Agricultural production continued to grow and support the growing colonies' economic development. The speed and low cost of transporting goods by water influenced the locations of population settlements near navigable water (rivers, lakes, canals, and oceans). Goods produced on inland farms were transported via inland waterways to the coastal ports. Goods shipped by smaller vessels from surrounding ports were transported to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and exported on larger oceangoing ships. These ships from the smaller ports then transported imported goods back to the surrounding ports.
During the 1700s, the British government passed many acts, such as the Navigation Acts and the Stamp Act of 1765, designed to collect taxes from the colonists. The acts affected trade, and were met with opposition from the colonist. In Philadelphia during the fall of 1774, the "Declarations and Resolves of the First Continental Congress" called for non-importation of British goods, and became a catalyst for the American Revolutionary War (1775–1784). The resulting independence for the United States allowed trade a free rein, and it flourished.
Westward Expansion.
The westward expansion of the United States exposed a wealth of natural resources and an increased production in agricultural goods. The inland transportation infrastructure of roads, railroads, canals, and rivers connected the early western settlers with the rest of the nation, and enabled goods to move from the west back to more populated areas in the east and onto other parts of the world. The River and Harbor (Appropriations) Act of 1876 established federal funding of waterways to promote national commerce but not to benefit any particular state nor to allow waterway tolls.
Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Increased levels of world trade resulted from the economic growth occurring since the end of World War II in 1945. The United States was in the position to take advantage of new trading opportunities as new world markets opened. Developing countries demanded capital goods, agricultural products, consumer goods, and commercial services, which the United States could provide. As these nations produced goods for export, the United States became a market for these goods.
A significant factor in the opening of the inland waterway system (and the resultant world trade superiority of the United States) was the advances in ship technology and the application of steam power to ships that traveled the extensive water network. Larger and faster ships emerged from the advances in ship and engine design and improvements in construction materials.
Methods of cargo handling evolved to keep pace with the larger vessel sizes. The introduction of palletization and roll-on/roll-off cargoes enabled vessels to be loaded and unloaded in less time. The emergence of containerization in the late 1950s dramatically affected the shipping industry and port infrastructure. The increasing size of containerized cargo vessels became a driving force in the demand for expanded ports and improved facilities.
Importance to Foreign Trade.
Transporting goods with foreign trading partners can be accomplished by road, water, rail, or air. However, for the
Modern ferries, cruise ships, and many types of recreational boats carry passengers for purposes ranging from daily business commuting to fishing to sightseeing. The ferry system in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada) exemplifies the importance of waterways for transportation.
majority of foreign trading partners, the only options for transportation are water or air. Water-based transportation is generally the most costeffective mode for the majority of internationally traded goods.
About 95 percent of U.S. foreign trade passes through its port system. Ports function as the transfer point between land and water transportation of cargo. * For vessels to transport the foreign traded cargo, they must be able to access the ports through established channels. The channels provide adequate water depths for the vessels and navigational aids.
Today's Global Trade.
Today the world economy has become globalized. The economic system is changing from one with distinct local and national markets, separated by trade barriers, distance, time, and culture, to one that is increasingly converging and integrating into a global economy.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States was the world's leading trader in 1998, accounting for about one billion tons of ocean-bound trade (about 20 percent of the world's total ocean-bound trade) out of about 2.4 billion tons of total foreign trade. In 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, approximately $736 billion of goods (about 40 percent of the total U.S. foreign trade by dollar amount) were shipped via ocean vessels and passed through U.S. ports. By 2020, international trade is estimated to more than double (by weight) within the United States, with the majority of this trade projected to move via ocean shipping.
Marine Transportation System.
According to the Department of Transportation, when cargo is transported by water within the United States, 95 percent of the time it involves the Marine Transportation System (MTS). This comprehensive system resulted from years of water transport development involving such U.S. organizations as the Coast Guard, Maritime Administration, Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The U.S. Marine Transportation System moves people and goods via coastal and inland waterways. The diversity of the system's users is illustrated in this photograph of the Port of Tacoma, Washington, where a sea kayaker shares the water with a container vessel. (Container cranes and Mount Rainier are visible in the background.)
The MTS is a complex and diverse national network of waterways, ports, and intermodal landside connections that allows various modes of water-based transportation. The system includes: navigable waterways (such as the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway); publicly and privately owned commerce-carrying vessels; over 3,500 bulk oil transfer facilities; more than 350 ports located at approximately 4,000 marine terminals; about 40,000 kilometers of navigable channels; more than 235 locks and dams at over 190 locations; shipyards; rail yards; vessel repair facilities, over 10,000 recreational marinas; and a trained labor staff that operates and maintains the entire infrastructure. Users of the waterway system each year include 70,000 port calls for commercial vessels, 110,000 fishing vessels, and 20 million recreational vessels.
International Maritime Fleets and Law
Many nations around the world have built up their fleets to become very profitable. Since World War II, the size of the U.S. flag merchant fleet has declined, partly due to improved technologies and partly due to foreign competition among fleets. But while this number of ships has declined, the productivity has greatly increased. Since 1970, these fewer ships carry 42 percent more cargo. However, the U.S. fleet accounts for less than 5 percent of all commercial foreign trade by weight. Data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Maritime Administration indicate the following composition and carrying capacity of the U.S.-flag fleet in 2000:
Composition Capacity
Passenger 1 : 1,265 Passenger: 368,000 passengers
Dry Bulk: 10 Dry Bulk: 2,124,000 metric tons
Dry Cargo/Offshore Support: Dry Cargo: 47,253,000 metric tons 2,910
Containership: 61——
Tanker: 173 Tanker: 19,172,000 metric tons
Vehicular/Railroad Car Ferry: Railroad/Car Float: 89,000 metric 229 tons
Towboat: 5,098——
Dredge: 570 Other 2 : 1,072,000 metric tons
Other 2 : 45 Total: 72,078,000 metric tons/
368,000 passengers
1 Includes ferries and day excursion vessels
2 Includes certain general cargo, roll-on/roll-off, multipurpose, LASH (Lighter Aboard Ship) vessels, and deck barges
All ships must be registered to one of the world's nations so that responsibility for violations of international laws and conventions may be assigned. This causes many shipping companies to shop around for nations that give them the best values on taxes, wages, and legal restrictions.
Liberia has the largest shipping fleet in the world. Relatively smaller countries like the Bahamas, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Panama, and Vanuatu have large fleets as well. The United Nation's International Maritime Organization (IMO) is responsible for improving the safety of international shipping, preventing marine pollution, and facilitating international maritime traffic. The Department of Transportation has the overall lead on all maritime issues for the United States, and works with the IMO on these issues.
Economics, National Security, and the Environment
The United States dependence on seas and waterways has been vital to its economic success and national security. The pool of skilled labor working on U.S. flag vessels is also a national security asset. This workforce is relied upon to meet surges in shipping needs in the advent of emergencies. The merchant marine has played a historical role in military conflicts. In 1996, the Maritime Security Act established the maritime security program to support a fleet of U.S. commercial vessels with American crews to support the military and economic security of the country; approximately 47 vessels participate in this program.
The inland waterways are also a national security asset. The 1920 Jones Act required domestic waterborne commerce to be transported in vessels built in the United States, documented under U.S. laws, and owned by U.S. citizens. The Jones Act covers over 42,000 commercial vessels, 124,000 jobs, and $15 billion in economic activity. Many other countries have similar laws restricting foreign access to domestic trade shipped via waterways.
The MTS is also vital to national security. The ability to rapidly deploy troops and materials worldwide is critical to the country's defense. The Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA) is a standby agreement intended to make commercial, intermodal dry cargo capacity and supporting infrastructure available to meet contingency deployment needs of the Department of Defense. Since World War II, approximately 95 percent of all military equipment and material sent to combat and crisis areas was ship cargo transported by ocean vessels. For example, during the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991), nearly all domestic supplies intended for U.S. military forces traveled by ship.
Marine transportation is an important use of the ocean. Increased demands will be placed on U.S. ports and waterways as domestic and international trade continues to expand. These increases in the use of waterways and port facilities must be achieved while still protecting human health and the environment.
SEE ALSO Navigation at Sea, History of ; Ports and Harbors.
Terri A. Thomas
and William Arthur Atkins
Bauer, K. Jack. A Maritime History of the United States: The Role of America's Seas and Waterways. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Hershman, Marc J. Urban Ports and Harbors Management. New York: Taylor & Francis, 1988.
Hill, Forest G. Roads, Rails, and Waterways: The Army Engineers and Early Transportation. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957.
Kendall, Lane C. The Business of Shipping. Centreville, MD: Cornell Maritime Press, 1979.
Marcus, Henry et al. Federal Port Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1976.
Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping. N. Schultheiss. <http://www.boatnerd.com> .
Navigation Data Center. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. <http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/ndc/index.htm> .
U.S. Port Totals by Type Service. U.S. Foreign Waterborne Transportation Statistics Program, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Transportation. <http://www.marad.dot.gov/statistics/usfwts/index.html> .
What is the Marine Transportation System? U.S. Department of Transportation. <http://www.dot.gov/mts/about.htm> .
* See "Oil Spills: Impact on the Ocean" and "Ports and Harbors" for photographs of busy U.S. ports.
Geet Bhagwani
Jan 27, 2010 @ 8:08 am
This information is useful for porjects on water transport and also contains very nice points on it.
Transportation forum
Transboundary Water Treaties Tsunamis
© 2019 Advameg, Inc.
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Record numbers for The Wearable Technology Show 2017 Record numbers for The Wearable Technology Show 2017
Visitor numbers rose 3 per cent for the fourth Wearable Technology Show last week surpassing the 5,000 mark for the first time in the event’s history. 5,035 visitors attended the 2017 event, 109 exhibitors from over 20 countries were on the show floor and 234 speakers hosted over 100 sessions in the conference programme.
More than 50 new products were launched to over 100 journalists with coverage featuring on BBC News, Click, Sky’s Swipe, BBC Newsround, ITN Middle East, China Central and in Forbes and Design Week as well as many technology outlets.
Organisers Evolve Media have confirmed the event will return to ExCeL for a fifth year running 13-14 March 2018. In the meantime, WTS US – the smart technology show – will return in the US this autumn, and the firm have also confirmed a first outing for the WAVE Congress – targeted at the enterprise – in June.
“Anyone who said wearables and smart technology were a flash in the pan couldn’t be more wrong – to grow to over 5,000 visitors from a standing market and in a brand new market in just four years is testament to that and an achievement we’re all very proud of.” said John Weir, the event’s director.
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Presidential Politics and Your Wasted Vote
It’s election season again, and once more the American people find themselves facing what feels like a choice between the lesser of two evils – perhaps more so than ever before, as the candidates on “both sides of the aisle” are each remarkable in their own sad ways.
As in previous elections, there are two major third party options available to voters, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, and as in previous elections, there is a hue and cry among the devout Republicans and Democrats that to vote outside the traditional major parties is a vote for the other guy, a “wasted vote.”
I am a staunch third party supporter, and of all the things about election season that leave a bad taste in my mouth, this tastes the worst. I hate this faulty logic, and want to address it in a blog post, just to satisfy myself.
Firstly, the whole idea that someone would cast a vote for a candidate of their choice and that that vote is “wasted” is nonsense of the highest order. If a candidate is on the ballot, then they are a valid candidate, and to suggest that some candidates are more valid than others undermines the entire idea and purpose of the process. The purpose of voting is to determine the will of the people, and if X% of the people want Candidate C, then so be it, regardless of whether or not that percentage is sufficient to win. There are “swing voters” in every election, but you never hear that Bush “stole” votes from Gore - well, there was that whole ‘hanging chad’ thing, but you get my meaning. Only one can win, and anyone who managed to get their name on your ballot deserves your full consideration.
Speaking of “the win” reminds of another element to this wasted vote narrative; that being the received wisdom that no third party can win. This idea, of course, is why that vote is considered wasted, but I fear it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that third parties must overcome. What I see happen in virtually every election cycle is that third parties receive relatively little attention in the media, and when they are featured it is in novelty or “human interest” stories that are often tinged with a hint of patronage, a heartwarming story about the underdog candidate who thinks they can compete with the Big Boys. Then the polls begin, and whether implicitly or explicitly, the major polls do not mention third parties, even when they are on the ballot in a majority of states*. Voters who might choose a third party option are asked to answer a poll with only a binary answer; this both skews the polls, and in my opinion, also skews public opinion about the viability of other parties and other candidates. So the third party candidates poll low, and don’t make the required 15% of the population (though perhaps they might if the major polls actually included their names?) benchmark, and so they are not allowed in the major debates of the election season. Because of this, the voting public only sees two candidates, only hears and reads about two candidates, and quite naturally must be surprised to see three or more on their ballot come election day. No wonder they “can’t win.” For third party candidates, there is a Presidential Ceiling, and in my opinion, this ceiling is enforced by an institutional bias created through a combination of public attitude, media coverage, and election regulations.
This brings me to another effrontery surrounding third party votes, the idea that a vote for Candidate C is really a vote for Candidate A (or B, depending on which camp you’re in), because it will “steal” votes from Candidate A that s/he would have otherwise received. Although it’s true that third party candidates do divide the numbers, to suggest that doing so is somehow “stealing” votes away from the other (implicitly more valid) candidates is foolishness, as is the idea that voting for one candidate is a de facto vote for someone completely different. This is a logical fallacy created by asserting an “either/or” choice that simply doesn’t exist on the actual ballot. But as the election cycle heats up, this fallacy runs rampant, and combines forces with a party-line guilt trip: 3rd party supporters are told that this election is different, the other guy is too conservative/liberal, represents too much of a threat and must be stopped at all costs … your little political revolution needs to wait; this is a time to close ranks and present a unified front. Uh-huh. Every damned time. H. L. Mencken remarked that “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it was an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Every election of recent memory has been deemed “too important” to vote for anyone but the lesser of two evils, as the saying goes.
The debates surrounding the legitimacy of third party candidates reminds me, oddly enough, of the two prominent camps of the civil rights campaigns of the early 20th century. In one camp, there was Booker T. Washington, who stressed education and the betterment of the black community. At some risk of over-simplifying his position, he felt that if the black community acted the part, they would eventually receive the same treatment as whites. Taking a polar opposite opinion was W.E.B. duBois, who felt that achieving civil rights was Job One, and that the white power structure would never surrender rights unless those rights were demanded. While the analogy is nowhere near exact, and the stakes are nowhere near as high, even for this election, the dynamic seems remarkably similar to me. In the Washingtonian camp are those Bernie supporters who, although the whiff of possible voter fraud in the Democratic party has left a bad taste in their mouths, will stay the course and work to effect change within a deeply flawed institution. In the duBoisian camp are those voters who have abandoned all hope of being heeded by the major parties and are taking their votes elsewhere. If this analogy has something to teach us, it is that both camps were working toward the same end; neither approach was wrong or invalid, and achieving the end results probably took the combined effort of both. I have friends who were Bernie supporters, and have thrown their lot in with Hillary rather than going 3rd party, because they believe in working for change from the inside. They’re right to do so. My other friends, who are 3rd party voters and refuse to throw their lot in with the major parties that they feel no longer represent them? They’re right too. If there is to be any kind of political revolution, it must come from all sides.
So my point here is not to stump for Gary Johnson, or Jill Stein, or Darren Castle (who?!), or to convince you to not vote for either Trump or Clinton, if that’s where you heart leads you. My point is to argue that our democracy works best when all voices are valued. As our Commander in Chief said just this week, “don’t boo – vote.” Vote your conscience, and don’t listen to the hobgoblins, because all votes matter.
*FYI, Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party is on the ballot in all 50 states, and Jill Stein of the Green Party is on the ballot in 23 states (and DC), reaching 60% of the voting public. Darren Castle of the Constitution Party is on the ballot in over 20 states.
https://www.johnsonweld.com
http://www.jill2016.com
http://www.constitutionparty.com
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Back page of this Sunday's SundayStyles in The New York Times. Almost the entire section, all 22 pages were dedicated to articles or tributes to Bill.
A Passionate Life
July 06, 2016 by Virginia Ruth
For many years, every Sunday I looked forward to looking at Bill Cunningham's column in The New York Times. In fact, I skipped the front page, the sports page and headed straight to SundayStyles and Bill's photos.
Bill Cunningham was a fashion and society photographer for the New York Times. He was working up until his death two weeks ago at the age of 87. He had two regular spots in the Style section: one a photo montage of what the average person on the street was wearing and another showing the various attendees, famous or not, to galas and events around the city.
His photos are great but what always captivated me was the man: so humble, honest, focused, gracious, hard working and passionate about what he did. He was a purist for art and beauty. He was never concerned about celebrity or photos for money. He just loved fashion and loved recording it. (If you get a chance, watch the 2011 documentary on him, Bill Cunningham New York)
In an interview last fall, when asked about his current age (and the implication of why he is still working), he said he didn't think about age because that was not the important thing, "the important thing is I am enjoying what I do." Click here to see an interview
He lived a extremely simple lifestyle, spartan in fact, in order to be true to his art form and to his passion. Certainly an eccentric but a lovable one.
I am not called to live a life like his but I am encouraged about his single-mindedness and his passion. Makes me wonder about my own life, my calling and how do I reflect my values? Am I gracious and humble in what I do? Do I treat all people the same- rich or poor, famous or not? Of course I do not rub shoulders with anyone at all in the circles that he saw but I certainly can show favoritism and divisiveness with whom I come in contact and I shouldn't. Do I look at life as an ever changing beautiful place?
What about you? Do you have a passionate life? Do you know anyone who does? What does it look like?
July 06, 2016 /Virginia Ruth
passion about one's calling
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Trade Programme
Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6)
Using Standards
WP.6
Advisory Group on Market Surveillance (MARS)
START-Ed Group on Education and Standardization
Group of Experts on Risk Management in Regulatory Systems (GRM)
Standardization and Regulatory Techniques (START)
Earth-Moving Machinery
Equipment for Explosive Environments
Regulatory Cooperation
Gender Responsive Standards Initiative
Gender Responsive Standards Declaration
Thematic Areas - Using Standards
UNECE encourages and empowers policy-makers to use international standards to develop and implement regulations in different sectors.
Using standards in technical regulations promotes international regulatory coherence; helps companies, communities and organizations move toward a more resilient and sustainable model of production and consumption; and help conserve Planet Earth’s precious resources.
Access to international markets and technical barriers to trade
Sustainable development, in particular the achievement of Agenda 2030 and of the Sustainable Development Goals
Climate change and planetary boundaries
UNECE WP. 6 advocacy efforts
Access to international markets: prevent and eliminate TBT
Standards are very much a part of our everyday life. The blueprints of products we buy and use are developed in close reference to standards and technical regulations. When designs are developed into manufactured goods, firms cooperate with competent bodies that check conformity of their merchandise with relevant requirements. And finally, when products are on the market or are used as equipment at the workplace, specialized authorities monitor to protect consumers, workers and employees from the hazards of non-compliant products. More technically, standards are “documents, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provide ‘rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results’ ”. Technical regulations are set by competent authorities, and define criteria for the design, content, operation, and disposal of products. While technical regulations must be complied with, compliance with standards is voluntary.
UNECE encourages rule makers to base their regulations on international standards. These provide a common denominator to the norms that apply on different markets, and reduce the need to customize and retest the products whenever they cross a national border.
In order to avoid standards becoming a barrier to international trade, national regulators must work together to specify which international standards constitute the common denominator, and how compliance with the standards should be assessed. To this end, the START Team has developed a regulatory cooperation model based on good practice. Several ongoing Sectoral Initiatives (on Telecom, Earth-Moving Machinery, Equipment for Explosive Environments and Pipeline Safety) are based on Recommendation L.
Read more about best practice developed by the Working Party in this think-piece showing how regulatory cooperation can enhance regulatory coherence and help remove technical barriers to trade.
Standards play three important roles in the prevention and management of disaster risk:
They help prevent the accumulation of new disaster risks, by assisting communities and organizations in moving towards a more sustainable pattern of sustainable and resilient development
They can be used as a methodology for managing all kinds of risks, including natural and man-made hazards that may cause disasters
And standards - such as those on business continuity and emergency management - enable both business and administrations to absorb shocks in a way that minimizes capital, human and eco-system losses.
The Working Party has promoted cooperation between the standardization communities on the one hand, and governmental authorities, and UN agencies on the other. It has:
Contributed a background paper on "Standards for DRR" for the 2015 edition of the Global Assessment Report;
Participated in the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendai, Japan in March 2015 – in particular with an event on Standards for DRR;
Established a partnership with ISO TC 292 on “Security and Resilience” and contributed to its activities through a taskforce on “UN cooperation” which aims at contributing to the implementation of the outcome of the WCDRR and other important UN outcomes.
Contributed to an article on DRR to the August-September 2015 issue of the ISO Focus magazine;
Promoted the participation of ISO and IEC in the UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (January 2016).
Read more about best practice developed by the Working Party in this publication on DRR and Standards!
Standards are an asset to sustainable development and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals also in the context of Agenda 2030.
Standards help companies conceive, produce and market cleaner and more energy-efficient products. They help reduce their ecological footprint and impact on the environment and fragile ecosystems. They also prevent industrial accidents and ensure that resources are used responsibly and are preserved for future generations.
The list of standards that will play a pivotal role in the achievement of the SDGs is potentially endless. The following are just a few example
Standards are the foundation of international trade and so support goal 17.10 “promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system”
Standards bring a reservoir of technological know-how and knowledge to the factory floor and are a fundamental tool for SDG Goal 8 “Sustainable economic growth” and SDG Goal 9 “Resilient infrastructure, industrialization and innovation”.
Systemic risk management standards – including ISO 31000 –help both business and policy-makers attain their objectives in the face of uncertainty and are crucial to designing a new pattern of development and promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation (Goal 9).
Standards such as emergency management standards and business continuity standards help make development resilient to disasters (Goals 1.5, 2.4 and 11.b)
Standards on electrotechnical equipment, electricity plants and electrically powered utilities including water utilities - such as those developed by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) contribute to the achievement of Goal 7: “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” and Goal 6 on the “Sustainable management of water and sanitation to all”
Standards – such as those being developed under the ISO Technical Committee on “Sustainable development in communities” - can contribute to Goal 11 as it refers to making cities inclusive, sustainable and resilient to disasters.
While standards are important, they are only so if they are properly used and implemented. Ultimately, the goal of standards is changing the characteristics of products and production processes. Clearly, this requires assessing the conformity of products, processes, and services, against the standards’ requirements.
In many cases, technical regulations are needed to complement voluntary standards, and to ensure and monitor compliance. Regulatory enforcement requires a complex system, the “national quality infrastructure system”, which includes an array of private and public sector bodies, i.e. metrology institutions, accreditation and conformity assessment bodies, as well as testing laboratories.
UNECE WP. 6 plays a unique role in developing the capacity of policy-makers and businesses to implement standards and technical regulations, especially in sectors that have a critical impact on sustainability and on resilience to natural and man-made hazards, especially as regards
promoting the use of standards by policy-makers and business
integrating standards in regulatory frameworks
furthering the use of standards in the implementation of UN-wide goals, including the implementation of the Agenda 2030 and the Sendai framework for action
Read more about best practice developed by the Working Party in this think-piece.
Planetary boundaries
Finally, another key role that standards play is in the context of climate change and planetary boundaries.
The Working Party organized a panel to discuss this topic, with contributions from the Stockholm Resilience Center: see related presentation and paper!
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Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals - Picture 63
- Movie
- Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
- Premiere Pictures
Lizzie Cundy
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
/movie/night_at_the_museum_secret_of_the_tomb/premiere.html
Lady Victoria Hervey in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
Christine Taylor in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
Shawn Levy in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
Ben Kingsley in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
Maggie Weston, Terry Gilliam in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
Ben Stiller in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
Ricky Gervais in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb UK Film Premiere - Arrivals
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Hot List:
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Sam Hunt on New Music: ‘The Record’s There’
Sam Hunt played one of his three scheduled concerts of 2019 and explained that his light tour itinerary is so he can finally finish his next studio album. He's close.
Speaking to Sirius XM's the Highway's Storme Warren and Buzz Brainard prior to his weekend set at Stagecoach Festival in California, Hunt says that he intentionally kept a light workload so he could focus on studio work. The record will get done "come hell or high water," he says, and then he'll tour with more consistency in 2020.
“I’ll start recording the best of the last 10, 11, 12 months ... in July and August, and I should have a record there,” Hunt explains. “The songs are showing up. I would like to have two or three more between now and July, but for the most part, the record’s there. It's just a matter of recording it."
Could Sam Hunt Record a Traditional Country Album? It's Not Crazy!
In addition to Stagecoach, Hunt is going to play Off the Rails in Texas on May 5 and Country Jam in Grand Junction, Colo., on June 14. Last year he toured with Luke Bryan and played the Taste of Country Music Festival in Hunter, N.Y. That invitation, he says, was too good to pass up, but it pushed his new album back a year.
The last new song Hunt released as a radio single was "Downtown's Dead," a Top 20 single that is one of three songs he's released since releasing Montevallo in 2014. "Body Like a Back Road" was a non-album single, even though it became one of the biggest songs of 2017. "Drinkin' Too Much" was a biographical apology of sorts to now-wife Hannah Lee Fowler. It's not clear if either will be included on his next album.
Fans at Stagecoach were not treated to any of the new music, with Hunt saying none were rehearsed with his band.
See Pictures of Sam Hunt + More at Stagecoach:
Source: Sam Hunt on New Music: ‘The Record’s There’
Filed Under: Sam Hunt
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Kelso Cochrane
“Tribute to Notting Hill race hate victim”
posted by: Tippa Naphtali
published: 9th April 2006
Any news or updates listed at the foot of this item
Stanley Cochrane is 75 years old. He came to Britain for the first time last year, not as a tourist, but to discover who murdered his brother almost 50 years ago. On 17th May 1959, Kelso Cochrane, a 32-year-old carpenter from Antigua, was killed by a group of white youths in Notting Hill Gate. No one was ever convicted.
“In March 2003 I awoke from a disturbing dream about my brother,” says Stanley. “From that moment I couldn’t shake his face from my mind. “He kept coming back in my dreams. I decided I had to do something.”
Stanley wrote to the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, asking for his brother’s murder to be re-investigated. They replied there was no new forensic evidence to re-open the case.
Three years on, and not satisfied with the police response, he decided to see what he could find out for himself.
Above all, he wanted to know why his brother Kelso was killed. Was it robbery or racially motivated? Was it both?
In 2011 a new book by BBC documentary maker, Mark Olden,claimed the identity of the killer had been an ‘open secret’ since Kelso Cochrane’s death. The unsolved murder of Kelso Cochrane has finally been laid to rest after 50 years after the man accused of killing him was named as Patrick Digby.
Digby was arrested along with another men after police focused their inquiries on a group of white men at a house party in the street where the murder took place.
The death of Kelso Cochrane
(Operation Black Vote – 14 September 2011)
Kelso Cochrane is an iconic figure in British race relations. Over fifty years ago the young Antiguan was killed by a gang of white youths in Notting Hill, west London. No-one was ever convicted. He was the Stephen Lawrence of his day; a symbol of racial injustice.
Man who stabbed Antiguan carpenter through the heart in Notting Hill ‘race killing’ finally named after 50 years
(Mail Online – 8 September 2011)
The unsolved murder of Kelso Cochrane has finally been laid to rest after 50 years after the man accused of killing him was named as Patrick Digby. Mr Cochrane, a black immigrant from Antigua, was stabbed to death by a white youth in Notting Hill, west London in 1959. Digby was arrested along with another men after police focused their inquiries on a group of white men at a house party in the street where the murder took place.
Remembering Kelso Cochrane
(IRR News – 7 May 2009)
Kelso Cochrane, an immigrant from Antigua, was murdered in Notting Hill by a gang of White men as he walked home from a local hospital after receiving treatment for an injury he had sustained in his work as a carpenter. Kelso was stabbed and later died in hospital.
Kelso Cochrane Honoured With A Blue Plaque
(ItzCaribbean.com – date unknown)
50 years to the day, after the violent murder of North Kensington resident Kelso Cochrane, the Nubian Jak Community Trust is to install a Blue Plaque at the Grove Inn Restaurant & Bar, on the corner of Golborne Road and Southam Street, W10.
Kelso Cochrane murder: 50th anniversary
(Golborne Life – date unknown)
The fiftieth anniversary of the tragic murder of Kelso Cochrane on Southam Street, just off Golborne Road, is to be marked by the unveiling of a commemorative Blue Plaque on Sunday May 17th.
Hull’s Banksy designs new graffiti tribute to tragic paratrooper
16 February 2019 No comments
The sister of former paratrooper Christopher Alder who died in police custody 20 years ago says she... Read more
Murder of Pat Finucane by loyalists remembered 30 years on
Remembering Trayvon Martin on what would have been his 24th birthday
Tributes: New case profiles published for heroes and sheroes
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Andy Lopez memorialized 5 years after Sonoma County deputy killed him
30 October 2018 No comments
Black Panther Party co-founder Elbert Howard, 80, dies in Santa Rosa
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Reba McEntire Joins Kelly Clarkson at Nashville Tour Stop [WATCH]
During a Meaning of Life Tour stop in Nashville on Friday (March 29), Kelly Clarkson took a minute to speak directly to the audience in a segment she calls "A Minute and a Glass of Wine," which the superstar also broadcast to fans via Facebook Live. During this particular segment, however, Clarkson had a special surprise in store that, she explained to the audience, she had been looking forward to for a long time.
"I've been super, super excited about this particular 'Minute and a Glass of Wine' -- I mean, literally, I have been waiting for weeks to do this," Clarkson told the crowd, after sampling a bottle of red wine especially made for her tour, with the Nashville skyline embellished on the bottle's logo.
"I'm super excited about my guest ... This person has been such an influence, not just musically, but personally. It's just a really rare thing to meet your hero and they live up to it, you know?" she continued. "We put this together because I am a true fan, so I'm making this person sing way more songs than they probably thought they were gonna have to. Here we go. Her birthday was yesterday, y'all!"
As many screaming concertgoers had already guessed, the special guest for the evening was Reba McEntire, who then joined Clarkson onstage to duet on a medley of hits. Beginning with "Because of You," the superstar pair rocked their way through "Can't Even Get the Blues," "Fancy" and more classic hits, as well as McEntire's brand-new single, "Freedom."
McEntire has a busy week ahead: The country icon will release her new album, Stronger Than the Truth, on April 5, and is also set to host the 2019 ACM Awards just two days later, on April 7.
For her part, Clarkson kicked off her Meaning of Life Tour earlier in 2019, with Kelsea Ballerini as well as The Voice alum Brynn Cartelli on the road with her, and concluded the trek on Saturday (March 30). Her setlists featured a host of memorable covers by country stars such as Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton and Brandi Carlile.
Who Else Is Going on Tour in 2019?
NEXT: Kelly Clarkson's Most Unforgettable Moments
Source: Reba McEntire Joins Kelly Clarkson at Nashville Tour Stop [WATCH]
Filed Under: kelly clarkson, Reba McEntire
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Monetate CEO Brussin On Monetate's Expansion Beyond eCommerce And Strategy Ahead
by AdExchanger // Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 – 12:09 am
David Brussin is CEO of Monetate, a provider of testing, targeting, and personalization services for websites.
Earlier this month, the company announced a $15 million Series B funding round led by OpenView Venture Partners. Read more on TechCrunch.
AdExchanger.com: Is the focus of the company eCommerce?
DB: We're actually not focused on eCommerce. Our mission is really about anyone with a website, who has a commercial goal around the site, because all websites have the same thing in common.
Whether they're transactional B to C, eCommerce, online retail, direct response or subscription, they all have the same characteristics around needing to provide relevant, compelling experiences for visitors, in order to drive an outcome.
For online retail, that action is purchasing a product that's probably going to be shipped to them. For direct response, it might be transactional or it might not. But there is a pretty direct connection to some kind of exchange of value transaction.
For media, it's different. That action might be transactional in nature and subscription oriented, but it might also be engagement and consumption of content, ad views.
We chose eCommerce as our initial vertical, because we actually have some features that we've built that are specifically for eCommerce that help that vertical. But we're now playing in a number of other spaces.
Looking at a HubSpot or Adobe which has its enterprise platform solution – how does Monetate differentiate?
The Adobe products I would characterize as legacy products and came from Omniture, which really started about 10 years ago.
The challenge is that everything a marketer needs to do with those legacy platforms requires IT. That's really why we have this whole micro‑site challenge in the first place: IT has to be involved and means that you're looking at six to 18 months to launch campaigns.
If you look at the pace of activity, the agility of marketers working in display and search, those legacy platforms just can't keep up. What's needed is a platform that actually allows marketers to work at the same pace they're working in every other channel.
What do you think about the potential impact of a downturn in the economy for a product offering like Monetate’s?
Well, we've seen this before, so my answer is maybe less prognostication and more thinking about the way things happened in the last downturn or maybe the first part of this one, if it goes that way.
Monetate was founded in January of 2008. We launched our product into the market in the summer of 2008. Thereafter, the retail and consumer economy and the rest of the market fell apart.
Monetate actually grew and even got to cash flow positive during that time.
We see two things that drive Monetate in the long term. One is a kind of an effect, where folks actually have to focus on doing better, rather than just doing more. The other piece is we're just reaching a natural inflection point in the growth of eCommerce. As we get closer to that inflection point, then the growth in this industry will be driven through sophistication. Just as it was 20, 30 years ago with companies like Walmart and Target doing the same things with their large bricks‑and‑mortar empires and starting to pay attention in deep ways to data from their customers and from their supply chains.
Are you starting to bring in the marketer’s offline data to help with online campaigns?
Yes. There are a lot of crossovers. Sometimes the things we're doing are online campaigns that turn into digital and in‑store coupons to track in that direction. Often we're paying attention to data that comes from the offline channel, but that we can also use when folks have an online interaction.
You were an outside board member at Invite Media before it was acquired by Google in 2010. Obviously, you have lots of experience in display. In your opinion, is the display space as complex as everybody says it is?
Yes, I think it is very complex. In some ways I think it's useful to contrast display with search, where there are definitely powerful ecosystems that have built around both. There's no question that display is more complex, because in search there are really only a couple of controllers of all inventory. In display that's not true.
What surprises me about display today is that some of the innovations in display have taken longer to take hold than I would have expected given how powerful they are. But when I think of it from the other perspective, in contrast with search, I guess it's not that surprising because given that the ecosystem is so much more complex, those innovations will naturally take longer to take hold.
I think that the transformation that the exchange has brought to display is an incredibly powerful one. I look at it through this lens because of Invite Media, but I see that transformation as being a key driver for future innovation in this space. It brings a model that allows for all of the value, the richness of targeting, segmentation and intelligence around data. Whereas before the exchange, a lot of it was used, but in much less direct ways.
That meant the ROI was lower and more complex. I think that's one of the reasons that those otherwise really powerful technologies have been a bit slower to take hold.
Regarding your latest funding round, can you expand on what you plan on doing with the additional funds?
Sure. I talked a little bit about the early path of the company, and growing rapidly to cash flow positive in the bad economy. We did that without raising much money. The nice thing about the way we got started was that we really got the product right, and we made sure that what we were offering is exactly what the market needed.
So our path since then has really been driven by that early work. This expansion is all about being able to serve more customers, and across all areas. Certainly, a lot of it is about sales and marketing, but we're adding dramatically to our strategic team and our engineering team because we want to stay out in front. We get a tremendous amount of data on what works for customers and what doesn't. We've always been able to use that to keep the product out ahead of our customers.
So a big part of [the new funds] is about continuing to innovate and drive forward for marketers.
Do you think about international at all?
We do. We have a number of international customers, both U.S.-based companies that do significant business in 100 or so international markets, as well as internationally‑based customers who are focused on both U.S. and other markets.
All of our employees are based in the U.S. today. At some point we certainly will expand our footprint and have folks overseas. I can't tell you exactly when that will be, but it's something we're thinking about.
Follow David Brussin (@dbrussin), Montetate (@monetate) and AdExchanger.com (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
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The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission handles a range of complaints every day. Some of these complaint issues can be handled solely by us, while others may need to be referred to another organisation.
We work closely with a number of organisations to ensure that your concerns are handled correctly, by the people best placed to deal with them.
There are five organisations we often refer complaint information to:
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) supports 14 National Boards that are responsible for regulating health professions. The primary role of the National Boards is to protect the public and set standards and policies that all registered health practitioners must meet. AHPRA is responsible for:
handling complaints about registered health practitioners
working with Health Complaints Commissions in each state and territory to make sure the appropriate organisation deals with community concerns about registered health practitioners
supporting the development of registration standards, codes and guidelines, and
the administration of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme.
For further information please visit the AHPRA website.
The Coroner in each state or territory conducts investigations into reportable deaths. The coroner determines the identity of the deceased, how the death occurred, the cause of death, any particulars needed to register the death, and ways to prevent similar deaths in the future.
Visit the relevant Coroner website in each state or territory for more information and to view the status of coroner inquiries.
The Department of Health is responsible for managing national programs in relation to regulation of approved providers and grant management for service providers. Through these programs they:
monitor provider compliance with the Aged Care Act 1997 or their Funding Agreement with the Australian Government
establish, promote and enforce prudential regulations protecting accommodation payments paid by residents to approved providers, and
determine and monitor the appropriateness of entities, including their key personnel.
For further information please visit the Department of Health website.
The Police force in each state or territory is responsible for dealing with matters including: preventing, detecting and investigating crime, monitoring and promoting road safety, maintaining social order, and performing and coordinating emergency and rescue operations.
Visit the relevant Police website in each state or territory for more information.
Health Complaints Entities
Generally speaking, Health Complaints Entities (HCE) are responsible for the investigation and resolution of health complaints, however, the functions of the HCE are imposed by the laws of the state or territory in which the HCE is established. State and Territory HCE work alongside AHPRA to ensure the appropriate organisation investigates community concerns about registered health practitioners. Referrals regarding unregistered aged care workers can be made to your local HCE.
Visit the relevant Health Complaints Entity website in each state or territory for more information.
Friday, 21 December 2018 - 9:24am
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What to Visit in Malaga
Malaga city is packed with charm, atmosphere and authenticity. Málaga’s coastline forms part of The Costa del Sol, a special part of the Mediterranean — so you are in for a treat during your stay in Malaga. The climate is temperate, with an average of 86°F during the summer months and 64°F during winter. This is due to the mountains that protect the coast from cold north winds.
What do you can visit in Málaga:
Museo Picasso Malaga – Museo Picasso Malaga is the city’s most renowned museum.
Spanisch lernen in Málaga, Learn Spanish in Malaga, Spaans leren in Málaga, Apprendre Espagnol en Espagne, Spanish Courses for Teachers, Spanischkurse für Lehrer, Aprendere Spagnolo in Spagna
La Alcazaba is a Malaga landmark that dates back to the 700s. The entrance, known as Christ’s Door or Puerta del Cristo, is where the first mass was celebrated after the Christian victory over the town. If you head just below the entrance to La Alcazaba you will find the ruins of an ancient amphitheatre dating back to the second century AD.
The Cathedral – Malaga’s Cathedral also called “La Manquita” (one armed woman) due to only one completed tower, was built between 1528 and 1782.
Museo de Artes Populares – This arts and crafts museum features items used between the 17th and 20th centuries and other worthy pieces. On display are ceramic figures, clay figures, folk costumes, fishing equipment, furniture, horse-drawn carriages, and more.
Santiago Church – The foundation of this church dates back to July 25, 1490 making it the oldest church in Malaga. Pablo Picasso was baptized here in 1881. Major points of interest include the Mudejar Tower, sculptural works, and pictorial works.
Gibralfaro Castle – Gibralfaro Castle/Fortress offers some of the most amazing panoramic views the city has to offer. This is the original place where Gibralfro lies and it is located next to La Alcazaba.
Finca La Concepcion – Considered one of the most important and the most beautiful botanical gardens in Europe, this 150-year-old botanical garden features giant ficus, araucarias (one 147-foot-tall specimen is the tallest tree in the province, palms, cycads, bamboo from China, and a wide variety of exotic flowers.
Town Hall – Town Hall is the most fascinating modernistic structure in Malaga. It was built between 1912 and 1919 and it features a neo-baroque style, gorgeous gardens, and excellent views of Alcazaba and Gibralfaro.
And here are a handful of other – fairly personal – reasons to visit Malaga.
Because it’s not Sevilla, Granada or Córdoba…
Don’t get me wrong, magnificent cities all. And Malaga certainly has nothing to compare with Granada’s Alhambra, Cordoba’s Mezquita, or Seville’s Barrio de Santa Cruz or Alcazar. But with outstanding beauty and history – and the inevitable tourists they bring – can come a certain self-consciousness. One of the things that makes Malaga stand out is its relaxed charm; as if it knows that its flashy neighbours are going to grab all the attention, but that it’s not really all that bothered about it.
Because of the fried fish…
Locals are known as boquerones – and anchovies there are aplenty. Along with dogfish, cod, haddock, and the king of fried ocean dwellers, puntillitas (or baby squid). Out to the east in the lively suburb of El Palo, El Tintero is the place to go to shout out your order and have a plate of mixed fried fish slung in front of you by a hassled waiter in a grease-spattered white shirt. If that’s your kind of thing.
For a time, though, my favourite spot used to be down a little alley to the north of the Alameda Principal (it’s easy enough to find), where I’d slip off and eat hot fistfuls of fried baby squid while standing ankle deep in crumpled up napkins. All washed down with a couple of ice-cold beers or a glass of fino. Hardly fine dining, but one of the most satisfying gastronomic experiences of my life, nevertheless.
Because of the Atarazanas Market…
The Atarazanas Market is like a museum of foodstuff. If a museum were run by large, bellowing fishwives bearing meat cleavers, that is. It’s not for the squeamish (as so many things involving food/animals in Spain tend not to be) though, as sheep heads, skinned rabbits, pigs’ trotters and the like dangle in front of your eyes. If the noise, the scrum and the sights and smells get a bit much, there’s a handsome and largely original Moorish gate to inspect out front.
Because of (or in spite of Picasso…
Bloody Picasso. He’s done more from the grave to make people visit Malaga than anyone alive. The great man once said: “When I was a child I could paint like Raphael; it look me a long time to learn to paint like a child again.” There’s nothing childlike about the Museo Picasso; it’s a proper grownup museum in a lovely old palace. A tip, though: the Contemporary Arts Centre (CAC) is arguably just as interesting. And nobody really bothers to go there.
Because of El Pimpi…
An institution. And in fairness, El Pimpi’s been working harder for longer than most places in Malaga to draw in the visitors. It is an outrageously picturesque bar: a sprawling warren of colourful tiles, plant-festooned patios, barrels… and photographs. Lots and lots of photographs. For every sepia-tinted bullfighter, former dictator’s daughter, 70s Spanish singer and obscure celebrity of yesteryear, every now and again a leering Antonio Banderas will jump out at you.
Because of Malaga wine…
The Victorians knew when they were on to a good thing. But since then, dessert wines have tended to be sniffed at by the wineoscenti. While it’s obviously no sherry (or Ribeira, Rioja or Albariño…), this sweet, faintly medicinal concoction of Moscatel and Pedro Ximenez grapes has always been liberally swilled in its hometown, where it goes down nicely with, well, pretty much everything. At its best on cool, damp winter evenings.
Because of the people…
Malagueños are great. Seriously. In a region of a country where people define themselves first and foremost in relation to their pueblo, changes in personality can be quite marked from place to place. And Malaga is just about the friendliest city in the south of Spain. Which probably makes it one of the friendliest places in Europe by anyone’s reckoning.
Because of the sun…
There, I’ve said it. Because of the sun. And if citing the weather as a reason for loving a place is dangerously close to
why all too many incurious expats have made their home in the strip of concrete running away to the west of the city, it’s pretty hard to deny: one of Malaga’s chief attractions is its climate. Because there really are few things that can beat sitting out and watching the world go by (in no particular hurry, as a general rule) on a gorgeous February afternoon. One of the best spots for a bit of mid-afternoon sunning is the row of pavement cafes that line the north side of the Plaza Merced; here, bohemian hangout Café con Libros rises above the rest for its freshly made fruit juices and smoothies.
Because in Málaga you can learn or improve your Spanish…
Malaga, with all its charms and cultural gems, sees thousands of students that come to learn the language. Malaga is home to one of the key Spanish language teaching infrastructures. It is a great place not only to learn the language but also the culture. Malaga, even as it is a thoroughly modern city, has managed to maintain its unique Spanish culture (as well as that of its past inhabitants –the Greeks, the Romans and the Moors just to name a few). For more information on taking a Spanish course in Malaga visit the site Alhambra Instituto one of the best Spanish schools for foreigners in Spain…
Because of the flower ladies on the Alameda Principal…
It’s not exactly one of the world’s great flower markets; in actual fact there are only a handful of vendors. But clustered
around their booths in the shade of the ancient ficus trees with their colourful wares laid out around them, they make for a pleasing sight. The early evening is the best time to head down there. When you’re done – it won’t take long – you can always drop into the Antigua Casa Guardia (a 160-year-old bar), for a fortifying something or other in traditional spit and sawdust surroundings.
Because it doesn’t have too many world-beating hotels…
Tired old hostales there are plenty. Backpackers’ hostels, more than a couple. But good luxury hotels in Malaga are a little thin on the ground. And who’s to say that’s not necessarily a good thing? Because if there were lots more great hotels, then hordes more tourists would probably come to visit Malaga. And that would never do. Foreing students live in Spanish families or saring a flat of 3 or 4 bedrooms.
Because you change and it stays the same…
It’s very hard to pin down the essence of a metropolis, endlessly shifting as they tend to be, like litter stirred up by a gust of wind. But in small(ish) cities like Malaga the character of the place stays more or less the same. It’s changed precious little in the years I’ve been visiting it – a little richer and a bit more polished maybe. But I suspect it will always be more or less the same.
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It’s Camp Meeting Time!
Cherokee’s 181-year tradition is thriving.
A step back in time is an accurate description of camp meeting, a Southern tradition that brings families together for more than a week of uninterrupted fellowship and meaningful worship.
Folks yearning for that simpler life can experience it July 12-21, when the faithful ignore the heat and make the pilgrimage to Holbrook Campground for a 10-day outdoor revival.
The campground is an oasis of green space in north Cherokee, east of Canton and 1 mile south of busy Ga. 20, toward Cumming. More accurately, it is a 40-acre, heavily shaded link to the past.
It’s a tradition that’s repeated at historic sites, some 200 years old, across North Georgia this time of year. Camp meetings have played an important role in the history of Methodism. In the early church, there was typically only one preacher, known as a circuit rider, to serve various congregations. For many years at camp meeting, the preacher’s only compensation was board for himself and his horse. Collections were not taken.
Cherokee County’s Holbrook Campground was founded in 1839. Just across the street from Macedonia United Methodist Church, there is an open-air arbor on a wooded lot where visiting pastors deliver nightly sermons. The arbor is surrounded by a circle of 75 cabins, known as “tents,” ranging from small buildings with sawdust floors and no bathrooms to air-conditioned cottages with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms.
Children ride their bikes or swing on tire swings on the property while the adults, often several generations of families, relax in rockers and porch swings after home-cooked meals.
Holbrook got its start when Jesse Holbrook, a blacksmith, received 40 acres of land in exchange for shodding a man’s horse. He donated the property to the Methodist Conference to be used as a campground, and the first services were held in the open under the trees. The first arbor built was too small, and a second one that took its place was damaged in a storm in 1889. The current structure was built in 1890.
Camp meetings were traditionally a time of repentance, revival and reconnecting with God and neighbors. Generations later, worshippers no longer tie their cows to horse-drawn wagons to make the journey to camp meeting. In many cases, the campgrounds are surrounded by upscale neighborhoods and pricey retail centers. And, most camp meetings have their own websites.
Virtually everything surrounding these campgrounds has changed dramatically since their inception. But, the message, and the purpose for gathering, remains the same.
Camp Meetings in North Georgia
2415 Holbrook Campground Road, has an Alpharetta address, but is located in Cherokee County. July 12-21. With guest ministers Danny Bennett from Brookwood Baptist in Forsyth County and Glenn Hannigan from Ebenezer United Methodist Church – Milton. Song leader will be retired Baptist pastor Newt Hendrix. Daily worship is held at 11 a.m., and 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. www.holbrookcampmeeting.com.
2301 Roswell Road, Marietta, across from East Cobb United Methodist. July 12-21, in its 182nd year. Preachers for the daily services are Dr. Charles Sineath, Rev. Tom Tanner, Rev. Mike Mozley, Dr. Vic Bledsoe, Rev. Ben Cathey, Rev. Justin Holcomb, Rev. Tom Atkins and Rev. Jim Higgins. Ice cream social at 9:30 p.m. July 16.
www.mariettacampmeeting.org.
3940 Salem Road, Covington, was founded in 1828. This year’s camp meeting dates are July 12-19. Featuring guest speakers, Rev. Bill Britt and Rev. Carlos Sibley. www.salemcampmeeting.org.
105 Lumpkin Campground Road, Dawsonville. Established in 1830, this year’s camp meeting dates are July 22-28. Pastor’s names weren’t announced at press time. www.lumpkincampground.org.
Pine Log
Part of Pine Log United Methodist Church at 3497 Pine Log Road, Rydal. Celebrating its 185th year with services July 23-29. Pastor’s names were not announced at press time. www.pinelogumc.com.
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Re-Cycle: When Britain's first Tour stage winner blew the field away in 1959
By Felix Lowe
11/07/2019 at 13:56Updated 12/07/2019 at 21:50
The second of our historical Re-Cycle series during this year's Tour de France doffs its hat to Brian Robinson on the sixtieth anniversary of his remarkable solo win in Stage 20 of the 1959 Tour. Britain's first ever Tour stage winner tells Felix Lowe how he managed to solo to glory by over 20 minutes in Chalon-sur-Saône, the same Burgundy town that hosts the finale of Stage 7 this year.
Long before British riders won three editions of the Tour de France in six years, before Mark Cavendish amassed 30 Tour stage wins (and counting), before Robert Millar won the polka dot jersey in Paris and Barry Hoban snared a trailblazing eight Tour stages, an unassuming Yorkshireman called Brian Robinson paved the way and made it all possible.
With a career that overlapped the eras of Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil, Robinson was Britain's pioneering pro, the first British cyclist to make a (meagre) living from the sport, the joint-first to complete the world's biggest bike race, and the first to win a stage – both by default, and by what was at the time the third-largest post-war margin of victory.
When seven British riders made up the first team from Great Britain to feature in the Tour in 1955, Robinson, just 25-years-old at the time, was one of two finishers: he came an impressive 29th while Tony Hoar was the lanterne rouge in 69th place.
A year later, Robinson was third in the opening stage and notched three more top 10 finishes for the international team, but in 1957 he crashed out in stage 5, having months earlier become the first Briton to finish on the podium of a Monument (third in Milan-Sanremo).
Cycling live: All the races you can watch on Eurosport in 2019
But his real breakthrough came in 1958 when he was awarded Stage 7 of the Tour after his Italian rival Arrigo Padovan was demoted for an irregular sprint.
If that made Britain's first stage win in the Tour something of an anti-climax, then Robinson ensured that the second win was anything but – riding clear with more than 100km remaining to beat the field by over 20 minutes.
With a little help from Robinson, now 88, Eurosport takes a look back at this landmark moment for British cycling as the world's biggest bike race returns to Chalon-sur-Saône.
Britain's first Tour stage winner in 1958
The opening week of the Tour had been frustrating for Robinson, who had failed to crack the top 10 ahead of Stage 7 from Saint-Brieuc to Brest. So, he tried another tactic and got himself into a move off the front.
"There were three of us in the sprint," Robinson recalls. "Jean Dotto, myself and Padovan. Padovan was a sprinter but I knew Jean was no danger."
Robinson and Dotto were teammates at Saint-Raphaël-R.Geminiani throughout the year except July, for the Tour still insisted on national teams. With the British team not reappearing after their floundering debut in 1955, Robinson was now part of the motley crew of "Internationals".
"I was feeling good and I thought that I've got this one. I went on one side of the road and Padovan on the other. But he came on over me and put me into the barriers, so I went back round him, if you like, and nearly caught up to him again, but didn't make it.
"Obviously there was no cameras then, no overhead helicopter, so Jock Wadley, who was a journalist following in the car, and some other guys put in a complaint and it was successful. I didn't have anything to do with it, it just came to me."
Which was the rather unceremonious way in which Britain's first Tour stage winner was crowned.
" I knew morally I had won the race," Robinson adds. "It was just a shame that there was that type of event at the finish – it took the shine off it. Anyway, we confirmed it the year after. And there was no doubt about that one, was there?"
No doubt, indeed. Although were it not for an obscure loophole, Robinson's defining win may never have happened...
Setting the scene: Robinson survives elimination
Robinson was no stranger to illness, his 1958 Tour having been curtained on Stage 20 because of stomach problems with Paris cruelly, tantalisingly in sight.
One year on, in Stage 14 from Aurillac to Clermont Ferrand, Robinson endured a day of absolute purgatory on the bike and needed to be nursed along by his Irish teammate Seamus Elliot.
"I was riding pretty well that year but I spent the night on the loo," Robinson admits. "I was so weak the day after that Shay – we were in the mixed team together – waited with me and we both got eliminated.
"Shay wasn't ill himself but he stuck with me. I told him to go ahead because I was finished, but he replied: 'To be honest, I'm not a great Tour rider and I'm not that bothered.' So, he stayed with me."
That was probably a modest statement by Elliot, who was the first Irishman to win a Tour stage, the first to wear the yellow jersey, and the first English speaker to win stages in all three Grand Tours; he also finished runner up to Jean Stablinski in the 1962 World Championships road race and became the first foreign winner of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad earlier in 1959.
In any case, the two Internationals finished the stage hors délai more than 47 minutes down and faced elimination from the race.
But an ancient rule dictated that riders in the top ten were exempt from the daily time limit, giving an unexpected reprieve to Robinson, who had been ninth in the standings before falling ill.
" So I stayed in and Shay went home. As he went and caught the train, I told him, 'We'll resurrect something out of this Tour – we've got to win a stage or something'. And that's how we left it. I then looked through the handbook and chose a stage where I would have recovered and could have a really good go."
Stage 20, Tour de France 1959
The day Robinson chose was deep into the race, the 202km Stage 20 from Annecy to Chalon-sur-Saône, the day before the final time trial when many of the GC riders would have been preoccupied about the task in hand.
"I said to my mechanics, 'Get my time trial bike ready a day early'." They fitted light time trial wheels to his pale blue Geminiani frame and Robinson was good to go. He knew the roads well because he'd ridden a criterium in the area and decided to make his move in the town of Bellegarde near the Jura mountains. He was joined by Dotto, his teammates from Saint-Raphaël.
"Unbelievably, Jean came along on the quiet and said, 'Look, I'm second in the king of the mountains, would you lead me out on the last climb and if you do, I might win it?'.
"So that's what we arranged to do – but I said on one condition: 'When we get to the top and I let you through for the points, you let me go on my own after that.' And that's what happened."
It may have been the last climb, but there was still well over half the stage left to ride. That didn't deter Robinson, who put in some risks on the hairy descent to distance Dotto and solo clear.
"Poor old Jean. He was a good climber by the couldn't go downhill, which in my mind is terrible. We were good friends – really, I was good friends with most people – and he shouted, 'Wait for me!'. But I eventually got away and the rest of the peloton thought, 'Oh, we'll let him die out there,' but I didn't die even if there was still about 130 or 140km left."
The gap was around one minute at the bottom of the climb. "But the road was gravely, and I thought, 'Oh Christ, if you get a puncture now it'll all be over!'. Anyway, I avoided a puncture and they never saw me again, really."
"But like I said, I had loads of friends in the peloton and they would have been wanting a quiet ride because it was the time trial the day after. There was only one more day after that, I had already almost been eliminated once and I was no threat to anyone on the general classification. So, I was crafty if you like."
The gap grew to four minutes over the next 40km and despite a strong headwind, Robinson's advantage continued to grow. And all the while, he reminded himself that he was doing it for Shay. It was undeniably a lonely day in the saddle, mind. So the lone leader sang to himself…
"There were no spectators through the countryside, only when you passed through a town. I think I was elated – well, I should have been, really – and I remember I had some kind of repetitive French song in my head. It was like 'twenty-one, twenty-one…' – something like that."
Entering the final hour of racing, Robinson's lead was 19 minutes and he knew victory was his. The finish was on the riverside promenade at Chalon (which was once a busy port and distribution point for local wines) and he was able to soak up the atmosphere in a way his de facto win the previous year didn't allow.
"The worst thing about it was waiting for the bunch to come in," Robinson recalls. "I was twiddling my thumbs because everyone wanted to speak to me."
When the peloton came home, 20 minutes and six seconds later, the sprint for second place was won by that man Padovan, whose elimination had gifted Robinson his maiden victory one year before.
"Yes, we had a good laugh about that. I must have been his bête-noir."
What happened next
A day later, Robinson suffered in the 69km time trial, coming home 15 minutes behind the winner, Roger Rivière. After the final stage to Paris, he was 19th in the final general classification more than an hour down on the maillot jaune, Federico Bahamontes. He raced the next two Tours, entering his final Grande Boucle in 1961 as Britain's first Dauphiné champion.
"I don't know how I'd get along with how cycling's done today with Strava and stuff, with it all being regimented," Robinson says.
"We were free to race. There was no interference, really, once you got off and the gun had gone. The team was on its own and the team made up its mind what it was going to do.
"If one of your guys got away then you protected him, of course. That's what happened with me and the Dauphine. On the second day, two riders got away and I chased them, being the policeman for the team. We [the Saint-Raphaël team] had Raymond Mastrotto in the jersey and they got eight minutes.
"Our director let me go and I got the jersey. It was much better that I got eight minutes and the jersey stayed in the team – and I kept it to the end. I was riding well."
Robinson and Mastrotto pulled off a one-two for the team, with two other Saint-Raphaël riders making the top five.
Now 88, Robinson claims he has not been back to Chalon since his win – but that's not strictly true. When Stage 7 of the 1961 Tour finished in Chalon, Robinson finished deep in the peloton in 75th position some 6'33" down on winner Jean Stablinski.
In any case, Robinson's margin of victory in Stage 20 of the 1959 Tour remained the third largest until it, and the two leading margins, were superseded by the Spaniard José-Luis Viejo, who won Stage 11 in 1976 by 22 minutes and 50 seconds. Robinson's margin of 20'06" is the fourth largest to date.
Britain's first Tour de France stage winner, Brian Robinson, on the Col du Galibier during the 1955 Tour - three years before his landmark winGetty Images
He did not give his mucker Elliot a call on the evening of his win – "It was not as easy in those days" – but he was sure the Irishman would have been following the race from home. And he certainly received his cut for that day of selfless nursing Robinson through his illness.
"We were still sharing prize money even though he'd gone home. Not that we made a right packet. But he was in on the deal, if you like."
One direct upshot of Robinson's record ride was that, days after he came within an archaic ruling from being eliminated, he brought about the elimination of a Tour great. Twelve years after his victory of the 1947 Tour, France's Jean Robic finished well outside the time limit just two days from Paris.
"I knew Robic had been dropped and was struggling at about the half distance," Robinson says. "Journalists relayed the message from Jean: 'Doucement, je suis kaput!' ('Gently, I've blown up!') I'm not proud of it but I'm afraid I slung a deaf one and just kept up the rhythm to the finish. C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?"
Robic, who never rode the Tour again, later said, "I was eliminated by a rider who had already been eliminated."
In 2014, Robinson was given an MBE in the Queen's New Year's Eve honours list.
Stage 7, Tour de France 2019
Sixty years after Robinson's exploits, the Tour returns to Chalon-sur-Saône at the end of the first week. The longest stage of the 2019 Tour de France is a 230km ride that takes in three lower-category climbs before a fast run into the Burgundy town. With the intermediate sprint coming less than 35km from the finish, it's fairly certain the stage will be decided by a bunch sprint and not a solo break in the vein of Robinson.
"It's unfortunate that nowadays it doesn't happen often," Robinson laments. "They let a break go but always catch it just before the finish. With the radio and stuff like that, it's not like it used to be."
Since Robinson's victory and Stablinski's win three years later, Chalon has hosted two more stage finishes, with victories going to the Dutchman Rik van Linden (1975) and France's Thierry Marie (1988).
Robinson says he was invited to be a guest at Stage 7 this year by the mayor of Chalon but had to turn it down because his days of long-distance travelling are past. Instead he'll watch on television ahead of appearing in an event for one of his local cycling clubs.
"I don't mind who wins," he says. "It should be a good stage, it's long enough. I suppose it will come down to how the guys in the cars handle it because it seems to be that way nowadays. It would be nice to see a British rider win."
Nowadays, Robinson prefers watching mountainous stages and admits he is in awe of the current successes for British riders at Team Sky (now Ineos).
" It's very different to my days – sixty years ago there weren't many of us [Brits]. I was a lone ranger, to be honest. But nowadays we have guys who have won the Tour several times and British guys who can ride the Tour without any problems. We've come on a long way. We couldn't put a team together back then."
He admits that his victory helped him sign a new deal with his Saint-Raphaël team. He was also invited on a week-long in Spain with the Tour winner Bahamontes and French stars Anquetil and André Darrigade.
"I needed a contract so the win helped," he says. "Not that winning got much publicity back over here. I was divorced from England – living in France, riding in France. England didn't have much input if you like. It was reported in the papers, though. The best one was half a page in the Daily Express, who had a guy on the Tour itself."
At the time of speaking, British sprinter Mark Cavendish was still in line to race the Tour – and Robinson would have been happy to see the Manxman notch a 31st Tour stage win sixty years after his own triumph. "I'd be very happy for him. Cav needs it like I needed it."
As for the overall victory in Paris, Robinson hopes that Welshman Geraint Thomas can double up – provided he can stay upright.
"I have no idea who will win. [Vincenzo] Nibali is in a good place for the podium but I don't think he'll win. I don't know how bad his injuries are [from the Tour de Suisse], but Geraint has a good chance. I just hope he doesn't fall off again because he does seem to be a bit prone to crashing."
The Re-Cycle Series
Re-Cycle: When the entire Belgian team walked out on the Tour
Re-Cycle: Fausto Coppi's majestic ride from Cuneo to Pinerolo
Re-Cycle: When there were two winners of Paris-Roubaix
Re-Cycle: The diabolic climb which made Magni bite the pain away
Re-Cycle: Andy Hampsten defies Gavia snow storm to take pink in 1988
Re-Cycle: Hinault soloes to glory in 'Neige-Bastogne-Neige'
0Read and react
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Tag: climate change
Review: All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders
May 17, 2016 Andrew R. Cameron
Few people can claim to be as influential in the science fiction community as Charlie Jane Anders. As the founding editor of one of the
Review: Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson
August 11, 2015 Andrew R. Cameron
As I was reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, I kept thinking of that old quote from Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, “Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one
Review: The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi
July 20, 2015 Andrew R. Cameron
Back in 2010, I was fortunate enough to be at the 68th World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne when Paolo Bacigalupi’s debut novel The Windup
Chasing Semiotic Ghosts: Tomorrowland and Nostalgia
June 8, 2015 Andrew R. Cameron
There’s a scene in Tomorrowland where the main character fights off some robots in a pop culture store. As they crash through the racks of merchandise,
Mad Max and the Outback Apocalypse
Nobody does the apocalypse quite like a war party of barbarians racing across a radioactive wasteland, accompanied by a guy with a flamethrowing guitar strapped to
Climate Change in Perth, Australia
September 8, 2014 Andrew R. Cameron
My hometown of Perth, Western Australia, is the most isolated city in the world, and with that knowledge, I believe, often comes the belief that we
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Ne-Yo has slammed rumours that he is gay
Although he isn't gay he is a big supporter of the LGBT community
Ne-Yo has addressed rumours of his sexuality.
The 38-year-old singer - whose real name is Shaffer Chimere Smith - made an appearance in an episode of Madame Noire's Spin And Spill The Tea series in which he discussed his love life and addressed rumours that he's gay.
When asked "What's that rumour that exists about you that you wish would die?", Ne-Yo touched on rumours that he's gay, explaining that he supports the LGBT community before insisting he isn't gay because he's married to a woman.
He said: "Take nothing from homosexuality, love wins, love who you love - I'm just not gay.
"I ain't never been gay, and when the whole gay rumours thing happened, that was one of the ones that kind of threw me a little bit. Anybody that knows me knows that nothing could be farther from the truth."
He added: "But again, love wins, love who you love, have no issue with it."
This wasn't the first time Ne-Yo has dispelled gay rumours, which began back in 2015 when a US gossip site claimed that Caitlyn Jenner had inspired the singer to discuss his sexuality.
In a series of tweets from 2015, Ne-Yo dismissed the rumour, telling fans that they should "All know by now not to believe everything you read".
Drag Race's newest superstar Yvie Oddly leads Attitude's August issue
'It's taken my family a bit of time' - Yvie Oddly shares her coming out story
A statement on Pride and diversity: 'We must continue to embrace and understand each other - and strive to do better'
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Rego Cracks Up The App Store In Brazil, But Not How You'd Think
Matt Henderson, developer of the recently released iPhone app Rego, was a little confused. The app allows you to bookmark different kinds of places on a map like where you are, where you want to go, and where you’ve been. But there was one slight problem. Even though the app didn’t offer official support for Portuguese, more than 25 percent of the app downloads came from Brazil. It took a little detective work, but Henderson eventually found out why – Rego just happens to be a slang term for a butt crack in the language. The app description probably didn’t help. Among the funnier lines easily include “And Rego is private; it’s about your places.” On the app’s website, it states that “Nobody sees what you add to Rego. But sometimes you’ll want to share a place with a friend - or even the whole world - and Rego makes that easy.” Talking with Fast Company, Henderson said he was a little shocked at first:
“The very first thought was, oh my god, what a disaster,” Henderson tells Fast Company. “But then, I thought, well gosh, it’s actually a little bit funny, and it’s leading to a lot of attention in Brazil, and we’re getting a lot of attention.”
So the app's name will stay the same:
“The Brazilians seem to really appreciate that we took it in good humor and rolled with it,” Henderson said. “The response of a lot of people when they see the video is they end up giving the product a try out of curiosity.”
While Rego is free to download in the App Store, users can only add 10 places. An in-app purchase of $0.99 allows unlimited use of the app. Via: Macgasm
Rego - Bookmark your favorite places
MakaluMedia Inc.
Oh, The Places You'll Go With The New Location Bookmarking App Rego
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EPAM Systems - Get News & Ratings Daily
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VanEck Vectors Real Asset Allocation ETF (NYSEARCA:RAAX) Shares Down 0%
EPAM Systems Inc (NYSE:EPAM) Sees Significant Decrease in Short Interest
Posted by Chris Copeland on Jul 13th, 2019
EPAM Systems Inc (NYSE:EPAM) was the target of a significant drop in short interest in June. As of June 30th, there was short interest totalling 1,004,000 shares, a drop of 10.8% from the May 30th total of 1,125,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 488,200 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.1 days. Currently, 1.9% of the shares of the stock are sold short.
A number of analysts have commented on EPAM shares. Zacks Investment Research lowered shares of ExlService from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Purple Innovation in a report on Wednesday, May 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. EPAM Systems presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $161.56.
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In other EPAM Systems news, CEO Arkadiy Dobkin sold 15,000 shares of EPAM Systems stock in a transaction on Monday, May 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.13, for a total transaction of $2,491,950.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,713,490 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $284,662,093.70. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Jason Harman sold 13,578 shares of EPAM Systems stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $173.00, for a total transaction of $2,348,994.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 12,425 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,149,525. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 362,189 shares of company stock valued at $63,001,372. 5.30% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Penserra Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of EPAM Systems in the 1st quarter valued at $37,000. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of EPAM Systems in the 1st quarter valued at $85,000. Meeder Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of EPAM Systems by 1,227.5% in the 1st quarter. Meeder Asset Management Inc. now owns 677 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $115,000 after buying an additional 626 shares during the period. Quantamental Technologies LLC acquired a new position in shares of EPAM Systems in the 1st quarter valued at $169,000. Finally, Oakbrook Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of EPAM Systems in the 1st quarter valued at $228,000. 90.80% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.
Shares of EPAM stock traded up $2.58 on Friday, hitting $193.63. The stock had a trading volume of 412,577 shares, compared to its average volume of 424,760. EPAM Systems has a twelve month low of $104.77 and a twelve month high of $193.80. The firm has a market cap of $10.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.52, a P/E/G ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11, a quick ratio of 4.41 and a current ratio of 4.41. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $174.79.
EPAM Systems (NYSE:EPAM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 9th. The information technology services provider reported $1.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.92 by $0.33. EPAM Systems had a net margin of 12.19% and a return on equity of 19.56%. The company had revenue of $521.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $519.11 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.93 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that EPAM Systems will post 4.24 earnings per share for the current year.
EPAM Systems Company Profile
EPAM Systems, Inc provides software product development and digital platform engineering services primarily in North America, Europe, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Asia, and Australia. The company offers engineering services, including requirements analysis and platform selection, customization, cross-platform migration, implementation, and integration; infrastructure management services, such as software development, testing, and maintenance with private, public, and mobile infrastructures for application, database, network, server, storage, and systems operations management, as well as monitoring, incident notification, and resolution services; and maintenance and support services.
Further Reading: Short Selling Stocks, A Beginner’s Guide
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New Relic - Get News & Ratings Daily
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Insider Selling: New Relic Inc (NYSE:NEWR) Insider Sells $635,680.00 in Stock
Posted by Grant Hamersma on Jul 13th, 2019
New Relic Inc (NYSE:NEWR) insider James R. Gochee sold 6,850 shares of New Relic stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.80, for a total transaction of $635,680.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 137,776 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,785,612.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link.
James R. Gochee also recently made the following trade(s):
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On Wednesday, June 12th, James R. Gochee sold 4,000 shares of New Relic stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $95.50, for a total transaction of $382,000.00.
New Relic stock opened at $93.59 on Friday. New Relic Inc has a 1 year low of $70.30 and a 1 year high of $114.78. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $94.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.44 billion, a P/E ratio of -301.90 and a beta of 0.82. The company has a current ratio of 2.90, a quick ratio of 2.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.16.
New Relic (NYSE:NEWR) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, May 14th. The software maker reported $0.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.06 by $0.07. New Relic had a negative net margin of 8.53% and a negative return on equity of 6.57%. The firm had revenue of $132.10 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $128.19 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.09 earnings per share. New Relic’s revenue was up 34.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that New Relic Inc will post -0.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. NumerixS Investment Technologies Inc purchased a new stake in New Relic during the fourth quarter worth approximately $32,000. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC grew its stake in New Relic by 33.3% during the fourth quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC now owns 400 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 100 shares during the period. Cornerstone Advisors Inc. grew its stake in New Relic by 58.4% during the first quarter. Cornerstone Advisors Inc. now owns 358 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 132 shares during the period. Evolution Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in New Relic during the first quarter worth approximately $42,000. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in New Relic by 255.8% during the first quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 587 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $58,000 after buying an additional 422 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 78.69% of the company’s stock.
A number of brokerages have recently commented on NEWR. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $87.00 price target on shares of LivaNova in a report on Wednesday, May 15th. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $124.00 price target on shares of New Relic in a report on Wednesday, May 15th. Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of HubSpot in a report on Friday, June 7th. They set a “buy” rating and a $223.00 price target for the company. ValuEngine upgraded shares of Valmont Industries from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Zacks Investment Research downgraded shares of HENGAN INTL GRP/ADR from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 21st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. The stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $115.17.
New Relic Company Profile
New Relic, Inc, a software-as-a-service company, provides various digital products worldwide. Its cloud-based platform and suite of products include New Relic Platform, which enable organizations to collect, store, and analyze data. The company offers New Relic Application Performance Management that provides visibility into the performance and usage of server-based applications, such as data pertaining to response time, transaction throughput, error rates, top transactions, and user satisfaction; New Relic Mobile, which provides code-level visibility into the performance and health of mobile applications running on the iOS and Android mobile operating systems; and New Relic Browser that monitors the page view experiences of actual end-users for desktop and mobile browser-based applications.
Read More: What is an SEC Filing?
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SS. Peter & Paul
Home/patron saints/SS. Peter & Paul
The divinely-blessed Peter was from Bethsaida of Galilee. He was the son of Jonas and the brother of Andrew the First-called. He was a fisherman by trade, unlearned and poor, and was called Simon; later he was renamed Peter by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who looked at him and said, “Thou art Simon the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas (which is by interpretation, Peter)” (John 1:42). On being raised by the Lord to the dignity of an Apostle and becoming inseparable from Him as His zealous disciple, he followed Him from the beginning of His preaching of salvation up until the very Passion, when, in the court of Caiaphas the high priest, he denied Him thrice because of his fear of the Jews and of the danger at hand. But again, after many bitter tears, he received complete forgiveness of his transgression. After the Resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit, he preached in Judea, Antioch, and certain parts of Asia, and finally came to Rome, where he was crucified upside down by Nero, and thus he ascended to the eternal habitations about the year 66 or 68, leaving two Catholic (General) Epistles to the Church of Christ.
Paul, the chosen vessel of Christ, the glory of the Church, the Apostle of the Nations and teacher of the whole world, was a Jew by race, of the tribe of Benjamin, having Tarsus as his homeland. He was a Roman citizen, fluent in the Greek language, an expert in knowledge of the Law, a Pharisee, born of a Pharisee, and a disciple of Gamaliel, a Pharisee and notable teacher of the Law in Jerusalem. For this cause, from the beginning, Paul was a most fervent zealot for the traditions of the Jews and a great persecutor of the Church of Christ; at that time, his name was Saul (Acts 22:3-4). In his great passion of rage and fury against the disciples of the Lord, he went to Damascus bearing letters of introduction from the high priest. His intention was to bring the disciples of Christ back to Jerusalem in bonds. As he was approaching Damascus, about midday there suddenly shone upon him a light from Heaven. Falling on the earth, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” And he asked, “Who art Thou, Lord?” And the Lord said, “I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest; it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” And that heavenly voice and brilliance made him tremble, and he was blinded for a time. He was led by the hand into the city, and on account of a divine revelation to the Apostle Ananias (see Oct. 1), he was baptized by him, and both his bodily and spiritual eyes were opened to the knowledge of the Sun of Righteousness. And straightway- O wondrous transformation! – beyond all expectation, he spoke with boldness in the synagogues, proclaiming that “Christ is the Son of God” (Acts 9:1-21). As for his zeal in preaching the Gospel after these things had come to pass, as for his unabating labors and afflictions of diverse kinds, the wounds, the prisons, the bonds, the beatings, the stonings, the shipwrecks, the journeys, the perils on land, on sea, in cities, in wildernesses, the continual vigils, the daily fasting, the hunger, the thirst, the nakedness, and all those other things that he endured for the Name of Christ, and which he underwent before nations and kings and the Israelites, and above all, his care for all the churches, his fiery longing for the salvation of all, whereby he became all things to all men, that he might save them all if possible, and because of which, with his heart aflame, he continuously traveled throughout all parts, visiting them all, and like a bird of heaven flying from Asia and Europe, the West and East, neither staying nor abiding in any one place – all these things are related incident by incident in the Book of the Acts, and as he himself tells them in his Epistles. His Epistles, being fourteen in number, are explained in 250 homilies by the divine Chrysostom and make manifest the loftiness of his thoughts, the abundance of the revelations made to him, the wisdom given to him from God, wherewith he brings together in a wondrous manner the Old with the New Testaments, and expounds the mysteries thereof which had been concealed under types; he confirms the doctrines of the Faith, expounds the ethical teaching of the Gospel, and demonstrates with exactness the duties incumbent upon every rank, age, and order of man. In all these things his teaching proved to be a spiritual trumpet, and his speech was seen to be more radiant than the sun, and by these means he clearly sounded forth the word of truth and illumined the ends of the world. Having completed the work of his ministry, he likewise ended his life in martyrdom when he was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Nero, at the same time, some say, when Peter was crucified.
Selection above written by Holy Transfiguration Monastery
Troparion to Ss. Peter & Paul
O foremost in the ranks of Apostles and teachers of the world, Peter and Paul, intercede with the Master of all to grant safety to the world and to our souls the great mercy.
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T-Veg: The Tale of a Carrot Crunching Dinosaur
Author(s): Smriti Prasadam-Halls
Reginald is a T-rex like any other. He has a fierce roar, gnashing teeth and mighty footsteps that thunder through the jungle. There's just one teeny, tiny thing that sets him apart...While the other T-rexes munched on juicy steak...Reginald the T-rex ate crunchy carrot cake! Made to feel that he doesn't quite belong, Reg sets out to find a new life...with disastrous results! But later on, when his friends and family get into trouble, Reg is the only one who can help. Will he be in time to save the day? Join Reg and his friends on a riotous romp through the jungle. This meaty story, served up with a generous helping of vegetables, is the laugh-out-loud tale of a dinosaur who dares to be different. A brilliant story which shows that real strength is on the inside and the bravest thing you can do...is have the courage to be yourself.
'The rhyming , fast paced text makes it delight to read for children and adult's alike. The illustrations are incredibly colourful and fun making this a book which instantly appeals to youngsters.' Adventures In Home Schooling "This is a fresh and funny tale of daring to be different." Selected for the Picture Book Category in the Children's Previews. The Bookseller
SMRITI PRASADAM-HALLS is the international bestselling author of I LOVE YOU NIGHT AND DAY and DON'T CALL ME SWEET both published by Bloomsbury. Before becoming a full time writer in 2012, she worked in children's publishing and television. She lives in London with her husband and three children, reading, writing and eating avocado pears. KATHERINA MANOLESSOU is an up-and-coming illustrator who has worked with Ted Baker, The Guardian and Random House, and who is a regular part of the East London art/design scene, appearing at Elcaf this year and becoming Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts. Her debut picture book - Zoom, Zoom, Zoom - was published by Macmillan Children's Books.
Publisher : Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd
Imprint : Frances Lincoln Childrens Books
Author : Smriti Prasadam-Halls
Edition : PPR
Illustrator : Katherina Manolessou
Reading Level : 4+
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Category Archives: Winning
A story of a soccer team – my soccer team!
May 29, 2018 1940s, 1960s, 20th century, A challenge won, Football, history, Soccer, Winningtalkinghistory2013
I’ve been a Manchester United supporter ever since they beat Blackpool 4-2 to win the FA Cup at Wembley in 1948. Twenty years later – on Wednesday 29th May 1968 – I was on tenterhooks as I listened to another game at Wembley. This one was the European Cup Final between Manchester United and the Spanish masters Benfica. Bobby Charlton put United ahead 8 minutes into the second half; Benfica had equalized 20 minutes later and, but for a great save by United’s goalkeeper Alex Stepney from Eusébio, came close to defeat. In extra-time goals from George Best (93 mins), Brian Kidd (94 mins) and Bobby Charlton (99 mins) made United 4-1 winners and me VERY happy! Manchester United – ‘my team’ – had become the first English club to win the European Cup!
Ten years after the Munich air crash, which killed eight of Matt Busby’s young team, Manchester United had reached the pinnacle of European football again. Celtic FC had become the first Scottish and British club to win the cup the previous year. Manchester United were out to be the second. United’s star player, George Best had been named European Footballer of the Year – just a fortnight after being named the British football writers’ Footballer of the Year.
At Wembley Stadium on 29th May 1968 there were100,000 supporters to watchers with an estimated 250 million TV viewers across Europe making it the biggest television audience since the World Cup final two years previous. The match was to determine the winners of the 1967-68 European Cup – the 13th season of this trophy – a final being contested by Benfica of Portugal and Manchester United of England. The first half passed in a flurry of fouls but no goals. In the second half Bobby Charlton broke the stalemate with a headed goal to United but with just 10 minutes left Benfica scored the equaliser. Things now got challenging and Benfica nearly won the match when Eusebio broke away from Nobby Stiles and blasted the ball towards the net. However – United’s keeper, Alex Stepney, made the save and the game went into extra time.
The world now seemed to take care of United because two minutes into extra time Georgie Best put United ahead again, when he slipped round the Benfica keeper and gently tapped the ball over the line. Two more United goals followed – one from the 19-year-old Brian Kidd and the last one from captain Bobby Charlton. The ‘United’ had won 4-1.
Matt Busby – the United Manager said: “They’ve done us proud. They came back with all their hearts to show everyone what Manchester United are made of. This is the most wonderful thing that has happened in my life and I am the proudest man in England tonight.”
Matt Busby had been seriously injured in the crash that had claimed the lives of his so-called Busby Babes and there was speculation at the time that the club had been so badly damaged it would have to fold. But they struggled on to complete the 1958/59 season and when Busby returned to the manager’s role the following season he began the task of rebuilding the side. Bobby Charlton and Bill Foulkes were the only survivors of the crash who played in today’s final. The European Cup marked the highlight of Matt Busby’s long career at Manchester United and he later received a knighthood from the Queen. He retired after the following season to become the club’s general manager.
For George Best it was the highlight of his footballing career. The same year he was also named European Footballer of the Year and was regarded by many as one of the greatest footballing talents in the world, ranked alongside the Brazilian great Pele.
Bobby Charlton had a distinguished playing career for England and Manchester United. He scored 48 goals for England, a record which still stands. He was knighted in 1994.
A snippet for 18th July
July 18, 2017 1970s life, A challenge won, Winningtalkinghistory2013
It was at the Montreal Olympic Games on Sunday 18th July, 1976 that the first perfect 10 ever recorded in Olympic gymnastics was achieved up by Romania’s 4-foot-11, 88-pound Nadia Comaneci on the women’s uneven parallel bars. She later said that:
I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.
Two other of her comments at the time are also worth recording:
Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win.
You should also appreciate the goodness around you, and surround yourself with positive people.
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Intuitive Surgical Shares Plummet after da Vinci Sales Disappoint
Shares for Intuitive Surgical Inc. (ISRG.O) dropped by an alarming 11 percent after the medical device manufacturer published a diminished sales forecast for 2013 based on increasingly lower demand for the company’s da Vinci surgical robots, Reuters reports. The company also admitted to receiving a warning letter from the FDA after regulators inspected its facilities last month.
Only three months after the company published predictions of revenue growth of 16 to 19 percent, representatives from Intuitive Surgical now expect no more than a 7 percent increase in revenue, if they see any increase at all, according to Reuters.
These numbers are even lower than the poor totals expected by some investors, and they also fall well below previous Wall Street forecasts.
While the company predicted a 20 to 23 percent growth in sales of the da Vinci surgical robot in April, it commented in a conference call late last week that they now only expect a growth of 15 to 18 percent.
The da Vinci surgical robot is a complex medical device which surgeons operate via hand and foot controls to conduct minimally invasive surgery. The robots have been used most commonly in hysterectomies and prostate removal procedures, but now the company is showing a sharp decline in hysterectomy procedures where the robot is employed.
According to Intuitive Surgical representatives, the decrease in the use of the da Vinci robot for hysterectomies is a result of high insurance deductibles and the reluctance of many insurance companies to reimburse for robotic surgical procedures.
Intuitive Surgical also stated that increasingly negative press surrounding their product has also contributed significantly to their decrease in profits. In recent months, the da Vinci robot has been the subject of a number of media reports which call the device’s cost effectiveness into question.
The company also made reference to a recent warning letter issued by the FDA after the regulatory agency conducted an inspection of its facilities last month. In this letter, the FDA asked for more information about how the company issues recalls as well as further insight into design elements of a product which Intuitive Surgical declined to identify by name.
In addition to being the subject of increasing scrutiny by the media, Intuitive Surgical is also the defendant in a number of personal injury lawsuits brought by individuals who claim to have suffered severe injury or the wrongful death of a loved one resulting from surgeries where the da Vinci robot was employed. For more information on plaintiffs’ rights in da Vinci surgical robot lawsuits, contact an experienced personal injury attorney with Berkowitz and Hanna LLC.
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Qeiyafa: Is it biblical Shaaraim?
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that excavator Yosi Garfinkel believes Khirbet Qeiyafa is Shaaraim (Shaarayim), and this is confirmed by David Willner on the excavation website. This suggestion does not need to deny the David and Goliath story to find support (as does the Gob identification). Garfinkel will make a presentation (or two) this week about the site, but from what has been revealed thus far, there are two bases for his conclusion. 1) Shaaraim is mentioned in the story of David and Goliath (1 Sam 17:52). 2) Garfinkel found a second gate at the site last week. This is suggestive because the name “Shaaraim” means “two gates.”
This portion of the article is worth quoting:
Garfinkel, who has excavated numerous sites in Israel, says he discovered the second gate after noticing an apparent break in the massive stone wall as he walked along the 2,100-foot long structure that faced the road to Jerusalem. After two days of digging, his hunch paid off. A second entrance constructed from massive stones lay just a few feet beneath the topsoil.
"This is the only city from the Iron Age in this region ever found with two gates," said Garfinkel as he clambered over the huge structure. "It was probably a mistake. It made the city more vulnerable. It might explain why it appears to have been settled only twice, for very short periods."
Garfinkel says he is certain the newly-found massive stone gate was the main entrance to the city that existed at the beginning of the 10th century B.C. and then again for a few years at the time of Alexander the Great.
"It is enormous, it has symbolic value demonstrating authority and the power of the kingdom," Garfinkel said while describing the huge building blocks of more than 3 feet square and 10 feet long, each weighing more than 10 tons. "They are the largest ever found from the Iron Age. If King David ever came here from Jerusalem, he entered from this gate. It is likely we are walking in the footsteps of King David."
Casemate wall at Khirbet Qeiyafa, 10th century B.C.
This is very significant, for not only are there very few early 10th-century fortifications in Israel, I don’t know of any with two gates. There are, however, some potential problems. 1) Apparently only a few days have been spent in excavation of this second gate, which would suggest that caution in conclusions at this point is wise. 2) Who built this massive gate? If it dates to the early 10th century, then one might connect it with David’s kingdom. But if that is so, then it was not the scene of his pre-kingship battle with Goliath. Perhaps, then, it was built by King Saul. The problem with that is that scholars don’t believe he had any real power. 3) Why were two gates built? Did someone who went to all the work in moving stones weighing more than 10 tons really not think through the problem of having two gates? I have trouble believing that we today understand their warfare better than they did.
There are some other potential problems with this identification. The only other place where Shaaraim is mentioned in the Bible is in a list of cities of Judah.
Joshua 15:33-36 (NASB) In the lowland: Eshtaol and Zorah and Ashnah, 34 and Zanoah and En-gannim, Tappuah and Enam, 35 Jarmuth and Adullam, Socoh and Azekah, 36 and Shaaraim and Adithaim and Gederah and Gederothaim; fourteen cities with their villages.
This text proceeds roughly from north to south (Sorek Valley, then Elah Valley). The sites in the Elah Valley appear to proceed from east to west: Adullam, Socoh, Azekah. If so, this suggests that Shaaraim would be located west of Azekah. If Shaaraim was Qeiyafa, it would logically fit between Socoh and Azekah.
This location (west of Azekah) seems to be supported by the David and Goliath account. Shaaraim is mentioned only at the end of the story. The Philistines fled west from the battle to Gath and Ekron, dying on the way of Shaaraim.
1 Samuel 17:52 (NASB) The men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as the valley [or Gath], and to the gates of Ekron. And the slain Philistines lay along the way to Shaaraim, even to Gath and Ekron.
Normally, this construction “way of [place]” means the road to a certain place (e.g., 1 Sam 13:17-18; 2 Sam 2:24; for a myriad of examples, see Dorsey, Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel, 47-50, where he finds only one road in the Bible not named after its destination, Num 20:17). It is difficult to conceive of a battle scenario where the road they are fleeing on would be called the “way of Shaaraim” if Shaaraim = Qeiyafa. 1) If the Philistines were encamped on the south side of the valley and the Israelites were encamped on the north side near Qeiyafa, why would the Philistines flee on the “way of Shaaraim”? 2) If the battle was much farther to the east, and the Israelites were encamped in the lower slopes of the hill country and the Philistines were encamped on the eastern end of the Elah Valley, a) one wonders why it was called the way of Shaaraim and not the way of Azekah, the bigger and more well-known city nearby and b) one cannot account for the Philistines being encamped “between Azekah and Socoh.” In short, Shaaraim is best located on the far (eastern, northern, or southern) side of Azekah, and not on the side closer to the battlefield. This also makes sense of the following phrase “the way of Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron.”
John Hobbins interacts with Garfinkel’s proposal of Shaaraim. I agree with him on point #1 but do not think he goes far enough (as I have above). I disagree on point #2, as it seems that if the Philistines are fleeing towards Shaaraim, then this would likely be in their territory. To say it another way, if Qeiyafa = Shaaraim, we should expect it to be a Philistine site (at least at the time of the battle). Garfinkel’s evidence suggests that Qeiyafa is an Israelite site.
This does not address the reality of “two gates” at Qeiyafa. If we are certain that both were in use at the same time, and we know that there are no other sites in the area that had two gates, this would be strong evidence. I don’t know how certain the excavators are that the two gates are contemporaneous. I’m very hesitant to say that there are no other sites with two gates, since until a week ago, even Qeiyafa was not known to have two.
By way of conclusion: If Qeiyafa is Shaaraim, either 1) the Israelites were encamped here at the time of the battle of David and Goliath or 2) the Philistines were not encamped between Azekah and Socoh or 3) Shaaraim = Ephes-dammim. Of the three, I find #1 to be most likely, but it then is strange that a) Shaaraim is not mentioned as the place of Israel’s encampment and b) the Philistines are said to have fled on the way of this Israelite site. From the Philistine perspective, the road from Gath to the east might be called the “way of Shaaraim” (though it requires ignoring Azekah), but the biblical record was not written from the Philistine perspective.
Neither this post, nor the previous one, furthers my suggestion that Qeiyafa is Ephes-dammim. But they do, I believe, make the identifications with Gob and Shaaraim less attractive. Everyone in the discussion is working with a fraction of the total evidence. Garfinkel, as excavator, has more of the evidence available to him, but it is not difficult to imagine future discoveries that significantly clarify or alter the picture. To that end, we wish the excavators great success in their on-going work.
Labels: Analysis, Shephelah
"From the Philistine perspective, the road from Gath to the west might be called the “way of Shaaraim”"
You mean East? I agree with you that Qeiyafa = Shaaraim is an unlikely identification. Shaaraim should be in the Philistine plain to the West.
By dfrese, at Sat Nov 29, 09:10:00 AM
dfrese - you are right. I have corrected it above.
By Todd Bolen, at Sat Nov 29, 09:14:00 AM
Prof. Garfinkel's ASOR presentation is now available online:
http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/qdb/ASOR_2parts.pdf
Unfortunately, he only mentioned your excellent connection to Ephes Damim as an "internet blog", but I think he will eventually have to give a more formal rebuttal to your arguments.
By G.M. Grena, at Wed Dec 03, 07:46:00 AM
Dorsey (cited above) notes that main roads often would not go up to the city proper but a separate approach road would be used, where one would turn aside to enter a city. This kept travelers from ascending to every city along the road. Now, clearly there was a major road through the Valley of Elah. It would have continued around the tip of the range by Azekah and on to Gath and the coast.
The two gates from Qeiyafa, each lead out to this road, although joining it at different places. I have walked both up to Qeiayafa from the south and down westwards the bottle-neck of the valley by Azekah. Both are reasonable approach roads and likely point to a bi-directionality that seems reasonable for a border town.
If Qeiyafa is Shaarayim, then for the Philistines to have been killed starting (!) on the Judahite side of the valley road or for the Philistines to have been killed along (!) the Philistine side of the road, either makes some sense. The specification of the text here is not clear enough to give clarity for this question.
That is beside the point for identifying other sites as Shaarayim, but it (the text) certainly does not seem to exclude Qeiyafa.
As regards the low-mention of the site in the story, perhaps it was not built during the conflict described. Perhaps it was built in response to this aggression?
Either way, it should be noted that armies often encamped outside of cities, even those they were protecting. Qeiyafa is not large and camping in the valley just a hair east of where the Philistine's were would've allowed Saul to keep supplies and errand boys (like David) coming freely along the valley road. So I find possible reconstructions, hopefully not special pleading for this biased excavator of the site, for the text and Qeiyafa to be friendly.
peace and grace
By thomas mid, at Mon Sep 19, 11:41:00 AM
I crossed some wires at the beginning of my last statement. Dorsey did not address the approach road concept in the manner I remembered. It was actually Tidwell in “No Highway! the Outline of Semantic Description of Mesillä.,” Vetus Testamentum 45, no. 2 (April 1995).
The general idea is that the "mesilla" turned aside from the main road and rose up to meet the city. The main road through the valley of Elah is what I imagined for the road to/of Shaarayim.
peace again
By thomas mid, at Mon Sep 19, 01:56:00 PM
Thomas - I agree that the main road need not approach the site directly. I don't agree that Qeiyafa was a significant enough site, and in the right location, to give its name to the major road running through the Elah Valley. This road went to Gath or to Azekah and would have been called after a major city such as this. Shaaraim is located further to the north (see Josh 15:36 and study the context, as W. Thompson has done in his dissertation). Thus the Philistines flee away from the Elah Valley battleground and away from the area of Qeiyafa towards Shaaraim, branching off towards Gath and Ekron.
Qeiyafa: Is it biblical Gob?
Herod, Gath, and Free Maps
Jehoash Inscription: Five Scholars Claim Authentic...
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WBZ TVWatch Now
WBZ News At 5 & 6
6:00 PMWBZ News
Will Bill Belichick Be The Patriots’ Next Defensive Coordinator?
Filed Under:Bill Belichick, Boston News, Local TV, New England Patriots, NFL, Sports News
BOSTON (CBS) — Just when you thought the Patriots’ offseason couldn’t get any more interesting, Bill Belichick is now looking for a new defensive coordinator for the second time in less than two months. Perhaps in the end, he’ll just name himself the DC of the NEP.
Greg Schiano’s surprise resignation on Thursday reopens the hole on Belichick’s coaching staff that originally formed when defensive play-caller Brian Flores left to become head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Unfortunately for Belichick, Flores wasn’t the only one to leave New England this offseason, with Josh Boyer vacating his post as Patriots’ cornerbacks coach to take over as Flores’ pass-defense coordinator. Defensive line coach Brendan Daly also left Belichick’s staff, becoming the run-game coordinator in Kansas City.
Mix in the loss of free agent defensive end Trey Flowers, and the New England defense has had its share of departures in the two months since the franchise won its sixth Super Bowl. But given this team’s run of success over the past two decades, they’ve become fairly accustomed to losing key contributors, whether they’re players or coaches.
And wearing a couple of different hoodies for the Patriots wouldn’t be anything new for Belichick, either. He was the acting defensive coordinator in both 2010 and 2011 after Dean Peas left (before Matt Patricia was officially given the title in 2012). He also handled duties on offense in 2009 after Josh McDaniels’ departure for Denver.
There would be concern that Belichick, who will be 67 when the 2019 season kicks off, may be spreading himself too thin trying to handle all the duties of head coach and all the duties of a defensive coordinator. But Schiano wasn’t brought in to re-invent the wheel, and the New England D shouldn’t change too much heading into next season. And if there is anyone who has a grasp on the system, it’s the man who put it in place.
If Belichick feels he can’t handle the double-dip of head coach and defensive coordinator, he’ll go out and find someone he trusts or promote from within (with Brett Bielema the likely front-runner). But it’s much more likely that Belichick will be multitasking quite a bit on the New England sideline next season.
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The Twenty Greatest Family Dramas
The Twenty Greatest Film Heroes (Female)
The Twenty Greatest Brief Performances
The Twenty Greatest Films You Might Not Have Seen
The Twenty Greatest Film Heroes
bradlkahn on The Twenty Greatest Film Heroe…
AMPdzine on The Twenty Greatest Heist…
Bill LaHay on The Twenty Greatest Ambitious…
Mason on Next Twenty Greatest American…
Carmen on Top Twenty Greatest American…
brad at the cinema
movie and actor lists and thoughts…Scroll for lists!
The Twenty Greatest Ambitious Films
It’s hard to achieve perfection when you’re reaching for the stars. It’s easy to fall when you’re not sure of your footing. But, that to me is what an ambitious film is all about-walking the high wire without a net. It’s hard not to admire these artists for their guts, their moxy. These individuals are not just content to entertain you; they want to say something with film. So, let’s give it up for these gamblers, these wonderful risk takers…The Twenty Greatest Ambitious films.
“Apocalypse Now” (1979) Francis Ford Coppola (Coppola went deep into his own heart of darkness, ending an era of great personal film making.
“Intolerance” (1916) D.W. Griffith (Talk about your ambitious film! Griffith took on the subject of humanity throughout the ages. This film was made in response to the allegations of racism he received for making “Birth of a Nation”.
“1900” (1977) Bernardo Bertolucci (The violence would be easier to take in novel form; this Marxist epic is still shocking after all these years.)
“Day of the Locust” (1975) John Schlesinger ( Polarized critics and audiences alike in with its downbeat surrealism. It’s amazing that a major studio financed this project- love the 70’s!)
“Looking for Mr. Goodbar” (1977) Richard Brooks (Film leaves a nasty aftertaste. I think the problem is that it tries to say too much and ends up saying very little. It will make your skin crawl, though.)
“All That Jazz” (1979) Bob Fosse (Fosse’s dance of death was a dazzling display of narcissism -complete with a scene of Fosse’s own open heart surgery…Wow!)
“Pennies from Heaven” (1981) Herbert Ross (It was perhaps too odd for a mainstream audience, but I think this was our last great film musical.)
“Catch 22” (1970) Mike Nichols (Definitely misses the humor of Heller’s novel. However, it has a surreal quality all its own.)
“The Deer Hunter” (1978) Michael Cimino (Epic film of small town people thrust into war. Flawed, although very well directed.)
“Little Big Man” (1970) Arthur Penn (Penn finally got to do his big epic, taking on Thomas Berger’s satirical novel and telling us some hard truths along the way.)
“Reds” (1981) Warren Beatty (Not quite the masterpiece that Beatty had intended. It’s still an impressive film about early American radicalism.)
“Gangs of New York” (2002) Martin Scorcese (Violent retelling of the beginning of New York’s Five Points. Flawed, but vivid.)
“Once Upon a Time in America” Director’s Cut (1981) Sergio Leone (Structured like an opium dream. This unique gangster film plays with our memory of time.)
“The Mission” (1986) Roland Joffee (Beautiful cinematography belies an ugly historical truth.)
“Wild at Heart” (1990) David Lynch ( Epic road comedy is at times too high-pitched for its own good.)
“Greed” (1924) Erik Von Stronheim ( Legendary film was drastically cut by the studio big shots- what’s left, though, is still brilliant.)
“Nashville” (1975) Robert Altman (Altman’s masterpiece is an alarming comment on just how dangerous America is.)
“Tabu” (1931) F.W. Murnau (Murnau’s last film is an interesting mix of documentary and narrative. Filmed entirely in Tahiti, Murnau died shortly after the film was completed.)
“Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1935) Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle (Warner Bros. took on The Bard, using many of their best contract players in this imaginative version.)
“The Loved One” (1965) Tony Richardson (After Richardson won an Oscar for “Tom Jones”, he was given carte blanche to do anything he wanted. He decided to do Evelyn Waugh’s classic, which offended many people at the time…a wild film!)
Posted on January 18, 2016 February 16, 2016 by bradlkahn This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.
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Bill LaHay says:
Brad — wondering if this is the Brad Kahn who grew up in Azusa CA? Photo looks like it might be you? If so, hello from Bill L — used to live across the street (sort of) and hang out in the 70’s. You turned me on to Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut, Phil Ochs, and others. Been wondering what you’ve been up to all these years! If inclined, let me know how you are and what is happening in your world. BL
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Bradford Opportunity Area
Improving opportunities for young people through education
Strengthen school leadership
Parents and Place: Literacy and Learning
Improving access to rewarding careers
Using Evidence and Research to Remove barriers to learning
Why have you chosen these areas?
The areas chosen were amongst the weakest in both the Social Mobility Commission’s index 2016 and the Department for Education (DfE)’s data on school standards and capacity to improve. The areas also represent a wide geographic spread and take into account the different challenges faced by coastal, rural and urban areas: which will help us to build a strong evidence base on what works in a wide range of varied settings.
All 12 areas selected were amongst the weakest both in terms of the Social Mobility Index 2016 (see 1 below), and in terms of their school system’s capacity to improve while continuing to accommodate more children (see 2 below).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-mobility-index
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defining-achieving-excellence-areas-methodology
Alongside the 6 OA action plans, we have published the methodology for how we chose the areas.
Why don’t you have any areas in the North East?
The 12 areas chosen were amongst the weakest in both the 2016 Social Mobility Commission’s index and the DfE’s data on school standards and capacity to improve. No districts in the north east were in the weakest sextile of the 2016 Social Mobility Index so none met the original criteria. We will keep this under review as the programme develops.
Whose plans are these? Who is responsible for delivering them? Isn’t this just a further burden on local areas and schools?
This is a shared mission, with the DfE and local partners working together to achieve transformational change over the coming years.
Each OA has a local partnership board, headed by an experienced independent chair and supported by a DfE head of delivery. This board will engage a range of stakeholders across their area, from schools, further education, businesses and beyond to ensure a tailored and localised approach to delivering priorities. We are funding a local programme manager in each OA to ensure that this is not an additional burden on local areas.
Why aren’t all sectors represented on all partnership boards?
Partnership boards in each area bring together committed leaders from the local authority, early years providers, local schools, colleges, universities, business and voluntary and community organisations.
Regardless of whether a partnership board includes representation from a specific sector or not we will make sure that we engage directly with organisations and individuals who have proven expertise to improve opportunities for children and young people.
What is the selection process of choosing the members on the Partnership Board? Who holds these individuals to account?
There is no selection process. Membership is agreed between the DfE head of delivery and the independent chair of the board.
Members of the board are responsible for developing and shaping local priorities and advising on key activities that the programme should deliver to improve social mobility. Now the plans are published, they are responsible for monitoring and driving progress within their OA.
Board members are fully committed to the programme’s aims of driving positive change and increasing social mobility in OAs.
How socially mobile and diverse are the members on the Partnership Boards?
We have not asked board members about their education or family backgrounds. What matters is their commitment to improving social mobility in their areas and their capacity and expertise to drive that change.
What does social mobility mean for young people in these areas? Does it mean that they should leave to get a better job or go to university?
We want to make sure every young person has the same opportunities to succeed, no matter where they are from or whatever their background.
We do not take a narrow view of what success means – it is not only about university or professional jobs. It is about opening up about choices. It is about young people having the knowledge and skills to achieve whatever they want to achieve, whether that is in their area, or elsewhere.
What happens when the 3 years of the OAs Programme comes to an end? Is 3 years enough to make an effective, long lasting change on the OAs?
Tackling social mobility is complex and involves generational change.
Although this is a 3-year programme, we will look to galvanise a local coalition of stakeholders to work in ways that deliver sustainable and long-term improvements in each OA. That is why we have put a strong focus on local ownership of the plans and of delivery. The DfE will also assess what works most effectively in OAs to inform everything we do, so that we can finally level up opportunity for children across the country.
Social Mobility means more than education! What is being done to reach out to the wider community within the OA?
The delivery plans are locally led to make sure the priorities and action is right for each area. We are working with parents and families, community organisations, and businesses to make sure that everyone in the OA is working towards good outcomes and broad experiences for children and young people – ensuring that the impact of the programme goes beyond the school gates.
In what way can we replicate the work done in the OAs across the country?
Through our external evaluation of the programme, we will learn from what works in these areas, capturing which challenges all areas share and what is unique to a particular place, and spread effective practice to other areas.
Why have you selected the priorities you have in each of these areas?
Priorities in each area were agreed following an extensive and rigorous period of analysis, which took into account a wide range of data, including outcomes for children and young people in OAs, and the views of a range of local stakeholders.
The priorities have been agreed by the local partnership board and secretary of state. (See published plans for further details.)
How are you going to achieve these targets? What happens if you miss them? Who is holding you to account?
These targets are rightly ambitious and challenging, which is necessary to ensure we deliver lasting change.
The plans provide more information about what we intend to do to meet the targets, which we will monitor closely. We will make any necessary changes to activity or our approach to stay on track. In publishing these plans, we are inviting young people, parents and local stakeholders alike to hold us to account.
When will you update on progress? DfE commissioned research say that you won’t know until after 2020!
Through the partnership boards, we will track progress against activity throughout the life of the programme.
Each OA delivery plan sets out local targets to meet by the end of the programme and from these targets we will be able to determine whether the programme has had a positive impact on the priorities identified in the plans. But we recognise that increasing social mobility is a challenge that will go beyond the life of the programme and that’s why we are building positive sustainable change, through local networks and partnerships in each are
How will you know what works?
Our offer to each OA will be grounded in both national and local evidence and analysis of what will work best in each area. Activities will be carefully selected to ensure that they are addressing identified barriers to social mobility and contribute to the building of a tested evidence base.
We have worked closely with the EEF, the EIF and other ‘What Works Centres’ to draw on their existing knowledge of ‘what works’ and establish how we can best embed evidence based practice into OAs. We have established a range of indicators to enable us to measure improvement and will be undertaking a thorough independent evaluation of the programme.
Isn’t this just a repeat of education action zones / City Challenge / National Challenge? How is it different? What have you learnt from previous policies?
This is different because OAs have a broader focus than schools alone. We will work to improve the quality of education from early years to early adulthood, but will also look to improve the quality of a range of other opportunities that can help children and young people succeed. These include young people’s mental health, providing access to high quality careers advice and opportunities to develop resilience and essential life skills for those who need it.
We have carefully evaluated what has worked in previous initiatives and that is why we are putting 2 things at the heart of our approach.
Firstly, we are taking an evidence-based approach to delivering what works, working alongside the EEF and research schools to draw on their existing knowledge of ‘what works’ and establish how we can best embed evidence based practice into OAs.
Secondly, we are putting partnership at the heart of our delivery model; listening to and working alongside local stakeholders and professionals; and, critically, young people to determine the most effective outcomes to ensure that the successes of this programme can be sustained.
How have you engaged with parents and local residents?
Over the last year, we have been consulting with local partners to understand the opportunities and challenges in each OA. As the delivery plans set out, we will be looking for parents and local residents to get involved. Success of the OA will be dependent on involving the whole community to work towards the vision set out in each OA delivery plan. Furthermore, our plans set out how we are engaging with young people in each OA.
How will the £72m given to the OAs programme be spent?
It will be spent on the priorities and activities outlined in each area’s plan.
There are some OAs that encompass more districts, more school and a larger population than others. How will the £72m be distributed across the 12 OAs?
Our starting point is an equal split but we will keep this under review as the programme develops – so if some areas say they need less then we will look to re-allocate to other areas.
Who decides how the programme budget will be spent?
In line with our central ambition for the OAs, all activity should be driven by evidence and local need. The local Partnership Boards were involved in the development of the delivery plans and recommend how the funding is spent. There will be no central guidance, the procurement processes will be managed and firmly rooted in the detailed needs of that particular area.
How much of the £72m has been spent so far?
One round of payments totalling £3.6m was made to the OAs in Oct 2017, using section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003. The OAs are now starting to procure local interventions with this money.
A second round of payments of around £4m has been approved by Ministers and HMT and is due to go out in January and coincide with the publication of the second 6 plans.
Exactly how much are the board members being paid?
Nothing. All partnership board members are volunteering their time to help us to deliver this important programme. Reasonable expenses will be met.
Why are you giving money to EEF research schools?
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is an independent charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement.
We are working in partnership with them to establish a research school in each area to help to accelerate the dissemination of ‘what works’ practice in schools and build the capacity of local schools to make better use of evidence. This has not come from the £72 million OA funding.
It is one year on, what has actually been achieved?
As well as progress locally in each area, there has been real and significant progress across all of the areas, including:
The appointment of a research school in each area to help to accelerate the dissemination of ‘what works’ practice in schools and build the capacity of local schools to make better use of evidence.
The Careers and Enterprise Company have started work in the OAs as part of their commitment to work with more than 260 secondary schools and colleges to help inspire and prepare their pupils for the fast changing world of work. Businesses have committed to work together, with the support of a £2m government-backed fund, to guarantee that in each of the OA:
all pupils aged 11 to 18 will have access to at least 4 inspiring ‘encounters’ with the world of work.
all 260+ secondary schools and colleges in OAs will have access to a local senior business volunteer (enterprise adviser) who will work with headteachers and college principals to unlock local business relationships and advise on their careers programme
The National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) are also actively working in these areas to help raise aspirations for disadvantaged young people through a range of outreach activities such as summer schools, organising school visits and providing academic mentoring.
The award of funding through the Strategic School Improvement Fund aimed at ensuring resources over the next 2 years are targeted at the schools most in need of support to drive up standards, use their resources most effectively and deliver more good school places.
Round 1 resulted in 56 successful applications for funding, of which 14 of those were in support of schools in OAs, covering 9 out of the 12 OAs.
Round 2 closed in October 2017 and we received applications to support schools in all 12 OAs. The outcomes of this round will be communicated later this month.
This plan is mostly about school improvement – shouldn’t that be happening anyway?
Ensuring all children have a place in a good school and experience great teaching are 2 of the best ways to improve social mobility. We want the best teachers in front of those children that can benefit the most. As the Sutton Trust’s 2011 report, ‘Improving the impact of teachers on pupil achievement in the UK’ findings make clear, ‘for poor pupils the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is a whole year’s learning. ‘This is why this plan has a strong focus on helping schools drive up children and young people’s progress and attainment across Bradford and to ensure that they can progress to higher level learning and careers. This plan sets out the specific ways in which we will achieve this and puts the OA board at the heart of ensuring these ambitious priorities are implemented.
How was the partnership board selected?
We knew that in a city as big as Bradford we needed a wide range of local people to work with us on this ambitious programme. That is why the Board includes people drawn from different sectors including schools, both academies and LA maintained schools, the voluntary and community sector, employers, local authority, health and regional and national partners such as the Careers and Enterprise Company and the Combined Authority/LEP. While the partnership board has set the direction of our programme, our plans have been developed in collaboration with wider groups of people. We are setting up working groups to develop the priorities for the area.
If you would like to be involved in the programme, please contact our chair, Kathryn Loftus, directly or email OpportunityAreas.Bradford@education.gov.uk.
Why doesn’t the plan say anything about early years or post 16?
In focussing our plan on schools, we are making a difficult choice not to focus on areas like early years, or post-16. We are however, committed to working with partners leading improvement in these sectors – like the Better Start Bradford programme which is already working at scale to raise the quality of early years education in the city. Therefore, where our interests and programmes align we will seek to join up, share learning and resources.
This programme sounds good, but more urgently what are you doing to secure the future of the Bradford schools that are part of the failed Wakefield City Academy Trust?
“We recently confirmed new trusts for 11 academies in the Wakefield City Academies Trust (WCAT) that have the expertise and capacity to improve education standards for these schools. This included confirming Tauheedul Education Trust as the new trust for the 3 Bradford schools that are currently part of WCAT (Barkerend Academy, High Crags Academy, Thornbury Academy).
Our priority is to ensure that all children receive the best possible education and we have worked to provide certainty for pupils and teachers. The views of parents and staff were taken in to account in taking these decisions.
“We are working to minimise disruption for pupils and ensure a smooth transfer to the new trusts, supported by the regional schools commissioner. New trusts for the remaining 10 schools will be confirmed shortly.”
How much money is there for Bradford?
Up to £6m will be available over 3 years for the Bradford OA. The partnership board provides advice to DfE the work that is happening locally and will recommend how the funding available is spent.
The department has been supporting schools, through both the curriculum and extra-curricular programmes, to help them embed the development of non-cognitive skills into the school system to guarantee that pupils in every school receive the best possible education.
The DfE have also announced extra funding of £22m Essential Life Skills programme in the 12 OAs over 2 years to enable children and young people aged 5-18 years old to participate in regular extra-curricular activities. Children and young people will be able to participate in extra-curricular activities such as sports, volunteering and social action projects. The funding has been calculated on the basis that it would pay for weekly participation in extra-curricular activities for up to 40,000 pupils in up to 12 per cent of schools in OAs.
How will the money be managed? What is the procurement process?
Bradford City Council will manage local procurement and commissioning on behalf of the partnership board, in accordance with the local authority’s public procurement rules.
Does that mean Bradford Council are making all the decisions about what is funded?
Whilst Bradford Council is acting as the local funding holder for the OA, the partnership board, working with the DfE, makes decisions about what activities we want to fund locally.
Where we want to commission activity that is under the council threshold for full open procurement (£25,000), the partnership board discusses and agrees which organisations should be invited to tender.
OpportunityAreas.Bradford@education.gov.uk
Download our plan
Download our plan at gov.uk (PDF).
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